I swear to God that 3x20 promo is all I'm ever going to be thinking about for the foreseeable future. And then some.
Hero, Hacker, Soldier, Sidekick
Felicity was acutely aware of how dry her mouth was, and the very real effort it took to stay seated, when every instinct told her that putting a few dozen feet between her and Sandra was the smartest thing to do.
But unless she wanted to step straight off the twenty-seventh floor and see if gravity was willing to make an exception for her — distance was not an option.
She still had a vivid recollection of the time Helena Bertinelli had visited her back in Queen Consolidated's IT department…and the rope burns after the fact. At least the office walls were glass, so the possibility of being physically assaulted was at a minimum.
Even so, she stared at Sandra's outstretched hand like it was a grenade. "Sandra — Sandra Hawke," she said nervously, as alarms went off inside her head. "The college girlfriend. The scary one. The one who can — disembowel me — with her pinky finger."
Sandra raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow as reclined into an office chair, crossing her long (and very leggy) legs at the knee. "Do you always talk this much?" she remarked, her dark eyes subjecting Felicity to a wordless appraisal.
Felicity stared at the point of Sandra's needle-sharp stilettos and tried not to imagine them going through her skull. She cleared her throat, loudly. "Only when I'm fearing for my life," she said, with a flippancy that was nowhere near genuine. "At the risk of sounding completely elementary-school, I don't think I should be talking to you."
"Fine." Sandra tossed her head, surveying the people passing Felicity's office with a razor-sharp smile. "Now tell me who I should kill. Personally, I wouldn't miss the blabbermouth manning the desk outside, but — well — ladies' choice."
Felicity leaned back in her chair, determined not to take the bait. "What do you want, Sandra?" she said, slowly.
Sandra smirked and surveyed Felicity over her clasped hands. Her fingernails were painted — a highly appropriate — blood red, and glinted like metal-tipped claws. "I heard about you and Oliver on the news," she said, indicating her left hand, ironically adorned with a fancier collection of rings than the simple titanium band Felicity wore. "Well done. The Ollie I knew in college wasn't exactly…commitment-friendly. And look at him now: dabbling in a little vigilante romance, making plans to marry the small town girl. Really — you've done the impossible. You've actually given Ollie a shot at being decent."
"Well, five years on a deserted island will do that to you," Felicity said, wondering if Sandra was intentionally making Oliver seem like a disobedient dog who'd learned a new trick. "Not to be rude — even though most people who preface whatever they're saying with not to be rude actually do want to be rude, which I don't, FYI — why are you here?"
"Ah. Well," Sandra said, in her breathy purr. "I don't imagine you'd believe me if I said I came to congratulate you in person."
Felicity didn't see the point of lying — so she didn't. "Not even a little," she answered, flatly.
Sandra laughed. "All right. If it's not already obvious, I know about your nighttime habits, and granted, it's taken me a while to put the pieces together for myself. Hookups between vigilante partners can…make things complicated. But I'm the kind of girl who likes to bask, so let me see if I have this right."
Felicity sighed and adjusted her glasses. First Malcolm Merlyn, now Sandra Hawke. Felicity was starting to wonder if there was a super villain grapevine she wasn't aware of, some kind of newsletter with the hot gossip and cryptic comments (perfect for goading innocent victims like herself) on page six.
"The hero, the soldier, the sidekick…and the hacker," said Sandra, counting them off on her immaculately manicured fingers. "Oliver Queen, wannabe hero, mistakenly thinks he has a singular duty to protect anyone and anything that crosses his path because it'll somehow atone for the blood on his hands. John Diggle, the experienced soldier who can't imagine living without a war to fight, decent balance of brain and brawn, but —" she made a sarcastic moue with her mouth "— more of a loyal dog than partner. Which brings us to Roy Harper, unwanted street urchin with a chip on his shoulder, more temper than training — though I'm sure you think he's working on that — idolizes the vigilante because he dreams of showing the world that it was a mistake to abandon him. Which brings me to…you." She cocked her head with an unnerving smile, taking her own sweet time to reach the last one.
