CHAPTER THREE
WHEN SHE WAS GONE
[PRESENT]
[STARLING CITY]
Felicity felt the churning of guilt in the pit of her stomach as soon as the words were out.
Not because she told Oliver told them all about Sara and what happened on the island. She did still feel the guilt she had when she told aoliver about his mother, Malcom and Thea. No- she doesn't regret because she cannot allow herself to. The knowledge she shared is important, so important.
Oliver needs to know.
What she regrets is the lie .
Too practiced to not come out.
She doesn't want secrets from Oliver. He's too important and his trust in her is too... important.
And she hates herself a little for not telling the truth then.
I faked my death and ran away six years ago and by the way, my dad's like the most famous superhero in the world.
She tells the lie instead.
When she's alone in her little apartment afterward, snuggled up in her fleece pajamas with her hands gripped tightly around a mug of hot chocolate, she starts to think.
Felicity starts to think about Peter and if he was alright. She starts to get scared that Peter and her family didn't move on from her death, that what she did was wrong but she knows she can't think this-she has to be able to save them and if she isn't, who really is she?
She is protecting them.
That's the only thing that keeps her going.
Oliver had no idea- Felicity was more broken than he could even imagine.
Felicity had always been the odd one out in the whole group. Being an IT girl of the one and only, dark and brooding Oliver Queen except when he's being a vigilante out there in streets of Starling City, not only gave her a limit on her social life but her love life too.
It was pretty easy to balance out her day and night job but she still wanted to go out and have a few drinks without Oliver breathing down her neck. Not that Felicity loved it when he breathed down her but it was getting a little irritating and she needed a little love in her life so she could move on with her day.
Except Peter never left her shattered heart.
She doesn't get to move on with her day and she's stuck in the foundry because there's some gun dealers in the Glades and Oliver had a hard time catching up to them because they all split up into different directions. Dig was in the foundry beside her, getting a little worried about how long it's taking Oliver to track them all down.
"Felicity! Where are they?" Oliver yelled into the comm while he jumped off the building ledge and onto the top of another. He tried spotting one of them but there was no silhouettes in sight.
"Um," Felicity bit down on her lip as her fingers flew across the keyboard. "There's three below you and the other five are on your North and South. They're heading towards you."
Oliver grunted out an affirmative and didn't say anything until he brought them all down. "Did you call Captain Lance already?"
Felicity looked offended and responded back with a scoff, "Look who you're talking to, Mr. Queen." She said and took off her comm. She turned her head to Dig who had an amused smile playing on his lips and an arched brow. "What?" She asked.
"Mr. Queen?" He teased, seeing her blush widely.
"I... I mean..."
"Calm down, Smoak." He laughed, shaking his head. "I know what you meant."
Felicity calmed down for a second and smiled at Diggle before turning her attention to the descending figure coming from the stairs. "Oliver." She jumped on her feet like she's been expecting his arrival.
"You did good, Felicity." Oliver acknowledged with a soft smile. "You guys should go get some rest, I'm gonna stay here for the night."
Felicity liked Oliver- a little more than she would like to admit- but she reckoned that it was probably the mysterious vibe he hd.
She didn't date anyone since Peter Parker.
Sure, there were a few one night stands and those things but she never sound herself enjoying to company of any other man or woman.
When she thought about it- Felicity knew she lost more than anyone in her immediate group of friends (colleagues, really). She had grieved and fought in wars where she did not belong.
Her parents called her a magnet for danger as Peter did the same.
They were right.
Felicity also was a magnet for bad luck and hers was just beginning.
[NEW YORK CITY]
Tony Stark groaned. He loved Peter like his own son- he always had but Tony didn't know what to do about him.
He had been a mess and then he had been completely fine. Everyone thought he was completely fine.
He wasn't- Tony could see because if there was anyone on Earth and beyond that understood Peter's pain, it was Tony. But Tony never let his pain control him like Peter's controlled his entire life.
The boy had kept his mask down just a while after Felicity's death- he didn't want to be a hero anymore. Not when he couldn't save the one thing he loved the most.
Tony watched Peter's path or destruction, and for a while he let it happen. The boy deserved to grieve.
But then, Tony did the best thing he could, after agreeing with Pepper, they made the MIT graduate the CEO of Stark Industries. Pepper was busy at home with Morgan so Tony started working again- being a mentor for Peter.
Tony always wondered what Felicity would say about anything and everything- about how they were all barely managing without her, about how Morgan wanted to know more about her every passing day or about what Peter had become.
Tony didn't want to really say it but Peter had now become worse than what Tony himself used to be in his early thirties.
Tony knew about the booze and the sleeping around that Peter found therapeutic.
This was Peter Parker but he wasn't Peter Parker anymore.
Just a shell of a person he used to be.
"Get your ass up, Pete," Tony spoke when he saw Peter sprawled over a sofa in the tower. Though Peter never went out for missions anymore or even knowledge the fact that he used to be an avenger, he loved the tower.
Felicity had been the one to design it and for Peter it was the closest he would ever get to her. Atleast as long as he lived- he had no idea of what came after that.
"Sup'" the twenty-four year old CEO said, "Didn't know you were coming to the Tower today."
Tony rolled his eyes, "Really? I literally told you last night that I am coming with you for your business trip."
"There's a business trip?" Peter's eyes snapped open as he sat up straight fast. Tony had to blink twice to comprehend Peter's speed- a rare sight on it's own.
Tony loved Peter, he truly did but for the first time in his life he was wondering how much he really troubled Pepper in his youth which was very much like Peter's.
"Yes, Parker!" Tony said as he offered the boy a glass of water, "We have to go to Starling City to meet Oliver Queen."
Tony could see Peter's brain trying to come up to a suitable answer.
"Don't think! Just get dressed."