(A/N: Bit of a longer chapter because "Legacies" just needed to be wrapped up already. Thanks for being patient with me as I hammered this out! Anyone who catches the slightly obscure Buffy reference gets a virtual cookie and my undying appreciation.)

Chapter 15—To Die, To Sleep

Felicity she shook her head and closed the window. She'd keep the encounter to herself for now. No one would believe her if she told, and there were no security cameras in the squad room to prove anything.

After retrieving her purse from her desk, she lingered in front of the board, looking at the police sketch of the hooded figure. Felicity wasn't an artist, but her fingers itched to erase and redraw his jaw line.

It was incredibly late when she got home, but Felicity wasn't the least bit sleepy now. Accessing the police department servers from home was fairly easy. She'd put a backdoor into the system just in case someone smarter than her came along and fixed the vulnerability. But that was unlikely. There just weren't that many people smarter than her.

"Damn."

Jpeg jumped down from her lap and fled to the kitchen.

Felicity stared at her tablet. According to the activity log for the computer the vigilante had used, he had downloaded everything Starling City P.D. had on the bank robbery. Everything.

"Witness statements, pictures, evidence reports . . . Why does the vigilante care about a bank robbery?"

With no idea of what she was looking for, Felicity started with the photos. Crime scene techs had taken hundreds of digital snapshots, of the exterior of the bank, the lobby, the vault, and the giant jack-hammered hole in the floor. She examined photo after photo, wondering what the vigilante's interest could possibly be. The first priority of the police investigation would be to identify the perpetrators. Yes, it was the Royal Flush Gang, but no one knew exactly who they were. Maybe the vigilante wanted to know that information as much as the cops did.

With that in mind, Felicity went to the next photo, of the bank security guard. He'd been knocked out by one of the robbers. The photo after was a close-up of the guard's face, showing a new bruise forming high on his right cheek. The mark looked like it had been made by a ring. A big, clunky one. Maybe a class ring. Felicity zoomed in on the bruise and sharpened the image. A few Google search results later and she had an answer: the ring that made that bruise came from Larchmont High School, right there in Starling City.

She didn't have time to find out any more. She needed to get ready for work, but she was confident that she could find the ring's owner once she got to her desk. Except she never actually got to her desk. Felicity spent the morning tracking down and interviewing witnesses with Detective Hilton. She only had a few minutes to speak with Lance, and it was really just checking in. She couldn't tell him about the progress she'd made because then she'd have to explain how she'd accessed police files from home.

Then, in broad daylight, there was a second robbery.

"First Bank of Starling," said Hilton after the call came in on the radio. "That's two blocks from here."

They were first on the scene, and everything happened so fast. Felicity found herself in the basement beneath the bank, crouched next Lance behind a big metal pipe with her gun drawn. Detective Hilton was across from them, hiding behind a low cinder block wall with two patrol officers and a small tactical team.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered to Detective Lance.

"Fighting crime," he said. "All hands on deck."

"Are you—" She bit her lip, needing to know but still unsure where the boundaries were between them.

"Am I sober?" Lance asked. "Haven't had a drop since. Haven't even looked at a bottle." He checked the safety on his gun, though she'd already seen him check it twice. "I shouldn't have called you that night."

"It's fine," Felicity said, turning to look him in the eye. "We're partners. You can always call me if you need a ride, or anything."

"If you two are done catching up, we have a bank robbery to stop," Detective Hilton whisper-yelled.

As if on cue, a figure popped up from the darkness in the corridor beyond. The mask he wore was a playing card ace. Even in the shadows, Felicity could see him heft a rifle to his shoulder.

She couldn't tell who fired first. It didn't really matter. Someone shouted "Gun!" and shots rang out from all sides. The noise was deafening and disorienting, so she hung back as the tactical team moved out of cover and closed in on the masked shooter. He was joined by two others, one of them carrying a heavy duffel bag. The money from the bank, Felicity assumed. The guy dropped the bag at his feet and began firing his own weapon.

