#‘he’s impossibly tall and broad with an angular jaw’ SHUT UP

[possumteeths]

it consistently makes me laugh when romance book authors describe any man’s hands as calloused because duhh masculine but like its often so fkn stupid like ur telling me some rich ceo dude has calloused hands? from what???? the exertion of doing nothing?? Tell me abt his bitchy soft hands and manicured nails lmao, this man does NOT have callouses

[olicitysecretsanta]

Trapped

A gift by @leuska for @hope-for-olicity

This has to be the worst Christmas Eve ever. Not that she minds that it’s Christmas Eve. No, that’s just the icing on the whole fracking cake.

 Her back hurts. Her left hip throbs uncomfortably, courtesy of the massive cabinet currently pinning her down. It’s just so damn heavy. She had already tried to shift it off of herself multiple times to no avail. The heavy cow just wouldn’t budge an inch. Not even enough to relieve the pain of the metal edge cutting into her skin across the underside of her ribs. She doesn’t know how long she lies there. Maybe minutes. Maybe hours. She’s long since lost track of time.

 Felicity’s trapped.

 The chill of the stone floor doesn’t help, sending unpleasant shivers up her spine. But Felicity can’t bring herself to worry about the chill in that moment, because she has a more immediate problem.

The fire.

 She has yet to see the flames; but she can hear them, somewhere above her on the ground floor, cracking merrily, slowly but surely making their way down to her.

 The walls and beams of the building above groan before falling eerily silent again. Darkness envelops her and Felicity tries not to succumb to the crippling hopelessness and fear that had been creeping up on her ever since the first crackle of the flames.

 No one knows she’s down here. She could die here and no one would find her body for days.

 Well...Perhaps that’s a little melodramatic. And probably not true. Laurel knows. But she wouldn’t be much good to Felicity if she happened to be in a similar predicament, somewhere a floor or two above her, also trapped, seriously injured, or even worse, dead.

 She hates the darkness of the basement. She hates darkness, period. Even as a child, she would sleep with a lamp on, and did so until well into her teens. But the electricity is gone, courtesy of the fire.

 She wishes suddenly for her menorah. She doesn’t care how ridiculous the thought is. It would’ve brought light.

 She had celebrated Hanukkah this year, if only because her mother had pestered her about it. She had lit the candles, done the rituals, all alone in her small apartment, and yet, didn’t feel any more enlightened nor spiritually illuminated, nor anything else that one was supposed to feel during as a result of such ceremonies.

 She could really do with some light now though, spiritual or otherwise.

 Because with the way things are looking just now, Felicity Smoak is going to die on Christmas Eve in a dark, dingy basement, struck down by a cabinet whilst trying to troubleshoot CNRI’s recent server issues.

 Life is indeed not fair.

 Felicity’s chest hurts, but it has nothing to do with the dust and debris she is lying in. A tight fist of fear and regret closes around her throat and heart.

 She doesn’t want to die. Not yet. Not like this.

 A single tear slips from the corner of her eye, disappearing into her hairline, causing a tickling sensation to run through her.

 This is it. This is how her lonely existence ends at mere 23 years of age. Another statistic of young people tragically dying before their time. Millenials doing it again: killing safety in IT jobs.

 A sound comes from above her, but this time, it’s not the building groaning as it burns on its less-than-stable support beams. No, this sound is deliberately and distinctly man-made. Someone or something is banging against the door to the basement, trying to get inside. Then she hears the voice.

 “Hello? Is anybody down there?!”

 Oh, God, yes. YES!

 “Y-yea, I am…” Felicity croaks, her voice a feeble cough cracking through her body, dust filling her lungs. She gives another mighty cough before trying again, voice stronger this time.

 “Help! I am down here! I am trapped down here!”

 There is a moment of silence, nothing but the groaning of the building that’s about to collapse on top of her, accompanied by the ominous crackle of the fire. She starts to think she’s imaged the whole thing, wished the voice into existence. Then:

 “Just hold on—stay calm—I am coming down!” the voice calls through the still closed metal door that she can hear is being attacked by something heavy from upstairs.

 “Not gonna be a problem,” Felicity murmurs to herself, her head flopping back to the concrete, her body once again wracked with coughs.

 The door above her suddenly bursts open, a ray of light spilling down the stairs to where she’s trapped.

 She would smirk at the trite nature of the words which come to mind – and then there was light – were she not trapped, tired, hurting and so very scared.

 Instead, she tries to crane her neck, see the person hurrying down, but with the way she is pinned, it’s just her luck that her back is to the stairs. All she can do is listen as a heavy pair of boots clomp down the stairs, their echo bouncing off the walls of the basement as well as Felicity’s skull. Despite the inharmonious thunk of the sound, it sounds like music to her ears.

 “Okay miss, I am here,” says a masculine voice and Felicity squeezes her eyes tightly shut as a ray of light from a strong, heavy-duty flashlight hits her face.

 There is movement above her and she squints when the beam slips from her face and hits the floor. A black and yellow blur flashes in front of her eyes. She hears the flashlight clatter to the floor and it bathes the room in light shadows.

 The quick transition from lying unmoving in the dark to sudden light and movement is more than a bit disconcerting, but Felicity fights to adapt, wracking her brain to make some sense of the situation. She wonders if this is all just a figment of her shock-riddled imagination.

 “Hold on, I am going to try and lift this a little so you can wiggle out.”

 Yellow and black flashes again and she finally puts it all together. A firefighter. Of course. Who else?

 And a pretty strong one, too, if the grunts and groans coming from him are any indication as the man tries to shift the cabinet off of her. Suddenly, the weight lifts from her hips and she can move again.

 “Can you–“ a heavy groan, “–maneuver yourself out?” the Hulk of a man grunts, holding the cabinet an inch or two above her.

 Awed, Felicity takes her first free breath; then forces her mind to take a quick inventory of her body. Her hip and legs are prickling with pins and needles shooting down to her toes as proper blood circulation resumes, but nothing feels too severely damaged.

 “Ye-es,” Felicity stammers. “I think so.”

 She lifts her body to her elbows and pulls back, slowly and painstakingly shuffling herself out from underneath the cabinet.

 “Just don’t let it fall on me again,” she whimpers, the words escaping her mouth on their own when she sees the man’s arms shake with the exertion, sweat running down his face.

 “I won’t,” he bites out through clenched teeth. She absolutely believes him.

 It takes longer than she expected, but once her legs are free, she hastily pulls the rest of her body out and draws her feet underneath herself so the man can let the cabinet fall to the ground with a grinding crash.

 For a moment, Felicity just sits there, gawking up at her savior, still in awe of the man who just single handedly helped her out from the death trap that would have buried her alive.

 And boy, upon closer inspection, he is one fine specimen of a savior. A hunk of a savior, her mom would say.

 The firefighter’s uniform is bulky on his fit frame, hiding the finer contours of his body, but Felicity can still see that he is tall and broad. Her eyes seize him from head to toe, her mouth slightly agape. When her gaze falls to the ground, she spots his helmet he must have pulled down while heaving the cabinet off of her, and Felicity now has the perfect view of him panting and wiping his sweaty brow with one huge glowed hand. And if his body looks massive and strong, it definitely doesn’t take away anything from the man’s handsome face.

 The firefighter gives one final sigh before directing his eyes at her, stepping closer and oh boy, is he even more handsome up close.

 “Are you okay, miss? Are you hurt?” he asks urgently as he crouches down to her, his face coming impossibly close.

 Even in the flickering light, she notices that his eyes are blue. Impossibly blue.

 Wow.

 They are still shrouded in dimness, the only two sources of light coming from the flames upstairs and the beam of his flashlight.

 Yet she can still see that his eyes are a very distinctive blue. Dark brown hair, angular broad jaw deliciously peppered with stubble. Unfairly handsome, indeed.

 And very concerned for her, obviously.

 “Lady, are you hurt? Can you stand?”

 Lady. Now that sounds super weird. Shaking her head like a dog, Felicity forces herself to concentrate on the question.

 “I don’t think so…” she murmurs and almost panics when the man reaches for her, before realizing he is just trying to help her stand.

 “Time to find out,” he murmurs in a deep, caring voice and Felicity realizes that it’s a very nice murmur. And what the hell is wrong with her? Before she can finish the thought, however, she is standing, half on her own, half supported by the man.

 “You good?”

 It’s that damn sexy murmur again, so close to her ear now that it makes her jump in surprise.

 “Ye-yes.” She stammers, a shiver running down her spine. She takes a step back from him, trying to find her center.

 “Wonderful, because we really need to get out before the whole building collapses,” he says urgently and she nods, the reality of their situation crashing back down to her.

 It started with Laurel Lance’s call, begging Felicity for a Christmas Eve favor – a Christmas Eve miracle, Laurel called it. Then the sudden explosion and subsequent fire. The blast had shaken the whole building, causing a heavy cabinet to turn over, effectively trapping her.

 “Hey,” a gentle voice brings her back from her spiraling thoughts, a gloved hand closing around her arm and squeezing reassuringly. “Don’t be scared. I’m here to help you. What’s your name?”

“Fe-Felicity.”

“Felicity. That’s a nice name.”

She likes the way he says her name.

“Can you breathe for me?”

Those intense blue eyes are on hers again, urging her on as she steadily takes one breath after another, long enough to stop the ringing in her ears.

“Okay,” she manages to bite out through clenched teeth. “I’m good.”

