Enjoy!
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Felicity is acting strange. The team try to find out why
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When Felicity walks into the foundry wearing a pair of black jeans and a grey sweater, the team think nothing of it. Sure, they all notice that her usual bright colours are gone, but whether it really means something barely crosses their minds. Their main focus is on the task at hand; taking down a group of illegal arms dealers.
It's when Felicity sits down with only a slight grunt in greeting to her teammates that the team start to think that maybe there's a problem, but, still, the mission takes priority.
Diggle keeps an eye on Felicity right up until the moment Sara, Oliver, Roy and he are about to leave to track down the gang, and not once does she look up at Oliver as he does puch ups or climbs the salmon ladder. Not. Once. Diggle doesn't think there's every been a night in the foundry when Felicity hasn't so much as glanced at the man as he works out.
His brother-like instincts tell him to stay and make sure she is okay, to say something to her to comfort her about whatever it is that's going on, but they finally had a lead on this case and now was the best time to follow up on it. So, he sticks a comm in his ear and follows behind his team mates as they leave the building.
x
"Which way, Felicity?" Sara asks, tightening her grip on her bo staff.
"Left." Comes the IT girls response, quiet and to the point. Sara is surprised when she doesn't say anything more, having become accustomed to her cute babbles and chirpy tone; she found that she enjoyed it after all of the difficulties she'd faced over the past few years.
"Everything okay, Lis?" She inquires, making her way down the dimly lit hallway to the left.
"Everything's fine." Felicity replies, her tone a little more like it usually is, but Sara can tell it's forced. "Second door on your right; careful, I'm getting multiple heat signatures coming from that room."
Sara fully intended to follow up with her concerns, but then the gunfire starts and she has to put all of her attention into the job at hand and she forgets about her worries for her friend for a while.
She gets nothing more from Felicity than one word answers for the rest of the mission.
x
Roy realises something is wrong when he returns to the foundry with an obscene amount of Big Belly Burger and Felicity says she doesn't want any.
"You already eat?" He asks, as he passes out the rest of the food.
"I'm just not hungry." She responds, wrapping both arms around her middle.
Roy stops for a moment and just looks at her, trying to figure out what it was that was bothering his friend. Sure, the girl was small, but she could eat, and she never turned down free food.
"Have you eaten at all today?" His tone is concerned and he lays a hand on her shoulder.
Her silence is the only response he needs and he finds his worry growing.
"Felicity, what's going on?" She shakes her head a little and looks down, clasping her hands in her lap.
Roy knows he's not going to get anything more from her right now, so he gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze before he continues to pass out the food.
x
Tommy is the first to realise what is wrong when he bounds down the stairs from the club and then promptly stops at the bottom of them when he senses the tension in the room.
"Woah, who died?" He asks, a charming smile on his face.
No one else seems to notice, but he sees Felicity tense up at his words and he knows he's struck a nerve. He takes in the dark colours she wears and the messy ponytail atop her head, that is usually so neatly done.
"You know what, never mind. I smelt food and I followed the scent." Tommy says, taking the moment to move towards Felicity's desk where some of the food still sits. "You okay?" He whispers, sitting on the table.
Felicity looks up at him and gives the slightest of nods, but makes no attempt to hide the broken look on her face.
"'Licity, what I said when I came down here..." Tommy trails off, placing one hand on her knee. Felicity just nods again, looking down at the floor, and he hears her let out a little sniffle. "You wanna talk about it?"
"N-no, not right now." She replies, quietly, lifting her gaze back up to his face, revealing to him teary eyes and a red nose.
"Alright, let me know if you need anything, okay?" He squeezes her knee before turning to address the rest of the room, knowing there's nothing he can do for his friend right now.
Felicity collects her things and leaves ten minutes later. Her food remains untouched.
x
When Felicity is sitting at home on the couch, she expects herself to break down. And, yet, here she is, staring at a TV that isn't even on, and she still hasn't cried.
She should be crying. She doesn't understand why she's not crying. She feels like she curled up in a ball somewhere, sobbing her heart out, but she hasn't shed a single tear.
The sound of wood sliding against wood echoes through the otherwise silent apartment and Felicity is suddenly very alert, looking around her to try and find the source of the noise. A moment later, when she hears a quiet thud, she realises that it's the sound of a window opening and closing.
Felicity bolts up, grabbing around for something to defend herself until her hand lands on the baseball bat she keeps nearby for situations like this.
"Felicty." A loud voice calls, startling her. She spins around, swinging the bat in the general direction of the intruder, who narrowly avoids the hit by ducking down. "Fe-li-ci-ty."
"Oliver?" She asks, blinking at the figure in the shadows, "Oliver, what the heck are you doing!?"
"What's wrong, Felicty?" He deflects, stepping closer to her, now in the light where Felicity can see him clearly.
"Well, you almost just gave me a heart attack, so..." She responds, wavin one arm at him.
