Chapter 2 – Oliver Queen

An: I do not own Arrow. In my last note I said this story would have 5 chapters but it's now ballooned up to 8.


Felicity stared at Moira Queen as she explained her situation with her son. Apparently Oliver Queen was coming home with bruises and limps. Injuries that he tried to hide but failed. Nothing escaped the sharp eyes of Moira Queen. She had confronted her son and he claimed he was breaking up a fight at Verdant, the club he owned with Starling City's other eligible bachelor Tommy Merlyn. Moira obviously didn't believe him as she suspected that he was lying to her. She wanted to know what her son was hiding from her in case it could get him and their family into serious trouble. Moira stressed that whatever Felicity found, she was to come to her with it first, even if it was illegal. Moira would handle it from there.

Felicity agreed to take the case, even though Moira gave off the impression that she didn't have a choice. Felicity then had to sign a confidentiality agreement that guaranteed that she would keep the results of the investigation into Oliver between her and Mrs. Queen. Felicity read it over carefully and Moira sat patiently as she did. Once she was satisfied that there wasn't anything too onerous in the contract Felicity signed it and Moira started giving her information about her son.

Based on the information Moira provided her with, Felicity speculated that the Queen heir was into some sort of underground fight club. Oliver Queen was notorious for getting into trouble but Moira revealed that in the last few years he had taken up martial arts, weapons training and fitness activities after his father had forced him to attend a nine month boot camp. Felicity remembered his face splashed across the tabloids her roommate used to read. Back then his main problem was women and alcohol. Felicity suspected he had moved on to the adrenaline rush that came with fighting.

Moira couldn't give her a schedule of her son's activities for the day because he never shared that sort of information with her so Felicity asked her to place a GPS tracker in the car her son used. She showed her how to use it and advised on good places to hide it in the car.

The Queen matriarch was able to provide her with a list of friends that Oliver was close to. At the top of that list was Tommy Merlyn his fellow cohort in crime. Felicity inquired if Tommy also had any bruises since it was a known fact that usually they got into trouble together but Moira hadn't observed any. She was sure whatever Oliver was into, he was into by himself.

There was a name that Felicity didn't recognise on the list, that of John Diggle. Moira explained that he was originally Oliver's bodyguard. He was extremely loyal to Oliver and never revealed what it was Oliver was into. He had moved across from her payroll to Oliver's. The two were apparently as thick as thieves.

The names on the list that surprised her the most was the famous Lance sisters that Oliver had both slept with. That debacle had been on the cover of gossip rags for months as they carefully studied the fall out. The elder Lance sister, Laurel, made the mistake of confronting Oliver about the affair at a public event. She had caught him and her younger sister, Sara, sneaking back into the event together. The Queen and Lance names had been dragged through the mud. It was intriguing that Moira would list them as close friends of her sons after that sort of history.


The GPS tracker Moira planted in Oliver's black Porsche said he was at his club. Felicity had never been to it before, usually she spent her nights staking out cheap motels. This was going to be quite a change for her. She pulled out a nice dress that she had bought but never worn before. Applied her make up and put on costume jewellery. The club was located in a bad part of town called the Glades. She didn't want to wear anything real and attract any unnecessary trouble. She waited until she knew her mom was asleep and then she left. If her mom saw her dressed up, there would be an endless tirade of questions she wouldn't ever be able to avoid because her mother had this ridiculous ability to pick up a conversation exactly where it left off no matter how much time had passed.

By the time she made it to the club it was 1:00am. All the parking spots were filled and people were parking in the street. Felicity refused to park her baby in the street. Who knew what would happen to it? Her car was vital to her job and she couldn't afford to lose it or have it disabled in any way. She waited in the car park for a spot to open up. Fortunately she only had to wait about five minutes before a couple emerged from the club. They appeared to be in the midst of an argument. Felicity really didn't care what they were arguing about she just wanted their spot so she could get into the club. She made a mental note that the next time she came, she should either take a cab or aim to arrive ridiculously early.

As she walked to the club entrance, she noted the black Porsche that was parked in one of the spots reserved for management. What she didn't expect was that there was still a very long line to get in. Word at the back of the line was that the club was packed to capacity and that they had to wait for people to leave before they could get in. Felicity had a hard time believing that. It was a Wednesday night. What were all of these people doing out so late on a Monday night? Didn't they have a normal 8-4 job the next day? She counted the people in front of her and started counting the people that exited the club. For every one person that left, one person was let in so she was forced to conclude that it was actually true.

