Disclaimer – I do not own Arrow.
"Who is she?"
"Who's who mom?"
A long-suffering sigh left her lips as she took in her son's stiff posture.
"Oliver you haven't visited the house in weeks, you have a smile plastered across your face in meetings that usually leave you bored out of your mind and you cant even look me in the eye right now and pretend to not know what I'm talking about. So I'll ask again, who is she?"
This time her son did look up at her, his gaze meeting her own and she couldn't help but notice the shy smile that spread across his face.
"She's…she's just…"
Moira Queen sat in her son's office, watching him as his eyes flittered around the room, grasping for words to describe the girl that had stolen his attention.
"She's amazing. She's so much more than I could have ever asked for mom."
Interesting.
Moira was far from being a stupid woman, and her son's past with the ladies was well known throughout Starling City. While her and Robert would have loved for him to settle down, especially throughout his more debaucherous teenage years, he had never been serious about any one girl. She had seen him with countless women, always beautiful and always hoping to be lucky enough to add 'Queen' to their name, but they were never successful.
And Oliver had never brought a girl home to 'meet the parents'.
And she had never seen this look in her son's eyes. This shy wistfulness and longing that seemed to overwhelm him.
Interesting indeed.
"How did you meet?"
And with her son not being able to look her in the eye, yet again, she knew she wasn't going to like his answer.
"Tommy and me were at a club and she was there for a bachelorette party…"
At that she rolled her eyes, knowing perfectly well where this is going and not wishing for it to continue. She halted any further explanation from her son with a raised hand in the air.
"You can't be serious Oliver! Please don't tell me you're like this over a one night stand…"
But this time it was her son's turn to interrupt.
"Felicity is not a one night stand mother. She is the one woman I have actually wanted to peruse something with in a very long time. She's absolutely brilliant, genius level to be honest, she beautiful and kind and caring. Yes we might not have met in the most romantic of places but she is not just a one night stand for me."
"You really do care for this girl don't you?"
"Yes."
His answer shocked her, not that her son wasn't capable of caring for someone, far from it, but his answer was filled with such certainty and determination that it piqued her curiosity.
"I want to meet her."
"What? Mom, it's still new, we're still in the early stages of dating, Felicity's son is still getting used to me…" at that he snapped his mouth shut, realizing he had revealed too much.
"She has a son? Oliver! You have to be completely certain before perusing anything with a woman that already has a child! Particularly with who you are, who your family is!"
"I know that mother, I know. That's why we're taking things slow."
She nodded as she began to rise from the chair she had been occupying, coming around his desk and cupping her son's face with her hand as she had done many times in his younger years. Her heart tightened just a bit when she felt him lean further into her touch.
"Just be careful my love. You know that I only want the best for you."
And with that she moved towards his door, but not stepping out before calling out one last, "I still want to meet this girl Oliver," over her shoulder.
"I promise I'll arrange something mother."
As she walked towards the elevators she couldn't help but think how lucky she was to have had Robert by her side throughout Oliver and Thea's childhoods.
God how she missed him.
The start of their story was far from the fairytale 'love at first sight', but she wouldn't trade any moment that she had spent with him for anything.
Even their less than pleasant first encounters.
How one boy could be so thoroughly intolerable she will never know but Robert Queen was a pain in the ass for the ages.
Even when he wasn't in the room he managed to make her want to throw him off the nearest bridge.
"Oh, but he's sooo dreamy don't you think Mi?"
The three girls that currently occupied her bed where oblivious to the torment the current topic of conversation inflicted on her. That was until she decided that enough was enough.
"Bri! For the last time, no he is not dreamy. No he is not God's gift to women, even though he wont get that through his thick skull no matter how many times I've told him, and most certainly NO I am not having 'the time of my life' living in his house and seeing his face every god-awful day!"
All her rant achieved however, was a shake of her friend's head as Bri turned around to the other girls and continued gossiping about what parties he could possibly be attending this summer.
