"No, no, sweetie," Felicity says, scrambling off her chair to intercept her not-quite-six-month-old baby. She's taken to rolling off her mat and gurgling delightedly as her fingers explore the grooves in the metal floor, aka giving Felicity a mild heart attack every five minutes.
For a tiny blob of a human being who can't even crawl yet, Ellie is surprisingly agile and fast. It shouldn't be possible for her to move so damned quickly when her most efficient method of motion closely resembles an inchworm. But if there's one thing Ellie is, they've quickly learned, it's determined. Something like being physically incapable of crawling at this point isn't going to stop her if she's put her mind to reaching for something shiny, sharp or otherwise problematic.
She gets it from her father, Felicity is certain of this, and takes every opportunity to remind Oliver of it.
That in mind, the bunker is possibly the worst place in the world to have their infant and wow do they need a babysitter. No, no, they don't need a babysitter. That's a bad plan. Even if it didn't bother her to be away from her daughter so frequently - and it does - it's not like they can explain why both of their daughter's parents have to be gone during the day and at night.
Felicity swoops the little girl up, eliciting a happy squeal from her as she puts her back on her designated 'tummy time' mat in the center of the bunker. It's right behind Felicity's chair, so she can keep her close at hand, but also pay attention to the mission.
This is especially vital at the moment, considering Oliver, Diggle and Thea are out in the field.
"There we go," she says, grabbing a random toy and dropping it in reach of Ellie's pudgy little fingers. "That's better. Here, play with this until Mommy comes back, okay? Okay. Solid plan."
"Overwatch."
"I'm here, I'm here," Felicity replies, scrambling back to her chair. Her elbow rams into the top of it and it doesn't move - stupid lack of wheels on her stupid chair. It'd been the first thing to go, though, when they'd decided they could try both parenting and vigilante-ing. Their daughter's fingers really had no business being run over or getting caught in the weird plastic wheels. Baby-proofing a superhero lair is sort of a wildly impossible notion, but they'd figured out that much anyhow.
Felicity scans the screens before her, trying to reorient herself. They're all in the basement, and they're close to their target. Actually, she notes with a frown, they're right in front of it. And they're not moving.
"What…?" she starts.
"These doors are electronically locked," Oliver replies, agitation making the words come out in sharp jabs. "And electrified."
She has to bite her tongue to hold back a response he really doesn't deserve.
He's not frustrated with her, per se, and she knows it. They're both pretty exhausted these days, but still, curbing the attitude would be nice. Though she can admit she's only had a five-month old to contend with, not a small army of well-trained arms dealers who'd thought it'd be fun to take the police chief hostage.
Still.
"On it," Felicity says. The response is a little too clipped, but neither of them comment on it.
It's one of their first nights back. Like really back. Like she-needs-to-be-paying-attention-to-what-they're-doing-if-they-all-want-to-get-out-of-there-alive back. She'd had really good plans in place, step-by-step plans that had been all about reintegrating herself back into being at work - both works - at a manageable pace. The office had been easy, because her actual presence wasn't really needed in order to do her job most of the time. This, on the other hand, it isn't quite so simple.
That fact isn't helped by the way all of her plans have had to be thrown out the window because bad guys lack patience.
But with the police chief kidnapped and her soon-to-be father-in-law out of town with her mother, Curtis off on a retreat with Paul, and both Artemis and Wild Dog lending a helping hand in Central City, they've basically been backed into a corner, forcing them to return fulltime to their evening jobs way ahead of schedule. All with a baby rolling around the bunker as her mother tries to make sure her father doesn't get killed.
Not a problem. It's fine. Everything is fine.
"I can do this," Felicity whispers, fingers flying over the keyboard as she hones in on the door's controls. "I can get you off."
"I hope so," Oliver replies on the other end. Had it been any other day, she might have thought he was teasing her, but it isn't any other day. It's now, and he sounds more annoyed than anything, which makes Felicity snap.
"Not you, Green Arrow. The electrified door. And at this rate, you're not going to be getting off anytime soon, and… and wow, that's so not appropriate right now." Felicity groans under her breath. "Just give me a second." A little movement out the corner of her eye has her head whipping over to see… "Ellie, not over there!"
Like the five-month-old could actually respond to her.
The mission instantly falls to the backburner as Felicity launches out of her chair again.
Ellie's little chubby fingers flirt with the edge of the raised riser in the center of the bunker and if she pulls herself over - crazy strong baby, why did she have to have Oliver's freakish strength? Playpens and cribs are useless with her parkour-prone infant - she will more than get hurt.
Felicity swoops Ellie up again, earning her another delighted gurgle. Her little limbs wiggle to and fro as Felicity runs back over to her computers, the sound of her bare feet slapping the floor highlighting Oliver's quiet, "Is she okay?"
