The final attempt! Happy happy birthday macyaudenstarr and I hope you like this absurd and silly thing. And the rest of the little things. Yay!
Completely and totally AU, of course.
*
“I’m not quite sure how I let you drag me here.” Oliver looks around the bar with a glower. “I don’t even sing.”
“Singing,” Thea says with a grin, “is not the point of karaoke and you know it. ATTEMPTING to sing is. Plus it’s Tommy’s birthday and you know making yourself look like a fool is the only present he has ever wanted.”
He’s hanging back, watching the rest of their crew crowd around the signup sheet. Thea owns Verdant, so she was able to sign up well in advance. Felicity and Sara have their heads together, excited about something. Diggle is flipping through the list of songs while Laurel lounges against the wall. There’s a fond smile on her face as she watches Tommy argue some finer point of music history with Roy.
It is nice to see them all here, and happy. Oliver’s willing to admit that. He just doesn’t think he should have to sing to make it happen.
They finish up and all head back to the table en masse. Thea’s got drinks ready, with a special spicy fruit juice for Laurel.
“Ok, so we’re all agreed on the rules?” Diggle grins as he starts in on his beer.
“Rules?” Oliver’s feeling lost. “You guys are making this a game?”
“Obviously,” Roy says. “Keep up.”
“Right, so.” Laurel consults a bar menu with some scribbled notes on the back. “Rule #1. Each singer gets one tap-in.”
“Only one.” Sara is glaring at him. Oliver shoots her a bland look back.
“I didn’t sign up for anything, so I won’t need one.”
The entire group suddenly refuses to meet his eyes. Shit.
“Uh, Rule #2.” Laurel hurries to fill the suspicious silence. “The team with the least points after the first round buys drinks for everyone.”
“Teams?” Oliver’s starting to feel like Thea kept him over at the table on purpose. “What teams?”
Tommy slings an arm around his shoulder. “C'mon, buddy. Relax into this. Try to have fun. We know you can do it.”
Felicity is counting heads. “We’re four and four, so let’s go men versus women?”
Sara’s grin is feral. “Too easy.”
Oliver sits up a little straighter. Tommy looks offended. Diggle and Roy look concerned.
“You think you can take me, baby Lance?” Tommy leans over the table. “On my birthday?”
Thea snorts. “Did you think that trash talk through before you tossed it at a League member, Merlyn?”
Sara just stirs her drink and smiles.
*
The first round is, apparently, 80’s songs.
Tommy kicks it off with Def Leppard. Laurel belts out some Joan Jett. Roy’s on stage, waiting for his Duran Duran song to start, when Oliver realizes something.
He leans over to Felicity, already on her second fruity cocktail. “Who’s keeping score?”
“That would be the Central City crew.” She pulls her phone out of her little purse and brings up a livestream. Of Verdant. There are comments.
BarrAll: Who knew Merlyn had those dance moves?CiscoFrisco: I also love rock and roll. And you.ColdCait: Do we have to take off points if they miss words? I can’t remember.I-West: Shhhh, Thea Queen is about to go full Madonna.
Oliver tries to summon up the outrage necessary to respond to this infringement of privacy. But he’s too busy laughing as Thea strikes a pose and starts in on Vogue.
Tommy argues that the song is from 1990 and should not qualify under the terms of the round. He's drowned out by the hoots from the crowd (and Sara).
Diggle follows with an impassioned Rick Springfield number. Felicity refuses to show Oliver any more of the comments due to "preserving the integrity of the vote" so he waits for her to take the stage and then digs through her purse.
"Oliver Queen please come to the stage."
He feels the heat of the spotlight on him, caught red-handed, and squints up at the stage in confusion. Felicity's laughing, and beckoning him over.
Thea gives him a push and he's moving.
"What's going on?" He mutters low and away from the microphone he's handed by the crew. "This is your song."
"It's a duet, Oliver. Don't screw this up for me." She shoots him a stern look and then turns back to the audience with a grin.
He knows the song from the first few chords.
Turn around...
*
Four rounds and several decades of music later, Oliver's sung three duets and hasn’t tapped in once. For the "classics" Thea had written him in for an Elvis song on his own. At least he'd been able to scowl through that one.
