A.N.: Hey, I'm back! This chapter is really short compared to the last few. I'm sorry, life has been shit and I had writer's block. I was sick of staring at this chapter, so I decided to post it. Sorry if it disappoints anyone out there.
WARNING: made up tech stuff, violence (lil' bit), sad Felicity. Make sure you can handle these.
mjf2468: Thanks so much! Encouragements give me life! I hope you like this and I hope that this year has been kind to you so far.
Verdant20: Your wish is my command! With a 2 month delay, sorry... *hides* Please, don't give up!
When you see grammar mistakes that make you cringe, please repeat the following mantra: english is not her first language, I'll forgive her.
Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow. (duh)
Revelation: A surprising and previously unknown fact that has been disclosed to others.
She couldn't move. Her breathing and her heart were too fast and yet she felt frozen, leaning heavily against the door. Every fiber of her being was telling her to run, scream, anything, but her body wasn't responding. Slade looked completely comfortable on her couch, resting his left leg on his right knee like this was just a business meeting, he was even wearing a suit. Though, considering the knife he just threw at her, it was no ordinary suit.
Felicity glanced to her left, at the knife still embedded in her door, and thought about how devastated her mother would be at seeing pictures of her only child lying in a pool of blood with a knife through her skull. She thought about Oliver finding her body and her stomach knotted so painfully that her right hand flew to clutch her belly. She couldn't let that happen, she needed to calm down.
She took a deep breath and looked at Slade. She was trying to calm down enough to utter a sentence when he spoke.
"Sorry if I startled you." he pointed casually at the knife, sounding amused instead of contrite. "It was just a warning. I'm sure you won't rudely try to avoid our conversation again, will you, Miss Smoak?"
Felicity stood up straight, hoping that her legs would hold her weight and already missing the comfort of the door against her back. She dropped the hand that still clutched at her belly and clenched both her hands into fists at her sides. Swallowing her fear, she answered him, surprised at how even her voice sounded. "Am I supposed to believe you're here just to talk to me?"
"I'm not in the business of deceiving people, Miss Smoak. I don't lie simply for the sake of lying, there's always a purpose. I don't like being lied to, and I'm here because I suspect you don't like it either." his voice was serious, but Felicity could see it in his eyes that he was enjoying this, whatever this was.
"I guess making an effort to deceive people would get in the way of the business of murdering people." she blurted out sarcastically before she could stop herself, her breath catching in her throat when his eyes hardened. She needed to call for help. Felicity cursed the fact that she forgot her phone at QC and thanked her lucky stars that she still had a landline and that she chose to put it on top of her kitchen's counter.
"I didn't come here with the intention of hurting you, but I assure you I won't hesitate to do it if my temper is tested, so I suggest you be careful with your words." Slade said menacingly and she gulped. He paused and continued calmly "Like I said, I'm here to speak with you. I've been waiting patiently for you to arrive; you have a lovely home, by the way, impressive security."
Felicity chose not to focus on his threats, afraid she'd throw up if she did. Her mind focused, instead, on how Slade had managed to enter her apartment without her knowledge. She has a badass security system that she designed herself, motion detectors on all of her windows and a complicated set of locks on her front door. If someone had managed to hack her security system, which was an impossibility, or if anyone had broken through her windows or door, she'd have gotten an alert on her phone, tablet and on the club's computer but…
At her silence, he continued.
"I had to go to great lengths to ensure us a quiet moment together. If I wanted to kill you I didn't have to enter your home, so rest assured that it's not my intention tonight." he paused and looked at her from head to toe, likely noticing how weird she looked in an oversized shirt, yoga pants and heels "I'm sorry that your beautiful dress was ruined, by the way."
Felicity frowned and her heart raced when realization dawned on her.
"The guy in the parking lot. That was you, you sent him." she said slowly, anger seeping into her voice when his smirk confirmed it "I didn't forget my phone, did I? That guy stole it when he bumped into me and put it in my desk to make me think I forgot it. And he broke my tablet on purpose." she paused while she made another connection "And the power outage, you had that transformer blown so that you could intercept the distress signal when you broke into my apartment. God, I'm so stupid."
Felicity didn't know if she was angrier at him for doing this or at herself for not noticing it before. Anyone else on the team would've noticed it, she just knew it, which only proved how much of a weak link she was. She was shaking in anger, glaring at Slade so hard she was sure his head would explode any minute now.