His voice has softened, just enough for Felicity to stop gritting her teeth.
"She's fine," Felicity replies, sitting back down. She holds Ellie close, cradling her against her chest. She absently moves her hand to block the baby's fingers from grabbing her glasses to rip off her face. "I'm just glad I'm not wearing heels like I wanted to - and don't even start with me, Oliver, I don't want to hear it." The only response she gets is a quiet huff from him followed by a not-so-silent snicker from Thea and what is probably a very amused smile from Diggle. Holding Ellie at bay with one hand, she starts typing with the other. "We seriously need to baby-proof this place. Like stat."
"Stat?" Oliver repeats. She can hear the smile in his voice.
"You don't get to find that amusing," she says with probably way more force than is necessary but still.
"Sorry." Oliver shuffles on the other end, almost like he's bouncing in one place. "We need this door opened, Overwatch."
"You are not telling me anything I don't already know," Felicity replies. "Alright, let's…" Typing with one hand is next to impossible with a baby in her arms. "Hang on."
"Fe…"
He barely stops himself from saying her name and for reasons that involve a lot of no sleep and way too much stress all of a sudden, that pushes her over the edge.
"We are so having a talk when you get back here," she grits out before turning her attention to Ellie. Her voice softens for her daughter as she says, "Alright, baby girl, I need you to stay right here, okay? For just a minute. No rolling pin impersonations, okay? Just pretend you're a slug. Yay for make-believe!"
Felicity lowers her to the floor, turning her back on her stomach. Ellie instantly pushes up on all fours and tries to rock herself forwards, but Felicity sneaks her foot under her stomach, lifting her up off the floor slightly, stopping her attempt at forward motion. It also gets a happy giggle from the little girl.
It works.
With a happy noise, Felicity barely stops herself from throwing her fist in the air.
She can totally do this and help her team.
Repeating the foot motion over and over, Felicity turns back to her screens. Ten seconds later, she has the doors open and the electricity turned off. "There you go."
"That was…" Oliver pauses. She hears movement on the other side and she wonders if he's testing the door. The entire lack of him being electrified is a wonderful sign. "You're amazing."
"Compliments are nice, Green Arrow," Felicity says. "But they so do not get you off the hook for being so… pushy." He sighs on the other end, in what she knows is an apology. They're all on edge. They have every reason to be, especially Oliver, since it's his Chief of Police who's gotten kidnapped, the woman he'd fought the City Council to assign the job. Felicity knows that if anything happens to her, Oliver will blame himself more than anyone, and it's enough for her to sigh softly. It's her own version of an apology. "Get the Chief, Green Arrow, and then get your butt back here."
"On it."
The next few minutes are a bit of a blur.
Felicity's foot taps, bouncing Ellie and possibly tickling her in the process, but most of her attention is on the screens and the comm in her ear, listening to their progress. They're through the door and making their way deeper into the basement… a quick scuffle that's handled quickly…
Three minutes in, though, things go south.
Fast.
She's not sure how it happens, exactly, and even looking back later will tell her absolutely nothing other than confirming that they really, really need to get the bunker baby-proofed.
The shouts are her first indication, quickly followed by a splash of water and then shit really hits the fan.
Her screens come to life with warnings and as quickly as she'd hacked into the building's security system, she's shoved back out and the electricity securing the Chief is back on.
In a room full of water.
"Oh no, no, no!"
Felicity flips through screens and types in code as fast as she can in an attempt to regain access and get her family to safety. Thea gets out, and then Oliver with the Chief, but Diggle… Some part of her is aware that Ellie is still next to her, and it lets her put all her focus on what's currently happening, where her attention is really, really needed. Because Diggle gets shut in the room where the Chief had been held, and before Felicity can unlock the doors again, something triggers and the room starts filling with more water.
Where the hell is all of this water coming from?
Oliver's shouting in her ear, echoing Thea's alarmed calls for Diggle as they shoot arrows, trying to find a way into the room.
Panic floods Felicity and she's responding without a second thought, adrenaline surging through her as she fights the firewalls being thrown at her. Someone definitely knew what they were doing because the program is learning from each of her movements and protecting itself, which means she needs to find a way in that's permanent, at least long enough for Diggle to get out. Which she can do. She just needs a minute…
Things are going okay - as okay as they can go - when everything suddenly goes wrong.
Felicity manages to shut the power down at Evil Inc.'s headquarters again when all of a sudden her power goes down.
No, it's not her power - the lights stay on - but she's typing and nothing is responding.
"Oh crap, crap, crap," Felicity gasps, her fingers freezing. "What…?" She types, and when nothing happens again, she desperately mashes her hands on the keys but there's no response on her screens. "Oh crap, how is this even… this isn't…"
It suddenly hits her that there's no tiny warm body on her foot anymore.
