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Felicity woke up slowly, her mouth dry and tasting of cotton. There was a beeping noise ringing from above, high and loud and not at all like the sound of her own alarm, which chirped, because that, at least, didn’t startle Oliver when he stayed over. The weight on her back told her he had last night, probably sneaking in through her window after patrol, which was why she was surprised he hadn’t leapt out of bed, ready to attack, looking half-way crazed. She frowned, however, when the arm around her felt particularly cold and not as pliant as Oliver’s did. Sure, Oliver’s arm was firm —it was all muscle and sinew— but this felt different, strange.
She lifted her head from her pillow and blinked, reaching an arm out toward where her alarm clock usually sat. She must’ve set it to the wrong dial. Only she didn’t find an alarm clock, instead knocking a thin book and a pair of glasses off the end table before smacking her knuckles against a lamp. She frowned. That wasn’t right. She always put her glasses away in their case, beside her tablet in the drawer.
Raising her head, she stared at the end table that looked nothing like her own, or like the one at Oliver’s penthouse. What the hell? There was no clock, no TARDIS collectible, no framed picture of her, Oliver, John, Sara and Roy. But there was a picture; one of a woman, with glasses and dark brown hair, her arm slung around the shoulders of another woman, slim with straight hair. Weird…
She pushed up to her elbows and the high-pitched alarm suddenly stopped, as if triggered to end only when she moved to get up. Blinking, she grabbed the glasses off the floor and shoved them on, but the prescription was all wrong and everything was just a blurred mess that was on its way to giving her the mother of all headaches. She put the glasses back down on the table and rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She hated being confused and this was just one giant ball of confusing.
Suddenly, a hand was skimming up her back, cold but gentle, a thumb rubbing circles. “Go back to sleep,” a voice mumbled.
Felicity went still.
That wasn’t Oliver’s voice. That wasn’t even Oliver’s ‘so tired it sounds like I’ve been eating gravel’ voice. That was someone else entirely. She stiffened, casting her eyes around the unfamiliar room, dressed mostly in warm colors, where her room was all bright.
She tried to remember what happened the night before, but she was blanking. She’d been reading, hadn’t she? She’d stopped by the comic book store and picked up a new issue of Stark Tower: Avengers Adventures. Sure, it was mostly domestic fluff, interspersed with the odd bad guy, but that was kind of nice sometimes, since she lived the high-adrenaline life already and would much rather read the lighthearted stuff where the heroes had normal lives and problems and significant others. But that didn’t explain why she was in a strange apartment, in bed with someone who wasn’t Oliver.
She inched to the side, happy, at least, to find that she was still wearing her pajamas. The hand on her back slipped out from her shirt as she shifted, and she hoped he’d stay where he was, because she had no idea what was going on and she wanted some space between her and whoever he was to get an idea of what she was going to do.
Digg, she decided. She’d call Digg.
She barely made it off the bed before her strange bedfellow shifted, stretching out and turning over onto his back.
She looked back at him, his head stuffed under a pillow, and would definitely deny it if ever asked, but couldn’t help but take a moment to admire the sight of the body in front of her. Much like Oliver, this body was made for fighting, hard packed, firm muscle moved under tanned skin, littered with scars. Not nearly as many as Oliver, but enough to tell her he’d been through more than his share of scrapes. It was the metal arm that grabbed her attention, however. And the scraped up red star near the top of it.
She nearly fainted at the sight.
Not because prosthetics freaked her out. They didn’t. What kind of person would she be if they did? But because she knew that arm and that star, only it wasn’t supposed to be real. It was supposed to be very not real. As in fictional. Like, from her comic books fictional.
She must have made a noise, of the distressed variety, because he went still for a moment, and then the pillow was not over his head and he was no longer on the bed, and he was very, very aware that she was not supposed to be there.
She squeaked, backing up two steps before suddenly she was pinned against the wall with a knife at her throat. Where the hell he got the knife, she had no idea. She shouldn’t be surprised, though, because Winter Soldier.
Oh my God, she bemoaned in her head, the Winter Soldier is going to kill me!
She thought, or tried to think, of a way to keep that from happening, except there was a man with murder in his eyes and he was looking at her like there was no one more than her that he wanted dead. His lips moved, sneering at her in Russian, and it took her a second to catch up. These weren’t the affectionate words that Oliver used with her, the husky sound of his voice making her thighs shake. These were threats. These were the kind of thing Oliver spat at enemies or the Bratva when they weren’t doing what he wanted.
