Work Text:
Scars Are Forever
As Felicity enters the Foundry she can hear the all to familiar sound of grunting and CLACK! CLACK! of sticks smacking together. She would know that sound anywhere; it means her boys are doing what they do best - training.
It's not until she gets closer, and the sounds get louder, that she realises it's not just Dig and Oliver training, but Sara has joined them as well. And she seems to be holding her own against the two giants she's currently fighting.
Surprise! Surprise!
She comes to a stop just off to the side of the trio, far enough away that she won't get in the way, and stares at them, just watching them fight. They, all of them, have strong, hard bodies from years of training. Their movements are quick and sure thanks to the muscle memory the have built up over time.
Felicity is used to seeing the superior strength and agility of Oliver and Dig, but she can't help but feel soft and weak compared to Sara who, unlike the boys – more like men, is the same height and general build as herself.
Memo to self – go to the gym… immediately!
She watches as Sara moves between Oliver and Dig with precise strikes, which if they weren’t as skilled as they are, could definitely do some serious damage. Her every action keeps both men on their toes.
Sara is like a fighting machine; and as she hits Dig in the leg, knocking him over and disarming him at the same time, Felicity is grateful that she is an ally and not an enemy. Then, while Dig is recovering from Sara’s last blow, Sara turns to Oliver and they fight one on one for barely a minute before Sara is swinging back around to face Dig.
At the same time she's turning, Dig swings his staff around, the end of which connects with the right side of Sara's forehead with a loud WHACK!
“Dig!” Yelps felicity as she brings her hands up to cover her mouth, concerned for the other blonde.
“Sara, I'm so sorry.” Comes Dig’s fast apology as he reaches out to Sara to see if she is alright.
Sara only groans, hand coming to her head, before walking over to the metal table to lay down her staff.
“It's okay, I'm fine.” She assures.
“Let me see. Let me see.” Says a concerned Oliver as he moves to Sara's side.
“She's bleeding, but it's not deep” he finally concludes after brushing Sara's hair to the side to get a better look. Felicity didn't miss the look Oliver shot Dig during his assessment of Sara's wound.
Really Oliver? He already feels bad.
“Good, I can't take any more scars. Speaking of… mortar round?” Sara asks Dig, motioning towards his calf.
“Yeah, IED, the Paktika province in Afghanistan. Good eye”
“I know my wounds. Grenade. Algiers.” Sara then lifts up the back of her pants leg to reveal the scar.
“I've never been hit by a grenade.”
“All those scars, you've never been hit by a grenade?” Dig asks Oliver incredulously.
“Arrow. Knife. Knife. A lot of bullets, no grenades.” Oliver indicates to all the different scars on his chest and arms, marking off all the different weapons that inflicted the horrible wounds.
“I got myself a new bullet. Nine millimetre, right there.”
“.38. I'm mostly swords, and a spear.” Shrugs Sara.
“I have a scar...”
Felicity pauses when all eyes turn to her. In an instant her heart starts beating faster and she doubts whether she should share with her team her own scars and the terrors of her past. Panicking Felicity chickens out and continues with a slightly different, but still totally true, story than the one she was intending to reveal.
“It’s in my mouth. I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was sixteen. Three stitches, they were really badly impacted.” She finishes with a slight, fake smile.
Oliver and Dig smile and chuckle to themselves at her babble. Sara just smiles, her only comment: “your still cute.”
It’s then that the group breaks up and Sara and Oliver start discussing Sara’s ‘Welcome Back From The Dead’ party and how Laurel has a grudge and how its better that they keep what’s going on between them to themselves.
Meanwhile, the whole time they’re talking Felicity is watching and listening from across the room, neither realising the pain they are inflicting on the petite blonde, on top of the anger and frustration she is already feeling at herself for not being brave enough to face the scars from her past, both literally and figuratively.
Nice job Smoak.
****
Tockman is good. I mean not good, good, as in he’s a good person, but good, as in he’s good at hacking and blowing up my babies, that sort of good.
Felicity is lost in her thoughts as she pulls out fried motherboards and computer cables from what remains of her computers after Tockman’s attack.
