Title: A Man Like You (Keeps the Doubts At Bay)

Author: OpheliacAngel

Characters & Pairings: Slade/Felicity, Oliver

Genres: Romance/Friendship

Rating: Teen

Summary: Slade laughs at the state of her costume, which not even she can recognize anymore, but his smile is genuine, his own costume in good shape and his pumpkin basket laden with candy. It might not be the best date ever, but Felicity can't help but think that it is the best Halloween.

A/N: Written for Spoopy Halloween Fanfic Exchange for Meilan_Firaga. Here's some fluffy Felicity/Slade and Happy Halloween!

A lot has changed since last Halloween.

Last Halloween she was just starting to really get to know Oliver, beyond his reputation of course. She was starting to grow into her skin more too, become confident about herself and her abilities. This was also before she was introduced to Slade Wilson.

Slade had come to Starling City for a reason: make Oliver pay for the wrongs he had committed on the island they had both been stranded on. Felicity knew some serious shit had gone down on that island, whatever the hell its name is, and that she would never be able to understand just what had changed Oliver in such a way. Somehow, Oliver had managed to get through to Slade and convince him that he had a home in Starling City if he wanted one, alongside Oliver. Felicity wasn't there when Oliver broke through, and she still doesn't understand what convinced Slade to stop his murdering rampage and agree to whatever terms Oliver had set.

All she knows is that Oliver had given her a look after the fact, a look she hadn't been able to interpret.

A day later and Slade was knocking on the door of Felicity's apartment, a bottle of champagne cradled in his hands, asking if he could come in. Felicity had stood there in the doorway, swallowing convulsively because she didn't know what to say and she couldn't trust herself to say anything at all, really, because there was Slade Wilson with his glaring eye-patch and this huge, devious smile and it felt more like Slade Wilson knocking on her door, asking Felicity if she could let him in so that he could then proceed to kill her.

But this was Slade, who was supposed to be a changed man as of… uh, eighteen hours and twenty-six minutes ago, when she got the call from Oliver to let her guard down. She trusted Oliver in a way she had never trusted anyone before. It was funny, in a way, because she trusted Slade too.

So she let Slade in, just like that.

And she has never regretted a single second of it since.

She and Slade have been dating for a little over two months now. Felicity has been preparing for Halloween, her favorite holiday, since she was… like, four, for a month now, which means that Slade has hardly been able to escape it. He hasn't run away yet though, so Felicity figures she's doing something right. During the course of the past month she's been through careful preparations to ensure that this Halloween will be the best: mapping out the best houses with the best candy, carefully designing her costume and setting up her apartment so it has just the right degree of spookiness. It's not like she wants to invoke any of Slade's numerous nightmares, so she makes the decorating cute rather than overly scary.

Don't even get Felicity started on how long it took and how many stores she had to drag Slade into to convince him to get a Halloween costume and go trick-or-treating with her. Slade wasn't vehemently opposed to either idea, but it still wasn't exactly his cup of tea either. She gets that, but it doesn't mean she can't change it. She hopes all the effort will have been worth it when she meets up with Slade later tonight, if she even gets to celebrate Halloween at all this year.

"Felicity," Oliver urges into her ear, reminding her of her job. "I need an alternate route."

"Yes yes," she replies. "Hang on." She puts her mind back on the task at hand instead of thinking about all the candy she's not going to get and all the awesome costumes she's not going to see. Still, she can't help but use one hand to adjust her wig, which has been itching like crazy. Oliver may have berated her once or twice, first for wearing a costume at work in the first place, even though she planned to meet up with Slade after work and therefore didn't want to waste time going back to her apartment and changing into it, and second for looking terrible in black hair.

So maybe Wonder Woman wasn't the best pick. Maybe playing a superhero for a night was a stupid choice, even though Oliver said it wasn't about that, that it was about the fact that Felicity was a superhero in real life. Yeah right. Felicity couldn't eradicate the idea for the costume once it had entered her head though, and even though she made the neckline a little too low, it turned out way better than she had expected.

She just hopes Slade likes it. If Slade's still there by the time she shows up.

"Felicity? Felicity, are you even listening to me?"

"Yes, Oliver." Finally, something clears. "I found a route! Turn right at the overpass and there will be a building directly to your left. Hopefully you'll be able to work with that."

"Thanks, Felicity," he breathes. The line goes dead for a few seconds after that, which Felicity expects anyway. It's somewhat difficult to keep up a conversation when you're running and trying to stay ahead of someone who you're supposed to be hunting. Felicity certainly knows this from personal experience. Still, she can't help but get a bit nervous whenever she can't hear anything on Oliver's end, and before she can break the silence she hears gunfire and then a loud pop in her ear. Forcing herself to leave in her ear-piece and not rip it out of her ear, her reaction is instantaneous.

"Oliver?" She pauses a beat, listening for sound at the other end. "Oliver!" She tries one last time, but hates to admit she doesn't expect a response. "Screw this." Felicity rips out the ear-piece, jumps out of her chair and grabs her jacket. She's at the door in under thirty seconds, deciding to go after Oliver herself.

By the time she finds him, her wig is already half off her head and itching her scalp terribly and her mood isn't any better, but she runs towards the prone figure lying on the ground. There's someone leaning over him, but rather than wait and assess the situation, she pulls the gun out of her jacket pocket and points it right at the assassin.

"Hey! Get away from him!" She probably looks bolder than she feels, but probably to this guy she doesn't look like even a minor threat. Sure enough, he starts walking toward her, the hood of his jacket and the shadows successfully obscuring his face. Felicity fires off a round and it hits him, but it doesn't put him down. "Shit." She fires a second time but is already instinctively stepping backward because this guy just isn't stopping. Realizing the situation's only about to get worse, Felicity turns to run but there are hands on her first, shoving her down onto the pavement, knocking the only way to save Oliver and herself out of her hands.

