AN – This is my first fan fiction for Arrow. It's going to be a crossover with members of the Batman family, but its not listed as such because there is no current TV show, or a past one, of Batman that is as close to both the comics and Arrow itself as it would be if there was a show on the CW, therefore there are no referents that can be used. I hope everyone enjoys, and please feel free to review. I can really use the feedback!

Arrow: Head to Head

Chapter 1

The figure in dark green moved through the shadows as if he belonged to them, making his way towards the lights ahead. On silent feet, he entered the lit room, surrounded by computer equipment, glass cases, a couple of tables, and other odds and ends necessary for maintaining the arsenal of Green Arrow and his compatriots.

At a table, containing three full computers, with more on the sides of the room nearby, was a slender woman with long blonde hair. As he reached up and pushed back the green hood, and removed the mask, Oliver Queen knew that Felicity Smoak was hard at work, going over facial recognition software results, searching details, and otherwise tracking at least two people that Team Arrow were dealing with at that moment.

The blonde didn't seem to hear the footsteps as he came in, being almost completely silent. But before he got close enough to touch her, she spoke aloud, "I take it you had no luck tracking down Slade?" She was speaking of Deathstroke, the Terminator, a notorious and ruthless assassin who had given Oliver quite a bit of trouble in the past, and had been stranded on Lian Yu, the remote deserted island off the coast of China, several years ago.

Slade Wilson, or Deathstroke as Felicity preferred to think of him as, had been subjected to injections of an enhancement drug called Mirakuru, under the rather villainous direction of Dr. Anthony Ivo, somewhat of a crackpot mad scientist, in Felicity's opinion. The drug had enhanced Slade all right enough. It made him several times stronger than the average human being, increased his ability to withstand pain and damage, his stamina, and reflexes to a much greater degree.

It also did something to accelerate the process of information relaying back and forth from the brain to body and back. As a result, he had earned the name Deathstroke, the Terminator and then some, she thought. Though it also made him mentally unstable, and very reckless and vengeful ran through her mind, as her concentration returned to the screens before her for a moment.

Oliver's face was a study of aggravation and irritation. His jaw was set tight, and his eyes were narrowed, a sure sign of his agitation. "No," he replied. "It's as if he just vanished. There's no record of him leaving the country, or even the city. His face isn't on a single inch of security footage. He hasn't shown up in any bulletin reports, despite there being an APB on him as a priority target for takedown. Not a single damned lead of any kind." He moved as if to slam the bow stand and the arrow crafting station off the table, but seemed to catch himself before he did.

Felicity's brows drew together over the rims of her glasses, and she shook her head. "But Oliver," she said, her voice carrying out the sound of his name a little longer than normal. "That doesn't make any sense. Even with a private jet, or car, or even boat, he'd have to show up somewhere. There's a manhunt like you wouldn't believe out for him. Someone would have seen him somewhere." Former Captain Lance had requested a friend of his still within the department put out the APB on Slade the second Felicity had called him, once they learned that he had escaped Oliver's secret prison on Lian Yu, and was back in Star City, hell bent on destroying it.

Oliver heard her, and nodded in agreement, but was looking at the arrows on the crafting station curiously. His brows knit together and he looked over at her. "Where did these come from?" he asked, nodding towards the rather impressive looking arrows. "I know I didn't make them." He was inspecting one, having taken it down off the rack, and turning it over in his hands.

Felicity allowed herself a brief smile, and wagged a finger at him from side to side, and turned back to her computer, looking over her shoulder the whole way. "Those are an early Christmas present, courtesy of Cisco Ramon, esquire, late of Central City," she answered, the brief moment of humor more in her comfort zone. She often called upon her wit, and sometimes her sarcasm to go along with it, to get her through the harder moments.

"Ah, yes. Cisco," answered Oliver finally, nodding slowly. Cisco Ramon was an engineer at the STAR Labs facility in Central City, and a member of Team Flash, as Felicity called them. Of course, she also called Oliver, herself, John Diggle, and Oliver's little sister Thea Team Arrow, much to Oliver's chagrin.

Cisco was a young man, quite brilliant and innovative, and also a definite product of his age group. Just as Felicity had an odd habit of coining names for his team and Barry Allen, the Flash's, team, Team Arrow and Team Flash, respectively, and for dubbing the bunker "The Arrow Cave," Cisco had an odd habit of giving superpowered metahuman criminals colorful code names, very often with a flair for the dramatic.

Very odd birds, indeed, thought Oliver as Felicity started tapping keys on her keyboard again, her fingers moving rapidly over the lettered buttons. But I wouldn't have either of them any other way. They're both very cool in their nerdiness, and it's come in handy far more than a couple of times. Besides, how could Felicity not be adorable? My life is nothing without her.