The one job you had, and you couldn’t even get that right. Well done, Felicity.
Oliver and Sara just left to go to Laurel’s for dinner, and Dig is kneeling by her side looking cluelessly at some of the parts Felicity had just pulled out.
“You know it’s not your fault, Felicity.”
“Really? Which one of the rest of you put up the security safeguards? Maybe if had been Sara we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Says Felicity, as she yanks some of the cords out of a broken computer part.
“Now I know we haven’t talked about this, but it must be difficult for you, seeing them together.”
“This isn’t about them being together.” She says in a voice, akin to a whisper. “
This is about me. Okay. Sara can analyse blood, she can kick ass, she can do anything, and the one thing I’m supposed to be good at I’m failing at miserably. I mean why do you even need me, now that you have her?”
“Because you’re irreplaceable, Felicity.”
Looking at Dig, Felicity can see the honesty in his eyes, but regardless of how sincere he may appear, she still doesn’t believe him, can’t believe him. How can she after spending her whole life listening to people tell her she is meaningless and unimportant; people who were supposed to love her unconditionally and support no matter what.
She sighs, her lips turning up at the corners microscopically. However wrong he may be, Dig actually cares about her, despite what she has come to expect, so she has to show she appreciates his words of reassurance, even if that means pretending to believe that lie.
Just grin and bare it.
“I have a lot of work to do.”
Without another word Dig stands, and leaves her with what is left of her computers. His hand brushing over her shoulder as he leaves.
Better start cleaning up the mess you made, Smoak.
****
The pain in her shoulder is nothing she has felt before, and despite what her team mates may think Felicity has known pain in her life. However, despite the throbbing pain, she doesn’t regret taking that bullet for Sara, a bullet that if not intercepted would have killed the leather clad blonde.
Yeah that’s right – I’m a hero.
Making their way down the steps of the Foundry, Felicity is directed to the med table where Sara begins preparing the suturing kit.
“Here, take these.” Offers Dig with a sympathetic smile on his face.
“What are they?” Felicity asks, then tentatively reaches out for the pills Dig is referring to.
“Ahh.. they’re aspirin. They will help with the pain. Trust me.”
With a grateful look at Dig, Felicity happily swallows down the ‘aspirin’ with a large gulp of water.
Before long she can feel the effect of the pills, the pain in her shoulder ebbing away slightly. So focussed on the brief relief from the pain Felicity didn’t realise that Sara has started removing her shirt to clean and stitch the wound until it was too late.
“Omg Felicity! What happened to you?”
“What? What's wrong?” Oliver’s head snaps around when he hears Sara's shocked and equally concerned voice.
Confused, and a little out of it thanks to the ‘aspirin’, Thank-you Dig! Felicity looks around in search of the problem before understanding what Sara is talking about.
“Where did you get these?"
“Huh? Oh you mean my scars. They're fine.”
“They are so not fine.” Pronounces Sara.
“Yours and Oliver’s scars are way worse than mine.” Says Felicity as she watches both Oliver and Dig walk around to join Sara behind her back where her scars are on full display, as well as Felicity’s half naked torso, covered only by her bra.
At least it’s one of my good bras.
The mottled flesh, from the lashings she used to get from her ‘dear old dad’ when he’d had a few to many to drink, spread up and down her back in every direction. Some were larger than others but all conveyed the pain and suffering that she’d had to endure.
“Who did this to you?” Oliver growled out after he had glimpsed the scars, when he didn’t receive a response from Felicity, he continued to fire questions at her.
“When did this happen? Why didn't you tell us? Why didn’t you tel me?” She wasn’t sure but Felicity could have sworn their was a hint of hurt in Oliver’s voice at his last question.
“I almost did. Remember the other day when you were comparing scars and you were all arrow, knife, sword, spear, bullet, grenade. Well I was about to tell you but I chickened out. And let you think I was cute with my wisdom teeth scar. Which totally counts.” Says Felicity a little petulantly.
“Why?” asks Oliver.
