Chapter Text
“Good morning, Felicity. It’s eight-thirty a.m. and you have a conference call in one hour.”
The Scottish tinge to the voice of D.A.V.I.S. normally made Felicity Stark smile. In the last month, though, she had been finding it hard to smile.
She smiled, of course. She smiled to reassure Oliver. To put on the brave face for the employees of Stark Industries. To keep her parents from worrying. To appear like she was recovering, that she was adjusting, that she was fine.
Yet Felicity knew she was so far from fine.
Rolling over in bed, she winced as her upper body moved while her lower body remained still. Motionless.
When would the day come when she would remember, when she woke up, that she was paralyzed?
Felicity pushed herself up and ran her hands through her hair. Like he had some kind of sixth sense, Oliver stepped out of the bathroom, showered and ready for his day.
“Hey,” he said softly, walking over to her and leaning down to kiss her. “Good morning.”
As much as she wanted to say it wasn’t a good morning, the satisfaction of saying exactly what she thought wouldn’t be enough to overcome how Oliver would react to her words. Even though what had happened to her wasn’t his fault, her dear sweet hero was having trouble believing that.
If it hadn’t been for Oliver, her injuries might not just be a damaged spinal cord. She might be dead. When Damian Darhk’s men had fired on their limo, on the way home from the tree-lighting/wedding announcement, Oliver had been able to keep his head and get them away from the men attacking them. Felicity had just cowered on the floor of the limo, unable to do anything.
Which had ended up being her fate--being unable to do anything--so she supposed it could be seen as foreshadowing. She had never really been capable of protecting herself and now she could do even less. At least before, she could have run away. Now, she would only be able to wheel away. Unless a midget with a limp was coming after her, Felicity stood no chance of escaping.
“Felicity?”
Giving her head a shake, she pasted a big smile on her face. “Good morning. You look all ready to go.”
“Yeah, early morning strategy session with Alex,” Oliver said, sounding less than thrilled.
Her smile felt more natural at seeing Oliver’s grumpy face. “You know Alex has been exactly what your campaign needed. Your numbers in the polls are going up and soon, you will be the new mayor of Star City,” Felicity said, reaching out for Oliver’s hands.
“Yours is the only vote that counts,” Oliver said, making her blush. Oliver was always sweet, with a gift for words he never seemed to realize he had. Ever since her injury, when he had barely left her hospital bedside and had then worked to get their loft wheelchair-friendly, the things he said were like a cherry on the sundae.
Or like the diamond ring sparkling on her finger. She couldn’t believe she had actually thought she should let him go, since her injuries meant she might never walk again. Oliver had very quickly disabused her of that notion.
Maybe she could keep her depression at bay if she just spent more time with Oliver.
“Thank you, but I don’t think that’s how elections work,” she said, reaching out to stroke his jacket lapel.
He smiled and kissed her cheek again. “You’ve got a conference call today?”
“Yeah, getting a status update on where the company stands,” Felicity replied, hoping she sounded at least slightly enthusiastic. Fake it ‘til you make it, after all. Even though conference calls were even worse than meetings.
Unfortunately, based off Oliver’s reaction, she must need some work on her enthusiastic attitude. “I’ll bring home some mint chip,” he said. “Do you want me to help you with getting dressed?”
“Only good thing about conference calls over meetings? Just my top half has to look like a vice-president,” Felicity said breezily. “I can handle that.”
With a chuckle, Oliver straightened up. “Okay. Dinner is in the fridge. Throw it in the oven and heat at four twenty-five for a half hour. I should be home around six, so we can eat together before I go to the lair. Or we go to the lair . . . ”
“The Arrow Cave,” she corrected him, hoping to distract him from the question of when she might start helping the team again.
“The lair,” he repeated, giving her a look. “See you tonight. I love you.”
Felicity reached out and grabbed his hand. “I love you, too,” she said, meaning it with everything inside her. Because over the last four weeks, everything in her life had been turned upside down. Except for Oliver.
A brilliant smile appeared on his face. The smile she loved to see, the smile that was hers and hers alone. He squeezed her hand and left the room with all of his stalking ninja-like grace.
