Chapter Text
Come on, she had to be here! She had been the only reason why he had decided to fly all the way to Star City instead of trashing the invitation immediately. She just had to be here!
Oliver kept turning his head, looking around at all the more-or-less-familiar faces of the people who went to school with him. To his own surprise, he remembered most of the people’s names. He hadn’t thought that would happen because admittedly he hadn’t been the guy to remember a lot of names in high school.
He saw some of the guys of the football team he hung around with ten years back. He saw some of the cheerleaders that had been whooping on the side of the field during the game or in their beds right after the game. He saw a couple of guys that had been too cool for sports. He saw some of the wallflowers he had barely ever seen back in school. He saw the nerdiest nerds that had been in their class, but even with them, she wasn’t to be found.
Had she decided not to come? Had she told the organizers of this party that she didn’t have the time to come to Star City to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their high school graduation? Had she seen the invitation and just trashed it, pretending to never have gotten it in the first place?
No, that just couldn’t be it! She had to be here because there was absolutely no reason for him to be here if it wasn’t for her! The moment he had read the invitation, all he had been able to think about had been seeing her, talking to her and finding out if she had achieved everything she had hoped for in life. That was everything he had hoped for her. She deserved to have achieved everything she had wanted to achieve in her life.
“Have you seen her yet?” Tommy asked, straightening up onto his tiptoes to get a better look over the crowd of people, too.
“No, not yet,” Oliver answered a little too quickly before he took a sip of his champagne and asked way too late, “Who are you talking about exactly?”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” Tommy replied with a meaningful gaze. “Why else would you have come here if not for her?”
Oliver bit his tongue. No matter how often his sister or Tommy had asked him about it, he had always denied that the only reason he would come here was her. It had seemed desperate after all these years. So he had acted like he had just been interested in seeing his former classmates again. Tommy and Thea had been right though: she was the only reason why he had come here.
He had hated high school. He wanted to forget all about it or at least the most of it. It had probably been one of the most terrible times of his life. She had been the only person that had made his time in high school memorable. Everyone else had just been… there.
So she just had to be here, Oliver thought once more and turned around on his heels to check if she was anywhere near the stage, and-
“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” he said immediately when his movement sent him bumping into someone.
He looked down, seeing his white shirt soaked with champagne. When he turned his head to the woman he had bumped, he saw her wiping off some liquid from her red dress with her delicate hands.
“I am so sorry,” he repeated hastily, putting aside his own glass of champagne and offering a few paper napkins from one of the tables to help her dry the fabric of her dress.
“It’s okay. I should have probably kept a little more distance.”
Only now did he look into her face. Her beautiful blue eyes weren’t framed by the glasses he remembered from ten years ago. Her hair was put up to a wavy hairstyle that made her look all the more beautiful than she already was in his memory. Her full lips were painted in a deep red that perfectly matched the color of her dress.
Oliver felt his heart skip a beat. Every once in awhile in the last ten years, a thought of her had snuck into his mind, and he had wondered what she would be like now. And only onerously he had managed to forbid himself to read each and every article about her and figure out what she was doing because it would have been like torturing himself. It would only remind him of what he could have had if he had fought for her instead of just giving up.
“Felicity.”
Her name escaped his lips before he could stop himself. If there had been any reason for him to not say her name before, it seemed irrelevant the moment she looked at him. A soft smile played on her lips.
“Oliver. Hi.”
God, she was even more beautiful than he had imagined she would be.
“I am so sorry for bumping into you,” he said, pushing aside every thought of telling her how beautiful she was or how he had been obsessively thinking about seeing her again for weeks. “I hope your dress will survive.”
“I am sure it will,” Felicity replied with a forgiving smile, wiping the paper napkins over the wet stains on her dress one last time before putting them back on the table and smoothing some invisible creases from the dress. “And even if it doesn’t, at least I will.”
“That’s all that matters to me,” it escaped Oliver’s lips before he could stop himself.
But why stop himself in the first place, he wondered. It was true. Who cared about the dress? If she didn’t care about it, why would he?
He felt his heart skip another beat at her smile. With her petite stature, she had to raise her head to look at him despite the high heels she wore. She had her head cocked slightly and her lips pursed cutely. He had never been able to say ‘no’ to that adorable face.