“Why what? Why does it count? Because it was super painful, I needed stitches and had to spend the night in the hospital. Oh God, my face got all swollen and...” says Felicity with a frown on her face, not following Oliver’s train of thought having gotten lost in her ramble.
“No, why did you chicken out?” he clarifies, cutting her off mid-babble.
“Oh right, cause all your scars are so much cooler than mine. I mean grenade is so much better than abusive father. I thought you guys would think less of me cause I didn’t get my scars fighting or like being a hero, I got them cause I was weak, not like you guys who are all so strong.”
“What?” all three of her teammates scream at once causing Felicity to flinch and the sudden noise.
“I know, but it's okay, cause now I have a new, cool scar. And I'm not cute because no cute person would take a bullet for their newest BFF.” Says Felicity completely oblivious to the angry faces of her teammates at hearing about the source of her scars.
At hearing her last comment though, Sara’s face softens.
“BFF?” she questions Felicity.
“Huh? Yeah we're totally gonna be BFF’s now, cause I just saved your life and you owe me. Plus, you’re like the first sane girl to join team arrow since, well, me. You so should have been here when Oliver's psycho ex girlfriend, Dig’s words, not mine, was around. She was really scary, not like you and Oliver and Dig scary, but like really ‘I’m evil and I’m gonna shoot you with my crossbow’ scary. She scarred me too.”
After her insanely long babble, Felicity looked up to see three very different expressions directed at her.
Sara was smiling at the blonde, happy to be worthy of having a friend so kind and sweet. Dig had a reminiscent smile as he remembered Oliver’s psycho ex girlfriend and appreciated Felicity’s description of said psycho. Oliver, however, looked furious.
“What?” asked Felicity when she gave up trying to decipher why Oliver had angry face.
“What did she do to you?” he so quietly it was frightening.
“Purple.”
“What?” Oliver’s face changed from one of anger to one of total confusion.
“Purple.” Felicity repeated.
“It was my favourite colour and she totally ruined it for me. Psycho bitch.”
At that both Dig and Sara burst out laughing and Oliver actually smiled.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Oliver asked, still concerned for his blonde IT girl.
Felicity hummed her refusal before explaining; “you guys never go to the hospital. Besides Dig gave me some of those aspirins… are you spinning?”
Oliver looks to Dig and whispers “aspirin”, to which Dig replies with a smirk “oxycodone” causing Oliver to chuckle at the now clearly stoned Felicity.
“I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been so brave. Thank you!” Says Sara as she finishes stitching up Felicity’s wound.
“It was nothing. I’ve always wanted to say I’ve taken a bullet for someone, and now I can, so really I should be thanking you.”
“All done. Not bad but you still gonna have a scar.” Says Sara smiling at the other blonde.
“My own scar, yay!”
Oliver walks over to her, arms crossed and asks if she’s alright, Felicity nods in confirmation.
“Diggle had mentioned that maybe you were feeling… a little left out.”
“What?... No!” shaking her head vehemently and looking around Oliver at Dig, Felicity tries her hardest to deny what Oliver has just said, but even in her state she can tell its not very convincing. Oliver’s unconvinced expression staring at her forces her to confess her recent feelings of inadequacy and insignificance in her place on the team.
“I was just… used to being your girl…” Instantly realising what she has said and how it sounds, Felicity hurriedly tries to fix her innuendo.
“I mean not your girl, girl. I mean your girl… I know it sounds like the same word but it means something different in my head.”
Oliver brings his hand up to cup her cheek before saying the words that Felicity has needed to hear for the past week.
“You’ll always be my girl, Felicity.”
Hearing him utter those words cause all doubts and damning feelings to dissolve, and unlike Dig’s attempt to reassure her, Felicity believes him instantly.
All the years of dismissal and scornful abuse don’t mean a thing in this moment; the moment where the one person in the whole world who could make her believe in herself, confirms her value, not only to their team but to him as well.
Looking at Dig, with his smug ‘I told you so’ face, Felicity can’t help but smile, feeling the weight of the world lift off her shoulders.
“Can I have another one of those aspirins?”
The End.