"Felicity Smoak, resident hacker of this little vigilante group. Intelligent, no doubt about that, but not intelligent enough to know where to take your talents. Why run with the gang of dirty boys when you could be running them — an army of them — from above?" Sandra's gaze radiated smugness as she leaned back in her chair. "Couldn't let go…or too afraid to?"
If you ever want to be more than tech support for your little group of boys — you need to make the hard decisions, the tough calls.
Felicity heard Amanda Waller's whisper in her ear, the serpent in the grass, the ghost who refused to slip away. The truth of it must have showed on her face, because Sandra cocked her head with a coy smile, slipping from her seat with an unfurling of her graceful limbs. "I told you I was good," she said, strolling over to the windows.
"Fine — you think you have us figured out," she said. "We're horrible at poker faces, and believe you me, you're not the first psychopath to notice that. So. What?"
Sandra's arms were folded tightly across her chest. The daylight caught traces of brown in her flaming hair, a deep, wooded color that made her look older — and sadder — than Felicity imagined. "It's not going to work out," she said. "All of you are just wasting your time with this city. I have the Starling Bratva under my thumb, but believe me, I don't control the vices around here. Starling City is rotten to the core, and people like you need to stop pretending to make a dent in whatever little charity cause you think you're helping. In this world, you either go big or you go home, and a city like Starling needs a big play. The kind of move that none of you have the guts to make. So get out of our way before we decide to get serious."
"We?" Felicity repeated.
"Like I said." Sandra's rings glinted under the sunlight when she turned to the window, a dark silhouette against pure white. "Bigger game, bigger players. Why don't you let the adults handle it — while you deal with this."
Felicity's throat tightened as Sandra reached into her bag. In that second, her imagination ran rampant, and it was a surprise when Sandra sent a brown paper envelope skittering across Felicity's desk, spilling photos as it went.
"You're welcome to them," she said, dusting off her hands. "Because I want you to deliver a message to Oliver Queen."
Felicity made no move to touch them. "You do realize that I'm not a courier service, right?" she said, folding her arms.
Sandra inclined her head. "Oh, I'm sure you have better things to do. Except the decision you make here and now will reflect on you as much as it will reflect on Oliver. So my friendly advice is to take a look."
The glare from the windows glazed the photographs an opaque white, making it impossible to see what they were. Her first — and totally inappropriate — thought was nudes (gross, BTW, but in character with Ollie Queen, resident billionaire playboy of the East Coast college scene), but given her recent experience with Sandra, compromising proof of Oliver being the vigilante was possibility numero uno. With a thick swallow, Felicity leaned over the desk and used her fingertip to slide one of the photos out of the glare.
For a long moment, she didn't say a word, because she didn't understand why Sandra was giving this to her. It was a photo of Oliver as a young boy — maybe Martin's age — looking solemnly up at her with his startling blue eyes, wearing some kind of stiff boarding-school-type uniform.
Cute…and making no sense whatsoever. Felicity looked up in confusion, wondering if it was a faux pas to point out that Sandra had grabbed the wrong blackmail envelope. "I don't think Oliver's going to be embarrassed by photos of him as a kid," she said, picking another from the pile. It was him again, same uniform, standing beneath a copse of oak trees — Central City's famous tree-flanked walkway — part of a park that had been recently donated to the city by an uber-rich family. But what else? Felicity frowned as she recalled snippets of Barry's over-enthusiastic fact vomits, him striding ahead on his insanely long legs while she had to keep up at a normal-human walking speed.
Rich family…tallest tree stretched past a hundred-and-fifty feet…and —
"— opened to the public in 2012…" she said, softly.
Felicity's head jerked up, and she stared at Sandra as if she was seeing her for the first time. "Oh my god," she whispered.
It wasn't Oliver in the photo. Not at all.
