A/N: Since there seems to be some confusion about the pairings in this fic, I thought I'd take a moment to clarify. Right now they stand as Oliver/Felicity, Tommy/Shado, with friendships between Tommy & Oliver, Tommy & Felicity, and Barry & Felicity. Other pairings may be hinted at, or come and go as the story evolves, but right now these are my main focuses.
A/N 2: This chapter took a bit longer than expected because it just kept getting longer and longer. Finally I had to split it into two separate chapters. Hopefully this means that the next part will be finished and updated sooner.
It's early in the morning when Felicity slips into the computer lab. All the other recruits are in the dining hall having breakfast, but Felicity's found that if she skips out early, she can get a few minutes in the computer lab alone to give Oliver a rundown of everything she's learned so far.
After opening the shell program, Felicity types in a message to Oliver: SHADO FEI CAME BACK YESTERDAY.
Oliver's reply takes a second before it comes through. HOW DO YOU KNOW?
SAW HER WHILE TRAINING WITH TOMMY. HE RAN OUT OF THE ROOM AFTER HER.
WAIT. WHY IS TOMMY TRAINING YOU?
She types back, KEEP GETTING PULLED OUT OF CLASSES TO WORK WITH BARRY. I WAS FALLING BEHIND. TOMMY'S HELPING ME KEEP UP. NOT THAT I ACTUALLY NEED IT, BUT I FIGURED GETTING CLOSER TO HIM COULDN'T HURT.
There's a long wait before Oliver replies. GOOD. SMART MOVE. IS TOMMY STILL TRAINING THE REGULAR RECRUITS? OR HAS SHADO TAKEN OVER FROM HIM.
THEY'RE WORKING ON IT TOGETHER NOW, Felicity writes.
ANYTHING ELSE TO REPORT? Oliver asks.
Felicity takes a deep breath, and types: I HAVE A TEST TODAY. INTERROGATING A DIVISION PRISONER.
It's kind of an unconventional test for someone who is probably just going to end up working with computers, but apparently Malcolm and Isabel have insisted on it. They want her completely cleared for field work.
Oliver's responds: BE CAREFUL. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU FIND OUT.
I WILL. 34-
"Yo! Blondie!"
Felicity is startled so badly she almost falls off of the chair she's sitting on. "What?" she asks, trying to regain her composure and simultaneously close the shell program so her fellow recruit doesn't see it. For just a second, she feels bad she won't be able to tell Oliver goodbye. She hopes he doesn't worry.
The kid's got both hands stuffed in the front pocket of his red hoodie. "Allen's looking for you," he says, gesturing for her to follow him with a nod of his head. "C'mon."
"Don't call me blondie," Felicity says as she follows him out of the room.
The kid shrugs. "Sorry. Never got your name."
"I'm Felicity."
"Roy," he says in reply. "I've seen you around. You work with flashdrive most of the time, right?"
"Flashdrive?"
Roy grins. "He's got that little one shaped like a blue police box. When he teaches us Hacking For Dummies, he's always fiddling with it. Apparently his hacker handle used to be 'The Flash' or something ridiculous like that."
"It still is," Felicity says. "And he is every bit as good as he says. Maybe even better."
"You like working with him then?" Roy asks.
"Yeah," she replies with a smile, because she does. Barry is the easiest person to be around. He's sweet and thoughtful and brilliant. He's nice to her even when she kicks his butt at Halo. Which she does. Often.
"To each their own, I guess." They stop at the door to Barry's workroom. Roy stuffs his hands back into the pockets of his hoodie. "I guess I'll be seeing you around, Blondie."
She gives him a look, and opens her mouth to object to the moniker, but is interrupted by the door in front of them flying open.
"Felicity!" Barry exclaims. "There you are. You get to learn how to set up a lie detector today."
It's something that Felicity actually doesn't know how to do - at least, she's not sure of the particulars of how Division's lie detectors work. For the first time, excitement fills her at the idea of getting to learn something new and useful.
She grins widely at Barry as he grabs her hand and starts to pull her down the hallway. His legs are so long and he moves so fast that she almost has to run to keep up with him.
"I don't like this," Tommy tells Shado.
"I don't like it either," she replies. "This is not Felicity's area of expertise and to put her through this is imbecilic, but it's happening with Malcolm's go-ahead, so for now we keep quiet and you get ready to pull her out if anything happens."
"You couldn't stop him?" Tommy says quietly, well aware that they're not alone.
"I just got back," she murmurs. "There was nothing I could do."
They're standing side-by-side in Operations, watching the video feed displayed on screens mounted on the wall.
