An embarrassing choice

Being a vigilante was dirty work. Throwing people, and occasionally being thrown, around the grimy streets of Star City. Laurel Lance grimaced as she returned to the so-named Arrow Cave, slipping down the secret back entrance.

She was dressed as the Black Canary, one of the city's vigilantes; she'd been doing a bit of solo work, dealing with a bit of smaller scale crime. None of the major threats the team had been tracking.

Speaking of...

"Hello!" Laurel called into the cave. No one answered.

Well, that did make things easier. Laurel pulled off her wig and mask, the key identity concealment of her secret identity, idly dropping them off near the secret entrance/exit. It was freeing to take them off, to relax slightly. That and it would let any of the team coming by know that she was here.

Still, if she was alone, she could take a shower. A cubicle had been included in the secret base just so they could wash off the sweat worked up by sparring and fighting. As such it was fairly close to the back entrance.

She walked past it first though, to the main body of the cave. There was the main entrance there, and beside it a series of mannequins. One was dressed up as Ollie's Green Arrow, another as Thea's Speedy... And another was wearing Laurel's civilian clothes.

Technically they were just meant to leave those clothes folded up, but Laurel found the look amusing. Vigilante, vigilante, lawyer.

Then, glancing around again to quickly check she was alone, Laurel stripped down, peeling the black leather of her Black Canary costume off. She left it by the mannequin, intending to switch the outfits when she was done. Then, finally, she stripped off her underwear (a matching black), putting it atop the leather.

She'd gotten to like adrenaline rushes a little. Spending a couple more seconds in the base naked than she necessarily need to appealed to the same part of her that regularly fought bad guys; still, she had made sure she was alone.

Laurel hurried back over towards the showers-

She was most of the way there when a klaxon started blaring. Laurel jumped, her toned, naked body suddenly bathed in red light.

Felicity and Diggle had set up a dozen different warning systems. Intruders in the base, or-

"Bomb detected," a recording of Felicity's voice said. "Estimated," the voice cut out to be briefly replaced by an uneven, electronic one, "Ten sec- onds." Then Felicity was back. "Until detonation. Evacuate immediately."

What?! Of all the times-

She wasted a split second in panic. She knew how the system worked, every few minutes a sweep of the base would be done (it couldn't be constant without eating up processing power), and what data it could get would be drawn. If it said ten seconds, it meant ten seconds.

She was midway between the two exits. And naked, fuck, she couldn't forget that. Stupid, stupid, why had she gone for the cheap thrill?

She could run out the front exit. At least that way she'd be able to get her underwear. Anything more though... She couldn't have the Canary outfit with her unless she had her mask, the consequences for that would be worse than embarassment, and she couldn't strip the mannequin in time.

Or there was the back exit; no clothes, but at least there was the mask, at least she could hide her identity.

It just depended on whether she'd rather have the city see ADA Laurel Lance in her bra and panties, or the vigilante Black Canary stark naked. Both options made her flush.

And she only had seconds to decide.