Diggle keeps in touch with her her by text and occasionally she proxies in on one of the lair's computers to help him out with a particularly tricky search or persistent bug.
What? It's her system, of course she can get into it remotely.
Oliver doesn't call.
He doesn't write.
There's a gossip site piece published the day after she left about him slamming the glass door of his office so hard it cracks (which she really didn't think was possible) and she debates long and hard about whether to nix it, but in the end decides not to. He's made his bed, he can lie in it.
A week goes by.
Then a second.
Felicity take a short term developer contract just to have something to do. Her job as Oliver's EA may have been unwelcome but the pay packet was enough to build up quite a lump sum in her bank account. She doesn't need to work but there's only so many days a girl can mainline Netflix and catch up on all the social media channels she hasn't had time to read for a year. She's even bored of cute animal gifs.
She thinks she'll be glad to get back to code, but even the trickiest of problems don't hold her attention the way they used to.
Solving this e-commerce bug or smoothing out the redundant functions in a website just aren't as exciting as hacking Interpol or breaking through the online defences of the enemy du jour.
But she is determined that she won't call him first.
She signs up to , goes on a date with an accountant who bores her, then a date with a self proclaimed "adventurer" venture capitalist who talks for ages about what a rush sky diving is.
Felicity remembers falling through the sky over Lian Yu, strapped tight against Diggle, not knowing if they would find Oliver alive or dead and realises the man has no idea what he's talking about.
She destroys the credit rating of a creep who sent her dick pix, and spends a few evenings waging a quiet personal online war against some extremist MRAs, but it's all easy pickings.
It's not what she wants to be doing.
When Diggle calls or texts her heart beats faster.
She tells herself it's just the work, just the purpose but every time they talk there's a gap in the conversation where a third voice should be.
Neither of them comment on it.
Of course her life could never be entirely devoid of Oliver Queen. Suddenly he seems to be everywhere - in the paper talking about how QC will recover from Isabel Rochev and the events everyone now refers to as the Masked Riots. He's on news shows talking about the collaboration QC R&D have with Star Labs. He's on the red carpet on E! with a different model or actress on his arm each time.
And sometimes she sees the silhouette of a hooded man on the top of buildings, watching as she walks home from the deli with dinner or on the roof of the office building opposite her apartment.
She tells herself it's her imagination, but Oliver and Diggle trained her to rely on her instincts too much.
She knows it's him.
She goes on one date with Ray, then a second. He's sweet and uncomplicated, and he has a mind that can just about keep up with her. They talk microbiology and nanotech. He buys her an ice cream and doesn't laugh when she geeks out over Game of Thrones for so long it melts.
She kisses him on the stoop of her building, and as he walks back to his car she sees movement across the street.
For the first time in weeks she meets Oliver Queen's eyes and this time he's the one who looks away first.
She waves Ray off and when she raises her eyes to Oliver he's already gone.
Instead he's waiting for her inside.
When she thinks about it, she realises she's entirely unsurprised.
Of course Oliver would come to her the second he saw her kiss another man.
This is their pattern.
"He's trying to take my company."
Felicity blinks.
"Okay," she says, she can't pretend that she's unaware of Ray's interest in QC, but it hasn't really come up in conversation. "And that's what promoted this bit of B&E?"
"Nothing's broken," Oliver says.
"You don't have a key."
"I picked the lock. You need a better one."
"I'll take that under advisement," she says, fully intending to ask Diggle's advice on the matter. She takes off her jacket and hangs it over the back of a chair.
"He's taking my company, Felicity," Oliver says.
She glances across to see he hasn't moved from how she first saw him. He hasn't even put his hood down. His bow is in his hand. Ready for a fight.
"Technically," she says, "QC isn't your company right now. The bank has the majority share."
"It's my company," Oliver says, "it's got my name on it."
"Well, that's mature," Felicity says. She toes off her heels and immediately drops three inches in height. "Your name's also on a wing of the public library and one of the halls at SCU. Are you going to claim those too?"
Part of her brain is amazed how calm she's being. She standing here in her apartment with Oliver Queen and she's not angry, not yelling. Instead she's pointing out his idiocy in what she considers to be a very level voice.
"They're not mine," Oliver says, interrupting her train of thought, "QC is mine, I fought for it. I don't like people taking my things. I don't like... him taking my things."
Felicity stops and looks at him. She keeps her voice as neutral as she can.
"Things plural?"
"Things plural. Things that are mine," Oliver says, and then he's suddenly standing in front of her. It's like she blinked and he appeared. She never saw the movement.
"Are you really referring," she says, "to me as a thing?"
"No," he says, "yes. No."
He clenches his fists, her eye catches the movement, pulling her gaze down. He lifts one hand and she watches as it moves towards her face.
His fingertips hover millimetres from her skin. She fancies she can feel the heat of his touch across the distance.
"I'm saying," he says in a voice that's not quite Arrow and not quite Oliver, "that I thought you were mine. I wanted you to be mine. I needed you to be mine. And when there were all those rumours, those things people thought, I didn't see how they would make you feel because all I saw was that everyone else knew you were mine. And that was what I wanted."
Felicity's mouth is suddenly dry. She licks her lips, then realises that she just licked her lips and wonders what Oliver will think that means.
Then her mind throws his words back at her.
Mine.
Want.
Need.
She looks up and there are his eyes under the hood, beneath the mask.
His hand closes the distance to her cheek and she feels the happy familiar sensation of his fingers on her face.
It feels right.
"Felicity-"
"Oliver," she interrupts, "that's a lot to take in."
"Felicity-"
"I'm going to need to think about it," she says, but she doesn't move away. Instead she feels herself tip her head, so his hand is cradling her face.
"Felicity," he says, leaning in, "be mine. Please."
"Oliver, you can't just do this, just turn up on my doorstep when I'm trying to move on, and say all these things."
But even as she says it, her face is tipping up, her lips moving closer to his.
"I was an idiot," he says, "but I was your idiot. I'm sorry."
"Oliver-" she says, intending to say more, to argue, to agree, to have it all out in words, but his hand is on her face and his lips are against her and she can't remember all the things she wanted to say because suddenly she's getting everything she ever wanted.
And it's wonderful.
His kiss warms her down to her bones and she relaxes into it and his other hand comes up on the small of her back and he's pulling her into him, and she makes this small sound of happiness and suddenly the kiss turns passionate, his tongue duelling with hers, her arms around his neck and both of his hand are on her waist and he lifts her.
Felicity's eyes fly open and she pulls back.
They're standing in the middle of her apartment. She has her legs around his waist and they're both breathing heavily.
"At some point," she says, "we're going to talk about how you only said this to me after I met and kissed another man."
Oliver glances away.
"I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted," she says, "And I'm not coming back to work for you at QC."
His face falls.
"I understand."
"But I will come back to work with you at Verdant."
He blinks and she can see the beginning of a some sort of expression. She can't tell yet what it is.
"I can accept those terms," he says, "on one condition."
"Let's hear it," she says, trying for a professional tone even though her legs are wrapped around his waist.
"Felicity Smoak," he says, very seriously, "would you please have dinner with me? Date me? And then, maybe, agree to be mine?"
"Yes, Oliver," she says, with a smile, "you know I'll always be your girl."
He grins and his entire face lifts and she can see the man he once was, the carefree boy before the years on Lian Yu. The juvenile delinquent instead of the tortured vigilante.
This time there's no lipstick stain on his skin, no mark of their kiss to show the world.
She likes this better.
All the important evidence is there in the way he looks at her, the way he touches her, the way he kisses her.
They don't need lipstick marks to show that.
Just to prove that to herself, she kisses him again.