A/N: OK, so I think we can all agree that after Wednesday's episode we all need an Olicity pick-me-up, don't we?
Unfortunately, this chapter is probably only going to make that angst worse.
I'M SORRY!
"You're kidding."
Felicity groaned and buried her head into her pillow, one arm still outstretched and holding her phone where Laurel was watching on her end.
"I'm not kidding," Felicity answered, her response muffled by her pillow. "It was the most awkward evening of my life."
Laurel's laughter filled the room.
"I wish I had been there. His mom sounds like a real piece of work."
"That's one way to put it," Felicity grumbled.
"OK, but other than running into Oliver Queen, how has Central City been so far? How are you liking it?"
"It's fun," Felicity answered, pulling her head out of the hole it had made in her pillow. "Barry showed us around to see all the different sights this weekend. Today he's at work, though, so Iris and I are going to do some independent exploring. Iris wants to tour Picture News and I think I'm going to STAR Labs."
Laurel rolled her eyes. "You would."
"And!" Felicity interjected, hoping to prove to her sister that she was, in fact, not a loser, "I'm going to grab coffee with John Diggle."
"The guy who the Queens brought to dinner?"
"Yeah. He was actually super cool and really funny."
"Oooh," Laurel squealed. "I think someone's got a crush!"
Felicity rolled her eyes. "Jesus, why do you and Iris have to jump to that every time? I don't have a crush on Digg. Besides, he's married. He has a wife and kid in Star City."
"Oh," Laurel frowned. "Well then never mind."
"So speaking of crushes and love and stuff, have you talked to Tommy yet?"
Laurel suddenly went silent and she glanced away from her phone. That made Felicity sit up straight and lean in, like maybe if she got closer she could actually peer up into her sister's eyes and determine what was wrong.
"I don't think I'm going to run into him while I'm here," Laurel finally said.
"Why not?" Felicity asked.
Laurel took a deep breath. "The other day I saw a tabloid at a newsstand and...and it had a picture of him with his arm around another woman, crossing the street."
Felicity felt her lungs stop.
"The tabloids identified her as Thea Queen. Oliver's sister." Laurel looked down and Felicity could see hints of tears pooling in her sister's beautiful eyes. "According to them, they've been dating for weeks."
Felicity cast around for excuses in her brain. "That's BS," she insisted. "They're just tabloids! No one pays attention to that nonsense, everyone knows it's just trash!"
"Felicity — "
"No, I'm serious! You don't know for sure that they're actually dating. Remember that night we went to The Place? He talked about Thea Queen like she was his little sister! You don't date your little sister. You just don't. He's not into her."
"That doesn't mean anything. You don't know that for sure."
"And you don't know that for sure. Look, Laurel, what you need to do is text him. Tell him you're in the city on vacation and you want to meet up with him for coffee or something. And then find out once and for all."
"Felicity," Laurel sighed. "I appreciate all that you've done for me. I appreciate you setting this up just so I could get some closure, but...but I think this is all the closure I get."
Felicity wanted to jump through her phone and smack her sister upside her head for being so stupid. This wasn't closure. This was about as far from closure as you could get. She still hadn't resolved the whole "I love you" incident and now she didn't know for sure if Tommy was dating someone else.
But her sister was stubborn, and she knew to acknowledge when she needed pushing and when she needed space.
"Look, just...just think about it a little before you leave town without seeing him, would you?" Felicity asked. "Don't make any rash decisions. Sleep on it. Take the time to really consider it."
"OK," Laurel said. "I will."
The sisters said goodbye and Felicity hung up. Then she got up from the bed and ventured out into the living room/dining room area where Iris was already sitting at the dining table, sipping on a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper.
"Barry at work already?" Felicity asked.
"Yep," Iris said. "How's Laurel?"
Felicity sat next to her friend with a sigh. Then she recounted the conversation she just had as Iris listened sympathetically.
