Chapter Text
Felicity was ahead of the game most of her life, she was always ahead in her schoolwork. Exceeding everyone in her classes most of the time skipping ahead and skipping grades like it was a piece of cake. However, graduating high school at 17 and graduating MIT at 19 put her very behind in the social aspect of her life. It’s not like she didn’t have a social life don’t get her wrong. However, it was always hard for her to make friends when she was always so much younger than all of them. She tended to just be shunned from most social groups, most of them thinking that she was weird and they all outcasted her.
Which is how she found herself alone in Starling City at the ripe young age of 21, never having been in any really serious relationship and in a brand new city. She needed a fresh start, in a place where no one knew her. Surrounded by her peers and hopefully in a job where people respected her. The relationship thing, however, was a completely separate story. There was one guy while she was in college but it only lasted three months and he was just using her for her brains so that he could hack into government agencies for shits and giggles with her help.
She got an offer from Palmer Technologies right out of MIT, an offer that she couldn’t stand to refuse, assistant director of the applied sciences division. A stepping stone to her dream job, which is to be the director of the applied sciences division. The CEO of Palmer Tech, Ray Palmer, had known a professor of hers and heard about her through the grapevine and had to scoop her up before anyone else did. He did that by offering her something that no one ever would, he took a chance on her. In no time she was showing everyone up. Which ironically didn’t help her much in the friends or social life department, most of the people thought that she was too young to be assistant director and had to be sleeping with Ray Palmer in order to even get the job.
This is how her only friend became her doorman, John Diggle. An ex-army lieutenant and the man who knew her better than anyone else, at first glance the man is very scary and intimidating but, once you get to know him, he is a giant softie. She tended to hang out with him on her nights off mainly just because she didn’t have anyone else and he knew that, which was why he let her hang out with him. He needed some company anyways on the long boring nights of basically doing nothing but opening the door for rich people.
After a few months of living in the building and Felicity always hanging out with him, he had enough, it was just getting sad and pathetic. She needed a push in the right direction and he was going to do that for her. He cared about her enough to want to see her succeed and see her make friends that weren’t people that worked in her building.
“Alright enough is enough, you have lived here for 3 years and all you ever seem to do on your nights off are either hang down in the lobby of this building or hole yourself up in your apartment working on...whatever it is you are working on. Felicity, you need to get out, have some semblance of a life besides talking to me. When you first moved here you would go out all of the time and now you barely leave,” Dig practically begs her, wanting to see her do nothing but succeed in life and in order to fully thrive she was going to have to go out and meet some new people.
“I have a life, thank you very much. I have friends besides you, ya know.” Felicity tries and fails to prove a point, John being able to see right through her blatant lie.
He crosses his arms across his chest leaning back in his chair and raising an eyebrow at her. “Oh really? Who might these friends be? I don’t ever remember you mentioning anyone in any of your stories from work or anywhere else,” Dig retorts, knowing that he has won this when Felicity sighs and throws her hands up already conceding.
“Alright fine, so maybe I don’t have any friends besides you, what’s so wrong with that?! It’s not like you’re a serial killer or a drug dealer, there are worse friends I could have,” Felicity says, countering back making a decent point but not a decent enough one to dissuade John from giving up this crusade of getting her out there and meeting new people.
“That may be true but most people aren’t best friends with their doorman. Generally, the only thing people do is say hi to me and smile before walking away, not stay down here for hours on end talking to me. Most people also tend to actually leave the building every once in a while,” Dig jokes, causing Felicity to narrow her eyes at him and scowl.
“Hardy har har, have your jokes. They don’t bother me,” Felicity says, looking away from him and out the front door out into the street in front of them. The jokes did bother her because she knew that there was a truth to them. He was right she never left the building, she was still the same socially anxious girl that she was back in high school.
“All that I am saying is that you should try and get out there, meet some new people. Make some new friends. You are always saying that your mom is constantly complaining about how you’re terminally single. Maybe you get out there and try and meet someone to get her off of your back for a while,” Dig said.
