Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
Sneak peek under the cut:
“Are you tracking us by this watch?” Felicity asked, swallowing, trying not to clutch Maya too closely or tense up. They needed her to stay asleep.
“Yes.”
Not what she wanted to hear. “Can you be sure HIVE isn’t doing the same thing?”
There was a short pause then, “No.” Felicity was pretty sure that was Cisco’s voice that time.
“Fuck,” Oliver bit out again, quieter but harsher. He was already removing the watch. “At least tell us back up is on the way.”
“Right behind us. Is eight helicopters inbound enough?” Funny thing was John’s question was nothing but serious.
“Let’s hope.” Oliver had managed to remove the watch, while simultaneously manipulating the arrow so they could communicate with the busted tech. “Spartan, I’m smashing this thing—”
“No!” Felicity protested and Oliver shot her an incredulous look, but this wasn’t her usual don’t-destroy-the-tech protest. Not by a long shot. “Wait. I have an idea.”
This isn’t late. The world stopped for a week and now it’s turning again. :-)
Read the new chapter here
Catch up on AO3 here
Overall fic Summary:
Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
I don’t know I anyone noticed I didn’t post last week (I understand if you didn’t”.
I can honestly say that with everything going on it slipped my mind. Then when I remembered I felt like a) it didn’t matter at the moment and b) who would possibly care with the world hanging in the balance as it was.
Today I’m feeling hungover from my cable news binge and trying to detox....
Bottom line, I’ll post this evening and I hope it’s a pleasant distraction for all. 😁
Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
Sneak peek under the cut:
Chuf chuf chuf.
They both looked up.
“Helicopter,” Oliver murmured, already heading back outside.
Felicity slipped the stone back into her pocket and grabbed the tablet. 17:31. “Not a minute to spare, John.”
Outside, Oliver was tense again as he searched the sky. “Douse the fire,” he ordered, without even looking at her.
She threw dirt onto the campfire as Oliver deftly climbed the tower. When the fire was down to coals, Felicity poured a little of their water on it to finish it off and packed their meager supplies, stopping to smile down at the baby.
“Ready to go home, Maya?”
The baby slept on, though the cat watched her carefully.
The thud of Oliver’s boots hitting the ground brought Felicity’s attention back to him. He was frowning.
New chapter up on AO3 right now. It’s fairly fluffy and don’t we all need that right now.
I hope you enjoy it!
Read the new chapter here
Catch up on AO3 here
Overall fic Summary:
Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
Thank you to everyone for a wonderful welcome back!
Here’s a sneak peek for Sunday’s update. This chapter is much lighter, definitely the eye of the storm. ;-)
Catch up on AO3 here
And here is my for new readers spiel.
Overall fic Summary:
Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
Sneak peek under the cut:
Their nice quiet family moment didn’t last nearly as long as Felicity would have liked.
Reality intruded, not in the usual way of masked men or natural disasters or even strangely sentient dangerous predators, but with something that perhaps foretold their future quite eloquently.
The smell of urine.
That and the sudden warm wetness against Felicity’s hand proved the ancient Maya, for all their advancements, had not developed ultra-adsorbent diapers.
Oliver and Felicity had laughed and it was adorable and sweet and…
Then Felicity realized they didn’t have anything else for the baby to wear (never mind those ultra-absorbent diapers). Also, they didn’t have bottles or formula or…
Didn’t babies have to eat every couple of hours? Something about their small size and rapid growth requiring frequent feedings?
Kin Zil was probably used to breast milk and Felicity was pretty sure, despite all the miracles they’d witnessed, she had not magically gained that ability.
And what if the baby got a diaper rash? All that non-absorbency couldn’t be good for her delicate skin. They didn’t have butt medicine or any medicine. They didn’t have a pacifier or bottles or formula or…those things infants sat in and people carried over their arms but looked really heavy or…
Oliver managed to talk Felicity down from her mini-spiral before it became a mega spiral, convincing her to bring the baby to the stream so they could wash off the urine (and Felicity’s clothing). After that, she could figure out a way to get a message to the team and get them all out of there.
It was a good plan. Rational. Felicity readily agreed.
Until Oliver tried to carry their precious fragile baby girl down the crumbling steps from hell.
It’s finally here! After a very long wait you can find out what happened to Kin Zil and our lovely couple!
I really hope you enjoy it and it brings peace to you in a time of very little.
Read the new chapter here
Catch up on AO3 here
Overall fic Summary:
Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
As part of my end of hiatus tradition, I’m posting this a few hours before the actual update.
I had hoped this would be the last one of these I posted and it might be, but for now here’s the summaries of chapters Prolgue-35. I have 36-40 written, with a projected 46 in total.
Previously on…
Prologue:
ARGUS Agent Felicity Smoak is preparing for a mission. The next day, her team will go to the Temple of the Jaguar in Tikal to find the Obsidian Skull, a powerful Mayan artifact, before Reiter and Shadowspire.
Her “secret” boyfriend, Oliver, arrives and to take her mind off the mission, plies her with Guatemalan rum. Felicity teases him about how most of their team is hooking up. (Ronnie and Caitlin are married. Lyla and Digg, their CO, are together. Only Slade and Sara are not).
They make love and Felicity is overcome with emotion and the feeling something horrible is going to happen, but can’t bring herself to tell Oliver. He tells her after they defeat Reiter he wants to move in together and finally go home to see his family (who believe he died five years ago).
Oliver tells Felicity about his dream of getting married and having a baseball team of children, a Queen Legacy. They plan their future together.
Days later, Felicity wakes up in an ARGUS medical facility in terrible pain. Her surgeon, Shado, explains they defeated Reiter, but Ronnie was killed. Felicity was shot in the abdomen. They had to do a hysterectomy and now she can’t have children. In shock and in pain, Felicity feels hopeless and doesn’t believe she will ever feel happy again.
To preserve Oliver’s dream, she decides to sacrifice her happiness for his. Felicity refuses to talk to him, believing he will leave ARGUS, go home to Starling, start over, and have his dream life with someone else.
Chapter 1:
Five years later, Felicity is working as a Team Leader in the ARGUS Science Center, the CAVE. After Tikal, she sealed her medical records and refused to speak to anyone except Caitlin, who had lost her husband.
Three months after Tikal, Felicity learned that instead of leaving ARGUS and going home as she had wanted (and expected), Oliver was taking an undercover mission with the Bratva, deep in Russia. Felicity rushed over to stop him from going but was too late. Since then, no one has seen or heard from Oliver but his handler.
In present day, Felicity returns to her lab to find Digg, who she hasn’t seen in years. He tells her that there is a new threat, Damian Darhk and HIVE, who are searching for Kin Cuudad, the Lost City of the Sun, and a magic artifact, Kin Zil, the Gift, which is rumored to be far more powerful than the Obsidian Skull (the totem that killed Ronnie). Digg needs Felicity to come back into the field, because no one knows the Lost City mythology and the Mayan language like Felicity.
Felicity, suffering from PTSD, tries to deflect, saying the city is just a myth. Digg tells her they found a Door. They are assembling the old team and Caitlin has already agreed to come. He leaves and Cait, who is now a part of Felicity’s CAVE team, asks Felicity to help her face her demons on the Yucatan Peninsula. Feeling she has no choice, Felicity agrees.
Chapter Two
At the airport, Felicity and Caitlin meet Curtis and Cisco, two other members of their CAVE team, who are joining them for this mission (Curtis replacing Ronnie as Team Engineer and Cisco running comms from base). Their silliness starts to relax Felicity until they start teasing her about seeing her “Gorgeous ex” and she realizes Oliver, who she believed was still in Russia would be meeting them in Mexico. Felicity has a panic attack in the bathroom and Caitlin talks her down, but she is still convinced she ruined Oliver’s life with her bad decisions.
During the flight, Felicity prepares herself to see Oliver again and decides when they arrive at the Beach House/Safe House it would be best to get it over with. She goes to the beach to find Oliver, only to see him smiling and talking to a very pregnant Lyla. When Felicity sees him touch her pregnant belly, she panics again and runs.
After calming herself some, Sara finds her and welcomes her warmly, introducing her to Roy, Lyla’s replacement for Special Ops (since she is too pregnant to go on the mission). Roy worked with Oliver in Russia and recognizes Felicity’s name. Sara and Roy express their belief that the break-up was Oliver’s fault. Shado and Caitlin interrupt before Felicity can convince them otherwise.
Surrounded by friends and support, Felicity is feeling better even if they are all pushing her to talk to Oliver. Until they see him and abandon Felicity to her fate.