"Poor Laurel," she clucked when Felicity had finished. "You know what? I think she's gun shy right now. She can't take anymore heartbreak."
"But she needs closure!"
"You can't dictate what she needs," Iris said gently. "Think about it from her perspective. She falls in love with this great guy, and the night before he skips town, he tells her he loves her. That's got to be confusing — not to mention painful — as hell, right? Then she goes to Star City with the express purpose of seeing him only to find out that he's probably dating someone else. She's already gotten her heart broken ten ways to Sunday, and talking to him is only going to make it worse. She just wants to come away from this situation with whatever dignity she can."
Felicity huffed. Iris was making a lot of sense, but that didn't mean she liked the situation.
"Give her some time and space. Let her find her own way to heal," Iris said.
Felicity rolled her eyes. "When the hell did you get so wise?"
Iris shrugged. "I've always been wise. You just weren't paying attention."
For the first time in her life, Felicity Smoak had fallen in love.
No, not with a man. No, not with a woman.
Felicity Smoak wasn't going to do something as pedestrian as fall in love with a person. No, no, no. Felicity Smoak fell in love with Central City.
To be entirely fair, she was always the kind of person who would fit into the big city life. It was almost like breathing — the minute she stepped off the bus into the heart of downtown Central City, she felt like she was at home.
There was just so much more to do in a place like Central City. There was more than one decent coffee shop. There was more than one bookstore (although if she was going to be completely honest, no bookstore would ever live up to Walter's quaint shop in Hertfordshire). There were hundreds of people walking up and down the sidewalks, hardly paying attention to what was in front of them because they were all so engrossed in their phones.
How sad she felt for them in that moment. They took all of this for granted. The towering skyscrapers, the beautiful parks and the horizon filled with sunshine so overpowering that it made her feel like she was in her very own Broadway musical.
If it weren't for the fact that she didn't have a job or the money, she would have moved to Central City in a heartbeat.
But one day, she thought to herself determinedly. One day she would move to a city. One day she'd get out of Hertfordshire and find a job that allowed her to be brilliant.
Felicity spent the morning exploring downtown by herself. She walked in and out of gift shops and boutiques. She poked her head into restaurants with ethnic cuisines she'd never tried before just to inhale the scents. She wandered through parks and sat down to read the city's newspaper.
Eventually she made it to STAR Labs, which was right on the edge of downtown. Walking through the front doors of the gigantic facility felt a little like taking a step into the future — the automatic double doors parted for her to reveal a completely white and glass interior. There was a lobby with sleek, modern-looking furniture and huge television screens that showed presentations of the innovations they were working on. And at the far end of the lobby, there was a reception desk made of some kind of dark wood.
"Hello, welcome to STAR Labs!" the receptionist greeted her. "How may I help you?"
"Oh!" Felicity was startled by the woman's greeting. "Oh, it's fine. I was just looking around."
"Do you have an appointment with someone?" the woman asked, her head slightly tilted.
"No. I'm just...I'm a tourist and I'm kind of obsessed with technology and stuff and I wanted to poke my head in here." Felicity smiled sheepishly. "You can kick me out if you want, but I just wanted to see what it was like."
The woman beamed. "Not at all! We love curious people. Here, let me call in someone who works here to give you a tour."
Felicity's eyes widened. "No, that won't be necessary!"
But it was already too late. The woman picked up her phone and dialed a number before Felicity could get the words out.
"Hi, Dr. Wells? Yes, there's a woman here in the lobby who would like a tour. Do you have the time?" Pause. "Wonderful."
The receptionist hung up and turned to Felicity with a smile. "Dr. Wells said he'll be here in a minute. Would you like to take a seat while you wait?"
But Felicity barely heard a word the woman said. "Dr. Wells? Dr. Harrison Wells?"
"Yes," the receptionist beamed.
Felicity barely had time to get over her shock at the thought of Harrison freaking Wells giving her a tour of STAR Labs when the man himself emerged from an elevator next to the reception desk. Dressed unassumingly in all black, the man stepped forward with a benign smile on his face.