Tommy's on stage now with Laurel, doing a duet from that movie Grease.
The women are killing them in the scores, not that he expected otherwise.
Felicity slides over to him, a sauced grin on her face. "So you, Mr. Big Time Cranky Pants, are having fun. Don't pretend you aren't."
Thea and Roy are dancing, Diggle's had to peel off and get home to Lyla and the little one. Across the table, Sara's smile is soft as she nods her intention to head to the bathroom.
Felicity lays her head on his shoulder.
"I've had to buy all the drinks."
She giggles. "There have been a lot of them. And you wouldn't have to if you'd just win a round."
Fat chance of that happening. Still. "Tommy seems to be having fun."
"He's just glad everyone's here. Together." She's fading, her voice slow and sleepy. When she sags against him, Oliver scoops her up and pulls her onto his lap. She relaxes into his chest as Thea starts on a ballad.
"Me too, Felicity." He brushes a kiss over the top of her head. "Me too."
Felicity, something she can't find on the internet
Ok. Deep breath. I’m writing Arrow for you, macyaudenstarr. Happy goddamn birthday, woman. (wink wink)
Note - I’m not caught up so I asked a nice fan who is to check and make sure I’m not totally and completely wrong.
*
She’s looked before.
One of the first Federal databases she learned to hack, after all, was social security. She was looking for breadcrumbs. Clues to her father’s disappearance.
It’s Felicity’s biggest digital failure. Her only one, really.
Her mother, the one or two times she brings it up, just shakes her head.
“He’s gone, baby, and that’s what matters. What would you even do if you found him after all this time?”
Felicity’s not sure she can answer that. But she doesn’t stop the searches that run underneath her other work.
Oliver and Diggle never ask about them. Her partners in the lair assume the blinking green box of scripts is just another part of her custom-built system.
They’re right, it’s just a part that isn’t meant for them.
Every now and then she’ll tweak the criteria. Adjust the code as agencies upgrade their security and change access passwords.
More rarely, she’ll read the status emails that come once a day, filtered to a folder marked “Home” so they never hit her inbox. The subject line says it all: No Results to Display. But still sometimes she opens to read the details.
Ray is more curious. He’s also far better with computers than the rest of her team. She sends him to her workstation one night to check a download status and looks up to see his forehead creased with concern.
“Are you hacking a federal agency from your work computer?”
“No! I mean - not really. It’s running somewhere else I just mirror the stream so that I can - so no. I think the answer is no.”
He thinks it has something to do with her night job. She doesn’t correct him, just buries the feed under a few keystrokes so it no longer sits up on her screen.
When she comes back from Nanda Parbat, she doesn’t check her email for a week. She sleeps on Laurel’s couch, and they watch terrible movies and bake cupcakes. They cry about Sara and Tommy and the mess they’re in now. Thea comes looking for her on day six and stays, digging another sleeping bag out of the closet.
Over breakfast that morning, she reminds Felicity that the world keeps moving. “Diggle’s been asking for you. And some guy from MIT was hanging around asking questions. Says he wants to profile a successful graduate.”
Felicity blinks. Her world is in pieces around her. Success is the last thing on her mind.
But she boots up her tablet.
There’s a string of notes from the MIT PR guy, and she flags the newest for some kind of response. Ray has sent one asking when she thinks she might return to work.
That surprises her. She didn’t think she’d be welcome back.
She’s contemplating that, listening to Thea and Laurel talk softly over scone batter, when she notices that her “Home” folder has too many new messages.
Curious, she opens it and just stares.
For the last three days, she’s gotten four messages a day to this folder with the same subject.
URGENT: 1 result to display.
Her hands shake as she swipes the tablet closed and tosses it on the couch.
Her mother’s voice is soft in her head. “What would you even do if you found him after all this time?”
Felicity gets up and washes her hands, smiling as Laurel immediately decks her out in an apron.
She’s going to make some scones. And then she’s going to find her father.
"One, ow. Two, fuck you. Three, get me a bandage before I bleed to death."
Well macyaudenstarr, here’s #3 for the day. This one is some spoilers, though, so it might be a birthday present you have to unwrap later. When you’re done with Daredevil. I’m just saying.