Chapter Three
Left alone with Oliver, Felicity freezes. Oliver takes this badly and offers to leave the team if it would make her more comfortable. This leads to Felicity giving a long, anxious, babbling speech about how she is a train wreck emotionally. She is devastated to learn that Oliver has blamed himself for the break-up all this time. When Felicity tries to say it is her, not him, Oliver reveals that he feels responsible for her getting shot since the gun was aimed at him. Then he walks away.
Later, the entire team gathers in the War Room where they are told they are going to the Mayan City of Palenque to gather clues before heading into the jungle and to the Door. Curtis and Cisco reveal their inventions for the trip, including a new bow for Oliver. Digg tells Oliver if things go south it is his job to protect Felicity. Felicity is given a photograph of the supposed Door and translates it with her newly enhanced glasses. For the first time, she believes this may all be real and gets excited, feeling more herself than she has in years.
The next morning, the team of 8 travel to Palenque which has been emptied of tourists. The old team (Slade, who lost an eye there, Sara, Digg, Cait, Oliver, and Felicity) come face to face with the Mayan world for the first time since Tikal.
Chapter Four
At Palenque, Felicity is searching the Temple of the Sun for clues to help open the Door to the Lost City, but all she is able to find is a fresco she knows well. It depicts the founder of Palenque, King Cadmeal, who escaped from Kin Cuudad and is said to be the child of the Daughter of the Sun and the Warrior King.
Curtis and Sara manage to leverage open the stone slab to get into a chamber where Felicity has never been before. She and Caitlin search there for clues and come up empty handed. She is about to look in one of the four (uninteresting) tombs when Curtis starts teasing her about Oliver and trying to get her to tell them why they broke up.
This leads to Caitlin telling them how they escaped Tikal, after both Felicity and Sara were unconscious, a story Felicity had never heard before. Caitlin tells the full story, including Ronnie being killed, Sara being buried in rubble, and the gun being shot at Oliver and Felicity stepping in the way. Only Oliver and Cait, at that point, were unharmed and in his rage, Oliver was able to capture the Obsidian Skull and smash it against the wall, so Digg could shoot and kill Reiter.
After the emotional story, Felicity seeks Oliver out and tells him she is glad she took the bullet because he saved them all and is a hero. She hugs him and walks away.
Chapter Five
That evening, Felicity is sitting on the crumbling steps of the Palace staring out at the jungle when Oliver finds her. They talk about their memories from their time in the Yucatan five years ago and things are just starting to feel normal, until the talk turns to Russia.
Then Felicity learns Oliver came to bring her to dinner. Her CAVE team often tease her about forgetting to eat, but she is humiliated that they sent Oliver, until he confesses he volunteered.
Felicity blurts out that she didn’t want him to go to Russia, that she wanted him to go home to Starling and be happy, which makes things tense again. She tells him she tried to stop him from going to Russia, but it was too late. Oliver is obviously upset about the information but tells her he’s glad she told him.
He asks her to come to camp and have some of his famous five-alarm chili. Slade and Digg want to “initiate” Roy and Curtis. Felicity agrees, thinking the chili will be her penance. Then Oliver confesses he made a special not-lethal batch for her and Cait.
Chapter Six:
Back at camp, Felicity confronts Caitlin for sending Oliver to get her and playing matchmaker, until she finds out Oliver really did volunteer. Cait apologizes for pushing them back together and confesses that she is ready to move on with their CAVE teammate, Barry, and feels guilty about it but, also, she wants both Felicity and Oliver to be happy.
At the campfire, Cait is convinced that the nonlethal chili is evidence of Oliver still being in love with Felicity. The team gangs up on the newbies as they eat the painfully hot chili. Roy handles it well, knowing what is expected of a Spec Ops, but Curtis freaks out to everyone’s, especially Slade’s, amusement. In the end, they confess the joke and Slade shares his flask with the team, Guatemalan Rum that reminds Felicity of her last night with Oliver.
The rest of the team gets drunk and decides to try and play Mayan ball, which gets very competitive very fast. Slade’s team starts to win when he puts Sara on his shoulders. Curtis falls and twists his ankle and Oliver turns to Felicity and asks her to help him, “Kick Slade’s ass.”
Chapter Seven:
Caught up in the moment, Felicity allows Oliver to bring her into the ballgame which involves her sitting on his shoulders and trying to get a ball in a hoop 30-feet off the ground. At first, she’s freaked out, but they work well together and manage to play to a tie. Roy tackles Sara and Slade, but Slade refuses to forfeit. The game looks like it will never end when the skies open up and it starts to pour.
Oliver and Felicity share an emotionally heated (and UST ridden) moment in the rain before Slade calls them to help gather their gear. Felicity pretends to fall asleep in the tent to avoid Sara’s ribbing and Cait’s questions, trying not to imagine Oliver naked in the next tent over.
Chapter Eight:
Felicity wakes up the next morning after a strange dream about King Cadmeal and his wife dancing around tombs with the intense need to look in the tombs in the chamber under the Temple of the Sun. No one else is up and Felicity struggles with Curtis’ fancy coffee maker until Oliver shows up and does it for her. They have a pleasant breakfast discussing how eggs are eaten in Russia.
The conversation turns to how they slept and Felicity confesses her dream and is pleasantly surprised by how serious Oliver takes it, though he always does. Oliver offers to take her down into the Temple of the Sun himself and doesn’t seem to find it necessary to wake anyone else.
In the base of the temple, Oliver struggles with opening the tombs by himself, but refuses to admit it. There is nothing exciting in the first two tombs and Felicity starts to think it’s a dead-end. Talk of her dream leads her to admitting having intuitions and premonitions since before Tikal. He is upset she didn’t tell him back then.
But then Oliver loses control of one of the huge limestone slabs covering a tomb and it falls to the ground, causing a layer of red clay on the inside surface to crack and reveal an intricate carving underneath.
Chapter Nine:
The Carving to the underside of the tomb reveals symbols of Kin Cuudad as well as a large fresco/carving of the Daughter of the Sun and the Warrior King, kneeling facing one another and making a strange pattern with their fingers. They also seem to be wearing jewelry that Oliver postulates may be the Gift, Kin Zil.
Oliver confesses a fascination with the Daughter of the Sun and while discussing them Oliver and Felicity almost kiss, but it is interrupted by Felicity having a panic attack.
The spell is broken and they explore the inside of the tombs. The hieroglyphs of one of the tombs reveals it to be Cadmeal, the Daughter of the Sun and the Warrior King’s son and the founder of Palenque. Another may be his wife and they discover an intricate moonstone carving in her hands. Her fingers are also splayed like on the carving.
Before they can discover anything else, the emergency comms crackle on and they learn from Digg that they are under attack.
Chapter Ten:
While Oliver and Felicity are in the base of the Temple of the Sun discovering what was in the tombs, Palenque was invaded by HIVE. While the rest of the team are engaged in a gun fight, Digg orders Oliver to take Felicity and get her to the Door ahead of the team.
They take what they can from the tombs and photograph what they can’t. Oliver hoists Felicity out of the underground Chamber first. While she is waiting, she gives into temptation and listens to what is happening with the team, learning back-up is on its way, but Roy is seriously injured. An explosion rocks the temple sending Felicity into a flashback of Tikal.
A kiss from Oliver pulls Felicity out of the flashback. They zipline to the other side of the park, where he drags her into the jungle. There, they find an all terrains motorcycle and take off into the jungle.
Chapter Eleven:
On the back of the motorcycle, Felicity struggles to hold on with the rocky terrain, but manages to work the GPS and communicate with the team (while Oliver drives and only has access to what she is saying.)
Ground back-up has arrived at Palenque, but things are not going well for the team and a medievac has not arrived for Roy who is rapidly losing blood. Cisco and Lyla, from base, reveal they can not send in air back-up because of an approaching hurricane. This triggers a panicked meltdown from Caitlin until Felicity talks her down.
Then Damian Darhk announces his presence over the comms, having captured Curtis, Slade, and Sara as they attempted to lead HIVE away from Oliver and Felicity and the rest of the team. Darhk demands the location of Kin Cuudad.
Lyla shuts down the comms, tells Felicity they are erasing all records of the Door’s location from everyone but her and Oliver’s devices, and then cuts them off from the ARGUS communication system to protect them from HIVE. Just as Felicity is about to explain this to Oliver, a black blur jumps in front of them. The bike crashes and the world goes black.
Felicity wakes up to Oliver’s concerned voice and they discover a jaguar jumped out at them. The crash broke Oliver’s ARGUS watch and damaged Felicity’s, messing up their GPS. As she works to fix her watch, she catches sight of their missing jaguar in the tree.
Chapter 12:
Stranded in the jungle without access to the team or base, with broken tech, Oliver and Felicity come face to face with the reason for their motorcycle crash, a giant blue-eyed black jaguar. Oliver asks for his bow, but Felicity gives him the tranq gun, instinctively not wanting to kill the animal.
