AN: There isn't a real place in the timeline for this story. I just combined some things I liked about seasons 1-3 and changed Felicity's place at the company. Plot-wise think season 2. So I have the beginnings of a real plot after this chapter, if you think I should continue. I got a very odd bug in my ear and decided to roll with it. The idea that Felicity is magic isn't original, but I still initially struggled b/c shes so ingrained in analytics and science. I'd like to hear some constructive criticism, if you have the time. Dialogue and pacing are not my forte. Anyway, hope you enjoy and their not too out of character.
To Felicity the picture in her head for witches was less Harry Potter- don't get her wrong, she loved Harry Potter; she was a Ravenclaw all the way- more Kiki's Delivery Service. And, weirdly, small gardens. The kinds with overflowing pots, plants overlapping, green completely indiscernible from each other. Humid and smelling of wet earth.
Plus, reasoned young Felicity, she could do more with a tablet than anyone could do with a wand.
All this to say: Felicity believed in magic when she was young, like she believes in happy endings. She believed in it in quiet, secret moments by herself. Moments like when she was sad and wished her dad was secretly a king and would pluck her out of her life and place her and her mom in a palace and everything would be perfect. Those silly moments when dreams and hopes are blurred, and she would believe anything could happen. Felicity thinks, now, that it all makes a good story, but there was science and facts and, well, reality.
It starts like this. Starling City is loud full of midday traffic, towering buildings, and rushed denizens on their lunch break. Dig and Felicity walk to the sub shop just up the street and leave Oliver to smarm his way through a meeting with investors. The place is small and clean and never crowded. It is the kind of place where the workers remembered your order and referenced inside jokes about that time Felicity made that horrible five-dollar footlong joke. Felicity is, again, stuck in the awkward place where too much time had passed to ask the girl behind the counter's name and now wished it were a chain restaurant just so she'd have a nametag.
"One meatball with provolone, a turkey wrap, and the special. Oh and a brownie. It's doesn't have-"
"Nuts? No, you should be safe." The girl behind the counter smiles kindly. Felicity knows she'll tip extra today, because she still hasn't learned her name.
"So we're buying food for the billionaire, now?" John teases leaning against the counter after Felicity refused his attempt to pay.
"Oliver the Grouch is more bearable when he's not hangry. Not that you heard that from me. Or actually, you can tell him; Oliver doesn't even know what hangry means." Pop-culture phobic Oliver always reminded her of a middle-aged dad, too exacerbated to bother keeping up. As if he wasn't a common pop-culture topic.
Diggle smirks conspiringly at her and grabs the to-go bags from over the counter with a smile that made the teenager blush. Felicity smiles to herself. Her stupid, handsome boys always catching fangirls.
"We stopping for coffee too?"
"I'm running on three and three-quarter hours of sleep; you bet your ass!" A chuckling Diggle holds open the door to the Starbucks for her as Felicity checks her app. The Starbucks is much more crowded than the sub shop and Diggle may have the patience of Job, but Felicity didn't when it came to coffee. Diggle nods his head to the open table off to the side and they chat about tv shows they don't watch and movies they've heard good things about, but haven't had time to see, yet. Felicity is about to ask after Diggle's not-as-secret-as-he-thinks relationship, when her order is called. Four large coffees, ranging from diabetic coma inducing or black as greasepaint, in a carrier. Diggle offers to carry it too, but Felicity insists.
"Just because my arms aren't the size of cannonballs does not mean they don't work." Except she's also carrying her large, professional business woman purse and her jacket, because it had warmed up, draped across her forearm, and well Grace had never been her middle name. So when she's looking down trying to keep the jacket from dragging on the dirty sidewalk, she walks right into the wall that is John Diggle's back. Felicity hops back and apologizes; Diggle gestures to the red "Don't Walk" signal and tries to steady her. All while, coffee sloshes comically into the air, lids popping off.
Then it falls back into the same cups like entropy didn't even apply.
Something out of a cartoon, Felicity thinks, then blinks, then blinks again.
Sleep deprivation is bad. Especially when it was a near daily habit. And Diggle is already guiding her across the street, so she had just imagined it.