The knife was close enough to her neck that she feared breathing too deeply in case it meant slitting her own throat. She blinked, thinking back to her comic books, and tried to think of something that wouldn’t set him off. Bucky. His name was Bucky. But only certain people used that name. Some used James or Barnes, but even that seemed too familiar. So not his name then, maybe a different approach.
"Darcy," she said. "Darcy Lewis. That— That’s who I— I mean that’s who you were looking for. Instead of me."
He was with Darcy in the comic book. He’d been dating her for two years now; that had to be who he was expecting to see when he turned over.
“Where is she?" he demanded, his eyes wide and wild.
Oh God, don’t poke the bear! her mind cried.
"I-I don’t know. I don’t—" But when he bared his teeth at her, she stopped, letting out a whimper. "Please, please, my- my name is Felicity Smoak. I’m 30 years old. I’m a tech specialist. I went to sleep in my bed, at home, in Starling City. I have no idea why I’m here. Please, I didn’t do anything."
He stared at her, still a little feral and angry, but she felt the pressure of his cybernetic arm ease up a bit across her chest. “Felicity Smoak,” he repeated, his brow furrowed, eyes darting to the left. And then he scowled. “Like the girl in her comic book.” His arm pressed against her again, enough that it hurt. “Try again, дорогая.”
Oh! She knew that one! Sweetheart! Oliver called her that, absently, mostly, when she said something that sparked an idea in his head.
"I’m not lying, please! I… You said comic book, right?" She nodded quickly. "I was reading one, too, before bed. About— About the Avengers. About you! Um, it- it was you and Darcy. You were falling asleep. You call her… God, my Russian sucks, um, kotyonok.”
His lip curled viciously. “You bugged us.”
"No, no, I…" Think, Felicity, Think! Oh. Oh! "There was a think-bubble. You were… You were thinking about asking her to marry you. You saw this ring. I… It reminded you of a ring your mom used to wear. It had three pearls!"
His head reared back slightly, his eyes down. “I never told anybody that… Not even Steve.”
"Please, it was in the comic book. You, all of you, are in the book. I was just trying to get some light reading in before bed. It was a new issue. I don’t have the most low-key life; I just wanted to relax."
He took the knife back from her throat just an inch, but enough for her to sag a little, breathing in deeply.
Felicity squinted up at him, wishing she had her glasses. He didn’t look quite as murderous as before, but ‘not quite’ wasn’t ‘not at all.’ It dawned on her, suddenly, that if she was here, that meant Darcy might be in her home, which, depending on Oliver’s schedule, meant she could be having a life-threatening conversation right about now, too.
"I’m telling the truth," she said. "I know it sounds crazy, but I am. You don’t know me, and I only know you on paper, but I think we can help each other. I don’t know how, not yet, but… If you’ll just give me a minute to think…”
He stepped back from her slowly, flipping the knife around in his fingers, a gesture made more to remind her of how good he was with it than out of nerves.
She leaned against the wall, her knees shaking, and took a deep breath. “You… You said it was from her comic book? You recognized my name from it?”
He was still eyeing her skeptically, but he gave a short, mechanic nod.
"Can I… see it?" she wondered.
He didn’t answer right away, but he did move, crossing the room to the other side of the bed. He kept an eye on her as he did, bending to pick up the book she’d knocked off the end table in her search for the alarm clock. He held it up, showing her the front that read Arrow in green print, a comic-book drawing of Oliver on the front, his hood drawn back, with John and Roy at his back and her in the corner, holding a tablet and reaching up for her glasses.
She pointed. “In the corner. That’s me!”
His eyes darted down to the book cover, his lips set in a frown.
"I… In my comic books, at home, Darcy’s not on the cover. It’s mostly just you and the team. Well, except for a few issues that focused on all of the female characters kicking ass and saving the men in the process. They were some of the highest selling issues, actually." She shook her head. "Sorry, you probably don’t care about that. I just meant that in the comic books where I’m from, you’re fictional. You and the Avengers, you’re just… on paper. I mean, there are different universes, different plot lines, where it’s the same characters but different things happen. Like, Darcy, for instance, she’s not in a lot of them, not until recently. The last eight or so years. She was just a small part in the Thor comics, but then the Avengers picked up again, and she met you and, it was different, because usually you’re with Black Widow, but the writers tried something else this time and you and Darcy clicked and I— I don’t know I’m rambling.
“But… The important part is that here, I’m fictional. I— I don’t belong in this universe. But for some crazy reason, here I am, so… We need to fix that.” She winced. “In part because I might like reading about you guys, but I don’t actually want to live here. But also because I have a really protective partner back home who is definitely not going to take kindly to finding some strange woman in my house.”
