Cold air awakens Felicity, biting at her exposed back. She frowns at that fact, then realizes she isn't dressed, but then she feels something shift underneath her curled leg. It takes her an even longer moment to realize she's half-draped across Oliver's chest while he lies on his back. Judging by the place her leg is haphazardly thrown over his hips and the bare skin that meets it, he's just as lacking in the clothing department as she is.
The implications of that observation bring it flooding back in vivid detail, and her eyes fly open. Though her vision is blurry because her glasses are on the nightstand, she can squint and determine the hazy outline of the black pencil skirt she had worn before in the floor of the closet. Her bra is still casually draped across one corner of the bed, and her panda flats and blouse are missing from the fray. With a hazy smile, Felicity wonders absently if they decided to run away to take cover.
"Fray" seems to be the operative word, she decides, with the way Oliver's Arrow gear is thrown around the room. It looks like a war zone with the scattered mess of arrows covering the floor in front of the doorway, the quiver dropped and empty in the middle of the chaos. The green jacket and its infamous hood are practically in the hallway—she doesn't remember throwing that—while the leather pants are across the room, carelessly caught on the doorknob on the closet door halfway across the room. She can only see one of his boots, the other suspiciously absent. Then she realizes his mask and gloves aren't on the dresser where he placed them.
They must have ended up in the floor when she ended up on top of the dresser.
Turning to the nightstand in hopes of finding her glasses, she decides against it when she sees Oliver's sleeping form. There's nothing she can do but fix on it; Felicity rarely gets the opportunity to watch him sleep, and something about it is utterly fascinating to her. With the arm underneath her curling to drop his hand on her hip and his unclouded expression, he looks perfectly at peace, for once seeming like the world didn't force him to endure pure agony for the last five years. She had thought she'd watched him relax in sleep before, but something about this seems different. The crease between his brows—the one that seems to be in place almost perpetually—is gone, and something about the curve of his mouth makes her think he might be about to smile. Felicity thinks she might be getting a flashback of the old Oliver—the man he'd been before that boat went down.
Well, a variation on who that old Oliver could have been, if he'd embraced adulthood and responsibility.
Felicity's eyes drop to the Bratva insignia on his left pectoral, in prominent display. Though she knows she'll never ask, part of her wonders how many of his scars came from whatever he did to earn that mark. With hesitant fingers, she moves her hand from his stomach to trace the intricate lines of the design. It used to bother her what kind of violence that black ink represented—both violence he had endured and inflicted—but now she studies with indifference, acceptance. Her fingers still when the reason why hits her hard: she loves him.
While in and of itself that isn't particularly a surprise, it's the meaning behind those words. Felicity has long since been in love with Oliver, the person he is when he's with the people that know the truth. But now she's learning that it doesn't just extend to one aspect of the dichotomy that he is. She loves every side of him—Oliver Queen, the prodigal son; the Arrow, the hero who protects the city; and even the Vigilante, the avenging angel who made Starling City's criminals pay in blood. For so long, she's struggled to accept that all of personas could survive in one person, but now she understands that they're just different sides of one, singular whole—and she loves them all.
"I thought that I'd lost you when you figured that out," Oliver offers quietly, his voice raspy as a residue of sleep. Felicity's eyes immediately flick upward to his, but his attention is completely focused on her hand over his heart. "That reminds me that I've done things—traded away pieces of my soul to stay alive." A bitter chuckle escapes him. "Sometimes I wondered if living was worth the price I paid for it." He leans down to kiss her hair. "But then I saw you that first time, and it made it a little more bearable."
The candor there startles Felicity, and she realizes this is Oliver Queen trying to open up and let her in—starting with something easier to talk about than the island. "By the time I figured it out," she answers slowly, "I already knew you, Oliver. That didn't change the way I saw you—it helped me understand you." She finds herself tracing the lines of the tattoo again. "When I saw you that first time," she starts with a chuckle, waving to the Arrow gear strewn all over the room, "in all of that gear, my first question was what would make you try to do this." She flattens her hand over his heart. "This told me why."