SOME HINTED SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST SEASON. Nothing big but really you shouldn’t spoil yourself for this one. Just watch the show!
*
"One, ow. Two, fuck you. Three, get me a bandage before I bleed to death."
"You’re not going to bleed to death, Foggy.” Matt bites back a smile as he hauls his friend up, sliding a red-clad arm around him.
"How could you possibly know that? You may be many inexplicable things, my friend, but a doctor is not one of them. I think I could make a good case that that guy did in fact tear my arm off."
As Foggy complains, Matt listens.
Heart rate, a little fast but holding steady at 115 bpm. Breathing ragged, but no wheeze to indicate a pierced lung. Crunching sound in his left knee, probably an aggravation of the old scar tissue from that bike accident in college.
And one arrow in his side.
"We're just going to get you somewhere safe, ok buddy?"
"I wasn't exactly planning to risk my life at the grocery store. The office is out of tea bags, I just..." They start up some stairs, and Foggy stops talking with a hiss of pain.
The guilt hits hard. He'd been too slow, too far away. He'd left his friend exposed. He'd known going after the remnants of Gao's people would stir up desperate people.
He just hadn't expected archers.
And now his best friend was paying the price. Matt hadn't lied - the wound wasn't going to kill him. He would have heard the body's distress if it had hit a major artery or organ.
But he could tell it hurt like hell.
"Ok, I can tell you're already doing that thing where you've decided this is somehow your fault." Foggy leans on the wall as he yanks open the warehouse door. "Which it isn't, of course. They were aiming at the old lady behind the counter."
Matt's silence is deep and expressive. He can feel Foggy's sheepish, proud grin burning a hole in his mask. "So you got in front of an arrow."
"I didn't think this through quite as well as I should have," he admits, letting Matt pull him inside. "But at the time I was just glad it wasn't guns."
"Just, sit down and shut up for a minute." He drops his friend into a chair and digs out his burner phone.
"Say hi for me," Foggy calls out.
She picks up on the third ring. "Where are you?"
"11th and 50th, second floor."
"Give me 20 minutes."
"Ok." There's a pause, because it's Claire. She can always hear when he's holding something back. The silence tears it out of him, low and raspy. "It's - Claire, it's Foggy."
"Hi, Claire!" Now that he's sitting still, Foggy seems determined to enjoy his dramatic injury. "I caught an arrow with my ribcage!"
She sighs, and Matt lets the sympathy and frustration wash over him. Equal parts blessing and condemnation.
"He sounds ok. I'll make it 15."
His smile is tight, and unseen by either of them. "Thanks."
He slides the phone back into his pocket and tugs his mask off. Foggy pokes at the shaft of the bolt still stuck in his side.
"Still not sure how you screwed that one up." Matt doesn't answer. "Ooh, not ready for that conversation yet, I see. Wanna tell me why there was a guy with a crossbow in the D'Agostinos?"
macyaudenstar replied to your post “burningletter- answered to your post “I have 4 au meme prompts left....”
YOU ARE NOT THE WORST. (I know I tell you that often, but I'm teasing! It's always after fic. And always because you ended in a bad spot.) If you slept that late, your body probably needed it.
I so didn't, though! That was me rolling over and gauging how sunny it was and thinking "oh it's probably only noon. I can ignore the world for a while longer" and just... UGH.
absentlyabbie replied to your post “burningletter- answered to your post “I have 4 au meme prompts left....”
STOP THAT. You're not the worst. You will call them tomorrow. YOU WILL. Today was just not the day, tomorrow WILL BE. You stop that "I'm the worst" shit RIGHT NOW.
I KINDOF AM THOUGH. I have so much to do and I will feel so much better when it's done and I just. am. not. doing. it. Sigh.
macyaudenstar replied to your post “so no Felicity episode until season 3? I don’t know why I’m...”
Not even like little superficial lines, "today is my mom's birthday" or "I saw a movie with my sister last weekend" or something like that. Ridiculous. We know next to nothing about her. Also, I've given myself the headcanon that Laurel's friend
found a job in Central City to be closer to her family when CNRI collapsed. Since we haven't seen her at all. WE KNOW MORE ABOUT HER BACKSTORY THAN WE DO FELICITY'S. That just occurred to me and now I'm annoyed all over again.
