Summary: When Felicity tracks a hacker with technopathic abilities to a convention on artificial intelligence in Central City, Oliver naturally asks Barry to attend with him.
How this leads to the fake dating, no one is entirely certain. (Panic, pure panic. Plain and simple.)
Notes: For Olivary Bingo - N4 Fake Relationship
Also For Barry Allen Week 2020 - Nov 22 - Fake Relationship
Well, I'm finally getting around to this bingo card, and just in time too.
Don't expect any of the AI stuff to be accurate, though I'm mugging wikipedia for some terminology here and there.
The Study of Intelligent Agents
"You want to go to the annual Alan Turing AI Conference," Barry echoed as he sped through his morning chores, keeping the phone to his ear as he did.
"Well," Oliver hedged, "it's not so much that I want to go as that I need to go? There's a technopath who'd been robbing banks and hacking non-profits here in Star, but they've gone to Central - probably more like back to Central - and I'm the only one who's seen his face, so..."
"So you identify him, one of us slaps him in meta inhibiting cuffs, and then I drop him off at the CCPD before enjoying the rest of the conference?" Barry asked hopefully. "How come you're not bringing Felicity?"
"She's got a cold and said AI conventions were more your thing anyway."
"Do you need a place to stay while you're in town?" Barry asked, a touch hesitantly. More confidentally, he added, "my couch is both comfortable and free."
"I kind of figured I'd just get a room at the hotel where the conference is happening," Oliver told him.
"Just days before the conference? You'll never get a room. I guarantee they're all booked up." Barry stared at his coffee machine balefully as he spoke. This did not speed up the coffee machine, unfortunately.
He'd learned the hard way that bringing a coffee machine into flashtime was doomed to failure and very bad. That was the way of accidental electrical fires and irritated supers. (The scorch marks were all gone and it wasn't like Barry had purposefully set his coffee machine on fire... his super had to stop glaring at him in the hallway eventually, right?)
"Your couch pulls out... right?" Oliver finally asked.
"Yup. And did I mention that it's very comfortable? Iris made me sleep on it when she had that big fight with Eddie. Which, it says a lot that it's really the only big fight they've ever had... anyway. She stole my room, made me take the couch, refused to go to Joe's." It was probably the biggest blow up the two had in their nearly three year relationship (well, only about one and a half years then) and Barry had to put his foot down afterwards. He still loved Iris - always would - but he'd been absolutely desperate for her to go back to Eddie's after she burned the breakfast food the next morning. The only good thing to come out of the event was how certain Barry was afterwards that he was finally over Iris.
Oliver snickered. "Sounds like something Thea would do to me."
"They're never allowed to meet," Barry muttered. It was a miracle they hadn't met yet, given the amount of Team Arrow/Team Flash team ups they had over the years. And Barry knew their luck would run out eventually, but for now he was grateful for small favors.
"Definitely not," Oliver agreed. "Anyway, I'll be taking the train there on Sunday. There's supposed to be workshops on Monday and Tuesday, so I'll be getting us some tickets to those so we won't stick out and then passes to the actual conference for Wednesday through Friday. I know it's not a lot of advance notice - are you sure you can get off work for this?"
"Oh, yeah. I, um, already have the week off. I was already planning on attending. I've got a pass for myself already and two workshops..." Barry shrugged, even though Oliver couldn't see him over the phone. "I'll send my info to Felicity so she can hack you into having the same events as me on Monday and Tuesday."
"The tickets for this are really expensive," Oliver hedged.
"Yeah, well, I own STAR Labs. I can afford to splurge, especially in the name of Gideon. Cisco wanted to come with me, but it's Armando's birthday that week so he's flying down to spend the week with his brother in Texas instead."
"I hope he enjoys it; they're already in eighty degree weather by this time of year." Oliver sounded wistful and just a touch jealous.
"Ugh, I know. And it just snowed again here. He's packing t-shirts. The only thing long sleeved is for his return trip. He keeps rubbing that in." Barry grinned while Oliver laughed.
