Things are as good now as they ever will be, Oliver. And you love her. You even told her so.

Now the only person you're fooling is yourself.

Diggle's words echoed in Oliver's head as he waited for the side-door to the foundry to close. A retort of what he knew to be half-hearted denial had been on Oliver's lips, but he couldn't even bring himself to say it. Not when he knew Dig was right.

Slowly, Oliver removed his quiver, placing it on a nearby table. In doing so, he caught sight of the fern that Felicity had bought him, and he automatically smiled. She had done so much to make the foundry their home that Oliver couldn't even be annoyed when she frequently nicknamed it the Arrow Cave.

As he started taking off his hood, his mind wandered to what Diggle said. Oliver couldn't help but think that he had only been half-right. Sure, when Oliver had told Felicity he loved her, it had been part of the plan to defeat Slade. But that didn't mean he was fooling himself into thinking it wasn't true.

Because he did love her. That, he had accepted a while ago. And lately, especially after Clinton Hogue kidnapped her, Felicity had occupied Oliver's thoughts, even his dreams, far more than he would want to admit.

He stared absently at the mannequin where he had hung up his hood. As he sat down on the bed Felicity had bought him, that cold, dark night when Oliver had taken Felicity to Queen Mansion on his motorbike began to replay in his head…

"I need you to be safe," Oliver said, and he hoped, he prayed that Felicity could hear the urgency in his voice. He'd always thought that they had understood each other without needing words. Now, more than ever, with the city at the mercy of Slade Wilson and his army, Oliver was depending on that.

Felicity took a step closer to him, though, and Oliver inwardly groaned. The closer she got, the more his resolve weakened. After all, he was putting the woman standing stubbornly before him in the crosshairs of possibly the most dangerous man Oliver had ever met. And that was in a long, varied career of dangerous men, too.

"Well, I don't want to be safe," Felicity insisted. "I want to be with you."

He couldn't stop a small sigh from leaving his lips at that. I want to be with you too, he wanted to say.

But he didn't. Instead, he said, "I can't let that happen."

She reached out to touch his arm, even closer, now, so close that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek. He could just about see, in the darkness, the fullness of her lips, pink and shiny as they mouthed his name. "Oliver, you're not making any sense."

Oliver took a breath, closing his eyes briefly, because she hadn't moved her hand from his arm. "Slade took Laurel because he wants to kill the woman I love," he said after a few moments.

Still, she did not seem to understand. "I know. So?"

"So he took the wrong woman." And that was easier to say. Much easier. And that was because all he was doing was voicing the myriad of emotions that had hit him, all at once, in the clock tower. It was there that she had told him she believed in him, and it was there that she had reached up with her small body and hugged him with all her might.

Of course, of course he had hugged her back. And as he gazed down at her, he could see disbelief on her face once realisation dawned as to what he meant.

"Oh," was all she said in reply.

"I love you," he breathed. And he didn't have to, not really (after all, he'd said the words he needed to say for the benefit of the camera he knew was looming above them somewhere), but he couldn't stop himself from leaning forward, until his lips were less than an inch from hers. At some point along the way, he had closed his eyes. He was so close to her that he could hear her eyes flutter shut. He waited – out of hesitation or confirmation, he didn't know – for what felt like forever, until at last he felt her tiptoe a little to meet his lips. Finally, he was kissing her, his mouth snatching at hers. There was a silent intensity to their kiss, from the way her hand on his arm tightened so she was squeezing his elbow, her nails digging into green leather, marking his suit, but Oliver didn't care.

His hands went to her hair, now, undoing her ponytail so he could run his fingers through it. When she opened her mouth to moan, he could not stop himself from gently sinking his teeth into her lower lip. She pulled him closer at that, grabbing the front of his hood and yanking him forward so that he could just about feel her breasts pressing against his chest, and the syringe in his pocket was forgotten, now, pushed to the back of his mind along with any thoughts about Slade Wilson, and all Oliver could smell, all he could feel, all he could taste was –

"Oliver?"

And just as suddenly, Oliver was jerked out of his slumber – just in time, too. He sat up on his bed, spotting Roy on the stairs of the foundry. To his relief, a quick deduction in distance told him that he most definitely (hopefully) didn't hear whatever sounds Oliver was sure he was making in his dream.

"Hey," Oliver finally managed to say, just as Roy descended the last stair, mask in one hand, bow in the other. Immediately, Oliver noticed that his partner's fatigue was starting to show. It helped – the concern he started to feel for Roy succeeded in pushing the lingering vestiges of the dream from which he had just surfaced to the back of his mind. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Roy said, and he placed his mask on a table. "Word on the street is that a couple more of Steelgrave's crew are getting a drug shipment tonight."

