A fault I will admit to is that I really can’t or have trouble reading a fic that has poor grammar…. It pains me because the idea can be so good, but I just cannot read it </3 If you need anyone to proofread your writing, send it my way! I will gladly help!
This is in no way a dig at anyone, and I know English is not everyone’s first language. I wish I were not so particular it sucks
SUMMARY: Desperate for your attention, Clark does the unthinkable—he turns to the ultimate girl magnet, Jimmy Olsen, for help.
WARNINGS: fem!reader, POV of clark being astronomically down bad, questionable advice, possible second-hand embarrassment
WC: 5k - MASTERLIST
Clark has no idea what he’s doing.
Well—that’s a lie. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He just can’t believe he’s actually going through with it.
Because this? This is rock bottom.
He’s Superman, for crying out loud! He’s flown through electrical storms, wrestled alien warlords into the dirt, and stood eye-to-eye with beings who’ve reduced cities to rubble. But now? Now he’s navigating the bullpen of the Daily Planet like it’s mined territory. His shoulders drawn tight, head ducked low, and hands shoved too deep in the pockets of a button-down that suddenly feels too tight across the chest. This is not something he’s even remotely proud of, but desperation has a way of scraping the dignity clean off a man.
And so that’s how he ends up standing at the edge of Jimmy’s cluttered desk, where his friend is hunched over his phone, mid-scroll, and chewing on the end of a pencil. “Hey,” he hisses, barely above a whisper.
The redhead doesn’t look up. “Yo. What’s up?”
A glance over one shoulder. Then the other. His voice drops even lower. “Come here a second.”
That earns a look. “Did you break another stapler? I’m not covering for you again, man.”
The taller man exhales through his nose and scrubs a hand through his hair before jerking his chin toward the far end of the room. “I need your help.”
Jimmy follows his gaze, then grins immediately.
There you are. Leaning against someone’s desk, your laughter rises above the general buzz of newsroom chatter. Steve from Sports is gesturing animatedly about something, probably about the most recent trade, but it’s the shape of your smile that stands out. You’ve been here five months. That’s long enough to memorize everyone’s coffee orders, to have nicknames for the janitors, to be included in that horrendous Daily Planet group chat that really only consists of memes or roasts. Everyone likes you.
Everyone talks to you.
Everyone except him.
Because for five months, every time you walk into a room, he forgets how to be casual. He fumbles his greetings, he adjusts his glasses three times too many, he says things like 'yep' instead of 'yes' and then overthinks it for days afterward.
“She’s cool,” comes the easy, admiring reply beside him from the photojournalist, paired with a small nod. “Smart. Funny. A good taste in music and an even better sense of style. I like her.”
“Yeah.” The word leaves his mouth too fast, too high-pitched. “Same.”
There’s a beat of silence. And then Jimmy turns to him suspiciously. “Do you have a thing for her?”
Clark winces, and one hand lifts automatically to the back of his neck, rubbing at the skin. He realizes that this might not have been the smartest choice. “Maybe.”
The gasp that follows is dramatic enough to turn heads. He scrambles to shush the smaller guy immediately, but it’s too late; the gleam in those blue eyes is unmistakable. Gleeful. Deeply annoying.
“Oh my God,” the younger man breathes, drawing out every syllable. “It all makes sense now.”
“Please don’t—”
“No, no—shut up. I’m connecting dots. This is important.”
One finger goes up. “The time you dropped your phone down the elevator shaft. That was her, wasn’t it? When she was entering as we were heading out?”
The lack of a response is damning.
A second finger joins the count. “The coffee incident. The one where you somehow spilled a full latte onto your shoes. I remember she laughed at a joke you made.”
Clark is done for, he realizes, as he covers his face with one hand. This was a definitely a mistake.
“And that day,” Jimmy continues, holding up three fingers and visibly thrilled now, “when she wore the Star Wars shirt? You walked into a door. A door.”
“I thought we promised to never bring that up again.”
His laughter, loud and unrestrained, echoes off the vending machines. “You’ve been in shambles, man. You’re in love, and it’s wrecked your whole nervous system. How did I not pick up on this?”
"Jimmy—"
“Now that I think about it, you stare at her like she hung the moon. It’s actually kind of sweet. Like a Victorian gentleman who’s never seen a bare ankle.”
“I’m going to walk into traffic.”
A firm thump lands against his shoulder. “No, you’re not. You’re gonna walk over there, talk to her like a normal person, and ask her out.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Oh, buddy.” Jimmy claps his hands together. “Lucky for, I do.”
—
Jimmy advice #1: “Just be confident, bro. Show her who’s boss.”
Holy, Clark’s hands are sweating. Like absolutely dripping wet.
He wipes them down the sides of his pants as discreetly as possible while loitering by the elevators, pretending to read the framed fire safety poster for the third time. The newsroom is pretty empty now—most people have already left, and the cleaning crew is shuffling in.
Then he hears you.
Or, more specifically, hears the clang of your locker swinging open just down the hall, followed by the low shuffle of bags being rearranged and the muffled click of a zipper. You're humming under your breath. He straightens his collar and takes in a deep breath while trying to ignore the way his palms have already started sweating again. Just walk up to her. Lean in. Be cool.
As he rounds the corner, he spots you. You’re bent over your open locker, bag slung over one shoulder, brows furrowed in concentration as you try to fit a thermos into a space that clearly does not want to accommodate it.
And before he can think twice—before reason or logic or shame can stop him—he approaches and slaps a hand against the metal just beside your head, pinning you there underneath him. You yelp and jump about a foot in the air, whipping around so fast you nearly knock the thermos straight out of your own bag, totally startled, eyes humongous.
When you look up, you see him, standing inches from you, arm braced against the locker door, posture rigid in an attempt to look casual. And well, it's… not really working. Clark swallows once, then does his best approximation of a charming smile.
“Hey,” he tries, nonchalantly.
You blink. Then: “Oh! Uh—hey, Clark!”
A pause. Your eyes slowly travel to the side, glancing at his hand that is still planted beside your head, before looking back at his face, eyebrows slightly raised. Immediately, Clark moves his hand, hoping you did not hear the little squeak that came with the movement or see the wet handprint left behind on the metal.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to, uh—scare you.”
“It’s okay,” you say quickly, giving him a friendly shrug and zipping your bag the rest of the way. “I thought you were someone else for a second.”
“Oh.” He clears his throat. “Nope. Just me.”
Another silence creeps in.
“How—how are you?” he asks, a beat too late.
“I’m good, I’m good,” you repeat, nodding a little, like you’re reassuring yourself now. “End of the day, you know?”
He tries to laugh, but it comes out a little strangled, more comparable to a gurgle.
You're still smiling politely, but now you shift slightly, cautiously, and begin to slide sideways out from where he’s standing. Not too fast, but enough that your shoulder brushes the locker door as you edge around him, and enough for him to get the hint. He steps back to give you space, his arms suddenly feeling too long on his body. He wants to put his hands back in his pockets, but they’re too damp, so one of them curls and uncurls uselessly by his side.
“You, uh,” you start, adjusting your bag strap, “need something? Or were you just…?”
The sentence trails off. He opens his mouth, but no words arrive. Your gaze flits toward the exit, then back at him, clearly waiting for something that isn’t coming.
“Well, I gotta go,” you chirp, taking another small step back. “But, I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Then you're off—practically jogging down the hallway with a little wave thrown over your shoulder. The thermos bounces awkwardly in your bag as he watches the door swing shut behind you in despair, before letting out a deep exhale and resting his forehead on the locker.
—
Jimmy advice #2: “You gotta smell good. Like a forbidden memory or something.”
After some quick, heavy-eyed Google searches at 3:32 a.m.—best men’s cologne 2025, top fragrances women love, what scent makes a woman fall in love instantly—Clark lands on Dior Sauvage. The name alone sounds promising, he thinks to himself.
And if the internet is to be trusted (which, in this moment of absolute despair, it is), this stuff is apparently irresistible. Confidence in a bottle. The olfactory equivalent of a smouldering glance and rolled-up shirt sleeves showcasing immaculate arm veins. So obviously, he doesn’t hesitate to go to the drug store as soon as he wakes up.
And when he returns home, in the soft, blue-tinged light of his apartment bathroom, he begins what he imagines will be the subtle, sophisticated application of a new signature scent. He sprays once on his chest, then once on his neck. Then again—just to be thorough. One for each wrist, and another spritz across his collarbone, for good luck, of course. A final, sweeping spritz over his entire torso. His eyes sting a little, but that’s normal, right? That just means it’s working. The more the better, after all.
Catching his reflection in the mirror, Clark gives himself a nod alongside a few finger guns, before getting ready and heading to work.
-
On the subway, a toddler two seats down starts crying.
He doesn’t notice.
He’s standing there in the packed car, swaying slightly with the motion, briefcase in one hand, daydreaming a quiet little reel of possibility: you, stopping by his desk. Laughing at something he says, getting a whiff of his scent and asking if he wants to grab coffee later.
Someone coughs nearby. It’s a wet, choked sound.
He doesn’t hear it.
An older woman sitting directly across from him pulls a scarf over her nose and gives him a look, a man on the other side discreetly scoots two inches closer to the door, holding his phone in front of his face, and somewhere behind him, someone mutters Jesus Christ under their breath.
He’s floating.
He can’t wait to see you.
Jimmy said girls love confidence. Jimmy said girls love cologne. And today, he’s got both in spades.
-
The elevator is quiet—thankfully. He’s alone, which gives him a minute to exhale and enjoy the lingering aura of his new and improved smell. Chrome walls reflect a slightly flushed version of his face, he runs his fingers through his hair a few times and adjusts his tie as the elevator slows, reaching one of the lower editorial floors. With a cheery ding, the doors slide open.
The man waiting takes a step forward in to the car, but then abruptly stops mid-step. It almost looks like he’s about to gag, but instead, he swallows, then without a word, he steps backward and just… lets the door close again. Confused, Clark watches as the doors shut and the floor counter ticks upward. Weird. He must’ve been intimidated.
By the time he arrives on his floor, he’s feeling good, excited for the possible newfound attention he could receive. Yet, he barely makes it three steps into the office before Perry intercepts him, clipboard in one hand, and a stack of papers in the other. “These are for you,” he states, holding out the documents.
“Thanks,” Clark says, reaching for the paper.
Perry sniffs, recoiling just half a step. “Whew. Bit heavy on the cologne, are we?”
“Yeah, uh—wanted to try something new.”
The editor eyes him down, hard, with a look of obvious suspicion. “Okay. Whatever you say, Kent.”
At his desk, Clark is in the process of setting everything up when he hears a loud cackle behind him. “My god, it smells like the first time I had car sex. Bad times,” Lois’ voice exhoes in his ears.
In response is a light chuckle. Well, a better description would be a devious cackle. From Cat. “Right? I’m pretty sure the first time I gave head, the guy had sprayed his dick with it. I can still taste it.” The two women burst into fresh laughter, the kind that comes from shared trauma. Still, he frowns faintly. Someone must be stinky.
-
It’s a little later when you stop by. He spots you approaching from the corner of his eye, and subconsciously, he sits straighter. His hands fly to the keyboard, typing nonsense to make it look like he’s hard at work when you come into full view with a soft smile, your Planet mug in one hand and your lanyard looped through the crook of your elbow, swaying gently. “Hey, Clark,” you say as you reach his desk. “How’s it going?”
“Hey.” He smiles back. “It’s good. You?”
“Same for m—oh my god.” A short, choked cough cuts you off. Your nose scrunches, your hand instinctively raising to hover in front of your face, fingers pressing lightly beneath your nose. “Do you smell that?”
Does he smell the insanely manly scent wafting off of him? Does he smell like a man you want to kiss? Does he—
“What do you mean?”
“It smells like…” Your face twists, searching for the right word. “Like… the boys’ locker room in high school—” you pause, squinting at the ceiling as if the scent will name itself. “—but worse? Like Axe Body Spray’s evil twin.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again.
“Oh,” you perk, recognition dawning. “Dior Sauvage. That’s what it is.”
His expression lights up. “Oh! Yeah! I heard it was good, so I bought some.”
Your lips part open, squinting your eyes as they visibly start to water. “Ah. Well. That explains it.”
You try for a smile, but it comes out pained. Nonetheless, Clark thinks you’re gorgeous.
“Wow. This is bringing up some repressed memories,” you jokingly laugh.
… What did you just say? A slow, creeping horror descends upon him. Jimmy’s voice slithers up from the depths of his psyche like a poltergeist. “You gotta smell good, bro. Like a forbidden memory or something.”
Forbidden memory.
But you just said—
His jaw slackens, his stomach drops and he suddenly feels very hot and very cold at the same time. It’s like his nostrils have only now opened and the surge of the pungent stench fills his nose. Has he really been smelling like that all day? “Oh gosh,” he whispers, barely audible.
“What?” you ask, brows knitting in confusion. “Are you okay?”
Out of nowhere, the Kryptonian shoots up out of his seat so fast it makes you stagger back a few steps in shock. “I–uh–I… I gotta go… uh, to the washroom.”
“You sure you’re good?”
“Yep. Totally. Fine.” He just wants to get out of here. Throw his clothes into the laundry. Scrub everything off him in the shower. “I just… nature calls.”
Faster than you can respond, Clark makes a run for it. Not to the washroom, but down the emergency stairs and right out of the building.
—
Jimmy advice #3: “Neg her a bit, show her who’s boss.”
Fricking finally. It’s the end of the week, and that only means one thing: drinks with the Daily Planet crew. Every Friday, without fail, the team migrates to their usual spot—an old, slightly grimy bar with good fries and terrible lighting. Clark usually loves it, but tonight, all he can think about is you, how horrible his week has been, and how this is finally going to be the moment where he asks you out and you say yes.
He’s spent the last hour trying to find a moment alone with you, but you’ve been moving in and out of conversations, laughing with Lois, or getting pulled away every time he so much as drifts in your direction. However, now, you’re standing at the bar alone, fidgeting with your straw, the light above catching in your hair. You look tired but happy, he thinks, and now might be his only chance.
He takes a breath and walks up beside you. “Hey,” he begins, grabbing your attention as he leans lightly against the counter.
You turn toward him, a smile blooming across your face. “Hey, Clark.”
“Didn’t think I’d get a word in with you tonight,”
“Sorry.” Your eyes roll in fake exasperation, gesturing around you. “It’s like whack-a-mole in here. Every time I stop moving, someone shows up to tell me how I can get even more clicks on the online articles.”
“Have you tried writing about alien dating habits?”
A laugh escapes you as you choke on your drink. “God, I wish. I’d kill for a little interstellar romance. You know how many articles I’ve written about city council zoning laws?”
The Kryptonian laughs. “I’m sure you can find a way to combine the two.”
You make a show of nodding seriously. “Maybe next time I’ll be able to add in a forbidden love subplot between a bureaucrat and a tentacled rebel who just wants to build affordable housing.”
“I’d read it.”
“I bet it’d get me a Pulitzer.”
Clark laughs again—too hard, honestly, and it draws a look from someone down the bar. He clears his throat, feeling flushed, but still smiling nonetheless. Your head tilts slightly as you watch him and he might pass out just from the prolonged eye contact alone. In an attempt to steer the attention from himself, he finds his mouth moving: “I was actually gonna congratulate you on getting the front cover yesterday.”
“You earned it,” he adds, and for a second, the compliment lands. Your mouth quirks into a soft, almost-surprised grin as you stir the ice in your drink again. But then— “I mean,” he goes on, oblivious to the fact that he is beginning to dig his own grave. “I got my first front page after, what, two months? But hey, five isn’t bad.”
You go still. There’s a full second of silence. Then two.
The grin on your face freezes and slowly morphs into a tight line.
“Ah,” you say, and take a long sip from your drink. “So I was slow. Got it.”
Uh oh. Alarm bells ring inside of Clark’s head. Isn’t this what Jimmy told him to do?! “No—no, that’s not what I—” He’s flailing internally. “I was just joking. Well, uh, sort of. But didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, it’s okay. I guess I still have a lot of catching up to do.”
This is bad. This is really, really bad. He feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. “That’s not— You don’t.”
“Mm.” The look you give him makes his heart drop. Then, you glance back toward the table where Lois and a few others are still seated, waving their drinks around mid-story. “Think it’s time for a refill or something.”
“Wait—”
But you don’t. You’ve already turned around, heading back to your friends.
-
“Jimmy what the f–hey man!” Clark swings the bathroom door open so fast it slams against the wall, the sudden echo bouncing off the tiles.
The redhead currently occupying a urinal jumps. “Dude! I’m literally peeing.”
“I’ve been trying to follow your advice all week,” the taller man hisses, ignoring the fact that they are, in fact, very much in a public men’s room, “and it seems like everything I do has made it worse!”
Jimmy zips up, spins, and holds up his hands in surrender as if the reporter has a gun instead of just—well, bad energy. “Whoa, okay, what happened?”
“You told me to neg her,” All Clark can do is stab an accusing finger through the air. “Neg her! I told her five months wasn’t bad for a front page story—do you realize how that sounded?!” His voice cracks at the end, and he presses both palms into his eyes. “In the News world, I called her illiterate.”
“Okay, it’s not that bad. She probably just thinks you’re cocky.”
“I’m not cocky!” Clark snaps. Then, quieter, “I’m…I’m the opposite of cocky. I’m anti-cocky. I'm practically allergic to confidence.”
“You say that,” his friend points out, “and yet here you are, screaming in a public bathroom, because you sounded cocky.”
“Agh,” he groans, spinning in a tight, anxious circle. “What do I do? I bet she hates me now.”
A shrug. “Just ask her out, man.”
“What.”
“Ask her out,” he repeats like it’s obvious. “Coffee. This weekend. Boom. Done.”
What follows is a brief moment of nothingness as the brunette blinks slowly, trying to compute that suggestion through a haze of spiralling horror. “You have to be joking. She’s not gonna say yes to me after what I just pulled. I don’t think we’re even there yet.”
“You literally can’t get more ‘there’ than cornering her at a bar and insulting her journalism career.”
The Kryptonian flinches. “Dude. Fresh wound.”
“Look, you don’t have to make it weird. Just tell her you were gonna hang out with some friends this weekend, but they bailed.”
Clark rubs his temples. “So… lie to her?”
“It’s not a lie. It’s more like narrative reshaping.” Not true, but it doesn’t seem like he has a choice.
“I feel pathetic.”
“You got this,” Jimmy claps him on the back before turning to the exit. “All you gotta do is not what you did before.”
“You mean what you told me to do,” he mutters.
“Stay strong, brotha!”
Now alone, he groans in defeat, looking at himself in the washroom mirror. His hair is tousled, his face is beet red, and there may or may not be a few beads of sweat rolling down his back. As someone wise once sang, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. He needs to do this.
-
It’s almost as if he has tunnel vision in the way his gaze is focused solely on you. He’s a man on a mission, but when he finds you, of course, you’re with a giant group of people. He hovers a moment, fingers twitching at his sides, until finally you turn just enough for his window to open.
He cuts through the crowd, stepping beside you before he can talk himself out of it. “Hey,” he breathes out.
Your face contorts into a mix between confusion and shock. “Can we—” he pauses, peering at the others around you, who are now definitely listening. “—can we talk?” he finishes, gently placing a hand against your arm. He notices your eyes flicker briefly toward the contact.
“Uh, sure?”
Shifting awkwardly, he gestures vaguely toward the door. “Outside?”
You nod, passing your drink off to someone nearby and follow him out of the bar. The doors swing shut behind you both with a muffled thud, and suddenly it’s too quiet. You hug your arms lightly for warmth, though the night is mild. “I—” he begins, then rubs the back of his neck, struggling for words. “I wanted to say sorry for earlier. I didn’t mean to sound rude or dismissive or… I don’t know. It came out all wrong.”
“What did you mean, then?” You squint.
“I was just—nervous,” he hates how raw the admission sounds coming from his lips. “You got the front page, and I wanted to say something smart and funny, and it ended up just sounding—well. You heard it.”
You huff a small laugh. “Yeah. It wasn’t your best.”
“Ugh, I know.” He groans, dragging a hand over his face. “But I swear I wasn’t trying to be a jerk. I was trying to be... charming.”
“Negging is your version of charming?” It isn’t judgmental in the way you say it, more amused if anything.
“Apparently,” he mutters. “Look, I’ve been trying to—gah, this is going to sound dumb—but I was wondering if maybe you’d want to grab coffee with me tomorrow?”
Your expression softens.
“I mean, I was planning to go with some friends,” he adds quickly, taking the literal one second of silence as rejection, “but everyone else bailed, so I figured, hey, maybe you’d be up for it—”
Immediately, the excitement in your eyes fizzles out. “I was your last choice, then.”
“What? No—no! That’s not what I meant.” He steps closer, alarmed. Jesus, he can’t manage to get a single thing right around you, can he? “You weren’t—God, you were the first person I thought of. I just didn’t think you’d say yes if I asked you directly, and then I messed up earlier, and then Jimmy—” He stops, breathing hard. “I’ve been following Jimmy’s advice.”
It takes a minute, but when you register his words, your mouth falls open. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah.”
You stare at him, incredulous. “But why—”
“Why Jimmy’s advice?” he interrupts gently.
“I—well—yeah. He’s not the most… uh, charismatic. Certainly wouldn’t be my first choice.”
The taller man exhales, tucking his hands deep into the pockets of his pants. His gaze flickers to the ground, then back up to meet yours. “Because I’ve liked you since pretty much your first day.”
“I remember you dropped your ID badge three times between the elevator and your desk,” he says, a little smile playing at his lips. “You had coffee but no actual mug, just one of those little espresso cups someone gave you at the front. And then Perry introduced you, and you shook hands with the wrong person.”
A choked laugh. “You remember that? I was a disaster.”
“No,” he cuts in quickly. “You were—you are perfect.”
Your eyes dart away shyly, but he keeps going. It’s like the floodgates have opened and nothing can stop him, not even the immense beating of his heart.
“I didn’t know how to talk to you. I figured if I played it cool, or at least like I was cool, I’d… get your attention.” His brows draw. “But then I panicked and asked Jimmy for help, which, in retrospect, was my first mistake. My second, was actually listening to him.”
“So… The random anime locker slam?
He shudders. “Yup.”
“The Dior Sauvage?”
He closes his eyes, clearly in pain. “Yeah. That too.”
You burst out laughing, head tilted back, the sound bright and unfiltered in the quiet outside the bar. He watches you helplessly, in awe. Your shoulders shake with it as you step in a little closer, your hands sliding up to rest gently on his forearms.
His brain short-circuits.
“Clark.”
“Yeah?” And of course, his voice cracks. Great timing.
Your thumbs graze softly along his sleeves. “I’ve been thinking about you, too.”
That sends a jolt straight through him—his posture tightens, eyes wide, lips parting like he wants to say something and physically can’t.
“I didn’t think you liked me,” you admit. “You were being so… weird this week.”
“I was being weird.” He nods eagerly, finding his voice. “I was—I am—nervous. You’re very…” He looks down to where you’re still touching him. “Distracting.”
“It’s stupid now—”
“Nothing you say is stupid—” You lift a finger and smush it against his lips.
“Ah ah ah, I wasn’t done.” At first, he’s startled, but then he obediently goes quiet, though it is obvious he’s dying to respond. And he can’t miss the sight of you trying not to smile at the way his mouth puckers beneath the gentle pressure.
“I thought maybe you knew I liked you,” you whisper. “And you didn’t want to hurt my feelings, so you were trying to scare me off instead. You know. So you wouldn’t have to reject me.”
His eyes go even wider, and he makes a noise behind your finger—something indignant and confused and a little horrified.
You lower your hand.
“Are you kidding?” The words tumble out of him. “I would never do that. Never. I—I’ve been trying so hard to do this right.” He takes another step toward you, and without breaking eye contact, your hands rise, sliding up to press against his chest.
“I would never want to scare you away,” he reiterates, “not in a million years.”
You’re close enough now that he can feel your breath brushing against his cheek. He wants so badly to wrap his arms around you, but still, he’s hesitant. He doesn’t want to move unless you do first.
“Well,” you murmur, “good.”
Then you tip your chin up and kiss him.
It’s gentle at first—so soft it almost doesn’t feel real. Finally, he finds the courage to grip your waist, and he draws you in, close enough that your chest presses against his. He doesn’t realize how badly he’s wanted this, but now that he has it, he knows he won’t be able let go. You curl into him, your fingers clasping the fabric of his shirt as your nose nudges his, and his own rubbing the slightest circle on your skin.
Clark thinks his brain has shut down and rebooted in the span of thirty seconds.
You pull back just enough to breathe, your lips parting in the ghost of a smile, and before the space between you can settle, he leans in again, chasing your mouth like it’s the only thing tethering him to the earth. You giggle against his lips, warm and breathy, and your hands slide up from his shoulders to cradle his jaw, thumb brushing the high curve of his cheekbones, giving him a gentle push.
He has a dazed sort of smile, eyes half-lidded and gooey with affection.
“Maybe… we should give Jimmy some credit.”
“Absolutely not.” And he can’t help it—he dips down to kiss you again.
---
A/N: the dior sauvage anecdotes are, in fact, based on a true story 😭 i had so much fun writing this though!
I’m just saying if Daniel Radcliffe, the literal protagonist of the Harry Potter franchise since the age of ten years old, was able to disavow JK Rowling and move on from the HP universe then actually what the fuck is anyone else’s excuse. There is no one else on the planet who can say their entire childhood was HP more than that guy and he still cared about trans people more than the average tumblr user who says “we’re protesting by making all her characters queer and trans!!” like you can do better. You should do better.
“What are these for?” you ask, looking up at him with a raised brow.
“You. I, um… figured they’d help you feel better,” Bob says, his voice dipping awkwardly near the end like he already regrets how earnest it sounds.
You blink at him, eyes flicking between his face and the pancakes. Then a smile spreads across your face. Cute, and he makes pancakes? You’d struck gold.
“Thanks… man!” you say, then pause, realisation dawning mid-sentence. You don’t even know the name of the very attractive guy standing in front of you. You laugh a little, embarrassed. “What’s your name?”
“Bob.”
“Bob,” You repeat, the smile on your face growing just that little bit more if that was even possible, “I like Bob.”
Or
You and Bob are indifferent to each other, never seeming to mesh. But when you lose your memory, something new blooms between the two of you.
Tags/Warnings: Fluff, angst, no smut, amnesia/memory loss, abandonment issues, pancakes may as well be a main character, hurt and some comfort?, acquaintances to lovers?
WC: 9.6K
A/N: Title from Easy by Mac Ayers. Also, the response to my last Bob fic was absolutely insane, thank you! Hope you enjoy this one, might write a part 2 later
***
Bob doesn’t particularly like you.
It’s not like he hated you or anything; the two of you just didn’t connect.
Conversations were always awkward and stilted, full of long silences and forced small talk. You’d crack a joke, and he’d give you a tight smile. He’d ask a question, and you’d give a clipped answer, unsure of his tone or where you stood.
It wasn’t animosity. It was worse: indifference with a touch of tension. Or maybe it was just that sometimes people don’t mesh, no matter how hard they try. So both of you stopped trying. You’d walk into the gym and see him already there, towel slung over his shoulder, sweat dampening his shirt.
He’d glance up. “No, no, you can stay. I was just leaving.” Even if he wasn’t actually done with his workout.
“Okay…” you’d reply, pretending not to feel the sting.
Or one time, you both ended up in the kitchen at 2 a.m., bleary-eyed and looking for snacks.
You froze. So did he.
“I’ll just—”
“No, it’s fine. I just needed water,” You interrupted.
You both moved around each other like magnets flipped the wrong way, close but never touching, repelling, retreating.
It was easier this way.
One day, you're on a mission and get injured after a strange encounter with an absurdly eccentric villain. He hit you with some mysterious ray that blasted you through a wall and left you unconscious. The whole team was worried about you… including Bob.
Sure, the two of you were awkward, distant, neither of you quite knowing how to be around the other anymore, but that didn’t change the fact that he still cared.
So they brought you back to the Tower and did everything they could. Monitors, scans, and even a few calls to some old contacts who specialised in the weird and unexplainable.
As you lay still, unmoving, they waited. They took shifts, refusing to let you wake up alone, just in case.
Bob stayed longer than anyone. Even when it wasn’t his shift, he lingered outside your room. Because no matter how weird or strained things had become, he wanted you to wake up.
It takes a few days, but you wake up, your eyes blinking rapidly as you adjust to the light. The sterile scent of antiseptic lingers faintly in the air, and your body feels achy, like you’ve been asleep for a century.
And then you see him.
A random, handsome man is slumped over in the chair next to your bed. His head is tilted forward slightly, chin tucked, a book loose in one hand as he dozes.
His lips part slightly in sleep, brows twitching like he’s dreaming. Something about the sight is comforting.
You don’t recognise him.
But something in you wants to.
“Hello?”
You slip out of bed, groaning as you do so. You step close to the man until you’re but a few feet away, studying him with a mixture of curiosity and something deeper stirring inside.
You’re right next to him now, and suddenly your heart races uncontrollably. He’s beautiful — if there’s such a thing as love at first sight, this had to be it. You can’t think about anything else except his sharp jawline and that messy, adorable hair that looks like he just rolled out of bed.
Then, out of nowhere, his eyes snap open. A piercing blue that somehow feels like a shock and a spark all at once. He screams. You scream back, startled, your breath catching in your throat.
You stumble backwards, about to fall, when suddenly he reaches out and grabs your hand. Firm but gentle, steadying you.
“Thanks, guy.”
“You’re welcome,” Bob replies quietly.
“Where am I? What happened? Who are you?” you ask, panic threading through your voice.
Suddenly, a fog rolls over your mind, and you try your hardest to think, but everything’s blank except for your name.
“You don’t… remember me?” Bob asks hesitantly.
“No, are you…”You search for the right words, trying to piece things together. He was in your hospital room, probably stayed overnight, worrying about you. You’re not sure what your type used to be, but if you had one, this had to be it. Then the question slips out, “Are you my boyfriend?”
Bob’s eyes widen as if they might pop out of his head. He stammers, “Oh, no, we’re not… that’s not…” His words trip over themselves, betraying the panic and confusion inside him.
“We’re teammates,” he finally manages to say, and you take a step back, giving him space to breathe.
“We’re on a team? Like what? A swim team?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.
“No, like a superhero team.”
You blink, confused. “I’m a superhero?”
“An Avenger, to be exact.”
“What the hell is that?”
***
Bob was pale and quiet, still reeling from what had happened to you. The medics were running tests, whispering terms he didn’t fully understand, frowns etched deep into their brows.
Bucky came out of the room a few minutes later, expression unreadable as he approached Bob, pulling him aside.
“What did they say?” Bob asked, his voice hoarse, almost afraid of the answer.
From the look on Bucky’s face, it wasn’t good. “She has amnesia,” he said softly. “Doesn’t remember much of anything right now.”
Bob felt the air leave his lungs. He looked toward the room, the edge of the hospital bed just visible through the cracked door. You, in there, not knowing him.
“Can you take care of her?” Bucky asked gently. “We won’t all be around all the time, and she’s going to need someone who won’t push. Someone who’ll be patient.”
Bob didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
All day, he deliberates on how he can help you out. They were going to let you out of the medbay the next morning, so he wanted to make sure you’d have something comforting waiting for you. After some thought, he lands on pancakes.
Good food had always been his go-to to shake off a bad mood, maybe it would work the same for amnesia.
After helping you into the kitchen, he serves you the pancakes he prepared, sliding the plate toward you a little sheepishly.
“What are these for?” you ask, looking up at him with a raised brow.
“You. I, um… figured they’d help you feel better,” Bob says, his voice dipping awkwardly near the end like he already regrets how earnest it sounds.
You blink at him, eyes flicking between his face and the pancakes. Then a smile spreads across your face. Cute, and he makes pancakes? You’d struck gold.
“Thanks… man!” you say, then pause, realisation dawning mid-sentence. You don’t even know the name of the very attractive guy standing in front of you. You laugh a little, embarrassed. “What’s your name?”
“Bob.”
“Bob,” You repeat, the smile on your face growing just that little bit more if that was even possible, “I like Bob.”
You start digging into the pancakes and let out a squeal of happiness. “This thing is the best thing I’ve ever tasted, well technically one of the only things I remember tasting, but still.”
Bob feels a small rush of happiness that he was able to do something for you, no matter how simple.
“So, Bob, you and I are superheroes, correct?” you say between mouthfuls of delicious pancakes.
Bob hesitates; he didn’t quite have full control over his powers yet, but he was sure he’d get there one day.
“Well, yes…”
“Do you have powers?”
“I can fly, and I’m kinda invincible, and a couple of other things,” he says, looking away sheepishly. He didn’t want to sound like he was bragging.
But then he looks back and sees you beaming at him, the same way you had been since he gave you those pancakes.
“That’s awesome, can you show me?”
He hesitates, “It’s complicated. I can be…dangerous.”
“Oh, I get it, no pressure.”
He's surprised at how quickly you drop it, but appreciates it nonetheless. You take another bite of the pancakes before asking with a little smile, “Do I have powers?”
You were already thinking of the possibilities, maybe you could fly too, or teleport or even turn into a giant frog. The sky’s the limit.
“No…” he says, and the wind is taken right out of your sails. So much for being a frog woman. But seeing the disappointed look on your face, he quickly adds, “You’re a really talented fighter, though, great shot too.”
“Really?”
Bob nods, giving you an encouraging smile. You twiddle your fingers, trying to ask more questions.
“Where are you from?”
“Florida.”
“What’s Florida like?”
He strains to think of what to tell you. Flashes of sticky summer air, thunderstorms rolling in over flat suburban streets, and the hum of cicadas come into his mind.
“It’s… hot.”
You giggle softly, seemingly satisfied with his answer. “Good to know.”
“So let me summarise. You are Bob, Florida is hot, I can shoot stuff.”
“That’s about right.”
He watches you devour the whole plate of pancakes, and he's still having a hard time reconciling the you he knows and the you sitting in front of him. For one, you were actually talking to him and talking to everyone a lot more. Your dynamic with the rest of the team wasn't nearly as bad as yours with Bob's, but now you seemed a lot more open.
It’s a trend that continues as you ask him and the rest of the Avengers questions incessantly the rest of the day, your curiosity never seeming to run out. Every new answer only sparks ten more questions, and somehow, they never seem to mind your enthusiasm.
“You can go through walls?!” You gasp, eyes wide with amazement, and you nearly pass out when you see Ava do it, your hand reaching out as if trying to touch the air she just phased through.
Or when you sat cross-legged on the floor, chin resting on your hands, listening to one of Alexei’s stories with such intent. It was nice seeing you so bubbly, laughing at his exaggerated tales and rolling your eyes when he insisted every mission ended with him saving the day. “There’s no way you took them all down yourself!”
“The Red Guardian defeated them all single-handedly, I tell you,” Alexei says, enjoying your reactions, insisting no one listens the way you do.
But there was a little downside. Now you were more eager to do things, and since you were also restricted to the tower, all that restless energy had to go somewhere.
This morning, it was the kitchen.
The truth is, if he knew that his making pancakes would cause the mess that you unleashed, maybe he would’ve chosen something easier to make.
He walks into the kitchen to see you surrounded by chaos, flour on the counter, batter on the ceiling, and a pan smoking in the sink. It looks like a warzone.
“What is all of this?” he asks, blinking at the sight.
You glance up at him, cheeks flushed, hair a little wild, looking like you’d just gone ten rounds with your own breakfast.
“Pancakes,” you say with exaggerated confidence, like it was obvious.
“If you wanted pancakes, you could’ve asked,” he says, stepping closer with a shake of his head.
He would’ve made them in a heartbeat. He didn’t always know how to fix things, but it made him happy to be useful, even if it was hard to get the energy sometimes.
Bob says, rolling up his sleeves, “I happen to make pretty good pancakes.”
“I know. The ones you made for me the other day were really good.”
“One of the few things I can do,” he mutters, the self-deprecation slipping out like muscle memory, automatic, unfiltered. He's been working on it, but old habits die hard.
You nudge him gently with your elbow. “I’m sure you’re good at a lot of stuff. And if not, at least you’re good-looking.”
Bob blinks at you, looking at you incredulously, like you’d just said the sky was green. His mouth parts slightly, like he’s about to argue, but then doesn’t.
A beat passes, and he gives a soft huff of a laugh, shaking his head. “You really are different,” he says, eyes full of something like wonder.
“But… in a good way.”
“Thanks…” You say. “So, about these pancakes, how about we make them together?”
“Sounds perfect.”
He’s about to start making more batter when he notices you didn’t even bother to put on an apron. He grabs one off the hook and makes his way back over to you.
“But I’m already messy,” you say, looking down at your shirt, now covered in flour.
“Better late than never?” he says with a grin.
Agreeing with him, you duck your head down as he slips the apron over you. Accidentally ruffling your hair in the process, and you let out a small noise of protest.
Then, gently, almost instinctively, he smooths your hair down with both hands, his fingers brushing along your scalp.
It makes you shiver and shake a little against your will. Your body apparently hasn’t gotten the memo on playing it cool around hot men who are weirdly good at domestic affection.
Great. Just great.
He steps closer and delicately wraps the apron ties behind you, moving with such care. You can only imagine what his hands must feel like, strong but soft, you thought.
All you can focus on is the little sensations you do get. The brief, accidental caresses against your back as he tries to tie the apron. His fingers brush your spine, light as a whisper, and your breath catches in your throat.
“Let me do yours,” you say, trying to distract yourself from the way your heart’s trying to break out of your chest.
He turns, and you tie the apron behind him. You can't help but notice how solid he feels, how broad his shoulders are. You feel that same flutter in your stomach you had when you first saw him in the med bay, those damn butterflies that show up uninvited whenever he’s near.
You step back and smooth out the fabric on his chest, trying to act casual.
“How do I look?” he asks playfully.
“Very chefy,” you reply with a grin.
You step aside, and he turns to see what you’ve done.
“First of all, what did you put in here?” He asks, looking at the strange concoction you had made up. It looked like a science experiment gone wrong, the way it was bubbling like it was about to come to life.
“Pancake stuff.”
“Why is it blue?”
“To complement your eyes.”
He blinks, fully expecting to see you grinning or laughing, but you’re dead serious.
As he chuckles and starts remaking the pancake batter, shaking his head with the tiniest smile, he says, “Why didn’t you just ask me to make them for you?”
“I, uh… was trying to return the favour.” You mumble, scratching the back of your head. “You made them for me when I needed them. Thought it’d be nice to do the same.”
He pauses mid-stir, glancing over at you. “That’s really sweet.”
Bob is about to go back to stirring when he sees something.
“Oh, wait a second, you have a…” He says before trailing off, his expression shifting slightly. He reaches out without hesitation, fingers gentle as they brush your cheek. Your breath catches, heart thudding like it’s trying to escape your ribcage, as he plucks an eyelash off your face.
“Make a wish,” he says softly, holding it out to you.
You close your eyes for a moment, your mind blank except for the thought of him. You blow it away, your breath catching just a little as the lash flutters and disappears.
And a tiny part of you wonders if wishes like that ever come true.
“What did you wish for?”
Your eyes scan his, you know exactly what you want, what you need.
“It’s a secret.”
***
“You need to eat more than just pancakes,” John says with a sigh, arms crossed like a disapproving dad.
You shrug from your spot on the couch, hugging your knees and avoiding eye contact. “They’re comforting. And Bob makes them really well.”
“That’s not the point,” he replies, “You need nutrients. Vegetables. Something green.”
You’re finally saved when you see Bob come into the room.
“Bob!”
You scramble out of your seat the moment you spot him, excitement bubbling up as you point at the TV screen. An ad for a local pizza place flashes by, and it somehow sends you into a state of near awe.
“I know what pizza is, but I don’t remember what it tastes like.”
“Can we…?” you begin, unsure how to phrase it without sounding too eager—if you asked, would he eat it with you?
“I’ll order,” he says without hesitation.
“Pizza isn’t good for you either,” John points out, and you roll your eyes at him before throwing your arms around Bob, hugging him tightly.
You throw your arms around him in an instant, hugging him tightly. He stiffens for a second, caught off guard, he still wasn’t used to how openly affectionate you'd become since the memory loss.
“Sorry, got a little excited,” you mumble, pulling back slightly.
Bob just smiles.
“We can eat it on the roof if you want,” he offers. “It’s a really nice view.”
“I’d like that,” you say softly, already picturing it.
When the pizza arrives, the two of you head up to the roof, scarfing it down like you hadn’t eaten in days. Bob watches you in quiet amusement, the city of New York sprawling beneath and around you. Lives moving, horns blaring, people rushing through the streets, but up here, it feels peaceful. Safe.
“This is so good, I could die right now and be happy,” you declare dramatically, a slice still in hand.
You flop back into Bob’s lap without warning, gazing up at him with a lazy, contented smile. He freezes slightly, his leg twitching with nerves. You’re too busy chewing to notice the way his eyes widen, or how he swallows hard and looks away for a second.
He’s glad you can’t hear how loud his heart is pounding.
“Hey,” you say after swallowing a particularly big bite of cheesy goodness.
“Yeah?” Bob answers, turning to you.
You don’t respond right away, just stare at him again, like you’re trying to memorise every detail. There’s something about being near him that makes everything else fade out. Being in love with him, even without remembering it, feels like breathing.
“I wish I could take a picture.”
“Of… the pizza?” Bob asks, confused.
“No. Of you. You just… have one of those faces.”
He blinks. “What does that mean?” There’s a note of genuine concern. Was this your weird, roundabout way of calling him ugly?
“You have a face I wanna… immortalise. Is that super dramatic?” you ask, gesticulating with your slice of pizza. Cheese flopping to the side with every word.
Bob lets out a stunned laugh. He honestly can’t believe half the things you’ve said since the memory loss, but this might be the most unexpected yet. His ears turn a little pink.
You’re both quiet for a beat before you break the silence with a chuckle. “What is it? Have I grown another head?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “I just… you’re so different.”
But he doesn’t say it like it’s a bad thing.
“How so?” you ask, muffled slightly by the mouthful of pizza you just shoved in. Even that, being messy and unfiltered, was a pretty big shift. Before the accident, you would’ve never let Bob see you like this. You were all sharp edges, always composed around him. Never vulnerable. Never soft.
“You didn’t… we didn’t really get along before you lost your memories,” Bob says carefully, like he’s stepping over landmines.
“Did we hate each other?”
“No, no, nothing like that. It was just… awkward,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Huh…” You glance past him, up at the stars overhead. The sky looks endless. “I know I don’t remember anything, but something in me tells me I liked you more than I let on.”
You turn your gaze back to him, sincere now. “It’s just a feeling,” you say, lightly tapping your chest. “In here.”
There’s a loud bang in the distance that interrupts the two of you, and it jolts you upright from your place on his lap.
You and Bob are instantly alert, eyes scanning the skyline.
“Fireworks?” you ask, squinting toward the horizon as bursts of colour light up the sky.
The distant booms echo softly through the air, and for a second, the world seems to pause. The sky is painted in shimmering golds, purples, and reds. You shuffle closer to the edge, your mouth slightly open in awe, your eyes reflecting the vibrant display.
“This is so beautiful,” you whisper.
“Yeah…” Bob’s voice is quiet as he looks over at you. His eyes don’t linger on the fireworks, instead, they find you. The glow of the explosions dances across your face, illuminating your smile. “It is,” he says, but he’s not talking about the sky.
You don’t notice his stare, too entranced by the spectacle. “I mean, I don’t remember what pretty things I’ve seen before,” you say with a soft laugh, “but there’s no way anything beats this.”
The two of you stay there for a long while, sitting shoulder to shoulder as the last of the fireworks fade. You forgot about the pizza. It goes cold beside you, untouched. But neither of you cares.
You rest your head on his shoulder, eyes fluttering closed despite the crackling fireworks and the hum of New York City below. Somehow, in the middle of all that noise and chaos, you find peace. A kind of quiet you didn’t know you needed. And before long, you’re completely asleep, your breathing soft and even, your body relaxed against his.
Bob glances down at you, frozen for a second, not from discomfort, but from something more tender. He doesn't want to move, not really. But the night is getting cold, and you shouldn't sleep on a rooftop. Gently, he shifts, slipping one arm under your legs and the other around your back. You barely stir as he lifts you.
He walks quietly down the stairs, careful with each step, your head nestled into his chest.
Then—
“What’s this?” comes a voice that makes him jump nearly out of his skin.
Yelena is standing in the hallway outside her room, leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed, clearly in the middle of getting ready for bed.
“She fell asleep,” Bob says, adjusting his grip on you slightly, trying to look casual. “So I thought I’d help her to bed…”
Yelena arches a brow. “That’s very gentlemanly of you, Bob.”
“She’s had a long day,” he mumbles, eyes avoiding hers as he starts to move past.
“Mm-hm,” she hums, still grinning.
He walks into your room, carefully sidestepping anything that might creak or clatter. The last thing he wants is to wake you. But when he leans down to gently lay you onto the bed, your fingers curl tighter into his shirt like talons.
He freezes. “Seriously?” he mutters under his breath, glancing down at your sleeping form. You’re completely out cold, but your grip says otherwise.
He tries again, delicately prying your fingers away one by one, but you’re like a koala in REM sleep. “Yelena?” he whisper-shouts, trying not to jostle you too much.
After a few seconds, Yelena pokes her head around the corner, toothbrush in hand, completely unbothered. “What?”
“She won’t let go,” he says, exasperated.
Yelena steps into the room, takes one look at the situation, and her face breaks into a slow grin. “Of course she won’t.”
“What do I do?” Bob hisses.
Yelena shrugs. “Get comfortable?”
Eventually, after a few more whispered pleas and another failed attempt to detach you, she sighs and calls for backup. “Ava, we need a second pair of hands.”
It takes a combination of Bob and Yelena pulling while Ava gently works your grip free one finger at a time, to finally get you into bed without dragging Bob in after you.
By the time they’re done, Bob is sweating, slightly rumpled, and staring at you with a look that’s somewhere between exasperation and complete emotional defeat.
“She’s gonna be the end of me,” he sighs.
Ava pats his shoulder. “Not a bad way to go.”