Though they were officially broke up from their engagement, Oliver and Felicity had remained on friendly terms, and the love between them seemed to be rekindling itself. Not as fast as Oliver hoped, probably, but it was improving, even he had to admit. As long as she was near, he was complete. It was all he knew, and more, it's all he wanted to know.

"There's more," continued Felicity, without even sounding distracted. Many times Oliver had noticed she was exceptional at multitasking, and this was no exception. "Cisco also put together a new bow for you. It's a special alloy, very flexible, very strong, and, according to him, extremely smooth and accurate in its action. It collapses much like the one you have now, and is compound. You can also use it as a wedge, or a lever, its got the strength."

She finally turned and nodded towards the table, where a rather slim box was sitting, the length of it perhaps a foot long. "It's in there. The string is wound with the same composite alloy. He's very confident that it will be much more resilient than even the special bow strings you use, while also having a very smooth action."

Oliver opened the box, and withdrew what looked mostly like a bow grip. There were a couple of small, well shielded studs that must be buttons, he figured. Tapping the first, the bow rapidly unfurled from within the grip, the metal almost looking as if it swelled and grew as it reached its full length, a very intimidating looking compound bow. It also automatically strung itself, like the one he used now, which was a definite plus. The weight was indeed very light, which would allow for more fluid motions when firing it. I could get spoiled to this, he thought.

Upon inspection of the string, he could tell it was a very strong tensile cord, interweaved with a metal that resembled the alloy of the bow itself. He curled his fingers about it, and pulled back, testing the draw. It required strength, as it should, but it was an extremely smooth, fluid action it had. Cisco had outdone himself on this beauty. Despite himself, he had a light smile on his lips, nearly invisible to most, but Felicity could spot it a mile away.

With a half grin of her own, she stopped what she was doing long enough to turn around as Oliver released the draw, and set the bow down. "Does it meet your approval?" she asked, not in the least sarcastic. She knew that, like herself, Cisco could sometimes annoy Oliver, even though he genuinely liked the young engineer.

"Are you kidding?" countered Oliver, the half smile still a ghost on his lips. "That's an impressive piece of engineering and bow design. I have to hand it to him, Cisco is a genius. I'm stunned," he finished, looking at the bow once more. He couldn't have designed a better bow by any means. I probably couldn't have designed one even half that good. Whatever little annoyances Cisco has, he makes up for it, and then some, with his brilliance.

Felicity smiled fully now, her blue eyes sparkling, though with what, Oliver couldn't be sure. "He'll be glad to know that. He figured it might make up for that little snafu he had the last time he was here," she said, watching him a moment longer. "He really admires you, you know. I know he's exuberant, and bubbly, and kind of silly, but he really does just want to help, and make a difference."

Oliver's face flushed a bit when she said the part about the admiring, but he took the compliment gracefully. "He's young, well, younger than me, anyway. He reminds me a bit of you. A brilliant genius, with a mind capable of much more than I can comprehend, let alone follow half the time, and I'm not a dumb guy at all," he said, moving out from the table and closer to her. He wasn't being arrogant, he simply knew he was a reasonably intelligent man. "Barry depends on him, and Caitlin, just like I depend on you, John and Thea. If it weren't for you, I might have found myself in a very different place today. Never think for a single instant that I don't appreciate each and every skill and thing you bring to the table, your absolute genius, just like I appreciate and value Cisco's brilliance. I also admire both of you greatly. Far more than I let on, I'm sure."

Felicity felt her face flush red for a moment. It wasn't often that Oliver opened up like this, let people see what was under the surface. He'd gotten much better at it since they'd come back from Ivy Town, but during that time she'd learned even more than she already had how to read him after that. It was good to see him opening up, even a little. He was normally so stormy with what he was feeling.

"Oliver…I don't know what to say," she said, feeling as if she were floundering. Despite her anger, her conflicted feelings, everything bad that happened that led to her breaking off their engagement, she could never suppress the surges of love she felt for him, especially in special moments like this. She knew she still loved him, and he loved her, but they had to work some things out before they could fully return to what they had.

He stepped closer to her, and his hand came up, hesitantly, to brush over her cheek. His eyes moved over her face, finally settling on her eyes. "You don't have to say anything, Felicity. Just know it's the truth, and that I know it's true," he finally spoke, his voice soft, almost a whisper. She hadn't heard him speak like that since before she broke the engagement. She felt all melted and gooey inside.

As she opened her mouth to speak, an alarm sounded on her computer, and the screen started flashing. Instantly whirling back around, she sat down and began rapidly typing, so fast Oliver couldn't distinguish one finger from the other. "Goddamnit!" she growled at no one in particular, and started typing even more furiously. The images on the screen flashed by faster than he could follow.

After several moments of watching her, and listening to her growl, he leaned over her, his hands on the table. "What's going on?" he asked. She knew that while he understood user principles with a computer pretty well, his was way out of his league with what she was doing. He knew she was inside some system or other, but beyond that, he didn't have much a clue. All the lines of code and computer speak just made his eyes cross.