Oliver gets in at the train station late Sunday night, has dinner with Barry at a hole in the wall where no one even blinks at the amount of food Barry eats.
("They get a lot of metas here and most metas have enhanced metabolisms. I mean, mine is extra high, but no one's gonna care if I eat a ridiculous amount of food here." Barry grinned, clearly pleased with himself over getting to share the discovery.
Oliver told himself he did not get butterflies from that cute grin, but a little voice in the back of his head - which sounded suspiciously like Felicity - went "yeah, right, sure you don't".)
He collapses onto Barry's couch, which is every bit as comfortable as advertised, and is fast asleep before he even knows it. Oliver doesn't even fall asleep this fast at home.
Something about Barry's apartment just feels... safe, he supposes. And then, once again ignoring the little Felicity voice, Oliver pretends not to know, or care, why that is.
Monday morning is late breakfast with Barry, with eggs and bacon and pancakes and many compliments to the speedy chef. Who was absolutely adorable cooking breakfast in an oversized, thread-bare t-shirt, pajama pants, and socks he slid around on while singing along to the radio.
Then they were on their way to the conference. Or, well, the pre-conference workshops. There were two on Monday and three on Tuesday, though they were only signed up for one workshop each day. Afterwards they'd just hang around, trying to find the nameless meta hacker that Oliver had seen in Star City.
They head to the Central City Garden Hotel, a grandiose hotel that's been around since the 1930s, which is where the conference is being held. Oliver's a little disappointed not to be staying in the hotel itself when he sees the architecture, the whole place is gorgeous, but he can't really regret staying at Barry's after the delicious breakfast and unexpectedly amazing singing voice Barry turned out to have. Signs point them in the direction of the workshop and they check in at the desk before parking themselves, and their laptops, in the back of the room. Check in came with unexpected goodie bags - including a rather nice power bank but weirdly also a worm on a string - and they settled in to prep for the workshop before it starts.
Oliver is not totally lost. Not yet, anyway. He knows, thanks to Felicity, what GitHub is and he successfully downloads the workshop's repository to his computer. Which is a Mac. Felicity tried to brain him with his own laptop when he attempted to take a Windows machine. ("Either Mac or Linux, but I'm not letting you put gorgeous AI related code on a... a... Windows laptop.") He then follows the instructions to build the code and watches as text scrolls across the terminal while everything compiles.
While that's going on, Oliver surreptitiously kept an eye out for the rest of the people joining the class. No one looks like the technopath they're waiting for, though there's a woman with similar enough facial structure that Oliver has to wonder for a moment if their technopath had changed gender presentation between cities. Ultimately he decided it wasn't her - too tall - and turned his attention back to his own computer.
The workshop is kind of boring, for Oliver anyway. He takes copious notes for Felicity, but has no idea what things like Bayesian inference means or why overfitting was bad. At least Barry looks fascinated and clearly enjoys himself. They break for lunch and come back afterwards for another hour and a half. At least the lunch was catered.
Afterwards, they pack up and head out into the hotel proper. A group from the workshop is heading to pick up their passes for the main conference early, so Barry and Oliver join them. There's more goodies with their pass; free passes to a casino night and two tickets for free beer, t-shirts, a water bottle, a stress ball, and a light jacket are all waiting for them. No wonder Felicity loved work conferences so much.
More free goodies to come, too, if Oliver was hearing correctly.
"I'm surprised to see you here, Mr. Queen." And of course someone recognized him.
Dammit.
Oliver pasted on a neutral expression and turned to greet the man who'd spoken to him. A representative from a tech company that Queen Consolidate did business with sometimes. He knew Oliver wasn't tech savvy. "Ah, well, I'm not the only one from Queen Consolidated here," Oliver said - which was true, there were two of his employees here, though he doubted they'd be brave enough to approach him. "In fact, Felicity should be here instead of me but she got sick and made me go in her place last minute. Can't be too upset, though. I get to spend my time here with a friend of mine whom I definitely don't get to see enough of." He gestured over to Barry, who'd gotten caught up in a conversation with some fellow AI enthusiasts.
