First off, I want all of you to know that I have had the last two paragraphs of this story written since I wrote Part Four. It has been killing me trying to finally get to them, but beyond the correction of a spelling error, those paragraphs are completely unchanged from what I wrote all that time ago. Apologies for taking so long to get the final chapter done, but I honestly couldn't let myself post it until I was convinced it was perfect.
Part Twelve: I Can Promise You That I Will
Felicity, Oliver, and Diggle made their way through Verdant toward the access hatch to what the blonde had jokingly dubbed the "Arrowcave". Her boys hadn't made any direct comments on her evening with Slade, but Oliver kept shooting her knowing half smiles that set her cheeks ablaze. Not, of course, that it was taking a whole lot to make her blush. Her traitorous brain kept flashing up scenes from her date at the most inopportune moments, making her smile and giggle and turn bright red all on her own.
"Well," Diggle began when they paused to let Oliver key in the entry code. "We made it most of the day, so now I've got to ask." As the door swung open he turned to Felicity with a smirk. "How was your date with Hannibal last night?"
Even though she knew it was a joke, Felicity frowned. "Not an okay comparison, Dig," she insisted. To his credit, Diggle looked a little sorry for it. "He's made mistakes and he knows it, but cannibalism definitely isn't on the list." She paused once more, filled with a sudden panic, before whirling around on Oliver at the top of the stairs. "Is it? I mean, I couldn't find any evidence of cannibalism in my searches, but it's not exactly a piece of getting to know you conversation and oh god he made chicken and they say people are white meat and Oliver how could you let me date a cannibal!?"
Grasping her shoulders, Oliver gave her a thorough but gentle shake, a very familiar exasperation on his face. "Glossing right over the part where he cooked because I can't imagine Slade cooking anything that isn't wild boar over open flame-No, he's not a cannibal, Felicity." Though his words and tone were serious, the amusement behind them was obvious. "I promise." Nudging her with his hip, he started down the stairs, Diggle right behind him. Breathing a sigh of relief and more than a little embarrassed that she'd gotten so quickly bent out of shape, Felicity followed. Just a few steps from the bottom, she ran straight into Diggle's back. Stepping back up a stair, she stood on her tip toes and craned her neck to see what they were staring at. Her mouth fell open in surprise.
On the mats in front of her computers, Slade stood across from Roy with a pair of training pads on his hands. They were both coated in a light sheen of sweat and barefoot. With every few punches or kicks they paused so Slade could adjust Roy's position or give a few pointers, murmuring just softly enough that she couldn't make out the words from so far away. Roy had been nothing but brutal in training since his break up with Thea, but with Slade he actually seemed to be listening like a reasonable person rather than falling into his anger.
Bending down, Felicity slipped her feet out of her shoes and took them in hand before shouldering her way between Oliver and Dig. She made her way across the floor as quietly as she could, straining her ears to try and catch the conversation. Halfway across the room, words started to make sense.
"The strength is an effective bonus," Slade was telling Roy while they slipped back into ready positions, "but unless you're sure you can control it you will always run the risk of destroying everything in your path. Again." Several feet behind her desk, Felicity paused, watching as Roy dealt a series of vicious punches to the pads. Vicious, but somehow different. "Good. When I first got off that damned island, I still wasn't used to the Mirakuru. I couldn't even try to open a door without ripping the handle off."
The difference struck her like a punch in the gut. Roy was pulling his punches. Slade was probably the only person on the planet that Roy could hit with his full strength and not seriously hurt, and he was teaching him how to take it easy. How to control the strength in a fight so it would be easier to control outside of one. Slade's eyes flickered briefly toward her, and she knew she was caught, but as she rolled her chair out and plopped down the lesson continued as if she wasn't there at all.
"You can break every door you come to, punch your way through concrete walls, and beat men to death until you're blue in the face, kid," he lectured on, nodding while Roy continued to throw slightly muted punches. "I know the rage is telling you to do just that, and it's so easy to give in. Conquering the urge to use the strength like this is the easy part compared to the rest. If you don't start on it now, it'll seep into every part of your mind until you're just like me, sitting on a pretty girl's floor in the middle of the night half a decade later with the realization that you don't even know yourself anymore." Tears sprang into Felicity's eyes. Was this guy actually real? Standing there baring the soul he'd only just dug back out from the depths of his grief to help a young man cope? A punch slipped off one of the pads and caught Slade in the shoulder. He didn't flinch. "That's enough."
"I can go for longer," Roy insisted, throwing another punch into the same pad he'd just missed.
Quick as lightning, Slade tossed the pads down, stepped forward, looped an arm around Roy's torso, and tossed the younger man to the ground. Keeping Roy down with one hand against his chest, Slade gave him a cocky grin. "I don't doubt it, but if you keep going you might forget the lesson." He offered his hand and pulled Roy to his feet. "We'll keep going later. Might even show you a few tricks Queen never got to learn." With a muted smile, Roy nodded and made his way off to the showers. Slade watched him go, a contemplative expression on his face.
"This is a bit unexpected." Though Slade didn't so much as flinch when Oliver spoke, Felicity through her hands in the air and spun around in her chair, staring wide-eyed at the vigilante barely three feet behind her. She'd never heard him approach. She narrowed her eyes at him in an attempt to convey her annoyance, but his attention was focused on Slade. Giving up, she spun back around just in time for Slade's reply.
