It was strange, waking up at half past six in the morning after going to bed at two wasn't as painful as Felicity remembered it being – that was the second thing on her mind. Because Felicity had never dealt with the 'moment of confusion after waking up' that so many of her college friends dealt with - no matter how much sleep she had gotten the night before, she was always wide awake the second her eyes opened. There was no panicked "What did I do after I locked my front door?" no "Why is my mattress softer than usual?" just a stretch and "Oh yes. I'm in Oliver Queen's bed. Naked."
Because she was.
She hadn't planned it that way. Neither of them had. She'd been attacking the pizza that she'd ordered in her tiny little apartment when Oliver had all but broke her door down when he knocked - which wasn't actually Oliver knocking and more him kicking the door to get her attention because he had both his hands full and, in his defence, he was more used to kicking doors to destroy them than to announce his arrival. She forgave him, but only after he'd apologised, kissed her hello, handed over the wine he'd brought with him and promised that he'd have it replaced, even if the dent mark didn't bother her that much, it was just a door after all (she still refused to share her pizza with him though).
And, a good ten minutes later, she was putting a disk into the hard drive connected to her television (Dances with Wolves. She grinned, wondering how long it would take to have him glaring at her again.) while he poured the wine behind her between mouthfuls of pizza (just because she'd said she wouldn't share, didn't mean that he wasn't an excellent thief) when the ground shook beneath her. Shook. The ground literally vibrated under her knees. And then somehow Oliver was behind her and hauling her to her feet and pulling her from her perfectly safe, warm apartment in the pouring rain, because he wasn't just being the Oliver who loved her then in that moment. The loud noise that accompanied the shaking (an explosion, she realised now) flipped the switch, and he was running off instinct and training, to fight, run, survive, and to keep them both alive.
She yanked back on his hand once they were outside, stopping his quick pace only by leaning backwards and using all of her weight to get him to realise that she wanted him to stop.
"Oliver. Wait a minute." He didn't. "Oliver." She called him again. "Stop. We're safe. No one's trying to hurt us." He didn't stop, but he slowed until she no longer had to run to keep up with him. And when she peaked around him, she realised exactly why he hadn't stopped.
One of her neighbour's houses was on fire.
"Felicity! Queen!" She turned at the sound of her name, ignoring the way that her first name and Oliver's last fell so naturally from Quentin's lips that it sounded like it could have been one name. She refused to think about that. The Captain trudged through the downpour towards then as fasted as he could, his hat pulled down over his eyes so he could see. It was only then that Oliver seemed to realise that it was raining, and he struggled out of the jacket he hadn't bothered to take off in the house and held to over her head, as if it would stop her from getting even more wet than she already was. "What are you two doing out here?"
"We heard the explosion, Captain." Oliver told him in his 'public' voice. "Were we expected to just stay indoors when one of the neighbour's houses explodes?"
"Queen." Quentin repeated, raising an eyebrow as he looked between the pair of them. "What are you doing here?"
"Keeping Felicity company." Oliver told him, face completely blank, as if that didn't have non-platonic implications. Technically, they hadn't been platonic in a good few months, stolen kisses and whispered 'I love you's exchanged wherever and whenever possible. But the public, their friends, family, had no clue that anything had changed. Apart from Diggle, Roy and Sara. And possibly Lyla and Nyssa too, since Diggle and Sara knew. Thea would have cornered them already if Roy had told her.
"Totally platonic company keeping." She pointed out, and instantly felt Oliver's eyes on her. "Honestly, there was pizza and wine and Dances with Wolves and probably popcorn if I could be bothered to climb onto the countertops…. "
"I knew what you meant, Felicity." Quentin told her, holding up a hand to tell her to stop. Quentin Lance was on of the very few people on earth who would actually stop Felicity if she started to ramble, unlike Oliver and Digg and Roy. The traitors. She nodded at Lance in both understanding and thanks.
"I think a gas leak was the cause of the explosion. I was on my way back to the precinct when it happened." He told Oliver. "The owners where just behind me, so no one was hurt. I've ordered for the area to be evacuated to insure that no one else is hurt in any other explosions." He looked down at the dripping Felicity, her thin blouse and skirt that she had worn to the office in the sweltering heat not six hours ago clinging to her.
"I'm afraid that means that you'll have to find somewhere else to spend the night, Sweetheart." The Captain told her softly, reaching out a hand to push the wet hair from her face when it got snagged of the arm of her glasses. Her turned to Oliver, keeping his hand on her shoulder. "I assume you'll take care of her, Queen?"
"She's the one that takes care of me, Mr. Lance." Oliver chuckled, and slipped a hand into place on her waist, since its usual resting spot on her shoulder was already taken. He dropped the jacket down, dangling it by its label to keep the damp off of them. "But I'm sure I have at least one room going spare for the night, if she needs it."
