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It is the absolute last thing she expects to wake up to, on this night. It's behind storms, behind Oliver having a nightmare, behind even something exploding in her apartment (she might've forgotten to unplug the finicky toaster, just this once).
She hears the soft scuff of a shoe, a thump that's loud enough to startle, and an arrow-sharp intake of breath. She parses the sounds together slowly, fuzzy with sleep. Places them a meter or so from her feet, at the doorway between her bedroom and the room with the way out.
"Oliver. Are you seriously leaving right now?”
He's already dressed, in his jacket, boots tied up. Under the bedsheet her thighs still feel sticky.
She hates this frozen silence so much more than the noise that preceded it.
So she reverts to babble.
"I—sorry—I just …" Pinching the bridge of her nose where her glasses sit normally, she counts down from three. "I thought we dealt with … everything. The stuff about us, I mean. Like we talked, and then we talked again, and then you did the thing where you took off my underwear with your teeth—"
"Felicity," he cuts in. "I meant everything I said. You know I did."
She can almost hear him frantically tossing aside answers in search of some right one. He takes a step forward, like a subject approaching a queen. She waits for him to continue, but instead they just breathe at each other.
"So?" she prods, gently. "I take it you're fleeing, not that you have un-cancel-able other plans."
"I'm sorry."
"How were you thinking this would go, before I woke up? You were going to slip out and then just, what, ignore me till I went away?"
"I don't—I don't know."
When his voice catches she realizes he's breathing too shallowly, too fast. She almost didn't notice behind the practiced mask of calm control.
"Oliver, come here," she says, and sits up slowly to pat the mattress next to her, still indented from where his body lay.
She can barely believe he obeys. He sits and takes her hand—loosely, three fingers wrapping simply around four of hers. In the bluish dark she feels every point on her naked skin where her sheet covers her and she wishes she could tell if he even glanced for a moment at the shape of her body.
"You can talk to me," she says, and swallows hard. "Please talk to me."
His huge warm hand cups the side of her face and she lets herself be pulled in until their foreheads touch.
"This is what I was afraid of, with you," he says. He puts his other arm around her, but is careful not to disturb the sheet where it acts as a barrier. She mirrors his touch, cupping his cheek in her hand.
"I’m losing it, Felicity. Every second I don't leave." He closes his eyes, breathing hard. "More and more I don't want to leave and what if I'm never able to leave you, Felicity."
She strokes his face. “What if?”
"I could lie in bed all day with you. Not training, not working, not doing any of the things that I am supposed to do. And it would be so much better than any other day that I wouldn't want to go back. I would forget that I have a duty because I look at you and I want to buy a house and build us a bed and lie on it waiting for you every night."
She whimpers, just a tiny bit, and when he breathes in as she breathes out it feels more intimate than a kiss.
"I think you could do both," she murmurs. "We could do both. I promise I'll make you focus."
"It's not just that." He strokes a hand through her hair. "I don't deserve …" He trails off into nothing.
She shivers. “Of course you do.”
He shakes his head, smiling. Oh, how Felicity jokes.
"Of course you do," she says, firmly, and kisses his lips, more firmly.
"I'm a fuckup."
"You're not a fuckup." She holds his face between her hands and hopes his heart rate is slowing, relaxing, as much as hers seems to be accelerating. "You're my hero."
The bedsheet falls into her lap when he kisses her hard. His arm snakes around her back and she scoots closer to him, until he opens his jacket and wraps it around her. She snuggles into his shirt and kisses his neck, keeping her fingers in his hair, prolonging the question of his clothes. Of his presence.
"You deserve me," she whispers. "I want you to have me."
Somehow his rough exhale goes right to her clit. He pushes her back, enough for them to see the shadows of each other's expressions.
"If I let myself believe that …" He traces the side of her face with his fingers. "I have no idea what else I would do."
"Let's find out."