A/N: I don't own Arrow or the characters, obviously. This story however...

Set in the winter because for some reason that's where my mind placed it and because Starling seems very New York like, like most cities in the superhero universes are, there will be snow.

This is set sometime between 'Tremours' and 'Suicide Squad'.

Also, this is slightly AU, Deadshot didn't kill Digg's brother's but he was involved, thereby knowing about him and the murderer (which is why they went after him and the like).

The sharpshooter and the IT girl.

The young woman was dressed in a bright red coat hurried along the bustling street, carrying a cardboard drink tray and dodging the crowd like a pro. Her light blond hair was stuffed under a black knitted hat, but you could see some of it poking out from underneath. Her face was set in a stern determination, completely unaware of the watchful gaze following her as she walked. The man stared after his target observing how she effortlessly moved, that is until she was jostled and fell onto a patch of ice everyone had been avoiding. Somehow she caught herself and to his surprised then laughed and shook her head a smile dancing on her face, whereas other would have turned around and cursed the person till their face turned blue.

He stopped entranced for the moment before pulling himself out of his reverie. He ducked away from her whilst she was checking her balance, chiding himself at the novice like mistake. After making sure she hadn't seen him he watched as she traversed the particularly icy area she'd ended up stuck on. Instead of going back and finding a new way she chose to continue on. For some reason he admired that about her, this time not realizing he was doing so. A strange feeling came over him as he watched her absently sticking her tongue out between her teeth as she whirled and slid across the ice. He frowned, but continued following her, making sure he didn't slip into those thoughtless moments, but as the day went one it got harder and harder. Some of her little quirks would just throw him for a loop. It'd been a while since someone had managed to put him off his game this much.

It was easier once she was at her work; she was a secretary to the CEO of Queen Consolidated. He'd frowned at the notion when he'd taken this job, far too many of his contracts in Starling seemed to co-inside with the Queen family and John Diggle. With a start he remembered when he'd seen her before, from the truck in Russia after the breakout from Gulag. With an inward sigh her realised that she would know who he was if she ever saw him, meaning he would have to be overly cautious.

Though none of this concerned him at the moment, after all, all he had to do was make his way up to the roof of an adjacent building. He'd scoped out the best vantage-points the other day. So he settled himself in for a long and uneventful day of watching her. He paused, catching himself, of watching his target. He grimaced his mouth hardening into a thin line, it had been a long time since he'd slipped so much. He froze memories fighting their way to the surface and he closed his eyes in a moment of weakness before opening then with a new determination. She was a target, nothing more. What exactly the young secretary had done, he didn't know. Only that she was a proficient hacker and had managed to piss off the wrong people and for now all his job entailed was to watch her. To study her. Something told him he would like this part, what came next; well he supposed that could be fun too.

…

…

After a week of following her, he had learned her movements and some of her quirks. By this point, he knew her coffee order: Caramel macchiato with extra cream, whether her cat had behaved itself the night before, he was even used to her rarely going to the same way each day. Something he found interesting as routine was often one of his most valuable allies. You could sit tight and kill your target with ease if you knew where they were going to be. At the same time it was annoying as it spoke of caution and training, at least a cursory amount. But judging from what he saw of her, if she'd had any training it had been self-taught on the most part, which he grudgingly admired.

That said he'd gotten some new updates from his bosses, they wanted him to get closer to her somehow and gain her confidence. Again they didn't say why. He almost refused then and there; this wasn't in his job description. He was meant to get in, make the hit and then get out. But they'd pulled a trump card that he hadn't expected. He'd spent a number of days debating what to do and eventually he realised, he'd have to approach her out in the open as it were and have a reason for her not to tell Diggle that he was here. He frowned at the futility of this. Hell! Even if he saved her life, she would never keep this from her friend. Something would have to give.

The first opportunity he had to meet up with her was a fundraiser by mayoral candidate Moira Queen. He'd gotten word of Oliver Queen and John Diggle being out of the country for the soiree; however the target would be in attendance. So it'd be the perfect chance to make his move. And considering some of the noises he'd heard from his contacts, he wouldn't be the only one doing so at the party.

