"Felicity! To your left!"
"Right here Felicity!"
"Miss Smoak to the right!"
Flashbulbs were blinding Felicity at every turn of her head. And considering her not so stellar sight, she was practically completely blind.
A tug on her left arm brought her other senses to life. She tried to blink away the white flashes of light that still remained in her eyes.
"Tommy?"
"Let's get you out of here."
"Thank god," Felicity mumbled.
The Queen Consolidated Gala was the talk of the year. Oliver went all out, renting a three chamber ballroom, the decorations- the guests; anyone who was someone was invited.
Tommy led Felicity to the entrance of the ballroom where men in suits and women in their designer dresses smiled their five thousand dollar smile only to judge you right as you turn your back.
"Are you ready?"
"No," Felicity blurted all too quickly. "…But I will be."
"Don't worry. Just smile and it'll be over before you know it. And plus you look stunning. Everyone will be talking about you-" Felicity's eyes went wide. "In a good way!"
With a sigh, Felicity took Tommy's arm as he led the way in the ballroom. The music filled the hallow yet crowded room filled with expensive colognes and perfumes. Chatter was everywhere and collectively became white noise to Felicity's ear. She greeted the familiar faces of Queen Consolidated employees and exchanged 'Nice to meet you' to the suits that were introduced to her.
Tommy was in a deep conversation with one of his business associates when Felicity turned her head and spotted him- Oliver. Her grip on Tommy's arm immediately tightened. Tommy noticed her sentiment and diverted his attention to where her eyes landed.
Of course.
Sensing Felicity's growing anxiety he ended his conversation with Rick? Mick? It doesn't matter.
"Let's get it over, yeah?" Tommy whispered in her ears. Fqelicity wanted to shake her head 'no' but Tommy was already pulling her towards them. Before she could think of pulling away they were face-to-face with Oliver and Laurel.
"Tommy! Wow, Felicity. You look amazing.." Oliver cleared his throat, realizing what he said and what he was going to blurt out. "You guys made it!" He feigned enthusiasm to help clear the lump in his throat.
"Of course. We wouldn't miss it." The two best friends patted each other on the back as the two ladies exchanged hugs.
"We're glad. Oliver here thought that Felicity wouldn't have shown up." Laurel said.
"Well, she's here." Felicity gestured to herself all too enthusiastically.
A look passed by Oliver's gaze to Tommy- an understanding- that made Felicity feel uneasy.
"Ugh that dress is to die for! The mermaid style? Always a great choice. And damn, the shade of gold only accentuates your skin. Oliver's right you look amazing." Laurel gushed, Felicity forced a tight smile. "Oh! Felicity! Remember that cake you had on your bucket list to taste a long time ago? What was it again?" Laurel snapped, trying to think of the name while the mention of the past had Felicity's stomach coil in on itself.
"Chocolate truffle cake with chocolate ganache and mint mousse." Oliver said, interrupted her thinking. "Because she said it tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream."
Three pairs of eyes landed on Oliver's face. How in the world could Oliver have remembered that? Even Felicity doesn't remember that. She gawked up at him, impressed. At Felicity's reaction, Oliver abashedly smiled.
"Right! Oliver saw it on the menu of our caterer and insisted to get it. C'mon! I'll take you to the dessert table so you could tell me what you think." Laurel took Felicity's arm and left the two men standing in corner of the room.
"Chocolate truffle cake with what?" Tommy teased. "Jesus, that was only seconds ago and I can't even remember it."
"Chocolate ganache and mint mousse," Oliver finished.
Tommy rolled his eyes. "Right well that wasn't my point. My point is, dude! You still remember that?!"
"I remember everything."
Tommy's smiled slowly faded into a line. "It must suck too, then."
Oliver just nodded neither admitting or denying Tommy's comment. "Hey look Tommy, thanks for agreeing to take Felicity. I'm sure that she wouldn't have come if you didn't ask her."
"You mean if you didn't ask me to ask her?"
"Same thing."
"Well anything for the two of you," Tommy paused. "Hey about Laurel, she doesn't know that I know right?"
"Not a clue."
"Good. Because I'm still trying to find a way to apologize to her. Help me when the time comes?"
"Absolutely." Oliver smiled.
The two men looked across the room to the women they loved, right in time to witness Felicity's face contort into mush over her first taste of the cake and Laurel's delighted squeal.
Love. Sick and twisted love.
