Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A/N: Hi everyone!  Thanks for taking the time to read this!  I’m starting a series of random one-shots based off of a variety of prompts.  These are all going to be stand-alone chapters (unless a demand is made for a follow-up) and they’ll be posted sporadically.  I am not putting off Mark of the Angel or An Arrow Thru It for anyone reading those, I promise neither is being shelved.  Spoilers for these include anything up to 4x16 (“Broken Hearts”).  Lastly, if you want to supply a prompt, feel free.  I can’t promise I’ll get to all of them or when, but I’m open to anything.  Also, I’m speculating about who is in the grave so be warned.

Love is Not Dead

Prompt: And then she did the simplest thing in the world.  She leaned over and kissed him.  And the world cracked open.

They’ve hardly spoken to one another in the last eight weeks.  She’d left him that day in the foundry after a fake wedding and returning his mother’s ring to him once again.  And even though she has helped them from time to time with their missions, with the task to end Darhk’s reign of terror and take down Malcolm Merlyn, they’ve barely said two words to each other on a personal level. 

He’s held back for so long.  He’s bottled up the pain that she left in her wake, the agony that he has felt since she’d given up on him.  And it had been agonizing.  It had been one of the most excruciating emotional experiences of his life.  Because not only had the love of his life chosen to walk away from him, she had given up on him.  She had stopped believing in him.  In all of the time that Oliver has known Felicity, in all of the time that she has been a part of his crusade, she has been the one person that he’s been able to rely on.  The one person who has never stopped supporting him.  She may not have always agreed with what he was doing, with his methods, but she has always been there.

He can’t blame her for leaving.  He doesn’t blame her for being hurt, for being angry.  She has every right.  He lied to her.  He kept something from her that – had they gotten married - would’ve affected both of them.  He had convinced himself that doing as Samantha asked was the only way to keep his son in his life.  He had been sure that he would have time to tell Felicity, that he would have an opportunity to tell her the truth.  He had been certain that the time would come and they would work through it.  But Darhk had interfered and Oliver had lost his opportunity to tell Felicity the truth on his own terms.

The night has been long.  Their friends are gone, each of them returning home to the lives that they live outside of this one.  Diggle has returned to Lyla.  Curtis has gone home to Paul.  Barry and Caitlyn and Cisco are on their way back to Central City.  And Oliver… Oliver is sitting at the table in the foundry feeling as if he hasn’t sleep in months.  Felicity is beside him, close enough that if he wanted to he could reach out and wrap his hand around hers.  He can smell the soft scent of her shampoo, the subtle hint of roses that clings to the golden locks of her hair, and his fingers itch to reach out and sift through the strands.  But he doesn’t reach for her.  He doesn’t touch her.  He remains motionless out of fear, uncertainty.  He doesn’t know where they stand.  He isn’t sure how she feels, if she misses him, if she wants him.  He doesn’t know anything because they haven’t exchanged more than a handful of words in the forty-eight hours that they’ve been searching for Malcolm.  The search is over and Merlyn is dead.  It is finally over.  The man responsible for Laurel’s death is dead and even though he knows that it doesn’t change the fact that she’s gone, he knows that she would’ve wanted them to seek justice for her.  For her and for all of the other’s that Merlyn had hurt, including her sister.

“Are you okay?”

Her question is voiced so quietly that he thinks he imagined it.  At least until he lifts his eyes from where they have been focused on the smooth surface of the table in front of him to find her watching him with an intent interest.

He nods slowly.

“Yeah, I – I think so.”

She continues to stare at him, her normally bright eyes muted by exhaustion and stress.  He knows that she’s waiting for him to say more but he isn’t sure what it is she’s expecting to hear. 

“I’m proud of you.”

He scoffs at that.

“For killing him?”

Felicity shakes her head, smiling sadly.

“Of course not.  I – You know how I felt about Merlyn, Oliver.  He deserved to die.  That isn’t something that’s ever been easy for me to say but that man he… he’s hurt so many people.  He’s taken so many lives, including Laurel’s, so he deserved what he got.”

She says the last bit with more vehemence in her voice than he’s ever heard from her and it makes him shift uncomfortably in his seat.  He hates that the darkness from his world has managed to seep into her.  It is something he has always feared.  From the first moment he decided to let her into this part of his life, he had feared that the darkness would envelope her.  He knows how strong she is, how bright and optimistic and pure, and before Darhk had nearly killed her, he had thought that those qualities protected her.  He had looked at her as his beacon of hope for so long and even after suffering severe injuries, after losing her ability to walk, she hadn’t succumbed to the darkness.  At least not until Malcolm had taken yet another person from them.  When she had encouraged him to kill Thea’s father, he’d realized that his greatest fear was coming to light.  He was losing her.  Again.

“You let them help you.  You asked for help, Oliver.”

He frowns as he looks back at her.  She had accused him, that last night in the lair, of doing everything on his own.  Of choosing to be alone rather than allowing them to help him, rather than letting her be his partner.  His partner in everything.

He swallows hard, shaking his head slowly.  Not because he disagrees with her. He doesn’t, not at all.  Because he did ask for help.  He turned to his team, to his friends, because he’d been beaten by Merlyn enough in the past to know that and the fact that Merlyn had HIVE on his side had been another deterrent.  He would only get himself killed if he’d tried to take him on alone.  And he isn’t ready to die.  He has too much left in his life that he wants to do, that he wants to experience.  Like marrying Felicity Smoak.  He hasn’t given up on that.

He turns his chair to face her and notices again how close they are.  He leans forward, elbows on his knees as he bends forward.  He keeps his eyes on her as he speaks.

