Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They’re sitting down for dinner – again. She loves how perfect the food is in this pocket dimension; not that she’s cooking. Oh, no. Felicity had sat, glass of wine in hand, watching her handsome, perfect husband create yet another perfect meal – like magic. It might as well be magic as far as the Smoak women – Mia included – are concerned. But it’s been two decades alone and, god, she’d forgotten how delicious and morish Oliver’s food was.

“So,” she starts, prodding and curious, “what did you want to ask?”

“It’s not me, really,” he hedges, shuffling his food around rather than eating, before smiling to himself and shaking his head. “Sorry. I know you hate mysteries.”

Felicity smiles back easily, amused.

“What do you- I need your help,” he tells her and Felicity grins.

“Of course, you do,” she tells him. “I’m in.”

Oliver blinks. “Just like that?”

Felicity shrugs, finishing her bite of food before responding.

“It’s you,” she says as if it explained everything. “So yes, of course just like that. Whatever you need.”

Oliver doesn’t hesitate to lean over the table, reaching over to the back of her head and tilt it so he can kiss her. As always, their kisses and touches escalate rapidly before they finally separate, breathing heavy and lips swollen.

“I love you,” he tells her fervently and Felicity grins, echoing the sentiment before leaning right back in for another kiss.

“But let me ask you properly, please,” he asks, separating them after another few far-too-short kisses and Felicity sighs as if put-upon but leans back in her seat obediently.

“Fine,” she concedes with ill-grace. “But I want you to know we could be back in our bedroom having a lot more fun than going through a conversation where you know at the end of it, I’ll say yes anyway.” Then she adds with a whine that shouldn’t be as attractive as it is, “Why don’t we skip to that?”

Oliver laughs breathily, reaching out to stroke over her cheek gently. “In a bit,” he promises. When Felicity bites her bottom lip before pouting at him, he laughs again, shaking his head. “I’ll make it up to you,” he tells with a wink and watches, gratified, as she flushes under his eyes.

“Alright then,” Felicity says, dropping her flirtatious mannerisms to look at him seriously. “Lay it on me, husband of mine, what do you need?”

For a moment his words get stuck when she calls him husband of mine – his mind going places it really shouldn’t be going for the conversation ahead – before he reels himself back in.

“Spectre contacted me. Melded with me?” Oliver shakes his head, looking confused at his own words before looking back at her. “Anyway, there’s a few universes out there which could use your help.”

Felicity looks around, then behind herself before pointing her finger at her own chest. “My help?” She repeats incredulously.

Oliver nods, grinning, clearly amused by how baffled she is.

“Yours,” he confirms.

“How?”

“There’s universes out there where you die – or nearly die. Now, he – I… We can intervene slightly with accidents – broken alarm clock so you leave late and don’t get hit by a truck whose breaks have failed, that kind of thing. But there’s universes where you’re just a little too reckless and… well. Things don’t always work out in your favour. I – He­,” Oliver pauses, frowning, looking as confused as he always does when he tries to reference anything to do with Spectre, considering they’re both existing at the same time. “We? We,” he confirms after a moment of thought. “We want to send your memories back to those moments in time so you can save yourself. If you agree.”

“But I’m just me – it’s not that important.”

“I’m sure I would have died within the first three months without you,” Oliver tells her seriously and Felicity smiles back, flattered.

“I would have given you six months, personally,” she corrects and he chuckles, laughs coming easily now that there are no more threats, no more fighting – just peace. Like back in Ivy town only better still. Because he knows there is a him out there, the one who became Spectre, who is watching over all his loved ones so he doesn’t have to.

“Fine. I cede to your genius – six months it is.”

“Still – I thought you couldn’t interfere,” Felicity objects, smile fading as she looks him over curiously.

“I can’t. There are rules. Only if there’s a threat which could affect the multiverse,” Oliver concedes easily, nodding.

“See,” she says firmly, like she’s found a stumbling block, “so how would my death-“ Felicity blinks, breaking off abruptly as she sees the flirty smile on Oliver’s face, the one that says he knows she’s figured it out and he’s hoping his smile will be enough to either distract her or lessen her ire. “Oliver – no.”

Oliver shrugs easily, smile widening.

“I told the Monitor going in I was doing this for my family. There is no me if there is no you. That’s as true for our universe as it is for any other.”

“Oliver,” Felicity breathes out, rubbing her forehead, “you can’t just threaten to become a danger to multiverse if I die prematurely.”

His grin widens. “Watch me,” he tells her leaning forward, tapping her nose gently before he starts nonchalantly eating his food.

Felicity sighs in mild exasperation, despite the warmth in her chest.

“You need some restraint,” she tells him.

“Really?” he asks, looking at her faux-wide-eyed. “That almost sounds like I’d need… well, you.”

She rolls her eyes but can’t help giggling at her husband’s antics.

“Oliver,” she says, tone reprimanding, but falters immediately when her husband drawls her own name back at her. “Fe-li-ci-ty.”

“Alright, but what about this me, here with you? I don’t want to give this up.” She reaches for him and he intertwines their hands easily.

“Remember what the Monitor told you? There is no going back. You are here, with me, forever. Your memories will go back into other versions of you, so you know what’s coming, how to handle it… A bit less recklessly. If it helps, my memories are out there, in versions of me as well. Just remember, no matter what, there always needs to be a Green Arrow. That means no stopping the Queen’s Gambit.”

Felicity snorts. “What? You think I’d honestly stand by and watch you leave for what were, in your own words, five years of hell without a single happy memory? It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

Oliver smiles softly – that special, warm smile he only ever gives her and no one else.

“I know you’ll try,” he tells her warmly, but then his eyes flash green. “I’m just telling you I can’t let it actually work.”

“Oh,” Felicity breathes out, surprised by the show of power. Oliver shrugs good-naturedly, eyes back to normal a mere instant later. “Now that’s just unfair,” she complains with a pout and he laughs.

“Well, it would be nice to have reassurance that you will get your head out of your ass eventually,” Felicity ponders mock-seriously a moment later, having rallied herself quickly.

“Really?” Oliver asks, a wide teasing grin on his lips. “Remind me, who was the one who rejected eighteen marriage proposals?”

“It was not eighteen,” Felicity retorts immediately, rolling her eyes at his exaggerations. He raises an eyebrow in turn.

“Besides, I had perfectly valid reasons for saying no.”

“Uh-huh. And then you decided to propose to me – without a ring – when Barry eloped with Iris. Does that ring any bells?”

Felicity grins.

“You loved our wedding,” she teases back and he shakes his head, laughing.

“I loved our elopement,” he confirms seriously, “and I loved our public wedding ceremony. And the one we had to lure in Cupid.” He shrugs. “It’s you. We could get married while the league of assassins was attacking us and I would love it.”

Felicity blushes. “You’re such a sap,” she tells him, but her smile is wide and pleased, so Oliver just laughs, pressing a soft kiss to the back of her hand.

“So? Memory send-back?” He prods to remind her and Felicity smiles.

“Of course, Oliver. Whatever you need.”

His eyes glow green as he taps her forehead, before the glow recedes moments later.

“That’s it?” Felicity asks, a bit nonplussed.

“Well, I didn’t need to tap your forehead, technically. Just figured it’d make it more clear for you.”

“Show-off,” she accuses, tone affectionate. He grins back.

“Always for you,” he winks and she laughs, cheeks flushed.

“That reminds me – it’s been at least a day since I’ve been to our gym with you.”

“You don’t even like the gym,” Oliver objects, eyebrow raised in curiousity.

“I do when you’re there,” she tells him and he laughs, meaning finally sinking in.

“Well,” he says mock-ponderously, “I should really go and do some exercises on the salmon ladder since we ate all this food.”

“You really should,” Felicity tells him seriously, licking her lips, eyes gone that distant way that tells him her mind has gone miles ahead and straight into imagining what she’d like to do to him.

“Your wish is my command, my wife,” he tells her as he stands up and rounds the table to gather her close enough for a kiss before dragging her off to the gym. Although gym is a bit much. It pretty much contains only the Salmon ladder and a few other, smaller things for Oliver – but the Salmon Ladder is definitely the centre piece – for precisely this reason.

He drags his wife in for another hot, wet, kiss – which always lasts longer than it should because neither of them know how to tear themselves away from each other – before shedding his shirt and starting his usual routine.

Chapter Text

In this universe, Felicity changes between one blink and the next, the sound in the air is too familiar so by the time there’s a pressure at her neck, she is already moving. She doesn’t know where or when she is, who she has to protect – William? Mia? – but there’s no hesitation. What Anatoly hadn’t taught her, Nyssa had back before, when Mia was too young and later, in the evenings, when her daughter was asleep. Felicity had quickly been deemed a ‘good enough’ shot by Nyssa with guns (in other words – she’d given up on being able to improve her from what she was able to accomplish by then), but found she had absolutely no skill with bows and arrows. However, far more importantly, she had become proficient enough in hand-to-hand to be deemed ‘acceptable’ for protecting Mia; which was all she’d ever wanted.

Still, it means that her head jerks to the side first, and she uses the arrow hitting her monitor – the sparks – as a momentary distraction to take on the person targeting her. First with her entire arm swinging sideways, then a stomp on the foot while she yanks her elbow back, managing another hit before she has to duck. Then her opponent manages to hit her with the entire crossbow just when she’s back to being upright, trying to regain some space from her. The other woman is trying to point a crossbow at her – only Felicity is more well-trained, managing to break her opponent’s wrist with a twist and a lot of force, sending her weapon to the floor, scraping across her hand as she yanks it back. Then they wrestle – her opponent is taller, but not as well trained. But Felicity’s body is not trained either, not the way her mind is, but she still finally manages to land a punch in her opponent’s throat – strong enough to send her to the floor, gasping for air. Not enough to kill.

She pins her down, making sure there’s no easy escape before taking a moment to look around herself, trying to pin down if there are other opponents outside or other people she’s protecting. If Mia and William are safe.

But there’s no one there. Just her old office. Really, really old office like way back when she first met Oliver. Confused, Felicity identifies Helena Bertinelli underneath her, pinned to the ground by her.

Well. That’s not great.

…

Or is it?

Then she realises her phone is still on when she gets the end tone for the recording – on Oliver’s voicemail. Of course.

Felicity sighs.

“I don’t suppose you’ll agree to go back quietly?” She asks, despite knowing the answer. The woman is still gasping for breath but the angry scowl on her face is answer enough. Misappropriating some spare computer cables to tie up the huntress, she places a call to Detective Lance for pick-up before hacking Oliver’s phone and deleting the voicemail, replacing it with a text message from her phone to say all is fine and not to worry. Pinging his phone, correlating the address and realising her husband is currently with McKenna, she sends a second text message to say she knows where he is and not to worry – again – and that it can wait until tomorrow, ignoring the furore of jealousy inside of herself with the ease of practice.

Felicity heaves out a breath, hoping it would work and Oliver doesn’t come swanning in for a belated rescue – that would not help with the police suspicion this early on.

Her third contact is to Dig just saying she’s safe and unharmed and wants to talk tomorrow. Then informing QC security of the breach and impending police presence.

Alright – this is going well, Felicity thinks to herself just as Lance bursts in with a few other armed cops. At least Helena is no longer gasping for air, but she’s still safely secured to her desk for the moment, with two security guards keeping safe watch. After a glance around, Lance holsters his gun and gestures for the others to do the same.

“You are the one who called me?” he asks her directly and Felicity nods.

“Yep. Hi. Felicity Smoak – that’s me,” she completes with a dorky wave before jerking her hand down – but it’s enough to elicit a small smile from the man.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Felicity waves him off, “I’m fine.” He must have expected more damage, she expects, given he’s nicknamed Helena the Huntress.

“Are you sure? We can take a statement after you’ve had some medical attention,” Quentin offers again, brows furrowed but Felicity just smiles brightly. You can really tell the man has two daughters with how concerned he is for her, a complete stranger. It’s sweet.

“Don’t worry,” she tells him, “I’m honestly fine.”

He hesitates for another moment but finally nods, sending his partner to watch over Helena and focuses on her.

“Alright. If that changes at any time, let me know. So, what happened here?”

Open-ended question. Nice. Perfect for Felicity to babble to – and say too much. But actually, genuinely perfect for her. Because she needs to say too much this time.

“I just had this brilliant idea for a software update,” Felicity has genuinely no idea why she was here or what she was doing here. Her memories are still a bit scrambled – so many more decades from the future overwriting and overwhelming the present memories. But she knows how to feign excitement, so that’s what she does – offering a wide smile and a half-stopped fist pump.

“But then she came to me – no idea why. Well, no, I’m the only left here in IT this late, so that’s probably why. And she wanted me to find her father. And, well, if it’s on the internet I could find it. I am that good – it’s why I was hired straight after MIT. Only I didn’t want to. She wants to kill her father – so, well, I fought back. And she didn’t seem to expect – no one ever does. But you don’t grow up in Vegas with a mom who is a cocktail waitress without learning a thing or ten about self-defence, you know.”

It’s so, so many lies, one piled onto the next. But she’d learned how to obfuscate, how to lie – being CEO and a politician’s wife (boy, had she rubbed that in Oliver’s face a time or ten), never mind being ‘Erin’ in witness protection. She couldn’t lie to those who knew her worth a damn, but people she had no attachment to – such as unnamed Police Officer B straight behind Quentin? Easy peasy.

“So, I hit back and then she was on the floor and I had computer cables because, well, I’m in IT. And then I called you?”

“And why me, Ms. Smoak?”

“Well, because you’re Detective Quentin Lance,” Felicity tells him, blinking in surprise, before remembering that at this time no one knows of her ties to Oliver.

“Oh- I should probably start with saying I know Oliver. He comes to me with IT problems,” Felicity says and watches, as Quentin looks at her in surprise before his eyes narrow and he looks like he’s trying to figure out if she’s lying. She wonders what set him off.

“You know – five years on an island really interfere with your basic skills. How do I turn this phone on. How do I make the internet work? What even is a router and WPS? How do I play candy crush? Okay, so that last one is a lie, but I’m sure that question is coming soon. I’m looking forward to it. He won’t have time to be a playboy, lost behind the screen like the rest of us mundane non-billionaires. Anyway, yes, so I know of you and when I needed the Police, I figured I’d call you. Oliver trusts you. I trust him. Therefore, according to the transitive property, I could trust you. And here we are.”

There is a smile twitching on Quentin’s lips even when he ducks his head to hide it. Still anger in his eyes when she talks about Oliver, a grimace on his lips, but he’s not transferred that hate to her. Good. He’s amused by her – meh. Not a bad foot to start off on.

“Is there anything else you can tell us, Ms. Smoak,” Quentin asks as two of the Police officers haul Helena up off the floor after securing her with handcuffs (and struggling to remove the knot Felicity had put into the cables, she noted with pride).

“Ooh, yes, she was ranting about my boss – well, not my boss. My boss’ boss’ boss?” Felicity tilts her head in confusion and Quentin’s eyebrows are up – even Helena looks confused between her ferocious glare in Felicity’s direction.

“You know, Mrs. Queen. Steele-Queen? Queen-Steele? Oliver’s mother? Well, she thinks she’s the Arrow. Not Mrs. Queen – Bertinelli thinks Oliver’s mother goes shooting arrows into people between galas and… I don’t know what she does, actually. Tried to tell me that she would tell everyone Oliver’s mother was the Arrow but I just pulled up footage and pictures which showed that some obvious attributes are missing, you know, for that to be true. So now she’s insisting Oliver’s the Arrow. I’m frankly surprised she didn’t pick Malcolm Merlyn – much better fit. Especially with all that anger about what happened to his wife in the Glades. Whereas Oliver? What the hell is meant to be his motivation? Bored of playbunnys and parties?” Felicity snorts and half-shrugs.

“Anyway, just warning you she has some sort of vendetta against the Queen family. Maybe because Oliver took her on that date? Maybe it was a really bad date. I wouldn’t know how to judge from just a picture in the news outlet, but I also don’t try to follow crazy people’s logic. … Except for now. When I am trying. Which I will stop – right now.”

“Did you breathe at all?” Lance asks, eyebrow raised, but gathers himself when he hears on of the uniformed officers snigger, clearing his throat quickly, a small flush on his cheeks.

“Sorry, Ms. Smoak, that was not appropriate. Thank you for your statement.” Felicity waves him off, smiling. “Do you mind if Ben here takes your details if we have more questions? And do you have any injuries we need to record?”

“No, I’m all good, Detective Lance,” she tells him and he looks at her in surprise.

“Really? What about that?” He taps the side of his neck to illustrate and she mimics him, surprised to come away with a blood on her fingers. Huh. Might have been closer than she thought, Felicity concedes. Well, Spectre had said she’d be there for Felicity’s who were about to get themselves killed. Still, this will probably not even need stitches. She’d arrived in the nick of time, she thinks to herself with a wry grin.

“Oh,” she says, mouth open in surprise. “I think that’s all there is,” she adds hesitantly.

“Do you mind if one of the officers takes you to the hospital to check? That way we can add it to her file.”

“I- No, of course not. My software can wait. Well- not my-my software. QC software. But still – it can wait.” Felicity reaches for her bag and follows the officer she was assigned – Ben Murdoch – to the patrol car.

She has two still-forming bruises, as it turns out, a cut on her hand and the cut on her neck. Felicity had been so disoriented – still was – she hadn’t really noticed any of the other injuries Helena had inflicted on her. Ben diligently noted down her address and details as well as her injuries, once she gave the Doctor permission, as well as grilling her throughout the entire procedure. It’s kind of fun to talk super-vague about everything and make everything seem a lot more superficial than it is.

Naturally, with her phone back in hand, she checks it even while the Doctor is talking to her (it’s not that important – she’s had years of looking after Dig’s and Oliver’s far more serious injuries, she knows the drill), she had received messages from both Oliver and Dig to say they’d meet up tomorrow for burgers (probably fearing Helena might turn up at the Arrow Cave again and trying to make sure she remained safe – ha, too late for that). And a missed call from Moira. Apparently, she’d been alerted by Security and Felicity had the next week off to recover and a meeting with HR to make sure she still felt safe to return to work.

Felicity is slightly amused that the woman who had been involved in a plan to kill thousands of people in the Glades has thought to organise HR and make sure Felicity feels safe where under Oliver’s leadership, she’d been kidnapped, threatened, jumped out of windows and hit people over the head without anything similar. Well, not until she organised it for other employees on her own initiative but under Oliver’s name. Still – amusing. Oliver’s mother has also requested a meeting with Felicity whenever she feels up to it to talk.

Fair enough – the amount of publicity, bad press and legal trouble she could throw their way is kind of amusing. Not that she has any intention of doing so, but it’s still funny just how much hot water she could put them into. Means also that instead of going for her jugular, Moira’s first approach will likely be to kiss up to her – awesome. Not that she’s vengeful, or anything… but yeah, maybe a little bit.

Felicity wonders for a moment if that sentiment is from future her or more from the more reckless version of her, but decides it doesn’t matter either way in the end. Still, sleep would probably be good – helpful even. Might sort out her scrambled brain. Give her a reprieve.

…

Only she doesn’t want to. Her mind’s running a mile a minute and she doesn’t want to make her way to a home without her husband lying in bed with her there. Too reminiscent of the decades she spent without him at her side already. Too strong a reminder that her husband is currently in another woman’s bed.

No.

Verdant, the basement – the lair. They’re a much better outlet for all the processing she needs to do. For all the energy and brainpower that has to go somewhere. Ben drops her back off at QC where she picks up her own car and drives off.

When Mia was young, before she relaunched her career as Overwatch… well Felicity wouldn’t have done that, not if she hadn’t made absolutely sure her daughter would be safe. And so she’d done it the only way she knew how.

By creating a new programming language and writing an entire operating system.

And while she didn’t remember every inch of the system she created, she knew most of it – and what she didn’t, she could recreate over the next few days.

Chapter Text

Oliver has, as always, the best timing.

Note the sarcasm.

Felicity is stuck on her back under the PC wiring things up as well as building the computer itself – no, not copper wire, thanks, Cisco. She’s building her PC up, inch by inch, and of course that’s when he comes in. Luckily, she is, for once, wearing actual trousers – Jeans – with her panda shoes – so at least she’s not flashing him. Yay.

He’s spotted the light being on in his lair and is already on edge about who could possibly intrude on their sanctuary, she knows, the moment she hears his cautious footsteps. Then he sees her feet under the desk and vaults over the railing down the steps.

“Felicity!” He’s shouting her name, rushing and skidding to a stop beside her, clearly concerned. Which, well, fair enough. She’s never come in before work in the early days. Or in trousers. Or climbed and rebuilt his computers. Or done all of the above without letting him know she’d be going into the foundry.

Her held up hand stops him from reaching out and touching her, but only just.

“Felicity?” Oliver asks, voice curious and Felicity tilts her head and spits out the screwdriver in her mouth – it was a fantastic way to keep hold of it without losing track of it and have it handy, but a lot less attractive and made it very difficult to communicate with certain vigilantes.

“No touching,” she tells Oliver and she can practically hear the surprise in his voice.

“I wasn’t going to touch you,” he tells her.

Interesting that that’s the first place his mind went, Felicity notes with a slight smirk.

“Thanks,” she says dryly, “but I meant the PC or Monitors.”

“Of course, you did,” Oliver says sounding slightly flustered but mostly amused.

“Actually, just don’t touch anything which classifies as being in my area here, really. Just to be safe. One little bit of electrostatic and all my work of the last few hours could be ruined. So – keep your hands to yourself.”

He’s relaxing now, slowly, certain she’s safe, unharmed. That won’t last long once she comes out from underneath here and he can see more than her legs. Because Felicity just knows the first thing Oliver will notice are the bandages.

“Your area?” He repeats back, his voice light and amused.

“My area,” she says firmly. “So, shoo. Back to your cavemen area. This bit here – it’s mine.”

“Whatever happened to sharing your toys?” Oliver questions, laughter in his voice, clearly teasing her.

“What’s mine is yours and yours is mine doesn’t apply until there’s a signed piece of paper lodged with the Government.”

“What?” He asks, baffled.

Felicity very carefully secures the CPU before responding. “A marriage licence, Oliver,” she clarifies.

“What?” He repeats, sounding almost scandalised – enough to make her snort with laughter.

“Relax,” she tells him. “I’m not proposing. I’m just saying – as adults, the policy you’re talking about is called marriage.”

“Are you… okay?” Oliver asks, sounding confused and hesitant, like he isn’t sure what to make of her. Bantering like this wasn’t usually part of their repertoire this early on. Or all that often, really. Fair enough. Felicity doesn’t know what to make of her not-husband yet either. Or herself for that matter.

