Felicity stood deathly still in the chilling night air. For a moment the world seemed to reel around her, blurring out in a mist of exhaust and high beam lights. She felt like she was falling but then caught herself.

"Tony- Mr. Stark?" She managed to eventually sputter out.

Tony laughed. This was not how he imagined meeting his daughter. She looked so... grown up. He felt like it was all wrong. As if her childhood had been stolen from him and she should be younger. But you were the one who stole her childhood from her.

"Miss Smoak. Would you care to step into the office?" He waved grandiosely at the limo, "We need to talk."

Felicity nearly choked. She had seen the footage of the Battle for New York on the tv that one night in her apartment. She, like many in Starling City, watched in horror as the sky opened up and aliens poured through into one of the most densely populated American cities. She had also seen him in the fray, clad in a flying suit of armor and fighting side by side the Avengers. She was, if it was possible, even more impressed by his developments in technology. The Iron Man suit was one thing but an entire skyscraper powered by clean energy? That was revolutionary.

But of course the more immediate concern was that even though Marcos wasn't stalking her, another billionaire genius was. She was still going to hack into Ray Palmer's new building's speaker system and Rick Roll and "Afro Circus" him into insanity.

"Have you been stalking me? Oh gosh, did I get on the Avengers' bad side?" Felicity thought furiously back through all the hacking she jad done recently. Nothing to gain any real attention, right? At least not from "Earth's Mightiest Heroes"?

Tony screwed up his face into one of confusion before smoothing it out into a charming smile and pretending he thought she was joking despite the terror in her voice. Well, she is mine. Who knows what she's capable of.

"Of course not. I just wanted to discuss something with you."

A job offering then? I'm not leaving you. Felicity opened her mouth to say something but the acrid burning in her throat that had tortured her after walking away from Oliver began to return.
"Um, I would be really honored and I know you're really busy but I'm kind of a mess right now."

She was startled to see something in Tony's demeanor crack a bit. He looked so upset behind that charming smile of his that Felicity found herself scrambling to fix it. Always being the people-pleaser, huh, Smoak?

"I mean, that'd be great, but I'm a bit hungry and I think I'm going to need some fortifying before talking to the Tony Stark."

Tony grinned and loosened up, the tension spilling out of him so quickly he was afraid he was going to sweep her up and tell her right then. My daughter.

"Any ideas?"

"Big Belly Burger. Marcos," She smiled with just a hint of mischieviousness, "we will take my car. We wouldn't want anyone recognizing Mr. Stark. And do you have a baseball cap, Mr. Stark?"

"You seem to know how the rich and famous roll." Tony quipped, ducking into the back seat to grab his Yankees snap-back that he always had stashed away in case of the paparazzi. Pepper insisted.

"Believe me, I've had practice."

Tony knew. He had read the file. Former IT expert and then assistant to Oliver Queen while he was CEO of Queen Consolidated. There must have been plenty of paparazzi to deal with. What was also in the file that immensely interested Tony was her graduation from MIT at a young age, just like him.

Felicity would have wanted to ride in silence, in the shotgun of the car, pointedly avoiding Marcos' glances until he got the point and returned to his profession's customary stony face. She still wasn't sure if that actually had been a chance meeting at the tiny Tech Village, now. This seemed way too intense for a meetup suggested by an employee to an employer. It also didn't help that Stark Industries had a reputation for wanting to have all the best minds to themselves to keep an edge on the market. Anyways, back to the silence.

But Tony Stark didn't want to sit in silence.
He led with, "Marcos tells me you're very good with tech."

"He barely saw a demonstration."

Marcos resisted the urge to shift in his seat so Felicity scrutinized his stoniness instead.

"You would love the Avengers tower. Floors devoted entirely to R&D."

What is that? Tony could hear Bruce snarking. Your scientist pick up line?

Felicity shrugged. "I love elegant pieces of hardware but it's the software I'm more into."
She thought with amusement back to her original reaction to the TX 50 model she had seen in Waller's secrety HQ.

"You know, I have an AI running Avengers Tower. I coded him myself."

That piqued Felicity's interest. Not many got a look inside Tony Stark's gears and buildings and the thought of an AI running an entire building was incredibly interesting.

"AI's take a long time to code and often they have processing problems when it comes to interaction and speaking with others."

Tony felt a spark of satisfaction at getting the puzzlingly reticent Felicity to open up. "Yeah, that could have been a problem, except JARVIS, that's my AI, learns."

"A very intelligent Artificial Intelligence, then."

"Exactly."

"That's awesome. I've tried my hand at coding an AI but I've gotten really busy lately."

"Yeah. And not to make things awkward, but I looked you up." Felicity jumped in her seat and almost hit her head on the ceiling. She side-eyed Marcos before making a noncommital noise in her throat.

"Your job before... Tech Village, was a high end job as an assistant to a CEO and before that it was an IT expert. Why did you change from working with software to getting coffee?"

Felicity went stiff and closed her eyes. Because Oliver."A better salary?" She offered up, even though she knew it came out sounding weak and not at all convincing.

Tony knew he had touched a sore spot and he wanted to know why.

They pulled up alongside a small and yet incredibly comfortable looking burger joint with an aging neon light flashing with intermittent power failures. Tony saw it as a reflection of the city. Home to many, but dying slowly. He didn't want his daughter stuck here when it finally kicked the bucket. He was beginning to like the kid.

"We're here." Marcos announced, flicking off his portable GPS, one of the few pieces of tech he felt comfortable with, really.

Tony flipped on his baseball cap and grinned.

"Dinner's on me."

He wasn't sure he could get through the night. Felicity wasn't sure either.