"Whoa! You weren't kidding!" Lyla exclaimed as she came down the Foundry stairs with little Joy in her hands.
Felicity looked up from her place on the couch and rolled her eyes at her friend.
Of course she wasn't kidding. Did Lyla forget who they were dealing with?
As soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs, little Joy started wiggling in her mother's arms.
"Bubbles!" she squeaked out happily, recognizing the material from their family's recent move to a bigger place.
Felicity chuckled at her goddaughter. "Oh, I see how it is, you find a new toy and forget all about your Aunt Felicity." she told the little girl with a mock-hurt expression.
Joy froze in place. Her dark brown curls bouncing at the sudden halt. She turned to look at Felicity with her big expressive eyes and a sheepish smile.
Next thing she knew, Felicity was having an armful of her goddaughter - or "Kid Flash" as she'd been nicknamed by her extended family for being so quick on her little legs and always causing trouble.
"Love you," Joy smooched a big kiss to Felicity's cheek, who had leaned forward to properly embrace the child.
"Love you too, baby Queen" Joy told Felicity's bulging belly, pressing a quick kiss to it, before springing back onto her feet and towards her newly discovered toy.
Lyla chuckled at her daughter's behavior, being far too used to displays like this, whereas Felicity was smiling widely, not taking her eyes off the little girl.
"Damn hormones," she mumbled, wiping the moisture from her eyes.
"You're really gonna let them do this?" Lyla asked after a beat of silence.
Felicity looked up at her with a defeated expression. "What choice do I have? They already baby-proofed everything when you were pregnant. At least this gives Oliver and Co. something other to do than to hover over me and drive me insane." she explained.
"Oliver & Co.?" Lyla laughed, recalling a certain cartoon.
"Oliver, your husband, Roy, Sara - who came especially for the occasion, and of course where there's Sara there's Nyssa." Felicity sighed.
"You got your own version of the Justice League, huh?" Lyla snickered, brushing a lock of hair from her face.
Felicity frowned at her.
"I don't recall you laughing when you were in my shoes." she grumbled.
"Hey, where's Connor?" Lyla asked, suddenly, after realizing that she couldn't see or hear the boy anywhere, which was very rare. Especially considering that Joy seemed to have a superpower where Connor was concerned. She could find him in a crowded room in record speed.
Felicity groaned and rolled her eyes. "There, with them." she pointed towards the training area, where Oliver and the rest of the team were currently busy working.
"Like father like son, huh?" Lyla joked.
"You have no idea."
"I know it keeps them occupied, but isn't this a bit much?" Lyla asked again, after a moment, unable to wrap her mind around that absurd concept.
Team Arrow has done stupid and overprotective things, but this took the cake.
"I prefer having to crawl in order to get around, than to have to shoo them from my bathroom for privacy because I need to pee." Felicity shrugged.
A ping from their right distracted Lyla from whatever she was about to say.
"I'll get it," she told Felicity, who was in the process of getting up.
"It's just Lance wanting to know how you're doing." Lyla told Felicity.
Felicity rolled her eyes halfheartedly. Quentin Lance was like a father to her, but just like all fathers (her own husband included) he sometimes didn't know when to stop worrying.
"Tell him everything's fine,"
Walking back to her seat - after having pried the nylon away from Joy's mouth - Lyla thought of something.
"Hey, how come they didn't wrap your computers?"
Felicity laughed "I told Oliver that if he so much as breathed on my babies I'll change his Arrow ringtone to Barbie Girl and the only thing they'll hear in the foundry will be Westlife's Greatest Hits until the baby's born. Of course that was followed by the usual threats of monetary fines and all sorts of cyber-horrors."
Lyla laughed. "Well, that's one way to stop them."
"You have your missile-launcher, I have my tablet" Felicity winked at her friend.
They continued laughing for a while until Lyla sobered up suddenly.
"Do you think Oliver would bubble wrap your place, too?" she asked Felicity.
The color on the Blond's face drained completely. The thought hadn't occurred to her this far. It should have. It was a totally over-the-top Oliver thing to do.
"He wouldn't dare." she concluded after a while. "Or I'll tell everyone about that home video of him and Tommy singing their lungs out to Wannabe"