Title: Fixer Upper
Rating: M (for language, some mild violence and probable *cough*definite*cough* sexual situations later on)
Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow or any of the characters used within this fic.
Author's Notes: Yay, another chapter! The longest one yet, and it didn't take four months to produce! (Not that this is anything to brag about, I realise.) I actually had a lot of fun writing this one, because I finally got to kick things up a gear between Tommy and Felicity (well, in relative slow-burn terms, anyway). By the way, I am very aware of the fact that people may also be keen to see the Oliver/Felicity side to things – that's a little difficult to achieve at the moment since he's still on Lian Yu, but I promise that relationship won't be neglected once he comes back. There will be some pretty major issues to deal with there, and although I'm looking forward to tackling them, I'm a little nervous too.
Side note – a couple of people, when this story was first published, were concerned that Oliver might be 'paired off' with Laurel as a way of providing for him romantically, I guess – I promise right now that this will not happen. Laurel will make a re-appearance later in the story, but she's on her own path now and won't be reuniting with either Tommy or Oliver.
Happy reading!
By Felicity's calculation, they've got maybe a couple of weeks, at most, before Verdant is up and running again. She's making a habit of monitoring Thea's communications, and she does feel bad about it, but she can also justify it to herself and manage not to lose sleep, so she figures that means it's probably the right thing to do, on balance.
The damage to the club isn't too bad. The contractor has estimated about a week to get it structurally sound, and then Thea is bringing in her own interior designers to restore the rest.
Suppliers will begin making delivery runs towards the end of next week, and Felicity has seen texts suggesting that Thea might re-open as early as the following Saturday.
It's good, she guesses, for more than one reason. Thea has something to focus on, for a start, and if she can manage to keep Oliver's club in business then at least they'll still be able to maintain their cover for Oliver's basement activities when he comes back (and she's decided – definitely 'when'. Optimism all the way, baby.)
The biggest problem it poses, in the meantime, is limited access to the lair for she and Diggle. They've got the side door, sure, but with so many people coming and going during the reconstruction they're bound to be spotted, and without Oliver they'll have no way of justifying their presence there. They'll either get arrested or hauled in front of Thea – she's not sure which is worse – and both scenarios will result in alerting people to the fact that, firstly, their identities as mere QC employees may not be quite so clear cut, and secondly, that there's more to the basement than meets the eye.
So basically, she and Diggle are going to have to cut back on the time they spend at the foundry. She doesn't really see any other way around it. It'll mean foregoing setting up all of her exciting new toys, and Diggle won't be able to get any benefit out of the training equipment, but they can both live with it for a while.
They'll have to, it seems.
Diggle seems resigned to the logic of it, when she tells him, but in his opinion the timing couldn't be worse. "Criminal activity is on the rise," he says. "It was bad to start with, what with the looting and rioting after the earthquakes, but the police are stretched so thin that it's becoming obvious to anybody with half a brain that there are plenty of opportunities to get away with murder – sometimes literally. Not to mention…" He hesitates, grimacing.
"John," she warns him, when it becomes obvious that he'd rather not continue, "if you say 'not to mention' and then don't mention something, you have only yourself to blame if I choose to take cyber revenge."
He flashes her a quick smile, but his words are heavy when he says, "There have been some reports of… vigilante activity."
Felicity's spine stiffens, and for just one second her breath catches hopefully in her throat. Can he possibly mean…?
Dig can read her face like a book, and lets her down gently with a shake of his head. "Mostly idiot kids," he tells her. "Some of them are trying to do good. But there are a few whose intentions aren't so pure – and unfortunately they're just smart enough to be dangerous."
"What are you saying?" she asks, fighting to keep her voice steady. "You want to get out there again? Put on the hood?"
He braces his elbows on his knees, contemplating. "I don't know," he says at last. "This became our mission – all of ours, not just Oliver's – but the Hood was his identity. It's the one he created when he started all of this. I don't know how he'd feel about me using it on my own initiative."
Unconsciously, she mimics his posture, hand swiping across her mouth as she weighs up both sides of the issue. "I think," she says slowly, "if it was to save the city, he'd understand. But Dig," she catches his eyes and pins him with a desperately earnest stare, "if you do this, you'll have no backup, nobody to help you out. I can come into the field –" she ignores the way he stiffens, his eyes narrowing as he opens his mouth to protest "– run the comms from close by so I can be ready to get you out if it comes to that, but if it goes wrong too quickly or my information is bad…"
"Felicity," Diggle reaches out and grasps her hand briefly, "I'm not talking about doing this tomorrow. And now that we know what's happening at Verdant, I think we need to be realistic about doing this at all. If we can't access the foundry, we'll have limited supplies and nowhere to go if I – or god forbid, you – get injured on the job."
