'One more try'
"How long has Beetle been missing?" Oliver asked, voice grim. He kept his tone impersonal, not speaking Ted's name aloud: it kept his head where it needed to be, and not on the way there were dark circles under Felicity's eyes and her hands shook as they reached out to brush along the railings as she lead them into the base.
They walked into the main hub of the 'Beetle Cave', his eyes lingering on the wall as they passed, which held tacked up news clippings about the Blue Beetle; it was proud in a way he'd never been about the Arrow persona. But they had something to be proud of: the papers heralded him as hero, not a vigilante. It sounded like they were doing good in a way he never could from the headlines.
Beetle saves family always sounded better than Arrow kills businessman, no matter how corrupt the man was. He'd stopped killing now, but there was a stain on his name that could never be cleaned.
The rest of the space was more of a lab than a base of operations. Oliver counted four separate work tables, each cluttered with half finished projects, several variations of some kind of gun he had seen the Blue Beetle carry on the news, blueprints, saws, coffee cups and engineering equipment he didn't even know the name of. It was cluttered, so different from the Foundry and its immaculate uniform stands and weapon cases.
Then there were the silly scribbles on the edges of paper claiming 'Booster was here' and doodles of extravagant new gadgets that were scientifically unlikely and cartoonish. It was a frivolous space, through and through - Oliver wasn't surprised one of them had ended up missing.
If they were lucky, Ted wouldn't be dead.
Despite his feelings towards the other man, the Arrow started to hope that he was alive. For Felicity, whose voice shook and looked like she hadn't slept in days. Ted's death would hurt her the most.
"Four days," Felicity said. "We were down here just . . . hanging out. There was an emergency services call over the radio and it seemed like nothing – routine, a disturbance further up the coastline. Ted left. He said he could handle it, we didn't think-" she cut off, voice getting higher the longer she went on, eyes glassy again. "He never came back."
The yellow man had watched them warily as they approached, lights reflecting off the visor of his costume but not quite obscuring the dark eyes underneath, hands clenched into a fist as his side. Like Felicity, he wore exhaustion in his posture; his mouth was pinched into a thin line as the movement of his jaw told Oliver that he was biting the inside of his lip.
Paling at her words, the blonde man sighed. "It was my fault. I should've gone with him."
"Michael, no-"
"It's true! I should have been with him, we're supposed to be a team," Michael shouted, taking a few steps away from them, outside Felicity's reach when he fingers touched his arm. "And secret identity, Felicity."
Any other time, Felicity would have rolled her eyes as she replied. As it was, a long, drawn out sigh left her, deflating as she sat back in her chair. "Mikey, you're from the future. All your documents are faked anyway, I don't think it matters that they know who you are."
"He's from the future?" Roy whispered loudly to Sara, who shrugged. She'd seen weirder.
"And what could you have done?" Felicity went on, levelling Michael with her strongest gaze. "We don't know the variables – anything could have happened, with you there or without. You couldn't have done anything, as far as we know."
"I could have made sure Ted didn't go alone!" Michael shouted. He shook his head, irate, and suddenly he was floating a few off the ground. "I've got to go. I'll call you if I find anything."
As he shot upwards towards a hatch in the concrete ceiling, a yellow aura of light surrounding him in flight which was slightly mesmerising to watch, Michael hit a button on his suit linked up to the base and the hatch opened, revealing a starlit sky. He flew straight until he vanished, Felicity's eyes on her friend as he left mouth open like she wanted to call him back but finding nothing to say. She looked more defeated than Oliver had ever seen her; more than their argument, than when she left.
He walked quietly behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. For a few seconds, she just let it lie there, a quiet comfort Oliver hadn't been convinced she wouldn't refuse. After, she stood up, turning to nod to him before stepping out of his grasp towards the computers.
If Oliver's hand lingered where she was for a moment, no one noticed.
"Beetle was wearing a tracer, but it went dark a couple of hours after he'd left. That was when we were starting to think something might be wrong – the tracer just confirmed it. It was in his goggles, and could only have been broken if he was," Felicity's voice cracked as she pulled up specs for the Beetle's goggles, showing the tracer. Next to it on the screen, she pulled a map and pointed to two yellow dots. "That's where the call was – we checked out the scene, but couldn't find much but what looked like a blast on one of the walls," she explained, pointing to the dot on the left. "That is the last point of broadcast we got from the tracer before it went offline. It's a cave on the coast – Michael went, but there was nothing there."
