I AM A SLUT FOR JAMES POTTER

I become overly attached to characters that don’t love me back She/Her/Hers 21

[sweethearticism]

♡ ₊˚‧ 𝓞.𝐘𝐔𝐓𝐀. flips the switch on you easily.

˖ ࣪૮₍ smut :: riding :: praise :: taunting :: switch!yuta ࣪ა ࣪˖

“baby,” yuta rasped, as long, shaky fingers squeezed on your bouncing hips. tethering his soul to the sinful way in which you came down on him. thighs smacking, hips grinding. you rode his lap like you were trying to squeeze out every semblance of his sanity.

“just like that— ah, so perfect,” pale lips pressed together. dark hair spread out on the wrinkled pillows as his head fell back. tossing with the bed that jumped with every clamour of your hips.

the epitome of beauty, an angel, a devil, both— when you squeezed around his cock and slicked his balls all messy. when your pretty nails dug on his shoulders and collarbones. when your gorgeous eyes dazed down at him through your fluttering lashes.

“mm, feels good yu? am I doing good for you?” you crooned, slowing your hips into a lazy, nasty drag that pulled a pitched moan out of him.

“so good— so, so good. hah. how'd I get so lucky?” he smiled up at you. through glossy eyes and trembling lips.

his head crooked so he pressed a kiss to your inner wrist. worshipping your veins, your blood, your pulse that allowed you to be here.

wrapped so perfect and velvet around his cock— squeezing every vein and kissing his tip with whatever darling spot you desired. working him to a high that had him clinging to you. gripping onto your very soul with his tightening fingers and every thrum of his dick.

cold hands smoothed over you. up your thighs, caressing your hips, worshipping your sides and cradling your breasts. he thumbed your nipples in tender swirls. in time with your hips that began to stutter.

“no, no. come on,” he ushered, bucking up once for encouragement. “you can do it, angel. don't stop now.”

his voice thinned. sucking in a breath as he watched your pace go sloppy. clumsy and overstimulated— but you were still smiling through your needy moans.

“yu babbyyyy,” you whined, playful. as you hunched over him, nails scratching on his chest and lips ghosting his. a promise. a tease.

“can't help it. feels so good. just gonna have to deal with it, hm?”

“you're a curse, you know that?” he returned your smile, despite the flicker in his dead eyes.

his hands slipped back to your ass. squeezing. a pout settled on his lips. “my poor pretty girl. so worked up. . ."

shlap!

pale skin smacked into yours. wet, rough, and strikingly abrupt— you squealed. slumping over your boyfriend who squished on the plush of your ass and rolled his hips up. deep and dirty. smooching his tip into a crook that curved your spine and shook your thighs.

“oh fuck— hngh.”

“don't worry, angel.”

yuta crooned to your ear as he pressed a deep kiss to it. arms hugging around your bouncing body tight. hips that once laid limp now pistoning in feral thrusts up into you. mean, merciless and nothing like the way he melted beneath you just a moment before. “I'll help. 'cause I love you so—”

his pelvis crammed! up into you. rutting rough and ragged on your cervix. slacking your jaw and blurring your vision.

“mngh— yuta!”

“— sooo much.” he didn't need to grin, not with the devil in that smile.

soft hands squeezed your thighs together. squished them tight to put pressure on his blur of thrusts. faster, harder, rougher than your sinful bounces. slapping his balls on your puffy pussy and milking your slick all over the sheets. splattering it over your thighs.

the lights flickered above. his cursed energy surged his pounds into a blinding prowess that sent your eyes rolling and tongue drooling. spluttering his name in a pitiful, ah ah ah!

“aww,” he cooed, pouting. he had the audacity to flash you those puppy eyes, like he wasn't pummeling your pussy into a creamy mess. “what was that, lovely girl? I can't hear you.”

“f-fuck— fuck you—!”

“now that's not very nice.”

he hummed, pale hand slipping up to pat on your ass that he chased ripples into with his merciless hips. “here I am making you cum so sooo good and you're being so mean.”

his cold touch slipped forward, thumb ghosting your swollen clit. drawing a whimper from your trembling lips as you flicked your head back.

“yuta. . . please, wait I can't—”

“sshh,” he hushed, swirling his thumb on the twitching nub with a feather touch, already sending your lashes fluttering while his batted up at you. innocent. infuriating.

“I can be mean, too.”

and then he flicked your clit.

pinched it hard between his fingers and rubbed it into a spasm that threw your spine into an arch and squeezed your pussy into a messy splutter.

all while he surged you higher into euphoria by plunging his cock up in a sharp stroke— humping on your cervix to spread your orgasm into a nervous wreck. trembling your body into a ruinous tremor.

“f-fuck— fuck fuck, ah.”

as you tumbled through your shattering climax, his hand snaked to yours. threading your fingers together. holding you tight. close. as he thumbed on your promise ring and rode out your high with tender praises.

“thereeee you go,” he blissfully sighed, his own eyes fluttering as he eyed the sticky mess between your thighs. “such a lovely girl with a lovely pussy.”

“you're a jerk.”

“I'm yours.”

© 𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒔𝒎. no plagiarism or ai training authorised. divider: @/uzmacchiato. art cred: @/udaysharmaarts (ig)

[dearokkotsu]

before yuuta left for africa, you remember him to be scrawny, about the same height as you, all elbows and knees. he would stutter when you caught his gaze for too long and your pinkies would hook when you walked home together, headphones shared, heads tilted close. behind the school building, you’d trade snacks and he’d blush when you brushed crumbs off of his shirt. sometimes you’d sit together on the curb, knees touching, as he let you doodle little shapes on his arm.

and you remember the kisses. quick, clumsy pecks that made you giggle. sometimes his eyes stayed open, as if to memorize your face. his fingers fumbled, shifting from your shoulders to your back again, unsure where to touch, but each kiss felt like a tiny discovery. a small, shared secret, leaving a lingering warmth on both your cheeks long after.

when he returned, you barely recognized him. you were surprised at how much had changed. you had to look up at him now; his shoulders were broader, his frame taller, and he moved with purpose. the nervous, fumbling gestures of before gone.

now, yuuta’s hands find your waist naturally. he’s less shy, more present, and he initiates contact without hesitation: brushes a strand of hair from your face, nudges you gently as you walk, leans closer when he laughs, adjusts your jacket without asking and lets his hand linger briefly on your lower back when guiding you.

and the awkward, clumsy pecks changed. his kisses are bolder, and he’s the one guiding you now. he chases your lips relentlessly, presses you against walls or the edge of tables, hands linger on your waist and lower back. each kiss lingers longer, heavier, more urgent than before, perhaps to make up for lost time. his hands roam along your body, leaving you breathless.

yuuta is more confident now. in himself, in what he wants from you. he knows he never wants the same distance between you two as there was when he was away. he wants you close, always close, and certain of the bond that ties you together. he isn’t the same blushing boy anymore when he’s over you, pulling his shirt off ♡

[titus-danforth]

57 on the smut prompt list for Pope Cody or Jack Abbot, preferably about a curvier/softer reader ? ilyyyy happy bday month diva !

➽─❥ pairing: Jack Abbot x Plus Size!Reader

➽─❥ summary/prompt: “Look at your reflection. Look at how gorgeous you are. So fucking gorgeous when I’m fucking you like this. So pretty for me, and only for me.” Feeling a little insecure when you try to go Valentine’s Day shopping for yourself with the girls.

➽─❥ warnings: 18+ MDNI, p in v sex, weight insecurities, body shaming, reader is fat (stomach, thick thighs, ass, titties, back rolls- all the fucking rolls), little self deprecating things, eating pussy from the back, cum eating

➽─❥ author’s note: THANK YOU FOR THE PRE BIRTHDAY WISHES! And- okay anon I know you said curvier but reader finna be a thick bitch. Fat. Because I’m a self indulgent whore and am going to make Jack with a fat bitch like me. If that offends anyone well- there are plenty of other Jack fics I have! If you’d like to participate in my february fic fest- click here for more!

“This is so cute, try this,” Trinity held out some little laced teddy that made you panic- it’s not even your size but you couldn’t say that. Whenever you go shopping with them they never seem to understand that you’re not as small as them- you don’t look like them and you’ve worked so hard to right back your insecurities to be comfortable in your own skin but it’s a constant struggle. You just mention how you want something in Jack’s favorite color instead- putting the scrap of fabric back and looking through the racks to find something- anything- in your size. “I’m gonna go try this on,” she waved a little sheer romper at you and Samira, walking towards the dressing rooms to leave you to your emotional breakdown.

“You okay?” Samira noticed your unease- the way you stare longingly at the racks of lingerie that you wish you felt comfortable enough in for your boyfriend to enjoy something but you just nod. Plaster on your fake smile and say you’re going to check the clearance rack while walking off to the part of the store they’d never be seen in- ‘Women’s Plus’ like it was a different dimension but it might as well be. Out of date patterns and exposed shoulder clothing and- the lingerie section was laughable. Bra and panties sets that made your skin crawl because the fabric was itchy and didn’t feel flattering and- you just wanted to go home.

It was Trinity’s idea to go Valentine’s Day shopping- her first with Garcia and she of course thought the perfect gift was herself. You wish you had her confidence- you wish you could just grab something off the fucking rack and be able to try it on without asking the sale associate for a bigger size and only to be told they only carry those sizes online. Jack is your first boyfriend since college and even then your insecurities tell you that he’s doing you a favor. He fucking worships the ground you walk on and yet you can’t help but feel that you’re wasting his time- look at him. Sure he’s older but you can still fucking feel his abs underneath the thinnest layer of softness on his stomach, his back makes your mouth water with each individual bulge of muscles, his smile is framed with dimples even if they’re hidden behind lines of age. Jack is a fucking catch and yet you feel like he’s doing charity by dating you. You still refuse to let him see you naked with the light on- you screamed last time he tried to get in the shower with you and made some excuse about shampoo in your eyes so he didn’t feel bad.

“Okay, try this on, and I don’t want to hear any complaints-” whatever Samira held out to you looked too small but you saw the way her dark eyes were narrowed and her face scrunched and- you sighed, feeling defeated but taking it from her hands to go into to changing room where Trinity was. It did look nice- some little baby doll slip dress in sheer fabric that showed so much but would cover it too and you figured what could it hurt to cry in the dressing room once more in your adult life. You turned away from the mirror- disrobing and staring at the dress in your hand- praying it wasn’t too small or else you’d have to have them help you but it slid down your body effortlessly.

“Well?” You can hear Samira outside the room, waiting for you to come out but you just say it fits- giving a little twirl and sighing because didn’t Jack deserve to enjoy you without your insecurities ruining another relationship? You cringe every time he holds you- when he sleeps wrapped around you and his hand rests on your stomach or you feel him slide his hand over your rolls and you want to die. But he touches you the same every time- he whispers how much he loves you when he fucks you and he tells you the same way when he leaves you for your shift in the ICU. He kisses you in front of everyone, he holds your hand when you walk through the park, he brings you lunch or dinner because he knows you’ll get busy enough to skip.

“This is so fucking stupid,” you bought the fucking dress. Smiling a little when Samira and Trinity cheered- feeling a little better but you started to doubt yourself again when you saw how you looked at home. Jack would be at your place any minute for your date night- Valentine’s Day being celebrated a week later because of your schedules but he wanted to make sure you celebrated. He still had flowers sent to you the day of- beautiful bouquet of your favorite blooms delivered to the ICU in front of the entire staff and he came up to your floor when he had a moment. ‘Your boyfriend must really love you,’ a patient commented and before you could respond- ‘he does,’ Jack replied for you with a soft smile and what could only be described as hearts in his eyes.

“Baby you didn’t- oh,” Jack’s poor ears, that same scream you let out when he tried to join you in the shower- you didn’t hear him come in, even when he called your name because you were lost in picking your fucking body apart and you were still debating on wearing this for him. You were hid behind your bathroom door- saying you’ll be out in a second with a panicked voice but Jack was right on the other side. “What’re you wearing?” He didn’t sound condescending or was laughing like you told yourself he would- but god Jack was dying on the inside to sound controlled because what he saw for that short amount of time looked good to him. He could feel his jeans a little tighter but he waited. He wanted you to be comfortable and want to show him.

“Nothing,” you rolled your eyes at yourself before sighing, “we went shopping and they convinced me to buy this and I wanted to surprise you but I hate it and-” you rambled- spewing nonsense about what you had on while slowing opening the door. You’ve been with Jack for almost a year- you trust him, you love him. Shouldn’t you just be happy? He’s never made you feel anything other than loved and important and- god the way he looked at you could only be described as hungry.

Jack swallowed hard- eyes starting to rake over your body with desire because whatever the fuck you had on looked good. He’s never been blessed to see you naked but this was just as good- the dip of your hips and curve of your sides made his mouth fucking water. Jack feels bad but he honestly wasn’t listening to a fucking thing you said- breathing getting a little harder with each slow step he takes towards you until he presses you back into the bathroom counter and traps you in with his arms in either side of your body. He ghosts his hand over your side- eyes meeting yours in a silent pleading for your permission to be able to touch you.

Once you nod- it’s game over.

Jack doesn’t know where to start first- he feels like a fucking kid on Christmas because he’s been given the ultimate gift of your fucking body and he doesn’t know where he should begin to touch you. He starts by dragging the fabric up your thighs- bunching it around your hips with a groan because the softness of your skin makes his cock jump. His other hand cups your face- tilts your head back to steal a kiss that makes your knees weak and when his tongue slides along your own you feel yourself buckle under the pressure but Jack keeps you upright. His heavy hands both slide down to your hips, rounding back to grip right underneath the thick meat of your ass to squeeze before picking you up with ease.

“Fuck- you look so beautiful baby,” Jack starts to ramble now. Mumbling against your lips- lowering you onto your counter before sliding between your thighs and wrapping them around his waist. The plushness has him impossibly hard- his hands finding their way to your chest to cup at your heavy breasts and tease your nipples through the fabric. “All this for me?” You nod- closing your eyes and feeling his lips against your neck, nipping and biting along your skin while he grinds himself against your core. Your hands shake, grabbing at his shirt but he’s faster- throwing it off of his body and for once you thank god the lights of your bathroom are on and bright to allow you to see his body. Each dip and valley- the muscles and how they move underneath his skin- the grey hair that dusts his chest- god he was beautiful and yet here he was whispering the same in your ear. Words are slurred- his voice rasped in your ear while he helps you unbuckle his belt and push the fabric down this thick, muscular thighs. You’re already reaching for his cock- giving the entire heavy length of him a few strokes but he stops you before you can drag him between your folds.

“No, off-” Jack groans out- forcing himself away from you for only a moment. “Turn,” you’ve never seen his eyes so dark- never heard his voice sound to commanding but it had you forget yourself and those stupid insecurities long enough to hop off the counter and turn to face your dreaded mirror. You don’t even see yourself- you can only really pay attention to Jack who was behind you with the most obvious look of desire you’d ever seen. He drags the back of the dress over your ass- heavy hand pushing you to lean forward on your counter with a groan as he watches your ass jiggles from being free from the fabric of your panties that he rips off your body.

“Look at your reflection,” another command- said while he teases the tip of his cock between your folds until he finally can’t deny himself any longer. You both groan when he slides him- both huff out a gasp because that fucking stretch makes you see stars every fucking time he shoves his cock inside you. “Look at how gorgeous you are,” Jack speaks into the air but he needs you to know how perfect he thinks you are. His eyes finally tear themselves away from how pretty your face looks with your mouth hanging open from each thrust into your cunt.

“Jack- Jack- fuck, baby wait-” he sets a hard pace- heavy thrusts into your pussy that sucks him in with ease. Fucking greedy pussy, framed by each ripple of your skin when your ass bounces against his hips- jiggling skin that he can’t stop watching. Soft rolls of your back desperately for him to grab and hold onto- his hands running over your back and hips and soft thighs taking the rough way he’s fucking you.

“So fucking gorgeous when I’m fucking you like this. So pretty for me, and only for me,” he’s lost in your body- feeling his balls tight and desperate to be empty but he’s trying to hold on. Trying to force himself to wait because he’s convinced this is fucking heaven but he can’t- your pussy clenches, watching his blissed out face when he looks down at how perfect your fucking body looks he cums embarrassingly fast. Hot ropes of his cum painting your walls- dripping down your cunt when he pulls out and before you can turn back Jack is on his knees behind you.

“Ah- wait- Jack!” Your pleas fall on deaf ears- or maybe he couldn’t hear you purely because he had your soft thighs wrapped around his head so he can get as close as possible to taste your mixed spend. Licking his cum from your pussy, eagerly lapping at your wet folds and moaning when he shoves his tongue inside your cunt because he can feel you clench around him when you cum on his tongue. Forcing your thighs open with strong hands- his broad shoulders keeping them spread apart before he can drag his tongue up.

You’ve created a monster.

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[somethingeh]

Obvious

pairing - michael “robby” robinovitch x reader

word count - 5.8k

summary - you think robby doesn’t like you. robby thinks you’re pretty.

cw - some derogatory language towards women

a/n - classes started again this week and i’m crying. i need more robby after episode 3 the other night. if robby dies, i die, so he’s not leaving cuz i KNOW they can’t let me leave. ffs wear a helmet you beautiful idiot >:( but this was super fun to write hope you like it! i'm thinking of writing a robby POV version too (p.s. can you tell i know nothing about pool?)

---

You kind of thought silly crushes were in the past for you. You were a grown up, with a grown up job, and grown up friends. You weren’t supposed to get butterflies when their hand brushed yours, or get excited just by them saying good morning. It was childish, and you didn’t have time for it.

That was until Michael Robinovitch entered the picture.

It wasn’t entirely the same; instead of the giddiness you felt in high school, you felt frustration whenever those butterflies flew. You were a little annoyed with yourself for letting a girlish adoration get the best of you. Adult relationships were simpler because you knew how to communicate better by that point. You saw someone, you thought they were cute, you asked them out.

Therein laid the issue. See, Robby was your coworker. You’re boss, kind of. You were a nurse, newly hired after moving to Pittsburgh, you had been working at Allegheny for just about eight months, and you were happy there. There were many reasons you could not ask Robby out. For one, you had just gotten out of a relationship a couple months prior, an almost decade long one, one you moved halfway across the country for, and you were still untangling that web. For another, you were sure HR would not be thrilled about romance between two ER workers.

And most importantly, you were 85% sure that he had absolutely zero interest in you. 

When you confided in Dana (somewhat drunkenly) about your feelings for Robby, and how unbelievably disinterested he was, she tried to console you, saying “he’s gruff with everybody!”

You knew he was. That was the problem. He didn’t seem to treat you any differently than Langdon, or Perlah. He liked you, sure. Thought you were a good nurse, admired your drive and skill, but that was the extent. Every once and a while you’d forget yourself, let a flirty line slip, and he’d chuckle, and joke back, but what else was he supposed to do?

You were glad it was Dana whom you confided in, and not one of the residents, or god forbid Princess or Perlah or Jesse, the gossips. Still, whenever she wiggled her eyebrows at you behind Robby’s back, you had your regrets.

Like now. You had just finished up a trauma, MVA victim with multiple fractures and internal damage. He was talking one minute, crashed the next, and it had taken you and the doctors a while to solve his hemorrhaging.

But in the end he was stabilised and sent up to surgery, which you were all too happy to tell his husband, who hadn’t been in the car with him, but was waiting outside the room for almost an hour on tenterhooks.

When you finished up there, you mozied over to the nurse’s station to get started on your charting while you had a second. You never knew how long a second would last in the pitt. Robby was drinking some coffee by the breakroom, but he made his way over to lean on the counter next to your desk while he sipped. As you logged in you could feel his eyes on you, but you kept your neck straight forward, determined not to meet his gaze. It was those devastating brown eyes that hit you the hardest, and you already felt weak that day.

“Nice catch on the DIC,” he said gruffly.

“Thanks,” you said carefully, smiling but keeping your eyes on the screen. “It was a pretty straightforward case.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said. “For some of the med students in there, that was their first time seeing it. I didn’t think to check his platelets.”

Your chest swelled with pride, mixed with exasperation and embarrassment.

“You would have gotten there eventually,” you teased.

Which was true. Whether they realized it ahead of time or not, the shockingly low level would have stood out when his labs got back. But maybe you should give yourself some credit, you were running on little sleep, hour nine of your shift.

Robby chuckled, warm and raspy. You needed to get away from him.

You clicked out of your account, chart half finished, and stood.

“I’m gonna go check on Mr. Wallace,” you said breezily.

As you leaned over the formica to grab a tablet, Dana caught your eye with a smirk. You cleared your throat and looked away, glowering slightly. Robby straightened up. 

“Need any help?”

“Nope, all good,” you said, hoping you sounded less stiff than you felt. “Just some simple sutures. And a reminder to not stop taking his propranolol just because his blood pressure gets better.”

You snuck a quick peak at his face, which was a mistake. His warm eyes crinkled in a small smile, salt and pepper beard tugged upward. And those damn glasses. You swivelled on your heel and stalked off to North 3, clutching the ipad tightly to your chest.

Get it together, you told yourself harshly.

By hour eleven, you were very ready to go home. Your back ached, your bra was itchy, and you were having a little trouble focusing your eyes on the screen. You had just cleared a patient’s discharge paperwork when out of the corner of your eye you saw a cup placed on the table in front of you. Your eyes trailed up to the hand that placed it and saw Robby’s face. It wasn’t particularly happy or sad, just blank.

“Thank you,” you stuttered. “But I don’t drink —”

“It’s tea,” he cut you off.

You were taken aback. You didn’t realize anyone else was even aware of the tea bags that sat forgotten at the back of a cupboard in the staff room. You were pretty sure you were the only one that ever used them. He probably bullied a poor intern into making it for you. Still, you were a little touched. As you gazed into his eyes, speechless, he spoke again.

“You’ve still got an hour left on your shift and you look exhausted,” he said. “Keep going strong, we need you. It’s still a zoo out there.”

He grabbed a chart and left to see a patient. Your unconscious smile fell back to a frown. Well, there went that. You slapped your cheeks and sipped your tea. It was piping hot, and just how you liked it. Plain with just a bit of honey.

That time, you didn’t see Dana’s knowing glance from across the room. 

***

You were back again the next day, third back-to-back shift of three, and you were not happy to be out in the rain. At seven in the morning, no less.

To avoid spending your whole day soggy, you commuted in some sweats, planning to change in the bathroom. As you walked in through the front doors, late, tips of your toes and cuffs of your pants soaked, you almost ran head first into Robby. You had been too busy cursing yourself for not owning any rainboots. He steadied you with his large strong hands, and you tried to pretend your daze was due to being jostled around rather than the burning where he was touching you.

“There you are,” he said, and he let you go. “What happened?”

His gaze was moving steadily down your body, taking in your lazy pants and toothpaste stained college hoodie, eyebrows slightly raised. 

You huffed and took a few steps back. Each one squelched with rain, and you grimaced, tugging self consciously at your rain jacket, hoping your baby hairs weren’t frizzing up too much.

“I still haven’t gotten around to getting a new car,” you sighed. “Had to take the bus.”

“What happened to your car?”

“Technically I shared it with Nick,” you said, avoiding his eyes. “I got the apartment, he got the car.”

His mouth straightened into a tense line, and, afraid of pitying remarks, you continued on quickly, crossing your arms.

“Any chance you have an extra pair of socks?”

“Uh” — he took one more hefty glance at your attire — “I bet Dana does.”

With a stiff nod, you started towards her desks. After a few more loud steps, you gave up, toed your sneakers off, picked them up and continued in your damp socks. Your face was burning by the time you reached the nurse’s station, but Dana either didn’t notice or was nice enough not to comment.

“Anyone got any dry socks?”

Her, Princess, and Donny’s eyes snapped to your hunched figure, filling almost at once with mirth.

“Jesus, kid,” said Dana, taking off her glasses while Donny snickered. “What, you swim here?”

Your hands moved to your hips. You were starting to create a puddle, which you didn’t want Esme to have to clean up.

“Socks?”

“You have got to just suck it up and get a car,” said Princess, as Dana pulled a fresh pair from her mom-bag of mysteries. “You’ve been broken up for almost three months!”

“Thanks,” you muttered, snatching the socks. “I appreciate the life advice.”

The three of them were still laughing as you shuffled off to the bathroom. When you emerged in dry clothes, you once again found Robby’s path intersecting with yours. This time, you both made sure to stop before you collided.

“Dr. Robby,” you nodded.

“You look… dry,” he said.

“Um, thanks,” you said, tugging your sleeves.

You automatically fell into work, walking towards the ambulance bay while Robby filled you in on the incoming trauma, tree collapsed on a family's house. Luckily, none of the kids were in range of falling plaster and wood, but the dad had some pretty gnarly looking bruises and a head injury. When you reached the double doors, he stopped you from splitting off with the touch of a hand to your elbow. You whipped back around fast enough to be embarrassing.

“Next time it rains, just call me, and I’ll pick you up,” he said, grabbing some gloves.

Your heart stuttered.

“Oh, that’s okay,” you wave off awkwardly. “You don’t need to drive me.”

“You were almost twenty minutes late,” he said bluntly, and he walked off, leaving you with a furrowed brow and sinking disappointment.

With a sigh, you turned and stomped off to prep Trauma 2.

The dad ended up being fine, a couple broken ribs and a mild concussion. You smiled so hard as you watched the mom and all three children crowd around Robby and give him grateful hugs, you had to excuse yourself. Dana grabbed you quickly, asking you to check up on a Mr. Weil who found himself with multiple staples in his hand.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’m sort of foisting him off on you,” she muttered, handing you the tablet with his info. “He’s given me kind of a hard time so far. Not so happy to be here.”

“Who is?” you half-joked. “I got him, Dana, don’t worry about it.”

“Not so happy to be here” was an understatement on Dana’s part. Mr. Weil was a clean shaven, gelled haired, calf-implanted nightmare. Did you know his suit was Armani? It probably cost more than your apartment, but you weren’t about to admit that to him. It was clear he had no intention of settling down.

“It's about time someone paid attention to me!” he complained as you prepared lidocaine. “You know I’ve been waiting out there for four hours?!”

“Yes, sir, you mentioned,” you said, trying not to show any emotion on your face. “Unfortunately we have limited staff, and we see people based on urgency.”

He scoffed.

“I have good insurance,” he said. “I make more than all those patients combined! I could pay your salary, sweetie!”

You were perhaps a little less gentle than you could have been upon injecting his hand. It didn’t particularly upset you to see him wince.

“Ow, watch it!” he yelled. “Are you sure there aren’t any doctors available?”

“Positive,” you gritted out. “Hold still.”

“Well, I want plastic surgery down here to consult,” he commanded.

It took everything in you not to roll your eyes.

“That definitely won’t be necessary, sir,” you said. “You won’t even need stitches.”

“No stitches? What are you gonna do, let me bleed out?”

“You won’t bleed out from your hand,” you said, monotone. “Due to the depth of the wounds, stitching them closed could only trap bacteria under your skin. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

He sucked his teeth in displeasure.

“I want a doctor’s opinion,” he said.

“I guarantee you it would be the same as mine,” you said, prodding the area around the staples. “Do you feel that?”

“No,” he said, whiny like a child. “Won’t leaving it open make it more likely to scar?”

You grabbed your pliers.

“You are free to pursue whatever medical care you want on your own time,” you said. “It looks like the staples are folded on some of them, so I’m just gonna cut them in half. How’d you end up with them anyways?”

He huffed, watching you cut the middle of the staples.

“My bitch assistant found out about my girlfriend.”

“Wow,” you said, glaring at his hand. “She must have been pissed, these are pretty deep.”

“Yeah, she’s crazy,” he chuckled meanly. “You better believe she’s getting sued for more than she’s worth.”

“I do believe,” you muttered darkly, beginning to pull the metal bits out of the skin.

It would have been almost calming, if it weren’t for whose hand it was. He hadn’t hesitated a second to tell you he was cheating on his girlfriend, didn’t seem the least bit ashamed. You often wondered if that was what had prompted Nick’s leaving. He never admitted anything, but during the last few weeks, there was hardly a night he didn’t spend working late. Or so he said.

Once all the staples were out you flushed the punctures with saline. He wiggled his fingers.

“This better not mess with my grip,” he complained. “I have a 110 mile per hour swing.”

Yeah right.

“You play?” he asked as you applied neosporin. “I’m sure you’ve got tons of doctors to take you out, but I promise you’ve never seen someone play like me. I could teach you a thing or two.”

You looked up incredulously and he winked. The nerve of this man.

“I don’t think your girlfriend would like that,” you said, trying to keep your eyes on the task at hand. “Or your assistant.”

“They don’t have to know a thing,” he said in a low voice, leaning closer. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

He smelled like he’d bathed in expensive cologne. It stung your eyes, and you leaned back, rolling your chair away from his bed.

“I’m good,” you said, as politely as you could. Which wasn’t the most polite.

His eyes hardened. You grabbed some Kerlix.

“You think you’re too good for me?” he seethed. “You’re just a nurse. And a shit one, too.”

His voice was rising steadily, and there were only curtains separating you from other patients and workers. You tried to keep going but he snatched his hand away when you reached for it.

“I bet you’re good a dick sucking, because you sure as hell aren’t good at anything else! Who’d you blow to get this job?”

You sighed wearily.

“Just let me finish wrapping up your hand,” you said.

“No way am I letting you fucking touch me!” he yelled, jumping to his feet. “I want a doctor, or I’m suing! You hear me? I’ll sue everyone in this goddamn second grade hospital, you ugly bitch!”

“Hey!”

The curtain snapped back and Robby stood there, eyebrows set in a heavy line, breathing a little heavier than usual. He didn’t glance at you as he stepped into the space, his eyes locked on to Mr. Weil. Mr. Weil seemed unsure of what to do, sizing Robby up as he approached. Robby was definitely taller, and the look on his face was dark enough to strike fear into much braver men.

“This is a hospital,” said Robby, eerily quiet. “And there are other patients getting care here. Do you understand that?”

When Mr. Weil spoke again, it was in a remarkably lower tone, though still tense.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do when I’ve been waiting four fucking hours for a fucking nurse to poke around my wounds like an idiot! I deserve a doctor!”

Robby crossed his arms.

“That nurse is incredibly skilled and seasoned. I have no doubts in her ability to treat your minor wounds.”

