A/N: So. I wrote a thing.
This has actually been in the works for a while, and I'm really excited to start sharing this with y'all. Also, much thanks to ellefraser17 because she has been my second eyes on this thing and holder of my self esteem while I pound my head repeatedly against my desk.
I hope you enjoy!
Prologue
Felicity Smoak had put up with a lot from Director Waller during her tenure at the FBI, but this was the last goddamn straw.
She barged right into Waller's office, a piece of paper clutched in her shaking hand. She'd scarcely been more angry than she was at the moment — she was so furious, she was certain she'd make the whole building explode with a single scream.
"Where is she?" Felicity demanded. The assistant behind his desk stiffened at her tone.
"Miss Smoak, she's in a conference call right now, and I don't think—"
She didn't wait for him to finish his sentence. Instead she brushed past his desk and flung the door to Waller's office open as hard as she could. The director looked up from her desk, her eyebrows raised in that cold, calculating way that normally would have made Felicity run for the hills. Instead it fanned the flames of her ire.
"Have you lost your mind?" Felicity demanded as she waved around the piece of paper. "Has your android programming completely taken over your brain? Because honestly that's the only reason I could possibly think of for you to assign me to a deep cover mission to investigate the Bratva!"
Waller's eyes narrowed, but they never left Felicity's. The coldness in the other woman's eyes could do nothing to chill the anger raging through the blonde's tiny body. Nothing short of dousing her with a fire extinguisher could distract her from this.
"Agent Michaels, I will have to call you back," Waller announced. Then she reached over and hung up the phone.
The director crossed around her massive mahogany desk, walking closer to Felicity, but she stood her ground. She was not going to back down. She was not going to run away from this. Waller had finally gone too far and it was time she gave her a piece of her mind.
"I'm not doing this," Felicity declared.
"Yes you are."
"No I'm not! Here, I'll give you a list of reasons, since you seem to have lost control of whatever rational thinking you have left. First of all, I just work in op tech. I'm not even field rated! Second of all, even if I wanted to be an agent, I sure as shit wouldn't go deep undercover for my first fucking mission. Third of all, this mission is suicide!"
"Miss Smoak, need I remind you why you're here working for the federal government in the first place?"
Felicity's back stiffened at the tacit reminder. Of course Waller was going to deal from the bottom of the deck to get what she wanted in this sick, twisted scheme. But no matter how much red she had in her ledger, Felicity Smoak had to draw the line somewhere.
"Throw me in prison if you want," she growled, "but I'm not doing this."
Waller stared at Felicity for a long moment. Then she reached into one of her desk drawers and pulled out a piece of paper from the top. "Miss Smoak," she began in a deadly whisper. "I'd strongly reconsider your stance before you make your final decision."
Felicity wanted to take the piece of paper, crumple it up and throw it in Waller's face. Instead, she angrily snatched it and started reading. With each word that registered in her brain, the flames of Felicity's rage quelled bit by bit until she reached the end and she was filled instead with a fearful sort of hope.
She bit down on her fuschia lips. This could be it, she thought desperately to herself. She could finally start over. She could be free.
Waller smirked at the dumbstruck look on Felicity's face. "Like I said. Take your time to think about it."
Phase One
Oliver glanced up over the piece of paper in his hand at the blonde woman sitting across from him. When she recognized that he was looking at her, her lips pulled open in what looked like a mildly painful smile. He couldn't help but grin at her obvious discomfort.
"How are you doing, Ms. Smoak? Can I get you anything? A glass of water or coffee, perhaps?"
She shook her head. "No, I'm OK. I drank, like, three bottles of water before I got here so if you pump any more liquid in me I'll probably end up peeing in your chair and that would not make a good first impression when interviewing for a job."
He watched with growing amusement as the young woman winced at her own words. "And that probably wasn't a very good first impression either," she muttered to herself, her eyes closed and her cheeks bright red.
His smile widened. "Why don't you start by telling me a little bit about yourself."