In the end, they agree to wait a few weeks, if they can, until Verdant is up and running. Once the club is back in business, its hours of operation will be more predictable and it'll be easier to get in and out while the employees are distracted by clubgoers. Privately, Felicity hopes that Oliver might be back by then as well.
Before they part ways, Diggle extracts a promise from her that they'll meet up regularly, not just for training but for lunches and dinners when they can. "Don't be a stranger," he tells her, and the sharp look he gives her suggests he knows exactly how hesitant she might be to contact him once reality sets in and they begin to slip away to separate lives.
"I promise," she tells him, reaching up to pull him into a tight hug.
And so here she is, practically a lady of leisure now that she's been 'suspended with a ridiculous amount of pay' from her second job.
She scrolls through the Contacts list on her phone and is saddened but not that surprised to realise that she has fallen out of touch with almost everyone on it. She drafts messages to a couple of the friends she was closest to (before she started bailing on them and letting their calls go to voicemail) but deletes them before she can hit send.
That chapter of her life is closed now.
Even struggling to pull itself back together after a tragedy, the city is still beautiful in the heat of summer. The parks are full, rich and green, always busy with classes on the lawns – yoga in the morning, Tai Chi and watercolours in the afternoons. People rent pedal boats and circle the lake, laughing and screaming as they lurch and crash into the banks or each other.
Ice cream and frozen yoghurt are suddenly everywhere. Felicity starts taking the bus to work so she'll have an excuse to walk outside in the sunshine, and she notices at least three new food carts on her route that tempt her with mouth-watering aromas and bright, colourful displays. One of them makes the most incredible iced mochas, and sells little handmade pastries and tarts that frankly, she could eat until they came out of her ears.
She knows she could find plenty of ways to occupy herself, at least for a few weeks, but the truth is, it's lonely exploring the city by herself. She doesn't mind seeing couples, but it suddenly seems as though everybody she passes is walking with somebody – friends, siblings, grandparents – and she feels increasingly aware of the empty space on either side. She loves living independently, she always has, and she's not exactly prone to sitting and sighing about her lack of social life, but the truth is, she's tired of keeping her observations to herself, of not being able to share the new discoveries she's making or have the thrill of watching somebody else enjoy them too.
Making friends is going to be difficult from now on, and keeping them even more so.
Naturally, her thoughts turn to Tommy.
She doesn't know how to begin to characterise their relationship. They're more than strangers, but less than friends, and she's not sure if there might eventually be a limit to his trust given that her presence in his life is a direct result of Oliver Queen.
Then again…
She glances at her phone, as she's found herself doing frequently since last night.
'Come and supervise', he'd said.
She wonders if that was a real invitation. Previously he's almost exclusively made offers of hospitality in the context of her own wishes. 'You could stay, if you want', or 'we could watch a few more episodes, if you want?' She thinks that's because he finds it easier to accept her presence as something that's being forced upon him, as opposed to something that he might actually want.
So – okay, yeah, this might be evidence of some headway.
And who knows, now that her evenings have opened up for the foreseeable future, she might be able to lend some consistency to her visits. Maybe get him to clean the rest of his apartment, or do some exercise, or go out, even if it is just to the street corner and back.
She's hopeful. She'll allow herself that.
Later that night, she knocks on his door and he answers almost immediately.
"Hey," she greets him, her wide smile involuntary but genuine.
He really is handsome. God, this is going to be a problem if she's not careful.
He's still sporting a light growth of stubble, though it's evidently by choice these days – it's been a consistent length every time she's seen it. His hair is getting noticeably shaggy, and tonight it's sticking up in little wild tufts. In her opinion, he'll need it cutting soon, or he'll be in danger of imitating Oliver's pre-island electrocuted roadkill look (something she wouldn't wish on even the worst specimens on Oliver's list, mainly for the sake of the people who would suffer for having to look at it all day).
"Hey," Tommy says, standing back to let her through, the smallest of smiles playing around his lips. "No pizza?"
She glares at him on her way towards the kitchen, though it probably lacks some punch given that she's struggling to suppress her grin. "No. There is stuff in the freezer, Merlyn – like, a lot of stuff. It's so wasteful not to use it."
"Jeez, okay, mom," he replies, and she catches a glimpse of a tiny, secretive smile before he turns away. She frowns, wondering what little private joke he's entertaining himself with at her expense. "I ate some vegetables," he says, turning back suddenly to catch her eye, "in case you were wondering."