“I know that you need me to include you.  I heard what you said, Felicity.  I get it.  And you’re right.  Marriage is about inclusion.  I don’t deny that I should’ve told you about William.  I kept something from you, something huge.  Something that upset everything that I thought I knew about my life.  When I was twenty-one, just before the Gambit went down, I cheated on Laurel.  That affair resulted in Samantha getting pregnant.  She told me and I told my mother.  My mother, without my knowledge, confronted Samantha.  She offered her a million dollars to take our baby and disappear.  She told Samantha that she didn’t want my future to be jeopardized by the mistake that we’d made.  So Samantha lied to me.  She told me that she’d lost the baby.  And I thought that was it.  I never saw her after that.  It was only a few weeks later that my dad and I –“

He cuts himself off.  They don’t need to go down that route, of course, because she already knows what happens after that.

“I did some … some digging.  On Samantha.  I found out that she deposited a million dollars from one of your mother’s hidden accounts into an account in Central City right after William was born.  She hasn’t touched the money since then.  I figure she’s saving it for him but it’s obvious that your mother paid her off.”

His frown deepens, his brows drawing together as he stares at her.

“She deposited the check?”

She nods, “Yes.  About a month after William was born.”

He feels a stab of betrayal low in his abdomen, as if someone has just stuck him in the ribs with a jagged blade. 

“She showed me a check that my mother had written.  It was for a million dollars.  She told me she’d never done anything with it.”

“Oh.  Well, I – I’m sorry, Ol-“

“No, no, it’s alright.  I just… I believed her.”

A small, warm hand closes over both of his where they’re clasped between his knees and he can’t help letting his eyes drift to her fingers.  He’s missed her touch.  He’s longed for it.  And even this innocent gesture of compassion sends his heart racing.

“I didn’t intend to keep it from you for as long as I did,” he continues, “I wanted to tell you but I wasn’t sure how.  Felicity, you have to understand, I didn’t know anything about this.  I didn’t know that William even existed and when Barry confirmed the DNA test for me, I – I was terrified.  I had a son.  I have a son.  A little boy that I never had the opportunity to meet.  I could barely process it myself.  I just needed time.  I needed to – to let the truth of that sink in before I told anyone.”

She sighs, squeezing his hands.

“I would never have begrudged you that, Oliver.  I get needing time.  But you… you never told me.  I had to find out from Damien Darhk.  And then I found out that Thea knew and Malcolm.  All of these people knew that your son existed except for me.  I thought that you trusted me.  I thought that we were a team.  You should’ve been honest with me.  Even if you’d just – even if you’d just told me that you’d found out about him and that you weren’t ready to talk about it.  That would’ve been easier for me to accept than being kept in the dark.”

He turned his hands to clasp hers between them.  He ran his thumb along her knuckles, staring at the delicate skin stretched across her bones.

“We are a team, Felicity.  And I know that you don’t think that I know what that means, that I don’t take it seriously, but that isn’t true.  You know me better than anyone.  You know that I’ve had to do a lot on my own.  I was alone for a long time.  There are times when I feel like I still am.  When I think that it would be better if I was.  And not because I don’t appreciate you or the team.  You have made my life better in so many ways.  You’ve made me realize that I don’t have to be alone.  You know how I feel about you.  I love you.  And I’m trying to be the man that you need me to be.  I want to be that person for you.”

“Oliver, I’m not asking you to change for me.  I mean, I am, I guess.  But I –“

He shakes his head to cut her off.

“It’s okay.  I want to change this part of me.  I know that I take on a lot on my own that I don’t need to.  I don’t want to be alone, Felicity.  And I know that I’m not.  I know that I have you.  And John and Thea and Sara.  But I started this on my own.  When I came home, I never expected anyone else to get involved.  I thought that I could do this alone.  Because I’d learned to rely only on myself.  I haven’t – I haven’t told you everything about my time away from here.  There’s a lot that I can’t talk about.  And it has nothing to do with not trusting you.  I did things that I am not proud of.  You know what I was like when I first started this, when I was just crossing names off of a list in my father’s book.  I killed people.  I tortured people.  I lived in a world where I had to do unimaginable things in order to survive.  You know that.  And I’m sorry, I’m sorry I can’t talk to you about those things but – but it scares me.”

Felicity leans forward into his personal space.  He feels the warmth of her body against his skin and feels his own flesh respond.  His nerves tingle with awareness.  She lifts her free hand to his face.

“What are you scared of, Oliver?”

His laughs softly, the sound lacking any humor.

“That you’ll leave.  That I’ll lose everyone who matters to me.  It’s what I’ve always been afraid of.  There’s a reason that I push people away.  I don’t know how to do this without someone getting hurt.  When I didn’t tell you about William, it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, Felicity.  It was because I was worried that it would push you away.  I thought that you’d be upset that I had a son.  That yet another piece of my past was encroaching on this life that we were trying to make together.  Yes, Samantha gave me an ultimatum.  She told me that I couldn’t tell you about William.  But I would’ve told you anyway.  I wanted to tell you.  But Barry…”

It’s her turn to frown as he lets the thought trail off.  She’s aware of what happened in Central City all those months ago when they faced Vandal Savage.  She knows now that Barry has the ability to time travel.

“Oliver, I don’t know what Barry did or said, but you should know me better than that.  You should know that I would never leave you for something like that.  Yes, you have a son.  I’m perfectly aware of the mistakes you made in your past.  I may not have known you then, but I know what kind of man you were.  And I know that you aren’t that man anymore.  Why would I ever hold the fact that you have a son against you?”