"I may not have injected him, but it's my fault the kid got juiced," Slade said simply, turning a flat gaze on Oliver as soon as Roy had disappeared from view. "The least I can do is help him deal with it." He bent to snatch a towel off the floor, sauntering forward while he scrubbed it over the sweat cooling on his face and neck. "Besides, you were training him all wrong. He'll get himself killed if he listens to you so much."
"Guess we're lucky he doesn't listen to Oliver, then," Felicity mused. Somewhere behind her, Diggle gave an answering snort. There and gone in an instant, the corner of Slade's mouth twitched in amusement. Irritation was radiating off Oliver in waves, but Felicity couldn't help the giddiness flowing through her. It was Slade's first time (she hoped? There was always the possibility he'd snuck in before.) in the Arrowcave and he was already joining in on the noble sport of Oliver Baiting.
Before Oliver could huff any louder, Slade sobered the mood. "The kid's not the only reason I'm here," he admitted. "And before you ask, Felicity is only one of the other reasons." He took a deep breath, looking anywhere but at one of them. "I may be ready to give up on my vendetta, but it's not as easy as me quitting." His eye found Oliver's face once again, his expression level. "I've spent years building the plan and the empire necessary to exact my vengeance. I need your help to dismantle it."
The thump of Felicity's head against her desk followed by a muttered "this is so going to suck" marked the beginning of a very long Team Arrow meeting.
"I'd invite you in for coffee," Felicity insisted as Slade walked her up the steps to her front door, "real coffee, that is, because that totally wasn't a euphemism and not that I think you'd think it was a euphemism but it's kinda two in the morning and what is English? I need to go to bed." Shaking her head, she pressed her fingertips to her temples, willing the I-stared-at-computers-too-long headache to dissipate.
With a chuckle, Slade wrapped her in a gentle hug, placing a kiss against the top of her head. "I know. I'm sorry about that." They'd spent the better part of the night with Slade explaining the entirely too intricate intricacies of his plot for making Oliver suffer. Then, the two of them had spent the next couple of hours while Oliver and the others were on patrol setting up the necessary traces on all of the accounts and computer systems Slade had been using. If he didn't smell so good and his arms didn't feel so great wrapped around her and she didn't have that awesome memory of tight jeans from the night before Felicity would have been thoroughly disgusted with him for his much-too-genius evil genius plans that were now on the Team Arrow "to-destroy" list.
"You're going to have to let go or I might fall asleep on you right here," she mumbled, nuzzling her face into Slade's chest, and further contradicting her words by snaking her own arms around his back. Laughter rumbled through his body.
"Go right ahead. I'll stand here all night and let you sleep if I must."
Felicity pulled back and gave him a light punch in the side. "You're supposed to say you'd dig out my keys and carry me inside," she grumbled. Almost as soon as she said the words a wicked grin crossed Slade's mouth.
"Don't think I'd have to dig out the keys," he teased, giving her a very quick peck on the lips. One of his hands slipped from her waist into her line of sight, and she blinked owlishly at the sight of her keys hanging from his fingers. "It's much easier to pickpocket them from your purse."
In an instant she found herself tossed over his shoulder, fighting between giggling and squealing aloud while he held her in place with one arm and worked the keys into the lock with the other. She settled on the laughter as he stepped inside and proceeded to follow her standard routine for coming through the door. First, he tossed the keys in the decorative bowl on the table just inside the door. Then, he reached behind himself to lift her purse from her shoulder and deposit it beside the bowl. Felicity couldn't help but giggle louder as he not only stripped off her shoes, but took the time to tickle the soles of her feet. Finally, he set her down on the first step of her staircase, and she came face to face with the most carefree smile she'd ever seen on him, the step adding just enough to her height to make them level with one another.
"Now," Slade began stepping as close as he could and taking her face between his hands. His eyes drifted down to her lips. "I'm going to give you a proper kiss goodnight and make sure your flat is secure so I know you'll sleep safely." He leaned forward to do just as he said, but Felicity darted her hand to his lips before he could close the distance.
"Worried for my safety and not even trying to weasel your way into my bed?" she quipped, one eyebrow raised over her glasses. "Are you even a real guy? Television and movies have always told me that guys who do that don't actually exist, you know."
Slade chuckled, sliding one arm back around her waist. "Perhaps television and movies prefer not to showcase a man who wants to be careful with something he realizes could be very precious in his life."
Felicity's heart began to thunder in her chest even as she outwardly rolled her eyes at him. "What, are you trying to say you love me, Mr. Aussie-Grumpy-Butt?"
"No," Slade answered, pulling her more tightly against him. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But I am saying that if you stick around long enough, I can promise you that I will."
Thank you all SO MUCH for following me and this story on the (admittedly not long) journey. This is actually the first multi-chapter fic I have ever finished in the decade plus that I've been writing fanfic. It means the world to me to have done it at all, even if this fic is completely un-betaed and is pretty full of errors that I might get around to fixing up someday. Maybe. .
For each and every one of you that reviewed: I wish I could bake you each a batch of every fantastic sweet I know how to cook (which is a lot, I'm kinda awesome in the kitchen). I don't think I could have done this at all without your constant support. I know I haven't been particularly talkative as I've gone through with the updates, but when I struggled with a bit of the story I would always go back and read your wonderful comments. Seriously, I love you all.
So, there is a sequel already in the planning process, though I will only be posting it over at AO3. It's just too much trying to keep up with the cross posting. Thank you all again. :)
