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Chapter Text

November

“Check the papers I have posted for your lane assignments. I’m starting the set clock in 5 minutes, so get where you need to be quickly,” Coach Diggle announced as Felicity grabbed a kickboard and pull buoy. “New swimmers, ignore what I just said and come see me.”

Felicity hurried down the side of the pool to check for her lane assignment. Scanning the list she saw that she was in the same lane as last season, with the same people, except---- No.

She dropped her equipment behind lane 5 and, checking the clock, scurried over to Coach Diggle.

“Coach? There’s a problem with my lane assignment….”

He looked up from his clipboard, “Don’t I have you in the same lane as last year? That lane’s workouts are really the best for the events you swim. Unless you were planning on trying something new this season?”

She shook her head, “Nope, definitely sticking with the distance events. I was hoping maybe I’d grow a few inches over the summer so I could be a sprinter, but no such luck. My body is hurting already just thinking about that one set where we have to do five 1000’s---“

“Felicity, there’s only 2 minutes until you need to be in your lane warming up and as I’m not really sure why there’s a problem….”

“Smoak!” she groaned at the sound of his voice and looked over her shoulder. “Lane buddies again! All is right in the world.” He flashed her a grin that she returned with the fakest smile she could possibly muster.

That. That, was the problem.

She had shared a lane with Oliver Queen since the day she first dove into the Starling City pool at the age of 7. Okay, so “dove” might be a little bit of a stretch, since he literally pushed her in. She had come sputtering up to the surface, fire glinting in her eyes behind her fogged up goggles….

“Off to a good start. You didn’t drown,” her attacker had commented with a shrug and a mischievous grin on his face. 

The coach had made her way over to them in a split second, “Oliver! You can’t push people into the pool, it’s not safe or nice. Apologize to…. what did you say your name was dear?”

“Felicity.” She bounced on her toes to keep her face from dipping under the water. “Felicity Smoak.”

“Sorry Felicity,” Oliver muttered. “I just wanted to see if you could swim.”

“Of course I know how to swim. I’m on the swim team,” she pointed out in exasperation.

“But it’s your first day….”

“Maybe on this team,” she tossed back and untwisted her swimsuit strap. She wasn’t about to tell the annoying little menace that this was her first time on an actual team. The dirty, old pool in the trailer park in Vegas where she had been taught to swim by her babysitter, probably wouldn’t impress him.

Since that first day, she had spent every practice, of every season, sharing a lane with Oliver Queen. They swam the same events, so it made sense, except that he drove her absolutely insane. Last season, their freshman year of high school, had been a glorious reprieve. A week before the season had started, Oliver and his friend Tommy had gotten caught peeing on the Principal’s car and it was the last straw in a long line of offenses. They were suspended from participating in any extra-curricular activities and she had had the most peaceful season ever in her 8 years of competitive swimming. Clearly, that had come to an end.

“Coach Diggle,” she pleaded, turning back to him. “I can’t share a lane with Oliver.”

“Your age group coaches said that the two of you always swam together. What was it they said?” he tapped his clipboard to his chin. “Oh yeah: Felicity and Oliver drive each other insane but we could never push them harder in practice than they push themselves to be better than the other. Forgive me for being blunt Felicity, but your times were lackluster last season. I think you missed your lane buddy more than you’d like to admit and I just want you to be the best you can be. You’re an amazing swimmer and you know that there’s no one else on this team at the same caliber, other than Oliver.”

It was true that they were extremely competitive with each other. Sure, Oliver acted like he couldn’t care less about how well he did in swimming, or whether or not he swam at all, but that’s how it was with everything for him. She knew better. She knew it was an act. She knew how much he wanted to be the best. Knew how frustrated he was that he couldn’t swim last season. Despite the display he had put on coming out of the Athletic Director’s office when the verdict was decided, she saw the way he had lurked around the pool after school when the rest of the team was heading into practice. The way his legs were always fidgeting in class. The restless energy that needed to find its way out. See, you don’t spend the amount of time with a person that she did with him and not know how to read them like a book.

In another world, where Felicity’s and Oliver’s got along, they would probably be best friends. But since this was the real world, he would continue to get on her nerves, and she would continue to kick his butt in practice. And, as is the fate of all girls in the truly unfair world of swimming, he would pull some amazingly fast time out of his ass at the meets and she would grovel in frustration. Which led her to resent him. Which only motivated him to get under her skin more with his teasing grins and trash talk. It was a cycle they had been swimming for a long time now, a well-practiced routine. And it seemed the cycle would continue, because Coach Diggle was right. Without Oliver in her lane last season, there hadn’t been anyone to push her and her times had suffered.

Oh, and maybe there was a small part of her that missed his washboard abs, and the way his hair stuck up all cute in odd angles when it was wet, and how low his suit hung by the end of practice when he didn’t tie the drawstring tight enough---- what? She wasn’t blind.

She shook her head, all of that was irrelevant to the fact that she had a long, miserable season ahead of her. There really was no way to win. She needed Oliver more than she wanted to admit, but she would also be happy if she never had to feel him swatting at her heels as he drafted off of her ever again.

“Do you have any more concerns to bring to my attention Felicity?” Coach Diggle broke her out of her thoughts.

“No,” she sunk her teeth into her lip in annoyance.

“Then I suggest you head over to your lane, unless you’d like Oliver to lead today?

She looked over to where Oliver was standing on the edge of the pool, adjusting his goggles and watching the clock count down to the start of practice. 

“No, nope, no,” she walked away, flailing her arms dismissively. “Not happening! Get behind me Queen!”

She tugged her cap and goggles on and nudged herself in front of him to jump into the icy water and start their 1000 warm-up. Pulling through the water she felt herself start to relax. Nothing helped her  clear her head quite like swimming and she was starting to think that maybe it wasn’t going to be as bad to have Oliver back as she had thought. She had missed the state meet by less than a second in all of her events last season and it had devastated her. She hadn’t intentionally slacked in practice, but she knew that something had been missing without Oliver pushing her. If she had to put up with some minor annoyances to get herself into that meet, it would be worth it.

Just as the thought was crossing through her head, she felt Oliver tugging on her ankles and remembered how much those “minor annoyances” were really, really irritating. She returned to her original position on the matter, she was going to be miserable. She also might kick him in the face.

They only had 3 laps left in their 1000 and she was not letting him in front of her. Picking up her pace, she accelerated ahead of him and finished the warm-up. As soon as she hit the wall, Oliver barreled in after her. She turned her head to avoid taking the giant tidal wave of water that came in with him to her face.

He pushed his goggles up and grinned, “I missed you.”

“I’m sure you did; who else do you have that you can annoy as much as me?” she tossed back.

“You’re just mad because you won’t get to lead the lane anymore,” he crossed his arms and his grin turned to a smirk.

She narrowed her eyes, “I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m doing right now.”

“Yeah, and I caught you,” he reminded her. “You know how it works, I catch you and you have to let me lead. I thought with having to take a season off, it would be at least a little bit of a challenge to get you but apparently not.”

The rest of the people in their lane had hit the wall in the meanwhile and watched on in silence as they argued.

“You also know that that rule doesn’t apply to warm-up, and since you’re insistent on burning yourself out in the first 15 minutes of practice, you won’t be able to keep up during the rest,” she tilted her head, a challenging glint in her eye.

“We’ll see about that,” he winked and pulled his goggles back down.

Grabbing her kickboard, she waited for the clock to switch over to the next set and pushed off of the wall to continue warming up. “You better be leaving 5 seconds after me,” she tossed over her shoulder.

She zipped her coat all the way up and pulled her beanie down over her ears. Whoever decided it was a good idea for swimming to be a winter sport was an idiot. Shivering a bit in the brisk fall air, she kept an eye out for Laurel’s car.

“So Coach Digg is a pretty tough dude. That was a lot more intense than I was expecting for the first practice.” Oliver appeared right behind her and she jumped.

“Can you not do that?” she spun around to face him.

“Do what Smoak?” the corner of his mouth twitched up.

“Just---” she waved her arms, “Appear. And Coach Diggle is an excellent coach. Yes he’s tough, but he’s also very encouraging and knows what he’s doing. Except with lane assignments,” she muttered. “Are you concerned you won’t be able to handle his practices?”

“I think I handled it pretty well today,” he answered with a smug grin.

She scowled. Despite her claim that he would burn out after warm-up, he hadn’t. He caught her on their first main set and she had begrudgingly allowed him in front of her, protesting the whole time that he hadn’t waited 5 seconds to push off.

She was working a smart retort when her attention was swayed by a car horn and Laurel waved.

“See you tomorrow!” Oliver called at her and she threw her hand up in a dismissive wave.

Hopping into the passenger seat, Laurel turned to her apologetically, “Sorry I’m a little late, Sara’s gymnastic practice went a few minutes over.”

“Sorry,” Sara chimed in from the back seat.

“It’s okay,” Felicity assured them and buckled her seatbelt. “Just got to spend more time with my favorite person in the world,” she added sarcastically.

“I don’t know why you complain so much,” Sara leaned forward in between the two front seats as Laurel pulled out of the parking lot. “You get to spend hours a day, like 90% naked, with the hottest guy in school. I, for one, am jealous.”

“Well don’t be, he’s annoying and so full of himself and quite frankly, a necessary evil,” Felicity replied and her stomach started to growl. “Do you know what your dad’s making for dinner?”

 Laurel shook her head, “I have no idea, but hopefully it’s ready when we get home. I have to eat quick because they scheduled a last minute debate team practice tonight.”

When Felicity’s mom packed them up to move to Starling and in with their new family, she was a little afraid of the idea of step-sisters. When your only point of reference was Cinderella, and you were a seven year old with a wild imagination, it was a healthy fear. She had lucked out though, because despite the usual sisterly fights, her transition from only child to middle child had been quite smooth.

“Other than being stuck with Oliver again, how was practice?” Laurel inquired.

“Good,” Felicity shrugged. “My pace was a little off on our one set, but it was just the first day. And as much as I hate him, I have to say it was good to have someone to chase in practice again. Except that that won’t be happening for long, I’m getting my lead spot back and then he’ll have to chase me.”

“That’s the attitude,” Sara leaned back. “By the way, have you ever touched his butt before while you were swimming?”

Felicity shot her a look in the rearview mirror and Sara added with air quotes, “By accident.”

She crossed her arms and sunk into her seat, “Maybe.”

Chapter Text

December

“Stand next to Oliver,” he mother directed. “I want to get a picture of you two with your medals!” she gushed proudly at the conclusion of their first All Star meet at the age of 9.

“Mom,” Felicity protested. “We don’t even like each other.”

“Yeah,” Oliver grunted. “I don’t want a picture with her. She swam faster in the 50 backstroke today, I’m not talking to her ever again.”

“Well you beat the other boys and won your race, and that’s what matters,” her mom had tried to encourage him.

“It’s still dumb,” Oliver retorted.

“Oliver!” Mrs. Queen had arrived on the scene. “Don’t be rude to Mrs. Smoak, and stand close to Felicity for the picture.”

Oliver shifted a fraction of an inch closer to her, a scowl on his face, and held up his medals.

The resulting picture had truly captured their relationship. Too bad it had “mysteriously disappeared” from her mom’s camera.

 “Hey Felicity?” Oliver asked when she hit the wall.

She pulled her goggles off and raised an eyebrow, “You called me by my name; this concerns me.”

Oliver ignored her comment, “You’re smart, right?”

She looked up at him over the practice sheet she had grabbed to check their next set, “I’m not sure how to answer that question. 4 25’s cooldown. Go.”

Oliver sighed and pulled his goggles down to push off the wall. When the got to the other side, her tried again.

“What I meant to say was, can you help me study for the Chemistry quiz tomorrow? If I don’t do well, my grade is going to drop too low for me to be eligible for the first meet on Thursday.”

She stared at him blankly.

“Please?” he added.

“Why do I care if you compete on Thursday? Girls and guys scores are separate,” she replied before pushing off ahead of him.

She was being rude and she knew it, but she was irritated. It seemed like he barely had to try and he was crushing her in practice lately. Darn testosterone.

It didn’t help that he was determined to rub it in her face too. At every possible opportunity.

Every day in practice, she worked herself into exhaustion. Oh, her times were dropping, but so was her patience level. It was perfectly understandable that she didn’t want to help him with this particular problem.

They reached the wall at the same time, he had moved up to swim beside her, and he tried once more.

“Felicity, please,” he pleaded, giving her his best puppy eyes. “I haven’t gotten to compete in so long, I need to race. How would you feel if you missed a whole season?”

She grabbed her water bottle and took a swig, “I wouldn’t know because I don’t make irresponsible decisions.”

His face crumpled and she felt a pang of guilt. They could call a truce for one night, right? Besides, she didn’t want the boys team to lose.

“Fine, I’ll help you,” she muttered. “But what do I get in return?”

“You can lead the lane for every set for a week,” he offered, “Even though I’m faster than you.”

She squirted some of her water in his face, “Shouldn’t have added that last part, but deal.”

“Can’t escape the truth Smoak!” he grinned victoriously before pushing off to finish their cooldown.

After practice, Felicity found Oliver waiting for her outside the building. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and his ears were red from the cold. She reached up to feel the strands of her hair that peeked out of her beanie and sure enough they were frozen solid. It needs to be said again; person who decided swimming should be a winter sport: idiot.

“You know, you really should wear a beanie to keep your wet head warm or you’re going to get sick,” she pointed out. “I texted Laurel and told her she didn’t need to pick me up. How do you get home from practice by the way?”

“First of all, I don’t get sick. I’m a superior human specimen.” She snorted and he continued, “And secondly, I have a driver, remember?”

A sleek black car pulled into the parking lot and she rolled her eyes. How could she forget that he was also a pretentious rich kid?

She slid into the car after him, and leaned back on the comfortable leather seat. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if she fell asleep before they made it to Oliver’s house, her eyes were already closing. Practice had been rough today, and coupled with their dryland workout at 6:30 this morning, she was tired. The peaceful silence was quickly interrupted.

“So, you ready for the meet this week?” Oliver asked.

She blinked tiredly and shrugged, “I guess.”

Her hope that that would end the conversation were quickly dashed.

“You swam Central City last season, do they have anyone good?” he pressed.

“A guy sprinter, I think his name was Barry, and a few solid girls,” she recounted, not bothering to open her eyes. “We beat them though. Both girls and guys.”

“An easy first meet is always good, but I’m not nervous. Are you nervous?”

She contemplated lying, but she knew that wouldn’t work on him. If he knew how to read her half as well as she could read him, he would know.

“A little,” she confessed, opening her eyes to look at him.

“Why?”

She fiddled with her hands, picking at the dry skin from the chlorine, “I don’t know. I guess I’m just frustrated with my performance in practice.”

Oliver’s brow furrowed, “You haven’t been doing that terribly. Although it is possible that you peaked young and you’re going to crash and burn now. I mean, missing states last year was rough. I had chalked it up to being brokenhearted that you didn’t get to see me every day in practice, but I could have been wrong. For now; you’ll just have to get used to drafting off of me in practice.”

Way to be encouraging.

“I don’t plan on getting used to it because it won’t be happening much longer. You may have finally gotten a surge of motivation to actually try in practice but my splits are getting faster and I’m fueled by my intense dislike of you. I don’t like that you can beat me,” she muttered.

 “Well Smoak, I’ve been doing that in every meet since we were like 10, you should be used to it by now. The good news is, you just have to beat the other girls on Thursday.”

“It’s still dumb. You missed an entire season; you should be struggling a little bit.”

“I already told you, I’m a superior human specimen,” he winked and she closed her eyes in exasperation.

“You do realize that the fate of your chemistry grade is in my hands- right? So you should probably start being nice.”

“Only when you admit that you missed me last season.”

“That would be lying. Why would I miss you pushing off practically on top of me, because you never wait 5 seconds, you pulling on my ankles, flicking my swimsuit straps, throwing my goggles into the diving tank, hitting my butt with your kickboard… on accident” she added with air quotes,“-- should I keep going?”

He grinned mischievously, “You’re just so fun to mess with.”

She glared at him, “You know what would be fun? Me, deliberately giving you the wrong information so you fail this chemistry test.”

Throwing his hands up defensively, he leaned back in his seat and they rode in silence the rest of the way to his house.

Felicity’s alarm went off at 4:45am and she wanted to throw up. A person should not be up this early. Especially when that person had been explaining chemistry to a person who clearly had not paid any attention in class at all, for three hours the night before. By the time she had made it home and gotten her own homework done, her head hadn’t hit her pillow until way later than it should have. Yawning, she hit her alarm and rolled out of bed. She pulled on her sweatpants and sweatshirt that she had set out and grabbed her practice bag. After brushing her teeth and putting her hair into a sloppy ponytail she dragged herself out to the kitchen. Quentin was already up, drinking coffee and waiting for her.

“Morning,” she muttered.

“You’re a ray of sunshine this morning,” he joked and handed her two bananas, a thermos of coffee, and a Quest bar.

She accepted it all gratefully, “Thank you. Ready to go?”

“Yep, already have the heat running in the car. It’s a cold morning,” he opened the front door of the house for her. “Not that I mind dropping you off on my way into work, but why are you going to the pool this early?”

She sighed, “I need extra practice time, so I arranged with Coach Diggle for me to come in early to get a little more time in the water before dryland.”

“Are you sure you’re not overdoing it?” Quentin looked at her in concern as she slid into the car seat.

Shaking her head, she buckled her seatbelt, “I need to get an edge on Oliver; it drives me crazy that he’s been leading the lane this season. That’s my spot and I like the clean water. Fighting through his waves is a nightmare; I have swallowed half of the pool at this point. And practical reasons aside, I want to be in the front just to make his smug little self eat my bubbles. Literally and metaphorically.”

Quentin laughed, “Okay, I just don’t want you to wear yourself out.”

“What are you doing here?” Felicity demanded indignantly as she came out of the locker room.

Oliver narrowed his eyes, “Coach said you requested an extra practice hour. It wouldn’t be fair to not let me participate.”

She huffed and muttered under her breath as she headed over to the pool, “The whole point was so that I would have an extra hour than you.”

“What was that?” he asked and came up behind her, his breath warm. “You’re so sorry you forgot to mention it last night, and you’re relieved that Coach Diggle passed the memo onto me?”

“Since when did you actually get up earlier than you have to for extra practice?”

“Since you started.” She felt him slide his fingers underneath the straps crisscrossing her back and she flinched. “Relax, you’re all twisted and I’m just fixing it. Look, I don’t know why you’re that surprised at me being here.”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you’re lazy and unmotivated and you coast along on your natural talent?” she asked, turning around to face him. It didn’t escape her notice the way his hands hadn’t left her back after her straps were most definitely untwisted, his knuckles just softly grazing her skin, and she simultaneously liked it and was irritated by it. Which, quite frankly, was an accurate summary for how she felt about all things Oliver.

Well, actually just the irritating part.

His eyes narrowed, “I’ve always worked as hard as you Smoak. You’re just annoyed because you can’t keep up with me anymore.”

“We’ll see about that,” she shrugged and pulled her goggles down.

Jumping in the water, she started to warm up. Early morning swimming was the actual worst, when your body still wants to be in bed and feels like it’s still in bed. It felt like swimming through cement but she was determined. Once she was as warmed up as possible, she paused at the wall to look over the set she had written out the night before.

Oliver hit the wall not long after in the lane beside her, “So what are we doing?”

She turned to him and said sarcastically, “You mean you didn’t plan out your own workout?”

“Why would I do that when I knew that you would?”

She rolled her eyes, “We’re doing a ladder. 8 25s on the 25, 6 50s on the 50, 4 100s on the 1:05, 2 200s on the 2:10, and 1 500 on the 6:30. Twice.”

Oliver’s eyes widened in horror, “Do you hate me?”

“I think we’ve already established that that’s the case,” she quipped. “But you’re free to do your own thing if you can’t handle it.”

“I hate you too,” Oliver replied with a grin. “Starting at the next top?”

“Yep. Try to keep up.” She pulled her goggles back on and grabbed a quick drink of her water.

Oliver was a better sprinter and she knew it so she didn’t wear herself out on the shorter distances. She just kept herself at a nice pace to give herself some rest on the end and waited until they got to the 200s to make her move. Pulling long, smooth strokes, she got out ahead of Oliver on the first one and hit the wall several seconds before him. In fact, he barely made it to the wall before she was pushing off for the second one and she smirked as she kicked even harder. It wasn’t until they finished the 500 that they were both on the wall at the same time.

“Getting tired?” she asked.

He took a deep breath, “Nope.”

“I don’t know, you seem a little tired. You barely made those 200s.”

He glared at her, “You were holding back in the beginning.”

“Yes I was, because I know how to practice smarter.”

“You’re not going to get faster if you hold back.”

“Fine. I won’t hold back, but that just means that I’ll beat you on all of the swims.”

“Is that a challenge?” he raised an eyebrow.

She pulled her goggles down, “It is.”

He leaned over the lane line into her lane, “Will I get a prize for winning?”

She pushed his face back out of her lane, “Whoever wins the most swims gets to lead the lane in afternoon practice for the whole week, no matter what.”

“I thought you’re already going to be leading since you helped me with homework?”

She looked over his head at the clock. “Yeah and I’m planning on winning so it won’t be an issue,” she replied, pushing off for the first 25.

By the time they finished their second 200, which she beat him to the wall by a fraction of a second on, they were at an even tie. Whoever won the 500, won the whole thing.

She barely had a chance to catch her breath before it was time to push off. Exhaustion flooded her body, but she knew he was tired too and her strength was finishing fast. Matching his pace for the first 350 yards, she started to lengthen her strokes and pull away. On the final lap she was feeling confident until she saw Oliver coming up behind her out of the corner of her eye.

“This is the most ridiculous drill I have ever heard of,” Felicity crossed her arms and glared. “I don’t want to have to touch you.”

“Well I don’t want you touching me,” Oliver retorted and crossed his arms too.

“Please guys, it’s just your ankles,” their coach pleaded with the two 11 year olds. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Why can’t I have another partner?” Felicity complained.

“Because, you two are about the same size and it works best that way,” the coach explained, her patience wearing thin.

“I am not the same size as her!” Oliver protested, “She’s a girl.”

Felicity flexed her arms, “Yeah I am. I have big muscles and you didn’t hit your growth spurt yet.”

She stuck out her tongue at him and he scowled.

“So prove to him that you’re strong enough to pull him, okay? Because you’re doing the drill,” their coach challenged before walking away.

They both sighed in defeat and she grabbed the wall so that he could grab her ankles.

“Owww, your nails are so sharp! Stop pinching me!”

“Sorry,” he grumbled with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes and pushed off the wall, towing him behind her. Remembering not to kick lasted for about 15 yards before she cracked him in the chin. The second she felt her foot make contact they both stood up and she cringed as blood dripped from his lip.

“You did this on purpose!” he accused.

Tears started to form in her eyes and she shook her head, “No I didn’t, I promise. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re always so mean,” he grumbled and turned away to walk over to the edge of the pool where their coach was retrieving an ice pack.

She bobbed on her toes after him, “I didn’t do it on purpose Coach!”

Their coach shook her head, “I believe you Felicity and it was partially your fault Oliver. I told you to make sure your arms were straight so her feet wouldn’t be that close to your head. If you wouldn’t have been trying to pull her backwards, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Oh. I’m sorry I called you mean Felicity.” Oliver pressed the ice to his chin. “Even though you sometimes are,” he added, muttering quietly.

She swam over to the gutter he was sitting in and looked up at him, “Does it hurt?”

He sniffed, “No. You’re not that hard of a kicker.”

Oh but she was a strong kicker now. And there was no way she was letting him pass her on the last lap. Kicking it into gear, she pushed for the wall and touched it a full second before him.

