Chapter 3 – The Hood
An: I do not own Arrow. The Hood doesn't exactly make a great first impression.
Felicity stared at the billionaire with his expensive shoes propped up on her desk. He was dressed in expensive black pants and a satin blue shirt the fit his chest snugly. He was even better looking in person with his 5 o'clock shadow and piercing blue eyes but she was not accepting this attitude from him. She didn't care that he was Robert Queen's son or that he was The Hood, he would damn well show her the respect that she deserved.
"Having met your mother, I'm a 1000% sure she taught you not to prop your feet up on the desk," Felicity commented. "Try and at least make it seem like you have some manners." She knew how dangerous he was. He could probably put an arrow in her and walk right out the door but she felt strangely safe. At least safe enough to verbally reprimand his behaviour.
He removed his feet from her desk and placed them on the ground where they belonged. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on her desk and leveled her with a piercing gaze. "I'm sure when you did your research into me you noticed that I don't always listen to my mother."
Felicity snorted, "That's an understatement." Since he was seated in her chair, she decided to sit in the more comfortable chair that her clients used. It didn't matter where she was in her tiny office, this was still her home territory and he was invading it. She had the home court advantage. She leaned forward and matched his position on the table. She forced herself to make eye contact with him and hold it. She pushed away all thoughts about how handsome he was to the back of her mind. She could review those later, after he was out of her office.
"I assume you want something. Your mother would have told you that I have no intention of spilling your secret to the public or I would have done it already." She kept her eyes focused on him. His face was completely stoic and he showed no reaction to her words.
"My mother is good at keeping secrets and you are one of those," he replied cryptically.
Felicity frowned, "What's that supposed to mean?" She tilted her head slightly to the right as she tried to analyse that piece of information.
"It means that short of putting a gun to my head or Thea's, she'll not reveal her sources. She confronted me with the evidence but she never revealed you were the person that discovered my secret. I had to do my own investigative work and you Ms. Smoak are terrible at covering your tacks," he revealed.
Felicity bristled at the accusation. She had been careful. She never directly spoke with him but she did have contact with Mini-Hood. She didn't know at the time he was involved or she would never have asked him. Maybe Mini-Hood had remembered her and pieced it together though that seemed like a long stretch. Not that she thought he was stupid or anything but he didn't strike her as being the investigative type.
"Was it Mini-Hood that figured it out," she asked cautiously.
His eyebrows pulled together, "Who?" It was the first facial expression other than stoic he had revealed.
"Uh, the red one that's always with you at night," she explained. "The papers call him Red Hood which is such a crappy name. It reminds me of Red Riding Hood and he's certainly not a little girl."
His lips ticked upward in a small smile and his chest heaved as he chuckled, "No I figured it out."
"Really?" Felicity asked was even more attractive when he smiled and she really wanted to see him smile more but knowing she needed to keep her head about her, she locked that thought away too.
"I may have flunked out of four colleges Ms. Smoak but I am not stupid. You cased the outside of the club as yourself before you used your bag lady disguise to plant a camera that caught that picture of me. You also asked," he paused here and his lips ticked upwards at the side, "Mini-Hood to see behind the bar. Sara also served you a drink and you had to show her your ID to get the drink. She has this bad habit of picking up women while she's serving and she thought you were cute so she filed away your information for later. At first I thought you wouldn't have used your real ID but it turns out that you did. That wasn't very smart of you, Ms. Smoak," he admonished.
Felicity leaned back in her chair and crossed her hands in front of her chest angrily, "I didn't expect that in a club full of hundreds of people you would be able to pick out one blonde."
"One blonde that nearly bumped into my best friend as you were leaving an area you weren't supposed to be in. Mini-Hood was disciplined for that and when my mother confronted me, you were the first person that came to my mind who had been poking around the club. From there it was simple enough to find you on the cameras. Very sloppy work Ms. Smoak," he continued to lecture her. He bent over the side of the chair he was seated on and picked up a manila folder off the floor. He slid it across the desk to her with one command, "Look."
