Oliver Queen was the Vigilante.
Oliver was the Vigilante.
The puzzle pieces slid together in an obvious, perfunctory way: the nighttime disappearances, the bruises that appeared fresh every morning, the bullet ridden computer. He'd brought her an arrow for god's sake. It all seemed so obvious that Felicity could hardly believe she hadn't guessed the truth weeks ago.
And yet... hadn't she? Lying in bed at night, watching the light from Oliver's motorcycle disappear down the driveway, hadn't there been a tiny part of her that had thought maybe? Just maybe? The clues had been there all along, staring her in the face with wide, unblinking eyes. She had simply lacked the will to piece them together and see them for what they really were. Well, there was no avoiding it now. Not with Oliver lying on her floor, wearing the Vigilante's costume, his face scrunched up in pain from the bullet hole in his shoulder—
Snapping out her reverie, Felicity fell to her knees by Oliver's shoulder. "You're bleeding!"
"I don't need to be told that," Oliver grunted.
"Hey, do not get cheeky with me right now—bleeding vigilantes do not get to be cheeky." Felicity sucked down a deep breath. She could freak out about Oliver's secret identity later, once she ensured he didn't take up yet another persona— that of dead teenager. "Wow, okay. You need a hospital—I'll call an ambulance." She tried to stand but Oliver grabbed her wrist, shaking his head.
"Felicity, I can't go to a hospital. I need to you to help me get to my father's old factory in the Glades."
Felicity tried to think clearly despite the tide of hysteria clawing its way up her throat. It was a monumental task. This was insane on so many levels. Oliver was the vigilante. Oliver was the vigilante and he was shot and refusing medical care in favor of a field trip to one of his dad's old factories. "Oliver, I know you said you don't need to be told that you're bleeding; but apparently you do because this worst plan I've ever heard. You are shot. You need a doctor, not a steel worker."
"I know it sounds crazy but I need you to trust me— I don't exactly have a lot of time here."
She couldn't believe he was acting like she was the one being unreasonable. And yet, in at least one way, Oliver was right; he didn't have a lot of time. Whatever Felicity was going to do, she had to do now. Oh, I am so going to regret this.
"Fine," she snapped, "fine! But if you die on the way to your stupid factory, I am so not mourning you."
Oliver managed a tight smile. "Fair enough."
Frowning down at Oliver's leather clad form Felicity said, "And we're going to have to do something about your... get up." She grabbed her overnight bag and tore through it for her favorite oversized zip up. Oliver growled—bared teeth and all, as Felicity eased his injured arm out of the vigilante jacket and into the soft cotton sweatshirt. As she did, she caught a glance of the wound that was the cause of all this trouble. It was small, a perfect circle half an inch across just below his collarbone. There was less blood than Felicity had expected—the real danger seemed to be Oliver's body going into shock rather than bleeding out. Small comfort, but she'd take it.
Felicity had nothing to swap out for Oliver's leather pants. Hopefully they'd make it out of the hotel without being seen but if not—the best they could hope was that people chalked the pants up to a youthful fashion choice rather than the trappings of vigilantism. At least Felicity's sweatshirt black; it would take a while before blood seeping into the fabric became visible.
Felicity grabbed two clean hand towels from the bathroom and tucked one into the sweatshirt as a makeshift compress. The other she used to carefully wipe the greasepaint from Oliver's face. Realizing she herself was still wearing a fluffy bathrobe, Felicity grabbed her clothes from the bathroom, slid on her shoes, and hurried back to Oliver. "Can you stand?" she asked. Oliver nodded. Felicity hooked her hands under his arms and heaved—God, he was heavy—then lifted his arm around her shoulders as he began to sway. "If you feel like you're gonna fall just yell timber," she said jokingly, but her sense of humor fled as she glanced up and saw Oliver's eyes squeezed shut, his face white as a sheet.
"There's a service elevator at the end of the hall." Oliver groaned. "Less people."