“Ha! Deal still holds, I’m leading the lane this week.” He held out her water bottle to him like a microphone, “Oliver Queen, what do you have to say about your crushing defeat this morning?”

He rolled his eyes and turned away from her. She was about to push off to swim a cool down when he turned back and dumped his entire water bottle of ice water on her head.

She gasped as the cold water splashed off of her shoulders. Hopping over the lane line she jumped onto him, taking him by surprise and knocking him off his feet to slip under the water.

“I’m going to drown you Queen!”

Slipping out from underneath her, he hauled her up and tossed her over his shoulder, “What was that Smoak?”

Flailing, she smacked his back, “Put me down!”

“Felicity! Oliver!” Coach Diggle looked up from where he was putting together the afternoon workouts. “I let you in early to swim, not flirt in your weird way.”

Oliver put her down quickly and they shuffled away from each other, both muttering that they weren’t flirting.

Felicity bounced her legs nervously as she ate an apple and waited for them to call for the captains meeting to start.

Oliver slid down the bench to sit next to her and bumped his knee into hers, “If you don’t stop fidgeting like that, you’re going to waste all your energy before the meet even starts.”

Her legs stilled and she turned to look at him, “Aren’t you nervous?”

He slung an arm around her shoulders and she stiffened, “There’s no reason for me to be nervous. It’s the first meet, against a mediocre team, not states.”

Shrugging out from underneath his arm she muttered, “Every meet is important. Some of us don’t have state cuts already.”

“You’ll do fine. Just pretend you’re racing me, that always seems to light a fire under you,” he winked and stood up to walk over to where the medley relays were getting together.

She hopped up and met the officials for the captains meeting, their usual speech about sportsmanlike conduct and regulations barely registering over her the noise in her head. Taking a deep breath, she shook the Central City captains’ hands and walked back to the bench to grab her cap and goggles. After the national anthem, she checked in with the official for the 200 and went to wait behind the blocks. Oliver stood in front of her where he was waiting to do the final leg of the medley relay.

“I know it’s hard to resist, but don’t stare too hard at my butt when I get up on the blocks, okay Smoak?” he teased, turning to face her.

“I don’t ever stare at your butt,” she protested.

“Hmmm, what were you doing the other day at practice then?”

She felt her face flush as the girl from CC who was waiting in the lane next to her giggled. “Keep your butt out of my face and then I won’t be looking at it.”

“Don’t stand right behind me when I’m on the blocks.”

“Where am I supposed to stand?! I’m right after you!”

An official glared at them and she snapped her mouth shut. Oliver chuckled as he stepped up onto the block and she could have sworn that he sunk down even lower than usual before swinging his arms and launching into the water. Except that she wasn’t looking, so she wouldn’t know.

The relay finished all too quickly, with Oliver out touching the guy she remembered from last year, Barry, and it was time for her race. The 200 always made her more anxious than the 500. With the 500, there was more room for error. The 200 was basically a long sprint, a go as hard as you possibly can until you either hit the wall or died kind of race. Which isn’t bad for the 50; but for 8 laps? Hell. Absolute hell. And yet she swam it, because she was too short to swim the shorter distances and, despite her intense hatred for it, she was pretty good at it. The whistle blew and she stepped up on to the block.

“Swimmers, take your mark.”

Her toes curled around the block and she bent over to grab the edge.

At the sound of the buzzer she launched herself off the block, her arms snapping into streamline and leading her into the water. She had checked the seed times for the other girls, she was going to be by herself this entire race. Which was good, because it meant she would scoop up some easy points for her team, but bad, because it meant no one would be pushing her to get a good time. Remembering Oliver’s words from earlier, she imagined that he was right on her heels. He was right, something she rarely would ever admit to, and pretending that they were racing pushed her along. When she hit the wall and looked up at her time, she was pleased. It wasn’t a state cut, not even close, but a whole lot faster than she had swum at the first meet of last season. Waiting for the other girls to finish, she looked up at Oliver who was waiting behind the blocks for his 200.

“Nice time,” he nodded in approval. “Almost 2 whole seconds faster than last season’s first duel meet.”

Her eyebrows crinkled in confusion, “How did you know that?”

His eyes darted away from hers sheepishly, “I’m sure you mentioned it--- at some point in practice. Probably.”

“Right…”

She knew for a fact that, in between the arguing and taunting, she had not mentioned anything about her specific times from last year. In fact, she hadn’t remembered what her time from the first meet had been until she checked it a few minutes before warm ups that day. Before she could give any more thought to it, the last girl finished and she was climbing out of the water.

“Good luck,” she said to Oliver as she shrugged on her jacket.

Walking over to Coach Diggle to talk to him about her swim, she paused to watch Oliver’s race. She bit her lip as his strong body moved through the water and his muscles rippled. He was not the scrawny little kid who had pushed her into the pool on her first day and she would be flat out lying if she said she hadn’t once thought about running her fingers through the grooves of his abs down to that chiseled v that disappeared into his speedo he had started wearing this season……

“Felicity?”

Coach Diggle’s voice made her jump and she ripped her eyes from the pool. He gave her a knowing look before just shaking his head slightly.

“That was a good time, right?” she asked, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.

“It was very good. Keep up the good work and you won’t be missing states this season. You just need to make sure you’re kicking strong through the third 50 because that’s when you drop off a bit. Your legs are strong, take advantage of them okay?”

She nodded in understanding, “I will.”

“And Felicity? I hope you can see now that putting you and Oliver together for practice wasn’t a mistake.”

“I guess so,” she muttered.

He patted her shoulder encouragingly and told her to go cool down in the dive tank. On her way over, she stopped by the stands to look up at her Mom and Sara who had come to watch.

“Good job baby girl!” her mom called down to her.

Sara offered her a thumbs up before turning back to the dark haired girl sitting next to her.

Dropping her jacket to the deck, she jumped into the diving tank and let herself sink to the bottom before pushing back to the surface. She rolled onto her back and did some slow laps backstroke, letting her still racing heart come back down to a normal rate. With her eyes closed, she let herself float for a few seconds until she felt someone come up underneath her and she startled, her heart rate soaring right back up.

“Oliver!” she whispered angrily because a race was up on the blocks and the last thing she wanted was to get in trouble with an official.

“Sorry,” he whispered back, his usual teasing grin on his face. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t dead. You looked a little dead.”

She rolled her eyes and kicked over to the edge to get out of the water.

“How’d your race go?” she asked when he joined her, sitting in the gutter.

“You didn’t watch? He clutched his chest dramatically, “I’m hurt.”

She slapped his shoulder, “I was talking to Coach and then I had to cool down. I didn’t know you were so needy for my attention.”

“Well since you missed what was an amazing swim in my humble opinion, I’ll fill you in. 1:49.45,” he reported smugly.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked in exasperation. “You can barely make 2:10s in practice. How far up your ass did you have to reach to pull that time out? You know that that’s a state cut, right?”

“I do,” he grinned. “I also know that your 1:59.43 puts you about 4 seconds out of the state meet so someone needs to get to work.”

“I have been working,” she grumbled.

“But it’s closer than 6 seconds off like last year, so don’t get your straps twisted over it and turn into an even eviler sea witch than you already are.”

She scoffed, “I am not a witch, I’m like… a majestic mermaid.”

“Whatever, just don’t decide that we’re going to start practicing at like 2am or some other evil idea.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be at the pool just because I am,” she pointed out.

He bumped his shoulder into hers, “You know I do.”

“How did you know what my time was from last year’s meet?” she blurted out.

He looked away again, “I told you, you mentioned it in practice one time…”

“Oliver.”

“Okay, I might have been keeping up with your stats last year. I wasn’t allowed to come to the meets as part of my punishment and I don’t know, it just felt weird to not know how you were swimming…” his voice dropped off, a sheepish look on his face.

“Oh,”she breathed out in surprise.

“Anyway, one of us should probably push the other into the water before this gets weird,” he added hastily. “I volunteer.”

She braced herself to be plunged into the water, and when she resurfaced, he had scurried away.

Chapter Text

January

“Owww!”

“Sorry,” Laurel apologized, pulling the comb away. “Your hair is a mess, you should have let me do this a lot sooner.”

She was sitting on the kitchen counter and Laurel was combing coconut oil through her hair, which was slowly turning to straw from the chlorine.

“My hair has been the least of my concerns lately, it’s been living in a wet ponytail 90% of the time,” Felicity pointed out.

“Well it’s my big sister duty to make sure that you don’t totally let yourself go during the swim season. Remember last year when you wore the same pair of sweatpants 4 days in a row? Not good,” Laurel teased.

Felicity shrugged, “It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone.”

Sara walked into the kitchen at that moment and chimed in, “Not even Oliver?”

She grunted in annoyance, picking up the jar of coconut oil and chucking it at her.

“Whoa!” Sara caught the jar before it hit her in the head, “It’s okay, those suits you wear to practice that barely cover your booty make up for the sweatpants.”

“It’s not my fault that the suits with the comfiest straps were designed for people with flat butts,” Felicity sighed. “And I am most definitely not trying to impress Oliver, of all people,” she added hastily, answering Sara’s original question.

Laurel and Sara exchanged a look and Felicity rolled her eyes, “I’m serious. You guys know how I feel about Oliver. The fact that we haven’t murdered each other yet is a miracle.”

“I’m going to drown you!” Felicity yelled angrily, standing up in the middle of the pool.

“Why?” Oliver asked, flashing her the most innocent expression he could manage.

Her eyes narrowed, “You keep pulling on my para--- why do I have to explain this to you? You know what you’re doing and you need to stop before I murder you.”

“Wow. Harsh. But it’s just soooo tempting. I know how much you hate doing parachutes and it’s fun to make it even worse for you.”

Oliver tugged her towards him with the tail of her parachute and she raised her hand to smack him.

Their coach muttered from the side of the pool, “Will I be liable if two 12 year olds murder each other?”

She raised her voice, “Oliver! Felicity! New idea. Get in separate lanes, keep your hands to yourself, and race each other. With the parachutes on. If I see you two going at each other again, you’re wearing 2 parachutes and doing this set butterfly.”

Both of their eyes widened and they looked at each other, silently calling for a truce.

“Felicity, you look like shit,” Oliver commented when she hit the wall.

“Gee thanks,” she replied sarcastically. “You’re really rocking the goggle burns today too.”

“No I’m serious, are you feeling okay? You look really pale and you were struggling a lot more than you should have been on that set.”

He put a hand on her shoulder and she removed it. “I’m fine. Start the cooldown.”

Giving her a concerned look, he complied and pushed off. She was feeling a little off today but it wasn’t going to keep her from practicing. After a quick drink of water, she pushed off after him. She was about 5 yards from doing her flip turn at the other end when her stomach lurched. Stopping at the wall, she hopped out and ran to the trashcan.

When she was done emptying the contents of her stomach she sat down on the deck to catch her breath. She felt like she had been hit by a ton of bricks. Coach Diggle arrived a few seconds later and crouched down next to her.

“I’m fine,” she insisted before he could say anything. “I just need a few seconds and I’ll be back in the pool.”

“No you won’t,” he replied firmly. “Felicity, you know the flu has been going around and I’m going to guess that’s probably what you have. You need to go home and rest, not push your body.”

Tears started to well up in her eyes and she sniffled, “I can’t miss a practice. Time is running out and I still need to drop 2 seconds in the 200 and 5 in the 500 for my state cuts.”  

“If you’re too sick to swim in the meet next week, we’re going to lose a lot of points. You have to think about your team too,” Diggle pointed out. “And you’ve been putting in the work, when we taper you out for districts, you’ll drop the time.”

She wiped her eyes, “You’re sure?”

He nodded, “I’m sure. Although the thought of a 3 day long trip with you and Queen terrifies me, we’re going to have both of you at that state meet.”

Standing up, he offered her his hand and helped her up off the deck.

One of the girls from her lane appeared with her water bottle and offered to put her equipment away. She thanked her and then retreated into the locker room.

Still feeling a little nauseous, she slowly peeled her suit off. The past couple of duel meets had been a mix of good and bad. Some nights she dropped time, other nights she swam slow. So, so slow. That wasn’t any different from last season though. And for as exhausted as she was from all the extra practices, the fact that she was swimming well at all was a good sign. Her taper had been a bit of a disappointment last year, but Coach Diggle was right, the extra work this season should make a difference. 

She hadn’t considered the whole Oliver factor when she was dreaming about her trip to the state meet though. His presence was pretty much inevitable at this point. Stuck with Oliver. All the time. The story of her life.

She really should have appreciated last season a lot more than she had.

Once she was dressed, she pulled out her phone to call Laurel and let her know she needed picked up early.

“Felicity,” Sara yelled up the stairs. “You have a visitor!”

“Wha?” she yelled back. She had just woken up from a nap and was a little groggy.

“I’m sending him up!” Sara continued yelling.

Before her brain could fully process what was going on, Oliver appeared in her doorway. He stood awkwardly just outside her room until she lifted her arm reluctantly to wave him in.

“Nice jammies,” he commented with a smirk.

“What are you doing here?” she grumbled.

“I miss yoooouuuu,” he complained. “You’ve missed 3 days of practice and it’s boring without you. How did you even manage without me last season? Oh, and I brought you chicken soup,” he added, lifting a paper bag.  

She lifted an eyebrow, “Did Raisa make it?”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered, handing her the bag.

She extracted the container and spoon from the bag and sighed happily. Years and years of swim potluck banquets and the Queen’s always brought Raisa’s soup. She loved it.

“I know. I’m the best,” Oliver said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

She nudged him with her foot, “Get off my bed.”

“That’s not what I normally hear from girls.” He waggled his eyebrows and she rolled her eyes.

“In what free time are you with girls that are not me? We’re always at the pool,” she pointed out.

“Are you jealous of my other women, Smoak?”

She scoffed, “I’m doubting their existence.”

“Fine. It’s true, you’re my number one babe.”

“Please never say that to me again,” she said in horror, nudging him more forcefully this time and onto the floor.

He hopped up and flashed her a teasing grin before heading out the door, “Get better and come back to practice!”

“Hello Felicity,” Mrs. Queen greeted her as she opened the door. “What a lovely surprise.”

“Hi Mrs. Queen. Is he in his room?”

She sighed, “Yes. And as you can imagine, acting like a small child.”

Felicity smiled, “I’m sure he is.”

Mrs. Queen returned her smile and stepped aside so that Felicity could enter the house. Heading up the stairs, she made her way down to Oliver’s door and knocked.

An incoherent mutter came from inside and she pushed the door open. The scene she was greeted with made her laugh. Oliver was wrapped in what looked like every single blanket in the house and his bed was littered with tissues. Basically he looked like she did last week.

“Now who looks like shit?” she teased and he glared at her. “You shouldn’t have sat on my bed, that’s how you got all of my germs.”

“Did you bring me food or are you just mocking my pain?” he grumbled.

“Why would I bring you food? You have your own cooking staff. I brought you your homework though. Didn’t think Tommy could be trusted with the precious materials that will allow you to be eligible to swim in the meet next week.” She tossed him a folder and it landed amongst his blanket nest.

“If I’m still alive by next week,” he complained.

Rolling her eyes, she waved goodbye and left.

“Okay, Oliver and Felicity, you two are starting on the rowing machines,” Coach Diggle announced, reading off the dry land training rotations for that morning.

Felicity bounced on her toes excitedly, she loved the rowing machine. Swimming was a great de-stressor for her, but there was something about rowing that really helped her get her frustration out. And she was a little frustrated.

It had taken her four days to get back to her normal pace in practice after recovering from the flu.

The first day Oliver came back he did nothing but complain that his stomach hurt and swim up underneath her every time she was about to do a flipturn. And the next day he was back to normal speed.

She was ready to take him down on the rowing machine.

Shedding her sweatshirt and sweatpants, she joined Oliver where he was setting the resistance for their machines.

“Level eight?” she asked, crouching down to peer over his shoulder. “Someone’s tired this morning.”

She reached around him and pushed it up to 10.

He looked over his shoulder at her, “Are you sure you can handle that?”

“Can you?” she challenged. 

Their faces were close together and she didn’t miss when his eyes flickered down to her mouth. She cursed herself for the way her tongue darted out reflexively to lick her lips. It seemed like an eternity that they were frozen there, unsure of what the other was going to do.

Coach Diggle made the decision for them, “Okay everyone, I know it’s early but I want to see you all moving in 10 seconds.”

His voice broke into their little bubble and they stood up quickly, looking away from each other. Whatever just happened, she was going to pretend it didn’t.

So yeah.

Rowing. Time for that.

Fortunately, he too seemed interested in acting like nothing happened.

“So are we going for a distance or a time?” he asked, sitting down on his machine and strapping his feet in.

She strapped herself into her own machine, “Time. Who can go the farthest in our 15 minute rotation.”

Oliver smirked, “Well we know that that’s going to be me, the question will be how far I leave you in the dust.”

“Bring it on,” she muttered, grabbing her bar. “Ready?”

“Mhhmmm.” Oliver grabbed his bar, “3…2…1.”

When Coach Diggle blew the whistle signaling that their 15 minutes were up, Felicity leaned over to see how many meters Oliver had completed. A satisfied smile spread over her face.

“Maybe you should have kept your machine on level 8 to make it fairer,” she commented, unstrapping her feet.

“What? What did you do?” Oliver asked, unstrapping his feet and hopping up to come inspect her screen. “3,233 meters. What did you eat for breakfast?”

She looked up at him smugly and poked him in the chest, “Determination.”

“Oh really? I wasn’t aware they sold that in the grocery store, what aisle could I find that in?” he asked, an amused smile on his face as he walked over to their next station.

She followed after him, “Aisle 5, on the shelf right between you’re irritating and I don’t like to give you the satisfaction of winning whenever it can possibly be avoided.”

He shook his head and handed her the ropes, “Let’s see how much you have left.”

Chapter Text

February

“Ahhh taper, the most wonderful time of the year,” Felicity sighed, floating on her back.

 “That’s Christmas,” Oliver argued.

“Okay first of all, let me remind you that Christmas break is also hell week for us at practice and we barely survived this year and second of all, I’m Jewish.”

“Okay, so Hanukah is the most wonderful time of the year?”

“You’re overthinking this. Just appreciate the wonderfulness that is taper.”

Taper was the reward for a long season. After months of practices designed to push people past the brink of exhaustion, taper was the preparation for the championship meets. It meant shorter sets and longer breaks in practice; all with the intention of making sure that they had enough energy to actually see that hard work pay off.

“But you’re still here, so how wonderful can it actually be?”

Felicity stood up and splashed him, “Liar. You were the one who was excited that we were stuck in a lane together this season.”

“The excitement wore off pretty fast when I remembered how evil you are,” he countered before winking at her.

She turned away from him to grab the practice sheet and see what their next set was.

“Hey, but since we’re the only ones in our lane who made it to districts that means we can start splitting the lane and race.” He reached over to pull one of her straps, snapping it against her back.

She spun back around, “Owww! You know I was just going to say that we shouldn’t race because we’re supposed to be taking it easy for taper, but now I’m angry so we’re doing it. 4 100s on the 2:15. Tons of rest so don’t hold back.”

He tipped her chin and smirked, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Everything went fine for the first two 100s. Felicity won one and Oliver the other. It was on the third that…

Crack.

Head on head collision.

Normal for football, but swimming? Not so much.

Felicity jolted to her feet quickly, her hands pressed to her head, “Owww you idiot! We were splitting the lane, remember?”

“I’m the idiot?” Oliver yelled defensively, “You were the one who was circle swimming, not me!”

Felicity observed what side of the lane they were on and winced, “Ooops. I guess reflex took over---ahhhh my head hurts. I think my goggles are permanently embedded into my face.”

“Same,” Oliver replied, gingerly prying his goggles off. “And just for the record, you may have been winning at that turn, but you wouldn’t have beat me if you hadn’t decided to steamroll me.”

“Oh really? Then put your goggles back on and we’re going again.”

“Alright.”

“Oliver! Felicity!” Coach Diggle yelled. “Don’t act like I didn’t see that. You two need to get out right now and take your impact test, there’s no way you don’t have concussions.”

“If I have a concussion and can’t practice because you don’t know how to stay on your side of the lane, we’re going to have a problem,” Oliver huffed.

“If you hadn’t been losing, we wouldn’t be having this problem,” Felicity retorted.

As it turns out, they didn’t have a problem at all.

“Well I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that you two have hard enough heads to handle being bashed together,” Diggle commented, appraising their impact test results. “No more practice for today but you don’t have concussions so there’s no reason you can’t come in tomorrow. Don’t be surprised when you have nasty bruises though. Your goggles may have taken the brunt of the impact but that means they’re going to leave a mark.”

“Fantastic,” Felicity muttered.

The next day, Felicity and Oliver were sporting matching black and blue mask like bruises over their eyes and noses. Small gashes from where their goggles had cut into the bridge of their noses completed the look.

Tommy walked up to them as they walked out of morning practice and into school.

“Yikes. That is… quite the look. Did you guys finally get into a fist fight?” His voice dropped and he muttered to himself, “I would have paid money to see that.”

“Head on collision,” Felicity deadpanned.

“Her fault,” Oliver added.

Tommy grinned, “Well Felicity, you’re still the prettiest girl I know. Oliver, though… buddy….”

“Hey!” Oliver slapped him on the shoulder defensively.

“I’m just messing with you. C’mon we have to actually go to math class today because we have a quiz.” They started walking away and Tommy tossed over his shoulder, “See you later Felicity!”

She smiled and waved before heading to her own class, missing the opportunity to overhear their conversation.  

“What was that about?” Oliver asked.  

“What?” Tommy shrugged defensively, “Are you the only one who’s allowed to flirt with her?”

“I don’t flirt with her,” Oliver grumbled. “I don’t even like her.”

“Whatever you say man.”

Felicity peeled her knee skin off and rolled her shoulders in relief. The racing suit she wore for important meets was incredibly uncomfortable, covering her from knees to neck and squeezing everything in tight. It required 10 minutes to put on and usually a little assistance from her mom. They were past the point where having her mom pull her suit over her butt was awkward, it was just normal.

She was feeling confident with the times she swam at Districts this weekend. Unless everyone else got exponentially faster, she had state cuts for her individual events. The other girls on her relays had given a valiant effort, but they just weren’t States’ worthy times.  

Of course that small chance that everyone did get faster was now in the front of her mind and she had a feeling she would not be able to relax until the heat sheets came out.

Walking out of the locker room she ran into Oliver. Literally, ran into Oliver. Like, slammed into his rock solid chest and almost fell over---

“Watch where you’re going,” he grumbled.

“Why are you so grumpy?” she asked, falling into step with him as they headed for the bus.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered, quickening his pace.

“Oliver….. you can’t tell me that you’re disappointed with your swims because, as painful as this is for me to admit, you swam great this weekend. So what’s wrong?”

“Why do you even care?” he tossed over his shoulder.

She paused. Why did she care?

Because…. well… she just did.

Maybe because, deep down, she knew that there was a small part of him that cared about her. The part she saw when she was sick with the flu, the part of him that kept up with her races even when he couldn’t come to the meets, the part of him that…

She moved as fast as she could, ducking in and out of people, trying to get to the blocks before they called the start of her race. She had never missed an event before, and she wasn’t about to start at her first meet in the 9-10’s age group just because her goggles had broken at the last moment and she had to find someone to borrow a pair from. The deck was precariously slippery, and she knew she should probably slow down but…

Sliding, she felt herself going down. Her knee hit the deck and she winced as she felt her skin spit open. Before she could stand up, she heard the official call her race up onto the blocks and she blinked back tears.

A few parents who had noticed her spill looked at her in concern and a mom started to move to help her when a hand reached down to her.