She actually hadn't. She'd assumed he would have ignored that advice along with almost everything else she says to him. She blinks at him, not even trying to hide how surprised – and pleased – she is. "If you tell me you defrosted a lasagne I might actually cry."
He gives her a long look, then reaches past her to open the fridge.
There are two meals in foil trays on separate shelves.
She's not prepared for the sheer relief she feels, knowing that he has actually taken this relatively independent step towards looking after himself. She turns to stare at him, astonished, and his eyes grow wide. "Okay, I thought you were joking about crying – Jesus, Smoak, do you despair of me that much?"
Alarmed, she reaches up to pat her cheeks, and glares at him when she finds them dry. "Yeah, you're hilarious. Poke fun at the worry-wart, why don't you? That seems fair."
She's mostly joking, of course, but as she turns to lift the kettle to refill, he catches her elbow gently. "Hey," he says, "you really do worry, don't you?"
She studies her feet carefully. It's a rhetorical question, she figures.
For a second, his fingers curl into the crook of her arm and tighten reassuringly. "Thanks," he says eventually. He doesn't tell her he's fine, or that he'll be okay. She can understand that. "Thank you for... thinking of me. For worrying. Even after... everything."
She turns towards him, lips parted to ask what the hell he means by that, but he's already pulling his hand away and slipping out of the kitchen. She touches the skin of her arm, looking down with a vague expectation of seeing fingerprints, but it's unmarked.
She stares after him at the closed door. Even after everything – does he think she'd blame him, in some way? How can he think that?
If she tells him she doesn't, will he believe her?
She hears the faint noise of the TV and realises that if he's been forcing himself to watch the news, he's probably extrapolating somewhat from the opinion of the popular media. Not for the first time, she wonders what's happening with Merlyn Global. She's taken to watching the business news, mainly because she's trying to work out if QC is going to fall, and if so, where she should apply to work. From what she's heard, Malcolm Merlyn's legacy is barely fit to float on the stock exchange. Investors are dropping like flies, and three board members have cut and run (although all of them remain under federal investigation).
She puts the kettle on and preheats the oven. Out of curiosity, she glances into the cupboards to find them mostly untouched. She isn't disappointed, not really; she doesn't know what she expected.
Steeling her nerves, she pushes through the kitchen door and goes to join him on the couch. "What's the plan?" She asks casually, tapping her feet against the carpet. "Community? Or something else?"
He scratches his head, squinting at the TV. "I can't remember where we were up to. Early season two?"
She nods, trying to sound casual when she says, "The Halloween episode was the next one, I think."
It's actually one of her favourites, but she's trying not to look too crazed by the concept.
"Oh yeah..." Tommy breathes, throwing a knowing grin in her direction. "You might have mentioned that about nine times the last time you were here." His eyes are bright and kind when he says, "We could have skipped ahead, you know."
She shifts, adjusting her legs underneath her and brushing imaginary lint off her skirt so that he won't see the unexpected flush staining her cheeks and neck. She wonders if he knows how different he looks with his eyes all big and earnest like that. How good he looks.
She digs her fingertips into her knees and steels herself to turn back and say, "Well, that'd be cheating, wouldn't it?"
"Ah, a TV purist," he says sagely. "Okay, next question: DVD commentary or no? Or one of each?"
She eyes him shrewdly. "Have you ever seen it before?"
He shrugs, mouth twisting attractively. "I don't think so. I didn't recognise anything from the last few of season one so I must have stopped watching."
"Then, no commentary," She decides. "You should go into this with a fresh view." She tips her head to catch his eye. "And don't feel pressured to say you like it just because I am practically peeing myself to watch it."
"Absolutely no pressure," he says, straight-faced. "Got it."
The episode is just as funny as she remembers, and Tommy seems to agree. She takes the opportunity to study him, missing vital elements of the plot by memorising the smooth, relaxed appearance to his face when he laughs.
She catches herself abruptly when he shifts on the couch and unexpectedly makes eye contact. "Uh," she says quickly, hoping her alarm isn't obvious, "do you want something to drink?"
Instantly, she winces. Wow, not only is that super rude – to offer a drink to the person who lives here – but she is really going to need to work on her casual voice if she's ever going to go into the field again. Not that she's lining up for that, but she'd like to think she could handle it, if the situation called for it.
Instead of calling her on it, Tommy says, "I'll get it, you keep watching. Coffee okay? I only have instant."
Her eyes widen as he gets up from the couch. Oh, crap, this really isn't going well.
"No, hold on," she begins, haphazardly untangling her legs from beneath her and launching herself into his path, "I didn't mean for – shit –"
One of her legs is dead.
