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The first time it happens is on the train. He leans over to give her a parting kiss; to give closure to both of them, but, as she closes the distance, all she can think about is the last time she kissed someone, and how frustrating the whole situation has been since then, and how the said someone is probably expecting something like this to happen while she’s in Central City anyway, and instead of pulling away from his chaste kiss, she pulls on his collar and deepens it.
All he can think about when their lips touch is how this should be goodbye, but he hasn’t kissed someone since before the coma, and even before that, because he’s been holding out on Iris. Iris who’s dating Eddie and who has been pushing Barry towards Felicity since she first met the blonde.
And they both know they shouldn’t do this, since they’ve both just confessed there’s no way this relationship is going to work romantically, but it’s nice to feel wanted unconditionally for once, and it’s also nice to have someone else’s tongue in your mouth and your hand in their hair and…
Barry is the first to regain his senses. He pulls away from her pink lips, just enough to ask one question: “Are we really doing this?”
Immediately, Felicity brings her hands off his collar. “You’re right, we definitely shouldn’t. I don’t know what I was thinking…”
Barry’s kind of breathless, but they both know it’s more from the kiss than from Felicity herself. “I didn’t say we shouldn’t, but what even is this? Because we literally just agreed a romantic relationship isn’t going to work out.”
“Are you suggesting a non-romantic relationship?” Felicity asks, face flushed with color.
“No! I mean yes? I mean I don’t know. I don’t even know what this,” he gestures between them, “is.”
“Me neither.” she confesses. “But I do know that I like you, Barry Allen, and you like me. Maybe, probably, definitely not as much as we like other people, and, if I’m being honest, I enjoy kissing you, and I’m sick and tired of getting kissed only as a goodbye, so just shut up and kiss me.” Then she makes a face. “Was that too forward? I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything.”
He cuts her off with another kiss. They can figure out what this is later.
“Consider this a hello, then, not a goodbye.” He whispers, before racing off the train.
And maybe she fixes her hair, but keeps her lipstick slightly messed up. Maybe he purposefully doesn’t wipe the coral lipstick off of his collar. Maybe he makes sure Iris sees it and refuses to elaborate on it when asked. Maybe she tells Roy just how hospitable Barry was when she knows Oliver is in earshot.
Maybe they do all this and more. But it doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong. It isn’t wrong just because it doesn’t feel as right as it would with someone else.
The second time it happens, it’s not supposed to. Things are going great on both of their fronts when Team Arrow arrives in Central City. Iris is a little smitten with the Flash, and Oliver is acting like he did before that disastrous first date, and both of them think they might actually stand a chance.
But then the Flash attacks Eddie.
And Felicity finds out that the ‘someone from my past’ that Oliver ran into at Jitters has a son. And Oliver may have doubts if she tells him, but Felicity does not, because the little boy looks just like him, and she’s pissed.
Neither of them had realized just how much unresolved sexual tension they’d been building up until everything went to shit.
So really, when she’s venting to him on the phone after coming home from Verdant and she suggests he come over, neither of them are quite to blame when things go in the direction they do.
This time, things are more intense, and he’s trying so hard to be a gentleman, but she’s making it difficult when she pulls him down on her couch with more force than he’d expected and her teeth touch his collarbone. It’s only when her hands move to the blue buttons on his shirt and his ride up along the hem of her salmon skirt that they realize they might need some ground rules for this.
“First thing’s first,” Felicity blurts out after they break away. “This isn’t going to lead to my bedroom, right? Because we are definitely not turning this-” she motions between the two of them, “into some unhealthy friends with benefits situation. Not that kissing you isn’t beneficial, because, trust me, it is, but-”
“Oh yeah, definitely.” Barry cuts her off, “Nothing farther than two best friends making out on the couch with no feelings attached.”
They agree, and she moves to kiss him again, but then pulls away. “Also, no taking clothes off, even temporarily, because that’s just going to lead where we just said we weren’t going to go, because i have restraint, but you’re not that resistible.”
Immediately, his hands move away from her hem, but she just rolls her eyes. “You didn’t have to dothat, just don’t try and take it off or I’ll leave you for a pint of mint chip.”
He laughs at that, and she captures it with her magenta smile.
And, when their mouths are free, and they’re not out of breath from the wonderful friction occurring, she starts to rant. He’s not expecting anything less, since her mouth can only stay quiet for so long, and it should upset him that she’s talking about another guy when this is going on, but it doesn’t. And they start taking turns venting.
