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Their first meeting doesn’t go very well.
In all fairness, though, he’s insect-sized and she’s barely discovering the after-effects of the Pit, so that’s to be expected. It’s not exactly the most romantic setting in the world.
Their second meeting doesn’t go great either. It’s probably his fault this time, what with how he calls her a lunatic and maybe suggests that everyone would be better off if she’d never come back from the dead. Which is very not like him, but, in his defense, it was a joke. A poorly thought out, incredibly insensitive and inappropriate joke, but then again, that’s kind of like the story of his life.
He blames Felicity for it, really. Not for his inability to express his thoughts in the Oliver Queen point blank manner, no, he wishes he could blame her for all of it, but fact is he’s been saying unfortunate things for years. It’s a side effect of talking before thinking, and that he can’t blame on Felicity. He does blame her for this particular faux-pass, though. His foot-in-mouth disease always tends to get worse around her, probably because she’s five times as bad as he is at keeping anything and everything that comes through her head inside. And though he’s not proud of it, the mere presence of her makes him much more, well …Ray.
Now, if that isn’t an anvil sized hint as to why he and Felicity don’t belong together, then he doesn’t know what is.
But all that aside, he really should have found a better way to express his…eh, concerns about Sara Lance’s ridiculous ninja-killing moves. Mostly because, well, ridiculous ninja-killing moves. He hadn’t been planning on sleeping in his Atom suit, but with the way she’s looking at him he’s not sure he wants to get out of it this side of never.
“You don’t know me, and you don’t get to judge me,” she says, though really, she looks like she’s doing a good enough job of beating herself up. It’s late, and they’re the only two people visible in the lair, though he’s pretty sure Oliver and Felicity are somewhere around, because, yeah, leaving him alone with Sara to clear the air was one thing, but abandoning him with a woman that could probably kill him ten different ways is another.
At least, he wants to believe they wouldn’t leave him alone.
“I wasn’t really trying to imply you were crazy,” he says, as a way of explanation-would-be-apology “I was really only making a judgment call based on, you know, the dead body by your feet, which, to be fair, has nothing to do with me. And he was probably a bad guy anyway, so, I bet no one’s mourning him. Good riddance bad guy, that’s what I say.”
She doesn’t look any more relieved than he feels, because, fact is, Ray is lying. He actually does care about the dead Damien Darhk minion. Call it a character flaw, but he really has a problem with killing people. As a general rule he likes his bad guys knocked out but alive, not that he wants to tell her that. Sara Lance is a wholes mess of issues in a very attractive, if lethal package and he wants no part of the crazy she is. He’s had enough crazy shit in the past few months to last him a lifetime.
At least, that’s what he thinks. And by thinks he means he’s pretty damn sure that after his semi-apology he can just go his merry way and forget Sara Lance even exists. He can probably take off the suit too; she doesn’t look like she’s going to murder him anymore. If anything, she just looks ….well, she looks…broken.
Sara Lance is absolutely not his type. True, he’s always had a thing for strong women, but he’s never had to contend with this type of strong – never even knew he had to account for it. And, yes, the…physical attributes are perfectly acceptable – more than that, really. I mean, even when he was all hung up on the crazy eyes, he could appreciate that. He isn’t blind.
But she isn’t …she isn’t what he’s always gone for. She wasn’t the fun, bubbly, smiley type, that he’d always felt attracted to, that he’d always thought he needed. She’s different. Quieter. Darker.
“It’s okay, you know” he ventures again, because he’s gone from disturbed to apprehensive to, frankly, concerned in a span of five minutes, and the rollercoaster of emotions is so unfamiliar that he doesn’t really know any other way to react. ”We all have bad days.”
“Your bad days don’t seem to involve dead people,” she mutters, and it’s harsh and a bit snappy, and his heart melts a little, okay, a lot, when he finally understands that she’s not mad at him. She’s mad at herself.
“Well, I once blew myself up, if that makes you feel better.”
The smile is slight, but it’s there, and he starts a mental tally, which is absurd, making Sara Lance smile is not one of those things he should be keeping track of, but then again, when has his heart listened to his brain?
“You’re still here, so no. Doesn’t make me feel better.”
Except it does. He can see it. The dead man is a burden, and the fact that he – a guy she just met couldn’t trust her, that was just more dead weight being piled upon her slender shoulders. And he isn’t sure, doesn’t feel like it’s his place to ask, but he could have sworn they carry a pretty big load already.
And wow, he’s going down the rabbit-hole so fast he’s almost to the ground before he’s even had to chance to stop and think. Not that he wants to stop. Or start, even. He wants nothing other than to sit here and see her sort-of smile. Which says a lot in and of itself.
“How about a milkshake?” He offers, because, a long time ago, those had been his comfort food. And when Sara counters with a nod and another tentative curving of her lips that shouldn’t really be called a smile, he adds it to the mental tally as the offers his own wide smile in return.
“Wait …” he finally says, when she moves towards the elevator and he finds that he can’t follow her as quickly as he would like. “I need to get rid of all of this…suit parts, and things…I didn’t mean clothes. Of course I didn’t mean clothes …just …yeah, can you give me like, two minutes? Okay, fine, that might be optimistic. Better make it ten. This thing is a bit ….eh …heavy.”
And, yeah, that’s another to add to his count.