He doesn't answer her immediately or directly, musing quietly, "I wasn't on the island the entire time I was gone, Felicity." Startled by the turn of the conversation and the revelation itself, she lifts her head from his chest to look at Oliver, reaching across him to the nightstand for her glasses. As she slides them on her face, he continues, "The first two years were on the island, but I spent a year in Hong Kong doing missions for ARGUS." He looks away for a moment. "One of them brought us back to Starling City."
Questions immediately spring to Felicity's mind, but she decides that asking questions would be the worst thing she could do for Oliver right now. After all, if he wanted someone to ask questions, he would have told his family this information. So she bottles them up and replies slowly, "That must have been agony—to be so close to your family and not be able to see them."
"I did see them," he corrects. "They didn't know I was there, but I watched my sister meet a kid at my father's gravestone—at my gravestone—and buy drugs. She thought I was a horrible brother, and the worst part was that she was right." Finally he looks at her again. "In some ways, seeing my family that way was worse than not seeing them at all."
He changes topics abruptly, as if that wound is still to raw to talk about. "The reason my ARGUS handler brought us back to Starling was because the data they needed was at Queen Consolidated, and I knew the layout of the building and I could access the servers."
The realization hits Felicity more violently than any lightning bolt or battering ram ever could. "About three years ago," she finds herself stating slowly, "we had a glitch in the system. Mr. Steele asked me to investigate because Mrs. Queen thought some things on her desk were moved around, and she wanted to make sure no one accessed her computer. I remember it because the biometric scanner recorded a result that didn't make sense—said that Oliver Queen had accessed the computer." She feels her brow furrow. "But it wasn't a glitch, was it? That was you."
It surprises her when he smiles; it honestly surprises her that Oliver still finds reasons to, if that small look at his past is any indication. "That was me," he affirms. "We thought that no one would bother to remove my access, and it worked." Something similar to a chuckle leaves his throat, but Felicity can't understand what there is to laugh about. "I was distracted by some of my father's old files, and I almost got caught by someone who was working late that night."
Felicity can't help but lean forward, curious, but she doesn't dare interrupt him now when it's clear he's in the mood to share. Oliver pauses for a long moment, as though he wants her to ask, but when she doesn't, he continues, "She was..." Words seem to escape him for a moment before he finishes, "Unforgettable—from the lipstick, to the glasses, to the pandas on her shoes."
When it dawns on her, Felicity's throat tightens. The day in question comes rushing back to her in vivid detail—it was the first time she ever walked into the CEO's office, and she had looked at the photograph of Oliver and his father and... She groans. "I called you cute," she remembers, and her face is already heating with embarrassment. "I comment on a photo of a dead man, and somehow he still manages to hear me and make me feel like an idiot." She shakes her head. "Typical."
Oliver's soft laugh answers, and Felicity decides that she has to make him laugh more often; it's such a beautiful sound. "For three years, I just tried to stay alive, and the part of me that knew how to enjoy life died along the way. Everyone was either a target or an asset, a number instead of a name. I had to in order to do what they asked of me." He takes her face between his hands, and the small, warm smile on his face makes her breath catch for a moment. "And you were the first person I saw as a human being. You weren't a number or a target—you were the girl who called me cute and was annoyed because she spoke to herself."
In a very rare turn of events, Felicity finds herself speechless. The only thing she can think to do is place her hands on his shoulders, using them as leverage to pull herself up to kiss him. It's surprisingly chaste considering their state of undress, but she isn't interested in soft and sweet. With everything going on in their lives, she knows that it might be a while before they have an opportunity like this again. The day is too far gone to make the trip to Central City, and Felicity plans to use that fact to her advantage while she can.
Because, as she learned in detail earlier, being in bed with Oliver is too tempting to pass up.
