The first thing Felicity became aware of that morning was the warm trickle of sunlight beaming on her face, then she felt his heat engulfing her like his arms were. Her senses were overwhelmed in that moment, almost every inch of her body flush with his. She could smell the familiar scent of leather on his skin and her own perfume that had transferred throughout the night, he consumed her entirely, both his body around her and the way just his scent could send her on a tangent so early in the morning.
"Morning, Sleeping Beauty," she heard his gruff, sleepy voice covey slowly, not realising that he had been awake for almost an hour now, watching her drool on his bare chest.
"Morning," she replied cutely, moving to lean up on her elbow next to him, "how long have you been awake?"
"Not sure, but I don't mind watching you."
"Creep," she answered half-heartedly, tracing her finger along a long gash in his torso as he sighed in contentment, leaning up to press a soft kiss to her forehead and tucking a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
They lay in silence for a while, thinking over the dramatic events of the day before, until Felicity finally spoke up, "Oliver?" she pried him.
His eyes had been closed but opened as she spoke his name, greeted with a beautiful face laced with worry, "what is it baby?" he asked, the name not sleazy like it so often sounded when other men spoke it. With Oliver, in the light of the early morning, wrapped up in Felicity's pale yellow sheets, it was the most flattering name he could have spoken.
"I'm scared," she admitted, looking straight into his blue orbs as she spoke, "I didn't want everyone to know so I pretended I wasn't but… but what if… what if I don't make it through this?"
She closed her eyes, trying to imprison the tears welling there. "Hey," he spoke softly, holding her head in his hands, forcing her to look at him through blurred vision, "I'm not going to lose you, ever. No one is going to take you from me. I won't let them, do you understand?"
Felicity could only nod in response as his thumb traced the line under her eyes, wiping the hot tears that had fallen, "I haven't been this scared since MIT," she admitted.
"Daniel?" He asked softly, as soft as she fingered his scars, knowing that Daniel was a scar of her own, albeit it invisible to the world.
"Daniel." She confirmed.
Seven years earlier.
Felicity was well in her element at MIT, she was acing her classes, sharing an apartment off-campus with her two best friends and finally happy with herself and her capabilities, she was her best version here, and she knew it.
It was only a few months into her first year when she met Daniel, he was in the year above her; a charming, handsome and intelligent socialite. She embarrassed herself greatly when she spoke to him the first time, horrifically in fact.
The class bell rung loud through the walls of the MIT campus, and the elderly lecturer dismissed his excitable class immediately, hurrying to the teacher's lounge for a much needed aspirin. A certain frizzy blonde haired Felicity Smoak was in this class, skipping out arm-in-arm with the ever so gay Marvin – one of her two roommates – as her other best friend Mel followed behind, not appreciating their chipper mood.
They were just out of the door when she heard her name being called, turning and letting go of Marvin's arm, she went towards her caller.
Daniel stood as handsome as ever before her, he was tall, with dark and perfectly groomed hair, and buff, she never failed to mention that he was buff. "Hey Fel," he spoke calmly, the complete opposite of herself.
"Hi Dan."
He smiled warmly, fiddling with the papers in his hand, "my father wanted me to pass these onto you, he said you were expecting them."
"Oh, yeah I was, thanks," she replied, taking the papers from the son of her favourite of all the MIT teachers. She thought that would be it, not thinking that a guy like Daniel Phillips could want to talk to a girl like her, "was that all?" she questioned, not wanting to be the first one to walk away.
"No, I just wanted to let you know that I read a couple of your papers that my father was looking through. Your ideas of safeguarding and hacking sophisticated databases was evolutionary, way ahead of our time, he didn't lie when he called you a genius."
"Thank you." Felicity drank in his casual stance, leant again the wall of the corridor, she decided to mirror him, not realising that she wasn't in fact next to a wall but a door. A not properly closed door at that. She fell through, tumbling and catching herself before she landed on the tiled floor. She turned embarrassed to Daniel who only smiled, the horrible feeling of being mocked surging through her.
