Author's Note: Yep, you are not deceived. You are getting two chapter updates in the span of just a couple of days, this being the second one posted.
Why you asked? Well, I had a delay a chapter ago not being able to post for almost three weeks, but I'm back in the groove and my writing chops are on point (at least I think they are).
Any, this chapter is already written and edited and, I'm working on a new one so why wait, I have something to post for the next weekend anyway.
I'm leaving this chapter at a point where it would somehow link with the beginning of Arrow Season 1 because the opportunity was just too good to pass but we aren't quite there yet, we are just near enough.
The usual disclaimers apply. I do not own Arrow or the characters, if I did they 5.01 would have ended with Oliver and Felicity in bed….
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CROSSFIRE
Chapter 9 – View to a Kill
"You're not ready!"
"I'm not going to engaged. I'm just going to be observing, from a safe distance. A very safe distance."
Oliver eyed her with skepticism. He knew her, or at least he knew her better than he did three weeks ago when he started training her reluctantly.
Her instincts were good, better than good if she was a soldier in training because she was like a sponge when it came to picking up and following instructions for both self-defense and offense but she wasn't.
Oliver could recall a particular instance a couple of weeks ago when he had all his candidates gathered around the mats where he demonstrating a particular defensive move that involved taking down an opponent with only ones body.
With Krug and Krum taking on the offensive, he had showed them how numbers, size and being weaponless didn't really necessarily translate to losing. He had made a point to reinforce the fact to the men and Felicity that he was the weapon, just like they were weapons, that guns, knives or any other tool were but aids. If all else fails, the body was all that mattered.
So above all else, he focused on what the body was capable of doing without a weapon. All they needed was to know how to use that one thing they all had to their advantage.
He had asked each one of the men seated to take their turn taking the defensive against Krug, Krum or him until they were all done. He had catalogued what each man had improved at the present time and to assess what work they still needed because they definitely needed a lot of work.
Just when every single one of the men where finished with their turn and Oliver was about to move to the next lesson he felt movement in the corner of his eye. Felicity.
She, whom he had tried and failed to ignore for the last two hours of the session to no avail, she was finally making her move.
He had to bite the inside of his cheek because this once again wasn't his idea and was nothing if not stubborn especially in matters he felt so strong about.
In true Felicity fashion, she had just arrived in workout clothes and sat on the mat as if she belonged to the class. And not just any type of workout clothes mind you, nope, she needed it to be in color. Fuchsia and purple bright in contrast to what everyone else was wearing, black. Which was what Oliver had instructed all trainees to wear.
Oliver saw both Krug and Krum give her a smile before they both turned to him with blank expressions. Traitors, he uttered in his mind. Even his best operatives had been wrapped around her finger.
He rubbed his face twice before he answered, making his decision in the process as he instructed Krug and Krum to move the other trainees along into the next phase of the training while he stayed alone with Felicity at the mats.
If he were to be touching any part of her he sure as hell wouldn't want any other witnesses. He had the discipline down, but every single training and control he had flew out the window whenever he had to touch her. He could stand to be near her, breathe the same air as her but he drew the line on control when they were skin to skin, never mind if there were fully clothed and barely his finger touched any part of her skin.
He had to bite the inside of his cheek again at what she was doing because she was crouching low with her knees bent and her arms up in front of her, her version of a beginning fighting stance. She was going to be the death of him someday.
As he neared her, his stance deliberately intimidating he noted one thing, he didn't succeed in intimidating her. Instead, she had a serious expression on her face as if anticipating his next move.
Never one to back down from a challenge, he sidestepped and reached for her. Any novice would have frozen up at this point and would be easy prey but she surprised him.
She had been tracking his feet as he moved and somehow correctly read his intend and countered with her own sidestep.
All he caught in his hands was air. She had succeeded accomplishing something that the others had all failed to do, one upping him with her move.
She had been withholding from him.
She either had been holding out on him since the beginning or someone had been training her behind his back.
To confirm this, he went for a move that he knew the one he suspected giving her secret lessons would have taught her so he knew her defensive moves would be automatic.