“Still no touching – and I mean me this time,” she tells him and he huffs, somehow managing to convey exasperation even with that sound.

“I said I wouldn’t,” he reminds her but Felicity knows that the moment she mentions she’s injured he’d be checking her over, so, no, she doesn’t believe that for a second. “Besides, I grounded myself.”

“Aww, so you do want to touch me,” she teases.

“Fe-li-ci-ty,” Oliver draws out impatiently and Felicity laughs.

“What? Are you saying there’s no electricity between us? Not even a little spark?”

The amusement is back in his voice, even if Oliver still sounds absolutely confused and baffled.

“Felicity,” he intones, but she knows what he means. Stop. Behave. Focus.

“Alright, alright,” she concedes, securing the cover in place and robbing her way out from underneath the desk – which, well, never looks sexy. Oliver probably could make it look attractive – but that man could wear a garbage bag and have women drooling after him, so that really wasn’t a fair comparison.

“Felicity,” her name escapes him in a soft, worried breath this time and, just like she expected, he doesn’t hesitate to reach out and touch her, pulling her up, hands around her elbow and back. Then he is immediately frowning at the hospital-grade bandage around her neck. Even more so once he notes the bandage on her hand.

“Felicity,” he says again, a different intonation this time. It’s really amazing how much her husband can convey just by saying her name. This time he means he’s concerned, worried – but most of all scared for her. Angry he wasn’t there to protect her. Like he failed her.

“I know, Oliver. We’re meeting up with Dig for lunch, remember? I’ll tell you then.”

A quick glance at her phone tells her it’s only eight in the morning. Yeah – no way Oliver will concede to waiting. Sure enough – instead of pressuring her, though, he’s on the phone with Dig, ordering him curtly to the foundry, now, in his Arrow-voice.

“Rude,” she scolds him but his dark eyes don’t leave hers, ignoring what she’s saying.

“Are you okay?” He asks again, cradling her cheek in his hand, making sure she’s facing him. She softens up underneath his worried eyes.

“Of course, I am,” she tells him, reaching right back and pulling him down enough she can press a kiss to his cheeks as silent thanks for his fussing – something that has him freezing, wide-eyed.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Oliver starts, brows furrowed, “but you’re acting very… oddly.”

Well, she hadn’t dragged her husband down for a kiss to the lips, so really, congratulations to her own self-control, Felicity thinks. But Oliver doesn’t know any of that.

“Look, I’ll tell you when Dig’s here,” she tells Oliver. “But yes, I am fine, all bandaged up and seen to by a professional at Hospital and everything.” She should have realised that would only heighten his worry. As if she’d be hiding a gut wound underneath her shirt – he looks two seconds away from either feeling her up or ripping her clothes off – and not in the fun way, either.

Felicity sighs.

“It’s bruises and two cuts. I’ve gotten worse injuries in the kitchen.”

She had, too. Learning to cook so your toddler – and later child – doesn’t grow up on fast food only? Yeah. There’d been a few injuries. And cuts. And burns.

The skin around Oliver’s eyes tightens as he presses his lips together in dissatisfaction at her easy dismissal of her wounds. He’s straightening, shoulders tight, trying to intimidate and push her into giving in. Unluckily for him, Felicity is not so easily cowed and glares right back at him.

“Excuse me, who was the one who had to be resuscitated here on the table after being shot by his mother and what were your words? Oh- yes. ‘I’m alive. Cool.’”

He winces. “That’s not fair, I-“

“You’re damn right it’s not fair, Oliver. I’m an equal partner in this team and you will not hold me to some sort of different standard where me stubbing my toe is equivalent to a gunshot wound for you and Dig. Now, unlike you, I have at least been looked at by a medical professional – so when I tell you I’m okay, you can take that to the god-damn bank. Now sit down, shut up, and wait for Diggle.”

With that Felicity storms off only to realise – well, there’s nowhere really to storm off to.

“Okay,” Oliver concedes, eyes dark and stormy as he regards her when she turns back to him – but she can read him easily, still. He’s concerned – still – a little offended, a lot surprised, but mostly amused by how easily she stands up to him when others would cower away.

“Okay,” Felicity acknowledges back and then they both settle back into an uneasy truce, watching each other. She wonders what he’s seeing when he looks at her. When she looks at him – well, she sees her husband.

But more than that – he’s somehow both more burdened and less. So much younger, too. Fewer scars. More tattoos. Less branding. His hair is longer and his scruff shorter.

He looks just as attractive as he does years from now – but looking at him now, this him? She recalls holidays. Ivy town. The soufflé he’d later told her about with which he’d intended to propose.

He’s lost a lot and the past five years with Anatoly and Liang Yu and Waller are so much harder because they’re so much closer. He doesn’t know about Sara yet, even. But at the same time – he’s not gone through the loss of Tommy, his mother, Laurel, Sara or Quentin yet. Not learned Arabic and become the head of the League of Assassins. Not lost Thea. So, there’s a lighter air around him for not having those losses but a lot more guilt he’s not yet forgiven himself for those five years away.

It’s a surprising dichotomy she hadn’t ever considered before.

But now, as she traces the lines of his face, some of which aren’t even there yet, she can’t help but be amazed at how much younger her husband looks. Not in age, but in burden. He holds himself so much stiffer, so much more rigid and distant. Her Oliver was so much more… at peace. Calm. Certain. Settled with himself. Becoming a father – it had really shaped Oliver. Into a better version of himself. Into someone less at war with himself – and that had only grown over the years. The husband she’d left behind in that pocket dimension was at peace in a way she hadn’t ever seen before; not even in Ivy town. Hopefully this man before her would get that chance, too. The chance to be less burdened. Being at peace with who he was.

Chapter Text

Felicity didn’t realise she’d been staring at Oliver for the last fifteen minutes or so – and he’d been staring right back, not the least bit put off or intimidated – until Dig burst in, gun aloft. Her entire body flinched for a moment – decades of being paranoid and scared for Mia ensuring her brain tells her to jump, to run, to fight, to do something. But another part of her recognised that Oliver is here, and as long as he’s here, she’s safe. That it’s Dig, coming in – not a threat. So, instead, she responded with what looked like a full-body flinch – a movement which put Oliver only more on edge and ensured Dig’s gaze landed squarely on hers.

“Felicity?” He asks, holstering his weapon and coming down to look at the bandage on her neck. “Are you okay?” He leaps down the stairs tilting her head so he can inspect the area around neck.

“May I?” Dig asks gesturing to the bandage and Felicity knows neither of the two men will calm until they see the extent of the damage.

“Go for it,” Felicity sighs out and that, of all things, makes Oliver grumble.

“What?” She asks the man even though her head is tilted away from him to allow Dig easy access for removal. But, naturally, Oliver just tells her it’s nothing – it takes another moment for it to dawn on her. She’d been the one to tell him not to touch her, after all.

“Oh my god, you have got to be kidding me,” she tells Oliver, exasperated, and watches him wince. “You’re jealous? Of Dig? He’s our resident medic, Oliver.”

Her not-husband grimaces, clearly flustered by her assertion. But not disputing it, she notes. Dig’s looking between her and Oliver, clearly unsure whether he’s meant to intervene, step out for the argument or maybe make space for Oliver.

“Dig,” Felicity starts with a sigh, “would you mind if Oliver checked first?”

“Be my guest,” her husband’s bodyguard easily acquiesces, stepping aside, bandage half-off, eyeing them both curiously. Oliver doesn’t thank them or say anything, but he does step into her space easily enough. One hand on her other shoulder – calming? Soothing? To stop her from moving? – he carefully pulls the bandage on her other shoulder away inch by inch.

“See?” Felicity says. “Didn’t even need stitches.”

Oliver, on the other hands, has his Arrow-face on when he sees her injury and finds some dried blood still on her collarbone.

“Dig, tell him,” she implores her friend, “it’s a scratch.”

But Diggle, upon coming closer and looking at the wound, has a similarly grim expression on his face.

“What?” She asks, just short of an eyeroll in exasperation of dealing with these two overprotective men.

“Just a little bit more in… and that would have hit your Carotid,” Dig announces grimly, eyes as dark as Oliver’s. “And Felicity? You do have stitches.”

“I do?” Felicity blinks surprised. “But I didn’t feel anything.”

Oliver looks at her wryly.

“Do you feel anything there now?”

“Oh,” she mouths to herself but well audible to the two vigilantes given their proximity. “Localised anaesthetic,” she realises out loud and Dig nods.

It makes sense – she was here because of how close this version of her was to death. That last minute sideways jerk away from the bolt must have been enough so instead of severing her carotid it only skimmed her skin.

“I presume so.”

“But I’m afraid of needles,” Felicity disputes. “Surely I would’ve noticed that.”

“Well, was there anything that could’ve distracted you?” Oliver asks dryly, leaving Dig to check the stitching as Oliver uses a wet cloth to wipe away more of the dried blood.

“Oh,” Felicity breathes out, eyes wide. “That is so clever. Wow. Remind me to congratulate Detective Lance on his choice of officers.”

“Lance?” Oliver queries, concerned.

“What did the officer do?” Dig questions, and Oliver immediately switches tracks, now more concerned with what the officer did or might have done, judging by the way he focuses on her.

“Nothing nefarious,” she tells them with an eye roll. “I’m just saying he was good at distracting me. Asking me questions. I told the nurse at the beginning I was afraid of needles and didn’t handle it well. He not only took that – he ran with it. Asking me questions about the hours beforehand. About QC. About Oliver and our relationship. About Mrs. Queen. Hell, he even asked me about Walter. Just to keep me talking. Brilliantly done – I am very impressed. Very well done and very smooth.”

Oliver has an eyebrow raised but there’s the slightest tilt to his head which tells her he’s curious – she doesn’t realise why until Dig starts talking.

“Your relationship with Oliver?” Dig asks and Felicity snaps her fingers.

“Knew I forgot something,” she exclaims but allows Oliver to continue unravelling the bandage on her other hand.

“So, what kind of relationship do we have?” Oliver asks teasingly, seeming amused, clearly playing on their earlier banter but Dig’s more than surprised at the levity and teasing between them, telling her clearly that yes, that’s not normal for this version of them either.

“Oh yes, we eloped before the ship. You met me – Goth me – at MIT, fell heads over heels in love with me, and now you’re trying to win me back.”

Oliver laughs – a rare sound in the early days.

“You were a goth? No offence, but I can’t imagine that,” he confesses, lips still pulled up in a smile, shoulders slowly untensing as he and Dig slowly take care of her.

“Hey,” Felicity objects, pouting, “full offence taken. Dig – tell him. I’m an awesome goth.”

Dig chuckles.

“No, I want no part of… whatever the hell this is,” he tells them, gesturing between her and Oliver. “Leave me out of this.” He pauses, then smirks slightly, adding, “but for the record, Felicity? I can’t imagine that either.”

“I’ll- well, once the computer is up and running, I’ll show you. But yeah, eyebrow piercing, nose ring, black hair, purple streaks, black clothing – I was a very hot goth. You,” she points at Oliver, “would have totally fallen in love with me.”

Oliver laughs softly, to her amazement. Two laughs!

“I’m sure I would have,” he reassures her playfully.

Felicity smiles brightly at him and watches as his eyes for just the barest moment get arrested by her lips before focussing back on her eyes as if nothing ever happened.

“Now, of course that’s not what I told the Detective,” she finally says seriously as Dig flexes her hand for her, twisting and moving fingers and hand to make sure she hasn’t injured anything else or lost any mobility there. “I’m your IT girl. You come to me for learning how to turn on your phone. How to use the internet. Router issues. Those kinds of things.”

That, of all things, makes his smile fall away and a frown take its place.

“You’re so much more than just my IT girl,” Oliver tells her, his hand cradling her face like he so often does in future, trying to reassure her.

“I know,” she tells him softly, using her unharmed hand to reach across and stroke across the hand still on her face. “Doesn’t mean that as of now, anyone but Dig knows we’re…” Felicity hesitates, but ends up on the much simpler, “friends,” rather than trying to define it further. Yet Oliver notes her hesitation and mistakes It for the wrong kind.

“Of course, we’re friends,” he tells her and Felicity smiles again.

“Yes, friends,” she says with emphasis, eyeing Dig with a slight smile – the man looks amused but raises an eyebrow at the fact that she seems to be in on the joke for once.

“And what do you mean, no one knows?” Dig asks, but is interrupted by Oliver, who is, of course, far more concerned with whatever injuries she may or may not have incurred.

“Your bruises?” Oliver asks as soon as he is finished cleaning and checking her hand himself and they’ve re-bandaged both her neck and hand with fresh bandages from the first-aid kit.

Felicity sighs, but concedes that clearly her word can’t be ‘taken to the bank’ as she’d insisted earlier. And that maybe she should have paid better attention to what the Doctor had said to her – but she’d received the email and voicemail from Moira Queen, which had been far more attention-grabbing than what she’d thought the Doctor would tell her.

Lifting up her shirt (why did she pick such a tight shirt today of all days?), she’s amused that Dig doesn’t so much as flinch while Oliver’s eyes snap up to hers to avoid looking down – or giving any impression of checking her out in any way.

Dig whistles slightly – not a wolf-whistle but one indicating surprise, which is enough to ensure Oliver refocuses his attention immediately on the bared skin. Predictably the growly-him makes a return when he notes the impressive bruise spanning her entire left side. The side Helena had hit her with the bow itself to make her back off enough so she could use it to shoot her. Again. Luckily it hadn’t worked out that way, but the bruise was already bursting into colourful patterns and, frankly, hurt much more than either her hand or neck.

“How far does it go?” Oliver asks, eyes hooded – not with desire, unfortunately, but rage. The man’s so stiff he’s practically vibrating out of his skin with restrained anger. Dig’s no better, lips pressed tight and teeth gritted, jaw flexing, as he prods her along her ribs, ignoring her hissed breaths as he makes sure nothing’s broken.

“Until just about half-way up the side of my breasts.” Oliver’s eyes flicker away quickly but she caught the side-ways glance still, smiling wryly to herself. There’s no space inside of her vigilante for anything but rage just now, but the glance was involuntary and automatic – and therefore all the more amusing; to her, at least. Dig’s next prod is slightly more forceful, making her wince, telling her it’s not as funny as she thinks with a stern glance.

“And your other bruise?” Oliver asks and Felicity pulls the top of her shirt down with a sigh and to the side, so he can see the one just between collarbone and the top of her breast. It’s the unfortunate thing about being small – punches tend to land higher than anyone intends them to. Especially if both people involved in the fight are not quite as trained or good as they’d like to think. She supposes she should be glad it wasn’t a hit to her kidneys or anything, but, frankly, the only reason she’s still wearing her bra is because she’s well aware she shares her space with two men.

“Alright,” Oliver says, tearing his eyes away as Felicity lets her shirt slide back into place. “You promised you’d tell me. So… What happened?”

“Promise to hear me out until the end?”’

“Of course,” promises Dig easily, but they both know her words are directed to one of them only.

Oliver.

He stares at her, gritting his teeth, but gives a curt nod.

Good enough, Felicity surmises.

“Helena,” she starts and her hand on Oliver’s arm is the only thing stopping him from promptly making a run for it – to absolutely no one’s surprise. She stares him down and he settles back down without a single word of protest – out loud.

“She’s in Police custody,” she tells him next, that way the most essential information is out of the way.

“Maybe start from the beginning,” Dig suggests, looking just as surprised as Oliver.

“Helena came to me to get her into the FBI and find out where her father was stashed. Well. I objected. Strenuously.”

Dig groans and Oliver closes his eyes, both apparently at their wit’s end.

“Really? Is this like the Dodger all over again? You said you’d be more careful after that,” Dig reminds her.

“That’s so unfair,” Felicity objects. She doesn’t remember them telling her this last time – no safety lecture that she can recall – how was she meant to expect he’d just put a collar on here, then and there?

“And yet you didn’t need to jump on his back and cling to him like a monkey when you had a bomb around your neck,” Oliver bites out sharply and Felicity’s eyebrows rise unwittingly.

She did… what now?

Holy… how had this Felicity even survived until now?

“To be fair,” Dig interjects, “I don’t think he ever expected anyone to do that. No one did. And we’re lucky he wasn’t suicidal.”

“Not lucky,” Felicity tells him, she still doesn’t recall, not yet, but she knows herself, knows how she thinks and how she makes decisions.

“Calculated decision,” she tells them. “He never likes to put himself into danger… He couldn’t detonate with my neck right next to his. What, should I have let him escape and then hope we’d catch up to him in time? Pray that he’s feeling merciful this time?”

It’s what she’d done last time – a slightly more cautious, less reckless version of herself. But she kind of preferred this Felicity. That move was inspired! Reckless? Absolutely, no denying that. But it had worked.

“Yeah, you were still lucky the Police was all throughout the party. And that you drew everyone’s attention with that move,” Oliver tells her, looking concerned.

“And next time, Oliver, do buy her a longer dress, please,” Dig says looking both pained and amused.

“What?” Felicity asks curiously, head tilted.

To her surprise, Oliver – a man largely inured to embarrassment of any kind – flushes a dull red, right up to his ears and avoids her eyes.

Dig looks surprised at her confusion but also amused at Oliver’s awkwardness.

“I think Oliver would be better placed to tell you. Considering he’s the one who bought you that very short dress.”

Felicity turns her eyes to her husband and watches as he shifts uncomfortably under her eyes. She’s already starting to get an inkling of what happened, but now really wants him to be the one to tell her.

“Tell me what?” she prods.

“Well,” he clears his throat, avoiding her eyes. “You were on that man’s back, legs wrapped around his torso and your dress… well. It- It wasn’t covering everything anymore.”

Yep. That’s what she thought Dig had been building up to.

“So, you’re telling me I flashed everyone at that party?”

God, and she’d thought childbirth mortifying.

“Well, not everyone,” Dig says and it’s Felicity’s turn to groan.

“Great. Just great,” she bites out sarcastically, having not even a sprinkling of hope of remembering what kind of underwear she’d worn on a particular night three decades ago.

“Don’t worry, you’re still invited on Sunday,” Oliver tells her and Felicity blinks.

“Sunday?”

“Family dinner,” Oliver reminds her like it’s a normal occurrence, as if she should absolutely know what he's talking about.

What? In what world is Felicity Smoak, daughter of a cocktail waitress, invited to family dinner with the Queens? Regularly?

…

Well, in this one, obviously.

But why? Oliver’s clearly dating McKenna, not her – so why?

“For saving a family heirloom,” Oliver tries to prod her memory, brows furrowed as he looks at her and Dig is already on hand, carefully checking her head for injuries. “Remember? Mom invited you after the Police told us you were the one who caught the Dodger. You got paid a bonus at work as well for your efforts for the Queen family. You’ve been joining us for the last few weeks.”

“For going above and beyond,” Dig jokes, but he looks just as concerned by her faulty memory.

Oliver’s exchanging looks with his bodyguard but how is Felicity meant to explain this?

“I’m sorry, my head’s a bit scrambled,” Felicity admits finally. Not like there’s a way around. “I just came here because my mind’s still running a mile a minute and I didn’t think I’d get any sleep.”

“Alright, finish briefing us and you can get some rest,” Dig says, shaking his head mutely at Oliver to tell him he hadn’t found any injuries.

Chapter Text

“So… I may have said something which may or may not have aggravated Helena. Which is why she shot a bolt at me.” Felicity frowns, the memory sparking something now that she knows neither Mia nor William were there. Or in danger.

“She shot my monitor, Oliver,” she tells him, outrage growing as she remembers the sparks. Dig’s snorting with laughter at her priorities but Oliver only gives her a small, indulgent smile. The same one he often gives her when Felicity has gone off on a rant about highly technological jargon above Oliver’s knowledge. Soft, warm, caring – but yeah, very much indulgent, like he’s listening because it’s her, because she’s adorable but not because he’s understanding her point of view.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Oliver promises easily.

“That’s so not the point,” Felicity refutes with a pout but his smile only widens.

“Fine,” she concedes with ill-grace. “So, that was the bolt which caused this.” She taps her neck. “And then I fought back.”

Both men’s eyebrows rise.

“No need to look so surprised,” she scolds them.

“I worked with and trained Helena,” Oliver reminds her.

Oooh, that’s right. That’s so awesome! Felicity had no hope of winning a fight against her husband – but she beat his trainee. That’s got to count for something, right?

“No, no, Felicity, that’s not ‘awesome’,” Dig tells her and she wonders how much she said aloud but given their expression, she didn’t call him her husband in a non-joking manner, so good for her?

“It kind of is,” Felicity disputes. “She had a crossbow and I beat her. Weaponless,” she repeats wide-eyed. Both men sigh in exasperation at where her focus is.

“Yeah,” Oliver finally agreed, “so, how did you do that?”

Felicity snorts. “You know where I grew up, right?” She asks rhetorically but they both shake their heads to her surprise.

“Huh,” she admits. She remembers being closed-off, but she hadn’t realised how much. “I sort of thought you’d researched me before coming to me with that laptop and that lame cover story about spilling a latte on it,” she recovers before they can question her continuing faulty memory.

Dig’s eyebrows rise and he turns to Oliver.

“The bullet-ridden laptop?” He queries and her husband grimaces.

“Yep, that’d be the one,” Felicity confirms in his stead.

“And you told her you spilled a latte on it?” Oliver concedes with a short nod and Dig sighs before turning to her. “And you didn’t call him out on it?”

“Excuse you,” she tells him, “of course, I did.” Then she grins to herself. “He told me his coffeeshop was in a bad neighbourhood,” she rats him out immediately.

Dig groans. “Oliver, man, I thought your stories were getting worse but that was before I realised what you started off with.”

Oliver scratches the back of his hair uncomfortably.

“I didn’t check her background. Time was of the essence – Walter recommended her. I intended to check her background later but…” Oliver shrugs and his eyes are on Felicity alone. “I trust you, for some reason,” he tells her, voice soft, a confession for her alone. Like she once had, back in the coffeeshop, at the beginning.

Her eyes soften and she reaches for him with her good hand, tangling her fingers with his. And he lets her.

“I trust you, too,” she echoes, voice warm as she looks at him. He’s beautiful, this younger version of her husband. God, she loves this man. Every version of him. So fracking much.

Oliver was right – love is too small a word for what she feels for him right now.

“What does where you come from have to do with your fight with Helena?” Dig asks after a moment and it takes both her and Oliver a moment to blink back to reality and realise they’re not alone.

