Meeting of Two Minds

Felicity heard the metallic clanging even before she walked into Ray's office.

"How," she said, "can you do that at this unholy hour?"

Apparently it was an unspoken rule that guys had to do salmon ladder shirtless (not that she was complaining). Ray's whole body lunged when he swung the bar from one notch to the next, the momentum carrying him into a graceful swing.

Felicity had a type, but she'd seen Oliver do it enough times (every Wednesday and the weekend, if she was lucky) to be somewhat unimpressed by anyone else attempting the same. Not that Ray knew who he was being compared to — in her mind.

"Helps me relax before a big meeting," he said. "I'm looking forward to this. Been — wanting — to — meet — Oliver — Queen — for — a — while — now."

"You already met him once, remember?" Felicity pointed out, seeing no reason to be gracious. "When you took his company. Stole, I believe, was the operative word used."

"And I paid for it in porcupine flatulence," Ray said, dropping lightly to the ground. He looked up in the middle of shedding his gloves, as if a thought had just occurred to him. "Oliver Queen — your friend, right? I forgot."

Felicity had been in the middle of stealing Ray's coffeepot, and stopped at the mention of Oliver. Friend, she thought, was putting it very mildly.

"Right," she said, wearing her best poker face.

Ray looked her in the eye. "Is that going to be a problem?"

Felicity shook her head. "Not at all. Unless you're planning to take over Queen Incorporated — in which case — how much do you like owls?"

Ray laughed, already rummaging through his closet for his work clothes. "Noted. But you should know that hostile takeovers aren't really my style."

"Says the guy with the metallic death suit. Heard about you busting that drug cartel last week," she commented. "I'm guessing the bulletproof part of your suit works, huh?"

"You've been keeping track of me?" Ray grinned, in the middle of fastening his shirt buttons. "I'm flattered."

"Well, the red and blue color scheme can be a little ostentatious."

"Says the girl who works with a Robin Hood vigilante."

In lieu of an answer, Felicity peered into the coffeepot and found some kind of bright green juice. It took all of her self-control to not drop the pot like a live grenade. "Eurgh — what is that?"

"Aojiru. Mostly kale and barley — really good for the immune system. Try some."

"Ha. Not even if it had chocolate chips and a Ben & Jerry's logo on it."

Ray knotted his tie in front of the mirror, and Felicity flushed at the memory of Oliver in her apartment, doing the same thing Ray was — every morning. She really needed to work on her poker face if they (her and Oliver, that they) were going to keep things discreet.

"I have a feeling," he said, "that today's going to be a good day."

Palmer Technologies still gave Oliver an odd feeling, even more so when he walked into the lobby he recognized, elevators he'd ridden in countless times, back to a floor that should have had his family's logo on the wall — not Ray Palmer's.

Typically, the few minutes inside the elevator was the time Oliver used to switch gears, swapping one mask for the other. Oliver Queen, CEO of Queen Consolidated had been another one of Oliver's masks, the more uncomfortable one in comparison to his identity as the Arrow. Every time he chose his work in the Foundry over his work back at the office, the mask stretched even thinner, almost to breaking point.

He'd learned from his mistakes since then.

Oliver Queen, CEO of Queen Incorporated was a mask he gladly wore, because it was his — not some family legacy he barely understood and treated as a cover for his real work as the Arrow. QI was something he and Walter had built up from the ground, meant to improve the Glades in a way traditionally disregarded by his old company.

"Things change, don't they?" said Diggle, demonstrating an uncanny ability to tell what Oliver was thinking. "I'm still your bodyguard — and you're still five minutes late."

Oliver glanced at his watch. "How else will they know it's me?" he said.

Diggle chuckled just before the doors opened and let them out into a familiar atrium.

"Mr. Queen!" A jittery young man was waiting for them by the glass doors, his nervous manner and obvious youth reminding him of someone else. "Welcome to Palmer Technologies. My name is Gerry Conway, EA. I'm supposed to show you to the conference room — they're all waiting —"

"I think I still remember my way around here," said Oliver, dryly. "Thank you, Mr. Conway."

Gerry let loose a high-pitched laugh, very nervously. "Right — because of the — never mind."

Oliver exchanged an amused glance with Diggle over the kid's shoulder.

"A lot more computers around here," Diggle commented, as they walked past office after office of sleek computers, all bearing the Palmer Technologies logo.

"Mr. Palmer develops prototypes on a biannual basis," Gerry said, proudly. "Everyone in the office gets to try them out before they make it to mass production. Fastest computers in the business."

"Whose EA did you say you were again?" Oliver asked, as they rounded a corner.

"Ah —" Gerry twisted to avoid a secretary walking by "— Miss Smoak's. I was assured my babbling would not be a problem —"

"No," said Oliver, a little absently, because he'd just seen Felicity through the glass doors. A smile crept unexpectedly onto his face, one he wasn't intending or capable of hiding. "It isn't."

Oliver was late. Again. Fortunately, Ray liked to keep his pitch meetings small, meaning it was just them two in the conference room — and the CEO afflicted with chronic lateness.

"You're his friend, right?" said Ray, drumming his fingers on the flecked tabletop. "How much does he hate me for what shall henceforth be referred to as The Incident?"