"Yeah because the Queen mansion is nearly full, isn't it? It's not like she's actually going to need one of the spare rooms anyway." Quentin muttered quietly, more to himself than anyone else, before he raised his both his voice and his eyebrows. "Fine. But you make sure you keep an eye on my girl, won't you?"
"Always." Oliver promised, before he dropped a hand into the small of Felicity's back and began to nudge her towards his car. "Come on, 'Lisity. You heard the man. I've got to get on the phone to Raisa about that spare room." She looked back at Quentin when she ducked into the car. He spared her a sympathetic smile and mouthed an apology in her direction. She managed to wave at him quickly before he turned his back.
"You okay?" Oliver asked softly as he slid behind the wheel.
"Huh?" She turned to look at him. He had the keys in the ignition and the car in gear but the handbrake was still up and he was watching her, waiting. "I was just debating going back in to switch off the electricity. We don't want anything to catch fire because I left my television on." He reached over to touch her hand.
"They'll cut the mains Felicity." He told her, his lips pulling up into that 'you're adorable and I adore you' smile that he reserved just for her. "But you're not going back into that house until Captain Lance says you can."
"Huh, 'kay." She gave in easily, leaning back into the soft leather seat and closing her eyes. Explosions made her exhausted, apparently.
"Hey." Oliver nudged her shoulder, and she opened one eye to look at him. "Don't go asleep. Lord knows which room Raisa'll give you, and I don't think you're going to want me to carry you until we find it." He smiled again, softly, just for her. She smiled back happily. "And you need to put your seatbelt on."
"Oh, yeah. Hold up." She shifted to pull the polyester across her body, her hands slow as her muscles protested. "Yep. Good to go." She blinked and then let her eyes close again. But of course, because she was Felicity, that didn't stop her from talking. "If you didn't want me to go to sleep, you shouldn't have got such a comfy car that practically screams 'fall asleep in me, Felicity!' everytime I get in it - and don't you dare go all spoilt rich boy on me here, Oliver Jonas Queen!" He laughed and she felt the car shift beneath her. "But you're right about the carrying thing. If I fall asleep, you wake me up. No carrying. Promise?"
"I promise, Felicity." She could practically hear him rolling his eyes at her. "No carrying."
"Swear it?" She opened an eye at him.
"Felicity…."
"Swear it Oliver. Swear it on your bow."
"Fine. I swear."
"You have to say it."
"I'm not going to say it, Felicity."
"You have to!" She closed both eyes again.
"Remind me how old you are again?"
"Legal." She said, impassive, and he snorted.
"Raisa?" She heard him say, obviously into his phone and she flicked an eye open (again) to make sure that both his hands were on the steering wheel. But of course they were, and she closed her eyes (again), guilt stabbing low in her stomach that she'd even worried about it. He was a vigilante, he wasn't stupid and he was so damn careful with her; he wouldn't put her at risk like that. She drained out the rest of the phone call, not that it mattered, since they switched to Russian half way through, and the surprisingly soft sound of the sports cars engine, focusing only on the blackness that she wanted to surround her.
"'Licity?" Something was tugging on her earlobe. "Felicity? Come on. The drive wasn't that long." She batted at the warm thing gently. Not to scare it away, it was warm after all, but just to get it to stop tugging. If anything, it made the tugging more clamant. "Come on." It said again. "Up you get. Don't make me break my promise." She pressed her eye as tightly closed as she could, trying to stay in the blackness for as long as she could.
"Oliver." She batted at his hand again. "Why are you pulling at my ear?"
"You weren't waking up." She could hear him rolling his eyes again, as if it was a stupid question, then began to pluck at the sleeve of her shirt rather than her ear. "Up you get." She followed him as he backed away from her open door, her seatbelt already gone. He guided her to her feet when she finally opened her eyes it was to the very blurry world. She brought a hand up to rub them back into focus - even though it never worked, no matter how many times she tried it - and found them unobstructed.
Ah. No glasses then.
"Oliver," She tilted her head at him. "Where're my glasses?" She watched his outline pull them from the pocket of his tan leather jacket that it appeared he was wearing again and offered them to her. "Thanks." She slid them on and he was grinning at her when he came back into focus. She rolled her eyes at him this time, barely having time to slam the car door behind her before he was tugging her under the brick porch. It was starting to spit again.
"I hate you so much."
"Why?" He asked with a smile, generally confused as he guided her towards the large door with a hand in the middle of her back again. "I kept my promise."
"You threatened me with not keeping it!"
