Aftermath
CONTENT:
Rating: Teen
Flavor: Drama
Language: some
Violence: no
Nudity: no
Sex: no
Other: none
Author's Note:
This chapter was so much harder than it had to be! First, I was sure I had written the first part already, but I couldn't find it. So I rewrote it (and I HATE redoing stuff)! Then the next part was definitely written... three different times. With three different versions... and as I'm typing this, I'm sitting here with papers scattered across the desk, trying to cut and splice this into one coherent scene...!
I tell you, it's a miracle this chapter isn't late.
Aftermath
===#===
Felicity's Apartment
The next day, Felicity recovered from the post-mission elation by sleeping 'til noon. She was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. It was a good exhaustion, though. She could look back on the night and feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. She'd been brave - stupid, but brave. She'd made a difference, an all-important difference in the lives of eight young women.
She deserved a reward, like snuggling into her pillow another few hours, but the world conspired against her, sending some demon to torment her by ringing her doorbell insistently at the godawful hour of high noon.
She shrugged on her bathrobe and staggered over to peer blearily through the peephole. "Who is it?"
"Special delivery."
What? She hadn't ordered anything. And when she did, she always used 'cheap and slow' as her shipping method. "Can't you just leave it in the hall?" It was a relatively secure building. She didn't think any of her neighbors would swipe something. Though Mrs. Gillis wouldn't be above taking a nosey look.
"I have orders to see it safely in the hands of the recipient, ma'am."
Felicity groaned. She tucked the robe more tightly over her nightgown and just hoped she didn't look as frightfully disheveled as she felt.
The young man said nothing except to ask her where she wanted the box. It was a two-and-a-half foot cube, so she had him put it on the sofa, the closest piece of furniture to the door. "Do I have to sign for it?"
"No, ma'am. I'll report back." With that, he took his leave, and Felicity realized he wasn't the postman or UPS, but a special courier. Who would send her something by courier? One of those rich folk she was hobnobbing around with lately.
She looked at the return address, which was emblazoned with a centaur logo. She didn't need to read it; it was clearly Sagittarius, the company that they found out made the Dark Archer's custom arrows. Which meant it was really a shell company for Merlyn Global.
She got a kitchen knife and made short work of the shipping tape, then dug into the box like a kid with a Hanukkah present. There was a folded sheet of paper on top of the bundle; she opened it to read:
The Ravens wanted to show their appreciation for your help, and said you could use one of these.
-M-
Felicity didn't squee - she was not an over-excitable teenager, and she never squee'd. Out loud. Where, like, people might hear... But in a trice, she had the inner plastic bag torn open and the contents removed in a shower of those new biodegradable packing peanuts.
Then she was in the bathroom, admiring her very own combat vest, heedless of the way it clashed with her nightgown. A big grin split her face. "Wait 'til Oliver and Diggle get a load of this!"
Her grin faltered. Oh. They'd probably chew her out. She sighed and put the vest into her sports bag. She'd leave it at the 'Arrow Cave,' since that was the most likely time she'd actually need it.
It would be nice to have something to remember the mission by. Her mind turned back to that dragon tattoo. Never mind needles, her grocery store had a gumball machine with removable tattoos. Well, not a 'gumball' machine, since there were tattoos, not gumballs in it. Whatever. She bet they had a killer dragon design.
By the time she got her clothes on and her hair up, she was smiling again. She grabbed the sports bag and headed out.
===#===
Verdant Basement
Felicity came down the steps from the club, a blue sports bag hooked over one shoulder. Oliver swiveled his chair around as she crossed to her computer station. "And where were you last night?" he asked.
"Me? Last night?" She barely flicked a glance in his direction, avoiding eye contact. "I asked you if I could have the night off-"
"Don't play games, Felicity. It's all over the news. Burkhardt, his men, all dead."
"Oh." Expression drained from her face, leaving only a shadow of guilt. She dumped the sports bag to the floor, and pushed it under the desk with her foot.
Oliver glanced at Diggle, who bit his lip and remained silent. The archer returned his scrutiny to the tech girl. "Did you, or did you not, have anything to do with that?"
She turned to him, lifting her chin. "Yes. I did."
"Dammit, Felicity! What were you thinking?"