"Not if we have anything to say about it," Oliver said grimly. He was relieved when the corners of Roy's mouth upturned into a slight smile. "By the way," he added, "I miss her too."

For a second, Roy looked thrown at the sudden change of subject. And then, to Oliver's surprise, he let out a chuckle. "Was it that obvious?"

"You aren't exactly subtle, Roy," Oliver told him, but that just made Roy roll his eyes.

"Neither are you," Roy said pointedly. Even as he spoke, though, and Oliver shot him what he wanted to be a look of admonishment, Oliver was glad that Roy looked a bit more cheerful now he had successfully changed the subject. "Honestly, sometimes I think you and Felicity forget there are other people in the room."

"Roy –"

"I'm just saying," Roy reasoned, "it's not like she's going to say no if you did ask her –"

"Go home," Oliver said flatly, "and get some sleep. And next time I want advice about my love life, I will let… actually, never mind."

Roy just snickered, though. He headed in the direction of the monitors to take off his gear, leaving Oliver to lie back on his bed, staring at the ceiling but smiling nevertheless. They'd come a long way, him and Roy, and not just in terms of archery.

And Oliver knew deep down, despite his own stern words to him, that Roy was right about Felicity. The worst that could happen, after all, was that she could say no.

Oh, this was so much harder than he thought.

He'd thought it through – at least, that was what he told himself. And he had started off well, or so he thought. When she had patted his chest and told him to speak from the heart, she must not have noticed the sudden thump-thump of his quickening heartbeat.

Nevertheless, he had managed to get the words out without too much trouble. But then he noticed the suddenly unreadable expression on her face as she took a couple of steps towards him, her eyebrows raised. "I don't want to read too much into this, but are you asking me out on a date? Like an actual date? Like a date -date?"

"Sure – I mean, the implication being, with dinner, that you –"

"Usually I'm the one talking in sentence fragments," Felicity interrupted. She blinked rapidly in the way she always did when she was nervous. For some reason, that calmed Oliver. It made him smile and huff out half a chuckle and he felt his racing pulse slow down a bit.

And it was easier to speak now, knowing she was probably as nervous as him. "Would you like to go to dinner with me?" he asked again. He held his breath.

"Yes," she said almost instantly, barely letting him finish his sentence. The smile she bestowed on him was wide – tinged with surprise, sure, but still, her eyes sparkled with promise behind her glasses.

"Really?" he blurted before he could stop himself. She just laughed, though.

"What, did you expect me to say no?" Felicity teased.

"Honestly? I had no idea." It felt better for Oliver, admitting that aloud.

"Well, I mean, it's just dinner." He watched as she tilted her head to one side, looking up at him. Her earrings moved, too, glinting in the sunlight. "It's not like we haven't done that before."

"Yeah," he said. "We'll just be sitting at an actual table in an actual restaurant instead of, you know, being at your place where you're trying to drill the meaning of 'fiduciary duty' into my head over Big Belly Burger."

She smiled. "So it is a date."

Oliver could feel his ears grow hot when she said that, but he smiled back anyway. Part of him still couldn't believe that they were actually having this conversation – and not just because Felicity hadn't run a mile when he'd asked her.

"I guess it is. Sorry," Oliver added softly. "I just… haven't done this in a while."

"That makes two of us," Felicity said, and his surprise must have shown on his face. "What? I've been a bit busy ever since this billionaire playboy came to me with a bullet-ridden laptop a couple of years ago."

And this time, Oliver was the one to laugh. "Are you free tonight?" he asked after a moment.

He tried not to notice the way she raised her eyebrows, and he wondered briefly if maybe this was all going too fast after all. But he was thankful when the moment passed and her smile was back. "Well, I have work," Felicity said, "but, after that… yeah, I can do tonight."

"What's happening tonight?" Diggle asked, and Oliver jumped, turning around, his hand going instinctively upwards to his non-existent quiver in the way he always did at a sudden movement.

"Nothing," he and Felicity answered at the same time. Diggle narrowed his eyes, but Oliver could see the corners of his mouth were twitching.

"Sure," Dig said. "I mean, I don't believe either of you, but... okay."

And as the three of them – Oliver, Felicity and Diggle – made their way into the foundry and joined Roy, Oliver knew from the way he stole a glance at Felicity that there was something... different about them already. When Felicity unveiled her new and improved facial recognition software to them, he let his hand linger on her shoulder probably for longer than he normally would. But she just smiled up at him from her chair, holding his gaze, and he found himself getting lost in her eyes.

Still, in the corner of his eye, he could see Roy holding out his hand to Diggle, a look of faint triumph on his features. A moment later, Diggle was not-so-covertly handing him a small wad of cash.