Fic: "Five Times Oliver Held Felicity (And The One Time She Held Him)" (1/1) (Olicity, Arrow)
Title: "Five Times Oliver Held Felicity (And The One Time She Held Him)" (1/1)
Author: ageless_aislynn
Characters/fandom: Oliver/Felicity, Arrow
Summary: In all of the time they'd known each other, she'd ended up in his arms one way or another. But he ended up in hers at long last.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3,452
Spoilers/warnings: None
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine but I do enjoy borrowing them just for a bit! ;)
A/N: I originally intended this as a "Four Times" fic from Felicity's p.o.v. and then... Oliver kinda happened all over it, lol! ;) If you read, I hope you enjoy! ♥
Also on Tumblr and Ao3 ♥
1.
"See? I'll be fine," Felicity said, her confident tone at odds with the tightness around her eyes. "I knew we'd need a cot down here eventually. So you and Diggle can go on to bed -- not with each other, I mean. Well, unless that's your thing. No judgment, of course, 'cause--"
"Felicity," Oliver interjected before a fresh torrent of nervous words could start anew. "We're not leaving you."
"You're not?" she repeated and a weight visibly lifted from her shoulders.
"No way," Diggle affirmed. "I intend to find out if that chair of yours really is comfortable enough to sleep in like you said."
"Hey, I was going to take that chair," Oliver mock-protested just to earn a tiny smile from the blonde. She'd had precious little reason to smile over the course of the last few hours with a still-at-large professional hitman targeting her for reasons yet unknown.
"We could order extra cots so that next time we could all sleep together." Felicity clamped her lips shut as if she could catch the last word by the tail and reel the entire sentence back in. "You, ah, know what I mean."
Oliver's mouth twitched but all he said was, "Get some rest. You're safe here."
A short while later, with the lights dimmed and Diggle stretched out in his chair and Oliver in Felicity's -- it really was as comfortable as advertised -- a quiet, distressed noise came from the inscrutable bundle under a blanket on the cot.
Oliver was already across the room and kneeling next to her before she cried out and bolted partially upright.
"Hey, hey, it's all right," he said softly, touching her shoulder.
"That man, he was here, he was going to kill me," she said, dismayed, her gaze flickering all around as if expecting to see her attacker leap out of the shadows at her at any moment. "He'd already killed you and Diggle."
"It was just a bad dream," he said soothingly, brushing her hair back from her face. "We're both right here. Digg and I are fine. No one's going to hurt you."
He expected Diggle to come over as well -- he knew her outburst would have awoken him, he was far too much of a soldier to have slept through it -- but the other man shifted in his chair and stilled without rising. Apparently, he thought Oliver had this.
Felicity's eyes were huge in the low light and sleep had stripped away all bravado and pretense. She looked young and scared and that brought his protective instincts roaring to life.
"We'll get him," he said firmly. "We've got several leads, something will pan out soon, you'll see. He's not going to get away with this."
She nodded, quick, short bobs of her head as he spoke, still looking so vulnerable that it made whatever was left of his heart constrict painfully.
He leaned his forehead against hers. "I'll get him," he said in soft ferocity, clipping each syllable precisely. "I will get him."
She suddenly wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face to his neck. "Could you stay? Just for a minute, just until I fall asleep? Maybe I won't dream it again, then."
There was barely room for her by herself on the cot but he automatically calculated that two could fit if maneuvered correctly.
He blanched a little as the old Oliver Queen, the one from before the island, gave him that information with the same hedonistic glee that had put him in bed with so many other warm bodies in the past. That still did, in all honesty.
I don't want to be that with her, he thought, suddenly helpless to reconcile a course of action. Old familiar tracks, ruts worn down into the very fabric of his being, would take him where he always ended up, to a short-term physical relationship devoid of true emotion. It wouldn't be tonight, of course, not with Diggle right there to keep him honest. But it could tempt him to want more. Invoke the old Oliver to manifest like an evil spirit, ready and very willing to tell him how to seduce Felicity Smoak, how to use her weaknesses against her, then how to walk away, how to wreck it, how to break her apart when it began to grow too real.
No, he thought desperately. Not like that. Not with her.
He glanced over his shoulder at Diggle, mutely seeking advice. And, as usual, his friend knew the answer without even being properly asked the question.