Felicity leaned forward and opened the file. The first page had her Goth picture and all of her biographical data. The next page contained information about what she was arrested for and the full deal she made with the FBI. She looked up at him surprised. How the hell did he get this information? Her file was confidential.
He smirked at her, "I have more resources than you can imagine."
"For your information mister, I have a very active imagination so I doubt that. The simplest conclusion is you have a source within the FBI or some other law enforcement agency that could access my file."
He stared at her silently refusing to confirm or deny her conclusion. She leaned back in the chair and held his gaze. The Oliver Queen sitting in front of her was nothing like what the tabloids and papers portrayed him as. Even the video footage she had seen didn't come close to this. The man sitting in front of her was not the idiotic playboy. This was a man with a wandered if perhaps he suffered from multiple personality disorder.
"Back to the original question Mr. Hood, what do you want?" she asked. She was a little apprehensive about where the conversation was going to go. Oliver Queen/The Hood was a mystery to her at the moment and she hated mysteries. They had to be solved and she had a distinct feeling that this mystery would gnaw at her until she figured it out.
He reached over the other side of the chair and pulled a laptop off the ground and placed it on the desk in front of him,"I need to retrieve information off this laptop."
Felicity stared at the computer noting the horrible condition it was in, "Those look like bullet holes."
"Hence the need to contact a computer expert," he answered plainly.
"Mmmhh," Felicity nodded her eyes zeroing in on what also looked like a scorch mark across the top of the laptop. That poor, poor laptop, it seemed to have experienced a war. At least she knew why he had sought her out.
"I need the information today." His voice was firm leaving no room for disagreement.
Felicity's gaze snapped to his, "What?"
"I need the information today," he repeated. His face was still impassive but his eyes gave the impression that he expected her to follow his order.
"I have a job to do and since you have access to my file, you know I'm not allowed to do any tech work," she replied stubbornly even thoughher fingers were itching to touch the laptop.
"Considering the camera that you installed by my door, I think it's a fairly accurate statement to say that you make exceptions. This laptop is important." He pushed the laptop closer to her as if it were a carrot he was baiting her with.
"Whose laptop was it?" she couldn't resist,she sat forward and picked it up, carefully studying where the bullet holes were positioned.
"Tobias Church," he answered. "He shot the device to ensure that the information on it was inaccessible." The implication that the laptop was very important hung heavily in the air.
"The Tobias Church?" Felicity asked looking up from the laptop. That would certainly explain the war to go get it.
He nodded in confirmation. Tobias Church was the main gang leader in Starling City. The rumour was he came to town a few years ago and systematically started taking over all of the smaller gangs, either by killing the previous head of the gang and taking over himself, or making a peaceful alliance that placed him in charge. At first no one wanted to accept the alliance but after the third gang leader turned up gruesomely killed, people started falling in line under him. There was no drug deal, arms deal or money laundering scheme he did not know about. He was the big kahuna.
While most of the grunts that worked for him, lived in the Glades, he lived in a mansion not too far from the Queens. She had heard about the lavish parties that he held every weekend. Three months ago a young girl had over dosed at one such party but her body had been found in the forest. Everyone knew it had happened at the party but there was no evidence to prove otherwise. That may have been the incident that attracted The Hood's attention to him.
Based on the information she had been reading in the papers, The Hood had been making a major dent in Church's operation. If she was connecting the dots right, he had stopped three drug deals, one arms deal and found two containers of women coming into the Starling Port. If this laptop belonged to Church then maybe the information contained on the laptop could put Church away for good, assuming he didn't own the entire police department.
Putting Tobias Church away was a big deal and it would send a great message to other criminals in Starling City. She knew she had to help him.
"Since it is Tobias Church you're after, I'll make an exception this time," she informed him primly.
The smirk he gave her made her want to take back her answer and she had to remind herself she was doing this for the good of the city.
"Come to the club with the results. I'll be in the office waiting." He stood and walked out of her office.
Felicity couldn't help but stare at his butt as he passed her. He really was a fine male specimen.
