Archive of Our Own

1.

“This is a really bad idea,” Felicity pointed out, not caring if she sounded like a broken record.

“I have the antidote,” Oliver reminded her as they made their way to the noisy warehouse. 

Felicity frowned. “Which you’re only 95% sure will work.” 

Oliver hummed in reply, which was code for that was probably an exaggeration but I will continue to lie so you don’t freak out. It was almost considerate except a) she knew his code so the point was moot, b) she had plenty of reason to freak.

As they approached the entrance, the bass from indoors made Felicity’s blood boil as the humid air clung to her skin. Her hair was in its usual ponytail but she felt damp strands against the nape of her neck, and touching her back above the fabric of her dress.

The city had been struck with a heatwave for almost an entire week. Soon after the warm front had settled over Starling City, the reports of lewd behavior had begun, initially chalked up to the heatwave and full moon combination; but soon a new drug had been discovered. It’d been peddled as a strong aphrodisiac-slash-performance enhancer in mist form; its creator seemed less nefarious and mad than The Count, but there had been casualties from the airborne drug nonetheless.

It had taken them thirty-six hours to track the operation down to this building in the Warehouse District, where they now tried to push their way into the wave of… amorous humans that crowded the door.

“I don’t think they have a permit for this,” Felicity growled as she dodged a very insistent hand. Oliver handed her the ampule with the antidote, and she clung to him, letting his bigger frame surround her as they pushed through the sea of people. 

The island herbs were slightly gross on her tongue, but the aftertaste was… minty. She watched as he reached into his back pocket and uncovered his own ampule, cracking it and swallowing it in a flash. 

He’d opted for designer jeans and a cotton t-shirt for this recon, and her hands tried not to wander too far over the muscles, but as he reached a wall within the warehouse and pressed her against it, she let one of her knees rise and press into the outside of his thigh. When his hand reached for her and grasped her behind the knee, she had to stifle a moan. It was so hot around them, and his hands felt like fire which should make his touch uncomfortable or unbearable, but it just fanned the flames within her.

To their right, Felicity could see people under the effect of the drug partaking in heavy make-out sessions and very likely countless sexual acts as well, though it was thankfully too dark to see well… it was part of the plan - they had video surveillance plus Roy had gotten inside before he got kicked out saving a group of underage girls from the crowd. But even Roy with his super strength had been affected, and Oliver’s choice of knocking the boy unconscious probably had a lot to do with Oliver being a paranoid older brother, but it had worked nonetheless. 

The plan that night was to find out who was releasing the mist and follow them until Oliver could use his vigilante voice to scare them into revealing the supplier; of course, that was if they didn’t fall prey to the magic Viagra.

Oliver’s hands rubbed circles against the back of her thigh, and she gasped for air. Panic rose in her throat as she wondered if the antidote had failed.

“There,” Oliver’s voice broke through her thoughts, “your nine o’clock.” 

She blinked twice - her eyes didn’t adjust as quickly with stupid contacts instead of glasses - and finally noticed the men loading canisters of bright blue liquid into the fog machines.

Oliver turned them so his back was against the wall, and his scruff scratched the soft skin of her neck. Something that felt distinctly like a tongue brushed her earlobe, before his nose brushed against the metal bar in her cartilage, and she couldn’t hold in the moan that left her throat. Heat pooled at her center, threatening to consume her.

There was a desperation in her movements as she tried to press her hips into his, hoping for any sort of pressure - anything that could lead to a much needed release.

“I think… I think the antidote isn’t working,” she informed him, as the hand still on her thigh slid up just slightly.

Oliver pulled his torso away from her, which only angled their lower bodies closer together, until she had no doubt he too was feeling very much affected by non-platonic feelings. He pulled away from her neck until he could look into her eyes. “What do you mean?” he said, his features unchanged as if they were just having dinner at Big Belly Burger and she’d asked him a normal question. “I was just trying to see where they went,” he explained.

She twisted around and noticed that by kissing her neck and ear, he had been able to inconspicuously watch the area behind the makeshift stage. The realization hit her like a bucket of ice water. “Right!” She exclaimed as she turned back to face him, feeling incredibly self conscious. “I take that back. Antidote is working just fine. I have no idea why I would think otherwise…” 

“Felicity,” he said softly, his voice getting drowned out by the loud techno music and the various noises around them; but she could feel the syllables as he spoke, every part of his body seemingly vibrating against hers wherever they still touched.

She gulped. “Yeah?” 

He leaned forward, his free hand splayed against her lower back until it felt like they were pressed together everywhere. “I promise you that I had no intention of letting things get this far,” he whispered against her ear, and his nose nuzzled against the metal bar again. “But trust me - it’s not the mist.” 

“Oh!” Her thigh rose higher until it was wrapped around his hip. “It’s a good thing Diggle sat this one out then,” she managed to get out.

“I would agree… now let’s make our way down to the area behind the stage so we can find this guy and stop him.” 

The mission, Felicity remembered. Her own libido (and his) would have to wait. “Lead the way.” 

2.

Felicity had never felt so out of place as she did at Oliver Queen’s Class Reunion. The whole thing still felt very prom-like, except… pricier. Apparently this was what was expected from Starling City Preparatory Academy.

