Work Text:
Oliver has faced a lot of problems in his life.
It sounds trivial, understated, belittling—but it’s true. He has stared more life-or-death dilemmas right in the eyes than the average human being.
For starters, there was the island debacle—which encompassed the sacrificial father thing and the Ivo thing and the Slade thing.
Then there was the Hood predicament, which also, in and of itself, spawned a lot of issues. Murdering vigilantes aren’t exactly hailed heroes, after all.
Then, the Tommy thing; the mother thing—neither of which he has words enough to accurately articulate.
Oliver has faced a lot of problems.
But never, not once in his Godforsaken life, has he considered Felicity Smoak to be a problem. A blessing, a blinding streak of sunlight, an infuriating conscience, a saving grace—but never a problem.
Until now.
“She could go with Roy,” he says, pacing back and forth in the vast, looming warehouse where they’ve temporarily set up camp after it became clear that the foundry was overwhelmingly compromised. The air is cool and dank and sends chills up Oliver’s spine, but Felicity can set up a makeshift computer station and he can hide his gear, so he’s not complaining.
Complaining is what he internally directs at the police who are coming for him—the ones Ra’s made damn sure would come for him. But whereas, before, SCPD was merely a blip—now they’re a screaming siren.
A screaming siren that’s cutting through his peaceful, brooding vigilante silence and is accompanied by a task force that is quite literally knocking down the door—or trying to, at least. He can hear the shouts as they move in waves to surround the premises, and, really, it’s only a matter of time.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Roy says, looking agitated with his head bent and his hands shoved in his pockets. “I’ve spent years on the streets. But that was just fending for myself. I can keep myself hidden—but Blondie?” he shrugs, looking a little bit disappointed in himself. “I don’t know how workable that would be.”
“He’s right,” Digg acknowledges gravely.
“Well, then, she can go with you,” Oliver bites out, swiveling on a heel and heading back across the open floor. He knows she’s there, sitting silent in her crappy, pilfered desk chair while he fumes. She’s twisting her hands together like she always does when she’s nervous—when she’s faced with a problem she can’t solve.
The SCPD is coming for him—coming for them, and anyone caught in their crosshairs will be destroyed. All of them have backup plans—escape routes and safe havens and public identities to hunker down into.
All of them except Felicity.
“They haven’t associated me with you,” Digg points out. “God knows how they haven’t, but they haven’t. Putting her at my door—they’d find her, Oliver. And then they’d use us both to testify against you.”
Oliver clenches his fists at his sides. Breathe, step, breathe, step, don’t punch the walls.
“With—with Ray, then.”
Because, yes, even Ray is there. Sans super suit and awkwardly standing off by himself in a corner of the walls of crates with which they’ve surrounded themselves, but very much present. They all have to cover their asses, and—ever since his change of heart regarding the Arrow—that includes Ray Palmer.
“Oliver,” Laurel says in that lawyer-y tone she uses when she’s about to say something frustratingly accurate. “They know she works with you. Put her with any type of public figure, any type of normal citizen, even—it only exposes her more. Exposes you more.”
“Well then tell me what to do!” Oliver bursts out, spinning on his feet to face her, anger flashing through his eyes.
He’ll be arrested—he’ll gladly be arrested if it means everyone else’s safety, but it doesn’t. Lance is on a warpath, and nothing is escaping his missile range. Not even the sweet, innocent, lovable blonde for whom he holds so much affection.
A desperate, tense quiet fills their hideout. Oliver’s words echo off the empty space that surround them and dissipate into the air, filled with the distant scuffle of standard issue combat boots.
And then, so quietly he’s sure he imagined it—he imagined it, right?—Felicity says very, very softly, “We could get married.”
Four heads whip in her direction. Oliver stills and then turns very, very slowly to face her for the first time since this whole ordeal started. She’s avoiding eye contact, looking at one of the shipping crates determinedly.
“What?” he says, but his voice won’t work without air, which seems to have stopped entering his lungs. He clears his throat and tries again. “What?”
“Spousal immunity,” she says, her voice small. “I can’t be compelled to testify against you if—if we’re married.”
The silence is all consuming as the team-plus-two stands there and stares at Felicity; she could have announced her ascent as the next Ra’s al Ghul and Oliver would have been less surprised.
“It’s—it’s legal,” Laurel says finally, and Oliver doesn’t exactly know why, but he shoots a glare at her.
The thought of this—it makes him sick.
“I—I don’t…” he starts, completely and utterly lost.
“Does anyone else have any suggestions?” Felicity asks, her voice growing stronger as she hears the doubt start to fill his.
No one speaks.
“All right, then,” Digg agrees after a moment.
“Digg,” Oliver snaps, because this—this isn’t right. In no realm of reality is this okay.
“What, Oliver?” Digg asks, “The police are kicking down our front door, and unless you want Felicity to either incriminate you or incriminate herself, then this is the only way.”
Oliver looks around helplessly at his companions, waiting for someone to speak up. Waiting for someone to point out how insane this is.
No one says a word.
There’s a crash at the door.
“Shit,” Roy says.
“Okay, how do we do this?” Digg asks, flaring into action, and Felicity breaks her gaze from a brief flicker across Oliver’s profile to spin around in her chair.