She isn’t. But the groaning of the building above her doesn’t really leave her any choice but to be ready and face whatever awaits them above.

The man gives a short nod, then crouches down to pick up his dropped flashlight and helmet. Pondering something for a moment, he makes a quick decision and instead puts the helmet on Felicity’s head.

“Here. It’s dangerous up there,” he explains with a small smile.

The helmet is heavy and dwarfs her head. Still. Everything Felicity can think about is that the man has a really nice smile. Which only serves as clear proof of how mentally unstable she currently is, swooning about the handsomeness of her rescuer instead of the very real danger of her dying in the next couple of minutes.

The man silently directs her to follow closely behind him before he starts walking up the stairs again.

“My God, what happened up there?” Felicity asks with a gasp, because now that they are half up the stairs, she can actually see all the damage lying behind the door to CNRI’s server basement.

“We don’t know yet,” the man replies, not turning or stopping to give his explanation. “But considering the part of town we’re in, probably a gas leak that caused an explosion. It doesn’t take much where these particular buildings are concerned. They are old and not very well maintained. It actually, sadly, happens quite often.”

They reach the top of the stairs and the sight in front of her as she peaks around the man’s broad back makes Felicity freeze with shock.

What greets her eye can’t be described any other way than utter wreckage. The CNRI building – or what’s left of it – looks like it’s been bombed in air strikes. There is rubble everywhere, multiple small fires crackling all around the place, concrete pillars that used to support the building not an hour ago now cracked or outright ripped apart, some completely blown from their fundamentals. There are burning documents, computers and furniture everywhere and considering what lays ahead of her, it looks like a very deadly obstacle course. Or simply a death trap, there is no way around it.

Felicity gulps again, taking an involuntary step back before she remembers not to move any further so she doesn’t fall down the stairs again. Her rescuer turns to her, a silent question in his eyes. Maybe this is the time to lay her cards on the table and admit she isn’t much of an athletic person. Or, you know, not athletic at all, period. Oh, who is she kidding, she only bought that stationary bike because she was feeling guilty for not exercising in the first place. The very same bicycle that now serves as a fancy coat rack.

So no. There is absolutely no way she can make her way through this.

“Felicity?” the man questions, and her eyes fall shut with embarrassment and shame.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispers, barely over the crackling of the fire.

“You can.” The man says with conviction Felicity doesn’t feel.

“I’m scared,” she involuntarily whimpers, her cheeks growing warm at the admission. Here he is, a firefighter ready to risk his own life to save hers and she is stalling out of fear and insecurity. By now, the man sure must regret finding her alive in the first place.

“Hey, don’t be scared, Felicity. I am here to help you. I know it looks bad, but you are not alone and I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?”

She already loves him. Like not loves loves him, not like being in love with him, but loves how wonderful of a rescuer he is. And she wants to believe him. Actually, Felicity realizes as she looks back into those gorgeous blue eyes of his, she does believe him. At least she believes the part where he won’t willingly let anything happen to her. As for herself and her own abilities…

“Okay,” she nods and takes a deep breath before she realizes what a stupid mistake that is. Her lungs instantly fill with hot smoke and dust, wrecking her body with a violent fit of coughs causing her mangled hip and side to burn with searing pain.

Frack! Frack, frackity-frack!

“Here.”

Something presses into her hand, a cloth the man must have wet with water.

“Press this over your nose and mouth.”

The Hunk – cause yeah, she needs a name for him, even if only in her own head, and it is the very first description that originally came to her mind. Well, no, actually it was Hulk, but that nickname is just stupid, because he isn’t mean nor green nor violent, so Hunk will have to do. The Hunk is now looking an her urgently, his eyes still gentle but more insistent.

“We really need to keep going, Felicity. You ready?”

She is not. God, she so is not. But she bravely nods anyway.

He takes her hand and starts directing them through the maze that was once the cubicle-ed offices of CNRI. Only now, the space looks nothing like what Felicity remembers.

Using one hand to press the wet cloth against her face while the other clutches the gloved hand of her rescuer for dear life, Felicity stumbles behind him as they painstakingly and slowly make their way through the rubble. It’s not easy, because they have to crouch underneath fallen pillars, and crawl over overturned furniture, chunks of blown apart walls or walk around the small fires that burn everywhere.

The environment is also very hot. And not only because of the proximity of her handsome rescuer, who is definitely a solid ten on the hotness scale, if Felicity does say so herself. No, it’s the smoke and dust and fire that are making her eyes water and lungs seize, her abused body tiredly stumbling behind the man whose step never falters.

They are proceeding slowly but safely, inching towards the door where Felicity hopes the exit lies. In the smoke and dust and rubble, she is absolutely lost as to which room exactly they are currently walking across.

Making a short stop in a small niche in the doorway between two rooms, her firefighter silently offers her the bottle of water before he takes out his radio, reaching out while she drinks hastily, the water a welcoming balm against her parched throat.

“Queen here. I found the woman. We are on our way out now.”

There is a short moment of static crackling before a deep rumble of a voice responds. “Queen, you son of a bitch. You better get your ass safely out of there or I will kill you myself. Waiting on standby. Boys are trying to contain the fire from outside. Make it quick though, the building doesn’t have much time.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that, the man – the Hunk – is done and once again looking expectedly towards her. She gives a slow nod and he silently takes her hand again as they make their way towards the next door in what feels like a sick game of walking through a minefield.

They are close, so close in fact, Felicity can almost feel the cool draft of wind coming from somewhere in front of her when it all goes straight to hell.

The ceiling in the very last room they need to cross caves right in front of their eyes, and the Hunk barely has time to jump back and turn towards her, roughly showing Felicity back and against the doorframe they just came through, shielding her as huge chunks plaster, wood and concrete come raining down onto them.

It’s sheer luck they weren’t too deep in the room yet, otherwise they would have been buried alive.

There’s a little break in the collapsing and before she knows what’s happening, Felicity is pushed backward further into the previous room, further away from the longed-for exit.

Somewhere behind her, she can hear the deep male voice from before call to them, repeating ‘Queen, Queen’, which doesn’t make any sense at all, before she realizes the Hunk is not hot at her heels anymore but cursing and diving back into the caving room. And that’s when it clicks to her; the radio.

He’s lost the radio.

She just manages to turn back and grab him by the arm, yanking him back violently, surprised at her own reflexes as well as strength, but she manages to pull him back just in time for the room he was just about to enter again into completely caving in on itself, debris of several floors crashing down with deafening racket. And it doesn’t end there, the whole statics of the building is compromised now and there is no way the building can remain standing anymore.

“Back!” Felicity shouts, orders really, once again surprising herself by her decisiveness. “We need to get back to that basement before it all comes crashing down on us!”

Before she knows, the Hunk is already pushing at her from behind, urging her to move on as she speeds through the rooms they so carefully maneuvered before, not caring about possibly catching her clothes on fire or scratching her hands against obstacles standing in their way anymore, only going forward, always forward, running until they reach the door to the basement again. Without thinking, she flies down the stairs and is once again back where it all started.

That’s when the building above them completely gives way, all three floors pancaking on themselves. The sound is deafening. Felicity has never heard anything as ear-splitting and utterly scary in her life. The ceilings and walls crash down and rubble flies down the stairs of the basement, effectively burying them alive.

Felicity stands frozen, just at the bottom the stairs where rubble and debris still falls, but she is unable to move, paralyzed by fear. She feels herself being swooped up just as a large chunk of concrete lands at the spot she’s just been standing at and she is pushed under the metal stairs and pulled against a solid chest, strong arms enveloping her as everything else around them collapses.

She clutches at the Hunks uniform, her face against his throat, absolutely certain they are about to die any second, squashed to a bloody pulp by tons and tons of concrete and construction material.

But death never comes.

It could have been moments, it could have been hours, but finally, there is just silence, darkness, and the heavy breathing of two very much alive people.

She feels movement, then sees a flicker and the room is suddenly bathed in the harsh beam of a flashlight cutting through whirls of dust. The Hunk is directing his flashlight towards her even as she is still cowering in his arms, a concerned look on his face.

“You okay?” he asks, his voice ragged and slightly out of breath. When she doesn’t answer, he asks more urgently, addressing her directly by name to drill his point across, “Felicity, are you hurt!?”

She shakes her head against him.

“No.” It’s all she is able to mutter before her whole body begins to shake, her teeth rattling.

“Y-you?” For some reason, it is paramount to her that he is okay too.

“Fine,” the Hunk sighs, finally pulling back and away from her. She nearly whimpers.

Instead, Felicity follows the flashlight’s light as it dances around the room and bounces off the walls, or at least what’s left of them. Half the space is filled with rubble and debris, the metal stairs practically the only thing that saved them from having their heads smashed by falling chunks of construction material.

What’s left free is a space of a couple of feet that stretches from underneath the stairs to – ironically – the very cabinet Felicity has been trapped under earlier.

This is…it’s bad. Very bad.

The Hunk gets to his feet and makes a quick scoop around the room, assessing the damage, as if trying to find some miraculous way out of here. Without having to look herself, Felicity knows with absolute certainty that they are effectively trapped. The Hunk must have reached the same conclusion, because his shoulders sag. To his credit though, once he turns back to her, he’s straightened them out again while speaking in a steady, calm voice.

“Don’t worry. My colleagues know we are here. They will come searching for us.”