Oliver had been opposed to going in the first place, but then a case had fallen in their lap - via Laurel Lance. Apparently one of the crime bosses in the Glades had a long history getting off on technicalities; his lawyer, Nicholas Chiavelli was a classmate of Oliver’s (and Laurel’s). 

The plan would be to find Nick, trick him into an old rivalry, and plant a bug on him to find out what he knew - because Laurel was above openly violating lawyer/client priviledge, but not below asking them to do it for her. She didn't actually blame Laurel for this one, because Chiavelli was crooked enough to inspire Felicity to google enough lawyer jokes to make Diggle and Oliver cringe for days. 

The relaxed atmosphere of the reunion seemed like a good setting for their plan, even if Felicity's dress had cost her a pretty dime (which she fully intended to expense): charcoal silk with a high neckline. 

She tried to stay by Oliver’s side as much as possible, using her tablet to ping the cell phone location of the assumedly crooked lawyer, but it seemed he was still not hitting the nearest cell tower yet.

It was actually quite easy to act like Oliver’s date, especially when he brought her a glass of wine. She accepted it, trusting him to know enough about her taste - truthfully, the two of them could communicate wordlessly fairly well. It wasn’t just easy and simple exchanges they could have without saying a word either; she’d grown accustomed to stopping him with just one look or touch. As she drank the wine slowly, savoring it, she realized there was a level of intimacy she shared with Oliver that she had never even had with the few long-term boyfriends she’d had. 

She chalked up the sudden warmth in her chest to the quality of the wine. While hadn’t gone to her own reunion, she’d been fairly sure there had not been an open bar, and there had been no bottles of wine or whiskey older than the graduates themselves on the menu.

“This is good wine,” she informed him.

He smirked back at her, and opened his mouth to say something when an electronic beep stopped him. 

“He’s here,” she announced. “Or within a square mile, give or take.”

Oliver angled himself so he could watch the door from where they stood. Felicity leaned into him, pressing her lips into his neck. “Felicity,” he growled, but she could feel his arm wrap around her, pressing her closer.

“What? I thought this was part of the plan,” she explained, pulling back just slightly, but letting her knuckles graze the unusually smooth expanse of his neck. “Something about Chiavelli being a competitive douche - your words, not mine - and trying to get into all of your girlfriends’ pants.” 

“First of all, there weren’t that many girlfriends in high school,” he argued. 

She huffed against his chin.

“Okay, there were… enough. But mostly it was Laurel, and he… succeeded. Once. While we were on a break.” 

“Harsh,” Felicity commented.

“We were just kids,” he said while shrugging. His voice did not seemed to carry any real lingering pain or resentment, just possibly some regret, and she sighed.

He tensed as her breath brushed his jawline with no set goal.

In her mind, this was payback for the sex mist bust; truth be told, she’d gotten used to the ebb and flow of their relationship, so when Oliver had acted as if he had not whispered those words into her ear in that warehouse, she’d played along. Of course, the fact he’d had a physical reaction to their… acting… could mean absolutely nothing. But coupled with their near misses over the past several months, it didn’t feel like nothing. It felt like everything, and it was enough to cause her brain to essentially BSOD on her if she thought about it too hard.

She’d mostly succeeded at avoiding it, but it seemed rather futile, she realized as she pulled back just slightly so she could take another sip of her wine. 

Time stopped as his thumb reached over to rub at the corner of her mouth, she did not resist the urge to lick her lips, letting her tongue brush against the pad of his finger, tasting his skin, along with the drop of wine he’d tried to wipe off with his original touch.

His eyes stopped shifting between her and the door, and focused solely on her. His hand moved to her neck, and then his face was an inch from hers. She could almost see the struggle inside him through his eyes, between his own brand of honor and responsibility and the desire, so she made the decision for him as she rose the final inch and captured his lower lip between hers.

He remained passive for a beat or two, but then his mouth was moving against hers, his tongue brushing against her lips before stroking against hers. This wasn’t the type of PDA they were putting on for Chiavelli or even the rest of Oliver’s classmates; it was actually so intimate, Felicity had to remind herself they were in public.

Oliver’s hand cupped the back of her neck, his hand spanned across her skin, his wrist pressed against her collarbone as his fingertips found their way through her up-do and dug into her scalp; it stoked the fire within her. It reminded her of the heatwave, but she couldn’t blame this on the weather; it made her wonder if his touch would always feel like a fever.

He tugged on her head slightly, dipping her in one direction as he went the opposite way, and she was suddenly grateful she’d once again ditched her glasses. It felt like he was mapping her lips and her tongue and every inch of her he could reach. 

The air felt thinner in the room, and Felicity wondered if she should ask for an oxygen break or what. She braced herself with a hand on his stomach, deciding to stick this out - for fear of inflating his ego even more. That was something they decidedly did not need, not to mention the fact he was directly challenging her attempt to get back at him.

Her fingers curled around his suspenders inside his jacket; she twisted the elastic around her grip once, then twice, and she felt the sharp intake of his breath as his designer pants hitched a little higher. He bit her lip in return, his free hand wrapping under her arm and curling around her shoulder blade, pulling her closer to him; the touch against the silk felt like it was directly on her skin. 

