19226/RoT: Beneath the Encryption

RoT: Beneath the Encryption
Date of Scene:	05 October 2024
Location:	Arrowcave
Synopsis:	From the Arrowcave, Felicity updates Oliver about the thumb drive Captain America gave her and starts following the clues in the data back to their source. She discovers a highly secured server farm that triggers an NSA route trace she fools using a spoofed IP in China.
Cast of Characters:	Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen
Tinyplot:	Reign of Terror

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Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity Smoak sits under the soft glow of monitors in the otherwise dimly lit Arrowcave beneath Queen Mansion. The screens flicker with encrypted files and streams of raw data, a mess of government secrets that she's somehow become responsible for decrypting. She reaches for her coffee cup, only to find it empty. Typical.

"It's fine. Who needs coffee? It's just government data from a top-secret lab trying to recreate a serum that people have been killing each other over for decades. No big deal," she mutters, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she settles back into her chair.

The thumb drive Steve Rogers gave her is a minefield of encrypted files. Layers of encryption, intentional obfuscation -- it's all part of the job. And as much as she enjoys a good challenge, this is bordering on ridiculous. Still, her fingers fly over the keyboard, the sound of rapid typing echoing in the cavernous space.

It's not unheard of for Oliver to have no idea what she's working on, but she's rarely working on something quite so diligently and privately without having at least looped him in. Not that their schedules have really allowed for a lot of pillow talk. She's been in New York for the last week and just flew back in today. Oliver's been doing... well... whatever Oliver's been doing. And while there were the customary "landed safely" and "back at the house" texts, there was nothing to even hint over public channels that anything was out of the ordinary.

The tension in the Arrowcave, though, is definitely out of the ordinary. She's radiating the same kind of focus she does when Oliver's handed her the key piece of evidence that will put one of the monster who have 'failed this city' behind bars. Except, he hasn't given her anything like that in a while.

So what's she so focused on down here?

"Alright, let's see what you're hiding in here," she murmurs, eyes scanning the lines of code scrolling across the screen. "No pressure, just the fate of... well, a lot of people."

The decryption algorithm she wrote is slowly peeling back the layers, but it's like opening a box inside another box inside another box. She narrows her eyes, clicking through access logs and timestamps. The data is a jumbled mess, designed to be that way, but that's not enough to stop her.

"Oh, you guys really thought you could cover your tracks with basic IP masking? Please, amateurs," she says with a smirk, fingers tapping out the command to trace the real source.

Her eyes dart between windows as she starts cross-referencing the logs. Whoever set this up knew what they were doing -- to an extent. But they didn't account for Felicity Smoak's particular brand of genius. Layer by layer, she digs deeper, cutting through the digital red tape and smoke screens with an efficiency that only comes from years of experience.

"Yes! Gotcha!" she whispers triumphantly as the first set of files unlocks.

The screen floods with lab reports, progress logs, and internal memos. Super Soldier references pop up immediately, along with terms like "Erskine" and "formula." But these are just surface-level details. The real gold is buried somewhere deeper, hidden in the metadata.

"Alright, come on, where's the juicy stuff? There's always something juicy hiding in the background," she mutters, her fingers still moving at lightning speed.

As she digs into the metadata, she starts piecing things together. The data trails lead to shell corporations, dead-end email addresses, and more IP masking. She rolls her eyes. "Shell corporations? How original. You guys are really giving me the greatest hits tonight."

Little breadcrumbs are scattered throughout the files -- subtle, but there. She's close. She can feel it.

"Okay, time to figure out who's pulling the strings."

Oliver Queen has posed:
The members of Team Arrow tend to lead very busy lives. That's just how it goes. And as they increasingly spread out, it has admittedly been rarer and rarer to catch them all in one place at one time.

Most of the time of course Oliver and Felicity can prove to be an exception to that, for some pretty obvious reasons. Certainly it helps that they are a couple, that they share living quarters in both Starling City and New York City. That is usually enough to guarantee that they are cohabitating fairly frequently.

But not always.

While both might prefer it otherwise, their lives can get a little hectic. That would be true of course even if they didn't spend most of their evenings -- and sometimes considerably more time then just that -- playing vigilante. In fairness, it is no game for either them and outside of Felicity herself, what he does as the Green Arrow might be the singular most important thing in Oliver's life.

