Title: Fixer Upper
Rating: M (for language, some mild violence and sexual situations later on)
Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow or any of the characters used within this fic.
Author's Notes: I have no excuse. I am a terrible person. (Well, OK, work plays a huge part in the problem, but still.) On the other hand, my soul-crushing guilt tends to lead me to write longer and longer chapters to try and make it up to you, so there's that, I guess…?
Thank you so much to everyone for reading, commenting and leaving kudos – it means such a lot to me, and on days when I am struggling to find time to pee, let alone write the next chapter, I get such a lift when I get your feedback. Happy reading!
"Just ten minutes," Felicity keeps saying, as if to reassure him. "That's all – ten measly minutes and then you're back here for the rest of the day."
Tommy watches her fondly as she paces and fidgets. It's kind of adorable, not that he'll ever use that word where she can hear him. Looking at the two of them, an outsider would assume she was the one who was about to take the giant leap, not him.
"Are you okay?" she keeps checking. "You'll tell me if you aren't, right?"
"Yes," he says with great patience, "I definitely will. Now will you please come and sit down? I'm getting motion sickness without even leaving the apartment."
She worries at her lower lip as she checks her phone. Mr Diggle sent her a text fifteen minutes ago to say he was on his way, so naturally she's been checking it at ten second intervals ever since. It'd be driving Tommy crazy if he weren't getting a real kick out of the fact that she's in his apartment during the day.
Maybe he's getting cabin fever, but it feels significant in some way. It isn't even the idea that it's light outside, because obviously it's summer, so it's always light when she arrives. But right now, it's eight a.m. on a Sunday, and Felicity is here.
This makes it real, Tommy decides in a moment of wild, irrational thought. She isn't a figment of his imagination, coming to visit him at night like some sort of kind, beautiful fairy with a genius-level IQ. Which, okay, is not a thought he's ever actually had before, but seeing her here – slightly sleepy, t-shirt peppered with pastry flakes from the croissants she brought over – reassures him in a way he hadn't realised he needed.
"How was Turbo?" he asks, in a bid to distract her. "Full of screaming kids?"
"Actually, no," Felicity replies, sounding surprised. She puts her phone to one side – Tommy cheers internally – and tucks her feet underneath her as she turns her focus on him. "It was weird – the place was practically empty." She grins suddenly. "AJ was really into it. Afterwards, he kept pulling his t-shirt up over the back of his head like a little snail shell. God, he's so cute, I just wanted to squash him."
Tommy can't help laughing, his chest feeling amazingly light as he watches her play with her ponytail, embarrassed. His arm stretches along the back of the couch, not particularly to touch her, just… reaching. "You know that's frowned upon, right?" he teases.
The scornful look she throws him is tempered with a darkly amused smile that makes his mouth feel suddenly dry. "Pretty sure Carly would have forgiven me," she remarks with a quirk of her eyebrows. "When we left her house, he was running around in the garden making racecar noises and looking for a snail to keep as a pet."
"I had a pet snail when I was a kid," says Tommy suddenly, so arrested by the memory that he misses the way Felicity sits bolt upright. "Well, it was an apple snail, and it wasn't actually mine – it lived in my mom's aquarium. I never really cared about the fish, but I could watch that snail for hours. It was the closest thing I ever had to a pet." He shakes his head as if this will dislodge the lump in his throat. "Wow, I haven't thought about that for years."
Felicity is scooting closer. "Tommy, I'm so sorry –"
He squeezes her hand briefly and hopes she doesn't come any closer. He can handle her sympathy, and he can handle having physical contact with her, but he craves one much more than the other, and if he starts wrapping the two things up together it's only going to make his feelings even more complicated in the long run. "Don't be sorry," he tells her. "I don't have a problem talking about it – at least, not with you."
She tries to hide how pleased she is, but it's clearly a struggle. "I didn't have a pet of any kind…" she says, twirling strands of hair around her finger. "My mom…" She blows out a long breath, her eyebrows telling Tommy at least some of the story. "God, 'flighty' doesn't even begin to describe her, but it's one of the nicer words I could use, so… Anyway, when I was about eight, she started talking about getting a puppy, and I really wanted one, but I knew it wasn't a good idea."
She plays with a loop of hair, tickling her own nose with it. Tommy can just picture her at that age – cute as anything, and whipsmart. "I mean, for one thing, we were… I guess you'd say squatting in a dump of a motel. The health department shut it down and whoever owned it just abandoned it. All kinds of people lived there before it finally got demolished. We were out of there by then, but we lived in some shitty apartments before my mom finally started working at Four Queens and we could afford somewhere better." She shrugs, guilt casting a familiar shadow across her eyes. "I'm not saying she couldn't have taken care of a puppy, but it wouldn't have been the best environment to find out. So I kept talking her out of it." She squints into the distance, looking thoughtful. "In retrospect, I bet she knew exactly what I was doing, but she never said anything. Typical mom."
