A/N: A bit of post-1.22 angst, centered around one of my favorite Arrow characters: Tommy Merlyn. Tommy and Felicity wind up drinking together and dodging the subject of their love lives following Oliver and Laurel's night together.

It's slightly AU, because for my nefarious purposes, the info about the device doesn't come through until AFTER this. Obviously, Felicity would not be out drinking if she was supposed to be saving the city.

Tommy Merlyn stood at his desk, staring blankly at the neatly stacked file folders and memos left by his secretary. It was almost lunch, and he could not focus on the deal at hand. He really should just go home.

But home was such a loaded word. It evoked wisps of memory: takeout on the couch, Laurel's flowery shampoo, that shotgun she kept in the bedroom, her shoes lined up by the coat rack. Laurel Lance felt like home. And he had walked away from her.

She had come to him, asked him to try. And he'd said no.

It had taken Oliver, the one person who'd always known him best, to show him what he should have realized all along. Laurel may have had feelings for Oliver, but she chose Tommy. So he'd decided to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. He'd gone there to fight for her.

And Oliver had gotten there first.

Tommy absently pushed in his chair and reached for his suit jacket. The images were burned into his mind – they'd replayed every time he'd closed his eyes today. It hurt. That he'd been right, that she'd been wrong, that Oliver...

"Are you heading out, Mr. Merlyn?"

Doris strode in, another stack of papers in her hand, and looked concerned to find him standing there. He shot his secretary a trademark "I'm fine" Merlyn smile, and nodded.

"Yes. I'm a little… under the weather. We'll move ahead when we hear from Hong Kong." He grabbed his briefcase and started for the door, before realizing how curt he must have sounded. "Have a good day, Doris."

"Get home safely," she answered absently, already absorbed in sorting the files she'd carried into the office.

Home. He pictured his father, sitting at the other end of the table, discussing work and obliquely insulting his choice of friends. Watching the news alone in the cavernous den. Exercising alone. Tossing and turning in the bedroom he thought he'd left behind for good.

And then he stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the lobby instead of the parking garage.

He needed a drink. And he knew just where to find one.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

After Oliver had disappeared, Felicity and Diggle had shared a look full of "what the hell." Digg shook his head and told her to track Oliver's phone. She'd hesitated for a moment, but both of them had needed to know that Oliver wasn't heading off, half-cocked, without backup.

They'd watched in silence until the gps signal had stopped moving at 1755 Hanshaw Place. Digg had recognized the address and sighed, telling her not to worry. Felicity had tried, honestly, to let it go. But when Digg didn't say anything else, she'd brought up the building details, and then the tenant list. The resident of 305 had jumped out at her immediately.

Dinah Laurel Lance.

She'd closed those windows so fast that she was sure Diggle would sense her disquiet from the other side of the room. When he didn't react, she brought up the gps tracker again. It was just to make sure Oliver didn't follow one bad decision with another, she told herself. In case he left.

He hadn't.

She'd gone home, finally, and slept badly. She told herself that she was an idiot, that Oliver was well within his rights to get involved, even if Laurel was the only person whose baggage might outweigh his own. Even if he stood a good chance of destroying any possibility of mending his friendship with Tommy Merlyn.

She reminded her silly heart that they were friends, colleagues, many things, but none of those included veto over his romantic decisions.

It was his mistake to make.

The minutes ticked by, and 3 am turned into 5 am. When she rolled into work, she knew she looked paler than usual and was sporting the deep under-eye circles of the well and truly troubled. Thankfully, her day was slow, mostly remote access issues and troubleshooting an upgrade to some inventory software. She dragged herself through it, somehow, and was packing up when Diggle texted her.

Still indexing all that data. At least two hours left. No rush if you're busy.

She thought about the new RAM she'd bought at lunch for her lair computer – she was planning to overclock it and see if she could speed up her analysis. And then she pictured her inevitably embarrassing reaction if Oliver was already there, looking happy. Or looking unhappy.

She hit reply and typed a quick answer to Digg's message.

I'll be there a little later.

