6029/In deep, again

From Heroes Assemble MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
In deep, again
Date of Scene: 23 April 2021
Location: Arrowcave
Synopsis: Oliver has a new gig.. the Red Foot? Felicity searches for information on them.
Cast of Characters: Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen




Felicity Smoak has posed:
Spring has sprung in a great way. Not too much rain, not too much chill in the air after dark; so far it's turning out to be, well, not too bad. The sun is shining, even in Starling City, making the place look a little less dreary, a little less grungy, and maybe, just maybe, things will look up for the beleagured metropolis.

As much as the sun is shining and the birdies are doing their chirping serenades out on the street, there is at least one person who really doesn't care much for the out of doors, when all is said and done. Office with a window, maybe? Sure. But outside?

Nah.

But this isn't a corner office, nor is it even an office with a window. There are days when there is a view, however.

That's when Ms Felicity Smoak is lucky.

Luck, however, has very little to do with her work. She's good, and she knows it, anyone who knows anything about her, even if they don't know her name, knows she's good. And today, ensconced in the Arrowcave, she's proving it all over again.

Settled in front of her computers, plural, and her screens, again plural, Felicity is lit by the glow, and she peers at the screen before her, her fingers tapping out commands as the processes do as she asks.

One tap, two.. and there's a cheer from her that is almost as enthusiastic as any bar patron as they watch their favorite sports team score.

"Gotcha, you piece of--"

Oliver Queen has posed:
Oliver Queen has poured himself into his work. Following a copacetic break-up with his long-term love interest, the man is still trying to deal with it all. Ollie is great at using trick arrows to catch bad guys, and he's great at making a goatee look AMAZING, but he isn't a master of coping with his feelings. Last night was a long one, and he wakes up in his bed sore, and not in the way the man prefers. A fresh black eye and bruised ribs. Those ninja got a bit too close.

He pulls himself up and fumbles at his bedside table for some strong pain killers, swallowing them dry with the kind of skills of someone who took way too many drugs in his younger years. He's unshaven, with a hint of stubble growing in around his goatee, and he brushes his fingers back through his blonde, bedhead hair. He rises to his feet and winces as he tugs on some jeans and a shirt. There's a coffee maker down in the Cave, so he has no reason to waste any time up here.

He pads, barefoot, down into the secret lair hidden beneath his sprawling mansion, and he blinks as he sees he is not alone this morning. He glances at the blonde as he makes his way towards the coffee area, inspecting if there is already any made. His greeting to her is a soft grunt.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
There is very little in the way of entrances to the cave that Felicity doesn't have rigged. Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness, after all. The work she does down here could be, no, is more than enough to get her locked up in a federal institution for a very, very, very long time. So, when Oliver accesses the door and pads his way down, Felicity is twisting around, pushing her glasses up on her nose at the same time, and the thought continues like a freight train,

"-sh-- garbage. Oliver, I think I, no, I know I got--" and there, her words hit that brick wall after actually //looking// at the man, and without even a breath in between, she continues,

"...oh, you look like.."

Watching his progress carefully, there is the tentative smile in response to the grunt. At least he's okay? As in, not bleeding and lying half dead on the table sort of 'okay'.

"You should have told me, I could have.." and the henning begins!

Oliver Queen has posed:
"Could have what?," he asks with a soft grunt again, seizing an empty mug that sports the Starling City's pro baseball team logo on the side. Diggle probably left it behind. He pours a cup and then grabs the milk from the minifridge nearby, topping it off. "I didn't want to bother you, Felicity. I didn't even get the info for the place until 2 in the morning. I wasn't about to wake you up." If she was even asleep.

He makes his way over towards her at his slower pace, trying to see what she's up to on those numerous screens. Not that he'll likely understand much of what he sees. "And what do I look like?," he asks. His tone this time is teasing, with that damnable, charming lopsided grin of his focused solely on her.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"Oh, come on, like I wouldn't have logged in to help, even at 2." Felicity's tones incorporate that dismissive eyeroll as she spins back around to her screen, continuing the conversation. "Not like I have a social life or anything," she mutters as she hits a couple more keys, breaking the stream of numerics on one screen, and bringing up counters on the other.

"Hmmm?"

Felicity turns around again, only to catch Oliver padding towards her, coffee in hand with //that// smile on his face. Oh.. jeez.. and she spins around again, her fingers moving a touch more quickly over the board as she inputs more data for the counters. "Like something the cat dragged in. Assuming, of course, that it was a really big cat..

"So.."

Felicity takes a deep, centering breath and manages to look at her erstwhile boss.. or is that partner.. or is that.. right, Oliver and pushes on her glasses again before, "What are we doing?" Beat. "By 'we', I mean.. you... well, you and me. A-a-and maybe John."