The robbers backed up, looking for cover. Did they realize they were backing away from the money as well? The leaner shooter made a move toward the bag, but the twang of a bowstring and the whish of an arrow in flight reached Felicity's ears over the gunfire. She flinched as the vigilante dropped from the ceiling almost directly above her. He caught her eye and winked—winked—then turned and shot another arrow.

His target was the duffel bag. Whatever weird kind of arrows he used had pinned it to the floor. The bank robbers fled into the dark corridor, keeping the cops pinned down with gunfire until they were out of range.

The vigilante jumped over the cinder block wall, pushed off with his legs against the big pipe Felicity had been hiding behind, and disappeared in the direction he'd come—up.

"I've had my cheap thrill for today. How about you?"

Felicity turned. Detective Lance was looking where she'd been staring, at the ceiling above their heads.

"Is that the way he went?" Lance asked.

She nodded. "Do you have a flashlight?"

Lance procured one from a tactical officer, an enormous MagLite that could double as a billy club. He flicked the switch and aimed the beam upward. The light revealed a deserted catwalk underneath a maze of pipes dripping with condensation.

"Guy moves like a ninja," Lance muttered. He turned to Felicity. "You making any headway finding out who this gang is?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I have an idea of somewhere to look, but it's just a hunch, and I have a feeling we're going to be busy with paperwork for all of this." She waved her hands around, indicating the scene around them, littered with shell casings and reeking of cordite.

"Keep me posted."

Felicity was right. The robbery investigation took precedence, and then paperwork for the shoot-out was ridiculous. Felicity had written her statement, typed it, and stated it out loud for the record with Detective Lance, Detective Hilton, and Ben Holmes from Internal Affairs. Ben was a new hire since she'd left I.A. She liked him. He seemed almost apologetic for his job title.

There were reports to complete next, and Felicity had never been so glad of an interruption as when her phone rang. She'd taken off her glasses for a minute and rubbed her eyes as the desk sergeant told her she had a visitor. Oliver Queen and his bodyguard.

"Oliver Queen?" She glanced up. Lance was scowling at her. She shrugged. "Sure, send him back here," she said into the phone before hanging up.

"I hope you know what you're doing," said Detective Lance.

"We wrongfully arrested him and accused him of murder," Felicity replied. "I don't think saying no to him is a good idea right now. Besides," she added, a slow smile spreading across her face, "meeting with a concerned citizen will get me away from this tower of paper."

She grabbed her tablet and got up from her desk as Oliver entered the squad room, followed by Mr. Diggle. The bodyguard was in shirtsleeves, and his arms were huge. She gulped, wondering how much he knew about the digging she had done on Oliver's behalf. When Lance called after her, she jumped.

"This is a temporary reprieve," he said. "Don't think I'm going to finish all this for you."

Felicity approached the two men. "What can I do for you, Oliver?" she asked.

He inclined his head toward her. "Is there somewhere we can speak privately?"

She led them to an empty office down the hall. Mr. Diggle leaned against the desk as Oliver sat in the chair facing away from the window. Felicity took the seat across from him and tugged at the hem of her skirt. She never knew when to cross her legs.

"I see you came prepared," said Oliver, nodding at the tablet in her hands.

"I figured you only want me for one thing." Her mouth dropped open as soon as she said it. She covered by jumping to her feet and holding out her hand to the bodyguard. "Felicity Smoak," she said.

He gave her a small, smug, annoying smile. "John Diggle," he said, shaking her hand. "Call me Diggle, or Dig."

"Got it." She sat back down, crossed her ankles, and swung her legs to the side. She'd seen Julie Andrews do it in The Princess Diaries.

"I'm looking for someone," said Oliver. "I've hit a dead end, and I thought maybe you could help."

Felicity turned on her tablet. "I should add 'personal internet researcher for Oliver Queen' to my job title."

He took a deep breath and smiled, wagging his head. Diggle's smug smile had widened a bit.

"Happily, I mean," she added. She looked down at her tablet and entered the unlock code.

"His name is Derek Reston," Oliver said. "We were close before I . . . went away, and I want to get back in touch."

She tapped the screen, opening her browser. "Guess you didn't have Facebook on that island."