Tommy is silent, his chest painfully tight.
All he can think of is the shattered image he'd built without even consciously doing so – the image of Felicity's happy childhood home, warm and bright just like her, with parents who loved and supported her, parents who have always waited excitedly for the next stage of her life, whatever that might be.
She doesn't have that, he thinks. She's never had that.
She hasn't once mentioned her father, so Tommy guesses he's out of the picture one way or another. Her mother sounds warm and loving, but inconsistent enough that Felicity felt driven to essentially co-parent herself. And as for money…
He stops himself there. Money is an uncomfortable subject for most people, and Felicity would be embarrassed enough to know that he is mentally dissecting her life like this, let alone that he has some idea of how difficult things must have been for her.
It's hard, though, knowing that she and her mother must have struggled when he and Oliver had it so easy, and even harder to realise that there's absolutely nothing Tommy can do about it in the present day. Whatever her life was before, Felicity was strong enough to pull herself out of it, and determined enough to keep going even without the luxury of solid ground beneath her feet.
Tommy might not have the right to feel proud of her, but that doesn't stop the feeling swelling in his chest.
Against his better judgement, he slips his hand between hers as she knots her fingers together in her lap. "If we'd known each other then," he says, the lightness of his tone belying the significance of everything he feels right now, "we could have shared my snail."
Her sudden laughter delights him and fills him up with warmth. "You're a good man, Tommy Merlyn," she says, with mock solemnity. "They don't make 'em like you any more."
"So true," he remarks gravely. "People are so selfish with their molluscs these days."
She throws her head back, snorting loudly before dissolving into giggles, and Tommy spares himself two seconds to enjoy the way a flush of colour rises to her cheeks and neck before the sound of her hiccupping suddenly seems like the funniest thing in the world, and he convulses helplessly next to her.
This is how Mr Diggle finds them, some minutes later.
"I texted," he tells Felicity pointedly from the doorway. "Several times. Then I got worried." He spares Tommy an unreadable glance. "Seems I didn't need to be."
"Sorry, Dig," Felicity says, her tone reassuring but not overly contrite. "I didn't even hear my phone. Where are you parked?"
Mr Diggle, Tommy decides, is not someone he particularly wants to piss off. Curiously, the physical threat isn't the prime motivator for this perspective – though obviously picking a fight with an ex-military bodyguard who now spends his nights hunting down hardened criminals would be suicidal to say the least – but rather, it's plain to see that John Diggle loves Felicity Smoak with deadly ferocity.
(Tommy wants to say, with conviction, that it's a purely platonic love, and he's basically 99% certain. But reserving that little tiny one percent seems like a smart decision, partly because Mr Diggle is readable in the same way that a brick wall is huggable, but also because Felicity is… well, Felicity.)
"Right outside," Diggle says. "Had to steal the spot right out from under some guy's nose – I'm surprised you didn't hear all the screaming." He pats what Tommy assumes is a concealed weapon under his jacket. "I let him believe I'm a government agent, but honestly, I don't trust him not to bust the windshield while I'm gone, so we should make a move."
And just like that, Tommy's stomach drops through the floor.
This is it.
He has left the apartment before. The trash chute is two floors down, for one thing. For another, he periodically checks his mailbox, even though all he ever gets is fliers for special deals on pizza and carpet cleaning. But even standing in the lobby of the building, looking out through the grimy glass of the front door at the bright sunny street outside, is more than he can handle most of the time.
He'd nearly done it once, more than a month ago now. He'd woken up from a nightmare about CNRI; this time, it had been Oliver under the rubble, and Laurel screaming for Tommy to save him, to pull him out, but Tommy's arms had been weak and useless. He'd tried so damn hard, but when he looked up, Oliver's face was grey and slack, and his cheek was cold under Tommy's fingers. Tommy had woken feeling devastated, tears streaming down his face, but the second reality hit him and he remembered exactly where he was and where Oliver was and why, the grief had swiftly transmuted into an ugly kind of fury.
He hadn't really known what he wanted to do, except that it involved getting the hell out of that apartment; he'd stumbled down the stairs, bare-chested and wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms, without his keys or his phone. He'd almost craved the idea of fresh, cold air on his skin – had almost welcomed the idea that somebody on the street would recognise him and hurl the sort of abuse he thought he deserved.
But even though he nearly ran down the last flight of stairs, and practically skidded across the floor in his urgency to reach the door, it was the icy hand of fear that had slipped between his lungs and gripped his heart, bringing him to an abrupt halt.
Today, that fear is back, and even though he steadies and slows his breathing, he can still feel the sharp stab of it inside his chest.
Most days, he knows what he's afraid of – the same stuff most people are, he guesses: being alone. Being hated. Being hurt. But the fear of going outside is all of that and something else entirely. It isn't just that people might see him and start baying for his blood, or that he'll suddenly be forced to answer for something he's still coming to terms with himself. It's… being untethered. Having nothing, and no-one, to hang onto when he needs to – or, maybe worse, not being able to get away if that becomes a more pressing need.