Once again, the phrase “Hate to see him go, but love to watch him walk away,” popped into Felicity’s head. Which was true, but it bugged her. More accurately, these epic mood swings bugged her. One minute she was ready to stay in bed for the rest of her life, and the next, she was feeling as giddy as a sugar-filled toddler on a roller coaster.
Perhaps it was a side effect of her medication. Like the hallucinations she had experienced, right after she had come home from the hospital.
Malcolm Merlyn leered at her. “In a wheelchair now? You’ll be so much easier for me to catch this time. Because you really don’t think I had stayed dead, now, did you?”
Pepper brushed a hand over Felicity’s hair. “We should get you a live-in assistant. Someone to help you, Felicity. You can’t carry the load anymore. And you should definitely consider stepping down from SI to focus on your recovery. It’s all just too much for you--we always thought you had taken on too much, moving away and trying to run the company. It’s time you accepted your limits.”
Tony let out a soft whistle. “This isn’t good, princess. You think that himbo is gonna stick around now that you’re in that chair? He’s dumb, in a loyal little puppy dog kind of way. He’ll stick with you as long as he feels guilty. But when he needs to hump something, he’ll run off. He’s not that dumb--not after three years around you. You were bound to rub off on him. Unless . . . maybe you’re not as smart as you thought.”
Natasha gave her one of those long, loaded looks that always made Felicity feel weak and inferior. Beside her, Steve looked mournful, while Clint shook his head sadly. Bruce couldn’t even look at her, as if her injuries were an insult to him. The rest of the Avengers all gazed at her, with one expression on their faces: pity.
Just the memories of that horrible day and a half was enough to make Felicity shudder. Without telling anyone, she had started taking a half dose of that particular medication and the hallucinations had stopped. So even if she was in pain more often than she liked, it was worth it.
Reaching out, Felicity moved her wheelchair a bit closer to the bed, then set the brakes carefully. She levered herself into the chair, her arm muscles trembling a little, but nothing like they had when she had first attempted to get in her chair by herself.
“At least I’ll have the best arms in the Arrow Cave. Female division, that is. Although Thea would definitely beat me . . . and Lyla, too, and she’s not even a full member of Team Arrow,” Felicity muttered to herself as she pushed herself into her closet. Pushing aside those thoughts, Felicity picked out one of her most capable shirt-and-blazer combinations, then wheeled into the bathroom to change and do her hair and makeup.
By the time she finished, she looked more like her old self. Bright pink lips, hair in a ponytail, glasses on, wearing a bright purple top and a fitted black blazer. At least, from the waist up she looked like her old self. As long as no one noticed the wheelchair handles.
While she was in the hospital, Oliver had gotten a wheelchair lift installed in their loft, so she could move around without needing him to carry her up and down the stairs. It was useful, since her office was on the first floor. Much more convenient, too. But getting carried by Oliver was such a nice experience, with his chest right there . . .
Giving her head a shake, Felicity moved towards her office. She didn’t even want to think what her inbox looked like, let alone how many projects were stalled because of her absence. Hopefully, next week she would be able to go into the office again. Her doctor would probably insist upon half-days to start, but as long as she got into the building, that would go a long way to helping things get back to normal.
At least her computers didn't notice she was in a wheelchair. As soon as she had her fingers on the keyboard, she felt herself relax. The click-clack of the keys, the soft hum of the computer fans, the screens filled with information: they were exactly what she expected and just as she had left them, that afternoon before she had changed for the tree-lighting.
Including the folder on her desktop labeled WEDDING PLANS.
For a long moment, Felicity stared at the folder icon. She didn't open it, because like Pandora’s box, that folder was dangerous.
When Oliver had proposed two and a half years ago, Felicity had thought they would be engaged a normal length of time. Considering the size of her family, Oliver's profile in what was now Star City, and her workload, organizing a wedding turned out to be more of an undertaking than she had expected. Although thankfully not like the capital-U Undertaking.
