Title: Corrupted File Removal
Word Count: 4006
Notes: First of all, Twink deserves a huge thank-you for helping with this side story. I sent it to her flailing over it, and, if not for her, it would look absolutely horrible. So, if you like this side story, you should immediately go and give a huge round of applause to MysteriousTwinkie/ihatepeas (FanFiction and AO3, respectively) for helping me out with this. (Quite honestly, if you like the Technical Assistance series, you should go thank her for listening to my freak outs—I have no idea what I would do without her.)
Augh, I don't even know where to begin talking about this thing. I made the mistake of writing in Oliver's perspective for the first half, and then he decided to go angsty all of the sudden for reasons I don't quite understand myself. It was an incredibly rough ride of a chapter, and I'm not entirely sure about it, even now. So feedback is definitely appreciated here, but just for being here, thank you. ;)
Oliver walks out of the bathroom in his street clothes to find Felicity with a cell phone in her hand, clearly ending a call. It takes him a moment to realize it's his phone, the one he laid on the desk when he told her to sit down and wait for him. When she looks up, she explains it all with, "Digg was looking for me after I ran out earlier—I think he was ready to call in a SWAT team when he called you." He watches her bite her lip. "I hope it was okay that I answered it."
"I'm glad you did," he answers quickly, then studies her a moment longer. Something about her expression when he walked in earlier—defeated, haggard, and almost lifeless—had scared him more than he would ever care to admit. "Are you okay?" he asks carefully, both worried she'll need him and worried she won't.
She seems to mull over the question a moment, trying to give him an honest answer—something that he appreciates more than she'll ever know. "I don't know," she admits finally. "Tonight has been… a lot." She waves a hand in front of her. "I just want to go home and get a shower—get away from here for a little while to clear my head."
He takes her hand immediately, pulling her up and out of her chair without another word because he understands. Sometimes after a bad day, the lair feels like the walls are pressing in on him and he has to get away, to escape somehow. Those days have been fewer and further between with Felicity, but it's a feeling that he remembers well.
They're both quiet all the way up the stairs, but it's the kind of silence he's come to expect with Felicity: filled with understanding and quiet contentment. After they exit and the cold night air starts to brush against them, though, she laughs suddenly, a quiet chuckle. When he turns to look at her, she answers the silent question with, "I can't believe I actually want to ride on that damn bike." She squeezes his hand. "I guess tonight shook me up so much I can't think straight."
"I could always ask Tommy for the keys to his car," he offers as he pulls a helmet out of the storage compartment for her. With a smile, he adds as he offers it to her, "And I don't remember you disliking this motorcycle so much."
"That's because I usually forget about it the moment I get to wrap my arms around you," she blurts as she takes the helmet, and then a faint touch of color brightens her expression, makes her look less exhausted for a moment. "It's very distracting."
Oliver pulls on his own helmet before climbing onto the motorcycle. "I know," he answers after a long moment. Every time he takes his motorcycle now, he thinks about the first time she rode with him—the way he told her to hold on tight and how she had blurted, I always imagined you saying that under different circumstances. Finally he adds, "You're not the only one it distracts."
Oliver feels the back of the motorcycle shift with her weight, and he can't stop the way he tenses when her hands flatten against his back. He's able to relax almost immediately, but he knows she felt it. Still, old habits die hard. Fortunately, she doesn't say anything, letting her hands wander apart, slowly wrapping around his torso just under his ribs. He wonders then if she's taunting him on purpose—or if she notices how his sigh stuttered out when his breath hitched. Combined with the feeling of her legs flush against his, it's almost agony not to stop immediately and kiss her.
It doesn't help the direction of his thoughts to know that, if he did, she wouldn't mind.
Before it can get him into trouble, Oliver pulls out of the parking lot, maneuvering through the streets to Felicity's apartment in record time. For the first time, she doesn't seem to tense every time he takes a turn a little too sharply or weaves abruptly into a different lane of traffic. She seems at ease with him, which makes him feel a little… lighter somehow.
He pulls into her parking space finally, and with a brisk walk through the cold parking garage and a few flights of stairs, they reach her apartment. Remembering that he still has her keys, Oliver turns to the one he remembers her using—the lone gold one on her chain—and fits it into the middle lock, turning open the door. For a moment, there's something a little too familiar about the action—the kind of familiarity that makes him do stupid things to escape, like inviting his girlfriend's sister on a yacht.
And that's the truth of why he wants to do things slow with Felicity. He's always been quick to rush in and throw himself into a notion; but, by the same token, he's always been quick to run out, to abandon the idea when it becomes too much for him to bear. It's the last thing he wants to do to her—turn and run with no warning or reason—but sometimes he still feels the urge.
