I solemnly swear that I don't own avengers or arrow.

Chapter 3 - Poker Face

"Bingo" Felicity smiled as her knives hit the targets. She looked to her right to see Maria doing push-ups. 35..36..37...38...Ok, her friend's push-ups would probably continue for a long time. There's no point in counting them. Felicity looked up at the Salman ladder before jumping up to get hold of the steel rod. She pushed her weight and continued doing her rounds of up and down on the Salman ladder.

It's only been two days since Oliver killed the vigilante 'Savior' when another problem pops up. A girl died due to a drug called 'Vertigo'. Great more drug dealers.. This basically means that Vertigo is active again by its creator 'Count' who had escaped the prison. This was the second night since the drug has been active, and felicity was using it to brush up on some of the training. She was hoping for a night out but with the recent new vertigo problem arriving she and Maria had to stick inside with some training. Felicity jumped down as she looked at her wrist watch. She uses it control her heartbeats. With her kind of job, she needs to keep her emotions in check. There are lot of mental effects with this job. She flipped the screen on her watch to look at the time. They still had time to do some more practice on Oliver's equipment before her Arrow team shows up. Technically she's Crime partner with Oliver so it's safe to say that she has her own personal right to use them but she still likes to call it Oliver's equipment. Besides the Foundry has a more training kind of feeling to it.

Wiping her sweaty body with her towel, she looked at her knives poking the targets she had set up. They were dead on straight. She smiled mischievously as she pulled the knives out before tucking them back in her purse. She's mainly a blade person. Her small body figure made it easier for her to aim and wield knives or anything blade like easily. She even has a Japanese Katana that she sometimes uses on her missions. She's trained on these kind of skills. Bow and arrow might be Oliver's touch but blades are hers. Her aim was as perfect as Oliver. And even better if she's in a real good mood. A 5 years training of a bow and arrow on a island could not match with her strict close knife combat training she had received from her father since the time she was 5. Well.. Until he left her and her mother.

"Fee, come on. You and me on the mat. NOW!" Maria said as she finished her 100 or so push-ups. Felicity have no idea how many Push-ups her friend does. She's always guessing.

"What! But why? I wanted to play with my knives." Felicity mused as she gave a longing look to her shiny knives. She wanted to practice her routine on them.

"You can do that later, Fee. It's been ages since you had a real partner to pit against. I don't want you to loose your fighting skills."

"But I'm not." The blonde girl replied with a frown. "Fine." She finally agreed as she looked at her friend's icy glare. Don't ever mess with Maria Hill.

Soon they both were standing on the mats and were fighting to get a upper hand on each other. Maria was very twisty with her jabs. She never did one move more than twice. Luckily, felicity knew how to block them. Most of the time they jumped, flipped and slided to bring in some of their acrobatics in. It's a good exercise Felicity thought just as she rained Maria with series of kicks before jumping at her friend with her punches as Maria blocked every single blow. It felt like a long time when Maria finally lost her footing and Felicity was able to flip her friend on the mat.

"Dead" the blonde agent breathed out. She got up and made her way to her towel when she felt a push on her legs and found herself on the ground with Maria sitting over her with a smirk.

"Never have your back to your enemy, fee. I thought you knew that." Felicity grunted in response as she pushed her friend off her.

"I did. But since I killed you, I wasn't expecting you to continue the fight." Felicity said looking at friend's smirk. "Yeah, yeah. Don't start with your lectures." She said as she looked at her bruised wrist. She's definitely going to have trouble with typing on her computers.

"You did good." Maria said before pulling her friend towards the first-aid box.

"Thanks." Felicity said as she noticed a brown bruise on Maria's shoulder. "Oh my god, did I hurt you that bad when I flipped you? I'm so sorry" she said worriedly as she touched the brown skin causing her friend to flinch in pain.

"It's alright, Fee. It's been ages since I received a good injury." They both tendered to their bruises as they continued talking. It was later on when felicity had just finished wearing her normal cloths when they heard someone opening the basement door to the foundry. Both the girls looked at each other in fear before Maria dove into action. She grabbed her bag and her gun from the table before hiding herself in a dark spot behind the stairs which leads to the basement door. Meanwhile, felicity was picking up her workout cloths from the same table and was adjusting them into her bag is when she noticed that one of her throwing knife was missing. She remembered bringing 6 razor sharp throwing knives but had only 5 in her purse. She looked around to find it lying near Oliver's arrow. The lime green line on her knife was visible even from her spot. She was about to get it but stopped as she saw her team walking towards it. Too late...

