Title: How You Get The Girl
Rating: Teen Audiences and Up
Fandom: Arrow TV (2012), Olicity
Summary: AU. No island/No Arrow. Slow-ish burn. Not a song fic. Rated as such for not-so-accidental innuendos and safety. Oliver Queen let go of his playboy image once he became the CEO of Queen Consolidated. Hires the most unexpected executive assistant, and then one day, he asks his EA, Felicity Smoak, "Felicity, how do you get the girl?"
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I haven't written fanfiction in years and the first two or three chapters are just setting the setting. I got lines from the Arrow as well, which you'll probably notice later on. I'm still looking at where this can end but it's going to be a multi-chapter, for sure. Fluff, and maybe a little angst but who knows. Oh, wait. I do. Hahaha. Well, I hope you enjoy. Tell me what you think.
CHAPTER ONE:
How They Met
Five years ago, Robert Queen died in a shipwreck on his way to a very important meeting in Beijing and his only son was supposed to accompany him. He thought it would be a great opportunity to shadow him in another environment outside his building, whom had been for weeks now, but Robert knew how his son was not taking it as seriously as he thought he would. He thought he would mature once he started shadowing him. Which did not happen. Oliver Queen, the known playboy bachelor of Starling city, would flirt around with any girl he finds attractive in the building. And although Oliver wanted to go and join him on his father's yacht, not for the reasons of business but of pleasure, he was left in Starling City. Robert had been upset about him being in jail for a day because he peed on a cop's car.
"But dad, I was drunk!"
"Exactly. Son, I love you, but you gotta grow up. You're shadowing me to become the next CEO of the company. No one wants a drunk CEO peeing on a cop's car. How will that reflect the company and me as your father? I know I raised you to be better than that. So you're staying in Starling City. Go to school. I'll deal with you when I come back." Robert said his goodbyes to his son and to his wife.
But he never came back. The Queens heard the news about the shipwreck and were emotional. Moira, his wife, barely went out. Thea, his only daughter, needed her mother, but even she couldn't bring her mother out. And Oliver. He couldn't believe it all. He wouldn't. He didn't know if he was to be grateful he didn't get on that yacht and be alive or grieving because his father did and died.
A week passed, the Queens' lawyer had brought with them the will of Robert Queen. The Queens sat across the lawyers. For a week they postponed this meeting and they didn't know what to expect.
"Mrs. Queen, here is the will of Mr. Queen. If there are any other questions, please, feel free to ask them." The lawyer handed Moira a brown folder. She was seated in between her son and daughter, both looking at the envelope with curiosity and nervousness. Moira opened the folder and quickly scanned the will and stopped when something caught her eye.
"As you can see Mrs. Queen, it has been stated there that all shares will be distributed equally to the family members, on the condition of Mr. Oliver Queen here accepts the job offer of being the CEO of Queen Consolidated."
"Are you sure Oliver should be running the company?" Oliver's ears perked up. He was too young, he thought. He was just twenty-two, almost twenty-three. And he dropped out of four Ivy Leagues and now he was just a trust fund baby with no knowledge of anything about business at all…or technology, since the company was all about that.
"If I'm going to be honest Mrs. Queen, no. I believe your son's not yet ready. And to be quite frank, I don't think he'll ever be. However, I suggest that he continues to shadow the soon CEO of the company. Unless you'd want a hostile takeover by Stellmoor International, of course," then a pregnant pause, "He can do whatever he wants as long as he is the face of the company and soon to be the CEO by the age of twenty-four."
Moira looked at Thea, who was just looking at her manicured nails, then at Oliver and sighed. She put the brown envelope on the table and stood up, straightening her skirt. All of them were standing now.
"Oliver and I will have a discussion about whatever he will do in order to prepare to be the CEO but I assure you, Ms. Loring, that there is no hostile takeover that is ever going to happen to the company. Especially by the Stellmoor International. My son will be the CEO in two years' time. Thank you." They shook hands and gave each other sincere smiles. Moira failed to notice the eye squinting her son did whenever he was confused behind her as Ms. Loring left.
"Mom? Are you kidding me? You heard her! She thinks I'll never be ready to be CEO."
"Ollie's so screwed." Thea piped in, and he simply glared her way. Moira gave a pointed look.
"Then prove her wrong. Prove everyone wrong. You're my son and I know I raised you to be a better boy." Moira cradled her son's face and gave him an assuring hug, "My beautiful boy. I know you can." Oliver relaxed in his mother's hug. Thea joined in.
"Yeah, I think Ollie can do it too."
And he did it.