He frowned darkly, his mouth turned down, and then he said, “JARVIS?”
"Yes, Agent Barnes?" the AI answered, drawing Felicity’s eyes to the ceiling.
"Tell Steve and the team to meet me in the conference room. We’ve got an in-house situation."
"Doing so now, Agent Barnes."
He stepped forward then, eyeing her speculatively. “I don’t know who you are and I don’t know if I believe your story… But if what you’re saying is true, then Darcy’s missing, maybe somewhere unsafe, which means you’re our best bet for getting her back.” His jaw ticked. “And I’ll do anything to get her back, do you understand?”
Felicity swallowed tightly “Unfortunately, yes.”
He nodded shortly.
And she sent up a little prayer that this whole fiasco would end quickly. Because yeah, Winter Soldier? Totally scarier in person.
Darcy woke up feeling like shit, and really pissed off at whatever bird thought it was his business to be chirping at her so damn loudly.
“Coffee,” she groaned, rubbing a hand over her face and sighing as she arched her back to stretch it out.
Reaching her leg over, she kicked Bucky. “Where’s your gun? Kill that asshole bird,” she muttered.
She expected a sleepy comeback about how sniping Clint was frowned upon and Tasha would probably take offense, but she didn’t get one.
Frowning, she rolled over, lifting her head, expecting to see Bucky’s buried under his pillow. Instead, she was met with someone else entirely. Stubble, yes, but not Bucky stubble. Blond stubble with short hair. He was hot, but not assassin hot. What the fuck?
She blinked once, twice, and then rolled herself out of the bed and reached instinctively for the drawer of the end table, expecting to find one of Bucky’s many guns or knives; he hid them all over the place. Instead, she found a tablet. Okay, not what she was expecting.
Only, yeah, wow, not her bedroom.
For a second, she was confused. There was no way she went home with some stranger last night. Because A) assassin, B) she distinctly remembered eating ice cream in bed while reading comic books and bugging Bucky to read them with her, and C) no.
Just no. No real reason. Just that she’d been in a long term relationship for two years now and while this guy was cut, he wasn’t her grumpy-pants assassin. Okay, so that was more detail than ‘no’ and it was mostly just an expansion on A, but whatever.
If she were smarter, or maybe just more awake, she might’ve reacted differently. She might’ve snuck out of the room and called for help or snooped around until she found some answers as to where she was and who she was with. But she was half-asleep, very confused, and she had exactly zero coffee in her. Which is totally what she blamed it on when she said, “Hey! Who the hell are you and where the hell am I?”
He startled, eyes opening abruptly. He only blinked once before he was up, shoulders hunched in that way she recognized meant ‘attack mode.’ The closest weapon she had was the tablet, so she brandished it like it would somehow fend him off and said, “I asked you a question.”
His eyes darted around, his brow furrowed. But then his gaze landed on something just behind her and he stood up straight, his expression dark. “Where’s Felicity?”
His tone was deep, demanding, and if she hadn’t spent the last few years in the company of people who sniped people for a living, she might’ve panicked at the very deadly warning there. But she did, so she just narrowed her eyes at him. “The hell should I know? I don’t even know where I am!”
He ground his teeth together. “Who are you?”
She paused, uncertain if she should answer. She tried to remember what Clint and Natasha told her to do when in a hostage situation, but it mostly boiled down to ‘don’t say anything, we’ll come for you.’
"Who are you?" she asked in return.
He let out a huff of breath and eyed her for a moment, as if to gauge whether or not sharing that information would harm or help. Finally, he said, “Oliver Queen.”
Her eyes widened.
Felicity. As in Felicity Smoak!
"Shit."
He frowned, raising an expectant eyebrow.
"Oh my God, you’re the Green Arrow!" she exclaimed, pointing at him.
He blinked, his face going carefully blank.
"Wait. No. I mean, yes, but also no, because that’s not right. That’s… You’re…” Darcy shook her head. “You’re fictional. You’re in my comic book… I… Am I dreaming?” She pinched herself and winced. “No. Not dreaming. Ow, damn it. But how… I mean… what?”
Annoyed, Oliver sighed. “What are you talking about? Who are you and where’s Felicity?” He started around the bed, his walk just short of predatory.
Tired of the question, she said, “Look, if I had to guess, based on how I woke up, she’s in New York, probably fending off a very angry assassin and hopefully doing a better job of figuring out why.”
He stared at her, brow furrowed. “Assassin… Are you from the League?”
She snorted. “Oh, wow, no. More like the Avengers, only not in a spandex-y way, but like a ‘make sure these jerks eat and sleep’ kind of way.”
