Blackout Chapter 4

A/N: I wrote this story back in the fall of 2013, and posted the first three chapters in November 2013, so early Season 2 – however, the setting of the story is maybe a year or so after The Count episode (2x07) and there are only spoilers through that episode (though there are mentions of Barry based on promos and spoilers I'd seen for the Barry episodes.)

I mention this because my story has a weird similarity to The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak, the 3x05 episode. My story was written about a year earlier, and was in no way inspired by that episode. I quit updating Olicity for a while during Season 2 because I was busy. Then around the time I was thinking of editing and posting the final two chapters, that episode aired. Certain things were so close to my story I felt weird about posting the final chapters, to be honest. I even thought about changing the story. I've decided just to post it as is but wanted readers to know the similarities are just a weird coincidence. Apparently I was good at guessing Felicity's background :-)

I'll get the final chapter up this week.

Felicity bit her lip as she engaged with Sam online. He was being increasingly careless, which made her wonder if he wanted her to track him. She glanced up when Oliver walked through to the kitchen. He had his sleeves pushed up, and he was frowning as he spoke with someone – Isabel by the sounds of it. When their eyes met he smiled at her, visibly relaxing as he wrapped up the call.

"He must really like you."

Josh's voice startled her. Her fingers paused on the keyboard as she looked at him. "What?"

He tipped his soda can back, taking a drink. "Sam. Dude's being sloppy."

"Oh, yeah." She took a breath and stretched, rolling her neck to work out the kinks that came with hours spent at her computer. "I need a pick-me-up."

Diggle was sitting on the sofa reading a book but glanced up at her words. "A good workout would get the blood flowing."

Felicity rolled her eyes as she stood up. "I was thinking more sugar or caffeine."

In the kitchen she started a new pot of coffee and then walked back to the small home office she'd set up in her spare bedroom. She found Oliver there, frowning as he flipped through a stack of papers.

"What's that?"

He sighed. "It's supposed to be the Galwin-Shelley contract, but I think I grabbed the wrong papers on my way out yesterday. I'll have to call Mom."

"You don't sound excited about that."

"She was asking questions earlier – wanted to know where I am. I'll send John to pick it up. It needs to be signed today."

Felicity took the stack of papers he'd been looking at. "Oliver, how did you mix up all these papers?" She saw the specs for a new tracking system, a quarterly report from one of Queen Industries' satellite offices in Asia, and a copy of a contract that had been finalized a month ago. She held up one random page that didn't match the others. "Organization is your friend, you know."

"I was in a hurry," he said, his tone defensive.

She shook her head. "Come on. Bring all of this to the table and I'll help get you organized while I recharge."

Felicity spread the papers out on the table and sorted through them while Oliver called Moira, telling her that John would be by to pick up the contract when he went out for lunch later.

When he ended the call she asked, "Where's your brief-"she stopped when he picked up his briefcase from the sofa and handed it to her. "This contract from Wayne Enterprises was finalized and filed away. Why do you even have it?"

"I was looking for the projected expenses from that meeting I had with the investors last week."

Felicity knew how impatient he got when he was looking for something – it wasn't the first time he'd pulled out the wrong papers and hadn't put them back where he'd found them. She crossed her arms and frowned at him. "You mean the ones I gave you on Friday? The ones I told you that you would need this week? They were in a manila folder that was specifically and carefully labeled before you put it in the top left drawer of your desk."

"Oh." He looked chagrined. "I should probably tell Mom to look for that too."

"Oliver, I swear if I come back to the office and find my desk or my filing system messed up, I'll make sure you're scheduled for lunch with board members for the rest of the month." She reached for her tablet and pulled up his schedule. "Is there anything you're working on that's not on the schedule? I see a meeting here that wasn't scheduled last week."

"I think Mom had her assistant add that one. She and I are meeting with Tina Gray at Starling Memorial Hospital. They're interested in upgrading their computer systems. If that meeting goes well, we might get a contract for the entire health group."

The company's real money was tied up in contracts with large corporations, or government and defense contracts, but she had encouraged Oliver to try rebuilding ties within the community by taking on smaller contracts. She was pleased that he'd remembered.

"I told Mom it was your idea. She agreed with me that it was a good one."

He smiled at her, and she found the rest of her irritation fading. When he moved to stand close behind her, her breath hitched; she swallowed hard as his fingers brushed against hers. It took her a moment to realize he was checking his schedule on the tablet she was holding.

"You wouldn't really make me have lunch with board members every day for a month, would you?" His breath against her ear sent a pleasurable shiver through her.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. "What do you think?"

"I think I should probably stay out of your desk." His hands rested on her shoulders, squeezing for a moment, and then he moved to stand beside her.

Both disappointed and relieved that he'd moved out of her personal space, she busied herself with the papers on the table. "Good answer."

