Author's Note: So I decided that I wanted to have a central place to put all of my Olicity one-shots. That's what this is. All of these chapters are stand alone stories and are not connected unless otherwise stated. I don't want to say that these will be drabbles, because not all of them will be (this first chapter is nearly 4500 words), but that's sort of the idea for these.
Chapter One: Possession.
Spoilers: None. Not set in a specific time period.
Summary: Felicity volunteers for a mission that requires entrance into a "discerning gentleman's club".
Possession
There is a dichotomy in Oliver that Felicity occasionally has a hard time understanding. She has seen her partner put arrows in a man with enough force to send him careening out of an office window; she has seen him both take and deliver hits that make a sound like thunder when they land; she has seen him sew up tears in his flesh with no anesthesia and little to no sound. Despite all of those things, there is a gentleness in Oliver Queen that, by rights, should not exist. He is a large man with a fearsome glare, and she knows that he couldn't hurt her if his life depended on it.
Felicity thinks it might be a control thing. Certainly a man who has experienced such violence, who has been the cause of such violence in the past, has to make a conscious effort to be so gentle. Oliver could probably crush both of her hands in one of his own if he wasn't paying attention to the pressure he exerted.
Felicity has never been afraid of him. She trusts him not to hurt her, even if can, but she contemplates whether or not he has the same faith in himself. Oliver touches her, but they are always the lightest touches: his fingers skimming over her arm; one hand placed carefully on her shoulder. Sometimes, when she's alone, or overly tired, or even just watching him do circuits on the salmon ladder, Felicity tries to imagine what it takes to get past that gentleness. What it would take her to get past that gentleness, to get him to respond to her as if she were stronger than the thinnest glass. Fear? Is there some situation that could scare Oliver into betraying that gentleness long enough to crush her against his chest? Has he ever been so frightened for someone's life that he just wrapped him or her in those thick arms and hugged them until they couldn't breathe? If there is, Felicity has never met that person, or been in that situation. She and Oliver have been in some desperately grim situations together over the years, and she has never seen such a thing happen.
Maybe Laurel has, or Thea; maybe even Tommy had. No, if anyone has, it's probably Sara, because Oliver knows she's strong enough to handle whatever is there when his gentleness is gone. Sara is like Oliver, iron and muscle and fire; Felicity is gossamer thread and glass.
At least, that's what Oliver must think, because that's how he treats her. Felicity hates that sometimes. She hates that there is more substance to the air she breathes than the way he touches her. The only explanation she can come up with is that Oliver must reserve the real touches for others, the people who fit neatly into one clearly defined box or another. "Family", "lover", "old friend"; maybe these are the only people he lets close enough to know what's under the extreme gentility he shows her.
One night, they argue about whether or not she should be part of a mission. Their target frequents a high-end nightclub that has a reputation as a "discerning gentleman's club". They all know what that means, but none more so than Oliver, because he is from that world of "discerning gentleman". Rich people who use their money to buy silence and discretion, he'd told them. The last time Felicity checked she was the only woman in their operation, so she does the logical thing and volunteers to give them an in; Oliver is refusing before she's finished speaking.
"I can get in," Felicity insists. "I can scope the place out, find the guy and get him somewhere private so you can come in and do your grr thing on him."
"No."
"What other choice is there, Oliver? You can't just go crashing through a nightclub looking for the guy, and neither can Digg or Roy."
"We can wait and catch him somewhere else."
"We've tried that!" she huffs in irritation. "You may have noticed that it hasn't worked, and we're running out of time."
Digg and Roy look uncomfortable with the idea, but she can tell that they know she's right. Nothing else has worked, and Felicity is the only one who can get away with wearing a cocktail dress and not frightening a room full of people.
In the end, Oliver's agreement comes in the form of a lack of argument. He can't bring himself to say yes, but he can't say no, so he doesn't say anything.