He shakes his head, unsure of how to voice his insecurities in more detail.  He has been more open with Felicity than he has with anyone else in his life.  He has trusted her not to judge him, not to punish him for his past.  He should have had faith in her, in the faith that she has always had in him, and been honest with her from the beginning. 

He’s left sitting there with her, silence settling around them, as her small hand remains on his jaw.  He keeps a hold of the other, clasping it between both of his.

And then she does the simplest thing in the world.  She leans over and kisses him.  And the world cracks open. 

It is a soft brush of her lips against hers, nothing deeper, but it conveys a million different emotions.  And it is over so much sooner than he had hoped. 

Felicity doesn’t move far, leaning her forehead against his as her chair rolls just a little closer.

“I miss you,” she confesses quietly.

“I miss you, too.  I’m so sorry.”

The hand on his face slides into his hair, her blunt fingernails scraping gently along his scalp, and he feels some of the tension in his shoulders drain away.

“Are we going to be okay?” he wonders aloud, voicing the question even though he’s fearful of the answer. 

He knows that there is so much left to work through.  He understands that the breaks between them cannot be repaired in a matter of minutes.  But he feels as if this is a beginning.  As if he’s been shrouded in darkness for eight weeks and suddenly he can feel the warmth of the sun on his skin.

He feels blinded by her response.

“Yeah, Oliver, I think we will.”

Chapter Text

Prompt: “Well that’s the closest I’ve ever come to a heart attack.  Let’s not do this again.”

Love is Not Dead

You brush your lips across her damp forehead, over her flushed cheeks.  Her panting breaths match yours and you’re certain that if you were to touch your lips to her pulse, it would be racing in time with yours as well. 

The noise of the room around you has faded to nothing more than a faint buzz in the background.  You have been surrounded by boundless activity for the last forty minutes.  From the time they told her to start pushing, everything has been loud and eruptive and overwhelming.  You haven’t moved from her side, haven’t released her hand, haven’t stopped touching her.  You’ve needed this connection, you still need it, and now that the excitement has passed, you cling to it like a lifeline.

“Well that’s the closest I’ve ever come to a heart attack.  Let’s not do this again.”

She gives a derisive snort as she turns her face into yours.  When she nuzzles her nose along your jaw, your heartrate begins to return to normal.  She squeezes your hand.

“Where is she?  I want to see her,” she mutters weakly.

You move out of your bubble for the first time since your baby girl was brought into the world.  You don’t even get to turn all the way around before a beaming nurse is placing a tightly swaddled infant in your arms.  You look down at her, at this child that you and Felicity have made and brought to life, and her tiny features blur as tears flood your eyes.  When you pivot around with your daughter cradled against you, it is to find your wife with the most blinding smile on her face.  Her own tears glisten as they slide down her cheeks.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

One of the nurses adjusts the bed so that Felicity can sit up and she holds out her arms.  An ache immediately blossoms inside of you at the idea of letting go of your daughter, even if it’s just so that she can go to her mother, and you know that it is going to be this way for the rest of your life.  But Felicity makes grabby hands (her words, not yours) at you and you can’t help the chuckle that escapes.  It takes a moment but you manage to transfer the baby safely to her waiting mother and you press another kiss to your wife’s temple.

“Welcome to the world, Maisie Elizabeth.”

She whispers the name against the crown of the baby’s head as you climb into the hospital bed beside her.  You slide your arm around her shoulders, drawing her against your chest, holding them both.

“Are you sure?”

She nods, “Maisie Elizabeth Queen.  I love it.”

You find yourself watching as her fingers trail through the soft strands of dark blond hair that cover your daughter’s head.  Your throat is constricted, the words that you want to tell her are stuck there, but you know that you don’t have to speak them for her to understand how you’re feeling.  Felicity has never needed the words, she’s had enough of a voice for both of you, so when she turns to you with a soft smile on her face, you know that she’s right there with you.  The joy and amazement and love and unimaginable fear that you’re feeling, she feels them, too.  And you know that, no matter what comes next, you’ll get through it together.

Chapter Text

Prompt: (from Jommy26 over on ff.net) How about sometime after 4X16, as a desperate attempt to be honest as far as not keeping things from her, Oliver talks about the first time he actually saw her?

They’re sitting across from one another in the quiet of the restaurant.  A candle sits on the table between them, tiny flame flickering and casting a gentle glow.  She studies the dark stubble on his jaw, the slight lines around his eyes, and wonders what it all means.  That they’re here, having dinner together, that he asked her in much the same way he had that very first time, so long ago.  They’re on a date.  A real date.  And even though she’d told herself that she wouldn’t do this again, that she had to let him go, so much has changed.  Their friend is dead.  Their friend is dead and they’re both here, alive and in love and she knows that she will never stop loving him.  She’d tried to break away, to keep her distance, but the tether that exists between them isn’t easily severed.  He’d hurt her, broken her trust, and it would take a lot for him to regain that trust, but it didn’t mean that it was impossible. 

When he finally speaks, the coarse timber of his voice causes goosebumps to erupt along the exposed flesh of her arms.

“I keep thinking about the first time that I saw you,” he tells her, his eyes focused on her, intent and open and full of something she’s afraid to name.

“I was chewing on a pen,” she says again, one corner of her mouth ticking up at the memory, both of that exact moment and of the conversation from their first date, “It was red.”

He shakes his head.

“That isn’t – that’s not what I mean.”

She frowns, “I don’t understand.”