"You tell Oliver that he has a son, and that his name is Connor," Sandra said, slowly, and deliberately. "You tell him that nine years ago, his mother gave me two million dollars to tell Oliver I lost the baby and disappear, all so an unwanted grandchild wouldn't spoil her golden boy's future." She made a face. "I don't think Moira really imagined Oliver would go down the Robin Hood route, but then again, most people don't have high expectations for narcissistic playboys."
"DNA test," Felicity murmured, gripping the edge of the table so tightly that her knuckles were bone-white. "Bank statements."
"Hidden, but traceable, I'm sure." Sandra swung her bag idly from the crook of her arm with a sweet smile. "That's why I came to you, Miss Smoak. You're smart enough to make sure I'm telling the truth, and you're also naïve enough to think you'll be doing the right thing by telling Oliver. Although you should know that I have zero interest in asking him to play-act at being Connor's father."
"So why tell me?" Felicity said. "You could have given him the proof yourself. You could have sat on it forever — and with two million dollars, I'm guessing you can do a lot of comfortable sitting."
"Call it curiosity. Maybe I'm interested to see what the woman good enough for this new Oliver might do — you know — when she finds out that her fiancé comes with a lot more emotional baggage than a few dead parents. How does one broach that taboo, I wonder?" Sandra shrugged, as if it was a casual conversation about the difference between Earl Grey and Chai. "Well, you'll let me know."
Connor Hawke's solemn face looked out from the photographs spread across Felicity's desk as Sandra sauntered towards the door.
"Oh, and —" she said, with a glance over her shoulder. "My sincere congratulations on your engagement."
To say a bomb had been dropped would be an understatement of colossal proportions. There were nuclear bombs, and then there were black-hole-warp things Barry and Cisco were eternally geeking out about. Felicity — in a rare show of pessimism — was starting to think that the latter was true.
Felicity sat in her office chair, her back to the door as she stared blankly at the photo in her hands. Shock being the longstanding enemy of physical coordination, it was creased around the corners and battered at the edges from her not-so-careful handling.
Felicity had — without intending it — memorized the boy's face, to the point where she was sure that she'd see it in her sleep, all but branded into the backs of her eyes…this child with an expression that dwarfed his years. Sadness was etched into his gaze, the kind of sadness someone of his age shouldn't have to imagine, much less live with.
"Who are you?" she asked, softly. What happened to you?
Felicity turned her chair at the sound of the computerized beep, a summary of results gleaned from a hack into every conceivable channel for information regarding Connor Hawke. Even though it wasn't her habit to follow the advice of Oliver's psychopathic ex-girlfriends, she had to do this. Lie or truth, they needed to know.
And now she did.
Felicity was really starting to think that there was no such thing as a secret staying buried — not for long, anyway. Moira had probably destroyed most of the paper records, and to her credit, it might have worked. Except she hadn't considered the possibility (bearing in mind it was 2007) of someone like Felicity looking into the subject, a part-time investigator operating exclusively in the intangible sphere of digitized secrets. Moira's behind-the-scenes involvement with her first grandchild had been meticulously complete, and while it was clearly meant to be a well-kept secret, Felicity was surprised to see just how much she'd cared, to even keep track of a child she wasn't meant to see ever again.
The hospital had sent a sample to a private clinic in Starling City, one with an encrypted (but easily hackable) database. Steadily, Connor's file began to grow with facts, scattered pieces of information that formed a hazy picture of his life.
Felicity took a deep breath as she began to read.
He was nine years old, ten in April. Surprisingly, he wasn't in Starling City, but currently a fifth-grader (he'd skipped a year, wow) in a Central City boarding school famous for its Ivy League reputation and out-of-middle-class-range school fees. He was good at sports (phys ed grades were good, gymnastics especially), but he didn't play for any of the school teams. His grades were on the higher end of the spectrum, and he'd been tapped to be a prefect the following academic year.
