A/N: This is all dettiot's fault. Title from "Pony" by Ginuwine, because, reasons. Magic Mike belongs to Warner Brothers and was written by Reid Carolin. Arrow characters belong to DC and the CW.
Gotta Be Compatible
It's so fucking loud in here.
Does it have to be so loud? Is it this loud in female strip clubs? Like, the ones where it's females stripping? Instead of, whatever this place is called, the Fortress of Boditude? Ugh, really?
Felicity has a lot of questions. The most pressing of which is, when can we leave?
"Now ladies, we have a few rules before the Men of Steel take the stage" The man onstage has a heavy Australian accent and is wearing leather pants and an actual eyepatch. That's it. She's getting out of here. "The law says it is illegal for you lot to do anything but ogle the grade-A product that's about to grace our fine stage."
"Is this guy for real?" she murmurs to Lyla, who only lets out a scoff before turning her attention back to her cell phone.
"Smoak, I swear to god, if you're being a party pooper, I'm going to volunteer you the first chance I get."
Sara's threat shuts her up good, and she does feel a little guilty. This is Caitlin's weekend after all, and the Bachelorette in question had insisted on a fancy weekend in Metropolis, complete "spas, shots, and sexy dudes." (Full disclosure: she had already had partaken of the first two items on the list when she decided on the third.) Sara, as master of ceremonies, had made every wish come true so far, and tonight was her tour de force.
It's kind of hard for Felicity to read the good doctor's eyes, because they've basically gone as wide as dinner plates, but it seems like Caitlin's having a good time. She's let them switch her over from fuzzy navels to drinks that actually have a tangible amount of booze in them anyhow, and they've only had to stop her from drunk-dialing Barry half a dozen times so far. It's good, Felicity thinks. Her friend doesn't let loose often enough.
"It is, technically, against the law to touch." Crocodile Dundee continues the disclaimer, raising his one visible eyebrow. "But you know what? I think I see a lot of criminals in the audience tonight."
He drops the mic and the women seated around the bar scream like they're twelve years old and One Direction is about to take the stage. Felicity grabs two shot glasses off the tray on their table and does one for her sanity and one for her dignity. And then one more.
"To Caitlin!" she toasts.
Her friends clink their glasses right as the lights dim and the music kicks up, a big disco intro with a thumping beat.
Humidity's rising...
"Oh my god, they're not…."
"Smoak," Sara growls, slapping her arm, even as her eyes light up in amusement at the stage. The "Men of Steel" march on, two by two, clutching umbrellas, rain slickers opened on bare, muscular chests, as the lights flash and the intro plays.
Barometer's getting low...
As the pairs take the stage, they split away, striking a pose, until there's just one spot left, front center of the stage. And then he walks out.
It's not just that he's maybe the most attractive man she's ever seen. It's not just that his blue eyes and chiseled chest (and the tattoo on his pec that's revealed when they strip off their raincoats in unison) make it hard for her to swallow the shot she's taking. She's drawn to him immediately, almost magnetically, and she'd probably think it was strange if she could fully focus on anything other than the way he rolls his hips in time with the beat.
He's the best dancer by far, and the way his body moves is impossible for her to ignore. His stomach's a washboard, and she wants to slide her tongue down each rippled ab. His shoulders are angular and perfect and she wants to climbs up the front of him just to get her hands on those deltoids. The first time he lowers himself to the the stage, using his ridiculous arms to hold his chest up as he rolls his hips to the ground, she pictures herself underneath him and has to cover a gasp with a cough..
She tries to turn her attention away, attempts a concerted effort to appreciate the other dancers, fully aware that picking a "favorite" male stripper, like a puppy in a litter, is just short of pitiful when there's no way you can actually take one home. But when she glances around the stage, she feels like Goldilocks. Too young, too pretty, too muscle-y. When her eyes return to him, she lets out a soft sigh. Just right. It doesn't hurt that the Men of Steel pick that moment to do a move where they straddle their umbrellas and give a little thrust that makes her throat go dry.
"Still wanna leave?" Sara whispers as the song tapers off and the dancers make their way off-stage. She watches him walk away, the whole way, for science.
"Shut up."
Felicity grabs two more shots off the tray and tosses them back, ready to shake off the residual awkwardness and the way her body is still sort of vibrating. She's ready to move on with the night, but it turns out the fun is just beginning. The performers take the stage, one by one, and she bides her time waiting for the main event by giving them all little nicknames and watching her friends' various reactions.
Laurel goes a little catatonic when Pretty Boy does a bit where he pretends to be a real-life Ken doll, the normally calm and collected lawyer sits frozen with the straw to her drink pursed between her lips when he demonstrates his "real-life action hips."
Tree Trunk Arms hauls a bride-to-be up on stage and nearly grinds the legs of her chair through the stage. It's the most Lyla looks up from her phone all night.
A young-looking kid with a jawline that looks like it was chiseled out of marble stumbles onto the stage like somebody pushed him and freezes up for a few seconds before beginning a fairly pedestrian strip tease, unzipping his red hoodie slowly and pulling his t-shirt over his head like he's in a locker room. The crowd is more than forgiving though, when his butt also looks like it belongs in a museum.
And then it's his turn and he takes the stage again like he owns it. He's dressed like a fireman, with the hat and the jacket and the suspenders. She didn't know that suspenders were a thing for her until this very moment and oh god, are they ever. Felicity's not even positive which song he's chosen to accompany himself, it's hard to hear anything over the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.
"Be careful," she hears Sara tease. "You might catch a fly."
She snaps her jaw shut, embarrassed to realize she had no idea it was hanging open. She's unable to focus on anything but the "V" of his pelvic muscles and the spot where they dip below the canvas of his pants. Almost every other woman in the place is shrieking, a group of what must be the Fortress' Most Valuable Customers chant "Ollie! OLLIE!" at him as they toss singles from their stage-side table, but she can't make a sound when his eyes lock onto hers for the first time.
It's hot and intense and...absolutely cannot be happening. The lights onstage are too bright, she knows that. There's no way he's actually, consciously looking at her.