She really wants to share his enthusiasm. Only, she is a very practical and rational person. And she knows things aren’t that easy.

“Only your colleagues think we got smashed to a pulp by the collapsing building.”

The Hunk shakes his head disapprovingly. “No, they heard we were okay when I radioed us in.”

“Yes, but that was before the building fell in on itself like a damn house of cards,” she counter-reasons. “And you lost your radio.” It’s only sheer luck she doesn’t say ‘drop’.

“I know,” the Hunk says, tightness for the very first time entering his voice and posture as he lays his hands on his hips, his breathing growing heavier. He is agitated, but that doesn’t stop Felicity from voicing the obvious problem.

“I am just saying. When your colleagues try to call again, all they will get is radio silence. Which to them will appear as if we--”

“Could you maybe tone it down with the pessimism? I am trying to keep a cool head here, but your pinpointing of everything that’s wrong in not really helping,” the man hisses, shooting her a disbelieving glare.

Its intensity makes Felicity flinch. “I’m sorry,” she utters, bringing her knees to her chest, trying to ignore how her eyes, lungs as well as half her body burn and hurt.

“It’s just that when I am stressed, I talk,” she squeezed out through clenched teeth before nervously picking a loose threat of her already completely destroyed skirt. With a start, she realizes she isn’t wearing the helmet anymore. Duh. Must have lost it somewhere while running back for cover.

The Hunk gives a heavy sigh, air leaving his lungs in a whoosh.

“No, Felicity,” he tells her in a surprisingly gentle tone. “It’s me who’s sorry.”

He takes the few steps, circling back to where she is sitting pressed with her back against the wall underneath the stairs. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. That was unhelpful and very unprofessional of me. I apologize.”

She only nods in response, not trusting her voice just yet.

The Hunk puts the flashlight between them on its rear end, its light hitting the ceiling and casting the room in a greyish half-light. He proceeds by unzipping his heavy fireproof jacked, pushing it from his shoulders with a wince before plopping down to the ground close to her in nothing but a black shirt (and suspenders!), gingerly laying back against the same concrete wall but keeping a respectable distance of a couple feet between them.

“Are you hurt?” Felicity asks, noticing the way he unsuccessfully tries to mask his discomfort.

“Just bruises and abrasions,” he brushes her off. When she silently pins him with a look, he sighs and elaborates. “When the ceiling came down in the last room and I pushed you against the doorway, some of the falling debris caught me on the back.”

Felicity thinks that’s a very nice way to put how he literally wrapped himself around her to shield her from the falling pieces of ceiling. She can’t dwell on it however, as his next words knock the breath out of her.

“You saved my life back there,” he says with a gentle smile. “Thank you.” It’s not even a question, just a statement. But for the life of her, Felicity can’t come up with what he means by that.

So the only thing she manages in response in a stupid, “What?”

“Back in the room, when I dropped my radio. I dived back for it. It was a stupid, instinctive reaction. You pulled me back in time not to be crushed. Thank you for that.”

Felicity’s cheeks grow warm. She didn’t think about it like that, not at that time. It doesn’t even make sense to her like that now. She didn’t think what she was doing, she just reacted.

She clears her throat, feeling slightly uncomfortable to be put into the spotlight.

“So. Since it looks like we are going to be here for a while, what do I call you? Mr. Sexy Firefighter is kind of long.”

Her eyes fall shut. She can’t believe those words actually left her stupid, stupid mouth. “Not that being sexy qualifies you to be a good firefighter. Which you obviously are, though. Since you rescued me. You’re sexy too, but that’s beside the point here,” she heavily gulps down, squeezing her eyes tightly. How can she be so devastatingly embarrassing even in a life-threating situation like this? “I just mean that I would really like to know your name, if that’s okay with you. Since you already know mine, it would only be fair.”

She dares to open her eyes then and the small smile playing over his lips in the dim light almost makes her embarrassment worth it. Almost.

“Oliver. You can call me Oliver, Felicity.”

Oliver. She tries it out, likes how it rolls on her tongue. And oh my god, what is wrong with her? They are fighting for their lives here and she is drooling about a sexy firefighter’s name. A sexy firefighter who sure as hell has some hot lawyer chic like Laurel Lance waiting at home for him to carve up the Christmas turkey and scoop up the stuffing.

That puts a damper on her absolutely inappropriate thoughts. Because there won’t be any turkey carving tonight. For either of them. Not that she has any plans or a turkey or a hot boyfriend waiting at home for her. Nope. But he might. And instead, he is stuck here with her.

“Thank you, by the way. For coming and saving me from underneath that cabinet. And then trying to get us out,” she says in barely a whisper.

“It’s my job,” The Hunk-- Oliver shrugs. Like it’s no big deal. When it’s everything to another human being. Everything to her.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I am grateful. I mean, look at you! Good looking and saving lives on Christmas Eve. It doesn’t get any better than that. Sorry for that, by the way. Ruining your Christmas. Surely, you girlfriend or family will be pissed I took you away from them on such an important evening.”

“Actually, you didn’t ruin anything. I am on shift today as well as tomorrow. Well, not anymore. If we get out tonight, I’m sure they’ll order me to take tomorrow off.”

That catches her by surprise. And sure enough, her big mouth runs away with her once again.

“So…No Mrs. Sexy Firefighter waiting for that broad chest with a six pack back at home? That’s kind of a waste, if you ask me. Not that you’re asking me. Or that I’ve seen your chest. I just assumed. You know, how you picked up that cabinet all by yourself? That was really impressive. And also indicative of the fact that you must indeed have a pretty neat six pack in order to do that.”

It was his answering breathless chuckle that made her realize how very uncomfortable her words have been making him. Well, that made two of them. Only, she was the idiot who couldn’t stop them from leaving her mouth.

“Sorry. Again,” she murmured in embarrassment, “It’s probably the lack of oxygen talking. I don’t usually ramble like this. Actually no, who am I kidding,” she sighed unhappily. “It’s exactly what I do. It’s my very own specialty; a superpower, really. And my personal kind of hell. Duh, maybe that’s why I have so little friends. I guess it must be pretty hard to hang out with a person like me with her thoughts completely scattered all over the place all the time. Talk getting awkward on the go. Anytime, anywhere. I can make the both of us feel uncomfortable in no time. Anytime. So I will shut up now. No reason to waste precious oxygen on my rambles. Which will end. Right now.”

She does fall silent after that, hiding her face against her knees, still not able to believe she actually unloaded all that on her fancy rescuer. Felicity doesn’t dare to look at him, not interested to see the embarrassment on his face. Or pity, or annoyance. That’s probably the top three emotions she gets from people whenever they catch her during one of her nervous rambles. She hates this personal trait of herself and yet for the love of her, she can’t change it. The more she tries, the more awkward and mortifying she gets.

Been there, done that. It’s how it is with her. She’s made her peace with that. But she doesn’t have to subject innocent bystanders to this horrible habit of hers. And definitely not such nice ones as hot men trying to rescue her from a burning building and endangering themselves in the process.

Or just one hot and nice man. She feels bad for him. He might die here because of her. They might both die here. Handsome and skilled as he is, his death would surely be a crime against humanity. She doesn’t want that on her conscience.

But she manages at least one thing. She stays silent. Doesn’t need to incriminate herself any further. Definitely doesn’t want to embarrass either of them any more than she already has.

Her cheeks are aflame, eyes burning. She tells herself it’s because of the exertion, smoke and dust.

“How did you know I was down here anyway? How did you know where to look?” She utters after a while, unable to stand the stretching, uncomfortable silence any longer. Well, maybe it was just her. Maybe he was perfectly comfortable with the silence.

Felicity always hated silences with a vengeance. She always felt the compulsive need to fill them. With whatever happened to come across her mind. With her track record, she always managed to fill them with the worst possible type of word-vomit. At least this was something sensible to ask.

Maybe they could even have a casual conversation like two normal people. She desperately needed to take away the edge of her fear that neither of them would make it out of this stupid basement alive.

“Laurel Lance told me,” Oliver replies after a while, effectively cutting through her spiraling thoughts. Her mouth shapes into a perfect ’O’ before the meaning of his words fully registers.

“Oh! Oh my god, Laurel! Is she okay?!”

 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 Oliver is perplexed.

And no. It’s not the fact that a rescue mission has gone so terribly wrong. That’s just the way his work is, risk of being hurt or dying on the job comes with the territory. So it’s not the fact that he is stuck in a basement low on oxygen in a building that had previously collapsed onto him with a woman he was supposed to rescue only to be rescued by her in return. Not even the fact that he might not make it out of here alive tonight is the reason for his shock.

What has put his whole system into a state of utter bewilderment is the woman sitting just a couple of feet next to him. A woman that utterly baffles and intrigues him at the same time.

And that’s the thing. She shouldn’t. It’s what he does every single day. He saves people from the most dangerous or risky situations. Sometimes it’s injured people, sometimes it’s hysteric people, sometimes he has to deal with utterly stupid people (like those two drunk college kids who got stuck trying to climb down a chimney, Santa-style). He rescues very badly hurt people, people with deep wounds or missing limbs, people shouting in agony from terrible burns, people crying because they saw their loved ones die in front of their own eyes. He’s seen it all.

And still, seeing that young woman helplessly trapped under the heavy cabinet, utterly alone waiting in the dark to possibly die, on Christmas Eve no less, in a dingy server basement of a non-profit organization’s collapsing building – it did something to him. Moved something in him it shouldn’t have.

