disclaimer: i don't own arrow.

notes: i wish i could stop writing oliver/felicity but i can't. this takes place during 2x08, all the major olicity moments from oliver's pov. also, this is a oneshot; i have no plans to continue to 2x09 or beyond.

"What did you say your name was again?"

The technobabble is one thing. Oliver is more than used to Felicity going on about some technology-related thing, usually in an explanation that he understands one out of every five words. This new kid is clearly smart enough to keep up with her in terms of intelligence, which is annoying, given that he's appeared out of nowhere and seems unnaturally interested in something that Oliver wishes he's terribly wrong about, but nothing that unsettles him that deeply.

And then he sees the way Felicity is looking at him.

"Barry," says the boy earnestly, gaze focused in on her. "Allen," he adds as an afterthought.

"Felicity," she replies with a smile on her lips that he recalls from his early days of flirting with her to get information. "Smoak."

Oliver tilts his head, turning the full force of his most intense stare onto Barry. He's not at all used to Felicity being interested in someone else – someone who's, well, not him. And it's not like he has any concrete proof that she is interested in this kid, except he knows for a fact that she had heard him say his name the first time. Which means she asked only so she could introduce herself. Which means she was impressed enough by his technobabble to – to want to flirt with him.

The idea of Felicity flirting with some other guy turns his insides to lead. He's lucky he's had a lot of practice containing his emotions, and luckier still that his gaze is enough to wipe the smile off Barry Allen's face. And incredibly lucky that Felicity hasn't noticed.

When he glances over at her again while Barry's talking, though, he finds the reason. She hasn't looked away from the new guy once.

Somehow, this doesn't help with his instant dislike of the kid.

-:-

"We don't even carry guns," the kid is saying, not that Oliver is actually paying much attention. "Just some plastic baggies," he adds, laughing, and for some reason, this proves to be infectious, because Felicity laughs, too.

Oliver frowns. He's standing behind her, so she doesn't notice, but he can see her still smiling at Allen. He's not sure why, it's not like the joke was that funny. It's not like this Allen kid is that funny in general, or that good-looking, or that interesting, and why is Felicity even –

He stops that train of thought cold, tuning back into the conversation in time to hear Felicity say, "Oh, I'll show you," and start to move towards Allen.

"What's going on?" he interrupts, stopping Felicity in her tracks, which he can't deny that he appreciates.

"Oh, your assistant said you preferred to keep the investigation in house, so I cleared it with my captain to give you a hand," says Barry, as though this is completely natural and obvious, even though it isn't. Why would Felicity want this kid around even more? He'd already gotten himself inside the police investigation, hadn't he?

Oliver clamps down on his emotions and raises his eyebrows at the kid, his hand almost instinctively reaching out to curl around Felicity's elbow and pull her gently away from Diggle – and Barry Allen. Clearing his throat, he murmurs low enough for only her to hear, "What are you doing?"

He gets the feeling she's rehearsed her reply, which only fuels his annoyance. "We need to find this intruder," she tells him – yeah, definitely rehearsed. "And he seems to know more about it than any of us."

Oliver wishes he could make a face without being completely obvious that he disagrees, but she isn't even giving him her full attention when she adds, "Forensic science isn't exactly my forte, so."

Here, she turns her head around to look at Barry. Oliver refuses to follow her gaze, but he can still sense the smile that appears on her lips while she's looking over her shoulder. When she turns back, he feels a muscle in his jaw clamp.

"I'd say we need him," she says quietly, leaning up towards him like she's sharing a secret, except this is nothing he wants to hear. "Wouldn't you?"

Her words ring in the air between them for a few seconds as he tries to get his voice to work. It refuses to cooperate as his lips press together even while his head nods, and all he manages is a quiet, tight-lipped, and fairly obviously reluctant, "Mmhmm."

