To Be a Bird of Prey

Origins

III. The City Down Below

Chapter Two

"I bring foody gifts!"

Helena turned to the sound of Felicity's voice, where she was coming up to their tower for the fifth time in as many days. She was definitely taking advantage of their new open door policy.

But it made the little bird happy, because the smile on her face had grown wider as the clacking of heels up the stairs had gotten louder, and now, she was grinning. Because she had a thing for Felicity.

"I know you guys have been going by on stale sandwiches and Oreos, so I thought I'd bring you some nice and hot cooked meals for a change," Felicity went on, dangling three takeout bags in each hand and sounding like she was very much out of breath, "though they're probably not even hot anymore, 'cause it took me like ten minutes to get all the way up here – and side note: have you thought about an elevator for this place?" She scrunched her eyebrows there, then added, "Okay, you two probably don't need it, but maybe for visitors?"

Sara laughed, walking up to take the bags from Felicity's hand and hold them up for inspection. "That's a lot of food."

"More for leftovers?" Felicity proposed, grinning at Sara who was grinning at her, and Helena rolled her eyes.

"We don't have a fridge to put leftovers in either," she said

Felicity's face fell for a moment. Then brightened right back up. "I could get you some of those thermo baggy things that keeps stuff warm? And cold."

Of course she could. "We're fine," Helena assured flatly, earning herself a predictable look from Sara, before she took a peek into the bags. "That is a lot of food," she commented.

"Right, yeah, I didn't know your preferences," Felicity explained, "so I got a little bit of everything. There's Chinese and Mexican, and there's some stuff from that Moroccan place next to QC that's just to die for – oh, and there's actually some Big Belly Burger in there too, since I figured, you know, maybe you're really into sandwiches and grease and fries? Um, and…there's some...Italian, in there. Too."

Helena raised an eyebrow at her and the way she puckered her lips while lightly bumping her fists against one another, then nodded. It was a gesture. She could accept a gesture. She was gracious.

"Thanks," she said, taking the bag with the food meant for her and looking through the containers. "Though, next time," she added, "maybe try a little harder than pasta?"

So maybe she wasn't all that gracious.

Felicity's face fell again. "Right," she muttered.

Sara was giving her another look. Helena ignored her.

"Well, thank you," Sara turned to Felicity, all smiles again. "Really."

Felicity shrugged. "It's nothing. And, uh" – she shifted a little awkwardly – "I was thinking, if you don't have any plans tonight, I have a few criminal hotspots that could use your attention…if you want?"

"Yeah, of course," Sara agreed immediately, even squeezing Felicity's arm for a moment.

That perked little Ms. Smoak right back up. "Okay, great," she said. "Later, then."

She threw one last wave over her shoulder on her way down, and Helena was sure she'd heard her mumble something about heels and stairs, too, before the sounds faded. The moment they did, Sara whirled on her.

"Do you have to be like that with her?" she demanded.

Helena shrugged. "If I start acting nice," she said, lowering herself to her favorite eating position on the floor, "she could take it as an invitation to actually move in."

Sara licked her lips – a sign of frustration – then just dropped to the ground with a sigh.

"But I'm guessing that's exactly what you want," Helena added, nodding.

Jabbing her chopsticks into a container of noodles, Sara said, "Felicity, she's – "

"The thing that makes your little bird heart sing, yeah."

"My friend," Sara corrected pointedly, and Helena could even agree with that label, if it didn't sound like shoehorning something into a box it didn't quite fit in.

But that was probably the easier way to go about it, when what used to make her little bird heart sing, or maybe still did, was in Nanda Parbat.

Or coming to kill them all.

She clucked her tongue. "Okay, I'm sorry," she apologized. "You like her, I know that. And you like this thing we've been doing with her, but…"

"You don't?" Sara guessed.

"It's not all bad," Helena admitted. "Going out every other night, doing what we do, I like that. And Felicity, she knows how not to get us killed. And yeah, fine, sometimes I like her, I think she's made of the same stuff we are. But then she says something and I remember that she's Oliver's girl." She shrugged. "And I can't trust that."

Sara looked down, twirled her noodles around for a bit, then commented, "She's trying, though. To not see us as Oliver and Diggle. And she's trying to bond with you."

"So, you're saying I should meet her halfway?"

Sara shrugged. "I think that'd be good."

"Fine, I'll try," Helena agreed. "But I'm not making any promises."

