"Felicity?" Oliver spoke from behind her.
"Mmmm?" she hummed absently. She was sitting at the bar, filling the oil and vinegar cruets for the tables and focusing intently on the stream of oil, trying not to spill any.
"You have a visitor." There was a smile in his voice, but she was too distracted to wonder why.
"Who is it?" she asked without turning around, putting the stopper back in the bottle and setting it into the caddy next to the vinegar.
"How's my favorite IT girl?" came a voice she hadn't heard in far too long. Felicty froze, and then slowly turned to find Diggle standing at the entrance of the taverna, looking relaxed in a t-shirt and jeans.
She stared at him, speechless, her jaw hanging open. He dropped his black duffle to the floor.
"Don't I get a hug?" He held out his arms, grinning at her.
"Digg!" she squeaked, finally finding her voice. She slid off the barstool and lunged at him, crashing into him so hard a lesser man would have stumbled backwards. Digg barely moved. Wrapping her arms around him, she buried her face in his chest and to her utter shock, burst into tears.
"Hey, hey, hey, what's this now?" His voice gentle, he folded her into his huge arms.
Felicity allowed herself to sob hysterically for a moment and then forcibly pulled herself together. Stepping out of his embrace she dashed the backs of her hands over her eyes, and looked up at him sheepishly.
"Sorry about that," she hiccuped. "It's just...I'm so sorry for how I left, and I miss you so much, and for the longest time I didn't think I'd ever see you again, and did I mention that I missed you? I'm so happy to see you!" she almost wailed, stopping when she heard yet another familiar voice.
"Can the rest of us join this love-fest?"
Felicity looked past Diggle in shock, to find Sara standing behind him, Roy following not too far behind.
"Oh my god!" she squeaked again, practically jumping into her arms, simultaneously reaching for Roy and dragging him toward her, planting a kiss on his cheek. "I can't believe this! The team, all together again!"
Oliver cleared his throat, and Felicity looked at him.
"Shall we take this upstairs?" Oliver smiled affectionately at her and tipped his head in the direction of the taverna's dining room.
She turned around to find Dimitri and all their patrons staring at her.
"Uh, yes, let's." She made a vague 't's ok' gesture in the general direction of the bar, and told Dimitri that she was going to be upstairs for the rest of the evening. Then she led everyone toward the stairs heading up to the taverna's apartment.
"You speak Greek?" Roy shouldered his own duffel, sounding impressed.
"I can mostly get by." She reached for his backpack to help, and followed Oliver up the stairs.
The table on the balcony was not big enough to seat all of them, so they took her three wrought iron tables and enough chairs, and set up a makeshift dinner table on the roof.
They ate leftover moussaka and greek salad by candlelight, and Felicity felt a stab of lust when Oliver brought up a plate of loukoumades, casting a very significant look in her direction. Fortunately her blush wasn't noticeable in the flickering light.
"So, how long are you all staying? Where's Laurel? And why aren't Lyla and Emily with you?" she addressed that last question directly to Diggle.
"We both felt it was too long a trip for Emily at such a young age." He set his knife and fork down on his empty plate. "Lyla decided to take her to visit with relatives while I am here. Some of them haven't seen her yet."
"And Laurel's met a guy," Roy chimed in. "He owns a boxing ring, and she's been training with him. The relationship's new, and she wanted to spend more time with him." He got a distant look on his face, and Felicity knew he was thinking about Thea.
When the others started conversing amongst themselves, she reached for Roy's hand and gave it a squeeze, addressing him quietly. "No news yet?"
He squeezed back, and looked just heartbroken. "No, nothing."
She leaned toward him. "I'll start looking again," she whispered in his ear, smiling encouragingly when he turned hopeful eyes on her. "Thanks," he whispered back. "I really appreciate that."
Letting his hand go, she turned back to the others, to find Olive's sharp gaze on her. She smiled innocently at him, and took a sip of her wine.
"So, Oliver," Sara turned to him. "What are you doing with yourself these days? You can't be used to all this free time."
"I'm not." He reached for the wine bottle and topped up her glass. "I keep busy, mostly by helping Maria's extended family - Maria is Felicity's substitute Mother; you'll probably meet her tomorrow - with whatever they need. I help with the grape or olive harvest, I've done construction work, I've gone out on their boats with them to help with the fishing...They pay me in goods, with wine, grapes, olive oil or olives, and a share of pretty much anything they pull out of the ocean."
"Now I've heard everything." Roy's voice was unsteady with suppressed laughter, "Oliver Queen, playboy billionaire, is...a fisherman?"
"On occasion." He looked at Roy expressionlessly. "It makes it very easy to get rid of the people who annoy me. The ocean is a great place to dump a body," he deadpanned as everyone erupted into raucous laughter.