Even without that distraction, there are also those business matters to think of. Felicity has been rather caught up in all the time consuming challenges that come from trying to get a new startup off the ground, to try and make a go of it with her tech company. A challenge that at times is very much monopolizing her time. And while Ollie doesn't begrudge that, he is concerned enough that he has started pressing her to find a couple of reliable people she can turn some of those responsibilities over to before she burns out.

Not selfish, honest. Just concerned.

His own dedication to Queen Consolidated is not quite as pronounced, but then as a multi-national it is much larger and has many more competent hands to turn over some of his responsibilities to. He might not be a 'show' CEO, but he is not the most dedicated either much to the Board's occasional consternation. But he is still CEO, and that means that sometimes he does have to travel on company business. Even in this day and age when technology makes meeting remotely so easy.

Some people like the face to face touch.

Which is where he has been for the past several days, hitting a few different places in Europe. And while he would have much rather had Felicity there with him, to turn it into a bit of a working vacation, that just wasn't in the cards. This time.

Still, with her letting him know that she would be back in Starling, he did manage to wrap up his business several hours early, enough so that he could jet back across the Atlantic, to settle in at the mansion and even take a little time to get out on the streets of the city, to make sure that the Green Arrow's presence is still very much felt.

Just in case any of the criminal element had started to get any ideas over the past week or so.

Which means that while he might have been out when Felicity returned, when she started work on her own pet project, it isn't long before he gets back.

While the Cave might be dimly lit, his lady love is of course illuminated by the glow of those ever present monitors as he slips into the bunker, a little grin sliding over his face. The sight of her almost always brings a smile to his face. Almost from the moment he met her, no matter how long it may have taken to understand how rare and special that truly is.

So padding over to her, swift and silent as he can be, he doesn't think anything about the fact that he might be surprising her -- in a good way of course. And besides, given that he cradles a cup of coffee in one hand -- and offering that she surely will be especially happy to see -- he's fairly sure that he'll get a welcome.

But as he nears, he takes note of her fixed concentration, at the data scrolling over the screen in rapid-fire fashion. This isn't some light catchup work afterall, and so far as he's aware they don't have anything this big on the go right at the moment.

Curiousity gets the better of him and he forgets his intention to sneak up on her, brow furrowing instead. "What are you working on so intently there?" Ollie asks quietly.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity doesn't jump when Oliver speaks -- mostly because he'd chosen _not_ to pursue violence (this time) and provoke the jump-scare reaction he gets when he sneaks up behind her in full ninja mode. His voice cuts through the haze of concentration she's been under, and she glances up, blinking a few times as if surfacing from deep water.

"Oh, hey!" she says as 0she looks back at the screens, clearly torn between greeting him properly and the mess of data she's still wading through. But then her eyes land on the coffee in his hand, and her expression softens instantly. "Is that for me? Do you know how much I love you right now?"

She flashes a small, teasing smile and stands just long enough to stretch up through her toes and kiss him. It's not rushed (it has been a week apart, after all), but there is an undercurrent of stress and distraction in it. It's not one of those days she's going to get so lost in 'catching up' that she forgets what she's doing, and with just a brief smile, she reaches for the cup, taking a grateful sip.

"Oh, this?" She asks, voice pitching up in that sardonic way she has. "No big deal. I'm just... working on some data that Captain America dropped in my lap. You know, the dead guy? Yeah. Turns out, not so much."

One more sip of coffee, then she's dropping back into her chair and swiveling towards the keyboard. Her fingers dance across it again, pulling up a different set of screens as she leans back in her chair.

"He gave me this thumb drive with encrypted files from some super shady lab. They're trying to recreate Erskine super soldier's formula, and apparently, they're further along than anyone else has been since, well, _him_." She lets that hang in the air for a second before pushing her glasses up her nose again. "Which, obviously, is not something you want falling into the wrong hands."

She pauses, biting her lip in that nervous way she does when she's deep in thought, then glances back at Oliver. "So, I've been trying to figure out who's behind it all. And so far? I'm just... I don't know, I feel like I'm close, but also like I'm chasing my own tail. And if I dig any deeper, I might trigger something that lets them know I'm poking around. No pressure, right? Just, you know, trying to keep the world from getting another Nazi super soldier army or something." Her tone is sarcastic, but the worry in her eyes is unmistakable.