Felicity nods her head knowing that Dig has made an excellent point in this argument, going out would get her mother off her back. Plus she could actually meet some new people, people that she actually might like and enjoy spending time with. She, however, doesn’t like the fact that he used her mother against her like that, she resented that.
“Okay fine, maybe you’re right, savor this moment because those words are never coming out of my mouth again,” Felicity said, making John chuckle but nod nonetheless. “I’ll give this whole socializing thing a try, a few people from work have been asking me to go out with them the past few nights after work.”
“Why haven’t you gone?”John asks.
Felicity shrugs her shoulders and starts to pick at her nails out of a nervous habit not wanting to look John in the eye. She knows that once she does that she will spill the beans and tell him everything and she is going to sound extremely dumb once she tells him how she feels.
John sits there waiting for her to look at him and tell him what’s going on. He has to sit here all night anyway so he doesn’t mind the company.
Felicity finally sighs after a few minutes and fesses up to her insecurities, no matter how dumb she thinks she sounds she knows that John would never judge her. “I’m scared that they are just asking me out to drinks out of some kind of obligation. They ask me to go just because they don’t want to seem rude and really on the inside, they are praying that I say no because they really don’t want me to go out with them.”
John stares at her incredulously wondering how she could ever possibly think that. He knows that it probably has to do with the fact that she never had a lot of friends growing up. That she was always surrounded by people that were older than her and that made fun of her for being smart and ambitious. It also doesn’t help that she got hired into a big-time tech company at the age of 20 as assistant director of applied sciences. It caused a lot of people to make assumptions about her and that was never fair, John knew that it weighed heavily on her heart. That she was always bothered by all of the rumors and the gossip, no matter how much she said that it never bothered her.
“Felicity, I know that you don’t actually believe that. You don’t let a lot of people in and yes that may very well be a good way to keep your heart safe, but it makes for a very lonely life if you ask me. They are probably asking you because they want to get to know you outside of work.”
John always makes good points whenever they seem to talk and it annoys her to no end that he’s so good at giving advice. Sometimes she feels like she just has to follow it because it makes so much sense.
“I hate that you make so much sense, it’s very annoying and makes it very hard for me to stay mad at you about anything.” Felicity huffs making John laugh and shake his head, Felicity always knows how to keep a smile on his face. Which these days is harder to do than most would think.
“Just the next time that your friends ask you to go out for drinks after work don’t say no, you have to get out eventually. You can’t always sit here and hang out with me every night, I actually have a job to do ya know.” John joked and Felicity stuck her tongue out at him making him laugh again.
“Alright alright, next time they ask I’ll say yes, mainly just to get you off of my back,” Felicity says giving him a smile and finally saying goodnight to him.
Felicity made her way upstairs to her apartment knowing that John was correct, that she did need to get out more and meet new people. She needs to get over this insane fear that everyone is talking behind her back and hates her, she knows that her team at work who ask her to go out is a genuine group of people. That they wouldn’t be inviting her out unless they actually wanted to be around her but old habits die hard and she always says no out of fear of being rejected.
The next day at work she puts everything to the back of her mind as her and her team work diligently on this new project, she quickly forgets about everything and solely focuses on the project at hand. She is so lost in her work that it takes her coworker Curtis tapping her on the shoulder to tell her that they are all going out for drinks and asked her if she wanted to come with them.
She looks at him and then to the others Caitlin, Cisco, and Barry and nods telling them to give her a few minutes and she will meet them by the elevators. She was actually going to do this, go out for drinks after work and actually have some semblance of a social life. Felicity shuts her work station down saving her work and grabs her coat and bag and meets them all by the elevators just like she said. She would be lying if she said that she wasn’t surprised that they were still waiting there for her.
“Are my eyes deceiving me or is Felicity Smoak actually going out with us for drinks?” Caitlin jokes making all of them including Felicity laugh.