"Hello," he said as he walked up to Felicity. "My name is Harrison Wells."
It was like someone had switched off the social functions part of her brain, because she just stood there, gaping like some kind of idiot at a man who was something like a hero to her.
It wasn't until he quirked a curious eyebrow upward that she found her voice again.
"Felicity Smoak," she blurted. "Me. That's my name. Smoak. Felicity Smoak. Wow, that sounded really James Bond-esque right there. But I'm not James Bond, not by a long shot. Mostly because I'm not a spy. Or British. Or a man."
Dr. Wells' expression turned into one of amusement, and Felicity had to take a deep breath and count down from three in her head. "It's a real pleasure to meet you, Dr. Wells," she began again in a measured, even tone that tried very hard to hide her excitement. "I'm a big fan of you and the things you're doing here in Central City."
"In that case, would you like to see some of the things we're doing here?"
She nodded eagerly and Dr. Wells smiled.
"Very well. Follow me."
For the next hour, Felicity was on cloud nine. Dr. Wells took her on a personal, one-on-one tour of most everything on the STAR Labs campus. She got to see the room full of theoretical physicists, standing in front of their white boards and poring over equations. She watched a roomful of engineers trying to build an indestructible glass box. She saw another roomful of doctors messing around with test tubes full of irradiated gold, which Dr. Wells said was a possibility in the cure for cancer.
But her favorite, favorite stop on the tour was what Dr. Wells called his special project.
"This is where we work on Project X," he said proudly as he opened the door. "The particle accelerator."
Felicity's eyes widened. "You're building your own particle accelerator?"
"That's right," Dr. Wells nodded.
He stepped into the room and Felicity's jaw practically fell to the floor. In front of her was a gigantic room — probably twenty times the size of her house in Hertfordshire — and it was filled with people, all working toward a common goal.
"Ms. Smoak, have you read Stephen Hawking's paper on time?"
She nodded. "He theorized that it was possible for humans to travel in time if we could build a particle accelerator big enough for humans." Then her eyes widened. "Are you trying to build a particle accelerator big enough for humans?"
He simply smiled. "Stephen Hawking posited an interesting theory — if we were to send humans into a particle accelerator and send them flying fast enough, we could create a wormhole to send them backward, or forward, in time. We want to see if he's right."
"Holy shit," Felicity breathed.
Dr. Wells explained that they were still many years out in actually constructing a particle accelerator that wouldn't kill a human if they were to get into it. But at STAR Labs, he believed that it was only a matter of time before the theoretical became the practical. Felicity listened in awe as she looked around the cavernous room of incredibly intelligent people working toward this goal.
It was amazing, she thought to herself. To be a part of a team of like-minded science lovers, working to make the impossible possible.
She wanted to live in a community of equals, instead of living in a place where no one could tell the difference between a Mac and a Windows computer.
"Damn it!" a frustrated voice shouted from across the room.
Felicity followed Dr. Wells to the source of the exclamation. "Cisco?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
"The computer crashed again," Cisco said in frustration as he gestured at his blank screen. "It's the third time this week, and I don't understand what is going on!"
"Maybe it got a virus from all the porn you download," a voice said from a few feet away.
"Shut up, Ronnie!" Cisco shot back.
Felicity tilted her head in curiosity at the machine. "What did you see before it crashed? Was it a blue screen or was there a little pop-up with a string of incoherent nonsense that you couldn't understand?"
Cisco's eyebrows shot up. "It was the latter," he answered.
"Oh, then it's a simple fix," Felicity said with a small wave of her hand. She stepped forward and turned the computer on again. "The problem sometimes when you're running big, complex programs like this is that the system needs a little time to catch up. Poor thing was probably just overwhelmed. Luckily, though, I wrote a program last year for this exact issue."