He shook his head, a muscle in his jaw ticking. And then he turned, walking back to his side of the bed and digging around until he found a cell phone.
She watched him thumb in a number and asked, rather excitedly, “Ooh, are you calling John Diggle?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You know Diggle?”
She sighed, rather dramatically “Only spiritually, unfortunately.”
He glowered at her, looking entirely frustrated. It was a face Steve made often.
"Diggle," he barked into his phone. "Get Roy and meet me at the foundry. We have a situation…" He cast a troubled look at her. "Felicity’s missing and there’s a…"
"Darcy Lewis," she exclaimed. "Wrangler of scientists. Friend of the Avengers. Bed-sharer of former assassins. Wielder of Stark-improved tasers. Taser-er of alien Gods…" She paused. "Esquire."
After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Darcy Lewis. It’s complicated.”
"I’m offended," she sighed. "All that material and that’s all you go with."
He ignored her, focusing on his phone. It wasn’t until he hung up that he returned his attention to her.
Darcy offered a grin. “So? Road trip?” she asked. “I’m warning you now. I’m a terrible person to drive with unless I have coffee.”
He sighed, looking six shades of exasperated.
"I should probably be more concerned, but mostly I’m just fangirling on the inside…” Felicity said, looking around the table at the various faces of the honest to God Avengers.
Natasha Romanoff was glaring at her. Except not really, because her face was carefully blank. But she was staring in a way that Felicity was 99.999% sure was going to turn into the psychic ability to kill her from across the room. She was mildly impressed, actually. She bet Nyssa would like her.
“So your… hypothesis is that you and Darcy were reading the same comic book and that’s how you traded places?” Bruce Banner asked, leaning forward, his forearms resting on the table in front of him.
“Not the same book, exactly, since hers is about me and my team and mine is, obviously, about all of you… But yes, I think that somehow the comic books are what led us here.”
“But why?” He shook his head. “Why now? I assume you’ve been reading them for a while.”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Since I was a kid. Not this particular version, but a variation of.”
“So, what changed? What makes this different? Why would you switch now, all of a sudden?”
“Who cares about the why, I want to know how. As in, how do we reverse it?” came a low growl at the end of the table, followed by a metal hand slamming against the wood.
“The why could be important. If we can figure that out, it might show us the how,” Steve offered. He turned back to Felicity. “Is there anything you can think of? Anything that happened before the switch?”
Felicity shook her head. “No, I went to bed afterwards and woke up here, next to Soldier Stabby.” She huffed out a breath. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to help you. I do. But you have to understand, I have a team back home. I also have a very protective archer, who is probably very confused and worried and I don’t know how kindly he’ll take to finding a strange woman in my house.”
She could almost hear Bucky’s teeth grinding.
“I don’t think he’ll hurt her. He wouldn’t do that. But he’ll… detain her, you know, kind of like you’re doing to me.”
“If we were detaining you, you would know it,” Natasha said, her voice pitched low with warning.
Felicity frowned. “I’m not trying to be difficult. I spent my whole childhood growing up, reading about all of you. Under different circumstances, yeah, I’d be in serious hero worship mode right now. But as it is, I want to go home just as much as you want her to come home. So instead of playing semantics with me, why don’t we figure out how to do that?”
“She’s got a point,” Clint said, tapping his fingers on the table. “We’re wasting time here. If it’s the comic books, then let’s take a look at them, figure out what’s going on. But talking her to death isn’t helping. I’m not saying she’s innocent, but she’s not hitting any of the super-villain buttons for me.”
Steve nodded. “I agree.” He cast his eyes around the group. “So? Ideas?”
Doritos probably weren’t the breakfast of champions, but that was what Darcy was eating as she spun in Felicity’s chair.
Diggle and Oliver were deep in conversation, arguing about what to do with her. Roy was glaring at her. Sharpening his little red arrows and glaring a hole through her. It might’ve been intimidating if she didn’t hang out with Natasha Romanoff on the regular.
Finally, she caught sight of the dynamic duo walking her way. Rubbing her cheesy fingers on her pajama pants, she raised an eyebrow. “Well? Come to interrogate me some more?”
John Diggle stopped a few feet from her, crossing his impressive arms over his chest. He could give Barton a run for his money. He stared down at her with the righteous concern only a best friend could. She wondered if Jane had threatened Felicity with science yet…
“Explain it to me. You think you were transported here through a comic book, is that right?”
She hummed, shrugging. “I think you’re all from a comic book and that Felicity was reading a comic book eerily similar to mine, only based on my friends and family back home. Which yes, is in New York, but, based on your reactions, I’m thinking it’s a different New York than what you’re used to… And I’m not talking New New York, just, you know, a totally different universe. Where the Avengers are real and you’re, well, not.”