Diggle nodded once, slowly, his expression mutely saying, Trust yourself.
"Sure," Oliver murmured into Felicity's hair. "I'll stay for a minute. Scoot over."
Sliding carefully into the cot, he gathered her in his arms, her head on his chest. She immediately relaxed, sighing slightly, and was back asleep in mere moments. The inherent trust in the gesture staggered him, humbled him. Had he ever trusted anyone so completely, with all of the perils and potential heartbreaks that entailed?
He held her like she was spun-glass fragile and infinitely breakable, but he knew the truth. Between the two of them, she was far, far stronger in all the ways that really mattered. She always had been.
***
2.
Oliver slowly descended the steps into the lair, mentally turning over details of yet another failed training session with Roy.
I'm not reaching him, he thought. As much as he respects the Arrow -- I think he does, anyway -- I'm just not getting through to him. I can't fail him. I won't fail him. But I'm not sure how to fix this.
His footfalls seemed to thud as heavily as his thoughts until the soft sound of a throat being cleared jolted him out of his melancholy.
"Um, some help, please?"
He cleared the last of the stairs in one fluid jump, his head cocking to the side incredulously even as he hurried in Felicity's direction.
"Hey, Oliver," she said, trying to sound natural. "Could you maybe pull a step-ladder over here or something? That would be great."
She was hanging near the top of the salmon ladder, one black pump dangling precariously from her left foot, the other already on the concrete below.
"How did you get up there?" he asked, then amended, "Why did you go up there?"
"Just... changing my perspective. And don't ask how." Her remaining shoe dropped with a rather loud thwap. "That's kinda like the sound of breaking an ankle on concrete, huh? Wait, we've got that big crate now. Slide it over, would you?"
He positioned himself under her, holding out his arms. "Just let go. I'll catch you."
"That's nice but..." she trailed off.
"But what?" he asked sharply, his pride stung. She didn't trust him to keep her from hitting the ground?
"What if you, I don't know, throw out your back or something?" she asked in dismay. "I don't want to be responsible for letting the criminal element run amok because I accidentally put you on the injured reserve!"
He blinked up at her. "I'm fairly certain I can catch you without doing myself bodily harm," he said, deadpan.
"At least I didn't wear a skirt today. That would really have been embarrassing right now."
"That's why I generally don't wear skirts when I do this, either," he said, his expression serious but the corner of his mouth was having trouble not twitching. "I don't know if Diggle's heart could stand it."
"You could probably really rock a killlllt--!" Her hands gave out on the last word and she dropped with a shrill shriek. He caught her as smoothly as if they'd practiced it a thousand times, trapping her upper body to his chest, his arms around her waist.
"Are you okay?" they both said at the same time.
"Yes, Felicity," he continued on in an I'm humoring you sooo hard right now tone, supporting her weight easily. "I'll live to fight crime another day, I promise. Did you hurt anything?"
"Other than my pride? No, I'm good. Well, not good at that, clearly." She wrinkled her nose, grimacing as she flexed her aching fingers. "I'm going to leave that to you from now on. I like it much better as a spectator sport. Thanks for the rescue."
She patted his shoulders, reminding him that he was still holding her. He gently set her down and she bent, snatching up her pumps and stepping back into them.
"You ought to think about a kilt," she went on as she headed for the stairs.
"Oh, you think that would strike fear in the heart of Starling City's criminals?" he asked drolly.
She gave a cheeky smile over her shoulder. "Only when the wind blows it up."
He managed to wait until the door shut behind her before he burst out laughing. He still didn't have an answer to his dilemma with Roy but the heaviness in his chest had lightened noticeably.
***
3.
The explosion caught him off-guard, able only to turn to try to shield Felicity as shrapnel tore into him like a shotgun blast. He caught a disjointed glimpse of her soaring through the air ahead of him, briefly alight with a fiery glow.
As soon as he hit the water, he started swimming in her direction and found her almost immediately but his relief was short-lived. She was facedown and unconscious as he carefully turned her over, cradling her head. There was a bloody smear on her temple but she was breathing and that kept him focused.
"We need help, we're in the water," he gasped in the hopes that one of their comms hadn't been completely fried.