Her fingers flew across the keyboard faster than the human eye could possibly discern. Minutes later, the program had been installed, and she restarted the computer.
"There," she said with pride. "You shouldn't run into any more problems now."
Cisco still didn't look convinced. "Uh, I'm sorry if this sounds rude or something, but who the hell are you?"
"This is Felicity Smoak," Dr. Wells said genially. "She ranked second in the National Informative Technology Competition at 19 years old. Then you went to MIT to study cybersecurity and computer sciences."
"Oh." Cisco's expression cleared up almost immediately. "Cool." And without another word, he went back to his work.
To say she was surprised at Dr. Wells' knowledge of her accomplishments was an understatement. It felt a little like the world had dropped out from under her.
"You know who I am?" she breathed.
"Yes," he nodded. "I keep an eye out for promising talent in scientific fields. It's how I recruited Cisco here, and a number of other scientists who work at STAR Labs. You were one I was looking to recruit after graduation, but I called one day and they said you had to leave school for personal reasons."
Felicity's cheeks reddened. A whole host of different emotions overtook her, from excitement over the fact that someone as intelligent and distinguished as Dr. Wells was keeping an eye on her to embarrassment and shame over the fact that she had to quit school before earning her degree.
"Yes," she nodded, trying not to meet his eyes. "Yes, I did."
"But it seems that you're not any less talented for not having finished your degree," Dr. Wells pointed out. "If you don't mind my asking, what have you been doing since you left MIT?"
Her shame increased tenfold. How she wished she could tell him that she left school for some impressive reason — like she had been recruited as a civilian contractor for the Army or something.
Instead she was in Hertfordshire, living with her parents, working full-time at a bookstore and doing odd jobs around town for scraps of money.
"I, um...I've been doing different things," she mumbled. "I work with computers as much as I can."
He seemed to understand that she was unwilling to talk about it because he didn't push it any further. "Well, you are an incredibly talented young woman, Ms. Smoak, and any place you choose to work is lucky to have you. If, in the future, you are interested in working here, or if there's some other place of employment you'd like to explore, please don't hesitate to ask."
Felicity felt almost overwhelmed by the kindness Dr. Wells had shown her throughout the day. "I'm...I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but why are you going to all these lengths to help me?"
He smiled "Because brains like yours need to be nourished, not stifled. It's people like you, Ms. Smoak, that will usher our society into a bright and magnificent future. Investment in intelligence is something we all stand to benefit from."
His words put her at ease, and all traces of tension left her. For the first time in years, she believed she would be fine. After all, with someone like Dr. Wells watching out for her, what else could happen?
Felicity spent the rest of the afternoon at STAR Labs. Dr. Wells, in all his magnanimity, indulged her curiosity. After swearing her to secrecy, he showed her the specs for Project X and answered all her millions of questions about the technology he employed on campus.
Right when the tour was concluding, Dr. Wells brought her back up to the lobby to say goodbye. They exchanged a warm handshake, and Felicity promised that she would email him with more details on the program she installed on Cisco's computer. When they were finished talking, she turned around and ran headlong into someone.
"Whoops!" she shouted as she grabbed onto the person's arms to steady herself. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry about that!"
"Felicity?"
She looked up at the sound of her name and realized in surprise that the person she ran into was none other than Oliver Queen.
Because of course.
"Oliver," she said as she took an immediate step backward. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same of you," he responded with a quirked eyebrow.
"I was taking a tour," she said defensively.
"A tour," he repeated. He said it in a flat tone, but Felicity felt like he didn't believe her. For some reason, that made her more defensive.
"Yeah, a tour. I was curious, and Dr. Wells was kind enough to show me around."
That really ratcheted up his curiosity. "Dr. Wells showed you around," he echoed.
She huffed. "Are you going to stand there and repeat everything I say or don't you have better things to do?"
That seemed to shut him up, at least for a moment. After a prolonged second, he said, "Diggle told me you were grabbing coffee with him tomorrow."