Ellie.
Felicity whips around, but her daughter's not where she left her. Nope, she's gone, as gone as an infant on her own can be and that absolutely sends Felicity over the edge.
There's no crying or shouts of pain or anything weird or wrong except that her freaking child is missing.
"Ellie?" she calls out, shooting to her feet as Oliver yells on the other end, "The door, Felicity!"
Past the fact that he's just said her damned name, Felicity shakes her head, yelling back, "My computers are down!"
"What?"
"My computers aren't working," she replies urgently, her feet smacking the ground as she spins around, trying to find their daughter. The panic is quite different now because her daughter is missing. She's gone. "Oh God, and Ellie…"
"What?" Oliver replies, a frantic edge to his words. "Where's Ellie? What's wrong?"
"Digg!" Thea shouts in the background.
This night sucks, it sucks so bad, this night is going to go down in the book of suckiest nights ever, and…
And then it clicks.
Computer not working, tiny baby with alarmingly developing mobility who has a rather strong penchant for getting into things she has absolutely no business getting into…
Felicity drops to her knees, barely feeling the hard impact as she looks around. She spins in a quick circle, looking underneath all her desks, but there's no sign. She's about to launch herself up and over the edge of the riser to see if her daughter's finally pulled herself over one of the edges when her eyes catch sight of something white beneath her workstation.
And that's where she finds Ellie's little socked feet sticking out from behind a partition under her desk.
"Ellie!"
Felicity crawls over as fast as she can. She hears noise and lots of talking on the other side of the comm, but it's all background chatter because every single thing is focused on her daughter, on her little feet, on making sure she isn't hurt or electrocuted or God only knows. Her heart pounds, fear and horror and worry and guilt and a million other things racing through her head as Felicity grabs her, pulling her out…
Along with a whole trundle of wires gripped tight in the baby's fists and in her mouth.
Her mouth.
"Oh my God, did you chew through these wires?" Felicity asks, yanking them out of her mouth and hands. "Elizabeth Dearden Queen, I cannot believe you are chewing through my wires! We don't eat electronics!"
Ellie makes a very disagreeing noise as Felicity takes away her impromptu toy. The little girl angles to take them back, whining like she might be about to wail, but Felicity hauls her up instead, saying, "No, no, those aren't for you, those are so not for you." Her voice cracks with the realization of how very differently this could have turned out as she cradles Ellie against her chest. "Ellie, we don't eat electronics, we don't…"
She's okay though, she's perfectly fine. Her little fists grab at Felicity's shirt and necklace, the shiny metallic chain around her neck apparently enough to distract her baby from a full-on meltdown.
Felicity pulls her back, her eyes roaming all over her, but she's perfectly okay.
In fact, she looks pretty pleased with herself.
And she should. There's no way in the world she could have gotten into that much trouble by rolling. Which means she's crawling. Her daughter is crawling. Part of her is sad that both she and Oliver missed it, but a bigger part of her is just full-on terrified because oh dear God they aren't ready for this.
"Oh Ellie," she breathes again, shaking her head. "I'm going to… I'm going to tie you to a pole so you can't ever move, okay? You can't go anywhere, not ever."
Ellie gurgles happily in response, reaching for her mother's face as the faint sound of splashing registers over the comms.
Oh!
"John!" Felicity says sharply, her hand flying to the comm in her ear. She shoves it in, suddenly very aware that it's way too silent on the other end. "Someone talk to me. Is everyone okay?"
"We're fine, we're fine," Oliver replies. "Everyone's okay, including the Chief. And Spartan."
"Oh good." The relieved breath Felicity lets out is audible. She closes her eyes, pressing her forehead to Ellie's gently. Little fingers grasp at her face, grabbing stray strands of hair that had fallen from Felicity's ponytail. "I'm so sorry. Ellie got some of the wires at literally the worst possible time, and… Well, long story short, I'm rolling her into a blanket ball and she's not allowed to leave it ever. How did he get out?"
"A vent at the top of the room," Oliver replies. "The water got high enough that he jimmied it open before the electricity turned on."
"Oh, thank God," Felicity whispers. The reality that things could have gone so much worse makes her chest feel way too tight.
"Is everything okay over there?"
"Yes."
"Good." His own relief is evident in his tone. He sighs, and she can only imagine what it was like hearing her freaking out over the comms on top of trying to save Diggle. Felicity feels the sudden urge to hug and kiss the hell out of her husband. The absolute hell out of him. "Good."
"But," Felicity says, smiling because she doesn't have to force lightness into her tone. "Ellie's got a new trick to show you when you get back. It's a very, very frightening trick." He chuckles. "We really, really need to get this place baby-proofed."
"Stat," Oliver adds.
Felicity laughs, hugging Ellie. "Yes. Stat."