Felicity looked up from her computer, skeptically eyeing his use of air-quotes. "Oliver doesn't hate people," she said, finishing off an email. He just puts them in a Super-Max prison located somewhere in the North China Sea. "And he doesn't hate you — he barely ever mentions you, actually."

Ray waved to get her attention. "Kinda need it on a scale here — ten being loathe, one being almost-friends."

"Since when do you care if someone likes you?" she asked, without spite. It was an honest question, since Ray generally seemed too chipper and effervescent to give a frack about who liked him or not. Generally, people who had weaponized suits of armor tended not to care very much about popularity, what with the number of criminals being put in Iron Heights because of them.

"Oh. Because of the wow factor," said Ray, as if it was self-explanatory.

"Explain that sentence."

Ray grinned. "My presentation. If he doesn't like me, it just means I have to up the wow factor."

Felicity blinked hard to clear the alert-alert-alert lights going off inside her head, warning of an imminent disaster waiting to happen if Ray tried to pull one of his showmanship blowouts. "Oliver doesn't really do…firecrackers and sparkles or whatever you're planning to…wow him with."

But Ray wasn't listening. "Speak of the Devil," he said, looking towards the door.

Felicity didn't quite know where to look when Oliver walked into the conference room. Partly because it'd been about two, three years since they'd last seen each other in an office, and some part of her still remembered making up terrible excuses as his executive assistant. Oh, and the huge fight they'd had about said "promotion" to EA.

Still — things changed. She was Felicity Smoak, VP of Palmer Technologies, and this meeting was going to go off without a hitch. (Pretty please)

Ray rose smoothly from his chair, stretching out a hand to Oliver.

"Mr. Queen," he said. "Nice to see you again."

"Mr. Palmer." Oliver had his CEO-smile on, the one for TIME magazine covers and investor meetings. "Sorry I'm late — traffic was terrible."

"Not at all, I had a bit of a late start myself." Ray gestured to the chair opposite Felicity's. "I believe you and Miss Smoak know each other?"

"We do." Oliver grasped Felicity's hand. "Miss Smoak," he said, and she had to bite her lip to keep from smiling too widely.

"Mr. Queen." Felicity could have sworn that he winked at her before he sat down.

"So," said Ray, reaching for the portable projector in his belt. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Oliver inclined his head. "Please."

Oliver and Ray did things very differently. Felicity knew that from the start that Oliver could impress without saying much (how much of that was due to genetics and the don't-mess-with-me jawline, she didn't know), and Ray…well, he had the kind of charisma that lent itself very well to pitch meetings. It was hard to describe, but he was confident enough to believe that his audience always had the intelligence to keep up, and most of the time, it actually worked.

"In short, with the advanced quantum know-how from Palmer Technologies' Applied Sciences division, and the cutting-edge manufacturing capabilities of Queen Incorporated, our joint project will be the 21st Century breakthrough in quantum computing." Ray put his hands in his pockets, looking thoroughly pleased with his presentation. "Any questions?"

"Just the one," said Oliver. His hand was open on the table, long fingers elegantly splayed, which meant that he wasn't nervous — good. "Why QI? There must be dozens of companies around the world willing to do the manufacturing — at nearly the same level of expertise, at a lower cost. Why us?"

Ray grinned. "You undersell your company, Mr. Queen."

"I don't think I do," said Oliver, with brittle pleasantness.

"What he means," said Felicity, quickly, "is that Palmer Tech shares the same vision as QI. You guys want to make Starling City a better place, bring jobs to the Glades and make sure they stay there for the long haul. Sure, there might be a company in Taiwan that could do something similar for less, but that's not why Ray — or you — started your businesses. You want to save the city, and there's no better way to do it than making the Glades the center of high-tech innovation."

Felicity looked from Ray to Oliver, two very different men with very different personalities. She was in a unique position of being trusted by both men, suspended in an unconventional balance between the two. There existed a world of differences between them, but some very essential commonalities. Neither of them could say they'd had conventional lives or lived without loss, and neither of them realized that they were meeting a fellow Starling City vigilante.

She knew them both, and she knew where they intersected.

She knew they both wanted to save Starling City, and that was what mattered.

"This is the right thing to do," she said softly, meeting Oliver's eyes for the first time since they'd started the meeting.

Oliver held her gaze. Even in the darkened conference room, his eyes were a cloudless sky blue, and in them she saw the same thing she did — every morning, every day.

Hope.

A smile flitted across Oliver's face as he stood, and extended his hand to Ray. "I look forward to working with you, Mr. Palmer."

Ray raised the blinds with a flick of a switch, letting in the late morning sunlight that blazed off the glass walls in the conference room. "Absolutely," he said, pumping Oliver's hand enthusiastically. "I'm sure it'll be —"

Felicity's eyes were still adjusting to the sudden brightness of the room when she saw it — so gradually that she thought it might have been a mistake, a trick of the light.

A bright red point, hovering over Ray's heart.

Felicity was on her feet in a second.

"Oliver!" she screamed, right before the windows shattered.

This one was called 'The One Where it All Goes to Sh*t'. Fun times.