“Las Vegas,” Felicity blurts out before shaking her head, hoping to clear it. She looks at Diggle, hoping the change in focus will help. “My mom’s a cocktail waitress,” she tells them. “I grew up in apartments – and sometimes trailers or a car. There were days where we lived on soup kitchen and hope.” Felicity shrugs. “Some weeks and months were worse than others. Some were better. But I grew up in casinos. In cabarets. In clubs. Hotel bars. Strip clubs. It’s not a safe place for a child – so I learned how to fight. Nothing paid for or organised, but the occasional bouncer. The waitresses. The dancers.” Felicity shrugs. It’s all true enough, but that would not have been enough to fight off Helena. No, that was Nyssa’s training. Dig’s training, too, but mostly Nyssa. The clubs had taught her how to stomp on feet, what to scream, where to run and the soft spots on people, the ones to aim for. Eyes. Crotch. Throat.

Until Felicity was alone in the middle of a small town without Oliver, Digg or any other vigilante nearby to protect her and with her precious cargo, hers and Oliver’s child, as her sole responsibility – she’d never put that much effort into learning fighting before. But then? Well, she’d put all her not inconsiderable attention span and focus into learning enough to make sure she can keep Mia safe.

“I didn’t really keep practising.” Felicity gestures to the lack of definition in her arms. “But it was enough for Helena, luckily.”

“That’s the problem,” Oliver tells her, “you were lucky.”

“Yes,” Felicity tells him with a sigh. “I could also be unlucky and have a truck driver fall asleep at the wheel tomorrow and run a red light and hit my car. I could get mugged and die. I could get hit by lightning. I could trip down the stairs – that’s actually surprisingly likely, especially when I’m distracted. Point is – yes, I was lucky. Yes, I may not always be lucky, but, Oliver, that’s not on you. I could die from a freak accident at any point. Doesn’t mean I need to give up living my life. Doesn’t mean it will have anything to do with you and even if it does. It’s my life. My choice. I’d rather be unsafe, here, with you than safe away from all this. If you decide to leave tomorrow – I’ll still be doing this. Only without you or Dig as protection.”

She doesn’t think it will get through to him, not this soon, not this early on, but he’s staring at her like she said something revelatory, like something just shifted and changed inside of him. Like she upended his world.

Felicity looks to her other best friend but Diggle looks just as confused as she feels, shrugging slightly in response to her silent question.

“Oliver?” She asks hesitantly, tightening her grip on his hand, hoping to give him something to hold onto. To draw him back to her.

“You,” he draws out slowly, brows furrowed as if he’s struggling to find the right words to say what he wants to say. He hasn’t let her out of his sight and slowly continues speaking whatever he realised out loud. “would be … safer… with me around?”

Felicity softens.

“Yes, Oliver,” she tells him, sincerity ringing in her every word – because she genuinely believes that. There is no safer place in the entire world for her than here – right by his side. Under his protection.

“Always,” she promises. And Oliver goes back to being quiet, looking confused by her assertion. Her hand is still tightly intertwined with his, so she squeezes it ever-so-gently, a silent affirmation and promise.

“Then I called Detective Lance,” she continues in Dig’s direction, hoping to give Oliver a moment of respite to mull over … well, whatever he’s turning over inside his head. “And you know the rest. Oh, and Mrs Queen’s given me the week off, so yay. I can finish this, here.” Felicity waves her hand around towards her computer, hoping to convey her meaning.

“Yeah, about that. Where’s all your gear, man?” Dig turns to Oliver who looks up, jolted out of his thoughts.

“Ah,” Felicity interjects as Oliver looks around, eyes wide, only just now seeming to notice his hood, arrows and bow are missing, given that she’d drawn his entire focus since he first entered.

“Yeah, that’s on me,” she tells them. “I forgot to mention since Helena kept threatening to out you as the vigilante, I made something up about how she first implicated your mom and then you when I disputed it. How it must have been a bad date and how Malcolm Merlyn would be a much more likely candidate. Anyway, point is, she may lead them right here – so I secured all the secret stuff and all we have here is my computer and IT stuff. Your things are hidden.”

“Hidden where?” Oliver asks, looking around.

“My car, at the moment. I intended to only be here for a bit before returning home, so I thought it’d be safe enough. Obviously, I should have accounted for getting lost in my own little world, here. And as far as they are concerned, I figured we’d tell them that in return for me helping you with router and what-nots, you’re letting me have this space for free to work on building my own company.”

“Is that something you’re working on?” Dig asks, surprised.

“Yep. Smoak Technologies. But it’s in its infancy stage – which means it’s all in my head currently, not out here in the real world. So…”

“What are you doing here, then?” Oliver asks, gesturing to her computer.

“Building my PC so it has the capacity to run the way I want it to. From scratch. Then I’m going to write my operating system in there. Create it, that is.”

Both men stare at her.

“Is that secure?” Oliver presses, looking intrigued.

“Well, I’m writing in my own coding language, so anyone trying to break in once I connect it to the internet would first have to crack my language and then my security and it closes the usual easy accesses people use. And then small things for further confusion – the user account will be called ‘Admin’ and the account with administrator access will be called ‘user’ meaning hackers would spend all their energy hacking the account which only has limited access anyway. But, in short, yes, super-secure. Much more than what we have currently.”

Dig opens his mouth, shuts it again, then opens it again.

“So, just making sure I’ve got this straight: You’ve created an entire language. And are creating an entire operating system. And an entire computer.”

“Yes,” Felicity confirms easily.

“I know you’re a genius,” Oliver starts slowly, “but I’m starting to learn there’s genius and then there’s you.”

“Well-put,” Dig agrees and Felicity blushes under their combined praise. “Felicity,” Dig continues, “let me just say, I couldn’t be gladder you’re on our side.”

Oliver snorts. “Cheers to that. We would have died, week one, if you were some sort of supervillain.”

“Aww,” Felicity coos, “it’s so cute that you think you’d have lasted an entire week.”

All three laugh, although Felicity winces when she feels the pain in her bruise at the movement.

“Alright,” Oliver says seriously, clearly having picked up on her pain. “Can you leave your computer like this?”

“Yes,” Felicity says slowly, eyes narrowed, wondering where he’s going with this. “Why?”

“You’re coming home with me,” Oliver tells her, pulling gently on their still-intertwined hands, before turning to Diggle. “Can you take everything from her car and secure it?”

“Of course,” Dig tells him. “I know a guy. I’ll rent a storage spot from him in cash for a week under a fake name. It’ll be safe.”

“Great. Thanks, Dig.”

“Excuse me,” Felicity interjects, voice low and hard, ready to fight them, pulling her hand out from between Oliver’s. “You think you can just tell me where to go? And I’ll what? Follow your orders?”

“I thought you said you’re always safer with me?” Oliver queries gently, an eyebrow raised but the small upwards curl at the corner of his lips betrays him. Oliver Queen is teasing her. Unprompted.

Felicity lets out a breathless laugh, amazed and surprised by this turn of events.

“And what are you protecting me from?” She asks, voice still filled with laughter, her anger and indignation having dissipated like it was never there with how light-hearted Oliver is.

“Well, the world, apparently,” Oliver tells her, still looking amused. He’s taunting her, waiting for her dispute his claim, to fight him.

Grinning to herself, Felicity shakes her head. “Alright then. I’ll come with you.”

“You’re not asking me where to?” Oliver asks, head tilted.

Felicity shakes her head. “Trust,” she tells him, gesturing between them. “It goes both ways.”

“Take the day off, Dig,” Oliver tells their friend, never letting his eyes leave hers. “We’ll be safe at Queen mansion. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

If he decides she needs a hospital, he’ll take her there, kicking and screaming, is what she reads into that statement – but, well, fair enough. She’s not been a good example of taking care of oneself in the last few hours, so Felicity doesn’t really feel she has any ground to stand against that. And she knows Oliver cares for her – it’s the only reason he’s suggesting all this in the first place, looking after her for the next few hours instead of going to McKenna, finding Helena or Captain Lance or a million other things he’s probably more than keen on doing instead.

Dig hugs her tight, tells her to take care and tells Oliver to watch over her with a stern expression which makes her lips twitch.

Chapter Text

Oliver guides her carefully to his car and on the way to his home manages to drive so slowly and carefully, Felicity can’t help but smile to herself. Her husband had always been good at letting his love for his family and friend shine out through his every action. This is no different.

“Oh, dear,” Moira exclaims when they’re at the mansion and gathers a surprised Felicity into a warm hug. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”

…

What?

“Mom,” Oliver interjects, gently pulling a stunned Felicity back out of his mother’s arms. “Felicity is still recovering. She’s having some memory troubles. Please don’t crowd her.”

“And they let her out of the hospital?” His mother asks, sounding outraged. “Well, they will find out what it means to-“

“Mrs. Queen,” Felicity speaks up quickly.

“Moira,” the woman herself corrects instantly, voice soft and warm again.

“Moira,” Felicity repeats obediently, then pauses, mouths the name to herself.

Wow.

 First name with the Queen family matriarch.

Is that good? Well, considering how she protects her children – maybe.

On the other hand – kidnapping and holding Walter, her own husband, for half a year. Yeah – it’s a toss-up. But at least it’s better than her enemy, she supposes.

“I’m fine. I just didn’t listen to the Doctor. And you know Oliver,” she places her hand against her husband’s chest, patting him twice. “Always so overprotective.”

Moira looks between her and Oliver, brows furrowed.

“Actually-“ she starts but Oliver takes the opportunity to speak up.

“I need to get Felicity into bed, mom. I’m sure we can all talk more later. She needs some rest now.”

“She,” Felicity tells Oliver, “can talk for herself.”

“Uh-huh,” Oliver looks at her, eyes half-lidded, “but of course. Well, far be it from me to stop you. And since you’re so capable of speaking for yourself, tell me, when was the last time you slept?”

Felicity lodges her tongue behind her teeth, trying to recall but it’s an exercise in futility. Probably more than twenty-four hours ago; either way, not an acceptable answer for the man in front of her.

“Yes, so, Moira,” Felicity says faux-brightly to her husband’s mother, “I really need to get some sleep, so I really hope it’s okay if I stay here for the- well, not night. It’s daytime. So the day? But in bed?”

Oliver breaks out into a low laugh at how she’s obviously ignoring him and she watches Moira be as close to gaping as someone as refined and dignified as her could be, staring at her son while Oliver teases her.

“Eloquent,” he mocks and she sticks her tongue out at him in a fit of pique. Sue her, but spending most of her time the last few decades with only her child rather than other adults may have had a detrimental effect on her maturity. He laughs – her fourth laugh from him today! – and guides her past his mother, one hand on her back.

“So, when did you last sleep?”

“Oh, this darn memory,” Felicity offers, wide-eyed in pretend-innocence. “I just can’t recall.”

Oliver shakes his head, still chuckling. “Sure you can’t.”

“You’re more than welcome to stay as long as you like, Felicity,” Moira half-shouts after them from down in the entrance hall. They’re half-way up the stairs but both turn back when it registers Oliver’s mother is shouting – shouting – after them. The woman who is the height of dignity and proper behaviour.

It takes another moment before Felicity realises why Oliver’s mother is acting the way she is. Oliver came back to her from those five years away all closed off, smiles sparse, laughter even rarer – and here he is laughing, teasing and chuckling. Of course, she’d want to make sure that the person who caused that stayed around.

That’s kind of sweet.

“Thank you,” Felicity offers the woman brightly, waving awkwardly before she is being ushered away by her not-husband.

Oliver just shakes his head and guides her forward, one eye always on her progress, making sure she isn’t stumbling or losing balance.

“I was joking earlier, you know,” she tells him, “about falling down the stairs.”

“Were you?” He asks, eyebrow raised and Felicity shrugs, acquiescing to him calling her out.

“Mostly,” she confesses.

“Then I will still keep an eye out,” Oliver admits, voice soft, with a casual nod towards her just as they reach the top landing. To her surprise he’s not guiding her to the guest rooms – but to his.

“That’s your room,” she tells him as if that would be news to him.

“Yes,” he says dryly, “I figured that out myself. Thanks.”

He’s still guiding her until she’s standing right beside his truly ginormous bed, not an ounce of hesitation – or showing any hint he intends to explain himself.

“Why am I in your room?” Felicity asks more directly when Oliver doesn’t seem to offer up more information on the subject.

“I’ll be watching over you while you sleep, not sleeping myself. This is, as you pointed out, my room. And, therefore, the most comfortable one for me to do that in. If it’s a problem, I can get you into another room, though. Or fresh sheets. Or whatever you need to feel comfortable.”

I don’t need anything but you, Felicity thinks, but makes sure her lips are pressed shut. It’s a thought she can’t let him hear. Not yet.

“No,” she says softly. “This will be fine.”

It will probably let her sleep better than she would in a guest room, surrounded by his scent. Knowing he’s watching over her. Protecting her. Not as well as she would in his arms, but close enough.

“Can I borrow one of your shirts to sleep in?” Felicity asks.

“Of course,” he tells her, like he’s surprised there was ever any doubt, gesturing to his wardrobe. “Just pick out whatever you’d like.”

Well, with that invite made she easily sifts through until she finds the grey, super-soft cotton shirt. Yep. Perfect. She hated when that shirt had gotten caught in one of the scuffles and not made it out. Smiling brightly, she holds it up to him and his shoulders are shaking slightly with chuckles at her obvious enthusiasm, easily nodding his consent.

“Thanks,” she tells him. “Now unless you plan to help – and hey, I wouldn’t say no – I’m going to get changed. So shoo.”

Oliver shakes his head in amusement.

“You wouldn’t say no, huh?” He queries, instead of letting her statement slide like he so often does with her faux pas. Not that this was anything but intentional, of course, on her end.

“Have you seen you?” She replies lightly, winking at him and he laughs again.

Wow.

What made this Oliver so much lighter?

“That’s rhetorical, by the way,” she adds.

“I’ll be right outside,” he says instead of offering more repartee, “just give me a knock when it’s safe to come back inside.”

Felicity laughs.

“You’ll never be safe to come back in,” she teases with a wide grin and he snorts, shaking his head as he closes the door behind him. Oliver’s obviously not taking her seriously – which, well, fair enough. Obviously, he’d be safe, but he hasn’t understood that the intent behind her innuendos is very much real. That she does want him – and as more than just a roll in the hay.

Getting out of her clothes is a bit harder than she anticipated; given the entire side of her torso is one giant bruise, every movement hurts. Bending over to pull on her jeans, which she’d just earlier been so grateful for, makes her curse out loud. She’s half-tempted to ask Oliver back in and tell him to undress her, but, honestly, she thinks it would be pushing him too much and she is still a bit too proud of her independence. She’d had no one to rely on but herself for the last two decades while raising Mia, being vulnerable as more than just a joke – it’s hard.

It’s Oliver, though, so if it was more than just a struggle and being in pain, of course she’d rely on him, trust him. But it isn’t. It’s pain and discomfort and figuring out the right way to unhook her bra without hurting more. It’s wriggling like a worm to get her trousers and shirt dislodged.

So, instead, when he knocks, voice concerned, as he asks if she needs help after yet another curse leaves her mouth, she placates him.

Naturally, by the time she tells him it’s safe to come in, Felicity has turned white as a sheet from the pain she’s put herself through and, predictably, Oliver’s brows furrow the moment his eyes land on her.

“Felicity,” he says hastily, concerned, rushing in and gathering her close. One hand is on her cheek, tilting her head so he can check her pupils, the other one against her lower back, pressing her closer and lending her support.

“You okay? What happened?”

“I would not recommend undressing yourself when everything hurts,” she tells him with a deep sigh, allowing her head to rest in his hand, closing her eyes. She’d missed this – the closeness, the support, the concern.

“Felicity,” Oliver says, tone reprimanding, “you should have asked for help.”

“With undressing? Well, there’s always next time,” she promises easily because, yes, no way is she doing this again, but she’s still amused by the offer he obviously made without thinking it through. “Now, I believe you offered me the best sleep of this life.”

There’s a small grin at the corner of his mouth when he gently helps her to lower herself so she can sit on the bed. She’s noticed more than one glance towards her bared legs; Oliver’s always had a thing for her in his clothing, but his shirt and nothing else he can see? Oh yeah. Even if he’s not her husband yet – or boyfriend – he’s definitely distracted, glancing at her like he can’t help himself and his hand skimming across the edge of her thighs when he stands upright. It’s only the barest of touches, barely noticeable. Yet Felicity knows he could have very well avoided touching her.

If he wanted to; which is the key thing here. Oliver hadn’t been able to resist touching her. She smiles to herself, ducking her head to hide the edge of self-satisfaction curling her lips up.

“I don’t believe I said any such thing,” Oliver disputes, as if he hadn’t just been looking at her that way. As if he hadn’t just offered to help her undress.

“It was implied,” Felicity argues, despite her exhaustion. Instead of fighting him, knowing how much better it makes him feel when he can actually physically help take care of his loved ones, she lets Oliver manoeuvre her without putting up a fight, argument or even commenting in any way on his actions.

“Alright,” he promises her, a smile in his voice “I’ll do my best to make sure you’ll have the best sleep of your life.”

Felicity just manages a hum as she snuggles deeply into his bed. She’d never been in this bed before; not slept here before. And for all that it was grandiose and intimidating, god, the bed was heaven.

“’m never leaving this bed,” she tells Oliver in a low murmur. “This is mine now. I never knew what was missing from my life until I tried this bed, Oliver. It’s amazing. It’s perfect. It’s heaven.”

He interrupts her litany of praise for his bed with a chuckle, watching as she arches into the bed and rubs her face against his pillow.

“Mine,” she repeats, through half-lidded eyes and manages to get another laugh from him.

Good, Felicity thinks to herself.

“Night,” she tells Oliver, instead of the words lingering on her tongue she desperately wants to say to him, to wrap him up in. I love you.

“I feel like I should give you some alone-time with my bed,” Oliver offers with a suggestive smirk which is enough to make her giggle.

“Please stay up for just a little bit longer,” he tells her seriously when her giggles subside. “I’ll be right back with a bit of food and some water as I’m not sure you know when you last ate either. I don’t want to give you the painkillers until you have something in your stomach.”

She doesn’t either, to be fair, but not since Helena at least. Felicity can see the tightness around the corner of his eyes, the worry for her and smiles warmly at him, hoping it alleviates at least a bit of the concern she can see in him.

“That’s fair,” she says instead of confessing to not knowing when her last meal was. “I’d appreciate it.”

And she would – Oliver’s food, no matter what he makes, is always a delight. It would be tremendously unfair of him to hoard all the cooking and baking talent if he wasn’t so willing to share the results of his work with her. Yum.

Oliver grants her a soft smile before leaving the room to fetch things for her.

Chapter Text

The moment he leaves, her smile drops and Felicity allows herself a bone-deep sigh.

There’s no distractions now. No computer. No Helena. No Oliver. Nothing to focus on.

Nothing but everything she lost. Everything that isn’t here.

Her husband. Mia. William. Or, well, a William is here, but not the one who held onto the hozen for years. Not the one who knows her.

“What a crazy day,” Felicity confesses in a whisper. She used to do this every day. Living alone with a baby, a toddler and later a child. With limited outside contact other than Nyssa. Barely any adults other than on grocery runs or with Mia’s doctor or nurse.

Yeah, maybe she would have resorted to this even if she didn’t know what she did.

But it wasn’t just for herself – although that was a really nice side effect.

No, mostly, it was for her husband.

Because the man she loved, the man who used to be afraid of the dark, who struggled for years with letting others in, with relying on her, on his friends, with not being alone?

That’s exactly what he is now and forever more.

Always alone. Always on the outside looking in. No one to talk to. To rely on. Living in the dark. Alone. With everything resting on him.

So, she tries to reach out the only way she knows how – he can’t respond, she knows that. Can’t reach out and touch him. Can’t hold him. Can’t give him a safe space to come home to.

But she talks to him and she tries.

Felicity talks to herself out loud, hoping her husband, her Spectre-Oliver, will be able to hear. That, for a few moments, he doesn’t feel so alone. That he remembers she loves him. She’s thinking of him. That he’s her always, her forever, and that there is no one else.

So, she talks about small things to him, inconsequential things. She grumbles and complains about stubbed toes and showers which take too long to heat up before Mia wakes up. She bemoans burnt toast and another batch of failed omelettes.

And in quiet moments, when her daughter is otherwise engaged during the day, she tells him about her. First steps, first words, first swear. About what she learned today, how bright she is, how inquisitive. How much she takes after her husband, after him. About what Felicity is doing. Reads books aloud.

Then the more serious moments, discussing her paranoia, her worries, her anxiety. Talking about whether she’s doing the right thing. About William. Felicity still stands by her decision – Mia grew up knowing nothing else, but removing William from school, from interactions with other children and adults? Not getting holidays away or having friends? Yeah, no. His life is better where he is. Safer. Felicity barely knows enough to fight off someone long enough for Mia to escape.

This time there are no ARGUS agents waiting to step in. She could not risk William. Could not have kept him caged up like she and Mia were. But, still, she broke her promise – left him, like her father left her. Wondered if he felt abandoned by them.

Oliver’s not there, but he is, kind of, everywhere, so she shared her thoughts. Told him about starting back up as Overwatch. About her secret hideout in the house.

Bragged about how well Mia was doing with the bow and arrow, with her fighting lessons from Nyssa.

And at night she taught Mia to talk to her dad. Tell him about her day, and although her daughter stopped years down the road, Felicity never does.

He can’t be there to share in those moments anymore, but she can still share them with him. Her happy moments and her sad ones. The mundane and boring ones. The funny mishaps and amazing breakthroughs.

She talks to him in the quiet moments in the morning and at night. Through the day when she gets a moment to breathe.

This is no different.

“Can’t believe Helena of all people is what nearly did me in,” she tells him, amused in spite of herself. Not the earthquake, not Slade or Merlyn, Diaz or Darkh. No. Helena.

“Yes, yes, I know, not funny.” She snorts. “Except it kind of is. And, you know, some warning would’ve been nice about what kind of situation exactly I’d step into.” Her smile fades. “I miss you,” she adds in a softer voice.

Felicity swallows hard, trying to get rid of the melancholy that’s so easy to get wrapped in.

“But this Oliver here, he’s young. And so much lighter.” She smiles to herself. “It’s wonderful.”

She wonders if this Oliver will find his solace with McKenna, now that she won’t be needing physical therapy or leaving the city.

“Thanks for watching out for us,” she finishes when she hears approaching footsteps and the clatter of porcelain behind mishandled. “Love is too small a word,” she tells the ceiling quietly, just moments before the door opens.

Oliver’s eyes flit over her and the room before settling back on her.