***
Weekend rolls around, Bob had offered to help you go through your stuff, maybe handling familiar items, seeing old things, would help jog something loose in your memory.
You had found an old teddy bear, a digital camera with very few pictures, and throwing knives. You think it’s nice to know you’re very versatile.
You’re in your room, standing on your tiptoes trying to reach another box on the highest shelf. You stretch a little too far, fingers just grazing the edge of it, when suddenly, Bob's reaching for it too.
“Oh, don’t worry, I can—”
Your hands slip under Bob’s, and in a sudden pulse of light and warmth, the room falls away. You’re no longer in the safety of your space. It’s a hazy afternoon, the golden sunlight casting long, sleepy shadows across cracked pavement. The distant sound of a train horn echoes through the air, and there’s a soft breeze drifting in from somewhere, maybe the coast, maybe the open countryside. It smells faintly of dust and old paper.
You’re in a memory.
A small train station. Quiet. Still. You see a little child, no older than four, and a woman beside them. The child is you.
The woman bends down, brushing your hair back with tender fingers. She’s beautiful in the way only memories can be, edges blurred, features softened by time and pain. Her lips move, whispering something you can’t hear. Words drowned out by the roaring silence in your ears.
She kisses your forehead.
Then she straightens, turns, and walks away. Her hand slips from yours like sand, and you’re left standing alone.
“Mom?”
You call out for her, a small voice barely rising above the bustling noise of the trains, but no one comes. Watching the little kid, watching yourself, sit there and cry until your voice is hoarse, tears streaking down chubby cheeks. People pass. Some glance, others don’t. Looks are given, but no one stops to help.
You come to with a sharp gasp, the memory still clutching at your chest like cold fingers. Bob is in front of you, eyes wide, his hand gently on your shoulder as he steadies you.
“Was that my memory?” you ask, your voice faint. You’re still there, in that memory, like part of your mind is dragging its feet back to the present.
“I’m so sorry, I… I didn’t mean to do that,” Bob says, his expression crumpling with guilt.
You blink at him, really seeing the way his hands are trembling slightly, his face pale. He looks visibly shaken. Like he’s taken away your clean slate. And now the only memory that’s surfaced from your past is that of being left behind.
“That’s the first thing I remember,” you whisper. “That’s the only thing.”
Bob’s throat bobs, and he steps back slightly, like he’s not sure if you want him near anymore.
“I—” he tries, but the words falter.
There’s a thick tension in the air as you try to come to terms with what just happened. You’re uncertain, scared, and hurting in a way you don’t fully understand. But through it all, the only anchor you have is Bob.
You reach for him instinctively, like your heart knows the way before your mind catches up, but he flinches. It’s a small movement, but it cuts deep. Not because he’s afraid of you, but because he’s terrified for you. Of what he might do, what you might see again, what memories might bleed through just from a touch.
“Please?” you whisper, voice trembling. “I just… I need you.”
You hold your hand out, palm open and steady despite the way your insides shake. Like you’re telling him: It’s okay. I trust you. I’m not afraid of you.
He hesitates for a beat, long enough that you can see the storm behind his eyes. Then slowly, cautiously, he reaches out. His fingers curl around yours, and the moment they connect, you don’t wait. You step into him, into his arms, burying your face against his chest. His arms come around you like instinct, and you finally feel like you belong again. Like his arms are exactly where you’re meant to be.
He thought you wouldn’t want him anymore. Thought whatever pain you’d seen in that memory would make you run.
“I feel safe with you,” you murmur, your breath warm against his neck. It was like you could read his mind.
You sit there until you feel normal again, breathing in sync with Bob as you toy with his shirt and he pets your hair.
“Why were you so scared?” You ask suddenly.
“The last time I used my powers, things got out of control.” Flashes of what happened appear in his mind— the darkness, the destruction.
“I read about it. What happened that day…”
Bob looks down, jaw tight, the guilt still weighing on him.
“Where’d you hear it from?” he asks quietly.
“I’ve been trying to get my memories back,” you say. “So I’ve been reading my diary.”
Bob’s eyebrows lift, surprised. You didn’t seem like the type to keep a diary.
“I write about you quite a bit,” you add, offering a small smile.
His breath catches slightly. “Yeah?”
You nod. “I don’t seem to understand you. Every other entry is me trying to figure you out, analysing the interactions we have. One minute I think you hate me, the next I think you’re just… scared.”
He doesn't answer right away, just looks at you like he wants to say something but doesn’t know where to start.
“I think I was scared too,” you admit.
“The way I write about our relationship in my diary seems sad. Like there’s so much I wanted to say to you, but couldn’t for some reason.”
You twiddle with your fingers for a moment before finally saying what's on your mind.
“I think you should read it.”
“Your diary? That's crossing a boundary. When you get your memories back, I don’t think you’ll appreciate it.”
The tone of his voice told you he was resolute in his decision, but you wanted to leave the door open. “If you want to read it, it’s in the top drawer by my bed, in the very back. I think it’d clear a lot of things up between you and her, or I guess me. I don’t know how to address myself.”
He looks at the drawer and thinks of what might be inside your diary, which you wanted him to read so badly. A few moments later, you get up off the floor and offer him your hand again, “Let’s go, I think Yelena’s making dinner.”
***
Waking up to you was disorientating as fuck.
Since you lost your memory, you’d been clinging onto him like a lifeline. Sure, you followed the rest of the Avengers around like a lost duck, trailing behind their conversations and mimicking routines, but with him… with Bob, it was different.
You didn’t just follow him, you stuck to him like glue. Something about him made you feel safe.
“Sorry! I wasn’t watching you while you slept,” you blurt suddenly, catching yourself as he looks over at you from his bed. “I mean—well, technically yes, I was, but not for a long time... just like a minute because I didn’t want to wake you, but—”
Bob doesn’t respond, just blinking at you.
“I really didn’t mean to overstep, it’s just—I came in to see if you wanted to make breakfast together, and you were asleep and you looked so…”
You stop yourself as the words threaten to spill out. If you didn’t stop, there was a solid 90% chance you’d end up professing your undying love for him, and maybe even proposing marriage right there.
“It’s okay, I get it,” he says gently, cutting in before you can spiral any further with embarrassment. “Let’s just go make breakfast.”
You exhale a laugh, relieved, your nerves settling just a bit.
You both go to make breakfast and settle on grilled cheese sandwiches. You watch as he takes a bite and melts, visibly softening. He looks so cute, and all he was doing was chewing. You loved all the little mannerisms no one would notice unless they looked closely. The way his nose would scrunch up when he laughs, how he'd caress his hands to soothe himself, or how he makes eye contact when people are talking so intently to make sure that they know he was listening. You take out your digital camera that you had found in the box in your room, angling it just right.
Click.
When he realises you’re taking a picture, he freezes mid-bite, eyes wide.
“I’m making memories,” you say simply, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
“I’m just eating a sandwich,” he replies, baffled.
You shrug, grinning. “Exactly.”
He rolls his eyes, but there’s a shy smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Alright…”
He tries to look unaffected, but you can see it. His shoulders relax, and his cheeks flush ever so slightly. All of a sudden, you have this unexplainable power over him. He wasn’t used to someone looking at him like that, like they wanted to remember him.
“I’m sure you could find more interesting things to shoot,” he teases, raising an eyebrow.
You shake your head, smiling softly. “There’s something special about you. You look so real when you think no one is watching. I can’t help but want to capture that.”
“You mean that?” Bob says, traces of doubt leaking in.
“From the bottom of my heart.”
He chuckles, the sound warm and a little surprised. “Still… I think you should explore other things if you want new memories. Let’s go somewhere today.”
You grab his hand gently, excitement bubbling up inside you.
He takes you to a park, but all you can seem to focus on is him, how he moves, how he laughs. So you keep sneaking pictures (not so sneakily), desperate not to forget a single moment.
“There’s a whole park to take pictures of, you know?” he says, grinning as he lowers the camera.
You glance around, finally noticing the trees, the sunlight filtering through the leaves, the vibrant colours all around. But you quickly look back at him, your smile soft.
“Yeah, but you’re the best part of the view,” you admit quietly, making him blush just a little.
Bob clears his throat, cheeks warming as he tries to shift the attention away from himself.
“Okay, okay…but you should let me turn the favour. Give me your camera, I’ll take some pictures of you,” Bob states, holding out his hand with an easy smile.
“Oh no, that’s fine. I doubt I’m that photogenic,” you say, laughing nervously. “You don’t really want pictures of me.”
Then with a sudden surge of confidence, he says, “I don’t think you realise how beautiful you are.”
Bob doesn't know where it comes from; he wasn’t one to say something so bold like that, but he couldn't stand hearing you downplay yourself.
He says it so softly and genuinely, you swear you heard your heart skip a beat. Your eyes meet in the silent pause, but it isn’t uncomfortable like awkward silences tend to be. It’s warm and cosy like one of Bob’s many sweaters.
Feeling like he was staring for too long, he clears his throat before adding, “Plus, all your memories can’t be pictures of me.”
“R-right,” you stutter as you hand over the camera, your fingers brushing his. The touch is brief, but it leaves a spark, a lingering warmth that settles somewhere deep inside.
“Say cheese.”
“Cheese!” you grin, striking a playful pose.
The rest of the day is spent taking pictures as you wander around New York, basking in the warm sun, laughing at everything you see, carefree and lighthearted.
“We should get ice cream!” you declare suddenly.
He buys it for you without hesitation and snaps a candid photo as you dig into it with delight.
“This is heaven,” you sigh dramatically. “Second only to your pancakes.”
He takes another picture, catching you mid-bite, and you catch him smiling to himself.
You notice and nudge him, “How do I look?”
He looks at the screen. Your eyes are closed in pure bliss, a little smear of vanilla ice cream on your lip, with the brightest smile on your face.
“Perfect,” he says, and for a second, you’re not sure he’s talking about the photo at all.
Eventually, after your long day of wandering around, the two of you get on the subway to head back home. It's packed, shoulder to shoulder, a blur of strangers and noise. You manage to find two seats side by side, squeezed tight among the crowd.
Sitting next to each other, you're pushed up close, legs touching, shoulders brushing with every lurch of the train. The warmth of him seeps through your clothes, and you’re suddenly all too aware of how close you are.
“I had a lot of fun today,” Bob says, leaning in so you can hear him over the rattle of the subway.
“So did I,” you reply, smiling. “You know how to show a girl a good time, Bob Reynolds.”
The train jerks to a stop as it pulls into the next station. The doors slide open with a hiss, and a few people step off, thinning the crowd a little. You glance up and notice an older couple standing nearby, gently swaying with the movement of the train.
You and Bob exchange a look, then both rise at the same time.
“Please, take our seats,” you offer warmly.
They smile gratefully as they settle down, and you both step back to stand nearby, holding the pole for balance. It’s quiet for a moment, and you watch as the elderly man gently brushes something off his wife’s shoulder, then takes her hand in his. The tenderness in his gesture makes your chest ache. It was simple and sweet, watching him dote on her like she was still the only girl in the room.
“You two make such a cute couple,” the old lady says suddenly, looking up at you both with a knowing smile.
You both blink, completely caught off guard.
“Oh, we’re not…” You start to say, but your voice trails off when Bob nudges your arm gently.
“Thank you,” he says to her, still smiling, then glances at you.
“How long have you been together?” The two of you weren’t anticipating any follow-up questions, so you had to think on your feet. It was time to put your non-existent acting skills to the test.
“A yea–” You start, but seeing the look on Bob’s face, you morph it until you say, “Month. A month.”
They both smile, clearly loving young love because old people do that.
“And how did you two meet?” She asks, and you’re starting to see why the Avengers get annoyed with you.
“We met at…” You start looking for Bob to save you, and he does. “Hospital.”
That wasn't where you were heading, but technically it was true. “Yes, I was hit by a… bike.”
Their eyes go wide with shock. “Yes, it was an awful affair. Bike messenger gone rogue.”
“When I heard what happened, I rushed over to see her and I slept by her side,” Bob adds, which was very close to what happened when you got hit with the ray.
“When I woke up and saw him there waiting for me to wake up, I fell in love with him on the spot.”
They both swoon at your story, and when it was said like that, it did sound quite romantic, Bob realised.
“You take care of her,” the old man interjects, his voice gravelly but kind. “Girls like that, with that light in their eyes… they don’t come around often, trust me, I’d know.”
Bob swallows hard, his gaze softening as he looks at you. You had a light—a spark about you—that he’d be crazy to deny. But the two of you were just becoming friends, finally finding solid ground; how could he risk messing that up?
Still, for the old man’s sake and maybe a little for himself, he says quietly but with conviction, “I will.”
Even if he didn’t mean it in the way the old man intended, he would take care of you.
“And keep her away from bikes. They’re trouble,” the man added, and Bob gave him an affirmative, “Of course.”
He’d protect you from bikes too.
You both watch as the couple get off at the next stop, but what they said sticks with you for much longer.
As you walk away, you whisper, “That was… something.”
Bob glances sideways at you, amused. “You didn’t correct them.”
“You didn’t either,” you shoot back, cheeks flushing.
“I didn’t want to.”
The train buckles a little, making you lose balance and stumble, but he catches you instantly, his hand wrapping securely around your waist.
“Trying to sweep me off my feet?” you joke, but if you’re being honest, you’re just trying to hide how breathless you feel. His strong arms are around you, keeping you upright without effort. It’s enough to make your pulse stutter.
He smirks faintly, eyes flicking down to meet yours. “If I were, would it be working?”
You look away, flustered but smiling. “Shut up.”
But you don’t pull away. And neither does he.
“The next stop is ours.”
The two of you break away almost reluctantly. By the time you get back to the tower, you feel like your heart has been racing nonstop.
Once inside, you both go your separate ways, he finds his comfy spot by the window while you wander around, looking for an Avenger to follow around and maybe learn from.
A few hours later, he hears you come back into the room. You’re following behind Bucky, asking questions, and he wonders how, in the two or so weeks you’ve been like this, you hadn’t run out of questions.
“Is it wrong of me to want to know how many pushups you can do?”
Bucky sighs, running out of words to give you. Fortunately, he’s let off the hook when you catch Bob’s eye and bound over to him.
“Meet me on the roof in 10?” you ask, leaning in close.
“Yeah, sure,” he replies, smiling.
You stand looking out at the sunset, waiting for Bob to show up.
A moment later, he appears, turning toward you and noticing you’re still holding the camera.
“I just realised we didn’t get any pictures together, so I figured…”
You stand at the edge of the roof as you sidle up next to each other, sharing the warm glow of the setting sun.
“Ready?” you ask, lifting the camera.
You snap a picture of the two of you. The flash flickers briefly.
The two of you turn toward each other, the space between you suddenly feeling electric and full of possibility.
You glance down, checking the picture on the camera. A small smile tugs at your lips, and Bob watches you with quiet intensity.
He told himself he just wanted to be your friend, and he was. He was your friend now. But being this close to you, when you looked like a daydream, it was hard to think of anything else. He liked seeing you happy. He liked being the reason you were happy. So this just felt like the natural step; he wouldn’t be afraid anymore.
“Can I kiss you?” He utters so softly that you might not have heard it if you weren’t so dialled in to him.
“Yes.”
It was the easiest question you’d ever had to answer.
The moment is instantly electric. It was love at first sight for you, like fate had placed him in that chair just for you. His hands gently cup your face, drawing you closer as he leans in to kiss you.
The moment your lips meet, you melt into it.
It’s easy, it’s natural. But it also feels like you’re walking on air.
Your lips melt together as the kiss deepens, slow and sure, like you’ve both been holding your breath for days and finally found air in each other.
Then, suddenly, you feel the ground vanish beneath your feet. It takes a few moments to realise what’s happening. You're both slowly lifting into the air, weightless, like the kiss has broken gravity’s hold.
You pull back, breathless, eyes wide. “We’re flying.”
Bob’s eyes are glowing, soft gold, like sunlight through clouds. And to make it that much more perfect, he’s staring at you like you hung the stars.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper, “we are.”
***
The world feels light. You feel like you could do anything. Bob kissed you, and somehow, that made everything else fall into place, like that one moment was enough to ground you and lift you all at once. You kissed him so good, he fucking flew! That was something to be proud of.
“Morning!” you greet cheerfully, practically floating into the room.
“Well, aren’t you in a good mood?” John comments, raising an eyebrow at your brightness.
“I am. Quite literally nothing could ruin my day.”
You look over at John’s plate filled with all things healthy and not a pancake in sight, and sneer, “Not even whatever is going on over there.”
“You’re going to die if you keep eating the way you do.”
“At least I’ll die happy.”
And probably in Bob’s arms, but you’d keep that to yourself. You keep flitting around the kitchen, flashes of Bob popping up like you had a gallery in your head dedicated to him.
Then, of course, that’s when Bucky and Yelena appear, both standing stiffly in the doorway. Their faces are unreadable, but it’s clear they’re not here to chat.
“Can we talk to you?” Yelena asks, her voice calm but firm.
Your smile falters. The tone in her voice doesn’t match your mood. You glance between them, a nervous flutter stirring in your chest. They lead you to another room, and your heart pounds with each step. Once you're face to face with them, you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding.
“Just tell me,” you say, steeling yourself.
Bucky steps forward, voice gentle. “There’s a way you might be able to get your memories back.”
Your heart nearly stops.
“They’ve made a device,” Bucky says carefully, “to counteract the effects of the ray you were hit with.”
You swallow hard, your lungs suddenly tight, like the air has turned to cement.
“Will I remember what happened these past few weeks?” you ask, already bracing for the answer.
“They’re not sure,” Yelena replies gently. “There’s a chance you won’t.”
The rest of the day blurs. You wear that carefully constructed smile while inside, everything feels like it’s unravelling. You laugh at jokes, eat meals, and talk to the team, but every time you look at Bob, it’s like looking at a sunset you might never see again.
Because what if you disappear?
What if the version of you that exists now—the one who fell in love, who made pancakes, who learned to laugh again—vanishes?
What if all of it was just borrowed time?
You’re curled up on the couch later, trying not to let the weight of it crush you, when Yelena finds you. She pauses, studying you quietly.
“You okay?” she asks, snapping you out of your spiral.
You glance up at her with a weak smile. “Yeah,” you lie. “I’m… I’m great.”
“Tell me what’s wrong,” Yelena presses gently. She sits beside you, eyes focused and unwavering. She sees right through you.
You hesitate, then finally let it slip out like a confession you’d been clutching too tightly.
“What if, when I get my memories back… things are different? What if you guys don’t like me anymore?”
Your voice cracks on the last word. It’s not just about them, and you both know it. It’s about him.
Bob liked you now. The person you’d become. The version of you without all the baggage, the walls, the defence mechanisms. What if the old you came back and pushed him away again?
“We’ll like you regardless,” Yelena says, firm but kind, leaning forward, her words meant to stick. “All of us.” She emphasises that last part, not missing the real question behind your fear. You and Bob haven’t exactly been subtle, floating around the Tower like someone told you the world was ending and you decided to fall in love anyway.
“You think?” you ask quietly, hating how small your voice sounds.
“I know,” she replies without hesitation. “Bob isn’t the type to run. He’s not just here for this version of you. He’s here for you, full stop.”
The thought of him leaving still prickles, sharp and cold. But there’s something warm in her certainty that you cling to. You want to believe her.
“Thank you,” You whisper with a small smile. But there’s still that little piece of doubt lingering in the back of your head.
***
You spend all night worrying, your mind running in circles while your body stays perfectly still, tucked into Bob’s arms. His breath tickles the back of your neck in soft, steady waves. You can feel the quiet thud of his heartbeat against your spine, a rhythm that grounds you more than anything else ever has. This feels like happiness. This feels more right than anything you’ve ever known.
And nights like this… how could you give it up, when you had just begun to have it?
The thought won’t let you go. So, when you’re sure Bob is fully asleep, you carefully slip out of his arms. You sneak out of bed, heart pounding with every silent step, padding your way barefoot down the hall to the lab.
The room is dim and still. On the central table sits the device. The thing that could give you everything back and take everything away.
You stare at it. Your reflection glints back at you in its smooth surface. What would you really be giving up? The person you were before. Aloof, guarded, and apparently barely connected to anyone. No warmth, no laughter, no Bob.
Your fingers close around it. Maybe this was the price of keeping what mattered. Maybe this version of you was the better one. Maybe memories weren’t worth more than love.
You raise the device in the air, prepared to end it all before it can change you back—
Then the door creaks open behind you.
“Hey,” Bob’s voice is low, thick with sleep but steady. He stands in the doorway, his eyes not on the device, but on you. “What are you doing?”
His eyes widen in alarm. “You need to put that down. Without it, you can’t get your memories back.”
You stare at the small device in your hand, the one meant to unlock everything you've forgotten. Everything that’s been haunting your dreams and slipping through your fingers like mist.
You’re so close to throwing it on the ground, your grip tightening as your voice shakes. “Maybe I don’t want them back.”
He goes still. You can see the panic in his face, but it’s laced with something else too. Pain.
You’re biting back the heat behind your eyes, the pressure building in your chest, like red-hot guilt piercing through you. Because it’s not just about your memories, it’s about him. The fear that if you remember everything…you might lose this. Lose him.
“I don’t want to remember a world where you’re not in it,” you whisper, your voice cracking. “What if I get it all back and I’m not me anymore? What if I’m someone who doesn't love you?”
Bob takes a careful step closer, like you’re on the edge of something fragile. “Then I’ll help you fall in love with me all over again,” he says quietly. “No matter how many times it takes.”
What if you don’t love me anymore? What if getting these memories back means you lose me…?” Your voice is shaking now. “What if who I am is just… broken? I mean, my own mother didn’t—”
You stop yourself, the words dying in your throat.
Bob takes a step closer. He feels that pang again, deep and aching, like something in his chest is being pulled taut. Not just because of what you said, but because he’s watching you unravel in front of him, and he never wants you to feel like this, like love is conditional.
“The person I am now… I want to be that person. I don’t want to be the girl you think of as a stranger. I want to be the girl you love.”
Bob’s eyes are soft, full of a sadness he tries to hide, and a depth of affection he doesn’t bother to. “I’m telling this to you because I love you. If you don't get your memories back, you'll always be left wondering who you were.”
Your hands are trembling when you finally set the device down on the table. You throw your arms around him and hug him so tightly he thinks he might break apart, and he doesn't mind it especially if it meant being held like this by you.
“I love you too,” he murmurs, burying his face in your shoulder.
You both freeze for half a second, the realisation hitting you at the same time, how easy it was. How natural.
You pull back just enough to look at him, wide-eyed, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips.
“You said it.”
“So did you.”
And then you’re laughing softly into each other, that weight between you gone, just you, him, and the now. “I love you. No matter what version of you I get.”
He kisses you lightly, your lips moving in sync with one another. It’s more than a kiss, it’s a promise that no matter what, you’d fall in love over and over again, no matter how long it took.
You pull him flush against you, the feeling of his shirt beneath your fingers keeping you in the moment. Like you were scared it would slip right through your fingers. You pull back and look at him; his eyes are full of desire, and so are yours.
You jump and he catches you, wrapping your legs around his waist. Your lips reconnect as if they were magnets. The kiss is more fast paced, filled with passion as you who each other just how much you need one another. He places you on a counter, his hands roaming your body as the need to explore every part of you becomes too much to bear.
Both of you stop suddenly, your foreheads against each other as you breathe heavily. Your chests rise and fall in sync, hearts thudding loudly in your ears. You wanted to go further, God, you both did, but you knew you had to stop.
“When you get your memory back,” he whispers.
You nod. As much as you both wanted this…you couldn't yet. Not while you weren't whole.
“When I get my memory back.”
***
“So this is it?” you whisper, voice barely steady.
You’re sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, the sterile smell of the room thick in the air. You can feel your heart pounding harder than it should.
Bob is standing beside you, his hand tightly wrapped around yours, thumb running slow, comforting circles over your knuckles.
You glance up at him, eyes searching. “What if everything changes?”
Bob is the first thing you see when you wake up. You’re sleepy and groggy, and he’s sitting there, book in hand.
“You’re awake,” he says softly. You nod, your eyes slowly adjusting as you take in your surroundings. “Maybe I could make you some pancakes,” Bob says, trying to see if you remembered.
“Why would you do that?” you ask, letting out a confused laugh.
His face falls, hands tightening around the book. “You don’t… remember?”
“No, sorry. Did I miss something?” you say, blinking at him, genuinely puzzled.
“I’m sorry, I… I was just—” He stammers, trying to backtrack. “It’s nothing.”
“I should let you rest,” he adds, sensing your discomfort.
Bob gets up and walks to the door, and he’s about to leave when you stop him, your voice softer now.
“Thanks for being here when I woke up. It’s very kind of you.”
He musters a small, genuine smile and replies, “Anytime.”
In the days that passed, it was hard mourning someone who’s still alive and technically shouldn’t have existed. But deep down, he knew it wouldn’t be the end. The person he fell in love with was gone, but maybe he could fall in love again, with the person you are now.
One morning, you’re sitting by the table, scrolling through your phone, when Bob quietly walks in and slides a plate of pancakes to you.
“What are these for?” you ask.
“Just felt like it,” he replies, watching your eyes light up when you bite into them despite your best efforts to hide it.
You’ll fall for each other again; it’s only a matter of time.
Newly settled into Jackson city and forced to go on patrols with the miserable Joel Miller sets off a chain of events and encounters that have you questioning everything, including your own heart.note: Featuring Dark!Joel
story trailer
note: the gal in this is just a stand in, because the Reader is YOU in it.
a/n: really wanted to write for the worst logan so I found a streaming site so I could finally watch the new Deadpool movie (yay pirating) (this is totally hypothetical and a joke to the feds lurking) I was going to just read the wiki plot but I don’t think that was going to cut it
Again, using the same superhero name/powers. It’s not an OC I swear, it just makes sense in comic book movies to have some alternate name and I’m not creative enough to come up with multiple different supe names.
Summary: You hate him, you really fucking hate him at first. He’s cruel and constantly reminds you that you’ll never be the hero he knew. You’re not her and he’s made that abundantly clear. But what are you supposed to do when he’s suddenly your new roommate and you have no choice but to wake up to his face every day?
I feel sad because I don’t think I did the angst justice with this one. But if I keep staring at it trying to fix it, then I’m never going to post it. (This is a long one guys)
Angst with a happy ending (because I’m a little bitch) Makeout scenes and smut towards the very end 18+ MDNI
You don’t know how you got here, but you know you’re mad at whoever dragged you into this shit. You don’t think it would be wild to assume it was Wade’s fault. Usually, when something goes wrong in your life it’s on him.
What you do know; you look like shit. Wade and Wolverine are both standing over you in their awesome ass uniforms and you’re still in your fucking pajamas. How are you supposed to be badass and save the world in pants that have Spiderman’s face plastered all over them?
“I’m gonna fucking kill you, Wade,” you growl at him.
He places his hand daintily on his chest and waves you off, “Save that for the bedroom, pookie.”
You grit your teeth and glare up at him, Wolverine gives him a similarly disgusted look. “Fuckin’ ridiculous,” you grumble under your breath. You get to your feet and brush yourself off, finally looking around and taking in wherever the fuck he’s dragged you. “Where are we?”
“The void,” Wade responds, voice ridiculously dramatic. You look around and throw your hands up in defeat.
“What the fuck, Wade? Why did you drag me with you into this?” You look over at the Wolverine beside him. He hasn’t stopped glaring at you both and his claws are out, clearly ready to just eviscerate you. “Who the fuck is this?”
“Okay, wow, language, Flux. I’m disappointed in you.”
“Eat me-”
You’re cut off by the knock-off Wolverine standing a few feet behind you both. “Flux?” He demands, voice so low you almost can’t hear him. Both you and Wade’s heads whip around to face him. Thus far he’s been relatively silent, you nearly started to wonder if he was mute.
“It’s her X-Man name,” Wade tells him, gushing like it’s some big deal. “Impressive, huh?” You don’t bother correcting him that it was your X-Men name. Can’t exactly call yourself that if they booted you off the team for being a crappy superhero.
Logan snorts and shakes his head. He stalks towards you and you nearly fall over in your attempt to scramble back from him. “You,” he demands, claws pointed at you threateningly. “You’re Flux?”
Wade hisses, watching as Logan swipes out at you. “Alright, peanut, let’s put the claws away and take a deep grounding breath.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Logan snaps at Wade. He turns to glare at him and you take the opportunity to scramble behind your friend for protection. At least if he gets stabbed, he’ll heal. “You,” he scoffs and it trails off into a laugh. There’s no humor behind it, he's just a dick. “You are a fucking joke compared to my Flux.”
The ground underneath you rattles, pebbles bouncing off the cracked desert and ricocheting off their boots. Wade quickly moves away from you, shoving you forward so he’s not in the line of fire. “Yeah, well you’re just an alcoholic fuck who could never hold a candle to my Logan.”
You can feel energy brewing at the tips of your fingers, waves, and waves of hate building up within you. The man across from you feels the shift, the static suddenly permeating the air around you both. You let your power build and build…
The pebbles drop back to the ground and you stumble back from Logan, nose bleeding from overextending yourself. “Shit,” you mutter, wiping at your face with the back of your hand and shaking your head.
Logan laughs again, it echoes through the stormy sky and you wish you had any control over your powers so you could just send him flying. Or, better yet, turn his bones into liquid and flip him inside out. “Oh,” he lets out a long exhale, glaring at both of you. “This is fuckin’ ridiculous.” The faux smile drops from his face and he raises his voice just loud enough to make you jump, “Just one big fuckin’ joke!”
You have about five seconds to dive to the side before Logan is lunging at Wade. “Wait, wait, wait we can talk about this!” Wade shouts, but it’s too late, he’s already on the ground getting his head caved in.
You let out a rough sigh, stumbling off to the side. You’re drained from that shitshow of powers. You barely made a few rocks levitate and you feel like you’re going to pass out. You walk away from the two men and throw yourself on the ground, trying to reorient yourself while they fight like wild animals.
You can hear them in the background, stabbing and shooting like they’re aiming to kill. Too bad neither of them can die. It’d save you a hell of a headache. They run past you, Logan’s got his claws buried in Wade’s gut while Wade’s desperately firing off his gun into Logan’s chest.
Your head rolls weakly to the side and you mutter out a pathetic, “No, stop. Don’t kill each other.” As expected, neither of them listens to you. They keep fighting, showing no signs of stopping.
There’s a moment of silence after about ten minutes of nothing but grunts and insults. You peak your head up in interest. Logan got his claws posed over Wade’s throat. You wonder if decapitation would actually kill him or if he’d somehow manage to survive that.
Wade doesn’t seem interested in testing out the theory, “They can fix it!” Wade shouts, “They can fix your timeline. I just need your help saving mine.”
Your eyes widen and you meet Wade’s masked gaze over Logan’s shoulders. The white slits widen and he minutely shakes his head, telling you not to say anything. Like, maybe, that neither of you has any fucking clue if the TVA is capable of even fixing timelines like that.
You know Wade is desperate when he makes that promise. It’s the only reason he would say something so stupid. It’s a blatant lie, one pulled so far out of Wade’s ass you’re genuinely surprised that Logan can’t smell the bullshit. Whatever happened in his universe must have been horrible for him to ever believe anything that comes out of any Deadpool’s mouth.
It’s a long moment before Logan finally pulls his claws out of Wade. Your friend slumps forward in relief as Logan stalks away from him. You glare at Wade from where you are on the ground, “That was fucking stupid,” you snipe at him. He gets to his feet, walks over to you, and forcefully yanks you to your feet.
“Not a goddamn word,” he warns, but you aren’t exactly threatened by him when he's got three holes in his head from Logan’s claws. Still, you hold your hands up and acquiesce, following after him as he chases down Logan.
Your mind is still fuzzy when you are captured by Cassandra. You're recovering from overextending yourself, eyes blurring and limbs going limp like jello when her army of henchmen circle you all.
You finally feel yourself starting to come back to your body when you wake up tied to Johnny. “And,” Wade draws the word out, waiting until you lift your head to finish, “there she is! Happy you could join us, princess. Mind turning these ropes into dust for me?”
You groan and let your head slump onto Johnny’s shoulder. He smirks and glances down at you. “Oh fuck off, both of you. I can’t do shit right now and you know it, Wade, I’m drained.”
Logan is glaring at you, but there’s less hate in his glare and more confusion now. “Can you do anything?”
You narrow your eyes at him, lips screwed up while you try to decide if he’s being an asshole or genuine. “Hard of hearing or something old man? I’m drained,” you reiterate, your tone a little too bitchy.
Logan narrows his eyes, grunting something foul under his breath. Wade interferes before you can piss each other off anymore. “She had an accident, her brain’s a little broken now. But it’s fine! Whose isn’t?”
You huff and throw yourself back against the cage you’re all being transported in. You feel eyes on the side of your head and slowly look over to see Johnny grinning at you. “Hey, you know I’ve met one of your variants-”
“Don’t give a fuck,” you interrupt. You hear Wade snicker under his mask, giving you an encouraging thumbs up even with his hands bound. You were both a little disappointed it wasn’t Captain America lurking under that cloak. But at least this guy isn’t such a prude he won’t cuss.
For the next five minutes, you’re on the receiving end of a very enthusiastically vulgar rant about just what a cunt Cassandra Nova is. He’s still not even finished by the time you reach the gates to her lair.
Your eyes widen when you see all the people lurking around the walls. Most of them you recognize as people you’ve put away or killed in your world. But there’s something just minutely different about them than the version you faced in your timeline. Their eye color or outfit is always just slightly off.
The familiar faces are almost a relief. But there is nothing comforting about knowing you're outnumbered two hundred to four. The cage is tipped over and you go rolling out, you grunt as Johnny’s elbow digs into your ribs.
Before you can even attempt to shove him off, the ropes are whipped off of you and you’re dragged by an invisible force across the ground. Rocks and sand scrape across your tender skin and bury themselves deep in your pores. You hiss in pain when you finally come to a stop and your body is your own again.
A groan slips through your parted lips unbidden as you struggle onto your knees. Your pajamas are ripped practically everywhere and you feel like you might as well be naked at this point. You really wished that you at least had a chance to change before you were kidnapped to another universe.
The woman you presume to be Cassandra Nova is currently fucking Wade’s skull with her freakish telepathy fingers. Johnny’s a pile of guts and bones on the floor and you have no fucking clue where she flung Logan to.
You get to your feet, shaking your head and reorienting yourself. In a second she’s in front of you, head tilted to the side while she regards you curiously. “Woah,” you jump back, glaring at her outstretched hand.
“Careful,” Wade warns her breathlessly, still clutching his head. “Flux here has a pathological fear of bald people.”
You nod, “It’s true, you can imagine how strained my relationship with your brother was.” Cassandra circles you, a devious tilt to her lips. Your eyes track her, unwilling to take your gaze off her for even a second. You feel like a rabbit, facing down a fox that’s made its way into your burrow.
“Curious,” she mutters. “I’ve seen quite a few of you down here before. But,” she chuckles and before you can move her hand is shoving its way into your brain. You scream, there’s an agonizing burn as her fingers probe under your eyes and dig through the deepest part of your subconscious. It feels like someone’s taking a shovel and ripping up your worst traumas. “None of them have been so weak.”
Wonderful, even she wants to insult you. You can feel the way she’s plucking through your thoughts, tossing aside the ones she doesn’t like. Images of your childhood are flashing across your vision. You can no longer see the world around you, it’s like every one of your worst memories is being played on a projector.
“Ah,” she clicks her tongue and jerks your neck around until you’re looking at something you’ve tried to forget for years. “Here it is. How easy it would be for me to simply unblock those powers of yours.” She smiles, her face appearing before you and blocking out the bloodshed. “It would make this far more entertaining for me, what do you say?”
Your teeth are clenched so tightly you’re surprised they haven’t cracked yet. It’s hard to get the words out when her fingers are still dancing through your skull. “Fuck you,” you finally spit out. She releases you suddenly, and you surge forward with a gasp, clutching at your skull desperately.
You half expect your brains to begin leaking from your nose and eyes. But nothing happens, despite feeling incredibly violated, everything is still in its proper place. Cassandra walks past you like everything is fine and dandy in the world. “Well, as much as I would love to see those powers of yours in action again, Flux, I’m afraid Alioth must eat.”
Before you can ask what she's talking about there’s a loud rumble. Like thunder cracking through the sky and land, the ground underneath you shakes. Cracks form under your feet and the henchmen around you all start desperately racing for cover.
You turn around, staring wide-eyed at the purple cloud of death and destruction steadily moving across the sky. A face breaks through the clouds, grinning down at you. Purple lightning hits the ground and the villain next to you explodes into nothing but dust.
“Shit!” You shout, turning around and running to try and avoid getting zapped up next. There’s no coming back from this one. Once this monster gets you, not even god could save you.
Suddenly, an arm wraps around your waist, lifting you off your feet. “No time for consent, we’ve got to get the fuck outta here!” Wade shouts in your ear. Logan is standing next to some robot leg, ripping out cords until a jet on the back fires up. Wade leaps onto the boot, wrapping an arm around Logan’s legs as you’re all shot into the sky.
You’d scream if you weren’t trying not to throw up. You hurtle through the sky at speeds that have your skin nearly ripping off your skull. The rocket on the back of the leg starts to sputter out. The flames flickering out and then back to life. It steadily begins to drop until you’re plummeting headfirst towards the ground.
Wade wraps himself around you, tossing himself off the boot so he can brace your fall. You hear and feel nearly all of his bones break under your weight. For a moment it feels like you’re laying on warm jello as you try and catch your breath.
“Nailed it,” he mutters weakly. You’re pretty sure he can’t breathe, a rib having pierced his lung in the fall. A shadow looms over you and you glance up to find Logan glaring down at you. You stare at him apprehensively, half expecting him to unsheathe his claws and just end you right here.
Instead, to your surprise, he holds a hand out. You look at it with suspicion, glaring back up at him. “Fucks sake,” he mutters. He reaches down, roughly grabbing your hand and jerking you to your feet. You feel the warmth of Wade’s blood on your back and grimace.
“Thanks,” you mutter, still not entirely trusting of him.
He purses his lips into a thin line, backing awkwardly away from you. He just nods and starts surveying the land around you. It feels less like trying to figure out where you all landed and more like awkwardly avoiding eye contact.
The whole interaction leaves you feeling odd. “Well, that was as awkward as two virgins on prom night,” Wade loudly announces as he jumps to his feet. You whip around and send him a dirty look but his attention has already been snagged by something else. Lately, you’ve been considering grounding up Adderall and slipping it into his breakfast, you think it might do him some good.
What’s got to be the fugliest dog you’ve ever seen in your life bounds towards Wade. He drops to his knees, ripping off his mask and opening his arms wide to the mutt. You grimace, taking a step back when she starts licking his face. “Oh, that’s just wrong.”
Thankfully dogless, you steal Nicepool’s Honda Odyssey - much to Wade’s chagrin. Logan’s in the front seat, Wade beside him. You’re sitting in the back, rubbing your temples and trying to get rid of the raging migraine you’ve had since Cassandra finger blasted your brain.
You’ve been zoning in and out of the conversation happening in the front seat of the car. But Logan suddenly slams on the brakes and you go hurtling forward. Without even looking at you, both their arms shoot out, blocking you from flying through the windshield.
Your face scrunches up as you look at both their arms, it feels like being saved by an overbearing soccer mom. “Buckle up, princess,” Wade tells you. He shoves you back into your seat and you look between the two men suspiciously.
“Did you just say if?” Logan growls, glaring at Wade. Your face drops, finally realizing what you’d missed.
Wade lets out a weak chuckle, “Slip of the tongue?” Logan growls and the claws come out. Wade raises his hands, “Okay, let’s put a brake on the crazy train. I wasn’t lying it was just an educated,” for the first time in your friendship Wade is actually speechless. You’re shocked by the silence. Until, of course, he runs his mouth again and comes up with the lamest cop-out you’ve ever heard. “It was an educated wish that they could fix your timeline, alright?”
Logan doesn’t give much of a warning except a low growl before he shoves his claws deep into Wade’s thigh. “You motherfucker!”
“Hey!” You shout, jumping forward and ripping Logan’s claws out of Wade’s leg. “Look, we’re trying to save our whole fucking universe. Can you blame him for lying?” You regret opening your mouth pretty much immediately.
You should have just stayed out of this, it wasn’t any of your business. And if they wanted to be two dumbasses and fucking tear each other apart then so be it. But you never should have drawn attention to yourself.
“Shut the fuck up,” Logan shouts at you. It’s so startling, coming from him. You’re still associating him with the man you’d looked up to growing up. Your Wolverine was a hero. He was the reason you wanted to be an X-Man. And they look exactly the same, it’s nearly impossible for you to separate this one from the one you knew.
But it's easier now. Because the man you’d known would never be so cruel and jaded to the world. Not like this. “Why the fuck are you even here? You’re just some watered-down knockoff of a real hero. You are nothing, you’re worth nothing. It’s a fucking joke that you’re alive and the woman I knew is buried six feet deep. If there was anything right in the world you would be in a grave somewhere crawling with maggots.”
Your eyes water without your permission. You don’t know this man. Yet, he has the face of your greatest hero and the man who you’d grown up hearing stories about. It’s like facing everything you’ve ever wanted to be and having it shout your deepest fears and insecurities back at you. He’s just confirming something you’ve known for years. You never deserved the title of being an X-Man. You never deserved the uniform or anything that came with it.
Your breaths are coming short and fast, it feels like your lungs are constricting. You worry you won’t be able to get air in but he doesn’t care. No, he keeps going. “You follow this fucking clown around and you contribute nothing to the world. You’re never gonna save your fucking timeline. You can’t even make a few rocks float.” It’s not the words that hurt you next. It’s the way he says it. “You’re pathetic.”
He spits them at you. There’s venom lacing his tone like he’s seen into you and knows there’s nothing in you to offer. For the first time in a long time, you feel seen and you hate it. Because he’s looking past the sarcasm and the faux confidence you carry yourself with.
He sees the empty husk of a woman you truly are and he’s forcing you to face it with him. It causes you physical pain, to know that everything you’ve ever feared about yourself is true. You don’t have anything to say to him, you can’t.
Your lips tremble and you feel so fucking small. You can hear your parent's voices in your head, screaming at you and wishing you were never born. They’d rather have a stillborn than a fucked up mutant for a daughter. You see the way even other kids at the school would hide from you. You were made wrong, even as a mutant you were never truly accepted.
Logan’s face drops ever so slightly at the prolonged silence in the car. Even Wade isn’t speaking, he’s just staring at you both. “I,” he starts, but Wade cuts him off.
“I’m gonna hurt you now.” Wade’s never been one to let people run over you, even when you might just let yourself fall into the background. You shouldn’t be surprised when he draws a knife and stabs it into Logan’s throat.
But the arterial spray that follows catches you off guard and suddenly your tears are dried. Instead, you’re throwing open the car door and diving out before one of them crushes you. You make it out of the car just in time, Logan having thrown Wade right where you had been sitting.
Music starts up in the car as a result of their fighting. Divorced dad rock and the sounds of their, borderline, sexual grunting are your soundtrack for the rest of the night. You curl up at the base of a tree, waiting for them to be done with each other.
Logan’s words continue to echo through your head. And the longer you linger on what he said the angrier you get. Not necessarily at him, but at yourself. You’ve let yourself linger in self-pity and wallow in regret for so long.
You look in the mirror and you no longer recognize yourself. He’s right, as much as you hate to admit it, you’re a fucking joke. You toss your head back, slamming it against the trunk of the tree hard enough for it to hurt.
There’s this manic, cloying feeling tugging at your chest. It’s like someone’s sitting on your ribs, crushing you until you can’t breathe anymore. You keep throwing your head back, letting the pain distract you until you feel warm blood leaking down the back of your scalp.
“Shit,” you hiss, hand coming up to cradle the back of your skull. You wince when you feel the split in your skin. The blood leaks over the tips of your fingers, running through the cracks of your palm.
You force yourself to relax, to move your head away from the tree. As you go to stand up, possibly to get Wade and Logan to quit their fighting, you notice something odd. The air around you is still, you can no longer hear them grunting or groaning as they rock the Honda.
Leaves are suspended in the air. They’re not trembling from the breeze, they’re completely frozen. You take a step forward and gasp when you hit something solid. The air in front of you has solidified somehow.
The realization dawns on you slowly but surely. This is you, you’ve done this. Manipulated everything around you on an atomic level. You’ve turned something you shouldn’t be able to feel into something you can touch. Frozen the world around you. Whatever Cassandra had done inside your head, it had knocked something loose.
You haven’t had this wide a range of control for years. Any attempt to do something like this has been met with nosebleeds and long periods of blacking out. Elation fills you, the hurt from earlier is nearly gone.
You glance through the wall of air and try to see if you can still see the Odyssey. To your horror, it’s gone. You wave your hands and the air returns to normal. The leaves drift back to the forest floor and you run back to where you’d left the two men.
There are tire tracks dug deep into the mud. You know Wade wouldn’t willingly leave you behind, not here. You don’t know if Logan’s just kidnapped him or if someone else has. Whoever was driving was clearly in a rush to get out of here.
You must have missed it all while you were having your meltdown. “Fuck,” you shout, your voice echoing into the branches above. You take in a deep breath and start walking. Hopefully, you can catch up to them before whoever has them does serious damage.
You make it to a weird cave/hideout area. The Odyssey is parked outside and when you peek through the broken windows you find the interior completely destroyed. There’s blood soaking through every surface, anything and everything has been smashed and bent the wrong way.
You don’t even know if this is from Wade and Logan or whoever had snatched them. Shaking your head you back up and slink towards the entrance of the den. You can hear shouting inside, it sounds like Wade, but you can’t make out what he’s saying.
You haven’t seen action for a long time. At least not any that you could actually contribute to. It feels a bit like riding a bike. You’d practiced on your way here, making things around you float or eradicating a few trees into nothing but dust in the wind. But this is different.
Your friend (and Logan) are inside, possibly being tortured. Maybe even dead. Though, you seriously doubt the universe is going to be that nice to you. You let the energy build in your arms, it’s like a warm tingling feeling. It shoots down to the palms of your hands until you feel static in the air.