It was ten minutes to 2:00am by the time she was allowed into the club and there were at least ten people behind her who were still trying to get in. The club was indeed very crowded. Felicity didn't observe anything special about the club. It was dark, with fancy lights and typical club décor. The entrance was about three steps above the main dance floor and that allowed her to survey the floor for her target but she couldn't find him. She looked up the stairs to what she could see of the VIP section and didn't see him there either. She knew that just because she didn't see him didn't mean that he wasn't around.

From the floor plans she had pulled up earlier she knew the door to the office was behind the bar at one end. She perched herself on a bar stool near the office door. Perhaps she could catch a glimpse of him returning to the office. A bartender arrived to ask her what she wanted to drink and she asked to see the drinks menu. He handed her a fancy menu with quite a few more pages than she expected. The drinks were sectioned off in price ranges. The first range was economy and it was cheaper than any other club or bar in Starling City. That answered why the club was packed. There were three more price tiers after economy ending with an ultra-premium tier. The last tier of drinks were extremely expensive and probably aimed at the customers that occupied the VIP area.

Felicity chose to order a glass of red wine from the third tier. It was moderately expensive but with the money Mrs. Queen had paid her, she could afford to enjoy one glass while she observed the door. The DJ announced that club was closing in five minutes and there was a sudden rush to the bar by patrons. Several men leered at her while they waited for their cheap beers. She ignored them.

The door to the office opened and Tommy Merlyn stepped out. She was able to use the reflection on the highly polished metal door to look into the parts of the office she couldn't see through the open doorway. She saw no sign of any other person in there. That meant he was somewhere else in the club.

The last song played and then patrons slowly started to filter out. Felicity sipped slowly on her wine. She wanted to be one of the last people out. A female bartender asked her if she needed a cab and she was struck by how considerate the staff was.

The door to the office opened and the young Mr. Queen stepped out followed by his burly bodyguard John Diggle. Felicity was confused. She hadn't seen them in the office. Where did they come from? Had she missed them in the office? She studied Oliver closely and thought she detected a slight limp in his step as if he had hurt his knee but since this was the first time she was laying eyes on him she didn't know if he regularly walked like that. She would have to look at the footage the paparazzi had taken of him over the years to compare it to.

Oliver Queen was indeed very handsome and she could see why a lot of women dropped their panties for him. He walked to the other end of the bar and went into the kitchen. A few seconds later he emerged from the door labelled staff only. She knew Mr. Merlyn had gone up the stairs to the VIP section but Oliver instead chose to work on getting the crowd out of the club. That was Felicity's cue to leave. She didn't want to be spotted by him. She drank the last of her wine, hopped off her stool and exited the club.


Felicity spent most of the following day reviewing paparazzi video of a drunken Oliver Queen with his flavours of the week before his forced entry into military boot camp. She then compared it to the most recent footage of him emerging from Verdant or going to charity events with the current flavours of the week. Boot camp didn't seem to quite break him of that particular dating habit. The major change she noted in Oliver was his physical appearance, specifically the way he carried himself. Not only had he bulked up, putting on more muscle mass, he also carried himself in a more disciplined manner. Gone was the boy that would flounder about and invade women's personal spaces. He was replaced by a man that stood straight, and kept people at a distance, including his flavour of the week. From what she could tell from the footage, up to last week there was no limp. The limp was new and must have happened recently at whatever thing the bored billionaire was into now.

Before the boot camp, Oliver Queen was a cute boy, he returned a damn good looking man. Felicity had actually dreamed about him the previous night. She hated to objectify people but Oliver Queen was an Adonis. No doubt about it. There were no drunken videos of him since his return from the camp, which was understandable since the purpose of the camp was to straighten him out and it seemed like it worked. There were rumours while he was away that he hooked up with the daughter of one of the instructors, Shado Gulong, but the woman had since married one of the other instructors Slade Wilson. Interestingly Oliver was Wilson's best man at the wedding. Felicity suspected there was an intriguing story there.

The GPS tracker showed Oliver Queen was in the Queen Mansion just outside of town. A call to Mrs. Queen also confirmed that her son was in fact home and hadn't used another car to leave. Moira also informed her that this was Tommy's week to receive orders at the club so her son was probably going to sleep in all day.

