Chapter Text
Felicity had always been able to see ghosts, or she had for as long as she could remember.
It was odd to be able to see more than the living, to see an entire other society of people that were just a little off . While it had never seemed abnormal to her, the older she grew the more other she felt. And although it had been easy to learn how to not react, even with especially gruesome looking death-marks, she still felt as though another shoe would drop when she least expected.
Something about seeing the dead had always felt rather… ominous.
(In all honesty, she had jumped at an unfortunate man with an axe in his chest and a gaping wound that was still oozing an unending torrent of blood. She'd jumped, but most people thought she was a little crazy anyway and that, while kind of rude and a little insulting, was very useful alongside her tendency to talk to herself, even if she wasn’t always talking to just herself, and wow could she talk herself into circles.)
They had eventually learnt to only speak to her when she was absent from living companions, once they’d figured out they could talk to her to begin with. It was something Felicity had really appreciated the thought. It was impossible to communicate properly without being able to acknowledge them in public. There was something weird about being moderately famous in the dead-world (she needed a better name for that but what can you do?) and being known as ‘blondie, the one who can help with death-living stuff, despite the sunshine-ey-ness’ was just as odd. It was a step up from ‘that goth who matched her occupation very well’, and to set the record straight it was entirely coincidental that she looked like she summoned demons, but hey, everyone's allowed an angsty phase, and she’d lost the black hair and most of her unsociable attitude.
.
(She had decided to go with a warm blonde for her new hair colour, after deliberating whether or not to go full purple, choosing to add some much needed sunshine after him to represent the glowing new personality that she’d employ. It matched rather well with the fashion sense that overcompensated for all of the black she used to wear.
There were still some reminders of her past, memories that she wanted to remember.
Her and her mother had matching tattoos, a single stemmed daisy on their left sides at the top of their ribs. Donna had insisted on it for Felicity’s 21st birthday, for something to mark the occasion. Even with their strained relationship, and the effort they both put into trying, it was an important memory. Needles, and other pointy objects, seemed to only be a fear for Felicity when she wasn’t in control of the situation, and tattoos and piercings didn’t seem to qualify as out of control.
She had gotten several more tattoos on her way from Vegas, through Boston and to Starling City, but they were all small and not very noticeable in her regular office clothes. They were all of a similar art style but had vastly different subject matter and sparingly dotted around her upper arms, torso and tops of her thighs.
Her industrial piercing was something that she did when finishing her second year of university, a nice addition to the three pairs of lobe piercings, as an 18th celebration with her friends. All of the great, and not so great, loves of her life (romantic, platonic and otherwise) came and and went with some sort of body modification or style change.
When her childhood crush asked her (tentative) best friend to prom she cut herself a wonky fringe under the watchful eye of a ghost. Luckily it was long enough to be tucked behind her ears and neat enough to look acceptable but it didn't help with the awkwardness of not feeling at home in her body. She was never going to make it as a hairdresser either.
With the gain of Cooper came a tongue piercing, a temporary eyebrow piercing that was pushed out by her unwilling skin after only eleven months (great foreshadowing for that relationship) and several hoops and studs for her nose and lips. With the loss of him came the blonde hair and a switch from black lipstick to pink.
Even the loss of her dad came with her ears getting pierced. God knows how an eight year old managed that without any parental consent, but it was Vegas. The death, and subsequent ghostly uprising, of a college friend gave her a tattoo to copy onto her thigh.
With her current move to Starling and settling into another new city and getting a proper job at a prestigious company at only twenty two, Felicity thought it was time to add another to her collection.
She even met another ghost on the way, Rue.)
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The dead looked just like people, obviously as they used to be people, with only death to change that. A greyish tinge to their colouring was marred with the wounds of their deaths, a freeze frame of their final moments in life. The spectres seem to float around, drifting through the living world, barely imprinting their souls onto the living. That shiver down your spine was a soul passing through, wishing for some warmth and fruitlessly taking it from you. They always looked cold and lonely, only able to speak to others like them, and watch their world change and turn to ash around them. It was a miserable existence.
