Chapter Text
“What are you doing?!”
Oliver chanced a glance over his broad shoulder, hoping beyond hope that he’d somehow misheard that unmistakable voice. Because he was pretty sure she was not on the invite list for this afternoon’s arts committee meeting. No dice.
Tamping down the heavy sigh, he turned, opening his arms widely to convey his defenselessness. “Reviewing a public art submission?” he ventured a guess that was answered by her deep, but always brightly painted, scowl. As his mind cringed, knowing she had zero qualms about causing a scene, his heart tugged just at the sight of her.
“You cannot do this,” she snarled, and he waved a hand at Rene, the rest of the room clearing in a few moments.
“Fel—”
She crossed her arms over her chest and set a foot to tapping. “Do not Felicity me.”
“Ms. Smoak.” Oliver tipped his head in greeting, stifling a grin when Felicity dropped her purse on a recently vacated chair, hands moving to her hips. His lips quirked involuntarily. Damn cutouts. Oliver moved away from the presentation board and sank into a chair in front of her. Might as well get this over with.
“Oh, for—” she rolled her eyes at his exaggeratedly supplicating position, “what kind of mayor tears down a community center for a commercial developer?”
Ah, so that was her issue. Having watched his staff debate it multiple times, Oliver had a good sense of the talking points he’d be parroting for the next few years. “The kind of mayor who sees that the community center is shutting down because the community lacks funds to operate it. And commercial development will provide what the community needs—”
“What the community needs is a frakking community center!”
The outburst brought a slight flush to her cheeks. Between that and her use of frakking, he got the feeling he was missing something. “You want to tell me what this is really about?”
Felicity sighed, pursing her lips as she tried to decide how much to disclose. “After my fath—Noah left, when Mom was working double and triple shifts, I used to go to the community center after school. It was the only place with a computer lab that would let a preteen tear apart and rebuild the super junky computers. And you thought your first set-up was the worst I’d ever seen. That place is where I really learned computers, it’s where I learned to swim, it’s where I wrote my first resume, it’s where I watched old people hang out together and play chess after their families forgot about them. And now you want to take that away from the Glades, a community that has already lost everything it can stand to lose!”
Puzzled, Oliver tilted his head in question. “Why didn’t you go to the JCC?”
“It was too far away, and the buses in Vegas suck. Why are you focusing on that? Also, our public transportation sucks, too, so add that to your list.” Felicity cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Felicity, there aren’t funds. For the community center or better public transportation,” he sighed tiredly, because, no, he didn’t want to see the community center shut down either but there was nothing he could about it.
“You’re the mayor. Reallocate. Do you need tips on how? Because I’ve brought a Fortune 500 company back from the brink of bankruptcy, technically twice now if you count when I was ghost-CEO’ing QC for you.”
Oliver rolled his eyes at the not-so-humble brag. “That’s not how this works. I’m accountable to the citizens.”
“Who are going to be just so angry if you save a community center in the poorest part of town. Honestly, the nerve of you,” she sarcastically retorted, “Stop taking the easy way out, Oliver. Do your job. Fight for the things that are important for this city.”
“Like revenue to keep operating?” Oliver countered, sighing again when she snatched her purse off the chair, preparing to storm out.
“Now I remember why we’re divorced,” Felicity almost regretted the cheap shot as she was finishing the thought, “your complete and utter lack of priorities.” She didn’t wait for Oliver’s reaction but heard his heavy grunt anyway as she was leaving.
Taking a few deep breaths, Felicity paused by her car. No one would be safe if she drove this angry. Without really thinking about it, she reached into her purse for her phone.
Are you there?
“How long has it been since my entire world didn’t revolve around Oliver? Like a decade? I just need to meet someone new. No offense to you guys; you’re all great. But everyone I interact with is either part of Team GA or my employee, and I’m not—”
“I know a guy,” Thea had quietly offered.
Felicity had been surprised at the time. Thea had been one of the loudest, if not the loudest, protesters of their divorce. For her to offer up a suggestion maybe meant she was finally coming to terms with it all. “He’s a regular at my gym. Nice guy, good-looking, recently divorced.”
“Is this a trap?” she had questioned, still skeptical when Thea set her glass down heavily and turned to her with a very serious expression.
“Look, I’m still not happy about the divorce, but you two are adults and you obviously make your own stupid decisions. If moving on is what you need to be happy, then as your friend it’s my duty and honor to help you with that. This guy, he’s in a really similar place as you right now. Wants to get back out there but isn’t a fan of all the online dating stuff.” Felicity had scoffed in quiet remembrance of that catastrophe. “So I’m a mutual friend who can vouch that you’re both attractive, mostly sane people who would probably hit it off. If you want, I’ll give you his number, and you can set the pace. I won’t even tell him your name if you don’t want me to.”
Thea had paused for a moment, waiting for an answer, and Felicity had nodded hesitantly. That had sounded like a good first step. Thea obviously, hopefully, wouldn’t pitch someone ridiculous at her just for the hell of it. She had mostly gotten that out of her system when she had literally locked them in a closet together the week before their divorce was finalized to no avail.
“But you have to promise me, Felicity, that you’ll do this normal. That means no background checks, no social media dives, just two people getting to know each other, without someone using her MIT degree to cheat on the getting-to-know-you phase. I’m telling you he’s a good guy; that’s good enough for a couple dates at least.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about dates? I might text him, feel him out a little first.” Because for all her talk of moving on, Felicity still hadn’t been sure how to navigate the world as a divorced woman.
“So, like, phone sex?”
“Thea!”
His phone buzzed three times, and Oliver’s head whipped towards it. At the same time, Rene reappeared in the doorway. “The committee wants to know if you’re ready to resume.”
“Five minutes,” he mumbled, already unlocking the device to get to his messages.
Rene paused for a second, studying Oliver’s neutral expression. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he took a step into the conference room, hissing, “Are you texting a woman? Like a woman you like?” His questions were incredulous tinged with offended and alarmed.
“You know, Felicity and I aren’t really your parents; you guys aren’t really our kids,” Oliver stated as Rene gave him an and? expression. ”Meaning I don’t need your permission to date.”
“Try telling that to Mr. Terrific,” the younger man mumbled warningly before backtracking out of the room. Oliver knew from the judgmental eyebrows that he was about to be tattled on. Tonight would be a rough one, full of biting one-liners from, yes, the bitter kids of their divorce.
Three days? I was beginning to think you forgot about me
Never. It’s been a few rough ones
Tell me about it tonight. Need to finish these meetings and I’m all yours
Felicity found herself still trembling slightly when she pulled into her parking space at her own office. Had it really been months since she had seen Oliver? Must have been if her nerves were this shot.
Even before their separation, she had taken a step back from the Arrow business to focus on growing Palmer Tech. The team had been more than capable at that point, Curtis often covering the bulk of her Overwatch duties while she backstopped remotely. By the time they’d decided to divorce, she was barely involved in the day-to-day, or rather night-to-night, operations, only patching in for complex jobs that needed two sets of eyes in the sky or all hands out in the field. After the divorce, having received Ray’s blessing the last time the crew of the Waverider had been in town, she’d dedicated all her energy into the rebranding of Palmer Tech into Smoak Technologies. Subconsciously, and maybe a little consciously, she had been avoiding the Arrow cave. Unlike the last time they’d broken up, she didn’t feel like she had a right to be in what was ostensibly Oliver’s space, even if she and John were just as vital to the start of it all. And with the team as competent as they were, there had been no reason for her constant presence.