"The man you're about to talk to is a suspected terrorist," an on-screen Isabel is telling Felicity. "We want you to find out what he knows about where the other members in his cell are hiding and what their plans are. You are to use any interrogation technique you think necessary, and if he needs further persuasion, you can use this." She hands Felicity a small remote. "Push this button and it'll give him an electric shock."
Tommy watches Felicity's eyes go wide. With fear or with horror, he's not sure which. Her hands are trembling as she takes it. Isabel gestures to the door that leads to the interrogation room. "Give it your best shot," Isabel says shortly.
"She's not trained for this," Tommy grumbles. "She's going to crash and burn, and Isabel is going to delight in it."
Shado touches his arm with the tips of her fingers. Her voice stays ever-soft, ever-gentle. "I don't know why Malcolm makes the decisions that he does, but I will make this right."
Isabel returns to Operations a moment later, and Shado pulls her hand away from his arm.
Forcing his focus to return to Felicity's image on the screens, Tommy tries to ignore the way his whole arm still feels like it's tingling from her touch. It's not difficult to tell that Felicity is nervous. Tommy watches the way she carries herself, how she holds her arms protectively around her body, the way the hand holding the remote is trembling slightly.
The good news is that her voice is unwavering as she repeats the questions Isabel feeds her. Joseph is not going to break because Felicity Smoak questions him firmly, but her inability to be intimidated by him is important.
Over the earpiece, Isabel coaches her on non-violent intimidation tactics. Felicity threatens, coerces, and offers him his freedoms if he'll just tell her where the rest of the members of his cell are hiding.
She holds off on using the electric shock until Isabel flat out orders her to, and there are tears in her eyes by the time she actually lets her thumb hover over the button. "Please don't make me," she whispers, and Tommy's three seconds away from insisting again that Isabel shut this whole thing down, when Shado grabs his arm again, tightly. Her nails dig into his skin, and he exhales slowly. Just a little longer. It'll be over soon.
Felicity presses the button, and Joseph screams.
"Tommy..." Barry says, uneasiness in his voice. He's handled tech for plenty of Division interrogations, but never one such a close friend has had to lead, and Tommy immediately understands his disquiet. He doesn't like watching Division turn Felicity's innate compassion against her.
And then Joseph's restraints snap. He's out of his chair and advancing on Felicity before she even has a chance to react.
Felicity screams as Joseph slams her body against the wall, his hands locked around her throat, and Tommy loses whatever slip of control he previously possessed. He's out of Operations, down the hall, and through the interrogation room door just in time to yank Joseph off of Felicity and throw him across the room.
The two security agents who were right on his heels go after Joseph. Tommy waits until they've secured him, then kneels down to check on Felicity, who has slid down the wall into a sitting position on the floor. Her hands are rubbing her throat. Tommy knows it's going to bruise.
"You okay?" he asks, even though he knows the answer is no.
She nods. Because Felicity Smoak is nothing if not surprisingly brave, and Tommy admires her for that.
There's a the squeak of a certain person's converse shoes against the tile of Division's floor, and Tommy backs away from Felicity as Barry races into the room.
"Are you okay?" he says, panting. She takes his hand and lets him help her up into an easy embrace.
Tommy watches them hug, more than a little envious of their easy connection. Barry and Felicity took to each other instantly. There's no question they're going to have each other's back as they navigate this hellhole. It's really good for Barry. Tommy knows he was pretty much alone before Felicity got here. Not that Tommy isn't friends with the guy, but there's only so much technological babble he can stomach before his brain self destructs.
But Felicity understands him and likes him, and he understands and likes her right back. And as much as Tommy wishes he could have that for himself - with a woman he can't ever have - Tommy's still grateful they have each other.
"C'mon," he hears Barry tell Felicity as the two of them leave the room together. "Let's go play some Xbox."
Shado finds him in the hallway a few minutes later. "That was foolish," she says, "Running in there like that. Isabel is going to tell Malcolm that you're emotionally compromised, and it will come back to haunt you."
"I'm fine with taking that chance," Tommy says, pushing past her to keep moving towards Operations.
He's only taken a few steps when he hears her quietly say, "I'm not."
"Are you sure you're up for this?" Tommy asks Felicity for the tenth time.
"I'm sure I don't want Isabel thinking I'm not up for this," Felicity answers. "Besides, it's been a whole day. Medical cleared me in less than fifteen minutes. I'm sure I'll be fine."