“Were you praying?” He inquires curiously and that, of all things, is what breaks the dam. Felicity succumbs to loud laughter, clutching her stomach when every movement jolts her bruises and cuts, but unable to stop herself, even as she keeps up a quiet litany of ‘ow’s’ between the laughter.

By the time she’s got her breath back, Oliver’s hovering beside her, looking both amused, concerned and curious.

“Why was that so funny?” He asks and she just shrugs lightly, a choked-off laugh escaping her lips.

“It just is,” she tells him. How do you explain that yes, your husband – a version of you, by the way – has become a kind of god, and it probably does count kind of as praying, but it definitely isn’t the way he is thinking.

He shakes his head at her, but lets her off as he passes her the tray with both food and water. Oliver then places a full carafe on her bedside table for refills.

“No nuts,” he promises her and Felicity smiles.

“Thanks for remembering.”

“Of course,” he says, like it’s a given that he remembers every word she ever spoke to him. To him, it probably is. He’s always been sweet.

“Aren’t you having anything?”

“Unlike a certain someone I could mention,” Oliver says with a raised eyebrow and a sharp look in her direction, “I did have breakfast.”

“Hm,” Felicity hums around a bite of perfect sandwich. God, even his sandwiches are better. At least her cookies and Monte Christo are still better than his – probably only due to the fact that he hasn’t tried his hand at them, but still. She’s going to hold onto the only things she can.

“Can’t believe it’s still morning,” Felicity says with a nod to the large balcony and floor-height windows allowing them a glimpse of blue skies.

“Small talk?” Oliver questions with a raised brow and she shrugs in response.

“What would you like to talk about instead? I’m warning you now, if the word ‘reckless’ is anywhere in it, I’m pulling the duvet over my head and not coming out until tomorrow.”

Oliver sniggers at her immaturity.

“Far be it from me to stop you from hiding, but I was more interested in you. I realise I don’t know much about you when you mentioned your goth-phase earlier,” Oliver’s lips are still twitching at the very words and Felicity rolls her eyes in response. “Not to mention growing up in Las Vegas.”

“What do you want to know?” She asks between bites.

“Anything,” Oliver offers, voice soft, “whatever you’re ready to tell me.”

Felicity laughs softly. “There’s nothing I want to hide from you, Oliver,” she tells him openly, without hesitation and she can see his eyes widen. “Ask me anything.”

He’s surprised, flustered, hesitant. Unsure how much he can read into her words and how much he should read into them. He gathers himself a moment later, eyes still fastened to her, watching her carefully.

“An easy one, then,” Oliver suggests. “Was the change from goth to blonde just because you wanted to be hired by a big corporation?”

Felicity laughs.

“Okay, first of all, probably one of the most difficult questions you could have asked,” she tells him, amused that this, of all things, is what he picked. “And secondly, offence very much taken. I get job offers pretty much every month. Google. Microsoft. Apple. Even Wayne Industries keeps trying to poach me.”

She watches her not-husband digest that bit of news, the way he’s trying to incorporate it into his image of her.

“Goth or not, I had – and still have – companies begging for these magic hands,” she wiggles her hands to demonstrate but winces when it aggravates the cut on it and allows Oliver to grasp it in his and gently lay it down on the bed, to stop her from making it worse.

“Careful,” he cautions and Felicity smiles at the unhidden concern in his voice.

Then, after he’s checked it over to his satisfaction, a boyish smirk suddenly graces his lips. “Magic hands, huh?”

Felicity blushes when he winks at her, but shakes her head in the end.

“Definitely magic hands,” she tells him, wriggling her hand against his, and it’s his turn to look away, so she returns to his original question.

“Anyway, no, that’s not why I changed. College is about self-expression, right? Well, I was too young and too smart in school. Not enough people who had liked the little genius girl with glasses skipping grades in school wearing second-hand clothing. Really, by the time I got to MIT, it’s no wonder I fell head over heels for the first guy who was interested and nice to me. I wanted to show the world that I was clever. Wanted to show the professors. Wanted everyone to acknowledge it.”

Felicity breathes in deeply. “And it was easy enough, right?” She offers a self-deprecating smile. “Governments, corporations, everyone’s only out for more money, for themselves. They needed to learn they were not at the top of the food chain. That what they steal can be taken. That I could bypass their security anytime I wanted. Do anything I wanted.”

She sighs lightly. Yeah. Not her greatest moment.

Far off from being her worst moment, too, though.

“I built this code – it could hack into anything. And, Oliver, I mean anything.”

“I can’t see this going anywhere good,” Oliver says with a deep groan and Felicity nods in silent confirmation.

“The guy I mentioned? Cooper. My boyfriend. The plan was to take a screenshot and post it on the dark web. Proof of concept. Of skill, you know? Only once I was in, Coop started deleting student loans.” Oliver winces. “Yeah. That wasn’t the plan. We hadn’t secured anything on our end for being traced back since I never intended to… so, yeah. FBI got us shortly after when we were outside. Cooper confessed to everything; his idea, his code, he said.” Felicity sighs, leaning back against the perfect pillows behind her as she takes another bite.

“Then I was told,” she continues once she finished swallowing, “that he killed himself in prison. However, I recently found out that bastard’s still alive, still working on ‘Brother Eye’ and my virus and basically become greedy. He’s working for the NSA. Or at least they think he is – I’m pretty sure he’s just biding his time.”

Felicity sighs, noting Oliver’s wide-eyed surprise, but ignoring it as she continues.

“So, anyway, before I found any of that out, I became blonde. Bright, vivid, happy colours. Lipsticks. Cute shoes.” She gestures to them and doesn’t realise what’s wrong until Oliver’s eyes flit away quickly, a tinge of red edging along his ears and the back of his neck and she follows his line of sight.

It’s not just her shoes there, but all her clothes – including her bra. Right on top.

“I’m sure you’ve seen bras before,” Felicity offers with an eyeroll and a snort.

“Not yours,” Oliver says quietly, still avoiding eye-contact.

A part of her wants to push, wants to ask what makes hers so different, but she knows the answer, so she subsides easily, letting him get away without making another excuse.

“Anyway, I needed a change. I was less standoffish with my clothes, my speech, my exterior but in reality, I had never been more closed-off. Like the fact that for all that I babble, I don’t give away personal details about my life. My Family.” She blows out a hard breath, before admitting aloud, “I was doing… penance, I guess. Hiding away as just an IT girl in the bowels of a big corporation. Just one face among many. Of course, it didn’t work out that way,” she concedes with a side-ways glance at him.

“Now it turns out my boyfriend didn’t die for a crime I’d committed and he’s, well, sort of an ass-hat. And a criminal.” She tils her head. “Well, a bad criminal. Because technically we’re both vigilantes and I’m a hacker. So, a distinction should be made, clearly. But, point is – I was a vigilante and a hacker before I ever met you, Oliver. I will be one, whether you’re in my life or not. My life, my choice.”

“You’re remarkable,” Oliver breathes out, voice infused with awe.

“So you’ve said,” she tells him, but there’s a pleased flush to her cheeks.

“And I stand by it,” he says and Felicity ducks her head in embarrassment.

“Come on,” Oliver starts abruptly, sitting upright, “here are your painkillers and then it’s time get some rest.” He pauses. “And Felicity?”

“Hm?”

“Thanks for sharing,” he tells, voice warm and soft, in that distinct Felicity-register she’s used to, the one he uses only on her. Like she’s amazing, awe-inspiring. Like she’s everything he ever wanted. And, at this stage in their lives, like he can’t believe she’s real.

“Anytime, Oliver,” she promises. “You just have to ask.”

Her not-husband blows out a hard breath.

“Felicity- I… you have to know, that…” he pushes an agitated hand through his hair, bowed over and face hooded before he straightens up again to look at her.

“I’m not ready to talk about the last five years,” he starts off, voice firm, before gentling almost immediately. “But, you have to know, if I was, if I ever am, you’re the one I’d share that with. There’s no one else I’d rather confide in. That trust,… it’s like you said. It goes both ways.”

“I know, Oliver,” Felicity, tells him, voice soft as she looks at him. It’s remarkable he’s even saying this much, to be honest. He eyes her for another moment as if to make sure she understood how earnest he is, before passing her the tablets.

“I hope that’s not ‘aspirin’,” she tells him with a grin on her face but doesn’t realise her mistake until Oliver’s hand is firmly around her wrist, stopping her from taking them.

“Why? Are you allergic? I should have asked, but-“

Felicity shakes her head quickly. Dig’s oxy which he told her was aspirin hadn’t happened yet.

“Not allergic,” she reassures him.

“Are you sure?” Oliver queries, looking doubtful.

“Promise,” she tells him and he lets go of her wrist so she can take the pills he gave her. It’s only after she swallowed them that she thinks to ask, “what are they, anyway?”

Oliver groans.

“You’re killing me, Felicity.”

“What?”

“The prescription. From your Doctor – you had it on you. Did you really not even look at the script?”

Felicity shrugs. It’s pretty clear already that she hadn’t. Oliver sighs, mostly exasperated but also slightly amused when he talks to her.

“Felicity,” he says with a stern look in her direction and she finds herself shrugging sheepishly. Yeah, she really hadn’t checked anything. Or noticed anything.

“You’re lucky our medicine cabinet is pretty well stocked. Especially considering some of this is clearly prescription medication.”

Oliver’s brows furrow like it’s the first time he’s looked into the medicine cabinet, too, and he doesn't know how to explain why they have prescription medicine stocked other than the obvious - they're rich and that makes it easy enough to bypass legislation and rules.

“Anyway, take these and get some sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up. You’re safe.”

Felicity softens.

“I’m always safe when I’m with you, Oliver,” she tells him, and gives him a moment to digest her words as she takes the tablets with a gulp of water before snuggling down in bed. Her not-husband’s head is tilted in confusion when she looks up. He’s looking at her, taking her in, as she lies in his bed, in his shirt, her tiny form swallowed up by his duvet and pillows. Before she has a chance to identify the turmoil of emotions crossing his face, he turns away to close the curtains and block out the light.

“G’night,” she tells him with deep yawn, figuring she can puzzle over Oliver tomorrow. Hopefully with more of her memories intact.

“Sleep well,” he offers with a soft look in his eyes, aborting the reach for her hair, like it’s habit, and reaching for her hand instead. Rather than let his hand slip away she intertwines her hand with his, closing her eyes and snuggling down.

Tomorrow – or later today – Felicity is sure the world will make more sense.

Chapter Text

Felicity – the one from this universe… well, she was a bit more reckless. A little more… pushy. In this universe, this Felicity, too, had gone from goth to blonde. Had settled for a career in a large corporation in IT. Set on hiding herself away.

Only this time Cooper had not waited an additional two years – he’d come to her a little less than a year ago, just before Oliver had been found on the island.

More gung-ho, less prepared, less skilled, but he’d still managed to get to her. The NSA had apprehended him before he could do anything more than rant at a very, very surprised Felicity who’d thought him dead. There’d been a weekend of questioning and pressuring her from several agents (and no lawyer), but for once, Felicity had stood fast. Would she really work in a dead-end IT job if she had the skills Cooper said she had? Of course that wasn’t her coding. He’d confessed to it being his, hadn’t he, after all? Him recanting now at the eleventh hour, didn’t mean it was hers. Yes, she was an early graduate of MIT but that didn’t mean she had written this code.

On and on and ‘round and ‘round they went. But in the end, Felicity had prevailed and they’d backed down. Without solid evidence, with someone else having confessed to the crime, they didn’t have a chance in a court of law and without that pressure, there was no way to coerce to go the way Cooper had and work for them.

So, she was released just as the weekend ended and she turned up on Monday at work, having no intention of letting anyone know that anything had changed over the weekend.

Even if everything had.

It also meant when the newly-returned lost-on-an-island playboy returned to Starling and continued ringing her alarm bells, continued pretending to be a playboy in public but turning to her with bullet-riddled laptops, strange drugs, arrows, people who needed to be researched… only to find them in Police custody later on or shot by arrows? Well, this Felicity didn’t close her eyes. Didn’t turn away. Didn’t wilfully ignore all her instincts (or her deep-seated need to solve mysteries).

This Felicity figured out who the ‘Hood’ was after Oliver’s second visit, had another weekend of drinking wine, binging on ice cream and Chinese takeaway and watching DareDevil interspersed with watching documentaries and looking up great moralists and thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, trying to pin down how she felt about her involvement and Oliver’s subsequent actions. How well she could justify being participant to these things.

How she felt about vigilantism and in what situations she could justify murder to herself. Because Felicity always had been able to justify murder to herself – having grown up in a state with capital punishment she’d come to grips with her sliding scale of morality early on. She’d just never realised quite where her line was until now.

It lasted longer than the weekend, of course, and as if he knew, as if he could tell, Oliver stayed away for a fortnight before seeking her out again.

By that time, Felicity had known she would continue helping Oliver in whatever he needed. That while she didn’t necessarily agree with his methods, she agreed with the people he went after.

Before she met Oliver – after Cooper – Felicity had been considering a new job. Reaching higher. But then his mystery, the fact that the vigilante came to her for help stayed her mouse from sending off those emails.

And then she was fully involved – that night when he ended up in the back of her car. Only this time, after confirming he wanted his lair, not the hospital, this Felicity hadn’t argued, hadn’t hesitated – she’d sped out of the garage and down to the Glades the fastest way she knew how. He’d still needed to be resuscitated, but this Felicity had been a little faster and his recovery had been correspondingly that little bit swifter.

She’d argued just as hard back at him when he’d tried his Arrow-routine on her and he’d backed down and turned up with Diggle and they’d once again ended up at the Charity in the dress he bought her (the same gold-shimmering one) trying to take down the Dodger.

Only this Felicity wasn’t quite so willing to back down, quite so scared – adrenaline sending her mind in overdrive and just as expected, her mind had gone over all the information she had on the Dodger. Someone who stayed out of the limelight, who took little to no risks and stayed out of range, out of the mess, the gunfire and security. It was clear, then, that his own safety was paramount – that the likelihood of him pulling the trigger when her neck – and the bomb collar – were right next to his own, were close to nil. So she hadn’t allowed for hesitation, for fear to take hold.

She’d been afraid for years, hiding – for years.

No more.

This Felicity had jumped on the Dodger’s back when he turned away, hooking her chin over his shoulders, shouting at him that the jewel belonged to the Queen family – not him. To let it go.

She’d intentionally not shouted bomb, knowing how frightened crowds could cause violence without even intending to, that her words could be misconstrued or misremembered down the line, fear altering memories. That’s why this Felicity had shouted about the theft instead of the bomb.

And the skirt of her dress had ridden up – but, luckily, Felicity had always had a curvy bottom and the skirt caught and held on. Probably also, thankfully, due to the side-slit on her dress. It meant while she showed a lot more skin than intended and while some people probably saw more of her underwear than she wanted anyone but her husband to, it was not quite as bad as she’d imagined it to be.

She remembered the shock, the fear and desperation written all over Oliver’s face as he stared at her helplessly in the crowd, stock-still and unsure what he could do when all eyes were on her. The stark shock and the first moment she realised he cared for her as more than just the IT girl, the help. The way Dig’s handgun was out and pointed at the Dodger before security personnel had a chance to move just in time with the Police officers rushing in.

And Felicity hadn’t stopped there. When the Dodger threatened to blow her neck, she’d disputed him, calmly and out loud in front of the Police and crowd – and the officer in charge (not Quentin) had believed her and they’d rushed in, arresting the Dodger and removing the detonator and her collar without hesitation.

She remembered the calm way Oliver had pushed himself forward, encircling her protectively in his arms as he checked her over, calling her ‘his date’ and the way she’d flushed under his worried gaze. Remembered him threatening lawyers when someone dared to question her association with the Dodger, her certainty that he wouldn’t detonate.

Felicity Smoak had made the newspaper and covers of magazines – and Moira Queen had been at her doorstep with her driver holding a bouquet large enough Felicity’s arms quailed under its weight. Thanking her for her willingness to stand up for the Queen family and protecting their holdings, for risking her life and going above and beyond. She’d been offered enough money to make Felicity gasp and stutter for a moment before she gathered her courage enough to stand firm. No, thanks. She’d done what was right.

That had been enough to give Moira pause and the woman had suddenly given Felicity a considering once-over. Then there’d been a brunch at a fancy restaurant where Moira had managed to get her to babble at least three times (once including the incompetency of her immediate supervisor) and she’d been given a new role at the company where Felicity reported to Walter or Moira only and was given leave to improve IT, servers and security and advise on purchases and business deals involving tech, all the while bypassing the IT manager entirely.

While Felicity initially objected to this promotion, too, Moira had convinced her it was less because of the events with the Dodger and family heirloom but rather because she hadn’t been brought to their awareness before and she’d been due the promotion a long time ago (plus it wasn’t like she hadn’t been offered before. Felicity had rejected the previous three because they would have put her even more under her IT Manager’s thumb; a clever position which appeared like a promotion on paper but in reality just allowed him to gain her insight and skills and claim her achievements as his own; he’d been rather incensed at her constant refusals and made her job rather uncomfortable lately).

So, Felicity had accepted. A bonus, a new promotion and because Moira actually, god forbid, liked Felicity, a standing invitation to Sunday dinner. That, however, hadn’t come until a thorough grilling on her interest and relationship with Oliver given he’d officially claimed her as his date at the event and her son was well-known for refusing to attend charities and fundraisers unless somehow forced into it.

Felicity hadn’t known how to explain – or answer half of Oliver’s mother’s questions. Instead, she’d told her about how they met, a story similar to the one Quentin got. About trouble keeping up with the ever-evolving tech world after five long years away, about setting up phones and routers, about teaching and talking. She confessed to blundering her first impression, how he smiled at her still, and Moira had just watched her, brows furrowed but hand covering her mouth and eyes bright.

That’s when it had just been one invite. Just Sunday family dinner – honestly, Moira had that way about her that told you there really was no way of refusing and what she’d said was less an offer and more a poorly concealed order.

So, Felicity had turned up – a bundle of nerves, hands sweaty and shaking, half-assaulting Oliver the moment he came around the corner, hands curling into his Henley, her mouth running a mile a minute as she tried to tell him what a bad idea this was and couldn’t he just shoot her, take her to hospital or something, anything was better than this – had to be better than this. The Dodger, she’d told him in a frantic whisper, was less nerve-wracking.

Of course, Moira had been there in the wings, waiting to swoop in, hearing her confession as Felicity’s wide eyes fell to her – but then Oliver had burst into bright chuckles, shoulders shaking with mirth. He took care, hand gentle as he stroked across her cheek and tucking a strand of her behind her ear, telling her wouldn’t leave her side and that he’d protect her. At the time, there’d been a teasing glint in his eyes, a joke for her eyes and ears only, knowing he was the vigilante – but that didn’t mean it hadn’t worked. Because she believed in him, even then. She’d seen the surprise and awe in his eyes when her shoulders fell, her lips curled up and she relaxed into him; reading body language came easily to him and hers was obvious, her appreciation and trust unhidden.

Felicity had still managed an awkward wave over Oliver’s shoulder, ensuring the lightness and openness on his face fell away, giving way for the closed-off nature of Oliver, even in front of his family, as he turned to take in their watchers.

The way she made Oliver open up at dinner – not willingly, but her babbles and rant provoking his barely-there ghosts of a smile when the corner of his lips barely curled up, to huffed out laughs when she surprised him and full dimple-smile when she’d made an innuendo or stood up to him. At the time, Felicity hadn’t known what to make of the surprise in the eyes of his family, the way they’d looked between them – hadn’t allowed herself to think on it, to be honest.

But she did now – now that she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt what it meant. The way he looked at her. What the others saw and what she hadn’t.

And that’s how Felicity received a standing invitation to their family dinner. And why everyone had looked confused at why Felicity had thought her association with Oliver – and the Queen family – was a secret. It had been plastered over magazines for days. Especially with the recognition and lunches with Moira and, occasionally, Thea or Walter.

Yeah, Felicity’s in with the Queen family was by no means a well-kept secret.

Neither was her relationship with Oliver although the speculation around it was rife, given that the man himself was still dating McKenna officially and they hadn’t been spotted on any dates other than the occasional shot of her with him and Diggle eating burgers and drinking milkshakes. But the shot at that charity event – a shot from a security camera – when he’d first seen her, with the bomb collar around her neck? Yeah, that stayed in the news. Because that hadn’t been the face of the playboy, or the concern for another person, a casual date.

His face had revealed far too much at that time – and although neither of them mentioned it, or talked about it, they all knew that there was something there.

Only now Felicity knew just how to read that expression, knew just what was in his heart and when she finally woke up, she wasn’t surprised to find Oliver, still at her bedside, still in the same clothing as earlier and still holding her hand as if he never wanted to let her go.

Chapter Text

It’s kind of amazing the difference a small moment can make; a different introduction; a split second, a reaction, and a steady-spiralling set of changes.

To the Moira of her previous world, Felicity had been interloper; a hanger-on. Someone out for her son’s fortune, the title of being Queen; another girl who slept with him. Another girl who believed herself in love with whatever she imagined she saw in the man. A girl who sought to blackmail her. A girl who had dangerous knowledge, information which could jeopardise her relationship with her son.

A threat.

Someone who needed to be dissuaded, taken care of.

But not this time around.

This time, in this world, Moira found out about Felicity from Oliver – from when he called his mother, still at the charity event and in front of her and the Police, asking Moira to make sure the Queen family lawyers were ready and willing to go toe to toe with the Police and Press on behalf of Felicity. Asking her to involve their PR department and putting the weight of the Queen family behind her. Just facing the displeasure of the Queen family was often more than enough of a threat to ensure only well-researched and fact-based articles made it into print (online or actual print).

 And when Moira had investigated and turned up at her door the next day, Felicity had still been in IT, a record of rejecting promotions and being over-qualified and working hours which showed nothing but dedication. Not an Executive assistant with a reputation of sleeping her way to the top. That would’ve been enough – maybe – for the offer of a promotion.

But Felicity had a different level of clout she’d never expected her past self to have – the press was watching and listening. It was in Moira’s best interest to make sure she had nothing but the best to say about the Queen family.

Additionally, Felicity had already demonstrated a dedication to the Queen family personally, not just professionally, and at the risk of her own life. Yeah, with her intellect, her skills and holding her son’s esteem as well as the attention of the press? Showing she was willing to die just to protect their reputation?

Moira was doing her very best to make sure she included and interweaved Felicity in every aspect of the Queen family’s life, hoping to tie her inextricably to them, to make sure she created emotional ties outside of Oliver’s to Thea, Moira and Walter, to make sure she didn’t go out seeking to destroy them (because she had a lot more leverage than past-her had realised).

