She watched as Dig made his way up the stairs, a light spring to his step.

Ever since he had gotten back with his ex-wife-now-girlfriend, he seemed to almost prance home. Well, as much as a man build like a doorframe, military background, and current bodyguard and right hand of the local vigilante could prance. But Felicity was really happy for her friend. He deserved someone who made him as happy as Lyla did, because John was a great person and an even better friend.

In the time since she had met him, Dig had become somewhat of a big brother to her, and Felicity loved every second of it. She never had felt as welcome or safe or cared for in her live, not by her own family, not by her mother and not by any previous boyfriends. Dig had taken the slot of a brother and it fit him like a glove, and Felicity was sometimes still surprised how much she had craved for someone like him in her life.

He had been there for her when Oliver had to leave after the Undertaking, and had helped her to put herself back together again. He had spent countless hours on her couch, eating take-out, watching movies, or playing Mario Cart on her Wii, letting her eat dust on pretty much every track except on Rainbow Road. Both of them failed that one mercilessly, but neither had cared because they had too much fun and had simply enjoyed the easiness of the other being around.

And Felicity had been there for him, when Carly had broken things with him off, trying to calm his fury that was still silently boiling inside of him about Floyd Lawton being still alive. She had been there to comfort him about the loss of his relationship, returning the favor he had granted her so often without a second thought.

Clicking on the background program that was always running when her computers in the Foundry were on, Felicity checked for any news on the Deadshot-side.

Still nothing new since he had killed again two weeks ago, in Thailand. A married couple that – after some digging – had turned out to finance a child traffic organization into the states, with a focus on little boys no older than three. Felicity couldn’t really say that she had been all that sad about his kill, even though she knew that her younger self would have been shocked. Working with the Arrow and his team had changed her world from black-and-white into black-and-white-with-shades-of-gray.

A movement to her left caught her attention, but instead of looking up, Felicity finished up the few lines of new code that she added to the search tool, before minimizing the tab again, focusing on the one she had worked on before Dig had bid his goodnight and got his now almost mandatory goodbye-hug from her.

The program was still happily chewing through the parameters she had fed it, so she swiveled her chair around, facing one Oliver Queen, lingering around her workspace.

There was a question in his eyes, and his whole posture seemed off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it right away. He didn’t leave her enough time to figure it out though, because like Oliver usually went about something that seemed to bother him, he tackled it headfirst, fists already at the ready.

Luckily, in this case, it was purely metaphorically, but Felicity could see the determination setting over his features and posture, however, the slightly shy expression managed to stay.

“You’re always hugging Dig and Roy.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but she was pretty sure that there was a question hidden somewhere. One that Felicity didn’t understand, and neither did she really understand what was going on, or why Oliver pointed something as un-secretive and normal out like hugging their friends and team members.

“Uhm… yeah?”

“Why?”

Now, that was a question, but it confused her even more. It was a weird one, and a random one as well, but Felicity could hear a tone in Oliver’s voice that she hadn’t heard before, mixed with the way he spoke whenever he was serious about something.

“Why not? They are like my brothers.”

At that, he stayed silent, just looking at her with the same expression as earlier. One that she couldn’t read properly, and had never really seen before either.

But among that expression, were emotions she could very well read, though not understand given the question. Oliver looked hurt, and surprised, maybe even contemplative, and there was a warm note as well, most likely at how she saw their team. At the fact that their team was more than just coworkers, more than just a few people flocking together because they had the same goal. They had become a family unit, and Felicity loved every part of it, and she knew that Oliver did too. Or at least, that he appreciated each member of their team immensely. Felicity had the sad hunch, that Oliver didn’t allow himself to really love people anymore, in fear of losing them like he had lost so many things and people already.

But one fact still stood strong. The Foundry and the team were the only places where he could be himself, without the expectations of the outside, wanting him to be still the spoilt playboy brat, or the CEO of the city’s biggest company, or the heir of more money than any single person could ever spend.

Oliver didn’t say anything to her answer, looking like he was somewhat lost in his own thoughts. At times, he did things like that; asking a question and then more or less cutting of the conversation after he got the information he had sought, something Felicity was pretty sure was a remnant of his time away. She didn’t fault him for it, just like she didn’t fault him for any of his other habits that had been forced onto him, but she did try to help him working through them whenever it was possible. The expressions that were running over his features now, though, told her that it wasn’t the right time.