"You know Mr. Allen?" David Collins - Oliver thought that was the man's name, anyway. (Or maybe it was Collin Davids...)
"Oh, yeah, Barry and I have known each other for years."
"He's certainly not what I expected when I met him last year. I thought someone with as much insight as him into AI would be working at a big tech company. To find out one of the greatest minds in AI research does it in his spare time and works for law enforcement?" Collins shook his head. "Good luck trying to recruit him. No one else has succeeded."
"Not trying to recruit him," Oliver insisted. Though maybe he ought to at least consider partnering Queen Consolidated with STAR Labs? "We're friends..."
"Hey, Ollie," Barry popped over, putting a hand on Oliver's shoulder. "A group of us are going to get some ice cream across the street and keep discussing the workshop. Come find me when you're ready to head out, okay?"
"Yeah, sure thing." Oliver smiled and watched as Barry headed off with the group... not quite able to keep his eyes from wandering.
"You know, Miss Smoak may have actually been sick, but I rather suspect she was just setting you up to spend time with your boyfriend there," Collins said, amused smile of his own. "Don't let me keep you, Mr. Queen. We can talk business some other time. I know long distance relationships can be difficult." And then he was just walking off before Oliver could say anything.
What... what just happened?
"Already done?" Barry asks when Oliver shows up at the ice cream shop.
"Yeah. I figured maybe I could listen in on your discussion? I may not be exactly tech savvy, but Felicity'll want any notes I can bring her." Oliver's smile was absolutely lovely. Sent Barry's heart all aflutter. "Besides, we'll run into that guy I'm looking for later. How often do I get to spend time with you?" He headed off to get some ice cream and Barry told himself not to read into what Oliver said.
Even though he totally wanted to read into it and between every line and maybe go over every letter with a microscope just in case...
"Dude. You're dating Oliver Queen?" Jace said, eyes wide. "When'd that happen?"
"Ah well, we, we're not... we're keeping it low key right now..." Barry's not proud of it, but he panicked. He totally panicked.
"Ooooh," Tasha nodded. "Right." She mimed zipping her lips. "The paparazzi's got a be a bitch to deal with for him."
"Your secret's safe with us," Shravan agreed.
"Thanks guys. I'm gonna grab Ollie a chair, okay." But Barry darted over to where Oliver was looking over the ice cream menu with an intensity that Barry's pretty sure is usually reserved for lining up a particularly tricky shot with his bow. "Oliver TheyThinkWe'reDating and IPanickedAndI'mSorry."
"What?"
"They think we're dating," Barry muttered. "And I panicked. And might've... confirmed? And I'm sorry..."
Oliver blinked at Barry. And then snickered. "You know it's kind of funny? The guy I was talking to back at the hotel thought we were dating too. Walked off before I could correct him. Maybe we should just roll with it, seeing as you've already confirmed it." He laughed again, touching Barry's arm and tilting his head to the side and giving Barry such an amused look that Barry just...
Blushed beet red. No wonder everyone thought they were dating when Oliver's presence affected him so much.
"It'll be fun," Oliver continued.
"Yeah... yeah, okay," Barry muttered and scurried back to the table, grabbing an extra chair as he went.
He studiously ignored the wide grins on his new friends faces and Tasha's teasing, "I was hoping you two were gonna kiss."
Oliver really can't stop himself from teasing Barry for basically the rest of the day. "Still can't believe you panicked."
"Oh shut up," Barry muttered, burying his face in his hands.
"You can face down powerful metas who can control the weather and Leonard Snart with a freeze ray -"
"Cold Gun, there's a difference."
"- but three nerds who can't tell the difference between friends and boyfriends trips you up?" Oliver snickered.
"I'm gonna make you go stay at Joe's if you keep this up," Barry threatened half-heartedly.
"I bet he'd love to hear this story," Oliver teased.
"Never mind, never mind, I take it back." Barry went wide eyed and shook his head. "We're never telling Joe about this, he will never let me live it down, and unlike you he actually lives in Central City. I have to see him nearly every day."