Yet it was cruel somehow, that this would possibly have been the way she would’ve died if he hadn’t done what he’d done. It was in times like these when Oliver really appreciated his job. This was the very reason he did it. Why he put his life on the line.

He’d quickly run down the stairs and heaved the cabinet off her, relieved that she was in a state to cooperate. Once free, he prepared himself for possible hysterics and subsequent gentle persuasion, a lot of convincing and the possibility of having to somehow carry her out himself if she proved unable to follow him outside through the wreckage on her own. But despite her injuries, fear and apprehension, she cooperated flawlessly.

That was something he’d appreciated very much, although it was neither unique nor unheard of. Different people coped in different ways. She was one of the tougher ones, apparently, despite expressing her fear to him. It was the fact that in spite of her fear she followed his instructions to a T that told Oliver she underestimated herself, big time.

What truly surprised him was her saving his own life a mere fifteen minutes later by making the smart, logical decision of not letting him leap after his lost radio. It was a rookie mistake that Oliver still couldn’t wrap his head around making in the first place. Such mistakes usually cost you your life. And he knew that had he been with anyone else, he would be dead by now, buried under the rubble.

So much for his professional pride.

Then she did another amazing thing, in a split decision that spoke of a very sharp mind. Once again, she’d saved both of their lives. Truth was, it had been Felicity’s idea to return to the basement, which was, in fact, the safest and only place they could possibly survive the building collapsing.

It could still cave under the pressure of three stories, but given the fact that it hadn’t yet proved Felicity’s decision had been right.

Once again, she mesmerized him when she didn’t even acknowledge how she’d saved their lives twice in the course of five minutes. Instead, she‘d rambled her way through their rather unorthodox introductions, something Oliver suspected she did quite a lot. A quality – according to her – not many people enjoyed. He could understand why. And yet, he didn’t mind it, not coming from her. She was genuine. Constantly full of surprises. Fascinating.

This girl – woman – Felicity. She really was quite something. And despite knowing it to be very, very unprofessional, Oliver Queen was very much intrigued.

And then he’d told her about Laurel being the one who’d tipped him off, and despite being buried alive under tons of rubble and concrete herself, no doubt hurting from the injuries caused by the cabinet she’d been trapped under, Oliver can still see how affected she is by the prospect of Laurel Lance being hurt.

Therefore, he hurries to reassure her, to give her at least something to bring her a little peace of mind.

“Yeah, Laurel’s fine. She got out in time, looked relatively unscathed.”

He doesn’t tell her about the gash across Laurel’s forehead or the blood trickling down her throat. Doesn’t elaborate on how the she’d looked like a mirage, a ghost, running from the burning building, clothes and face white as a sheet covered in dust and plaster, hands trembling and hair disheveled, a wild look on her face as her eyes sought him out.

They’d always had a connection, he and Laurel, back during the time they’d dated, on and off and on again. Despite it being a long time ago, her uncanny ability to always seek him out even amongst a crowd always stayed. He never could do that. Never even cared to try, if he was being honest.

But Laurel’s always known.

“Ollie!”

Immediately, she’d crossed the space between them, her cries directed at him even as his other colleagues reached her first.

“Ollie, there’s still a woman in the building! You have to help her!”

She knew he didn’t need to hear more. That’s why she’d sought him out, specifically him. Laurel knew he wouldn’t think twice to rush in, knew his reckless nature would propel him into action where others would have hesitated. After all, it was one of the reasons why they’d split. Well, that, and the fact that he just hadn’t cared about her enough. However, that was a long time ago.

Still, Laurel knew Oliver wouldn’t hesitate. Maybe it was her karmic payback, using one of the things she hated most about him against him, though Oliver didn’t mind or dwell on it too much. The outcome was just the same for him, he would have gone no matter who’d told him there was somebody left inside. It was what he did. It was also the thing that made him one of the best and at the same time most dangerous men in his unit.

He liked it. He liked doing the risky thing, going places no one else dared to go. He liked feeling the rush of carrying a person, still alive, from a burning building. It was gratifying, sure. It was also absolutely daring and reckless as hell. He wouldn’t want to live his life any other way but it didn’t do him any favors with his superiors.

John Diggle was the only person able to handle him. To deal with the hot-headed side of him. He managed – to a certain degree – to reign in Oliver’s impulsive behavior, or so their superiors thought. Tonight was not one of those days. Oliver had gone in, not sparing his Captain – his boss and his friend – a second glance, even though he knew very well the structure of the building had been severely compromised and a further plan of action needed to be coordinated.

He knows Diggle will give him an earful for this, if he survives. Not for the fact that he tried to save someone. No, that would make him a hero in the public eye, Oliver already knew from so many brushes with death in the past.

The problem isn’t his drive to save someone, but his lack of discipline while doing so. There is a clear chain of command he blatantly disregards whenever it suits him. He doesn’t listen, doesn’t wait for backup, doesn’t talk strategy. He acts as he sees fit in moments like these. It doesn’t bode well with the Battalion Chief and Oliver knows it’s only thanks to Diggle that he still has a job.

One of these days, you will get yourself killed out there.

It’s what John keeps telling him, always angry and aggravated after whatever stunt he has just pulled. Oliver doesn’t particularly care about that thought. He never really had. Not if the alternative would be this woman dying here in agony and fear, alone in the dark. She still might die. But at least she won’t die alone.

Of course, Oliver hopes it won’t come to that. He is reckless and driven, not suicidal.

“Are you and Laurel friends?” he asks Felicity, willing to stop his dangerous train of thought. Felicity – he really likes the name – just shakes her head.

“No. I just do some work for CNRI.”

The rubble above them shifts, something in the ruins above them moaning dangerously. Felicity flinches before cowering in fear.

Oliver desperately wants to keep the conversation flowing, keep their mind of the sword of Damocles hanging above them. So he inquires further.

“What kind of work?”

Felicity shrugs. “Mainly system maintenance, installation of upgrades, checking the firewall, you know. Usual boring IT stuff. Sometimes,” she points to the back of the room where the corner of the now completely destroyed server is peaking from, “fixing server issues. Something tells me that one is beyond repair, though.” She huffs, and there is an annoyed lilt to her voice. “I spent over two hours working on that stupid thing and it’s all for naught.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Oliver’s mouth, but he tries to rein it in. It doesn’t seem fitting to smile in a situation like this.

“Again, sorry about all of this.” Felicity says, making a circling gesture with her hand. She tries to play it nonchalant, but Oliver can see the current situation weighing on her. “You just tried to help me. And now we are both stuck and might die here.”

Her voice shakes at the end and that’s when Oliver notices a couple of silent tears slipping down her cheeks. It makes his chest hurt. Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s pulling his fire safe gloves off his hands so he can curl his fingers around her forearm in what he hopes is a soothing gesture.

“Felicity, hey. It’s not your fault, okay? We’re gonna be fine, you’ll see.”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, but there is no conviction in her voice as she retreats even further into herself, her knees pulled tight to her chest, her body curled into a ball. He lets his hand drop, at a loss for how to comfort her. It takes a while before either of them speaks again.

“I know you said you’re on shift both, today as well tomorrow, so I didn’t ruin any Christmas plans for you,” she quietly states. “But I’m sure your family won’t be pleased when they find out that you are trapped under a collapsed building, possibly already—” she harshly stops herself from finishing that sentence.

He doesn’t know why he feels the need to reassure her that what happened today is not much different from what he does regularly. That people sometimes think he is on a suicide mission, with the way he leads his life, conducts his work. He just wants to make her feel better about the situation and the misplaced guilt she obviously feels for his being stuck with her.

“Nah,” he shrugs. “Even if I die tonight, trust me, not many people will shed a tear. See, I have what most people would call a bad reputation. Which is just a nice way to say that most of the time, they consider me a real dick.”

He flashes her a half-cocked smile, expecting her to give an indignated laugh or a roll of her eyes at his drama. She does neither, only studies him intensely. It makes him uncomfortable.

“That’s a horrible thing to say. Besides, I have a hard time believing that,” she argues. “I mean not the part about your reputation. For all I know, that could be perfectly true.”

Amused, Oliver raises an eyebrow and her brain finally seems to catch up to her mouth. Realizing how that must have sounded, she quickly hastens to elaborate. “I mean I hardly know you to be able the judge that. Maybe you are an awesome rescuer and firefighter but a dick of a person, making farting noises when your colleagues sit down or stealing their food from the fridge at work. God knows I’ve met plenty of such assholes in my days as a corporate IT girl. That said, I didn’t want to imply I think you are dick-”

She is rambling again. Oliver is surprised to realize he actually likes it. He isn’t just impartial to it anymore, he genuinely enjoys observing how her mouth runs away from her and how her statements snowball as she goes. It has an awkward yet endearing quality about it. It’s like she genuinely doesn’t have a filter. It makes her speak honestly. He’s always appreciated honesty and hated any kind of sugarcoating of the truth. But then, why is he doing the very same thing to her right now? Because, Oliver knows, he is sugarcoating. About himself. About why he is sitting here, with her, in a bubble of air left under three stories of collapsed glass and concrete, on Christmas Eve, not the least concerned about whether he lives or dies tonight. Why, if he dies tonight, there won’t be no big hole gaping in anybody’s heart.