But when the lights go up at what must be the end of the routine, he's still looking at her. When the other dancers join him onstage for a final group number, he's still looking at her. She's pretty sure it's a group number anyway, she can't really focus on anyone else, because he's still looking at her.
They follow a pattern. He locks his eyes on hers until she looks away to shake the feeling that stirs in her gut. But when she turns her face away, she can feel the burn of his gaze on her until she turns back to meet it again. He moves his way through the routine, grinding the stage, thrusting at the air, but he never looks anywhere else for more than a split second. It's intense, and by the time their final number's done, Felicity's nearly lost the feeling in her feet from crossing her legs so tightly.
"Twenty bucks for a private room with the dancer of your choice," Crocodile Dundee announces, taking center stage once again as the dancers make their way behind the curtains on the side. "Groups of up to eight, ten minutes max. And don't forget to tip generously, ladies. As much as you can fit in those g-strings"
"Can I interest you ladies in a private dance?"
Felicity turns at the sound, disappointed to see it's the kid in the red hoodie, and then utterly dismayed at her own disappointment. That wasn't real eye contact, she reminds herself for maybe the twenty-fifth time. These guys are professionals.
Sara, of course, speaks for her before she can find her own voice.
"Sorry to disappoint, kid, but I think some of us had eyes on Mr. Fireman."
"Caitlin should pick!" Felicity blurts in a rush, face turning redder than her friend's vodka cranberry. "She's the bachelorette."
"No way," the words drag out of the bride-to-be's mouth, as she gesticulates with her too-full glass. "That's a little icky, isn't it? I am just here, objectively enjoying the...specimen. Speci-mens? Speci-MAN."
"Okay, maybe back to fuzzy navels for you," Laurel says, reaching over to grab Caitlin's drink before it can slosh over entirely.
"Fireman is, then," Sara instructs The Kid, shooing him away with her hands.
"You sure?" He waggles his eyebrows at Sara, who just scrunches up her nose.
"Yeah, sorry little buddy, I'm not playing for your team at the moment."
The Kid just gives her a grin. "I could put on a little lipstick, if it helps."
"Maybe later," her friend teases. "Find me after a few drinks."
"Private rooms are down that hallway to the left of the stage," he tosses a thumb, raising his eyebrows at something or someone behind them. "I'll send Ollie your way. Now, if you'll excuse me, I see a pack of very hungry looking cougars over there."
"Use those cheekbones!" Sara calls after him.
"I'm new, not stupid!" he tosses over his shoulder as forty or fifty manicured nails start to tear the red hoodie to scraps.
"Shall we, ladies?" The Master of Ceremonies takes up her arms, which in this case means the rest of the bottle of tequila that's chilling on their table.
"Let's shall!" Caitlin declares, standing up and nearly plopping back down immediately, legs unsteady under the influence of her increasingly stronger drinks. Laurel and Lyla help her to her feet and Felicity leads them back to the hallway, trying her hardest not to appear too eager.
She rounds the corner into the neon-lit hallway and turns back to ask Sara how crazy this is, on like, a scale of one to Helena Bertinelli, when she runs straight into a brick wall. A warm brick wall, with abs and pecs and...suspenders? Sweet jesus, it's the fireman. Ollie, she recalls dumbly, from some corner of her brain, as she freezes against him.
Also, she's definitely still touching his chest.
"Oh god, don't you knock?" she blurts out, jerking her hand away and slapping it immediately over her mouth just as soon as the stupidity of her question registers. His lips quirk at her, and she thinks she sees a little sparkle in his eye before the uniform wave of cocky bravado washes over his features.
"The Kid said you were asking for me." The quirk turns to a real smile. Felicity forgets how to breathe.
"Ollie, right? That's your name?"
"Some of the regulars, you know, they call me Oliver Twist," he says, opening a door that's marked with a big letter "O." The smile turns to a leer. He cocks his head to motion them inside, but keeps his eyes fixed on her. "Twenty bucks and I'll show you why."
She knows the response he's expecting is far from a snort of nervous laughter, even though he holds the cocky smile in place. God, if only she could borrow some of Sara's savvy. She turns back to her friend for help, but the traitor has her face buried in her arm, shoulders shaking with laughter. She holds up a twenty and Felicity slaps her hand away.
"Caitlin…" she stammers, stepping past Oliver into the room, desperate to keep her cool. "That's my friend. She's a bachelorette."
And it's like something out of a movie, because the second, she points back at Cait, the second her friend steps into the room, aided by Laurel and Lyla, she doubles over and goes a nasty shade of green.
"Oh no," she moans. "You guys, I don't feel so good."
Laurel and Lyla about face from their positions on Cait's arms and haul her backwards towards the bathroom immediately, before two Fuzzy Navels and three (or four) vodka-cranberries have the chance to re-return all over the floor and the bride-to-be's shoes.
"Oh boy," Sara mutters. "Score one for Metropolis."
"That ever happen before?" Felicity turns to Oliver with a little smile.
"Not where the girl actually got out of here in time," he answers dryly, looking somewhat relieved.
Felicity grimaces, but when she looks over to Sara, her friend is all smiles...and tiptoeing her way towards the door.
"You're paid up for ten minutes, Smoak," Sara smirks, taking a swig from her bottle and dropping a bill on the arm of the sofa beside the door. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Wha-?"
The door shuts behind her and Felicity turns back to find Oliver is standing closer than she remembered.
"What happened to your friends?" he smirks and damn him if even that doesn't look like something she wants to lick off his mouth. This is dangerous territory.
"They're not my friends anymore," she answers through gritted teeth.
She's annoyed at having been played. He takes her reaction the wrong way though, stiffening and leaning back before she even realizes what she's done.
"We don't have to…" he starts a sentence that there's no way in hell she's going to allow him to finish.
"No!" Did she just shout? She drops her eyes from his face to his pecs, which helps her nerves somehow. They make her feel courageous and like, seven other things. "I just mean…we're already back here and...I'd hate for Sara to have wasted her money."
"Yeah?" His face looks something so close to excited, she has to start a mantra in her head to remind herself. He's a professional, he's a professional, he's a professional...