“Hey!”
Felicity startled, jumping in her seat when she heard the yell and knock on her window. Rolling her eyes at herself, she opened the car door and stepped out when the other woman backed away to give her room. “Dinah, hey. Sorry, did we have a meeting or something?”
“No, I just have the precinct’s feedback reports for the beta tracking software. Thought I’d drop them off and we could grab an early dinner if you’re not busy?” The brunette gave her the look that silently conveyed, And I checked, you’re not busy.
Right, the real world, Felicity reminded herself. “Sounds great. Let’s go leave these with R&D first.”
Turned out, she had a lot to be thankful to the team for. Not just for stepping up and making it possible for her to avoid awkward interactions with her ex-husband at their vigilante job, but also for just being her friends. Each of them took the time to seek her out outside of the Arrow cave, coming up with neat little excuses to grab meals or run errands together. It did a lot toward making her feel human again.
“And you’re back,” Oliver muttered under his breath when he felt another presence in his office. The regular staff had long cleared out and gone home to their families. At this point, he was risking running into the nighttime cleaning crew. “Twice in one day when I haven’t seen you in months? How’d I get so lucky?”
“You are selling the city to the same type of people you targeted when you first started as the Arrow. Why can’t you see that?” Felicity all but growled, displeased by how flippantly he was acting. “Star City doesn’t need developers trying to squeeze every last drop out of the population. It needs people who will invest in it, who will help it grow organically. Not a race to the bottom to snatch the last dollar.”
Oliver pushed his keyboard away, standing up and circling the desk to face her toe-to-toe. “Felicity, I am legally obligated to award the contract to the highest and best use.”
On cue, she sharply poked the middle of his chest. “Highest and best doesn’t just mean monetary. It never has.”
“If you’re so interested, why doesn’t Smoak Technologies submit a proposal?” If his voice caught a little on her maiden—current—name, it was entirely involuntary. He just might be a little peeved that she never worked to change the name until they were divorced, never mind that she’d been Felicity Queen for years and the company had originally started as Queen Consolidated.
“We’re working on it, but we wouldn’t be able to develop the entire parcel. But! But if you gave me time to find a partner, someone who appreciates the value of a little patience and community investment, instead of just auctioning off the City to the highest bidder...” she tried to cajole him with a sweet smile but dropped the pretense when he unsubtly froze.
Shaking himself out of his stupor (because the last time he saw that smile, it had definitely lead to the bedroom—or conference table), Oliver just sighed, “It’s a public process, and the deadline for submittals is in the request for proposals.”
“And the city council is using some obscure loophole to end the RFP process a week early because the aldermen are a bunch of greedy bastards. Guess what, Oliver, the mayor can override the override. It’s called a pocket veto,” Felicity winced as her tone came out more condescending and challenging than she’d wanted.
“I’ll lose every cent of goodwill and political capital I have with them,” he pointed out, he thought, somewhat logically, even knowing she wasn’t about to be swayed by his logic.
“How can that possibly outweigh the good this could do?” she threw her hands in the air, and they simultaneously realized how close they were standing when she nearly clipped his jaw with her brightly painted nails. Sheepishly, they took a step back, descending into painful silence.
A new voice inserted itself into the conversation. “Because the mayor is up for re-election next year, and if he loses the aldermen’s support, that’s a death knell.”
“He’s survived them before,” Felicity muttered, raising a challenging eyebrow at him, before turning to the interloper with a mildly embarrassed smile. “Beverly, good evening.”
The veteran secretary returned the smile easily before focusing on her target. “But often times the difficult choice is the right one to make.” With a small shrug, she carried on with her true reason for interrupting, “Mayor Queen, you have a meeting scheduled. If you don’t need anything further, I’m going to head home.”
The couple bid her good night before Felicity sighed at Oliver, “It’s about time for your second job. Who are you even—Right, a meeting.” She shook her head, more at herself than him, and turned to leave. “I won’t keep you. Night.”
“Felicity, it’s not—” Oliver cut himself off, because it wasn’t any of his ex-wife’s business and it was pretty much what she thought. His protest was moot anyway since Felicity didn’t even stop to acknowledge him.
What’s troubling you? How can I help?
With a happy sigh, Felicity sunk into the chair across from Curtis, who looked up from his reports with a critical eye. “You look... Relaxed? Is this what you look like when you’re relaxed? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it and I’ve known you for years.”
“Preliminary reports for the tracking software look excellent. Minor bugs, nothing a day’s work won’t solve. And, best of all, user reviews are glowing,” she punctuated the final words by tapping a brightly painted fingernail on the glass table.
“Glowing? Like you?” Curtis continued to question. Before Felicity could answer, the rest of the department heads began to trickle in, and he pinned her down with a later expression.
“I took us offline. What’s going on with you?”
Oliver paused for a second, waiting for Diggle to elaborate, but the line was silent. “Could you be more specific?”
“You’re being smiley. It’s weird. Explain. Are you and Fel—”
“No. No, nothing like that,” he could feel the other man’s disappointment through the silence, “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“So is it someone new?”
“John,” Oliver scoffed, knowing then that Diggle wasn’t just fishing for answers; he already knew. And if his best friend’s reaction was anything like Thea’s or Curtis’ or Rene’s or Dinah’s, he really didn’t want to hear it.
“Let’s take a second to remind you that I am friends with both of you. There is no custody arrangement for my friendship. Felicity didn’t win me in the divorce. If there’s someone important in your life, Oliver, I’d like to know if you’re ready to share. I’ll even be happy for you, too, you know.”
Slightly chastised, Oliver was quiet for a moment. “I appreciate that, more than you know. I guess I’m not ready to share yet.”
“I’m here when you are.”
We should meet
That had been over an hour ago, and she still hadn’t worked up the courage to respond. Felicity should have known that he would want to meet after they crossed that line just as Thea predicted all those months ago. Especially since he’d needed convincing to agree to the subtle voice modulator app she had walked him through installing on his phone.
“And here I was hoping you were still relaxed,” Curtis greeted, breezing into her office and settling in the guest chair on the other side of her desk.
“What?” She dropped her phone then tried to nonchalantly adjust her glasses. “Who says I’m not relaxed?”
“That line right…” he didn’t finish but gestured to the middle of his forehead. Felicity frowned before purposefully trying to rub away the involuntary scrunch. “Anyway. Some good news. That email blast about the community center space actually unearthed a decent idea.”
“Please tell me that decent idea is also financially viable with a three to five year projection for profitability. Because I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing the aldermen care about.” She scowled at the reminder of the pointed conversation she’d had with an alderman who was dismissive of any quality of life concerns in the Glades.
“You know that’s outside my wheelhouse, CEO,” Curtis deflected with a grimace, “I’m only playing messenger because I overheard one of my people, and she’s scared—I should say intimidated—to tell you herself.”
“Unacceptable. I’ll only hear it from her,” Felicity stated predictably, and Curtis shot back up to his feet, holding up a finger as he rushed out the door. A moment later, he returned, towing along a petite woman in a pristine lab coat.