It's a discovery she makes when she tries to block Tommy's path to the kitchen and instead nearly falls to her knees. Of course, the rush of painful pins and needles about five seconds later is a useful clue, but she hardly notices because she is pressed up against Tommy Merlyn's body and – oh god, she was right, except she's also a total idiot because this isn't 'going to be' a problem so much as it already is.
They're both still standing, somehow.
Tommy has managed to band an arm tightly around her waist while his other hand grasps her shoulder. She, in a panicked scrabble for purchase, has managed to sink her fingers into the flesh of his bicep, but her other arm is trapped between them, his t-shirt caught and twisted in her death grip.
All of these are minor details, though, compared to the fact that her chest is flattened against his, and the warmth of his body feels… really nice. His fingertips are burning into her hip through her t-shirt, his forearm pressed against the thin strip of bare skin between her skirt and top. Her face is tucked into his shoulder, the crook of his neck just inches away from her forehead. She can feel his breath – still coming in little surprised puffs – against her hairline. How easy it would be to let her head drop – to wind her arms around his neck and actually embrace him for real.
He could probably really use a hug, actually.
His hold is so secure she thinks she could probably stop trying to shift all of her weight onto her good leg and just let him support her, but that would be the last mortifying nail in this coffin of humiliation, and there's no way she'll do that.
Instead, she tentatively puts her other foot down, transferring weight when she thinks it's safe. She straightens, pulling back and out of his arms; she sort of hopes he won't make eye contact, given that she must be the colour of a beetroot right now.
No such luck.
"You okay?" he asks, ducking his head to meet her gaze. He looks concerned, if a little awkward. "You get a charley horse?"
She grimaces, rotating her ankle in a slightly exaggerated way to emphasise the problem. "It was my fault," she says, her voice steadier than she'd expected. "I got up too quick."
To her surprise, she can see spots of high colour on his cheeks. He lifts a hand to the back of his neck, pausing for a second to stare at his palm in consternation before shaking his head. "If I'd known you wanted to make the coffee that bad, Smoak, I'd have stayed out of your way."
She laughs, and to her ears it sounds weird and forced. "Thanks for saving my butt. Or, you know, my face – which would probably have become really well acquainted with your coffee table, knowing my luck…"
"Anytime," he says, and she catches a brief flicker of embarrassment in his eyes before he looks away. "Why don't you sit down? I'll get the coffee." He gestures to the TV. "You can go back and catch whatever you missed."
She takes him up on the offer, partly because she doesn't trust her legs and also because she needs the time to collect her thoughts.
She has a lot of thoughts.
You are an idiot, she tells herself, if you think that adding the complication of yet another inappropriate attraction is going to enhance your life even a tiny bit.
Because – yeah, obviously she finds him attractive. She'd be hard pressed to find a straight woman who didn't. And spending time with him in close proximity was never exactly going to solve that problem, unless he'd turned out to be an asshole, which… couldn't be further from the truth.
She glances at the closed kitchen door.
She really had wanted to hug him.
Damn.
Tommy stares down at his hands as he goes through the motions of preparing the crappy instant coffee he probably won't even taste.
They still feel warm.
Is that normal, he worries? Maybe there's something wrong with him, medically. Hypersensitivity, is that a thing? Could he have that? Would that explain why he can still feel every little wrinkle in the fabric of her t-shirt against his palm?
Probably not.
Okay, he tells himself for the nineteenth time, actually stop thinking about this now.
It was a reflex, obviously. He'd have done the same for an old lady, or that hairy guy who lives across the hall and sometimes falls asleep on the stairs after a late night at the bar down the street. (Actually, maybe not that guy. He smells of despair and feet.) The point is, he's a normal person who reacted the way a normal person would when faced with somebody about to keel over.
The fact that Felicity Smoak is smoking hot (yeah, he hears it, and he isn't proud), smells amazing and fits almost perfectly into his arms (with allowances made for the awkward angle at the time) is entirely irrelevant.
He tosses the spoon in the sink, glaring down at the coffee.
Stop, he instructs the mugs, now.
When he carries them back out, the episode is paused on a scene he vaguely recognises from earlier, and Felicity's knees are tucked under her chin as she yawns widely. "Oh, perfect timing," she says, her words distorted by a smaller follow-up yawn. She reaches out and takes the coffee, and Tommy doesn't know if it's deliberate that her fingers manage to avoid his completely.
It's easy enough to put it out of his mind by focusing on the rest of the episode. Felicity drains her coffee quickly and perks up a little, her eyes brighter and more alert, but he can't help but notice the way she confines herself to the smallest possible space on the couch. He tries not to feel offended – it probably isn't personal, he reasons; she's probably just embarrassed after what happened – but when the credits roll, she gets up and disappears briefly into the kitchen to put a lasagne in the oven, only to come back and curl into that small space again, and he realises she'll condition herself to do this every time unless he intervenes.
