This is the first outtake from the Finally Universe! I hope you enjoy this! XOXO

Title: Operation: Olicity

Rating: T

Warning: Mild Swearing

Tommy Merlyn had been plucked from a pretty cushy afterlife for 2 years 25 days 7 hours and 32 minutes and he had never spent a more uncomfortable hour in his entire life than when he had just witnessed his best and oldest friend act like a lovesick idiot in front of the woman he was convinced was his bestie's lobster – and that was really saying something because he was counting the 20 years of general estrangement from his lunatic father, the 16 hours plus that he'd spent being dead, the following 6 months when he had generally walked the earth as a crazy, rabid, amnesiac undead killer under the auspices of one vengeful Olympian chick and the following year he had dedicated to repenting for all his sins. Even his Laurel drama at its poorest pre- and post his comeback to the land of the breathing had not been as difficult as the last hour had been.

It was an early Tuesday evening he would've gladly spent anywhere but in Oliver's new 5300 sq. foot penthouse – it was a sweet crib, really, a previously foreclosed property which Ollie got for a song – at 1 Mercer Place for this housewarming party. All of Oliver's nearest and dearest were spread out in the living room. Kickass Toughie Lyla Diggle and her husband, Oliver's erstwhile bodyguard, John Diggle sequestered the love seats while Thea, and her boyfriend (or was he? He could never get it straight. What's the kid's name again? Arrggh! Well, Bite-size Oliver will do for now…), his own Not-So-Ex-But-Still Laurel, and until a minute ago, Oliver and his aforementioned blonde lobster, Felicity, were with him on the man-swallowing sofa.

Oliver and Felicity – that was a pair he had not seen coming. Felicity Smoak was in every way, an exception to Oliver Queen's dating criteria: Genius IQ, petite, blonde, quirky, sassy and won't take any of his crap. The kicker is that his best friend had been singularly devoted to her despite his unwillingness to go after her. There had been no second in the almost 8 months to the day that he had been back in Ollie's life that he didn't see a lovelorn expression or some variation thereof on his friend's face when it came to her. Sometimes he had just wanted to smack Oliver upside the head (but he can't because he'd have to do it to Felicity, too – one of the quirks of his not-as-advertised second life) just so that he could knock some sense into that unbelievably thick skull. He knew that his best friend had blown so many opportunities to be happy with her and it was hard to see Oliver flounder and unnecessarily suffer.

And don't get him started on when she had begun dating that other guy, Ray Palmer (or was it Roy? He couldn't really remember… Wait, it was Ray because Thea's own mini Oliver was Roy! Ha!). Oliver might have been able to hide it from the general public behind a stoic mask but not from Tommy 2.0. His nascent empathetic abilities – again another fluke from his recent vacation from death – had almost shredded his already fragile soul as it resonated with the depth of Oliver's heartache. More times than not, he had not really wanted to be stuck in the same room with the two of them, because then, he'd get a two-for-one special. As much as Felicity had wanted to pretend that she was really over-the-moon happy with that Palmer guy, Tommy had still felt her endure the great, big, gaping Oliver-shaped void in her heart. Just imagine the humongous sigh of relief Oliver's soul had let out when that relationship fizzled out. It had felt like it could breathe again after being in a chokehold of unrealized emotions for so long.

And he had just about had it with these two and the endless will-they-won't-they tension they subject themselves to. He had spent the last hour seeing these two, beyond-obstinate fools shine some seriously yearning glances at each other when the other wasn't looking, and then proceed to have dripping hot eye sex when they caught each other's gazes. He swore to the ever living gods that if he didn't have Laurel's hand pinning his own down in an effort to keep him from flinging himself over Oliver's private roof deck, he would've been a forgone and very messy splat on the pavement by now.

