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Felicity Smoak has had a bad day. Scratch that – she’s had a bad week, maybe even a bad month. The first insert-sports-metaphor-here was her job. “I’m pretty sure they’re called strikes,” Felicity mumbles.
Felicity works in IT, and she’s awesome at it, if she does say so (and she does). Most of her day-to-day tasks include debugging executives’ computers because none of them are smart enough to know bad porn when they see it (“Not that I would know! I just…I’m just talking to myself, great.”) and generally handling any other minor technology problems that are thrown at the IT department. And she doesn’t mind! Really she doesn’t, she understands this is the Way Things Work. She is on the bottom of the proverbial totem pole, so some grunt work is expected.
And it would have continued being fine – if her boss’s boss’s boss had suddenly decided to completely revamp QC’s security. Suddenly a guy gets a degree and he’s the smartest person in the room. “I went to MI-freaking-T, thank you very much,” Felicity mutters to herself. So, because the new guy has decided to butt in where he isn’t welcome, Felicity’s job just got a whole lot harder. Her department needed all hands on deck to get the changes done by some arbitrarily deadline the new executive thought (erringly, in Felicity’s opinion) was important.
“But I can handle it,” Felicity says, walking up to her apartment door. “I said I wanted something more complicated, and I got it.” She is in the process of unlocking her door – the key gets stuck sometimes – when Mrs. Henderson walks by and gives her the stick eye. She resists the urge to shrink away from the old woman’s stare because literally nothing makes Mrs. Henderson happy these days. She is the requisite grumpy neighbor. Whatever. When her door finally swings open, she does not resist the urge to pump her fist.
“Home sweet home,” she says, tossing her keys on the coffee table and throwing her bag on the couch as she walks by. Yes, her babies are in there, but she is in desperate need of alcohol and sugar. Desperate as in – she needed them yesterday.
“What do we have here,” she asks her fridge. She likes to keep a decent bottle of wine or two in here for days (weeks, months) like this. Not absurdly expensive, but she’ll be damned if all she has to de-stress with is boxed wine. She frowns when she can’t find any wine – not even of the boxed variety – but she persists. Occasionally, Felicity likes to hide things from herself. However, there doesn’t seem to be any wine, or other alcohol, to be found. In the absence of alcohol, an obscene amount of sugar will have to do.
She ambles to her tiny pantry and flings the door open dramatically, silently praying to find something. “Don’t judge me,” she tells the empty apartment crossly when the door bounces off against the wall. She’s a little afraid the doorknob may have dented the wall, but she ignores that possibility in favor of sugar. She hums to herself as she peruses her alarmingly sparse pantry – no chocolate, no caramel, not even any sugary cereals!
Felicity curses under her breath and grudgingly picks her keys up from the table where she dropped them when she came in. Apparently, she has to do some shopping before she can unwind. Internally rolling her eyes at her luck, Felicity resigns herself to her fate. At least now she can buy some extra candy and wine. Maybe even something stronger.
Felicity hums to herself as she checks over her basket. So far she has two bottles of really nice but decently priced cabernet sauvignons, a really cheap pack of local beer, some chocolate, and a pack of twizzlers – because, hey, why the hell not? All that’s left to buy is some tooth-rottingly sweet cereal, and her night will be set.
She maneuvers the basket down the breakfast isle and scans the shelves. She isn’t looking for anything in particular, so maybe something will just jump out at her. She finally spots a box of Fruit Loops and doesn’t even question her immediate desire to grab the last box. She’s so focused on getting to her cereal that she doesn’t even notice the man standing next to the shelves. Her basket bumps into the sides of his legs, and he stumbles back.
“Oh, god! I’m so sorry!”
He chuckles and waves her off. “It’s fine,” he says and shoots her a lazy smile. Felicity is momentarily star struck by his face. His eyes are vividly blue and gorgeous to the point of distraction. And his smile – god, his smile is unbelievable. Normally, a more-than-nice smile and eyes wouldn’t really throw Felicity, but coupled with this guy’s chiseled jaw and three-day old beard? Yeah, she never stood a chance.
“It’s four days, actually,” he corrects her.
Felicity’s eyes widen in realization. “I just said all of that out loud, didn’t I?” she asks with a wince.
“’Fraid so, but I didn’t mind,” he teases gently.
Felicity closes her eyes and draws on her inner reservoirs. Okay, Really Hot Guy may be flirting with you, play it cool. She shrugs. (Good job, Felicity, she congratulates herself.)
