A/N: This is technically the last chapter (even though there is an epilogue to come, of course) so I feel like I should say something profound and meaningful see as we took this long journey together. Let's see… umm… well I… hmm… did you know… no, ahh… tortoises can breathe through their butts and butterflies can taste through their feet… yeah, sorry, that's all I've got. Doesn't exactly relate to the story so far but it could be handy during the next pause in conversation you might have. Butt stuff is always a conversation starter… or is that finisher… I always get those two mixed up.

Anyways, in this chapter, we'll find out how the Briggle adventure ultimately goes down and well, some more talking, I guess. One of my reviewers mentioned that they've just realized Olicity sex is off the table in this fic… and yes, you're right, it is. Lol This fic was getting Olicity to admit their feelings and start dating, the next story is about them going to the next step, so things will definitely heat up in that regard. ;)

And now, I guess the chapter… have at it, my ducklings… :D

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

Oliver was looking at Diggle intently. "And is fine all I'm going to get?"

"Pretty much," said Diggle calmly.

"So, Ross is taken care of?"

"Yes."

"Okay," said Oliver easily. He trusted Diggle and if the man said everything was dealt with, then everything was dealt with.

"Felicity!"

Oliver and Diggle turned their heads and looked up to see Roy at the top of the stairs looking flushed and flustered.

Felicity appeared from the back room where she'd gone to retrieve some fabric for the suit and looked up at him too. "Yes?"

"Oh good, you're here," said Roy in obvious relief. He practically ran down the stairs. "I could barely sleep at all last night." Roy was pulling his shirt out from his pants and then he was tearing his shirt off over his head and making a beeline for her. "Felicity, I need you—"

Oliver stiffened and immediately put himself between Felicity and the now shirtless Roy who only had eyes for Felicity all of a sudden. "What the hell, Roy?" said Oliver sharply. "Back off."

"I need Felicity to check me over," said Roy urgently, his hands going to his belt buckle.

"What for, your sanity?" asked Diggle wryly. "Because I think you left it at the top of the stairs right before you started your little strip tease for Felicity."

"I'm not doing a strip tease," said Roy in agitation. "I'm just taking my clothes off. Felicity doesn't care. She's seen it all before."

Oliver fairly bristled to hear that.

Felicity was quickly putting a hand on Oliver's arm, stepping out from behind where he was essentially guarding her from Roy. "I haven't seen it all before. Just bits… and a couple of pieces," she said hastily.

"Which pieces?" growled Oliver jealously. He didn't want to be so territorial when it came to Felicity but he couldn't help. Never had been able to if he was honest with himself.

"Just the pieces which go into the suit," said Felicity, looking a little flustered.

"It's a full body suit, that's all of the pieces," said Oliver tightly. He jabbed a finger at Roy who was in the middle of pushing his jeans down. "The pants stay on if you want to ever eat solid food again," he bit out.

"I need Felicity to check all of me," said Roy in exasperation.

"What am I checking for exactly?" asked Felicity in confusion.

"I think I've been bugged," said Roy unhappily.

Diggle sighed heavily. "He was just messing with you. There isn't a bug implanted in you."

Oliver looked between the other two men. "Who's he?"

"Bunny," said Roy distractedly. "He said he put some kind of sub-epidermal tracking device in me."

Oliver frowned. "When did you see Bunny?"

"Last night," said Roy in agitation. He glanced at Diggle. "Didn't you tell them what happened?"

"I didn't go into a lot of detail," said Diggle calmly.

"You said fine," said Oliver flatly. "It could be argued that you didn't go into any detail at all."

"That's because it was all fine," said Diggle casually, "… in the end."

"And in the middle?" pushed Oliver.

"It kinda sucked donkey balls," said Roy candidly.

#

"Bunny, move!"

"I am moving, kitten!" gasped the older man as they both bounded up the stairs. "I've already done my cardio for today. I don't need anymore."

"You don't need a bullet in the back of your head either," bit out Roy as he ushered Bunny up the internal stairs of the office supply building. "So keep going!"

After Diggle had been recognized everything had pretty much gone south after that. Suddenly there was a tunnel full of men all trying to clear out at once, not knowing what was going on but none of them wanting to be left around to explain when it was all said and done. And then there were Ross' bodyguards who leapt into the fray, which left them in the middle of a sea of escaping bodies and being hunted down. Roy had done what Diggle had originally ordered him to do, get Bunny out. Diggle had shouted for him to go and even though Roy had wanted to stay and help, he knew they had a responsibility to Bunny to get him out safely. Bursting out of the tunnels, they'd found themselves in the first floor of the office supply building and with a couple of Ross' men on the front door, the only way out was up and that was what they were currently doing, going up.