Reluctantly Oliver agrees. Felicity works furiously to fix her ARGUS smart watch and get the GPS to the Door back up. Unfortunately, while rebooting the watch it makes loud high-pitched noises that startle the cat and it pounces, leading Oliver to shoot it twice with the tranq gun.
The confrontation leaves Oliver tense and pessimistic, pushing Felicity to take on more of her ‘Sunshine’ roll. She is able to get her watch to work on basic settings and tapes it to the handle bars. Then while Oliver checks on their bike, she indulgently watches the jaguar, which she begins to find beautiful and fascinating.
Oliver freaks out a tad when he sees her pet it, but they are soon back onto the bike headed for the Door.
Chapter 13
The remainder of the trip to where Felicity’s broken watch locates the Door is long and largely silent, leaving her far too much time to think. Most of it she spends thinking about Oliver. She decides she needs to tell him everything as soon as they have a free moment and, for the first time, she starts to think that they might actually have a future together.
Once they reach their destination, they find nothing special and begin to worry the watch is truly broken. The storm is worsening and Oliver is focused on finding shelter.
And grunting. And brooding. And generally being a pessimistic jerk.
But when Felicity sits to work on her tablet, Oliver notices that she is sitting on a hidden tarp. Under the canvas, they find the Door, but since they still don’t know how to open it and the hurricane is fast approaching, Oliver leaves in search of shelter, leaving Felicity to examine the Door.
After digging away at the bottom edge, Felicity finds a carving almost identical to the slab at the Temple of the Sun. Then she realizes that the sun carving in the center is actually composed of two sets of handprints and her hands fit perfectly. She calls for Oliver, who is irritated by the interruption, but he reluctantly agrees to place his hands next to hers in the carving.
The Door shifts and opens, disappearing into the hillside.
Chapter 14:
The Door opens to a staircase leading into the ground. Felicity is ecstatic and disappointed Oliver isn’t, but they head down anyway. At the bottom of the stairs, they find an opulent room filled with magnificent Mayan frescos and carvings but, unfortunately, no way out other than how they came in. There is another Door like the first, with a handprint sun, but there seems to be a piece missing from the center and when they place their hands in this one nothing happens.
Oliver leaves to gather their things while Felicity translates. He spends the next several hours out in the storm and she has the distinct feeling he is avoiding her. Worried and upset, Felicity heads out to find him.
She finds him struggling with securing the tarp over the entrance to keep out animals during the storm. Feeling foolish, Felicity insists on helping and they quickly get the job done, barricading themselves inside.
After caring for their (fairly minor) wounds, Oliver asks Felicity to show him her translations. One side of the room depicts the Daughter of the Sun and the other the Warrior King. They meet in the middle where their lives combine. During a betrothal scene, the Queen gives the Warrior a sun shaped medallion, a shape that appears in each of her panels and they postulate that this may be Kin Zil, the Gift.
After Felicity tries to begin a conversation about five years ago, but Oliver insists he needs to sleep.
Chapter 15:
24 hours later, things have not gone as Felicity hoped. Oliver has groused and grumbled and avoided her. Now he was out hunting it the tail-end of the storm in a thinly disguised effort to be away from her and Felicity has had enough. Her guilt only extends her patience so far and now she’s pissed.
Sick of being stuck in the chamber alone, Felicity goes into the rain to freshen up. Outside, she decides ‘frak it’ and takes off her clothes to take a shower in the warm rain. Oliver returns, dead bird in hand, and flips out. They have words. He stomps off.
Back in the chamber, Felicity decides to only wear her dry clothing (her shirt and a pair of panties), and the hell with Oliver. When he arrives, he’s even more irritable and finally Felicity calls him on it.
Oliver breaks and confronts Felicity on her confusing behavior, now and in the past, and how difficult it has been to interpret. He wonders if she is playing games and if he ever knew her at all. Felicity fervently denies this, along with ever lying to him. Oliver says that is a lie because she promised to be with him ‘always and forever.’ Felicity tells him she promised to LOVE him ‘always and forever’ and not only has she never lied, but she never broke her promise.
Oliver takes a moment to process this, then crushes her to the wall in a searing kiss.
Chapter 16:
Oliver and Felicity kiss.
And they kiss. Then they kiss some more. Lots of kissing.
Felicity reassures Oliver that she did indeed mean she was still in love with him and always has been. Oliver is relieved, but confused. He asks her why she left him and she tells him he couldn’t possibly understand because he’s missing an important part of the puzzle.
They untangle themselves and Felicity nervously explains how difficult this is for her. Oliver asks for her to start at the beginning and she explains that the last night in Tikal she had been genuine in wanting to build a life together. Everything changed at the hospital.
Oliver is upset because he was sedated when this happened and angry at himself, but Felicity only agrees to go on with her story if he agrees not to blame himself. She tells him there were complications from the surgery which make him think she has a chronic health problem.
Finally, Felicity blurts out that she lacks the requisite parts to make babies. Oliver is first shocked, then devastated, and she has to fight her own answering defensiveness and anger, realizing a large part of the reason she never told him was her fear he would eventually leave her over it.
Oliver expresses anger over Felicity keeping this from him and believing her choice could possibly have led to his happiness. He tells her he needs to take a walk and leaves.
Felicity collapses in sobs.
Chapter 17:
After Oliver leaves, Felicity is overcome with grief and, feeling abandoned, she cries her heart out. But once she is done and is able to think more coherently, she realizes that Oliver probably didn’t leave because she is infertile and doesn’t want her anymore, but because he needs to process the enormity of everything she kept from him.
Pulling herself together, Felicity realizes that Oliver left without even the shirt on his back or a weapon, which is terrifying. But, since she can do nothing about it, she sits and spends her time fixing his comm link and waiting.
Oliver returns calm and sheepish after getting lost. They begin to talk and Oliver tells Felicity he is angry with her but not for the reasons she thinks. He is angry at her for even thinking he cared more about having children than being with her and feels he had the right to mourn this with her, since if she doesn’t have children he has no intention of having children either.
They cry in each other’s arms and talk about their grief and how hard it is, and will be, watching John and Lyla have a baby together. They reaffirm that whatever happens from here on out they plan to do it together. They begin to solidify their relationship physically, when Oliver rolls off Felicity and grabs his bow.
HIVE has found them.
Chapter 18:
Ghosts swarm into the chamber. Thankfully, they seem intent on capture and are not shooting. With a combination of Oliver’s arrows and hand-to-hand, as well as Felicity taking down two Ghosts with her pen dart, they are able to disable/kill the operatives.
Oliver expresses his pride in Felicity with numerous kisses, but they both realize they are no longer safe. As Felicity begins to gather essentials she has a strong feeling they cannot leave this place to HIIVE.
Unfortunately, Darhk and HIVE are already outside, at a stand-off with their jaguar friend. Darhk uses his magic to force a confrontation, but the jaguar triumphs over automatic weapons and magic. When Darhk orders the Ghosts to open fire Felicity calls out, not wanting the jaguar hurt, prompting Oliver to send an explosive arrow into a gas tank.
The smoke sends them into the chamber to grab their things and the jaguar follows. Felicity picks up the moonstone that had fallen on the ground and a strange calm takes her over. Speaking to the jaguar (who she names Kinich Ahau after the Mayan sun god and who does not speak back), Felicity realizes the moonstone is the key to the other Door.
Kinich Ahau lies down peacefully, happy with her deduction. Felicity places the stone in the palm print sun and her hands on top. Reluctantly Oliver turns his back on the jaguar, curls himself over Felicity and does the same.
Chapter 19:
As they fit their hands into the door, Felicity feels a sense of rightness and happiness. The moonstone becomes warm and starts to glow. The wall breaks away and starts to spin. Oliver pulls her and their bags through just in time for it to seal them into a long tunnel.
As soon as Felicity’s hands fall away, she feels cold and all the confidence leaves her in a rush. The happy feeling is gone, leaving her dizzy. Oliver comforts her from what he calls a “post-magic crash” and chuckles at her insistence magic is just undiscovered science.
Now that they are safe from HIVE (at least for a while), Felicity wants to continue their reconciliation. Physically. It seems to help the cold worried feeling. Oliver instead tries to refocus Felicity on the matter at hand, finding the Lost City and surviving.
Oliver admits he worries he unleashed a curse when he blew up the tombs on Palenque. This leads to him also confessing that when Felicity mentioned, “the baby,” during her flashback, he had the irrational fear she was pregnant with another man’s child. Felicity confesses it felt like she lost a child after Tikal and Oliver agrees.
Then Felicity notices Oliver is still holding the moonstone and is worried it is affecting him, but he denies it. He convinces her to try holding it again to get information on Kin Cuudad.