He spends two episodes wondering how to do that without sounding like a creep.
The lasagne is good – way, way better than he'd expected for a frozen meal, actually. The cheese is hot and stringy, just the way he likes it, and the tomato sauce is rich, flavoured with herbs and maybe a little garlic. He devours it like a sacrifice, leaning back when he's finished to pat his belly and groan with satisfaction. "Man, that was good," he tells her. "Did you make that?"
"Me? No!" She seems surprised by the question, though she's obviously pleased by the compliment. "God, no, I'm not exactly gifted when it comes to the culinary arts. My neighbour, Mrs Schwartz, she used to run a deli two blocks away. It's a liquor store now, I think – she sold up a few years ago to pay for her husband's care facility. She likes to make stuff for me, though. She thinks I work too hard." The smile on her face is rueful. "If only she knew…"
Tommy looks at her carefully. He might not know her very well, but he's willing to bet every meaningful thing he has left that she works harder than she'll ever admit, probably at high personal cost and to the detriment of her health and sanity, too. She looks tired, even relaxed and laughing at the TV, and while she doesn't behave like a person desperate for human contact, he's well equipped to spot the signs of loneliness.
He glances down at the plate by his feet. For two months now, she's been coming here to check on him, bringing food and noise and warmth into a lifeless place.
Who, he wonders, is checking on her?
Before he can think better of it, he reaches out and pats the space between them. "Put your feet up, Smoak," he says easily. "Plenty of room."
She eyes him cautiously. "Do I look that uncomfortable?"
He shrugs, smiling sheepishly. "Well, yeah. But I figure you can do without another dead leg as well."
She scrunches her mouth up thoughtfully. It's upsettingly cute. "I'm wearing a skirt," she points out.
Tommy draws an 'X' over his heart. "I promise I won't look."
How he gets through another five episodes without breaking that promise, he'll never know.
When she leaves, later, she pauses by the door, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag as she frowns. "What you said earlier…" she says hesitantly.
Instantly he feels a thrum of panic in his chest for no particular reason. He doesn't think he's said anything particularly upsetting – god, he hopes not – but his guilty conscience reminds him of the way he'd held her tight against him and liked it.
Does she know? Can she know?
"About me worrying about you," she elaborates, "you know, 'after everything'." She lifts her hands and curls her fingers into air quotes. "I just thought – I wondered if maybe you thought I would blame you for what happened. I mean, I know people are saying all kinds of stupid stuff, including a lot of people who basically don't know anything about it, which is really annoying – and I know I can't speak for them, but I just wanted you to know…" She holds his gaze, solemn determination in her wide eyes. "This wasn't your fault. No matter what you might think, you weren't responsible for this. I know you probably won't believe me, but – you should. You really should, because trust me, I was right in the middle of…" She makes a vague hand gesture, "...all of that. So I think I can make a fair judgement, you know?"
It's hard to tell if the weird squeezing sensation in his chest and the lump in his throat are down to guilt (the heavy, choking kind he usually feels when he sees a news report about the bodies still being recovered from the Glades, or remembers looking Malcolm in the eye and finally accepting the truth he'd been too stubborn to acknowledge) or because she is saying the words he didn't even know he was waiting to hear.
He wants to believe her.
And the thing is, he really thinks he could. She's one of the best people he knows – he doesn't even have to think twice about that – and he's pretty sure she wouldn't lie about something like this, so… does that make it okay? Is it okay to forgive himself because of one person?
He hopes it is. Because he wants to stop hiding, and start living again, and he's finally starting to think that if he has Felicity Smoak, he can do anything.
Is this how Oliver feels?
Suddenly annoyed, he squashes that thought before it can take root.
She's still watching him, worried. "Tommy?"
"Thank you," he says softly. He leans in close, slipping an arm around her shoulders to pull her in for the briefest of hugs. There's hardly any contact between them this time, but it still feels good to have her right there. "Really, Smoak – thank you."
When she leaves, he closes the door behind her and presses his forehead against the rough wooden frame.
Son of a bitch. He's in serious trouble.
Author's Notes: The problem with writing a slow-burn relationship is that you start overanalyzing every little bit of physical contact and wondering if it's too far, too fast. I'm dying to know whether you guys think I'm on the right track or not. I really hope I am, because the next couple of chapters are going to really push things forward. Also - bonus personal trainer!Diggle! A gift we can all enjoy ;)