“Your eyes are not deceiving you, I just need to get out more and actually do something besides work. You guys are actually nice and are the only people who don’t talk about me behind my back.” Felicity comments and Barry scuffs.
“Forget about them, they are just jealous because you are a hell of a lot better than any of them at their job,” Barry says making Felicity smile and feel better about being able to actually to trust these guys.
“Thanks. So where are we going because after the week we have had I could really use a stiff drink.” Felicity says making them all laugh as they got into one of the elevators and head down into the lobby.
“We were thinking about Verdant, it’s a pretty nice club plus it helps that there are always cute guys willing to pay for our drinks,” Caitlin says looking to Curtis making Felicity laugh as they all walk out of the elevator.
“Yeah, that is always a good reason to go to a club, all throughout college I don’t think I ever paid for one drink when I went clubbing. Which was disappointing because I made a very convincing fake and I hardly ever got to use it.” Felicity said and laughed, all four of the others looked to her surprised by the words coming out of her mouth. They never would have guessed that she was a party girl in college.
“You partied in college?” Cisco asked in a little disbelief and Felicity laughed and nodded, she often forgot that everyone saw her as the innocent one when she was actually very far from it. She just comes off that way because of her hair color and the way that she dresses.
“Oh yeah, I partied hard in college mainly because I was so young and I wanted to show everyone that I could handle my liquor...and drugs,” Felicity said and looked around at the group in front of her and saw all of the shocked looks on their faces and it gave her some sort of satisfaction that she shocked them in some way.
“Well now I am even more pumped that you’re coming with us, I wanna see crazy party Felicity in action,” Cisco says as they get to the parking garage and they all conveniently stopped at her parking spot where her tiny car is sitting.
Felicity chuckles and puts her work bag into the back seat leaving her with just her purse. She takes her hair out of her ponytail and shakes it out and they all stare at her like she’s a fish out of water. She suddenly went from work and professional Felicity to someone who was ready for a night out.
“Party Felicity hasn’t spread her wings in three years so I can guarantee that you can out drink her,” Felicity says throwing her purse over her shoulder and rejoins the group at the back of her car.
“Oh, I will totally get in on that bet,” Barry says as they make their way to his car because he was the only one that could fit them all.
“I’ll take that bet too,” Caitlin says and Felicity laughs already extremely glad that she decided to come out with them tonight, she can already tell that she was going to get along with all of them really well.
“Well let’s not take bets, at that rate I will end up drunk within a few minutes of walking into the club. I used to be able to take five shots and barely feel it.” Felicity comments as they get into the car and take off in the direction of the club.
“I’m impressed but also not surprised entirely us nerds tend to be able to really party when given the opportunity.” Curtis points out and the whole group laughs.
“Curtis you get drunk off of one martini,” Cisco says making the group laugh and Curtis blush.
“Well I don’t drink a lot so when I do my limit is extremely low,” Curtis says.
“And there is nothing wrong with that,” Caitlin respond trying to make Curtis feel a bit better.
“I drank so much in college half to impress people but have because I was taking such accelerated classes and everything was moving so fast that I needed something to do to wind down and partying just so happened to be that thing for me.” Felicity offered up and the rest of the group nodded in understanding.
They pulled up to the club and Felicity could practically feel the ground pulsating from the music playing inside and it brought her back to her days in college and she instantly became excited to go inside and start dancing and letting all of her stress fall off her body.
They stood in line only for an hour before they were let in, the group luckily found a booth and sat down. Felicity ordering a round of shots for everyone to start the night off, if she was going to go out to a club on a Thursday night then she was going to go big or go home.
“To letting loose and making new friends,” Felicity says and they all cheer before throwing back their shots and ordering another round making Curtis’s eye’s go wide at the thought of doing shot after shot.
