The Five Times Felicity Worked Late and the One Time She Didn't.

Author's Note: Alright people, here it is! The final chapter for this series of one-shots. I wanted to get it out there before the Flash and Arrow season premieres. I hope you all enjoy it! I love Arrow and I love this ship so I'm sure there could be more one-shots in my future for this series! Review if you can and let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Arrow.

Fight With You

Oliver burst through the doors of the Foundry and practically leapt down the stairs. He was already in the motion of stripping off his suit jacket and tie so that he could gear up in record time when he felt another presence in the room.

"Felicity, I told you to go home," he said, turning to face his wide-eyed IT specialist.

She shook off her initial surprise at the unintentional Oliver Queen striptease that she had almost witnessed. "And if you hadn't hung up on me, you would have heard me say no."

"Excuse me?" He slammed his hand against the button that opened the glass case where his suit waited for him.

"Oliver, I'm coming with you."

He narrowed his eyes. "You're not."

Felicity pushed herself out of her chair and crossed the room to stand behind him. "I'm not letting you go alone."

"Felicity, I don't have time for this."

"Actually you do. Thea has been willingly with Malcolm for months and she's fine. You can make time for this conversation," she argued.

Oliver looked forlornly between his suit and Felicity, clearly wanting some privacy to change. She flicked her wrist in the direction of the suit. "Don't let me stop you."

He raised his eyebrows at her as if expecting her to leave or maybe turn around at least.

She shook her head. "I'm not letting you out of my sight until we clear this up."

Oliver folded his arms across his chest and turned to face her fully. He was obviously not very happy with her.

Felicity purposefully mirrored his stance, arms and all, to make it clear to him that she felt the same way.

"Felicity, as I said on the phone, I am so grateful to you for all the work that you've put in to finding Thea. And I'm amazed that you actually found her, but your job is done—the day is over. Go home and I'll take it from here."

She scoffed at him. "You seem to be ignoring the small detail of my finding Thea with Malcolm Merlyn. A living, breathing Malcolm Merlyn."

Oliver tried to shrug it off, but she could see in his eyes that he was worried. "It was always a possibility that he was still alive."

"Was it?"

He sighed. "Well, yea Felicity. Dead men don't generally disappear from rooftops."

Felicity seemed momentarily stunned like she couldn't believe Oliver hadn't had her scouring the globe for the past year to track down Merlyn. She moved past that thought and back to her worries. "And he's not giving you any pause in your plan to…to what? Kidnap Thea?"

"I'm not kidnapping her," he growled out.

She raised an eyebrow at him, not pleased with the anger geared at her. "No? Because she left here voluntarily in part because she was mad at you. Have you thought about that yet as you sprint head first into battle?"

"I'll figure something out. Something to convince her to come with me—she needs to come home."

She nodded as if agreeing with him, but he could see by her narrowed expression that she was mocking him. "And while you're spending all this time trying to convince Thea to come home with you, what exactly is your plan to keep Malcolm from putting an arrow between your eyes?"

"I don't know if you've noticed over these past two years, but I'm pretty good on my feet. I won't let anything happen."

"I have noticed you…I've noticed that every time you go up against Malcolm, you've almost d—you've almost failed." She couldn't bring herself to say the word 'died'.

"Failing isn't an option," he told her adamantly.

"Then improve your odds. Bring backup!"

Oliver turned away from her and began pulling his suit from its case. "Malcolm is dangerous."

"Exactly," she said as she watched him walk out of view to change. She debated following him for a moment but stopped herself. There was no exit in that direction.

"I don't want to put anyone else in Malcolm's path," he yelled to her.

"You didn't have that problem with Slade," she called back to him.

Oliver stepped back into view, donning his suit, and just stared at her incredulously. "That was an entirely different situation."

"Yea, you were cool with giving me up to Slade when it would save Laurel, but I can't even back you up when you're the one who could be in trouble."

"That had nothing to do with Laurel! We were trying to save the city!"

Felicity rolled her eyes at him. She moved to turn away from him and pack up some equipment, determined not to be left behind. He stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"With Slade, I knew what he wanted—I knew his motives and what he would do so that I could stop him while keeping you as safe as possible. There was no way he would have killed you without me there to witness it." Oliver tried to justify the difference between the two situations. "Malcolm is unpredictable. He wouldn't hesitate to kill you and I won't ever let that happen. So I'm sorry, but you can't come."

"He won't hesitate to kill you either. So you need to be smarter than him, which is where I come in. You can't just bulldoze your way through him to get to Thea."

"I need to get her away from him now!"

"And the only way to do that successfully is to go in with a plan and back-up." She felt like she was on repeat mode.

He released her arm and backed away. "That's enough, Felicity," he commanded, trying to make it clear that he was done with the conversation.