A knock at the door stopped her work. She put away all the research papers on her desk quickly and straightened the manila folders before she got up to open the door to her office. She had actually remembered to lock the door this time. She didn't recognise the woman by the door but from the tears in her eyes it was obviously someone seeking her help. She invited her in and pulled the last box of tissues from the bottom of her draw. She was going to have to stock up on those boxes again.


Felicity arrived at the club early the next night but she needed a stiff drink right away. Her work for her new client that night had left her rattled. Never had a case left her feeling so disturbed before. Felicity downed the drink in one go. The female bartender raised her eyebrow at her but Felicity ignored her and ordered another one. Being early meant she beat the long lines to come in. In fact she got the parking spot right next to Oliver Queen's Porsche. Her small economy car next to his expensive exotic showed the contrast between his family and her. His mother gave her $50,000.00 as if it were $5.00 she was spending.

Based on what she observed from her tracker, Oliver always arrived for the opening of the club and left after closing. She knew he was there somewhere and she remained at her seat by the bar slowly nursing her next drink as she watched the manager's office door carefully. She had to fend off several men that were interested in either buying her a drink or grinding on her on the dance floor. She did get one weird request for her to show the man her feet.

Oliver Queen didn't show until just before closing. This time she noticed some light bruising on his cheek. It looked like he tried to cover it up with concealer and he did a fairly decent job but if someone were looking for bruises they would see it. She needed to find out was going on in that office. She wondered if she could bribe a staff member to get her in there.

She noticed a young bus boy in a red hoody collecting the empty drink glasses from the tables as the patrons filed out of the club. He looked like he needed money and with what Mrs. Queen was paying her, she could afford to pay him for helping her.

"Hey," she said to him when he walked passed her.

"Clubs closing Lady," he said gruffly picking up two beer glasses resting on the bar next to her and putting it in the crate he was using to collect the glasses.

"Yeah I know. I was kind of hoping I could get a peek behind the bar," she asked.

He scowled at her.

"There's a $100 in it for you?" she said revealing the crisp bill in her hand.

"Sure thing Lady, whatever rocks your boat," he said. He picked up his crates and she followed him to the staff entrance. She slipped behind the doors with him into a kitchen area and watched him place his crates down on a counter to be washed. There were several other crates there already and three persons working by the sinks to clean the glasses.

He signaled for her to follow him through another door that lead to the bar.

"See, nothing fancy," he said. "Just like every other bar in town."

Most of the club was empty and the few people around were concentrating on heading out the club. She knew Oliver Queen and Tommy Merlyn had both gone up to the VIP section so the office was clear. She walked the length of the bar pretending to look around in awe.

"What's in here?" she asked when she came to the office labelled Manager only. Before he could stop her, she opened the door. It looked like every other office she poked her head into except this one was way more expensive. A large mahogany desk, a computer, leather chairs, a plush sofa, artworks on the wall, two filing cabinets on one side and then a door that was keypad protected in the corner. She frowned. She didn't remember the floor plans showing another room next to the office.

"Hey don't go in there," the kid said moving towards her to drag her away. "Tours over lady," he declared harshly.

"Thanks, my cabs here anyway," she lied following him back the way they came. As they were exiting the employee door, she almost bounced into Tommy Merlyn, with Oliver Queen standing right next to him.

Ever the charmer, Tommy tried to hit her up for her number but Felicity ducked her head and headed for the door. She could feel at least one pair of eyes watching her leave. She cursed her luck. She was not supposed to interact with the people she was watching. It could get her in trouble if they figured out she was the one that spilled their secrets.


The next morning she was pouring over the official building plans for Verdant again to see if she had missed the room that the office was connected to. She hadn't. The plans indicated that the office had a single entry door which was the door behind the bar. She was absolutely positive that there was a security key pad on the wall that protected a door that lead somewhere. There was also the fact that Oliver Queen emerged from that room twice and she was positive that he hadn't been in the office all night so there had to be another entrance into the manager's office from another part of the building.

Felicity was convinced the plans had to be fake and she tried searching for earlier plans filed when the building was being built. She found renovation plans and plans for the original building which was a steel foundry for Queen Consolidated. The original building had a basement and a basement would be the perfect place for an underground fight club. If the fights were held in the basement, the main entrance definitely wasn't from the club. It had to be from somewhere else in the building.