They go in the next evening. Felicity can't manage more than one communication frequency through the small ear bud she slips into one ear, so Oliver takes the other one without question. Roy and Digg are given land mobile radios that she's retrofitted with transmission scramblers. Felicity can talk to Oliver, and he can relay the information to the other two.
She knows that the boys are positioned near the three fire exits – one on either side and one in the back – but they can't see into the building. It's up to her to let them know what's happening, and Oliver had told her repeatedly before they'd left that if she so much as breathes in a way that he doesn't like, he's coming in after her. His seriousness reassures her, but it also tells her just what sort of place she's going into, and that scares her.
Like the time she went willingly into an underground casino, Oliver hovers near the entrance and whispers the password to her as she approaches the door. Felicity wants to ask what the hell kind of nightclub requires a password to enter, but is afraid of the answer.
The password tells her what sort of place it is anyway. "Possession," she says when the twin bouncers look at her.
As Felicity passes beneath the pale lights that illuminate the front door, Oliver gets a brief glimpse of her: hair down and curled to hide the ear piece that lets them communicate, in a dress that's short enough to be dangerous; it's green.
His hand clenches around his bow and he slips back through the shadows to his designated perch.
The club is loud but not garish. Felicity stands just inside the door long enough to let her eyes adjust to the different shades of darkness. Everything about the place screams secrets and subterfuge, and she hates it. The people who come here are not looking for fun, but control and release – the only things they care about are the ones that money can buy.
The password makes sense now.
Felicity sees their target in the opposite corner from where she stands. This is not the place for directness, so she steps up to the bar and orders a drink. She tells the bartender she doesn't care what it's called, as long as it's the strongest drink they offer. The way he looks at her makes her think that this is a game, and she's just scored her first point.
She follows a meandering path through the room while watching their target out of the corners of her eyes. Felicity tries to keep up a quiet stream of chatter as she goes, giving Oliver the best description of the layout as she can. She can feel eyes on her but doesn't acknowledge them; that's the same as signing a contract in this club.
Felicity isn't certain how she's going to approach The Man, but she lucks out and he approaches her.
"Hello," he says smoothly. "Can I get you another drink?"
She knows it's a code, because the drink in her hand is less than half empty. "As long as it's the strongest one they make," she answers.
The Man grins at her. "Interesting choice. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer something sweet?"
Felicity understands that this man is one of those looking for control. There's a challenge in his question, an inherent danger lurking in the corners with the words he hasn't said.
"I'd prefer whatever you choose for me." The words are like sawdust in her throat, but they do the trick.
The target assures her he'll be quick and saunters off to the bar. She tries to distract herself from her racing heartbeat and hatred for that man and this place by pressing her back against the wall and tipping her eyes up to the ceiling. She breathes out a chuckle.
"You won't believe this," she tells Oliver as quietly as she can. "There's a skylight. It must be new, because it wasn't on the blueprints."
She can hear Oliver relaying that information to their partners, and then confirming that he's going to resituate himself.
Felicity has believed since she was a child that much of a person's life boils down to luck; all that right place, right time hoopla. Luck is what she calls it when she glances over at the bar just in time to see their target's hand pass over the rim of the martini glass that's obviously meant for her. It's hard to tell in the dim lighting, but she thinks the liquid looks a little too fizzy.
She opens her mouth to tell Oliver that she's ninety percent sure she's about to be roofied, but their target reappears before she can. In all the scenarios they'd anticipated, date rape drugs had not been one of them.
This man is not after control or release – he is after power, and he gets it by stripping other people of theirs. Felicity is suddenly terrified.
He watches her as she brings the glass to her lips. She lets the liquid pass her lips, but doesn't take any of it in, so that it looks like she's drinking but the amount of liquid in the glass doesn't change.
"That color looks a little harsh on you," The Man says.
Felicity has to glance down at herself to see what he's talking about. She'd chosen the dress for the style instead of the color, so she's a little surprised to realize that it's forest green.
"What color should I be wearing?"
"Mm, something softer, I think."
She doesn't know what prompts her to respond the way she does. "Maybe I've had enough soft."