At least he's able to fight it now. That counts for something.
Felicity pulls her keys out of the door absentmindedly, dropping them on the entrance table without a second thought. Her coat lands on the rack in the corner, and Oliver does the same with his own, smiling as she steps out of her shoes and leaves them where they land.
He had originally expected her to be tidy after he'd visited her cubicle the first two times, but he's come to find that she's fond of organized mayhem—everything in a state of entropy, a beautifully convoluted logic that only makes sense to her. It's shown in the way she pulls off her socks only to drop them in her bedroom floor, her blue cardigan dropping off her shoulders there, too.
"I'm going to take a quick shower," she calls to him in the hallway, and he stops in her doorway while she gathers a set of clothes to change into. "Feel free to make yourself at home—turn on the TV or grab something from the fridge, if you want." She frowns quickly. "Could you let Saphira out for me, though? She's been cooped up there most of the day." A bark from the spare bedroom punctuates the thought, and they both smile tiredly at it.
"I was already going to," he answers, this time trying to fight the smile. He doesn't know how to explain to Felicity that he's nearly as attached to her dog as he is to her. He'd originally expected the dog to be blissfully uncooperative, like the dog Tommy had as a kid, but he's decided that there might be truth to the saying about dogs being like their owners. While Arthur—Tommy's dog—had been a handful like Tommy himself, Saphira is small but fierce, loyal, and smart.
The smile Felicity gives him in response makes him think he isn't fooling her, so he moves past her door to the guest bedroom, focusing his attention on Saphira instead. From the moment he turns the doorknob, the little dog is pawing at his feet, tail in high motion. He reaches down to pet her before she scampers off after Felicity, and he returns to the living room.
He's studied her bookshelf on several occasions, but the eclectic collection calls him over once again. Again his eyes fall on her copy of The Odyssey, but this time he doesn't let himself get wrapped up in that series of dark thoughts. Instead, he lets his eyes wander over her collection, reading each title and wondering what made them so special that they ended up on her shelf.
"Oliver?" she calls, head poking around the doorway from the hallway. Her hair is wet, indicating that it's probably been more than a few minutes since he started looking at the shelf. Losing track of time is a rarity for him, so he blinks twice before following her around the corner into her bedroom. The clothes she dropped earlier are now moved elsewhere and she's dressed in colorful pajamas, making him less hesitant about following her now that she's finished changing clothes.
He never used to think too much about her bedroom when he was visiting her as the Arrow; after all, the fire escape connected with it, and it was just a covert means of entry and exit. But since he walked in after the fire at Verdant in a state of undress, he's been leery of it. That scenario has played through his few good dreams more times than he wants to admit, and a repeat of that incident would only be adding fuel to the fire.
"You're staying tonight, right?" she asks, and Oliver still has to reign in the surprise when she says it so casually, as though it's expected. It's only happened a handful of times—a few times as the Arrow before she knew who he was, and then after they'd eaten with Thea and Roy, he'd stayed in her guest room just to give her a little comfort after all that happened with Helena.
When she says it aloud, it only makes sense; otherwise, he'll have to pick her up in the morning anyway, and he both knows neither one of them will sleep if he doesn't stay. No doubt Felicity will spend her morning trying to bypass the Savior's cybersecurity, and Oliver typically works himself into exhaustion in the lair in order to manage a few hours of sleep.
He nods once, hesitant, and she smiles. "I thought so," is her response, and then she pulls two familiar items out of her armoire: a black t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants. "Now I'm glad I didn't return these," she says, looking up at him. "You can sleep in them tonight." Absently, she pauses, muttering to herself, "Maybe you should keep a bag here for when you stay over."
That feeling of getting in too deep, too fast hits him again, and this time Felicity notices, judging by the way she studies him for a long moment. Finally, she walks up to him, her hand falling on his bicep. "That's the second time tonight you've made that face," she informs him. "I don't know that face—and I know you well enough that I know most of your faces. So why do you look like someone just suggested you feed honey to a bear?"
The ridiculous comparison brings a smile to his face as always, and he balks at the idea of answering because he doesn't want to burden her with his fears. The look she gives him, though, indicates she isn't going to give this up easily, so he sighs before answering. "I'm afraid of moving too fast." Felicity's eyebrows furrow together in confusion, so he explains, "The last two relationships I was in didn't end well, Felicity. I…" He sighs. "I jump in without thinking and…" He doesn't know how to end that sentence, so he doesn't try.
"I wasn't prepared for Helena, but I tried to make something work because I didn't want to be alone. But the only thing that even compares to this was with Laurel—and you know how that ended." He falters before admitting to her the truth that has been so hard to say: "This is… important to me, Felicity, and I don't want…" He doesn't know how to finish that sentence either.