Oliver swallows hard and she wonders what it is he’s about to confess to her.  Because she recognizes that expression, that vulnerability that he wears.  He’s shared so much with her in the time that they’ve been together.  Before their engagement ended, before she’d learned of one last secret that had caused a fissure the size of the Grand Canyon in her heart.  Before all of that he’d begun to share things with her, memories from his time on Lian Yu and from the years that he wasn’t there. 

“One of the first missions that I did for Amanda Waller, right before – before everything that happened in Hong Kong, brought me here.  Home.  To Starling City.”

She stares at him with wide eyes.  That is not something she’s ever heard before.  Of course she knows about Hong Kong, about Maseo and Tatsu and Akio.  She knows because in the months that they’d spent away from this place, Oliver opened up to her.  He’d wake from nightmares and rather than hide them from her, he’d pressed his face to her shoulder or her throat or the swell of her breast and he’d tell her stories of the man he had been in the five years that he’d been gone.

“How – how long were you here?”

He shrugs, his eyes leaving hers briefly before coming back even brighter than before.

“Thirty six hours.  Maseo and I were sent to stop a Queen Consolidated employee who was working with China White to sell her part of the virus.  I – I had to break into my mother’s office.  Someone came in while I was there and I ducked out of sight.”

“Me?”

He nods, a small grin pulling at his lips.

“You must’ve come in to drop something off.  It was late, the building was pretty much empty.  You were talking to yourself, to the picture of my father and I that my mother had on her desk.”

She lifts a hand and covers her mouth as a shocked squeak leaves her.  She feels her face flush.

“Oh god,” she mumbles, “What did I… what did I say?”

His grin turns into a full blown smile, one she hasn’t seen in a while, one she has sorely missed.

“You said that I was cute and that it was too bad that I was dead.  And then you said something about needing to learn to stop talking to yourself,” he explains, “It was … it was adorable.”

She laughs, she can’t help it, and shakes her head.

“Oh my god.  Why are you telling me this now?  After all this time, why didn’t you say something?”

Oliver shrugs again and leans back in his chair, his eyes never leaving hers.

“I’m not sure.  But I … when I found you again, when Walter pointed me towards your office, it came back to me.  I remembered seeing you so vividly and there you were, sitting right in front of me.  It felt like fate.”

It’s her turn to shake her head.  She doesn’t try to hide her smile or the color in her cheeks.

“Oliver… why tell me now?”

She knows the answer.  At least, she thinks that she does.  He’s trying something new.  He’s trying to do what she needs, what she’s asked of him.  There can’t be anymore secrets between them if they want this to work.  There has to be honesty and respect and consideration if they’re ever going to make it back to one another.  And this, she thinks, is a step in the right direction.

“There’s some force out there that keeps leading me to you, Felicity.  I don’t know how to explain it.  I don’t know exactly what it means.  I just know that I have always managed to find my way back to you.  After – after Laurel died, I thought a lot about what my life would’ve been like had I not boarded the Gambit that day with my dad.  How many people would still be alive if I’d never ended up on Lian Yu?  Yao Fei?  Shado?  Certainly Tommy and my mother and Laurel.  Even – even Sara.  So many people’s lives were altered by that one action.”

She finds his hand were it lays on the table and lets their fingers tangle together.  She wants to tell him that it isn’t his fault.  That he couldn’t have possibly known what would happen to them, to him.  But she stays quiet and waits for him to continue.

“But then there’s the selfish part of me that thinks, if I hadn’t gone, if my life hadn’t happened the way that it did, then I wouldn’t have known you.  And every time that that thought hits me, I know that there is no way that I would trade a minute of that for what I’ve had with you.  I wouldn’t take any of it back.”

“Oliver…”

“I meant what I said.  You are my always, Felicity.  I know that I can’t fix this overnight.  I know that – that it’s going to take work and that I have to earn your trust again.  I just need you to know that I am willing to do whatever it takes.  I love you.”

The threat of tears stings her eyes and she blinks them away.  She squeezes his fingers.

“I love you, too.”

For a moment, silence descends.  Even the ambient noise of the French bistro she’d chosen dims and it’s just the two of them, lost in this moment together.  There’s still so much to work on, to work through, but she takes him at his word.  She tried to tell herself that she needed to separate herself from him, from the pain that his lies caused her, but she’s learned that she can’t run from everything.  She can’t run from him because even though she hadn’t acknowledged it during the ruse of a wedding that she’d agreed to, Oliver is her always, as well.  She can’t stop believing that any more than she can stop breathing.

Chapter Text

Prompt: “Mom, quit messing with my hair!” “Shush, I want you to look pretty when you defeat the ogres.”

*             *             *

“Momma, quit messing with my hair!”

“Shush, I want you to look pretty when you defeat the ogres.”

He hears them before he steps fully into the living room.  His coat is hung on the hook by the door, his shoes discarded near his wife’s heels and his daughter’s sparkly pink sneakers.  It’s been three days since he’s been home with his girls.  Three days that he’s spent in Central City helping their friends stop yet another meta human.  Three days that he’s been without his wife and baby girl and he’s almost desperate to see them.

Oliver rounds the corner and stops.  He doesn’t make a sound, just stands with his back to the wall as he takes in the sight before him.  The sofa cushions are laid out in a path across the hardwood floor, leading from the kitchen island to the circle of furniture – dining chairs, couches, the ottoman – that make what he’s assuming is a fort of some kind.  Or a village, he isn’t sure.  In the middle of the circle is his four year old daughter dressed in what looks to be a bath towel fastened like a toga around her, belted with one of his own belts.  Felicity stands behind her, fingers tangled in her mess of curls, a barrette dangling between her lips as she twists Maisie’s curls into a riotous pony tail.  Their daughter huffs and crosses her arms over her chest.