She understood the appeal of course; sure with his perfectly careless brown hair, toned body and a smile that could melt cheese, the boy was gorgeous. But then he would open his mouth and it was at this point, at least for her, that the appeal abruptly ended.
Sure he could lay it on thick for everybody else, his parents, her parents, her friends, basically anybody that he turned his attention to, and they would fall for his charms like a row of dominos.
That is of course everybody other than her.
Ever since both their parents had come up with the brilliant idea of pushing them together, in the hopes of joining their two families, their animosity had festered. Whether it was his way of rebelling against the one thing in his life that he was losing control over or whether he genuinely didn't like her she didn't know or care. All she knew was that Robert Queen was the bane of her existence and she would thank all her lucky stars when the day came that her parents would give up on the idea of Queen-Dearden grandbabies.
That was most likely the reason she was here for the summer, caught up in yet another grand scheme of their parents to push the two teenagers together. Apparently their own home was undergoing 'construction', and apparently the Queen's offered to let her stay in their home for the reminder of the summer so that she wouldn't be burdened with living in a hotel for the few months before her first year of college started. And apparently, according to her parents anyway, it was rude to decline such an invitation.
Far be it for anyone to see that her own parents had foregone the offer and were currently being 'burdened' with the prospect of living in a Four Seasons Hotel suite.
One more week in this hellhole and she would literally be crawling up the walls.
Not that the Queen Mansion was a hellhole, far from it with all its luxuries and extravagance, but having to see him almost daily was beginning to grate on the very last strands of her patience.
That and she was sick of seeing random girls at all hours of the night sneaking either in or out of his room.
Because the boy was far from subtle, his college escapades where well known even back in their home town, and he neither cared nor wanted to hide his reputation.
Which of course, as can be seen by her friends that were practically frothing at the mouth to see him, only added to his appeal.
She mentally patted herself on the back for not snorting out loud at that thought.
Robert Queen may be a spoilt, rich pretty boy with a God complex, but Moira Queen was a lady. And even for the likes of him she wouldn't allow herself to forget about that fact.
Moira Queen wasn't a stupid woman. Her life amongst the extravagantly rich and the immensely influential people had taught her how to read people, their emotions, when they where lying.
And her son was most definitely lying to her.
Or at the very least he would put off the inevitable meeting between his mother and this Felicity as much as humanly possible. And that just wouldn't do, because her meeting with this woman was exactly that – inevitable. By the sounds of things this woman had sunken her claws into her son without him even knowing or caring and she wanted to meet said woman sooner rather than later.
So she didn't go to the ground level as her son's wishful thinking might have led him to believe, but rather towards the Human Recourses Department located on the tenth level of the building.
There couldn't be that many women named 'Felicity' working for Queen Consolidated, it was a pretty uncommon name after all, and from there it shouldn't be too difficult to pinpoint exactly which one was her son's Felicity.
No Moira Queen was not a stupid woman, and anyone trying to get to her son would have to come through her first.
God, he was bored out of his mind.
It felt like his parents felt the implicit need to drag him to every single gala in the whole of Starling City ever since he had graduated from Harvard three months ago.
Lately they were all about forcing him into making 'connections'. Well that and trying to set him up with what seemed to be every 'suitable' girl that they could find. If only he had known that by 'suitable' they had meant 'boring' he might have reconsidered finishing collage a semester earlier. Because every single girl he had talked to at these damned events managed to bore him to the brink of tears within the first five minutes of conversation.
Much like this party to his dismay.
Excusing him from Mr. Charlton, a distinguish and balding man that was droning on about some of the more memorable times that he had had in Harvard more than forty years ago, Robert moved towards the bar wondering if alcohol could save this disappointment of a night. His eyes scanned the crowd as he walked, hoping to see a familiar face that would entertain him or at the very least curb some of his boredom.
The flash of a red dress caught his eyes amongst all the dreary black that the elite of Starling seemed to favor and he quickened his pace in the hopes of catching the blonde currently in the midst of laughing with the bartender, before she walked off with her already full glass.
