Chapter Text
Felicity was just changing from her work outfit into a more casual one while she was contemplating if she was in the mood for Chinese food tonight, when suddenly there is a knock at her door.
Startled, she pauses in the middle of putting her socks on. Who would knock at her door at this time?
Oliver never comes through the front door. He prefers to scale the side of the building and enters via the fire escape outside her bedroom window. She might not live in the most upscale neighbourhood, but Oliver Queen entering and leaving her apartment building late at night several times a week, would probably still draw attention, attention they didn’t want on them.
But who knows, maybe he has his reason for using the door today. So Felicity finishes putting her sock on and walks over to open the door.
Throwing it open, she quickly finds out that it’s not Oliver standing there. Instead, she is looking at her two best friends from childhood, Jennifer Lewis and Stephanie O’Hare.
She blinks, once, twice, just to make sure she is not hallucinating, but yep, that is clearly them.
“Surprise!” Both of them shout in unison before tackling a still stunned Felicity in a group hug.
She is quickly trying to recover, because really, she often deals with stranger things than her best childhood friends suddenly showing up at her doorstep, so why is she even so stunned?
So she hugs them back and starts questioning them, “What are you guys doing here? I didn't expect you to suddenly show up in Starling!”
She pulls back to look at them expectantly.
“Well, as you know, Steph and I are teachers at our old school now.” Jen starts, but is quickly interrupted by impatient Steph, who loves to cut off Jen’s often long-winded explanations.
“There is a teacher’s advanced workshop programme in Starling this week that we’ve been sent to last minute.”
Jen, who hates being interrupted, grumpily looks at Steph, before picking back up. “So we figured, we’d surprise you!”
Felicity paints on a grin. “Well, consider me officially surprised!”
She ushers her two friends into the living room, but internally her thoughts are racing.
A week. That could be problematic with her usual nightly work. Although things had been quiet lately, hence also their decision to have a quiet night tonight, instead of their usual patrolling.
With Dig and Roy deciding to take their respective partner’s out for a date, Oliver and Felicity had decided to spent their evening together watching TV and eating take-out.
Felicity visibly shakes herself, these thoughts could wait for later. Focusing back on the present, she watches as Steph and Jen look around her living room.
Just as Jen points at the Robin Hood poster on her wall, she hears a voice much more familiar to her.
“So, Felicity, I figured we could order some Chinese tonight. We haven’t had any in at least two weeks.”
As per their usual routine, Oliver had let himself in through her bedroom window.
So it is no surprise to Felicity, when suddenly a 6-foot-something blond with slightly tousled hair and clad in nicely fitting designer jeans, complemented by a dark grey henley, suddenly appears through her bedroom door.
Steph and Jen however, pause in shock, looking at Oliver like kids who just found the biggest and best candy in the candy store.
Yea, this wasn’t going to be easy to explain.
How do you tell your childhood best friends that your boss, who also happens to be your best friend, loves to enter your apartment via your bedroom window with his vigilante ninja skills, because he is a famous billionaire in town and the two of you want to avoid any further rumours?
And of course, this would be the timing. Why couldn’t have Oliver been 5 minutes earlier or her old friends 5 minutes later?
Clearly, Murphy's law was still in effect.
Oliver is looking at her in confusion now, and she tries to convey her sorry via a wiggle of eyebrows, which probably just ends up looking stupid instead. But Oliver’s lip quirks up in amusement, so she’ll take it.
Taking a deep breath, Felicity starts introductions.
“Uh, Oliver, these are Steph and Jen, childhood friends here on a surprise visit.”
Immediately changing tracks, Oliver paints his public mask on and smiles a big but definitely fake smile as he steps closer to shake their hands and introduce himself. “Hi, I’m Oliver, nice to meet you both.”
“Yes, very nice to meet you as well, Oliver. Felicity never mentioned a boyfriend in her phone calls, else we would’ve phoned ahead.” Steph shakes his hand a bit too enthusiastically, while her eyes clearly wander up and down Oliver’s body.
Felicity closes her eyes in embarrassment. She’s the first to admit that Oliver is definitely worth staring at, especially knowing what he looks like shirtless, but did Steph have to be so obvious about it?
Then what Steph actually said registers with Felicity and she quickly stammers, “Oh, no, no, no.. Oliver is not my boyfriend, just a very good friend.”
Jen looks at her critically and scoffs. “Yea, right, he just walked out of your bedroom. You don’t have to hide it from us, but why are you keeping your relationship secret in the first place?”
