A/N: So, to make up for the super short chapter from before...here's a longer one. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I think we know the drill by now.

Using her own body as a testbed for some weird neuro-transmitter amplification experiment probably wasn't the best idea she ever had. And keeping it a secret from Oliver Queen was probably the worst idea she'd ever had. It all came to a head when time slowed down; her heart beating loudly in her ears and everything else tuning out as she crouched low, grabbing Oliver's wrist during a high-speed...at least for her...sparring exercise...and then proceeded to twist his arm and flip him clear over her body to land with a painful-sounding thud on the back.

The second he started blinking in stunned shock and bewildered pain, she knew she had some explaining to do.

"Where did that come from?" he groaned out as he tried to sit up on the mat.

Scratch that, a lot of explaining to do.

Why hadn't she just told him about this the night she first found out?

"Uhm...I'm trying out a new toy?" Felicity offered, trying her best to sound completely innocent.

The disbelieving look on Oliver's face told her that she'd failed miserably, and she started cursing herself as she heard her own voice repeated in her head. New toy. She could not have possibly picked a worse thing to say.

Before she could stop it, her mouth opened of it's own volition and began spilling the beans in a horrifying string of word vomit. "If by toy you mean nanites. Which are tiny little computery robots. Which you probably already know. And you're probably wondering where nanites came from. And the answer would totally not be that the Count planned to use me as a human drug factory and injected them with a sedative dose..." Crap. The look of deep alarm had her cursing herself for her poor choice of words and her inability to just shut. up.

"Which I totally hacked and reprogrammed! And now I'm trying out for different uses. Which sounds really bad because you're probably thinking I'm using myself as a human guinea pig. Which you probably wouldn't approve of..."

Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. Oliver looked shocked, speechless, worried, alarmed, concerned...Why couldn't she just stop talking?!

There were a few deep breaths from the man before her. "...Nanites? Count? Drug Factory?" He counted off, his growing confusion obvious from the tone of his voice. "Felicity, would you mind please slowing down and starting from the beginning?"

Felicity took a deep breath in response and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, praying to God, or whatever other deity would listen, for her heart to slow down. She did make a mental note to herself to find a better way to control the nanites with their adrenaline synthesis.

"Um...The count. When he first grabbed me. I kinda sorta maybe stomped on his foot and hit him in the head with my purse. And he may or may not have hit me with a sedative. That may or may not have been laced with nanites. To get me to QC without a fight. And I may or may not have noticed before you showed up and uh...discounted him...That was a terrible joke. Forget I said that." And it really was a terrible joke, but mercifully it got Oliver's confused and alarmed visage to break for a moment as he tried to fight the smile.

"As I was saying! I may or may not have noticed that I may or may not have been feeling really weird. So I may or may not have run a tox screen on myself when we got back to the cave, just in case. And I may or may not have found a bunch of tiny little robot computers running around my bloodstream. Which is probably every computer nerds wet dream. Unless they've seen Star Trek, because the Borg are really creepy. But I was pretty freaked out, especially when I figured out he was probably planning on using me as a walking drug factory to torture you..." She swallowed the lump in her throat at the look he shot her.

"But then I realized I could reprogram them. So I did. And that..." Felicity motioned to the vaguely Oliver shaped distortion in the sparring mat. "...May or may not have been those tiny little robot computers flooding my body with adrenaline and the like."

"Felicity." She shivered at the way he said her name. It always got to her, especially when he said it like that. Though she definitely imagined him saying it under different circumstances...Focus, Felicity! "Why didn't you tell me?"

Crap. That was the one question she was hoping he wouldn't ask. She grimaced visibly, at both the question and the soft look of betrayal on his face. He'd trusted her with his memories of the island, and here it appeared she didn't trust him with something like this?

"I wanted to! I really did. I just figured you had enough on your plate for now, what with all the vow-breaking and back and forth kill-don't kill-kill decisions that I didn't want to add anything to the pile." She explained, giving him an apologetic look. "That and I was kinda scared out of my mind and I wanted to figure things out for myself for once instead of running to you for hel...Oliver?" She questioned, noting he seemed kind of spaced out. "...Why do you look like this is reminding you of something?"

"...Because it is." Oliver breathed after a moment of silence. "Mirakuru."

"Mirakuru?" She repeated, furrowing her brow as she tried to figure out what the heck he was talking about.

He nodded. "I told you about how Professor Ivo killed Shado, right?" He questioned, and waited for her nod of confirmation, a brief recall back to the night in her apartment, watching Avatar, before he continued his explanation. "Well, the entire reason Professor Ivo was on the island to begin with was because of Mirakuru. There were these Japanese Army corpses from World War 2 in a cave. And they were...disfigured. Deformed. I'd never seen anything like it. And there was a Japanese submarine there, with Mirakuru on it. A miracle drug to create human weapons. Ivo got it to work. And I had to fight a few of the results of this on the island..." He trailed off.

"Tough fight?" Felicity piped up softly, stepping closer to him and wrapping an arm around him. Trying hard not to notice that she was essentially hugging his sweaty, shirtless torso.

She failed miserably.

Oliver sighed in defeat at the memories. "It was how I thought Sara died the second time." He admitted with a whisper, running a hand over his short hair. "Superhuman strength, speed, reflexes..." Obviously, it was an experience that he never wanted to repeat.

"I'm not like them, Oliver." Felicity insisted. "For one, I'm on your side." She smirked, poking him in the collarbone. "For two, I had to hack these stupid things to do this. And for three; It's not superhuman...Just human. With some techno-bits to make things more efficient. Not that I'm saying I'm a robot. I can imagine you don't want your girlfriend being a robot. Am I your girlfriend? I'm not reall-"

She was expecting him to interrupt her babblefest with the same gentle interruption of her name or the hand on her shoulder that he usually had.

So needless to say, when his hands covered her cheeks and his lips brushed against hers just the way she had imagined constantly over the last year, it wasn't exactly the interruption she'd been expecting. Not that she was complaining.

The kiss clearly conveyed his concern for her, his desire to keep her safe. His gratefulness for the fact that she kept him grounded...

All of this piled together with the fact that her body felt like a teenager all over again because of these frakking nanites messing with her hormone levels. Perhaps she had a few more tweaks to make.

Later.

Right now, all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him for all she was worth.

So she did.

And that's exactly the scene that John Diggle walked in on.