So this is my first ever Arrow fic - if you look at my profile you will see that all my previous works have been in the Potterverse. My boyfriend started watching Arrow on Netflix about a year ago and I saw sporadic episodes with him. When I started watching the current season with him regularly, I decided I needed to go back to the beginning to understand everything and in doing so, latched onto Olicity so hard that my boyfriend picks on me for it :)
This takes place after 3x18 but disregards the stuff in the preview for 3x19 (which, when I saw that, I about lost my shit, I mean OHMYGOD!). Enjoy!
"Ray said he loves me," she says from behind him. Her voice alone is usually enough to have his body tensing and his heart skipping a beat. With the words she spoke though, his heart feels like it has stopped altogether.
"He did?" He doesn't turn around to face her, pretending to be extremely interested in sorting his arrows. "I'm happy for the two of you."
There's a thud that he knows is her setting her purse down on her workstation. "I didn't say it back."
That has him spinning around to face her. Normally he's the expert at hiding his thoughts and emotions – not always from her though – but her face is as blank as he's ever seen it and he can't read anything in her eyes despite meeting her gaze head on.
He picks up an arrow, just to have something to do with his hands. "Why didn't you?"
She crosses her arms over her chest and he notices that her fingernails are painted a dark green. "It's not so much that I didn't as it is that I couldn't. Does that make sense? That's what my mom said happened to me anyways, that I couldn't've said it. Or I could've said it but I wouldn't mean it because I couldn't, and there is a difference, you know – "
"Felicity," he says to cut her off, enunciating each syllable and enjoying the way her name rolls off his tongue.
She shakes her head briefly. "I couldn't say it back to him because I'm not in love with him, Oliver." She mimics his way of saying her name with his. He never likes his name as much as he does when she says it, and she never calls him Ollie. Always Oliver.
He frowns as the rest of her words catch up to him. "I thought you were very happy with him. That's what you said at Digg's wedding."
She sighs and he can see her nails digging into her arms. "There's a difference between being happy with someone and being in love with them. Ray makes me happy, yes, but when I'm with him I don't fully feel like myself. I don't feel complete or at peace. I only get that feeling around you."
It's the first time she's ever said anything about the depth of her feelings for him. They both know that he's in love with her, has been and doesn't foresee a time when he won't be, but she's never said the words back, never hinted at anything approaching the level of his feelings.
It takes every ounce of self-control that he learned on the island and afterward to keep from running towards her, from wrapping his arms around her and never letting go. He's only kissed her once, and that wasn't nearly enough, and every cell in his body is screaming at him to kiss her again, right now.
Her arms fall from to her sides and he realizes he's been completely silent following her words.
"Felicity…" he starts, but he doesn't know what to say other than to repeat what she already knows, what they both already know: he won't put her at risk by being with her.
He can tell she has read his mind when she makes a frustrated noise.
"Oliver, do you realize how stupid it is that you keep us apart because you don't want to put me in danger? I'm already in danger, I'm part of Team Arrow! A lot of people know that – Captain Lance, Slade Wilson, Ra's, the list goes on! I was kidnapped by Count Vertigo because I'm on your team! It's not like being with you will put me in extra danger!"
"Except that it does!" He nearly yells, and he sees her flinch. "You were kidnapped by Slade because he thought I loved you."
"You're the one that made him think that!"
"That's beside the point. He also kidnapped Laurel because he thought she meant something to me, and he went after anyone else he could, like my sister and my mother. If anyone ever found out who the Arrow is, they would use you to get to me and there would be nothing I could do about it!"
He could see his words weren't getting through to her – she looked like she wanted to either beat her head against the nearest wall or bash his head in with the nearest heavy object.
"I can't…I can barely function when I think about you being in danger, Felicity. I can barely function when I think about you at all. That restaurant got blown up on our first date because I was so eager to get to you that I wasn't paying attention and I let a GPS tracker get latched onto me. I think about you and worry about you being part of this team all the time. If we were together and something happened to you…there would be no coming back from that for me."
She stepped towards him slowly, her face softening. "How is that any different from right now?"
"It's not," he replied helplessly. "But if something happened to you because you were part of the team…it's different than if it happened to you because I love you."
Emotion flicked across her eyes at those three little words and she bit her lip. "Oliver…there's no difference. If anything happened to me because I was on the team, or if anything happened to me because we love each other," she enunciated the four words so that he didn't miss them, "then it would both be as a result of my choices. My choices. I chose to continue helping you after we found Walter and I would choose you now if you would just let me."
She stepped closer to him, her hand reaching for his, a silent plea in her eyes.
He stepped back, and the instant reaction it sent across her face cut through him like one of his own arrows. Her face closed off, her lips pressed into a line, her eyes blank again. Even with all that, he knew he had hurt her worse than ever before.
"Felicity…"
He felt helpless as he watched her walk over to the computers and grab her purse and the coat on top of it. She made her way towards the stairs up into the club, never once looking back at him.
Anger at himself spilling over, he grabbed the nearest object – a glass beaker – and threw it as hard as he could against the wall, shattering it into a hundred pieces and swearing loudly in the process.
The anger ebbed as quickly as it had come and he moved over to begin to pick up the pieces before Digg, Roy, or Laurel showed up and saw it.
"Fuck!" He cursed as a larger sliver of glass sliced through his palm, right where he held the bow.
A smaller hand closed over his, pressing a towel into the cut. He didn't have to look up to know it was Felicity – she probably hadn't even made it into Verdant before he had thrown the beaker and had come back to take care of him like she always did.
"Keep pressure on it," she murmured, moving away from him to where their various hospital supplies were kept. He stood and followed her, pressing the towel into the palm of his hand and wincing at the slight sting it caused.
She returned and removed the towel from his hand, tossing it onto the table beside them and wiping the cut with antiseptic. She taped a small piece of gauze over it and set about cleaning the excess blood off.
Of its own accord, his other hand came up to cup her cheek. "You don't have to do this, Felicity."
She exhaled, her breath ghosting over his palm and wrist. "Of course I do. I'll always be the one who bandages up your cuts and your gunshot wounds and anything else that comes along." She finished cleaning the blood and curled her fingers over his, forcing his hand into a fist and bringing her gaze to his face with a sadness-tinged smile that made his chest ache. "I'll always be your girl, remember?"
He couldn't stop himself from pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. "Yeah," he muttered against her skin, "you'll always be my girl."
"And maybe," she replied, not moving away from him, "there will be a day when others can take up your mission or share it with you, and the Arrow won't be needed in Starling City as much. Then maybe being your girl will mean something different."
He pressed his forehead against hers, gazing into her eyes. "I can't ask you to wait for that day. You deserve more than that."
Her own gaze was steady. "I know I do, and I'm not promising to wait for that day or for you. But if this thing with Ray has shown me anything, it's that I can't force falling in love with someone when I'm in love with you. And considering how much time we spend together, I don't see any way for us to get enough distance to get over each other. So I'm just going to take each day, each mission, as it comes, and see what happens then."
He fought the urge to lean forward a few more inches and press his lips to hers; if he did that, he was done for. He would never be able to let her go again, and he was pretty sure she wouldn't let him even if he tried. Instead he returned his lips to her forehead and pressed another kiss there.
"Okay then."
"Okay."
They stayed like that, his lips pressed against her forehead, her hand wrapped around his injured ones, barely a centimeter between them, until they heard the other members of the team approaching.
So how did I do? Please review and let me know!