"What about enemies?" Sara asked, standing on Felicity's direct left. "Before this happened, was there anyone in particular you'd pissed off? Anyone you'd tangled with before?"
Felicity shook her head. "Everyone we've ever gone after is still in Belle Reve, or a psychiatric unit."
"And current cases?" Diggle put in.
"We had been working on clearing out an underground fighting pit, but it was slow progress. We didn't know who was in charge of the entire operation so we've been trying to follow the chain of command through the big boss' top lieutenants who handle the finances of the pit. But they didn't even know we were investigating them," Felicity answered. "I don't think it's them."
"So you have no suspects?" Oliver asked. There was a bite in his tone he didn't intend to be there, but the lack of leads didn't leave them with much but blindly combing the city looking for Beetle. If it was an unknown attacker, there weren't high chances of just stumbling into them – Ted was as good as dead.
"I don't know!" Felicity said loudly, frustration leeching in to her own voice. Slamming her fist against the desk, she got to her feet and pushed past him, taking a few steps away and pausing at a different work bench. Slowly, she got her strained breathing under control, fingers reaching to brush against the half-finished gadget laying there. "I don't know, okay? I just – I've been trying to figure it out for days but there's no one and-"
"Hey, it's okay," Oliver told her, finding his senses again. Hands stretched out, he walked towards her and put a hand on her shoulder, turning her easily until she faced him, eyes red rimmed but with no tears left, resigned to bad news. He never wanted her to lose the hope he always saw in those eyes, but her gaze held nothing but despair. "We're going to find Ted; I promise. Felicity, look at me – I promise. I keep my promises. I will find Ted."
Felicity nodded numbly, but he saw her recognise the gravity of his promise to her. Her head tilted towards him for a second before it landed firmly on his chest, angled up towards his neck as her hands balled into the fabric of his jacket at the back, clasping for something solid and real, something that was there.
Left hand closing around her back, Oliver felt the world melt away. The embrace was fragile: Felicity's small, shallow breaths shook the steadiness of his arms, and he worried that she would fall if he let her go. But Felicity Smoak was never finished surprising him with her strength – she pulled back after a minute, wiping her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't be."
"But-"
"You're friend is missing and you're hurt, you don't have to apologise for that," Oliver told her sternly, hand going to her elbow again; a constant touch, a brief reassurance. "We all know how that feels. And I will find Ted – I think double-checking the scene of the original 911 call would be the best place to start while we have no other leads."
Felicity nodded, a little more sure of herself now. "Okay. Okay. But I'm coming too."
A fleeting smile crossed her lips, the kind she used to give him. Then she was walking past him, grabbing her coat and laptop and gesturing for them all to follow them, steely look in her eye. Her heels clicked against the stone, strides long and even, heading up a small step of metal stairs a moment later and leading up to something that resembled a helicopter landing pad.
"What the hell is that?" Roy asked, staring at the oddly shaped vehicle in delight, edges of his pale lips flicking up in joy.
"Oh," Felicity turned to them, hitting a button on her phone which opened the door, dropping down a ramp for them to enter to hull. "This is The Bug."
"Damn," Diggle cursed loudly, feet leading him to stand in front of the harbour wall.
Back arched up to see the wall, much bigger than any of them, he let out a low whistle at the burn covering a large section of the concrete, black and charring; a scar on the landscape. It was about halfway up the thirty foot sea wall, which was supposed to stop the force of the waves from destroying the coastline during high tide. Part of the concrete was indented in the middle of the burn, exposed pale white and scattering large chunks of it onto the grey sand under his feet, cordoned off by the cops in a hundred yard radius, leaving them alone on the beach.
Dawn was fast approaching, a few hours away still, but enough for the horizon to be grey instead of black as pitch, the sun struggling to climb into the sky above the choppy waves. This was the prime time for their investigation – late enough that most of the other criminals have given up and gone to bed, early enough to investigate without having to dodge the public. The quiet suited all of them as they surveyed the scene, desolate apart from the burn in the wall, an angry mark none of the heroes assembled could tear their eyes away from.