“Minor —?”

“And if you speak that way again, I’ll have to insist you leave this hospital and seek care elsewhere.”

Mr. Weil gawped. Clearly his supposedly large bank account had gained him great favor in the past, but not with Robby. Without another word, he grabbed the Kerlix from your hand, ushered you out of your seat, and took your place. You watched as he began bandaging the man’s hand, who sat at once, seemingly out of words. A whole mess of emotions was rushing through you, but frustration was one of them.

“Robby, I’m fine, I can finish the —”

“Go take a break,” he said gruffly. “I’ll finish up here. To avoid any further disturbances.”

You couldn’t tell if he was mad at you. The back of his head wasn’t giving you much. Rather than argue to stay with Mr. Weil, you exited the room somewhat angrily, pulling the curtain shut harshly behind you. 

“What was that all about?” asked Donny almost immediately, falling into step alongside you.

“Just some asshole unable to take rejection,” you murmured, discarding your soiled gloves. “The usual. Need help with anything?”

You were setting up an IV for elderly little Mrs. Diaz, probable UTI case, when Robby found you again. He knocked on the glass and gestured for you. You excused yourself and stepped past the door.

“How’s it going in there?” he asked.

“Good, got a urine sample sent off for culture,” you said, crossing your arms. “Smell definitely says infection.”

“Right,” he said. “Well, I sent Mr. Weil home.”

“Oh,” you said awkwardly. “Um, good.”

Robby nodded.

“He, uh, he didn’t lay his hands on you, or anything, did he?”

“No,” you said quickly. “No, just yelling.”

“Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

There was a moment of silence. “So, did you need something?”

“No, just wanted to keep you updated,” he said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

And he walked away. You let out a breath. Did he not think you could handle patients on your own? It wasn’t the first time one had yelled at you, the entire team had been yelled at more times than you could count, not to mention the violent interactions. But something felt different, the way he had completely taken over for you. Surely he didn’t blame you for Mr. Weil’s reaction. You didn’t think he even knew the whole story.

No, you decided eventually, he just didn’t want a repeat of that explosive event. 

By the time your shift was winding down, night shifters appearing and demanding locker space, the rain had stopped and you had seen almost thirty patients. Luckily, none were nearly as terrible as Greasy McGolfer, and you didn’t feel entirely dead as you packed up your stuff. You were the last to leave, or so you thought, until Robby appeared at your elbow while you shoved your still damp sweatshirt into your bag.

“Hey,” he said casually.

“Oh, hi,” you said with a smile. “You headed home?”

“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to grab a beer?”

You paused, veins thrumming as they always did when Robby was near. You were planning on getting takeout and watching Legally Blonde for the millionth time until you passed out, but suddenly you felt wide awake. Sometimes everyone sat and drank in the park after a hard shift. The others must have already been waiting there.

“Okay!” you said. “Let’s go.”

You didn’t see Robby’s wide smile as you zipped up your jacket.

You loved the way the city smelled after a rain storm. Fresh, and clean, and familiar. Robby held out a hand to help you jump over some puddles, which you took, as your shoes still weren’t entirely dry and you weren’t interested in worsening the situation. You let go of his arm quickly, so as not to lean into him too much.

Luckily, the rain had forced Robby to drive to work, rather than take his death bike. You had expressed your displeasure of his motorcycle many times. He would say “I’m not taking advice from a nurse who watches Grey’s Anatomy,” and you had said “judge all you want, but if anyone ever comes in with a bomb in their chest, I’ll be ready.” That was the first time you’d gotten a true, deep belly laugh out of him, and the first time you’d thought crap, he’s gorgeous.

To your surprise, he drove you not to the park, but right past it. You didn’t question him as he drove you downtown, to a little irish pub, a real bar. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was certainly a step up from a cooler of Budlights on a wet bench.

Even more surprising was that you didn’t see anyone from work there. You didn’t mention it, as he steered you to a booth in the back and took your coat. He greeted the bartender like he was an old friend and planted you down in a comfortable, cushy red rounded bench.

“Drink?”

“Please,” you said. “Do they have Sapporo?”

“Honey, I wouldn’t take you out to a place that didn’t have Sapporo.”

Your face flushed. You had never heard him call anyone honey before. You hadn’t even realized you were smiling until you reached up to feel your burning cheek. You glanced around. You had never been to the bar before, but you were unsurprised Robby had. It was classic, with shelves of liqueur behind the counter, and a real beer tap, and pool in the corner. You doubted any college students were sneaking in.

Robby announced his return by placing a bottle of beer in front of you. He himself had a beer, what looked like an amber ale in a glass. You took a swig. Even in the dim lighting he looked good. Soft eyes, slightly tired, sleeves rolled up and one elbow leaning against the table.

Since the booth was a semi circle, it was hard to be on one side or the other. You could feel his warmth, even with a few feet in between you. 

“You come here often, huh?” you said, thinking of the bartender’s greeting.

“Oh yeah, have for years,” he said. “Since I was a med student myself.”

“Wow,” you said. “Has it changed much?”

“Not a bit,” he said fondly. “I’m pretty sure I’m in one of the pictures on the wall, from when we won the Stanley cup in ‘09.”

You breathed a laugh.

“And where were you the other four times?”

“Working, of course,” he said.

You hummed in understanding.

“Well, I hate to break it to you,” you said, putting on a mock-serious expression. “But I’m a Bruins fan.”

He smiled around the rim of his glass.

“Ooh, yeah,” he sighed. “That might be a problem. See, the Penguins are objectively a better team.”

You scoffed.

“They literally aren’t!” you said. “Last time I counted, we had more cups than you.”

“One more,” he mumbled, eyes alight with humor.

You laughed, giddily. Looking down, you realized that you had subconsciously angled your body inward to face him, and he was doing the same. The two of you were looking awfully isolated in that back booth. You wished someone else would show up, because you were pretty sure that you were about to say something stupid. Something about his eyes, or his laugh. You needed a buffer.

“Hey!” you said suddenly, grabbing his arm. “You any good at pool?”

He scrunched his nose.

“Ish,” he said. “Most of the time I just lose to Abbot.”

“Well today’s your lucky day,” you said, pulling him to his feet. “I’ve never played. Get ready to win by a million.”

He chuckled as you pulled him over to a free table. You picked up a cue and handed one to him, placing your beer down on a side table. He removed a triangle border from around the balls. 

“Alright,” he said. “How much do you know?”

“I hit the white ball, and the white ball knocks the other balls into the holes,” you said.

“More or less,” he said. “I’ll break, and you just watch what I do.”

You did watch. You watched his hands grip the cue, and his ass as he leaned down over the table. The actual shot, you just caught a glimpse of it. The balls clacked against each other as they rolled in every direction. He straightened up and grabbed his beer.

“See?” he said, stepping back. “I mean, that wasn’t good, but that’s the basic mechanism. You try.”

You stepped over to where the white ball was, carefully raising your cue so as to not hit the wrong kind of balls. You leaned over and thought that maybe pool was a horrible idea, as your ass bumped his hip. But when he reached an arm around your shoulders to correct your grip, you thought maybe it was the best idea you’d ever had.

Robby ended up winning, which didn’t surprise you. Not only was it your first time playing, but your attention was decidedly elsewhere during the game. Even so, your ribs hurt from laughing and you were using your pool cue for support. You had never seen the fun side of Robby before, the free side, without Gloria or patient satisfaction scores looming over his head. If you thought his smile looked good under the fluorescent lighting of the ER, it was nothing compared to the easy, relaxed version on the outside.

Somehow, almost two hours had passed by the time you sat back down in your booth. You had forgotten all about the others. You were having a great time, alone with Robby, just barely buzzed, and didn’t really care much about what had happened to the rest of the group. Robby had slid a little further into the seat this time, only inches between your thigh and his, and his arm resting on the edge of the booth above your shoulders.

“They have pretty good pizza here,” he said, leaning perhaps a little unnecessarily close. “Want a slice?”

“Mm, oh my god, yes,” you moaned, snacking on pretzels from the bowl on the table. “I’m starving.”

He smiled, and laid a warm hand over yours for a second, then parted, with an, “I’ll be right back.”

You watched him go happily. As you finished off the dregs of your beer, a middle-aged, tattooed waitress appeared to take the bottle. She smiled kindly at you as she did, showing off dimples and a nose ring.

“Can I get you a refill, hon?”

“I’m all set, thanks,” you smiled back.

“You’re his nurse, right?” she said, eyes twinkling.

You blinked owlishly up at her.

“What?”

“Well, he’s told us about you, of course!” she laughed. “You are even cuter than I pictured! ’Bout time he —”

“Thank you, Selene,” said Robby, interjecting quickly, with two plates of cheese pizza in one hand, the other guiding the waitress away from your table.

She waved cheerfully at you as Robby sat down, and you waved back. He slid your pizza to you and you took it, looking at him skeptically.

“You’ve told them about me?” you asked.

“Sure, I mean,” he took a bite of pizza. “I talk about work, and people at work.”

Your lungs constricted. You picked up your slice.

“Good things, I hope?”

“Only the best,” he said cheekily.

You bit into your pizza.

Robby was funny. He cracked jokes at work, but they always came under an air of great stress. You could tell he was relaxed with you because he made you laugh until you cried. And interesting to, smart, and well read. Not a surprise, but even on matters outside of medicine, like politics, and history. He listened to the things you said. You could talk, and he would listen.

The more time you spent with Robby, the more you compared him to your ex, and the more desirable he became. It was when you started picturing more moments alone with Robby that you forced yourself to end the night and asked him to take you home.

You both waved goodbye to the bartender, and Selene, who winked, and the conversation never broke in the car. When he pulled up to your apartment, he opened the door for you and helped you out. You chatted as he walked you to your door.

“I’m one hundred percent serious,” you said. “I heard it from my own ears! At least half the med students have raging crushes on Abbot. I can hear them gushing in the mornings by the lockers.”

Robby chuckled.

“So, he’s like — the McDreamy?”

You stopped dead with one foot on the cement step. You were smiling from ear to ear.

“You watched Grey’s Anatomy?”

“Don’t get too excited,” he said. “I only made it through about half a season.”

You tried and failed to straighten your face.

“I can’t believe you watched it,” you said, quieter than you meant to. “You hate medical dramas.”

His lips pulled into a smile so tender, you didn’t want to ever look away. He was backlit unfortunately by the sconce above your foyer door, but you could see every line of his face perfectly. Maybe because you spent so much time memorizing it over charts and med orders.

Then he kissed you.

At first just a soft peck, but he lingered. His lips were as soft as you imagined them. Softer, even. You leaned your head back, allowing him to deepen it. Your hands slipped up, one in his hair, one on his cheek, while he snaked his around your waist. He pulled you closer until your bodies were borderline flush with each other.

You could feel his pulse thrumming fast against your wrist, and his beard was scratching your palm. Maybe it was this, or the feeling of his breath against your cheek as he sighed, that shocked you back into reality.

You pulled away quick, breathing heavily, hands on his shoulders. When you finally looked into his eyes, his pupils were quite dilated.

“Wait,” you breathed. “Wait — what just happened?”

He cleared his throat.

“We kissed,” he said slowly.

You pulled away completely, out of his arms. He took a step back too, now looking confused. You were struggling to find words. Perhaps sensing this, he spoke first.

“I’m, um, sorry if I moved too fast,” he said earnestly. “I thought — I had a really good time on the date, and —”

“Date?” you interrupted, still feeling a bit hazy from the kiss. “That was a date?!”

Now you were both speechless, staring at each other in confusion, air still charged. Robby shoved his hands in his sweatshirt pockets and took another step back. There was a hint of pain in his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “Or, I guess I thought it was. I guess not, though, if you had no idea.”

He sounded tired. You were struggling to comprehend. Robby had asked you out? Robby? The stoic, stern, obsessed with work Robby? And you missed it?!

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought… I had been flirting for a while, I thought you knew how I felt. I thought I made it obvious.”

A little squeak escaped you.

“Obvious?” you all but whispered.

You chuckled despite yourself. Robby opened his mouth but you cut him off. All of a sudden, you had too many words.

“Please explain to me how anything you’ve ever done or said was obvious,” you said, turning and pacing back and forth in front of your door. “How it was supposed to convey anything other than professional appreciation. Seriously, I would like to know!”

He looked taken aback.

I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sorry, okay? Nothing has to change, we’re still coworkers. I thought I had waited an appropriate amount of time. That’s what Jack said.”

“An appropriate amount of time for what?” you said frantically. 

“After your break up!” he said, hands in the air. “And look, that’s on me, I shouldn’t have listened to Abbot. He hasn’t been on a date in twenty years.”

You started laughing again, but this time, out of joy. Realization was beginning to dawn on you, warm and fuzzy: Michael Robinovitch asked you out. Michael Robinovitch liked you. Liked you enough to discuss it with Abbot. And he had been trying to show it for weeks.

Before Robby could force out another apology, you flung yourself at him, smashing your lips to his. He caught you somewhat awkwardly, but found his footing. This kiss was different. It was desperate, and messy, and giggly, and heated. A tug on his hair caused him to sigh contentedly. His hands wrapped back around you like they’d been itching to since you pulled away. They left a trail of buzzing in their wake, an excitement you hadn’t felt in years, revitalizing you instantly. 

You broke apart but stayed close, forehead to sweaty forehead, sharing air.

“You are terrible at flirting,” you said with a giddy smile.

He huffed a laugh.

“I’m much more smooth when I’m not around you,” he said. “You make it kinda hard to focus.”

Your hands suddenly jumped to your face.

“Oh my god,” you hissed. “Oh my god.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t believe you let me go out on our first date like this!” you said, smoothing down baby hairs that had surely popped up. “I’m in my scrubs, I’m exhausted, I’m not even wearing any makeup —”

He started laughing, and squeezed your sides. You shrieked, hands going over his.

“You’re adorable,” he said fondly. “You’re always adorable.”

You sighed, letting your head fall to his chest.

“You only think that because you’ve never seen me dressed up,” you said. “Just wait.”

“I’m very excited,” he said, tucking your head under his chin. “But I’m fairly certain my opinion won’t change.”

You nuzzled further into his neck. You didn’t want him to leave. And he didn’t have to.

“Michael,” you said dreamily. “Let’s go upstairs.”

He pulled back with a grin.

“Both of us?”

“Definitely.”

You pulled out your keys and unlocked the main door.

“You’re not working tomorrow, right?” you asked.

“No,” he said, hands never leaving your waist. “But my car —”

“I have a parking spot,” you waved away. “It’ll still be there tomorrow. You have more important things to worry about.”

You pulled him inside and shut the door.

You couldn’t wait to tell Dana.

[thegoddessofnothingness]

Me after the slightest inconvenience in life:

[science-hoes]

Anyways

[bodhiscurls]

waited all night for you, i'll wait forever. ( johnny storm )

after an long coming arguement with your boyfriend at dinner, you leave, desperate for space. forty thousand missed calls and texts later, you come back in the morning when you've cooled off only to find johnny storm slumped against your front door where he's waited all night for and will wait forever too.

human torch! johnny storm x fem! reader

themes: fluff, mainly angst, reconciliation, johnny being an absent partner.

masterlist.

if you ask johnny, he thinks it starts during dinner.

he turned up fifteen minutes late, saw your back turned to him at a table positioned in the corner- away from all the main attention and pressed a soft kiss to your hair before he slumped in the seat opposite you.

he murmured a sorry, delved into some story about reed holding him back after the attack and before he knew it his apology had turned into a whole recount of his really exciting, really scary day.

you nodded, let out a few "wows" that landed offhandedly and he tried not to let the fact that you were slowly pulling away from him ruin the ambience. you two didn't get to go out too much, with johnny being recognised almost everywhere he went- he wanted some normalcy, some privacy and to shelter you from the nasty opinions of losers in the world.

he wanted things to be just his- you, to be just his. and you smiled, laughed when he left a gap for a reaction but something was still playing on his mind, taunting him as you stared. it wasn't your usual look of adoration, a glance so soft it liquidifies his whole body till he's left in a puddle of love. this look feels detached, like you're there but you're not here until he catches it- and freezes.

"fuck me," he whispers and you murmur in agreement.

"took you long enough to notice," you sigh, the bite doesn't land the way you hoped it to- leaving the taste of fatigue and pasta die on your tongue. his gaze is still stuck on his supersuit he wasn't bothered to change out of- the white and blues roaring under his red jacket he threw on in a hurry to come and meet you.

"baby, i'm so fucking sorry, shit i didn't mean-" he starts but you just raise your hand gently, a subtle peace offering and bow your head.

"johnny, let's not do this now," you meet his gaze and he dies at the fading light. he's really fucked this up, he opens his mouth to plead, to prove you wrong to apologise- because if there's one thing about johnny storm it is that he doesn't back down- not without a fight. however, the earth comes to a standstill, stepping on the cracks of his heart till he's left holding his last breath at the sound of a faint, "please," you add to the silence.

so he lets it go.

he eats painfully slow, hoping to drag out this moment of half-hearted peace, savour the calm before the storm but the tide is creeping in and coming for him. you eat in silence, combatting his attempt to lighten the mood with updates about sue's pregnancy and his excitement to be an uncle but the smile doesn't quite reach your eyes. it doesn't burn like sunshine and bleed into his rising sky. its hollow and johnny hates himself for it.

you don't bother with dessert, you didn't reach for a drink you settled with water and when the bill comes, johnny slams his card down onto the table and rushes to bring the car out front. its a cowardly escape he knows, but some part of him just wants to get home and settle this before he loses you to something bigger.

you don't even have the care to shrug your jacket on, letting the cold evening air bite at your bare shoulders. it was your first date out in weeks and you wore the little black dress you knew johnny loved on you almost as much as he loves taking it off of you. he hadn't even given you so much as a glance before delving into his day.

so where johnny thinks this has happened mid-dinner, you know the truth. this has started in the weeks before- the busier days, the less truthful nights where he doesn't completely open up, the missed dinner dates albeit he is late to a few and more than anything, it feels like he's so content on hiding you that it upsets you more than anything. you've loved him your whole life- before he became the human torch, before he started joining his brother in law in saving the world, before he became someone elses, he was yours.

and its hard to feel like you're on the same page when he's starting an entirely new different chapter.

he pulls up outside the restaurant and though you stand there now you can't help but feel like you've lost a piece of yourself in there.

the you that found this place hidden a few blocks out years back, the you that would reenact the lady and the tramp scene with johnny over spaghetti, even though it embarrassed you you knew he loved it, the you who would sit by his side in closeness and never opposite. the you who didn't have to hide in the corner and pretend like your love was diluted into the walls.

he gets out of the car, opens your passenger door and you gingerly get in. he curses as a recognition of camera flashes and a few women scream "johnny!" and shoots you a look of pure desperation and regret.

the only thing you grace him with is a small thank you and a sigh as you nestle into the seat, the feeling of familiar wrapping around you like an old friend. you think his car is obnoxious, but slowly it grew on you and its seen too many of your best memories to hate it.

johnny reaches across and he's suddenly so in your space. he's inches from your lips, his skin dangerously close to yours and your heart, despite the earlier tense confrontation (if you can even call it that), skips a few beats, stuttering in a childhood blush. it kind of reminds you when you first started seeing each other, how he would always have his hands on you, never let you go, how he could spend forever in your orbit but still look at you like you took his breath away for the very first time.

you think he actually might kiss you- it's been weeks and you hate yourself for actually getting excited, for leaning in a little bit closer on the edge of pure want and need when you feel a strap pull. he stretched the seat belt across your body and it clicks with a faint tick into the holder before he pulls back a few milimetres.

"fuck," it's your turn to repeat the earlier sentiment this time as you wipe away the tears that gather at your waterline. the sniffle tears his heart in two and he looks over in concern.

"baby- look, i'm sorry, i didn't mean to upset you tonight- i know this was important and i just forgot- i didn't-" he gets out and when you don't rush to forgive him he just stares.

"i don't think you know what you mean, johnny," you look over, your brows raising and falling as the sentence leaves your lips. "it's not about you being late, or not bothering to even just change- i mean who gives a shit about clothes? i dressed all pretty for you and did that get me anywhere?" you scoff lightly, pausing to press your fingertips into your eyes and blot the tears brewing.

"honey, i-" and you hold up your hand again, asking for a moment to just get out what you have to say whilst the courage still flows through your veins.

"i know you're busy now johnny, you're busy saving the world and i get that. i love that you have this purpose and you're doing so much good but," you breathe, "we haven't been ourselves in a long time. i'm second in whatever game this is and i just can't do it." you look at him, reach over to place your hand on top of his on the gear stick and press your eyes closed for a second.

"you didn't even ask me about my day; you didn't notice the dress i wore for you or that i cut my hair a few days ago- i waited for you, the same way i wait every single night for you to come to bed and hold me like you still love me," you cry, it's no use holding them back.

"i do love you!" he counteracts back immediately, desperately.

"not in the way i need now," you sniffle, "and what hurts is i have to tell you that- you didn't just see that yourself."

"honey, i,"

"please stop the car," you whimper and he looks over in concern.

"baby, i can't let you just leave- not when you're like this, it's late!" he pleads, a wild look settling into his eyes and reaching the pits of his stomach. he interlocks your hands from where you previously placed it on his and kisses your knuckles. you relish lightly in the touch but pull back.

"stop the car," you drop the formalities and establish firmly, your hands interlocking your own in your lap, almost holding you together steadily. and he does with great reluctance and worry, he pulls up on the side, watches you get out of the car- what's worse is you don't even slam the door behind.

you just shake your head with a heart-wrenching exhaustion at johnny and disappear. his eyes widen when he sees you've left your jacket behind and he gets out the car at lightning speed, taking off in your direction.

"don't follow me, johnny, i really can't do this right now," you plead, the tears just falling and falling.

"honey, it's cold and you're gonna get sick, please just at least take your jacket," you pause, pressing your lips together to stifle a sob and nod, letting him help you back into the soft knit of your cardigan that doesn't actually do too much to keep you warm- it just looked pretty with your outfit. what a waste, you want to just laugh at yourself.

"baby, i know you don't want to see me right now but please, come back to the car, please let me talk this out i can fix this," he tries to place a hand on your shoulder but you shrug it off, not wanting to make any eye contact with him either.

"i don't think you can- not tonight at least," you press.

"then i'll take you home and i will leave- but please i need to know you're safe," he begs, "please."

"no," you whisper lethally soft. "i need to not be anywhere that reminds me of you right now so please just- i have my phone on me, i will find a place to stay but i'm not going anywhere with you tonight."

and the fierce determination in eyes lets johnny know you mean it, you've meant everything you've said tonight. so he lets you go, he gets back in the car and waits for you to start walking again. he follows you gingerly and you pretend like you can't recognise the faint purring of the engine that follows you around each street. it stops in the corner of your vision when you disappear through the doors of a hotel but johnny doesn't leave until he gets a notification from his phone; a transaction from your shared account by the hotel to confirm you have a place to stay tonight.

he doesn't want to go home- he has half a mind to drink his problems away or turn to sue- his sister would know what to do but it feels like a betrayal. he hasn't showed up for you in a long time and he can start by making things right tonight. he pulls up to your shared apartment and lets the way his heart burns and pounds in his chest at the feeling of you missing- because he deserves to feel a fraction of the hurt he's caused you, it's the bare minimum.

he has to be home, in case you decide you want to come back- in case you need him to come get you, in case you need him- he is here. where he is always meant to be. the door unlocks with its usual ratty metal squeak and johnny doesn't fancy himself a crier- he's fun johnny, light-hearted, doesn't take himself too seriously johnny, but tonight he lets the persona fall as he slides down the wall.

your home feels like a house without you and he doesn't deserve to sleep in your bed where the smell of you surrounds him a gentle lull goodnight, he doesn't even deserve the couch, he decides. he braces his back against your shoe rack that's missing your favourite pair of heels and his blood roars in agony. the first tears of many falls and he tries to catch them in his hands but they overflow and he takes over in a straight bawl. he hasn't cried in years but the loneliness that suffocates him now, to know that you've felt this way for weeks and he had been too wrapped up in himself to realise, he cries and cries till the tears dry and he slips in and out of sleep. he doesn't know at which point his eyes finally close as his head hangs between his knees but sleep comes for him.

and even in his dreams, he still tries to reach for you.

. . .

"babydoll, fuck i'm so sorry, i shouldn't have been so careless with you. you must've felt so damn lonely and i have been the worst- the worst, and i wish you could come back and we could talk this out- you don't have to talk, you can listen but i've got things i need to get off my chest-"

"fuck, it cut off. but what i'm trying to say is i've been so wrapped up in myself i forgot that there's two of us in this team. it's not an excuse how things have started picking up so quickly, this is all my fucking fault and i'm sorry-"

"what you said back in the car- i know what i mean now, i know that i mean that i'm sorry, for all the times i took advantage and didn't put you first. you deserve so much better than me- than how i've treated you. and i love you, fuck, i'll love you so much better if you could just honour me another chance-"

"fuck- stop cutting me off! (growl) gorgeous i can't breathe- this feels wrong not having you here, i don't deserve you- i don't. if you don't want to forgive me- that's fine. if you dont want to give me a chance- fuck, i understand- fuck, ah, oh my god, that'll be fine, i will make it fine-"

"but please, don't give up on us. don't give up on me- you don't owe me a single thing but i love you and i'll work through this, i'll earn back your trust, i'll be here every single second of the day and i'll remind you why we work so well together- i'll be so good to you baby-"

"baby please-"

"please come home and be angry at me, please just come home, please-"

"(ten seconds of crying)"

"hey gorgeous, haven't heard from johnny this morning he was supposed to swing by, he's not answering his messages, could you get him to call back? thanks honey, love you, come by soon, reed and i miss you!"

"hey honey, it's ben. johnny rang, cried for a second didn't say anything then hung up. i mean, i'll give him shit on it later but it sounded serious. is everything okay?"

. . .

you open the door with a faint nudge, and when it traps halfway you furrow your brows in annoyance, pushing it with all your might. it sends you flying a few steps and straight into a warm body that's scrambling from the ground.

"johnny?" you pull back in confusion, he has his hands planted at your waist, holding you upright from your ambush and lets go suddenly. you miss the warm sensation immediately as he takes a step back, giving you some space.

the distance makes your heart ache but it's what you've asked for and what he tries to honour. he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly and waits for you to address him.

"did you sleep on the floor?" the little gasp that escapes you does not go unnoticed by him and he blinks slowly, sleep still creeping on his features as he flushes a faint shade of pink.

"it didn't feel right to be in our bed without you and i uh, i wanted to be ready in case you called and needed me to come to you," his admission softens something in your heart.

"you've been there all night?"

"all night and i'll wait forever for you if i have to," he nods with quiet determination and at the intensity you pause, last night's memories fresh at the surface.

"i listened to your voicemails, all 82 of them," you confess and you cross the distance, placing a hand on his heart. he leans into your air, the air that wavers and circulates around you- his entire world orbits around you.

"and?" he asks hopeful, his voice the smallest you've ever heard him and it does hurt something raw in you. johnny storm- the embodiment of confidence? shrinking as you speak? impossible- "i really want to fix things, i can't take back what i've done, but- i want to be with you, if you'll still have me."

"oh johnny," you sigh and extend your arms, he steps in them a little unsure, waiting extra confirmation for you which you reassure with a nod, "we start slow," you whisper into his neck as he holds you close. he murmurs into agreement, "anything you need."

and when you break apart and meet his gaze of pure hope and adoration, you press your forehead to his, "i mean it baby," you press, "you can't make me feel like a background character in my own life," and he hangs his head low in a nod.

"i'll prove it to you- i'll never- i'll burn myself whole to keep you warm doll, i'm sorry," his voice cracks and you squeeze him tightly.

"hey now, we do this one step at a time," you pat his back, soothing him gently. "i'm not forgiving you completely but i'm not saying no, either," and he presses his lips together, biting the lower in anxious thought.

"thank you," he breathes.

"by the way, sue's asking for you," and the scoff that leaves his lips surprise you for a moment.

"they can all wait, there's a lot i gotta make up for first and you're my priority," he sways you in his hold, hesitating before pressing a soft kiss to your temple as you lean into him.

it's a start for sure, but the end is not coming because johnny storm is never going to let you go again.

riya saying hi: hellooooo!! another johnny fic woop woop!!! hope you like, hope you love- let me know what you think, thank you so much for even reading <33 i have one more in the drafts, might get it out in the next few days and its a scientist x flirty johnny fic, strangers to lovers and alllll the vibes ugh anyways have a great one!

likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated! 💘

[scarletmika]

The Wonder of You : ̗̀➛ Johnny Storm x Reader

Pairing: Johnny Storm x Reader

Summary: Over your four years working for Reed Richards, you'd given yourself one job: you can be his friend, but don't fall for Johnny Storm's charms. Too bad you had already failed that mission before it could even begin.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY MDNI, SMUT (making out, unprotected sex, p in v, nipple play, oral f. receiving, temperature play, creampie, aftercare), porn with a LOT of plot, slight hint of some angst, fluff, friends to lovers, Johnny is a massive flirt, mutual pining, SPOILERS! for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, female reader but no characteristics described, mentions of parental loss, maybe some incorrect stuff regarding the 60s and how it worked but it's a fantasy world, lightly edited so apologies for any mistakes

Word Count: 17,433 words

Requests are open! : ̗̀➛ Find my masterlist here

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧

“We need to adjust the parameters for this. There’s a few more levels that I want to adjust, to ensure that we’ve scanned the baby for all possible anomalies,”

Years ago, when you had miraculously been offered the position as Dr. Reed Richards assistant, it was a dream come true. The smartest man alive, holding 18 Doctorate degrees himself, choosing you out of the thousands of applicants to be his assistant was a ‘pinch me’ moment. Of course, he didn’t want an assistant, it was thrust upon him by his wife, but you liked to think after all this time you’d wormed your way into his heart.

Working with Reed…was something else entirely. It was a learning curve, understanding just how the man’s brain worked. Even to this day, you weren’t sure you understood it. Even when things went perfectly, when test runs on prototypes worked out better than you could’ve ever imagined, Reed was never satisfied. Something could always be better, be improved, as if his brain was factoring in the hundreds of thousands of possibilities that could occur and alter your data. You made it work, though–with patience and understanding–you managed to find the best way to work around Reed’s faults and work with him, to support him.