He hadn't needed to actually say any of this to Felicity.
Two nights ago, he'd asked for her help and she had more than provided. She had pondered the problem for a few minutes, her nose crinkling in a way that Tommy finds almost unbearably cute, and then proposed probably the only suggestion he would have accepted.
The car currently waiting outside has tinted windows, and bulletproof glass. It is parked – per Felicity's instructions, and Diggle's superb execution – as close to the front entrance as humanly possible. All Tommy has to do is reach the car, and then what they do from there is up to him.
"If you want, you can just sit in the car," Felicity had said. "Maybe the walk from the building to the car will feel like too much, and that's okay – you don't have to do any more. Diggle and I will sit in the car with you until you want to go back in." She'd pursed her lips briefly. "I mean, a target of ten minutes would be good, I think, but you don't have to get to that if you don't feel up to it. It's just an aim to have in mind."
Old Tommy would have said, 'what do I get if I win?'
Old Tommy would have been almost pathologically unable to stop flirting with Felicity. Much as Tommy regrets that these are the circumstances in which they have become friends, he's a little relieved that he never had the chance to screw this up before it even started.
"Or," she had continued, "if you're okay with it, we could go for a drive. Not too far, just a couple of blocks, and we can turn around whenever you want. And believe me, if there's anyone you can feel safe with as your driver, it's John Diggle. He's one of the best men I know. I trust him with my life." Even if Tommy hadn't know the first thing about Diggle, he'd have believed Felicity entirely by seeing the warmth and sincerity in her eyes. "I'd trust him with my kids' lives if, you know, I had any. In fact, if I did have kids I'd probably give them to Diggle right from the beginning anyway because god knows they'd be safer with him than with me."
Tommy disagrees with her on that, but he's happy enough to put his life in the hands of a man that both Oliver and Felicity trust without hesitation. He might still have some issues with Oliver, but his judgement in this area is pretty sound, Tommy figures.
Felicity squeezes his hand as he pulls himself to his feet. "Ten minutes," she reminds him quietly. "You can do this, Tommy. And we're right here."
She's right, he thinks. He can do this. It's just walking, right? He does that all the time, it's a piece of cake.
Diggle goes ahead of them to check the lobby and the street; for one of the first times since moving in, Tommy palms his keys and locks the apartment door behind them. It feels strangely final as they descend the creaky staircase, Felicity glancing at him over her shoulder every once in a while as if to check that he hasn't bolted.
Giving in to a previously suppressed urge, he reaches out and tugs gently at her ponytail. "I can do this all the way down, if you want," he teases. "You know, if that would make you feel better."
She makes a noise of aggravation and swats his hand away. "Try it, and I'll fill your Netflix 'recently watched' list with Care Bears episodes."
Tommy shudders, not entirely for comic effect. "You have way too much power," he tells her, strangely mesmerised by the way her hair swishes from side to side, glimmering in the dim light. "How are you not working for some government agency by now? Wouldn't they have better toys than QC?"
He can't see her face, but he doesn't miss the way her shoulders stiffen as her breath catches in her chest. "It's… a long story…" she murmurs softly. "I'm not… I don't want to sound cryptic, it's just kind of difficult to talk about, so – maybe some other time?"
"Yeah, no, of course," he hastily backtracks, squashing the flare of panic with its accompanying echo of shit, shit, shit. He knows he doesn't need to freak out about this – Felicity isn't going to suddenly cut him off because he happened to touch a raw nerve – but it's an uncomfortable reminder of the fact that their relationship is still a fragile thing at times. Their boundaries are still in flux.
As if she can sense his inner turmoil, Felicity turns to give him a small smile. "Really, Tommy – it's okay. Honestly, I would probably outright tell you if we weren't, you know, in the middle of a staircase on our way to a therapy session I basically made up on the spur of the moment." She looks alarmed for a moment. "Wow, I probably should have actually done some research before I suggested this."
Sensing the opportunity to distract her, he tweaks the very top of her ponytail and says, "Well, if it's a choice between you and, you know, a therapist with an actual licence – I still pick you, Smoak. And not just for the view."
She glares at him as she pulls her phone out of her bag. "Okay, let's see – Care Bears: Welcome to Care-A-Lot. Episode One…"
"Don't you dare, Smoak…"
Diggle is tapping his fingers impatiently against his thigh when they finally stagger into the lobby, Tommy making exaggerated lunges for Felicity's phone but deliberately missing for the purposes of seeing her triumphant expression.
"If you two kids don't behave, I'm gonna leave you at the side of the road," Diggle warns, looking mostly serious. "Coast is clear – the city's practically dead at this hour on a Sunday."
