I forgot to mention before but I could not think of any actually good reason as to why Wayne Enterprises and Queen Consolidated would merge, so I just made something up. The 'Why' they are merging is not vital to the story, so if it doesn't make sense, it's all good, it's not that important. It's more so we learn more about Felicity's past. Yes, there is more!
In case you haven't realized, this takes place in season two of Arrow but Oliver never came to Felicity for help in the first season. There will be similarities but not in the same order.
I do not own the rights to the characters or some story lines I am keeping in my story!
Felicity froze. Someone was in the room with her, she could sense them, standing behind her. She put the papers down slowly, keeping her breathing even as her heart rate speed up and reached for the letter opener that resembled Bilbo Baggin's sword, Sting, something she found at Barnes and Noble and had to have as soon as she saw it.
No, she thought, please please no not him.
She took mini Sting into her hand with a tight grip. She spun around on her heel at top speed, her hair, which has been taken out of its holder hours ago, flipped out, her eyes wide as she let go of mini Sting and heard it hit its target.
She let out a breath she had been holding. It was only him. The Arrow. He was standing in the corner of the room, the darkest part of her office. She could still see him clearly though, the moon light making him visible and he was looking down at mini Sting where it had stuck into his let breast plate right where his heart is. It was sharp for a letter opener so it had stuck in there pretty well, just a few centimeters in. He needs better protection for his chest, she thought. It didn't look as though he had much protecting him, just green fabric. That's stupid. She thought, he could get hurt, like injury from a letter opener. Hasn't he seen any movie ever? That's where everyone always gets shot at.
Felicity stood still, her butt and hands leaning into her desk, looking from his hood to mini Sting and waited for him to move, still keeping her breath even, the red in her face slowly fading away. He was in his green suit, his feet apart, ready to move if he needed, his quiver on his back and his bow was leaning up against one of her comfortable, flowery chairs in her office she got from Target. Odd, she wondered, why would he set it down? Her eyes roamed down to his right hand where he as holding something black and flat that looked to be in bad shape. A laptop. With bullet holes? Ok?
The Arrow was still looking down at the letter opener as he reached up with left hand, slowly and pulled it out easily. It was bent, she frowned, she would have to go get a new one when she had the time, maybe this weekend? Felicity shook her head, she needed to focus. Looking back up at The Arrow, she saw he was holding out the letter opener now, she couldn't see his face but could tell he was confused.
When The Arrow spoke, his voice was deep and altered so she would recognize him. A voice modulator, she realized, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he didn't know she knew who he was, but if he didn't want to her to know, she was not going to ruin his fun.
"This is a letter opener." He stated, still holding Mini Sting out, curiosity showing through the voice modular.
Felicity looked at the mini sword in his hand and back up to the darkness where his face is. "Yes, and you owe me a new one. Technically it's your faults it's bent. You shouldn't be sneaking up on someone in the dark. It's not cool." She told him in a tight voice, glaring at him. She was very upset about Mini Sting.
"This is a letter. Opener." He repeated the shock even more clearly in his voice. He had no idea how she was able to use a letter opener as a throwing star.
"Do you want a gold star? We have already established that." She bit back, shuffling from one foot to the other. She wished he was wearing her panda flats right now and not her Jimmy Choos, her feet were starting to hurt from being on them all day.
He tossed the letter opener onto the floral chair his bow was leaning against, she watched it bounce once then averted her gaze back to him, glaring at him. She waited for him to say something as they both stared at each other, The Arrow still in awe at her, looking at her curiously.
Holding the laptop out towards Felicity, The Arrow said, "I need your help recovering anything you can from this laptop."
Her eyes looking back and forth from the laptop to the hood quickly, Felicity did not move. "What?" she asked in disbelief.
"This laptop is damaged and I need anything you can salvage from it." He said slowly and sternly as though he were talking to a child, trying to get her to understand something as simple as tying a shoe.
Her eyes squinted at him even more, wishing she could shoot lasers out of her eyes and into his not very well protected chest. She pictured him getting thrown through the wall of her office making him go away, she had a lot of work to do and she needed to get back to it, there were deadlines she needed to make.
"That's not a very nice way of asking someone to do you a favor." She said mater-of-factly. "You didn't even say please." She added, crossing her arms in front of her.
The Arrow took a big breath, starting to become impatient. He wanted her to take the laptop already and get to work so he could continue on his night time schedule.
"Please." He growled.
Felicity uncrossed her arms, biting the inside of her cheek, thinking. She did not want to help him; he was being rude by telling her what to do. She should kick him out of her office right now, tell him to never sneak into her office again but then again a piece of tech needed her help. She couldn't stand to see something so dear to her in so much pain. She wanted to help it. Needed to help it. So with that thought, she stretched her arm out, keeping her feet planted and took the laptop from his outstretched arm. She eyed the piece of plastic, running her hands over the top delicately, her lips forming a frown at the holes that decorated it.
"What did you do to it?" she asked him, the sorrow she was feeling for the object coming though her voice.
He took a small step towards his bow. His gloved thumb and finger rubbing together now that he wasn't hold anything thing.
"Nothing." He said shortly, picking up his bow now.
Felicity flipped the laptop over in her hands, looking at him curiously.