Spots danced before his eyes, his ears still ringing from the blast, and he could feel hot burning places where he was bleeding out into the cold water. None of that mattered, he blocked out everything but the determination to tread water for the both of them.
"It's going to be all right," he murmured over and over, not sure if he was trying to reassure her or himself. His waterlogged clothes and gear felt like they weighed a million pounds but they would not drag him down because that would mean dragging Felicity down as well and that was unacceptable.
Roy was the one who jumped in at some point and dragged them over to a low place in what was left of the dock. Oliver had never been happier for Roy's enhanced strength than he was as the younger man muscled them easily out of the water.
Nonetheless, the only one he would let take Felicity from his arms was Diggle.
***
4.
"Hey, it's midnight! Happy New Year to Team Arrow!"
"We're not calling ourselves that," Oliver protested as he always did and, as always, Felicity ignored him.
"The criminals have all been tucked safely away into police custody and nobody's in need of stitches or MRIs or any other form of medical attention. This is a great start to a new year!"
Oliver stowed his bow away, her enthusiasm teasing a ghost of a smile to his mouth. Roy had vanished to find Thea as soon as they'd gotten back and, upstairs, the party was in full swing.
Felicity turned to Diggle and went on tiptoe to hug him and press a kiss to his cheek as they traded the traditional phrase.
When she came to Oliver, he obligingly stooped to receive a similar hug. Loose tendrils had escaped from her ponytail and they brushed the side of his face in a soft caress. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to lean into her warmth.
"Happy New Year, Oliver," she said against his shoulder.
"Happy New Year, Felicity," he murmured back and, because it seemed innocent enough, safe enough, went to kiss her cheek...
...just as she turned towards him to do the same. Their mouths collided clumsily, then they jerked back, looking wide-eyed at each other. Diggle cleared his throat, trying unsuccessfully to swallow down a laugh.
"Yeah, I think it's going to be a great year," she blurted out and then looked utterly surprised as he -- Oliver Queen, who'd spent more years than not practicing debauchery like it was his personal mission in life -- he was the one who blushed a fiery scarlet.
***
5.
Of all the masks Oliver wore, "playboy CEO" was his least favorite. After an entire night of fake-smiling until his cheeks hurt while he danced with one nameless face after another, pocketing a dozen or more phone numbers and trying to look so very pleased each time, he found himself rather wistfully thinking of chasing thieves and murderers down dark, dank alleyways.
A flash of blonde hair and a red dress caught his eye and he waved off his next wannabe dance partner with a mock-apologetic expression as he cut through the crowd.
"Felicity," he said with quiet urgency, guiding her to the edge of the dance floor. "What is it? New drug kingpin in town? Gunrunners? Jaywalkers? Honestly, at this point, I'd settle for anything as long as it's not more dancing."
She grinned. "Diggle thought you were looking a little stressed, so recommended sending in a friendly face before you started swinging from the chandeliers. Because you could totally do that but it might be a little out of character in your suit and tie."
He exhaled heavily. "Yeah, I think that was about 10 minutes from happening."
The last woman he'd avoided was making a rather determined beeline through the crowd towards them.
"Come on," he said curtly, giving Felicity a bit of a whirl that put them out with the other dancers.
She made a startled noise. "I thought you said anything but more dancing?" But she settled into his arms comfortably, proving to be a very adept partner.
"The vultures were circling," he admitted, "and I promised Thea I wouldn't duck out before 11."
"Ah, so I'm just your... dance beard, then," she said, her tone teasing but her gaze flickered away.
He mentally cursed, realizing how that had sounded.
"Definitely not," he said, leaning closer and looking her straight in the eye. "Forgive my rudeness. I should've asked properly. Ms. Smoak, may I have the honor of this dance?"
The gleam returned to her eyes, the clever playfulness chasing away the momentary shadows. "Yes, Mr. Queen, you may."
For the first time that entire evening, he didn't have to struggle to maintain a carefree persona. She made it easy to keep a smile hovering at his mouth as she distracted him with "adventures" from her day job. Who knew that a paper jam could really be that devious?
The music trailed away and she stepped back. "Yay, you made it," she said with a slightly awkward smile. "It's 11 so you're free to run for the exit."
But as the next song began, he said impulsively said, "How about one more?"