"Felicity, we may have a plan to locate Count." Oliver said in his rigid posture before looking at Dig."Suit up, your going undercover." Dig nodded before leaving the space to change. Oliver looked at Felicity who was still starring at the knife.

"Felicity? FELICITY?" He said a little louder. "Are you ok?" The blonde agent quickly nodded before she went to her chair with her bag but also keeping an eye on that knife. It was few minutes later when dig came out in his big hoodie who noticed the little knife on the table.

"That's a really good knife you've got there, Oliver" Digg mused out as he traced his big hands over the light structure of her knife. Oliver frowned in confusion as he looked at the knife in dig's hand. It's blade was silver and handle was dark black. It's border was covered with thin green line that seems to be glowing. It was small and light in their hands. Definitely made for high speed throw. On the side felicity was trying her best to not look at the boys. She had her eyes on her knife that was being passed around in their big hands. Stop touching the blade you buffoons. It's sharp... And she was right. Oliver who had a habit of fingering every one of his weapons ended up with a small cut. Felicity nearly rolled her eyes at his action. Her knives are way sharper than his. Even a little touch could end up cutting the skin. She watched as Oliver tested the knife by throwing the knife at a bouncing ball he had thrown against the Wall. It barely touched the ball as the knife embedded itself in the concrete wall. Both felicity and Maria (who was still in her hiding spot) tried not to laugh at Oliver's horror struck face. The knife was made for small hands. They can only be wield perfectly by girls. Any boy's strength can wave their precision. Plus, the light grip on the knife doesn't match with boy's hard strength. You have to be light on your grip when throwing these. Oliver should have been able to identify that.

"Wow.. That's a first time." Diggle said a little shockingly. Looks like not everything happens your way, Oliver.

Her boss stared at the strange knife before ordering Dig to leave so he can get the vertigo and hand in the money which had a tracer on it so they could locate Count.

"Felicity, I want you to run scans on this knife. I'm pretty sure I never had anything like this in my weapons." Oliver ordered her before looking around the foundry for anything strange. There has been lot of strange things happening here that he can't pin-point.

Felicity was glad that Oliver still hasn't noticed Maria yet. She was running scans on her knife while Oliver was to her right looking at his arrow. Luckily his back was facing towards the stairs which allowed felicity to give a signal to her friend to leave the foundry. Maria was stealthy in her moves, she moved up out of her hiding spot and quietly made her way up the stairs. Upon reaching the basement door, she slowly opened it to step out but had to double back in when she saw another male heading towards it. He was same height as Oliver but with black hair and crystal blue eyes very similar to hers. He was quite handsome but looked as angry as hell. That's when she remembered that he was Oliver Queen's friend Tommy Merlyn. Luckily the guy didn't enter the basement, it seemed like he was going to but he didn't. He turned back instantly while shaking his head in thought. Maria took this as her Que. to leave and left the building through the back doors. The front door was apparently filled with people setting up for the club and all.

Meanwhile in the foundry, felicity and Oliver continued their search on the location of Count while felicity told few misleading information on the knife. That seemed to distract Oliver for a while.

Imjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustaline

It was 4 days later when Felicity was finally able to retrieve her knife back from Oliver's grasp. Technically he just gave it to her for her protection. Something about keeping yourself safe. She was happy to take it back from him. Besides he had no use of it. It was made for girls so yeah..

Felicity shakes her head happily as she patted her knife which was tucked under her shorts. She was heading for a night out with Maria. They were heading to a rave near the eastern side of the City. It was far from the foundry and QC. That means no interruption by her Arrow team. She looked at herself in the mirror once again. She had lime green mini shorts on with a white crop shirt that happens to glow in the black light of the rave. The shirt reaches just inches above her tummy. It had small green linings on the end and an open neck view. She had straightened her hair and had it left open on her shoulders. She also had a long green tie in her neck for some funky look and green six-inch high heels. The look was pretty revealing but it was normal for a rave. It wasn't that fancy either but it was definitely glowy, She needed glowy cloths for the rave.