"That's . . ." Sara started, but trailed off to stare at the burned scar. Her head shook a little in disbelief – she had seen blasts and bombs and damage enough to last ten lifetimes, but never anything quite like this.
Felicity's voice was grim as she walked to stand at the foot of it, "I know."
"What did the original call say?" Oliver spoke up. He was standing further back, trying to see the bigger picture of damaged caused – but it was hard to try and put together what could have happened, the sea had already washed away any evidence from the beach, leaving only the burn mark untouched so far, with seasonal calm waves not reaching high enough to erase it. "Were there any specifics? Has this been a problem area before?"
"No, not at all. We usually stick to the city, there's never any crime this far up the coast," Felicity shook her head. Calls this far out rarely registered their attention – Chicago and the Lake Michigan area by Kord Industries was their main grounds – but this place, a few miles up the shore's coastline – it was unknown to them. "As far as I know, Ted had never been here before. The call was routine, but big enough to get our attention – a disturbance, likely not domestic, that two officers had been dispatched to investigate and then stopped responding. The police were sending more officers on the dispatch we intercepted, and Ted said he'd go, but he didn't think it was anything to worry about." She sighed a little, wincing. "'Probably just some old crank fishermen having a scuffle', he said. I shouldn't have listened."
"It's not your fault, Felicity." Diggle was beside her in an instant, putting an arm around her shoulders. Knowing she appreciated physical contact at times like this, but always, Felicity wanted answers more, he let go and pointed to the burn mark. "Look, this isn't from a fire – it's not an ordinary burn. I'd say it looked like a bomb blast, but look – the directionality of the burn is all wrong for that. It doesn't go out, it veers to the left," his arm swept across the line of the burn, showing her. "That suggests a targeted blast. But . . . well, I've never seen anything like it."
She nodded, agreeing. "The first time I was here, I got my computer to run a crime scene scan – whatever caused this must have been putting out temperatures of over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. But that's impossible – there's no weapon designed that wouldn't melt under that much pressure."
"Not even ARGUS has that sort of technology," Diggle confirmed.
"What about STARLabs?" Oliver asked, calling over to them. "Have you heard from Caitlin or Cisco lately?"
"Not in a while," Felicity shook her head. Another wrack of guilt seized her for a few seconds. Barry. He was still in a coma, and she'd forgotten to visit for months. She had been so wrapped up in playing a hero she hadn't even thought to call. "I've been . . . busy. But I don't think this has anything to do with them. Since the accelerator explosion they haven't exactly been the height of new developments. And why would they attack the Blue Beetle?"
Oliver nodded, seeing the logic behind her reasoning. But there had to be someone out there with technologies advanced to create a focus, high-intensity blast and a grudge match against Beetle. "Have you considered the possibility that whoever took him had a grudge against Ted and not the Beetle?"
"Ted doesn't have any enemies! Oliver, he's a good guy. He's good to his employees and his city – there's no one who'd want to hurt him," Felicity said. The conviction in her voice when she turned to look at him hurt Oliver a little, until he realised that was ridiculous. But she obviously believed in her friend so much she was blind to any grievances against him – which meant she might have missed something. But Felicity was already blinking away the fresh worry and turning back to the wall, carrying on in a quieter tone. "No, this has to be a Beetle thing. We're just missing something."
Oliver wanted to argue the point, but a stern shake of Sara's head in his direction silenced him. Taking a breath, he re-prioritised. There was nothing there but a burn in a wall and no clue to what made it. Felicity couldn't think of a lead when it came to who would want to hurt him. All they had left was the last recorded co-ordinates of his tracer.
"We know something," Oliver said instead, and everyone turned to face him; Felicity's were the only eyes he met. "Ted was alive when he left here."
She blinked, "How can you know that?"
"If he was caught up in that blast, there would be nothing left of him," Oliver replied, but it sounded harsher than he had intended. "The GPS tells us he was brought to another place, in one piece. He left here alive, Felicity. And why would whoever took him bother moving him if they were just going to kill him anyway?"