Trying to help out, Oliver speaks up. “No, really, we are just friends. I was in the bedroom because I had spilt some water on my shirt and had to get changed.”
He smiles his charming billionaire playboy smile, while Felicity nods enthusiastically, hoping the lie will stick.
That was a plausible excuse, right? After all, Oliver did keep a change of clothes in her closet, just in case he ever had to come here in his Arrow outfit and needed a change of normal close.
But Steph just squeals as Jen continues. “Oh, wow, you are at the shared-drawer stage already! Why did you not say anything?”
Jen’s got a point, now that she thought about it.
Why would a platonic male friend have a change of clothes in your bedroom? You know, except if your platonic male friend is a bow-wielding vigilante that sometimes crashes at your place because he is too injured to make it to his own home? Mansion really, but whatever. Unimportant details, focus Felicity, she admonishes herself.
Oh frack, Oliver’s cover stories really hadn’t gotten any better and she apparently got sucked so into his vortex that she didn’t even realise that hers where just as bad.
But Oliver has experience in smoothing over awkward cover story mishaps, so he isn’t frozen to the spot like Felicity is. “Well, we are going to order take-out and watch TV. Would you ladies like to join us for that?”
Jen narrows her eyes at Felicity, that clearly say that Felicity is not of the hook yet, but Steph nods enthusiastically. She is always up for food even though she is a PE teacher and likes to harp on about staying in shape. “Yep, sounds good, I’m too tired after the flight to get all dressed up for a restaurant tonight.”
Taking a deep breath, Felicity looks at Oliver with a small smile. “Oliver, Chinese does sound good, would you mind ordering while we pick a movie? Maybe just get a little bit of everything?”
A little bit of everything turned out be a lot of literally everything.
All four of them were settled around the living room table. Glasses of red wine were strategically placed in between the take-out boxes. The romantic comedy that they had finally settled on, was playing in the background.
Felicity looks at the mountain of food. “Did you order the whole restaurant?” How much food did he think they would need?
Oliver just looks at her innocently. “Well, I just told them to get us a box of every item on the menu. Because, you said a little bit of everything, right?”
Felicity closes her eyes in despair. Never let a billionaire order take-out, seriously.
“Oliver, that was a figure of speech. I just meant get a nice selection so that there are some options for everyone. You know, like one chicken dish, one beef and so on.”
Now Oliver narrows his eyes at her. “Why didn’t you just say that then?”
Felicity throws her hands up in the air in exasperation. “Never mind, let’s just dig in and whatever we can’t finish, we’ll store as leftovers.”
Jen and Steph are already happily munching away as they watch the exchange with small grins on their faces.
Steph waves with her chopsticks. “See, you guys even bicker like a long-term couple. How long have you known each other?”
Jen, always one for gossip, leans forward. “Yep, and tell us how you met!”
Oliver and Felicity glance at each other, trying to silently agree on a story that can be told without revealing any secrets.
“Well, Oliver spilt a latte on his laptop. It was basically 12 months ago, right?” Felicity looks at Oliver. Had it really been just a year? It felt so much longer than that. But that’s what happens, when you go through life endangering situations with each other nearly daily, Felicity figures.
Oliver was still rooting through take-out boxes, looking for a specific one. “Yep, and I heard that the best person in the IT department to help me, would be Felicity. So that’s where I went and we have been friends ever since.”
Felicity passes Oliver the box he is looking for, low-carb with mainly veggies and a few pitiful slices of chicken. She tries to suppress her grimace that says “you health freak”, but the twinkle in Oliver’s eyes lets her know she was unsuccessful as he happily accepts the box.
“Aha, an office romance! Is that why you keep it a secret? Is it not allowed at your workplace?” Jen's is nodding in satisfaction as if she finally figured out a big mystery.
Oliver had finally started eating, but chokes on the first bite upon hearing Jen. Felicity wonders if he choked because of the term “office romance” or because he probably can’t remember the last time someone didn’t know that he is Oliver Queen, CEO of QC and all-round known celebrity in Starling.
Trying to be helpful, Felicity absentmindedly rubs Oliver's back, while attempting to fix the wrong assumptions. Again.
“No, no Oliver didn’t actually work at QC when we met.”
“Then, how comes you went to QC’s IT department to get your laptop fixed, Oliver?” Steph questions him innocently.
Felicity can’t help but laugh at the bemused look on Oliver’s face. Yep, he is definitely not used to people not knowing who he is. But knowing him, she is sure that he actually likes that. For once, he gets to be just another guy hanging out with people and is not immediately labelled as the billionaire playboy, the castaway or the CEO.