You take a step inside and spot three people. Each of them is decked out in weapons. One of them turns and spots you. “Who is-”
You don’t let him finish, throwing your hands out and slamming them all into the wall so hard the whole interior shakes. Dirt rains down from the ceilings while their faces contort in pain. You run inside, spotting Logan and Wade.
You shoot Wade a big grin but he throws his hands up and shouts, “Read the fucking room!” Your brows furrow and he points emphatically at the people you’re holding, “Good guys!”
“Oh shit,” you release them immediately, a guilty look on your face. “I am so sorry.” Logan cackles in the back, doubled over laughing while the three people in front of you brush themselves off.
You don’t want to be out here with him, but it’s better than being in that cave with the others. Laura walks past you, sending you an uneasy smile. You’d noticed her sitting beside Logan and decided they probably needed a few moments to themselves.
They were finished now, though, and he had the only bottle of liquor left in the cave with him. You trudge over to him, leaves crunching under your boots. Elektra, after that horrific introduction, had given you a uniform a different Flux had left behind.
She was long gone, killed by Cassandra years ago, but she’d conveniently been your exact size. The uniform is nearly identical to the one you have buried under your bed. Black leather with a dark purple X going across your chest and matching purple seams. You’d never wanted something ridiculously flashy. Just something that people would see and associate with the X-Men.
Because that’s all you’d ever wanted to be; a hero. It feels like a pipe dream now. If your pajamas weren’t so destroyed you would have just stayed in them. You don’t feel like you deserve this uniform, not when the woman who’d worn it before you had actually been a hero in her timeline.
“Don’t want company,” Logan snarks, without even looking back to see who’s coming up to him.
You take a seat on the lawn chair closest to him and snatch the bottle of whiskey from his hands. “Good,” you tilt your head back, downing as much as possible. It burns the whole way and you revel in the slight tickle in the back of your throat.
“Alright,” Logan mutters. He gently takes the bottle back from you, giving you an aggrieved look when he sees just how much you’ve stolen. He looks back into the fire and sighs, “Look, I’m not interested in hearing about your sob story or why you’re suddenly drinking all my liquor-”
“Gambit’s liquor,” you interrupt, not bothering to look at him. “And I’m not looking to dump my sob story on your lap. I just want to sit in silence and that’s impossible because Wade hasn’t stopped running his mouth since we got here.”
He looks a little surprised by the brusque way you dismiss him, “Alright,” he mutters. He takes another swig from the bottle and you both stare silently into the fire. It’s like that for a while, you don’t bother keeping track of time.
All you hear is the crackling of the flames. All you can feel is the way your eyes burn from staring into the fire and watching sparks pop off the logs for too long. The breeze rustles the trees, makes the leaves shake free and dance around the logs of the fire.
He breaks the silence first, to your chagrin. “About what I said,” he clears his throat uncomfortably, still refusing to look at you, “back in the car.”
“Don’t,” you snap, voice low. “Just,” you let out a long breath and shake your head. You finally look over and meet his eyes. He does actually look sorry, but you don’t want to hear it. “Just don’t, I deserved it all right.”
“No, no you didn’t.” You open your mouth to argue but he gives you a firm look that has your jaw snapping shut. “I was wrong, I don’t know you. And if my Flux had ever heard me talking to you like that she would have melted my fucking spine.” He laughs a little and you feel your lips twitch up slightly. It’s the first time you’ve seen him look anything but angry.
Curiosity loosens your tongue and knocks you out of the dazed stupor you’ve been in. “What was she like?” You ask, tone earnest. “Your Flux, I mean, you make her sound so amazing. I just can’t,” you trail off, but the look on his face tells you he understands your unspoken words. I just can’t see myself as a real hero.
He groans and leans back on the log he’s resting on. He stretches his legs out in front of him, the liquor bottle placed on the forest floor. You’re surprised, you figured the thing was glued to his hand.
“Well,” he reaches up and scratches at the scruff of his chin, a wry grin on his face. “She was always giving me shit, never let me get away with anything.” You unconsciously lean forward, drawn into the endearing way he begins to describe this other version of you.
It’s not ridiculous to assume this variant meant something to him. He’s got a shine to his eye that you haven’t seen in the whole time you’ve been together. His gaze has been empty, closed off to anything and everything. But now, his eyes are crinkling at the corners, there’s an easy smile on his face that you can’t miss.
“Ah, she was fucking feisty. And strong, she was so strong. She was always a better hero than I was. She lived for that shit,” he trails off and shakes his head. You can see you’re losing him and you don’t want this to end. You’re in your own little bubble right now, getting to pretend there’s a version of you out there somewhere that actually lived up to her potential.
“Her powers,” you blurt out, desperate for something to stop him from retreating back into his mind. “Did she have, um, good control over them?”
Logan nods, eyes darting down to the bottle of whiskey before flickering back up to meet your gaze again. “Yeah, Charles trained her, she was right up there with Jean. She could have,” he stops and suddenly you feel guilty for making him talk about this. You can see the tears in the corner of his eyes, the way the whites of them go red. “She could have been great.”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, “I didn’t mean to pry.” But you did. You were being selfish and forcing him to talk about it even though you knew it would hurt him.
“Look, kid, she would have liked you. I’ll tell you that much,” he says reluctantly. Like the words hurt to force out. You suppose he isn’t used to being genuine with anyone.
You shake your head and look down at your hands. “I appreciate the thought, but I doubt it.”
Logan grabs the bottle again, gulping it down like it's water. His words have a slight slur to them as he speaks again. “I think I would know, bub. ‘Sides, you made it into the X-Men, tells me what I need to know.”
You scoff and fix him with a sardonic look, he raises his brows in question and you roll your eyes. “They’ll take fucking anybody. And I still wasn’t good enough for them.”
Logan shakes his head and frowns. “If what I saw in there,” he points back to the den and you feel your cheeks warm as you remember what you’d done, “is any indication, then I’m sure you were plenty good.”
You lean towards him, elbows braced on your knees. He follows suit, leaning so close you almost want to back up. The proximity flusters you slightly but you shake the feeling off. “You don’t even know me and the first real thing you said to me was that I’d be more useful as fertilizer.”
He sighs, face screwing up at your harsh words. He runs a hand over his cheeks and groans, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
You lean back in your chair and idly twirl your hand through the air. The leaves around you lift up and flutter through the air above your head. Logan watches and you turn back to him, waiting until his eyes meet yours to speak again. “Yes, you did. And you were right. I’m fucking useless, powers or not.” The leaves drop, a few fluttering into the fire. “We’re irrelevant, Wolverine, two washed-up X-Men who never looked good in the uniform.”
There’s a twinge of hurt on his face but you can’t make yourself feel bad about it. Since he’s such a fan of brutal truth, you’re sure he can handle it.
You watch as the leaves curl up at the corners, the fire burning them straight through the middle. You get to your feet and move past him. You’re nearly back to the den when he calls, “The suit looks right on you,” over his shoulder.
You pause at the threshold of the door. He’s already drinking again, staring into the fire and watching it burn. You take a few steps towards him, staring at his broad back. “What happened to her, your me?”
Logan looks down at his hands, his ring finger specifically. You wonder at the significance of the movement, what exactly you’d meant to him. “She married me,” he mutters, voice cold and closed off again.
“Goodnight, Logan,” you whisper, finally walking inside the den.
You miss the small goodnight he sends back to you, finally turning around only to watch you leave.
There had been a very clear plan set in place. Get Juggernaut’s helmet, put it on Cassandra, and then kill that psychotic bitch. Which is why you’re so confused when you’re standing knee-deep in guts and watching Logan and Wade leap through a portal above you.
You don’t have time to feel angry or even hurt that they left without you. Laura is grabbing your arm and you’re both running for your life, trying to escape Alioth again. You run into Cassandra’s lair ducking into one of the rooms and dragging Laura with you.
You’re both holding your breaths and praying that he’s sated by the others still outside. After a few minutes, the cracks of thunder stop and you risk peeking your head outside. The clouds have retreated back to their usual spot in the middle of the void.
You take in the carnage of Cassandra’s evil lair. Most everybody is dead. You only have to skirt around a few people to get back to the Odyssey.
You throw yourself in the driver’s seat and sink back against the bloodstained cushions. You let out a relieved breath and look at Laura, “What do you do to entertain yourself around here?”
You acclimated to the idea of being stuck in the void pretty quickly. There wasn’t exactly a lot waiting for you back home. Besides, Laura was nice enough. You had food, beer, and company. You didn’t really need much else.
You’re pretty sure if you linger too long on the thought that Wade left you behind you’ll fall into a depression that you’re never going to be able to claw your way out of. So, you forced a smile on your face and played cards. Nothing else to do but wait to die of old age or for Alioth to kill you.
Of course, your plans had to be ruined. There was an odd rush of air against your back and then a slight whoosh. Laura glanced over your shoulders and her brows furrowed, you turned around to find three armored men waiting behind you.
“Flux,” the man glanced from you to Laura, “X-23?”
“Laura,” you both correct at the same time.
The man gives an aggrieved sigh and holds his arm out, “Come with me, please.”
You stand up, energy tingling in the palms of your hands while you regard them suspiciously. Laura comes up behind you, claws out and glaring at them. “Why should we?” You demand.
Barely a second later you hear the most insufferable voice in the world. “Hiya, peanut!”
“Wade,” you hiss. You follow the armored men through an oddly shaped portal and find Wade standing beside a shirtless Logan, smiling proudly at you. “You fucking left me,” you hold up your hands and his eyes widen.
His hands quickly come up, trying to assuage you, “Hold on now-”
You throw him back, his body hurtling into a nearby building and caving in the wall. Logan watches it happen with a small smile, “Been wanting to do that for a while.”
Once Wade had recovered he filled you in on everything that happened. TVA did a general clean up and then you were standing in front of your apartment door, keys in hand like nothing had happened.
It was so bizarre, going from a mission to save your timeline and then you’re expected to just go about your life. You stay standing in that hallway for you don’t know how long before you hear someone behind you.
You jump and drop your keys when Logan clears his throat. “Shit,” you hiss, whirling around and glaring at him while your heart races. He chuckles and bends over to grab your keys for you.
“Sorry,” he mutters. This is the most relaxed you’ve ever seen him, covered in blood and in a borrowed shirt. “Uh, Wade doesn’t have enough room at his place. Told me I should come over here.”
You look over his shoulder and see Wade peeking his head out of his doorway. He catches your eye, sending you a thumbs up. You almost smile but then he makes a phallic gesture with his hands, pointing at Logan and humping the air. You glare at him and he quickly backs into his apartment, but not before sending you one last encouraging shit-eating grin.
You look back at Logan and he’s waiting expectantly for your answer. “Yeah,” you take your keys from him and unlock the door. “I’ve got a spare room but there’s no bed in it right now.” Your eyes widen when you see the mess that is your apartment.
You quickly rush through, picking up empty take-out boxes and dirty laundry and shoving them into your room. He’s smiling at you when you come back and it's slightly off-putting. “Um,” you gesture towards the couch awkwardly. “You can take the sofa tonight and we’ll look at setting you up with something more permanent tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” he hovers by the armrest and you engage in the longest stare-off of your life. Neither of you says anything for a few suffocating moments before he gestures at himself. “Shower?”
“Oh,” you snap out of your stupor and nod your head. “Yeah, right, of course.” You show him down the hall, “Here. I’ll go get you a towel.”
You rush towards your linen closet, leaving him behind in your bathroom. You grab a few clean towels and then figure he might want some clothes as well. You grab some pajamas that Wade’s left over when he’s crashed before. They’ll probably be a bit tighter on Logan, but you wouldn’t mind seeing that.
You walk back to the bathroom and the thought of knocking doesn’t even run through your head. It should, honestly, but you’re already so thrown off by him even being here. You walk in and immediately gasp and drop the towels.
“Oh, I'm sorry. I’m so sorry.” He’s standing naked before you. Clothes discarded on the floor behind him. Everything on perfect display. Your eyes land on his abs, noticing a few prominent veins leading down-
You cover your face and turn around. “Sorry,” you mutter again. God, you’re such an idiot. You still haven’t even left. You’d just been shamelessly ogling the man naked and you don’t even have the decency to walk out.
You really can’t help it though. It’s been such a clusterfuck, the last 72 hours. Your brain is fried and Wade’s little show hasn’t helped you at all.
You hear Logan laugh behind you. “It’s alright,” he mutters. Something warm ghosts across your arm and you jump slightly. His hand firmly grasps your bicep, gently tugging your palms away from your face.
You risk a glance over your shoulder and nearly gasp at how close he’s gotten. He's towering over you, something in his face you can’t place. “It’s alright,” he whispers again and you find yourself nodding without really thinking.
He’s got both hands on your arms now, trailing up and down. The touch is so featherlight you can barely feel it at all. You don’t even realize how he’s gently coaxing you closer until you trip on the towels at your feet.
You startle, looking down at them and moving to kick them aside. But he stops you, his finger nudging your chip up so you’ll look at him again. There is such blatant want painted across his face that it makes your heart skip a beat. Your breath catches in your throat when he wraps an arm around your waist and drags you closer.
You can feel all of him. You can feel just how much he wants you. It catches you off guard, this sudden display of attraction. You don’t know where it’s coming from, what’s brought it on. But you can’t find it in yourself to care. You’ve been so lonely for so long. You just want to bask in the fact that he looks absolutely starved for you.
No man has ever looked at you with such heartbreakingly yearning eyes - like he’s been looking for you his whole life. He dips down, lips ghosting gently over yours. Your breaths mingle together, you can nearly taste him.
It’s unclear which one of you moves first, who pushes closer to the other. But it doesn’t matter because the second you put real pressure behind the kiss he’s all over you. One of his hands drifts down to your ass, squeezing the flesh there and dragging you closer, grinding his hips into yours.
You moan at the feeling, your arms wrap around his neck and you press yourself even closer. He groans against your lips at the first swipe of your tongue. You part with a gasp when he picks you up, practically tossing you onto your sink. Your legs spread instinctually, making room for him as he slots himself between them.
It’s odd, feeling so vulnerable even when he’s the one who's completely naked. It still feels like he’s holding all the power.
His lips are moving frantically over yours like he’s terrified you’re going to disappear the second he lets go. You can taste something desperate on his tongue. Something deeply rooted inside him that you can’t identify.
One of your hands drifts from his neck, trailing over the muscles of his chest. Your fingers carve a path down his abs, relishing in how muscular he feels under your palm. Your hand reaches his pelvis, nearly wrapped around him when he jumps back.
He grabs your wrist in a grip so tight you know there’s going to be a bruise. A pained gasp slips out and he releases you immediately. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. “Sorry, I can’t.” He won’t look at you now, backing up towards the shower and shaking his head. “This was a bad idea, I can’t do this.”
You shake your head, slipping off the sink and hiding your bruised wrist behind your back. “No, sorry, I shouldn’t have moved so fast.”
You feel too ashamed to meet his eye. He kissed you but you feel like you’ve forced yourself on him somehow. It’s a nauseating feeling and you want nothing more than to run back to your room and hide.
He takes a step towards you, something pained on his face. “Kid-”
You just shake your head, step out of the bathroom, and grab the handle of the door. “Sorry,” you whisper again, closing the door behind you. You lean against the cool wood, trying to catch your breath.
Your hand drifts up to your lips, still tingling from how desperately he’d kissed you. It doesn’t make any sense. He came on to you, he threw you up on the sink, and made out with you more passionately than any man ever has before. So why are you the one who feels dirty?
You rush down the hall and into your room, slamming the door behind you. You dive under your covers, closing your eyes even though you know you won’t sleep. No, your shoulders are tensed up to your ears and your bones are vibrating with an energy you need to release.
You’re completely tuned into the other person lurking in your apartment. You can hear as he starts the shower, how he talks quietly to himself sometimes. Then when he gets out you can perfectly picture what he looks like while he’s getting dressed and it only makes you feel worse.
You listen as he leaves the bathroom and pauses in the hall. You can see it in your mind’s eye, how he stares at your door. He walks towards it and lingers for a minute before cussing quietly and heading back into the living room.
You suddenly remember that you didn’t lay sheets out on the couch for him. You feel guilty, but there’s not one part of you that will be dragged from this bed and face him. Not now, at least.
He’s up for a little while longer, getting water. Turning the TV on and off. Rooting through your cabinets looking for booze you know you don’t have. Finally, he settles on the couch. You’re awake for another hour, unable to relax until you’re completely sure he’s asleep. Even as you drift off and your body finally relaxes your mind doesn’t. You keep seeing that stricken look on his face and it makes you sick to your stomach.
It’s the smell of pancakes that wakes you up. You’re not sure when you finally managed to pass out last night but you know it was late. Which is why you’re so pissed off that you’re being forced to get up at seven in the morning.
You’re used to being able to sleep in a lot later than that. You’re already in a pissy mood from last night and it only gets worse as you trudge around your room getting ready. You’ve never been more thankful to have snagged one of the rare two-bathroom apartments in the building.
You don’t want to have to share a bathroom with Logan. You don’t even want to use the other one after what happened last night. It’s too embarrassing and painful to think about. The emotional whiplash of feeling so desired and then absolutely hideous is making your head spin.
You’re sure it was all just a problem on his end, but it really doesn’t make you feel any better. When you can’t stall any longer, and you know that Logan has heard you get up, you slip quietly out of your room.
The curtains in your living room are open and he’s in the kitchen fucking around with your stove. The news is playing quietly on the TV and you’re astounded about how little he’s done and how much more homely your apartment feels.
It’s never really been home to you. Not after you were booted from the X-Men. But he’s somehow made it ten times cozier than it ever has been. You almost resent him a little for it.
“Morning,” he grumbles from the kitchen. “Coffee,” he motions behind him and you see a steaming cup already waiting for you. You silently slip behind him, grabbing the creamer from the fridge and pouring it until you’re sure it’s sweet enough to not actually taste the coffee.
“Thanks,” you mutter, moving to sit at the table. You keep your eyes trained on the TV, pretending to pay attention to the news so you don’t have to look at him. He bores his eyes into the side of your head until you feel like you’re going to have holes in your temple.
When you can’t take it anymore you finally look over at him. He doesn’t smile, his face barely even twitches, he just looks back to his pan and continues scrambling some eggs. “Didn’t know you cooked,” you offer up weakly, already growing anxious from the silence.
It feels wrong, to be walking on eggshells in your own apartment. He grunts and shrugs, “Not really cooking. You had the mix in your pantry,” he tells you brusquely. His tone borders on rude and you scoff.
The audacity of this man to have an attitude with you in your apartment. He was the one who threw a hissy fit last night. You roll your eyes and go back to the news, all it tells you is that the world is just as depressing as the inside of your apartment is right now.
You notice out of the corner of your eye the way his shoulders slump forward. He leans against the oven, seeming not to care if he burns himself. You suppose it doesn’t matter, he’d just heal. “Sorry,” he mutters. It sounds like it pains him to say the words.
“Whatever,” you mumble under your breath. You take a long sip of your coffee, slurping a little so you have something to fill the atmosphere.
He puts some food on a plate and brings it over to the table for you. You usually don’t eat breakfast, preferring to just skip the meal and eat a bigger lunch. But it feels too bitchy to say that to him, so you just accept the food with a strained smile. “Thanks.”
He sits across from you, glaring down at your table like it insulted him. You drag your fork against the plate, letting the scrape of metal against porcelain drown out your worries. Finally, he looks at you. “Look, about last night.”
You tense up. You want to interrupt him, to stop him from explaining. You know it’s just going to hurt your feelings, whatever he says. Whether he tells you it was a mistake or he just realized he’s not attracted to you, either way, you’re fucked. But, it’s also kept you up all night so you just shut your mouth and let him speak.
You keep your gaze trained on your plate, unable to fully face him. He lets out a long sigh and clenches his fork so tight you hear the metal bend. He drops it to the table and clenches and unclenches his fists a few times.
“I just couldn’t kiss you, not when I wasn’t doing it for the right reasons.”
Your brows furrow in confusion and you finally look up at him. “What?” You demand, disbelief coloring your voice.
His eyes are boring into yours, an intensity behind the stare that leaves you feeling a little shaken. “You look like her,” he whispers, and the grief is so thick in his voice it makes your throat tighten. He pauses briefly before continuing. “There are,” he clears his throat like he’s trying not to cry. It makes you lean back in your chair, arms crossed over your stomach uncomfortably.
“There are a few differences, obviously. You’re not a carbon copy. But your mannerisms, your attitudes, you’re so similar. And I,” he shakes his head and gives you one of the most genuinely apologetic looks you’ve ever received. You can tell he really does feel guilty for projecting on you but it doesn’t make you feel any less uncomfortable. “And I just wasn’t doing that for the right reasons. I was pretending you were her and that’s just not fair to you.”
You lean your elbows on the table, head falling into your hands. You let out a rough sigh and groan in irritation. You knew the reason would hurt but you didn’t think it would be this bad. You feel gross, icky under your skin knowing that he was pretending you were another version of yourself. The version of yourself you’ve always wanted to be; the hero.
But you also feel such a deep sadness and sympathy for him. He’d briefly mentioned that he was married to this other you. You can’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like, to see your dead wife’s face staring at you and she doesn’t even know you.
“I,” you don’t even know where to begin. You struggle to say anything for a minute and you both just stew in the tense silence. You take in a deep breath and look up at him. You do what you always do, forcing a smile and shrugging it off. “I appreciate the honesty, really.” You stand up, bringing your still-full plate into the kitchen and busying yourself with cleaning up.
“Clearly,” you snap, your voice crueler than it should be, “It was a mistake. We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t happen again, right?”
Logan sits silently at the table. He looks like there’s more he wants to say but you don’t give him the chance. You can’t take it. You finally thought someone had wanted you for you, flaws and all. You’re a fucking idiot, he barely even knows you. Whatever connection you thought was there was just brought about by your own loneliness.
“I gotta get ready for work,” you tell his back because he isn’t looking at you now.
He nods, scraping his fork across the plate as he aggressively cuts into his food. “Right.” You wait for him to say anything else but he doesn’t.
You walk past him and head back to your room. You don’t even have a job, you don’t have to work. But you still grab your purse and head out of the apartment. Pretending you do just so you don’t have to look at him anymore.
You really should have let him finish, though. You should have let him keep talking to you. Let him explain how as much as he sees her in you, that’s not why he wants you. He wants you for you. Because as similar as you can be, you’re still a completely different person from who his late wife was. You’re someone strong and incredible and he genuinely wants you. But he can never really let himself be happy.
It takes a few days for you both to ease up around the other. The incident in the bathroom is never brought up again. You take him shopping for clothes after a few days. It feels wrong to keep giving him Wade’s hand-me-downs. You would have had your friend take him, but you don’t trust Wade’s sense of fashion at all.
After that and getting lunch together while you were out shopping things got a little easier. You bought him a bed for the spare room because you felt guilty seeing him all cramped up on your tiny couch.
You don’t initiate any physical contact with each other. The closest you’d gotten was your hands brushing when you both reached for some popcorn at the same time on movie night. But you hadn’t really minded that bad.
Eventually, he starts to feel like a real roommate and a friend. He lets little pieces of himself slip out. Slowly opens up about his past. You haven’t made any existential discoveries of course. But he tells you stories of what his X-Men were like.
You try not to dance around the topic of his wife, you don’t want him to think you’re avoiding asking about her. But you also don’t want him to think you’re obsessed with discussing her.
He’s right, you two weren’t carbon copies of each other at all. You might share a few things in common but the more both you and Logan learn about each other, the more clear it is how different you both are from your variants.
Sometimes you think he looks at you like he’s really seeing you, not her. But you can never be sure and you don’t want to put much strength behind the thought in case you’re wrong. You hate the idea that when you’re thinking of nothing but him, he’s just seeing her reflection on your face.
There’s nothing you can do about it but it doesn’t stop the hurt.
Tonight, at Wade’s suggestion, you’re both up on the roof waiting for a meteor shower that you’re ninety percent sure is never going to happen. You’re also one hundred percent sure that Wade just tricked you out of your apartment so he could have sex in it. He and Vanessa don’t really get a lot of time alone with Blind Al around. You’re already mentally preparing for the absolute fuck storm you’re going to have to clean up after.
There’s a light nudge on your shoulder and you glance over at Logan. He’s got the whiskey bottle outstretched towards you and you take it from him with a smile. One thing about being his roommate, your alcohol tolerance has skyrocketed. His liver might regenerate, but you’re pretty sure if you keep going down this route yours will give out in a few months.
“Think this is actually going to happen?” You ask, pointing up toward the clear night sky.
Logan chuckles and shakes his head. He stretches out in your flimsy lawn chair and you try not to let your gaze be drawn to the sliver of skin peeking out from his shirt. “Probably not, but I don’t mind being out here.”
There’s an unspoken, with you, that makes you smile. You meet his gaze, his eyes soft as he watches you. “Me either.” You lean back in your chair, pulling your legs up onto the seat and huddling under your blanket. “It’s peaceful.”
You drink together in silence for a little while longer. Then you have to tap out, you don’t want your brain getting too foggy. Tonight is nice, you want to remember it tomorrow. To your surprise, he caps the bottle and places it to the side. You don’t mention it but you do feel like you’ve noticed he’s been drinking a little less. The dark circles under his eyes seem to be easing away ever so slightly.
He looks over at you with an odd light in his eyes. You shift uncomfortably under his stare when it lasts a little longer than it usually does. You chuckle awkwardly, “Do I have something on my face?”
There’s a soft uptick to his lips as he shakes his head. “No,” he mutters, looking back out at the night. “You mind if I ask you something?”
Ominous, but whatever. “Sure.”
He still doesn’t look at you and you worry slightly about whatever it is he’s going to ask. He doesn’t ease you into it all, “Wade said your brain was broken?” A laugh springs out of your throat from how brusque that was. He rolls his eyes. “Fuckin’ idiot mentioned it in the void, been wonderin’ about it.”
“It’s fine,” you tell him. You’re relaxed enough that you don’t mind answering. You don’t want to pop the soft bubble you’ve managed to create around each other. “Here,” you hold your hand out for the whiskey bottle. He gives you an apprehensive look before handing it over.
You unscrew the cap, “This,” you say and point your hand at the glass. The liquid inside lifts into the air and you freeze it before dropping it back into the bottle with a splash, a simple little party trick. “This used to be enough to put me in a coma for two days. That’s what he meant. Something happened to me and I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
Logan’s eyes widen and he shakes his head in disbelief. You laugh a little, “I assume your wife never had problems like that?”
There’s always a fond smile when you mention his wife. Whether the memory is bittersweet or not. “She wasn’t perfect, much as I thought so. When she used her powers too much she,” he trails off and looks down at the floor. You frown, ducking your head down so you can catch his gaze.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” you promise quietly.
But he shakes his head and gives you a weak, tight-lipped smile. “No, I want to. And I don’t want you to think you’re the only Flux who struggled. When she used her powers too much she would deteriorate. Parts of her would just disappear, I don’t even know how to describe it. They were destroying her from the inside out.”
You let out a low whistle, eyes widening slightly. “Well, maybe I didn't get the short end of the stick after all.” It’s quiet and for a moment you worry your humor was ill-timed.
But he lets out a rough laugh, “No, I guess not.” He takes in a deep breath before looking back up at you. There’s no distant sadness in his eyes like there usually is when you bring her up. It seems to only be a familiar ache now, rather than something fresh and bleeding. “But what happened to you? Why couldn’t you use your powers?”
“Oh,” you look down at your lap, picking at the strings of your pants. It would be unfair to have him talk about his wife and then wimp out when it was your turn.
“Um, There was this mission. A bunch of kids, mutants, were being held in this warehouse. It was actually pretty normal, just go in, retrieve them, and bring them back to safety. I must have done a dozen of these before, but, I don’t know. Something was this different this time around.”
You can still hear them screaming. In your mind, you hear the way they cried for help. And you see the look on your faces when they realize you can’t save them every time you go to sleep.
You suck in a sharp breath and almost jump when his hand lands on yours. It’s gentle, he’s barely even touching you and he’s not even acknowledging what he’s doing. But you take his hand in yours and squeeze, it’s nice, grounding.
“Long story short, they were heavily guarded and I was pretty drained from fighting off the guards. My powers were practically gone by the time we could even get to the kids. And, I don’t know, something must have gotten knocked over or hit the wrong way because smoke was filling the place and everything was on fire. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t breathe, and the kids were blocked off. There was nothing we could do to get to them. Everyone kept screaming at me, telling me to just use my abilities and get them out of there. I couldn’t,” your voice gets thick and you look anywhere but at him. “I,” your mouth hangs open and you don’t know what you could possibly say.
There’s no excuse for what happened. “I just couldn’t,” you whisper. You sniffle and your eyes flutter rapidly, trying to stop any tears from coming. “Hadn’t been able to use my powers since then. Trauma block or something, I guess,” you dismiss yourself flippantly and shrug.
Logan just squeezes your hand again. He doesn’t seem to know what to say to comfort you and you’re honestly grateful for the silence. You get so sick of people telling you there was nothing you could have done. Or that the others should have helped you. Because that’s not a fucking excuse. There’s no fixing what happened, no giving those parents their children back. You fucked up and you don’t appreciate people giving you cop-outs.
You keep your gaze trained steadily on the ground, eyes going blurry while you try to slip into the back of your mind. You don’t get the chance, though. Logan is kneeling in front of you, hands slipping up your arms to cup your face.
He forces you to look at him, to stay present in the moment with him. “You fucked up,” he tells you. It's so shocking that you can’t help but let out a loud wet laugh. You sniffle and he grins, wiping the tears out from under your eyes. His grip on your cheeks tightens and he makes sure you’re listening as he speaks, “You fucked up, kid. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t try your fucking hardest. And it doesn’t erase all the people you did help.”
Your eyes search him, trying to find any kernel of untruth. Trying to prove to yourself that this isn’t real. That he isn’t real. You don’t deserve this moment of such unwavering trust and faith. This is meant for someone else, for someone who deserves good things in life.
You’ve never truly believed you deserved happiness or peace like this. But right now you don’t care because he is saying everything you’ve ever wanted to hear. And he actually means it.
Your hand drifts up, covering his and tilting your head to press a gentle kiss to his palm. It’s tentative, a test, a way to give him an out if doesn’t want this. His grip on you tightens for half a second before he shoots forward and claims your lips with his own.
It escalates quickly. You practically melt off your chair, straddling his lap while he leans back on the ground. Your hands tug at his hair while he moves desperately over your body. He can’t seem to decide what he wants to do, where he wants to touch you.
You love how fully his hands engulf you, the tight way they cradle you to his chest. You’ve never felt more secure in someone’s arms than you do right now. He’s got you, and he wants you. For you this time, you can tell. You can tell from the way he holds you that this isn’t a desperation born from grief. It’s something else, something you’re not ready to identify yet.
His tongue laves across the seam of your lips, silently asking permission. You smile against the kiss, parting your lips and deepening it. He licks into you, tasting you with a low grunt in the back of his throat. You feel your hips start to move of their own volition. Gently grinding down against his lap. You moan when you feel just how bad he wants you.
You lean back, parting from the kiss and pressing a finger to his chest to keep from following. You chuckle at his eagerness, grinding your hips down again and watching the way he thrusts up to meet your movement. “Didn’t know I was such a good kisser,” you tease.
But he doesn’t return the joke or play along. His face falls slightly and he pulls further away from you, the look on his face distant. “What?” You whisper. “Do I have bad breath?” You joke, trying to keep the mood light.
He shakes his head and runs a tired hand over his face. “No,” he mutters. He repeats the word more firmly and finally meets your gaze. “I think I need to take this slow, just because of…”
He trails off but you know what he means. His wife. You don’t know if he’s still projecting her onto you, you felt so sure he wasn’t earlier. But if every time you kiss he’s gonna pull back you’re not sure that you can do this. “Of course,” you mutter with a bite to your voice. It’s hard not to feel a little rejected every time he acts like this.
You move to get off his lap but his hands clamp down on your hips and he shakes his head again. “You don’t have to get up.”
You hesitate, thighs still hovering over his. You should get up and put as much space between you as possible. But he’s so warm and you want to be held for a little while more. You nod and he looks relieved. You lean back down, pressing your chest against his and letting your head rest in the crook of his neck.
He wraps a heavy arm around your back, keeping you close while the other reaches up to stroke your hair. It makes you feel small, in a good way. Like you can just relax and he’ll take care of you.
“Goddamn,” he laughs a little and you sit up. He nods to the sky above and you turn around, gasping.
“Fuck,” you whisper, “he wasn’t lying.” For once, Wade was telling the truth. Above you, it looks like the sky is falling. Glittering stars dart across the sky, streaks of blue following behind them. You grin, “It’s so beautiful.”
Logan keeps his eyes on you and nods, “Yeah, it is.”
“Ah, look, my favorite fuck buddies.”
”Wade,” you greet tightly. You shove the bottle of wine you brought into his chest and he stumbles back. “Just let us in, you freak.”
He frowns, placing a hand over his heart. “You know, it really hurts when you talk like that. I think we all need to hold hands and have a good old-fashioned jerk circle.”
You roll your eyes and flick his thick forehead. “It’s share circle, dumbass.”
”Not the way I do it,” he moves to the side and lets you both in. “Well, mi casa es su casa, especially since Vanessa and I had rockin’ sex in your bed last week.”
He walks off before you can hit him or even begin to respond to that. “I fucking knew it,” you hiss, glaring at his stupid Hawaiian shirt while he mingles with the rest of the people at the party.
Logan chuckles behind you, “How did you two ever become friends?”
You roll your eyes and turn to face him. “I moved in next door,” you respond dryly. “This was a nonconsensual friendship because god hates me, clearly.” You shrug your jacket off and he takes it from you, hanging it up on the hook by the door. He comes back, slinging an arm around your shoulder, and leading you towards the kitchen.
You hear Wade laughing loudly in the background and he grunts, “I’m gonna need a drink for this,” he mutters. You nod your head in agreement. You don’t get very far, though, because without any warning Wade is in front of you. He’s got his ridiculous dog in his arms and shoves her in your face. You grimace and jump back. Logan abandons you and you narrow your eyes at his retreating back. Traitor
Wade says your name with disappointment. “You know, Mary Puppins is a part of my life now. As my best friend, you need to bond with her. I can’t have you two fighting like this.” He shoves the dog into your arms without any warning and you flinch away from her wandering tongue.
“If this thing licks me, I’m putting her down,” you warn him gravely.
He gasps and snatches her back. “You are no longer welcome in my home,” he tells you with a snotty huff. You roll your eyes and watch him go. When he’s out of sight your lips curl up in a grin and you glance at Logan.
He’s by the sink, making himself a drink and taking a deep swig straight out of the bottle. You creep up behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist. He smiles, hand coming down to gently hold your arm. “What’re you doing?”
”Come with me,” you whisper. You take his hand and lead him through the apartment. You both skirt around the partygoers, giving them vague greetings and waving them off when they give you odd looks.
Logan leans down, lips brushing across your ear as he whispers, “Where are we going?” Your knees nearly give out when you hear that low tone of voice of his. You just shake your head and lead him down the hall. You can sniff out Wade’s room from the permeating stench of his axe body spray.
You throw the door open and drag Logan inside behind you. His nose wrinkles up at the stiff socks littering the floor and the smell. Other than that, it’s relatively clean. You actually thought this would look so much worse.
“Now,” Logan demands, “are you gonna tell me what we’re doing?”
“Well,” you lock the door and turn around with a devious grin. “Seeing as Wade has ruined my favorite sheets, I feel like we need to get him back somehow.” You glance around the room, trying to figure out something of his you want to destroy.
You don’t hear Logan moving towards you. You’re too busy rooting through Wade’s desk and trying to find something good to shred up. All you’re seeing is increasingly more disturbing porno mags. He has got a serious problem with pegging. You briefly wonder if you should set up an intervention or something for him.
You nearly yelp when Logan’s hands grip your shoulders, whipping you around to face him. “I’ve got an idea of what we can do.” That’s your only warning before his lips cover your own. You melt into him immediately, hands fisting his shirt and dragging him closer. He grins against your lips, lifting you and placing you on the edge of Wade’s desk.
“Mm,” you moan but shove his chest back and shake your head. “Wait,” you hop off the desk and take a seat on Wade’s bed instead. “There’s no point in this if we’re not on the bed.”
Logan shakes his head with an amused huff. He walks towards you but instead of taking a seat on the bed next to you like you'd expected, he kneels before you. Your brows furrow together and you frown. “Wait, what’re you doing?”
He gives you a gentle smile, hands coming up to rub gently over your thighs. The warmth of his palms soothes you almost immediately. “You trust me?” He asks, voice a low rumble against your chest.
“Yeah,” you whisper. He nods encouragingly and leans forward, kissing you gently. There’s nothing expectant in this kiss. He’s doing it just to be close to you. Then you feel his hands drifting higher, fingers running over the buttons of your jeans. Your lips part, ready to ask him a question. But he just takes the chance to dip his tongue into your mouth, eagerly tasting you. You moan into it, not protesting when he presses you back into the bed.
His fingers dip under the waistband of your jeans. You lift your hips to help him tug them the rest of the way down until they’re dropping to the floor quietly. You have a million questions dancing on the tip of your tongue but you can’t find it in yourself to actually voice any of them. You don’t want to break the moment. This is the first time he’s seemed comfortable going further than kissing and some heavy petting.
“Fuck,” he whispers. Your hips jolt as he runs a thumb over the wet spot on your panties. “All this just from kissing?” He asks, a teasing lilt to his tone. You feel your face flush, cheeks warming when you realize he’s never actually seen just how much he affects you. “Relax,” he tells you, squeezing your thighs once before slipping a few lithe fingers under the band of your panties.
He tugs them down, but the second he sets eyes on you he gets too impatient to take them off the rest of the way. They dangle off one ankle while he lifts your thighs, setting them on his shoulder and dipping down to press a gentle kiss against you. You gasp at the contact, head tilting back while you instinctually grind your hips up against him.
It’s been a long time since you’ve actually been with anyone and you already know you’re going to cum embarrassingly quick because he fucking devours you. You’ve had boyfriends who liked to eat you out before, but this is something completely different.
He drags his tongue over you, sucking on your clit like it’s his only true joy in life. You can’t even make noises, your jaw hanging slack while you cant your hips higher. He groans when you grind against his face, shaking his head and flicking his nose across your bud. You nearly come from the sight of him smiling against your cunt alone. You feel it building slowly, and it’s like your powers are swelling up along with your release.
Wade’s knicknacks are floating off the shelves, some of them rotating in the air, others fluctuating between liquid and solid forms. You can’t control yourself, you’re barely aware of the chaos happening in the room around you. You just feel a warmth at the tips of your toes, swelling over your body, making your skin feel too tight. There’s little to no warning when you cum. He dips his tongue inside you and you let out a long moan, drenching his face.
The sheets are soaking wet underneath you and you know you’ve ruined his shirt. You’ve never come that hard before and you would reflect on that more if he wasn’t still fucking eating you out. You think your brain is going to melt out of your ears, you're so overwhelmed by all the different sensations.
He dips his tongue into you, dragging out your orgasm and drinking as much of you down as he can. Your hips keep twitching, you’d be thrashing out of his hands if it wasn’t for the near brushing grip he has on your hips. “Fuck fuck fuck,” you reach down, grabbing his hair at the roots and tugging. He groans at the feeling, barely leaning an inch back. “No more,” you whisper, chest heaving.
He smiles, palms smoothing across the skin of your thighs, “You okay?”
“Mhm,” you hum weakly. Your head falls back against the bed with a dull thunk and you struggle to catch your breath. “Holy shit, where did you learn to do that?” He doesn’t answer, just laughs. You jump slightly when he presses a tender kiss on your thigh, every part of you oversensitive.
He moves slowly up your body, hands dragging your shirt up until he’s pulling it over your head. He cups your cheeks, letting you recover while he kisses your cheeks and face. You laugh slightly at the feeling of his beard tickling you.
You pull back, meeting his gaze for a long drawn-out moment before you lean forward to finally kiss him back. You can feel yourself slowly coming back into your body. Your limbs tingle back to life while you lazily make out with him.
His hands drift down your chest, squeezing your breasts. You laugh against his lips, arching into his touch. You reach back, unclipping your bra and throwing it off somewhere in the room. In the far reaches of your mind, you make a mental note to take that when you go. You don’t want to think about what Wade would do with it if he found it.
Logan pulls back from you and your lips tip down at the serious look he wears. Your fingers trace the lines of his face and you tilt your head in question. “What’s wrong?” You whisper. You’re completely naked before him and he’s still clothed, you don’t want him to leave now.
He can’t keep doing this to you. He can’t keep forcing you into these vulnerable positions and then leaving. There’s only so much rejection you can take before you start to resent him for it.
He tilts his head down, gaze dragging across your body appreciatively. He’s looking at you like you’re art and it makes you feel like you should be in a museum somewhere. Finally, his hand drags down from your chest, wrapping around your waist and dragging you onto his lap.
You brace your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself. He leans towards you, lips trailing lightly across your jaw. “You’re not her,” he whispers against your skin. Your mouth parts, a pained breath slipping through. You try to move back from him. You hadn’t expected something like that, not now, not when you thought you’d made so much progress together.
To have you naked, vulnerable like this, and then say something like that to you. It was fucking despicable. You shove his shoulders back but he barely moves. You shift, trying to cover yourself and fighting off the urge to cry. Why won’t he let you go? Why does he keep doing this to you?
He reaches out, snatching up your wrist before you can get far. “I don’t want you to be. I never wanted you to be her, I need you to know that.”
He tries to kiss you but you snatch his jaw in your hand before he can. You let your nails dig in until there’s red blooming under your fingertips. He hisses, but he’s not mad, you can feel how much he enjoys the little pinpricks of pain.
“No more pulling away,” you warn. “I’m not playing this damn game with you anymore, Logan. You want me, then commit.” You release him with a shove and his pupils dilate with want. You appreciate the gentle way he’s been treating you, but you know you’re both holding back.
He’s the first partner you’ve been with that can actually take what you give and vice versa. There’s something only mutants understand sometimes. You normally have to hold back, have to make sure you don’t scare a guy off by making the walls shake when you come.
You push him down onto the bed. Hands sliding under the hem of his shirt and running over the grooves of his muscles. You haven’t had a chance to appreciate just how gorgeous his body is before, but nothing is holding you back now.
You snap your fingers and the buttons rip open, he surges forward catching your lips with his while you both frantically push his shirt off. He throws it off to the side and his fingers fumble with his belt buckle while you trail kisses down his neck. You glance up at him for a second before biting down on a particularly sensitive spot.
He groans, head rolling back while you grin against his skin. You make your way back to his lips. “Don’t hold back,” you tell him, trailing your hands down to his fists and running over the spots where the claws come out.
“Sweetheart,” he starts tone apprehensive. You shake your head, shutting him up with a kiss.
“Don’t. Hold. Back.”
It’s like a switch flipping. Even the way he looks at you changes. You’re not something to be cherished and adored. You feel like a deer pinned by a wolf. He’s got you in his clutches now and there’s a real possibility you might not survive this.
He stands up, dropping you on the bed and dragging your hips off the edge. He doesn’t kick his jeans off, just lowers them enough for his cock to hang out. You’ll address the fact that he wasn’t wearing boxers later, you’re too worried about what’s hanging between his legs right now.
You’re no virgin, but goddamn, there’s no way that’s going to fit.
He laughs, the noise cruel and it makes shivers crawl down your spine. “We’ll make it work, kid.” He spreads your legs and you tilt your hips up, making it easier for him to just sip inside.
There’s a slight stretch, but you’re already soaked for him. You’ve been waiting for this to happen since you walked in on him naked in your bathroom. “Oh, shit,” you toss your head back, taking in a deep breath while he pushes in. It feels like he’s rearranging your insides, molding you to fit him perfectly.
You can already feel yourself clenching down, just being so close to him is enough to make that tingle in the tips of your toes start. He leans down, placing your legs over his elbows and rutting into you like a wild animal. There’s nothing gentle or slow about this.
You’re both so pent-up, tired from the weeks of dancing around each other. Your nails drag up his back, blood following your movement. Your powers are actively surging against him, pain only driving you further into each other’s arms.
You can hear his breathy grunts and groans in your ears and it’s music to you. Neither of you cares about the party going on just outside the door. You’re loud, skin slapping against skin while you loudly call out his name.
God, you hope they hear you. Hope they realize just how thoroughly you’re wrecked for each other. You can feel yourself getting closer, hips stuttering against his while you struggle to match his pace. “Come on,” he mutters in your ear. He releases one of your legs to reach down and rub your clit.
“Fuck,” you groan, reaching up and tugging at his hair while your back bows. It only takes a few more tight circles of his thumb before you’re spasming around him. He’s quick to follow behind you.
He pins your hips to the bed, dropping your legs while he thrusts faster. He loses his rhythm, the muscles of his abdomen flexing as he cums inside you. It’s like a mini death, you feel like you’ve lost time when you finally manage to come back to yourself.
And when you roll your head to the side you realize just how much damage you’ve done to Wade’s bed. “Shit,” You glance up at the sound of his voice and notice little droplets of blood on your hips. Logan’s claws are out, stuck in the fluff of the bed.
You force the words out, tongue heavy in your mouth. “Do that often?”
“Not really,” he mutters. The claws retreat and he rubs his fingers over the blood. It’s not bad, you’ve honestly done worse to yourself. It’s like a big paper cut. When the rough pad of his fingers presses against the cut you hiss at the sting, nearly enjoying it.
“Must be special,” you tell him with a cheeky grin. He shakes his head with a laugh and takes his time pulling out. You hate the loss of him inside you but it's a slight relief. He's larger than any partner you’ve ever had and it’s almost overwhelming to be so full.
“Come on, let's get you dressed.” He pats your thighs, glancing around for your clothes.
“Uh, Logan,” he looks up and you glance at his still very hard cock. “I thought you came?”
The smile he gives you is slightly terrifying. Because there’s a promise in it. He’s not getting you dressed for no reason. He’s taking you back to your apartment so you can have more fun where there are less people and fewer reminders of Wade. “Stamina's part of the deal, sweetheart.”
