Author's Note: Thanks so much for the reviews, follows, and/or favorites! Here's the next chapter. Hope you all enjoy it!

I was walking along the street on my way to the bus stop, trying to ignore the rumbling in my stomach caused by a skipped lunch break, when the silver sports car rolled to an abrupt halt beside me. I didn't even need to wait for the tinted window to roll down with a mechanical whir to know who sat behind the wheel.

He didn't bother with a friendly greeting, just a quick, "Get in" before the window rolled up again, blocking him temporarily from view.

"Well, hello to you to," I murmured at the blurred silhouette behind the glass. It was tempting to ignore the sparsely worded command, but one thought of that crowded, slightly smelly bus ride that awaited me three blocks away quickly prompted my feet in the direction of my waiting transportation.

Once I was seated against the smooth leather, the door lowered and Oliver revved the engine before we took off down the street at a speed I would have been more comfortable observing in an action flick rather than experiencing it first-hand.

"Where's the fire?" I aimed the question at his hard expression that was currently trained on the asphalt in front of us.

His brows quirked down at the question before he tossed me a puzzled look out of the corner of his eye. "Fire?"

I nodded my head in confirmation. "Uh huh. There must be one somewhere since you're tearing down the street like Nascar racer."

I felt the momentum underneath me shift as Oliver abruptly slowed his pace. "Sorry," he mumbled, though still keeping his gaze on the road. "I'm used to getting to places in a hurry."

"Why did you stop for me then?" I asked. "Not that I mind skipping the bus ride, but I would have thought you have better things to do than serve as my personal chauffer two days in a row."

As we continued along, I recognized the landmarks that indicated we were on our way towards the Glades, the area of Starling City that housed Oliver's base of operations. The sound of his voice drew my attention away from the roadside. "You start at Stellmoor tomorrow as their new IT technician. It won't be safe working there, Felicity." He had pulled his eyes from the road long enough to give me a hard look that let me know he meant business. "I should have done this sooner, but you'll need to know at least the basics in defending yourself in case anything happens.'

The ominous warning sent a little tremor through my frame. I remembered the few times I had seen Oliver kick some serious ass when the occasion called for it. It made me queasy just watching those fights go down, and I didn't have any great desire to be involved in one myself. "So you're gonna be my Mr. Miyagi?" I asked jokingly, trying to cover my unease at the thought of replacing Diggle in one of Oliver's sparring sessions.

"Karate's not exactly what we're going for Felicity." Oliver's voice still carried that serious edge, but a little glint of humor tilted up the corners of his blue eyes.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what exactly it was we were going for, but the walls of the abandoned warehouse came into view moments later, cutting off the remainder of our conversation. After Oliver parked the ride, he hopped out and waited for me to unbuckle and exit the car before leading the way down into his cavern, now sporting a smartly updated look thanks to yours truly.

When Oliver had taken off after Tommy Merlin's death, not even bothering to let me or Diggle know where he was off to, I had revamped the abandoned space in hopes that he would come back in order to appreciate my efforts and put them to good use. He hadn't disappointed me, and a few months later here we were flicking on the florescent lights from above to illuminate the shiny chrome walls and high tech workstation that had practically become my second home.

"You'll have to change out of those clothes." I turned to find Oliver giving my ensemble of a sensible grey pencil skirt and button up blouse a critical once-over.

Feeling immediately self-conscious, I plucked at the cotton blend material covering my thighs and gave him a helpless look. "If I'd known you planned on teaching me some of your moves I would have brought something else to wear, but this is it. Sorry."

"I'll see what I can find," Oliver answered before walking back the way we had come. When he didn't come back after a few minutes I was beginning to wonder if he'd decided the effort of teaching me self-defense was so hopeless we might as well forget the whole thing. My theory was debunked as soon as I saw him returning with a wad of spandex workout gear in his hands.

He tossed the small bundle to me before pulling his own shirt over his head and heading to a conveniently hung punching bag on the far side of the room that he used for his personal training sessions. "You can change into those, Felicity. Meet me here as soon as you're ready to start."

I stood helplessly rooted to the spot as he then began his daily training ritual, the muscles on his back and arms rippling enticingly with each hard punch thrown at the sand filled bag. "Y- yeah, sure thing," I managed to force out before tearing my eyes away and beating a hasty retreat to one of the back rooms in order to change into my provided attire.

When the door closed behind me, I looked down at the clothes in my hand with a sudden grimace. I had been so distracted by Oliver's indecently hot display of manliness moments before that I hadn't taken the time to actually look at the clothes that had been provided for me. Looking down at them now, I realized just how little clothing we would both be wearing when I rejoined him after my costume change. Whoever these clothes belonged to (a thought I fully intended to dwell on as little as possible), they apparently had the same aversion to clothing that he did.

