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Felicity Smoak was missing.
Oliver had tried his best to not panic when he showed up at her place tonight with a pint of mint chip and microwave popcorn, wanting to see if she would spend the evening marathoning the fourth season of Game of Thrones with him. It was a quiet Thursday evening. Felicity had left their lair with instructions on a post-it note to not touch her machines as she was running a complex search on one of the new heads of the Triad (or risk her wrath) before Oliver could get there. He had wanted a take a ride on his bike to clear his mind after a meeting with his lawyers so the rest of the team left before he could get to the lair.
He had snuck into her apartment when she didn’t answer her door, just needing to see if she was safe. He had waited for her, thinking that she had gone out to get herself some evening snack somewhere close by and that she would return very soon. After thirty minutes of waiting, he called her phone. And then her other phone. He got the standard “the number cannot be reached” response. So he thought he’d track her phone to see where she was at and meet her there. When he couldn’t find any signal on her phone, at first he told himself not to worry, that she may just be in a place where her phone signal was weak.
He gave himself five minutes before calling Diggle. Maybe she was hanging out with Diggle and Lyla tonight. She wasn’t.
Then he called Roy. She wasn’t with him either.
He checked her tracker again. Still no results.
Maybe she was with Palmer. The guy had been bugging Felicity to go out with him for a while now, and she had agreed to go on some casual dates with Palmer. But that never went anywhere. Not that Oliver was supposed to know. But when he had asked her about Palmer, she simply shrugged and said, “Meh.” That was the end of that.
Maybe she decided to give Palmer another chance tonight. But why would her tracker be untraceable?
So he dials Palmer’s number. Just to make sure of Felicity’s location.
"Palmer, Queen here," he says as soon as the other guy picks up the call up.
"Queen?"
"Yeah. Listen, is Felicity with you?" Oliver says abruptly. He just wanted to make sure. If Palmer says she’s with him, he would leave it at that. It wasn’t any of his business. He had made it clear to Felicity that they were better off as friends and as teammates. Nothing more. Because he didn’t want to endanger her further. She agreed. Because she didn’t want to put him in a position where he would lose sight of their mission. It was all very civil and polite and friendly. She would never know how much it hurt him. How much he wanted to be with her. How big the pit in his stomach grew when he found out that she had begun dating other men. Or how much he had to stop himself from reaching for her whenever she was in his vicinity.
"No, she’s not," Palmer replied.
"Are you sure?" Oliver insisted.
"I think I would know if Felicity was with me, Queen," Palmer snorted. Oliver hung up.
Where the hell could she be? It was getting late!
Allen. Maybe she was with Barry Allen. He dialed the other guy’s number.
"Allen, Queen here. Is Felicity with you?" Oliver asked as abruptly as he had asked Palmer.
"Ah, nope. I just literally stepped into my apartment after a long day’s work. I’ve not heard from Felicity for a while. Is everything OK?" Barry says.
"I can’t find her," Oliver replies, and then swallows his pride, "Would you have any idea where she could be?"
"Her tracker? You—"
"It’s not working," Oliver interrupts, then hangs up.
She’s not with Diggle. She’s not with Roy. She’s not with Palmer. She’s not with Allen. Where the hell could she be?
He checks her tracker once more. Still no cigar.
He’s in panic mode now. Someone could have taken her!
He calls Diggle and Roy, and asks them to meet him at Felicity’s apartment. They would find her or die trying!
In fifteen minutes, Diggle and Roy arrive. Oliver instructs them to search her apartment for clues and while he talked with her neighbours to ask if they had seen anything suspicious happening.
On his way out he was surprised to see Allen just about to knock on her door.
"Allen?"
"Hey, Oliver. I came as soon as I could. Is Felicity missing?" Barry says, not even out of breath.
"I didn’t ask you to come," Oliver responds. While he wasn’t a fan of the idea of Felicity and Barry as a couple, he acknowledged that it was a good thing that someone like Barry Allen, with his super powers and all, could be there for her in a … well, flash, if she needed him.
"There was no need to. Felicity’s my friend. If she’s missing, then you’ve got me," Barry smiles. "We’ll find her. Tell me what I need to do."
Before he could respond, a black Lexus parks in front of Felicity’s townhouse, tires squealing. A harried Ray Palmer steps out.