Looking up, she saw Oliver with a frown on his face, “Are you okay?”

She grabbed his hand and he helped her up. Once she was on her feet, she dropped his hand quickly and wiped her tears away.

“I’m fine. I just--” More tears started to fall, “I missed my race.”

He shrugged, “So what? I’ve missed a race before, it’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” she practically shrieked and parents turned to look at them. Dropping her voice in embarrassment, she kept talking, “Just because you don’t care, doesn’t mean that I don’t--- I’m trying to go for high point in my age group and I can’t score more points than the other girls if I don’t swim all my races.”

“You’re bleeding,” he commented, pointing at her knee.

“Are you even listening to me?” she huffed.

“I don’t know why you’re so worried. You’re faster than the other girls, even the ten year olds. You can miss a race. Now please put a band-aid on before you get any more of your nasty blood everywhere.”

She sniffed, “My mom isn’t here. It was Sara’s turn to have her at her gymnastics meet.”

“My mom put band-aids in my bag just in case… but I’m tough so I don’t need them,” he added hastily and she rolled her eyes. He almost cried last week when she pinched him in the side because he stole her goggles and threw them into the middle of the pool.

She followed him over to where his towel was laid out.

“Sit down,” he instructed and she lowered herself gingerly onto his towel.

He disappeared to the locker room for a moment and came back with some paper towels to wipe the blood off her leg. Unzipping his bag, he dug around and pulled out a band-aid. She watched as he carefully covered her scrape, sticking the edges of the band-aid down.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

His face was a little flushed and she wasn’t sure if it was from the hot air in the natatorium or embarrassment that he had let her see past his usual annoying and teasing demeanor.

Straightening up, he moved away from her a bit, “I sometimes have to take care of my little sister if she gets a scrape… so I have practice.”

The next day in practice he had seemed extra irritating, like he was determined to remind her that he didn’t like her. And she was okay with that, because she didn’t like him either. Not at all.

She caught up to him and slid into the seat he was already occupying on the bus. In the time it had taken her to catch up with him, he had recovered and was back to his usual self, albeit a little forced.

“Oh, are we now sitting together on the bus buddies?” He slung an arm over her shoulder and she winced. Between having her knee skin digging into her flesh all day and swimming her events, her body hurt. She was too tired to shrug him off though and as her eyes closed, he continued talking. “With this exciting new development in our relationship I would like to take the opportunity to give you some constructive criticism. You know that you circle swim on your 500? And you breathe way too much on your 50? And you pretty much stop kicking entirely on the 3^rd 50 of your 200? And you----“

She opened her eyes to glare at him, “If you don’t shut up I’m going to kill you….”            

“See you’ve been saying that for years now and you haven’t made good on that promise, so I really don’t have any incentive to shut up because I know you would miss me too much if you killed me----“

“Ahh yes, I would definitely miss you because then I might have to find someone new to despise,” she said, shrugging his arm off of her. “And that is just too much effort.”

“The feeling is mutual, you truly are my favorite person to hate,” he nodded solemnly, a teasing glint in his eye.

She was about to get up and change seats, very much regretting her decision to sit with him, when the bus started moving and she knew she would get yelled at if she stood up. Instead she scooted as far away from him as possible and pulled out her headphones. She was about to fall asleep when he started tapping on her shoulder. At first, she ignored him. But then his tapping turned to poking and--- honestly could he not just find someone else to bother.

“What?” she asked, pulling out her headphones, aggravation lacing her voice.

“Whoa,” he raised his hands defensively. “I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to Big Belly Burger to eat dinner while we waited for the heat sheets to come out. I’m starving.”

She bit her lip, “Well, actually my step-dad is making dinner and I kind of wanted to be with my family when they come out. Don’t you want to be with your family?”

“I would, if they were even in town,” Oliver muttered. “Never mind, I’ll see what Tommy’s up to.”

“Wait, weren’t your parents at the meet today?”

“No, they had a last minute business trip. Mom doesn’t like Dad to travel by himself anymore if she can help it because sometimes…. stuff happens,” his voice dropped off and she noticed he was rubbing his fingers together in that nervous tick he always got before races.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Do you want to come over to my house for dinner? My step-dad always makes way too much food, even for after a meet when I could eat my entire body weight in pasta.”

He looked at her in surprise, “Seriously?”

“Are you telling me that you aren’t capable of eating copious amounts of food right now?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, like you’re seriously inviting me to come over for dinner?”

She clasped and unclasped her hands awkwardly, “You don’t want to be all by yourself with no one to celebrate with when you find out you made the state meet or else you wouldn’t have invited me, your least favorite person in the world, out to dinner. It’s only fair that I extend an invitation since I rejected your offer.”

“Is Detective Lance making pasta? Because I could probably eat my body weight’s right now.”

“I have no idea what he’s making but I can assure you that it will be good and there will be a lot of it,” she assured him. “What about Thea though?”

“She’s staying at a friend’s house while my parents are away.”

“Okay. So… dinner?”

“When I make the meet and you don’t am I allowed to gloat and rub it in your face?”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else. But just know you’ll get the same from me when I make it and you don’t,” she countered.

“Excellent. Can’t wait,” he said with a grin.

When the bus pulled into the school parking lot, she walked out and was immediately greeted by her mom, Lance, Sara, and Laurel. Her mom pulled her into a big hug and Lance patted her on the back.

“Oooooh you were so amazing this weekend baby girl!!” her mom squealed, squeezing her even tighter. “If they don’t let you into that state meet I will have words with them.”

She resisted the temptation to roll her eyes, “That’s not how it works mom. They have to compile the results from all the district meets and they take the top 32 for prelims. It’s all about the time.”

Lance gave her a hug too, “Well you swam great today, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”

Oliver coughed awkwardly and Felicity remembered that he was there, “Oh, umm is it okay if Oliver joins us for dinner---“

“Yes,” Sara interjected and Felicity resisted the urge to roll her eyes before continuing, “His parents are out of town so…”

“Of course it is!” Donna exclaimed, pulling a very flustered Oliver in for a hug. “You were amazing today too honey.”

“Errr thanks,” Oliver replied.

Donna pulled back and appraised him, “Wow you are getting so grown up. I still remember when you and Felicity were seven and you would throw goldfish crackers at each other while you impatiently waited in between your races.”

“Not much has changed,” Felicity muttered.

Oliver leaned over her shoulder, “Refresh the page again.”

“I just did.”

“I know, do it again,” he pushed her finger down to click refresh.

She turned her head to look at him, “Wow. Impatient much?”

“See look, they’re up. Click the link, click it, click---“

“Calm down! I’m clicking it.”

Nervously, she clicked the link to open the pdf for the girls’ psych sheets. Scrolling down, she paused at the 200 freestyle and scanned for her name.

“You’re in,” Oliver said, pointing at her name. “17^th, nice. You just have to advance one place to make it into the final.

She breathed a sigh of relief and continued down to the 500.

“10^th,” she whispered, and blinked back tears that were threatening to spill over. Making it to states in both of her events, it made everything she had to put up with this season totally worth it.

“Okay, okay. Now mine,” Oliver nudged her shoulder.

“Oh I don’t think it’s even worth checking, we both know you didn’t make it.”

“Shut up,” Oliver said, pushing her chair to the side and moving in front of the computer screen.

She scooted her chair back over to watch the screen as he pulled up the guys’ psych sheets.

“So?” she asked.

“In for both,” he reported.

She shook her head, “Darn, and here I thought I might have a nice, enjoyable trip.”

He rolled his eyes, “You would be bored and alone without me.”

“Debatable.”

Laurel appeared in the doorframe, “So what’s the verdict?”

Felicity spun her chair around to face her, “We’re in.”

“Congratulations! I’m glad the crazy hard work you two put in paid off.”

“I put in hard work, he spent a lot of time drafting off of me,” Felicity clarified.

“Excuse me? That is a lie,” Oliver retorted, tugging on her ponytail.

“Don’t touch me,” she smacked his hand.

“You’re touching me!”

“In self-defense! What is this? Anne of Green Gables? Gilbert--”

Oliver threw his hands up defensively, “What does that even mean? I don’t speak your weird nerd language.”

“My condolences to whoever is chaperoning this trip,” Laurel muttered, backing out of the room.

Chapter Text

March: STATES

DAY 1

Felicity paced back and forth nervously beside the pool, waiting for her warm up time to start.

The two hour van ride had been uneventful as they both had fallen asleep within 5 minutes of Coach Diggle pulling out of the school parking lot at 4:30am.

Today was the first half of the girls’ meet, prelims in the morning and finals in the evening. If she made it to the finals in the 200. Nothing was guaranteed because she was seeded 17^th and would have to advance a place just to make it into the B final.

Hence the nerves.

The buzzer sounded, announcing that it was time, and she plunged into the cool water. Falling into place amongst the other girls assigned to her lane, she started to feel some of the tension leave her body. She felt pretty good, her taper leaving her feeling rested and strong. It seemed like she was only in the pool for a few minutes before it was time to get out and wait for the meet to start.

She walked over to their spot on the bleachers where Oliver threw her towel at her.  

“How are you feeling?” Coach Diggle asked while she dried off.

“Pretty good, a little nervous though,” she admitted. “Oliver can you throw me my jacket? It’s in the main pocket of my bag.”

“I’m sorry, am I your servant?”

She raised an eyebrow, “Do you want me to come up there and drip water all over you?”

“Nope,” he responded abruptly and pulled out her jacket to toss down.

After the National Anthem, she sat down to watch the medley relays, her knees bouncing nervously.

She felt Coach Diggle’s hand on her shoulder, “Felicity?”

She turned her head to look up at him, “Yeah?”

“The third 50 is your weakest, you know that, so what are you going to do to make sure you don’t slow down?”

“Treat each 50 like a separate race.”

He squeezed her shoulder, “Good. And don’t be nervous okay? Pretend it’s a practice and it’s just you and Oliver in there.”

She nodded and took a swig of her water. As soon as the last heat of medleys started, it was time for her to be seeded and she stood up to go check in with the official. Once she was behind her lane, she started to shake out her shoulders and put her cap and goggles back on. It wasn’t long before the heat before her had finished and the official was calling her heat forward to step up on the blocks. She had watched the times come up on the board from the previous heat and no one had done anything stellar, so as long as she won her heat and was faster than one of the girls in the heat after her, she would make finals.

She curled her toes over the edge of the block and took a deep breath.

“Take your mark.”

She doubled over and her muscles coiled up to prepare for the start.

“Stand up.”

Her body flinched but she regained her composure and straightened up.

“Lane 7,” the official called, “Toes over the edge.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the girl in lane 7 shuffle her feet forward. It always frustrated her when they had to re-do a start, it broke her mental focus. Shaking it off, she was ready when the official repeated the command to take their mark.

Her arms flew out, bringing her body with her as she shot off the block and broke the surface of the water. It was a little too deep of a dive and she felt like it took an eternity to kick to the surface before she was able to take her first stroke. The girls on either side of her were slightly ahead of her and she deepened her strokes, pulling as much water as she could to bridge the distance. Coming up on the first turn, she had gotten to be dead even with them. She knew that she couldn’t just beat them, because she had to be as fast as she could be. Holding back at all wasn’t an option and, pushing off the wall from the turn, she kicked even harder. It was then that she saw a girl on an outside lane start to push forward and she started to get nervous. She was going as hard as she possibly could and she couldn’t get a solid leading position. For the rest of the race, she volleyed with the three girls for the lead spot, the rest of the swimmers too far behind to offer any real competition.

The last lap started with her in third place. She did her best to put herself into a mental space where it was just her and Oliver at practice, but it didn’t help. Didn’t distract her from the fact that she was at the state meet and she just couldn’t pull ahead. Her body felt heavy and, as desperately as she was pulling through the water, she could feel her chances at winning the heat slipping through her fingers.

Still, she gave it a valiant effort until she hit the wall. Looking up at the board, she saw that she finished third, despite dropping a tenth of a second. Tears started to fill up her goggles as she waited for the other girls to finish. She shook the hands of the girls on either side of her and hauled herself out of the pool. Of course there was a slim chance that she could still knock someone from one of the faster heats out of finals, but she wasn’t getting her hopes up. She knew she should be happy that she swam a personal best, but she was still disappointed. Re-routing herself so she wouldn’t have to pass Coach Diggle and Oliver on the way to the cool down pool, she pulled her goggles off and rubbed the tears away.

Once she was under the water in the cool down pool, she let the tears fall freely before standing up to check the times coming in from the heat after her. Fast. So fast. There was no chance of her making the finals. She rolled onto her back and swam a few laps backstroke to bring her heartrate down. If it was up to her, she would never leave that pool. She was coming into the wall and was about to turn onto her stomach for her flip turn when she saw Oliver above her, standing on the edge of the pool.

Groaning internally, she ignored him and did her flip turn, splashing as much water as she could. When she got back down to that end of the pool again, he was still standing there and she figured she better get out this time. Slowly, she glided into the wall and turned over to look up at him.

“What?”

“Are you okay?” he asked, concern crinkling his brow.

“Of course I’m okay,” her voice cracked and she swallowed as the tears started again. Brushing them away as they fell, she pulled herself out of the pool and tried to get past him, avoiding his eyes. 

“Fe-li-ci-ty.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Take a deep breath.”

She obliged and her breathing evened out as the warmth from his hand spread over her skin.

“Look, I know you’re disappointed that you didn’t make finals. But you made it to states, that was your goal and you achieved it. Plus, you swam a personal best. It’s not like you totally tanked and that’s why you didn’t win your heat. Not to mention that you still have another event tomorrow, so don’t let this get to your head.”

She sniffled and looked up at him, “Thanks for not being a jerk for once.”

He shook his head and smiled, “I have my moments.”

She returned his smile with a weak one of her own, “Should I walk away before the moment is over?”

He released his hand from her shoulder, “Probably a good idea.”

That night in the hotel she laid in her bed, unable to get comfortable.  Residual frustration from the day and nerves for tomorrow were a combination that was keeping her from sleep despite being physically and emotionally exhausted. After a few more minutes, she gave up. Grabbing her room key, she walked out into the hallway and went down a few doors. She tapped lightly, unsure of what she was even thinking. She was about to turn and go back to her room when the door opened.

“What’s up?” Oliver asked.

“I can’t sleep, what are you doing?”

“Watching ESPN.” He opened the door a little wider and she could see the dim light from the tv.

“Excellent, that will put me right to sleep.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Are we having a sleepover? I’m pretty sure that isn’t allowed according to the athletic division’s overnight trip policy.”

“First of all, since when have you been a rule follower? And second of all, I’m not staying. Can I just hang out for a little bit until I’m more tired?”

He shrugged and moved aside so she could come in, “Sure.”

 Once she was inside, she felt a little awkward as her mind caught up to what she was doing. His room wasn’t the same as hers, somehow he had gotten a single queen bed instead of the two smaller beds she had. Which meant she had two options, sit on the floor or crawl into bed with him. Neither held much appeal. Her body was tired though, so there was no way she was sitting on the floor. And she wasn’t going to be there long, so the bed wouldn’t be that weird. Right?

She hopped on and scooted up to lean against the headboard, as close to the edge as possible. Oliver gave her a strange look and settled into the bed as well, turning the volume back up on the TV. After a few minutes, her eyes were feeling heavier and she started to feel cold. That should have been an indication that she should just go back to her own room and go to bed, but the hum of the TV and Oliver’s steady breathing helped to push out the noise in her head. So instead of leaving, she pulled up the edge of the covers and got underneath them.

“Making yourself comfortable?” Oliver asked, looking over at her.

She yawned, “Don’t let me fall asleep in here.”

“Pair up! We’re doing resistance cords,” their coach announced.

Her brow wrinkled in confusion and she looked over at Oliver, “What?”

“You know those cords that the older kids strap into and then they have someone pull them in?”

She nodded.

“I guess we’re finally big enough to do them.”

Her eyes lit up, “Awesome!”

“Umm… do you want to be my partner? I promise I’ll pull you in really fast.”

“Okay, but don’t smash my head into the wall or anything like that,” she insisted.

“Now why would I do that?” a ten year old Oliver grinned mischievously.

She frowned and he patted her head, “Don’t worry, I’m not that mean.”

He pulled himself out of the water and handed her the belt for the cord. Tightening it on herself, she started to walk out to the middle of the pool. When she got to the point that the resistance was too strong, she turned and got herself ready to swim in.

“Ready?” Oliver called.

She gave him a thumbs up and the next second she lurched forward as he started to pull on the cord. Getting her limbs under control, she started to swim as she rocketed towards the wall. At what felt like a fraction of an inch away from the wall, Oliver jerked up on the cord and she stopped.

She stood up, a grin spreading on her face, as her heart beat rapidly. “That—“ she tried to catch her breath, “was--- so fun. It felt like flying!”

Chapter Text

STATES: DAY 2

The next thing that she was aware of was a knocking sound on the edge of her sleepy haze. Slowly, she became aware of other things. Like the fistful of t-shirt she was holding onto. And the warmth. Warm breath on her head, a warm…. arm--- arm? Wrapped around her----

The knocking suddenly became very loud and she sat up abruptly. Her movement woke Oliver and he appraised the situation quickly as she scooted away from him. Her eye caught the clock and panic coursed through her body as she realized the reason for the urgent knocking.

“Oh no. We’re going to miss your warm-ups!”

She hopped off the bed and ran over to the door, not realizing what her presence in Oliver’s room would insinuate. Opening the door, she was greeted by Coach Diggle who had a very surprised look on his face.

“Felicity?”

“Coach Diggle I am so sorry, I had like 4 alarms set but they were all on my phone which I accidently left in my room when I came over here and I didn’t think I was actually going to fall asleep but I was just so tired and I don’t know what happened and I---“

“Three missed calls,” Oliver’s voice came from inside the room. “How did none of those wake us up?”

“I’ll be ready in 5 minutes,” Felicity promised, ducking past Coach Diggle to head back to her room.

This was not a good way to start the morning. Well… it actually hadn’t been that awful to wake up curled into Oliver’s side, never mind that she had no idea how they had ended up like that, but she didn’t want to think about that. Accidentally falling asleep together didn’t fit into the mechanics of their relationship. Not to mention the fact that she was now frantically throwing things into her bag and pulling on clothes instead of going through her precise pre-meet morning routine.

She had no idea what Oliver was thinking about the whole thing or whether or not he would even bring it up. It was technically an accident, they hadn’t purposefully… cuddled. Because that was not something they would ever do on purpose.

Running down the hall to the elevator, she hit the button for the lobby and Oliver slid in just as the doors were about to close.

“Do you have something against alarms?” she muttered, her eyes trained on her feet.

“We slept through it, and the calls from Coach Diggle.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry I let you fall asleep, I went to brush my teeth and when I came back you were out. You said you were having trouble falling asleep so I didn’t think it would be good to wake you up…”

“It’s okay.” She was very interested in the conversation stopping there and avoiding the way they had woken up.

Thankfully, it seemed he was in agreement and they rode the rest of the way down in silence. Coach Diggle had pulled the van up to the front entrance of the hotel and they loaded up.

First up on the itinerary for the morning was the guys’ prelims for the events the girls had swam last night, so Oliver had the 200 and she had time to recollect herself before she had to swim the 500 prelims that afternoon.

She was sitting on the bleachers and scrolling through the girls’ finals results from last night when a text came in from Laurel.

Tommy, Sara, and I are going to try to come for finals tonight. Keep us posted if you make it. Good luck!

More pressure wasn’t exactly what she needed, but it would be nice for her sisters to be there. The upside of states being in the middle of the week was that they got a few excused days off of school, the downside was that it was difficult for her parents to get off work to come.

She heard Oliver’s name called over the loudspeaker and she hopped down from the bleachers to watch his race from the side of the pool. He was in the second to last heat and she knew that he was hoping to get into the A final, which meant he was going to have to win his heat and knock someone out of the last heat. Hopefully he had more luck with that than her.

The official started the race and she moved in closer to the pool. From the very beginning, the race was close and she found herself bouncing on her toes anxiously. On the last lap, he started to pull ahead and finished first by almost a full second. She thought she would be irritated. Every part of her wanted to be irritated, but seeing the excited grin on his face when he looked up at the board, she just couldn’t bring herself to find a way to rain on his parade. He was guaranteed a spot in the finals, now it was just a matter of if he would be in the A or B. She made a mental note of his time as the next heat went off.

When all the times flashed up on the board at the end of the race, his time put him ahead of the last two finishers and into the A final.

She wandered over to the cooldown pool where he was swimming and dipped her toes in the end of his lane to stop him.

He looked up at her, “What?”

“Will we ever know how I can beat you in every 200 in practice and then you do that?”

He smirked and laid back to float, “Magic.”

She shook her head, “Right. Well good job.”

“Thanks. Oh wait.” He flipped over and swam back over to the edge to get out. “We need to talk about how you want me to do your cards.”

“What?”

“Your cards for the 500? I’m going to have to do them….”

Normally, one of the other girls on the team did her signal cards for the 500, but since she hadn’t qualified for the state meet, Oliver was going to have to do them. This distressed her a bit. Your signal cards were not something that you wanted getting messed up.

The look on her face must not have escaped his notice.

He rolled his eyes, “I’m not going to mess your cards up; I’m not a monster. Besides, you’re doing mine tomorrow so I don’t want to incite retribution.”

She sighed, “Okay, but I have a very specific way I like mine done.”

“I’m aware that you’re a high maintenance princess, which is why I said we need to talk about them.”

They walked over to the bleachers and she explained which splits she liked her cards swung for and which she liked them moved up and down for.

“You should know that you literally just have to put the card in the water for me,” he said after she was done.

“How do you know what your pace is?”

“I don’t care that much, I just swim until I run out of energy.”

“That’s not very strategic….”

“I’m still going to swim it faster than you,” he pointed out.

“I hate you,” she muttered.

“Good. I was starting to worry that I had lost your undying hatred when you were feeling me up this morning,” he tossed over his shoulder as he walked ahead of her.

“That is not what happened,” she huffed at his retreating form, her cheeks turning pink as a few people turned to look at her.

There are a few things you should know about the 500. Like all distance events, it requires a lot of mental strength. Your mind will give out a lot faster than your body during its 20 laps, so the key is to focus on something other than swimming. Thousands and thousands of yards in practice, your body knows what to do, it doesn’t need much help from your brain. For Felicity, and most people, the key to staying distracted from thinking too much was singing a song in her head. She stood behind the blocks, waiting for her heat with her earbuds in, letting the music fill her head.

She was determined, even more so than yesterday, to make finals. A 10^th place seed was basically an ultimate qualifier to the B final, as long as she swam well.

Stepping up to the blocks, she looked down the pool to Oliver sitting at the end. He gave her a reassuring nod, and she returned it as she pulled her goggles down. The official blew the whistle and she hopped up.

She had a good start, not super important in the 500, but a confidence booster nonetheless.

The first 200 yards, she kept a good steady pace, keeping herself at the front of the pack. Oliver swung the cards, letting her know that she was in a good spot.

After turning on the eighth wall, she flipped the switch and sped up. Pulling more water, kicking harder, she grew the distance between her and the other girls. She felt good, even better than yesterday, and getting out in front to the clean water made it easier.

She turned onto the final 50 with a vast lead, but she knew she couldn’t ease up if she wanted a shot at the A final. Time to give it everything she had in the tank.

When she hit the wall and looked up at the time flashing on the board, she breathed a sigh of relief. A six second drop put her in a good spot. She looked down to Oliver while she was waiting for the other girls to finish and he gave her a thumbs up.

After shaking the girls to either side of hers’ hands, she pulled herself out of the pool and made her way down to the cooldown pool where Oliver was waiting for her.

“I should do your cards more often, clearly it made a huge difference for you,” he commented and she punched him lightly in the arm.