What she had on herself was definitely different to her I.T girl persona. The girl standing infront of her is her agent self. This was one of the snarky sides that she had kept hidden. And it's best if she keeps it hidden. People around her won't like this side of her. It's just not the clothing but her habits too. Sometimes she has two personalities at the same time.

"Ready?" She heard Maria.

"Yeah" felicity nodded as she left her room with a last glance at the mirror.

They both reached the underground location of the Rave. Showing their passes they entered the rave with thousands of people dancing and laughing around as the heavy loud music filled their ears and pumped their heart in excitement. Felicity looked down to notice her clothing glowing in the black light. She pulled her friend towards the paint stall and had her hair tips coloured bright pink which also glowed. Maria had few designs on her bare part of her body before dipping her hair in bright blue. They both laughed as their bodies glowed and they danced to the tunes of the music.

It was after an hour when the girls wanted to have a drink and headed towards the bar. Looking at the menu, they both ordered vodka shots. As they waited, it was felicity who noticed something odd through her right eye. There was a man dressed in the weirdest rave costume she had ever seen. His hand was inside his jacket. It felt like he had something in his hand. Felicity was sure that she had seen that guy somewhere but where? That's when the guy turned his face towards her direction. She instantly recognised him. He was one of the hitmen she had seen with China White when felicity was tracking the assassin earlier this year. Before Oliver came to Starling. The bad part about this was the guy knew her. After all she had knocked him down when she had tried to attack the White assassin. Unfortunately, Chien Na Wei had already escaped before Felicity could have reached the room. She tried not to think about the trouble if the man recognises her. Chien hasn't seen her face but the guy had. She remembered his name being 'Victor'. The guy was a mercenary. And since they were standing near the bar, the lighting there is brighter than any other place. It's just a matter of few seconds before the black bearded guy looks in her direction.

She instantly saw a flash of a gun in his hands. He was definitely here to kill someone. She quickly turned towards Maria and pulled her to a more darker area of the rave.

"What's the matter, Fee?" Maria screamed over the loud music.

"That man. That man in the weird black costume is one of the guy I knocked when I had attacked Chien Na Wei earlier this year." Felicity screamed back as she pointed towards the guy. "He knows my face. He'll recognise me!"

"What?! Oh Come on! Can't you get a break from all this? Why does the bloody man has to be in this party?" Maria screamed in frustration. Felicity agreed with her friend. She was really hoping for a good night out but it's now ruined.

"Come on, we need to get out of here before he sees me. I can see there are more men's here from the Chinese triads." Felicity said as she located other four guys in the similar outfits with guns in their hands. She knew few of them. "Their here for something big. And I don't wanna become that something big."

"But what are they here for?" Maria mused as they both moved towards the exit. That's when felicity felt herself bump in something big and hard. She looked up to see a man in a big hoodie. And not just any hoodie. It was the same hoodie that Diggle had.

"Oh sorry about that." He said as he looked down at her. Felicity stared at him in shock before quickly covering her face with her hands before pushing past Diggle with Maria right on her tail. On the other hand, Diggle had to rub his eyes when he had seen the face of the girl he had just bumped in. She seemed familiar. He was 100% sure that he had seen her somewhere. Feeling suspicious, he followed the girl and her friend before he finally lost them somewhere near the stage.

Felicity who had definitely seen the familiar suspicious look in Diggle's face ran with Maria as they tried to loose Diggle of their tail. They ended up hiding behind one of the speakers while Diggle was looking around for them.

"Who was that guy?" Her friend questioned loudly.

"Diggle!"

"What is he doing here?"

"I forgot to tell you. Oliver was planning to cross off some of the names in his list today. The hitmen we saw from Chinese triads was one of them. He and Dig must have followed them to here. And when we bumped into Dig, he saw me. He didn't recognised me because of the low lighting but he was suspicious, that's why he followed us." Maria cursed under her breadth.

"GREAT! Now, we have two groups we have to avoid. Could this night get any worse?"

