Somehow, the strangest part of her evening begins with Oliver Queen kneeling down before her in his bedroom helping her into a pair of his boxers.
"I'm still happy to ask Thea for a pair," he tells her for the umpteenth time.
Okay, so maybe only the second time, but who's counting?
Nevertheless, sharing clothes with her not-husband? No problem, no hesitation – not for Felicity. Sharing clothes with his sister, though? Specifically, underwear?
Yeah… No, she'd really rather not. It's not something she wants and really not an association she wants his mind to make. Ever.
"It's fine, Oliver," she reiterates, using his shoulders for support as she steps into the leg openings.
"Towel," the man himself yelps, panicked and wide-eyed, hands immediately going to her waist, holding her towel closed.
"It's secured," she points out to him, pointing to the knot up by her breast – a knot he's studiously avoiding looking at.
"The towel moved," he states instead, voice firm, eyes still fixed on the wall somewhere past her and holding tightly onto her waist for fear of the towel moving and, she guesses, him seeing more than he should.
"It's fabric, still," Felicity tells him with a sigh. "It does that. Look, if it makes you this uncomfortable, then I can just do this-"
"Not a chance. Not until I've had a chance to make sure you haven't worsened your injuries. You had bruised ribs to begin with, I don't want to find out you managed to crack them earlier just because you were too stubborn to accept some help."
Oh, now she is the one too stubborn to accept help? That's rich. Especially coming from Mr. Lone Wolf.
"Just- Just hold onto the towel please."
"I will," she reassures him, "don't worry."
Now that her feet are through anyway, she has no reason not to hold onto the towel – however superfluous, but it seems to soothe him.
Oliver's careful not to touch her legs as he pulls his boxers up – but he needn't be, really. Her husband's frame is so much broader than her own, there's no chance of accidental contact.
"I'll take it from here," she advises him once he reaches her upper thigh and he looks so relieved once her hands replace his, quickly getting to his feet and rushing off to his wardrobe, back to her. Felicity isn't sure how well the boxers will be secured, given his size versus hers, but it should be good enough.
"Here," Oliver tells her, holding out a pair of grey jogging trousers she will absolutely be swimming in. He looks nervous, likely hoping she hasn't quite caught onto his thinking – the lovable idiot.
"Really?" She asks, eyeing the large trousers, but easily giving in when he looks at her pleadingly.
Fine.
Oliver thinks hiding her legs and physique underneath the trousers will help him deal with her half-naked in a moment.
Yeah, joke's on him, really. Because whatever else he is? Oliver is, above all else, very possessive and very jealous when it comes to Felicity – even before they were ever together. Seeing her in more of his clothing, knowing she's wearing his underwear? It usually inflames his ardour for her, not soothes it.
However, it will be very fun to watch him make that discovery for himself the first time, she thinks, grinning to herself as she steps into the trousers – this time one hand on her towel and the boxers, the other on his shoulder for balance.
God, she loved those shoulders. It had never been a thing with anyone else before or between in the breaks of their relationship. But with Oliver? Yeah, the very muscled, very, very lovely shoulders, ones which could carry the world one moment and the next be used to launch him up and down the salmon ladder, dripping in sweat? Yum.
Sure enough, the moment she secures the drawstring on the trousers, tightening it ridiculously to ensure it doesn't fall off immediately, she takes the chance to look back.
Oliver's back by the wardrobe obviously trying in vain to find something to cover her breasts comfortably while also letting him check her bruise on the side and top for anything worrying. When he gives up with a sigh, turning to face her again, he falters.
Not just mildly – there's a stutter in his step and he reaches out to catch himself on the back of the sofa and misses; which, for someone who grew up in this room and had years of instincts and reflexes to fall back on – yeah, Oliver's definitely taken aback by his own reaction to seeing her in his clothing.
She can feel the heat of his gaze as he takes her in slowly, eyes slowly inching up her body.
Felicity – yeah, she never quite got it. Not to say she didn't take advantage of it, she's not a fool, but it never made any sense to her.
She's practically drowning in his trousers; it doesn't follow her curves or expose anything of her at all; it ought to be the most relaxed loungewear possible. Yet, as always, it seems to get to him more than seeing her in a skimpy skirt (although he does like those, too).
Oliver looks like he wants to devour her whole. He's taking her in at a glance and swallows. Hard.
