Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow. Double update!

Chapter Nineteen

...Is Paved With Good Intentions

"I've been following Moira for a week now, guys," Dig reported once Oliver had arrived at the base after finishing work. "And I got nothing. She goes to work, she comes home. Occasionally she goes out for dinner. She seems to favour the salmon at Table Salt. That's it."

"Nothing on the phone taps, either," Felicity frowned. "A couple innocuous calls to Malcolm Merlyn, but that's it. No mention of Walter's kidnapping or the Undertaking. It's all regular pleasantries and work stuff."

"Why wouldn't she call him?" Oliver asked bitterly, glaring at the floor. "They're old friends. We're all, old friends."

Felicity chewed the inside of her cheek, rising to her feet and coming over to lean on his shoulder. "This is probably a stupid question," she said softly. "But are you ok?"

"My mom and my best friend's dad are involved in a conspiracy that may have dire consequences for the city," he replied flatly. "And I'm pretty sure they murdered my father and God knows how many others. I'm not planning on using the word "ok" again any time soon."

"Listen," Dig stated briskly. "All we know for sure is that Malcolm and your mother are planning something for the Glades."

"And that Walter was getting too close to it," Felicity added. "That's why they had him kidnapped. We have to find out what this Undertaking is."

Oliver stood suddenly, nearly knocking Felicity off-balance. "I gotta ask her," he declared.

"Oliver, no-" Felicity objected in alarm, but he cut her off with a headshake.

"It'll be fine, Felicity," he assured her. "Just a regular mother-son chat. Nothing to worry about."

She gave him a helpless look, tugging on her ponytail in agitation. "Be careful," she urged him desperately.

"I will," he promised, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door.

An hour and a half later, he called to announce that his mother had blown him off, so they had to come up with a Plan B.

Oliver braced himself, checking in the hall mirror to ensure that there was no trace of guilt at what was about to happen on his expression before he entered the living room. His mother was staring out the window, a troubled expression on her face. She turned when she heard his footsteps, a strained smile forming on her face.

"Walter's upstairs resting," she told him. "I think he's... doing well, don't you?"

"Who took him?" Oliver asked her softly.

Her smile disappeared. "Well, we don't know yet," she reminded him. "But I'm going to make sure all the resources of Queen Consolidated are behind it."

Oliver swallowed. This was hard. Harder than nearly anything else he had ever done before. How could this be happening? "That's the answer that you gave to reporters yesterday," he pointed out lowly. "Tell me the truth."

She scoffed, but her eyes failed to meet his. "I don't know what you mean," she stated.

"I think you do," he refuted her. "A couple months ago, when I showed you Dad's notebook, you seemed to know something. Something about our family being in danger."

"Are you suggesting that I knew something about my husband's kidnapping?" She demanded, voice and face outraged. But he could see the fear in her eyes, and his heart clenched.

"I'm just suggesting that maybe you were scared," he corrected her. He couldn't bring himself to believe that she was doing whatever she and Merlyn were doing out of maliciousness, despite what Dig and Felicity clearly believed. She was his mother. "That maybe you didn't mean for any of this to happen. But it was harder than you thought. And now you're barely keeping your head above water. Please, Mom," he begged. "Let me help you before you drown."

"You need to stop asking these things," she insisted, clearly panicked now. "Do you understand? I need you to stop."

"I can't," he argued back. "I need to know."

All of a sudden, the lights turned off and the room was plunged into darkness.

"Is that a power outage?" His mother asked, frowning in confusion.

"I don't know," Oliver lied as he braced himself. A second later, he felt a pain in his neck and his senses began to blur immediately as the sedative kicked into gear. He collapsed to his knees, hearing his mother calling his name in a terrified voice as he fell unconscious.

"Oliver! Oliver!"

Starling City: 2007

William was howling, and nothing Oliver did could soothe him. He paced the room, holding the unhappy baby close to his chest so Will could hear his heartbeat, he sat in the rocking chair and moved it back and forth repetitively for an hour, he put on lullabies.