Robert Queen was used to using his charm and public persona to charm people, his whole life had shaped him to easily hide his expressions and feelings. Within this particular circle of people it was a necessity and by now it came to him as easily as breathing.
But even he couldn't hide his shock when the blonde abruptly turned to face him.
Admittedly, looking like a fish out of the water wasn't the best look on him, but the smile on her face that quickly transformed into a look of contempt was a bit uncalled for.
Moira Dearden. Of course. Just when he thought his night couldn't get any worse.
She was the one girl that had managed to get under his skin with one look alone. Her wit was sharp and her words could cut deeper than a blade and no matter how much he had hated her all those years ago, when she had stayed with them that fateful summer, he had not been able to get her out of his head when he lay in his old bedroom every night. Especially when he knew she was only down the hall from his room.
College had made him forget, but now it was all flooding back to him, that spitfire of a girl that would never back down from him and kept him on his toes, in his own house no less.
But this was no girl before him. Sure he had expected some improvement from the lanky teenager she had been, but this was a woman before him.
All subtle curves in all the right places and he had to stop his hands from reaching out and encasing her hips in his firm grasp.
"Queen."
"Dearden."
How they made a suit that fitted his visibly muscled arms and shoulders that well she would never know but she inwardly thanked the fine tailors that he went to. Mentally shaking herself out of the trance she had been in she slowly moved her eyes up to his face again, decorum and class flying out the window when she saw a look in his eyes that could only be described as hungry. How could a boy, that had made her life a living hell, make her mouth dry all these years later with only one glance?
"Long time no see," was her brilliant response when manners kicked back in and she tried to form a sentence.
His noncommittal "mmm" was her only response as he continued to stare at her, his gaze only serving to make the temperature increase in the room for her.
"Right, well hope you have a great night." She said with the hope that maybe when she left his presence she could gather her thoughts and make sense of this new development. What the hell was wrong with her? Tongue tied and uneasy at the thought of a boy? Get your self together.
What she didn't expect was his hand to fly out at lightning speed to catch hold of her elbow gently, halting her efforts to dash as fast as she possibly could from him.
"Wait, Dearden… ummm…" She took him in, watching as he shook his head as if the action would help him clear his thoughts. Maybe he was just as confused as she was by their encounter?
Then a sort of resolve seemed to overtake his whole demeanor, his body straightened and his face was overcome with a look of determination, his hand travelling slowly from her elbow to her fingers.
"Care to join me for a dance?"
Walking out of the elevator into the brightly lit thirty-second level of the IT department Moira realized that it had been a while since she had walked these halls. Sure her son still valued her opinions in all the major decisions of Queen Consolidated, but she had long ago given the reins over to him regarding the everyday running of the family business.
He had proved to her time and time again that he was more than capable in dealing with everything that was thrust upon his shoulders unexpectedly. The way he had handled himself; acted for and represented their whole family when she wasn't in any shape to do so after Robert's death only solidified her faith in him.
She couldn't be any more proud of her only son if she tried.
And that was the exact reason for her coming to the thirty-second level of the QC tower. Because as much as she loved her son, as proud of him as she was, she knew when it came to women his choices were often questionable.
She hadn't been blind to the countless women her son had gone through in his teenage years, their PR department could live comfortably off the salaries they made just from covering up his past escapades with the numerous women that were always lined up, rallying for Oliver's attention.
And that wasn't even mentioning Tommy's influence. She loved that boy like a second son but when those two got together she never knew what to expect. The family jet had never seen so many trips to exotic places as it did in their late teens and early twenties.
Seeing that the office was empty, Moira stepped inside, taking in the view of the city from the windows of the brightly lit office.
Felicity Smoak's office was not what she had expected. It wasn't that she expected a cubicle of sorts, but for someone that was not a head of department or of equal stature, an office of this size was practically unheard of.
Taking a seat in the guest chair she took in the little details of the room, her eyes moving from one colorful object on the wall shelf to the next, taking in the organized space around her. Seeing the photo frame facing away from her on the computer desk she was tempted to have a look at the picture it held but refrained, she would see the woman soon enough and Moira Queen was a big believer of first impressions.