"Yeah, you know, she works really hard, it's be a real shame to...waste it..." She's aware that she's babbling, but she's unable to stop herself. "Besides, I want…"
"What do you want?" He juts his chin out at her and cocks an eyebrow playfully and it distracts her so much, she tells him the truth.
"I want to touch you."
His eyes flare at her with something genuine before the cocky smile settles again.
"Yeah?" This time the question is gravelly, and loaded with innuendo.
"Yeah, she breathes. "I really do."
"Me too." He lowers his voice and she melts just a little bit more, as he leans in close, close enough that if she just tiptoed up a bit...
"There's just one rule," he whispers against her mouth before she gets the chance. "No kissing."
"But…" she sputters, as unbidden disappointment floods her in a rush. She really, really, wants to just smash her face against his for a few minutes, if only to put this crazy-heavy eye contact on pause. "The Kid, in the red hoodie, he kissed that birthday girl."
"Yeah, he's new," Oliver smirks at her, actually smirks, as he steps back to press a button by the door that drops the lights and starts the music. "He doesn't really know how this works."
"Neither do I, apparently," she mutters.
"Well, you can sit," he offers, gesturing to the comfortable-looking, but armless, chair in the center of the room. Couches are pushed against the walls, but this is clearly the seat of honor. Felicity remains frozen in place, so he offers another option. "Or...I can sit."
"You sit." It seems like the better choice: more control, less claustrophobic, etc. That is, until he actually does it and holds a hand out to her, and she realizes now she has to climb on top. This is also the moment that she remembers she's wearing a fairly short skirt, and the logistics start to get a little awkward.
"You sure you want to do this?" he asks at her hesitation.
"Is it weird, for you?" she avoids his question, suddenly self-conscious about hogging the most popular stripper when he could probably be raking in the tips with a bigger party. "Just...one on one?"
"I mean, it's usually groups," he admits, and she ducks her face as it goes red with embarrassment. She laughs a little in spite of herself, at the cheesy Ginuwine song, at the absurdity of this situation, at how this night has rapidly spiraled into a real-life Penthouse letter. But then his hands reach out to slide around her legs, forcing her to take a few stops forward. She's almost straddling his lap, and she's not laughing anymore.
"What's your name?" he asks, hot palms flat on her thighs, sliding up, up, up. Her knees finally give once he's under her skirt and when she settles fully on his lap, they both sigh.
Her name, right. She should give him a fake one, play this whole charade out like the bizarro fantasy that it is.
"Felicity." Welp. The whole thing would be less awkward if he would just let her kiss him already, but there's no more time to be embarrassed, as his hands span her waist and he starts to move his hips in time with the music.
"Felicity," he repeats, but it sounds like a whole different language. He gives her a smile and she melts just a little. "I'm always happy to make an exception."
Her breath catches and she blames it on the fact that her skirt rides up almost immediately, leaving only the thin material of her panties and his rough canvas pants between them. He moves his hands back to her ass and grabs the bunched up material in his fists, grinding her gently.
"Hold onto me tight, Felicity." She latches on to the suspenders like she's wanted to do since he took the stage.
With the first real roll of his hips, she realizes she's never actually done this before. Not just the whole stripper thing, but being on top. She's only had sex a few times, and Cooper always had too much on his mind to do much beyond quick, perfunctory missionary. And then there was that guy the night before she left Boston, her only one night stand, who had jumped to doggy-style so fast she was barely ready for him and left her feeling like she needed a shower immediately after.
But this is something else entirely, riding on top, even with a few layers of clothes between them. Or maybe it's him that's something else entirely. His impressive body moves in time with the music and the hips that she admired on stage are on a whole different level when they're beneath her, rocking her like a wave pool in time with the beat of the music, every few gentle rolls punctuated with a rougher swell.
When she lets a moan slip, he freezes. His hands, his hips, everything still and when her eyes crack open on a wince, she can see his are wide and almost disbelieving. She realizes, like the moment is on a lust-induced tape delay, that it wasn't just a moan. It was his name.
He reacts silently but swiftly, bracing his hands under her thighs and lifting her to grind up against the nearest wall, which only elicits another moan.. She's not totally sure what to do with her arms at this point, but when she threads them around his neck, he makes a sound that she feels more than hears. And it feels like pretty positive feedback.
His hips have her pinned to the wall, so his hands move to tease around her waist and his thumbs work their way under the hem of her top. The next time she opens her eyes, his are fixed on the tattoo just above her right hip bone. Her skin tingles where his fingers push at the waistline of her skirt to get a better look.
"What's it say?" he muses, looking up at her.
"It says I was seventeen once."
She tries to distract him, snaking a hand up the back of his neck to pull his head flush against hers. So he can't look at her anymore. So he can't smile at her like that anymore. Suddenly it feels important to her to keep as many secrets as she can, perhaps because her physical reaction to him is so uncontrollably unguarded. She cards her fingers through his closely-cropped hair and feels his eyelashes flutter against her cheek as his hands slide down her back to her ass, grasping at her through the fabric of her skirt.
"The no kissing rule," she gasps out as he sits back in the chair, squeezing hard, pressing her down against him in the perfect spot. "Is that just…"
"Just the lips." If he didn't have a twenty in his pocket with her name on it, she'd swear his breathless voice and the way he sort of reads her mind means he's just as into this as she is. Either way, she just really needs to kiss him. Now.
"Oh, thank god." She presses a kiss just beside his ear and nips at his earlobe, breath hitching when he lets out a low moan and runs his lips down the side of her neck. He kisses down around her collarbone, tracing the low neckline of her top and back up the other side, only stopping when they're finally face to face, millimeters from each others' mouths. There's a split second when they both recognize the "Fuck it" resignation in each others' eyes, but unfortunately that's also the exact moment that the lights snap on and the music stops.
"Time's up," she gasps, lips just barely brushing against his, as some part of her brain screams at her to shut the fuck up already and keep going. She expects this will be just like a last call, lights up, hands off, but his hips keep rolling and fingers actually tighten around her waist. She gasps, loudly. The friction of his pants through her thin panties, the ridge of what she's now certain is an erection, the way his breath is hot on her neck, everything's combining and she's right on the brink.
"Yeah." Is he...holy shit, is he panting? "Just hold on a sec."
