Work Text:
Felicity sighed to herself as she thought once again of how difficult her life had gotten, sure she lived away from her parents. In theory, this meant that she wasn’t woken up by her Papa firing a gun at the wall in the middle of the night when he got bored. But it was America, so she hadn’t completely escaped the gunfire. Or the pro-gun nutcases. She wasn’t even going to argue with them, at least not if she wanted her blood pressure to remain low. She had escaped being woken up by melancholic violin music at 3 AM when her Papa had gotten stuck on cases. Or finding knife marks in the fireplace when her father had gotten frustrated and stuck on a case. It had meant that she had escaped the sound of her Dad moaning her Papa’s name, Felicity didn’t like to think of why he was moaning that name, no child did!
But it did mean that the loneliness when she was home, had begun to set in. Sure, she had left behind nursing (the things she had seen during nursing rotations in the A&E department of St. Barts, she didn’t even like to think about), but she still missed having the human-shaped company of some type. Now, she had gotten her degree in IT Cybersecurity and was a desk minion with Queen Consolidated, but she was only home a little bit more – the things on some of those computers – and she had killed a few cactus plants.
So, now she was looking for a new roommate, not that she needed one to cover the bills. She was incredibly lucky to own her townhouse outright; she had made enough money to buy her townhouse outright. And her various uncles who all decided that Felicity should own her very first home. Completely skipping the struggle of getting on the home-owners market but maybe that was a good thing that she didn’t have to deal with that particular stress?
Thanks to the masses of paranoia shared by some of the men in her life, she had been raised with the ability to defend her house and home (and herself) along with various weapons that she could use to defend herself. Did it give her a small sense of amusement that she had enough weapons to outfit a determined (and probably slightly insane) assassin or at least a small group of armed men? Yes, it did.
So while she didn’t feel the need for any financial assistance, she did want a little company when she got home at night. When she got home from fixing the countless computer related screw-ups, she just wanted a little company. Was that so bad? She didn’t feel any particular need for an S/O (male or female) in her life, but she did want somebody to watch the TV with at night, maybe to share the irritatingly boring chores list.
It could be so difficult food shopping for just one person, so many servings all equated for families or couples of people.
But maybe she should just skip a human and go straight onto buying cats? She would be well on her way to becoming a crazy cat lady maybe minus the whole crazy part!
She would have to get over her irrational dislike (probably some superstitious nonsense) of cats, first, though.
Felicity was sat now in a local coffee shop, wondering just how in the hell she was going to find a roommate? Could she bring in somebody, even if she knew how her uncle would react? She could bet that her uncle would no doubt want to cyber stalk whoever she lived with.
After all, it was now part of family legend how Mycroft had reacted to John moving in with Sherlock all those years ago.
Looking up when she heard the merry ringing of the bell signalling that someone else was coming in, Felicity glanced around the small coffee shop and bagged up her lunch supplies. Putting her used cup, with a faint imprint of pink lipstick. Clearly, her lipstick wasn’t completely transfer proof, that was frustrating, on the tray. After tidying up her napkins, Felicity left her tray up to the counter and smiled at the staff as she left the tray up to the tray return point. Making her way out into the bright sunlight, Felicity looked down digging out her small pair of sunglasses out of her bag.
Making her way through to the office, ducking and weaving past some of the harried business personnel. Felicity almost didn’t notice the large black limo, she would usually be the first to admit that she probably should have noticed the limo, but she was completely distracted with some of the things she would have to do at work. Making her way back up to her office, Felicity heard her phone beeping in her pocket, pulling it out, she flicked through the information in front of her.
Biting her lip as she thought to herself that she should probably alert her uncle to the fact that she now wanted a new roommate so that he could build up a good head of steam now. The last thing Felicity wanted was to blindside her uncle to the idea that she could avoid the whole scenario of one Mycroft Holmes building himself up into committing what could only be described as cyber warfare. The fact that Felicity wasn’t even sure if it could be classed as cyber warfare was just a matter of perspective. Most of the time she just thought it was downright creepy, why couldn’t she wait to learn these things when she was out on a date?
Opting to put the whole matter to the back of her big brain until she had gotten home from work that evening, Felicity stepped from the lift as she made her way into the cubicle farm that housed most of the rest of the IT department. Felicity began to operate a system-wide check; it was a Friday and without fail someone always opened a rather questionable email on a Friday. Funny Friday indeed!