She tried not to notice how his forearm brushed the side of her breast just slightly, and failed. Just as Felicity felt herself slipping away from their surroundings, the unmistakeable sound of a throat being cleared broke their spell.

Oliver’s lips were gone, but the hand on the back of her head pulled her closer, letting her bury her face into his neck. She took a few deep breaths to try to calm down, going from hearing her own heartbeat echoing in her head, to hearing a strained conversation between Laurel and Oliver.

“… he has been sitting at the bar, and he has definitely noticed you,” Laurel was saying, her tone equal parts playful teasing and awkward discomfort.

Felicity unwrapped her hand from Oliver’s suspenders, her fingers grateful for the restored blood flow, and she pulled away entirely, taking a half step back from him without risking a look at his face. Instead, she turned to look at Laurel, who smiled at her, only the slightest twinge of pain in her expression.

“Is our mutual friend around?” Laurel asked, glancing at the sea of people, looking for the elusive vigilante; at least she’d been on good terms with the Hood and his associates for the past several weeks, much to the team’s relief.

“I’m sure he’s here somewhere,” Oliver replied, and Felicity glanced at him, seeing the obvious smirk on his face, except this time it wore the faint shade of her lipstick remnants.  

She squeezed his arm, her face pointedly advising him to tone it down because secret identities. Then she reached over to wipe his lips clean, wanting to get this mission done and over with because she needed some space from him posthaste…

3

Felicity gnawed on her thumb as she watched Diggle examine Oliver’s wound before re-bandaging it. It was such a bad habit on her part, and she had at least gotten to the point where she just worried the skin of her finger pad and therefore saved her nails in the process, but she couldn’t help but worry.

As Diggle hummed in satisfaction at the improvement, Felicity felt herself start to relax - until her computer beeped. 

Then her tablet.

Then her phone.

Overall, not an uncommon occurrence as she did have them setup to sync, but then Oliver’s phone was vibrating on her desk and she frowned and reached for her tablet. 

“Oh, this is bad,” she gasped as she watched the news article load.

They had been at a luncheon summit for several multinational companies four days earlier, smiling politely through boring conversations as caterers rushed to keep up with the large group of people, when forty men had stormed the resort in with ski masks, machine guns, and video equipment. 

They had spent fourteen hours as hostages while several CEOs had been forced to come clean on film about shady business dealings; the one who refused had been shot in front of the group. 

Maybe it had been hypocritical of the two of them to be so angry at their captors, but some things were better done in the cover of night and by people with morals instead of a group of violent men with anarchist tendencies.  

To make matters worse, Diggle hadn’t been able to get to them thanks to the tactical nightmare that was a hilltop resort. 

Felicity ended up having to fake an allergic reaction until the two of them had been led out of the ballroom and into the kitchen area where Oliver had finally been able to take out the… competition, so to speak. She had forsaken her rule of going less lethal, since protecting their identities was their number one priority, and there had been no opportunity for him to suit up. Plus, these guys had shot a man twelve feet from her, she had reminded herself as she’d dragged bodies into an industrial sized freezer.

Oliver had re-emerged thirty minutes later, blood soaking through his shirt on the right side by his waist, courtesy of a bad guy with a carving knife. He’d stumbled just slightly as he made his way to her, a sign his injure had been even worse than she could see, but he’d reassured her that the men who hadn’t seen him were unconscious and tied up, and the rest were dead - she could call Quentin and the cavalry in.

She’d bandaged him as well as she could, and helped him into his suit jacket, stopping the bleeding long enough for them to rejoin the other hostages.

He’d stumbled twice more as they walked out into the sunrise, and she’d wrapped her arm around his middle, knowing she wouldn’t be much support for him but offering whatever she could anyway. When he’d wrapped his own arm around her shoulders and leaned into her, she knew he’d been in more pain than she had ever seen before.

A crowd had formed in the resort driveway as the hostages walked out; SCPD, journalists, curious citizens; Felicity had paid them no mind as she had focused on carrying Oliver as best as she could, never seeing who snapped the picture. From afar, it had looked like a sweet and intimate moment after a life threatening situation; from within though - well, it had been all of those things, but definitely not what the media was assuming currently.

“What is it?” Oliver asked as he put his sweatshirt on and zipped it up, making his way to her.

She couldn’t find the words, so she just handed him the tablet and walked until she could plop down onto her chair. The article loaded on one of the larger monitors, followed by videos as well, and every time she refreshed, more content appeared to pop up. 

Oliver made his way to her, placing his hand on her shoulder, “Felicity…”  His tone was apologetic but also lacked the concern and anxiety she felt. “Is it possible you are overreacting?”

“I am not overreacting. If anything, I’m underreacting! They think we’re together, Oliver,” she pointed out. Of course he wasn’t as concerned; he’d thrived in that spotlight for years. He couldn’t exactly understand how much she appreciated her anonymity.

“Is that so bad—?” He started to ask and stopped as she held up a finger.