"You know, just because I work for your family's company, and I also work for you, does not make you my boss."
He just raised a brow at her logic.
"Okay, it sorta does, but-! I'm a free agent. I can take contract work whenever I want."
"You could have been hurt," he argued. "You could have been killed!"
"I can be hurt working with you, Oliver!"
He had to admire her unexpected bravery, and her righteous stubbornness. Except now. Why couldn't she see the danger she put herself in? "I make sure to plan for your protection."
"Which you could have done, if you had gone along with us." She crossed her arms, colour rising in her cheeks. "But, no, you didn't."
"And why do you think that is?"
"Because you told Malcolm to take a hike without even looking into-"
"No." He stood up, cutting her off. "I wasn't able to be there for you, because you went behind my back!"
She turned away, having the grace to be ashamed of that, at least.
"I told you my reasons for not helping Merlyn. I don't like being set up."
"It was not a setup," she insisted. "It was real! There were real people, being hurt, and..." Her voice faltered. "And we did something about it."
Diggle spoke up from his seat, where he'd remained silent so far. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." She paced back and forth, collecting herself.
"The news didn't say anything about any women being there, nothing about sex trafficking. Just that Burkhardt was hit."
"Well, they were definitely there! We didn't leave them; we got them to a safe house. Mr. Merlyn will arrange for them to get transport back home."
Diggle looked past her to Oliver. Oliver chewed on this information, but it didn't dissipate the bad taste in his mouth. What she'd done was a mistake. She had to see that. "Did you know, going in there, that he was going to slaughter everyone?"
Felicity stopped short, her eyes wide, her lip caught between her teeth. She couldn't say it, but he saw the truth clearly on her face. She'd known.
"Goddammit! I can't believe you signed off on a murder mission!" Now Oliver paced. He was ready to hit something. Merlyn had talked her into helping him kill people!
"You would have killed him, too," she insisted.
He whirled on her. "I am not Malcolm Merlyn. I am not like him."
"You weren't there! You decided not to go." She accused him of this as if it were some petty decision he'd undertaken on a whim.
"I thought you decided to be a part of this team, not Merlyn's call girl!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized that was not the thing to say. Felicity's eyes went wide, and that colour drained away from he cheeks. Oliver tensed up as she narrowed her eyes at him.
Diggle moved in. "Whoa! All right, calm down. Step back into your own corners a minute." His hand pressed against Oliver's chest. Oliver stepped back, looking away, trying to cool off. Then Diggle's hand was on Felicity's arm.
He guided her to her workstation. "I don't think any of us has the whole picture, here. Oliver's just concerned about you."
"And why?" Felicity asked stubbornly. "Why are you getting all judgmental on me - and don't tell me you're not, Digg, I can see it all over your face. You're on his side!"
"There aren't any sides, here. We're all on the same team."
"We were," Oliver growled. "Until one of us decided to run off on her own."
This didn't help. Felicity's eyes flashed. "Look, I'm not your daughter or your sister or your wife - and you know what? Even if I were, I'm an independent woman. You cannot tell me what I can or cannot do with my life, or how I choose to spend my nights, or what illegal vigilante activity I do...!"
Oliver rubbed his face. This was not working. He tried to reign in his temper. "Felicity, I'm not trying to run your life." He moved back to face her, though not too close. "I care about you."
Her mouth dropped open. For a moment, he seemed to have short-circuited her voice box. Then, "I... care about you, too, Oliver," she managed.
"And you really hate when I pull stupid stunts that put me in danger."
"Yeah, big time." She nodded. "Wait, are you calling this a stupid stunt?"
"No! I'm just..." He looked to Diggle for help, but the soldier was playing the silent waiting game again. He turned back to the young woman he'd gotten tangled up in his life. "I'm just pointing out why I feel concerned."
"Well." She seemed to regain her balance. "But it's over now. And I am fine. So can we go back to caring about each other without all the angry yelling?"
Oliver drew a breath and let it go, slowly, with control. "Yeah." He knew who he needed to yell at.
"Good." She gave him a shy smile and sat in her computer chair. She turned, and her foot thunked against the sports bag beneath the table.
"What's in there?" Diggle asked with mild curiosity.
"Uh... my flack jacket." She buried her nose in her keyboard.