"OH! And you can't tell anyone about this. Like.. anyone anyone. I swore I wouldn't even tell anyone he was alive, but, well, you're sort of an exception to secrecy rules. For obvious reasons. Batman did the chemical analysis on the samples he broke out of the lab, and I guess he's the one that told Cap," she says 'Cap' so casually, like she didn't just meet the guy for the first time in a coffee shop in the middle of the night and accuse him of being a zombie, "to find me."

Then, after a beat, she glances back up at him with a softer smile. "Thank you for the coffee. I was about to lose my mind."

Of course, it's not clear that she hasn't.

Oliver Queen has posed:
Look, Oliver might not be a certified genius like his girl in the chair but he is clever enough that he has long since figured out there are a few good things to keep in mind when it comes to dealing with Felicity. And one of those things happens to be that you just never can go wrong with approaching her coffee already in hand. No matter what she might be dealing with or how bad a mood she might be in, that is almost guaranteed to improve things almost immediately.

Though the fact that she is so slow to even register his appearance, his question does draw just a hint of concern. It's not like Felicity ever hesitates to truly throw herself right into the midst of her work of course. That's not unusual in the least. But it is a little more rare that she so totally subsumes herself in it that she becomes nearly unaware to everything else going on around her. That, if nothing else, would have told Oliver that this was something unique.

"I have long since figured out that the real way to your heart is not with fancy jewelery or eloaborate proclaimations of my love. It's with a steady supply of coffee," the blonde billionaire says, just a hint of a smile lingering on his expression.

He hands over the cup, slipping an arm around her for just a moment, lips lingering on her own. BUt it isn't hard to sense that she is still very much distracted. Again, not the normal sort of response. Especially when they've been parted for a few days.

So when she first says what she is working on, Oliver could probably be forgiven for not giving it a whole lot of credance. As a general rule they don't lie to one another -- they don't even tend to be very good at keeping secrets from one another -- but this seems a little out there. Maybe just enough to qualify as a practical joke.

For a moment, a little smirk slides over his face, even as she quickly turns around -- coffee in hand -- to sink back down in front of those monitor arrays, mind seemingly already on the business at hand. And while Ollie doesn't speak encryption or anything more then the most basic computer, glancing at the information that is apparent on the screens, it would appear that she really is telling the truth, hard as it might be to fathom.

But really, given that she has appeared before him dressed as a raccoon furry after being kidnapped to another dimension, is this really any harder to believe?

The more he considers it, the less Oliver believes that she is having him on and with furrowed brow, he leans over the back of her seat, one hand resting curled on her shoulder as he peers at the monitor as well.

The casual reference to 'Cap' draws a smile from him, brow raising once more. "Uh huh," he says, amusement briefly touching his words despite the relative seriousness of her task. "Well, I think you can trust me to be discrete. And it's not like I can exactly fault his judgement at bringing you in on this," he says, leaning over to press a quick kiss to her cheek before straightening once more.

"Just be careful. If these people are doing what you think they are, they're probably not going to play games or pull punches. And they'd almost have to be cleverer then it might look on the surface," he cautions her gently.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"Okay, wait," Felicity turns in her chair slightly, lifting her chin just-slightly to receive that kiss with one eyebrow raised as she looks up at him with a mix of disbelief and exasperation. "Are you not the least little bit surprised that Steve Rogers is still alive? Because, seriously, I threatened to call the Ghostbusters. It was a whole thing. I mean, I thought I was looking at an actual zombie Captain America when he walked into that coffee shop. Or maybe a werewolf. Or some kind of... zombie werewolf."

Felicity's fingers start moving across the keyboard again, bringing up another window as she dives back into the data. "So, here's the thing. I've cross-referenced the metadata from some of these files with an archive of e-mails from the lab that they got the samples from. They're layered with encryption, and I'm not just talking about one or two layers. It's like opening a Russian nesting doll, except each doll has its own separate lock, key, and a riddle you have to solve just to get to the next one. Not to mention the embedded files. One looks like a memo about some boring procurement order for lab supplies, but when you dig into the metadata, it's got timestamps and access logs that don't add up."

She leans back in her chair, rubbing the bridge of her nose with frustration as she recollects the coffee Oliver so generously brought her for another drink. "Whoever did this really knows how to cover their tracks. They used basic IP masking -- which, by the way," she gestures at the screen with a flick of her hand, "please. Like, oh, you thought I wouldn't notice that? Come on."

Her eyes narrow as she opens up a new window, showing several network traces on the screen. "But this is the fun part. We're not just talking about hacking some Hydra wannabes here. We're talking about federal government systems. And if I keep poking around in the wrong place..." She taps a finger against the desk, her voice dropping slightly, "that technically makes me a cyber-terrorist. Again."