Suddenly sober at the realisation that he's actually about to do this, Tommy searches for the anticipated urge to retreat to safety, and finds it to be less compelling than he'd expected. The building is quiet around him, and the street outside is deserted, the sunlight bright and warm even this early. If it weren't for Diggle and Felicity, he could almost believe that he's the last person alive on the planet.
It's a morbid thought, but it gives him the strength to square his shoulders and say, "Okay. Let's go."
Diggle goes first, his long strides cutting across the distance with ease. Felicity doesn't reach out for his hand, as Tommy expects, but stays close. She goes ahead of him through the door, and it isn't until later that Tommy realises she's keeping the path both ahead and behind as clear as possible. She's anticipating that if something happens, he'll want to run, and that could be in either direction.
The first step is pretty easy, actually. Tommy wants to be outside right now – he wants to breathe in the fresh air and feel the sun on his face. And Diggle is right – it's like a ghost town outside. He feels calm and in control. The air feels good, and smells clean; in the distance, a blackbird sings, its voice sweet and clear. It isn't hard to keep walking.
Halfway across the sidewalk, he becomes aware that there's someone on the other side of the road.
He doesn't look directly at them, but his peripheral vision tells him that whoever the person is, they're standing still by a parked car. Tommy doesn't know if they're watching him or not. His pulse picks up, and he can feel the sweat on his palms and the back of his neck.
He's almost at the car when the person takes a couple of steps, and speaks.
Tommy's heart leaps into his throat; his feet feel frozen to the ground, and instinctively he reaches out for Felicity. She's by his side in an instant, her hand slipping into his as her sharp gaze darts around the open street, searching for the threat. Ahead of him, John Diggle reacts more to her than to Tommy, tensing and reaching for his weapon.
The person is a short, middle-aged woman.
She is looking down at the ground as she steps away from the car, and Tommy realises she is speaking to a small white poodle who refuses to stop sniffing the highly exotic aroma arising from a storm drain.
Tommy physically deflates, his fingers flexing inside Felicity's. "Sorry," he tells her. "False alarm."
Weirdly, though, he feels a renewed sense of confidence threading through his body, his heart rate settling and his limbs steadying. He doesn't falter as he crosses the remaining distance, and his hands don't shake as he climbs into the car.
Felicity slides into the seat next to him, and suddenly he feels overwhelmingly free – the sheer concept of not being inside his apartment anymore seems almost too much to handle. What is he supposed to do now? What does anybody do out here?
"I know they said today would be a record high but I'm just not feeling it," Felicity muses, her neck crooked at an awkward angle so that she can stare up at the sky. "It's breezy, right? We're still getting coastal winds."
"Highs of 116 degrees," Diggle says, as though this is a discussion they've had before. "They'll be peeling people off the sidewalks, you'll see."
Felicity tilts her head and throws Tommy a conspiratorial wink, mouthing 'watch this'. "Hmm, Dig, I wonder what the chance of precipitation could be today?"
Dig angles the rearview mirror to give her a sharp look. "Felicity," he says sternly, "I know what you're doing. You know damn well it's zero, you're just trying to make a point."
Felicity grins, preening a little with self-satisfaction. "Dig loves five-day weather forecasts," she tells Tommy, sotto voce. "They're his favourite things after guns and curly fries."
In the front seat, Diggle makes a low sound of dissatisfaction and glares into the rearview mirror. "I tell you one thing…"
Tommy listens to them bicker lightheartedly, and slowly relaxes. He can almost forget he's in the back seat of an armoured Bentley outside his apartment block – right now, he could be anywhere. All he knows is, he's safe and in good company.
And just like that, he knows where he wants to go.
As if she has some kind of special radar for mental breakthroughs, Felicity breaks off mid-sentence and turns to him. "You okay?" she asks, concerned. "Do you need to go back inside?"
"No," he replies, shaking his head almost in astonishment. "Actually… the opposite. And I was thinking – I'd really like to see Thea."
Well, Felicity thinks, this is definitely not super awkward at all.
Thea Queen – who carries herself with the composure of a goddess despite wearing a pair of baggy paint-streaked harem pants and a neon orange tank top – is staring at her from behind Verdant's bar, mostly curious but possibly a little hostile.
Felicity can't entirely blame her, but at the same time she's starting to feel a little wronged here.
When Tommy had said he wanted to see Thea, she'd been surprised but really relieved that he seemed ready to take that step. Reaching out to the Queen sibling who was as good as family to him could be seen as positive – healthy, even.
But she'd been assuming Thea would be at the Queen mansion, and that they would be able to drop Tommy at the front door and then slip around to what Diggle refers to, seemingly in total seriousness, as 'the servant's entrance' to occupy themselves in the interior security office for a while.
Instead, Thea is proving her dedication to her brother's business by spending her Sunday taking inventory and reviewing the staff directory ahead of the club's reopening next Saturday. Felicity knows this because, rather than being able to escape down to the basement as she'd hoped, she is stuck sitting on a bar stool next to Tommy and trying to decide whether it would be rude to get her tablet out to play a little sudoku.
