Standard disclaimer. I don't own it. It would rock if I did. I'd be able to pay off my debts.
This little fic is the result of a prompt sent to me by goblinconceivable on tumblr. The prompt was: "Felicity tries to refer to him as "Deathstroke", but Freudian slips and says "Deathsmoak" instead." I had fun with this one. :)
That Freud Guy and His Stupid Smart Brain
Felicity hummed as she settled into her desk chair in the foundry, tapping a bright purple pen against her chin. There was absolutely nothing suspicious in her humming. She hummed a lot while she sat at her baby, following whatever cyber trails Oliver needed her to follow. Completely inconspicuous humming going on. If anyone happened to notice that she was humming nothing but cheesy 80s teen movie love songs, they could draw their own conclusions.
No, Felicity Smoak was not hiding a damn thing.
Certainly not hiding that nearly six feet of solid, one-eyed Australian muscle left a bouquet of daisies with a sweet little note at her apartment. The fact that he'd left it in her bathroom sink, meaning he would have had to come through her bedroom and right past her sleeping form, wasn't nearly as creepy as it probably should have been. Plus, it would have been a lot creepier three months ago before she'd started noticing all the other little things he did at her place. Trip wires on the fire escape, locks that had been broken for years not only repaired but updated to the highest security, and a million other small safety improvements. For her safety. Because, as he told her when she caught him throwing out the spoiled milk in her fridge at three in the morning, he wanted her to be safe.
Then, of course, there were the not-safety-oriented things he did. The first month was all improvements and nearly murdering a robber that came in through the kitchen window on the hunt for her tv (the trip wires were in place the next day). Sometime in month two, Felicity came down with a nasty stomach flu. Oliver, Sara, Digg, and even Roy had come around at all hours to make sure that she was okay. Eventually, she'd sent them all away so that she could rest and curled up on the couch. Unfortunately, she hadn't grabbed enough blankets and the chill set in on her so quickly and so severely that she couldn't do anything but shiver herself to sleep and hope she'd make it until morning.
That night, she'd woken up to a brand new fleece blanket tucked around her and a cool cloth on her forehead. She'd drifted back to sleep without ever seeing him, but when the light of morning finally came through the curtains there was a covered bowl of hot cereal-still warm-three small bottles of orange juice and a gallon of filtered water with a glass on her coffee table. That was the day she made a conscious decision that whatever Slade Wilson was doing it was neither creepy nor evil.
The first big change of month three was the bottle of wine. She found it in the middle of her kitchen table after a particularly hellish day both at QC and in the "Arrowcave." The cork had already been removed to let the wine breathe, and a brand new crystal wineglass was waiting beside it with a heavy white card leaning between them. The card said, in a spiky handwriting she could only call typical, that it was the best cure to an exhausting day. When it came to a decent red, Felicity took very little convincing. She poured a generous amount in the glass and carried it with her to the bathroom where the second change of month three was waiting: a hot bath with a thick layer of bubbles. A second card ("I lied, the wine plus this is the best cure.") was tucked into the mirror over her sink.
After that, Felicity pretty much wrote off any creepy aspects in favor of feeling a world of special that someone was paying her so much attention. He was sweet in ways she never would have expected. Some days it was nothing more than tiny gestures: a new bottle of syrup next to her nearly empty one when she made pancakes, dishes clean and in the cupboards rather than where she'd left them dirty in the sink, a copy of Thor 2 with all the special features propped up on her Blu-ray player the morning it was released. Other times it was something much bigger. On her next hellish day she came home to find him cooking Italian food in her kitchen, the table already set. He'd let her air her complaints about everything imaginable, smiling as he heaped a second helping of chicken alfredo onto her plate with the insistence that she didn't eat enough. It wasn't even the slightest bit awkward, and after dinner he'd washed the dishes, kissed her hand, and actually left through the front door for a change.