After Oliver Queen/The Hood, she more thought it was The Hood, left, Felicity slid the laptop into her large Dr. Who bag and went home. Despite what she told him about having a job to do, she had no pressing cases at the moment. There were days when she had so many cases she didn't know how she would get them all done in time and then there were days when she stared at the walls of her office wishing for a case. Today was an example of the preferred to have something meaningful to do every day but it was the nature of the business.
Driving home all the thoughts she had about Oliver Queen's physical appearance assaulted her. She remembered the way his blue shirt made his eyes pop even more, the way his biceps flexed when he had his arms on the table, the veins that ran along his strong forearms and his large hands. She tried not to let her mind think about the saying about a man with large hands. As handsome of Oliver Queen was, he was a dick to her by just assuming she would follow his every command. Her current profession afforded her a first-hand view of relationships with jerks like him. It never ended well.
The tools she needed for this job were hidden in the lining of her sofa under the cushions. If Frank ever found these she would be in serious trouble. He would automatically assume she was doing some underground hacking. Her neighbour's Wi-Fi signal was up and Felicity hacked into it to check on Frank's location. The last thing she needed was a surprise visit from him. There was no way she was going to be able to explain a bullet riddled laptop. That vivid imagination of hers could picture her pretty little face being planted on the beige carpet right after he discovered the laptop. He would probably dig his knee into her back to hold her down on the ground while he cuffed her hands behind her back.
She looked down at the carpet and wondered when the last time she vacuumed it was?Her face was kind of sensitive to dust and she didn't want to end up in prison with a breakout on one side of her face. Scratch that, she didn't want to end up in prison at all. She focused on her laptop screen and it said Frank was in his office. Great she needed to work quickly.
"Come here my poor baby," she said pulling the laptop out of the bag and running her hand gently over the casing. "That bad man hurt you but don't worry, I'm going to help put that bad man away."
A thrill of excitement shot through at the challenge before her. She really had missed taking apart computers and putting it back together. It was what she was meant to do. She quickly immersed herself in her zone.
By late afternoon Felicity found herself at Verdant. His black Porsche was indeed there along with a white Mercedes that she didn't recognise. She knew it didn't belong to Tommy Merlyn. He drove a red Ferrari. She wondered if perhaps Oliver was entertaining a female friend at the club. It made sense. If he was out as The Hood most of the night that didn't leave him much time for a relationship with someone. He could use the afternoon hours to keep his female companions entertained.
She contemplated waiting until the person left but she knew he wanted the information right walked up to the door and knocked. She waited a little while before a tall dark man with arms the size of dumbbells answered the door. It was the bodyguard, John Diggle.
"Ms. Smoak," he said pleasantly. "I'm sorry he dragged you into this."
"You sound like you don't approve," she replied. From his comment she was inclined to believe that he was very aware of what his boss did at nights.
"I don't. You're innocent of all this," he explained as he opened the door wider for her to step into the club.
"Yeah well I can handle myself." She entered the club glancing around to see what the club looked like during the day. The answer was not much different from night. She noticed that Mr. Diggle surveyed the area outside before he closed the door. When he turned to look at her she continued to assure him that it was ok."If I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't have done it, though he could work on actually asking me kindly to do it instead of being so demanding. Where is he?"
"He's in the office," Diggle replied. "Follow me."
She followed Diggle across the empty dance floor to the employee only door. She heard giggles on the other side of the door and was prepared to find the Queen heir with his latest fling instead she found Mini-Hood and the other famous Queen heir, Thea Queen, bent over some books on one of the cooking stations. He had his hand around her waist and it looked like he had been tickling her.
At least she had been half right about the Mercedes. It did belong to a woman in his life just not the woman she assumed. The young girl turned to them and stepped away from Mini-Hood which caused him to frown.
"Who are you?"she asked curiously looking between her and Mr. Diggle.
"She's here to see Oliver," Diggle answered.
"Duh," Thea said with a roll of her eyes "He's the only one here besides us and she didn't come to see me or Roy. Who is she and why is she here?"
Diggle ignored the young Queen and continued walking towards the door that led out to the bar. Felicity smiled at both of them and then followed after the gargantuan man.
"Is she the new flavour of the week?" she called out after the offense to her, Felicity couldn't help but chuckle because she realised that his own sister used the same term to describe his steady flow of girlfriends.