"Come on, let me introduce you," he'd said eagerly, when they'd pulled up outside the club and Felicity had suggested that she and Dig would make themselves scarce. "I think you guys would get along great."
"We've… sort of already met. Just briefly – as in, I didn't even physically step into the room, but we definitely made eye contact, so…" She'd shaken her head, backtracking. "I went to the hospital to see Walter after he was found. I guess that was nearly three months ago now – she might not remember me…"
"Hard to believe," Tommy had teased. "Trust me, it'll be fine – Thea's a great judge of character."
Felicity doesn't regret going with Tommy to support him, but she wishes she didn't suppress her own feelings so readily all the time. She could have told Tommy that of course it wasn't going to be as easy as he believed – why would it?
She knows what Thea must see: an awkward, apparently starstruck girl who is trying to attach herself to not one but two rich, handsome men.
Thea has probably met a lot of those in her short lifetime.
"Felicity is my friend," Tommy had said warmly, when Thea had finally pulled away from the deathly tight hug she'd inflicted on him, her eyes brimming with joy. "She… she's been helping me. A lot."
And he'd turned to look at her over his shoulder, the gratitude and affection so plain on his face that Felicity had been momentarily struck dumb – a factor that probably hadn't won her any points with Thea. By the time Felicity had gathered her wits enough to greet Thea directly, she had turned her full attention to Tommy.
So now she's sitting here feeling like she's back at school again, all by herself in chemistry lab because no-one wants to partner with her and the popular kids have draped themselves all over her bench to talk to each other, and –
Okay. Breathe, Felicity. You're a grown woman in a bar. You have an income. You buy root vegetables and pretend you're going to use them. You don't need other people's attention to validate your existence.
Dig – that sneaky toad – has escaped to the basement because his presence here would be a little hard to explain. Felicity waits for Thea to focus fully on Tommy before palming her phone and stabbing out an angry text with the promise of revenge.
Dig texts back a picture of the cool, spacious basement. It's almost artistic – a fan of filtered sunlight emerges from behind one of the pillars to illuminate the training area. She feels a pang of something like homesickness, imagining herself down there once again.
She thinks of Oliver.
She misses him in a way that has nothing to do with the weird, complicated feelings she'd been so good at ignoring. She misses the purpose he gave them – the common cause, the fight for something good and right – as well as the ability to push her skills to their limit, then make herself go further and in doing so rewrite her own boundaries.
And yeah, okay, she misses his goddamn abs, too.
But mostly the purpose thing.
"So how do you know my brother again?" Thea's sharp voice cuts through Felicity's thoughts and leaves her feeling oddly weightless for a second.
Surprisingly, she doesn't stumble over her words. "I work at Queen Consolidated," Felicity tells her, meeting her gaze and holding it, unashamed. "I'm in IT, which is something he had a few… ugh, god, so many problems with after he, you know, came back. And I guess we're sort of friends these days. Or – would be if he were actually here…"
"Right," Thea says slowly, her eyes sliding back towards Tommy. "And you two…?"
Tommy presses his lips together, annoyed. "Thea, can you stop with this? I already told you she's my friend, why can't you just take my word for it?"
Thea glares at him. "Yeah, well, maybe you don't remember this, Tommy, but last time my brother disappeared, a lot of girls tried to be your 'friend', so forgive me if I'm a little sceptical the second time around."
Tommy blinks, unable to hide his surprise. "What? Thea, that wasn't them, it was…" And then, bizarrely, he glances briefly at Felicity and appears to swallow his own words. "I mean – look, I made some bad choices back then, but that's not what's happening here. Felicity is a good person. She helped your brother, and now she's helping me. I wouldn't even have come here today if it weren't for her!"
Thea flinches, hurt, and Felicity instinctively wants to reach out and explain, soothe the sting of Tommy's poorly chosen words, but she knows she doesn't have the right.
Tommy hangs his head, bracing his arms on the bar as he gathers his faculties for another attempt. "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I just – Thea, I have been so lost lately, and I – I am really trying to find my way back to something good." His voice softens. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to have the courage to face you. I should have been here for you, especially with your mom…"
Thea's self-control wavers, her eyes glimmering with tears, and Felicity feigns extreme focus on her phone to at least give her the illusion of privacy. "What about you?" Thea points out, her voice cracking. "You lost your dad, and I didn't even visit you in the hospital. I – I left you alone, Tommy, just like Oliver and Laurel. Why aren't you mad at me? You should be mad at everybody – god knows you've got the right. How can you be so calm?"
Tommy shakes his head, and for a moment Felicity thinks they're both about to cry. She actually thinks it would be really healthy for them, she just wishes she knew how to handle this from an awkward-emotional-moment 'witness etiquette' point of view.