“Both my parents are dead,” he blurts out of the blue. Felicity blinks, her mouth falling agape. Yeah, no wonder. Way to kill the mood. Not that there was any mood to begin with. But that’s what it basically comes down to. His voice is quiet when he continues, his eyes wandering away.

“I do have a sister. Thea. She’s younger than me, way younger. She only turned 20 a couple of months ago. I know she would miss me. But she lives with the constant knowledge that the day I won’t return from work might come. It comes with the territory. An occupational hazard, if you will. She would understand, would – hopefully – be proud I died trying to save another person. It sucks that it’s Christmas, cause it’s her favorite holiday and it’s been only the two of us for so long. But she has a fiancée now. A good guy in her life. She will be hurt, but she will make it.”

He doesn’t even realize when he slips up and transitions from hypothetical would to certain will. Maybe that says something about him. The certainty that he will die on this job one day not too far from now. He is glad Thea is settled. It makes it easier to lead the life he does, with no regrets.

He clears his throat. “I have a best friend, Tommy. He is a billionaire who is disgustingly rich and who loves to party, so he will probably throw a big bash in my name and hope to pick up some girls in the process,” it makes him smile, even as he hears Felicity gasp. That’s Tommy for you, but he doesn’t dare to look at her. He has no idea why he is telling her all this in the first place other than he feels like telling her. Like telling someone. Because maybe he won’t ever get a chance to do so again.

“The guys in my unit, they’re great. My Captain, John, he’s a true friend. They will mourn the loss of a brother and pay their respects. And then they’ll move on, get back to their own families with their daily day to day problems. It’s what we do.”

Oliver realizes he’s saying that quite a lot. It comes with the territory. The risk is part of the job. It’s to be expected. Suddenly, it sounds like an excuse, but he doesn’t want to analyze it too much, and merely clears his throat once again.

“What about you, Felicity? Who would you be leaving behind if we died tonight? Which we won’t. This is purely hypothetical,” he adds with a reassuring smile. “Any boyfriend who would build you a Taj Mahal?”

He doesn’t know what makes him ask that question. It’s extremely unprofessional, inappropriate on many different levels and borderline unethical. He just blurts it out. He’s fishing. That’s what it is, if he’s downright honest with himself. Despite the inappropriate comments and innuendos Felicity has made about him and his physique through the evening, Oliver still wants to make sure. That there is no wonderful, caring boyfriend waiting for her behind the red tape just outside. He doesn’t even fully understand why exactly he needs to hear that.

Maybe nearly dying is making him bold.

Maybe he wants to know if he even has a chance.

Whatever the reason, he regrets his audacity the moment he sees how his question hits her in an almost physical way, her hands resting on her knees curling into tight fists.

“I am sorry, Felicity,” He instantly apologizes, backtracking. “That was way out of line. When I told you I was a dick, I wasn’t exaggerating.”

Surprisingly, her lips twitch at that. “You really weren’t,” she huffs with amusement and he winces, knowing very well he earned that one. She sighs then, laying her head onto her knees, silently regarding him for long moments.

Oliver is puzzled. Not by her reaction, but by his own behavior this whole night. Nothing makes sense anymore. He’s a firefighter, for Christ’s sake. He is trained better than that. He should stay professional, assure her all is going to be okay and that they would make it. He could even talk about weather. Anything would fly but bringing up his dead parents or potential scared boyfriends due to his fishing for her private details he has absolutely no business asking about.

But nothing about their situation right now is conventional. And for once, Oliver doesn’t want to be the aloof professional, he doesn’t want to keep his distance from her. Doesn’t want to be the detached rescue worker you won’t ever see again. Quite the opposite, in fact. He feels a surprising pull to give and get more information about this woman he was brought together with by sheer chance. He can’t explain it other than that she genuinely intrigues him.

He can’t help but think back when she claimed she had no friends. He can’t wrap his head around that one.

She is remarkable. Adorable, charming and smart. Kind of quirky, yet utterly fascinating. And beautiful, in spite of her face currently smudged by smoke and dust, cheeks stained with tear tracks and rundown mascara. There is an element of innocence and vulnerability about her, something he’s only ever seen in his sister. She is funny, too. Quick witted, cheeky even. And yet, there is also something fragile and broken about her, something that calls to his own emptiness.

She has managed to make him smile, even under these dire conditions, more than once. Which is no small accomplishment. And Oliver feels like under any other circumstances, he would most definitely want to be her friend. Maybe more.

She carries both a lightness and heaviness about herself at the same time. And it intrigues him to no end.

Felicity sighs again before opening her mouth to speak, but he beats her to it.

“No, please. You don’t have to say a thing. You don���t owe me anything.”

She regards him a while longer, mulling over his words, her eyes analyzing as she regards him. Her silent scrutiny makes him slightly uncomfortable. “I know I don’t owe you anything. But strangely enough, I want to. You shared something personal with me, even though you didn’t have to. And I feel like extending that courtesy.”

He nods in acceptance, yet is barely able to breathe.

Then, the words spill from her lips like a confession. “The truth is, my situation is probably even bleaker than yours. I am the daughter of a single mom living in Vegas. No immediate family, no siblings, no boyfriend or close friends. Which is usually fine with me.”

“Usually?”

“Yeah. I am kind of used to being on my own. It’s sort of par for the course of being me,” she admits, shrugging casually.

It hurts him to hear her say that. Even he, Oliver Queen, the womanizing and reckless firefighter, is not completely alone in the world. He has a sweet, loving sister, a handful of close friends and the brothers from his unit. The way Felicity talks about her life, however, truly sounds lonely. There is a difference between liking being alone – which he can absolutely understand – and being lonely. And Felicity, no matter how she tries to play it, sounds the latter. From what she tells him, outside of her mom, there is literally no one in her life. How can she be fine with that? How could anyone be fine with that?

“My mom…Oh god, my mom,” she suddenly sobs. “I can’t even think about what would happen to my mom if anything happens to me. She would be crushed. She lives vicariously through me, not that there’s much exciting going on, but I am the only one she’s got.”

Her distress grows and tears flood her eyes again before they start to fall. “God, who would even tell her? They would have to track her down and it might take a couple of days for someone to even figure out how to contact her.”

It’s perfectly possible. Still, it shocks Oliver to the core. His partner, his team know where he is. Despite working, he knows that Thea will call him tomorrow. Actually, she will call and call and call until he picks up just to wish him “Merry Christmas, you grouchy, anti-social jerk! I love you, big brother. I know you are working, but at least stop by and give your little sister her well-earned present!” Thea’s customary passive-aggressive yet still very loving Christmas calls always make him smile. It is a certainty he can always count on.

Felicity, however, obviously doesn’t have a single person in her life outside her mom to even notice if she’d be gone. That’s just not right. That shouldn’t even be possible.

“Wouldn’t your mom miss you for Christmas?” Oliver asks tentatively, hoping to offer a possibility she hasn’t considered yet to make her logical conclusion less depressing. After all, everybody gets calls from their relatives on Christmas – wished as well as unsolicited alike. “I am sure she will try to call you tomorrow.”

“Nah.” Felicity sniffs, shaking her head. “We are Jewish. Don’t really celebrate Christmas. That’s why Laurel called me in the first place. She knew I had nothing better to do during the holidays.”

Oliver is well aware it was him who had chased and pressed this heavy topic. He realizes now how utterly unprepared he was to hear the answers. He desperately wants to take it back now, or at least make Felicity feel a little better. If the ceiling caves and crushes them right now, he wants her to have a smile on her face. Or at least not cry because he made her.

His voice is steady when he reaches out to cup her shoulder in what he hopes is a soothing gesture. “We are not dead yet, Felicity. You will call your mom tomorrow.” He’s never wished to speak the truth like he does in that moment.

Felicity sniffs and shrugs her shoulders, seemingly unimpressed by his pep talk. He flounders for something, anything, to say.

“At least it pays well working through holidays, right?”

She barks a small laugh at that. Score!

“Nope,” she says, accentuating the ‘p’ while shaking her head. “CNRI is part of my pro-bono work. Since, you know, CNRI as a non-profit is not known for its vast resources. So I offer them my expertise. Feels like the least I can do to help the people who in turn actually help the less fortunate.”

She shrugs again, like it’s no big deal, like everybody does it, lifting her head from her knees at last and letting it fall back against the wall, her eyes momentarily closing.

Oliver is beyond impressed. Literally struck speechless. Beautiful, funny, smart, and with a giant, compassionate heart. She appears almost too perfect. How come it has to be a stupid gas explosion for the two of them to meet?

Not realizing his amazement, Felicity quietly admits, grumpy annoyance entering her voice. “You wanna know what sucks the most about today?” She sighs dramatically. “I am starving. Literally starving. All I had today was my regular coffee in the morning and a stupid meager salad for lunch because I felt like I could use something light.” She makes air quotations around the last word. “Let me tell you, this is the most brutal reminder of life’s too short. Next time, I will go straight for the dessert cart.”

She pouts in honest disappointment and he finds it so adorable, he’s a goner. For now though, he plays along.

“Okay. Despite the threat of being considered a mean dick again, what I’d like to know is this: if you could, what food would you choose to eat right now?”

Without missing a heartbeat, Felicity perks up, her eyes shining with longing, a dreamy gaze on her face. “Burgers! With fries. And a strawberry milkshake. With ketchup. Loads of ketchup and mayo and oh, oh! Onion rings!”