Oliver and Diggle shot each other a look. Oliver said, "And you have a flack jacket because...?"
"Well, as a safety precaution. You're all about being concerned for my safety, right?"
"Felicity...!"
"Fine!" She tossed her hands in the air and spun the chair around. "It's so I don't walk into a firefight without a flack jacket again."
"You walked into a firefight?" Diggle exclaimed.
"It was perfectly safe!
"Are you-!?"
She cut Oliver off with an adamant finger point. "Don't start!"
He really needed to punch something now!
Diggle stepped in again. "Okay, hold it. All arguments and recriminations aside, we're going to sit down like calm, rational adults here, and have a debriefing." He eyed both of the combatants. They still bristled. "I'll just make us some coffee. Oliver? Give me a hand."
===#===
Diggle put Felicity's favorite blend in the coffee machine, while he had Oliver go fill the pot with water. Felicity herself stayed over by her workstation, mesmerized by the glow of the screens. Diggle moved out of sight and caught up with Oliver near the makeshift bathroom. "Hey, ease up, man." He kept his voice low, so it wouldn't carry in the vast basement.
Oliver cocked a brow. "And let her put herself in danger?"
"She does that here... Listen, didn't we just have this conversation?"
"You can't tell me you think this is an any way a good thing. Felicity, putting herself in Merlyn's hands?" He dumped water out of the pot, ostensibly to rinse it out, then let it start filling again. "Do you even know how many ways that is bad?"
They couldn't know what Merlyn had done to Felicity while he'd held her captive. Physically, she was fine. Diggle hadn't noticed any sign of PTSD in her, either. There were a few subconscious reactions she had, that she probably didn't realize. As for brain-washing... well, Felicity's mind was possibly too complicated for that to work. But Merlyn had held her long enough.
"I do agree with you," Diggle said. "But biting Felicity's head off, and making her feel bad about something good she's done...? Oliver, she's not a soldier. And she's not a guy. You've got to be careful how you handle her." He glanced around, making sure they still had their privacy, and lowered his voice further. "You know, I don't like to bring up your playboy past, but you were shit at dealing with women, weren't you?"
Oliver didn't reply, but ran his hands back through his bristly hair. He sighed and retrieved the coffee pot, shut off the water. "I should chew Merlyn's head off." He sounded much calmer.
"Now you're talking."
===#===
John brought her a coffee mug, and she smiled thanks up at him. Then he and Oliver took the other two chairs and waited expectantly. Felicity wasn't sure what to tell them and what to leave out. She stalled by pretending to look over the results of her automated searches. Then she decided to just report the facts of each step of the mission.
That meant she had to tell them what she'd seen on the monitors. She didn't like it, but they deserved to know, to understand what the Dark Archer had gone to stop. Oliver and Diggle's looks darkened.
"He killed Burkhardt," she said quietly. "With extreme prejudice." She didn't go into details - in fact, she still wasn't sure what all the details were. "You would have done the same," she told Oliver, daring to look into his eyes. His face was grim, and he scowled further. "I would have done the same," she said. "If, you know, I were a highly-trained martial artist and assassin." So much for 'I'm not a vengeful person.' But there was a difference between petty vengefulness and righteous fury.
She finished the story in quick summary: the firefight, the cutting of the power, her daring if foolish rescue of the Bloodraven leader. Then the aftermath - treating the injuries, rescuing the girls, comforting them, bundling them up to send them back home. It had been a grueling night, physically and emotionally.
By the end of her story, Oliver was still scowling, thoughts going on behind those grey eyes that she couldn't fathom. Diggle gripped Felicity's shoulder. "Well done," he said with a smile. "We're proud of you."
"Thanks." She smiled back. Of course, it wasn't as if she were their daughter and needed parental encouragement, but it felt good anyway.
She looked in Oliver's direction again. He seemed about to say something, but then he hid it behind one of his plastic smiles. Did those really fool anyone? "Good job," was all he said.
===X===
End Notes:
She hadn't ordered anything. And when she did, she always used 'cheap and slow' as her shipping method.
.
Felicity didn't squee - she was not an over-excitable teenager, and she never squee'd. Out loud. Where, like, people might hear...
.
Never mind needles, her grocery store had a gumball machine with removable tattoos.
-This is all so self-insert, it's not funny! :X