Contrary to what a number of people thought he did like dressing nicely, a sharply cut suit could always be a remedy to a poor situation. However it'd been a long time since he'd felt that way. But still he'd dressed for the occasion and handed in his invitation at the desk and continued on his way. The gala was held at the Starling City National Theatre. There would be an operatic performance and then the guests would mingle and spend outrageous sums of money. The performance was quite breath-taking, however he barely paid it any mind, as all his thoughts were focused on his target. Her hair was done up in that half swept over the shoulder look she seemed to enjoy and she was wearing a deep lilac dress with silver detailing, it had a sweat heart neckline and a fishtail skirt.

After show had ended he lingered behind, and subtly followed the hacker over to a buffet table. It had become a recent fad with the wealthy rather than having a full sit down meal. For which, he was grateful. Making his was over herd her making rambling small talk with a man who was spending far too much time looking down. Eventually he seemed to realise that nothing was going to happen and made a sloppy excuse before chasing after another attractive woman. He heard her comment die half said and figured it was a good a time as any to cut in.

"It's his loss."

She whirled around at the new voice breaking through her musing and gasped. Stood before her was none other than Floyd Lawton, the man who'd broken out of Gulad with them, the one who knew about Digg's brother.

He smirked and held out a hand, "Shall we dance." She stood their frozen, acting only on autopilot whilst he took her hand and led her onto the floor.

Finally regaining her senses she hissed, "What are you doing here?"

"Ah, so she speaks, I was beginning to wonder, it's been a long time since I've rendered anyone speechless. At least in a good way."

Felicity frowned, unsure how to respond. "Are you toying with me?"

"Now why would I toy with a beautiful woman?" He asked all charm as he spun her around the floor.

"Why are you here? Diggle isn't here if that's who you're after. Are you planning on killing someone here? Tonight? Why are you in Starling and why did you come dance with me, surely it would have been better if you stayed away." She caught herself and blushed slightly at how many questions had tumbled out of her mouth. Inwardly she berated herself, here she was blushing and dancing, of all things with a hired assassin.

Floyd continued smirking at her and leading her across the floor, knowing he'd have to answer her questions if he wanted her to stay, "It's quite simple really, I like Starling City; it's a lovely place. In regards to John Diggle, I am well aware that he and Oliver Queen are out of the country." He tightened his grip on her waist slightly as she moved further away. "Come now, don't be rude." She stared mulishly back at him and he sighed, "In regards to your other questions, I am not here to kill anyone, at least. Not tonight." He smirked rakishly down at her.

Gulping she felt something hot flash through her and then frowned, she needed to get out of here and away from him but first, "Why did you reveal yourself to me then?"

"Like I said I saw a pretty girl and felt I had to ask her to dance." He shrugged unsure what else she wanted form him.

"So you felt pity for me." She exclaimed, great, even hit-men pitied her.

"Believe me, the last thing I feel for you is pity." And with that the dance came to a close and as felt right he gave her a slight bow and delicately raked his eyes over her. Smirking at her reaction as he turned and walked away, the smirk grew when he heard her call out after him but he hid it before turning to look at her.

Felicity froze again, unsure why she had called after him, she was just about to stammer out an excuse and make a hasty get away when an explosion shook the room. Guests screamed and people moved this way and that. Felicity stumbled sure she would be trampled in the chaos and then strong arms were around her and leading her through. She looked up to see it was Floyd. She frowned trying to work out the expression on his face, it was surprise and she paused for a moment, fear. He hadn't known about this. She realised.

The next thing she knew she was being dragged out a servant entrance and onto the roof. The door slammed shut behind them and stepping out from the shadows a number of men surrounded them.

"Hand over the girl Deadshot."

"Now why would I do a thing like that?"

