Work Text:
A/N: Set in the same ‘verse as Pack Light, but you don’t have to read that to get this one. Inspired by knottedyarn's prompt that Felicity sees Oliver’s brand for the first time on their post-finale road trip.
On some of the stops, she insists on buying him things too, because as much as she’s enjoying this spontaneous “buy whatever you need” thing, she wants to spoil him as much as he’s spoiling her. She wants to be able to show him how good he deserves to feel, and not just in the bedroom. Although, that is definitely, definitely proving to be a very effective method.
The first time she does it is on their second day of driving. They’re finally starting to hit the first real beach towns of the West Coast, and when he insists on getting her a ridiculously expensive pair of surf shop sunglasses so she can wear her contacts as they drive with the top down, she counters by buying him the cheapest, most ridiculous looking, bright pink Hawaiian shirt, hiding it from him in the bag until they reach the parking lot, where she tosses it at his chest, watching him unfold the material quizzically.
She expects surprise, maybe even that special laugh of his that’s blessedly been making more of an appearance in the last couple days, and she gets both, but he completely shocks her when he starts to unbutton the monstrosity, grinning at her disbelieving face as he pulls the navy v-neck he’s wearing over his head.
When he turns from her to toss the old shirt into the convertible, she sucks in a breath and watches his back tense visibly, as he realizes what she’s seen.
“Oliver?” she breathes the question more than asks it. “What...what is that?”
“Just another scar, Felicity,” he tries to brush her off, but she steps closer. Her stare is fixed on the angry stylized arrowhead that mars his back, but out of the corner of her eye she sees him hang his head a little and her full heart aches for him.
“Ra’s did this?” She raises a hand, but stops just short of touching his tortured skin, running her fingers down his side instead. It makes him shiver just a little, but he still won’t look at her. She can’t believe they’re doing this in a surf shop parking lot, can’t believe it’s taken her this long to notice.
“Part of my transformation,” he tells her then. “He felt it necessary for Al Sah-him to bear a unique mark.”
“So he branded you?”
“It’s nothing,” he tells her, false and hollow, the saddest he’s sounded since she first sat in the passenger seat of the Porsche. “I’ve had worse."
She doesn’t even hear his attempt at placating her, though, she’s too busy assessing his injury like she’s done countless times before. The mark is about half-healed, Felicity thinks, thanks to the less-than-up-to-date medical facilities in Nanda Parbat and a few weeks of being covered up by stifling and heavy League armor. Thankfully, it doesn’t look infected, but the scabs must be painful, how in the world did she not notice?
“Felicity,” Oliver says, inches from her face, eyes pleading, and she realizes that, in her concern, she hadn’t noticed that he’s turned back to face her. “It’s just another scar.”
She meets his eyes and she wants to push him, wants to make him count his scars and tell her about every single one, so he can understand how each pulls at a different string of her heart. But this isn’t the time or the place for that kind of confession. So she sets her sights on levity.
“Leave it to you to find the one guy who makes the Russian mafia look pretty tame,” she tells him, tapping his pectoral where the star is tattooed.
He smiles a little but his eyes are still dark so she insists he keep the shirt on while she drags him to a restaurant with a beachfront patio and makes him have wine with lunch and dance with her in the sand and later, she takes her time unbuttoning that ugly hawaiian shirt and they fall asleep in another crappy motel room, tangled up in each other.
She leaves her contacts in all night, which is a bad idea, except for the fact that, after a few blinks, she can see him clearly when she wakes up. He’s lying on his stomach facing her, a heavy arm banded over her shoulders. She ducks underneath his bicep as stealthily as she can and props herself up on her elbow, curiously surveying the new mark on his back, letting her finger graze over the skin around it.
Her heart is full of so much love, has literally been swelling, Grinch-style for the past few days since they saved the city and drove off into the sunset. But as she glances over the angry brand forming on Oliver’s back and the older exit wound, she finds a kind of rage that she sometimes forgets she’s capable of, and for a brief, horrible second, she is beyond grateful that this time, Ra’s had been the one to get a sword through the stomach. Even if Oliver had to be the one to do it.
She realizes too late that his eyes are open and he’s watching her intently, somehow at least mildly aware of what’s bubbling inside her. It’s uncanny, the read he’s got on her, but it comforts her to know that at least it goes both ways. Still, she doesn’t think twice before telling him the truth.
“Sometimes, I feel terrible for thinking that your scars are sexy,” she confesses. “When I first started working with you, with The Hood, I kept catching myself staring at you on the salmon ladder. I got a little worried that I had some kind of fetish or something.”
He pulls his arm down to wrap around her hip, giving her a small sleepy smile that she returns before snapping back to seriousness, needing to tell him this, needing him to know at least this for sure right now.
“But I’ve realized something,” she explains, voice shaking just a little as she presses a kiss to his shoulder. ”The scars you had before, they made you the man that you are. The man I fell in love with.”
She notices his eyes soften at that, but he stays quiet, like he knows she’s not done.
“But the scars he gave you,” she says, voice softening on a shudder. She drops her eyes to his chest, fingers grazing over the place where the Demon’s Head had driven his sword clean through him. “Those just remind me of how he almost took you from me, and I want… I hate…”
She trails off, breathing hard, and he wraps himself more fully around her, pressing his face into her neck before threading one arm up her back to cup her head.
“Hey, hey,” he whispers into her hair, pressing kisses along her scalp. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“I’m so glad you killed him,” she whispers. “I’m sorry that you had to do it, but I’m so glad that it’s done. Because otherwise…”
“I should have just killed him when you told me to the first time,” he interrupts her, and she’s glad because there was no possible way she was finishing that sentence. “I could have saved us a lot of trouble.”
“Did you seriously just make a joke right now?” she admonishes, eyes widening as she pulls back from his embrace. She slaps his chest in mock anger but she’s unable to hold back her grin, until he kisses it right off her face.
“I’m still laying down the law,” she informs him when they come up for air. “No new scars.”
“Yes ma’am,” he grins at her before furrowing his brow. “But wait, what if I step on a tack or slam my thumb in the car door or something? What about accidents?”
“Sorry, no,” she tells him, doing her best to mock seriousness. “No new scars. Period.”
“That’s going to be tough to enforce.”
“Well, then,” she says, a little spark in her eye. “I guess I’m not going to be able to let you out of my sight.”
“Fine by me, I won’t let you out of my sight either” he counters, pulling her over so her body is draped over his and kissing her so deep his next words don’t fully register. “Not until I’m eighty-six years old.”