"I think it's better if you only tell me what I should know." Oliver said taking a bite out of the leftover smiley faced pancakes Felicity had made for their children earlier. He did not realise how hungry he was. Felicity is making a fresh batch of scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee for the both of them.
"Okay, you probably noticed the banners on your way down" Felicity gestured towards the stairs with her spatula. "You are running for Mayor of Starling City. And before you throw the 'how could this happen', 'where do you find the time', 'why would do you even want to', questions. You should know that the city NEEDS you to do this." Felicity took a breath and slowed her pacing "The city has become cleaner and a lot of the bad guys are behind bars. This has been happening for a long time now but due to poor and unfortunate circumstances, like having a person who continuously thinks that they have to, first destroy the city before it can be saved, run for mayor. We feel that it's time we made sure the city stays clean and safe. You have more time now too. There are arrangements with allies to stay current with the 'night life' scene, so you have actually cut back on the 'night life'." Felicity showing air quotes "But don't worry, until we solve all of this, everything has been put on hold for now." Felicity scooped the cooked eggs and bacon and placed it in front of them and settled down opposite of Oliver before she continued. Oliver took a generous helping. "I called Dig, he is getting information on our adversary of the week and will get back to us A.S.A.P."
Oliver leaned in close to Felicity and asked in hush tones "Felicity, why are you talking like that? Is there a bug in the house? Why don't to just say night parl"
"No" Felicity squealed covering his mouth before he finished his sentence. As she lowered her hand she mouth the word paparazzi to him. "Ever since you announced, they have been stalking us. You would think that having an affair with the executive assistant would be more interesting than marrying a once upon a time executive assistant, but nope, we found a couple of them hiding behind some bushes last night. Anyway, you never know what they can hear." Felicity shifted her eyes from side to side.
"This is ridiculous!" Oliver declared loudly. "Why don't we just hire people to keep them out?"
"I will let you know in a minute" Felicity said in the same hushed tones Oliver had used. Clearing her throat and reverted back to her normal voice "And we are, just have to shift some things around first."
"And when did 'Oliver Queen' announce his candidacy" Oliver said while mimicking Felicity's air quotes.
Felicity took a sip of the coffee in front of her, avoiding eye contact and softly said "Yesterday morning."
Oliver's whole body tensed, stretching his neck and pursing his lips together he asked "Felicity, I know what a new candidate has to go through Felicity. I went through it with my mum. What are you not telling me?"
"I am only telling you only what you should know, like you asked. I will deal with the whole mayor thing. Now all we have to do is figure a way to get things back to normal and we can continue our lives. Preferably by tonight." Felicity mumbled the last line.
"What's tonight?" Oliver asked just as the doorbell rang.
"Saved by the bell" Felicity avoided the question and got up to open the door.
Damn his sharp hearing, and damn her word vomit, Felicity thought as she headed for the door, she could have handled the conversation better. She knew he was scared even though he won't admit it, he is scared of the possibility he might be stranded here and who could blame him. It took her Oliver a long time before he allowed her to chip away his wall. To top it all off, everything is happening at the worst possible moment. The announcement of Oliver's candidacy was not planned, if there was a suitable candidate both Oliver and she would be happy to endorse the right man or woman for the job. However there was none, most were too afraid of the current opposition. She was also pretty sure that if their opponent wins, Starling would go back to being the crime invested hell hole it was ten years ago. Felicity hoped really hard that all this weirdness is solved by dinner time. Tonight's dinner was by far the most important charity function to garner support from the more well-to-do individuals. In the past, Felicity's past, Oliver used to limit his socialisation with the elite. It was not just because he found them stuffy and conceited, her words not his, but also because he spent most of his time trying to make the city a better place. They would need to schmooze, and schmooze well.
Felicity opened the door to reveal John Diggle. Diggle had the same crew cut he has always worn except now streaks of grey can be seen at the side. He wore a black suit with white shirt a maroon coloured tie. Between the three of them, Diggle was the one who aged the most. All the wrinkles and ulcers appeared right after he took over the ARGUS agency. He is currently the head of not just the Starling brunch but globally.
"Dig!" Felicity gave him a long overdue hug. "It's so great to see you, I didn't know you were coming, usually we conference."
"It's great to see you too Felicity, I wanted to come. It's been like what? 3 years? You look exactly the same" Diggle said returning her hug. "So is Oliver in there? Is he just as awful as he was 10 years ago?"
"Worse" Felicity joked as they walked arm to arm towards the kitchen to greet Oliver.
After the re-acquaintance between Oliver and Diggle, Felicity lead them both to the reason why body guards were not hired yet, the secret base below the house. There were two entrances, one is through a book case in the study room and the other is by the willow tree in the yard. Felicity was in the process of installing the latest in biometric lock and password protection while Oliver was to ensure that the entrances are properly sealed and no one could accidentally stumble in to it.
Past the bookcase, Felicity took them down a steep winding metal staircase. The room started out pitch black but when they reached the middle of the stair case, Oliver heard a 'click' sound and with each step they took from then on, a portion of the light would turn on. When they finally reached the bottom of the stairs the room was so well lit that there were no dark corners. The place looked like a mini archery range. The room was rectangular and wide. There are three archery lanes and at the start of each lane had a bow and arrows in quivers. If Oliver did not know that Felicity was the Arrow's girl, he would think that this was just a billionaire's private archery range.
"Our biometrics were being taken from the time we entered the bookcase till we reached the middle of the stairs" Felicity started to explain. "If an intruder came, the lights would not turn on and he or she would be tranquilised. Lucky for us, Oliver is who he says he is." "This is the room where we test out our new trick arrows and where Oliver trains. Everything you see around you is bulletproof and scorch proof, if you both would follow me." Felicity led them to the target on the right, she placed her hand behind the target like she did with the safe in their closet. There is a similar 'hiss' and 'click' sound.
Oliver thought the closet set up was impressive, but this. The room itself is round, the centre of the room shows a large green arrow embedded into the floor it looks like a clock with four phases. They were standing at one of the phases, the entrance and exit. The first phase Oliver noticed is directly across from where he is standing and the place where the embedded arrow on the floor is pointing at, the costumes. There are three costumes, the one in the middle he recognized as his but with far more gadgets and armour attached to it then he was used to. The one on the right is almost exactly like his but it was in red colour and sleeveless. The costume on the left is clearly made for a woman, it has red armour and tights and yellow hood. To the right of the entrance is all the exercise gear he uses to train including his salmon ladder and Wing Chun dummy. To the left is what he assumes is Felicity's paradise, There are five large monitors attached to the walls, a table in the middle with holographic projections of something he did not know, and more CPU's than he could count in one hand. There is also a few pieces of tech equipment he has never seen before.
As Oliver glanced through Felicity's space, a headline that was playing on one of her monitors caught his attention. It read "Queen Consolidated's CEO, Thea Queen's Marriage Location Revealed."