Chapter 20:
This time, when Felicity held the moonstone she didn’t feel strange and floaty. She didn’t think it was working until Oliver shined a light down the tunnel and asked her where it led. Then Felicity knew with absolute certainty that this tunnel was built for the Royal Family of Kin Cuudad as a secret entrance. And escape route.
She also has a flash that the moonstone and the sun medallion (which they have yet to see except in carvings) fit together to create a powerful totem. That may or may not be the Gift.
But it isn’t the stone that makes Felicity realize that in all likelihood this tunnel leads to where the best scholars thought the Lost City lay, an area 25 miles north-east of there. Having no choice, hand in hand, they begin to make their way down the tunnel.
Three hours later, Felicity is fading fast, but fighting it, refusing Oliver’s frequent offers to rest. Until she trips over something in the tunnel and Oliver insists.
After a few heated kisses, Oliver insists Felicity is too tired to continue and she falls asleep to his whispered promises of what awaits them back in Cancun.
Chapter 21:
Felicity is woken from a strangely vivid and terrifying nightmare where she is paralyzed and blinded, unable to find Oliver, but with the sensations of intense heat and the smell of smoak. When she realizes they are in the tunnel she is not reassured and it triggers a panic attack.
Oliver talks (and kisses) her down. This leads to a discussion of the PTSD Felicity suffered after Tikal and her fear she’s not allowed to be happy. That they might die down there. Oliver tells her he would rather die down here with her than live without her.
That finally pulls Felicity out of her fears. She wonders at how excessively romantic Oliver is and they talk a little about his life before the Gambit. And Oliver’s belief that it was ARGUS, but mostly Felicity, that found the goodness inside of him.
Talk turns to the future and Felicity tells him that she is tired of their lives being in constant danger. They worry over what may have happened to their friends after they left, but Oliver is cheered by the idea of convincing as many as they can manage to leave with them and being able to tell Waller the news himself.
They resume their journey down the tunnel feeling more hopeful than they have in a long time.
Chapter 22:
As they walk through the tunnel, Oliver and Felicity are debating various career paths they could choose after leaving ARGUS when they come to a giant mural of the Mayan sun. Felicity is excited until she realizes there is no door, just a dead end.
Oliver attempts to use brute force to get through but sees reason when it becomes clear it’s solid limestone. Stuck in a loop of hopeless confusion, Felicity finds herself clutching the moonstone and trying to understand why the Mayans would have built a tunnel with a blind end.
While Oliver is trying to come up with a plan of action, Felicity comes to the realization that if they only have this short time together, she wants to take full advantage.
At first, Oliver is concerned Felicity’s desperate kiss is a sign of her losing hope, but she manages to convince him it’s about savoring the time they do have and soon they are on the verge of making love against the sun mural.
Just as Felicity is about to come for the first time in forever, she finds herself falling backward. The wall disappears and they find themselves in a cave with sunlight streaming in through the ceiling. There is a pool and waterfall and Felicity realizes this is a cenote (a sink hole, a sacred well of the Mayans).
Oliver retrieves their things just in time for the wall to reappear, sealing them out of the tunnel.
Chapter 23
Things are just starting to get good when Oliver pulls away to check out the Cenote. It soon becomes clear he intends for Felicity to join him in the water. It takes her a moment to realize that her irritation is mostly due to her reluctance to strip naked in the bright sunlight. She’s not ready for Oliver to see her scars from Tikal.
Felicity manages to get in the water without him seeing and things get back on track, right back where they were before the wall disappeared. Only better. She even manages to convince Oliver that the first time should be together. Then everything goes to hell when they attempt to make love and she experiences pain that she cannot hide.
While trying to reassure Oliver (and herself) that there is nothing seriously wrong with her, she confesses (with great humiliation) that she hasn’t been with anyone since him, five years prior. Oliver is overwhelmed by this and apologizes for his instinctive relief and possessive glee. Felicity meets his possessive passion and they are once again carried away.
Oliver insists on staying in control this time and after giving her an amazing orgasm, they are able to make love without pain.
They are able to celebrate their bond with great pleasure, leaving them both feeling happier and more whole than they’ve felt since they parted.
Chapter 24
After they make love, Oliver and Felicity swim and tease and play in the Cenote. They break for food and while refilling their canteens she jokes about the Magical Fairy water.
It doesn’t distract Oliver from feeding her and Felicity decides to distract herself from the terrible tasting protein bars by focusing on the taste of his fingers instead. This leads to a teasing blow job where Felicity pushes Oliver to let go of all his control. After vowing that he’d get “his turn” soon, he lets go. She’s pretty damn sure it leads to an amazing orgasm, but then she realizes the release let down more walls than she intended.
Faced with an overly emotional Oliver, Felicity urges him to tell her whatever is tormenting him.
Chapter 25
At Felicity’s assurance that she will love him no matter what he tells her, Oliver breaks down, confessing to doing horrible things in Russia. Felicity dribbles water from the Cenote on his head and tells him the Magic Fairy Water will heal his soul and wash away his sins.
Oliver asks if the Mayans believed that and Felicity tells him they believed Cenotes lead to the Underworld and they often threw human sacrifices into them. Oliver insists they did no such thing in Kin Cuudad. The Daughter of the Sun wouldn’t allow it.
Felicity gently brings the conversation back to Russia and Oliver confesses that as part of his cover he slept with a lot of women. She assures him that he wasn’t cheating. He tells her it felt like he was, but the thing that torments him is that he found out later that many of the girls were victims of human trafficking and not there willingly.
After finding out one of the girls was sold to the Bratva and under age, Oliver pretended she was his mistress to protect her and later helped her escape Moscow. He then became involved with a widow, knowing she was using him but consoling himself that at least he knew she consented.
After finding out what an evil person the widow was, Oliver, now a top enforcer in the organization, kept sleeping with her to gain information until she was eventually killed.
Felicity understood how much prostituting himself for ARGUS ate at Oliver and wasn’t surprised that he swore off woman after that. Roy started a rumor that Oliver thought celibacy made him a better killer and he became known (and feared) as the ‘Monk.’
Oliver finishes his story with how he was able to transfer power in the Bratva to his ally, Anatoly, in exchange for the end of Human Trafficking, but is astonished that Felicity isn’t disgusted with him.
Felicity tells him the story just made her love him more. She asks if he can finally forgive himself and Oliver turns it around and asks her the same thing. Thrown, Felicity bursts into tears and tells him that everything Oliver went through in Russia was her fault.
Oliver carries her over to the waterfall, so it can wash both of their souls clean. Standing underneath, they offer each other absolution and start the process of forgiving their selves.
Chapter 26
Oliver and Felicity kiss under the waterfall and joke about the power of the Magic Fairy water. But when Oliver says Felicity is the one to heal him, she feels the need to remind him it was her fault he was in Russia in the first place.
Instead of arguing, Oliver tells her the story of how Roy learned her name. Trapped together in a wine cellar by a CIA-triple agent, Roy had asked for advice on how to maintain his humanity in this line of work. Oliver had told him about how he had survived Lian Yu and how Felicity had taught him life was worth living again. That it was people like her that they fought for.
Felicity is horrified, because throughout it all Oliver had put her on a pedestal and blamed himself. He told her blaming himself had allowed him to hope. After that night he had fought to defeat the Bratva and come home to win her back.
Feeling the need to take responsibility for her actions, and for Oliver to acknowledge them, Felicity insists she is not the paragon of virtue he sees her as. To convince her that’s not it, Oliver proceeds to list all her faults.
Felicity is left shocked at how well he knows her. Defenses down, when Oliver promises not to leave her, she tells him that’s not a promise he can make.
Oliver replies with, “If they take you from me, I will find you. If they take me from you, I will find you. No man or god, not even death itself can keep me from you. My soul will find yours.”
Chapter 27
Oliver and Felicity make love under the waterfall. Beautiful. Passionate. Inventive. Athletic. Soul-affirming.
After Oliver carries Felicity out of the Cenote and lies her on the moss. As he stretches out next to her, he asks her about her scars.
Chapter 28
It isn’t easy but Felicity manages to confess the reasons behind hiding her scars and is rewarded with Oliver’s acceptance and reassurance. Then she is thrown when he tells her that he wished he’d been awake all those years ago so that he could’ve ask Shado to freeze her eggs.
This triggers a strange sensation, like defrosting frostbite to take over Felicity’s body, ending in a burst of pain and a memory. Then, horrified and embarrassed that she never made the connection, she confesses that she still has one ovary.
She’s braced for Oliver’s anger but he shocks her when instead he comes to the conclusion that all of this is happening exactly as it was meant to. He tells her that he believes that they are soul mates and to that Felicity agrees.