After receiving the rough outline of an exceptional idea, which she and Curtis had constantly interrupted to add details or contacts to shake down, Felicity called for an emergency session of the strategic planning committee. While she was waiting for the personnel to gather, her hand unconsciously reached for her phone.
When and where?
“Are you stalking me now?” Oliver couldn’t hide the agitation in his voice. This might have been the first time since he’d met her, when she wasn’t in imminent danger of physical harm, that he was genuinely unhappy to see Felicity Smoak.
“No, I—” Felicity paused for a moment, tilting her head at him curiously. “Actually, we’re submitting our proposal tomorrow. Looks like I won’t have to browbeat you into pissing off the aldermen after all.” He gave her a dry look at that, because she probably wasn’t wrong. “I’ve been advised not to discuss anything about the proposal with you to avoid ex parte communications now that there will be an official application pending,” she recited from the lecture her general counsel had given her after what she thought was an innocent question.
“So why are you here?” he asked, his brain arriving at the answer the second he finished the question. Was she really wearing his favorite dress on a date with a man who wasn’t him? Granted, they were all his favorite dresses, even the ones he’d never get a chance to see. “You have a date.” His tone was flat, not at all appreciating the way she blushed guiltily.
“I do,” Felicity confirmed unthinkingly, cringing when he stilled at her wording. “I mean, yes, I’m meeting someone. What are you doing here? Another meeting?”
Oliver coughed, the awkwardness from last night finding its way to his throat. “Yeah.”
“Two nights in a row?” she didn’t feel like it was too much of an assumption that Oliver wasn’t playing the field as aggressively as Ollie had been known for, “You must really like her.”
“I d—I mean, yeah.”
“Great!” Felicity squeaked, forcing a smile to her face. She knew her response was too loud when a man, three booths down, half-turned to see what caused the noise. “I’m just going to—” She gestured back to the bar and quickly left to perch on a vacant stool closer to the entrance.
Oliver cursed his need to pick the best vantage point since he’d have a clear view of whatever asshole was dating his ex-wife. He was so preoccupied torturing himself with thoughts of what the guy looked like, where she had met him, how far into the relationship they were, that he barely noticed his own date was over fifteen minutes late.
I know you’re not standing me up
Without looking up from his phone, Oliver knew that there were only four women in the bar area. After all, it was late on a Tuesday at a restaurant without televisions on the night of a Rockets game. Two were clearly on dates, the third had her head buried in an impressive stack of documents, and the last was Felicity, who had barely looked up from her phone since ordering a glass of red.
He was going to kill his little sister. Kill her dead.
I’m so sorry. Family emergency. Please say you understand
Oliver had hidden himself in the service corridor by the bar when sending his response, hoping Felicity would think she just hadn’t noticed his exit instead of realizing that he’d been similarly “stood up”. He wasn’t sure why he was bothering to keep up the pretense now that he knew Thea had set him up with Felicity. Friend from her yoga class, why had he bought that? Sure, she had looked appropriately disgusted to be encouraging her older brother to date, but this was Thea. She’d been playing him since she was in kindergarten.
Just this once
Under his watchful eye, Felicity paid the bartender and left with a decidedly disappointed air. Oh right, he was sparing her feelings because he’s still in love with her and more than likely going to continue this charade until it crashed down on his head since some of Felicity’s attention and affection was better than none at all.
Might be busy with this emergency for a while
If you’re ending this, be more direct
No! I mean I won’t be able to meet in person. Still all yours. Oliver scoffed at himself because, really, had there ever been truer words?
And since he was a masochist, he didn’t stop the devil on his shoulder from sending a follow-up, suddenly thankful she had insisted on the slight voice modulator app last night. There was just no way he wouldn’t have recognized her voice in his ear, or her his. Repeats of last night available on request. At least now he wouldn’t have to feel guilty about finishing with his ex-wife’s name on his lips last night, or question why her phone sex style seemed so familiar.
“What were you thinking?!”
He had texted Thea the moment he left the restaurant, calling for an emergency family meeting. Just to be an annoying brat, she had made him wait until the next night at the bunker, knowing full well there wasn’t an emergency emergency. He watched as his little sister immediately went defensive, drawing herself tall and planting her fists on her hips, before paling when she realized what, exactly, he was losing his mind over.
“I’m sorry, I—” her voice was shaky as she let out a nervous laugh, “I don’t know. I just—I had to do something.”
“No, you didn’t. It’s not your life to play with,” he reminded her harshly. At this point, Oliver didn’t even want to get into her motivations because he knew there was nothing to analyze. When Thea got desperate, she lashed out, and sometimes they all had to deal with the fallout. “How did you even pull this off? We have each other’s phone numbers.”
“No, not after the divorce,” she shook her head and gave him a look that seemingly marveled at his cluelessness. “You both got new numbers as a fresh start, mainly because all those reporters wouldn’t stop calling for comments. Felicity only messages you, and by you I mean you you, through the Arrow app. You didn’t notice?”
No, he hadn’t. Because he had been trying so hard to be okay with the divorce, to pretend that Felicity’s grievances with their relationship weren’t legitimate. He wasn’t exactly focusing on how his ex-wife chose to communicate or not communicate with him about their illegal extracurricular activities. “Speedy—”
Thea waved him off. “So what are you going to do? You fell in love with Felicity—again. Don’t deny it. You wouldn’t be this pissed off at me if you hadn’t. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think you’d be the first to figure it out. But now what?”
Damn it, Thea would gloss over how much trouble he—and she—would be in once Felicity found out, and he had no doubt Felicity would find out. “Why did you do this?”
Thea fixed him with a disappointed look that she had picked up from their mom, and he winced instinctively. “When I asked you—and Felicity, separately obviously—why you were divorcing, you told me that there were too many real world complications, that you couldn’t have the relationship you wanted with all these external factors taking time away from each other. Guess what? That’s what you’ve been doing for months over the phone. You’re being the Green Arrow and Mayor of Star City and regular Oliver Queen, all while carrying on a relationship with, granted, who you thought was a stranger but is really your wife. So I did it to call bull on those dumb excuses you two made up. You fell in love with each other without even knowing each other’s names. This is like, what, the third, fourth, fifth time, you two have been through this song and dance? When will you get over yourselves and accept that you will never love other people? Figure out how to make it work and put us all out of our misery.”
Oliver sighed at the depressingly-worded but not entirely inaccurate description of how his and Felicity’s relationship had been panning out so far. “Just because we told you one version of events, doesn’t mean there aren’t other true ones. There were other reasons.”
“Like what?”
He was beginning to hate this conversation as much as he hated Thea’s but why? phase when she was a toddler. “I don’t know! Ask her, she’s the one who wanted a divorce.”
“Are you kidding me? You never even talked about it?” And just like those good old days, Thea took to slapping his arm until he pushed her away. “I lost my sister because of you.” Oliver rolled his eyes because, no, she hadn’t. Those two had decided there were no takebacks for sister status and still had a weekly movie night much to his complete confusion. Because somehow that was a line in the sand for the same woman who divorced him and seemingly walked away from both their lives together.