"I didn't threaten you." His mouth ticked down and his eyebrows went in. She regretted the words immediately. "I'd never-"
"Oliver." She reached out again, slipping his palm over his arm in comfort. "I know. Call it a poor choice of words okay? I know you wouldn't hurt me." She hopped up the stairs, beating him to the top somehow, and turned to tilt her head. "Not so sure about carrying me against my will though." And yet again he was rolling his eyes at her. She was pretty sure that he could win an award, something along the lines of 'the most eyerolls in one day', when he was around her.
"Don't tempt me." He told her, taking the few stairs three at a time to reach her. He shoved the door open with a shoulder and ushered her inside. The elderly lady was waiting for them beside the round table in the foyer, stood beside the table of pictures with a gentle smile, her hands clasped in front of her stomach. Oliver slipped a hand around Felicity's waist, guiding her toward the woman.
"Mister Oliver." She smiled, stepping forward to greet him.
"Raisa." He smiled at her, a real smile, not the one that he gave to the public and his business associates that he didn't care about. He gripped one of her hands tightly in his free one, tugging Felicity closer with the hand tucked around her elbow when he let go of the woman's hand. "Raisa, this is Felicity Smoak." He slid said hand down to slip his fingers between hers, locking their hands together and smiling down at her. "Felicity, you know Raisa right?"
"I know of her," She rolled her eyes at him and then offered her other hand to the older woman. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you." She smiled softly and bit down at her lip, irrational nerves hitting her as she took her hands back and folded them both in front of her.
"Очень радa познакомиться" Raisa smiled back, but there was a question in her voice that Felicity understood. Do you understand me?
"I, uh, don't speak any other languages. Just English and code. And Binary, which I suppose most people count as code…" She shrugged, cringing.
"I think that the pleasure of meeting you is mine, Miss Smoak." Raisa laughed, squeezing her arm gently. So that was where Oliver got that from, Felicity realised with a small smile. Raisa looked up at the young man, shaking her head. "I thought you would have at least taught her some of the basics by now, Mister Oliver!" She admonished fondly.
"We've been busy at late." He excused, smiling as well. "Its on the list though." It was the first that Felicity had heard of said list, so she was sure it was safe to assume that it was a new thing. But Raisa smiled, like she knew that it was something that was never going to happen.
"Miss Felicity will be up in the left wing of the house, if you don't mind the walk." She said gently, indicating the general direction with a wave of her hand. "It's not quite ready yet, given the amount of time I was given to get it ready," She fixed Oliver with a small, playful scowl that only a motherly figure could produce. She smiled at Felicity again. "But if you're hungry, I can ask the chefs to make you something. Or make it myself, if you don't mind waiting slightly longer."
"I'm fine, thank you." Felicity raised a hand, smile still in place. "We ate before we were kicked out of my place." She shrugged, feeling oddly guilty about that. "Sorry."
"Sorry?" Rasia repeated, her accent thickening as she laughed. "You have nothing to be sorry for, ridiculous girl." She squeezed her arm again before she turned to Oliver. "I will get the room finished myself. And please answer your phone when I call you, Mister Oliver. I do not want to have to track you through the house when I'm finished." Oliver smiled at her, squeezing her hand.
"I wouldn't make you do that Raisa." He promised. "I'll keep the tour a short one. I know how fast you work."
Raisa nodded again and patted Oliver's forearm again, and with a large smile to Felicity, she disappeared up the stairs. Oliver caught her hand in his again and began to walk in the opposite direction, tugging her along with him.
"So," She drew the word out twice as long as she needed to as she fell into step with him. He glanced down at her, one eyebrow raised and a smug smile in place. "Where are you taking me then? This house is so big, I'm pretty sure that you could leave me in one of these rooms and I'd never be able to find my way back out again!"
"I'll remember that in case I ever have to hold you captive." He promised. "But I thought that you might finally let me show you the library. It's not too far, and you do keep saying that you want to take a look." She grinned at him, eyes widening joyfully. Felicity loved libraries. Almost as much as she loved scarfs and computers. But not nearly as much as she loved Oliver though, if she was being truthful.
"Was that your plan all along?" She laughed, bumping her shoulder into Oliver's side and he rocked to the side slightly, humoring her. He nudged her back. "Seduce me with your gigantic family library and hope that I wouldn't notice?"
"Yes, Felicity, that was exactly my plan." He chuckled, dropping a kiss on the top if her head mid-step as he rolled his eyes at her fondly. "I should have expected you would work it out really, what with that genius brain of yours." He headed left at the first opportunity, as if it was no big deal and all houses in Starling City had intersecting hallways. "I have no idea what sort of condition the library's in, mind. I don't even know if its been kept upto date, come to think of it. But that's a relatively easy fix, at least, if we're missing some of your favorites."
"Oliver…" She tugged on his hand until he looked down at her. "Tell me that you've been in the library at least once since you've come home."
"I… I've been busy?" He offered hesitantly.
