Ten days passed and everything went back to normal. Well....as normal as your life can be when you spend your days as a overly qualified secretary to a billionaire and your nights as a IT girl for a vigilante clad in green leather who just so happened to be her billionaire boss and oh she almost forgot, seven weeks pregnant with said billionaires/vigilante's baby which he had no idea existed. Nope, that wasn't complicated at all.
Felicity had spent some time on a online women's forum and done some research and in doing so had found a way to settle her stomach. Ginger Ale, cheerios and toast were all good options in the morning and it seemed to be working since she hadn't had another incident at the office...so far. She still felt sick in the morning's and had the occasional jaunt to the bathroom but by the afternoon her nausea had eased and by the time she was at the foundry handling Arrow business she was fine and usually wolfing down something Digg would bring her for dinner. Digg kept sending her these weird glaces, like he was reading her mind. It was starting to get uncomfortable because he couldn't know right? She had just found out herself. Digg knew her better than anyone so he must at least know something was up with her but they had been so busy he hadn't had time to ask her.
Moira's trial was fixing to start and Oliver was strung tighter than his bow string. He had been quieter than usual, distant and whenever he entered the Arrow Cave (She only called it that in her head because he hated it which made her want to call it that more so) he barely spoke two words to Diggle and her that weren't about the mission they were on. She tried not to take it personally, he was under a lot of stress but it still stung. She let the silence stretch even though it went against every instinct inside of her and just gave him his space instead choosing to spend her time catching up on the never ending paperwork at QC. She would leave her desk empty and clean in the evenings only to come back to it with stacks of folders in the morning. How was that even possible?
She was going through some of the paperwork and separating them into folders and listening to news about the Particle Accelerator turning on soon and Moira's trial when Digg walked in looking like he had one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel. "No offense but you look disgusting," she exclaimed.
"Well I don't feel great Felicity," he said as he flipped through a file. "And is there a right way to take that? I'm probably coming down with what you had last week."
"Oh I seriously doubt it," she muttered under her breath as she rose from the desk."You should go home."
"I will, I just need to make arrangements for a replacement bodyguard."
She nodded and started towards Oliver's empty office. "Did you get the flu shot? Personally I never do, I know that I should but I have this thing about needles. All pointy things really which is ironic considering who we work with." She finishes her babble and looks at Digg, he's loosened his tie, sweat is beading on his forehead and looks like he's about to pass out. "Hey, you're really sick. It's gotta be the flu going around."
"It's not the flu Felicity," he choked out before he fell to the floor.
"Digg!" she yelled while trying to catch his arm. She checked his pulse, it was there but weak and his pupils were dilated and he was gasping for air. He tried to talk but couldn't get the words out. Finally he said "Don't call Oliver," before his eyes closed and he promptly passed out. This was most certainly not the flu. She had to get him out of here and to the foundry but how? He was too weak to walk and too heavy to lean on her. She left the office looking for anyone to help her and spotted a security guard that has been posted by the elevators since the hood incident last month.
"Excuse me! My friend, he's sick, I need to get him to my car but he's really heavy. Can you help me?"
The guard rushed forward. "Of course Ms. Smoak," the guard replied. He was a large man so he was able to get Diggle standing and they flanked both of his sides on the way downstairs, he took the brunt of the weight and for that she was very thankful. Once downstairs they sat him down and she ran to the parking garage and pulled her car around. As he helped her get John settled in the car she learned his name was Ted Conway.
"Is there anything else I can do to help you Ms. Smoak?"
"No, thank you Ted. I've got it from here. I'm going to take him straight to the hospital." He nodded and turned to leave. "Oh and Ted? Please call me Felicity." He smiled at her kindly but she knew the older man never would, being ever the professional.
She climbed into the front seat of her mini, dialed Oliver's number and put it on speaker. "Felicity?" he answered.
"Oliver, it's Digg," she looked in the review mirror at her unconscious friend stretched across the tiny backseat of her car. "He passed out."
She turned onto the highway going the opposite direction of the hospital.
By the time she got to the foundry he had came around and she was able to get him through the alley door and onto the med table. She took a blood sample and had it rushed delivery to the QC lab. Michael had agreed to help her again if she erased an actual ticket from his record this time. She grumbled about it but did it because it was Digg. She needed to talk to Oliver about investing in some blood testing equipment but he would probably just scoff at her like he had about the X-Ray machine she'd wanted to buy.
Diggle's body started quivering so she grabbed the gray blanket from the cabinet and wrapped it around his trembling frame. She wet a cloth with warm water and placed it on the back of his neck. A little while later her computer dinged.
Diggle's results were back and they weren't good.
A little while later Oliver strode into the foundry.
"What are you doing here?" Diggle asked.
"I heard you passed out," Oliver answered as he came up to the other side of the med table.