He scrunches his nose in order not to laugh outright at her enthusiasm, because he really doesn’t want to make her self-conscious despite finding her obvious love for burgers adorable.

And okay, seriously, what has this woman done to him? Since when does he even have the word adorable in his vocabulary?

Felicity scowls at him, misinterpreting his grimace to hold his laughter for disapprovement.

“Let me guess. You are the type of guy who has a kale smoothie for breakfast and steam cooked salmon with peas for dinner.”

When he doesn’t reply but merely chuckles at her in response, she takes it as a confirmation, glowering at him. “Of course you are. A person with a physique like yours surely views eating a burger as a crime against humanity. Or at least against their abs.”

His chuckle morphs into a full-blown chortle. Which is something, and not only because they are trapped and possibly about to die. The sound leaving his lips takes him by surprise. He hasn’t laughed so freely, so openly in quite some time.

“Actually, it’s you who is being judgmental right now, Felicity,” he points out good-naturedly, mirth still dancing in his eyes. “My unit’s Captain, John, remember? I mentioned him earlier. His sister-in-law works at Big Belly Burger a couple of blocks from here and we frequently eat there at the end of a shift.”

Her eyes grow huge at that. “No way! And you still look like that?? That’s so unfair on so so many levels,” she groans, burying her face against her knees.

He just smirks back at her, but he likes what he’s seeing. She’s not so coiled anymore, not so uptight. Her hands are not gripping her knees until her knuckles turn white anymore, just resting on top of them comfortably, and when she turns her face back to him, her face is illuminated with those huge, animated eyes of hers. They are blue too, he just realized, his own eyes finally having adjusted to the darkness around them enough to be able to tell for sure. He wants to see more of her like this. More of her light spirit.

He decides on the topic of his next question in order to keep the conversation light. “So miss-“ he frowns, realizing he doesn’t know her second name.

“Smoak,” she supplies easily.

“Okay, miss Smoak. If Christmas Eve is of no interest for a Jewish girl like you, what are your plans for New Year’s Eve?”

At that question, Felicity surprisingly turns a lovely shade of red, which only piques his interest to an impossible level. He absolutely has to know.

“Well, mister-”

“Queen,” he supplies without missing a beat.

“Oh.” Her eyebrows pull together as she contemplates something, “Queen. Okay, now that makes sense. I thought you had some weird code name going on with your boss back there on the radio. And regarding my plans…well, what the hell, we might die here anyway, so you might take my secret to your grave.”

His eyes grow huge.

“What, too soon?” she asks innocently.

Another hearty, breathless laugh escapes his lips. “You are quite something, Felicity Smoak, you know that? Too soon, she asks,” he grumbles, good naturedly. “Felicity, it didn’t even happen yet!”

“Yeah, but if it does, there will be no opportunity for me to make that joke anymore, so-”

“Don’t try to weasel your way of answering my question, Felicity,” Oliver warns and she deflates.

“Ugh, okay. You got me there. New Year’s Eve. Okay. Big plans. A date. With my couch, a pint of ice cream, a bottle of red and a re-watch of the 22. season of Doctor Who.”

 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 They are trapped, having met under the worst of circumstances. And yet, talking to her feels like the most natural thing in the world. They continue their verbal dance, the back and forth, for a couple of more hours, until Oliver notices Felicity growing more and more tired. She’s also holding her body more stiffly, her side probably already heavily bruised from the injuries caused by the falling cabinet. She doesn’t complain though, not once, keeps her spirits up as they talk, and Oliver is once again mesmerized by her.

She tells him a little about her work, about her life. The small one-woman IT company she runs from home and the big plans she has for it. She tells him about some of her freelancing work and shares a couple of funny stories about the more difficult clients. She even tells him a little about growing up in Vegas. He tells her a little about himself in return. His sister, his work. Those two idiots he had to rescue from being stuck in the chimney. It’s only fair, after all.

They share the water that’s remained of his bottle, the same one he used earlier to wet the cloth he gave her to wear around her face. He pretends to drink, but he barely sips at the liquid despite his throat being parched, leaving the water for her to drink when it’s her turn. He is better trained for such circumstances, after all, and she is the one who was trapped and hurt by a cabinet, lying on a cold basement floor for a long while. If anybody needs the water, it’s her, but he doesn’t tell her that, pretends to drink too, because if he’s learned anything about Felicity Smoak tonight, it’s that she’s not person to wait for hand-outs. She obviously has also a very high sense for justice and fair distribution of resources, so he plays along.

In short, she’s absolutely got her hooks into him.

And if their predicament wasn’t so dire, Oliver would love to spend more time just talking to her. There is much, much more hiding underneath that plain, boring look she tries to pull. But Oliver’s seen enough to be fooled. There’s just something about her that pulls him deeper in the more he spends time with her. And it goes beyond the adorable rambles and obvious superior intellect, beautiful smile and captivating blue eyes (she tells him, with regret, that she usually wears glasses but she must have lost them when the cabinet fell onto her. He even tried to look for them a while back, but to no avail. She still thanked him with a sweet smile playing over her lips that made him feel like tearing through the rubble with his bare hands just to find those damn glasses for her.)

Their situation is almost like a plot of a rom-com movie. A man and a woman meet by getting stuck together in an elevator, or during a storm while both hiding under the same tree. If it weren’t for the bruises currently making her shift uncomfortably on the hard ground or the very real possibility of them still being crushed by the ceiling caving above them, it would have been an utterly delightful night.

Somewhere in the past couple of hours, Oliver has shifted closer to Felicity, her head tiredly resting against his shoulder as she squirmed closer to find a more comfortable position for her sore body.

He could almost pretend this was a very, very nice and successful first date. Only, it’s not. Because she is hurting, they are both hungry and thirsty and beyond tired. And slowly loosing hope for help to even come or come in time. The silences between them grow more and more prolonged. Not uncomfortably, but heavy still.

It’s during one of these silences when Oliver feels a violent shiver run down Felicity’s body.

 “Hey,” he whispers, “you cold?”

 She shakes her head with a wince. “No. Just sore.”

 Yeah, right. More like bruised black and blue, with smoke inhalation and dehydration and God knows what else. She should be being checked out by a doctor in a hospital right about now, anywhere really but here.

 “Hey, did I tell you that I am a paramedic too?” Oliver suddenly blurts out.

 “What?”

 “Just that…I am a firefighter slash paramedic. That’s my official position.” Once again, he doesn’t know why he’s telling her this.

 She is quiet for a moment. Then, “So what? Are you trying to tell me that if we got out of here earlier, you would be the one checking me out?” she asks cheekily and he honestly has to chuckle again.

 “You, Felicity Smoak, are something else,” he tells her in a playful, appreciative tone and he could swear he feels her smile against his chest at that. “And yes, I probably would. But that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?” she asks, growing more serious.

“I- I don’t know anymore,” he says honestly, realizing it’s partly true. The other part of him knows that for some reason, he wanted to impress her. For some reason, he wanted her to think good about him.

“So that’s what you do?” She picks up the conversation. “You go to burning buildings and rescue damsels in distress and put out fires and then patch the cute girls up?”

“I also helped a pregnant lady deliver her baby in the back of her car when she got stuck in traffic and rescued a kitten from a tree once-- and oh God,” he groans, “I have no idea why I just told you that.”

Felicity’s peal of laughter is almost worth the embarrassment he is feeling. “I am afraid you are starting to rub off of me,” he complains.

That makes her laugh even harder before she grows quiet and one of their silences falls over them again. Oliver thinks she might have dozed off, when she suddenly speaks.

“When I was seven, my dad left us.”

His heart stops at her words, his breath catching in his chest.

“Just like that. One day he was there, the other he was gone. No explanation whatsoever. It’s like me and my mom didn’t even deserve an explanation. I’ve never heard from him since.”

“I am sorry,” Oliver utters. And it’s the truth.

“Thank you,” Felicity acknowledges. “My mom worked a lot. I was alone a lot of the time. One day, when she was at work, I discovered my father’s secret stash of computer components. It felt...comforting, for some reason. Although he was the one leaving us, I blamed my mom a lot. So to spite her, and to remember my dad, trying to prove something to him, perhaps that I was worth it, I threw myself into computers. I found them easier to understand than people anyway. People are hard. Computers are easy. Sometimes I think...sometimes I think if my dad didn’t leave us, I would have turned to people for comfort rather than computers. I wouldn’t hide behind a screen in order to avoid living my life, scared of getting hurt again by someone else important to me leaving because I was just not worth it.” Her voice trembles at the end.

She breaks his heart. She utterly breaks his heart, devastates him with her words. He keeps silent, not trusting his own voice, but he tightens his arm around her, brings her even closer. The only thing he finds worthy to offer in return for her honesty is his own.

“When I was younger, I was a real fuck up. I drank a lot, a screwed around. I didn’t much care for the world, for my parents, for school. I could never keep a single relationship longer than a couple of months. I never wanted it. My parents…they were good people who loved both of their children unconditionally. And they had money. Which meant that any problem I had, any problem I caused, they made it disappear. I was never accountable for anything, never had to carry any responsibility. Until the day they died in a car crash, leaving me as the sole custodian of a little girl that barely turned a teenager. It was a harsh reality check.”

He felt silent, reminiscing for a while. Felicity kept silent too and he was glad for it because it was easier to confess like this.