Diggle sighed at her. “Right… Because that makes complete sense.”
“How sure are we she’s not just some nutjob?” Roy wondered, scowling as he walked over to join them. “Or that this isn’t just a distraction technique while they get Felicity out of the country?”
Darcy leaned back in her chair. “Do I look like an undercover agent to you?” she asked, digging her hand into the bag of Doritos. “I might live with them, I might even sleep with one, but I spend my days making sure the Scientist’s Three don’t burn themselves out.” She shrugged, tossing a chip into her mouth. “I wanna be here as much as you want me here, all right? I mean, seriously, no offense to Rich and Brooding, but I’ve got a guy at home I’d much rather wake up next to. So this morning? Not my best.”
Roy snorted, shaking his head a little. “Well, how do we fix it then? You think it’s the comic book, right? So what if you read it again and go to sleep? Maybe that’ll make the switch again.”
Dusting her hands off, she said, “Sure. Worth a try.”
Roy turned to the others and, seeing their skeptical looks, shrugged. “You wanna bitchface the information out of her or you wanna try this?”
Oliver frowned, unconvinced, but, seeing as he had no other options, nodded shortly.
“Cool. So, back to Felicity’s then?”
Oliver nodded, moving toward the stairs.
Darcy hopped off her chair and grinned up at Diggle. “If it’s any consolation, Captain America wouldn’t let anything happen to her. I mean, the others wouldn’t either, but he’s all righteous military and ‘do the right thing,’ so I figured you’d trust him more.”
He blinked down at her. “Sure. Because I want to entrust her safety to a fictional superhero.”
“Them’s the breaks,” she said, shrugging.
He sighed at her.
“This isn’t working,” Felicity sighed.
Bucky frowned.
“Well, I can’t sleep with you staring at me.”
“Whose bright idea was this anyway?” he grumbled.
“Barton’s,” Steve said from where he was standing across the room. “It was worth a try. Bruce already took a sample of the comic book. We can’t find traces of anything but ice cream.”
“She likes to snack while she reads,” Bucky said, a little defensively.
Felicity’s lips turned up at the corners. “You guys are cute, by the way.”
She looked between them. “Oh, I mean you two are cute, too. Brotp all the way. But I meant him and Darcy,” she said, pointing a thumb at Bucky. “She’s my favorite in the comics. Not because Natasha isn’t kick-ass or Jane isn’t awesome, but because Darcy’s a little more relatable. A tech girl in a hero world, you know? Sure, she doesn’t hack into major governments on the regular, but she’s good with computers and she spends most of her time taking care of others. I can relate to that. It’s kind of like being at the center of the team, y’know? Not a whole lot of appreciation, but it’s worth it. I don’t want to say they’d fall apart without me, but, I’d like to think I add something uniquely me-shaped to it.
“And that’s how I see Darcy in your team dynamic. She’s the one who stays up late and makes Clint cocoa because he’s having trouble sleeping. And who digs around and finds music that reminds Thor of home so he won’t feel too homesick. And she can talk Tony down from one of his three-day benders with a special brand of snark that he appreciates. So, yeah, I can relate to that.” She nodded, resting her chin on her hands. “Plus, she’s got that whole brooding love interest thing going on. I have one of my own. High maintenance but mostly worth it.”
Bucky made a strangled, affronted noise, but Steve chuckled.
Felicity smiled, closing her eyes. “No offense. I’m just saying… We’re not two peas in a pod, but there’s some similarities there. Appreciated, but maybe undervalued, sometimes, not on purpose, just, you know, sometimes people get lost in the cracks…”
“Not Darcy,” Bucky said, his voice quieter than she’d become familiar with. He’d been angry or accusatory since she met him, but this time it was different. She opened an eye to look at him. His face was set and serious. “Darcy’s loved.”
“I don’t think she’s saying she’s not, Buck,” Steve reassured. “I think she’s saying just because she’s loved doesn’t mean she always gets the appreciation she deserves. Felicity raised some good points. Darcy takes care of all of us in her own way and, sometimes, we might take that for granted.”
Bucky pursed his lips, but Felicity thought he might just be offended that someone was suggesting he took Darcy for granted.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, looking up at him, waiting until he met her eyes. “I think she’d say 'yes.'”
He quirked his head, considering her, and parted his lips to say something.
But, in a blink, she was gone.
“So? What’s the big plan for when you get Smoaky back?” Darcy wondered, climbing up the stairs of Felicity’s townhouse to the second floor.
