(A/N: You all have been so patient! Thanks for all the reviews, favorites/follows, and encouragement. I hope not to wait as long between this chapter and the next. I'm done with setting up, and I'm eager to bring on the Olicity. :P Remember, if you're feeling Olicity-deprived, you can read my one-shot series, Quotable, which is pure, unadulterated Olicity fluff.)
Chapter 8-Hit and Miss
Felicity had never had a busier day. She and Lance spent most of the morning gathering enough on Warren Patel to get an arrest warrant. There was a meeting with Lt. Pike, and then another with the captain. It was a little intimidating, but by then they'd confirmed all the hooded vigilante's information, including checking with Interpol (legally) about Deadshot. Building a case to bring down an international assassin was a big deal.
She was tired at the end of the work day, but the auction was still to come, and before that, the strategy session with the strike team. Felicity drank three cups of coffee during the session. She had to make a pit stop on the way to the car afterward, but it was an even trade since she already felt more alert than she had in hours.
At first, Lance had wanted her on the perimeter, but he capitulated after a brief argument an instantly regretted jab on her part that she wasn't his daughter.
"Fine, then," he'd groused. "If you're going in, then you're going on the team that will arrest Patel."
She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up his hand.
"No more arguing, Smoak. Them's the rules."
"What about Detective Hilton?" she asked. "You already put him on the team to grab Patel."
"And there he'll stay," said Lance. "Someone's got to keep an eye on you, rookie."
"I'm not a rookie," she said, raising her voice. Then she remembered they weren't alone in the conference room. She dropped her tone a few notches. "I'm not a rookie, and there is no reason for you to relegate me to the background."
He raised his hand and then let it fall. "You're not a rookie cop, but you're a rookie detective. Like it or not, you're the new kid on the block, and I am not gonna put the newbie smack in the middle of danger on a major case. You're going with Hilton to arrest Patel. End of discussion."
She sighed noisily. "This partnership is really going to suck if you don't trust me."
"It's not about trust, Detective," he said on his way to the door. "It's common sense."
So Felicity donned her Kevlar and climbed into an SUV driven by Detective Hilton and crammed with members of the strike team. No one spoke on the drive to the Exchange Building except for Hilton, who occasionally murmured into the radio. She was grateful for the opportunity to seethe at Lance in silence.
It didn't matter what he said, what excuses he made. It all boiled down to him not trusting her to be able to handle herself in this kind of high-pressure, dangerous situation. And okay, she hadn't exactly proven herself capable yet, what with almost puking at the Holder crime scene, and the Crispin Bayne debacle. But they were partners. Her and Detective Lance, not her and Hilton. They should be working together, and the fact that they weren't felt like a betrayal.
Detective Lance was in charge when they reached the perimeter, barking orders in person and into his radio. Felicity was just another cog in the machine, she realized.
The auction hadn't started yet, but cocktail hour was in full swing. Felicity smoothed down her ponytail and followed Hilton, keeping just a step ahead of the uniformed officers accompanying them. She spared a backward glance and saw Detective Lance approach Oliver Queen. Oliver Queen. What was he doing there? She stopped in her tracks, and one of the officers stumbled into her. He gave her a dirty look. She jogged a few steps to catch up to Hilton. Figuring out that little mystery would have to wait.
They found Warren Patel in one of the building's offices. He went into custody without incident. Hilton even let Felicity cuff him once she blabbed that she hadn't cuffed anyone since she was in Cybercrimes. Thank goodness she'd stopped herself before saying why she hadn't. Then all of their radios exploded with chatter.
The call of shots fired was the loudest and most urgent. What followed was mostly gibberish to Felicity's ears. She'd learned all the codes in the police academy, but each officer was assigned a code and the various teams all had designations. Hilton directed the uniformed officers to hustle Patel out of the building and into a cruiser. Then he nodded at Felicity to come with him.
The lobby was in chaos. A waiter with a hole in his chest lay amidst a sea of broken glass, spilled champagne, and blood. Tons of dressed up people were screaming, hiding under tables and behind planters. Felicity spotted Lance standing up and helping a tall man to his feet. It was Walter Steele, the CEO of Queen Consolidated. They were very close to the waiter who had been shot. Taking in the whole scene, she saw a door on the far side of the room just closing. Her instinct was to go to it, to see who'd just left. But Detective Lance beckoned to her.
"What happened?" she asked him.
His eyes were a little wild, his hair mussed. "He took the shot," said Lance. "I was a little faster." He nodded at Mr. Steele, then cut his eyes over to the dead waiter.
"Thank you for saving my life, Detective," said the older man in a crisp British accent. "If you'll excuse me, I need to find my wife and stepdaughter."
"Of course," Lance replied. "We'll need you back here at some point to make a witness statement, but I think I saw your bodyguard take them that way." He pointed toward the other end of the lobby, and Felicity's gaze followed.
Bodyguard? The man with his hand on Moira Queen's shoulder sure looked like one. His arms were huge. But if he was Mr. Steele's bodyguard, why would he have left the man's side in order to protect his family? She frowned. Mr. Steele must have ordered him to. That's the only thing that made sense.
Felicity was at the Exchange Building long past midnight, taking witness statements and running interference between Detective Lance and all the rich people who were angry that their little soiree/business auction had exploded into a crime scene. Deadshot had fled the scene, leaving behind a small pool of his own blood and one dead officer. How the sniper had gotten injured was a mystery, since the cop didn't have a chance to fire his own weapon.
Through bleary, tired eyes, she watched as the Queen/Steele family departed. Moira Queen-Steele's thank-you's to Detective Lance were frosty, not that Felicity could blame her. One life-saving moment couldn't exactly erase their history. She looked for Oliver and the bodyguard, but they were nowhere to be seen.
When Lance told her to go home at 2:45 in the morning, she didn't protest. She got a uniformed officer to drive her back to the station, where she shed her Kevlar and quickly gathered her things to head home. Thank God there was an empty parking space right in front of her building. Felicity drove into it and stumbled into her apartment.
Her shirt was wrinkled and soaked with sweat, and her ponytail was miles from neat. Jpeg rubbed against her legs, alternately purring and loudly squawking to be fed. Once that was taken care of, she stripped off her work clothes and stepped into the shower. A soak in the tub sounded more enticing, but she had to be up and awake in just four hours. A bath would relax her too much—she'd just ended up sleeping through her alarm.
After twisting her wet hair into a braid, she threw on her bacon pajamas and fell into bed. Jpeg jumped up beside her and mashed himself against her back, purring. But when Felicity closed her eyes, she only saw the dead waiter. The blossom of red on his white jacket. His hand splayed over broken glass. She shook her head. She was in Major Crimes now—she'd have to find some way to cope with all the death she was going to encounter.
She gave up on sleep after an hour. Plied with coffee and ice cream, which seemed the only sensible thing to eat at 4:15 a.m., Felicity used her tablet and her mad internet skills to learn everything she could about Oliver Queen, and to try to identify his bodyguard. With the latter, she had no real starting point, just a face she knew she'd recognize if she saw it again. Or those massive arms. But he was a ghost, for all she could tell. He must have been a new addition to the entourage, or he would have shown up in recent photos. Since his return, Oliver had gotten very good at giving the media the slip, so there wasn't much to be found online after the initial publicity and a few snaps of him out partying with Tommy Merlyn.
With a yawn, she rolled her head back and forth, working the kinks out of her neck. It was time to get dressed for work.