Felicity doesn't even stop to question his lack of enthusiasm like she normally would, turning around to smile brightly at Barry. "I'll show you around," she says, her heels clicking on the floor as she moves over to him. Oliver doesn't have to turn around to know the kid must be grinning stupidly, but he turns anyway, watching the two of them walk off together, watching Felicity leave with another guy.

Diggle returns to his side to talk to him, but if he's being totally honest, Oliver's mind is miles away from any startlingly familiar superhuman crimes. All he can really think about is Felicity and the way she smiles at Barry instead of him.

-:-

"I want you to look into this kid," he tells Diggle sometime later, fed up of watching Felicity and Barry smiling and laughing and flirting with each other as they worked. "There's more to him than he's letting on."

Possibly part of this gut feeling of his is his own paranoia and instinct when it comes to reading people, but he can't deny that part of it is also because he wants an excuse to pull the kid down in Felicity's esteem. Which maybe isn't as noble as he should be, but Oliver can't bring himself to care.

"His intentions seem pretty clear to me," Diggle says, sounding amused. Oliver grits his teeth as he follows Diggle's gaze to where Felicity and Barry are poring over the evidence together, his shoulder bumping into hers and their heads bent together.

"Just do it, please," Oliver mutters, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. From the look on Diggle's face, he doesn't exactly succeed.

-:-

"Barry and I will get right on it," Felicity says, holding the arrow he's given her gingerly and looking like she might be ill as she moves to leave the foundry. Oliver watches her go with that now-familiar leaden feeling solidifying inside him as she retreats. Back to Barry. Barry and I. If he weren't so preoccupied with concern over the serum, he thinks he'd rather like to punch something.

"Seems our Miss Smoak is smitten," says Diggle, turning back to him. The look in his eyes is less amused now than it had been, which only confirms Oliver's suspicions.

"Diggle, what did you find out about Mr. Allen?" he asks, hardly bothering to keep his tone neutral around Allen's name.

Diggle looks solemn when he replies, "He's not who he says he is."

Oliver tries very hard not to look as pleased as he feels.

-:-

Later, when he tells Felicity slowly, "He did lie about who he really was," he can't stop thinking about how the two of them were flirting when he stalked into her office, can't stop thinking about the hurt in Felicity's eyes as she watched Barry leave, can't stop thinking that maybe he shouldn't have jumped on the chance to expose the kid.

But, he tells himself, he has a point. Allen was lying to all of them, and Felicity has to see that. Has to understand that. Has to see that this guy wasn't right for her.

When he makes himself face her, though, he can see that the idea that Barry Allen might not be the right guy for her is far away from her mind. She looks entirely upset, her whole body still as she stares at him until she finally starts moving around her desk. Oliver's not used to feeling nervous around girls, but he has to brace himself for her next words nonetheless.

"And what do we do everyday?" she demands, reaching for some papers to grab before hurrying around him, leaving him standing alone in her office, wishing that Barry Allen had never entered her life and knowing she's right, either way.

-:-

He calls Sara first, needing a friendly ear and already knowing what Diggle's thoughts on the matter would be. She hadn't given him her number when she left, but he's picked up a few things from Felicity and managed to track her cellphone down. She picks up after three rings and he finds himself unloading his worries about the superhuman serum and his past coming back to haunt him.

"I'd come help you, Ollie," she says sadly, but he shakes his head because she's on the other side of the country dealing with her League of Assassins problem and anyway, what he needs isn't help. What he needs is Sara's unflinching ability to tell the truth.

"There's something else bothering you," she deduces easily after he falls silent in his thoughts of Mirakuru and Barry Allen and Felicity. "Is it about this new guy?"

Oliver sighs and hopes he won't regret the phone call when he tells her, "It's – well, it's complicated. I think Felicity is mad at me."

Sara hums thoughtfully on her end. "Well, I would be, too, if you chased away a guy I really liked and still refused to act on your feelings," she tells him, a note of playfulness in her voice that recalls the memory of when Oliver had first realized that he wanted to be with Sara, maybe not full-time but enough to keep her away from the jackass she'd brought on a double date with him and Laurel one day.

