FF#16: Deputy Mommy – Part Five

Flash Fic Prompt #16: Detour

Oliver had yet to comment on... well, anything, really. Oh, he talked. He said and did everything one would be expected to say and do in such a situation. How are you? Are you okay? What happened? Who is he? Where did he come from? What happens next? But she didn't want him to act like everyone else, like she was just anyone else. From the very beginning, their relationship had been different. Better. She was the one person he didn't pretend with... well, other than that whole 'my latte was so acidic that it burned holes into my laptop... bullet sized, randomly placed holes' thing, but, eventually, he told her the truth about that as well. The point was that, for the first time since they had met, Oliver wasn't being emotionally honest with her. That stung.

It also was driving Felicity crazy, too. She was so used to just... knowing everything about Oliver that not knowing was consuming her every thought. Instead of thinking about what she would say to the press that evening or about her next step in becoming Little Orphan Annie's (because the kid still wasn't talking, and she had no idea who he was – not even his name) temporary, legal guardian, Felicity was worrying about Oliver. Stewing, in fact. And what bothered her the most wasn't the fact that, so far, he had been completely radio silent on the matter but, instead, was the reason behind it.

Ever since they made like an exercise with magnets – pull me close, repel me far, far away, Oliver had been distant. Felicity was honestly surprised that, after Sara's death, he hadn't pushed her away entirely... as in off the team. But he hadn't, so she hadn't been forced to kick his ass to Bludhaven and back, and perhaps that's what was needed between them... to clear the air, so to speak. Because, since their kiss and her decision to walk away, absolutely nothing had been said. It was the unvoiced sexual tension in the room (which had always seemingly been there between them now that she thought about it) but multiplied by too many misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and disappointments to count. And now this – Felicity becoming a foster parent to a little boy who just showed up on her doorstep? It seemed to be the piece of straw that broke the hero's back.

"Say... something!" She didn't even know that she was going to talk until the words were already tumbling past her stained lips.

From where Felicity sat beside Oliver in the back seat of the Towncar they were riding in towards their first political event together – a formal announcement party, she watched him, unblinking, as he studiously refused to meet her gaze. Oliver would look everywhere but in her direction – his eyes jumping from the rain streaked window, to the floor, to his hands which were loosely clasped together over his knees – the grip a contradiction to the turmoil she could obviously see him struggling with. At any other time in their, now, more than two year... friendship, she would have crossed the distance between them – and there was quite a bit of distance, because they both had elected to hug the edges of their respective sides of the car – and wrapped both of her much smaller hands around his calloused ones, offering her silent support and strength in a gesture meant to comfort, meant to reassure him that he wasn't alone. But Felicity didn't understand the boundaries between them now. What was worse, where once she had been so confident in their bond that she never would have second guessed physical contact, now she had no idea if such a touch – her touch – would be welcome.

Pulling her from her thoughts, Oliver started to talk – his voice scratchy and rough with disuse. "Are you...?" He paused, grimaced, swallowed thickly. "Are you quitting?"

That's what he was worried about? Felicity nervously chuckled in response, her relief making her feel awkward. "While I never thought I'd run for Deputy Mayor with a former billionaire playboy turned secret masked crime-fighter, there's no way it could possibly be worse than the soul crushing experience that has been my career for the past six months; there's no way I could be worse at politics than I am sales and customer service. Besides, the cat's already out of the bag, Oliver. I think it's a little too late to try and put it back in now." It wasn't until she finished vomiting so many unnecessary words that she realized, while she had been anxiously rambling, Oliver had finally twisted around in his seat to face her, and he looked... pained. There were lines of stress, and hardship, and even fear – lines far deeper than what a man of his age should ever wear – dug into his forehead, webbing out from his tormented gaze, bracketing his mouth.

"Felicity, I don't give a damn about being mayor. I meant us, what we do at night. Are you quitting... the team?"