"Nope, not even a MySpace account," said Diggle. "It was a very dark time."

Felicity did a basic search, finding very little on Derek Reston that was recent. His driver's license gave her pause. He was in his mid-forties. That seemed a little old to be a close friend of Oliver Queen's, but she didn't say anything. A Queen Consolidated employee ID popped up in her image search.

"Oh, I guess you guys must have met at the factory," she said.

Oliver leaned forward. "Wait, what factory?"

"The Queen steel factory," Felicity informed him, pushing up her glasses. "Derek Reston worked there for fifteen years until it shut down in '07."

"Derek Reston worked for my father?"

Felicity looked up at him. "You weren't really close friends, huh?"

Oliver sat back in his chair.

She found an article about the factory shutting down due to outsourcing and summarized it for him and Diggle. "They all pretty much lost their homes," she concluded. "Including your 'friend'."

That seemed to be enough information for Oliver. He stood, shook her hand with a distracted smile, and then left with Diggle.

Felicity kept turning the conversation over in her head throughout the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening. At seven, Detective Lance told her to go home.

"But we still have work to do," she protested half-heartedly.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" he asked.

She shook her head, reaching for her TARDIS mug. The coffee in it was cold, and the creamer had separated, leaving a sheen of oil on the liquid's surface.

"I didn't think so." Lance took the mug from her hands and set it aside. "I have this damn party to go to, so you might as well head home."

"What party?" Felicity asked. "It's not another inappropriately themed night at the Queen mansion, is it?"

"No, but to tell you the truth, I don't know if it's better or worse." He was being unusually solicitous, helping her into her coat. "Queen's buddy Merlyn is throwing this fundraising shindig for the company my daughter works for. She dragged my drunk ass out of a bar, so now I have show my support at her swanky party."

"A shindig, huh?" Felicity teased. "Not a hootenanny?"

The detective cocked an eyebrow. "I choose to let that go because you're sleep-deprived. It won't happen again."

Lance declared her unfit to drive. Felicity didn't put up a fight. Her eyes felt like they weren't focusing right, and everything was sounding muffled and far away, like she was walking down a long tunnel. She handed over her keys and had a laugh watching tough-guy Detective Quentin Lance practically fold himself in thirds to settle into the driver's seat of her Mini Cooper.

Lance stood awkwardly in her living room, waiting for his cab to arrive. Luckily he didn't have to wait long. Having her brand-new partner in her house was just too strange. And there was the added worry that she might have left something out that would clue him in to her shady extracurricular activities. But she checked the room as soon as he left, and saw nothing to implicate herself.

Felicity made coffee for herself. It was barely seven o'clock, too early to go to bed, even as tired as she was. But the caffeine had little effect, and she found herself slumped on the couch an hour later, her cheek damp with drool and her phone buzzing incessantly.

Five minutes later, Felicity shoved her feet back into her shoes, threw on her jacket, and grabbed her car keys. She was wide awake now. An alarm had been tripped at the Redwood United Bank. It had to be the Royal Flush Gang. The Hood had prevented them from getting away with their second haul, so it made sense that they would try once more. Felicity was supposed to swing by the fundraiser to pick up Detective Lance on her way to the bank. They wouldn't be first on the scene, not by a long shot, but they needed to be there.

After arguing with a doorman and a security guard, and flashing her badge more than once, Felicity finally burst into the ballroom, nearly crashing into Tommy Merlyn.

"Hey," he said, catching her by the shoulders, "where's the fire?" He searched her face. "There's not an actual fire, is there?"

She pulled back, smelling champagne on his breath. A lot of champagne, like he'd just chugged a glass or three.

"No fire," said Felicity. "Is Detective Lance here?"

"Oh, yeah, you're the new partner." Tommy looked her up and down. "Sorry, but you are way too pretty to be a cop."

He didn't seem to know where Lance was, just muttered something darkly about Laurel and then wandered off. With him out of her way, Felicity searched the room, but it was crowded and she was just too short. She'd have to wade into the fray.

Elbowing her way across the dance floor, which was full of minglers, not dancers, Felicity was just about ready to see if there was microphone on a stage or something that she could use to make an announcement. But then a tuxedoed man in front of her stepped away, and there, only ten feet away, was Oliver Queen.