Of course, they talked about it. And at the time, he was defensive and blind to the problems. Crime, organized crime at least, had pretty much died; the Green Arrow and company had been reduced to the slightly-less-noble task of chasing down street criminals and delinquent teenagers. Since the cancer had been cut out, the obvious next step was to focus more on their civilian roles, her as CEO of then-Palmer Tech and him as mayor, to help rebuild the city. But somewhere along the line, he built relationships with the wrong people, usually against his trusted advisors’ gut feelings, and the developments he endorsed and the investors he trusted made false promises that either never saw the light of day or fell apart within a year or two. In short, he had unwittingly handed over Star City to the same corporate scumbags that destroyed it the first time around, and then doubled down on it instead of admitting his mistakes. It was the self-destructive behavior that he should have learned from years ago when they built the team, and that Felicity was apparently only comfortable complaining about to a stranger—in very broad strokes.
“I wasn’t the man she married. I was self-involved and obsessed with currying favor with the other politicians and business investors who were too good to be true. I was complacent about finding better ways and just accepted things as they were. And whenever Felicity tried to talk to me about it, I was in denial and kept putting her off,” he admitted tiredly. Thea already knew the worse parts of him, why not add bad husband to the list? “It’s why she’s been on my ass about the community center.”
Thea brightened considerably at the mention. Smoak Tech must have worked all night on their proposal, despite their CEO leaving for a date, because it was filed first thing in the morning, and City Hall had talked about nothing else since. “You have to admit the urban garden, slash farmer’s market, slash cooking school and restaurant, slash Smoak Tech Agriculture and Technology R&D facility is brilliant.”
“It won’t turn a profit,” Oliver reluctantly pointed out. As much as Felicity’s project sounded like a godsend, he had watched the community development department calculate the projections all day, and no combination of numbers resulted in the same tax benefit as a purely commercial development. Smoak Tech had wisely buried that small, insignificant detail in their application, instead focusing on the qualitative community benefits.
“But the community will profit. The project will employ and train Star City citizens in multiple vocations that don’t require massive student debt. The gardens will provide food for homeless and low-income residents. There’ll be a nice tie-in with the STEM modules Smoak Tech already puts on for the high schools. If they’re willing to take a goose egg, what’s it matter if there’s a profit?” Thea shrugged in the way that reminded him so much of their mom when she was on the winning end of a bargain.
“Are you my sister or my chief of staff right now?” Oliver questioned but she only shrugged as if to say both. “The city council’s platform for the year is to increase the tax base with more development. If we increase the tax base, we increase tax revenue to pay for government services.”
“I’m not actually stupid, Ollie. I just pretended to be for a few years so cute boys wouldn’t be intimidated,” she ignored his sour expression, “I’m over it now, obviously. I get what increasing the tax base does. But look at it this way. The commercial developer is asking for deferred taxes as a reimbursement for demolishing the community center and increasing infrastructure capacity, so there won’t actually be increased taxes for years. I know that’s how things normally work, but we have a better option. Felicity isn’t asking for anything from the city. They’ll modify the existing building, and since most of the land will essentially stay a park, no infrastructure build-out, at least nothing that isn’t proprietary renewable energy technology they’ll provide themselves. Plus, you won’t have to collect and redistribute taxes to reap the benefits because the project will already be helping the citizens most in need.”
“That’s kind of exactly the issue,” Oliver muttered, because the aldermen representing the wealthiest districts had been overjoyed at the prospect of benefiting from tax proceeds from a development in the Glades. “It doesn’t matter what I think anyway. I already had to recuse myself since my ex-wife’s company is presenting one of two proposals. If the vote ties, we start all over, and the chances of Felicity convincing her investment committee to approve this project twice, when, yeah, at best they might eventually break even, are pretty much nonexistent.”
“So convince them to do the right thing. You’re the mayor. That has to count for something.” Thea patted him lightly on the shoulder and then headed for the elevator. “Meetings start at seven tomorrow. Better get some beauty sleep, big brother.” And she was gone before Oliver realized that she’d effectively distracted him from yelling at her.
Immediately, he pulled out his phone to call her. “I thought it would take you longer to notice,” she drily noted, not even bothering with a greeting. “Look, I can’t take back what I did. Just tell her and try to focus on the positive side.”
“What positive side?” Oliver grumbled. As far as he could tell, Thea had left him between a rock and a righteously pissed off ex-wife.
“If I think of anything, I’ll let you know tomorrow morning.”
I need to talk to you
Felicity frowned down at her phone. She’d been riding a high from the positive feedback surrounding the A&T center application (they were still working on a catchy name because Smoak Tech Grow Facility, as Curtis had suggested, was just no). PR had released her statement once the proposal had been officially filed, and her poor assistant had been fielding follow-up inquiries ever since. With all the buzz, the strategic planning committee had been able to secure commitments from the partners—namely Star City’s celebrity chefs and an urban gardening non-profit with federal funding—that they had pretty much bluffed about in the overnight application.
The last person she expected to harsh her mellow, especially after the awkward everything of last night, was her ex-husband. Like a(nother) fire in Applied Sciences would have been more likely. If he was going to throw a hissy fit about her sneaking in a (winning) proposal despite the rigged rules and almost-corrupt aldermen, well, she just didn’t want to hear it. But she decided to be an adult about it—because potential vigilante business—opening up Team Arrow’s encrypted messenger app to respond.
Can’t. Ex parte communications, remember?
Wanting to focus back on her celebratory movie night with Thea, Felicity shut down the app, startling when her phone immediately pinged with successive notifications. Hmm, Oliver must have been working on his texting speed.
Not the application
I already recused myself. Turns out ex-wives are conflicts of interest
And since when does ST have an agriculture division?
She snorted in disbelief. One, because “conflict of interest” was one description of herself she never would have predicted, and two, because of course Oliver would be aware of how she’d commissioned a new division just to save the community center.
Since yesterday. What do you want to talk about?
It’s personal. Can you not be difficult?
I just want an idea of what I’m walking into. And if it’s personal, maybe don’t use Orion to talk about it
We’re not calling it that
When you build the apps, you can name them. When/where?
I’ll bring dinner to yours. BBB? 7 tomorrow?
Resisting the urge to lob back a snarky comment about interfering with his date nights, Felicity sent back a quick agreement, tossing her phone on the coffee table then turning to Thea. “Do you know why Oliver wants to talk to me?”
Thea paused in the act of stuffing a handful of popcorn in her mouth and faced her with a carefully blank expression. “Is that who you were texting? I thought it was you know who.”
“No, it was Oliver on Orion. You know what that notification sounds like,” she returned slowly, now suspicious of her sister-in-law.
The brunette bit down on her bottom lip and took a moment to collect herself. “Right, I’m being shady. Sorry. I talked to him last night and he said he was going to start focusing on the positive side of things,” Thea fibbed casually, but she couldn’t bring herself to reveal the lie to Felicity just yet, not if Oliver was going to bite the bullet. “I can’t think of what that means between the two of you. Did he give you any hints?”
Taking her own handful of popcorn, Felicity shot her a disbelieving look. “Did you just ask me if Oliver willingly shared information?”
“What was I thinking?” Thea added sarcastically. “So. Is this the first real talk since the divorce?”
