I'm equal parts happy and confused that my new fic with Arrow seems to have brought the spark to my writing. Happy, of course, because I'm writing again, but confused because I never thought I would be writing Arrow fics. I think I have a habit of finding a fandom in its infancy and then stalking it for a while.

I'm definitely impressed that I've managed to post two different things in the span of a week. Maybe I could make that a trend! (Just kidding. In no way would I ever live up to that agreement.)

This will obviously wind up being AU, because I highly doubt the Arrow writers will ever reach a point where they'll put their characters in this kind of situation, but that's why I'm here.

$4$

I was never one to believe the hype
Save that for the black and white
Try twice as hard and I'm half as liked
Here they come again, they jack my style

- "Some Nights" by FUN.

"What the hell are you doing here?!"

That wasn't much of a greeting, but it wasn't as though she was really expecting a, "Felicity! Thank God you're here! Please rescue me and Diggle. Did I ever tell you that you're beautiful?"

Not that she was hoping for that. …Much.

In any case, she chose to ignore his question as she kneeled down to work on Diggle's bindings. His dark skin was red around his mouth, though that might have had something to do with her ripping off the duct tape from there a moment ago. Oliver probably looked the same, but she didn't have the nerve to look his way just yet.

Luckily, there was no more duct tape to contend with, just zip-ties around their wrists and ankles. "Felicity, how did you get here?!" Evidently Mr. Bossypants didn't like being ignored.

The zip-tie around Dig's wrists snapped after a few seconds of sawing with her trusty Swiss Army knife—she had hidden it in her complicated updo, which she thought was pretty crafty—and while he rubbed his raw skin, she went to work on the one around his ankles.

"Felicity—what did you do!"

She shot him a glare as Dig's second zip-tie broke. "I'm saving your ass," she snapped back, roughly grabbing his wrists before he could protest. She did the same with the second tie and stood up, ignoring the twinge of pain in her knees.

Oliver was up in a second, not bothering to worry about Dig. "Felicity, how in the hell did you get here?" He actually growled at her this time, and grabbed her upper arm. As much as she wanted to roll her eyes at his repetitive bullshit, she couldn't stop the involuntary shiver. His skin was so much warmer than hers even though he had been in this icebox of a basement for hours.

Felicity was determined not to be bullied by him and arched an eyebrow. "How do you think?" she replied. She might have just been the IT girl, but it wasn't like he could actually pretend he hadn't noticed how she was dressed. "It's a strip club. I figured breaking in and killing everybody wouldn't work, so I decided to blend in."

She could feel her face reddening with every passing word. That also had something to do with her extremely close proximity to Ollie, but she decided for tonight to chalk that up to adrenaline and her ridiculous outfit. Pursing her lips, she pulled her arm out of his grip and stepped back before she did anything dumber than what she had already accomplished tonight. Not to mention, Diggle was in the room. And she kind of hoped he still respected her a little.

There was a crash that made the basement door shake, and before she could process anything Ollie had pushed her behind him automatically while Dig stepped to his right. Damn overprotective heroes. She was here to rescue them!

"What the hell was that?" Oliver said, but it was closer to a snarl. He looked ready to tear someone apart.

At the risk of setting him off further, she caught his wrist, pulling his attention away from the door. "That would be the cavalry," she told him, tugging him back as gently as possible.

Dig glanced over at her skeptically. "We have a cavalry?

Felicity winced, feeling slightly guilty for the first time. "Well, I knew I wasn't going to be able to rescue you guys alone!"

Oliver's head whipped around to send her one of his This Is My Town glares, and he looked a lot like he wanted to shake her with frustration. Oops. "Who else is here?!"

The door exploded open, and two mobster lackeys crashed through along with it. Her first impulse was to stare at the knocked-out men, but she kept her eyes glued to the door, watching as the dark hallway transformed, the shadows coalescing into the shape of a man. And not just any man, but—

Felicity had forgotten to let go of Ollie's wrist, so she felt when every muscle in his body tensed. He was so not happy about this.

In the shadows, he looked imposing as hell. But when he stepped into the basement, it was easy to see that something was… off. He shoulders were too narrow in the vest, and needed another 60 pounds or so to fill in the rest of it. The hood came down lower than it should have, missing the extra couple inches of height.

In short, it was just… wrong.

"We should probably go now," he said. He didn't bother trying to disguise his voice. Not that Ollie wouldn't have recognized him immediately.

Ollie turned back to her. "You gave him my suit?"

Felicity wanted to cower like an idiot, but she refused to cave, and threw her hands up in the air instead. "Who else was I supposed to ask?"

"I said no!"

"Yeah, well, you lost that vote when you got kidnapped!"

"Uhh, Mom? Dad? Hate to miss the family fight, but we should get going. Like, right now."

Felicity and Ollie scowled at him in unison, which was a truly terrifying accomplishment. Dig had already been heading for the door when they started bickering, and he observed all three of them with amusement in his eyes. This time, Ollie caught her wrist, not looking back once as he stepped forward. She followed along without thinking, and in seconds he was nose to nose with his mirror image. "We're going to discuss this later."

Ollie was the first one out of the basement, and he kept her behind him the whole time while Dig and meta-Arrow followed after. They were flanking her, and the realization made her scowl because she was the one doing the rescuing for once, dammit. This was why she hated freaking heroes.

There were a half-dozen guys lying on the floor, groaning, and she had to take a moment to give the kid some props. They followed the unconscious trail of breadcrumbs, which led to the broken window, meta-Arrow's entrance.

"Put this on," Ollie commanded. He shoved his button-down into her hands, and she stared at it in confusion, trying to figure out when he had taken it off because she could have sworn he never let go of his wrist.

In the midst of staring, baffled, at the crumpled black shirt, he repeated, "Felicity. Put that on."