The last time she'd been up here, it was on her knees with a sword looming over her head, ready to come down against her neck at any secon

Not that any trace of that night remained still. Or of Oliver's presence in the office, really. Which, she supposed, wasn't all that hard to accomplish, considering he'd left no personal touch on it.

It was still as minimalistic as he'd left it, though. Mrs. Queen was just little better at color-coordinating it.

With the exception of a giant flower assortment at the corner of her desk.

Felicity took one last steeling breath before she tapped on the glass. "You wanted to see me?"

Moira looked up, a slight smile on her face. "Ms. Smoak," she greeted. "Yes, I've asked to have you sent up here. Have a seat, please."

Felicity sat down, smoothing down her skirt. "Well, I hope you're not about to ask me to be your EA," she said, then winced. "I mean, 'cause I was terrible at it."

"Actually, you were pretty good," Moira told her, raising an eyebrow. "Especially considering you weren't qualified for the position."

Ouch.

"What I'm interested about is the position you are qualified for," she went on. "I know that, since my son left, you've taken your old job back, down at IT."

Felicity swallowed. "I have."

"And I imagine it suits you, but I was wondering if you had thought to surpass it? Move up the ladder?"

"Wait, are you…offering me a promotion?"

"I am." Moira nodded. "To Head of the IT Department."

That just made –

Perfect sense, actually.

"Mrs. Queen, with all due respect," Felicity said, "I don't want any favors."

"Favors?" Moira echoed delicately.

Felicity sighed. "The thing is, I'm pretty sure you're offering me this promotion because I was" – she cleared her throat – "friends, with Oliver. Because you want to do a favor for someone he was close to, and I especially think that because I know for a fact that Isabel hates me and that you'd need a good reason to fight her over giving me this position."

"Yes, Isabel is very much against the idea," Moira confirmed, her expression growing a little sour. "I'd wondered about her reasons, actually."

Well, her reasons probably went along the lines of resenting the hell out of the girl she'd thought had slept her way to the top, but no need to bring that up.

"And you're right," Moira added after a moment. "This is something I wanted to do for you as Oliver's…friend."

Always that little inflection on the word, Felicity thought. With everyone at QC. All the time.

"Which is not to say that I think you're not qualified for the position," Moira went on. "I know you are. You are actually over-qualified for your current position, and Walter" – she glanced at the flowers on her desk – "thinks being there limits your potential in this company."

Felicity smiled. "Mr. Steele was always nice to me. And a charmer" – she grinned and nodded to the flowers, then winced again – "which is none of my business."

Oddly or not, Moira smiled, too. "Yes, the flowers are from him." She paused for a moment, then added, "For my birthday."

"It's your birthday?" Felicity let out, because it came but once a year, and Moira Queen's birthday usually generated much more buzz than – well, complete silence. Even when she was in prison.

"There's not much fanfare this year," Moira agreed, as if she'd read her thoughts. "I saw no reason to host a party, not when my son is away, again, and my daughter won't speak to me, unless it's to tell me she's moving out of the house." She blew out a quiet breath, then gestured to the flowers. "Walter thought these would cheer me up."

"I'm…sorry," Felicity offered.

It had to really suck to, out of your whole family, only still be on speaking terms with the ex-husband you'd helped keep imprisoned for months.

It also had to be that she was hearing about it for a reason.

"Mrs. Queen," she said, squaring her shoulders, "I get that…you'd want to have something to help fix your relationship with at least your son, which in this case would be getting me a promotion, but…I don't think he's coming back. Not anytime soon. He will, just…not soon. And when he does, it…won't be for me." She shook her head. "So, if you want to get on his good side again, I'm not your way in."

Felicity was pretty sure she saw the exact moment Moira swallowed back her sadness, closing her eyes for just a little too long.

Eventually, she said, "Well, thank you for your honesty, Ms. Smoak." She nodded. "And my offer still stands."

"And I still don't want it," Felicity maintained. "To be honest with you, I'm not even sure I…want to stay at Queen Consolidated."

She didn't elaborate, but Moira still looked like she understood.

"In that case, I can provide you with a list of companies that might be looking for a woman of your talents, if you like."

Felicity considered that. "Yeah, I think…I think I could use that," she decided. "One of these days."

"Well, feel free to come to me when the day does come," Moira assured, and Felicity took that as her cue to leave.

"Thank you," she said as she rose from her chair, making her way out. "Oh, and uh," she added over her shoulder, offering Moira a slight smile, "happy birthday, Mrs. Queen."

Moira only nodded.

"It's late."