Knowing that it was best to leave him be when he was like that – with the exception of when he wore a serious case of ‘guilty-face’ – Felicity was about to turn back to her computers, when he shifted slightly, leaning more towards her and stopping her in her tracks.

“What about me?”

“What about you?”

His next words were spoken with a voice much quieter than before, and almost sounding small – or at least as small as someone with his presence and overall persona could sound – making Felicity turn back fully towards him, brows furrowed in a mix of concern and confusion.

“Why don’t you hug me?”

That question was not what she had been expecting, and it gave her brain the perfect excuse to go into several directions all at once.

The first was showing her images of what it would be like to hug Oliver, preferably without anything between them, with either a soft, big bed close by, or a sturdy door.

The second one was how she would hug his body to keep him upright when he was seriously injured, keeping him from toppling over or hurting himself even more than he already was.

The third one, was Oliver standing next to Dig and Roy, trying to emit the same vibe as the other two men, trying to pose as someone that was like a brother to her.

The fourth was then again her and Oliver hugging, this time with clothes, except in the very places that were bothering them the most to get close.

The fifth was when she were to hug him out of sheer emotional overload after something terrible like the Undertaking happened, something that would make her believe that he is dead.

In the next, both of them were cuddled up on her couch, hugging each other lazily on a free Sunday, watching a random movie on TV.

The jumble of info and possible ways that she could hug Oliver, or possible reasons why he would ask her in such a way, made her filter fully fly out the window, and the first proper sentence that came to mind, was immediately voiced into the small space between them.

“You want to be my brother?”

The cringing in his expression, as well as the step back at her words made it clear that she had probably just said the dumbest thing her head could have come up with, and Felicity was about ready to smack herself against the forehead for it. Forcefully.

The hand that moved from his side to his neck, scratching in that very particular way that told her that he was uncertain or embarrassed about something, stopped her from doing just that though, too curious what he was about to say to risk not hearing it properly through her own stupidity.

“Well, no, but…”

Oliver looked almost flustered, and on any other given day, Felicity would have laughed at it, but not today. Because aside from that, he also looked hurt by her words, and that was something she never wanted to do. Ever.

Hurting Oliver was the very last thing – nay, the least of the very last things – she ever wanted to do, so her mouth voiced the fastest solution that her brain came up with.

“Oliver, you are my friend.”

Yeah, her lacking filter managed to get her from bad to worse within three seconds flat, and this time, her wince didn’t stay internal, making the muscles in her face contort in an almost painful grimace. Because he was most definitely not her friend. Or at least not only, and certainly not to her.

Her expression was one Oliver seemed to mirror.

But for whatever reason, Felicity’s mouth seemed to think that it was best to go on talking, trying to fix the total trainwreck that she was leading their conversation into.

But aside from trying to fix her filter-caused issue, she really wanted him to know why she wasn’t hugging him. She wanted him to know that it had nothing to do with not wanting to, or that it was his fault or anything. That she didn’t single him out for any malicious reasons, or didn’t want to show him the same affection, compassion and warmth that she showed the other members of their team. It was actually against her nature to hold herself back, to not hug him whenever he looked sad or in pain, or had a rough day, either at the office or on the streets. She was a highly tactile person, and to suppress that impulse and side of her for his sake was hard, but she did have her reasons.

Reasons that Oliver needed to hear, to understand, because they weren’t there to hurt him.

“I just never thought it would be really welcome if I hugged you…”

Oliver’s blue eyes grew wide, reaching the point where Felicity could see the whole of his iris, all shades of blue, framed by the dark ring that circled around it.

“Why?”

It was a valid question, and she was ready to answer it, just like she had told herself to do, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t hard in a way she couldn’t explain.

Felicity shrugged slightly.

“I know that you don’t like it when people are too close to you, or touch you. I can see it in the office or on galas or other public gatherings, the way that you tense and turn more into your Arrow-mode, constantly scanning the people closest to you. You even do it with your mother and at times Thea as well, though not as strongly. I know that it triggers part of your PTSD, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

She took a breath, centering herself slightly and then looked back into Oliver’s eyes, trying to gauge his reaction to what she had just told him.