Diggle stopped and turned to Thea, "Ms. Smoak is not here in that capacity."His tone was firm and serious.
The bodyguard didn't have to defend her honour. She was perfectly capable of doing it herself but his gesture was touching. She didn't know anybody that would defend her like that.
"In what capacity is she here?" the young girl asked acidly. If Felicity remembered correctly, Thea Queen was in her first year of college at the local Starling City University. The business school at the University was recently named after Robert Queen and to encourage people to go to the school he sent his daughter there instead of the usual Ivy League school to show his confidence in the academic program.
"I'm here to fix his internet," Felicity blurted out so that Mr. Diggle would not be put in the awkward position of having to lie to his boss's sister.
"You need to come up with a better excuse than that. The internet works fine," she said picking up her phone from besides the books. Felicity noted they were math books. "See," her phone was playing some video off the internet. "This is the club's Wi-Fi signal."
The fact that Diggle had not stated exactly what she was there for meant that Thea didn't know what her brother did at nights but Felicity was uncomfortable with the girl thinking that she was there to have sex with Oliver. Felicity was not a one-week girl even if Oliver was the sexiest man alive, she was not going there. Before she could fully form her rebuttal in her head, her mouth opened.
"I am here to do IT work for Mr. Queen," Felicity insisted. "I'm going to upgrade his system."
Upgrade his system? What was she thinking? Mini-Hood who stood behind Thea was holding his hand to his mouth as he tried to hold back a laugh. Felicity couldn't believe he actually had the audacity to laugh at Diggle gave her a look that said that was the worse excuse in history.
Thea put her phone down on the counter and looked Felicity up and down. Felicity had chosen to wear a grey dress with yellow squares on the sides paired with high stiletto heels. At nights, she was always in black jeans, dark t-shirt, leather jacket to keep warm and panda flats in case she had to run, so she liked to dress up during the day. Her usual glasses adorned her face and her hair was pulled back into her signature pony tail. It wasn't the sexiest hair style but it was quick and practical.
"Clearly you nerdy types have fancy names for sex," she drawled not believing what Felicity said and turned back to the books on the counter, "Just keep the screaming down, some of us are actually doing work here."
Felicity narrowed her eyes and pulled out her tablet from her purse. She turned towards the door that Mr. Diggle was already holding open for her and she walked through it while she worked on her tablet. Just as Diggle closed the door behind them they heard Thea let out a string of curse words as her phone started making all these weird noises.
"What did you do?" Diggle asked.
"Nothing much. Just a little lesson on why you should never insult a nerd," she said.
She followed him along the length of the bar and he opened the door to let her into the office. He was very much a gentleman and allowed her to enter first. The door that was controlled by the keypad was closed and Felicity wandered if she was going to get to down into their base of operations. Oliver was behind the desk, reading what looked like an order in front of him when his blue eyes looked up at her.
"Did you get the information?" he asked gruffly. She noticed that he had changed his clothes or at least his shirt since he now wore a grey Henley.
She glared at him, "No hello, no how was your day? No are you alright Ms. Smoak, the FBI didn't catch you did they?" she turned to Diggle, "Is he always this rude?"
Diggle chuckled, "Sometimes he gets a little too focused on his target that he forgets that everyone isn't like him. Don't take it personally."
"It's hard not to do that when Mr. Queen treats you no better than a speck of dust under his shoe or in this case vigilante boot?"
Oliver stood from his chair and held out his hand to shake hers, "I'm very sorry about that Ms. Smoak. It's been a rough few days. Please call me Oliver. Mr. Queen is my father." The smile he flashed her was the same one that she saw on the cover of all the tabloids. This was the Oliver Queen charm. Was she now dealing with Oliver Queen instead of The Hood?
She reluctantly accepted the handshake. She tried not to notice the way his hand swallowed hers. He applied the perfect amount of pressure to the handshake. It wasn't too rough and it wasn't too gentle. He could have easily crushed her hand but he didn't. She also felt a few calluses on the inside of his hand.
"Again I'm very sorry that we got off on the wrong foot," he repeated sincerely.