She had been willing to wait until there was more time. Then she had been taken by Damian Darhk. And when she was sitting in that cell and remembering the first time she had been kidnapped and thought she was going to die--in that moment, all she could think about was marrying Oliver. Getting to say her wedding vows, putting a ring on his finger, officially becoming Felicity Queen.
Then Oliver had arrived, and even though it probably wasn’t the right time, she still had to ask him if he had changed his mind about marrying her. She had to know, in case--in case--just in case.
And he had smiled at her, and said, “Nothing’s changed, Felicity.”
His smile, realizing that no matter what, their wedding was now a priority . . . it gave her the strength she needed. She thought it had been the same for Oliver. So she had her answer ready when he kneeled before her at the tree-lighting and asked, “Felicity Stark, will you make me the happiest man on the face of the earth--in June?”
They were going to get married in June. Even now, with her in the wheelchair and unable to walk down the aisle like she had wanted. For better or worse, Oliver had told her in the hospital.
She just hoped they would only have good things for a while. That nothing would get worse from here.
The ping of the Stark teleconferencing software pulled her out of her thoughts, and Felicity pasted on her friendly, professional smile as her screen displayed a view of the SI conference room across town. “Good morning, everyone,” Felicity said, letting her eyes roam over the faces of the department heads gathered before her. “It’s good to see you.”
Everyone burst into a round of applause, making Felicity’s smile falter as the tears threatened. But instead, she lifted her head, double-downed on her smile, and focused on her normal mantra: What Would Pepper Do?
XXX
Felicity fidgeted with the pillows on the couch, plumping them up. Then she wheeled to the first floor bathroom to make sure there was a fresh roll of toilet paper. With that settled, she moved into the kitchen, where Oliver was pulling a quiche out of the oven. He glanced over at her, set down the casserole dish, and walked over to her. “Relax, baby,” he said softly, leaning down to kiss her.
That was the problem: she couldn’t relax. Moving her wheelchair as fast as she could was no match for pacing and shifting and doing stuff that required two working legs. There was so much nervous energy coursing through her and she felt like she had no way to release it.
Her parents would be arriving any minute now. This was the first time they would be visiting her since the initial aftermath of the accident. Based on what Pepper and Oliver had told her, she knew things had happened while she was in surgery and recovering, things that neither of them wanted to come out and tell her. She guessed her father had lost his cool and taken his fear and worry and anger out on Oliver, but she wasn’t sure. That made her nervous for how today was going to go. Especially since Felicity’s doctors had come to a final, irrevocable opinion on her injuries.
She was never going to walk again.
Just thinking about it made her feel so much. She felt overwhelmed--so overwhelmed, she couldn’t put it into words to tell Oliver, or Caitlin, or anyone. She was so angry she would miss out on so much, like dancing with her father at her wedding and running up to Oliver and playing laser tag with Franklin and Kitty and her other friends. She was ashamed she had never taken advantage of everything her body could do and had been so lazy. She was scared to death that one day, Oliver would get tired of having to help her, tired of not having the kind of sex they had enjoyed so much, tired of always protecting her.
Worst of all, she ached at the thought of someday having a child that she wouldn’t be able to protect in every way possible. Without the ability to walk, to run, how could she bring a baby into the scary, violent, amazing world in which she lived? A world where she was the daughter and wife of superheroes, a world where her child would be a target, just like Felicity was?
If she wasn’t physically capable of saving her child from the evil things in the world, was she capable of being a mother at all?
“Felicity. Hey, Felicity--”
Gasping, Felicity looked up at Oliver. His face looked a bit pained, and she suddenly realized she was clenching her hands around his so tightly, her fingers were white. She let go, wincing at the pain in her hands, and looked up at him, trying not to cry. Because she couldn’t ruin her makeup and she didn’t want her parents to see her in tears and if she started crying, she might never stop.
“Felicity,” Oliver said, reaching out to cup her face in his hands. But she couldn’t--he couldn’t touch her. Not right now. She moved her chair back out of his reach and quickly wiped at her eyes.
“I’m fine--I’m okay,” she told him quickly. “How’s the quiche looking? Is there anything I can do? I can still chop fruit, you know. I’m still the best fruit salad maker on the West Coast, right?”
