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This was inspired a little bit by something Stephen said in his 50th ep Q&A.

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Sara and Diggle are training Felicity to fight. Oliver doesn't like it.
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"Your feet need to be a little bit wider, like - yeah, that's better." Sara's voice rang clear through the foundry, though only herself and Felicity were there to here it. Oliver was attending some charity event and Diggle was there with him, acing as his body guard.

When the youngest Lance girl joined team arrow, she was both shocked and appalled at the lack of self defence training the IT girl had. All this talk from Oliver about the blonde needing to be kept safe and yet he'd never taken the time to show her how to protect herself.

When Sara had tried to raise the idea with him, Oliver had imediately shot it down, claiming that she didn't need the skills for something she wasn't going to be taking part in. Felicity's place is down here at her desk, he'd said, she doesn't need field training if she's not in the field.

This is why the vigilante had not been filled in on the lessons John and Sara had been giving Felicity. They were spoken of in hushed voices and only ever took place when Oliver wasn't around to see it.

Felicity had gotten rather angry when she'd heard what Oliver had said, and then proceeded to use her loud voice to call the man a damned idiot and all but demanded she be tought how to fight - only the first part she'd said to his face, though.

So, for two months, they'd trained Felicity in secret, although it was a lot easier than they'd originally thought it would be; the man was supposed to be observant, but somehow he'd never noticed the distinct increase in times he'd come down to the lair and Felicity was in gym clothes rather than one of her normal, bright dresses.

They got too comfortable, though, in their belief that Oliver had no idea about what was going on, and they got sloppy in their attempts to hide it. It was only a matter of time before they got caught.

Felicity was working on one of the practice dummies, throwing kicks and punches, with Sara instructing her on what she was to do and telling her how she could improve. They were so focused, in fact, that neither heard the phone ringing or saw the warning texts from Dig, thus they were not expecting one Oliver Queen to be returning to the foundry that night.

The door burst open, startling them both - Felicity more than it did Sara - and Oliver was down the stairs and staring at the two women before either of them could even try to move. Felicity opened her mouth, ready to offer some sort of lie, but then thought better of it.

"What are you doing?" Oliver all but growled, his voice low and quite. Diggle stepped around the angry man to stand next to the two women, ready to step in when the inevitable fight broke out.

"What it look likes, I'm teaching Felicity how to defend herself" Sara said, head held high, eyes locked with Oliver's. "What are you doing here? You're meant to be at some big event."

"Don't turn this around on me," He yelled, "I specifically told you not to do this, Sara, and you went behind my back and did it annyway!"

They were practically nose to nose at this point, Oliver with fists clenched at his sides and Sara with her arms crossed tight over her chest.

"Oliver, man, calm down," John cut in, placing a hand on his friend's chest to push him back a little, "it's been going on for a couple of months, no one's gotten hurt."

"Two mon- wait, you knew about this?" The vigilante was seething, his voice loud and echoing, eyes piercing into Digg's with pure rage.

"I've been helping, and I don't see what your problem is; it's not fair that we put Felicity in so much danger without any way to defend herself." John reasoned, voice remaining surprisingly calm as he held his position between Oliver and the two blondes behind him.

"She has us!" He yelled back, "She doesn't need to know any of this stuff, she's almost never in the field, anyway!"

"Yeah, um, hi, girl in question is actually standing right here, so," Felicity piped up, raising her hand a little. "If you don't mind, I'd like to chip in here, or am I not allowed to do that either?"

Diggle smirked at Oliver, raising an eyebrow as if to challenge him to deny her this; Digg loved watching Felicity respond to the ridiculous things the other man said.

"Well, no one's saying anything so I'm just going to hop right in to it," She mumbled, but the silence in the foundry made it easy for them all to hear what had been said, "They're training me because I asked them to, not because they take pleasure in going against everything you say - although, to be honest, we all kinda do. I mean, you know that your word isn't law, right? Sometimes you say the most ridiculous things and just expect us all to go along with - not that everything you say is ridiculous, on occassion you actually have some good ideas, not that you ever have bad ideas but-"

"Felicity, breathe" Sara interupted, giving the other girl a quick smile and a nod.