Felicity stared at his B+ in Algebra for longer than was probably necessary, wondering why she felt relieved that he was at least turning out to be better at math than Oliver.
His father.
Felicity winced at her mental acceptance of the fact that Connor was Oliver's son. But in all fairness, it was hard to resist the truth when it stared her so baldly in the face. Despite the fact that he'd never met his father — despite the fact that they were twenty-two years, stellar report cards and a family upbringing apart — Connor Hawke was already showing more than just a mild resemblance to Oliver Queen.
A Queen in blood, if not in name. A boy destined for something remarkable.
This boy…was real. Felicity could have stretched out and touched his shoulder — that was how he seemed about to vibrate off the page. Part of it was her imagination, maybe her subconscious had made up a child — hers and Oliver's — and was adding onto the very tangible fact that Oliver had a real son in the world, more real than any dream-child of theirs could ever be.
A selfish, possessive part of her wanted to guard this information from Oliver, to erase it from her mind. Sandra said it herself — she didn't want Oliver involved, so what was the point? It was a mistake learning too much about Connor, to nourish the bare bones of her sparse awareness with the very real flesh-and-blood details that prevented him from ever reverting to a dream. It wasn't the first time a woman in Oliver's life had dropped a family bombshell on her. Moira had done the same — except it had been about Thea, and she'd been so sure that Felicity would never tell Oliver if it meant that he'd hate the blonde IT girl with a very obvious crush.
If Sandra's motives were anything like Moira's, her telling Oliver would be playing into Sandra's hands — if Sandra wanted to drive a wedge between her and Oliver (reason for that still pending, but probably understandable, given what she knew about Oliver's romantic history).
But.
Felicity had grown up without her father and had the insatiable hunger of not knowing embedded into her bones, her DNA. Maybe it would have been easier, if she'd been sure that he was a bad father, to convince herself that life was better without him. But the gap in her knowledge and the unanswered questions had a tendency to fuse with the acerbic shadows of doubt, self-loathing, and loneliness.
Maybe she'd been too easy to leave behind, too insignificant to be a reason for him to stay. Maybe there was something deeply wrong with her, maybe it drove him away. Maybe he was the worst father in the world, a selfish sub-human with nothing to love. Maybe he had his reasons — real, legitimate reasons — and still dreamed of the day when they could be a family.
Knowing was always better than a why — that was what Felicity believed.
Oliver might disagree, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she had to tell him. There was never any question about it, so Sandra had been right. Though not about all of it, because even Felicity — with all her knowledge of Oliver's habits, his fears and his dreams, both good and bad — didn't know what would happen when she told him.
When. Not if.
Felicity was going to. Her fingertips curled against Connor's photo as she turned her chair to face the window, to face the Starling City skyline — rosy with the colors of a fading day.
In, out. Three deep breaths.
Carefully, she slipped the photo back into the envelope, and the envelope into her bag, a methodical progression from one action to another. She pinched the clasp shut and nodded, firm in her decision, her choice.
"I'm going to tell him," she said, quietly.
I literally wrote this after sleeping from 2AM to 5AM. I blame the promo. But I can't, actually, because that thing was AWESOME. *He takes off her glasses* *he takes off her glasses* (and does some other stuff too but mostly the glasses thing) *happy dancing*
If 3x20 turns out to be as awesome as the promo suggests, I will forget the whole character black hole that was Ray Palmer.
Also, I have somewhere in my computer a scene I wrote for our favorite couple, involving a wedding. So yep, that should be fun. Gonna unleash it when the story gets to a certain point.
Now, about the Connor storyline. Obviously, since I still have the mental capacity of a child, I'm not going to be a 100% accurate about what happens when someone finds out they have an nine-year-old kid somewhere in the world. Going off pure imagination here. I'll try my best, and I just hope it'll be enough.
Unashamed to say that I'm basing Sandra off Katherine Pierce circa Vampire Diaries season 2 (AKA before all the weird doppleganger nonsense spun COMPLETELY out of control).