Ten years ago, he would have just crossed the distance between them, framed her face with his calloused fingertips and kissed her with all that was in his heart. Ten years ago, he wouldn’t have wasted one thought on doing so because he would have known they had both wanted it. But now? Now Oliver wasn’t sure what to do.
“You look nice,” Felicity said, still smiling at him.
Why was it so much easier for her to talk than it was for him? But then... it had always been so much easier for her than it had been for him!
“Thank you,” he said with a shy smile. “You look… amazing.”
Amazing still didn’t really fit, Oliver thought. She had looked amazing ten years ago when she hadn’t even tried to look good. She looked amazing with her hair tied up to a messy bun, wearing sweatpants, one of his shirts and absolutely no make-up. Now she looked… stunning.
“Thank you,” she said.
Oliver didn’t miss the way she blushed and avoided his gaze for a moment by looking down at the floor. God, how he had missed seeing her blush like that! The last time he had seen her blushing like that she had been naked and spread out in front of him. Back then he had been able to watch the blush spread from her cheeks down her neck over her chest and even further down between her breasts where it had slowly faded away. Now the neckline of her dress only allowed him to watch the blush spreading down to her upper chest where it disappeared under the red fabric.
“Okay, I will leave the two of you alone,” Tommy said, interrupting Oliver and Felicity’s intense eye contact, “before you actually start undressing each other like your eyes already do.”
God, was he blushing now, too?! Oliver could swear that he was because he could feel warmth on his cheeks. Suddenly he felt like the same shy school boy as he did when he had talked to her back in high school. It was ridiculous since he had never been shy… not until he had met her.
Pressing his lips together and staring at his shoes like they held a precious secret, Oliver thought about what he could say, but nothing came to mind. He shot a glance in Felicity’s direction, hoping she would take the lead in the conversation, but she didn’t even seem to notice his glance. She was busy looking around, almost like she was avoiding his eyes.
“Nice weather today, right?”
The words fell from Oliver’s lips without anything he could have done to stop them. If he hadn’t blushed before, he knew that he was definitely blushing now.
Weather? He talked to her about the weather? Now you’ve completely lost your mind, Queen, he thought.
To Oliver’s surprise, though, Felicity chuckled and finally looked at him, making his heart race in his chest.
“It is indeed,” Felicity replied. “And it serves as a great reason for some small talk because I was actually wondering what to say to you, too.”
“Why is it so weird?” he asked, huffing a quiet laugh. “We used to talk for hours.”
“It was a long time ago,” Felicity replied. “We haven’t talked in years.”
“Still feels like yesterday,” Oliver replied.
Felicity looked at him for a long moment.a Although she was smiling, Oliver could see the glint of sadness in her eyes, and probably she could see it mirrored in his eyes, too.
Ten years without having talked to her had been a long time.
Just when Felicity was about to say something more, a voice sounded from the speakers, asking everyone to sit down for the show program and the dinner.
“Oh, I haven’t even checked where I am supposed to sit,” Oliver said, looking around like he could find his name on one of the place cards from where he was standing in the middle of the dance floor.
“I think Tommy is already signaling you that you should get to him,” Felicity said, nodding to where Tommy was standing at a table and waving in their direction.
“Where do you…?”
“Oh, I think my place is on the exact opposite side of the room,” Felicity said with a chuckle, pointing at the free seat next to Laurel Lance who Oliver knew had been her best friend in high school. “I analyzed the seating arrangements, and I think the organizing team tried to avoid placing two classmates who ever dated anywhere close to one another. I guess they wanted to make it easier for our new partners.”
Oliver hadn’t brought a date. There was no one for him to bring. Had she brought someone? He hadn’t seen anyone with her, but then he had only just now run into her. Maybe her plus-one was somewhere here and talking to someone and-
“We should sit down,” Felicity hastily said with a smile, breaking the awkward silence.
“Yeah,” Oliver said unwillingly.
“Yeah,” Felicity repeated with a sigh.
They stood like that for one awkward moment longer. Only when Felicity smiled at him shortly before turning around and heading to her table, did he turn away and head to his table where Tommy was still waving at him.
