I dunno, didja maybe kinda forget to review? how could I go a whole chapter without one review... ONE! arghhhh... it's my birthweek... be nice...
AN: This is very important! I have started my own makeup line, inspired by certain shows... one is obviously Teen Wolf... would anyone SERIOUSLY buy it, once I go live? Alpha, beta, and Omega eyeshadow to start :) Firefox, banshee, hunter, stuff like that. any one? i'll be opening an ETSY store... so who wants the link? respond with I!
So... i got a tumblr for all this stuff :) my username is psychobarbieswriting Please follow me, please check me out there. You can send me prompts for drabbles and ficlets there. and you can send me art for any story I have there...
yayyyy
about this story: You should know, I'm condensing the season of Arrow into the time that Cat is gone from Beacon Hill... I mean, why not, ya know?
... ... ...
Cat was on her laptop, trying to hack the stupid manifesto when a bright light lit up her room and an explosion was heard.
"Ah, shit." She murmured to herself, grabbing her phone and climbing out through the window and up to the roof. It was exactly as she feared, another bomb had gone off and this time she was given no warning. She called Felicity.
"Lina, can you get here?" She asked when she picked up.
"Do you want me to help Oliver?"
"No," Oliver's voice came on the line, Felicity having conferenced her in to their conversation that already taking place. "I'm following him, on my bike. Get to the lair, see if you can track him down on a computer."
Cat sighed but hung up, knowing that he was more than likely doing this on purpose to keep her out of anything and everything for the time being. She contemplated ignoring him and going to help but with no vision to give her insight, it wouldn't exactly be super easy to find them. So instead she went back into the apartment, grabbing her keys and heading to the lair.
When she arrived, Diggle was sitting, reading a tablet and Felicity was hunched over one of the computers, looking completely frustrated.
"What's wrong?" Cat asked.
"He scrambled his signal." Felicity replied, looking ready to pout. "We lost him."
"What happened?" Oliver asked, storming into the lair and making a beeline for Felicity.
"He's using cellular technology to detonate his bombs. Clearly his expertise extends to obscuring that signal."
"Felicity, your expertise is supposed to trump his." Oliver snapped, walking away.
"Excuse me?" the blonde asked turning in her seat before slowly getting up. "If you have something to say to me Oliver, than say it."
He turned on her again. "People are dying. So I would like you to pull your head out of Central City and get back in the game."
"Sure, right after you get yours out of your ass." She shot back, her cheeks flushing in anger.
"Excuse me?" Oliver asked this time, looking at her in disbelief that she would say that to him.
"Alright." Diggs tried to diffuse the situation. "Let's just take a step back."
"No." Felicity snapped. "I want to know what that crack about Central City was supposed to imply?"
"When the first bomb went off, you weren't here. When the second bomb went off, you sent me the wrong way." Oliver's tone was harsh and Cat moved closer, ready to get in between them before it became a yelling match.
"After you didn't catch him in the first place." The blonde cried, looking ready to burst into tears.
"Don't blame me 'cause you didn't have it tonight. I bet Cat would've done it properly."
"Don't you dare bring me into this." Cat warned him.
"I need some air." Felicity hissed, pushing past him and rushing out of the room.
Cat stepped up and took her place, glaring at Oliver with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Find him." He told her, turning away but she grabbed his arm, pulling him back.
"Don't ever talk to me that way." She snapped. "And you better apologize to City. How dare you try to make her feel worse by throwing me in her face. I wouldn't know anything about hacking if not for her."
"But you wouldn't have screwed this up."
"Neither did she." Cat stepped forward, giving his shoulder a small push, noting it was making him angry and not caring. "So, he got one over on us? How was she supposed to know he could scramble signals? Felicity's not psychic you know."
"But you are. How come you didn't warn me?" He asked, switching topics and making her the new subject of his ire. "You were told about the last one, how come you didn't know about this one?"
"I knew like 2 seconds before the last one." She exploded. "I wasn't given any type of warning about this one."
