Disclaimer - As always, someone else owns all these characters. I wish I owned Felicity, but sadly I'm afraid it will never happen.

Felicity's Secret

My cheeks felt like they were on fire. Once again, when Oliver and I were in a dangerous situation, my mouth had outrun my brain and words had spewed forth which revealed more of my secret desires than I would ever consciously admit. With impossibly hot and sexy women like Laurel, Helena, and McKenna constantly swirling around him, I knew I would never stand a chance with him. Well, perhaps I could compete if I revealed my big secret, but it was ultimately as likely to scare him away as attract him. And I had sworn to myself I would never reveal it to keep my enemies from tracking me down.

Therefore, as always, I was forced to backpedal to recover from my horrible gaffe.

"Ah, Oliver, I didn't mean . . ."

"Not now, Felicity," interrupted Oliver, as he fought to keep the eight attackers from reaching me while I packed up my gear.

Previously, I had generally only seen the consequences of Oliver's actions. And by that I mean his post-combat condition with a battered and bruised body, usually merely pummeled, but occasionally shot by guns or arrows. I had never witnessed him in a fight against so many opponents. Now, he was dodging and darting, delivering far more blows with his fists and feet and side of his bow than he was receiving. But with the other side's eight-to-one advantage, he was sustaining enough hits for them to cumulatively start to take their toll.

It was tough to stand there and watch, pretending to cower, when I could have taken them all out in a second. Finally, when I saw two of the men start to draw guns, I knew I had to do something – secret be damned.

A workbench covered with a variety of wrenches, hammers, and other tools was located about eight feet to my right. Quickly, I stepped over, hoping Oliver wouldn't notice my movement. I grabbed and tossed four projectiles – one at each of the men with the guns and the other two at the men standing the farthest from Oliver. I tried to avoid hitting anything vital and tried to hit them just hard enough to take them out of the fight without killing anyone. But I still winced when I heard bones snap in the arm of one man and the leg of another.

With the odds down to just four against one, Oliver quickly finished them off. His nose and lip were bleeding and he was moving with a slight limp, but he was still on his feet. I needed to get him out of there before he realized someone else had taken down half of his opponents.

"Oliver, we need to get out of here, now. I think I hear more of them coming," I stated while pointing to a door behind us and simultaneously gently nudging him towards the exit in the opposite direction.

His bow was up and cocked in an instant. I just had time to register the special tip on this arrow before he let loose. Before it had covered half the distance to its target, he had already grabbed my arm and started dragging me towards the exit.

The arrow exploded behind us with a giant shower of sparks and light to dazzle and confuse the opposition. Realizing Oliver hadn't noticed the extra downed men, a quick smile flashed across my face. Then, when I thought he was about to glance in my direction, I used the motion of pushing my glasses back up to block his view until I had my grin under control.

"Did you get the info we need to find where they are holding Carol?" Oliver asked as we ran.

I held up my tablet before stuffing it into my shoulder bag. "I hope so. I copied everything on their server. If the information is there, I'll find it. It is just a question of how long it will take to break their encryption algorithms."

Oliver nodded, as his gaze swept from side-to-side watching for potential opposition. Fortunately, he wasn't a techie and never fully appreciated the nearly impossible nature of my task. The current state-of-the-art encryption algorithms would take even the best NSA supercomputers months or years to break. But he never questioned my ability to manage the same feat in minutes or hours. Which was for the best or I would have been forced to explain how my trusty old tablet contained a crystal-based quantum computer at least forty years in advance of anything mankind currently possessed.

An old friend of Oliver's, Carol Ferris, had been kidnapped. When the news broke, Oliver had asked me to look for her. My research into her background had quickly uncovered the fact she was just as beautiful as every other woman in Oliver's life. However this woman was more than just beautiful; she was the scion of another of America's most powerful families like the Queen's of Starling City, the Luthor's of Metropolis, or the Wayne's of Gotham. Her father was CEO and founder of Ferris Air and Carol was the Vice President of one of their largest divisions. Oliver had never explained how he had met her, but from what I had found, I assumed their friendship had to date to the time they had both attended the same private prep school in New York.

So, for the first time in weeks, we were on a mission that didn't involve 'The List'.

Oliver raised his right hand to his ear and pressed the side. Immediately, in a phase-shifted stereo I heard his next words from both his mouth and my matching miniature earpiece. "Digg, we are on our way out. What's the situation out there?"

John 'Digg' Diggle's voice came back immediately with just a faint static crackle. "Alarms are going off and at least six armed guards are scurrying around like someone has upset the ant hill. You better go with plan B."

"Right," replied Oliver and immediately turned and ran in a new direction.

Plan B involved getting to the roof, shooting a cable across to the next building over, and then sliding down the wire while dangling a hundred feet in the air. The last time we had done something like this, when we were climbing around the top of the elevator shafts in Merlyn's headquarters, I had professed a fear of heights. If only I could let Oliver in on my secret we wouldn't have to play these silly games. But at least if he thought I was truly afraid of heights, I would get to spend a few special seconds with him holding me tightly against his body. Perhaps I could use the corny old line 'For luck' like Princess Leia had done when she and Luke were about to swing across the chasm in the Deathstar and steal a quick kiss. Yes, a quick kiss sounded like a wonderful plan.