"Oliver!" She cried out, her eyes widening. He let go of her hand to stand in front of a door to her right, turning to face her.
"Why don't," He wrapped one hand around the door handle behind his back, bending his knees slightly to get her to look at him. "You stop glaring at me, and I'll let you lecture me on what I've missed since I was last in a library."
"If we do that, we'll have to go back to baby books…" She pointed out, the corners of her mouth lifting as he pouted, slightly.
"Hey, I'm not that bad!" He whined, but it only made her grin and she stretched up on her toes to press her lips to the corner of his mouth. His hand left the handle behind him to slide it up the fabric at her back, pulling her closer and following her when she pulled away from him, kissing her properly. "Not…" She pressed herself tighter against him, crossing her arms at the elbows behind his neck, bending them slightly so she didn't punch the door. "Jesus Christ 'Lisity. Stop it."
"Stop kissing you?" She asked, drawing away from him, her bright eyes soft, sleep still clinging to her from the car. "If you insist…" She pulled away from him but despite his complaints, he followed her, kissing her again, slipping a hand into her hair to hold her in place.
"I meant," He muttered, staying as close to her as he could. "Stop being a distraction. I have a library to show you, remember?"
"Then why are you still kissing me?"
"Shut up, Smoak."
"Library, Oliver. Show me the library." She laughed, untangling her arms from his neck and pressing her forehead to his, breaking the less than gentle kiss. "Library." She muttered again. "I wanna see the Library."
"I'll show you the Library if you stop saying 'Library' Felicity!" He chuckled, pressing his nose to hers, pressing his lips to the dimples in her cheek.
"You got something against Libraries, Queen?" She asked, stepping away from him and pulling him away from the door. He opened it for her, tucking her hand into his and tugging her into the room behind him, finding and flipping the light switch. "Oh wow…"
The library had always been the largest room in the mansion, so Oliver had always told her. He'd promised her ages ago that he'd show her, once he'd seen her diddy little book case back at her apartment and how it was overflowing with books. And even though she hadn't actually seen a good ninety percent of the rest of the house, she was pretty sure that he was right. The room was, to put it simply, bloody enormous!
"Holy Crap!" She laughed, because there were books on books on books on books and even with the lack of computers (but her smartphone counted as one, because Felicity Smoak would never be in a room without a computer. It was just impossible.) is was like her own personal piece of heaven. Not that it was her's, per say, because it was Oliver's, but it was what her heaven would be like. That made more sense. Not that she intended to be in any sort of heaven anytime soon, of course. A metaphorical heaven, full of books. That sounded far less ominous. "I wonder how many books there are in here…."
"11,000." Oliver pulled a face, biting down at his top lip. "At the last count anyway. I think. Maybe." He scratched at the back of his head. "Well there was a very accurate number on the paper when I checked, which was recorded at least six years ago, and I really don't remember what that number was but I'm pretty sure that it was in the 11,000's… or round about there."
"Oliver…" She rolled her eyes at him. "How have you survived as CEO for so long? It's five numbers, for crying out loud!"
"Only because I have my Executive Assistant running around saving my life, night and day." He laughed, pulling her closer with a hand around her. "Honestly, 'Licity, I doubt I would have survived half this amount of time in this job without you. Either of them."
"Awh, Oliver." She laughed, pushing up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "You're seriously the sweetest thing ever sometimes." She ghosted her lips over his, smiling ridiculously wide. "Big bad vigilante with a heart of mush."
"'Heart of mush'?" Oliver scoffed above her, feigning insult. He pushed her towards the bookcases with his shoulder, nudging it gently against hers. "'Heart of mush'?! Go on. Go assault my library before I throw you out of my house for the constant insults!"
"Uh! So rude!" She curled her nose up at him in protest, even as she wrapped her slim arms around his middle. "You love me anyway."
"I do." He sighed against her head, nuzzling his nose against her loose hair. He slipped one hand up her back and onto her neck and the other down and into the small of her back, holding her as tightly to him as he could without hurting her. "So much. Too much sometimes, I swear."
"No such thing as 'too much' Oliver." She muttered against his shirt. "Just 'enough'."
"'Beautiful heart, Beautiful girl.'" Oliver quoted into her skin, brushing his lips against that spot so gently she almost hadn't felt it. "My grandmother said that about Thea once, back when I was, what - 18 maybe? Dunno why I remember it, but I think it applies to you pretty well. Although, just to clarify, you're beautiful anyway, your heart just makes you more so."
"Stop it!" She swatted his shoulder lightly. "Stop being cute. Right now."
"Never." He slid his hand up and into her hair, bending down to kiss her properly, wrapping himself around her, his grip on her hip somehow both tight and gentle together. Her hands came up simultaneously, winding one in the short hair at the back of his head while the nails of the other raked over the top of his shoulders, pulling him in closer as she fell into him.