She does, holding on even tighter, wrapping herself around him, nails scraping up into his scalp, making him hiss. His palms slide down her thighs and back up to her ass once again, only this time his fingers slip up under the material of her skirt to toy with the edge of her panties.
She shivers down against him and his answering shudder is drawn out when she scrapes her teeth on the shell of his ear and whispers. "Do it."
That skin-to-skin contact of his bare palms, warm and rough, combined with one last perfect roll of his hips, sends her whole body shaking.
"Oh holy…"
She gasps his name, dropping her head down to latch her mouth onto his bare shoulder and muffle her moaned release. His fingers dig their blunt nails into her backside and she hears him grunt out a few expletives as his whole body tenses underneath her before going slack.
Did he just...?
She's too blissed to consider the implications, but when she lifts her head, he looks like a deer in headlights, frozen except for his arms, which pull away from her immediately. It is not the cocky confidence she's come to expect, it might be the exact opposite. When it stretches on long enough to be uncomfortable, she snaps into self-preservation mode.
She kisses his cheek almost unconsciously as she stands, gathering herself. He's still physically frozen but his eyes are all over her, ten different spots every second, snapping only occasionally to meet her eyes. His mouth is goldfishing, but he can't find any real words.
"It was a pleasure, Oliver."
He stands upright when she speaks, but makes no other move. She's already at the door, so she gathers up what's left of her dignity (which is harder than she thought, given the fairly obvious wet spot on his pants) and saunters back into the club.
"So," Sara gives her a smug grin and a shot glass once her shaky legs carry her all the way to the bar, "how did it go?"
"I'm going to kill you," Felicity tries to glare but she can't exactly, so she looks around for the rest of her friends. "Where the hell did everybody go?"
"They took Dr. Pukes-a-Lot back to the hotel," her friend answers, idly stirring at her own drink with a plastic straw. "Laurel wanted to call home and Lyla said she had a plane to catch, surprise, surprise."
Regret washes over her. "Oh. You guys should have…"
"Shut up," Sara dismisses her quickly, with a wave of her hand. "Nobody else was that into it, and he was looking at you like he was going to swallow you whole. Speaking of which, you gotta tell me how far that jaw unhinges."
"I don't, we didn't..." Felicity grits out, stumbling, though honestly, her blush would probably be telling enough.
"Ah, you totally did, didn't you?" her friend whoops. "What'd you do? Did you at least get our money's worth?"
"Yeah, I think we both did," Felicity chuckles nervously. Sara freezes.
"What's that now?"
"I'm saying, I think he, um…" She can feel her face grow redder with every millimeter that Sara's eyes bug out as realization washes over her.
"Oh holy shit," her friend says with a scandalized giggle. "You're joking, right?"
"No," Felicity "I mean, I did too. I guess that...happens, right?"
"Yeah, no," Sara dismisses with an emphatic shake of her head. "These guys are pros, that does not just happen."
"Pretty sure it did," she sighs. "He didn't even kiss me though."
"That's so hot," her friend trails off wistfully, allowing Felicity just enough time to crawl back inside her head and think about the awkward aftermath.
"I'll be right back."
"Yeah, you will."
"I'm not…" Felicity stammers. "I just need some air."
The neon lights to the bathroom point back to a hallway on the opposite side of the stage, and when she turns the corner, a muscular arms shoots out and pulls her behind the curtain to the staging area backstage. It's dark, and her senses go on high alert for just a few seconds before she registers the familiar smell and feel, jesus, she can even recognize the callouses on his thumbs as they drag between her top and the waistband of her skirt.
"Oliv…" She doesn't even get his full name out before he's devouring her mouth, pressing her up against the nearest wall, just like he did before, only this is so much better. She meets his lips with equal desperation and tangles her tongue with his.
"Oh god, Oliver," she gasps when breathing becomes necessary. He takes the opportunity to scrape his teeth down so he can dip his tongue in the hollow of her throat.
"Say it again," he breathes against her neck. "Say my name."
"Oliver."
He takes her mouth back, kissing her deep for maybe five, maybe forty-five more minutes, and then he's gone, back a darkened corridor behind the stage and she slips back into the neon-lit hallway on shakier legs than before.
"He gave me a chance." When Felicity returns to the now nearly-empty bar, Sara's leaned over, feigning rapt attention at the The Kid, who's telling a long-winded story as he pours them another round. "Rescued me from working at the Verizon store."
"The Verizon store? That must have been so horrible for you." Felicity can tell Sara's teasing him, but it's always so hard to tell if she's flirting or actually making fun.
"It really was." The Kid's totally serious, so it doesn't really matter what Sara's game is. So pretty, yet so dumb. "They were trying to make me wear a tie."
When her friend turns to face her, her eyes roll sarcastically at the Kid, then snap open wide.
"Hole-lee shit, again?" she gapes and Felicity curses herself for not actually going to the bathroom. She can sort of fix her mussed hair in the reflective surface behind the bar, but her lipstick's probably a lost cause. If there's any left.
She's so flustered, even Sara cuts her a break, turning her attention back to teasing The Kid.
"A tie!" she swoons. "Heaven forbid!"
"Damn straight, my mama raised me right," he nods dumbly. "And covering this chest with a shirt and tie, that pretty much counts as a sin."
When Oliver sits down silently at the barstool on Felicity's other side, she nearly jumps out of her skin. He just keeps surprising her. She takes a deep shaky breath in as he nods to Sara and asks Roy for a whiskey neat, and just as she gets the courage to turn to him sheepishly, Pretty Boy tornadoes his way between them.
"To the bridge!" he declares, raising his glass, which elicits an eye roll from Oliver.
"Aw, come on Tommy, we don't have to…"
"Ollie, it is tradition," his friend insists. "Besides, you gotta drive, 'cause me and everybody else are halfway in the the tank and I know for a fact you haven't had anything yet."
"I don't know," Sara muses, grinning at Oliver like the Cheshire cat. "He looks pretty...relaxed to me."
"What's the bridge?" Felicity finally finds her voice, but the question cracks on its way out and Oliver grins down at her.