He held out his hand, almost able to hear the tongues starting to wag around them. The playboy CEO dancing twice in a row with his assistant, no less? The gossipmongers would have a field day.
But when she put her hand in his and smiled up at him, he found he didn't care. Dancing really wasn't so bad, after all.
***
6.
"Well, there that was," Felicity said breathlessly as she flopped on her back next to him. "Several years in the waiting and all of that. For me, anyway. I don't know when you started waiting. You'd at least thought about it a little before now, right? This wasn't just some spur-of-the-moment 'Hurray, we lived through that last horrible disaster' type of thing, was it? 'Cause if it was, I'm taking back the several years of waiting comment."
He rolled to his side, studying her. "I've definitely thought about it a lot," he assured her with a slightly melancholy smile. "And not just because I was thinking about it, Felicity. You know what I am. I've never had one successful romantic relationship in my life. I've let down every woman who was ever important to me. I've kept that side of myself away from you because I didn't want you to become one of them."
"Hey," she murmured, reaching over to cup his face. "First of all, you're a who, not a what. And I do know who you are, Oliver. I've known for longer than you think. Do you remember what I said to you back at the beginning? That I didn't know why but I trusted you?"
"I remember," he said, leaning into her touch. It had taken these past years of painstaking mistakes and two-steps-forward-and-one-back of him struggling to reach her in a way that had nothing to do with the cold methodology of the old Oliver Queen. Years of her crashing inexorably through his defenses, often without even knowing that she was, forging a new path inside of him beside the older toxic ones, one that belonged only to her.
And he had finally reached the point where he was willing to take this leap of faith, to believe he could touch her without poisoning her, that he could love her without his love destroying her.
"Can I still trust you?" she asked.
He shut his eyes briefly. "Yes. You can still trust me."
"Well, then," she said as if that solved the issue. She pressed soft kisses to his mouth until he finally smiled and deepened the kiss.
He rolled her onto her back, bracing his arm on the mattress next to her... then winced as his shoulder reminded him of how he'd wrenched that arm a few hours earlier descending five stories under heavy fire.
"Oh, sorry," she said sympathetically. "Do you want an ice pack or something?"
He laughed shortly. "Well, that would certainly be sexy, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, sure," she said, tugging gently at him until he complied and shifted down to rest his head on her chest. "You do 'beat up but still smokin' hot' better than anyone else I know. Besides, it's hardly like I haven't played doctor with you before. And this time I can mean that in both meanings of the words, can't I?"
She smoothed her fingers over the sore muscles of his upper back and shoulders, working out the kinks. After a moment, the tension he always seemed to carry finally released and he relaxed gratefully into her embrace.
"Thanks," he mumbled. "Do you think I'm getting too old to zip line? How old is too old to zip line?"
"At least 10 years older than you are," she said with quick confidence. "No, 15. 15 years older than you are."
He smiled against her skin. "Good answer."
She idly started stroking his hair. He'd recently let it grow out a little, not as long as pre-island but not as compulsively short as post-island, either. Despite the multitude of changes to his appearance, all too often he still saw the old Oliver in the mirror, a shade that would probably always haunt him. But he was trying to gradually reclaim his body as his own again, without fear.
"Felicity?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
He exhaled slowly. "For not giving up on me. For waiting on me to grow up."
"You didn't make it easy," she said without condemnation but he cringed anyway. She kissed the top of his head and held him tighter, saying in soft certainty, "But you're worth it. Very, very worth it."
Comfortable silence descended for a moment, then she proclaimed, "I really want to give your mainframe a total overhaul."
He raised his head, wryly arching a brow. "Then you're going to need to give me a few more minutes. That was two already, you know."
"Three for me," she corrected then grinned unrepentantly as his other brow went up. "Hey, I had a lot of pent-up sexual tension here! Two of 'em sorta... rolled together. But I wasn't speaking euphemistically 'cause I could totally do better than 'I want to overhaul your mainframe,' just so you know. I've been thinking about a new way to configure our system. I think we can get a lot more speed if I just..."
He could've followed the technical jargon if he hadn't been sated and slightly drowsy. Instead, he put his head down again, content to listen to the melodic rise and fall of her voice as she detailed her vision. Her heart thrummed steadily beneath his ear and he closed his eyes, snuggling deeper into her embrace.