"Shush! Don't jinx it" felicity replied as she saw Diggle walking the other way. "Come on, that's our Que." They moved through the crowd as they tried to reach the exit points. Unfortunately, Maria had to jinx the night. They were just in the middle of the dancing stage when Felicity felt herself bump into someone..again. She looked up to find the hitmen 'Victor' starring at her. She cursed loudly as she saw the lighting here is bright causing Victor to see her face.

"YOU!" He screamed as he pointed his hairy finger at her face. He quickly moved his hand to pull his gun out but unfortunately, felicity had already anticipated the move. She quickly got hold of his hand and twisted it, preventing him from reaching his gun. Punching him in the face twice, She kneed him before pushing him backwards towards the dancing people.

"RUN!" She screamed as both her and Maria ran through the busy crowd to the nearest exit. The hitmen Victor recovered quickly from his position before he pushed through the crowd as he signalled his boys to follow the two girls. Both the agents heard the loud bang of a gun and the screams as they pushed themselves to the emergency exit near the Bar station. Jumping over the table, they took cover in the bar as the Chinese triads attacked them with bullets after bullets. Felicity saw the wine, alcohol bottle shattering into pieces as they ducked.

Meanwhile, Diggle who had heard the gun firing made his way towards the scene while Oliver was outside the building, shouting in his ear piece.

"Diggle, What is going on?"

The back door banged open as felicity ran out of it with Maria right behind her.

"We need to separate!" Maria ordered before they both took different ally. The 5 men separated into two groups as they followed the girls. Felicity ran through the dark ally in her heels as the three guys followed her. She soon met up with a dead end.

"SHIT!" She cursed as she turned around to see the three guys smiling at her deviously.

"Woohoo.. Damn your fast." Victor exclaimed as he came to a stop infront of her. "Now, Baby doll. We have some business to take care off." He said as he pointed his gun at her. Finding no way out of this, she untied her green tie before using it attack the hitmen. She wrapped the tie around his hand before pulling it causing him to release his grip on his gun. Kicking him in the stomach, she did a 180 degrees turn towards him before hitting his face with her elbow. It caused him to double back few paces as felicity swiped the gun with her foot to her hands. She aimed it at him as he looked at her with blood on his face.

"Sorry, I don't have time." She said as she shot him twice on the chest before shooting his other two friends in the head. Using her shirt to wipe of her fingerprints, she threw the gun just beside the dead hitmen before running out of the ally, just barely avoiding getting caught by Oliver who had appeared at the scene with his bow and arrow. He looked at the three dead men as he jumped from the roof, also noticing the big hitmen he was here to kill in the first place.

Meanwhile, Felicity has already found Maria standing casually in the middle of the ally. Her friend pointed towards the Big hoodie men who was fighting the two Chinese triads men all by himself. Felicity instantly recognised him as Diggle. She signalled Maria to follow her as Diggle had nearly finished fighting with the two men. They both ran in the opposite direction as Diggle shouted at them to stop. They had just made it to the main road when they found their way blocked by Two arrows embedded near their feet." Oliver.. Felicity thought as she recognised the green arrows.

"He said, STOP!" She heard Oliver's computerised voice from above them. He jumped on a spot behind them just as Maria pulled out her gun. She shot at his direction as both of the girls continued running to the Main Street. On the way, Felicity had picked up Oliver's arrows that he had used at them earlier. She twirled them in her hands in a vertical motion just as they reached the main street. Both girls separated into different directions just as Diggle followed Maria and Oliver followed Felicity.

Felicity ran through the the street as she bumped and pushed people out of her way. She knew that Oliver was gaining on her. That's when she decided to enter one of the many night mall buildings. She pushed open the glass door as she ran through the lobby while Oliver followed her in through the window. She grabbed a black scarf from someone's hand and wrapped it around her face, just below the eyes so Oliver couldn't recognise her. Running through the mall, she made a beeline for the crew exit near the ladies room. She managed to come out of the building alive but in a dark, smoky ally. Oh great , another ally. She thought sarcastically just as she found her way blocked by Oliver. He was starring at her with his weapon trained at her.