He threw a wrist aiming at her cheek that she was easy to block, then he went and followed that up with aiming for her other cheek which she also blocked. He went for a series of chops that although slow, she was able to counter. Had his intent been to kill she would have been dead, but his intent had been to fish, so he hadn't been as forceful.
She had more than a few lessons. That was clear. In fact, she would be somewhere in the top of his class if he were to rank her.
Damn Anatoli, he had been training Felicity behind his back. Maybe whenever, he had sent Oliver's elite team on a mission.
And he knew the mob boss enough to know that the man had his own reason for doing this. If nothing else, this more than confirmed in Oliver's mind what he dreaded. He was not only sending Oliver and his elite team in the middle of a war but he would eventually add Felicity into the mix.
Damn Anatoli!
"That's enough!" He called out to her.
He noticed her relied although she had tried to hide it, heaving as she tried to catch her breath. She needed endurance training, he thought to himself. The enemy wasn't going to pause if she was tired or out of breathe.
"How did I do?" She asked him confidence seeping through.
"Still far from good enough to be out on the field."
She was tempted to think that he was just being petty, which he was capable of being but deep inside she knew he spoke the truth. "Then train me! Really train me. Train me on everything I need to know. While you aren't exactly a genius I think you figured out the same thing I figured out. Anatoli isn't going to keep me locked up, and safe inside this fortress forever. The fact that he has volunteered to show me some moves means, it would be sooner than later."
"It should be never! Anatoli should know better!"
"Believe me when I say, I got to know the man and I believe he does know better. He knows that the survival of the bratva is at stake. And no one, not you, not him, not even me should be seated on the sidelines, this war demands all hands on deck."
He let out an angry breath, "did he tell you that?"
Felicity rolled her eyes, "I have this you know," pointing to her brain, "I can figure things on my own. Besides, I've been the one deciphering the data streaming from your Kiev midnight operation. The war isn't coming, it's here Oliver, and we can do nothing to stop it."
The next time Oliver sees Felicity she is in the middle of her Russian language lessons courtesy of the pakhan himself.
They were in the library, the mob boss and his student while a couple of mob soliders stood guard outside.
Rather than interrupt them, he just walked pass the room and made his way to his office, Krug and Krum followed him as usual.
The next morning Oliver frowned at what he was seeing as he entered the smaller kitchen of the mansion. Krug and Krum each had a bowl in front of them, twins smiles on their faces as they gazed up at Felicity no doubt under her spell, just like he was.
As soon as she spotted him, she turned around and busied herself with whatever. Oliver for his part took a seat beside his men confused when he noticed what they were eating.
A bowl of fruit loops. Really! Since when did the bratva have fruit loops or any kind of cereal for that matter in the pantry. He suspected, like many other changes he had noticed in the mob mansion this was Felicity's doing. As usual, the house cook and the housekeeper didn't even bother to protest but rather had probably placed the order for several boxes as soon as the words had left her lips.
Not so very slowly, the atmosphere in the mansion had evolved from dark and gloomy to one that had spots of light and sunshine as splashes of color, maybe a few pastel colored throw pillows, brighter curtains, fresh flowers brightened up the rooms. These were just some of the changes he noticed. He had no doubt that it was her doing, Felicity.
He didn't notice a bowl pushed toward him until it was right in front of his face so lost as he was in his thoughts.
"Stop brooding and eat. I'm sure it's been awhile for you as it had been for me. I finally convinced Anatoli to have some American staples around. While the food isn't really bad, I still crave for a few favorites from back home."
Oliver pushed his bowl toward Felicity noticing that she didn't have one in front of her, as she took her seat in front of him.
She pushed back the bowl toward him. "nah ah, this one's yours. I had my bowl earlier. I'm just waiting on those world-class waffles that chef Krys is making for me. His strawberry ones are the best."
Oliver thought back to his younger days at the Queen Mansion when Raisa, their family housekeeper taught him how to make strawberry waffles. It had been Raisa's mission to teach him some basic recipes so that when the need arose, he could cook for his woman. The surest way to win a woman's heart where some skills in the kitchen according to the housekeeper. At that time he just laughed, he never did cook for any woman, definitely not breakfast because he rarely if ever stayed the night after a sexual encountered. Not even during the times he was supposedly a 'boyfriend' to some girl. He just wasn't that type of guy.