"Haven't we done this before?" She asked, gripping the front of his shirt to drag him towards the writing table behind her, her mouth never leaving his. "I was trying to look at books, you were trying to distract me…"
"You can go back to your books if you want to." Oliver told her, moving to kiss the hollow below her ear, talking to her, but never leaving her skin. "You know, I wouldn't mind much if you wanted to go back to your books. I could go right over there and-"
"Shut. Up. Oliver." She pulled his mouth back to hers by his ears, hopping up on the table to raise her higher up, making it easier to kiss him. "Or I will most definitely be walking away right now, and this will definitely not be happening right now." He softened against her, shifting back from her slightly.
"We don't have to, you know that, right?" He whispered gently as he tucked the few stray hairs away from her eyes and behind her ears. "If you don't want to, we can wait. Its up to you." She huffed against him, her breath warm against his neck.
"I thought that we were waiting." She muttered, dropping down to sit on her heels on the tabletop. "I thought you'd be sick of waiting by now. I know I am."
"Hey, what did I say?" He nudged her chin up, kissing one cheek and then the other. "It's your choice. It doesn't matter to me, as long as you're here, I don't think I could care less. Or actually…" He pulled a face, backtracking. "I probably could." She snorted into his jacket, which he was, for some godforsaken reason, still wearing. "I mean it 'Licity. Whatever you want."
"Anything at all?"
"Absolutely anything." He kissed her again gently. "Sports cars, Holidays, Pets… I'd say an island, but this family don't have a very good history with islands." And it was only then that she realised that, subconsciously, she was tracing his scars through the fabric. She chewed down on her lower lip, because only one thing decided to circle through her brain then. "Felicity? What's with the face?"
"I don't-" She sighed against his neck. "I don't want any of that."
"I thought not." He ran soft but insistent fingers through her hair, smoothing out the tangles he'd left behind. "So what do you want?"
"It's not anything that you'd want."
"Try me."
She snuggled into his front, burying herself into him as close as she could get, wrapping her arms under his jacket and tucking herself under it alone with him. "Felicity?"
"I just want you." She whispered, nuzzling as close as she could get. "Always. Forever."
"And why do you think that's something that I wouldn't want?" He asked gently against her ear, gathering her impossibly closer. "That's all I want. It's all I wanted for, for so long. Somedays it's the only thing that feels real, and others it seems so stupidly perfect that its impossible and is the only thing that's never going to happen." He huffed out a breath, his jaw tight, but it was only the sharp jump in his chest that gave away that he'd moved at all. "I break everything good, I always have, even before the island. Now... Jesus, someday's I don't even understand how I haven't destroyed this already."
"Oliver…" She whispered, pushing gently at his shoulders until he released her, tracing the angled contours of his face, following her fingertips with gentle lips in certain places: His cheek, both eyelids, the tip of his nose, the two corner of his mouth, his chin, the mole under his mouth, the other cheek, his forehead. "I'm not going anywhere. You're not going to scare me off, nor are you going to break me. If its even possible to break a human."
"Why do you even stay?" He asked quietly, the rise and fall of his chest under her hands picking up as his heart rate increase in both pain and panic, dropping the weight of his head into her hands. "Why didn't you run as far away from me as you could get when I was willing to let you go? Because I don't think that I could do it now 'Lisity. I can't let you go and if something happens to you because of that, if I can't protect you..."
And she sighed into his skin, wrapping herself around him, her arms constricting around his head and shoulders, letting him tuck his face into the crook of her neck. He curled his arms tightly around her, white welts appearing under his fingers as he tightened his grip. She grazed her fingers through his hair, scratching her nails against his scalp, closing her own eyes tightly as tears welled at his panic.
"Because I love you." She breathed against his ear, pushing her nose against the cartilage, kissing the hair behind it gently. He lent his weight against her, and she held all that she could. It made her smile normally, because he clung to her like he needed her, trusting himself not to hurt her and trusting her to tell him if he did. But this was definitely not a smiling moment, because now he clung to her oh-so-tightly because he didn't trust himself with her. "Like you love me. Because I don't want to be anywhere else, ever, other than here with you - in the largest personally library that I have ever been in." She tacked onto the end, her tone lighter and cheerier, silently willing him to breath easier and for his emotions to calm themselves down slowly. "No one is ever going to take me from you, Oliver. Never. Not even you. I won't let them."
Eventually, when the speed of his breath matched hers and his heart rate slowed under her fingertips, his grip began to loosen around her and he peaked out from under his eyelashes at her, his eyes sad and ashamed.
"Felicity…"
"Nope." She shook her head at him. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to apologise for things like this." She shuffled slightly on her awkward perch on the writing desk, tilting her head at him. "You told me, when something like this happened to me the other week, that I had nothing to apologise for. So that means that you don't have to apologise either."