“One of the reasons I do this job is to honor them. They were good people, and they wished for me to grow into a good person. I don’t know if I achieved that. But every time I pull someone out of a wreckage, every time I help saving someone else’s property, property they’ve spend their entire lives working for, when I cut someone out from a wreckage of a car the same way someone once tried to help my parents, I feel closer to them somehow. And most of the days, that’s the sole most important reason I do this job.”

“What’s the main reason on those other days?” Felicity asks quietly and Oliver is once again faced with the harsh truth of his existence. Only this time, he doesn’t run away from it.

“The other reason is that my life is so empty that I need the adrenaline – the thrill of the often too close calls – to even feel alive. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job. I love helping people. But I also like the risk of tempting fate. The possibility that at the end of the day I might not be coming home makes me feel alive.”

For a long while, she doesn’t say anything. Then, “That’s a pretty bleak outlook on life.”

He doesn’t reply to that. She is right. And he just begins to realize how tired that kind of life is making him.

“Who am I to speak, though?” sighs Felicity. “Abandonment issues from early childhood, some bad experiences at college. The same way you hide in your work, I hide in mine. I hide behind computers because they are easier to understand. They never lie or let me down. They don’t walk away when things get tough. I love my work. I love my company. I have great plans for it. But the honest truth is, that at the end of the day, when I come home, I feel lonely. I never admit it to anybody. Least of all to myself. I pretend it’s what I want. But today made me realize.”

Her voice trembles before gaining a desperate quality as she suddenly whimpers against his chest. “I don’t want to die! I want to experience all that life has to offer. I haven’t been living until now, not really. I’ve been living buried in my work and avoiding personal relationships because they are messy and require a lot of work and still, in the end, people might leave. I am socially awkward, not particularly pretty and I talk a lot. Building relationships doesn’t come easy to me. But I want a chance to try.” Her sniffs grow into steady sobs and Oliver’s heart breaks for her again. She is so wrong, on so many levels, her view of herself completely askew, but he lets her voice everything she’s never dared to admit, listens to her without interruptions, his own breath hitching in his throat.

“Dammit,” she suddenly swears angrily. “At least I want a dog! That was actually going to be my New Year’s resolution. Getting a dog. Nothing fancy. Just a sweet shelter pooch. One that is just as lonely as me so maybe we can be not so lonely together.” Tears are falling down her face, but she is either unwilling or too tired to wipe them away. “I just wanted to have one thing in my life, one living soul that in case I wouldn’t come home one day would actually give a crap.”

Oliver doesn’t know her. Not really. Yesterday, he didn’t even know a Felicity Smoak existed. Today, however, he doesn’t want to imagine a world without her. There is something pure and sweet and innocent about her that should be preserved. And still, circumstance and bad experiences have made her completely oblivious to how special she is. It shouldn’t be like this.

Oliver observes how heartachingly sweet she is. How compassionate. Intelligent. It physically pains him to see her stuck in life like this. He knows her for less than six hours, but he feels – no, he knows – she definitely doesn’t deserve this. Either of this – this shitty building collapsing onto her or the lonely life she’s leading.

“You know what, Felicity Smoak?” he says, forcing his tone to be light despite the heaviness in his heart. “I’ll make you an offer.”

Her head perks up at that, those huge, impossibly warm blue eyes still glistening with tears as she silently observes him.

“When-” (he deliberately omits using if) “we make it out of here, I’m going to take you out to dinner,” he smiles at her then, honest yet unassuming.

“You don’t have to-”

He suspected that’s what she would say. A self-preserving reaction, but one he is quick to dismiss. “No. It’s not because I feel like I have to. It’s because I want to. Do you understand?” He’s holding her eyes, willing her to understand this is not a pity invite by no means.

She studies him for a long time, is if trying to find a catch, but she doesn’t find any, because there’s none, and her lips form into an adorable ‘O’ he has a hard time not to kiss away.

“You mean dinner like a date? A date date?”

His lips stretch into a huge smile, because finally, they are on the same page. “Yes, Felicity Smoak. Exactly like that.” And he means it. He doesn’t think he’s ever meant anything more in his life.

“It’s a date,” she whispers back.

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 Oliver doesn’t say it. He doesn’t want to scare her. No more than she already is.

But they are running out of time. The ceiling above them cracks and creaks, things shifting, giving in. It will cave soon.

It’s the very first time in his life when Oliver doesn’t feel like tempting fate. When he feels like he wants a chance at life instead, absolutely risk free.

He wants that chance. Wants a date with the girl he only met today more than anything.

Felicity has fallen asleep a while ago. Well, more like her body has given up. He is glad for her sake, even if he could use her company right now. He misses the bubbly laugh, the rambles, the nervous jokes. Those eyes seemingly looking directly into his very soul.

Something has changed today. And Oliver Queen doesn’t want to go through the motions anymore, expecting death to come and claim him. He wants to live.

There are sounds, noises. Rumbling and tearing and things-hitting-ground noises, something heavy right above them giving way.

He presses her to his side in a ridiculous attempt to shield her. He has absolutely no chance, but still, he feels an overpowering urge to protect her. The shakes and vibrations rouse her and she wakes with a start, a coughing fit seizing her as she trembles in his arms like a leaf.

“Oliver?” she asks in a small voice and it’s his undoing. She knows that this is it. She knows and she presses against him even tighter.

He’s never felt anything as intense as he feels right this very moment. Not with the adrenaline rush, not the chase from his brushes with death, nothing compares to the feeling of how very much he wants to protect this other human being in this very moment.

The ceiling howls over them, but there are new sounds, something cutting through metal and concrete, and then Oliver finally realizes. These sounds are manmade.

Hope floods him, desperate, exhilarating hope and he can’t help but take a deep breath before bellowing at the top of his lung: “HELP! WE ARE TRAPPED IN THE BASEMENT!”

It takes another twenty minutes before a small ray of light appears in one of the basement walls and another ten before a very sweaty and tired face of John Diggle peeps inside, uttering a simple: “Told you I would kill you myself, Oliver.”

 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 She spends two days at the hospital. Nothing major, she is assured, at least nothing with long lasting effects. A couple of deep hematomas where the cabinet squashed her, a few mild skin abrasions. The doctor’s most severe concern is her prolonged smoke inhalation plus making sure there are no other underlying internal injuries they are not aware of. She’s given an IV to restore fluids and a leaflet about iron deficiency because that’s apparently the important thing her blood tests unveil and what has absolutely nothing to do with the ordeal she just survived. Thank you, near death experience, for bringing the point home of how she has been failing at regular life even before the whole CNRI collapsing fiasco.

Christmas Day is spent in a blur of being wheeled in and out to various tests and poked by sharp objects, being asked questions about way too personal things.

Later in the afternoon, tired but finally allowed to take some rest, Felicity asks the nurse for a phone to cross off the last thing on her to-do list and finally calls her mom.

Donna Smoak is a wreck. She is halfway out the door to the airport when Felicity finally manages to convince her there is absolutely no need for her to fly out to Starling. It’s Christmas, she wouldn’t find a last-minute flight even if her life depended on it anyway, and besides, there is no need. Felicity is okay, she is not injured, merely being kept for observation. Yes, yesterday sucked – an understatement in the history of understatements – but she is absolutely okay and scheduled to be released the following day, so there will be no major changes to her original holiday plans of doing nothing while laying on her couch watching reruns of her favorite shows.

It takes another forty-five minutes for her mother to finally settle and accept her daughter will survive even without her personal motherly care and Felicity – now utterly spent – ends the call with a tired ‘love you’ to her mom and the elation she won’t have to deal with Donna Smoak in person on top of everything else. Don’t get her wrong. She loves her mom more than anything, but she can be quite… intense. And overbearing. And Felicity just… she could really use a bit of silent and quiet for a while.

Laurel visits her the day after Christmas, just hours before Felicity’s scheduled to be released. She brings her a beautiful bouquet of flowers and in a surprisingly thoughtful gesture a change of clothes to go home in. Felicity is beyond touched. Her eyes almost fill with tears when the next thing Laurel produces from her miraculous carry-on is Felicity’s own handbag, a bit charred and destroyed by smoke, but her wallet and its contents – even her freaking phone – are untouched and that, at least, is a blessing and a small miracle on itself. She doesn’t dare to ask how Laurel’s got her hands on it, how it could be salvaged from the wreckage of a multiple story building. With shaking hands and a little thank you that’s a little more teary than she would have liked, Felicity accepts the items.

The whole time while visiting, Laurel is wearing a guilty expression on her face, apologizing to Felicity profusely before the other woman can even try to stop her. Laurel’s own bruises are testament enough the other woman’s been through the same ordeal as herself and for Felicity, Laurel’s escaping the building just a tad sooner doesn’t take away from the horror of having it explode and fall on you unexpectedly.

Later in the afternoon, Felicity changes into the clothes gifted by Laurel (Oh, look, this could be considered her very own Christmas gift!). They are a little tight and longer than Felicity would normally wear, but otherwise fit just fine. She takes the flowers along with her charred handbag and after signing what feels like dozens of forms, Felicity Smoak finally walks out of the hospital. Right there, in the hospitals parking lot, she takes a moment to look towards the skies and take what feels like her first free breath in days, thanking whatever deity out there for being granted another chance at life.

Five days later, Felicity has to admit her bruises are healing quite nicely. Though currently still sporting a very bright shade of maroon, some are already turning green. Iron deficiency her ass, she thinks before she grumpily gulps down her iron supplements.