"WHO ARE YOU?" He screamed in his deep computerised voice. Felicity rolled her eyes at his loud voice. She didn't reply, instead she took off her heels and just stood there as she twirled Oliver's arrows in her hands. She was looking for an opening. That's when Oliver moved a little closer to her giving her a chance to attack him.

Using her dad's training, she wielded his two arrows like her knives before attacking him. She stepped to the side just as she grabbed his bow and used it to push it back towards him in an attempt to hit him. It definitely worked just as he dropped his bow on the ground but recovering quickly in time to avoid Felicity's jab with his arrow. She made a constant beeline of jabbing before kicking him on the chest. That seemed to get him angry. He moved in to attack her. They both tried to get a upper hand just as they jumped, jabbed and flipped. It was few seconds later when Oliver managed to break the arrows in Felicity's hands. This action didn't faze her one bit. She pulled out her knife from her shorts just as Oliver moved in to attack her again. Unfortunately for him, she blocked it just in time before flipping over him to give a hard kick to his back. The sheer strength of her kick pushed Oliver on to the wall. He stabled his balance just in time before turning around to see Felicity aiming his bow and arrow at him that he dropped earlier. Luckily for Oliver, she wasn't going to kill him. She's just going to scare him a bit. Well that depends if he gets scared or not.

"Well, well, well... The starling vigilante.. Lost his bow to a girl? Tut-tut.. I thought you were more smarter than this green Hoodie.." She taunted him while smirking. Oliver just stared at her angrily. It was that moment when she heard a loud bang and felt a sharp pain in her hand. She dropped the bow instantly just as she heard few gun shots in her direction or rather 'Their' direction. She looked at her hand to find a bullet embedded in it. Her eyes moved towards the end of the ally to find Detective Lance and his small police force training their weapons on them.

"HANDS UP!" Lance screamed as him and his police men moved forwards towards their direction.

She instantly picked up her knife with her good hand before running in the other direction while Oliver swung his way out of the firing line. She could hear the gun shots raining on her as she turned and twisted to avoid the bullets. Luckily she found a exit of the ally and made it back to the Main Street only to find a shiny black car suddenly stopping infront of her.

"COME ON, GET IN!" She heard Maria shout from inside the car just as the door opened. She looked at her friend with a wide grin and sat in just as the corps reached their position. Now, Maria is the best badass driver you could ever get. She knows how to avoid a tail in the most dramatic way of all. Normally, it involved cars crashing and flipping. It's like a wild car chase.

Felicity gripped her seat belt just as Maria took a sharp turn on the 'One Way' road. The car trembled as her friend pulled it to its highest speed. Felicity watched how the police cars bumped into each other due to her friend's crazy driving. Her friend continued driving maniacally until she had officially caused a traffic jam all around the city. They gradually came to a stop infront of a hotel near QC after they have finally lost the police cars.

"That was close." Maria breathed out as she rubbed her knuckles.

"Yeah.." Felicity nodded. They both looked like train wreaks.

"This is one hack of a city." Felicity couldn't agree more.

Imjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustaline

For the next few days, Oliver was in the worst mood ever. After Lance had made his appearance that night, Oliver had swung his way out of the ally. He was perched on the roof when the blonde women (Felicity) had escaped through a car. He managed to trace the car's number plate but came up with a dead end as the number plate lead him to a confused man who caused a riot at the police station about his car being stolen. He was pretty financially influenced. From then on Oliver and Diggle were doing everything to trace the girls they had fought earlier. They checked everything from hair colour to martial arts background. Oliver even took some of Felicity's blood sample that he acquired from their fight in the ally. Luckily, felicity had made the sample disappear before he could even run it to the lab. Felicity was trying not to laugh at Oliver's anger. It seemed funny to her that the girl he's looking for is sitting right beside him.

"Felicity, what happened to your hand?" Oliver asked worriedly as his eyes went on her bandaged hand.

"Oh, I cut my hand accidently. Nothing too big." She said as she covered her bandaged hand with her other good hand.

"You sure? It looks pretty bad." Diggle piped up as he noticed traces of blood on the inside of the white bandage. Shit! The stitches... They're opened again.. Felicity gritted her teeth in both pain and anger.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said again as Oliver didn't believe her but he didn't push more on the topic.