"Felicity -" He tried again.
"Nope." She repeated, smiling gently as she pressed her mouth against his forehead. "Not having it. You're stuck with me, Oliver. No matter what." She wrinkled her nose and nudge it gently against his. "Honestly, give it a while and you'll be wishing I never said that. Well that or you'll be deaf from excess ear-chewing-off!" To prove her point, she lent forward and sunk her teeth into his earlobe gently, growling lowly like she often did to mock his angry voice. And, as she had planned (hoped, really) Oliver snorted a laugh into her collar bone.
"That's not going to happen." He told the soft skin there, and she twitched at the brush of warm breath on her skin. "I'm never going to wish you away. Never ever."
"Oliver…?" She asked him quietly, wrapped just as tightly in him as he was in her.
"Yes, love?" He breathed into her ear, soothing careful fingers through her hair, his voice full of adoration.
"I'm really sorry," She sighed, burying herself closer to him to hide the darkening ruddiness that
slowly overtook her cheeks. "And I feel really bad for this and if she hates me forever I totally won't blame her, but… I really don't want that spare room Raisa's setting up for me."
And Oliver had laughed into her hair, his doom and gloom apparently gone for the evening as he pulled her down from the writing desk and fished his phone from his pocket, his eyes grinning at her as he rambled in Russian to the woman on the other end as her led her by that hand through the winding halls.
Hence… bedroom. And nakedness. Because they'd waited months already, and when the universe offered you Oliver Queen on a silver platter, only an idiot wouldn't seize the opportunity. Literally. With both hands.
Ignoring the aches (surprisingly, her left arm ached more than the rest of her, but that was more of a pins-and-needles-y kind of ache than anything else), Felicity rolled herself over into the currently empty space in the giant bed, which was more than king-sized, she was sure, and was defiantly Queen sized, to reach for her phone, sat on the bed side table. She'd been persistent on that, insisting that he let her at least put her phone down before anything else, because they would not be breaking it, which she was sure that they would have done if she hadn't spoke up, considering the way they were heading.
But there was a sliver of paper tucked and folded under her phone, one that she very gladly ignored in preference of scooping up her phone. She had three text messages, a missed call and a whole load of emails from her computers down in the lair. Checking the latest of the texts, she smile at the probing concern of Digg's check-ins. 'Good morning - all okay?'
Sent at 8:31 am.
Felicity seized her glasses from the table (where she had been adamant about protecting her phone, Oliver had been notoriously difficult when it came to protecting her glasses, which was new and just a little bit touching) and shoved them, forcibly over the bridge of her nose. She glared at the clock in the top corner of her phone, willing it to run backwards. There was no way it it could be quarter to ten. Oliver would have woken her.
But then, Oliver wasn't there, was he?
Which wasn't really surprising, given the time. It was quite likely that Oliver would already be at work, CEO-ing. Or at least on the way there. Which was where she should have been, rather than curled up in some obscenely soft, stupendously warm, bed. He really was in for one hell of a lot of an altercation when she next saw him. Because, seriously, why the hell was she still in bed?
She turned sharply, rolling out of the bed with one hand keeping her glasses on her face and the other clutching her phone, narrowly avoiding thumping her head on the bedside table. But of course, once she was out of the bed, there was that one little issues of locating her cloths that had been stashed… somewhere. Hopefully by Oliver, because she really didn't like the idea of the housekeepers picking up after her, hell, she kind of had issues with Oliver picking up after her. The main one being that it left her with no clue where the hell her clothes had gone. Yeah, there really was nothing else for it.
Growling lowly under her breath, she thumbed at her phone aggressively, combing through the number of sheet, quilts and blankets on Oliver's bed for something to wrap up in while she waited for the dial tone to click over. Why he had so many of the damn things was beyond her, because the man was like a walking radiator at his coldest, and surely the mass of bed clothes would just swelter him to death.
"Good Morning." Oliver's voice rang in her ear as she trudged into the en suite to check on the damage. She didn't look too bad honestly. Her hair was kind of on the wild side, the bags under her eyes were more pronounced than usual and her bottom lip looked like it had been bit just once too often, but it was passable for 'I-spent-the-night-highly-upset-hence-why-I-look-so-tired-slash-on-edge-and-I-definitely-did-not-spend-it-in-my-bosses-bed'. It was really just the sheet that she wore that made her look sexified.
"Morning?" She repeated, jamming her phone between her ear and her shoulder, freeing both hands to scour through draws, searching for a comb he did not appear to own. "Morning?! Oliver, it's closer to midday than morning!"
"That's still a couple of hours off." He told her, apparently unfazed by her yelling. She wondered briefly how far from his ear he was holding the phone.
