A/N: Here we go, chapter 7. My continued thanks for the reviews, follows and favourites. I hope you enjoy this next chapter :)
Chapter 7
When Felicity wakes the next morning, she immediately notices two things. The first is that she feels like she's been run over. Not by anything large like a truck, maybe a moped or something, but still run over. The second is that she isn't in her own bed and that she's sprawled across someone else. Someone larger, and altogether firmer. Someone whose large, warm hand has worked up under her top and is splayed across her ribs.
As she shifts slightly, the previous night's events rush forward in her memory and she lets out a small moan as her sore body protests at the movement.
"F'licity?" Oliver wakes at the sound she makes, his head lifting from where it was resting against the top of her head. She moves just enough so that she can look up into his face.
"I'm okay," she replies. "Just sore." His hand flexes ever so slightly against her side, but he makes no attempt to move it.
"Hang on," he murmurs, reaching across to the side table with his other hand and grabbing a packet of pain killers. "Take these and try to get a bit more sleep, it's still early."
She props herself up using his chest for leverage, wincing slightly, but manages to pop two pills out of the foil packet. She throws them to the back of her throat and Oliver reaches over again to grab a glass of water so she can swallow.
"Need another pillow?" he asks as he sets the glass back on the table and she lowers herself back down, resting her head on his chest.
"Nope, you'll do." She replies sleepily, closing her eyes. She feels him press a kiss into her hair and the hand on her ribs slides down slightly so that the tips of his fingers are grazing the waistband to her shorts.
Oliver's eyes flick over to the clock radio. He's been lying awake for the better part of an hour, Felicity curled against his side, trying to remind himself of all the reasons why he's kept her at arms' length for the past year and a half. It felt so natural, so right to wake up with her in his arms that he doesn't know how he'll go back to what they had before.
He can't use her safety as an excuse, not after Slade and not after she's made it perfectly clear to him that it's her choice to put herself in harm's way if it's for the good of the mission. Besides, that's really only ever been the excuse he uses when he can't use the real reason – that he doesn't think he deserves to have the happiness that he knows Felicity would bring him. He wonders if he'd be able to make her happy, whether he could ever be the sort of man that Felicity deserves.
"Ow." Felicity moans quietly, rolling away from his side onto her back, interrupting his thoughts.
"And before you ask, I'm okay." She says thickly. "Although I would really like to know how the hell you manage to get back out there each night after you get injured. Is it those island herbs? If it is, please tell me you smuggled some here in your luggage."
He rolls on to his side facing her, propping his head up with one arm, a smile curving his lips.
"No herbs, sorry." He replies. "And I suppose I got used to the working through the pain on the island. Most of the time there wasn't an opportunity to let my body recover, not if I wanted to actually live."
Felicity shifts her head slightly so she can look at his face. "Which doesn't really explain why you don't give yourself time to recover now. Not when Roy and Digg are there to patrol if necessary. You're not on the island anymore, Oliver."
He shrugs. "Force of habit. Tell you what, I'll up the recovery time if you promise to give me a heads up before you offer yourself to the next bad guy."
Her face tightens a bit, her brows drawing together. "Is this where you rant at me and tell me I have to stay in the lair like the good little IT girl I am?"
"No," he replies, reaching out his free hand to tangle in one of hers. "This is where I tell you that I think you were brave to try and protect the rest of us but that I was terrified the entire time that I might lose you. Our lives mean we're going to be in danger from time to time, but that doesn't mean I have to like it when you're at risk."
"Oh." She watches the play of their fingers on the mattress between them, not sure how to respond.
"I trust you, Felicity. With my life and with yours. But I still want you to be safe, I care about you." Oliver says softly, tightening his grip on her hand.
"Like a sister, you mean." She says lightly.
He stills. Felicity being Felicity, she's given him an out, just like she did on the island all those months ago.
"No. Definitely not like a sister."
Her gaze flies up to meet his and her breath catches at the look in his eyes. "Oliver…"
He shifts closer, pausing to gauge her reaction. Her lips are parted and her breath quickens as he leans in, his lips feathering over hers. He goes to pull back, but then her arm snakes up to pull his head back down and she meets him fully for the next kiss. He slants his mouth over hers, drinking in the little moan from the back of her throat as he deepens the kiss. Her fingernails scratch at the nape of his neck and she arches her back slightly, pressing her breasts up against him.