What was supposed to be just a job in the Baxter Building became so much more. Through it, you gained a family you never thought quite possible.

Reed’s wife, Susan Storm, was another one of the brightest minds that you had ever encountered. Kind, compassionate, but fiercely loyal and unafraid to step up to the plate when a challenge arrived, when the people she loved were threatened. You admired her and everything she stood for, the way she carried herself day in and day out. And since the day you had arrived at the Baxter Building, she welcomed you with open arms, as if you had always been part of the family.

Ben Grimm was the most talented pilot you’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. The perfect counter to Reed and his panicky mind at times, having known the man long enough to understand his quirks in a way you could only hope to. Ben was always kind, always open, always ready to lend a hand or be a shoulder for anyone that needed to listen.

Johnny Storm…was the bane of your existence, in the best way.

“Wrong address, sweetheart. The modeling agency is two blocks down. I could escort you over there, if you’d like?”

Those were the first words the hot-headed younger brother of Sue Storm had said to you, passing by you in the lobby of the building on your first day, a wink thrown in for good measure when he’d spoken.

Having followed Dr. Richards' work long enough, which meant knowing bits about his personal life, you were well aware of the reputation that Johnny Storm carried. The papers and magazines, talk shows and gossip blogs, all called him a playboy simply because he’d never been in a long-term relationship but was still a ladies man. You never saw him like that, though. All you saw was a brilliant guy, a lover of space, even if that passion of his was sometimes overlooked because of his ‘love for women’.

And, oh, how you wished his empty, blatant flirting with you didn’t bring a blush to your cheeks every time, or make your heart skip a beat, but it did. Every single time, it did. You weren’t blind: Johnny Storm was objectively handsome and much too charming for his own good, and you decided right then and there that you would use every ounce of your willpower to ignore his empty flirts. You didn’t need to become another girl hopelessly in love with the heartthrob of the Fantastic Four, even if your heart ached when you saw him with anyone else.

Those four had become important to you in ways that you would never be able to describe, but Sue always described it best: a family. 

That’s why when four of the closest people to you in life went up into space for Reed’s exploration mission, and came back cosmically changed forever, you never left their sides. They were your family, and family stuck together, no matter what.

“Reed,” your comment was cautious, hands stilling at your work station in the lab of the Baxter Building. Glancing over your shoulder, Reed was hunched over the machine he’d built in just a day, specifically to monitor the health of the baby growing inside of Sue’s stomach, as Herbie rocked back and forth beside him. “You’ve scanned Sue a thousand times at this point-”

“That’s an exaggeration. I’ve scanned her 123 times-”

“That’s not the point,” he glanced over at you then, looking away the second he saw the pointed look you were throwing at him. With a sigh, you abandoned your work, leaning back against the table behind you to watch him fret over the device. “We have run every test possible, scanned for every data point that links back to the fluctuations in your DNA from the cosmic rays we noted years ago, and we’ve gotten nothing. Your baby is okay.”

“There are still more tests to run,”

Another sigh escaped past your lips, and you allowed yourself to hang your head with a shake.

Since the moment Sue had announced her pregnancy, he’d been like this: even more on edge than usual. Baby-proofing the kitchen, smoke detectors in every single room and hallway, baby gates around every corner, it was getting insufferable. A sweet gesture, overall, and a testament to how much he loved and adored Sue, but exhausting to everyone else that had to be in his presence.

“Fine, but I’m not breaking the news to Sue that you want to scan her…again,”

“I already told her to meet me down here before dinner for another scan. We can adjust the parameters tomorrow. I want another data set from today’s scan at the current parameters to compare the changes with,” Reed never looked in your direction, still fiddling with the machine in front of him. “You’re staying for dinner, yes?”

“I’m making it,” was the response you shot back to him, powering down your workstation in the lab and rising from your chair, crossing the room to stand in front of him. “Apparently Sue has been craving spaghetti, and requested my family recipe.”

“You can’t argue with a pregnant woman,” Reed muttered, just loud enough for you to hear, but he still never looked up. “I’ll see you up there for dinner, then. There’s a few more tests that I want to run.”

“You also have a meeting at 5:45 and one at 6:15,” you shot back to him as you turned to leave the lab, checking the desk calendar lying beside your work station. There was a hum from the man, the smallest acknowledgement you were going to get, so you set your sights on Herbie and waved him forward. “Come on, Herb. An extra hand in the kitchen is always nice.”

As much as you thought of the Fantastic Four as your family, you never stayed for dinner often. You always tried your hardest to uphold the lines between your work life and personal life, not wanting to blur them completely (though, you were sure you had already blurred them enough for it to be too late). There had been plenty of times over the years where you’d stayed for dinner, usually once a month at this rate.

Sue always invited you, and you never wanted to disappoint her, and you gave in often. Ben had a way of wrangling you into saying yes before you were ever given the chance to speak at all. Reed had only asked once, asking you to stay back for the dinner months ago in which they announced to you that Sue was pregnant.

Johnny asked every day. You said no, most of the time, but when you did stay for dinner it was usually because those captivating, bright blue eyes were staring into your soul and pleading with you to stay.

Speak of the devil: there he sat at the dining room table. Clad in a white t-shirt with their logo resting over the pocket and the blue pants of his suit, a weird sight given that you had been in the lab with Reed all day and didn’t think any of them had left to attend to any ‘hero’ work.

You didn’t say a word as you strolled past him into the kitchen with Herbie on your heels, simply plucking the box of Lucky Charms from his hands as you swooped past. It was impossible not to smile to yourself at the scoff of indignation he let out at your actions.

“Hey-!”

“You’re going to spoil your appetite,” you shot back at him, throwing him a smirk over your shoulder before slotting the now closed cereal box into the cupboard where it usually sat.

Herbie beeped out a set of beeps that, over the years, you had come to understand. This time, he was agreeing with you, pointing out some facts about how eating out of the box lacked moderation, and would in turn actually spoil his appetite. You gave the little robot a fist bump for that, something that Johnny shot the little helper a glare for.

“Come on, Herbert, you’re supposed to take my side on these things!” There was no real malice in his words as he got up from the dining room table, rounding into the kitchen as you took the pots and pans that Herbie had gathered for you, setting them out along the counter where you needed them. “Baby, you didn’t tell me you were staying for dinner.”

When you told yourself that you weren’t going to fall into the trap that was the charming and charismatic Johnny Storm, you weren’t prepared for two things.

One: when he got comfortable around someone, he could be an even bigger flirt. Pet names were constant. Baby, sweetheart, honey, doll, love…you name it, Johnny called you it. Constantly. So constantly you were sure the blush on your cheeks was a permanent staple. He’d even once called you his little flame–that had been met with the tip of your heel being dug into his foot.

The second thing you weren’t prepared for: touch. Johnny Storm didn’t understand personal space, not when he was comfortable around you. If you were in the room with him, he was standing less than a foot from you, and you always knew because you could feel the warmth that radiated off his unusually hot skin. His hands would always rest on your arm, your elbow, right at the bottom of your lower back.

Moments like this in the kitchen were normal, and yet they still fried your brain. That simply little pet name, and Johnny’s warm hand ghosting over your lower back, before coming to rest on your hip. Clearing your throat, you gently pried his hand from your body, shooting him a look as you moved around to get the ingredients for dinner, hoping your flushed cheeks didn’t give you away.

“When your pregnant sister has cravings for my personal family recipe spaghetti, I’m required to oblige her,”

“I asked you to make this for me two weeks ago and you refused,”

Johnny followed close behind you, like a little puppy following its owner. You tried, and failed, to contain your smile at his actions. The media might paint him as some sex god (you weren’t going to lie…if he wanted to be, he could be) but you saw him for what he was: the epitome of a little golden retriever at times.

“Well you aren’t a hormonal pregnant woman with super powers,” you shot back at him, taking the opened jar of spaghetti sauce from Herbie’s hand and dumping it into the pot on the stove top, turning up the heat on the boiling pot of water for the noodles Herbie had laid out for you.

“No, but Johnny is a hormonal guy with super powers, who adores your cooking,” bumping his hip with yours, Johnny stole the wooden spoon from your hand with ease, dipping it into the simmering sauce to stir. With that same ease, he leaned down just slightly, leaving a kiss to your bare shoulder that felt as if it had left a brand into your skin. “Johnny also happens to just adore you, and loves when you stay for dinner.”

You had given up on the blush by now. He’d surely seen it enough over the years with his incessant flirting, there was no use in hiding it. Bumping your hip back with him, biting into your bottom lip in a failed attempt to conceal the smile spreading across your lips, you stole the wooden spoon back from him.

“Johnny also talks in the third person too much, and is an insufferable flirt half the time,” he dipped his hand into the sauce, coating his fingers in red as you whacked lightly at his hand, forcing him to withdraw as quickly as he’d dipped in. “What have I told you about doing that!”

He’d laughed, one of your favorite sounds, as you glanced over at him with a bright smile, unable to truly stay mad at him…ever.

That was, until he dipped his sauce-covered ring finger and middle finger into his mouth to lick the sauce clean off, eyes never leaving yours and a smirk curling up on his lips. It forced you to swallow the lump that had formed in your throat and look away as quickly as you could, feeling a different kind of heat swelling in your body: yeah, Johnny knew exactly what he was doing.

“Not sure, baby, that look you’re giving me right now doesn’t scream that I’m insufferable-”

“Oh, that’s exactly what it’s screaming,” you shot back, even with the ghost of a smile pulling at your lips as Herbie readied the garlic bread on the counter behind you. “If you’re not going to help, you can leave this kitchen. I don’t care if you live here.”

Johnny rolled his eyes in response, hopping up onto the counter next to the stove where you worked. You caught the box of noodles he knocked over before they could fall to the ground, shooting him a look as he held his hands up innocently, dumping them into the boiling water pot.

“You basically live here, too,”

“I don’t-”

“Yeah, because you keep refusing the room that Sue prepared for you,”

He…wasn’t wrong. Two years ago, Sue had transformed what was previously the guest room into a room that looked like it had been built just for you. Your favorite color on the walls, a matching quilt set on the bed, and she’d offered it to you. A place to stay, to live, given that Reed sometimes had you in the Baxter Building until the oddest hours of the morning.

You declined, still desperate to keep that line between your work life and your personal life separate, as tempting of an offer as it was. Sue wasn’t slighted by your decision at all, instead offering it to you to use whenever you needed to. There had been times in which you had taken up that offer, a few changes of clothes tucked away in the room on the odd chance that you’d need them.

“This place is your home, not mine,” you didn’t look at Johnny as you spoke, simply shaking your head as you stirred both the sauce and the noodles in their respective pots. “I’m Reed’s assistant, I’m not family-”

“Stop it,”

Even with the heat that rolled off Johnny Storm, every time his bare skin touched your own it sent a shiver straight down the length of your spine. His hand curled around your jawline, thumb and index finger pinching at your chin to force you to look up at him, to gaze into those intense blue eyes and the look on his face that had morphed so quickly from playful to serious.

“Johnny-”

“You are family, whether you like it or not,” the statement didn’t surprise you, it wasn’t the first time in your four years of knowing him that Johnny had said something like this to you, or anyone on the team for that matter. It always made you feel warm inside, though, to hear him say it, to see that loyalty and love for the people he cared about shine through in his words, such a stark contrast to the way the media sometimes portrayed him. “There’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for you.”

That was new. He hadn’t made a declaration like that to you before.

It was something about the look in his eyes as he said it–so genuine, so soft–that had you melting into his touch. His hand curled back up to your cheek, thumb just barely caressing the apple of your cheek, leaving a trail of heat with every swipe of his finger against your skin. Your heart betrayed you, fluttering in that moment like it always did.

These moments used to be few and far between. You didn’t know how else to describe them besides just calling them moments. Over the first few years of knowing Johnny Storm, there were small moments where that empty flirts verged on the edge of something different, something raw and real. But in the last year, they happened more often than they didn’t. Johnny wasn’t pictured out with as many women anymore, wasn’t brazenly caught flirting with anyone with legs and a pulse at events. And in moments like this, even in front of his family, he’d touch you, caress you, speak to you in a way that felt so genuine, that felt like it was real. Like the flirting was no longer just empty, meaningless fun.

That line between your work and personal life might have been a muddled mess, but the line between being Johnny Storm’s friend and something entirely more was practically non-existent now.

“You say that to all your women?” you quipped back, trying to hold your own, even as you were melting inside and your voice came out as a whisper. The playful look on Johnny’s face returned in a second, his fingers instead pinching the cheek he’d just been so softly caressing.

“Never, honey. Those words are reserved for my brother-in-law’s pretty little assistant,”

In typical Johnny fashion, he was able to dissolve and ruin whatever the moment was in an instant with his usual ‘charm’. Swatting his hand away, you returned your attention to the food on the stove in front of you, smiling to yourself as Herbie beeped out a popular song you’d heard on the radio behind you.

“You always have a line, don’t you?”

“Hey, you know what you signed up for, being friends with all this,” he jokingly motioned to his body, and you caught sight of the smile lighting up his face again as you laughed incredulously at his actions. “As part of the package deal, being friends with me, you are legally required to attend movie night in the living room with me after dinner.”

You hummed in response, even if you were smiling the entire time just from listening to him talk.

“This sounds like an impromptu movie night-”

“All of our movie nights are impromptu, babe-”

“I saw earlier that channel 2 is playing The Sound of Music tonight,” you shot back at him, finally looking up at him with an expectant look on your face. “That’s what I want to watch.”

Johnny groaned, throwing his head back and knocking it against the cupboards with a wince on his face. You couldn’t help but chuckle at his overdramatic antics, as usual.

“But channel 3 is showing Psycho!”

“And you dipped your hand–which, god knows where that thing might have been–into my sauce for dinner,”

Johnny opened his mouth to speak, before mulling over your words, and effectively shutting it with a nod.

“You know what, if it gets you to have a movie night with me, then I’ll take it,”

God, you adored this man, more than you should. More than you wanted to. In his presence, especially now, you were pretty sure the smile on your face was a constant, that it would never leave, as you laughed at him once more. 

Finishing off the special blend of additions to your sauce, giving it another swirl with the wooden spoon, you brought it up to your lips for a quick taste. Satisfied, you held one hand under the spoon to keep it from dripping, holding it up toward Johnny.

“Alright, give it a taste,”

His eyes stayed locked on yours, that familiar intensity and warmth in them keeping you locked in place, holding your breath, as he took a quick slurp from the spoon. Smacking his lips together, running his tongue out along his lips, he gave a definitive nod.

“As always…perfection. Though, I expect nothing less from you,”

Before you could retort to his cheesy comment, his hand reached out, eyes still locked on yours, as he cupped your chin once more and ran his finger over your lips. With the slightest of glances down, you saw the small spot of red on his finger, the remnants of the sauce he’d so gently just wiped from your lips.

Glancing back up to those blue eyes you loved more than you cared to admit, you caught the way they finally glanced down at your lips, before looking away as if to not get caught.

“...am I interrupting something?”

As if Johnny had burst into flames and burned you, you jumped away from him immediately the second you heard the voice of Sue Storm across the room. You never even looked back up at Johnny, or turned around to look at the woman by the dining room table, just stared down into the sauce pot as you continued to stir it and the noodles.

“Actually, sis, you very much are interrupting something here,” Johnny called out across the room, and you could see him gesturing with his hands between you both from the corners of your vision.

“Johnny,” you rolled your eyes, glancing over at him with flushed red cheeks from what had just transpired. “Sue isn’t interrupting anything.”

“She kind of is. We were kind of having a moment here-”

“Johnny, we were not having a moment,”

You very much were having a moment, but you weren’t admitting that to him. His ego burned hot enough, no need to stroke the fire.

Sue laughed, rounding into the kitchen as she stopped by Herbie, thanking him and taking the garlic bread tray from him to pop into the oven he had preheated.

“Johnny, why don’t you go get cleaned up for dinner and stop bothering the poor girl. Bad enough I’m making her cook for me, she doesn’t need you hovering,”

The man let out a sigh, muttering something mocking toward his sister, as he threw himself off the counter with dramatic flair. He wasn’t done making your heart race, though, his hand curling around the back of your head as he planted a kiss directly to your hairline, before he disappeared from the kitchen with a pat to Herbie’s head.

The pots on the stove were forgotten as you turned around, simply watching him disappear with an incredulous look on your face. Quickly, your eyes shot to Sue, who was watching you with a smirk as she leaned against the island counter.

“There was nothing happening there,”

“I didn’t say there was,”

“But you’re giving me that look,”

“I’m not giving you any kind of look,” the blonde laughed, stepping up beside you to take the wooden spoon from your hand, tasting the sauce herself with a happy little sigh. “Just…enjoying watching the show from the sidelines, waiting for one of you to make a move.”

“Sue, there’s no move to make. He’s just…he’s Johnny,”

“And Johnny is my brother,” she shot back with a grin. “And Johnny has never been like that with someone, just with you.”

You didn’t get to respond, before Herbie cut in with another series of beeps. Your eyes shot wide as you listened to what he was saying, cheeks flaring an even brighter shade of red as Sue choked on air, laughing to herself at your side.

“HERBIE! THAT’S SO INAPPROPRIATE!”

❤︎

It had been two weeks, and Reed had somehow managed to scan Sue a total of 142 times, now. Sometimes, you wondered how she was able to put up with his hovering, the hovering that had gotten exponentially worse since she announced she was pregnant.

“I’m not getting clear imaging,” Reed called out from the other side of the lab, the only sound in the room being the incessant beeping of the machine he’d built to monitor the baby, and the solder iron in your hand as it worked away on the small device in front of you. You shook your head at his comments once more, adjusting the eye protectors resting on the bridge of your nose as little sparks jumped up as the last piece of the triangular device was finally attached. “I’m going to have Herbie recalibrate this, I don’t like the data output I’m getting, I want a clear image on the next scan. Is the second bridge device ready?”

“Just finished fixing the soldering on the stand, so it should be good to go,” you shot back, tossing your eye protectors down at your workstation, lifting the device carefully and carrying it over to Reed’s station, setting it down with the matching device. “And, once again, you really don’t need to scan the baby again.”

You were met with silence, unsurprisingly. Until, the workstation down the room set off its alarm bell, a familiar tone that had you stand up straighter where you stood.

“New deep space transmission,” there was a hint of elation in Reed’s tone as he said it, quickening his pace across the room with Herbie hot on his trail. “Let’s identify the origin, then record it for further analysis.”

Quickly walking back over to your workstation, your eyes drifted to that desk calendar sitting next to you, and to today’s date: a poorly drawn flame, and the time “2:15” scribbled in a barely legible handwriting that you recognized instantly. Even if you hadn’t, the terribly drawn heart with your initials in it scribbled in the corner would’ve given it away.

“Your analysis is going to have to wait, Reed,” you called out with a sigh, knowing you weren’t the one who put this meeting on the calendar, but you sure knew who had. “You have a 2:15 incoming.”

“2:15? What 2:15?” Reed never even looked in your direction, focused on the new transmission. “You didn’t tell me there was anything on my calendar.”

“Well, I didn’t put this one on the calendar myself, but you must have cleared it at some point…”

Just then, the elevator doors to the lab popped open with a familiar ding sound.

“Ah–Reed!”

Good god, Johnny Storm was trying to kill you. You weren’t even sure if that was an exaggeration at this point, because you wouldn’t put it past him.

Blue looked good on him, it always had, but the navy blue button up he was wearing was doing nothing for your mind that was screaming at you to “keep it professional.” It didn’t help that the first few buttons were already undone, giving a slight peak to his chest. The white chinos–those were the nail in your metaphorical coffin. They had no right to be that tight, and he had no right to look so damn good in them.

“Ah…that 2:15,” you tried your best to conceal your laugh at Reed’s comment across the lab. “Johnny, do we have to today?”

“Johnny, do we have to today? As if I didn’t ask to put it on the schedule,” the blonde man in question mumbled mockingly to himself as he slid up to your side at your workstation as you laughed at his antics. One of his hands grabbed the back of your neck, tugging you closer before you could even think about it, pressing another kiss to your hairline. Suddenly, you felt like you were back in the kitchen weeks ago. “Darling, have I ever told you how breathtaking you look in your lab coat?”

“It’s a white coat, Johnny, it’s nothing special,” you deflected, taking just a short glance up at him before you had to look away, already knowing you were as red as the table beneath your hands.

“But the girl wearing it is-”

“Johnny, do you want to have this meeting or do you want to flirt with my assistant?”

You hung your head with a groan, even as Johnny laughed at the comment from his brother-in-law. His arm slung around your waist, hand settling on your hip as the heat that rolled off his body enveloped you for a moment, letting yourself lean into the side hug he gave you and the squeeze to your hip, before he was gone.

“There’s enough time in the day to do both! No, I had some thoughts about the new suit designs,”

“There are no new space suit designs-”

You glanced over at the pair as they met face-to-face in the middle of the lab, Johnny holding up the sheet he was concealing behind his back.

“You finished them years ago…they have dust on them,” Johnny deadpanned, letting out a sigh as Reed took the design sheet from him. “Look, I get it. You’re going to be a father soon, you’re scared-”

“I’m not-I’m not scared,” Reed cut in immediately, and you could hear the anxious undertone that overtook him immediately at Johnny’s words. Without even having to be summoned, knowing how his brain worked after all this time, you simply shrugged off your lab coat and stalked over to the pair, taking the design sheet from Reed’s hands without a word and placing it on his chalkboard full of equations. “I’m-I’m busy, Johnny. I’m busy. I’m busy, there’s a difference.”

“He means busy on his pace to scan Sue at least 200 times before she gives birth,” you shot back, sending Reed a bright smile that he frowned at, clearly seeing that you were siding with Johnny here. “Not terrified of becoming a father at all, those two things definitely don’t correlate.”

Johnny laughed, smile bright, and it only brightened the one on your face, a tug somewhere deep in your chest pulling on you when he locked eyes with you. Reed snapped your attention back to him in an instant, running a hand down his face as he gestured in Herbie’s direction.

“Just handle the new deep space transmission, please, instead of ganging up on me with Johnny,”

You laughed, heels clicking against the floors of the lab as you joined Herbie’s side as he waited for the transmission to be scratched into the record. There was a woosh of air, the air beside you heating up instantly as a hand found its way to rest on your lower back.

“Have you listened to it yet?”

The smile on your face softened as you glanced over at Johnny, who was staring down at the record in front of you both with pure excitement in his eyes. Beyond the physical moments, his flirtatious moments, these were the moments that had your plan to not fall for Johnny Storm splitting at the seams, if it hadn’t already.

“Seems to be a lot more of the same, just another complex signal,” Johnny left your side, the heat going with him, as he leaned against the blue table behind him. Herbie took the record from its place, rolling over to Johnny to hand it directly to him. “You’re more than welcome to take it with you, give it a listen.”

He twirled the record in his hands with a grin, absentmindedly reaching out to scratch the top of Herbie’s head. That simple little action elicited a giggle, hand coming up to cover your mouth as Johnny glanced up at you with a smirk.

“What’s so funny?”

“Herbie isn’t a dog, and yet you treat him like one,” you explained, stepping up just in front of him and grabbing his hand lightly, stopping the twirling of the record in his hands. “Also, you do know you aren’t supposed to get your fingerprints all over these, right?”

It was Johnny’s turn to laugh as he spun his hand, catching it in his palm and bringing it up to his lips, leaving a scorching hot, but gentle, kiss to your knuckles, sending a shiver straight through your bones. He didn’t even have a retort to your comment, just simply held your hand in his, thumb stroking along your skin, while your entire body flushed with a feeling you wanted to ignore.

“Johnny, what have I told you about flirting in my lab? I need my assistant, we’re trying to run a test,”

The moment was gone in seconds, your hand dropped from Johnny’s as he raced to the other side of the lab, following closely behind Reed and tossing the record onto the closest table.

You could only shake your head with a laugh, walking beside Herbie to join them, knowing Reed would be mumbling to himself the rest of the week about this moment and how much Johnny liked pissing him off.

“Cool! I got time,”

Reed didn’t roll his eyes as you and Herbie joined them back at your workstations, but you could see how much he wanted to. Holding the device you’d just finished off in his hand, you watched in the same awe you had for four years as his arm stretched across the length of the lab, placing it right back beside your own workstation.

“Bridge teleportation test one,” grabbing the notebook lying beside the device that contained your notes on the project, you flipped to a new page, prepared to note down any disparities that occurred during the test, as Reed placed an egg on the newly soldered stand. “Movement of organic matter six meters.”

Johnny grabbed the protective glasses beside the work desk, about to slip them on, before Reed took them with no hesitation and slipped them on himself. The blonde turned to you with an incredulous look that simply drew a laugh from you.

“Those are his pair, you can’t touch his pair,” you teased the man, who simply shot you a wink in return, as you both took the pairs that Herbie was holding out to you both. Johnny gave the little robot a quick fist bump.

Such a simple action that still had you grinning in childlike adoration at the side of his face.

Reed gave you a simple look, confirming you were ready. You gave him a nod, as he took hold of the switch to activate the device.

“Let’s run it,”

The whirring of the machine sounded, three silver beams of energy emitting from the device and encasing the egg within a sphere of energy. There was a shift in the room as that energy grew, as the hum of the machine filled the air, before there was a simple POP–and the egg was gone.

One glance from each of you over your shoulders was enough to confirm that the egg was, in fact, sitting on the opposite platform. Completely untouched and intact.

“It worked!” Johnny exclaimed, gesturing toward the egg.

That’s when the power to the building cut out.

It wasn’t surprising, given the notes you both had taken. The amount of energy that needed to be funneled through the device in order to channel enough energy to actually move organic matter without hurting it was sure to be beyond the energy limits of the Baxter Building. A full power outage…not what you were expecting. Not that you could write that note down in the pitch black of the room.

“Johnny,” Reed’s voice called out in the dark, steady with no hint of any emotion you could decipher in it. The man in question came to life beside you, body engulfed in flames, the flame resistant fabric of his specially tailored clothing working overtime to keep him from being stark naked. He stood with his hands on his hips, and even from the side you could see the smirk curling up on his lips. “Could you reset the breaker?”

You’d known Johnny long enough now, been his friend for enough years, to know him. Know him better than a colleague should. The instant dip in his smirk to a frown was clear, the tension in his broad shoulders, as he tossed his glasses down onto the table. He didn’t spare either of you another look, crossing the room to grab the record.

“Other way-”

“I know,” Johnny snapped, beside his flame engulfed body was on the other side of the lab, flipping the breaker as the electricity of the building roared to life again. The second it did, he was in the elevator, doors shutting without another word.

Neither you nor Reed spoke for a moment, simply looking down at the bridge teleportation device on the table in front of him.

“I’ve upset him,”

Reed didn’t phrase it like a question, he said it like a statement. Both were true, though. Reed always knew when he had upset Johnny, but never how he had really upset him.

You took a deep breath, nodding, as you scribbled a note in your notebook before turning on your heels, stalking back to your own workstation.

“Well, he went out of his way to put time on your calendar just to talk to you about the suits, and you did dismiss him…” you trailed off as you reached your station, eyes flickering back down to that desk calendar beside you. You couldn’t help it, letting your fingers lightly trail over that little heart with your initials, smiling to yourself, wishing it meant more than what it did mean: nothing. “Johnny loves space, he only got to go up once before…this all happened. You can’t blame him for wanting to go back.”

It was quiet for another moment in the lab, before Reed spoke up again.

“You know him well…better than I think I do,”

The flush in your cheeks was inevitable at that, embarrassment flooding you as it was easy for you to read between the lines of what Reed was trying to insinuate.

“I-I just listen to him. I always listen,”

It was quiet again.

“Go check on him,” was all Reed said. “If there’s anyone he’d want to talk to right now, it’s you.”

You wanted to argue, to save the crumbling bits of that wall between work and personal, but even you knew it was too late for that.

Johnny’s bedroom door was just two down from the guest room Sue had offered you years ago, a bathroom being the only thing that separated them. Ben’s room was at the other end of the hallway, along with the nursery where the soon to be baby Richards would sleep.

You may not have stayed in that guest room often, but you’d been in these hallways enough to know it like the back of your hand. To know it like it was your own home. 

There were countless nights, before you’d make the short walk back to your apartment, where Johnny had coerced you into movie nights in his room. He’d never try anything, never push you into something, always leaving the door open to make sure you knew he wasn’t bringing you upstairs for some alternative reason. His room was just quieter, and felt more private. It gave you the chance to see the side of Johnny that the world didn’t get to see.

The space lover, who spent his life dreaming of being an astronaut, of going into space and seeing the stars. He was a thrill-seeker, always wanting to live his life on the edge, to find joy in those rushes of adrenaline. But beyond it all, just a good man. A man who had an entire collection of records lining one wall of his room, organized from his favorite records to his least favorite, even though he claimed there wasn’t really a least favorite. The world got to know the Human Torch, but in  the confines of those four walls, you got to know Johnny Storm. The second you did, you knew your heart was fucked.

You found him in a spot you’d found him in before: leaning against the floor to ceiling windows of his room, staring out at the spaceship he hadn’t stepped foot in for four years. Your heart broke slightly from where you stood in the doorway, able to see the longing that was woven into his frown, that shone through his eyes that never strayed far from the Excelsior.

“You know,” with a few steps into the room, standing beside the record player, you lifted the needle to stop the replay of the foreign language from the deep space transmission that played on a loop. Johnny looked over, a soft smile overtaking his frown at the sight of you, as you kept your own voice soft and light. “I don’t think deep space transmissions are the right background music if you’re going to stare longingly out your window.”

Johnny laughed in a huff, turning on his heel to flick through his record collection.

“And suggestions then for a melancholic moment such as this?”

“Elvis typically has some hits that can set that mood,”

You watched him, the slight shake in his body that hinted he was laughing again, before he plucked a record from the shelves and rose back to his feed. Standing beside the record player with you, he slid it into your hands without another word and plopped into the chair just across from the player.

With care, like you’d done it a hundred times before (you had, right here in this room), you slipped the record onto the player, dropping the needle down as it coasted along the grooves etched into the record.

When no-one else can understand me, when everything I do is wrong…you give me hope and consolation. You give me strength to carry on.

