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A/N: I swear, I don’t know how this happened. Follow-up fic to my original Magic Mike AU, Gotta Be Compatible, from Oliver’s POV the next morning. I still don’t own any of these characters. But I do like breakfast.
Breakfast
“Felicity!” He shakes her awake at 8am, unable to wait any longer. He’s lit up like Christmas even though realistically, he should be exhausted.
“What?” she mumbles into her pillow, still half-asleep. Her crazy blond hair is all over the place, curly from sleep and sweat and he burrows his face in it, kissing his way across her scalp to her forehead.
“You gotta wake up,” he whispers in her ear and lingers close to her face, wondering what it’d be like to see this every morning. “We have to go to breakfast!”
“Oliver, it is so early,” she protests. And they were up so late, he thinks with a salacious grin. “There will still be breakfast in like, three hours.”
“No there won’t” he sits up, smug. “By then, it’ll be brunch.”
“It’s literally the exact same thing,” she grumbles. “Only at brunch, I get to sleep more.”
“Huh-uh,” he shakes his head, but can’t shake the goofy smile off his face. “Brunch is a fool’s game. Breakfast is where the real action’s at. People who are up early, old guys are reading the paper.”
“People who are up early are the worst,” she moans. “And if old guys reading the paper is your idea of action…”
“Have you ever seen an old guy read the paper?” he teases. “It’s like a one-man show.”
“Oh my god, I cannot move,” she groans, rolling over to face him and opening her bright blue eyes in his direction, wrinkling her nose with a smile when their gazes meet. The combined effect pulls him in like a tractor beam, and he leans down to kiss her, something that starts soft and chaste, before dropping straight into the gutter. Just how he likes it.
She makes him feel like a man. And more than that, like the kind of man he wants to be. Like a man who’s in love with a woman. But he knows he needs to keep his mouth shut about that last part.
“Ugh, fine,” she whines when they come up for air. “But I’m showering first and you are NOT joining me.” He wants to protest, but watching her wince as she sits up is sign enough that they needs to take it easy for a little bit. He’ll settle for watching her walk to the hotel bathroom totally naked.
While she showers, he tries to think of a plan to keep in Metropolis, at least for another day, and when he comes up with nothing, he starts to panic a little. His stomach actually turns at the thought of letting her go, but then she walks back out to the bedroom wrapped in a towel, hair dripping. He can see hickies on her collarbone and knows there are more under the towel and for a minute it’s hard to remember what bad feelings even are.
She flops to her stomach on to the bed beside him, snuggling into the pillows adorably, still exhausted. He kisses her once, then forces himself to get up and shower, because no good can come of more time spent with her wet, naked body right now. He does picture it a little bit though, when he takes himself in his hand in the shower and it’s a good thing he does, because when he comes back out to the bedroom, she’s still laying there.
He stares at her, trying to burn every little detail into his brain, but it’s too much, too intense, and he doesn’t realize it until she shifts uncomfortably.
“So, how much is it for the night?” she laughs and he freezes.
It’s a joke. A harmless, nervous, stupid joke. But it lands like a piano in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, right on top of him.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps, clasping a hand to her face. “Oh god, my stupid mouth.”
“It’s okay.” He curses himself when his voice cracks.
“No, it’s not,” she says, scrambling from the bed to where he’s standing. When she drops her towel in the process and actually pauses to pick it up warily and wrap herself up again, he knows they’ve crossed some kind of line. “Oliver, I’m so sorry. I’m so nervous, I didn’t even mean…”
“You’re nervous?”
“Of course I’m nervous,” she laughs, too loud, and her eyes do look a little panicked. “I’m totally out of my depth here. And you are most definitely...not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, women look at you...every night, like…” She thinks he does this all the time.
“Felicity, I’ve never slept with a customer,” he tells her firmly. “For work or for play. None of the guys have. Well, Tommy maybe once or twice, but it was a pretty confusing scenario involving a very rich cougar.”
“I really didn’t even mean it,” she says with sad eyes he didn’t need to see to believe her.
“I’ve danced in front of a lot of people,” he admits, softening. “Nobody’s ever looked at me the way you do.”
He hears her breath catch, and decides to go all-in on the truth, hoping he’s better at this than actual gambling.