So Felicity decides to divert the attention. “Oliver knows the person who was CEO at the time.”
Trying to change the topic away from them, Felicity continues, “So, what do you have planned for your week in Starling?”
Jen grabs another box of food as she explains. “Well, we are stuck at the workshop during the day, but we were hoping we could hang out in the evenings and you could show us the highlights of Starling.”
It’s just like Felicity feared, what excuse could she deliver that suitably explains why she isn’t available on evenings because she is the IT hacker for Starling’s vigilante?
Before she can come up with an excuse, Oliver surprises her. “Sounds like a great idea, Felicity has been working too much lately anyway.”
Felicity furrows her brows. “But, Oliver, you know that I have to work to get the thing done.”
Oliver grins at her lame excuse of having to ‘get the thing done’. “How about, you do some sightseeing in the early evening and I’ll get some week passes for Verdant so you can finish off the evening there.”
Felicity grudgingly admits that is not too bad a plan. “Yea, okay, that works.”
“What’s Verdant?” Steph questions and Felicity realises again how little Steph and Jen truly know about her life now and how they literally know nothing about Starling.
“It’s a nightclub that my sister works at. I’ll ask her to add you to the list for the week if you want.”
The way he phrases it, confirms for Felicity that Oliver is happy playing it vague for now, enjoying getting to meet someone without them assigning him various labels beforehand. He could’ve easily said 'the nightclub my sister runs', or even 'the nightclub that I own'. Well, they would learn soon enough, with them staying in Starling for a week, Felicity figures. She’ll let Oliver have his fun.
Jen nearly bounces up and down in her seat. “That sounds awesome.”
After that the conversation drifts off to innocuous topics. Steph and Jen happily catch Felicity up on all the gossip she missed about their old Vegas friends and neighbourhood. Felicity tells some general stories that do not touch too closely on their work, day or night time. And Oliver mostly listens while occasionally throwing in a quip, mostly to tease Felicity.
Felicity knows he still has masks up. He is only ever truly himself when he does not have to keep the Arrow part of is personality a secret. But she still gets the impression that he is enjoying himself. She can see that, despite having only met him, Steph and Jen get to see a more open and genuine Oliver Queen than anyone else in Starling has seen since Oliver’s return.
At around 12, Oliver gets antsy however and Felicity knows, if they were alone, he would ask her to run some checks on her computer. So she isn’t surprised, when he gets up. “Thanks for the nice evening everyone, but it’s time for me to head home. Thea is probably expecting me.”
It’s a lie. Thea is probably not even home herself, never mind trying to keep tabs on her brother who keeps the oddest hours. But it works as an excuse to get out of here and into the lair to check up on police reports.
Steph looks startled. “Wait. Thea? I thought you were with Felicity?”
Felicity groans in exasperation. She had really hoped her friends had given up on that ridiculous notion.
“Ah, Thea is my sister actually.”
Jen looks at him critically. “Huh, wouldn’t have pegged you for someone who still lives at home.”
“Well, if you knew where he lived..” Felicity mumbles quietly under her breath. But the amused puff of laughter from Oliver let’s here know that it wasn’t quiet enough for his ninja hearing.
More loudly, Felicity tries to let Oliver know, that if he does decide to hood up tonight, he should most certainly let her know first. “Well, please let Thea know that if she has any further IT problems that she can call me any time.”
Oliver returns her stare and gives her a small nod, message understood. “Felicity, does the usual time work tomorrow or do you want to start later?”
Because her apartment lies nearly enroute to the office anyway, Dig and Oliver had taken to picking her up in the mornings. Traffic in downtown at that time was usually bad and the spacious interior of the Bentley allowed Oliver and Felicity start planning their day, while Dig drove.
Felicity smiles brightly. “The usual time is fine, just make it an extra large coffee please.” Oliver had taken to bringing her coffee in the morning, ever since the machine at the office got broken, violently. If Felicity’s smile towards him is slightly vicious, he doesn’t comment on it.
Instead, he simply nods at everyone and with a “Goodnight, ladies” he spins around and for the first time that Felicity can remember, Oliver actually leaves through her front door.
As soon as the door closes, Steph and Jen squeal and start babbling. “Oh wow, he is so hot, why didn’t you tell us, Felicity?” and “You got to tell us everything, I want all the details!”
And Felicity just groans in embarrassment, because, yea, the walls are thin and knowing Oliver’s super hearing, he just totally heard that.
This was going to be a long night and Felicity is sure not even an extra large coffee will be enough to perk her up in the morning.