Felicity sighed as she pulled her pen out of her mouth and stared at the crumpled tip in frustration. This was the fourth pen she'd ruined today alone, and it wasn't even lunchtime yet. Felicity groaned as she let her head fall onto the desk. School was stupid. Felicity couldn't help but compare her university to highway robbers. Wasting time? Check. Stealing a life's worth of savings? Check. Black balaclavas? Felicity glanced at Doctor Ramoray's facial hair and cringed. Sure everyone had bad hair days, but her Algorithms professor seemed to have an afro growing on the lower half of his face. In fact, she noted, if she squeezed her eyes just right and didn't focus, his beard looked oddly like Texas.
Half an hour later, Sarah plopped into a seat next to Felicity in the food court.
"You look like shit." The words tumbled out. "I mean not like shit, because that's kind of gross, and well you wouldn't have arms and legs so you would sort of be sliding off the chair, and wouldn't be able to eat … that. What IS that anyways? Because that actually does look like shit …" Felicity snapped her mouth shut, finally noticing Sarah's glare.
"I ended things with Oliver" Sarah whispered, her pride not allowing her to say the words any louder. Felicity had never met Oliver, but he was notorious in the girls' lunch conversation. Sleeping with Sarah, while being in a relationship with her sister Laurel caused Felicity to disapprove of him. But she knew that what Sarah needed now was not a triumphant I-told-you-so, but someone to vent to about the evils of all men.
"What did he do?" Felicity worked to make her voice sound sympathetic, though she was happy her friend was finally putting some distance between her and her sister's boyfriend.
"Nothing. He refuses to break up with Laurel. Us Lance girls are special, no one man deserves more than one of us at once" Sarah tried to lighten the mood. Felicity smiled, and changed the topic to 's interesting facial hair.
Oliver Queen slumped into a chair across from his lawyer. Seeing the scowl on Walter Steele's face, Oliver knew he was going to be in a lot of trouble, but looking to his right, he couldn't help but smirk. If we was going down, he was happy he was taking Tommy Merlyn with him.
"Mr. Queen," Walter began in his posh, British accent, "I do hope that by now you are aware of the video circulating the internet" He waited for a nod before going on, "What were you thinking? The young man obviously had Tourette's. You cannot make fun of people who are sick for being sick. You could be sued. Your father's company could lose a large sum of its funding. We do not know whether the invertors' families are all healthy. They may take offense to your discrimination and decide to drop the project. Do you understand the magnitude of this issue?"
"Don't look at me, man. Tommy's the one that pushed him out of his seat."
"Hey bro," Tommy defended, "I was only trying to get to that redhead. He should have moved when I said excuse me."
Walter pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. But he couldn't have that tonight. Tonight was his wife's birthday. He had to get away from the immature boys before he got to a point where he would have to cancel on his wife.
"You boys need to find a way to get that video offline. Oliver, you're the one that shows up in the tabloids. You have got to do something to make yourself look nice. Go to a charity. Play with some kids at the park." He held up a hand to stop any oncoming arguments. "Either you boys fix this, or I'm going to make sure your assets are frozen" Having stunned the boys into silence, Walter hurried out of the conference room to grab a few Advil's before the boys regained control of their mouths.
Felicity was sitting in her favourite pizzeria, working on one of her many side jobs. She had just debugged one of her programs and was about to run it when a tall, handsome man slid into the booth across from her. A blue-eyed blonde in a fancy suit, Felicity just knew her words wouldn't be coming out the way she intended them to. She settled for just giving him a quizzical look.
"Felicity Smoak?" a nod, "I'm Oliver Queen. I see you've heard of me." Felicity couldn't help the scowl that crossed her face when she heard his name. Who hadn't heard of Oliver Queen? Billionaire playboy. Womanizer. Frequent tenant at the local jailhouse. She wanted nothing to do with man, and began to gather her things. Seemingly alarmed, Oliver raised his hands in an effort to calm her. "Hear me out. Sarah told me about you back when we were still …" He trailed off, not knowing how to finish the statement without making himself look like a jerk. "Anyways, I looked you up on Facebook. I need your help."
"I – you – it – Sarah – NO!" Felicity stuttered. This man had been sleeping with his girlfriend's sister, and who knows how many other women. He didn't look upset about the end of his relationship with Sarah and judging by his cologne, Felicity couldn't help but think that Sarah wasn't the only one.
"May I?" Oliver didn't even pause as he turned her laptop towards himself, Felicity's startled "hey' doing nothing to deter him. He quickly opened the offensive video on YouTube and turned her laptop back around, hitting play. Felicity was just about to close the window in contempt, when the scene caught her eye. Her glare grew harder and harder, until at last, by the time the video had ended, Oliver was tempted to check himself for laser holes.
"How could you do that to the poor boy?" She finally burst, "He has Tourette's"
"I know" Oliver started. He explained the conversation he had had with Walter earlier that morning. "That's why I need you to help me. I want you to take down the video, and I want us to be friends. Publically. I think it's going to help my image." He hadn't even finished speaking as Felicity shook her head, gathered her things, and rolled away in her wheelchair.