Her eyes fall on the bouquet of flowers, a beautiful batch of still rather fresh-looking white and pink lilies that emit a heavy, heady fragrance which is almost too much for Felicity’s small apartment, but she doesn’t mind that much. It was a very nice gesture from Laurel. Felicity can’t remember the last time she received flowers from anyone, if ever, and she likes to see them in her apartment. They remind her that it all really happened. And that in fact, she might not be as alone as she had originally thought.

Back at the hospital, Laurel apologized time and again for calling Felicity so late and on Christmas Eve on top of it to work on a server problem that could have very well been put off for a couple more days. However, what Felicity remembers most from that afternoon, was how later Laurel went out to grab them some coffee, and how they talked for quite some time over their wonderful caramel lattes, mostly about CNRI and what its destruction would mean for the non-profit’s future. Once again, like a broken record, Laurel thanked Felicity for her help, but it was Felicity who felt like the one thanking Laurel. If not for her, no one would have even suspected she was still inside the building and there would’ve been no Hunk of a rescuer to save her life.

Speaking of which. Oliver Queen. There is no way around the subject. It’s been a week – exactly seven days – since she’s been pulled out of the wreckage as the first of the two of them – Oliver insisted and she didn’t argue – and brought to the hospital. Felicity hasn’t seen or heard from the man since.

She hasn’t expected to.

She is glad it was him she was stuck with, though. Immensely glad. That ordeal had made her realize a lot about herself. Not only thanks to the gas explosion and subsequently being trapped for hours underground, not sure whether she would survive the night, but because of the man himself and the gut-wrenchingly honest confessions that had transpired between them during those long hours of waiting for a miracle.

Everything else that was said and done that night was relative and would stay in that basement forever. Felicity doesn’t begrudge her rescuer not contacting her afterwards, neither is she too disappointed in him for not making good on his promises made during their shared time. Statements made under duress, albeit made sincerely at the time, were often seen under a different light once the threat of death was gone. It was perfectly understandable.

Even if it all felt a little…unfinished. For a while, Felicity plays with the idea of writing him a thank you note, as well as with the idea of stopping by at his station to personally thank him – he had, after all, saved her life and almost lost his own while trying – but with everything else, with how achingly personal that rescue mission had turned out to be in the end, Felicity doesn’t want to make him feel any more awkward about it.

She is no fool. Of course she thought about it, about how he promised her a date if they got out. And she would have loved to go on that date. Oliver Queen seemed like a really nice guy that she could really grow to care about and his promise had felt really really nice at the time it was made, but in hindsight, Felicity now sees the promise for what it was. A nice gesture offering her hope, nothing more. Now that the danger is gone, there is no reason for him to make good on that promise. He did his job, he rescued her. Maybe in more ways than one. What he did for her back there was more than any human being could ever do for another human being, and she was beyond grateful. He has allowed her a second chance at life and Felicity won’t tarnish that memory by feeling sour about possible maybe’s and what-ifs.

The bottom line is, Oliver Queen has saved Felicity Smoak’s life. And she is finally ready to live it.

Starting today. Well, no, not really, tomorrow more like.

Cause she has a date tonight. With her couch, and a pint of mint chocolate-chip ice cream, a celebratory bottle of red and The Doctor, with whom she would kiss the old year goodbye.

Oh, but tomorrow! Tomorrow, the world would get to see the new Felicity Smoak emerge from the ashes, like a Phoenix she would rise and show the world she was not scared to live anymore.

Or…well. Live a little more fearlessly. Be a little more open and outgoing. That was the plan. After all, she does have a lunch date with Laurel Lance tomorrow. It’s a start, right? Maybe it will even become a regular thing.

With a tablespoon full of ice cream in her mouth, Felicity makes herself comfortable on her couch, doing a mental inventory of everything she will need tonight. TV remote, check. First DVD in the player, check. A bottle of red – uncorked, check. A glass – because she does have that much self-esteem not to drink directly from the bottle – check. A duvet to cover her soon to be freezing toes nearby – check. Favorite comfy pajamas, hell yeah, check.

Just as she’s about to press play, there is a soft knock on the door and it makes Felicity jump. There is absolutely no one who should be visiting her, certainly not on New Year’s Eve, only mere hours before the big ball on Times Square is supposed to hit the ground. Weird. She hasn’t ordered any food and as long as she knows, Mrs. Fitzpatrick found her cat just that very morning. No way the bloody tabby run away again!

For one dreadful second, Felicity wonders if it might be her mom – it would be so much Donna Smoak’s style – but then she remembers how her mom texted her a picture of her and her girlfriends at a bar preparing to celebrate New Year together at Vegas only an hour ago.

Phew, dodged a bullet, there.

The knocking comes again, more insistent this time and Felicity mentally shakes herself, jumping to her feet and quickly making her way to the door. She checks the peephole first – of course she does, she has seen all the true crime series and documentaries the Crime and Investigation channel (her guilty pleasure) has to offer, after all. Once realizing who stands at the other side of the door however, she doesn’t hesitate a second and rips it open, almost missing catching its edge before it smashes against the wall.

“Oliver,” she breathes out in surprise. “What are doing here?”

He is standing there, in all his glory of six feet plus, handsome and charming as ever, a boyish smile stretching across his lips as he takes her in. Only then does Felicity realize what a picture she must make standing in her door, barefoot and braless, in her flannel pajamas with tiny grumpy cats printed all over it, her spare pair of glasses slipping down her nose and hair fixed in a messy bun at the top of her head, clutching a half-eaten spoon of ice cream in her right hand.

She must make quite the sight, Felicity thinks, groaning inwardly. Why couldn’t she wear makeup and something sexy when she finally meets the Hunk – her personal Hunk of a rescuer – again? Or, you know, at least wear a freaking bra!

If Oliver has any objections to her look however, he keeps them to himself while his eyes roam her, his eyes shining in almost the same intense way as she remembers from the basement, causing a light shiver run down her spine. Must be the draft from the doorway, she stubbornly tells herself as she takes her own time to fully take him in.

It’s the first time she sees him without the uniform and a face blackened by ash and dust. She’s finally allowed to ogle him in full light, and she must admit, she likes what she sees. He wears a pair of loose, washed-out jeans, a simple grey V-neck shirt and a brown leather jacket. She wonders how he got here, because even despite the casual clothes, something suggests to her he’s exactly the type to ride a bike. There is no evidence supporting her claim, nothing other than maybe his disheveled hair sticking in all directions like he let the wind blow through it carelessly, along with slightly reddened cheeks – but that might be nothing, it’s December, after all.

But that doesn’t matter, because his smile’s easy and relaxed and his eyes are their usual sparkly blue, that strong jaw deliciously peppered with scruff that only begs for her hands to run through it and oh God, the man has a mole – the tiniest mole near his bottom lip and nope, nope, she will absolutely not survive this encounter.

“Nice to see you again, Felicity,” he finally speaks in that deep, gentle voice of his. It’s a voice that’ll be seared to her brain forever. “I hope I am not intruding,” he says, still smiling that trademark million-dollar smile of his and Felicity almost narrows her eyes at him in a glare, because she knows he knows he is not interrupting anything; they’ve had this discussion before. And yes, she would be annoyed with him, if only her stomach wasn’t filled to the brim with happy butterflies at the sight of him.

She still hasn’t said anything, hasn’t even stepped aside to invite him in, is instead standing frozen on her spot like a stupid, dumbfounded block of wood, but he doesn’t seem deterred by it (there is a God, after all).

“To answer your question,” he tells her in a nonchalant, flirty voice (the bastard), “I am here to collect on your promise.

It’s a date.

Her knees almost give out.

“I brought food,” he smiles further, uncovering a big paper bag from behind his back, a bag adorned with a huge BBB logo, and where she might have had a crush on him before, she is halfway in love with him by now. “I believe you have wine and dessert to go with dinner,” he adds, rising his eyebrows and hinting with a pointed look at the melting ice-cream dripping from the spoon she is still stupidly clutching in her hand.

The ice cream, however, is not the only thing melting at this point. Because he came. And what’s more important, he intends to make good on their mutual promise. The blinding smile she offers him in return almost splits her face.

Lost for words, Felicity only nods enthusiastically and steps back to let him in, her heart filled to the brim.

 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 Three hours later, laughing over Doctor Who with feet propped on her coffee table littered with burger wrappers, greasy napkins and empty strawberry milkshake cups – because yes, he remembered that too – along an empty bottle of red that’s fallen to its side and bickering about who the best Doctor ever was while eating ice cream from the same bowl, the clock strikes midnight.

Oliver freezes, looking at Felicity, and she almost laughs at the apprehensive, deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face. She isn’t deterred by it whatsoever. If the past couple of hours have proved anything to her, it’s that Oliver Queen isn’t merely doing good on his word and fulfilling a promise he has given her under duress, but very much wants to be here with her and is enjoying himself as much as she is.

And with that realization, another comes.

It’s a New Year.

The first day of the new her. A week ago, she would say she didn’t know what possessed her. But today, she knows. The deep blue eyes crinkling with a boyish smile and a little mole at the side of his lips are calling to her, pulling her in.

And this new Felicity? She is supposed to be bold. Fearless. She’s supposed to live her life to the fullest and risk her heart.

So she does.

She kisses him.

She goes all in, and it’s a risk well taken, because Oliver doesn’t skip a beat in kissing her right back.

END

A/N: Happy Holidays!!!