"No." She refused to back down. "If I'm not good enough for you then let me call Dig."

"No!"

"Why not? He would kill you if he knew you were trying to do this without him."

Oliver hesitated, not knowing what to tell her. He decided the truth was actually the best way to get her off his back. "Dig is about to be a dad and I can't ask him to risk his family for mine. I won't ask him."

"You know he would do it in an instant."

He nodded. "That's the problem."

"Then call Roy back from whatever place you sent him scouring the globe for Thea or track down Sara."

"It would take too long for either one of them to get there."

"Malcolm isn't going to hurt Thea. She's his daughter," she oh-so-helpfully reminded him.

Oliver was done listening. He grabbed his bow off it stand.

Felicity backed up a few steps. "Whoa! You don't like what I'm saying so you're going to shoot me?"

"No, I don't like what you're saying, so I'm leaving."

"I'm actually surprised you haven't done this before," she said to herself before snapping into action mode. She quick tapped in a few keys on her computer and heard the clang of the system lock them in. She knew he could easily reboot the system to unlock the doors, but he would have to come back to her computer to do so. She only hoped it would buy her enough time to get through to him.

He spun on his heel to face her, eyebrows raised and lips pursed. He was pissed. "Seriously?"

"I'm not letting you go alone," she said firmly.

"And this is the best that you can do to stop me?"

She shrugged. "It's step one."

"And what step two?" he asked as he stalked towards her.

She positioned her body in front of the computer, hoping the obstacle would slow him down.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe tracking you and following you to Merlyn's lair?"

Oliver stopped in front of her and folded his arms over his chest. "I can't have you getting in my way."

"Okay, ouch. I may not be Diggle or Sara, but I'm not useless."

"That's not what I meant."

"It's not like I haven't done missions with you before. I don't understand what makes this time different."

He massaged the space between his eyes. He couldn't tell her why it was different this time. He wasn't entirely sure himself, but Malcolm had a way of taking the most important people in his life away from him – his father, Tommy, and now Thea. He couldn't let him get Felicity. He couldn't risk her. "It just is."

"Not good enough."

He closed his eyes tight, not believing what he was about to say. "Fine."

She smiled. "Fine what?"

"Fine—you can help. You stay here and track me as usual. Back me up at a distance."

She scoffed. "Yea because that will be so useful when you get into trouble fifty miles away from here."

"What do you want from me?"

"Just let me come," she demanded. "It's my life and I get to decide what I do with it. I want to help you."

"I can't be worried about protecting both you and Thea at the same time."

"Then don't. Let me worry about you for once."

"And what are you going to do to help?" he asked.

"I don't know—what I always do. I'll watch your back. Or I'll grab Thea for you while you distract Malcolm so you're not dealing with two things at once. I think I can handle your sister."

Oliver sighed. "I'm so tired of fighting with you."

"Yea, well it's not my first instinct when locked in a dark room with you either, but here we are."

"And you're serious about following me?"

She nodded. "Unless you have plans to tie me up or handcuff me, but I didn't think you were one for the kinky."

He had actually considered that option already, but he would prefer to save those activities for more fun circumstances. He didn't share that thought aloud.

"Why are you so adamant about this?" he asked.

"Because, Oliver, you're scaring me. You haven't been thinking straight since I told you about Merlyn and it's going to get you hurt." She rested against the lip of her desk with her back facing her computer. "Because you're not alone in this stuff. You never will be." She swallowed hard as he drifted closer to her. "Because I care about you and when you care about someone you fight for them and you fight with them…" She cleared her throat. "Which I guess has two meanings that actually both apply in this case, but I meant it like physically fighting side by side with each other, not arguing with one another," she babbled.

He had understood her meaning without explanation.

He stepped forward, which had her wary. She wasn't quite convinced that he wouldn't tie her down to keep her from following him. He leaned into her until he was well past the point of invading her personal space. She didn't exactly mind. For a moment she thought that he was actually going for it—that for whatever reason this was the moment he would choose to finally kiss her. She leaned backward until her back was almost hitting the monitor that she had been guarding. The scent of him stole all of the air around her—a clean, earthy smell that was just so perfectly Oliver. It made it hard for her to breathe. She locked eyes with him as he pressed his body flush to hers and her jaw unintentionally dropped a little as she thought to herself 'Is this actually happening?'

But it wasn't. Without even breaking eye contact, he reached around her and quickly typed in the command to unseal the door. It only took a second for her to realize what he was actually doing and when his body heat left her own as he stepped back, the familiar disappointment sunk in.

She stood up straight and smoothed out her dress as though she could brush off any trace that he had touched her. She could still smell him on her though.

She waited for him to turn and walk away, readying herself to run after him. He didn't.

