A/N: Thanks to my beta, Mestizaa, for commas and motivations and just generally being encouraging. :D And if you're DYING for that first meeting, it will happen in the next chapter. It goes without saying that I don't own Arrow or these characters-just having fun playing with them.

Chapter Three—In the Dog House

When they were back in the SUV, Felicity had wanted to explain that she'd just been flustered by meeting one of her idols (who'd turned out to be kind of a jerk, but still). She wanted to say that she was usually very professional, that it was her dumb luck that their first case together involved Crispin Bayne. But for once, she couldn't find the words. Lance stayed silent too, and it was a long drive back to the station. Her face flamed and her heart hammered as she replayed the terrible moment in her head.

Detective Lance never said anything to her directly, but the punishment began immediately and lasted for days. First, he had her do all the paperwork for the Crispin Bayne home invasion. It was an easy case. Bayne knew exactly who had broken in and what they were after—he even gave them the surveillance footage to prove it. Lance had her fill out the warrants and then told her to sit by the phone while he made the arrest alone. The paperwork took hours because it was all new to her and because she wanted to get it perfect.

He wasn't finished driving home his point yet. Over the next two days, Lance assigned her every mundane task he could think of, from schlepping files all over the building to cleaning out the microwave after someone's chili exploded, to acting as IT support for the entire unit. She'd thought her days of "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" were over.

When they came up in the rotation for the next case, Detective Lance insisted that she stay in the squad room and continue investigating Lt. Pike's laptop, which was running at a snail's made a fool out of herself at Crispin Bayne's. Somehow Detective Lance was able to take the startling news that Oliver Queen was alive and shove that down deep in some part of him that he didn't need for this investigation. He acted totally professionally, and Felicity . . . did not.

She did a fair amount of fangirling over Crispin Bayne himself. He was king of the nerds, after all. And the notoriously media-shy programmer turned out to be hot, in a pale, vampiric sort of way. But when Felicity turned quickly to distract herself from imagining him sinking his teeth into her neck, she spilled the coffee he'd offered her. It went everywhere, splashing across his tablet, which made her gasp in horror as it was top-of-the-line, and soaking into the pristine white carpet.

Bayne didn't shout or order her and Detective Lance to leave. What he did was much, much worse. He stared at Felicity for a long time, as if memorizing her face. Her cheeks burned as she used tissues from her purse to dab at the brown spots on the carpet. Then Bayne informed Detective Lance that he'd be sending a bill to the Starling City Police Department. He completely ignored Felicity for the remainder of their time in his apartment. He would take Detective Hilton with him instead, whose own partner was out sick. Hilton and Lance would look into the kidnapping and assault of Oliver Queen and Tommy Merlyn. Hilton and Lance would be invited into the Queen mansion, where no one would squeak and spill the coffee. And Felicity would just sit at her desk, emptying the browser cache and defragging the lieutenant's hard drive.

Lance was fuming when he and Hilton returned from the Queen residence. He slammed drawers and then stormed into the break room. Felicity was surprised at the amount of noise he made just by pouring a cup of coffee.

"What's that about?" she asked Detective Hilton as he was passing by her desk.

Hilton shrugged. "He held out for as long as he could, and then he lit into Oliver Queen. Got us thrown out."

Felicity frowned. "Will that hurt the case?"

"No. We know who attacked Queen and Merlyn. The bigger case is finding out who attacked the attackers."

She wanted to ask him more about that, but Lance came out of the break room then. He removed his notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket and tossed it on her desk. He nodded at Hilton. The other detective raised an eyebrow, but then he set down his own notebook next to Lance's. Felicity knew what that meant—make copies of the notes and start the paperwork. The punishment wasn't over yet.

The Queen/Merlyn kidnapping was fascinating. As she read the other detectives' notes, she seethed at her own awkwardness which had gotten her shut out of such a juicy case. Queen and Merlyn had been hit with tranquilizer darts and whisked out of an alley in the Glades, where they'd stopped to look at the factory Robert Queen had closed down years ago. While the kidnapping itself was interesting, the real story was what happened next.

While Tommy Merlyn remained unconscious, Oliver Queen claimed that a man wearing a green hood had attacked and killed the kidnappers. Two had died from gunshot wounds, what looked like friendly fire, and one had a broken neck. The coroner's preliminary results suggested that the man in the hood had done that with his bare hands.

Felicity could tell from Detective Lance's notes that he didn't much care why anyone would kidnap two spoiled young rich men. (That was easy—money.) He was more interested in the murder. What kind of guy could get the drop on three pros, and why would he kill them to protect Oliver Queen of all people?

Queen's description was vague, just a man in a hood, and he was probably still drugged at the time. Lance was completely focused on this mysterious, skilled murderer, but there was no evidence other than the eyewitness account. Felicity had to take work home that night. Her arms were full of files—she'd pulled old solved cases in order to use their forms as a template of sorts—and she was headed out the door when Detective Lance stopped her.

"We're up in the rotation again tomorrow," he said. "We've still got the hood guy case, but until there's a break, it's our turn for whatever comes up first."

She nodded. He'd barely spoken to her in two days. She'd forgotten how gravelly his voice sounded.

"And I've told the guys to quit bugging you, to just pick up the phone and call IT." He wasn't looking her in the eye anymore. "You're a detective, not a computer jockey. Right?"

"Right."

Message received. Her punishment was over. Or it would be as soon as she finished all the paperwork in her arms.