He stepped closer to her, his eyes narrowing. "Then maybe you should try harder. Then maybe we could catch him long before he kills anyone."
Cat's eyes flashed blue as she shoved him back, watching him stumble back into the table. "Go to hell, Oliver. Don't you dare blame everyone's death on me."
She stomped past him, following after Felicity who was in the alley, wiping at her eyes. She attempted to give Cat a smile, failing miserably at it and Cat didn't really blame her. She wanted to comfort her friend but she was too angry at Oliver herself. How dare he tell her to try harder, he knew everything she went through when the Nogitsune was messing with her and she was being blamed for things going wrong, yet here he was blaming her.
"Want to go home?" She blurted out instead.
Felicity nodded with a small sniffle.
"Want to stop and get some ice cream?"
Another nod and they walked to her car.
"You look mad, did he say something else?" Felicity asked when they were on the road.
"Yeah but that's not important, it was a dig at me, not you, it became my fault."
"He's such an asshole."
"An asshole you're completely head over heels for." Cat replied, a teasing tone to her voice.
"No." Felicity protested.
"Right." Cat dragged the word out, wondering how neither Felicity nor Oliver could see they were completely in to each other.
"What?" Felicity asked, looking completely innocent.
"Nothing." Cat muttered, pulling into a nearby diner that claimed to have the best ice cream sundaes. They got out of the car and went inside, going up to the window to order, making small chit chat as they waited for their sundaes. When their numbers were called, Felicity grabbed her hot fudge sundae as Cat grabbed her large Banana split and moved to a table.
"You're seriously not eating that." Felicity said, staring at it in awe. The thing was massive. It had to be the worlds largest banana with about 6 different kinds of ice cream. Cat only shrugged as she dug into her sundae, telling Felicity about her insane metabolism in between bites. In fact when she was done hers, she finished off the last of Felicity's, who was staring at her with wide eyes.
"I can't get fat, even if I tried." Cat told her with a grin, licking the spoon as she glanced up at the television in the diner. She waved Felicity towards it and they both watched as Sebastian Blood talked about having a rally for the city.
"He's crazy." Felicity cried. "There's a bomber out there and he wants to gather people together?"
"I met him last night, I don't like him." Cat told her. "There's something off about him."
"Like what?"
"You got me." Cat replied with a shrug. "I just don't like him. Besides, this is all a ploy to look like he's amazing and to get people to vote for him as Mayor. I wouldn't vote for him." She finished, making a face.
"Maybe because you can't even vote yet?" Felicity teased her.
"I totally can by the time elections roll around." She cried. "If I was actually a citizen of this city, which I'm not but I don't think you should vote for him either."
"Oliver is." The blonde reminded her.
"Ugh, Oliver deserves to be kicked in the face right now. He was so out of line. So let's not talk about him, how about I finish telling you about Stiles."
"I can't believe he showed up here." Felicity all but squealed. "That's so romantic."
Cat grinned, turning the topic towards her and Stiles as she caught Felicity up on everything.
… … …
The next day, Cat and Felicity were in the lair, against Cat's better judgement, taking another crack manifesto. The guy was good and Cat almost missed the days of small town security and her ability to crack through anything in very little time.
"Hovering over us isn't going to make something magically appear." Cat called out without looking up from her screen.
"How can he be hidden from you both?"
"Because I'm a 17 year old high school student, who just might be a computer genius but that doesn't make me the best in the world."
"Cant you try and see something?" Oliver asked.
Cat frowned, reigning in the anger that sparked up inside her. "Don't go there again Oliver."
"Maybe we should just head to the Rally." He muttered.
"Hold on." Felicity cried. "I got something. The bomb remnants we got from Lance, I just finished analyzing them and the designs identical to bombs used by an anti-government militia group called The Movement. Lucky for us, they have a very active and hackable message board." She typed a few more things before the board appeared on Cat's computer screen and she began to scroll through it, coming across a name.
"Oh my god." Cat whispered in disbelief.
"What?" Oliver said, turning to her.