Felicity looked up, to find Sara smiling down at her. A glance back down to the laptop in her lap confirmed it was, in fact, late. Just after three in the morning. So, really late.

"Yeah, I kinda lost track of time," Felicity admitted.

"Working on getting us more furniture to spruce up this tower?" Sara teased lightly, lowering herself next to Felicity on one said piece of furniture. So, she'd gotten them a couch. No big deal. They needed it, really. A nice, big, purple couch. Though Felicity personally leaned more towards something on the pastel spectrum, when she'd inquired about color preferences, Sara had thrown a quick look in Helena's direction, and asked for purple. So, purple it was.

"It's just a couch," Felicity said.

"And a coffee table, and a desk, and a fridge," Sara ticked off the rest of it, nodding towards each one of the packages that still remained to be opened and assembled. Felicity was proudest of the fridge, actually. Because getting the fridge meant that she had also successfully tricked Power and Water's system into the thinking the electricity bills for this place were, in fact, getting paid.

She smiled. "Just wait 'til I get us a bed." No, that's not right – "I mean, you and Helena, I wasn't counting myself in – I'm going to get you beds, plural, unless you want just one bed, I can do that too – "

"Felicity," Sara grinned, "you don't have to get us anything else."

"I want to." Felicity shrugged. "Besides, I'm a pro at sprucing up vigilantes' lairs. I'll have you know that I managed to turn the foundry from rumble-and-shambles to Crime-Fighter Central on just two million dollars."

Sara ducked her head, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. "Okay," she eventually said, looking back up, "but for the record" – her smile softened – "you should start counting yourself in this. Giving this tower a makeover, it…shouldn't be just for Helena and me."

Felicity bit her lip, taking a quick peek to the side, to Helena, where she was sitting on one of the unpacked boxes on her lonesome and, by the looks of it, removing bloodstains from her gear.

"What if I said this is me trying to buy my way in?" she asked quietly before dragging her eyes back to Sara, whose own were scrutinizing; after a beat, she nodded in understanding.

"You're already in, Felicity," she said, clear and steady.

Sometimes, she did feel like it. Others, not so much.

"I know it gets difficult to believe it, with Helena," Sara added, as if she'd read her thoughts. "But you have a place here." She paused before reaching out, pulling one of Felicity's hands away from the keyboard and taking it in hers. "You don't have to" – her mouth quirked at the corner – "buy your way in here."

She wasn't going to cry. Nope.

"I'm still kinda butting in on your thing," she pointed out, quietly. "Feels like I have to" – make myself useful – "earn it."

"Then consider it earned."

Felicity couldn't help but smile. Still… "Not sure Helena feels the same way."

Sara looked past her at that, sighing deeply before she focused back on her. "She appreciates it, all you've been doing," she said, "all we've done for Starling, together. But she's also…untrusting."

"Yeah, well, if anyone should be untrusting of anyone here, it's me, considering she threatened then tied me up first time we met," Felicity grumbled.

Sara said nothing, just nodded, squeezing her hand.

Felicity held tighter in the ensuing silence, starting to feel drowsy when Sara began rubbing little circles into her palm, and letting her head fall against the back of the couch.

"You should go home and get some sleep," Sara commented softly.

And just like that, she was awake again.

"No, I'm fine," she declared, sitting back up and extracting her hand free in the process. "Besides, I should get back to this." She gestured to her laptop. "It's actually one of my facial recognition programs, but I'm tweaking it for our purposes, so it should be like, three hundred percent more efficient by the time I'm done, and when I upload it to – "

"Felicity."

She really needed to work on being a better liar.

She stilled her hands, looking over to Sara.

"You've been here a lot," Sara began, eyes steady and unwavering. "And if not here, then on the comms with us pretty much every night. I'm thinking all the hours you've been putting in aren't just about getting in on the action."

Felicity blew out a quiet breath, her eyes watering.

"I can't…really sleep," she admitted. "Lately. It's – I was doing okay at Digg's, you know, because he was there, but ever since I came back to my apartment, I just – " She cleared her throat, willing her voice to be stronger as she went on, "I keep having nightmares, or…hearing the floor creak and thinking it's China White coming to butcher me to death with her knives."

Strengthening her voice was a pointless effort because it broke on the last word, and then Sara was taking her laptop and putting it behind her, before winding an arm around her shoulders; Felicity went with the familiar motion, settling her cheek against Sara's shoulder.

