Chapter Text
“Hey” He tells her sitting in the desk beside her. “Felicity right?” She glances at him shocked that Oliver Queen knows her name. She nods at him and he gives her a charming half-mile “I’m Oliver”
“I know” She blurts out and he smiles again letting out a chuckle this time.
“I need your help” He says and she knows this is a bad idea. Felicity Smoak and Oliver Queen have no business being friends. But the universe has other plans and that day everything is set in motion.
--
“I got in” He says entering the room with the biggest grin she has ever seen on his face, he comes near her desk and grabs her by the waist and hugs her tight. “Thank you” He whispers quietly in her ear.
“I didn’t do a thing” She tells him.
“Oh yes you did Miss Smoak, if it wasn’t for your immense knowledge in literature, math, physics and frankly everything I wouldn’t have gotten in” She sighs as a response, this was all him. “Did you get your letter?” He says as he lets her down and backs away a little bit. She nods. “So?”
“I’ll guess I’ll be seeing you around Queen”
It surprises him how incredibly happy he’s to hear she’s going to be a permanent part of his life, just a couple of months ago he didn’t even knew she existed, and now he feels he won’t ever forget.
--
“Would you have dinner with me?” He asks casually a couple of days after they both get their acceptance letters.
“What?” Her eyes are wide in surprise, like he just asked her something outrageous.
“Dinner? Celebratory dinner given that we both got into our first choice university and—Dinner?” He explains trying to make it sound normal, like they always go out to dinner together, like it isn’t a big deal.
“Dinner sounds good” She replies with a small smile, she seems relieved so he doesn’t push it, he doesn’t tell her maybe it’s not just dinner after all.
--
“Here” He says entering the empty classroom and handing her a cup of coffee from the new fancy coffee shop near school.
“Thank you?” She says and she knows he can hear the question in her expression. She takes a sip and lets out a satisfactory moan, he smiles and she flushes deeply as soon as she realizes he just heard her. “This is amazing, Oliver” Felicity adds sheepishly.
“You’re welcome Miss Smoak, I been a pain in your ass for the last couple of weeks so I thought you deserved a treat just for putting up with me”
He’s being charming she’s not sure if it could be called flirting but it isn’t just friendliness, she’s about to ask him why he’s giving her of all people that smile and that kind of attention when Laurel Lance comes running through the door. She hugs Oliver from behind and gives him a kiss on the cheek as a greeting. She waves at her, and Felicity is impressed she’s even acknowledging her since they had never talked before. Oliver appears surprised to see her but as soon as he turns around he’s giving her the same dashing smile he had displayed towards Felicity a few seconds before.
Maybe that’s what friendliness looks like to people like Oliver Queen.
--
“Go away Oliver” She yells from inside her dorm room. She’s sick and having a week from hell and the last thing she needs is for him to want to take care of her. She gets it, she does, they are never going to happen romantically and it’s ok, but he has to stop making her feel special every time he has the chance to.
“Felicity open up. Don’t make me charm the pants out of your RA because you know I will” He’s kidding, she’s almost sure except… he would do it, and then it would be ten times more embarrassing for her.
She opens the door after a few minutes of consideration, and his smile is so bright and concerned that she wants to punch it out of his face. And that’s when she sees the box he’s carrying with him, he holds it towards her as a peace offering, she takes it and she scans it curiously: homemade chicken soup, mint chocolate chip ice cream, the princess bride dvd, and a green and very weird looking teddy bear she instantly loves. Oliver Queen is going to be the death of her.
--
He enters her dorm as if it was his own, he’s been there so many times over the last year than he knows where everything is by heart, it also has something to do with Felicity being extremely organized, he can hear the shower running so he calls up to let her know he’s here and he’ll be waiting for her.
She comes out of the bathroom 15 minutes later her hair perfectly in place, she’s wearing a nice skirt and those ridiculous panda flats she seems to love, she looks beautiful and effortless and he has to think twice before he speaks, afraid to say the wrong thing or the right one too soon.
“Ready?” He asks softly and he feels completely exposed being there alone with her.