“Yes, I definitely think it had nothing to do with my actual swimming,” she replied sarcastically.

“Cooldown. I’ll watch the next heat and let you know when they’re about to finish.”

She hopped into the cooldown pool and, after a few laps, Oliver put his hand down into the water to stop her.

“They’re about to finish and it’s looking good for you, I think….. yeah you just made the A final.”

“Yeah?” she craned her neck to see the board.

“Definitely. We might both walk out of here with medals tonight.”

“Felicity!”

She looked up into the balcony to see Sara waving at her, Tommy and Laurel sitting next to her. She waved back and Oliver came up beside her.

“You ready for this?”

She turned to face him, “I am.”

They had had a few hours to rest back at the hotel after her 500 prelim and now she was antsy to get back into the pool.

 “Oliver! It’s time for you to go line up,” Coach Diggle called.

She patted his arm, “Good luck!”

His 200 was even faster than it had been that morning at prelims and he ended up placing third overall.

Before she knew it, it was time to clear her mind for her 500 final.

Diving into the water at the start, she took a different approach to this race than earlier. It was her last race of the season, might as well take a page from Oliver’s book and go until there was nothing left. By the final 100, she was exhausted, but holding a steady third place. The idea that she could medal ahead of Oliver, gave her an extra push of motivation and she kicked a little harder. Closing in on the girl closest to her, she slowly pulled ahead going into the last lap.

Second place.

She was pretty happy with second place as long as it wasn’t second to Oliver.

When she hit the wall, she looked up at the board and saw that she had dropped another second from that morning.

The next couple of minutes were a blur until she found herself up on the podium, Coach Diggle putting her medal around her neck.

He pulled her into a hug, “I’m very proud of you Felicity.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Once the official pictures had been taken, she hopped of the podium and over to where Laurel, Tommy, and Sara had made their way down on deck. They offered their congratulations and then called Oliver over.

“Your mom wants a picture of the two of you with your medals,” Laurel said, pulling out her phone.  

“Of course she does,” Felicity muttered, before realizing that she didn’t care. Maybe she’d actually want a copy of this one. If she was honest with herself, this season hadn’t been the train wreck she thought it would be at the beginning. She realized that, despite everything she said, she didn’t just see Oliver as a necessary evil anymore. This season had been better than the last, not just because she had made it to states, but because swimming just wasn’t the same without him. Yes, he was irritating, but she gave it right back to him. It was just the way things were between them, and maybe it wasn’t all that bad. It was… uncomplicated.  

Unlike when they were younger, Oliver wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in close for the picture. Recovering from the initial shock, she held up her medal and flashed a smile. After Laurel had snapped a few pictures, she turned to leave the deck, Sara and Tommy following behind.  

She looked up at him, conscious of the fact that his arm was still around her, “For the record, I placed ahead of you.” She clinked her silver medal against his bronze.

He rolled his eyes, “We didn’t even swim the same event. At least wait until I swim the 500 tomorrow before you try to gloat.”

“Well I already had one bad event this weekend so I think you’re obligated to have one too,” she remarked as he steered them back over towards Diggle. “And why are you still touching me?”

His arm retracted quickly, “Sorry—I just… I don’t know.”

She looked up at him in confusion but he avoided her eyes and walked off to grab his stuff from the bleachers.

Back at the hotel, she showered and was changing into her pajamas when there was a knock on her door.

“Just a minute!” she called, pulling on her sweatpants.

When she opened the door, Oliver was standing in the hallway.

“What’s up?”

“Umm do you want to come over and hang out again tonight? I’ll set like 6 alarms in case you fall asleep.”

“I don’t have an event tomorrow, I don’t think I’ll have trouble sleeping. It was nerves last night,” she explained. Last night had been an accident and not a part of their usual protocol.

He looked down at his feet, “I know…. The 200 stresses you out, the 500 is the one I get nervous for.”

“Oh. So you do actually get nervous? I thought you were a superior human specimen…” she teased.

Looking up at her, he grinned, “Even superior human specimens get nervous sometimes.”

“Oh I see,” she laughed. “Seeing as we didn’t get yelled at by Coach Diggle for our sleepover last night, I think it’ll be okay. But I’m setting a few alarms on my phone too.”

Grabbing her phone, she followed him down the hall to his room. She sat down on the edge of his bed and he sat down next to her. Her sweatshirt had started to slip off her shoulder and his fingers found the imprint on her skin where the straps of her knee skin had cut into her.

“Does that hurt to wear?” he asked, tracing along the mark.

“It’s the worst. I feel like my insides are being crushed when I’m wearing it and even now that it’s off, I’ll have the imprint of the seams on my body for at least another hour or so. And that’s how you know it fits correctly.”

He cringed, “That’s awful.”

“You get used to it.”

They sat for a few moments in silence before she turned to look up at him, “What are we doing?”

“Well, we’re sitting here on my bed and having a very nice moment, which I expect to come to an end very soon because we can’t get along for longer than 2 minutes—“

She slapped him on the shoulder, “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know it wasn’t,” his voice dropped and the next thing she knew he was leaning in, his eyes on her lips.

“Oh.” She pulled back before he could kiss her, a million confusing emotions rushing through her.

He looked away, but not before she caught the hurt expression on his face, “Sorry. Not what you meant.”

She moved quickly to straddle his lap, catching him by surprise, and smoothed her thumb over his brow. “No, that’s pretty much what I was going for. Why have we been acting like we’re still eight years old? I mean yeah, you’re still just as aggravating, but I kind of love that about you now.”

She surprised herself with the words that came out of her mouth, but she knew that they were true. Underneath the layers of “hatred” she knew that she loved him. She had thought that in another world they would be best friends, but the reality was that they were so much more than friends. No one could get under her skin like him, but she also knew that no one could replace him.

She dipped down to press her lips to his. After his initial shock, he kissed her back, and she felt a smile spread across his face through her kisses.

“I kind of love you too,” he whispered when she pulled back.

“I did not want to give you the satisfaction that I caved and admitted it first, but you gave me no choice.”

He grinned, “You’ve got to let me win some things Smoak.”

“As long as I keep kicking your butt in practice, I think I’m okay with conceding this one.”

“You are so delusional, how many times am I going to have to remind you that we split leading the lane 50/50 this season.”

She tapped her chin, “Hmmm, I would say it was more 40/60…”

“Yeah, maybe with me leading 60% of the time,” he argued.

Her eyes narrowed, “I can’t even threaten you anymore when you won’t shut up because you know I’m being fake.”

“I always knew you were being fake. But I can think of better ways for you to shut me up than drowning me…”

She pushed him onto his back, and hovered over him, “Doesn’t this just give you an incentive to be annoying?”

He smirked, “You’re the one who just said you loved it.”

She rolled her eyes but she couldn’t hold back her smile, “Fair enough.”

MAY

Felicity’s phone dinged and she reached across her desk for it. Smiling at the picture from her and Oliver at States, she swiped over to the text from him.  

Pick you up in 10 minutes?

It was the first day of practice for summer season and, for the first time in all her years of swimming, she didn’t have a complaint about being stuck in a lane with Oliver.

Just because he was her boyfriend now, didn’t mean she was going to let him ahead of her though.

Over her dead body.

Okay :)

Chapter Text

Felicity flinched as Oliver pulled at one of her leg hairs, “Okay, ow?”

“Your legs are getting gnarly,” he commented.

It was tradition for the girls to not shave their legs for the duration of the season until the championship meets at the end. The drag would slow them down a bit all season, and then when it really mattered, they wouldn’t have that extra hindrance. Maybe it was mostly a mental thing, but there was something about finally having hair free legs at the end of the season that made her feel a little bit faster.

She pulled one of his leg hairs and his leg jerked up, “Speak for yourself. You know you’re going to have to shave for States too?”

“No way,” he shook his head.

“Uh, yeah. Do you seriously want all of that drag? All the guys do it.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, “Is this a trick?”

She laughed, “No, I’m being totally serious.” Raising her voice, she called for Coach Diggle, “Coach! Don’t all the guys shave their legs for states?”

He nodded, “Prepare for nice smooth legs Queen.”

Oliver groaned, “Tommy is never going to let me live this down. Might as well just trade in my man card now.”

Felicity rolled her eyes and muttered, “If you think your manliness is contingent upon your leg hair, you haven’t looked in the mirror lately.”

“What?”

She shook her head, “Nothing. Just talking to myself. I can give you a hand by the way.”

As soon as the words came out of her mouth she wondered what she was thinking. She wasn’t thinking actually. Sure, there were girls last year at Districts who talked about how they had shaving parties with their teams and helped the guys. But this would just be her and Oliver, and it would be weird.

Plus, why in the world would she want to spend any more time with him than necessary?

Oliver’s face screwed up in confusion, “A hand with what?”

“Shaving. Like just give you some pointers and stuff, like the knees can be sort of tricky and ummm well you could ask your mom I guess but that would be weird-- not that shaving your legs isn’t weird in the first place but---“

“Oh no, I am not having my mom help me shave my legs,” he interrupted her, cringing. “Not that your assistance is that much better of an option, but I would prefer not to bleed out in my shower alone.”

“I doubt you’d actually bleed to death, unless you were doing something really wrong,” Felicity pointed out.

“Aright, let’s do it at my house the night before we leave for States,” Oliver suggested. “I have a big shower.”

Felicity steered her mind away from other things that she definitely had no interest in doing with Oliver in a big shower.

“Okay.”

Felicity shifted the shopping bag in her hand to ring the bell at the Queen Mansion. A few seconds later, Oliver swung open the door and moved aside as she stepped in.

She held up the bag, “I got the goods.”

Oliver sighed, “I still can’t believe I have to do this.”

“Well technically you don’t have to… but it’s in your best interest.”

He huffed, “Let’s just get it over with.”

She smirked, following him up the staircase and down the hall to his room. She had been up there a few times before, to help him with his chemistry homework and when he was sick, but she had never seen the inside of his bathroom.

He wasn’t lying when he said he had a big shower.

Glass walls revealed a smooth tile floor and multiple jets with various spray settings. Surprisingly, the only product inside was a bottle of 2 in 1 shampoo and body wash. 

“You’re minimalistic,” Felicity commented, setting her things down on the counter. “I pictured you a lot more high maintenance.”

“There are better things to be high maintenance about. Chlorine kills all the germs anyway,” Oliver shrugged. “And nothing will save this hair.”

Felicity rolled up on her tiptoes and brushed a hand over his head, “Yikes. Laurel would be attacking you with the coconut oil if she felt that mess.”

“We should have just made it a whole spa night,” Oliver replied sarcastically, pulling his sweatpants off.

She startled for a second before she realized that he was wearing his speedo underneath. Just like she had her suit on underneath her clothes.

This physical attraction thing really threw a wrench in her hating him.

Turning around, she started pulling razors and shaving cream out of the bag.

“You didn’t have to get everything,” Oliver said, leaning over her shoulder.

She shrugged and tilted her head to the side to look up at him, “Because you wanted to go shopping for Raspberry Rain scented shaving cream?”

“Point taken. Do we really need that many razors though?”

“Have you seen your legs? A machete may have been appropriate but they don’t sell those at Target,” she quipped.

He snorted and stepped away so she could take her clothes off. Once she was stripped down to her tank suit, she carried the packs of razors and shaving cream over to the shower.

“Alright, you’re going to have to turn one of these on,” she said, gesturing to the shower heads. “We don’t need the full rainforest experience but we do need to get our legs wet.”

Oliver reached around her and turned a knob, sending a jet spray right into her face, droplets of water ricocheting off her glasses.

He chuckled and turned it off, “Not what you meant?”

Narrowing her eyes, she spun around to face him, “No. It was not.”

He laughed again, “I’m sorry, I can’t take you serious right now. You look like a drowned rat.”

“Oh yeah?” she tilted her head. “I wonder why? You know, I may have said that it was unlikely that you would bleed out, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t make it happen.”

Throwing his hands up defensively, he took a step back before walking over to another shower head and turning it on to a gentle trickle.

She ripped open the package of razors and fanned a few out for him, “Pick your poison.”

He looked at her in confusion, “Is there a difference?”

“Yeah, this one’s pink, this one’s orange, this one’s blue…”

Rolling his eyes, he grabbed a green one.

“That will probably suffice for half of one leg,” she remarked as she selected a pink one. “I went through three razors when I did mine last year.”

“That’s insane.”

“Mine is not even as bad as some girls’. I talked to a girl at Districts last year who could braid her leg hair by the end of the season.”

Oliver covered his ears, “Please stop. You’re taking the magic of girls away from me.”

She grinned, waggling her eyebrows, and walked over to the stream of water to start getting her legs wet.

He joined her and sighed, “How long is it going to take to grow back?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “You’re going to have to touch it up again while we’re at States though.”

“Fantastic,” he groaned.

Coating her legs in shaving cream, she gave him a few instructions, before starting on her calves. Three razors and 45 minutes later, she finished touching up one last spot on her left ankle.

“You’re already done?” Oliver asked, looking over at her as she put the cap on her can of shaving cream.

There was shaving cream smeared across his forehead and chest and she couldn’t help but laugh at the distressed expression on his face.

“How are you not done?” She reached down to feel his leg, “Are you not applying any pressure at all?”

“I don’t want to cut myself!”

“Do you cut your face when you shave it?”

“Well no but…” He extended his razor out to her, “Help me.”

“What did I do to deserve this?” she muttered, taking the razor from him and trading it out for a new one.

Swallowing hard, she dispensed a dollop of shaving cream onto her hand and crouched in front of him to spread it onto his leg.

This had to rank at number one on the list of the strangest things she’d ever done.

“You know,” Oliver began, “Normally when girls are on their kn---“

She looked up at him, “Shut up about your fictional girlfriends Oliver.”

He smirked and she shook her head, refocusing on her task. She was working carefully on one of his knees when they heard the bathroom door open.

“You know, when your mom said that the two of you were in the shower and that I could go right up, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.”

Felicity twisted her neck to look at Tommy appraising them with his arms crossed and an amused smile on his face.

Oliver pointed a finger at him, “Not a word about this.”

Tommy laughed, “No one would believe me buddy, no need to worry. Felicity, would you like to shave my legs next?”

“I charge a high price for my services,” she tossed back with a grin.

“I think we can negotiate an adequate payment,” he teased with a wink, moving to sit down on the counter.  

Oliver grunted in annoyance and she looked back up at him, “Is there something wrong Oliver?”

He stared at for a second before blinking and opening his mouth to complain, “How much longer is this going to take?”

“Almost done,” she reassured him, patting his knee.

A few minutes later, she stood up and stretched her legs out.

“Done?” Oliver asked.

“Yep, just rinse yourself off.”

He ran a hand down his leg, “This is weird. My legs feel cold.”

“You’ll get used to it,” she replied with a shrug. “Plus, you’ll feel fast in the pool tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, I need to get home and finish packing.”

“What about me?” Tommy whined as she stepped out of the shower.

“Join the swim team and then I’ll shave your legs,” she said, grabbing her stuff.

He shook his head, “Hell no, you two are insane. Swimming is not a sport, it’s self-inflicted torture.”

“Only because it involves spending every day with her,” Oliver muttered.

Tommy rolled his eyes, “Please, that’s your favorite part.”

Oliver glared at him and opened his mouth to speak, “I---“

“Anyways,” Felicity interrupted awkwardly. “See you guys later.”

Pulling on her clothes as she walked, she ducked out of the bathroom. Outside the room, she let out a deep breath.

What was that all about?

Chapter Text

“Sweetheart, it’s time to leave for practice. I think you slept through your alarm…”

Lance’s voice broke through her peaceful bubble of sleep and she groaned.

It was the day after Christmas and she had to wake up at 5:30 for swim practice. Delightful. In their blended family they celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas which meant that yesterday was festive and fun and today was going to be well… chlorinated and exhausting. Since they didn’t compete during Christmas break, Coach Diggle always took the opportunity to completely wear them out each and every day in grueling three and a half hour practices. Christmas day itself was their only reprieve.

Dragging herself out of bed, she fumbled through pulling on her new practice suit adorned with snowmen that Laurel had gotten her for the holidays. The straps were a twisted mess but she knew that Oliver would get them sorted out.

It was funny how much things had changed since last year, last year when she had hid her affection for Oliver, and in turn he had hidden his for her, under a mask of spite. Some things hadn’t changed, they were still intensely competitive with each other, but they no longer pretended that they didn’t love it. She had said before that in another world they would be best friends, but it turned out that in this one they were so much more.

“Can I drive?” she whisper yelled out into the hallway, stumbling along as she threw on a pair of sweatpants and a t shirt over her suit.

“Yes, but you have to hurry or else you’re going to be late.”

The last thing she wanted was to be late. Those that were late got rewarded with having to do an extra 400 IM at the end of practice and those 16 laps might actually kill her.

Slinging her backpack over her shoulder that she had thankfully packed the night before, she hurried down to the kitchen where her step-dad was waiting with her usual bananas, coffee, and Quest Bar.

“All ready?”

She grabbed her breakfast and the car keys, “Yep.”

Once they were in the car, she turned to him, “Don’t forget I’m going to the Queen’s after practice so I don’t need a ride home.”

“And how long are you planning on staying there?” he asked as she started pulling out of the driveway.

She tugged her bottom lip into her teeth and muttered, “Overnight.”

“I see…”

There was a knowing tone in his voice laced with a bit of disapproval.

A blush spread across her cheeks and she launched into an explanation, “I just thought it would be easier because then Oliver could drive me to practice tomorrow and you wouldn’t have to worry about getting up early to take me on one of your only days off and I---“

“It is a privilege for me to have time with you in the car in the morning,” Lance cut her off and then sighed. “Just don’t get into too much trouble with Queen, okay?”

She grinned, “Oliver and I, trouble? Never.”

He chuckled, “Mhmm. Eyes on the road.”

“Do you even know how to put your suit on properly?” Oliver asked, his fingers sliding along the straps.

She tilted her head back, “Maybe I just like when you do that.”

He kissed her nose before releasing her and walking over to their lane.

“Let’s see what torture Coach Diggle has thought up for us today,” he muttered, picking up the practice sheet.

“I heard that Queen,” Diggle remarked from where he was standing along the side of the pool.

Felicity stood on her toes and rested her chin on his shoulder so she could see the practice, “5 1000’s, 30 100’s, and 10 200’s. How exciting, all of our favorite sets.”

Oliver groaned and turned to face her, “Please tell me that was sarcasm.”

She crossed her arms, “What? You can’t handle it?”

He stepped closer to her and looked down into her eyes, “Are you questioning my stamina? Because I think you know exactly what I’m capable of handling.”

She blinked slowly as her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest like it did whenever he got this close to her. “Then let’s see it. Split the lane? It’s just the two of us in our lane today....”

“Are you going to give me a black eye?”

“Oliver you’ve got to let that go,” she complained, smacking him in the shoulder.

He backed away from her, a grin on his face. “Never! My nose hasn’t been the same since I got a permanent goggle dent in it.”

She rolled her eyes, “Nonsense. Your nose is just as perfect as the rest of your stupidly perfect face.”

“Felicity, do you have a crush on me?” he asked jokingly.

Picking up her kickboard, she smacked him with it, “Absolutely not!”

“Smoak! Queen! The rest of us would like to get started with practice, if that’s alright with you.” Diggle called out before dropping his voice to a mutter, “I was mistaken to think that things would improve when they started dating…”

Felicity blushed when she realized that the rest of the team was watching them with various shades of amusement and annoyance on their faces, and hurried back over to their lane, Oliver right behind her. Adjusting her cap and goggles, she watched as the clock counted down to zero before jumping into the icy water.

It figured that the heater would break in the middle of winter as usual.

She winced at the shock from the cold before pulling long even strokes to get up along next to Oliver for the warm-up. Back at the wall she jumped up and down to stay warm as they waited for the clock to expire, signaling it was time to move on to the next swim.

Oliver surrounded her small frame with his strong, warm body and she relaxed, curling her fingers around his arm.

“Better?” he asked.

“Mhhmm. I’ll be fine once we get to the main sets, it’s when we’re just standing here that it feels so cold.”

And she was right, because with 2 of their 1000’s down, she was glad for the cold water which kept her from feeling any more overheated than she already was.

“That’s two for two Smoak, you’re going to have to pick it up,” Oliver teased.

She glared at him and took a long sip of her water. “You went out fast, you can’t hold this pace any longer.”

His eyebrows rose, “Oh really?”

Nodding, she pulled her goggles back down, “Really.”

She proceeded to beat him for the last three.

Felicity ran her fingers through her hair, making sure that she had washed all of the shampoo out. Her body was tired and she wanted to slide down the tile wall of the shower and sit on the ground for a while. For the rest of the practice, she and Oliver had gone back and forth with out-touching each other in each swim of each set. She was convinced that she had won more, he argued that he was the victor, and they had fought about it until Coach Diggle had forced them to go to the locker rooms and change so he could leave. 

She powered through the rest of her shower and changed into her clothes before heading out to the parking lot where Oliver was already heating up his car.

Sliding into the passenger’s seat she turned to him, “Now where were we? Oh yeah, I was reminding you that I kicked your butt this morn---“

“Shut up,” Oliver grumbled, leaning over the center console to kiss her. When they broke apart, there was a grin on his face, “You know full well that I was the one kicking your butt.”

She patted his hand, “Whatever makes you feel better.”

He pulled them out of the parking space and released the gear shift so he could take her hand in his as they began the drive over to the Queen Mansion. Now that he could drive, he had managed to convince his parents that he didn’t need someone escorting him everywhere and he had gotten his own car with no one in the driver’s seat but him. This worked out well for them, especially when they couldn’t quite make it to their destination before pulling to the side of the road to crawl into the backseat.

What? It happened once. Just once.

They were both far too tired from practice though for that to be a temptation today and by the time they pulled into the driveway, Felicity was fighting to keep her eyes open.

“You look like you could use a nap,” Oliver commented as a yawn cracked open her face.

“Mhmm,” she muttered, her thoughts drifting to curling up in his giant, incredibly comfortable bed. Between the early wake up and the hard practice, a nap sounded like the best thing ever at the moment.

The next thing she knew he was slinging her backpack over his shoulder and scooping her up into his arms.

“We’re home,” he called out to whoever was in listening distance of the front door as he carried her up the stairs. She knew that he knew that she could very well walk herself up to his room, but she also knew that he knew that she liked him to be his macho self sometimes. But only when they weren’t competing in the pool and she wanted to prove she was better than him.

When they made it to his bedroom, he laid her down gently in the center of the bed where she pulled off her hoodie and tossed it to the side. He pulled off her sneakers before stepping out of his own shoes and taking off his sweatshirt. Lying down beside her, he tugged her in close and slipped his hands up her shirt.

They paused on their trail up her back and he whispered, “You aren’t wearing a bra.”

She wiggled in closer to him, feeling his body’s reaction to this observation. “I was wearing a new suit today and it was tight. It cut into my shoulders and I didn’t feel like making the situation worse.”

He grunted and his fingers slid up to gently trace the marks her suit had left in her shoulders before massaging them. His ministrations slowly lulled her to sleep and the last thing she was aware of was him pressing a kiss into her hair as he released her shoulders to wrap his arms around her.

She woke up suddenly to something heavy landing on top of her, “Owww!”

Opening her eyes she saw Tommy sprawled out on top of them.

“Look, I know you guys have a super lame life during the swim season, but I can’t let you sleep the whole day away,” he pointed out, forcing Oliver to remove his arms from her as he wedged himself in between them.

“Seriously man?” Oliver grumbled.

“Seriously. Also your mom told me to wake you two up and tell you to come down for dinner. Yeah, dinner, that’s how long you’ve been sleeping.”