A few days later, Team Arrow was gathered in the kitchen of Oliver and Felicity's home in the mountains, ready to head out for a party in their honor at the taverna. Maria's family wanted to meet Felicity's friends, and since they would use any excuse for a party, they talked Felicity into closing the taverna to the public and hosting a big bash so they could all meet them.
They all wanted to chip in in some way, but Oliver insisted on paying the ladies to cater the party. The guest were only to bring themselves, musical instruments if they were so inclined, and their voices. There tended to be a lot of singing and dancing at these types of events.
Oliver had been half listening to Diggle and Sara, happy to have the team together again, when he caught the tail end of what Roy was saying to Felicity.
"...very lucky. It's not everyone that has a boyfriend who would actually kill to find them."
He had completely forgotten about the lie he had told Felicity about the favor he had done for ARGUS in exchange for information on her whereabouts, and Roy couldn't possibly have known he had kept that detail from her.
Oliver watched helplessly as Felicity froze, a glass of water halfway to her lips. She set the glass back down on the granite with a soft chink, and braced herself on the counter.
He closed his eyes, cursing his impulse to keep that particular piece of information from her. When he opened them again, Roy, who had just realized that he had divulged something he should have kept to himself, was looking at him helplessly, apology all over his face.
"I'm sorry!" he mouthed silently in Oliver's direction.
Oliver shook his head. It wasn't Roy's fault. He shouldn't have lied to her when she asked him if he had killed anyone in his quest to find her. He had just wanted to spare her the weight of the knowledge that someone had died so that he could find her.
Diggle and Sara had quickly noticed something was wrong and had fallen silent. Diggle cleared his throat when neither Felicity nor Oliver made a move or said a word.
"Well. We're going to get going. We'll see you guys at the taverna later. We hope," he added under his breath.
Oliver nodded, reaching out and stopping Roy by gripping his shoulder as the young man slunk despondently by. "Roy," he said quietly. "It's ok. It's not your fault."
Roy nodded gratefully and followed Digg and Sara out of the kitchen.
Oliver and Felicity stood silently as the front door shut. He watched her, standing at the counter with her back to him, unmoving. He heard car doors slam and the sound of Digg's rental starting, and Felicity finally turned to him.
"You lied to me." She looked him straight in the eyes, her face expressionless and her voice sounding surprisingly conversational. She should have been a lot angrier, and somehow it made him even more wary.
"Yes. And I expected you to be a lot angrier about it," he added suspiciously.
Her eyes shifted from his, and he would have sworn she looked guilty. His eyes narrowed, a sense of foreboding coming over him.
"Felicity?" His voice held a warning. "What's going on?" He walked over to her and tilted her face up, leaving her no choice but to look at him.
She met his eyes boldly. "You can't get mad at me," she stated, which didn't reassure him at all.
"Yes, I can," he countered. "And I'm going to, if you don't tell me what the hell is going on." His grip on her chin tightened.
"The reason I'm not angrier - but believe me when I say I am angry - is that I've been keeping something from you too," she started without preamble, pulling her chin free of his hand. "Something happened before you found me. I forgot about it until that day the Bratva sent me those roses. I remembered it that night, actually, and started to tell you, but you had already fallen asleep. By the next day, when I remembered again, things were going so well between us that I decided to wait..."
"Felicity." He made her name sound like a threat.
She closed her mouth with an audible click of her teeth, then took a deep breath. "I did a bit of cyber vigilante-ing a few months before you found me. Yannis, one of Maria's endless nephews - or is he a cousin? I can never keep track. Anyway, Yannis is not exactly the sharpest pencil in the case. He got scammed out of most of his savings in a shady, oh-so-obviously fraudulent get-rich-quick scheme...I mean seriously, an infant could have seen..."
She caught the look on his face, and mercifully got back on track. "Anyway, I overheard him talking about it at a family gathering, asked him a few pointed questions and then stole his money right back for him."
Oliver stared at her, not sure how he should react yet. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because I did it again. After I promised not to keep anymore secrets from you."
He closed his eyes and counted to three before opening them again. "Did what again?"
"Cyber vigilante-ing. Yannis had no idea how the money ended up back in his account, but his brother figured out what I had done. Two weeks ago, he asked me if I would work my magic for a friend of his..."
Oliver felt a muscle start ticking in his jaw. He knew she had noticed because her eyes flicked to his jaw then back to his eyes, and she stopped talking.
She pushed away from the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. "I want to keep doing it, Oliver," she said firmly. "I miss it...what we used to do. Well, not all of it. I don't really miss being out in the field, or you being out in the field for that matter. But this? It's completely safe. I don't even have to leave the house to do it. I can help people, Oliver!"