But then Oliver catches sight of a starburst of gold ore in the wall behind her. They follow the veins of metal down to find glyphs covered in a thick layer of moss.
The glyphs proclaim that they are in Kin Cuudad. What’s more there is a Mayan translation of the exact vow Oliver made to her not an hour before under the waterfall. “My soul will find yours.”
Under that is a date. Tomorrow’s date.
Chapter 29
Felicity wakes next to the Cenote, in Oliver’s arms, and is overwhelmed by the implications of it being a day etched in stone, two thousand plus years ago. When Oliver wakes, they discuss prophecies and reincarnation as they watch the sun rise. Felicity recites the Mayan story of creation, the Popol Vu, a story of rebirth.
Together they agree today may well be the most important day of their lives and Oliver declares that it should be their wedding day.
Before Felicity can fully process that, Oliver drags her to the bank of the Cenote and gets down on one knee. Even though she knows it is rushing things, she agrees before he can fully propose.
Then Oliver shocks her again by sliding a ring on her finger, the ring he stole off the finger of King Cadmeal’s wife in the Temple of the Sun at Palenque. Felicity argues that she can’t possibly keep the priceless artifact, while Oliver insists that it is meant to be hers, that it belongs to her.
Felicity then realizes that the gold of the ring forms the Mayan Glyph “Laylie” which means “Always and Forever.”
Just when Felicity is about to give in, Oliver takes the ring back, stating that she will get it back when they say their vows. In a few minutes.
Chapter 30
Oliver and Felicity exchange vows on the bank of the cenote.
When Felicity realizes that she doesn’t have a ring for Oliver she dips a hair tie in the water and wraps it around his finger. Then they consummate their marriage with the moonstone clasped together in their right hands.
After, they dress and pack. Oliver shoots a grappling arrow out of the hole in the ceiling of their cave and begins to climb. Halfway up, the grappling hook begins to give way, setting Oliver swinging into the wall of the cave.
As his boots hit the stone, it gives way and he flies through, the water if the Cenote following him, creating a whirlpool.
Clutching the moonstone in her hand, Felicity jumps into the pool behind him.
Chapter 31
Felicity is sucked into the whirlpool and pushed into a shallow tunnel, rapidly moving her through the mountain and over a waterfall.
Barely having time to position herself to keep from breaking her neck in the fall, Felicity goes over and hits the river feet first. Struggling to get to the surface, her glasses start to float away and she grabs them just in time, but in the process drops the moonstone.
Oliver catches her and hauls her to the surface. Felicity confesses the loss of the stone and he pushes her toward the bank of the river as he dives after it.
Later, when she makes him climb out to remove his boots, she beats herself up over losing the artifact. Oliver points out how lucky they were to survive the waterfall which, now that she looks at it, is at least 200 feet high.
Then something catches her eye on the horizon. A series of towers and temples painted in bright red cinnabar.
Kin Cuudad.
Chapter 32
While Oliver dives for missing arrows and the moonstone, Felicity uses her tablet to take pictures of Kin Cuudad in the distance and the signs that there are people living there.
Felicity has just convinced Oliver to abandon his search and move on when she spies a lone Mayan boy dressed in ancient finery, playing by the river edge. After a quick assessment of the situation, Felicity begins to call to him but Oliver stops her.
Their argument is cut short by an earthquake, followed by a horn sounding from the city. The boy takes off running and Oliver and Felicity follow through the jungle. They trek through a small, rustic village, rapidly emptying as Mayan commoners pour through the gates to the city.
The boy follows sullenly, but the large warrior guards prevent Oliver and Felicity from doing the same. Felicity climbs a tree and slips through the city wall. While Oliver is following, she photographs a complex mural depicting the Daughter of the Sun and the Warrior King.
Oliver has just arrived when another stronger earthquake has them huddled in the doorway, watching the Mayans run for cover, until only the boy is in the courtyard. A young Mayan elite woman approaches the boy with a warrior and reprimands him, gesturing behind them.
Felicity follows the woman’s finger and sees El Chichon, the volcano, ready to erupt.
Then Oliver (freaking out but for different reasons) tells her the woman talking to the boy is his sister, Thea.
Chapter 33
Felicity tries to reason with Oliver, trying to explain there is no way the Mayan they see in front of them is his actual sister, Thea, whom he has not seen for a decade. Just the way the Warrior she is with, who looks an awful lot like Roy, is not their Roy.
She finally gets Oliver to look at the volcano and he tells her to hack into ARGUS, HIVE be damned, to call for an evac. Felicity’s brain begins to put pieces together and she finds herself going to her photos instead.
And finding that instead of a living city, the pictures are all of ruins.
Realizing none of what they are seeing is real, Felicity goes into the courtyard and examines the unresponsive Mayans. Oliver photographs the volcano and proves it is still dormant. Then, realizing this is a vision (albite a multi-sensory one), he leads Felicity into the palace following the boy, Cadmeal, and his sister’s doppelganger. And the jaguar, Kinich Ahua, who has shown up, but is only interacting with the Mayans.
Inside, the boy is embraced by his mother, Felicity’s Doppelganger, the Daughter of the Sun. They are joined by The Warrior King, Oliver’s Doppelganger, along with other Mayan Elite, many of which share the faces of their loved ones.
Felicity finds herself beginning to understand the strange Mayan dialect they speak as the King and Queen give Cadmeal goodbye gifts, including the moonstone Oliver and Felicity found in Palenque. He is to leave via the tunnels with Mayan-Digg, Mayan-Lyla, and the black jaguar. The queen is wearing a second moonstone and the king a sun medallion.
Before he leaves, young Cadmeal demands to see Kin Zil and an infant is brought forward, his sister.
Chapter 34
The revelation that Kin Zil is an infant girl, born to Oliver and Felicity’s doppelgängers 2300 years ago, blows their minds and they struggle to stay strong. Cadmeal insists he will take his sister with him when he escapes the city, but his parents explain she needs to stay. The King sends the boy away with the black jaguar, but only after the cat has said goodbye to a golden jaguar that is guarding Kin Zil.
After they leave the King tries to order the rest of his family to follow. Only the King, Queen, and Kin Zil need stay. No one obeys.
The Head Priest enters and Oliver reveals that he resembles his old enemy from Russia, the double agent, Adrain Chase. The Priest is furious that Cadmeal is gone and gets into a heated argument with the Queen about human sacrifice. He believes the natural disaster is happening now because she outlawed the practice.
The King ends the debate, stating the people and the gods are waiting and a procession leaves the palace.
Oliver holds back Felicity to convince her to stay behind and they share how difficult this is for both of them. Felicity ultimately convinces him they need to go and they follow the others out into the city center, now dark except for torches and the bubbling volcanoes. Tens of thousands have gathered and the elite are standing at the top of the tallest pyramid.
Chase, the Head Priest, announces they need to sacrifice to the gods and only the most important and most pure blood will do.
Chapter 35
Terrified for the baby (irrationally so), Felicity runs up the pyramid. Two-thirds of the way up, another earthquake hits with a shower of ash and pumice.
Finally, she is able to get to the baby (not sure whether she can even touch the child) but her mother gets their first and tearfully lies Kin Zil on a sacrificial stone slab. As Chase prepares his knife Oliver and Felicity struggle with if they should or even can intervene.
Just as Oliver decides to draw his bow and Felicity hides her eyes, the King decapitates the priest and throws his body to the crowd. He then cuts his own hand, spilling his own blood for the gods.
The volcano explodes and the people go crazy. But the King’s family moves with purpose, opening what Felicity thought was a sacrificial stone, but was in fact a tomb. They place the baby in her basket inside. They snap the remaining moonstone into the sun medallion and place it in the tomb with the baby and seal it shut.
The King and Queen stand over the tomb chanting as El Chichon erupts fully, destroying the city.
Felicity stands in Oliver’ss arms, hiding from the ash and trying to withstand the heat when it all goes away.
They open their eyes to a calm, sunny afternoon, standing on top of the ruins of a half buried temple. The only thing that seems to remain untouched is the tomb.
Oliver insists the vision was to show them Kin Zil and the talisman and he needs to get it from the tomb. Felicity pleads with him to wait for reinforcements but he refuses.
As Felicity turns away she sees the golden jaguar. Then she hears a baby’s cry.
She shoves the heavy stone lid off the tomb and uncovers Kin Zil, very much alive.
I hope there’s still someone out there listening! It was weird to open up Tumblr after so long. It looks like I haven’t posted since April, but I suppose that makes sense since that’s when the world started to go all topsy turvey.
Since then my country has further descended into chaos. The good the bad and the ugly. Some of you know I live very close to Washington. DC so National US news is local news. Everything affects us acutely.