We ran up the stairs. And ran up more stairs. And then ran up even more stairs. It was at least twenty flights to the roof and Oliver raced along like 'The Little Train That Could'. I kept up effortlessly, but then remembered my secret identity. I was nerdy, geek girl. I spent all my time playing with computers with only sporadic visits to the gym. Therefore when I knew we were within one flight of reaching our destination, I stopped and forced myself to bend over and gasp for air.

"Oliver . . . I can't . . . run another . . . step," I panted.

Oliver stopped and stared down at me. Just then we both heard a door slam open in the stairwell somewhere far below us, followed by the pounding of many feet. Just as I had hoped, Oliver ran back down the six steps to the landing were I was still leaning against the wall half bent over. Quickly, he swept me up in his arms and raced back up the remaining flight of stairs. I snuggled in close with my cheek pressed firmly against his. The movement had pushed his hood back and left my lips a bare fraction of an inch from his ear. Still pretending to breathe hard, I let the air caress his ear in what I hoped was an erotic manner. I was tempted to reach out and give the lobe a quick kiss, but decided shy, bashful Felicity would never be so brave. And truthfully, once I had that small morsel of flesh within my grasp, I might lose complete control.

Thankfully, before I had time to contemplate doing anything really stupid, we banged through the emergency exit leading onto the roof. More alarms began to blare, but it didn't matter as they obviously already knew where we were headed. Oliver lowered me to my feet before striding over to the edge of the roof nearest the target building. He moved along the edge gazing around until he reached a spot with a security light mounted on a pole right at the roof's edge. He reached out with both hands and shook the pole hard and it barely budged. Satisfied, he pulled an arrow from his quiver and quickly attached the end of a fine wire leading to a spool hanging from his waist. In only seconds he was ready and with one smooth motion notched the arrow to the bow, pulled back on the drawstring, and loosed.

By now I had joined him at the edge and we both watched as the arrow arched across the intervening distance until it embedded itself firmly into the wall about a foot above a wide glass window. Oliver pressed a button on a small remote and I knew special barbs were being activated to further anchor the arrow so it could support our weight.

Oliver climbed up onto the narrow four foot tall parapet and then tied the other end of the wire around the pole about eighteen inches above his head. When he was done, he gave the cable an experimental tug. With a quick nod of his head that the wire would hold, he swung his bow over the wire to use as an improvised support.

"Felicity, we have to go," he said, gesturing in my direction that I should climb up onto the parapet next to him.

I took another look over the edge at the long drop to the pavement far below us. Forcing a visible shudder, I moved slowly over to him and then raised a hand hesitantly in his direction.

He quickly pulled me up next to him. I was just leaning in to do my Princess Leia kiss when men with assault rifles came banging through the emergency exit door which had swung shut behind us. Oliver instantly kicked us off the edge and we began sliding down the wire steadily picking up speed. The wind was abruptly whipping about us and I almost cursed out loud at my missed opportunity.

Oliver had his strong left arm wrapped around my back and I had my left arm over his right shoulder which left my head pointed back over his left shoulder. We were less than halfway down the wire when I saw the first head appear over the roof's edge. Almost immediately I saw the man raise his rifle and a muzzle flash bloomed in the dark sky. I watched as the projectile whistled by six feet to my right. Then I watched as he and his three compatriots continued to fire, some of the rounds starting to get dangerously close.

I had to protect Oliver and somehow manage to do it without him catching on. Carefully, I shifted my position until I had clambered onto his back.

"Felicity, stop moving. You're going to make us fall," Oliver hissed, as I felt his grip shift on the bow which was supporting us.

Just then one of the snipers found the range; three rounds slammed into my back. Stretching my protective field to encompass Oliver while controlling our motion so we wouldn't start swinging from the momentum of the impacts required more delicate finesse with my gifts than was usually needed. And now, in addition to worrying about Oliver not noticing that I had just been hit, I would have to worry about either him or Digg spotting the sudden new holes in my black jacket. Tonight, things kept getting more and more complicated.

At least no more rounds found their mark and Oliver must not have realized anything had happened. Five seconds later he crashed, feet-first, through the glass window in front of us with me still clinging to his back.

We slammed to the floor and then rolled several times before coming to a stop. I managed to absorb most of the initial impact and then somehow ended up sprawled on top of Oliver. I leaned forward and planted the quick kiss I had intended to do while we had still been up on the rooftop.

"For luck," I said, as I pulled quickly back before I lost myself in his firm lips. "I meant to do that like Princess Leia before we slid down the wire. Wait, did I just say that out loud?"

Once again I was blushing furiously and it wasn't all faked.

He stared at me for a minute with an unreadable expression in his eyes. Finally, he spoke.

"Felicity, you need to get off of me. We still need to get out of here before the bad guys catch up."

That's when I realized I was kneeling astride his waist, my black skinny-jean clad crotch pressed firmly against his green leather clad one. I'm sure my cheeks brightened by another five hundred degrees.

"Ah, right, sorry," I gasped out while climbing unsteadily to my feet, not missing the opportunity to run my hands across his impossible pecs.

Oliver merely nodded as he also climbed to his feet. Then, surprisingly, he reached out and clasped my hand before urging us forward. If only he wasn't wearing the stupid gloves.

The rest of the trip back to his secret lair below the club was completely trouble free. I did have to remember to never turn my back to either Oliver or Digg until we reached there and I changed into the spare set of clothing I kept for emergencies.

Still, it had been, without a doubt, the best night since I had come to Starling City!

Author's Note: Anyone interested in an Arrow story in a world with superheroes rather than the superhero-free version of the TV show?