He sits in the dark, waiting like the hunter for his prey. He laid his trap. He stands so unnaturally still, alert, lying in wait. No muscle moves. He is like a statue, concealed, silent and unnoticed, part of the shadows, lurking in the dark. It took a lot of planning, a lot of scheming to this crucial moment. He keeps a close eye on his bait, waits until the shadows are moving apart and reveal his prey.

XTwentyXYearsXAgoX

Felicity Smoak was a happy little girl. She was dearly loved by her parents. She had very few friends, but that did not bother her because her father was her best friend. With him, she could talk about anything. With him, she did everything. He understood her like no other. With her mother, she did not have such a close relationship like with her father, but she loved her just as much. Nevertheless, it all changed when she was seven years old. Her father sat beside her on the bed and read with her a bedtime story. Her mother was picking up the things that were thrown around on the floor of the living room after her before she sat down, turned on the TV and waited for her husband. Felicity read the passage about the lion and the mouse, when she heard a crash from below, shortly after a scream. Her father ordered her to hide in her closet. He left the room after he had made sure that Felicity was well hidden. Felicity lingered in the closet. She heard voices from below. Next there was a loud bang and afterwards there was silence. When still no sound from the outside invaded her hiding place after a few minutes, Felicity summoned up all her courage and crawled out of the closet. Carefully she crept down the stairs. On the last step, she stopped, but could not find her parents. As she approached the kitchen, she heard the rhythmic, familiar sound that brought her in touch with her father and his computer work. The assumption that everything was in order, she hurried into the kitchen. She stopped abruptly in the doorway. Because the sight that greeted her was not comprehensible to her. There was a masked man pointing a gun at her father who was typing furiously on a laptop. Her mother stood scared on the side. Her mother discovered her first because she gasped, but before she could give a sign to her daughter, to disappear again, a second man appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed her and dragged her over to her mother. When the man then also aimed the weapon at them, sheer terror was written all over her father's face. Her mother begged the men not to harm her. Felicity clung to her mother. Suddenly, everything went so fast. Her mother pushed her behind her. A shot rang out. Her mother fell to the ground. Her father used the distraction of the other man and hit him on the head, so he was knocked out and dropped to the ground. His partner aimed at her, but before he could pull the trigger, there was another shot. The man who had just been threatening Felicity dropped to the floor. Her father pulled Felicity away from the chaos, away from her dead mother. He packed a backpack, where he stashed the laptop, money and passports, as well as food and clothes. Then he put Felicity in the car and drove into the night.

X-X-X

Oliver Queen was a very active little kid, always running around. He was an explorer, a discoverer. His realm was the land that reached miles for miles behind his home. He and his best friend Tommy were thick as thieves and together they played for hours in the big garden behind the Queen Mansion. From early age on Oliver realized two things, first of all his parents loved him even if they weren't always there and second they didn't love each other. He knew it because of the different way they acted around each other when he was around or when they thought he wasn't around. And he had asked Raisa, his confidant, how it would feel like if he was in love someday during breakfast out of curiosity. She had explained it to him as good as she could. Oliver tried to apply the signs she had described him when people were in love to his parents, but he couldn't find any. Then the world of his best friend was torn to pieces and subsequently his. Tommy's father Malcolm Merlyn was murdered after he visited his wife at her hospital in the glades. And that was the beginning of the end of the marriage of his parents. Robert, his father, was at all times over at the Merlyn's helping the widowed mother cope with the loss of her husband. Robert took Oliver always with him, when there was no school or other activities that were part of Oliver's daily routine like his archery lessons. Oliver was thankful for that so he could still see Tommy on a regular basis and try to cheer him up, because Tommy didn't want to leave his mother's side. With time Oliver could coax him to leave his mother's side and play again. One afternoon Tommy's mother and Oliver's father sat them both down and announced they soon would be a family with another family member on the way. Oliver was ecstatic to be able to call Tommy his brother for real. He and Tommy made a pact that they would be the best brothers for their little sibling and that they would protect her, as they later found out, from all evil they could imagine at that time. They also made a pact that they would still remain best friends come what may. His best friend was happy again, so was Tommy's mother and his father seemed so happy , so happy Oliver hadn't seen him like this in his entire life. The only one who wasn't happy at all was his mother, he tried to be there for her though she withdrew more and more into herself. After the divorce of his parents he still lived with his mother in the Queen Mansion, his father had moved into the Merlyn's house to be there for his pregnant girlfriend, but one day, shortly before the birth of his baby sister, she was just gone. Oliver was sad because she just left him behind, because he thought she loved him and his love would be enough to make her happy again. He was wrong and so he moved out of the house he grew up. The birth of his little sister brought his little world back into balance and he swore to her he would always love her and be there for her.