"Actually your feet weren't even on the ground," she quipped. Her hand was still encased in his.
"I had been waiting a while. I decided to take a nap but your chair is harder than the ground. That position was the most comfortable position for the nap." He finally let go of her hand and she noted the blue jeans he wore before he sat back behind the desk.
"You could have had a nap at home. No one invited you into my office, much less my chair," She said sassily before her eyebrows burrowed in thought. "And how long were you waiting for me exactly?"
"4 hours."
She usually got into her office at about 10, "You were expecting me to be there at 6:00am?" she asked incredulously.
"No, I had a long night, it was simpler to wait for you than go home," he responded as if it were no big deal.
She gawked at him, "Don't you sleep,"
"Years of drinking and partying messed up my sleep routine," he said nonchalantly. "Between the hours of 6:00am and 10:00am I get my best sleep. You keep weird hours as well," he pointed out.
"The nature of following cheating partners," she replied easily.
Oliver inclined his head towards the Dr. Who bag, "Were you able to retrieve any information?" he asked hopefully.
A proud smirk settled on to her face. She imagined if she were a male peacock her tail would be on full display. "I got everything."
"Show me," he said getting up from his desk and offering her the seat.
Felicity put the bag on the desk and pulled out a laptop that was in perfect condition. "The other one is in the bag. I'll leave it with you for obvious reasons. I cloned that laptop onto this one. The bill for this laptop is in the bag, I need to be reimbursed for this expense."
Mr. Diggle reached into the bag and removed the damaged laptop and bill. He moved to the door and entered a code.
"Oh do I get to go downstairs?" Felicity asked hopefully.
"No, he's just hiding it away for safety. He'll be back," Oliver explained.
Felicity sighed in disappointment as Diggle disappeared through the door. She rounded the desk and sat down on Oliver's chair. She was surprised by how comfortable it was. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes with a sigh."I could sleep in this chair, no wonder you thought my chair was like the ground."
A throat cleared next to her. She opened her eyes and looked up at Oliver. "Sorry chair distracted me."
"I noticed," he said. He was clearly amused.
Felicity felt her cheeks warm from embarrassment. She wanted to bang her head against his solid mahogany desk. She was not supposed to blush in front of Oliver Queen! Thankfully Diggle returned and started asking questions while she booted the computer.
"Why did you clone the whole computer instead of just copying the files?"
"Because it was easier. His internet browsers history was quite of his passwords to his online accounts were saved. We can log into anything we want. I don't think it has occurred to him to change his passwords."
She was cognizant of the fact that Oliver was leaning on the desk to see the screen and the action brought him closer to her. She could smell his cologne and she liked it a lot. When the desktop loaded Felicity started pulling up files of immediate interest. She showed them his schedule of shipments expected for the next six months, his list of distributors in Starling City,and his list of contacts out of was very pleased with the results.
"What are you going to do with all of this information?" She looked up at Oliver and she realised that he was much closer to her than she thought. "I think it is much more than The Hood can handle not that you can't handle things. I'm sure you handle things really well but this might be beyond even your skills, not that I'm bashing your skills or anything …."
"Felicity," he said calmly stopping her ramble, "I'll give it to the police. I know I can't bring him to justice myself."
"Oh, can you trust them? Furthermore, how? You're not exactly their favourite person," she said trying to discreetly role the chair a little bit further away from him.
"I'll give the information to Laurel." He stood to his full height and looked down at her. She stopped her creep away.
"Laurel as in Assistant District Attorney Laurel Lance, Captain Lance's daughter, the one who chewed you out publicly for sleeping with her sister, the girlfriend you couldn't stay faithful to for more than a couple hours," colour drained from Felicity's face when she saw Oliver flinch, "I said that out loud didn't I? I didn't mean to say that out loud. I know I have problems with my filter but it usually has some semblance of functionality. Maybe it saw your pretty face and stopped working. God I really need to shut up." She leaned back in the chair and slapped her hand against her forehead. "This chair really is comfortable."
"If it makes you feel better Felicity, you're not the only one that ribs Oliver about the Lance sisters. Thea gives him hell as well." Diggle was smiling kindly at her.