Felicity blinked drowsily and looked over at the clock to realize that their nap had turned into a very long one.

“What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were coming over,” Oliver commented, reaching across Tommy for her hand and she tangled her fingers in his lazily.

Tommy pretended to look offended, “I didn’t know I needed an invitation. By the way, I know I’ve probably said this before but I’m so glad you two don’t hate each other anymore because it was hard pretending I was on your side Oliver when obviously I love Felicity more.”

Felicity laughed and Oliver rolled his eyes, “Tell my mom we’ll be right down. And I am glad you’re here.”

Tommy patted him on the shoulder before hopping off the bed, “I know you are buddy.”

Once he was out the door, Oliver rolled back into place next to her, “We should change and go down.”

“Mhmm. Good thing I’m spending the night,” she muttered, her eyes closed again.

“Really?” Oliver’s voice sounded like an excited little kid and she bit back a laugh. “I mean, your parents were okay with that?”

She opened her eyes and smiled, “On the condition that we don’t get into too much trouble.”

“Us? Trouble?” he teased.

“Well there was that one time that they had to pause a meet to reprimand us because you pushed me into the pool in the middle of a race and we both got disqualified from the rest of our events,” she reminded him.

“Weren’t we like 9 years old? How do you even remember that?”

“Not getting to swim those races cost me high point that season.” She poked him in the chest, “Forgive, but never forget.”

He rolled of the bed, “Yikes. I’ll have to remember to make it up to you later.”

“So did you have a good Christmas Tommy?” Felicity asked as they sat down in the family room after dinner.

Tommy looked up at her, a slightly pained smile on his face. “Yeah, because I was here. Dad hasn’t done Christmas in a very long time, quite frankly I have no idea where he was yesterday, so I’m glad the Queen’s always let me crash their holidays.”

Oliver slapped him on the shoulder, “You’re not crashing anything. You have your own stocking on our fireplace, you’re basically a part of this family.”

“Says the guy who asked earlier what I was even doing here,” Tommy joked.

“You jumped on top of my girlfriend,” Oliver pointed out.

“This is true. But in all fairness, I meant to land more on you.” He turned and kissed Felicity on the cheek, “I’m sorry.”

Felicity laughed, “It’s okay. Just be glad all you walked in on was us napping.”

Tommy waggled his eyebrows, “Oh like the time that I walked in on you shaving his legs.”

“I’ll have you know that I shaved all by myself for summer season championships, thank you very much,” Oliver remarked, pulling Felicity into his lap.

“I’m so proud of you,” Tommy replied seriously, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “How was your holidays Felicity?”

Felicity started to tell him about the double holiday craziness at the Smoak-Lance household, when Oliver placed a hand on her knee that was furthest from Tommy and started to rub slow circles with his thumb. She was halfway through telling him about Sara practicing her back handspring in the living room and nearly kicking over the Christmas tree when Oliver’s hand started creeping upwards underneath the hem of her dress.

“Oh would you look at the time.” Felicity stretched her arms up and faked a yawn. “We have an early practice tomorrow so we should probably be going to bed.”

Oliver pretended to yawn too, “Agreed.”

“Seriously guys? You slept almost all day,” Tommy complained. “You can’t just abandon me like this in the middle of a story.”

Oliver shrugged unapologetically and stood up, shifting her so he was carrying her piggyback style, and started walking them out of the room.

“So, so tired,” she tossed over her shoulder at Tommy teasingly.

“Okay, I just want to remind you that I’m staying in the guest room next to you so don’t be obnoxious,” he called after them. “It’s not very nice to rub it in my face that it’s the holidays and I’m all alone.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just going to sleep and that’s very quiet,” Felicity said innocently.

“Mhhmm,” Tommy huffed. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow after practice.”

Up in Oliver’s room, he placed her down gently on the edge of his bed and she started to tug him down to her.

“Just wait. I have something for you.” He stepped backwards and walked over to his desk, picking up a wrapped package.

“Oh. I didn’t get you anything, I---“

Oliver handed her the gift, “It’s okay. I don’t need anything. But I wanted to give you this…”

She tore into the paper and pulled out a photo album.

“Did you pick up scrapbooking in your free time? An unexpected hobby for you,” she joked.

He sat down next to her and nudged her shoulder, “It’s not a scrapbook. Just open it.”

Flipping open the first page, she smiled at the collection of pictures.

“I got some help from your mom and Laurel,” he commented as she flipped through the pages.

Her mom was sneakier than she gave her credit, she had no idea that half of these pictures had been taken. There was one of her and Oliver, probably not much older than 7 or 8, fast asleep in the backseat of the car with wet, crazy hair and goggle marks.

Another was taken at an outdoor summer meet, most likely when they were around 9 years old. Sticky faces, dripping with syrupy, melted popsicles grinned as they sat in the grass waiting for their races.

On and on the pages went with pictures chronicling all of their years swimming together. It was funny that the memories that she often recalled were the ones that reinforced the idea that she had always despised him and had only realized last year that she loved him, because these pictures told a slightly different story. Oh he had been annoying for sure, and still was, but she could always count on him to be around and she was pretty sure she had started falling in love with him on day one. The truth was that swimming wouldn’t have been the same without him.

One picture was taken more recently, at a meet their 8^th grade winter season based on her suit, her head was tilted back in laughter and he was grinning at her as they stood behind the blocks.

The pictures towards the back she recognized. The picture from States last year, another from a summer season meet where they were sitting on the edge of the diving tank, her head resting on his shoulder, and one from the invitational at the beginning of this season of them lying on her towel taking a nap while waiting for their races.

She closed the album and turned to look at him, “I love it, thank you.”

He shrugged, “It was fun to put together. We were pretty cute.”

“Umm I’m still cute,” she teased.

“Oh you are so much more than cute,” he replied, leaning in for a kiss while reaching behind her to unzip her dress.

“Mmmm… Merry Christmas,” she muttered into his lips.

“Happy Hanukkah,” he replied, lifting her arms up to pull off her dress.

“Oliver, Hanukkah was over like a week ago,” she reminded him, reaching for the hem of his shirt.

“Oh, right. Well we didn’t properly celebrate yet,” he said, helping her in her efforts to remove his shirt.

“That is a good point.” She dragged her fingers down his bare torso. “And I’m always up for… celebrating.”

He grinned and maneuvered them so he was on top of her. His lips were inches away from her collarbone when she spoke up again.

“Wait. You can’t leave marks this time that will be visible when I’m wearing my suit.”

“That’s like 90% of your skin, you’re not giving me much to work with here,” he complained. “Nobody noticed last time anyway.”

“Oliver it was right before a meet, every single person who was standing near me when I was up on the blocks noticed as soon as I bent over and they got a nice view of my thighs.”

A sheepish look crossed his face and she rolled her eyes, “I’m serious. I don’t want Coach Diggle knowing where your face has been.”

Oliver winced, “Okay, okay you’ve made your point. He probably sometimes wishes that we still hated each other.”

She reached up to cup his face and pull him back down to her, “Well I certainly don’t. Wish that, I mean.”

“Me neither,” he replied, pressing a kiss to her lips.

Chapter Text

Laurel peeked her head into the doorway of the kitchen, “Hey Felicity, Oliver’s here.”

Felicity yawned and grabbed her lunchbox, “Okay. Have fun shopping with Joanna. I’ll just be lying on a gym floor for hours being miserable.”

“I know you hate invitationals, but at least you get to spend the day with Oliver.”

“In a gym filled with loud obnoxious people under florescent lighting that sucks the life out of you. Romantic. Just imagine, hundreds of high-schoolers all trapped together in a freezing cold gym. Mostly naked. Very bored. Oh and did I mention that everyone only swims for like a total of less than 10 minutes? Weird and annoying stuff is bound to happen when everyone is just waiting around for hours. There’s that team who always brings a full speaker set and plays the same three songs on repeat the entire day. People try to get everyone to join in on happy birthday to no one at least once an hour. Typically there’s at least a few guys wearing girls suits for warm ups. Sleeping bag worm fighting. Not even going to try and explain that. There’s a 90% chance that Oliver will get involved at some point. Oh and the costumes. Can’t forget the costumes. Over the past three years there’s been bananas, unicorns, and other indistinguishable get-ups. Why do people wear costumes? Well, because, why not? One can also expect to be dragged across the floor in their sleeping bag if they fall asleep and have no friends to protect them. People pile on top of each other just for fun. And perhaps warmth. It was the kind of stuff that individually wasn’t that bad, but collectively just created a very obnoxious and irritating environment to be stuck in for a long time. And on top of all that, I almost never swim well. Mmmm, I love it. So. Much,” She ranted.

Laurel pouted in sympathy, “I see your point.”

“Oh well. On the bright side, Oliver told me we could eat ice cream in his hot tub afterwards.”

“See? That’s fun. Just focus on that while you’re lying on the gym floor and maybe you won’t be miserable.”

“I’ll still be miserable,” Felicity tossed over her shoulder on her way out of the kitchen.

“Hey sunshine,” Oliver called out the car window. “You look so happy on this fine morning.” 

“I’m going to murder you,” Felicity muttered as she tossed her things in the back of his car.

“I thought we were past that.”

She slid into the passenger seat, “You know what invitationals do to me.”

“Actually I don’t, would you like to tell me about it while you drink this vanilla latte that I got you?” Oliver handed her the coffee cup and grinned.

She offered him a small smile, “Thank you. And we’re still on for our date afterwards?”

“Of course. Unless you fall asleep on the way home, which you are prone to doing.”

“Wake me up then.” She smacked him on the arm. “That promised pint of mint chip is the only thing that will get me through this long, awful day.”

Oliver shook his head, “Oh, mint chip? I think I got pistachio? That’s also a green flavor so it’s basically the same thing, right?”

She glared at him, “Don’t even joke about this Queen.”

He laughed, “Hey, this is our first invitational where we’re not pretending to hate each other so maybe that will make it better.”

“Okay but you did get me mint chip ice cream, right?”

“Yes, babe.”

She grinned, “You’re right, this will probably be the best invitational ever. Actually it will be miserable, but we’ll have fun tonight.”

He reached over to hold her hand, “Yes, we will.”

“Hey, what are you swimming today?” Oliver asked as they found their seat on the bus.

“The usual.”

“What’s the fun in that? You actually get to pick your events, you should try something different.”

“And miss out on an opportunity to get State qualifying times?” She shook her head, “No. So what are you swimming?”

“200 IM and 100 breaststroke.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder, “Oh I can’t wait to watch this.”

“Good. I’ll be glad to bring some joy to your day.”

“I’m sorry for being a grouch; I really am glad that at least this year you won’t be an additional annoyance factor at invitationals. And I’m looking forward to spending the day with you.”

He kissed the top of her head, “Me too.”

She fell asleep for the rest of the ride to the school and the next thing she knew, Oliver was waking her up.

“Ready to head in?”

She gathered up her stuff quickly, “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go, we have to get a good spot.”

When they got into the gym, she tugged him over to the spot that was marked for their team and dropped her bag and pillow down next to the wall so she could start spreading out her sleeping bag.

Oliver laughed and plopped down his bag next to hers, “I forgot you set up an entire campsite when you come to these things.”

“What? I like to be comfortable,” she pointed out, pulling her blanket out of her bag and laying it over top of the sleeping bag. “And warm.”

He wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, “We can cuddle. That will keep you warm.”

“Get your caps and goggles ready,” Coach Diggle called. “Our warm ups start in 5 minutes and we have lanes 3 and 4. It’s going to be crowded so please be patient with each other.”

He gave a pointed look in their direction and they both blinked innocently at him. Okay, so yes, last year when they still “hated” each other, there might have been a little bit of yelling during warm ups at this invitational and they had gotten their team’s warm up time cut down by 10 minutes, but the chances of that happening again had gone down slightly when they started dating.

Oliver let her go so that she could pull off her sweats and grab her things from her bag. Out on deck, they pushed through the crowds of people to get over to lane 3.

“Who’s leading?” Felicity asked, ducking someone’s elbow.

“You can,” Oliver consented.

“Don’t grab my ankles then.”

“Why would I do that?” Oliver asked, tossing a teasing grin over his shoulder at her.

Rolling her eyes, she stepped up to the edge of the lane and pulled her goggles down.

“Okay guys,” she called back to the teammates who had gathered behind her lane. “We’re going to have to adjust the normal warm-up a bit because we’re all crammed together. Let’s start with 5 minutes of just circle swimming. Make sure you’re going in the right order so you’re not getting stuck behind each other.”

She jumped in and started swimming, setting a good pace that would keep everyone moving but also prevent her from running into the back of the line too quickly. They were about 2 minutes in when she started to feel Oliver pawing at her feet.

“Don’t react, don’t react…” she muttered to herself as she upped her speed the tiniest bit.

She and Oliver were both hoping to be captains next year, and causing a scene was not going to help their chances. They might as well already be captains, the seniors this year were pretty checked out at this point and not fast enough to lead the lanes, but she wanted that official title. It looked good on college applications.

Over the duration of the last summer season and the beginning of this winter season, she had come up with strategies to not let Oliver’s annoying tendencies get to her and they revolved around focusing on all the things she loved about him and not the fact that he--- He was grabbing her ankles now.

She kicked her legs as hard as she could, hopefully he would get the hint and let her go. There was no way she could go any faster or she would run into the poor freshman who was trailing far behind the rest of the group. Turning her head to breathe, she looked at the clock and saw that they still had 2 minutes of their circle swimming to go. It was going to be a long 2 minutes. Last year, she would have stood up and yelled at him a long time ago but she was doing her best to get into her happy space where he was being a wonderful boyfriend and not an annoying teammate.

Finally, the 5 minutes were up and she stopped at the wall.

“What did I say about grabbing onto my ankles?” she gritted out as he finished practically on top of her.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” he raised his hands defensively. “You weren’t going very fast and I kept running into you.”

“Sorry, I was just trying not to steamroll that new freshman. I really don’t think he should be in this lane.”

Oliver looked down the pool at the swimmer in question who was just completing his turn at the opposite wall. “No he shouldn’t, but he was a crush on you so that’s why he’s doing his best.”

Felicity tilted her head, “What? I don’t think I’ve ever even talked to him before…”

He snorted, “Oh but he talks about you. I’ve heard him going on and on about you in the locker room.”

“Hmmm interesting.” She tapped her chin, “You should be worried. I’m really into those pre-pubescent looking boys you know.”

“Ha-ha,” Oliver said jokingly.

She called out what they were doing next and then turned back to him, “No, I’m serious. Remember that sprinter from Central City? Barry? Huge crush on him. Better keep those hands off my ankles or you could be in trouble mister.”

She pulled her goggles down and pushed off the wall before he could see the teasing smile on her face. At the end of the 50, in which he kept a considerable distance from her, he turned his puppy dog eyes at her and she rolled her eyes.

“I’m just messing with you.” She tapped his chest, “I’m not trading this in anytime soon.”

“Oh I see, you’re just interested in my body.” He teased.

She nodded and grinned. “Yep.”

“Can you guys maybe not flirt right now?” the girl behind Oliver asked. “Some of us just want to warm up.”

Felicity gave her a sheepish look and pushed off to start the next swim. Once their time was up for warm-ups, they made their way back into the gym and Felicity quickly reached for her towel.

“Why is it always so cold in these gyms?” she muttered as she shivered.

They still had almost an hour until the medley relays would start, so she pulled out her warm up jacket and pants. A key element to invitational survival was not letting your suit cut your arms off, which meant you couldn’t keep your straps up all day. Zipping up her jacket, she slipped her arms out of the sleeves one at a time to pull the straps off of her shoulders while Oliver watched her curiously.

“What are you doing?”

“Pulling the top of my suit down so I don’t lose circulation. Remind me when I go to take this jacket off so I don’t flash anyone.”

His eyes widened, “Do you always do that?”

“Yes, and so do all the other girls on this team so you don’t have to stare at all of them to try and figure out if they’re topless under their jackets or not.”

“I don’t care about the other girls,” he pointed out as he started to slip his hands up her jacket, but she quickly hit them away.

“Oliver we are in public. We’re going to get our team kicked out from the entire meet this year.”

“Hey, you’re the one who hates these things, so wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

She glared at him and he winked.

The hour before the medley relays actually went a lot faster than she was anticipating because she had pulled out some homework and, much to Oliver’s chagrin, convinced him to study for their history test together.

“How am I attracted to you?” he muttered as she went into an animated explanation of architecture in ancient Greece.

“When you pass this test, you will be grateful that I am both hot and smart,” she pointed out teasingly. 

When they started calling for the teams to line up, she left him to hunt down her relay.

“Don’t forget about your suit,” he called over to her, and she shot him a grateful look as she wriggled back into her straps under her jacket.

She swam well in her leg of the relay, not her best time ever, but not an awful time either, and her team came in 4^th.

Back in the gym, Oliver raised a questioning eyebrow as she walked over and she gave him a thumbs up.

“Not bad. I actually feel a lot better in the water today than I usually do after having to sit around for so long. We’ll see how my individuals go.”

It wasn’t long before she had to go back out for her 200 and she was pretty pleased with how that went as well. Maybe this was going to be a good invitational after all, and her dramatics this morning were completely unwarranted.

Oliver gave her a hi-five in passing as he went to line up for his 200 IM and she headed to the end of the pool to cheer for him. He typically hated doing the stroke events as much as she did which is why they stuck with freestyle. She had no idea what possessed him to do the one event that required you to do two laps of every stroke.

At the end of the race, she went to meet him with his towel and he shook his head. “Never again.”  

“Why? You did so well.”

Aggravatingly well actually, for someone who always slacked off when Coach Diggle made them do IMs in practice.

“Yeah, but it’s the worst,” he muttered as he led them back to the gym.

She patted his back. “Not going to argue with you on that.”

There was going to be a long time before either of them had to swim again and they both agreed that a nap was in order to pass the time. Once she had dried off, she put her pants and jacket back on. Before they tucked themselves into her sleeping bag, she walked over to one of her teammates.

“Hey, could you do me a big favor and wake me up if I’m not awake when you go up to swim your 100?”

She smiled, “Yeah, no problem Felicity.”

Key element of invitational survival #2: make sure you don’t accidentally sleep through your event.

Oliver was waiting for her when she walked back over to their stuff and she nestled herself into his arms so he could zip up the sleeping bag around them.

“You smell like chlorine,” he whispered.

“Wow, I have no idea why that might be the case.”

He laughed and pressed a kiss to her shoulder where her jacket had started to slip off. Despite the fact that she had slept the entire way here, and the gym floor wasn’t the most comfortable of places, she fell asleep quickly.

“Felicity? Oliver?”

She blinked her eyes open to see her friend hovering over them, her cheeks a little pink from embarrassment at having to wake them up. 

“I’m going up for my race now,” she explained, keeping her eyes glued to her feet.

“Oh,” Felicity propped herself up on her elbow and Oliver groaned when she bumped against him. “Good luck and thank you!”

She nodded and walked off to where they were lining up for the 100 free.

“Is it time to swim?” Oliver mumbled.

“It’s time for me to swim the 500 and you to do my cards,” she answered as she wiggled out of the sleeping bag.

He yawned, “Okay.”

Standing behind the blocks, she was nervous. If any race was going to go poorly, it was going to be the 500. She had hopped into the warm up pool for a bit to swim off the rest of her napping grogginess but she still tended to struggle with this race at invitationals.

She looked down to the end of the pool where Oliver was giving her a supportive smile and thumbs up and she pushed the negative thoughts out of her mind. She was going to do great.

For the first couple of laps she was able to keep her pace but then the water started to feel like cement and Oliver started swinging the cards to let her know that she was slowing down. The girl that was next to her started to pull ahead and she kicked harder in frustration. Going into the last lap, she was still behind and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t quite catch her. When she looked up at the clock at the end of the race, she saw that she had ended up finishing third and almost 10 seconds slower than her normal in-season time. Even though it wasn’t an important race, she was still disappointed and tears stung at her eyes. She shook the hands of the girls on either side of her and then pulled herself out of the pool, ignoring Oliver and heading straight into the hallway that led to the locker rooms. 

Once she was alone, she took her goggles off and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Someone walked past and looked at her in concern.

“The chlorine was just bothering my eyes,” she shrugged dismissively and they kept walking.

The next thing she knew, Oliver had found her and was pulling her in for a hug.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, rubbing her back.

“You saw my time,” she muttered into his chest.

“Yeah, and there’s no reason to be upset. One bad time, at an invitational of all places, does not spell doom for the rest of the season,” he rationalized.

“But I can’t just throw away opportunities like this to get my qualifier time for states.”

“You didn’t throw away an opportunity. It’s not like you didn’t even try and you’re probably tired from how hard you worked over Christmas break last week.”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “I know… I guess I just like being the best all the time.”

“You are the best.” He kissed her nose. “And you’ll beat both of those girls next time. Now c’mon, we have to go swim the 200 relay and your teammates are counting on you.”  

She took a deep breath and pulled herself together. He was right, she was being ridiculous and if she wanted to be a captain she couldn’t be having emotional breakdowns after her races.

When she lined up for her relay, she saw that she was going to be going up against one of the girls who had beaten her in her 500 and she smiled to herself at the prospect and being able to get her back a little sooner than she had anticipated. Her girls gave a valiant effort, but they were a little behind going into her final leg. It didn’t matter, she was going to make up that distance. Hitting the wall at the end, she saw that she had out-touched her by a fraction of a second and she grinned in relief.

She shook the girl’s hand and hauled herself up out of the pool and into a group hug with the other girls in her relay.

“Nice swim Felicity!” “OMG you should have seen how close it was; I was having heart palpitations.” “It was so awesome!” They all clamored at once.

“Just so you know,” one of the girls spoke up while they walked off the deck. “We’re all voting for you and Oliver to be captains next year. You two are practically like the prom king and queen of the swim team.”

“Well I hope you want to vote for me for more reasons than the fact that I have a cute boyfriend,” Felicity joked.

She blushed, “Of course. You’re the best swimmer on the team and the hardest worker. It just makes sense.”

When Felicity walked into the gym, she spotted a familiar face and walked over to where the Central City team was sitting.

“Hey Felicity! I’d love to talk but I have to go warm up for my 100 back,” Iris apologized as she brushed past her quickly.

“Good luck!” Felicity called to her retreating back.

“Thank you!” she tossed over her shoulder with a friendly smile.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that some of the boys from the Central City team were engaging in a sleeping bag worm fight and she rolled her eyes in amusement.

There really was no objective to the game except to pass time…. while also looking stupid. You crawl headfirst into a sleeping bag, and sort of wrestle--- while being limited to wriggling around as the only way to move, so mostly just bump into, another person who was in their own sleeping bag.* It was truly dumb, but also mildly hilarious.

(*this is a real thing that 100% happens, I can’t even make this stuff up)

A person wiggled out of one of the sleeping bags and she recognized the messy mop of hair.

He looked over at her, “Felicity!”

She waved, “Hi Barry.”

So she was totally kidding with Oliver earlier, but she did have a little bit of a crush on him. A friendly crush. They had hung out at a science camp over the summer and she had enjoyed his company but Oliver didn’t need to wor---

“There you are.” Oliver appeared next to her just as she opened her mouth to ask Barry how he had swam so far today.

“Uhh yeah, Oliver you remember Barry from our meet against CC, right?”

“Mhmm,” he mumbled and Felicity elbowed him in the side subtly.

“Hey man,” Barry offered his hand and Oliver shook it, albeit a little reluctantly.

Oliver tilted his head in the direction of the guys who were still fighting in their sleeping bags, “Looking for a new opponent?”

Felicity held back an eye roll as Barry nodded enthusiastically and they went off to grab her sleeping bag. She knew they were not going to make it through this day without Oliver getting involved in some of the invitational shenanigans and throwing in her earlier comment about Barry certainly had not helped the situation.