Allowing herself to become completely immersed in her coding work, Felicity almost didn’t notice the time passing on her large daisy clock, until one of her new superiors stopped at the desk. Felicity wasn’t aware of the time passing until she realised that one of her superiors was standing at her desk, probably having cleared his throat a few times. Better not tell her Dad that she had forgotten her surroundings.
“Ms Smoak, there’s a problem up on one of the CEOs level, congratulations you’ve just been selected to go up there, here’s the file, don’t talk to anyone alright.” Creepy Vargas Mr Vargas spoke, trying to use his larger bulk to lean over Felicity’s desk to intimidate her. Nice try buddy, Felicity was a hard person to creep out.
“Wouldn’t it better if you went up there, Mr Vargas?” Felicity asked trying once again to restrain her temper. She knew damn right that the man didn’t even seem to know enough about computers to operate one of the CEOs computers.
“Heh heh no, I have a meeting with heh Shauna to get to” Mr Vargas salivated, glancing over at the small enclosed office that no doubt contained his mistress/secretary ready to take notes. Barely suppressing a shudder at the skeeziness of the man, Felicity tilted her head to the side as she looked at the man in front of her.
“Very well sir, have you got any files for me?” Felicity answered trying to keep her revulsion for the man down.
“No, you just go on up there,” Mr Vargass leant over the desk once again.
Felicity nodded and locked her computer screen, before pushing back from the desk and rising to stand up. Grabbing her tablet and large handbag, Felicity made her way towards the bank of lift, ready to go up and do her job. Pressing the button to call for the lift (because it was a lift and not an elevator god dammit) several times, Felicity hoisted the bag further up her arm, waiting. Felicity began to hum tunelessly under her breath, while she waited for the lift grumbling under her breath as she did so, Felicity glanced round the floor plans, thinking that she should at least do a little exercise. Glancing down at her wristwatch (call it a bit odd that an IT specialist would wear such an anachronistic gift, but some of the traits from her nursing training hadn’t quite yet died out), Felicity made her way over to the door marked stairs.
Before she scanned her small employee keycard, Felicity glanced at the floor plan and realised that she would have almost 20 flights of stairs to claim. Maybe she could skip her next cardio night? The only way she would get up there was to put one foot in front of the other. Scanning the small keycard, she watch as the device lit up green, and pulled the door open to make her way through the stairwell beyond.
Scrunching her nose up when she saw that it didn’t look like the stairwells were particularly frequented. Felicity thanked her lucky stars that she had opted to wear flat shoes that day. No doubt, climbing that many levels would no doubt prove to be sore if she had to do it while wearing heels of any height!
It took Felicity almost five levels before she realised something, huh the stairwells weren’t THAT brightly lit, she knew that her Dad would have heart palpitations at her being up this way.
Her weird uncle, Greg, would probably have something to say about the building not having all pathways and public areas well lit.
Well, what Inspector Lestrade didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and Felicity wasn’t about to tell him. At least she wasn’t when she knew that Greg would tell his husband (life partner?) Mycroft who would no doubt become incredibly tetchy.
At least she hadn’t come across any old cigarette butts!
Or any condoms, because she had worked in a hospital and sometimes felt like nothing would surprise her any longer.
At least the stairwells weren’t coated in dust, that would be disgusting and completely going against the local business ordinance codes (she assumed).
But did that small patch there look recently disturbed?
That was creepy, still, at least now Felicity was at the CEO level and was able to pull the door open towards her. Lost in her thoughts Felicity made her way over to the small computer desk, muttering to herself as she did so. Pausing only to spare a quick glance over at the framed photo on Mrs Queen’s desk, muttering to herself ‘shame that anyone dies, that anyone else should die, still what’s the point in living in our loved ones stay with us the whole time’. Perching herself on the edge of the swinging seat, she pressed a few buttons and deleted the last email attachment to be downloaded. Hopefully, that would clear up the problem.
After a quick run through of virus checker software, Felicity stood up, brushing down the back of her skirt, scooping up her tablet and tote bag. She left the computer behind, pausing only to push the spinning chair back under the desk, deciding that she should leave the CEO floor before she ended up having to speak to any of her superiors.
Shaking her head when she left the office, no Felicity decided that she had climbed enough stairs for one day, she was going to ride the lift no sorry elevator back down to the IT dungeons. Pressing the button, Felicity crossed her arms, one in front of the other as she waited for the lift. Deciding that she didn’t want to start stretching out especially not if she was disturbed, how would that look if she started doing lunges on her bosses floor while waiting for the lift?