Nothing. We get nothing about Felicity that does not relate to Oliver. Or Oliver's decisions. Or Oliver's needs.
This is a bad discussion. This discussion is getting me all riled up. WHY CAN'T YOU WRITE A CHARACTER OFF WITH THREE LINES OF DIALOGUE:
"Have you called Joanna, honey? Maybe she can stay with you?"
"She's gone, Dad. Moved back to Central City to get away from all of this. I've tried to talk to her, I just... there's nothing to say."
absentlyabbie replied to your post “so no Felicity episode until season 3? I don’t know why I’m...”
Oh believe me, I have been noting the absence of Joanna (I think that was her name) this season. I GUESS Laurel pushed her away while she was angrily griveing and crusading for the hood's head on a platter?
I liked Joanna, I thought Joanna was a really important balance to Laurel and made Laurel human and kept her steady and OH GOD WHY WOULD WE WANT WOMEN ON OUR SHOW THAT AREN'T CONSTANTLY IN PERIL/CRYING?
macyaudenstar answered to your post “I have 4 au meme prompts left. And I definitely did more than three...”
Yes. People would be interested in that. For sure. I keep forgetting about insurance. crap crap crap
You think? I don't want to seem presumptuous, but I do get a lot of "are you continuing this?" notes and lose track of all of them and it would be a way to give a few of these another shot.
We should have an insurance day tomorrow. (I have no idea how hard this is going to be to sign up for. BAH.)
macyaudenstar replied to your post “For the AU meme: Fitz and Simmons (brotp) find themselves on board the TARDIS.”
Awww Rory! Poor Doctor, you know he loves it when they say the thing. This was cute!
I KNOW HE DOES AND I FELT BAD! But Fitz and Simmons would so not be thrown.
batsonthebrain replied to your post “Ward/Simmons, Syfy Alice's world (I don't know. I'm so sorry)”
Simmons in this version of Wonderland might be my favorite thing.
I'm freaking out a little bit with how much I liked that one.
sweetrubytudor replied to your post “Some combination of Team Arrow + political AU”
THIS IS FANTASTIC
THANK YOU!
moonsfu replied to your post “Agents of SHIELD, International Pop Stars”
Oooh, I like this a lot.
Ha, I am the worst at musical AUs, so that's good.
moonsfu replied to your post “Ward/Simmons, Syfy Alice's world (I don't know. I'm so sorry)”
Bless you, you just combined two of my favourite things perfectly!
They are two of my favorite things too! This was FUN.
macyaudenstar replied to your post “Ward/Simmons, Syfy Alice's world (I don't know. I'm so sorry)”
eeeeeeee!!! I love this!! Simmons would be excited about falling into a portal and having no idea where she fell into. And Ward following her if she "falls into trouble" *sigh* This is just really great.
RIGHT? *dies* *comes back to life* *seriously thinks about writing some more*
macyaudenstar replied to your post “Agents of SHIELD, International Pop Stars”
I love this. Musical AUs are always so fun.
Are they? BAH. I always get bogged down in the details. Raina TOTALLY should have left for a rival band, not a solo career!
absentlyabbie replied to your post “Agents of SHIELD, International Pop Stars”
Hee! Nice. Though isn't it funny how even in an AU, you couldn't make Skye not be a super special girl. ;)
Welllllll, I mean, I just wanted the "moment" to be her meeting the team. And at least in this AU she has a specific skillset they need!
burningletter- replied to your post “Agents of SHIELD, International Pop Stars”
Yes to Skye and Jemma being friends from the get go
Yep. I wrote that eyebrow thing. And then I wrote Jemma's eyebrow thing. And then I was like, Jemma would be impressed, not intimidated. BAM, friends. And Ward's over there sulking in the corner. And Fitz is in love.
absentlyabbie replied to your post “girlwithsixsmiles replied to your post: allstartstofade asked:Some...”
HELL YES I CAN PICTURE ALL OF THAT. And Diggle knocking literal heads in the name of SECURITY.
Running the shit out of the secret service detail. Yep.