Nothing. William wanted his mama to put him to bed, the way she usually did. Although he had acquiesced to Daddy putting him to sleep the night she left, he had now gone almost two days without seeing Felicity, and clearly wasn't taking the separation well at all. Oliver didn't blame for it at all. He missed Felicity too.

"C'mon, kiddo," Oliver begged exhaustedly. "Go to sleep. Daddy's tired, you're tired, we'll call Mommy in the morning, how about that? But tomorrow's not gonna come until you go to sleep, so how 'bout it?"

Will sniffled miserably, breaking Oliver's heart as the baby curled closer to his chest. Just then, there was a loud scream, and it set William to sobbing hysterically all over again, this time out of fright instead of tiredness. Holding his son close and on his guard, Oliver left the nursery. Thea was sticking her head out of the door, pale and nervous looking. Raisa was in the hall, standing just in front of the twelve-year-old with an alarmed expression on her face. He could hear someone crying. It sounded almost like his mom, and it was coming from his parents' bedroom, but it made no sense. Moira Queen never cried, not even when her children or grandson were born, or during his wedding.

What could possibly break the unbreakable?

"Raisa," Oliver said to her, keeping of a façade of calm for Thea's sake, because she looked on the verge of tears and two crying Queens was enough for the moment. "Take Will and Thea back inside her room. Lock the door, and wait for me to come and get you before opening it again."

"Yes, Mister Oliver," the Russian woman who'd been his second mother his whole life said solemnly, accepting the squirming and sobbing baby and cradling him close. "Come on, Miss Thea. We will wait for your brother."

"But Ollie, that sounds like Mom!" Thea objected. "Why is she crying? Ollie?"

"Go with Raisa, Speedy," he insisted, voice strained. "I'll sort it. Just get Will to calm down, please?" Tasked with the care of her adored nephew, Thea gave in and ducked back into the room. He waited until he heard the lock lick before heading down the hall to his mom's room. It felt like sloughing through mud, and his heart was in his throat.

Whatever had happened to make his mom shatter, Oliver didn't want to find out what it was.

"Mom?" He asked carefully, pushing the door open. Moira was on her knees on the carpet, sobbing and shaking. She looked at him with a despairing look.

"Oh, oh Oliver," she wept. "It's-the Gambit! Oh God, oh God, please no!"

Oliver felt himself pale and he grabbed the doorframe in terror. The Gambit. Felicity. His dad.

"What happened?" He croaked out.

"There was a storm," she gasped out, tears streaming down her cheeks, drenching her face. "A, a Category Two. The Gambit-it sent out a distress signal. And now-it's not responding. They're gone, Oliver! Robert, Felicity! They're gone!"

His legs gave out and hit the floor on all fours, his vision blackening. As he collapsed, he almost thought he heard Felicity scream.

Felicity stepped forward, silent as a ghost, after Moira had fallen unconscious on top of her son. The door was closed, Diggle had arranged for the guards to all be away from the area and the outage had been confined to the sitting room, so nobody was likely to notice anything was wrong.

She crouched beside the two Queens, quickly checking them over to ensure that neither was hurt. Once she had ensured that they were merely unconscious, she made her way over to the window and opened it.

Dig was waiting just outside with two gurneys and he gave her a quick nod. She nodded back, maintaining her silence as she again returned to the mother-son pair and first collected Moira, throwing the older blonde over her shoulder in a fireman's carry and carrying her over to the window to pass her out to Diggle. He accepted the woman and laid her out on the first gurney, strapping her in as Felicity went back for Oliver. He was a lot heavier than his mother, but she managed to haul him over and hand him out to her partner, who strapped him in as Felicity climbed out the window to join him, taking care not to disturb the flowers beneath the window.

"You ready for this?" Dig asked her softly as they pushed the gurneys towards the waiting van. Thankfully, the Queens kept their grass cut short enough that there were no lines noticeable from the wheels.

She shot him a stony look. "Not my first interrogation, Diggle," she muttered. She knew how it worked. She'd learned the 'art' of interrogation, using a mixture of psychological and physical torment, in ARGUS, and she had perfected it in the Bratva. It would be a bit harder this time due to her care for Oliver, but she was good at feigning indifference.