After two years of informal training in Queen Consolidated and a year being in the position of CEO, Oliver Queen, with the great help of Walter Steele as well as the many employees of QC, managed to somehow bring the company back to its almost former glory. That was until his Executive Assistant decided to file a resignation for personal reasons and had to find another. He could do it alone, he decided, thinking it was easy to schedule everything by himself. That was all he needed to do, right? He did that with his life before, so he could do it again. Oh, but he couldn't be more wrong. He tried scheduling all his office meetings, summarized all the meetings that had transpired, thought of other possible outlooks of said meetings, he answered all calls, even the unnecessary ones and the ones he had been trying to avoid, he tried to balance his time with his family, his social life, the extra business he was planning with Tommy, and no one would bring him coffee too – for a week, he thought he could do it. He then gave up and thought it was time to look for an EA, maybe even a Personal Assistant.
It was seven in the evening and he was still in the office, but he didn't realize that. Everyone was already done for the day and he was still organizing everything on his desk, which was a mess. He hadn't noticed the paper cup with one fourth lukewarm latte when he had knocked over it accidentally. He also hadn't noticed it was beside his loveable laptop. The moment he realized all this, it was safe to say all he could think about was how screwed up his life could be. Everything, and he means from personal to business matters, was on that laptop, he had never been so scared in his life.
"Ah, fu—dgecakes." He tried turning his laptop on but it wouldn't turn on. He tried wiping off the coffee, but nothing happened.
"Fudgecakes? Really?" Oliver looked up to see his best friend leaning on the door, arms folded across his chest, and a huge teasing grin on his face.
"Tommy Merlyn. I thought I told you I'll meet you in the old Steel Factory in an hour?" He fixes his coat and closed his broken laptop. "And I told Thea I won't cuss or I'll have to pay up to the cuss jar."
"That was two hours ago. I was starting to think you ditched me. But I could see that you're really busy with work in QC. Maybe –"
"No, I could do this and manage the club with you Tommy."
"Okay man, just saying. Your hands are pretty full."
"I'll look for an executive assistant soon. Hell, I think I'll hire a personal assistant too."
"What's the diff? Just hire one, it's better having one person bother you will all your responsibilities."
"You're right." Oliver sighed. He had never felt so tired and he was so glad the weekend was almost near.
"Still want to check with the progress of the club?" Tommy noticed how tired his best friend was, he just hoped that the club would be a success and bring back their youthful glory days. Oliver checked his watch and gave Tommy an apologetic look.
"Hey it's fine if you won't. There's always a next time. It's still just forty percent done, so there's not much to see."
"Thank you Tommy. For understanding. I promise I'll be there as soon as I fix my messed up schedule."
"Life you mean." The smirk on Tommy's face was meant jokingly, however the way Oliver looked away and deep in thought made Tommy's smirk into a frown.
"Come on, buddy. Let's both go home. It's getting late."
And they left Queen Consolidated.
Felicity Smoak, a sorta-kinda-ish fresh grad of MIT Class of 2009, had been working in Queen Consolidated for a year and proved herself worthy of being where she was now. She might be just another I.T. girl, but she was the best, even if her so called supervisor refused to believe it. She had always wanted to be part of the Applied Sciences Division that was soon to be built up and finished in a year's time, and she would do her best to be promoted to be in that division. She was updated with all the news about Queen Consolidated and had her eyes on it even when she had other opportunities in other companies. But she wanted QC and her plan was to climb her way up from the I.T. cave, as she'd like to call it, to the Research and Development and finally to the Applied Sciences Division.
She was furiously biting on her red pen, typed some missing codes when she heard a low clearing of throat and asked, "Felicity Smoak?"
She turned around to see an incredibly familiar face, which made her remove the pen from her mouth instantly. A very angelic, handsome face, with piercing blue eyes and a five o'clock shadow, no doubt she would be attracted to –
"Hi, I'm Oliver Queen."
Almost dumbfounded at how attractive he was, even when he wasn't in his usual office wear, just a plain dark grey sweater. "Of course. I know who you are. You're Mr. Queen." She said almost too quickly.
"No, Mr. Queen was my father."
"Right, but he's dead, I mean he drowned. But you didn't. Which means you could come down to the I.T. Department. And listen to me babble. Which will end in 3…2…1."
Oliver was amused. No, that was an understatement. He didn't know what exactly, but there was just something about her. He couldn't help but smile, almost forgot that he had problems to deal with. Which reminded him of his laptop.
"I'm having some trouble with my laptop and they told me that you were the person to see."
Her eyes immediately went to the size of saucers and frantically took hold of the laptop given to her. "Oliver Queen what have you done."
Taken aback, he couldn't help but smile again. "I spilt latte on it." Maybe she didn't notice how she simply ignored the formalities once she got a hold on the laptop.
"Oh wow." She examined the laptop for a while and looked back up at Oliver.