Felicity poked her head out the door, only stepping out after she saw that the hallway as abandoned. Together, the two of them stumbled to the elevator like some strangely lopsided two-headed beast. There was a small security camera at the end of the hallway. Felicity made a mental note to hack the hotel's system as soon as she got the chance and delete any footage of the two of them.
The service elevator let them out into a shadowy laundry room. A light flickered overhead, and the smell of wet socks and detergent mixing confusingly in Felicity's nose. To the left, an exit sign glowed softly in the darkness. The door let out into a narrow street between their hotel and the equally ostentatious one next door. A storm had rolled in. Lashes of frigid rain stung the exposed skin on their hands and faces.
A single yellow taxi was parked against the curb twenty few up the street. They made for it, squintin to see through the undulating silver sheets. In seconds, they were soaked to the bone. Felicity yanked open the taxi door and Oliver slid in, his low groan drowned out by a sudden clap of thunder. Lightning split the sky as Felicity slipped in after him and pulled the door shut behind her.
"What're you doing?" Oliver mumbled. "Go back inside."
"Hell no," Felicity hissed under her breath, shoving a lock of dripping hair out of her face. "I'm not leaving you until I know for sure whether I have to kill you for dying on me."
"Hey, he alright?" the taxi driver asked, nodding to Oliver.
"Who, him?" Felicity laughed. "Oh, yeah, he just ate some bad shellfish." She swatted Oliver on his good arm. "I keep telling him they're not kosher for a reason but he never listens." Cheerfully as she could manage, she said, "We'd like to go to the Glades, please."
The taxi driver raised an eyebrow. "You got a specific address, blondie?"
"Uh..." Felicity glanced at Oliver and silently gave thanks when he managed to supply one.
The cabdriver glanced between them and for a moment Felicity feared he had noticed Oliver's stupid pants as they'd gotten in. But then he simply shrugged, stamped out his cigarette in an ashtray on the dashboard, and peeled away from the curb into the oncoming traffic.
"You two going out there on a dare?" The taxi driver asked, glancing at them in the rearview mirror.
"Uh, what?" Felicity said, tearing her gaze away from Oliver's pallid face.
"Those old factories, the kids go out there on dares sometimes. They say they're haunted."
"Yeah," Felicity said gratefully. "Yeah, it's a dare. Hopefully we'll see some ghosts!" Possibly Oliver's, she thought wryly, if we don't get there soon.
The taxi driver nodded and seemed to relax a little, having found himself an appropriate explanation for their midnight adventure. Felicity was coming to realize the mental acrobatics people would go through in order to reconcile themselves with the strange and usual. She had done it herself with Oliver, putting on blinders to ignore the clues that had popped up like sign posts pointing her towards the truth ever since she had known him.
Beyond the window, the city lights slipped by in a glittering blur. Oliver's head rested onto Felicity's shoulder, his breaths coming shallow and uneven. "Hey." Felicity said, patting Oliver's cheek. A thin sheen of cold sweat coated his face. How long had it been since he was shot—thirty minutes? An hour? Panic stabbed at her heart. "Oliver!"
"Mm." He lifted his head an infinitesimal amount. "It's alright. It's alright, I'm awake."
Felicity fell back against the seat, her heart thudding against her ribs. Yeah, she thought, but for how much longer?
Rain pounded more violently against the taxi's windows, obscuring the outside world from view; even if Felicity had been familiar with Starling's streets she wouldn't have been to tell how far they had traveled or where they were now. It seemed like forever before the taxi pulled to the side of the road and stopped. Felicity was only mildly surprised when Oliver managed to conjure cash to pay the man.
She helped Oliver out of the cab and it pulled away, the taillights glimmering as they faded into the distance. It was still raining and there were no streetlights in this part of town. The dark seemed to creep up around them, pressing in from all sides. Felicity could just make out a huge, hulking shadow set back from the road—the Queen's factory. "Well, we're here," Felicity said dubiously. "What now?"
Unfortunately, Oliver picked that moment to finally lose consciousness. He slumped to the ground, nearly dragging Felicity with him, her knees buckled under the weight of his entire body.