“Thea, if this is a real talk, it’s going to be the first one in like five years. Talking to that man is like talking to a brick wall,” she scoffed, waving her hand dismissively since Thea was now officially the living person who’d known him the longest.
Regarding her sister cautiously, Thea ventured, with a forced casualness, “Is that why you asked for the divorce?” Felicity had never really wanted to talk about it, concerned with somehow interfering with the siblings’ relationship, but ever since she’d started messaging not-Oliver, she had seemed to relax a bit, unintentionally dropping details about her pent-up frustrations.
“Because doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity?” she quipped, taking a long drink from her wine. “Pretty much, yeah. He’s impossible to have a conversation with. Every once in a while, he would actually listen to something I’d say, and I’d get all excited, like look at us being mature adults who consult their spouses and don’t run off fully-cocked with a half-baked idea. Then two days later, it was back to the same old routine. Remember how we talked him out of going after that gang of drug runners on his own and then literally the next day he jumped into that deal with the foreign investors because of the pressure to do something with the property by the docks?”
“And then later that week you uncovered the paper trail that the investors had been bankrolling the drug runners and were just going to use the property as cover for middle of the night drug shipments?” Thea filled in. “Boy, do I remember that one.” She wisely didn’t mention the knock-down, drag-out fight that happened in the bunker right after, or accidentally walking in on the angry sex afterwards. There were things a little sister could live without seeing.
“Maybe I should have tried harder. No, I know I should have tried harder. I was just so tired of being ignored because Oliver knows best even though he’s clearly not using all of his resources to their full extent.” On top of being dangerous, it just wasn’t efficient, and that was something her logician’s mind couldn’t comprehend. ”And it’s not like I enjoy being a nag. Once it was obvious Oliver wasn’t listening to me, I just spent more time at work where my opinion actually counted for something.”
Thea pulled a face. She knew Oliver sometimes, a lot of the time, ignored her input, but she figured that was just her burden to bear as a younger sibling. She didn’t realize he’d been so far gone as to ignore Felicity, whose tiny ire usually stopped him in his overbearing tracks. “Is that why you fed me the “too busy” and “too complicated” excuse?”
Felicity just shrugged tiredly. “We stopped fighting for each other, stopped making each other better people. I guess we could have gone on like that, but I hated coming home and seeing him so defeated. And every time I tried to help, his eyes would just glaze over, and I knew he was assuming that I didn’t believe in him or trust his judgment. So, no, actually, I guess I couldn’t have gone on like that.”
With a heavy sigh, Thea scooted over from the other end of the couch and wrapped her arms around her friend. “It’ll get better, I know it will.”
It had been both enlightening and depressing going back through the messages they’d exchanged, knowing that they were Felicity’s thoughts. On life, the future, the purpose of marriage, and, yes, the demise of theirs. He hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten from her perspective. Although there hadn’t been a clear, defining moment per se that lead to her asking for a divorce, the daily devastation of living with a man who had seemingly forgotten about her had taken its toll. How did she put it? Slight offenses had a tendency to compound.
He knew he hadn’t forgotten about Felicity—that would be like forgetting his right arm, or his heart—but maybe he’d started taking her for granted. And maybe he had been pulling away, trying to do too much on his own, and not appreciating the efforts and contributions of the team and the mayoral staff. Now that he’d heard her grievances with an open mind, because it had been somehow easier to be sympathetic to a stranger than the woman he’d loved for years, he could fix them, and they could get back together. There was only the small matter of convincing Felicity to not kill him for Thea’s deception.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Oliver knocked on her front door. She hadn’t wanted to stay in the loft, and eventually neither had he, and had bought her own townhouse just as the divorce was being finalized. While he knew her address, and more than occasionally went by on his Green Arrow route, he’d never actually been inside (unless memorizing blueprints at the building department counted).
When the door opened, the breath was pretty much knocked right back out of him. Those times she’d been by City Hall to harass him had been work days, and she’d been clad in her usual professional attire, which was more than appealing in its own way. Here, Felicity was distractingly casual: old MIT sweatshirt, leggings, loose hair, and glasses knocked slightly askew so that he instinctively reached out to straighten them for her, forgetting that his hands were full. Instead, Oliver ended up raising the bag of burgers and a mint chocolate chip milkshake and pretended he’d been holding them out in lieu of a greeting.
Felicity took the shake and even managed to quirk a grin at him. “Hi. Come on in.” He followed her to the kitchen island where she had set out some water glasses and plopped the greased-laden bag down. “Did you want a tour or—” she trailed off realizing the awkwardness of what she was suggesting.
Oliver was grateful for his usually stoic expression, because he had a pretty great mental image of what could happen if Felicity’s tour included her bedroom. Just so many new, untested surfaces. “Uh, probably not. Do you want to eat first or talk?” Still slightly flushed, she just lifted a shoulder as if to say your show, up to you. “Right, well, let’s maybe sit at least.”
“This sounds serious. Head over to the couches, I’ll bring wine.” He followed her pointed finger to a spacious living room and uncomfortably perched on the end of a couch. Moments later, she appeared, juggling two glasses and an open bottle, handing him one and setting the bottle down before curling up in a nearby armchair.
“Okay,” Oliver began slowly when she just stared at him, “I realized something the other night. And since it involves you, too, I wanted to be honest with you about it.” Felicity thought she was being very valiant by not breaking into hysterical laughter at Oliver’s offer of honesty. “I guess I should start at the beginning. After you moved out and the divorce was final, I wasn’t doing great. I spent a lot of time in the bunker because Thea would have killed me if the mayor had gone out and gotten drunk. Anyway, she found me down there one night.” Waiting to die, Felicity mentally filled in because this was a conversation she was very familiar with. “She was fed up and kind of desperate to get me out of there, which is why I didn’t really question her at the time. But she told me about a woman.”
“Oh.” Felicity didn’t really know what reaction she was having. On the one hand, she knew Oliver was dating, had seen it with her own eyes, but on the other, she had no idea why he wanted to have a sit-down conversation with his ex-wife about it. “The woman you’ve been dating.”
“Sort of. It’s—complicated. Thea said she was a friend from her yoga class, recently divorced, wanting to get back out there but not looking for anything serious yet. She’d given her my number.” Oliver watched her carefully, to see if she had any reaction, any indication that Thea had pulled a similar trick on her.
“Oliver, I really don’t want to hear this, okay?” Shakily depositing her wine glass on the coffee table, Felicity pushed to her feet and started pacing in front of the TV. “I know I’m the one who asked for the divorce, but it’s not like I stopped loving you. I just couldn’t live with you anymore. That sounds a lot harsher than I meant it to be but, come on, don’t do this to me.”
“No, wait,” he held up his hands, and she suddenly drew to a stop, for some reason fixating on his hands. It dawned on him too late what she wasn’t seeing, and he quickly continued to divert her attention, “I have a point. I just don’t know how to get there without making you very angry.”
“Well, right now, you are torturing me,” Felicity choked out, unexpectedly torn up by the realization that he no longer wore a wedding ring. Of course, he didn’t, and neither did she, but somehow it was devastating to process. “Could you just fast forward to your point?”