“Oh,” you whisper, voice breathless in shock. You wipe the cum off your legs with Wade’s sheets. You feel like you’ve thoroughly gotten revenge on him for destroying your favorite bed set. Maybe, you’ve gone a little farther than revenge, though.
You feel guilty, looking around the room and seeing everything you destroyed. Once you’re dressed, you wave your hand, putting most things back where they belong. But there’s nothing you can do about the bed. The sheets are soaked with a mixture of yours and Logan’s releases and there are six holes dug deep in the bed from his claws.
When you step out of the room with Logan, struggling to press down your hair and get it back into place, Blind Al is waiting by the door. She’s doing a line off the back of her hand when you pass by. You think you’ve almost made it scott-free when she yells, “Man, I wish I couldn’t fucking hear,” at you.
You tense up, shoulders to your ears while you run to the door. Logan laughs, grabbing your coat for you and pressing a hand to your back while he leads you to the apartment. “Weren’t feeling so embarrassed earlier,” he teases.
“Shut up,” you grumble, dragging him into the apartment to finish what you couldn’t on Wade’s bed.
You’ve managed to keep any holes out of your bed, you just have to use your powers to keep his at bay. It’s nice, not having to explain why everything around you is levitating to the person you’re having sex with. There were a lot of awkward conversations that came from that.
You’re lying on Logan’s chest, fingers idly running over the veins in his biceps. “I want to be serious about this,” you tell him.
His hand pauses from where it’d been stroking your back. You sit up on your elbow so you can get a better look at him. “I mean it, I,” there’s no way to say this without sounding like a complete bitch. You just have to rip the bandaid off.
You take in a deep breath, “I know that you still miss her,” you say, unwilling to say her name. Logan sits up, looking more serious now. “But I don’t want to be with you if you think that I’m going to turn into her. Or if you think that I’m the last connection you have to her. I’m not her, Logan, and I'm never going to be her.”
You expect anger on his face or regret, maybe. But you don’t expect him to laugh at you. You roll your eyes, lips pursed while you wait for him to finish. He notices the pissy expression on your face and quiets down, but you still see a smile fighting on his lips.
“I know you’re not her. You could not be more different” he tells you with a slight smirk, like there’s an inside joke you’re missing out on. “I was married to her for a long time and I loved her. But we had our time together. Now, I just want my time with you. You’re not her,” he leans forward, pressing a sweet kiss to your forehead. “That’s why I want you.”
You feel your heart flutter in your chest and have to fight to keep a stupid grin off your face. “Okay,” you whisper. “Good, well as long as we’re on the same page,” you tell him, faux serious. He just rolls his eyes and pulls you back into his arms.
You’re going to cuddle up beside him when you hear your phone going off like crazy on your nightstand. Your face pinches in confusion and you reach over to grab it.
Wade
Did you fuckers have sex???
In my bed!!!!
And you didn’t invite me?!
….
Wade
Tell Logan I want his claws in me next
“Fuckin’ dumbass,” you mutter, throwing your phone somewhere on the bed. Logan laughs again, drawing you closer.
a/n: i have a really weird tendency for masochism, idk what that’s about. I just feel like if you were having sex with this man, he’s taking you like a wild animal. also feel like I might be a one-hit wonder. the smut just wasn’t doing it for me this time guys nor was the angst, i’m disappointed in myself
I just don't think I did justice to his character in the movie, I might have made it too OOC/ if I did PLEASE let me know
Romanticizing your life sounds so stupid but it will help you cope. Taking extra time to make a yummie coffee in the morning, sitting outide observing the wind in the trees, writing poems, going to old book stores, watching your childhood favourite movies, listening to romantic jazz, writing in a coffee shop, making sure you have moody lighting in your room, putting on asmr rooms as a background noise while you work. It's not a solution, but it makes things a bit better.
Summary: Aemond has one of his worst days ever, nothing seems to go right. At night, at least, he gets the company of his new wife as he bathes.
Based on Ewan Mitchell's and TGC 'Scene Reactions' when he says "When we did that scene, when he had the rain machine going in, the dye on the eyepatch... it just stained the wig"
✧Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader
✧Warnings: MDNI 18+, p in v sex, bath sex, breeding kink, overall very sweet, aemond discovering feelings.
✧Word Count: 5.2k
✧ Ao3 link: here
✧gifs: by myfandomprompts
Aemond is known for many things. He is fierceless, perfectionist, well trained with the sword, and bold. Those things he was proud of.
And all those things, he was not today.
He trained by morning, and Criston Cole was waiting for him. The sword felt slightly different on his hand, weird, but he just took it that he slept badly and that's why his arm felt numb.
Now, after losing his eye, he had to learn things differently. He had a considerably big blind spot, and so he learned how to keep it aware of his surroundings as training with the sword. Yet, those things do not have in mind the little rocks on the ground, which he stepped on and twisted his ankle as he tried to defend Ser Criston’s attack.
And with that, he twisted his ankle and slightly cut his hand.
He was annoyed, but he tried not to pay attention to it. A silly mistake. The rock was on his blind side, how could he notice? It was a rookie mistake, and it burned his cheeks to remember it.
By the evening, after eating, he decided to ride Vhagar. His girl liked long rides, not so fast but more calm, and prowling around the crownlands skies.
He did not anticipate the rain.
For some reason or another, Vhagar was as grumpy as him, and she did not seem to want to go over the clouds in the rain. No, she wanted full on take a bath on the rainfall.
And Aemond had to bear it. But what was worse was when he realised that his eyepatch had dyed his hair. He just picked the worst eyepatch today.
His hair was slightly silver auburn, and just in some parts. He hated it, and it made his day ten times worse as he realised the eyepatch had been too tight, and it had been suffocating his scar without him realising.
He had trouble with the sensibility on his left side of his face, and just today he put his eyepatch too tight. It made him furious.
And he decided to make it everyone’s problem.
He was laying in the bathtub, next to the fire as he had a horrible headache. He came in, demanding a bath as the servants had to rush to get him hot water.
He took his own clothes off, kicking his boots away, refusing any servants touch as he undoes his own leather jerkin, he unties his breeches, grunting and mumbling in frustration, hating each instance of this day. He thinks a bath will help him to relax even a bit. He just wanted to sleep, and end up with this horrible day.
His scar itches, and it drives insane. It was as if the itchcame from the deep parts of his cheekbones and it drove him mad. He was at the edge of peeling his own skin to scratch his damn scar.
Only in his undergarments, he ignores the chilling cold from the chamber, and he walks barefoot as the servants fill the bathtub with hot water. As hot as possible. He walks over the chimney, and throws the eyepatch in, hoping it burns in hell.
His loose hair, tinted with the dye of the eyepatch. If he only knew who was the mastermind behind it, who decided to spend coins on it; he would kill them. And they better hope this stupid dye can get off with the bath, or head will start rolling.
The water was hot, but he paid no mind. He liked boiling hot, and he sat against his as he let the attendant boy prepare scents and the oils to put on the water, and to wash him. Aemond didn’t allow him to wash him; yet. He wanted some moments of peace in the hot water, so he remained a good amount of time still.
“Bring me the ointment that Maester Orwyle prepared for my eye” Aemond’s voice is low, yet demanding as the boy gets out, not without bowing to the prince.
He waits, pinching the bridge of his nose as if that would calm his nerves, his headache. He believes it works, so he is focused on it, as he accommodates his legs on the water, trying to be relaxed.
Time is a bit dizzy, and when he hears the door open, he can hear the servants speaking hushedly, as if wanting him not to hear. Good, because he didn’t want to listen to them either.
He can hear the little taps that the shoes do as the maid leaves the oils for his hair on a near table, and takes his hair on her hands, gently. He doesn’t turn to face her; he just wants the damn dye to get off.
Hands wash his hair, and if he wants to relax, this is making it impossible. The little tugs and the awful way that scrubs his hair to take the dye off, and the weird caresses on his neck from time to time.
“You are not doing correctly" he grumbles to the servant with closed eyes as his migraine is persistent. "Learn how to wash a prince's hair" he adds, sharply.
“Apologies” The voice comes as a murmur, a bit strained if even, as the hands go to his neck, and all the way up.
“My prince” He adds sharply, he cannot believe his luck today. “When you address a royal member of the Targaryen House, you use their title. My prince” he says, patronisingly and even angry.
“Yes, my prince” a little cough at the end, he either thinks the maid is trying to hold back a laugh or embarrassment. Not that he cares, as he has his eye closed and a hand on his temple, his head resting on his hand, that caresses his forehead trying to get that awful headache away
Aemond's face was scrunched up in pain, as his eyes were closed. "Are you new at this? I swear... I am starting to believe that they are just sending me incompetent maids to attend to me..." the young prince groaned.
His body stiffens, as arms go to wrap his neck from behind, and before he can sit up properly, he feels the maid kiss his cheek lovingly as she giggles. “Apologies, my prince…”
The voice is clear as day, and if his hand was going to fetch the little dagger on the table by his side, it stops.
He turns his head to his right, seeing your wide smile as you wait for his reaction. He groans, rolling his eyes, which causes you to laugh loudly.
His new wife, she always liked to tease him and cling to him, always hugging him, taking his hand in hers or kissing him all over. He didn’t mind; he always allowed her even at court. But he won’t admit that he likes it too.
“Wife” he greets you as he sighs, and he feels your hand rubbing circles in the back of his neck.
“I know, I do not know how to wash hair. You’ve made it completely clear”
“I thought you were a servant” he says, looking at her. “You are a highborn lady, you don’t need to know how to.”
“True…” you say, moving some of the wet hair out of his face, and squeezing it so it isn’t dripping. “I heard that my prince had a horrible day, and he was in a bad mood. Servants do talk, you know…” you say looking at him with a smile “Wanna tell me about it?”
Aemond sighs and looks at you, as you take the sponge to wash his body. He sighs as you pour some of the water in his chest and start scrubbing softly.
“"A terrible day... I stepped on a rock, and twisted my ankle and cut my arm in the process... Then i wanted to relax with a ride on Vhagar, but it started to rain, the fucking dye of the eyepatch got all over my hair and eye.. I have the worst migraine now..." his voice is rough, and he seems annoyed at the memory of it. “And I haven’t seen you as much as I’d like”
It wasn’t the worst day he has ever lived. Maybe. When he lost his eye it could be the top one. He won Vhagar, at the cost of his eye. It was an amazing thing, traded for the worst thing that has ever happened to him. He was still living the consequences of it today, as his scar stinged on his skin.
“Not your best day, I see” you say softly, scrubbing his chest. He enjoys it, as he looks at you, leaning back in the bath as you scrub his chest. “I’m sorry to hear it”
“I don’t need pity”
You chuckle “It is not pity” you say softly, looking at your husband. “What can I do to make you feel better?”
Aemond stays silent. He is not used to someone caring about him like this. Sure, his mother cared for him, and so did Helaena But not like this.
“Be by my side”
The silence is a bit comforting, as you wash his body. He looks at you deeply, and he cannot help but think how stunning you are. You didn’t find any discomfort in washing him, in caring and tending to him. You never once seem disgusted by his lack of eye, by his empty eye socket, or his ugly scar. Never once you discarded him.
It was more than often that you placed the ointment prepared by maester Orwyle on his eye, his scar, where his nerves were permanently damaged and they brought discomfort to him. You never once complain.
“You look different” he says, looking at you in the dim lights of the room.
“Different how?” you ask, as you finish brushing his hair, making sure the dye is almost completely getting off his wet hair. He has little curls, which makes you smile like an idiot.
“I do not know. Shining. Radiant. Lovely.” He murmurs, moving one of his wet hands to tickle a strand of hair on your ear. “Different”
“So I usually do not look radiant or lovely…”
“Not what I meant” he groans and you chuckle softly. “You were sick. Now you look much better in… spirits.”
“You look different too” You say looking at him with a smile. Your eyes fall to his chest, and you smile. He notices how you get flustered at the sight of his nakedness.
“More wounded” he says ironically, leaning back with a sigh.
“Stronger” you correct him smiling. “More… mhm. I’d say more… Hot”
“You think I am hotter when I'm wounded?”
“Not what I meant” you say chuckling under your breath, “I meant… I like seeing you like this... Leaning back is so... manly, and hot…"
“Oh, do you?” he asks slightly amused, leaning back still as he looks at you, nodding and smiling. Aemond frowns a bit, and he hisses then you accidentally hit his new wound on his wrist.
“Sorry, love” you say, kissing his hand, and smiling. “You know, when I was little they cured my wounds like this. With a kiss”
“Did they?” He asks, trying to remain interested even with his headache.
“Yes. Like this” She says kissing near his wound, a very feather-like kiss. “See? Does it feel better?”
You look at him with an adorable expression, as if you truly think that this would make him feel better. Aemond blinks, as he looks at you.
It ticks him the wrong way that you care about him. Why would you? Perhaps it is a womanly thing. He wasn’t so sure. Perhaps as his wife, it is your burden, having to make a maimed man feel better.
The prettiest maiden in court, chained to a maimed man, deformed and always wounded, stuck in the pain of his eye to see beyond. Wasting your best years with him.
And he cannot decipher why.
“Aemond?” You ask as he trails off.
“Yeah” he clears his throat, awkwardly, and he moves his legs a bit. “I guess so”
“Where else does it hurt?” You ask sweetly.
He sometimes hates how kind you can be, he doesn’t know what your upper intentions are, but after all, you are his wife even if he can’t decipher you.
“Well, my eye, obviously…” he says a bit embarrassed “And… my left foot, I guess. And my arm, because I slept on it… and…”
You nod, looking at him as he speaks. He is intimidated, he realises. You make sure to hear all of what he has to say, with your sweet eyes.
You move to the end of the bathtub, and move to kiss his ankle softly, no complaints, no hesitation. Nothing… odd, about it. Only out of tenderness. You kiss his shoulder, and his left cheekbone, softly, to make sure it doesn’t burn on his skin. He just lets you, because it makes you happy, thinking that it helps.
And he doesn’t realise that it actually helps him, in a way. The smile on your face makes him smile too, and he sighs.
“Better?”
“Mhm” he hums in agreement, looking at your face. “Better when you're with me, yes”
He is utterly head over heels for you, even if he isn’t good with feelings. He loves you, even when he seems slightly annoyed by you.
“And you?”
“And me?” You ask curiously.
“You were sick. Coughing like crazy, and all your body ached.” he says softly, “in confinement, away from me… Do you truly feel better?”
“I am better. Lady Westerling got all of us sick” you say with a slight smirk. “my body still aches a bit, but it’s…” you hesitate a bit, slightly nervous.
“Then join me” he interrupts, moving to try and get you in the bathtub with him. "The hot water will do good to you..."
"It will burn my skin, I hate how hot you take these baths..." you protests, moving his hands off your waist as he tries to pull you in.
"The Blood of the Dragon, wife" he says smugly, smirking. "It is cold, anyways. It is barely warm"
"You like it boiling hot" You say smiling to him, and he presses a kiss on your jaw.
"I do, indeed." He admits "Come on, get in with me"
“Aemond, my nightgown…” you protest, and he rolls his good eye.
“You have others, let it get wet” You seem to give in, as he helps you get in, holding your hand as you enter the bathtub. “It will do good to your aches.” He insists, taking your waist in his hands to place you on his lap.
“I think it is an excuse” you say, blushing a bit as you accomodate on his lap.
“A good one, you must admit” he says looking at you, and he passes his hands all the way up to your back. “But an innocent one, I must admit” he says, and you tilt your head as if asking him to elaborate “I don’t think I am up for anything, I am too tired for it”
You hum, his still wet hair made him look almost cute. His little curls...
“The dye came off” you say, as he leans to kiss your neck a bit. “I can go to the tailor and ask them to make another eyepatch one for you. More fancy. With real leather. Maybe add some fancy dragon scales in it”
“Hm. Fine” he says looking up at you, smiling at how delicious you were. He places a kiss on your hand, and he smiles. “What is bothering you?”
You stay still, blinking a bit. “Court. Ladies… at court. They don't seem to like me much. I mean, they like me but I always feel excluded. Like I am doing too much for them to like me”
Aemond looks at you, a bit surprised by it. He places his hands on your waist, and he certainly was thinking about how to comfort you. He wasn’t a court charmer either, so he hummed.
“I thought you had friends.”
“I do… I guess. They just never seem to think of me when doing things. They do not hate me, no… I am the new one…, and so they just…. Don’t include me”
“I’ll include you” he states nodding. “I’ll bring you with me everywhere. Training, riding Vhagar, in the library, all of it.” He proposes softly.
“Hm. It would be pleasant.”
You smile softly, your hands, now wet and in the water, move from his abdomen all the way up to his chest.
Your husband was well fit. A prince of the realm, training with the sword since he was little. He practised almost every day, and was very detail-oriented in his field. And that paid off, as he was lean; yet muscular.
You two were still newlyweds. Maybe three months since you two married, and things were a bit awkward still. You tried to decipher his odd behaviour and he tried the same with yours, starting to know each other personally, yet there was a bond, a silent affection you both shared for the other.
His body felt warm. He had stayed at the bathtub for Gods know how many hours, and he was all wet and shiny. You hand caressed his muscles, going up from his abdomen to where his wispy chest hair were.
“What is in your mind?”
You hum, and smile “How handsome my husband is” you murmur “How good he is to me…” you add “How much I truly like you…”
Aemond raises his eyebrows, and he looks at you as your hand caress his torso up and down, slowly, as if you were tempting him.
“Oh?”
You nod softly, and even if he doesn’t know you too well; he knows this face.
You move to kiss his neck, your arms wrapped around his torso as you leave little kisses all over his skin. He chuckles a bit, at your little desperation for the demonstration of love, you were such a physical person for him.
“Darling, what are you-”
“I just missed you” You say, and he can see in his head the pout you would form if you weren’t so eagerly kissing his neck.
He chuckles as his hand holds your waist firmly on his lap, and he leans his head back, facing the ceiling as you two spoke. “Very eagerly, I see”
“You are tired. But let me…”
Your arms wrapped around him, holding him as you press gentle kisses there, and he smiles, starting to feel the boiling arousal in his abdomen, looking at the ceiling as if it could distract his mind.
“Very well”
His arms went to the edges of the bathtub, as he felt the fabric of the nightgown against his chest, and he certainly was starting to enjoy the constant nibbling and wetness of your kisses.
Aemond lets out a quiet groan, enjoying the gentle bites at his neck, as he feels his neck a little warmer. “You little minx- Did you just give me a hickey?”
Your giggle tells him all, as you move your lips to the start of his clavicle. His good eye closes as he enjoys the way your mouth feels against his sensitive skin.
“You are simply… delicious” you murmur, your kisses going lower to his chest, before stopping a moment.
“Do not tell me you want to leave a hickey there…” He says, moving his head down to look at you.
As he imagined before, your mouth turns into a pout as you frown; most adorably he must add.
“Oh, please! Let me try” You ask him “It is a way to show you that I missed you” You add, trying to convince him as he chuckles, making a mocking sound.
Aemond rolls his eyes as he feels your eager mouth sucking the skin of his chest, as if he was some kind of… not even he knew. It felt strange. Worshiped and feral. That’s how it felt, at least for him.
Once you separate, you look at your work, your thumb moving along the bruised skin with a satisfied smirk.
“Looks so good on you” you swear, as if it was a matter to be known.
“If it makes you happy” he says, accommodating on his seat, the water moving along with him. “My turn, then?”
You shake your head with a giggle “You always make it a mess!”
That he did, and he smiles a bit, seeing the lack of lovemarks of your neck.
It is you who eagerly kiss him, and press your body to his, as if needing him. He isn’t one to complain, as he feels your eager lips pressing against his and your tongue invading his mouth. Rather bold, to his taste. But he likes it.
Your hands on his shoulder make their slow way down, passing temptingly slow from his chest, to his abdomen. He gasps in the kiss, as if he was some kind of maiden, when he feels your hands underwater on his crotch and touching his cock.
He frowns a bit as he separates, trying to demand an answer. “Wha-” he tries to ask before you shut him up with a kiss, not even letting him speak.
Rather eager, aren’t we… He thinks, but he isn’t one to complain, as your touch is like magic to his dick. In the water is odd, he has to admit, but his member thinks otherwise as he gets aroused from your eagerness.
You smooch him with kisses, and he feels… intimidated, in a good way. You don’t even allow him to breathe without going for another kiss, desperate. Feral.
He has a feral wife, it seems.
“Darling, what are you…” he asks amused as you break the kiss, just to move your wet skirts all the way up, but he can’t see much of your pussy in the water, which he dislikes a lot.
“I missed you” you repeat “A lot.”
“It isn’t as if you were confined in a tower for years. It was barely two days. And I visited you-”
“I need you, husband” you state impatiently, as your knees move to the sides of his hips. “so, if you are tired, I’ll do it”
He blinks, surprised and taken aback. He is rather amused and aroused, at his bold wife.
“Alright” he says, looking at you as you can do the work alone.
He isn’t tired for sex, not at all. He can certainly get the energy, maybe not perform as usual, but he’ll do it if you ask. You didn’t even need to ask for it. But seeing you in control is better than that.
You rode him once, for later to admit that it wasn’t your favourite position, because you grew tired quickly. He didn’t mind, but now he thinks he’ll have you riding him at least once a week.
The way your dick enters your body is slow, as you slowly lower yourself on it. He can see your face contoured with pleasure, how you shut your eyes, and your hands grip on his shoulders as you whimper on it, you open your mouth and he leans to kiss your neck a bit, as if wanting to give back the affection you give him.
More than bounce on it, you find it more practical to grind on it. Your hands, that move between his waist and his shoulders, as if you didn’t know where to hold him to help you grind against his cock.
“That’s so good…” you whimper as you grind on his cock.
The water moves around, the harder you grind, the harder it moves on the bathtub. He is even sure that some of it has overflowed the bathtub, as he looks at your pretty face, as you moan needily. His hand moved to pull down your nightgown, just enough to expose both of your tits in the firm fabric. He pulls it down to expose your shoulders a bit, and it is a sight that only arouses him more.
“It’s so good, baby?” He asks looking up to you, and he leans his head to kiss your nipple, gently.
He knows you missed him. You are not rough, or a mess on his cock. You are doing it so prettily, so sweetly, he knows that you truly have missed him and his touch.
“Yeah, so-so good.” You babber a bit, nodding as he kisses your other breast softly. He does not hold you, he has his hand on the back, trying to keep him firm as you ride him.
His right hand holds your waist, as he notices. Your arms are on his shoulders as you whimper and moan, grinding him, not even minding the water around.
He has to admit, in the bathtub isn’t as comfortable as outside of it. The water doesn’t help to be smoother, if anything, he has the impression it does the contrary. It may be just him, as you don’t say anything against it.
“So eager, baby…” he says amazed, and now he feels like the one worshipping you. He just adores you, he realises, as he sweetly talks you through it “You just needed me, this badly?” He asks, kissing your jaw.
The little nods you give him are enough to get him moving his hips slowly up to meet your little grinds and bounces.
He kisses your breast again, and the other, and the other. He adores you, how the little mewls from your mouth are so arousing for him as you clench your pussy around him.
“Aemond…” you whine. “Feels.. amazing, so good...” you repeat, as if you couldn't think of anything else, as he looks up to you.
He is just surprised you have gotten this far without begging him to take control. They way he’d take your waist and flip you around, to make you hold the other edge of the bathroom, just to take you from behind, again, and again, and again. The water would overflow the bathtub completely, and his seed would be securely in your womb.
But you don’t ask him, and he doesn’t do it. He likes the sweetness of it. He likes how you look at him needily for both of your lips to meet on a kiss, passionate as your bounces and grind are slightly weaker.
“My special girl…” he murmurs, kissing you again and again, not minding if they are pecks or if he has the opportunity for his tongue to play with yours. “I love you”
You nod, whimpering and whining as you say it back. I love you, I love you, I love you. Again and again, as if it was some prayer.
“Aemond” you moan into his mouth,
“I know. Can you feel how good you take me?” He asks softly, kissing your chin, as he holds your waist to help you bounce on his cock. The splash of the water amuses and arouses him, and he groans at the sight of your nightgown fully soaked, glued to your figure.
“Mhm. Yes, yes, Gods, yes” you said, probably numb and already cockdrunk, just enjoying the feeling of his cock so deep inside.
“You want me to fill you, hm? To make you round with my seed, baby?” He asks, looking at you, moving to kiss your neck.
He is also rambling at this point, as you squeeze him in the perfect way, asking to be filled with cum. He ignores how the water splashes his chest and back, how it is practically soaking the carpet under the bath, and making a mess. He has to remember how wet it might be so you two don’t slide on the floor.
“Aemond, I… oh, Gods, Aemond!”
You little moans are music to his ears, as he holds your waist to move you down to his cock, to his taste. Not as rough as usual, but certainly desperate enough to want to cum.
“Will you cum for me, darling?” He asks, as he feels your hips grinding more desperately on him, and he throws his head back on the edge as he feels his balls tighten as well. You did wonders on him. “Cum for me and I’ll fill you up as you so much like” he promises, almost feral for you to cum.
Your release made him moan, loudly, as he held you tight on his cock as he cums as well. He looks lazily at you, panting and whimpering still, which only serves to fuel the last remains of arousal on his abdomen, filling your womb with his cum. He hopes it takes root and to see you grow pregnant as moons pass by.
“Thank you” you say, breathless against his chest, kissing his cheek sweetly.
He smiles a bit, by how pleasure drunk you obviously were. He moves you slightly, to pull out from you and accommodate you on his chest, which you take comfort in. “Nothing to be thankful for. I thank you. Having sex is rather… good for when one had a bad day” he says smiling.
You smile, and look at him, caressing his chest as you remain in this position, calmly breathing as he tries to stop panting.
“Have I made it better?” You ask, softly, looking up to him.
He chuckles softly, almost amused by how ridiculous the question was.
“Just by having a sight of you, you make my day better” he says.
Even if he was new to this whole marriage thing, even if sometimes he didn’t know you that well as your ladies-in-waiting and sometimes just allowed you to be even if it bothered him. He didn’t understand you most of the time, but he certainly adored you, very dearly.
“I can make it even better” you say almost proudly, and he raises his eyebrow, looking at you laying on his chest. The water wasn’t even hot anymore, but more cold than he could bear.
“Oh, how so?” He asks amused. “Did you claim a dragon? Only that can top the amazing moment that we just-”
“I am with child” you say simply, looking at him with a smile.
He stops on his tracks, and looks at you as he takes in what you said. He blinks, looking at you, and you smile awkwardly at him. Was he happy? The prospect always puts him in a good mood. But maybe it wasn’t as you thought? One thing was words, and other actions.
You watch his eye as he seems to have hundreds of thought per second, his face slight confused as he frowns a bit, before his lips turn into smile full of disbelief.
“Are you joking?”
“No... Maester Orwyle informed me this morning” you say softly. “He says that probably our wedding night was fruitful. I don't know. I don't look that pregnant, after these months. We have to figure it out in these days, so we can see when the birth is due... It's funny, because at first we thought it was from the sickness, that I got the worst part… but I just happened to be sick and pregnant”
That's why Maester Orwyle looked at him with a slight smirk as he helped desinfect his arm after training. You probably asked him to keep the secret so you could tell him.
That's why there was something off about you. He couldn't get exactly what, but something was off. It made sense, how nervous you were and how you tried to tell him before, but he was a fool to not notice it.
“Oh, my love…” he says, as he wraps his arms around you, hugging you tightly to him. “Oh… I don’t… I... What can I even say to that?”
He is surprised, and he can’t believe it. You were pregnant. You actually were. His little offspring, growing in your womb right at this moment. Your stomach was not firm by any mean, he couldn't decipher it even if he liked so.
“That is… That is the best thing anyone has ever told me” he admits, chuckling a bit in surprise. “You are going to be a mother. And you are going to make me a father”
"We are, indeed" You say smiling to him. "In some months, it will be me, you and a weeping babe"
He can feel his nose burn as he smiles, the image on his head as he forces himself not to cry of happiness, a weird chuckle comes out of his mouth.
"You are right" he says looking at you. "So, you are definitely moving to my chambers now, aren't you? No more personal chambers, no more confinement when sick. You are not leaving my side, not you or our little dragon" He states nodding, not for discussion. He can't have you just wandering around without him near to protect both of you.
He smiles, as you giggle. His day certainly got better, all thanks to you. His hands caress your back soothingly, as he is just... happy. He forgets about his horrible day, how his ankle still hurts or how his scar stings on his cheek and forehead as he smiles. What is that compared to the joy of knowing that he will be a father? A father to your children as well?
“Now, how come Lady Westerling got my pregnant wife sick?” he teases you as you roll your eyes. “She is in so much trouble, who does she think she is? Both my wife and my sweet baby? Oh, she is not going to see sunlight ever again-”
“Aemond!” you giggle, but he smooches your cheek with kisses that only makes your giggles grow louder.
NEARLY BROUGHT ME TO MY KNEES | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [2]
Description: FIVE times Spencer thinks he might like you + the ONE time he knows.
Word length: 20k
Trigger Warnings: death, murder, Lauren arc, spencer's addiction mentioned, Diana's schizophrenia mentioned, vomit, alcohol, blood, usual criminal mind warnings. mommy AND daddy issues in the prentiss family.
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‘so sweet with a mean streak
nearly brought me to my knees.’
The one where he tries flirting
Emily tutted at her as the girl blindly shoved the Lucky Charms in her mouth, her tongue staining a gross blue-green colour from the additives as she read from a battered copy of Anna Karenina. Bugsy had been living with her for just two weeks now, since her impromptu fleeing from the altar, and Emily’s certainly had a good insight into the life of the twenty three year old.
Yes, it was her birthday next week. No, she didn’t act her age anymore than she had at twenty.
“Bug, slow down.” Emily urged, a rogue orange marshmallow dribbling down her chin as she plunged the spoon in before she’d even swallowed the last mouthful, “You get sick when you eat too fast,”
Bugsy waved her off with the utensil, not even ripping her eyes away from the page in front of her, scooping up the marshmallow with the side of her finger and popping it into her mouth.
Emily rolled her eyes, downing a few sips of her coffee and heading for the stairs, knowing her ride would be here any moment and she still had yet to change her shirt from the one she’d spilled toothpaste down not ten minutes earlier.
“Niko needs breakfast when you’re done,” The older of the two shouted down to the breakfast table, a streak of tabby grey running under her feet at the sound of food. Bugsy had insisted she bring her new feline friend into Emily’s apartment, and as much as she’d hated the way she nearly tripped over the chubby bastard almost every day they’d been here, she certainly had a fondness for him.
Bugsy hummed in acknowledgement, though she scraped the edges of her bowl clean by the time the cat in question hopped up onto the counter in search of her leftover milk.
“This is not for you, you have too much already,” She scolded, shovelling the last few sugary pieces of cereal into her mouth right as the door knocked.
She dogeared her page, gulping down a quick sip of Emily’s coffee, cringing when she caught it was much too strong for her liking, and heading for the door, her sister yelling to her again.
“Bug, can you get that- wait- are you wearing pants?”
She certainly wasn’t, having rolled straight out of bed in a pyjama shirt and underwear, and towards the promise of breakfast, nor as she swung the front door to the apartment open before Emily had a chance to rush down the stairs.
Spencer could have laughed when he saw her, all too reminiscent of the first time he’d met her. The boxers that hugged her legs beneath a large top he was entirely convinced was not hers, though her face lit up in excitement to see him.
“Good morning!” He thrust a coffee to-go into her hand, still warm even from where it had been jostled around in his car.
“You’re my saviour,” She grinned, sipping on the sweet beverage with bright eyes, “Cute sweater vest-”
She was quickly manhandled behind the door by two firm hands, Emily’s face enraged as she glared down at her sister where she was now out of sight from the doctor.
“What did I tell you about wearing pants? Huh? You nearly gave Mrs Jensen a heart attack last week,” Emily hissed, as Bugsy shrugged, remembering the look of horror the old woman across the hall had given her when she’d taken the trash out in a hoodie and booty shorts.
“It’s Spencer,” She poked her head around the door, despite Emily’s shoving, like she was taming a wild animal, “You don’t mind, do you?”
He shook his head, an amused and easy smile on his face as he watched the sisters bicker, not entirely unlike the way he and Emily tended to pick at one another.
“Not at all; I agree pants are loathable,” And he wasn’t lying. He tried to go for looser fitting trousers or sweat pants, hating the way the tight fabrics restricted his legs, rubbed his skin, making him want to itch and squirm inside his body.
“Don’t you start,” Emily pointed at him, huffing as she stepped out of the apartment, “You know she gets all worked up and weird on sugar,”
“Hey, I’m the last person to deny someone a coffee,” He replied, and the two turned to head back to his car, not before he threw the younger woman a look over his shoulder and a wave.
“Go save the world, kiddos.” She waved back, sipping her coffee indeed with bare legs that would have a nun blushing, “Curfews at nine, Doctor Reid, I expect both of you home for dinner!” She nudged the door closed with her hip before Niko could run out after Emily, and Spencer chuckled to himself, shaking his head.
“See, told you,” Emily sniggered, rolling her eyes, “Weird,”
Though that wasn’t quite the word he’d have used.
–
A killer, so far as they had been able to profile from the four bodies, was targeting women he picked up in night clubs in Atlanta. Most of the team, except Derek, had outgrown the clubbing scene, though Spencer didn’t quite think he’d ever been in it to start with. They all went to O’Keeffe’s usually once a month or so for a quick drink, but it was not big on his list.
Rossi, Reid and Derek stared at the puddle of blood on the sidewalk, wincing as Emily leaned over the balcony, the five story drop making her tug her lip in between her teeth.
This woman must have been terrified by something, someone, to see this as a better way out.
“Maybe she fought back,” Hotch speculated behind her, drawing her attention back to the cleaning equipment scattered over the floor, entirely different to the last three crime scenes where they had been arranged neatly into a triangle, “And when Becky fought back, his routine was compromised, cause he knew the police would respond,”
“Or she could have jumped,” Emily responded gravely, shaking her head at the carpet beneath her boots, “Her nervous system is pumping adrenaline, her fight or flight response kicks in?” Both were equally plausible options, but not ones they had time to entirely pick over.
“He’s struck two Fridays in a row, and if his routine’s been interrupted, it might compel him to strike again,” Hotch said, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his brow furrowed deeper than it usually was.
“It’s Saturday, the clubs will be packed tonight,” Emily replied, her eyes sad, worried.
“Take a look at the classes the Unsub might have taken, we need to generate a suspect pool as soon as possible,” Her boss ordered, and she nodded heading for the door before she stopped, looking at him with a grimace he didn’t quite understand, “What is it?”
“Bugs-my sister used to work as a shot girl in a club.” She said after a moment of thought, “She could smell a rat from a mile away; said most girls who work in bars get this sixth sense about guys with bad intentions, so they know when to cut them off earlier than most,”
Emily looked at him for a moment, and he seemed troubled, hesitant as she was to even tease the idea to him, before he sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead.
“Call her in.” He said through an outbreath, gritting his teeth the way he did when he was in between a rock and a hard place.
Rock being another girl murdered by tonight with a huge opportunity to catch the guy in the act missed. Hard place being a twenty-three year old risking her skin for his team for a third time. He hated the paperwork she brought him, hated the look on her face the day Spencer and Derek had dragged her out of that chapel bloodied and shaken even more.
“But she wears a vest under her clothes, and she stays with Reid and Morgan,” He reasoned, “And just purely scouting; if the Unsub strikes, she gets out there like any other civilian.”
Emily nodded, her hand routing through her pockets for her phone already, “Couldn’t agree more,” She said, hitting the call button with a sigh. She just hoped this time her baby sister wouldn’t be making any drastic calls like throwing herself in the Unsub’s way. Though, Emily knew Spencer wouldn’t let her take another hit for him ever again. Not after the way he’d seemed so distraught the moment she’d been dragged from that room, his eyes all but glistening with tears when he’d seen her on the bed, bloodied and beaten for his sake.
No, Emily could stake her life on the fact Reid would go down swinging before that ever happened to her again.
-
“When you think about the nature of serial crimes, it’s amazing there aren’t more predators in clubs,” Spencer said, hoping the pretty girls he’d managed to snag into conversation didn’t hear the way his voice stuttered. This was so far out of his depth, the entire club atmosphere suffocating him worse than any tight pants ever could. The music was too loud, the heavy bass making him wince, the air was too close, too warm, the bodies that kept shoving past him made him want to shower for two hours straight and then wash his hands as well. He’d turned down the drink Derek had offered him, knowing the exact amount of bacteria that swarmed the ice behind the bar, on the rims of the glasses, on the taps-
Spencer was more than overwhelmed. And talking to beautiful women was not helping his flushed demeanour whatsoever.
“I mean, excessive amounts of alcohol, countless opportunities for date rape drugs, not to mention suprisingly risky behaviour being pursued,” He counted off, his satchel strapped tightly to his side, “All right, so who wants a flyer?” The three women turned their nose up in awkward smiles, the tallest pushing past him with little more than an outright scoff, the other girl following her like lost dogs, “Nobody? Okay, all right,” He said, his face crestfallen at their reaction, though he wasn’t so unused to it. Girls tended to react that way when he spoke, his entire high school career had been the same. Infact, the only girl other than his co-workers who ever bothered to listen when he spoke was-
“I’ll take one,” A voice came from behind him, the same one he had incidentally been thinking of since they’d left Emily’s apartment, and he could already tell she was smiling before he whipped around to see her slinking through the crowd.
He was ready to retort something clever, but felt his words congeal in his throat. He had thought, that day when he’d stopped the elevator and seen her in a sodden wedding dress, that he had seen her at her most beautiful. Yes, her makeup had been tracking down her face with her tears, her hair sticking to her cheeks, her expression weepy. But she had reminded him of a star, glistening with the rain, the water shimmering off the snow white fabric, it had taken his breath away then, even when she’d thrown her arms over his shoulders, as if he was the only thing that she could grab on to for safety.
But that dress was nothing like the one she wore now.
It was nothing extravagant, and truthfully he’d seen at least ten girls in this club alone that had gone way more lavish than she had bothered to on such short notice. But, Spencer couldn’t help but take her whole image in as she shoved her way in front of him, an easy smile on her face.
“Beats boxers and pyjama shirts, huh?” She twirled cheekily, warming under his gaze that blinked heavily at her. The dress had been an old thing she’d bought for a frat party, when she’d felt particularly sorry for herself and was going out looking for a bonehead jock to take home. It fit her nicely, complimented the areas she wanted it to, hid the others. A good fail safe option for a last minute night out like this. Covered the kevlar vest Hotch and Emily had wrangled her into.
Not her finest moment, being jumped on by her older sister as her boss forced the bullet jacket over her head; the new girl, Jordan, staring in discomfort as she’d cursed both of them out colourfully for ruining her outfit, but the way Spencer seemed to gulp heavily made her smile wider.
“You look…” He swallowed again, his fingers digging into the flyers in his hand. Hot. She looked hot. Hot enough that he felt his face flush with the same feeling, he hoped she couldn’t see the way he blushed beneath the club lights, “Beautiful,” He settled on, because ‘hot’ was an entirely Derek word to use.
“So you keep telling me,” Bugsy preened under his gaze, grinning like she knew something he didn’t. Grabbing one of the flyers from his sweaty palms gently, she took a look at the general sketch, not noticing the way he had yet to tear his eyes off her, “Alright, this the guy?”
“Yeah, we think he has a mark of some sort- like a birthmark or a scar over his left eyebrow,” He informed, corralling her towards where Morgan stood, his own eyes widening at the girl’s attire.
They knew she was coming to help scout the scene, they didn’t realise she’d come so ready. Derek immediately felt stupid for doubting her.
“Woah, did someone call the fire department, because you’re about to set the damn sprinklers off,” He teased, her face lighting up at the man she knew had a way of making her feel a million bucks every time he saw her.
Emily said he had little sisters of his own, and maybe that was how he knew just what to say. He had many years of experience being the best big brother.
“Oh, please, you guys spoil me,” She snickered, though her eyes scanned the crowd for a general scope of the club. Safe to say she did not miss the eight pm till four am shifts she used to pull, nor did she miss the drunk bodies swaying around her, the men who would get handsy, the girls who would get scrappy, “So, how’s it going?”
“Not good, I gave the profile to one woman and she asked if I was the unsub,” Spencer sighed, running a hand through his rogue curls, the humidity of the stuffy bar making them tighten around his ears just that bit more. “How are you doing?”
“Well, I gave out all my flyers,” Derek said smugly, though Spencer’s eyebrows raised, a smile teasing at his lips.
“Oh yeah? How many phone numbers did you get?” Bugsy snorted at his words, looking between the men with a smirk.
“None, I’m working the case here, kids,” Derek tutted, to which Spencer and Bugsy looked at eachother with identical doubt, flicking their gaze back to Morgan. He huffed, “Okay, four were offered, but I didn’t take any of them.”
Spencer’s jaw dropped, face scrunching in confusion how Morgan was so charismatic with women even when he wasn’t trying.
“Alright, I’m gonna go grab more flyers from the van. You,” He clapped a hand on Spencer’s shoulder, “Need to relax, man. Remind me to teach you the basics on picking up girls. And you,” Derek pointed to where Bugsy nodded patiently, “Make sure wonder boy doesn’t get eaten alive. And stay together.”
She nodded again, watching him leave through the crowd; already a woman grabbed on his arm for his attention, where she watched him politely decline with one of those flirty smoulders he’d mastered.
“I don’t get how he does it. I mean, I get he has the whole body of a God thing going for him,” Spencer sighed, as the two of them went back out into the crowd, scanning for a group of girls who looked particularly sober enough to listen, “But, he just has this way, you know. I’ll don’t think I’ll ever have the way,”
“Don’t put yourself down like that,” She chastised, nudging him affectionately with her elbow, “You’re very beautiful yourself, you know? You don’t need some stupid way, you just need to be yourself,”
She said it as if it was nothing, as if it hadn’t just hit him in the chest that she thought he was attractive, though he still remembered that first day they’d met when she assumed he was a stripper.
His heart swelled in his chest.
“You really think so?” He asked unsure, waiting for her to laugh in his face and tell him it had just been a tease, she was good at those. But she was never cruel. Never to him. He didn’t know why he’d expected it.
“Absolutely! I’ve seen like three girls already giving you goo-goo eyes. Believe me, you got the looks,” She simpers, watching his eyes scan the crowd to look for the supposed culprits.
“So, what, it’s my personality they don't like?” He asked, though he knew that was more than likely the case. He’d always been told he buzzed in people’s ears like a fly, like he was simply background noise the greater population wanted to tune out.
He knew that would be it. It didn’t stop the small stab of hurt in his stomach however.
“If someone doesn’t like your personality, that is a them problem, Spencer, not you,” Bugsy was quick to snap, the joking lessening in her eyes as she caught his dejected expression, “Girls like it when you talk about something you enjoy, something you know what you’re talking about. Which should be easy, since you know everything. What do you feel most comfortable talking about?”
“Statistics,” He said with a nod, to which she looked at him fondly.
“Okay, we have statistics as a backup option. Anything else?” She looked at him, the light bouncing off her eyes in a way that had him pause to think.
“Magic?” He offered, and she smiled even wider, if that was even possible.
“Magic! Perfect, girls love feeling magical,” She beamed, nudging him again with her elbow, and the two of them walked over to the bar, “Show me then, Gandalf. What moves would you pull on me if I was a girl?”
He blinked at her, “Are you … not a girl?” He asked, pure bewilderment on his face as he stole a few napkins from the counter.
She snickered, “Okay, if I wasn’t me. If you didn’t know me,”
“If I didn’t know you, I’d be way too nervous to even talk to you. And you definitely wouldn’t want to talk to me,” He said as he fiddled with the paper between his obnoxiously long fingers, folding the sheets into miniature shapes.
She chuckled at him, shaking her head. It had never been like this with them before. Sure, she teased him, like she always had, but he was teasing back. Complimenting her with a seriousness beyond just being nice.
Something was different in him since the day Cyrus dragged her away. And if that hadn’t done it, then seeing her every morning for two weeks had changed the boyish anxiety that had lingered even then.
“Stop stalling and show me these tricks of yours,” She bit playfully, though the grin she gave him was genuine as she saw something mischievous flash in his eyes.
“Patience is virtue, patience is virtue-” He murmured, fiddling with the short, plastic straws they kept at the bar, “Now for this to work, I’m going to need a beautiful assistant. Do you think you could find one for me-”
She smacked his arm, and he snickered. She shook her head, fighting her own laugh overcoming her.
Maybe she was right. Talking about something he loved made him feel entirely at ease, like he controlled every angle their conversation took, and the air between them had taken this odd electric turn he wasn’t expecting like someone had pumped a thousand volts under his skin.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” He replied, holding out one of the straws, about as plain and simple as it would be if it were in a drink, “But I will need some magic words,”
“Ofcourse,” She drawled, her cheeks hurting from how tight she was smiling, “What are they?”
“Magic words are, ‘I’ll be there’” He instructed, fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves as he watched her frown, and he pointed the straw at her mouth like a microphone, “You got it?”
“Yep,” She responded, even though the confusion read clear as day on her face. He tapped the straw on her nose and cleared his throat.
“3, 2, 1,” He tapped it to her temple, then to each of her shoulders, “Go on a date with me?”
“I’ll be there,” She responded, and in a strobe of light the single instrument became a trio of origami roses, stuffed into the straws as stems.
Her brain caught up to her as he gently placed them in her hand, her eyes gazing at him like he had just presented her with a 24 carat diamond, though in reality it was nothing more than a silly trick with napkins and plastic.
“Spencer,” She said earnestly, and he could have sworn her voice quivered for a split second, before she shook her head at him, punching him on the hip gently, “You are the most humble man I’ve ever met. You do that to any other girl and you’re getting laid, I’m telling you,”
He rubbed his chin bashfully, both of them catching the way the waitress behind the bar watched him with large, blue eyes Bugsy could have bathed in. She was gorgeous, and she stared at Spencer as if she’d been the one given roses.
Attracted. Interested.