They discussed his schedule for the remainder of the week, and Felicity made a list of things they needed from the office. Then she carefully clipped together the papers he didn't need and put them in a folder, which she set aside.

"I'll file those when I get back to the office," she told him. She picked up her coffee cup and took a sip.

"Okay." He looked over the list and then handed it to Diggle.

Diggle took it and shook his head at Oliver. "You realize how lost you'd be without her, right?"

"Well aware," Oliver said in a dry tone. His phone rang and after glancing at it, he excused himself to the office.

Felicity was busy writing out another list, which she handed to Diggle. "I will love you forever if you pick up supplies at the store when you pick up lunch."

Diggle's brows rose when he looked at her list. "So basically you want me to clean out the junk food aisle."

"Hey the bananas are healthy. Besides, if I'm going to be up late chasing Neuromancer across the web, I'll need snacks." Josh raised his hand across the room. "We'll both need snacks. And Big Belly Burger for lunch?"

He shook his head, but he was fighting a smile. "I'm serious about that workout. There might be running involved."

Felicity hated running, which Diggle knew perfectly well. "Noted."

Oliver was looking through Felicity's desk for a notepad when he found the photos. They were loose in the top drawer, which meant he wasn't snooping by looking at them. Not exactly, anyway. They were candid shots of her and Josh, and two of them featured an Asian woman and a tall, blond man. He wondered if she'd pulled them out after Josh arrived or if they'd always been there, perhaps tucked away after she removed them from picture frames.

Felicity's hair was much darker, loose and curly and topped by a black beanie. He recalled that she'd told him she dyed it. She wore faded black jean shorts, a black message t-shirt with 'Resist' in block letters, and a blue plaid flannel shirt that would have been more at home at the height of 90s grunge, along with the clunky black boots that rounded out her university image. It surprised him, though it did explain that industrial ear piercing that had seemed out of character when he first met her.

"What are you looking at?" Felicity asked as she walked in.

He held up the photos. "I was looking for a notepad. You had an interesting sense of fashion."

She raised a brow. "Is that judgment I'm hearing from the frat boy who flunked out of multiple universities and peed on cop cars?"

He held up his hands in mock surrender, and she plucked the photos from his fingers. "Not judgment – I'm just wondering how you went from this to panda flats."

She pushed her glasses up and wrinkled her nose as she flipped through the photos. "This was never really me – more me trying to find a place where I belonged. For a while I thought that was Josh and what we were doing together. I learned a lot from him."

"You were in love."

"Yeah, I was. With Josh, but mostly with the idealism he represented – us against the world. And then reality set in."

"Jennifer Thomas?"

She shrugged and tossed the photos back in the drawer. She shut it and then grabbed a notepad from another drawer and passed it to Oliver. "It wasn't just that. That blond guy in the photo? His name is Jeff, and he's currently serving time for hacking the Pentagon. It was so stupid because he wasn't even trying to get information. He just wanted to prove he could do it, and I was the one who dared him. I lost my appetite for a lot of the dangerous stunts we pulled after that."

"It sounds like you also did some good," he said, thinking of what Josh had said earlier about them hacking the petroleum plant and outing their environmental violations. "As for Josh, you obviously eclipsed him at some point or he wouldn't need your help. You're a strong woman, Felicity – a lot stronger than the Jennifers of the world. It's possible he was intimidated by that."

She smiled at him. "If you're worried that still bothers me, don't be. I got over Josh a long time ago." She reached out and squeezed his arm as she passed him. "Diggle should be back soon. Let me know if you need any more help with business."

Oliver spent the rest of the afternoon at the dining room table, where he could both work and keep an eye on Felicity. She chatted with Sam in a dark web chat room off and on as she attempted to track him, and when he hacked into the mayor's office, she booted him from their system.

She and Josh seemed to be enjoying themselves. They had a shorthand that was obviously born of familiarity with each other's quirks and hacking styles. As evening approached, they got more serious. Felicity seemed only peripherally aware of his and Diggle's presence, eyes glued to her screen and the strings of code that flashed by more quickly than he could read.

After lunch she'd pulled her hair into its usual ponytail and she'd been steadily making her way through an impressive pile of junk food. When she reached for her Cheetos, only to find the bag empty, Josh passed her his bag of Doritos without comment. As evening approached, she dug into her supply of chocolate peanuts and gummy worms, scoffing at Oliver's warning that she was going to make herself sick.

"I have an iron stomach – except when it comes to needles, blood and heights," she told him.

Diggle had made a grocery run while he was out earlier, and he cooked a chicken stir fry meal that Felicity and Josh both seemed to eat on autopilot.

Oliver sat beside her as he ate. When he saw she had the web site for Starling National Bank up, he asked, "What are you doing?"

"Monitoring all the banks in the city," she said. "Since I don't know their endgame, I have to assume they might be looking to steal money."

