Chapter Text
Queen Consolidated reopened two weeks later. In those two weeks, Oliver and Felicity settled into a comfortable rhythm with each other and with everyone else in the mansion. They woke up in the mornings tangled in each other, basked in the silence and each other’s company for a few moments before getting ready for the day, separately, and going down for breakfast, together. There they would be greeted by Thea and Raisa, who would place a glass of fresh juice for Felicity in front of her – a different fruit every day so she wouldn’t miss her daily dose of coffee so much. Breakfast would be a cheery and fun affair, with a whole lot of female bonding between Felicity and Thea, who would together gang up on Oliver, teasing the hell out of him. The couple would then leave for QC in the spacious Bentley SUV, setting up and preparing for the big open. They had lunch together every day in his office, sometimes joined by Diggle. They left for the Queen Manor – home, she would correct herself – at around 5 p.m. and spent the rest of the evening together with Thea and occasionally Roy.
They spent the time getting to know each other – really getting to know each other. Over moments spent in the sprawling grounds with plates of tiny muffins – they were a popular craving of hers – and buttered scones, or in the gazebo by the tiny duck pond, or simply sitting on their balcony, gazing at the twilight, they discovered tit-bits about each other that they never knew before. Felicity’s favourite colour, as he got to know, wasn’t pink or yellow or any of the bright colours he generally associated her with, but a deep emerald green. (She was blushing as she revealed that.)
(He didn’t mention that his favourite colour was the blue of her eyes.)
She found out he loved to cook, something he picked up on the island, where he had to cook his catch or eat it raw, but hadn’t had much of a chance to cook once back home. They dropped that conversation when she felt queasy at the mention of raw meat. He also knew different styles of hair braiding courtesy Thea Queen, and he did a gorgeous waterfall braid on hers that left her feeling like a princess.
The press conference conducted by the QC PR team had been awkward to say the least. A week before QC was set to reopen, the PR team released a statement confirming the status of Oliver and Felicity’s relationship, mentioned the baby, and that the expecting couple requested privacy. Yet there were several reporters present at the scene, thrusting their mikes into Felicity and Oliver’s faces, asking questions, asking about the pregnancy and in general making her feel uncomfortable. Diggle had a hard time keeping the reporters at bay, so much so that they had to call in additional re-enforcements in the security team.
The internet had been swarmed with hate towards Felicity. News channels and QC workers in general speculated the reasons for Felicity becoming Head of IT Department. Twitter had some pretty hurtful messages about her going on her knees for the job, and then about her tying the man down for his money. Some even said that the baby might not be Oliver’s, which hit a little too close to home for Felicity, and Thea had to drag her away from her phone and tablet and distract her with online shopping for maternity clothes.
The inevitable wardrobe malfunction happened the morning QC opened. When Oliver came out of the washroom, he expected to see Felicity at the dresser, finishing getting ready for day. Instead, he found her on the floor of the wardrobe, towel still wrapped around her body, crying as she held a black lacy garment in her hand.
Oliver knelt beside her and took her face in his hands. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“My bra doesn’t fit me anymore,” she moaned.
He looked down and saw that the garment she held was a scrappy piece of bra, skimpier than he would have expected Felicity to prefer. Not that he had been imagining Felicity in her underwear, but he totally had been. It also did not escape his notice that she was sitting on the ground in a towel, possible, highly probably, not wearing anything underneath. He’s pretty sure the towel wasn’t exposing more skin than the tiny gold dress during the Dodger mission had, but he had a hard time focusing on the problem at hand when he could see down her cleavage with just the correct angle of tilt of his head.
“My bra doesn’t fit,” she continued “and now I can’t get dressed because my breasts hurt, and we’ll end up being late on the very first day, and people already think badly of me and now they’re going to think I'm taking advantage of my position and all the tweets will get worse...”
She broke off with a sob, and Oliver forced her to look at him. “Hey, Felicity, it’s alright. No one is going to say anything bad about you. I’ll put an arrow through them if they do.”
Felicity made a sound of protest, but he shushed her. “And I know you can hack into any social website and delete any defaming comments and cause their servers to crash, and I will support you. Now get off the ground,” he pulled her up and led her to the bed. “Wait here.”
He left her sitting there, and not more than five minutes later Thea entered the room with a flourish, brandishing an underwear hamper in her hand. “Never let it be said that Thea Queen does not come to the rescue of the needy.”
Felicity tilted her head, and Thea opened the bag and dumped all the contents on the bed next to Felicity. “Ollie said you had a bra disaster. I have the perfect temporary solution.”
She had got at least twenty different bra extensions for her. There were all kinds of them – lace, satin, cotton, single hook, double hook, triple hook, thin, thick, black, white, nude and in more colours. “Let’s see which one works.”