*5 years ago*
They had been together for a month and it still makes Oliver smile when people refer to him and Felicity as a 'they' or, even better, when they use the word 'us'. If only he knew, if only he had gotten his head out of his ass any sooner, then they would have had longer time to enjoy their summer. But regardless, they're here. They're together.
"Do you want a drink?" Felicity asked, getting up from her chair.
"Yeah. Any soda."
"Gotcha."
"Thanks babe."
They were at Sara's 15th birthday party and pretty much excluded themselves to the rest of the world. It had been like this since the incident in the movie theater. Whoever told Tommy first, Oliver or Felicity, or if Tommy figured out for himself, they were ecstatic to share the news with their best friend. A news that he too had been ecstatic about. "It was about time", he said.
It had been a summer romance- but just so much more than that. It was the type of romance that springs from the freedom and promise of summer. It was the love that changed your perspective of the world. The love that made you learn things of yourself only with the knowledge of what selflessness entails. It was the love that changed your life.
From across the room there was a groan. "Ugh, make it stop! My ears!"
"Shut it Tommy! You're worse."
"Wha- no! No."
"Yeah you kind of are." Laurel agreed.
"Oh really? How?"
"Well remember that one time you 'accidentally' called Laurel poo-bear?" Felicity interjected, making her way back. The three of them laughed hysterically leaving an unamused Tommy.
It has been 2 weeks since the incident and no one had made an attempt to let the moment die. Felicity, Oliver, Tommy, and Laurel had been taking a walk in the park when Laurel screamed out, "POO!" It was just in time for Tommy to move his right foot, landing in the mud instead. He insisted that it was better to get mud on his shoes even if it did pretty much dirty the shoe to the point of uselessness. The abrupt warning of feces on the ground prompted a cheesy comment from Tommy proclaiming that Laurel was his 'poo-bear', a nickname that Laurel swiftly rejected.
"Okay whatever. It was the past. It was a mistake. Let's all move on." At Tommy's comment, they all laughed harder.
"Here's your soda, babe." Felicity said emphasizing the word.
"Fine fine! Babe is not a cheesy word." Tommy grumbled.
"You're still cute." Laurel said, kissing his cheek.
Just then Laurel's mom poked her head in the doorway. "C'mon you studs, Sara's about to blow her birthday cake."
They all got up and made their way onto the Lance's backyard where a large cake to feed more than two hundred mouths laid on top of a table filled with sweets.
They sung Sara happy birthday and after she made a wish. When it was time to cut the cake Felicity greedily agreed to help.
"What flavor is it?" Felicity whispered to Laurel right before volunteering.
"Choco mocha crunch, I think."
"Mmmmmmm." Felicity hummed in approval. With Oliver at her side, she squeezed his waist where her arm around him landed. "You know the best cake, ever?"
"No. What is the best cake ever?"
"Chocolate truffle with chocolate ganache and mint mousse."
"Mint mousse?"
"Yeah. It tastes like mint chocolate chip ice cream."
"Oooh I like mint chip ice cream."
"Then you'll love it." Felicity smiled.
"One day." Oliver looked down to Felicity's eyes.
It was a promise.
The party didn't go as half bad as Felicity predicted it would. Right after Laurel changed her life, or Oliver technically, with the chocolate truffle cake she practically inhaled, she then moved on to all the champagne that came her way, leaving her with a tingly buzz all over her body. She felt good. Fantastic, even. Considering the circumstance, her ex-boyfriend's wife feeding her cake that said ex-boyfriend remembered to one day have her taste. Just fucking fantastic.
She glanced to the other side of the room where Laurel and Oliver were in a heated conversation. Even in a big crowded place she still knows where he stood, sober or not. She watched them as they whispered to each other in such ferocity Felicity only knew Oliver acquired when he was in a panic. Not that she was paying attention. Not at all.
"Mind if I sit here?" A voice cut through her thoughts. A man signed next to her chair on the bar.
"No. Go ahead."
She looked up at him and a wave of familiarity rushed through her veins. "Do I know you?" Felicity asked boldly, the alcohol running all of her systems.
"Can't say that we have met. But then again this is a corporate event. Must have bumped into each other before." The man dismissed. "Sorry, how rude of me. My name is James Zetrov."
"Felicity Smoak," Felicity said reaching out to shake James' hand.
"So I've heard."
"Huh?"
"Oh you know. Head of the IT department, shareholder, smart and stunning woman. Of course I've heard of you."
Felicity didn't know whether or not to be flattered or cautious. The man sparked a conversation, one that in her near inebriated state, she returned.