"Hazing ceremony for The Kid's first week," Pretty Boy explains, pivoting around to face her, pounding at his chest. "Gotta jump off one of the inlet bridges, prove you're a Man of Steel!"
Sara just rolls her eyes and scoffs, which he takes as a challenge, sidling over to her friend and tossing an arm around her shoulders.
"You ladies wanna come along?"
Felicity tries to look anywhere but Oliver, and by that she means she looks directly at him. He looks stupid hopeful and all she wants to do is kiss him again, rules be damned.
"I want you to take your hand off my shoulder," Sara jabs at Pretty Boy. "Will you do that if we come along?"
"Oh god, are we fighting?" he mocks. "Is this our first fight? Can we just make up, I hate being mad at you."
"Aw fine," her friend concedes. "Let's go."
Sara and Tommy talk it out, but all it takes between Oliver and Felicity is a raised eyebrow and a soft nod. And then a pair of matching smiles.
"Come on kid," Pretty Boy taps the bar. "Leave the rest for Digg, he's got this."
Tree Trunk Arms just grunts from his barstool at the other end and gives them a wave.
"By the way," Sara tosses at Pretty Boy as they walk out the door. "You should totally meet my sister."
"I would absolutely love to meet your sister," he answers, his face the picture of seriousness. Very pretty seriousness.
"Tommy, you're riding in the back." Oliver hands the bouncer an envelope on his way out and leads them to a big shiny pickup, with a cab that could probably fit the five of them.
"What? Aw, come on Ollie!"
"Hey man, it's tradition."
Sara crawls into the back seat of the large cab and pulls The Kid in behind her, avoiding Felicity's panicked look as she folds the passenger seat back and climbs in. There's usually something strangely intimate about seeing the inside of someone else's car, but his looks factory-new, free of any debris, the center console even still has some of its plastic coverings.
"New car?" she asks dumbly, as he pulls out of the parking lot, just to have something to say.
"Nah, he's just crazy," The Kid drawls from the backseat. "Keeps everything factory fresh."
"It keeps the value up," Oliver says almost sheepishly.
"Sure it does."
"Hey Kid, when you get a truck of your own, you can trash it up all you want."
She snickers a little at the "don't make me turn this car around" dad-tone in his voice, giggles because he's adorable and also because there's still some tequila floating around in her bloodstream. He smiles over at her, something soft and different, and reaches across the center console to brush his fingers over hers.
"When I get a truck of my own, I'll be happy to have it, not thinking about what's going to happen when I get rid of it." Felicity barely hears The Kid sneer, but she hears the smack that follows it and thanks the powers that be, not even for the first time tonight, for Sara Lance.
She makes the move, lacing her fingers through Oliver's and when he squeezes back and the mantra starts up inside her head, he's a professional, he's a professional, she tells it to fuck off. The cool, salty air rushing in through the window makes things feel less complicated.
They're not at the club anymore, they're just driving. She's not his customer, she's just Felicity. Maybe tonight, he can just be Oliver. Maybe there's something in the way he looks at her. Maybe there's something in the way he doesn't let go of her hand until they're parking on the side of the low bridge.
Pretty Boy's already over the guardrail by the time they're out of the cab, and he surprises them all by immediately letting out a whoop and executing a flawless swan dive off the side of the railing.
"Holy shit!" Sara runs over to the railing, and Felicity follows, looking down at the water just in time to see him bob his pretty head up and wave.
"You're actually gonna jump?" She turns back to Oliver with wide eyes, finally grasping the true implications of "The Bridge."
"I am actually going to jump," he says with a smile and a raise of his eyebrows as he climbs over the guardrail and turns to face her, his back to the drop. "It's tradition. Unless…"
"Unless what?"
"Unless you want to go to breakfast with me instead."
The proposal hits her sideways. It shouldn't but it does. Some part of this is real, and he looks so hopeful again. t's all she can do to stumble over how much she wants to be able to tell him yes.
"I uh..."
"You don't like breakfast?"
"I like breakfast just fine," she laughs nervously. "I just, I don't know..."
"Well, I guess that's that," he says with another little grin.
And then he grabs the back of her head and kisses her, right on the lips. It's hard and fast and she's barely prepared for it, but her eyes snap shut immediately, remembering their backstage moment and how he had felt pressed flush against her body.
"It was a pleasure, Felicity."
His echoed words open her eyes just in time for her to see him throw his body into a backflip, falling the thirty or forty feet to the water a big splash.
She yelps, she can't help it, and when she stops hearing her her own panic, she hears laughter from the water below. The Kid salutes them, "Ladies," before vaulting the guardrail and following his mentors into the inlet.
Felicity looks down wide-eyed, as the boys wave up from where they're floating on their backs with matching shit-eating grins, before turning to Sara, who somehow looks the most amused she's been all night. And that's really saying something.
"Are you jumping?"
"No!" Felicity scoffs, before glancing down once more, betraying how much she desperately kind of wants to. "I mean, that would be totally crazy, right?"
"Yeah, a little bit," Sara agrees, giving her a long thoughtful pause. "Come on, I'll call us an Uber. We should at least get back before the others wake up and realize we're still gone."
"Yeah," she breathes, nodding a little. "Okay. Let's go."
And that's that.
"You guys should have seen it," Sara gushes the next morning (afternoon, really), reaching a piece of bacon across the table to dip into the syrup on Laurel's plate. "He just, planted one on her and then backflipped, right off the bridge."
"He jumped off a bridge?" Felicity sees Caitlin's eyes go wide, even behind the dark-tinted sunglasses she is wearing inside.
"It was a low bridge," Felicity shakes her head, "The water was deep. They were fine."
"Good," Laurel smirks. "Then I can still beat that as far as bad first date stories go."
"It wasn't a date," she protests, probably too quickly and too urgently. "He's a professional."
"He certainly is," Sara says saucily, knocking an elbow into Felicity's ribs and emphasizing her points with her bacon strip. "But you know, you didn't actually pay him for anything."
"You did! You started this whole nonsense," Felicity grumbles, quick to correct her. She's annoyed, and not just because her head is pounding. The greasy eggs and hashbrowns are helping, but not enough. (She actually likes breakfast, a lot. He just surprised her, that's all.)