"Bravo, Miss Smoak." he clapped slowly "Don't beat yourself up over it, though. I did think of everything."
Not everything, Felicity thought, struggling not to glance at her kitchen.
"I'm sure you're wondering how I knew about your security measures." he continued and she frowned "I'm afraid I can't take credit for that, Isabel was the one to tell me all about it. You see, Isabel told me all about the IT work you've done at Queen Consolidated. Impressive, really." he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and speaking to her as if they were dear friends sharing a secret. She wanted to barf. "Knowing that, I thought it was likely that you had programmed your home security similar to the one you created in your workplace. Turns out I was right yet again."
Yeah, that was dumb of her. Felicity was feeling all kinds of dumb today. She had one smart move left, though, but for that to work she had to keep him talking.
"Why?" she snapped "Why did you go to all this trouble just to talk to me?"
"I was once fooled by Oliver Queen, Miss Smoak." Slade spoke in a hard voice, like the mere memories were making his blood boil with rage "I believed in him, I thought we were partners, brothers even. But he betrayed me, he lied to me. He lied about being responsible for the death of someone I loved."
"Oliver didn't have a choice-" Felicity said vehemently.
"There's always a choice!" he nearly shouted, straightening his posture on the couch "He could've chosen dying for her. He should've died." he took a deep breath and lowered his voice "But that's not what I'm here to discuss." he pauses, staring at her pensively. "I'm here to talk about you, Miss Smoak."
"What about me?" she asked cautiously.
"I was curious about you, Felicity. May I call you Felicity?" he smiled as she clenched her fists to keep herself from cringing. "Anyway, I did a background check on you, obviously, and I asked myself 'What is a genius level MIT graduate, who could do anything with her life, doing in Oliver Queen's little team?'" Slade paused and she remained silent "The only reasonable answer I could find was the simplest: you believe in him. You believe all his tales of heroism and redemption. As intelligent as you are, I figured you'd know better, Felicity, but I can't really blame you. He fooled me as well; with his secrets and his lies."
"Oliver has never fooled me." she said seriously "Not even in the beginning, when he was actually trying to. I've always seen right through him. He keeps secrets, but I trust that he has his reasons to do so. I know him. You might not believe that, but Oliver is a good person. He doesn't deserve what you're doing to him."
Slade smiled sinisterly. "No, he doesn't. He deserves worse. And I intend to make sure he gets it." he studied her quietly for a few seconds. "Would you still trust his reasons if the secret he kept concerned you?"
She didn't have an answer to that, the only thing that crossed her mind was: What the hell is he talking about? Her confusion must've been evident on her face, though, because he smirked and spoke again.
"Tell me, Felicity, what do you know about your father?" he asked nonchalantly.
"My father?" she questioned dumbly, she didn't see that one coming at all.
"Yes, the renowned Dr. Austin Goodwin. You know that he worked with Anthony Ivo at S.T.A.R. Labs, but do you know what he did after that?" he paused and she stared blankly at him, still trying to wrap her head around this bizarre conversation "No, there wouldn't be any record of this to be found, though I'm sure if there was you'd find it."
"What the hell are you talking about?" she finally blurted out.
"Your father, Felicity, used to be in the employment of the Advanced Research Group United Support, also known as-"
"A.R.G.U.S." she whispered and blinked a couple of times, trying to get her thoughts to stop racing. If her father had been involved with A.R.G.U.S someone on the team must've known that; must've known at least how to find out more about him. Does everyone know but me?
"Precisely." Slade said with a nod of assent "You see, I've met your father, Felicity. And Oliver Queen has met him too."
The multitude of thoughts and questions running through her mind halted suddenly at his words. Felicity could only look at Slade, her mind as blank as her stare while his words sunk in.
"The day I lost my eye, when Queen thought he killed me… Queen wasn't the only one taken by A.R.G.U.S that day." Slade said bitterly. "They wanted to study me; to study the effects of the mirakuru serum on the human body. How much of it the body could take before the heart gave out; how long until it started permanently affecting the nervous system. They wanted to see if they could make the serum stable, stronger, so that it could be used on their agents. Dr. Goodwin was given that task and I… I was his guinea pig. He kept me in a cell for months on end; I was only allowed to leave when he needed me at the lab for tests. I lost count of how many times I died at his hands."