Oliver Queen has posed:
He chuckles softly and hauls himself up to sit on the edge of her desk beside her monitors. It puts him in an awkward position, surely, but he doesn't really care. He simply sips his coffee and leans in to peer around at the monitors. "This stuff is like magic to me, seriously." The older man sighs softly and shakes his head. "I can barely check my e-mail." It's embarassing, really!

He brushes his fingers through his hair and considers her question, then. "Good question. The group I ran into last night weren't like the ninjas we usually have around here. Heh. 'Usual' ninjas. Christ, our lives our weird. But, no. These ones had a sort of...dark purple coloration? Never spoke, either. One of them...I think she was the leader...had this bandana on with a red foot on it. We'll have to look into that. Hoping we don't have some new infestation or something."

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity watches as Oliver perches on her computer table, blue eyes made a little larger due to lenses following his path. She chuckles and looks up at the bruised Oliver, brows rising, "It's okay, Oliver. I do get it. Email, that's not magic. The stuff I do?" She looks pleased and a touch proud of her abilities, and there are times when she actually admits to it.

"Really kick ass." The smile remains, bright and not in any way self-effacing.

It's the recounting, however, about the events of the evening that gains a frown, her brows furrowing. "'The usual ninjas'," she repeats, and she nods her agreement, "Yeah, we do lead a weird life.." before she continues, "Purple color?"

Now, the computer is going to see use once again, and with a couple of bits of data input, she pauses and leans back in her seat. "A foot? Seriously? First, there's the Hand, and now foot?" She barks a soft, dismissive laugh before she starts the system searching.

Oliver Queen has posed:
"Yeah. Not sure if they're related at all. They didn't fight like the Hand, though." He sips his coffee as he watches her hands work over the keys. He is an expert with a bow, and she is a bad ass with her own weapon. This one. "They were breaking into a chemical plant on the edge of the city. Sterron Pharmaceutals. Figured you could do something with that. I don't -think- they got away with anything, but they were...well...ninjas."

He pauses. "Ninja? What's the plural?" He shrugs a muscled shoulder and takes another long sip of his coffee.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"There's a ninja fighting type?" Felicity looks curious with that touch of incredulous. This is outside her sphere of understanding, after all. "I thought they all just sorta.. danced around and stabbed things." She shrugs and cants her head, "At least that's what it was like in the movies."

The added information gives Felicity more to work with, and as it comes in drips and drabs, the blonde spins around on her rolly chair to face him again. "Okay, around 2 am, you were there? Or did they break in before then? I mean, I can grab the CCTV results to see if they're really "ninjas"," here, she most certainly uses air quotes, "or if they're just wanna be's with a really bad costuming department."

Still, she's back on the computer, plugging in times, dates, coordinates before her second screen brings the pharmaceutical company into view. Off to the side, there's a rapidly scrolling line of chemical compounds.

"I don't know." Felicity isn't turning back to face Oliver in her answer; she's paying attention to the screens now. "That was a liberal arts class. Closest I came to that was some Russian lit class I was forced to take. I know the plural of 'gulag', though."

Oliver Queen has posed:
"They knew how to use smoke bombs and other distraction techniques. One hit a pressure point on my arm that straight-up shut it down for a few minutes. They weren't wannabes, whoever they were."

"I got there at two and they were already there," he explains. He can't help but grin a bit at the woman's quips, but he catches himself and clears his throat. He brings his coffee to his lips for another sip. "So, your mom still in town? Or did she head back to Vegas? Is that why you're here right now?," he asks playfully.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity's brows rise as Oliver describes some of the fight, "Really? I'd love to learn that technique. Seems like it'd be useful for the train ride home." She does live across town, after all, and not in a 'good' neighborhood, not that there really IS a 'good' neighborhood in Starling.

Still, she's got more information thann even before, and pulls back the time stamps, something now recognizable as a data field. With the *twack* of the enter button, the screen that showed the pharmaceutical building is pushed back in time, with grainy hints of movement in five second increments. Three screens, and whatever 'movement' was there is gone. The computer genius shifts the pictures back, saves them, and begins playing with an editor, quickly. Before Oliver's eyes, the image sharpens a little, pulls in to shadowed figures in seconds.

"I don't wanna talk about it," is mumbled, and it sounds almost a grumble. "Ignore that pillow over there," and she gestures with an offhand left hand towards the couch. It has a pink, fluffy pillow with a small throw blanket lying on top.

"Her flight is this afternoon."