It was around that time when Diggle had managed to Aquire a photo of Maria from a hotel camera that had recorded dig and Maria's fight earlier. Her friend had led the ex-solider in to a hotel's lobby before having a friendly match with him. He had forced felicity to put Maria's photo on her facial software. Felicity tried not to flinch as her software beeped with results. She wasn't worried about her friend's SHIELD files because no software can encrypt SHIELD's database. Instead she was more worried about her friend's recent cover and her other previous acts that might show up. And she was right.

She watched as Oliver looked through her Friend's Robin cover that showed up on her screen. And then few arrest warrants on murder, break-in, terrorist and various other activities that Maria did on her SHIELD missions past these months. There were also fake identities that came up. She remembered how SHIELD still hasn't cleaned Maria's records yet because she still needed those illegal records for her to infiltrate terrorist groups. You don't just get accepted into a bad group unless they know you are a bad person. And since they didn't erase it, it showed up on Felicity's software. The good part was that all the warrants on Maria were on her different names that she had used throughout SHIELD. Many of the people had traced her back to her Robin cover but they had no evidence to prove that Robin and Maria are the same person. Something about blood samples being different, thus, she's still free for the time being.

"This girl is bad news, Oliver." Diggle concluded. "Warrants, fake identities. Why hadn't they caught her yet especially when she's posing as Robin Sabatesky in New York."

"They don't have any proof. See, all the medical reports and history indicates that these two names are completely two different people." Felicity pipped in. Diggle just shook his head in thought.

"She's even involved in ARGUS" Diggle observed. wait, wait.. WHAT?! Felicity nearly had a whiplash as she cleaned her ears again. ARGUS? How's the hell is M related to ARGUS? She thought as she checked her friend's records.

"She was sighted at various places. It doesn't say its ARGUS but I know their locations. She was sighted at their bases in starling for past week." Felicity suddenly stood up from her chair.

"I have to go. I'll see you guys tomorrow." She said quickly before leaving the foundry with her purse. She needed answers from her friend this instant. How could Maria not tell her about ARGUS? She entered her apartment to find it empty. It's 5am in the morning and her friend was no where to be found.

She checked her phone but came up with a dead end as there were no calls or messages from Maria.

It wasn't until three days later when Felicity returned to her apartment building from her Nightly Arrow-Hacker duties. The boys had kept her and her friend's issue to the side as they had to deal with other stuff, (Stuff such as tracking Deadshot and protecting Laural Lance). But felicity was just as eager to get her answers as she was three days ago. She hadn't seen or heard from Maria since four days now. She was getting worried that Maria must be in some kind of trouble. She remembered the 100 miss calls she had given her friend. Besides, according to Maria's schedule she was leaving starling tomorrow. She just hoped her Friend hadn't left the city without giving her a proper goodbye. Shaking her head, she entered her apartment building. She was about to open her apartment's door is when she heard a shuffle from behind the door. It was kind of like a click-clack of a gun to be honest. That's when she noticed the white thread on the floor. She uses it to hang on the lock so if it's not there, that means someone unknown had entered her apartment. And right now it was on the ground. She was sure that Maria knew about her security arrangement and wouldn't let the thread down unless... Felicity quickly pulled out her small hand gun that she keeps in her purse and pointed it towards the door. She strapped her purse to the side before slowly pushing the handle down to open the door. The whole apartment was covered in darkness as the lights were OFF. She quickly noticed a dark shadow just beside the door. Instead of shooting, she attacked the figure with her body weight before kicking it back on something delicate that sounded a lot like her coffee table. Without waisting a moment she quickly switched ON the lights, just barely avoiding a bullet past her shoulder. She looked at the intruder to find her best mate, Maria starring at her in shock.

"What the hell are you doing?" Felicity screeched at her friend. Maria looked at Felicity in shock before lowering her gun.

"I thought you were someone else. You didn't make your normal jingling sound that you make with your keys when you enter."

"I would have if I hadn't noticed the thread on the floor. What happened to security precautions?" Felicity replied back angrily. She could have hurt her.

"Sorry.." Maria started but stopped as she hit the floor.

"Maria!" The blonde agent screamed as she went to her friend's aid. She looked at it to find Maria's shoulder bleeding. The blood had soaked Maria's shirt from inside out. "Oh my god, you're bleeding! How did this happen?" She said as she took a cloth to stop the bleeding on Maria's shoulder. It was a bullet Mark.

