Chapter Text
It took five days of captivity for Felicity to accept the fact that no-one was coming for her.
Her cell was stark and featureless, for the most part. There was a mattress on the floor, a toilet which she hated using, especially considering the camera high up in the corner, and a flat tv screen bolted to a wall. The screen was too high for her to smash.
It was always on, and always tuned to the local 24-hour news station. It was silent most of the time, except when Oliver was the subject of the broadcast.
One time, he was being interviewed about the so-called scandal involving his secret love-child, and he had to explain the entire thing again, from the beginning. When the subject changed to Felicity herself, she couldn’t help a feeling of resentment, mixed in with missing him so much she could hardly breathe. As he patiently repeated that Ms Smoak was taking a break from Star City, along with her mother, the anchor astutely asked if the break was from their relationship, too. Oliver changed the subject.
Felicity was amazed – when had Oliver gotten so good at acting? He didn’t look like a man who was grieving anything – whether it was the end of a relationship, or even a pause in it. She wished she could freeze the picture somehow, and study his eyes. His face told her nothing. It was a smiling mask, and nothing but platitudes and empty words came out of it.
Didn’t he care about her at all? She wasn’t even sure that it had been five days – what if it was more, and Oliver was over her already? Even though she told herself that it was ridiculous, she couldn’t help some doubt. Here she was, watching local news 24/7, and there was no mention of a certain vigilante tearing the town apart. Then she could have kicked herself – of course Oliver, or the Arrow, couldn’t do anything of the sort. Then it would be obvious to Damien Darhk that Oliver and the Green Arrow were one and the same.
Yes, it made sense. Yes, it was the logical thing to do. No, it didn’t make her feel any better. Try as she might, she couldn’t suppress a tiny sigh. When she’d woken up in the cell, she’d spent the first hour or so begging and screaming to be let out. It had only taken one show of force, one line of blank-faced men with guns, one promise of her being shot in the head and thrown in the harbour, for her to quiet down. Watching Oliver, though, knowing that he thought she was dead, should have made her scream even louder, but that was precisely what kept her silent. Hey, Kübler-Ross was wrong! Depression was the second stage, after screaming.
“Looks like you’ve been forgotten, Ms Smoak.” Felicity jumped, and then swore. Damien Darhk was standing outside her cell, arms folded, and she hadn’t even heard him walk up.
She shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant, even as she wondered what he wanted. There hadn’t been any torture sessions, any beatings, not even the usual intimidation. She’d just been locked up and forced to watch the news. Maybe that was torture.
“It’s only been, what . . . a few weeks?” Darhk smirked, relishing what was surely a look of shock on her face, even as she yelled at herself for not hiding her feelings better.
Felicity had read that somewhere, she was sure – one of the staples of torture was disorientation, and here she was. She already had no idea where they were keeping her – now she didn’t even know how much time had passed. What was the purpose of this? What was his endgame? What was he going to do to her? She almost screamed the last question out loud. She had to bite her lip till it bled to keep it in.
“I’d like you to work for me, Felicity. I can call you Felicity, can’t I?” Could this guy read minds, or what? It dawned on her that he didn’t need to, that her face was probably an open book, by now.
She had to clear her throat before speaking, and her voice, when it emerged, sounded hoarse from disuse. “What makes you think I’d do anything for you, let alone work?”
“Well, I was hoping you’d see how quickly they’ve all forgotten about you, how they’ve gotten over you. What do you suppose they’ve done with your body?” Darhk was relishing this, she could see. His eyes were brighter than usual, and his face was creased in a gleeful smile.
“That wasn’t my body! They’ll know that it isn’t me . . .” Felicity wished she sounded like she actually believed what she was saying.
“Oh, my dear child . . .” Darhk shook his head, the false sympathy radiating from him. “At least, when Sara Lance died, they had an empty coffin to put her in, some modicum of dignity. Where do you think they buried you? In someone’s backyard, like a dead pet?”
Felicity tried to be consoled by the fact that he didn’t know Sara was alive, and off travelling in time, having awesome adventures. It didn’t work. And he wasn’t finished.
“No-one’s coming for you, my dear. There will be no, ah, heroic rescue.” Darhk said the last phrase as if he was relishing it, rolling the words in his mouth like he could taste them. “Consider my offer, Felicity.”
“Can’t you just brainwash me with your weird pills like you do with all your ghosts?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to kick herself. Yes, Felicity, that’s right – remind the criminal mastermind that he can drug you.
Darhk gave her a pitying smile. “It’s perfect loyalty that I expect from my army, Ms. Smoak. And I will have it from you, too. Perhaps not today, though.”
From that moment on, all of her meals came with a yellow capsule, which she always returned untouched. Meals, though. That was overstating it. Some pre-packaged crackers and water, enough to keep her alive.