"Be careful," Oliver warns in her ear.
Her tongue is tingling. How much of a date rape drug does it take to render someone unconscious? She's never been roofied before.
The Man moves into her space and Felicity regrets her decision to stand against the wall.
"Have another drink," he says. "Relax. Tell me about yourself. What's your name?"
She knows that names don't matter in this place. She's not sure why he's bothered to ask at all. Felicity had planned to use her middle name, but the idea of sharing any part of herself with this man disgusts her. She pulls a different one out of thin air. "Olivia."
"Tell me about your favorite possession, Olivia."
Felicity knows that he's fishing for something. The right answer, maybe, but she doesn't know what that is. She's an intelligent person, but she is not good at these sorts of games. Everything about this club and this man angers her. She hates that she's here, and that there are people like this in the world, which is why she's here in the first place.
Oliver might think she's made of glass, but this man thinks that she is a glass: a decorative and finely wrought thing that can be bought and displayed on a shelf, another in an expensive collection. She's angry at him for thinking that people can be owned – that she can be owned – and frightened because she is way out of her league on this one. Her brain is so busy trying to decide on the best course of action, and decipher his meaning, and complete the mission that she forgets about the drug in her drink. She tosses back a gulp and remembers too late to do anything but swallow it.
"Me," she finally responds, and her voice is low to hide her fear. "I am my favorite possession." Felicity means that she owns herself; that her mind and her body and her soul are the greatest things she will ever own. The statement is meant to be misleading, because she means it one way, and The Man will take it another.
That's the right answer for The Man, and the wrong answer for her. His hand finds its way to her thigh, just below the hem of her dress, and now her entire mouth is tingling. Her head feels a little too light.
"Felicity." Oliver's voice is too tight, too close and too far away to be helpful.
"I think I'm in trouble," Felicity whispers.
"Why would you be in trouble?" The Man's voice is oily and viscous in the darkness.
She sees what's going to happen like it's a movie preview playing before her eyes: she has overplayed her hand, and The Man is going to lead her down some dark hallway where they can be alone. All of which would be exactly as she's planned, if it weren't for the fact that her head has started to feel like it's floating.
Glass is shattering. Felicity casts blurry eyes down at her glass, but it's still in one piece in her hand. She blinks once, hard, and then squints her eyes: no one is in front of her and there are oddly shaped blobs doing somersaults through the patches of light that highlight the room.
Felicity drops the martini glass and tips her head back until it connects with the wall. She tries to pick a thought out of the jumble of them in her brain and focus on it, but it wriggles out of her grasp like a caterpillar. She has to focus. Can a person fight the effects of a roofie, she wonders, or is it already too late?
Cool leather glides over her throat and under her jaw. She jerks automatically, eyes flying open, and even in her less than alert state she recognizes Oliver beneath his hood.
"Are you okay?"
"He totally roofied me." Why is she whispering? "I only had one drink, but I feel … not right."
Oliver uses the hand cradling her jaw to tip her head up a little and stares into her eyes. Felicity doesn't mind because, really, how are his so blue?
"Your pupils are a little dilated," Oliver tells her, "But I think it'll wear off in a few minutes."
"If I were to say something along the lines of this being not my best idea, how quickly would you say I told you so?"
Even in the semi-darkness she can see the little quirk of his lips that is a smile. Mild dose or not, the drug has made her bolder (a little too bold, really) and without thinking she reaches up to brush a thumb over his lips. She's too busy memorizing the smile to notice his expression.
"I like it when you smile." Her thumb drags over his bottom lip as she pulls it away.
Oliver doesn't intend to step forward, but he does. Another half step and Felicity will be pinned between him and the wall; he shouldn't find that idea as enticing as he does. The column of her throat is pale and nearly covered on one side by the breadth of his hand. He wants to ask her if she knows that she'd practically branded herself tonight, wearing a dress that was a near perfect match to his hood and giving herself the feminine version of his name. Did she do those things purposely?