“Stop right there,” she added as she stood up. “We are not having that conversation right now. Instead, we are going to find a way to get me out of this fake relationship that doesn’t involve me telling the reporters we weren’t having an intimate moment because I was just helping you after you lost one third of your blood supply in a deadly fight using special skills that Oliver Queen is not supposed to have, because Oliver Queen is absolutely not the vigilante.” She took a deep breath. “I know that was a run-on sentence, but I am not kidding.” 

“I am sorry, Felicity,”  he added truthfully. “But is this really any worse than being my executive assistant? I mean, it is just a cover story!”

Diggle snorted under his breath, a familiar sound that should have told Oliver he had just dug his own grave.

Felicity pinched the bridge of her nose. She truly admired the man in front of her, not to mention other feelings she wasn’t too fond of categorizing because they were confusing and led to other thoughts she shouldn’t be having, but sometimes…

… sometimes he could be just so…

She grunted in frustration.

“I can be so what?” Oliver asked.

Ignoring him or the fact she’d obviously spoken some of the thoughts out loud, she replied to his previous question. “First of all, being your EA became an actual job. Diggle actually drives you around. No such thing as just our covers. I understand these are sacrifices we all have to make, but this,” she pointed to the TMZ article on the monitor, “this is not part of that deal.”

Oliver’s phone started to ring, and he reached over to grab it, mouthing an I’m sorry at her before he stepped away to take the call.

“Felicity,” Diggle interjected, his voice filled with sympathy; she knew he understood what she was going through better than most people could. “Anything you do to contradict this story will only backfire,” he pointed out.

“What do you suggest then, John?” her voice came across snappier than she wanted it to. “Sorry. I’m just…” she rubbed at her forehead.

“I know,” Diggle reassured her. “Listen, this may be news to you, but Oliver Queen has a reputation as… shall we say, a ladies’ man?” His eyes met hers and she laughed out loud, dropping back into her chair. 

“I may have heard a thing or two about that,” she replied when she caught her breath. “So I’m supposed to play Bond Girl for a week or two?”

“You could,” Diggle replied. “Or you could change the narrative. I mean, the guy has a reputation, and he hasn’t exactly lived up to it recently. People don’t change like this without a good reason; you and I know why he’s cleaned up his act, but everyone else doesn’t which is dangerous if you ask me… we don’t want people asking too many questions. You can be the straightforward girlfriend and trusted confidante who built the CEO people see today. Which is already mostly true anyway.”

“Minus the part where people assume we’re having sex. Although they already do anyway. But we’re not. Well, he probably is, with other people… since Sara and all, but really I don’t know if that’s the case because of how everything ended th— I’m babbling,” she added, zipping her mouth. She missed Sara, but she used her silence to ponder Diggle’s words. 

She hadn’t been oblivious to the gossip around the company at her promotion but at the same time she hadn’t exactly allowed herself to be affected by it. As far as she saw it, the moment she’d agreed to the plan, there had been no going back, so whether people saw her a gold digger or a naive love-struck girl meant absolutely nothing to her. Frankly, the fact people saw her at all was the worst part to her because she wasn’t exactly used to it. 

It had never actually crossed her mind to put a spin on the whole situation because ignoring it had been so much easier. Not to mention Diggle’s plan had an actual sliver of truth to it; she was Oliver’s confidante and she couldn’t exactly deny that as much as she disliked her role of EA at times, she did appreciate the fact he was always extremely grateful for her help whether it was the tiny bits of information she would give him about the people he met with, or how she kept him awake during certain board room meetings, the two of them passing her tablet back and forth in a heated game of Scrabble.

“When the dust settles, you can announce your breakup and your plans to remain just friends,” Diggle explained, a teasing look in his eyes as if he only partly believed his own words.

On one hand, she knew the gossip would get worse as people would see rumors as confirmed and validated; on the other hand, if this worked, it could theoretically allow them to reclaim their alter egos - wait when did she start thinking of her real job as an alter ego? - and make things easier for themselves in the long run.

“When did you get so good at fake love advice?” she pouted.

“It’s all strategy,” he explained, holding out his fist so she could bump hers into it. 

She had to admit she felt a lot better after that, at least until Oliver rejoined them, clutching his phone so tightly, she was afraid he might break the gorilla glass. 

“I am under strict orders to bring you home for dinner tonight,” he explained.

Felicity couldn’t help the fleeting thought that if she had left him to die in that resort, it would have avoided this particular situation.

4

“Come on come on come on,” Felicity chanted as the data slowly transferred onto the external hard drive.

“Felicity,” Oliver’s voice was a warning and a question all at once.

“Five more minutes. Possibly six. This is a lot of data, okay?” She explained, shivering in the server room of Stellmoor International; he’d given her his suit jacket but it was still not warm enough for this.

“I don’t think we have six minutes,” Oliver pointed out, showing her the screen of her own tablet where he’d been monitoring the live feed of the cameras on the floor, instead of the fake loop the security staff was looking at down the hall.

“Crap,” Felicity added as they watched Isabel Rochev getting off the elevator and looking around, obviously searching for them.

“I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it,” he explained, pulling his jacket off her and shoving it aside. He popped four buttons on his shirt, and as he reached for his belt, she made a sound akin to a yelp. At least there were no cameras in the actual server room, she remembered.