"Um...well, I grew up in Las Vegas. Then I moved to Starling City, and I got my associate's at Starling City Community College. I studied business and accounting."
"Why did you move to Starling?"
She fidgeted some more, looking down at her hands. "Different reasons," she hedged.
He raised an eyebrow and made an idle note in the margin of her resume to look that up later.
"Why do you think you'd make a good executive assistant?"
She took in a deep breath through her nose before she answered. "Well I'm really smart. I'm an incredibly fast learner and I have a photographic memory, so I remember the smallest details. I'm also good at anticipating needs and I'm really organized."
Oliver's eyes widened a little at that information.
"Really? A photographic memory?"
She let out the tiniest sigh, like she had gotten this question a million times before and she knew what was coming next. "Yes. Would you like me to prove it?"
Oliver smirked. He had a copy of this morning's paper underneath her resume.
"Did you see the Starling City Ledger this morning?"
She nodded.
"What was the lead headline?"
"'Police: city crime at all time high,'" she answered. Then she started reciting the story as Oliver read along. Sure enough, she got the entire thing word for word until she got to the jump line.
When she was finished, he leaned back in his chair and stared at her with appraising eyes. "How do I know you didn't just memorize that story before you came here in case I asked?"
She rolled her eyes. "Why don't I ask you a better question, Mr. Queen. If I didn't have a photographic memory, do you really think I'd have the time to sit down this morning and memorize a news story word for word on the off chance that you might quiz me on it during a job interview? I'm barely coherent in the morning without at least one cup of coffee to make me functional."
His lips twisted in appraisal, but it was more of a cover to hide the creeping smile. "What was the name of the security guard on the bottom floor of the building who let you in?"
"Elias Fisher. Brown hair, brown eyes, acne problem. He was reading a biology textbook, which makes me think he's probably a college student, maybe nineteen years old. That reminds me, you really should hire more experienced security guards. His hands were too soft to even fire a gun."
He couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit impressed. She'd probably only interacted with Elias for a minute at the most, and she managed to glean that much information in that short amount of time.
That skill could come in really handy.
But that was assuming she passed the thorough security check he had set up.
"Well as you know, the relationship between an executive and his assistant isn't just about getting me my coffee and sending out my faxes. It's also about chemistry, which means we'll have to test you out for a week to see if we match."
Her painted lips thinned and her eyes hardened. It was a look of pure determination. Oliver had always been drawn to determined women.
"For this next week, you will report to this office at 7:30 a.m. every day," he continued. "You will go the week as a test run where you will get paid at half salary. If, at the end of the week, I think you will make a good fit, I will hire you on for full time."
She nodded. "Very well."
He returned her nod and stood up with an outstretched arm. "Welcome to Queen Consolidated, Miss Smoak. And good luck."
She took his hand and shook it firmly before giving him one last, strained smile then turning on her sensible black heels and walking out of his office.
Once she was gone, he sat back down and hit the first number on his speed dial. The person on the other line answered after one ring.
"Roy, I need you to run a background check on Felicity M. Smoak. S-M-O-A-K. Dig up everything you can."
"You looking for anything in particular?" the teen asked.
"She interviewed for the executive assistant job."
That answer spoke volumes. "Got it. I'll have a report for you by the afternoon."
The minute he hung up, Oliver let out a deep sigh and turned his chair to stare out the massive window behind his desk. It offered him a beautiful, unimpeded view of downtown Starling City, like a king surveying his kingdom.
In many ways, the city did belong to him. Not only was he the CEO of Queen Consolidated, the largest employer in the city and a multi-billion-dollar company, he was a captain of the Bratva, whose territory included all of Starling City and its outlying suburbs. He owned practically everything in the city, from buildings to politicians.
And he hated it.
Every moment of every day was meticulously scheduled between his duties at QC and with the Bratva. The minute he left his office, he was whisked away into secret meetings tracking all organized, illegal activity in the city and regulating it like some sort of underworld police.