In my hand lay a crumpled, razor back sports bra accompanied by a tiny pair of shorts that looked more like a pair of underpants than something meant to be worn during a workout. Judging from the absence of shoes, I assumed this would be a lesson learned in only bare feet. Hoping Oliver wouldn't feel the sudden urge to stomp on my toes, I quickly shed my clothes and put on the scant amount of clothing provided by my vigilante employer, all the while trying not to think about the fact that I would soon be back in the room with that same employer in much less clothing than before.

Once I was finished changing, I walked back out to find Oliver had moved on to his target practice. An arrow was already placed in his custom made bow, the string pulled taught before he released it and the arrow flew swiftly to the center of the target. "You ready?" he asked, startling me since he hadn't even looked in my direction once I entered the room.

"Ready to showcase my lack of any type of fighting skills whatsoever," I answered with a mock salute before walking over to the clear space in the center of the room. "So where do we start? Some sort of 'wax on wax off' routine?"

Oliver gave a low chuckle at my comment, and I tried to ignore the shiver of delight that sound sent through my bones. He's just your boss. He's just your boss. He's just your boss. My brain recited the familiar mantra over and over again, but, like always, the rest of me refused to listen. Couple his sexy laugh with the fact we were both in a private space, practically half naked at that, and I was pretty sure the next hour was going to prove to be an absolute torture.

"You don't have to look like that Felicity," Oliver tried to assure me, misinterpreting the pained expression on my face. "I just plan to teach you some of the basics. Nothing too hard."

"Not hard for you, maybe," I muttered under my breath.

Oliver quirked one of those perfect brows at me. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," I lied quickly. "Well, where do we start?"

Oliver walked to the opposite side of the space where I stood. "First I want to see how well you respond to an attack. Sometimes we're capable of more than we think when adrenaline kicks in. I'm going to come at you and don't think when I do. Just respond."

I barely had time to even calculate those orders before Oliver charged at me. Eyes wide, I barely had time to brace for the impact before it came. With a dull thud, Oliver slammed into me and we both tumbled to the ground in a tangle of flying limbs. Once my back hit the padded rubber covering the floor, I felt all the breath woosh from my lungs as Oliver landed squarely on top of me. Of all the times I'd imagined being tangled with Oliver Queen, none of the scenarios in my head had looked quite like this.

Pushing the bulk of his weight up on his arms, Oliver pulled away to look me in the face. "Felicity," he started in a slightly irritated tone. "I told you to respond. You just stood there and let me hit you."

"I guess that was my response," I offered with a helpless shrug. It looked like it was going to take a while for me to get the hang of this self-defense thing.

"Are you ok?" Oliver asked, immediately taking me off guard by running his callused hands up and down my exposed sides in search of any bruises or broken bones.

As his hands skimmed across my bare expanse of skin, the breath immediately seized in my chest, making it nearly impossible for me to answer. Oliver quickly noticed my lack of response and turned his inspection from my torso up to my face. "Felicity?" he prompted impatiently. "Are you all right?"

I took a really huge gulp of breath then in order to force out the word of confirmation that would get him off of me. I wouldn't be able to take much more of this without making a total idiot of myself. "Yeah," I was relieved to finally hear my own voice. "Yeah, I'm fine. I think so anyway. Though I suddenly have a lot more empathy for those guys you beat to a pulp on a regular basis."

To my everlasting consternation, Oliver kept his hard body parked firmly on top of mine as he continued inspecting me for any sign of injury despite my reassurance that I was fine. "I guess next time I'll tell you an actual defense move before trying this again," he muttered just as his hands had reached my lower thighs.

Oh good God, my brain screamed in response to the intimate picture those hands on my lower legs suddenly ignited in my wandering thoughts. Trying to immediately wiggle away, I discovered that trying to dislodge Oliver queen was like trying to escape from two hundred plus pounds of immovable concrete. "Oliver, don't do that!" I snapped once my escape attempts failed miserably.

"Why?" he asked, genuinely confused, though that confusion didn't prompt him to move his touch to a much safer zone of my body. "I'm just making sure you're all right. I don't want to keep going if anything's been broken or strained."

Oh, something was strained all right, but unfortunately it was my self-control instead of my muscles. "Seriously, Oliver. I'm all right. Let's just get back to it."

"All right," he finally relented before finally rolling off. I barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before he reached down to help me to my feet. I grasped the proffered hand and gave a grunt as I reached a standing position once more.

"Maybe next time you could just give me a taser first?" I asked after my breathing had finally returned to normal. "I'm a pro at handling one of those."