“Talk to her,” Bugsy whisper-yelled, nodding over to the barmaid who busied herself with another order, though they both saw the way her flicking glances to the two of them as she scooped ice, “She would have seen if a guy like that frequented somewhere like here, talk to her,”
“What- no-” He protested, but his eyes widening as Bugsy leaned over the bar to flag the woman down with that playful charisma of hers, not missing the way a few heads turned as the dress tightened around her ass as she bent forward.
He felt his chest flash with anger, glaring at the men, hoping it was enough to ward them off. Her hand enclosed around his wrist, drawing his attention back to the bartender who watched him with a sweet face. He had to admit she was attractive.
“This is my very best friend, Spencer,” Bugsy told the woman, who smiled at him, and the Prentiss girl lifted his hand up to wave at her like he was a ragdoll, “Spencer, wanted to show you something, didn’t you, Spence?”
Raising her eyebrows at him, nodding to the flyers in his hand.
“I’m gonna go dance,” She fibbed, knowing she was going to go scout out the crowd to see if any guys fit the profile, nudging him a little harder than before, “Remember what we talked about. I’ll be by the DJ,”
Grinning encouragingly, he watched her swoop into the crowd like it was second nature, not missing the collection of guys who watched her every move; she captured the room when she moved, when she smiled, when she politely excused herself past a group of girls that tried to pull her into their circle with friendly cheers.
He did another one of his tricks for Austin, he’d come to learn was the name of the girl behind the bar, but it hadn’t felt the same, not even when she gave him her number unprompted, even as she flirted, smiled prettily, batted those sea blue eyes at him. It wasn’t the same.
He worried for a moment that the electricity he’d felt was reserved only for Bugsy, but he squashed it down faster than he could confront the idea.
2. The one where he nearly dies
“I don’t know how to do this,” JJ confessed, her bluebell eyes filled with tears as she stared out of her boss’ office and into the bullpen full of officers, scientists and even the damn military tearing through pages and pages of resources for answers.
Anthrax. A weapon of mass destruction they’d already had a small dose of, was on the move through the BAU’s own city. And they each had strict instructions to not alert their loved ones.
“I can’t stop thinking about Henry,” She whimpered through a strong facade as she turned to Hotch, and she saw the same guilt eating him up in those dark eyes of his that rarely let anything slip.
He had Jack. He had Haley, even with the divorce papers signed so long ago. He had people at risk too. And yet she couldn’t stop seeing her precious little boy’s face as he lay back in his pushchair and enjoyed the sights of the park, the same park that had just been targeted with an airborne disease-
“He goes for a walk almost every single day at Potomac Park,” She sniffed, the nausea chewing away at her brain as she recounted the lesions on that poor teenage girls skin, that's going to be Henry, that’s going to be Will, “What type of mother am I if I don’t atleast call and tell them to stay home?”
“JJ, we can’t,” Hotch said, though he felt his own dam start to tear down as he tried not to think of what could possibly happen to his own sweet son.
“I know, but-” Her throat bobbed, “It-it’s not just me- Emily’s worried about Bugsy. She told me she cuts through the park on the way to her lectures- she has one every day this week- Hotch-”
It was true. She had caught Emily in her own turmoil as the woman sped off to grab a drink seconds after chugging down the dose of Cipro they’d all been given that morning. She’d caught her filling a glass of water until the liquid started leaking down the sides and went over her shaking fingers, and even then she’d had to tug her friend out of whatever rabbit hole the words ‘Media Blackout’ had sent her down.
“I understand you both have people you want to protect,” Hotch was the voice of reason, as he always was, and it stung her to see his face so cold since she knew he was drowning his own sorrows behind it, “But if we all called home and used this information to give us an advantage other people don’t have, is that the right thing to do?”
She bit her lip, knowing he was right. She just prayed on everything she had Will would stay home with Henry today, Haley would have a movie night with Jack, and for whatever she had seen in Emily’s eyes earlier, a pure, unadulterated self-loathing, that Bugsy at least took the day off teaching.
JJ prayed, and prayed, and prayed.
–
She shuffled her notes together as she marked papers at her desk. They let her take the office to herself since she’d been at the University for five months now, gave her free reign of her lectures without having a supervisor like they had the first eight weeks or so. Bugsy enjoyed, surprising as it was to her, the feeling of somewhere that wasn’t the laboratory. Emily and Spencer had forced her to apply for jobs when they caught her binge watching real housewives for the sixth time back to back, of course lacking any bottoms.
Emily didn’t know why she thought twenty-four year old Bugsy would be any different. They had thought at least that Derek holding her hair back on the night of her birthday party as she threw up copious amounts of jello shots on the sidewalk would be an eye opening moment, but it hadn’t deterred her in the slightest. She had just chucked a handful of gum in her mouth, patted the man on the back and asked Emily to hit up the drive thru on their way home.
It wasn’t until she got the job did she feel a little bit more responsible, like what she was doing actually affected the people around her. Teaching first year college students was so very different than she’d expected, she was the authority figure.
She could hear her mother laughing at her now.
She almost smudged the little smiley face she’d drawn beside one of her student’s B+ as the phone rang on her desk, because she had an office phone believe it or not, and she cleared her throat, trying to sound as grown up as possible whilst also trying not to grin how excited she was to use her new landline.
“Miss Prentiss speaking, who’s calling?” She said, almost not recognising herself as she squeezed her gel pen in delight. She had this grown up thing down to a tea.
“Hi, Bug.” Spencer’s voice sounded out of breath, and she heard his converse slapping against a linoleum floor fast, as if he was pacing, “I got a quick hypothetical to run through with you,”
“Y-yeah, sure- Where are you?” She asked, her brows furrowing when he gave a wheezy cough, “Spence?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you, but I’m fine- for now,” He winced as he said the last part, as if it had slipped unintentionally, as if he knew what was coming next. He could practically hear her brain ticking over, “So, when you’re in the lab-”
“What do you mean for now?” She cut him off, standing up from her desk, already collecting her pencils back into their little pink case, “Where’s Emily? Is she okay? Is anyone hurt?”
“Everyone’s fine; as I was saying, hypothetically, when you’re in the lab where would you-” He talked over her right back, his slender fingers flicking through the piles of work, hoping he stumbled on a formula, a sticky note, a damn cheat sheet, anything.
“Don’t avoid my question, Spencer,” She snapped, and she could already feel the worry lines on her forehead.
He sighed, hoping she couldn’t hear the way his chest rattled and he choked down a cough. It would only make her worry more.
“I promise I will tell you what’s going on if you just answer my question,” Spencer rushed, feeling his face growing sweaty, opening the entire cabinet of drawers. “Okay?”
She nodded, biting her nail, as she sat back down. “Okay fine, shoot,”
“Where would you put your valuable items if you didn’t trust your lab partner while the two of you were working together?” He asked, wiping his brow with his sleeve as he held the phone tight to his ear with his shoulder.
She paused for a moment, “Well it’s standard practice that all jewellery comes off before we get scrubbed, so as not to contaminate anything. I usually put my scrunchie through my rings and tied it back into my hair so they wouldn’t get stolen. I knew some guys who put their watches around their ankles. Basically anywhere we could feel it on us,”
He cleared his throat again, and she heard him take a few steps, “How’s grading papers going? Did you get a fax machine yet?”
He was trying to change the subject, trying to take her mind off whatever it was he was doing that required such an urgent and peculiar question.
“It’s going good, I miss you bringing me coffee; it was like I had a maid who helped me with my crosswords,” She said, biting her bottom lip squeezing her thumb in the middle of her fist to slow the nerves. He tried to pretend he wasn’t smiling hearing that. “Now tell me what’s wrong. Did you go running without your inhaler again? I told you to leave a spare at ours so I could rescue you if you ever-”
“Bugsy, you’re a genius!” He cried, ignoring the way it made his throat burn, “Remind me to tell you every single day how smart you are- I have to go,”
“Spence- Spencer-” She tried to cut in, but he had already put the phone down.
So much for not worrying her, she thought, as she got on the phone to Emily within seconds.
-
Bugsy all but burst through the hospital doors, apologising when she nearly knocked a stack of files from a nurse's hands, wishing she had an inhaler herself after she had ran all the way from the car park, including the three flights of stairs.
After calling in sick the rest of the day, and practically volleying her rucksack into the passenger's seat of her car, she had blindly called Emily four more times until the woman answered with a frightened lilt to her voice.
Spencer was headed to the hospital. Spencer was headed there on full blues with lungs full of an even deadlier strain of Anthrax. Last Emily had heard he was getting worse. Bugsy put her foot down on the pedal even harder.
She knew the speeding ticket would come any day, and didn't even want to think about the state of her parking. All she cared about the second the lady at the desk had said what room he was in was seeing he was okay, that he wasn’t growing lesions or choking on his own blood or having half of his brain boiled alive.
Bugsy felt a small spike of panic, if it could even get worse, as she yanked the curtain back to see him asleep, a cannula tucked into his nose, a hospital gown tied over his shoulders.
Diving for his file that was attached to the end of his bed, she looked through his information to check what meds he’d been given. He once told her he was allergic to narcotics, said he had been since birth, and while she trusted one of the team to have passed the information on, she had to see it for herself that he was stable.
No narcotics given. Only paracetamol for his fever that was rapidly coming down. She could breathe again.
She jumped out of her skin when the curtain rail was pulled back a second time, and Derek seemed to startle for a moment too before a tired smile met his handsome face.
“Where have you been, Baby Prentiss?” His breath knocked out of him when she threw herself at him, a sigh of relief coming from her bitten lips.
“Oh, thank god you’re okay,” She murmured, and his chuckle echoed through his chest into her ear, “You all worried me half to death,”
“You’re looking very grown up,” He teased as he patted her on the back. And she was. She had taken to wearing maxi skirts and tights, even throwing on a cute blazer for affect, she was the teacher after all. She shoved him away with a smack to the chest. He laughed, holding up the opened pot of jell-o to her face, “Jell-o?”
She gagged, filled with memories of her birthday.
He shook his head with a smile as she sat down in the seat next to the bed and he spooned the first mouthful of the fruity dessert into his mouth.
“Is everyone else alright?” She asked, wringing her hands together. She fought back the urge to tuck Spencer’s curls behind his ear, knowing he was sleeping peacefully.
“Stop worrying. Team’s fine; we caught the guy and confiscated his supply. Even saved the last few survivors with you telling Reid where to look,” Morgan watched her jaw feather, and she picked under her nails.
“I keep telling you guys, I didn’t do anything. I just… spoke to him. He’s the genius, not me,” She said solemnly, staring into her lap with a frown.
“Not to him. Whole journey back, before the aphasia kicked in, he kept telling paramedics to tell Doctor Kimura it was you who’d figured it out.” Derek said, but it seemed to make her sulk more.
She said nothing, pulling out her book from her bag to continue reading as she waited for him to wake up, and Derek took it as a sign she was in no mood to talk, god forbid even take a compliment, and opened the magazine he’d grabbed from the cafeteria.
–
Half an hour and another pot of pudding for Morgan later (she gagged again at the sweet strawberry smell of it), the pair of them sat in silence, reading their own materials when a very sleepy, doe eyed man looked up and frowned.
“Are you eating Jell-O?” Spencer asked, barely noticing the girl on the other side of the bed, who shot up out of her seat as he came around.
“Hey doc. You have a visitor,” Morgan said with a small smile, Spencer’s face falling into a frown. He looked to the other side of him, just in time to see a worn copy of Middlemarch being flung to the floor and a hand grabbing his clammy ones tightly.
“Spencer I’m- I’m so mad at you-” She gasped, every soppy feeling of sadness she’d been stewing in leaving her body when she saw his hazel eyes fall to her, “You put the phone down on me and next thing I know you’re in the back of an ambulance nearly flatlining- I’m so-”
She breathed when she saw his eyes soften. He didn’t think she knew it but he saw the way her eyes glistened, her voice trembled underneath her anger. He felt the way she had yet to let go of his hand, how nice and warm it felt in his palm.
“I’m sor-” He hadn’t even finished his apology when she had latched onto him, trying not to hug him too tight but hard enough she could tell herself he was still here. He was okay.
And he could understand. He’d felt the same when they’d found her in that church, when Cyrus had hauled her away after she’d practically offered herself up in exchange for him. He’d known she was braver than she gave herself credit for, but that had stopped his heart right there and then. He had grabbed her in a hug the first chance he’d got even then, even when he barely knew her, when she was Emily’s sister and not Bugsy. Not the woman he’d spent every morning with for weeks bringing her a coffee just the way she enjoyed it, the woman he’d sat with on Emily’s couch with her legs across his lap as they did the puzzles in the morning paper together. She tried to do them, and he would finish them when she got too annoyed by the ones she couldn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” He said, his arms gently hugging her back and he felt something wet on his shoulder blade before he knew what it was. He felt even worse for worrying her, squeezing her tighter than was even comfortable for him.
“Don’t do that to me again,” She said through tears as she settled in his arms.
He really hoped she couldn’t hear the way his heart pounded.
3. The one at Haley’s funeral
She had no idea what to say. Emily had always been the one who knew how to talk to people. She had this horrible habit of saying the first thing that came to her head, probably because a lot of the time it was the most real, and people liked real.
But now wasn’t the time for what was best for her. Haley Hotchner had been murdered.
She hadn’t spoken to Hotch yet, she’d only met the man a handful of times. But he’d invited her anyway, for the team. For Emily, maybe even Spencer; Emily said he liked when she was around. She couldn’t imagine any other reason she would be there.
Other than, ofcourse, to be Spencer’s crutch. Literally. Since his real one had broken and he was still limping around with one knee weakened by the bullet wound in it.
She’d nearly had a heart attack when he’d called from the hospital, again, though this time he’d waited until he’d gotten the all clear to tell her so she didn’t panic quite as much as last time. She’d cursed him out for being so reckless, and requested another week's sick pay to take care of him until he was able to actually walk. It was only a one year contract with the university anyway, she didn’t care if she missed a few days to make sure he was okay.
“You look very handsome today,” She whispered to him as she hauled him out of the car, minding that he didn't hit his head on the ceiling. He gave her a small smile and tucked her own hair behind her ear seeing it come loose from its braid when she’d leaned down to grab him.
“Just today?” He asked, and she finally smiled back. She’d been stuck in a bubble in the car; her and Emily both had. They had the same thinking face, he’d realised.
“Just especially today,” She answered honestly, and he worked on adjusting his black jacket so she could hold onto him comfortably. She was quieter than usual. Feeble, almost.
“Thankyou, you do too,” He replied, his face scrunching after a moment, “Look pretty I mean,”
He leaned on her arm, looped it around hers as he tried to be the least amount of imposing as possible. That went about as well as you’d expect for a six foot one bag of bones.
She gave up after just a few steps, moving his arm to wrap around her shoulder as she walked with him. To anyone else they would easily pass as a couple, especially as she squeezed him tightly to her when the men laid down Hayley’s coffin, and the service began.
“W.S Gilbert wrote ‘It’s love that makes the world go around’ and if that’s true, then the world spun a little faster with Hayley in it.” Aaron began, his voice strong as his large hands gripped the eulogy like it would give him any comfort. She smiled softly, her eyes glued to the man who stood unmoving for his son, “Haley was my best friend since we were in high school. We certainly had our struggles but if there’s one thing we agreed on unconditionally, it was our love and our commitment to our son, Jack,”
Bugsy smiled sadly when Jack looked to the floor bashfully. Glancing between the photo on top of the coffin, a beautiful blonde woman grinning back at her with brilliantly happy eyes and a soft face, she saw where he got most of his looks from.
“Haley’s love for Jack was joyous, and fierce. That fierceness is why she isn’t here today. A mother’s love is an unrivalled force of nature, and we can all learn much from the way Haley lived her life. Haley’s death causes each of us to stop and take stock of our lives. To measure who we are and who we’ve become.” She felt Spencer’s head knock into hers, felt the sniff run through him, and she searched her pocket for a tissue, “I don’t have all those answers for myself, but I know who Haley was. She was the woman who died protecting the child we brought into this world together; and I will make sure Jack grows up knowing who his mother was. And how she loved and protected him. And how much I loved her.”
If Haley were here today she would tell us not to mourn her death. She would tell us-” Aaron cut himself off with a watery voice, his resolve finally melting as he realised this would be some of his final words to his wife. Bugsy felt her bottom lip quiver in remorse, “She would tell us to love our families unconditionally. And to hold them close because in the end they are all that matter.”
Spencer felt her tug him closer as she hid the lone few tears from the rest of the mourners and wished more than ever he could press a small kiss to her brow.
–
No, Bugsy was not good with knowing what to say and when. Wasn’t good at cheering people up no matter how much Spencer told her she always made him feel better. Didn’t really know much about how to make someone understand that she cared other than showing them with her whole body.
So by the time it was her turn to offer condolences, she didn’t bother shaking his hand. That meant nothing to her. That was a business deal, that was an agreement, a formal way to pretend you cared. But she did, she felt terrible for Hotch, wanted to fix him and his sweet son until Haley was right back there to thank her.
She didn’t shake his hand like everyone else had. He held his hand out for one, his eyes soft and warm, like he could see she was struggling. She brushed past his hand and just pulled him in for a hug, and he wondered if she was always going to greet him that way.
“I guessed that sorry wouldn’t make anything better so I brought you the biggest bottle of wine the store had,” She murmured into his chest, and she was gobsmacked to hear him chuckle weakly. She felt his hands pat her on the back gently, and he appreciated her candour. “I’ve got some Xanax if you’d really like a treat,”
She was a breath of fresh air. Aaron truthfully had been sick of people saying they were so sorry for his loss, and he felt like shaking them and yelling, screaming that they hadn’t been the one to kill Haley, Foyet had.
He pushed all of it down, focusing on the way she’d tucked herself to him like she had the day she’d become a runaway bride dripping rainwater over his bureau floor.
“She would have really liked you,” Aaron confessed, and they finally parted, and she saw he was smiling like he meant it, not just saying it to make her feel more comfortable being here. “You would have made her laugh,”
He saw the easy expression on her face fade, and she turned to look at her heels, nodding quietly.
“I would have been lucky to have known her,” She said, handing him the gift bag with a very heavy present inside. “I only wish someone would ever love me the way you love her,’
And with that she bid him a smile, and returned to her seat in between Emily and JJ, the pair of them mother henning her all day.
Aaron wished he could have said more to her after that, but before he knew it, someone else was offering him their condolences, and the sadness in her voice was forgotten.
–
The team sat around the table, nursing their beers, or in Spencer and Bugsy’s case a tea. Spencer didn’t want to affect his healing process with alcohol, not that he’d ever been big on the stuff, and Bug said she struggled driving even without the help of a beer, so they chatted between sips from two very fancy china cups.
Emily and JJ sat to the other side of her talking about how beautiful the flower arrangements were when a small, fawn haired body came wandering over to where Will held a one year old Henry on his knee.
“Would he like to play?” Jack asked shyly, trying to peer up onto the adults table to see if there were any other kids his age that would like to do something with him. His dad had been busy talking to all those people, and auntie Jessica had been trying to make it round to every table to thank people for being here. He didn’t entirely understand what was happening, in all honesty.
“He’s still a little too small yet honey. In a year or so, you guys can be best friends,” JJ said sweetly as he pulled his chin up to the tabletop and spied the younger woman sitting next to uncle Spencer.
He tottered over to her, where she sat unaware she had a shadow until Spencer's face softened as he looked behind her, and she swivelled around in her seat.
“Hello,” Jack said quietly, looking up at where she seemed to buffer, feeling eight pairs of eyes on her as she interacted with the small boy.
She had never been good with children, had never been around them since she was their age, even the kids she taught now were all at least eighteen.
The mantra to absolutely not fuck up the next few moments reverberated around her head.
She gave him a soft smile, holding out a hand for him to shake, “Hi, Jack. I’m Emily’s sister. You can call me Bugsy,”
His tiny nose scrunched as he watched her, shaking her hand the way dad had shown him how.
“Bugsy? That’s a weird name,” He said, and she chuckled, “Like the bunny?”
She shrugged, “I guess like the bunny, yeah,” although she had never thought of that before.
“Would you like to play with me?” Jack asked, and she felt her chest warm unnaturally. He had such a sweet face. It was just like the woman in the picture.
Smiling at him crookedly, she rooted around her bag for the notebook and pens she kept for her to-do lists. Maybe Spencer was rubbing off on her.
“We could do some drawing if you want?” She offered, showing him the pad with kind eyes. That seemed to satiate him as he grabbed her knee and started pulling himself up to sit in her lap, and she paused.
Kids were so funny, she realised, she would never just start grabbing someone she just met and asking to climb on their lap.
She got him comfortable on her knee, not noticing the flashing glances Spencer gave her between his conversation with Kevin, Garcia’s beau, as Jack started drawing a bunny with a human face, that was supposedly meant to be her.
Spencer watched her giggle as he gave the rabbit a pretty dress, like the one she was wearing, and Spencer had to admit it was a pretty dress she’d gone for today. Had he not been so mournful earlier he thinks he would have blushed how tight she’d held him.
She showed him how to play noughts and crosses, and she let him win most of them, laughing when he asked to tear out the page from her notebook to show his dad later.
That is, until the man himself came over to the table of his work colleagues, only to see the group watching their youngest playing with his sweet son.
“Bugsy,” Hotch said, and her head shot up to him, a guilty look passing over her face, worried she’d overstepped, though the fact he hadn’t said her real name said otherwise, “Can I talk to you for a moment outside, please?”
She blinked, straightening in her seat “O-ofcourse!” Shuffling Jack off her lap as fast as she could without hurting him, smoothing out her dress down as she followed him to the small balcony the funeral home had. It was a classy manor, but she guessed Hotch would have only had the best for Haley.
“I’m sorry if I overstepped, Jack asked to sit on my lap- and- I’m not good with kids anyway I just didn’t want to tell him no, especially not today-” He put his hand on her shoulder to shut her up, a small smile spreading on his face. It was fatherly and calming, something her own father had been much too busy to ever bother with.
“Not at all, that’s not why I called you out here,” He reassured, squeezing her gently as he leaned against the railing, taking a deep breath of the midnight air, and he felt his professional mask begin to slip. “I’ve been thinking… about how much help you've been to us over the years. Reid would be dead if it wasn’t for you.” She opened her mouth to protest, and he flashed her a look that said he was serious. “Let me finish,”
She wrung her hands guiltily, “Sorry,”
“You’re very resilient far beyond your years, you’re incredibly charismatic when you need to be, and you’re by far one of the smartest people your age,” He said, watching her face to see how she felt. He knew she didn’t take compliments well, for some other reason they could dig into any other day. But he needed to say it now, needed her to know now for what he was about to ask her.
“Whether that is true or not, why are you telling me this?” She asked politely, without the usual bite that went with it when they tried calling her something she wasn’t.
“I need to take some time off to spend with Jack, try and help him…” He trailed off, unsure as to what he wanted to say. “Help him understand Haley’s not coming home,”
She nodded with a glistening lash line, and grabbed onto his arm gently.
“My team looks to me to be their glue, but I know I can’t keep everyone together and look after my son. Emily said your contract at the University was ending,” He cleared his throat, looking at her again with something vulnerable in his sable black eyes, “So I was wondering if you would reconsider the FBI academy? It’s only twenty weeks, but Rossi and I can put you forward to do the written exams earlier if you’d like, and then Strauss can have you assigned a trainee position at the BAU-”
“Anything,” She nodded, “Anything you need, I’ll do it,” and he hugged her for once. Maybe it was the way she had said it so willingly, no matter her own reservations about joining the academy, no matter her stubbornness and resistance to her sisters pestering, or even the fact they all talked weekly about how much easier their job would be if she was there. Her and Reid’s brains together were a force to be reckoned with.
And he knew, the surprisingly kind girl that clutched at him back, would keep his team together, would be the glue to keep their heads on while he took some time to watch his son.
“Thankyou,” He murmured into her hair, and she forced herself not to get weepy at the grief in his voice. Of all people here, she was the last person who should be allowed to cry. Least of all to him.
He pulled away from her eventually, cursing himself for letting the front slip, but it was as if she had that effect on everyone on the team, like she had this little way of worming her way between that gap in their chests where their hearts once were before they’d seen the things they had, dealt with the people they had.
It was for that reason Aaron knew they would be just fine.
“You know, when I was a kid, mom got letters every day from people with their own agendas against her,” Bugsy said once they’d taken a gulp of cool night air, “They all said the same thing; that they were going to take me for ransom unless she left the country. She didn’t think much of it until a guy started following the car home from school and she decided to get me trained in self defence,”
Hotch frowned, his chest tightening. He knew how it felt to be a parent on edge for his kid’s safety, but to hear it from the other side cut deeper.
“Which was fine, I got a pretty mean shot if I say so myself, but eventually it progressed into hostage training, in case…” She swallowed dryly, clearing her throat and picking her nails, “I wet the bed the first time they grabbed me, the whole idea was that I wouldn’t know it was coming. They let me go pretty fast, I don’t think they’d expected the eleven year old to reach for the kitchen knife,”
Hotch scoffed, shaking his head in horror, though he didn’t doubt her for a second.
“I slept with it next to my bed for a year, so that next time they came for me, they would think twice and let me sleep in,” She said with a thoughtful smile.
“And did it work?” He asked, watching her run her hands along the stone wall beneath his elbow.
“I dunno, but the one guy left pretty quick when I almost took his eye out,” She giggled, and the sound made him laugh quietly as well, “My point is, you’ve got nothing to worry about with Jack. Kids like us, we get made tougher, resilient. And with parents like you two, I’d say he had a pretty good head start.” Bugs said, smiling to herself flicking a glance up to his face that said just how touched he was. Deciding he was likely waiting for her to turn around before he let himself cry, she took a step back, heading towards the reception. “I mean look at me, I turned out alright!”
She barely heard his small chuckle that faded into a weep before she shut the door behind her, heading back over to the table where the team sat, Jack now with his auntie Jessica, and their eyes fell on her, waiting to hear whatever it was she had to say.
Taking a deep breath, she gave them an awkward smile, “Guess I’m joining the academy afterall,”
And that was all she got out before Garcia dived on her with an excited cuddle.
4. The one with his new hair
He knew he was sweeping his fingers through his hair much more often than usual, his hazel eyes flickering to his reflection in car doors in a way that was almost obsessive. He liked what his barber had done, but that wasn’t the point.
He was hoping she liked it.
Bugsy had passed the academy with flying colours, not that anyone had ever doubted her, and had been part of the team for all of two weeks, though he would argue she was BAU way before that. Hotch had figured out a staggered schedule where he could take care of Jack four days a week and work the rest until Jack settled back in at school.
It had been nearly five months since Haley had died, but it hadn’t gotten any easier for the boy.
Spencer definitely, definitely hadn’t spent the last two weeks practically breathing down her neck whenever they went out into the field, nor had he definitely not found himself fighting off the grin that threatened his composure when he caught her scribbling notes down to herself whilst Penelope presented the cases.
And he most definitely hadn’t gone out to get a new hair cut in the hopes she would find him more attractive.
Definitely not.
And yet, her face was the first one he found himself looking at as he stepped into the office, watching as it trailed up from her notebook, her pink gel pen paused mid sentence as the rest of the team went silent, her face spitting into a grin the minute she saw him.
“What, did you join a boyband?” Hotch asked in a rare moment of teasing, Derek snickering as Emily nudged his arm with her own chuckle.
“Can I be your groupie?” Bugsy asked, which made them laugh harder, though she stared at him with a small twinkle in her eye the way she always did when he squirmed under her compliments.
He hadn’t thought she was being mean, not even when they took a moment to settle down, not even when she smiled wryly at him, her eyes flicking up to his hair twice more before her attention was stolen back by Garcia switching the board.
“Okay, so what are we looking at here? Late twenties, early thirties?” Emily asked after they quietened, adjusting her bangs over her brows.
“All single, though two are in committed relationships,” Rossi added, flicking through his own pack of notes. “All living on their own,”
“Looks like normal suburban houses. Give the Unsub privacy,” Morgan added, his face scrunched in disgust as he looked at the crime scene photos.
“The differences are more striking than the similarities. Different hair colours, different body shapes.” Reid noted, Bugsy’s handwriting scrawling over her notebook as she tried to capture everything they were saying.
“What do we know about his MO?” Hotch asked JJ, the blonde woman shaking her head with a grimace.
“That’s why we were invited in, the abduction sites are pristine,” She said gravely, looking between her team as they seemed to balk at the information.
“No DNA besides the victims, and there’s no sign of forced entry or struggle,” Bugsy noted in the pack Garcia had given her that morning, along with a little pat to the head for good luck. Before now, in those two weeks, they had only dealt with one kidnapping and one group homicide that had turned out to be one very stupid teen spiking drinks at a pool party. This case would be the worst one she’d seen yet.
“And the victims aren’t reported until two or three days after they’re abducted,” Emily tailed off the end of her sister, her eyes serious as the team came to the same conclusion.
He had days to spend as much time with the bodies as he wanted.
“Two or three days? Women like this don’t just disappear without somebody noticing,” Rossi chimed in again, as JJ clicked onto the next screen handing the remote to Garcia.
“Yes, which is why I had Garcia dig into their lives a little,” She said, taking a seat next to Hotch to let penelope lead.
“And I took a look at their online activity, I could easily see what the Unsub was doing,” Penelope said, clicking onto a screen full of the women’s profiles.
Bugsy couldn’t even say she was shocked. Ever since she was in highschool, friendships, or her lack thereof, had been entirely decided on who had the most likes on their status update. Apparently no one found the girl who read Russian Literature for fun cool, nor did they want anything to do with her. Emily didn’t know she’d sat in the school toilets to eat her lunch for three years straight. Turns out kids from every country were bitches.
“Social Media profiles?” Her older sister asked, though the surprise was evident on her face atleast.
“Yeah, facebook, twitter, you name an online life-sharing time suck, these victims were on it,” Penelope said, enlarging the screen for the team to see the specifics, “And if you look at each of their last posts, they say kind of the same thing, ‘Going out of town, Going on a business trip, Going on vacation,’ but when you look at the time and date stamps on each of these, queue the twilight zone music because they were all posted the morning after each of them went missing,”
“The unsub posted them?” Hotch concluded, his natural frown deepening. This Unsub had a way to keep all of his victims hidden for much longer than they’d anticipated. Who knows what he could be doing as they spoke.
“You know, social networks are an easy way for an unsub to target his victims. These women were especially open, they posted everything from what they had for dinner to where they were going on dates,” Spencer said, looking at the print outs Pen had handed to them.
“The unsub ‘Friends’ his victim, and then uses it as a cover once he takes them,” Derek said, as Bugsy’s face scrunched in disagreement.
“What are you thinking, Kiddo?” Rossi asked from her left, as he head shot up to see the team watching her, waiting for her input.
Surprising to everyone, she was somewhat nervous when she’d started at the BAU. The Bugsy Prentiss, the woman who had caught out parts of the Russian Mob when she was just a college student, was nervous to not mess up in front of them.
“I understand what Derek’s saying, but nowadays you don’t actually have to be friends with someone to follow them.” She said, picking her fingertips in thought, “A lot of people have hundreds of total strangers they’ve never met on their page; some settings mean you don’t even need to be ‘friends’ in the first place to see what they're posting. The UnSub probably wouldn’t even bother implicating himself in the first place by following them, he could just access their profile and see what they're up to. I think he profiles as patient and organised, and somewhat tech savvy if he’s up to date on the way these medias work,”
The team watched her carefully, Spencer beating down the proud smile he wanted to flash her, knowing he needed to be focused on this case, but she seemed satisfied with her answer when Penelope nodded in agreement.
“So you don’t think he’s an old guy like me, is what you’re saying?” Derek asked with aghast, knowing full well mid thirties wasn’t too old. Hadn’t stopped his pride hurting.
She shook her head, “I just think he wouldn’t be as old as you. Mine and Reid’s age maybe. But he seems obsessive, and he also must have a job that affords him the spare time to spend the following few days with the bodies, but it means we should also assume that these women are likely already dead,”
She looked to Hotch hopefully, to see him staring at her unreadably for a moment, before he looked to Rossi with a nod.
David slapped her on the shoulder affectionately, “You just put together your first profile, kid,”
And before long, they were heading for the jet with her deductions in mind to hand over to the cops.
–
“Can someone explain to me the appeal of these sites? ‘Eating sushi tonight, yum!’ ‘Boss is keeping me late at work, grr,’” Rossi stared at the status updates, perplexed, as the team snickered to themselves.
“Now, wait a minute. How did you find my profile?” Bugsy asked jokingly, and she drew a fond smile from Aaron her way when Rossi chuckled to himself.
He wished she would stop looking so nervous to contribute. She fit right in with the furniture.
“Whose life is so important that we’d be interested in this kind of detail?” Rossi asked seriously, though Bugsy supposed even the coffee machine was a new useless piece of technology to the man who liked his espresso fresh.
“That’s just it, no one is. I guess everyone just wanted to believe it to themselves that they all have an audience out there waiting to hear every update of their day. Some of them even have GPS tracking systems in place to make it even easier for people to find out exactly where you are,” Bugsy said, her eyes flicking to Spencer who watched her intently, automatically floating up to take in his new hair again.
She couldn’t help think he had stopped looking cute, and started looking hot. He’d always been cute, god knows she’d always thought he was good looking. But now he looked… dreamy. It had made her double take the minute he’d walked through the door, hoping it wasn’t too obvious she was staring.
“That explains how he’s finding them, but it doesn’t tell us how he’s getting into their houses,” Hotch nodded along with her, eying her carefully as she looked through her own notes she’d made once she’d brought herself round to ripping her eyes off Reid.
“At the very least I believe he has copies of their keys,” Spencer said, his finger trailing the information in his file, “Doris Archer had a home security system installed, but the disable code was entered at 1:56am, so he knew that too. He also found a way to deal with her dog, a German Shepard she adopted from the pound last year, it went missing the night she did,”
“Did they find the dog?” Bugsy asked, her face in a frown as Emily looked up to her.
“Why? What are you thinking?” She asked her little sister who played with the ‘TRAINEE’ lanyard around her neck.
“If he hurt the dog, it likely meant the dog had been on alert to him as an intruder, since opportunistic violence isn’t in his profile of being collected and organised. So if he didn’t hurt the dog, and he was found alive and unharmed, it means the dog knew him,” Bugsy explained, and Derek stroked his face in thought.
“This guy’s gotta be in and out of the house well before the night of the disappearance. He comes up with some ruse, talks his way inside, and then once he’s familiar enough with the house he knows he can come back and kidnap them without disturbing anything,” He said, the girl nodding in agreement with him.
“Think of people you let into your home you don’t consider a threat. Home repair guys, dog walkers?” Rossi offered, but JJ was quick to flick to her own pack.
“Detective Fordham looked into that too. No one came even close to being a killer,” She shut down, not wanting to waste their time running through avenues that had already been explored.
“Alright,” Hotch started as he glanced at his watch to see they were landing in around ten minutes, “Morgan and Prentiss, start with the last abduction site, see if anything points to his MO.”
Bugsy raised her hand politely, as if she were still in class, and he nodded in her direction to speak, “Do you mean as in me when you say Prentiss or as in Emily when you say Prentiss?” She asked, and Emily seemed to be having the same issue as she flicked a glance between the two of them.
“I mean Emily, for you I guess I’ll have to say-” But he stopped himself with a frown. What would he say? Bugsy? No, too informal on a case. Baby Prentiss? Absolutely not. He thinks she might just hit him if he said her first name too much. “We’ll workshop it for now. Dave, you, Prentiss, Reid and JJ go back over the women’s lives. Start with asking around their friends on the sites. If this is how the Unsub is finding them, maybe they’re connected to him without even realising.”
The team was quiet for a moment, before Spencer pointed to Bugsy with his pen, “So that time you meant Bug, right?”
Dave wished he could protest but he had also been a bit confused, as Hotch rubbed his head tenderly.
He felt the headache coming already.
–
“What was it about these women that made him choose them as targets?” Bugsy asked as she and Spencer sat in a small room in the Boise precinct, the three victims' profile pictures staring back at them from the board.
It was their second day working on the case, and other than Garcia tracking a very disturbing snuff film of the last murder being streamed from the victim’s own IP address using camera’s he’d set up in the home, they had yet to have a big breakthrough. Hotch had told her to leave the room when they’d shown the footage, knowing it was one of her first weeks on the case, and despite having a strong stomach, he wanted her to ease into the role rather than drop her in the deep end head first.
Even seasoned agents like Morgan and Rossi had both winced, JJ even gagging as they watched it happen. They usually dealt with the aftermath, not have front row seats on the act itself.
She had been allowed in once the tape had finished, but Reid had immediately shuffled her into the small office they’d been permitted to use by the Boise police, his face a little more peaky than usual.
She wished he wouldn’t worry so much about her, wished he would hide it better when he fretted over her. She was sure he would burst a vessel if he kept flicking his head to look at her, though she just sat staring at the women as if the answer would jump out at her.
“They’re all pretty, aren’t they?” Bugsy said, swinging her legs beneath the table, her eyes roving over the three faces, “Though unconventionally, they’re still pretty.”
They weren’t his type, Spencer thought, they looked almost nothing like her. She had removed the last of the pink hair dye she’d managed to keep on top of for a year or so before she’d started at the university. Her nose piercing had progressed to a little thin silver hoop, though her earrings had been dialled down for safety reasons in the field, and she kept her hair tied back away from her face most days. She looked older, which was a dumb thing to think, since of course she was older. But she had grown into her face, and Spencer was entirely convinced she took after her father since the only thing she shared with Emily was the same pout when she thought too hard.
He’d watched her grow for all of three years into the twenty five year old that sat before him, and yet her face had never really changed shape. She still had those pretty eyes that seemed to glint up at him, those soft lips that pursed when she tried not to giggle at him, that perfect nose he would trace the edge of using just his gaze when she had come over to his apartment to study for the academy. She was still as beautiful as the day he’d met her, he thinks part of him had always thought of her in that way. He had just put it down to a pretty girl giving him attention. But girls gave him attention all the time, he had realised since that stakeout at the club, when he’d given her those napkin roses. He just didn’t care for them.
He only cared about what she thought of him.
Only cared what her face looked like-
“Wait,” He stopped his thoughts that could go on for days, weeks, about her. They already had, it was difficult to pull himself out of it sometimes. He stared at the photos of the victims, his mind revelling in her own face that he didn’t doubt had guys swooning and falling over their own feet, as he zeroed in on their eyes, cheekbones, septums, “Their faces are all an identical structure,”
“How did you figure that out?” She asked, wide eyed and he ripped down the photos before she could catch him blushing.
He thought he might take it to the grave what he’d been thinking about.
–
“He’s going live,” Hotch seethed, clicking a button on the remote and the whiteboard in the centre of the room lit up with video footage, a small red dot flashing slowly in the corner telling them they were watching it being streamed.
Bugsy stood behind Spencer, her eyes glued to the small computer at the desk that played the same screen, her heart rate spiking when she saw a small body camera pointing at a house, the UnSub cutting across a lawn in a near sprint.
He’d lost control completely, and he had another victim set in his sights.
“He’s not slow, deliberate. This guy’s pissed.” Rossi said, his jaw hung open in horror as the streamer headed straight for the front door.
“All right, what do we see? Determining markers?” Hotch snapped the groups focus back from the gut wrenching panic that everyone felt, and it was like a switch flipped.
“A one story cottage,” Spencer noted, his eyes glued to the screen so tight he missed the way Bugsy’s face changed colour, and she looked like she was swaying on her feet.
“That could be anywhere,” Detective Fordham commented back, his face grimacing.
“Is there a number on the house?” Morgan asked, and everyone leaned in closer to the footage.
“No, he’s already at the door,” JJ said, running a hand through her long blonde hair.
Bugsy thought she might be sick.
“Garcia,”
“He’s using twice as many proxy servers,” Her shaky voice came through the speaker, furious typing in the background.
“Wait, this window in the background, is that the chat room?” Emily asked, pointing to the small screen at the bottom that flooded with comments from at least forty different users, and more began entering the stream.
Get that bitch.
Show her a good time.
Teach the pigs a lesson for sticking their nose in.
Bugsy wished she hadn’t been so fast at reading, as she felt her skin go cold at the sight of the comments.
“People are getting off on it,” She said quietly, but no one heard her, too focused on finding out where the UnSub was.
“Uh Huh,” Garcia confirmed, as the footage flicked to show a kitchen view, a pretty fair haired woman stood chopping peppers none the wiser to the sick people watching her life before it was about to be ended.
“He’s in the house, guys,” Reid ran clammy hands over his trousers, his stomach churning as the video went on.
“He’s completely changed his MO,” Derek added, and the team could do nothing but watch in terror, “There’s too much light, what happened?”
“Someone asked the wrong question at the press conference,” JJ explained from beside Reid, her nails bitten to hell.
“Oh my god, turn around. Just turn around,” Emily begged, and part of her little sister thought she might have been talking about her.
“Maybe she can fend him off,” Derek said, though even his tone of voice wasn’t convinced.
“New kitchen appliances, maybe we could check the work order?” Spencer was grasping at straws he knew that, but he couldn’t sit back with that big brain of his working overtime and not try to help at all.
“He’ll be gone by then,” Rossi said, and he wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Garcia, can you give me anything?” Hotch asked, and the sound of typing got even faster if that was possible.
“I’m stateside now, I’m almost to Idaho, I just need more time,” but Garcia was cut of by the man in the video lurching at the innocent woman, his hands wrapping around her neck with a venomous grip, her every moment of pain and terror captured on his body cam for his audience to see.
His audience including the team.
Bug felt the bile rise then, felt her eyes burn as she watched the woman’s face freeze in fear, a yelp of “No!” leaving her oesophagus, her small hands coming up to his wrists to try pry him away from her, anything to gasp for another breath of air.
She wasn’t listening as Hotch barked orders at Garcia, her eyes were stuck on the woman that writhed in pain, pleading with the masked man to spare her. But her rebuttals got weaker, her whimpers began to grow quieter, and soon he’d tackled her to the ground in a blood curdling scream, his whole body weight crushing her throat.
Her own hand came up to cover her mouth that dropped open in shock, her eyes burning with tears that she couldn't let fall. It was this woman who was suffering, not her.
There was a bit more struggling from the woman, her eyes bulging from her skull, lips turning blue, until she slumped beneath his hands, and he released her.
She took a step back, bumping into a chair she hadn’t even known was there as her eyes fixed to the screen, and Spencer’s head shot around to see her shaking on the spot, her eyes haunted.
Emily followed suit, but Spencer was already out of his seat, rushing forward to grab her arms and lead her outside.
“I’m gonna get her some air,” He called behind him to the team that watched her go with forlorn glances, and he hated how he felt her trembling beneath his grip, grabbing onto his jacket just as tight.
They made it halfway down the stairs before she bolted for the bathroom, and he heard her retching as he dipped into the room after her, not caring that the sign clearly stated it was for women.
“I’m fine, Em, just give me a minute,” She said, and he heard the sniffles between her words.
“It’s me,” He said, finding the one stall on the end that had it’s door engaged, pulling a cup from out of the dispenser and filling it at the water fountain, “You should drink some water, the cold helps reset your body’s instinct to fight or flight,”
“Or in my case, make a complete fool of myself and take time away from a time sensitive investigation because I’m such a wuss,” She said cynically, coughing chestily and he heard the toilet flush.
His forehead creased as he frowned. The door unlocked and she stepped out, her eyes red and teary as she gently took the water from his hands, and he rooted around his pocket for a stick of gum to give her. She chucked it in her mouth, letting the peppermint clear the vile taste from her mouth, hoping she didn’t look too gross.
“You shouldn’t stand so close to me, toilet bowls are like full of germs and my heads just been in there, I know it makes you feel funny to be around germs-” He pushed her hair behind her ear as if to tell her to stop thinking so loud, and she couldn’t help smile sheepishly at him. “Do you think Hotch will be mad?”
He shook his head instantly.
“Mad? No. Worried? Incredibly.” Spencer replied, stroking her hair a little the way his mom used to when he felt sick.
Bugsy shook her head, sniffing to herself a little more.
She couldn’t stop seeing that woman’s face as the life slipped from her, the hands around her neck. The yelps and pleads and begs and she fought with everything in her.
“How long was it until you started feeling like this?” She asked earnestly, running a sleeve under her nose, “You’re so brave, I always knew you were but, since I started, it’s like I realised nothing really touches any of you anymore.”
He fought the incredulous laugh, him; brave? The man scared of the dark and elevators brave?
“We all take things home with us at the end of the day,” He said, wiping under her eyes for her with his own cardigan cuff, “If you didn’t feel anything for the victims we help, you wouldn’t be human, Bug,”
She nodded, “I know. I just don’t want to let anyone down. Not you guys and especially not the people we’re helping,”
“It’s for that reason I know you’re going to do great,” He said, giving her one of those small Spencer smiles he reserved for when he wanted to see one of hers.
Her forehead thumped onto his chest as he pulled her a little closer, and his cheek fell on top of her hair as he ran gentle hands over the sides of her arms, calming her until her breath started evening out.
“You never said,” She pointed out, “How long it took for you to start getting cold feet. Bet I beat some kind of record, two weeks is absolute dog shit,” She chuckled to herself, not noticing how his face evened out in sadness.
It was Tobias Hankel that had done it. It was getting tied up and injected that had made him feel like a failure, like he wasn’t cut out for anything let alone the force. Like his life was taking a huge spiral downwards.
But he wouldn’t tell her that, not yet at least.
“Come on, let’s get you back,” He brushed off, and she figured it was a sore spot for him. She cursed herself for asking in the first place.
Nodding, she downed the rest of the water and got herself a refill, following him out of the bathroom, looking back up at him for a moment.
“I forgot to say,” Bug said, nudging against his side with her whole body, knocking into him lovingly, “Your new hair is very… dashing. I really like it.”
He swore his face went crimson in a single second.
5. The one with his migraines
“Let me pay for your fuel at least,”
“Spence, just shut up and get in the car,”
That was around about how the past eight months had gone. Every day, she would drive by his apartment, Emily in the passenger seat of her little sisters beat up Renault Zoe, affectionately named after its model, the back seat reserved for Spencer’s lanky legs and satchel bag as she drove the three of them through through roads of Virginia, to work and back again.