She just . . . she needed things to be normal. Even if nothing was normal and would never be normal again.
Oliver gazed at her, still crouched down in front of her like he had started doing ever since she had become stuck in this chair. He opened his mouth, then closed it, and she hoped with all her heart that he would understand. That he wouldn’t ask her if she needed a pain pill (she did but she wouldn’t take one and risk more hallucinations) or if she wanted to cancel her parents’ visit (no but also yes) or if she wanted to talk (please, don’t ask her to talk).
“You are still the best fruit salad maker on the West Coast,” he said, his voice breaking a little. His eyes were glassy, too, but he put on a smile as he looked at her. “And a fruit salad is just what we need to finish off brunch.”
Taking a deep breath, Felicity nodded. “Okay. Okay, I’m on it.” She maneuvered her chair towards the fridge as Oliver stood up and did something with the quiche, but not before he rubbed his hand over his eyes.
There were blueberries and grapes and pineapple in the fridge. Felicity piled the containers into her lap and moved over to the table--a new one that Oliver had installed in the kitchen, as a workspace for her. She put the fruit on the table, then moved to get a bowl, a cutting board and a knife. She could feel Oliver’s eyes on her, but he didn’t say anything.
In the quiet, only broken by the sound of the knife cutting through the fruit and the pieces hitting the bowl, the clink of the spoon stirring the fresh-squeezed orange juice and the plates and silverware being laid on the dining room table, Felicity felt herself calming down. Felt her emotions smoothing out, letting her push aside all her worries and just focus on how good it would be to see her parents.
When the doorbell rang, Felicity actually meant it when she smiled. “I’ve got it,” she told Oliver, pushing back from the table and heading towards the door. As she approached it, D.A.V.I.S. activated the monitor by the door, now angled so she could see it, revealing her parents standing on the other side of the door, a half foot of space between them.
Fumbling a little with the doorknob, Felicity pulled the door open and smiled up at them. “Hey, Mom and Dad.”
“Felicity,” Pepper said, immediately stepping forward and bending down to hug her. Her mother’s arms felt bonier than normal, but she hugged Felicity as tightly as she always did. And she still smelled the same: freesia and citrus and tea. Felicity rubbed Pepper’s back and looked up at her dad, smiling a little.
“Hey, princess,” he said tightly. Tony reached out and brushed his hand over her hair.
“Hi, Dad,” she said, smiling up at him. Pepper pulled back reluctantly, straightening up and standing beside Tony. Felicity edged her wheelchair back, then turned back and forth in it to show it off. “What do you think? Or should I trade this in for something like Professor Xavier’s hoverchair?”
Tony snorted. “Like I couldn’t design you something a thousand times better than that piece of junk,” he said, making Pepper laugh a little.
Felicity smiled, feeling herself relax. “We can talk more about that later, but right now, I bet you’re starving. Oliver made quiche.”
Turning around, Felicity wheeled herself into the kitchen, feeling pleased that she could show how far she had come from the hospital.
“Oliver, everything smells wonderful,” Pepper said as she followed Felicity into the kitchen. She kissed his cheek and looked at Tony, who stole a blueberry from the fruit salad and nodded when his mouth was full.
“Dad,” Felicity said, rolling her eyes at him.
“No, your father is just trying to be polite and not talk with his mouth full,” Pepper said dryly. “Oliver, is that orange juice?”
Oliver smiled and nodded. “Yes, fresh squeezed. There’s champagne if you want to make it a mimosa.”
“Please and thank you,” Pepper said, following Oliver’s nonverbal instructions to retrieve the champagne. “Anyone else?”
Felicity thought for a moment, then raised her hand. “Just make mine weak,” she said, thinking about her pain pills.
“You got it,” Pepper said, pouring a splash of champagne into one glass and considerably more than a splash in the other.
“Got any vodka, Oliver?” Tony asked, his eyes fixed on Felicity’s fiancé.
There was something in her dad’s voice that made Felicity’s senses go on red alert. Especially when her mother rolled her eyes and muttered as she lifted her glass, “Just what we need.”