Undoubtedly it was also planning for when Moira expected Oliver might drop her or cheat on her – Felicity honestly wasn’t sure if Oliver’s mother didn’t think she was in a secret relationship with her son and tacitly consenting to him stepping out on her with McKenna and her support was a reflection of her own twisted relationship with her husband where they’d both had relations (and children) on the side and the way Felicity also appeared to ignore Oliver’s infidelities.

Just thinking about it made her mind spin on and on like a hamster wheel with all the possible permutations and interpretations about what Moira could possibly be thinking. Honestly, she wasn’t sure which one was correct, and she also wasn’t entirely sure, she wanted to know. The point was, Moira was doing her best to treat Felicity like she was part of the family.

Thank Spectre the memories had reintegrated because there was no way Felicity could’ve predicted half of these things without it. Her relationship with Oliver and Dig was easier to understand. They were a lot closer – he was a lot more protective, as was Dig; hovering, even. They had, indeed, wrung a promise from her to be less reckless.

Well, considering this Felicity had died challenging and rebuffing Helena, it had been a good attempt on their part, but one doomed for failure.

It only made her earlier comment about Oliver’s over-protectiveness all the funnier, because, unless your name was Thea, that was not at all the way he was or had been with his girlfriends previously. In the future, her Oliver’s hovering and protectiveness over her (mostly her), and even sometimes Laurel and Sara had been well-established.

But she’d forgotten that this Oliver was still fresh(ish) from the island. Back when he’d been Ollie and dating, people had, apparently, flirted with his girlfriends – even Laurel – right in front of him, and he hadn’t flinched, hadn’t been jealous, because he hadn’t cared – not the way they had. Hadn’t seen it as exclusive, had slept with other people and hadn’t cared if they did the same, her husband had told her once with a grimace. Of course, even the playboy he had been back then, Ollie would’ve physically protected any girl from any unwanted advances or assault – but that was any girl, attachment or not.

Him hovering, constantly touching, reaching for her, looking at her? Yeah, Oliver, the one his family knew – he didn’t do that.

And before Moira could tell Felicity precisely that, Oliver had pulled her away.

Adorable.

As if she didn’t already know just how much he cared for her, as if she couldn’t tell just from the way he looked at her. Question was, how much did he care for McKenna? Because the woman had given him something he desperately needed at that time – someone he needn’t make apologies (and lies) to. And he’d known her for years, building on a relationship from before the Gambit sank – Felicity honestly couldn’t tell if that was a positive or not, at this stage. If it meant he might stick with the Detective. If he might never allow himself to think of Felicity, allow himself to consider the way he felt about her.

The bigger issue with the reintegration, however, is far more unexpected. Felicity had honestly put it down to a higher pain tolerance, her own distraction and the anaesthetic.

But what she’d felt yesterday? Nothing compared to today. The reintegration wasn’t just her mind – it was her body, too. A body she hadn’t realised didn’t quite feel like her own until now. The bruises she’d thought painful yesterday were now strong enough to impact her breathing, every movement seeming to pull on a part of her body which was, at best, aching. But the worst was her neck, still - the skin around her neck was tight and really, really painful. She felt like she could count each of the stitches from the pain alone. There was nothing she could do. Swallowing was difficult. Breathing hurt. Her body was not sensitive like it was when she was too close to an explosion, no this pain came from underneath her skin and was not so easily protected or covered.

There was nothing she could do, but accept it and move on through the pain because there simply was no other choice.

When Felicity finally forced herself to finish processing and face her not-husband, opening her eyes, the sunlight around the edges of the curtain had given away to darkness and a night sky.

Oliver was where he’d been when she fell asleep, looking for all the world as if he hadn’t so much as twitched a muscle. His seat was still facing her, both of his hands wrapped tightly around her right one, lifted enough so he could bow over it. With his head lowered, the shadows concealed his face enough she had no hope of reading his expression, even if she were wearing her glasses. Although the latter, at least, is an easy enough fix.

“I’m glad to see you’re awake,” he says quietly, lifting his head slowly, and Felicity winces at the pain and grief written across it now that she can see him clearly.

“Thanks for watching over me,” she offers, slowly righting herself, not letting him out of her eyes or allowing her hand to leave his, the old habit of breathing through the pain coming back to her easily. Ironic since the very act of breathing agitates the pain, but there’s nothing for it now.

“What’s going on?”

He shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he says as if she couldn’t tell when he lies to her.

“Don’t say it’s nothing,” she disputes with an eyeroll but he doesn’t react. He’s still intent on not sharing, she acknowledges with an internal sigh.

“You have your broody-face on. Why do you have your broody face on? Did I drool really badly?” She pats the pillow as if to check, but her eyes never leave Oliver’s face, hoping to elicit at least the beginnings of a smile from him.

“Or talk in my sleep? I swear, I can’t be held responsible for what I dream about. Neurons misfiring and all that. It’s not my fault if I mentioned a certain someone’s awesome abs. That could have been about anyone. Really.”

Finally, a slight upwards tilt to his lips, but it fades quickly and he shakes his head.

“Broody face?” he tries to distract but Felicity is the master of distraction and it’s not quite that easy to do to her. Having a toddler teaches you the most remarkable talents you never knew you needed.

“The everything’s-my-fault, the world’s ending and everyone who has ever died did so because of me. Your guilty face. Your broody face,” she summarises and that, at least gets a tired smile and a half-breathed out chuckle.

“Do you have a name for all of my expressions?”

“I think I’ll plead the fifth on that one,” gets her another smile but it falls quickly.

“Talk to me,” she requests quietly when he still refuses to engage or respond.

“It’s not a good time,” Oliver objects finally.

“Will there ever be a better time?” she asks rhetorically and can see him hesitate – so she pushes.

“I’m your captive audience. Fairly literally actually, because I’m not sure I can escape this bed without help. I think it might swallow me whole if I’m not careful.”

“You need to get better first. Then we can talk,” he argues but she’s not so easily dissuaded.

“Oliver,” Felicity breathes out with a heavy sigh. “You know me. All that’s going to do is make sure my mind’s running a mile a minute and I get progressively more stressed with each terrible scenario of what you could be wanting to talk about.”

He looks contemplative, at least, acknowledging he does know her that well at least.

“Let’s start off with one of the worst things then – are you kicking me off Team Arrow?”

“What?” He is wide-eyed, genuinely taken aback at the sheer suggestion. Thank God. “No- why would you even think that?”

“Broody face,” she reiterates, “about something we can’t talk about until I’m better. How could it be anything but terrible news?”

“And since when is it ‘Team Arrow’?” He queries, a thread of amusement in his voice.

He’s looking a bit more relaxed now; good. He’s opening up. He’s giving up on holding back.

“No way am I calling it Team Hood,” she rebuts instantly and he smiles slightly.

“Alright,” he finally openly concedes.

“Are you sure you want to talk about this right now?” Oliver asks again and Felicity barely manages to stop herself from sighing loudly or rolling her eyes; she just gives him a hard stare which is enough to make Oliver roll his own eyes.

“I had to check, Felicity.”

“Alright, you did your check, yes I’m sure, now – tell me. What has you all Broody McBrooderson?”

The smile falls right off his face and the pained look in his eyes is back.

“We never talked about it back after we faced the Dodger. Mainly because you’d made us a promise to be more careful in future and Dig and I thought that’d be enough. But… Felicity, think about what you said, about why you did what you did. It doesn’t add up.”

“What?” Felicity queries, brows furrowed. “Of course it adds up. I stopped him by jumping on his back because we both knew that guy would never risk himself.”

“Except there’s a flaw in your reasoning,” her not-husband tells her, voice heavy and eyes serious.

Felicity snorts.

“Excuse me – but I’m a bonafide, certified genius, Oliver. If there were a flaw in my reasoning, I think I would have found it by now.”

“Okay then,” Oliver gives in with a sigh. “Tell me… when you first saw someone who stole the jewels, why did you confront him? Why didn’t you call me and Dig in?”

Felicity smiles. “That’s easy – because there was no bomb collar around his neck. So, I figured this guy had to be another unrelated thief stealing it.”

The man sitting beside her bed doesn’t say anything, just staring at her, waiting for her to catch on.

It takes a moment before the pieces connect, then her eyes widen.

“Frack,” she swears quietly.

“I never thought of that,” she breathes out slowly, still surprised at her own realisation, at what Dig and Oliver had likely both figured out the moment it had happened.

“I know,” he admits gently, stroking across her hand, eyes steadfast on her own.

“But that would mean-“

“Yeah.”

“Frack!”

“You’re okay,” Oliver reassures her.

“By chance,” she tells him, “l was wrong – about all of it. That was not a calculated decision – that was luck. I don’t work on luck, Oliver,” Felicity’s voice is in a higher pitch due to her panic, but she cannot just let this one slide. “I calculate. I find information I can base my decisions on and if I don’t have enough, I find more ways to get it. I – This- Oliver-“ her voice falters as she tries to explain but struggles to.

“I know,” he tells her again, reaching out to the shoulder opposite the stitch on her neck, to gently squeeze it supportively – but unless he intends to kiss her until she struggles to put together a coherent thought, that’s not going to be enough, Felicity thinks to herself, her mind still spiralling.

“I confronted him,” she explains slowly, needing to say her realisation out loud, “because the Dodger always stayed out of range. He remained out of the blast and danger zone. And with no bomb collar on his neck, the man should have been just a random thief. Only it wasn’t – and that means all the decisions I made later were informed by that erroneous assumption at the start. Which means if he didn’t stay out danger, if he wasn’t as concerned with his own safety as I had presumed – there was a chance he could’ve blown himself up. Some bombers are known for wanting to go out in a suicide by cop. Or their own bomb. Oh god, Oliver, I could’ve died.”

“I know,” he tells her softly. “It’s why we made you promise. We didn’t want you to doubt your judgements, it’s why we didn’t tell you earlier – you made the right call based on the information you had. You just need to learn to adjust your assessments when you get new data. And take less risks. Please.”

Oliver sighs, extracting one of his hands from hers so he can rub across his eyes.

“I’m just… concerned. You showed more emotion about beating someone I trained than about putting yourself in danger - yet again. I was worried when you told us you confronted Helena instead of going along with her; Instead of giving her what she wanted and letting me or even the Police deal with her. Look, Felicity, I’m just – I’m trying to understand: Why didn’t you?”

Felicity grimaces as she finally understands the pain across his face, the grief in his eyes… because the real question he’s asking her, the one he thinks he knows the answer to, is whether she’s suicidal.

“It’s not that,” she promises him quickly, because she never wants him to think that. She tries not to remember how she’d willingly walked to her death the moment she’d been sure Mia and William could protect themselves and her promise had been fulfilled. Because, although she’s never acknowledged it out loud, she knows exactly what that was.

“I just can’t have those deaths on my head – not of the people trying to protect him who’ve done no wrong.” That had been past-Felicity’s justification to Helena and it kind-of held true. “And I didn’t know how long it’d be before you check your phone, so I-“

Felicity winces, knowing Oliver’s already caught onto her blunder with the way his head has snapped up, eyeing her suspiciously.

“What do you mean?”

She sighs.

“Look, I just- I called you. When I found the report of the robbery and the crossbow stolen. I was leaving a voicemail when I turned around and she was suddenly there.” She sighs heavily when Oliver’s brows furrow.

“I don’t have any voicemail,” he tells her with certainty, nevertheless stretching out his hand to reach for his phone to double-check, because he trusts her.

“I deleted it,” Felicity confesses quietly and Oliver stares at her, jaw set, body stiff, hand paused mid-reach as he forcefully breathes out, modulating his voice and tone so it doesn’t come out as the angry yell she can tell he really wants to use. Because he’s like that; careful with her. Cautious. Protective. Especially when she’s injured. And when he’s angry.

“Why?” he bites out between pressed teeth but she can tell how much she hurt him with her decision. What was intended to protect him made him think she didn’t trust him, instead.

“I’m sorry, I just- you didn’t need to worry. I’d managed to take care of everything by that time. Security was there and the cavalry with Captain Lance on their way. I didn’t want you to show up and create any questions or raise any suspicion. And I checked your location – you rarely manage to get time away for yourself, I didn’t want to interrupt what little downtime you managed to get for yourself. But I promise, I didn’t need a rescue; if I had, I wouldn’t have touched that voicemail. I promise, Oliver. I just wanted to protect you. The same way you always protect me.”

He breathes out, a quiet hiss, eyeing her carefully, cautiously, as he tries to read her. But then, finally, Oliver gives her a sharp nod and she feels the tension in her shoulder blades release at the silent concession.

“Don’t do that again,” he tells her – and it’s not a request this time, but rather an ultimatum. The implications are more than clear. If she breaks his faith in her again, there’s no coming back from that. Or well, there would be, there always was with them – but not without a lot of time and effort.

“I promise,” she tells him and she means it – because she never wants to be the one responsible for putting that look on his face. Never wants to hurt him like that.

“And I’m so, so sorry, Oliver. I didn’t think about what it would look like for you.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he tells her and she blinks in surprise, sitting more upright, ignoring the pain shooting through her at the movement, because… what? What could Oliver possibly have done to-

“What?”

“You relied on me,” he tells her and she shrugs, because, well, she does.

“Only as much as you rely on me,” she retorts easily, garnering a soft smile from him at her words, before he goes grim-faced again.

“And I let you down,” he continues as if she hadn’t spoken.

“What?” She asks again – because how did he come to that conclusion?

“I did,” he tells her firmly. “You called me. You’re on the team, my team, and I swore to Dig that we could protect you and I failed you. You’ve never called me for anything trivial. I should not have silenced my phone. I shouldn’t have been- I was-“ He hesitates and Felicity rolls her eyes.

“Oliver, I figured out you were having sex with McKenna. You keep thinking I’m so innocent, but I’m not that innocent.”

There’s no need to let him know how jealous she is, how much she hates that her husband was lying in another woman’s arms last night, that he was kissing her instead of Felicity. It wasn’t fair – Oliver wasn’t even her husband, had made no promises of fidelity to her, or even acknowledged any feelings beyond friendship… but still.

She couldn’t silence the way she felt about it – about him. Couldn’t separate them because at their core, the two men were the same. The same wonderful, amazing person she couldn’t help but fall in love with. Yeah, this Oliver was different, both more broken, and more closed-up and lonely. Unwilling to open himself up. Unwilling to endanger her or anyone else.

“And you’re entitled to down-time, Oliver,” she rebukes gently.

“Not when you’re in danger because you chose to be on my team and I’m your first port of call for safety. Not when you rely on me to respond.”

“We’ll just find a work around – I’ll create a new phone number to redirect to your phone and any calls to that number bypass your phone settings. That way, even if you do mute your phone, it’ll override it and ring.” Felicity shrugs.

There’s plenty of workarounds, to be honest, and she wondered if this had bothered Oliver as much the first time around. He’d never mentioned it and with his relationship with McKenna coming to an abrupt end, it had not come up again until later when he needed work and Arrow-phone numbers separate from each other so he knew how to answer.

“You can do that?” Oliver asks, surprised.

“Some day,” she tells him, “you will stop being amazed at the simplest things I can do.”

“Never,” he assures her easily, a mischievous grin curving his lips up enough his dimples appear. Felicity can feel her breath catch and his smile widens, noticing her reaction. She flushes when he winks playfully at her.

“Behave,” she scolds him, but her grin is wide enough Oliver can tell her heart’s not behind it.

Then she forces herself to be serious, to not allow herself to be distracted – because this needs to be said, not allowed to fester.

“Just know, I’m not angry, okay?” Felicity requests earnestly. “I’m not upset. I don’t feel let-down. Or disappointed.” It’s easy enough to read the surprise on his face, the way his eyes slowly widen as she continues her reassurances, the way his breath falters and the way his hand around hers tightens.

“You haven’t broken my trust or faith in you, Oliver, I promise you. So, you don’t have to apologise or be sorry. But… just in case you need to hear it – I forgive you. And I still believe in you.”

There’s a shimmer in his eyes that tells her she’s managed to touch him with her words – that he believes what she told him, rather than dismissing them as he sometimes does. Instead, he swallows hard and lets her hand go. With an easy move – for Oliver, who is uninjured, not her – he moves up onto the bed and covers, wrapping both his arms around her, cradling her against his chest and pressing a chaste kiss to her head along with a barely audible, “thank you.”

Felicity relaxes.

Yes, the new position hurts her bruise as she stretches sideways. Yes, it pulls on the stitching in her neck where she’s got it tilted to lean against him. Yes, it hurts and aches and she wants nothing more than to swallow more pain killers.

Except there’s nothing better to alleviate pain than the dopamine rush she gets from being held to her husband’s chest, the careful way he’s holding her, the kiss he’s pressing to her head, all the ways he makes an effort to show her just how much he loves her.

…

Okay, so maybe some painkillers and the dopamine rush would be ideal. But for now? She has no intention of saying anything which might cause him to move away from her, or cause him to become more aware of their positions; she’s just going to enjoy this for as long as he lets her.

Felicity closes her eyes, deliberately leaning closer to him.

This? This is perfection. It’s everything she’d been needing since the moment Helena was taken away by Detective Lance. Everything she hadn’t wanted to think about missing because the odds of her getting this from Oliver this early on in their relationship she’d figured were astronomical.

Allowing herself to snuggle closer to Oliver, relishing in the warmth he’s exuding, the scent and feel of him surrounding her; yeah, perfection is a pretty accurate description for this moment.

Now, if only they could stay like this forever.

Chapter Text

“Urgh,” Felicity complains, still enjoying the feeling of being completely swallowed by Oliver’s taller frame encompassing hers and shielding her. Twenty years of raising Mia, of always being on edge, always worried about an attack, about failing to protect their child – having this, this feeling of absolute safety and protection, of knowing that Oliver would never willingly let anything or anyone get through him to touch her? It was heaven. Peace.

“What’s wrong?” His voice is just a breath, a hint of a whisper ghosting over her hair and she feels the hair on her neck stand up – so can he, given she can feel his lips curve up where his head’s leaning against her.

The option of staying, unfortunately, went out of the window an hour ago.

“Need the bathroom,” Felicity huffs out, exasperated with her dysfunctional body which clearly doesn’t appreciate a good situation when it sees it – or feels it, as the case may be.

“Alright. Do you need a hand?”

When Felicity freezes, after nearly head-butting him in the chin with how fast her head snapped up to stare at him wide-eyed, Oliver’s lips twitch and he huffs out a laugh.

“To get to the bathroom, Felicity,” he clarifies and she lets out a breath which only has him chuckling again – at her expense, not that she minds.

“I’ll be fine,” she assures him – but then she actually moves.

“Yeouch,” with a groan, Felicity collapses straight back into Oliver’s arms. It’s been a long time since she was ashamed in front of Oliver. He’s never been anything but helpful and supportive.

“Alright,” she concedes before Oliver can voice what his furrowed brow and concerned gaze is already telling her.

“Carry me to the bathroom, please.”

Oliver visibly brightens at her giving him official permission to be his normal hovering, overprotective self and not have to watch her be in pain.

“You wish is my command,” he retorts playfully but he’s nothing but careful when he cradles her to his chest, avoiding her bruise by sheer memory, and shuffling forward until he can put his feet on the floor and stand with her in his arms – the harder task by far. It would’ve been so much easier for him to just pick her up while he’s already standing, yet decided not to.

But the demonstration of sheer strength and control is also something which never fails to make her stomach swoop with arousal; something her husband had taken advantage of more than once – not that this younger him would know that.

“Oliver,” she breathes out, remembering how often these moments had ended – or started – with them against walls or other surfaces, with them tearing each other’s clothes off, with them sinking into each other. This man doesn’t know any of that, but when he looks down at her – clearly worried he’d hurt her somehow – he does know how to read the pupil dilation, the heat in her eyes, the breathiness of her voice changing connotation easily.

She can feel him hesitate for a split second, as if trying to decide if he should say something – but instead, like so many of her babbles – he moves on as if she hadn’t said anything, as if he hadn’t seen what he did.

Except for the self-satisfied smirk at the corner of his lips as he carries her to the bathroom door which at least lets her know he didn’t mind the momentary very healthy appreciation for his strength. Oliver’s slow to let her go, guiding her to her feet and supporting her until Felicity’s sure she found her feet.

“Can I take a shower while I’m in there?” Felicity asks, head tilted, making sure her voice is firm and steady.

“Of course. Help yourself to anything.”

“Thanks,” she offers with a bright smile, intentionally refraining from planting yet another kiss on his cheek – or worse (better?) his lips.

“No worries. Unlike someone I could mention, I do share my toys,” he offers with a wink in her direction which has her giggling at his reference to their banter earlier that morning.

“Oliver, are you telling me what’s yours is mine?” Her eyes are bright with laughter and but the smile she gives him is soft – because he had made that insinuation, even if he backtracked now, even if he changed his mind, that would always be the underlying meaning she couldn’t unhear. Because some part of Oliver, however subconscious, knew what he was saying.

“Shush you,” he shakes his head, looking amused as he opens the door for her and to her amazement, he wasn’t even trying to take it back or dispute her interpretation. “You need anything, let me know, okay?”

“Of course,” she reassures him seriously, patting his chest for a moment. Wow, sometimes it was so easy to forget just how hard Oliver was. On bad days, he looked like he stepped off the cover of a GQ magazine. And then there were the good days where he looked like a Greek God. His abs and chest were just packed with muscle; damn it, if she wasn’t so sore, she’d climb that man like a tree.

Reluctantly, Felicity pulled back her hand before it became too obvious it was not meant to be soothing for him and was more for her to get in a gratuitous grope. Except just as she’s about to leave the room, she sees him, half-bent over, leaning against the wall, shoulders shaking.

“Oliver?” She asks, head tilted.

He turns to her and his eyes are bright, corners wrinkled, dimple on his cheek on full display as he bursts into loud, irrepressible laughter.

God, she doesn’t know how, but Oliver somehow looks even hotter when he’s genuinely happy. That man’s like cat nip. Felicity-nip?

He laughs even harder.

Toilet or find out what amused her husband…?

“That was your most overt one yet,” he tells her, voice light and threaded with laughter, putting a quick end to her dilemma.

Her confused look must be enough to prompt him to explain.

“So, is that what you normally dream about?”

Felicity must look very quizzical by this point, because he snorts and laughs again.

“You were talking out loud,” he prompts.

“I know – I was trying to make you smile. And it worked.”

“No,” her not-husband rebuts instantly, casually leaning against the wall in a pose reminiscent of GQ models and looking unfairly unattractive doing so.

