AN: Thank you for leaving all your wonderful comments and favs/follows for this story. It doesn't seem to be gaining much traction over here, but I'm glad you all enjoy it. So this week was very hectic with work and left me little to no time, or energy, to edit and write. I didn't want to go too long outside of my self-imposed posting schedule so I edited this morning, but I can make no guarantees. I also want to state that while this story is canon-divergent I am planning on playing with the canon a bit (I'm not too sure on how far Starling City would be from Seattle, so I made it up). So some things may match up, and other points may not. I'm trying not to go overboard with my changes, but more in line with the flow.
This chapter is more about setting the stage, and for the length does not even begin to scratch the surface of Sara's and Felicity's back story and relationship. I really hope you enjoy this chapter and want to leave me some love at the end!
Chapter 2: The Canary
As Sara finished her yoga exercise to the sound of a voicemail alert, and Felicity typed away in the other room, she couldn't help but smile at the life they brought to the abandoned structure around them.
After jobs they liked to have a safe place to land to regroup and assess their work. It also was easier to lay low when you had multiple safe houses scattered across the globe, which they did. This particular one was in Seattle, only a hundred or so miles shy of Starling City, and had only been used once before.
After returning the states a year prior, Sara and Felicity set up shop in an old abandoned dress making factory. Felicity hacked into city records and classified the site as 'unsafe' and provided a 'no trespass' order to assure that no one would accidentally stumble upon them. Upon entry to the building, Felicity had set to work on updating the security system, like she always did, and Sara worked on making the space more hospitable.
Sara never mentioned, although she suspected Felicity knew, the real reason for wanting to be so close to Starling City. Sara did miss her family, for all their differences, and sometimes liked to keep an eye on them. It had also come in handy when they had to pull the Queen Job only three weeks earlier.
Sara moved to pick up her phone, the one that Felicity had cloaked from the local cell towers, to retrieve her message. Sara didn't understand how Felicity did what she did, but just accepted it and moved on. Felicity was the only other person in the world that she trusted with her life besides herself. If Felicity said something needed to be done, Sara would believe her, no questions asked.
Sara smiled at the sound of Floyd's recorded voice over her cell phone receiver saying "good work, ladies." It was his customary call after they finished a job.
Big or small, he would find a way to get in touch to see how it went. Sometimes he already knew through the papers or internet searches – which was the case this time, Sara assumed – and sometimes he didn't.
Based on her relationship with Floyd, which was a tight rope walk between emotionless and paternal admiration, Sara wondered if these calls were his way of making sure she was still alive. For some reason, the man known as 'Deadshot' in criminal circles, had a soft spot for her – and for Felicity.
"The news channels are constantly replaying the story of the attempted theft of the Queen family jewels." His voice full of pride. "Good idea to place the decoys so the press didn't get wind and run wild with the story."
Replacing the real gems with fakes had been Felicity's idea. Leaving the real ones would have caused an immediate panic at the gala, which would have prevented her quick escape. The fact that it also helped to keep them off the radar was a bonus.
"I'll be in Corto Maltese," working a job, Sara caught the implication. "For the next few weeks and'll be out of range. You know how to reach me."
Seven years ago, Floyd had taken her under his wing in New York City, and pretty much taught her everything she knew. She had just been pulling petty thefts at that point, stealing the random quartz watch in the subway or pick pocketing a wallet off a Wall Street hot shot, but had no real experience. She had only been on the run for a little over eight months and was still a little lost.
Sara knew what she was doing was risky. Every time she saw a police officer on the street she wondered if they were going to take her back to Starling City, and her family. She wondered when it would be her turn to have the handcuffs slapped on her wrists and pulled into an interview room, or a line up, for all her bad deeds.
Though, it wasn't the thought of going to prison that bothered her, strangely enough. Sure, it was a place she would rather avoid, but for Sara, the thought of her parents and sister's disapproving faces troubled her more.
Still, it wasn't enough to make her want to go home. The rush that came when she got away with her crimes fueled her passion and made her feel invincible. It was enough for her, in the beginning at least.
