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Felicity’s morning could have gone better if she weren’t stuck in a semi-formal brunch with the Queen family. Among the potted plants and decorations stood three people who couldn’t have been more awkward if they tried. On the surface, they were just waiting for Thea and Roy to start eating. The side looks and pursed lips however were telling a different story.

Thea’s insistence was the only reason why Felicity had woken up this early on this beautiful Sunday morning and driven to the orangery, a structure built inside the Queen property but not attached to the mansion. This place was always used for Sunday brunches when the temperamental Starling weather allowed it.

Felicity stared at the building in awe every time she visited. The roof was glazed and the sides were all covered in tall windows to allow the sunlight in. Moira Queen had surprisingly developed a green thumb somewhere along the way and had filled the space with orchids. The plants were really mercurial and demanded a great deal of attention but Felicity had heard her say that gardening was the only thing that got her through Oliver’s absence. The word of course conveyed none of the actual hell that the family had survived while losing both Oliver and Robert in a boat accident.

Felicity had been just a junior IT analyst when she met Thea two years ago. Needless to say she had been intimidated at first by Thea’s perfection, lack of incoherent babbles and overall coolness. It didn’t take long though for her to realize that there was something wrong with the 17-year-old girl. Thea’s pupils were always dilated, her visits to QC were not frequent but always ended in disaster and one rainy afternoon she had found her in the company’s bathroom trying to inhale some kind of white powder. Felicity had freaked out so much, she had called her friend Roy for advice. 

Considering the events of last week, she might owe Roy a gift. A really big gift. Felicity might have been the reason he met the love of his life but he had helped her out of a tight spot again. Twice now he had run towards danger when she needed him. Felicity sighed, making a mental note to buy Roy tickets for the Starling Jets VS Central City Rockets game. He would try to refuse but she was certain that deep down, he was dying to go.

“You’re here!” Thea squealed as she finally arrived.

Sometimes Felicity felt so much older than her 19-year-old friend.

“Your majesty called?”

Thea smacked her arm affectionately. “You know you love me, Liss.” Then she leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, “Ollie’s in a mood.”

Felicity resisted the urge to roll her eyes. When was Oliver NOT in a mood?

“Where’s Roy?”

“He couldn’t make it.”

Thea didn’t say it out loud but they both knew where Roy was. Iron Heights penitentiary. Visitors were only allowed every two weeks on Sundays.

“It’s just gonna be the four of us?”

Thea twined her arm around Felicity’s. “Mom threatened to invite the Bowens but Ollie vetoed her suggestion.”

They approached Moira and Oliver who appeared to be in the middle of a standoff. They reminded Felicity of that famous scene in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly where everyone was ready to shoot their gun but waited for the others to attack first. Huh, that was probably the reason why Thea had invited Felicity in the first place. As a buffer between her mother and older brother.

“I’m here,” she announced. A little too enthusiastically in Felicity’s opinion.

“Good. Raisa’s pancakes are better eaten warm,” Moira said, sounding cold and extremely polite.

Oliver’s expression was thunderous but at least his welcome was warmer and less threatening.

“Hey, Speedy.”

“Ugh, worst nickname ever!”

According to Thea, Oliver was not staying at the mansion these days. No one knew where and with whom he spent his nights but he at least had - begrudgingly - agreed to be accompanied by a bodyguard.

The light was shining on his handsome face and Felicity got distracted by his jawline. It reminded her of something but she couldn’t figure out what… The biggest injustice in the world was that she routinely made a fool of herself in front of Thea’s brother; the most handsome man she had ever met. In one infamous occasion he had declined a Mimosa and asked her simply to pass along the juice which had caused an epic babble about how she had noticed that he paid attention to what he put in his body. Thea and Roy, gleeful jerks that they were, still teased her about that one. 

“How are you, Oliver?” She spoke slowly and carefully. That way she would have fewer chances to embarrass herself.

“Fine. I did not expect to see you here.”

Could he be any less welcoming?

“Shut up, Ollie,” Thea interjected. “Since I can’t go anywhere these days, I’m allowed to invite my friends over.”

“You wouldn’t be under house arrest if you hadn’t wrecked my Porsche.”

Thea stuck her tongue out at her brother and he shook his head at her antics. Their bickering made Felicity smile. Oliver always seemed uptight and tense as if he expected someone to jump from behind the furniture and attack him. Thea’s foolish behavior was the only thing that could make him laugh.