“Um . . . yes,” Oliver said, his eyes flicking between Tony, Pepper and Felicity. He turned and opened the freezer, taking out a bottle and handing it to Tony.
Her father eyed the bottle and nodded. “Knew you’d have the good stuff, what with being in the Bratva.”
Oliver froze and Felicity felt like swearing. “I’m not officially in the Bratva any longer,” Oliver said quietly after a moment. “But you know that. Tony, I don’t want to fight with you--”
“Who’s fighting?” Tony asked as he poured a healthy measure of vodka into his glass. He topped it off with some orange juice and took a sip, eyeing Oliver over the rim of the glass. “I’m just making conversation.”
“Tony, don’t do this,” Pepper warned. Her hand went to her necklace--a necklace Pepper had worn off and on as long as Felicity could remember--her thin delicate fingers wrapping around the heart-shaped pendant and gripping it tightly.
“Why not?” Tony asked, banging his glass down on the island. “Why shouldn’t I remind our daughter’s fiancé of the awful things he’s done, the things that have put our daughter--”
He broke off, looking down, and Pepper turned around and looked at Felicity. “The bathroom’s still in the same place?” Pepper asked. Felicity realized she was trying to sound unruffled, but Felicity knew how her mother was. She knew Pepper would never break down in public, in front of people.
Sadly, Felicity nodded and pointed towards the bathroom. Pepper walked away, her back very straight, her heels clicking against the hardwood floors in the silence that had descended.
Tony suddenly picked up his glass and stalked out onto the balcony, leaving Felicity and Oliver alone. Felicity looked at Oliver, then moved closer to him and took his hand. “It’s not your fault,” she told him. “My father’s wrong.”
His head was hanging low, but Oliver squeezed her hand. “I know,” he said softly. “Why don’t you go talk to him? I’ll take care of your mom when she comes out of the bathroom.”
Felicity tugged on his hand so he would lean down enough for her to kiss him. “Okay. Don’t eat without us, okay?”
That made Oliver smile, which was what she was trying to do. Then, reluctantly letting go of his hand, Felicity wheeled herself out onto the balcony. She took a deep breath, savoring the fresh, cool air. It was a sunny day, but it was still February in Star City. Yet it was the first time she had been outside in so long, she couldn’t help taking a moment to just enjoy the wind on her skin and fill her lungs with air that wasn’t stale and recycled.
Then she looked over at her father, who was leaning on the balcony, sipping his drink and staring out at the view.
“You can drop the innocent act,” she told him as she moved closer. Because she had an idea why he was acting like this, and while she could understand what he had done and knew his heart was in the right place, she couldn’t let him do this. Not if her guess was right. So she went ahead and accused him of doing what she would have done if their positions were reversed. “Do you think I don’t know what you’ve done? You hacked my medical records.”
Which meant he knew about her permanent paralysis and was blaming Oliver for it.
Tony huffed out a breath and glanced over at her. “You’re too smart for your own good. What makes you think anything is going on, beyond seeing you in a wheelchair?”
“I am too smart for my own good--just like my father. I know what I’d do if the tables were turned,” Felicity replied quietly. “So that’s how I know you know the truth. You’re never going to see me out of this wheelchair.”
It was one of the hardest things Felicity had ever done: watching her father cope with a challenge that he couldn’t fix, that he couldn’t repair. She pressed her lips together, his pain increasing her own, until she just had to say something. All she wanted was to make that sad, haunted, scared look leave his eyes.
She wheeled forward and took his hand. “It could have been so much worse, Dad. And I know you blame Oliver, but we both know that’s not whose fault it is. It’s because of Damian Darhk that I’m in this chair, and we are going to take him down--Oliver and me and our team. He’s not going to hurt anyone else.”
“You never wanted this. You never wanted to be on the front lines--it shouldn’t have happened to you,” Tony argued weakly.
“So who should it have happened to, Dad? Oliver? Digg? What if Rob had been paralyzed protecting me, or if it had been Thea or Mom or, God, you? Do you think that would make this any easier to deal with?” Felicity argued, glaring at him. “When I decided to start helping Oliver, I knew the risks I was taking. More than anyone, I knew. And I cannot have you eating yourself up over this--just like I can’t let Oliver or Mom or anyone feel guilty for something they wish had never happened to me.”
