NOTES: (Please read!) Hello everyone! This fic takes place about a year after my previous fic "I'm Not Sorry." I fully admit to still be shaping this story in my head, but the beginning always started the same, so I thought I would get that out of my head first and take if from there. This fic will probably get quite dark in later chapters. I'm having some fun with characters from the comics, but will (like the show) be taking my own spin with them. Thanks for reading!

DISCLAIMER: Not mine! I do for the love of Olicity!

Chapter 1: Bright Start

As warm light of the late afternoon flooded through the windows of the bedroom, Oliver allowed himself the rare luxury of waking up without an alarm. Both his days and evenings had been unusually hectic the last few months, and it was not often he got the chance to just let his body take as much time to sleep as it needed. Between establishing his own off-shoot of Queen Consolidated-a new tech startup Q-Core-and working with the rest of Team Arrow to limit the recent increase of organized crime, finding time to sleep was not typically at the top of his priority list.

In the year since Slade's madness had laid waste to his life, everything about his world had shifted. There was something freeing in starting over, and more often than not he found that he was content, even happy. That was not something he could have guessed would have been possible a year ago. A yawn demanded a fresh supply of oxygen as he squinted against the light and turned to take a peek at the bedside clock.

16:35

He laughed. Now he felt really lazy.

"Do I even want to know what time it is?" Came the mostly asleep voice of Felicity Smoak. She rolled over from her side of the bed and nuzzled against his side, hair an impressive disaster as it always was in the morning. He turned on his side and hooked his top leg over her hip, pulling her closer as he rested his chin on the top of her head. Of all the things that had changed, this was undoubtedly, the best.

"Not particularly." He replied with a smile, taking in the familiar scents of vanilla and citrus from her shampoo. She made a rather unlady-like grunt against his chest.

"Ugh, that means we really DO need to get up." She tried to start wiggling out from his embrace, but he only squeezed his leg around her tighter, locking his heel behind her knee. "Hey!" She put the palm of her hand flat against his bare chest and pushed back so she could look him in the eye. "None of your bed ninja nonsense! The opening gala is tonight, and SOME of us take some work to look stupid sexy all dressed up." She got enough leverage to sit half-way up and look over his shoulder to see the clock. Squinting, when she saw the time she doubled her efforts to escape. Freeing an arm she smacked him on that glorious butt of his. "Oliver! I've got a hair appointment in 30 minutes!"

Ignoring her thrashing about, he turned his head to the crook her neck, nuzzling along the edge of her jawline.

"I thought you were a fan of the my bed ninja skills…" he commented innocently, hand slipping under her oversized MIT shirt.

"That's irrelevant at this juncture!" She tried to no avail to get her hip free, and his hand's maddening ascent under her shirt as going to end the argument shortly if she didn't escape soon. With a grin, she decided to turn the training he had been giving her against him, and used her free arm to deliver a quick, but effective, elbow strike to the common peroneal nerve above the side of his knee. With an involuntary motor function failure and surprised yelp, she was free.

Seizing the opportunity, she quickly rolled off the bed, grabbed her glasses, and made a mad dash for the bathroom.

With a groan Oliver rubbed his leg. "Don't think you're not going to pay for that later!" He shouted in the direction she had fled, quietly pleased that she managed to surprise him with that one.

"Add it to my tab!" Came her voice from deeper in the bathroom before he heard the shower turn on. Sitting up and swinging his legs around to the floor, he looked over towards the wardrobe to see that she had hung his favorite tux out for him the day before. He wiggled his toes on the leg she had elbowed, chasing off the last of the tingling sensation her well-placed strike had given him. Nodding with approval, he stood and made his way to the kitchen. He and Digg had worked with her a lot over the past year, and while she was not an offensive fighter, her self-defense skills had become very impressive. She was fast and a quick thinker, and that alone had gotten her out of more scrapes than he cared to admit she had been in over the past year.

He pulled down a large coffee mug and a travel mug, setting them down on the massive granite countertop with a yawn. Using, what he believed to be the greatest invention ever, he made a massive cup of dark roast coffee with the Keureg machine Lyla had bought him the first time she tasted the coffee he brewed in the lair. Wrapping his hands around the steaming mug when it was done, he placed the travel mug under the spout and popped in the Kahlua flavored K-Cup that Felicity loved so much and stepped to look out of the massive floor to ceiling windows in the living room. The sun was beginning to hang low on the horizon, and he took a moment to appreciate the view, eyes falling to the waterfront at the edge of the Glades before the city moved towards its more prestigious neighborhoods. It was the site of both the new lair, and their new company.

Felicity's digital art following their return from Lian Yu, had left nothing to doubt, that Isabel's targeting of his company and family's assets was born from the criminal motivations of a terrorist. It was easy to sell, mostly due to it being so close to the truth. Once he had his family's assets back, negotiating with the Board of Directors had been the next challenge. Some were truly horrified at what their capitulance to Isabel had lead the company's resources to. And the rest were more concerned with instilling true stability and investor confidence again. In the end, while the Queen family retained the majority share, Oliver agreed to permanently step down as CEO. Instead, James Crew, a longtime company executive took the helm as chief executive officer, and Oliver turned his focus to developing his own corner of the company where he was less likely to make investors nervous. It was a win/win in the end, Crew was a good man, and the company had begun to flourish again.

And Oliver was more than happy to have Q-Core to devote to his own interests without with the entire weight of Queen Consolidated on his shoulders.

He heard the shower turn off, and the subsequent tornado that was Felicity in a hurry. Returning to the kitchen, he added a healthy portion of sugar to the travel cup and a splash of milk before securing the lid tightly. It was strange, she had only moved in a few weeks ago, but it felt both brand new, and like they lived together for years at the same time.

Hearing her heels on the tile as she approached, he moved towards the door and entered the code to disable the perimeter alarm. Hair still dripping wet, she was a hysterical combo of jeans, one of his button down casual shirts, and a pair of dangerously high dark green heels. A black garment bag was slung over her forearm.

Taking the coffee with a genuine thankful sound, she took a sip and checked her phone, the prototype of the next generation of Q-Core's phones, before jamming it in her back pocket.

"Ok Naomi just messaged me, everything is a go for the gala tonight, all we need to do is to be there on time for the receiving line and press junket. Roy is all set to run patrol's tonight, so you are officially off duty. Lyla just dropped Andrew off with Grandma Diggle, and is already at the salon….how is the lady with the infant more on time than me?"

"Years of military training?" He offered. She sighed, but here eyes held an excited sparkle.

"Tonight is going to be fun." She rose up slightly on her toes, assisted by those heels and placed a quick kiss on his mouth. Before she could pull away, his hands slipped into her wet hair, pulling her closer and deepening the kiss for a moment longer. He's smiled against her mouth as she made that humming sound she did whenever their kiss ended before she really wanted it too. She returned the smile. "Love you too. I'll see you in three hours…" She grabbed her keys and ducked out of the door when he opened it. Looking back over her shoulder as she stepped into the elevator, she gave him a mischievous grin. "For once, I'll be the one in green tonight."

To be continued...