He clenched his jaw and studied her. He hoped he didn't regret this. "Get your stuff and let's go."

Felicity's eyes widened. "Really?"

He nodded. "Before I change my mind."

She smiled and pulled her lap top bag from under her desk, setting it on her chair to fill it up. He spoke as she pulled her gear together, telling her exactly what she had to do.

"We can talk about a forming solid game plan on the drive, but I need to know that you will listen to me. No matter what! I tell you to shoot, you shoot." Felicity nodded as he laid out his rules, but he didn't feel like she was really listening. "I tell you to jump?" he asked, trying to prompt a response.

"I ask how high," she responded absently.

He pulled her away from her bag so she could focus on him. "No, you just jump," he corrected her.

"Oh, Right."

He rested one hand on her arm and moved the other to cup the side of her neck to try to keep her focused. "And if I tell you to run, you run as far and as fast as possible no matter what's going on with me or Thea."

Felicity showed no agreement to that. She couldn't promise to leave anyone behind.

"I'm serious, Felicity. If anything happens to you I won't be able to deal with that."

She didn't want to admit it, but now that he was including her she was actually nervous (and maybe even a little scared). But that wasn't going to stop her.

"Nothing's going to happen to me. Or you. Or Thea. Okay?"

He nodded once. "It'd better not."

The warmth of his huge hand on her neck and the low drawl of his voice made her shiver. She knew he could feel her pulse ratchet up and she wasn't sure if she was embarrassed that he could feel the effect he had on her or glad that he finally knew it. Within the last minute or so she had become a bundle of nerves and fears and adrenaline. It was a combination that made it hard to think so she decided not to anymore. It was time to just act.

She pressed up on her tiptoes and tugged on the collar of his shirt to bring his face level with her. She took it as a good sign that he didn't try to disengage from her. That gave her enough confidence to go through with it and she touched her lips lightly to his. His lips were soft and sent a shockwave through her entire body. She felt his sharp intake of breath through his nose and hoped that meant he had felt it too. She leaned into him more, causing a delicious pressure against his mouth and she felt his fingers push up into her hair. She captured his upper lip between her own before shifting down to his bottom lip, making sure he was thoroughly kissed before she pulled back.

Once they were broken apart, she noticed that his other hand—the one not still buried in her hair—was splayed across the small of her back, dangerously close to her butt.

She cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses out of habit. "That was just in case things don't go as planned. I wanted to know what that was like."

He didn't say anything, but she noticed he still hadn't let her go.

As was her natural inclination, Felicity felt the need to fill the silence with babble. "Sorry if I made things weird now. It's just that pretty much anytime either my life or your life is seriously threatened, which is more often than I like to think about, I kick myself for not having done that. Now I'm sure I have a lot of other regrets in my life, but I wanted to fix this one now. Of course if we do live this might be added to the regret list if it makes things weird betw—."

Oliver cut her off by pulling her back into him for round two. This time she was the one surprised and he was much more responsive—getting over any initial hesitation he had about taking this step. This time she felt everywhere he touched her, beyond just his mouth which was saying something when his tongue sought out her own and took up the majority of her concentration. The hand that had been on the small of her back hugged her tight to his body, practically lifting her off her feet while his other hand massaged her hair and pulled her mouth aggressively against his.

Her hands felt along his chest and her entire body felt the buzz as he let out an involuntary moan into her mouth. The blood pulsing through her body thrummed along with the tingles that danced to the tips of her nerve endings. Her body felt more awake than she'd ever been, which was interesting since her brain was locked in a mode that could only process Oliver. It was all a little too much and if Oliver felt even a fraction of what she was feeling then they were both in deep.

They separated at the same time, pulling away just enough so their lips no longer met. She felt him breathing hard against her cheek—harder than she had ever heard him breathe even during the most difficult work out—and she knew she had gotten his heart racing.

She swallowed, trying to get some feeling back into her mouth. "You know this doesn't change my mind about going with you, right?"

He chuckled a little bit and gave her another quick kiss almost like he couldn't get enough of her. "We're getting Thea and then we are coming back to finish this," he told her firmly. There was such a fierce determination in his voice that it gave her no doubt that it would happen. They would survive Malcolm Merlyn, get Thea back, and return to this moment. When Oliver set his sights on something he wanted, he always found his target. She got a little thrill in knowing that he finally had his sights on her.

He stepped back and grabbed her hand, guiding her to follow his lead. She was happy to. She managed to snag her bag as they made their way out of the Foundry. She wondered how long it would be before they returned with Thea in tow and could pick up from where they left off. She tried to push it out of her mind and think about the work ahead. After all, she didn't mind working late with Oliver Queen if it meant she got to take some time off with him after.