Chapter Text
“No no no no no,” Tommy complained as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “The cute IT girl is part of your criminal empire?!”
“Crime fighting,” Felicity corrected him, rising from her ergonomic chair and walking toward the middle of the room where Oliver was steering his best friend. “And the three of us are hardly enough to be called an empire. We’re barely enough to be called a team.”
“Do you?” Oliver inquired warily.
“Don’t you? I mean, what else would you call us?”
Oliver actually thought about it for a long moment, then shrugged for lack of a better word.
“Felicity, you remember Tommy. Tommy, Felicity.”
“Hi,” she said, extending a friendly hand. He took it by reflex. “Nice to see you again.”
“Likewise.” He paused and squinted at her. “Are you actually the tech support?”
They had given Tommy the same setting-up-Verdant’s-wi-fi excuse they’d told McKenna to cover her comings and goings.
“Yes,” she said, releasing his hand and giving him a reassuring smile. “IT girl really is my day job. At Queen Consolidated. And also my... secret, undercover night job here. But thank you for the ‘cute’. It’s nice to know that someone notices.”
There was absolutely no good way for Oliver to reply to that, assuming she even wanted him to.
“Trust me,” Tommy confided, tipping his head toward his friend, “he notices.”
“What?” Felicity blinked uncertainly.
“Oliver may be different in a lot of ways since he came back, but he will always notice a beautiful woman.” He favored her with a rakish grin and a wink. She couldn’t help but smile and blush in return. The two of them must have been a devastating tag team on the club circuit during their younger days. She looked aside to see a mixture of amusement and discomfort on Oliver’s face.
“I didn’t mean...” she backpedaled, eyes shifting away from his. Glancing at Oliver again, though, she realized that he was just as ruffled by his friend’s insinuations as she was and it boosted her ego a bit.
“I like him,” she told Oliver. “Can we keep him?”
Tommy threw back his head and laughed. Oliver rolled his eyes, licking his lips in an attempt to conceal the amusement tugging at them.
“I don’t know that I have much to contribute – other than more believable cover stories – but I’m certainly enjoying the company so far.”
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Oliver interrupted, clapping a hand on his best friend’s shoulder. “Let’s get you back upstairs so Felicity can get back to whatever she was doing.”
“I don’t even get the full tour?” Tommy asked with a slight pout, followed immediately by Felicity’s assurance that, “You’re not interrupting anything.”
The surprised disappointment creeping into Oliver’s expression urged her to continue.
“I mean, I’ve got bots searching and a couple updates running, but I don’t have to stare at them. They’ll... beep. I was just skimming the gossip sites to see what hilarious stories they’re making up about your love life today.”
Tommy’s ears perked up at that.
“Are they still on that Peruvian stunt pilot chick?”
Oliver gave up on separating them for the foreseeable future. He sighed and rolled his eyes, then wandered over to lean on one of the worktables.
“No,” Felicity replied, “now they’re speculating about a Canadian opera singer. She’s pretty. Leggy, brunette, totally his type.”
“I’m standing right here,” Oliver complained. “And what opera singer?”
“Natalia Mac-something. MacKeehan...?” She leaned toward the lefthand monitor to check the article displayed there. “McEwan. She was at that Muscular Dystrophy benefit last month. A society reporter for the Sentinel overheard you speaking Russian with her.”
“Oh, yeah.” Oliver’s gaze wandered into the middle distance as recalled the encounter. A soft smile spread over his face. He’d enjoyed having a conversation in one of his acquired languages that didn’t involve death threats. “She was nice.”
“Yes, well, apparently you’re now considering accompanying her to Munich and/or Paris during her upcoming tour of Don Giovanni,” Felicity informed him.
“Western Europe is lovely this time of year,” Tommy teased.
“Uh huh,” Oliver drawled. “I just gave her a couple restaurant recommendations.”
“Well, I guess our friendly neighborhood celebrity reporter took that to mean you’d be taking her to them in person.”
Oliver sighed. It wasn’t anywhere close to the worst thing written about him over the years, but it wasn’t something he particularly wanted to continue talking about either. He turned to his best friend.
“Alright, Tommy, do you want an actual tour before we open the club for the night, or are you good?”
“Is there really more to see?” He glanced around the mostly open basement.
“Not really,” Felicity admitted before busting out her best Vanna White imitation to gesture at two of the alcoves farther back. “Unless you’re into server racks or hand-welded exercise equipment.”
Tommy grinned at her antics.
“This might surprise you, but I’m not. I think I’ll keep my gym membership a while longer. Doesn’t look like this place has an in-house masseuse or whirlpool tubs.”
“Sadly, no,” Felicity confirmed. “On the upside, no vengeful women using you as leverage, either.”
“That is an improvement.” Tommy shook off the memory of Helena Bertinelli and her extremely effective wristlock. “Okay, well, I guess... I’ll see you around?”
“Yup. See ya.”
Oliver ushered him back up the stairs and followed behind. As they neared the heavy security door, a shouted, “Hey,” and a clatter of shoes came up the stairs behind them. They turned to face Felicity as she joined them.
“Give me your phone,” she demanded.
Tommy dutifully pulled the device from his pocket and passed it to her. She tapped away for several seconds, then gave a sharp, satisfied nod.
“There,” she said offering the phone back to him. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder toward the lair. “Now you have my number if something... down-there-related comes up.”
Tommy’s eyebrows shot upward. He looked over at Oliver to find him forcing back an amused smirk at the vague innuendo and couldn’t help answering with a grin of his own.
“Yeah,” Oliver said, “she does that.”
Felicity cringed.
“I... just...” She closed her eyes and shook her head in defeat. “Yeah, I got nothing. Sorry. But you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” Tommy said kindly, but couldn’t resist adding, “I will let you know if I need any help ‘down there’.”
“Stop it,” Oliver muttered, pulling him back on course toward the club. Tommy’s laughter was contagious, though, making Felicity chuckle in true shared amusement rather than embarrassment once more as the men returned to the public area of the building.
“I’m gonna have to keep you two apart as much as possible,” Oliver grumbled before the door clanged shut behind them. Felicity returned to her workstation.
“Gonna have to keep an eye on that one,” she muttered, a smile lingering on her lips. She knew he was dating Gorgeous Laurel, but Tommy Merlyn seemed to be good for an ego boost all the same. And he’d probably need a friendly ear to listen as he griped about Oliver sometime soon. She could do that.