He stood near the bar, and Diggle was whispering to him. They were both dressed in suits and ties, but it was pretty clear from the size of his arms and the subdued colors he wore that Diggle was the bodyguard and Oliver's was the name on the invitation.

Diggle looked intense, and whatever he said changed Oliver's entire demeanor. In a flash he went from looking bored to looking for the nearest exit. He started to cross the room, Diggle close behind, when an older blonde woman stepped in front of him. Felicity gulped. Moira Queen. She exchanged some tense words with Oliver, his eyes darting toward the door, and then she raised her voice enough for Felicity to overhear her parting shot.

"Honestly, Oliver, there are times I wonder why you bother coming home at all."

Her imperious tone was tinged with sadness. Oliver watched her walk away, looking as if he'd been slapped. Then Diggle nudged his elbow, and they hustled out of the room together. Felicity stared after them, wondering what could have been so urgent—for someone who never seemed to do anything besides give her weird computer and internet problems to solve—that Oliver would abandon his friends and family in the middle of a high-profile event.

Felicity's phone buzzed in her pocket, and she brought it up to her ear without checking the display.

"Smoak! Where the hell are you?" Lance snapped.

Felicity glanced around. She didn't see her partner anywhere. "I'm in the ballroom," she said. "Where are you?"

"Standing on the sidewalk in my tux, looking like a jackass. What are you doing inside?"

"I'm seeing how the other half lives."

Silence.

Felicity sighed. He needed to work on his sense of humor. "I'm looking for you. What else would I be doing?"

"Just get out here," the detective growled.

She rushed to the door, not hesitating this time to bump and nudge people out of her way. There were lots of snobby-sounding "excuse me's" and one "excuse you," which came from some dork with bleached teeth and a stupid haircut who was practically drooling over Laurel Lance.

Detective Lance met her at the entrance and followed her to her car. Felicity's mind was still on the exchange she'd seen between Oliver and his mother, and his abrupt exit. She almost missed Lance mumbling that the robbery would probably be over by the time they got to the bank. And in fact, it was.

The heavy Friday night traffic was difficult to navigate, and since they were in Felicity's personal car, there was no bubblegum police light to warn other drivers out of their way. Lance was tightly wound, furious that Felicity didn't have a police radio in her car, but at least he wasn't backseat-driving. She pulled over behind the police blockade with a screech of her tires, and her partner was out of the car and closing in on the bank with long strides before she even had the keys out of the ignition.

Felicity was waiting outside, waving her badge in the face of an older patrolman who could not be convinced that she was a detective and did belong at the crime scene, when Lance rejoined her.

"Perkins, stop embarrassing yourself," he said to the patrolman. "She's with me."

Felicity took a step toward the bank, but Detective Lance stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"No, Smoak, you're sitting this one out," he said.

She tried to protest, but he shook his head.

"You can't do any good here, kid. You drove over here like a stoned sleepwalker, and you're definitely not up for any more dead bodies."

Her mouth dropped open. "There are fatalities?"

"One of the robbers took one to the chest," said Lance. "The security guard who shot him is wounded too, not sure how bad. But he was conscious enough to say the Hood was there."

"You don't think the Hood shot the robber, do you?" Felicity asked.

"I think we're learning that guns aren't really his style." He frowned at her. "And now you're going home." He waved Perkins over and told the man to give her a ride, then shouldered Felicity toward the perimeter.

"At least tell me if there's an ID on the dead guy," she said, digging in her heels.

Lance sighed noisily. "Derek Reston, according to the expired driver's license in his wallet. Seems to have been off the grid for a few years."

Stunned, Felicity gave in. Without any resistance, Lance nearly shoved her off her feet.

"What?" he asked. "You know him or something?"

"No, I'm just . . ." Felicity shook her head. "I'm just tired, that's all."

"Go home, Smoak," said Lance in a gentler tone. "Take a couple days. The paperwork will still be here when you get back."

"I'm sure."

"I'll save it for you," he said with a smile.