On any other occasion, the dark-skinned man would probably have taken the opportunity to try and get more information on her obscured past from her. But this time he simply nodded and accepted it, though she had no doubt he was storing the hint away for another, less fraught, time.

Right now, however, they had a mission to complete.

Oliver struggled back to consciousness, his head pounding and his neck stinging where Felicity had hit him with the dart. It took a moment to remember what was going on. His first attempt to talk to his mom about the Undertaking had fallen through, so he'd come up with this idea instead. After some objections, Felicity had given in and agreed to the plan.

He raised his head, blinking to clear the blurriness from his vision. As expected, his legs were tied to the legs of the chair they'd put him in, and his hands were tied at his back. The ties weren't too tight. Had he wanted to, he thought he could have gotten free, using some of the tricks Felicity and Dig had taught him. But that wasn't the plan, so he forced himself to stay in place, looking around the dimly lit warehouse until he spotted his mom, just across from him. He had no doubt that, unlike for him, the others would have tied her tightly and properly, so she couldn't get away.

"Mom?" He called to her, slightly surprised by the hoarseness of his voice.

"Ol'ver?" She mumbled, blatantly dazed as she stirred. She raised her head, blinking confusedly. She tried to rise to get to him, and shot back to alertness when she realized their situation.

"Mom, are you okay?" He asked, forcing himself to sound genuinely worried and frightened.

"We need to get out of here!" She exclaimed in response, straining against her bonds.

Just then, they heard a soft tap-tap and turned to look in its direction on instinct.

Oliver had never been scared of Felicity, even after discovering that she was the vigilante. Not even listening over the comms as she threatened criminals into compliance, or outright killed them, had made him fear her. He'd simply never felt any fear towards her. Fear for her, yes. Fear of her? Never. How could he, when it was Felicity?

But now he finally understood why the criminals of Starling City checked their closets for her before going to sleep at night.

The way she walked into the light made it seem as if she were forming out of shadows, first her heeled boots (the source of the ominous tapping noise), then her tight dark purple pants and the bottom of her cloak-like coat, the weak light glinting off the knives on her hips, then her torso and finally her head, face covered by the hood of her coat.

"Moira Queen," she said in a soft, sinister voice that sent shivers up and down his spine. "You have failed this city."

The creepiest thing, Oliver mused absently, was how detached she sounded. It was as if she were commenting on the weather, stating a fact she cared nothing about, not saying the phrase that had come to mean death to the ears of those who heard.

His mother recoiled, face draining of colour. "Please, don't hurt my son!" She begged. He swallowed against the guilt he felt at terrorizing her like this, reminding himself that she had known about Merlyn sabotaging his father's yacht, and had either helped, or at least not prevented, it, thus causing the deaths of five people, including his dad and Sara. The act that had stolen Felicity from him for five hellish years.

"Tell me what the Undertaking is," Felicity replied in an almost idle voice as she tap-tapped her way over to his side. "And I won't have to."

His mom mouthed soundlessly at her, a stricken look on her face. Felicity stood between him and his mother, raising her eyebrow at him in a silent question. He nodded a fraction. He could handle it, and they needed to do this. She nodded slightly back and gave an irritated sigh, as if the whole thing was annoying her, then punched him, straight in the nose. He groaned in pain as his head snapped back painfully, a loud crunch signalling his nose was now broken. He shot her a glare.

So much for holding back.

"No!" His mom cried. "Oliver! Please! Stop!"

"Tell me what Merlyn's planning," Felicity instructed her, moving to the side so his mother could see the blood leaking from his nostrils.

"I can't," Moira wept. "He'll kill my whole family!"

Felicity hit him again, but when his mom simply sobbed she grabbed the knife resting on her left hip and held it to his throat. Oliver forced himself not to gulp, reminding himself that it was Felicity, and this was just a show to make his mother talk.

"Oliver!" His mom cried. "Please no!"

"It's not Malcolm Merlyn currently holding a knife to your son's carotid artery," Felicity informed his mother coolly. "If I cut it, he'll bleed out between thirty seconds to a minute. I suggest you worry a little less about Merlyn, and a bit more about me."