“The ogres don’t care if I’m pretty, Momma!  They’re supposed to be ‘fraid of me!”

His wife is fighting a grin as she finally makes their baby’s hair look somewhat reasonable.  She bends and presses a loud kiss to the top of her head.

“I know, baby, and I’m sure they are.  But that hair of yours was making Momma crazy.  Besides, don’t you want to look pretty for daddy when he gets home?”

She hadn’t hinted that she’d realized he was there but he isn’t surprised that Felicity sensed his arrival.  She winks at him, her nose crinkling in the process, and he has to smother a laugh.  She’s somehow never mastered the whole winking thing.

His little girl’s face brightens as her eyes whip around to find him standing there.  She’s barreling towards him seconds later, her little feet catching on one of the sofa cushions and sending her sprawling.  But he never lets her hit the ground, his reflexes working just as well as they always have as he scoops her up into his arms and swings her around.  Her delighted squeal echoes through their home and warms every part of him.

“I missed you, baby girl.”

He presses loud, wet kisses all over her face, setting off a fit of giggles that makes Felicity laugh along with her.

“Missed you, too, Daddy,” she tells him when he lets up, “Do I look pretty?”

He kisses her again, reciprocating when she gives him Eskimo kisses, rubbing her little nose with his.

“You are the most beautiful girl in the whole world, Maisie Elizabeth.”

Her little eyes widen and she sneaks a surreptitious glance at her mother.

“What about, Momma?” she whispers.

Felicity remains on the other side of the room, separated from them by a sea of furniture, with her hands on her hips.  He takes her in, his eyes traveling the length of her body.  She is – in his opinion – the most gorgeous woman that he has ever known.  And not just because of her thick golden hair or her clear, luminescent skin.  Not simply for the curve of her hips or the fullness of her breasts.  But because of the heart that she carries, of the love and trust that she bestows upon him every single day.  Because she has given him a home and a family, she has given him Maisie, and she has helped him find himself.  When the world around him turns to chaos, she is the calm in the storm. 

“Do you think Momma is beautiful, Maisie?”

She nods vehemently.

“The most beautifulest.”

He grins, watching the way his wife’s eyes shine with unshed tears, the way her left hand slides slowly across her stomach.  It remains there as her expression changes, as his heart kicks into overdrive, knowing what she’s telling him without words.

He swallows around the lump that is suddenly obstructing his throat.

“I completely agree, baby girl.  She’s definitely the most beautiful.”

Chapter Text

Love is Not Dead

“I love you.”

Felicity blinked up at him, her bright blue eyes owlish behind her glasses.  A dusting of pink colored her cheeks and her soft lips formed a perfect ‘o’.  He knew that she hadn’t been expecting the words, the confession, and he’d tried to keep it to himself.  Really, he had.  Barry was his friend.  He’d had no intention of falling in love with his girlfriend.  But there was something about her, about the sweet, spunky, genius that he’d met immediately upon arriving in Central City. 

When Oliver had left Starling City to pursue his MBA at Central City University, he hadn’t expected to find anyone like her.  He hadn’t expected to meet a woman who didn’t take any of his crap.  A woman who didn’t hear his name and immediately throw herself at him.  When Barry had introduced them, she’d given a little tilt of her head and squinted her eyes at him before declaring that she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.  To Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen was just another guy, another student, another friend of her boyfriend.  He wasn’t anything special.

It hadn’t taken long for Oliver to realize that she was special.  Beyond anything he’d ever known, Oliver knew that Felicity was different from the other women in his life.  He’d had female friends over the years – not many, but a few.  And none of them had pulled the emotions from him that being around Felicity evoked.  He’d fallen in love with her quickly and deeply and even though he’d tried to shove those feelings aside as their friendship grew stronger, it had been useless.  He’d heard that the basis of true love was a strong friendship.  He had heard it and until he’d met her, he’d never really believed it. 

“Oliver, I…”

Felicity turned away, hugging her jacket tighter around her, putting distance between them.  He waited for her to continue, unwilling to push her to respond.  He wanted her honesty, he needed whatever her response to be the absolute truth.  He wouldn’t coerce an answer from her.

And it wasn’t as if Oliver couldn’t wait.  He had been waiting for Felicity for the better part of two years.  Two years of watching her relationship with Barry go through its ups and downs, of watching her flourish in the academic world that she loved.  For two years he had observed every aspect of her life and he’d been there for her no matter what.  When she’d come down the flu the day before his ex-girlfriend was supposed to come to town for a long, sex-filled weekend, he’d been there.  He’d called Sara and canceled, not even trying to hide the fact that he was bailing on her to take care of another woman, and he’d spent the next six weeks sorely celibate.  When Felicity had knocked on his door at two in the morning the night of his last final of his first semester because she had gotten drunk with her girlfriends and she just wanted to talk, he’d stayed up with her until the sun had come up, forgoing sleep and studying just to be with her.

“Barry and I just…”

They’d been over for forty three days.  He knows because he was there.  He was there when she ended it, when she told Barry that it was okay, that she understood.  He had feelings for someone else.  Barry had been in love with Iris West for as long as Oliver had known him, long before Felicity had come into his life.  And when his childhood best friend had returned to Central City, it had been obvious to both Oliver and Felicity that Barry’s heart belonged to Iris.