Deep down, Felicity wondered why she was arguing so hard with Tony over this. Because . . . in that dark, hidden place inside her, there was a knot of feelings that were too complex to work out, feelings that told her she wasn’t nearly as strong as she was acting, wasn’t nearly as resolved to her situation as she was making herself out to be. But Felicity ignored that problem, shoving it down along with all the other things she refused to think about, in order to try and get through to her father.
“I know all of you would have taken this burden from me if you could have,” Felicity whispered. “But this is my burden to carry, and if that means Damian Darhk is defeated, and you can go save the world with the Avengers, and everyone I care about is okay . . . then I’ll have to find a way to carry it.”
“You can’t just give up like this, princess,” Tony said, squeezing her hand. “There’s gotta be a way for you to walk again. I--I should call Bruce. And Reed. Hell, I’ll even call that crackhole Stephen Strange, but--but you are not gonna be in that chair forever, you hear me? I need you to fight while you’re carrying that burden, which, by the way, you’re not carrying alone. Not as long as I’m around.”
Through the tears in her eyes, she smiled up at Tony. “Okay, Dad. I promise. But if you start picking fights with Oliver, all bets are off, you got me?”
Tony sighed but nodded. “I got you.”
“Good,” she said. “Now, c’mon, I’m hungry and Oliver’s quiche is to die for.”
She tried to turn her wheelchair around, but the balcony was too narrow for her to do that. With a sigh, she dropped her hands into her lap and looked up at Tony. “A little help?”
“You got it, princess,” Tony said, moving around her to pull her back into the loft. “Definitely could improve the turning radius on this. Maybe install a jetpack so you could just fly over obstacles.”
Felicity couldn’t help laughing. “Have to make it better than Professor Xavier’s, right?”
“You bet your ass,” Tony said with a grin as he pushed her inside.
XXX
“Welcome back, Miss Stark!”
“Good to see you, Felicity!”
“Now we can start getting back to normal!”
As she moved through the employees crowding the lobby of SI’s headquarters in Star City, Felicity smiled and nodded and accepted handshakes, all while trying to get past them and get onto the elevator so she could be alone. So she could breathe.
This was all too much. It was too soon--she shouldn’t have come back to work, she should have stayed home, she was trying to do too much. She should have listened to her doctors and Oliver and her parents, everyone who had encouraged her to take some extra time, to go slow.
She hadn’t listened and now she was paying the price.
Once she was by herself, in the elevator rising towards the top floor of the building . . . she still couldn’t breathe, though. Felicity felt like a gorilla was sitting on her chest. She gripped the armrests on her chair, trying to pull herself together. She panted, sharp short little breaths, her eyes squeezed shut, willing herself to get past whatever was making her heart race and her forehead bead with sweat.
It felt like it lasted an hour, but Felicity knew it was only a minute. The tension loosened, leaving her as limp as a rag doll. She opened her eyes, wincing at the too-bright lights in the elevator, and just stared into space as her brain, for once, was blissfully quiet.
When the elevator dinged, indicating she was at her floor, it took all her energy to straighten up and wheel herself out. As she rolled down the hallway, she squinted as she approached a tall, gangly African-American man, waiting just outside the entrance of her office.
When he spotted her, he grinned widely. “Miss Stark! It’s great to see you.”
His name was on the tip of her tongue . . . then she remembered. “Curtis,” she said, smiling up at him. “Hi.”
Curtis Holt was a Renaissance man: Olympic bronze medalist, nerd, and a gifted engineer in the Applied Sciences Division. Stark Industries had stolen him away from Palmer Technologies and expected great things, although so far he had been a bit of a slow starter, according to the head of the division.
Normally, Felicity didn’t get to spend much time with the engineers in the various divisions, which was something she was always trying to fix. If SI was going to remain competitive, it came down to their staff feeling valued, to everyone making contributions to the company. The best ideas often came from lower-level employees, people who were just out of school and had ambitious, daring concepts that weren’t always appreciated by their supervisors.
