Express Delivery

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Summary: What happened to the girl who was afraid of heights? Felicity is up in the rafters.

Note: I know, really. If you're one of my regular readers, thank you for still reading. I have a lot of catch up to do but I've been working full-time at my part-time job after a round of people quitting suddenly, and I've barely had a free second. Luckily, life is starting to settle down before spring semester starts up, and I've actually had the time to do a little bit of writing. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope everyone enjoys.

. . .

"Felicity, why are you in the rafters?" Oliver called up to her as he crossed the floor in the basement at Verdant to find her at the top of a ladder partially eclipsed by the exposed rafters.

Sometimes Felicity wondered if Oliver asked these stupid questions with the express purpose of annoying her.

"Because it sounded like fun!" Felicity retorted sarcastically. "I'm not sure it occurred to you when you were doing target practice, Oliver, but someone shot an arrow into the ceiling and the light keeps reflecting off of it and leaving a glare on my screens. It is going to make me crazy! I can't work like this! And let's see you save the city and put a stopper in crime when your go-to girl is locked up in a ward!"

She was getting more and more frustrated as she tried to pull the arrow free from the ceiling. Next time he pulled a stunt like this, she was going to kill him.

That was, if she didn't kill herself first.

"I think that ship sailed." Oliver muttered, loudly enough for her to hear and shaking his head like she was the one at fault here.

"I heard that!" Felicity hollered back as she struggled to yank the arrow from the rafter it was wedged tightly into. "You think I don't—"

Felicity turned on her heel to berate him, and her toe caught just the outer rim of the ladder. She let out a sharp intake of breath as she thought she would fall, and regained her balance before the ladder seemed to shift under her feet and she stumbled.

Too late, she felt herself losing her balance, and let out a cry as she hit the edge of the ladder with her elbows banging sharply into the top step of the metal, and she tumbled off with a start through the air.

This was not real life, Felicity thought as she fell.

. . .

As fast as it seemed to happen to Felicity, it happened excruciatingly slowly for Oliver.

He rushed toward her, trying to convince himself that it was going to be okay. He had her. A part of him seemed to sense that he was never going to do it, he was never going to catch her in time, and an agonizing sinking sensation in his chest hit him hard.

Not her, Oliver thought, No!

He rushed toward the ladder, toward her, trying to tell himself that this would not be the time that he would fail her or fail her expectations that he would be there to catch her at every turn.

Because he's never wanted her to be wrong.

. . .

It felt like it was happening in slow motion as she fell back from the ladder. She saw a flash of light and she saw Oliver and she found herself struck with a panic that made it impossible to calculate the physics of her one hundred and twenty pound frame hurtling through fifty feet of air, because god...

She squeezed her eyes shut on instinct because if you don't see it coming it doesn't hurt and then...it didn't happen. Or, it did. But it didn't hurt.

Her eyes flew open as she heard Oliver let out a shout and she smiled reflexively, because of course he saved her.

"I was always sort of hoping you'd fall for me, but I wasn't expecting this."

She couldn't form any words. And she'd thought falling from a ladder had been a joke, but truly it didn't compare to this poor excuse of a romantic comedy.

Felicity let out an unintelligible squeak as she looked up and saw Barry Allen hanging over her and out of the corner of her eyes, Oliver in the background. It sort of felt like falling through the looking glass.

Talk about, 'not real life', huh?

Oliver was frozen, the muscles in his body tensed like he was waiting to attack and while she was still in Barry's arms she realized she should say or do something but...only came up with a single recourse.

"I lost my shoe." She glanced down at the one creamy beige heel that remained and the other foot bare, with bright pink polish on her toes that glared back, and seemed to bring her back to a reality of laying in Barry Allen's arms.

She'd never really pictured it going this way. No, this was definitely not the way this scenario would have ever played out in her head. She already had her superhero.

