A Little Too Much Togetherness—#5

"I will kill him," Felicity said through clenched teeth. "I swear, Dig, I will kill him. And then I'm going to start carrying a handcuff key in my bra."

"You know Oliver doesn't think straight when it comes to his family," said Diggle. "And Thea's the only family he has left."

"That is no excuse for him to handcuff us together so we can't stop him from charging off to confront Malcolm 'oops-that-whole-being-dead-thing-was-a-misunderstanding' Merlyn!"

Felicity was furious. She wanted to kick something (preferably Oliver). Or throw something (preferably at Oliver). She was beginning to understand why Oliver vented his anger on the training dummies.

Diggle sighed. "He did it because he wanted to keep us safe," he said.

"Ridiculous," Felicity insisted. "I'm pretty sure Malcolm Merlyn would take one look at your arms and just start crying."

Dig grinned.

"Besides," she continued, "Oliver's making our choices for us, and you know how that much pisses me off."

"Look, he's an overprotective idiot, but he's our overprotective idiot."

"He handcuffed you to me!" Felicity said, indignant. "Why are you defending him?"

Diggle shrugged. It was the first movement that jostled her arm where her hand was bound to his. Up to that point he'd been very still, mindful of her injured shoulder. The shoulder that may have been part of the reason Oliver was being all caveman, since it was technically his fault. Two days before, they'd done the Tarzan thing yet again to get away from the bad guys. This time, though, Oliver had no control so instead of him carefully setting her on her feet or turning to break her fall, she'd crashed to the ground, landing hard on her left shoulder. Her upper arm was one giant bruise, and Oliver had been weirdly upset about it, even more than when she'd been shot.

"I can see where he's coming from, that's all," said Dig.

"Oh, really? If it were you, would you have handcuffed me and Oliver together?" Felicity asked.

"Oh, hell no. I couldn't get close enough to Oliver to do that without a fight." He leaned back in his chair. "No, I'd just lock you two in a room somewhere. Now that would be interesting."

"It just doesn't make sense to me," Felicity said. "Maybe if I understood why he did this to us, why he thought it was a good idea, then I wouldn't be so angry."

"Doing this to me was strategy," Diggle replied. "Doing this to you . . . well, Oliver doesn't always think straight when it comes to you, either."

"Huh. I guess we are kind of like family," Felicity mused.

"Yeah, right. That's it. Family," Diggle said drily.

Before Felicity could ask him what the hell that was supposed to mean, his phone rang. It was Lyla—she could tell by the ringtone, "Trouble" by Ray LaMontagne.

She nudged Diggle, bumping her sore shoulder into his. "Ow. Hey, get Lyla to come down and rescue us," she suggested as he raised the phone to his ear. "ARGUS must have taught her how to escape handcuffs somewhere along the way."

Dig shushed her. "Hey, babe, what's up? . . . Are you serious?"

Felicity leaned in a little to try to hear the other side of the conversation.

"Oh my God." Diggle ran a hand over his face, the hand that was cuffed to hers. It hurt. Felicity was starting to wonder if she'd been too hasty insisting that she didn't need X-rays or anything. "No, babe, there's no problem," he continued. "It's our child, not an inconvenience."

Felicity's eyes widened. Was Lyla in labor?

"Of course I'll be there. Felicity and I will leave as soon as I hang up . . . Well, we're in a situation, so we're sort of a package deal right now . . . I'll explain when I see you. Love you, bye." He ended the call and looked over at Felicity.

"Is it time?" she asked.

"It's time. You've been saying you wanted to be at the hospital when the baby came. Now you've got your wish."

"At the hospital, not in the delivery room," she muttered.

With a coordinated effort, they got to their feet. Felicity grabbed the cardigan draped over the back of her chair and used it to cover up the handcuffs. Speed was more important than her injury, so after going up the stairs single-file and being tethered to Dig as he clumsily drove one-handed, she was in a lot of pain by the time they reached the hospital.

Felicity thought Lyla would be upset, but they'd arrived between contractions—the soon-to-be mom was in a giddy mood. When she saw the handcuffs, she laughed so hard that tears streamed down her face.

Over the next few hours, Felicity tried to stay out of the way, which meant standing behind Diggle with her left arm stretched out in front of her. Oliver texted her that Thea and Merlyn had left town before he got to them, that he was sorry and was on his way to let them out. She sent him an all-caps response that she was angry but they'd talk about it later because it was baby time. He replied with exclamation points, which was the Oliver equivalent of shouting from the rooftops, she supposed. She sent him a flurry of texts after that, keeping him posted. It seemed tacky to call him from the delivery room. Plus, it was kind of noisy in there.

Felicity was standing alone at the observation window of the nursery when Oliver showed up. She still wore her paper gown, and her ponytail was stuffed underneath a surgical cap. Oliver followed her gaze, looking at the rows of empty cradles.

"Oh, she's not in there," Felicity said. "I just came out here to give them a moment."

" 'She'?" Oliver asked.

Felicity smiled. "Joanna Megan Diggle. She's more bald than a little old man. Actually, she kind of looks like a little old man. But don't tell them I said that."

"How did you get out of the handcuffs?"

"I told Detective Lance he owed me one."

"I'm sorry," said Oliver.

His hand rested on her injured shoulder, causing a spike of pain to course through it. She must have made some kind of noise because suddenly he was right in front of her, close enough to kiss, and his touched on her bruised flesh was unbearably gentle.

"X-rays?" he asked.

She nodded, letting him draw her away from the window and steer her down the hall.

"Joanna Megan," said Oliver. "Is that Megan for you?"

"Yes, and Joanna for you. It's about as close to Jonas as it gets without making up a name." She stopped and turned to him. "But don't let it go to your head because I'm still really mad at you." She pulled out the handcuffs and gave them to him. He pocketed them with a wink.

"Joanna," he repeated. "I can live with that."