If Felicity was looking for something, she could find it. To paraphrase her own motto. But really, even outside of the digital world (not something Felicity says often), Felicity always had whole pairs of socks and found find her keys in her purse on the first try. It had seemed like her most important job, when working as Oliver's EA. Oliver's inability to find the right paperwork probably stemmed from general disinterest. (OK so he cared about the company; Felicity knew that. But he cared about it the way dog people cared about their friend's cat. They cared because it was important to someone who was important to them. They were not personally invested. Oliver's ideas about duty and personal responsibility were exhausting. Literally.) Oliver misplaced the quarterly report six times in the fifteen minutes before a meeting once. He just kept putting it down to make some point about their not-salacious nightly activities and then would try to leave again without them.
So, she isn't surprised when she got a call from him asking if she knew where the expense reports were. Even though she hadn't seen him since she dropped off his lunch- he had made that kicked-puppy face when he realized he would be stuck on the phone and couldn't break to eat with her and Diggle- two hours ago and is down five floors in Applied Sciences. Typical, he doesn't even say hi.
"I swear they were right here. Do you remember where I put them?"
"Oliver, you have a perfectly qualified EA twenty feet away. Just ask him."
"I asked him ten minutes ago. He's going to think I'm an idiot."
"Hmmhmm."
"Felicity," he grumble-growls, then sighs, "do you know where it is or not?"
"No, but," Felicity spins her chair around. The team is working with smelting tools, goggles, gloves, the whole works. She isn't much help down here. "I'll head up and see if I can give you a hand with your thing. Um, I mean, papers."
Well trained Oliver just thanks her, but Felicity could hear his smirk. I mean the nerve.
Gerry greets Felicity with a knowing smile. Looks like he already knows you lost your papers again Oliver. "Thanks for the coffee. I really needed the pick me up."
"No problem. More people should get coffee for the assistants." Felicity passes him and tries for her best wink. Gerry looked oddly charmed, so maybe she'd gotten it right.
Pushing into Oliver's office always gave her a weird Deja-vu. She left like maybe she should be stomping. Not that it had helped. Applying for a position in Applied Sciences without telling Oliver had worked better. And though it led to an all-out shouting match, it worked out better in the end for everyone.
-"Oh the irony. How could I? How could you? At least when I didn't tell you, it was my own life. Not yours. Or is your convenience still more important than my career and aspirations?" -
Oliver is bent over a filing cabinet Felicity swore he didn't even know was there before. His tie is thrown over his shoulder in frustration, and his shirt sleeves were bunched up roughly, like he had found them restricting. Which was ironic when you consider those leather pants and… that way be dragons.
"Where was the last place you had it?"
"The first place I looked! It wasn't there!" He doesn't even look up, just grabs what had to be a small novel of files and slaps them onto his already white paper mountain desk.
"Do you want me to print out a new copy?" Felicity, rational voice of Team Arrow. Ok, that is Dig, but still she is second string, here to fill in when needs must.
"No, I wrote my notes on it. I need that copy." Oliver finally looks up, in a way that was pure coincidence, staring right into her eyes as he emphasizes need. Then he runs his hand through his hair, you know because the universe is against Felicity personally.
"Ok, I'll check over here," she jabs her thumb towards the seating area with the couch. Oliver groans loudly behind her. "No use, I haven't been over there today. All my meetings were over the phone." She ignores him, because it is just venting, and Felicity has developed an Oliver filter. Not a useful verbal one, but a ignore-him-he-has-issues-stemming-from-trauma/privilege/male stupidity-so-yelling-won't-help filter. It helps, because Oliver hates been ignored more than he needs to be right (some of the time).
"Maybe I dropped it in the trash on accident…" he began to mumble to himself.
"Voila!" With a horrible France accent Felicity grabs the papers off the couch cushion seating perfectly center, not a single crease.
Oliver's mouth hangs open like a fish. Not his best look. "The words you're looking for are thank and you. Preferably in that order. I also accept gifts."
"I didn't put them there." Oliver tries to defend himself. Or explain. He doesn't sound defensive, just confused. His head even does that puppy-tilt. "I only sit there when we do lunch."
"Maybe they got blown over here." Which Felicity doesn't believe, but Oliver seems to need the excuse.
He gave her a look that told her he knew she was trying to pacify him and wasn't impressed. He opens his mouth, but then Gerry knocks on the door. A subtle hint that Oliver has just enough time to straighten up before he needs to leave for his meeting. Gerry really is good at this EA-ing thing.