The man smirked and with a jerk of his head the others attacked. Floyd ducked underneath the first man's swing and shoved a knife into him, he then swung with the momentum and kicked the next one. Only to be caught with a hit from behind by the third. He stumbled slightly dazed and cursing the Arrow for what had happened to his eye. And raised his arms just in time to block the next attack, quickly he disarmed him and slit the man's throat spinning around to throw the dagger at another man, knocking him out of the equation. Only three men were left including the leader. He turned around to see Felicity caught, with a knife to the throat.

Something shifted inside of him then, he realised he wouldn't be able to kill her if ordered. She was just too… Good. The world could do with more of that in it. Call him a sentimental but still. He paused, the groaning and gurgles of the men on the floor around him the only sound in the air until another explosion rocked the place.

"Your work I take it?"

"Yes, I daresay you weren't expecting it." The man chuckled tightening his hold on Felicity.

"No, I knew of a number of things that were to happen tonight, I wonder how kindly some of them will be for being interrupted."

The man just smirked, "I'll just be taking my prise now, enjoy the pieces."

"Wait!" Floyd exclaimed in a rare display of uncontrolled emotion, "What do you want with her? Wouldn't I be more useful?"

Felicity's eyes widened wondering what on earth was going to happen next. The last thing she saw was one of the goons cuffing Floyd before she was whisked away.

…

…

When she next came to she was in a small dark room. There was hard bed that she was lying on and a bucket in the corner. A chemical smell clung to everything around her.

"You're awake then." A voice called out to her.

Moving slightly as she was remained lightly woozy and still in her dress she noticed as she looked over at where the sound had come from, There were bars set into the walls locking her firmly in her cage and on the other side of a hallway in a similar cage was Floyd, who looked distinctly worse than she felt. He was sitting on the floor his back to the wall directly in front of the bars, one of his legs stretched out in front of him and the other propping up his outstretched arm. He was littered in bruises and bleeding in places. Dried blood was stuck to his hair.

"What happened to you?" She croaked out her throat parched.

"Ahh the usual," he coughed, "Guards don't take well to prisoners that killed their comrades.

"Why'd you help?" She whispered, "Help me I mean."

He leant his head back against the wall, "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

"And now?" She asked chuckled dryly.

"Why don't you know all my first dates involve being kidnapped." She couldn't see it but she could tell he was smirking for all of a moment before he moved on, "What did they want with you? I mean they seem to know you and whoever they are they're good enough to know of me."

Felicity sighed, "Back in the day when I was proving myself as a hacker I might have fallen in with the wrong crowd and when I realised what was going on I left and erased my tracks. I guess I didn't do as good a job as I thought."

Floyd shook his head, "No, it's just the people you're around. Oliver Queen, you're his secretary." He clarified as if that said it all, which it pretty much did, "Not to mention he probably did a background check on you, which if nothing else draws out the woodworms."

Felicity grimaced realising he must be right, "It's just I thought-."

"Thought what?" another voice cut in, causing Felicity to stiffen, "That I was dead?"

"I think that's a yes." Floyd commented when Felicity didn't respond.

"When I ask you something, only then will you speak dog!" The man growled.

"How are you here?" Felicity breathed.

"I spent a number of years in prison thanks to you, when I got out I made it my mission to find out." He smirked, "You're going to do something for me and then I am going to do to you what you did to me. Only it will be much much worse." With that he turned on his heal and left them alone again.

"What was that about?" He frowned when she just gave him a look. "Talk to me, at the moment we're each other's only hope, Diggle and your hooded friend aren't here to be able to help you."

She glanced up at him then, of course he knew, it wasn't terribly hard to figure out, he'd fought the Arrow and then seen Oliver at Gulad. "His name's Michael. I used to date him, we both believed in making the world a better place, until I realised his version involved blowing up the current world."

"Any idea when he wants you to do?"

"No, but." She bit her lip ad he couldn't help but stare at it. "Whatever it is it's not good."

Inwardly he scoffed, now that's an understatement he thought before resigning himself to silence at least of a while.

Hours passed before anyone came to check on them, and taking his chance knowing the longer the stayed here the worse things would get he used some of the bed sheets he'd been given to strangle the unsuspecting guard when he had his back to him. The man slid down the bars and landed with a soft thud. Slowly Floyd unwrapped his hands from the sheets and fished the key out from the guard. He made quick work of unlocking their cell doors.

