Disclaimer: I do not own nor make any profit off of Arrow. It belongs to The CW, DC Comics, etc.
A/N: Inspired by The Worthy Choice. This one begins the same way, but if you've read TWC, you'll be able to tell where it changes in the direction of Olicity. A few might recognize this story from my Arrow tumblr blog: HoodSmoaked.
There Were No Fireworks
The first time she met Slade Wilson, he had just stabbed Oliver with a freakishly large knife.
Felicity Smoak was nothing if not fiercely protective of her best men, and in moments the hulking fighter found himself flat on his back with a gun pointed firmly at his head. Felicity had never been so glad for the new training Oliver began months earlier.
"What the hell, woman?!" the Australian shouted at her, eyes wide with disbelief.
"You don't touch him!" Felicity warned through gritted teeth, a little frightened of the fact her tone sounded eerily like Oliver's hood voice.
"Well, I mean, obviously!" the large man replied sarcastically, gesturing with his hands at the weapon she held, not appearing all that fazed by the barrel of a loaded gun in his face.
Felicity lifted her eyebrows in expectation, demanding his silence through her expression alone. The man rolled his eyes, but shut up without further question.
On her left, Felicity could hear Diggle helping Oliver up and into a chair. The hiss of pain and stilted groaning he tried to withhold infuriated the IT expert all the more. If looks could truly kill, she would have disintegrated the man under her guard within a millisecond.
"Let him go, Felicity," Oliver told her through clenched teeth as a thin-lipped Diggle cleaned the ghastly wound on the billionaire's thigh.
"Why in the name of God would I do that?" she snapped at him, not feeling a single ounce of trust for the man who had just wounded her closest friend.
"He won't do it again," Oliver continued trying to convince her, to which she scoffed loudly after hearing him force back a cry of pain.
"I had a right to that one," the man on the floor dared to say, bringing forth an even more vicious glare from Felicity. "Well, I did! He left me with a stab wound in my leg on the bloody boat, I think I can return the favor before I start working with him on friendly terms!"
"Working with him?!" Felicity nearly screeched her fury to the rafters. "Oliver, what the—?"
"It's true," the resident vigilante groaned as Diggle began to stitch his injury. "All of it. I expected this when I contacted him."
"How do you think I got the drop on him, anyway?" the ex-soldier asked her incredulously, although he didn't move away from her steady aim. "Kid's better than I am at this point, I can promise you that."
Felicity was about ready to punch the man if he didn't shut up, even if she was starting to believe his story a little bit. The fact was, he still hurt Oliver. That wasn't something she would ever tolerate.
"Felicity… Trust me."
As much as she wanted to deny it, she could hear the sincerity in Oliver's voice.
"Fine," she snapped, still not prepared to be congenial to their new 'band mate' no matter what he proved. Felicity lowered the gun with reluctance, backing up as her so-called captive popped up on his feet like a much younger man.
"Thank you," he bowed mockingly, holding her incensed gaze as he moved. Felicity scowled at him, immediately moving to Oliver's side to put a hand on his shoulder.
"Who the hell is he?" Diggle barked out suddenly. Although he had moved away from Oliver to throw away the used medical supplies, he hadn't gone far, his eyes riveted to the new man like a hawk.
"John, Felicity… this is Slade Wilson," Oliver introduced them, and Felicity felt the proverbial sand shifting under her feet.
"From Lian Yu?" John double-checked, the look in his eyes something Felicity had never seen before. If she had to label it, she might call it insecurity, but she wasn't entirely sure.
"Yeah, that's the hellhole," the man — Slade — agreed bitterly as he sat on a seat across the way from the three of them. "Bloody purgatory."
"That they know," Oliver assured the man almost wryly, the usual dark tone filled with a touch of shared humor.
This was how they spent their nights for quite some time. Slade would do or say something ridiculous or rude, leaving Diggle and Felicity to argue with the man until Oliver intervened and then ending with Oliver and Slade sharing some inside joke from their mutual time on the island.
At some point, Diggle finally confessed to feeling left out. Felicity had suspected as much for a while, but John was like Oliver in that neither of them would admit their emotional disputes until it was practically too late.
Luckily for John Diggle, Oliver had grown a bit in that area of late, and it took him only two days longer to determine the same thing Felicity had. When she noticed the switch had flipped for Oliver, the IT expert felt a little rush of pride for him not needing to be told.
And if Diggle and Oliver suddenly began to go out for a brotherly burger at Big Belly every Tuesday night, no one questioned it. Least of all Slade, who seemed glad of the free night to explore his new habitat.
More to the point, to explore Felicity's work space.
Constantly.
Perhaps the better word was invade or oppress, but Felicity wasn't exactly picky about it. Simply put, the man drove her totally up the wall. He wouldn't stop asking questions. Not just vigilante-related questions, but questions about her technological and intellectual skills; and deep, personal, probing questions Felicity had no intention of answering.