"Kitten," panted Bunny as he managed to keep pace with the younger man, "where are we going? How are we going to get off the roof?"

"Don't worry about that," said Roy grimly. They were at the access door to the roof and Roy just kicked it down.

"Ohh," cooed Bunny, "so manly."

Roy grabbed his arm, hearing the heavy footsteps of more of Ross' guards not far away on the staircase below. "Quick, we have to keep moving." Roy held onto Bunny's arm and ran with him across the roof until they were on the far edge.

Bunny peered over the ledge and grimaced at the ground below. "Honey, I don't know what the plan is but jumping from here is not an option."

"We're not exactly jumping." Roy drew out his small crossbow and fired down into the alleyway below. The zip line attached to the bolt shot out at lightning speed as the bolt embedded itself in the brick wall below. "Hold on tight," Roy ordered him, conscious of the fact gun-welding men were about to burst out of the door behind them any minute now. He tensed as Bunny did exactly as Roy had ordered. "Not my ass!" he said sharply. "That isn't going to help you."

"But I've got a good grip on it," said Bunny brightly.

"I know," ground out Roy darkly and slapped his hands away. "Put your arms around my neck."

Bunny immediately complied. "It's like I'm Olivia de Havilland to your Errol Flynn," he said excitedly.

"I don't know who those people are," said Roy flatly and then he was launching them off the roof, Bunny clinging to his neck as they sailed through the air. "The landing is going to be rough," he cautioned Bunny. "Try and roll—" By then they were just above the ground and Roy released the zip line. They dropped the last few feet and Roy tucked and rolled, trying to absorb the impact with the extra weight of Bunny, he was thrown off and they both tumbled into a row of dumpsters, a tangle of arms and legs. Roy's back slammed up against one of the large, industrial size dumpsters, halting any further rolling on his behalf but then Bunny tumbled into his lap, face down into his lap to be precise. Roy shook his head to clear it and then realized Bunny wasn't moving. He put a hand on Bunny's shoulder. "Bunny, are you alright?"

"Am I dead?" mumbled Bunny dazedly. "Because if I am, this is exactly how I wanted to go."

Roy made an exasperated sound. "Get your face out of my balls!" he ordered the other man tartly as he pushed on Bunny's shoulders to get him to move. "You're going to get us shot!"

"Leave me to my fate!" exclaimed Bunny, struggling against being dislodged from Roy's crotch. "This was how I was meant to go!"

"It's not how I was meant to go!" said Roy in horror, finally managing to roll out from underneath Bunny. "On your feet, we have to get out of this alleyway!" He looked up to see the men on the roof having now spotted them and they were taking aim. Roy grabbed Bunny by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him to the feet and away from the hail of bullets which was now raining down on them. They burst out into the street in amongst the crowd of men all fleeing the scene. In amongst all the mayhem, Roy caught sight of Diggle as he was chasing down Ross who was a little way ahead of him and running down the road. Diggle was closing in but then he was waylaid by a surge of bodies all trying to escape at once and Diggle became caught up in the middle of them, trying to fight his way through them to get to Ross. Roy shoved his hand into his jacket, no longer having his crossbow but knowing he could slow Ross' escape. He drew out a smoke bomb and lobbed it a few feet ahead of Ross. The bomb went off, causing Ross to double back around until he caught sight of Roy who was now running up the street towards him. Ross double backed around again as a black limousine pulled up in the street twenty feet in front of him as he ran up the middle of the road. Roy and Diggle were both trying to valiantly fight their way through the people to get to Ross before he got to the waiting getaway car but it was proving a difficult task.

Roy knew Ross was going to get away at this rate so he pulled out another device from his jacket, one Felicity had given him and threw it over the heads of all of the people at Ross. Unfortunately, just as he threw it, Bunny was behind him and grabbed his arm as he stumbled, throwing Roy's aim off. The device ended up hitting the guy who was running just ahead of Ross and deploying the electrical shock it was intended to give. The man crumpled to the ground in the middle of the road, completely unconscious. Ross took the time to turn around and throw Roy a mocking look at his failed attempt to stop him. Just then a large, refrigeration truck turned into the chaos up ahead of them. It swerved to avoid the unconscious man on the road and narrowly missed Ross in the process. Ross sent Roy another triumphant look at avoiding being stopped a second time, this time flipping the frustrated Roy the bird with both hands.