The lyrics settled in you heavily, but it made your body feel lighter. It was impossible not to read into them, to not think too hard about the deliberate music choice that Johnny had made. You couldn’t help that, somewhere deep in your heart where you had buried your feelings for the flaming man years ago, you were hoping these lyrics were a personal message to you.

“Reed send you to check on me?” Johnny asked after a moment, leaning back in his chair, arms folded over his chest as he watched you. Composing yourself for a moment, shoving the flurry of butterflies beating against your chest down, you turned to face him and his blue eyes with a shrug.

“Technically, but I would’ve come on my own,” Johnny hummed, the ghost of a smile on his lips, as his gaze found its way back to the spaceship taunting him just beyond the window. “Come on, matchstick, talk to me.”

He huffed out another laugh, stretching his arms above his head as you tried your best to keep your eyes trained on his face and not drift down his torso. Eventually, his arms settled back across his chest, his gaze still stuck out the window.

“I don’t know…it’s stupid. Last time we went up, we came back with superpowers, trust me, I get that. Now, he’s got a kid on the way. But I know–I know–that he knows how much space means to me. So, when he just dismisses me like that-”

“It makes you feel inadequate? Like you’re a child?” Johnny’s gaze found you again as you shrugged with a light smile. “I’ve worked in an enclosed space with him almost every day for four years, Johnny. He used to make me feel that way all the time, until I realized that Reed’s never trying to make me feel like that.”

“I know he’s not doing it on purpose…doesn’t mean I’m not going to shit talk him in the confines of these walls,” he gestured around the room as you laughed, coming to stand beside his chair, looking down on him as he sighed once more. His hands fell, gripping his knees, as he rubbed them back and forth against the fabric of his pants. “I love space. Simple as that.”

You hummed, bending down beside the chair Johnny sat in so that you were essentially squatting before him, having to look up at him. Hesitation caught you for just a second, your brain actively fighting a war with your heart as you raised your hands, but you ultimately took his hands in yours. 

All it took was a second for your eyes to drift over to the table beside him. One lamp, a stack of books, and the flash of a polaroid photo leaning against those books: a photo of you. Taken at some point in the lab, laughter written across your face, your hand almost blocking a portion of the lens as you tried to stop him from taking the photo. You didn’t even remember it being taken in the first place.

Good god, he was really going to be the death of you.

Eyes quickly back on him, with a little squeeze to his hands, you gave Johnny the most comforting smile you could, even as your heart did somersaults in your chest.

“I know you do. You’ll go back to space, Johnny, I promise,”

His eyes watched your hands, and you could see it on his face: that hint of adoration, that hint of something genuine that suggested it wasn’t all just a game, that you weren’t imaging moments for more than they were.

“What if I don’t?”

“You’re Johnny Storm, I’ve never seen you not get something you wanted before. Especially not something you want this bad,”

His mouth parted just slightly as he hesitated. You watched as his tongue darted out, just barely grazing over the edge of his bottom lip, before you flicked your eyes back to his.

“You’re wrong…I think there’s something I want more. Been trying to get it for awhile, but…she just keeps slipping through my fingers somehow,”

That tug on your heart was back. Your heart was surely beating so fast that it could be heard, hammering against your ribcage, as his thumbs glided back and forth across your skin. You could barely think of a response, too stuck on his words: the closest thing to a confession of any kind you’d heard in four years. Raw, real, genuine.

Johnny stood quickly, barely giving you a chance to potentially think of a response as he tugged you back to your feet. His arm enveloped your waist, your hand falling to his bicep as he still held your other hand in the air beside you both. You weren’t sure now if the flush crawling up your neck into your cheeks was from the moment, or from the heat radiating off of him.

“W-What are you doing?”

“We’re dancing,” he said it as if it was the most casual thing in the world, that usual smirk of his back on his face. Whatever had happened moments before, whatever confession may or may not have been said, was brushed away in an instant, that charming, flirty personality of his back in full force. “Can’t turn on Elvis and not dance, I think that’s a literal crime.”

“I didn’t know you even knew how to dance,”

“Oh, I don’t, Sue’s been telling me for years that I have two left feet,” Johnny shot back, shooting a wink down at you as his hand readjusted its grip along your waist. “Can’t be that hard with the prettiest girl in the building in my arms, right?”

Swaying back and forth, wrapped up in the heat of his body, in the faint smell of the cologne that coated his clothing, you were very certain that Johnny Storm was going to be the death of you.

And when you smile the world is brighter. You touch my hand and I'm a king. Your kiss to me is worth a fortune, your love for me is everything.

Johnny tilted his head back from you by just a hair, and you followed suit. Deep blue eyes, as captivating to you as they were the first time you ever saw them, shone with an emotion you couldn’t quite decipher. If you could, you weren’t sure you would survive knowing. 

Faces just an inch away, the closest and most intimate moment you’d ever shared with the man you knew in your heart was never going to be just your friend, your colleague, you were verging on the edge of making a terrible choice. Of opening the floodgates, of unlocking the feelings you’d buried away so long ago and letting them flow.

“This is an interesting little relationship you and I have, you know,”

Johnny always found a way to ruin these moments, and this was just another example. Lips tugged up into a smirk, mischief swarming his eyes as he teased you, that fleeting moment of raw vulnerability was gone.

Hand slipped from his, body pulled back from his and a roll of your eyes, you turned on your heel within seconds.

“So typical of you, Storm,”

“What-? What did I do!”

You huffed out a laugh, a smile creeping onto your lips even as you tried to keep it at bay, as you threw your comment over your shoulder as you walked toward the door.

“You went and killed the moment, Johnny, as per usual,”

“...so you admit it, we WERE having a moment!”

You barked out a laugh, shaking your head as you crossed through the doorframe. You could never stay mad at him, not when your heart yearned for him in a way you wish it didn’t.

“Come on! At least let me make it up to you. Will you stay for dinner?”

With a final glance cast over your shoulder toward him, you shot him a bright smile.

“If you’re lucky, flame boy!”

❤︎

Yeah, you really couldn’t say no to Johnny Storm.

Not when he’d spoken so sweetly to you, held you so tenderly, and all around just invaded every part of your brain and your heart. To be fair, he barely had to try honestly to do that.

It wasn’t shocking to see Ben in the kitchen, it seemed to be one of his happy places. You weren’t complaining: on the nights you did stay for dinner, and Ben was cooking, you knew you were going home with the best leftovers the city of New York had ever seen.

“Decided to stay for dinner again?” Sue called out toward you with a smile, giving Herbie a pat on the head as he worked away at carving a pumpkin. You shot her a smile in return, pouring yourself a quick glass of water before making your way toward Ben.

“Johnny asked…and I decided to be nice and oblige him,” you didn’t miss the teasing hum that Ben let out, lightly whacking him on his rocky shoulder. Not that it did you any good, hurting your hand more than it would ever hurt him. His laughter was ignored as your eyes lit up, catching sight of the familiar black and white cookies he was dumping onto a plate. “Oh my god, did you go grab these from Maisie’s?”

“Yes,” Ben waved your hand away when you went to reach for the cookies, producing another paper bag and sliding it your way. “These ones are yours.”

The smell that wafted from the bag was enough to have you almost moaning in the middle of the kitchen, eagerly digging one of the cookies out. Maisie’s famous snickerdoodle cookies, the perfect blend of cinnamon and sugar that you had adored since you were a little girl. One bite of the cookie had you in absolute heaven.

“Oh my god, I haven’t had these in ages!” Ben and Sue both laughed at your excitement as you took another bite of the warm cookie in your hand. “How did you know these were my favorites?”

Ben’s smirk wasn’t hard to miss at all.

“Oh, I didn’t. Johnny asked me to pick those up for you,”

It was probably time to accept that blushing around this family was the only thing you were capable of.

Sue’s laughter rang loudest as she rounded the island counter, high fiving Ben as she shot you a pointed look.

“You really have my brother wrapped around your finger without even trying, huh? You know, before I went to get scanned–again–in the lab, I stopped by the nursery to check out the crib progress. Heard a little The Wonder of You from down the hall, thought I’d peek in…”

The groan you emitted could probably be heard from the other side of the country, leaning down to barely bang your head against the countertop. Ben and Sue’s laughter rang through the air again as you looked up, desperately waving your hands.

“I swear, it wasn’t what it looked like-”

“What wasn’t what it looked like?”

Of course, Johnny chose to make his grand entrance at that moment. Thankfully for you, he’d changed out of that ridiculously hot button up. Unfortunately for you, he was still wearing those god forsaken white chinos.

“Your little dance Sue was telling me about earlier,” Ben teased, easily catching your hand as it came up to whack him again in his rough, oversized one. “What’s with the long face?”

“Oh that dance was exactly what it looked like. Thanks for coming to dinner though, sweetheart, glad you like the cookies,” Johnny tacked on a wink in your direction, one you affectionately rolled your eyes over, before his smile was back to a frown. “And what of it, Ben?”

“Sounds like your 2:15 with Reed didn’t go well. I’m sorry, pal,”

From across the room, you could see Johnny’s shoulders move in a huff of laughter as he clapped, bringing down the cabinet shelf that held the same box of cereal you had taken from him two weeks ago. You moved around the island counter, filming your cup with more water before standing opposite of Ben while Johnny made his way back over.

“Hey, I’m fine,” he spoke, though the edge in his words was clear as he did, coming to stand directly at your side. “I don’t mind or anything, it’s just, uh-”

“I hear you, pal. We’ll go to space again,”

“That’s what I was trying to tell him earlier,” you tacked on, bumping your hip with Johnny’s, who quickly did the same back to you.

That smile you adored was back in moments, though, as he dug his hand into the box and produced the action figure waiting inside: a miniature Johnny Storm. His bright grin was turned in your direction as he waved the toy toward you, his signature catchphrase from the cartoon–flame on–ringing through the air as Reed entered the room, greeting his wife by the dining room table.

“They captured my likeness so perfectly, don’t you think?” he quipped, activating the catchphrase once again as you rolled your eyes. “Do you still have the one I gave you a few months ago?”

“Yeah, buried in the junk drawer of my kitchen,”

Johnny feigned shock, pinching your side quickly as you squirmed away with a laugh.

“At least upgrade me to your bedside table so I can be with you while you sleep,” that stupid line was accented with another wink before Johnny thrust the toy in Ben’s face. “Come on, admit it’s cool.”

That catchphrase just kept repeating.

I’m Johnny Storm! Flame On!

Flame On!

Flame On!

Ben grabbed the toy from Johnny’s hand in seconds, crushing it to nothing but dust and blowing it back in Johnny’s face with a smirk. You tried everything to conceal your laughter, but it was inevitable.

“Flame off!”

Sirens rang outside the balcony of the building’s living room. The flying cars of the police force raced past, bathing the room in red and blue lights. The second they disappeared, another squadron flew past in the other direction, the sirens all intermixing in the air.

These were the moments you never got to see often, when the team sprung into action. It was clear in Johnny and Ben alone, how their silly little moment was forgotten as they thrust into action, prepared to go running out of the building into danger. Reed simply held up a hand, shaking his head at the group.

“No, no, it’s alright. This is me,”

Ben and Sue followed Reed out onto the balcony, but Johnny hung back, his gaze stuck on you as you hadn’t moved from the kitchen. He simply tilted his head toward his family, holding his hand out for you. Such a simple move that shouldn’t have kickstarted your heart into what was surely an irregular rhythm, but it did.

The second you were at his side, Johnny’s hand rested at the small of your back, fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt just so to tug you slightly closer to his side. Together, you stepped out onto the balcony of the Baxter Building beside Ben, overlooking New York as it was bathed in every corner in red and blue.

“For the past few months, I’ve been tracking a small number of criminal organizations throughout the city,”

You shot a look down at your boss, eyebrow raised.

“That’s what you’ve been doing in that notebook by your desk?” Reed simply waved your comment off, pointing just down the block, fairly close to the area in which your apartment resided.

“47 of them, to be exact. Including the Puppet Master in the Bowery, the Wizard in Gramercy Park, and Diablo in Washington Heights,”

Everyone on the balcony went quiet for a moment.

“You…baby-proofed the world,” Ben finally spoke. Sue’s sigh could be heard from the other end of the balcony as she tried to defend her husband.

“It’s a sweet gesture,”

“It’s a little insane,” you mumbled to yourself, just loud enough for you and Johnny to hear. The blonde at your side simply shrugged, glancing down at you and catching your gaze.

“It’s not totally crazy. He’s trying to protect the things he loves, what’s most precious to him…” Johnny’s lips quirked up just slightly. “I’d do it too…I’d do it for you.”

He said it so…so earnestly. With so much conviction in his tone, as if this was a certainty to him. That protecting not just his family, but you, was something he needed to do. That if it came down to it, he’d do it without a second thought.

“You…you have to stop saying things like that to me, Johnny,” you hated how breathless your voice came out, how wrecked you sounded as you whispered your response back to him, the conversation still droning on in the background between the other three.

The smile on Johnny’s face only widened, his hand slipping around from your lower back to your waist, as he gave you a light squeeze.

“Stop saying what, the truth?”

No, you need to stop saying things that are making me fall in love with you.

Love. That was a word that had only crossed your mind once when it came to Johnny Storm. 

It was two years ago, a week to the day that you had lost your mother, your biggest supporter in life. You stood at that funeral, surrounded by estranged family members you hadn’t spoken to in years, and family friends who wept for your loss. Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny had come, offered their condolences, paid their respects.

When the others left, Johnny stayed. He stood by your side through the first viewing, never left it during the second viewing, and stood with you in the pouring rain an hour after they’d put her in the ground. You had cried, he held you, and he’d simply never left you alone that day. The colleague that had quickly become a friend, who flirted with you every chance he got, never uttered a single flirtatious comment that day. He’d simply been there, been the shoulder you needed.

That was the day you realized you may have fallen in love with the one man you told yourself not to fall in love with, and you buried those feelings in your heart for what you thought would be forever.

“Stuck in your head over there? Come on, it’s dinner time,”

Ben’s voice broke you from your stupor. The team had all started to make their way inside while you were left at the balcony railing, hands white knuckled on top of the rail. 

Johnny’s hand was held out toward you, and you ignored every part of your brain that told you not to and slipped your hand into his, letting him pull you back in toward the living room.

That’s what their watches all went off, alerts blaring in sync with one another.

It was like a firework went off, a boom shattering the night air of the city. The clouds, the sky, were painted in gold, streaks of meteors and debris crossing the sky as they fell to the earth. The sound that emitted from the golden cloud that stretched across the sky, bathing the city in its light, felt…otherwordly. Like a scream, like a warning.

A warm hand enveloped your face, turning your wide eyes away from the scene.

There were very few times you saw Johnny as serious as he was now. Jaw locked, eyes narrowed but still soft as they looked at you, the cascades of gold shone over his face, highlighting his features as another boom sounded off in the distance.

“Go inside, don’t come out,”

Words were caught in your throat. All you could manage was a nod, his thumb doing a single swipe over your cheek, before he patted Reed on the shoulder and launched himself over the railing and into the air, igniting himself as he went.

If not for the moment, you would have stopped to admire him as he flew, bathed in the reds and oranges of his fire. You were awestruck every time you got to witness those cosmic powers firsthand.

Reed, Sue, and Ben had followed not long after, as you could hear the familiar whirled of their car through the air, chasing after Johnny through the city, following whatever had just appeared from the sky.

You? You sat on the living room couch, wringing your hands together to keep them from shaking. You’d been there as they had dealt with Red Ghost, or even Moleman, but this? 

This was different. This was otherworldly. This was terrifying. And when Herbie flipped the switch of the television, rolling to your side, you were greeted with the sight of the silver alien woman hovering in Times Square for the first time.

“Your planet is now marked for death. Your world will be consumed by the devourer,” 

Her voice sent a single chill down the column of your spine. Herbie’s robotic hand reached out for yours, ceasing the endless wringing of your hands together. You took it without hesitation, though you wished in your heart it was someone else’s hand holding yours in this moment.

“Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak. Use this time to rejoice, and celebrate, for your time is short. I herald his beginning…I herald your end…I herald, Galactus.”

And thus began the longest night of your life since the day your colleagues went into space and came back forever changed.

Sending the team into space was the only option, to confront this mystery at its source. Reed had given you the basics in passing: the threat was real, there was documentation of plants across the universe disappearing entirely, the chrome woman’s signature left on each of them. He’d tasked you to the launch team, to prepare Excelsior for launch in T-16 hours.

Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.

Those words rattled around your brain the entire night, into the wee hours of the morning. Even as you helped Lynn set up the press conference, as you conferred with the launch team to ensure that the Excelsior was prepared in every conceivable way, as you checked and double-checked every data point throughout the entire ship, her words never left you.

Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.

The anxiety was clawing at you, even as you threw yourself into work. The notion of what her words meant, of what could happen, of how close the end could be.

The clock read sometime around 2 a.m. when you had finally stepped foot in that guest room made for you. There was no way you were walking home tonight. Besides, come morning, there would still be too much to do, too many data points that needed to be checked, too many scenarios that would need to be run through to make sure your team came back to you.

You knew sleep wasn’t coming to you, though, not when that metallic voice was rattling around your head. Not when an alien threat was upending your life. Not when, two doors away, there was a man that you did, in fact, want to hold close…in case you never got the chance to again.

You loved him. All it took was the end of the world to admit it.

Clad in nothing but an old t-shirt with the 4 logo on the front, one you were sure was Johnny’s, and a pair of shorts, you didn’t care what you looked like as you tore out of the room and into the hallway. Not now, not when your world was being threatened, not when your entire life could be ripped from you in a matter of seconds.

Johnny was awake, just as you knew he would be. White shirt, plaid blue pants you’d seen him sleep in so many times, he stood in his dark room by the windows once more, watching the crews rush around on the ground as they prepared the ship for launch in just a few hours. That same record from earlier in the day was still playing.

I guess I'll never know the reason why you love me as you do. That's the wonder, the wonder of you.

With a step into the room, shutting the door behind you and flicking on the lamp just beside the door, Johnny finally met your eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep,” was the only thing you could manage to say. Johnny tilted his head, studying you silently, before he held out his hand just as he had done hours before.

“Come here,”

Crossing the room in a matter of moments, you all but fell into his arms. His outstretched hand ignored, he was frozen in place for just a moment as you curled your arms around his neck, throwing yourself into his arms. The faint smell of his cologne lingered, as did his bodywash, and the sigh you let out the second the smell hit you was in comfort.

It didn’t take Johnny long to unfreeze, his arms finding their place around your waist. One hand rested on your upper back, one pressing into your lower back. A faint kiss was placed to the side of your head, heat lingering for a second. Heat lingered in your entire body, radiating off of him in waves.

“You have to talk to me, baby,”

Talk? The truth was, you didn’t know where to start. How were you supposed to explain that, since the moment you had met Johnny Storm, your heart was already his. That in all your moments over the years, you’d fallen for the man you told yourself not to fall for. And as the threat from the metallic woman loomed over the world, as he prepared to try and save life as you knew it, the only thing you wanted was to be held by him. To know he was here, that he was okay, that he was with you.

“I-I’m scared,”

Those were the only words you could settle on. Johnny pulled back, his hands sliding gently around the fabric of the shirt hanging loosely from your body until they reached your face. He cradled you, so softly and gently in his hands, it was almost involuntary the way you closed your eyes and leaned into his touch, his warmth, chasing the feeling of security it brought you.

“It’s okay to be,” the gentle tone in his voice washed over you, covering you like a blanket. It’s exactly how he had spoken to you that day, standing in the rain when you refused to leave your mother’s side, reassuring you he was there. “I don’t care what the herald said, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You know that, right?”

Of course you knew that. If there was anything you knew for certain in this world, it was that when Johnny Storm said he’d protect you, he meant it. He’d spent long enough proving that to you.

There was no hesitation on your part when you laid your own hands overtop of his. Fingers curling around them, tugging his right hand just barely from your cheek, you turned and pressed the lightest of kisses to the palm of his hand.

Johnny froze. You could feel it. The slight tilt of his head, the questioning look that flickered across his face in the moonlight that shone through the windows. It was all fair. You were never the one to cross the boundary like this, to make a move such as this.

“I can’t stop thinking about what she said,” was how you tried to explain yourself, stopping and starting your sentence over and over as you tried to find the right way to explain yourself, the walls crumbling and the floodgates bursting wide open. “Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak…it’s why I came to you.”

A single emotion crossed Johnny’s face in seconds: understanding.

That signature smirk of his was back in moments, even if it was twinged with a softness reserved only for you. The heat left your cheeks, but found your hands as Johnny’s fingers intertwined with yours, hanging your joined hands down between you both. There was a bright light that passed over the window for just a moment, bathing the two of you in bright light, before you were plunged back into the darkness of his room yet again.

“You did come to me…why’s that?”

“You know why-”

“I do,” he said it so matter-of-factly, that smirk growing just a tad as he leaned into your personal bubble by just a hair. “This push and pull, four years of ‘will they’ or ‘won’t they.’ I want to hear you say it, baby.”

“It’s not that easy,” you immediately shook your head, teeth gnawing at your bottom lip as Johnny simply watched you. “Saying it…makes it real.”

He scoffed, the sound mixed with laughter, as his head cocked slightly more to the side.

“You came into my bedroom at 2 in the morning–wearing my shirt, might I add–is that not real enough?”

“When you’ve spent years trying to ignore how you feel and refusing to say it, it’s not that easy to say,” you desperately tried to explain. “If I say it…then everything changes.”

Johnny took barely another step forward, and you almost wanted to step back, to bring back the space between you and preserve the small, crumbling wall that still stood between you both.

“A sexy, naked alien woman came to earth and basically prophesied our demise, darling. If there was ever a time to ‘change everything’ and lay it all on the line, I think it’s now,”

Your heart wanted to hang onto the word darling, but your brain was too stuck on the ‘sexy, naked alien woman’ part of his sentence. The sigh that escaped you was instantaneous, as well as the frown, as you shot the blonde man a pointed look.

“Sexy, naked alien woman, Johnny? Seriously?”

“Come on! She was–objectively–attractive. You can’t deny that!”

It was your turn to scoff, tearing your hands from his in a heartbeat, before spinning on your heel. You felt like an idiot–on the precipice of finally confessing your deepest, darkest secret you’d kept locked away for years, and this is what you got.

“I try to be serious with you, Johnny, and you turn it into a joke once again-”

You didn’t get far from him. A hand enveloped your upper arm mid sentence, tugging and spinning your back around. A gasp fell from your lips as you collided with the chest of the man before you.

Whatever you were going to say never saw the light of day. Not when Johnny Storm gripped at your hips, tugged you as impossibly close as he could, and finally–finally–kissed you.

The kiss you’d dreamed about for four years, finally yours.

Johnny’s lips were soft as they slanted against your own, enveloping you in his warmth. They moved against you in a steady rhythm, passionate but still gentle, still testing the waters of the line you had never crossed before. 

His hands curled into the fabric of the t-shirt clinging to your body, pushing it up just enough so that his hands could dip underneath. Your breath caught, even as his lips continued to move against yours, as his heated skin made contact with yours, and any part of your brain begging you to stop this was silenced as you melted into him.

Hands landed on his broad chest, gripping the fabric as you let him mold your body to his, the scent of his bodywash enveloping you as your body almost became one with him. In the pits of your stomach, as those heated hands trailed up your waist and ghosted over your ribcage, another flurry of butterflies erupted as a moan slipped past your lips, swallowed by his mouth.

A moan left Johnny’s lips at the sound of your own, one hand leaving your waist to curl around the back of your neck. Those slender fingers buried themselves into your hair, gripping just enough to have another groan of pleasure tumbling from your lips, as he guided your mouth against his own.

“You can’t keep making little noises like that,” his mouth barely left yours as he spoke, lips moving against yours, as he dove back in for another kiss the second he was done speaking.

“Your fault,” was all you could manage out, trying to back away just enough to speak, but Johnny never let your lips go far. Your hands glided up his chest, his neck, curling into his short hair as your thumb crested the ridge of his ear. “I’m trying to be mad at you.”

“Be mad at me later,” was his immediate response, his lips leaving yours just to find their place along your jawline and slide down into the hollow of your neck. His tongue danced its way across your skin, leaving tingles of electricity everywhere he touched you, his words murmured into your neck as he buried himself there. “I’m trying to kiss you.”

There was some part of you that wanted to protest him–over what, you weren’t even sure at this point–but you couldn’t. Not when his teeth dug just so into the side of your neck, leaving his mark on your skin as if he was claiming you as his.

You were always his.

“You c-called–oh god–you called the alien sexy while I was trying to confess,” you just barely managed to get the words out through your moans. Johnny was slowly walking you backward, straight in the direction of his bed while his lips never left the side of your neck, leaving his mark on every inch of skin he could see.

Your foot caught on the raised edge of the platform his seating area sat on, your feet stumbling backward. Johnny was there–he was always there–and tugged you back into him. And god, if you loved those blue eyes before, you loved them even more now: pupils blown wide, Johnny Storm looked about as wrecked as you felt.

“Your confession was four years late, and I’m impatient,” he stole another kiss from you, his teeth sinking just barely into your bottom lip, tugging gently. He let go, pressing a messy kiss to your lips to soothe the pain of his bite, words fanning out over your lips. “I’ve been trying to tell you I’m in love with you for four years now, so please just shut up and let me show you instead. Now–jump.”

At this point, you’d do just about anything he asked of you.

Johnny caught you with ease, both of his hands splayed out across the bare skin of your thighs, locking your legs around his hips. A choked moan fell from your lips the second your core was dragged against the painfully hard length bulging against his own pants, hands curling into his hair as you, this time, desperately pulled him into a kiss.

I’m in love with you. Those words repeated like a mantra in your head. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, the world’s fire boy and hero that they painted like a sex symbol. The ‘playboy’ with a new girl all the time, never able to hold down a girl…was in love with you.

Your back hit the bed, body bouncing just slightly before settling. His eyes never left you as you crawled back just slightly, propping yourself up on your elbows to look up at him in the dark of the room, lit only by sky and the lamp by the door. The music played faintly in the background, but at this moment, it meant nothing to you.

Johnny’s hands gently touched your knees from where they dangled off the edge of the bed, parting them just so in order to step between them. You watched, entranced by every move he made, body flushed from the heat that coursed through your bare skin at the slightest of touches from him. With a practiced ease, his hand took hold of the back of his shirt, yanking it over his head without hesitation. It found a place to lay somewhere across the room, discarded until the following morning.

It was impossible not to stare. His broad chest, those biceps that always threatened to bulge out of every shirt he wore. His toned abdomen and the trail of hair that led straight to the waistband of his pants, the outline of him still prevalent and straining against the fabric.

“I need to know that you’re sure…about this,” you weren’t used to it, the vulnerability in Johnny’s tone. He leaned over you now, hands splayed across the bed on either side of you, barely a few inches from your face. Those blue eyes flickered down to your lips time and time again. “Because if I kiss you again, I’m not stopping until you’re mine.”

There was no hesitation on your part. Just a single movement of your arms, tossing the old shirt hanging from your upper body across the room to join his. As simple as that, you sat bare before him, chest heaving with every deep breath you took in.

“I was already yours. I always have been,” there was only certainty in your tone as you held his gaze. “Speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak…that’s why I came to you. Because if this is the end of the world, I needed you to know that I love-”

He didn’t let you finish your words. His next kiss was anything but gentle.

Messy, spit coating your lips as Johnny’s tongue seemed to invade your mouth and every one of your senses, his lips devoured yours as if you were his first meal in decades. He kissed with the hunger of a starved man, his hands grasping at every part of your skin they could–your waist, your hip, before finally your ass. The squeeze he gave to your skin, the uptick in heat you felt as if he was burning himself just slightly hotter on purpose, had another moan tumbling from your lips and into his mouth.

The hand still gripping your ass tugged you upward on the bed until your head fell against the silk pillows at the headboard. Your hands never left Johnny’s hair, carding through the strands as you frantically kissed him back, addicted to the feeling, as his hips ground into yours. That bulge in his pants pressed heavenly into your core, the friction rolling your eyes into the back of your head as you let your head fall to the pillows with a moan.

Johnny’s lips were everywhere. From your jawline, to your neck, until they finally reached your collarbone. He lavished you with his lips, tongue running over your skin as his hands trailed up the sides of your lower abdomen, stopping just as they reached the swell of your breasts.

“Since the day you walked in, I’ve thought about this,” his voice was raspy, the words barely understood as they were spoken against your skin. “Since the moment Reed introduced you to us.”

“I-I was wearing a lab coat,” you choked on your words as Johnny’s lips reached your sternum, trailing kissing down your chest, but never where you wanted him. “Hardly sexy, I’d argue.”

“It is when I’m picturing you in that coat and your heels, and nothing else,” he tacked on, before his lips wrapped around your nipple without warning.

You mewled at the sudden contact, one hand returning to his hair on instinct as your back arched off the bed and into him. Johnny’s hand on your abdomen was quick to push you back down, holding you down against the bedding beneath you.

God, with the fire that felt like it was burning through your body, you could’ve sworn that Johnny had caught you on fire. His teeth just barely grazed the sensitive bud in his mouth, a sharp intake of breath leaving your lips on instinct. He was quick to soothe you, tongue swirling around the erect and sensitive bud with rapt attention. A moan slipped through him, felt through your entire body, as your other hand tore into the bedding. Desperate for something to hold onto. Something to ground you in your pleasure.

“I’ve dreamed about you under me. Kissing you, tasting you, loving you,” his practically purred out every single word, tongue flicking back and forth over your sensitive nipple. He moved to the other one easily, delivering the same rapt attention to it.

“I’ve thought about you, too,” you relented, divulging every secret you held dear to the man who lavished every inch of you in love and adoration. “In the kitchen, the lab, in that stupid button up from earlier-”

“I knew you liked that shirt. Wore it just for you,” his husky tone sent another shot of pleasure through you, heat curling through every inch of your body.

The tips of his fingers trailed lightly down your stomach. When Johnny’s head lifted for just a moment to lock his eyes with yours, that familiar smirk on his face, you weren’t given a second to react before heat poured through his touch.