"Oh, Barry, Barry, Barry... just wait until Felicity knows. Maybe I should call her..." Oliver reached for his phone, only for Barry to snatch it at super speed and tuck it away in his shirt pocket, the way he placed his hand over it giving away the location.
Except...
"Barry, did you just put my phone over your heart?" Oliver fluttered his lashes mockingly. "How sweet of you, darling."
"Asshole," Barry muttered petulantly.
Oh, yeah, Felicity, Dig, Laurel, and Tommy were all gonna get a kick out of this when he told them.
Day two goes similarly to day one. Somewhat earlier workshop that doesn't straddle the lunch hour but does provide donuts and fruit for breakfast, another goodie bag with another power bank but also a nifty screen cleaning kit that Oliver definitely doesn't immediately play with. (He totally does.) Then there's downloading the GitHub repository and taking copious notes and nodding along like he has any idea what's going on.
No one in the class is familiar. And none of the other AI nerds they catch sight of hanging out in the hotel lobby the rest of the day are the one Oliver's looking for either.
Barry takes revenge on Oliver's teasing the night before by sitting close, but not 'too close' so that he can do things like bump knees with Oliver a lot. And lean into his space, brushing their arms together. Gives Oliver these looks with lowered lashes that just...
And of course the one time Oliver tries to put an arm around Barry's shoulders - just habit, that's all, doesn't mean anything, move along... - Barry ducks away, blushing and smiling, and laying a hand on Oliver's should placatingly. "We're taking it low-key, remember babe? Don't want the paparazzi crowding us just yet..."
Oliver makes the mature decision to stick his tongue out at Barry.
He regrets it when Barry says, "I can think of better uses for that later." Because of course Oliver chokes, just a little, cheeks burning bright red despite himself. (He is a hard as nails vigilante who kneecaps villains with arrows, he does not blush at sexual innuendo... unless its Barry making the innuendo, apparently.)
Day three is the actual conference. The opening ceremony piles everyone into a gigantic dining area that's been repurposed with tables set up with lots of power cords and trip hazards so that everyone can have their laptops open as the presenters go on and off stage. There are vendors in the hallway behind the conference area giving away free stuff and offering tickets for giveaways. Oliver slips out a few times in the morning, but still hasn't located the meta hacker by the time the lunch break rolls around.
That's when he finally strikes gold. Apparently there was a reason the woman from the day one workshop resembled the technopath so much; she was his sister. They were sitting together at a lunch table, arguing quietly. But Oliver was positioned well to read their lips. The sister was pissed that her brother was given these amazing gifts and using them for crime. The brother was pissed that his sister didn't appreciate the loads of money he could now supply her research with.
Now the question was, how to arrest the kid without turning it into a whole production. Admittedly, that was what Barry was there for.
They headed over to the designated quiet area and snagged an empty room, nice and cozy and perfect for discussing super hero stuff. (Or making out, which certain people were definitely assuming. Perfect cover, right?)
"I can't just run in there and kidnap him," Barry immediately points out. "Even if it is to gift wrap him for the police. He doesn't have any open warrants yet and there's no solid evidence he's the hacker."
"So we have to wait for him to do something here that we can catch him in the act for," Oliver agreed reluctantly. It'd be so much easier to just shoot the jerk in the knees... "Well, he's certainly primed to cause trouble. He and his sister are not seeing eye to eye on his illegal activities. I don't think she's going to turn him in, but she wants nothing to do with his ill gotten gains either. And he's insulted because if it."
"If I were a technopath who wanted to cause trouble at an AI conference, I'd target the robot fight club set up for tomorrow." Barry looked concerned. "Some of those bots could cause a lot of trouble in the wrong hands."
"The only robot I've had any experience with is the drunken Roomba Thea got for me last Christmas," Oliver admitted. "That and the stories of Stabby the Roomba."
Barry snickered. "Oh, Stabby, we all love him. What makes your Roomba drunk?"
"It's never really managed a straight line," Oliver replied with a grin.
"Anyway, I'm actually entering a bot in the maze runner event afterwards. Cisco made her and I programmed the AI." Barry looked proud and Oliver found the expression adorable. "We couldn't bear the thought of the poor thing getting beaten up in a bot fight."
