Author's note: This is my first Arrow fic as well as my first multi-chapter fic. I hope you enjoy it!

Felicity was tapping away at her keyboard, waiting for Oliver and Diggle to come back from their latest mission to give them her news. They were still on the comms, so she knew the moment they arrived at Verdant. This had been a quick and easy one, but it still didn't stop her racing heart from slowing down a little bit every time they made it back safely from a mission.

The empty room amplified her every move, and even with the men in her earpiece, she could still hear the echo of the keys tapping and it always made her feel uneasy to be there by herself.

It was fairly early in the evening, they had come right from Queen Consolidated, so even the club directly above her wouldn't be active for a few more hours.

The familiar sound of feet on the stairwell made her swivel around to watch as her boys arrived safely back at the lair. She let them put down their gear, watching as Oliver hung his bow and pushed down his green hood, letting it fall to his neck exposing his face with the green mask still on.

Without even realizing she was doing it, she got up from her chair to take off his mask and place it in the glass case along with his bow.

"What is it, Felicity?" asked Digg, who had removed his coat and put his gun down on the counter.

She must have given Diggle a funny look because he leaned against her desk and crossed his arms. "You only help us settle in when you're waiting to tell us something."

A sheepish smile crossed her face as he added, "I should change that to you only help him settle in when you're waiting to tell us something."

Felicity winced internally and made a mental note to do something nice for Diggle in the next few days. "Sorry Digg. You know how I feel about handling guns versus arrows. Maybe when you start wearing a mask, I'll help you put it away.

"And come to think of it, it wouldn't hurt to make a point to start putting away every potentially lethal object around here, we already screwed that up when Barry was here and found nitric acid next to the hydrazine which apparently is really bad –" she was making an explosion gesture with her hands when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Felicity." She spun and saw Oliver standing over her, his eyes focused and waiting.

She let out a slow breath. "Right. Sorry." Maybe it was the rambling that made him stop her, or maybe it was the mention of Barry that she knew he didn't like, and she honestly didn't even mean to bring up. She silently added Oliver to her list of people to do something nice for.

"There's good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?" A quick glance at Oliver's face and stance showed he was nearing the end of his patience for waiting.

"Right. Sorry again. The good news is that we have the chance to stop a million dollar arms deal going down."

"And the bad news?" asked Diggle.

"The bad news," Felicity continued, "is it has to be done tonight. Like, in a few hours. But there is more good news. I can do it from here."

Oliver moved to stand closer to the computer monitors. "Felicity, what exactly is going on?"

Felicity walked over and Oliver absently pulled out the chair so Felicity could take her seat. A few clicks, and she had brought back up the info she had been working on before Oliver and Diggle arrived back at the lair. A photo appeared on the screen.

"This is Anderson Baler. The Baler Foundation is a non-profit agency dedicated to providing transport of donated food, goods and school supplies to and from Starling City to other cities in the country.

However it would seem that no one's ever actually inspected the trucks carrying supposed donated goods. Unless of course they're teaching first graders how to use semi-automatic weapons now, which is what's really in those trucks. The Baler Foundation, as it turns out, is just a front for a major arms smuggling operation."

She swiveled again in her chair, facing Oliver and Diggle. "And guess who is having a fund raising gala at his house tonight?"

"Baler himself," answered Diggle as Oliver replied with tight lips, "He's paying for his next shipment with the donation money."

"Bingo," said Felicity, pointing to Oliver. "His phone history has a few texts, mostly about lunch orders, that man can eat like it's nobody's business. But there's definitely a money transfer going down there tonight."

Diggle stood up from the desk he was leaning on and looked at Oliver. "Did you know about this event tonight?"

The blank look on Oliver's face confirmed that most likely no one in his family knew about it. "No, as far as I know, Thea's headed to Verdant soon to open up for the night."

Felicity couldn't contain her surprise at that. "Wow, a gala that the Queens didn't know about? I didn't think that was possible."

He gave her a sideways glance. "We've never donated to them before, I guess they had a pretty big guest list already based on past donors, that's not uncommon."

Oliver shrugged casually, but Felicity knew him well enough to see the faint glimmer of surprise at hearing about the gala.

She knew how hard his daily balancing act was. From playboy billionaire CEO and loving son and brother by day to hero by night, she knew he relied on her to keep his reality focused and grounded. Tomorrow morning she'd add a ping to her daily search of area events and happenings, but for now, she could stop this transaction from going down.

"You said you could stop it from here?" Oliver's voice echoed from the back of the room. Apparently satisfied with her report, he'd shucked off his green leather hoodie and started releasing some of his unused adrenaline from the previous mission on the mat.