XTenXYearsXAgoX

Felicity could finally breath freely again. She did it. She had run away, escaped the clutches of her father, his proximity, and his criminal activities. She was realistic enough to know that she still couldn't live a normal life, but now she could decide for herself, where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. And she wanted to study, go to college. She knew she couldn't study anything computer related, because then her father and his associates would find her quicker than she could say proxy. But anything else would be fair game, she would consider her options if she had the basics: a job and a place to live. She had a little money, which her grandparents had left her, but she would only gain access when she turned 18 and her birthday was still 3 months away. She would figure it out. She had to. So Felicity settled down in a shabby motel, paying with a stolen credit card. She swore to herself that this was the last time she would do something criminal. Then she went job hunting and was in luck. She landed in a little and cozy looking cafe. The girl behind the counter was cursing at the registry. Before Felicity could overthink it, she asked if she could take a look at it ,she was good with computers. The girl looked at her wary, but then stepped to the side and invited with this gesture to take a look. Felicity took a closer look and then asked for a screwdriver, so she could inspect the interior. She found pretty quickly the problem; a pair of wired had come loose. She told the girl what she had found and explained to her how she could repair it. Then she set to work. A few minutes later the machine was working again. The girl looked at her in amazement. She thanked her profusely and got her a cafe and a pastry on the house. Felicity sat down on one on the tables and pondered over job offers printed in the newspaper. She called every single one of the telephone numbers under the advertisement, but either the job was already been filled or she was too young or something like that. Frustrated she threw her phone at the table. In exactly that moment someone sat down at her table. When Felicity looked up she saw an older woman mustering her with interest. The woman asked her if something was wrong, figuring she had nothing else to lose Felicity told her of her problems to find a job and that she lived currently in a motel, from her dream to go to college. The woman listened carefully, after Felicity had finished, she ordered the girl to show Felicity her way around the cafe. As it turned out she was the owner of the cafe and the grandmother of the girl. Her granddaughter had apparently informed her what she had done and this woman had taken a chance on her. Grateful for the kindness she threw her arms around her.

X-X-X

Oliver knew he wasn't stupid. He just didn't care if he did well in school or not. His life was already planned out to a T for him. He didn't want that. He never had wanted that, so he acted out. He flunked in school, drank till passing out, were just the minor things he did to make his parents realize he didn't want any part in their plans. The harder he pushed the harder they pushed and the other way around. It was a vicious circle, one that never seemed to end for him. His rebellion was a cry for help, help to escape the pressure. There were times where he thought about running away, leaving everything behind; start anew. But then he thought about Thea, his little sister, and that promise he made her at her birth, so he couldn't. But he wanted to so badly. His parents pulled him in different directions, Tommy was nowadays always working to make his father proud, to honor his legacy. Raisa was the only one, who still had faith in him. On one hand he didn't want to disappoint her, be a good example for his sister, on the other hand he didn't know anymore how to handle his life. So he put on a mask, hid his insecurities, his discomfort at his situation. He didn't show his pain, didn't let anyone see the burden, that got bigger by the day. He hit the bottle and drank himself into oblivion to forget his miserable life, to forget his responsibilities he didn't wanted. He knew no other way to escape and honoring his promise, but he knew that he didn't really honor it, because he have maybe been physically there, but emotional and psychological he couldn't be further away. And with time his mask became the only thing that made him real to the outside. He felt dead inside and he didn't know how to change it. And he had no one who could help him out of this dilemma. He didn't have a real friend, friends in that definition that they stood always by your side. Everyone who called himself his friend wanted either money, a few perks by being around him like getting into the newest clubs or just wanted to see how big a fuck up he was. So Oliver decided to be the fuck-up, the disappointment, because he didn't know how to be anything else anymore. So he decided to stick to what he knew what he was, a bad boy with no chance of change. He destroyed one relationship after the other, to Tommy, to his parents, to Raisa, even to his sister. Maybe someday he had done so much damaged, that he had burned all bridges, irrevocably that he wouldn't feel guilty about running away.