“Well, yes, that did work – it always works, somehow, when it’s you. But no, I didn’t mean earlier. I was referring to just now.”

It takes only a second for the penny to drop; she expects a satisfied smirk from him at her unintentional ego rub, but instead there’s a flush to his cheeks and ears and he seems mostly endeared and amused.

“What was it you said?” He asks, a boyish smirk slowly making its way across his lips. “Oh, yes, I remember now. You think I look like a Greek God. And you’d like to climb me like a tree. Also, apparently I’m Felicity-nip.”

Her husband wouldn’t have quite so easy a time embarrassing her mostly because she knows he would never hesitate to let her do exactly that and he’s just as attracted to her. But with this Oliver she’s swimming in the deep end whereas he only just has his feet in shallow waters.

A hot blushes races across her face right down her chest. Well, this is awkward.

“So?” he asks and she is too flustered to do anything but stammer and echo his word.

“So?” she repeats back to him, confused. He pushes off the wall with enviable ease, leaning forward so his breath ghosts over her neck, his lips touching her ear as he whispers, voice low and a slight growl threaded through, enough to make her shiver just at the sound.

“Is that what you dream about?”

Felicity can feel her heart race, her eyes pop and her lips part to let out an almost silent gasp. Oliver pulls back enough to take in her face, his right hand cradling her chin and part of her neck, tilting her head so they make eye contact. She knew he positioned his hand there intentionally when his teasing grin broadened as he felt her no doubt rapid pulse at her neck.

“Never mind,” he tells her, winking and oh, he definitely noticed how her heart sped up even more when he does that, “I think I have my answer.”

His voice is still lower, quieter – directed at only her but also just close enough to his Arrow-voice to make every part of her pay attention. Her husband had quickly learned just how to use all the ways she found him attractive to his advantage; unfortunately for her, her currently very platonic friend Oliver was rapidly learning the same without any of the fringe benefits.

He lets her go, stepping back and out of her space enough she finally lets her shoulders drop, her breath coming out in a hurried pant, not having realised just how tightly she’d held it before until she’s at least a little more distanced from Oliver’s intoxicating proximity.

“You used to not engage when I made these awkward passes at you,” she finally manages to say.

Oliver shrugs.

“Do you want me to go back to that?” He asks seriously – and she knows he would, without hesitation, if she told him she wanted to do just that.

And that’s unfair, because no, of course she doesn’t. Even if it’s at her expense, she likes this light-hearted Oliver who teases her and banters with her, who makes jokes and laughs so hard he has to lean against the wall to support himself. Felicity pouts and Oliver’s smile returns immediately at the implied surrender.

“Alright then. Far be it from me to keep you from the bathroom,” the man says, letting her off the hook as she ducks past him.

Chapter Text

She’s just finished washing her hands, when she takes a look. The shower is large enough to accommodate four people whereas the bath could probably hold ten, easy.

Bath or Shower?

It was cheeky, outrageous really, to use someone else’s bathroom when you were there just as a day (overnight?) guest, but it would probably be so, so much easier. Plus, well, it was Oliver not like she was guest to a stranger or anything.

She hums thoughtfully to herself.

“Hey, Oliver.”

His voice comes from right beside the door.

“Do you need my help with anything?” is his immediate response, concern easily audible.

“Nope. Just - can I take a bath?”

“No, sorry.”

Oh. Well. Fair enough, she supposes. Shower it is, then, Felicity thinks with a sigh to herself, eyeing the large, spacious area.

“It will help your healing but not yet – you’ll need to wait a few days. Don’t make the shower too hot either – the heat brings the blood flow to the surface.”

Oh. That makes so much more sense than the billionaire worrying about water consumption. Whoops. Felicity really should have been able to figure this out for herself.

“Thanks, Oliver,” she tells him, hoping he can hear her genuine gratitude in her voice. Luckily, she’d thought to ask rather than just jump in.

Now to undressing.

Maybe she should have picked a shirt with buttons; it would have probably been easier than trying to lift it over her head again. With the bruises, her bruised (unbroken, though, so far) ribs and the stitches at her neck, moving her shoulders and torso was an exercise in pain as she’d discovered yesterday – and one she didn’t really want to relieve.

However, as her only other option is to remain covered in sweat and dried blood, there really isn’t much of an alternative as far as Felicity is concerned.

Joy.

She manages to roll up the bottom of the shirt for the lower half but then it does need to be pulled up over her head and she never realised before this morning just how many muscles that uses and how much she needs to stretch. She manages it half-way over her breasts when a sharp pain shoots down the side where Helena hit her with the crossbow, forcing a gasp to escape her mouth without her permission.

“Felicity?” Is Oliver’s immediate response, accompanied by a sharp rap on the door.

Unfortunately, she’s too busy dropping the shirt, stumbling back and colliding with the corner of the shower on her other side, hitting her shoulder too close to her neck, ensuring tears well up in her eyes as the pain assaults her on all sides. Felicity’s half-certain she’s going to throw up any moment now and dreads the further toll that will take on her muscles if it happened – the bending over of her torso, the wrenching in her neck. She’s gulping for air, having managed to knock the breath out of herself with her latest hit to her injury.

She’s disoriented, trying to get a handle on herself but only just managing another stumble. With yet another hiss through gritted teeth, she tries to lean against the wall, eyes pressed shut and attempting to breathe through the pain and tell her body that throwing up right now would be very counter-productive. There’s at least a little blood leaking from her neck to her shoulder – either that or she’s crying profusely. Felicity is at the stage where she honestly can’t tell anymore.

The world’s gone that foggy-hazy way that precedes unconsciousness, every sound distant, every move delayed as if her brain is taking ages to relay the signals to her body, feeling woozy and discombobulated as Felicity forces her body to remain upright rather than collapse down to the floor.

Mia can’t know, she thinks hazily. She has to protect Mia. She can handle this herself. She’s done it before. Nyssa will be by later, hopefully. God, she wishes Oliver-

Her hand lashes out automatically when a hand wraps around her elbow, stomping down with her foot – Mia, Mia, Mia, have to protect her, I promised, Oliver – I promised! No one can find her.

Felicity ignores the pain, launching forward, eyes scanning wildly for a weapon, any weapon. Showerhead’s too far. Sink’s closer. The sink is hard ceramic or porcelain and metal. Easy enough to use to seriously injure someone if she pushes their head down against it hard enough.

Adrenaline’s displacing her haze and the world snaps into focus, every sound loud and amplified, her breath heavy and noisy but at least there’s only one other person she can hear. Her body’s responding faster too – or her mind’s slower now, she’s not exactly sure.

All she knows is that there’s no line she won’t cross to protect the ones she promised to; her children. Not for Mia. Not for William. She grabs the guy’s shirt using it as leverage to pull herself up and pull him down towards the sink, hoping he won’t resist too hard, that her first try will be effective, prepared to knee him in the back of his leg to force him to bend over or sink down, giving her leverage she sorely needs.

“Hey, hey, hey.” The voice is soft, entreating, trying to calm and soothe rather than fight. “It’s me, please stop fighting.”

It’s such a ridiculous request that it’s enough to force her into a little bit more focus. He feels familiar; smells familiar. It takes another moment before the adrenaline goes down enough, she can think of more than just to kill and hurt before they get to the ones she needs to protect above all else, can think beyond the fight she’d anticipated when all she’d gotten was soft, careful touches and hands shielding and blocking her more than they were themselves, trying to protect her from further harm.

It’s only then she allows her head to tilt up and look at her not-attacker.

Oliver.

Of course. It all comes back at once.

Because she’s back in the past. With past-Oliver and past-Diggle.

She’s not alone anymore. Felicity doesn’t have to do this all alone. Not anymore. Not ever.

Doesn’t have to keep fighting beyond where her body can bear it.

The thought is so relieving, the fight leaves her all at once and she sags into Oliver’s waiting arms. Her not-husband adjusts his grip and stance quickly to take her weight without hurting her further.

Fuck.

Gone from struggling to take off a shirt to injuring herself and then making everything worse by fighting.

“I’m such an idiot,” she whispers self-deprecatingly into Oliver’s shoulder.

“Hey, no,” he tells her, stroking his thumb gently across her back while cradling her protectively in his arms.

“You’re fine. Don’t even worry. It’s normal. You’ve been in a fight for your life only a day ago and when you felt pain and then someone touching you, it’s perfectly normal to lash out.”

That’s sweet, but it really isn’t. Past-Felicity would not have gotten lost in her mind. Would not have had other people to protect so fiercely she would have fought before getting a hold of her surroundings or opponent. Past-her was reckless, but not traumatised.

“Thank you,” are her first words, because she knows if Oliver had treated her like an opponent, if he hadn’t let her get some of the hits in and only blocked anything that would hurt her more than it would’ve hurt him, she could’ve easily worsened her already existing injuries more than she already had.

But then he’s always thinking of her before himself, is always controlled in his movements and manoeuvres, his strength carefully restrained and exercised only ever to assist or save her. Never to hurt her.

“And I’m sorry,” she adds.

“Hey. Felicity. Look at me. I promise, you have nothing – nothing – to apologise for,” he says immediately.

“I do,” she rebuts. “You took me home, took care of me, watched over me and I hurt you.”

Felicity stands, still leaning against him but supporting her own weight now. Oliver uses the opportunity she gives him to gently tilt her head up with his right hand so she faces him.

“Felicity,” he enunciates her name softly and carefully, his tongue slowly wrapping around each syllable in that way of his which always makes her heart flutter and conveys enough meaning without needing to say any more.

I care for you. I love you. You’re my light. You’re my always.

He’s not there yet, but it still means something to him. Only to her, it means everything. Because the way he looked at her, the way he said her name, those things had never changed over their time together – or even their time apart.

“You have nothing to apologise for,” he reassures her, mouth set in a grim line, brows furrowed and eyes dark as he stares down at her.

“You did everything right.”

Felicity doesn’t agree – but she doesn’t exactly disagree either. Because William will be part of her life again soon, and there is no way she’d allow him to be hurt (again) if she was in a position to prevent it.

“You put up an amazing fight and your instinct with the sink is definitely the right one.”

Because of course Oliver would notice her manoeuvring him and her rather violent – and bloody – intentions.

“I’m proud of you. And I’m glad to know you’re a fighter.”

Rather than being suicidal he means; but fair enough. Words can only do so much when she’d only shown him the exact opposite until now.

He’s still cradling her cheek and she allows herself to lean into that hand, straining the wound on her neck even further, closing her eyes for a moment as she relishes in the contact, the support.

“Besides,” there’s the slightest hint of mischief in his eyes when she allows hers to open, the smallest upturn at the corner of his lips. “I’m a Greek God, remember? You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”

Felicity lets out a tired laugh at his joke, leaning against his chest when the movement further jostles her ribs and bruises.

“Ouch,” she tells him, a heartfelt emphasis behind the words that have him looking at her with a curious mix of both amusement and concern.

“I’ll need to check your ribs again. And your bruises. And the stitching.”

Felicity sighs.

“So – everything, basically.”

“Basically, yes,” Oliver agrees without hesitation, ignoring her frown.

“Can I shower first?”

He pauses for a moment but finally nods his approval, disentangling from her as he clearly intends to leave.

“Yes. Just be careful.”

Felicity freezes for a second too long – long enough to catch his eye and have him worried as he gazes down at her again.

“What?” He asks, backtracking to her, concerned.

“Ah, well… I might have had a few mishaps undressing,” she confesses and it takes only a moment for him to clearly recall her white face earlier when she’d changed into his shirt as his stance firms and his face sets.

Yeah, he’s definitely not letting her undress herself now. Not that she wouldn’t appreciate the help.

“Should I send my Mom or Thea to you?”

Felicity knows him well – any version of him, past or future – so she isn’t surprised to see the barely noticeable hesitation at his own suggestions. She’d just assaulted him; if she got lost in her head, she could hurt his sister or his mother.

Unlikely, she knows, but not entirely impossible and Felicity hadn’t meant for them to be the ones to do this anyway.

“No, Oliver,” she rejects, not shaking her head for fear of pulling further on the stitches. “You’re the one I trust.”

He softens at her words before the meaning has time to register – when it does, his eyes widen before he forces his face into stillness.

“Was this part of the dream, too?” He asks seemingly automatically resorting to bantering with her now because he slams his eyes shut immediately afterwards, like she sometimes does after one of her unintentional babbles.

“Sorry,” he quickly apologises, “that was inappropriate.”

“Unlike me calling you a Greek God, GQ model and telling you I’d climb you like a tree, you mean?” she offers with a wry smile and he chuckles lightly, conceding with a silent nod.

“I just don’t want to make this more uncomfortable for you, than it already is,” he says softly, clearly concerned about overstepping boundaries.

“So, from what I’m gathering you do agree to helping me undress,” Felicity looks up at him curiously, eyes narrowed. She hadn’t been certain if he’d actually agree to something like this.

“If you’re sure,” he says with a nod, his eyes steadfast on her own as he, like her, tries to read whether there’s any worries or hesitation on her part.

“If it makes you uncomfortable,” she suggests, eyes still on his, “we don’t have to do this. I can take a shower back home. Or another day. It doesn’t have to be now.”

“Do you want to take a shower now?” he asks instead and Felicity smiles slightly.

Everything hurts even more now and she knows that the shower won’t make all the pain go away, but she can’t help but feel like it will not only wash off the remaining dried blood, but it will help soothe all her sore muscles on top of it.

“Yes,” she tells him with certainty and he just nods.

“Then I will help you,” he says as if it was just that simple. Maybe, to him, it actually is.

Oliver always likes taking care of the ones he loves – and given that she’d told him what she needed from him, he would be very unlikely to actually refuse.

Felicity breathes out sharply with relief.

There was a bit of Thea in Mia, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to face the young girl yet – younger than her own daughter had been last she saw her, but still.

And then there was Moira; despite their much-improved history, the idea of letting that woman near her when she was vulnerable and exposed, sent shivers down her spine. And not the good Oliver-induced ones.

Yeah, no, she’d rather give up showering for a month.

Chapter Text

“I should preface this by telling you I’m not wearing a bra,” Felicity tells him when Oliver’s hands curl around the edge of her shirt. “If that-“

Oliver’s deep chuckle interrupts her before she can offer him yet another out.

“I know,” he says, lips quirked up.

“Oh, right, I forgot. My bra,” now she recalls pointing it out to him with her pile of clothing before she lay down for her nap.

If possible, he looks even more amused.

“Even if I hadn’t seen your clothes, I would have known you weren’t wearing a bra,” he says, smirking slightly. There’s pure male appreciation in his eyes when he looks into her eyes, despite his eyes not once dropping lower, and she blushes darkly when his meaning sinks in.

Felicity doesn’t know whether it was just holding her up and noticing the lack of strap, but she thinks it’s far more likely he’s referring to either when they were pressed together against one another in bed or – even worse – when he’d been doing his level best, however unintentionally, to arouse her – and succeeding, spectacularly so. Yep, she decides, she probably doesn’t actually want to know.

“Alright,” she gives in with a sigh, “continue then.”

Oliver’s eyes never leave hers, standing close enough so her face is the only thing in his field of vision rather than giving him a broader view, as he slowly pulls his shirt off of her. Her not-husband appears to be desperate to make sure she knows he’s not sneaking glances, disrespecting her or taking advantage in any way; it’s incredibly sweet and her lips curl up into a warm smile at the reminder of just how good a man Oliver really is. At any age.

He’s careful not to touch – or even brush up against – her, to move at a snail’s pace, revealing inch after inch of skin to avoid injuring or hurting her further. He only makes her lift her arms as much as she has to, to physically pull his shirt out over her head and then lets her arms drop down and the shirt slide down with them.

He pulls it off of her and throws it down in what she supposes (and hopes) is his laundry corner for one of the staff to pick up. Out of the two of them, however, Felicity is by far the messier one and Oliver’s the one more likely to be cleaning up around and after her than she is with him, so she figures her assumption stands a good chance of being the correct one.

If this were any other day, she’d cross her arms over her chest to try and at least pretend to cover herself up, but even just the effort hurts; anything but her arms hanging down motionlessly seems to pull somewhere – either her shoulder or her torso.

“Do you…” Oliver clears his throat, eyes flitting between the ceiling and her eyes, ears slowly tinted red and cheeks blushing. He’s making every effort at avoiding eye contact or even looking at her too long, breaking eye contact for the first time since he finished taking the shirt off.

“Do you need further help?” He finally asks, shifting slightly, shuffling on his feet in an uncharacteristic sign of nervousness, fingers rubbing across where he normally holds the arrow in his usual self-soothing habit.

Felicity is honestly tempted to say yes, just to watch Oliver squirm (and on his knees in front of her), but her underwear is nowhere as tight as her jeans were and she doesn’t actually want to make him uncomfortable around her. Or worry that he’d never be able to make eye contact with her again.

“I’ll be fine,” she promises instead.

“I can help, if you need me to,” he offers again, just in case she rejected his offer to spare him his own discomfort.

She knows he kills people and the Green Arrow is frightening foe to face – especially if anyone goes after his family. That does not, however, mean, that he’s not completely soft and adorable around her, Mia and Thea.

“No,” she rejects easily. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” he nods, and the relief is sharply written across his face.

“Do you need anything else before I go?”

“Nope. You’re free,” she tells him and watches his shoulders slump at the final confirmation.

It would be offensive if it wasn’t so funny. Plus, it was kind of difficult to doubt his attraction to her when this was the same man who’d stuck with her, by her side, supportive and no less interested in her than before the accident that put her in the wheelchair. He’d never not been attracted to her.

Which makes it twice as funny when he closes his eyes, hand on the wall as he takes a step backward and away before he turns around, eyes still shut.

Felicity watches him, amused, because she knows he doesn’t realise yet how he’s positioned himself or what’s in front of him in his hurry to close his eyes and avoid giving her any impression of indecency. Well, he doesn’t realise until his eyes open and meet hers in the mirror. His gaze lowers automatically before he snaps them quickly shut again, blush darkening.

“Sorry, I forgot,” he apologises in a rush but Felicity just grins.

“I could’ve warned you,” she admits, still smiling. “But this way was funnier.”

“Felicity,” Oliver groans, clearly exasperated, but he’s smiling too and she managed to snap the tension in him just like that now that he knows she’s not upset or offended by his quick, semi-accidental once-over.

“Hey, at least we’re even now.”

“Even?” Oliver queries, brows furrowed as he slowly makes his way to the door, eyes still closed for fear of seeing something else he isn’t supposed to.

“Just think of the number of times I’ve watched you on the Salmon Ladder if you’re still worried you saw something you shouldn’t have, or exercising half-naked in front of me,” Felicity teases, not letting him know how much she’s struggling with the pain – and taking off her underwear behind him. Honestly, she’s half-tempted to leave it on but she figures it would cling even harder once it was wet. Soaked. Yeah, there’s really no good way to phrase that without any double entendre.

“Felicity,” Oliver’s tone is reprimanding, but there’s far too much laughter threaded through it for it to carry any weight, especially accompanied by the half-choked laugh she’d surprised out of him with her comment.

“I honestly don’t get why you think I should be upset. You seem to enjoy my admiration; why shouldn’t I be the same?”

Yeah, not something past-her would’ve said or thought, but possibly something reckless-her might’ve, but still unlikely. But still, there’s safety in knowing Oliver in all his glory – both at his worst and most self-destructive and his best – in addition to years of being injured or hurt and taken care of by him and then being naked around him – a lot – once they were together… yeah. Body shame just isn’t there with him.

“Just- Just yell if you need anything,” he finally says, exasperated, as he leaves. He freezes for a moment when her underwear drops to the ground, hand clenching around the doorknob, before he forcibly relaxes himself and walks out without saying anything further.

Yeah, she definitely loves this more relaxed version of her husband – not that there was ever really any doubt – but she has only just learned that she adores teasing him. Knowing that this Oliver cares for her, that he’s attracted to her, even if he hasn’t said as much, makes it easier. And years of being pursued by Oliver extinguished the last remaining doubts about how different she was from his type before her.

With a heavy sigh, Felicity ran the water in the shower until it was warm, but not hot, and stepped underneath.

“Oliver,” she tells the door and her voice seems unconcerned enough he’s not immediately trying to enter or knock, “I was wrong. I’m never leaving this shower.”

There’s a relieved laugh on the other side of the door, his voice still clearly audible and she realises why when she sees the smallest gap between the door and frame – not enough to peek through but enough to ensure noise travels through easily in order for Oliver could hear if she needed a rescue.

“Nope. You can even have the bed, the bath, everywhere else. But this shower’s mine. I do believe you said you’d share.”

She can’t get everywhere with the shower gel, but at least she can get a bit cleaner and her shoulder is really the area that’s paramount for cleaning. Plus, it’s nice to smell like Oliver again. God, she’d missed so many little things once he was gone and for some reason the shower gel had never quite smelled like him anymore.

“Yes- share. Not give away entirely,” Oliver rebuts, still sounding amused.

“Well, I’m open to sharing this shower as long as I never have to leave it.”

Oliver makes a half-groan, half-chuckle, his head clearly hitting the doorframe as he leans back against it.

“Felicity,” he scolds her half-heartedly.

“Oliver,” she drawls back in the same tone.

“You can’t just say these things.”

That makes her more attentive because she can’t tell if he’s still kidding around or if he’s genuinely upset without seeing his face.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“I just- I can’t tell where the line is anymore,” he says quietly through the door. The confession’s obviously easier for him when he doesn’t have to face her. “I can’t tell when you’re joking and when you mean it.”

Ah. Well… That’s awkward.

“Because it always looks like I’m telling the truth, right?” She questions, having immediately pinned down the problem.

“Yes.”

Felicity can hear his relieved sigh now that he knows she understood him instantly.

Yeah.

Not quite what she expected having to confess openly to him any time soon.

“That’s because I am,” she finally admits, voice firm, not allowing herself to waver because there is no doubt in her about it – not about them. Not ever. Or, well, not anymore.

“What do you mean?” Oliver queries hesitantly.

“Are you sure you want to know? We can just leave it here. And you can just keep playing along.”

“Tell me,” is his instant - and not unexpected - response.

“With the amount of innuendos I’ve dropped around you, the times you’ve caught me checking you out – especially when you’re on the Salmon Ladder or exercising around me, well, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise when I tell you that I’m attracted to you.”

“No, of course not. But, Felicity, there’s a difference between open admiration and flattery and inviting me to undress you or join you in the shower,” Oliver disputes.

“I don’t know much about you or your past, but I think I’ve got a fairly good understanding of who you are as a person. And you don’t strike me as the one-night-stand kind of girl,” he concludes as if that would be news to her.

