Chapter Text
There’s a Machine Where My Heart Should Be
…
Prologue
She’s soaked. Freezing rain cements her clothes to her skin as she kneels behind the body of the monstrous steam-engine so she can tinker with the cogs and wires inside. She’s certain black grease mars her face as she struggles against time and pressure to complete her task. If the water didn’t make the gears so slippery, this would be a hell of a lot easier.
Normally, she would take the time to admire the mechanical marvel in front of her - because the machine was truly amazing - but the distant grunts and gunshots are a constant reminder that the only thing between her and death is a six foot two wall of muscle that passes for a man. He’s a lethal blur of arms and legs as he fends off a handful of armed men trying to stop them from doing exactly what she’s doing right now.
Ding.
She winces when a bullet glances off the metal casing of the engine as she attaches her own device to the inside of the machine. She curses creatively under her breath as she winds the cogs to set the trap with a twinge of regret. This is a masterpiece. It’s a pity they can’t take it with them. The things she could do with this kind of tech...
There’s no point attempting to brush the mud from her clothes as she rises to a crouch behind the body of the tunneling device. She raises her two-way radio to her lips as she peeks cautiously around the body of the machine. “Mission Accomplished, White Queen,” she reports. Her only response from base camp is static.
Her partner stands fifty yards away, now firing arrows at the men that around him as he draws attention away from her so she can do her job unmolested. Even from her perch, she can see the line of dark, red blood running down his arm. They’re not getting out of this without some serious help, the kind of help that the White Queen won’t offer the Suicide Squad. They’re stuck unless they can get to the extraction point.
Her shivering hand wraps around the warm handle of her only weapon: a small gun of her own design that packs a powerful punch. She’s got eight shots left, eight deadly bolts of lightning before the gun loses its charge. Eight shots against twenty enemies and only five minutes to get out of the blast radius.
She’s had worse odds.
She flips her power pack on as she throws herself out from behind the cover of the large engine, taking careful aim at the man between her and her hooded counterpart.
“Ready to go, Robin Hood?” she asks as she lights two up with quick, concentrated bursts of lightning. Two down and too many left standing.
“Get out of here, Clockwork.” The words are a low growl in her ear, muffled in the static of the headset. She can see his lips moving across the compound. “We both know we’re not getting out of here together.”
“If you’re not leaving, I’m not leaving.” It’s a stupid sentiment, something she swore long ago she wouldn’t fall victim to ever again. She was in it for herself, not for anyone else. Except, against enormous odds, he’d actually managed to worm his way into her heart.
Another shot of lightning and another man crumbles into a pile of ash.
5 shots left.
She’s still half a compound away when the shadowy figure appears behind her partner. From her vantage, she watches as the shadow raises a gun, point-blank, at the back of her partner’s head.
“OLIVER!” The scream rips from her throat and burns as it escapes.
He turns just as the gun fires. A noise of pure agony echoes in the air, chilling in pitch and intensity as her heart is ripped from her chest and Oliver collapses to the ground.
The shadow steps forward so the light falls on his face. Her screech turns to pure rage. Him, the man who just destroyed the only good person in her life. Oliver was the only person who kept her sane in the last two years. The man who shot him? Cooper...He was a ghost from her past, from her life before the Suicide Squad. She’d sworn to kill him for what he did to her and here he was ruining her life all over again. It was his doing that she was here, that she spent the last few years in hell, and now he just killed the man she loved.
It galvanizes her. Her blood freezes in her veins, so cold it freezes out her emotions as she takes careful aim at Cooper. The technology she’s been dealing with suddenly makes sense: it was all him. This was always about him. She won’t make it out of this, not without Oliver’s help, but she’s definitely going to take Cooper with her.
Felicity has enough time to let off one deadly shot before the mercenaries turn their weapons on her. Even then, she would have stood her ground until they killed her if the first shot hadn’t impacted the metal armor of her corset and sent her staggering back. She curses as it throws her shot off enough that Cooper can dodge certain death.
Apparently, it wasn’t so certain.
Mud makes the ground under her feet slippery as she scrambles to get away from the weapons all now aiming for her. If she can get them close to the machine, she could take them all out with her. It’s not the best plan, but it’s the only one she has.
She ducks flying bullets purely from instinct, fights off the pain of grazes and cuts, and struggles to maintain her precarious balance. It Oliver hadn’t forced her through the Squad’s obstacle course day after day this would be impossible, especially with her corset. It’s pure luck her legs are unhindered by skirts on this mission.