The first time she spoke to one, when she was around four, was one of her earliest memories. Her Mother, Donna, and her Father, always as nameless in her thoughts as in her knowledge of him (told you about the remains of angst left behind), were in another room and little Felicity was wanting something.
A brilliant blue wooden block (really foreshadowing that Doctor Who addiction there huh) sat tantalisingly on the table from when the girl in question had sat on her three-cushioned dining chair. The inhabitants of that house didn’t have the spare money for a proper chair. While Felicity may have had blocks of many other colours in her grasp, the blue had always been her favourite and the fact that it was unattainable made her want it more. When she had set her sights on something, there was nothing to do but let her get it.
Felicity often chased the unattainable, proving that nothing is impossible, only highly improbable.
She had walked over to the table and tipped her head back to gaze longingly at the lace edging of the table cloth that hung over the edge of the too-high table. The thought of pulling it until the block came to her snuck across her mind, but there was a vase and that would smash so maybe not. Felicity had pouted and shook the stray brown strand of hair from her cheek before stretching a hand out, the other was preoccupied with a yellow block, and pushed onto her tiptoes. Unfortunately, she could only just reach the edge of the table, and not well enough to grip it.
Turning around with a defeated look and drooped shoulders, Felicity spotted the little old lady that liked to sit on her sofa. She had used to live next door, passing Felicity a square of chocolate every time they crossed paths. Eventually she had left, asleep in a black car. A couple of days later, about a month ago for Felicity, she appeared on the sofa with a softened smile and the ability to walk much faster. Her apartment was also occupied by a new couple, so maybe she needed somewhere to stay. No one else spoke to her, but she was used to seeing people that no one spoke to. Felicity always made sure to smile at her but followed the example of her parents and not speak.
Now that she was alone, not including the-woman-on-the-sofa but the hazy people never seemed to, no one would know that Felicity had asked very nicely to please get the block for her, it was her most favouritest after all. And so, she wandered over to stand in front of the woman, put on her best smile, and asked.
(Felicity had learnt about having a best smile from her Mother, a woman who worked as a cocktail waitress. During the times her Father was on a job, what job Felicity had no idea and knew well not to ask, she had gone along to the casino and sat in the breakroom. On very empty nights she was permitted to sit on the sofa near the bar and watch her Mother smile at men. It seemed to help with her job and so Felicity learnt her very own best smile. The expression came in handy when getting candy from people, and making sure it wasn’t her that got in trouble.)
The woman had spent a long enough time just blinking at Felicity’s well-practiced people smile, a modification of her best smile as (while she was never one for facial expressions or outwardly expressing any emotion) she had noticed it stopped people thinking she was odd, to slip into an expressionless line, and slowly slipping further into a frown, also well practised but easier as frowning was an expression that she often fell into naturally. She had then asked a rather odd question and Felicity had nodded, because of course she could see her, she did have eyes.
The lady’s look of bewilderment had turned into a sad smile, before she apologised as she was unable to pick up the block. That caused Felicity to be confused, it was only over on the other side of the room, her head moved in that direction to demonstrate her point, and she had seen the woman walking around just fine.
It was then that Felicity had learnt that some people that she saw, always the hazy, slightly greyer individuals, were invisible to everyone but themselves, and Felicity. Apparently the woman, Deidre she supplied, was supposed to go on, to somewhere she wouldn’t (or couldn’t) say, but had gotten stuck just watching. Felicity thought it was rather sad that Deidre was unable to move on, and vowed to help her, and anyone else she happened across, do so.
.
(It was only on the day that Felicity had gotten her MIT acceptance letter that Deidre had smiled that warm and soft smile of hers and faded away. By then the old woman was a grandmother to Felicity and had been affectionately called Bubbe. She was always there when Donna was working one of her two jobs after Felicity's Father had left, and was more positively impactful on her childhood than anyone else.