"So you just expect me to help you recover information on what I expect is a stolen computer, get involved in something that I'm 99 percent sure will end up being illegal, with none of my questions being answered?" She asked him, clutching the laptop to her chest, and looked at him with one eyebrow raised.
The Arrow remained silent and did not move he only stared at her, his thumb still rubbing his finger. He looked from her to the window, the street light shining below, then to the laptop.
"OK." Felicity said in a high pitched voice. She turned around towards her desk and set the laptop down. "I'll do it. You can find a new letter opener at Barnes and Noble by the table where all the Harry Potter stuff is. Can't miss it." Turning back around, she saw that he had stilled in mid step on his way towards the door of her office.
"I'll need it soon." He said and without another word he walked out of the room leaving Felicity confused.
"You're welcome!" She yelled after him but she doubted he heard her or maybe chose to ignore her.
An hour later and after walking up five floors, Felicity arrived home with a greasy bag of Big Belly burger, a milkshake, a tote bag filled to its maximum capacity with papers from work, her purse, and the intriguing laptop tucked under her arm. After some careful milkshake maneuvering, she was finally able to get her key in the lock and enter her apartment. Dropping the bag of Big Belly Burger, she walked and kicked the bag over to the living room where she dropped all her belongings onto the coffee table.
Being the head of a department in a multi-million dollar conglomerate, she had enough to spend on a gated two bedroom apartment complex that came with its own gym for the tenants along with her own washer and dryer in her apartment, and updated appliances which was a win in her book. When she decided to move herself over to Starling City, finding the perfect place was very important to her along with finding somewhere safe to settle down, so when he had found this place and even gave his ever annoying approval of it, she decided on here with no argument.
Her kitchen was mostly for the looks, a place to keep her coffee maker and to store all of her left overs. She didn't like cooking nor was very good at it. Mrs. Brown had tried to teach her on many occasions but she would somehow burn Mac and Cheese, or there would be an explosion of flour when she tried to make cookies so she avoided cooking at all cost except for her cereal. The spare room used as a means of storage and work space with many parts scattered about the room. On one of the few desks she had set up, sat the very first computer she had ever made with Mr. Brown. Although she rarely used it anymore, it was still able to turn on an access the internet. Next to it sat a picture of the three of them along with a few trinkets and mementos from her years with them.
Felicity also like to make sure her place was clean which was easy as she spent most of her time at work and wasn't able to get her place messy. Everything had its spot; the coffee table lined up in the middle of the rug, the books on the bookshelf perfected over and over again until she found the right order, and the pillows on the bed and couch fluffed and set in their places.
Felicity's apartment was clean, except for the cat hair. Oh the cat hair. Felicity had always lived with someone her entire life. She lived with her mom when she was young, her college roommate, that boyfriend she tries not to think about, and him. She was a bit nervous to live on her own for the first time, which she thought was silly, "Get it together Smoak. You are a grown women. You can do this." She would say to herself when her heart started beating faster whenever she thought about living on her own.
After about a week of living on her own in a new city, Felicity was walking around downtown doing some retail therapy after she convinced herself she needed a new wardrobe, when she walked past a sorta creepy entrance to an ally and heard a very soft mew. Upon further investigation, she had found a small orange tabby cat that was very skinny, had fleas and seemed to be in his last days of life with no sign of a mother.
She had wrapped him up in the purple jacked she had been wearing and took him to the closest veterinarian she could find where they told her he did not have much longer to live. A while after spending some time at the vet recovering, she was able to bring him home.
She named him Sherlock for no reason other than the act that she was a big fan of the books and TV show. Sherlock was very lazy when he realized how good his life was not that he was off the street. His favorite spot was on the couch or on the window sill where the sunlight shone through. She had tried opening the window so he could go out onto the fire escape and lay in the sun to people watch but he would rather stay inside than go outside, she doesn't blame him on that. They have gotten along great and enjoyed watching movies together, cuddling up on the couch and Felicity talked about her day to him. She liked to embrace the cat lady stereotype and thought she would get more with the way her love life goes.
"Cat hair be damned." She told him one night after watching him lay on her lap. "I can deal with it."
Felicity bit into her burger and stared at the laptop sitting atop the table. She wondered who's it really was and what had happened to make it seem they needed to use it as a shield. Taking a drink of her strawberry milkshake, she picked it up in her hands and examined it. The bullet holes went through the screen of the computer and didn't seem to hit the bottom part where the keyboard was.
"How?" she asked herself. "This is one tough motherfracker."
Opening up the inside of the laptop, she took out the motherboard and saw that it was still intact.
"I can work with this." She told Sherlock getting up from the couch and going into her work room where her desktop computer was set up near the one she made with Mr. Brown.
Carefully taking the green board out of the computer, she was able to plug it into her computer. After a minute of retrieving the data, she instantly saw whose it was, Warren Patel. At first she wasn't sure why The Arrow would have a computer that belonged to a successful business man who owned his own company, Patel Industries. But upon further inspection she found many sketchy things; blue prints to Unidac Industries, emails to females that where very inappropriate for a work e-mail, pictures she definitely did not need to see, a list of names that she recognized to be individuals who wanted to buy Unidac Industries, information that closely resembles espionage, and –
She sat back in her seat, blowing out a breath. "Frack."
Constructive criticism is always welcome! Please go easy on me, again this is my first story I have ever writing. I am learning to write as it is something I have wanted to be able to do for a while now.