Oliver Queen has posed:
He smiles softly at that and nods. He doesn't ignore the pillow, though. Instead, he acts like a brat, as he often does. He rises to his feet and sets his coffee down, before he crosses the room to her makeshift bed and just...sprawls on it. He fluffs her pillow under his head and looks over at her, stretched out.

"Oh, this is nice. I should give up my bed and just sleep down here," he says. "So, I think I'll reach out to the League, meanwhile, and see if any of them have encountered these guys before. If not, then, I don't know. Doesn't Batman fight ninja and stuff like that all the time? Seems like it'd be in his wheelhouse."

He stays lounging there as he watches her work.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"And I'll have something- oh, hey.. don't you dare-- you'll get..."

Sigh.

Felicity sputters her arguments as to why he //shouldn't// lay on her pillow, or fully believes that she does, even if they fall flat. "Great.."

An audible sigh exits the IT genius again, and she shakes her head before she turns her full attention back to the computer screens. *He isn't sleeping on my pillow.. now I am going to smell him in my sleep, too!*

"I'll have something for the League in an hour, assuming I get my coffee and maybe a nap in." She glances back at Oliver, her lips pressing together before she shrugs, "Maybe he knows the plural of ninja? If you get a chance, ask him."

Now settling back to her work, Felicity makes it look so easy with her keystrokes, the only indication that she's actually //working// is the soft murmuring, the quiet mutters given as a personal play-by-play.

"Do you guys, like, 'do lunch' or something?"

Oliver Queen has posed:
"Not really. I mean, maybe some of them do, but I'm not really invited most of the time." He grins softly and shrugs a shoulder, still lounging on her makeshift bed. Yup, she'll smell his shampoo and other smells. All up in her private space.

He winces, then, as his teasing movements ends up pushing pain through those bruised ribs, and the pain is obvious as he stops. "Mmmph." He shakes his head and growls a bit to himself.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"Probably because you're a pillow stealer," Felicity retorts quickly before she actually realizes what she's saying. "I mean.. you.. that's my pillow.." which she knows he knows perfectly well!

She'll get even.

It's the wince, however, that brings her attention around, and those keen blue eyes go from casual to concerned in a millisecond. Rising from her seat, she locks the processes automatically. No one but she can get in when she does that.

She's dressed down and comfortable; A-line skirt, short sleeved shirt paired with it as a nod to the warming weather. Low heels.. and her hair is up and away from her face in a ponytail.

She crosses the short distance quickly, "Hey, you okay? Like, should I call a doctor sort of okay, or just call John so he can help sort of okay?"

Oliver Queen has posed:
"I'll be fine. Just some bruised ribs, I think." He sits up and peels his shirt up enough to glance down. Well, there are the usual abs. Next to them, however, is a pretty nasty, large bruise. He grunts and sinks back down. "I definatly don't need a doctor, though. Popped some pills and just waiting for them to kick in."

He scoots over enough for Felicity to sit and wedge in on her little bed if she wants, to get a better look at it. Of course. Just for that.

The man looks up at her and sighs. "I...I've been off my game," he finally admits.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Yup, there's the usual suspect all right. Those abs. But she's staring at the bruise, really she is. No.. really. Honest.

Bruise?

The stare becomes a touch guilty as she feels like he could be reading her mind, and the unconscious gesture of reaching out to touch it stops mid-way, and she pulls her hand back. Felicity winces at the color and the size as blue eyes move towards his face, "That looks like it really hurts."

Understatement of the year, maybe?

"I.. yeah, well.. maybe you could've started with a couple of burglars? Muggers, maybe? Did you really have to jump straight into ninja..sss?" Ninjae? Ninjum? No.. that's not right. "Just.. sayin', you know."

Oliver Queen has posed:
    This isn't Gotham with two dozen masked heroes, Felicity," he sighs softly. "If I wasn't stopping them, who would?" The man pulls himself slowly to his feet with a soft grunt. "I should grab a shower, though. Was last night off me. Hungry? I was considering swinging by Big Belly Burger after. I can bring you something or whatever."

He waits for her answer before the man turns, trudging up the stairs to his mansion.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"If not you, who.." Felicity mutters. "But, if you get too hurt, it still won't be you." Ha. Logic! Maybe. Though she's found over the short time of actually //working// with Oliver that logic doesn't always work. (He must have been a Liberal Arts undergrad student!)

Brows rise as she moves out of the way as Oliver gets up, and she slowly walks back to her workarea, her expression dubious. "Sure.. actually, wouldn't mind a chocolate milkshake? If you don't mind?"

Once he starts to head back up the stairs, she watches his progress until he's out of sight. With a long, deeply-breathed sigh, she turns in her rolly-chair and gets back to work in order to clean up the data for the JLA meeting.