For a moment, Felicity stood frozen, hot dread rushing through her veins. Then instinct took over. Oliver must have had a reason for wanting to come here. Maybe he had friends holed up in the factory, someone who could help. Later, Felicity would hardly remember running across the dark pavement, rain dripping into her eyes, bursting into the factory her calls for help drowned out by sudden claps of thunder. She did retain a strong memory of the first time she set eyes on Dig- he'd exploding from the basement at the sound of her pleas and she vaguely remembered thinking something along the lines of his arms are bigger than my torso. But most of the rest of the night—seeing the foundry for the first time, Dig peeling the towel off Oliver's bullet wound and muttering, "Damn it, just missed the carotid," Oliver crashing, Dig bringing him back to life with a defibrillator—it all melded together into a jumble of indistinct images and sounds. Felicity wouldn't remember that the second time Oliver crashed the defibrillator had short circuited, that she'd had to rewire it to get it working again. She wouldn't remember Dig raising his eyebrows and asking 'What did you do?" She wouldn't remember shrugging and saying, "I've been fixing computer since I was seven. Wires are wires."
Mostly Felicity would remember the feeling of relief when Dig finally laid down the tools he'd used to sew up the bullet hole and, glancing at her, said "I'd say he's pretty much out if the woods at this point. Thanks to you, mostly." He held out his hand. "I'm John Diggle, by the way. You can call me Dig. And I'm guessing you are Felicity."
Felicity shook his hand. "How'd you know?" she asked.
Smiling vaguely, Dig looked over his shoulder at Oliver's prone form. "He might've mentioned you one or two times. But don't tell him I told you so." His chuckle was deep and rumbling. "I prefer my head attached to my shoulders."
Felicity didn't know what to say. Oliver had talked about her? Here, in the midst of his secret second life he'd been thinking about her? She didn't know what to make of that.
Dig conjured a small pile of clothes out of a wooden trunk nearby and gave them to Felicity. "I thought you might want to change out of those wet things. These are Oliver's so I'm sure they'll be huge on you but it's better than nothing." Dig turned around while she shucked her rain soaked clothes and tugged on the giant shirt and sweatpants. He was right; the clothes were huge on her. But they were soft and dry and they smelled good: like pine and a hint of something else...lavender?
"You can turn around," Felicity said, rolling up each sleeve six times. Dig smiled at the sight of her drowning in Oliver's clothes. For a minute they stood side by side, watching Oliver's chest rise and fall. A couple times his breath caught and Felicity's eyes flew to the heart monitor, expecting it to flat line. But then the moment would pass and Oliver would exhale. Only then could Felicity seem to find her own breath again.
Dig nodded to a large chair in front the computer table. "It's no Tempur-Pedic but you should get some rest. I'll take you back to the hotel in the morning. Maybe you'll still be able to sneak back in before they realize you're gone."
Felicity slipped her hand into Oliver's. "I think I'm gonna to stay up with him a little longer," she said quietly.
Dig raised an eyebrow but he didn't protest. He made his way over to a straight-back chair on the other side of the room and promptly fall asleep, his snores mingling with the soft beeps of the cardiac monitor.
Asleep, Oliver looked so much younger. Unconscious, she reminded herself, not asleep. Not exactly the same thing. Still, the result was the same. In this state, Oliver's face had an innocence Felicity had never seen before; remnants of the boy he'd been before the island rising to the surface. It was in the way his dark lashes dusted the curve of his cheek. The slight part of his lips.
Dig had said Oliver was out of the woods. Still, fear niggled its way back into Felicity's brain. She couldn't lose him now, not when finally knew the truth- when she could finally understand. Before Felicity knew what she was doing she had leaned over and kissed Oliver on the lips. Just once, softly—a promise of something she couldn't put into words. She straightened up, blushing furiously even though there was no one awake to see what she'd done. "Just in case," she murmured.
She intended to stay awake until Oliver woke up, however long that would be. But eventually the siren song of sleep proved too strong and she fell asleep, curled up in the chair like a cat, Oliver's hand still clasped in hers.