That might be part of it but if it was the Triad behind the hacks, Oliver suspected they were after more than that.

The hour grew late. Everyone was tense as they waited for a blackout that never came. Felicity kept rolling her shoulders and rotating her head in an obvious effort to relieve the discomfort of sore muscles. Her game of cat and mouse with Sam had stalled, but she continued scouring the dark net for traces of his activities.

Oliver sat beside her on the sofa and shifted her laptop over onto the cushion next to her.

"Hey!" She turned and frowned at him.

"You need a break," he said. "There hasn't been any activity for you to track in over an hour. Just relax for a minute." He placed his hands on her shoulders and dug his thumbs into the knots he felt.

Her head fell forward, and she made a small sound of approval that had his gut tightening in response. Kissing her the night before had reignited the awareness between them. If he was being honest with himself, it had probably never gone away, though he had gotten better at ignoring it over the last several months.

From the corner of his eye he saw Josh watching them; he met the other man's eyes, and Josh looked away after only a few seconds. He might have come for Felicity's help, but Oliver suspected being around her had stirred up old memories. There was something about the way he looked at Felicity that Oliver recognized because it was the same way he used to look at Laurel.

"I have a program that might help me fill in some of these gaps in Sam's trail," Felicity said. With a sigh she straightened up and looked at him. "But it's at the office."

She raised her brows, and he nodded, understanding she meant Verdant. "I'll drive you over there."

Neither of them spoke on the short drive. Since the club was closed, the parking lot was deserted. He pulled around to the side and followed Felicity down the stairs. Felicity made straight for her computers, much to Oliver's amusement, and patted them as she inspected her workstation.

Something – a slight noise, or a subtle shift in the air – alerted him to the fact that they weren't alone. Oliver closed the distance between him and Felicity in record time, ignoring her shriek of surprise as he pulled her with him. He grabbed his bow and turned to place himself between Felicity and the intruder, only to relax when he saw it was Sara.

Sara crossed her arms and smiled. "Nice reaction time, but you probably should have noticed me at least five seconds sooner."

And he would have if he hadn't been distracted by Felicity, he thought with a shake of his head. "I thought you were meeting your dad."

"I did, but he got called in to the station. They were prepping for another blackout." She hugged first him and then Felicity. "Ollie said you want me to meet a hacker who has a thing for blondes."

Felicity was busy plugging an external hard drive into her mainframe. She turned back to Sara, frowning. "I'm meeting the hacker who has a thing for blondes, but Oliver doesn't want me going back in alone because we think he might have been hired by the Triad."

Sara looked over at Oliver. "Maybe I misunderstood."

"You didn't misunderstand," Oliver said. "I thought you could go in tonight and see if this guy approaches you. If he does, maybe Felicity doesn't have to meet him again."

"Oliver, that wasn't the plan." Felicity walked over to stand in front of him. "You can't just pull a bait and switch at the last minute."

"It's not safe for you in there."

"It's a cyber club, Oliver. It's only dangerous to luddites."

"The Triad could be operating out of there for all we know."

"Even if they were, why would they care about a girl Sam is flirting with? And exactly what do you expect Sara to do to hold his attention?" She looked at Sara. "No offense – he'd probably like you dressed up in cyber Goth, but if you aren't fluent in leetspeak? Your cover is blown and they'll boot you out of there."

Oliver felt his frustration level rising. "Felicity…"

She didn't let him finish. "No. This is my world, and I know what I'm doing. I agreed to let Sara shadow me. If you want to hood up and lurk in the alleys around Anno, go for it. But I'm finishing what I started here."

Oliver's jaw twitched as she turned her back on him and went back to her computer station, pointedly ignoring him. He walked over to a table and set his bow down with more force than he meant to.

Sara joined him, leaning against the table as she watched him.

"I don't want her going back in there," he said quietly.

"Yeah, that's clear. But Oliver, even I can see you're going about it the wrong way. How did you expect her to react to you bulldozing her?"

"She could get hurt."

"That's why I'm here. Look, Ollie, I understand where you're coming from, but you have to stop treating her like she's going to break. She understands the risks, especially after what happened with the Count. If she was fragile? That would have been her breaking point."

Oliver knew Sara had a point. It just didn't make him feel any better about potentially putting her in harm's way. "Diggle and I will wait outside the club in case you need backup. And you don't let her out of your sight."

Sara nodded. "You know sooner or later, you're going to have to tell her how you feel. You're not so good at hiding it anymore." She squeezed his shoulder and then walked over to join Felicity at the computer station.

She was right about that, too. And Oliver had no idea what to do about it.

A/N: Last chapter to be posted this week. Thanks for reading (if you're still reading!) This is my first Olicity post in ages. I figured addressing this WIP was a good place to start.