Gasps mixed with moans of pleasure fell from your lips on instinct, that unnatural heat of his pouring through his touch and into your skin. Every movement of his fingers over your ribcage and down your abdomen felt as if it was leaving your skin on fire, branding his touch into your skin so that you would never forget the feeling. Burning him into your memory so that you would always feel the phantom sensations of his touch on your skin.

“You’re absolute perfection, you always have been,” Johnny moaned into your skin, lips trailing over the mounds of your breasts with another series of a thousand kisses. Those heated fingers dipped past the waistband of your shorts, pressing directly against your clothed clit without a warning. The moan you let escape mixed in the air with the moan that tumbled from Johnny’s lips against your skin. “Jesus Christ, baby, you’re so soaked.”

The heat was still there in his fingers, setting off every little nerve ending in you even through the soaked fabric of your panties that you desperately wanted gone. Your hips ground up into his hand, whimpers falling from your lips as you chased after the feeling of him, desperate for friction.

“All for you,” even this hint of pleasure had you stumbling toward the edge, babbling almost incoherently. With a tug to his hair, you were quick to bring Johnny’s lips back to yours, arms wound around his neck. He gave into your needs immediately, devouring you in a kiss as heated as his touch was, fingers rubbing slow circles over where you needed him so desperately. “Please–Johnny, please! Please, I need you. Need you–need you so bad.”

“I got you, baby. I got you. Keep moaning my name like that, and I’ll give you the world”

Those whispered words stayed on your lips, lingering, as Johnny left you. His touch wasn’t gone long. Fingers curling into your shorts, they were discarded across the room in a flash, panties gone with them as well.

For the first time, you laid completely bare in front of the man you loved–the man you denied loving for so long. And Johnny Storm was a mess. His hair stuck up in multiple directions, skin flushed, but he was still beautiful. The most beautiful man you’d ever met, inside and out.

Johnny didn’t give you a second to truly breathe once he was done admiring you. He sprawled out along the end of the bed, head dipping between your thighs, as he licked a single stripe with his flattened tongue directly up your center.

“Fucking beautiful, and all mine,” his words were growled into your core, two fingers lazily moving between your folds and spreading every ounce of wetness around, holding you open so he could see every inch of you. “Sweeter than I ever dreamed you could be.”

He dove into you like you were the only thing that mattered. Fingers spreading you open, giving him access to every square inch, his mouth devoured you. A cool drink of water for a starving man in the middle of the desert. Johnny moved his tongue with precise expertise, as if he knew exactly what your body craved.

Delving into you, flicking back and forth as he drank in every secretion of arousal that dripped from you. That same tongue dragged its way up to your clit, swirling around in figure eights, flicking back and forth.

Cries fell from your lips wantonly, hands digging into his hair. Eyes fluttered shut, head tilted back to the ceiling, there was only one word you could repeat over and over again: Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. 

His name was all you knew anymore, too lost in your own bliss and pleasure.

In one fell swoop, your thighs were settled over his shoulders, before his head was back where you wanted it more than anything. His lips and tongue focused on your clit, still swirling back and forth, as his fingers dipped slightly lower, dancing right across your opening.

It started with one long, slender finger sliding into you. One of your hands was forced to leave Johnny’s hair, falling over your own mouth to try and conceal the cry that threatened to burst from you, afraid that the others would hear you.

“Let me hear you, baby,” he laughed against your core, his finger curling just perfectly against your walls as they clenched around him every time he dragged his finger back and forth. “Want to hear you.”

“Don’t want to–fucking hell, Johnny–let the others hear,” 

“Let them. Let them hear me love you,”

Fuck Johnny Storm and his stupid lines. His stupid dirty talk that had your walls clenching around him again and again.

Another finger joined the first, followed by another, before you were stretched as wide as you could be around Johnny. The squelch of your juices rung through the air with every move of his fingers–dragging so deliciously into you, curling up, before dragging out just to the edge of your opening. His mouth–god, his mouth–never let up, lapping away at your core like it was his job, what he was meant to do.

That coil of pleasure deep within your lower body came out of nowhere, sneaking up on you just like your love for this man had.

“Johnny–baby–I can’t. I can’t–I’m gonna-”

“Let go, darling,” came that growl in his voice again, the speed of his fingers increasing. “I got you baby, let go.”

That coil snapped in seconds after he spoke. The precipice of your orgasm was earth-shattering, like you’d never felt before. Like trails of fire through your veins, the pleasure coursing through you had your head buried into the pillow behind your head, desperately trying to conceal the wails of pleasure that tumbled from your lips. Your thighs snapped shut around Johnny’s head, but his ministrations never let up as he eagerly drank up every bit of your arousal that leaked from you.

The come down was slow, like waking up. Your breath was uneven, heart beating erratically when you finally pulled your head from the pillow. Eyes bleary, it took a moment to blink them back to life.

Johnny stood at the edge of the bed, discarding his pants and boxers to the pile of clothing littering the other side of the room. And even in your fucked-out, blissful state, one look at him for the first time had that burning desire coursing back through your veins.

He was big. There was no way around it, no denying it, no other way to put it. Flushed, hanging with that beautiful reddened tip, one large and prominent vein throbbing along the edge of it. Beads of precum collected at the tip, his hand smearing it down along his length as he gave himself one single pump before he was crawling back onto the bed.

Johnny knelt between your legs again. Even with limbs that felt like Jell-O, you met him halfway, dragging yourself into a seated position. It was the smile on his face right now, the one erupting those butterflies once more, that you decided was your favorite: soft, adoring, loving.

It was your hands that cupped his cheeks, bringing him into a soft kiss. The taste of you lingered on his lips, sweet just like he said. You poured every ounce of emotion into your kiss, trying to convey to him the years you’d spent loving him so quietly that you couldn’t admit it.

“I might be addicted to you, Johnny Storm,” your words were mumbled into his lips. He laughed so gently, stealing another peck.

“Glad you finally caught up with me, princess, I’ve been addicted since day one,”

Pressed to him, his lips stealing a thousand pecks from yours, the lust in your bones was back in full force. All you could do was hum in response, one of your hands trailing down his chest, nails dragging slowly over his abdomen, before you finally took his throbbing cock in your hand.

He felt even bigger than he looked, which didn’t even make sense in your mind. But he was hot, the skin searing into your hand in the best way. You gave him one squeeze, one tug, and you smiled at the hitch in his breath. The twitch of his cock in your hold.

Johnny’s hand quickly grabbed yours, though, unlatching it from him. All you could do was shake your head, practically whining as you tried to take your hand back.

“Johnny-”

“God, it’s so hot how eager you are to touch me,” he laughed again, tilting his head to leave a single kiss to the column of your throat. “This is about you, doll. Save that for next time. It can be a ‘welcome home from space’ gift for me. A ‘thanks for saving the world’ gift, if you will.”

Space. 

That word was enough to have your next words caught in your throat as the weight of everything came crashing back down on you. The threat, the herald, the space launch commencing in a matter of hours now, the events that brought you here in the first place.

You weren’t sure when you started crying, when a single tear slipped down your cheek, but Johnny caught it. Eyes full of concern, but understanding, he simply wiped the tears from your cheek, laying a kiss to the wet splotch of your skin.

“No crying, none of that. Just lay back, baby,”

You listened, letting his hands guide you gently to rest back against the pillows once more. Parting your legs, Johnny placed himself between them, holding himself up over your body on his forearms. Right where he belonged.

Your hands rested on his chest, sliding up so gently to his neck. His eyes never left yours, his length sitting right against your soaked and sensitive core, gliding back and forth with each gentle twitch of his hips.

“You didn’t let me say it earlier. So let me say it, for the first time outloud,” you gave him a watery smile, lips quivering as you looked up at him. “I love you, Johnny Storm. I’ve loved you for so long. I’m sorry it took the world maybe ending for this, that I didn’t let myself be yours sooner.

He smiled, that same charming smile he always did, as he rolled his hips once more. His cock caught just along the edge of your opening as Johnny dipped down, breath fanning over your lips.

“Like you said: you’ve always been mine,”

The first press of his length into your core stung. As wet as you were, as prepared as you were for him, it had been so long. He stretched your walls little by little, taking his time as your body adjusted to him. Then, inch by inch, he sunk within your walls that clung to him tightly.

His cock bottomed out, sunk fully within you, bare hips pressed to bare hips as you both let out shaky breaths. Your nails dug into the hair at the nape of his neck while his hands trailed up your ribcage, squeezing every moment or so as choked out moans fell from his lips.

“God–so tight for me, baby–you feel like heaven,”

His name was the only thing you could manage to choke out between your moans as he dragged himself back to the tip, before burying himself again to the hilt. Your moans, your cries and the way your hands threaded into his hair only spurred him on more, Johnny’s hips snapping into yours again and again and again.

His lips found yours amidst every snap of his hips, every drag of his cock against your walls. Every moan that slipped through your lips was drowned out by him, by the feverish movements of his lips against yours. They trailed away, back to your neck, leaving a trail of saliva connecting you together as he bit another love bite into the side of your neck. It didn’t matter to you how this would look to others, how scandalous you might look in the light of day to others.

All that mattered was Johnny Storm.

“Oh god, Johnny!” your head fell to his shoulder, teeth sinking into his skin as his hips snapped against yours over and over, driving him deeper with every thrust into you. “Holy fuck, w-why weren’t we doing this for years?”

“Because you’ve been a stubborn–fuck–little tease all these years,” his tongue dragged up the column of your throat, peppering kissing up and down your skin as his cock dragged against your walls. “Bent over your workstation in the lab–oh god–you don’t know how many times I’ve thought about it. Thought about walking in and taking you right there, making a mess right at your desk.”

“R-Reed would walk in and you’d scar him for life,”

“Sounds like a win-win to me,” there was shared laughter, punctuated with a shared moan as his cock dragged right against that spot nestled within you. “And try not to talk about my brother-in-law when I’m fucking you.”

There was no time to reply as Johnny scooped up your wrists in his hand in a single motion, pinning them down above your head. He adjusted your waist, suddenly driving into you at a new angle that had you mewling his name all over again.

Johnny whispered your name into your skin with every kiss, timed just so with every snap of his hips against yours. That coil of heat was burning, wounding itself tighter and tighter for the second time that night. All you could feel was him, was Johnny.

His warmth, the heat that burned off of him. It warmed your skin, it had beads of sweat dripping down your forehead. It was uncomfortable in the best way. His one hand still trailed up and down your ribcage, every so often tweaking your sensitive nipple between his thumb and index finger and coaxing another moan of pleasure from you.

He worshiped you, every inch of you, like you were the greatest thing to ever grace the earth. To him, you might have been

“Fucking perfect, baby. Fucking made for me,” his lips found yours again, slick with spit as his tongue dipped into your mouth to taste every inch of you possible.

His stroke faltered, the rhythm uneven, and you knew he was close. That coil of heat in your stomach was threatening to snap any second every time his cock pulsed and throbbed within your walls. His grip on your wrists was tight, even as you struggled against him, desperate to just hold him.

“Johnny–baby–please I-I’m so close-”

You choked on your words once more, the hand still trailing across your stomach heating up again, leaving a burning trail of heat in your skin. Those heated fingers found your clit like it was second nature, a cry of pure pleasure leaving your lips as they circle that bundle of a thousand nerves over and over again, hips still snapping into you as quickly and desperately as they can.

“Let go,” his voice was husky, eyes blown wide as he looked down at you. Your wrists were finally let go, your hands immediately finding their place in the strands of his hair again as his free hand cups the back of your neck, smashing your lips into his in a flurry of moans. “Let go, baby, let go.”

Your second climax burned hotter than the first.

The pleasure burned so hot, so bright, you were practically sobbing, every cry and moan of pure bliss muffled by his kiss. Your legs locked around Johnny’s waist–tightly–so tight he could barely move away from you. It was overwhelming, the shockwaves of bliss that ran through your veins, the shaking of your thighs as you held onto his hair like it’s a lifeline.

He ground himself into you over and over, rhythm so far gone he was struggling. But all it took was your lips lazily finding his neck, teeth sinking in to leave your matching mark to his, for his hips to still as he spilt into you.

Johnny breathed out every moan into the side of your head, your name tumbling from his lips along with a flurry of swears. The grip he had on your hip was bruising, so tight you think he could snap the damn bone if he held any tighter. And his cock? Seated so deeply inside of you it’s as if you are one, heat pooled within your lower abdomen with every wave of cum that filled you to the brim.

On the other side of the room, the record was still playing softly. Bright lights still flashed by the windows every so often, crews still at work on the spaceship set for launch by mid-morning.

None of it mattered in the silence of the bed.

You aren’t sure how long either of you laid there. Your heartbeat, eventually, returned to normal, even as your chest still heaved to take in every breath that it could. Johnny still laid half on top of you, pressing repeated kisses to the side of your head, but said nothing. Your hand stayed in his hair, carding through it, as your core pulsed. It would ache come morning–hell, it already did–but it was worth it. It was so worth it.

Neither of you were quite sure when he pulled out of you, or how long you simply laid there and basked in the afterglow of a moment that should’ve happened years ago.

Eventually, Johnny shifted down. His lips trailed down your body in worship, like they’d done already that night. From your cheek, to your neck, your collarbone, the swell of your breasts, and down your lower abdomen.

“Careful…not sure I’d survive a round three,” your voice was hoarse, mouth dry. Johnny laughed against your skin, still kissing every inch he could see.

“I don’t think I would, either,”

His hands were heated once more, but not for the same purpose as moments before. Now, his touch was gentle, massaging every piece of you that he could get his hands on. His thumbs rubbed into your wrists, your waist, and your hips, digging into the muscles. A sigh escaped you at the comforting feeling, taut muscles loosening at the feeling of the heat and the movement of his hands.

With every kiss pressed to your skin, you could feel it: Johnny was humming. It didn’t take long to know which song he was humming, which lyrics: that same song once again.

I guess I'll never know the reason why, you love me as you do. That's the wonder, the wonder of you.

“Is that our song now?” you laughed, even if your heart was clenching at the mere thought. The mere idea of that song belonging to the two of you–the idea that Johnny Storm belonged to you.

You could feel his smile against your abdomen as he spoke. “It should be. It’s accurate. Because I don’t ever think I’ll get over the miracle that is you…loving me.”

It’s not a miracle. What you really want to tell him is that falling in love with him was so easy, you barely realized you had done it. It might be the easiest thing you’ve ever done.

Johnny crawled back up your body, slotting himself onto the bed beside you, before tugging you in. There’s no hesitation on your part, simply curling into his side with your head over his chest and arm slung around his waist. Words aren’t needed in the silence, not when you’ve both clearly laid everything out on the table now. Instead, you just listened to the beat of his heart, the natural rhythm that lulls you into a state of peacefulness.

He’s yours. Johnny Storm is yours. He’s always been yours, you just didn’t know it.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, hand cradling the back of your head as he said his next words confidently.

“We’re going to go up there tomorrow, and we’re going to stop this guy. We’re going to protect this Earth, like we’ve sworn to do. But me? I’m going to do it so I can come home to you, and love you for the rest of my life. I promise,”

He can’t promise that, you knew he couldn’t. There was no telling what might happen when that ship took off tomorrow, what they might encounter, or who this Galactus really was.

But Johnny Storm loved you. For now, in the quiet of the night, just between the two of you, that’s enough.

[moonlightwritingf1]

Chapter 1: Fight

࣪ ִֶָ☾. summary ━━━━━━━ A brutal fight erupts between Y/N and Lando at a friends' gathering, where he unknowingly destroys his soulmate in a way no one thought possible. His attack confirms every fear she’s carried alone for years, shattering the last piece of hope she had. That night, overwhelmed by heartbreak and years of buried trauma, Y/N suffers a panic attack more severe than anything she’s ever experienced.

࣪ ִֶָ☾. pairing ━━━━━━━ Lando Norris x she!reader

࣪ ִֶָ☾. word count ━━━━━━━ 10.9k

࣪ ִֶָ☾. warnings ━━━━━━━ slight mention of abusive childhood, vey mean Lando, swearing, medical emergency (panic attack), loads of crying, loads of angst

Series Masterlist

The rain had stopped just as Y/N arrived at Max and Pietra's apartment building in Central London, though the gray clouds still hung heavy and threatening above the city's skyline. She stood for a moment outside the familiar entrance, adjusting the strap of her designer handbag and smoothing down her black cashmere coat. Fourteen months. It had been 14 months since she'd first met Lando Norris through their mutual friends, and 12 months since that fateful afternoon when she'd discovered the devastating truth that had turned her world completely upside down.

Twelve months since she’d seen him shirtless by Max and Pietra’s pool. Twelve months since she’d spotted the intricate, fine-line tattoo—a crescent moon birthmark—on his left hip, the exact same mark that adorned her own skin in the exact same spot. Twelve months of carrying the weight of knowing the universe had played its cruelest joke on her: marking her for a man who looked at her like she was less than nothing, who spoke with barely concealed contempt, and who seemed to take genuine pleasure in making her feel small.

The irony was so perfect it was almost beautiful in its completeness. Almost.

Y/N pressed the buzzer for their apartment, her fingers trembling slightly despite the mild evening temperature. The familiar sound of Pietra's voice crackled through the intercom, warm and welcoming as always, a stark contrast to the ice-cold dread that had settled in Y/N's stomach the moment she'd received the text about tonight's gathering.

"Y/N! Come up, love. We're all here already."

All here already. Which meant he was already there. Which meant she would have to spend the next several hours pretending that her heart didn't shatter a little more each time he looked through her like she was invisible, each time he spoke to everyone else with warmth and charm while reserving nothing but cold politeness for her.

The elevator ride to the 16th floor felt like an eternity, giving Y/N too much time to study her reflection in the polished steel doors. She looked composed, professional, put-together—the image she'd carefully cultivated over years of learning to hide every vulnerable emotion behind a mask of competent indifference. Her long hair fell in soft waves past her shoulders, and her eyes held that particular intensity that came from years of analyzing every interaction, every micro-expression, every subtle shift in tone that might indicate incoming rejection or abandonment.

She'd chosen her outfit carefully tonight—high-waisted black trousers that accentuated the curve of her hips while maintaining an air of sophisticated professionalism, paired with a burgundy silk blouse that brought out the warmth in her skin tone. The outfit was expensive, impeccably tailored, designed to project success and confidence. It was armor, just like everything else in her carefully constructed life.

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime, and Y/N stepped into the familiar hallway. She could already hear voices and laughter from behind Max and Pietra's door—Tom's booming laugh, Ed's animated storytelling voice, Max's quick wit cutting through the conversation. And underneath it all, like a bass note that made her chest tight with unwanted longing, she could hear Lando's voice.

That voice that could go from playful teasing to cutting cruelty in the span of a heartbeat. That voice that spoke to everyone else with such natural charm and warmth, but turned cold and dismissive the moment it was directed at her. The voice that belonged to her soulmate, who would probably laugh if he ever discovered the cosmic joke the universe had played on both of them.

Y/N knocked on the door, forcing her shoulders back and lifting her chin with the practiced confidence that had gotten her through boardroom negotiations and university presentations and every other situation where she'd needed to project strength while feeling fundamentally broken inside.

Pietra opened the door with a bright smile, her warmth immediately filling the space between them. "Y/N! You look stunning as always. Come in, come in. We were just talking about Max's latest disaster in the kitchen."

Y/N stepped into the warm, inviting space of the apartment she'd visited so many times over the past year. The living room was exactly as she remembered—comfortable sofas arranged around a glass coffee table, warm lighting that made everything feel cozy and intimate, floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a stunning view of London's glittering skyline. 

"Y/N!" Max called out from his position on the main sofa, raising his wine glass in greeting. "Perfect timing. We were just about to start placing bets on whether Tom can get through the evening without spilling something on himself."

"Hey now," Tom protested from his spot. "That was one time, and it was entirely Lando's fault for making me laugh while I was drinking."

And there it was. The mention of his name that made Y/N's entire body tense despite her best efforts to remain composed. She forced a smile and accepted the glass of wine that Pietra pressed into her hands, using the moment of taking a sip to scan the room and locate him.

He was sitting in the armchair near the window, and the sight of him hit her like it always did—like a physical blow that left her breathless and aching. Lando Norris at twenty-five was devastating in a way that seemed almost unfair, as if the universe had decided to concentrate all its efforts on creating the most beautiful human being possible and then, just for the sake of cosmic humor, had made him her soulmate while ensuring he could barely stand to be in the same room as her.

His curly hair was slightly messy, as if he'd been running his hands through it—a nervous habit she'd noticed over the months of reluctant observation. His green eyes were bright with laughter from whatever conversation had been happening before her arrival, and she felt that familiar twist of pain in her chest as she watched him be charming and animated with everyone except her.

When his gaze finally found hers across the room, the transformation was immediate and devastating. The warmth and humor in his eyes vanished, replaced by that familiar cool indifference that had become as much a part of their interactions as breathing. He gave her the barest nod of acknowledgment—polite, distant, the kind of greeting you'd give to a stranger you had no interest in knowing better.

"Y/N," he said, and even her name sounded different in his mouth than it did when anyone else said it. Clipped. Formal. Devoid of any warmth or interest.

"Lando," she replied, matching his tone exactly, though it cost her everything to keep her voice steady and unaffected.

The others seemed oblivious to the sudden shift in atmosphere, continuing their conversation about Tom's coordination issues and Max's latest cooking disasters. Y/N settled onto the sofa next to Ed, positioning herself so she could participate in the group conversation while keeping Lando in her peripheral vision—a skill she'd developed over months of trying to understand why he treated her so differently from everyone else.

The evening progressed much like every other gathering over the past fourteen months. Lando was his usual charming self with everyone—teasing Max about his latest streaming failures, asking Tom about his new job, complimenting Pietra on the dinner she'd prepared. He laughed at Ed's terrible jokes, offered thoughtful responses to serious topics, and generally embodied the kind of warm, engaging personality that had made him beloved by millions of fans around the world.

With Y/N, he was unpredictable—but mostly unkind. Most days, he was rude in the way only someone who knew exactly how to hurt could be—sharp, dismissive, and laced with quiet contempt. Other times, depending on his mood, the location, or even the time of day, he’d shift without warning—offering a polite nod, a short answer, or, worst of all, nothing at all. He'd ignore her completely, as though she were invisible. On the rare occasions he was civil, it wasn’t kindness—it was cold, calculated detachment. He answered direct questions with minimal effort, never initiated conversation, and kept a distance so deliberate it stung more than open cruelty. Hostility, at least, would have meant she mattered. This—this inconsistency, this indifference—felt like the slowest form of erasure.

Y/N participated in the group conversations with her usual intelligence and dry wit, making observations that made the others laugh, sharing stories from her work that showcased her sharp analytical mind. She was good at this—had always been good at performing normalcy even when everything inside her was screaming. It was a skill learned in childhood, perfected through years of practice in situations where showing weakness meant inviting more pain.

But tonight felt different somehow. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the accumulation of twelve months of carrying the weight of their cosmic connection while being treated like a barely tolerated acquaintance. Maybe it was the way she'd caught him looking at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention—not with indifference, but with something that looked almost like hunger before he quickly looked away.

Whatever it was, when the conversation inevitably turned to relationships, Y/N felt that familiar coil of tension in her stomach begin to tighten.

"I just don't understand it," Lando was saying, running those long fingers through his curls in a gesture that made Y/N's stomach clench with unwanted longing. She watched the way his forearms flexed as he moved, the subtle play of muscle beneath golden skin, the way his hands—those beautiful, capable hands she'd seen grip steering wheels and sign autographs and gesture animatedly during conversations—moved with unconscious grace.

"Where are all the good girls these days? The ones who actually have their shit together. Someone mature, intelligent, who knows what they want in life."

The words hit Y/N like physical blows, each one more devastating than the last. Something hot and bitter rose in her throat—a mixture of fury and heartbreak that threatened to choke her. Here he was, describing exactly what she was.

Mature. Intelligent. Someone who knows what they want.

She was all of those things—had two degrees, spoke four languages fluently, could analyze market trends and debate European history with the best of them. But sitting here, listening to him describe his perfect woman while looking right through her like she didn’t exist, felt like being slowly skinned alive.

The soulmate mark on her hip burned like acid under her skin, a constant reminder of the cosmic joke that was her existence. Somewhere in the universe's grand design, she was supposed to be his everything. His perfect match, his other half, his completion. Instead, she was his invisible annoyance, his least favorite person in any room.

"I mean, I want something real," Lando continued, his voice gaining that passionate intensity that appeared whenever he talked about something that mattered to him. "Someone who challenges me, who doesn't just want me for fame or the money. A proper relationship, marriage material. Someone I could actually see myself building a life with."

Y/N's fingers tightened on her wine glass until her knuckles went white. Marriage material. Someone who challenges him. The universe had literally designed her to be those things for him, had marked them both before birth as perfect matches, and he was sitting there describing her while simultaneously treating her like she was invisible.

Max snorted from his position next to Pietra, his arm draped casually around his girlfriend's shoulders. "Mate, maybe you're looking in the wrong places."

"That's just it, though," Lando said, leaning forward in his chair, those green eyes filled with frustration. "I don't even know where to look anymore. Everyone seems so superficial, so focused on the lifestyle rather than actually building something meaningful."

Marriage material. Someone who challenges him. Someone mature and intelligent.

The irony was so perfectly cruel, she could barely breathe. The hypocrisy was so staggering it made something snap inside Y/N’s chest. A laugh escaped before she could stop it—bitter, sharp, slicing through the room like broken glass.

The sound made everyone turn to look at her, but she only had eyes for Lando—whose gaze had sharpened with something dangerously close to irritation.

"Something funny?" His tone was already defensive, already hostile. The way it always was when he spoke to her, like her very existence offended him on some fundamental level.

Y/N set her wine glass down on the coffee table with careful precision, her movements controlled despite the storm raging inside her chest. "It's just..." she began. "The hypocrisy is rather amusing, don't you think?"

"Hypocrisy?" Lando's voice was getting colder, more defensive. The atmosphere in the room shifted palpably, the easy warmth of moments before replaced by a tension that made everyone else fall silent.

"You sitting there, complaining about not being able to find a good woman, a mature woman, while you're still..."

"While I'm still what?" Lando interrupted, leaning forward in his chair. His eyes were full of anger now, all pretense of polite indifference abandoned.

"You're sitting here complaining about not being able to find a good girl, a mature woman who knows what she wants," she said, her voice steady as stone. "But how exactly do you expect to attract someone like that when you're still hung up on your ex-girlfriend?"

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Pietra shifted uncomfortably, her usually warm demeanor cooling as she sensed the brewing storm. Tom cleared his throat awkwardly while Ed suddenly found his glass fascinating.

Lando's entire body went rigid, every muscle tensing like a predator preparing to strike. "I'm not hung up on anyone," he said, but there was something too sharp in his voice, too quick in his denial.

"Really?" Y/N's voice was silk over steel, deceptively soft but deadly. "Because your Instagram says otherwise. Your family's Instagram says otherwise. Hell, every tabloid article about you and your little PR puppet says otherwise."

The words hung in the air like a challenge, and Y/N watched Lando's face cycle through several emotions—surprise, anger, and something that might have been shame before it was quickly masked by fury.

"You've been stalking my Instagram?" The accusation came out sharp and ugly, designed to put her on the defensive, to shift the blame, to cast her as the villain in this scenario. It was a tactic she recognized from childhood, from parents who turned every legitimate grievance into proof of her own moral failings.

But Y/N had been fighting battles since she was five years old, and had learned to weaponize words before most children could even tie their shoes. She didn’t flinch, didn’t back down, didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her rattled.

"It's called having functional eyesight, Lando. Every time you and Matilde take your pathetic little PR strolls around Monaco—which, by the way, everyone can see right through—the articles always include screenshots. Screenshots of you still following your ex girlfriend, Olivia. Of your mother still commenting heart emojis on her posts. Of your father still liking her pictures from vacations she takes with her new boyfriend."

Each word was delivered with surgical precision, designed to cut deep. Y/N watched Lando’s face flush red, his hands clenching into fists on the armrests of his chair. Those beautiful forearms were tense with barely contained rage, veins standing out against his tanned skin, knuckles turning white from the force of his grip.

Even in anger—even as she systematically destroyed him with words—she couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he was. How the fury made his green eyes even more intense, how the muscle in his jaw jumped as he fought for control.

"How I handle my social media is none of your fucking business," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

"You're absolutely right," Y/N replied, her voice getting quieter, more dangerous. Years of boardroom negotiations had taught her that the softer you spoke, the more powerful your words became. "It's not. But you asked where all the good girls are, and I'm telling you. No self-respecting woman with actual standards is going to want to compete with the ghost of your ex-girlfriend. No one wants to be someone's consolation prize."

The truth of her words hit the room like a bomb. Y/N could see it in the way Tom and Ed exchanged glances, in the way Max shifted uncomfortably, in the way Pietra's face showed a mixture of concern and fascination. But mostly, she could see it in the way Lando's face went completely white before flushing with fury.

"That's complete bullshit," he said, standing now, using his height like a weapon. He loomed over her seated form, and for a moment, that old, instinctive fear flickered in Y/N’s chest—the kind she'd carried since childhood, from people who used their physical presence to silence her. But she’d learned long ago not to flinch, not to hand anyone that kind of power.

"Is it?" she asked, rising to her feet. She only came up to his nose, but her presence was unshakable. She held his gaze, calm and unyielding. "When was the last time you posted about being single? When was the last time you removed the pictures of you and Olivia from your Instagram? When was the last time you asked your family to stop engaging with her posts?"

"I don't—"

"When was the last time you took off that fucking bracelet she gave you?"

The words exploded out of her with more venom than she'd intended, and she saw Lando's hand instinctively move to his wrist, to the metal bangle that had become as much a part of his daily uniform as his watch or his racing gloves. Y/N had watched him wear that bracelet for fourteen months, had felt physically sick every time she saw it catching the light, every time she was forced to confront the visual reminder that he was still carrying pieces of another woman with him everywhere he went.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Lando said, but his voice lacked conviction now. His hand was still touching the bracelet, as if he was suddenly aware of its weight on his wrist.

"Don't I?" Y/N laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "I know that you wear her jewelry every single day. I know that your family treats her like she's still part of the family even though you broke up three years ago. I know that you claim to want something real while maintaining connections to someone who's moved on with someone else."