In response, though he's not sure if it's a response to her words or his thoughts, he spreads his thumb over her jaw until it comes to rest in the corner of her mouth. Her breath heats the leather of his glove. Oliver has wanted to kiss this woman for so long that he's half convinced he was born with the desire.
Digg's voice comes over the radio. "The police are outside."
Oliver makes himself step back then. He takes his hand away from Felicity and shoots a zip line through the broken glass in the skylight he'd dropped through, then looks back to her without a word.
Oliver's face is shadowed behind his hood. He stands quietly, unmoving, and Felicity knows that he is waiting for her. Focusing feels a little easier now, so she glances around her in search of their target. The Man is immobile on the floor in front of the bar.
That's enough for her. They got the slime bag, and Oliver wouldn't leave if he hadn't gotten the information they needed from him. She pushes herself off the wall and takes the two steps to Oliver. The arm of his that isn't holding his bow slides around her waist, his hand locking into place above her hip. Her arms aren't long enough to reach all the way around his torso, but she presses herself into him and holds on tightly.
The lingering lightheadedness of the date rape drug intensifies as the floor drops away from her feet. The air whooshes out of Felicity's lungs and she tucks her nose into the planes of Oliver's chest to fend off the nasty rolling that's started in her stomach.
They land on a neighboring roof. Felicity feels like she did that time she and Digg had jumped out of a plane, and the last thing she wants to do right now is lose her dinner.
Oliver shifts beneath her. Instead of moving away, she squeezes her arms tighter and takes in a big breath. "Don't move yet," she commands.
Her stomach gives a particularly violent flip and Felicity grabs fistfuls of the leather at Oliver's back. She tries to focus her thoughts on the unmoving ground beneath her feet and parts her lips to suck in a calming breath. Don't you dare vomit, she tells herself.
Oliver bends the arm at her waist so that his forearm runs the length of her spine. His hand reaches easily to the base of her neck. He starts rubbing small circles against her skin, and then those turn into the firm press of his fingers against the muscles there. She is still clinging to his back and his arm is trapping her against him; neither of them makes any effort to move for several long moments.
Digg's voice over the radio breaks the silence. "Do you have her?"
They finally separate themselves from each other. Oliver reassures their partners that she's fine as Felicity rids herself of the ear bud. He takes it from her, removes his, and pockets both of them.
"Apparently we need a code word for 'I've just been roofied'," Felicity tries to joke. She lets out a shaky sigh and runs a hand over her brow. Luck is on her side tonight, but what if it hadn't been? What if she hadn't seen him slip that thing in her drink? She could be unconscious in a corner somewhere right now.
"We don't," Oliver counters, "Because this is never happening again."
She starts to argue, even if she doesn't exactly disagree with him, because that's what she does. "Oliver."
He glares fiercely at her. "Never."
Digg and Roy look almost as unhappy as Oliver does when they get back to the lair. Digg's face looks like a thundercloud when Felicity explains seeing The Man slip something into her drink; Roy doesn't know if he should apologize to her, or say something reassuring. Oliver just prowls around them like an angry, feral cat.
Felicity isn't paying attention when Oliver gives their teammates a look that wordlessly asks for privacy. She's too busy sinking into her computer chair and crossing her legs so that she can lean forward and slip off her heels.
Oliver appears in front of her with a bottle of water. She thanks him quietly and takes a long sip of the cool liquid. Her head and stomach have settled down, and the water tastes delicious.
"Did he hurt you?"
Felicity shakes her head. "Mostly he just pissed me off. And gave me the willies."
"You played a dangerous game in there, Felicity."
She drops her shoulders as she glares up at him and purses her lips. "Oliver."
"We should have found another way."
"There wasn't one. Look," Felicity says, standing and vaguely waving a hand at herself. "I'm fine. Barely a hair out of place."
"We were lucky. That man wanted …"
"I know what he wanted! I was there, Oliver, I know exactly what he wanted. But he didn't get it. He didn't get anything, he didn't even get my name."