Then she shut down her computer and went in search of a drink. Just one. Honest.

Tommy nodded to the bouncer, sliding through the crowd toward the bar. He hadn't been to this bar in a long time, and felt pleasantly anonymous for once. He figured most people still looked for him to be with Oliver.

Oliver. That conversation couldn't have gone worse. He'd gone and hit the scotch, waited for his old friend to show up at Verdant.

You've always known, deep down. You have always known the man he is.

I wish you would have died on that island.

He'd expected shame, apologies, or at least a good fist fight. He got a bruise from kissing the concrete and a whole lot of nonsense about his father plotting to destroy the Glades.

As he edged onto an open stool, a woman's voice from a few feet away caught his attention.

"I'm just saying, that's not the most sensitive way to refer to women. Someone could misinterpret that."

The voice was familiar, teasing at the edges of his mind. He swirled his whiskey, and then leaned back to look around the group of twenty-somethings celebrating a birthday. He caught a glimpse of blonde hair and it came to him. Felicity. She'd been in and out of the club enough that he'd assumed Oliver was dating her until he'd learned what really happened in his friend's free time.

Tommy turned back to his drink. He didn't want to think about Oliver anymore right now.

"Ooh, that's a big word for such a little bitch."

Felicity slid an irritated look at the greasy-haired suit that had inserted himself into her personal space. She'd tried to be glib and clever in her rejection, but he just seemed amused, not discouraged.

"Yeah, ok, listen. I probably know more big words than you know little ones. And if you call me a bitch one more time, I am actually going to lose my temper. So why don't you go find someone who's interested?"

She punctuated her speech by angling so that her back was to the guy, and took a swig of her beer. She wouldn't look to see if he'd gone, not for another 5, 4, 3, 2…

She risked a glance behind her. The creep had cleared out. Thank god. Another line like that and she'd have been trying out some of the moves Diggle had been teaching her. She sipped her beer and pictured herself standing triumphantly over the prone asshole.

That image shifted into Oliver glaring down at him while she stood off to the side, wearing something absurdly cute and flowy, and what was wrong with her? She didn't need Oliver Queen to chase off drunk guys. And she certainly didn't need to be picturing him shirtless in her absurd rescue fantasies.

Why was she having rescue fantasies at all? Irritated with herself, she pulled out her phone and brought up a picture of Laurel Lance. Gorgeous Laurel. That was who would be standing to the side in a flowy dress, or a perfectly tailored skirt suit. Felicity would be at a computer, where she was supposed to be, being helpful and friendly and staying out of the way. Oliver was very clear about his priorities, she reminded her heart sternly.

Her heart whispered back that he listened to her. He was kind when she rambled, and smiled when she was clever. He saw her.

But he wants Laurel. And it hurt more than it should, so she put her phone away and concentrated on her beer.

A waitress came up to tell the group on her left that their booth was free, and they tromped off happily to continue the celebration. When they cleared out, her only company was a young man sitting near the end of the bar. She looked over him, noting the nice suit and rumpled dark hair before he turned to look past her for the bartender.

"Tommy? I mean, Mr. Merlyn? What are you doing – oh, that's absolutely none of my business, is it? Uh, hi." She managed to stop the words rushing out of her mouth with the dregs of her beer.

He hesitated, and then turned to look at her. "Hi." She was used to seeing him with a wide smile, so the blank expression he wore was disorienting. "It's Felicity, right?"

She nodded, searching for something to say that wouldn't involve Oliver or the club or any of the other things that they might have in common. "Yep, yeah, but don't let me bother you. Sorry, just surprised to see you over in this part of town."

"I was looking for a little anonymity," he said, his handsome face shifting into a grimace. Another group made its way over, gleefully trying to cram eight people into the space between the two of them. After a moment, Tommy abandoned his seat and offered the group the larger space toward the end of the bar. He sat down on the stool to Felicity's left.

"And I've just torpedoed that. I'm really sorry," she said, wincing. "Didn't mean to blow your cover. You don't have to talk to me. I can totally just sit here and drink my beer, or find another stool…" She looked around the now crowded bar for an escape.