At night she would lie awake and wonder where her life had gone wrong and why she wasn't normal like her family. Her parents had been loving and stable. Her sister, Laurel, was living proof of their success as parents with her fast track to law school and billionaire boyfriend. Her parents never neglected or abused Sara, either. They loved her unconditionally and made sure that she knew that. For how busy her father and mother both were, they never missed a school play or sporting event, and always had dinner as a family.
It made Sara wonder what was wrong with her. What deep seated psychological trouble had been brewing in her to make her want to steal from people? What created the urge to trick and deceive? And more importantly, why didn't Sara care enough to stop?
Hurting people wasn't what she wanted, but she couldn't deny that innocent people could get caught in the cross hairs of her actions. Her moral compass at least knew that much. After two months of just stealing, Sara made it a point to pay it forward. Some nights she would walk the streets near her crappy apartment that she rented with cash and enacted her own form of justice.
She would watch, and wait, for some idiot kid to lift a woman's purse and then she would act, laying the kid out flat on the pavement. Being a cop's daughter meant that she had introductory self-defense skills from years of hanging around police officers. For Sara, stopping an innocent person from getting hurt made up for all the misdeeds she did during daylight hours. It became a pattern for Sara, riding the subway during the day or conning street thieves out of their own take, before performing her own vigilante like justice at night.
She didn't claim to be fighting for any moral sense of right and wrong. She didn't think of herself as a hero when she would pull some asshole off of a defenseless woman, or man, and use her physical strength to swing him around and into the nearby brick wall of a building, rendering him unconscious. She only thought of evening the score she set with herself.
Then Floyd came along with his high priced jobs and offer of training. He told her the first night, when he caught her lifting a tip bucket outside of the fro-yo stand around the block from her latest 'save,' that she had been sloppy, and lucky so far.
Just as she had been pulling the bucket towards her, Floyd's hand slapped over her own. Shocked at being caught, finally, she tried to withdraw her hand from the vice like grip before looking up at the man who had caught her. He had a glass eye, which was the first thing she noted, before taking in where his index finger rested against his lips.
He escorted her to a diner two blocks over where he bought her a cup of coffee. Sarah remembered the diner in vivid color, still to the present day. The red booths were faded with small slits in the aged leather. The smell of burnt bacon reach her nostrils as soon as she entered, and one of the waitresses behind the counter was smoking a cigarette with a look of challenge for the legislation that prevented others from smoking in public spaces.
She expected the customary speech of 'you are going down the wrong path' or 'why are you wasting your life in crime?' as this strange man she didn't know led her to a booth in the back. It was the speech she assumed her parents would give her, accompanied by disappointed head shakes from Laurel, before they sent her away to some rehabilitation center.
That's what adults did. They took your dreams, no matter how small or big, and crushed them with reality. Stealing from people seemed like a strange dream to most, but to Sara it was a challenge. She wanted to see how far she could go, how much she could collect.
How good could she be?
It was a selfish motivation, or at least that was what she thought now. She had been a child then, so lost and alone, with a skill set that others didn't understand. While her family practiced law and history, she could pick a lock in under thirty seconds. Laurel was good at arguing her point, Sara was good at convincing others to do her will without realizing it wasn't their choice.
The man before her waited until one of the other waitresses, who looked almost dead on her feet, poured them both a cup of coffee. Sara wondered what the woman's story was. What made her work the graveyard shift? The deep circles under her eyes read a story of sleepless nights either working to make a living or worrying over her troubles.
The woman's nails had a light salmon color to them, chipped at the edges, while her fingers were long and delicate. She had a wedding band on her left hand, Sara noted. It was small and nondescript while silently telling the tale of hardship.
"Your execution is sloppy," Floyd told her as his fingers danced along the lip of the ceramic mug in front of him, the waitress now forgotten. "There were at least three security cameras you failed to notice, along with the fact of your apartment right around the corner. Stealing that bucket would have painted a bright red target on your back."
Sara took a sharp breath before glancing at the empty diner, save for the two waitresses who were looking through some tabloid at the counter and marrying the ketchups.
She leaned in close to whisper, unsure if she should be afraid or angry. "Were you following me?"
Floyd chuckled, light and airy, almost as if tailing her was the most ludicrous idea he had ever heard.