Shaking her head, Felicity shrugged, having no answer to that. There was something like hope in the way she looked at him now.
"There's something about this," Oliver looked at the wall, then back to her. "I know you believed Ted had no enemies, but this seems personal. Planned. He was taken somewhere else because whoever took him had bigger plans that incinerating him."
"Is this supposed to be making me feel better?" Felicity asked, face suddenly aghast. It was cold on the beach, but not enough to make her tremble the way she was, arms wrapped around herself and staring at him with wide eyes, hair clinging to her face in the light rain which had begun to fall as they arrived.
"I didn't mean it like-"
"Yeah, you never do," she snapped back. Felicity shook her head, walking back up towards the beach, but Oliver chased after her, catching her by the arm and turning her to a face him again.
"Felicity, I'm telling you I think he's alive!" Oliver shouted, "Listen to me, I know I hurt you. I get it now. I was wrong. I admit it! But I'm trying to make it right by helping you save the person who didn't let you down, and I believe Ted is alive. Nobody would go to all this effort to kill him so soon – if we can find him, we can save him."
Gulping down the rest of the words he wanted to say, Oliver let go of her arm, giving Felicity the chance to walk away. She had every right not to listen to him. But instead of turning, she stayed close, her mouth opened in what could have been shock, he couldn't tell; the world was a blur, all he could see was slight rain and hair like sunshine.
Oliver knew it changed nothing. He had still said and did the things he did, and he couldn't change that. But what he could do was make sure she was never alone. He could bring Ted home to her, and she could be happy. He wanted to tell her all of this, but it wasn't the fair thing to do. Felicity had offered him everything, and his own stupid, selfish fear of not wanting to get hurt any more had pushed her away, when really he should have been holding on to her and all her light for dear life.
The future was always uncertain. Oliver understood that now, too late. There was never a way to predict life's twists and turns, and sudden falls of cliffs - but you could choose who was beside you for the ride. He had been too scared of the ending to choose the person who made him happier than anyone else on this earth, and now it wasn't fair to tell her that he'd changed his mind and wanted her in every way imaginable. A friend, an ally, a partner. A wife, one day.
But telling her any of that would just hurt her more, so he pressed his lips together, feeling the water from the rain pool there.
For a moment, she stared at him and leaned towards him just a fraction of an inch. There was a tug in his gut to pull her closer; Oliver thought Felicity was going to kiss him for a second, but then her gaze sharpened and her hand fell instead to his shoulder for support. With a swift nod, she accepted the things he had told her.
"You're forgiven, Oliver," she told him, like it was that easy. "I forgave you months ago. Now I need you. If you really do believe Ted is alive – help me find him."
At the last broadcasted co-ordinates of Ted's tracer, a cave that was barely more than a crack in a cliff face another twenty miles away, they found a piece of metal. It was lodged into the rock at the back of the cave, found by Roy and handed to Felicity, who wordlessly frowned at the object.
There was something familiar about it. It was there at the back of her mind, prickling, an itch she couldn't quite scratch. It meant something – if she could just remember what.
But it was coated in mud and oil, half infused with the rock and seawater which had battered it, bent out of shape. She would have to clean it properly to get a better look at what the metal really was, to see if that could jog her memory.
Exhausted physically and of places to go, they headed back to the 'Beetle Cave', Felicity flying the Bug with ease from months of watching Ted do it, going through the motions without thinking. Her head was elsewhere, on the piece of metal in an evidence bag on the dashboard, and the unsettling feeling that she had seen it somewhere before.
"How're you holding up?"
A large hand landed on her shoulder, pretty much covering it, and Felicity leaned into John Diggle. There were a lot of people in her life that made her feel safe, but nobody quite like him. And Felicity didn't believe in the whole 'you can only have one best friend' bullshit. Diggle was her best friend just as much as Ted was, they were just major parts of her life at different times in different places, but neither light diminished the other. It just made it brighter.
"I'm putting all of my remaining energy, which is about 8%, into focusing totally on cleaning this," she gestured to the lump of mud and metal on the work bench in front of her. "And repressing thinking about anything else than the sole task at hand to the point where I think I've tricked my brain into a false sense of calm. I feel numb. But hey, at least I'm not breaking down anymore."