Felicity chews on her bottom lip for a moment, her eyes darting between the screens as new streams of data fill the displays. Then she sighs, muttering under her breath, "I wonder if the Avengers could score me a pardon if I end up in trouble for this. I mean, they've got a pretty good track record with, you know... redemption arcs."

Shaking her head, she pulls up yet another encrypted folder, her focus back on the task at hand. "Anyway, it's not like I have a choice. If this goes as high as it seems like it does, and I can trace them back to who's behind all this... we're talking about someone with _deep_ government ties."

She glances up at Oliver, her expression softening slightly. "But don't worry. I've got this. Just... you know, if I disappear into a black site prison, please make sure you find me and bring coffee? And maybe a lawyer."

Oliver Queen has posed:
For a moment, Ollie is able to maintain that facade of casual acceptance, a sort of air of 'been there, done that'. Afterall, they live in a world where alien powerhouses and anicent Grecian princesses casually stride side by side next to men who can run at the speed of light or intergalactic space cops. And in this case they are talking about Captain America afterall. The guy was supposed to have died during World War Two and has already come back to life.

What's one more time in the face of all of that, right?

Still, there is a limit to just how long he can maintain that presentation in the face of her incredulity and he finally lets a wry smile slide over his face. "Lets say I was wondering if you were trying to play a prank on me there for a moment. And then spent another wondering if I had accidentally wandered into some alternate dimesnion," he concedes, fingers curling, squeezing where they rest on her shoulder.

"But it's you, Fel," he adds quietly. "There's not very much that I wouldn't implicitly take your word on. If you tell me that Captain America... Cap--" yes, he can't resist teasing her just a littl, "showed up in front of you alive and well and asked for your help, how could I doubt anything you have to say?" he asks quietly.

It's a fairly reasonable proposition on the surface of it. There might not be anyone he trusts more then her afterall. Though there are probably a handful of others to whom he would extend the same courtesy.

As she turns back to her explanation, he is able to follow most of it -- another benefit from them having worked together for so long. He is reasonably technologically literate by now even if he won't be sitting down and hacking his way through encryptions anytime soon.

That's why he has a girl in the chair. Well, that and other reasons. She's pretty easy on the eyes afterall.

As she mentions just the type of people she might be dealing with here, Ollie's expression grows a little more grave, mouth settling into a thin line as he glances towards the monitors once more consideringly. "I guess, giving what they are trying to accomplish they would almost have to be. It's no small undertaking," he admits, a flicker of concern passing through his eyes as they return to her once more.

"Just take all the precautions, okay? I know you have this network locked down pretty tight, but if there's anything else you can do, do it. No matter how extreme it might seem. Consider your budget pretty much unlimited, alright?" he says.

Then he grows fierce for a moment at the mention of her being dragged off to a black site. "No one is taking you anywhere on my watch Felicity."

And that, apparently settles that. At least in Oliver's mind.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
...Cap --

Felicity pauses, blinking up at Oliver as if he were the one losing his mind. She gazes at him innocently, like there's nothing odd at all about casually calling one of the most famous men in the world by a nickname -- especially when she's only met him once.

"What?" she asks, with a mock shrug. "I'm basically an Avenger now." She gestures vaguely toward the monitors. "We all go by one-syllable names. You know... Cap, Stark, Smoak, Hulk... Captain Marvel -- Marv? Whatever. I'm still new. I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go."

For a moment, she holds on to that expression of innocence, as if she actually believes that might be true. Then her lips curl into a wide, familiar smile -- the one that says she's only half-joking, but fully confident in her abilities.

That same confidence carries over into her work. Felicity has always been just a bit -- okay, more than a bit -- arrogant when it comes to her tech skills. After all, hacking into sensitive government systems and potentially committing treason? It's just another Tuesday for her. In their line of work, they've all crossed the line between right and wrong so many times that it's barely visible anymore. The only thing keeping them on the side of 'good' is the fact that they know the whole story. If the public found out that Felicity Smoak, CEO of Smoak Technologies, was hacking into federal labs and stealing top-secret data, it wouldn't take much for them to see her as a criminal. Especially without the context that Steve Rogers -- yes, that Steve Rogers -- had recruited her, way undercover, to help root out a government conspiracy that could go all the way to the top.