"Is he dead?" Felicity asked.

"No, just unconscious." And with that he dragged the man into his former cell and tied him up. He looked up to see Felicity looking at him oddly, "What?"

"Huh?!" She eloquently responded startled.

"What did you want to say?"

"Oh, um. Why didn't you kill him? I mean you are a hit-man and it would have be easy for you and there probably would be less chance of him waking up and altering others to our escape and –." She cut herself off again, realising where they were and that the babbling wasn't helping.

"You just answered your own question." He said but continued to explain, whilst locking the cage, "I may be a hit-man but that doesn't mean I enjoy killing. Besides no one had hired me to kill him." He smiled and the moved to leave the area they were in. He peaked out the door and saw a decently lit corridor spanning in two directions.

He ducked back into the room, "There's two ways we could go and there's no way of knowing which way is the right one." He looked at the girl in front of him and put his hand on her arm, surprised when she didn't flinch away from him. "You're going to have to trust me and do what I say. Over everything else, get yourself out."

She nodded at him and he moved away, Felicity bemoaned the loss of his hand for a moment before putting the thoughts from her mind. Whatever was going on here, she definitely wasn't going to think about it now of all times.

Together they ducked out of the room and into the hallway going off luck they went to the right and followed the corridor, there were a number of side passages and rooms off the sides but they made good progress. They soon realised wherever they were they were underground at the moment. All was going well until they stumbled onto a balcony are looking down onto a workshop floor.

Felicity gasped.

"What is it?" Floyd shook her slightly his hand on her shoulder.

She leant into him, "They're making EMPs."

"You can tell?" He asked relishing the contact.

"I designed them." She stared forlornly at the sight in front of her, "I thought I'd destroyed them all."

"Well at least we know why they want you."

"You don't understand, the EMPs include a virus, which before detonation takes over the system and gathers corrupts data so that even after the EMP blast has been dealt with the technology is practically useless. They wouldn't quite work though, they kept going off prematurely."

Floyd frowned, "Come on, let's get a move on." He pulled her away, holding her hand as he did. The next thing they found was the exit; it was an elevator with two guards in front of it. Great he thought to himself, this was supposed to be a relatively calm mission and instead he was kidnapped beaten up and developing feelings for his target. He sighed and motioned for Felicity to stay here before going and dealing with them. The fight was quick but brutal. He used the contours and shadows of the room to sneak up on one of them and knock him out. Unfortunately the other guard on saw him and attacked, swinging wildly. He frowned tiring fast dodging as many blows as he could, waiting for an opening finding it he launched into an uppercut and the woman crumpled.

"You're hurt!" Felicity exclaimed gesturing to a cut on his side as she moved over to him.

"It's fine. Come on."

They pried the door open and instead of using the elevator they climbed up into the shaft. Felicity groaned at the treatment her poor feet were getting and promised herself she'd splurge and get a spa treatment when this was all over.

They scaled up to what looked to be a lobby when peeking through the gap before prying open the doors fully and clambering out onto the cool marble floor. Floyd helped Felicity up and she paused at the sight of a number of guards. "If there's a chance to go, take it." He hissed at her and then without pause she watched as Floyd engaged them. He ducked under blows and landed a number of his own but he was tiring.

She noticed her chance almost right away, the guards were too focused on him, she was just by the door when she paused and looked at Floyd and without knowing why she went back to help. Which was exactly when a number of guards filed into the lobby with guns pointed at them. Oh great, she thought and cursed herself for staying.

Clapping as he walked towards them was Michael, "Now that was exciting to see."

…

…

The room they were taken to seemed to be a mix of an observation and control room. With a start they realised that there was more to this place than jus the EMP's.

"Felicity, you're going to help me with something."

"I'm not sure I can help you with your problem." She commented the joke sailing right past them, which in retrospect she was thankful for. Floyd seemed to get it, either that or some combination of his training and personality made him react to dire situations with a cocky smirk.