When she had asked a few reliable sources about Felicity they had all said the same thing, and even those fragments of information were nothing to go by.
Single mother and a widow, had worked in Queen Consolidated for seven years after starting her apprenticeship fresh out of college. She had quickly worked her way up the food chain of the usually male-dominated field and was apparently rather brilliant.
That was it. No personal scandals that they knew of to her name, no short flings or office romances. For once in Moira's life gossip seemed to fall short in helping her understand what kind of woman Felicity Smoak really was.
And with her son's future on the line that needed to be rectified. At this stage she had refrained from any further investigation, wanting to first judge for herself whether this was just another money–grabbing gold digger with dreams to be the next Mrs. Queen or not.
So she sat in the brightly lit office, hoping that all of this wouldn't be for nothing.
"I see you and Robert were getting friendly tonight darling".
Moira froze in her bedroom hallway, cursing herself for not being fast enough in escaping her family after the Gala. And she had been so close.
"No need to start planning the wedding grandmother, we just danced," she replied in the vain hope that the older woman would drop their current topic of conversation.
"Sweetie, trust a wise and honest old woman, that was no ordinary dance between friends".
Moira mentally congratulated herself on not snorting out loud at her grandmother calling herself honest. The woman was wise, that was unquestionable, but innocent or honest she was not. Moira loved the woman but amongst the circle of Machiavellian elite of Starling City, her grandmother was the most shrewd and cunning of them all.
"And that poor boy couldn't take his eyes off you the whole night".
And there it was.
She watched as her grandmother sauntered down the hallway to her own wing of the house, her already preoccupied mind now flooding with even more unanswerable questions.
Damn her grandmother for planting the seed of doubt in her mind.
She could admit to herself that she felt an unexplainable pull towards Robert Queen, even though she still couldn't comprehend how in the space of a dance she had gone from hating the boy he had been, to being inexplicably drawn to the man that had been before her tonight.
But what if he had felt it too? What if he also felt the spark that had gone through her when his hand had landed on the small of her back? What is he liked what he saw when he had looked at her tonight? What if he liked her? He did ask her to dance after all. But no, he had danced with numerous girls that night, and she would be damned before she was one of the countless nameless bimbos that threw herself at his feet in the hopes of receiving some form of attention from him.
No, she was smarter than that. She had her future to look out for, a legacy that would soon be placed on her shoulders in the form of Dearden Incorporated, and she would never allow herself to be distracted from that by a boy.
She knew what was ahead of her, the path that had been carefully laid before her. She had just graduated top of her class and would be going to Yale in the fall, after which her father would teach her everything there was to know about the family business from the ground up. Once he felt that she was ready, she would take over the family business.
She briefly had a fleeting thought as to why hadn't her parents given her another sibling to pass all the responsibility to while she could live her life? How different would her life have turned out? Quickly pushing away from those thoughts she shook her head and realized she was still standing in the hallway a couple of meters away from her bedroom door, still facing the direction her grandmother had come from.
No, she was born for this, finding a husband could wait. Love could wait.
Her future was set in stone, and that future did not involve one Robert Queen.
Damn her grandmother and her scheming ways.
As soon as she had gotten out of bed she knew it was going to be a bad day. All she wanted to do when her coffee machine had broken first thing in the morning was crawl back into bed and hide away from the world.
The coffee machine, or as she fondly nicknamed it this morning 'Satan', was only the start of a series of cruel events that occurred before lunch. From QC having every single IT issue under the sun all before 10AM, to her mini not starting this morning, everything that could have gone wrong that morning did.
The bright side of that was that her day couldn't possibly have gotten any worse now could it?
Eyes fixed on the tablet as she read up on recent developments in Bioinformatics, she walked into her office, failing to notice the woman in her guest chair until the sound of a throat clearing startled her out of her thoughts.
She clearly needed to trade in her spidey-senses along with her brain to mouth filter as the former clearly hadn't been working for her as of late and the latter had been absent for the majority of her life.