“Sure” She says with ease. It’s a regular Friday night and they are going out for drinks as they have done many times before, expect tonight he expects things to go in a slight different direction. “Before I forget did you speak to Helena? She texted saying she couldn’t reach you”
“She texted you?” He says with a little less control that he would’ve hoped. “I did speak to her, we um… broke up a few days ago and she isn’t taking the news very well apparently” He can’t tell her why they ended things yet, but he can tell she wants to ask. So he gives her a little more information to keep her from asking away. “She might move back home with her dad, so it’s better for everyone this way”
She doesn’t appear surprised, or mad, or happy, in fact Felicity is the perfect image of control at the moment, and honestly? It’s killing him.
“Good for you then” She says and gives him a soft pat on the back before moving toward the door and resuming their night as if the conversation hadn’t happened in the first place.
--
They arrived at Verdant a place that had just opened a few blocks from campus. It was a pub, exposed brick walls, wood flooring, booths and dim lighting made the place cozy and familiar. It was packed and apparently Oliver had taken the time to make a reservation because they were seated right away, getting hard looks from everyone waiting in line to be seated.
Their both was in a far corner a green lamp hanging in the middle of the table giving a yellowish light, they sat across from each other and Oliver ordered a beer for himself and a red wine for her, usually when they went out to eat they didn’t drink so she thought it was a little unusual for him to order alcoholic drinks but she didn’t comment on it, maybe he needed one after his Helena situation this past week.
He was in the middle of a story about a prank the football team had pulled on the basketball guys, he was smiling devilishly at the craziness that had ensured when she caught it, his hands where slowly making their way towards hers, he was talking like crazy, which of course wasn’t a very Oliver Queen thing to do, not unless he was smashed and surrounded by hot girls and jocks, he was almost babbling and he was just inches away from holding her hand… was this… a date? Of course not she heard another voice in her head say. That’s crazy thinking Felicity, she thought over and over.
But… he had made a reservation, they never did that, also he had told her about the break up with Helena and had called her earlier in the day asking her to dinner, which also didn’t happened often usually he just showed up at her door and told her to get dressed because they were heading out and she would talk him out of it most times, he didn’t say: hey let’s go out on a date, but he did call in advance to ask if she wanted to eat.
Now she was dying to ask him because every time he looked her way she felt like maybe it was.
“Fe-li-ci-ty” He said in that paused tone he used when she wasn’t paying much attention to the words coming out of his mouth.
“Huh?” She answered absentmindedly.
“Where did you go?” He said with a half-smile and in that moment his hands made the final inches disappear and they were holding hands, in the middle of a cozy public place, and he was giving him the look, the one she had seen few times in him, the one she almost always thought was a product of her imagination. It wasn’t.
“Oliver is this-“ She began saying, she couldn’t hold her questions any longer, if it wasn’t it would be a little bit awkward for a while but if it was… well… she wasn’t sure what she would do if he said yes to her question.
And before any more words could come out of her mouth a good humored voice called Oliver’s name and the moment was gone, he let go of her hands and glanced back to see a handsome black haired, blue eyed guy who was making his way towards them as if he owned the place. He gave Oliver a loud pat on the back and smiled charmingly at Felicity, his energy was so contagious that even if she had no idea who he was, she found herself smiling back at him.
“Tommy Merlyn” He said introducing himself and sitting next to her, almost too close for someone she had just met, but this guy had a way of making you feel safe and happy and she couldn’t help but smile at his silliness for the rest of the night.
--
5 years or so later…
She was freaking out, in fact she’s sure she had never been this freaked out before in her life, she’s silently collecting her clothes from the floor and his soft snoring if the only thing keeping her from a meltdown. She messed up BIG TIME. For a girl who had never been in trouble in her life, this is way too much for her to handle, too much of a bad decision, too out of control.
She makes her way out of the bedroom feeling like a bond agent, but instead of fearless she’s scared to death to have him wake up before she can leave the premises. She can’t face him after last night; she doesn’t know what to say or how to act. The only thing she is sure of is that what happened between them can never happen again.
She has to get off her high horse she can’t ride it anymore because she just became the girl that cheats and that’s the last thing she ever wanted to be.