“I’m not,” she concedes easily; because she isn’t.

“For me there needs to be a real connection and I don’t get to the naked-in-bed-stage with a guy unless there are feelings involved. Or,” she corrects herself with a frown, “I suppose, a naked-anywhere-stage. It doesn’t necessarily need to involve a bed.”

It hadn’t, very often, with her and Oliver. Not in the lair slash Arrow Cave, not even in their flat or in the hotel rooms. Not when there were equally convenient tables. Or walls. Couches. Floors.

“Felicity,” he tries reprimanding her again, his voice notably deeper than it was just a moment ago, and she yanks herself out of her fantasies (or memories more like), clearing her throat to get rid of the raspier tone, wondering how much she’d said out loud but definitely with no intention of actually asking.

“Sorry,” she tells him, entirely unapologetically.

“Hold on,” Oliver gasps in surprise, having just caught onto what she is implying. “Are you saying…?” He pauses and so does she, because what should she say to that. “What are you saying?”

“Oliver, you’re not in the right headspace for me to say anything to you,” she argues. Her shower is rapidly becoming less relaxing by the minute.

“No, tell me,” Oliver orders.

“You’re in a relationship,” she tries once more.

“Felicity – what are you saying?”

“Oliver,” she hesitates but finally shuts off the water and steps out cautiously, drying herself very carefully for fear of aggravating any of her injuries.

“I’m saying,” she starts slowly, “that if you were single, and if I was uninjured, and if you were open to a relationship, long-term, then I would be, too. But for now? I just like joking and teasing you. I like being the one who makes you laugh. I like seeing you more relaxed and light-hearted; being happier. You and me? We’re good. Nothing has to change. Nothing will change. Not unless you want it to. I’ll always take my lead from you. Do you understand, Oliver?”

There’s a long pause but finally Oliver whispers, “I understand.”

Felicity isn’t sure if he actually does; if this Oliver caught even the barest glimpse of the true depth of her devotion and love, she’s half-certain this younger him would run. He’d run so fast and far, she wouldn’t be surprised if she found herself excluded from Team Arrow and back in the role of occasional IT-consultant, or, possibly even excluded entirely.

“Good,” she says instead of offering further clarification, finally making her way out, clad only in a towel, but at least mostly dry.

Oliver’s eyeing her cautiously as if he half-expects her to jump – or maul – him, injuries or not. But yeah – he’s not understood a thing; that much she can tell at a glance. Felicity barely manages not to say a thing; he’s misunderstood but that’s not necessarily a bad thing at this stage. She only wonders what the hell he got from all her talking if not an ‘I love you’.

“Now how do you want to do this?” Felicity asks curiously, glad to shut the lid on the earlier topic – finally.

“Do what?”

“Checking my injuries,” she repeats and realisation dawns as he looks at the towel, wide-eyed. Oliver appears tongue-tied for a moment before he finally gathers himself.

“I’ll – I’ll get some of my boxers for you, if that’s okay, and then,” he swallows hard, “we can just,” his eyes flit between the towel, and her eyes, before looking away again. “We can just roll the towel up.”

“Whatever makes you most comfortable,” Felicity tells him soothingly but Oliver makes a strangled noise at the back of his throat at that comment, before rapidly turning away to find the aforementioned undergarment for her.

Chapter Text

Somehow, the strangest part of her evening begins with Oliver Queen kneeling down before her in his bedroom helping her into a pair of his boxers.

“I’m still happy to ask Thea for a pair,” he tells her for the umpteenth time.

Okay, so maybe only the second time, but who’s counting?

Nevertheless, sharing clothes with her not-husband? No problem, no hesitation – not for Felicity. Sharing clothes with his sister, though? Specifically, underwear?

Yeah… No, she’d really rather not. It’s not something she wants and really not an association she wants his mind to make. Ever.

“It’s fine, Oliver,” she reiterates, using his shoulders for support as she steps into the leg openings.

“Towel,” the man himself yelps, panicked and wide-eyed, hands immediately going to her waist, holding her towel closed.

“It’s secured,” she points out to him, pointing to the knot up by her breast – a knot he’s studiously avoiding looking at.

“The towel moved,” he states instead, voice firm, eyes still fixed on the wall somewhere past her and holding tightly onto her waist for fear of the towel moving and, she guesses, him seeing more than he should.

“It’s fabric, still,” Felicity tells him with a sigh. “It does that. Look, if it makes you this uncomfortable, then I can just do this-“

“Not a chance. Not until I’ve had a chance to make sure you haven’t worsened your injuries. You had bruised ribs to begin with, I don’t want to find out you managed to crack them earlier just because you were too stubborn to accept some help.”

Oh, now she is the one too stubborn to accept help? That’s rich. Especially coming from Mr. Lone Wolf.

“Just- Just hold onto the towel please.”

“I will,” she reassures him, “don’t worry.”

Now that her feet are through anyway, she has no reason not to hold onto the towel – however superfluous, but it seems to soothe him.

Oliver’s careful not to touch her legs as he pulls his boxers up – but he needn’t be, really. Her husband’s frame is so much broader than her own, there’s no chance of accidental contact.

“I’ll take it from here,” she advises him once he reaches her upper thigh and he looks so relieved once her hands replace his, quickly getting to his feet and rushing off to his wardrobe, back to her. Felicity isn’t sure how well the boxers will be secured, given his size versus hers, but it should be good enough.

“Here,” Oliver tells her, holding out a pair of grey jogging trousers she will absolutely be swimming in. He looks nervous, likely hoping she hasn’t quite caught onto his thinking – the lovable idiot.

“Really?” She asks, eyeing the large trousers, but easily giving in when he looks at her pleadingly.

Fine.

Oliver thinks hiding her legs and physique underneath the trousers will help him deal with her half-naked in a moment.

Yeah, joke’s on him, really. Because whatever else he is? Oliver is, above all else, very possessive and very jealous when it comes to Felicity – even before they were ever together. Seeing her in more of his clothing, knowing she’s wearing his underwear? It usually inflames his ardour for her, not soothes it.

However, it will be very fun to watch him make that discovery for himself the first time, she thinks, grinning to herself as she steps into the trousers – this time one hand on her towel and the boxers, the other on his shoulder for balance.

God, she loved those shoulders. It had never been a thing with anyone else before or between in the breaks of their relationship. But with Oliver? Yeah, the very muscled, very, very lovely shoulders, ones which could carry the world one moment and the next be used to launch him up and down the salmon ladder, dripping in sweat? Yum.

Sure enough, the moment she secures the drawstring on the trousers, tightening it ridiculously to ensure it doesn’t fall off immediately, she takes the chance to look back.

Oliver’s back by the wardrobe obviously trying in vain to find something to cover her breasts comfortably while also letting him check her bruise on the side and top for anything worrying. When he gives up with a sigh, turning to face her again, he falters.

Not just mildly – there’s a stutter in his step and he reaches out to catch himself on the back of the sofa and misses; which, for someone who grew up in this room and had years of instincts and reflexes to fall back on – yeah, Oliver’s definitely taken aback by his own reaction to seeing her in his clothing.

She can feel the heat of his gaze as he takes her in slowly, eyes slowly inching up her body.

Felicity – yeah, she never quite got it. Not to say she didn’t take advantage of it, she’s not a fool, but it never made any sense to her.

She’s practically drowning in his trousers; it doesn’t follow her curves or expose anything of her at all; it ought to be the most relaxed loungewear possible. Yet, as always, it seems to get to him more than seeing her in a skimpy skirt (although he does like those, too).

Oliver looks like he wants to devour her whole. He’s taking her in at a glance and swallows. Hard.

His eyes keep catching on her waist, on the trousers, then the towel and flicking back down.

Another swallow.

His finger keeps rubbing across that spot on his hand where he usually holds his arrow, to self-soothe. There’s the finest layer of perspiration on his brow. His pupils are dilated and his mind appears to have gone off to fantasy-land.

Normally a very happy occasion for Felicity, too, given that her husband is never too shy to share his thoughts with her – or re-enact them – but that won’t be the case with this Oliver any time soon. If ever.

It had never before occurred to her, but now she couldn’t help but wonder if it were McKenna here, in her place, in his clothes – if he’d look like that at her too. Her heart aches at the thought, hands trembling and stomach sinking as she tries not to let her own mind run away with her.

Oliver’s normally good at catching her when it does – but this is not their normal circumstances.

His eyes are still notably darker when his eyes finally flick up the last feet and he meets her eyes, clearly having forced himself back to the present.

“That- yeah, that’s better,” he says, voice hoarse and deeper than normal. Oliver’s already strode over to cover the last few feet between them while she was trying not to imagine him and McKenna together, and she can see his hands twitching as if he’s fighting against reaching for her, touching her – trying to make sure she’s real. And here.

Felicity can sympathise.

“Uh-huh,” she says sarcastically, amused in spite of herself at the blatant lie, “I’m sure it is.”

Still, she doesn’t call him out on it.

“Right,” Oliver says quietly to himself, his mind still clearly elsewhere as his eyes keep dropping. Then he finally seems to remember what he was intending to do, as he shakes his head sharply, refocusing on her eyes.

“I should check on your injuries,” he tells her as if she’s the one who had gotten distracted first.

He steps closer to her still.

“Do you mind?” He asks leadingly, hands at the bottom of the towel, ready to pull it up.

“Go ahead.”

He nods firmly, rolling the towel up carefully before handing it off to her to keep up just below her breasts. Felicity winces as it requires her arm and shoulder to move, but it’s not too bad as long as she tries to restrict all movement to her lower arm.

“You got it?” He asks, eyes on where her hand is, brow furrowed in concern at the pain she’s clearly in.

“Got it,” she reassures him.

“By tomorrow, you’ll really get to see the full effect,” he notes, grimacing, as he takes in the colourful bruises adorning her side and pretty much encompassing half her torso.

“Yay,” Felicity she says drolly. It’s enough to garner a small upward curl of Oliver’s lips at her open sarcasm.

“The bruises have already blossomed out quite a bit and spread out. It’s a lot worse than it was this morning.”

“Feels a lot worse, too,” she concurs.

Oliver hums agreeingly. “I think you must’ve still been in shock earlier, given how little the pain seemed to register with you.”

“Yep, definitely wasn’t feeling like myself,” Felicity smiles at her own clever wordplay, even if Oliver doesn’t understand.

“How’s your memory?” he asks, face drawn and concerned but clinical rather than amorous as he checks each rib and bruise to make sure there’s nothing more worrying she’s hiding, noting her winces and flinches and smiling to himself when he accidentally tickles her and she giggles.

“All back,” she affirms easily.

“Good,” he breathes out sharply. “I was concerned. Your Doctor’s notes didn’t say anything about the memory.”

Felicity feels her eyebrows rise.

“What?” She queries automatically. “How did you get a hold of my medical report.”

Oliver’s face closes off quickly and he ducks his head down, pretending to be absorbed in testing the bruises covering her from hip to nearly armpit.

“O-li-ver,” she intones carefully, voice low and quiet but threatening enough her not-husband grimaces, dropping his hands and giving in without further argument.

“My mom,” he tells her and for once she’s the one surprised. She’d expected a lot of things – right down to involving the Bratva – but Moira had never even occurred to her.

“You asked your mother for my medical-“

“No- God, no. I promise, I didn’t,” Oliver reassures her quickly. “But after the injuries and your memories – well, given you’ve got the Queen family backing you, there was no way my mother was just going to let that lie. Sorry.”

“How did she even get this? It can’t have been legal – she’s not my medical proxy or anything, Oliver. They shouldn’t have released the information to her.”

“I know,” Oliver says with a one-sided shoulder shrug, looking abashed. “But she’s the matriarch of the Queen family – however antiquated the concept may be,” he adds, before she has a chance to raise the issue and Felicity subsides.

“I still don’t agree with this,” she tells him, but Oliver knows the anger’s no longer directed at him judging by the small smile curling at the corner of his lips and the way his shoulders go from hunched to straight and relaxed.

It’s adorable how highly he clearly values her opinion and how much he dreads invoking her anger; as if all 5 foot 5 of her could do any harm to his muscle-bound Arrow-ness. Although he hasn’t had League-training yet whereas she, ironically, has been trained by the daughter of the current Ra’s al Ghul.

Yikes.

Not a thought she really wants to linger on – she has no inclination of being the one to fight Malcolm later in the year in Oliver’s stead either (although being badass was kind of fun; but unlike Oliver, the adrenaline rush usually sent her trembling and crashing whereas it only made him more excited – most days.).

“And you definitely shouldn’t,” he concurs.

“Your mom really needs some boundaries,” she proceeds to tell him – which is so very much true in all the many ways he doesn’t even know about yet. Emiko. Walter. Thea. Malcolm. William. Samantha.

“I’ll have a talk with her.”

Felicity snorts before laughing softly.

“You?” Her lips are curved up in a bright grin at her not-husband’s confusion.

“No offence, Oliver, but you’re like a grade-A momma’s boy. I’m sure you’ll have the best of intentions walking in. Just like I’m sure you’ll cave within moments when she tells you she only wanted what was best for me and to help and then tells you all the ways in which the Doctor and the hospital was incompetent.”

Oliver’s brows are furrowed and he opens his mouth – clearly intending to argue but, seeing her eyebrow raised in silent challenge, snaps it shut again.

For a moment at least.

“I’m not a momma’s boy,” he complains, quietly irritated.

Not that it means he’s any less careful with her, his every touch soft and cautious, just enough to discern whether she was okay without causing any unnecessary pain, but it’s all there - in the timbre of his voice, the furrow in his brow, the tightness of his jaw.

“I started with no offence,” she tells him instead of pointing any of this out and he rolls his eyes.

“That almost always means someone’s going to say something they know is offensive and just don’t want to accept the blame,” Oliver counters without hesitation.

“Fair,” she concedes. “Still, you can’t tell me it wouldn’t go exactly like that.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“Uh-huh. How about you go and have that talk with your mom right now and when you come back, I’ll pretend you stood your ground and you can then pretend you didn’t cave in within two minutes.”

He glares at her, but it’s softened by the way his lips keep curving up in an unwitting smile.

“Hey, it’s not like respect for your mother is a bad thing. In fact, it’s an important aspect of many cultures.”

And how well Oliver got along with Donna Smoak was just criminal. But Donna – and even Moira, in many respects – had earned their children’s respect for the sacrifices they made to raise them.

All it does is highlight the many ways she had ruined her own children’s childhoods. The ways she failed their own daughter, Mia, failed in raising her the way both of them had wanted her to be, the way she’d abandoned William just like her father had abandoned her – never keeping in touch despite the electronic eye she kept on him.

Felicity swallows, burying the thought deep in her heart, the way she always does. Because she never has time to, doesn’t want to, confront just how badly she’d failed both her children. How badly she’d failed her husband; her husband who’d gone off to save them, save the multiverse, as his only option left to protect his children and her, entrusting her with both William’s and Mia’s childhood and future. Trusting her to raise them the way they’d both wanted to.

“Yeah, ‘Momma’s boy’ doesn’t quite imply ‘treating your mother with respect’. In fact, I’d argue they’re both very different,” Oliver’s voice yanks her out of her thoughts but by the concern in his eyes, he can tell that wherever her mind just went – it wasn’t anywhere good.

“You win. I’m sorry,” she concedes, only managing a ghost of a smile for him, not being able to handle further discussion on mothers and respect. Oliver’s face falls for a moment, before he gathers himself, putting on a good mien for her, allowing their earlier levity to be replaced by professionalism and clearly forcing himself not to interrogate her the way he desperately wants to.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how much Oliver cares. Other moments, like this one, it’s written in his every word, his every action, his every smile and thought. The way he just accepts and moves on if he thinks it would hurt her more for him to push.

Chapter Text

“Your ribs didn’t crack – but I think that’s through sheer luck. They’re still bruised, though, so please be a little more careful.”

His hands half-float over the large bruised area, this time less an assessment, more of a feather-soft caress, trying to comfort her.

“I’m going to get you another dose of painkillers after dinner. I need to make sure you’ve got some food in you first. I’m sure that’ll help make everything a little more manageable.”

Oliver sighs, rubbing the back of his neck as he leans slightly away from her.

“You can drop the towel now while I check on your neck and your-uh…”

He starts looking a little flustered, eyes focusing past her so he doesn’t have to make eye contact as he appears to consider his next words carefully before finishing with, “the other bruise.”

“Were you going to say you were going to check on my breast?” Felicity asks, amused, letting the towel drop so it’s back to being held up by the knot between her breasts.

“No,” he denies quickly, but there’s a red tinge to his ears which finally lets her smile again.

God, she loves this man. He can make her smile when she really doesn’t think she could anymore. She’d missed him so much. He’s always made her life so much better, no matter their personal conflicts.

“It’s not a dirty word, you know. It’s perfectly clinical term and description,” she prods teasingly. “Breast, breast, breas-“

His hand covers her mouth and even though he’s flustered he’s smiling back at her, chuckling quietly at her childish taunting.

“I got it, Felicity,” he says wryly, “and yes, I will check on the bruise – not your breast.” Oliver’s still smiling and when he feels her answering grin under his hand, he removes it, still clearly entertained by her childishness.

“Meh, it’s just a bruise. I’m sure it’s fine,” Felicity waves him off.

“Just humour me, please,” he requests with a tired sigh. “Besides, you didn’t seem to know your bones were bruised. Or that you had to have your neck stitched. And you didn’t tell the Doctor about memory issues and signed out against medical advice. At this point, I think we can both agree you’re worse than me at being honest about your injuries and I do need to check on you.”

“I didn’t realise I signed out against medical advice,” Felicity protests.

“Yeah, apparently the Doctor and the officer with you are adamant that you agreed, you knew how to take care of yourself and that you had someone who could look after you. And you understood you were acting against medical advice.”

Oh.

She hasn’t had anyone home who could look after her for twenty-plus years now. Not since Oliver left. Not unless she wanted to put the burden on her own child – and she simply could never bring herself to do that.

“I’m sorry, I really have no memory of that,” Felicity finds herself saying because she knows he’s worried that this is part of a larger pattern of behaviour from her. At least it’s true enough; she genuinely has no memory of that.

“Yeah, I know. Which is why I don’t think either of them should have let you leave – or drive off in your own car,” Oliver’s clearly angry with both the hospital and the Doctor as well as her assigned officer, but it doesn’t impact how he treats her in any way.

Despite his gritted jaw and tense shoulders, Oliver’s very careful in removing the bandage around her neck. When she winces slightly at the pull, he uses his other hand to inch down just to the edge of the plaster and tighten his hold on her skin to ensure his removal doesn’t unnecessarily pull on her skin – or stitches – more.

It’s sweet how gentle and tender he is with her – she just wishes sometimes he took that good care of himself, too.

“Yeah, you pulled a few stitches,” he finally tells her, breath skating over her shoulder and neck with how close he is. Felicity barely manages not to shiver (or tilt her head to get more of his attentions).

“Given how close this is to your carotid, I’d rather have Dig or the hospital redo them.”

Felicity groans out loud in protest at the thought.

“Yeah, you- you don’t get a choice, not in this. You clearly can’t be trusted with your own care. Since Dig’s got the night off, we’ll have to make a trip back to the hospital.”

“Careful, Oliver. There’s caring and then there’s patronising,” she cautions him, hackles slightly raised just by the way he’d phrased things.

“I’ll try and avoid the latter.” He confirms easily and she relaxes a bit. “But you’re part of my team, Felicity. At least until Walter’s back. And that means I need to make sure you’re alright. I know I wasn’t there when you needed me, but I need you to at least let me take care of you now.”

“I thought we were past this,” she tells him. “It’s not your fault.”

“Helena was my ex. I was the one who trained her. The skills I taught her? Those are the ones she used against you – the reason you were nearly killed. The reason half your upper body is covered in bruises. And I was the one who persisted even after we caught her, thinking I could redeem her or help her in some way. You were under my protection and I knew what she was looking for, I should have figured out she’d come for you and I should have been there with you. Protecting you.”

“Oliver,” Felicity starts with a gentle tone, “you can’t keep beating yourself up about this. Unless you want to hold my hand, walk me everywhere and stay with me all day while I work and all night while I sleep, follow me into the bathroom and do the same with Dig, somehow, you’re going to have to learn to accept that sometimes, we will be on our own.”

She smiles at him, hoping she’s getting through to him.

“That’s why we’re cautious. That’s why you have a tracking app for me on your phone. That’s why we try to minimise the danger when we’re not out in the field; but nothing is ever one hundred percent safe.”

He still looks unconvinced.

“Okay, let me put it another way. If I weren’t on your team, I’d do what I did before I met you.”

And after she met him, if one includes Helix.

“I’d probably work with other hacktivists, getting into dangerous situations without any muscle on hand – that’s you, Oliver, in case that was unclear – and get in over my head at some point and die because I’d have no back-up, no one to look out for me. If I got kidnapped like Walter, there’d be no one but my mom looking for me. Not really.”

Felicity smiles warmly at him, trying to let him know how much better her life is for having him in it – besides, it’s been a long time since the thought of dying bothered her. The only thing that had worried her about it for the last two decades had been William and Mia. Unhealthy? Probably. But still true. It also means she looks a little too careless talking about her own possible kidnapping or death.

But deep down, what she’d once told Cupid, years upon years ago? Yeah, that’s still very true. She’s loved and been loved more than she’d ever thought was humanly possible. If she died today, she’d be okay with that.

“So, no. I don’t think it’s your fault. I don’t think there’s anything to make up for. If you just want to take care of me because you care for me, or because you are concerned or worried, because you’re my friend – those are all acceptable reasons. Now, I could really use the helping hand at the moment – clearly, as we’ve seen today. But if you’re just doing because you’re feeling guilty and you want to atone, I’d much rather go back to my flat and deal with it on my own.”

Oliver sighs.

“Sometimes you’re such a genius,” he starts, “and other times I really do wonder.”

He shakes his head lightly, before gently cradling her chin and jaw in his hand right up to her cheek, making sure he can look into her eyes.

“Of course, I care for you, too. You’re my friend, Felicity,” he emphasises slowly, everything about him intense as he tries to get her to understand – but, oh, does she ever understand. The way his eyes are all warm and soft when he looks down at her, the way he’s holding her, all tender and careful.

“One of my best friends,” he continues softly, stroking across her cheek. “And I’m also very worried about you, especially given how blasé you’ve been about your injuries. Now,” the tiniest hint of a smirk curls up the corner of his lips, “do I have your permission to continue looking after you?”