"I told Felicity not to call you."
"Well before that you said 'gah' and 'thud'," she looked up at Oliver. "So I didn't take it very seriously."
"She was right to call me. Diggle you need medical attention."
"He needs more than that. When Digg passed out I sent a blood sample to the chemist I know at QC, I had to fix another ticket by the way. He such a-"
"Felicity," Oliver interrupted her ramble. "Blood sample."
"Yeah, it came back positive. For trace amounts of Vertigo." She explained to him how Vertigo had escaped and his face twisted in rage. He looked mad enough to kill. But that wasn't the answer. He strolled over to the case where he kept his arrows and grabbed one of them. "I know what you're thinking."
"No you don't, I made a choice not to put a arrow in this guy," he looked her straight in the eyes. "And it was the right choice. There's no more killing," he finished on a whisper. She sighed in relief. He handed her the arrow filled with the medicine to counteract Vertigo then looked at his watch. "I need to get back to court. While I'm gone look up what you can and figure out how Diggle got vertigo in his system."
"Okay," he hesitated for a minute looking at her with an unreadable look in his eyes. "Go," she said and then he was gone.
Felicity gave Diggle the vaccine but The Count much have flexed his recipe because it didn't work. A little while later Oliver returned to the foundry. The Count had kidnapped Adam Donner and the news was taking over all the new's station feeds. The Count had even forced Donner into taking more vertigo.
She turned to Oliver. "What do we do now?"
"We find him and we shut him down."
She combed through the footage with Digg at her side. Oliver tries to get Diggle to let him call Lyla but Digg says that all she would do was worry and he didn't want that. She was able to find out The Count was broadcasting from the Starling Municipal Records Department, the building had been abandoned since the city had gone digital.
Oliver was able to rescue Donner, the Count got away but he was able to shut down his Vertigo operation at least. She didn't sleep peacefully that night knowing the count was out there dosing innocent people. Lyla was on assignment in Santa Prisca so she insisted Digg sleep at her place where she could keep an eye on him. The next day Oliver returned to court, his mothers case was not going well. She could tell he was reaching his breaking point. She just hoped he didn't do it holding a bow with a arrow pointed at the Count.
The baby moved to the back of her mind as she worked all day trying to figure out how the Count was getting Vertigo into people systems. She put together a map of all the people who got sick and suddenly realized that it was a trail through the city. It wasn't until Digg pointed at a spot on the map and said that was where he got his flu shot that she realized people were getting dosed with tainted vaccines by a mobile care van on a vaccination tour. They needed to check out the van and maybe get a sample of the new Vertigo.
"No, Felicity, no way are you going alone."
She thought of her baby and knew Oliver would kill her himself if he ever found out she had gone alone in her condition. Which she didn't plan on.
"Okay, I won't go. But I can make a few calls from QC on Oliver's behalf and get those truck's shut down."
"Good idea."
She drove to QC and was pressing the button for the elevator when the hair's rose on the back of her neck. She trusted her instincts and they told her something was wrong. A moment later later, before she could move something pricked her neck and blackness soon overtook her. She woke up a fifteen minutes later zip-tied to a chair in the conference room with a camera in her face.
Oliver stood with Thea outside the courtroom. Jean came through and told them they could have a verdict. Anxiety tightened his chest and he wished he had something to hit. He knew what the outcome of that verdict would probably land his Mom in a jail cell for the rest of her life or worse.
His phone beeped and he pulled it out of his pocket. The Counts face was streaming through the news feed again but something was different this time. He realized what when the camera panned to Felicity's face in a dark room he recognized as the Queen Consolidated conference room. A feeling so dark boiled in his gut then that he nearly crushed his phone in his hand. Felicity wrists were tied to the the chair she sat in and her head was hanging down against her chest. She was beginning to stir. He was frozen, no matter how he tried he couldn't move and his eyes were glued to the screen.
"Hello again Starling City. In keeping with the theme, tonight I have a very special guest. Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen's assistant." He pans the camera back to his face. "I think she wants to try Vertigo." The camera turns back to Felicity. "No, please," she cried weakly still trying to shake the affects of the sedative he must have hit her with. "Well since you said please," he said and began to walk away then turned around. "On second thought," he sneered as he put the syringe near her neck.
"Please! Stop," she screamed at the top of her lungs.
He had never heard her scream like that before. Not during the quake, not when she was taken by Mathis. She was absolutely terrified. She pulled roughly at the ties and started throwing her weight against them but it had no affect. They were too tight. "STOP!" The Count grabbed her ponytail and pointed the camera at both of them.
"Tell you what. If the Arrow shows up within the next thirty minutes I'll let you go. Here, look into the camera. I bet if you ask nicely he'll come." She glared at him and refused to open her mouth until he grabbed her hair and she cried out painfully. "ASK HIM!" He screamed.