“The certificates will be fake,” she says hurriedly, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “But they won’t know that. And then other than that, we just need a…”
“Minister,” Ray interjects knowingly, and Oliver has an errant thought that this is somehow—somehow—worse now that they’re broken up than it would have been if they were together. At least he would know for certain that Felicity’s heart belonged to someone else.
Felicity nods where she’s sitting, keeping her back turned to everyone, and then goes to snatch the certificates from where they’re printing. She walks purposefully over to Oliver and holds one out to him along with a pen.
“Here,” she says unceremoniously, avoiding his gaze.
He stares at her, dumbfounded, looking at the resolved steel of her gray-blue eyes. “Felicity…”
“Sign the stupid piece of paper, Oliver,” she says, trying for apathetic and falling a few confused degrees short.
He takes the paper and pen from her numbly and turns to a flat surface, flourishing a shaky signature across the page.
There are two more crashes and some muffled shouting.
Felicity snatches the items from his hand as soon as he turns around, pointedly keeping her gaze away from his face as she hands the certificates behind her back to Laurel. Laurel, on her part, takes them expectantly and starts scanning through them quickly.
“Okay,” Felicity says, turning back and shaking some loose hair behind her straightened shoulders. She looks expectantly at Ray, who steps forward dutifully.
“Let’s get to it, shall we?” Ray says awkwardly, clasping his hands together in front of him.
“No, wait,” Oliver says, because, okay, enough is enough. He watches as Felicity keeps her eyes fixedly on the space behind Ray’s shoulder. He can swear he can see her expression waver just as another crash sounds from outside.
“Oliver, there isn’t time,” she says, sounding annoyed—but he can see beneath her surface, just like she’s always been able to do for him.
“Look at me,” he says softly. She swallows. “Felicity, please. Look at me.”
Slowly, she turns her head so that her eyes meet his, a world of tearful, watery blue.
“We don’t have to do this,” he tells her. “We can find another way.”
She gives him a sad, half-hearted smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “There is no other way.”
Another intrusive clang echoes through the warehouse, and they all jump. The voices are louder, now—more distinctive. They’re getting closer to breaking through.
The moment is broken, and Felicity sniffs quickly and shakes her head, gathering herself.
“Okay,” Ray says stiltedly, hurriedly. “We’re gathered here today for a multitude of reasons, none of which remotely point towards an impromptu wedding, but there you have it—”
“Palmer,” Digg bites out, and Ray winces slightly.
“Right,” he says, shaking his head and glancing warily at Felicity. “Do you, Felicity Smoak, take Oliver Queen to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
She still can’t even bring herself to look at Oliver, and it tears a hole down the center of his chest.
“I do,” she manages to force out, the words clipped and pained as they fall jagged from her lips. He hates this with every single fiber of his soul.
“Do you, Oliver Queen, take Felicity Smoak to be your lawfully wedded wife?” Ray says, his voice rising above the commotion of a clamorous, final crash as the police force finally barrages its way through the steel-enforced door.
Oliver can’t help himself. He would settle for a lot less than flowers and a guest list and the setting sun if it means he gets to marry her, but she at least needs to look at him. At least needs to see how much she means to him, even as their world crashes down around them.
He reaches out and cups her jaw with his hand, watching the way her eyes flicker closed and then open as he guides her gaze to his.
“I do,” he whispers, just for her, and a tear spills over her eyelashes to slip down her cheek.
“Then by the power invested in me by…a range of inexplicable circumstances, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
The officers are spilling in one by one, surrounding them and yelling out jumbled garble that adds up to something along the lines of Oliver Queen being in a lot of trouble.
But all of that fades away as he brings his other hand to cup her neck, sliding his fingers through her hair as he pulls her towards him. Her name drops from his lips urgently, an apology and a plea wrapped into one.
“Felicity.”
She goes willingly, expectantly, bringing her hands up to grip his forearms as their lips fuse together. It’s short and desperate, a pathetic replacement for something that Oliver finds himself yearning for with every broken beat of his heart.
When they pull away, she gasps out a shallow sob.
“This isn’t how I wanted it to happen,” he whispers roughly against her lips, his eyes still shut tight.
And because Felicity is Felicity, she mumbles out the first thing that comes to mind. “Running from the least intimidating task force in the country?” she murmurs shakily.
“No,” Oliver says firmly, pulling back just enough so that his forehead is resting against hers, so that he can look straight into her eyes.
He sees an ocean staring back at him and this—this is not a pathetic replacement. This is Felicity, and he will want her always.
“No,” he tells her, feeling the next words etch into his soul. Because she is every tomorrow he is never going to see. “Marrying you.”
His hands are being ripped from where they rest against her warm skin as the officers yank his arms behind his back. Cold cuffs are being tightened mercilessly around his wrists, but he can hardly feel them.
Because everything he feels is there, written on the expression of her face. He’ll be questioned endlessly and taken to trial and no doubt sentenced to life in prison for murders he didn’t commit. But somehow, through an impossible twist of fate, he’s married to Felicity Smoak. He’s married to Felicity Smoak, and his emotions are finally mirrored, plain as day, on her features—an answer to questions he feels like he’s spent his entire life asking.
It takes his breath away.
So maybe Oliver Queen has caused a lot more problems than he’s solved. Maybe he’s finally got himself into a mess he can’t untangle. But having Felicity Smoak in his life will never be a mess—it will never be a problem.
And right now, as he’s dragged away from the only home he’s ever known, that’s enough.