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Felicity walks into the foundry at one in the afternoon and plops down on her chair. She’s dressed in jeans and her favorite cuddly sweater and her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun. She starts working but doesn’t take her sunglasses off, and takes her a little longer to boot up her computers with one hand because her other hand is cradling her aching head.
She jolts upright when she hears a loud thump from somewhere, and when she turns to look over her shoulder, Oliver is there. The loud thump was him setting a water bottle on her desk. “Drink,” he orders.
“Please don’t ever say that again,” she groans, uncapping the bottle “and go be loud over there instead." She takes a sip of water and points somewhere over her shoulder. "Where did you even come from?”
She hears him laugh to himself as he walks away, but he’s back a few minutes later, pulling her out of her chair. “Come on, you need something greasy. Take your water.”
She groans again but his idea actually sounds good, so she grabs the water bottle, twists the cap back on and follows him up the stairs. “Okay, but we’re taking my car. I already worry about throwing up on you when we take your motorcycle on a regular day.”
He holds up his hand, her car keys dangling from his middle finger. “I’ll drive.”
“Ugh. Fine, whatever. Just do it quietly.”
Fifteen minutes later, they’re sitting in their regular booth at Big Belly Burger.
“Thank you, Hannah,” she sighs as the waitress sets down their food – a burger and a soda for Oliver, fries and a vanilla malt for her. They eat in companionable silence until Felicity starts feeling better. The pounding in her head eases to a dull ache, something an Advil can take care of easily.
Oliver seems to read her mind because he reaches into the breast pocket of his shirt and hands her two green gel capsules. “I told you not to trust Sara,” he says but he’s more amused than angry or disappointed so it comes out kind of fondly.
Felicity sighs and finally takes her sunglasses off, blinking quickly at first as she adjusts to the light and then rolling her eyes when Oliver chuckles as she takes the capsules and washes them down with a sip of her milkshake. “She told me not to listen to whatever you said because you are opposed to having any kind of fun, and I was inclined to agree with her.” At his raised eyebrow she adds, “What? It’s mostly true. Anyway, Sara is an actual bartender so I figured she knew what she was doing.”
He scoffs at that. “Sara’s a little too good at bartending.”
“Yeah I kind of figured that out when the cocktails and shots she was handing out didn’t taste like alcohol. She’d already made them though,” She shrugs and rests her elbow on the table and her head on her open palm, her unoccupied hand toying with a french fry. “Don’t look at me like that, we were celebrating a team victory. And it’s not like this is my first hangover.” She dips the fry into her milkshake and eats it.
“Corrupted by college?” He asks, resting his arms on the table and leaning forward.
She shrugs. “It’s all part of the experience isn’t it? I mean, aside from the education part. Which is a big part. The biggest. But yeah, there’s also other parts, like partying, getting drunk, getting high…”
“Two AM trips to the emergency room due to anaphylactic shock from pot brownies?”
She swats at his arm. “That was one time! And besides, I have since learned that brownies aren’t the only way to introduce THC into one’s system.”
Oliver’s brows shoot up. “But you said that was the only time…” He trails off.
"Yeah," she says, drawing out the word as she scrunches up her face. “I was maybe exaggerating a little? For what it’s worth though, that was the last time it came in brownie form. Also,” she dunks another fry into her milkshake, “Roy and Sara always get the good stuff. And I probably shouldn’t have told you that your sister’s boyfriend scores the best weed. And I probably shouldn’t have said it again to clarify. 3...2…1.”
“That’s disgusting,” Oliver says and Felicity is affronted for a good ten seconds before she realizes he’s talking about the French fry she is again dipping into her milkshake and not about the other stuff.
She lets him change the topic before she gets Roy or Thea in any trouble and eats her fry, humming contentedly just to see the look on Oliver’s face. “It’s actually delicious. So many good things in life come from the beautiful marriage of sweet and salty. Chocolate covered pretzels, for instance. Snickers bars, trail mix, bacon and chipotle flavored chocolate, bacon dipped in chocolate, anything salted caramel, I can keep going.”
Oliver stares at her with this weird kind of grimace.
“There’s also chocolate dipped potato chips, caramel apples rolled in pea- hey!” She stops when Oliver takes one of her fries and dips it in her milkshake. He eats it. “So? How does it taste?”
“Like it’s the reason the best things in life exist,” he says, stone-faced.
“Damn right it is!” She considers listing off more examples, but her phone dings so and she rummages through her purse to check it instead. She sees the time after she reads Diggle’s text. “It’s almost three. Dig’s worried he hasn’t heard from us.”
Oliver checks his watch and shrugs, taking another fry and dipping it into her milkshake before eating it. “He’s got today off. Roy’s probably still sleeping off his hangover.”
“Clearly he’s not as awesome as me.” Felicity says, pushing the rest of her milkshake towards him.
Oliver tilts his head and smiles, “Felicity Smoak, I’m pretty sure there is no one more awesome than you.”
“That’s probably true, but let’s not tell everyone I’m your favorite.” She winks and Oliver chuckles.
He finishes off the rest of her drink. “Only because you come in earliest on weekends, even with a hangover.”
She laughs and then groans burying her head in her hands, “I’m not ready for laughs yet. Ugh, I hate hangovers; they hurt and they make me feel so useless.” When he doesn’t say anything she raises her head to look at him. He has his head tilted to the side and he’s squinting at her. “What?”
“I wouldn’t say you’re useless, exactly. You’re still nice to look at, at least.”
She shakes her head and puts her sunglasses back on. “I’m glad you appreciate hungover chic,” she says she slides out of the booth and grabs her purse, tossing her car keys back at him. “We should head back, I’m gonna need more Ibuprofen pretty soon.”