Steady Arrow (Oliver and Felicity - Olicity - Fanfiction) ~1st book in the Saga~

Chapter 55

Oliver paced back and forth in his room while Diggle continued to yell and lexture him about treating Felicity that way.

"Help me understand, then, Oliver, why the Hell would you tell her that she is the problem of all this?" Diggle yelled in that Military tone.

Oliver immeadently called Dig when he had done what needed to be done. "I didn't-"

"Oh, yes you did," Diggle was furious, Oliver could tell. He thought of Felicity like a little sister, Oliver did too at one time, but then... Then that feeling sort of.... advanced.

"No, I told her that all the dead bodies were on her, there's a difference, Dig," Oliver argued to Diggle over the phone.

"Well, I doubt that she see's the tiny change in context," Diggle's voice was harsh. "Why did you tell her that in the first place, man?"

Oliver said, "I should have caught him, Diggle. And Felicity was distracting me from my work, my most important-"

"Wait, you think Felicity really did cause all this? Damn, you're stupid, Oliver. Felicity has always been there for you, always! She never needed an apology for the mistakes you've made in the past, everyone makes mistake she understood that! Yeah, sometimes we get pissed and out mistakes were a little bigger than the average screw up, but she understood that you needed time and space. She trusted you!"

"Do you know what it is like? It is so hard to trust everyone here when the-"

"We aren't the man in the Skull Mask, Oliver. Felicity isn't him! You know this. You know this! You chose her as your partner for a reason, Oliver. Felicity asked you if she could trust you with her heart and you said, 'You can trust me.'" Diggle's voice grew five octaves to impersonate a teenager. "Just like that she trusted you. Just. Like. That. You said you would never hurt her and here she is in my bathroom, throwing up because the pain is so hard to bear."

To hear that Felicity is in such pain hurt Oliver more than he could imagine. He did this to her. He did this to Felicity, and there was no undoing it.

"She has saved your life more times than I can count, she has saved the city more times than you have! You take the bad guys out, Oliver, that's true and without you this city wouldn't be like it is today, but Felicity is the one that tracks them down. Figures them out, knows where they are going to be! And you blame all the dead bodies on her?" Diggle's voice held all the disappointment in the world.

"The time she had a bomb wrapped around her neck, do you remember the first thing she said besides, 'We have a problem?' I'll tell you... when the bomb could have gone off at any second - blowing her head clean off - she wasn't worried about her safety, she was spifically worried about yours! Yeah, I was in the back of her mind when she said, 'Get away from me, if this thing blows...' but she was looking at you putting you first. She knew the work that you did for the city was important, and she understood the conquences of the choice she made when she agreed to stay with the Team even after Walter was found.

"You think you are so alone in this, until something goes wrong, and you either blame yourself, or Felcity! That's not how it works with us, okay buddy?" Diggle brought his tone down instead of a yell wanting to be harsh, it was a yell wanting to get through. "Oliver, you are not alone in this! Not since you brought me into this. And certainly not since you've brought Felicity into this!"

"What are you saying?" Oliver asked through his teeth.

"I'm saying that I don't think you had a problem with Felicity's capabilites until you started falling for her, Oliver..." Diggle's adrenaline cooled and he said tiredly, "Oliver, if you didn't have feelings for this girl, and you weren't scared about all of this, you would have thought of a different solution than letting her think that the deaths in this city were all her fault."

Oliver justified with the lame excuse, "To go from the Island to here and have to flip the switch from killer to hero is hard! I am trying, but I need to save this city before anymore people get hurt, worse, killed!"

"You didn't save it this time, you realize that?" Diggle yelled back, checking down the hall to see if Felicity has come out yet. "Felicity did. All on her own... It sounds like you have a narrow definition about being a hero, Oliver."

"What's that supposed to mean, Diggle?" Oliver hissed.

"It means you think of Felicity as a crutch!" Diggle has exhasuted the subject and was ready to help Felicity now and get off the phone. "But you know what, Oliver? There's a reason you need a crutch in the first place... It's to help you stand."

Diggle let the words sink and before he hung up, he added just to rub it in his face, "And now, she's standing with somebody else."