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Felicity frowned as she entered the Foundry one evening, glancing about and only seeing Oliver. Shrugging her shoulders, she figured Oliver had sent Diggle out to do something for him. It wasn’t unusual for Oliver to ask him to check out a place or person of interest during the daylight hours when the Hood couldn’t really make an appearance.
A heavy sigh escaped her lips and she stifled a yawn. It had been a long day at work, and her body ached for a soft surface to lie upon. Pushing her glasses back up on her nose, she grabbed the coffee she bought on the way over and took a long sip of it.
Plopping her purse and bag down underneath her desk, she glanced over at Oliver who was on the floor of the training area doing push-ups.
She rolled her eyes. “You know push-ups for you became unimpressive when you started doing them from the top of the salmon ladder,” she mumbled under her breath.
But, of course, he heard her. Sometimes, she swore he had super-human hearing too.
He stopped mid-push up, and stared at her, challenge flashing in his blue eyes. Felicity clamped her mouth shut and quickly busied herself with logging on to the computers.
“I didn’t know you were critiquing my workouts now,” she heard him reply, and cringed, wishing she had just kept her mouth shut.
Squaring her shoulders, she sat up, straighter, unwilling to let him see her embarrassed this time, “Just an observation.”
She cocked her head to the side, thinking as she regarded him, words coming to her mouth and spilling out. “You know I watched this movie once, and this guy was doing push-ups with someone on his back. Of course, it was a movie, and probably just made to look like he was doing it, but still...I was impressed...”
Oliver quirked an eyebrow at her, studying her. Feeling self-conscious under his intense scrutiny, she tore her eyes away, looking back at the computer screens.
“Well, come on then,” he grunted, and when she looked back, he was back on the ground, lying face down, looking at her.
Felicity frowned. “Huh?” she asked before she realized what he was suggesting.
“Oh,” she jumped up, “No. No. I didn’t actually mean you should...that was just me talking nonsense again...”
“Felicity,” he grumbled. She stopped speaking, twisting the silver-plated fashion ring she had on her fore finger.
She scuffed the ground with her nude heels, “Oliver. I don’t want to hurt you...”
He rolled his eyes, “You’re not going to hurt me. In fact, this will help me. Come on. It was your idea.”
It was Felicity’s turn to roll her eyes. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, but then again, it had been her mouth that had started it.
Sighing, she toed off her heels, kicking them under her desk before padding over to the mats where Oliver waited.
She stood above him for a moment, trying to figure the best way to get on his back. That question sounded ten kinds of awkward as it rolled around in her head.
“Um...” she murmured out loud.
Oliver grunted, craning his neck to look at her. “What?”
“I’m trying to figure out how to get on you!” she huffed, placing her hands on her hips and having the sudden urge to kick him for how ridiculous this whole thing was.
“Just get on, Felicity. You’re not going to hurt me. Either sit down first or stand first, it doesn’t matter,” he ground out, but there was no edge to his words, just a slight hint of impatience.
“Fine,” she muttered.
Hesitantly, she put one bare foot on to the middle of his back. The ball of her foot was cold in contrast to the warmth of his back and he flinched at the sudden contact.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, and then quickly put the other one on and balanced herself before sitting down carefully.
She had to hike up her pencil skirt in order to sit with her legs crossed, but eventually, she got situated.
“Ready?” he asked, making her jump, forgetting she was actually sitting on a person.
She nodded before she realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”
Putting his hands underneath him, he began to push up. Felicity watched with awe as the muscles in his back flexed under the strain of the workout. Her hands itched to reach out and touch the skin, feel the sinew and strength beneath her fingers. She quickly clasped them in her lap to keep from doing just that.
It was silent in the room, save for the constant hum of the computers and Oliver’s steady breathing. She knew she needed to talk to keep her mind from drifting to places she best not go while sitting on her Oliver Queen’s back.
Clearing her throat, she hesitantly began to speak, hoping Oliver wouldn’t mind the conversation while he worked.
“So, this new guy from Accounting came into the IT department today, specifically looking for me,” she began, recalling the odd occurrence in her day, “At first, I thought he just wanted to pass along the paperwork from his boss, but then he didn’t leave for almost twenty minutes. He just kept standing there and talking...about nothing really.”
She heard Oliver hum underneath her, and smiled that he was actually listening. “It wasn’t until after he left that I realize he might actually have been interested in me. But then again, how do I know. My radar on guys has been off for years,” she complained, before looking down at the man beneath her, “You’re the expert, was he coming on to me?” she blurted out. It was a question she’d been wondering since it had happened and she just needed to know. She figured Oliver was the one of the better people to ask.
Oliver stilled underneath her, the un-expected question throwing him off-guard. “Why are you asking me? I was on an island for five years, remember? I’m pretty sure I’m not an expert anymore.” he replied, continuing with his exercises.
“Please,” Felicity groaned, rolling her eyes, and giving the back of his head a stern look, “You have had more dates in the six months that you’ve been back then I’ve had in three years.”
Her cheeks burned as she divulged that information but she quickly shrugged it off. She knew Oliver wouldn’t judge her because of it.
He didn’t reply at first, and Felicity thought that maybe he was just going to ignore her question.
Resting her elbow on her knee, she laid her head on her hand and sighed.
“It depends on what he was asking; his body language; if he was looking for a reason to stay when he didn’t have any,” Oliver finally replied, listing out the the things she had to think about. His voice sounded low and odd, as if something was bothering him.
Felicity frowned, “Well, he mainly leaned against the door frame of my office, and kept asking me about my work. Most guys could care less about the codes I enter all day long, but he seemed interested, and he did stay for twenty minutes. All he was doing was dropping off a file...”
Oliver stated, his voice tight, “Sounds like he might have been then.”