"Shrapnel, souvenirs, rally." She spoke the words she had come out with the night of the first bombing. "He will do something at the Rally, he goes by the name Shrapnel-"
"And he owns a souvenir shop right here in Starling City." Felicity finished. "I got his IP address through the group."
"Do you need back up?" Diggle asked.
"No, I need you at the Rally."
"What about me?"
He frowned as he stared at Cat, wondering what to do. There was no point in them both going to the souvenir shop but he was leery about sending her to the Rally. If something were to happen and she lost control, that would be bad news for them all.
"You're going to make me stay here, aren't you?" She replied with a pout.
"For now, I'll go to the Souvenir shop, Diggs will go to the Rally and we'll call you when we discover something."
"That's your way of keeping me out of the public." Cat said with a raised eyebrow, turning back to the computer. "Fine, whatever."
Oliver opened his mouth to say more but thought better of it, turning to get ready instead.
"Cat…" Felicity started.
"You called me Cat." The redhead mumbled.
"Well, everyone else is down here, I'm getting used to it for when you're on the field."
"I'm not going back out to the field." Cat said with a sigh. "I'm a liability, in case you haven't noticed. Oliver will do everything to keep me out of it."
Felicity waited until the guys left before speaking again. "Then show you're not a liability."
"How?" Cat asked.
"Go to the Rally. If you think he's going to hit there, then go and help Diggs."
Cat frowned, scrolling through the website some more as she thought about the pro's and con's before jumping up, realizing Felicity was right. She was no use just sitting here, waiting for Oliver to decide when she could handle being out in public. She was Catalina Francesa Danvers, a badass before any of this stuff had happened and she wasn't going to sit around while innocent people died.
"I'm going." Cat cried.
"Not like that." Felicity told her. "I bought you something on the way home when I felt super guilty about missing the full moon. Don't tell Oliver I stopped, that would just give him more ammo. It's over there with your bow." She pointed to where Cat kept her bow, and the redhead walked over to it, pulling some clothes out of a bag, she held them up and looked at Felicity with a raised eyebrow.
"Seriously?"
"Well Oliver wears green, Roy has a red hoodie and Sarah wore black but well, there weren't a lot of color choices."
"Who's Sarah?" she asked in confusion.
"I'll tell you after, I thought the it would be nice, make you feel like you're part of the team."
"Leather?" Cat asked in astonishment.
"Yeah, well Oliver once told me that the leather is very protective."
Cat sighed but moved to go change anyways, pulling the black leather pants on, followed by a black long sleeve top and hoodie. She could learn to move with the pants but would be more comfortable with her old leather jacket that Erica had bought her what seemed forever ago, as opposed to the one Felicity had given her. As she looked at herself in the mirror, admiring how the pants hugged her curves. She pulled out her phone, quickly snapping a picture and sending it to Stiles, who's reply was almost instantaneous, full of capitals and exclamation marks. Cat smiled, skipping out of the bathroom to join Felicity again.
"You look… dangerous." Felicity noted with a grin.
"These are hot, definitely hot. I might use them to seduce Stiles later." She grinned as Felicity stood up and moved to another section, pulling another bag out of hiding.
"And to top it off, I found this in Barry's belongings, he made one for Oliver and I'm guessing he was making one for you after he found out about you, so here you go." Felicity held out something in her hand and Cat took it, turning it over to realize it was a black mask. She glanced up at the blonde in surprise.
"Obviously Barry thinks you're meant to be a superhero and well, I do too."
"I don't know if I can do this." Cat whispered. "I don't know if I can go out there and not hurt someone who's innocent."
Felicity stepped forward, grabbing her shoulders. "Lina… Cat… You won't hurt someone, I know you won't and you need to have more faith in yourself. You are full of greatness, so stop trying to hide it." She let go, reaching into the bag for one more item. "I also took another page out of Sarah's book and got you a wig so no one will know it's you."
Cat took the wig. It was dark brown, long and curly and reminded her so much of Allison that it hurt.