There wasn't any. She had two options. She could sit in awkward silence next to Oliver's ex-best friend, whose mood seemed dour, to say the least. Or she could leave. Sure, she'd still have about an hour and a half of awkward silence at the Foundry, but maybe awkward silence with her boss would be less awkward?

Tommy slammed back his expensive whiskey and eyed the girl sitting next to him. She was clearly as unhappy to find herself sitting next to him as he was her. That was new. Usually women were at least somewhat pleased to see him.

He thought about letting her escape, and skipping what was sure to be a strange and uncomfortable conversation. But then he'd be alone, and that held much less appeal than it had a few minutes ago. Misery does love company.

He caught the bartender's attention and silently ordered another round for both of them.

"So what brings Oliver's tech nerd out to a bar alone?" It was interesting to see her tense at Oliver's name.

"Just trying to keep the lines nice and clear," she muttered, accepting her beer with a wan smile. She started peeling the label, and he looked at her a little more closely.

"And how's that going for you?" Oliver had never been able to resist a challenge, at least before he'd take a dive off the deep end and declared himself final justice in Starling City. And this girl was pretty, even if it was in a sweet nerdy way, so he'd give her even odds of already having crossed a line or two with his former best friend.

"Fine," she said shortly before she visibly shook herself and plastered a more pleasant expression on her face. "You know how it is, no one notices the IT girl."

"Just what are you an IT girl for?" Tommy was suddenly very suspicious. There were only a few computers at Verdant, and they all worked very well. But he'd seen that downstairs room. How could she work on computers down there unless… "Do you know?"

She glanced up at him and assumed a convincing look of confusion, but he caught the truth in her frightened eyes. He'd always been good at reading people.

Oliver's voice whispered again: You've always known the man he is.

Shut up, Oliver.

"You do." He said it flatly, as a statement of fact, and the panic in her eyes was all the confirmation he needed.

"Wow. So he's dragged you into all of this?" He drank, feeling the alcohol burn a liquid path down his throat. "Why on earth would you help a man like that?"

"I'm not exactly," she stopped, groaned and chugged some beer. "It isn't like I don't understand the moral grey areas. I just... he needs people who remind him why. And how."

Tommy could feel the rage curling in his gut. Hey, buddy. Like nothing was different. Like Oliver hadn't killed dozens of people on this crusade of his. Like he hadn't just slept with Laurel.

"Why? He's a nutcase with a psychotic need for attention," he growled. "How, I still don't understand."

Felicity swallowed audibly, and Tommy knocked back the rest of his tumbler. Awkward silence reigned for a minute, and he watched emotions run across her face. She was an incredibly open book, and he spent a baffled moment wondering why the hell Oliver would think she could be trusted to keep a secret as explosive as the vigilante's identity.

"That's not true." Her brightly colored lips were moving and Tommy forced himself to focus on her quiet, firm voice. "He's not always right, but he doesn't want publicity or attention." She'd finished peeling off the beer label and was slowly shredding it. "I don't really want to, that is, I'm not looking to ruin your evening. I just wanted a beer."

"And to 'keep the lines nice and clear' right?" Tommy said, letting an ironic smile slide onto his face. She was trying to be kind, to back out of the conversation before it became a fight. He didn't want kindness right now. "So is Oliver sleeping with you, too?"

She winced, and the pained look in her eyes was the most honesty he'd encountered all day.

"Really? I'm surprised. The Oliver I knew-"

"He doesn't exist anymore," she said, irritation lacing her soft voice. "You're smart enough to know that he's been putting on a show."

"Oh, I know that." He turned fully to face her, because this felt important. Maybe it was the pleasant buzz of the whiskey in his gut, or maybe the way she'd managed to have this entire conversation without tears or accusations. But it was deeply important to him that she understand. Blue eyes met blue eyes and held. "But you're a fool if you think that he's being honest with you. Oliver doesn't know how to be honest."

Laurel would have told him he was being unfair. She would have looked at him with her sad eyes that tore at his soul and told him he just didn't understand and that she wished they wouldn't fight.