She shook her head, her back to him.  Frigid December air whipped around them, tugging at the bright fuchsia coat she wore and sending her hair flying about her head.  She was beautiful.  He’d thought so from the first time that he saw her, from the first moment those bright blue eyes looked up at him and she blinded him with her smile.  It took every ounce of his self control to respect the distance she’d put between them.

“What do you want me to say, Oliver?”

Her voice was so quiet, carried to him only on the wind.

He sighed, “I don’t – I don’t know.  I was just kind of hoping that you’d, you know… fall in love with me.”

Felicity turned abruptly, nearly losing her balance on the snow-slicked sidewalk. 

“When exactly did you expect that to happen?  While I was still with Barry?”

He took a step forward, his body moving before he could think about what he was doing, and Felicity froze.  He expected to see anger in her eyes, outrage at his confession.  What he saw was confusion and hesitation.  But, he realized, it wasn’t his words that confused her.  It was her feelings that she was twisted up over.

“You were never really with Barry, Felicity.  You weren’t in love with him.”

Color flooded her cheeks, the rosy blush from the cold spreading and darkening as her mouth opened and closed again.  After a long moment, she murmured a reply.

“I – I could have been.”

Hope burst within him, chasing the chill from his body.  He took another small step towards her.  When she didn’t retreat, he moved again, reaching for her and Felicity stepped into the circle of his arms.  She pressed her face into his coat.

“You weren’t in love with Barry.”

She shook her head, “No.  I – I was in love with someone else.  I am.”

Oliver inhaled sharply, “Felicity.”

Felicity’s small arms wrapped around him and she held on, clinging to him in a way she never had before.  She set her chin against his chest, the action tipping her head back and giving him an unimpeded view of warmth in her eyes.

“I love you, too, Oliver.”

Chapter Text

They take her to the east coast the summer of her fifth birthday.  She’ll start kindergarten in the fall and the thought alone makes Felicity’s heart race.  They’d agreed on a quiet, secluded family vacation in preparation for letting their little girl go.  Three long, relaxing weeks in their own private cottage has been heaven.  The sun glints off of the Atlantic outside of their windows and it is a view that Felicity has decided that she could wake up to every day for the rest of her life.  Something about it, about the salty ocean air that fills her lungs and the sounds of the waves breaking against the craggy beach, it settles her soul.

She grew up in the desert, surrounded by the lights and sounds of the Vegas Strip, but Felicity has always felt more at home on the coast.  She’d fallen in love with the ocean the first time she’d experienced it, not long after arriving at MIT.  She knows that her husband has a tumultuous relationship with the sea.  He loves it, loves its splendor and beauty, but he nearly lost his life to the violence of it so many years ago. 

Felicity is stretched out in the lounge chair Oliver brought down to the beach for her.  Her ankles are swollen today and her lower back aches but she hasn’t let the discomfort of pregnancy number two keep her down.  Her sunglasses are slipping down her nose as she takes in her baby girl, just a few feet from the end of her chair, staring out at the ocean.  Her dirty blonde hair had been separated into pigtails and then twisted up into buns – like a ballerina, she’d said – and her lavender swimsuit is beginning to ride up but she doesn’t seem to mind. 

Maisie has been fascinated with the vastness of the water since the first moment she and Oliver had carried her out into the chilly depths.  She’d giggled and squealed and clutched at her father’s shoulders but as they’d stood out there, the water almost to Felicity’s shoulders, she’d quieted, staring out at the never ending blanket that the ocean created.  She’d had these quiet moments of introspection nearly every day since.

“Maisie, sweetheart, c’mere.  You need more sunscreen.”

Oliver calls her name and she turns, a smile much like her father’s lights up her little face.  She runs to him, her bare feet somehow not bothered by the rocky Maine shoreline, and throws herself into his arms.  They both erupt with laughter, the lilting sound of Maisie’s sweet voice carrying out across the beach, and Felicity turns in her chair so that she can watch them.  Her husband grins at her from over the top of their daughter’s head. 

It is moments like this one, soft and peaceful, when Felicity knows that forgiving Oliver was the only thing that she could have done.  She had promised herself a long time ago that she would never give up on him.  Walking away when he’d hurt her had been the most painful thing that she’d ever survived.  Walking back into his arms had been the most healing. 

Chapter Text

Prompt: “Come with me,” he said, knowing the answer would be no.  After a moment, however, she said, “Come with me instead.”

“Come with me,” he says, the words more of a plea than anything. 

He braces himself for the pain he expects to come with her answer.  She sees him visibly tense and the way his shoulders are hunched turns her stomach. 

After a moment, she says, “Come with me instead.”

Oliver is frozen, half turned toward her, his head cocked to the side as if he isn’t sure he’s heard correctly.  Felicity takes a step closer to him and reaches for his hand.  He stares at her. 

“Come with me, Oliver,” she repeats. 

Her voice is strong and sure.  Because that is how she feels now, about them, about the life that they’ve chosen.  It is a life that she’s ready to reclaim, this one that she’s built with him.  She doesn’t want to go off on another grand adventure.  Not this time.  They had needed it last year.  They’d needed that time away, to discover one another, to explore the love that they so clearly felt for each other.  But this time, this time they need to stay and rebuild.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

Felicity shrugs, “Home.”

His eyes don’t leave hers and in the blue depths she sees a million emotions reflected back at her.  Hope and understanding.  Love and happiness.  But there’s apprehension there as well and she knows that they have so much to talk about.  There’s still so much to work through.

