Chapter Text
Oliver sat in the chair while everyone took in this news. Thea, Roy, Diggle and Felicity all froze and had blank expressions on their faces.
"Excuse me?" Thea broke the silence with a screech. "I know I heard wrong, because you going out to challenge one of the most powerful men and going to go do it alone is just ridiculous and I know my smart - sane - brother would do that!"
"Thea," Oliver walked over to her and kissed her cheek. "You're my family... I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe."
"Even if that means making a deal with the devil?" Diggle stepped toward his white brother he had grown close to. "What you're doing isn't brave, Oliver, it's stupid."
"You're my best friend, Diggle," Oliver put a hand on his chocolate shoulder in a departure. "If what I have to do to keeps you alive, in order for you to get back to your daughter, then it's worth it."
"Let me come with you," Roy walked up and eyed Oliver fiercely. Oliver and Roy had grown close, not like Oliver and Diggle, their relationship was brother like. Roy's and Oliver's relationship was something else, almost like parental. "You fight better with me at your side, anyway, Oliver, let me have your back." Roy gave a convincing speech, but Oliver wasn't going to risk his life. Not when Thea and Roy had just gotten back together, they were in a good place. If Roy came with Oliver to Nada Parbat, Roy and Thea would never be in the same place again.
Oliver shook his head and glanced over at Felicity who was spinning around in her chair biting a red pen. "Not this time," Oliver didn't know how to say goodbye to Roy, but Roy wrapped his arms over Oliver's in a quick hug.
Roy pulled back and whispered, "How are you going to say goodbye to the women in your life, Oliver?"
Oliver eyed Felicity again and she was continuing to spin in her chair pulling on a loose strand of her hair even though Roy was talking about Thea too.
"Don't worry," Oliver turned back to Roy. "I'm not."
"You think you can take him?" Roy squinted his eyes and wondered if his teacher had something up his sleeve.
"Well it helps to have confidence." Oliver laughed, "The duel hasn't even started yet and you guys are already starting to grieve my death.... Not going to help me and-"
Felicity pushed herself out of her chair with underestimated force, "Maybe that's because out of all people who you decide to protect, you choose Malcolm Merlyn!" Steam was practically coming out of her ears, "He put Sara into a coma, Oliver!"
"Oliver said that Merlyn said he didn't do it, Felicity," Roy reminded her.
"He's a murder, a trickster! A... Magician! We can't trust anything he says!" Felicity poked a finger into Oliver's chest so hard that it actually sent him back a step. "And in the process of protecting him, you piss off a certain assassin and causes her to doom us all to death! And, in light of trying to protect us all, you are going off around acting like a chicken with your head chopped off! Running around half cocked isn't going to get us anywhere!"
Roy defended Oliver, "I wouldn't exactly say 'half cocked', Felicity, I mean he-"
Oliver shot Roy a glare that told him to stop talking. Let her get it all out, Oliver's look said. Roy shrugged and let Felicity rant on.
"You picked a fight with the most dangerous man who walks the earth, Oliver; why!?"
Diggle noticed where this conversation was going and it had nothing to do with Ra's al Ghul. Roy got tapped on the shoulder and Diggle pointed to the stairs. Roy grabbed Thea's hand and Dig led the young couple up the stairs and into the club.
"'Why' what?" Oliver asked coming eye-to-eye with her.
The anger in Felicity exploded. After accepting Oliver's choice that they couldn't be together, Felicity held all the emotions inside. Felicity knew it wasn't a good idea, the longer you hold it inside, the bigger the explosion, and that theory was right.
"Why are you so dead set on trying to kill me!" The words felt Felicity's mouth before she could stop them. She covered her mouth with a gasp.
"What?" Oliver asked, confused. "I have never hurt you, Felicity, and I never would."
Felicity dropped her hands with a roll of her eyes, "Forget it, Oliver." She brushed past him but he grabbed her arm which felt like he branded her arm in some way.
"No," he voice was stern. "Tell me what that meant. 'Dead set on trying to kill me'? What are you talking about?" Oliver's blue eyes peered into Felicity's. "Talk to me, and don't say-"
"Nothing-"
"Don't say 'Nothing'!" Oliver released Felicity's hand when he felt her pulse. Her heart was going a mile a minute and he thought it was out of anger.
"What do you want me to say then?" Felicity yelled back at him. "You're the one that made the decision that we shouldn't be together, Oliver. You, not me. I am doing my best to abide by those terms."
Oliver suddenly understood what she was talking about. "When I said that I had to be alone, I wasn't saying that I didn't love you, you know that, Felicity," Oliver sure hoped that she did...
....Even though she kissed Ray Palmer and he was about two seconds away from either crying or breaking his million dollar face.
"I'm not going to wait around for you. Oliver!" Felicity put her hands to her temple to try and calm her thoughts.
"I'm not asking you too, Felicity," he stated simply. "I get that you want to be in a relationship with someone."
"Well," Felicity tsked her tongue, "by your reaction when Ray asked me out tells me something a little different!"
Oliver pursed his lips together and crossed his arms, "Am I supposed to like him or something?"
Felicity barked a laugh, "You two couldn't get along even if the world was ending, Oliver. I highly doubt you are going to like him"
"Good, because I don't," he yelled with a iterated voice.
"What I don't get is why!" Felicity rolled her shoulders back. "You're going off to war, and you can't come to term with the man who is trying to save the city just like you?"