Oliver rewarded my suggestion with a grim look. "That's fine as a backup plan Felicity, but sometimes things go wrong and you're going to have to know how to use nothing but your fists and knowledge to keep you alive."

"Are you sending me to work undercover at a corporation or a fight club?" I asked.

Oliver's response was hardly a comforting one. "Whoever they are, they're not good people. It won't be too hard to make the connection between you and Queen Consolidated. If they jump to the right conclusions about you, they could come without any warning. I'm going to keep as close a watch on you if I can, but I'm only human, Felicity. There may be a chance that I won't be there if something goes wrong, and I can't let you go in there without at least showing you first how to take care of yourself if I'm not around to help."

"Gee, boss, I didn't know you cared," I joked with a playful punch to his arm to play off the unease his warning had caused me.

I turned to walk back to my spot on the corner of our sparring area when Oliver surprised me by spinning me back around to face him. Taken off guard by the sudden change of direction, I fell directly onto his hard, sweaty chest and looked up to find a suddenly fierce look in his eyes that surprised me more than the change in position. "I do care, Felicity," he said then in a low voice, that strange emotion brimming just below the surface. "I care very much."

I knew I should have just left it at that, but my mouth ran away with me then as always. "I thought I was just a 'valued employee'," I muttered then, referring to his words from the night before.

"I did say that," Oliver acknowledged with a quick nod before he continued on. "But I also told you once that I considered you a friend, and I meant it. I care what happens to my friends, Felicity."

His touching words caused me equal parts misery and comfort. It was good to know he cared, but a small part of me secretly wished he could think of me as something more than just a friend. Ignoring the thought, I gave him a wobbly smile of thanks. "I care about you too."

"I know," Oliver answered, keeping me snuggly fit against his bare chest. I wasn't sure he was even aware of how closely we were still standing. "I've known that ever since you dragged my ass back here when I would have died in the parking garage of my own company. I owe you a lot, Felicity."

I shook my head fiercely in response to that. "You don't owe me anything."

"Yes, I do," he asserted again, this time moving one of his hands to trace the lines of my face. If I'd found it difficult to breathe before, now I was bound to faint any moment due to lack of oxygen to my brain. Oliver Queen wasn't just looking at me like a valuable employee any more. I didn't know what had happened in just the space of a few seconds, but now he was actually looking at me. It was almost as if he was really seeing me for the first time. Maybe it was just my imagination, but it almost looked as if his eyes turned a slightly darker shade of blue as his gaze roamed over my face.

As he continued to stare, I felt a warm sensation curl up from the pit of my stomach and work its way all over. If this was how Oliver had looked at all those girls I'd seen him cozy up to since his return to Starling City, I had little doubt how all of them had managed to fall so hard for the billionaire playboy. In that moment, I felt beautiful. Despite the fact that my hair hung around my head in little scraggly tendrils that had come free of my low hanging pony tail and my make-up was long gone from my face. Despite the fact that I was just Felicity from the IT department. In that moment I felt like a ravishing seductress. All because of just one look from Oliver Queen.

However, as suddenly as the mesmerizing spell had begun, it ended just as quickly. The strangely arrested look in Oliver's eyes was instantly replaced by an expression that could only be interpreted as panic before he dropped his hands and quickly retreated to the other end of the room. I could only stand there and watch him in the same slightly dizzied state a person might find themselves in after stepping off a swiftly moving merry-go-round.

When he turned back to face me, the look on his face was neither mesmerized nor panicked. It was simply calm and composed as if the moment between us had never happened at all. "This time when I come at you, Felicity, I want you to reach up with the heel of your hand to knock my face away."

He gave the instruction in an even voice that didn't even give the barest hint that we had been locked securely together just moments ago. I decided then that if he was going to act like nothing had happened, then so would I. Pulling my shoulders back in a defensive stance, I nodded my head in acknowledgment of his order and he began at me again. Fueled by both irritation and self-preservation I threw my hand towards his face, though I'd changed one key detail from his instructions. Instead of the heel of my hand, his face met with a balled up fist that hit him upside the nose with a loud crack.

"Oh, my God!" I screamed, instantly horrified by what I'd done. "Oliver, are you all right?"

Considering the stream of blood that had erupted from his injured nose, it wasn't the smartest question I had ever asked. "Just grab a towel," he growled at me before tilting his head back to stop the flow.

I scrambled quickly to do as he asked, and returned mere seconds later with the requested towel. Oliver took the damp cotton and held it to his nose while sending me a wry look. "I thought I told you to use the heel of your hand." His voice sounded muffled through the towel he held over his face.