It was one such day that Felicity opened the letter. Her Mother wasn’t keen on the idea of her going to university so far away, and any discussion on the topic ended up in a tear-filled argument and slammed doors. She was hoping for a scholarship, the only way she’d be able to attend. Although the money from her card-counting adventure (something taught by a dead stripper with a purple neck, a name of Stella and smeared mascara only cut through by dried tears) was a substantial amount, she couldn't spend that sort of money without having procured it legally. Currently it was sitting in a nice few bank accounts, one under her name and the rest under various fake names with a lot of security. Colour her paranoid.
As soon as she had exclaimed her excitement at the contents of her letter, Deidre had started to change. The grey tinge disappeared and she began to look younger, the wrinkles smoothing out and her hair darkening to a rich chocolatey brown, the curls fluffing and lengthening. Her clothes changed and so did her shoes. The woman was now looking to be in her early thirties and beaming with such a brightness that Felicity squinted. The glow emanating from the woman got too bright to keep her eyes open, and she had to shut them, screwing her eyes as tightly closed as she could.
When the red of her eyelids had faded back to black, Felicity blinked her eyes open and willed back her vision only to see Deidre gone, only the locket she always wore on the carpet in her place. The worn carpet was only obscured by the glinting metal, colourful spots of light and the everlasting dust.
Felicity had broken down in tears, unmoving in the hours it took for Donna to come through the door, see her daughter on the floor and read the letter. It was both the first and last time they had properly hugged.)
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She had always loved her Father, not necessarily more than her Mother, but it had always ended up feeling like that anyway. Felicity had just connected to him better. Donna had suffered from postpartum depression when Felicity had been born but was unable to get any help. Her low mood and lack of want for a connection with her daughter had lasted for years, leaving Felicity to cling to her Father until she was six and he left. The woman had tried after that, but she still felt like a stranger some days, or an Aunt that didn’t seem to fit into the family properly.
Somehow things got worse when Felicity had turned seven. She was already smarter than most, a mix of genetics, her own genius, and the odd collection of ghosts she had to teach her things.
(One such thing was learning Italian from one of Deidre's after-death friends, Antonio. It had taken a few years but she was now fluent and had moved on to learning Spanish.)
Unfortunately, her mother was never a particularly gifted woman, and was more ‘street-smart’ than academically intellectual. She didn’t think following a purely academic route in life was useful, something she had pushed even more after her husband had left. Donna had taken months to sign the divorce paper left on the table, and hadn’t spoken to Felicity for the first one.
Felicity often thought that her mother forgot that she had a daughter, sometimes coming home to their smaller apartment and expecting a husband. The nine year-old could always see the poorly hidden disappointment on her face when she realised there was a daughter instead.
Another consequence of her Father leaving meant that Felicity was alone more often than not, both from her parents being reduced to only a Mother who had never really embraced motherhood, and the fact that the woman had to work extra hours and take on a second job to provide for them both. That was always something that bothered Felicity, why she could bear to look at her daughter and yet was happy to slave away at the casino for her. Maybe she liked to be away because it meant she didn’t have to look at her as much.
She had also acquired some abandonment issues, which really set her up for failure and a fun, love-filled future.
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Felicity had eventually fostered a better relationship with her Mother post blonde hair dye, the matching tattoos signifying the start of that. They would never be particularly close, but at least she wouldn’t feel any foreboding at seeing the words ‘Mother’ in her phone.
They didn’t communicate often, but she made sure to call on birthdays and holidays, or to relay any important life updates. Not that she ever had any important life updates since their reconnection. It may have been a couple years since then, but she had spent the majority of it studying further at MIT to get her qualifications, an accelerated PHD in a subset of cyber security that incorporated her other degree of computer science, and settling into Starling and her new job.
On her first day of work, a day that wouldn’t consist of any actual work but only a tour and many introductions to both people and her responsibilities instead. (And a lot of fucking paperwork.)
Felicity had spent several hours the night before in her new apartment trying to figure out what to wear. Did she go with a completely basic daytime office look, or did she dress up a little? Eventually she had thrown on a sensible brown skirt and a light blue button up blouse. She allowed herself to accessorise with some fancier black heels and all of her ear piercings. Although she took out the rest of her visible facial piercings.
