★ He never touched another soul. He only ever loved you. And the night you left was the night he meant to ask you to stay forever.
Warning : this fic contains lying besties, silent boyfriends, unsaid proposals, and two years’ worth of rotting what-ifs. read only if you’re cool with having your chest cracked open like a glow stick and left leaking regret on the floor. no dialogues js inner turmoild , procced if u wanna be left weeping at 2 am in the morning this fic is written entierly from regulus pov.
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Two years.
It had been two years since you walked away, and still Regulus carried the weight of that night like an anchor chained to his chest. He remembered it with painful clarity—the sharpness of your voice, the betrayal burning in your eyes, the finality in the way you turned from him. He had stood there frozen, heart thundering in his throat, and said nothing. Nothing.
Because Lucius Malfoy had already won.
Lucius had been his closest friend once, sharp and cunning in ways that mirrored Regulus himself. But beneath that smooth exterior had always been envy. Envy that Regulus had chosen you. Envy that you had chosen him in return. To Lucius, love was a game of power, something to manipulate and control. To Regulus, it had been everything. And that was precisely why Lucius had struck where it would wound the deepest—convincing you that Regulus had betrayed you, that his loyalty had fractured.
You hadn’t questioned it. You hadn’t asked him. And maybe that was what cut the deepest—your silence had answered his.
The truth was simple, brutal: Regulus had never touched another soul. His hands had only ever held yours, his lips had only ever known the shape of your name. He had been marked already, the weight of the Dark Lord’s brand searing into his skin, yet in your love he had found a fragile kind of salvation. You were the only part of his world that was pure. And he had let you believe he’d destroyed it.
That night—the night you left—was supposed to be different. He had carried a ring in his pocket for weeks, turning it over in his palm whenever the fear became too much, whenever the shadows closed in too tightly. Silver, simple, understated—like him. It was never about grandeur. It was about a promise. A vow he had rehearsed in his mind a thousand times, words he wanted etched into eternity: be mine, always. Through fire, through curse, through darkness. Just mine.
But instead of falling to one knee, he had watched you walk away, the ring burning in his pocket like molten lead. The proposal became a secret, a vow swallowed by silence, and his silence became the crime you could never forgive.
For months afterward, he would wake in the middle of the night, reaching across cold sheets, half-expecting you to still be there. His thumb would twist the empty space where your hand should’ve been, a nervous tic that betrayed him every time the walls closed in. Even in the echoing halls of Grimmauld Place, he thought he heard your laughter lingering in corners, soft and distant, haunting him like a ghost.
And still, he told no one. Not about Lucius’ betrayal, not about the ring, not about the love that still hollowed him out from the inside. To the world, Regulus Black became colder, sharper, a boy turning into a weapon forged by shadows. But beneath that mask, he was bleeding.
The tragedy was not that Lucius lied. The tragedy was that Regulus let him. He let the silence stretch until it became permanent. He let you carry the weight of anger instead of dragging you into his own darkness. He thought he was sparing you—shielding you from the stain of his choices. But in truth, he was only sparing himself from the terror of watching you choose to stay or leave with full knowledge of who he really was.
Now, with the Mark burning against his arm and his time running out, he still carried that ring. Hidden away, tarnished now, but untouched. A symbol of everything he lost, everything he could never reclaim.
And the truth remained carved into him more permanently than any curse:
Regulus Black never cheated. He never strayed. He had only ever loved you.
The night you left was the night he was meant to ask you to stay forever.
And that was the night his silence damned him.
Whenever I rewatch season 1, I’m always a little disappointed by Oliver’s reactions (non-reactions!) to Felicity’s crush. I’m not sure if this is part of SA’d growth, like how he used to always look away from the person he was talking to (which I always felt super distracted by)... but his blank stare at Felicity’s babble or sexual innuendos always made me feel embarrassed for her and hard to get in his headspace early on. I’d love to hear your take on this since I really admire your work(s).
It’s true that Oliver has changed a lot since s1. In s1, he was very closed off. Haters used to call out Stephen Amell for it, saying his acting was “wooden”, not understanding that it was very much on purpose.
He was damaged. After s5, we really got to appreciate just how damaged he was. As such, he learned to keep what he was feeling closely guarded. Some would call it “stoic”. He perfected the stoic routine. He was adept at putting on a face around his family and friends (but it was just that... a face... not what he was feeling inside) but every other time, he was bottled up. It wasn’t just Felicity at all. It was Moira and Thea and Laurel and Tommy and Dig and Walter and... the list goes on and on and on.
Actually, I could argue that his interactions with Felicity show the rare times his stoicism slipped. Stephen himself has said that he smiled at Felicity’s babble during their first scene together in 1x03 and that was the first time Oliver had a genuine (non-forced) smile in the series.
He was easier with her. He still wasn’t the Oliver we know today, who lets his emotions shine. But with her, his forced facade slipped.
As for Felicity’s babble... he was patient with her. Previously, people had teased her for her rambles, I guarantee it. People would point it out and poke fun at it which only made her more nervous. But Oliver didn’t do that. He never made fun of her or made her feel worse about it. I think he actually enjoyed her rambles. It was much needed levity for him. It connected him back to the world, outside his mission, reminded him that there was life out there.
I’ve rewatched season 1 many times. And never once have I felt like Oliver was colder to Felicity than he was to anyone else. On the contrary, he let her in. He let Dig in. He listened to them and relied on them. That was huuuuuuuuge.