While she’s busy having a mental conversation with herself (again), Hot Guy has taken stock of her de-stressing supplies. “That’s a lot to drink for one person.” He says it nonchalantly, but there’s a glint in his eyes that makes Felicity suspicious. Almost like he’s judging her, and Felicity is not in the mood to be judged right now.
“I’ve had a really long week,” she replies reflexively. As if saying it has reminded her why she was here in the first place, Felicity returns her gaze to the shelf, only to find her Fruit Loops gone. Her eyes immediately find her companion’s basket, which now has her box of Fruit Loops. Hot Guy stole her cereal!
(This is strike three.
She thinks this is the point someone usually yells, “You’re out,” but she isn’t leaving until she gets her cereal.)
“You stole my cereal!” she accuses sharply, pointing her finger at him.
He holds his hands up defensively. His face is serious, but his lips keep twitching in the imitation of a smile. “I didn’t steal anything,” he says cautiously, hands still up placatingly. “But maybe if you’re willing to share yours,” he motions to her alcohol-filled basket, “then I’ll share mine.”
Felicity is so used to accidentally spouting innuendos left and right that she has become hyperaware of when other people use them. At least, that’s what she tells herself to explain the next words out of her mouth. “I’m not sleeping with you for cereal!” Her face turns bright right following her exclamation, but she refuses to leave. She wants her cereal, and she is damn well going to get it.
He guffaws, head thrown back, and the sound of his laughter turns several heads. Felicity resolutely ignores them. Instead, she focuses on how the muscles around his neck and the tops of his shoulders (exposed by a very open neckline – thank god) bunch and release with his laughter. If she was a cartoon, Felicity is more than positive she would be drooling right now.
Once he gets himself under control, he gives her another smile. This one is warm and stretches all the way across his face and quite possibly sends butterflies to her stomach. It might be her favorite one yet, if you could have favorite smiles of people whose name you didn’t know.
Felicity shakes her head and narrows her eyes. She will not let the unfairly attractive stranger standing next to her deprive her of her well-earned reward for surviving the day/week/month. “Listen, mister,” she says, moving around her basket to approach him. She ignores his six-feet-plus of height and the (delicious) muscles that are (probably) hiding under his shirt and marches up to him until they are standing toe-to-toe. “I don’t care who you are or where we are, but I will fight you if you don’t give me my cereal.”
Objectively, she knows the words coming out of her mouth are beyond ridiculous. He’s god-knows-how-tall, and she doesn’t even have heels on. Also, judging by the size of her arms, he could probably bodily pick her up and move her out of the way. But does she care? No. Not even a little.
He’s silent for a few minutes, head tilted to the side like he’s contemplating a difficult piece of code (but that may just be her). Finally, he smiles gently and hands of the box without saying anything. She’s regarding him suspiciously but doesn’t want to question her good fortune. She reaches out to take the box from him.
“Thank you,” she says quickly, putting the box in her basket.
She turns around, ready to put him and this strange experience out of her mind, when he clears his throat. Turning back to face him, she raises an eyebrow in question.
“Since I gave you my cereal, I think it’s only fair you give me your number.”
Felicity stares at him. “Fine, but just so we’re clear, I am not trading sex for cereal.”
“Of course not,” he responds seriously, but Felicity can still see his (very blue, very amazing) eyes sparkling with laughter. He reaches into his back pocket and hands her his phone.
She makes a distressed noise in the back of her throat when his phone doesn’t even ask for a passcode after she unlocks it. Honestly, does this guy think he’s Superman or something? She quickly types in her name and number and hands back the phone.
“Thank you very much, Felicity Smoak,” he says formally, eyes still twinkling. “It was nice meeting you.” He sticks his hand out.
Slowly, Felicity grasps his hand. She’s briefly distracted by how big his hand is. It completely dwarfs her hand, almost swallowing it whole. It sends tingles down her spine. When he shakes her hand, Felicity wonder what else his hand – and his fingers – could do, but she pulls her mind back to the present before it can run away from her. The last thing needs is another sex-related babble or innuendo.
Felicity pulls her hand back dazedly and checks her phone.
hi it’s oliver
“It was…nice meeting you, too, Oliver,” she says faintly. She turns around and runs straight into her basket. She ignores the chuckles she can hear from Oliver and continues as if nothing ever happened. She thinks this might be a stress-induced hallucination, but she isn’t willing to actually say those words.
If she didn’t need alcohol and sugar before, she sure as hell does now.
After Felicity is in bed – one bottle of wine, two beers, and half a box of cereal later – her phone pings with an incoming text.
From: Oliver
normally when i ask beautiful women on dates, i ask them to dinner but you seem to really like your cereal. so, felicity smoak, would you like to get breakfast with me?