I grimaced at the sight of blood that continued to leak from his nose. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," he finally shrugged a few minutes before finally pulling the blood soaked towel from his nose. "I don't think you broke it, and I've suffered through a lot worse than that. Let's get back to it."

"What?" I sent the horrified question towards his retreating back as he walked back to his spot. "I just pounded my fist into your nose and you want to keep going?"

Oliver turned back to give me a patient look. "Felicity, it's not a big deal. Actually, I'm pretty impressed you managed to hit me at all. It's a lot better than just standing there and letting me hit you."

With that, Oliver commenced with my training once again and over the next hour he taught me several different ways of dealing with an assailant, some of which I fared better with than others. Finally, after he was satisfied I was better off than before, I took advantage of the reprieve to sink to the floor in a sweaty heap. "Tell me again why you do this every day," I managed to ask between giant lung-fulls of air. "This is so not what I would classify as a 'good time'."

Oliver offered a hand to help pull me up and I took it reluctantly. "It's not about having a good time," he said with a gentle smile once I was on my feet again. "It's about saving a life. In this case, your life."

"Right," I grumbled in response, still not totally convinced. "If it's all right with you, I'm gonna change out of these."

Without waiting for a response, I turned and walked towards the back rooms where I had left my other clothes. "I'll drive you home when you're ready," Oliver called after me. Sure enough, when I got back, he stood there waiting, fully dressed for once.

"Diggle isn't coming tonight?" I asked as I followed him out, only just realizing the other man's absence.

"No," Oliver responded absently. "He got tied up with some other stuff, but you'll be seeing him when you start at Stellmoor tomorrow. He's suddenly found a new job working security there."

That bit of information was comforting enough. "What about you?" I asked Oliver as we left the warehouse and walked towards his parked car.

Oliver opened the door for me before shooting an enigmatic look. "You'll be seeing me around too."

He didn't follow up that comment with an explanation, so I just shrugged my shoulders and climbed into the waiting seat. He followed suit on his side of the car and soon enough we were on our way. It was a quiet enough ride across town apart from the occasional banal comment. That moment in the warehouse was still at the forefront of my mind, though I wasn't brave enough to give voice to the myriad of questions floating around in my brain. There had been something there between us in that moment. I knew there had. Something like that couldn't have been the product of my imagination. Could it?

I tortured myself with these silent thoughts until Oliver pulled up alongside the curb in front of my building. Oblivious to my train of thought, Oliver turned to give me a friendly smile goodbye. "Report to Stellmoor first thing tomorrow. I've already sent all the information you'll need to your phone. ID, previous work experience, anything you'll need to know before walking in that building. Diggle and I will watch you as closely as we can, but you need to be as careful as possible. And, Felicity, try not to babble."

The comment would have sounded slightly rude if not for the accompanying smile he gave at the same time. "I'll do my best," I promised before moving to get out of the car.

Just as I began to slide from my seat, I was surprised to feel Oliver reach out to grab my hand, halting my progress. I turned back to give him a curious glance only to be met by that same strange look he'd given me when we were pressed closely together back in his lair. "Felicity," he started with a slightly uncomfortable strain in his voice, "about earlier. I just wanted to apologize for that. I shouldn't have- "

"Shouldn't have what?" I deliberately played dumb in order to keep him from saying he should never have held me like that. Should never have looked at me that way. Attempting to bury my hurt beneath a mask of friendly indifference, I eased away from Oliver's grasp and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

I gave him a nod of farewell before turning to head of the steps to my apartment. "Goodnight, Oliver," I sent the departing words over my shoulder as I walked away, not even bothering to wait for a response. Just as I opened the door to enter the building, I was met with the sound of screeching tires and turned to see Oliver's car disappearing swiftly down the street.

Giving a loud sigh of resignation, I turned away and continued up to my apartment. It just wasn't meant to be with Oliver Queen. Even when he was cruel enough to tempt me with a glimpse of what it was like to be considered a real woman in his eyes and not just a platonic acquaintance, he'd snatched the moment away from me just as quickly. Firmly resolving to put thoughts of Oliver far away from my mind, I reached the floor that housed my apartment fully intending on getting a full night of sleep, uninterrupted by dreams of Oliver Queen.

My resolution lasted all the way through my supper and nightly routines up to the moment I snuggled beneath the covers on my overstuffed mattress and rested my head on the pillow before closing my eyes in drowsy sleep. If I had been awake, I would have been horrified to find the first image that met me in the darkness of my own dreams was that of a green clad vigilante hero riding away into the sunset with yours truly in tow. The subconscious is a truly traitorous thing.

Stay tuned for what happens next when Felicity goes undercover! Maybe stubborn Oliver will finally come around:) Any and all comments are always appreciated.