It was an exhausting, lonely existence and one he wished desperately to escape. But there were so many people whose livelihoods depended on him. There were families who literally lived and died by a sweep of his hand. It was a responsibility he spent his entire young life running away from, but now it had caught up with him. There was no escape.
His work day at Queen Consolidated eventually came to an end, and with a reluctant sigh, left his office. When he got to street level, his bodyguard and driver John Diggle was waiting for him with his car and an opened door.
"How was work today, Mr. Queen?" Digg asked.
The man in question grimaced as he slid into the car. "Just take the gun out of your holster and shoot me now so I never have to hear another half-assed proposal from the foreign investments division ever again."
Digg chuckled and closed the door after him.
Fifteen minutes later, the car was pulling into the front drive of the gigantic Queen mansion. The guards standing outside the house walked forward to open the car door and Oliver stepped out.
Once they were on the Queen's property, Diggle dropped the genial driver act as he fell into step beside Oliver. "Anatoly scheduled a conference call with you and The Count tonight to talk about Vertigo. He wants us to consider the proposal."
Oliver sighed as he walked through the front door that Digg held open for him. "Why is Anatoly so intrigued by this?" he grumbled. "I thought we had agreed that we were not going to expand into new drugs. Especially synthetics."
"He sees it as a money-making opportunity," the other man shrugged. "None of the other crime families have seized it yet. He thinks if we claim the monopoly on Vertigo early, we'll be in control of the entire Pacific Northwest."
Oliver finally reached his office and threw open the door in anger. "Yes, but at what cost?" he demanded. "I've seen the reports on that stuff! It's ten times more addictive than heroin and five times more deadly than crystal meth! If we start dealing in Vertigo, we will be responsible for tearing families apart, orphaning children, ruining people's lives!"
Digg raised an eyebrow at his friend. "Oliver, I hate to break it to you, but we already do that on a regular basis. That's what happens when you're a high-ranking member of an international crime syndicate."
Oliver scowled and turned away from him. Digg was right, of course. Every day, he and his men carried out orders from the main cell in Moscow, to strengthen the Bratva's influence in the United States and wipe out all the competition from other crime families. He'd lost count of just how many lives he'd been responsible for ruining along the way.
It weighed heavily upon him every day.
Later that night, at the scheduled time, Oliver and Digg sat down in his locked office, hunched around the office phone. They listened as The Count (as he so unironically named himself) pitched them the benefits of being the sole dealers of Vertigo. How the addictive properties created an automatic brand loyalty, how there was no other drug on the market even comparable to its effects. How being the ones to push Vertigo presented a very rare and unique opportunity to make them rich and influential beyond their wildest dreams.
Anatoly interrupted the pitch every few seconds to ask questions or to make a comment, but Oliver and Digg remained silent. When The Count was finished with his pitch, Oliver cleared his throat and said, "Thank you. We will consider this proposal and get back to you soon."
"No, thank you gentlemen," The Count replied in his oily voice. "I look forward to being in business with you."
A click sounded to indicate he had removed himself from the conference call. The minute he did, Oliver launched into his grievances.
"Anatoly, we can't do this," he insisted. "This drug is dangerous."
"So is heroin. So is cocaine. Yet those drugs account for much of our profits." Anatoly's gravelly voice took on an amused tone, like he was humoring his nephew or his favorite pupil. Oliver's fist clenched in his lap as he tried again.
"This drug could be a scourge," he insisted. "It's highly addictive, yes, but it's highly fatal. I've read the reports on this shit. Prolonged use leads to gruesome death, and that's if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, you just go insane."
"Ah, Oliver, always the bleeding heart," Anatoly said fondly.
"I'm serious!" he protested. "And this isn't just about the moral implications — it's about the business implications, too. What kind of successful business could we possibly run with this drug if it kills off all its customers? Don't we want them to stay alive to keep buying? The reports say that the average number of uses before death or insanity is twenty. That's barely even a month for a heavy user."