"You can deny it all you want," Y/N continued, her small frame vibrating with barely contained fury, every muscle tense with the effort of not screaming. "But actions speak louder than words, don't they? And your actions are screaming that you're still completely hung up on a woman who moved on from you three fucking years ago."

The profanity felt good on her tongue, felt like the only way to adequately express the rage and hurt that had been building inside her for over a year. She saw Lando flinch slightly at her tone, saw something flicker across his face that might have been hurt if she hadn't known better.

"I'm not asking anyone to compete with anything," Lando snapped, taking a step closer to her. "Olivia and I ended on good terms. We're friends. There's nothing wrong with that."

The word 'friends' hit Y/N like a physical blow. She felt that familiar burning in her chest, the rage that had carried her through every dark moment of her life. The rage that had kept her warm through childhood and teenage humiliations and every moment in her adult life when she'd felt small and unwanted and completely disposable.

"Friends," she repeated, tasting the word like poison on her tongue. "Is that what you call still wearing her bracelet?"

"We ended things amicably. There's nothing wrong with staying civil with an ex."

"Civil?" Y/N said, her voice rising. "Civil is not blocking them, fine. Civil is being polite if you run into them. Civil is not maintaining constant social media connections, wearing jewelry they gave you—" her eyes flicked pointedly to his wrist "—and having your mother comment heart emojis on their beach photos!"

The silence that followed was deafening. Max cleared his throat awkwardly, but neither Y/N nor Lando acknowledged him.

"That bracelet—" Lando's voice was low, dangerous, "—is none of your business."

"It is when you're sitting here whining about not finding someone!" Y/N's hands clenched into fists at her sides. "No ‘good woman’ is going to want to wonder if she's just a placeholder until Olivia decides she wants you back."

"You don't know what you're talking about." Each word was precisely enunciated, his accent thickening with anger. "Olivia has a boyfriend. She's moved on."

"Has she? Have you?" Y/N challenged. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're keeping your options open. Still maintaining those connections, just in case. Tell me, Lando, do you deny it?"

The muscle in his jaw jumped. His eyes—those beautiful eyes that haunted her dreams—narrowed into slits. The silence stretched between them, taut as a wire.

"That's what I thought," Y/N said quietly, but the words carried the weight of a shout.

You don't know anything about my relationships," Lando spat. "What makes you such an expert? When's the last time you even had a boyfriend? Hell, have you ever even had a real one? I’ve actually been in relationships—what do you even know about any of this? I bet you’ve never had a real boyfriend in your entire life."

The words hit their mark with devastating precision. Y/N felt her breath catch, felt the familiar shame crawl up her throat like bile. He was right, of course. She'd never been kissed, never been held, never been chosen by anyone. Not even by him, her supposed soulmate, who looked at her like she was absolutely nothing.

The cruelty of it was breathtaking. Here was the man the universe had supposedly designed for her, the person who was meant to love and understand her better than anyone else in the world, and he was using her deepest insecurities as weapons against her.

But she'd learned long ago how to weaponize her pain, how to turn her wounds into ammunition.

"That's completely irrelevant," she said, each word precisely enunciated.  "We're not talking about my romantic history or lack thereof. We're talking about your complete inability to understand why decent women run in the opposite direction when they see you coming."

"My inability?" Lando laughed, but there was no humor in it. The sound was harsh, ugly, designed to cut. "You want to psychoanalyze my relationship with my ex? Fine. Let's talk about how you push everyone away before they can get close. Let's talk about how you've built walls so high that no one can climb them."

Y/N felt her carefully constructed composure beginning to crack. He was getting too close to truths she'd never voiced aloud, cutting too near to wounds that had never properly healed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" Lando's laugh was harsh, nothing like his usual warm chuckle. "It's obvious to anyone who bothers to look. You're terrified of being vulnerable, so you criticize everyone else who tries. At least I put myself out there. At least I try."

"Try?" Y/N's voice cracked on the word. "You call what you do trying? Messaging models on Instagram isn't trying, Lando. Leaving clubs with a different girl every weekend isn't trying. It's collecting conquests."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Even their friends, who had been watching the exchange like a tennis match, collectively held their breath.

"Conquests?" Lando's voice was deadly quiet. "Is that what you think of me?"

"Everyone thinks that of you," Y/N said, even as part of her screamed to take it back. "Your reputation precedes you. All those girls who've sold stories about you, all those photos of you leaving parties with different women—"

"You believe tabloid gossip now?"

"Are you denying it? Are you saying you haven't slept with dozens of women? That you didn't spend the first 6 years of your career treating the paddock like your personal dating pool?"

Lando's face had gone pale. His hands were clenched so tightly at his sides that the veins in his forearms stood out in sharp relief. "My past is my past."

"But it's not the past, is it?" Y/N pressed on, unable to stop now that the floodgates had opened. "It's your present too. The parties, the girls, the constant need for attention—"

"Attention?" He stepped even closer, and Y/N had to fight the urge to step back. "You think I do this for attention?"

"Don't you? The PR games with—" Lando cut her off.

"That's rich, coming from someone who's built their entire personality around being bitter and alone."

The words hit like physical blows, each one finding its mark with surgical precision. Y/N felt something inside her chest begin to crumble, felt the careful walls she'd built around her heart start to crack under the assault.

"I'm not bitter," Y/N said, and she could hear her voice beginning to shake despite her best efforts. "I just have standards. And those standards don't include men who are too emotionally weak to let go of the past."

"Weak?" The word came out like a roar. Lando took another step closer, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his green eyes, could smell the subtle scent of his cologne mixed with something that was purely him. "You think I'm weak?"

"I think you're a coward," Y/N said without hesitation, the words coming from some deep, dark place inside her that had been fed on years of disappointment and rejection. "You want this perfect woman, this mature, intelligent partner, but you're too fucking scared to actually make yourself available for her. You keep one foot in your past because it's safe. Because if you never fully commit to moving forward, you never risk being hurt again."

The accusation hung between them like a live wire, sparking with dangerous electricity. Y/N could see that her words had found their target, could see the way Lando's face went through a series of expressions—shock, recognition, fury.

"You don't know anything about me," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "You sit there in your fancy apartment in a very prestigious area of London, with your fancy job and your fancy education, and you think you have everyone figured out. But you don't know shit about what I've been through or why I make the choices I make."

"I'm not the one pretending to be something I'm not!" Y/N said. 

"Aren't you?" The words cracked like a whip between them. "At least I'm honest about who I am. I don't pretend to be perfect while judging everyone else."

"I don't—"

"You do!" His voice rose to nearly a shout. "You sit there every fucking time we're together, watching everyone, analyzing everyone, finding everyone wanting. Like you're so much better than the rest of us who actually dare to feel things, to make mistakes, to be human!"

"Being human doesn't mean being reckless with other people's feelings!"

"Whose feelings?" He threw his arms wide. "Whose feelings have I been reckless with? The girls who knew exactly what they were getting into? The ones who wanted the same thing I did—a good time, no strings attached? Or is this about your feelings?"

The question hung between them like a loaded gun. Y/N felt the blood drain from her face.

"My feelings have nothing to do with this," she said, but her voice came out whisper-thin.

"Don't they?" Lando moved even closer, close enough that she could see the way his chest rose and fell with each angry breath. "Because from where I'm standing, it sounds like you're taking this all very personally for someone who claims not to care."

"I don't—"

"You don't what? Don't care? Then why are you so invested in my love life? Why does it matter to you if I still wear a bracelet my ex gave me? Why do you care if I sleep with models or party too much or—"

"I said I don't care! You're the one playing innocent, asking yourself why you can't find someone serious—and I'm answering your stupid question," Y/N replied, her voice steady despite the chaos raging inside her. "From your actions, it looks like you're terrified of real intimacy. It's clear you'd rather play games with PR relationships and keep wearing jewelry from dead relationships than risk actually putting yourself out there for something real."

"And what about you?" Lando's voice was getting uglier now, more vicious. "What's your excuse for being completely fucking miserable all the time? What's your excuse for treating everyone around you like they're beneath you?"

"I don't—"

"You do," Lando interrupted, and Y/N could see that he was hitting his stride now, could see that he'd found his target and was preparing to destroy it. "You walk into every room like you're doing everyone a favor by gracing them with your presence. You act like you're so much smarter, so much more sophisticated than everyone else. But really, you're just terrified that if you let anyone get close enough to see who you really are, they'll realize there's nothing there worth knowing."

Each word was a knife, expertly wielded to cause maximum damage. Y/N felt them slice through her defenses, finding every vulnerable spot she’d tried so hard to protect.

The worst part was that some of it was true—she did keep people at a distance, did shield herself behind walls of competence and sophistication. And now, those walls were starting to crack. She could feel the little girl bleeding through—the one who’d been thrown into hallways, called names, told she was worthless.

But he didn't know why. He didn't know about the childhood that had taught her that love was conditional and dangerous, that vulnerability was punished, that the only safe way to exist was to make yourself indispensable through achievement and control.

"At least I don't parade fake relationships around for publicity," she managed, her voice shaking despite her best efforts to keep it steady.

"Fake relationships?" Lando's laugh was harsh and meant to humiliate. "You mean Matilde? That's work, Y/N. That's business. Something you might understand if you lived in the real world instead of your ivory tower."

"The real world?" Y/N's voice rose, her famous composure finally beginning to crack like ice in a spring thaw. "You think you live in the real world? You live in a fucking bubble where everything is handed to you on a silver platter, where people pay you millions to drive in circles, where you've never had to work for anything meaningful in your entire privileged life."

"I've worked for everything I have," Lando shot back, his face flushed with anger and indignation. "I've been racing since I was a kid. I've sacrificed everything for this career."

"Have you?" Y/N's voice was gaining strength now, feeding off her anger like a fire feeding off oxygen. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you've just had an extended adolescence. You get to play with expensive toys for a living while the rest of us have real jobs, real responsibilities, real fucking problems."

"Real problems?" Lando's voice dripped with disdain, with the casual dismissal that only came from genuine privilege. "Like what? Like sitting in your fancy apartment judging people on the internet? Like working your cute little nine-to-five job that probably pays you less than I make in a single day?"

The classism in his voice, the casual dismissal of her work, of her struggles, of everything she'd built for herself—it was like being slapped across the face with a glove made of contempt. Y/N felt something hot and dangerous surge through her veins, felt every careful lesson in emotional control her childhood had taught her begin to crumble.

"You privileged piece of shit," Y/N whispered, her voice deadly quiet. "You have absolutely no idea what I've been through. No idea what I've had to overcome to get where I am."

"Oh, here we go," Lando said, rolling his eyes with theatrical exaggeration. "The sob story. Poor little Y/N, had to move to London all by herself. Had to get a job like every other adult in the world. Had to actually work for things instead of having them handed to her. How absolutely tragic."

"You don't know anything about my life," Y/N said, and there was something in her voice that should have warned him to stop. Something dark and dangerous and barely contained, like a dam about to burst.

But Lando was too angry to listen, too hurt by her words to care about the warning signs. Too focused on inflicting damage to notice that he was about to cross a line that could never be uncrossed.

"I know enough," he said, his voice getting crueler with every word. "I know you're a miserable person who gets off on making everyone else miserable too. You sit there acting superior to everyone when you're just angry that no one wants you."

The words hung in the air like a toxic cloud. Y/N felt them settle into her bones, into all the spaces where her childhood fears lived. All the spaces that whispered that she was unlovable, unwanted, destined to spend her life alone.

But Lando wasn't done. He was just getting started.

"You act like you're too good for everyone," Lando pressed on. "But really, you're just scared. Scared that if you let someone close enough to see who you really are, they'll realize there's nothing special about you at all."

He kept going, his voice turning uglier, more vicious, like he could sense how much damage he was doing and wanted to twist the knife. "You're cold. You're bitter. You're judgmental. You suck the fucking joy out of every room you walk into."

Each word was a precision strike, aimed at her deepest insecurities with the accuracy of someone who'd been watching her, studying her, learning her weaknesses even as he pretended to despise her.

"You want to know why you've never had a real relationship? It's not because you have standards. It's because you're completely incapable of human connection. You're broken, Y/N. And not in some romantic, fixable way that makes for a good movie. You're just fundamentally, irreparably broken."

The silence that followed was deafening. Y/N stood there, swaying slightly on her feet, feeling like she'd been hit by a freight train. Or maybe like she'd been thrown out into a hallway again, abandoned and alone while neighbours walked past and pretended not to see her.

Her soulmate—the person the universe had chosen to love her unconditionally—had just told her she was fundamentally broken. Had just confirmed every terrible thing she'd ever believed about herself, every fear that haunted her in the darkest hours of the night.

The irony was so cruel it was almost funny. Almost.

"Y/N," Pietra said softly, starting to rise from the sofa, her voice thick with horror at what she'd just witnessed.

But Lando still wasn't done. He was too caught up in his own fury, too intoxicated by the power of words to wound, to stop now.

"You know what the worst part is?" he continued, his voice dripping with contempt. "You actually think you're better than everyone else. You sit there with your fancy education and your perfect grammar and your sophisticated opinions, and you judge all of us like we're beneath you. But at least we're capable of happiness. At least we can connect with other human beings. You're just..." he paused, searching for the most devastating word possible. "You're just pathetic."

Y/N felt something inside her chest shatter completely. Some last, fragile piece of hope that she'd been protecting without even realizing it. The piece that had whispered, maybe someday, maybe if he knew, maybe if he understood...

That piece was dead now, murdered by his words and buried under the weight of his disgust.

The mark on her hip felt like it was burning straight through her skin, a constant reminder of the cosmic joke that was her life. Somewhere in the universe, there was supposed to be someone who loved her perfectly, who understood her completely, who chose her above all others.

Instead, she got Lando Norris. Beautiful, talented, charismatic Lando Norris, who looked at her like she was less than human and spoke to her like she was something that needed to be exterminated.

Y/N looked around the room at her friends—Max and Pietra looking shocked and uncomfortable, Tom and Ed staring with wide eyes, everyone frozen in the aftermath of the emotional explosion that had just torn through their peaceful evening.

"You're right," she said quietly, her voice steady despite the storm raging inside her chest. "I am pathetic. I'm broken and pathetic and completely unlovable. But at least I know it. At least I'm not walking around pretending to be something I'm not, desperate for a love I'm too much of a coward to actually pursue."

She turned to the room, to their friends who had sat in horrified silence through the entire exchange. "I'm sorry," she said simply. "I'll go."

She moved toward the door, her legs somehow still carrying her despite feeling like they were made of lead. Every step was agony, every breath felt like swallowing glass—but she forced herself to keep going.

Y/N was already gathering her purse with hands that shook only slightly. She couldn’t look at any of them again. Couldn’t bring herself to meet Lando’s gaze to see if there was any regret there—any recognition of how far he’d gone. Any humanity left in those green eyes that had once made her dream of impossible things.

She couldn’t stay in this room another second, not while breathing the same air as the man who was supposed to love her unconditionally—who had just eviscerated her with surgical precision.

At the door, she paused one last time, not turning around.

"And Lando?" she said, her hand on the door handle, her voice carrying clearly across the silent room. "When you're lying in bed tonight, still wearing her bracelet, still wondering why you can't find your perfect woman—remember this conversation. Remember that maybe the problem isn't that there aren't any good women out there. Maybe the problem is that you're not good enough for them."

She pulled the door open, then paused again, some masochistic part of her needing to twist the knife one more time.

"You want to know what your real problem is? It's not that you're still hung up on Olivia. It's that you're exactly the kind of man who would rather destroy someone else than admit you might be wrong. You're cruel, Lando. Genuinely cruel. And no amount of money or fame or pretty eyes is going to change that."

Y/N stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind her, cutting off whatever response Lando might have had. The silence in the corridor was deafening after the emotional intensity of the fight, and she stood there for a moment, trying to process what had just happened.

She'd fought with her soulmate. Had screamed at him, had been cruel to him, had exposed her deepest wounds only to have them used against her. The man the universe had supposedly designed for her had just told her she was fundamentally broken and unlovable, and the worst part was that she was starting to believe he might be right.

The elevator ride down felt like descending into hell. Y/N stared at her reflection in the polished steel doors and saw exactly what Lando had described—a cold, bitter woman who pushed everyone away before they could hurt her. A woman so damaged by her childhood that she couldn't connect with other human beings even when they were literally designed by the universe to be hers.

She thought about the way he'd looked at her during their fight—not with the careful blankness he usually employed, but with genuine disgust. Like she was something repulsive that had crawled out from under a rock. Like her very existence offended him on some fundamental level.

And maybe it did. Maybe that was why he'd been so cruel to her from the moment they met. Maybe on some subconscious level, he could sense the connection between them and rejected it utterly. Rejected her utterly.

The thought made her laugh, but it came out broken and bitter. Of course her soulmate would be the one person in the world who couldn't stand her. Of course the universe would give her someone who confirmed every terrible thing she'd ever believed about herself.

Her parents had told her she was worthless, disposable, a burden they never wanted. The boy in school had told her she was pathetic, laughable, deserving of public humiliation. And now her soulmate had told her she was fundamentally broken, irreparably damaged, incapable of human connection.

Maybe they were all right. Maybe there really was something wrong with her, something that made her unlovable no matter how hard she tried to fix herself, no matter how much she achieved or how much she grew.

When she finally made it to her apartment, she went straight to her bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was blotchy and swollen from crying tears she didn't remember shedding, her hair was a mess, her clothes were wrinkled. She looked exactly like what she was: a broken woman who had just been destroyed by the person who was supposed to love her most.

She pulled up her shirt and looked at the mark on her hip—that soulmate mark that was supposed to represent destiny, cosmic connection, perfect love. In the harsh bathroom lighting, it looked like nothing more than a birthmark. A random pattern of pigmentation that meant absolutely nothing.

What a joke. What a cosmic, cruel, devastating joke.

She thought about telling him. About marching up to his hotel or cornering him the next day and showing him the mark. About watching his face as he realized that the universe had played the cruelest possible trick on both of them.

But what would be the point? He'd made his feelings about her perfectly clear. Learning that they were soulmates wouldn't change anything except to add a layer of cosmic irony to their mutual hatred. If anything, it would probably make him treat her even worse, knowing that he was stuck with her for eternity.

No, she decided. She would keep her secret. Would carry it like all her other secrets—quietly, privately, without burdening anyone else with the weight of it.

The tears came again then, great heaving sobs that shook her entire body. She slid down the bathroom wall until she was sitting on the cold tile floor, crying for the fight, for the cruel words, for the look in Lando's eyes when he'd told her she was broken.

But mostly, she cried for the death of a dream she'd barely let herself acknowledge. The tiny, secret hope that maybe, someday, when he learned they were soulmates, everything would change. That he would see her differently, understand her differently, maybe even love her.

That hope was dead now, murdered by his words and buried under the weight of his disgust.

Because even if he ever found out the truth—even if he ever learned that the universe had marked them for each other—nothing would change. He would still see her as broken, as unworthy, as fundamentally unlovable.

And maybe, Y/N thought as she finally cried herself into exhaustion on her bathroom floor, maybe he would be right.

Maybe she really was fundamentally broken. Maybe she really was incapable of human connection. Maybe the universe had made a mistake when it paired them together, had somehow failed to account for the fact that she was too damaged to be anyone's soulmate.

Maybe she was destined to spend the rest of her life loving someone who looked at her like she was absolutely nothing at all.

The mark on her hip burned like a brand, a constant reminder of the cosmic joke that was her existence. Somewhere out there, other people were finding their soulmates, were experiencing the joy and completeness that came with cosmic connection.

But not her. Never her.

She was Y/N, the girl nobody wanted. Not her parents, not her classmates, not the universe itself, it seemed.

And certainly not Lando Norris, no matter what some meaningless mark on her skin might suggest.

Y/N stood in her bathroom for what felt like hours, staring at her reflection in the unforgiving fluorescent light. Her face was a roadmap of devastation—red-rimmed eyes that looked like she'd been crying for days instead of hours, blotchy skin that bore the evidence of every tear she'd shed, hair that hung limp and disheveled around her shoulders. She looked like a woman who had been systematically destroyed, and maybe that's exactly what she was.

The shower called to her like a sanctuary, promising the illusion of washing away the evening's horrors. She turned the water as hot as she could stand it, watching the steam begin to fog the mirror until her reflection mercifully disappeared. The pragmatism that had carried her through childhood trauma whispered that she should eat something, should drink water, should take care of the basic needs that would help her body process the alcohol and stress. But she couldn't bring herself to care about any of that.

Food felt impossible when her stomach was twisted into knots of anguish. Water felt pointless when she was drowning in an ocean of her own tears. Self-care felt like a mockery when the person she was supposed to care for had just been declared fundamentally unworthy of love by the one person whose opinion mattered most.

She stripped off her clothes mechanically, each piece of fabric feeling heavy with the weight of the evening's memories. 

When she finally stepped under the scalding spray, the tears came again with renewed force. The hot water mixed with her sobs, washing away the salt tracks on her cheeks only for them to be immediately replaced by fresh ones. She braced her hands against the shower wall and let herself break completely, let herself feel the full weight of what Lando had done to her.

The worst part wasn't even the specific words he'd used, though each one had been chosen with surgical precision to cause maximum damage. The worst part was the look in his eyes when he'd said them—the complete and utter conviction that every cruel assessment was justified, that she deserved every verbal blow he'd delivered.

You're fundamentally, irreparably broken.

The words echoed in her mind like a death sentence, made worse by the fact that they'd come from someone whose DNA was literally designed to complement hers. If her soulmate could look at her and see nothing but damage, nothing but a pathetic woman who sucked the joy out of every room she entered, then what hope did she have with anyone else?

Y/N slid down the shower wall until she was sitting on the tile floor, hot water cascading over her hunched form as she wrapped her arms around her knees and sobbed. This was worse than anything her parents had ever done to her. Their cruelty had been born of their own trauma, their own inability to process emotions in healthy ways. They'd hurt her because they didn't know better, because they were products of their own damaged childhoods.

But Lando—Lando had hurt her with full awareness of what he was doing. She'd seen the moment when he'd realized how much damage his words were causing, had watched his eyes sharpen with something that looked almost like satisfaction as he'd found each new vulnerability to exploit. He'd taken her deepest insecurities, the fears she'd spent years trying to overcome, and had weaponized them against her with the skill of someone who understood exactly how to destroy another person.

Her parents had broken her accidentally. Lando had broken her on purpose.

The water began to run cold, but Y/N couldn't summon the energy to move. She sat there on the shower floor, shivering as the temperature dropped, feeling like the cold was appropriate somehow. Like her body was finally matching the frozen wasteland that her heart had become.

When she finally forced herself to stand and turn off the water, her legs felt like they belonged to someone else. Everything felt disconnected, like she was watching herself go through the motions of drying off and putting on pajamas from somewhere outside her own body. The dissociation was familiar—a defense mechanism that had carried her through the worst moments of her childhood, when the only way to survive was to mentally remove herself from the situation until it was over.

But this situation would never be over. She would have to carry the knowledge of what Lando really thought of her for the rest of her life, would have to see him at future gatherings and pretend that his words hadn't carved out pieces of her soul and left them bleeding on Max and Pietra's living room floor.

Y/N crawled into her bed without bothering to turn on any lights, pulling the covers up to her chin like a child seeking comfort from monsters that couldn't be defeated by hiding. The Egyptian cotton sheets that usually felt luxurious against her skin now felt rough and foreign, as if even her own bed was rejecting her presence.

The tears started again almost immediately, and this time they came with a violence that scared her. These weren't the controlled tears she'd shed in the shower, or even the angry tears that had punctuated their fight. These were the kind of tears that came from the deepest part of her psyche, from the wounded child who had never been properly comforted, who had learned to cry silently so as not to invite more punishment.

She pressed her face into her pillow to muffle the sounds that were escaping from her throat—sounds that didn't seem human, that sounded like an animal caught in a trap. The pillow quickly became soaked with tears and snot, but she didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore except the overwhelming need to release the pain that was threatening to consume her from the inside out.

You're just pathetic.

The words played on repeat in her mind, accompanied by the image of Lando's face as he'd delivered them. She'd seen disgust there, contempt, a kind of clinical detachment as he'd dissected her personality and found it wanting. No anger, which might have suggested passion of some kind. Just cold, calculated destruction delivered with the precision of a surgeon removing a tumor.

Y/N clutched her phone, considering calling Sophie, a good friend from work, or maybe her parents, or anyone who might be able to offer some comfort in this moment of complete devastation. But every time she started to dial, she stopped herself. What could she possibly say? That she'd had a fight with Lando and he'd said mean things to her? It sounded so trivial when reduced to simple terms, so childish and overdramatic.

She couldn't explain that he was her soulmate without revealing a secret she'd guarded for twelve months. Couldn't explain why his words carried more weight than anyone else's without admitting to the cosmic connection that made his rejection so much more devastating than ordinary cruelty.

And even if she could explain, what would be the point? Sophie would probably try to smooth things over, would suggest that Lando hadn't meant what he'd said, that he'd been drunk or angry or simply lashing out without thinking. But Y/N had seen his face. Had heard the conviction in his voice. He'd meant every word, had probably been thinking those things about her for fourteen months and had finally found an excuse to voice them.

The hunger clawed at her stomach, a sharp reminder that she'd only had wine at dinner, that her body was running on nothing but alcohol and adrenaline and heartbreak. But the thought of food made her feel sick. How could she nourish a body that housed a soul so fundamentally flawed that even the universe's perfect design couldn't make it lovable?

She rolled onto her side and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a spectacular view of London's skyline. The city glittered below her like a constellation of possibilities, millions of people living their lives, falling in love, being chosen, being wanted. And here she was, 54 floors above it all, completely alone with the knowledge that she was the exception to every rule about love and connection and human worth.

Somewhere out there, Lando was probably going to sleep without a care in the world, completely unaware that he'd just destroyed the person who was literally made for him.

Maybe he was right to be disgusted by her. Maybe the universe had made a mistake, had somehow paired her with someone so far out of her league that his natural instinct was to reject her entirely. Maybe she was supposed to be grateful that he'd never shown any romantic interest, that he'd saved them both from the cosmic embarrassment of a fundamentally mismatched pairing.

You suck the fucking joy out of every room you walk into.

The accusation felt particularly cruel because it contained just enough truth to burrow deep into her psyche and take root. She did guard herself carefully in social situations, did hold herself apart from the easy camaraderie that seemed to come so naturally to everyone else. But that was survival, not malice. That was the result of a childhood that had taught her that letting people see your real emotions was a guarantee that those emotions would be used against you.

Y/N pulled her knees to her chest and rocked slightly, a self-soothing motion she'd developed as a child when the fights between her parents got too loud, when the threats became too real, when the only comfort available was the comfort she could provide herself. The motion was automatic now, muscle memory that activated during times of extreme distress.

She thought about her therapist's words, about being the product of emotional unpredictability and conditional love, about how her nervous system had adapted to survive chaos by becoming hyper-independent and emotionally constipated. Her therapist would probably say that Lando's attack had triggered every abandonment wound she'd ever carried, and had activated the deepest core belief that she was fundamentally unworthy of love.

But knowing the psychological mechanisms didn't make the pain any less real. Understanding why she was broken didn't make her any less broken. And it certainly didn't change the fact that the person who was supposed to see past all her defenses, who was supposed to love her despite her flaws, had instead chosen to use those flaws as weapons against her.

The hours crawled by with agonizing slowness. Y/N watched the digital clock on her nightstand tick from 11:47 PM to midnight to 1:00 AM, each minute feeling like an eternity of pain that had to be endured. She tried closing her eyes, tried willing herself into unconsciousness, but every time she started to drift off, Lando's voice would echo in her mind with fresh cruelty.

You're completely incapable of human connection.

The words felt like a prophecy, a future written in stone. If she couldn't connect with her soulmate, if the person literally designed by the universe to complement her found her so repulsive that he felt compelled to destroy her, then what hope did she have of ever finding love or acceptance or even basic human warmth?

Around 2:00 AM, she gave up pretending to try to sleep and turned on her phone, scrolling mindlessly through social media feeds full of people living their apparently perfect lives. Happy couples posting anniversary photos, friends celebrating promotions, families gathered around dinner tables with genuine smiles. The images felt like they were from another planet, a world where people were capable of the kind of joy and connection that seemed permanently out of her reach.

She almost opened Instagram to look at Lando's profile, some masochistic part of her wanting to torture herself with images of him looking happy and carefree, probably already having forgotten about their fight entirely. But she stopped herself just in time, knowing that seeing his face would only make everything worse.

Instead, she found herself googling articles about soulmate connections, searching for some explanation of how the universe could have gotten things so wrong. The articles were full of romantic nonsense about instant recognition and unbreakable bonds, about soulmates who found each other across crowded rooms and knew immediately that they were meant to be together.

None of them mentioned what happened when your soulmate looked at you with disgust. None of them offered guidance for what to do when the person who was supposed to complete you spent over a year treating you like an unwelcome stranger. None of them acknowledged that sometimes the universe's grand design was nothing more than a cosmic practical joke played on people who were already damaged beyond repair.

Y/N threw her phone across the room, not caring when it hit the wall with a sharp crack that probably indicated a broken screen. The sound was satisfying somehow, a physical manifestation of the internal destruction she was experiencing. At least now her phone matched the rest of her life—broken and probably beyond repair.

The tears came in waves throughout the night, sometimes subsiding to a trickle that allowed her to catch her breath, sometimes returning with such force that she had to bury her face in her pillow to avoid disturbing her neighbors. Her throat became raw from crying, her eyes swollen to the point where she could barely see, her chest tight with the effort of breathing around the constant sobs.

She'd cried before—had cried when her parents threw her out of the house, had cried when that boy in school humiliated her, had cried during those first terrifying weeks in London when everything felt foreign and hostile. But this was different. This was the kind of crying that came from complete hopelessness, from the realization that the one person who was supposed to love her unconditionally had instead chosen to confirm every terrible thing she'd ever believed about herself.

Around 3:00 AM, she found herself thinking about her grandmother from her father's side, the woman who had tried so hard to break up her parents' marriage. Maybe the old woman had been right all along. Maybe Y/N's mother wasn't worthy of the family name, and maybe Y/N had inherited that unworthiness, had carried it in her DNA like a genetic curse that made her fundamentally unlovable.