And Oliver Queen finally understood what it felt like to be at peace.
Author: ageless_aislynn
Characters/fandom: Oliver/Felicity, Arrow
Summary: In all of the time they'd known each other, she'd ended up in his arms one way or another. But he ended up in hers at long last.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3,452
Spoilers/warnings: None
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine but I do enjoy borrowing them just for a bit! ;)
A/N: I originally intended this as a "Four Times" fic from Felicity's p.o.v. and then... Oliver kinda happened all over it, lol! ;) If you read, I hope you enjoy! ♥
Also on Tumblr and Ao3 ♥
1.
"See? I'll be fine," Felicity said, her confident tone at odds with the tightness around her eyes. "I knew we'd need a cot down here eventually. So you and Diggle can go on to bed -- not with each other, I mean. Well, unless that's your thing. No judgment, of course, 'cause--"
"Felicity," Oliver interjected before a fresh torrent of nervous words could start anew. "We're not leaving you."
"You're not?" she repeated and a weight visibly lifted from her shoulders.
"No way," Diggle affirmed. "I intend to find out if that chair of yours really is comfortable enough to sleep in like you said."
"Hey, I was going to take that chair," Oliver mock-protested just to earn a tiny smile from the blonde. She'd had precious little reason to smile over the course of the last few hours with a still-at-large professional hitman targeting her for reasons yet unknown.
"We could order extra cots so that next time we could all sleep together." Felicity clamped her lips shut as if she could catch the last word by the tail and reel the entire sentence back in. "You, ah, know what I mean."
Oliver's mouth twitched but all he said was, "Get some rest. You're safe here."
A short while later, with the lights dimmed and Diggle stretched out in his chair and Oliver in Felicity's -- it really was as comfortable as advertised -- a quiet, distressed noise came from the inscrutable bundle under a blanket on the cot.
Oliver was already across the room and kneeling next to her before she cried out and bolted partially upright.
"Hey, hey, it's all right," he said softly, touching her shoulder.
"That man, he was here, he was going to kill me," she said, dismayed, her gaze flickering all around as if expecting to see her attacker leap out of the shadows at her at any moment. "He'd already killed you and Diggle."
"It was just a bad dream," he said soothingly, brushing her hair back from her face. "We're both right here. Digg and I are fine. No one's going to hurt you."
He expected Diggle to come over as well -- he knew her outburst would have awoken him, he was far too much of a soldier to have slept through it -- but the other man shifted in his chair and stilled without rising. Apparently, he thought Oliver had this.
Felicity's eyes were huge in the low light and sleep had stripped away all bravado and pretense. She looked young and scared and that brought his protective instincts roaring to life.
"We'll get him," he said firmly. "We've got several leads, something will pan out soon, you'll see. He's not going to get away with this."
She nodded, quick, short bobs of her head as he spoke, still looking so vulnerable that it made whatever was left of his heart constrict painfully.
He leaned his forehead against hers. "I'll get him," he said in soft ferocity, clipping each syllable precisely. "I will get him."
She suddenly wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face to his neck. "Could you stay? Just for a minute, just until I fall asleep? Maybe I won't dream it again, then."
There was barely room for her by herself on the cot but he automatically calculated that two could fit if maneuvered correctly.
He blanched a little as the old Oliver Queen, the one from before the island, gave him that information with the same hedonistic glee that had put him in bed with so many other warm bodies in the past. That still did, in all honesty.
I don't want to be that with her, he thought, suddenly helpless to reconcile a course of action. Old familiar tracks, ruts worn down into the very fabric of his being, would take him where he always ended up, to a short-term physical relationship devoid of true emotion. It wouldn't be tonight, of course, not with Diggle right there to keep him honest. But it could tempt him to want more. Invoke the old Oliver to manifest like an evil spirit, ready and very willing to tell him how to seduce Felicity Smoak, how to use her weaknesses against her, then how to walk away, how to wreck it, how to break her apart when it began to grow too real.
No, he thought desperately. Not like that. Not with her.
He glanced over his shoulder at Diggle, mutely seeking advice. And, as usual, his friend knew the answer without even being properly asked the question.
Diggle nodded once, slowly, his expression mutely saying, Trust yourself.