Diggle exhaled air from his nose in what would have been a laugh, understanding her completely. They were all soldiers, but didn't know it; that calm in an emergency was a feeling he knew intimately.
Squeezing the shoulder under his hand, he turned Felicity's chair around. "You need to sleep. I'll finish this – just find a couch, anything, and rest. You can't help if you're running on fumes."
"But that's very delicate-"
"Felicity," Diggle laughed. "I've disarmed bombs with nothing but a pocket light to see, I can clean some mud off metal in a well lit lab. Sleep. Go."
He pointed to the door, and she relented. Standing, Felicity paused just long enough to lean against his shoulder in silent thanks before walking across to a side room, in which was a small cott and blanket. Waiting until he saw the light go out beneath the door, Diggle glanced around the room – Roy was also asleep, on the chair in front of the monitors with his feet on the desk; Sara was trying to contact the other member of Felicity's team, 'Booster Gold', who was refusing to answer his comms; Oliver was staring at the wall of pictures.
That left him to clean the clue, not that Diggle minded in the slightest. It was a lead, which was more than they had when they had left that evening.
So he worked quietly and diligently in his corner for almost three hours straight, so focused on his task that he didn't notice the time pass or move aside from his methodical swiping of cotton wool over the object and spraying with water from the surgical bottle to his right. By the time the true shape of the object emerged, having been obscured completely by the mud and rock, it was way past dawn, not that any of the light reached them.
Slowly, a shape emerged. And a colour, bright and burning.
In his palm, Diggle held a small, metallic, blue beetle. A scarab, to be exact.
"Felicity!" he shouted, getting to his feet and jumping down the staircase to the main level of the base, startling everyone. Roy flinched awake, as did Felicity, who emerged at a run herself, the urgency in Diggle's voice reviving her quickly. "Look at this – it means something, right?"
"Let me see," she said, reaching his side and grabbing an oily rag from the nearest workbench to hold the object with, careful not to let it touch her skin. Diggle dropped it onto the fabric and she finally got a proper look at it: Felicity's face dropped. Losing colour in her face instantly, she shook her head slightly. "Oh my god."
"What is it?" Sara asked.
"No, no, no. Not good."
Felicity wasn't listening to them, crossing the room without even a glance at Oliver as she passed, quick eyes scanning the wall of photos and clippings for something specific. She found it in under a minute, tearing an old, worn in newsclipping from the wall and bringing it over, dropping both it and the scarab on a workbench. Staring at them in comparison, Felicity's fears were confirmed as her former team gathered around to see what she had connected.
"Who is that?" Diggle said, pointing to the picture. It showed an older man wearing a costume unlike any of theirs – but the metal beetle he had just uncovered rested in the middle of his belt, clear as day.
"Dan Garrett," Felicity replied breathlessly. "The first Blue Beetle."
"There was another Blue Beetle?"
"He died," she said, struck with fear. "Dan was murdered – he asked Ted to take the name as he lay dying. If this has anything to do with him-"
Oliver spoke up, seeing her distress. "We don't know that for certain yet, Feli-"
"Kerberos," Felicity corrected voice cold. "In the field, I'm Kerberos."
"Fine, whatever," Oliver relented, not seeing her fury yet. "Kerberos, we can't be sure what's happened yet."
"No, but I know something now. I know where to go," Felicity said, straightening and grabbing both things from the bench.
She turned and ran towards the Bug, knowing they would only be a few steps behind. In her chest was a three-headed dog, Kerberos, more deadly than any arrow or gun or blaster. And it was roaring. There was something deadly just behind her eyes, a desperate sort of anger that was more serious than any other kind – there was nothing she wouldn't do to save Ted in that moment. That made her the most dangerous person among them right then.
"We need to get to Pago Island."
A/N: Felicity Smoak is a pissed off badass, yo. who has the scarab, which will make sense next chapter. full disclosure, I have never been to Chicago/Lake Michigan. But I needed a big-ass wall to be blown up, so it now has a coastline with a sea wall. I know I've been shit at updating this, I really am sorry, but I have six weeks now (post exam results, so a lot less stressed now I know I've gotten into uni - yAY!) to finish this. Have some sort of nice olicity moments as my apology :)