But for some reason, just the mere mention of Felicity for her preference for those strawberry pancakes made him want to breakout his long forgotten and still untested kitchen skills, just for her.
In fact it excited him to the point of promising himself that one of these days, he would make her those if she really were partial to them if only to put a smile on her face and do something that special for her.
One of these days he would make that happen, just not today.
His mind wandered yet again to a time sometime in the future when he and Felicity would be having breakfast in bed, which he cooked of course, she swollen with his child the double doors that led to the Queen Mansion gardens which was his mothers pride and joy open as they both enjoyed the spring of flowers in bloom.
He sighed, his head bent because this was a future that was never going to happen.
That his life as Oliver Queen, heir to the Queen fortune was over the moment the gambit had gone down. The Oliver Queen of that time had died that day and with him all the hope and dreams of a future family.
In its place he had embraced his new life fully as Oliver the bratva captain because that was his life now, at least until death finally took him. And that life would never be something Felicity deserved.
"Brother, why are you brooding?" Anatoli asked Oliver handing him a bottle of vodka while he held on to two tumblers.
"I've never realized what kind of master manipulator you were before, but then again I should have known. I mean you wouldn't have become pakhan and stayed the mob leader if you weren't, but sending an innocent woman to her death, that's a new kind of low isn't it."
"Oliver, I've always thought you were smarter than most but if you want to brand me a barbarian who sends women to fight a battle that was meant only for men, then maybe you aren't as smart as I thought you were. It isn't about gender. Our enemies wouldn't stop to discriminate between men, women and even children. This is a war."
"But at what cost!" Oliver said shouting as he stood up to face the pakhan.
Anatoli shook his head, "I had never thought I would see the day when your judgment would be clouded by a woman. But then again the woman in question is quite exceptional. And despite what you think, I do have a fondness for the woman too. She is like a daughter to me. All the more so she is not sheltered but rather exposed to the harsh realities of the world we exist. It would make her even stronger. This is for her as much as this is for the organization."
Oliver narrowed his eyes at the pakhan, because in a way the boss had revealed part of his hand, "she was not meant to stay with us forever. You and even me when I chose to be marked," landing his hand on his shirt that had the bratva tattoo underneath, "chose this life, to die for the brotherhood if needed. She didn't."
Anatoli shrugged, choosing to open the bottle of vodka and take his time to pour out a measured amount of alcohol on each glass and handing Oliver one before he answered, "you are correct. In the beginning it wasn't her choice. But even you would have to agree that no one his keeping her from walking away at this point, that the threat over the head of her mother has long ceased to be her motivation. She has found a family here, and I'd reckon a large part of that is due to you."
"You're twisted."
Anatoli laughed heartily, "so I have been told occasionally. Nonetheless, what I speak off is the truth. It is you who is clouded. But I don't blame you, love, especially young love can be all consuming."
"You don't know what you are talking about," Oliver denied before he drowned the tumbler of vodka offered.
"On the contrary, I've never been more sure of my opinion. Don't get me wrong brother, I've already told you I look at Felicity as the daughter I never had. There is no one else who I would have approved of who deserved her."
"Some father you claim to be if you plan to send her out to war."
"Believe me Oliver, if you weren't in the equation, I won't even consider it. Even if it was the difference between winning and losing this war."
Oliver rubbed his face in frustration, "you're an asshole for passing on that responsibility to me and washing your hands off. A first class one."
"I have been called worst before. I'm doing this because I know you would give up your life for hers, to keep her safe. But do not worry brother, now isn't the right time to send her out. Between you and me, we have time to train her properly. Unfortunately, you lovebirds will have to be apart in a couple of weeks. We have to fight fire with fire before the enemy gains a solid foothold in the northern territory. The north American territory."
"America?"
"Yes Oliver. Very soon it would be time for you to play the shipwrecked survivor. It would be time for you to resurrect Oliver Queen. It is imperative that we take advantage of that window of opportunity."
Assessing the younger mans hesitation he went in for the kill.
"There is no choice to make Oliver. If you and Felicity would have any kind of future that would involve less of this madness, it has to be done. Do it for her."
Eeekkkkk…..screaming! Did you scream along with me?