"Sure," Oliver murmured into Felicity's hair. "I'll stay for a minute. Scoot over."
Sliding carefully into the cot, he gathered her in his arms, her head on his chest. She immediately relaxed, sighing slightly, and was back asleep in mere moments. The inherent trust in the gesture staggered him, humbled him. Had he ever trusted anyone so completely, with all of the perils and potential heartbreaks that entailed?
He held her like she was spun-glass fragile and infinitely breakable, but he knew the truth. Between the two of them, she was far, far stronger in all the ways that really mattered. She always had been.
***
2.
Oliver slowly descended the steps into the lair, mentally turning over details of yet another failed training session with Roy.
I'm not reaching him, he thought. As much as he respects the Arrow -- I think he does, anyway -- I'm just not getting through to him. I can't fail him. I won't fail him. But I'm not sure how to fix this.
His footfalls seemed to thud as heavily as his thoughts until the soft sound of a throat being cleared jolted him out of his melancholy.
"Um, some help, please?"
He cleared the last of the stairs in one fluid jump, his head cocking to the side incredulously even as he hurried in Felicity's direction.
"Hey, Oliver," she said, trying to sound natural. "Could you maybe pull a step-ladder over here or something? That would be great."
She was hanging near the top of the salmon ladder, one black pump dangling precariously from her left foot, the other already on the concrete below.
"How did you get up there?" he asked, then amended, "Why did you go up there?"
"Just... changing my perspective. And don't ask how." Her remaining shoe dropped with a rather loud thwap. "That's kinda like the sound of breaking an ankle on concrete, huh? Wait, we've got that big crate now. Slide it over, would you?"
He positioned himself under her, holding out his arms. "Just let go. I'll catch you."
"That's nice but..." she trailed off.
"But what?" he asked sharply, his pride stung. She didn't trust him to keep her from hitting the ground?
"What if you, I don't know, throw out your back or something?" she asked in dismay. "I don't want to be responsible for letting the criminal element run amok because I accidentally put you on the injured reserve!"
He blinked up at her. "I'm fairly certain I can catch you without doing myself bodily harm," he said, deadpan.
"At least I didn't wear a skirt today. That would really have been embarrassing right now."
"That's why I generally don't wear skirts when I do this, either," he said, his expression serious but the corner of his mouth was having trouble not twitching. "I don't know if Diggle's heart could stand it."
"You could probably really rock a killlllt--!" Her hands gave out on the last word and she dropped with a shrill shriek. He caught her as smoothly as if they'd practiced it a thousand times, trapping her upper body to his chest, his arms around her waist.
"Are you okay?" they both said at the same time.
"Yes, Felicity," he continued on in an I'm humoring you sooo hard right now tone, supporting her weight easily. "I'll live to fight crime another day, I promise. Did you hurt anything?"
"Other than my pride? No, I'm good. Well, not good at that, clearly." She wrinkled her nose, grimacing as she flexed her aching fingers. "I'm going to leave that to you from now on. I like it much better as a spectator sport. Thanks for the rescue."
She patted his shoulders, reminding him that he was still holding her. He gently set her down and she bent, snatching up her pumps and stepping back into them.
"You ought to think about a kilt," she went on as she headed for the stairs.
"Oh, you think that would strike fear in the heart of Starling City's criminals?" he asked drolly.
She gave a cheeky smile over her shoulder. "Only when the wind blows it up."
He managed to wait until the door shut behind her before he burst out laughing. He still didn't have an answer to his dilemma with Roy but the heaviness in his chest had lightened noticeably.
***
3.
The explosion caught him off-guard, able only to turn to try to shield Felicity as shrapnel tore into him like a shotgun blast. He caught a disjointed glimpse of her soaring through the air ahead of him, briefly alight with a fiery glow.
As soon as he hit the water, he started swimming in her direction and found her almost immediately but his relief was short-lived. She was facedown and unconscious as he carefully turned her over, cradling her head. There was a bloody smear on her temple but she was breathing and that kept him focused.
"We need help, we're in the water," he gasped in the hopes that one of their comms hadn't been completely fried.
Spots danced before his eyes, his ears still ringing from the blast, and he could feel hot burning places where he was bleeding out into the cold water. None of that mattered, he blocked out everything but the determination to tread water for the both of them.