Not seeming to mind her enthusiasm, he responds in kind, his hand around her waist moving as his other hand joins it. He grips her hips tightly for a moment, but then, in one swift moment, he's on top of her. Felicity can feel him smile against her mouth when she gasps in surprise, and she finds a way to make him groan in return—one that's a little less innocent than his. Judging by the way his hand trails away from her hip, he has some sort of revenge in mind, but it never comes.
Felicity groans in irritation when the doorbell sounds, and Oliver immediately tenses, relaxing only enough to go out of high alert. But she can tell by the set of his jaw that he's not as relaxed as he was only moments before. "I'm going to get that damn doorbell disconnected," she practically growls, her voice taking on an odd quality. It causes Oliver to duck his head against her collarbone, chuckling against it as the last of the tautness leaving him completely.
Sighing, she pushes against his chest halfheartedly, and Oliver rolls off of her in clear understanding of the gesture. "Go get rid of them," he demands in a low, hoarse tone that makes her mouth go dry—the desire in his voice is enough to make her breath catch. "I'll wait here."
Somehow managing to pull herself out of bed even though her muscles feel like jelly, Felicity manages to pull on a pair of pajamas from her drawer. "Just a minute," she calls out, and then turns to Oliver. "It's probably my neighbor—her cat keeps getting out. Just give me a moment, and then I'll be back."
He lets her go with a sigh, and she knows that if she looks back, she'll ignore the doorbell altogether at the sight of him lying across her bed. Saphira is already waiting at the door by the time she arrives to it, and the little dog's wagging tail makes her think it isn't her neighbor. A look through the peephole confirms her suspicions, and she runs back to her room immediately.
"It's Roy," Felicity says quietly, and Oliver lifts his head from the pillow to look at her, brows furrowing together. "What do you want to do?" She waves a hand. "I mean, I know you don't want to tell him yet, but I don't think you can leave in your Arrow gear." She glances at the clock. "It's the middle of the day. And I can't talk to Roy about the Canary if he's talking to Oliver Queen." She groans. "And now I'm talking about you as two different people."
A laugh escapes Oliver as he rises to his feet, stopping long enough to grab the bag from her closet that he left the last time he stayed the night. "Do you mind if I use your shower?" he asks.
Felicity actually laughs at that; as if she'd mind him in her shower after everything else that's happened. "Use the in the guest bedroom, since you can't see it from the hallway," she instructs. "That part of the hallway isn't visible from the living room."
As soon as he's out of sight, Felicity goes to the door, picking up Roy's cell phone from the table before throwing it open. "Blondie," he starts gravely before she has a chance to speak, "you need to find somewhere else to stay for a while. I ran into the Canary last night and—"
"And then she ran into me," Felicity finishes for him. Then she holds up his cell phone, and Roy takes it with an incredulous look on his face, gaping slightly. "She's actually really nice. She thinks I'm cute, which I'm electing to take as a compliment."
"What happened to your hair?" Roy blurts finally, and she turns to the mirror in the entranceway, groaning. Now she understands why he's been gaping at her all morning; it's sticking up wildly in places, tousled in a way that does not look flattering, especially with the dark circles under her too-bright eyes. Her first thought is that sex hair is, apparently, a thing.
Her second is that she's going to murder Oliver for not saying anything to her about it.
"I've had maybe four hours of sleep in the past thirty-six hours," she responds irritably as she waves him into her apartment, "and I could snap at any minute. Today is not a good day to push your luck, Roy." She studies him for a moment, looking for signs of any new wounds. The only one she sees is the cut on his cheek, but that's several days old now, and it looks like it's healing nicely. "You're not hurt, are you?"
Roy flops down on Oliver's end of the couch, and she takes the opposite end. He scoffs as he answers, "Only my pride. I was trying to find the other girl—her name is Sin, by the way—and she ran as soon as she saw me. I followed her into an abandoned house, and I wake up on the floor with the Canary standing over me." He groans. "She kicked my ass."