Her eyes still stung but she didn't cry, taking a deep breath, then a second, before she said, "It's weird, because it's not like that was the first time I'd been kidnapped or tied up or nearly killed or anything, and yeah, sure, I was jumpy and freaked out all the other times, too, but now it just…won't go away. And" – she gulped – "being alone is just really not fun for me these days, so I…spend a lot of time here." She chuckled faintly. "Guess I'm busted."

Sara huffed a small laugh in return. "You don't need an excuse, you know," she said. "If you want to stay here."

"I mostly just want to not see horrible things every time I close my eyes," Felicity sighed. "Got any advice on that?"

"Not really," Sara said. "My nightmares never stopped."

"Mine did."

Felicity started at the sound of Helena's voice, twisting around to look over her shoulder; both the box and the leather lay abandoned as Helena stood halfway between them and the couch, seeming to hesitate for a second before closing the rest of the distance. Felicity tracked her movements in silence and with a frown, until Helena propped herself against one of the armrests.

"The nightmares," she said, "I used to have them all the time. For years. Ever since Michael died." Her shoulders grew stiffer there but she still added, "Because I was afraid. That I would fail, that my father would get away and I would have raised hell for nothing, that Michael would never rest in peace. But then I did find my father" – her eyes slipped to Sara for a moment – "and the nightmares stopped."

A gesture.

It was a gesture.

She was trying to be nice.

In her own special way, of course, because by 'find', she'd meant 'kill'; she'd quite literally stabbed her nightmare through the heart, and that just sounded like a terrifying nightmare in its own right.

"I couldn't do that," Felicity said. "Kill her, I mean. 'Cause that's what you're saying, right? That I should literally kill my nightmare?"

Helena shrugged. "Well, you are shacking up with two killers right now. If you want to keep your hands clean…"

"I can't use either of you as henchwomen either," Felicity balked at the suggestion, though part of her felt as though she should be thanking Helena for the offer. "That's just – no."

"I thought you didn't have a problem with people killing for you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Hey, I'm just saying," Helena raised her hands in mock-surrender. "You didn't bat an eye when Sara and I snapped the necks of three Triad men for chaining you to a wall, and I heard about Count Vertigo dropping from the top of Queen Consolidated with two arrows in his chest. Somehow, I don't think Oliver had to crawl on his knees asking for forgiveness for that either, so…"

"That's different," Felicity said heatedly, moving away from Sara as she straightened.

Helena pursed her lips. "I'm still pretty sure that if someone pulled the trigger on Chien Na Wei right now, you wouldn't mind."

Felicity meant to fire back with something, anything, and found that she had nothing to do it with. So she swallowed, looking away. "No, I wouldn't," she admitted, pulling in a deep breath before she met Helena's eyes again. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to make it happen myself." She shook her head. "I can't do that."

Helena's eyes were narrowed, and studying, and she exchanged another look with Sara before she said, "You'd be surprised, by all the things you're capable of doing."

Sara's hand tightened on her arm, and when Felicity glanced over to her, she was looking at the ground, a crease in her brow.

"Yeah, I guess you guys would have some experience with that," Felicity commented quietly, getting Sara to look up.

She'd seen that sort of look before, on Oliver and sometimes John, the one that wasn't quite there in the present, and rather at some god-awful stop of an even worse memory lane.

Still, Sara offered her a faint smile. "You could say that."

Felicity pried Sara's fingers away from her arm, wrapping them in her own instead. "You're still more than what you've done." She looked over her shoulder, to Helena. "And so are you."

If the way her jaw went slack was any indication, Helena hadn't seen that one coming.

Felicity nodded slightly when Sara's eyebrows shot up, because it wasn't all that long ago when she was asking her to see Helena as more than what she had done, as she did the rest of them, and Felicity wouldn't hear of it. Because she couldn't understand her. Sara, and John, and Oliver, she understood them; people who had done what they had because they'd had no other choice. She couldn't understand Helena the same way.

She did mean it now, though.

Sure, Helena was all heads-through-brick-walls, and trigger-happy, and rude, and honestly, one hundred percent terrifying, and truth be told, Felicity still didn't get it, how someone ended up the way Helena was, but she could understand loyalty. Loyalty to Michael before, and to Sara now. That, she could understand.

And Helena seemed a lot more like an actual person now.

So, she turned back to her, shrugging. "I'm sorry for all the times I thought of you as just the patricidal, unhinged, psycho mob princess."

She could be wrong, but Helena looked like she might be stifling a smile. "Then I'm sorry for thinking of you as nothing more than Oliver's girl."

Felicity frowned. "Oliver's girl?"