That’s my excuse for not writing very much (my life only got busier with quarantine), but I can’t ignore that my passion for Olicity has been fading. (Any advice as how to fix that is welcome).
But I’m ssoooo close to finishing To Sacrifice the Sun that I can’t even imagine giving up.
All along I had planed to wait to post until I’m completely finished with the story, but that's not happening so I’m hoping any fans I have left out there can help me get through this last bit.
I have five chapters done and plan to post the next five Sundays. I’m really hoping that will get me excited enough to finish the last 7 chapters. I’ve also been thinking a lot about how to turn this into an original story so that’s helping as well.
So without further blathering:
Catch up on AO3 here
And here is my for new readers spiel.
Overall fic Summary:
Felicity Smoak was recruited by ARGUS directly out of MIT and became one of the youngest Field Agents in their history. She was the Tech Guru of one of their most elite teams and her partner, Oliver Queen, was the love of her life. Then a mission went south, with terrible consequences. Felicity turned from field work and Oliver, hiding away in ARGUS’ hidden R&D center, the Cave.
Five years later, a new evil is infiltrating the world, but it’s looking for the same lost Mayan City and the same missing artifact. The ones that Felicity had made herself the world’s leading expert on. So now she was going to have to face her past, her greatest fears, and her biggest mistakes to find whatever HIVE is after before they do, because if Damian Darhk finds it first, no one on the planet will be safe.
Preview under break (as if picture wasn't enough of one):
September 20, 2016
12:04
The Ruins of the Temple of the Great Sun
Kin Cuudad
13.0.3.14.9
When the baby turned her head and caught her eyes, Felicity felt a bolt of emotion unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Her eyes burned, her throat closed, and she had no idea if she was even breathing.
“Felicity?”
There was wonder and disbelief in Oliver’s voice and…she opened her mouth but the only sound that emerged was a soft sob.
Chapter 19 is up on AO3, I hope you enjoy the ride. ;-)
Read chapter 19 here
Catch up here: AO3
Summery of whole story:
Futura was the state of the art biotech company out to change the face of the health food industry. They were also the company that was going to save QC after Slade and Isabel left it in ruins.
But Futura has plans for Oliver and Felicity that has nothing to do with the company and everything to do with revolutionizing human kind.
Post Season 2 AU that started out as a way to combine my favorite smut tropes and ended up as a sci-fi, fantasy adventure (that revolves heavily around smut).
1. Chapter 19 of AKOI is FINALLY finished and will be up on Sunday
2. I have a very rough draft of chapter 20 written
3. I am officially a member of the “harried middle class struggling to work from home and raise cooped up children,” as one particularly apt article I read described what various groups were up against in quarantine
4. My Muse has been elusive at best.
Sigh
Catch up here: AO3
Summery of whole story:
Futura was the state of the art biotech company out to change the face of the health food industry. They were also the company that was going to save QC after Slade and Isabel left it in ruins.
But Futura has plans for Oliver and Felicity that has nothing to do with the company and everything to do with revolutionizing human kind.
Post Season 2 AU that started out as a way to combine my favorite smut tropes and ended up as a sci-fi, fantasy adventure (that revolves heavily around smut).
Sneak peek under the cut :
Felicity was in a tent.
No…a hut.
With a primitive yet well-constructed wall and a hole in the ceiling to vent smoke from the fire roaring in the center of the room. Furs and skins covered the walls and floors and Felicity could feel the silky hair beneath her bare toes.
Felicity was surrounded by women dressed in skimpy strips of cloth and fur, body paint and primitive jewelry. Their features were vague and she couldn’t quite make them out but several of them felt familiar.
They spoke a language Felicity didn’t recognize. She didn’t understand a word. Yet somehow she knew exactly what they were saying.
They were preparing Felicity for a ceremony. Like a wedding but…more.
More permanent.
More important.
To her and her people.
Felicity didn’t know who these ‘people’ were but…
She did. She knew they were hers. That it was her responsibility to protect them.
I said at the end of chapter 18 of AKOI that it wouldn’t take me long to finish ch 19 (and it probably won’t), but in the time I had I was inspired to work on ch 20 instead and I need to finish that before the muse goes away.
I’ve decided to try for an every other week posting schedule. So ch 19 on April, ch 20 on April 19 etc...
I’ll do my best. It’s kind of crazy how busy I have been considering I never leave the house. :-/
After a year and 3 months, there is FINALLY a new chapter of AKOI up on AO3. I hope you enjoy it!
(ps. that’s not the full chapter art. ;-))
Read chapter 18 here
Catch up here: AO3
Summery of whole story:
Futura was the state of the art biotech company out to change the face of the health food industry. They were also the company that was going to save QC after Slade and Isabel left it in ruins.
But Futura has plans for Oliver and Felicity that has nothing to do with the company and everything to do with revolutionizing human kind.
Post Season 2 AU that started out as a way to combine my favorite smut tropes and ended up as a sci-fi, fantasy adventure (that revolves heavily around smut).
Like with some of my other WIP I have painstakingly gone through and written chapter summaries for those of you who don’t want to reread and want to jump right into the new chapters.
Since it’s spoilers (and also long), I’m putting it under the cut. I’m going to put an Tumblr-friendly. They also link back to the chapters, if you want to read any in more depth. :-)
Chapter 1: Pepper Potts
A month after they took down Slade and his Mirakuru solders, Oliver’s lawyers have restored his company, but it is in trouble financially, leaving them looking for new partnerships.
Oliver and Felicity drive down to the orchards and labs of Futura, a health food and juice company interested in a deal that could reinvigorate QC. The drive and the science have Oliver bored to death, so Felicity distracts him by having him sample the juice product.
Relaxing some, Oliver becomes flirtatious and tells Felicity she is Pepper Potts to his Iron Man. By the time they arrive at Futura, she is flustered and confused by the attention and his uncharacteristic openness.
An unusually attractive and young appearing Doctor, Dr. Ann, and her silent but equally attractive colleague, Mr. Brian, give them a tour of the grounds and show them to a conference room to await Futura’s founder, Dr. Young.
Drinking the company’s newest concoction while she waits, Felicity finds she has no idea why she was so nervous in the limo. She should have embraced Oliver’s flirting and enjoyed herself. But Oliver does a one-eighty and apologizes for his odd behavior, which strangely doesn’t bother her much at all.
Oliver grabs the juice from her hand and asks if she is feeling unusually disinhibited and anxiety free.
Realizing they were drugged, they try to leave only to find themselves locked in. Oliver tries to breakdown the door while Felicity goes for her phone.
A pink cloud fills the room and everything goes blank.
* * *
Oliver wakes up feeling oddly refreshed in a clean and comfortable bed. He turns to find Felicity next to him. Naked.
On further reflection, he is also naked. They are alone in a stark white room with no doors and no clothing. There is a bathroom and a pitcher of the dreaded Futura juice but nothing of use. Eventually Oliver finds a button next to the bed and it opens a panel to reveal a huge window.
They are high up on a mountain. On a God damn Island.
Chapter 2: The White Room
Felicity knows she’s dreaming. She’s flying through the air with Oliver dressed as Iron-man. But just when it’s getting good (he’s trying to seduce her), the real Oliver wakes her. Except this must be a dream too, because they are both very naked in a heavenly white bed, stacked high with down pillows.
It takes awhile for Oliver to convince her she is very much awake, that they’ve been abducted, and that their loss of anger and fear (and embarrassment) are because they have been drugged. Unfortunately, arousal still seems very much within Felicity’s repertoire.
She retreats to the bathroom for a little privacy and the floor length mirror reveals she looks much better than she should. And she is hairless below her neck and… she has perfect sight without her glasses.
Felicity is freaked out enough to forget to grab her sheet before calling for Oliver and he gets an eyeful, but her heeled sight brings his focus to the problem at hand. Then they realize both of their scars and tattoos are healing as well.
The sound of a mechanical door sends Oliver sprinting from the bathroom. And leaving the towel he was wearing behind.
Chapter 3: Amy
Hearing Felicity call out in the bathroom, Oliver rushes in and finds her naked. Addled with lust but without the emotions that generally help him put on the breaks, he finds himself having a hard time being rational.
Her restored eyesight (mostly) snaps him out of it and they begin to peruse each other’s faded scars and tattoos.
Then the sound of a door opening has Oliver sprinting for the other room to find a 10 year-old girl and a big domed tray.
The girl introduces herself as Amy and states they are on an island called Nirvana. They are there because they are “a perfect match” and have the privilege of saving mankind. They have been there “several” weeks but were sedated through the first part of their “Treatment”.
Amy leaves them food and drink, which she admits to being drugged but warns they will find other ways to get them “their supplements” if they refuse to eat.
