11029/Just Another Day in the Arrowlair

Just Another Day in the Arrowlair
Date of Scene:	04 May 2022
Location:	Arrowcave
Synopsis:	Oliver gives Felicity dating advice...for her mom.
Cast of Characters:	Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak

---

Oliver Queen has posed:
Clank.
    Clank.
        Clank.
            Clank.

The rhythmic sound of Oliver ascending the salmon ladder echoes throughout the room. It is the slower, more languid pace. Usually associated for when something is preying upon his mind, and he wants to challenge himself by taking his time. Silence for a few moments as he pauses at the top. Hanging suspended, adding a few pull-ups for good measure.

            Clank.
        Clank.
    Clank.
Clank.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Overcast and rainy spring day. The worst sort of day. Warm weather, but the humidity is up, and there is always the threat that once the rain stops, it'll begin again. So, it's not a day that Felicity actually //minds// indoors. Well, that she minds indoors with no windows. She is the epitome of basement hacker that's 'made it', after a fashion.

Contrary to the stereotype, however, the blonde doesn't actually live in the cave. She commutes. That's probably worse, somehow, if she'd ever given it thought.

Dressed in a floral patterned midi dress, with flats (she's not talented like Thea!), she's entering the working part of the cave proper, her phone in hand, earbuds in her ears, and she's obviously a great deal more attentive to the conversation she's having than actually looking where she's going.

"... no, I really don't. No.. wait. Don't.." There's a pause as she stutters, trying to get all the words out in the least amount of time, and failing miserably, "..it's because you actually-"

*clank*

External noise slowly creeps into her consciousness, and she hesitates in her step, blue eyes moving to the sight before her monitors, and there, in slow motion.. and whatever it is that is being said in those earbuds is completely ignored for the moment.

"Then take an ab out.. I mean.. an ad..ab.." A short exhale exits the hacker before she simply says, "Bye." Done.

Finally making her cross, and trying really hard not to watch the tableau before her, she pulls a chair out from behind her table. "Uh.. can you.." Her hand rises to both gesture and shield her eyes, even if the sight is.. "I need to talk to you, and it'll be a little difficult while you're doing..

"..that."

Oliver Queen has posed:
Clank.
    Clank.
        Clank.

Oliver looks over towards Felicity as she calls out to him, halfway through his ascent back up the ladder. "Yeah, sorry. I know it's loud." Clearly the noise was the difficulty.
Clank. Clank. Clank.

He pulls the towel and wipes it across his forehead as he walks over towards her. "What's up?" He whips the towel around to hang over his shoulder, watching her as he retakes his breath. Not that the exertion threw him off too much, but always good to recenter one's breathing.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity gains the special ability to sit down in her rolly chair while not paying attention to what she's doing. Her gaze is fixed to the abs that are going up and then down on the salmon ladder before the person to which they're attached finally lands. Once he's down, she pushes up her glasses that have crept down just a little, giving her that heartbeat and a half to center herself. As much as can be, that is.

"Uh.. that, that on the phone was my mother." Never a good start. "She's deciding that she wants to join the world of online dating, and is asking if I could look up the people she's considering." Felicity shakes her head, trying to get that entire thought out of her head, and fails. Miserably. "One of them," here's where she gets a little quieter and hits a couple of keys to bring up the features of a rather striking middle aged man, a touch on the upper side of 'middle', "Might be a problem." There's a laundry list of wrongs, as they say, 'rap sheet as long as your arm'. "She wants to bring him out here so I can meet him."

Swinging around her chair, she picks up a pen, only to have it find its way to being lightly chewed. "Mom always had the worst taste in men."

Oliver Queen has posed:
"A trait that her daughter seems to have acquired as well." There is a grin to accompany that comment, meant as a tease, not a condemnation. There are any number of men he would be referring to. Perhaps even himself.