Fortunately, though, Felicity does. "You don't want to move too fast now and go down in flames later," she finishes for him. Finally she seems to understand it: he's fantastic at ruining relationships, but poor at keeping them together.
She seems to be wrestling with some words of her own, frowning and biting her lip before saying abruptly, "My last boyfriend committed suicide." The truth seems to startle her as much as it does him, and her voice sounds completely detached when she continues. "When we were at MIT, he was part of this activist group. He was passionate about it—in the way that makes you want to be passionate about something, too. But he did something stupid—something illegal—and he was caught. So he went to prison for it, and… couldn't take it, I guess."
The understanding sets in quickly for Oliver, suddenly holding her actions in new light now that he understands the pain she's had to live with. She was adamant about helping him free Helena when they knew she'd sell him out, and then her hesitation around him at first—the kind that wasn't quite fear, but some other reason for being wary. She had noticed the similarity of a crusader with a goal, and that had made her cautious.
She studies him a long moment. "You're not the only one with baggage, Oliver. But that doesn't mean we have to repeat past mistakes." She pauses for a moment, smiling slightly. "And I'm not sure that having a bag here is a huge step—I didn't mean it like that. I thought it was a lot like how I have a bag at the lair—in case something happens and I have to stay the night." She shrugs, throwing him a smile. "After all, if you were spotted by the tabloids in the same set of clothes for two days, it could bring a whole lot of unwanted publicity and questions." Then her eyes widen a moment, her expression going blank. "And I think this is the first time that I've realized that I'm dating someone famous. And I thought that you being a vigilante by night was complicated."
He chuckles as he pulls her into his arms, resting his chin on her head. Even her speech sounds sluggish and tired, and he thinks it's time he remedied that situation for her. "Felicity?" he asks gently, and she murmurs an answer into his chest. "Get in bed."
She pulls away from him slightly as she says, "Only if you'll join me." It's only after her face heats and he realizes it's a gaffe that he breathes again. "Oh, God, that is not what I meant—that sounded like a seduction technique right out of a porno." She waves her hands frantically, her words tumbling over one another and her voice jumping up an octave as it does when her words start spewing out. "Not that I've watched a porno or am trying to seduce you—I just imagine that's what it would sound like. Not that I spend a lot of time thinking about how things would sound in a porno. And now I've said the word 'porno' way too many times for a normal conversation and—"
"Felicity," he calls gently, and her mouth closes immediately, shaking her head as if to clear it. Oliver leans in to kiss her before repeating in almost a whisper, "Get in bed."
This time she nods slightly, not trusting herself to speak again after stuttering through the last statement. She settles herself into the bed with a drowsy smile, leaning over to place her glasses on the nightstand as Oliver gathers the clothes at the end to take them into the bathroom. "I'll be back in a minute," he assures her, and she smiles.
Not sure what to do with the clothes he changes out of, he takes them back to her bedroom with him, placing them on top of the uncluttered surface of the armoire. When he turns back to the bed, though, he finds Saphira in his place next to Felicity. With an amused smile, he picks the little dog up, flinching slightly when she lets out a sharp scream he knows to expect.
He releases her at the end of the bed before sliding under the blankets next to Felicity, immediately pulling her into his arms. In a move he doesn't expect, she turns to face him, nestling herself against his chest in a way that's new and familiar all at once. "Goodnight, Felicity," he hears himself say quietly, and the sigh against his chest might be her response, so low he can't hear it. Then he watches her breathing goes deep and slow, signifying that she's fallen asleep.
It's the last thing he sees before he succumbs to sleep, too.
Felicity awakens because of the bright glare through her eyelids, and she opens her eyes only to squint against the light. It takes her a long moment to realize that she forgot to close the curtain, and the pinks and purples of dawn color the room. Frowning as she squints at the clock's display of 5:57, she sighs when a quick bit of math informs her it's been two hours since she fell asleep. After a long moment, she decides that's enough to keep her awake for a few more hours and decides it's time to do some more work to track down the Savior.
She moves to get up, but, as she shifts, something heavy drops just above her hip, and it takes her a moment to realize that the weight is Oliver's arm. Carefully, she slides out from under it, letting him sleep a little longer since he probably needs it. It surprises her, but when she turns back to him, he's still fast asleep, showing just how tired he must be. The last time he stayed, he heard her pattering around the kitchen for something to drink—from the spare bedroom in the back of the apartment. She smiles at the look on his face, unclouded by the pain he usually carries with him.
