No Need To Get All Personal
The only sound heard was the rhythmic tapping of her fingers on the keyboard, no doubt hacking into yet another high security network, bent on bringing down the next bad guy. Or the next girl, Felicity wasn't one to discriminate. Although statistically speaking the bad people - better, now she wasn't discriminating against anybody - they came in contact with were mostly men. If she had time to think about it she may wonder whether that was because women just tended to be the more law abiding citizens or they were just smarter and didn't get caught as easily. No matter how arrogant her following thoughts - which nobody get to hear anyways, so who cared whether she sounded arrogant in her own head - sounded, but she liked to think that the second option would be true for her. That if she were a bad guy or rather bad girl she wouldn't get caught as easily as about 80 percent of the people Team Arrow dealt with. It's always the quiet ones you don't suspect.
Anyways, back to her more legal illegal - was there such a thing? - activities, hacking the next high security network or bad people database to get a lead on their next potential target. No rest for the wicked super-intelligent vigilante IT support. Hm. Maybe that title was a bit too long to put on her new business cards. But her thoughts about what to put on her business cards - not that she desperately needed new business cards - could also take a seat on the back burner.
"Felicity?"
The blonde's hand shot to her chest as if to keep her rapidly beating heart from literally jumping out of her body. Of course she wouldn't hear Oliver approaching. When would she ever learn to pay attention to her surroundings, especially if she thought she had their lair all to herself and her thoughts. The sound of the keys being pressed immediately stopped.
"Do you want me to die of a heart attack?" she asked him after she finally got her racing heart under control. She was used to her heart beating faster than usually in Oliver's presence but usually it was for different reasons. Much more pleasurable reasons. Once more Felicity contemplated using her superior computer skills for the mundane task of ordering a set of bells with which she could equip her vigilantes so she - and her blood pressure - had an early warning system.
Taking another deep breath Felicity turned back towards her research, but nevertheless keeping an eye on Oliver, who seemed hesitant about leaving her side. The rolls of the chair made a scuffing noise as they were dragged across the floor so that Oliver could sit down next to Felicity, without disturbing her precious order. She felt his eyes on her, but did her best to ignore it. She knew from past experiences that pushing Oliver to talk was the wrong thing to do. Whatever he wanted, sooner or later he would come to her on his own. It wasn't as if she had no problems other than being the IT girl for a broody vigilante.
Oliver had straddled the chair backwards and stayed far enough away from Felicity so it could still be interpreted as proper, but not too far away. It was the perfect distance to take in her appearance. He didn't miss anything. Not the bags under her eyes that seemed to grow darker every day, not the chipped nail polish on her left thumb that she sometimes got because she hit the space bar to hard and not the fact that her usually colorful and vibrant dresses gave way to more subdued colors.
Sensing his chance when Felicity stopped typing for more than a seconds, Oliver softly said, "You know you can talk to me?"
Felicity shot him a confused look from behind her glasses. "I know, Oliver. Why wouldn't I?" She sounded a bit irritated with him and wasted no time in focusing her attention on her searches again, eyes narrowing in concentration.
He kept watching her work for a few heartbeats and quickly came to the realization that she was anything else but hard at work. Oliver knew how she looked when she was hard at work, but this was definitely not it. For one she typed much slower than usual. She also chanced a glance in his direction more than once, as if to check if he was still watching her. "I don't know, but you haven't been yourself this week," he explained, trying to keep his tone low and soothing, but judging by the way he rubbed the tips of his fingers together he was wary about how the conversation was going to play out.
She gave up pretending to work to shoot him an evil look, "Way to charm a girl." Oliver waited for her to continue, but for the first time since they met each other she kept her tendency to babble at bay. To say that it worried him, would be correct.
"Normally you would go off on a tangent now about how you knew that I didn't want to charm you and if I wanted to that would be perfectly fine." He arched an eyebrow at her, seemingly daring her to contradict him. Which she gladly did.
"That's not what I would do," she tried to convince him otherwise, pushing away from her desk.
Oliver let out a sigh. "You would, Felicity. And the fact that you just didn't worries me a bit." He looked her straight in the eye. "Whatever it is, I promise you can talk to me." With a loop sided little smile he added, "Without me going all Arrow."
Felicity just looked at his earnest expression for a heartbeat, while her thoughts were running a hundred miles an hour to find a way out of this conversation. "Maybe it's just that time of the month," she shrugged, knowing exactly what his reaction would be.
Now it was his turn to take a step back. "Woah, no need to get all personal." He put his hands up in defense as if she were about to hit him with her keyboard.
