A/N: Hey, look! Another chapter! Enjoy!

C17:

Felicity made a beeline for her computer when they got to the Foundry. Oliver paused at her desk, looking like he wanted to help, but a single raised eyebrow was all it took to send him to his... hitting thingies. Whatever they were called.

The man Moira had been with was called Copani, and he was up to his eyeballs in mob business, specifically, that of the Bertinelli crime family.

"Hey, check this," she called out. She looked up when the sound of hands hitting wood stopped, and boy had that been a mistake. Oliver was walking towards her, bare-chested and sweaty, and ye gods was Felicity not prepared for a sight like that after a tiring day.

"What is it?" he asked, focussed as ever, as he came to stand beside her.

The blonde IT girl, however, was still a little distracted. "Uh…" She'd seen the scars before, of course, but now she was more focussed on his abs. And pecs. And delts, and whatever other muscles he had in his very exposed upper body.

Her mouth was dry, was it hot in there? Was it just her?

"Felicity?" Oliver interrupted, and the blonde forced herself to look at her screen. Right, lots of dead people to discuss. All the dead people. None of whom looked like Oliver. Or his abs.

"Right. Uhm. So. Copani, the guy who was shot, was working for the Bertinellis. As in Frank Bertinelli, the mob boss. And it turns out he's not the only one who's bitten the bullet lately. Copani, I mean, obviously Bertinelli is still alive, or that would have made headlines. But there's no real way to figure out who's gunning for them, if you'll pardon the pun. They're the mob, they have a ton of enemies," Felicity managed. She was even mostly coherent.

"I bet Bertinelli knows who's after him, though," Oliver said, putting a hand on her chair to lean in and see the screen better.

It was definitely getting warmer.

"Well… yeah," Felicity said, managing to keep her thoughts somewhat together. "But he's not just going to tell you what he knows, is he?"

"He might if I become part of the family."

For a brief second, Felicity imagined Oliver walking down the aisle in a wedding dress and his green hood, about to fake-marry Frank Bertinelli. Then she shook her head and pushed it as far down as possible, before she burst out laughing. "Uhm… you know the mob are pretty paranoid people, right? You can't just walz up to them and say 'hi, can I join your little group of killers and drug dealers'?."

Instead of answering, like a sane person, Oliver just hummed and walked away to continue pounding on his practice dummy thing.

"Oliver, if you're thinking about doing what I think you're thinking about doing - the very thing I just told you is a Bad Idea - just… don't, okay?" she said as sternly as she could muster when he was still shirtless. "You should be with your family."

"I tried that with Thea today. She said I wasn't being honest with her, and she was right. I can't explain to her why I did what I did, but I can keep them safe."

"Yes, because walking into the lion's den is 'keeping them safe'," she muttered under her breath. She knew that arguing about this with Oliver was just a waste of breath, though, so she just got up, picked something up from the desk next to hers and handed it to him. "If you're going to be stupid, I'm going to be here to pull you out, if necessary. Or sic Diggle on you."

"I don't need a com, Felicity. I'll just arrange a business meeting with Frank Bertinelli on behalf of QC."

"Okay, no problem. And I'll be here to send you back up, just in case. I don't care if I get bored, Oliver, I care that you're safe," she retorted. She knew she was revealing too much, but at this point, if Oliver didn't know that she cared about him, he was a lot more stupid than she knew him to be.

For a moment, Oliver locked eyes with her, and she could tell that he knew. There was this tangible moment, where she felt like she was reaching for him, and he wanted to reach back, but he stopped himself. He always stopped himself.

"I'll be careful," he said quietly, already retreating back from her. One of these days she was going to have to hit him with a mallet to get it through his thick skull that she didn't need to be protected from him.

"You better."

/*/

The meeting with Bertinelli was as boring as Oliver had warned her about. Oliver was smooth, Bertinelli was not-so-secretly evil… it was all going to plan. Until Bertinelli was called away, and he suggested Oliver go out to dinner with his daughter Helena. Beautiful, could-be-a-model Helena Bertinelli. If Felicity snooped, she thought it was perfectly justified. What she found made her jealousy take a back-burner. She found an obituary of a Michael Staton from 2009, and a picture of his grieving fiance at the funeral.