"I doubt he is even honest with himself right now," Felicity agreed. Her gaze didn't waver.

He broke eye contact first. He and Oliver had always been the end all, be all of duos. Drinking buddies, wingmen, secret keepers. Laurel's presence had added laughter, a little subtle competition and a lot of gentle lies about past and present transgressions. Don't tell Laurel. It could have been their motto.

Which made this current situation just disgustingly predictable.

"But that doesn't make him a monster." It was almost an indecipherable mumble in the busy bar, except that her eyes shone with conviction. He wondered if she realized how much she cared about Oliver Queen.

"No, he manages that by killing dozens of people," Tommy hissed. Her composure was unnerving. He wanted to unsettle her, to see the cracks that he felt, to force her to admit how right he was.

Her expression shifted, but it was more a kind of sympathy than any disgust or anger. She didn't answer for a few minutes. "I know. And it haunts him. Each one of those he pays for at night."

Tommy stared at her. In three sentences she'd defended the vigilante better than anyone else he'd asked, including Oliver. How much of it was true? Oliver had never admitted any of that to him.

You didn't give him much of a chance to explain, did you?

"Does it haunt you?" he asked, watching her absorb the question. She didn't bother with an answer, just nodded once, and turned back to her drink. Her face was set; Tommy doubted Oliver knew how much this girl's belief in him was costing her.

The noise of the crowd intruded while they drank in silence. Tommy noted with surprise that it had been several minutes since he'd thought about Laurel, which of course made him think about her again. If he could have just explained, if he'd been honest with her… but the ties of friendship ran deep. Don't tell Laurel had begun out of good intentions. Neither of them wanted to see her hurt. But it was a hard mantra to escape.

An intoxicated frat boy tried to nudge between them to the bar and was turned around by the sharp elbow and muttered threat of complete online identity theft Felicity threw his way. Tommy bit back a smile and took a refill from the bartender. He doubted that Oliver spent a lot of time worrying about what not to tell Felicity.

Somewhere along the way, the silence had become less awkward, and more companionable, Felicity mused. She was on her third beer, the world gone pleasantly soft at the edges. Sneaking a glance at the brooding profile nursing yet another whiskey straight up, she wondered how Tommy had managed to hide his feelings from Laurel and Oliver for so many years.

"It wasn't very hard," he said with a sad smile, and she blushed hard, realizing he was responding to the incredibly personal question she'd apparently said out loud. He waved off her apologies. "They didn't want to see it, so it wasn't there."

"That sounds like Oliver," she muttered.

"And Laurel," he admitted after a moment. Their eyes met and Felicity saw his lift with the slightest of smiles. For a moment, they looked at each other honestly, and she saw the heartbreak in his face. She knew that his was real, and her own heartache was all in her head, but all she sensed was understanding, not judgment.

"I only met her once," Felicity said, looking away. "She seems very, uh, focused." What she wanted to say was that Laurel had seemed annoyed that she was there, that she'd wanted Oliver's attention but didn't really seem to trust him. Or is that just what you wanted to see?

Tommy laughed, looking a little foolish and very sad. "Focused? You could say that. I'd call her single-minded, foolhardy and so determined to be right that she sometimes looks right past the truth." The fondness in his voice was breathtaking. "And she has a blind spot a mile wide when it comes to Oliver." Ah, there was the bitterness again.

Her pocket buzzed, reminding her that this little escapade was supposed to be brief. The text from Diggle was short, a quick reminder that he'd give her a ride if she needed one.

When she looked back up, Tommy was watching her with a sardonic smile.

"Duty calls?"

It was startlingly unreal: as Malcolm Merlyn finalized plans to level the Glades, Felicity was staring into his son's eyes and trying to come up with an appropriate half-truth.

"I, uh, just need to…"

His mouth twisted at the corner. She could feel the expectation, heavy between them, of her lie. Her breath caught in her throat. She didn't want to lie to Tommy Merlyn. Now why was that?