“What do you mean?” Oliver sighed.
“Smoaky?” Roy repeated distantly.
“You know, she’ll come back, you’ll all be reunited, and then what? Crack open a bottle of wine? Take her to dinner? Buy her a satellite?” She shrugged. “Personally, I’m got my fingers crossed for a new iPod and an engagement ring. The iPod’ll be from Stark, because he shows his love through gifts, and he hates Apple products, which makes it more meaningful.”
“And the engagement ring?” Diggle asked.
“Her boyfriend is a former assassin,” Oliver informed them.
“Emphasis on ‘former.’ There was brainwashing involved, so stow your judgy looks, all right? He’s a good guy. I mean, he leaves his socks lying around, he never puts the cap back on the toothpaste, and he frequently makes ‘back in my day’ jokes, because he thinks he’s hilarious, but he’s still a good guy.”
“Must be, if you’re hoping for an engagement ring… Although I’m still not sold on you not being a nutjob,” Roy muttered.
Darcy glanced at him, shrugged, and then looked back at Oliver. “But seriously, what are you planning on doing to welcome her back?”
He frowned. “Is there a reason you’re so curious?”
“Sure. Felicity’s my girl. She’s the main reason I even read your shitty comic. I mean, sure, there’s hot, shirtless heroes running around, and that’s cool. I’ve got a whole team of ‘em at home. And I like it when Sara and Nyssa pop in. They’re awesome. But the manpain I get enough of at home. So mostly I like Felicity’s pizazz, y’know? That’s a Bucky word. He throws that one around a lot when he feels old and wants to rub it in my face that I’m seventy years his junior or whatever.”
“Seventy?” Roy exclaimed.
Darcy waved a dismissive hand before she flopped down on the bed, holding a hand out expectantly. While Oliver searched for and brought her the all-important comic book, she explained, “Bucky was frozen for most of it, so he doesn’t look much older than me. On my bad hair days, he looks younger than me, but we don’t talk about those.”
Roy shook his head at her, brows hiked.
“Anyway, all I’m saying is that Felicity’s pretty much the heart of your team, and you can’t run shit without the heart.” She paused. “Well, unless you’re a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist with an arc reactor in your chest, but, what are the odds, right?”
“We appreciate Felicity,” Oliver said, frowning. “We know how much she means.”
“Sure, I’m not saying you don’t. I’m just saying you should tell her.”
“Felicity knows she matters,” he insisted.
Darcy sighed at him, leaning back against the pillows and flipped absently through the comic book. “Knowing and being acknowledged are totally different things. See, like I said before, Tony shows his love by buying people things, and that’s nice. Free shit, never a bad thing. But that doesn’t mean that occasionally, people wanna hear that they matter. So, you know, say it, don’t just assume she knows…
“Hey, I’ve read every issue of Arrow. The Olicity is off the hook. Totally intense and obviously in it for the long haul. You crazy kids are my OTP of OTPs, but that doesn’t mean a girl doesn’t want her team to let her know that she matters. Not just as the IT guru, but as a person, y’know?” She shrugged, looking up at them. “Just a tip, mis amigos.”
“We’ll take it under advisement,” Diggle said, looking mostly amused with her.
She saluted them.
Oliver took a breath, as if he were about to say something, but, when Darcy turned to him, everything faded away.
“Score! I thought for a second we wouldn’t get to meet in person!” Darcy exclaimed. She had no idea where she was, but she had a pretty good idea of who she was looking at.
“Darcy?” Felicity asked, her brow knit.
“Yes, and you’re Felicity! Awesome. I was a little bummed I’d only get to see the team.” She frowned. “Hey, my guys didn’t freak you out too bad, did they? They can be a little… intense.”
“Um…” Felicity shifted her feet. “Well, I can’t say I was hoping to wake up next to an assassin with a knife fetish.”
“Always with the knives…” she sighed rather affectionately. “But they didn’t rough you up or anything?’
“No… I managed to convince, uh, Bucky not to hurt me and then he called in the team. Dr. Banner ran some tests on the comic book, but they didn’t find much. Hawkeye suggested I try repeating what I’d done before, with reading the comic book and then going to sleep. And I did read it —kind of weird reading about my life like that, actually— but it’s a little hard to sleep when you’ve got the Winter Soldier staring at you, waiting for you to disappear. Little creepy, actually.”
“Yeah, I was mid-conversation with your team about how they should seriously use their words more when I blinked out. Heroes right? All action.”
She grinned. “Yeah, well, they usually make up for it in other ways.”
“True. That metal hand is super dexterous.”