The irritation in her voice was palpable, almost a living thing. She continued to growl several more times before shoving the keyboard towards the monitor and putting her hands on her head, a sure sign she was frustrated. When she was temporarily stymied, this was how she'd get. Oliver knew it was best to be calm and help her ride it out.

"The little son of a bitch," she growled again, looking like she was going to hit the table in anger. "And someone else is riding the trail too, and trying to shove me aside. Apparently, whoever it is has pissed off several people."

"Who are you talking about?" Oliver asked, feeling more confused by the second. His face was a study of concern, and his eyes sought hers out, needing to find out what had her so upset. Whatever was going on, he hadn't seen her this angry since she found out he hadn't told her about William, his son.

Taking a deep breath, she figured it was best to start at the beginning, because she knew if she didn't, it'd be a million questions. "I'd opened up backdoors to most law enforcement agencies, hoping to maybe get a hit on Slade, or at least his description, or something in a report. It turns out something did come up, but someone else was tracking the systems, and started systematically erasing all information concerning anything to do with Slade specifically," she explained, her eyes looking wetter than normal. "Then when I try to shut him down, whoever it is, someone else enters the system. Apparently, they've been tracking whoever this hacker is too, and they basically shut me out. I gave them a fight, but they're good, damned good."

Oliver frowned, and he fixed her with an odd look. "Are you saying someone managed to push you out of a system? There can't be more than a couple of people who'd be capable of something like that, not for very long, anyway," he said. He wasn't just paying lip service. Felicity was one of the most gifted hackers he'd ever seen or heard of. And Overwatch, as was her code name, had earned quite a reputation on the cyber circuit, rivaling that of Oracle, in Gotham City.

Her angry face was suddenly replaced by a reassured smirk as she tapped a few keys, and big block of code showed up on the screen. "Ha, you bastard. You can sneak and snoop, but you can't hide," she said finally, looking up at Oliver. When he didn't say anything immediately, she figured out he had no idea of what he was looking at.

Seeing a total lack of comprehension on his face, she continued, "What you're looking at is a data packet trace. Though he's spoofing all over the place, and rerouted his signal a thousand times with ghost terminals, false responses and the like, that's his digital signature. It's that guy that's been causing all sorts of trouble with big sites and institutions like banks, defense computers, etc. He calls himself Freejack. At least now we know who we're looking for."

"What about this other person, this other hacker?" Oliver asked. If it was someone that could truly shove Felicity out of a system, that could very well spell a lot of trouble for them. Felicity was amazing with computers, almost amazing enough to be a computer. If this person could out hack her, that would definitely be trouble.

Felicity's brows drew together in a frown. "I don't know," she said finally. "But you can bet I'm going to find out. I can't grab their data packet in a trace, their digital signature or anything else. Whoever it is has got a major setup, more powerful than what we've got here, and we've got a really hardcore, kick ass network." She went back to staring at the code streams, trying to find something she might have missed the first time. "And when I find out, somebody's going to learn what hacking's all about."

X

The room was dark, except for the lights of multiple monitors all around the room. Their bluish digital glow illuminated feminine hands coming away from a keyboard, and in the darkness, the monitor light reflected off glasses.

The woman at the computers leaned back in her seat and toyed with a curl of red hair that had fallen over her shoulder and stared at the screen. Her mind was awash with many thoughts, and she had come across something that surprised her greatly.

Tapping a key on her computer, she was greeted with a bright tone, and she leaned forward on her elbows. "Dick," she said in a quiet voice. "I found Freejack. He's been erasing data concerning Deathstroke all over the place." Her voice seemed to trail off, and there was a moment of silence.

The voice on the other end of the line, masculine, answered, "That's good. I'm assuming you managed to stop him, or at least chase him out of the system?" asked the voice named Dick.

The woman thought for a long moment, and then rested her chin in her hand. "Yeah, I managed to chase him out, but I think I had help. And whoever it is, Dick, they're damned good. I can't get anything on their signal, and I just barely managed to shut them out before they did the same thing to me. If I have to go head to head with them again, I might have a problem. A big one." The woman sounded pensive, and had just a touch of aggravation in her voice.

The person named Dick seemed to be considering what the woman had just said, and it took a while before he finally spoke. "Babs," he said slowly. "If this person can come that close to matching you keystroke for keystroke, that's going to be a huge problem. You're the best hacker anyone, including Bruce, has ever seen. It's a very scary thought that there might be someone else out there as good as you are."

Barbara Gordon, daughter of Gotham City Police Commissioner Jim Gordon, also known as Oracle, leaned back in her chair and stared at the screen and the failed attempt to retrieve a data packet on the mysterious hacker. For the first time in a long time, her spine tingled with the apprehension that was known to keep animals alive when dangerous predators were around. That worried her even more than she was already.