Okay, they could do this. It wouldn’t be the first time. They were fake dating after all, so fake clandestine sex during a tour of Isabel’s company headquarters was probably… not entirely out of the menu, as far as cover stories went.

“You better not pop another button,” she warned him, as her fingers tugged at the elastic holding her hair in its neat ponytail, and glanced down at her dress. There were no buttons she could pop and the only zipper was on the back so it wasn’t exactly going to help them any in terms of bumps up in the realism ladder. Instead, she turned to hide the cables and equipment she’d been using, pushing the hard drive far enough to hopefully let the transfer finish while they dealt with Isabel.

Oliver closed the app on her tablet that showed the video, throwing the electronic into her bag just as his hands grasped her hips, and she was being pushed into the cold cold cold wall of the server room. Before her body could react, he was pressing into her - he was warm everywhere, as if the temperature in the room had done nothing to him for the past fifteen minutes - and his hands were pulling her legs around him.

The fabric of her dress was too constricting so his hips stopped about halfway up her thighs which was still too damn close for comfort, but as they glanced down, she had to admit the sight was somewhat comical and not very realistic. “Help me push it up,” she asked, blushing - though for once she’d said exactly what she meant.

Oliver’s hands released her legs so she could stand again, and she started tugging on the midsection while he pulled on the hem until his fingers were brushing the back of her upper thighs. “Okay, I thi— think that’s enough,” she added, her voice breaking at the sight. “My shoes,” she added after a second.

“Leave them on,” he growled, his own voice dropping into vigilante territory and it didn’t help matters at all on her end. His hands tugged on her thighs again, effortlessly lifting her and settling himself against her.

She tasted the whiskey he’d had from Isabel’s private bar in her lavish office moments before, and she tasted him underneath it all. His hand found her hair, fingers combing harshly through her strands in a way that should be painful except it apparently worked for her… a bit too much actually.

His face pressed into her glasses and she realized it was the first time she’d been wearing them while they did… this. Whatever this was. She wasn’t exactly sure when making out with Oliver Queen as a cover story had become a bad habit she just couldn’t kick, but yet here they were. Of course, maybe the fact they kept getting interrupted every single time they’d tried to talk about it didn’t help at all.

She always tried to tell herself it was acting, kind of like the time she had to kiss Doug Jeffries for the school play and they had to spend hours rehearsing so her braces wouldn’t cause him bodily harm during the real thing. Except that had been mostly uncomfortable and their drama teacher had shown them how to kiss without really kissing, explaining lighting tricks and angles. 

Oliver apparently hadn’t been in a school play because his idea of pretend-kissing her was pretty much like real-kissing her, until her lips were swollen and sensitive, and it was probably mostly her fault for initiating that kiss during his class reunion. In the end they’d caught the crooked lawyer and half his clientele so it had been worth it…

… it probably would’ve been worth it anyway, actually, but not fucking up the mission still made her feel better, as if these lines they kept crossing weren’t a distraction that kept them from doing their job.

Oliver pulled back slightly, his eyes focusing on the plastic frame of her glasses, and she was about to offer to take them off when he smiled in a way that didn’t feel like pretending at all. Before she could freak out about what that meant, his lips were kissing their way down her cheekbone and to her jaw line. She felt herself being pushed a few inches higher against the wall as his nose pushed into her earrings, a cute pair she’d gotten off Etsy with tiny paw prints hanging on three gold chains, and then she wasn’t thinking about her earrings anymore because his tongue was trailing wet fire down her throat, stopping every so often to nip at the sensitive skin.

She wanted to turn the tables on him so badly, but her options were rather limited in this position. She dragged her short nails over the back of his neck, enjoying the way his breath hitched just slightly against her skin but her lips could only reach the top of his head and her legs were busy holding on to his hips. Displeased with the lack of control, she used her hand on the back of his neck to move higher until she could barely grasp a handful of short hair and tugged until his head was pulling back and as their eyes locked, she realized this was the worst possible thing she could have done. 

Her legs felt like jelly all of a sudden and she lost her purchase on his hips, sliding down until his arm around her waist caught her, but not before she made contact with the hard outline of him, pressing exactly where she craved it. 

She couldn’t exactly help the way she rolled her hips against him. 

In a panic, Felicity remembered why they were in this position, and wondered if Isabel was even actually looking for them, or if they were just going to keep doing this under the guise of their cover story until— what exactly? A cover orgasm seemed like a distinct possibility if he kept pressing into her like that, and there’d be nothing fake about it. She rolled her hips again, looking straight into his eyes, watching as the lightbulb went off in his mind.

Calloused fingers found their way to the bare skin of the back of her thighs, inching upwards until he was tracing the faint line on her skin before the slope of her buttocks. She held her breath, her teeth catching on her lower lip as he traced circles around her skin, edging closer and closer to her underwear. She felt herself fluttering in anticipation, and as his eyes shut suddenly, she realized he’d felt it even through the few layers that separated them.

The beep of the key card by the door snapped them back to reality, as Isabel Rochev stared at them with her neutral expression, never for once registering shock nor surprise. “This is a restricted area, Mr. Queen.”

“Sorry, someone had left the door open,” Felicity lied. Isabel glared at her but it was hard to decipher what the glare meant, considering Isabel always looked suspicious of everyone and everything.