Oliver opened his mouth but had to start again, then finally, “You, you’re the woman I’ve been dating.” Felicity just blinked at him before shaking her head no. “Nothing about that story about Thea sounded familiar?”
“No, we don’t talk about you,” then she remembered the night before, “much. You went on a date like three nights ago. I definitely wasn’t there because I was suppo—I was on my own date.”
“No, you weren’t. You texted me about standing you up, and when I realized it was you, I panicked and lied about a family emergency. Do you want to see my phone? It’s all there. Everything you’ve ever told me.” Oliver watched as she, completely pale, sank back down onto the couch and silently but very clearly mouthed fuck.
“Everything you thought you were telling a stranger about our marriage, about why you ended it? God, Felicity, I am so sorry. I had no idea you felt that way. I had no idea I was making you feel that way. Why didn’t you just talk to me?” He heard the begging tone in his voice but couldn’t hold it back.
“About how you made me feel? What about how I made you feel?” Felicity was slightly dismayed, remembering how bad she’d felt for the stranger on the other end. And all that time, it had been her doing. She shook her head to get back on track. “And you didn’t want to hear it.”
His forehead crinkled in confusion, both at her brief bout of despair and the accusation. “Your voice is pretty much my favorite sound in the world. Why do you think I wouldn’t want to hear it?”
“We’ve been over this, Oliver.” Felicity gestured helplessly at their phones, innocently sitting next to each other on her coffee table.
“No, we haven’t,” he disagreed, picking up a phone and then setting it back down again before he threw it at a wall. “We’ve been over how we made each other feel, and we’ve been over why you asked for a divorce and why I didn’t fight it. We have not been over why you projected your feelings onto me.”
That raised her hackles, and she exhaled a harsh laugh. “I didn’t need to project. Your actions spoke plenty, and all they said was that my input was not desired.”
“You’ve never had an issue speaking your mind before,” Oliver countered knowing he had history on his side. She just hadn’t, not from the moment he met her and especially if it was to put him in his place.
“Well, that was before you stopped valuing my input, before you ignored every suggestion I made. I wasn’t going to keep giving you my unsolicited thoughts when they clearly had zero impact on your final decision. In fact, no one’s did. Not Thea’s, not John’s, not the rest of the team’s.”
He shook his head quickly in denial. No, these were people he cared about—yes, even still Felicity. Of course their opinions meant the world to him. She had to be wrong. “They don’t seem to have a problem with my decision-making.
“Oliver, the rest of the team signed on knowing they’d be taking orders from you, but you agreed a long time ago that John and I didn’t work for you, we were your partners. When that stopped being true is when I started having issues. If we didn’t go along with your plan, it was clear you’d go off and do it by yourself. So, yes, eventually we just went along with things so you at least had backup. Our pride has never been worth your life, Oliver. Doesn’t mean I enjoyed living with a man who had to be placated at every turn or else he’d go on a suicide mission after selling the city down the river. I mean, clearly I didn’t.” Felicity had lost some of her steam by the end and fidgeted uncomfortably as Oliver visibly searched for a response to everything she’d unloaded.
Finally, he blew out a deep sigh, cutting to the heart of the matter. “I wouldn’t have acted like that if you would just trust me. That’s what—I could tell, near the end, that you didn’t anymore and I couldn’t—I just couldn’t deal with that.”
“Of course I trust you.” Felicity implored, but it just sounded like hollow placating to his ears, which was reinforced by her next words, “But you’re not always the expert and you refuse to even consider the suggestions of people who in certain areas have more experience and knowledge than you. I know you feel pressured to know all things and be all things as the mayor—I go through it, too, as CEO—but I don’t disregard my financial advisors just to maintain my authority when I’m obviously not a finance expert.”
Something about her—their—approach to this conversation—argument—was setting him on edge, and Oliver felt his mouth twist as he responded, “Yeah? And how do your advisors feel about the Smoak Tech Grow Facility? Because mine crunched the numbers and that concept will be lucky to break even ever.”
She made a face at the name that had already been vetoed by common sense. “I already told Curtis we are not calling it that. And goodwill and community support aren’t always quantifiable, Oliver. This project will enrich the community and provide resources the government is failing to provide, all while diversifying ST’s portfolio. The investors have nothing to complain about,” Felicity finished with a decisive nod. The PR department had done an excellent job pulling out the positive aspects of the deal while downplaying the high risk nature of the investment. After all, Smoak Tech was known for innovations in biomedical and renewable energy technology, not the already crowded agricultural sector.
He scoffed at her self-satisfied response, “And I’m high-handed and incapable of taking criticism? Do you hear yourself? And you wonder why I spent so much time feeling inadequate in our marriage, like I was constantly disappointing you.” Oliver shot to his feet, angrily pacing in front of the television, while she seemingly deflated before his eyes.
“Oliver,” immediately she lost the remainder of her defensive posture as she softly drew out his name in the way he loved, “I was only ever frustrated and, yes, disappointed when you refused to let us help you. You insist on taking on so many of our burdens—and the city’s burdens—but you never let us do the same for you. It made me wonder what kind of terrible wife I was if you didn’t trust me to help with your problems.”
“You helped,” Oliver responded gruffly, extending and then dropping a hand uselessly. “You helped just by being there.”
“I liked to think I did. But every time you came home from a setback, you were just so defeated and you kept withdrawing into yourself. Eventually, it felt like you didn’t want me around at all. I honestly didn’t know if you would notice when I left.” When he made a noise of protest, Felicity sighed heavily, “I’m not saying all of this again to hurt you. It’s just—I couldn’t exactly tell a stranger that I left my superhero husband because he’d rather go on a suicide mission than ask for help and I couldn’t be complicit in his self-destruction anymore. That one’s a little hard to explain.”
Disarmed by her weary honesty, he buried his hands in his pockets and ducked his head. “I double downed on that behavior because I couldn’t stand that disappointed look in your eye. I felt like I needed to get a victory on my own, as mayor, as the Green Arrow, whoever, to bring you back to me.”
“That wasn’t it at all,” she responded tiredly, finally reaching for words that had affected him once, “I told you once that I wanted more out of life than to sit in a basement waiting to die, turns out I want more out of life than to sit in a basement with a front row seat to watch my husband get himself killed.”
Oliver was stricken by the real fear in her eyes but he still couldn’t help but scoff, “How’s it look from the nosebleeds?”
“I listen every night. You know that.” She must have read his genuine shock because Felicity shook her head sadly, “No, it hasn’t gotten any easier. I meant it when I said I haven’t stopped loving you, Oliver. But this marriage, this relationship, was unsustainable. Our break up wasn’t external circumstances—it wasn’t Will and Samantha part two—it was a fundamental difference in how we approached this relationship. Actually, maybe it is Will and Samantha all over again, your first instinct is to go it alone. Every time I thought you were starting to give me due consideration as your partner, you’d go back to the same old behavior the next time Something Terrible was about to happen.”
Clenching his jaw, Oliver bit down his initial reaction. They were talking in circles, about things they both already knew and knew how to fix, when all he wanted was to get to the happy ending. “Okay, I hear you. Can we be together again?”