"Have you found her?" Ray asks, rushing towards where Oliver and Barry were standing.
"What the hell are you doing here, Palmer?"
"You seem to have lost Felicity, Queen. Do you know where she is? What happened? And by the way, it’s rude to end a phone call without saying goodbye," Ray shakes his head at Oliver.
"He did that to you, too, huh?" Barry grins, "He’s kinda rude like that. Barry Allen."
"Ray Palmer. You’re Felicity’s friend from Central City, right?" Ray extends his hand to Barry.
"I don’t have time for this. Felicity’s missing!" Oliver pushes himself between Palmer and Allen, intent on knocking on Felicity’s neighbour’s door.
"Oliver," Diggle calls from the doorway, "You know there’s a tracker on her car, right?"
Dammit. Why didn’t he think of that?
"Track it, Digg," Oliver growls.
"Already done. Her car is on a parking lot on Thompson Avenue"
Without a word, Oliver rushes to his bike and leaves.
————————————————
"Oliver! What are you doing here?" Felicity exclaims. This was the last place she would have expected Oliver Queen to show up.
She was at Mike’s Bar, hanging out with geeks and nerds from M.I.T., Caltech, Harvard and Yale. They were in the middle of Thursday Trivia Night where all the alma maters competed in teams to win bragging rights for the best knowledge of pop culture, science and historical trivia. Correction: Felicity Smoak was in the middle of winning the game for her team when Oliver Queen swoops in and interrupts her listing down all the Stark children and the name of their wolves (in Dothraki, she might add) by taking her in his arms and then inspecting her for injuries.
"I was at your place but you weren’t there. No one knew where you were," Oliver explained, still running his hands on her arms, "The trackers on your phones were not working."
"Yeah, we scramble signals on Thursday Trivia Nights so no one would cheat by using the internet or texting their friends for answers. These guys take this game very seriously," she explains. Then asks, "But why are you here? Is everything all right? Digg? Roy? Wha—"
"Hey, Smoaky, you finishing your response? Or does MIT lose the point?" the emcee of the trivia game interrupts.
Felicity steps out of Oliver’s arms, raises her pointer finger in a universal gesture for him to wait, and then turns her attention to the trivia game.
It takes her about ten minutes to finish the game with a win for her alma mater. As she turns back to face Oliver, she’s surprised to see Digg, Roy, Ray and Barry behind him, all shaking their head, smirking and trying not to laugh. She heads closer to them.
"Guys, what’s going on?"
"Your tracker wasn’t working!" Oliver growls, reaching for her shoulders, "I was worried! I couldn’t find you!"
"Yeah, he was worried. Paced a hole in your carpet and all that," Roy chimes in, snickering.
"He didn’t even bother ending his phone calls politely," Ray adds, laughing out loud.
"Oliver, you called everyone here?" Felicity asks, looking at her friends in confusion.
"I called Diggle and Roy. I did not call Palmer and Allen. They showed up on their own!" Oliver says.
"He sounded really panicked on the phone when he asked if you were with me. So yeah, I had to help, you know," Barry tries to explain.
Things were starting to make sense to Felicity. Oh, this huge alpha brat was so infuriating!
"Oliver, I told you where I would be tonight!" Felicity punches his arm. It hurt her more than it hurt him. Actually, it didn’t hurt for him at all.
"No, you didn’t!" Oliver insists, taking the hand she punched him with and stroking her knuckles to soothe the pain her punch caused her.
"I did! On my computer screen! I left a post-it note!"
"You didn’t! All you said was that if anyone touched your babies you would be angry!"
"There was a second post-it note behind that!"
"Well, I couldn’t have seen it since you warned me to not touch your babies, could I?"
"I didn’t say not to touch the screen or the post-it note! I was implying that you shouldn’t touch the keyboard or disconnect the wires or something like that. I—"
"Well, you should have said that, Felicity!"
Before any of them could say anything else, Digg interrupts them, “All right, all right. You two are gathering quite a crowd.”
A quick scan of their surroundings reveals all of the Thursday Trivia Night competitors forming a circle around them with their friends, laughing their heads off. Ray and Barry were holding on to each others’ shoulders to prop themselves up as they giggled loudly. Roy was clutching his stomach which was hurting from his guffaws.
Oliver and Felicity catch each others’ eyes and snort, “Oops.”