But Oliver's eyes still show that familiar worry, the one he can never hide from her. Not that he's ever been great at hiding his feelings from her in the first place.

Felicity's bravado softens. She sets her coffee down and rises to stand in front of him, her whole demeanor shifting as she places a gentle, warm hand on his cheek.

No one's taking you anywhere on my watch, Felicity.

"I know," she says softly, looking up at him through her glasses with a fond smile. "And I'll be careful. I promise. I'm bouncing my signal off so many satellites, there's no way -- "

Just as the words leave her mouth, one of her screens flashes red, followed by the unmistakable sound of the Star Trek 'Red Alert.'

"Oh no... no, no, no, no, no..."

She's in her chair in an instant, fingers flying over the keyboard as she tries to shut down the trace. With a keystroke, the warning clears, and a 2D map of Earth fills the screen. A red line streaks across it, tracing the route of her signal -- and the path of the trace following it back to her source.

"You know what? Two can play this game," she mutters, her eyes narrowing as she types faster. "If you want to see what's in my packets, you're gonna have to show me what's in yours."

Sometimes, it's almost like her entire brain is just a series of double entendres.

Oliver Queen has posed:
The lines can most certainly get blurred in their world. What's right, what's wrong, sometimes it becomes a matter of intent. In trying to accomplish the greatest good.

Because just as Felicity has done some things that the public would probably frown on without knowing all the facts -- like breaking into Federally secured servers and the like --so too has Oliver. While he does his best to play it straight these days, while he makes extensive use of his 'trick' arrows to help him avoid more lethal measures, that wasn't always the case. There was a time when he wasn't exactly shy about shooting to kill if he deemed it appropriate and while those days might be behind him now, there is always that question lingering in the background.

Just what would it take to get him to cross that line again. He has done it once before afterall. And once something has been done once it becomes considerably easier to contemplate and justify doing it again.

There is agood chance that whatever it is that would make him cross those lines again, Felicity's safety would probably be right up there.

As serious as the situation might be, he can't help but smile briefly at that flippant confidence, that supreme self assurance that she exudes when she is in her own baliwick. Run into her on the street, in a social situation it might not be readily apparent, but once matters filter into her area of speciality, she is every bit as sure of herself as, well, Oliver is when it comes to his archery.

And just like his confidence is justified, so to is hers. He doesn't doubt that for a moment.

But just as she still might worry about him when he is out on patrol, when he is on some mission with the Justice League, he can't help but worry about her now. No matter how good her skills are. She isn't going up against just another criminal organization. Clearly her foes this time have government connections. Clearly they have an impressive list of resources if they are actually attempting to recreate the super soldier serum for their own use.

His warnings are probably unnecessary. They are probably nothing that she hasn't already taken into account, nothing that she hasn't already factored in. Nothing that she hasn't already prepared for.

But he makes them anyway. Because that is what he does. What they do for each other.

"Alright Miss Avenger. I won't try to tell you how to do your job," he offers up wryly. "Though for the record I'm probably not going to start going around and calling you Smoak either. Just for the record," he points out. Then he grins.

The expression doesn't last long though, not as that familiar alert suddenly sounds, not as her demeanor shifts back to that all business approach and he falls silent once more as she turns her attention to dealing with this new threat, to this effort to track her down. That they are aware of her at all is problematic though perhaps inevitable, and in some ways Ollie is even more tense then if he was out in the field under fire.

But then if he were out in the field there would be something he could do. This kind of fight though? That's all Felicity.

Fingers curl a little more tightly where they rest on her shoulder and he leans forward, watching her screen intently, tension plain on her face.

Then she makes that unintentional double entendre and a faint smile slips over his features despite himself.

She is still, now and always, Felicity. No matter the situation.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"Okay, first of all," Felicity starts, eyes flicking from one screen to the next as her fingers continue their furious dance over the keyboard. "If you did start calling me Smoak, I'd worry about the future of our relationship. It's not like I want to be Smoak forever."

She goes deathly still. Even her fingers on the keys. Even as that line continues to trace back towards Starling City.

"...I mean Felicity. Not... not changing my last name. Not that I _wouldn't_ change my last name. But you _used_ to call me Ms. Smoak, so I just meant it just seems like a step back -- "

There's another warning as they cross the half-way point, and the tension in her shoulders suggests she's barely keeping up, but there's no way she'll crack under the pressure. Not now. Not ever.

"Sorry. Bad time to get distracted."