Maybe it was time Felicity made those interactions with the front-line employees a priority--starting now. If nothing else, she needed something to get herself out of her head. So she put on a smile and asked Curtis, who was blocking the door to her office, “What can I do for you, Curtis?”
“The better question is what can I do for you. Kinda like how JFK said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,’ and then we got the Peace Corps out of it, which was pretty awesome, I think we can both agree,” Curtis said, a big smile on his face.
“Except for all the needles,” Felicity said without thinking. Curtis looked at her, his face confused, and Felicity waved a hand in the air. “All the needles that a Peace Corps volunteer faced, because you go to places like Africa and you have to get all these shots? I have a thing about needles.”
“Ahhh,” Curtis said. “Right. Well, I have something I wanted to share with you, Miss Stark, if you had a minute--”
A throat cleared from behind Curtis, then a voice piped up. “If you want to talk to Miss Stark, why don’t you let her come into her office so she can check her schedule?”
Felicity had to smile at the bossy tone Gerry, her faithful assistant, had adopted. Meanwhile, Curtis was spluttering, torn between turning around to apologize to Gerry, turning back to apologize to Felicity, and getting out of her way.
“It’s okay, Curtis,” Felicity said, which made Curtis finally step back into the office enough for her to get inside. She smiled at Gerry and said, “Let me talk with Curtis for five minutes, and then we’ll get back on schedule, Gerry. Thank you.”
“Of course, Miss Stark,” Gerry said, eyeing Curtis a bit disdainfully--but also with interest.
Felicity wheeled into her private office, glancing back and gesturing at Curtis to follow her. He hesitated, then hurried to catch up as she moved behind her desk, the office having been reconfigured for her while she was gone. “Okay, Curtis, how do you want to help me?” she asked as he took a seat in front of her.
“Yes, well, I had this idea, something I had just been tinkering with--and then we all heard about what had happened to you, Miss Stark, and, well--” Curtis looked at her, his eyes filled with kindness. “My husband is a physical therapist, so I knew . . . I knew things didn’t look good for you. Then I remembered this idea, the one I had been tinkering with, and I started wondering--well, more I went beyond tinkering into full-on working nonstop. And, well--I’ve done it.”
Nodding slowly, Felicity took him in. He was practically buzzing with excitement, which was great--she loved seeing employees excited about their work. But . . .
“That’s great, Curtis, but . . . what have you done?”
He stared at her for a moment, then started scrambling for something in his pocket. “Oh! Right, you don’t know. I’ve designed a bio-stimulant implant. See, your nervous system, it’s like a big old electrical system for your body, but right now, some of the circuits in your body are broken because of, you know, your spinal cord injury.”
Leaning closer to her, Curtis placed a box on her desk and opened it. “But with this chip, implanted in your spine . . . the circuits won’t be broken anymore. Your brain would be able to send signals to your feet so--”
“So I could walk again?” she asked breathlessly, staring at the small chip laying inside a foam enclosure.
“That’s the idea,” Curtis said softly, his voice gentle and reassuring. “It’s all theoretical, but--but I think it should work. And . . . and I figured, what did we have to lose by trying?”
Felicity leaned forward, unable to look at anything but the chip. Because . . . with that little piece of technology, she could walk again. She could have the life she thought was gone. She could walk down the aisle at her wedding. She could have a baby and be able to protect it. She wouldn’t lose anything--she wouldn’t lose everything.
All thanks to a tiny little chip.
Slowly, she lifted her eyes to Curtis, who smiled at her nervously. “I know it’s probably a big overstep, Miss Stark, but--but I just wanted to help, and I know it’s really huge--a huge risk, but--”
“Curtis,” Felicity said, holding a hand up, before she smiled at him. “Thank you.”
He breathed out, his shoulders slumping in a cartoon-like expression of relief. Felicity smiled a bit wider, but her eyes were drawn back to the chip. With trembling fingers, she reached out and touched a fingertip to the foam surrounding the chip.
This could change everything.
End, Chapter 1