“I thought about it yesterday, before you came back,” he tells her softly. “And I realized, maybe it wasn’t the way you were looking at me. Maybe it was the way I was looking back.”
“Oliver,” she breathes, eyes only going wider. “What are we doing here?”
“We’re getting breakfast,” he reminds her, pushing the ejection button before he crashes and burns.
Her eyes go wide yet again when he orders an All-American breakfast with a short stack of pancakes.
“You weren’t kidding about breakfast.”
“What,” he chuckles, “you thought I was going to be an egg-white omelet guy?”
“Well, what with your delicate dancer’s figure and all.”
He grins when she does, but then it turns down at the corners. “Not a dancer anymore.”
“Do you want to be?” she asks, genuinely curious.
He’s still not sure what he’s done to deserve her, sitting here in front of him, asking him who he wants to be like she cares. But he’d do it for a thousand lifetimes if she’ll stay.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly, with a shrug that belies how much he wants to be able to tell her something more impressive. “Maybe.”
“You probably could.” She’s so earnest he wants to lean over kiss her right in front of the waiter who’s pouring them more coffee. “Do you have any contacts?”
“Probably burned most of those bridges last night,” he admits, pulling his cell out of his jacket pocket. “I haven’t even turned my phone on since I walked out.”
“Oliver!” she gasps, snatching the phone from his hands. “You should turn on your phone! What if your sister needs you?”
He sits there, gaping at her for a minute, because he knew he was in over his head, but now it’s like he can’t even see the surface. She just clicks his cell on and hands his back to him smiling, satisfied and only a little sheepish.
“You’re not the only one who remembers everything, you know.”
“She’s got people taking care of her.” He doesn’t want to think about Thea, not now. These days with Felicity have been so sunny, he doesn’t want the black clouds of real life to roll in and ruin everything, like they almost did at the bank the other day.
“I’m sure you’re one of those people too,” she says softly, and the self-loathing switch flips inside him. She doesn’t know him. The real him.
“How are you so sure of that?”
“You knew The Kid for a week, and you saved his ass without a thought,” she assures him without missing a beat, reaching a hand out to rest on his cheek. “I’ve known you for three days, and already I feel” - she pauses long enough to take a full breath in, long enough for his heart to stop - “safe.”
He turns his head to press a kiss to the center of her hand and her eyes go a little watery. Or maybe it’s his.
“You’re a good man,” she says, like she knows it for a fact.
Jesus, she’s remarkable.
“Thank you,” she smiles, “for remarking on it.”
By the time he settles the bill and drops a few dollars tip back on their table, she’s been outside on the phone for at least ten minutes. Something’s up, he’s sure of it, and the panic returns to his stomach. He takes a deep breath as he prepares to walk out, and the old guy at the table by the door looks up from his paper and smiles knowingly.
She’s fidgeting with her phone as he makes his way to the curb and when she looks up at him, she smiles, but there’s something nervous about it
“Ok, listen this is a little crazy, so hear me out.”
“Felicity, what’s going on?”
“Well I figured, since you’ve suddenly got some free time on your hands, and I have like, a hundred vacation days saved up because I still haven’t taken any of the days I got from when the servers crashed over Christmas…”
“Felicity?” Seriously, what did she do that’s got her all skittish and babbly?
“Two tickets to Gotham,” she blurts on an exhale. “I bought two train tickets to Gotham.”
He bites down hard on the inside of his cheek and blames his blurred vision on that. She did this for him. It’s right on the edge of too much.
“Is that okay?” She sounds unsure and he realizes he still hasn’t said anything. He shakes his head at her in disbelief.
“It’s more than okay.”
He wraps his arms around her waist, kissing her deep and hoping she can’t taste the copper on his tongue. Or at least hoping that when she does, she’ll want him anyway.
“You’re coming too?” he stumbles over the last part when he pulls back, because it’s almost too much to hope. “You’re coming with me?”
“I think I’d like to,” she nods with a watery smile, “if you’ll have me.”
“Oh, I’ll have you all right.” he leans in with a leering smile and she’s right with him, nipping up at his lower lip. “I’ll even buy you breakfast after.”
“Seriously, Oliver, with the breakfast?” she pulls back to laugh out loud. “We literally just ate.”
“Felicity,” he sighs, throwing his arm around her shoulders, feeling lighter than he has in years. “I will always buy you breakfast.”