Felicity steps towards Oliver, handing him his papers and straightening his tie. Maybe giving it an extra tug, not because she thinks ties are hot or that it matches his dumb blue eyes. Smiling up at him she tries to say nonverbally good luck and you got this and also how would you do it without me.
Oliver smiles back and the moment stretches as he shrugged I don't even know back like he understands that last one. "Thank you."
Oliver walks her to the door, hand at the small of her back. She turns back at the last second and gives her newly successful wink another go.
Why is it so cute that she's so bad at that? Oliver thought as he looks down at the annotated pages. Wondering at the lack of creases from the envelope it had arrived in.
That night at the Lair Felicity settles in. As the boys beat each other up to warm up- boys are weird-, Felicity reboots her system. Tonight wasn't a busy night. They had made a large bust the night before (hence little 3 ¾ hours of sleep), leading the police to a warehouse full of illegal munitions and tied up baddies. By all rights they should be resting (read: sleeping) on their laurels. Wow, avoid that phrase for now on. Except they hadn't had a chance to celebrate the night before and by mutual silent agreement they wanted a moment of comradery. A respite with each other: an easy night, back to routine.
Roy trudges down the stairs carrying three large pizza boxes. Maybe it's cheating to make the youngest member be the delivery boy, but this way Diggle, Felicity and Oliver take turns (Oliver more than his share) paying without slighting Roy's pride. Plus his role on the team was still largely training and small patrols, so he didn't have to be below Verdant as early as the others.
"Order up!" He flops them on the med table with all the concern for hygiene one expects from a teenage boy.
"Careful! I will send you back if the pepperoni's ruined," Diggle jokes. Probably.
"Yeah, yeah." Roy flips the lid on the meat lovers and sandwiches two pieces together.
"Careful, that'll all go to your hips." Felicity grabs the paper plates she keeps near the mini fridge and some napkins. As she hands a handful of napkins to Roy, he smirks cheeks still full of food like a squirrel. He sets down the pizza, jerks up the hem of his shirt, "yeah, I think I'm alright."
"Ow!"
"Aren't you dating my sister?"
"I was just joking. She thinks it's funny, damn." Roy gestures to the giggling Felicity. Oliver's frown gets frownier.
"I'm trying to eat here," gripes Diggle.
After they ate, Diggle volunteers to take out the trash as Felicity tidies up and Roy changes for training (aka water slapping). Grumbling again that it was just a joke, Roy walks by Felicity watering the Lair Fern. "Have you been giving that thing miracle grow?"
"Hmm? No, actually I was really worried at the beginning that I'd need to find different bulbs so it would get enough light, but I guess it's thriving on its own."
"Blondie, it's growing out of its pot. You don't even water it that often."
"What? Yes, I do! I mean, yeah sometimes hacking can get distracting, but I normally water it once a week. Oh god, is that not enough? How much water do ferns need?"
"I don't know, maybe Dig waters it. He's kinda the mother around here."
"I heard that!"
"See?" Oliver smacks Roy on the back of the head again.
"Go get changed. I'm going add twenty push-ups every minute you take."
Felicity puts down her pink watering can and tries to calculate how often she really remember to water the fern. It was not as many as she'd hoped. "Oliver, how have I not killed this plant. I'm awful with plants. I once had a succulent in college to warm myself up to eventually have a dog. I was so proud that I kept it alive for a semester, when my roommate informed me that it was fake."
Oliver gallantly tries to stifle his smile. "I water it Felicity, its fine."
"What?" The image of Starling City's menacing vigilante using her small, pink watering can was short-circuiting her brain.
Oliver shrugs and stuck his hand in his pockets looking down. "Yeah, I'm here a lot and you really wanted to liven the 'drafty old basement', so I took care of it." Is Oliver Queen sheepish? Is Oliver "peed on a cop car" Queen embarrassed?
Felicity flashes him a blinding smile before she realized it. She reaches out and touches his arm. "Thank you."
Before their left for the night Roy mentions it again to Felicity. "Look, Blondie, I think your pant's radioactive. It's already bigger than earlier." True enough one frond extended over the side of the table. Felicity still too happy to be concerned, shrugged. It had just been very well watered.