"If you don't want to talk about that then leave me be." With that she turned to the screens and started typing again and Oliver was left thinking that maybe it would be better if he left all the emotional talks to Diggle. The other man was much better at that. Deciding that he wouldn't get her to talk now, Oliver went to search for something he could hit.
Mentally Felicity added a point in her column, for winning this round of not wanting to talk about a certain subject, which both of them seemed to have perfected. In moments like these she wondered how Roy and Diggle put up with the two of them. Thinking herself the winner, Felicity focused on her hacking, pardon, slightly illegal information gathering again, since she obviously successfully frightened Oliver away. What she didn't count on was the fact that Oliver had stared death in the eyes far more times than any of them wanted to acknowledge.
"It's not that time of the month," he said, not bothering to put on his t-shirt again after he shed it before trying to work out. Startled by his sudden need to continue their conversation Felicity nearly toppled over the cup of coffee, which somehow managed to find its way on her desk despite the 'no fluids near the computers' rule. Only Oliver's lightning fast reflexes saved her from having to get a new keyboard. "If I'm not very mistaken you were on your period last week," Oliver elaborated while nonchalantly catching the coffee cup and putting it out of reach.
"Now who is getting all personal?" Felicity spluttered, her cheeks burning.
Never once letting his gaze stray from her, Oliver leaned against one of the desks before saying, "We as a team," if she weren't so shocked she would probably be delighted over his use of that particular word, "try very hard to keep you happy. So whenever it is that time of the month Roy is tasked with keeping the fridge stocked with ice cream, Diggle keeps us all from getting on your nerves, so you don't have to use your loud voice on us and I usually get you coffee before I come in. Caramel latte macchiato. You don't want any cold drinks during that time."
Grasping for words Felicity opened and closed her mouth in rapid succession, probably putting every professional fish imitator's skills to shame, before she finally hissed, "Are you serious?" and got up to at least pretend they were on eye level and that she could actually put fear in him.
Not at all imitated by the petite blonde in front of him, or simply because he had a death wish, Oliver continued even further, "And you prefer Chinese food over Pizza and can't stand the smell of the Thai food from that place just round the corner."
"I can't believe you," Felicity groaned, not at all relishing the thought that her friends knew her that well. It was one of the things she could have lived without - them knowing and her knowing that they knew. "You are a guy, you are supposed to run in the other direction as soon as a woman is even thinking about starting to talk about her period." At least he had the decency to blush slightly. Right that moment Felicity took what she could get.
"I will deny that I've ever said this," Oliver stated, looking at her with an honest expression, holding his hands out in front of himself as if he could ward off an attack that way, "but Diggle, Roy and I all have had girlfriends before and we know that it's best to keep women happy during that time." That expression quickly turned a bit sour when he thought about the fact, that Roy's girlfriend was actually his sister.
They seemed to have reached an impasse, with Oliver not willing to back down and Felicity not volunteering any information. Resisting the urge to sigh audibly because of her stubbornness, he simply said, "I know that a year ago today you took a bullet for Sara."
The surprise about how he somehow figured out what was bothered her showed in the way her eyes widened behind her glasses and by the fact that she looked at him again. "How did you-"
He didn't let her distract him again. "And you miss her."
The understanding written clearly on his face got to her. "But I don't have the right to miss her? I mean…"
"You have every right to miss her," he told her frankly, but she was having non of it and with one look she cut off anything he might have wanted to further say on the topic.
Felicity started pacing in front of him. "No. Laurel was her sister. Captain Lance her father. You were her… whatever, you were important to her. I don't know her mother, but I'm sure she misses her." For a moment her steps faltered. "I knew her for what? A few months tops?" She turned to look at him, wrapping her arms around herself as if to keep herself together. "Who-who am I to miss her?"
"You didn't know her for very long, but she was important to you." She had turned away from him by now. "You are allowed to miss her," he tried to tell her, but she didn't look convinced.
"Would it help if I gave you permission?"
"Yes," she nodded.
"You have my permission to miss Sara." With that he reached for her just in time to gather her in his arms as the first tear started trekking down her cheek. Oliver rested his chin on top of her head and hugged her closer.
"Better?" Oliver asked when he felt her breathing normalizing after some time.
"Yes," she whispered, loosening her hold and self-consciously wiping her eyes underneath her glasses. "Thank you." She even managed a wonky smile.
Oliver rubbed his neck, belying his slight discomfort. "Now come on." He reached for her hand, twining his fingers with hers and tugged her after him, barely leaving her time to grab her bag.
"Where are we going?" she asked, the quick click-clack of her heels following them up the stairs.
Turning back he grinned boyish and for a moment Felicity was reminded of the old Oliver she only knew from pictures. "Have I ever told you about the time Sara broke Tommy's arm when she shoved him off his skateboard?"