"Do I like mint chip ice cream and chinese food on a Friday night? I'm already on it." Out of the corner of her eye she caught Diggle smirking at her and answered with a smile of her own.

For the next twenty minutes, the lair was filled with the sounds of Oliver silently working out, Diggle cleaning his weapons, and Felicity tapping on the keyboard.

For Felicity, accessing the Baler Foundation's network was easy. She traced his IP address from his sent email headers and mapped it to the physical location of his house. She stared at the screen incredulously. "His server is actually at his house. Where the gala is."

Diggle looked up from his cleaning and glanced at her. "Is that unusual?"

"No," she replied, "more just… surprising. I guess I'm getting too used to the high executive life of server rooms guarded 24/7 on the highest floor in the building." Her mind fleeted back to being in Oliver's arms as he carried her across the elevator shaft to access Malcom Merlyn's computer network.

She let out a small shudder, not knowing whether it was the memory of the height itself, or being in Oliver's arms for a short time.

"Don't get spoiled by a job being too easy, wouldn't want that now," she caught Diggle's teasing tone from his table and appreciated the acknowledgement, and the fact that he clearly didn't see her shudder.

She breached the login screen with ease and headed to the remote screen of the server. "Oh, come on, surely even I deserve a vacation from time to ti – wait a minute."

Something wasn't right. She had seen the remote screen flash up. For a brief moment, it was there, but in a flash she was disconnected.

Her change in tone must have brought both Oliver and Diggle up to her desk, as they appeared next to her without her even realizing they had moved.

"Felicity?" The curious questioning tone in Oliver's voice was unmistakable and Digg glanced at him before looking back to Felicity with concern.

She tried it again, with the same results. Login, connect to server, see it for a second, get disconnected. Frustrated, she pounded her fist into the desk she was working on, causing the keyboard to jump. She felt Oliver's warm palm on her shoulder again and closed her eyes, allowing a wave of calm to wash over her at his touch. "I-I think there's someone there. In the server room, disconnecting me."

After taking a deep breath, she felt much more focused. Silently cursing her karma at thinking this was going to be too easy, she switched tactics and tried several more back-door attempts to access the server. Before she was disconnected, she'd had a few seconds to see the screen, which gave her the operating system version and the means of network the server was using. She used that knowledge to gain access to the router without having to go through the server.

However, each attempt was met with the same denial. It was like whoever was on the other end knew what she was going to try three steps before she tried it.

She made one more desperate attempt to connect remotely and had the server visible on her screen, when a DOS window opened on the remote server. The cursor blinked a few times, and the words "SORRY" typed out in front of her.

She let out an audible gasp and flung the power cord out of the back of her up so quickly her chair would have tipped over had Diggle not had the reflexes to catch it in time, she ran into the bathroom and tried to turn on the faucet with shaking hands.

She couldn't seem to grasp the handle, until she saw a hand cover hers and twist the water to the on position.

She looked up into the mirror and saw Oliver's face, concern written all over it staring back at her.

"Felicity, what happened?" The gentle tone of his voice for once did nothing to alleviate her frustration.

She paused to splash warm water on her face and turned to face Oliver, who calmly turned off the faucet. "Thanks. They knew what I was doing. Whoever it is, they're good. As good as me. And you know I'm not bragging, I'm letting you know that we're not talking about an amateur here."

Oliver closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and handing her a towel. "I don't think you're bragging. Were you able to access anything?"

"Not for more than a few seconds. I do know that our network is safe. The remote window they opened up to type out the message was on their server, not ours. So at least while they know we tried to get in, they'll never be able to trace it back to us." She paused and couldn't keep the pride out of her voice. "No matter how good they are."

She saw Oliver's lips curl up for a brief moment while he followed her out of the bathroom, once again enjoying the feel of his warm hand on her back.

"The question is, does he know what's going down tonight or not." Felicity almost missed Diggle's question as Oliver's hand left her back, and she lamented the loss.

"Or 'she', I'll thank you very much for not making assumptions" she couldn't resist as she sat back down in her chair and once again faced her boys.

Her brilliant mind raced with possible solutions, each one always arriving at the same conclusion. She thought of the individual gangs of the Glades having access to millions of dollars worth of weapons and made up her mind on the spot.

"There's no other way to do this." She looked at the blank looks staring back at her. Apparently she would have to spell this out.

"I have a way to take down the network, but I need to be in that server room."

Diggle was already starting to open his mouth but Felicity was faster.

"Oliver, get your checkbook and your tuxedo ready. We're going to a fund raiser."