Onwards!

II.

He knew.

Of course he did.

Right?

Yeah… she had been silly to think that she could basically molest his face and get away with it. Honestly… who did that? Apparently, one very in trouble yet totally helpless IT girl. How could she be blamed? He was so rottenly good looking and perfectly sculpted – even his scars somehow made him more attractive – and she just couldn't help herself. One tiny stolen moment of intimacy and she was sure she would never be able to live down her embarrassment.

Okay, so maybe he hadn't said anything yet, but she knew that somehow he knew. He had walked into the foundry that evening with a frown on his face. The frown wasn't exactly new, she was used to his constant frowning. Apparently it was his facial default setting unless something else happened to solicit another expression. No, what made her so sure that her moment of indiscretion had not gone unnoticed was his reaction to her. Just the smallest falter in his stride, usually so sure and confident. He looked at her with that look of his that spoke of a thousand different things, but at the same time managed to obscure them just enough that she only got just the gist. The problem today was that this time she wasn't sure she understood what that was. Usually she could read him better, respond to him and adapt to him in ways that she was sure she'd never been able to do with another man before him. He was just Oliver, and she always tried her best to be his girl. Not his girl girl obviously, but she'd been over it before she was sure. It made more sense in her head than it did out loud.

There was a wall.

Suddenly she felt ill, her stomach twisting in knots and her hands and fingers twisting nervously over her keyboards. It was the presence of that wall between them that had her so on edge. How could she have been so careless?

Just the smallest of minutes passed, but it was enough that her quick brain processed through this and allowed her to fidget, freeze, and correct her behavior. The physical part was the easy part, getting her body to move and do exactly what she wanted. It was her inability to use this same control over her mouth that often landed her in the rambling – and quite frankly extremely embarrassing – situations that she, more often than not, found herself in.

"Felicity?"

She jumped at the sound of his voice, even though he had used that gentle tone of his. The one she very rarely heard him use for others, and heard directed towards her quite a lot. Ignoring the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach she turned away from her beloved monitors and looked him dead in the eye.

Hold strong Felicity, don't say a thing and don't act guilty. What isn't discussed can't be used to make you feel so… egh!

His eyes were still guarded, but he smiled – just the tiniest upward quirk of his lips really – before he reached into his pocket and held something out to her.

She cupped her hands and was surprised by how heavy the small object he dropped into her hands was. Picking it up between her thumb and index finger she examined the small bronze coin. It was definitely old, probably older than her grandparents would be if they were still alive, but there was something about it that looked extremely familiar. It was a little dirty, and most of its features were covered with black stains that didn't reveal much.

"Interesting, but why did you give me this coin?" She raised her eyes to look at him and saw the slight amusement that decorated his features before he rained it in again.

"I managed to find this along the trail this thief left behind on his last raid. Thought maybe you could look into it and see if there's anything of worth to it."

She smiled now. This was familiar territory, this was what she was good at. She would simply use gentle chemicals that would reveal the coin's features and scan it before cross referencing it with every relatable thing that popped up. She was fairly sure that either one of them could do this as well, but it made her happy that he came to her with these kinds of things. Not because she felt he was giving her the tasks that didn't particularly require any special set of skills and could be done by anyone, but because he always tried to make her feel like she belonged. And yes, she would probably be able to find some information on it that they could somehow miss, because when it came to computers and information gathering; no one was her equal.

She enclosed the small but heavy coin in her fist and smiled up at him. "I'm your girl," was all she said.

There were moments when Felicity desperately wished for and missed her old life. Days when the mind numbing workload from being Oliver Queen's executive assistant began to make her head hurt were abundant with those moments.

Sure the computers Oliver had given her had more processing power than most assistant's computers – not much, and nowhere near what she would like to have – but she felt like she was no more than a human glorified calendar app.

This was ridiculous.

"You ready to go?" The sound of his voice sent shivers down her spine. It had taken a while, but she had finally been able to completely control visibly reacting to him.

She raised her eyes to meet his gaze where he was standing at the edge of her desk looking at her expectantly.

"I still have a lot of work to do," she lied easily. Having eyed the huge workload in the morning, she had worked through her lunch hour in hopes of getting everything done early. She knew that Oliver would expect them to go to the foundry and commence their nighttime vigilante jobs, but she was more interested in the coin that he had given her, and she was eager to begin her analysis of it.

He raised his eyebrows at her, and for once had the grace to look apologetic. It was still a common occurrence for her to express her distaste for her forced change in career.

"I'm sure it could wait." He spoke softly, giving her that look that made her stomach do little summersaults.

Today however, would not be one of those days when she fell to the charms of Oliver Queen. She smiled wryly at him, tilting her head to the side. "Not unless you want to show up to your meeting tomorrow with a half finished presentation that'll leave the investors so disappointed they'll be pulling their support faster than you can shoot an arrow."

Again he opened his mouth to speak, but the slight narrowing of her eyes had him closing it. Oliver was a smart man after all, and even he knew better than to test Felicity when it came to matters such as these.

"I'll see you later then?" his implication of it being at the foundry was not lost on her, which was why she simply pursed her lips and shrugged. Surely they could make it through one mission without her. They had before if she remembered correctly, albeit not as smoothly. Of that fact, she would always be proud.

For a moment the wall he that had sprung up between them fell and his beautiful blue eyes searched her face. But while his wall had fallen, she had been quick to put one up of her own. It wasn't fair, she decided stubbornly. She couldn't be the open book to him all the time, while he so casually shut her out whenever something got too deep, or too far into his darkest secrets. This, whatever their relationship was, would simply not work that way.

Whether he found whatever it was he was looking for, or if he simply gave up she didn't know. His brows pressed together in confusion, and she felt the urge to smooth out the crease that he made between his eyebrows. She clasped her hands together in her lap, silently willing them to obey. With one last look at her face Oliver turned around and walked out of the office.

Her quiet sigh of relief however, still managed to reach his ears.

Thank you to No. 1TwiFanpire, msreadalot71292, and Carfa for being the first to review! You will forever be in my heart :).

Reviews are love darlings.