Chapter Text
Of all the jobs Roy Harper’d ever had, this wasn’t the worst. He emptied another trash can with a huff; it definitely wasn’t great, though. But if he was anything, he was...what was the word Felicity had used? He shrugged—it would come to him—and extracted a rag from his bucket of goodies to give the toilet seat a quick swipe. This was not the way he’d ever imagined getting into the Executive Washroom of Queen Consolidated.
The Executive himself was busy at his desk, mostly flipping papers over and back and swearing softly to himself. He was also eating a sandwich and talking on the phone.
“I’m telling you, it was here. I had it all worked out. Shit, I know. I KNOW. Yeah, yeah. Bye.”
He dumped the phone from sauce-covered fingers to flop onto the papers and groaned a swear under his breath. Roy’s eyebrows twerked up, searching for pity and finding none. Life’s a bitch, dude, and then you die.
He snorted to himself with a smirk, moving on to the trash cans in the office proper. Resilient, that was the word she’d used, sometime over all those days he’d come to see her at the unemployment office while he was trying to find work. He liked Felicity, he really did. She was perky as hell; a sweet, bubbly mess of enthusiasm in a sea of sour looks and benefits paperwork. She understood his particular brand of snark, and always forgave him when he accidentally called her Blondie.
Plus they had a shared love of Madea movies.
A face appeared in the doorway of the office and Roy’s breath caught. She was fairy-small and beautiful, all delicate lines and big eyes. Roy swallowed hard and stared, but she paid him no attention at all.
“Mom’s going to kill you, Ollie, and I’m gonna be there to laugh.”
Oliver Queen grunted without looking up. “You came all the way down here to tell me that?”
“It’s two floors.” She caught the doorway frame with one hand and swung into the office, a look of childish delight on her otherwise adult face. Roy, realizing he was in the middle of some potentially awesome office gossip, busied himself dusting the heating vents, though they didn’t really need cleaning.
“Thank you for your support,” Oliver murmured to the top of the desk, still scrabbling through papers and making a bigger mess than ever. The phone chimed once and he slapped around for it with a growl.
“Yeah—ah, yes. Yes, I’m on my way.”
Roy sneaked a peek in time to see him drop the phone again and shoot to his feet; Oliver stood still long enough to button his coat and flatten his tie, and then moved to the door, snagging his sister’s elbow and spinning her with him as he went.
“I suppose I can’t talk you out of coming,” he tried hopefully, their voices growing faint as they left the room and turned down the hall. Roy let his eyes follow their progress through the window.
“Are you kidding? This is gonna be awesome!”
And then they were gone.
Roy chuckled to himself and shook his head. Rich people. He crossed the room to get the trash can under the desk, debating the wrapper of waxed paper left behind from the sandwich and still sitting on the desk. There were only crusts left, so he was probably done, but getting fired for throwing out the Prince of QC’s sandwich was not high on his list of fun ideas.
He was moving away when something else caught his eye: Oliver Queen’s phone was still lying face-up on the desk, and it was still unlocked. Huh. Roy flicked a glance to the open door and glass windows surrounding the office; he was basically inside a very expensive fishbowl, and the consequences for getting caught were bleak, but Roy had never let that kind of thing bother him much. He’d scored low on impulse control on the employment tests for a reason.
He tapped the screen lightly to keep it from shutting down and let his eyes wander the icons. Facebook, Twitter, Insta, but no Tinder. Huh. That was a surprise. He pictured Felicity hearing about this later and grinned. She’d think it was both hilarious and horrible. He gnawed his lower lip in thought, then opened the Instagram app.
It only took a few seconds to fire off a DM, and then he was moving on, bucket of cleaning supplies in one hand, trash bag in the other.
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Felicity had a personal rule about not using her phone during work hours, but that made her lunchtime break all the more sweet. She had a strict pattern of use: email, Facebook, Insta, Twitter. She could usually cycle through twice during her thirty minutes of down time, unless she got embroiled in a shouting match in the Twitterverse. Ugh. Fan boys.