Oliver still thinks they shouldn’t eat but Felicity disagrees. She sits on the pillow chairs and starts to feed herself (without utensils) but Oliver, acting on instinct, interrupts her by snatching the food from her fingers. With his lips.
This continues until Felicity realizes Oliver is taste-testing things for her and a wrestling match ensues. Oliver wins but even after all the food is tasted the touching doesn’t stop and he brings up whether they can consent given the circumstances.
Chapter 4: A Matter of Consent
When Oliver questions consent, given they’ve been drugged, riding high on their wrestling match and the no-anxiety, Felicity confesses she’s wanted him for a long time.
But then she wonders if it’s Oliver’s consent that’s the problem. This leads to him telling Felicity he feels she’s too good for him and worries about pulling her further into the darkness. They discuss Sara and the mansion confession.
Oliver tells Felicity there can never be anything casual between them and any kiss needs to be a beginning.
Felicity agrees with enthusiasm and they finally kiss.
Chapter 5: The Treatment
Oliver fights it as long as he can, but Felicity’s desire and his need to make her happy finally break him and he kisses her, determined to make it the best kiss either of them has ever had.
He thinks he’s damn well succeeding when Amy shows up with twin Mr. Brians. Amy announces its time for a treatment and the hell if Oliver is going to let them take Felicity. He fights, but the Brians are immovable. Another pink cloud arrives and they are both carried off.
Oliver drifts in and out of consciousness as he experiences being experimented on. Lights, sounds, hundreds of needles. But no fear.
Finally, he is back in the White Room where Felicity is curled in a ball crying. He comforts her the best he can. She finally falls asleep, skin on skin, tangled together in the White Room as Oliver stays awake trying to figure out a way out.
Chapter 6: The Beginning and the End
Nine days later, life had fallen into a pattern, each punctuated by long daily “Treatments”. And each day Felicity became more depressed and hopeless.
Except then Oliver would come and hold her, skin on skin, and she would feel better. The lust had faded but the love and connection continued to deepen.
Oliver had begun eating very little, hoping it would allow him to formulate a plan but nothing worked. Now he suggests they pretend to cooperate and hope that as her “mate” he will be allowed to accompany her on her Treatments. Felicity realizes she needs to tell him the part she’s been keeping to herself, that part of the treatments seem to focus on her reproductive organs.
As Felicity expects, Oliver becomes enraged, but before he can do anything the pink gas fills the room and they fall asleep.
****
Everything is different this time. Oliver wakes after Treatment in the anti-chamber to the White Room, alone, to an intense and incredible smell. A smell that triggers the most intense arousal he’s ever felt.
Amy appears and Oliver struggles to control his anger and his lust as she explains that he smells his mate, his Omega’s Pheromones. Felicity is in Heat and as her Alpha, Oliver needs to “take care of her.” Amy tells him they have unlocked their genetic potential to make them “better”. Then she opens the door and all Oliver can focus on is Felicity.
Chapter 7: Alpha and Omega
When Felicity wakes up after her latest Treatment, the depression is gone. Instead, she feels hot. Foggy. Aroused. Which is very awkward with Amy sitting next to her.
Amy explains the Treatments are complete and that Felicity is in Heat. When Dr. Young tried to unlock the true human potential and make them “Superhuman,” he “accidentally” uncovered Alpha/Omega genes and the process is unstable unless matched pairs of Genetic Soulmates go through the process together.
Confused and reeling, Felicity is again thrown by a new, intense, and wonderful smell wafting through the door. Amy goes to join Oliver but it is long tortuous minutes before he is allowed in and by the time he is, Felicity is delirious with desire.
Oliver bursts through the door and Felicity pulls him into a heated kiss but before she could get what she needs, he pulls away, wanting to know if she was all right. Wanting to know if she really wants this. Wanting to talk.
But Felicity is burning up and she needs him inside her. Now.
Finally realizing her desperation, Oliver carries her to the shower where the cold water allows them to think. He tells her if they have sex it’s a commitment and if she doesn’t want that he’ll find another way.
Felicity enthusiastically agrees to Oliver’s conditions and he carries her to the bed, but before making love he makes sure she knows he’s doing this because he’s in love with her.
Then he’s inside her. Finally. And it’s amazing and perfect and explosive. Felicity tells Oliver she loves him and he loses control.
In the blissful aftermath, Oliver tries to lift himself off of her only to realize he is stuck.
Chapter 8: Stuck
After the best (and most animalistic) sex of Oliver’s life, he is still blissfully trying to wrap his head around it all when he realizes his cock is stuck inside Felicity.
After she calms his castration-phobia panic attack, they explore and discover his cock has swollen inside her, locking him inside. They also discover this is something Felicity finds incredibly pleasurable, so much so that she is unable to think until Oliver (happily) gives her another orgasm.
Mind slightly clearer, Felicity tries to get Oliver’s mind off sex by telling him what Amy told her about the genetic manipulation. This works to anger him and she is able to lift herself off.
Chapter 9: For Science
Felicity wasn’t sure why she stopped short of telling Oliver about the “Genetic Soulmates” thing. Maybe because it is just so enormous and she doesn’t want to pressure him. Maybe she just isn’t ready yet.
Either way it was all too easy to distract him (and herself) with his cock. Felicity busies herself with exploring him, for science.
They discover his dick has grown at least two inches and Felicity can’t believe she enjoyed him inside her so much. She gives Oliver an insanely enjoyable blowjob and after he comes, watches the base of his cock swell into a knot.
Oliver is freaked out and repulsed but Felicity couldn’t feel more differently. The only thing that upset her was that it wasn’t inside her where she needed it. Now.
Chapter 10: Happiness
Not one of the multiple emotions Oliver is feeling at finding out his cock knots like a goddamn dog is positive.
But Felicity quickly changes that with her enthusiasm for Super Cock’s new Superpower. Soon all Oliver feels is happiness. They discuss how odd it is to feel so happy under their circumstances but Felicity convinces him not to let their captors take this from them.
They make love again before falling into a restful sleep, happily stuck together.
****
Felicity wakes up the next morning feeling better than good. Sharp. Her mind feels like it’s at its peak performance.
Amy arrives with food and Felicity acts as cooperative as she can manage, gently asking Amy about herself. Amy is evasive and seems thrown but tells Felicity her father lives there and her mother is dead. She tells her she has many siblings and “we are all family here.”
Amy also tells Felicity she no longer has allergies or “any physical imperfections.” Then the girl high-tails it out of there.
Felicity convinces Oliver to eat and they agree on their new plan to cooperate, learn all they can, then “burn this place to the ground.”
Chapter 11: The Other Side of the Door
After five days, Felicity’s Heat finally seems to be fading and the most frightening thing is how disappointed Oliver is. He has no desire to leave her bed. Ever. And that thought sends Oliver to the relative solitude of the shower to remind himself of all the reasons they need to escape.
His worries about those they left behind until he is interrupted by Felicity and her cheerful teasing. But when she announces that Heat is over, Oliver starts to feel the irrational fear her desire for him has faded as well.
But he washes her hair as she asks and finds it strange that she doesn’t have roots. After the shower, Oliver finds Amy has left him a razor and each of them a single item of clothing. Felicity in her new white dress inspires him to prove sex without Heat is just as good and he pushes her up against the window.
They are both distracted by a man and a woman on the beach. But then Amy and Brian arrive and Oliver puts on the charm. Amy tells them they get to leave the room to visit Dr Ann.
Out in the hallway Oliver is shocked to find dozens of Amys, Brians, and Anns.
Chapter 12: Multitudes of Amys
Felicity’s anxiety starts to rise before they step into the hallway and is grateful for Oliver’s arm around her shoulder, but it isn’t enough when they step into the hallway and she is faced with dozens of clones.
Four faces. Two male, two female. Four ages, each approximately five years apart. The possible reasons (and the possibility of younger ‘batches’) make Felicity’s head swim.
Amy leads them into a conference room where they are joined by another Amy (both are called by the same name) and Oliver requests refreshments and privacy to help Felicity calm down. They only have a short time to eat and whisper theories to each other, but the juice and skin-on-skin contact relaxes her enough to function.
A Dr. Ann arrives and asks some invasive medical questions and Oliver’s anger grows, his smooth charm slipping as he starts to question the “doctor’s” belief that they are “doing God’s work” “making them again in His image.” Dr. Ann argues back, explaining how they are an exact match for each other, Soulmates, and clearly that is by Design.