"There's a device, we think it's meant for the Glades," she started slowly, watching for his reaction.

"Don't worry, I've already heard all about my father's evil plot from your fearless leader," he snapped, his face shuttering in disappointment. The wall between them was re-establishing itself, and it was breaking her already bruised heart.

He was so completely alone.

"I'm sorry." There wasn't much else she could say. They didn't actually know each other. She threw a $20 bill on the bar and slid down off her stool, pulling her purse up over her shoulder.

Tommy glared at her money before tossing his own payment down and following her out of the bar. He shadowed her to the corner and then reached out and grabbed her elbow. It was the first time he'd touched her all night.

"Do yourself a favor," he said as he moved to stand very much in her personal space, "and don't fall in love with him."

"Lines, remember?" she quipped with a nervous half-smile. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to tell this girl that her lines were unnecessary, that Oliver had Laurel and the rest of them be damned. And then he remembered the look in her eyes when he'd asked if she was sleeping with Oliver. Maybe she already knew.

"He won't remember," he said seriously. He knew part of this mood was the alcohol, he always had a slightly preachy stage. "So you have to."

She gave him an unreadable look. He was surprised to find that he really wanted to be able to read her right now. He was also surprised to find that his hand was still on her arm, and dropped it immediately. Since when did he manhandle women?

"Thank you for your concern," she said a little hesitantly. "But there's really nothing to worry about."

They stood there, a foot or two apart, as the breeze ruffled her blonde hair and reminded him that he'd left his scarf in the office. He knew it was far too late for her. She wouldn't be here drinking alone if she was just pissed at a friend.

"Well, this has been… weird," she jumped in to fill the silence. There was a kindness in her eyes that made Tommy question just how rough he was looking. "But in a pleasant way. I am really sorry if your anonymous drinking time was squandered arguing with me, though."

He watched her expressive face with an interest that felt both innocent and wrong. Laurel's sweet eyes swam into his vision, followed swiftly by that view through her window that he so desperately wanted to forget.

"…have to get back to the parking garage before shift change or I'll have to pay another $4 and I just," she was explaining something.

Tommy could feel that she was about to go. All that was waiting for him was suspicion, doubt and self-loathing. No girlfriend, no best friend. And apparently his father was a mass murderer. He wished she would stay and argue with him some more.

She licked her vibrant pink lips and he instinctively leaned in. When she didn't immediately back away, he closed the distance and put his lips on hers. Somewhere deep inside, his wounded pride and vicious jealousy roared their approval.

She was taken by surprise, and gasped against his lips. He kept his hands at his sides. She was sweet, and soft, and so very not Laurel.

He pulled away.

"I'm not sure," she reached up to touch her smudged lips, "that was a good idea."

Tommy smiled. Honesty again.

"It's a terrible idea," he said. "But I couldn't let Oliver be first this time."

Felicity shook her head. "I already explained to you-"

"I've known him a long time. And we always fall for the same women."

He reached out and grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips for an exaggerated salute. The look on her face was a mix of disbelief, laughter and pity. When he dropped her hand, she put it in her cardigan pocket.

"Go save the city from the evil Merlyns," he said with a ghost of a smile. "I'll check in with you in a few months and we'll see who's right."

He hailed a cab, put her inside, and as it drove away he wondered what Felicity would have said if he'd told her what he'd seen last night.

He kicked at a loose stone. He didn't think she'd have defended Oliver. She would have said she didn't know Laurel well enough to judge, but her eyes would have shown her disappointment.

What had she called Laurel? Focused. Laurel had probably put on her lawyer face when they met. She could be downright unfriendly when threatened. It was one of the things he loved about her – the prickly edges to the girl with the heart of gold. She'd nearly eviscerated his father at that dinner.

The dinner where Malcolm had announced that he was closing the clinic in the Glades.

You've always known, deep down. You have always known the man he is.

Tommy sighed and started walking back toward Merlyn Global. He was going to have to ask his father for the truth.

A/N: And now I've made myself sad. COME BACK, TOMMY! DON'T DO IT! *sniffle*