Chapter Text
Chapter One
She'd thought nothing could possibly top the Undertaking.
Turns out, she was wrong.
The thing was, they hadn't seen it coming – any of it. One day, they were just doing their thing, she was hacking video feeds, Oliver was sharpening arrows in-between nursing a semi-functional teacher-pupil relationship with Roy while never taking off his hood, and Diggle was mostly just despairing over it all – and then, next thing they knew, all hell was breaking loose.
Another thing Felicity had learned – if Oliver thought people were dead, there was every chance they were actually alive and kicking.
First, the Dark Archer had risen from the shadows. And he was crazier than ever. He'd gone after Thea – who, as it happened, was his daughter. Not that that had been a surprise for the team when Malcolm Merlyn had dropped back onto the map, though it had been a shocker when it was first uncovered – it had been a surprise for Thea, though. Big, huge, crippling surprise.
And while Oliver was challenging the Dark Archer for a rematch, they'd been blindsided by another ghost from his past.
Felicity had first heard the name Slade Wilson in a throwaway line about the island from Oliver – just an innocuous slip of his tongue that he immediately looked like he wanted to take back. Well, in front of her, anyway – she knew he'd shared some of it with Diggle. But she had known one thing: Slade Wilson was dead.
Recently, however, she had learned that he was not dead, had an affinity for swords and a two-faced mask, as well as an unquenchable desire to get revenge on Oliver. Now, the reasons behind his hatred – those had been unexpected. While she'd been on her knees and with her hands behind her back on the cold QC floor, she'd heard more about the island from Slade Wilson than she ever had from Oliver himself; Shado and Sara, and one Dr. Anthony Ivo, and a fateful bullet to the head, directed by an even more fateful choice on Oliver's part – or so Slade had said. Then, there was the story behind the eye-patch – well, he hadn't actually told her that one per se. She had just connected the dots. She'd been on Lian Yu; she'd seen the mask on the beach. The mask like the one Slade wore; the mask with an arrow driven through its eye. So, no, Slade hadn't told her about that one; she'd just figured it out. She'd heard everything else from him, though.
And she hadn't been the only one.
Laurel Lance had heard it all, too, from where she was right next to Felicity on the cold ground – and that particular staging, Felicity had learned, was a form of callback to island happenings; Slade had wanted Oliver to make a choice this time, too.
Things hadn't exactly gone according to that plan. Oliver had shown up, of course, no hood and no mask – and Felicity personally considered it a silver lining that his second identity had been kept under wraps from Laurel; it was probably an incredible stroke of luck that Slade hadn't had the chance to tell that tale as well.
She and Laurel, however, had been waiting for their stroke of death.
Felicity hadn't doubted for a second that Slade would kill them both, once the curtain closed on his little play. It was about suffering, and mind games, and guilt – payback for what he called Oliver's sins.
It all became somewhat of a blur at one point, actually. She remembered the voices; Slade's angry, taunting one, and Oliver's loud shouting followed by his quieter attempts at reasoning. She remembered how they had made her head pound along with the rush of blood in her ears; she couldn't remember the words, though. And she remembered hearing Laurel grit her teeth and growl, she remembered her muttering, too; she remembered seeing her close her eyes and shake from anger, and she remembered wanting to ask her if she was okay. She didn't know what she remembered after that.
Next thing she knew, Laurel's was screaming off the top of her lungs; a deep, drawn-out scream that had scrambled Felicity's mind. It had hurt to hear the scream.
She knew she had toppled over, away from the pain the scream made her feel, and she knew she had heard glass shattering all around her. She'd been told more about what had happened later than she actually remembered – all that she really did remember was the throbbing in her head.
Oliver had jumped at Slade, and there was some struggle, and then they had both gone out the window. Oliver had climbed back, and Felicity knew he had cut his palms open on the ledge because she had bloody streaks on her cheeks afterwards. And after it was all said and done, Slade was nowhere to be found, dead or alive.
Laurel didn't speak to Oliver. She didn't speak to anyone, actually.
Thea wasn't speaking to him, either. Or to their mother. Not after learning what they'd kept from her. But the return of the Dark Archer had been, in a way, anticlimactic. Though that hadn't made it any less bloody. He'd made his presence known again, taken Thea, but when Oliver had come for him, bow at the ready, he'd run away. Just gone as quickly as he'd come. No one knew why. And while Oliver had searched then waited, a two-block radius of the Glades had gone up in flames, raising Malcolm Merlyn's body count to five hundred and seventy. They hadn't seen that coming either. And much like Slade Wilson, Malcolm Merlyn was nowhere to be found now.