Felicity shrugged a single shoulder, wishing she could just walk away instead of getting sucked into some pointless conversation with Oliver Queen. "Yeah. Why?"
"No reason. I didn't realize you were close enough to get coffee together."
"It's how you make friends," she pointed out. "You talk about stuff you have in common when you first meet, then you make excuses to hang out afterward to talk some more. Maybe you should take notes."
Instead of continuing to stare at her blankly, like she expected, Oliver broke into a smile. It was only the second time she'd ever seen him smile before, but it was just as disarming as the first time, if not more so.
"Yes," he nodded. "Perhaps I should."
Another silence fell over them, and Felicity started shifting awkwardly on her feet. Finally, after Felicity was contemplating what it might take to scientifically melt into the floor, Oliver said, "Well, I'm meeting my mother here in a few minutes for our own tour with Dr. Wells. I really should get going."
"Right. Well, goodbye, Oliver."
Without warning, he reached forward and touched her shoulder. It was a light and gentle touch, but it was surprising with its warmth and almost...intimacy.
"I'll see you later, Felicity."
John Diggle had suggested they meet for coffee at a place called Jitters.
It was the first place in Central City that she didn't immediately fall in love with. Maybe it was because she was just so used to the charm of Mud House, but Jitters felt more like a high school cafeteria than a coffee house.
Regardless, she ordered a latte and took a seat by the window so she could people watch as she waited for John.
It turned out, she didn't have to wait very long. He showed up five minutes after Felicity sat down.
"Hi," he greeted with a smile. He set a cup of black coffee down in front of him, then shrugged his massive shoulders out of his sweater.
"Hi back," she replied.
"How have you been?"
Felicity immediately took it as an invitation to start talking about her time in Central City thus far, including all her city exploring. And it was a little weird for her to be so effusive with a relative stranger, but there was something so calming about John's presence that made her willing to talk around him.
"And how was STAR Labs?" he prodded after he took a sip of his coffee. "You mentioned that you wanted to go see the campus."
"Oh, it was amazing." With that, she launched into a detail-ridden reliving of the tour and everything Dr. Wells told her. She refrained from telling him the specifics about Project X because Dr. Wells had asked her not to share them, but she did recount the part about helping Cisco with his computer problems and what Dr. Wells had said about her future.
"It was incredible," she gushed. "Everything about the place was just so...so futuristic. And then when Dr. Wells said he'd kept an eye out for me…" She shivered a little with excitement. "I've never felt more inspired by anything in my entire life."
John smiled. "That's really great, Felicity. I'm glad you got to experience it."
"Me too," she grinned.
"And telling you that you're talented despite not finishing your degree, that's even more incredible."
"Right. I thought it might have been a detriment or something. You always see these job advertisements at places like STAR Labs that require Master's, even doctorates. But he didn't seem to think it would hold me back."
John nodded. "Felicity? Do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
"Why did you have to leave MIT?"
Felicity's grin slowly fell off her face.
She didn't begrudge John's curiosity. If it had been her, she would have asked as well. But her hesitation stemmed from so many different things, chief among them pride.
"It's not like I wanted to," she began. "I loved it. I loved my classes, I loved the school, my classmates, Cambridge...all of it was great. I was on track to graduate early, even."
"So then what happened?"
She leaned back into her seat and stared down at the table. "I was paying my tuition through a combination of scholarships, student loans and money my parents had saved up for my education. But then something came up right at the end of my sophomore year, and I had to go home. My parents couldn't help me out with my tuition anymore, and I didn't have any other way to get the money for MIT because it was so expensive. I had to drop out."
John nodded, empathy in his warm eyes. "Wow. That sucks."
"Yeah. And my student loans were supposed to be deferred until I graduated, contingent upon my full-time student status. When I dropped out, I had to start repaying them. So I went back home and started working."
"I'm so sorry," he said.