Not even a minute ago, he had been treated to about 30 seconds of the same turbo-charged staring, before Oliver had swooped in with his mouth on the chocolate truffle Felicity had mockingly held out to him with her fingers. To some, that accidental brush between his lips and her fingers had been just that – a hilarious twist of fate that led to an adorably babbling Felicity, after she had goaded Oliver to live a little and taste the exotic chili-laced chocolate she had gone to extreme lengths to find and procure for this little party or else. Everybody else laughed at that – especially when Oliver had tried to quell Felicity's rambling with a blathering effort of his own. But it was no laughing matter to him, the unwilling empath because that seemingly innocent and inadvertent touch had sent shockwaves of want from those two that had knocked him on his proverbial ass. It was just too much. And for someone who was trying really hard to keep himself on an even keel, lest he slip and go batshit crazy again and revert back to his murderous Rhamnusian ways, it was an almost insurmountable ordeal.

Tommy had been itching to lock them in a closet and throw away the key. Spectacular idea, his brain had said as he mentally patted his own back. Maybe then they'll have at it and settle the score, or at least, work it out of their systems once and for all – and finally give him some peace. He was just about to hatch his master plan when he was hastily interrupted by Felicity excusing herself and leaving for the kitchen sink, hoping to wash her chocolate-covered hands. Oliver followed shortly, saying that he was going to get more wine from the cellar, conveniently forgetting that the bottles of red wine Tommy had brought sat plainly on the coffee table untouched. Man, his boy had absolutely lost his game!

But he would not be bothered by that. It was the first time since Felicity arrived that night that he was able to breathe freely. He relished it and took a deep breath. Finally, some relief from all that.

In the silence following the laughter, Lyla asked everybody, "Are they like this all the time?"

Digg just quirked his eyebrows at his wife as if to say, 'What do you think?'

"Oh, like you wouldn't believe!" Laurel answered Lyla exasperatedly as she nonchalantly eased her grip on Tommy's hand and started rubbing soothing circles on his wrist.

"What she said," Roy concurred.

"And they really aren't a thing? Oliver keeps denying it but I don't really believe him! Those are some serious heart eyes," Thea said, pertaining to the ogling they had all witnessed.

"Those, my dear little sister, aren't just heart eyes! That is eye sex!" Tommy exclaimed, relieved that he hadn't imagined everything! His salvaged brain had a few kinks and sometimes his sense of reality could be a bit flawed. He felt Laurel's fingers squeeze him, tethering him further into this actuality.

"What he said," Roy said, murmuring his assent.

"Whatever it is, there're definitely sparks there," Lyla commented.

"Maybe, it's time to push them together?" Thea mused aloud. "Seems like they can't get to the real thing by themselves…."

"Might not be the best idea. You know how your brother gets when he thinks he's doing the right thing," Laurel pointed out.

"You think he's helping himself or her, for that matter, by not making a move?" Thea asked her right back.

Laurel deflated at the answer everybody knew but chose not to voice out.

"I'm not saying that we should interfere or do something but if this thing will ever get a shot, it has to happen soon. Felicity might be leaving," Digg said as he interrupted Thea and Laurel. The man immediately found himself the target of ten curious eyes.

"Has she said anything to you?" Lyla queried.

Digg shook his head but added, "She's been looking at Gotham properties a lot lately. And I even saw her updating her CV."

"Does Oliver know?" Tommy asked Digg. He did not want to even begin to imagine how Oliver would feel if Felicity's leaving would ever come to pass. Wait! He didn't have to imagine. He'd seen. He'd been yanked from heaven and thrust back to earth to be tortured by images of Oliver's guilt, his grief and his pain. It was part of what drove him mad early into his resurrection. Another part was Laurel's woeful misery but she was there beside him now so… He didn't really want to go digging back to that particularly tormenting part of his second life. Even keel, he reminded himself, must be dandy and right as a butterfly. He was on the verge right then of having a bad flashback, so he was grateful for (but not particularly heartened) by the other man's voice breaking into his thoughts.

"I don't think he does," Digg said while he slowly shook his head.

"So, it's Code Red – all hands on deck, then," Tommy said as he realized the shitstorm that was brewing. Now that he had been pointed back to the situation at hand, he gave free rein to his earlier scheming. "I think it's time to get them both drunk."

"With what?" Thea asked. She knew that Oliver only had vodka and a Scotch in his bar. And all of those Oliver could handle. He also had a wine cellar but Oliver can drink anyone under the table even with the more robust reds.