The thought sent her into a fresh spiral of anguish, because even her parents—damaged and cruel as they had been—had at least loved each other enough to fight for their relationship. Her father had been willing to threaten his own mother to protect his marriage, had chosen his wife over his family of origin when forced to make that decision.

But Y/N had never inspired that kind of devotion in anyone. Had never been worth fighting for, never been worth choosing, never been worth protecting. Even her soulmate, who should have been programmed by the universe to cherish and defend her, had instead chosen to tear her apart at the first opportunity.

Y/N made a decision in that moment, lying in her bed at 3:17 AM with tears streaming down her face and her heart breaking in ways she didn't know were possible. She would never tell him. Would never give him the opportunity to reject her knowing what she really was to him. Would never put herself through the devastation of watching him realize that even the universe's perfect design couldn't make her lovable.

She would carry this secret to her grave, would love him from afar with the knowledge that it would never be returned, would never be acknowledged, would never be anything more than a source of endless pain.

Because that's what broken people did. They protected others from their damage, even when it destroyed them in the process.

Even when it meant spending eternity loving someone who thought they were fundamentally unworthy of love.

Even when it meant accepting that maybe, just maybe, everyone who had ever told her she was worthless had been right all along.

The decision brought no peace, only a cold kind of resignation that settled into her bones like winter frost. She would continue to attend gatherings where he was present, would continue to pretend that his presence didn't affect her, and would continue to guard the secret that was slowly killing her from the inside out.

By 4:00 AM, her body had begun to rebel against the sustained emotional assault. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, her breathing had become shallow and rapid, and her heart was racing like she'd just run a marathon. The physical symptoms only added to her distress, creating a feedback loop where her body's stress response made her more anxious, which in turn made her body react more severely.

She tried the breathing exercises her therapist had taught her, tried to ground herself by focusing on physical sensations like the texture of her sheets and the temperature of the air against her skin. But nothing worked. The panic was too strong, the emotional pain too overwhelming for any coping mechanism to penetrate.

As the sky began to lighten with the first hints of dawn, Y/N realized that she hadn't stopped crying for a single moment in the past seven hours. Her body was dehydrated, her head was pounding, and her chest felt like someone was sitting on it. But still the tears came, as if her body was trying to expel the poison of Lando's words through her eyes.

The hunger had evolved from a dull ache to sharp, stabbing pains that made her curl into an even tighter ball. But the thought of food still made her nauseous. Her body was running on pure emotional adrenaline, sustained by nothing but grief and the wine that was probably still circulating through her system.

Around 5:30 AM, she heard her neighbors beginning to stir—the sound of footsteps in the hallway, the distant hum of morning news programs, the everyday sounds of people starting their normal days. The normalcy of it all felt surreal, like she was watching life happen from behind glass, separate and excluded from the simple pleasure of routine human existence.

Y/N tried one more time to force herself to sleep, pulling her duvet over her head and squeezing her eyes shut. But behind her closed lids, all she could see was Lando's face as he'd delivered his final judgment, the clinical detachment with which he'd dissected her personality and found it lacking.

You're just fundamentally, irreparably broken.

The words had taken on a life of their own, echoing through her mind with the persistence of a song stuck on repeat. They felt true in a way that made her stomach clench with despair, true in a way that made every breath feel like an act of defiance against the obvious fact that she shouldn't exist, shouldn't take up space in a world where she clearly didn't belong.

By 6:00 AM, something in her body had reached its breaking point. The sustained emotional trauma, combined with the lack of sleep, lack of food, and lingering alcohol in her system, had created a perfect storm of physical distress. Her heart was racing so fast she could hear it pounding in her ears, drowning out all other sounds. Her breathing had become so shallow and rapid that she was starting to feel lightheaded.

And then, suddenly, she couldn't breathe at all.

The panic attack hit her like a freight train, sudden and overwhelming in its intensity. Her chest seized up completely, as if someone had wrapped steel bands around her ribs and was tightening them with each passing second. Her heart rate spiked even higher, so fast that she was convinced it would burst from the strain. Her hands went numb, her vision started to blur, and her entire body was consumed with the absolute certainty that she was dying.

This was it. This was how it would end. Alone in her expensive apartment, destroyed by the cruelest words her soulmate could devise, dying of a heart attack at twenty-seven because her body had finally given up under the weight of a lifetime of emotional trauma.

With the last rational thought she could manage, Y/N grabbed her cracked phone from where she'd thrown it against the wall and dialed 999 with trembling fingers that barely obeyed her commands.

"Emergency services, what's your emergency?"

"I think... I think I'm having a heart attack," she gasped into the phone, her voice barely recognizable even to herself. "I can't breathe... my heart is racing... I think I'm dying."

Tag list: @myescapefromthislife @gvcnnnnnnnbvszxv @lilorose25 @formulawhore @hangingwiththestars @ayap4paya @ispywlittleeye-blog @azuramicah @myheartgoesvroom @strawberrylov-er @landossnorriss @linnygirl09 @milkiane @liloessnitch

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[noralia20]

hello !! i love ur fics so much 🥹🫶🏻 idk if u’ll take this request but i suddenly thought of this aha like a jannik fic wherein mc is neither a model/influencer blonde like the typical girls linked to jannik, rather she’s a law student who is close to his coach Darren (fam friends or sort of like that) but she’s really beautiful im picturing her with the features of barbara palvin x alexandra saint mleux and just a normal girl from the same his age haha from an affluent family with the humor of alex consani but actually, she never had boyfriends since birth (standards and stuff). and she met jannik thru his coach. like jannik is suddenly curious and tries to stalk her on ig but failed bc her acc’s private and like tried to sneak glances during the time she’s on a facetime with darren. darren is really close with her like an uncle vibe. so her and jannik kind of have like a enemies-to lovers trope ?? cause the reader isnt easy like that like she’s aware of the gossips around tennis athletes and how they handle relationships. so they have this banter/tension between them. mc also has that sarcastic humor and speaks with an aussie accent. but this is not angst in any way haha it’s up to you for the rest of this one haha i trust u !!! anw thank you so much in advance i luv luv ur fics hope u continue writing more 🥹🤍

To love the (not so) ordinary

Wow that is very detailed. I love it when people know exactly what they want in a story, it makes me more sure that'll I satisfy or not. Hope you like it.

The lounge smelled faintly of eucalyptus muscle balm and faint traces of espresso — the usual post-training cocktail. Outside, the sky had deepened into a molten peach, and the late Monte Carlo sun filtered through the half-shut blinds, casting long lines across the floor. Jannik sat in the far corner, slouched but tense, the edge of his hoodie bunched in his fist, water bottle half-forgotten in the other.

His brain was still slightly fogged from drills and footwork, but his attention snapped back the moment Darren’s voice lifted with a rare kind of fondness.

“Ah, there she is. Took her long enough.”

Jannik didn’t look up right away. He was mid-wrap, tightening his racquet grip with practiced motion. It was supposed to be mindless — muscle memory — but his fingers faltered slightly when he heard her.

“Oh, finally. I thought you died, or worse, switched to coaching pickleball.” A woman’s voice. Unapologetically bold, warm, with that specific kind of Aussie accent that always sounded like it was mocking you even when it wasn’t. But this one was mocking — and amused.

He looked up.

Darren was grinning, phone held up in one hand. On the screen, lounging back in a chaotic sunlit bedroom somewhere far from the tour, was a girl. Not just a girl — she looked like the kind of person who had never tried to be beautiful, and yet somehow always was. Dark, slightly messy hair framed a face that didn’t need filters or designer labels. Oversized hoodie, sleeves pushed up carelessly, one knee tucked under the other. She had that effortless, unreadable beauty — the kind that belonged to girls who knew exactly how sharp they were.

“Still coaching,” Darren replied, settling into his chair. “Though the kids are getting taller and moodier.” She made a noise like a scoff. “Must be all the hormone injections in their chicken nuggets.”

Jannik rolled his eyes subtly and went back to his grip, but his ears stayed tuned. He hated when someone could hold a room like that — even digitally — and she didn’t even seem to be trying. The way she filled space with words, completely unbothered, borderline dismissive… it was irritating.

Worse: it was working.

“Say hi to my boy,” Darren said with a grin, angling the screen slightly. She looked directly at the camera for the first time, and Jannik suddenly felt like a spotlight had hit him. Her gaze was... invasive. Sharp. Not flirtatious, not warm — just assessing.

“Oh. Him.”

He blinked. She studied him with open curiosity — and a clear lack of being impressed. “He’s the one with the legs, right?” she asked, tilting her head like she was squinting at a piece of modern art. “Looks like a flamingo and plays like he’s got a tax fraud case pending?”

It took all of Jannik’s self-control not to let his jaw drop. His fingers froze mid-twist. He blinked at her, once. Slowly. Did she just call him a—? Darren let out a wheezy laugh, slapping his thigh.

“She’s in law,” Darren explained, between chuckles. “Thinks she’s clever.”

“I am clever,” she replied with ease. “And also very right. You’ve trained a redheaded menace with god-tier footwork and the emotional availability of a houseplant.” Jannik tensed. His entire brain stalled for a beat. Had she seriously just—

“I understood that,” he said, not even trying to mask the edge in his tone. She smirked, clearly enjoying herself. “Good,” she said, leaning toward the camera, that obnoxiously perfect mouth tilting at the corners. “I like it when they listen.”

He held her gaze. For once, he didn’t care how sweaty or tired he looked. He just wanted her to stop looking at him like that — like she’d already written him off as another stupid headline. “Do you always glare at people like that,” she asked lightly, “or is it just me?”

He didn’t break eye contact. His voice was flat. “Only when they’re annoying.” She leaned back, unfazed. “Ah. So always, then.”

Jannik’s jaw ticked. His skin was still flushed from training, but now his ears were going hot for a different reason. She was smug. Not flirtatious. Not giggly. Smug.

It irked him. She irked him.

And somehow, that made her more interesting.

Jannik didn’t know why he kept replaying the conversation in his head.

The flamingo line. The houseplant insult. The way she’d said *“Good. I like it when they listen.”*

It wasn’t like him to care what someone thought — least of all someone who clearly didn’t care much for him either. But she’d thrown him off, and now he couldn’t stop mentally circling the exchange, picking it apart like a dropped string in a racquet.

Maybe it was her confidence. Or that dry wit. Or the way she looked straight at him — not starstruck, not intimidated, just… unimpressed. He hated how much space she was taking up in his mind for someone he hadn’t even met in person.

He’d made the mistake of stalking her Instagram again. Still private. Still no new posts. Still that photo — just her in the passenger seat of a car, sunglasses low, chin tilted like she was daring someone to disappoint her.

Jannik sighed, dragging a hand through his hair as he stepped out onto the terrace. The golden hour sun dipped over the hills, casting a soft fire across the skyline. The table was already half full — a few familiar faces from Darren’s circle, some local friends. Wine was being poured, conversation easy.

And then, his stomach dropped.

She was there.

She was actually there.

She sat at the far end of the table, dressed in something simple — black pants, a white top, and a tailored blazer that made her look both expensive and effortlessly relaxed. Her hair was down, wind-swept, and the way she lifted her glass of wine to her lips made Jannik unreasonably tense.

He hesitated. Darren noticed. “Didn’t I tell you?” Darren said, motioning toward the empty seat beside her. “She landed this morning. Said she wanted to escape Sydney finals week stress. Figured she might as well be insulted by you in person.”

“I didn’t insult her,” Jannik muttered. “Right,” Darren grinned. “You just glared at her like she keyed your car.”

She looked up then, meeting his eyes as if she knew he was talking about her. Her mouth curved — not a smile, more like an amused observation. She sipped her wine and turned back to her conversation, completely unbothered.

He took the seat across from her, stiffly. “Didn’t expect you to show,” he said eventually, voice low. She arched a brow. “Didn’t expect you to talk.”

He blinked. She said it so casually. Her words were always slightly delayed, like she enjoyed dragging the point out just enough to get under the skin. “I talk,” he muttered, picking at the edge of his napkin. She leaned in slightly, elbows resting on the table. “Mmm. I’ve seen your interviews. They’re mostly just blinks and we played good, ehhh.”

“That’s—" he paused, stunned. “That’s not even a quote.” She grinned. “Could’ve fooled me.” For a second, he thought about walking away. But he didn’t. Because somehow — despite how infuriating she was — he couldn’t stop engaging. “Why are you so…” he trailed off.

She tilted her head, smiling sweetly. “So?” He shook his head. “So… annoying.” She let out a small, delighted laugh. “You're lucky you’re good at tennis, Sinner.”

“And you’re lucky you’re not on tour,” he shot back before thinking. The words slipped out quicker than usual — a little sharp, not cruel, but more cutting than he intended. She blinked. And for the first time, her expression shifted. Just slightly. Then she smiled again, slow and amused. “Oof. Touchy. Did I bruise the ego?”

He wanted to say no. Wanted to brush it off. But his face betrayed him — that slight furrow between his brows, the way his mouth pulled tight. She caught it. She always caught it. “You’re used to being the golden boy,” she said softly, not unkind, but honest. “Used to people melting at your feet just because you hold a racquet.”

He didn’t answer. Her words hit too close to something he didn’t want to admit — not that he was arrogant, but that people did treat him differently, and he never questioned it. But now, here was someone who didn’t care how many titles he had, who saw right through the press-polished version of him. And it rattled him. She sipped her wine again and leaned back in her chair, gaze drifting over the view. “Relax, Sinner. I’m just a law student on holiday.”

But she wasn’t just anything, and he knew it. He could feel her eyes on him occasionally during the rest of the meal — the brief flick of her lashes, the little smirk when he stumbled over his English and switched into Italian without realizing. She didn’t say anything. She just smiled to herself like she was cataloging him, slowly.

It made his skin crawl. It made his chest feel tight. And worst of all — it made him want to impress her. He hated it.

The conversation at the table flowed like expensive wine. Someone was talking about Monaco rent prices, another about the horrors of long-haul travel. She leaned into it all — smiling, nodding, dropping quick-witted replies with the ease of someone who’d been raised around politicians, CEOs, and summer homes in three continents.

Jannik, meanwhile, sat across from her in silence, chewing on a piece of grilled sea bass like it had personally offended him. He watched her laugh at something the girl beside her said, her head tilting, that sharp little smile showing just enough teeth. She was… pleasant. Effortlessly so. With everyone but him.

And it made him irrationally annoyed. “So,” he said, his voice breaking through the hum of conversation, “you don’t follow tennis?” She didn’t even look at him at first — just hummed, sipping her wine again. Then her gaze slid to his, cool and unhurried. “I follow courtrooms,” she replied with a mock-serious shrug. “Yours has a net. Mine has justice.” A few people at the table chuckled.

Jannik’s brow lifted. “Sounds boring.” She grinned, not missing a beat. “Sounds like a sport where no one grunts.” More laughter. Even Darren stifled a laugh with a cough. Jannik narrowed his eyes, trying not to smile. “We don’t grunt.” She raised a brow, clearly unconvinced. “Please. Half your colleagues sound like they’re exorcising demons when they serve.” He didn’t respond. She was too fast. Too sharp. She parried every jab like it was a warm-up drill.

So he tried again.

“Did you rehearse all this before dinner?” he asked flatly. She tilted her head, amused. “Why? Do you want the script?”

“No. I’d just like to know if you’re like this with everyone, or if I’m the lucky one.” That earned him a thoughtful pause. Then she smirked, leaning forward just slightly across the table — elbows on linen, chin resting on the back of her hand. “Depends,” she said. “Are you always this tense, or do I bring it out in you?” He faltered.

It wasn’t the words — it was the way she said them. Teasing. Observant. Like she could read the very current of his bloodstream. He tried to recover. “I’m not tense.”

“Mmm.” Her smile widened. “Then maybe it’s just the emotional constipation.” Darren choked on his drink. Jannik stared at her, eyes narrowing. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink. She just went back to her plate like they hadn’t just exchanged verbal punches under the tablecloth.

And somehow, the more she dismissed him, the more he wanted to win — not a match, not a game — her. Her attention. Her respect. Her undoing. She didn’t care that he was Jannik Sinner. That he’d been ranked No. 1. That he had sponsorships, billboards, fans who flew across continents just to see him practice. She looked at him like he was some mildly interesting riddle she hadn’t decided was worth solving.

And the worst part?

He couldn’t stop watching her.

He noticed the way she drummed her fingers softly on the side of her glass when she was half-listening. The way she pulled her lower lip between her teeth when someone made a clever point. The faint freckles across her cheekbones that were barely visible under the terrace lights. The gleam of silver rings on her fingers that looked faintly like heirlooms.

She was infuriating. And magnetic. And completely out of his league — not in looks or charm, but in the way she seemed untouchable.

He realized then, mid-bite, that he wanted her to touch him. Figuratively. Literally. Anything. He just wanted to know what it would take to make her look at him like she looked at everyone else — with ease. With approval. With a damn smile that wasn’t laced with mockery.

Instead, she looked up and caught him staring. Again. “What?” she asked, voice light, eyebrow arched. Jannik blinked, mouth half-full, caught like a schoolboy. “You’re staring.” He swallowed. “I’m not.” She grinned. “Is this what they mean when they say men have no hobbies?” He had no comeback. He only had the urge to pull her chair closer. Or push his back. Anything to close the distance he wasn’t supposed to want.

The training center was mostly quiet on rest days — low chatter, the distant thud of balls echoing off courts, and the occasional buzz of a stringing machine humming somewhere down the corridor. Late morning sun streamed through the high windows, casting geometric shadows onto the court where Jannik stood mid-warmup, tugging at the sleeve of his dri-fit shirt.

He was stretching, head bowed, when he heard Darren laugh.

Not a polite chuckle — not the kind reserved for journalists or agents or tournament staff. It was the loud, easy kind that rarely escaped him unless he was talking to someone who felt like home.

Jannik didn’t need to look up.

But he did anyway.

She had just walked in — sunglasses perched atop her head, loose hair falling over her shoulders, her phone tucked against her side and two takeaway cups in hand. Her steps were unhurried, confident, the sound of her sandals soft against the concrete. Jannik caught the faint scent of her perfume as she passed. Clean. Something expensive and hard to name.

Only one of the coffees made it to Darren.

“Thanks, love,” Darren said, already grinning like a man well-fed. “You’re a saint.”

She handed it to him with mock reverence. “Don’t let that get out. I’ve got a reputation to protect.”

“No worries,” Darren said. “We’ll just tell people you’ve been disbarred for charm.” She laughed, tilting her head, but Jannik was still hung up on the single coffee. He cleared his throat. Loudly. “And none for me?” he asked, straightening up, arms crossed loosely.

She turned toward him, cool and unbothered. Her gaze behind those tinted lenses didn’t waver. “Oh,” she said blandly. “Didn’t know we were on speaking terms.” Jannik blinked. “Wow. That’s cold.”

“I thought you liked cold,” she replied. “You know. Ice in your veins, emotional detachment. Athlete essentials.” Darren snorted behind his cup. Jannik just stared at her, biting back a grin.

She made her way toward the bench by the court, sliding into a folding chair with the elegance of someone used to courtside seating — not because she wanted to be seen, but because she belonged there. She crossed her legs, set her phone aside, and pulled a sleek notepad from her bag. A pen was already twirling between her fingers. She looked like she was about to draft closing arguments, not casually watch practice.

Jannik tried to ignore her. He failed.

Darren fed balls, and he swung through forehands with practiced ease. Still, his focus was split. His eyes kept flicking to the sideline where she sat — sunglasses lowered now, one foot bouncing, her attention somewhere between her notes and the court. She wasn’t cheering, wasn’t even really watching in the usual way. She was studying him.

He caught her gaze once. She didn’t look away. Darren shouted for him to adjust his footing. He did — late.

Then, as he was recovering for a volley, her voice called out, casual and cool: “Jannik, your footwork’s actually impressive.” He faltered — just slightly — but enough to clip the next shot off center.

Darren frowned. “Foot. Work.” Jannik nodded, teeth grinding. “Got it.” Meanwhile, she was still lounging, arms folded, the ghost of a smirk tugging at her lips. “Didn’t expect you to be graceful,” she added. “Thought it was just the legs and cheekbones.”

Jannik tossed his racquet to the bench. “Seriously?” She barely blinked. “What?”

“You’ve been staring.”

“I observe,” she replied smoothly. “It’s different.”

“That’s creepy.”

“No, accurate.”

He squinted at her, but the glint in her eye was unmistakable: she was enjoying this. He could almost feel her pulling strings, knowing exactly what annoyed him and plucking those nerves with surgical precision. Still, two could play.

He toweled off, walked over, leaned just close enough for her to feel the heat off his shoulders. “Did you rehearse all this before showing up?”

She didn’t flinch. “Why? Do you want the script?” He blinked, caught again. “No. I’d just like to know if I’m the only one on your hit list.”

She took a slow sip of Darren’s coffee, then gave him a small, lazy smile. “Are you always this tense, or do I bring it out in you?” God, she was quick. “You’re exhausting.”

“And yet,” she said, tapping her pen to her notepad, “here you are. Performing.” Darren, from across the court, called out, “Less flirting, more footwork!” Jannik coughed. “We’re not—”

“Sure,” she said, not looking at him. “Tell that to your forehand.” Practice ended not long after. Darren peeled off first, muttering about answering emails, while Jannik lingered, sweaty and tired, flopping onto the bench beside her with a heavy sigh.

She didn’t move away. Didn’t look at him either. “You don’t like me,” he said after a moment. She raised an eyebrow, pen still in hand. “Did I say that?”

“You don’t act like someone who likes me.”

“I don’t act like someone who dislikes you either,” she replied, finally turning to him. “I just treat you like a person. Maybe that’s new for you.” That landed harder than he expected. Most people around him didn’t dare say things like that. Not even friends. Not even players. And definitely not girls who looked like her.

He shrugged. “Most people are… I don’t know. Nicer.” She tilted her head. “To you.”

“Yes.”

She paused. “Most people want something from you. I don’t.” That was true. She hadn’t asked for anything. Not a match ticket. Not a post. Not even the coffee. “Not even a signed ball?” he tried.

“I think I’d rather win one off you in a bet.”

“Oh?” he asked, lips quirking. “You think you can beat me at something?”

“Anything verbal,” she said without missing a beat. “Easily.” He chuckled. “Maybe.”

And then, something in her expression softened — just a flicker. She wasn’t mocking him now, just watching. The air between them quieted, a kind of hum settling in the stillness. But before he could say something else — something real — her phone buzzed.

She glanced down, expression cooling like a switch had flipped. “I’ve gotta take this.”

Already standing. “You’re leaving?” he asked, sitting up straighter. She nodded, already backing toward the exit. “Duty calls. Some of us are trying to pass torts and not just look good hitting balls.”

He stared at her retreating figure, mouth parting slightly. Her hair swung as she disappeared around the corner, voice already low and professional as she answered the call.

She hadn’t touched him. She hadn’t lingered. She hadn’t even said goodbye.

But Jannik sat there, heartbeat a little faster than before, towel still draped over his shoulders — and all he could think about was when she’d come back.

And what he’d say to keep her from leaving so fast next time.

Evening settled gently over Monte Carlo, the sky bruised lavender and orange outside Jannik’s suite window. The sea murmured beyond the glass, half-muted by the sound of the air conditioning humming in rhythm with the tennis match replay on mute.

But Jannik wasn’t watching the screen.

He was lying on the hotel bed, hair still damp from his shower, one hand on his phone. The screen was dim, blank. For ten minutes, he’d been staring at it like it might answer his questions on its own.

He sighed and opened Instagram.

@yourusername: Private account. 0 mutual followers.

Her display picture was just her hand — writing in a notebook, silver rings catching sunlight. No bio. No stories. Nothing. He’d sent the follow request after practice — impulsively, while toweling off — and immediately regretted it. She hadn’t accepted. And now here he was. Typing. Deleting. Typing again.

Screw it.

Jannik Sinner

You ghost everyone or just me?

The message turned “seen” in less than thirty seconds.

She was online. And now he was pacing his hotel room. The reply came in.

You

Curiosity killed the cat, you know.

He huffed a laugh and sank onto the bed again.

Jannik Sinner

Didn’t know you were the cat. Thought you were more of a... fox.

The three-dot typing bubble appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.

You

I thought you were the fox here. You calling me sly or just devastatingly attractive?

Jannik Sinner

Both. Probably.

You

Finally. A correct answer

Then: follow request accepted. He tapped her profile again. Still private. Still no posts. No tagged photos. Nothing new unlocked.

He sent another message:

Jannik Sinner

So you accept my request but keep everything hidden?

You

Privacy’s hot.

Jannik blinked. Then grinned. And then, somehow, he was on his stomach, legs dangling off the bed like a teenager, texting faster than he’d meant to.

Jannik Sinner

What if I wanted to see more of you?

You

You’ve seen plenty. That baseline view at practice is basically indecent exposure.

He buried his face into his pillow and groaned.

Jannik Sinner

Are you always this much?

You

Only when I’m bored. Or entertained. You decide.

He paused before replying this time, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Jannik Sinner

What if I wanted to entertain you on purpose?

There was a longer pause this time. For a second, he wondered if he’d pushed it too far. He sat up, watching the screen. Then it lit up.

You

Then I’d say your forehand isn’t the only thing with good follow-through.

He nearly dropped his phone.

Jannik Sinner

You flirt like a lawyer.

You

Objection: leading the witness.

Jannik Sinner

Overruled.

He could almost hear her laugh. He didn’t even know what it sounded like when she wasn’t being sarcastic — but the image of her, curled up on some pristine hotel couch with a glass of wine and her phone, amused and maybe a little flushed, started to take root.

She was typing again.

You

What’s your angle, tennis boy? You trying to collect witty girls like trophies?

Jannik Sinner

No. I just want to figure you out. You’re like a crossword puzzle in cursive.

You

You’re like a golden retriever who speaks Italian when he’s nervous.

His breath caught.

Jannik Sinner

That’s… accurate. Also, mean.

You

I said it with affection. Aussie affection. It’s harsher than usual.

Jannik Sinner

You do this with everyone you meet?

You

No. You’re special. I only emotionally terrorize people I find interesting.

Jannik Sinner

So you do find me interesting.

You

Don’t push it, golden boy.

He smiled, jaw tight from trying to control it.

The sun was long gone now. The only light in the room came from the glow of the phone in his hand and the quiet flicker of the TV, long forgotten. His heart beat quicker than he’d admit, and for the first time in hours, he didn’t feel restless.

She was all thorns and cleverness and locked doors. But she’d opened just enough of a window. And now? He was hooked.

The following evening, the courts were nearly silent at night, washed in a sleepy kind of gold from the overhead lights. The echo of bouncing balls had long faded, leaving behind the subtle chorus of cicadas and the occasional rustle of wind sweeping through the trees that lined the path back to the hotel.

Jannik tugged the hood of his white sweatshirt over his damp curls, tennis bag slung over one shoulder, muscles heavy from hours of drills. He was halfway to autopilot, exhaustion making his steps slow and loose — until he saw her.

She was leaning against the fence by the front gate, half-shadowed by the flickering lamp overhead. Her phone was in one hand, long coat tied neatly at the waist, hair pulled back with a clip. She looked effortlessly chic — like someone who should be waiting outside a gallery in Paris, not killing time outside a tennis center at 9 p.m.

His body straightened without thinking. “You waiting for Darren?” he asked, stopping a few feet away.

She didn’t glance up immediately, thumb still scrolling. “Supposedly,” she said, unimpressed. “He texted five minutes. That was twenty ago.”

Jannik shifted the strap on his shoulder. “Want to walk? I doubt he’s even left the café.” She raised a brow, studying him like she might say no — then shrugged. “You’ll do, I guess.”

They fell into step down the cobbled garden path that snaked toward the players’ hotel. It was lined with palm trees and glowing lanterns, each casting puddles of warm light onto the stone. The night air was cooler now, carrying the salty brush of the sea in its wake.

They walked in silence for a moment, just the sound of her heels clicking and his sneakers scuffing the path. He stole a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. Her lips were parted slightly, eyes focused ahead, thoughtful. Not unreadable, not really. But closed. Guarded. As always.

“You’re not bad at footwork,” she said at last, voice dry but not unkind. “For someone who trips over English half the time.”

He rolled his eyes, grinning. “You’re so annoying.”

“You like it.”

“Unfortunately.”

She chuckled, quiet and pleased, and looked up at the sky as if debating whether to keep the moment going.

Then — casually, like it didn’t matter at all — she said, “You know, I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

He blinked. He hadn’t expected that. His reaction was subtle but instant — his steps faltered, his brow lifted, eyes narrowing like he didn’t believe her at first. “Seriously?”

She gave a slight nod. “Mm-hmm.”

“No way.”

“No, yes way.” Her lips twitched at his disbelief. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“I mean… yeah?” He laughed under his breath. “You? Never?”

“Not everyone grows up falling for athletes in Nike kits, tesoro.” The smirk she threw his way was devastating, and it was even worse knowing she said it half to amuse herself. He narrowed his eyes. “You think I’m trying to make you fall for me?” She tilted her head with that maddening little smile. “Aren’t you?”

The moment cracked open — brief but electric.

They’d reached the base of the marble steps that led up to the hotel. Under the golden glow of the lights, everything felt a little slower. Quieter. Even the sea had dimmed to a distant hush. She stopped, one foot on the first step, but didn’t climb. Just stood there, turning to look at him.

Her eyes flicked to his mouth for the briefest second. And he noticed.

He leaned forward — barely — just a tilt of his head, just enough that he could smell her perfume: warm and sweet and something he couldn’t name.

And then her phone buzzed.

She jumped slightly, checking it, and her entire body language shifted. “Saved by the bell,” she muttered with a soft, performative sigh, already stepping back.

He blinked, disoriented. The moment evaporated like breath on glass.

“Night, golden boy.” She turned on her heel and started up the stairs like nothing had happened. And something in him snapped — not angry, just… done with the runaround. He was done with the emotions he didn't know what to do with.

He strode after her. “Why do you do that?” he called, voice not loud, but urgent. She stopped a few steps up, half-turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Do what?”