“Children, please. Let us enjoy this beautiful morning without further discussion about this family’s propensity for accidents.”

They sat at the beautifully set table and Raisa served them a spread worthy of any high end restaurant. Felicity inhaled her cup of coffee - hey, it was only her first - and smothered her pancakes in Nutella. If she had to suffer through brunch with Moira and Oliver, then she could at least enjoy it.

She looked up and found him staring at her plate with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” She tried to raise an eyebrow of her own and failed.

“Nothing.”

He got a serving of scrambled eggs and salmon on his plate. A more healthy choice but one that could make Felicity gag. Especially this early in the morning. It was so ironic that Starling City’s prodigal son, the one who used to end up intoxicated in various events, was now such a health freak.

“I can feel you judging, Queen.”

“I can see your blood sugar rising, Smoak.”

Thea started coughing which probably meant that she was laughing her butt off. On the inside, of course.

“I hope that you don’t mind but I asked Walter to join us.”

Oh, boy. It was no secret that QC’s CFO, Walter Steele was enamored of Moira Queen, CEO. The relationship (and Felicity wasn’t sure she could actually call it that) had come as an unwelcome surprise to Oliver when he had returned from the dead. According to Thea, her brother had asked Walter point-blank if he intended to sleep with his mother. Walter had reacted with dignity to the accusation but his next visits were infrequent and always when Oliver was out of the house. Thea was kinda mad about it because she loved Walter and viewed him as a surrogate father.

“Is this visit necessary?” Oliver asked. He put down his fork and seemed to be concentrating on a point beyond Felicity’s left shoulder. During their interactions he rarely ate more than a bird as her bubbe used to say. 

“Yes, it is,” Moira replied, decisively. “There is your mandatory court appearance to discuss. Or have you forgotten?”

“What does it have to do with Walter?”

“It affects QC. Darling, your name is on the building. One day you might decide to follow in your father’s footsteps-”

The chair fell down with a bang as Oliver got up suddenly.

“I didn’t study business management in any of the four colleges I dropped out of,” he remarked.

“Did I tell you that Felicity met the Hood?”

Thea’s question fell like a grenade. Felicity blushed scarlet when both Oliver and Moira focused on her. 

“Meet is an overstatement. I didn’t actually meet him. I just saw him,” Felicity said while trying to kick Thea under the table.

“Don’t be modest, Liss. You saved his life. My best friend is a badass!”

“Thea!”

“Sorry, Mom. I would have said she’s a badbutt but it sounds ridiculous.”

Oliver’s lips curved. Of course it didn’t exactly reach his eyes but for him it was like a full blown chuckle. He sat back down and focused on Felicity.

“So, Miss Smoak how did you meet the vigilante?”

Felicity fidgeted under the scrutiny of both Moira and Oliver. Describing her encounter with the vigilante seemed disloyal. It sounded silly because he hadn’t actually prohibited her from discussing their meeting but she was protective of him. And she was sure that Oliver would end up mocking the Hood. Felicity couldn’t imagine two people as different as Oliver Queen and the man who dressed up in green leather and fought bad guys in the Glades. One had lived a pampered existence, with the exception of a few years in a jungle of course, and the other risked his life everyday to save the lives of people he didn’t know. In fact she was willing to bet that underneath his cashmere sweater Oliver Queen had a body built at the gym, nice to look at for sure, but nothing like the Hood’s lean, mean, fighting machine.

“Oh no, I’ve lapsed into song lyrics.”

“Excuse me?” Moira was looking at Felicity as if she had grown a second head.

Felicity turned to Thea who was fighting another smile, “I didn’t say that outloud, did I?”

“Yeah, Liss.” Felicity resisted the urge to bang her head on the table while Thea, the traitor, kept pushing, “You didn’t answer Mom though. Tell them how you met the vigilante.”

Felicity poured milk into her second cup of coffee.

“It’s not a big deal. I found him hurt on the street and kept him safe until he was well enough to leave.”

“But you took him into your house, Liss. You were really brave-”

“And incredibly stupid. That man is a psychopath.”

“He isn’t, Ollie! He saves people!”

Moira put down her fork, gently. “Nevertheless, Miss Smoak took a great risk welcoming a man like that into her home.”