"Well, if you'll excuse me I think I've embarrassed myself in front of you enough for today, not that I care what you think of me, not that I don't value your opinion, I really appreciated your comment on my being a genius, not that I think I'm a genius, that would be big-headed, unless you have good evidence to support it, then it would just be practical. But I really should go before I make a complete fool out of myself, not that I do that a lot, but I guess I do, but I just really like you and I don't want you to think I'm some idiot girl who falls over all the time, which I guess I do a lot of so it would be justifiable to say so, and I've been talking for a really, really, excruciatingly long time so I'm just going to stop, yeah just stop talking in 3, 2, 1."
He smiled again, "did you even breathe through that?"
"No, I don't think I did," Felicity replied, inwardly cursing her lack of brain-to-mouth filter.
"I think you're really something, Felicity Smoak, I'd love to find out just what it is about you that I find so intriguing."
Felicity's eye widened, "are you asking me to be a scientific study?"
"No," Daniel replied instantly, "I think you're really adorable."
"My mom calls me a-dork-able, says it suits more, not that I don't appreciate what she's trying to say, I know she's only kidding around but sometimes she just takes it too far, you know? I mean, I shouldn't have said that 'cause I know your mother died when you were three and a half, not that I've done creepy stalker research on you, your dad mentioned it to me, not that I spend loads of my free time with your dad or anything, that would be weird, but my dad left when I was young too, but you probably didn't want to know that and I'm rabbling again so I'm just going to stop. Can we just pretend I didn't say all that? I'm going to start again okay… thank you, I think you're really charming."
As she said it, she made the same mistake again of leaning on the door with the faulty handle, falling back into the classroom again. When she returned to stand in front of Daniel again, slamming the door a few times only for it to fly back open and finally settling for it to perch on the latch.
"I'd love to take you out for dinner sometime," he wasted no time in asking, fearing the next time she pulled an embarrassing stunt, she wouldn't hold her head high like she did right now.
"I'd love for you to take me out for dinner sometime."
"Tomorrow?" He asked, "I'll pick you up at seven."
Felicity nodded in reply, returning the smile he gave her before he walked off past her. She turned to watch him go, regretting how desperate it looked when he turned back to her, "I don't know what your apartment number is," he admitted.
"Oh, uh… 38-C. It's the third floor, the elevator doesn't work so you'll have to take the stairs, and it's right at the end of the corridor so It's quite a way, keeps me fit. Do you want me to just meet you outside?"
He shook his head in reply, "that wouldn't be very charming of me would it now?"
She giggled, it had meant to come out cute, with an underlying hint of sexy, something Mel had tried – and failed – to teach her for moments like this. Instead, it sounded like she was some psychopathic maniac that just plotted something utterly evil while hiccupping. She decided to cover it with a casual lean against the wall, and for the third time in five minutes, fell through the door. Thank god Daniel thought she did it on purpose to be funny.
Things escalated quickly from there. After their first date to an amiable hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, he explained that he didn't want things to move too fast, not wanting to put any pressure on her, they parted with a goodnight kiss and a promise to do it again sometime.
Their second date was a lunch-time picnic on campus, leading to a slightly more heated make-out session on the grass outside on the benches, cut short by Felicity seeing Daniel's father from the corner of her eye.
The third, fourth, fifth date followed the same pattern, each ending in a snog and a kept promise to do it again. By the sixth date, they were ready. They took it slow, only doing it the one time and without many tricks, just good, old-fashioned sex on a bed.
The second time they had sex, it was against her bedroom wall and halfway through, Marvin shouted at them to keep the noise down from the room next to hers. Felicity was a screamer by nature, she wasn't ashamed.
Soon, they had been together for five months, which felt like a lifetime to them. He would stay over every night, kept spare clothes in her wardrobe, she'd go to breakfast in his shirt and they'd shower together before classes started.
They were a well-oiled machine, until one Friday night.