"Felicity, I'm taking the com out," Oliver whispered over the channel.

For a moment, she wanted to protest, wanted to insist that she needed to make sure he was okay. But she relented. "Okay, but keep it close, just in case." She trusted him, despite her jealousy. So, she put down her headset, walked over to the couch, and sat down. She'd planned to take a nap - it was late and she was exhausted - but she couldn't relax enough to actually do it.

Instead, she pulled out her phone and dialled a familiar number.

"Lissa! I'm so sorry I didn't call you back after your last message, I've been crazy busy. I met someone new, and she's pretty awesome," Katie said the moment she picked up the phone.

"It's fine, Katie, I'm glad you found someone, what's her name?"

For a breath, Katie didn't respond. "Okay, spill, what happened? If Oliver did something, I swear-"

"It's nothing," Felicity interrupted. "Just some stuff that happened… he spent the night at my place last night."

She could practically hear Katie's eyes bug out. "What?" she shrieked, and Felicity was forced to hold her phone away from her ear. "Lessa, what the hell?"

"It's not like that, he came over to talk, just… telling me about his day, and about talking to his mom. Did I tell you that I accidentally told her that I love Oliver?"

"What?!" If anything, this shriek was even louder. "I swear, Lessie, I don't call you for a week, and all hell breaks loose! Tell. Me. Everything!"

And so she did. She told Katie about telling Moira off when she'd insulted Oliver, about Oliver coming to see her after talking things out with his mother - though she left out that he'd come by way of her fire escape. She told her about falling asleep on the bed with Oliver, about waking up and having breakfast with him, and, finally, she told her that he was currently doing something dumb and she needed a distraction. "So, you know, feel free to talk about your new crush. Because mine is an idiot."

"I'm going to kill him," Katie said conversationally. "Seriously. Screw him for leading you on like that! He needs to either man up and admit that he has feelings for you too, or take a step back and let you move on, because I'm getting whiplash from all this back and forth shit. I can't even imagine how you feel."

Felicity bit her lip. "It's not that simple, Katie, you know that he's been through hell. Letting people in is… it doesn't come easily to him anymore."

"It never has, Lissa. I remember what the guy was like back at FCA, his best friends barely knew who he really was. The only reason I had an inkling was because you have this weird way of seeing right through him. Which is ironic, since you can be so naive about other people."

For a moment, Felicity didn't say anything. She was right, of course. Even back in high school, she'd accused Oliver of only showing people what they wanted to see. His roommate and other friends'd had no idea about the true person behind the 'Oliver Queen' persona.

"At some point you're going to have to decide whether being with someone as scarred and closed off as Oliver is what you want or not, Liss," Katie said softly.

"I know you're just trying to protect me, Katie, but it's a little too late for that. I've been in love with Oliver for years, and… I know that from what you're seeing and hearing now, he might not sound like the ideal boyfriend. And he's not, but… I love him all the same, and I'm proud of everything he's doing now. I can't tell you all of it, because it's not my story to tell, but… he's trying so hard to do things right, so much so that he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He's working so hard, and… I'm proud of him."

Katie said something, but Felicity's phone beeped to let her know she had a call waiting. A glance at the screen revealed that it was Diggle. "Look, I have to go. We can video chat some other time, maybe? Possibly when I'm not feeling super tired and emotional?"

Katie sighed. "Sure, Liss. Let me know when."

Assuring her that she would, Felicity ended the call and accepted Diggle's. "Hey, John, what's up?"

"Is Oliver there? Bertinelli's second is going around collecting protection money. He's put a few people in the hospital already," he said grimly.

Quickly, Felicity got up and went back to her monitors, seeing that she did indeed have several alerts flashing. "Damn. Okay, Oliver has his com, I'll let him know. Any idea about the next target?"

