Technical Assistance

Chapter 46: Extraction of Compressed Files

Cold air awakens Felicity, biting at her exposed back. She frowns at that fact, then realizes she isn't dressed, but then she feels something shift underneath her curled leg. It takes her an even longer moment to realize she's half-draped across Oliver's chest while he lies on his back. Judging by the place her leg is haphazardly thrown over his hips and the bare skin that meets it, he's just as lacking in the clothing department as she is.

The implications of that observation bring it flooding back in vivid detail, and her eyes fly open. Though her vision is blurry because her glasses are on the nightstand, she can squint and determine the hazy outline of the black pencil skirt she had worn before in the floor of the closet. Her bra is still casually draped across one corner of the bed, and her panda flats and blouse are missing from the fray. With a hazy smile, Felicity wonders absently if they decided to run away to take cover.

"Fray" seems to be the operative word, she decides, with the way Oliver's Arrow gear is thrown around the room. It looks like a war zone with the scattered mess of arrows covering the floor in front of the doorway, the quiver dropped and empty in the middle of the chaos. The green jacket and its infamous hood are practically in the hallway—she doesn't remember throwing that—while the leather pants are across the room, carelessly caught on the doorknob on the closet door halfway across the room. She can only see one of his boots, the other suspiciously absent. Then she realizes his mask and gloves aren't on the dresser where he placed them.

They must have ended up in the floor when she ended up on top of the dresser.

Turning to the nightstand in hopes of finding her glasses, she decides against it when she sees Oliver's sleeping form. There's nothing she can do but fix on it; Felicity rarely gets the opportunity to watch him sleep, and something about it is utterly fascinating to her. With the arm underneath her curling to drop his hand on her hip and his unclouded expression, he looks perfectly at peace, for once seeming like the world didn't force him to endure pure agony for the last five years. She had thought she'd watched him relax in sleep before, but something about this seems different. The crease between his brows—the one that seems to be in place almost perpetually—is gone, and something about the curve of his mouth makes her think he might be about to smile. Felicity thinks she might be getting a flashback of the old Oliver—the man he'd been before that boat went down.

Well, a variation on who that old Oliver could have been, if he'd embraced adulthood and responsibility.

Felicity's eyes drop to the Bratva insignia on his left pectoral, in prominent display. Though she knows she'll never ask, part of her wonders how many of his scars came from whatever he did to earn that mark. With hesitant fingers, she moves her hand from his stomach to trace the intricate lines of the design. It used to bother her what kind of violence that black ink represented—both violence he had endured and inflicted—but now she studies with indifference, acceptance. Her fingers still when the reason why hits her hard: she loves him.

While in and of itself that isn't particularly a surprise, it's the meaning behind those words. Felicity has long since been in love with Oliver, the person he is when he's with the people that know the truth. But now she's learning that it doesn't just extend to one aspect of the dichotomy that he is. She loves every side of him—Oliver Queen, the prodigal son; the Arrow, the hero who protects the city; and even the Vigilante, the avenging angel who made Starling City's criminals pay in blood. For so long, she's struggled to accept that all of personas could survive in one person, but now she understands that they're just different sides of one, singular whole—and she loves them all.

"I thought that I'd lost you when you figured that out," Oliver offers quietly, his voice raspy as a residue of sleep. Felicity's eyes immediately flick upward to his, but his attention is completely focused on her hand over his heart. "That reminds me that I've done things—traded away pieces of my soul to stay alive." A bitter chuckle escapes him. "Sometimes I wondered if living was worth the price I paid for it." He leans down to kiss her hair. "But then I saw you that first time, and it made it a little more bearable."