She sucked in a breath through her nostrils. "It's not your fault. It's just how it goes. And at any rate, I'm really close to paying off my loans. Once I do, I'll finally be able to move out of Hertfordshire."
"Hey, good for you," he smiled.
"Thanks."
Sensing that she wanted to change the subject, John did so gracefully, steering the conversation into talk of other things she should do in Central City before she had to go back to Hertfordshire.
"When do you have to leave, anyway?" he asked.
"We're leaving Friday," she said. "So we've still got a lot of time to see and do things."
"What a coincidence," he said. "We're leaving Saturday. Maybe we all can go out for drinks again some time before we leave. We'll skip the awkward dinner with Moira."
"Yeah, that might be fun," Felicity hedged. "Would Oliver be there?"
"Of course." John grinned in a wolfish way that Felicity did not trust one bit. "Why do you ask?"
She rolled her eyes. "OK, can I ask you a question this time?"
"Yeah."
"How do you stand Oliver Queen?" she demanded. "I mean...he's just...he's just such a closed off, stuck up, snooty jerk. And you are like, the exact opposite. What in the world would make you want to hang out with someone like that?"
John laughed. "Look, I'll admit, Oliver isn't exactly the warmest guy in the world. He's definitely got his moments."
She grunted her response.
"But Oliver's a really, really good person. He's socially awkward and distant with people he doesn't know, but once you manage to get into his circle and once he considers you his friend, he'll go to the ends of the world for you. He's one of the most trustworthy men I've ever known. I know he's always got my back."
Felicity shook her head. John made Oliver sound so great, but she had yet to see any evidence of his greatness for herself.
"OK, I can see you don't believe me," John said with a shake of his head. "Let me give you an example. Did you meet his friend Tommy Merlyn?"
She immediately perked at Tommy's name and nodded.
"Well I've known Tommy for a while and he can be kind of carefree. He throws himself into things without necessarily thinking them through. This is true of him in relationships as well. He just throws himself into things and he falls in love faster than you can blink an eye."
She felt her heart pounding in her palms as John talked. In her head she willed him to keep talking.
"Anyway, it happened this summer in Hertfordshire. Tommy fell in love with someone, and from the way Oliver tells it, he fell head over heels. He was talking about asking the girl to move with him to Star City. But Oliver convinced him that it wasn't a good idea to commit himself to this girl. He convinced him to break it off and go back home. He saved Tommy from making a huge, gigantic mistake."
Felicity wasn't a very angry person. In fact, she could count on one hand the number of times she'd lost her temper.
This was most certainly one of them.
Her anger glowed in her cheeks, in her neck, all over her body. Her skin was flushed with anger as she thought of Oliver Queen, scumbag of the universe, ruining her sister's happiness. He had the absolute nerve to meddle in their love lives and ruin what could have been the most amazing relationship of all time.
Her fists clenched in her lap the more and more she thought of it. She was lucky Oliver wasn't actually there, otherwise she just might throw a punch in his smug, rich face.
"Did he mention a name?" Felicity asked in a strained voice. "Did he say who Tommy had fallen in love with?"
John just shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. "No. He didn't give many details other than the fact that they were completely wrong for each other."
"Why?"
"Something about how she was cold and calculating. And she apparently came from a family of hicks."
That was it. That was the last straw.
She jumped up from her seat and John looked up in surprise.
"Felicity?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
"I, um…" she cleared her throat. "I have to go to the bathroom. Sorry, I'll be right back."
With that, she practically ran from the table before he could see just how hard she was shaking. Once she reached the bathroom, she threw herself into an empty stall and pressed her back against the door.
Oliver Queen. The abominable Oliver Queen was the one who broke Tommy and Laurel up. He was the one who made her sister cry. He was the one who ruined her sister's life.
And he was the one who would pay.
Felicity kept John's information to herself from everybody: from Barry, from Iris, even from Laurel. Laurel had gone back home to Hertfordshire while Iris and Felicity were still in Central City, and she was trying very hard to move on. Felicity told herself she would honor her sister's wishes, so she was keeping it a secret at the moment.