"Who the hell shot you?"

"AR..ARG..ARGUS.. I.." Maria started softly as she closed her eyes in pain.

"Maria! Maria wake up! Shit!" Felicity looked at the bloody towel to find it dark brown instead of a healthy red. "Poison" she whispered as she released what might be in that bullet. She quickly remembered one of Oliver's herbs that she had stolen yesterday when Oliver told her about its counter-effects a week ago. She quickly went in her room to pull out the herbs from her sports bag. Grabbing a water bottle and a small chunk of the herbs, she ran to her friend.

"M! Hey, hey..Come on M, wake up! You need to have this." Felicity said as she waved the herbs at her friend's face. Maria was feeling heavy and tired. She looked at Felicity in question before she felt her mouth being filled with something bitter and dry. Felicity quickly stuffed the herbs in her friend's mouth before giving her some water to swallow with it. It was hard work but Maria swallowed the herbs in the end. It was few seconds later when she felt Maria passed out. Felicity hurriedly checked Maria's heart beats before sighing in relief.

"Thank god. Oliver, you and your tea leaves are amazing."

She quickly laid her friend against the couch as she looked at her surroundings. She saw Maria's gun and few other cloths lying on the couch. A shattered coffee table, knocked over lamp and bloody couch. Her friend must be tending to her injury when felicity had entered.

She quickly got her first aid box out and pulled the poisonous bullet out of her friend's shoulder. She then quickly cleaned the wound and bandaged it before getting up to clean the living room. It was two hours later when she heard a soft groan behind her. She turned around to see Maria waking up from her deep slumber.

"Nice to see you're finally awake. I thought you died on me." Felicity joked as she helped her friend on to the couch.

"Agh! I feel like I got run over by a train." Maria groaned in response. Felicity smiled at her friend.

"Alright, so What happened?" Felicity asked worriedly after few seconds. "And please don't say that ARGUS shot you. I want the full story."

"Ok." Maria breath it out as she made herself comfortable. "I mainly came here in starling to track ARGUS" felicity frowned at this.

"Yeah I figured that bit after I saw your pictures of you being at their base." Maria raised her an eye-brow at her friend.

"Pictures?"

"Oh, um.. After our little walk in with Oliver and Digg at the rave, they had pulled up multiple files on you from my facial software. It said you were sighted at various addresses and dig recognised one of them as ARGUS's base. Infact I came straight home to ask you but you weren't there." Maria nodded in response.

"But anyways, why were you tracking them? I was already here, you could have asked me."

"Fury didn't want you to risk your cover. Imagine if they had seen you? Your cover and our link to this city could have been compromised before we even started building the base." Felicity nodded in understanding. She urged her friend to continue. "Remember the warning you gave us few weeks back about ARGUS keeping a watch on this city?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, that's why I came here for. When you deleted SHIELD's files from their system, a hacker named 'Miles Lydon' was able to trace your signal back to starling." Felicity nearly lost her breadth as she heard the name. Miles Lydon.

"Oh my god, did you just say Miles Lydon?" The blonde agent screamed in excitement. Maria nodded in confusion. "Oh my god.. Ok I need to calm down."

"What's the big deal?" Felicity stared at her friend in shock.

"The big deal?! Are you kidding me? He's one of the hack God of all the hacking world. I love his work!" Felicity said happily.

"Okay" Maria said weirdly. "So he managed to trace your signal back to starling but not to you. ARGUS hired him for a Temporary job to catch SHIELD's hacker which is you."

"I'm really flattered that he traced my signal to starling but a little shocked that he couldn't trace it right back to me. I can't believe I'm more talented than him." Felicity said slowly.

"Fee, your better than him in every aspect. You're the queen of hacking. I'm sure if the world knew about you, they would worship you." Maria said boosting her friend's confidence.

"Really?"

"Yes! You've hacked into stuff that no-one has." Felicity smiled at her friend in response.

"So what happened next?" The blonde agent asked as she tried to stop her smile.