"Actually," Sara pulls a crumpled twenty out of her pocket, "he gave this back to me when he came out to the bar last night."
"Oh, that's romantic," Caitlin croons, reaching for the carafe of mimosas, apparently moving right along to the "hair of the dog" stage of her hangover.
"It kind of is," Laurel agrees with a raised eyebrow. "In like, a reverse-Pretty Woman kind of way."
"Okay, everybody stop," Felicity sets her hands on the table, for emphasis, but also a little for balance. Her heart's beating fast and she's got to stop this line of conversation before they go too far down the rabbit hole. "This weekend is about Cait, not about me and some…male stripper I'm never going to see again. Let's move on."
"It is my weekend," Caitlin agrees, sloshing orange bubbles into her glass. "So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to have a sip of this mimosa, and I'm definitely not going to tell you that he's outside right now. Oops."
They all turn to the window beside their booth and Felicity looks right at him, but it takes nearly a full minute for her to register that it's Oliver leaving the bank across the strip mall.
"Of all the gin joints.." the bride-to-be trails off as Laurel sucks in a breath through her teeth.
"That's just unfair," she sneers. "How does he look even better with more clothes on?"
She's sort of right, Felicity thinks. He wears the tailored charcoal suit extremely well, but it still looks like a costume on him. He's tugging at the cuffs where his dress shirt lines up with his jacket, which makes his effort at sophistication look adorably childlike. He almost looks better with clothes on. Almost.
"Can you guys be cool?" she pleads with her friends, turning her head back towards her plate. "Just ignore him so he doesn't see us."
This needs to stop. She's starting to feel like she's treading dangerously close to stereotype territory. She needs to shake this off before she's the frat boy who empties his bank account because "I swear to god, brah, the stripper actually likes me."
"Yeah, too late for that," Felicity hears Sara smile beside her. "Also, I'm waving at him, so…"
She bolts up to swat her friend's hand from the air, where it is in fact, waving at him, but doing so forces her gaze out the window to where Oliver has now definitely noticed them.
When they lock eyes, the look in his knocks the wind right out of her.
"He looks so sad," she says softly to no one in particular. That's the other reason she didn't notice him at first. He's not smiling.
"He did," Laurel mumbles.
"Yeah," Caitlin breathes in agreement, "until he saw you."
"Seriously, you guys have to shut up. Please." He is smiling now, at her no less, but it's still sad and he's held her eyes long enough that it's getting awkward. The frat boy echoes in her head. I swear to god, brah.
"Oh, just get out there already." Sara slides sideways forcefully to try and edge her out of the booth.
"Get out there?" Felicity balks, finally breaking his gaze to stare at her friend like she's grown a second head. "Get out there and do what exactly?"
"Say hello, give him a handjob, who gives a good damn!" Sara says, sounding exasperated. She continues even as Laurel chastises her, checking around their neighboring tables for families with small children. "Just go diffuse some of this sexual tension before we all get leveled by the explosion."
It's unnerving, walking out of the diner to talk to him with no fewer than four pairs of eyes on her. But then she's outside and he's smiling big, and there's only two eyes she can find the nerve to care about.
"Felicity." She should be impressed that he remembers her name, but she's too focused on the way that he says it.
"Hi Oliver," she smiles, striving for cool, calm and collected. "Fancy meeting you here."
Ugh, really Brain? Swing and a miss.
"Just coming from a business meeting," he says, motioning awkwardly to the bank behind him. "At the bank."
A wave of something like relief washes over her, because he seems as nervous as she does, and at least it's a two way street. This is what it's like to meet a stripper in the daylight.
"Not a good meeting, I'm guessing."
His brow furrows and he looks at her, confused.
"Your face," she explains. "You didn't, you looked...never mind."
It happens again, and this time she knows it for sure because she's watching him close. That genuine something she noticed last night washes over his features and he just stares at her earnestly for a split second, like he wants her to notice. It's like his real self is trying to poke its head out, but then it's gone as quickly as it came.
"No, you're right," he says absently, shaking his head with a frown. "You're right, it wasn't...good. But it'll be fine, everything's great."
The cocky smile's back again and the moment's over, so she plays along.
"It seemed like things were pretty busy last night," she observes.
He looks almost sheepish. "Oh, yeah. This isn't uh, stripper business."
"Darn," she teases, smiling up at him, "so that suitcase isn't full of wrinkled ones like I'm imagining?"
"I'll have you know there are more than a few fives in here," he grins.
"No twenties?"
"You don't want to know what I have to do for the twenties."
"And so you're banking on a Saturday afternoon," she observes.
"I'm trying to get a mortgage." He grits out the word "trying" like it tastes bad in his mouth. "Trying to buy a place in Gotham. Where my little sister lives."
It's emotional bait, and Felicity wants to bite, even though she knows better. It's like each new thing she learns about him ratchets up the difficulty level of the puzzle. At the strip club, he was six big easy blocks, now he's rapidly becoming one of those thousand-piece nightmares where the cutouts don't even have four proper sides. He confuses the hell out of her and it's like he can sense it, because suddenly he pivots on a dime, reverting back to playboy Ollie.
"Listen," he asks with a smirk, loosening his tie which is unfairly distracting in his own right, "what are you doing tonight?"
She allows herself a split second to picture herself undoing the knot around his neck and sliding the fabric out for him.
"I'm, uh, I'm with my friends," she stutters.
"Ah yes, the bachelorette," he smiles. "If she's feeling better, you guys should come to Tropic."
"Ah, an encore performance?"
"No business tonight," he lowers his voice and eyes. "Strictly pleasure."
She walks back into the diner on wobbly legs, and Caitlin and Sara are no help at all.
"He's dreamy."
"Did you see the way he was looking at you?"
Finally, Laurel takes her side. "You guys, leave it alone."
"Thank you, Laurel."
"I mean, what are you going to do, take him back to Starling on a day rate?"
Dinah Laurel Lance. Speaking the truth and making it feel like an ice pick through your chest since 1986.
"So, what's on the docket for tonight?" Sara interrupts, and Felicity tries and fails yet again to play it cool.
"What about Tropic?"
Sara and Laurel both laugh at her, right out loud. Damn those Lance girls.