That logic seemed to have gotten through to the Bratva leader. As Anatoly hummed in thought over the speakerphone, Oliver sat at the edge of his seat, begging and praying with all his might that Anatoly would eventually give in.
"You have a very good point," he finally conceded. "However, I also think this is still too good an opportunity to pass up. We will continue negotiations with The Count — see if he cannot tinker with the formula of the drug to ensure longer lives for the users. If it is possibility, then we go through with it."
Oliver brought his fist down on his desk with a loud bang.
"This is a mistake!" he yelled.
"Nyet!" Anatoly shouted. All traces of joviality were gone from his voice. "Stop it. Stop it now, Oliver. You are not thinking far enough ahead. If we seize this opportunity with Vertigo, we can finally take control of all of Pacific Northwest. We can finally drive Triad out of our territory, once and for all."
Oliver glanced up at Digg. His counselor had been noticeably quiet the entire conversation, but the minute Anatoly mentioned the Triad, Digg shifted in his seat.
Once it was clear to Anatoly that he wouldn't be interrupted with any more protests, he continued. "That is endgame, Oliver. Wiping out Triad is always our priority, and we will do it however we can. Vertigo kills, yes, but not as much as Triad. You and John, of all people, should know."
A click, then the long dial tone told them both that Anatoly had hung up.
With a sigh, Oliver reached forward and turned off the speaker. Then he leaned back into his plush leather office chair and scrubbed a hand over his tired face.
"So," Digg began quietly. "What are we going to do?"
Oliver pinched the bridge his nose, right between his eyes. "We're going to wait. That's all we can do."
A knock on the door interrupted the somber atmosphere. "Come in," he called, hiding the Vertigo reports on his desk underneath a stack of other papers.
The door opened to reveal Roy in his token red hoodie and jeans. "Hey, boss," he greeted. "I got that background report you wanted for that chick who applied for the assistant job."
That news forced Oliver to sit up straight in his seat. "Well," he said, holding out his hand. "Let's have it."
Roy stepped forward and passed the paper to his boss. "It came out pretty clean," he summarized. "She grew up in Vegas, graduated high school at the top of her class. Then she moved here to Starling and went to SCCC where she earned top marks there as well."
"Well that's good news," Digg commented.
Oliver nodded absently as he scanned through the report. Sure, it was good news, but it was also kind of...disappointing. A woman who'd never gotten in trouble in her life? Who spent her youth studying? For what, to be a secretary to a CEO/mob boss?
In truth, he'd been looking for something a little different. He'd been hoping that Felicity had some sort of checkered past. The ideal assistant candidate would be able to keep up with him at QC, but would also be able to seamlessly transition between the straight and narrow into the more murky aspects of his life. Like Digg.
A spotless record meant she was good for the EA job, but it usually meant she wouldn't be able to fit in with the mobsters.
"But there was one thing," Roy interjected. "There was a small blip on her record. After she graduated high school, she disappeared for two years. From 2010 to 2012, we couldn't find any record of her existence. She went off the grid. No lease information to show a place of residence, no credit information. Not even a freaking library card. It was like she disappeared into a black hole, then all of a sudden she was living in Starling City, like nothing had ever happened."
Oliver's eyebrows shot up his forehead. He caught Digg's eyes and he could see his counselor was equally intrigued.
"Have you heard anything on the streets?" Digg asked.
"Very little. Most of it matched up to the whole goody two-shoes bit, but there was one guy who said he knew her at SCCC. Said she was super quiet, kinda scary. Back then apparently she'd dyed her hair black and had that whole goth thing going."
Well, Oliver could hardly fault her for her fashion choices. He himself had gone through a period in high school when he popped the collar on his pastel-colored polo every day. He shuddered just thinking about it.
"What do you think?" Oliver asked Digg.
He shrugged. "Couldn't hurt to give her a try."
A/N: The (tentative) plan is to update this every Friday.
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