"Russo's is what I heard, it's an Italian-"

"Shit, that's where Oliver is now," Felicity swore, and ended the call. If Oliver didn't have his com in… She'd muted the coms, but he might have taken it out. As she unmuted them, though, she heard nothing, and knew that he probably hadn't kept it in. Instead, she called him, praying that he'd pick up. Though, why wouldn't he pick up? Unless he was having a good time with gorgeous-Helena, and he didn't-

Her train of thought was interrupted when Oliver answered his phone. "Felicity? Is something wrong?" he asked urgently, concern obvious in his tone.

"Are you still at Russo's? Because Bertinelli's second is about to beat the crap out of the owner. He's trying to make up for lost revenue."

The call was cut off immediately, but a moment later, Oliver's com activated, and she heard the rustling of fabric as he changed into his vigilante outfit. The com could pick up quite a bit of ambient noise, so she could hear clearly when the fighting began. And when the shooting started. She clenched her fists and bit her lip to keep from distracting Oliver, though she wanted nothing more than to cry out. Luckily for her, the fight was a brief one. When all was quiet, she finally unclenched her fists. "Oliver?"

"I'm fine," he said, but he sounded distracted, confused.

"What is it, what happened?"

"I need you to find out everything you can about Helena Bertinelli."

"What, why?" Felicity was thoroughly confused now, but was already opening up the necessary windows on her computer.

"Because Helena is the shooter."

/*/

Felicity researched what she could, told Oliver about it, and then let him sort out what to do with it. She was exhausted, and Katie did have a point. She and Oliver both knew that there was something between them, and they either needed to acknowledge it, or Felicity needed to take a step back from him.

She couldn't deal with any more Oliver drama tonight, so she went home and snuggled into bed with Byte.

At some point, her cat thought it was necessary to meow right in her ear, and then jump off the bed in a hurry. Felicity blearily looked around the room to see what had startled him, and saw a shape in the window. She didn't need her glasses to know who it was.

"Oliver, just c'mere and sleep, okay?" she mumbled, turned around, and went back to sleep. A small part of her brain registered a weight next to her on the mattress, before she was off again.

/*/

Oliver woke at dawn.

He was awake instantly, and took stock of his situation. He was in Felicity's bed - again - with an arm wrapped around her waist. He really needed to stop doing this. As carefully as possible, he untangled himself from her and sat up, ready to just take his gear and leave. If Felicity even remembered anything from last night, she'd probably chalk it up to a dream.

But as he sat there, he found himself unable to move. He was being unfair, he knew, keeping Felicity close, but still holding her at arm's length. Unfortunately, he couldn't seem to make himself move in either direction. But he'd have to make a decision at some point. Either he'd pull her close, and risk hurting her, or getting her hurt, or he could push her away, something she wouldn't take kindly to. She'd see right through him, and she'd be hurt, but safe. And, really, if he decided to push her away, there wasn't a lot she could do about it.

Except… Felicity was… intoxicating. She had a lightness that he craved, and made him want to be a better person, be more than the monster he knew he was. But, once again, if he let her in closer, she'd get burned, either by him, or by one of his enemies.

He gazed at her sleeping face and marveled at her. She knew who he was, what he was. And yet, here she was, barely blinking at him breaking into her apartment and letting him sleep in her bed. She was amazing, and, though he didn't believe it himself, she thought he deserved redemption.

It made him think of Helena. She wanted revenge so badly, but if she stayed on the path she was on, she'd get innocents killed.

Felicity would help her, he thought, and then blinked. Helena already knew who he was, maybe he could teach her about his mission, about justice, instead of revenge.

Oliver couldn't quite help a smile as he looked at the blonde. She really was his light.

Quietly, carefully, he went to her side and pressed his lips to her cheeks. She smiled in her sleep, but didn't wake. "Thank you, Felicity," he breathed, gently pushing her hair behind her ear. He hesitated another moment, but knew that if he stayed where he was, he'd never leave. And now he had a new mission.

A/N: So what do you think? I did not plan this sleepover, but I think it tuned out well. I'm liking this pattern that's emerging! Let me know your thoughts!