Hold On To Me
By JA Ingram
Lademonessa on AO3 or cjjingram on Tumblr
Felicity was not a fan of heights, and she certainly wasn't a fan of jumping across empty elevators shafts while wearing a scratchy polyester jacket that did nothing to keep out the chill. She felt a shiver run through her body as goosebumps erupted on her arms, the coarse material of the cheap uniform pulling at the tiny hairs and adding a certain level of physical discomfort to her general unease.
She felt her stomach roll again and tried to convince herself it was because her borrowed uniform smelled like the ghosts of French fries past and desperately hoped she didn't wind up doing something completely humiliating like puking her guts out in front of Oliver then winding up in one of those disgusting Darwin Awards chain letters because she upchucked then tipped over to go splat forty stories below. Plus, she had to pee and full bladder + uncontrollable puking = a big mess on the floor so not only would she wind up vomiting in front of Oliver while wearing a double knit polyester nightmare whose only function was to make minimum wage workers feel even worse about working at a dead end job, but he'd also get to see her pee her pants, something that hadn't happened to her since that unfortunate kangaroo incident at a petting zoo when she was nine.
God, those things were creepy.
All she knew was, if she did wind up puking and peeing herself, she hoped to Google that Oliver would be so disgusted that he'd drop her, allowing her the mercy of falling down said elevator shaft because death would be a welcome relief at that point. In fact, if she did die, her only regret would be that her last meal consisted of an over-nuked Lean Cuisine and a handful of slightly linty gummi bears she found in an open bag at the bottom of her purse.
Who knows how long they'd been there but she liked to eat when she was stressed and it was either that or the drug-laced burgers she'd brought with her to knock out the guards.
She thought about it though.
Hard.
"Hey Felicity," Oliver ducked under her arm, his eyes already on his target which was the narrow landing across the empty elevator shaft from where they were standing.
"Hmm?" she hummed nervously, her cheeks heating up as she wondered for a moment if she hadn't accidently said all that out loud.
She did that sometimes. She blamed her mother. She had a running theory that it was some sort of chromosomally linked propensity towards verbal diarrhea.
"Hold on to me tight," he told her in a business-like manner, his eyes never leaving his target as his fingers gripped her waist firmly just under her ribcage.
"I imagined you saying that under different circumstances."
Felicity blanched as he slowly turned to look at her, his eyebrows lifting slightly as if to say, 'Really?'
Yeah, okay, so maybe puking, peeing her pants, then falling forty stories and having her skull split open like an overripe watermelon at a Gallagher concert weren't the most horrible things that could happen in an elevator shaft after all.
"Very platonic circumstances," she added weakly as he continued to stare at her.
Oliver's eyebrows slowly fell, surprise and mild exasperation giving way to some other emotion she'd never seen before.
Not directed towards her anyway, and certainly not by Oliver.
She squirmed nervously in his grip, "Sorry," she said in a squeak before gasping as her foot slipped a bit, but he merely gripped her harder until she righted herself, only easing off once she was back on even ground.
"Felicity…" he said slowly as he turned to face her head on, the hand not wrapped around her waist still gripping the end of the grappling line tightly.
"Yeah?" she gulped, her face probably resembling a ripe tomato at that point.
God, she was hungry. Despite the roiling nausea and nervous butterflies straining to free themselves from her throat, all those food analogies her brain kept spewing forth were making her regret passing on the drug laced cheeseburgers.
Maybe later she could talk Dig into doing her a solid and have him slip her a couple of whatever it was he used in the burgers earlier. A benzo induced coma would be just what the doctor ordered right about now.
"I know you're nervous but I need you to keep it together, okay?" he said carefully, his eyes searching hers. "We both have to have our heads in the game or this isn't going to work."
"Yeah, I know; I am—I do, have my head in the game that is," she assured him, sobering instantly. "I'm just, um, I'm a little nervous because, you know, heights, but I'm good, I promise. Just—yeah; let's, um, swing away!" she said awkwardly, nodding towards the other side of the shaft jerkily, "Should be fun, like a roller coaster only with no safety equipment and the imminent threat of death hanging over our heads." She looked at him again, "That was a joke."
I hope, she added mentally.
He sighed, his mouth tightening in an expression that told her he wasn't buying it, "Felicity."
She chewed at her bottom lip nervously, "Yeah?"
His eyes softened a bit as his eyebrows drew together in concern, "You trust me, right?" he asked, his deep blue eyes completely focusing on hers in a way that definitely wasn't helping her nerves. "I won't let anything happen to you. I've got you, I promise."