"No, he got mine."
The words and the tone of Oliver's voice draw Felicity up short. "What?"
"You gave him my name. Or maybe I should say you gave yourself my name."
That hadn't been intentional. She'd reached into her mind for a name that wasn't her own, and Olivia had been the first one she found.
"I … don't know why I did that." She sighs. There's a headache building behind her eyes, and the exhaustion is starting to set in. She wants out of this dress and into pajamas. Then maybe she'll sleep for a week.
Oliver steps into her personal space. "I'm sorry," he apologizes quietly. His eyes are fierce, and electric. "Now is not the time for this. Let me get Digg to walk you to your car, or you can wait for me to change."
"I can make it to my car on my own, Oliver."
He nods. "I know, but I'd feel better if one of us went with you."
"Fine. Go change."
Oliver disappears quickly, and when he returns he's holding a zip-up sweater. "You were shivering."
"I think that's from the nerves," she explains as she slips into the hoodie. "It's not every day a girl gets roofied and remembers it."
Oliver's shoulders sag. Felicity knows it was the wrong thing to say, but she's still a little on edge. She puts a hand on his bicep and takes a step forward.
"Sorry, that wasn't funny. I just … you're right, I was lucky. And it wigs me out to think of what could have happened instead."
Felicity closes her eyes a second too long. She feels both of Oliver's large hands slide over the edge of her jaw and back into her hair, until he's cradling her head with his thumbs in front of her ears. When she opens her eyes to look at him again, he's dangerously close. There is little space between them, and yet Felicity doesn't feel crowded; she feels safe, as if her whole body is being cradled instead of just her face.
"I don't ever want you to be in that position again," Oliver half-whispers. His breath coasts over her lips and chin. "Please, Felicity."
He doesn't plead with her often. In fact, she's not sure if he's ever done it before this moment. His thumbs are brushing lightly over the skin in front of her ears, and his lips are so close, and they've been dancing around this for so long.
Just do it, a little voice whispers in her mind. Think like Nike, and just do it.
Felicity takes a slow step forward, until their chests are nearly brushing. Oliver's hands are still gentle against her face, but she feels the subtle way his fingers tighten in her hair. She can't reach his face, because he's ridiculously tall and she's not wearing heels anymore, so Felicity settles for running her hand up the length of his forearm and then wrapping her fingers around his wrist. She can feel his heartbeat through the pulse point there.
Felicity stares into Oliver's eyes, dark blue and magnetic, for the space of a breath. Then, rising onto the tips of her toes, she kisses him. The movement is exploratory, cautious - just the soft brush of her lips over his. A sensation like she's swallowed a lightning bolt sweeps out from her lips and down into her stomach. She does it again.
"Felicity." His lips shape her name against her lips.
She knows that she should panic. She knows that he let her kiss him, and that he hasn't kissed her back. His hands are still cradling her face and she can feel the press of his fingertips where they've curled into her hair, but he hasn't kissed her back.
The panic never comes. Felicity raises her eyes to his and reads what's written there as if she wrote the words herself.
"I feel fine, Oliver."
"You were just …"
"If you don't kiss me right now, Oliver, I will change the passcode on that door over there and …"
Oliver pulls her into him, or she presses herself against him; either way, Felicity is suddenly being kissed like … well, she's not sure, because she's never been kissed like this before. There's passion, and intensity, and something else she chooses not to name yet.
Beneath all of it – the desire and the earnestness – there is Oliver's trademark gentleness. Felicity smiles, her lips pulling up beneath his, because she finally understands. When Oliver pulls away from her moments later he looks slightly confused, but there's a hint of a smile on his lips as well.
The way he's looking at her gives her butterflies.
Felicity sweeps her eyes over his face. Oliver is not gentle with her because he thinks that she can't handle anything else; he's gentle with her because that's just who he is, and who they are together. In fact, it's really not gentleness at all – she's been wrong all this time in thinking that it is.
It's tenderness.