"Please..." was all she said.
"Now I think we can do better than that." He put the syringe to her neck. "Try again."
She raised her chin and looked into the camera with tears spilling down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry. Please...please come for me," she begged. That was all it took for his body to come unfrozen.
As he strolled out of the courthouse he could barely hear Thea's cries to his retreating back over the buzzing in his ears.
The Count closed the camera and laid it on the conference room table. Felicity tugged at the restraints. A t this rate if she kept getting kidnapped like this she was going to have permanent marks on her wrist.
"Why do you want the Arrow to come here? I thought you were going after people Oliver Queen knows."
"That's the thing...I know that Oliver Queen is The Arrow." That gave her pause. "And I know you're his little helper." There was no point. He knew and there was no point in denying it.
"How did you know?"
"You're not the only one that's smart. Oliver Queen tried to buy off me last year..." He leaned down his face close to hers. "Right before the Hood put me in a padded sell. I loathed him for that."
"So that's what you're trying to do? Draw him out and kill him? It won't work."
"No my dear, my endgame is a lot bigger than that," he said as he started pacing the office.
"What do you mean?"
"Hmm...well I guess I can tell you. You'll be dead at the end of the night anyways." She flinched at that. "Where to start? Ahh...well it was after the quake. I met a....lets just say I met an old friend of Mr. Queen's, he's a man of means and he set me up with my new operation."
"Who?"
"Oh that I can't tell you." He pressed his lips together. "It's a surprise," he whispered.
"So why take me? I'm nothing to Oliver. I'm just his IT girl."
"Ah but that's where you're wrong. You're much, much more than that." Not a fan of personal space he leaned down again, his hot breathe fanning her face as he spoke. "You're someone he cares about. I'm here to teach Oliver Queen a lesson. You just so happen to be first. How lucky you are."
"Should have known you'd be a monologue-er."
He sat down behind her and start stroking her pony tail. Her body tensed and she looked around the room for anything that would help her escape. All that kept rushing to her mind was my baby. She couldn't let him inject her with the Vertigo, it could cause her to miscarry....or worse. Oliver had reached his snapping point and she feared her prediction would be right, The Count would be at the other end of the bow. She couldn't let Oliver kill him, not for her. It wasn't worth the price of the his soul. She knew every time he had killed it had scraped off little pieces of him that he would never get back.
"You had the perfect opportunity," she swung her head in the direction of the camera. "Why didn't you tell the city who he was?"
"You talk a lot," he said.
"It's what I'm good at. Now answer the question."
"Making demands now?"
"You drugged me and zip-tied me to a chair, I think you at least own me that much."
"I would have loved too. But...unfortunately that's not my secret to reveal."
"You're right, it's Oliver's. You've tested the limits of his restraint. So why don't you just leave before he kills you."
"You may be small but you've got courage. I'll give you that."
"I really wish people would stop telling me what I am," she ground out angrily.
He put his hands on her shoulders and started massaging them. "Calm down, it'll all be over soon."
She started shaking at his meaning. He was going to kill her. She had to believe Oliver would save her...and by doing that their baby. She steeled her resolve. She would be brave, she wouldn't give the Count the satisfaction of seeing her terror, if she died she would go out with dignity. She felt like she couldn't catch her breath and the Count's fingers running through her hair wasn't helping any.
She saw Oliver, through the glass wall stride cautiously into his office and to the open doors of the conference room. His hood was up and his face was free of grease pain. Like he had just barely managed to get dressed and didn't care if her captor saw his face. This wasn't good.
The Count lifted the camera again but Felicity used her head to knock it out of his hands where it shattered on the floor.
"Didn't need it anyways," he hissed at her. Before he turned to Oliver.
"Pretty swanky offices you have here," said the Count. Oliver's eyes roamed over her body assessing it for injuries. "You can see all the destruction your Mom caused from up here. Oliver froze then raised his hand a lowered his hood.
"What do you want?" He said in his growly Arrow voice.
"World peace and personal satisfaction," he replied smartly as he put her hands back on her shoulders and she closed her eyes. "Though not necessarily in that order. You poisoned me and put me in a hole. You have no idea how much I hate you for that. Turns out someone else hates you too."
"Who?"
"Who?" he chuckles. "Oh, you'll be surprised when you find out. He set me up with my new operation to draw you," he ran a ran through her hair again. "and your partner out."
"To do what?" he seethed.
"This!" He yelled as he pulled a gun out and started firing in Oliver's direction. Glass shattered and bullets embedded themselves in the wall as he dove for cover behind a couch.
"You're going to have to try harder," Oliver yelled from behind cover in office. Felicity knew The Count wasn't trying to kill Oliver and if he knew that he was only meant to kill her he would be in a grave faster than she could say Cronuts.