As the map on her screen starts shifting, zooming in to track the path of the trace, she mutters, "You think they'd know better by now. I mean, come on. It's 2024. You can't just throw a generic trace out and hope for the best. What, were they using Windows 95?"

The clicking of her keys fills the Arrowcave, each stroke purposeful as she blocks and redirects the trace back on itself. The map zooms out again, showing a web of signals tangled together. "There we go. Send that right back to sender... let's see where you're hiding, my little NSA wannabes."

Her eyes flash to the coffee cup she set aside, then quickly back to the screens. She lets out a short, frustrated breath. "I mean, I'll admit it's a little more sophisticated than that, but still. I'm a professional hacker, not some kid sitting in a basement with pizza boxes and Mountain Dew. This isn't even my final form!"

With a glance over her shoulder at Oliver, she gives a quick smile before returning to the task at hand. "Seriously, though. If this doesn't scream 'government operation,' then I'm not the best hacker on the planet -- which, for the record, I am. But these guys? They're good. I'll give them that."

A new alert flashes in the corner of her screen, but she waves it off, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Just a few more... okay... gotcha."

She clicks a final button, and a window pops up with a list of IP addresses. Her smile widens triumphantly. "Ah, there you are. That's right. Come to Mama."

Leaning back in her chair, Felicity tilts her head up to look at Oliver again. "See? No big deal. Just your girlfriend taking down an entire government trace operation without breaking a sweat. Turns out? It actually was the NSA. But it's fine. They think the trace originated from China, and those guys are _always_ trying steal our Lucky Charms, if you know what I mean."

Her smile is teasing, but there's still a flicker of concern behind her eyes.

Then she blinks.

"Actually... it _was_ the NSA," she repeats the words, slower, her eyes going distant. "There's no way the server I was connected to prompts that level of response that quickly. I mean, a bunch of paperwork filled out by some analyst after they review the audit logs tomorrow morning? Sure. But not real-time monitoring by the NSA, unless that network is a lot more valuable than I expected it to be..."

Oliver Queen has posed:
He's going to have to do something about that one of these days.

Or maybe he shouldn't so much look at it as if the onus should be on him so much as they need to sit down and discuss things in a little more depth. They lead such busy lives, between their respective business interests and their vigilante activities. He not only has Starling and Hell's Kitchen to worry about but also the Justice League. She not only has Team Arrow and her increasing consulting duties with the Justice League, but now she has been drafted by Steve Rogers of all people.

In short, finding time is hard. And while Oliver is pretty damn sure they both want the same things out of life, pretty sure that they both understand where this relationship is headed, he would probably have to concede that they don't necessarily talk about it as much as they maybe should. And when they try they usually end up distracted. Either by some pressing emergency or by one another.

So just like his assumption that of course she was going to move into the Queen Mansion when they started splitting time between Starling and New York, this is another place that maybe assumptions -- however well intended -- aren't quite enough.

This is also probably a bad moment to discuss any of that in depth. While he wouldn't exactly object to a little peace of mind on that front either, her sudden freeze at just the thought of what she might have implied could be so much worse if Ollie decided *right now* was the time to casually ask 'So, do you want to get married?'.

Still, at that pause, that stillness, at her hurried need to try and correct herself in oh so hasty fashion, he smiles briefly again. "Focus," he says gently. "We'll talk later. I really don't want a bunch of spec ops types bursting down our door right now."

Not that he really expects that would happen. But, you know, better safe then sorry.

While it might be more then a little tense watching her work, it is also hard not to be a little proud, a little impressed. She is so in her element, so sure of herself. So good at what she does. And while that hand might remain glued to her shoulder, while he might continue to lean out over the opposite one, gaze fixed on her screen, that doesn't entirely keep that smile from lingering.

At least until she manages to succeed, to jam them up. Which is obviously a good thing. But her conclusions? About the fact that the NSA shouldn't have had real time monitoring of that server, shouldn't have had a response ready to go, to immediately go on the counterattack unless it was extremely importnat indeed?

That's just a good reminder of the stakes of this little assignment that she has taken on and what Captain America is facing. That the man might decide to essentially fake his death makes a lot more sense now.

The smile vanishes from Oliver's expression and he finally steps out from behind Felicity's chair, meeting her gaze gravely. "Not the first time you've had to play for high stakes Felicity. You can do this," he asserts.