Not to him, anyway.
Oliver, of course, was the one to prod Felicity about her animosity one night as they sat going over financial reports in his office at Queen Consolidated. The billionaire's questioning was curious and confused, but thankfully not angry.
"What's going on with Slade? Did he say or do something to hurt you?" The protectiveness in Oliver's tone drained Felicity of her agitation, but only in part.
"No," she answered simply, shrugging off his inquiry and attempting to get back to the file she had started taking notes on.
One warm, calloused hand abruptly covered her own, stopping her attempt at distraction very effectively. The other hand came to frame Felicity's face with careful, measured affection, tilting it up so that two pairs of piercing blue eyes locked.
"Then what's the trouble?" Oliver asked her gently, brushing his thumb across her cheek. "Is there a particular reason you don't like him?"
"Digg doesn't like him either, Oliver," Felicity reminded him a little frustratedly, swiping a loose lock of hair off her face in spite of his hand.
"You know perfectly well Digg has reached a moderately friendly acquaintance with Slade," Oliver countered patiently but firmly. "You're still at the point of glaring whenever he so much as looks your way. Very effective method of the silent treatment, by the way. He's noticed."
"So what!" Felicity blurted out angrily, pulling away from Oliver's hand and jumping up from her seat. She stood with clenched fists and fire in her eyes, body wound tight enough to spring. Oliver stared, momentarily stunned as she pressed on furiously, "So what if I'm still angry he hurt you? That he shoved a knife in you? The same kind of knife, by the way, that you were tortured with on that Godforsaken island! So what if I still wish I'd stabbed him back for it? I don't care! I won't ever stand for someone hurting you!"
In an instant, Oliver rounded the desk and crushed Felicity in his arms, cutting off any further words she might have spoken.
"It's okay," he murmured into her unbound hair, the gentleness in his voice bringing tears to Felicity's eyes. "It's okay now. My leg is healed. I'm fine. It's all right."
Every word Oliver spoke pushed Felicity's tears more to the forefront until she finally let them wash her face and soak his dress shirt.
"I didn't want it to get out of hand like this," she murmured throatily once the tears stopped, though she didn't drop her grip around his middle. "I know you're okay with what happened. I know you think that kind of behavior is natural somehow, but I was horrified. I can still remember how angry I felt. I just wanted to hurt him for it… It was terrible, Oliver! Like I wasn't myself at all!"
More tears leaked from her blue eyes, but died away more quickly than before, leaving Felicity feeling drained. Her emotions had been building and compounding themselves ever since Slade Wilson's arrival in Starling City.
"I'm sorry," Oliver responded in kind to her outburst, rubbing soothing hands on her back. "I forget, even now, just how little you're used to that kind of violence. Diggle lived through war and I lived through hell. Because of that, we don't always remember what it was like in the beginning — before the violence became a part of our outlook on the world. I hope that mindset doesn't become you, Felicity. And I promise I'll do my best to remember from now on."
"Thank you," Felicity whispered, gratitude plain in her voice and relief filling her bones. Still she lingered, grasping onto the warm muscle of her heroic friend; it wasn't everyday she could hold onto Oliver like that and she was reluctant to release him. Without meaning to, the IT expert tightened her grip on his back.
Oliver's chest rumbled beneath her ear, and a blush covered her face within seconds. Embarrassed, Felicity moved to pull back.
"Hey, now," Oliver laughed quietly in her ear and pulled her right back into his arms, to her great astonishment. "Who said I was done hugging you?"
Awkwardly, Felicity remained where she was, but as easily as Oliver's amusement had occurred, the air grew thick and tense. Breaths shortened significantly, Felicity tried again to pull back from the embrace. Mistakenly, the blonde looked up into her vigilantist partner's crystal clear eyes and realized with self-conscious discomfort he was not nearly as uncomfortable as she was.
"Oliver, I… we need to… the work is still… um…" She tried in vain to speak something sensible, but rational thought seemed quite impossible to achieve when his lips were so close to hers.
"Work can wait," he told Felicity simply, skimming his fingers across her forehead with delicate precision to rest in the blond locks lying against her ear.
"Can it?" she breathed out, mouth hanging slightly open with dazed awe. This just couldn't be happening, she told herself, and yet it was.
"Mm-hm," Oliver mumbled, leaning forward to press his lips softly against Felicity's waiting mouth.
There were no fireworks. It wasn't an explosion of feeling. But he was wonderfully warm and his mouth incongruously soft compared to the rough edges of the man before her.
Pulling slowly away after a long, tender moment, Oliver asked quietly, "How'd I do?"
Smiling as tenderly as Oliver held her, Felicity answered, "It's perfect."
-The End-