Oh well, after her last race she was in a good mood and this could prove to be amusing.

She folded up her towel and sat down to watch as the two of them “fought.” After a few minutes of ridiculousness, Oliver wriggled his way over to her and threw his (her) sleeping bag off to kiss her.

“I won,” he declared triumphantly.

She shook her head, “How do you even win a totally pointless game?”

He pretended to be offended, “Did you not see my amazing takedown?”

“No, I must have completely missed it.”

“Hey, I better get going or I’m going to miss Iris’ race,” Barry called over to them. “It was good to see you again Felicity, and nice to meet you Oliver.”

“Who’s Iris?” Oliver asked after he had left.

“His girlfriend. I told you that I was just messing with you and nothing was ever going to happen between Barry and I. You don’t need to be territorial.”

“I was not being territorial,” he protested.

She tilted her head questioningly, “Oh? What was that then?”

He threw his hands up defensively. “I just really love fighting people in sleeping bags.”

“What’s not to love?” she teased and reached out to attempt to smooth down his hair which was sticking up in all directions.

The rest of the invitational wrapped up quickly and she had to admit that it definitely wasn’t the worst one ever. There was still that team that played the same three songs the whole time, but that’s what headphones were for. Obnoxious people for the most part left her alone, and no one dared to haul her away while she was sleeping with Oliver wrapped around her. And now she had a pint of ice cream to look forward to.

“We’re home mom,” Oliver called when they entered the Queen mansion.

Moira came around the corner and greeted them. “Did you swim well today?”

They both shrugged, “Not our best, but pretty well.”

“Good. Raisa left dinner in the fridge for both of you. I’m about to watch a movie with Thea, so I’ll see you later.” She turned to head back upstairs and they headed off to the kitchen.

She hopped up onto one of the barstools as Oliver pulled containers of food out of the fridge.

“Looks like our options are baked macaroni and che---“

“Yes,” she interrupted him.

“Okay,” he laughed and stuck the container into the microwave.

When they were finished eating, they went up to his room and dropped their stuff on the floor.

“Sometimes I forget what it’s like to wear a non-competition suit,” she muttered as she pulled her bikini out of her bag.

Oliver’s eyes widened, “I was not aware you owned any other suits.”

“Borrowed it from Sara,” she admitted. “Thought that date night warranted something a little fancier than my practice suit with the sushi pattern on it.”

He laughed, “Hey, I think you look pretty hot in that suit.”

“That’s because it’s really too small and doesn’t cover my butt enough,” she pointed out.

He grinned, “And your point is…”

She smacked him on the arm lightly and walked into the bathroom to change.

On the way out to the deck, they stopped back at the kitchen and retrieved their ice cream and some spoons.

“Oh, I’ve been looking forward to you all day,” she whispered to the pint in her hand.

It was freezing outside and she skipped across the deck quickly, dropping her towel on the way, and sunk into the hot water.

“So, I will admit that that was not the worst invitational ever,” she told him when he sat down next to her.

“Yeah?” he asked, his fingers trailing along her bare thigh as the other hand scooped out a bite of ice cream from the container she was holding.

“Yeah. I mean we slept for like 40% of it so that helped.”

He pointed his spoon at her, “Very true.”

They shared their ice cream in silence for a few minutes before she spoke up again, “I wanted to thank you for talking me through my freak out after the 500.”

“Of course.” He rubbed his thumb over her knee. “I’ve been talking you through your freak outs for years, I’ve just gotten more sensitive about it now that I actually like you.”

She smiled, “You’ve always liked me.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Chapter Text

“Felicity!” Coach Diggle called out across the pool just as they were finishing up their practice for the afternoon.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s finish up your practice with a mile, I want to see where your time is at.”

She groaned, “Does it have to be today? I’m dead.”

Normally, she didn’t hate the mile, but she and Oliver had pushed each other hard all practice and she was looking forward to dinner, a hot shower, and collapsing into her bed.

Oh, and her homework at some point in there.

Coach Diggle gave her a look that let her know it was nonnegotiable and she turned to Oliver with a pout, mouthing, “Why?”

“I’ll count for you,” he offered.

She gave him her best puppy eyes. “Or you could swim it with me…”

“Ha. Ha. No.” He kissed her forehead and hopped out of the pool.

With it being their senior year, it was time to start thinking about college swimming and Coach Diggle wanted to expand her repertoire to some more of the longer events to heighten her appeal to the coaches who would be at all of their important meets that season.

She was nervous about finding the right college to swim at. Her hope was that a coach from a school that had the educational program she was looking for would want her because she knew at the end of the day, swimming would be over and her career would be more important.

Looking down to the end of the pool, she saw Oliver sitting at the edge with the counting cards.

Of course, she was also hoping that they would get recruited by the same team. She couldn’t imagine swimming without him, which was amusing to think, considering not that long ago, she thought she would have preferred to not have him around.

He gave her an encouraging thumbs up and she pulled her goggles down to begin the long stretch of 66 laps.

When she was coming into her final turn, she was startled to see that instead of the bright orange signaling that she was at the end of her swim, there was a single word on the counting cards.

Homecoming?

Grinning, she flicked her feet extra hard on her turn to give Oliver a good splash before using all the energy she had left to speed through her final lap.

“How was my time?” she asked Coach Diggle when she hit the wall.

He looked up from his clipboard, “What?”

“My time?” she repeated, impatient to hear how she had done so that she could go over to Oliver.

“Oh. I wasn’t timing you. Queen just said he needed me to ask you to swim the mile today for something.”

She narrowed her eyes and turned to where Oliver was still standing at the end of the pool. Swimming down to him, she hoisted herself out of the pool and hit his shoulder.

“Seriously? You couldn’t have just had me do the 500 or something?”

He grinned teasingly, “Now what would be the fun in that?”

She crossed her arms and held back her own grin, “Who’ll be having fun when I say no because I’m annoyed?”

His face fell and she placed her hands on top of his shoulders, “I’m just kidding, of course I’ll go with you.”

He brightened again and she pressed her lips to his, smiling as she felt him reach behind her to untangle her straps while they kissed.

“I thought you don’t like dances,” she commented when they broke apart.

She had been listening in the halls at school as girls talked about finding the perfect dress and making arrangements for homecoming but every time she had dropped hints to Oliver, he hadn’t seemed super enthusiastic. Usually they were away at a training camp and this was the first year that they were actually going to be home, but she had resigned herself to not attending.

He shrugged, “If you can make a three hour torturously hard swim practice seem fun, I’m assuming you can work your magic on a school dance. But I’m warning you, I’m a terrible dancer. Swimmer coordination and all that.”

“Thank you. I don’t know why, I just… really wanted to go.”

“Obviously it’s because you wanted to see me all dressed up,” he teased.

She tapped his chest, “You might be right about that. If we get through this maybe I’ll be able to talk you into prom and then I’ll get you in a tux.”

“Oh yay! That’s so cute!” Laurel squealed in excitement over the phone that evening after Felicity recounted how Oliver had asked her. “I’m definitely making the drive home for this.”

Laurel took Homecoming very seriously. Head of the planning committee her freshman, sophomore, and junior years, the rest of her committee had convinced her to retire her senior year so that she could run for Queen. Which she won.

Felicity wasn’t that into it, but she knew her older sister would enjoy getting to relieve the whole experience vicariously through her.  

“Are you sure? You don’t have classes or anything?”

“I have an 8am class that morning but I can leave right afterwards. I’ll be home by lunch,” she promised. “Send me pictures when you go dress shopping!”

“I will. Sara and I are going this weekend.”

“Have fun! I have to get to Debate practice but I’ll talk to you later…”

What color dress are you wearing? Thea said we have to coordinate our outfits.   

Felicity looked down at the text from Oliver and then back up to the dressing room mirror to take in her reflection.

Finding a formal dress when you’re built like a swimmer was proving to be a little difficult.

The one she was currently wearing was blue and shimmery and entirely too tight across her back to be zippered but swimmingly large on the rest of her slim frame.

“Okay, okay.” Sara knocked on the door. “I found the perfect one.”

She cracked open the door and Sara handed her a scarlet red dress.

“Open back,” Sara commented. “So you can show off those nice muscles instead of trying to find something to stretch over them.”

“Good idea,” she muttered gratefully, hanging the dress on the bar in the dressing room so she could get out of the blue one.

When she slipped into the red dress, she instantly knew that it was the one. It came to a low v at her back and the hemline showed off a generous amount of thigh but the front was simple and elegantly displayed her collarbones.

She swung open the door and did a little twirl to show Sara and she nodded in approval, “Oh yeah that’s perfect. You look gorgeous even with your wet chlorine hair.”

She tossed her post-practice hair over her shoulder, “My signature look. I don’t think Laurel would let me out of the house for the dance with it like this though.”

Sara laughed knowingly, “No way.”

After checking out, Felicity shot Oliver a quick reply text.

Red

A lock of blonde hair fell from the curling iron in a perfect coil and tickled her face as she sat in her bedroom and skimmed through a college recruiting email on her phone while Laurel did her hair. She made a mental note of the school’s name to ask Oliver later if he had heard from them.

Laurel picked up another lock of her hair, “One more curl and I’ll be done. Are you excited?”

“Yeah. Swimming has taken up so much of my life, which is fine because I love it, but it’s nice to be able to participate in something that’s like, a typical high school experience. I was so glad when I saw that the dates for the training camp we go to were different this year.”

Laurel set down the curling iron and squeezed her shoulder. “You’re going to have so much fun. I mean, it can’t nearly be as great as when I planned the dance, but I’m sure whoever they found to replace me did an adequate job,” she added teasingly. “Let’s get you in your dress.”

She shrugged off her button down shirt and took her dress from Laurel’s outstretched arm. When she was dressed she walked downstairs to where her family was waiting expectantly.

“Oh baby girl you look beautiful!” Her mom exclaimed, giving her a big hug.

Quentin gave her a hug as well, “You look lovely sweetheart.”

“We should get going,” her mom said, ushering her towards the door. “I want to get lots of pictures.”

Normally she would groan and complain about her mom’s shutter happy tendencies, but every time she looked through her photo album that Oliver had made for her for Christmas, she was grateful that all the memories had been captured.

They arrived at the Queen Mansion, and Oliver’s eyes widened when he opened the door.

“Babe…. Wow. I take back every negative thing I said about going to homecoming.”

She smiled shyly and followed him into the foyer where her mom greeted his.

Turning to him while the moms chatted, she slid her hands down his chest she smiled, “You clean up pretty nice.”

He was wearing crisp black dress pants and a white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows to reveal his strong, tan forearms.

“Thank you. You look amazing.” He reached over to grab something from one of the tables and she saw that it was a corsage made from tiny white roses. “Thea told me that this was a necessity. I don’t really get the point but I didn’t want to screw this up for you.”

She smiled and held out her wrist for him to put it on. “I don’t get it either but I guess we should be authentic.”

“Other people just don’t understand that the real romantic gestures are untangling swimsuit straps, massaging sore shoulders, and providing the post-invitational ice cream.”

“That’s why you’re the best,” she remarked.

His fingers trailed down her bare back and he dipped his head down to kiss her.

Her mom clapped her hands and disrupted them, “Okay kids, let’s get some pictures.”

After their moms had gotten an excessive amount of photos of the two of them, Tommy showed up and joined them for a few.

“Don’t you have a date Tommy?” she asked when they piled into Oliver’s car.

“No. I just dance with all the hot girls who didn’t get a date because guys were too afraid to ask them. Share the love.”

She saw Oliver roll his eyes in amusement and she laughed, “Why would I have expected anything else?”

At the dance, they lasted about a half an hour on the dance floor before she realized that they hadn’t missed out on much during the years that they were away at training. While she had no complaints about swaying in Oliver’s arms, and it had been fun to have Sara and Laurel help get her glammed up earlier, the gym was hot and stuffy and the DJ they hired left much to be desired with his music tastes. Laurel would be appalled at the lack of balloons and twinkle lights but she was pretty sure that wasn’t having an effect on her experience.

She glanced over Oliver’s shoulder and spotted Tommy who was in the middle of a circle of three girls. He caught her eye and winked and she buried a smile against Oliver’s neck before pressing a kiss there.

“I have an idea,” she whispered.

“Does it involve getting out of here?” he inquired hopefully.  

She looked up at him, “Yep.”

“You have the best ideas. Always.”

Tugging on his hand, she led him out of the gym and down the hall to the entrance of the pool. Tentatively, she pushed on the door and was pleased to find that it was unlocked.

“Are we going for a swim?” Oliver asked.

She stepped forward onto the deck, “What else?”

Up and over her head she pulled her dress, leaving it in a pile of the deck and her in her underwear. His eyes dragged up and down her body appreciatively before he started to strip out of his clothing as well.

She walked over to the diving tank and climbed up the ladder onto the board. 

“Are you secretly a diving protégé?” Oliver asked. “Going to abandon me for the diving team?”

Shaking her head, she walked dramatically out to the end of the board before pausing and diving into the water. When her head broke the water, he was clapping.

“Nice effort. I’d give it a 4.”

“Wow!” She splashed him. “Harsh critic. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

He gave her a teasing grin and hopped up onto the diving board. Running along it, he launched off the end into a cannonball that left her bobbing in its waves.

“I don’t know,” she frowned in faux-criticism. “I think I could do better.”

“Oh yeah?” he raised an eyebrow. “Let’s see it.”

She swam over to the edge and climbed out to get back up onto the board and jump off into her own cannonball.

“Alright, not bad,” Oliver appraised, reaching out for her before she could swim away and pulling her in close to where he was treading water.  

“Let’s see who can last the longest,” she proposed.  

He raised an eyebrow, “With what?”

“Mind out of the gutter,” she scolded. “With treading water. I can go for a loooong time.”

He grinned mischievously, “Oh I know you can.”

“Oliver!”

 “Okay, okay… so what does the winner get?”

“Umm… The pride and glory of being the victor obviously.”

“You’re on Smoak.”

“Hands above your head,” she said, moving to give herself enough space so she wouldn’t kick him.

After 5 minutes had passed her chin was starting to dip into the water.

“How you holding up over there?” she asked Oliver.

“Doing great,” he replied smugly.  

She sighed and kicked extra hard to get her head high above the water again. They went for another 3 minutes before she realized that they literally might go forever with neither of them willing to grant victory to the other.

“Do you want to just call this a tie?”

“Why? Are you getting tired?” He taunted.

“Nope.” She waggled her eyebrows, “I think we know that our stamina is pretty well matched. Do you really want to spend our night in the diving tank?”  

“Alright. Fine,” he conceded. “But you should know that I definitely would have won.”

“Ooookkayy,” she teased sarcastically, swimming over to the edge of the tank to get out and hop into the main pool.

He jumped in after her and pulled her into his arms, scooping her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist and rest her head on his shoulder. The warmth of his skin was comforting in the crisp, cold water of the pool and she sighed in contentment.

“So I was right about you having the necessary superpowers to turn a sucky school dance into a good time,” he remarked. “Sorry it wasn’t what you were expecting though.”

She pulled back to look at him and shrugged, “This is better than what I had imagined.”

He smiled and leaned in to kiss her and she met him halfway eagerly. His hands were fumbling at her bra clasp when they heard footsteps and froze.

“Did you hear that?” she whispered against his lips.

“Yeah… we might be getting some unwanted company.”

They swam quickly over to the edge of the pool and hastily grabbed their clothes from the deck just as the janitor appeared in one of the doorways.

“Who’s here?” he asked grouchily.

“Go, go, go,” she whispered to Oliver, pushing him towards the other exit as the lights were flipped on.

“Hey! Stop!” The janitor yelled but they continued their sprint out of the building and into the parking lot.

Once they were in Oliver’s car they collapsed into a fit of laughter.

“Do you think he recognized us?” she asked.

“I’m sure Coach Digg will let us know tomorrow at practice if he did,” Oliver replied sheepishly. “We might be stuck doing more miles as our punishment.”

“Oh well. It’s worth it.”

“Says the girl who almost refused to go to homecoming with me because I made her swim the mile.”

She grinned, “Well I am very glad I said yes, because that was definitely a memorable night.”

“Yeah. I’ve been a little stressed over this college thing so it was nice to not even think about it for a few hours.”

Her eyebrows rose in surprise, “You’re stressed?”

He reached over to run his fingers up and down her arms, “Of course I am. What if we don’t recruited by the same school? Or I’m not smart enough to get into the same school as you? I’ve never had to do this without you; I don’t want to do this without you.”

“I didn’t know you were worried. I thought it was just me,” she admitted.

“This weekend, we should go through all of the offers we’ve received and start making a list of the ones we’re both interested in so that when coaches approach us at meets, we have a plan,” he proposed. “But for now, I’d like to go back to my house and do a lot more ‘not thinking about it.’”

She nodded in agreement and ran her hands along his bare chest, “Mmm I like that plan. But aren’t we responsible for driving Tommy?”

Oliver laughed, “Oh he’s definitely got plans for tonight by now. I don’t think we have to worry about him.”

Chapter Text

“That sounds horrible,” Felicity sympathized after Oliver had finished telling her about the practice he had just gotten out of.

“It would have been less horrible if you were there. But hey, I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

“Ummm about that… I’m actually not going to be making it back to Starling for the holidays,” Felicity sighed.

“What? Why?”

She shifted her phone to her other hand so that she could unlock her dorm room, “Plane tickets aren’t cheap this time of year. Plus, I’m taking some winter break intensives so that I can stay on track for my masters programs and I need to get ahead in my work while I have a few days off of practice. If I’m at home, I’m going to be distracted by everything and I won’t get anything done. So… yeah. I’m going to be lighting my menorah by myself this year.”  

“Felicity, why are you just now telling me this?”

“I didn’t want you to be mad,” she confessed.  

Both Laurel and Sara had protested her decision to skip out on coming home for Chrismakkuh, as it had been fondly dubbed at the Smoak/Lance household, and she had been putting off hearing the disappointment from Oliver too.

“I’m not mad at you, I’m just upset that you’re not coming home. I mean, we haven’t seen in each other in months.”

She flopped down on her bed and brushed away at a few stray tears that were threatening to spill down her cheeks, “I know.”

The decision to go to separate colleges had been the right one, but it hadn’t been easy. With her at MIT, having chosen to swim division three and focus more on her academics, and him at Ohio State for their division one swimming program, eleven long hours stretched between them. With their rigorous practice schedules and academics… well, her rigorous academics, they hadn’t seen each other since they said their goodbyes at the end of the summer. It was almost laughable to think about how only a few years ago she would have been elated at the thought of almost 800 miles between herself and him.

“I’m really sorry Oliver. It’s not that I don’t want to see you, you know that right?”

One month into the semester they had the, “should we take a break?” talk and had both resolutely agreed that they could handle long distance for four years. She didn’t want him to think she was regretting that decision.

“Yeah.”

She shifted to look at the picture of them sitting on the shelf next to her bed, “We can Skype…”

“It’s not the same.”

“I know it’s not,” she snapped, instantly feeling guilty for taking her frustration out on him. “Sorry. I just—“

She wanted a hug, wanted to see his face not through a screen, wanted to not be what might as well be a million miles away.

“It’s okay, I understand why you have to stay there. It just won’t be the same without you.” She heard a muffled voice start talking to him and he was silent for a moment before speaking again, “Umm, I have to get ready to head to the airport soon so…”

“Call me again when you get the chance?”

“Of course.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Oliver hung up the phone and ran his hand through his damp hair in frustration. He had been looking forward to finally getting to see her for weeks and that had all come crumbling down in less than 10 minutes.

Reaching for his laptop, he smiled at the picture of the two of them that was his desktop before quickly pulling up a tab. His mom would kill him if he wasn’t home for Christmas but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t make a quick detour. A detour that would take him in the complete opposite direction, but it would be more than worth it.  

After a half an hour of scouring travel sites though, his frustration returned. There was nothing heading anywhere near Massachusetts that he could switch his flight that afternoon for and, with the family jet out of commission for maintenance, his chances of getting to Felicity were looking slim. As a freshman, he wasn’t allowed to have his car on campus which meant that even the crazy idea of driving was out of the question. Unless…

Hopping out of his chair he walked down the hallway to his friend’s room and knocked on the door.

“Hey Oliver… aren’t you supposed to be leaving with Ryan for the airport?”

“I was. But I actually have a huge favor to ask. Can I borrow your car?”

“Why?”

“Long story short, to drive to Massachusetts.”

“Isn’t that the opposite direction from… oh your girlfriend’s in Massachusetts isn’t she?”

“Yeah…” He shoved his hands into his pockets, “I just found out she’s not flying home and I— I need to see her man. I’d have your car back to you in 36 hours tops.”

He pulled his keys out of his pocket, “No rush man. My girlfriend’s picking me up and I’m spending the break at her place.”

“Lucky,” Oliver muttered under his breath before grabbing the keys. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Fair warning though, she’s probably not what you’re used to driving mister trust fund.”

That was an understatement.

As he turned the key in the ignition he was slightly skeptical that the car was going to make it one state over let alone all the way to Massachusetts, but now that he had gotten his mind set on getting there he wasn’t backing out of trying. Shooting a quick text to his mom to apologize for not making his flight, he started the almost 12 hour drive. If he was lucky, he would arrive at 3am, which wasn’t exactly a convenient time to be knocking on Felicity’s door, but he wanted to have as much time as possible with her before he would have to eventually fly home.

11 hours and 42 minutes and 13 seconds, numerous cups of coffee, a lot of encouraging words to the struggling car, three stops for gas, and one incident where he almost got stranded in a blizzard somewhere in upstate New York later, he arrived on MIT’s campus.

He navigated his way to her building, his exhaustion being pushed aside by excited jitters now that he was so close to her.

Felicity rolled over at the sound of her phone buzzing and was about to silence it when she noticed the contact photo that was displayed on the screen.

“Oliver wha—“ she slurred sleepily as she tried to get her brain to wake up. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s also really cold so can you please come let me in?”

“Let you in?”

Her breath caught in her throat.

Was he…?

“You didn’t…” she began, sliding out of her bed and tip-toeing over to the door quietly to avoid disturbing her sleeping roommate. “Oliver Queen you are crazy,” she muttered as she hung up the phone and stepped into her shoes.

Out in the hallway she practically leaped down the stairs two at a time and burst out the front entrance to her building where Oliver was standing. Jumping into his embrace, she buried her head in the crook of his neck and his arms wrapped around her tightly. They stood like that for a moment, just savoring the closeness they hadn’t been able to have in months before she started to shiver and remembered that it was winter in Massachusetts and she was outside in her pajamas.

Untangling herself from him, she grabbed his hand to tug him towards the door and upstairs.

“My roommate’s asleep so we have to be quiet,” she cautioned before leading him into her dark room.

“That won’t be a problem,” he whispered before a yawn cracked across his face. “I’m exhausted.”

She smiled and shook her head, “That’s probably because it’s the middle of the night.”

He slipped off his shoes and shed his jacket before climbing into her bed, where she joined him and snuggled into his chest.

“I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.”

Tilting her chin up in silent invitation, she smiled when he pressed his lips to hers. He tasted a little like gas station coffee and his lips were chapped from the cold, but she didn’t care, and a soft moan escaped her lips as he deepened the kiss.

When they broke apart, she rested her forehead against his and kept her eyes closed to prolong the moment, afraid the if she opened them she would discover this to all be a dream.

Her eyes finally fluttered open when she realized that he had fallen asleep underneath her. Stifling a laugh, she shifted to make herself comfortable nestled beside him and was soon asleep again herself.