Oliver leans over Felicity's shoulder to peer at the screen, tilting his head as he regards the man. The half of the small towel that had been resting against his shoulder swings past the side of her face, creating both a brief breeze and perhaps the slightest whiff of Oliver's perspiration. "Oh, sorry," he says quickly, pulling the towel back and tossing it onto a nearby table. Another tilt of his head. "I know him." He snaps at his fingers multiple times, as if doing so would summon forth the memory of the individual in question.

"Harry...Harry..."

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity looks around the table theatrically for something to throw at Oliver at his tease, only to come up empty handed. Instead? Her expression turns slightly sarcastic, her tones underscoring, "I'm only here for the hardware. And the connection. And the view." As if realizing that what she'd said could possibly be misconstrued, she amends quickly, "Of the city. From the monitors. The CCTV. Not. not anything else." Like that salmon ladder in front of her, and that-

Oh god.

Her head moves slowly, turning to the side to look at Oliver as he leans in close to look at her screen, the data scrolling off the page in a slow and steady rate. "Really?" The question that encompasses //everything// at the moment. "Oh, oh.. don't put it on.." the table. That's where she eats lunch. Well, that and where emergency surgery happens. A lot. "Maybe I'll move my lunch spot."

There's recognition, however, and in that, as he backs away just to toss the towel, Felicity pushes up on those glasses today, her attention firmly on the other in the room. "Tell me it's from conferences and board meetings, and I'll call my mother right now and tell her that he's fine." But, the chances are better than even that it's a pipe dream. All those charges that scroll past announce it, anyway.

"Harry..? She says Edelson. That sound right?" Or is there another alias that she has to track down?

Oliver Queen has posed:
Oliver's hand smacks the back of Felicity's chair. "Edelson! Yes." He frowns at the screen, nodding to himself. "Uh, yeah. I think he was a bit of a small-time hood a while back. He was on my father's list, and I looked into him. He had been involved in some light smuggling, a bit of fencing. Trying to make ends meet sort of thing." He leans over a bit more to peer at the dates on the rap sheet. "Yeah, those all track. He'd been out of that kind of business by the time I got back, so I let him off with a bit of a warning not to slide back into old habits." He shrugs a bit, and finally steps back, removing himself and his workout aroma from Felicity's personal space.

"He's probably harmless now, although it might be worth doing a little bit of checking on him." He walks over to take a seat in one of the other chairs. "If you ask me, he's too timid of a guy to last more than one date with your mother anyway. So probably no harm in letting her take a swing at him." Oliver glances around for a moment, and then looks back at Felicity. "You ever consider it? The online dating thing?" He grins. "I'll bet you could hack the system to make sure you end up on a date with your perfect man. Whoever that is."

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity actually laughs at that, though a hand comes up and fingers track loosely towards her lips as if to close her mouth again, and she shakes her head. "I think my mother will be a whole lot worse than you could ever be," she begins. "I think when everything is said and done, he'll wish he was hit with arrows."

She does listen to the litany of wrongs, of how Oliver does know him, and she lets that percolate in her head even as she pushes forward a little and has her fingers dancing across the keyboard, causing each of the three monitors to light up, each showing off a different bit of information about the man. She peers at the information before she nods, mollified if only for the moment.

Brows do rise, however, and the her chair spins slowly to have her face Oliver. She shakes her head, "Ah.. no. I know what's on the internet. You think people lie in person?" She whistles softly and swings back around to her keyboard, "You should see the whoppers that are told when they think no one can find out." A smile creeps across her face at that last bit, however. If there's one thing she knows is that she's //good//, and she is that 'someone' that will always find out.

"Spoken like someone who has women falling over him without the help of a dating app," is rejoined, though it's not a bitter response. It simply is a fact of Queen life.

The topic changes, however, as Felicity goes back to work, blue eyes watching the screen; the mug shots and information bursts about Harry now gone, instead replaced with street cameras, blueprints and manifests. There's always work to be done, which allows Oliver to begin his own work for the evening, if that's what is planned.