She was taking a bite of her egg salad sandwich when the Direct Message notification appeared, and she tapped it without thinking. The name of the sender stopped her cold for a second.
“Hi,” it read. “Looking for a meaningfull relationship. Let’s meet up.”
Felicity snorted, forgetting for a minute she was in the break room at work. THE Oliver Queen? Who put a “The” in front of their name on social media? Like he was THE Ohio State or something. Geez. There were a lot of bored and desperate people in the world making fake celebrity accounts. Jerks. Her thumbs flew over the keys.
“Please. You’re not Oliver Queen. He wouldn’t waste his time talking to some random citizen of Starling City. I don’t know why you’d do this, but I’m not interested.” She bit her lip and added, “Spell check is your friend.”
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Roy could hardly wait to finish his shift and hustle the six blocks to the unemployment office, snagging the door handle and slipping inside with minutes to spare before it closed. Felicity was just coming out from the back, lunch bag in hand and pink cardigan folded over her arm, ready to head home.
“Hey, Blon—you.” He’d almost forgotten again.
Felicity’s face lit into a smile. “Hey.” The smile widened. “You ready for our rewatch?”
Roy scratched at his ear absently. “Sure. But does it have to be Madea’s Christmas?”
A crinkle of a frown appeared between her brows. “We’re watching them in order.”
“But it’s May.”
“Are you suggesting some Machete Order applies to Madea movies?”
Roy held the door for her and then followed behind. “It doesn’t have to be a machete. A fork maybe.”
“Fork order?” Felicity snorted. “That’s not a thing.”
Roy shrugged. “Sure it is. Or it could be. You know, not to cut it out altogether, just to, uh, scrape it to the side until later.”
“Blech. I don’t think I like your metaphors.”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever.” He bounced sideways on his toes like a boxer for a second. “Did you get any, um, interesting messages today?”
She flicked a look at him that made her pony tail fly as they crossed the street. The big red hand was flashing wildly. “No. Why?”
Roy’s face fell. “You didn’t? Nothing? Shit. Did I do it wrong?”
He fell into a self-analysis so intense he almost walked straight into a light pole; Felicity grabbed after his elbow and hauled him to safety. “What did you do, Roy?”
“I thought it would be funny, you getting a message from him,” he mumbled, still thinking.
“Him who?”
Roy’s focus snapped back to her. “Oliver Queen.”
She suddenly laughed, remembering. “Oh yeah, I did get that. It was hilarious. Did you do that?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Huh. I’m impressed. Which is funny, because usually fake accounts annoy me. But I guess it’s cute if you do it.”
Roy froze in the middle of the sidewalk and she walked right on, then had to stop and turn back to find him.
“Roy?”
“That wasn’t a fake account.”
She shook her head quickly. “It was totally fake, Roy. THE Oliver Queen? Are you kidding me? Who does that? Plus “meaningful” was spelled with two “L”s.”
Roy still hadn’t moved; his hand lifted to rub the back of his neck.
“Roy?” There was a hint of Very Major Concern in her voice. He looked at her from under his lashes and her heart plopped into her stomach. “Oh no no no no no you didn’t. ROY.”
“It was a joke! I was in his office when he left, and his phone was just sitting there, and I thought it would be hilarious—ah, shit.”
She’d doubled over on the sidewalk, her arms wrapped around her middle. He could hear soft little moaning sounds drifting up from her over the street noise.
“Felicity, it’s no big deal. Just ignore it. He’ll probably never see that any message got sent. C’mon. This is funny, right? Please tell me this is funny.”
Without answering, Felicity straightened and opened her phone with one hand before passing it to Roy to read.
“Oh shit, Blondie. You answered?”
Felicity blew out a breath like she might vomit.
“This is...” Roy waved a hand in the air as he re-read her reply. “This is embarrassing, but it’s not FATAL.”
She finally looked at him. The glare was fierce.
“You know I’ve been actively looking for a new job.”
“Oh, no—“
“I’ve applied for a position in Applied Sciences at Queen Consolidated.”
“Felicity—“
“Oliver Queen is interviewing me tomorrow morning.”