Felicity didn't realize she was crying until she had to blink to clear her vision. She kept swallowing, hoping to clear the knot in her throat, but it seemed useless. Her worst fears about who her father was were being proven true and the pain it brought was the same one she felt when he left her; it was like losing him all over again.
He looked at her knowingly "Queen hasn't told you, has he? Just as I suspected."
Felicity shook her head in denial; it had to be a lie. Slade's mistake was saying that Oliver knew anything. If there was any truth to it, Oliver would've said something, so it all had to be a lie. But if she was sure it wasn't true, why couldn't she shake the feeling of dread forming in the pit of her stomach? Why did her brain keep bringing images of Oliver acting weirdly around her to the forefront of her mind?
"I can see you doubting me, but it's true. Oliver Queen knows your father, Felicity." he said simply.
"No… No! He would've told me." she tried to say firmly, but her voice broke. Oliver wouldn't do that to her. He knew how much she had struggled when she found out her father worked with Anthony Ivo, he comforted her about it. It couldn't be true; he had no reason to hide it from her.
"You don't sound sure of it." he commented lightly as he watched her closely "What you haven't realized yet is: Oliver Queen would do just about anything to protect himself; that includes lying to his close friends."
She kept shaking her head, hoping to clear her muddled brain. The only thought she could focus on was that she had to get away from Slade, she couldn't keep listening to him anymore. Suddenly, Felicity remembered her initial escape plan and, with that goal, her mind started functioning again. She took a few steps back and leaned against the door, trying not to look to her left, at the knife still embedded in the wood.
"You're lying." she said forcefully, putting her hands on top of her head in what she hoped would seem like distress. She wasn't sure if she believed her own words, but she said it anyway, if only to prompt Slade to talk again and distract him. She registered that he responded, but she tuned him out, focusing on his face, looking for an opportunity to make her move. Come on. Come on!
He looked away for a split second and she yanked the knife from the door. Throwing it clumsily at Slade, she ran towards her kitchen without looking back to see where the knife had landed, though she could hear Slade moving to follow her. Felicity reached beneath the granite countertop and pressed the silent panic button she installed there while also grabbing her house phone, pretending like that was her goal all along.
Before she could do anything else, Slade grabbed her by the hair, making her gasp in pain, and took hold of her right wrist, squeezing it until she dropped the phone. He threw her to the floor like a ragdoll and she landed painfully on her right shoulder.
"That was foolish." Slade grunted and stepped forward as she tried desperately to push herself away from him. "You managed to surprise me, I admire that. You have to work on your aim, though, it was poor."
Felicity kicked off her heels, got up quickly and ran towards her bedroom, but, before she could even enter the corridor, a knife swished past her, grazing her left arm and making her stumble. She put her right hand on the wall to keep from falling, groaning at the pain that flared on her shoulder at the brusque movement.
"That was a warning. The next one will draw a lot more blood." Slade snapped.
Felicity turned around and leaned against the wall. "What do you want from me?" she said through gritted teeth, not being able to contain the tears that started flowing down her face.
"I want to show you the truth, Felicity" he said slowly. Slade took a step in her direction, but halted suddenly, bringing a hand up to touch his ear and looking out the window briefly. He looked at her again, studying her intensely "But you don't have to believe me, of course. You can ask Queen, I'm told he's on his way."
Before she could stop herself, her eyes flicked to the kitchen counter. She held her breath, hoping Slade hadn't noticed her glance, but it was too late, he was already walking towards it. Felicity didn't dare move. He skimmed the bottom surface with his fingers, his jaw clenching when he found the panic button.
Turning back to face her, Slade spoke, his voice laced with anger "Apparently, I underestimated you, Felicity."
"You're not the first one to make that mistake." she answered bitingly.
"It's not a mistake I'll be making twice, I assure you." he exhaled in frustration "Sadly, it's time for me to leave. I'd rather not face Queen tonight; I don't want to be tempted. He still has to go through a lot of pain before he earns the right to die." Slade paused "I've learned today that you're not a coward, Felicity, so I hope you don't let yourself forget that Oliver Queen is one."
Slade straightened his tie and walked out the front door, like he hadn't just left a hurricane inside her heart.
A.N.: Was it too anticlimactic considering the cliffhanger? I have a feeling it was, sorry. Review, maybe? They make me want to write.