"I suggest you stash a bottle or two of Tequila here, that way, come hockey night, we could ply them to the earful with shots then lock them in a closet for them to hash it out," He said as he thoughtfully started laying out the specifics of his plan. He had always been good at organizing things. He was glad that even after having died and having been brought back to life, that particular faculty was none the worse for wear.

"Wouldn't that be a little juvenile?" Laurel cringed.

"They'll be drunk. They wouldn't care," Roy pointed out.

"Still…" Laurel said, carrying out her duty as devil's advocate with diligence. The bottle was never the answer to things like this. This was a possible forever they were toying with here. It didn't seem right that they push their friends to possibly start it (well, more likely end it – that's the cynical lawyer in her talking) with a night they might never remember or try as hard as hell to forget. For all of Oliver's faults and flaws, it was very clear that Felicity meant something more to him than she ever would. But Felicity was a good person who surely deserved to be really happy with someone and preferably someone who makes that commitment openly and while stone-cold sober.

"Do you want this to go down now in the hopes of seeing them the better for it or will you sentence all of us to forever in hell if we don't do anything?" Tommy asked. Well, to him that was a rhetorical question. He didn't want to have a broody, unhinged and pissed off Oliver on his plate. No, thank you!

And since nobody really liked the idea either, everybody fell silent.

"Are we sure that she's even coming to hockey night?" Lyla asked because she hadn't heard Oliver invite Felicity yet but an answer was precluded by the sounds of the duo making their way back to the living room.

"Okay, we keep this hush-hush. Stick close to your phones," Tommy said quickly as Laurel scrambled to say something to gloss over the clandestine nature of what had just transpired behind the returning non-couple's very stubborn hides.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Tommy hadn't even been home five minutes after dropping off Laurel in her apartment when he started texting people the deets regarding their big secret meeting. Hockey night was less than 72 hours away and they had a lot to get down. They were to meet tomorrow, late afternoon at his place – which was a small, unremarkable, sparsely furnished studio apartment, in a building just at the edge where marginally respectable communities met the border of the Glades. It was a far cry from any of the Merlyn estates but it did what he needed it to do – be a place to hide and be anonymous.

As far as the whole of Starling City knew, Thomas "Tommy" Merlyn was one of those killed in the Undertaking, after all, the media had hyped up his burial beside his mother's grave in their tireless effort to catch the 'real tragedy' behind the man-made earthquake. A closer look at official records however, which Felicity had promptly done after his sudden reappearance at the foundry, had showed him only to be one among the missing and yet to be found.

It had been a rocky restart. He had interfered with his father's plans to use Thea to kill Sara, only to have Malcolm finish the deed himself.

By the time the whole of Team Arrow had deemed him a non-threat and had decided to keep him in Starling City (on the off-chance, they thought, he might want to run back to daddy dearest – which he really didn't want to EVER AGAIN!), they had been hard-pressed to concoct a backstory for the entire time Tommy was missing, so anyone who came looking would stay away. Digg had suggested that the best story they could hope for was Tommy being a severely injured John Doe who was rescued from one of the buildings that had collapsed in the Glades following the earthquake. Oliver had agreed. Thea had stayed away (though he didn't really get to know the reason, i.e. their shared parentage, until way later). Roy, who was also doing a lot of avoiding Thea, did whatever Oliver told him to do.

Laurel, after she was done working out all her pent-up anger, aggravation and aggression towards him, had appended that fake Tommy had to have awoken from a lengthy coma with amnesia and a severe case of PTSD, or better yet, intractable psychosis to escape criminal prosecution and to help deter haters from wanting to kill him. Crazy and without memories was how he had woken up from death. It was an easy story to tell – after all, he had lived it.

But it had been a damned harder story to sell.

In the end, it had been Felicity and Lyla who did the heavy lifting. Starting with a cursory search of patients matching his description from all the medical facilities A.R.G.U.S. had usually used, they had been very fortunate indeed to find one A.R.G.U.S. subject who had been admitted as a comatose John Doe in the outfit's main medical subcontractor in Blüdhaven right around the time of the Undertaking. It was also very fortunate that Blüdhaven was one of the municipalities that handled overflow patients from the Glades during that time. It was not unheard of for patients to have been airlifted to hospitals in the cities closest to Starling after the infamous disaster.