They were interrupted by the beeping of the phone, signifying Oliver was trying to talk to them and both girls put their headsets in so they were connected.
"Felicity." Oliver whispered.
"Here. Did you find him?" The blonde asked.
"No, he said he rigged the plaza with an explosive device."
Felicity turned to glance at the TV where the Rally was happening live. "Oliver, it's crazy town there, that bomb could be anywhere."
"I can narrow that down, give me Diggle."
"Why are you whispering?" Cat asked as Felicity went about connecting them to Diggs.
"Go." Diggle said by way of greeting.
"Shrapnel said he rigged the perimeter with RDX." Oliver told him.
"On it."
"You're heading to the plaza too, right?" Felicity asked.
"Not yet." Came Oliver's reply. "I need you to pull up anything you can on the store. Blueprints, permits, schematics, anything."
"He has you trapped there, doesn't he?" Cat asked.
"Yes, I can't move."
"I'll come help you."
"No." Oliver all but yelled. "Just get me what you can."
"I'm going to help Diggs." Cat decided.
"Cat, no." Oliver's voice was loud again before he quickly lowered it. "You need to stay there."
"And you need to worry about getting out of there and not about me." Cat replied, squeezing Felicity's shoulder before taking off, putting the wig on as she hurried up the steps.
"Cat, don't do anything stupid." Oliver was hissing.
"Okay, I got something." Felicity said, pulling the attention away from Cat who yanked the ear piece out of her ear so she could concentrate on getting to the Plaza. The streets were jam packed with cars and foot traffic so she left her car, running along the sidewalk and keeping to the shadows as much as possible.
She reached the plaza, moving around the outside as she looked for Diggle, keeping her head down so she could remain inconspicuous. She had forgoed the mask for now and she knew she was unrecognizable but it was better to be safe than sorry. She quickly found him and ran up to him.
"Have you found it yet?"
"Excuse me? Found what?" Diggs asked, trying to look innocent.
"Disguise worked." Cat said with a smirk, following him to the next speaker. "It's me Diggy."
"Cat, you look… way different."
"Kind of the point."
"Got it." He noted as he looked through the back of the speaker. He held a hand to ear, speaking into the headset he had. "I'm on the east side, I found the trigger." He glanced over at Cat. "this is all in the sound equipment."
Felicity ran up to them, slowing down when she saw the trigger.
"Shrapnel activates it by cellular transmission."
Diggs nodded. "So we don't have to disarm it, just disable it."
"I can do that, I think." Felicity glanced up at both of them. "I hope."
"Be careful." Diggs warned her. "He probably put a safeguard, tampering with it could set it off."
"Step away, or we all know how this ends."
All three turned to see a man pointing a gun at them while holding up the trigger in his other hand. Cat could feel Diggs muscles tensing and as he went to charge the guy, who she could only guess was Shrapnel, she pushed him aside just as the gun went off and she felt searing pain in her shoulder. Around them people screamed, Felicity yelled her name and Cat glanced down at the wound on her shoulder, noting that this was something completely new for her. She glanced back up with a growl and saw Shrapnel's eyes widen in fear and she knew her eyes were glowing, her fangs out and she could see the claws on her hand.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked, staring at her in horror.
"Cat, fight this." Felicity whispered, grabbing her hand.
Cat shook her head, realizing her friend was there and took a deep breath, pushing the anger away as she felt the claws and fang recede. When she opened her eyes, Shrapnel had moved away from them, disappearing into the crowd but Cat quickly found him as he tossed something up into the air and in one swift movement, she grabbed her bow, pulling out an arrow and shooting at it, just as another arrow hit it. The bomb exploded in mid air as everyone began to scream and Cat glanced around to see Oliver there on his bike, having shot the other arrow.
"Cat." He yelled for her, knowing she was nearby and she ran over, jumping on the back as he took off after Shrapnel who was trying to escape them.
"Gun or arrow?" She asked as he drove his bike up the stairs and Shrapnel turned to shoot at them.