"You're hard to miss," he told her honestly before taking a gulp of the steaming brown liquid. "You've been playing your little game on the wrong turf for about two weeks now, and people are starting to get pissed."
Sara snorted, something her sister would never do, before leaning back in her chair. "Funny, I didn't see a 'no thieving' sign on any of the street posts."
Sara watched as the man in front of her bit his bottom lip, holding back another laugh. With his mug in hand, he lifted his index finger to point at her.
"You've got balls, I'll give you that, stealing wallets and watches during the day, but stopping muggers at night," he said before taking a sip of his drink. "The people you're crossing don't have my same sense of humor."
"So what?" Sara asked, trying her best to remain nonchalant and unfazed by his message, never let 'em see you sweat, was what her father always said. "You're here to tell me to back off? The streets are no place for a 'pretty little thing like me?'"
He shrugged as he let his eyes (or eye, Sara thought to herself) drift over the young woman before him, sizing her up.
"I'm here to make you an offer." Sara leaned forward in interest. She knew she should be afraid, but felt a familiar excitement begin to boil in her stomach. "You've got skill, it's unpolished, but it's there."
"So you have been watching me," Sara chortled.
"I've heard rumors about some kid who has been breaking a lot of rules that were set in place for a reason," He told her, voice suddenly lower. "It would do you well to learn these rules because the best thieves, the smartest cons, stick to a code."
"Seriously? What about the saying 'there's no honor among thieves?'" Sara wanted to laugh at how serious this man was. She felt as though she was sitting at the dining room table listening to her parents argue over case law and what historical norms and rules set forth.
"Seriously, Sara Lance," he drawled out, causing her to sit a little straighter, the red leathered booth creaking in protest as she did. "The best cons also do their homework, and you can bet if I found out who you were, soon your cop daddy is going to be beating down your door."
Sara felt her back stiffen at the thought of her father coming to New York to drag her home. She didn't want to leave. She didn't fit in with their cookie cutter idea of who she should be.
"What's the code?" Sara asked, her voice no louder than a whisper, and feeling like a scolded child. "You said there's a code, and I'm guessing I'm breaking it. What is it?"
Floyd looked sideways at where the waitresses still sat, reading their papers and laughing about something.
"Each person's code is different," he told her honestly. "Some vow not use weapons, some vow not to steal from those less off," Floyd shrugged as he took a breath. "Me, my code is simple. Don't piss off anyone with a bigger gun."
Sara paused to let his words sink in, not fully understanding what he meant.
"So you mean …?" She trailed off.
"You're pissing off a lot of people, with very big guns," he finished.
"Just so I understand," she tried to clarify. "You don't mean actual guns right, more like figurative guns?"
Floyd laughed. "How have you survived this long by yourself?" Sara bristled at the comment. "Yes, I mean literal guns … and figurative, but mostly literal."
"So you want to teach me how to not piss anyone off?" Sara asked, still confused, but not wanting to show it.
The idea that she would fail at the only thing she really loved doing made her scared. Scared of what would happen next, of having to be the girl she once was. She didn't want to be little Sara Lance anymore. She wanted to be something else - someone else.
"No, I want to teach you how to do it so that no one knows you're the one who did it," he told her with a Cheshire like grin. "The whole point is to do it without anyone knowing it was you."
Sara nodded, finally understanding part of what he was saying.
"By the time they figure out it was you, you'll be long gone with a quarter of a million of their dollars and you'll have a brand new identity." Floyd said with a wink.
Sara tried to picture it. A life where she was feeling the rush every day, getting her natural high, and being good at it. She would be so good that no one knew her name. She could be anyone she wanted to be.
"So you'll train me?" She asked, feeling a rousing feeling flood deep in her belly.
Floyd's lips lifted in a sly smile, as if the idea was both amusing and enriching. As if he just found his next hidden treasure in this young girl seated before him.
Without a word he raised his hand in an offer of partnership and loyalty. A promise that he would train this child into the kind of con he could take credit for – his greatest success.
She didn't know it then, but when Sara took Floyd Lawton's proffered hand, she was changing the very nature of her life.