"Done!" the count yelled in reply before he fired more shots until the clip was empty and started to cut her bonds.He grabbed her hair and dragged her out of her chair. She cried out in pain as he yelled at her to come on and dragged her into the office empty gun pointed in the direction he thought Oliver was hiding. She knew he wouldn't be there anymore, he was too good, too stealthy for a man filled with hatred like the Count. Just like she thought when they reached the couch he was gone. She heard something behind her and he jerked her hair to to turn her in that direction. Oliver stood in the conference room arrow pointed at the Count's heart. He slammed down the gun and took a syringe from his pocket and put it close to her neck.
"So now we move on to plan B."
How did the Count think he would get out of this alive? He had a empty gun against a highly skilled archer. She had the vague thought that he had acted in rage and hadn't quite thought this all through when the needles brushed her neck and Oliver's face twisted in a way she had never seen before. This was his vigilante face, the face he so carefully hid from her when he took off the hood and put his Oliver Queen mask back on.
"Oliver, no not for me," she yelled, her voice cracking on the end. She didn't ever want to see that kind of rage on his face again, didn't want to see him slip further into darkness. She loved him too much for that. Yes she'd finally admitted it. She loved him and nothing he could ever do and no one would ever change those feelings. Oliver had burrowed his way into her heart, he was in her veins, her every thought and action. There was no getting him out. He was there permanently. And knowing that she could never be with him? That hurt more than an arrow piercing her heart. As long as he was the Arrow there would always be someone after him, someone that would threaten the lives of those he was closest too, and Oliver Queen had enemies too. Even if Oliver could ever love her she knew he would never put her at risks, not with the odds that associated with being in his life. "There's always another way Oliver," she said whispered.
"Quiet please I'm threatening," sneered the count. "Lower you bow."
Oliver not taking any chances did and threw the arrow to the ground with a clang never taking his eyes from her.
"You're problem is with me, it's not with her," he pleaded. Her breath quickened. This what it. This was where she'd die. She'd never get to be a mother. Their baby would never be born and Oliver would never know what he had missed out on.
"You're right. This is your fault. Had you never brought her into your life this wouldn't be happening." He pulled the syringe away from her neck. "Consider this a penalty for your sins," he said before he started to lower the syringe to her neck rapidly.
>>----->
"There's always another way Oliver," she'd said.
The Count had her. There was no other way.
He just had to wait for the right time and when the opportunity came he didn't even have to think, or consider what he was going to do. This was Felicity. There was no choice to make. Three arrows flew from his bow faster than he thought possible and sunk into the Counts chest in quick succession. He didn't even know when he had decided to move. The Count fell backwards and through the plate glass window. He was sure if the arrows hadn't killed him the fall would. He couldn't find any remorse for what he had just done but it still shocked him the amount of rage that had overtaken him. His blood was ice in his veins and adrenaline was coursing through his limbs. He stood there for only a moment before he rushed to the place where Felicity had fallen to the floor and out of the way of his arrows. His hand moved to her face of it's own accord. She startled.
"Hey, hey, it's alright. You're safe," he said softly. He wasn't sure who it assured more, him or her? She looked up at him, her gaze meeting his, tears spilling down her cheeks from her sea green eyes until they moved to his arm.
"You're shot," she said in a small voice.
"It's nothing," he told her as he caressed her face. She eyes returned to him in doubt. "It's nothing," he said again. He could hear sirens wailing in the distance meaning the SCPD had finally figured out where Felicity was being held. Thankfully he hadn't had to rely on them to save her.
"Oliver, I'm so sorry," Felicity whispered.
That made his pause. What could she possibly be sorry for? She had been kidnapped again, and this time it was because she was just affiliated with him.
"For what?" He said confused.
"I got myself into trouble again. He used me against you and you....killed him. I'm sorry that I put you in a position where you had to make that kind of choice. I never wanted to to kill again...especially for me."
"Felicity," he said as he took her small hand in his large one. "He had you and he was going to hurt you." He looked deep into her eyes praying she understood that he would have done anything to save her, that he would never hold it against her. "There was no choice to make." She nodded and squeezed his hand and as the sirens grew closer she raised his hood to cover his face again.
"You need to go," she told him and he just looked at her. "Thea needs you."
"Right now you need me."
"This place is fixing to be swarming with cops, I'll be fine," she assured him.
It took everything inside of him to leave her but she was right. He needed to get back to the courthouse and he didn't need to be around when the cops discovered he had killed...again and if Oliver Queen showed up to check on his assistant when his Mother was on trial for five-hundred and three murders he would just draw more attention to Felicity that she didn't need. So he left as silently as he had came, his heart still hammering in his chest and too numb feel the sting in his left arm.
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