“Its like I don’t even know him anymore.” She complains, as Barry’s tongue traces her jaw.
“How can she believe in meta-humans and not meta-induced anger?” He bemoans as she sucks on his ear.
“It’s like he put the ladder right in front of my desk on purpose.” She alludes before moving back to his mouth.
“And most of the time she flirted back.” He mumbles after pulling away for a moment to catch his breath. Felicity takes his heartbroken face as a sign that they should stop for the night.
“Call for a pizza and you can tell me all about it.” She whispers, propped up by her elbow on the couch so her blonde hair encircles his face in a golden waterfall.
He reaches for his phone. “I’d like that.”
The third time it happens is the very next day. At first, it starts when he’s regaling her with his friendly fight against Oliver. But, as it turns out, Barry’s words about how Oliver can be himself and the Arrow did not resonate, and Felicity is beyond her usual level of pissed.
“Tell me you kicked his ass.” She whispers to him as she runs her hands along the particularly egregious spot along his collarbone and he wants to tell her, he really does, because she’s giving himthat look and moving her hands toward places they definitely agreed were off limits, but they’ve had two bottles of wine between them already and he knows she’s really not thinking straight.
“Felicity…” he warns, “you were the one who made the rules.”
“We’re vigilantes;” she murmurs, “I’d say we practically live by the statement rules are made to be broken.” And then she flips him over and he knows this is not a good idea, that it was never a good idea for them to marathon the newest episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on her bed instead of the couch like they usually do, that he definitely knows this is a bad idea, and yet he’s powerless to stop it. Because it’s Felicity. “Tell me and I’ll stop.” She promises, but her hands are already undoing the buttons on his shirt and he knows he can’t tell her and he also knows he really doesn’t actually want her to stop.
There’s this sparkle in her eyes and her hair looks like a halo in the moonlight as she straddles his waist and he thinks it may be the alcohol because he is feeling absolutely totally wrecked by her right now. So he doesn’t tell her, and he knows neither of them will really regret this in the morning becausehow could they?
“So what do you say Barry?” She breathes out afterwards. “Are you gonna stay the night?”
“Dr. Wells is gonna kill me.”
“Superspeed, remember?”
“Oh I remember, alright…”
So he does. Because he can’t ever seem to say no to her.
The fourth time it happens it’s because they both just need someone.
Barry’s been drinking with Caitlin all night, and this time with something that’ll actually get him drunk, and he’s dangerously close to spilling all about Felicity, because he’s been gushing about Iris for hours while Caitlin did the same about Ronnie, but then she brought up how her and Cisco had a one night stand one time that she wasn’t supposed to tell him about. Naturally, he feels like he owes her a secret too, but he can’t betray Felicity’s trust like that, especially when they haven’t talked about it since, so instead he calls her when Caitlin leaves.
“Hey Felicityyyyy.” He starts, drawing out the last syllable of her name. “Fe-li-ci-ty. Felicity.”
“Barry, are you drunk?”
“Maybeeeeee.” He singsongs back to her and he can hear her huff of laughter over the phone.
“I thought you couldn’t get drunk.”
“Cisco made something. Did you know this is the first time I’ve been this buzzed in over a year? Ayear, Felicity.”
“I think you’re a little more than buzzed.”
“I’m less buzzed than you were last time I was over.”
There’s silence on the other end, and he knows he might’ve just crossed the line that they unspokenly agreed they would not cross, but he doesn’t really care because they’ll get past it.
Felicity hasn’t been thinking that much about that night, been avoiding it, actually, because she doesn’t want to think about a different could-have-been when she’s had one to mourn for the past few weeks but now he’s back with his head up his ass and maybe she just needs to feel something. So she responds unexpectedly.
“I think I got you buzzed enough.”
“Felicity Smoak, are you flirting with me?”
She draws out her response the same way he’d drawn out her name, among other things. “Maybe.”
“Why don’t we do this more often? We should do this more often. I should come over more often.”
And she’s never really had this sort of friends with benefits situation before but she decides one more time couldn’t hurt because it obviously hasn’t damaged their friendship one bit, and, from what she gathers, he’d be up for it too, so she asks him.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Race on over here.”