“How did it go?” Tommy asked as soon as Oliver had sat down next to him.
“How did what go?” Oliver asked. Tommy shot him a side glance, making very clear that he knew that Oliver knew what he was talking about. Oliver only shrugged his shoulders. “We were together in high school and have not talked to or seen each other in ten years. What did you expect?”
“I guess the actual question is, what did you expect?” Tommy asked back.
Oliver didn’t answer, instead taking one of the menu cards and reading.
Yeah, what had he expected?
“Okay, I think this archery thing might really work for me,” Tommy said right next to him. When Oliver lifted his gaze from the bow in his hands, he saw his best friend wiggling his eyebrows towards some of the girls in their PE class. “The ladies seem to like this.”
Only distantly listening to his friend’s words about which of the girls he should concentrate on first, Oliver drew the bow, aimed his first arrow at the target and let go. The arrowhead hit right in the middle, and Tommy whistled to admit that he was impressed by his friend’s aim.
“Looks like you’re stealing my show,” he said. “What girl are you trying to attract?”
“None,” Oliver muttered under his breath and waited until Tommy was looking away before he shot a short glance to the side.
The beautiful blonde who had held his heart for months now without knowing it was examining the bow doubtfully. She looked at her friend Laurel and said, “I really don’t get why people are so into this. It’s just… ridiculous.”
Sighing, Oliver drew the bow again, aiming the next arrow. It hit right next to the earlier one. How come every girl was impressed by this except the only girl he would like to impress. She thought it was all ridiculous? Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with a less… extraordinary girl?
Oliver drew his bow again, intending to hit the target with another arrow when his eyes glanced to Felicity once more. She was aiming an arrow at her target, too, cutting quite a figure. She had strong legs and arms that weren’t positioned exactly perfectly, but her stance wasn’t bad, either. Her eyes were focused on her target intently. She looked like a warrior princess, beautifully dangerous.
When he felt his pants tighten at the thought, he flinched and-
“Ow!”
Oliver looked down at his hands with panic in his eyes. Had he really just-
“Mr. Queen! Have you lost your mind?! You cannot just shoot your classmates!” the teacher yelled at him, hurrying towards where Felicity had fallen to the floor, staring at where the arrow had grazed her thigh.
Before the teacher reached Felicity, though, Oliver had already dropped his bow and was running towards her. He kneeled down on her side and wanted to put a hand to her knee, but hastily controlled himself and looked at her with wide eyes.
“Felicity, I am so sorry! I am so sorry! I was just-“ – thinking about how hot you looked in those tight leggings and with the bow and arrow and suddenly I felt turned on and when I realized it I accidentally let go of the arrow and shot it at you – “distracted!”
“You shot me! You actually shot me!” she said, looking at him with angry eyes. “I am bleeding! Do you see that?! There is blood running down my leg!”
Oliver gulped guiltily. With a nod of his head, he put one arm under her knees and the other around her waist, then lifted her from the floor easily.
“Hey, what are you doing?!” she asked, almost screeching it into his ear.
“Yes, Mr. Queen, what are you doing?” the teacher echoed Felicity’s words, positioning herself right in front of them.
“I will carry her to the nurse. She is obviously hurt and since it is my fault-“
“Damn right!” Felicity interrupted him, staring at him angrily.
“- I want to make sure she will be taken care of,” Oliver finished his sentence.
He didn’t give the teacher any opportunity to insist that someone else should take her to the nurse. Instead Oliver just started walking away from the training field and towards the school building.
Great start, man, Oliver cursed himself in his mind. He had barely talked five sentences to her since… ever. And now he had shot her. The chances of ever getting a date with Felicity Smoak, the smartest girl in the school, had been little before. Now they were like… nonexistent.
“What the hell were you thinking?!” she suddenly said, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking at him angrily. Oliver pressed his lips together tightly and looked down with guilt written all over his face. “I mean… of everything you could have hit with that arrow, you had to hit me?! Do you know how much that hurts? I am bleeding! Bleeding! Do you have any idea what would have happened when you had aimed a little more terribly than you already did?! You could have hit organs! I hope you do realize that in that case I would have expected you to donate one of your kidneys or part of your liver or whatever other organ you would have dama- Hey! Not so fast! Not so fast! Not so fast! I don’t want to have my neck broken!”
