chapter 4 : Stubbornness


Oliver is quiet for a few seconds. Felicity has done everything to delay the moment where she would have to call him to invite him over at her pyjama party but, eventually, Roy (who doesn't expect anybody to show up at all) stated that she couldn't expect him to show up if she doesn't mention anything to him at some point. So...

"You're kidding me, right? I mean, you're gonna say this was a joke and you're gonna tell me the real reason for your call. Right?"

Felicity throws the hand that wasn't holding her phone in the air in a desperate gesture.

"Why does everybody think that this is a joke? Do I sound like I'm joking?" she addresses to no one in particular.

Roy shrugs. "Not to say that I told you so but, I kinda told you so." He hushes with a hardly suppressed smile.

Felicity waves him away and starts pacing in her living room. "Listen, we all need a night off. So, I figured, we could just hang out together at my place. You know? Like a, I don't know, a team night off or a business break, call it whatever you want. You just leave the green suit at the lair, you grab nice jammies and a pillow and you get your fine little ass back here!" She stops in the middle of her pacing, suddenly taken with the urge to bang her head on a wall. Had she really just said that? "This was not me implying that you have a fine little ass. I mean, I could not tell if your ass was fine and little or not because I have not been staring at you're behind. I do not stare at you. Not at all. Not that you would think that I do anyway. Do I use the negation too often? I do, right? How many times did I say not?"

Roy was looking at her even weirder than he had on the bench earlier. "What the hell are you doing?" he asks bewildered.

Felicity shakes her head, dying with embarrassment. "I don't know." She mouths back.

"Felicity, I'm not coming. This is me using the word not and I will not use it again. I'm sorry."

Oliver didn't sound sorry at all however, he just sounded pissed off in her ear and that pissed her off. "Am I interrupting something?" she asks, her confidence growing with her irritation toward her inability to formulate sensible sentences and toward him for being such a douchebag, "Because, clearly, what you're doing has got to be way more interesting for you to just stand me up like that."

"Yes. I'm... I'm busy. I'm following a lead on... something. So... I'll call you back when I'm done."

"No you're not. And cut the crap out, I know you're at the lair right now."

"Wh... Did you..." he doesn't finish his question because he already knows the answer she guesses (of course she can track him down!). So, he just sighs. "Still, I'm busy."

"No you're not." She repeats. "I can bet my new laptop that you're just working out at the lair, breaking down others dummies that, by the way, we can't afford anymore. So, do yourself a favor and come have some fun with your friends instead of brooding over things. Everyone's coming and we can't have fun as long as someone's missing."Oliver doesn't answer and she thinks she has him. She just needs to push a little further. "Look, if anything 'Arrow related' comes out, I'll be the first one to kick you out, ok?"

"I'm sorry but I can't."

Her face must show her surprise and disappointment because Roy puts a hand on her shoulder in a sympathetic gesture and says, just loud enough so that Oliver could hear him over the phone, "You definitely should've gone for the emergency call story. That would've worked for sure." He pats her shoulder and goes to sit on her couch.

"Why can't you? Did something happen?" she asks Oliver because she's really confused and doesn't understand his stubbornness.

"No. Nothing happened. Just... Just drop it. Please." she could hear he was getting impatient.

"No. Not until you give me a good reason."

"Because I'm not in the mood!" he yells and she's taken aback by his sudden outburst. "I'm not in the mood for some sleepover party with you guys and I never will be!"

Felicity was silent for a moment.

"Wow... It's good to know then. I thought maybe, after everything we've been through, we were like, I don't know, friends or something but it seems that you just need us when the city's burning, uh?"

"Felicity..."

"You know what? I get it. You'll never stop thinking about yourself and pretend to care about what your so called partners need. Just call me back next time you need someone to be offered as bait." She hangs up and throws her phone on the couch next to Roy. His concerned look tells her pretty much what he's thinking.

"Hey, maybe you were a little bit too harsh on him. I mean, this is just a sleepover and he's got a lot of stuff going on. You can't seriously think what you just said."

"I need a beer." She turns around just when her cell phone starts ringing again but she ignores it and keeps walking toward the kitchen.

"Your phone is ringing, you know?" Roy calls after her.

"Turn it off if it bothers you."

Roy catches up with her in the kitchen. "Could you at least tell me what happened here?" Felicity hands a bottle at Roy, opens hers and takes a long sip.

"He basically said he would never hang out with us outside of work and that just pissed me off because, come on we're like family you know? And we should be having fun together. Especially after last month."

"I'm totally with you on this one. Maybe he wasn't at his best when you called." Roy shrugs and sips at his bottle.

"Has he ever been at his best? I mean, I never ask him for anything because usually I don't need anything. And for the first time I needed him to do a little something for me and he just..." she sighs a take another sip and shakes her head. "You know what? I don't care. We're still going to have fun the four of us." She forces herself to smile at Roy. "You should brace yourself because Sara's totally gonna kick your ass."

Roy laughs and shakes his head at her, "What is it with you and asses tonight? And, by the way, what was that earlier?"

"That was my brain to mouth filter issue. And this." She holds her bottle up, "It just makes it worse."

"Uhuh."

"You might as well get used to it."

"Yeah. I think I get that."

They drink in silence for a moment until her phone breaks it. She keeps ignoring it.

"Your phone is ringing again." Roy states just as the doorbell rings too.

"I know. And I also know that someone just rang at my front door." She throws her empty bottle in the dustbin and heads out to answer the door.

Roy waits until she's out of the kitchen to reach for his phone and write a text, hoping it'll help fixing whatever is going on with his mentor.


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