He thinks he mishears her at first, but then she confirms it and he nearly drops his phone. And the mixture Caitlin gave him has worn off by the time he races over to Starling but he doesn’t really care because when he knocks on the door she opens it and pounces on him with such ferocity that at first he can’t believe this is really happening. He doesn’t think he’s ever been kissed like this before.
And she’s pulling him down by the collar of his shirt and he’s losing himself in the curve of her small waist against his hands and he knows it doesn’t mean anything but he wishes it did because he hasn’t felt sparks like this since Christmas. And Iris has made it clear how she feels and, if he’s judging by Felicity’s rants, Oliver isn’t being very delicate with her heart either, and he thinks maybe this could be easy, maybe they could be easy.
And it wouldn’t be the fairytale that either of them have imagined, but life never seems to be, even when things that look like magic exist, because they’re both probable people, reasonable people, and the way Iris makes him feel may not be able to be explained by science, but the way Felicity makes him feel can, and he has no doubt she would sound wonderful explaining it. Her voice running over every syllable clear and calm and an absolute ray of sunshine in his quickly darkening world.
It would make sense. They make sense. They are two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together, that were manufactured that way.
Felicity knows that she could be content like this. Happy in his arms with his lips on hers and their heartbeats quickly accelerating to the same unheard beat.
She ignores the voice in her head that reminds her that a functional relationship requires more than unconditional friendship and really great sex and replaces it with the one that tells her they could rule the world, the two of them. Because he’s a genius and she is too and they could save the world together by night and sell the brilliant inventions that she knows they’d come up with together by day. And Felicity thinks that Felicity Smoak-Allen doesn’t actually sound that bad, and their children would be beautiful geniuses. And it would really be the best fuck you to life if they could learn to be happy together despite things not working out exactly the way they would’ve wanted them to.
He picks her up and tries to carry her into her room but they both hit their heads on the doorway and end up laughing so hard that he has to put her down, and they smile between kisses and it makes it all the more painful for them because this could be so easy.
But they’re not going to let it be.
And that becomes obviously, heart-wrenchingly clear when the names they call out sometimes do not belong to each other but to other people. It becomes clear when they end the night almost sobbing in each other’s arms after whispering and talking and telling secrets for hours and hours. It’s a reminder that, no matter how easy things seem like they could be, they live lives where things just do not go their way, and a night that started with laughter can easily end in salty tears against warm skin as the small rays of sunlight fill the room and remind them that not everything in their worlds have to be darkness all the time. Each other, for instance.
The last time it happens, it’s in Central City.
Felicity’s come with her boss and friend, Ray Palmer to get some help from Cisco and Caitlin to fix the supersuit, and Barry’s told her all about how badly he messed up with Iris again and how he just once wants it to seem like he has everything together.
So she suggests a double date to Eddie.
And they ham it up.
And it’s so much fun.
And she feels bad for her friend that everyone is lying to her but Felicity’s been in the game too long to really empathize with that too much, and so she doesn’t really mind shoving food into Barry’s mouth and making purposeful innuendos and gushing about how they share everything with each other until Ray mentions Wells and they go talk in the hallway.
She wonders if maybe that’s why he’s so on edge.
It’s a reminder that things will never be easy for them, not with the lives that they lead, even if those lives end up with each other. But she likes playing pretend. She likes pretending that they’re dating and not just sleeping together, she likes the sense of power it gives her, the feeling that she has everything under control when she very much does not.
And later, after he dies and comes back and she defeats the Bug-Eyed Bandit, they hold onto each other tightly at Barry’s house while Joe’s out on nightshift and try to reconcile with the fact that there’s a chance they’ll lose each other every day, and that they don’t want to spend so much of that time living a lie, even if it means giving up the crazy source of comfort they’ve found with each other.
Between the silent breaths a new unspoken agreement is formed, the one that says this is the last night, this is the last time, and they need to start learning to sort everything out themselves. That she can’t come to double dates with Iris and Eddie anymore and pretend she’s in love with him. That he can’t be her date to weddings and kiss her in front of the man she actually loves and give her all the dances. That, as perfectly as they fit together, they are not in love with each other.
“Did you ever think… that we could be, eventually?”
“I think I almost love you.”
“But almost isn’t good enough, is it?”
“Don’t make me say that.”
“If it isn’t for me, it can’t be for you.”
“You’re right, but I wish it was.”
“I wish it was too.”
“I really wish I loved you.”