Expression of commiseration

'That's the last of them,' Felicity said as Oliver and Sara knocked out their final assailants and Diggle grabbed the hard drive from the head researcher's desk. It supposedly contained a backup of the lab's progress on reverse engineering the super soldier serum that was used on Captain America back in the day, and they were hoping it held the key to curing Mirakuru.

She glanced between her screens. One displayed surveillance footage from several different cameras throughout the warehouse while the other showed a digitised version of the building's schematics with the planned escape route marked out in pink highlighter. 'I've got eyes on the exit. It's all smooth sailing from here.'

Face obscured by a mask and dark green paint, Oliver nodded. 'Let's get out of here before that changes.'

'I'll second that suggestion. I've got a hard drive to hack then packing to finish.' Swivelling in her chair, she jotted down an addition to her list of things to take on their upcoming trip to LA.

In the weeks since Tony Stark escaped from Afghanistan, the Queen Consolidated board had voted to send a representative to express their condolences and offer support as needed. Given that Oliver and Stark had partied together in the past, and that Oliver's years on the island made him the person most likely to empathise with Stark, it fell on him to go. And since Felicity was now officially his executive assistant — a fact that still made her want to hurl on a daily basis — it fell to her to accompany him.

Her stomach twisted in knots at the thought. Hopefully, nobody from Stark Industries remembered her application. Rumours already flew that the reason she changed career paths so drastically was because she was sleeping with Oliver; she would hate for even more people in her field to buy into that. Not that she'd be embarrassed if she was with him, because look at that smile, but sleeping with the boss? Gross.

Besides, she wasn't sure if talking to Oliver would even help Stark. What would it do, remind him that he wasn't the only one who'd been dragged through hell? Oliver hadn't processed his own trauma yet; he could hardly help someone else process theirs.

A glance up confirmed that nothing had changed insofar as the mission was concerned. A quick, simple extraction and an early night was the rarest of unicorns when it came to their night-time activities, and a much appreciated one when they had a flight to catch at the crack of dawn.

Idly, she chewed the lid of her pen. She doubted that QC's board of directors genuinely cared about Stark's wellbeing, let alone enough to send Oliver and Felicity out of town for a week in the hope of making him feel better. They had to have an ulterior motive.

'What do you think the board is really after?' she asked. 'Do they want to convince Stark to buy stock in the company? Or are they after some sort of business collaboration?'

'Can't exactly talk right now, Felicity,' Diggle muttered.

'Right. Sorry.' She bit into the lid too hard and winced as pain shot through her tooth. Tucked away in Verdant's basement, surrounded by computers and training gear, Felicity had some leniency in letting her thoughts wander during quiet moments. They didn't. 'I… Oh, crap.'

A hooded figure jogged into the corner of the surveillance video covering the exterior near the car park. At this time of night, anybody's presence would be suspicious. Between the dark armour and the faint glint of a sword at his hip, however, the newcomer left no doubt in Felicity's mind that he was bad news.

'You've got company.' More figures followed him onto the screen. 'Looks like someone organised a party and forgot to tell us. There are five of them, all with swords or similar, coming in from the south through the car park.'

On the screen, Oliver raised his hand and the three of them stopped. 'Slade's people.'

'They don't want us to have the secret to Mirakuru any more than we want them to,' Sara said.

'Do we try to fight our way through?' Diggle asked. 'I don't love the prospect of tackling five drugged-up henchmen at once.'

Oliver hesitated, then shook his head. 'Not if we can avoid it. We get out, Felicity hacks this drive, then we deal with them when we have a cure.'

'I'll delete the surveillance footage so there's no proof you guys were here,' Felicity said. 'They'll still suspect it's you, but it might put enough doubt in their minds to buy us a few extra nights.'

'Good idea,' Diggle said. 'In the meantime, what's the plan for extraction?'

Felicity zoomed in on the schematics. 'Alright, it looks like they don't know you're there – other than one who's watching the perimeter, they're all going in through the front entrance. There's a back door and a side one, but we'll take the side since it's closer to your current location.'

Her heart in her throat, she directed them through the warehouse towards the side exit, glancing back at the intruders regularly to make sure none of them broke off from the main group.

So much for a quick, simple extraction.

-x-

Felicity spent the next hour scouring every still from every security camera for flashes of the team, their arrows and bullets, or even just their shadows or reflections. By the time Diggle led Oliver and Sara down to the foundry and Oliver set the hard drive on her desk, she was satisfied that nothing remained that could link the break-in to the team.

'Ugh,' she said as she examined the device. It was several years old and from a low-quality manufacturer. Even its exterior was poorly maintained, with the stickers peeling and curling off. 'Between this and the building's passcode literally being 1111, someone needs a better security consultant. Or to actually have a security consultant.'

'How long will it take to get into the drive?' Oliver asked.

She shrugged as she scanned the device in an isolated environment then, satisfied it was clean, connected it to her computer. 'Depending on how strong their password is, it could be anywhere from minutes to never. Given the rest of their security practices, though, they probably used something basic like backup or secret.'

'So it might be a long night,' Diggle said. 'I'll call Lyla and pick us up some dinner.'

Before long, Felicity's program was systematically working through all the possible passwords to the hard drive, starting with the most common then growing longer and more complex.

'Now all we can do is wait for the program to finish,' she said, rolling her chair backwards to where Oliver and Sara were talking on the training mat. 'After we eat, I'll duck out to finish packing then come back to check on its progress.'

'I forgot about that.' Oliver ran a hand down his face. 'With Slade in town, we can't leave Starling City unprotected. We'll have to cancel the trip.'

Felicity's heart leapt. She really didn't want to leave the program partway through, plus this solved the whole issue of not wanting to publicise her new job title. But cancelling wasn't as simple as postponing a flight. 'The board won't like that.'

Sara raised her eyebrows. 'They'll like it even less if Slade ransacks Queen Consolidated looking for the drive and the Arrow isn't around to stop him.'

'We don't have much of a choice. I'll call Tony instead,' Oliver said decisively, 'and let him know I'm here if he needs a drinking buddy. When I got home from the island, I wouldn't have wanted someone to show up at my door demanding to talk about it.'

Even now, Oliver wasn't open about what he'd experienced on that island except when it related to a current crisis. Frankly, he probably would have benefited from talking about it more. 'While you do that, I'll draft an email to Rochev. But I'm not going to be the one sending it at eleven o'clock at night and adding more weight to the office rumours.'

Oliver chuckled. 'Fair enough. I should be the one to handle the backlash anyway.'

It's strange, she thought later that night as they ate pizza and waited for her program to break the encryption. This is the second time I was supposed to meet Tony Stark but didn't.

At this stage, the chances were that she never would. Well, that put her in the company of over ninety-nine percent of the world's population.

At least, this time, her mom didn't know how close she'd come. She'd be horrified.