His eyes keep catching on her waist, on the trousers, then the towel and flicking back down.
Another swallow.
His finger keeps rubbing across that spot on his hand where he usually holds his arrow, to self-soothe. There's the finest layer of perspiration on his brow. His pupils are dilated and his mind appears to have gone off to fantasy-land.
Normally a very happy occasion for Felicity, too, given that her husband is never too shy to share his thoughts with her – or re-enact them – but that won't be the case with this Oliver any time soon. If ever.
It had never before occurred to her, but now she couldn't help but wonder if it were McKenna here, in her place, in his clothes – if he'd look like that at her too. Her heart aches at the thought, hands trembling and stomach sinking as she tries not to let her own mind run away with her.
Oliver's normally good at catching her when it does – but this is not their normal circumstances.
His eyes are still notably darker when his eyes finally flick up the last feet and he meets her eyes, clearly having forced himself back to the present.
"That- yeah, that's better," he says, voice hoarse and deeper than normal. Oliver's already strode over to cover the last few feet between them while she was trying not to imagine him and McKenna together, and she can see his hands twitching as if he's fighting against reaching for her, touching her – trying to make sure she's real. And here.
Felicity can sympathise.
"Uh-huh," she says sarcastically, amused in spite of herself at the blatant lie, "I'm sure it is."
Still, she doesn't call him out on it.
"Right," Oliver says quietly to himself, his mind still clearly elsewhere as his eyes keep dropping. Then he finally seems to remember what he was intending to do, as he shakes his head sharply, refocusing on her eyes.
"I should check on your injuries," he tells her as if she's the one who had gotten distracted first.
He steps closer to her still.
"Do you mind?" He asks leadingly, hands at the bottom of the towel, ready to pull it up.
"Go ahead."
He nods firmly, rolling the towel up carefully before handing it off to her to keep up just below her breasts. Felicity winces as it requires her arm and shoulder to move, but it's not too bad as long as she tries to restrict all movement to her lower arm.
"You got it?" He asks, eyes on where her hand is, brow furrowed in concern at the pain she's clearly in.
"Got it," she reassures him.
"By tomorrow, you'll really get to see the full effect," he notes, grimacing, as he takes in the colourful bruises adorning her side and pretty much encompassing half her torso.
"Yay," Felicity she says drolly. It's enough to garner a small upward curl of Oliver's lips at her open sarcasm.
"The bruises have already blossomed out quite a bit and spread out. It's a lot worse than it was this morning."
"Feels a lot worse, too," she concurs.
Oliver hums agreeingly. "I think you must've still been in shock earlier, given how little the pain seemed to register with you."
"Yep, definitely wasn't feeling like myself," Felicity smiles at her own clever wordplay, even if Oliver doesn't understand.
"How's your memory?" he asks, face drawn and concerned but clinical rather than amorous as he checks each rib and bruise to make sure there's nothing more worrying she's hiding, noting her winces and flinches and smiling to himself when he accidentally tickles her and she giggles.
"All back," she affirms easily.
"Good," he breathes out sharply. "I was concerned. Your Doctor's notes didn't say anything about the memory."
Felicity feels her eyebrows rise.
"What?" She queries automatically. "How did you get a hold of my medical report."
Oliver's face closes off quickly and he ducks his head down, pretending to be absorbed in testing the bruises covering her from hip to nearly armpit.
"O-li-ver," she intones carefully, voice low and quiet but threatening enough her not-husband grimaces, dropping his hands and giving in without further argument.
"My mom," he tells her and for once she's the one surprised. She'd expected a lot of things – right down to involving the Bratva – but Moira had never even occurred to her.
"You asked your mother for my medical-"
"No- God, no. I promise, I didn't," Oliver reassures her quickly. "But after the injuries and your memories – well, given you've got the Queen family backing you, there was no way my mother was just going to let that lie. Sorry."
"How did she even get this? It can't have been legal – she's not my medical proxy or anything, Oliver. They shouldn't have released the information to her."
"I know," Oliver says with a one-sided shoulder shrug, looking abashed. "But she's the matriarch of the Queen family – however antiquated the concept may be," he adds, before she has a chance to raise the issue and Felicity subsides.