At first she wasn’t going to drink the water either, but then she gave in. She still had hope in the team – they couldn’t all have believed Earth 2 Felicity was her, could they? Someone must have asked Barry something, or maybe he volunteered the information himself, once they’d told him. If they’d told him. No, they must have. She held onto that hope with both hands, not giving up, even as more time passed.
Until the morning Felicity woke up, and she was naked.
She’d opened her eyes in the middle of a shiver, not understanding why her cell was colder than usual, until she looked down and realised she could see her legs, rather than the pants she’d been kidnapped in. She could only thank God that she still had a bra and panties on, even as her flesh crawled at the thought of one of Darhk’s goons undressing her.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm down. She repeated a mantra in her head: ‘it’s just a tactic, it’s intimidation, the subject is made to feel powerless, helpless, it doesn’t mean anything else.’ That wasn’t the problem – the problem was that it was working. She wanted to curl herself in a ball, but knew she had to face reality. She’d held out long enough.
Felicity sat up, resisting the urge to cover herself with her hands. She wouldn’t be any more covered in swimwear, she thought, and she had no problem with that. Yes, at the beach, she griped. Not in a cell with Darhk and all of his henchmen watching her. This was like a recurring nightmare from high school – being in class, and realising you’d forgotten your pants.
At least Darhk was making eye-contact, and the men he had with him were staring a foot above her head, faces blank. Except for one guy, the one holding what looked like the clothes they were all wearing; he was staring at her breasts. She clenched her hands into fists at her side. The door to her cell was open, and she wondered how long they’d been standing there. God, this was a nightmare.
“So, how is sexual assault supposed to make me want to work for you?” Immediately as she said it, Felicity knew she’d made a mistake. But she’d been seriously thrown off her game, here.
Darhk smirked. “Do you really think you’re that alluring, Felicity?”
She bristled, and again blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Rape isn’t about sex. It’s about power- and fantasies of control . . .”
She ended the sentence much slower than she’d started it. It was just like when Darhk had paralysed her in the loft, but this time, her own foolish tongue was the culprit. What was she saying?
“So. You don’t think I crave power, Felicity?”
The whole room seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for her to answer. She thought for a few seconds, conscious of Darhk’s eyes fixed on her like lasers. When she spoke, she weighed every word, feeling like she was navigating a minefield.
“I think you would consider rape to be . . . crass.” Her fists were clenched so tight that she could feel her fingernails cutting into her palms. She fought for self-control, as she waited for his next move. Begging was useless, she knew that.
Of course, Darhk always did the unexpected, she thought, as the sound of slow clapping reverberated in her cell. Not the slow clap, she thought in disgust, amazed that her brain still functioned enough to care.
“Well done, Felicity. You can get dressed now.” But the guy holding a bundle of clothes was in a world of his own, it looked like. He was transfixed by her body, and couldn’t see that Darhk was becoming ever more enraged.
Before she could do anything, like shout a warning (though why she’d want to warn Mr. I’ve-never-seen-breasts-before, she didn’t know), Darhk pulled a gun out of the man’s own holster, and put it to his head, taking the clothes bundle out of his hands at the same time.
The sound of the gunshot was deafening in the closed space. Darhk ignored the blood spatter and the body crumpled at his feet, and threw the bundle at Felicity, who caught it with some relief. She was trying hard not to breathe through her nose, though. She wasn’t sure what was worse – the smell of blood or the stench of cordite.
Darhk turned to walk away, aiming a “Clean this mess up” over his shoulder at the goons, who were staring at Felicity with resentment. Darhk didn’t see it – he was too busy tearing his second in command a new one. “I thought I reminded you to regulate the hormone suppressant. This is very unsatisfactory.”
When they moved out of range, Felicity couldn’t hear any more, something she was happy about. She was pretty sure that Darhk was running out of patience with her too, and that the next time she saw the little yellow pill, she wouldn’t be given much of a choice.
The next morning, or evening, or a week later – she had no sense of time any longer, and it was pointless pretending she had – Felicity was proven right, though it gave her no satisfaction. One ghost was holding her arms behind her back, while the other forced her mouth open and pushed the capsule down her throat, following it with water, making her swallow. They let her go and her knees turned to jelly as she did her best to suppress her gag reflex, pretty sure that he’d make her eat anything she threw up.
She glared up at Darhk. “You know, most people would just give me a shot.”
He shook his head. “Oh no, that wouldn’t do at all. Don’t worry, Felicity. This is when it all gets much easier.”
They stayed with Felicity until they were sure that she was feeling the effect of the drug. Darhk had been leaning against the wall of her cell the whole time, arms folded, face impassive.
“Now, Felicity, you mustn’t try to make yourself vomit. We’ll just give you another one, and this time it’ll be much more painful.” With that he left, and his soldiers left with him.
Felicity didn’t understand why she should try to make herself vomit, though. It was strange – even though they’d just locked her in a cell, she’d never felt better.