Oliver's hand shifted to Barry's knee as he leaned in a little. "Tell me about how those events are run?"
"Uh, yeah... sure," Barry stammered out. "It's, um, the, uh... the bot fight..."
There was a knocking at the door and an event mod stuck their head in. "Just a heads up that everyone's filing back to the conference room for the afternoon's presentations."
"Right, thanks," Barry squeaked, bouncing to his feet and out the door.
"You two are a cute couple," the mod told Oliver, before heading off to the next quiet room.
(Oliver spent the rest of the afternoon finding excuses to touch Barry's shoulders.
"Oliver," Barry hissed, blushing.
"How am I supposed to resist my cute boyfriend sitting right here next to me?" Oliver murmured against Barry's ear, smirking at the way the other man shivered. "That's our cover, remember?"
It wasn't really much of a cover, though, and they both knew it.)
Oliver is a menace. Barry knew that, but he hadn't ever had the full force of flirting turned on him before.
It's just all a joke, though, right? After all, Oliver needed an excuse to be at an AI conference he otherwise had no business being at. And apparently being there for Felicity was less believable than being there for Barry.
Somehow, Barry survives all the flirting - which was happening whether they had an audience or not (such a menace) - and they make it to the robot fight club event late Thursday afternoon. And, as expected, things immediately start going wrong. The bots don't attack each other but start going after their creators. There's much screaming and running and Barry easily disappears so that the Flash can show up. More of the bots 'wake up' and start attacking Barry when he attempts to stop the first two bots without actually harming the machines.
"You'll never be able to stop me, Flash!" the technopath boasts. Barry rolls his eyes as Oliver - now dressed in his own vigilante getup - sneaks up behind the guy and knocks him down easily enough and slaps the meta cuffs on him. Immediately the robots stop attacking.
It's all a little ridiculous and anti-climactic, to be honest.
While the police show up to arrest the hacker, Barry flashes himself and Oliver away and one quick change later they rejoin the crowd as themselves with no one the wiser.
"I wonder what the Arrow was doing in Central City," someone asks, close enough to Barry and Oliver for them to overhear.
"Maybe the Green Arrow and the Flash are dating," Oliver offers innocently.
Barry chokes.
The bot fight is rescheduled and the maze runner event starts early. The adorable little robot that Barry and Cisco built trundles through the maze faster and more efficiently than all the rest, winning the competition easily. Barry, too excited to contain himself, throws his arms around Oliver for a hug.
"We won! I've gotta call Cisco and let him know..." Barry trailed off when Oliver planted a kiss on his cheek.
"I'm sure he won't mind if you text him later," Oliver purred.
"So much for low-key," came the all too familiar teasing voice of Tasha from somewhere nearby.
Barry blushed bright red, but let Oliver whisk him - and his robot - away for a 'private celebration'.
"So... Barry," Oliver hedged, the moment they were outside the hotel, "what if we decided to make the fake dating... not... fake?"
"Smooth," Barry teased. "Very smooth."
"Shush, I panicked," Oliver muttered, looking away.
"It's a lot easier doing a long distance relationship when one of the two is a speedster," Barry observed lightly. And then, taking the initiative, wrapped his arms around Oliver's shoulders again to draw him into a kiss.
("Okay, so I really do need to let Cisco know now."
"Oh, come on, Barry..."
"What? We worked really hard on Thomas. He deserves to know she won."
"Thomas?"
"It's from Maze Runner."
"Of course it is... nerd."
"Nerd who just scored a jock."
Oliver silenced Barry's laughter with another kiss. Looked like Cisco'd have to wait a little longer after all.)
Oliver really is an amazing kisser.
Notes: Cisco made the robot hardware and started referring to it as Thomas after the Maze Runner character, but Barry had been referring to the AI he was creating with she/her pronouns. At first Cisco considered renaming the robot, but Barry just carried on after uploading the AI, calling her Thomas and still using the she/her pronouns. So Cisco decided no rename was necessary after all.