Sometimes he surprised her with coffee, sometimes Emily brought them donuts. Either way, they all enjoyed their morning routine that had stood the test of time about as much as Bugsy had as part of the BAU.
It had gotten easier after that first case; she still had her moments, but her skin had thickened to a point she barely remembered what her life had been like before that day Hotch asked her to join the academy.
Things were going well, she felt settled, even with the new girl Seaver replacing JJ while Jareau was away on business in the pentagon. She couldn’t say she was the girl’s best friend, but they got along. And that was good enough for her. Her team was a well oiled machine.
That was, except for Spencer. Spencer she worried for every day.
She hated the way he twitched in the passenger seat, now his since she’d forced Emily to get the subway to work today, bitching eachother out in the way sisters did until the older woman left in a huff but without asking questions, and she left to take Spencer to the hospital.
The sunglasses did little to stop his eyes hurting, his brain quite literally feeling as though it was pressing against his skull. He even turned down coffee this morning, and her stomach had dropped when she realised just how serious it was.
He didn’t even question her when she held his hand tightly in hers as she walked him into the office, knowing he would hate every second of having this MRI done.
“Everything’s going to be absolutely fine, they’re going to find what it is and we’re going to get you fixed right up to your perky self again,” She said, as they sat together outside the doctor’s office, keeping her voice calm and quiet as not to upset his delicate head even more.
He nodded, appreciating her gentle touches on his hand, and he jumped in his seat when the door opened, his name being called through and he wished she could come with him.
“You got this,” Bugsy smiled at him reassuringly when he looked hesitant, and nodded again, squeezing her hand once before he let go, following the nurse into the MRI room, wondering how he got so lucky to have a best friend like her.
–
Spencer sighed, leaning back in his seat. The flight had not helped the building pressure in his head in the slightest. He looked up to the ceiling, closing his eyes as the harsh office lights beat against his face mercilessly.
Two bodies found sacrificed to a 'higher being', their tongues and fingers cut off, shells put over their eyes and mouths. They had seen worse, perhaps not as odd, but they had seen worse. And yet this was the case that made him feel like his brain was about to explode right out his ears.
He hadn’t felt like this since he had been on Dilaudid, since he’d be on a come down and his whole body would sweat cold, and his head would rattle with every movement. And even that almost paled in comparison to how bad his head hurt right now.
Spencer had wondered if that was what had done this to him, if it was a long term side effect of its use. He knew it wouldn’t be, but the self punishing part of him couldn’t help but fill his head with it.
He just wanted answers. He just wanted it to stop. He just wanted to crawl into bed with an ice pack over his face and never surface again until this thing had subsided.
Spencer felt hands in his hairline, fingernails weaving and massaging until he almost moaned, the touches releasing some of the metaphorical knots like magic at their fingertips, and he knew who it was, because that was how she always made him feel.
He opened his eyes to see her very upside down as she looked down at him, their eyes inline with one another as she continued running her fingers against his temples gently.
“You okay, handsome?” That was somewhat new, not that he was complaining. Part of him said she just felt bad for him and his weird brain, and maybe that was how it had always been, but ever since he had started getting these migraines she was impossibly even softer with him now. Like she was his comfort blanket he cuddled to when he was feeling particularly sorry for himself, and she knew it too. They were rarely not stuck together like velcro, where he moved, she moved. Where he sat, she was pressed against him like the concept of personal space had never been such a huge deal for him.
And when his pain struck him down into the embodiment of a wounded doe, she was right there fluffing his pillows, grabbing him aspirin, massaging his head like she could grab the bastard migraine right out of his skull and say leave my precious boy alone.
She was too sweet on him recently, but then he never wanted it to stop. It felt like a relationship without the kissing and especially without the sex. The thought of it made him want to moan again.
“This one’s a stubborn one,” It had lingered around for three days straight, and the Miami heat wasn’t helping as he looked up at her inverted face, and he could tell she was smiling gently at him.
She ran her thumbs over his eyebrows, smoothing them out and he sighed in delight as he felt the muscle begin to relax beneath her touch.
“You make things better,” He confessed, her fingers tracing down his pretty nose, and he closed his eyes as she went over the bags beneath them. “You always do,”
He felt her kiss his forehead for good luck, and he knew she hated seeing him in so much pain. He could have whined when she pulled away, letting go of him gently as Rossi stepped into the room, hoping he hadn’t seen the affection before too much teasing could come.
But he said nothing, even if he had seen, just raised his eyebrows and grabbed the file off the desk for his own thorough look through.
He sure as hell missed the way she interlaced their fingers under the desk though.
–
Spencer twisted the bracelet around his wrist as they sat together outside the doctor's office. Orula’s ide. That was what Julio had called it. Said it would protect him from the bad spirits that clouded his head.
Spencer was a man of science, a man of logic. But even he couldn’t quite explain how Julio had managed to figure out he was having migraines despite him not letting any infliction of pain cross his face, even more confused when Julio had said his body had been a conduit for a higher spirit who wanted to help him.
He was glad to be back in Virginia where everything made sense to him. Where she could hold onto his knee at the doctor's office to stop it from bouncing and his team couldn’t tease or ask him what was wrong or make her stop touching him so much.
“I say we get some ice on your head and put on whichever Doctor Who episode you want, don’t even care if we’ve seen it before,” She offered, smiling over at him and hoping he couldn’t see the worry in her eyes.
He could. He just nudged her shoulder with his forehead to say thankyou without ruining the solace the quiet brought him.
That is until his name was called, just as it was the last time he was here, and he stood to enter the office, not letting go of her hand as this time he’d made sure she could come.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” He said as he sat on the bed, his doctor showing him the clear brain scans that hadn’t flagged a single neuron out of place.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” His doctor replied, watching the way his female accomplice frowned, squeezing his hand tightly.
“Isn't there any tests that would look for a specific prognosis we could try?” She asked, and the man shook his head.
“Not unless we’ve ruled out every other option, and in this case I’d like to suggest that Dr. Reid’s condition might be psychosomatic in nature,” The doctor explained, wary of the way the two agents screwed their expressions up, almost identically, hearing his explanation of Spencer’s headaches.
“Psychosomatic…” Spencer echoed softly, in near disbelief.
That couldn’t be it. It had to be the Dilauded. Or a tumour. Or a long standing concussion. Something physical and tangible he could point out and get fixed.
“It just means a mental or emotional cause-” The doctor explained, only to have Spencer cut him off.
“No I know what ‘psychosomatic’ means Doctor, but it's not that,” He said, his voice tired; the idea he was making up his problem in his own head bothered him.
“Well, I think it’s something we should consider.”
“Listen, I’m not crazy,” Spencer insisted, and he felt her tugging his hand closer to hers, her own way of comforting him when she couldn’t grab at his hair or face or jaw.
“Dr Reid, I’m not saying-” But he was stopped by Spencer’s voice that was slowly growing more irate.
“No, listen, I have headaches. I have increased sensitivity to light, because there’s something wrong with me physically. Not mentally. It’s not that,” He corrected the doctor, his sweet face pulled into a grumpy pout, almost offended that the professional was willing to write his pain off as a hallucinations.
“That?” The doctor asked, a frown on his face as Spencer continued.
“Listen, doctor, my mother’s a paranoid schizophrenic who’s been institutionalised. So I know very well what mental illness looks like, maybe even better than you. It’s not that, it’s not.” Spencer said in a huff, standing from the bed and grabbing his satchel, all but pulling her from the room as she sped walked after him, her hand still tightly in his.
She was gobsmacked. She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before, and suddenly every single instance of her whining about her mother to him entered her head and she felt a pit growing in her stomach that only had room for guilt.
They sat in the car in silence, her hands at ten and two as she tried not to stare at him.
She couldn’t stand the quiet in which he stewed, murmuring to himself every now and then about how that most certainly wasn’t what was causing his state to decline.
“You never told me that before,” She said after a while, and it was quiet, whether to satiate his headache or because she didn’t know if she was allowed to say it he wasn’t sure.
“It never came up,” He said in a way that left little question. He didn’t want to talk about it.
They sat in the quiet some more, the only sound being the way her engine hummed beneath the bonnet, the music turned low for his pounding head, and he saw the way she chewed her lip and flicked glances at him from the driver's side.
He sighed, not wanting to snap at her the way he had the doctor, “Bug, would you please stop looking at me like that, like you pity me-”
“No, it’s not that it's…” She started carefully, her gaze flicking ot him for a moment as they stopped at a red light, “Every time I forget you’re the strongest person I know, you just seem to remind me,”
And just like that his heart swelled all over again, and he felt like maybe his head wasn't an entire failure to him.
+1 The one with the eulogy.
This was hell on earth.
She sat around the table at the funeral home with her mother to her left, her father and Stephanie to her right.
She could feel the team’s eyes on her; she hadn’t spoken in days, her face shallow and off colour, sick looking. Speaking to her mother and father was difficult for her on a good day, let alone when she was all alone.
Because that was how she looked, as if she were half a person now, her face bitter and angry as she tried to take up the least amount of space at the table as possible, her mother inspecting her finger beds as if they’d scorned her.
“Sit up straight,” She chided, nudging her daughter's knee, but Bugsy made no move to adjust her posture. She just stared blankly at the ugly floral tablecloth, waiting for the other mourners to arrive, to give their sorrows, before they could move to the church.
Emily was right next door. Cold. In a box. Her entire body was likely in rigour mortis now, her face was probably white as snow with the blood pooling away - pallor mortis Reid had called it - her hands were probably twisted and ugly like a raven's foot-
She couldn’t keep doing this to herself. And yet the thoughts wouldn’t stop, not even as Stephanie, step mother from heaven as she was, began to chime in to try lighten the mood.
Her dad hadn’t said a word to her yet, just patted her on the head the way he hadn’t done since she was five.
“It’s a lovely day for a funeral, don’t you think?” She commented, but her voice was too sweet, too soft, too normal to have the charm she’d intended.
Stephanie wasn’t a bad person. Not evil or horrible like Bugsy had always thought a step mother would be. But she was the person her father had left little Bugsy for, and though she knew almost all of her anger had been displaced onto the poor woman when he’d told her he had a new wife, Stephanie had never exactly bothered to remedy their relationship.
Emily and Bugsy had been someone else’s kids. Had been Richard Prentiss’ problems, not hers. And no amount of kindness she bothered to overcompensate with today would change the past twenty years her father had been too preoccupied to even call for her birthdays.
Bugsy scoffed, ignoring the warning look from her father. He knew very well how his youngest felt about his wife.
“Mr and Mrs Prentiss,” Hotch came over, as if sensing the girl’s annoyance at the woman’s words, and she mentally could have planted a kiss right on Aaron’s lips when he made the effort to exclude Stephanie in his condolences, “I’m so sorry for your loss. Losing a child is a devastation I never would wish on anyone,”
“Thank you for your kind words, Mr Hotchner,” The step mother piped up again, before either of them could say anything, and Bugsy shot her a look so full of hatred, Aaron thought she might have slapped her right then and there.
Richard cleared his throat, moving to put an arm around Steph’s chair, one that she’d pulled up to the table herself.
If there was one thing Elizabeth and Bugsy would ever agree on it was that Stephanie was intolerable.
Her mother looked empty as she nodded at Hotch, crossing her legs properly and pursing her lip, not saying anything. She’d never seen her mother cry, and she doubted that would start today. Elizabeth was much too of a proud woman to weep in front of the masses.
“Thanks, Hotch,” Bugsy said the first words she had in days, the only time she’d gotten out of bed was to feel Niko and Sergio or to use the bathroom. Her voice was raspy, ghost like, and it scared the crap out of him.
He couldn’t see her getting through this alive.
With Haley, he’d had Jack to get him through it, keep him going, if not to put on a front for his little boy that was the spitting image of his wife. But Bug had nothing left of her sister, nothing but herself and two parents that couldn’t stand to look at one another without screaming curses.
The other’s had already given their condolences, had already bombarded her with enough letters, flowers, stuffed teddies to fill a house, and she knew she wasn’t being fair ignoring them when they were grieving too. If not just as much as she was.
But she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t be anything except this shell of a woman once called Bugsy. Her sister gave her that name, she didn’t think she deserved it anymore.
Spencer just wished she would cry. He had been sobbing non stop, even where his eyes were puffy and red as Garcia’s as they stood in the funeral home, the smell of incense too strong, the sounds of wails too loud. But she looked… he hated to say it, she looked dead.
“That poor little lamb,” Penelope sniffled, tears already streaking down her cheeks as Derek tucked her under his arm, pulling her close into his smart black suit, “I wished she would let us in,”
“That girl is a carbon copy of Emily, of course she’s going to take herself off to lick her wounds,” Rossi said, his own fancy blazer stuffed with tissues in case his dark eyes welled up with tears again. He’d already managed to save himself once this morning before leaving the house, but he didn’t trust himself anymore than that.
Spencer missed her smile more than anything, though he himself was struggling to muster anything past a grimace.
“The Spring flowers are all in bloom, isn’t that lovely?” Stephanie continued, an easy grin on her face as she looked out of the window to the graveyard, as if she was entirely unaware of the grief lingering in the room, “I think she'll like it here,”
That was it.
That was what pushed Bugsy over the edge, even Elizabeth broke her cold facade to look at the other women in shock, her daughter’s eye twitching as her head snapped to Stephanie, a rage encompassing her entire face.
“What the fuck would you know what she liked or didn’t like, Stephanie? She barely even fucking liked you,” Bugsy hissed, drawing the attention of a few of the mourners with her vitriol anger.
That wiped the smile off the woman’s face harder than any slap could have.
“You watch your mouth, young lady,” Richard snapped, his face a blazen rage as Stephanie cowered behind him.
Bugsy scoffed, and Hotch knew by the sound of it alone, something had been lit inside her that was about to go off like a hand grenade.
He couldn’t say he blamed her.
“I don’t know why you even bothered showing up, Dad. You’ve not seen either one of us since Emily left college,” She spat back, her eyes wild like a cat ready to claw its way out of a fight, “Surprised you even remember my name now you have your shiny new family and your million honeymoons to keep you busy,”
Richard stood from his chair, his black three piece creasing as he pointed in her face, his hand shaking with rage, and she saw the tears well in his eyes that looked too much like her own for her comfort.
“You are turning out to be just like your mother, pushing away anyone who ever cared about you.” He barked, not caring that a few mourners turned to look at him in shock, “Don’t come crying back to me when you end up alone, little lady,”
And with that he took Stephanie’s hand, who was the patron saint of guilt as of now, a face like a scolded child, too naive for the grown woman she really as. At least she had finally shut up, Bugsy thought darkly as her father stormed out of the home, ignoring the way faces watched hers carefully, knowing every word he’d said had been true.
She thinks for a minute if Emily was here she’d poke fun at the way Steph’s face had been hilarious when her smile had dropped, or that her dad still had the worst temper out of them all, Bug included. She thinks that if Emily were here, she’d tell her he’d said all that stuff out of anger, and that she won’t end up alone, and that she’d always be with her.
She thinks that if Emily were here, she wouldn’t feel the empty nothingness where shame and sadness would be after having that entire thing play out infront of so many onlookers.
But Emily wasn’t there. And she couldn’t even say she was shocked when her mother stood from her seat besides her too.
“Where are you going?” Bugsy snarled, the Ambassador looking somewhat concerned before the expression fell and she went back to an equally lost look of her own.
“I refuse to be made a spectacle of today,” Elizabeth said detachedly, collecting her purse over her black midi dress, her painted nails skimming the handle gently, “I can say my own goodbyes to your sister later, when everyone has left,”
Coward. Coward. Coward. Bugsy wanted to scream after her, wanted to tear her hair out, wanted to grab the two of them by the neck and make them feel the way her words trapped inside her and clawed at her throat, sitting inside like a moth bouncing against a window trying to escape.
But she said nothing. Did nothing, as her mother left the home, left her sitting there alone, until the officiant came over to her not even a moment’s later and told her it was time to start the funeral.
And then she truly felt as if she would never be whole again.
–
Her hands shook as she got to the podium. She’d always hated public speaking, which Spencer thought was odd since she seemed to grab the attention of every room she walked into like it was second nature. She didn’t even bat an eyelid at chasing down a criminal or being shot at or evening chewing out a detective that wasn’t pulling his weight, but speaking to a handful of decorated officers that watched her with grieving eyes was too much.
Adjusting the mic to a more appropriate height, they watched her eyes scan the room, her brows scrunched, her mouth dry. Trying to find Emily, Hotch realised with a crack in his chest. The way she always did when she was nervous. The way she did when she was looking for Emily to come save her.
“H-hi, um,” Her voice shook, her fingers fiddling with the chord for something to do, “Mom- Ambassador Prentiss got called out on business so I guess I’ll be giving the eulogy,”
No one spoke, not even the ones who knew it was a lie, her eyes falling to where Spencer gave her a sad smile, some sort of encouragement for her to keep going, though his eyes were red and bloodshot, and he was sure the burn in his throat was rising again.
She hadn’t cried yet. Penelope had cried four times today alone.
“I- um, I wasn’t really prepared for a speech, so I’m, um, I’m just going to read the letter I wrote to her if that’s okay?” Her head shot to the priest who had handed the spotlight over to her, the warm spring breeze pulling at his robes as he nodded, his hand gesturing for her to continue.
She cleared her throat, tearing the envelope open, and the paper rattled in her fingertips with her shaking hands as she pulled out the double sided A4 that had been written on in neat blue ink.
Unfolding it, she let her gaze rip off the crowd of people who stared at her, waiting for whatever it was she had to say, the final words her sister’s body would hear before she was put in the ground forever. The last goodbye. The only one that had ever mattered.
“Dear Emily,” Bugsy read, her voice finding footing as she was able to look away from the hundreds of eyes that watched her tearfully. But it was the wrong move. Because the minute she’d prepared herself to say the words out loud she felt her eyes well up.
This was it. The last chance she would ever get to tell Emily how she felt. How sorry she was. How she was so damn sorry for being such a shitty person for so many years, for never saying thank you enough, for never hugging her when she really ought to have, for never appreciating how lucky she was to have a sister like her.
Her throat clogged, and she sucked in a deep breath, releasing a trembling sigh. Her bottom lip quivered.
“Sorry-” She apologised to the watchers, rubbing her mouth nervously, hoping no one could see just how deeply she had broken, just how harsh the wound had gaped open, “Dear Emily,” She started again;
“Everyone thinks they know what a sister is; it's the woman you share fifty percent of your DNA with who you’re put on this earth to annoy the shit out of,” A small wet laugh reverberated around the crowd, and she flashed a small smile at her own words. “But the truth is you can actually share up to sixty-one percent of your genes with one of your siblings. Which is crazy to me, because I know no matter how hard I try, I will never be even one percent of the woman you are,”
She swallowed heavily, and she heard Penny burst out crying again, her head buried in Morgan’s neck.
“If I was as gracious as you, I’d probably say you’re in a better place now, and if I was as brave, we probably wouldn’t even be here, because I would have been able to save you that day instead of just watching like a fly on the wall.” The first tear fell then, her face crumpling in pain. “If I was as considerate as you, I would be able to look every one of your friends in the eyes and tell them it would all be okay in the end. And if I was even the tiniest bit as kind as you, then I would have told you all of this to your face when it actually mattered.”
She sniffed heavily, and Derek did the same, his own throat burning, picking the thread on his nice trousers as Penelope’s tears wet his shirt through.
“Everyone thinks that true love is finding someone you want to marry and have children with, but I know now that’s not the entirety of it. Love is a person you want to spend every day making happy, and make them proud to say they love you too.” Her chin wobbled some more as she read the next few sentences with something darker than remorse in her glassy eyes, “I sometimes think, if we were given a second chance, if we could try again, I would be able to tell you that I truly love you, Emily, and that you’re the only person I ever cared about loving me too,”
Her voice cracked, and she regarded the paper with misty eyes, her cheeks soaked as she quickly wiped them with the back of her white, lace gloves.
“I think maybe next time I wouldn’t be so spoiled and bratty, and you could have been more relaxed and maybe less like my mom at times, but I think if we could do it over, we could have done it right, the way sisters are supposed to,” She sniffed, missing the way Spencer’s face dripped with tears of his own, her words tearing him inside and out with the guilt in every line. “But I guess it’s too late for that now. I only got one chance to be your sister and I failed, no matter how many times you pulled through for me. And that’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay.”
She braved a look at the closed casket, imagining her big sister, the only person she ever truly loved laying in there with fair, snow skin, her noir hair sitting perfectly like a princess in the fairytales she used to read to her before bed. Only this one had no happy ending. This one ended with her heart torn from her chest, bleeding for the rest of her days until her own body was buried and everyone could mourn the girl who was barely half the woman her sister was, no matter what the statistics say.
“I’m sorry, Emily” It was the first time she’d said the two words that had been playing in her head on a loop for weeks, the two words that sang to her like a mantra, every morning, noon and evening. Even in her sleep she had dreams where she could do nothing but scream into a void of darkness, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It should have been me, I’m sorry. “I hope you can forgive me,” She whimpered through a sob, ignoring the way her cheeks gushed with fat tears now, as she wept freely at the podium, her hands no longer shaking.
“Lots of love, your shitty baby sister, Bugsy.” She finished with a small whine, her expression broken as she folded the letter back up and placed it in the envelope, the cursive lettering of her big sister’s name staring back at her. Finishing where she’d started.
Tucking the letter underneath a tulip wreath atop the coffin, she stepped back down off the podium, ignoring the way the eyes followed her back to her seat, ignoring the way Derek rubbed her shoulder affectionately, or the way JJ handed her a packet of tissues, even though her own face was flooded, and showed no signs of stopping. She felt Spencer grab her hand in his delicately, entwining their fingers together, and squeezing lightly.
The priest continued with a hymn, though she didn’t bother singing it. She just stared at her shoes, as if her entire soul had been sucked from her the minute she’d ended the eulogy.
Which it had, because that had been Emily’s last goodbye.
She didn’t speak in the car on the way back to Spencer’s, not as Hotch pulled her in for a wide hug, rare and warm, even going so far as to stroke the back of her head with more affection than they’d ever seen him give her.
“Call me if you need anything,” He’d murmured into the side of her head as he held her close, feeling two hands hesitantly wrap around his waist, as if she wasn’t entirely switched on which, going by the vacant look on her face she wasn’t.
Spencer made her tea the moment they got in. She didn’t ask for it, she just sat on the sofa and stared at the beat up, old TV he kept only for the occasional documentary, and for the shows she liked to watch too of course. But she hadn’t even switched it on, just stared at the inky black glass like it would jump to life itself and tell her how to feel.
He took a seat next to her, on the other end of the couch, flicking the screen on for something to stop it from being so silent in his home; the silence meant they were alone with their thoughts, and for once he and his thoughts couldn’t stand being together. He didn’t want to interrupt her, or be the first to break the quiet. Not even when he watched her tea go cold in front of her, or as she barely acknowledged the cartoon on the TV, or when he pulled out his copy of The Brothers Karamazov that he’d been re-reading for the third time.
“Would you like me to read to you? Would that be better?” He asked tentatively, and she didn’t even blink, as if she were some sort of zombie or corpse sitting next to him programmed for instruction on acting human.
She said nothing, but she did move, the act of it making him jump slightly, and it was then he realised she had been perfectly still for the past half an hour, barely even showing signs of breath. A puppet with no master.
She leaned over, her body dropping onto the sofa softly as if she was taking a nap, only for her head to rest on his thigh, and his hand flew to pull the claw clip out of her hair like he read her mind. Her knees nestled to her chest, in foetal position, her pretty black dress, the same one she’d worn for Haley’s funeral riding up past her knees.
He gently tucked his long fingers into her roots, stroking her hair like she were a tame cat curled in his lap, clearing his voice as he continued where he’d left off, making sure he wasn’t reading too fast the way he would if it was just him.
His head still whirled around the eulogy she’d read. How watching her crack beneath the weight of her own words had hurt him more than his own grief, had made him bury whatever it was he felt and just need to put her back together again.
Because he didn’t need an eidetic memory to have ingrained what she’d said into his head, not even as they went to bed, and she burrowed into his side in one of his sweatshirts he usually saved for his own bad days.
“Bug,” He braved to say, watching her eyes force themselves open from where they were on the very lip of sleeping, “You’re my very best friend, did you know that?”
She hummed, her nose digging into his arm that he wound under her head, pulling her close enough he could feel her heartbeat against his own where she was in the crook of his neck.
“I love you,” She said, like those three words didn’t rip the air from his lungs.
Not even as her breathing finally evened out, and he felt himself heave a sigh of relief; the bags under her eyes had been more noticeable today than ever. Not even when he dared a kiss to her forehead as she slept, the smell of her shampoo completely taking over his pillow as he allowed his own heart to hurt for just a few moments, missing his friend dearly as he looked after the woman.
Love is a person you want to spend every day making them happy, and make them proud to say they love you too.
set sometime in early s2; you get stuck sharing a room with your favorite boy genius who absolutely cannot know that you have feelings for him. and also, there’s only one bed. fluff, f!reader (i think there's only two usages of gender markers)
word count: 4.7k
notes: this is a rework of a very old fic i used to have up on ao3. i'm thinking i'll do more of these, i've got a few spencer fics in the vault and it was fun to rework this and see how my style has changed :)
You shivered against the cold desert air. Twirling a keyring around your finger, you headed for the door marked 3. You were exhausted from the day and so, so ready to collapse into bed as soon as you got inside your room.
You turned the key in the lock while Spencer waited behind you. It was late, and you and the team had pulled into a motel for the night, having been dragged out to a tiny rural town by the unsub after days of tracking him through surrounding areas. He’d been apprehended, finally, and handed over to local police around midnight. You all had decided it best to spend the night before driving back into town in the morning for take off.
So here you were, at one of those single story motels that still used actual keys instead of key cards. Given the time of night, you knew vacancies would be scarce, so you’d already expected to have to double up on rooms. Gideon had stayed behind at Quantico, leaving Hotch and Morgan in one room and JJ and Prentiss in another, with you and Spencer sharing the last room. You’d hung back while JJ got everything figured out with the concierge (who was just a bored looking kid posted at the desk), and then she’d passed you your key with its little keyring attachment listing the room number and you all bade each other goodnight.
You’d been on the team nearly a year already, but you were still the rookie compared to everyone else. Even Spence had two years on you. But seeing as you two were the youngest, and the least inclined toward the more physical parts of your job– the chasing, tackling, firing your weapon parts– you were paired off with him more often than not.
You weren’t complaining. You’d come to know Spencer pretty well, and you didn’t feel much apprehension at the thought of sharing a room with him for one night.
That is, until you opened the door.
“Oh,” you said involuntarily.
"There's only one bed,” Spencer said.
“Sure looks that way.”
"At least it's a queen?"
There was a brief pause before you both started speaking at the same time.
"Maybe we can go back to the concierge–" Spencer began.
"I mean, I guess I don't really–"
"–although, JJ did say we got the last–"
"–mind as long as you–"
You cut yourself off this time. It’s not like there was another good option, unless one of you wanted to sleep in the car. "This is fine?" it came out as a question rather than a statement.
"I think so? I wouldn't want to– to make you uncomfortable or anything."
"This is fine," you repeated, more sure of yourself this time. “And you don’t make me uncomfortable.”
It was only kind of a lie. You trusted Spencer with your life, of course. But he also made you nervous. He was sweet, kind, always seeming genuinely interested in anything you had to say. And of course, anyone could see that he was attractive. You were developing feelings for him, and in a job where your coworkers and your crush himself were all adept at reading people, it really wasn’t a good position for you to be in. You just hoped Spencer was as oblivious with women as Derek made him out to be.
"We should get out of the doorway," Spencer suggested, and you realized you'd been standing in the threshold this whole time.
"Right."
The two of you walked in, Spencer closing and locking the door behind you. It was a modest room in a tiny town; your standard ugly-patterned, faded bedspread draped over the queen bed in the center, a window looking out into the parking lot, and a dresser that didn’t even have a TV on top of it. You headed straight for the bed, sitting on the edge and removing your shoes while Spencer stood by with his hands in his pockets.
"You know, if it's a problem I can sleep on the cou– uh, the chair," Spencer offered, looking back mid-sentence and realizing that the only additional furniture this motel offered was one rigid looking armchair by the window.
"No, you're not doing that."
"What?" he asked, taken aback by the quickness of your response.
"You're not sleeping in that chair. It looks horribly uncomfortable and I’m sure it’s never been cleaned, and I know how you’d feel about that.”
Spencer grimaced, not having thought about that particular detail. “Yeah, but, I mean… I’d do it for you.”
God, why did he have to say stuff like that? Like you were something special. And why now, when you were stuck in the same room with him until morning? It probably didn’t even mean the same thing to him as it meant to you. He was one of the most caring people you’d ever met. He’d probably say that to any one of you on the team.
Or maybe sleeping in a chair meant nothing to him at all. Maybe he actually didn’t want to share the bed with you and that’s why he was trying so hard to avoid it.
Ugh. You just wanted this day to be over. It was late, the case had been a week long, and now you were probably in for a fun night of overthinking and second guessing when you’d been expecting silence and easy, dreamless sleep.
Okay, maybe that last part was never really an option, but still.
“Look,” you sighed, “I know this isn't an ideal situation but there's a perfectly good bed here, so let’s just share it. If you’re okay with that. It's just one night and tomorrow we'll be back home and nobody has to know about it."
You had to fight from squeezing your eyes shut in regret. You wished that had come out differently. You chanced a look at Spencer, realizing that you’d been staring down at the faded carpet pattern while you spoke.
The look on his face was one you hadn’t seen before, and you almost couldn't place it. He seemed sort of disappointed. Disappointed that he had to share a bed with you? Or that you'd made it sound like you didn't want to share a bed with him? Nope, you could not go down that road tonight. You shook your head once as if it would clear the thoughts from your tired mind.
“I’m okay with that," he said, casually enough that you could almost convince yourself that you’d just imagined the look on his face before. "So, do you want the shower first, or...?" Spencer asked.
"No, I can wait, you go ahead," you said. You desperately needed the moment to yourself anyway.
You started rifling through your bag for pajamas, toiletries, and your charger as an excuse to look busy while Spencer made his way into the bathroom with his things. As soon as the door closed behind him, you flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as if it might hold all the answers.
Spencer couldn't know about your feelings. For one thing, you were pretty sure there was a rule against dating your colleagues in the BAU. If not, there probably should be. You were such a close knit team, and if anything went wrong… you couldn’t imagine how difficult that would be. But then, the evil and uncooperative part of you also couldn’t help but think that things might go right.
From the beginning of your time at the BAU, you’d been drawn to Spencer. It just kind of made sense. You’d gotten through school at an accelerated pace– though not as quickly as him, the man was on another fucking level when it came to academics– and you were one of the only people who found his fact dropping actually interesting, often asking him follow up questions. He’d looked adorably shocked the first few times you’d done that.
He listened intently to your passionate rants about your favorite films and tv shows, even though he hadn’t seen any of them. When the two of you had discovered a shared interest in mythology and folklore, Hotch nearly had to separate you so you would actually get some work done. It was like you were a kid in school again, and you might’ve been embarrassed if you didn’t find it so funny, if you weren’t so giddy at the idea of a friendship that could make you feel like a kid again.
Spencer understood you in a way that other people didn’t, laughing at your jokes even when they didn’t land for anybody else. When people interrupted or spoke over you, he always paid attention, and in situations where you were trying to add details to the profile he’d bring the conversation back around to you.
Throughout your life you’d learned– through painstaking trial and error– to fit in pretty well in most any group you found yourself in, but you’d always considered yourself to be a little weird. A little too different. But when you were with Spencer, you felt like you didn’t have to try so hard. You could both be a little different, together.
Spencer opened the bathroom door then, startling you. You’d been so lost in thought you hadn’t even noticed the water turn off. You looked over to see him wearing a loose white t-shirt and pajama pants, his hair still damp. And now you knew what Spencer looked like fresh out of a shower. And of course it was endearing as hell.
“If that’s how you’re planning to sleep,” Spencer began, referencing how you were laid out in the dead center of the bed, your arms fully outstretched and hands hanging off the mattress, “then I think we might have a slight problem after all.”
You walked out of the bathroom a short while later, dressed in your usual sleepwear of shorts and an oversized shirt. You’d put your hair up in a bun to protect it while you showered, and now it hung loose around your shoulders. You simultaneously wished your outfit was cuter and uglier; knowing your giant t-shirt wasn’t flattering your figure while also feeling like you had too much skin exposed. Not that it mattered. You were just going to get some sleep and then wake up in the morning and head home. Everything would be back to normal.
Spencer’s in bed already. He’d turned off the big light while you were showering, the lamps on either side of the bed casting him in a softer, warmer glow. He looked up from his book to find you standing there, and the soft, familiar look in his big brown eyes had you rooted to the spot.
“Hey,” he said softly, patting the space next to him in invitation.
You conceded, finding your legs again and sliding into bed beside him. “Hey.”
He fidgeted with the pages of his book, ultimately shutting it closed on his index finger to mark the page. “So, uh, are we okay?”
“Yeah, of course,” you answered genuinely, feeling bad that your internal struggle had manifested in a way that worried him.
“Okay, cool,” he said. He paused long enough to let you explain if you wanted to, another invitation. You knew he wouldn’t push it if you didn’t offer something up. You wanted to give him an explanation, but you couldn’t bring yourself to.
“Sorry,” you managed.
“For what?”
“I don’t know… acting weird, I guess. It’s just been a long day.”
“Oh, well, you don’t need to be sorry about that. You’re always weird.”
Your mouth dropped open as you looked at him. “Look who’s fucking talking,” you scoffed. Some of the tension dropped from your shoulders, glad he hadn’t questioned you further.
“Language, please,” he held up a hand to stop you. “I’m delicate.”
“Wha–?” you let out a surprised little laugh. “You’re an idiot!”
“Yeah okay, tell that to my I–.”
“Oh, my IQ of 187,” you finished for him, rolling your eyes. Even that was full of endearment. “God, you are so annoying.”
“Hm. Y’know, this might be a long night for you. I’d hate to keep you up with my annoyingness.”
“I feel like you could’ve come up with a better word than annoyingness, Mr. 187,” you tilted your head where it rested against the headboard, looking up at him.
“Oh, she’s being a smartass now!” he split into a surprised grin, and you could swear your heart skipped a beat.
“You just said ass.”
“Wow. How quickly you’ve corrupted me.”
“Right, of course. It’s my fault.”
“I knew you’d agree.”
“Shut the fuck up,” you laughed.
Things felt a little bit more normal after that, joking around with Spencer like you normally did made the rest of the night feel less daunting.
Shortly after that, the two of you agreed that you should get some sleep, each reaching over to turn out the light on your respective sides of the bed.
You let yourself sink into your pillow, the exhaustion you had been feeling giving way to a hyper awareness of Reid’s body next to you. You were kept awake, completely overcome by the foot of space between you and Spencer; the consequences of crossing that space, the way it might feel, the curiosity over whether he was laying awake too, thinking the same thoughts as you. Even with that foot of space separating you, you could feel his body heat. You longed to move closer to him, to touch him, to let his warmth seep into you and lull you to sleep.
But you didn’t, and you wouldn’t, because this was just an unfortunate booking mishap. It didn’t mean anything. Tomorrow it would be over, and you could more easily go back to hiding your feelings from everyone else and yourself.
Eventually, exhaustion won out.
You woke what could’ve been a few minutes or a few hours later, the sky still dark. You couldn’t tell what exactly had woken you up, only the sense that you’d moved, almost like you’d fallen. But fallen from what?
You blinked in the dark, the street lamps in the parking lot providing enough residual light to keep the room from being pitch black.
Reid was sitting up. He must’ve bolted upright, you thought. Had that been what moved you? Were you lying on him?!
“Hey, you okay?”
“Sorry. Just a nightmare,” he said as if it was nothing. “Sorry to wake you.”
“What was it about?” you ignored his apologies, sitting up as well.
“I don't really even remember,” he breathed, almost like it was funny. “Just having a physiological reaction to whatever it was, I guess.”
You had nightmares too, of course. You all did. You hated remembering them, but you also hated the times when you woke up in the dark, dazed and inexplicably scared. Without thinking, you reached for his hand.
He turned to look at you then. “I really didn't mean to wake you,” he reiterated.
“I figured,” you smiled slightly. You noticed his breathing was just a bit too fast. You rubbed your thumb over the back of his hand, leaning over to rest your weight against his side, your head on his shoulder. His nervous system would regulate itself quicker this way.
“You were on my pillow, by the way.”
“What?” you ask, your head jerking back from him.
“I totally called it. You rolled right into the center of the bed in your sleep. Total bed hog.”
“Hey!” you protested, pulling your hand back from his in embarrassment. So you had been lying on top of him. Or at least really close to him. His hand chased after yours, finding you again.
“That wasn’t me complaining about it.”
“Oh,” was all you could think to say back.
It was quiet for a minute. You let your head fall back onto Spencer’s shoulder, but your heart raced in your chest.
“Can I ask you something?” he questioned, his tone becoming more serious.
“Oh– of course,” you answered, your brow creasing.
“What did you mean when you said ‘it’s not ideal’ and ‘nobody has to know about it’?”
“Wh– I– Spencer, come on.”
He didn’t give you an out this time. Just waited for an answer.
“I don’t even really know,” you sighed.
“I believe you’re being partially truthful about that.”
“Don’t profile me.”
“I’m not. I just know you.”
You sighed. “You know, sometimes I hate that stupid memory of yours.”
“I don’t need an eidetic memory to remember that. It was a weird thing to say, and it happened like four hours ago.”
“You’re guesstimating. And it wasn’t that weird.”
“Maybe not, but the way you said it was. And you’re avoiding my question.”
You continued to avoid it, biting down on your bottom lip.
“And you stuttered when I brought it up.”
“I told you to stop profiling me.”
This time, he just hummed in response.
“And so what if I stuttered?”
“Stuttering is usually more my thing. A nervousness thing.”
Maybe this was actually your nightmare. Maybe you’d wake up soon and none of this would’ve been real, and you wouldn’t have had to explain to Spencer that the reason you’d had an attitude was because the situation tonight had made it harder to hide your feelings for him. Big feelings that became a lot harder to ignore when he was this close to you, still holding your hand, the mix of scents from his detergent and deodorant clouding your judgment. Of all the embarrassing scenarios that you could’ve imagined playing out tonight, this was very high up on the list.
“I said ‘it’s not ideal’ because it’s not, just by definition. We were supposed to get a double room and we didn’t. Not ideal. And I said no one has to find out because I can already see Morgan having a field day with it and I know the exact expression that’ll be on his face–”
“The eyebrows,” he nodded, lips pursed.
“And then everyone else will get in on it and I just figured…” you sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to deal with that.”
“That all makes total sense.”
“Good,” you breathed. Too relieved.
“Now tell me the rest of it.”
“God, Spencer–” you huffed out, frustrated. He knew you too well.
You wanted to run. Maybe you could go sleep in the car after all. And then ignore Spencer for the rest of the day, and then the year, and your life, and–
“Don’t make me say it,” you breathed. This had to be a dream.
“But there is something to be said?” he questioned, his tone hushed, almost reverent.
It was just vague enough. You could pretend it was nothing.
“Yes.”
You felt like you’d just blown your life up with one word.
Spencer took a deep breath, your body cresting and falling with the movement of it.
“You make me feel better about being myself,” he confessed.
You shut your eyes. You had a constricting feeling in your throat suddenly, and the awful realization that you might cry.
He spoke again, because you couldn’t. “I haven’t always felt good about it, you know? And then you joined the team, and, well– you changed a lot of things for me. And you’re beautiful, obviously, and I was scared to mess up what we have, because it’s special, I think–”
“It is.”
“–and then you started freaking out when you saw the bed,” he was smiling now, you could hear it, “and I thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so crazy… maybe I could make you feel that way too.”
“You do. Of course you do. I feel like I can be my full self with you. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt like that before.”
Spencer laughed, a little delirious giggle, and squeezed your hand in his. You’d managed to avoid crying, thankfully, and you grinned along with him, looking down at your joined hands as you squeezed him back.
Things seemed to still for a beat, the two of you sitting with this moment and letting it stretch out. You still couldn’t really believe this was happening. You might have to tell Spencer to pinch you.
“So what does that mean for us now?” you asked.
“Well, for right now at least, I think it just means that we can go back to sleep without overthinking things into oblivion.”
“I was not–”
“Okay, this time I am profiling you, and you’re lying,” he cut you off, his smile still evident.
“Oh, this was such a mistake.”
He continued like you hadn’t spoken, laughing a little as he went. “I could practically hear it. It’s like, you know when a computer is trying to use too much processing power and the fan starts whirring really loud? Like that but just like right next to me, like tangible—“
“Okay! Thank you so much, I actually totally got it, you can stop now.”
He laughed, and your cheeks warmed.
“For the record, I meant we could both stop overthinking.” Then he shifted a little, facing you a bit more. With the hand that wasn’t holding yours, he brushed a strand of hair from your face, a fake pout on his lips. “Sorry I make you nervous.”
You cackled at that, if it was possible to cackle in hushed tones. “Oh, I bet you are. Besides, I know you like me now, so you’ve lost that card.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Certain that you like me or certain that you can’t make me nervous?”
“The latter. I do like you, if that was unclear.”
Your heart sped up, contradicting you as you answered, “Then I’m certain you can’t make me nervous.”
He titled your face up to his then, using his index finger underneath your chin to make you look at him. “You’re an awful liar.”
You just shrugged, watching triumphantly as Spencer’s gaze fell to your lips.“It’s been working out pretty well for me so far.”
“I guess it has,” he murmured, closing the distance between you and finally kissing you.
After so many months of imagining (and berating yourself for imagining) what Spencer’s lips might feel like on yours, you weren’t disappointed.
For once you didn’t have to think at all, the chemistry between you and him drowning out everything else. His hand fell to your waist, and yours moved to the curve of his jaw, pulling him closer as his mouth moved against yours. Your teeth grazed his bottom lip and he gasped, and your skin felt like it was lit up from the inside.
You pulled away to breathe, and to process, and to try and stop your head from swimming. You were rewarded with the awestruck look in Spencer’s eyes as he opened them again.
“Okay, was it just me, or–”
“That was crazy,” you breathed.
“Crazy,” he agreed.
“Spence?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think we’re getting back to sleep tonight.” Your eyes widened at the implication of saying those words at that time. “Not, like, in the sex way, though,” you hurried to correct yourself. “I need like, 4-5 business days to process things first, and I– well, I just meant, like– you know?”
Spencer was nodding at you even as his eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “Can I still kiss you during those 4-5 business days?”
“Oh, yeah,” you said, sounding breathless.
“Cool,” he agreed. “You seem really nervous, by the way.”
“Well, you kissed me.”
“I did.”
“How were you not nervous?” you breathed.
“Oh, I was. Your reaction is making me feel a whole lot better about it though.”
You scoffed half-heartedly. “I do so much for you.”
“You do,” he replied earnestly, letting go of your hand to wrap his arm around your shoulders as he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “We could lie back down, if you want. Like we were before I so rudely woke you up.”
“Yeah, I’m super mad about that,” you joked. “Anyway, I was asleep for that, so you’ll have to show me what I was doing.”
He seemed all too pleased to do so. “Okay, so you were basically like,” he leaned back against the pillows, pulling you down with him, moving his hand to the side of your head to guide you to the place where his shoulder met his chest, “Like that, and then your arm was over here,” he picked up your arm and guided it around his waist.
“Oh god, that’s so embarrassing,” you said, realizing that he must’ve been awake when you’d done it.
“Yeah, I know. Really terrible time for me.”
“I can imagine. I can scoot back over to my side of the bed, just say the word.”
“Don’t you dare,” he said, squeezing you closer.
You trailed your fingers up and down his waist, feeling more content than you had in ages.
“I can’t believe you’d suggest that I would have sex with you right after confessing my feelings. Like, take me to dinner first at least.”
“Oh my god,” you half-exclaimed, half-laughed. You felt your cheeks heat up again, grateful it was still too dark in the room to be noticeable. “You’re right, I’m so sorry. How’s next Friday?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. My work schedule is kind of unpredictable. I’ll have to get back to you.”
“You’re such an ass.”
A few short hours later, you were back on the jet with the rest of the team. You were lying on the couch while Spencer sat in a seat one row up and across from you, both to avoid suspicion and so you could try to catch up on sleep. He sat facing away from you, but with the angle you were at you could still see one side of his face if you tilted your head up.
You were just beginning to fade when your phone buzzed next to you.
Spencer: I have to tell you something, coworker to coworker.
You looked up to see him blank faced, looking down at the book in his right hand, holding his phone in the left.
You text back: okay?
Spencer: My crush asked me out last night.
You’re exceptionally glad no one was sitting close enough to see you. Spencer had caught you off guard, and you felt an infatuated grin spreading across your face.
You: what did u say?
Spencer: Wanted to get your opinion first.
You: i think u should say yes, obviously.
Spencer: Idk, I’m kinda nervous. I think she’s trying to jump me on the first date.
You just barely managed to refrain from laughing out loud. You looked up at Spencer again, and he’s looking at his phone as if it contained nothing more than a weather report. You’re astounded.
You: one could argue that technically you’ve already slept together, so there’s less to be nervous abt
You saw his eyebrows raise just slightly. Success.
Spencer: You’re trouble, you know that? See you Friday night
You: i promise i won’t try to jump you
Spencer: Oh
Spencer: I fear I may have shot myself in the foot here
You: i wouldn’t worry about it to much
Spencer: That’s rich coming from you
You rolled your eyes even though he couldn't see you.
You: whatever. wear something sexy ;)
You heard him blow air out of his nose, an almost laugh.
“Something funny?” you heard Derek ask.
Shit.
“This book contains a historical inaccuracy that was proven incorrect eight years before its publishing date,” Spencer replied without missing a beat.
Unbelievable.
You: you’re unhinged :*
Spencer: Go to sleep already, would you?