Sighing, Felicity pushes herself into a standing position before picking up her glasses from the table and sneaking into her chair in the living room. She pulls the high-powered laptop from the coffee table, then finds a map of Starling City, trying to make sense of the locations that they'd picked up the Savior's wi-fi signal that last time. The thought of losing the last time enters her mind, but she pushes it out immediately—the facts will help her solve this, but the emotions will only cloud her judgment.
Though the travel direction seems to form a straight line, the pathway doesn't make sense with anything she knows or understands. Sighing, she tries to find some sense in it by checking the building registry, to see what he might be running toward. Most of the buildings are residential, owned and leased by people that Falk has no record of knowing. When that yields no results, she decides to try and find a method behind the path he took, going to the transportation department's website and poking around to see if anything stands out. She's so involved in her research that she nearly jumps out her chair when hands fall on her shoulders.
Felicity relaxes immediately because it's not the first time he's placed a hand on her shoulder, and she doesn't have the opportunity to ask before his lips are at her ear. "What are you doing?" he asks her quietly, his voice just loud enough to show the inflection of the question.
Something in his voice raises a chill across her skin that she tries to ignore. "I got some sleep, and now I'm ready to start back," she answers simply. "It looks like a route of some sort, so I'm checking to see—"
"Felicity," he cuts across her sentence, and it's a little sharp this time. "It was four when we walked in. It's barely seven now. That's not enough sleep." His tone is careful, reasoning with her instead of telling her what to do.
She waves a hand in response before scrolling further down on the page. "I'm fine, Oliver. I'll lie down again after I figure this out, but it's bothering me." A smile turns the corners of her mouth up, in spite of all that has happened. "And I think you already know that mysteries bother me—if they didn't, I never would have figured out who you are."
His answer doesn't come for a long moment, but then he reaches around her to pull her hands from the keyboard before closing the laptop. "There will be plenty of time to look at this later," he assures her. "We both need some rest."
Felicity frowns at him, not wanting to give up when she's close but understanding the logic of it. "Oliver, I—" she starts, but he doesn't let her finish.
"I'll drag you back to bed if I have to," he promises her in a dark, low voice—the one that he must use under the synthesizer to scare the hell out of the bad guys. While Felicity isn't frightened, she does feel something else that makes her breath stutter out in a gasp. She knows it isn't meant to be suggestive, but it still makes her wonder if he did it on purpose, to gauge her reaction.
After placing her laptop on the coffee table, she turns to face him, and, sure enough, something akin to a satisfied smirk is playing at his lips. "You used your Arrow voice on me," she accuses him as she stands up, and the smirk falls a little immediately, like he expects her to chastise him. Instead, she chuckles and he smiles, too. "And you thought that would work?"
"It usually does," he answers, but his tone is factual instead of arrogant. "Usually it puts the fear of God in someone long enough to do what I want them to." Something in his eyes indicates humor, but yet he still manages to keep a straight face. Felicity thinks it might be because he isn't really joking—it's a perfect description of what the Arrow does.
"That works on criminals," she informs him dryly, "not people who have seen you stutter through asking a nerdy IT girl on a date." She thinks about that for a moment, smiling at the idea. "If they did, they probably wouldn't be afraid of you." She waves a hand. "Well, you know, minus the bow and deadly accuracy and the serious ass-kicking you dish out to the bad guys."
He chuckles as she cuts off in a yawn. "But you're right," Felicity continues. "I am tired and I probably should go back to bed. If I don't, I won't be of any use when we catch this guy tonight." She walks over to him, standing on her toes to kiss his jaw. "Personally, though," she continues, her mouth still against his skin, "I think it's because you want me in bed with you." Then she pulls away and starts toward the bedroom again, frowning because that sounded so much like an innuendo that she doesn't think she can fix it.
Oliver pulls her back before she can get too far, and his mouth is on hers before she can even register that she turned. It doesn't matter, though, because Felicity has long since learned how to react to his abrupt changes in behavior and intent. This time, she wraps her arms around his neck, cupping her hands around the back of his head to pull him closer.
When he finally pulls away, he answers her statement with, "I always want you with me, Felicity." He says it as though he's saying the sky is blue: a fact universally accepted, obvious to anyone. Then he leans closer to her, gently cupping her face with one of his hands. "But I don't think you mind spending time with me, either."
It takes a moment for Felicity to have enough air to speak, but when she does, she answers, "When you kiss me like that, I don't think about anything but spending time with you."
Playlist:
"Anything But Ordinary" - Avril Lavigne
"All I Need" - Within Temptation
"All Around Me" - Flyleaf
"Over My Head (Cable Car)" - The Fray
"Tell Me You Love Me" - Neon Trees
"If These Sheets Were States" - All Time Low