After three shots, it didn’t take much convincing from Caitlin to get Felicity out onto the dance floor. The smile on Felicity’s face never fell once as she jumped and danced to the beat of the music. She hadn’t felt this good and loose since college and she started to wonder whatever stopped her from just going out every once in a while and just having fun.
Oliver had been running verdant for three years now and he absolutely loved it, his parents, on the other hand, thought that it was a wasted business venture. They were always telling him how he was wasting his time and he might as well just start learning what it was like to run QC considering one day in the future it would be his to run anyways.
Oliver always had to roll his eyes whenever his parents even mentioned the club, it was making a pretty hefty profit and, yes it may have kept him in the club scene, but at least he had stopped peeing on cop cars and punching out paparazzi.
Oliver walked out of his office and out onto the balcony looking out over the entire club just watching the group of people move to the beat of the music, this had become a new hobby for him. He loved to take breaks from shipment orders and paperwork, throughout the night and just watch the crowd, he loved to see everyone having a good time and sometimes even find a girl to take home for the night. This seemed to be happening less and less recently but he wasn’t exactly complaining, Tommy however was.
Then Oliver spotted a woman who he would call the most beautiful woman he had seen, he laughed at himself at how cliche he sounded. If anyone could listen in on his thoughts right now they would probably comment that Oliver Queen was going soft. He watched on as the blonde woman danced and jumped around with her friend a smile never seems to leave her face which makes Oliver smile as well.
She and her friend left the dance floor and Oliver saw that as his chance to make a move, he made his way down the stairs that lead out onto the dance floor and made his way over to the booth that held her and her friends. Before making it there he noticed three guys sitting with them and silently wondered if one of them was her boyfriend, he figured that it was worth a shot and who could it really hurt if he just went over there and started talking to her. He could end up getting punched by one of those guys if she ended up having a boyfriend but there are worse things that could happen. Besides it didn’t look like any of them could really throw a good enough punch to do any real damage.
He made his way over there and he could tell when they all noticed because they all had bug-eyed expressions on their faces except for the blonde, which intrigued him even more. If she didn’t know who he was this would be a rare encounter where people didn’t automatically judge him for his past transgressions.
“Hi, hows everyone’s evening going tonight?” Oliver asks eyeing the blonde, he notices her smoky blue eyes and can’t seem to tear his own stare away from hers, she raises an eyebrow in competition. He smiles and finally looks away from her to the rest of the group before looking back at her.
“Great, even better now that you’re here.” Felicity slips out, she didn’t think that she was too drunk until that slipped right out of her mouth. She closed her eyes as Caitlin giggled, she knew that she needed to cut back on the drinks but it was so tempting taking shot after shot. She forgot that she was well past her limit a few shots ago.
Felicity opens her eyes knowing that she is blushing like crazy but there is no way that he can tell in this darkly lit night club. She opened her eyes to see him standing there and smiling down at her as coy as ever and all Felicity wanted to do was jump his bones. She starred into his stormy blue eyes hardly being able to look away from him. She knew exactly who he was, this was Oliver Queen, he was the owner of this night club but also playboy of Starling City. However, she wasn’t going to let him know that she actually knew who he was, guys like this tended to live off of that kind of attention.
“Can I get you guys another round of drinks?” He asks looking around and Caitlin immediately answers for all of them without a second thought.
“Oh yes please.” She smiles and stares at Oliver as he nods as walks over to the bar ordering all of them another round.
“Felicity he was totally checking you out, ask him to dance,” Caitlin says staring at him and admiring the view that she was getting.
Felicity snorted and looked over at Oliver not being able to tear her eyes away either, she had to admit that he was very attractive. It was hard not to stare at him when he looked like a Greek God and leaning against the bar like he was making his ass look amazing.
“There is no way that he was checking me out, he is a Greek God and I’m like...a peasant,” Felicity says letting her insecurities eat away at her.
“Oh he was 100% checking you out, I saw him walk all of way over here and he was only looking at you the whole time,” Barry commented.