Felicity pauses about twenty feet beyond the mechanical weapon, brought up short by the raging river she vaguely remembers as being too dangerous to swim across.
“Clockwork, report. Status of camp?”
Her breath comes in choked gasps as she turns her back to the river. They’ve stopped shooting now that they know she can’t get away and the enemy is slowly closing ranks, moving closer, cautious but steady.
“Robin Hood is down,” she dutifully reports. She covers the waver in her voice with gasping breaths of air. “Camp will fall in 3…2…”
There’s shout, a gunshot, and crippling pain as she jumps into the river just as the generator explodes. Heat sears her back in a split second before the water embraces her, yanking her downstream with the racing current.
She feels the bomb collar around her neck release in the frigid water as she drifts into unconsciousness, her last wish is that she’d survived long enough to get revenge on the man who somehow always managed to decimate her happiness.
...
She wakes in a violent upheaval of water. It gushes from her nose and mouth as she struggles to clear her lungs. It burns as it comes gushing out of her. Her lungs ache, her throat feels raw, and her nose feels assaulted. Her entire body aches and tells her that she’s still alive.
She wouldn’t be in pain if she was dead, right?
It can’t be Hell. She’s Jewish, doesn’t believe in it, so that means she can’t be sent to Hell, right? Logically speaking, if she’s feeling pain, she must be alive.
Then again, she’s not exactly a good person. If she did believe in it, she would imagine she’s exactly the kind of person who would be welcome in Hell, the kind of person who would be tortured until the end of time. For a large part of her life she’s even embraced her darker nature.
She doesn’t deserve Heaven.
Which is a pity, because she’s pretty sure Oliver’s the kind of person they let in.
Blue eyes fly open to a gray sky, a sky so covered in clouds it looks like a wall of gray. She rolls over, crying out at the pain in her back as she struggles on the small sandy embankment. She manages to pull herself from the water and into a seated position to take stock of her status.
Every limb is already starting to bruise and shivers wrack her body as her wet clothes are exposed to the biting wind. She can’t feel her legs, can’t even wiggle her toes, but they’re there and there’s still blood flowing to them.
Next her hand moves to her neck, to the device that kept her chained to Miss Waller and her Suicide Squad.
A laugh of pure joy escapes her at its absence. It’s gone! It’s really gone. It wasn’t a dream. She’s really free, free to be her own woman, to love…
Just like that the joy is gone, evaporated in the cold wind, leaving her frozen and alone.
He’s gone. Oliver’s gone and she’s alone again, alone in a world that had already chewed her up and spat her out. The safety and comfort he’d brought to her life were torn mercilessly from her grasp and all she’s left with is the small clockwork locket around her neck.
She blinks back warm, fresh tears as she stares at the river that saved her, twice.
Alone.
Lost.
Likely to be dead soon.
She squeezes the locket in her hand until it digs into the fleshy palm of her hand, biting hard enough that it will leave an impression. She survived this long and she will continue. She will survive, endure, rise. This will not be her end.
She has a second chance, and she’s going to use it.
…
Dark.
Cold.
Fear.
He can’t move, not a muscle, a twitch, anything…
How did he get here?
What…
Felicity!
The thought, which normally would have jerked him into action sent his heart racing at twice its usual speed. He remembered with vivid clarity, stunning technicolor and all those other clichés. He remembered it, just like he remembered every moment around the bright blonde.
She’d brightened his world since the moment she set foot in the A.R.G.U.S. detention facility, with her bright red lipstick and marvelous gadgets. Without trying, she’d become the one good thing about his situation. Her safety was his priority. He was just the distraction, the only thing between her and twenty or so thugs. It makes what they do for Waller a bit more tolerable.
He had been holding his own, but they were outnumbered and they weren’t going to get out of there, not together at any rate. He had run through all the scenarios. He could get her to safety, or at least hold them off long enough for her to get to the extraction point.
Then her scream rent the air.
That sound would haunt him for the rest of his life.
He remembers turning…
Then…
BANG!
A shot…
Oliver frowns. He doesn’t feel a wound of any sort. Then again, he can’t feel much of anything.
Is he dead? Is this what death feels like?
No.
He’s starting to get feeling back in his fingers.
And the black of his surroundings aren’t as finite as he thought. He can make out shadowy shakes in the periphery of a larger room, which means he’s not floating in nothingness. He’s in a room.
Squeak.
An old door hinge.
Click.
Black becomes blinding white. The only thing Oliver can do is blink against the sudden intrusion of light.
“Mr. Queen? Good. You’re awake. We could use your help.”