"Arrow, no killing." He told her, dodging the bullets.
She pulled another arrow out, aiming at Shrapnel's gun and shooting it out of his hand, hearing Oliver mumble nice under his breath as he skidded to a stop beside the bomber. Cat jumped off the back, raising her bow and aiming it at the guy. Oliver was right behind her but didn't get the chance to raise his bow as Shrapnel turned to them with a trigger in his hand
"Drop the bow." He cried. "I have charges planted all over Starling City. I drop this stick, they all blow and there will be nothing you, nor that freaky thing beside you, can do about it."
"Cat." Oliver softly began.
Cat nodded, seemingly knowing what he wanted as she relaxed and slowly put her bow on the ground.
"Just don't do anything stupid." She pleaded with the guy, looking desperate.
Shrapnel turned to her and Cat could see Oliver out of the corner of her eye, lift his bow, shooting at the guy's trigger and breaking the wire in half. Shrapnel turned back to him and began hitting the button before he realized the trigger had been shot in half.
"Cat?" Oliver said her name again and she grinned, stepping forward and punching him in the face, knocking the guy out.
She turned with a smile and he only raised an eyebrow at her, walking back to his bike.
"Nice hair." He commented.
"Yeah, I know. Felicity hooked me up." She got on the back of his bike as the police appeared and converged on the bomber. Oliver started up the bike and took off before the police could approach them. They got back to the lair and went downstairs to where Diggs and Felicity were, having cleared out from the Plaza the moment Oliver had arrived.
"You took a bullet for me." Diggs said, the moment she came into view. "You didn't have to."
"You were shot?" Oliver asked, reeling on her.
"Oh, right, I was." Cat said with a frown, her shoulder burning now that she remembered. She yanked the wig off, along with the hoodie and shirt, leaving her in only a sports bra as she looked at the bullet wound. The bullet was still in her and she knew she had to get it out before it healed over. Having to cut herself open again to get to the bullet was not her idea of fun, she had to do it for Scott once.
"Sit down." Oliver steered her towards a chair, pushing her into it as he moved to get the first aid supplies. He stopped to speak to Diggle for a few moments before the taller man clasped his shoulder and called out a goodbye to the girls and left. Felicity disappeared, not wanting to watch him pull the bullet out of her friend as Oliver sat down in front of her, looking at her shoulder.
"You're not bleeding anymore." He noted. "In fact, this hole, looks… small-ish?"
"It is." Cat told him. "You better get it out quick before it heals. Cutting me open to retrieve it, not so much fun."
He smiled at her. "And you've done that before?"
"For Scott, once, I almost threw up."
"I can guarantee you that I won't throw up." He grabbed some tweezers, moving closer so he could dig out the bullet.
She let out a small grunt of pain, watching him as he pulled it out, dropping the bullet on the table beside them. He grabbed a cloth, cleaning the blood from her shoulder as he stared closely at the wound.
"It's healing." He noted.
"Yup." She replied, glancing around to make sure Felicity was still not around. "You need to apologize to her."
He sighed, leaning back. "I know. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have gotten on your case about seeing something. I shouldn't have pushed you."
"Good. Thank you." She replied. "but City's the one who's really hurt and if you make her this upset again, I have no problem punching a hole through your chest."
He smiled in amusement before it dropped, seeing the serious look on her face. "You're serious."
"Very." She replied just as the blonde came back in, smiling at Cat.
"You stopped transforming." Felicity reminded her. "I mean, he shot you, I don't blame you for shifting but you stopped it right away, that's good right?"
Cat nodded as she stood up and grabbed a shirt to pull over her, smiling at her blonde friend. "Thanks to you City, you pulled me back."
She smiled at her young friend. "You came back though, you didn't hurt anyone, I told you that you could do it and you did."
"Thank you." She grabbed Felicity's hand and squeezed. "I need to grab something from my car, I'll meet you there, okay?"
The blonde nodded and Cat hurried away, smiling as Oliver began his apology to Felicity.
… … …