When she next glances at them, their hands are knotted together and Thea is swiping at her eyes with the heel of her palm. "God, I am so glad our lives didn't turn into a stupid romantic comedy months ago," she says, voice too thick to sound as dry as she'd probably like. "How embarrassing would this be right now?"
Tommy shifts uncomfortably. "Okay, didn't realise we were going to revisit that any time soon, so I'm... kind of underprepared in terms of witty deflection..."
Felicity stares, unseeing, at her phone.
Tommy and Thea?
God, okay, she definitely isn't hearing this. She isn't even thinking about this.
Except – strange semi-incestuous vibe aside – wouldn't that have been kind of perfect? If she were in the habit of finding solutions to other people's drama, anyway, and if this life were a work of fiction that could be so easily re-written and fixed. She knows it isn't as simple as that, and she wouldn't want it to be, but just for a moment she has to wonder about some other world where Tommy became Oliver's brother in all but blood, and Oliver's reconciliation with Laurel united the three families in some kind of amazing cocktail of power, beauty and intelligence.
They would be unstoppable, Felicity thinks.
"Relax," says Thea, amused, and it takes a moment before Felicity realises she's still talking to Tommy and apparently hasn't picked up on any weird new tension in the room. "I'm over it. Besides, it's not like you and my brother need any more problems between the two of you." Her mouth twists with dissatisfaction. "I can't believe he just – just up and left like that, after what he did."
For one horrible stomach-dropping moment, Felicity thinks Oliver's worst nightmare has come true – that Thea has somehow found out about his other identity, and knows that he killed Malcolm Merlyn.
Unable to help herself, her gaze slides towards Tommy, and to her surprise he's looking right back at her, her own growing horror mirrored in his eyes.
Thea continues, mercifully oblivious, "Actually, you know what? I can totally believe it. Ollie's spent all year running from everything while the rest of us just have to deal. Sleeping with Laurel might not even be the worst thing he's done since he came back." She winces, glancing at Tommy apologetically. "Sorry."
"It's fine." Tommy is unable to fully mask his relief, and sounds incongruously chirpy as a result. "Okay, maybe not fine, but – I'm getting over it." He straightens a little, as if this might help prove his point. "Thea, I didn't come here to talk about Oliver – I came to see you. I know it can't be easy right now, with your mom in custody and Walter… wherever he is. I want to be able to help you out however I can. You don't have to do this alone."
The slight tinge of pink to Thea's cheeks is easily hidden by the dim lighting behind the bar. "Actually, I'm not –"
A loud echoing knock interrupts her, and Thea glances over her shoulder at the small corridor towards the staff entrance. "Damn, they're early," she mutters. "I still needed to clear space."
"You need a hand?" Tommy practically falls off his stool in his haste to make the offer. "I used to be pretty good at this, remember?"
Felicity, somewhat resigned to her lonely role as a silent observer, is a little startled when Thea turns to her and says, "How's his ribcage?"
She blinks, too taken aback to notice Tommy's indignant sputtering. Is Thea trying to imply something, or does she genuinely want to know? "I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask," she replies cautiously. "I haven't seen him shirtless, if that's what you mean. Which it probably isn't, and I'm assuming you actually want to know if he's okay to do heavy lifting, but the most I've ever asked him to hold is a plate of salad, so I don't think I'm as fully informed as I'd like to be." Her eyes widen with horror. "Crap, that sounds really creepy. I just mean – you know, fully informed as a friend. Which is all we are, right Tommy?"
Tommy is grinning, leaning back entirely too casually for her liking. "I'll bail you out soon," he says, waving for her to continue. "Just keep digging for now, I want to see how much worse it'll get."
She scowls furiously. "I can't believe I said you were a good person."
Thea's gaze seems noticeably warmer as it flickers between them. "You might not want to burn this bridge," she warns Tommy. "If you rupture something helping me out, I'm not going to be the one driving you to the Emergency Room."
Felicity pokes her tongue out at him as he levers himself off the bar stool, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "Yeah, Tommy," she goads, "be good and I'll take you for ice cream after."
Tommy's elbow catches her in the ribs as he walks past, and she tries to pretend that his sudden closeness and the faint scent of his cologne aren't the reason her cheeks feel so warm. She can only hope Thea – who now looks oddly awkward lingering behind the bar as Tommy goes to let the delivery guy in, easily slipping back into his former role – hasn't taken this as proof of whatever she was obliquely referring to earlier.
As if picking up on this train of thought, Thea presses her lips together, looking sheepish. "I was kind of a bitch before," she says matter-of-factly. "You actually seem pretty nice, I just – I feel protective of Tommy sometimes."
Felicity nods. "I know." She grimaces. "Okay, I don't know, but – I get it. You guys must be close, especially after everything you've been through. Of course you would want to stop him getting hurt. I'm sure he's protective of you, too."