Felicity had then commandeered the patient's file and started rewriting the whole enchilada to make it as close as it could be to suit their invented narrative. That patient had been transferred to another aftercare facility after having been in a coma for 6 months and since A.R.G.U.S. had already previously gone to great lengths to obscure what happened to him after, it was pretty much easier to wipe away the crumbs and build another trail that led where they wanted it to lead. There was virtually a very low risk of discovery even if anyone did come to snoop and that was the best they could possibly achieve. The only thing left then was to have Tommy admitted to the Langford Institute (under a program that was sponsored by S.T.A.R. Labs) as a psychiatric patient and released quietly after a month.

So by the time rumors had started circulating about Tommy Merlyn sightings in Starling City, their cover story had already been buttoned in. He had, from then on, been an open secret.

His bleating phone broke him from the spewing recollections assailing his brain. Everybody had confirmed their attendance. Right. Back to business. He started thinking of things they needed to accomplish and started texting people their individual assignments.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Thea, Roy and Lyla had been a little early to the shindig and, together with him, were cramped into his tiny living area the next afternoon, figuring out who would do what in the following days if they were really going to carry out their plan to try and at least give Oliver and Felicity a fighting chance. Laurel and Digg were on their way from work.

Thea and Roy had accomplished their mission, having had bought the booze and stashed two bottles of Tequila in her brother's home bar, earlier that afternoon. While Roy was sorting out drinks into the teeny weenie countertop, Lyla had come up with a more subtle way to bait the two into the closet. She suggested that by making everybody at least partially drunk by playing 'Never Have I Ever' and then going on to pretend to play 'Seven Minutes in Heaven', they would have an easier time of herding their prey. He suddenly remembered why he liked the woman. She was sneaky as hell and was way too damned nice about it.

Before anyone could object though, Laurel (with pizza!) and Digg (with a scowl!) had arrived. Thea had caught them up, mentioning Lyla's suggestion. Laurel liked it. Tommy had asked her to swipe a pair of her father's handcuffs while Lyla said that she'd be ready with hers too, just in case. They had all laughed at that, except for Digg who had been quiet until then. He was loosening his tie as he broke his bad news. He had found out that Felicity had yet to confirm her attendance for hockey night because Barry and their other friends from Central City were coming over for the weekend. Oliver was not given to pressing her and the vibe between the two was nothing but Awkward – uh-huh, with a capital A!

"We're dead in the water without her," Roy belabored the point as he passed out a cold beer to the big guy.

Well, hello there, Captain Obvious! Tommy thought. "Is there any way we could coerce her to come?" He asked instead.

"Is she even really a hockey fan?" Thea queried, noting that she herself didn't really tune into hockey unless she caught Roy, Oliver or Tommy watching a game on TV.

"I don't think so. Felicity and sports do not mix. Unless it was the World Series of Poker, good luck convincing her to watch any sport on TV," Digg said.

"Don't forget horse racing," Roy said blandly. Thea had raised an eyebrow at him. "What?" He said as he objected to Thea's implied censure. "She likes running the numbers. She told me it was something she did for math."

It seems that Ms. Felicity Smoak had a penchant for playing the stakes.

Laurel had also come to the same conclusion. "Can we rope her in with a bet, then? Does she have something she would really like to have, to see?" Except for Oliver went without saying.

"A truckload of mint chocolate chip ice cream? A year-long voucher to Big Belly Burger? A triple order of dim sum and dumplings?" Roy rattled out what he remembered of Felicity's food preferences.

"Captain America? Bruce Wayne? Adam Levine?" Thea blathered on, recalling guys Felicity had expressed even a passing interest in.

"Not really helping, Thea," Tommy exasperatedly remarked.

"State-of-the-art tech?" Lyla piped in. "But I'm not really an expert so I can't pinpoint specifics."

They started listing things down but they were still stumped 10 minutes later. They all decided to break for pizza. Then, they reconvened and came up with jack. They left the topic for a while and proceeded to the meat of things, to the down and dirty, so to speak.