Felicity snorted. “So I’ve read… seen… Uh, it’s in the comic book.”
“Yeah, hey, I never thought about that. You and Oliver get pretty hot and heavy, too.” Darcy winked.
Felicity shrugged, grinning to herself.
“So you think that’s what it was, then? We got sucked out of our places and switched so that our teams realized how A+ awesome we are?”
Felicity frowned. “I don’t know. I guess it’s not impossible. Seems a little over-the-top, but, we do come from worlds where over-the-top is just how people roll.”
“True.” Darcy shrugged. “Well, whatever it was, it was kind of fun. I mean, if I had more time and they didn’t think I’d kidnapped you and had the League of Assassins torturing you somewhere, it probably would’ve been better, but I can’t say it was the worst experience of my life.”
Felicity looked at her knowingly. “The enchilada.”
With an exaggerated look of horror, Darcy murmured, “The enchilada,” with entirely too much drama.
“All things considered, I got to meet the Avengers and Natasha didn’t kill me psychically, so I’m calling it a win,” Felicity admitted.
“Her glare has been known to cause aneurysms,” Darcy agreed. With a shrug, she held a hand out. “Anyway, it was cool meeting you. Big fan, love your work.”
Smiling, Felicity shook her hand. “Ditto.”
They paused then, looking around expectantly.
“So, what do you think’ll happen?” Darcy wondered. “What kind of exit are we gonna have? Slow and dramatic or quick and—“
Felicity opened her eyes to find herself lying in bed. She didn’t have a second to wonder if maybe it was all an elaborate dream before—
“Felicity!?” And then Oliver was hovering over her, his hands on her shoulders and her face, his eyes scanning for injuries.
She blinked up at him. “Oh, hey…” She smiled. “Long time no see.”
He frowned down at her. “What was that? I… That woman was here and then she just disappeared.”
“Yeah. Darcy.” She pushed herself up to a seated position. “She’s actually a really interesting character in my Avengers comics. Super snarky. She takes care of all the scientists and, well, most of the team, too. She’s dating the Winter Soldier, who, FYI, absolutely terrifying.” She reached up and fingered her throat. “Like, Nyssa when she hasn’t had coffee and Sara hasn’t checked in terrifying.”
Oliver shook his head. “I… We were worried.”
“It’s not every day I get sucked into a different universe. And, you know, meeting my heroes aside, I’m not sure I ever want to do it again.”
He blew out a heavy breath before sliding his hand down behind her neck and drawing her in close. The hug he gave her was chock full of emotion. He wasn’t the best with words, but he did more than enough with hugs. Felicity squeezed him, stroking a hand down his neck, and turned to smile at the others. Roy was hovering just out of reach, but John took her hand when she reached for him.
He grinned down at her. “Good to have you back.”
“Yeah, it’s just not the same with you… Smoaky,” Roy said, lips quirked up.
Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t question it. “I missed you guys, too.”
Oliver drew back from her a little then, raising his hand to cup her cheek. “You know you matter to us, right? To the team, yes, but to us, as people. You matter to me.” He stared searchingly into her eyes.
She met the sincerity of his gaze with tears in her own eyes and, when she looked up and over to the others, she smiled at Roy’s heavy, serious nod. John’s words, said just as sincerely in the past, meant equally as much then when he told her, “You’re irreplaceable.”
“Oh,” she murmured, her lips trembling. “She was right. That’s nice to hear.”
“Then we’ll say it more often,” Oliver promised, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead and her cheek and finally her lips, lingering there a long moment before he pulled back and stroked his fingers down her neck.
Blinking back tears, she laughed and shook her head. “Ugh, that’s enough of that. Come on, I haven’t had breakfast yet. Who wants waffles?”
“Sure, but how about I make them?” John offered.
She grinned up at him. “I’d like that.”
Happily, she joined her team as they made their way downstairs. While Digg and Roy bickered in front of them, she leaned into Oliver’s side, smiling softly as he kissed the top of her head and murmured against her ear, “I love you.”
If it was that both she and Darcy deserved to have their team appreciate them more, then she didn’t think she’d be showing up in anyone else’s universe anytime soon.
“—painless. Oh.” Darcy blinked, looking from Bucky to Steve, who pushed off the wall in surprise. “Hey, look at that, back home, safe and sound.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bucky muttered, lunging forward to wrap her in his arms, his cybernetic hand burying in her hair, winding it around his fingers. “Thought I lost you.”
Smiling, unfazed, Darcy wrapped her arms around him and rested her chin on his shoulder. “No worries, I was just hanging out with the Arrow squad. Nice guys when they don’t think you’re part of the League of Assassins. Which, come on, we all know I don’t have the balance for.”