You: coworker to coworker? my crush keeps interrupting my beauty sleep
Spencer: He’s probably worried about the worldwide implications of you becoming any more beautiful
You: i guess that’s why the universe gave you insomnia :( too pretty
Spencer: Stop flirting with me
You: bc you’re too delicate??
Spencer: Yes
You snapped your phone shut, feeling dazed. You watched the clouds go by in the window across from you, and you couldn’t help letting your gaze slide over to Spencer. He’d put his phone down as well, concentrating on his book. Or pretending to concentrate. He was turning the pages much too slowly for his actual pace.
You: you have got to do a better job of fake reading than that
You heard a page turn.
You looked up again to see the ghost of a smile threatening the corner of his mouth.
This was going to be fun. And also, you were so screwed.
TROUBLE ALMOST ALL MY LIFE | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader
Description: The ONE time the BAU needs you + the FOUR times you need them.
word count: 24k (what on earth was I thinking)
trigger warnings: mentions of spencers addictions + use + side affects. MOMMY ISSUES thankyou ambassador Prentiss. hostage scene + injuries. mentions of forced/pressured marriage. fem!reader. reader and Emily struggle to bond.
main masterlist.
authors note: We never meet Emily's dad nor do we see a picture so while reader is given a nickname of Bugsy, she still keeps her real name (no use of y/n) and is given ZERO physical descriptors. ALL of my fem!readers should feel included here, let me know if this is not the case! also I don't speak any language besides English however she does speak many because of her mom, so I really tried to get it right, message me if I'm being stupid!!
[this] means its spoken in another language.
—
1. the one where you become a translator.
“I’ll make some calls, I may still have some friends in the Eastern countries,” Ambassador Prentiss announced to the room, standing from her place on the plush sofa.
A case had landed quite literally in Emily’s lap when her mother had come by that morning asking for Hotch, a Russian migrant looking for her father with a ransom note and a sliced off finger shoved through her mailbox, wedding ring still attached.
It wasn’t every day Emily wished she’d brushed up on her Russian, but today of all days she was struggling to keep up.
“We don’t have much time, we need a division of labour,” Hotch’s serious face settled, the time constraints making him just that bit more dictatorial, “Morgan, someone needs to go to the Chernus’s house in Baltimore in case they are contacted again,”
“What about the language barrier?” Derek raised, smoothing a hand over the short scruff of his beard, “We can’t have the unsub speaking with the family directly. He could say anything to them without us knowing,”
Bugsy would hate to admit she fit the criteria for youngest daughter of a workaholic mother and distant father to a tea, but Emily would say different.
Elizabeth Prentiss had never been a warm woman; Emily used to tell her the scowl was a side effect of the overplucking of her eyebrows, not the serious nature of her job. Her youngest girl once said her mother’s lips looked like she’d sucked a lemon. Of course they admired her work, but world peace meant jack shit to a little girl wanting nothing more than a mother’s hug.
Despite the fact she’d pushed away her husband and both her daughters in favour of her career, the one useful thing about being the Ambassador’s daughter wasn’t just the money, but the widespread culture the girls had been crammed full of since they could so much as beg for a sippy cup.
“Baltimore, you say?” Emily asked Hotch with a somewhat doubtful wince, “I mean you could always-”
“Absolutely not,” Her mother cut her off, rubbing the stress lines already creasing her forehead at the very notion of her other daughter, despite the fact Emily hadn’t even finished her thought.
Emily’s sigh was a reflex, the years of her mother cutting her off sparking the frustration on instinct.
“She lives right in the city, Mother, it can’t hurt to have her just talk for them-” Emily tried to bargain, only for the sharp mouthed Ambassador shoot her a frown.
“End of discussion, Emily,” Elizabeth snipped, her manicured fingernails twitching with annoyance, “Your sister is much too young for an assignment so serious,”
Emily rolled her eyes with a scoff, as if the two had slipped back into the role of rebellious teenager and scathing mother without much thought.
“She's twenty-two, mom. She’s getting her masters degree for Christ sakes, she’s not ‘too young’,” The dark headed woman fought back, clicking her pen a few times as if the spring loaded ink would take away some of the temper Elizabeth seemed to flare up.
Her mother’s lips pursed, in the way Bugsy hated, in the way that meant she was going to be mean.
“Immature may have been a better word, then,” She replied, and Emily seemed to pause. She couldn’t argue with that. “Or perhaps lazy, or puerile; callow, wild, irresponsible. Would you like me to name more?”
“Asinine would be a good term; deriving from the Latin asinus it not only means foolish, but to be stubborn and lazy like an ass,” Spencer input helpfully to the Ambassador, only for his bright smile to fade when he saw the daggers Emily stared at him with, “Sorry, I love word games,” He muttered into his lap.
“Asinine. Perfect, Dr Reid,” Elizabeth said, and Emily could only roll her eyes harder.
Hotch huffed, the victim’s daughter watching between the two women’s quarrel with wet eyes, the ice box with her father’s finger clenched tightly in her lap, the cold of the limb bleeding into his own gaze.
“Unfortunately, Ambassador Prentiss, despite just how asinine your daughter might be, Morgan is right. Having the Unsub possibly speaking with the family without us understanding what he’s saying could prove fatal,” He explained, ignoring the way the older woman’s mouth scrunched in bitterness. They didn’t need to be profilers to see that despite how tempered the relationship between Emily and her mother was, a tension seemed to fall between the women the moment the younger Prentiss was mentioned.
Spencer was sure he was the only person who even knew Emily had a little sister.
“Very well, but don’t be surprised when you find your hands full of the girl,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head as she led the victims, a mother and daughter that seemed to cling to one another for comfort as if to rub salt in her matriarchal wound, into the break room to get away from the frosty atmosphere that now lingered around the table.
Emily sighed, picking around her fingernails the way she did when she was bothered.
“I’m going to hate these next words that are gonna come out of my mouth,” She started with a long exhale, “But my mother’s right. Bugsy is a handful. Just try not to get her wound up, that girl smells fear,” She looked to Reid who seemed none the wiser, “I’m talking to you, wonder boy. She’ll eat you up and spit you right back out,”
Spencer gulped quietly.
Derek only chuckled, slapping a hand down onto Emily’s shoulder, “Relax, Prentiss. Your mom’s just got you all worried. Need I remind you I grew up with two sisters? This will be a piece of cake,”
–
Those were the famous last words of Derek Morgan.
Loud, heavy metal music jumped through the wooden door, so loud Morgan worried his three polite knocks would go unheard as the two of them waited outside her dorm for her to answer. Morgan was about to knock again, figuring the music had drowned out the first lot, when the door swung open and a frown the spitting image of Emily’s stressed expression met their gaze.
She looked so different to their Prentiss, but the way she seemed already scorned by the two of them told them they had the right woman.
“Miss Prentiss?” Morgan asked formally, though he felt the warmth grow when he caught sight of a beat up friendship bracelet around her wrist amongst newer gold chains, five white blocks spelling out her sister’s name pulling tight on her skin, as if she’d quickly outgrown the thing but hadn’t the heart to remove it.
It was then that he and Reid seemed to both reel back slightly at the fact she was standing in a large shirt, ratty around the edges, and what seemed to be a pair of men's boxers covering her bottom half, clearly not suspecting particularly important visitors.
She looked him head to toe with a frown, a dozen piercings in her ears, her hair highlighted with streaks of cardinal red, as if he was the one confronting her in his underwear, before she moved onto Spencer, who’s face seemed to be getting hotter by the second as he forced his eyes away from her bare legs.
“Are you guys strippers? Did someone send strippers to my door?” She asked, strawberry gum smacking between her lips as her gaze seemed to finish mulling over Spencer’s tall form and returned to Morgan.
“Emily sent us.” Reid said shortly, the music blaring in his ears making it difficult to focus on what it was she was saying, “As co-workers, no-not strippers. We’re with the FBI,”
He hated loud noises anyway, cringed at the sound of particularly cutting rock songs, but since he’d developed his … problem, the dilaudid had him feeling like someone was clawing at his skull, tugging his brain through his ears.
“Emily sent you here?” She asked with a scoff, looking the two up and down again. They both easily caught the way her face hardened, “Are pigs flying today or something?”
“We’re here to ask for your help on a case,” Spencer rushed through a sweaty brow, “Emily said you’d be able to act as a translator for us and some Russian citizens who are being targeted,”
She sighed sceptically, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame, “Any strippers or non-strippers can fraud an ID. Emily’s name was in the paper just the other week. I’m gonna need a little more than that,”
She keeps track of her sister despite the supposed distance between them. Spencer was quick to profile, his mind whirring at all the ways she reminded him of her sister down to the way she raised her eyebrows expectantly at them.
“Emily was born October twelfth, 1970 at 7:12am, graduated from Garfield High School in 1989,” Spencer said as if reporting the weather, her eyes narrowing in on him all the more coldly, “She attended Chesapeake Bay University and speaks six languages, as I expect you do from moving so often with your mother. She coined your nickname Bugsy from your childhood love of ladybugs, which she said you grew out of by the time you turned eleven yet the name stuck, though you still like counting the spots to identify their species. Your parents split when you were five and your father moved in with his now wife, born September ninth-”
“Alright- alright. What are you, living in her walls?” She interrupted incredulously, before turning her attention to Derek who seemed to hide a chuckle with a cough. “Either you really are a stripper or you’re a terrible friend,”
“She loves Kurt Vonnegut,” Derek held his finger as if to prove her entirely wrong, although not much else came to him. Maybe he was a bad friend, he thought guiltily, or maybe he simply lacked an eidetic memory like the wonder boy next to him, who had been about to tell her how old she was when Emily’s pet betta fish died, “Slaughterhouse 5?”
Rolling her eyes, she grunted at them, kicking her door open for them to enter.
“Everyone loves Vonnegut; only losers under a rock dislike Vonnegut,” She drawled, edging back into her room, the heavy bass rock growing in volume as they followed her in, “I’ll be ready in a second- Emily’s always bugging me about wearing pants,” She said vaguely, scanning around the dirty dorm, until she found one particular pair of jeans laying half under her bed, quickly yanking them up her legs. “Come in, come in.”
She flicked the speakers way down to which Spencer took a breath of relief. His eyes fell to the laptop that had been set up on her desk, the five different textbooks littered around the spare space, energy drinks and empty mugs filling the cracks where he could barely see the generic white of the table top, his nose crinkling. About as gross as he’d expect from a college student.
“Emily said your Russian was pretty good,” Derek made conversation, his eyes wandering over the various posters plastered over her walls, some fraying round the edges from where she had likely been moved from bedroom to bedroom when the Prentiss’s inevitably had to move country again.
“Yeah,” She snarked, pulling a nicer top over her head, “Kinda tends to happen when you live in Russia,”
Morgan raised his eyebrows to Spencer who seemed to give him the same look back, though the latter was biting back a snicker at her words.
How in the hell was she the Ambassador’s daughter?
–
“This all involves Russian Mafia, it’s really beefed up here the last ten years or so,” Agent Cramer, a tall, slim man who looked entirely overwhelmed by the workload on his shoulders reported, as she listened intently.
She had been somewhat de-briefed in the car, Emily messaging her for the first time since Christmas, the message a simple: “Have you met with Morgan and Reid yet? Make sure to put on pants,” to which she sent her a thumbs up emoji. She didn’t have much to say to her at the moment, barely even knew her sister anymore.
“It started off mainly in New York and LA but they send lieutenants from the old country,” Cramer went on, and she caught Reid scratching his arm beneath his shirt. She knew it was mozzy weather, and he was already under the blaring sun in a little sweater, it wouldn’t surprise her if he felt a bit prickly.
“Pahkans,” She interrupted, the man named Gideon shooting her a glance as she dug through her purse.
“Your Mom do much work about the Mafia?” He asked, as she produced a clear nail varnish.
“Here and there, I had to sit with her in her office for a whole Summer once when I got caught sneaking out. Picked up a few things, though,” She said, holding the polish out to Spencer, nodding to his arm, “Here. Supposed to help bug bites,”
He looked at her as if he wanted to say something, perhaps question her sources for such an old wives tale, but he stopped himself quickly, taking the varnish out of her hand with a dejected nod.
“Thankyou,” He muttered, shoving it in his pocket.
Three months he’d been in this rabbit hole. She had noticed it in a matter of hours.
“They open up branch offices in other cities. Baltimore, Saint Louis, Chicago, Dallas, the list goes on,” Cramer added, nodding at her words, “They’re mainly offshoots of the Odessa Mafia and they’re especially tough to crack from a law enforcement standpoint. I mean beside being well organised with sophisticated technical equipment, there’s Vory v Zakone to contend with,”
“The thieves code, eighteen principles they live by,” Reid jumped in before she could, to which she nodded as Gideon looked to her for more.
“It means ‘thief in law’, or ‘thief with code’. It's a system of repeatedly jailed convicts that have been crowned or ‘made’ with a strict list of ideals, breaking them usually means death,” She explained, kicking a stone between her feet.
“It’s like bible to these guys. We’re not gonna be turning any of them informer anytime soon,” Cramer said. Gideon seemed to tune the three of them out however, his gaze locking on the house across the street, where a curtain twitched, and a man’s face appeared in the window, watching the crime scene with guilt.
“Then we’ll need a witness who will talk,” Gideon replied, heading straight towards the neighbour who seemed just a little too invested in what was happening, much more than a concerned third party should be. Though, she had barely noticed, digging through her purse once more for chapstick.
“So, you study Russian or something?” Cramer asked as she applied it gently, Spencer swore he could smell the cherry flavour from where he stood beside her.
“I lived in Moscow until I was six, moved back to France, then back to Italy, then Algeria for a bit. Bounced around Europe for a bit longer, but I still speak better Russian than anything else,” She clarified, and she saw Cramer’s eyebrows shoot up, “Military brat except I don’t get the cool discount at the store,”
“You must have had a lot of friends though, going to so many schools,” Spencer added, and though there was nothing teasing about his tone, she laughed sharply anyway.
“You’re funny,” She snarked, but smiled at him anyway.
Spencer had never been called funny in his life. ‘Funny looking’, ‘funny sounding’ maybe, but never funny.
In fact he was so confused by what she had meant, whether it had been a taunt or genuine that he almost missed the sound of the whole street locking their front doors, dead bolting their lives away when a black prius, an expensive one at that, pulled through the street and swerved into park next to them.
“Guess who,” Cramer bit, her eyes ripping away from where Gideon had the door slammed in his face.
Detective Cramer aged by about five years when two tall men got out of the luxury car, opening the door for a shorter man in the back seat, their faces thunder.
“You familiar with them?” She asked, shoulder brushing against Spencer as she turned to watch the men approach, entirely aware of the .9mm on each of their hips.
“Arseny Lysowsky,” The detective identified, his voice cold, eyeing the two men who flanked the leader, towering over them.
“Agent Cramer, how are you?” Lysowsky smiled at him, which oddly enough seemed somewhat real, as he also took stock of the three other people around him. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, noting her lack of gun and badge, trying to decipher if she was local or just a very unprepared fed.
“Lysowsky, what brings you out?” Cramer asked, a tightness to his tone, his hand all too eager to grab his own pistol.
“I heard Chernuses had problems,” He kept it vague, didn’t reveal too much, and looked back at the victim’s house with a scorned frown.
“How did you hear that?” Gideon challenged, stance unwavering as the mob leader turned to meet his cold gaze.
“And you are?” He asked, a sinister smile on his face that flipped her stomach. She didn’t like the tension that had overcome the little patch of sidewalk they took up, and she was quick to notice how Spencer moved towards her.
He, by far, wasn’t the best shot on the team, but he was sure Hotch and Prentiss would have his and Morgan’s heads if any harm came to her.
“Churneses said they hadn’t told anyone,” Agent Gideon ignored his question, hands firmly planted on his hips. If he was unnerved by the criminal in front of him, he never showed it, not even when Lysowsky’s grin widened horribly.
“It is a small community. Word gets out,” He said simply, looking past him to the neighbours house that had kicked Gideon to the curb, “Are you a friend of Gorban’s?”
A second of silence passed between them, neither of them backing down from the moral standoff they’d engaged in.
“Mr Gorban wouldn’t talk to me,” Gideon admitted, and Arseny only smiled again, flicking a look at the house behind him, as if hearing his dog had obeyed without command.
“Would you like me to talk to him for you?” The threat was there clear as day, clear enough to have Gideon’s eyes narrow, “I can’t promise something will come of it,”
“You!” In a second, Natalya, the victim she’d briefly met when Morgan had pulled up around an hour before, had stormed out of her house, her black kitten heels clicking against the concrete, “Where’s my father? He has my father!”
“Wait a minute,” Derek called, restraining her where she stood, trying to pull his muscled arm from her shoulder, “Do you know he has your father?”
“He’s responsible for all of this,” She spat, her eyes cold as she glared at the three men with vitriol hate, “Why everyone’s afraid, him and his animals,” She threw a hand up to his bodyguards that seemed barely contained by Cramer’s silencing hand.
“I am only here to help,” Lysowsky replied, confident and calm in his words, though not as taunting as the agents would have thought, as if he truly cared for her.
A vast difference to the sadistic mob boss Cramer’s team had painted him to be.
“Help?” She laughed woefully, tears in her eyes, “You’re a dog,”
“Natalya,” Arseny said in a warning, the way a teacher would to a student, as her breath rattled in her chest through a weep.
“How exactly can you help them?” Bugsy braved to speak, Gideon and Reid both flashing her a look. She’d always had trouble holding her tongue.
Lysowsky turned his attention to her then, his eyes running down her figure, still deciphering whether she was armed; she looked much too young to be an agent.
“In any way that they’d like me to, darling,” He replied, the disdain in her frown clearly not deterring him in the slightest, though again the act of concern held up in his own grimace, “As I said this is a small community. If one is in pain, we’re all in pain.”
Natalya weeped behind Morgan, sniffling as the boss made his way over to her, “Natalya, [you didn’t have to bring in outsiders],”
The younger woman’s ears pricked up as he spoke in his native language, Spencer’s eyes flicking to her from behind his sunglasses.
“[Let me help you],” He continued, taking a step towards Natalya, unthreatening yet she saw Morgan tense, his fingers twitching towards his gun.
“[My family will never come to you for help],” Natalya hissed back, also in Russian, her face contorted in disgust, “[Get away from my house],”
“[You are not right, Natalya],” He replied, yet again the concern in his eyes was either genuine or very well faked, “[You have made the wrong decision],”
Taking a step away from the victim that wept with a scorned sneer, he looked back to the agents, noting the way the youngest of them glared at him hotly, before retreating to his car.
“What did he say? Did he threaten you, Natalya?” Morgan asked, the woman watching the group of men drive away, as if Mr Chernus wasn’t still missing and they hadn’t just bumped themselves up to number one of the suspects list. “Talk to us and we can do something about it,”
“He said I made the wrong decision,” She said wetly, frustration turning on Derek as he pushed her for an answer, “I hope I didn’t,”
With that she stormed off back into her house, the same stomping of her kitten heels in her wake, leaving the agents to all look between one another before they simultaneously turned to look at Bugsy, questions hovering on all of their lips.
“What did he say exactly?” Gideon asked without frills, a hand rubbing his brow. Relaying the information, the men’s faces all drew into frowns as they heard Lysowsky’s parting statement. Gideon huffed, turning to Morgan and gesturing for him to follow Natalya inside.
“Morgan, keep an eye on her, Reid and I are going to Cramer’s office to look over the files,” He looked at her then, worry lines littering his otherwise friendly face, damn near scowling as she looked over at him, “You are here to interpret, you understand? You do not speak to the suspects, that’s our job.” He growled, watching her with disappointment, the same tone a father used when scolding a petulant child, “Do you have any idea how much danger you could put yourself in? These guys won’t hesitate to take you out the second we’re not around, kid,”
“But-” She started with a bite, though her whole fight left her when he silenced her with a raised hand.
“Buts are for cigarettes, kiddo,” He interrupted, and Spencer winced slightly, knowing he’d heard that one a few hundred times when he’d first started under Gideon and had yet to mature entirely. Reid watched something rebellious flare in her eyes, and he worried for a moment she might just slap his boss for the patronising tone he took, “Just keep your mouth shut, you’re doing great so far,”
She opened her mouth to protest, only to then register his words entirely and stay silent once more, appreciating his praise with a guilty smile. For once, she listened.
–
The grandfather clock chimed to tell them it was merely 11am; two hours until the unsub would start cutting more if they didn’t get the ransom fee, two hours to figure out who wanted Natalya’s family to suffer.
Said woman paced her living room at the sound of the hour, as Bugsy picked over the knick knacks on her fireplace, a small smile teasing her lips when she saw a picture of three small children grinning toothily at the camera.
She had never gotten any photo’s similar, Emily being fourteen years older. The majority of their childhood photos consisted of a very grumpy teenager holding her baby sister that seemed to squirm in the tight, formal dresses Elizabeth Prentiss had forced them into, identical scowls on their faces as they were made to sit for the picture.
There were some good memories, ones where Emily let herself be a sister and not a mom, where she would put makeup on her for fun and do her hair, let her have all the clothes out her wardrobe she thought looked nice, reading to her before bed, even letting her sister keep her pet corn snake when she left home for good.
But now, it seemed like she was too caught up in her super serious grown up job to give a shit that her sister lived just an hour away. Still messaged each other for holidays, but the last few times she’d braved a call to the eldest Prentiss, it had gone unanswered. They argued the majority of the time they spoke, or there was an awkward long silence in between words, whichever was worse, but they each knew the other would come running if they were to ever need them so desperately.
“Are you hungry? I could make something?” Natalya offered kindly, Derek having a poke through her collection of books that sat on the end table, though he’d have a tough job reading them as she’d already caught most of them were in her home language.
“Oh, no thanks. I’m fine,” He replied with a small smile, putting down the books to calm the clearly on edge woman that looked to the twenty-something year old hopefully.
She shook her head, “I’m good, thanks,” which seemed to deflate her entirely as she sat next to Derek with a sigh.
“I guess I’m like my mother. When she’s upset, she cooks,” Natalya said with a sad huff of a laugh, running a hand through her short, dark hair.
“Yeah, mine does too. I think that’s just a mom thing,” He replied, and Bugsy felt the two of them look at her as her finger traced the old brass ornaments gently, “How about you, baby Prentiss?”
She snorted, “You’re kidding, right?” smiling bitterly, “My mom never cooked for us, she said we needed to figure it out for ourselves rather than relying on the staff. Didn’t stop her from trying to end world hunger though,”
It wasn’t lost to Morgan the way her eyes trained on the picture of Natalya and her mother, cuddled together with genuine love in their embrace, the snarky humour as she spoke, the same longing Emily seemed almost too good at hiding from them.
“Your mother is a great woman,” Natalya complimented, though she missed the way the girl’s face steeled over, chewing her bottom lip as if to stop herself from snapping at the woman who meant well. She said nothing. “Where is your mother?” She turned her attention back to Derek who seemed the more talkative of the two of them.
“Chicago. That’s where I’m from,” He replied, watching Bugsy turn away from the two of them to inspect more of the Chernus’s trinkets on their walls.
“I’m from Dolgoprudny. Just North of Moscow.” Natalya replied. Opening her mouth to add something else, she was cut off by a knock at the door and the three of them froze in their place.
“Are you expecting someone?” Morgan asked Natalya in a hushed tone, reaching for his gun and heading for the door.
She shook her head, “No,” She whispered back. Morgan pulled the curtain back the smallest inch to see a small blonde boy staring back, a box in his hands and a bored look on his face.
It all happened too fast from there, Natalya opening the door for the neighbourhood kid, opening the box to see a decapitated ear, the blood fresh and pooling in the bottom of the box. It couldn’t have been taken longer than an hour or so ago, unless they were keeping the parts on ice.
Bugsy’s hand slapped over her mouth, Natalya’s scream piercing through her as she shoved the box into Derek’s hands, fleeing to the toilet, and she heard the woman retching. Part of her felt the same nausea settle in her stomach, looking away from the body part with a wince as Derek got straight on the phone to Gideon.
“They didn’t wait, man. They sent a box with-” He swallowed thickly, “With Mr Chernus’s ear inside.”
Gideon replied, and whatever it was, it had Derek looking back to her. He agreed, hanging up the phone and rooting through his pockets, producing a set of rattling keys, holding them out for you between the tips of his fingers.
“Gideon wants you, kid. He said they’re at the Little Kiev restaurant, they’re going to talk to Lysowsky,” Morgan said, grimacing as he held the ear away from her, “You sure you’ll be okay to drive?”
“I’d rather be on the road than look at what’s in that box,” She said in disgust, taking the keys and heading out to the car.
She thought it best for everyone she didn’t tell him she hadn’t yet got her licence as she made her way over to the restaurant.
-
“Reid and I will do the talking, just see if anything he’s saying connects with Vory v zakone, think you got that?” Gideon instructed her the second she got out of the car, taking the keys and handing them back to Reid who gave her a small nod.
“We think the reason it was Mr Chernus who was targeted has something to do with the code,” Reid explained, his hands in his pockets as the three of them approached the restaurant, “You said earlier you understood the tenants,”
“Why me, though? I thought I was just translating?” She repeated Gideon’s earlier words, almost cocky that they needed her.
“Lysowsky would feel the need to show face in front of men like Morgan and Cramer, even in front of Natalya since she lives locally. Between the three of us, he had less reputation to uphold, less so with a young woman like yourself,” Reid added, holding the door open for her to go in front.
And so there she was, trailing behind Gideon and Reid over to where Lysowsky sipped a spoonful of borscht, as she tried not to marvel at the grandeur of the establishment inside. Clearly, Arsney had money to build a place like this, and wasn’t afraid to be flashy about it either, that much was apparent from the other clientele that tended to their beers around their own tables, Rolex watches and designer shoes adorning nearly every one of them. She hated to think of how many ears or fingers those suits had cost.
“Would you like something to eat?” He asked, a chunk of bread in his hand dipping into the thick sauce, seemingly unbothered that they were there, “This borscht is exquisite, it’s my mother’s old country recipe,”
“Didn’t you forsake all your relatives when you swore the thieves code?” Reid asked, which she guessed was hit foot in to get Lysowsky to talk.
“I didn’t forsake her recipes,” Lysowsky replied with a shrug, looking to her where she seemed to be staring at his plate, “Borscht?”
She shook her head, her nose wrinkling, “Much preferred stroganoff, mom used to force me to have borscht to make sure I ate my veggies,”
His eyebrows raised, surprise written over his face, before he gave a short laugh.
“[Where are you from]?” He asked in his mother tongue, gesturing for the three of them to sit down, though his eyes lit up as he watched her carefully.
“[I was born in DC, but my mother worked in Moscow for a few years],” She answered shortly, and he seemed to find it even funnier that the near child they’d brought along on their case spoke as fluently as he did.
Laughing with a heavy hand smacking on the table, he gestured to a nearby waiting staff to come over.
“What are you having then, borscht for the gentle man?” He looked at Reid and Gideon, the former shaking his head while Gideon nodded with an awkward smile.
“I’d love a taste,” He said, though any enthusiasm seemed to have drained out of his voice.
“And what is the little lady having?” Lysowsky asked, his eyes falling back to her, as she straightened in her seat.
She chanced a quick glance to Gideon, who nodded at her to play his game. She had not expected to be so deep in criminal territory when they’d said they needed a translator, and truly they hadn’t planned on getting her in the field until they realised she would know much more about this than they would.
“Do you have sharlotka?” She asked, returning his smile wearily as he clicked at the waiter who all but bolted to the kitchen.
“A sweet tooth. I like it,” Arseny replied, shovelling a heap of beets into his mouth, “Our favourite was always Leningradsky,”
“Ours?” She prompted, giving a polite thanks to the waiter who returned too quickly with a slice of cake. She caught Spencer glancing at the bowl with intrigue, the hunger clear on the quiet man’s face. Gently pushing the bowl and clean spoon towards him, he flicked a look up at her, “Apple cake,” She whispered, sending him a small smile, “Really yummy with the sugar on top,”
“Mine and my mother’s,” Arseny replied, though Gideon and Reid both caught how he paused before he replied, as if he had to think about the answer he was giving; the oldest tell that it wasn’t entirely true, “We didn’t have much when I was a boy, but that was always our dessert of choice,”
She stopped for a mere second, missing the moment when Spencer spooned the tiniest bite of the cake into his mouth, trying to ignore the way his tongue exploded in the sweet, fruit taste. He hadn’t eaten anything properly in days, and maybe that was why it tasted so good, but more likely it was just the fact that everything sweet tasted even better when he was on his come downs.
“We need to talk, Arseny,” Gideon interrupted, ignoring the way Spencer pined to go back in for a second mouthful, but chose to hand the bowl back to her with a small smile.
“We are on first name basis?” Lysowsky asked, shaking his head, and she took a small bite of the sweet cake for herself, “I still don’t even know who you are,”
“I think I understand something about this,” Gideon replied, his thumbs tapping together, the waiter returning with his borscht, “You have a problem,”
“I do?” The pahkan titled his head at the agent, the annoyance clear on his face.
“That’s why you came to the Chernus’ house this morning,” Gideon answered, unbothered as he began to scoop the borscht onto the spoon, the apple cake in her own mouth going down a treat.
She kept her head down, took tiny bites of the dessert that certainly tasted like a fresh baked sharlotka. But her thoughts lingered on what Lysowsky had said, about his own favourite pudding.
It made no sense that he would have ever tasted Leningradsky shortbread, not for the time that he was born, nor with the amount of money he claimed his family lacked. Infact, the way he fully pronounced his vowels, the akanye, the stress he put on certain parts of his words, all pointed to the same dialect you’d heard back in Moscow, more central than anything else.
So how on earth would he have eaten the so-called ‘Royal Cake’ that had only been made eight hours from there, in the town it grew its name from.
There was something glaringly obvious about his story missing.
“A man like me?” She tuned back into the conversation, swallowing another mouthful down as Gideon took another bite himself, though it seemed the topic had turned sour as Arseny wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin.
“Four watchtowers and a convict signifies a stay in prison,” Spencer cut in, nodding towards the tattoos branded across his knuckles, “Each one of those crosses symbolises an individual sentence,”
“Twenty three years in prison in the Ural mountains,”
But she was still stuck on what it was she was missing. It had been such an odd thing to lie about, particularly when he’d even admitted himself that they hadn’t had much money, so he clearly hadn’t been lying to fake a reputation.
So why lie?
She was ripped out of her stumped silence when Natalya entered the restaurant, her voice grabbing the men’s attention immediately.
“Mr Lysowsky. You said you could help me,” She said, her purse over her shoulder and her own car keys gripped tightly in her hand as if she’d all but thrown herself out the vehicle to get there faster.
“Don’t you already have help,” Lysowsky snapped, clearly Gideon had dug under his skin enough to garner a reaction.
“I made a mistake,” Natalya replied, barely meeting Bugsy’s gaze as she stared at her from her seat at the table. “I talked to my father on the phone,”
The girl frowned at her, “That’s a lie,” It came out before she could hold herself, brows furrowed at whatever it was she was trying to pull. Gideon said her name in a reprimand, though he too was looking at the woman as if she’d grown a second head.
“Thankyou for coming, but I don’t need your help,” The woman met her confused look with a saddened expression, nodding to her solemnly.
Leave it alone, she seemed to be saying, there’s nothing more I want you to do.
And with that, the two of them left the restaurant, Natalya walking by his side obediently, her purse tucked in close under her arm, as Morgan and Cramer filed in from the parking lot, watching their only leads drive away without a fight.
–
The team were quick to head back to Natalya’s home, only to find the ear missing and the finger gone too, the only evidence left of any crime being committed leaving with the victim’s daughter herself.
“She’s not here, and the garbage was never taken out,” Morgan said with a grimace as he walked down the front steps to meet the four of them on the sidewalk.
“Her dad just went missing, surely we can cut the girl some slack-” Bugsy words were hidden in a huff, rolling your eyes at the man who cut a glance to her.
“No, no. When Hotch first talked to us, he said she noticed her father’s car in the driveway when she took the garbage out,” Morgan explained, his shades blocking the way the cogs turned behind his dark eyes.
“Right?” Reid asked, his own sunglasses now covering his eyes that winced at the brightness, surrounding them.
“Garbage can in the kitchen is completely full, she never took it out.”
“She lied,” Gideon said with finality, the penny beginning to drop for him too.
“She could be half way back to Dolgo-whatever by now,” Morgan scoffed, his arms smacking against his side as the lightbulb went off over her head, the final puzzle piece falling into place.
“Dolgoprudny?” Spencer asked, exchanging a glance with Cramer, “Isn’t that where Lysowsky’s from-”
“Yes, YES, of course!” She exclaimed, grabbing onto Spencer’s arm as he spoke.
He looked at her with wide eyes, not that she could see since his shades blocked the way, only to feel her shake him harder in the midst of her enthusiasm. Part of him wanted to rip his arm out of her grip, waiting for the sickness to crawl up his throat at a strangers germs touching him, but the oddest part of him reasoned she had the same germs as Emily did, that the fifty percent DNA the women shared negated the fact she was a stranger, just as it did when he met Jack. Jack had Hotch germs. Bugsy had Emily’s. He didn’t feel so sick thinking of it like that.
“I knew I was missing something,” She said, turning to Gideon, “He was lying before, about his favourite dessert. There was no way he could have had Leningradsky with his mother. Given his age, at that time in Soviet Russia, shortbread was incredibly expensive, only extremely wealthy families could have eaten it. That, and given the Central dialect he speaks in, I’d pinpointed he lives somewhere near or around Moscow, which means there was no way he was eating that cake considering it was only ever baked in one shop at first, one way up in Leningrad, where St Petersburg is now, like nine hours away from Moscow-”
“What’s your point?” Cramer asked, tired of the somewhat slew of thoughts she’d been saving until she knew for sure what she meant.
“Before when he said it was ‘our favourite’, I don’t think he was talking about him and his mother,” She explained, looking to see if Spencer at least understood what she was getting at.
“It was him and his own child…” Spencer finished, as Morgan’s phone began ringing.
“Yeah, what?” He asked, the frustration clear in his tone that they were all still without the evidence needed to pin it on Lysowsky, “You’re sure? Uh-huh. Okay, thanks doll,”
The four of them looked at him expectantly as he nodded to her, “Garcia just got into the bank’s system, somebody wired 500 thousand dollars into the account ten minutes ago,”
“Who wired it?” Spencer asked, though he was still reeling from the way she’d touched him, the way her voice went up about five octaves and a dozen decibels.
“She didn’t say, but the name on the account is Lyov Fulenko. She says that’s Lysowsky’s wife’s maiden name. Fulenko.” Morgan replied, and her brows furrowed.
“Why did she bring us into this?” Gideon asked, though the solemn look on his face said he already knew, “Because she needed to put pressure on the other victim,”
Gideon headed towards Mr Gorban’s house once more, though it was clear he had already sketched out in his head who was their unsub and Natalya’s involvement, he simply needed the confirmation.
Morgan clapped a hand on her back, “Nice job, baby Prentiss. Those were some mean profiling skills out there,”
She frowned at him, scoffing, “I’m not a profiler, that’s Emily’s job. It was just basic linguistics really; more a display of how I need to lay off cake for a while.”
The man kissed his teeth with a grin, “Don’t put yourself down. What’s your degree even in?”
She shrugged, picking under her nails for something to do, “Individualised genomics and health.” She said as if it were child’s play, though Spencer’s head shot to her.
“Biotechnology?” He asked, and she glanced at him with a nod, “What’s your thesis on?”
Gideon had returned by the time he’s asked, and began corralling the two of them back to the car, “We’re heading back to the restaurant. We need to speak with Lysowsky again,”
But it had fallen on deaf ears as Spencer looked at her expectantly.
“Just some new research into prenatal screening, nothing too fun,” She simpered, climbing into the back seat as he nodded with her.
“I read a fascinating paper on the uses of hCG in a woman’s body-”
“Reid,” Gideon cut him off with a short glance from the front seat, “Continue this conversation once we’ve found Mr Chernus alive,”
Spencer blushed, feeling like a kid caught in the cookie jar, “Sorry, sir,” He looked over at her, only to see her hiding a smile to herself.
He thinks it was then he’d decided Emily had been wrong about her.
-
“You paid the ransom already,” Gideon said plainly, the four of them trailing behind him as he followed Lysowsky to a small seating area in the front of the restaurant. She could tell the whole way Spencer had been itching to ask her more questions about her paper, barely contained as his fingers had twitched in his lap, but he seemed to straighten himself out once she’d reached the restaurant, “You paid all the ransoms,”
“Sit,” The boss ordered, barely glancing at them as he held his strong whiskey up.
“Are they going to kill Mr Chernus?” Morgan asked, cutting to the chase as Lysowsky spared him a bored glance.
“No,” He replied shortly, the look on his face about as grumpy as when they’d left.
“The account is in the name of Lyov Fulenko. Lyov is a man’s name.” Spencer input, crossing his arms as the boss glared at him, “A son’s name. Vory v Zakone. Never have a family of your own. No wife. No children.”
“Lyov,” He looked at her then, gesturing to her with the glass of strong liquor, “You know what it means?”
“The Lion,” She replied gravely, steeling herself against his dark eyes.
“No one else would be so stupid,” Lysowsky ran a hand over his weathered face, swigging his drink as if it was the only thing keeping him talking. “At first it didn’t mean much. It was a way of letting him earn his own money. I could afford it, it came from the fund. And no one questions the use of the fund-”
“Where is he?” Gideon asked, his elbows on his knees as he leaned in.
“What else could I do?” He was ignored, “I couldn’t admit I wasn’t blessing the kidnappings, I couldn’t even admit my son existed.” He huffed when he saw Gideon’s face unmoving from the glower, his question still unanswered, “Chernus will be home in a few minutes. You should be there, he will need medical attention,” He shooed them away, with his final words, drink sloshing in his hand. His face darkened, impossibly so, and the five of them looked at him, something sad and remorseful shining back.
“What are you gonna do?” She asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.
“Vory v Zakone.” He said heavily, nodding to her, “We take care of our own troubles.”
It was a silent journey back to the Chernus’ house.
-
Morgan and Reid pulled up to the campus, the younger girl in the back seat almost dozing off with the rhythmic hum of the engine, the evening sun much nicer on Spencer’s sensitive eyes.
“This is you, baby Prentiss,” Derek’s voice jolted her out of the half sleep she was in, straightening herself from where she had her head pressed against the window.
“Thanks,” She muttered, rubbing her eyes and unbuckling herself as they did the same, assuming they wanted to walk her back to her dorm since it had gotten dark, “I’ll be okay on my own, campus security should be out by now,”
“You sure?” Reid asked, flicking his watch up to his eyes to see the meagre 6:13pm staring back at him, “I thought they started at 7,”
She blinked at him, her eyebrows quirking for a moment, “How do you know that?”
“Johns Hopkins was my backup option- well actually it was my third, I much preferred Caltech’s curriculum, Yale was my second-” He started, flicking a glance to her where she waited for him to finish, “Not that Johns was bad, there were just better- alternative options out there-”
“Don’t shit your pants, I’m hardly the dean of the university,” She chuckled indignantly patting them both on the shoulder before sliding over to open the door, “Nice meeting you both, I’ll just get back to my mediocre college with my poor curriculum, nothing like the solid gold bathrooms at Caltech-”
“I never said that!” She laughed again, with her whole chest, at his defensive tone as she stepped out the car, hand on the door to shut it behind her.
Leaning down to give them both a wave goodbye, Derek’s voice stopped her again, “Baby Prentiss, do us all a favour and enrol yourself into forensics, we need more people on our team,”
Smirking at him, she shook her head, “Very funny. Never gonna happen. I like my little slides and samples, thankyou,”
Slamming the door on the two of them she headed for the front gates, swinging her purse over her shoulder. She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder, and she quickly realised she’d been too tired to even realise a set of footsteps jogging after her.
Maybe she should have taken that walk home after all.
Whirling around, her eyes widened as Spencer had clearly not been leader of the track team as he was half out of breath just from the few feet he’d covered, though she reckoned she could have guessed that seeing his lean ribs beneath his shirt.
He shoved a business card in her face as he caught his breath, though it was more just his name and credentials followed by a phone number.
“I-I don’t have email otherwise I would-” He huffed, scratching his forehead as she frowned and looked at him.
“I’ve never been hit on via business card before,” She bit her lip with a smile, reading over the card again as he choked on his words even more than before.
“N-no, I-” He spluttered, ignoring the way Morgan beeped the horn for him, seemingly in a debate with a ticket metre that had caught him parked on yellow, “If you needed us for anything, or if you needed a second pair of eyes for your thesis, I’m happy to help,”
“You don’t have faith in the dummy that got into Johns?” She asked, and his head couldn’t shake fast enough, though he seemed to catch her teasing and shared her smile, “Thanks, Dr Reid,”
“Spencer’s just fine,” He said, giving her a small nod and a wave as Morgan’s palm bounced on the horn a dozen times. She flashed him one more smile, pocketing his number and heading back to her dorm, wondering what the doctor would think about the paper due in tomorrow she’d yet to get started on.
+1. The one where you get arrested.
The case had been heavy. They’d felt it in the car on the way back to headquarters. A little girl, molested and groomed by her own uncle, his own wife covering for him.
His mother always told him love makes you do crazy things, but Spencer hoped that whatever part of him worth loving would at least stay sane by the time he found the one. He was loyal to his team, to his mother, but that was where he drew the line. He was loyal to his family, undoubtedly so.
Yet so was Emily.
The call came to the second SUV, her phone set up to hands free mode, quickly flicking to answer the call on speaker, the other half of the team ahead of them on the freeway.
“Prentiss, speaking. Who is this?” She spoke clearly to the unknown number, her knuckles going white at the wheel when she heard a nervous laugh.
“It’s me,” Her sister mumbled through the speaker, “You wouldn’t by any chance be near DC would you?”
She huffed, cursing the knack Prentiss women had for showing up at the worst times.
“Can’t this wait, I’m on the clock,” Emily hissed, her finger edging towards the ‘End Call’ button, “I’ll call you after,”
“Wait, wait, don’t hang up!” As if sensing her movements, she all but screeched, “This was my one phone call, they won’t let me have another,”
The car went silent for a moment, Spencer’s eyes narrowing on the dash from his place in the passenger seat, JJ also leaning forward from the back with a frown.
Emily grit her teeth, her upper lip twitching the way it did when she was mad.
“What do you mean by one phone call? Where are you?” She bit in a cautious tone, though knowing how reckless Bugsy tended to be, she had a pretty good idea.
The hesitation on the other end of the line was palpable, as was the way she awkwardly cleared her throat.
“Fairfax County Jail,” She murmured sheepishly, “But it wasn’t my fault, these assholes don’t know what they’re talking about, I swear-”
“Stay there and keep your mouth shut,” Emily ordered, her expression furrowing into a sneer, “And for the love of god don’t antagonise the officers,”
The agent didn’t even wait for a response, knowing it would probably be something snarky, her mind already racing at what the hell her sister could have done this time, every worst possible explanation jumping to the forefront.
“I’ll call Hotch and tell him to turn around,” JJ offered, her fingers already searching her contacts for their boss, as Emily sighed through her nose.
“Tell him not to worry, I’ll drop you guys back to headquarters, make my way there myself,” She said, picking the skin of her nail softly with her thumb.
“By the time we’ve reached Quantico, visiting times will be over and she’ll have to stay the night,” Spencer pointed out, his own surprise evident. Sure, she had certainly been a personality when they had met, but a criminal seemed a stretch.
“Maybe it would teach her a lesson,” Emily mused, shaking her head to herself, “Who am I kidding, that psycho would Shawshank her way out of there by dawn,”
“You don’t actually think she would hurt anyone do you?” JJ said, the dial tone ringing out from the phone she held to her ear.
“Wouldn’t put it past her. She once cut a girl's pigtail off for wearing the same dress as her on her birthday,” Emily winced as Spencer’s eyebrows shot into his hairline.
“I thought getting swirlied was bad,” He muttered, watching out the window as Emily made a U-turn at the traffic lights. He and the now twenty three year old had been bouncing research papers back and forth for a few months, the odd one every week, Bugsy even once joking it was much more interesting and riveting than foreplay, which had his face red hot at his desk.
She was like that, he’d quickly realised, had a vulgar sort of humour about her, yet he couldn’t help the snigger that came out whenever he’d receive one of his papers back through the mail with pink writing scrawled all over his ideas. The little hearts that dotted her exclamations whenever she wrote “AMAZING!”, the odd time she’d written “sexy ideas, doctor Reid” which he’d come to understand meant it was really good. He’d even gotten back the drawing at the end of the paper of a stickman of the two of them, his hair a curly scribble and a purple tie which told him immediately who was who, her line of a hand pointing at his caricature with the speech bubble, “everyone point and wave at the smart man,” which had made him laugh.
She was odd, toeing the line between childish and witty, nothing like the scholars he usually worked with, and the writing he usually sent back on her papers were all in standard black ink, his own pharmacist handwriting staring back at him as he crammed in his every thought of her research into the margins. If she couldn’t read it, she hadn’t said, but he liked to think she took notice of it all, even if it wasn’t strewn with stars and doodles and the occasional flirt he knew meant nothing. He knew her from her writing, knew her from her ideas that sometimes kept him up at night thinking more about them, but the two of them hadn’t spoken directly, most certainty hadn’t seen one another since that day with the Chernus’.
Emily hummed, fingers drumming on the wheel, entirely unaware of the thoughts rattling around in Spencer’s head, then again that’s how it always was, “I just pray to god she’s listened to me for once in her damn life and keeps quiet,”
-
“Fucking bitch. The nuns in Moscow hit harder than you,” She spat, blood dribbling from her split lip. She wasn’t entirely lying, but god did her mouth sing with pain as she tried to muffle a moan.
“You got jokes, pig lover?” The other woman asked, a tattoo covering half her cheek, her nose crooked from the shiner the Prentiss girl had already given her. “Won’t be fucking laughing when I’m done, bitch,” The woman was quick to tackle the girl around her stomach, slamming her into the hard concrete of the holding cell. Bugsy felt her skull rattle, the wind whooshing from her chest as rough hands grab her shirt and pin her down harder.