"What's wrong, Felicity?"
"Oliver, leave it alone." She tells him, turning around so she can return to the couch, dropping the bat on the floor beside her, "Also, would it kill you to use the door like a normal person?"
"Don't change the subject. You've been acting weird all day; the dark clothes, the quietness, not eating, tensing up and now I come here and find you sitting in the dark in silence." Oliver explains, moving to sit beside her on the couch, "What's going on?"
"Nothing," She states, though they both know it's a lie, "just one of those days."
"Don't lie to me, Felcity, I know there's something upsetting you." Oliver says, shuffling a little closer to her. "And I brought mint choc chip." He adds, shaking the carton a little in fron of her. His concern grows when she doesn't show even the slightest reaction to her favourite ice cream.
"I'm fine." Felicity tells him, feeling immensely proud of herself when her voice doesn't crack.
"Feli-" Oliver tries again, but Felicity cuts him off.
"Oliver, I'm fine." She shouts, throwing her arms out a little in emphasis. "Everything is fine, I'm great, nothing is wrong, so just stop asking, okay?"
Without saying another word, Oliver pulls Felicity into a tight embrace, holding her head against his chest whilst his other arm wraps tightly around her body. She struggles for a moment, still determined to keep up as strong a front as she can, but eventually she relaxes against him, clutching his shirt with one hand.
They sit in silence for a while, Oliver's hand running through the blonde hair she'd long since taken out of her pony tail. Felicity's hand released his shirt a while ago, choosing instead to run down and loop around his waist. Oliver begins to believe that she may have fallen asleep when she begins to speak.
"I had a brother - well, half brother. Couple years younger than me but still about a foot taller." Felicity starts, quietly, along with a small sniffle. "He joined the army the second he got out of high school."
Oliver tilts his head down to face her a little more, trying to hear her better; Felicity doesn't talk much about her family, so he asumes that her doing so mean something big is going on.
"What was his name?" He asks a moment later, once he realises Felicity isn't going ti say anymore without prompting.
"Luke," She replies, "Lucas Peter Watson."
"Watson?" Oliver enquires, confused, "I thought he was your brother."
"Half-brother; from my mother's second marriage. He took his father's last name." Felicity esplains, lifting her head so her chin rests on his chest and they're face to face.
Oliver can see the tears that are running freely down her face and finds himself surprised that he hadn't noticed her crying sooner, especially as he can now feel the small wet patch on his shirt as the patch of fabric sticks to his skin. He disentangles his hand from her blonde curls and slides it towards her cheek, using the pad of his thumb to wipe away her tears.
She looks surprised for a moment, having not realised that she had been crying, before relaxing again, leaning into Oliver's touch.
"He went back to Afghanistan a couple months ago and he was fine - well, as fine as yo can be when you're in the middle of a warzone. I only heard from him a couple of days ago." Felicity's voice begins to shake as she carries on, "Then, yesterday, I find a soldier at my door - a good friend of Luke's, actually - and he tells me that-" She cuts herself off with a choked sob.
"Hey, hey, it's okay, we don't have to talk about this." Oliver soothes, pulling her closer and planting a kiss upon the crown of her head. Felicity shakes her head a little before continuing.
"He, Tony, told me that he, uh, that Luke was killed in action. jumped on a grenade and saved two platoons of American soldiers." She lets out a bitter laugh, "Kid always wanted to be a hero and now that he finally is he's not around to enjoy it. Or, really milk it like I know he would."
"I'm so sorry, Felicity," Oliver says into her hair as he presses his face down into it, "why didn't you tell any of us?"
"Everyone's busy, Oliver. In the grand scheme of what we do, it's not something any of you need to worry about. You have far more important things on your plate than dealing with my family dramas."
"I told you once that, if you needed to, you could talk to me; that offer still stands."
"Thank you," Felicity says, flashing the smallest but most sincere smile she can muster, "now, give me that ice cream before it melts completely."
Oliver chuckles as he hands over the tub.
x
Two days later, Felicity stands in a church filled with friends of her brothers and soldiers in full dress uniform. Her mother had decided not to make the trip to Starling for the funeral, a fact that both angers and relieves Felicity
Just before the service begins, the door opens and in walks the rest of team arrow, all dressed in black. Roy has even traded in his red hoodie for a suit, but by the way it hangs off him more than it should, Felicity assumes he's reluctantly borrowed it from Oliver.
They sit with her in the aisles and stand with her beside the fresh grave, their presence a constant comfort to her. At some point, Oliver even reaches down to take her hand.
He doesn't let go for the rest of the day.
x
I don't know what it is, but I love the idea of Felicity having a broher, especially one with some kind of army background.
This was quite a bit longer than most of my one shots are, so I hope I didn't drag it out too far. Please let me know what you think and tell me if you spot any mistakes.
I hope you enjoyed it!