Thea's gaze drifts a little. "Yeah, he is. He's seen me at my worst – a few times. I know he'd do anything to stop me hitting rock bottom again." She refocuses, looking back at Felicity. "I'm glad he's had somebody looking out for him."
Felicity smiles at her. "I'm glad there are two of us."
Tommy clears his throat loudly from the store room. "Uh, am I doing this alone, then?"
"Ugh, did you whine this much when you last worked here?" Thea tosses her hair and strides towards the sound of clinking glass and heavy shuffling. "Put your back into it, or I'll start playing fast and loose with stories of your sordid past."
Tommy grumbles under his breath, but within minutes Felicity can hear the two of them laughing and talking as though they've never been apart. Her phone pings quietly – another alert, another car theft. Small potatoes on the scale of what they've previously dealt with, but her program is linking it to a string of similar thefts in the last couple of weeks, and cross-referencing to licence plates appearing at well-known drop sites.
She sighs, preparing to anonymise the information before she sends it to Lance. No rest for the wicked.
Tommy is practically in orbit heading for the moon when he finally gets back into the Bentley an hour later. He and Thea are thick as thieves again, which is better than he could have hoped for, going in. Not only that, but despite their rocky start, he knows Thea actually likes Felicity – mainly because she'd said the words in the store room as they surveyed the new stock.
"She seems like the kind of friend you need right now." Thea had grimaced. "God, I feel bad about what I implied earlier. But you know what I mean, right? She's – kind. And smart. And I think she probably wouldn't take any crap from you or Oliver, which is always a novelty." She'd glanced towards the open door, beyond which they could see Felicity with her earbuds in, apparently thoroughly engrossed by something on her tablet. "If she's responsible for bringing you here today, then I'm grateful, too." She'd turned to give Tommy a hard look. "And I hope you're being a good friend to her in return."
Now, sitting in the back seat of what is essentially Oliver's car – and doesn't that lend a strangely illicit air to all of this – Tommy decides that's exactly what he's going to be. He hasn't exactly been winning any prizes in the friend sweepstakes recently, but he can do better – and he will. Starting right now.
"Okay," he says, twisting on the seat to face her. "We did my thing. Now what about you?"
Felicity frowns, tilting her head quizzically. "Sorry, what?"
"There must be somewhere you want to go, or something you want to do," he prompts. "I don't know – lunch? Peewee hockey game? The zoo?"
Her mouth scrunches up as she considers these options. "Honestly," she says, after a moment, "all I can think about right now is a smoked turkey sub with avocado and cream cheese from Pennisi's deli."
In the front seat, Dig's head lifts with interest.
Tommy shares a brief amused look with Felicity. "Lunch for three it is."
It catches up with him, of course.
It had been pure luck that the delivery guy must have been new, and had paid almost no attention to Tommy at Verdant. Reynolds and West have been the club's main supplier since it opened; most of the delivery guys were on first name terms with him and Oliver, and would have had no problems recognising Tommy, even with his new facial hair.
The streets are starting to get busier, but so far nobody has spared the Bentley a glance. Parking over on L Street and walking half a block had felt like a hard-won victory, but at the same time so much easier than he'd thought.
Inside Pennisi's deli, though, his chickens come home to roost.
There are two customers waiting, and one guy standing behind the counter carefully arranging pastrami on rye. He glances up at them briefly. "Be right with you. Menu's on the board."
Tommy dutifully lifts his eyes to the list, but he knows what he's having.
The smells of toasted bread, smoked meats and melting cheese are unbelievably enticing, and his stomach rumbles faintly. There's tinny music coming from the small radio behind the counter, and Tommy has almost started to recognise the song when the guy making the sandwich looks up again, and this time does a double-take.
Tommy's stomach flips, and he's pretty sure the blood drains from his face.
He knows what's going to happen now. He can almost see it unfolding in slow motion.
The guy throws down the last pickle in his hand and braces his palms on the counter, his expression twisting with surprise and anger. "You!" He barks, a vein in his forehead rising noticeably. "You – you're Merlyn's son, aren't you? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Tommy is frozen to the floor, breath trapped in his lungs.
"You have the nerve to stand there and look surprised?" Pastrami Guy sounds incredulous. "Do you even care what you've done?"
Felicity's gaze darts between them, alarmed, and then she signals Dig – standing on the sidewalk outside – with an urgent motion of her hand. Tommy is vaguely aware of her moving to stand in front of him, body-blocking him. "All he did was walk into your store," she says quietly, calmly. "We'll leave if you want. But he's done nothing wrong."
Tommy mind is wired, his gaze alert and sweeping his surroundings for threats and escapes. He fixes on the man's face, looking for signs that might tell him to run. The two other customers are watching the show with almost gleeful interest, and he can't bring himself to look at them.
For a moment, he thinks of Oliver.
Oliver would know what to do right now. He'd know how to get out, or how to fight. He'd be the one protecting Felicity instead of freaking out. Being a hero comes easily to Oliver, apparently.
