A/N: I don't own Arrow or its characters. Please leave a review!

Oliver comes back to the foundry one night with his right hand clamped around his left shoulder.

"Who puts fucking spikes on the side of a building?" he complains.

"Awful, inconsiderate people," Felicity replies, helping him out of the hood and hanging up his bow for him.

He sits on the med table and peels off his shirt, wincing. He has a huge gash in his shoulder, blood pouring down.

"Oliver," she says nervously.

"I don't need stitches," he says tightly. "Just clean it up. Please," he adds.

She cleans the wound, muttering, "Sorry, sorry," when he hisses. She wipes up all the blood, cleans it with antiseptic and tapes down gauze over it.

"You're getting good at this," Oliver says.

"Mending the wounded?" she jokes.

Oliver looks up at her, his eyes watery with pain and something she can't quite figure out. "Taking care of me."

"Oliver," she says softly.

He leans forward and presses his forehead into her stomach, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Break up with him," he whispers. "Stay with me. Only me."

"Don't," she whispers, detaching from him.

"What does he have that I don't?" Oliver says sharply, easing off the table.

"It's not a competition," she says, frowning. "You should really sit down."

"Don't be naive, Felicity," he says, like he's disappointed in her. "Of course it's a competition."

"God, you are such a guy," she complains.

"Tell me," Oliver demands. "What can he offer you that I can't?"

"Well, for starters he hasn't spent the past two years rejecting me!" she snaps.

Oliver blinks. "I wasn't rejecting you."

"Sure," she snorts. "And hell is just a hot place."

"Felicity." He reaches for her but she steps out of his grasp.

"I was trying to protect you," he pleads, holding his arms out to her.

"Well, it still hurt!" she says angrily. "And you know what else hurt? When you told me you loved me and then left, and I thought you were dead!"

"Felicity, I do-"

"Don't you dare say that you love me right now! God Oliver, this, right here, is why I haven't broken up with him yet. Because he doesn't jerk me around like you do!"

"So what are you going to do? Date both of us forever?"

"You know what?" she says sharply, yanking on her coat. "I'll break up with him when I feel like I can trust you!"

"When's that going to be?" Oliver yells.

"Not anytime soon!" she shouts back, and storms out of the foundry.

xxx

She wakes in the middle of the night to Oliver climbing through her bedroom window.

"What're you doing?" she mumbles, reaching for her glasses.

"Apologizing," Oliver says, shutting the window. "If you'll let me."

"I was sleeping," she moans. She's so tired. Working all day for Ray and half the night with Oliver allows her about six hours of sleep tops on any given night. "Can you apologize in the morning?"

"Sure," he says softly, and turns back to the window.

"Where're you going?" she murmurs.

He turns to her, looking vulnerable and confused. "I thought you wanted me to go."

She sighs and pulls the covers back. "It's late. You should sleep."

He hovers by the window, like he's unsure if he's walking into a trap. "I thought you were mad at me."

"I'm too tired to be mad right now. And I'm going to need to change that in the morning anyway," she says, pointing to the bandage peeking out under the edge of his sleeve.

"You sure?" he asks softly.

"Just get in, Queen."

He pulls his v-neck over his head and shucks off his boots and jeans. He climbs into bed in just black boxer briefs, and even only half awake she's stunned all over again by his body.

"Hey," he says quietly, turning on his side to face her.

"Hi," she whispers.

"Felicity..." Oliver reaches towards her, but then drops his hand. "Thanks for letting me stay."

He looks pale and sad against her purple sheets. She walks her hand out until she finds his and links their fingers together.

"It's okay," she whispers. "Go to sleep."

"I need to tell you something first," he says.

"It's not morning yet," she frowns.

"Just this one thing," he promises. "I won't be able to sleep until I tell you."

"Okay," she says, her eyes drifting shut. "I'm listening, I promise."

His hands clenched tight around hers. "Felicity..."

"Hmm."

"Can you open your eyes please?"

With a supreme effort she manages to open them. "Okay. Go for it."

Oliver cups her cheek. "Knowing that I hurt you...it hurts me. I just need you to know that. That I understand."

There's an expression on his face, like a little boy who's ashamed of something he did. Like she might change her mind and kick him out.

She slips under his arm and lays her head on his chest.

"Sleep," she whispers. "It's okay."

"I just needed to tell you," he murmurs.

"I know, Oliver."

She falls asleep to the steady reassuring beat of his heart.

xxx

In the morning she wakes up to Oliver's strong arm wrapped around her waist and his face pressed into the crook of her neck.

"Mm," she mumbles, turning under his arm and burrowing into his chest.

"Morning," Oliver says softly, rubbing slow circles on her back.

"That feels nice," she murmurs.

"I'm sorry," Oliver says. "About last night."

She kisses his Bratva tattoo. "It's okay. I forgive you."

He looks down on her in surprise. "Really?"

"Well, the whole possessive thing? It's kind of your m.o. I probably should have been prepared for that."

"Felicity," he says. "I know in the past...things have been confusing. But I'm not jerking you around this time, okay?"

She nods sleepily. "If you say so."

His hand stills on her back. "You don't believe me?"

She sighs, pushing off his chest to sit up. "It's not that I don't believe you, it's just..."

"What?" Oliver asks softly.

"Oliver, every time things get hard or something happens...you leave. Or you push me away. Are you going to tell me that if we do this, for real, that'll never happen again?"