All it took was a bad grade on an essay Felicity knew he had worked really hard on for him to be in a bad mood for their date in that hole-in-the-wall Chinese. Then, the waiter messed up his order, Felicity spilt her drink all over his dress pants, she tripped and fell into the road on the way home, grabbing his arm automatically for stability but instead dragging her with him into an April showers, rainwater puddle.
By the time they got to her apartment, empty from roommates who were out clubbing, he was well and truly annoyed, with her, with himself, and with life itself.
"I'm sorry I've been such a downer tonight, Fel. I'm just going to go home," he suggested as he walked her into the front room.
"Don't be silly," she assured him, running her hands across the lapels of his jacket, "let me make you forget about it."
That night, he grabbed her hips a bit harder, bit her neck with more force, and took her hard and fast on the couch. He didn't stay afterwards to cuddle like he always did, he muttered an apology for the way he acted and left her breathless and undone in the front room.
Things only got worse from there.
Soon enough, his grip on her hips left bruises, his bite-marks drew blood, he didn't even look at her as he took her harder and faster each time, he never cuddled afterwards, he stopped apologising, he left her not only breathless and undone, but confused and pained on whatever surface he could get her on first.
Then, when she called him out on it, asked why they didn't even go on dates before sex anymore, the backhanded slap to her milk white face only made matters worse, made her confusion grow, made her questions more complex. But for each time she asked, his punishment would be worse, and soon she was coming to class with a black eye, murmuring that she tripped over a pair of Mel's shoes and fell into the coffee table. Soon, she stopped babbling, stopped eating, stopped being excited to see his handsome face. Soon enough, she started being scared of him.
They still had sex, arguing both before and after it, him hitting or slapping her before and after he took everything from her, everything including her control.
It wasn't until she realised that she wasn't a willing partner in their nightly charades, that she realised she was being raped and abused by her own boyfriend, that she had the sense to tell Mel and Marvin.
They told her to get out of the relationship, tell him it's over. She did, and he threw his empty beer bottle at her for even contemplating leaving him, saying he'll kill himself if she left, before grabbing her and pulling her into the bedroom. Her cries were louder that night, he knew she didn't want it, want him, but he continued anyway. By the time Marvin ran in and pulled him off of her, it was too late, she'd already hit rock bottom, being used and abused in her own bedroom. From then on, she slept in with Marvin.
It was Colin Phillips who finally got her out of the mess she was in. He knocked on her apartment door one night, a good-looking middle aged man who had fathered her abuser and lost his wife many years ago. But tonight he looked different; tonight he had a black eye to match her own.
"Daniel hit me, but I suppose you already guessed that," he spoke to her from across the room, Mel and Marvin giving them almost-privacy from where they stood with their ears pressed against the door separating Mel's bedroom and the sitting room.
"Is that the first time?" Felicity asked him weakly, confirming his suspicions that his son had in fact been abusing the poor girl for a while.
"Yes it is. I'm so sorry it took me so long to figure it out, he's been acting strange for a while, I called him up on it and that's when he hit me. Consequently I pieced together all the bruises you have with all the cracked knuckles he has, I truly am sorry Felicity, and you didn't deserve this. I was rather hoping you would tell me everything he's done, I'm going to the police in the morning, I would very much like you to join me."
That's where she broke down in sobs, telling him everything he wanted to know and more. She never saw Daniel again but for the next three months, all she did was flinch at any form of contact and try to scrub the feel of his filthy handprints from her bare skin.
"Daniel was my lowest point," Felicity explained to him, still absentmindedly running a finger along his scars, "I feel weak again, like I did back then. I feel like I'm sinking, drowning even, I'm going to hit the ocean floor soon. I just… Someone wants to kill me… I…"
More tears fell and Oliver wiped them away, "I won't let anyone hurt you, Felicity. And I won't let you hit rock bottom again."
She only nodded and kissed him, wrapped up safe in his arms.
Sorry it was just a ball of fluff guys but that's just what I felt like today
More action and smut in the next chapter.
Let me know if you liked the flashback or not? Should I do more? It won't be a regular thing, I'm thinking every other chapter?
