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A/N: @effie214 gets credit for a major beat of this because of THIS casual heartbreaker.
Title from “Moment” by Nate Ruess. Lyrics to this one are a killer, Olicity-wise, right now.
Please Excuse This Little Bit of Weakness
He gets called away to introduce the concert before they can really get in depth about SCPD suspects, and Felicity finds herself following him backstage, tagging along mostly out of impulse. She watches him give his little speech, swallowing down the proud lump in her throat that still forms when she watches Oliver do all the things he thought he never could.
It brings back a pang in her chest, just briefly, just for a second. Something that feels close to longing, but deeper, something she thought she had left behind, like her ring on the dining room table.
She’s so unsettled, that when Oliver walks offstage, and makes a beeline back to her, it’s like she can’t help herself.
“So, is your girlfriend coming tonight?” She teases him as she turns to fall in step, heading towards the side door they came in. “Is that a conflict of interest, covering the mayor’s big ni–”
Felicity’s question cuts off when Oliver rounds on her, eyes glinting as she takes a step back reflexively. He follows, matching her pace-for-pace until they’re backed into a little empty alcove in the arena hallway.
“I told you to stop calling her that,” Oliver growls, voice practically at Arrow register without the help of the modulator. His eyes mean business too, but they’re fiery enough with something else that Felicity can’t stop herself from baiting him again.
“Because she isn’t?” The feelings that itched at her when she watched him speaking to the concert crowd are the same ones that crept up when Thea first mentioned Susan Williams, accidentally, like she’d already forgotten that they were almost sisters-in-law.
“No she isn’t. Not yet, anyway.” Felicity’s sure Oliver adds that last part just to see if she’ll flinch. She tries her hardest not to. “If she were, I would tell you.”
Her back is pressed flush to the wall and he’s close enough that she can see the ghost of a smile flickers at the corners of his mouth. Oh, hell no.
“You’re really comfortable going high and mighty about not keeping secrets? Really? You feel good all the way atop that particular high horse?”
Oliver’s tiny grin twists up further as his eyes narrow, preparing to spar. Felicity’s still riding high on her earlier conversation with Billy, puffed up on self-righteous relationship confidence, ready to give as good as she gets. The confluence of their particular brands of stubbornness has always been a bit of a perfect storm.
“I’m not the one who started seeing someone else and then hid it,” Oliver offers pointedly, though it’s less “hurt puppy” and more “holier-than-thou” than last week on her balcony. Still, Felicity feels the flush of a guilty conscience and whatever else is in the air between them.
“I apologized for that…” And this is the turning point, the moment when she really should have taken a moment to think. “Besides, it’s not like I keep secrets from him.”
His eyes snap wide in shock instead of narrowing further like Felicity had expected. “You don’t?”
Oh, right. All of her biggest secrets belong to him, too. Billy was one of the first things she’s had to herself in years. And that’s blown open now, just like the rest of this, scattered to the wind like looseleaf in a twister.
“You told him, you…” Oliver’s sputtering questions trail off and he just stares at her expectantly, waiting for her to fill in an answer they both know he’ll hate regardless.
“I told him I work with the Green Arrow.” She’s still defensive even though she knows she’s pretty much lost all right. “He doesn’t know who you are.”
“You… you trust him?” Oliver’s voice breaks along with his eye contact on the question and Felicity can’t tell whether or not it’s the one he really wants to be asking.
“It’s fine.” She brushes it off, determined to keep things light as possible, determined not to answer questions he won’t let himself ask.“He’s a fanboy. He didn’t suspect a thing, just wanted to know everything about you.”
This admission, out of all of them, is the one that seems to stop Oliver in his tracks, expressive eyes flickering to a flinty grey instead of the vibrant blue that churned when he was simply playing with her. This is something different entirely.
“And he’s a cop.” Even his voice has taken on a stormy tone. “A cop who came to town right around the same time as Prometheus.”
For the second time tonight, a brief flash of smugness flits across his face and by the time Felicity fully realizes why, the palm of her left hand is already stinging.
“Take that back,” she orders as he lifts a hand to sooth over his cheek, giving her a disbelieving look she can barely see through all the red.
“We do have to consider all possible suspects,” She’s furiously sure that Oliver doesn’t actually believe what he’s implying; he’s just being cruel. “Is it possible you’ve been so caught up, you missed the clues that you’re sleeping with a serial killer?”
“You think I wouldn’t know?” She spits her response back at him like it’s acid on her tongue. He’s crossed the line, burned out any right to righteous fury with his jealous accusations, and Felicity can’t stop herself from lashing back, pressing buttons like she’s looking for a detonator switch. “I had you figured out, and I wasn’t even sleeping with you at the time.”
That spurs Oliver back towards her, maybe even closer than before. His upper body crowds around her until her knees start to wobble and he braces an arm on the wall beside her. She can even feel him tilt his hips just slightly, knows that but for a few inches, maybe less, she’d be straddling his upper thigh.
“Yeah.” It’s more exhale than spoken word. “I guess you did.”
He cups her face in his free hand and she huffs out a surprised breath that she realizes is his name when she watches his reaction brighten across his face like the the rising sun. They’re fighting, and still he’s looking at her like she has answers to questions he hasn’t even thought of asking, and he’s beautiful and infuriating and so familiar she aches.
Since their split, she’s been avoiding tight spaces with him for exactly this reason. There’s a point of no return, when Oliver gets this close to her, the outside world may as well cease to exist. It’s so powerful, Felicity can’t even find it in herself to be dismayed that her reaction to him hasn’t changed a bit in their months apart.
She presses up on her toes and their lips actually brush, that spark of familiar electricity sizzling between them before he’s sucking in a tremulous breath and pulling back slightly.
“Wait.” She ignores him, and for one brief second, it’s like it used to be. Oliver’s voice is scratchy and his hands have moved to her thighs, sliding up so the tips of his thumbs skim the skin just about the waistline of her pants. She can feel him everywhere, and he tastes just like she remembers, the mintiness from the strips he carries in a thin tin in his breast pocket just barely masking his afternoon coffee.
“You don’t want to do this.” His voice and his grip harden with every word and she hates that he’s scolding her and hates even more that he’s right. “You don’t get to do this. You walked away.”
Oliver’s words are definitive but his body stays right where it is, close enough to do everything but still enough that she knows he’s using every bit of self control to keep from doing anything at all. After a lengthy, tense beat, Felicity realizes he’s waiting for her to open her eyes.
She does and there he is, the man she’s known in a million different ways. The man she was ready to have and hold, now permanently at arms length. The man she thought would kiss her forever, who looks almost repulsed at how close he’s come tonight.
Of course, that’s all her fault too.
“Don’t tease me about Susan Williams anymore,” he warns like it’s an ending, stepping fully back from her. She hadn’t realized her arms were around him, hadn’t realized her eyes had slipped closed. Past the point of no return. She tries to say his name again, but nothing comes out.
Oliver’s voice grates like it’s physically painful as he turns to walk away. “Don’t mock me about having a girlfriend when all I wanted -- all I’ve wanted since I remembered what it felt like to want -- was for you to be my wife.”
It’s a trump card she hadn’t realized was even in the deck and for a second, Felicity forgets how to breathe. By the time she trusts her legs to step out of the alcove and return to real life – her boyfriend’s waiting for her at her place, after all – the concert’s half over and the mayor’s long gone.