Mentioning his mental health was always a tricky thing, sometimes meeting a huff and ignorance, sometimes anger and a dismissing hand gesture, but sometimes also the slightest of nods, his way of at least acknowledging that he wasn’t fully alright.

But there was no reaction at all from him. He just continued to look at her, his eyes still big and staring straight at her, watching in silence, even though it was clear that his head was anything but.

“I know that you’re getting better with it, and I’m really so happy for you and proud of you for that, but I still don’t want to do anything that could make you uncomfortable, or trigger you, making it worse again. I don’t want to be like the other people who do that to you in your life.”

Up till now, she had managed to talk properly, to say exactly what she had wanted and how she had wanted to say it, but for reasons that had been unknown to her since elementary school, Felicity’s filter seemed to think that that was enough for today. Because once that very honest and very serious answer was given, a ramble pushed right after, escaping her lips before she could even think about starting to count or do any of her other coping mechanisms.

“And, I mean, I know that we touch, but most of those touches are initiated by you, which means that you are in control of them, and the times that I touch you, it’s either to patch you up, or somewhere on your arm and shoulder. Those are both places that you can easily see beforehand and can get away from or evade if you don’t want it, but a hug is like my full body touching you–“

The heat came instantaneous, spreading over her cheeks and up into her ears, most likely turning her face several shades redder.

“–That didn’t come out right, I don’t hug like that, but if I were to hug you, then you wouldn’t have the control anymore, you know? And I would be touching you in general, and I really don’t want you to feel uncomfortable or constricted or trapped or anything, and that is the reason why I don’t hug you, but I don’t understand why you didn’t stop me sooner!”

And still, Oliver didn’t say anything, and just continued to look at her with somehow even bigger eyes, and an expression that was a mixture of too many emotions to tell them apart.

He stood and looked at her, while Felicity stood and felt her face getting warmer and warmer, and the desire to run out of the Foundry grew steadily by the second.

But when he moved, he did something Felicity wouldn’t have been able to foresee, not in a decade with all the time in the world to think about it.

Oliver stepped forward, crossing the small distance between them, and moved his arms around her shoulder and waist, pulling her against his upper body with the same gentle strength he always used when he interacted with her. She could have easily gotten out, even though he held on tightly to her, fully enveloping her with his much bigger frame to the point where his hands reached the opposite sides of her waist and shoulder. That was about the last thing Felicity wanted to do, though, even if it took her a few moments to realize what was going on.

When the penny finally dropped, and the initial shock that Oliver was hugging her faded, she reciprocated the gesture in kind, just as tightly, and just as gently.

And after a long few heartbeats, running faster than her heart had in quite some while, she heard his voice just as much as she felt it in her ear, quiet but strong.

“Thank you so much for that!”

It was so rare that Oliver said thank you, though she knew that he was grateful for a lot of things. It made her smile broadly into his neck, but before she could reply she felt Oliver’s chest press against her own, with the movement of taking a deep breath, and the vibration of the soft humm that followed made her stay silent. It felt strange, but in a way that she wouldn’t want to miss either.

“But you can hug me whenever you want or need, okay? You never make me feel uncomfortable.”

She really didn’t know what to say to that. It was a big concession. Huge, even, especially coming from someone with a history about physical contact and control as complicated as Oliver’s. But she nodded into his shoulder to show that she understood, even if her brain was still trying to properly understand. It needed confirmation, before it allowed her heart to believe it as well, a hard feat considering that it was already beating faster in her chest than was good for her.

“Really?”

His hold on her didn’t loosen up, and instead, Felicity could feel his fingers starting to wind just a bit deeper into her ponytail, the scruff on his cheek moving just a bit closer to her temple.

“I really like this.”

It was another three heartbeats – his or hers, Felicity wasn’t sure anymore by now – before Oliver pulled away again. He stopped though before his hands could fully fall from her body again, his right still resting on her shoulder.

Felicity was still a bit baffled by all of it, but that didn’t stop her from pretty much beaming up at him like a lighthouse. The gesture was returned with the same intensity, though in a smaller movement. Oliver smiled, warm and full, that honest smile that he only ever showed when he was truly and fully at ease, and yet it was still more intense than she had ever seen before.

The way his thumb moved along part of her exposed skin along her neck made Felicity’s eyes twitch to the side for a second, breaking their almost spellbound look.