"Ow!" she breaks the kiss and drops back to the mattress, wincing at the throbbing pain in her hip.
Oliver rests his forehead against hers, smiling in spite of himself.
"Sorry," she whispers, her hand shifting around to trace down the side of his jaw.
"It should be me apologising," he replies swiftly, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "Taking advantage of an injured woman."
"You don't hear me complaining, do you?" she smiles up at him. "But this might have to be continued when I can actually move without every one of my muscles hating on me. That's if you want to continue it, obviously. No pressure here, no sir."
He eases back smiling, taking in the hopeful look in her eyes.
"To be continued." He promises firmly.
Felicity decides to avoid the temptation of Oliver helping her to the shower and hobbles there herself. Half an hour later she emerges with her hair hanging loose in damp waves and her muscles considerably looser from the hot water. She finds Oliver in the lounge on the phone. He glances up at her entrance, his expression softening as she smiles. He speaks a few rapid words of Mandarin and then swipes the call to an end.
"So what's the plan?" she asks.
"Two things," he replies. "One, I need to formally end the negotiations between Intuit and Queen Consolidated. Secondly, I need to stop the Triad. We can't allow them to use that program."
"I think I can help with the second." Felicity says, settling on the couch beside him. "But I'll need my tablet."
Oliver gets up and walks over to the front door, collecting Felicity's possessions from where the driver left them the night before. He hands her the tablet and resumes his seat, looking at her expectantly.
"I used my tablet to hack into the security on the computer containing XDC-52. But at the same time, I also used it to embed a trojan into the program while it was being transferred." Her fingers tap and swipe at the screen and at the lack of reaction from Oliver, she glances up to see him looking at her with pride.
"Have I told you lately that you're remarkable?" he asks.
"No, you haven't. But you can tell me later." She smiles. "What I can tell you so far is that the program hasn't been used, so I don't have a location."
"I think I can find where they are." Oliver replies.
"The call?" Felicity asks, gesturing towards his phone. "Have you got Triad contacts as well as Bratva?"
"No contacts directly in the Triad, but I can get the information. I've been promised something within the hour."
Felicity considers this. "I don't like the idea of you going in against the Triad, Oliver. Not here without your bow and without Digg and Roy backing you up. Can't you just hand the information over to the police?"
"I could, I suppose, but I need to finish this myself. I want to make sure that program is destroyed before the Triad gets a chance to use it. And I need to find out exactly how involved Jack and Tom are, just in case Queen Consolidated gets implicated."
Felicity lets out a huff of annoyance. "Okay, but I'm coming with you. Not all the way!" she holds up her hands to ward off any objections. "I don't plan on going anywhere near the punching and the kicking and the general beating of Triad minions. But you're going to need support, Oliver. Tech support. The trojan should let me into their system when they start using the program and I can start disabling it remotely. We don't have access to any of our tech here and the best comms system I'll be able to get locally without raising suspicions is going to have a pretty limited range. And I'm not letting you go anywhere without me in your ear."
Oliver considers it and realises she's right. "Fine, but you're staying at the absolute limit of the comms range, Felicity."
She rolls her eyes good naturedly. "Okay. Now go call Digg. I need to figure out what we're going to need for tonight."
Felicity heads into her own room to check through her luggage. Unsurprisingly, her wardrobe choices are heavy on corporate and resort wear, light on surveillance attire. She makes a note on her tablet to get something suitable for herself and especially Oliver, along with a comms unit, some trackers and a burner phone to contact the police if required. She'll leave the weapons side of things to Oliver.
She can hear the murmur of voices from the lounge and she heads back out to see Oliver video calling Digg on her second tablet.
"Hey Digg," she calls out as she makes her way back to Oliver's side. Digg's face creases into a relieved smile as he takes in for himself that she's okay.
"You two going to be okay tonight?" he asks. "I don't really like this plan. You're going in practically blind."
"Digg, we'll be fine. I've got contacts working on getting information for me on the local Triad." Oliver replies.
"Contacts you can trust to give you accurate intel?"
"Contacts that know what will happen if they don't provide accurate intel." Oliver's keeps his tone light, but both Digg and Felicity are well are that he's deadly serious.
"I'd offer to do some digging here, but I assume you've got that covered, Felicity?" Digg asks.
She nods. "I still would really like you patched in though, just in case there's something that I need you to run on my systems in the lair."