Oliver pressed his lips together more and tried to walk down the stairs a little bit slower, but with each more word that left her full lips, Oliver felt his pants tighten even more. He had felt so sorry before. He still did in some ways because, after all, she was still hurt and probably in pain, but her babbling made it really hard to stay remorseful. Instead he was completely and utterly turned on.
He felt the blood gathering in the one part of his body right in between his legs. He had listened to her babble multiple times before, but never had that babble been directed at him. Never had it been said with so much anger in her voice. Feeling sorry while being so turned on was really hard!
Hard, he thought with a groan.
“Hey! Why are you groaning?! I am the one in pain!”
“Sorry,” Oliver muttered and opened the door to the infirmary.
As soon as he placed Felicity onto the med table, the nurse came rushing in from the next room. “What happened?” she asked.
“He shot me!” Felicity answered immediately and pointed at Oliver while crossing her arms in front of her chest again.
Oliver bit his tongue when the nurse looked at him with an accusing gaze, and he pushed his hands into his jeans pockets, staring down at his feet.
“Okay, let me take a look,” the nurse said and examined the slightly bleeding wound on Felicity’s thigh. When the nurse cut Felicity’s leggings open a little more to get a closer look, Oliver kept his eyes focused on somewhere far away from her exposed skin.
Angry babble in combination with too much exposed skin would only make it even worse. He didn’t know what he would do if he became any more turned on than he already was.
“Okay… We might have to do stitches. Lucky you, there is a doctor around today for some school project. I will ask if he can come by and do this. Just wait here and press this to the wound.”
Handing Felicity the gauze, she smiled comfortingly and hurried away.
“I am really sorry,” Oliver whispered. “I am- What are you doing?”
“I am leaving,” Felicity stated, throwing the gauze away and jumping off the med table. She obviously underestimated the pain in her thigh though because she was tumbling right against him. If Oliver hadn’t wrapped his arms around her quickly, she would have fallen to the floor. “It’s not even that bad. It just felt worse at the beginning. It was just the shock. You don’t get shot at every day. But now I am over it, so I am fine.”
“Felicity, your face is pale,” worried Oliver, pushing her back onto the med table and keeping her there despite her struggling against his hold. “It’s really better when the doctor-“
“No!” she said firmly. “I don’t need a doctor. I don’t need his stitches with his needles and- Nope, I am- Oh frack!”
When the nurse came back in, the doctor by her side, Felicity flinched, and her hands grabbed Oliver’s forearm, holding tightly for support. Her nails were digging into his flesh, but Oliver didn’t mind. He just put his hand on hers and squeezed gently. She looked at him in slight fear, and Oliver smiled comfortingly.
“Okay, yes, we will have to do some stitches here,” the doctor said.
Felicity looked at Oliver, wordlessly asking for his support, and Oliver squeezed her hands once more. He watched her observing each of the doctor’s moves. She really was scared and it only increased when the doctor approached her with a syringe in his hand. It was his fault she was that scared. If he hadn’t shot her, she wouldn’t need stitches. If she didn’t need stitches, she wouldn’t be scared right now. He needed to fix that.
Before he could think twice, he put his fingers to Felicity’s chin, turned her head away from the doctor and towards him and pressed his lips to hers gently. Felicity didn’t respond.
What the hell was he doing?! First he had barely ever talked to her because they were just so different and didn’t have the same friends. There was just no way genius Felicity Smoak would ever want to have anything to do with the idiotic rich-boy Oliver Queen, no matter how madly he had fallen in love with how she bit her bottom lip and blushed when she felt embarrassed or how she could babble about scientific facts Oliver wouldn’t even be able to repeat when he would concentrated on them. Now he was shooting arrows at her and attack-kissing her in less than fifteen minutes! What the hell was wrong with his brain when she was around?
Just when he was about to pull back and admit that distracting her by giving into his own desire had been a really bad and stupid idea, Felicity opened her lips to him and shyly responded to the kiss. Her hands hesitatingly let go of his arm and grabbed the front of his shirt instead, clawing at him from what he hoped was something else than the need for comfort and distraction. He could get lost in the kiss. It felt so good. Her lips were so soft, the scent of her skin so sweet-
It wasn’t until she flinched that he pulled away. He gazed over his shoulder towards the doctor, seeing him putting the syringe away with a grin on his face. “If I had known you’d bring your own anesthetic, we wouldn’t have needed the medics, I guess.”