His mother crumbled. "Malcolm is planning to level the Glades!" She cried, eyes fixed on the knife at his throat. Felicity pulled the knife away enough for his mom to see it, but close enough to keep it a threat. "He said it was so that he could rebuild it, but..." She trailed off, shaky and pale.

Oliver felt sick. Level the Glades, and kill everybody in it. And his mother was involved in this. How could she live with herself?

"How?" Felicity demanded, somehow still composed though there was now traces of worry in her voice. They were subtle enough that most wouldn't recognize them, especially with the modulator, but Felicity was Felicity and Oliver could still read her like a book.

"There's a device," his mom stuttered.

"What device?!" Felicity bit out, her anger more intimidating than her cold indifference.

"He says that it can cause an earthquake," his mother explained tearfully.

"How is that possible?" Felicity barked out.

"I don't know," Moira wept in response. "It was invented by Unidac Industries. Malcolm used my company's Applied Sciences to turn it into a weapon."

"Why would you get involved in something like this?" Felicity asked. Oliver knew she was only asking for his sake, but he appreciated it anyway.

Moira's shoulders slumped. "My husband, Robert... He got involved without my knowing," she explained. "He was just trying to do some good. He was lost. He... His decisions left me vulnerable to Malcolm, and I had no choice. Malcolm had already killed Robert, he said that he would kill my children and grandson as well if I didn't help him. I had to protect my children."

Are we really worth thousands of other people's children, though? Oliver wondered. He loved his sister with everything in him, William was worth the world to him, but he didn't think he could choose them over thousands of other people. It would be putting the blood on Thea and William's hands too. Moira'd had other options, the police, the FBI, something. But she had chosen this instead, and he could neither understand nor forgive it.

"This device," Felicity said. "Where is it?"

"I don't know," his mother whimpered.

"If you don't tell me, I can't stop Merlyn!" Felicity snapped.

"Oh, you can't stop him," his mom replied defeatedly. "It's too late." Felicity turned towards him, raising the knife again.

"No, no, no, I told you everything!" Moira shrieked in panic, but Felicity merely cut his bonds before stalking over to her and releasing her as well. She left urgently, as his mother raced over to his side. "Oliver!" She cried.

"Don't touch me!" He hissed, recoiling from her touch. He had never felt so disgusted by her before.

"Oh, sweetheart," she pleaded. "Please, I know what you must be thinking, darling, but I never intended any of this to happen." He coughed, struggling to his feet and fighting off the dizziness he felt from the lingering remnants of the drug and from the punches Felicity had rained on him.

"You know I would never willingly be a part of anything like this," Moira insisted tearfully. "Darling, please."

He stalked away, clenching his fists. "I don't know anything anymore," he answered bitterly as he headed for the exit. He needed to meet up with Felicity and Dig so they could figure out how to stop Merlyn.

"So much for pulling your punches," he greeted the team wryly.

"Don't be a baby," Felicity replied mildly, not looking away from the computers she was working away at frantically. "I didn't even wear my brass knuckles. Anyway, worst case scenario, you spring for some plastic surgery. Don't worry, the straight women and gay men of Starling will be back to swooning over you in no time at all."

"Ahem," Dig coughed pointedly. "Shall we back to it?"

Felicity gave a crisp nod. "I pulled up what I could on Unidac, but the headline is the massacre."

"Yeah, Mom got really upset when she saw it earlier," Oliver agreed, tensing when he mentioned his mother.

"So, what else do we know about Unidac?" Dig asked, finally joining the conversation.

"Well, we know that Queen Consolidated acquired them seven months ago," Oliver offered as his wife searched for more information.

"Yeah, well we kinda need information about what we don't know," Felicity said tensely.

"Well, what do you have?" Dig inquired.

"Unidac is a small research and development technology company that specializes in seismic infringement," Oliver explained, recalling the information he'd read while prepping for the merger and what his mom had said. "Merlyn plans on levelling the Glades with a device that triggers a manmade earthquake."

"That's crazy," Dig muttered.