She didn't notice how Oliver's conversation with Laurel then included Tommy. The three of them talked in such a haste murmur no one but them could understand.
"Oh good god. There you are. Tommy, where's Felicity?"
"Um I don't know. I went to the restroom and got sidetracked by Nick. He wants to do a business merger and he kept going on and on, but the thing is his proposal isn't even-"
"Tommy! Where. Is. Felicity." Oliver reiterated concerned laced with every word. Tommy scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. "Damnit!"
Oliver started to move around the room leaving a confused Tommy to an equally anxiety ridden Laurel.
"What's going on Laurel?"
"Nothing." Laurel dismissed walking hastily the opposite direction of Oliver. Tommy look back and forth between the two before deciding to follow Oliver.
"Wait hold up! Oliver! What's going on?"
"Felicity. She's in danger. So are you so stay close and keep your eyes open."
"What?! She's in danger?! How?"
"That's the part I left out to you Tommy. God, I'm so sorry… Excuse me-" Oliver darted his way from and through people to people. "This isn't only a gala. I used this event to draw out the head honchos of the black market. I got wind that they were interested in the newly modeled skeleton key applied sciences of Queen Consolidated housed. I had a replica made to present and dangle as a bait, but things turned south when Laurel and I realized there wasn't head honchos but a head honcho."
"Well? Who's the head of the Black Market?!"
"Slade Wilson."
"Name doesn't ring a bell." Tommy tried to catch up with Oliver, bumping into people to which he's pretty sure his suit now fashioned red wine.
"He uses an alias. Of course."
"But wait!" Oliver turned around to Tommy's sudden change in volume. "Why are you doing business with the Black Market?" He whispered when Oliver came in a close enough range for no one to hear.
"Because the Black Market wasn't called the Black Market when we were younger. It was called Zetrov."
"The company our fathers used to do business with?"
"The exact one."
"Let me guess, they play a hand of mine and Felicity's father in jail?"
"Gold star." Oliver again started moving cutting across the dance floor straight to the other chamber of the ballroom where the bar stands. "There she is!"
Tommy and Oliver quickened their paces. As they neared her the people around them started to disperse from their view. There she sat talking, more like babbling, to a man. Her back was to them. The man's eyes gazed over Felicity's shoulder and straight at them.
"Who is that?" Tommy asked dead in his track.
"Something tells me not anyone that we can trust."
Just then the man raised his drink and winked at them. Actually winked at them.
"Fucking hell did he just wi-" Tommy never got to finish his sentence.
Instead the color drained from his face. A red dot skimmed over and down his body straight onto his chest.
It took a millisecond to register what was happening. Oliver pushed Tommy as hard as he could, successfully forcing him out the way.
Glass shattered from somewhere around the room. There was a loud thud indicating that someone fell. A woman's voice told people to get out of the way. Everything moved in slow motion and yet everything went by too fast.
The red dot repositioned itself to find another target, directed straight to Felicity's head.
Oliver leaped to get to Felicity just as Laurel from the opposite direction launched herself. She was closer, connecting with Felicity's body first, pummeling her out of her chair and onto the ground. A gun shot echoed throughout the room.
Frantic screams filled the three chamber ballroom, people everywhere rushing to get to the exit. Private security and some of the police on guard rushed in, guns hot, firing away at what Oliver could only imagine as the shooter. So much noise and so many bodies collided with his stumbling him where he stood, but all Oliver could stare at was the ground in front of him. A nauseating feeling crawled its way up from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. Bile danced its way up his throat as he saw Felicity'said body laying there as Laurel hunched over her, blood oozing onto the ground.
"She hit her head when I knocked her out of the way. She has a pulse, she's just unconscious. But we need to get her out of here and to the hospital." Laurel said frantically. "OLIVER!"
"She's bleeding." Oliver said numbly.
"Yes. She's bleeding. The gun hit her shoulder but that's it. It's through and through. She's not hit anywhere else. Please Oliver help me!"
A thread snapped in Oliver's mind. He crouched down to where the two ladies lay. Hooking one arm under Felicity's legs and one arm around her waist, he carried her to where a police officer was ushering people out the doors.
When Tommy got wind back in his lungs, he helped Laurel up, shielding and guiding her right behind Oliver.
Before making their way out Oliver looked around the room. There was no sign of the man that Felicity was talking to. Instead John, his personal security guard, had the shooter in cuffs no doubt already ahead of the police.
The two men exchanged nods, something that they've grown accustomed to as a way of speaking.
In such a simple gesture they knew, whoever was behind this, they were going to pay.