So, Felicity concluded, all in all, things were bad.
Just like they had been after the quake, even if it was in another way. Things were different now, though. She, Digg and Oliver were a team now, an actual team – with Roy as an honorary member who was kept in the dark about most things and Sara as the wandering trooper they knew they could call. So yes, they were a team now and things were different, and the aftermath would not be as the last one. Oliver would stay and they would find a way to fix this mess. Like a team.
Which was why she was blindsided when he stepped up to her and Diggle in the basement, and announced he was leaving.
"What do you mean, you're leaving?" she let out, blinking at his stoic, blank face.
"I'm going back to Lian Yu," he said. "I never should have left in the first place."
Her head whipped toward Diggle; his expression didn't show much, though there was some disappointment there. But no surprise.
Felicity, for her part, was definitely surprised. "Wh – I don't...I don't understand," was all she could think of saying.
Oliver didn't meet her eyes as he said, "I failed – again. The only reason you and Laurel were in danger was because of me, because Slade wanted to get back at me, and – " He sighed. "And he's still out there, but if I'm not here, there's no reason for him to go after anyone I care about – there's no point if I'm not here to see it." After licking his lips, he added, "I failed to kill him, just like I failed to kill Malcolm, and he beat me – again. He didn't even have to try this time. I'm no good against him. I'm no good for the city either. I should never have come back."
"You – you can't be serious." She huffed. "We've spent months helping the city – "
"And we have nothing to show for it," he cut in, sharply. "Every time we take one bad guy down, ten more pop up. Malcolm killed more people again, and we couldn't stop him. We couldn't even see him coming – or Slade. This was a fool's crusade, just like the last one."
"But – what about your family? And the city? They need you. We – " she gestured between herself and Diggle - "need you."
He shook and ducked his head, like he was trying to shake her words off. "My sister isn't speaking to me," he whispered. "And my mother – well, we haven't been on the best of terms. And the city – " His expression hardened. "Nothing I do makes much of a difference – if anything, I make it worse. I bring psychopaths and destruction wherever I go, and I did this time, too – "
"Merlyn isn't your fault – "
"I failed to kill him!" he raised his voice. "I tried, and I failed, and he came back! Just like the Count, like Helena – like Slade." He shook his head. "The city's better off without me."
Felicity gulped, hating how small her voice sounded as she asked, "And what about us?"
He looked up just for a split second, and that was the only showcase of how deeply his regret ran she got.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, his voice low and thick.
Well.
So much for things being different.
"Come on, man, don't do this," Diggle said quietly.
Felicity watched him and Oliver stare at each other for a long time, but in the end, she knew Oliver's will would win out. Some things never changed.
"I just wanted to say goodbye," was Oliver's response.
Well, at least they'd gotten that.
It was weird, actually; it didn't feel like much of a goodbye at all. "So, you're done?" she asked.
He nodded, and she could have rolled her eyes at how solemn he made it look. "I'm done."
"Then so am I," she concluded. "I'm not going halfway across the world to drag you back again. And when you decide you want to pick up where you left off, I won't be here for the ride. I'm out."
"I won't come back, Felicity."
"Yeah, you will," she said. It could be a year or a decade, but he'd find a reason to come back. Because some things never changed. "But I won't be here when you do."
She slung her bag over her shoulder. "Safe travels," she told him before making her way out, her heels clacking loudly in the ensuing silence. She knew there would be more words exchanged between him and Diggle, but she had no desire to linger behind and hear the conversation.
He was running away again. And she knew better than to chase after him this time.
The transition was almost seamless this time.
Mrs. Queen took over as CEO at Queen Consolidated. Isabel Rochev now enjoyed a new partner to have stare-off with. And Felicity had gotten her old job back in IT. She didn't know if she wanted to stay there anymore, but something had to pay her bills until she figured it out.
Diggle had been the one to inform Roy that there would be no more crime-fighting for them, using the voice-distorter to impersonate the Arrow.
Laurel was on a paid leave of absence at the DA's office.
The basement was locked and empty.
And Felicity –
Well, she was mostly going through the motions. She felt like it hadn't hit her yet, the whole weight of the situation. Like the few seconds of dead quiet after an impact. A train going off its rails and hitting a wall of stone before going up in flames; and those few seconds in-between were dead quiet. She felt like she was trapped in that stillness, too, suspended in mid-air before things started moving again. It would probably be ugly when they did.