"Yeah, well clearly so is Merlyn," Felicity drawled in response.

"What else is there?" Oliver asked.

"More information on the stock auction and the massacre," she muttered, scanning the headlines as quickly as she could.

"There's no way this timing is a coincidence," Dig pointed out.

Oliver sucked in a sharp breath as his eyes caught on something and he quickly pointed to it. "Felicity, look. There's a website claiming the police suspect the copycat archer is involved in the killings," he informed her, wide eyed.

"What?" She hissed, eyes flashing furiously at the mention of the man who had nearly killed her at Christmas. She read it over herself, expression darkening in rage. "Fuck! That explains so much!"

"So the other archer works for Merlyn?" Dig clarified.

Felicity hit the side of the desk. "He's tying up loose ends," she said quickly. "Erasing all evidence this device exists so no one can trace the devastation back to him."

"Alright, so you need to have a pointed conversation with Mr. Merlyn," Dig began, but Felicity shook her head.

"No, it's not enough," she insisted. "Even if I take out Merlyn, the other archer is still out there. He can set off the device. We need to find it. Then Merlyn can get his."

Soon enough, it became clear that they'd need to break into MGG to hack the mainframe. Dig slipped in as a security guard, Oliver pretended to have a meeting about one of the multiple projects that QC and MGG were working on, while Felicity dressed up as Big Belly delivery girl with an excessive amount of make up on who chewed her gum too loudly.

It went nerve wrenchingly smooth, up until Felicity ended up cornered by a guard as she was heading for the elevators.

"Hey!" He barked, making her freeze. "You! What are you doing?"

She turned around, wide-eyed, and instantly sighed in relief, pressing a hand to her chest (thus drawing attention to her neckline. The shirt was unbuttoned, giving a teasing glimpse at the top of her breast. As predicted, his eyes flicked down briefly.).

"Oh, thank God," she gushed, putting a sway in her hips as she went over to him, batting her eyelashes. The guy was falling for it, hook, line and sinker. Through her earpiece, she could hear Dig's groaning.

"Uhm, can I help you Miss?" The guard asked, looking downward to meet her gaze. She had deliberately positioned herself so he was looking down her shirt.

"I was delivering the order to one of the other guards," she said earnestly. She laid a hand on his chest, making him gulp. "But I got off on the wrong floor, and now I've no idea where I am. This place is a maze! I don't suppose you could give a girl a hand and show me out?"

"Sure," he said dazedly, still staring blatantly at her chest. Felicity suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, giggling and flirting with the man until they reached the ground floor, where she used her Sharpie to write a fake number on his hand and sashayed away.

She was startled to see Oliver looming over the kid from the subway and Thea, who was, thankfully, too distracted by whatever Oliver was saying to notice Felicity leaving. Dig was outside waiting in the car when she arrived and slipped inside.

"God, that was painful," he told her once she shut the door, starting the car. Oliver would be making his own way back.

She smirked and raised a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Clichés are cliché for a reason," she acknowledged. "But they do work."

"Whose number d'you give the poor guy?" He asked with an amused look. She gave him a look of mock innocence, laying a hand over her heart.

"Would I give an innocent man the number of an MMA fighter married to a cop who wouldn't take too well to be called by some random guy making salacious comments?" She retorted cheerily, making him snort and shake his name.

"You're a devil, you know?" He grinned at her.

She simply shrugged and smiled with a wink before pulling out her tablet and getting down to work.

/

She was sorting through the data when Oliver returned. "What was that with Thea and the kid?" She asked him, glancing away from her screens. "Are you that upset that your sister's dating?"

"Roy Harper is your new biggest fan," Oliver huffed, tossing his jacket onto the table. "He's been trying to track you down ever since you saved him."

"What?" Felicity raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Why?"

Oliver shrugged irritably. "No idea," he replied grumpily. "But I told him to back off. Said you were a psycho and that you killed anyone who got in your way."

Felicity flinched before she could stop herself. "Wow," she muttered. "Tell me how you really feel, why don't'cha?"

He gave her a fond look. "I didn't mean it, Felicity," he insisted. "But I don't want Thea getting mixed up in this."