“That’s it? It’s that easy for you? You agreed to the divorce for a reason, the same stupid reason that kept us from getting together at the beginning, but still. It’s not like that’s gone away for you.” Apparently, a decade of loving the man pretty much unconditionally—all she wanted in return was his love and trust—hadn’t cured him of the misguided belief that she deserved better than him.
“I don’t care if it’s hard,” Oliver glossed over her latter point because if she were reckless enough to still want him, then fine, his insecurities could jump off a cliff. “I just want to be with you. The real reason I didn’t fight is because you asked me to let you go, Felicity. I told you once that if it’s you asking, I’ll do it, and I wasn’t going to tie you to me if you wanted to leave. But you didn’t want to leave, you wanted me to be better and you didn’t know how to ask for it or I wasn’t listening well enough. Whatever the case, I know now and I’ll do what it takes.”
Speechless, Felicity continued to shake her head. Oliver didn’t know if it was in rejection of his offer or pure disbelief. “We can’t just go back to the way things were.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he immediately countered because she wasn’t listening to him, “I’m saying I’ll try harder and it’ll be better.”
“I want to believe you, but you’ve said that before, Oliver. Too many times.” Instead of continuing, she shrugged and smiled sadly at him.
Felicity would never say outright that she didn’t believe him, Oliver had always known that. But he was just now realizing that he’d run the end of her patience, her trust in his words. He felt like he’d been struck by lightning, finally understanding that she was no longer taking his words at face value, not when his actions had taught her to expect the opposite over the years. “There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?” he questioned with a resigned air.
“Oliver,” her tone pleaded with him. She didn’t want to deal the last blow, words that might destroy the fragile remains of the friendship they were unsuccessfully clinging to. Because, god, sometimes, most of the time, her words were all he needed to survive. Then again, she had never mastered the art of speaking in half-truths and subtle omissions like he had; he could rely on her words in a way she couldn’t on his.
Finally, he held his hands up in surrender and gave her a smile that felt like a grimace. He left her standing in her living room, unknown to her but buoyed by a small hope. There was nothing he could say, but maybe there was something he could do.
Harold Faraday just dropped off a suspiciously large donation for the Glades Memorial Fund. Residual guilt? Bribe? Would you look into him?
There had been a few days of radio silence after Oliver had left her house, Thea filling in in the meantime to beg her forgiveness, but then the messages started coming in. Not from his regular phone number but over Orion. Little questions drawing her back into Arrow business, asking for her initial thoughts or to confirm his suspicions. Felicity knew what he was doing, trying to engage her as his partner in vigilantism again, and she had to admit it was starting to work.
When she had told him there was nothing he could say to change her mind, she hadn’t considered that he would start doing things differently. Or that it would force her to analyze what she could have done differently.
It had taken her a week to work up the courage to dig back through the messages they’d exchanged as strangers, to confront Oliver’s own grievances with their marriage. In her armchair psychologist opinion, the man experienced a surprisingly deep level of imposter syndrome. He’d spoken about it in more generalized terms, but her early victories for Palmer Tech had played on his old insecurities that he wasn’t good enough for her, that he was dragging her down, especially since at the time he’d been struggling to keep his head above water as mayor. Felicity had often stayed silent during those days, because the more spectacular disappointments usually came when he’d gone against her or John’s or Thea’s advice, and she hadn’t wanted to make him feel guiltier. Apparently, her silence had been damning enough because Oliver had read it as an I told you so and withdrew further into himself. It’d been why he hadn’t fought the divorce; he’d been trying to free her of the shackles of a husband who couldn’t keep up. Which was all to say her supportive (ex-)wife and best friend skills needed some serious polishing.
So she’d responded to his inquiries, reluctantly charmed when he took her advice. Moreover, the team had started to drop little tidbits about the new, improved Oliver. That he stopped arguing with Dinah when she wanted to call SCPD for assistance, that he no longer second-guessed Curtis’ inventions in the field, that he collaborated with John on strategy, that he actually read the staff reports Thea left in his inbox, instead of relying solely on his own knee jerk reactions in all situations. They had sworn up and down that Oliver hadn’t asked them to play messenger, instead they were truly confused by the change in their stubborn leader.
Felicity had denied any interference. But she had sent Oliver messages whenever someone was excited about a successful mission off their short leash, for lack of a better term, or whenever she came across a headline about Mayor Handsome’s latest success. She’d also been quick to offer her assistance when something went sideways and was gratified when Oliver either accepted it or clued her in to who was helping him. He’d responded in kind, messengering food over when Curtis must have told him that she’d fallen into a work blackhole and subtly promoting his personal desire to retain the spirit of the community center in the new development during the lead up to the city council hearing.
It felt like the old days, when they were in sync and barely needed to look at each other to know what the other was thinking. The only difference was the unavoidable barrier of how they weren’t actually speaking and definitely weren’t ever in the same room to be exchanging looks. It was something she intended to face head on by texting Oliver, not the Green Arrow, with a request to meet.
“Hi,” Felicity exhaled, taking comfort from how Dig’s massive arms wrapped around her in his usual tight hug. “No Lyla today?” She’d been hoping to use the unflappable woman as a buffer against all of John’s knowing looks and feelings. Damn this man for being so unapologetically in touch with his feelings.
“No, she got called in,” Dig replied before lifting a knowing eyebrow at her shifty eyes. “You want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I texted Oliver, and we’re going to have a lovely, civil, adult conversation about our future. Not as a couple, as partners in vigilante’ing,” Felicity was quick to clarify. As much as she loved John’s sage advice, this was a little heavy of a conversation topic for their weekly lunch.
“I really doubt that,” he muttered under his breath but Felicity shot him a dirty look that told him he’d been caught. “Look, as a guy who’s been married to the same woman twice, can I just say my piece?” Felicity shrugged and gestured for him to continue. “Lyla and I divorced because we couldn’t figure out how to make life work as civilians—semi-civilians, I guess. Obviously, we didn’t stop caring about, loving, each other. She once joked that the only difference was that she checked the ‘single’ box for her taxes and even then her accountant had to keep reminding her. When we gave it another shot, life hadn’t gotten easier or less complicated. In a lot of ways, it was more of both those things. What did change was us.”
When Felicity rolled her eyes, Dig gave her a dry look before continuing, “We knew what we needed to do different to provide for each other. I don’t mean in the traditional, financial sense; I mean to provide emotional support, to feel like we were both fulfilled and content in our marriage. And we committed to doing those things, no matter how uncomfortable it made us, or really how many laws it broke to say things out loud.”
“See that’s the problem,” she countered, not finding any reassurances in the feel-good ending of John and Lyla’s troubled romance. “When we got back together after that long break, Oliver said all the right things and he even followed through for a while, but you know how it’s ended up. It didn’t take him long to revert to form, do crap like give out information piecemeal for our own “protection”. He says he’s willing and ready to communicate, to actually exchange ideas, now, but what’s that going to look like in six months?”
Diggle just shook his head at her. “There are no guarantees in life, you know that as well as anyone. But it is pretty much guaranteed that you and Oliver will always love each other. Whether you guys continue to express that in ways that bring each other happiness is a leap of faith and a commitment to adaptation that you’re going to have to make. Felicity, I’m asking this as an honest question, and I don’t mean it in a bad way. But are you even willing to do that? It’s fine if you’re not but be honest, because this sounds a lot like when you try to leave someone before they can leave you. I know I promised not to bring up the puppy again, but do I need to bring up the puppy?”