But the problem with secrets, as she was learning, is that they make you resentful. Especially if they're angry secrets. As the week went on, she grew more and more resentful of the situation. She was resentful of John for entrusting her with the information in the first place. She was resentful of Tommy for being such a gullible idiot. But most of all, she was resentful of Oliver Queen for fucking everything up.
On their last day in Central City, Barry made Iris and Felicity breakfast so they wouldn't be hungry before they hit the road. It was a pleasant time for the three of them — they chatted and joked around plates full of bacon and eggs and multiple cups of coffee. Inwardly, Felicity was preparing herself to leave a city that she had fallen in love with. Going back to Hertfordshire was going to be so hard.
"So, ladies," Barry smiled. "When am I going to get the chance to entertain the two of you again?"
"Well you know I'm coming up in two weeks," Iris winked.
"I know," Barry grinned.
Felicity knew that her friend was currently reaching underneath the table to hold Barry's hand, and she couldn't help but smile into her coffee at the thought.
"But what about you, Felicity?" he asked. "When are you coming back?"
"As soon as possible," she told him in earnest. "I mean it, Barry, I loved it here. I promise I'm going to try and visit you again soon."
The young man nodded happily.
As the meal was wrapping up, Iris and Felicity were helping him clean up when a knock came at the door.
"Coming!" Barry called.
He ducked out of the kitchen to go answer it, and seconds later the girls heard a sound of surprise.
"Excuse me, Barry. Is Felicity in?"
The woman almost dropped the soapy plate in her hands. She knew that voice — it was one she'd come to loathe more than anything in the world.
"Uh, yeah. Hey, Lissy!" Barry poked his head around the partition with surprise written all over his face. "Oliver Queen is here to see you."
A weird mix of fury and dread started pumping through her veins. Slowly, quietly, she pulled her soapy hands out of the sink and wiped them off on the kitchen towel. Then she followed Barry out to the front door where, sure enough, Oliver Queen was waiting for her in a dark green cashmere sweater and jeans that probably cost more than her parents' house.
"Oliver," she greeted coldly.
"Felicity," he nodded. "Can I...would you come take a walk with me? I'd really like to talk to you about something. In private."
"Iris and I were about to leave," she told him.
"I won't take up too much of your time," he said. "Please."
Sucking in a deep breath, she reluctantly nodded and she stepped out of the safety of Barry's apartment and followed him down the stairs and onto the sidewalk that led out into the neighborhood.
"How did you know where I was staying?" she asked him.
"I asked John," he answered. "He told me you were staying with Barry. Then I remembered that Barry is technically a government worker since he's a CSI with the CCPD, so I looked up his address in the city directory."
"Jesus, stalker much?" she muttered under her breath. Luckily he didn't hear her.
The two of them walked in silence for a few minutes. Then, finally, Oliver broke it.
"Felicity," he said, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. She paused too, turning to face him. She'd scarcely seen him more agitated, biting his lip with furrowed brows. "Felicity, I've tried to forget about it. I've tried to make it go away, but it won't."
"What are you talking about?' she demanded.
"Felicity Smoak, I'm in love with you."
Well whatever she had been expecting, it certainly wasn't that.
"I know," he continued. He started pacing, back and forth, back and forth like he was the pendulum on a grandfather clock, counting the seconds with each footstep. "I know, it sounds crazy. I know. I know the thought of me falling in love with...well, falling in love with someone like you is absolutely insane, but it's true. I'm in love with you, despite everything. Despite where you live, your lack of education, your family and friends...I'm in love with you and I just — I would like very much for you to go out with me."
Felicity had never been more shocked in her life. There she was, standing in the middle of an empty sidewalk in a residential district of Central City with Oliver Queen professing his love for her.
What. The. Fuck.
