( oliver. )
optimistic isn’t exactly the word he’d use to describe himself. maybe before the island, when he was still a playboy, a kid driven by the lust for money & every single luxury he had grown up around — he always believed in the best outcome, despite every single horrible thing he had done to other people. lian yu had put his life in perspective & for a while, he had forgotten what optimism was, always driven by the need to discover the worst possible outcome in every situation. oliver always believed he would die saving the city, perhaps in the hands of deathstroke or any of his enemies & he hadn’t cared about his inevitable fate. now? he wanted to do everything he could to stay alive —— for caroline, because she was the person who matted the most to him, the only person he’d give up this life for.
every time they embraced each other, oliver found comfort he hadn’t experienced with anyone before. he didn’t believe in things like fate & soulmates (for a time, he was made to believe laurel was his), but if he did believe in people who belonged together, oliver had no doubt in his mind that caroline was that person for him. they were so different, yet they kept each other at balance. it was her optimism & her charisma that had attracted him in the first place.
’ —— well, i believe it was eight months ago — give or a take a few weeks — that i met this incredibly gorgeous blonde at a fundraiser & she smiled at me. & then i don’t know what happened, but it was the single greatest moment of my life. so i learned to smile back. ‘
she has to smile at the picture that he paints for her. it sounds like more of a bedtime rhyme that an actual retelling of events. then again, she figures that if she put everything that had happened to them down on paper, it would sound very much like a bedtime story. girl meets a handsome & charming man who happens to be richer than her wildest dreams, girl falls for said man, man turns out not only to be the prince but also the knight. it sounds a bit ridiculous even in her own head but it’s more or less the truth. well — on a superficial level. what she actually fell for was neither fame nor fortune but the person he keeps under wraps, maybe even more so than the arrow. the guy whose heart is so BIG it could fit an entire city. now she feels it’s her duty to make sure that that heart s t a y s protected.
as much as it scares her, she knows how important he is to the people of starling. they need him too ( but she may be too selfish to say they need him more than she does ). for that reason alone, she’s prepared to put on a brave face & support him in whatever he does. to be honest, she doesn’t want him to think that she’s against this – she should be but she’s seen the sincerity in his face & just maybe he needs to be this other person as well.
“ you’re a really good learner then, “ she comments before her head tilts backward in order to see his face but she doesn’t move from his arms in the least bit. her lips purse slightly, trying to mask the tugging of a teasing grin as she went on to say, “ – you mean i didn’t even have to buy you a drink? all i had to do was smile? “