Thea has gone.  She had agreed to stay in touch, had even let them know where she was heading first, but the moment that the war against Darhk had ended, the youngest member of their team had packed a bag and left town.  Lance has left, too, and  Felicity doesn’t dwell on the fact that the captain is currently on his way to Las Vegas with her mother.  She will resign herself to being happy for the both of them.  And while John and Lyla remain in Star City, Felicity knows that John isn’t in a good place.  He has Lyla to watch out for him, to help him get through losing Andy again, so even though she wants to worry about him, she knows that it’s probably in her best interest not to.  At least not too much.

“Where is that exactly?”

She blinks up at Oliver as he squeezes her hand.  They haven’t been in the loft in weeks.  She’d packed her things and left, expecting him to stay there, only to find that he’d put his own belongings in storage and moved into the bunker.

Felicity sighs and inches closer, eliminating the distance between them.  She has to tip her head back to meet his eyes.

“Home is you, Oliver.  It’s us.  Wherever you and I are together, that’s home to me.  I just – I don’t think leaving Star City is the answer,” she confides, “And I don’t think you feel that way either.”

It’s his turn to sigh.  His head falls against hers, their foreheads pressed together in an intimate gesture that they’ve shared a thousand times, and Felicity relishes it.

“The city needs someone to bring it out of the darkness, Oliver.  You told me once that it needs something that the Green Arrow can’t offer.  That it needed hope and inspiration.  You brought that to the people of this city during your campaign.  So much so that they wrote you in.  You are the best bet that it has at making a full recovery.  We need to stay.  We need to rebuild.”

She rests her free hand over his heart and feels it pound beneath her fingertips. 

“Thank you for believing in me,” he whispers.

Felicity grins, “You never have to thank me.  I love you.”

His arm slides around her waist and pulls her flush against him.  He presses his face into the curve of her shoulder.  It has taken them months to make it back to this place, back to the place where she fits the most, with Oliver in every way, and while she is well aware that there will always be challenges in their relationship, she has learned that they are both strong enough to overcome them. 

Chapter Text

Prompt: She looped a finger around his, one small connection while the world fell apart around them.

Love is Not Dead

The city was in chaos.  The streets overrun by terrified citizens.  But Damien Darhk was dead and the excitement would settle.  Everything was going to be okay.  Felicity had faith that they would be able to rebuild and restore.  That, together, they would be there to help the people of Star City move on with their lives.  The terror was finally over.

She looped a finger around his, one small connection while the world continued to fall apart around them.

Oliver had come for her.  She’d known that he would.  But the trust that she had in Oliver – in her team – to rescue her and the city from Damien Darhk hadn’t eased the fear that had nearly strangled her.  The man had threatened her life along with the lives of her mother and her friend.  They all could’ve easily died trying to reactivate Rubicon at Darhk’s command.  And Felicity had realized in the hours before Oliver and John and Thea had come for her that she would’ve died without telling Oliver how she felt.  The thing that had anguished her the most in those moments hadn’t been the fear of her own death, but the fear that she would be taken from him before she could tell him one last time that she loved him.

Because she did.  She loved him beyond any reason.  Beyond the hurt and betrayal and the lies.  Felicity loved Oliver beyond explanation.

“It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?”

Thea occupied Oliver’s other side, her arm linked with his.

“We’re going to be here to see that it is.”

Felicity raised her gaze to Oliver’s face.  He was staring out at the disarray that was the city center, a resolute look on his face.  His determination was admirable.  They’d been selfish the summer before.  They’d put themselves - their happiness, their love - first.   And while there wasn’t a moment of that summer that Felicity regretted, they’d deserved the escape, she knew that the damage left in the wake of Genesis couldn’t be ignored. 

The single finger twined with hers suddenly became all five as Oliver grasped her hand.  Felicity’s chin settled on his shoulder and she smiled.

“I guess we should get started.”

Thea headed off, leaving the two of them standing alone.

“Where do we even begin?”

Felicity shrugged, “There are plenty of opportunities out there, Oliver.  We’ll start where we’re needed most.”

He angled his body into hers, releasing her hand in order to grasp her face in both hands.

“I was afraid I was going to lose you tonight.”

“I know.”

“I wanted – I know that we haven’t ,,,”

“I love you.”

The heavy breath that escaped him ghosted across her cheeks.  She saw some of the tension visibly drain from him.  His calloused thumbs skimmed along her jaw line.

“I love you, too, Felicity.”

“There’s so much that we have to figure out.”

“I know.”

“But we will.  We’ll figure it out together, Oliver.  Because I’m not going anywhere.  And neither are you.  You and me?  We’re in this together.  Right?”

“Always.”

Chapter Text

Love Is Not Dead

Prompt:  Write a scene that starts “Where did you find that?”

The door opens behind her and she pauses.  She feels him there, on the threshold of the room, breathing but not moving.

“Where did you find that?”

She doesn’t turn.  She holds the picture frame in both hands.  It’s heavy.  Both physically and emotionally.

“Daddy.”

He steps up behind her, reaching over her shoulder to pluck it from her hands.  She faces him and he is staying at the photo with empty eyes.  His mouth is set in a grim line.  She can see the emotions that he’s trying to hide.  It’s a gift that he says she’s inherited from her mother.  She’s only thirteen but she can read him like an open book.

“Why don’t you go and help your sister unpack, honey.”

She steps forward and wraps her little arms around him.  The top of her head only reaches the middle of his stomach.  That’s something else that she got from her mom.  Where Maisie is tall like their dad, she’s a shrimp.  Just like Mom.

“I miss her, too, Daddy.”

She’s glad that her face is hidden because she’s sure that she’s going to cry.  It happens a lot lately.  Between her and Maisie, someone is always crying.  That lump in her throat is back and it hurts.  Her cheeks are warm, her eyes burning.