XFiveXYearsXAgoX

Felicity Smoak had a shitty day, a really shitty, shitty day. First her favorite Doctor Who shirt had shrunken in the dryer, the water in the shower turned ice cold while she was standing under the water spray and then the FBI had the audacity to pull her from her lecture. Now she was sitting in an interrogation room waiting. She knew what they wanted, they wanted to know where her father was and they wouldn't believe her when she said that she didn't know; that she had broken contact with him years ago, that she had no idea how to reach him. But they would try anyway to get as much information out of her as possible. They would open a file on her and her father would know. Then her father could find her. She had to get out. She didn't want her father to catch up with her and he would if she stayed in this room, in the presence of the FBI. She had to leave the town, too. Her father had certainly someone in the FBI, someone who was right now making a call to him. So she needed an escape plan. She pulled her phone from her pocket, which these idiot hadn't taken away to her luck, carefully under the table so that they couldn't see what she was up to either through the one-way mirror or the camera, which hung in one corner of the ceiling. She pulled up an app she had designed for emergency situation like this. Through the Wifi of the station she gained access to the network. She put the camera feed on loop, before she stood up and tested if the door was open. The door was locked. She pulled up blueprints of the building, she needed an escape route. She found it in form of a staircase at the end of the hall and the vent which lead from this room to another nearby the staircase. She checked if the app was still working, then she climbed on the desk and pushed against the tiles in the ceiling to find the right one. She lifted the right one to the side and pulled herself up, then she proceeded to crawl to her exit. She ended up in a supply closet. She checked carefully if the coast was clear, before she slipped out of the room in a nearby alcove. She inspected the door. which lead to her freedom. She had to manually override the door lock, but that would take too long since she would be in clear view of everyone who would walk along this corridor. But in case of an emergency the lock was automatically lifted. So she had to get the system to think there was a fire and that would unlock the door. In the Chaos that would ensure, she could slip unseen out. She activated the protocol on her phone that simulated this scenario to the system, opened the door, when she heard the lock click and just run as quick as humanly possible.

X-X-X

This time Oliver had gone too far, way too far. How could he have slept with Tommy's fiance? He was drunk, because why the hell not, but that was no excuse for sleeping with the love of your brother's life. Tommy had been so furious, when he found them in bed together the next morning. This was the last straw. Tommy was done with him. So Oliver decided to accompany his father the last minute on his boat trip to China. He run, run away for the disappointment on Thea's face when she found out, from the pity that would be portrayed in Raisa's eyes. He had barricaded himself in his cabin when the storm hit the ship. After that everything happened so fast. The yacht tilted to the side and Oliver was sucked into the angry waves of the sea. He heard his father scream in the distance for him, but every time he tried to call out to him the waves tried to pull him under. He was scared, but slowly his strength left him and he couldn't fight to stay above water. He lost consciousness. When he woke up, he found himself in a bright room. A woman was sitting in a chair next to his bed. She told him that her organization named Argus had fished him out of the water near the accident. She also told him that he was dead to the world and that nobody missed him. She said she could give him a second chance, a chance to do good in the world. He accepted because there was no alternative and it was better that way. They formed him into the perfect soldier, skilled, efficient, deadly. His missions were always to take out Terrorist. With time by the agency he got to know the ruthless nature of his employer and that nature of his mission not always for the greater good, which treated him to kill his family if he didn't follow his orders. Oliver and his partners, the Diggles, wanted out, but they couldn't as long as Amanda Waller hold leverage over their head. They had two options: either they needed their own leverage against her or they had to bring her down. Since it was nearly impossible to get leverage on her, they had to go with option number two.

XPresentXDayX

Felicity walks into the dark warehouse where Cooper said he would be waiting. He had told her it was urgent. Here she is and he is nowhere in sight. She huffs irritated. This place is creepy as hell, but she senses that she is not alone. "Cooper, stop playing games with me!" She calls out. She expects him to step out of his hiding spot, instead an unfamiliar man steps out of the shadows. "Felicity Smoak, my name is Oliver Queen and I have a proposition for you."