Felicity’s cheeks were burning. She just knew that the older members of the Queen family would disapprove of her actions. After all, the Hood hated one-percenters with good reason.

“What would you have done in my shoes, Mrs Queen? I couldn’t very well leave him alone to die in the Glades.”

“If I had found the Hood, I would have called the police,” Moira replied with a superior smirk that grated on Felicity’s nerves.

Thea must have sensed that Felicity was about to go off on a tangent so she interrupted them quickly.

“What do you think, Ollie?”

“I think that this guy needs a better nickname than the ‘Hood’.”

They all laughed at his irreverent comment.

“How about the ‘Bow’?” Thea suggested with a twinkle in her eyes.

“The ‘Quiver’?” Oliver countered.

“The ‘Arrow’,” Felicity said. Which actually was a decent code name. Much better than the ‘Hood’ and a lot more defining than the ‘Green Guy’ which is what detective Lance usually called him during press conferences. “Nicknames aside, I still think that he can potentially be great for our city. He might be obsessed with stealing from the rich to give to the poor but in my eyes and in the eyes of everyone that lives in the Glades, that man is a hero.”

Felicity’s passionate speech was met with silence.

The Queens were celebrating Oliver’s official return from the dead with a lavish party. There was just one issue. The man of the hour was not home yet.

Oliver leaped the gap between the two buildings and landed on the roof with ease. 

Tonight he was not Oliver Queen. He was the Hood.

He heard someone gasping and the subsequent click of a photo being taken but he didn’t stop long enough to check. It was dangerous to engage in Hood activities before night fell but he didn't have much time. After all, he had a party to attend.

The tip had come as Oliver was leaving the court. After being officially recognized as Oliver Queen, returned to the living, he had been antsy. He wanted to be active, to be doing something useful for those who needed him. He didn’t want to be the son of a dead man and heir to Queen Consolidated. He wanted to direct this anger, this feeling of being trapped somewhere. He wanted to fight. So when his phone had beeped with the information that someone was abducting teenagers in the Glades he had jumped at the chance.

Oliver ran along the roof and shot an arrow with a grappling hook to cover the distance between this building and the next. The buildings in the Glades were not constructed as thoughtfully as the rest of the city. Sometimes they were literally one on top of the other, other times they were so far apart that they required special arrows.

Arrow was what she had called him. 

It was weird but during the last three weeks no matter if he was dressed in Armani suits or green leather, he couldn’t help but think of her. 

Felicity Smoak. The bane of his existence. The woman who had protected him that night after his fight with Helena and then defended his alter ego passionately to him and his mother.

She had called him a hero. If only she knew how wrong she was… Oliver Queen was not a hero. At best he was this city’s revenge against the people who had wronged it. At worst he was a man made for darkness.

But Felicity knew nothing about it. This was his mission. His burden to carry. And somehow, she was dangerous to him. He could sense it with the part of his primordial brain that had saved his life countless times on the island.

Vowing to stay away from her, he climbed on a balcony and saw that he was over Tempest, a well-known dive bar where low-life criminals hung out. His leg was bothering him again but he ignored it. The first thing he had learned on Lian Yu was how to shut down pain. It was a military trick and Slade had warned him it could be dangerous if you were fatally injured and ignored your body’s signals but since this wound was already healing, Oliver would be fine for a few hours.

In the alley behind Tempest, a lone figure was waiting.

“What took you so long?”

Sin was far too young to be living alone in the Glades and definitely too young to be going out for a drink at Tempest but she was also his best informant. He had promised Sara he would keep an eye on her when he got to Starling and he would make good on that promise.

“You said they’re taking teens off the streets.”

“Yeah.”

When she didn’t volunteer anything else, Oliver crouched low and jumped from the fire escape. He landed with a soft thud which made her smile.

“You said you were hurt.”

“I was. Now I’m better.”

He wasn’t used to people asking about his wounds. Oliver Queen might have a few friends but the Hood had none. And that was how he liked it.

“My friend Max was taken last night. They found him in an alley with blood leaking from his eyes, nose and ears. They say he OD'd but they’re wrong. Max was a pickpocket but he wasn’t a junkie. He didn’t even smoke weed with the rest of us.”