She's not actually sure she'll be fine. She's just not comfortable admitting that to Tommy. She wishes she had the opportunity to tell Oliver about this little field trip, but she didn't get her usual time in the computer lab this morning. Instead, Barry caught her as she was coming out of her room, and he sat her down in a workstation inside Operations to make sure she remembered how to run Division's mobile communications system.
The rest of the recruits are going on a capture the flag tactical training mission, but Felicity is being tested on her ability to help her fellow agents in the field when Barry's not there. From what both Tommy and Barry have told her, this requires her to keep a cool head while under pressure as she deals with situations that arise while in the field. She'll be running the comms for the recruits while simultaneously hacking into their target's network to access their internal security network, all while avoiding detection and using the system to keep her team safe.
It's exactly the kind of work she'll be doing once Division has cleared her for fieldwork. Hopefully, that won't be for a while, especially given just how many butterflies are in her stomach.
Tommy gently touches her shoulder, "Good luck, Smoak."
She's too nervous to do anything other than nod quickly and climb into the Division bus.
The only empty seat is next to a black-haired girl Shado keeps calling Cindy even though she's adamant that her name is 'Sin'. ("With an 'S'," she's been firmly insisting.)
Felicity slips into the seat beside her and give her a careful smile. Sin frowns in response.
"Hi," Felicity says.
"Blondie," Sin replies, crossing her arms and turning to face the blacked-out window.
"Don't worry about her," Roy says from the row behind them, leaning forward to rest his arms along the back of their seat. "She warms up to people eventually."
Felicity raises an eyebrow in disbelief.
"Well," he says, reconsidering, "maybe it's just that you get used to her."
Sin turns to glare at him. "Cut it out, Abercrombie."
As the bus starts to move, Roy strikes up an easy conversation with Felicity. He's apparently having a lot of trouble understanding the basic computer techniques Barry has been teaching them in the one recruit class Felicity isn't required to attend. She does, on occasion, go in order to assist Barry, but only when Tommy is otherwise occupied and unable to help her keep up with the physical aspects of her training.
Roy is wondering if maybe she'd be willing to help him grasp some basic computer skills in exchange for him giving her some pointers on the range. Apparently, Roy's an excellent marksman. He almost broke Oliver Queen's long distance shooting record last week.
For a while, Sin is quiet beside Felicity. Before long though, she starts contributing to the conversation - a sentence here and a sentence there. She mostly seems to want to scoff at Roy's perception of his abilities.
Roy turns out to have been right; it does take Sin a little while to warm up to people. She also is having difficulty with the computer classes they're required to take, and while she doesn't outright ask for help, Felicity notices that when she begins including Sin in her statements about when they can get together in the computer lab to work on it, the recruit starts smiling just a little.
"You and I should get together to work on some hand-to-hand," Sin tells Felicity.
Felicity really wishes that she didn't have to tone down her abilities in order to throw Division off guard, because she's really getting tired of falling onto the training mats. Regardless, she knows that Oliver would encourage her to work on her combat skills as much as possible. He'd also encourage her to become friends with Roy and Sin, but also warn her not to get too close. She may, for the sake of her mission, have to betray them later. The thought is an unpleasant one, but the more rational part of Felicity knows she needs to prepare herself to do it. Besides, what if betraying them ends up saving Oliver's life or ends up stopping Division? How can she not?
She is just about to tell Sin that hand-to-hand combat help would be great, when the bus abruptly screeches to a halt.
And everything suddenly feels very, very wrong.
"Hey," Felicity says, rising from her seat. "Why are we stopping?"
The words are barely out of her mouth before the front windshield shatters and a silver canister flies through the newly created opening. It clatters to the floor as smoke oozes out of it.
Ducking down, Felicity covers her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket and turns her face away. She can hear people boarding the bus, and as she peeks up at the intruders, she sees black tactical gear, gas masks, and AR-15s.
"Stay calm," Roy whispers. "Division will come for us."
That's not exactly reassuring. Felicity doesn't know who the hell is doing this or what they want with a bus full of Division recruits, but she does know that she doesn't trust Division to save her, and Oliver doesn't have any way of knowing she's in trouble.
Division could hang her out to dry; it could write all of them off as an unfortunate loss. All they can do is try to save themselves. It's a terrifying thought.
That's why the moment one of the attackers gets close enough to Felicity, she strikes him, slamming the heel of her hand up into his jaw. There's a crack, her hand is covered in blood, and then something hard - the butt of her assailant's AR - slams into the side of Felicity's head. Pain shoots through her skull as everything goes dark.
Oliver's halfway down the foundry steps when he sees Felicity sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her hands in her lap. The only signal she might be willing to talk with him is the fact that she hasn't drawn the curtains closed. Instead, they're thrown wide open, making her area part of the main space of the room.