Felicity can feel Oliver tense and wishes beyond belief she had told him earlier. Ann makes it clear Felicity knows and she can see the betrayal in Oliver’s eyes. But there is no time to explain. They are brought through a series of medical tests, then introduced to Bobby (the fourth, teenaged clone) who brings them to a gym to test first their physical, then mental abilities to tease out their new “talents”. In doing so, Bobby lets slip that they were first identified because of the Arrow, something Felicity had also forgotten to tell Oliver in her Heat Haze.
When they finally return to the White Room the betrayal in Oliver’s eyes makes Felicity’s anxiety peak and her mind goes blank.
Chapter 13: Choice
Oliver’s first reaction when he was told he and Felicity were Soulmates was joy. Relief. They were meant to be together. It was written in their DNA. This wasn’t a selfish decision on his part. He wasn’t ruining her life. This was fate.
Then he realized Felicity had known for days and hadn’t told him. So she mustn’t feel the same. As the day wore on Oliver’s surety that she didn’t want to be stuck with him grew and so did his hurt.
By the time they returned to the White Room, he was an emotional mess. And when Felicity froze when he asked her to explain all those emotions channeled into rage.
It turns into a screaming match, Oliver vacillating rapidly between blaming himself and her until crying, Felicity finally announces she’s had enough.
He’s sure he’s destroyed their new relationship, but Felicity forces him to sit and cups his cheeks.
Immediately Oliver feels better. Felicity explains that she thinks not having enough skin on skin contact makes them irrational. Then she explains why she didn’t tell him immediately and that she had every intention of telling him all of it. They discuss both of their reactions to the idea of Soulmates, Free-Will, and Forever. In the end, Felicity confesses he makes her a better person and overcome all Oliver can do is kiss her.
Chapter 14: Challenges
Felicity is amazed at how fragile Oliver’s self-esteem really is and how incredibly powerful this touch thing is. The fallout of both is stunning but given the amazing sex that followed it might be worth it.
Oliver’s self “challenge” to give her five orgasms was insane, but she couldn’t say she didn’t appreciate his initiative.
She blamed the brain melting sex for blurting out “that’s disappointing” when Oliver doesn’t knot after sex. But Felicity manages to soothe Oliver with promises of all the inventive sex they can have now that they don’t have to worry about the knot.
***
Over the next month the days were so similar that one bled into the next. Time together. Cognitive tests. Mental tests. Team tests. Physical tests. Then back to the White Room to lose themselves in each other.
Oliver would have been more worried about how content he was with the his days if he wasn’t able to console himself with the fact that at the rate at which their abilities seemed to be growing, they would be able to outsmart and out fight their captors in no time.
Even so, when Amy broke routine by waking them slightly after dawn so a “special” day, Oliver was more than a little wary.
The fact that they were left tennis shoes and underwear with their usual clothing made Felicity giddy with the idea of going outside but even though they had been looking forward to this opportunity, Oliver had a bad feeling about this.
They were escorted down to a tunnel where they were given armband trackers and dozens of clones awaited them on the other side of a huge steal door.
As they stepped outside into the warm, humid air Oliver was torn away from Felicity. He fought hard enough that it took 4 Brian’s to restrain him but they managed to throw him in the back of a windowless SUV.
Without Felicity.
The truck sped into the forest. It was only 10-15 endless minutes later that they came to a stop and pulled him from the back.
A Bobby explained this was the next phase of training. His job was to find Felicity. Then a Brian shoves him back and the clones disappeared back into the forest.
Chapter 15: The Pull
All things considered things were not going badly. Besides the obvious blissful connection with Oliver, Felicity could feel her abilities grow and knew that every time they let her do a simulation on a computer, she was closer to slipping out onto the open web. Then they gave them shoes and she was positively ecstatic over the prospect of walking on the beach.
Until they tare Oliver from her arms and stuff him into the back of a truck. All while Amy is whispering to not call out, that it would only make things worse for him.
Felicity is taken to a clearing in the jungle and Amy tells her their goal is to find each other in the jungle, using a psychic gps, the Pull. And she feels it. She can smell and sense Oliver.
Except he feels like he is surrounding her and Felicity can’t tell which direction he is in. And Amy and her goons are driving off, leaving her alone in the rain forest.
***
Oliver learns he doesn’t have superspeed when the clones and their truck quickly out distance him.
With no other plan, Oliver climbs the tallest tree he can find and takes in the landscape of the island, but still doesn’t see Felicity. He’s dejected until he catches a whiff of her sent, feels a sensation in his chest, pulling him toward the beach and he takes off in that direction.
***
Feeling like complete failure, Felicity follows the SUV down the road. But when she comes to a fork, she tries again to find the Pull.
She’s just getting the hang of it, feeling the Pull toward Oliver into the woods, when she hears singing in the opposite direction. Finally Felicity decides she can be a better partner trying to talk to the redhead on the beach and letting Oliver find her (and she is certain he will).
Following the trail, Felicity finds the beach and the redhead singing in the surf, when a girl in a tree calls out to her.
Chapter 16: The Girl in the Tree
Running through the forest towards Felicity, Oliver finds himself confident. His senses, speed, and agility are all enhanced. He can feel her and he’ll get her soon. Then they will disappear into the Rainforest and live free.
***
On the beach, Felicity speaks to a rather surely 19 year old girl in a tree and finds she is not only touchy about her age, but Soulmates, human nature, and anything resembling optimism.
Felicity learns that Mera does not speak English (or an language the girl recognizes) and that she has only met one other couple here, who disappeared weeks or months ago. Other than that, their experiences are fairly similar.
Except for the girl’s jungle cat who she calls “Bob” and insists is a bobcat (thought it very much is not).
Before Felicity can get her name, Mera blows a conch shell, scaring off the girl and her cat.
Felicity instead decides to approach Mera as the sky shifts and a storm rolls in out of nowhere. The wind brings with it a scent…
Oliver’s scent. Felicity feels the pull and takes off running to the trees.
She skids to an abrupt halt when a half dozen SUVs come barreling down the beach, skidding to a halt, and pouring out Brians. Felicity’s terror is eased when she realizes they aren’t coming for her or Oliver, but rather the redhead a hundred feet out in the surf as the sky’s darken and the winds build.
As the Brians fan out to surround Mera, the woman turns and looks directly at Felicity. The wind flattens Mera’s dress against her very pregnant belly.
Oliver calls Felicity’s name and she turns and runs into his arms.
Chapter 17: The Coming Storm
Oliver planned to hold back once he got to the edge of the beach, find a way to grab Felicity and run. But when he saw her, he screamed her name completely involuntarily. But then she was in his arms and all he could do was kiss her, lift her off the ground and bring her into the relative privacy of the trees at the edge of the beach.
They babbled about finding each other, about the Pull, and Oliver was astonished to see the intensity of his feelings reflected back at him in her eyes. Felicity tells him about Mera. About the girl in the tree. About Mera’s pregnancy.
Felicity confesses her fear that her contraceptive shot is no longer working. This throws Oliver but he is equally surprised to find it doesn’t upset him, just fortifies his need to get them off the island. He reassures Felicity that they can face this together.
With the storm swelling, they quickly make love at the edge of the forest, finishing just in time for their wrists to buzz and Amy to come to fetch them, escorting them to an SUV as they watch Mera and her mate ushered into another truck.
In an attempt to revive the Muse and do something other than check the news 5052x a day, I’m going in to the comments for Chapter 17 of Another Kind of Island and posting an Olicity history told in gifs in my responses (even if I’ve previously responded).
I will get as far as I can in chapter 17 and then pick up with chapter 18 this weekend. 😊
Here we are, the first Another Kind of Island sneak peek in over 3 years. Miracles do happen (and I think we need a few right now).
I hope you enjoy it. The chapter will be up on Sunday!
(Chapter art only a partial because the full thing isn’t Tumblr friendly ;-))
Catch up here: AO3
Summery of whole story:
Futura was the state of the art biotech company out to change the face of the health food industry. They were also the company that was going to save QC after Slade and Isabel left it in ruins.
But Futura has plans for Oliver and Felicity that has nothing to do with the company and everything to do with revolutionizing human kind.
Post Season 2 AU that started out as a way to combine my favorite smut tropes and ended up as a sci-fi, fantasy adventure (that revolves heavily around smut).
Sneak peek under the cut (I think it gives a good idea of what the chapter is like):
It was a circle that left Oliver feeling trapped and desperate. Every path his mind took lead him to a dead end. Or brought him back to the beginning only to start again…
Until a very familiar moan rang out from the other room. Oliver turned off the shower and listened…
“Mmmm ahhhhh ahhhh….”
Seriously!?
Wow, separation had certainly done something to Felicity. Maybe it was a second Heat because…
There was a louder, high pitched cry.
How many times had that woman come in the last twenty-four hours? Oliver really should have kept better track.
With one quick rub of his towel, Oliver tossed it aside and hurried back into the bedroom.