"Soo. ARGUS knows that there is a SHIELD operative here. I came here to track their movement and maybe divert their attention. We couldn't risk you doing it. You're position on Arrow's team is really useful for SHIELD."

"Okay but that still doesn't explains how you got shot." Felicity said as she pointed towards Maria's bullet wound.

"That was actually Floyd Lawton, A.K.A Deadshot." Her friend replied as she fingered her wound. "ARGUS was doing a sting operation to Catch Lawton. But as usual the marksman was smarter and was shooting his targets from another building. To be honest, they should have figured that out easily. I couldn't save all of them but I did try to save this one police men. I got shot in the process." Felicity nodded as she realised how Diggle was looking for Deadshot. "By the way what was that thing you fed me?"

"Some kind of herbs that Oliver brought from his Island. They can counter effect to series of poisons and drugs. That's what he used for Vertigo. The bullet you were shot with was poisonous. Deadshot uses this rare poison on his bullets that kills the person in minutes if not treated." Maria nodded.

"I should take a sample back to headquarters. I'm leaving tommorrow by the way." Maria said as felicity handed a small chunk of the herbs to Maria who placed it in a plastic bag.

"Yeah, I know. You have to swallow it with water." Maria nodded as she placed the bag in her purse.

"Was Diggle there?"

"You mean that big African guy that I saw in the rave wearing a large hoodie?" Felicity half nodded, half smiled.

"Yeah, he was with this other female agent. I saw him running after Lawton. Don't know what happened. I left the scene as more ARGUS agents had shown up."

"But why did you followed them to their sting operation?"

"I was tracking their movement, Fee. I found ARGUS working on this so I went in to scout for Intel. BTW I have a bad feeling that Amanda is coming to starling soon. You know how whole SHIELD operative thing. She'll do anything to track us. So be careful with your hacks." The blonde agent nodded again in response before getting up to make two cups of coffee.

"So what's your overall status for ARGUS?" Felicity asked as she made the coffee.

"They have a base here in starling. They're keeping an eye on this city and its criminals. Not to forget they have Miles Lydon on your tail."

"So its safe for me to hack in their systems?" Maria looked at her friend in shock.

"Felicity! What part of Miles Lydon on your tail you don't understand?"

"Oh come on, M. I do all my research through their systems. SHIELD doesn't keep files on everyday criminals. Maybe that's why they send me here. To make a link. To have records and get involved in this stuff. After all we deal with many things, remember?"

"I get it but just be careful. We want you to create a network here. Since this city is the main point for criminals, make sure it's well connected to SHIELD. Fury will be sending out people to catch them so the Starling city vigilante won't feel all the guilt of killing each and every one of them."

"Really?" Felicity asked sarcastically. "The no. Of killings doesn't really take away someone's guilt."

"Yeah yeah I know." Maria waved off her friend. "By the way, I'll miss you." They both hugged each other. It was Maria's last night in starling. Felicity tried her best to make it memorable for her. Who knows when they meet up next?

"Sooo... What's for dinner? Oh wait, I mean breakfast?" Maria corrected herself as she looked at the time.

Imjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustalineimjustaline

Meanwhile at ARGUS's base in Hong Kong...

"Anything you've come through ?" Amanda Waller asked the hacker. Miles Lydon looked up at the tall lady that could get him killed in a flick of her fingers. It was his bad fortune that he tumbled into this witch.

"Not much yet but one thing is straight, whoever had entered your systems was someone highly educated in Computer science. As in like over advanced." Miles Said as he listed all the clues he got. For the first time he felt challenged. Who knew someone could be more cunning and talented than him. "They know everything about your systems. My guess is, they knew your systems from inside out. Someone who uses it regularly. Maybe that's why I couldn't catch any trace when I first looked at it. They're obliviously smart and cunning." The women gave him an evil smile.

"So you managed to trace it in the second go?" She said.

"Yeah like I said before. It's from Starling City." Miles said hesitantly.

"Anything else?"

"I might have a plan to catch them." Miles said slowly. The women urged him to continue. "But we need to be in Starling to execute it. Whoever it is won't take the bait if it's not real." The women nodded.

"Then Starling City it is." She said as she straightened up. It's time to have a little reunion with Oliver Queen and his associates she thought as she turned around and walked out of her office.