Uncrossing her arms as she heard the ding sound, Felicity smiled as she saw the owner of the company getting off the lift. Bowing her head, she muttered,
“Mrs Queen, lovely day we’re having”
“Wait, who are you? And why are you on this floor?” Mrs Queen sharply asked, after having raised her head startled that she wasn’t completely alone.
“Apologies Mrs Queen, my name is Felicity Smoak, I work in the IT department, I was told there was a problem on one of the computers up here, I think it was yours? I’ve sorted the problem now though” Felicity explained her reason for being on the CEO’s floor, not wanting her boss to think that she was engaged in any of industrial espionage. At least not against her employer.
“Ah, the virus, I’m not the best with computers, it’s all sorted now you say. Show me what to do next time to avoid that Ms Smoak” Mrs Queen demanded of her employee walking away from the bank of elevators not even pausing behind her to see if she was being followed.
Felicity trailed after her employer, thinking to herself that she probably looked like a lost puppy.
That was odd hadn’t she pushed that chair in completely?
Shaking her head to try and clear some of the errant thoughts of moving chairs from her mind, she stood behind Mrs Queen as the woman opened up the email program again.
“So what did I do wrong here Ms Smoak?” Mrs Queen demanded imperiously.
“You have to be very careful what programs and attachments you download to the computer; the last attachment opened from this terminal carried a virus. I’ll need to have a longer look; I’m going to put in a work order for this computer, is there anything you don’t want me to touch on this terminal?” Felicity explained what she was doing and why she was going to take the computer.
“Yes, there are some files I don’t want anyone else to look at can you help me back them up and then delete them so I can still access them later?” Mrs Queen asked staring unblinkingly at her employee.
“Certainly Mrs Queen, would you like me to show you how to backup your files so you can do it without showing anybody else the files?” Felicity asked cocking her head to the side trying not to let her fear show.
“Yes, please Ms Smoak.” Mrs Queen responded shortly.
At her words, Felicity put her small tote bag back onto the floor, reaching out to grab a new portable hard drive “alright Mrs Queen, when you’ve put this into your computer” here Felicity paused to duck under the desk to plug in the black portable hard drive. As she did so, she noticed that there was a black rubber military looking device sitting plugged into the computer. Looking at it, Felicity was able to see that it didn’t look as if it was turned on, at least there was no light flashing. “When you’re ready to copy some of the files over, just click the settings on your computer and copy over some of the files. Then once you’ve got the files over, you can delete them on your computer just by dragging them into the recycle bin and then delete the contents from your recycling bin. Would you like me to send up another computer in and hour or two? I can take this now, and it shouldn’t take me too long to dig through it? Or I don’t have to touch this until you have a replacement?”
“Hmm, take it in a few hours, but you don’t have to send up a replacement, I can start my weekend early this once I suppose.” Mrs Queen directed her employee.
“Very well, have a pleasant weekend Mrs Queen,” Felicity replied taking a mental note of what her boss wanted her to do.
Making her way from the office, not looking at where she was going, already filling in a work request on her tablet as she walked. Felicity pressed the call button for the lift, as she waited she continued to fill in the small work order. Only looking up from the tablet when she heard the small DING of the lift arriving, she smiled at the tall dark-haired man coming out of the lift, she didn’t recognise him but it always paid to be polite.
Especially when it looked as if the man was carrying a great weight on his shoulders, his steps heavy and his gait slow as if he was used to fighting with the rest of the world, or at least someone that by rights he shouldn’t have to fight. The man was trying to feign a sense of relaxation, but Felicity could tell that he had gotten some news three years ago that was still trying to come to terms with. Part of the slow walk suggested that the man had recently been injured, the splint on his wrist suggesting recently and the hollow look in his eye suggesting that the man found himself coming to the end of an emotional journey. The man was wearing a suit with one of the cuffs let loose to allow the aforementioned cuff access to his wrist, and the other had been fastened and unfastened a great many times. The fact that one cuff had been continuously refastened suggested that the man had previously called himself a playboy, even if now he seemed to be in recovery.
The part of Felicity that could only have come from her Dad, her empathy, wondered what the man’s story had been.
She had also recognised the man from her recent channel flicking when she had caught the tail end of a report about local celebrities. At the time, Felicity had wondered to herself why she had chosen to settle down in this town or city, and when had journalism taken the time to look at local celebrities. Eh, at this rate she was probably better checking the news online, so she could find the stuff that she wanted to read more about.