She hears something clatter and she doesn’t have to look to know that he put the picture frame back in the box.  He crouches down so that they’re eye to eye.  That’s when the tears come.  He’s crying, too.

“I wish I could do something, Molly.  I wish I knew how to make it better,” he tells her.

His hands are so big where he holds her face between them.  He catches her tears with his thumbs and she tries to smile but it hurts too much.

“Momma wouldn’t want us to be sad,” she says, “She would want us to smile when we think about her.  She was always smiling, remember?”

He nods.  She wonders if his throat feels like hers, too tight to get the words out.  He pulls her close and kisses her forehead.

“I love you, Molly.”

She sniffs, “I love you, too, Daddy.”

He hugs her close and she closes her eyes, letting herself cry hard for a few minutes before she steps back and leaves the room.

She doesn’t look back but she knows that he’s looking at it again.  The picture of him and Mom and Uncle Digg and Aunt Lyla.  He’s wearing his Green Arrow suit.  She knows that he hasn’t put it on since the night that she died.  She heard him tell Aunt Thea that he will never be the Green Arrow again.  Because it’s his fault that she’s gone.  Because without Felicity, without their mom, he’s the only thing that she and Maisie have left. 

The night that Overwatch died, so did the Green Arrow.

Chapter Text

Prompt: “Come on, when have my calculations ever been wrong?”  “Well…” “Shut up, that was one time!”

Love Is Not Dead

                “Come on, when have my calculations ever been wrong?”

                “Well…”

                “Shut up, that was one time!”

                Oliver’s lips twitched in amusement.

                “And look where that got us.”

                “Hey, we turned out to be pretty good at this parenting thing!  Sammy is the happiest baby ever.  And don’t try to pretend that you weren’t thrilled when we found out I was pregnant, Mr. Queen.  You damn near cried and then you went and blabbed to every person we saw that day.”

                He huffed out a laugh, flipping them quickly while she was distracted, and pinned her to the bed.

                “Are you really willing to risk a repeat of that?”

                Felicity pouted, “But I want sex.”

                He chuckled and kissed the tip of her nose.

                “Mm, so do I, Mrs. Queen, but we’re out of condoms and you said it yourself, those antibiotics probably messed with your birth control.  We’d be chancing it.”

                “Stupid antibiotics.  Stupid sinus infection.”

                He found her grumbling adorable.  He found everything about her adorable.

                “We can continue to play,” he told her, his lips finding her pulse point and suckling gently.

                He’d already brought her off with his fingers and his mouth, taking pleasure in the way that she responded to his touch.  She’d had two orgasms, shouting his name in the quiet of their bedroom, and he was happy to give her a third.

                “But what about you?” she gasped when he drew her nipple into his mouth, “I mean, I’d be happy to return the favor.  I’d love to, actually.  Because you never let me.  Which is kind of weird, Oliver.  I mean, what man doesn’t want a blowj-“

                Her words fell off when she cried out sharply, her back bowing off of the mattress.  He dipped two fingers into her tight channel and her muscles clenched around them.  His thumb pressed against her swollen clit.

                “Felicity,” he growled, running his stubbled jaw along the valley between her breasts, “I’d be happy to let you suck me off.”

                She mewled and he felt a flood moisture against his hand.  She loved it when he talked dirty to her.

                “God, just seeing your pretty pink lips wrapped around my cock is enough to get me off.  And those little noises that you make.  Fuck, baby, it’s incredible.”

                He thrust his fingers in time with the movement of his thumb against her clit.  Her mouth was open, her breath coming in shallow pants as her head rolled around on her pillow.  A warm flush colored her neck and chest.  He licked at each of her nipples, moving back and forth between them, biting and suckling them into stiff peaks.

                “You like it, don’t you?  Having my cock in your mouth?  You love it when I come for you, don’t you baby?”

                Her hoarse cry echoed loudly around him as her body clamped down on his fingers.  The orgasm washed over her, making her breath hitch and her legs tremble.  He continued plunging his fingers deep, her slickness making the movements easy, and he coaxed every bit of pleasure from her body.  When she finally stilled, becoming boneless beneath him, he eased his hand from her body and stuck his fingers in his mouth.  She watched through heavy-lidded eyes as he sucked her juices from his fingers.

                “Feel better?”

                She groaned and he couldn’t fight the smug grin that found its way to his face.

                One of her hands – which had previously been fisted in the sheets – wrapped around him and it was his turn to groan.  He was painfully hard, his cock throbbing, and she swiped her thumb across the tip.  She used the pre-cum leaking from his slit to slide her small hand wetly along his length.  He bit his lip and dropped his head to her chest.

                “You sure you don’t want to risk it?” she teased as his hips bucked, “We can handle two kids, right?  Besides, I’m about ninety percent sure we’re safe.”

                He couldn’t contain his soft moan when she added a sharp twist to her movements.

                “Th – that’s what you said last time,” he growled, “And I agree, we can handle two kids but maybe after Sammy hits his first birthday.”

                Her fingers tightened and she continued pumping him from root to tip.

                “Fine, but if you aren’t going to fuck me, Oliver, at least let me have you in my mouth.  Please?”

                He blinked up at her.  He had to be the luckiest man on the face of the earth.  His wife – his beautiful, sexy, smart, incredible wife – was practically begging him to let her suck his dick.  He was unbelievably lucky.

                “God, I fucking love you.”

                Felicity grinned and shoved him onto his back before sliding down the length of his body.