Felicity nodded in understanding then she looked at Oliver, "Doesn't her boss hate you as well? Well Oliver Queen you, I mean."
"DA Chase and I don't have a very good history. His girlfriend was one of the women I cheated on Laurel with but it doesn't matter who doesn't like me, she'll get the information in her mailbox so I will remain anonymous. She will know what to do with it. Her father runs the only police station that's fairly straight in the city."
Felicity nodded. It made sense to keep his identity a secret from the ADA.
"Any other questions?" Oliver asked.
"Yes there's one thing I've been dying to know," she said looking between him and Diggle.
"What?"
"Which came first the club or The Hood? It's like the typical chicken and egg question. Did you conceive the club to hide your Hood activities or was the club already being built when you realised you could use the basement for your base of operations?" It really had been bugging her about the order in which they happened.
He was saved from answering by a knock on the door.
"Is everyone decent?" his sister's voice asked.
"Come in Speedy," Oliver said. She noted that he took a huge step away from her.
The door opened and his sister stepped into the office. Her eyes scanned each of them, "You guys dress fast."
Oliver looked at his sister as if she had grown a second head.
"Oh please Ollie, you really expect me to believe that she's here to fix the internet? It's like I didn't walk in on you with one of the flavours of the week a few months ago. Why you don't use that panic room instead of the office is beyond me." Thea's eyes cut to the door with the security pad on it and Felicity realised that his cover for the door was it was a panic room.
"Perhaps because it is a panic room," Oliver retorted angrily. "What do you want?"
Thea crossed her hands over her chest and gave him an exasperated look. "The wine supplier is here. He has some new vintages he wants you to try."
"Wine," Felicity blurted out in a happy tone. She definitely needed some wine after her filter ran away. Two babbles in five minutes was a record.
When everyone turned to look at her she was ready to hide under the table but then she realised that Thea Queen would probably have a scathing comment for that so she straightened her back and looked Oliver in the eye, "If nothing else is required Mr. Queen, I'll return to my office."
Thea snorted and left the office.
"Sorry about that. She's been angry with me since I asked her not to distract Mini-Hood at work," Oliver revealed.
Felicity could understand how that would piss her off.
"Wait, so you have no problem with your sister dating Mini-Hood?" she blurted out. "Wow, what a way to keep it in the family."
Diggle chuckled, "Mini-Hood?" And then he laughed some more.
Oliver ignored him and focused on her again, "Thank you for your help Felicity."
"You're welcome," she said standing up to leave since their business was done.
She had reached the door when she turned around to face him again chewing on her bottom lip. He leveled his gaze at her waiting for her to speak.
"If you need any more tech help I'm your girl," she said but then she realised that could be construed especially in light of what his younger sister thought was going on, "I mean I'm a girl that will help you with tech, not a girl as in your girl."
He chuckled and Felicity was reminded how much liked the sound, "I know what you meant Felicity."
The next morning Felicity entered her office to find a new chair covered in plastic behind her desk. There was a simple green post-it on it with the words 'Thank You' messily scrawled across it. She didn't need to use her genius IQ to figure out who the chair was from.
Her old chair was sitting in a corner and a brown envelope was on it. She knew that was her reimbursement in cash. She walked over to her new chair and quickly pulled the plastic off of it. It was a brand new chair exactly like Oliver's. If she were still in IT, it would be terrible for her but as she no longer spent hours typing at a desk this chair was perfect. She leaned back and put her foot up on the desk. It was indeed a very comfortable position to catch up on sleep. She drifted off into a dream world where a pair of beautiful blue eyes haunted her. She was disturbed by a knock on the door and Felicity stood immediately. She didn't need her clients seeing her like that.
"Come in," she said glancing at the lock on the door to see it was indeed unlocked.
A middle age woman with a handkerchief dabbing at the corners of her red eyes came in. Great, she finally had a case.
An: In a review for Lessons Learnt, kaylaevans43 commented that Oliver could say the basement was a panic room so I used that idea for this story. Thanks
kaylaevans43.
Can anyone guess the chapter title for the next chapter?