“You have my apologies, Isabel,” Oliver added dryly, staring at Felicity’s shoulder. “Now if you wouldn’t mind giving us a minute or two, we will rejoin you shortly.”

“Funny, that’s longer than I remember you lasting in Moscow, but my memory is admittedly a bit hazy. Come out when you’re done.” She quipped with a smile, before she closed the door.

Felicity fumed, letting her head fall backwards until it hit the cold wall behind her and sighed.

“I guarantee it takes me longer than a minute or two,” Oliver added as he brushed her hair backwards and tucked it behind her ear.

She opened her eyes to glare at him until she saw the teasing smirk on his face. She slapped his shoulder playfully in response, shaking her head in disbelief as he released her waist and she unlocked her legs, sliding her feet down until they touched ground again. 

Instinctively, she began to button his shirt back up, stopping as she realized how intimate it felt even after everything they’d just done. As she glanced up at him, she realized the smirk was gone, and there was this expression on his face she could only interpret as wrecked which was exactly how she felt underneath the embarrassment and anger and everything else.

She reached up to cup his face, enjoying the way he nuzzled her hand, his lips pressing a passing kiss to the inside of her wrist. As he pulled away to redo his belt, she tugged her dress back down her legs as she made her way to the external hard drive and checked on the progress.

“All done,” she informed him as she put the hard drive in its special case and placed it in her bag.

“Ready?” He asked her, mask back in place.

She nodded, slipping her bag onto her shoulder and holding her tablet, until she looked like the Executive Assistant again. She started heading for the door when he stopped her, reaching for the hairband on her wrist.

“Let me,” he asked, and she nodded, letting him step behind her. He pulled her hair back carefully, a sharp contrast to his ministrations earlier, and slipped the elastic into place. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” she added, ignoring the flutter in her stomach.

5

“So, if I have this right, you two want to go to a couple’s therapy workshop for an entire week to find the people responsible for blackmailing half of Hollywood, not to mention nameless politicians?” Diggle asked, crossing his arms and setting a wide berth between his feet. Felicity liked to think of it as his I am bracing myself in order to deal with the stupidity of this plan pose.

“Blackmail and two murders!” Felicity pointed out eagerly. “Our only lead was Dr. Hart.”

“Dr. Hart wasn’t very helpful,” Oliver growled out, still upset that the doctor hadn’t been persuaded by a visit from the Hood. “We’re out of options.” 

Felicity huffed. “Well, maybe if someone hadn’t scared the doctor into jumping from his third floor window… I am just saying, people tend to be more talkative when they’re not in a coma.” 

“I had no idea he was going to run like that,” Oliver argued. “I’ve been doing this for a while, and that was a first.” 

“Perhaps if you stopped putting arrows in people’s appendages they’d be more forthcoming!” Felicity accused.

“I withdraw my objections, I think you two should benefit from some counseling,” Diggle smirked, before uncrossing his arm to reach for a brochure on the workshop.

“You are the one always pointing out I should try to be less…. violent,” Oliver added, his tone softening as he glanced at the hood display case.

Felicity sighed. “Well… people with injuries are less likely to sprint twelve feet until they fall through glass windows,” she acquiesced. They had tried her way already but accessing the secure server with confidential patient information from the outside would’ve raised too many red flags; last time she’d done something similar, it had earned her another trip to the SCPD, and Detective Lance had to end up claiming she’d done so at his request and it had almost cost him his job (again).

“Dr. Hart wasn’t acting alone. Considering his… desperation, I have to consider the possibility he was getting blackmailed himself.”

“I just want to make sure you’ve thought this whole thing through,” Diggle explained as his eyes continued to read the threefold pamphlet.

“It seems like the right timing,” Felicity explained. The media frenzy around their fake relationship had finally died down, so a trip to the love doctor seemed like a perfect lead to their fake break-up. “Plus it gives us five days to find out exactly who is behind the plan… and I am not going to pass on the day 1 spa package either,” she warned them.

“How far did you get through the agenda?” Diggle inquired with a smirk.

“Day three.. and a half,” she admitted.

“Well, you missed out on day four, which includes a workshop on tantric sex massage,” Diggle added with far too much enjoyment.

Felicity blushed deep crimson and she was fairly sure Oliver’s decision to suddenly fix the positioning of the arrows in their display case was also stemming from discomfort. “O…kay then, we have three days to find the bad guys. Or gals.” 

*

Not that Diggle would ever need to find out, but they broke around day two. Day one had been innocent enough, all smiles and drinks with umbrellas and meeting other couples. Sure, sharing a bed had been an interesting experience, but they’d survived.

But day two included a seminar where some self-proclaimed love guru explained how falling in and out of love was a cycle all couples went through, and that there were some exercises they could do to get from point B back to point A. 

Having done extensive background checks, Felicity knew the guy was a hack, but she’d nodded along, barely paying attention. When the exercise came where each person needed to write the reasons why they’d fallen out of love with their partner, it wasn’t hard to fake several bullet points; in fact she mostly just listed everything Oliver did sometimes to drive her insane, except she replaced obvious things like 

he sometimes shoots himself with an arrow to kill his enemies 

with 

he sometimes doesn’t think things through because he’s too focused on his end goals.  