"Nothing wrong?" the man demands, spittle flying from his lips. "He murdered people! My nephew is barely walking because of you, you son of a bitch." He wipes his hands aggressively on his apron, gripping the fabric in his fists. "Families like yours and the Queens – we're all just ants to you. You don't give a shit who gets stepped on."
Dig's massive frame fills up the doorway, and a faint sensation of panic begins to clutch at Tommy's throat. "Is there a problem here?" Dig asks, voice deep and authoritative.
"We're leaving," Felicity says curtly. "We're not welcome, apparently." She glances at Tommy with open concern, and her hand slips into the crook of his elbow.
"Damn right you're not," Pastrami Guy snaps. "You should seriously consider the company you keep, sweetheart. There's something wrong with you if you think this guy is worth anybody's time."
Dig moves to let Tommy through, and he finds he can breathe a little easier. Felicity's hand is warm as she guides him to the door; Tommy doesn't care about changing this guy's mind, or regaining even a little ground. All he wants is to get out.
But Felicity isn't quite done yet.
"He didn't step on you," she says, full of steely-eyed determination. "It wasn't him who hurt someone you love. I told you – he didn't do anything wrong, just had the bad luck to have Malcolm Merlyn for a father."
Pastrami Guy shakes his head. "Yeah, cry me a river. Just get out. You're not welcome back here – any of you."
Outside, Tommy's legs move automatically, walking him in any direction – any version of away he can get. Despite the sun, he feels chilly and light-headed, and somehow the pavement seems too close to his feet; he stumbles more than once, until Felicity loops her arm tight around his and anchors him.
"I'm sorry," she says softly. "This was all too much, probably. I mean, that guy – there's no excuse for him, I think he saw an opportunity to take it out on you. But we've done so much today, and I think probably I was pushing too hard –"
"You didn't," he interrupts, squinting at her bright blonde hair next to his shoulder. She's a welcome warmth against the chill of his skin. "Everything we've done today, I wanted to do. I just wish…" He trails off, and the silence stretching between them feels interminably long, but Felicity waits patiently for him to come back.
"I wish I could have said something," he manages eventually. "Just – anything. Anything not to feel so weak." He hesitates, but something reckless in him forges on. "Oliver wouldn't have frozen like that."
If Felicity's step falters, it's barely noticeable – but he feels it in the alignment of her hip with his. "Maybe not," she concedes carefully. "But that doesn't make him strong. And it doesn't make you weak." She squeezes his arm briefly. "I know it might take a while to believe that, but even if you can't, just know that… I can. And I'll wait for you to see it too."
"I…" His breath leaves his chest in a whoosh. "I seriously don't deserve you, Felicity Smoak."
She grins up at him. "You may regret saying that when I've had my eighth coffee of the day and I'm so jittery I can't find my way out of your apartment."
Tommy hip-checks her, and they stumble forward a little, giggling. "And this is different to every other night, how?"
She tries to yank her arm from his to smack him, but he holds on tight and refuses to let go, and they stagger along in a zigzag pattern before finally Diggle decides to catch up with them to herd them away from the roar of oncoming traffic. "My eight year old nephew has better road sense than you," he grumbles, steering them towards the car.
Tommy sobers as they walk, thinking of Thea and the other thing they'd discussed that morning.
"You should come back," she'd said flatly, after he'd made her rearrange the spirits for a third time. "To Verdant, I mean. To co-manage it with me." She'd wiped her dusty hands off on her pants and fixed him with a severe look. "Don't say no."
"Okay," he'd replied, nodding.
"Okay, you won't say no?"
"Okay, I'll do it. I'd love to." He'd hardly had to think about it. Just being there in that familiar dusty old storeroom had given giving him pangs of nostalgia. He'd missed being good at something – and doing something he actually liked. There was no reason to say no.
Now, hours later, he fights to school his expression before Felicity asks him what else is bothering him. Because, obviously, he'd been so eager to accept the job – to have a sense of purpose, and returning normality – that he'd failed to remember that co-managing a nightclub will probably have some kind of impact on his evening plans with Felicity.
She'll be furious with him if she knows he's regretting taking such a significant step because of her – not to mention guilty – which is why he can't tell her about the job until he's psyched himself up enough to convince her that he feels only excitement.
Truthfully, he thinks it'll be almost impossible.
Author's Note: It has been one of my weirder headcanons that Dig likes weather forecasts. I have no idea why. Thought I'd throw that into the mix for no apparent reason! I love writing Tommy and Felicity so much – I know it probably feels as though they are never apart at the moment, but I swear, they do have lives outside each other. Next chapter: Tommy's re-employment at Verdant gives him the opportunity to see what Felicity and Diggle have done with the basement. He and Diggle have a frank discussion about a few things. And Felicity and Diggle make a decision about Oliver. See you in a year! (JOKING.) (God, I hope I'm joking.)