"You're lucky that's all you lost." Oliver said grimly, steeling his jaw as he picked up the stray shoe from the ground and lingered as if deciding if he should fix it for her.

"Definitely." Barry said, placing her in the chair and taking the shoe from Oliver and placing it on her foot.

Barry, Felicity realized in stunned fashion, didn't have the pleasure of seeing the glint in Oliver's eyes. He wasn't used to being upstaged like this, or shoved into the background...not in any arena.

"You should be more careful. " Barry said.

Felicity was about to argue with him, that she'd been just fine, but she realized quickly he hasn't been talking to her but to Oliver.

"She could have been hurt."

Well!

Now Felicity was flustered, frustrated even, with him. That wasn't his place. It was one thing to berate her-and since when was Barry ready to go tete a tete with Oliver? Bigger men hadn't fared well.

"Are you okay?" Oliver asked her, touching his hand to her shoulder for a moment as he looked her over, but didn't wait for an answer. "I'm calling Diggle. I'll get you a drink-it'll help."

She was about to call after him, but was stopped as she remembered Barry.

"I'd ask if you were happy to see me," Barry grinned, "But I guess that entrance said everything, huh?"

Felicity glanced toward the stairs to make sure that Oliver was really gone before she said anything to him.

"I guess you shouldn't make assumptions." She retorted, "You're lucky Oliver's getting better at keeping his temper in check."

"I don't think he can catch me now." Barry said with a cheeky grin, not seeming to realize how annoyed she really was with him.

"I wouldn't bet against Oliver." Felicity told him.

"No," Barry sort smiled sideways at her, "I didn't think you would."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Felicity asked, turning in her seat to look at him.

"Nothing." Barry said with a shrug of his shoulders, "Nothing at all."

"Mmm-hmm." Felicity stifled the urge to snort at the newest vigilante to hit the streets. "Speaking of that, how are things going with Ivy?"

Barry winced as she brought up the relationship that wasn't.

"Touché, then, I guess?" Barry said, falling back slightly from her. "I'm sorry. I overstepped."

"I'll let it go this time if you brought what I wanted."

She wasn't making any promises on Oliver's behalf, however.

"Oh right."

Barry tugged the backpack he was carrying from the ground, and pulled out a charred looking piece of metal.

"I don't know what you can do with it, but one fried motherboard, and I wish you all the best with it. The best scientists in the country couldn't get anything off of that."

"The best scientists," Oliver said, "Don't have Felicity's talent."

He placed a tumbler of amber liquid next to her.

"Digg is on his way, and he said that he told you to leave the arrow and he would get it down—but uh, not listening, I guess that's your thing now? He used his disapproving tone, you know."

Oliver raised an eyebrow at her, and she glared back at him. She wasn't a child—that was literally a one in a million chance of having happened sort of thing. She'd have had better luck sprouting wings.

Barry chuckled,

"I'll take that as my cue to leave. Oliver, good seeing you again—good luck keeping her out of trouble."

He turned to Felicity with a little bow, "As always, it was my pleasure catching up with you Felicity. Don't forget, you owe me a drink."

Felicity chuckled as Barry swept up the bag, and took off in a flash.

"He needs a snappy name," she said, "Something to suit that…"

Felicity made a whooshing sound and laughed again as she turned back to her computer.

"I still don't like him." Oliver said, looking disgruntled as he leaned back against the desk. "How do you feel?"

Annoyed, Felicity thought as she looked over the twisted piece of metal.

…

"So, what happened to the girl who was afraid of heights?" Oliver asked, raising an eyebrow at Felicity as she resumed her work.

It was past the time to carry on with that. In another world she'd be boiling water for a cup of tea and thinking about how life had nearly crashed to a halt with her as a passenger. Things had changed though, over the last year. All she felt was a spark of annoyance with Diggle for interrupting her work, and making her prove she didn't have a traumatic brain injury.

"I'm not the same girl I used to be." Felicity smiled slightly, and dropped her tone slightly as Oliver turned away from her to retreat to his workout space as usual. "Not that you noticed, I'm sure."