Felicity blushed and bit down on her bottom lip, one of the uncountable images of her Oliver never wanted to forget. He swiped his thumb over her lip, releasing it from the maltreatment of her teeth. Then he gently brushed his lips against hers once more.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” he told her, kissing the tip of her nose.
“Me too,” Felicity whispered not more loudly than a breath. When Oliver looked at her with hope and surprise, it seemed to elicit another one of her babbles as she quickly continued, “but then you shot me, and now I need stitches, so… you might have squandered your chances of… whatever. I mean shooting an arrow at me is not really the best way to start a relationship. Not to say that we would have started a relationship because the kiss was really nice, but a kiss is only a kiss and nothing more. Besides, like I stated before, you shot me, and then I panicked and you kissed me, so it wasn’t really of your own volition and more from the need to protect yourself from me because I might have broken your arm otherwise and-“
Oliver cut her off with another kiss. He cupped her face and bent her head back, so he could deepen the kiss. His tongue traced the outline of her lips and when she opened her mouth to him, her tongue met his in a dance that felt like they had done it a thousand times before. When their lips parted, Oliver brushed his against hers once more and only then pulled back more fully, so he could look at her.
“I know this comes a little late, but,” Oliver started, gathering his courage to say the words he had wanted to say multiple times before but had never dared to say them, afraid to be rejected, “would you like to go out to dinner with me?”
“Since you shot an arrow at me, the least you should do is invite me to dinner,” she replied, chuckling a little shyly.
“In that case you have to go out with me at least twice,” Oliver replied, pecking the tip of her nose. “One time” – Oliver kissed the right corner of her mouth – “so I can apologize for shooting the arrow at you. And a second time” – Oliver kissed the left corner of her mouth – “just because I want to go out with you.” He kissed her lips gently. “What do you say?”
Felicity looked at him with slight hesitation in her eyes and when she bit down on her bottom lip again, he freed it from her teeth with a smile. He could do this every day from now on.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
Smiling, Oliver leaned down and kissed her once more, longer this time. His right hand moved into the crook of her neck, and he could feel goosebumps on her skin where he touched her.
When the doctor was done – when had he done the stitches?! – Felicity tried to get up from the med table, but Oliver hastily put an arm under her knees and one around her waist then lifted her into his arms.
“I can walk, Oliver.”
“Of course you can. Doesn’t mean I can’t carry you,” he told her with a wink and she let her head rest against his shoulder and chuckled softly which widened Oliver’s smile only more.
“Need another drink?”
Felicity turned around and smiled when she saw Oliver standing right in front of her, holding out a glass of champagne for her while smiling back at her.
Why did his smile have to be just as sweet as it had been ten years back when it had made her fall head over heels in love with him? And why did he have to wear a bowtie and tuxedo like he knew she loved?
Why did he have to look so good at all?
He was more muscular than he had been ten years before. His chest was broader, and with some imagination she could even see the abs through his white dress shirt. He had to be working out a lot to have a body like that! And the new haircut, shorter than in high school, in combination with that scratchy-looking stubble was just perfect. How much she would love to reach out her hand and stroke her fingertips over his scalp and cheek!
Hastily Felicity took a sip of her drink, pushing those thoughts away.
It had been ten years since she had last seen him. No matter how her body might still react to his, they were two completely different people now. Ten years back they had been kids who had fallen crazily in love with each other. She had no idea who he was now, but whoever he was, she was sure that he wasn’t the same. She had changed a lot in the last ten years. Oliver probably had, too.
“How did you like Madame Butterfly?” she asked, putting on a polite smile.
“The opera?” Oliver asked, his eyes widening slightly. “Never seen it.”
Felicity frowned, cocking her head and smiling teasingly at him. “You do know that we just had a song of said opera presented to us during the program?”
“We did?” Oliver asked between clenched teeth and chuckled quietly. “I have to admit that I barely paid attention.”