"It's going to be all right," he murmured over and over, not sure if he was trying to reassure her or himself. His waterlogged clothes and gear felt like they weighed a million pounds but they would not drag him down because that would mean dragging Felicity down as well and that was unacceptable.
Roy was the one who jumped in at some point and dragged them over to a low place in what was left of the dock. Oliver had never been happier for Roy's enhanced strength than he was as the younger man muscled them easily out of the water.
Nonetheless, the only one he would let take Felicity from his arms was Diggle.
***
4.
"Hey, it's midnight! Happy New Year to Team Arrow!"
"We're not calling ourselves that," Oliver protested as he always did and, as always, Felicity ignored him.
"The criminals have all been tucked safely away into police custody and nobody's in need of stitches or MRIs or any other form of medical attention. This is a great start to a new year!"
Oliver stowed his bow away, her enthusiasm teasing a ghost of a smile to his mouth. Roy had vanished to find Thea as soon as they'd gotten back and, upstairs, the party was in full swing.
Felicity turned to Diggle and went on tiptoe to hug him and press a kiss to his cheek as they traded the traditional phrase.
When she came to Oliver, he obligingly stooped to receive a similar hug. Loose tendrils had escaped from her ponytail and they brushed the side of his face in a soft caress. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to lean into her warmth.
"Happy New Year, Oliver," she said against his shoulder.
"Happy New Year, Felicity," he murmured back and, because it seemed innocent enough, safe enough, went to kiss her cheek...
...just as she turned towards him to do the same. Their mouths collided clumsily, then they jerked back, looking wide-eyed at each other. Diggle cleared his throat, trying unsuccessfully to swallow down a laugh.
"Yeah, I think it's going to be a great year," she blurted out and then looked utterly surprised as he -- Oliver Queen, who'd spent more years than not practicing debauchery like it was his personal mission in life -- he was the one who blushed a fiery scarlet.
***
5.
Of all the masks Oliver wore, "playboy CEO" was his least favorite. After an entire night of fake-smiling until his cheeks hurt while he danced with one nameless face after another, pocketing a dozen or more phone numbers and trying to look so very pleased each time, he found himself rather wistfully thinking of chasing thieves and murderers down dark, dank alleyways.
A flash of blonde hair and a red dress caught his eye and he waved off his next wannabe dance partner with a mock-apologetic expression as he cut through the crowd.
"Felicity," he said with quiet urgency, guiding her to the edge of the dance floor. "What is it? New drug kingpin in town? Gunrunners? Jaywalkers? Honestly, at this point, I'd settle for anything as long as it's not more dancing."
She grinned. "Diggle thought you were looking a little stressed, so recommended sending in a friendly face before you started swinging from the chandeliers. Because you could totally do that but it might be a little out of character in your suit and tie."
He exhaled heavily. "Yeah, I think that was about 10 minutes from happening."
The last woman he'd avoided was making a rather determined beeline through the crowd towards them.
"Come on," he said curtly, giving Felicity a bit of a whirl that put them out with the other dancers.
She made a startled noise. "I thought you said anything but more dancing?" But she settled into his arms comfortably, proving to be a very adept partner.
"The vultures were circling," he admitted, "and I promised Thea I wouldn't duck out before 11."
"Ah, so I'm just your... dance beard, then," she said, her tone teasing but her gaze flickered away.
He mentally cursed, realizing how that had sounded.
"Definitely not," he said, leaning closer and looking her straight in the eye. "Forgive my rudeness. I should've asked properly. Ms. Smoak, may I have the honor of this dance?"
The gleam returned to her eyes, the clever playfulness chasing away the momentary shadows. "Yes, Mr. Queen, you may."
For the first time that entire evening, he didn't have to struggle to maintain a carefree persona. She made it easy to keep a smile hovering at his mouth as she distracted him with "adventures" from her day job. Who knew that a paper jam could really be that devious?
The music trailed away and she stepped back. "Yay, you made it," she said with a slightly awkward smile. "It's 11 so you're free to run for the exit."
But as the next song began, he said impulsively said, "How about one more?"
He held out his hand, almost able to hear the tongues starting to wag around them. The playboy CEO dancing twice in a row with his assistant, no less? The gossipmongers would have a field day.