It probably didn't hurt matters that she actually found Slade extremely attractive in a rugged, older man way that Oliver was still a decade or so shy of reaching. Not that she was going to start complaining about her boss-friend-person training shirtless in the foundry. All eye candy was good eye candy as far as she was concerned. Even if that eye candy was carrying on a weirdly adorable vigilante and public relationship that Felicity had internally dubbed Canarrow. Smooshing names together was sometimes the best way to keep up rapid pace thoughts like her brain was so fond of.
Her mind wandered, the cap of her pen slipping between her teeth as she gnawed on it absently. How could she smoosh her name with Slade's? Surely it wouldn't hurt to have a set term in her brain.
Slacity? That one seemed... well, dirty. Not dirty like the too much time rolling in the mud way-though rolling in the mud could be a fun way to go if you had a shower nearby, NOT the point-but dirty in the 'you really can't think about this at work' kind of way.
Smoalson? She wrinkled her nose, biting down on the pen. All she could think after thinking that one was that somebody would have to seriously misspell a host of normal names to get to something as bad as that. His name didn't make the idea very easy. Hers was awesome, so clearly his name was at fault here.
"FELICITY!"
"AHHHHHH!" Felicity screamed in shock, the pen flying as she flailed her arms upwards, kicking away from her desk and spinning across the foundry floor in a wild arc. Oliver, Sara, Diggle, and Roy were all standing on the far side of her desk, staring at her as if she'd gone crazy. "What!?"
Roy and Diggle ducked their heads, both hiding laughter behind their hands. Oliver focused that single-minded stare of his on her. "We've been trying to get your attention," he explained. "Where are you today?"
She took a deep breath. "Trust me when I tell you that you seriously don't want to know." Scooting forward with her feet, Felicity slowly made her way back to her desk. Focus. Confusing villain insanity can wait. Work now. "What do you need?"
"Got anything of interest in your searches?" Oliver was still staring at her, that scary 'I-know-you're-up-to-something' look in his eyes. She shoved her glasses up on her nose, flexing her fingers once before setting them to the keys. Her searches mostly ran on their own. All she had to do was call up the results.
Starling City had actually been a pretty boring place as of late. She rattled off updates on everything her computers were tracking, letting him know that the crime of the night was minor and already being handled by the local police force. Officer Lance had actually sent her a text earlier asking if there was anything more interesting going on, and Oliver actually managed to crack a smile at that. He asked if there'd been any more activity from Slade and Felicity promptly assured him that Deathstroke was maintaining his three week streak of silence.
The air faintly buzzed with a vibe of uncomfortableness as Oliver frowned at her. "What?" she asked. Blinking several times, Oliver opened and closes his mouth twice before he finally croaked out his question.
"'Deathsmoak?'"
Panic sirens blared through Felicity's brain. "Deathsmoak? That's silly." It's the perfect smoosh! "I said Deathstroke, Oliver." Thanks, brain, you come up with the best of ideas. "Clearly you need to get your happy vigilante hearing checked because confusing Deathstroke and Deathsmoak is a pretty wickedly weird thing to happen." Next time, just DON'T come up with the ideas out loud to your crazy vigilante boss, Felicity! "Where'd you even come up with that one?"
Eyeing her suspiciously, but apparently deciding to write it off as general Felicity craziness, Oliver returned to his workouts without another word. Felicity could feel the gazes of the others in the foundry drifting over her, questions of wonder shivering across her skin. She focused on her monitors, determined not to look at any of them. After the longest five minutes of her life, the sound of the salmon ladder and friendly sparring allowed Felicity to finally relax.
Deathsmoak. Deathsmoak. No matter what tone she thought it in, the moniker was perfect. It had a great ring to it. Dangerous in a playful way, just like whatever she had with Slade and the mysteries of the apartment was. A contented smile crossed her lips.
After the evening's Arrow duties, she'd go home and see what developments in the Deathsmoak were waiting for her.