He wasn't sure if he had ever been this angry with anyone before in his life. Then again, he'd never loved anyone so much in his life either. He knew exactly what she was doing. She had taken advantage of the fact that he'd lied to her to confess to her own deception and on top of that, to tell him that she wanted to do keep doing what she'd lied about. And given that he had lied to her about killing in the course of trying to find her, he didn't really have the right to be angry.
But he was still angry. So angry, he could barely keep his voice steady.
"Felicity, you have to stop. You'll...Hey! Don't you walk away from me! I'm not done talking to you!" he yelled after her when she suddenly spun around on her heels, stalking out of the kitchen.
She jumped at his tone but barely hesitated, disappearing quickly down the hall. Jaws and fists clenched, he strode after her, turning the corner just as the bedroom door closed with a bang.
Felicity locked the door and leaned against it, shaking with anger, feeling both guilty and vindicated at the same time. She wasn't proud of how she'd finally told Oliver that she'd been keeping things from him after promising she wouldn't, and in a way using his own deception against him. She new she had no right to be angry with him, but she was anyway.
The door handle rattled behind her. "Felicity," Oliver said sternly from the other side. "Open the door."
She moved away. "No. need some time alone. Go to the party without me."
His voice got rougher. "Felicty. Open. The door."
"Oliver." She sounded so tired. "Just go. The others are waiting. We'll talk about it later."
"Felicity. I can break down the door, or you can open it, saving us the trouble of getting a new one. Choose quickly, I'm running out of patience."
She rolled her eyes and took her phone out of the clutch resting on her side of the bed, plugging in her earbuds and putting them in her ears. The music started, drowning out everything but her angry, whirlwind thoughts.
When a hand landed on her shoulder, she screamed, tearing the buds out of her ears and spinning around. Oliver was standing about a foot away from her, glowering down at her. She peered around him, expecting to see the door broken in. It wasn't.
"How..." she looked at him, eyes wide.
"I picked the lock," he said darkly.
Her lips twitched. "Of course you did."
"This isn't funny, Felicity!" His voice started rising. "I'm really mad at you!"
"Join the club, mister!" she snapped, her voice rising as well.
They glared at each other, neither of them moving.
At some point, she would never be able to pinpoint why or when, anger morphed into arousal, and she could no longer tell the difference between the two. She just knew she wanted to fuck him silly and scratch his eyes out. As he stared at her with the fierce, icy eyes of a bird of prey, she saw his pupils dilate, and knew he was responding to the lust in her.
Suddenly and simultaneously, they lunged at each other, pawing and grabbing, mouths clashing violently. Before long, pawing and grabbing turned into shoving and pulling as Oliver tried to draw her closer, and Felicity tried to push him away, struggling quite convincingly in his iron grip. They fought for a moment, until Oliver apparently had had enough.
Refusing to back off, he wrestled her easily to the love-seat in the corner of the room, and they tumbled down on to it. Rough hands hauled her hips into position and he settled himself between her legs, burying his fingers in her elaborate up-do, slowly tipping her head as he snapped and snarled, positioning her head to give him clear access to her throat.
It was frightening - and a little bit exciting - how easily he subdued her, holding her in position as he attacked her neck. She bit back a moan, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing the effect he was having on her.
"I'm still...mad at you," she panted.
"Not half as mad as I am at you."
She heard the Arrow in his voice, his breath hot on her ear and his deep tone vibrating through her.
Digg and Sara were sitting at the bar watching Roy, backed up against the wall by a worshiping half-circle of teenage girls. They were both laughing at the slightly panicked look on his face, when Sara caught sight of Oliver and Felicity standing just outside the entrance of the taverna.
She nudged Diggle and pointed a them. He turned to look, letting out a huff of laughter at the sight.
It was glaringly obvious that they had not only had a fight, but some pretty vigorous sex as well. Felicity was disheveled and flushed, and had a slightly mutinous expression on her face. Oliver had sex-hair and Arrow-face, not to mention a possessive hand on the back of his girl's neck.
Felicity shrugged him off, an annoyed expression on her face, and took a step back. Oliver snatched her wrist out of the air, and pulled her, resisting, toward him. The exchanged what were probably angry words if the looks on their faces were any indication, and Felicity was visibly trying to pull her wrist free.
After a brief stand-off, their expressions softened. Felicity moved closer, her lips parting, and pretty soon Oliver had his hands on either side of her face and was kissing her thoroughly. Felicity's hands were fisted over the material of his shirt, trying to tug him impossibly closer.
"Looks like the storm has passed," Diggle looked at Sara with a grin. He paused, observing her closely. "You ok with that?" He tipped his head in their direction.
Sara took a swig from her beer. "Absolutely." There wasn't a hint of wistfulness in her voice as she watched the couple fondly. "I love them both, and if anyone deserves to be happy, it's them."