“Checking out what girl to take to your hotel suite to bring back some memories of high school?” Felicity kept teasing, feeling her stomach twisting painfully at her words and simultaneously trying to convince herself that she was only teasing him and not trying to find out if anyone was waiting for him to return.
She did notice that Oliver wasn’t wearing a wedding band. She also noticed that almost every girl who came without a date had glanced at him multiple times during the program. Admittedly, she herself had been no exception.
“Absolutely no interest in reviving most of the memories from high school, and all the girls stories are definitely the ones I want to ban from my mind.”
Felicity lowered her gaze. Of course he had no interest in that! Why would he? It had been high school. They had been kids. They had tried and failed, and now it was over. Well, it had been over the last ten years.
“I didn’t mean to imply that-“
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Felicity hastily interrupted, forcing herself to smile at him though his words still made her heart ache. Despite telling herself that it would be stupid, she had still hoped. Stupid her! “I mean… It was high school. We were kids. And I was the one who broke up with you.”
“I think we both agreed to the break-up,” Oliver replied, and she could see him biting his tongue while simultaneously avoiding her gaze.
She knew he always did that when he felt the emotions he wanted to hide could be seen in his eyes. It had been exactly the look she had imagined on his face when she had broken up with him on the phone ten years ago. The expression on his face had haunted her for weeks even after they had broken up.
“Felicity, I-“ Oliver started, but stopped when his phone rang. “Sorry.”
Felicity shook her head, watching him move his hand to the inside of his jacket and pull out his phone. He only cast a short glance at the display before he took the call, still avoiding looking at her and instead directing his gaze somewhere behind her.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
God, she had really made a complete idiot of herself!
She had come here, secretly thinking that maybe seeing Oliver again and talking to him could give them the chance to start over again. Like after ten years of not seeing each other he would spread his arms and take her back like nothing had ever happened… as if the last ten years hadn’t happened! They were adults now. Just because a part of her was still like the young girl that had fallen head over heels in love with him, it didn’t mean that he still felt anything for her.
Of course she should have known that Oliver wasn’t single! He might not have a wife, and his relationship might not be as serious enough to invite his partner to a class reunion, but Oliver had never been the kind of guy to endure loneliness well. He had always found a girl to compensate the feeling of loneliness. Why should that have changed?
“No, sweetheart, it’s okay,” he said softly. “No. No, no, I am coming home.”
Well, maybe it was more serious than she had let herself admit. If he left a party early to go home to his girlfriend, it had to be serious. Although the party was not actually worth staying anyway, Felicity added a little bitterly.
“I love you, too. Bye, sweetheart.”
When Oliver looked at her, Felicity hastily put back on her smile, hoping it looked more believable than it felt.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver almost whispered. “I need to go home. Lily is-”
“No need to explain anything,” Felicity interrupted hastily.
Had he flinched at her words? Had he wanted to really explain to her why he needed to leave? Felicity bit her tongue, waiting for Oliver to say something more, whatever that would be.
“It was really nice to see you again, Felicity.”
“It was nice seeing you, too,” Felicity replied, still smiling what she considered bravely though her face already hurt.
Slowly Oliver leaned forward. He put a hand to her elbow and lowered his head until his lips brushed over her cheek before they pressed to her skin a little more firmly, so she could feel his stubble scratch her skin right around his lips. Felicity felt her heart pounding against her ribs even more firmly. Her heartbeat only grew stronger when Oliver pulled away and looked at her with a smile that she had always considered hers, at least when they were in high school.
“Bye, Felicity.”
“Bye, Oliver.”
He stayed only a second longer before he pulled back his hand, gave her a last smile and then turned around heading to the exit. Felicity watched him pushing through the dancing people, every now and then waving goodbye at some people, and finally leaving through the door.
So that was it, Felicity thought.
She had wanted to know if there was still a chance for her and Oliver. She had wondered what would have happened if they had never broken up or seen each other again afterwards. It was why she had come here because she had always felt like the door had been left ajar between the two of them. Now that she stood here alone at the corner of the dance floor, the answer was ridiculously obvious. She should have known before, shouldn’t she? It wasn’t like Oliver had grieved their relationship for too long.
Well, at least now she could forever close the door on that chapter of her life and finally move on.