Chapter Text
Felicity Smoak had a secret. One she held close to her heart, much like the secret of her work with team arrow.
"I think she's been feeling a little left out"
Oliver had known that Dig had had something important to say, but he wasn't expecting it to be about Felicity. He knew that it might be a bit of a transition to have Sara on the team and that it may have been a little harder for her. He wasn't a blind man; he knew Felicity felt something towards him. He wanted to be surprised by what John was saying but he wasn't really. He had noticed some strange moments from Felicity. The blonde meant more to him than he thought she realized, and his top priority when it came to her would always be about keeping her safe. Safe from the life he leads and everything that came with it. Sure, she had already become integrated in that life, but he still wanted to protect from the horrors of it as much as possible. He sometimes forgot that he could be something that hurts her too. It was never his intention to make her feel ousted by the presence of Sara. He had told her once that because of the life he leads he couldn't be with someone that he could really care about. He had meant it then and he still means it now. It was just different with Sara. She had been there with him on the island, and she had first-hand experience of who he was before and the man it had turned him into. She had gone through a similar transformation herself. But Felicity has not, and he doesn't want her to ever experience or witness even a miniscule amount of the darkness that they had had. They, maybe especially he, needed her to a beacon of light inside that darkness.
He was upset with himself for hurting her, albeit unknowingly, and would make sure she knew she was a prized member of Team Arrow as she liked to call it. But he found that he had to remind himself of what he had known from the second he met her. Felicity Smoak was off limits. A friend is all she could and would ever be. Even if he sometimes caught himself enjoying her smiles and quips a little too much.
“You’ll always be my girl, Felicity.”
He had to stop looking at me like that, Felicity thought to herself. His had on her cheek had been warm, solid, comforting. Because that was what Oliver was to her. Even with the temper and tendency towards violence, when she looked at him all Felicity could see was the man under the mask, and she didn’t just mean the hood. He was a protector, a man with a will of steel and penchant for women. He was strong, steady, and intentional with his movements, words, and actions. He held his thoughts and feelings close to his heart, whether out of habit or fear she didn’t know, but she suspected it was a bit of both.
Now this man was in front of her touching her cheek and telling her that she mattered to him, to the team. It was something she had needed to hear. She was used to it just being the three of them, and Sara joining the team had made her feel unimportant, not that they were treating her any differently. It was just Sara was Sara and she was, well, Felicity. It hadn’t helped that now Oliver was with Sara. She knew he didn’t owe her anything, but she had thought… it doesn’t matter.
She felt his hand slip from her face and watched him walk away. She supposed she should get used to the sight. She was at this moment just glad that he reassured her spot on the team and in his life. She was important to him no doubt, he had proved that time and again and Oliver was not the type of man to have people in his life that he wouldn’t gladly take a bullet for. Still, it was hard with a newcomer, a new girl on the team especially when she was as amazing as Sara, and the timing being right after she delivered life changing news to Oliver about his family. Moira had said that he would blame her, and while she knew that he would never accost her for telling him the truth, she still thinks that subconsciously he did blame her a bit. It was her face he saw and her words he heard. Never would he actively put that on her, but she doesn’t think that he felt himself pull away. Shaking the thoughts from her mind she went on with her night.
…
Dig had just gotten her settled at her apartment. She was wrapped up in her covers, everything she might need in the night sitting on her nightstand. As she turned and settled for what she knew would be a much-needed deep sleep, she missed the figure outside her window. They dressed in all black, barely visible in height of the night hours. The imposing shadow perched on the fire escape, form taunt, keeping vigil over the young woman dead to world in her bed.