"Well that's brilliant!" She snorted, but there was a slight tinge of genuine relief behind the sarcasm. "I can make it into work before lunch. Doesn't that just make me the best EA of the year? Yes!" And almost on reflex, her fist hit the air in victory.
"Felicity?"
"No, it's all fine. I managed to find a comb is all. Why do you even have a comb, come to think of it? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you do, but it's a bit weird." She smiled slightly, waving the aforementioned comb in the air triumphantly as though he could see. But then, he was Oliver, and she was pretty sure that the only person that knew her better than Oliver was herself. And maybe Diggle. It didn't matter, the point was that he probably knew what she was doing without having to see her. "Do you have to hide things so well? I swear you're part squirrel! Actually, that would probably explain quite a few things…"
"I would have told you where it was if you asked." Oliver sighed softly, like he was doing the laughing but not laughing simultaneously thing. "Are you okay?" He asked, his voice somehow softer than it had been.
"Yeah, fine." She nodded at herself in the mirror, debating whether she'd be able to find a hairdryer somewhere in the Queen manner. Surely Raisa would be able to find her one if she asked, right? "Why?"
"Seriously?" Oliver sounded more surprised than she felt. "Are you ignoring it or did you just forget last night?"
"That?" She asked, tying the sheet under one of her arms so to better maneuver the comb. Regretting her decision to forgo her usual ponytail the night before and the consequential lack of hairband that it came with, she dragged the comb through the tangled mop that fell down her back and wrangling with the idea of using the extra large shower and an excessive amount of conditioner to tame it. "You're asking if I'm okay with the excessively fantastic sex that apparently knocked me out for a good eight hours and I definitely was not complaining about?" Impressed with the lack of blood rush in her face in the mirror, she returned to the bedroom and flopped down on the edge of the spectacularly huge (if slightly mussed) bed, before her legs decided that thinking of - well, that - was too much to keep her upright.
"Well, okay, yes." Oliver uttered, his voice dropped as though he was with people who he didn't want to overhear. "But you sounded pissed when I picked up. I assumed..."
"Big word, Mr. Queen." She laughed, cutting him off. "Someone's been reading the articles I send them. That or you've swallowed a thesaurus."
"I'm not a complete moron, Felicity. I know what 'assumed' means!"
"Oh I know that." She smiled, flopping down onto her back. "And, for the record, I was pissed because I'm late. I'm still late. And I can't find my clothes. I'm not angry at you." Oliver snorted slightly in her ear, because he didn't laugh all that much, not properly, but apparently she was hilarious.
"Okay." He said calmly in her ear, that amusement lightening his voice until she could almost hear that young boy from all those years before he climbed onto that boat. "You're not late, you're taking a day off. Technically, we both are, but something came up..."
"And you found out issue number five-hundred-and-seventy-six about being CEO of a multi-billion dollar company?" She cooed, pushing her glasses up rub at her eyes. They needed cleaning, she thought distractedly. They were covered in fingerprints.
"Something like that. And no, I will not tell you where I stashed your clothes. I'm holding you captive until I can get back there. Honestly I don't know what's taking them so long..." And he trailed off, probably internally cursing whoever his impromptu meeting was with in mandarin or something equally as foreign.
"Squirrel," She giggled, biting her lip again. She was probably making the marking worse. "That's all I'm saying." And he hummed his passive two toned hum that he used when he didn't want to admit that he was wrong but had no choice but to. It was only slightly adorable, which was not a word easily associatable with Oliver Queen.
"Hey Oliver?" She asked quietly, her head on the pillow becoming heavy again with the lack of sleep she'd gotten in the last few weeks catching up to her. She wondered briefly what had woken her the first time, because with the drone of sleep creeping up behind her, she didn't think she'd have woken without being stirred.
"Yes, мой любимая?"
"You wanna know what issue number five-hundred-and-seventy-seven is?" She asked, rolling onto her stomach and setting the phone onto speaker as she scrambled out of the bed again before she fell back asleep.
"You're going to tell me even if I say no aren't you?" His voice was wooden, vacant, impassive at first, but there was a small, well hidden tone of amusement behind buried deep in the tremors of his articulation. And probably in his eyes too, if she could see them.
"Issue number five-hundred-and - I did say seventy-seven, right? Yeah I know I did - is that people fully expect there to be sex with the secutary in the office, so that will definitely not be happening." She called back to him from the walk-in wardrobe, locating the closest dress shirt she could find and pulling it over her head without bothering with the buttons. Blue had always been a good colour on her, but she still lemented borderline suspicious Oliver's lack of green clothes.
"It's a good job you're the Executive Assistant to the CEO then." Was his only response, even though there seemed to be a small chuckle behind the words.