But she watched as Oliver stared at the piece of paper for several minutes, mind seemingly elsewhere as his pencil never moved. Abruptly, he stood up and stormed out of the large sunroom, not glancing back at her.

She followed him to their room, where she stood in the open doorway, watching as he paced back and forth, until he finally dropped it on her.

“I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

A minute or two passed in silence as she realized he didn’t mean the fake relationship, until she snapped.

“You don’t get to make all of the decisions, Oliver!” she used her loud voice as she slammed the door to their room.

“It’s for your own safety, Felicity,” he added, voice dropping and she could see it in his eyes he was blaming himself for everything awful that had happened to the other people who’d cared about him. She knew the names and stories of some of them, but for others she only knew small details.

“Look at me,” she asked, moving until their feet touched, toe to toe.

“I couldn’t write anything,” he confessed as his eyes met hers, hearing the words he wasn’t saying. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she conceded. “But you can’t keep pushing me away, then pulling me back in. Although…” she started to say, considering all of the times they’d gotten interrupted when she’d tried to talk about the subject and how relieved she’d felt at being able to avoid it for just a bit longer. “It’s my fault too. We should’ve had this conversation a long time ago,” she admitted.

Her thoughts got away from her, and he brought her back to the present by wrapping his hand around her forearm.

“I need to keep you safe,” he explained.

“You already do,” she replied. “It’s all you do, Oliver. You keep people safe. You just have to understand that you can’t control everything.”

“I can control this.” His voice sounded like a challenge to himself.

“Can you really though?” she asked as she decided to challenge him on her own, placing her hand on his stomach, feeling the incredibly soft cotton of his t-shirt and the tensing of his abdominal muscles under her touch.

“Felicity…” he warned her, his voice low.

“I don’t mean just this,” she explained, tugging on the cotton until she could slip her hands underneath, and wrapped them around his hips until she reached his back, fingers tracing the scars tissue there. “Sure, you can control yourself physically. I’m even certain you can control yourself emotionally if you have to - I’ve seen you do it.”

Her hands made their journey backwards until they reached his sides, tugging his shirt up, inching it up slowly.

“But there’s one thing you can’t control, Oliver,” she added when she felt his resolve break as he reached behind him to pull his shirt off over his head.

“What is that?” he asked, breath hitching as she pressed her lips to his chest, paying extra attention to the lines of the tattoo.

“Me,” she replied. “You can’t control my emotions, and I can tell you it’s too late. Trust me, I’ve tried not to let myself feel this,” she explained, pressing her hands against his heartbeat. “I succeeded for a while, but to tell you the truth, it sucked. Big time. So we can go back to being just friends who break the law together and who are miserable inside because they can’t do this,” she whispered as she pressed a kiss against his neck and let her hand drop again and graze his navel, feeling the muscles there flexing as he inhaled sharply. “…or we can actually do this.”

“I guess trying things your way never hurt,” he admitted, but before she could gloat or ask him to repeat himself so she could record it for later, he was pulling her for a kiss. It almost felt too easy, but after weeks of playing this version of themselves, it felt right. It just had never crossed her mind that separating their cover story from reality could’ve been so difficult for Oliver, to the point that he would’ve just stormed off from such a simple exercise.

She almost waited for the other shoe to drop - an interruption of any kind, but as her dress was discarded, she realized this was probably it. She wasted no time as she made quick work of his jeans, both falling back onto the plush mattress in their room.

Oliver kissed his way down her body, stopping to suck a nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it until it was so stiff, she swore could feel his warm breath as if it were on her core. He repeated the motions on the other nipple, and she noticed the prickling feel of his scruff against her sensitive skin - it was as enticing as she’d fantasized.

“You know, we’re breaking the no-nookie rule until day five,” she pointed out, smiling as he stopped to glance up at her, propping his chin on her lower stomach in a way and tickling her just slightly. 

“We haven’t yet,” he reminded her, before he moved downwards and then he was mouthing her sex through her underwear, his tongue tracing patterns on the fabric until she was so sensitive it was as if the garment was gone entirely. 

She cursed as her hips bucked at him, and she started to apologize because it was just like her to possibly break his nose, but before she could say anything she saw the predatory look on his face. His fingers wrapped around the fabric of her underwear and she raised her hips to help; then they were thrown to some corner of the room and she didn’t really care if she never found them again, because his mouth was covering her center, humming at her sensitive skin in appreciation.

His tongue and lips slid freely over her skin, gliding everywhere and it took her by surprise that it was mostly her own slickness - not that she ever thought she was immune to his touch, on the contrary… but to feel the magnitude of her own arousal in this way was unexpected. His hand touched her knee, pressing it to the side, opening her up even more. He pulled back so he could watch her as his fingers traced her, bottom to top to bottom again, circling her entrance. 

He slid one finger into her, eyes locking with hers, until her mouth formed a a breathless oh, and then he was pulling it out and replacing it with two fingers. When he broke the eye contact, she felt relieved for a second before his mouth closed over her clit, and her entire body spasmed as if she’d just touched a live wire. Another curse fell from her lips as he worked her to orgasm, her brain threatening to shut down completely as she kept feeling wave after wave after wave of release. 