Felicity rolls her eyes at the display of male ego. "She's the Canary," she replies dryly, crossing her arms. "She kicks a lot of guys' asses, not just yours. You should have thanked her for the opportunity."
He doesn't even bother to respond to that. "She knocked me out," he barrels on, "but as soon as I woke up and realized she took my phone, I ran for Verdant. I knocked on the door, but no one would answer." He shrugs. "I thought you might have gone home, so I came here."
"Thanks for the warning," Felicity says, "but she's a little faster than you are. It's like she mastered the art of Blitzkrieg or something. I was never in any danger, though—I'm a magnet for vigilantes who don't want to kill me."
Suddenly Roy's eyes go wide, and when Felicity follows his gaze to the hallway, she turns crimson. Saphira happily trots into the living room with her prize, dragging Oliver's Arrow jacket by the hood. Before Felicity can manage a coherent statement, the little dog pulls it into her bed, making a show of wadding it up to her liking before lying on it.
Then she realizes that the quiver and the pile of arrows are on display after Saphira barged through the bedroom door. Felicity also finds her blouse that was missing—strewn out into the hallway in a way that doesn't take Columbo to figure out what happened last night. (Well, this morning, technically.)
"Yeah, I can kind of see that," Roy deadpans with wide eyes and eyebrows that nearly meet his hairline. His expression is otherwise completely stoic, and Felicity can't help but give him credit for wisely choosing not to comment on it. "I'm glad she didn't kill you, Blondie." He delivers the line in the same tone, but she can see he means it despite how flippant he sounds.
"Don't get all mushy on me now, Harper," she teases with a smile. "We've made it through a lot without the ooey-gooey stuff, but if you start being sweet, I might actually have to hug you." She motions between them. "And I don't think either of us want that. God knows I don't."
He actually cracks a smile at that. "Then I better leave now before we both do something we regret." Then he hesitates. "I know I've done everything I can for the Arrow, but don't be a stranger. You're not as much of a stuck-up bookworm as I remember, Blondie."
"Same goes for you, Roy," she replies with a genuine smile. Against her better judgment, she's found herself liking the kid—and his loyalty. "We don't just kick people out of the lair whenever we're done with them, you know. And you've impressed the Arrow, so I think he's going to ask you to help when he needs someone to be his eyes and ears." He nods once, and then Felicity rises to lock her door after he leaves.
She turns back to Saphira with a frown. "You are the worst gossip ever—I'm never trusting you with another secret again."
***
Barry hears Cisco's flirt voice from the hallway, and he can't help but shake his head with a smile as he uses the pipetter to transfer serum for analysis. He has no idea who the poor girl is this time, but Cisco enjoys being a flirt with any girl who can talk tech.
Even Caitlin, her attention buried in a genetics study on her computer screen, takes notice when he walks in. "Laying it on a bit thick today, Cisco?" she calls with a smile, and Barry can't help but chuckle at the way she delivers such a dry line in a sweet voice.
"It's easy for you to judge when you're engaged to Ronnie," Cisco retorts cheerfully, knowing that she doesn't mean any offense, that it's just harmless ribbing between friends. "But the rest of us actually have to flirt to get a date."
"Well, if that's your ulterior motive," answers a ridiculously familiar voice that makes Barry break out into a smile immediately, "you're going to be disappointed. I'm very happy with my current boyfriend, and the last I heard, I think he's pretty happy with me, too." She walks over to Barry with a smile on her face. "Don't take this as an invitation to start speaking science geek to me, but how is that going?"
He leans over to kiss her cheek, then can't resist the dig: "I'm not going to get a visit from a guy in green because of that, am I?" She rolls her eyes, and Barry continues, "It's good to see you, Sherly. It's been a while, and I was starting to worry about you." The last time he had spoken to her, she thought that Detective Lance was going to try to break into the Arrow's base, and before that it was the Arrow's ex attacking her.