At the same time, the truck driver's quick reflexes weren't enough to save himself because he then plowed his truck into a shop front. The force of the impact flung the back doors of the truck open and rained out the contents of the refrigerated unit, which just happened to be frozen chickens. Albert Ross was immediately buried in hundreds of frozen chickens raining down on him. Roy's eyes went wide at the sight of Ross disappearing under all that frozen poultry and then he was running up to where the other man was completely buried except for one twitching hand which was sticking out from the pile of frozen birds. The twitching stopped and Roy didn't need to check for a pulse to know the other man was dead. "Ah crap," he said in annoyance. Diggle and Bunny were immediately by his side and Roy felt Diggle's hard stare. He held up a hand, immediately protesting his innocence. "Hey, that was not my fault. You saw it, it was an act of God… or chicken… or some kind of vengeful chicken god maybe, I'm not sure."

"You know this officially makes it a spree now, don't you?" asked Diggle flatly.

"It wasn't my fault!" squeaked Roy.

Bunny was shaking his head. "A man whose name sounds like albatross killed by frozen chickens out the front of a cock fight while flipping us the bird." He tutted. "So many levels of irony in that one. I'm not sure where to start."

Roy grimaced, knowing it was going to take him a long time to live this one down.

#

Oliver was just staring at the two men. "I'm sorry, in what way does any of that translate to things going 'fine' last night?"

Diggle shrugged. "Albert Ross has been neutralized. We don't have to worry about him setting up his money laundering business in Starling City anymore."

"And again, why was this Bunny guy with you?" asked Oliver in exasperation.

"He's surprisingly difficult to dislodge once he attaches himself to you," said Diggle. He gave a small grimace. "Surprisingly difficult."

"He was an in to the cock fight where Ross was," explained Roy. "We had to take him along."

"Ugh," said Felicity, pulling a face. "Cock fighting is so horrible." She tilted her head and looked suddenly thoughtful. "So, does cock fighting have different weight divisions like human fighting or are they all just bantam weight by default?" The men just looked at her blankly. "Sorry," said Felicity, "was that a dumb question?"

Oliver and Diggle looked at each other and then Oliver replied. "No," he said slowly, "I don't think so, we just don't know." It was a very Felicity question and despite the news about last night and how things had gone far from smoothly, Oliver found himself smiling.

"Okay," said Roy in agitation, "now that we've got that all sorted, can I please be checked out for some kind of tracking device being embedded in me without my permission."

"Come over here," said Felicity. "I'll do a scan for any electronic devices, okay?" She drew him off to one side and started to check Roy over with a handheld scanning device.

Oliver turned his attention back to Diggle. "Should we be worried about this Bunny character?" he said seriously. "I don't like how involved he's getting in our business."

Diggle pursed his lips. "I know what you're saying, Oliver and a part of me agrees but I just don't feel like Bunny is any kind of threat to us. He's pretty benign."

"He's an arms dealer who sells to some of the most violent regimes in the world," said Oliver darkly.

"So do most arms dealers, directly or indirectly," pointed out Diggle. "Hell, American was arming Taliban terrorists inadvertently at one point."

Oliver grimaced at the thought. "I know but—"

"And it's not like we're not used to dealing in shades of grey," said Diggle philosophically. "Bunny doesn't even live in Starling City full time. He just visits on occasion. I don't see him being a threat to us and you know I'd be all over it if I thought he was."

"I suppose," said Oliver, still feeling a little uneasy about this mysterious Bunny.

"I can go deeper," said Roy from behind them. "Do you want me to go deeper?"

Oliver turned around to see Roy with the scanning wand, pressing it against his arm as Felicity looked at the monitor.

"Won't it hurt?" asked Felicity in concern. "I don't want it to hurt."

"Don't care, I just want to be satisfied after we're done. I don't care if it takes all day and night."

Oliver's lips twisted in mild ire at the unintentionally sexually laden way they were talking to one another. "You're hearing this too, right?" he said to Diggle as the other two were absorbed in what they were doing. "It's not just me."

"This is going to take forever, can't you go faster?" Felicity urged him.

"I am going faster."

"No, you're going deeper, it's not the same thing. You need to do both at the same time otherwise we'll never get there."

"Yeah, it's weird alright," agreed Diggle, screwing up his face.

"Thank you," said Oliver in exasperation. "It's not just me being the crazy jealous boyfriend."

"Try rubbing it back and forth more," said Felicity as she looked the read out screen in front of her. "You know, rolling it around. I think that's better."

Oliver shook his head at the way they were continuing to talk to one another in complete oblivion to how it might sound to other people.

"Boyfriend?" noted Diggle with interest. "So, I guess the date really did go well then."

Despite himself Oliver smiled. "It was the best night of my life, John. Felicity and I are going to take it slow for a bit—"

You have no idea what I can do with my mouth, Mr. Queen. No idea.