She complied, pulling on the shirt automatically as meta-Arrow boosted himself up onto the window ledge. She was pretty sure she was only obeying because he was strangely more imposing in a black t-shirt than a button-down. She wondered what the hell was wrong in her head.

"Your turn," Dig said, startling her. He was straddling the window ledge and held a hand out. She grasped it, and with a jump and a tug he had her through the window. Meta-Arrow was there to catch her and set her on the ground, keeping her from falling into the questionably brown puddle under the window.

He shoved back the green leather hood, and Roy grinned at her devilishly. "He made you put on his shirt?"

Felicity glanced down at her update in wardrobe. It was night, well past 2 a.m., and the black shirt nearly blended into the wall, if not for her skin, which glowed bone white by comparison. The sleeves fell past her thumbs and the hem hit her mid-thigh, but she supposed it was still more conservative than what was underneath. "This is what happens when you work with heroes," she muttered with a roll of her eyes.

Ollie dropped onto the asphalt silently after Dig. "We need to get out of here before they catch on that we're gone."

"No shit," Roy deadpanned. "Getaway car's around the corner."

Ollie nodded once, every bit the serious vigilante even without the costume. Then he was tugging her along once more, Dig and Roy following into the same formation as before. Walking down the wet asphalt into the chilly night, she felt a little like Dorothy in the strangest version of Wizard of Oz ever.

…Ollie would so be the Tin Man.

Somehow she wound up in the backseat—which was ten kinds of ridiculous because this was her car—shoved unceremoniously next to Oliver, who was doing his best I'm Not Sulking impression. Dig was driving, probably too used to playing chauffeur while Roy started stripping. Not exactly something she needed to see right now, if only for the fact that she couldn't acknowledge he was attractive without screaming the word 'COUGAR' in her head.

She could swear she thought less weird things pre-Ollie.

"I may be overstepping my bounds here, but Felicity, where did you get the stripper clothes?"

Dig somehow managed to say that with a straight face, even when she whipped her head around to stare at him through the rearview mirror with comically wide eyes. She was pretty sure Oliver stiffened up next to her, and she was 100-percent positive that Roy was smirking in the front seat. She wondered if this was what Jean Grey dealt with when she was the only woman in the X-Men. Probably.

"I don't own stripper clothes, thank you." She held up a finger, trying to hide her own smile. "My only experiences with strip clubs are limited to what I've seen on Showtime, so I pretty much gave free reign of my closet to Roy…"

Next to her, Oliver growled. That was a real thing that happened. In the process of ignoring whatever the hell that meant, she started to ramble. "Basically, we agreed that my closet is stripper-clothes-free, something which I'm very proud to admit, but then I remembered this lingerie set that my ex-boyfriend bought me back when he was my boyfriend, but then we wound up breaking up the same night so that went really well and it's not super-strippery but it was enough to get me through the door, which was pretty much all I wanted to do, so… yeah."

The car got really silent after that lame ending, but she bit her lips to keep from saying anything more. Yes, in the back of her mind she had been aware that it was going to be awkward to have Ollie and Dig see her in that lacy red and black bra and panties set, but at the time she was so petrified and determined to save them that she determined the benefits outweighed the cost. Now she was starting to feel a lot like the weird kid in the back of class.

Dig cleared his throat, and he was hiding a smile as he finally replied, "Well, since we all know Oliver won't bother saying it, thank you for rescuing us, Felicity." He took a moment to glance at her through the rearview mirror, and she couldn't help but smile back proudly.

"And I didn't?" Roy asked snarkily, glancing back to throw her a wink. "Pretty sure those guys didn't knock themselves out."

"We're not even going to get into—" Mr. Grumpy Pants was all kinds of ready to chew Roy a new one, but Felicity was feeling a slight high from all she had accomplished, not to mention Dig's words of praise, so she slapped her hand over Ollie's mouth until he cut off with a muffled growl.

That was doubtlessly the first time in over six years someone had bothered to silence Oliver with a hand over his mouth, but if the shocked anger in his eyes didn't deter her, that thought wasn't, either. "Shut up," she ordered, her expression perfectly serious. "You can get pissed at him later, after I leave, but he saved your ass just as much as I did tonight, and so help me, Queen, you are at very least going to be polite to him in my presence."

The car slowed to a stop and everyone seemed either too livid or too terrified to move. She couldn't be sure because she was refusing to lose the stare-off she was currently having with Oliver, but she thought it was safe to assume Dig and Roy were in the latter camp.

Finally, Oliver gave in, the slight nod her only indication that she had, in fact, won. She removed her hand, giving him a curt nod in response. Hell yeah. Let it be recorded in all of history that Felicity Smoak managed to out-intimidate Oliver Queen. And on the same day she rescued his ungrateful ass, no less. Boo yah. And so she exited the car, refusing to let any of them see the triumphant look on her face.

"Dude… nobody told me Mom wears the pants."

Felicity whipped around, not quite enough out of earshot to miss Roy's comment. "Watch it," she said warningly, pointing at him. "Or I'll sic Ollie on you."

Roy grinned toothily. "Yes, Mom."

Without saying anything, Ollie walked past Roy and cuffed him upside the head. Dig didn't even hold back a snicker as Roy's shoulders hunched in pain and he winced. "You started this," he muttered under his breath, glancing at her mischievously. "Hope it's worth it."

Felicity shared a conspiratorial grin. She was standing outside their HQ dressed in Ollie's shirt, underwear, and stilettos, surrounded by some of the weirdest hero-complexed men she had ever known in her life, all of whom were covered in either their or someone else's blood, and she could honestly say this was probably one of the best moments of her life.

This wasn't exactly the family she expected to adopt, but for the life of her, she couldn't imagine a better option.