"Are you kidding?" Sara giggles tilting her head in Caitlin's direction. "I'm not sure if Tropic is exactly our speed."
"Hey, I can handle speed," the Bachelorette in question protests, though the fact that she's already almost slurring doesn't really vouch for that fact. "Barry's very fast, I mean running-wise, he's not in...not fast fast... Oh, dear."
"Okay then, we're going to Tropic?" Sara's really asking Caitlin, but raises her eyes at Felicity just the same.
"We're going to Tropic!" the bride-to-be declares, sloppily clanking her glass against the others on the table and sloshing orange juice and champagne just about everywhere.
It's even louder in Tropic than it was in the strip club, and that's Felicity's first hint that this was an absolutely horrible decision. But this was her horrible decision and they've gone all out with their getup and put on their fanciest dresses, so she's determined to make it work. For Caitlin, she reminds herself, shamefully not for the first time.
They're all there, on the dance floor already, when the girls arrive. The "Men of Steel," in the flesh, but also wearing more clothes than she's seen on any of them. Pretty Boy takes Laurel by the hand almost immediately, and Felicity feels for him if he's about to try and buy her a drink, but Laurel doesn't seem to mind one bit. She and Sara share the smallest of looks when The Kid comes over to drag Caitlin on the dance floor, both silently agreeing that he's harmless enough.
And then there's Oliver. Standing in front of her and looking at her like she's here to grant wishes.
"Hi Felicity," he says, kind of sing-songy.
"Hello, Oliver."
"Oliver," he rolls his own name around in his mouth like it's a foreign language. "Why do you call me that?"
"It's your name, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but everybody calls me Ollie," he fairly slurs. "Slade sometimes calls me 'Olls to the Walls.' But not you. Why?"
"I just…I don't know?" She honestly doesn't. "I'm just saying your name."
"I love the way you say my name." He breathes this inches from her face, big arms reaching up to box her in completely and she's ready to swoon when she notices that his pupils are nearly as big as dimes.
"Are you high?"
"Just rolling a little," he sniffs, taking a half-step back and shaking a baggie of off-white powder in front of her. "You want some? We can dance until sunrise and then I'll take you to breakfast."
"You're really into breakfast, huh?"
"I'm really into you," his smile still makes her knees wobble a little, but the feeling's sort of hollow because she knows it's artificial. It doesn't stop her from watching with rapt attention as he swipes his tongue across his lower lip and shakes a little of the powder out.
"Come on, Felicity," he leans in close, but he can't hold focus. "Don't you want another kiss?"
She does. So badly it's almost embarrassing, but not like this. Her good-girl directive dovetails with Detective Lance's horror stories about designer club drugs that were, at best, speed cut with baby formula.
"No, thanks," she shakes her head, lobbing an excuse. "I'm Cait-sitting tonight. I've gotta keep my head on."
He shrugs, and his tongue does another few laps around his lower lip, picking up the powder. When he's finished, his mouth splits into a wide smile and she looks up from his lips to his eyes to realize he's been watching her watch him the whole time.
"I'm glad you came," he says, almost leering, taking the final step forward that boxes her against the wall. "I wanted to say a proper goodbye."
"You wanted to say goodbye?" she laughs in spite of herself, because yeah, he's gone. "I'm the one that's leaving. And not until Monday."
"I'm leaving too," he says, face turning serious. "I'm getting out of this city for good. I'm going to Gotham."
"So you said."
"I'm gonna own something, Felicity," he practically growls. His eyes might be blown, but he's so focused on her. She knows it's not really him, but it feels like focus. It feels like a lot of things. "I'm gonna be somebody."
"You're not somebody here?" She tries to tease him, tries to bring some levity back to the conversation because he looks so serious all of a sudden. "I mean, you seem like a pretty big deal."
"I'm someone else here," he rolls his eyes in what looks like disgust. "Something else."
And it does feels like she's going a little crazy. Because she's been fighting this since they first made eye contact, but still, the only thing that runs through her mind when he says stuff like that is the undeniable fact that she wants to know who he else he can be. She wants to know him, underneath the false bravado and the stage persona.
But not here. Not like this. Not in a grimy club where her stilettos keep sticking to the floor. Not when he's bug-eyed and blissed-out on something fake and she doesn't know where that ends and his real feelings begin.
"Oliver, what are you…" she trails off, not at all sure of the question she was about to ask. "I mean, is this…"
This time Sara cuts her off, sliding up to lean on the wall beside her, and she's not sure whether to be glad or not.
"Hey, I think maybe The Kid isn't so harmless after all," she whispers in her ear and the uncertainty in her friend's voice snaps Felicity out of whatever daze she was in.
"You don't believe anything I said," Oliver's pouting a little, but she's only half-paying attention to him as her eyes dart around the dance floor. She finally spots The Kid, grinding low with Caitlin who looks sort of like a rag doll. When she sees him pulls his own little baggie out of his pocket, it sets her into motion.
"I have to go." She turns to Oliver, waving Sara ahead, but her friend is already bolting onto the floor to scoop Cait out of The Kid's protesting arms. "We have to go."
"You don't believe me," Oliver repeats distractedly, but he's frowning at The Kid, trying to process what he just saw.
"It's not really about me, is it Oliver?" Felicity snaps, annoyed and totally ready to get back to Starling and Eternal Sunshine this weekend from her memory. "If you want to be someone better, be someone better. It's all about you. What you believe."
"I believe in you, Felicity," he stammers, giving her the last best version of the cocky smile he can muster and she rolls her eyes at him. "Sincere...seriou...sinceriously. I do."
His words still twist her gut, but he's too close now, too manic in the eyes, and this is better, she thinks. The walls come up easily now.
"You don't know anything about me," she bites, turning to leave. "You don't know me at all."
"I know what you feel like when you come," he hisses in her ear, banding an arm around her waist and she tries so hard not to react, tries to stay icy. "What color your skin flushes, the sounds that you make."
"Oliver…" she tugs his arm. "Let me go."