“Never in a million years would I have thought I would have succumbed to peer pressure,” Felicity said knowing very well that there wasn’t any sort of peer pressure situation going on. She really wanted to believe what they were saying and she was going to let her drunk self have what it wants.
Oliver started to walk back over to them with another round of their drinks and let everyone pick up which drink was theirs before he even got out the opportunity Felicity opened her mouth and let the alcohol do the talking for her. “You wanna dance?”
Oliver looked at her for a few short moments before nodding his head and holding out his hand to help her up. Felicity took it with ease and let him escort her out onto the dance floor. She made a quick look to Caitlin like I can’t actually believe that this is happening right now, I am about to dance with Oliver Queen.
They make their way out into the middle of the dance floor and between the adrenaline and the alcohol Felicity had absolutely no guard up whatsoever and didn’t even think before she acted. Oliver took her lead never wanting to make her feel uncomfortable, he set his hands on her hips and smiled down at her as the two of them seemed to meld together and move to the music as one.
Felicity had to admit that it felt damn good to just let loose and not think about being responsible or think about work and projects, it felt amazing to act her age. It also helped that Oliver was extremely easy on the eyes, Felicity let her hands roam over his back taking advantage of the close proximity of the two of them.
Oliver didn’t mind at all considering he couldn’t take his eyes or his hands off of her, he admired the way that her hips seemed to move in perfect rhythm with his and to the music. He also loved the little smile that he saw on her face as she danced and just let the movement take over her body. It was definitely a mesmerizing experience, something he was truly never going to forget, hell he hasn’t even gotten her name and with the little talking that they are doing, he doubts that he ever will get her name.
Felicity opens her eyes to find Oliver staring right down into her eyes, it feels like he is looking directly into her soul, but Felicity couldn’t seem to look away. So she did the only thing that she could think of to do, kiss him. Without a second thought, she leaped forward, taking both of her hands and framing his face bringing him down to her level.
He was shocked at first to say the very least but then he went with it, it’s not like he wasn’t thinking about doing the exact same thing. She just thought of it first and executed it first, which he found very sexy and appealing.
They spent the better part of an hour making out on the dance floor and barely dancing, really just moving to the music but neither of them seemed to mind. Finally, they pulled away from each other with giant smiles on their faces as they both laughed and made their way off of the dance floor and back to Felicity’s friends.
“Hey we are just about ready to leave, you ready?” Cisco asks and Felicity nods and grabs her stuff from the booth before turning back to Oliver the smile still not having left her face from what just happened on the dance floor. She moved closer so that she could properly speak to him without having to scream.
“Thanks for the dance and...well everything else because I mean...wow, that was. I don’t even think I have proper words to describe how great and amazing that kiss was.” Felicity let herself ramble not even caring because she was still rolling from all the alcohol and that amazing kiss.
“Oh, it was my pleasure,” Oliver comments still a bit taken aback by her brazenness but also from that kiss as well, he has kissed many women in his days as America’s biggest playboy but nothing could ever compete with what just transpired on that dance floor.
“So could I maybe get your number?” Oliver asked and for the first time, while talking to a girl he was actually nervous, he was taking a chance hoping that she would say yes.
Felicity sat there for a few moments starring at him not sure what to say, she wanted to give him her number but on the other hand, this was her first night going out and she kind of enjoyed not having to worry about anyone else. “Look I had a really really great time but I am going to have to say no, I’m sure that you’re a perfectly nice guy…”
Oliver smiled sheepishly and tried to just let it roll off of him like it didn’t matter that he just got rejected. “Yeah okay I understand, can I at least get your name?”
Felicity smiles as she sees Caitlin motion to meet them outside and she nods to Caitlin before looking back up to Oliver and smiling at him. “Felicity. Felicity Smoak.”
With that, she gives him a quick kiss on the cheek before practically running out the door making a mental note for herself that she is probably the first person to ever turn down Oliver Queen.