He wiped his chin on her inner thigh when he finally pulled away, teasing the skin there; she watched him as he saw the skin turn red, and then he rubbed his thumb over the spot, soothing it.

Crawling his way up her body, she felt like she couldn’t breathe again, and then she was hooking her toes in his boxers and pushing them down his body, except they got caught in a very prominent part of his anatomy and she laughed, far too loud.

“Now they’re really going to know we’re breaking the rule,” he commented after he pulled himself free of the underwear and slid them down.

“So we are breaking the rule now?” she teased, and pushed on his shoulder until he got the idea and flipped them over until she was on top and he was sitting back against the headboard.

“Rules are meant to be broken,” he pointed out.

“Spoken like a true vigilante,” she whispered as she reached over to the nightstand drawer, thankful that this counseling program offered complimentary condoms so she didn’t have to go digging through her purse or through his wallet.

She sat back on his knees, palming his bare length between their bodies. She worked her palm over the head, then slid down again, taking her time. When she stroked upwards, he twitched in her hand, her palm sliding over the head with newfound slickness.

“You might want to stop that,” he warned her.

“I was guaranteed you would last longer than a minute or two,” she reminded him, stroking him once again, feeling her hand gliding effortlessly this time against the soft silky skin.

“I will,” he promised. “…if you stop that.”

She laughed, tore open the condom packet and unrolled it into place. When she was done, she raised herself onto her knees and angled him until he was at her entrance. She sank slowly, breath catching in her throat when she finally felt her pelvis meet his.

Oliver’s hands found her hips, and she watched his lips moving silently but he made no effort to move her. 

“Hey,” she said quietly, touching her fingers to his lips.

“… one hundred and twenty,” he whispered, mouth curling around her fingers in a smile.

“You made it,” she joked with him.

“We made it,” he replied, in a tone that meant more than the inside joke they were sharing. 

She nodded as she moved up, then down, tentatively. His hands tightened on her hips, and she tried moving back and forth instead, gasping as that seemed to do the trick even better. She started going back and forth until she found a rhythm, and he started angling his own hips up every time she went forward, until she could feel the beginning of a new climax.

As her breathing pattern started to change, she felt him move one of his hands to where they were joined. His index and middle fingers pressed against the sides of her entrance, cradling her sex and then his thumb found her clit, and she had a brief thought as to how was his hand not cramping up but before she could voice her concern, she felt the beginning of a spasm and her motions became erratic. Her moans must’ve been louder than she realized, because his mouth found hers, and it only took a few more thrusts before she went over the edge again, her entire body shaking with the effort.

She collapsed on his chest, desperately trying to catch her breath between kisses. “Maybe it’s the endorphin high talking, but I don’t think it’s your stamina we need to worry about,” she quipped, resting her forehead against his. “I need a second.”

“Take your time,” he informed her, voice catching in his throat. 

Felicity sighed. “I’ll never be able to hear you use your vigilante voice again without thinking about this, you do realize that, right?”

He ran his fingers over her hair and tucked it behind her ear. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that and she was quickly getting used to the gesture. “Is that a complaint?” he teased.

“Merely an observation for now,” she replied, before moving above him again, feeling him still impressively hard within her. “Your turn,” she offered and before she could blink, she was on her back, lying across the middle section of the bed, Oliver hovering above her. 

“Impressed?” he asked, smirking as he pulled her knee up and sank even deeper than before.

“Meh,” she shrugged although it lost some of the kick as she moaned out loud. “I mean, I’m just glad you’re able to to use your physical prowess for something, you know? Well, this and the crime fighting and all.”

As he thrust deep into her again, she gasped and pulled her knees back even further.

“Now I’m gonna think of this every time you’re training too,” she pointed out.

“You mean you didn’t already imagine this,” he asked as he pulled out almost all the way and thrust back in all the way, “… when you watch me on the salmon ladder.”

“You—” she stopped, taking two deep breaths as she felt herself clenching around him again. “You have a point,” she conceded. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” he promised, and stuck to his promise. He braced most of his weight on his arms and knees, and his torso was barely touching hers as he thrusted. She reached for his skin, touching the expanse of him she had wanted to touch this way in so long, but hadn’t been able to.

Her fingers grazed over patches of pigmented skin, scarred skin, flawlessly tanned skin. She ran her hands over scars she’d sutured and bandaged, and others she knew the story of but hadn’t witnessed; she paused over the ones with unknown provenance, making a mental note of them. 

Her chest felt as if it lacked the room to deal with her emotions, and she noticed herself tumbling into another climax; it hadn’t been as overwhelming as her first one, or as focused as her second one, just a disjunction of sensations that dragged on and on and on until she couldn’t think anymore.

There was a rare moment of quietness in her brain as everything became increasingly simple; her mouth broke the calmness as it spilled words she hadn’t expected to say yet, but before she could panic he was repeating them back as he spent himself inside her.

And there it was, eight weeks into their fake relationship, almost two years into their partnership - it was like the moment in her car all over again.

*

They never did get to find out the secrets of tantra as they found the bad guys on day three.

Diggle bought them a book on tantric sex as a consolation joke.