"Right, sorry, my point is, I want to know how to fight. I know I'm almost never out in the field, but sometimes I am, and sometimes you're not going to be able to be thereto save me." Oliver looked like he was about to respond, but was stopped when Felicity held up one hand to him, "I know that I'm well protected during missions, but even out of missions, I'm not always safe. Oliver, this place is in the Glades, it's the most unsafe place in Starling city, and I walk out into that alleyway alone in the earlier hours of the morning almost every day. There won't always be someone around to protect me" She finished.

Oliver seemed to consider this for a moment, before turning to address the other two occupants in the room, "Could you give us a minute?" He asked, then added a 'please' as an afterthought. Before responding, they turned to look at Felicity, who nodded her head at them in assurance. Sara hesitated for a moment, but eventually went to follow Diggle up the stairs, fixing Oliver with a hard glare as she passed him.

The door slammed, ringing in the silence left between the two. When a minute past and Oliver still hadn't said anything, just stood there staring at her, Felicity began to grow impatient.

"Look, Oliver, if you're not going to talk, I'm going home," She began moving to her desk, intending to collect her things and get out of there, but she was stopped when a strong arm wrapped around her arm.

"I can't have you getting hurt." His voice was quiet, his eyes staring straight ahead, refusing to turn and meet her gaze.

"And Im getting training so that I won't," Felicity responded, baffled by whatever none sense was going through the man's head.

"You don't understand," He finally turned his head to stare straight into her eyes, and the look Felicity saw their held so much sincerity she found it hard to breathe for a second, "if you learn to fight, then this all becomes to real. There'll be no reason for me to demand you be kept out of the field. I need you to be here, Felicity."

"Just because I can do it, that doesn't mean I will, Oliver," She sighed, her voice now a lot softer, "I know I'm just here to run the computers, okay, I won't be running out there and getting in the way of things."

It was her turn to cast her gaze away from his, seeming to find a sudden interest in the training mats. The pressure of Oliver's hand on her arm ceased and she considerd turning away when she felt it press agains her cheek, instead, gently raising her face, though her eyes still refused to meet with his.

Only when he said her name, quiet and demanding, spacing out each syllable did Felicity finally return her gaze to his eyes. Another moment of silene passed before Oliver broke it.

"It's not about you getting in our way, Felicity, it's about getting in theirs," He breathed, "Its about guns firing at you and fighters twice your size throwing punches and you taking the hit. It's not that I don't want you by my side, it's that I can't have you there." There was a double meaning to his words and both parties knew it, though neither aknowledged it, "It's not that I think you couldn't handle it out there, it's that I couldn't handle it if anything happened to you, if you-" If you died.

The words went unsaid, but they still seemed to echo through the room so much louder than anything else either had said, hanging in the air.

Finally, she understood what he was saying, what all of this was about; Oliver didn't want her in the field because he was scared. He thought that she was learning to fight so that she could be out there in the midst of the action, where she could get hurt. It brought her back to when she'd gone to the bank to find Tockman alone and he'd been so, so angry.

"You're not going to lose me." Felicity whispered, echoing his words to her from so long ago when she'd gone to tell him anout Thea's true parentage.

"If you're going to insist on doing this, then I need you to promise me that you won't be in the field." His voice was hard and strong, leaving next to no room for argument.

"You know that sometimes I have to, like when something technology based needs to be done on site, or when-"

"Felicity, promise me, unless it is completely necessary, you will not go out into the field. You won't engage with anyone unless you have to and you'll never set out alone. Again."

Well, she thought, at least he's not throwing a famous Queen tantrum and stopping me from training - not that he could.

"I promise."

For the first time that night, he smiles at her.

She smiles back.

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This got away from me a little and ended up being a lot longer than I had initially intended for it to be, but I'm not too unhappy with the outcome. If you find any issues in this chapter, or any other chapters, please don't hesitate to let me know.
I hope you enjoyed it, thanks for reading :)