Sometimes Barry wonders if she realizes how... comic book her life has become.
"I live in Starling City, Watson," she replies dryly. "There's always something exciting happening there—you know that. But everything seems to have slowed down, if you exclude the new resurgence of Vertigo."
Cisco clears his throat rather noisily, and Barry turns to realize both he and Caitlin are staring at Barry and Felicity expectantly. "Oh, right, sorry!" Because he has a test tube in one hand and a pipette in the other, he motions with his right, the pipette flying between them. "Sherly, this is Cisco Ramon, one of our resident engineering geniuses, and Dr. Caitlin Snow, who is an actual medical doctor, unlike me." Then he motions back to Felicity. "Caitlin, Cisco, this is Felicity Smoak, my foster sister. She's visiting from Starling City."
Though it isn't something he talks about easily, Barry has been working with Caitlin and Cisco—even his boss, Dr. Wells—long enough that they all know how and why he ended up in foster care. Felicity is more tight-lipped about her past, he knows, but, by mentioning that, it lets her know that the two people in front of them are more than just colleagues—they're friends.
Of course Cisco picks up on that immediately. "Oh, that makes so much sense!" he exclaims, causing all of them to smile at the wild hand gestures that accompany it. "Barry was the first one to hear about the hood guy—it was because of you that he knew." He crosses his arms, stepping closer with a poorly contained smile. "Have you ever met him?"
Caitlin rolls her eyes, turning back to her work. "Just because she's from Starling City doesn't mean she knows anything about the Vigilante," she remarks dryly. Barry exchanges a look with his sister at that; they both know Felicity probably knows more about the Vigilante than anyone else in the city.
Her attention flicks over to Barry with a wry smile, before answering slowly, "I met him once. My friend invited me to a charity gala a few months ago, and some guy torched the place. I was trapped in the building, but the Vigilante pulled me out."
Before anyone can ask her any more questions, Barry pulls her toward his office with an excuse that he wants to see her for a few minutes before she leaves. "You said over the phone that you had something from the Arrow?" Honestly, he doesn't know how she handles the excitement; every time she brings something in, Barry likes the idea of helping the Arrow catch some dangerous criminal.
She gives him her best Barry-you-are-an-adorable-idiot smile before pulling a bag of green-and-purple capsules out of her purse. "These are Vertigo," she starts seriously, "so be careful with them. I need to know the chemical composition—if there's anything we can use to trace them to the Count." She worries her lip for a moment. "The last time I had you run analysis for me was Vertigo, too, but this time I won't be there to dispose of the evidence. The incinerator is your friend." Then she rises quickly from her seat. "I have to go—the Arrow needs me back in Starling as soon as possible, and Oliver is waiting in the car."
Barry can't help the incredulity in his voice. "Oliver is with you?" he asks for the sake of clarification, following her out of the office to ask. Then he can't help but wonder what the Arrow thinks of this development. "Why didn't he come in?"
"He doesn't like it when people gawk at him," she answers with a shrug. "I told him I was taking the train to Central City, and he was coming up here to see about the holdings. So he said I could go with him." A smile tugs the corners of her lips upward for a brief moment. "I don't think he likes trains. Or boats, but that's more understandable."
Though he knows Felicity is one of the smartest people he's ever met, Barry can't help the trepidation that comes with that turn of events. Oliver Queen may not be the man he was five years ago, but he could also be an entirely different type of trouble for one Felicity Smoak. After all, she can't really advertise the fact she's in a relationship around Starling. "I hope you know what you're doing, Sherly," he replies slowly. "I think he's a little in love with you—understandably—but I also think your boyfriend is the jealous type." The way he'd kissed her that night of the Humanitarian Awards Banquet proved that to Barry.
She waves a hand flippantly. "I wouldn't worry too much about my boyfriend being jealous of Oliver."