"No," he says quietly, and she can almost hear the sound of her heart breaking.

"But Felicity?" He sits up next to her and rests his hand on her knee. "I will always, always come back to you."

She swallows the lump in her throat. "I don't know if that will be enough this time, Oliver."

He nods. "I understand."

They're quiet for a minute, sitting shoulder to shoulder in bed.

"I want to pick you," she tries to explain. "It's not like I like him better than you or anything. It's just..."

Oliver squeezes her hand. "It's complicated."

"Yes," she agrees. "It is."

"For the record," he says, "I want you to pick me too."

He leans down and kisses the side of her head. "But I understand. Take all the time you need to figure it out. I'm not going anywhere."

xxx

Oliver turns their next mission into a date. Which isn't that surprising, actually. They don't have a lot of free time to actually date, what with all the crime fighting.

It's by far the easiest one she's ever been on. Oliver takes her to a charity gala that cost a thousand dollars a plate. Their target is there, and all she has to do is slip a tracker under the collar of his suit mid-waltz, and they can leave.

"You look ravishing, by the way," Oliver says, when he helps her into the backseat of the town car, holding the hem of her red gown so it doesn't trail on the pavement. "I meant to tell you before."

She gives him a coquettish smile. "You in a tux isn't so bad either."

They get stuck in traffic getting out of downtown Starling city, the car slowing to a stop.

"How is there this much traffic at one in the morning?" Felicity wonders, looking out at the mile of red tail lights in front of them.

"There's an accident on the bridge, Miss," their driver tells her, a man Diggle knows from Argus who was looking to make some easy cash for a night. Diggle is in a different car with Roy, tracking their target.

"Is it going to be long?" Oliver asks.

"Possibly Sir. Shall I take another route?"

"No, this is fine. We're not in a rush," Oliver says, and slides up the partition between the seats.

"Oliver?" Felicity questions.

He leans over to her and unbuckles her seatbelt.

"Hi," he says softly, and leans down to kiss her.

She smiles, one hand coming up to caress his jaw. "What are you doing?"

Oliver's eyes light up. "Passing the time."

"Oh," she whispers.

His hands go around her waist and he lifts, pulling her into his lap.

"Much better," Oliver murmurs, diving down to kiss her.

His lips are both soft and insistent, coaxing her mouth open. His tongue swirls, making absolutely depraved thoughts flash through her brain. She grips the shoulders of his suit jacket, shivering when his hand slides low on her bare back.

"You break up with him yet?" Oliver murmurs, fingers dipping to cup her ass.

"Nu-uh," she mumbles, kissing the underside of his jaw.

"Felicity," Oliver rasps, hand tightening on her ass, "you're officially torturing me."

She kisses down his throat. "And you don't think watching you work out in the foundry, shirtless no less, isn't torture?"

"That wasn't...my intention."

"Well," she whispers, "let me make it easier for you."

She slides down his lap to kneel on the floor of the car in front of him.

Oliver stares, his eyes glazed over in arousal. "What're you doing?"

She smiles. "Reciprocating."

Oliver's jaw drops a little. "You don't have to," he says, even as her hand goes to unbutton his pants.

"You've been very patient with me," she says, in a seductive voice that she swears doesn't belong to her. "All that waiting. I know that must be hard for you."

Oliver lets out a choked gasp as she slides his pants over his hips.

"Speaking of hard," she murmurs, and rests a hand on the bulge of his boxer briefs.

"Jesus Christ, Felicity," he mutters. "I thought you were going to stop torturing me."

She grins wickedly, drunk on power, and pulls down his boxer briefs. Her eyes bug out a little when he's released, already hard and just as big as she's fantasized about.

"You really weren't kidding," she says, staring at his cock.

Oliver looks down at her through heavy lidded eyes. "Nope."

She wraps her hand around him and Oliver curses loudly. He's heavy and full in her hand, her purple nail polish bright against the head of his cock. She runs her thumb over the tip and he jerks around her fingers.

She licks her hand and makes a tight fist, gliding up and down. Oliver pants above her, clearly wrestling for control. Her heart flutters in amazement that she has the power to make Oliver groan like this, clutch the edge of the seat with white knuckles.

She has him halfway to her mouth when he braces a hand on her shoulder.

"Wait," he grits out.

"What?"

"I didn't...do that to you," he explains.

She blows air on him, watches him shudder. "Look Oliver, I know that in your head you have this whole competition with Ray, and probably a play by play comparison. But you and me? We don't keep score, okay? We're better than that."

She takes him in his mouth. Oliver's eyes slam shut and she releases him, licks him with the flat of her tongue from base to tip, and then pulls him into her mouth again.

Oliver's hand drifts to her hair, fisting loose strands as she bobs up and down, sucking hard.

"Felicity," he says edgily, hand tightening in her hair.

She takes him as deep as she can, relishing the way his hips start to jerk.

"Fuck," Oliver groans. "Felicity, Felicity, I'm gonna-"

He comes, hot down her throat and she sucks hard, breathing through her nose until Oliver pulls on her hair, making her mouth release him with a pop.

He yanks her up by the wrists and kisses her desperately. She strokes his short hair as he comes down, breathily heavily against her cheek.

"That was..." Oliver shakes his head and then starts to laugh. "There are no words."

"Oh, I don't know about that," she says. "Hot as all hell comes to mind."

Oliver smiles softly and tucks her hair back. "Just so you know," he says, "I absolutely plan on reciprocating that."