Everybody was pretty much cool with the details they needed for 'Never Have I Ever'. It was the mechanics and logistics of 'Seven Minutes in Heaven' that they needed to iron out. If they were rigging the game, it had better go off without a hitch. In the end, they settled on using a loaded bottle and having all of the names in both cups be exclusively Oliver's and Felicity's. They discussed whether they were to be given a safe word. The girls and Dig voted 'Aye" so that settled that. After all that was agreed upon, they circled back to the problem of getting Felicity to come to hockey night.

"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way?" Laurel pointed out.

"How do you mean?" Lyla asked.

"What she's saying is that maybe we should start looking into Barry, Caitlin and Cisco and use them to bring Felicity in," Digg stated.

"Exactly!" Laurel agreed.

"So, anybody close to those three?" Tommy asked as they worked on their plans for another 20 minutes before they promised each other to think about it some more and finally called it quits for the evening.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

In the end, it was Roy who serendipitously discovered Barry's undying love for the Starling City Stars and Cisco's almost blind worship of the Gotham Knights. It was just a matter of roping Oliver into one of their conversations during the Queen Incorporated Gala and they were off to the races!

Once the two had secured an invitation to Oliver's place, Roy had then brought Barry and Cisco over to Tommy, Laurel, Lyla and Diggle while Thea had kept Oliver, Felicity and Caitlin occupied well into the other side of the hall. It was Digg who read Barry and Cisco into the plan.

"Something's gonna go down tonight. I just wanted to give you guys a heads up. See, we're trying to get Oliver and Felicity to finally talk about…"

"The sexual tension, right?" Cisco cut in. Seeing the rest of their group nod, he commented quietly to himself that he was so glad that he wasn't just imagining things.

"Something like that," Digg conceded with an amused voice. "We really need your help to get Felicity to come to Oliver's apartment for hockey night tonight, right after this gala."

"That will be easy," Cisco said. "She's kinda' our ride to everywhere. I am so in, man!"

"But we also need to isolate them both during the party, you know. Make them drift towards each other… And then after the game, we're going to bait them into playing 'Never Have I Ever' and 'Seven Minutes in Heaven," Tommy added.

"Then lock them in a closet until they hash it all out," Roy deadpanned.

"With a safe word in place," Laurel chimed in.

"And please, please keep this one a secret," Lyla pleaded.

"I'm liking this more and more. What do we call this mission, then?" Cisco asked. When there was no answer, he started firing off suggestions, "The Smoak-and-Queen Conspiracy? No?"

Laurel scrunched up her face.

"The Feliver Conundrum?"

Tommy shook his head.

"I got it, I got it! Operation: Olicity!" Cisco exclaimed as he brandished his hand in the air. Everybody was surprised by his enthusiasm, by his rapidly concocted ship names and let out approving giggles. "So, Operation: Olicity is a go, Mr. Digg!" Cisco beamed.

Barry, however, was a little hesitant. He knew how Felicity and Oliver had both felt.

"What do you say, Barry?" Digg asked, noticing the speedster's reluctance.

"I don't know. Oliver will kill me and Felicity will use her Loud Voice. And I'm not a huge fan of death and deafness."

"Think of it as just a little nudge," Laurel said.

"A little nudge that needs to go a long way," Tommy quipped.

"You don't really have to do anything," Lyla said. "Just talk to whomever you like more than you talk to either of them. And we'll do the rest."

"Come on, Bar!" Cisco urged, "It's not like they don't like each other so much already."

"Okay. But the minute this goes south…"

"We cut them lose," Digg vowed.

"Okay," Barry nodded in assent then said, "Maybe we should bring Caitlin into this? She may be able to handle Felicity better than any of us could…"

"Yeah, bring her in but keep it tight. We don't want Oliver or Felicity to catch a hint of this. That might just torpedo this whole plan," Tommy warned. And he didn't want to have endured all that tension for nothing.

"Okay," both guys promised and took turns shaking with the others on it.

With all manner of Olicity business done (at least for the moment), they started placing their wagers on that night's do-or-die hockey championship game between the Starling City Stars and the defending champions, the Gotham City Knights.

If you have any other requests and prompts, you can use the reviews section below for much more than comments and reviews! Let's see what we could squeeze in given my new very hectic schedule. Kisses!