Oliver shook his head at the thought of Sin smoking at all but that was a fight for another day. If someone was indeed taking teens off the streets, he had to take them out. And fast.

“I’ll look into it,” he promised.

“Good,” Sin nodded with satisfaction. 

The faith she had in him reminded him of Felicity Smoak again.

“Did you find anything more about the book?”

The question was not unexpected. Ever since she had tried to pick his pockets and found the old notebook, she had been fascinated by it. Oliver could understand her obsession well. Back on the island he had examined it compulsively every day, trying to figure out why his father would give him an empty notebook and order him to keep it safe. There was nothing written on it so the reason for secrecy was lost on him.

“There’s something else,” Sin said.

He tilted his head in question. Sin was familiar with his lack of verbal communication so she didn’t hesitate.

“There was a man poking his nose into a warehouse around here last week.”

“What kind of man?”

“One of the bigwigs you always see on TV. Like the Queens or the Merlyns.”

Now that was interesting.

“Describe him,” he ordered.

“Ted saw him. Black, polite, asked Ted for directions.”

That didn’t give him much. 

“Anything else?” he asked roughly. He was beginning to feel a little impatient.

“Yeah. Ted said the dude was British. Spoke with a real funny accent.”

The blaring sound of police sirens interrupted their conversation.

“You better pick up your feet. You might be hang-up on that book but your friend detective Lance is hang-up on you.”

Oliver appreciated the warning but it was unnecessary. He was well aware of Lance’s current obsession with the Hood.

He gritted his teeth and climbed back up the fire escape as fast as he could. Sin gave him a mock salute and disappeared quickly.

The sirens sounded closer as he resumed his running and jumping from one rooftop to another. 

Escape via the roofs seemed ideal until he came up to a gap even he couldn’t cross by arrow. Growling under his breath, Oliver was forced to jump down and cross the empty street.

“I see him,” a voice yelled.

Running away from detective Lance wasn’t Oliver’s idea of fun. Especially since he had to be back at the mansion for his ‘welcome back’ party.

He flattened himself against the nearest wall and waited for the threat to pass. Lance and his men were like a dog with a bone. According to his mother, the Mayor wasn’t happy with the fact that a vigilante was loose on the streets targeting this city’s upstanding citizens. So the Mayor kept pushing Lance for results and Lance kept hunting Oliver with maniacal dedication.

“We’ll get the bastard tonight,” Lance vowed but his voice came from far away and Oliver felt safe enough to attempt another escape.

However, the detective had become wiser during the weeks they played their cat and mouse game. This time he had actually asked his officers to double back so when Oliver emerged from the alley, he fell into a trap.

Oliver didn't know who was more surprised. Him or the poor officers.

The man in front of him recovered first and pointed his gun at him.

“Don’t move!”

Not moving was not an option. The bow would be no use in such close quarters. Hand to hand combat was the only choice.

Oliver stretched his arms overhead and jumped, grasping one of the nearest fire escape rails. The move saved him from getting shot because the officer had fired his gun reflexively.

Oliver used the momentum he had gained and kicked with his feet the man closer to him. When the officer fell unconscious to the ground due to the force of the hit, he swung and dropped, rolling away as he hit the asphalt. He didn’t want to hurt them but they left him no other choice. Detective Lance would have heard by now the shot so he was about to have more company.

The blow from behind brought him to his knees. One of these fuckers had managed to get close to him when he wasn’t paying attention. Oliver twisted and grabbing the officer’s legs, he managed to topple him to the ground. His head hit the pavement with a sickening thud but there was no time to regret the action. 

The third officer was approaching and he didn’t seem in a mood to retreat. Oliver charged him and it was clear from the surprise on his face that he wasn’t expecting that. Oliver slammed his fist into the man’s face repeatedly but the officer was clever enough to try to knee him in the balls. He avoided the sneaky attack and felt a savage satisfaction when the next punch broke his attackers nose.

Only the sound of sirens coming closer than ever stopped Oliver. He was running before he had the time to process his next thought. A dumpster at the corner of the street gave him enough leverage to jump and then he was climbing again, his fingers straining for holds before he managed to reach the roof.

He stayed hidden only for a few moments just to make sure that he hadn’t killed any of these idiots and then he ran like hell. He had to have an important talk with his mother’s suitor. Luckily, he knew exactly where to find Walter Steele.