The city felt like it had been suspended in motion, too. At least for a couple of days. Then, it had exploded. Malcolm Merlyn was alive. He'd killed again – targeted the Glades again. Alderman Blood was gaining traction by the minute. Again – and Felicity still believed there was something terribly off about him, even more so now. She didn't know why, but he seemed even more...invested this time. In a way that made her very uncomfortable.
But she wasn't scrambling to put the basement back together now. And she wasn't making longterm plans for the rehabilitation of Team Arrow. The Arrow, in his own words, was done, and so was she.
So much for being heroes.
It wasn't that she didn't understand that he carried the guilt of everything that ever went wrong on his shoulders. Or that he would be the last person to have faith in himself. Or that he thought that, in end, everyone was just better off without him. But if all the road they'd covered since she and Diggle had dragged him back from Purgatory hadn't changed his mind on the matter, then there was nothing she could do about it.
And there was nothing she could about Team Arrow, either. It was officially dismantled. She and Diggle couldn't do it on their own. They'd tried what they could, the last time, but there was always the ever-present knowledge that they needed Oliver to make it work. They needed his skill-set. They needed him. Diggle was good, but he couldn't do what Oliver could. She was not fieldwork material. And Roy –
Roy was partially trained at best, and all that Diggle could teach him would never be enough to make him into the kind of crusader Oliver was. Besides, Felicity doubted Roy would be very enthusiastic to try, even if they gave it a shot – he felt betrayed, too. And Sara was running with the League of Assassins at her heels.
So, no more Team Arrow.
And with that, Felicity expected she would settle into the same sort of routine she'd had before all of it. Well, it wouldn't be the same – it couldn't. Just the same kind.
What she had not expected, though, was to feel a hand cover her mouth as she walked to her car after work a week after Oliver had left, and a sharp smell to fill her nostrils as she lost consciousness.
It took her a while to open her eyes.
Her head felt too heavy for her shoulders, every last one of her muscles felt too stiff, and each breath she pulled felt like it was burning her throat and nose.
Felicity blinked through the fog, screwing her eyes shut then opening them, trying to focus her sight. Then, she realized it would stay unfocused no matter how hard she tried, because her glasses were missing. She could feel hard concrete beneath her, though, as well as recognize its bleak color stretch out around her; it wasn't the same as the one in the QC's parking lot, however.
A flash of hair swam into her field of vision next – of white hair.
Uh-oh, was the best her muddled brain could come up with.
"Hello."
How did one respond to a greeting by a high-ranking member of the Chinese mafia they called China White, and who was supposed to be under lock and key at Iron Heights and had evidently taken you hostage?
Where did the rules of appropriate social conduct stand on this?
China White crouched in front of her, and Felicity backed away on instinct; the pain that shot through her head the next moment let her know she'd hit it against the wall.
"Easy," the other woman told her. She opened the palm of her hand next, holding what Felicity vaguely recognized as her glasses. Her own hand came up to grab them, only for her to let out a yelp when it was yanked back, along with the sound of rattling metal; she was handcuffed.
Her left hand had been left free, though. So, she raised that one, feeling it starting to shake. It took longer than it should have to retrieve her glasses and slip them on, but eventually, the world around her sharpened again, and she was met with China White's dark eyes. She gulped.
"Wh – what do you want with me?" she asked, hating that her voice wavered as she did so.
The other woman shrugged. "You're our guest."
Felicity chanced a look at her surroundings, finding there to be at least five men with them in the – was it a basement? No, there was light streaming though the windows. A warehouse, maybe?
"That's funny," she commented. "I don't usually kidnap and handcuff my guests."
The realization that her mouth had gotten the better of her brain – again – came a moment too late, but China White only smirked.
"The accommodations are temporary," she said. "Until the Arrow responds to my invitation."
Felicity stilled, feeling a heavy weight settle in her gut. "W-what?" she squeaked out.
The white-haired woman rose to her feet. "The Arrow and I have a lot of unfinished business," she said. "I want to settle our score once and for all. And you – " her smirk grew wider – "are what's going to make him come to me."
The weight was turning into a churning now, gnawing at her insides. "I – I don't, he – he's – I don't have anything to – to d-do with – "
"Don't bother," China White interrupted her. "I know he values you – your life, at least. He killed the Count for you. And I know you were questioned by Quentin Lance about the work you'd done for him." She shrugged. "Lance and the city may have forgotten about it, what with the quake and all, but my sources at the PD remember. You work with him," she stated. "He'll come for you. And when he does..."
Although she didn't voice the rest of her plan, reading between the lines was easy enough.
There was, however, a significant fault in her plan, even if she might be unaware of it. The Arrow wouldn't get to read her 'invitation', much less respond to it.
He's not coming.