"Shit," he pulls back, eyes going wide to show off his pupils, one last reminder of her latest mistake. "Felicity, I'm…"
She doesn't let him finish, turning to help Sara haul Caitlin towards the door. She ignores both him and the ruckus of sounds that follow her and her friends out of the club. There were hundreds of people in there, she tells herself. Any one of them could have chosen that moment to flip a table.
She was supposed to be back home by now. But fate, or maybe just the weather in Starling City, had put that plan on hold and once she checks into her new, comped hotel room, makes sure that Sara, Laurel, and Caitlin all landed safely in Central City, and calls into work, she realizes that her options for her last night in Metropolis are limited to ordering room service and thinking about Oliver or doing something, anything about it.
It was crazy to come here in the first place, and it's even crazier that she's back again, two nights later. But maybe if she can just see him one more time, maybe this will all make sense.
She pays the cover fee, ignoring the bouncer's raised eyebrow and look of recognition as she steps into the Fortress of Boditude. Crocodile Dundee is on-stage strumming a guitar and singing some off-key ditty some about "the ladies of Metropolis," but she barely hears him over the nervous buzzing in her head.
She waits in the back, nursing a drink at the bar, with no idea what the next part of her plan is, until the familiar Weather Girls intro kicks in. The Men of Steel start take their places on stage, and she's surprised to see Oliver come out with Pretty Boy as the final pair and even more surprised to see The Kid saunter out to take his place front and center.
She watches him through the whole number. This time it's her who can't look away, and this time it's him studiously avoiding eye contact. He keeps his hat pulled down low, stays towards the back of the routines, and it looks like he's got dark circles under his eyes. Too much Tropic, no doubt. He's dancing like he's tired too, like he's almost weary, and her traitorous brain lets the unbidden thought creep in that she desperately wants to hold him. But he still doesn't look at her.
He doesn't look at her at all, she's not even sure if he knows she's there until the dancers jump from the stage to bump and grind amongst their adoring fans and he beelines right for the bar, right to where she's sitting.
"Oliver?" She sets her drink down on the bar and he takes the opportunity to take both of her hands in his.
"You wanna get out of here?" he asks softly, voice scraping against some emotion in his throat.
"Right now?"
"Right now."
"Yeah, okay." She's confused, and dips her head to hazard a worried glance under the brim of his cap. That's when she realizes that it's not dark circles under his eyes, it's mottled black and blue.
"What happened?"
"Nothing, I'm just done," he says through clenched teeth as he pulls her to her feet and leads her quickly out the front door to the parking lot. "I just want to get out of here, okay?"
Years, later, she'll still be wondering how this worked, with their height and muscle differential. But she yanks on his hand so hard it whirls him around to face her, and she takes the last step forward to press herself against him, cursing her sensible travel flats when she has to crane her neck back to be able to make eye contact.
When she reaches her hands up to scratch through his stubble and flatten her palms against his cheeks, his eyelids flutter closed for a second and she takes the opportunity to reach up and turn his cap around, running her thumbs lightly over the bruised skin under his eyes.
"Oliver," she whispers as he flinches, whether from her touch or the sound of his name, he's not sure. "What happened?"
"Last night, after you left," he admits, not opening his eyes. "The Kid got us into a bit of a scrape."
"And you got hit?" She doesn't remember seeing even a scratch on The Kid, though a sudden surge of protectiveness has her wanting to inflict a few.
"He was holding, trying to move all that Molly," Oliver shakes his head, eyes still screwed shut. "I should never...it was so stupid. Felicity, I'm sorry…"
His apology is unnecessary, she reminds herself. They don't owe each other anything. What's worse is it breaks her heart a little. "I thought you were done with all of this."
He opens his eyes, but won't meet hers, and when he speaks, he sounds like the little boy that she pictured yesterday when he was tugging on his shirt sleeves.
"My face isn't the only thing that took a hit."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, these weren't the kind of guys who take an IOU," he mumbles. "Somebody had to pay them. And The Kid owed...well, more than he had to play with, let's say that much."
His savings, she realizes belatedly. All of his hard work. It's gone? Just like that?
"Oh, Oliver. You didn't have to do that." She knows what his answer will be before he even says it. She tries not to think about how she knows him that well already.
"Sure I did. Somebody did." He squares up his shoulders and turns back to keep walking, pulling her, more gently now, in the direction of his truck. "But I'm done now. For good. I don't know what happens next, I don't even know how I'm going to make rent, but I'm not going back. I just didn't have it in me to walk away until..."
He looks at her thoughtfully for a long moment across the truck bed and she's thankful for the distance, taking a few deep breaths to steady herself as she climbs into the passenger seat.
"So what now?" It's a crazy question that means about a thousand different things.
"I have no idea," he tells her, leaning across the center console and putting a palm on her cheek, turning her head to face him. "Can I just…"
And then he's kissing her again and she's nodding dumbly at his unasked question even as his lip press fully to hers. This one's softer and less heated than to two before it, but it's even deeper, like he's showing her yet another part of himself, telling her another secret.
"Last night," he whispers when he pulls away, "you told me I could be someone better."
His hands are still hot on her cheeks and he's looking right into her eyes. Maybe he sees a secret in there, too.
"I can't even believe you remember that," she admits in disbelief. He's calling back words she threw at him in anger and confusion and reciting them like they're some kind of gift.
"I remember everything about you, Felicity." It's almost unfair, how good he is at this. "You're the first person who's ever said something like that to me."
She doesn't really have anything to say to that, so she just pulls one of his hands down from her face and laces her fingers through his.
"Anyway, you said I could be someone better," he continues, letting out a deep breath. "I would like to, maybe, discover a little more about that someone. If you'll come with me."
It occurs to her that this whole weekend, she's only allowed herself to consider the possibility that this thing between them can't be real, can't ever happen, categorically cannot and therefore will not progress. But here it is, progressing right in front of her face, and she's totally at a loss. The only thing keeping her from floating into the stratosphere like a neglected balloon is the look in his eyes.
"Come with you, where exactly?"
"To breakfast," he grins at her with a dip of his head like she should have been able to guess.
"Oliver, it's midnight."
"Shoot, you're right," he snaps his fingers but his smile only grows as he leans in closer, his breath hot on her lips. "Can you think of a good way to kill a few hours?"