In two minutes Thea had the perfect extension for Felicity, and she was dressed and ready for the day in fifteen minutes.
“You and me,” Thea told her as they walked down the stairs arm in arm, “we’re going shopping today. I don’t care what plans you already have with my brother, you're cancelling them.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Felicity laughed and pulled her into a hug. “Thank you, Thea. I don’t know what I would have done today without you.”
“Hey,” Thea said warmly, sinking into the embrace, “that’s what family is for, right?”
Felicity squeezed her eyes to fight back the tears that threatened to surface, and held the younger woman a bit tighter.
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After the earthquake, the QC board opened up the shares to the market. With the help of Walter, who was now the CFO of Starling City Bank, Oliver was able to secure enough aid from the bank to buy 30% of the shares, raising the amount owned by the Queen family to 60% of the total. A mysterious buyer had beaten him to the remaining 40%.
When they returned to QC, they discovered the identity of the anonymous buyer – Stellmore International, and its VP Isabel Rochev. As they travelled in their SUV over to QC, Felicity gave Oliver a rundown on Rochev.
“She’s the Vice President of Acquisitions at SI,” she said, handing him a manila envelope. “I ran a full background check on her. She was born in Russia, adopted in the US, MBA from Harvard. There’s not much about her online, and I don’t really trust her. She seems shady.”
When Oliver opened the file, a dark-haired beauty with a twisted smile and evil glint in her eye stared back at him. “She looks angry in every photo,” Felicity commented, “Which makes her all the more of a suspicious person. Who chooses to look angry in every photo? Photographs stick, and get pasted on the internet and social media, and you don’t want to leave an angry looking legacy behind for future generations to remember you by.”
Oliver gave her a half-amused smile, and she faltered in her ramble. “Maybe she just doesn’t like cheese,” she shrugged. “Which is understandable, because have you seen that waistline? She probably lives on kale.” Both Oliver and Diggle huffed out a laugh.
Isabel Rochev was Hell on High Heels, Felicity thought. From the moment she entered the 31st floor of the QC building which held the CEO’s office and the board rooms, she had started undermining Oliver’s right to the company. She had marched into the room oozing confidence, her long stiletto heels clicking sharply against the tiled floor, her assistant hurrying behind her, carrying all her paperwork and in general looking frightened of his boss.
The board members and Oliver and Felicity got up from their seats as she entered the room. She held out a hand to Oliver. “Isabel Rochev. Sorry I'm late.”
Oliver shook her hand. “Late? Late for, what? You're not supposed to be here, Miss Rochev.”
She sat down with a flourish in the only empty chair – across the table at the other end from Oliver. “I'm here to take over your company.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be happening, Miss Rochev,” Oliver commented. “I own 60% of the shares, which is a majority.”
“You own 40%, actually. The remaining 20% of the shares are still in your mother’s name. Which makes the two of us equals.”
“Irrelevant. The company remains under the Queen family, and I am the representative of the family.”
“And that means you’re going to be the CEO? You’ve already appointed your girlfriend as Head of one department, and what were her qualifications, besides an abundance of short skirts and a bun in the oven? Next thing we know you’ll appoint your mistress as your assistant.” She turned to Felicity. “Honey, I should warn you, men like these don’t care about family. You may have tied him down for now, but as soon as you’re bloated, he’s going to go chasing after the next short skirt.”
Oliver rose from his seat, his chair falling on the ground with the force of it, his hands clenched in suppressed rage. His eyes were burning with fury as he gritted his teeth and forced himself to calm down. Felicity laid a hand on his arm, which helped him clear his head.
“Let me make this clear once and for all,” he said in a steely voice, “Miss Smoak is the best employee Queen Consolidated has seen in her field, and she is highly over-qualified for her job. I will not tolerate a word against her. Should you, or anyone else for that matter ever dare to insult her again, I will not hesitate before calling security to have you escorted out.”
The silence that followed his declaration was broken by the sound of shattering glass and Diggle’s loud “Get Down!” Oliver’s hand immediately sought out Felicity, and he pushed her to the ground, covering her body with his own. Gunshots rang out in the room, and Oliver looked up just in time to see four hooded men stalk into the room with machine guns strapped to their chests. The board members were screaming as they tried to run past the men, and one of the older, white-haired members, was shot in his leg. He went down with a pained cry, and Felicity stared at Oliver, wide-eyed.
With quick, sure movements Diggle took down one of the armed men and shot another in the arm. Oliver pushed Felicity under the desk and motioned to her to move towards the windows. With one quick move he pulled away the leg of one of the chairs and stood up and threw it at one of the remaining two attackers with perfect aim. It hit the man in his stomach.