Had she not, she would have gone back to Starling City in two weeks' time with the overwhelming sense of failure. She would have gone home and felt the overwhelming feeling of failure and emptiness that came with living a life she didn't want.
Sara would have slept with her sister's on-again-off-again boyfriend while decimating the relationship she had with both her sister and father, all in hopes of feeling that rush of excitement she no longer felt.
Her mother would have taken her side, like her mother always did, and then become the basis for a series of arguments between her parents until finally they separated.
When Sara Lance took Floyd Lawton's extended hand, she accepted the potential for greatness. Her future. As he led her out of the diner that night she could only feel happiness and a burning desire to challenge herself like never before.
It only took her two days with Floyd to leave the country to begin to meet and train with a series of well-seasoned con-artists and thieves. She completely missed the news report a month later about Laurel's on-again-off-again boyfriend, Oliver Queen. She didn't see the pictures of the formerly pristine Queen's Gambit pre-launch, before the storm hit and sank it to the ocean floor.
Sara didn't know that Oliver Queen was dead, and that her choice to leave home had saved her own life.
Felicity worked silently, fingers steadily typing away at the keyboard. The feel of the smooth keys beneath her finger tips, the sound of the letters clicking in their execution, all helped to center her, to bring her focus.
As a child her mother would tell Felicity how busy she was. Donna Smoak was an energetic woman by nature – with blonde hair, six inch high heels, and a rolling enthusiasm for all things Felicity – was what she would tell her daughter.
Her mother also added that Felicity's energy put her to shame.
She would tell Felicity how there would be nights when Donna couldn't get her six year old child to sleep because she was rambling on and on about some theory she just read at the library, or some new techno-whatever invention. Donna just couldn't keep up.
Felicity loved that her mother tried, though. Donna Smoak made every effort to be there for her daughter from working double shifts in skin tight dresses with bright red lips to earn extra tips, to attending after school PTA meetings with parents who gave her side long glances and whispered behind her back.
She took on second jobs and saved all her money so that she could send Felicity to the best school possible, and be there for the big move to Massachusetts. Donna even used an old water jug that was going to be disposed of at the casino to keep track of her savings. Every night she would put in her remaining change or few dollar bills.
Some months would be harder than others and would lead Donna to emptying the jug in order to pay the bills, Felicity's impacted wisdom teeth removal surgery, or to pay for a new transmission when it went in her old, red VW Jetta.
But soon after, Donna would pick herself back up and start saving again.
Felicity did earn her way to MIT with scholarships and grants, to which Donna had no doubt. Her mother's savings had helped pay for dorm room supplies and a new computer – the kind that Felicity really wanted.
Felicity promised herself that no matter what, she would take care of her mother, just like Donna took care of her. After seeing her mother's unfailing support, Felicity wanted nothing more than to make her mother's life a little bit easier.
Every week, Felicity would send home a check with a portion of her campus paycheck with a note. Just in case, she would tell her mother. What Felicity didn't tell Donna was that she earned that paycheck in part through her job as an IT tech at the school's help desk, and in large part through her extracurricular hacking.
Apparently the sons and daughters of the school's elite legacies were into some pretty heavy duty activities of their own, and wanted their record's 'cleansed' prior to graduation. Along with her now ex-beau, Felicity earned quite the sum of money by hacking into local, state, and even federal government sites to alter official documents – all while leaving no trace behind.
Not only did she earn more money than she could have imagined, but she was having fun. The rush she felt when getting out of a system just before the firewalls came crashing down was none like she had ever experienced before.
If it wasn't for her break up with Cooper, she may have stuck with it. Cooper took a position with the NSA before graduation while promising Felicity he would never sell her secrets. But this was a man who had sworn off all things government and government related, vehemently.
She didn't trust him to keep her secrets, and she didn't trust him with her skills. Felicity ended the relationship before taking her own job, working in IT on Wall Street, while erasing any evidence that she had ever been a hacker.
It wasn't exactly what she pictured for her life, but it was enough to pay the bills and send money home to her mother. After all, she only wanted to protect her mother.
"Lawton called." Felicity tensed at the sound of her partner approaching from behind her.
It made Felicity, and Sara, nervous at how un-alert Felicity was when it came to people entering rooms and spaces. Felicity would joke that Sara needed to make more noise when she entered a room, and Sara would respond that Felicity needed to learn to pay more attention to her surroundings.