"If there's anything you can salvage from it, that would be the biggest help."
"It might take a while, but if the motherboard isn't fried, then it's salvageable. Is that word? I think it is. Oh yeah it is."
She started preparing her equipment and wires connecting it to her computer. Oliver grabbed a chair and sat beside Felicity. He stared intently at the computer screen and didn't understand whatever Felicity was doing. And to think he now owned the company all about technology.
"You know, Mr. Queen, you don't have to wait for it. I could just send it to you up in your office. I'm sure you have more important stuff than waiting for me to salvage your files."
"Oh, I don't mind. I needed the break anyway." Oliver looked at his watch and it was fifteen minutes before lunch. "Is that still going to take a while?"
"Yeah, but we're just going to wait."
"Great. Let's have lunch." Oliver stood up from his chair and looked at Felicity who was just staring at him.
"Felicity?"
"Yes? I thought I heard you say you wanted lunch."
"Yes. Let's go."
"Oh. You mean, you and me?"
"Yes, Felicity."
"Don't you have a girlfriend? I mean, I don't mean to pry in your personal life or whatsoever, it's just that you used to be on TMZ…like a lot of times. And you used to have a girlfriend, which according to TMZ you cheated on… a lot, with a lot of girls too. Including her sister. I think. Not that I stay tune on TMZ or any news about you, I don't stalk you or anything. It just… poof. And I still sound like a creep. And a dummy for saying all those. Oh god, why didn't you stop me." Felicity hid herself behind her palm not wanting to see Oliver's probably uncomfortable reaction. When Oliver didn't speak, she looked up and saw his smiling face and noticed a cute dimple on his cheek, not so hidden by his five o'clock shadow.
"I don't have a girlfriend right now, Felicity, if that makes you feel better. But it's lunch time and I think it would be great if we both had food to fill our stomachs, don't you think?"
As if on cue, Felicity's stomach grumbled and Oliver gave an amused smile.
"You're right. Let's have lunch."
Oliver and Felicity, along with Oliver's trusted body guard and driver, John Diggle, sat on the very comfortable red chairs of Big Belly Burger.
"So, Mr. Diggle, how long have you been working for Mr. Queen." Felicity asked after their orders were taken.
"Please, call me Oliver." Oliver piped in, remembering how his name casually went off her lips the first time.
"And call me John. Or Diggle. Or Dig, whichever floats your boat. I've been working for him for three years now. Ever since he started working in Queen Consolidated, Mrs. Queen hired me to make sure Oliver wouldn't escape from his responsibilities."
"You have no idea how many times I've run away from this guy." Oliver pat Diggle's back and the latter just shook his head.
"I'm not surprised." Oliver titled his head and just looked at Felicity, and Felicity realizing that she had said something not exactly appropriate especially he was her boss, "Not that I think you're a bad person, I mean, you did have a reputation and I'm not sure if it's the same now."
"It's okay, Felicity." She liked the way Oliver said her name, it was comforting and oddly better than anyone who said her name. But she needed to change topic. Now.
"So do you do this often? Have lunch with your employees?"
"No, just ones I owe."
"You don't owe me anything Mr. Que- I mean, Oliver. I work in the company exactly for reasons as to your concerns."
"Those files you're salvaging are my life. And I'm sure you needed the lunch break as much as I need it too."
Felicity simply nodded, not wanted to be disrespectful, "Thank you."
Their orders were served and Felicity was more than excited to try the scrumptious looking food in front of her. She moaned in delight the moment she bit on her burger. It was greasy but it was definitely the best burger she'd ever tasted ever.
"This is a good burger. No, it's a great burger. How did you find this place?" Felicity asked no one in particular to Oliver and Diggle.
"My sister-in-law works here."
"Oh, you mean the one who served us? I actually thought you were dating or something. But it was more of an 'or something' type. Didn't work out?"
"Yeah, you could say that. I fell in love with my ex-wife again."
"Aw, that's cute. True love always finds its way back."
"Yes, it does."
And they ate and enjoyed each other's company.
Oliver Queen, though with informal training, had an eye for potential. Ever since his encounter with Felicity Smoak, he did a background check with her and was definitely impressed. When he asked to salvage his files, he didn't ask it to be organized or have those files secured, but it was. Excellently, might he add. And ever since, he went eighteen floors down just to ask Felicity with his laptop concerns, office concerns, and soon any concern in any matter. It started out with just two meetings a week, to three, to four, and to almost every day. It became a routine with them. They ate lunch together with Diggle, talked about personal matters, asked about how the club was going and how they could improve it, or what they had to wear for their dates. They were friends, good friends. Completely platonic. But Diggle, well, he thought otherwise.