“Oh.” Felicity wondered why she hadn’t picked up on this fact when he’d been standing in her office. Could it have been because at the time she was actually looking into something for Oliver as well. She seemed to go into a zone when she was working, and especially when she was working on anything for Oliver. Some people might call it tunnel-vision.
“What did you say his name was?” Oliver asked, his voice sounding more normal.
“Um...Jeff Abernathy, I think,” Felicity replied, scrunching up her brow as she tried to remember. “Why?”
“Just wondering,” Oliver answered nonchalantly, but Felicity narrowed her eyes.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she shrugged, “I doubt I’ll ever see him again. It’s a big company...as you know...”
“Oh, but did I tell you we got two new servers today?” Felicity clapped her hands excitedly, the man from the earlier in the day completely forgotten as she relayed the best news of the day.
She watched as Oliver shook his head. “I can’t wait to set them up and start transferring files,” she continued smiling. “I couldn’t do that today because we didn’t have any more coffee at the office, and that is a job I need coffee for, so I'll do it tomorrow. Plus it was getting late.”
Oliver’s chest rumbled beneath her and she knew he was chuckling. A warm feeling filled her whenever she managed to get him to laugh.
“Which reminds me, I spilled coffee on my shirt on the way over here,” she rambled on, “and it’s my favorite one too. I just bought it this weekend because I loved the shade of purple.”
She looked down at the offending coffee staining, giving it a withering glare.
“That’s your favorite color, isn’t it?” He asked quietly, breaking her stream-of-consciousness ramblings.
Felicity smiled at his head. “Yeah...how’d you know?”
“You’ve mentioned it before when you were talking to Diggle,” he admitted, and she felt her heart flutter in her chest.
“What was your favorite color before the island?” she suddenly asked, not sure where the question had come from except that it was something she wanted to know.
“Huh?” he replied, confusion in his voice.
“I mean, I know you like green now...it’s kind of obvious,” Felicity deadpanned, looking around at the Foundry bathed in a dim green light, the arrows that lined one table and the jacket and hood that hung neatly in a corner of the room.
Oliver sighed beneath her. He was silent for a long time before he answered. “Yellow.”
Felicity’s brow crinkled. “Green’s better.”
Even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew Oliver was smiling. Over the last few weeks, she’d begun to pick up on what made him smile and laugh as well as what made him angry or upset better than she had in the past. She liked that she was learning to read him better.
“Why’s that?” he finally asked aloud.
Shrugging, she reached out and traced her finger over the tattoo on his back without thinking. “It represents life...renewal. Those are good things, Oliver.” Especially for you, she didn’t say aloud, but the words hung in the air between them. He'd seen so much death and hardship...
She watched as he nodded, and the movement caused the muscles of his back to move under her fingers. Realizing that her hand was touching his skin, she gasped. After snatching her hand away, she held her breath, hoping that he hadn’t realized her lapse in rational thought.
He tensed at her movement and she knew he had felt her fingers on his skin as well as their sudden absence. The idea that he hadn't seemed to mind her touch ran through her head. But she quickly decided she wasn't ready to go down that path.
As she mulled over her newest embarrassment, she also noticed he was no longer moving. Sometime during their conversation, he’d stopped doing push-ups and was now just lying on the ground, his arms tucked beneath his head listening to her.
“You stopped!” she exclaimed, chastising him, “Why didn’t you tell me you were done?!”
She was about to climb off of him when his words stilled her.
“You weren’t done,” he replied softly, shrugging his shoulders.
She stared at him in shock. He’d been content to sit there and listen to her talk about her day. Just like he promised he would. A smile lifted the edges of her lips. He glanced back at her and returned the gestured making her heart ache with gratitude.
It had been a long time since she’d been able to talk to someone about her day besides her goldfish at home. And they weren’t the best listeners. This small gesture meant more than he could know.
Afraid her voice would crack if she tried to speak, she simply laid her hand gently against his shoulder, and squeezed softly.
His eyes told her he understood completely.
***
It became something of a routine for Oliver and Felicity. She would get there after work, climb onto his back and he would do push-ups while she told him about her day. Diggle would just watch them with amusement, shaking his head in wonder.
Sometimes, Oliver would tell her about his own day. Other times, he’d just listen to her, offering her advice when she wanted it, and, sometimes, when she didn’t.
A few times, Felicity came into the Foundry looking so tired, they didn’t speak at all. Instead, she just felt the steady beat of Oliver’s heart under her hand as it lay against his back. He didn’t question her actions. He knew she needed the comfort of that simple touch.
And, one night, when Felicity came in very late, she found Oliver sitting on the mat, his hood and leather jacket still on from a hard encounter out on the streets trying to catch the new Count - the person making a new brand of Vertigo.
Diggle had called her and told her that he’d gotten drugged, and he was in bad shape. Of course, he refused to go to the hospital so Diggle was monitoring him at the Foundry.
Felicity had been held up at work, and felt guilty for not being there. Even though he’d gotten the man behind the newest meyhem in Starling City, Felcity could see how much this one had taken from him.
Instead of crawling onto his back as she usually did, she kicked off her heels and sat down next to him on the mats. He nodded at her, acknowledging her presence. She didn’t apologize for not being there. He would tell her it wasn’t her fault anyway.
Without saying a word, she leaned over and rested her head against his strong shoulder. A long, shuddering sigh left his body. She trembled softly at the feel of all of that pain, absorbing as much of it as she could, trying to take the burden from him.
After a few minutes, she felt the weight of his head as he leaned against her, accepting her comfort, and drawing on her strength.
It was then that she realized that, sometimes, they talked to each other without words too. And it was in these moments that they let their hearts do the talking, beating steadily in sync with each other.