"I can't come to terms with the guy because he locked his lips around yours, and worse I saw it all, Felicity," Oliver's voice was soft, barley above a whisper.
Felicity's eyes went wide in shock, her voice as low as his, "You... You saw?" Oliver's silence secured her answer. "Why didn't you say anything?" she wondered.
"Why would I? You're moving on, being happy, it's what I want you to do," Oliver gave her a sad smile which Felicity hated.
Yelling started again, Felicity groaned and corrected that statement, "Oliver, if you were really there, then you would've saw that I push him away! God, you're so frustrating!"
"I'm getting on a plane in four hours, Felicity, so whatever you have to say, I suggest you get it off your chest and stop speaking in sentence fragments," Oliver tried to make the comment casual, but he just made things worse.
Felicity pushed past him and walked over to her desk, "Forget it," she mumbled.
"Fine," Oliver smiled and walked gently over to her. He didn't want to crowd her in too tightly, he knew she needed some space to deal with all of this. "What are you working on, then? Can't it wait until I'm gone?"
Felicity took her glasses off her face and rotated in her chair so he wouldn't see her cry. "What do you think I'm working on, Oliver? I'm not just going to sit here and watch you die."
Oliver realized that Felicity was trying to find a loophole in his deal and he spun her chair around so that he could see her face. "No, Felicity, what are you - no, Felicity, I won't risk it."
"But you'll risk leaving me here, alone?" Felicity's tears streamed down her face and her shoulders shook with sobs. Oliver placed a hand on Felicity's cheek to wipe away the tear. Felicity touched his wrist and squeezed it while the other slipped down his arm and clutched his shirt for dear life.
"Shh," Oliver crooned crouching down to her level. "I'm here now..."
"But you won't be for much longer," she stressed. Her blue eyes turned grey from the tears that were overflowing so much that she barley could see Oliver's face. Felicity's chest heaved with pain, it felt like her heart was breaking for the umteenth time from Oliver's will.
"Please," she begged hanging her head, to contain her cries, "please, please, please, don't leave me, Oliver..."
"I'm not going to die, Felicity," Oliver brought her head up to look in his eyes. He kissed away her tears gently. "I'll come back."
"How do you know?"
Oliver simply smiled, "Because I have yet to love you, and I refuse to die until I love you with every passionate fire in my being." Felicity drew in a breath in surprise. "You are my one and only love in this life and the next, and I won't die until I know that you love me. At least a little bit."
Oliver had never been so blunt in his whole entire life, and Felicity was speechless. "If you didn't know I loved you," Felicity swallowed when her voice was steady and her tears almost dry, "then you're blind as much as you are stupid.... Sorry," Felicity rolled her eyes, "that was mean."
Oliver smiled and shook his head, "I don't mind..."
Felicity felt the tears on her lips and she licked them. "Do you promise to come back Oliver? Can you promise that you will come back to me?"
Oliver smiled in a grim line, "I... I honestly don't know if I can kill him Felicity, I honestly don't know if I'm a killer anymore. But I'm sure of two things, the first is that I will do whatever - whatever - it takes to keep my family safe."
Oliver rose slowly and placed a kiss on Felicity's forehead. His heart fluttered when he heard her mouth open wide with a sigh escaping her lips. He rose went to the bag that he packed earlier and threw it over his shoulder. Felicity regained her short loss of breath and processed what Oliver said. Felicity found it admorable.
"Wait!" she shouted and jumped up from her chair and ran over to him. "What about the second thing?" Her heart was still racing and riding a roller coast that was flying off the tracks.
Oliver looked at the floor and wondered if he had the strength to say it, the words that were only three words long, he had never said to anyone beside his family.
He sighed and glaced at Felicity one last time, "I love you." And with that said, he turned on his heels and went to the railings.
Felicity's heart broke into a thousand peices like she was hearing those words for the first time. Felicity watched Oliver go and suddenly, her feet were moving without her knowledge.
"Oliver!" Felicity shouted afraid that she was too late to say something.
Oliver halts at the stairs and turned slowly around. He heard her heels clacking on the floor running after him and he turned around just in time to catch her in his arms. Felicity leaped onto Oliver and wrapped her legs around his waist. Oliver dropped his jacket and his bag slid off his arms and onto the floor, forgotten about.
"I love you," she nodded and rubbed her nose against his. "I love you too, I'm so sorry I've waited so long to tell you... I hope I'm not too late."
Olvier was absorbed into that moment and his whole being sparked with the fire only Felicity ignited. He huskily laughed and tasted her breath on his lips, "Don't worry... You're not to late..."
Felicity couldn't wait any longer to submerge her lips with his. The kiss was devine as it throws them into the pits of gentle passion. As their lips smother across one another's, tongues eagerly collioding and thoughts spinning exsesivley. One of Oliver's hands slides to the back of her head to weave his fingers through the golden strands at the base of her ponytail. He gives it a small pull and her curls fall out and over her shoulders. How he has dreamed of running his fingers through Felicity’s soft waves and now has the chance.
Felicity's hands wander, sliding down Oliver's back and neck to hold him tighter. Oliver grinds his mouth harder against hers, tilting his head for deeper access to her. She moans against him in response, hands pulling him tigher and tigher, so maybe - just maybe - they would be glued together and he would have to stay with her.
What happened after that has no words for explanation, it just was like it always will be...