“No,” she pulled a face before gesturing uselessly with her hands, “This isn’t... Oh, shit.” Her hands flapped for another moment before she let them fall to her side. “You know what happens when I feel abandoned.” Felicity tried for a nonchalant tone but Dig ruined any chance of that with his response.
“You run off and join super shady underground organizations named Helix and commit international cybercrimes on a scale the world has never seen before? I mean when Lyla was cutting your deal with the interim director of the NSA—you know, since the existing one had been fired for his complete and utter incompetence in stopping you—he said they’d faced attempts at global anarchy before, but what you were doing was just showing off.”
“I don’t really know what to say to that, but it explains a whole lot about why Lyla’s been handling me with kid gloves,” Felicity grimaced. She and Lyla had always treated each other with mutual respect for one another’s skills and genuine affection, especially as people important to John Diggle, but ever since the incident, she sometimes felt like the other woman had adopted a more cautious attitude around her. ”Good thing I snagged that list of known terrorists and their locations to use as a bargaining chip.”
“Right.” Dig’s reply was deadpan, and he crossed his arms over his chest to convey his disapproval. “Because we’ve discussed this. Guantanamo’s probably not the best place for you.”
“That was a joke,” Felicity responded weakly after mentally digging up the memory of their early days in the Foundry. Dig just raised his eyebrows, silently telling her how close her quip had come to being a prediction. “Right, okay, I hear you. Talk to Oliver and no lashing out.”
“Hey,” he breathed out in that oh-so-familiar tone. His eyes were bright in a way that they hadn’t been in so long, and she smiled at his smile. Oliver was obviously feeling optimistic, and, well, she couldn’t say that he was wrong.
“Thanks for meeting with me.” Felicity awkwardly shuffled past him in the doorway, once it was clear that he wasn’t going to give her more space to pass.
Her shoulder brushed against his chest, and he sucked in a minute breath before responding. “Sure, no problem. Can I get you anything?” he asked as she took in the sparse surroundings of his apartment’s living room.
“No, that’s okay. I just wanted to talk. I know we sort of laid everything bare last time, but I don’t know that we ended up on the same page.” His bright eyes shuttered at that, and she knew he was bracing for a rejection of his changed behavior over the last month. She needed to ease into this. “I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting you to continue reaching out. But it’s been nice, great actually. I hadn’t realized how much I missed being a part of the team.”
“I’ve—we’ve missed you,” Oliver quickly corrected himself with a slight head shake.
“Thanks,” Felicity returned softly. “Look, I appreciate everything you’ve been doing, and I think I’ll come back—that’s not really the right wording. I mean, I won’t—I’ll come hang out in the Arrow cave some more.”
“You won’t avoid it anymore,” he filled in bluntly, and she lifted a shoulder in acquiescence. “I need to tell you something, too. You were right.”
Felicity dropped her purse in shock, and Oliver rolled his eyes at her dramatics. “What did you say?”
“You were right,” he grumbled this time. “When we talked, I said I’d do better, but I didn’t really acknowledge that you were right. I’d been taking on too much because I felt like I had to prove I could do it all on my own. You said there was nothing I could say to change your mind, but you didn’t say there was nothing I could do. So I tried doing things differently this past month, and, yes, I started off trying to prove to you I could, but it’s been better. The team’s more cohesive and functional; the staff collaborates more and isn’t afraid to suggest new ideas. Sure, sometimes it doesn’t work that well, but when it does—”
Felicity stepped closer and reached for his hand, and he stilled when she gently made contact. “I’m glad. I’m so glad,” her smile was tremulous, “All I’ve ever wanted was to make things easier for you.”
Oliver couldn’t help the sardonic laugh, because then why had she divorced him? How was that supposed to make his life easier? Right, because she’d needed to make her life easier, and he couldn’t expect Felicity to continue to dedicate her life to his when he wasn’t giving her the same consideration in return.
“While we’re on the subject of hard truths, I’ve got some of my own. I said a lot about the things I felt you were doing wrong in our marriage, but I didn’t ever actually admit to my own faults.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “I cut and ran on you, Oliver. We promised each other always, and I didn’t live up to that. You know my abandonment issues better than anyone, and every time you ignored me, I felt like you were shutting me out, leaving me, bit by bit, day by day. The divorce was me trying to leave you before you could leave me entirely. It was cowardly and unfair.”
Instinctively, he reached out to draw her to him. To his surprise, Felicity willingly huddled against his chest, fitting as perfectly as she always had. “I’m sorry. I thought that might’ve had something to do with it, but I shouldn’t have ever made you feel abandoned in the first place. The last thing I would have ever done was leave you. It’s been hell staying away from you since the divorce.” Her quiet cry of relief was absorbed into his chest, and he shivered in response to the heart-wrenching sound, tightening his arms around her in hopes of comfort.
“I’m sorry that I made you feel like you had something to prove, especially when I’ve spent a decade trying to drill it into your head that you’re enough. Just you.” She had raised her head off his shirt enough so that he could hear her drained apology, but his relieved exhale came when she fully looked up at him and her hand reached up to run along his scruff. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t try harder to talk things through.”
Oliver just sighed because she hadn’t been alone there. “Neither of us did, really. Listened to the silence too well, I guess, and heard things that weren’t even being said.”
“That’s how we did it at the beginning, remember?” Felicity offered, giving him a fond smile for what seemed like simpler times. “Looks and little touches to say the things we were too scared to say out loud. I guess that doesn’t always work once you’re actually married and need to discuss your relationship.”
“No, I guess not.” He was hesitant to let the next words fall from his lips but this conversation, now that they were actually hearing and listening to each other, was miles ahead of last month’s. “But we can do better?”
Felicity nodded emphatically in agreement, excited eyes telling him everything he needed to know. “I’d like to try again if—”
“Yes,” Oliver mumbled against her lips, as if the quick (and hot and dirty) kiss hadn’t been enough of an answer. He almost pulled back, realizing he was being presumptuous that she was agreeing to their relationship again, instead of just a friendship or partnership, when he saw her slightly dazed, but still elated, expression.
“Okay,” Felicity agreed with a sly smile, “Let’s start with an easy one. Instead of undressing you with my eyes and waiting for you to take a hint, I’ll say something like, “Shirt off now.” And you’ll—”
He gave her a smug grin when her words died in her throat as he swiftly pulled off his henley. “Oh, I have missed you,” she muttered, hands automatically landing on his bare chest to trace the length of a new scar below his Bratva tattoo that angled toward his sternum.
Unexpectedly, her eyes grew wet with tears, and Oliver hastened to reassure her, “It was just a close call. I’m still here. With you.”
Huffing out a chuckle reminiscent of his, Felicity turned her cheek more fully into the hand that had immediately reached up to comfort her. “That’s not it. I mean, I’m happy you’re here, with me. It’s just—I wasn’t there for this one. I was supposed to be there for you, for all your scars.”
Oliver was unsure of what to do for a moment before he quirked a smile at her. “Want to learn the new ones?” And just like that, Felicity was all bright happiness again, laughing out a hell yes before pushing him onto the couch to straddle his lap.