"I know," Felicity said, letting out a harsh breath as she tried to calm her heart before it beat its way out of her ribcage because, yeah, threat of death notwithstanding, Oliver even on a bad day was like two scoops of yummy with a side of hot damn.
After all, just because her nerves were shot, her bladder was reaching critical mass, and she smelled like she slept in a grease trap, she was still human.
"I'm, um, I've got this, I'm good. Let's go," she said with a decisive nod.
"You're sure?" he asked her carefully.
"Yeah, I'm sure. It's just stage fright," she assured him. "Kind of like in high school drama class when everybody caught mono including the girl playing Juliet and her understudy, so I had to go on because, even though my job was to run the lights and help with the scenery backstage, I was the only person who knew all the lines, so I had to be Juliet even though the dress was way too big for me since Penny Shoop was like six inches taller than I was, and because I was Juliet that meant I had to kiss Doug Strasberg who just so happened to be the hottest guy in the whole school—" she caught the bemused look on his face and paused, "Sorry. I'm fine so…swing away, Tarzan," she said awkwardly. "Because me Jane, you…right," she said, clearing her throat again.
"So what happened?" he asked, his mouth turning up at the corners as he continued to stare at her in amusement.
She blinked at him, "What?"
"With Doug Whatzisface?" he asked.
Her brow furrowed in confusion for a moment before her brain finally caught up, "Oh, uh, I nearly wound up puking my guts up backstage until Doug found me and calmed me down. I was fine after that."
"What did he do?"
"Huh?" she asked blankly.
"To calm you down," Oliver prompted. "What did he do to make you feel better?"
She shifted again and flushed, "Oh, well, the reason I was nervous was because I'd never kissed anyone before and my first kiss was going to be onstage with someone I hardly knew so Doug, um…" she breathed out slowly, "kissed me," she mumbled.
"He kissed you?" Oliver repeated wryly.
"Yep," she said, pursing her lips in embarrassment.
"And that calmed you down?" He grinned, "The guy must not have been a very good kisser then."
"He wasn't that bad," she objected. "I mean, it was okay, it wasn't great, but it sort of took the edge off for both of us."
"For both of you?" he asked in that same dubious tone.
"Well, it turns out that it was the first time Doug had ever kissed a girl, too."
Oliver lifted an eyebrow at that, "I thought you said he was the hottest guy in school?"
"So?" she frowned.
"So he was the hottest guy in school but he'd never kissed anyone before?" he asked wryly.
"He'd kissed people before, just not a girl apparently," she shrugged, "Turns out that he was secretly dating the guy who played Mercutio. Anyway, we were both a little nervous about it so, after a quick confab backstage, he just grabbed me and basically got it ov-" she began as she looked back at him only to be caught off-guard as his lips descended on hers.
It wasn't a big kiss, or a hard kiss. It wasn't passionate, but it wasn't entirely chaste either. Instead, it was a soft brushing of their lips, his mouth playing catch and release with hers as her mind blanked out and her body melted into a warm, gooey puddle.
After a few seconds, he took a breath against her then slowly kissed her again, his tongue darting out to lick delicately at her bottom lip. However, even as she gasped against him, her mouth falling open in invitation, Oliver never deepened the kiss. Instead, he merely stilled his open mouth against her as if savoring the moment then slowly pulled away.
"Feel better?" he asked quietly.
Her eyes fluttered open as she stared at him in disbelief, "What?"
"Do you feel better now?" he asked with a hint of a smile. "Did that help?"
Felicity gaped at him in shocked silence before she managed to pull it together long enough to answer him, "Um, yeah? Yes, uh huh."
"Good," he said, adjusting his grip on her waist with a smile before turning his head away from her and looking back over the open expanse of the elevator shaft. "Now hold on to me," he said before glancing at her with a teasing expression, "Platonically, of course."
"Platonically, right," she repeated just before her feet left the narrow ledge they were standing on only to land gently on the other side of the shaft, her mind too filled with the sensation of being kissed by Oliver Queen to worry about falling or anything else for that matter.
"You can let go now," he said when they were on even ground, that same bemused smile playing around his lips as he spoke.
"Do I have to?" she muttered before she could stop herself, then flushed in humiliation. "Sorry, uh, joke?"
He chuckled softly before loosening her arms from his neck and taking her hand in his, "Come on."
"Um, thanks for, you know…" she said as she glanced up at him through her lowered lashes.
"Anytime," he said enigmatically before his eyes took on a more professional glint, the moment between them fading as quickly as it came.
One thing's for sure, she thought as they made their way towards Merlyn Global's secure mainframe.
Doug Strasberg had nothing on Oliver Queen.