"Ah, you're no fun." She told him, finally wrapped up and concealed from the nonexistent watching eyes in Oliver's room and padded back into the middle of the room on bare feet. "Hey, are you going to tell me where my bag is? It has my tablet in and I'm going to need it if I'm waiting an incalculable amount of time for you to come home."
"Your bag is where you left it Felicity: In your apartment." And for the first time that morning, Felicity's mind stopped at her poor abandoned apartment and her neighbours who lived in the exploding house. She wondered briefly where they'd set up camp for the night. "And if I'm no fun then we'll just say that last night never happened then. Sound fair?"
"Oh, hush. You know that's not what I meant." She told him, groaning at her lack of technology as she flopped down on the bed again, her hands fidgeting restlessly since she had with nothing to do with them. "Oliver…"
"Yeah?" He asked quietly, sounding worried as he registered her tone of voice.
"Do you think the gas explosion last night actually was a gas explosion?" And he stayed just as quiet for a second before he sighed almost noiselessly. She only recognized it because the speaker crackled mercilessly as his breath ghosted over the mic.
"Yes I do." He promised gently, more out of concern for her than his surroundings. "Yes, I'm sure it was. I sent a message to John in the car last night to do some digging, and it come back as just a gas explosion. Maybe you need to take a week off from working with the Arrow. It's making you paranoid."
"Okay, the Arrow can stop referring to himself in the third person. Honestly it's so creepy when you do that." She blew out in a huff, crossing her arms even though he couldn't see her."And I'm paranoid? Oliver, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen you voluntarily but your back to the door."
"That's not paranoia, Felicity, it's strategic." He growled, and if she closed her eyes it was almost like he was in the room with her. "If I'm watching the only entrance, the chances of people to get in the room without me noticing decreases on hell of a lot. Try near enough one-hundred percent. And if I control who's in the room with us, if even one of those people try to hurt us - you -"
"I get it, Oliver." She nodded, and for once her voice was quieter than his. But somehow, in that peculiar way of his, he still heard her and his voice went silent. "I'm sorry. That's not what I meant."
"It's not paranoia, Felicity." He repeated quietly, sadly. "It's what I do. I can't shoot guys full of arrows for threatening Oliver Queen's EA. It's too conspicuous - people would connect the dots. The majority of the time it's the only method I have to protect you."
"I never asked you to protect me, Oliver." She reminded him quietly. "You seem to forget that sometimes."
"I'll do it anyway." He countered in the same tone. "Sometimes it feels like the only thing that I know how to do."
"That and shoot people full of arrows." She crooned, slipping the humor into her voice because it was what she did when the darkness threatened to consume him. She'd been doing it long before she even realised that he wanted her. If she couldn't wrap herself around him and let the rhythm of her pulse call him back from the edge and calm his own, she smiled and laughed and babbled, doing everything and anything that she could to warm his heart until she was near him and able to warm his soul.
"Yeah, and that."
"Oliver?"
"Yeah?"
"When are you coming home?" She whispered, but it sounded weak and pathetic to her own ears, like she was begging.
"Soon ангел." He promised benevolently, and she led down on the giant bed again, curling herself up on her side on his half of the mattress. "I can't give a time but I think they've reached a decision at last. I'll be back within the hour, I promise."
"M'kay." She sighed softly, nuzzling into his pillow in the same way she remembered doing with his chest before she last fell asleep. It was a poor substitute; cold where Oliver was warm and soft where he was firm and muscled, but it was well infused with the scent of his aftershave and something she hadn't yet identified but always associated with Oliver and safety.
"Sleep, ненаглядная." Her guardian told her from his seat, suspended thirty-odd floors in the sky as he watched over his city with one eye and her with the other. "I'll won't let them keep me away from you for long."
"'Kay." She sighed again, wrapping the warm blankets around herself, suddenly glad for the multitudes of bed linens and eiderdown now that she didn't have Oliver's heat to keep her body temperature up. "You're going to have to take me back to that library - I need to see if there's a Russian-to-English dictionary in there if you're going to keep this up."
Oliver hushed her with the promise that he would and another flood of Russian, but this was one that she knew. Even without asking for a translation, it was oh so beautifully clear what he meant.
"Oliver?"
"Yes?"
"I love you too."
Tada! About three months in the making and this is what I have to show for it. This is rather different from what I had planned when I started, but what can I say? My brain and my hands didn't seem to be connected while I was typing!
Unfortionally, I don't speak Russian, even though I wanted to learn when I was younger, and I have already been informed that there is an issue with the accuracy of the translation in this fic (apparently 'любовник' is the male declension.). I am still looking into how to fix it, but if there is anyone who speaks Russian and could provide me with the correct word, I'd be very grateful.
Translations read as: Russian!
Очень радa познакомиться - The pleasure is mine
мой любимая - My lover
ангел - Angel
ненаглядная - Beloved
IIHH. Xx