"I don't have feelings for Felicity," he says defensively, and Sara laughs. He can feel her unraveling all his excuses in her laugh alone. "I don't. I just don't trust that kid."

"Why, because he likes her?" Sara teases. "You didn't get to be on your high horse about this, Ollie. It's not like you didn't lie to her about who you really were when you first met her, did you?"

Oliver groans. "I'm starting to regret calling you," he informs her because she is so painfully right. "I just – I think she deserves better than him," and even as the words leave his mouth, the memory of Felicity saying the same thing to him in her office not a few weeks ago about Isabel Rochev swims in his mind. He can practically taste the irony.

"No, you're being selfish," Sara corrects. "You want her, but you don't want to commit because of everything going on, but you also don't want anyone else making a move on her. You were the same way with Laurel, Ollie, and the same way with me."

"Do you ever get tired of being right?" he demands instead of answering any of her accusations.

"Not so far," Sara says, and he can see her smile even through the phone. "Oliver, just suck it up. Make her happy. She deserves that much, don't you think?"

"Shut up," he says, which he's sure she knows is code for 'Yes, Sara, you're right, and I'm going to go do what you said now.' "Good luck with your fight," he adds sincerely as a goodbye.

"Good luck with yours," she says, and before she hangs up, he hears, "And if you don't kiss Felicity soon, I'm gonna come back to Starling City and do it for you."

Oliver sits there and frowns at the phone in his hand for several minutes after the call ends.

-:-

When he finally finds the willpower to call Barry, his voice is gruff over the phone. "This is Oliver Queen," he introduces, as if Barry doesn't have caller ID, and then hesitates, feeling more uncomfortable than he has in quite a while.

"Mr. Queen," Barry says in surprise. "Um, what can I do for you?"

"I – " Oliver has to stop to clear his throat. "I was calling about – there's this party at my house tonight," he manages. "And…I would like you to come."

There's silence on Barry's end for a long moment. "Er, why?" he asks finally, and Oliver has to phsyically stop himself from sighing out loud.

"Because… because I may have – I might have overreacted a little," he admits, knowing his voice is a little strained. "Earlier, I mean. And I figured Fel – Miss Smoak would be happy to see you. And she'll be there. So…" He trails off, unsure how to end the sentence.

"Ah," says Barry, still sounding a little confused. "Well, that – that sounds like fun, Mr. Queen. I'll be there," he promises.

"Great," Oliver mutters, and hangs up with a resounding click. Somewhere out there, he's certain Sara is laughing at him.

-:-

"Time for a dance?" he asks Felicity during the spectacular failure that is his mother's homecoming party, wishing he didn't already know exactly what her answer would be. Making her happy is a bit trickier than Sara had made it out to be – he'd be lying to himself if the thought that Barry Allen was on his way over hadn't compelled him to let his hand linger on her bare arm when he'd met her at the bottom of the stairs.

"Not really feeling like dancing with you, Oliver," she replies quietly, the words settling like ice in his stomach. He'd apologized, of course, but he knows it wasn't enough.

"I know," he says, keeping his voice cool like the rejection doesn't sting. "And that is why," he continues, swiveling around to see Barry standing in the doorway, "I called him."

Barry looks hopelessly nervous when he spots Felicity, but her face lights up so Oliver guesses it's worth it. As Barry moves towards them, though, he can't resist leaning over to murmur into her ear, "FYI, they will card him at the bar."

Felicity doesn't get a chance to roll her eyes at him because he walks away towards the bar, leaving her to greet Barry with that smile on her face that he wishes was reserved for him. But Sara had been right, and jealousy isn't a good color on him, so he orders two drinks and vows to forget his personal drama.

After all, Starling City still needed saving, and it couldn't do with a hero who was distracted by his feelings for a pretty girl, no matter how amazing she was.

a/n: if you read this far, please drop me a review to let me know what you thought? it'd mean the world to me!

and DON'T favorite without reviewing, please and thank you.