His pacing eventually slowed as he stared at her, waiting with anticipation for her answer. As she struggled with her shock, she stared into his face. His clear blue eyes, his shadowed jaw, his defined nose and strong brows — Oliver Queen was everything a run-of-the-mill, heterosexual woman would have wanted in a man. He was handsome, smart, rich — he was all of it.
But the more she looked at his beautiful face, the more she dwelled on the fact that he was the reason Laurel cried herself to sleep for days after Tommy left. He was the reason her heart was broken. He did that. He ruined her sister's life.
And suddenly, she had the words.
"Wow," Felicity began, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "You sure know how to make a girl feel special, don't you, Oliver?"
He blinked in surprise.
"I mean, really, you should teach a class," she continued venomously. "A college level course in smoothness: How To Confess Your Love 101. Step one: dispense with all the stupid, silly, girly nonsense. Don't bother taking her out for dinner or a drink. Take her out during the middle of the day, right before she has to take a four-hour-long car ride back to her hometown. Corner her so she feels trapped in the middle of unfamiliar territory. That's sure to get her heart racing."
Oliver's mouth immediately snapped shut. His eyes started to take on a look of panic and shock, something, Felicity took a visceral pleasure in. She continued.
"Step two: insult her. Make her feel so awful about herself that she'll feel grateful that you even looked at her at all. Make sure she knows that she's lucky that you so much as even gave her a second glance!"
"How did I insult you?" Oliver demanded.
She let out a barking laugh. "Are you kidding me? You just told me you fell in love with me against your will, even though I live in a hick town with a hick family and have nothing but a hick education!"
Oliver didn't reply.
"And the final step," Felicity snarled, "Make the rest of her family so completely miserable that she'll have no choice but to accept you on the spot."
"What — "
"Laurel and Tommy!" she screamed. And in an instant, all the fury she had pent up over the days since she found out what really happened spilled out of her, wave after wave after wave. "You broke them up! You persuaded Tommy to get the hell out of dodge the minute summer was over without even so much as an explanation!"
He stood there, completely still as she hurled her accusation right at him. He didn't look down, he didn't look away. He met her words head on with absolutely no change of expression.
"Do you deny it?"
"No."
"No?" she demanded. He stared right back at her, almost a fierce kind of pride in his expression as he owned up to ruining her sister's life. "You mean to say you purposely broke my sister's heart?"
"I don't believe I did," he shot back. "It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Tommy was in love with her, but it was equally clear that she didn't return his feelings."
That literally stole the words from Felicity's brain. He honestly believed that Laurel didn't love Tommy back? What kind of brainless, numbskull, dipshit moron would think that? And even if that were true, who the hell was he to interfere in a love life that wasn't his own?
"You, Oliver Queen, are the most inconsiderate, selfish, prideful and hateful person I have ever had the misfortune to meet," she shot at him.
His blue eyes lit up with fury. "Oh I am?" he retorted. "At least I was being honest, which is definitely more than I can say for your family!"
"Oh, so in addition to being a bunch of hicks, we're also a bunch of liars?" she spat. "Is that it?"
"Your mother certainly wasn't trying to hide the fact that dating a Queen or a Merlyn would make for an easy life," he sneered.
"You leave my mother out of this!" she shouted. "My mother is ten times the person you ever would be! At the very least she doesn't go out of her way to break people's hearts!"
"No, that seems to be a trait you developed all on your own, isn't it?"
Felicity's jaw snapped shut as she glared at him. He glared right back, both his fists clenched at his sides and his chest heaving with harsh breaths, like he had just taken a lap around the block.
After a tense minute of silence, she opened her mouth and began slowly, "You've made it very clear that I am the last person in the world that you should date. So let me make it easier for you to get over your feelings: I not only dislike you, I despise you, with every fiber of my being. I hope you rot in hell for what you did to my sister. And I hope you never blacken our lives with your presence ever again."
And with that, Felicity turned on her heel and ran back to Barry's apartment.