It’s like Oliver creates their own little world with just them in it, blocking out the remainder of the universe with laughable ease until it’s just him and her and nothing else could possibly intrude. Just like last time and the time before that and every single time he does this, her heart picks up speed, her stomach flutters and she can’t take her eyes off of him. His intensity around her, the way he makes her feel like there’s no one else in the world with them, she’d missed that – had never experienced that with anyone else before him or since. It’s only ever been him who was able to do that.

She can’t ever not believe him when he talks to her like this. Care is not love, friends is not husband and wife, but it’s more than she expected out of him this early on in their relationship (acquaintanceship? Friendship?) so she relaxes back into the bed, leaning against him slightly.

“As long as we’re on the same page,” Felicity smiles up at him, knowing tenderness is still etched across her face.

“I trust your judgement. You have much more experience with these things. If you think you can’t just fix it up here, I’ll go with you to the hospital.”

“Manipulation doesn’t work on me, Felicity. You forgot how I grew up. Or, more like, who raised me.”

“I’m not forgetting a thing,” she tells him, smirking. “But I also think you’re currently torn between pride and caution given it’s just a few stitches which Dig’s done like a million times to you in the foundry.”

“I sometimes wonder how you seem to know me so well, so quickly,” Oliver says wryly, mutely acknowledging her point was well made.

Felicity smirks. “Genius,” she reminds him.

“As if I could ever forget,” he says and gives in with a sigh. “I’ll do it. Just- the scar might not be as neat. I’ll do my best, but-“

“Hey, Oliver, it’s fine. I don’t mind.” Her hand strokes across his broad, delectable shoulders, trying to reassure him, before letting her eyes meet his, making sure he can read her sincerity.

“Besides, if scars are sexy on you, I don’t think they’ll take too much away from me, do you?”

He’d never been anything but kind about the scars on her back from the surgery and bullet wounds, making sure to lavish them with affection whenever he could – because to him it meant she survived when he’d been near-certain he’d lost her.

“You think my scars are sexy?” He asks, surprised and Felicity feels her own eyebrows rise, taken aback at how unexpected that seems to him.

“I didn’t think I was very subtle about checking you out when you exercise half-naked in front of me, but if you want me to, I can certainly be even more overt next time,” she offers with a cheeky grin and gets a huffed laugh and headshake from him.

“That’s not even including the salmon ladder. You know,” she offers, pretend-thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t actually be able to dismiss you out of hand if you told me I’d drooled on you before when you’re doing that.”

That comment earns her a loud laugh, shoulders shaking, eyes sparkling and everything. Her heart skips a beat and she can feel the answering smile curve up her own lips, an involuntary reaction when she sees him so happy.

“I believe I even made a few comments out loud earlier about you to that effect,” she concludes.

“I- yeah, but usually you talk about my muscles and abs not my- No, hold on,” Oliver shakes his head, looking amused at his own diversion, “that’s not relevant right now. You, Miss Smoak, are very distracting.”

Her smile curves into a smirk and her eyes go half-lidded as she looks back at him.

“Oh, I am, am I, Mr. Queen? And how exactly am I distracting you?” Oliver’s lips twitch. “You know, just so I know what to do again next time?”

She winks at him – or well, as close as she ever gets to a wink; or as her husband once told a surprising combination of sexy and adorable which really worked for her – and him.

“Shush, you,” he hushes her, his grin wide enough to give a hint of his beautiful dimples even as he ducks his head and shakes it in fake admonishment.

“And no, nothing as meagre as a scar could ever take anything away from the person that you are, Felicity Smoak,” he tells her seriously a breath later and for a moment she could swear she’s got heart palpitations at the sheer gravity he’s giving the words. There’s Oliver being intense and there’s this. Her heart’s skipping a beat before it starts racing, her hands twitch with the need to pull him down for a passionate kiss (or a hundred) and her tongue has suddenly decided to turn entirely uncooperative.

“Anyone who cares about your scar or tells you it makes you look ugly or it should be hidden, simply isn’t worthy of you,” he tries to impress upon her as if she cares for anyone’s opinion other than his and Dig’s.

“You fought off the trained daughter of a mobster, Felicity. You didn’t just survive, you beat her. You should be looking at that scar and be really fucking proud of yourself.”

He pauses only for a moment, just long enough to ensure he meets – and holds – her eyes, cradling her cheek in his large hand.

“I know I am,” he tells her softly and she knows she lights up under his praise, a full-on blush crawling down from her cheeks to her chest, eyes wide and sparkling and her own dimples on full display with how wide her smile is. She turns her head enough to press a gentle kiss to the inside of the wrist, just at the edge of the palm he’s using to cradle her face.

“Thank you.”

Chapter Text

“I mean every word.”

“I know,” she reassures him. “That’s what makes it all the more meaningful for me. Besides, I always could tell when you’re lying to me.”

“I never liked lying to you – or well, I really can’t bring myself to, to be more precise,” he says, voice equally soft, like they’re teenagers whispering secret messages to each other.

“I came prepared with an actual explanation the first time – a lie, but a believable, for whatever IT person I was directed to. I knew nothing but your name at that point.”

He laughs softly, half-disbelieving and half-confused by his own repeated decisions when dealing with her.

“But then I saw you and I- I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just lie to your face.”

His gives her a mocking grin.

“Instead, I told you I spilled a latte on it, despite the fact that there wasn’t a single drop of liquid anywhere on or inside the thing.”

“It made me trust you more,” she tells him, her voice a whisper but given how close he is to her she doesn’t doubt he’ll hear her every word. His face is but inches from her own given he’s still cradling it and was carefully checking on her neck earlier.

“That I lied so blatantly made you trust me more?” Oliver repeats, amused.

“That you didn’t make up something more believable,” Felicity corrects. “That you knew I’d know it was just a story. That you weren’t actually trying to convince me of whatever cockamamie excuse you came up with that day.”

“I’m glad, then, that I couldn’t lie to you that first day. Or any day since,” Oliver tells her earnestly, eliciting another smile from her.

“You always caught me out, never knowing when to expect you and I just never could seem to hear you coming. I’d be doing something and suddenly you were right there, in front of me, time and again. Even the first time we met; you caught me while I was actually chewing on a pen.”

“I remember,” he tells her, voice soft and eyes tender, and just like last time, on their very first date, he continues. “It was red.”

Her heart melts at the silent confirmation that, like her husband, he appears to remember every aspect of their interactions. Oliver never lets his eyes drop from hers, not even when she can feel the tension between them rising, her own breath stuttering.

“It was,” she agrees softly, offering a tender smile, hand clasped to her chest to avoid reaching for him – or pulling him down for a kiss.

She’s not the kind of girl who breaks up couples, she reminds herself.

Well… not unless they’re Susan Williams and abusing Oliver’s trust to write a story, that is. But that totally doesn’t count. McKenna is, by all accounts, an awesome cop who has a good heart. She can’t come between that.

But, dear god, she wants nothing more than to kiss Oliver senseless.

Luckily a knock on the door yanks them both out of their reverie, blinking rapidly and putting a little space between each other to regain some distance.

“Will you be joining us for dinner, Oliver? Felicity?” Moira’s voice reaches them through the closed door.

Oliver’s eyes flit over to hers in a silent question and she smiles – it’s enough of an answer for him to answer back in the affirmative and Moira tells them it will be ready in half an hour.

“I’ll need to deal with your neck first; hopefully you still have enough of the anaesthetic inside you it won’t be too painful. Still, let me know if not – I’d prefer not to give you more painkillers until you’ve had something more substantial to eat than a sandwich, but I want you in pain even less.”

Unspoken remains how much worse it’d be for him to be the one causing her that pain.

“As long as you don’t make me look while you come at me with a needle, we’ll be fine,” she reassures him. It can’t possibly be worse than the gunshots. Or childbirth. Or bomb blasts.

Well, it won’t be so long as she doesn’t look.

“Distract me,” she orders him and her vigilante partner-in-crime falters, hands already deep into his med kit (of course Oliver would have a fully stocked med kit in his bedroom).

“What?”

“Talk to me. Ask me something. Anything. Just- not about this, obviously,” she gestures artlessly in the vague direction of her neck, eyes flitting around, trying to fixate on something in the décor or room itself which would distract her enough.

“We caused an amber alert, me and Tommy, when we were seventeen,” Oliver starts with a small grin after a moment and she gasps.

“What? How?”

It’s not the island – not horror and pain and sorrow; it’s not tearing himself open and baring his scars to her, but to Felicity it’s no less meaningful. Because, instead, he’s telling her one of his happy stories, the ones from before he had to become someone so very different. It feels like her insides just did a somersault, quivering with adoration for the man.

“Thea,” he tells her and she hums lightly, already understanding what he isn’t saying.

“You took her out of school.”

“Yep. From recess,” Oliver confirms easily.

“And let me guess – you didn’t think to tell anyone?”

He laughs and shrugs simultaneously.

“That was the whole point. Just her two kind-of older brothers taking her away. She’d been sick on her birthday the weekend before and couldn’t go to the amusement park. Well, Tommy and I skipped classes for the day and decided to sneak her out of school. And we must have been really good at it because no one saw a thing, it turns out. We didn’t even realise what had happened until we got home that night.”

“Didn’t the police figure out you took your sister?”

“Well, three missing billionaire heirs – the Police erred on the side of caution, preferring to investigate and alert rather than find out they’re wrong later on down the line. Or at least I assume that’s what happened; to be perfectly honest, I never asked.”

“Ooh, your mom must have been pissed when it turned you just went out for fun jaunt together without telling anyone.”

“Beyond,” he confirms with a chuckle, brow furrowed with intense concentration as one of his palms holds her shoulder steady while he uses the other to do – well, non-fun unthinkable things to her neck which she forces herself to not think about.

“We were grounded for a month.”

“Was it worth it?”

Felicity tries to concentrate on his voice, on his breath on her neck, his hand on her shoulder, the warmth emanating from his body where he’s pressed up against her, tries to ignore the feel of something piercing her skin, the odd feeling of thread – or so she presumes – going through her skin and sliding through the hole, pulling her skin tight.

The anaesthetic, it would appear, has worn off, given she has all the sensations again – but at least focussing on Oliver gives her some reprieve from visualising what’s happening to her neck right now.

“So worth it,” Oliver affirms, voice soft and tender at the memory. “Thea didn’t care, she was lighting up like a Christmas tree any time she saw me for that entire month. It was adorable.”

“I don’t really have a metric to judge by,” other than William and Mia, that is, and their son was – will be? – definitely taking after his father in this, “but it sounds like you’re an awesome older brother, Oliver.”

“Not always,” he contends.

He’s so very careful with her – despite his earlier assertions of not being as neat as Diggle and potentially leaving her with a jagged scar, Oliver’s brows are furrowed with concentration, his teeth are worrying his lip and most of his focus was on her neck – until now. He’s still calm, still steady, but he’s pausing for a little longer between moments to make sure his diverted attentions will not impact on his work with her wound.

“No one is perfect all the time,” she rebuts easily. “But it sounds like you make an effort. That’s all anyone can do.”

“Is it really that easy?”

“That easy to what?”

“To accept people’s flaws. To just- wash away their failures.”

She’d missed her husband for over two decades – but right here, right now? She was falling all the more in love with his younger version, too, with the amount of care and attention he was giving her even though she’d only just made it onto his team – wasn’t even his partner yet. With the way he listened to her, the way he didn’t just dismiss what she said as platitudes but responded. The way he flirted and laughed with her. The way he teased her, the way he looked at her, right down to the way he said her name.

Whenever Felicity felt there was no way she could love Oliver Queen more, he set out to prove her wrong.

“You misunderstand me, Oliver,” Felicity tells him gently. “I’m not washing anything away. People make mistakes. You do. I do.”

She takes a deep breath, thinking back on their years and years of partnership, of him breaking up with her and her breaking up with him, of them dating other people, of trusting the team and finding betrayal, of their parents’ secrets coming to light, years after the fact.

“We misjudge other people, ourselves, situations,” Felicity continues to try and explain. “We respond badly. We say or do things we don’t mean. We get scared. We run.”

Her smile is soft as she looks at him, eyes tender as she gazes at the wonderful, amazing man sitting on the bed beside her who doesn’t seem to understand just how amazing he is.

“The important thing is,” she says slowly, watching Oliver carefully as she tries to emphasise just how significant and hard-earned this part of the message had been the first time around, “that if that person matters to you as much as someone like Thea does, as you and I or Dig do to each other?”

She waits until he looks at her, before continuing.

“Then you don’t give up. You don’t keep your distance. You keep reaching out. You keep fighting. You keep making amends.”

Felicity’s fingers tangle with his, pulling it gently from her shoulder where it’s been hovering still even while his entire focus had been on her and the words she was saying. Oliver’s eyes fall to their intertwined hands, confusion in his eyes as if he’s not sure how it got there.

She waits until his head rises and is beautiful eyes meet hers again – only then does she continue, voice soft and gentle.

“All anyone can ever ask of you, Oliver, is that you try and do better. That you try and not repeat the same mistakes. No one has the right to ask for anything more than that.”

The hand in hers trembles, and he’s stopped moving. She can literally hear how shaky his breathing his, feel how discombobulated her partner as gotten, watches as he tries to gather himself, tries to gather his composure.

Problem is, Felicity honestly isn’t sure what she’s said or done to upset him, how or why her words appear to have struck home. It was intended as a positive message, to not let other people dictate your self-worth, to handle your guilt, to not let go of people without a fight, to trust in himself, in Team Arrow.

But given how much her words seem to have unbalanced Oliver, the way he looks at her like she’s some sort of mystical creature and he can’t believe she’s real, like he wants to both run as fast and far as he can from her while also never letting her out of his sight again, never letting her go further than arm’s reach, she can’t deny that there’s been some sort of effect she hadn’t accounted for.

Chapter Text

“Do you- Do you think- Is there anything people can’t be forgiven for?” Oliver finally asks, but his eyes are on the duvet, not her, refusing to meet her eyes.

“Of course,” Felicity says automatically and watches as his shoulders hunch and droop, his hand sinks even as he nods – like it’s everything he expected and nothing like he hoped for.

“Anyone who ever did anything to you,” she tells him tenderly, only half-teasing and watches as his head snaps up and he huffs out a laugh, looking as surprised as she is by the sound.

“Seriously?” He asks and she smiles – a silent admission that, yes, she is actually partly very serious about that – before allowing herself to actually think about it and take his question the way he originally meant for it to be answered.

“People who detonate an atomic bomb,” she finally tells him softly, still feeling the horror in her veins, the despair and determination – and the abject feeling of failure and guilt.

When she looks and notes his confused, tilted head, Felicity forces herself to shake it off, knowing he’s seeing far too much personal connection in her face to the words for them to make sense to him.

“Dictators who order their population culled for- any reason. People who have sex with children or sell children. I’m sure there’s more, a lot more, even,” she admits with a sigh, “but those are the ones who come to mind first. Humanity is more than capable of every imaginable and unimaginable depravity. But I rather prefer not to have a list ready in my head of all the horrible, heart-breaking things I couldn’t forgive.”

Oliver manages a half-smile but it drops quickly and he avoids her eyes again.

“What about killers? Murderers?” he asks her quietly.

Felicity frowns thoughtfully at him, but answers honestly.

“Of course, they can be redeemed. I mean, if we went broad strokes, both you and Dig and every soldier out there would fall into that category. I’m not saying every act is justifiable, even under orders, but I think you can learn and set out to do better. There are usually circumstances and reasons and ways we justify things to ourselves and others. The person – or persons – that were killed are dead. There’s nothing anyone can do to bring them back to life.”

Well, no, that’s not quite true, of course, but it’s not common knowledge, either, so works well enough for this situation.

“But so long as you strive to do better, I don’t see why that person couldn’t still be better. You can never atone for another person’s death – everything they could have done, everything they could still have turned out to be, it’s gone.”

Felicity sighs.  Hers and Oliver’s discussions usually had a way of derailing, but she honestly hadn’t quite expected to go from flirting to, well, this.

“And I don’t agree with that living your life in atonement shtick people keep saying either. Despite everything, the person who killed them still deserves to make their own life, their own happiness. But what you can do is remember them, in your actions going forward. When you’re at a crossroads, and you don’t know what to do, think about what you wish you’d have done back then.”

Felicity offers a somewhat wry smile.

“Of course, that only applies if the person that someone was killing wasn’t a mass murderer or serial killer or some other terrible sort of human being where there was no other choice or good option left other than to kill. But that just goes back to what I said earlier about situations and circumstances.”

“What about- what if it came down to killing friends – brothers? When you had the option to help or kill them?”

For a second, just a second, her mind went to Tommy and his loss and Oliver running back to purgatory in an act of self-punishment before she remembers that none of that had happened yet.

“I’d say that anyone who was not in the shoes of that person in that moment, confronted with a situation which was horrible enough to make them contemplate killing a person they loved like their brother or best friend, they can’t judge you for it.”

“But what if I am asking you to?” Oliver asks, giving up all pretence they’re talking about some imaginary third person.

“Then you need to give me a bit more, Oliver,” she tells him softly and he nods, eyes dropping once more back to their hands, tangling and untangling his fingers with hers, stroking across her pulse point, her palm, watching every movement and every reaction, looking fascinated by how their hands intertwine.

Finally, he speaks up, eyes still on their hands rather than her, as if he expects to read disappointment or hatred to be written across her face the moment he looks up – and therefore avoiding any glimpse of her face with fervent determination.

Their hands are safer. More comforting.

“His name was Slade. Slade Wilson. He was- He was my friend. My brother. We were- were going to get off the island together.” Oliver sighs. “Or so we thought.”

He doesn’t give her all the details she knows from his past self, doesn’t talk about Sara or Shado, just someone Slade cared for who Oliver was meant to protect – and failed to.

Felicity doesn’t fight him on it, doesn’t interject, just lets him talk.

“There were other people on the island. Slade – he said not to go. I – I didn’t listen. I needed to protect- our mutual friend. So, I ran straight through a field which was being bombed to get to her. Slade followed. He got blown up. Heavily injured and- well, there was no hospital. No skin grafts. He was dying. There was no way to help with the burns – no way except for one thing. Experimental drug. I chose to inject him knowing it would either kill or save him.”

He gives her another laugh – but not one of the ones she likes; this one’s hollow, threaded with despair and bone-deep grief.

“Turns out, it did both. I- I was meant to protect her. Our… Our friend.”

He blows out a heavy breath, still stroking across her palm as if the action is soothing to himself.

“I failed,” he says quietly, like he’s confessing his sins. “She died. Slade- Slade was. I don’t know. The drug- it did something. There was just rage left… So much rage.”

Ever-so gently Oliver leans forward, his head coming to a rest on her good shoulder. With it still bare, she can feel his eyelashes against her skin, his nose against her collarbone, his breath down her breast past the towel. He’s seeking comfort from her and yet, at the same time, she can tell he’s also very much trying to hide from her, not wanting to face her.

Felicity can feel her heart break for this wonderful, beautiful man who’s been through so much bloodshed and betrayal, so much pain and yet here he is now – reaching out to her, trying, hoping and yet expecting nothing but rejection and more pain. But still, he tries. He doesn’t just give up on people, on humanity, he’s still yearning, still desperate for something – anything – good.

God, she loves this man.

This him. Past him. Future him.

Her lips tremble and the action hurts, she doesn’t let it stop her, doesn’t let him know the ache in her chest, in her shoulder, as she carefully reaches around his torso, arms encircling his back and tightening, pulling him closer to her and letting him hide, letting him know without words that it’s okay to seek comfort from her. One of her hands is curled in at the nape of his neck, stroking across his hair, tugging and scratching in turn, stroking the back of his neck tenderly.  With her other hand she rubs his back, hoping the familiar motion will be of some more comfort to him. Her pain is frankly negligible – it’s not injuring herself, just bruises – and the pain in Oliver’s heart is so, so much worse at the moment, it doesn’t even occur to her to stop.

Felicity kind of wants to drown this man with all the abundance of love she feels for him deep in her heart – the love she can’t actually tell him about yet, but one she hopes he can feel enough for it to soothe at least part of him.

Slowly, gently, his own arms sneak around hers, one arm at her lower back and one just behind her shoulder blade, pushing him closer, deeper against her. There’s a faint trail of wetness from there, but neither of them mentioning it and his voice doesn’t betray him when he speaks up again a few moments later, still burying himself against her.

“I wasn’t the one to kill her,” he promises, voice catching, a desperate plea in his words she’s not sure he knows he’s making – but one she knows how to respond to.

“I believe you,” Felicity tells him firmly, sincerity in her every word and she can feel him go even more lax against her, hands tightening around her back in a silent expression of his gratitude.

“I believe you,” she reiterates, pressing a soft kiss to his head on her shoulder – ignoring how it pulls on the new stitches on her other side to turn. Felicity is beyond caring for anything but Oliver. He shudders slightly in her grasp.

“Slade- Slade didn’t. Came after me. I- I had a way to cure him. He said he was going to go after everyone I loved and he was going to kill them in front of me. Anything to make me suffer the way he suffered because I was responsible for her death.”

This position wasn’t terribly unusual for husband and wife; for all that he dwarfs her both in height and statue, he seeks her out for comfort just as often as she does him. And while she normally gets cradled in his arms where he hunches over her and embraces her, hiding her from the entire world, protecting and shielding her – his favourite position is one where he leans with his head on her shoulder, her breasts or her stomach, talking against her skin or, on days where he just needs to process, just silently letting her hands stroke across his head and back. She always hopes she inspires even just the tiniest glimpse of just how safe and protected and cared for he makes her feel when he does this. She hopes this Oliver can feel the same from her.

“And I could have cured him, I could have used-…” Oliver’s almost feverishly trying to explain what else he could have done, before he subsides just as quickly, cutting himself off, voice dropping to a deeper, lower register as he continues, gone from excited to despondent in the blink of an eye, “ but I didn’t.”

The amount of self-loathing in his voice, the amount of hatred Oliver directs – not at Slade, not at Waller or Ivo or anyone but himself – makes her heart ache for the poor tormented man curling himself deeply against her. Felicity can’t do anything but continue to try and soothe him, her hands running over his back, through his hair, hoping she gives him some form of peace and a non-judgemental space to open up in while he speaks his mind.

“I shoved an arrow through his eye – my brother,” Oliver practically spits out, “the one who trained me. Who took me in when I had no one and nothing, no survival skills. He saved me so many fucking times.”

Oliver blows out a heavy breath which scatters over her skin, his voice dark as anything as he concludes, “and I killed him. What does that say about me?”

He looks up at her, eyes red-rimmed, tear tracks on his cheek.

“Where does that put me on your scale?”