She rolled her eyes at the screen, and sighed as she waited on the program to run through the possible suspects. Felicity supposed she could make a more efficient one if she tried.

Maybe I should….

Oliver certainly had her hacking into the database frequently enough.

"I've noticed." Oliver said, setting a mug of smooth white porcelain next to her mouse.

A smile seemed to twitch at the corner of his mouth, and she flushed for a moment, sure that he'd heard her mumbled retort.

"I'm still getting rid of that ladder, and if you could refrain from doing anything life threatening for the next week or so, I'd appreciate it."

"You're not fooling me, Oliver Queen." Felicity said, turning in her seat to watch him now.

"In what way?" Oliver asked.

In the corner of the room, Felicity could hear Diggle clear his throat in the way he had when they bantered like this. He could be such an old woman about the whole thing—they were just teasing each other.

It wasn't like that, not with them.

"I know you're just worried about keeping Barry out of here."

At least not now.

"I'm not worried." Oliver said, "I don't care if he moves at the speed of light, he's still a scrawny kid that's scared of me."

Felicity hid a smile under her hand, and didn't have the heart to try and correct him.

"Speaking of scared," Felicity gestured to the motherboard and gestured for Diggle to come on in and listen up to. "I found something sort of troubling."

"You couldn't have found it on Monday, could you?" Diggle asked with a groan.

"Ignore him." Oliver said, resting his hands on the back of her chair. "He's upset because he had a date with Lyla."

"We'll all have to cancel our weekend plans." Felicity said, gesturing to her computer, "This—"

"You have weekend plans?" Oliver asked.

"And you're making a crack about me?" Diggle shot back at Oliver.

Felicity shushed them both.

"None of us do—anymore." She shook her head, it was almost like working with overgrown children sometimes.

"I sent Barry on a mission for me—for this."

"Twisted hunk of metal." Oliver said with a nod of his head, "Well, at least he can make a quick run to the junk yard."

"For the motherboard to the computers that melted down at Merlyn Global Group after the earthquake. They were in lockup at the FBI headquarters at Quantico."

"Well that was incredibly illegal." Diggle said, "How'd he pull that off?"

"Not important." Felicity said, with a frustrated sigh. "The important part is that I've been able to pull all sorts of information off of it—contrary to what the fine scientists who work for this country thought, it's not useless. They're just not…"

"As smart as you." Oliver said, "What'd you find?"

"The computer is still processing the information, but it looks like there is a link here between Merlyn and Alderman Blood. Merlyn was a heavy contributor, which I'm sure Alderman 'For-the-Glades' wants to keep hush hush, and more than that, they were both suspiciously missing from society here during the same two year span."

"It's something to look into." Oliver said. "Anything else?"

"I'm a computer scientist Oliver, not a magician." Felicity said, "I need time—and maybe more coffee."

"I can make coffee." Oliver said.

Diggle laughed.

"That's funny. She might not be a magician, but you're a comedian."

"Fine." Oliver said tightly, "I can go to Starbucks."

"Don't take it so personally." Felicity said, "I get you coffee."

"Actually, you don't." Oliver said. "You know, it would be nice to have an assistant around here for this sort of mundane thing."

"There's always Roy." Felicity suggested, and smiled. She still thought he'd round out the team quite nicely.

Oliver ignored her remark. "Diggle?"

"I'm the black driver, not the blonde assistant." Diggle told him, "But I'll take a grande Americano, double shot of espresso."

"Oh! Oliver, don't forget the double shot of espresso in my soy vanilla latte, and the vanilla powder. Don't just dump it, sprinkle it."

"Felicity."

Smoothly, he took her seat and spun it around so that she was looking into his eyes twinkling with a tease and a warning.

"Don't push your luck."

Well, she survived a fifty foot drop, it there was any day for it—today felt like as good of a day as any.