"You're going to fix the code for us and if you don't." He smirked, "Well, we'll take it out on your friend here."

Felicity didn't respond and Michael nodded to his underlings and one of them held Floyd in place whilst another stated repeatedly punching him.

"Stop!" Felicity called out having seen enough, "I'll do it."

"Felicity, don't." Floyd croaked out, earning himself another punch.

Michael walked over to Felicity and undid the ties on her hands and picking her up by the arm he deposited her in front of computer. He then leant over her, breathing her in. "I must say I do love you in that dress my dear." Ignoring him was hard but Felicity focused on what she loved, the code. Michael was many things but he wasn't stupid, he'd set her up on a computer with no access to the outside and limited access on the intranet. After a number of hours she quietly said that it was done.

Floyd groaned, at the news and oddly thinking that quiet did not suit the hacker.

"Show me and any funny business and you know what will happen."

Felicity gulped and ran the program praying that it would work how she wanted it to. The program appeared to work normally at first it devoured the information of one computer and then when it was geared to set off an EMP it moved onto the next computer mutating and growing instead.

"What did you do?!" Michael shouted spinning her around to lean over her.

"Exactly what you asked for, it's just a different bug."

"Shut it down and fix it."

She nodded and started typing again. The lights started flickering and a couple moments later the sprinklers turned on soaking the occupants of the room.

"You bitch! You did this on purpose!" Michael cried losing his temper and backhanding her; Felicity flew from her chair and crashed into a desk before sliding to the floor.

Then the lights went out and all hell broke loose.

…

…

They'd managed to get out in the chaos surrounding what had happened, the EMP's had all gone off, simultaneously demonstrating their power and destroying Michaels work. The virus had technically erased itself. Floyd had grabbed her and they'd sneaked out past the guards, there had been a couple of skirmishes but nothing of note. They'd also ducked past the police on their way out, who been notified about some illegal weapon construction happening there. All in all, their escape was down to Felicity.

Floyd had then taken her home; he'd scouted out her place and deemed it safe before allowing her inside.

She flicked the light on, "At least let me help to patch you up."

"Its fine, I should get going anyway. Thanks for the dance, Felicity."

"Wait." She called after him grabbing his left arm. He turned to look at her over his shoulder to see her biting her lip in that annoying endearing fashion and without thinking he turned and kissed her. He wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her to him. Inwardly Felicity was freaking out but after everything she leant in and kissed him back, her arms reaching up to loop around his neck.

The kiss was divine, he did things with his tongue made her knees weak, and they broke apart after a while, both breathing heavily. "We shouldn't be doing this." Floyd whispered.

Strange how he'd be the voice of reason, Felicity mused to herself before leaning in to kiss him again. "I mean it; I'm not a good person Felicity."

She sighed and moved off her tip toes. "I know. I also know that if you were as bad as you say you are then you wouldn't be saying this right now. Unless you really are a bad guy and are doing it to tri-." His mouth descended on hers again.

"You did that on purpose." His only response was a smirk as he walked her backwards, out of the lounge.

"Last time, are you sure."

Felicity nodded, "I need this, I need…" She trailed off but he understood. She needed a distraction, that's what he was. Suddenly he felt slightly sick at the thought, of being used. But then wasn't he doing that to her? Beside he decided then and there, he'd rather be with her and regret it later then not at all.

…

…

Floyd Lawton was not a nice person; sure he felt emotions and believed in honour. But at the end of the day he was a killer, it was what he did best. So it's no surprise that he cashed in a few favours to get into a certain cell in Block C. The prisoners where just coming in from dinner when one of them froze in the entrance of his cell, the door sliding to a close behind him, locking him in.

A voice called out from the bed, "Hello there Michael."

…

…

A.N: Hope you guys liked it.

I might be persuaded to add a second part at some point and add about who exactly hired Floyd and why, but it's not really the point of the story.

Also yes, I left Michael decidedly non-de-script feel free to picture him as you'd like.

Reviews are lovely.