How could she have missed Moira Queen being in her office?
"Moira Queen, I mean … Mrs. Queen…what…?"
Moira kept her smirk well hidden at the hint of fear that flashed crossed the girl's face, taking the time to study Felicity as she sat stiff from shock in her red leather executive chair.
She was definitely pretty; Moira could even go so far as to say she was beautiful.
She looked young for her age, the blonde hair and the bright, but yet somehow still tasteful, office clothes that she wore seemed to work flawlessly for her and only added to the look of innocence she portrayed.
But her eyes held a different story. Yes, there was the fear that was still very clearly visible at having been caught unawares by the mother of the man that you were currently sleeping with, but Moira looked past all that to the sheer determination and intelligence that was also present.
Yes, this one may be blonde but her son was right about one thing. This woman was smart.
She watched as the younger woman pulled herself out of the shock infused haze, putting away the device she held in her hand carefully and combing a free hand through her blonde locks.
"Mrs. Queen. What can I do for you?"
Felicity absolutely hated how fragile her voice sounded, but honestly how else was she meant to be acting? What was Oliver's mother doing here? Did she know about them? Did she come here to yell at her? Could it be something else entirely?
Moira was never one to beat around the bush.
"Miss. Smoak, I've heard from my son that you two have been dating for some time but yet I had never met you, I thought I would rectify that situation". Moira of course forgot to mention that she practically had to force her son into telling her whom he was seeing. Sometimes getting her son to open up was like pulling teeth; painful and time consuming but necessary.
"Yes, of 'course. Yes. I am seeing your son and I hope that's okay. Not that I really believe that he would need your permission to see someone, he is a big boy after all. And oh God I didn't mean 'big boy' like…never mind. And I do love that he values your opinion, but I didn't know we were at the 'meet the parent' stage. Not that there's ever a wrong time to do that. I haven't introduced him to my parents and I don't think I will for a long time. Not that I won't, I will, eventually, probably. And he hasn't said he wanted me to meet you. He's met my son and they seem to get along… you don't really need to know all this do you? And feel free to interrupt me and my babbling mouth at anytime…"
Moira Queen could on one hand count the amount of times she had truly been surprised in her life. Life had taught her to be aware of what was going on around her, be prepared for any situation that life may throw at you.
When she had walked into Felicity Smoak's office she had expected to be either disgusted by yet another conquest of her sons or mildly surprised if he had finally found a nice girl to date.
She wasn't prepared for the word vomit that she had just witnessed. And she definitely wasn't prepared to be shocked by the woman before her but lo and behold she was shocked almost to the point of being speechless.
Yes, Felicity Smoak was completely different to all the other girls that Oliver seemed to have a constant flow of. All of them were beautiful; some of them were smart, the majority of them were cunning in the hopes of landing the 'Queen Heir'. And absolutely every single one of them had been predicable.
Not this one.
Moira's gut feeling was telling her to get to know this one better and not just dismiss her to the side like all the rest. And she always trusted her gut feeling.
Catching both herself and the woman sitting opposite her unawares she said; "Felicity Smoak, I do believe its time you came to the manor for a Sunday dinner this week don't you think?"
It was posed as a question but Felicity could plainly see that it was more rhetorical than anything. There was no room for argument, even if she was capable of stringing two words together after thoroughly embarrassing herself in front of Oliver's mother.
And she wasn't even five minutes into the conversation.
But who could blame her for being dumbfounded by the elegant woman in front of her who was now rising from her chair with a grace that rivaled that of a jungle cat?
Moira Queen walked towards the door, not really expecting an answer from the clearly flustered younger woman, throwing a casual glance over her shoulder and catching her gaze.
"And do bring that son of yours, I would love to meet him," she said just before she vacated the room completely, her presence still lingering in the air like the scent of her expensive perfume.
And for once in her life, only one thought consumed Felicity Smoak's mind.
Did that really just happen?
Hope you're all still enjoying! Your reviews are beautiful – thank you.
Stay safe everyone – Love to all – Stace XO