Felicity had crawled her way to the ceiling-to-floor window and Oliver wrapped an arm around her, the other wrapping around the blinds’ cord, and the two of them crashed through the window. Felicity screamed, her face digging into Oliver’s neck with her eyes screwed shut, and felt another impact as they crashed through the windows two stories down and landed onto one of the executive floors.
Felicity scrambled onto her knees and heaved, her arm clutching her stomach, and Oliver was there at her side in an instant, pushing back her curtain of pale hair to reveal even paler skin. She leaned into him as she got her nausea under control, and he held her to the safety of his own body, one hand rubbing soothing circles on her back. He placed a gentle kiss to her hair as she calmed down.
“I know you tend to revert back to the old stone savage days,” she said between breathes, “but I am never, ever indulging in Tarzan and Jane fantasies for you.”
Oliver let out a surprised chuckle, and she looked up at him with a tired smile before sagging against him, letting him support her weight. His phone vibrated in his jacket, and he pulled it out, putting Digg on hands-free mode.
“You guys okay?” he asked as soon as Oliver answered.
“Yeah,” Oliver answered. “We’re two floors down from you. Felicity needs some cool water.”
“I’ll be right down.”
Oliver shifted Felicity in his arms and got up, carrying her. She let out a short gasp, but otherwise did not protest, letting him carry her over to one of the sofas on that floor. He had just set her down when Digg came running down the stairs, carrying a bottle of cool mineral water. He opened the bottle and handed it to Felicity, who chugged half of it down in one go.
“Hey,” he greeted them. “The ‘Hoods’ are down. Lance is on his way here. You'll want to be upstairs.”
“In a moment,” Oliver replied. He looked at Felicity, who was now sitting up instead of lying faintly on the sofa. “Better?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I just need to lie down. For hours. Or days. As far as first days at the new job go, this one was pretty epic.”
Oliver hummed his agreement and turned to Digg with a contemplative look. “Things are getting worse. I need to get back on the streets from tonight.”
Digg pushed away the ends of his jacket as his hands settled on his hips. “I agree with you, man, but we’re in no position to do this alone. And it’s not going to get any easier in the coming months.”
“I know, Digg. I know. But we need to do something, or this city will go to crap.”
“We could bring someone in,” Felicity said, drawing their attention to herself, “because I know just the right person for it.”
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Roy had just left Verdant when he heard a woman scream. Without a second thought he ran towards the source of the sound. Turning up a corner, he saw two men crowding a woman into the dark alley wall as she clutched her bag with trembling hands.
“Hey,” Roy yelled.
“Fuck off, Harper,” the taller of the two men, the one with dark hair in a dirty beanie said, just sparing a glance at him.
Oh, no you don’t, Roy thought as he charged at the muggers. He pushed the men off the girl, yelling a simple command of “Run!” at her before engaging the two men. He grabbed the shorter red-haired man in a vice like grip and slammed him into the wall, using the leverage to kick back Beanie when he came running at him. Still holding Ginger against the wall with one hand, he punched Beanie in the face. A horrible crunching sound let him know that he had broken the man’s nose, and Beanie slumped on the ground, unconscious. With another quick motion, he slammed Ginger onto the ground, knocking him out too. He stood back from the two slumped bodies, breathing hard.
“Roy Harper,” a deep, distorted voice said, and Roy whirled around. Standing behind him was Starling City’s very own guardian angel, the Vigilante, the very man Roy had been seeking for the past few weeks.
“I've been looking for you,” Roy said, pushing his hood down as he walked towards the Arrow.
Oliver held up a hand for him to stop. “I know,” he said, his electronic voice hiding his identity.
Roy shoved his hands in his pockets awkwardly. “Since you saved my life, I've been looking for a way to help you.”
“I know. I've been a little reluctant to bring you in, but I need your assistance now.”
“Tell me.”
“Right now... I have more pressing matters to attend to. I need you to be my eyes and ears in the city. Anything happens, you contact me. Do not engage. I will be there as soon as I can.”
“How can I help if I don’t engage?”
“I can’t have you risk your life anymore that you already do.”
“Yeah, well, news flash: I live in the Glades,” Roy said with an angry jerk of his shoulders. “I'm already in danger all the time.”
“Not like this,” Oliver said. He was silent for a moment, thinking. “Think of it as a probationary clause. We’ll see how you do right now and then I’ll bring you in completely.”
Roy let out an angry huff, but nodded. “I can deal with that. But how am I supposed to contact you?”
“With this,” Oliver held out one hand, and in the green leather covered palm rested a small red arrow. Roy took it and inspected it. “It has a sensor that sends a radio signal from it to me. You stick it in the wall, and I will get the co-ordinates to wherever you need me to be.”
Roy nodded and pocketed the arrow. “Do you have a name or something, other than what the media calls you?”
“You can call me the Arrow.”
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