Chapter Text
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as true strength.” – Ralph Sockman
Felicity sighs inwardly as she finishes the process of transferring all the technically less than legally acquired entail on the whereabouts of Oliver’s latest target. She watches the screen as the bar quickly fills up to 100%, indicating that it has been sent to his mobile. She yawns, mind travelling minutely back to the big warm fluffy bed waiting for her at home. Unfortunately it only reminds her that by the time she gets there, she will only have five hours of sleep before she has to get up and head to her cover job at Queen Consolidated. Tomorrow was important, it was Moira’s first day back at the office after her trial and it would be an understatement to assume it would be eventful. Employees from EAs and down were aware of the popular opinion on whether or not it was prudent to hand back over the reins to Mrs. Queen directly after all that had happened, but having an opinion on that was definitely above her pay grade.
Diggle groaned where he leaned innocuously against her desk to the right. “You know, I really don’t see the point in him going out again tonight after The Count last week and his mother returning to the company in the morning.”
“I think that’s the point,” Felicity murmurs, without thinking, eyes trained on the screen now as a new page pops up with an unassuming chirp. She leans forward immediately, hands flying across the keyboard as she deciphers the red-lettered address that means absolutely nothing to him. “Arrow-ing is what he’s good at right now. It’s for him how hacking and decoding is for me, and soldiering is for you. Not that hacking and decoding doesn’t get stressful, because boy does it, sitting down here decrypting things all night that, if done wrong, could potentially put my boys in danger. And I’m sure—now that I think about it—that soldiering isn’t exactly a walk in the park, because dodging bullets all day probably gets mind-numbingly old after a while… But—where was I going with this?”
Diggle glanced over at her curiously as her usual rant ebbs slower and slower to eventually outrun her attention span. His mouth quirks and he tilts his head to the side, unaccustomed to Felicity ever not being hyper aware of her word vomit. Her fingers are moving at record speed now, and she’s hunched over the desk rigidly. Her face scrunched inwardly, eyes narrowed, as she frowns more and more vigorously at the screen. Diggle glances at the monitor. The page is now a mess of computer language flying from the bottom of the screen to the top. Each new chunk added is helpfully color coded. Green, red, green, red, green, red.
“Felicity?” He asked, concerning slowly climbing up to the forefront of his attention. “What is it?”
“An astonishingly good hack,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“I’m assuming that’s not astonishingly good for us.”
She made a face, her attention divided between her friend and the program. “Nope. He’s attacking our server, trying to break through my firewall.”
“He can’t do that, right?” Digg asks, coming to hover over her shoulder, tensely.
Uncertainty clouds her judgment for a second, causing her fingers to slow, but just as quickly they pick up speed again. “Doesn’t stand a chance. That’s not really the issue here.” Before he can ask, she continues. “Whoever he is, he doesn’t want into our database. He’s looking for my—our identities. A quick evasive mislead link would easily handle that, except he’s using a government database. They’re virtually impossible to delude.”
“Wait,” Digg straightens from his hunched stance in surprising. “Are you saying a government agent is trying to hack into our server?”
“No, I’m saying a hacker who happens to also be a government agent is successfully hacking into our server!” Felicty cries out the last half in frustration, her arms flailing upwards as her torso rears back in equal parts irritation, disappointment, and—if she’s being honest, which she isn’t—fascination. He wasn’t fooled by any of her usual ploys and the shields she put up were easily overrode. Her left arm wraps instinctively around her chest and her right elbow rests in her hand as she rhythmically traces her upper lip, trying to think of a way of outfoxing this very impressive hacker.
Diggle’s question sparks an idea, from where he has returned to leaning against the desk. “Can’t you do that ‘piggyback’ thing, where you let him follow you into a trap or something?”
Felicity’s gaze jerks up to his face, eyes alight with delight as it comes to her. A pleased and fairly smug grin pulls at her fuchsia colored lips and she quickly mutters, “I could kiss you.” She then grabs the edge of the desk and pulls herself to the left screens in her swivel chair, narrowly avoiding clipping Diggle’s hip as he lurches out of the way.
Diggle’s eyebrow raises as the sides of his lips quirk up in amusement. Felicity doesn’t bother to notice already typing away at the new monitor. She quickly sets up her enclosure and rushes through as multiple pages fling themselves across the screen. From the monitor to her right another innocuous chirp reminds her that he’s gaining.
“Facebook?” Diggle’s voice sounds from above her head. “Is this really the time?”
She ignores him, turning back to her previously used monitor. She begins typing again, and the red and green conversation hitches back up, with vigor. Diggle doesn’t bother trying to understand anymore, however; he pulls back—arms crossed over his impressive chest—and waits her out, fully confident and trusting in Felicity Smoak’s ability to out-hack any threat.
At last, the image from the far left screen popped up onto the one under current use. Felicity’s body instantly springs back, fist reaching into the air with a silent ‘yes!’ He’d followed her right into her trap. Relief floods her body at the lack of danger, and she feels herself immediately drain of anxiety. A page appears on the monitor in between the two in use with the image of a map, address, and another set of codes. She sinks back into her swivel chair and turns around to Digg, a small smirk still lingering from her victory.
“I take it that was supposed to happen?”
She nods slowly, grin still in place, before sitting up again and adding, “And I’ll need the rest of the night to finish decoding, but I’m pretty sure I have a name too.”
“How?”
She shrugs faux-casually. “Army guys have their army-guy myths, hacker kids have their hacker kid myths.” When Digg’s expression still remained blank, she continued. “There’s only one person I’ve ever heard of who could hack like that. It was back in college. My friend always talked about how there was a guy who could hack anything. I’ll save you the internet lingo, but he was the best. A legend. Supposedly a senior in Stanford, by the time I was in MIT. But then he was just gone. People speculated he was probably busted for accessing some top secret government database or something. But I always assumed he wasn’t real…”
“Wow.” Digg stares, eyes filled with what looked like sudden awareness. “You are such a nerd.”
Felicity snorts and rolls her eyes at John. She isn't offended; she is oddly proud of the title, especially after having just gone up against someone as skilled as the hacker she suspected him to be. Adrenaline is still rushing through, making her toes tingling nervously and her fingers to quiver. Her head feels too hot, as if the excitement alone might short-circuit her brain.
“So what’s this guy’s name, Felicity?”
Another smirk. “The Piranha."