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Their first silly fight (or argument, or whatever) feels like such a big deal, and such a little thing, at the same time.
A big deal because she can take care of herself, she’s proven that time and time again. Sure, she isn’t a leather-wearing masked vigilante, but she’s trained with Diggle, she knows a few moves, and she certainly doesn’t need her boyfriend to give every guy who tries to buy her a drink the side eye, or wait outside the bathroom in every seedy or upscale bar they wander into. She really doesn’t. Not even if his whole I just want you to be safe, and this is more for my peace of mind than anything speeches had been kind of endearing the first twenty or so times.
So, the twenty-first time it happens, maybe because Felicity is starting to feel secure enough in the fact that Oliver isn’t going to leave her, for her own good or for any other stupid or noble or even regular reason, or maybe because, really, this place seems like the popular destination for everyone over twenty in this particular city and if he gets up to follow her to the bathroom they’re surely going to lose the table they waited forty five minutes for, she snaps.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Oliver? Can’t you behave like a normal person? I’m just going to the bathroom. The bathroom! The door is even in like, your eye line, so don’t give me that whole I need to keep you safe speech. It’s just the bathroom!”
The frown on his face does not make her want to kiss him. It doesn’t. Except it’s quickly replaced by the I just love you too much to let you out of my sight look, and that does make her want to kiss him. But she refrains. They’re having a fight. Or she’s making a point, whatever. Either way, she’s walking to the bathroom on her own.
“If it’s just the bathroom, then I don’t see the problem with…” He really does look like he doesn’t understand where she’s coming from, which is kind of the point, isn’t it?
“Is that the way your mind always works? It would explain a lot, really. It’s just marriage, I don’t see the problem. It’s just a sword in the chest, I don’t see the problem. It’s just Lyla I’m kidnapping; I don’t see the problem…”
She knows she’s said the wrong thing before the words have even left her mouth, but then again, when has she ever been able to stop the words? Her life would be much easier if she had any kind of impulse control.
“Oliver…” she starts, because she didn’t really mean it. She meant it, but she didn’t mean it like that, and they’re living their happily ever after, and their happily ever after doesn’t include guilt over things they can’t change. They agreed on that. Or, well, she said so and then she’d kissed him until he would have agreed to anything just so she would keep going, but, that’s sort of like the same thing, isn’t it?
Except Oliver is now standing up, and he seems about fifty times more determined to follow her than he did before.
“Oliver!” she hisses. “You are not coming with me. End of discussion. Sit your ASS back into that chair and stay in it.” And she hops down from the really incredibly high bar stool that he’d helped her into and is halfway to the bathroom before she can even think to look back to see if he’s done as she said.
He has, of course. His eyes are glued to her back (or maybe her ass, but she isn’t complaining either way), and the look on his face is something halfway between amusement and…pain.
It floors her, as it does every time she lets herself think about it, how much she means to Oliver, how much power she has over him. She honestly needs to rest her head against the bathroom door, and then splash cold water over her face like three separate times before she can admit that this is silly, that their stupid table isn’t even that important because she’s already had two drinks too many, and all she really, really wants is to take Oliver home to bed.
And, oh, God, she didn’t even mean it like that, but her subconscious is pulling out random images to illustrate her mental faux pas, and she’s using words like faux pas in her head, so that means it’s time to go find her boyfriend so they can go back to the hotel.
Except, of course, the word boyfriend brings about another set of mental pictures, and a new, particular ache that she already knows by experience only Oliver can cure.
She doesn’t run out of the bathroom, not really. She’s just fast.
Oliver is still standing exactly where she left him, arms crossed, expression murderous. It mostly clears up when he sees her moving closer, and by the time she reaches the table, he’s back on his seat, his hands curved around the beer that he’d long ago finished.
“I’m sorry,” he says, before she’s found a way to apologize, or even a way to get back on her seat without asking for help, because, wow, is that thing high, and there’s so much doubt and fear and even an edge of loneliness in that gaze, that she shakes he head and gives up on pretending everything is normal.
“No, I’m sorry, Oliver.” She moves to stand between his legs, and his arms curl around her almost on instinct. “I’m sorry I didn’t think, and sorry I said too much, and sorry I made you think of stuff we said we were not going to fret over, although, really, you should know this is what happens with me, I talk too much, and I’m going to say inappropriate and stupid things and you still have to love me …because …” Her eyes are shinning when they meet his. “Well, because …because this is our happily ever after, damn it, and this is something you already knew about me, the babbling thing….you knew, and now you don’t get to…you don’t get to look so…so hurt and …you don’t get to take it all back because …”
“Felicity…” he interrupts, and she wants to stop, but her mouth is open, she doesn’t know what’s coming out of it, but more words are sure to join the other nonsense that she already laid on him, because, again, she really has no control over this thing.
Until he kisses her. Because, yes, if there’s anything in the world that can drive any and all coherent thought from her mind, it’s his kisses. And his hands, one of which is curled in her hair, and the other splayed over her …is that his hand on her …ass?
“Oliver?” she asks breathlessly, the only thing she can manage in between the haze of love and lust that seems to envelop her as his hand move to cup her cheek, which really, isn’t any better than her ass, it’s just a different kind of breathless, and heated and in love.
“I’m never, ever taking it back, Felicity. Ever.” He wows, and she knows it, she knew it before, really, but it’s all there in his eyes, in the way he loves her, the way he’s willing to love her now, openly, completely, just as she loves him.
She drags him out of the bar before he can even blink. She’s only a woman, and she can only be expected to hold off for so long.