"Not paying attention again, I see," Sara laughed as she leaned against the side of Felicity's chrome desk. "What did we talk about?"
"Who said I wasn't paying attention?" Felicity asked before turning back to the screen in front of her. "I totally heard you come up behind me."
"That's why your shoulders went ram-rod straight when I told you that Lawton called," Sara noted while gesturing to Felicity's still uncomfortably straight posture. "At least you didn't scream this time, which means you're getting better."
Felicity huffed under her breath before turning to ignore her friend. As much as she loved Sara, she sometimes felt as though she took her less seriously because Felicity wasn't as physically able.
"You were saying about Floyd?" Felicity asked in hopes of changing the subject. "Is he coming to visit?"
Sara gave a light laugh before grabbing the paperweight beside her on the desk to toss back and forth in her hands.
"Apparently he's in Corto Maltese on a job, said he was proud of us for the Queen Job," Sara said with a soft smile. "He didn't know that you were the one on the inside, or else he probably would have had a hefty lecture to accompany that 'congrats.'"
"Well, if you guys trusted me on jobs, then there would be no lectures," she muttered without looking, hurt evident in her tone.
"Hey," Sara's voice was low, soothing, but received no response. "Felicity," she tried again and waited for Felicity to turn her head. "You know that we care about you, and we don't want you to get hurt."
Felicity nodded her head before leaning back in her chair, away from the computer. "It's just that your version of 'caring' feels an awful lot like I'm some incapable child who can't take care of themselves."
Sara shook her head before hopping up onto the desk, setting the paperweight down as she did.
"You're my best friend, more like a sister really," she said in contemplation. "You are the smartest, strongest person that I know, and you can learn anything that you even try. Felicity Smoak, you are the furthest thing from a child."
Felicity felt the corners of her lips lift as she heard Sara's words.
"In fact, without you I'm pretty much lost," Sara laughed. "So when I say that I don't like you in the field, it's not because I don't think you can handle it, I'm just trying to keep you away from danger."
"The Queen Job was not dangerous and you still had issues with that," Felicity hedged with less frustration than before.
"The security guards had guns and Tasers, and you totally walked out of there all smitten for Oliver Queen," Sara winked. "That crush alone is dangerous."
"I am not … Oliver Queen, please," she said with a roll of her eyes before attempting to change topics. "The room was well lit, crowded, and full of escape routes."
Sara laughed again before placing her hand on the desk closer to where Felicity sat with her arms crossed over her chest.
"You've seriously been doodling his name in code for the past three weeks," Sara said lightheartedly. She saw Felicity attempt to argue but stopped herself, mouth snapping shut with the knowledge she had been caught. "Please don't ever feel like I don't value what you do," Sara whispered. "You've saved my life more times than I could count … remember Prague? That was all you."
Felicity snorted at the memory of their job in Prague, and who they met while they were there.
"Yeah, at least I haven't attached us to any deadly assassins."
Nyssa Raatko was an assassin, a fact they had not known at the time, who needed assistance breaking into a secure vault in a high security office building in Prague. It was a job that could have cost them their lives more so than their freedom, a fact Felicity didn't ignore when she began to lecture Nyssa post-job.
"Hey, at least we earned the respect of a badass, female warrior who just so happens to be the daughter of the world's most deadly assassins," Sara smirked. "I think that earns us a few favors along the way."
"You do realize that if you ever want to break up with her, both of us would have to drop off the face of the earth because she would hunt us down and kill us both?" Felicity said seriously. After Felicity lectured one of the most dangerous women they had met, Sara began to date her. "Forget what her father would do."
"Who said I'm breaking up with her?" Sara winked before hopping off the table. "Nyssa and I have a connection that cannot be defined by any set of standards. I'd be crazy to let something like that pass me by."
Felicity understood her point, at least about the connection. Dating an assassin, not so much.
"At least Oliver Queen doesn't have a penchant for putting sharp pointy objects into people," Felicity murmured more to herself than Sara's retreating form.
"I heard that," Sara chastised before leaving the room.
Thank you for reading!