Felicity decided to make a site visit during the day and survey the exterior of the building. She identified the emergency exits and the service exit for staff but there was one door in the side alley that didn't have a corresponding door on the plan. That had to be the entrance to the fight club. She also noted the security cameras that were on the exterior walls that pointed up and down the alley so that they could see who they were letting in.

She returned to her car and pulled out her bag lady disguise. She threw on the dirty dress over her clothes and smeared some dirt on her face. She covered her head with an old dingy knitted hat and hid her blonde hair under it. She had several old torn bags that she swung over her shoulders. The bags were filled Styrofoam to give the impression that they were packed full with all of her possessions. She pulled out a small camera, no bigger than her finger nail and attached a special type of double sided tape to the camera. The battery didn't last long so she would have to remotely turn it on when she wanted it to record. She then returned to the alley, and walked slowly down towards the door. She made sure to swagger as if she were drunk and she leaned against the wall several times before she reached the door she was targeting.

When she finally arrived at the door, she leaned heavily against it and let her head rest against the cool steel door. The door was recessed into the building so there was two inches of door frame that she could place the camera on. She tore of the backing on the double sided tap and stuck the camera to the inside frame so that she would get a good look of persons as they entered. She doubted anyone would notice it in the dark. She then slolwy circled back to her car and gladly stripped the disguise off.

When Felicity returned to her office, she used the internet to view the day's news. Since the FBI monitored that connection she used it for superfluous stuff. The news headline indicated that The Hood, the local vigilante, had struck again. There was a whole page on the website that was dedicated to tracking the movements of The Hood every night. Susan Williams, the reporter that was obsessed with The Hood and the writer, editor and administrator of the page, encouraged persons to e-mail any photos or video of The Hood. Most of the pictures were blurry, dark or grainy or all three. You could barely make out a person dressed in green with a green hood and a bow and arrow. The night before he saved a couple from a mugging. Four criminals were now behind bars because of him. She admired him standing up for his community and protecting them. He was trying to do something good.

The police didn't appreciate it. Captain Quentin Lance was very vocal in condemning his actions. In fact, if she remembered correctly, at one time, Captain Lance had accused Oliver Queen of being The Hood. Felicity snorted at that idea. Why would the heir to a billion dollar company want to run around the Glades with a bow and arrow? Captain Lance was known to hold a grudge against Oliver Queen since the incident with his daughters.

The latest article said he had been spotted with his sidekick who Felicity called Mini-Hood. Mini-Hood was a shorter guy dressed in red that helped The Hood. By all reports he wasn't as well trained as The Hood and he was probably still learning. There was a running list in the article, of the number of people killed, arrested and saved because of The Hood. There was also a growing list of charges that the SCPD were trying to press against the unknown individual.

Felicity had never personally crossed paths with him. She hoped she would one day. She did most of her work at night and she knew that there was a strong likelihood that she would eventually get to meet him.


That night Felicity parked across the road from the Verdant parking lot before Oliver Queen arrived. When his Porsche pulled into the parking lot she watched him park and get out of the car. He seemed to have recovered quickly from that limp she saw earlier in the week. He strode to the front entrance confidently. Felicity couldn't help but admire the way his blue jeans hugged his ass and the way the grey t-shirt he wore pulled tight across his broad back. He really was a nice physical specimen. The flavour of the week was a lucky girl. Felicity would love to run her hand across his back and feel the muscles she knew were there jump under her touch. When he disappeared inside the club, she was disappointed that she couldn't admire him anymore.

She activated the camera and relaxed in her car with her extra fries from her Big Belly Burger order as she watched the feed. She was hoping to catch a glimpse of the people that attended the fight club. If she could identify a few people, perhaps she could score an invitation to get into the club she got in she planned to look around and hopefully with the use of a body camera catch a few shots of Oliver fighting.

Half an hour after the club officially opened she observed the backs of Hood and Mini-Hood exiting the door. She couldn't believe her eyes. Felicity paused the footage and rewound. Did she see correctly? Did she see two hooded figures emerge from the side door? She pressed play and sure enough two hooded figures, one taller than the other emerged from the side door. She managed to pick up Verdant's wireless network in her car and she used that to pull up the newspaper site dedicated to the Hood. The blurry pictures displayed sort of matched what she caught on her video footage. She then hacked into SCPD to look for the witness statements that described the Hood and Mini-Hood. Everything she read reconfirmed that the two figures she saw were actually Hood and Mini-Hood.