"I still don't agree with this," she tells him, but Oliver knows the anger's no longer directed at him judging by the small smile curling at the corner of his lips and the way his shoulders go from hunched to straight and relaxed.
It's adorable how highly he clearly values her opinion and how much he dreads invoking her anger; as if all 5 foot 5 of her could do any harm to his muscle-bound Arrow-ness. Although he hasn't had League-training yet whereas she, ironically, has been trained by the daughter of the current Ra's al Ghul.
Yikes.
Not a thought she really wants to linger on – she has no inclination of being the one to fight Malcolm later in the year in Oliver's stead either (although being badass was kind of fun; but unlike Oliver, the adrenaline rush usually sent her trembling and crashing whereas it only made him more excited – most days.).
"And you definitely shouldn't," he concurs.
"Your mom really needs some boundaries," she proceeds to tell him – which is so very much true in all the many ways he doesn't even know about yet. Emiko. Walter. Thea. Malcolm. William. Samantha.
"I'll have a talk with her."
Felicity snorts before laughing softly.
"You?" Her lips are curved up in a bright grin at her not-husband's confusion.
"No offence, Oliver, but you're like a grade-A momma's boy. I'm sure you'll have the best of intentions walking in. Just like I'm sure you'll cave within moments when she tells you she only wanted what was best for me and to help and then tells you all the ways in which the Doctor and the hospital was incompetent."
Oliver's brows are furrowed and he opens his mouth – clearly intending to argue but, seeing her eyebrow raised in silent challenge, snaps it shut again.
For a moment at least.
"I'm not a momma's boy," he complains, quietly irritated.
Not that it means he's any less careful with her, his every touch soft and cautious, just enough to discern whether she was okay without causing any unnecessary pain, but it's all there - in the timbre of his voice, the furrow in his brow, the tightness of his jaw.
"I started with no offence," she tells him instead of pointing any of this out and he rolls his eyes.
"That almost always means someone's going to say something they know is offensive and just don't want to accept the blame," Oliver counters without hesitation.
"Fair," she concedes. "Still, you can't tell me it wouldn't go exactly like that."
"It wouldn't."
"Uh-huh. How about you go and have that talk with your mom right now and when you come back, I'll pretend you stood your ground and you can then pretend you didn't cave in within two minutes."
He glares at her, but it's softened by the way his lips keep curving up in an unwitting smile.
"Hey, it's not like respect for your mother is a bad thing. In fact, it's an important aspect of many cultures."
And how well Oliver got along with Donna Smoak was just criminal. But Donna – and even Moira, in many respects – had earned their children's respect for the sacrifices they made to raise them.
All it does is highlight the many ways she had ruined her own children's childhoods. The ways she failed their own daughter, Mia, failed in raising her the way both of them had wanted her to be, the way she'd abandoned William just like her father had abandoned her – never keeping in touch despite the electronic eye she kept on him.
Felicity swallows, burying the thought deep in her heart, the way she always does. Because she never has time to, doesn't want to, confront just how badly she'd failed both her children. How badly she'd failed her husband; her husband who'd gone off to save them, save the multiverse, as his only option left to protect his children and her, entrusting her with both William's and Mia's childhood and future. Trusting her to raise them the way they'd both wanted to.
"Yeah, 'Momma's boy' doesn't quite imply 'treating your mother with respect'. In fact, I'd argue they're both very different," Oliver's voice yanks her out of her thoughts but by the concern in his eyes, he can tell that wherever her mind just went – it wasn't anywhere good.
"You win. I'm sorry," she concedes, only managing a ghost of a smile for him, not being able to handle further discussion on mothers and respect. Oliver's face falls for a moment, before he gathers himself, putting on a good mien for her, allowing their earlier levity to be replaced by professionalism and clearly forcing himself not to interrogate her the way he desperately wants to.
Sometimes it's easy to forget just how much Oliver cares. Other moments, like this one, it's written in his every word, his every action, his every smile and thought. The way he just accepts and moves on if he thinks it would hurt her more for him to push.
Notes: So, for readers of this one who don't read the otehrs - Tribunal didn't go well.
Still pouting and sulking but getting better. Should have prepared for it like a courtroom interrogation but even then - the adjudicator already had a story in her head from the first few words and didn't want to budge on it.
Anyway, please review and comment. Next chapter's already pretty much written - so the more comments, the faster I upload :)
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