"Fine. I'll send Roy out for the night to do Arrow duty. We've been keeping it pretty low key so far, but I'll tell him to make sure he's seen. I doubt anyone is going to make any connection between the Arrow and what you're going to do, but you can never be too careful. We don't want the press wondering about a vigilante in Hawaii just as Oliver Queen happens to be around."
The calls ends soon after and while Oliver waits for his contact to call him back, Felicity heads into town with one of the hotel's security staff. She makes him wait outside each shop as she buys the clothes and bits of tech that they'll need for tonight. Everything is paid for in cash and she spreads her purchases out. It's being overly cautious, but she doesn't want to risk anything being tied back to Oliver.
When the guard drops her back, she finds Oliver looking up blueprints and security feeds on her tablet.
"Did your contacts come through?" she asks, dropping her purchases on the floor beside the couch.
"Yeah. The Triad has a couple of bases that they alternate between, but current intel is that they're down at the shipyards." He shows her the satellite photos he has of the area, pointing out the building where the Triad are holed up.
"Okay. Did these contacts also happen to set you up with some weapons? Because I figured the hotel guard might have been a little suss if my emergency shopping trip for our hiking expedition detoured to a gun shop."
"You told him we were going hiking?" he asks.
"Well yeah. It's the only thing I could think of where we'd need additional gear that would be provided by the hotel. I mean, scuba was out because they have all the equipment here. But hiking boots and stuff? Not so much. Not that I bought boots, now that I think of it. Also, I thought you might want to steer clear of your signature colour while we're away from home, so everything I bought you is in black. But on the plus side, it's super slimming." Felicity pulls a handful of clothing out of one bag to show him.
"Slimming? Are you saying I'm fat?" he asks in mock outrage.
"Please. As if you have an ounce of fat anywhere on your body." She replies, poking at his stomach for good measure. His hand catches hers and he shifts closer.
Felicity's breath catches as she glances up and takes in the look in Oliver's eyes. "Oliver…"
"Felicity." He murmurs back, drawing out the syllables in her name in that way only he seems to do. His other hand comes up to cup her face and she automatically leans into his touch. He moves in closer, pausing to gauge her reaction.
"Oliver, what is this?" she whispers as he moves in to kiss her. He draws back, leaving his hand on her jaw. "Is this some weird reaction to everything that went down last night or, I don't know, some sort of strange island fever that you've suddenly contracted?"
His lips quirk slightly. "No island fever, Felicity. I guess I just realised last night with everything that happened that I didn't want to push you away any more."
"Oh." She says, biting down on her bottom lip. "Does that mean what I think it means?"
"You tell me." He replies. "I know I want to be with you, Felicity, but I also know I don't deserve you."
"Hey. Stop that." She scolds. "You deserve happiness and you deserve love. And if you think I'm the one to give you that, well, we're doing it. God, I didn't mean we're doing it. I meant we're doing it as in we're doing the whole dating thing. Obviously it'd be nice if it was involved at some stage, but-"
Her rambling is cut off abruptly as Oliver leans in and covers her lips with his. Felicity hums in approval, pressing against him as she opens her mouth and his tongue meets hers. He half drags her into his lap and her hands scrabble for purchase against his shirt. Oliver breaks the kiss, moving his mouth across her jaw to her neck where he lightly nips at the skin before soothing it with his tongue.
Felicity digs her fingertips into his chest, arching towards him as he works his way down her neck. "God, Oliver, don't stop." She whispers, one hand skimming up to the back of his head, holding him closer against her.
The abrupt ringing on his phone makes him pull back and she groans in disappointment. Oliver huffs in annoyance as he apologises. "Sorry, but I have to get this. It'll be about tonight."
She nods, her irritation at the interruption being soothed somewhat as she takes in how dilated his pupils are and the slight hitch in his breath. She feels a little flash of female satisfaction at his reaction to their kisses and can't help shimmying her hips a little in celebration, a move that has Oliver shooting her a warning glance as he steadies her on his lap and reaches for his phone. She starts to move back to her seat, but his arm tightens around her, keeping her perched across his thighs as he takes the call and begins a conversation in Mandarin.
"We need to meet my contact later tonight." He says a few minutes later as he swipes the call to an end. "He's organised some weapons plus a bike that's untraceable."
"So it's on?" Felicity asks. "We're taking down the Triad?"
"It's on." He replies