For a moment, she didn't know how to react. Oliver had just revealed... so much – both in what he said and what he didn't. She wanted to scream that there was no them – that he had finally let her hope that there could be a them, and then he ripped that dream out from underneath her, because he got scared. Again. She wanted to rage that they were more than just their nighttime partnership, and she wanted to confront him on the fact that, even though he said team, it felt like he was asking her if she was quitting him, giving up on him. Didn't he realize yet that, no matter what foolish thing he did, what hurtful thing he said, what asinine mistake he made, she wasn't going anywhere?

Instead of all of that... or any of it, Felicity settled on asking, "Oliver, why did you agree to be mayor?"

Before he could respond, she heard Digg suck in a breath from the front seat where he was driving them to their event that evening. Felicity's neck snapped towards her friend's direction, her gaze narrowing when he innocently announced, "oh, would you look there. A detour. Looks like we're going to be late." They were just blocks away from the hotel where the announcement event was being held, but John turned the car in the opposite direction.

"What the hell are you talking about," Roy demanded. And yeah. He was also in the front seat. Why Roy had to come along as well, Felicity wasn't sure. And she didn't like it, because she was still annoyed with him (and Captain Lance) from that morning. Traitors, both of them. "There isn't an orange cone or barrel in sight." Then Roy was squealing, and whining, "ow!", and squirming in his seat before falling silent once more, so Felicity assumed Diggle had effectively gotten his 'shut the hell up' point across with some sort of physical violence.

Turning back to Oliver, Felicity just stared at him, pointedly waiting for an answer. He ducked her gaze, but she didn't relent, and, eventually, he shrugged while staring out the window. The casual gesture did nothing to hide the tension coursing through his stiff and rigidly held body. "Walter asked me to."

"Since when do you do anything anyone asks you do, Oliver?"

He started to rub the digits of his right hand together – his thumb against his index and middle fingers. "I owed him... for helping with Queen Consolidated last year."

Felicity crossed her arms over her chest, digging in her metaphorical heels. "Walter's not the type of guy who would call in markers."

"Doesn't mean that the debt shouldn't be paid."

"And me," she pushed him, pushed herself, pushed them. In fact, Felicity found that, at some point during their conversation, she had closed much of the distance which separated their bodies... as if crowding Oliver would force him to confront her, confide in her. "Where do I come into play in all of this? Why ask me to be your deputy mayor?"

"You're the smartest person I know." Oliver's voice started out strong, but, the more he said, the softer his words became until he was just practically whispering. "You're also compassionate. You care. You want to make the world – Starling City – a better place. And I think that we work well together. You... balance me, make me better."

There was nothing wrong with anything that Oliver was saying. In fact, Felicity agreed with his answer. She was the smartest person Oliver knew... which didn't say much, because mainly he spent his time with criminals ranging anywhere on the evil spectrum from street thugs to megalomaniac masterminds. She did care, their styles did compliment one another's, and they did bring out the best in each other. The problem was that Oliver wasn't telling her everything; he wasn't telling her the real reason why he asked her to be his deputy mayor.

But then Felicity remembered what had started their entire conversation – Oliver questioning if she was going to quit, and she had her answer. Because of their failed attempt to be as much as they meant to one another, because of Sara's death, and because her desire to have more from life than just the team, Oliver had feared her pulling completely away, so he did the one thing he could think of to pull her even closer. It was manipulative, it was classic Oliver, and Felicity hated the fact that he still wasn't confident enough to just talk to her about his fears, but it was also kind of sweet, too.

Smiling gently, she ignored her earlier misgivings and reached out, folding her hands around Oliver's still loosely clenched together fists. "I'm not quitting," she promised him. Assured him. "I don't know how this will work exactly – bringing an impressionable, curious kid into our lives, but we'll figure it out. It might mean a little compromise, but this is something I have to do, Oliver. I... I don't even know why or how, but it's important. He's important – Huckleberry Finn. And not just to me. I can't explain it, but, somehow, I just know that he's important to all of us." Squeezing his hands one last time and shrugging her shoulders, Felicity clarified her answer down to its barest, simplest form. "I'm not leaving you, Oliver."

Minutes later, when Digg pulled them up outside of the hotel – cameras flashing, reporters yelling over one another as they tried to get the exclusive, it was Oliver who was holding her hands as he helped her out of the car and then led her through the surging mass of people that was the press line.