Cautiously, Oliver approaches. They've been sharing the same living quarters for the better part of a year now, and it's become just as much her space as it has his. He knows the rules about touching her computers and not putting the toilet seat down, and he still follows the unspoken rule of never entering the place she sleeps, even if it is only separated from the place he sleeps by three purple shower curtains.
"Felicity?" he asks quietly, and the nod she gives him grants the permission he needs. Sitting down on the bed beside her, he resists the urge to take her hand.
They sit like that for a few minutes, side by side. Oliver doesn't know what to say, isn't sure how to narrow the chasm that has suddenly formed between them.
"So," Felicity says quietly, breaking the silence. "It's tomorrow then."
"If you want to back out," Oliver says, "You just say the word and we find another way."
Shaking her head, she says softly, "This is the best way."
"Hey," he says, unable to stop himself from placing a crooked finger under her chin and tilting her head up so he can look at her. "That does not make it the only one."
"We've planned for this. I know all the contingencies. We're not throwing away seven months of work just because I'm a little nervous."
"Say the word, Felicity," he insists, because like hell is she dying for this. Like hell is he forcing her in there. She's been determined to do it up until now so he's been determined to keep her safe while she does, but he thinks he's just as comfortable with getting Malcolm another way. No matter how much longer it takes.
For a long time, she's quiet beside him. Then she says, "You know I have to do this, Oliver."
"I know," he says, trying not to feel the weight on his shoulders getting heavier because for a second he believed she was actually going to back out. "I just don't want anything to happen to you."
It's as close to I care about you as he's willing to get.
This thing between them - their relationship - it can't be what he knows they both want. Love gets people killed. Love is weakness. What they're doing is already too dangerous without adding such a volatile emotion into the mix.
(He could love her though. It wouldn't even be difficult. And that knowledge scares the hell out of him.)
She's walking right into the danger, lying to keep the both of them safe, using Division's own tricks against it. But if they ever figure out that she is someone Oliver would die to protect, they could shove Oliver to his knees, bend him and break him all for her...
If they knew how he feels about her, if they ever get an inkling of the things he would do to keep her safe and unharmed?
Then they've lost. And they've both sacrificed too much to let that happen.
That knowledge doesn't stop Oliver from thinking about it though. Every time he's with her, he wants. He wants her so much closer than she is right now: the edge of her shoulder and the side of her leg just barely brushing his are not enough.
She's the one who grabs his hand in hers, pulling it closer so the back rests against the exposed skin of her thigh.
He turns his head to study her: memorizing her profile, the sadness in her eyes, the soft curve of her lips, the pink shade of lipstick she loves, the way she always smells sweet and feminine.
His eyes lower to her right shoulder. The tiny strap of her tank top has slid down her arm, so Oliver gently fixes it with his free hand. If he also bends down to press a kiss to the edge of her shoulder after he's done that, well, he just can't help it.
He hears her sharp intake of breath right before she whispers his name. "Oliver, what are you doing?"
Nothing. He wants to say. This is nothing.
It should be nothing. Except she's staring at him intently, pink lower lip pinched between her teeth. And Oliver wants everything he's not supposed to have.
And he knows, knows deep down inside, that she wants the same thing. They've been partners for months now. He's not oblivious, though he pretends to be, and whether that's for his sake or hers he's not even sure anymore.
Her grip on his hand tightens, and she sways closer to him, so close and so far. So simple and so complicated. Everything he wants and everything he shouldn't have.
"Felicity," he whispers, and he stops because he just can't.
"Tell me," she says, voice breaking, and - shit - that's his fault, isn't it? "You always start to say it, but then you stop yourself. Tell me just once. Just once, Oliver."
In a swift, quick movement, Oliver cups her face with his hands and pulls her close, pressing his forehead against hers. They're so close he can feel the waves of her breath on his mouth.
There are words. There are so many words bottled up inside him, words he's been trying to say since they met, since he first saw her and she stole his breath away.
There are too many words, and he can't find them, much less string them together into any kind of coherent sentence. But Felicity's right here, eyes closed, hands on his upper arms, breath coming out of her mouth in short pants, trembling with anticipation under his touch, and the very thought of not closing the distance between them with a kiss is agony.
He shouldn't do it. Some part of his brain knows this. A good man would not act on the impulse. A good man would walk away; he would continue to ignore the attachment growing between them. A good man would not tell her what she wants to hear. A good man would protect her.
Oliver Queen is not a good man.
Oliver Queen is a selfish, utter bastard.
And that's why he kisses her.