But when she put her hand in his and smiled up at him, he found he didn't care. Dancing really wasn't so bad, after all.
***
6.
"Well, there that was," Felicity said breathlessly as she flopped on her back next to him. "Several years in the waiting and all of that. For me, anyway. I don't know when you started waiting. You'd at least thought about it a little before now, right? This wasn't just some spur-of-the-moment 'Hurray, we lived through that last horrible disaster' type of thing, was it? 'Cause if it was, I'm taking back the several years of waiting comment."
He rolled to his side, studying her. "I've definitely thought about it a lot," he assured her with a slightly melancholy smile. "And not just because I was thinking about it, Felicity. You know what I am. I've never had one successful romantic relationship in my life. I've let down every woman who was ever important to me. I've kept that side of myself away from you because I didn't want you to become one of them."
"Hey," she murmured, reaching over to cup his face. "First of all, you're a who, not a what. And I do know who you are, Oliver. I've known for longer than you think. Do you remember what I said to you back at the beginning? That I didn't know why but I trusted you?"
"I remember," he said, leaning into her touch. It had taken these past years of painstaking mistakes and two-steps-forward-and-one-back of him struggling to reach her in a way that had nothing to do with the cold methodology of the old Oliver Queen. Years of her crashing inexorably through his defenses, often without even knowing that she was, forging a new path inside of him beside the older toxic ones, one that belonged only to her.
And he had finally reached the point where he was willing to take this leap of faith, to believe he could touch her without poisoning her, that he could love her without his love destroying her.
"Can I still trust you?" she asked.
He shut his eyes briefly. "Yes. You can still trust me."
"Well, then," she said as if that solved the issue. She pressed soft kisses to his mouth until he finally smiled and deepened the kiss.
He rolled her onto her back, bracing his arm on the mattress next to her... then winced as his shoulder reminded him of how he'd wrenched that arm a few hours earlier descending five stories under heavy fire.
"Oh, sorry," she said sympathetically. "Do you want an ice pack or something?"
He laughed shortly. "Well, that would certainly be sexy, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, sure," she said, tugging gently at him until he complied and shifted down to rest his head on her chest. "You do 'beat up but still smokin' hot' better than anyone else I know. Besides, it's hardly like I haven't played doctor with you before. And this time I can mean that in both meanings of the words, can't I?"
She smoothed her fingers over the sore muscles of his upper back and shoulders, working out the kinks. After a moment, the tension he always seemed to carry finally released and he relaxed gratefully into her embrace.
"Thanks," he mumbled. "Do you think I'm getting too old to zip line? How old is too old to zip line?"
"At least 10 years older than you are," she said with quick confidence. "No, 15. 15 years older than you are."
He smiled against her skin. "Good answer."
She idly started stroking his hair. He'd recently let it grow out a little, not as long as pre-island but not as compulsively short as post-island, either. Despite the multitude of changes to his appearance, all too often he still saw the old Oliver in the mirror, a shade that would probably always haunt him. But he was trying to gradually reclaim his body as his own again, without fear.
"Felicity?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
He exhaled slowly. "For not giving up on me. For waiting on me to grow up."
"You didn't make it easy," she said without condemnation but he cringed anyway. She kissed the top of his head and held him tighter, saying in soft certainty, "But you're worth it. Very, very worth it."
Comfortable silence descended for a moment, then she proclaimed, "I really want to give your mainframe a total overhaul."
He raised his head, wryly arching a brow. "Then you're going to need to give me a few more minutes. That was two already, you know."
"Three for me," she corrected then grinned unrepentantly as his other brow went up. "Hey, I had a lot of pent-up sexual tension here! Two of 'em sorta... rolled together. But I wasn't speaking euphemistically 'cause I could totally do better than 'I want to overhaul your mainframe,' just so you know. I've been thinking about a new way to configure our system. I think we can get a lot more speed if I just..."
He could've followed the technical jargon if he hadn't been sated and slightly drowsy. Instead, he put his head down again, content to listen to the melodic rise and fall of her voice as she detailed her vision. Her heart thrummed steadily beneath his ear and he closed his eyes, snuggling deeper into her embrace.
And Oliver Queen finally understood what it felt like to be at peace.