“It’s late. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

Oliver’s voice was still infinitely soft, and his face was still open and relaxed, a warmth in his eyes that threatened to catch and bind Felicity once more.

“You too?”

His smile shifted, and a moment later it occurred to her, why.

Her cheeks started to warm up once more, though by far not to the extent that they had earlier. She refused to acknowledge the feeling though, and just tilted her head slightly to the side, waiting for an answer.

Oliver’s reply was accompanied by a chuckle, almost the same that was always there when she said something ambiguous or inappropriate.

“I’ll head home too.”

Normally, she would check again, but the sincerity in his voice was enough for her to nod and believe him. Over the past few weeks and months, Oliver had gotten – albeit very slowly – better in taking care of himself, something Felicity was not only extremely proud and grateful for, but also was genuinely happy for him. There was still a long way for him to go to reach a point where his self-hatred and lack for care wouldn’t be a serious issue anymore, but that didn’t mean that the small steps didn’t account for anything.

Stepping back from his contact, Felicity turned towards her computers, feeling his hand linger till the last possible second, before it fell from her shoulder, brushing along her shoulder blade before losing its last contact to her. It made her weirdly sad, though it shouldn’t surprise her, considering that Felicity was hyper aware of her crush on her friend-slash-boss-slash-local-vigilante.

Checking on the programs and their progress, Felicity powered off the computers that were done, and only deactivated the monitors of those that were still working, before she then collected her things and put them into her purse, each item going back to the place where it belonged.

Oliver still stood right where he had when she turned back, but he had somehow gotten his brown leather jacket that had been on the other side of the Foundry a few seconds prior. How he could move that quickly, or that silently would be forever a mystery to Felicity.

Smiling at him as her sign that she was ready to go, Felicity was a bit surprised when Oliver’s hand landed on the small of her back, but she allowed him to lead her towards the stairs and then up, just like he always did when they were in public. With the exception that they weren’t in public right now, but the total and exact opposite, actually, and he still did it. She didn’t mention it though, but rather enjoyed the feeling of his warm hand touching her just above her skin, the heat radiating through the material of her blouse.

Oliver followed her all the way to her car. It was something that first he and Dig, and then later Roy as well, had started to do, wanting to make sure that on the short fifty feet between the door and her car no one would try to kidnap, kill or even just cat call her. The last one was something Roy had answered with a fist full of shirt, twisted around its owner’s neck. Felicity had watched with growing worry for the other man, as her friend had told him very clearly that he would never, ever try to interact with a woman like that ever again, if he wanted his face to stay intact.

Her red Mini Cooper stood where it always stood, parked between the side of an outer wall of Verdant, and a pillar, making it harder for anyone to attack her, or park too close to her car. Before Felicity could get inside of her car though, she felt Oliver’s hand reaching for hers, tugging slightly for her to turn around. And then, he hugged her again, just as sincerely and warmly, as before, but with not as heavy emotions.

That second hug made her even happier than the first one, simply by the fact that this time it wasn’t evoked by her, came without prompt, without reason, and without hesitancy. Not on his side and not on hers either.

Seven heartbeats, that was how long he hugged her, and then another two where his hold tightened every so slightly around her frame, squeezing her carefully against his chest, his breath fanning along her hair.

When he did pull back though, Oliver’s hand sneaked around her body and opened up the door of her Mini, helping her inside, even though she was fully capable of doing so herself, prolonging their contact for another few moments.

“Good night, Felicity.”

Grinning, Felicity squeezed his hand once, before putting her purse onto the passenger seat.

“Night, Oliver.”

Letting him close the door, while she buckled in, Felicity then started the engine and backed out of her parking spot. But when she looked into her rear view mirror, she could still see Oliver standing where she had left him. Even from that distance, she could see the smile on his face and features, even though she could see it anymore, the parking lot too dark for that.

She grinned uncaring, while her brain already started to plot and plan when she could hug him the next time. Sadly not in the office, because of all the ‘needing to keep a professional front’ that was expected of them, but maybe tomorrow night when they would meet in the Foundry again? Or maybe even during their lunch break, when no one was around but Dig?

It just felt too perfect, and Oliver deserved hugs too much to go a day without her at least trying and giving him a minimum of one tight and heartfelt hug.