The revelation that she had found The Hood's base of operations left her strangely excited. She didn't want to jump to any conclusions yet but she was fairly certain she knew who The Hood was. If she was right he would return about half an hour before Verdant closed. That meant she had a nice four hour wait ahead of her.

At the expected time, the figures returned. This time the camera caught clear shots for their faces. The Hood was Oliver Queen and Mini-Hood was the boy that had shown her the bar. Felicity remotely turned the camera off and made a mental note to collect it the next day. She transferred all the footage onto a flash drive and then stuck it in her bra in case Frank wanted to do a random IT search at 3:00am in the morning again. She turned on her engine and headed home.


Sleep refused to come to her. She was in bed staring up at the ceiling. Her mother was in the next bedroom fast asleep. Her mind was racing with the dilemma that she now found herself in. Moira Queen had hired her to determine how her son was getting his bruises. She had done that. The next step was to write her report and call her in and tell her that he son was The Hood. The problem came in that Felicity believed in everything The Hood was doing. He kept his identity a secret for a reason. Not only was being a vigilante illegal but the people he put away might seek revenge if they knew who he was. Being linked to The Hood could be a very dangerous thing.

She fingered the flash drive that she had next to her. Thankfully,Frank had not been there when she got home. If the FBI got their hands on that footage, Oliver Queen would be in serious trouble. She needed to get rid of the footage ASAP. Either she gave the footage to Mrs. Queen or she destroyed it.

She played with the idea of telling Mrs. Queen that her son was in an illegal fight club or that he had in fact been involved in a fight at the club but she suspected Mrs. Queen would call her on the bullshit. There was zero threat that Mrs. Queen would turn her son into the police but she could possibly convince him to stop his heroic activities. Whatever she decided to do she needed to come to a decision by morning because that flash drive was driving her insane.


Felicity bought a new suit in the morning just for the meeting with Mrs. Queen. For some odd reason she felt she needed to be dressed to a tee for her. She wore a beige skirt suit. The jacket of the suit was trimmed with black lace. It made her feel more professional. When Mrs. Queen walked through the door she gave her a nod of approval before she sat down on the brand new leather chair Felicity had purchased two days before since she knew she would have to see Mrs. Queen again.

"Mrs. Queen,I don't know how else to say this," Felicity started but Mrs. Queen interrupted her.

"I thought I told you to call me Moira," she said in a pleasant voice.

"Moira," Felicity said with a tight smile, "Your son is the vigilante. He is The Hood," Felicity said cutting to the chase.

Moira Queen didn't show any reaction at all. Instead she remained perfectly still as she processed the information. No doubt she learned that skill from years of being in the public eye. Felicity handed her a detailed report with the flash drive stuck to the report. She closely watched Mrs. Queen as she flipped through and looked at the clear picture of her son dressed as The Hood. There was zero reaction.

"You knew?" Felicity guessed.

"I suspected as much," the woman actually admitted.

"Why didn't you tell me what your suspicion was?" Felicity asked curiously.

"I didn't want to bias your investigation," the older woman explained. "I hope we can keep this information between ourselves," Moira said, her voice carrying a subtle warning as if the confidentiality contract wasn't enough. Felicity tried not to be offended that Moira thought she would rat Oliver out.

"Of course. All the work I do for you is confidential," Felicity replied. "That flash drive is the only copy of the footage from the camera."

"Excellent," Moira said this time picking up the report and putting it in her expensive briefcase. She pulled out another brown envelope and put it on the desk.

"Your payment," she said simply, standing from the chair and leaving the office.

Felicity pulled the envelope towards her and peeked inside. There was definitely more money there than last time.


1 Week Later

With a newspaper under one arm, her purse on the other, and one hand holding her morning brew, Felicity struggled to open the door to her office. From what she saw of the morning headlines The Hood had broken up a major drug deal the night before. It brought a wide smile to her face. Oliver was still on the streets patrolling which meant either two things, Moira didn't confront her son with the information she had, or she did confront him and he ignored her request to stop. Either way she was happy to know that he was still out there doing good.

She finally managed to get the door unlocked and used her hip to push the door to the office open. She found Oliver Queen waiting for her reclined on her chair with his feet up on her desk.


An: Thanks for reading. Chapter 3 should be up next week.