He came to a halt at the base, expression stormy and unreadable. His voice was low but fast now, edged with that familiar italian tilt. “This—this thing,” he gestured between them. “You flirt, then vanish. You throw a line and then walk away. You say I’m trying to make you fall, then act like I’m crazy for even- ma che cavolo- how do you expect anyone to keep up with you ?” ("what the hell") She didn’t reply, but her brow furrowed slightly. "You walk into rooms like you're in charge of oxygen then disappear when things get real. Sei impossible. You drive me mad, and I don't even know if you like me or if you just enjoy watching me implode."

Jannik exhaled, hands running through his hair. He started pacing, just a step or two, as if movement helped him think faster. “You confuse the hell out of me,” he said, voice lower now, edges softening. “Mi fai impazzire. You act like you don’t care, but then you say things and look at me like—like maybe you do. And then you’re gone again. And I don’t know if you’re playing a game or if you’re scared or if it’s just... fun for you to keep me guessing.” ("You drive me crazy.")

He laughed once, humorless, shaking his head. “Non lo so. Non riesco a capirti.” (“I don't know. I can't understand you.”)

She hadn’t moved. He looked up, finally still, breathing hard. “I’m trying here,” he said, quieter now. “And I don’t usually try like this.”

There was a beat of silence. The wind picked up slightly, rustling the trees. For once, she didn’t have a witty comeback waiting on her tongue. Her lips were parted, eyes wide. Something had cracked in her expression — not fear, not hesitation, but… surprise.

A long, breathless second passed. Then, slowly, her lips curved. “Okay,” she said. A pause. “Tomorrow. 9 p.m. You pick me up.”

His mouth opened slightly, startled. “Wait, seriously—?”

“It’s a date,” she added, eyes gleaming, accent thicker now — like she was letting it slip through, no longer performing for control.

“Try not to combust for once.”

And with a soft, smug smile, she turned and walked the rest of the stairs alone, hips swaying just enough to make his already-scrambled brain short-circuit all over again.

Jannik stood frozen at the bottom like an idiot. His tennis bag had slipped halfway off his shoulder, his cheeks were flushed and he was still catching up to whatever the hell just happened.

Wind in his hair. Heart somewhere in his throat. But he was smiling. And for once, he didn’t mind being the one chasing.

dividers : @strangergraphics @olenvasynyt

[astonmartingf]

YOU'RE IN MY MIND, IM IN YOUR SHADOW ; FA14

fernando alonso x ferrari teammate! reader . . . after getting involved in a race accident with fernando, you're left with the repercussions of that crash

amgf accidents, crashes, and hospitals, it's just angst uhm yeah, it's angst, who compelled me to do this 😀🫵 literally no one ever but enjoy 👍 AHAHAHA. i bet you weren't expecting this but here you go

One blink and it all came crashing down.

Literally.

It all happens so fast, it's usually how it goes, one second you're trying to maneuver into a turn, the next you feel your teammates' front wing behind your back. And from then all you see was black.

"Miss LN? If you can hear us please blink your eyes." Wincing, you pull back from the glaring light in the room. Immediately the smell of antiseptic and bleach fills your nose, scrunching from the overwhelming scent wafting in the room.

You blink adjusting from the light, gulping at the dry feeling on the back of your throat, you don't attempt to talk. Closing your eyes, you shake your head, ignoring the questions as doctors and staff hover over your bed.

You knew better than to misbehave, it wasn't the doctor's fault, they were just doing their job, something you didn't do clearly as you got into a crash.

What a rookie mistake— you couldn't care less about the pulsating pain all over your body, knowing fully well they won't hurt as much as the blow of being dropped off by Ferrari.

You knew deep down they were going to choose him. Fernando Alonso, teammate, rival, lover.

Opening your eyes, you're greeted with fewer people in your room. Mainly your manager, physio, a few members from Ferrari, and Flavio Briatore. It only dawned on you what had happened.

You crashed onto Fernando Alonso, and right now his manager is in front of you. Just how long were you under? How much damage was done to the car? There were so many questions going through your head, mainly of Fernando, second of your career. What was going to happen after this?

"Where—" The dryness of your throat scratches back at you, coughing from the unexpected friction. You accept the bottle of water offered to you, it was only then you realized the sore and numb feeling of your body.

You gasp as the bottle slips from your fingers, leaving you staring at your manager, tears welling down your eyes. The feeling of vulnerability seeps through as you look away and stare at the pool of water beside you.

You watch your team tiptoeing around you, their eyes filled with pity. It's sickening. Lifting your blanket you catch a glimpse of the bruises littering your body, shifting in the bed your face scrunches feeling you back burning in pain.

Your manager holds a new bottle of water in front of you, this time with a drinking straw on it as you glance around the room looking for inkling clues on Fernando's whereabouts. Your thoughts trail back moments before the race.

Sneaking in his room beside yours, away from the eyes of the cameras capturing every moment of your rivalry. You still hold the warmth, the lingering feeling of his kiss before the race began. His words, whispering sweet nothing in your ears, replaying every moment before you stepped into your car. It was flashing in front of your eyes, it only scared you more.

He was nowhere to be found, and the silence around you only made it more frustrating, they could only stare at you with the sickening pity on their eyes. No one stepped in to talk first, the rhythmic beeps of the machine connected to your fingers supplying the only source of sound remaining in your room.

Pressing the button, all eyes turn towards the television. Coincidentally you're greeted with the familiar Ferrari Red on the screen, you notice your car turning on the familiar corner before being flipped in the air. It was only then you realized that you were watching Fernando's on boards.

Your eyes scan the news headline in red, "FERRARI DRIVERS' YN LN AND FERNANDO ALONSO INVOLVED IN A COLLISION DURING LAST WEEK'S GRAND PRIX." The date on the other side of the screen indicates the day of the week— it's been three days. Three days it took for you to wake up, with Flavio in your room it must mean one thing.

"He's in a coma."

The words the doctor said as you sat in a wheel chair, in front of Fernando's door. The smile on your face dissipates, frozen in front of his hospital room. Fernando wasn't awake yet. With shaky hands, you drop them off the doorknob, instead you push yourself back to your room.

You couldn't bear looking at him. It would be unfair to blame it all on him, but it hurts you more that he was the one who crashed into you, and look at what he had done. Not just physically, you're on the verge of breaking down every second of the day, tears pulling at the corners of your eyes and you couldn't say anything.

To your team, you were just mourning the loss of the race and points, but deeper you were worried about Fernando, he was your boyfriend for God's sake yet you couldn't do anything. You couldn't even defend him as rumors and articles slowly come out about the crash, with Fernando's ulterior motive making you lose points for the Driver's Championship.

You knew what they were saying wasn't true, but with the isolation and avoidance of the situation you slowly begin to spiral in the what ifs and question if there truly had been some power play before the race.

Fernando wouldn't do that to you? He wouldn't... And as the hours turn into days, your desperation for answers gets clearer by the day. You find yourself sneaking into his room, wishing nothing but to pour your heart out in tears, and crying yourself to sleep. But you couldn't.

You couldn't even let yourself be vulnerable for a second, because to them, you were rivals before teammates. You just sit and stare at him, watching as he breathes peacefully, unaware and no clue of the commotion he has caused.

You can't help but laugh at the situation you're in. Three years ago, you'd laugh and pray for his downfall, only three years later you would find yourself crawled up in his sheets, grasping for warmth, getting the last minutes of sleep before sneaking out of his hotel room and playing the character of his racing rival.

You smile to yourself, wiping the tears off your eyes, "I'm not mad at you. I don't care if you planned this, you could crash at me for the rest of the race, I'm telling you please wake up. If you blame me, I would take it, I'd take that, tell me you hate me. Tell me it's my fault, I just want you back."

By some stroke of luck, or that your prayers had worked Fernando woke up the next day. You woke up to the sound of whispers in your room.

You heard from nurses that the patient from 3314 had woken up. You find yourself preparing to meet him, looking forward to a nurse inviting you to his room.

What wishful thinking.

It had been days since Fernando woke up, yet you were still blind to his condition. Despite feeling better, and walking to and from the hallways you haven't heard anything about Fernando.

"Good morning YN, we're going to visit Fernando today." You raise your brows at Flavio's words, unsure of his implications. You knew of their close relationship, but you both decided to keep your relationship under the wraps— as tight as can be, that really there are only two people involved, you and Fernando himself.

The rest of the world only saw you as racing rivals and nothing more, which made you bitter given the situation. There was always an ulterior motive behind the interactions with you two, and even now, you couldn't believe yourself for staying away from him so long.

Maybe it's because you were focused on your healing, and the wishful thinking that Fernando would also keep you in his thoughts as he recuperated, albeit slower than you, you prayed that you would meet him soon, despite being placed two rooms apart, you barely saw glimpses of him, much to your dismay.

But maybe it was for the better, your mind immediately blanked out after his doctor spoke about his condition. His words pass through your ear and out the other, standing still with both feet glued in the same spot, hands growing sweaty and bracing yourself from the impact of his words.

"He— Fernando has amnesia? Is that what you're telling me?" Your voice is slowly thinning out, shaking away the tears building up your eyes, your heartbeat picking the pace as you're left to fully comprehend what the doctor said. Giving yourself little to no time to prepare.

You stop Flavio from opening the door, "Does he remember you?" You watch Flavio nod his head in confidence.

"I doubt he will forget you, you're his rival out there, he's been asking about you since he woke up."

Your ears perk up at his words, nodding to yourself. Of course he'd say that, Flavio doesn't know a thing. You let go of his hands, along with the nerves building up.

Trying to not let your excitement show, you follow Flavio into the room, matching his pace hiding behind his figure to hide yourself from Fernando. Flavio moves aside and you're struck, slowly taking in Fernando's state, the bandages no longer crowned on top of his head as you scan the healing bruises on his body.

"LN. You're here to pray for my downfall? I bet it was your recklessness that caused this crash." The coldness of his voice felt like water splashed all over your face, throwing you off.

Flavio instinctively moved you behind him, shocked at his hostility.

You stumble behind, lost in your thoughts, he hasn't called you that since you were together. You dare your eyes to catch a glance at his, it was no longer filled with the same softness he cast upon you when you're alone. Instead you were met with the cold glare in his eyes, "What are you staring at for? Think you can beat me now that I'm injured? You better watch your back LN."

LN. He hasn't called you by your last name for the last two years, not in public anyway. When you two were alone, it was always, amor— or some stupid nickname to set you off.

You deny the idea of him forgetting about you two, thinking if this was one of his games, a rather cruel one to play, but it wasn't as if you'd have it any other way. You look through his eyes once more, ignoring the clawing feeling in your heart, the pressing signals in your head to stop, but you can't help but try once more. Maybe this time, he'll realize and see it in your eyes. The relationship you have together, buried in the memories of your longing eyes. "Do you really not remember me?"

Fernando rolls his eyes with a 'tsk' "Now you're getting annoying, I told you LN, stop with this good girl act and get out of my room."

You don't need to be told more, turning your feet, you feel the room blur as your vision shakes, the ringing in your ear grows as you make your way to your room. Muffling the sound of your tears, you feel your legs weaken, back leaning against the door, shaking your head in disbelief.

Fernando was finally awake. Fernando survived the crash and is finally healing.

But this Fernando has forgotten four long years of history. Four years ago, back when all you were to Fernando was another rookie in his way, filled with hatred and not love.

[bi-bard]

I Blinked and Suddenly, I Had a Valentine - Dr. Frank Langdon Imagine [The Pitt]

Title: I Blinked and Suddenly, I Had a Valentine

Pairing: Dr. Frank Langdon X Reader

Word Count: 1,125 words

Warning(s): mention of burnout

Summary: Frank is stuck working Valentine's Day. His original plans may be slightly derailed, but that doesn't mean that he won't try his hardest to be a true romantic.

Author's Note: Real simple plot here. We're testing the waters. And it's Valentine's Day, so why not?

If there are other The Pitt characters you want to see on my account, then let me know. The show is new, so I don't really know what people want to see. I'm considering something about Dr. McKay, but I'm open to suggestions (I know y'all love Noah Wyle).

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I've always had mixed feelings about working from home.

There were great things. I had a lot less stress when getting ready in the morning. I didn't have to commute. I was always in a comfortable environment. I able to find peace and quiet when I needed it. I also never had to worry about forgetting to bring my lunch because my kitchen was down the hall.

However, it wasn't all amazing. I had always been an isolated person, even before COVID forced us all to be. I relied on work to force me to interact with people. It helped me feel a little less lonely. This arrangement also made me realize just how long I spent sitting at a computer or on the phone.

I was also made painfully aware of how long Frank's shifts were. I never realized how stupid I had been about his work before this started. I was used to leaving a little after him and getting home a little earlier than him, but I never realized how much later or earlier that had truly been.

Most days, I could ignore it.

I would work, eat, paint, and ignore how quiet it was through most of the day. But some days were worse than others.

Birthdays were the worst.

The holidays would be either normal or awful.

Today was one of the awful ones.

Valentine's Day was a holiday that was commonly met with a little bit of disappointment, but I felt like that had changed when I started seeing Frank. We had managed to mostly make time for each other, at least around the day if not directly on it.

This year had been different. My workload had increased significantly on top of Frank's work and schedule. I felt awful. I had derailed everything.

I spent all day consumed by my work. Even when I was able to step away to grab food, I would my mind was so clogged by what I had to do that I hadn't been able to focus on anything around me.

Imagine working so hard to be able to afford a place of your own- no landlord or big management company- and you aren't even able to appreciate it because of that work.

When I finished my day, I felt my body go heavy. It made me feel ridiculous. Being exhausted after sitting at a desk. How tedious does my work need to be for me to feel like this? How much of a strain on my mind is this work if I end up this miserable?

I took a deep breath before pushing myself out of my desk chair.

I first noticed something was off when I stepped into the hallway. I paused. It was like the air in the space had shifted.

I did a circle waiting for my eyes to catch onto what was different.

I found it a moment later.

Sitting on the wall was a painting. Not just any painting but one of my paintings. One of my paintings was sitting on the wall and I did not put it there.

I walked down the hall, popping my head in each room. There was art in the bathroom and the living room and the dining room. There was even one in Frank and I's bedroom, and I didn't even see it this morning.

I soon found myself sitting on the couch, hand over my mouth and tears falling down my face.

I had always talked about decorating my home with my art. I had just always been renting or too busy. I had dozens of pieces that I thought would look nice somewhere other than my office. And now I was seeing it. And it was everything I had ever dreamed for it to be.

What else could I do but cry?

"I'm home- What's wrong," Frank asked as he closed the door behind him.

"I... I hadn't come out of my office all day- well, I hadn't been paying attention," I muttered. I pointed around the room. "I just saw everything you did."

"Oh," he sat next to me on the couch. "These are happy tears, right?"

"Yeah, they're happy tears." I chuckled. "Thank you so much for this."

"Yeah, I knew that you've been putting this off because we were renting before but... this is home now. And I want you to be able to look around and clearly see just how much love you've put into this space."

I grabbed his hand, leaning over to press my lips to his. He leaned back.

"What?"

"There was a... bodily fluid incident today," he explained. "I cleaned up as best I can, but I would much rather take a very, very long shower before you kiss my face at all."

"Valid," I nodded. "Blood?"

"No."

"You changed your scrubs, right?"

"Yes."

"That's all I need to know."

"Valid."

I smiled a little wider before leaning over and kissing his shoulder. "I love you."

"I love you too," Frank said.

"Now, how about you go take that long shower and I will order us dinner," I offered.

"That sounds absolutely perfect."

By the time Frank came back out, dinner had arrived, and I had put a small gift on his side of the table. I was smiling nervously as I awkwardly leaned on the table. I was suddenly feeling significantly less confident about my gift of choice.

"What's this?" he grabbed the box and started pulling off the wrapping paper.

"It feels silly compared to all of... this, but you had been talking about getting a decent watch," I explained as he opened up the box. "This one had some amazing reviews, and I even saw a few nurses and doctors saying they loved it."

"Wow, this is really nice," he placed it over his wrist and clasped it.

"You like it?"

"I love it," he replied. "Also, 'compared to all this'?"

"I bought you a watch," I said. "You framed my art and hung it around the house like I've been talking about doing since I was in college-"

"And? As far as I'm concerned, the amount of care is the same," he shrugged. "You didn't blindly pick this out of a bargain bin."

I nodded. I must have done a poor job of hiding my skepticism of the whole concept because he motioned me over to him. I made it over to him, letting him pull me close and kiss me gently.

I touched his sides, grinning into the kiss.

It was the perfect moment. The best moment I had ever experienced on Valentine's Day.

I leaned back slowly. "I love you. So much."

"I love you too," he muttered. "Happy Valentine's Day."

"Happy Valentine's Day."

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[forza55]

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

[forza55]

"the hottest thing a man could do is drive one-handed, palming the stirring wheel."

[frankie-norris-deactivated20250]

get over it! - l.n

Warnings: Angst, swearing

Pairing: Lando Norris x fem!reader

A/N - I’m testing out making longer parts instead of short ones!

parts 🧡

Flashback - Formula One Russian Grand Prix, Sochi 2021.

Everyone was standing in the garage, the air stark with tension, thick enough to cut a knife, every team member, both in Daniel’s garage and Lando’s. The commentators voices drowned out to nothing but a mumble in your ears as you stood onto the side, watching the screen, biting your lip in anticipation.

A collective groan rang through the garage as you heard the radio message of the young Brit - ‘it’s full wet boys’. A victory that had been so close for him, almost tantalisingly close…slipping away quicker than it had ever come. You couldn’t imagine how he felt.

Sure, you weren’t much more than an intern, someone who just helped around with drinks and handing our coffees and teas, but everyone in the team felt that. To be honest, when someone asked your job, you just said you worked as a PA.

You weren’t entirely sure what you did yourself. Sometimes you were handing out refreshments, the next you were filling out paperwork, and the next, you were rushing around with towels and holding jewellery for drivers that you’d never taken the jewellery from.

You were like the little tag-along of the team, and not in a condescending way, everyone liked you. Anyways, back to the moment. You could see the faces fall from the mechanics round the garage, as they grabbed the tyres to change on Lando’s car, as you gripped onto the little pen in your hand.

And Lando, well, he was frustrated. That could’ve been his first ever win, his first ever win after being in the sport for nearly three years and it had slipped away from him through nothing but his naivety and panicked state, the win slipping through his fingers quicker than anything.

You sighed, equally as disappointed as the rest of the team as you made your way to the store cupboard, pulling out some fresh white towels, a few unopened water bottles from the chiller, and the little dish containing a few of Lando’s rings, carefully carrying them to his driver room.

You said nothing as you walked on, sensing the frustration from the young Brit, the way his hand clenched and unclenched round the pillow on the massage bed. “Cheers,” he mumbled as you laid down the towels onto the side, along with the rest of the stuff. He stood up, stretching slightly - he had media duties.

“Better luck next time, it was just one race,” you said, placing the water bottles on the side as Lando tensed. “Excuse me- I…whatever,” he snapped, shutting the door, the slam of it making you jump. You absolutely had not meant it to hurt him, of course you hadn’t, you just hadn’t…thought.

“Wait, Lando, I-,” you opened the door, as the driver turned around, his eyes narrowed slightly. “I didn’t mean it to offend or hurt you, I just didn’t think it’d-,” you started, panic overtaking you as he scoffed, cutting you off. “And that’s why our team doesn’t need people like you, Y/N or whatever your name is,”.

Ouch. “You don’t think, and this team, fuck, this sport needs people who can think and actually use that thing inside there,” he tapped his own head rather harshly. And his words were just as brutal too, as you flinched slightly, your arms falling weakly to your side. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-,”. You didn’t even get to finish as he stormed off.

Time Skip - Present Day - One Hour Before Baku Qualifying 2024

Once again, you were carrying a small tray of coffee cups, walking round Oscar’s side of the garage and handing them out to thankful mechanics. You’d grown to be a proper part of the team, someone who everyone relied on, and you were always there for them. Much to Lando’s dislike.

He’d had many meetings with Zak, purely based on him not wanting you around him or even in the team for that matter, only to be shut down immediately. People needed you, the spirit of the team needed you, and yes, Lando was the driver and he had a say, but what use was a good driver without a team to back him?

“Hey Y/N,” Oscar smiled, taking one of the cups from your tray. You and Oscar had grown quite close over time, actually, for he had been more…appreciative of your work, to say the least. “Oh. Hey,” you smiled, walking round the garage as more mechanics came to take their selection of drinks.

“Looking good for Quali, eh?” the Aussie smiled as you hummed, looking at the warm weather, the clock ticking ever closer to Qualifying. “Yeah, it looks great,” you said, “good weather, tyres could heat up, though,” you grimaced at the thought of tyres, grained and burned up, flat spots and the lot.

“Always thought you’d be an amazing mechanic, or a driver, even,” he snickered, sitting down onto one of the stools as you put the tray down. “Yeah right,” you scoffed, “give up your seat for me then,”. Oscar rolled his eyes at the comment, as if he’d do that anyways. “I’m sure you’d rather Lando give up his seat,”.

“So he can run around with a tray of coffees? He wouldn’t be very motivating, like me,” you said jokingly, flicking your hair over your shoulder as Oscar scoffed. “Catch you later, yeah?” he smiled, squeezing your shoulders as you smiled, stepping through the door to take your tray to Lando’s side of the garage.

You didn’t even spare a glance in Lando’s direction as you carried the tray, a smile plastered onto your face as you carried the tray, the mechanics gratefully taking their cups of coffee or tea. The scent of rubber was something you’d grown up surrounded by, always attending races with your brother, back when he had karted.

He hadn’t made it successfully, and instead worked in economics or whatever, but you were far more interested. And if working in F1, even if it was handing around beverages, was enough for you. You lived for the scent of gasoline and rubber and the adrenaline. You were part of the team.

Lando himself was by the car, in his team polo and classic black jeans, but god, simply your presence was which to grate at his nerves. You’d been with the team for a while now, and somehow, your presence felt like a constant thorn in his side. It wasn’t just your bubbly personality—it was the way you seemed to breeze through everything while he was drowning in expectations and pressure.

“Want a drink?” your smile half slid down off your face. Unfortunately, you’d been reprimanded a few too many times than you’d like to admit for just ignoring Lando and not giving him a drink. Something about equality, or whatever. Bullshit. “No,” Lando replied almost immediately, so fast it was like he hadn’t even bothered to hear out your question.

“Well, you’re gonna crash if you’re dehydrated,” you argued as he rolled your eyes. “Isnt your job to serve people and not be a pain in my ass?” he scoffed, his voice curt and cold as your grip on the tray tightened almost painfully. “I’m here to do my job, Lando,” you replied, your tone turning slightly annoyed. “I’m not the one making this personal.”

“Not personal? You’ve made it your mission to annoy me since the day you started,” he retorted. You crossed your arms, unyielding. “Maybe you’re just too sensitive. Not everyone thinks you’re the golden boy,” you shot back, your voice filled with equally as much spite. “Bullshit,” he said over your voice, rolling his eyes as he resisted the urge to flip you off.

“Yeah, well, I don’t need your opinion,” he shot back, the tension between you both thickening. “Fine,” you said, exhaling sharply. “But don’t come whining to me when you’re dehydrated and struggling out there,” you took your tray back into your arms. “Like I’d ever ask you for anything,” he spat, turning away from her.

Time Skip - Start of Baku Qualifying 2024

Even though you were positively sure that you hated Lando, the tension thick in the air between the both of you, you were all for Lando winning the championship now that he has a shot, though a small one. He was, after all, a McLaren driver, and you’d been with that team just as long as Lando had. So reluctantly, you dragged yourself once more into his garage, clutching a bottle.

“Lando, are you seriously going to just stand there?” you called out, hands on your hips, a water bottle in one hand. “You need to drink some water before you hit the track!”. He rolled his eyes, irritation bubbling to the surface. “I’m fine, Y/N. I don’t need you to babysit me,” he snapped, his voice irritable and laced with a hint of frustration.

Your expression hardened, eyebrows raised. “This isn’t babysitting! It’s called being a responsible driver. You know, hydration is key?” you said the words, almost as if you were mocking him. “Hydration? You think I’m going to forget to drink water because you’re not around?” he shot back, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Maybe if you spent less time nagging me and more time doing your job, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Excuse me?” you retorted, stepping closer, unflinching. “You think just because you’re the driver, you can ignore basic health? Everyone here is trying to help you succeed, but you’re too stubborn to see it,” you held the icy water bottle in your hand, tightening round the plastic. That made Lando scoff. “I don’t need your help. I’ve been doing this for years. Maybe you should focus on the drinks instead of acting like my coach.”

“Right, because handing out water is all I’m good for,” you shot back, crossing your arms. “You know, for someone who claims to be a professional, you’re really not acting like one. It’s like you want to make this harder for yourself,” you sneered. God, did he even mature since that race in Sochi? He was still acting like he was 8 years old, for goodness sake. It was just water, not poison!

“Harder? You think I’m making it harder? I’m just trying to get through qualifying without dealing with you lecturing me!” he snapped. “Fine, I’d like to see you get out of Q1 let alone win the stupid championship anyways,” you scoffed, thrusting the bottle at his chest as he scrambled to catch it, an indignant scoff on his lips.

“Yeah, go away, then!” he called after you as he pulled his gloves on furiously, thrusting the bottle straight into the bin, as a few of the mechanics watched Lando flip you off as you walked away to Oscar’s garage. “Go support your sweet little Oscar, then! See if I care!” he declared as you huffed, walking away and not looking back.

And down came the clock, ticking and ticking, the scene of Sochi almost replicated, mechanics chewing their nails off, eyes wide as it ticked slowly, a collective groan as Lando slowed down, forced to do so by the momentarily slip of the yellow flag…ruining his lap. Wow, it was like you’d truly cursed him, no? And, well, shit was he pissed.

You stayed well out of his way as he walked into the garage, ignoring everyone and anyone who tried to speak to him, to offer some sort of reassurance. He was the title contender for the Formula One World Championship, he was one of twenty of the most talented men to drive, and this was where he qualified? It was bullshit.

“You could sense the frustration from him as he walked past you, his water bottle in hand once again, lips round the straw, his face set and cap pulled down low. It was almost ironic how much he was drinking now, compared to his previous stubbornness to do so. Well, whatever. He was annoying anyway, it was in his nature.

“Where’s my down bottle?” he snapped, looking to your expectantly as he paused in the garages, the mechanics going silent, grimacing as they watched yet another set of bickering unfold between the pair of you. “What? I don’t carry your bottle around, I’m not your caddy-,” you started, a scowl on your face at the demeaning tone in his voice.

“Y/N, I don’t have time to hear you yapping,” he snapping, speaking over your voice loudly, glaring at you, the heat and frustration from the qualifying evident in his voice. You really should just go and find it or whatever, it would decreased the tensions, but no! You can’t let Lando just walk all over you.

“You’re the-the water girl, yeah? So where’s my damn drink?” he scoffed. You rolled your eyes, thrusting an iced water at him as he snarled. “Seriously? My bottle, Y/N, the black one with the straw with the very obvious Monster logo on it? Pretty hard to miss,” he said sarcastically as you groaned again.

“It’s wherever the fuck you left it, Lando!” you snapped, exhausted of his constant nabbing, “I don’t carry your bottle around like a stupid lost puppy, my job’s to provide refreshments,” you scowled. “Yeah, well itd be rather refreshing if you’d shut the fuck up and do your job,” he flipped you off, storming away as you scoffed.

[danahart]

somebody tell that bitch sebastian vettel that i fucking love him

[theemporium]

don't usually request but you hit 10k on my birthday and i had something on my mind

maybe some slow build up of smut-berry with 47 for oscar where they couldn't celebrate her birthday because of the australian grand prix falling on the same weekend and her family wanted to be with her, so when they see each other again he decides to do everything he can to make it up to her...

idk i love ur writing 🧡

thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

47. “You heard me. I want you to sit on my face.”

.

Oscar loved being a Formula One driver. 

It was his ultimate dream as a kid and now it was a reality. He knew he was luckier than most, getting to a job he loved so dearly. And he knew not many people even made it to Formula One and stayed. But he was lucky and he never took it for granted, even if there were downsides to the job. 

The media wasn’t his favourite thing in the world. And the conferences and interviews got a bit tedious every other weekend. The constant jet lag also wasn’t ideal. And he didn’t really fully grasp the world fame sometimes, it was hard to forget he was just another guy showing up at his job every weekend. 

But the worst was the important dates and events he missed because of his job. The events and duties he could not get out of no matter what because they were a part of his contract. He missed out on important things for the most important people in his life. 

Like your birthday. 

“M’sorry,” Oscar apologised for the umpteenth time as he laid in his hotel room, staring at the ceiling above him as he held his phone to his ear. “I really tried to find a way out of it but Zak said no and—”

“Oscar, baby, it’s okay,” you smiled softly as you leaned back in your seat, a cup of coffee in your hand. “I know you would be here if you could. I promise I don’t mind, it just means we can have our own celebration later.” 

His lips twitched at the thought. “I am gonna give you the best late-birthday party ever.” 

You hummed. “Oh yeah? Tell me about it, Piastri.” 

“Gonna book us to go away somewhere,” Oscar said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Somewhere we can hide. Just me and you and the sun.” 

“That sounds nice,” you sighed, almost wistfully. “It’s raining here.”

“No rain, promise,” he assured you. “Every night we are there, we will dress up and go out. I’ll even wear that shirt you really like—the black one.” 

“Oh, you’re spoiling me,” you teased but your smile only widened as you continued to listen.” 

“Maybe try some new things as well,” Oscar continued as he closed his eyes, listening to hum as a way to tell him to elaborate. “Maybe we can go paragliding. Or go on a safari. Maybe you can sit on my face.” 

You spluttered, your eyes widening in response as you quickly placed your coffee cup down and wiped your hand across your face. “Oscar!” 

He tried not to smile. “What?” 

“You—” You cleared your throat a little, your cheeks burning as you tried to find your words. “Huh?” 

“You heard me. I want you to sit on my face,” Oscar said, deadpan and so-Oscar that it made your head spin a little knowing he was dead serious. “Think you’ll look really pretty from that angle, perfect for the birthday girl.”

You shook your head. “You need to be muzzled.” 

“We can try that too, if that’s something you’re into,” Oscar retorted, laughing a little when you let out another incoherent squeak. “Don’t die, baby, we have a holiday to look forward to together.”

“Fuck off, Piastri.” 

“We are gonna do a lot of fucking—”

“Oscar!”

.