(The tongue piercing allowed for her to occupy her mouth with something other than blabbering about topics not work appropriate. It was an annoying curse of hers to say the exact thing she shouldn’t.)
The building that housed Queen Consolidated was tall and imposing, all metal and glass that managed to gleam in the straining February sunlight. After getting through security with her temporary pass, and the reassurance that yes, she would get a permanent one before she left the building that evening, she made her way to the reception. The woman at the desk looked appropriately proper, if a little bored, and honestly was everyone in this building near supermodel attractive? (Was everyone in this city near supermodel attractive?)
Felicity shook her head and put on her best, I’m professional but impressionable smile that was such a winner with company people. ‘Hi, I’m Felicity Smoak, here for the new job in IT. I was told to come here.’
The woman cast her eyes over her clothes, eyeing the purposely mis-tailored blazer. One can always benefit from looking flawed. She spoke, her voice as bland yet judgy as expected, ‘yes, go sit in those chairs over by the elevators, the IT head will be down in a moment.’
‘Thank you,’ said Felicity, not feeling particularly thankful. It was one thing having power in theory and in code, but another to pretend to be weak in a place where she was looked down on. At least QC would give her the boost to be able to run her own tech company and realise her dreams. She may be a genius but men only saw her young female face and a distinct lack of ‘real world experience’, ignoring the fact that she could easily sink their companies overnight with a good keyboard and a shit-ton of coffee. Or wine, she wasn’t picky.
She was shaken out of her thoughts, somewhat tame and brief to her pleasant surprise, by a man's voice, ‘Miss Smoak?’
‘Yes, hi. Sorry I was just, never mind,’ she shut her eyes and shook her head. Honestly, after thinking about power she babbled like that, she would never be taken seriously.
‘Hello, I’m Samuel Williams, we spoke on the phone?’
‘Yes, we did, you lead the IT department.’
‘Ok, so if you’ll follow me, we’ll go to HR and finish all of the paperwork. Then I’ll give you a tour, get a feel for the place and introduce you to the team and your direct boss.’
And so that’s what they did. Felicity did it on autopilot.
The rest of her afternoon, and subsequent week and month and year (and probably far into the future), followed with ease. Considering she worked repairing various pieces of software and hardware, there was a lot of paperwork. It was an inane filling in of every little thing she did for her superior, not Mr Williams but someone under him and above her (oh the woes of corporate food ladders), for another primary-consumer to be passed to check over.
She would be offended if it didn’t make sense. They had to check that you weren't doing any illegal coding, hacking really but such a crude word, but it took more finesse than that. Luckily for Felicity, and very un lucky for QC, she had perfected the boring IT slave coding with its bland factory issued structure. Her style that could get her anywhere she wished and create an identity that would get passed the FBI, Antonio was very paranoid and was insistent on Felicity having back up plans of back up plans, was only used for other things.
Felicity had made a name for herself in the hacking world, especially after stepping away from the hacktivism community who thought they had some moral high ground above everyone else. Other such things then included deleting sensitive images from phones at the request of the subject of the photos. She was known as Overwatch, mostly due to the fact that she watched over people, and helped those in need if they asked. Felicity would help people with other difficulties, such as not having the money for software that they wanted, but she still had some morals. She would never do something at the expense of others, as long as they didn’t deserve that is.
There had been a few people asking for both illegal (customary of the job) and immoral things, but as Felicity was only known as an online persona despite her location being Starling, she could quite easily ignore them. Or even punish them as she saw fit.
It wasn’t often that she asked for payment, but sometimes people wished to thank her and money was the easiest way to do so. Felicity mostly earned her legal money through QC and the occasion freelance IT work and her illegal money through taking a small percentage of the money she donated to charities from stupidly rich people that hardly ever noticed if it was gone. If they did notice, it wasn’t like they could tell the police, she only ever took money from sketchy accounts located in far away countries or from corrupt businessmen that could do with knocking down a few pegs.
Hopefully she could do her part in making a difference.