But then the hands are gone and Oliver is screaming something at her, probably telling her to run and Felicity does, but not away from him. She runs toward Oliver because she's the only help he has tonight and she is absolutely not going to abandon him now. She manages to distract the guy long enough so Oliver can get a better angle, but not before her costume is torn and her pride hurt even worse.

Oliver tells her she has nothing to be sorry for, that she did help, but Felicity feels more useless than anything else.

She trudges back to her apartment, all hopes for the night dashed after the fiasco she's endured. She'll text Slade to meet her at her apartment if he wants, but the only thing she's thinking about now is a nice cold shoulder and getting into her pajamas.

Slade's waiting outside her door when she manages to make it up the stairs, even though he has a key. He can be quite the gentleman when he wants to be, part of that must be that he seems to think he has a long way to go yet to worm his way into her heart. What he doesn't realize is that Felicity is already in love with him, in love with his commitment and dedication and the way he looks at her as if she is something worth being good for. As if she is worth something. Now that's she looking up into that face, into those eyes, Felicity doesn't care how tired she is anymore, all she wants to do is fall into Slade's arms and have him carry her the rest of the way into the apartment. He probably would too, but she's done making a fool of herself tonight.

Slade laughs at the state of her costume, which not even she can recognize anymore, but his smile is genuine, his own costume in good shape and his pumpkin basket laden with candy. It might not be the best date ever, but Felicity can't help but think that it is the best Halloween.

"What are you doing here?" After the fact, she realizes that she probably said the words a little too accusatory. She plants a smile on her face to make it seem like the opposite, but the smile grows when she realizes what Slade's wearing, specifically that he's actually wearing a costume. "Superman, really?" She unlocks her apartment and closes the door behind him after he follows her inside. "Here I was thinking you hated superheroes."

Slade smiles at her but doesn't answer her question. Instead, he holds out the pumpkin basket to her. "I figured you'd be tired after work, so I did some trick-or-treating. It took me a few hours to get it all the way full, but it was worth it. You are absolutely right, Halloween is a fun holiday."

Felicity groans as she slips off her jacket and throws it on the back of one of her kitchen chairs. "God, but I totally missed it. You must hate me." Here Slade was, waiting all night for her to show up, forced to go trick-or-treating by himself when she had to talk him into it in the first place.

"Felicity," he says, tone soft and accent thick. "You were helping, Oliver. That's your job and you are the best at it. He knows that and that's why he chose you tonight. We will have next year."

She shakes her head before he's even finished with the sentence. In her life, things always go wrong, especially now that's she's assisting an actual superhero and dating an ex-villain. "But what if we don't, what if Oliver has me work again or someone gets kidnapped or the world ends or…."

Slade puts a hand on her arm, successfully stopping her tirade. "We'll worry about that when we come to it. For now, there's a basketful of candy with your name on it." Felicity can't help but peek into the basket Slade's still holding, shooting him an impressive look when she sees that it's filled completely up to the top with chocolate and lollipops and laffy taffy and those spicy cinnamon thingies.

Felicity dips her hand into the basket and pulls out a box of Nerds. "Don't mind if I do." She plops down onto the couch and tears open the small box, tipping it forward into her mouth. When she looks up Slade is watching her with an amused expression. Felicity has yet to tell him that he looks damn good in that shade of blue. "What?"

He shakes his head, dodging her question again. He's pretty good at that actually, but Felicity doesn't mind so much. Slade Wilson may have a lot of tricks up his sleeve, but Felicity's come to learn that those tricks are really nice surprises if she just sits back and waits. Enjoying the view while she waits, of course. "Reese cup?"

"Oh my god," she reaches for it and rips it open, shoving it into her mouth and moaning obscenely at the mix of peanut butter and chocolate. "You are an absolute god. Have I ever told you that?"

He sits down beside her, tugging off his cape and throwing it over the back of the couch. He looks pretty good in red too, come to mention it. "Once or twice," he confesses. His thumb wipes away a trail of chocolate on her bottom lip and then he kisses her, strong arms pushing her gently back into the sofa, fiddling with her costume for a good few seconds before she realizes what he's doing.

"Hey, you that eager to get me out of this? Is it really that bad?"

He pulls back and makes a noncommittal sound. "It doesn't suit my Felicity. How about we burn it?"

Felicity reaches one hand up to tear her wig off and throw it across the room, grinning all the while. "You are a cruel cruel man, Slade Wilson. I, on the other hand, love your costume." Slade doesn't answer her for the third time, but this time for an absolutely good reason. His huge, calloused but surprisingly soft hand caresses the back of her neck, tugging the ponytail slowly out of her hair and then running his fingers through her hair, taking his time. Felicity makes an impatient noise because Slade is pressed really tightly into her and his lips are nearly brushing her neck and his hair is slicked back and he looks so handsome right there, right above her. He grabs a piece of candy out of the basket without ever taking his eye off of her, tears it open and pushes it into her open mouth, kissing her again before she can start chewing. Then there are the two most perfect things exploding on her tongue: chocolate and Slade.

Her thumb brushes over the eye-patch, which Slade has come not to mind, and then over his eyebrow, admiring the prize she's been granted. Slade looks down at her like he wants to eat her alive; that look used to be scary but now it's the biggest compliment Felicity's ever gotten.

"So," he rasps, thumb toying with her bottom lip. "Is this your best Halloween?"

She bites and then pulls the chocolate-coated thumb into her mouth as Slade finally finds the buttons and starts pulling her costume away. "Definitely."

FIN