When Oliver woke up the next morning he was momentarily confused by the presence of someone in his bed until he remembered that he wasn’t in his bed. Blinking sleepily, he reached an arm out to tug her closer to him and breathed in the familiar smell of her hair, lemony shampoo with a little bit of lingering chlorine. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and slid his hands up underneath her shirt to caress the soft skin of her back.

“How long are you staying,” she muttered.

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“Obviously.” She pinched his side, “I can’t believe you skipped your flight and drove all the way out here. Where did you even get a car?”

“I borrowed it from a friend, who I’m not so certain didn’t want me to get stranded in the middle of nowhere. I’m honestly shocked I made it here with all the parts still attached.”

She laughed and then her face grew somber, “I really am sorry I messed up our holiday plans. I didn’t mean for you to go out of your way for me.”

“Hey, no, it’s fine,” he reassured her. “I understand your reasons for staying here, I do. But if you thought I was going to be able to go any longer without getting to see you, you’re crazy.”

“You’re the crazy one who drove halfway across the country in the middle of the night.”

He cupped her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Felicity what the hell—“

They both turned their heads to see that her roommate had woken up.

“Oh… hey… You recognize Oliver from—“ Felicity gestured at the pictures hanging on her wall.

“Right. The boyfriend...” She eyed both of them before hopping down from her bed, “Text me when it’s safe to return.”

After the door shut behind her, Felicity asked, “So how long are you going to be here?”

“Not long enough,” he sighed. “I have to get the car back to Ohio and get a flight home before my parents kill me for missing any of their festivities.”

She waggled her eyebrows, “Then we better use our time wisely.”

“Oh we will, but before I forget…” He sat up and reached out for his jacket that he had hung over the chair next to her bed and pulled a box out of the pocket. “A little early, but Happy Hanukkah.”

Watching her face as she moved into a seated position to open the box, he saw the cute crinkle that appeared between her eyebrows when she was confused.

“It’s map coordinates,” he explained, lifting out the necklace. Suspended on the fine chain were two metal bars with the coordinates of their schools stamped onto them. “Ohio State and MIT.”

[check out the inspo for the necklace here :)]

She swallowed and looked up at him, “It’s beautiful, I love it.”

Tears started to fall down her cheeks and he brushed them away before helping her with the clasp on the necklace.

“Being far apart would be so much easier if I still hated you,” she mumbled, taking her hands in his.

Shaking his head, a teasing grin on his face, he remarked, “You never really hated me. We’ve just always had a lot of passion.”

He was happy to see a smile return to her face, even with it accompanied by an eye roll.

“I didn’t really realize how much my love for swimming was because I loved doing it with you.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Are you not enjoying your season so far?”

“No, no, I am. It’s just not quite the same, you know?”

“I do.” He eased her onto her back and hovered above her to kiss her forehead. “I miss racing you.” He kissed her eyebrow and she scrunched up her nose in amusement. “And straightening your straps.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And singing our pump-up playlist obnoxiously loud in the car on the way to practice.” A gentle kiss to her cheek. “And taking showers together after meets.” Her eyes darkened and he brushed his lips against hers.

“Four years will go quickly,” he reassured her while at the same time trying to reassure himself.  

She nodded, “Yeah. In the meantime, I guess we both have just got to stay focused on our reasons for doing this for ourselves and not on all the things we had to give up by choosing separate schools.”

“Right. We can do that.”

“Yes we can. You know what else we can do?”

“Hmm?”

She tugged on the bottom hem of his shirt, “Enjoy the fact that there isn’t 800 miles between us right now.”  

He grinned, “We can definitely do that.”

Chapter Text

MAY

Felicity grabbed the last of the boxes left in her dorm room, a small cardboard one with Oliver scrawled in Sharpie on the side. Peeking inside, she closed her eyes a second later to keep tears from falling on the contents inside. Things she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of but that had no place in her life anymore. The photo album he had put together for her for Hanukkah one year. An assortment of pictures that had once hung all over her room. The necklace he had given her freshman year when they were still naive enough to think that being at schools 800 miles apart wasn’t going to lead to them falling apart.

When Laurel pulled up to their house after picking her up at the airport, he was sitting on the front porch like a stray puppy. She slumped down in her seat, pushing up her glasses and rubbing her temples. She was tired from traveling all day and talking to him was the last thing she wanted to do.

“Did you tell him I was coming home today?” she asked her sister.

“No.” Laurel looked over at her skeptical expression, “I promise. But don’t you think you should just rip the bandaid off now and talk to him? Are you really going to avoid him all summer?”

“That was the plan,” she grumbled.

She had gotten a coaching job with another club team so she wouldn’t have to work with him. As much as she would miss the kids she coached last summer, she couldn’t spend every day with him and act like everything was fine. Like a piece of her heart hadn’t been ripped out and her heartbeats off rhythm ever since.

“I can tell him to leave,” Laurel offered.

Looking out the window, she stared at him for a few seconds, looking down at his restless hands with a dejected expression, before sighing, “No it’s fine. You’re right, best to just rip the bandaid off now.”

She braced herself for impact and opened the car door to step out.

Tentatively, she approached the porch and sat down next to him so she wouldn’t have to look at him while they spoke, “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you. Sara said you were getting home today.”

Ahh so she was the snitch.

Sara held out the most hope that they would get back together, that their break up was just a temporary bump in the road. She wished she shared her sister’s optimism.

She did her best to keep her voice even. “I don’t think there’s anything more for us to say to each other.”

The fight that had led to them calling it quits had been ugly.

It wasn't like the way they used to fight. The way that didn’t hurt. They way that brought the best out of each other in the pool.

It had been flying accusations and cutting words, and the worst part about it was she couldn’t even pinpoint exactly what had brought it on. Their relationship had been strained for a few months due to the distance between them and their busy schedules, but she never expected things to blow up the way they did. With the radio silence from him since that night, she figured that he had been looking for a way out and had eagerly taken the opportunity to make it a mutual decision when it presented itself.

“I miss my best friend,” he replied softly, making her heart squeeze tightly in her chest. He reached for her hand and she quickly retracted it. His touch that would have once brought her comfort now felt like fire burning her.

“Oliver. We broke up.” It crushed me. She rose to her feet, willing herself not to cry. “I need it to be a clean break.” She didn’t want to get back together with him while they were home and it was easy, only to go through the emotional rollercoaster of things not working out again when they returned to school. It was best that they just moved on instead of taking one step forward, two steps back. Walking up to the door, she added over her shoulder, “Please stay away.”

“Felicity…”

Ignoring him, she walked inside and shut the door behind her before sliding down it to sit on the floor.

It was going to be a long summer.

She had contemplated staying in Massachusetts, but her family had wanted her to come home. Her mom worried about her being alone on the other side of the country with a broken heart and her sisters had promised to make plans to keep her mind off of Oliver. Eventually she caved, convincing herself that if she didn't have to work with him, she wouldn’t have to see him and it would be easy not to think about him.

Except that she hadn’t been home for an hour yet and that plan had already failed.

“Felicity? Is that you?” Her step-dad walked into the foyer and found her on the floor, his face softening with sympathy. Extending a hand to her, he helped her up and wrapped her in a hug. “It’s going to be okay.”

She hoped he was right.

Upstairs in her room was her suitcase that Laurel had already brought in for her. The boxes containing the rest of her things would be arriving sometime later that week. A quick sweep of the room made it apparent that someone had erased every trace of Oliver before her arrival. The walls looked bare and sad without the pictures that captured some of her favorite memories but she was glad to not have to look at them.

“I’m so sorry Felicity, I didn’t expect him to show up at the house,” Sara said, entering the room after her.

“It’s okay.” She sat down on the edge of her bed and reached for one of her pillows to clutch it tightly to her chest. “I have a feeling he would have sought me out eventually and this gave me a chance to make it clear that I want him to stay away.”

“That’s really what you want?” Sara joined her on her bed. “Because I’m pretty sure what he wants is to get you back. He’s come into BBB every day since he got back a week ago during my shift to just sit in the booth you two used to share and stare at his food for half an hour before throwing it out and leaving. It’s depressing to watch.”

“If he regretted breaking up with me, he’s had plenty of time since then to tell me so.”

Kinda like he did a few minutes ago on the porch?

She shook her head at the pesky voice inside it. “He’s probably just bored because Tommy's not home yet so he’s missing being at school with his team.” His team that he had started prioritizing over her again and again and again during the past year. It wasn’t that she didn't want him to have friends other than her, she was happy that he had found his place there, she had just gotten tired of her attempts to call almost always being thwarted by, “I’m sorry Felicity, I’m hanging out with some guys from the team right now. I’ll have to call you back later.” Except that he never called back… or when he did it wasn’t a good time for her, and so they found themselves barely talking for weeks at a time. “Long distance is too hard. We tried, we failed.”

“Okay but, you’re already halfway through college now. You really couldn’t handle two more years of it to be able to have the rest of your lives together?”

She bristled defensively, “You’re acting like I’m the only one at fault here. I didn't want it to end… it just did. People rarely end up with their first love.”

Sara rested a hand on her shoulder, “Hey, I’m on your side. Sister code and all that. All I’m saying is that you both seem pretty miserable right now.” She stood up from her bed and walked towards the door, “And nothing rekindles romance like the summertime.”

Felicity rolled her eyes, “That’s not a saying.”

“Maybe I’m being prophetic.” Her sister winked and ducked out of the room before she could be hit by the pillow she chucked in her direction.

As she unpacked her suitcase, she found that she was feeling a little bit better. Despite her annoyance with her sister’s attempts to get her and Oliver back together, something she still doubted was going to happen, she was grateful to be back with her family. Coming home had been the right choice. Asking Oliver to stay away and give her more time to heal had been the right choice. Right?

“Felicity Smoak! Now there’s a sight for sore eyes…”

She turned away from the shelves of Quest bars to face Tommy with a grin, “Hey you.”

He pulled her in for a hug that she returned, until she heard someone call for him and she stiffened. Taking a step back from him, she saw Oliver turning down the aisle and their eyes met for a fraction of a second, his flickering with pain and longing and—it was to much to bear. She ripped her eyes from him and cast them down at the floor, shuffling her feet awkwardly.

She had been home for a week and now she’d already seen him twice.

After what felt like forever, Tommy finally cleared his throat and spoke, “Well I guess we should let you go, but it was good seeing you Felicity.”

She mumbled something that was meant to be, “good to see you too,” before grabbing a random handful of Quest bars (that upon closer inspection at the checkout aisle were, to her dismay, a flavor she hated).

Back at home, she discovered that her boxes from school had finally arrived after being delayed in shipping and she carried them upstairs with the help of her mom.

“Are you excited to get back to coaching next week?” her mom asked as they sorted through the contents of what she had packed to bring home, the rest having been left in a storage unit back in Massachusetts.

“Of course.” She hung up one of her sundresses and her chest felt tight as memories of Oliver tugging the strap down off her shoulder and dipping his head to kiss a trail across her warm, freckled skin, flashed in her mind. She could practically feel his strong hands, eagerly pushing the material up around her waist so she could wrap her legs around him. Slamming her eyes shut, she swallowed before taking a deep breath. Avoiding memories of Oliver would require getting an entirely new wardrobe and that wasn’t realistic. Besides, she liked her clothes. She would just have to make new memories in them. “I’ll miss the kids from last summer, but it was the right choice to coach for a different team than him.”

A city the size of theirs had several swim clubs, including the two major ones that she and Oliver would be coaching for that conveniently practiced on opposite sides of town. They were rivals and the season always ended with a hotly contested duel meet between them, where she would have to see her ex, but she could cross that bridge when she got there. Although, at this rate, she fully expected to run into him again before that.

JUNE

“Annie! Caleb!” Felicity yelled across the pool as the two nine year olds attempted to drown each other. “Channel that hatred into your swimming, okay? Who’s going to hold the position as lane leader this week?”

One of the other coaches, Dinah, shot her a look of amusement but they both watched as the two returned to their set with more determination, Annie chasing after Caleb’s feet. If there was anything she had learned from Coach Diggle, it was how to handle intense competitiveness. She shrugged triumphantly and resumed explaining a drill to the lane of seven year olds who were looking up at her expectantly.

Her new coaching gig had gotten off to a good start. She was still hit with the occasional pang of sadness when she turned to say something to Oliver, only to remember that he wasn’t there. That they didn’t talk anymore. That they wouldn’t swim together after the practice was over and they could have the pool to themselves like they did the previous summer. But missing Oliver aside, she loved the kids and her fellow coaches and she couldn’t wait for their first meet of the season.

“Thanks for helping wrangle those two,” Dinah said, walking over to her.

“No problem.” She crossed her arms over her chest as she watched Caleb splash Annie. The young girl sputtered furiously before retaliating and Felicity couldn’t help the sad smile that turned up the corners of her mouth. “Give it a few years and they’ll realize they’re in love and be making out in between events at the state championship meet.”

Dinah lifted an eyebrow, “You sound like you have some personal experience…”

“Yeah.” Her tone must’ve made it clear that she didn't want to say anything more because Dinah took the hint and walked back over to the lane she was coaching.

When practice wrapped up for the evening, she changed into her own suit and dove into the water to do a few laps to clear her head. She hadn’t seen Oliver again since their brief encounter in the grocery store two weeks ago. He had been respecting her wishes to stay away, but it wasn’t helping the ache in her heart like she had hoped.

She quickened her pace, straining her muscles, making her lungs scream as her heart beat rapidly. The physical exertion temporarily drowned out the emotional pain.

When she had completely exhausted herself, she clung to the wall as tears filled her goggles.

Dragging herself out of the pool, she headed for the locker room to throw her clothes back on and throw her hair up into a wet bun. Her car took her to Big Belly Burger almost automatically where, true to Sara’s word, she found him sitting in the booth they had shared many meals together.

When she slid in across from him, he looked up in surprise. There were faint rings around his eyes from where his goggles had pressed into his skin and his hair was still a little damp. He must’ve just come from the pool as well.

She fiddled with her hands in her lap awkwardly, “Hi.”

“Hi. What are you—“

“I know I said I needed a clean break, but the truth is that I miss my best friend too,” she blurted out. Hope flickered in his eyes and she hated that she was about to extinguish it. “We can’t get back together.”

His brow furrowed in confusion, “Um.”

“But we can still be friends, right?”

“Felicity...”

She hated the way he said her name. Hated how his voice got all soft for her. Hated that he still held her heart in his hands even though he had broken it.

“A long distance friendship is less complicated than a long distance relationship,” she pointed out.

He held her gaze for a second and she could tell that he wasn’t entirely happy with her proposition. If she was being honest, neither was she, but it seemed like the only way to avoid going through the pain of breaking up again without having to cut him out of her life completely. Which so far had sucked.

Finally, he sighed, “Okay. If that’s what you want. We can just be friends.”

“Yeah?”

He shrugged, “Yeah.”

Sara arrived at their table then to take their order, a mischievous smile on her face. Before she walked away, she leaned in and whispered to her, “What did I say about summertime again?”

Felicity blushed. They were not rekindling their romance. She had explicitly stated that there would be no romance.

When Felicity wrapped up practice on Tuesday evening, she found Oliver waiting for her on the other side of the fence. After a slightly awkward dinner at Big Belly Burger the week before, they had started to find their footing again as friends. Just friends. Usually hanging out with Tommy as a buffer.

“What are you doing here?”

“Scoping out the competition. By the looks of it, you should prepare for an embarrassing defeat.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“Oh but I am.” He leaned against the fence with the air of cockiness that had always infuriated her. She was glad there was chain link between them, preventing her from doing something rash like kissing the smug grin off his face. “And you should know. You remember how good our kids were last summer… and most of them had growth spurts over the winter.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, “I’m working with a lot of talent here too. We won our first duel meet last Saturday.”

“Against a team less than half your size. They couldn’t even put together B relays.”

“Okay but—“  He raised a challenging eyebrow and she grumbled, “Okay yeah, you have a point. But our team is still really good.”

“Whatever you say Smoak.”

Noticing he had his backpack with him, she jerked her thumb at the pool behind her, “You want to go for a swim?”

“Of course.” He walked down to the gate and she let him in.

Grabbing her cap and goggles, she shed her shorts and t-shirt while she waited for him to emerge from the locker room. Her breath hitched when he came out in his speedo and she pretended to be preoccupied with adjusting her goggle straps to hide the way her cheeks had flamed up. It had been a while since she had seen so much of him… the last time had been during winter break, the night before they had to go back to school and a few weeks before they broke up. As she had touched him, kissed him, she had no idea it would be the last time they would share that intimacy with each other.

He approached her and she felt his hand on her back, causing her to stiffen.

“I see you still haven’t figured out how to put your suit on right.” His fingers slipped under her straps to untwist them and she tried to ignore how much the familiar gesture was affecting her.

Before she could find her voice to say anything in return, he dove into the pool and began to glide through the water with his powerful, rhythmic strokes.

Re-composing herself, she dove into the lane next to him and pushed herself to catch up to him. It was probably a futile effort. Their training regimes were nowhere close to the same anymore since they had chosen such different college programs. But it still felt good to take on the challenge that he presented.

When he stopped at the end of the pool after a few hundred yards, she finished only a few seconds behind him but breathing heavily from the effort.

“Someone is a little out of shape,” he taunted, earning him a splash to the face.

Turning onto her back to float and bring her heart rate back down, she closed her eyes and soaked up the sunshine. She loved that her new club practiced at an outdoor pool. Weird tan lines aside, the sun and fresh air felt good.

When she opened her eyes again, Oliver was sitting on the edge of the pool, watching her. He dipped his head when he became aware that she had noticed him, but not before she caught the fond smile on his face.

Standing up, she walked over to climb out and sit next to him. She bumped her shoulder against him, “I’m glad we’re doing this. Being friends.”

“Me too. It was weird not talking to you.”

“Talking to me didn't seem that important when we were still together,” she muttered under her breath. It was easy to get caught up in how good it felt being around him again and forget why things had ended. Forget why they couldn’t go back to being anything more than friends again.

“What?”

She stood up. “Nothing. I have to go, Laurel is coming over for dinner tonight and I don’t want to be late.”

“Felicity? Earth to Felicity…” Laurel waved her fork at her and she straightened up in her chair.

“Sorry, what?”

“I was just saying that you should stop by CNRI sometime. We could definitely use your help digitizing our system.” Laurel frowned, “Are you okay? You seem a million miles away…”

“She’s probably daydreaming about her new friend, Oliver,” Sara spoke up from across the table.

Laurel raised a curious eyebrow, “What?”

“Haven’t you heard? They’re currently pretending that it’s possible for them to be just friends even though they’re obviously still in love with each other so they might as well be dating again.”

“I didn’t know you and Oliver were back together,” her mom remarked.

“We’re not. We’re just friends.” She shot Sara a glare, “And it’s working out just fine.”

Sort of.

Laurel passed her the salad bowl, “I thought you wanted a clean break.”

“I thought I did. But just because it didn't work out for him to be my boyfriend… that doesn’t mean I have to lose my best friend too, right? Oliver’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember…”

“So how are you going to feel when he starts dating someone else because you’re ‘just friends?’” Sara asked.

She almost choked on her sip of water at the thought.

“Sara,” Quentin chastised her. “Maybe be a little more a sensitive…”

“I’m just saying.”

She made pleading eyes at Laurel, “Can we please talk about something else?” 

Laurel’s eyes flashed with understanding, “So I’m working on this case right now…”

Later that night, when she was curled up in her bed, there was a soft knock at her door.

“Felicity? You still awake?”

“Yes...”

Sara opened the door and slipped inside before joining her in her bed. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“I don’t know why it matters so much to you what Oliver and I’s relationship status is.”

“I just want you to be happy. And the happiest you’ve ever been is when you and him were together.”

She rolled over to face her, “He also made me really sad. I don’t want to give him that power to hurt me anymore.”

Sara hesitated for a second before nodding, “Okay, then I’ll let it go.”

“Really? No more, ‘nothing rekindles romance like summertime’?”

“If that’s not what you want, then I won’t mention it again.”

“Thank you.” She shifted onto her back and looked up at the fading glow-in-the-dark star stickers that formed constellations on her ceiling. A surprise from Oliver for her birthday three years ago.

After they were quiet for a few minutes and she felt herself starting to drift off, her sister spoke up, “So how would you feel about me asking him out?”

“Don’t you dare,” she mumbled sleepily.

JULY

Oliver dipped his fries into his shake and remarked, “Only two more weeks until the meet.”

“The meet where my kids are going to crush yours?”

“Mmm no.” He pointed a fry at her. “I was referring to the meet where mine crush yours.”

“You keep saying that’s going to happen, but I think you’ve been slacking on keeping up with the stats.” She pulled her tablet out of her backpack and opened a spreadsheet she had been working on. “According to the numbers, we’re going to win.”

He frowned and reached for her tablet, “Let me see that.”

She had organized the top times posted by all of their swimmers in each age group that summer and designed an algorithm to predict the results of each race and final score based on several possible line-ups.

She had a lot of free time at night now that she didn’t have a boyfriend.

“See… were going to win.”

He handed it back to her. “First of all, you’re a huge nerd.”

“Thank you.”

“Second of all, there are so many flaws to your logic. The biggest one being that nothing makes you drop time in an event like racing a tough competitor. You know that. Any of these close races could easily go the other way.”

She shrugged, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I guess we will.” They ate in silence for a few minutes before he spoke up again, “So… what are you up to tonight?”

Binge-watching Black Mirror for the third night in a row.

“I don’t know.”

“You want to go for a midnight swim?” he asked shyly. “Like old times.”

“Umm… if you remember correctly, the old times involved skinny dipping so…”

“It would be hard to forget,” he muttered and a blush rose to her cheeks. “So maybe not exactly like old times?”

She debated whether or not to dip her toes in such dangerous waters. It probably wasn’t a good idea. It definitely wasn’t a good idea.

“I’ll meet you there at 11:58. Don’t forget the Fudgesicles.”

He grinned, “Don’t forget the gummy worms.”

When Felicity arrived at the pool in the dark corner of her neighborhood, Oliver was already waiting for her. When they were still together, they had gotten into the tradition of sneaking in late at night to swim. During the day the pool was full of screaming kids and stay-at-home moms, but at night, with nothing but the stars and one dim light illuminating the water, it was a peaceful oasis.

They climbed over the fence and she sat her backpack down on one of the reclining chairs. Slipping her sundress up over her head, she tucked it inside one of the pockets and pulled out her towel and the bag of gummy worms she had brought.

Fudgesicles and gummy worms. She couldn’t remember how they had become their snacks of choice for their late night rendezvous, but picking up the bag from the store earlier had hit her with a wave of nostalgia.

Making her way over to the edge of the pool, she sat down to dangle her legs into the cool water, and Oliver joined her. He handed her a slightly melted Fudgesicle and she set the bag of gummy worms between them.

“Mmm I forgot how good these are,” she remarked as the chocolatey goodness hit her taste buds.

He glanced over at her and even in the dark she could see the amusement light up his face, “I forgot how you always make a mess when you eat them.”

“It’s impossible to eat these things without getting chocolate all over your lips,” she lamented.

She swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand and hoped he also forgot the way he used to take care of her messiness with kisses. By the way he was staring at her lips, she had a feeling he remembered.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, she looked back at the water and reached absentmindedly for a gummy worm. Her hand brushed against his and she immediately retracted it. But not before that barest of touches sent goosebumps trailing across every inch of her skin.

Oh this had definitely not been a good idea.

Sara was right. They could only pretend that they could handle being ‘just friends’ for so long before their feelings that were simmering beneath the surface boiled over.

Doing things they had done when they were together was certainly not going to slow down that process.

And then what?

If she was being honest with herself, the thought of Oliver one day marrying someone else made her physically ill. Maybe it was true that people rarely ended up with their first love, but that didn’t change the fact that she wanted to. She just didn’t know if they could make it through the next two years without doing too much damage.