Oliver did his best to stop an involuntary shudder at the sultry promise in Felicity's words. Going slow was going to be a delicious torture and Oliver couldn't wait, knowing each of them was going to try and break the other's willpower on the subject. Oliver felt like there was going to be no losers in that particular battle of wills. Another involuntary smile crept onto his face.

"That should be interesting," said Diggle dryly, "based on your past interpretations of the word slow."

"I love her, Digg," said Oliver softly just as Felicity glanced up and smiled over at him before giving her attention back to Roy. Oliver felt his heart skip a little beat at her simply smiling at him. "It's an amazing feeling, one I can't get enough of. I didn't know it could be like this."

"Felicity seems happy too," noted Diggle.

"And I'm going to keep making her happy," Oliver vowed determinedly. "She deserves nothing less."

Diggle laid a hand on Oliver's shoulder. "I'm happy for you both, I really am, Oliver. I want this to work out for both of you."

"It will," said Oliver calmly. It felt odd to be this confident about something but that was how it was with Felicity. She made him feel like anything was possible and for the first time in his entire life, Oliver didn't have any fear about what those possibilities might be.

"No wait," said Felicity urgently, "it's not meant to go there!"

Oliver wrinkled his nose.

"It'll be fine, I've just got to push a little harder."

Oliver sighed heavily and exchanged a resigned look with a vaguely amused Diggle. These two together were not a good idea for his mental wellbeing. They were going to have to work on this.

"Honestly, Roy, this is ridiculous. Just how up close and personal did you get with this Bunny guy anyway?" asked Felicity in exasperation.

"I don't know," said Roy in agitation. "The guy has quick hands. They're everywhere at once. I've still got his handprint on my ass and his face print in my—" He stopped abruptly when he saw the way everyone was now looking at him with great interest. "Not my ass," Roy finished off lamely. "You don't know," he said hotly. "Bunny's hard to rein in when he gets all frisky. Diggle, tell them."

"All I know is that I don't have Bunny's face print in not my ass," said Diggle straight-faced.

Felicity laughed and Oliver couldn't help but join in.

"You all suck," said Roy sulkily. "How about less laughter and more probing?"

"Now you're starting to sound like Bunny," said Diggle, lips twitching.

"I think I really want to meet Bunny," said Felicity in amusement. "He sounds like a lot of fun."

"One arms dealer in your life is enough," said Oliver quickly. "You don't need another."

"But Eugene is so sweet," she protested.

"So you keep saying but I don't have to like it," said Oliver determinedly. He wanted Felicity safe and not mixing with the bad guys. "There is no reason for anyone else to meet this Bunny person. Team Arrow's association with him is done."

"That sounds like famous last words to me," said Felicity with a half-smile.

Oliver walked up to her. "Please, humor me about this will you? No more gunrunners in your life." He kissed her cheek lightly. "Consider it an early Christmas gift to me."

"You remember I'm Jewish, right?" said Felicity.

"My Hanukkah gift then," said Oliver, continuing on to finish making the coffee.

"You remember you're not Jewish, right?" countered Felicity in vague amusement.

Roy was looking between them. "So, this is happening, huh?" He sighed. "Okay then."

"Why the sigh?" asked Felicity in surprise.

"I just don't want things to get weird around here," said Roy.

"Said the man with a scanning wand pressed into his crotch," said Diggle dryly.

"You're focusing on that area a lot," noted Felicity. "I'm actually becoming concerned about you and Bunny. Is there something you want to tell us, Roy? How much access has Bunny had to that area anyways?"

"More than I'm comfortable with," said Roy flatly.

"Well, you look all clear to me, no bugs," said Felicity. "And it's not going to get weird now that Oliver and I are trial dating."

"What's trail dating?" asked Roy, pulling his shirt back on.

"It's the thing you do before you date for real."

Roy hesitated with buttoning up his shirt. "Is that a thing?"

"Apparently," said Oliver, adding sugar to Felicity's coffee.

"See," said Roy in exasperation, "it's already weird."

Oliver walked over to Felicity and smiled at her as he handed her the coffee. "It's not weird, it's kinda wonderful."

Roy gave an overly dramatic shudder. "Blah, he's doing that optimism thing again, make him stop. It's creeping me out."

"I like it," said Felicity smiling up at Oliver.

Oliver was caught in her gaze as his smile widened. "Yeah, I like it too," he said huskily.

Suddenly the future wasn't this dark, ominous thing to only survive to fight another day. It was full of light and hope and possibilities and for the first time in a very long time, Oliver couldn't wait to see what tomorrow would bring…

"You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope."
~Thomas Merton~

A/N: And now we only have the epilogue to go to lead us into the next story… hope to see you there. :D