She cleared her throat, nodding. "Right, well, anyway," she said, feeling uncomfortable. "I installed a trojan in MGG's systems. I'm searching for the info on the device, but it'll take a while. There's nearly a petabyte of data to search through."

"It's progress though," Oliver pointed out hopefully. "That's more than we had this morning."

Felicity wasn't listening. Her gaze had landed on the book, the thing that had started this whole mission of hers. She picked it up, skimming through the pages without bothering to look at them. She had them all memorized anyway.

"Felicity?" Oliver asked worriedly.

"You alright?" Dig added.

She shrugged. "I told myself when I finished crossing names off the List, I'd be done," she muttered, talking more to herself than to her companions. "I'd've made up for surviving where the others didn't." She was too distracted to see the stricken expression that crossed Oliver's face as she spoke. "But crossing the names off wasn't what Robert wanted me to do. I. was just treating the symptoms of the disease, not stopping it. I stop the Undertaking, that's it, I wipe out the disease."

"What're you saying Felicity?" Diggle asked. When she looked at the guys, they had concerned looks on their faces. "Are you gonna hang up the bow?"

"I don't know," she mumbled. In all honesty, the thought of it scared her. She'd been fighting for so long, the thought of stopping terrified her far more than any battle ever had. She shook her head, running a hand through her blonde locks. "It doesn't matter right now," she stated decisively. "We need to focus on the Undertaking, not what's happening afterwards."

"Whatever you decide," Dig said softly. "Remember that we're with you."

"Always," Oliver added softly.

She tracked the device to a warehouse in the Glades owned by Malcolm, while their bugs placed the man himself in his office at MGG.

"We'll coordinate our ops," she declared to the guys, her blood pumping with adrenaline. "You two take the device, I'll go for Merlyn."

"Without back-up?" Dig objected. "No, Felicity. He has the Dark Archer with him, and you know what happened last time."

"I've got this," she insisted stubbornly. "The device is the most important thing. It'll be fine." She left before either could protest any further, riding her bike at top speed to reach Merlyn.

He was on the phone when she strode in, arrow knocked and ready to fire.

"Can I help you?" He asked when she entered. "No, not you," he said to whoever he was on the phone with. "I have to go, I have a visitor. Good evening." He hung up and turned his focus on her. A part of Felicity that hadn't locked down her emotions entirely for the sake of the mission was surprised at how calm he was. Her reputation had long ago preceded her, and she was used to terror and pleas or bribes, not arrogance and casual talk.

"Malcolm Merlyn," she said with weight. "You have failed this city."

"And how did I do that?"

"The Undertaking," she replied. "It ends now."

Just then, Diggle patched into her Bluetooth. "Artemis, the device! It's not here!"

She aimed the arrow right at Merlyn's heart. "Where's the device?" She snarled. He smirked cockily.

"Safe," he declared. "I don't know how you managed to get that trojan on my systems, but it prompted me to take precautions."

Felicity bit back a curse, fingers clenching around her bow as Merlyn continued to ramble.

"There is no way for you to prevent what's about to happen," he announced, rising and rounding the desk, Felicity keeping the arrow aimed at his heart. "And you shouldn't bother to try. This is for the best. Starling City needs what is about to happen. The people ruining this city from the inside must be eliminated!"

"Fine," Felicity retorted icily. "Let's start with you." She released the arrow, but was stunned when Merlyn caught it in mid-air with lightning fast reflexes.

"Amusing, is it not?" The CEO remarked with a deadly smile. "I tried to kill you at Christmas, then a few months ago you saved my life. Make up your mind!"

Felicity scowled as he spoke, furious with herself for not putting the pieces together sooner, but she didn't hesitate to fire another arrow. "Done!" She retorted as she dashed forward, trading her bow for her katana.

She'd been training herself mercilessly ever since Christmas, knowing that she would fight the Dark Archer again eventually, but to no avail. She lasted longer this time, but it still wasn't long before he managed to disarm her, get her on the ground, and kick her in the throat, knocking the breath out of her and sending her into unconsciousness.