"Takes one to know one," Helena was the one to shrug this time. "The point is, I see a lot of him in you. And not in a good way."

"You mean how I got carried away with the whole doing-things-our-way…thing?"

"Yeah," Helena said. "He liked to be the only one who gets to decide who lives or dies, too."

"That's not really…how that went," Felicity argued, though meekly.

Helena crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

Felicity sighed. "Okay, yeah, he had his rules," she allowed, "and when they changed, so did our entire modus operandi, but…"

"You did things his way," Helena said. "And you still are."

"It's the only way I know how." Felicity shrugged. "Oliver and John, they were the only team I ever had, and…the way we did things, that's what I learned, what I know." When Helena began gearing up for a protest, she quickly added, "I know you're not them. I do. And I'm not trying to make you into them. Well, not anymore anyway." She rolled her eyes, mostly at herself. "I always knew it wasn't going to be the same with the two of you, that it was going to be different than it was like with Oliver and Digg. I knew that, and I told myself I'd" – she chuckled – "adapt." She nodded. "The way I did with them, too."

Helena blinked, then really did smile as she looked over to Sara. "Guess I wasn't wrong about everything. You are made of the same stuff we are."

Huh?

"We adapted, too," Sara told her when Felicity directed her frown at her. "It's how we became killers."

"Oh. That doesn't bode too well for me, then."

Helena laughed this time.

It was short and quiet, and Felicity almost thought she'd imagined it.

"Well, this was fun," Helena said as she pushed herself off the armrest and onto her feet. "And now I'm gonna take a break from it and run to the store." Her leather rustled as she slipped it on. "For some baking soda, before this" – she gestured to a sizeable patch of dirtied leather on her gear – "becomes a lost cause."

"Baking soda?" Felicity asked. "Oliver always used the hydrogen peroxide we had lying around."

"Baking soda's better."

"Really?"

Helena hummed, then flashed her a grin. "You learn a lot growing up in the mob," she said as she went down the hatch and out of sight. The thump and clomp of boots down the stairs soon faded too, and Felicity was left with an odd feeling of happiness in her chest, the likes of which she had never thought she would associate with Helena Bertinelli.

She turned to Sara, and grinned. "I am in, baby, I am in."

"Okay, that 'baby' got away from me," she added after a second of mental playback. "Unless you're into that? Not that I'm – I mean, personally, it always creeped me out, 'cause I'm always picturing it coming out of this sleazy old guy's mouth, which obviously makes it weird that I'm saying it but – I'll just stop talking."

"Still cute," Sara said with a grin, all teeth and dimples.

Her dimples were all sorts of adorable.

And all the freckles.

And –

Oh God, she had a type.

And it involved lots of leather and blonde hair.

And really, really pretty bright blue eyes.

"Did you really mean it?" Sara asked next, her voice low. "What you said to Helena?"

What had she –

Oh right, that.

Wow, she really needed to stop getting distracted by pretty blonde vigilantes.

Anyway.

"Yeah," she said. "Turns out, you were right. She's more than just, you know, Oliver's psycho ex-girlfriend. Digg used to call her that. Anyway" – she shook her head – "I think she's growing on me."

Sara smiled. "I'm glad."

"Because you don't have to be the awkward middle woman anymore?"

"Yeah."

Felicity snorted.

"But also," Sara added, "because it means you'll be probably be here more often."

"You like having me around?"

Sara nodded. "I do," she said, simple and honest.

She was always like that with her, Felicity thought, and it was always almost surprising, because she was used to a man who had such a tight lock on his thoughts and feelings that getting to hear them felt like winning a battle; not Sara, though. She hid things, too, lots of things, but it was Felicity's experience that a simple question would get her a simple answer.

Maybe that was another thing that made Sara so amazing.

She was honest.

At least with her.

"I like having you around, too," she whispered.

Sara smiled again, slowly, until it had reached every part of her face, and Felicity felt a lot like leaning in closer.

And then birds started singing.

Literally.

Felicity bit back a smile at Sara's ringtone – birds, honestly – then forget what was supposed to be funny, because Helena's name was flashing across the screen and Sara was frowning.

"Helena?" Sara prompted as soon as she'd pressed 'answer', putting her on speaker.

"Hey, Birdie," Helena's voice rang through the tower, sounding stilted.

"What's wrong? Are you in trouble?"

"Not so much trouble," Helena said, "as a one-woman ambush."

Felicity frowned. So did Sara. "An ambu – what woman?"

"Laurel Lance."