But maybe he had better make some preparations. Just in case.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"Oh, it won't be right now. The closest base is a twenty minute helicopter ride, and they'll need another twenty to get geared and wheels up. We've got at least forty minutes before the military shows up. But SCPD SRT can probably make it in twenty."

None of that is promising. Not the least of which because it sounds like Felicity looked those figures up just before she started this little endeavor in the Arrowcave.

"Not that they're coming. Don't freak out."

But then she'd done it. She managed to turn the tables on their trace and get a list of IP addresses that were trying to find her, and... yeah. Turns out, it's the actual NSA.

She's got a pen in her hand that she picked up from somewhere on her desk, and the clicking end is between her teeth before she ever even realizes what she's doing. Despite the distraction of Oliver moving around into her peripheral vision, her eyes are back on the screen and she's... thinking.

There are a few paths forward. And one of them was certainly to quit while she was a head, but that didn't solve the puzzle. They bug her. Puzzles _need_ to be solved. Though she thought she was making steps towards solving a puzzle, that spontaneous packet trace by the NSA invited a whole lot more questions than it answered. It had been like stirring up a bee hive.

So why would a random, non-confidential e-mail server that she'd been using to cross-reference IP addresses and origin metadata from, have that much security associated with it?

Unless it wasn't just some random, non-confidential e-mail server.

"I've got to go back in and drop a packet sniffer. It's the only way I'm going to know what's going on. That'll log all of the network traffic across the interface device... then I can go back in and pick up the logs tomorrow and hopefully see what's so special about that machine."

Pen down. Hands on keyboard.

She pauses, though, and looks over at the now empty cup of coffee that he'd brought her. Then, gently, she reaches over and slides it over in front of him.

"I totally get the irony of this request, given that I refused to get you coffee when you made me your PA, and.. might have broken the coffee machine in your office to make sure I didn't have to. But. Hear me out. You need me at the top of my game, and I work better when I'm caffeinated."

Blink. Blink. She smiles sweetly up at him.

"Please?"

Oliver Queen has posed:
So. This is what it has come to. Their reversal of roles is now complete.

When they met, Oliver might not have yet been CEO, but being the bosses daughter, being made a prominent executive in his own right certainly made him someone of significance in the company. Someone who wouldn't normally take an interest in someone in the IT department.

But then Oliver's needs were always rather unique, right from the beginning and while he might have thought he was being subtle - which he most definitely was not, in fact doing - Felicity proved pretty quickly just how difficult it would be to slip anything past her. That he certainly wasn't going to do so by claiming that his preferred coffee shop was in a rough sort of neighborhood. One that might get a laptop riddled with bullets.

Look, he was still figuring out the whole secret identity thing.

He also had the whole avenging vigilante thing going on, saving Starling City from all of those that had failed it, that had made it a worse place to live. Something that he soon roped her into helping him with.

Really, he was pretty fortunate that he happened to walk into the IT department on that particular night, to meet this particular woman.

But now, all these years later and here he is. Now Felicity is the one with a tech start-up monopolizing all of her time. Felicity is the one working in secret with Captain freakin' Amercia of all people to try and investigate some sort of shadowy conspiracy. She's the one calculating response teams by local and federal authorities, plotting the best way to get the information she needs no matter what sorts of laws she might be breaking.

Really, Ollie has to be a little proud right?

Despite the seriousness of their situation, the look he shoots her at her request is pure amusement. But he does slip from the edge of her desk, leaning over and brushing a kiss across one side of her forehead.

"Wow. Just wow. The learner has become the master," he says drily. "Alright. I'll play PA. But you're lucky that I love you," he says with a smile.

"And you owe me. Big time. I'm talking a fancy dinner and flowers. Maybe some of that special lingerie," he teases, taking that cup from her and turning to get caffeinated fuel for her. "Don't bring the feds down on our heads while I'm gone."

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity's eyes close when Oliver leans in to brush that kiss over her forehead, and her smile blossoms a little more when they open again to look up at him through the lenses of her square-framed glasses.

His reaction? His utter willingness to fetch her a cup of coffee while she was working on something entirely unrelated to anything Team Arrow or anything he could even really help with? It fills her heart to bursting.

Just as he's turning to walk away, commenting on bringing the feds down on them, she reaches out and seizes his arm, pulling him back as she stands once more from her chair and leans up to place a soft kiss on his lips.

"I love you, too," she whispers back against his mouth, nuzzling the tip of her nose against his. "And you've got a deal."