Steve shook his head, smiling at her lightly. “You caused quite the scare… We called the whole team in to figure out what happened.”
“Reading. It’s the devil’s work,” she sighed.
He let out a faint laugh. “Whatever it was, I’m glad you’re back… I’ll, uh, let the others know. I’m sure Bruce still has some questions. He’ll probably want to hear first-hand what happened and what the experience was like.”
“Ah, science, never lets a mystery go unsolved…” she mused.
“But I’m sure they’ll understand that you need some time to adjust…” Steve watched her as she stroked her fingers through Bucky’s hair, his face nuzzled into the crook of her neck. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
“Thanks, Steve,” she said sincerely.
He nodded, moving toward the door of their bedroom. He paused, however, his fingers around the handle, and looked back at her. “Darcy… I don’t think I ever said it, but… Thank you, for everything you’ve done. Not just for the team, but me, personally. With Bucky and… being a friend to me when I needed it most.”
She grinned at him. “My pleasure.”
He smiled in return before finally taking his leave, the door closing behind him.
Darcy scrubbed her fingers through Bucky’s hair, drawing it back from his face and tucking it behind his ears. “Not the best wake-up call, huh?”
He swallowed tightly. “Scared the shit outta me,” he admitted, his voice rough.
“Yeah, well, waking up to tall, scruffy and blonde was weird for me, too. I mean, nice enough guy, didn’t really threaten me, he was mostly just confused and worried. But yeah, no, wasn’t expecting to see that face when I rolled over.” She frowned. “Actually, I was expecting to see a pillow, since you burrow under one every time we go to sleep.”
“Too much noise,” he muttered
“I know.” She rubbed her fingers down his cheek. “But it’s all good, you know that, right? I’m back, in one piece, no injuries or trauma or anything. As far as disappearing acts go, getting ‘napped by the fates and sent to a different universe was probably one of my more harmless adventures.”
He pulled back a little then, lifting his head, and stared down at her, giving her a quick, cursory search to make sure she was telling the truth. And then he leaned forward, his forehead meeting hers. “I didn’t know what to do. I… I let my guard down. I didn’t even notice it wasn’t you, not right away. I didn’t think… I mean, it’s our bedroom. I didn’t think you could get taken right from under my nose.” He closed his eyes, letting out a heavy breath.
“Hey, I don’t blame you, all right?” She cupped his face, rubbing her thumb over the arch of his cheek. “Seriously, I don’t even think this was something we could control. I don’t know how it happened or why, but it did. And I know you’re gonna be extra cautious for a while and you’ll probably wake up at weird hours, worried I disappeared, but don’t take the blame for this, okay? It was weird and out of our control and it sucks. It happened and it sucks. But I’m back, I’m here with you, and that’s all that matters, all right?” She caught his eyes and held on. “I’m okay,” she promised.
He nodded, once, twice, just jerky movements of his head, and then he was pulling her in close, his mouth slanting over hers, sloppy and needy and just needing to prove to himself that she was real. She let him, wrapping her arms around him, and holding on. Because yeah, it was kind of scary, when she thought about it. She hadn’t really be scared, given she knew what the guys on Team Arrow were like and didn’t think they’d hurt her. But that didn’t mean being yanked out of her world, her home, her bed and dropped somewhere else wasn’t twenty shades of creepy and crazy. But she was home. She was with her assassin, in their bed, in their universe, where they weren’t just ink on paper, but real, flesh and blood and metal. She tightened her arms around him, sucking on his bottom lip and tugging on it with her teeth. They panted against each other’s mouths as she said, “I love you.”
And his hand, his cold, metal fingers, stroked down her nape. “Love you, too, котенок.”
Eventually, they laid down together, still wrapped in each other’s arms. He rubbed her back as she cuddled with him, content to just have some time to themselves. She knew she’d have to face the others. The team would have questions, many of which she probably wouldn’t have answers for. She wasn’t completely convinced that she and Felicity had traded lives for a little while just to teach their teams to appreciate them. It was a nice thought, if a little wrong. She loved her team. Sure, some days were exhausting. There were so many of them and only one of her. But she wouldn’t trade them for anything. She wouldn’t trade her life for any other.
So, whatever magic that comic book wielded, it could keep it to itself. She was just glad to be home, with her team, her family, her friends.
Rolling onto her side, she hugged Bucky’s arm to her chest and smiled as he kissed her neck and her shoulder, spooning up behind her. It wasn’t an engagement ring or an iPod, but it was everything she really wanted. And that was more than enough for her.