“Why’d we break up?” he asked abruptly, pulling her out of her thoughts.

She sighed, “I don’t know.”

“And that hasn’t been driving you crazy?” He gripped the edge of the pool. “Because I can’t stop asking myself how I managed to be stupid enough to ruin the best thing in my life.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “Not entirely. It was a mutual decision.”

“Did you stop loving me?”

“Of course not.” She reached for his hand. “That’s why it hurt so much.”

He pulled away from her, “But you don’t want to try to fix things.”

His voice was flat, resigned, and her heart ached.

“Oliver… I wish things could be different. I wish I thought we could handle long distance without breaking up again.”

“Then we don’t have to be long distance. I’ll transfer and—“

She shook her head, “I don’t want you to transfer. You love your school and your team and—“

“Not as much as I love you.”

“It didn’t feel that way,” she admitted.

“What?”

“I didn't want to be the clingy, jealous girlfriend, but it really hurt when you made me feel like I was an afterthought.”

“An afterthought,” he echoed.

“Yeah. We used to talk almost everyday. And I loved that, I needed that. Even if it was just five minutes, it made my day so much better to hear your voice. But last semester… sometimes we would go weeks without talking because you were always busy when I tried to call. Honestly I started to worry that you were cheating on me, and that’s why you were avoiding me.”

“Felicity… I would never—there was no one else, I promise.”

She fiddled with the string of her bathing suit bottom, “I believe you.”

“I know I was distant, but it wasn’t because I didn't want to talk to you. Hearing your voice just made me so homesick. Everytime I hung up from one of our calls I’d want to hop in my car and drive all the way to Massachusetts to see you and I couldn’t. So it was easier to distract myself by making myself too busy.” He raked his hands down his face, “It was selfish, and I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. For all the horrible things I said to you the night we broke up. I didn’t mean any of it. I was just frustrated and hurt and you caught me on a really bad day where I was primed for a fight. I wasn’t willing to listen to anything you had to say.”

They were quiet for a few seconds before he asked, “So what are we supposed to do now?”

“Go for a swim.”

“A swim?”

She shrugged, “That’s one thing with us that’s pretty much always made sense.”

Sliding into the pool, she dipped underneath the water and held her breath while her thoughts raced around her, until her lungs felt like they were going to burst. When she broke the surface, Oliver was watching her.

Upon making a decision, she beckoned for him to join her and he slid in to swim over. She took his hands in hers as they tread water, their fingers interlocking like two pieces of a puzzle.

“Let’s say, hypothetically, we get back together… how do we make sure we don’t mess things up again before we graduate?” she asked.

“I call you everyday.”

“And I visit you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“But I can. The time investment required for my swimming program isn’t anything like yours and I’m always ahead in all of my classes. I’m sure there’s a train that goes between Massachusetts and Ohio. There’s no reason for us to only see each other on breaks. Hypothetically. If we got back together.”

“Right. Hypothetically.”

He tugged on her hands gently, swimming them backwards towards the shallow end so that he could stand and pull her flush against his chest for a hug. She wrapped her legs around his waist and buried her face in the crook of his neck. His heart could be felt beating steadily against hers.

Nothing felt more right.

“I love you,” he whispered, his hands stroking her back. “And if, hypothetically, we get back together, I will never make you question that again.”

She lifted her head up to look in his eyes and the corners of her mouth turned up into a small smile, “Screw hypothetically.”

AUGUST

“A tie?” She balked at the scoreboard as the final relay’s points were added. “You have got to be kidding me… according to all my calculations the statistical probability of this meet ending up in a tie was—“

Oliver appeared at her side and wrapped an arm around her waist to turn her towards him and cut her off with a kiss. When he pulled pack he had a grin on his face and he pushed the pieces of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail throughout the course of the meet behind her ears. “You know I love it when you talk nerdy to me babe.”

She pouted, “We’re going to win next summer.”

“We’re not going to go back to coaching together next summer?”

“No way, it’s way too fun to compete against you.” She patted his chest, “Just like old times.”

“So does that mean we’re also going to make-out in my car after this?”

“Well… in the spirit of tradition, I suppose it would only be fitting.”

Chapter Text

10 Years Later

“There’s going to be some tough competition in your races today, but don’t let it get into your head. You’ve been working so hard in practice and I know you’re going to make all the other girls eat your bubbles. Just don’t be like your mom and forget you’re supposed to be kicking for half the race.”

Felicity rolled her eyes at her husband’s ribbing and reached into the cabinet for her coffee thermos as Mia giggled, “Okay Daddy.”

Oliver slid a stack of pancakes across the island to their daughter, “Eat up my little fish.”

It was Mia’s first season officially on the team, after years of being on the sidelines while her dad coached. The stakes were not very high for five year olds who often only swam exhibition events that didn’t even count towards the team score, just being able to swim in a straight line put you leagues above the competition. But Felicity loved hearing her husband give their kids the same pep talks he used to give her whenever she was nervous before big meets.

“Mooooom….” she heard Will holler from upstairs. “I can’t find my goggles…”

“Did you check under that giant pile of laundry you dumped on your floor after practice last night?” she called back.

There was a pause before, “Found them!”

“I think some of those clothes have been marinating in sweat and chlorine in his duffel bag for a solid two weeks now.” Felicity patted Oliver’s shoulder. “That he inherited from you.”

Oliver pressed a hand to his chest, feigning offense, “Are you saying I’m a slob?”

Now, the notion seemed ridiculous, as her husband kept their house spotless and was one of the most meticulous people she knew. But when you’ve been best friends with your spouse for almost your entire life, you know about all the bad habits they grew out off…

“Remember the sweaty t-shirt that was balled up under the back seat of your car for almost an entire month senior year until I finally made you investigate what smelled like death?” She quirked a challenging eyebrow.

Remembrance flickered in his eyes, followed by a sheepish grin and he conceded, “Fair point.”

“Don’t worry though, the majority of my memories from that car are quite nice.”

Rolling up onto her toes, she brushed a chaste kiss to his jaw before resuming her coffee preparation. She was still not a fan of early mornings, but with Oliver being the head coach of their kids’ team, they had to be some of the first ones at the pool. And so caffeine was very necessary.

Their seven year old joined them in the kitchen a few minutes later, taking a seat next to his sister in front of his own pile of pancakes.

“You’ve got to remember to clean out your swim bag more often buddy,” Oliver recommended, pouring him a glass of orange juice.

Leaning against the counter, Felicity sipped her coffee and watched her family in contentment. She never used to think she would be the kind of girl who got married and started a family so young, but she wouldn’t trade the life she had for the world. When Oliver had proposed during spring break their senior year of college, there hadn’t been any answer but yes. They had been at the Queen family’s beach house in Malibu, sitting at the edge of the pool under the stars when...

“Felicity…”

At the nervous tremor in his voice, she swallowed thickly before pulling her eyes away from the reflection of the moon on the surface of the water. He was either breaking up with her again or—

When she looked up at him he opened a small black box to reveal the biggest diamond she had ever seen. Her eyes widened in surprise.

—or he was doing that.

They had talked about getting married before. It was just kind of assumed that it was going to happen for them eventually. Their break-up sophomore year had only served to make it obvious they weren’t capable of ever letting each other go.

But still. She hadn’t been expecting him to pop the question that night. Were they old enough to get married? What if they were rushing into something they weren’t ready for?

“Felicity…” A grin broke out over his face, “I had this whole speech planned out about how you’re my best friend and the love of my life, but now all I can think about is how whenever we would have a nice moment before we stopped pretending to hate each other, it would usually end with one of us getting shoved in the pool. I feel like if I get too sappy, I’m going for a swim.”

Tears had started pricking at her eyes and she swiped at them as she started to laugh. What was she so worried about? If they managed to survive their intense rivalry without killing each other, they could handle marriage just fine. Right?

So far they had. More than fine, really. Even with the surprise of William, practically a honeymoon baby, throwing them into the adventure of parenthood while she was in the midst of launching a tech startup. Sure, they had their ups and downs, but they had always been the kind of teammates that made each other better when things got tough. That didn't end when they retired from their sport.

“Why do I have to swim the 25 fly today?” Will grumbled around a mouthful of pancakes. “I swam it last week.”

“Because you’re good at it, and our best shot at beating that beast of an eight year old from CCAC.”

Felicity frowned at the memory of the boy who had been a whole head taller than the rest of his age group at the championship meet over the summer. “He’s still an eight and under?”

“Technically I think he’s nine now, but his birthday missed the age group cut off,” Oliver explained and Will paled. “But hey, you’ve got this. Your fly is getting really strong. Make sure you don’t come up too early, take advantage of your speed under the water off the start.”

Will nodded, absorbing his dad and coach’s advice. Oliver had always been beloved by the kids he coached, and his own children were no exception.

Two lines.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked again.

Two lines. Her suspicion confirming itself.

Oliver was still at the pool, running the morning practice at Starling City University, where he had gotten a job as the coach of the women’s team. To pass the time until he returned, she busied herself with taking a shower and making coffee—which turned into a deep dive into Google to determine if it was okay for her to drink said cup of coffee.

When she heard the door open, she startled. Nerves fluttering in her stomach, she rose to her feet to greet him. They were practically still kids themselves, the ink on their college diplomas barely dried… and now they were going to have a kid.

“Hey.” She fiddled with her engagement and wedding rings, swiveling the cool metal around her finger as she watched him hang up his coat. “How was practice?”

“It was good. The girls are looking strong this season, I think they have a real chance at a conference championship.”

“Well with you as their coach, how could they not? Unless they get too distracted by flirting with you.”

His brow wrinkled in adorable confusion, “Flirting with me?”

“Oh honey. You’re very hot, and not much older than them,” she pointed out, amused that the boy who used to brag about being a magnet for girls hadn’t noticed what had been blatantly obvious to her at the first meet of the season that she came to watch. “Some of them definitely have eyes for you.”

Understanding dawned on him and he shook his head, “Well, unfortunately for them, I only have eyes for my wife.”

When he dipped his head down to kiss her, she wrinkled her nose as a wave of nausea hit her, “You smell like chlorine.”

“I don’t recall that ever being a turn-off for you,” he teased.  

She bit her lip. “Oliver, I have to tell you something.”

He took a tiny step back and she realized she probably should’ve phrased that in a way that sounded less ominous.

Giving him a small smile, she announced, “I’m pregnant.”

“Oh.”    

The expression on his face was hard to read and her shoulders slumped.. “You’re not excited.”

“No, no, no,” he rushed to reassure her, running his hands up and down her arms. “I am. Of course I am. This is surprising, but... a good surprise. I’m just—” Ducking his head, he muttered faintly, “What if I’m terrible at it?”

“At what?”

“Being a dad.” He looked back up at her, “You know my relationship with my dad growing up was… complicated.”

She did. She also knew that, despite any of her own trepidation, she was determined to not let him believe that he was going to be anything less than an incredible father.

“Babe… think about all the kids you’ve coached over the past few years. I can’t think of a single one who didn't adore you. You’re so good with kids, how could that be any different when it’s one of your own?”

She could tell her words were having the desired effect when his face started to brighten.

He cupped her face, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, “I love you. I’m so happy I get to have a baby with you.”

Covering his hands with her own, she echoed, “I love you too.”

Oliver had gone on to coach Starling U’s girls to the conference championship that season. And then a few months later she watched as he held his newborn son in his arms for the first time, with more joy on his face than any victory in the pool could ever bring.

At the pool, Felicity helped Mia tuck her hair up into her cap before the kids hopped into the water with their teammates for warm-up. She was in charge of organizing the volunteers who would be timing the meet, and she went to make sure that the system that ran on technology outfitted by her company was being set up correctly.

“Felicity? Do you need me to help with timing today?”

She paused untangling cords and looked over her shoulder to see an old familiar face. It had been years since she had last seen the former sprinter from one of their rival teams in high school.

“Barry Allen. Does this mean you have a kid old enough to swim now?”

He beamed proudly and nodded, “It’s Nora’s first season.”

She followed his gaze to where his wife was helping a miniature version of herself into a swim cap and smiled, “You married Iris.”

“Yeah. And I heard you and Oliver…”

Holding up her left hand, she confirmed, “Yup. Our eight year anniversary was just a few days ago actually.”

“I bet I can still beat you…” she taunted Oliver, circling the edge of the pool. Will and Mia were staying with her mom and Quentin so they could spend the weekend in Coast City, just the two of them. After returning from dinner, they ended up at the hotel pool. Empty, quiet, and dark, it took her back to the year they had ditched their Homecoming dance for a swim and almost got caught by the janitor.

“Still? Babe you haven’t been able to beat me since we were in high school. I could take you easily.”

She arched an eyebrow and started to slip one of the straps of her dress off her shoulder. She had had a few glasses of wine with dinner and she was feeling cocky, “Is that a challenge?”

His eyes widened and he looked around, “What if someone comes in?”

Sighing faux-dramatically, she stepped out of her heels, “Clearly this pool doesn’t see much use at this hour of the night. Don’t be a killjoy Queen.”

He crossed the distance between them quickly and reached behind her to ease the zipper of her dress down, his other hand skimming her bare skin as it was exposed. Once she was stripped down to her undergarments, she unbuttoned his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders and smoothing her hands over the muscular planes of his torso.

“We could just go up to the room now,” he whispered, kissing her neck.

“Sounds like someone’s scared of losing…” she teased, taking a little step back from him. “C’mon. 200 yard—” Glancing over at the small pool, she amended, “Eight laps of whatever this is. Winner takes all.”

“I think you’re a little bit tipsy right now, are you sure you can swim in a straight line? Or are you going to nearly break my nose again?” he teased back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oliver, you have got to get over that. It’s been years.” Taking her place at the edge of the pool, she pointed at the spot on the deck next to her. “Get over here.”

“Yes ma'am.” He shed his pants, adding them to the pile of their clothes on the deck and joined her poolside.  

She looked over at him with a grin and started, “Swimmers…”

“Take your mark...” he continued.

They both bent over and gripped the edge of the pool.

“Go!” she called, launching herself into the water.

She was instantly reminded of why she had worn prescription goggles during her days of competing. Between her hair unrestrained by a cap and her dismal vision, she had to have looked ridiculous as she cut through the water choppily. Which was probably why Oliver didn’t let her get more than two laps before scooping her up into his arms.

“What are you doing?” she sputtered.

“Forfeiting.”

“Because I was winning,” she argued stubbornly.

He laughed, pushing wet locks of hair off her face, “Whatever you say honey.”

The cold water had sobered her up some and she smiled sheepishly. She could only imagine what the state of her hair and makeup was thanks to the impromptu swim.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she asked, “How crazy do I look right now?”   

He cringed, “Is it in my best interest to lie?” She narrowed her eyes at him and he kissed the tip of her nose, “Kidding, kidding.”

“We should probably go upstairs now.”

“Probably.” He started to walk them towards the stairs to exit the water. “It is fitting that we spend our anniversary smelling like chlorine.”

She huffed in amusement, “Yeah. Very on brand for us.”  

“Seems like just yesterday we were the ones in the pool,” Barry remarked.

“Right?” The twelve years since she had graduated from high school sometimes felt nonexistent when she was at the pool. Like any minute Oliver was going to untwist her straps for her, wish her good luck before she stepped up onto the blocks for her race. “What’s keeping you busy lately?” she asked him, shaking away the nostalgia.

“I’m working as a CSI at CCPD.” Barry tilted his head towards the Smoak Tech Logo that was emblazoned on the touchpads that were being lowered into the end of each lane. “I guess it’s pretty obvious what you’ve been up to. Our club started using your stuff at our pool too.”

“I know. I remember getting that contract.” She handed a clipboard to one of the other volunteers that approached her for their lane assignment before turning back to Barry. “Meet tech is just one small part of what we’re doing at the company, but it’s fun to work on. I mean, I remember all the different technical difficulties we had at meets growing up, so I knew what needed to improved upon.”

The kids finished warming up and Felicity was approached by Mia and Will looking for someone to write their events on their hand for them.

“I have to finish some stuff before we can get the meet started, so why don’t you ask your Grandmas? I’m sure they would love to help you.” She pointed to where her mom was standing at the end of the pool in a shirt that said “Swim Grandma” in sparkly letters. Buttons with the kids pictures on them completed her ensemble and the whole look was an amusing contrast to Moira Queen standing next to her in a crisp, plain light blue button down. While she and Oliver’s moms couldn’t look more different at first glance— aside from the blonde hair, they got along well and enjoyed getting to relive the days of age group swimming with their grandkids.

“I remember when I was buying you suits this small,” her mom had reminisced the other day when they had been out shopping and picked out some new practice suits for Mia. “You were so cute. Oliver too. I always knew you two would give me cute grandbabies some day.”

She arched an eyebrow, “Even when we were threatening to drown each other?”

“Well… every relationship needs passion.”

Shaking her head in amusement, she returned to sorting through the pile of novelty printed suits.

When the meet started, Felicity took her place in lane 6 with Barry as her partner for timing. Mia was up first, swimming the backstroke leg to lead off her medley relay.

“You ready for this?” she asked her daughter as she fidgeted excitedly behind the blocks.

“Yep!”

Barry’s daughter passed by them on the way to her lane and gave her dad an enthusiastic fist bump.

“She’s swimming the butterfly leg,” Barry commented when she had moved out of earshot. “Should be entertaining.”

Watching little kids attempt to swim butterfly, arguably the stroke that required the most advanced motor skills to coordinate properly, usually was.

The starter called for the backstrokers to enter the water and Mia hopped in, bouncing on her toes to keep her head above the water before grabbing onto the wall.

“Swimmers… take your mark…”

The buzzer went off and Felicity clicked on her stopwatch as Mia pushed off onto her back. The A relays in the middle lanes were made up of the older kids in the eight-and-under age division who easily pulled far ahead of the younger kids on the edges. There was a huge grin on her daughter’s face though as she spun her little wheels as fast as she could, oblivious to how she stacked up against her competitors.  

When she finally made it to the other end and got out of the water, Mia looked to her and she gave her an encouraging thumb’s up. After the breastroker touched down at their wall, she looked across the pool to where Nora had started her butterfly leg and Iris was standing at the end of the pool cheering her on enthusiastically.

“Oh wow this is actually going better than I expected,” Barry commented, both proud and surprised, and Felicity laughed.

The meet progressed quickly and Felicity enjoyed catching up with someone who shared similar memories from high school. Before long, it was just about time for the 25 butterfly and she looked over to the side of the pool where Oliver was talking to a nervous looking William. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it seemed to have the desired effect because a smile appeared on their son’s face. Oliver squeezed his shoulder before sending him to his lane to get ready for the race.

The kid from Central City who got behind the block in lane 3 next to him was as tall as she remembered (taller even?), and she remembered how nervous she would get when the girl she was racing against was taller or stronger looking. It had helped boost her confidence when Oliver got his growth spurt and she could still kick his butt, at least in practice.

The starter announced for the swimmers to step up onto the blocks before calling out the usual cues that signaled the start of the race.

She watched with bated breath as William followed the advice Oliver gave him at breakfast and kicked out as far as he could underwater before breaching the surface. It was a close race, with both boys matching each other stroke for stroke. She missed the finish when she turned her attention to the kid in the lane she was timing to catch his, but a look up at the board confirmed that lane 3 had been out-touched by .03 seconds. William looked over to her after checking the board, disbelief on his face, and she gave him a wide congratulatory smile, mouthing, “Nice!”

She and Oliver had made the decision when he was a baby that they weren’t going to push him into swimming just because it had been their sport. They had swum with enough kids growing up who hadn’t been given a choice and resented their parents for it. Admittedly, she would’ve been a little sad if she hadn’t gotten a chance to make new memories at the pool with Oliver and their kids, but she would’ve been a supportive soccer mom if that’s what Will wanted. But after spending the first four years of his life around the edge of a pool while they cheered on Oliver’s SCU girls, their son had been eager to get in the water himself when he was old enough.

“Oh my goodness he is soooo cute!” one of the girls on Oliver’s team gushed over William when Felicity walked onto the deck with her six-month-old son strapped to her chest in a baby sling. Practice started to fall apart with her arrival as more of the team members climbed out of the pool to come over to her and get a glimpse at their coach’s son.

“Ladies! You’re not done that last set yet. Back in the water…”  

At Oliver’s voice, they all scurried back to the pool and she shot her husband an apologetic glance.

“Are you trying to distract them? Have you been recruited by CCU as a saboteur to make sure we don’t repeat our championship victory?” he asked teasingly, making his way over to her.

She gasped, “You think I would betray you?”

“You did defect to the enemy that one summer…”

“That’s because we had broken up.” Although, to be fair, she liked to forget those couple of months too. She flashed her wedding ring at him. “You’re stuck with me on your team forever now Queen.”  

How much had she complained about always being stuck with him when they were younger?

Stuck with Oliver. All the time. The story of her life.

High school Felicity had no idea how accurate that statement would end up being. Except with less disdain for such circumstances than she originally expressed.

Grinning, he replied, “No one I’d rather be stuck with.” He glanced down at William, who was looking up at them with wide, curious eyes. “Can I hold him?” 

“Of course.”

She handed William to Oliver before unraveling the sling and helping him rewrap it around his torso. Settling down on the bleachers, she watched with a soft smile as Oliver alternated between coaching and talking to his son.

They ended up winning the meet by a slim margin, making Will’s win in the butterfly even more of an important accomplishment. (They told Mia it was her efforts in the 25 back that really sealed the victory for them so she wouldn’t feel left out.) To celebrate, they met up with Tommy and Laurel for lunch at Big Belly Burger afterwards. Oliver’s best man and her step-sister had hooked up at their wedding, avoided each other for almost a year afterwards, and then started dating after seeing each other again at a Thanksgiving dinner she and Oliver had hosted. They had been together ever since. It was like some kind of rom-com plot and she and Sara had teased Laurel endlessly about it. 

“Don’t drink that so fast, you’re going to get a brain freeze,” Felicity warned Mia as she slurped down a giant chocolate shake. Next to her, Will was shoveling fries into his mouth.

She remembered how hungry she would be after meets. Quentin would make huge meals that she would down in no time flat before raiding the freezer for ice cream. She could vividly recall a time that Oliver had come over to her house for dinner because his parents were away on a business trip. It had occurred at the pinnacle of their rivalry so naturally they had ended up having a pasta eating contest that had left the rest of her family equal parts fascinated and disgusted. Who had actually won was still under dispute, but she had slept really well that night thanks to a carb coma.

“What are you looking at?” Oliver asked, joining her in bed that evening after they had gotten two very exhausted kids tucked into bed.

“The scrapbook you made me when we were in high school.” She ran her fingers over a picture of them that had been added later, from one of Oliver’s last meets his senior year of college, a few weeks before they got engaged. He was dripping wet, having just emerged from the pool after swimming in the finals of the 400 free relay, and she probably had complained about him getting her wet. The lovestruck grin on her face captured by the picture made it clear that she didn’t really care. “Where has all the time gone?”

“And where did my eight-pack go?” he lamented.

She smacked him lightly, “Oh poor you, your eight-pack is now only a six-pack. You’re really letting yourself go.”

He chuckled and moved the scrapbook to their bedside table so he could shift to rest his head in her lap. “That was the weekend I decided I was going to propose to you while we were in Malibu. After being apart for college, I didn’t want that much distance between us ever again. I knew you were going to do big things—you were telling me all about your ideas for Smoak Tech—and I knew I just wanted to be along for the ride.” She ran her fingers through his hair and his eyes closed at her ministrations. “I didn’t think it was possible for me to be more in love with you than I was then.”

“You’re so sappy.”

The corners of his mouth turned up into a sleepy smile, “You love it.”

“Yes, yes I do.”