The younger girl reached the nerve under her opponent's armpit, the soft of her ribs, twisting until the woman gave a bark of shock, and she took the opportunity to shove her off, climbing on top of her as they both scrambled for some sort of control.
“I got one for you. What’s got a broken nose, a black eye and doesn’t know what’s good for her?” She swung twice as hard, the other women in the cell rattling against the bars as if watching a matador taunt a bull, the air thick with excitement as the two of them cursed eachother out.
Emily’s sigh was audible across the room as the wardens separated the cat fight, the largest of the officers all but grabbing her sister by the scruff of the neck like a feral beast, dragging her over with stubborn feet to where the BAU stood in the lobby, eyes widened at the state of her.
“You better start acting your age, little girl. Mommy’s not gonna be around forever to save you,” The officer hissed in her ear, manhandling her over to where Emily glared daggers into the side of her head. She knew that look, it was eerily similar to mom’s that time she’d been caught sneaking out of the house, something in the warm brown of Emily’s eyes frosting over into a cold blackness. Fury.
She chewed her words for a moment, waiting until the man had turned around with a grunt of acknowledgement to the badge Emily had flashed to get his attention, before she spoke.
“She’s not my mom, she's my sister, dumbass-” Emily slapped a hand over her mouth, gripping her shoulder with the bear-like strength her jagged nails possessed when she was mad, the scoff of disgrace leaving her mouth as her team trailed behind the two of them.
“What the hell happened, baby Prentiss?” Morgan asked, ignoring the way Emily’s heated gaze turned on him, “What’s got you so worked up?”
“Don’t entertain her, Morgan,” Emily seethed, all but shoving her into the back of the SUV. She looked up at her sister with an open mouth, the guilt flashing in her eyes as she wavered under the pointing finger Emily jabbed in her face, “Don't you even dare,”
“But-” She stammered, cut off when she saw the glare intensified, if that had even been possible.
“I don’t want to hear another word from you for the rest of the day unless you’re prepared to give me a good explanation why I’ve dragged my team out here to save your sorry ass,” Emily hissed, and the girl’s mouth bobbed a few times, feeling the rest of the team watching as she got thoroughly chewed out.
“Wait-” Emily’s hand lingered at the car door, ready to slam it in her face as she rubbed her cuff over her chin, mopping up the damage. Her head tilted for a moment, hoping her sister had something good to say, only for it to be; “He just called you old, I hope you realise that,”
Emily’s gaze darkened, slamming the door shut with an anger she imagined her mother had kept warm for the past twenty three years, whirling around heatedly when she heard a snigger from one Derek Morgan.
“Damn, mama, hear the girl out.” He said, slapping a hand on the woman’s shoulder as he passed, heading back to their own SUV, “Maybe she’ll surprise you,”
If Emily was going to bite anything back, she didn’t. Instead she ran a hand over her brow, the group disbanding to their cars now the problem child had been picked up from daycare, except for Hotch who watched the older Prentiss with a scowl, despite the worry in his eyes.
“Hotch, I’m so sorry, just take it off my timecard, I’ll cover all the costs,” She said shakily, her own frown adorning her face as she felt herself blush from embarrassment under her boss’s gaze.
“I understand she’s your sister, but this was a gross misuse of agent time and resources, Prentiss,” He said, his gaze drifting to where Spencer sat next to the girl, pulling a packet of tissues and hand sanitizer out of his satchel while JJ rooted through her own purse for a plaster, “Don’t let it happen again,”
Emily nodded vehemently, flushed with anger, her palms sticky as she wiped them on her jeans.
“Absolutely sir. Believe me, this ever happens again, she’s on her own,” She replied, though they both knew she didn’t mean it. Emily would never.
He nodded stonily, deciding quickly that it was punishment enough that she felt so ashamed, he knew from his years of arguments with Sean what it was like to have a sibling stray so far.
“We can fill out reports in the morning, just get Reid and JJ home,” Hotch said, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder as he passed her to head towards his own vehicle, “And try not to kill each other in the company car. It doesn’t look good on paperwork,”
She beat off the smile on her lips as she got back into the driver's seat, the air that engulfed the four of them foul as she glared over her shoulder and into the back. Spencer twitched in his seat uncomfortably, his hand still passing over tissues to the bloodied girl.
“So, you gonna tell me what that was about?” Emily asked, her tone brittle and warning, not in the mood for any snarky response she could give, “Or is this old lady going to have to lay into you some more,”
The smell of strong ethanol engulfed her nose as she held the soaked tissue to her face, frowning into her lap silently and avoiding the burning stare as Emily stuck the keys in the ignition and started the car.
“Let’s start with why you were there,” JJ input, the same tone of voice she used as when talking to victims, calm and motherly, unlike the pissed off snarl Emily gave, “You wanna tell us why you were arrested?”
“You two really gonna pull the good cop, bad cop on me?” She snapped, her lip swelling around the wound, tongue grazing it softly despite the heavy taste of the sanitizer.
Emily said her name in a warning, her last warning, and she knew better than to push her luck even more, the SUV pulling out of the station and onto the road.
“I was just shopping for groceries,” She started, fiddling with the bloodied tissue, wincing under her tongue stroke, “Store clerk made a pass at me, I told him I wasn’t interested. So he put a pack of smokes in my handbag while I wasn’t looking; the alarms went off. I didn’t even know what was happening until security grabbed me at the door,”
JJ flashed a glance at Emily, like two parents deciding an appropriate punishment, the brunette’s lips straightening out into a line.
“You’re telling the truth?” She asked cautiously, glancing in the rear view mirror to see how her sister balled the mess of paper between her palms.
Rolling her eyes, she gladly accepted the other packet of tissues Spencer slid over the leather seat between them.
“I went out for milk and oranges, I was not looking to get picked up, Em,” She bit back, groaning when she felt it jostle the cut, “And certainly not for cigarettes, you know I only smoke on New Years,”
Spencer looked at her with a frown, and she caught his confusion quickly, pulling another leaf of paper from the packet.
“Emily and I had a rule after she caught me smoking when I was like fourteen, that we could have one cigarette between the two of us on New Years eve,” She explained, JJ also perking up to hear it, “So that by the time morning came around, it would be last year’s mistake, and it would be like it never happened,”
JJ smiled to herself, remembering the time she caught Roz sneaking one of her dad’s cigarettes on the back porch back when she was just ten. She remembered the little secrets the two of them kept back then, held them even all these years later.
“So how did that lead to, well,” JJ gestured to her lip, “That,”
“Yeah, didn’t I specifically tell you to not antagonise anyone?” Emily chimed in, signalling she was changing lanes as they headed down the freeway for a second time that day.
“Technically you said not to antagonise the officers,” She pointed out, before Spencer had the chance to, shutting his mouth as he caught the glare Emily shot through the mirror.
“Keep talking,” The older Prentiss ordered, as Bugsy sighed and blotted her lip some more.
“That woman, Mira I think her name was, anyway, she recognised me from that picture mom had us take on Independence Day, the one they put in The Hill, and she asked me if it was true my sister was a fed,”
Emily’s fingers twitched at the wheel, knowing the status agents and even people associated with agents held in prisons; knowing just being a Prentiss in a jail cell held a big, dazzling price over her head that said ‘kill me, kill me!”
The air sucked out of the car, a look passing between JJ and Reid as they thought the same thing, waiting for her to go on.
“So then you hit her?” Emily guessed, the bitterness slowly ebbing as she understood maybe her sister wasn’t as unruly as she thought.
“No, I told her to leave me the fuck alone, but she said you guys sent her brother down for something a while back, and she asked again if my family were all Pigs,” She picked her nails, the blood stain on her sleeve staring back at her, “I told her if she didn’t stop calling you a Pig, I’d make her squeal like one. And then I hit her,”
Emily tried to pretend she didn’t smile hearing that, her cheeks tightening, lips pulling down as she fended it off.
“Is that good enough, officers, or will you be needing fingerprints?” The girl chimed after a moment, a weight seemingly lifted from the car as Emily quickly realised she had, for once, not been entirely at fault.
“I want a handwritten apology to my boss for wasting his time,” Emily demanded, her unforgiving gaze softening when she saw her smile, “And you owe my team coffee,”
“I can do coffee, coffee coming right up,” She agreed, shoving the used tissues into her purse with a crooked smile, “It’s a date,”
Spencers ears turned red, looking over the seat at where she dabbed at her lip gently. She didn’t look much older for six months, but she had gotten her nose pierced since the last time he’d seen her, unless he just hadn’t noticed it before, and the streaks of red were slowly fading out into a blush pink that said it was old, and he wondered if she’d done it herself in that tiny little cubicle bathroom of hers she shared with the four other girls in her block.
“You finished your stats papers yet?” He made polite conversation, though part of him was dying to know out of curiosity if she could crunch numbers and equations as well as she could in her own labs.
“Got two more this week, they’re kicking my ass man,” She replied with a huff, and he didn’t think he’d ever been called ‘man’ by a woman before. He knew if he’d known her in college, ignoring the fact he would have been twelve, he would have thought she may just be the coolest person alive, “I miss my labs with my microscopes and watching all the little baby cells move around in the ethanol. Stats are like, just not sexy,”
He smiled at her as she stared out the window, unaware of the way she’d managed to make DNA sound like a play pen full of kittens. He held off from telling her he found stats really quite sexy, knowing it would never sound the same coming from his mouth.
He pulled a leaf of the tissues from the packet, producing his own pen from his pocket and began doodling carefully so as not to rip the delicate canvas.
Sliding it over to her after five minutes as Emily and JJ made conversation in the front seat, she didn’t care that the grin tugged on her split lip, the reaction was instant, she couldn’t stop it if she tried.
Two stick men stared back at her, her hair a close match in texture and a childish triangle drawn as means of a dress, a very tall stick figure next to her patting her metaphorical head, a speech bubble coming from his mouth.
“Maths is fun!” It said, and she flicked a glance at him, her smile the most genuine he’d seen yet. He just smiled back.
+2. The one where you graduate
Emily felt the looks on her the moment JJ had mentioned Maryland. The case was a little under their pay grade, nothing more than a stalker, no bodies or bloodshed, but one very rattled woman that had turned to the communications liaison with fear for her life.
With Hotch and Rossi in Boston helping a case of their own, the rest of the BAU had been twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to come across their desk.
“This case is in my hands now, and if we do nothing and something happens to her,” JJ took a heavy breath, her eyes lingering on the three names Keri had given her in case of her untimely death, “I’ll be the one notifying her family,”
Derek, despite his own hesitations about using their time for a case like this, caved the moment he saw the guilt on the blonde’s face.
“Okay,” He shuffled the papers into a pile, Emily and Spencer gathering their own resources on the case and standing from the round table.
Luckily, one government SUV was more than enough to carry the four of them for the hour drive North, all of them well aware Hotch would flip if they used more funds than necessary.
JJ piled into the front beside where Morgan climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving Emily next to a particularly fidgety Reid. It took all of fifteen minutes of the man flicking a glance at her, his mouth quirking as if he were about to use it, before he thought better and looked out the window, and the whole thing would start again.
Derek, the less shy about his thoughts of the two men, even glanced at her through the rear view mirror, before he too returned his gaze out the window silently. JJ shifted in her seat, knowing she had to tread carefully around mentioning Bugsy to Emily, particularly after the last time they’d seen her. Emily had said they’d grabbed coffee once or twice since then, but that was all she spoke about it, which left her team walking cracked eggshells at the thought of bringing her up.
It seemed the three of them were bursting at the seams with the same thought, and it wasn’t until Reid cleared his voice, his puppy eyes stuck in his loop, that she had had enough.
“Does anyone here have something to say?” Emily huffed, Derek immediately reaching to turn the radio up the same time that JJ flicked the AC on for something to do. Realising they weren’t easily broken, she turned to Spencer who already looked slightly guilty, thumbing at his sweater, “Reid?”
“Did you want to see your sister?” He asked without hesitation, as if the words had fallen out of him, “You know, since we’re so close on this case. It would be a good excuse to-”
“You did say she owed us a coffee,” JJ pointed out, spurred on by Spencer’s nerves, “Wouldn’t mind cashing in if we’re coming all this way.”
“Morgan, do you have anything to add?” Emily asked with raised brows, though she already knew what was coming.
Derek chewed over his thoughts a second, “I’m just saying, you only get to see your baby sisters grow up once- you know, and it couldn’t hurt to see her even if she runs rings around you with that smart mouth-”
“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the case?” Emily cut him off incredulously, but received three knowing looks back. She met JJ’s gaze where the woman had swivelled in her seat to talk to her, and Prentiss was fast to catch the buried grief in her best friend’s eyes. She knew it pained her to even bring up sisterhood, let alone watch Emily throw hers away for the sake of a decade and a half between them. It was the desperation in JJ’s face that did it, knowing she would give anything to spend just an hour with Roz one more time, that had her drawing her cell out her pocket and calling the contact with the little ladybug next to it, “Fine,”
As a profiler she would have been tempted to ignore the way Spencer smiled into his lap; as a sister, her eyes narrowed at him.
The phone rang surprisingly only once before she answered, and she heard an unnaturally tame version of her sister answer.
“Emily?” She asked, her voice hushed, worried almost, “You okay?”
Her brows furrowed, “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?” She got no more than a hum in return, somewhat agreeing though Emily could tell clear as day she was holding something back. “Look, we’re gonna be in Silver Spring, I was thinking tomorrow we could grab lunch-”
“Can’t, I’m busy, it’s an all day thing,” Her sister cut her off, yet it wasn’t rude or demeaning like usual. Nervous almost, sad, “Sorry,”
“What’s an all day thing?” Emily asked, the concern matching her words.
Her sister swallowed on the other end of the phone, before she found her words, or maybe even the balls to actually speak, “I’m graduating tomorrow,”
Emily’s face lit up, the smile spreading fast on her face, ignoring the way Morgan’s words seemed to ring true in her ears; she was growing up too fast.
“Graduating, why didn’t you say!” She asked, the joy in her tone unmissable, “How’d your papers go?”
Spencer held himself off from correcting her that she’d only done five papers, that the rest of her results had come from theory and labs, thinking better than to interrupt the one conversation they’d had where there was no underlying argument brewing.
“Full honours, obviously.” Bugsy drawled with a snicker, and Emily shook her head, the smile never dimming.
“Look at you, y’little superstar,” Emily bit her lip, ignoring the guilt that tore at her when she realised she barely knew what Bug spent her days doing, “Did Mom and Dad get good seats? Oh god, dad’s not bringing Stephanie is he?”
The silence on the other end had her halting, the light in the conversation wavering for a second, before she understood the nerves, the quick defence her sister had been on the moment the call had been answered.
“Bug-”
“They’re not coming,” Her heart ached in her chest hearing it, “I sent Mom the details, she said she’s in Ukraine this week settling some papers. Didn’t even get a chance to ask Dad before he and Stephanie were off on their fifth honeymoon in the Bahamas until October,” A painful laugh echoed down the line, as if she were holding back the gravity of the situation.
“Bug,” Emily tried again, picking her thumb viciously, punishingly, hating herself for being so blind to her sister’s troubles, “Why didn’t you invite me?”
“I figured you’d be busy,” Came the reply, sad and tender, the most honest she’d heard in a while, “You’re always busy,”
“Never too busy for you,” Emily’s guilt tripled when her sister didn’t answer, knowing if she were to counter the statement with hard evidence it would only hurt both of them, “Look, I have some time today, probably,” She didn’t, not even a few minutes, “Why don’t we get that coffee, you don’t even have to pay,”
Bugsy gave a sad laugh, “Sorry, Em, I gotta get my dress fitted today, and some of the lab techs invited me to a party later. Maybe some other time,”
“A party with biology nerds?” Emily asked with false excitement, the air turned stagnant between them now, “Well, rock on, science freak. Don’t leave your drinks with strangers, and don’t walk home alone, and for god sake use protection-”
“Bye, Emily,” She said with a chuckle, the older of the two gracing her with the same, as they put the phone down.
The car was quiet, waiting for Prentiss to speak, none of them missing the way her lip pulled between her teeth, a bitterness on her face that told them she was holding in something close to sadness. You’re always busy. It echoed around her head, stabbing at her chest to think her sister was graduating alone, no one to congratulate her, no one to pat her on the back and tell her how clever she is despite the fact Bugsy would happily tell anyone just how smart she was on her own. Never too busy for you.
“She’s graduating tomorrow,” She said to the three people waiting for an update, Spencer’s brows shooting to his hairline. He hadn’t heard from her since her last paper got sent off, and why would he? They had exchanged a few little anecdotes and doodles, sent each other research papers to be graded like teachers exchanging lecture notes, “She didn’t even tell me. She’s gonna be alone,”
JJ grimaced, “What? What about your mom- or, or your dad, an uncle, someone-”
“Mom and dad are out of the country, Mom’s brother lives in Mexico with his seven kids, he can barely get a night’s sleep let alone a day off to travel up to Maryland. Dad’s sisters passed away when I was a kid,” Emily explained, running a hand over her face, “I can’t let her go up there alone,”
“So we don’t,” Spencer said, as if he’d never been more sure of anything in his life, “We don’t let her do it alone,”
-
“Graduating with Masters in Biotechnology; Jasper Adams, Tom Adamson, Kristen Afkins, Gavin Agriths-”
The dean read off the names of the students as she fiddled with the hem of her dress.
The dress fit beautifully, her make up done to near perfection, her hair styled neatly, she was graduating with full honours for christ sakes. Why couldn’t she just be happy with what she had? Why had she got to be so spoiled?
Lots of peoples parents missed their graduation, lots of people her age didn’t even have parents anymore, she ought to be grateful her mother was increasing famine aid in foreign countries, all the lives she would save, or even be happy her father had found a pretty, rich new wife to tour every known vacation destination with. Or even that her sister had called her just yesterday and told her in a few words she was proud of her.
But none of them quelled the feeling of loneliness that blossomed inside Bugsy. The kind that had always been there, the kind that just wanted someone in her corner, telling her she was doing pretty good for a kid who raised herself in all those big houses they’d moved to, who saw the au pair more often than her own mother.
All those rooms were so empty, the houses so quiet besides for her. It was like living in a cemetery.
“Robert Lewsinsky. Marcus Linford. Tara Lorence. Katie Macauley.”
P would be up soon. Each name of her classmates drew an applause, some whoops and screams, one family she swore there must have been ten of them in the back row cawing and howling like monkeys at a zoo, proud of their son for making it.
She willed a smile on her face, hearing Orla Parkins get called up, and she knew just by the steward that directed her where to stand in line she was close.
She held a rattled breath as Renly Prackett walked ahead of her, strolling over the stage to collect his degree, flashing the crowd a wide smile and a fist pump. She had always liked Renly, having been his experiment partner for a year, despite the fact he never washed up after himself in the lab.
Then it was, her name was called. The one no one but her mother and Stephanie ever called her, she solely went by Bugsy courtesy of Emily. It was a family name, a nice one at that. Maybe it had been the fact she had been eight and her cool big sister crowned her the new name, or maybe it just rolled off the tongue better, made her feel less like a Prentiss, that she chose to go by her monika.
She tried not to think about where or what Emily was doing, only hoping she was safe, as she began walking over the stage, her heels clicking loudly with her hesitant steps.
To her utmost surprise she heard a loud whistle echo through the auditorium, a group of jeers and screams of her name, even an air horn signing off that had her almost tripping over her own feet turning to see who it was.
Surely it was a joke, a cruel prank, she barely had any friends in her class. Acquaintances sure, but no one so bold as to make such a fuss over her.
Squinting down at the audience, her cap nearly slipping off her head as her head turned to the source, she felt her chest burst when she saw the dark hair and bangs, her sisters butchered fingertips in her mouth with a loud cattle whistle, screaming like a firework right to the stage where she graciously accepted her award, despite the fact she barely paid any attention to the dean anymore, more to her sister who smiled at her widely as she clapped. Behind her, her team she’d met on the off chance, the pretty blonde, JJ, who pressed the air horn a few more times, cheering just as loud for her. Morgan, the handsome one who had stood himself on top of his chair, cupping a hand over his mouth to scream “Kicking ass, baby Prentiss!” at her, ignoring the way other people stared wide eyed at them.
And Spencer, tall enough to be seen over the crowd even without the help of a chair, who smiled at her, clapping those big hands of his loud enough to reach her, his own whoops never ceasing even as she stepped off the stage to head back to her seat.
The rest of the ceremony dragged, a speech from one of the alumni and the exit music playing, but she simply grinned into her hand, where her degree smiled back at her, counting down the moments she would be allowed to stand.
And then she was fast walking down the stairs, amongst the bustle of students, the black gowns flurrying around her as she burst out into the square where parents, fiancees, brothers, sisters, cheered their loved ones, pulling them into tight hugs.
Her eyes scanned the wave of black hats, landing on two dark eyes, the thick sable hair framing the dazzling smile that awaited her with open palms. All but shoving her way through the crowd, she stopped in front of her sister, the urge to jump at her with a hug shying the moment she got close.
“Told you. Never too busy for you, Bug,” Emily said, pulling her in by her shoulders for a tight hug. She knew her sister wasn’t one to beg for affection, wasn’t one to let her guard drop so soon, but she also knew she’d needed it by the way she melted against her, the way she chuckled into her hair, pulled her closer.
“Do I owe your boss another letter of apology for this or do I get you guys for free?” The girl asked, as her sister pulled away, keeping an arm around her shoulder as they turned to the rest of the team.
“No, this one is entirely on us, promise,” JJ said with a smile as she saw Emily beaming maternally over at the girl, the flat of the cap knocking against her cheek as she squeezed her in once more, “We’re very proud of you,”
She heated under the woman’s words, wriggling in her shoes as bad as Emily did when she felt awkward, Derek chuckling and taking the degree out of her hand.
“Alright, lets see the creds, Prentiss,” He held it up next to her face as she shrugged, the ‘4.0’ clear as day next to her name, “Good looking, and smart. Those boys in the lab ought to watch out,”
She grinned under his teasing, “What can I say, I got the deep end of the gene pool,” She teased, feeling Emily swat her ear, her eyes falling to where Spencer held a plant pot with a poorly wrapped bow of twine around it, the soil a little displaced from the journey.
“This is for you,” He said, handing her the small green sproutling, his cheeks blushing as her face lit up, reading the small inscription on the front, “It’s-”
“Dionaea muscipula,” She said, biting her lip as she smiled at him, “This is so cool! Where on earth did- I had a paper last semester on the ways to study their electrophysiology you just have to read- oh thank you!”
“English, please?” Emily asked, though the warmth flooded her chest when her sister threw her arms around a very rigid Spencer.
Thinking she should grab her and warn her the man disliked touch almost as much as she does, she was surprised to see him give her a small embrace back, smiling proudly the way he did when he’d made someone happy.
“Piège à mouches Vénus,” Her sister responded cockily, tugging herself away from the tall man, to inspect her new plant, well aware that Emily rolled her eyes at her use of French, “Venus Fly Trap. I’ve never seen one so young, still I should be able to pull some slides on the Rhizomes in the soil-”
Emily put a hand to her temple, JJ smiling widely as she saw for once Spencer be the one on the receiving end of an earful, chuckling to himself when she began dishing out name ideas for the sapling.
“Holy shit, there’s two of them,” Morgan grumbled, nudging his shoulder into Emily who simply sighed, her migraine already starting as Reid began jumping in with his own thoughts, which didn’t take much effort.
“Don’t even,”
+3. The one where you’re taken hostage
“Tell us about the 911 call,” Spencer requests, flicking through the file himself beside her in the back seat. She had her own set of paperwork in front of her, her pen attached to a clipboard the lanyard around her neck reading her real, honest credentials, unlike the fake ones Emily and Reid were given. She’d been to one of these sects before, invited kindly as part of her research on the effect isolation has on cultivation of crops, knew one of the mother’s well from her last research paper, and had managed to get the group a foot in the door to entering the Separtarian Sect with little fuss.
Hotch, usually hesitant to allow outsiders in on the job, especially as young and spirited as Bugsy, had to admit it would calm any potential unsubs and make them see the team as unthreatening if they had a friendly face there. He’d signed the papers with a frown that morning, and they were on their way to the little apartment the girl occupied just outside Baltimore, sample tubes stuffed into her pack ready.
“I believe the he that they refer to is the church’s leader, Benjamin Cyrus,” Nancy, a woman from child protective services, replied from the driver's seat, Emily thumbing through her papers as they neared the compound.
“Benjamin Cyrus, no criminal record; no record of him at all actually,” Reid replied, watching Bugsy scribbling notes into her lab book, perfecting her report before she had even begun, “What else do you know about him?”
“The sect I spoke to before, the one in Utah, said he was rumoured to be practising polygamy and forced marriages,” The younger woman said, looking back at him with a frown, “They were much more modern in their beliefs than these guys. Last time I spoke to Marina she was happy there, I can’t see why she would want to move here,”
Spencer looked as if he were about to answer, perhaps to tell her he was sure her contact would be just fine, when Emily shrugged and turned to Nancy.
“Do we know who the caller is?” She asked, sipping her now lukewarm coffee out of the disposable cup.
Nancy’s head tilted in a so-so motion, “Uh, Jessica Evansen is the one who the age fits, but we can’t be sure.”
“Well given their view on outsiders, it would be best if you didn’t identify us as FBI.” Emily instructed, handing Reid his new, fake credentials and his gun she’d kept in her bag through customs. “Just use our real names and introduce us as child victim interview experts.” Nancy nodded, the compound coming into view, the dust flurrying under the car wheels as the road turned into nothing more than a sandy path.
A guard seemed to be expecting their arrival as he stood, unarmed at the main gate, unlatching the bolt in the middle and opening it wide for their vehicle to pass through. She nodded in thanks, her eyes flicking out the dirty window to see a collection of mobile homes surrounding a large church, a few smaller outbuildings dotted around the compound. It was quiet, not full of laughter like the last group she had been to, the children nowhere to be seen, only a few of the handier members of the flock that were either fixing up walls, trimming trees besides a man sprawled too casually on the steps of the chapel, a bible in his hands he seemed to be catching up on.
The car pulled to a stop in front of the man that barely batted an eye at their arrival, the safety locks flicking off each of the doors, Nancy collecting her briefcase and exiting the car first.
She had all but reached for the handle when Emily stopped her, swivelling in her seat to look her dead in the eye.
“Your job is mediator, you got that?” Her sister had never looked more serious, but then again she did know her almost too well, “You and your field research are a… buffer between our investigation and the unsub. Just try to take the focus off what we’re doing, but do not provoke anyone,”
She raised her hands in innocence, “Got it, jeez, what could I possibly do that could ruin this investigation?”
Emily stared back at her blankly, unnamused, as if they both knew there was a lot she could, and would, do that would blow the whole thing.
“You look like mom when you give me that look,” She bit back, leaving the car, as Nancy spoke to the man laying on the steps, “It’s terrible,”
“I’m looking for Mr Benjamin Cyrus?” Nancy reported, her tight, knee length skirt and blouse entirely out of place amongst the dirt track.
“You found him,” The man replied, still not so much as granting them a glance of interest as he flicked through his passages.
“I’m Nancy Lunde, we spoke on the phone regarding the allegation,” She replied, which was the only thing that garnered his attention as he looked up at them behind slightly bent reading glasses.
“Savages they call us; because our manners differ from theirs,” He said, though it was clear it wasn’t entirely his own words, more likely a segment of his preach he’d repeated a handful of times. Bugsy tried to hide her disgust behind her hand tightening around her lab books she kept tightly to her chest.
“We didn’t come here to hear you cite scripture, Mr Cyrus,” Nancy snipped as he approached the group, pocketing the glasses though he kept hold of the bible in hand as if it was part of his own arm.
“Actually it’s Benjamin Franklin,” Spencer murmured to the woman, which had Cyrus’ cold brown eyes narrowing at the tall man, assessing for a motive.
“Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid. They’re child victim interview experts,” Nancy introduced them quickly, the two of them flashing their badges, the unofficial ones at least. Gesturing to the youngest woman, she introduced her with her real name, his gaze flicking to her as he seemed to recognise it.
“Marina’s friend? The plant lady?” He asked, face half amused as she fought her lip from twitching into a sneer. Instead she smiled, holding out her hand.
“That’s what they call me,” She said, shaking his hand, ignoring the way he flashed her a cheshire cat smile, “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by, Marina said I could take some samples for my research,”
He laughed, shaking his head, looking at Spencer, “Women and their flowers, right?” Spencer swallowed back a retort, shrugging his shoulders, though Bugsy’s eye twitched. Benjamin patted her on her shoulder, “Of course you can honey, I’ll find Jared, our head gardner, and you can run along for your research,”
He said it as if she were lying, that her degree and endless hours of work would only ever chalk up to a few doodles in a notebook, or a garden full of hydrangeas, or tulips, or roses, because she couldn’t possibly care about anything else but pretty flowers.
Nodding her head graciously, choking back the hateful response she wished to spit in his face, she gave him a polite thankyou, feeling Spencer’s eyes burning into the side of her head.
“The children are in the school as I indicated,” Cyrus said, turning back to the other three, Emily and Nancy taking off in the direction he pointed, the former knowing her sister was at risk of blowing a fuse if they were here for long.
Spencer hung back, partially because he had a plan of distraction in mind to allow the women a chance to speak with the children whilst Cyrus wasn’t around, partially because he didn’t want to leave Bugsy anywhere on her own. Sure, Emily had said they were both trained in self defence when they were kids, but with no weapon of her own, he was reluctant.
“You're using solar power?” He prompted, gesturing towards where the eight blue panels warmed under the Colorado sun.
“We’re completely self-sufficient,” Benjamin nodded along, catching the impressed look on both their faces, “Electricity, food, water. Ben Franklin said ‘God helps those that help themselves,’ you look surprised,”
“No, impressed actually,” Spencer replied, and he wasn’t entirely lying. The system was incredibly complex, particularly if they received no help from outsiders, for as many people as there were in the compound.
“Thankyou; for admitting that,” Cyrus said earnestly, flicking his gaze back to Bugsy who studied the solar panels, “I’ll go find Jared, he can take you to the greenhouses,”
Thanking him again, he led the way towards the school where Nancy and Emily had headed, as the two of them exchanged a look, Spencer smiling half piteously, wishing he could shake her and tell her just how smart she was and that Cyrus knew absolutely nothing.
He didn’t miss the way she walked closer to him, or how she thumbed the corner of her notebook, or how she looked back at him, biting the inside of her cheek. He thinks he might get slapped if he pointed it out, but Emily had the exact same tell when she was nervous, which is why he bumps their shoulders together in means of reassuring her he was still there.
It was only then she gave him any sort of smile back.
-
Jared, as expected, had been just as condescending and patronising as Benjamin whilst she slipped on her latex gloves, scooping no more than a handful of homemade fertiliser into one of her test tubes. It had been a partial cover, their story, but she had been telling the truth when she’d contacted Marina and asked if she could drop by. She’d been meaning to expand her field research in hopes of stumbling on a job opportunity since she spent most of her postgraduate days reading while her cat pawed at her leg for more treats than he deserved, the odd phone call with her sister much more common than it had been before.
She didn’t miss the way Jared’s hand fell into the small of her back as he led her back towards the school, after having noted down a few more readings, fussing over the state of the carrots that seemed to grow entirely naturally thanks to the systems they’d been smart enough to set up. He seemed rather bored by the whole thing, for a head gardener, more interested in staring at her legs as she leaned down to identify the fat black beetle that crawled along the rockery.
It wasn’t until they were halfway to the school that the sound of tyres on a dirt path met her ears, and she saw five armoured SUVs out the corner of her eye.
She hadn’t even the time to question what was going on, before Jared’s face dropped, the hand gently holding the soft of her back grabbing on her forearm hard enough to leave bruises, as he was dragging her to the chapel they had seen when they had pulled up.
Emily had said the rest of the team stayed in Quantico, if it wasn’t them, who was it.
“Whats going on- who is that?” She asked him lamely, her feet stumbling as she half fought his heavy hand off.
That was when the shooting started.
She thinks it came from the compound first, she’d seen two men stationed on top of one of the outbuildings, thinking nothing much of it, until she saw clearly now the assault rifles they bore, pointing it straight at the vehicles that drew closer. The whistle of bullets, bangs of the chambers emptying their artillery, and it wasn’t until she heard the doors to the SUVs start opening, more gunfire began hitting the wall ahead of them that she started running. Running fast, for the cover the church provided until she figured out just what the fuck was happening.
Jared all but threw her past the chapel door, where Cyrus and four other men were waiting, a heavy barricade in their hands, her chest pounding with adrenaline, she couldn’t help the yelp that left her as Cyrus whirled on her, grabbing her shoulders firmly and looking her dead in the eye.
“Did you know anything about this?” He asked, his calm demeanour cracking when she scrambled for a response, “ANSWER ME,”
“No-no not at all.” She shook her head, voice weaker than she’d like, but the sight of more guns in the men’s hands twisted any resolve she had, “Where are the others- the- the experts-”
“Take her into the tunnels,” Cyrus ignored her question, nodding at one of his men to grab her as Jared armed himself. She felt another callused hand yank on her upper arm, and part of her wondered if that was how men handled all women here, as if they were herding cattle, as she was dragged down into the catacombs below the church.
They’d made plans for a day like this to come, she realised.
Her heart constricted at the sound of bullets rattling above them, she hadn't been able to tell in that last moment whether Cyrus believed her or not as, nor whether she was being taken to the tunnels for her own safety or to be questioned harder about the gunmen.
She could only hope Emily was safe.
She felt her tongue too big for her mouth as the man all but shoved her into the bunker, the nervous chatter of women and children, some of the more elderly men, as they clung to one another for safety, the scathing remark she would have usually made about his heavy hands failing her as she scanned the room for her sister.
Emily was faster however, and she nearly yelped again as two bony arms yanked her into a hug, a rare one, and she knew by the blazer and the sigh of relief in her ear it was Em.
Usually she would bat her off, tell her to stop fussing like a mother hen, but today she embraced her right back, trying to note if her sister had any bullet holes in her before she allowed herself the same relief.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Emily asked, the whole thing coming out in a slew of worry, and she nodded, pulling away as if she needed to see the proof in person.
Bugsy’s eyes were wild, as if she were a doe in a meadow hearing a rifle cocking near. No scratch that, she was a doe being chased and shot at and hunted, narrowly escaping being mounted on a wall.
“They were all shit shots,” Bugsy said, through a laugh she didn’t quite mean, “You would have done much better.”
Patting her sister on the shoulder, Emily finally released her when she realised the humour meant she at least had her head on her shoulders. Spencer watched her with meticulous eyes, knowing the shock that registered on her face, knowing it was the same one he wore when he first had shots fired at him. He saw her own eyes quickly check him over, satisfied with a breath of relief when she saw they were both fine.
“Where’s Lunde?” Emily asked, and she realised then Cyrus had followed her down into the shelter, two of his men grabbing handfuls of guns she had never seen before, likely imported out of country, and returning to the ground level, preparing for more shooting.
“It wasn’t us,” Cyrus replied, as if that negated the fact their recklessness had gotten the agent killed.
“What? You can’t shoot it out with the cops, you have children in here,” Emily seethed, her voice harsh and incredulous.
“I didn’t start this,” Cyrus bit back, looking towards his men as they grabbed boxes on boxes of ammunition, “I’ll take the front, you take the roof,”
And with that they stormed their way back through the tunnels, leaving the three of them to look between each other, knowing this could only end badly. Knowing the only people that could figure out how to get them out of this mess was the BAU, all 1,700 miles away.
–
They’d been in the bunker for fourteen hours when there was finally movement. The shooting seemed to have quietened down, in which Spencer whispered it was around 11pm and it was likely neither party had a clear shot. She’d managed to fall asleep leaning against the wall, Emily’s blazer draped over her legs. She’d regretted wearing cropped pants, despite how the shade of green complimented her eyes nicely, and she’d been shivering by the time she fell asleep, Emily’s hands stroking her hair gently as if she knew she was struggling to relax.
She hadn’t realised she was staring at her little sister, frowning even as she slept, which made part of her want to laugh, until she caught Spencer’s tired eyes looking between them, something knowing and warm in his gaze.
“You know, she’s always scowled in her sleep, ever since she was born,” Emily said, quiet enough it didn’t interrupt the hum of small snores, the odd baby cry that filled the bunker, but loud enough for him to smile at her, “She used to sleep walk terrible too. I’d find her in the kitchen trying to make pancakes with a cheese grater. It’s like that big brain of hers doesn’t know how to shut off,” Emily shook her head with a fatigue, rubbing her eyes.
“Was it weird? Being fourteen years older?” Spencer asked, his own hands shoved into his sleeves to try defend from the draught. Emily thought for a moment, her hand slowing for a second on her sister's hair, before she answered.
“I felt guilty leaving her in that house with my mom when I went to college,” Emily answered, Bugsy unconsciously tucking her face closer into the jacket, “I think part of her kind of hated me for it for a while.” She went quiet, the shame in her voice thick as the silence that encompassed them, “She’s never been very affectionate you know? Before her graduation I don’t think I’d hugged her in twelve years,”
Spencer held himself back from pointing out that she had been just as touchy with him since they’d met, and that maybe it was Emily’s own regret that seemed to shut the both of them down. He wasn’t one to rub salt in the wound, not since he’d gotten this job and learned to watch what he said.
He didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to give her advice, knowing the whole subject of their slowly repairing relationship was a sore one. He had no siblings of his own, had a mother who loved him despite how much she grappled with her own mind, and he had only known the girl briefly enough to consider her a friend at a push.
“I always thought the two of you were similar,” Emily chose to continue, offering him a small smile. He returned it, his face blushing at the fact that was a huge compliment to him, “Granted, you roll your eyes at me less and don’t act like I’m dumb, but you remind me of her,”
“Thankyou, I wish that were true,” He replied, eyes flicking to her sleeping form, the way her eyebrows were indeed scrunched in a permanent frown. He wondered if she was actually angry, or if she was just thinking hard, perhaps her dreams were full of equations or labs she needed to sort through. Either way, he wanted to know. “She’s much cooler than I’ll ever be,”
Emily snorted, shuffling against the wall to cosy herself, “That’s one way to put it,” She said, smiling over at him as he did the same, his head resting against the wall, Bugsy’s legs stretching out to knock against his feet, and he didn’t mind that she scuffed the bottom of his already dirty trousers. “Get some sleep,”
And so they did.
–
Cyrus had corralled the whole flock into the church, where the shooting had stopped and the bodies had been removed, stating at the break of dawn that there was a hostage negotiator coming in to make sure everyone was safe before they made any deals.
She sat next to Spencer, the three of them stiff from their sleeping arrangements, and her stomach churned with hunger. It had been over 24 hours since they’d gotten here, and besides the small bit of bread and water Cyrus gave everyone for breakfast, she was starving.
“Remind me to never leave the house, ever again,” She grumbled, as everyone waited in the pews for the negotiator to arrive, “My cat is gonna be pissed I’ve not fed him,”
“Since when did you get a cat?” Emily inputted from the other side of Reid, keeping one eye on the door in case any agents start shooting again.
The girl shrugged, “I got lonely, there’s not much to do now I’m not studying anymore,”
Reid watched how she clutched her stomach, feeling his own complaining at the lack of nutrition, “Morgan wasn’t lying when he said you should sign up for the academy. We could always use the help, we wouldn’t have solved that case in Baltimore without you,”
She snickered, nudging his foot with her boot, “You’re being modest, you would have done it just fine,”
He was a little, wasn’t surprised she called his bluff either. “Okay, so probably yes- but it would have taken us a whole lot longer. Mr Chernus likely would have died,”
She shook her head, glancing at Emily who watched her carefully, “That was all you guys. I just translated.”
Emily and Spencer exchanged a glance, leaning back in their uncomfortable seats calmly.
“You’re probably right,” Spencer said, dusting the dirt off his trousers, “Probably couldn’t handle it, high intensity mind games and such,”
She blanched, looking at him as if he’d grown a second head, not knowing him to be so brutally honest, realistic yes, but not bordering on rude.
“And it’s a lot of work,” Emily jumped in, her mouth a straight line, “I don’t know if you’d be dedicated enough,”
Bugsy scoffed, indifferently. “I have a masters degree, I was offered a scholarship to do a PHD, asked to be an assistant professor at Yale, I can work hard, Emily,” She snipped, and perhaps she was particularly just hangry or they had struck a nerve with their doubt, “and I could do it if I wanted to, I’d have the best shot they’d ever seen, guaranteed- mom made me take lessons when you left- trust me I could do it-”
She shut up when she saw their small smile exchanged, as if she’d told them a joke, or moreso they’d had the same identical thought and that alone was hilarious.
Scowling at them, she looked from where Spencer looked almost, almost, guilty at making her the butt of the joke, to where Emily had a ‘told you so’ smirk, and she kissed her teeth at their childishness.
“Are you guys reverse psychology-ing me? Seriously, so original guys,” She snapped, crossing her arms and straightening herself in her seat, ignoring the snigger that passed between them.
“You’re not wrong though,” Emily replied quietly as Cyrus walked past them, his eyes falling to them with a frown. Bugsy kept her head down, heeding Emily’s warning of not provoking anyone, and Spencer eyed the way she leaned closer to him.
If she was going to retaliate, whether agreeing or not, she stopped herself, the doors the church opening and an older gentleman walking through the doors, arms full of supplies she’d figured must have been part of the negotiation. He was patted down by an armed guard, searching for his own weapons do doubt, or a wire perhaps, as he handed the box over to another who took it without a thankyou.
“Rossi,” She heard Reid whisper beside her, and from the look he shot Emily and Spencer she gathered he was from the BAU, just as they’d expected. His eyes fell on her, softening as alot of Emily’s team did when they saw the two of them, as if they were picking her face apart for the tiny ways in which she resembled their Prentiss, or maybe it was the way she curled up in her seat, tired, hungry, on the defence. He just looked sorry for her.
“The children,” Cyrus said with no greeting, the air between them particularly frosty. He gestured towards the three of them, though Rossi had already clocked their tired faces staring at him with worry, “And our guests,”
She saw him trying not to react, guessing they had not let it slip to Cyrus he worked with the two undercover FBI agents, looking away from them as if the sight of their forlorn figures was enough to turn him sick.
Judging by the way Cyrus and he spoke quietly, tensely, Bugsy just hoped they had a plan to get them out of here soon as he soon left with a rigid handshake to the man keeping them hostage.
–
The three of them had been moved to a backroom a few hours later. Her stomach ached, the little sustenance Rossi had brought being distributed to the community before they’d been offered anything, which hadn’t left much. Reid and Emily had tried to get her to take some of their sharing, and despite how her insides cried out for it, she declined, stating they would be more use than she would; that they needed their strength more than her if they were going to get out of here alive.
The two of them hadn’t liked that answer judging by the frowns on their faces, but they sat in their seats with little fuss as they waited for things to quieten down after Cyrus’ staged “mass suicide” that had turned out to be nothign more than a test of loyalty and grape juice.
They had been sat in silence, aside from her foot bouncing on the floor impatiently, as she picked at the threads on her pants, the material uncomfortable on her skin after a day of wearing it. The door slammed open, Cyrus entering the room with nasty scowl. She didn’t know what had changed in the man in a matter of hours as he stormed over to them, two of his men behind him, loaded rifles in their arms.
This was not good.
“Which one of you is it?” He asked almost too calm for his demeanour, his eyes flicking between the three of them, where Emily attempted to brush her hair using her fingers, Reid played with the hem of his cardigan, an she sat beside him, resting against the cold stone wall behind them, her eyes narrowing at his furious expression.
The three of them remained silent, waiting for him to explain more, though clearly it was not the answer he was looking for as he threw his jacket open, revealing a loaded pistol tucked into his jeans. Drawing it into his dominant hand, her body tensed up, her back straightening like a rod as she looked up at him through fear.
“Which one of you is the FBI agent?” He repeated in that same calm tone, and her heart fell through her stomach.
She opened her mouth to say something in retaliation, though the way she saw his hand shaking with fury, she knew it was better to stay quiet in case her voice would be the final straw that made him trigger happy.
“Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?” Spencer replied softly, and if he was panicking even a fraction amount she was he held it back, though his eyes flicked to Emily.
But it was a tell. The smallest movement alone was a tell he was lying, or perhaps it was the fact he’d answered a question with one of his own, distracting from the attention on them with the unsubs own answers. Maybe his quiet and calm showed how trained he was for a situation like this, showed he had gone up against bad guys before and won.
Whatever it was about him, it had Cyrus cocking the barrel of the gun straight at Spencer’s temple.
“God forgive me for what I must do,” The preacher murmured, his finger moments away from the trigger, when she lurched forward in her seat, hand shooting out to grab his wrist deathly tight.
“It’s me,”
She hadn’t realised she’d said it until the room went quiet. She thought for a moment it had come from Emily, Emily had always been the braver of the two of them, but it wasn’t until Cyrus’ unforgiving, dark gaze fell to her where she froze in her spot, that she understood her mouth had been the one moving.
Emily looked as if she was about to vomit, Spencer looked dumbfounded, but all she could do was stare back at Cyrus as if to will herself not to back down, knowing all three of them could fall victim if she gave them reason to doubt her; he could kill all three of them just to be sure the mystery agent was dealt with.
“It’s me,” She repeated, voice stronger this time, and she felt her chest relax just the tiniest amount as he turned the gun away from Spencer’s head.
He stared back at her for a moment, before the weapon smacked across her face in a sharp whip, her cheekbone crying out in a sting she knew was going to bruise.
He grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck, yanking her into a stand hard enough she yelped, despite not wanting to give him the satisfaction of the torture.
“Watch the other two,” Cyrus barked, dragging her out of the room as she squirmed under his hand, feeling it only tighten into an unforgiving pull.
She barely caught Emily bolting out of her seat to yell at the other men, all but fighting in their heavy grasp to follow wherever it was he was taking her, only for the door to be slammed shut behind them.
It was only then she realised how fucked she truly was.
–
She struggled to breath through the blood clotting in her nose. She didn’t think it was broken, not that she could check where her hands had been tied to the bedpost, tape over her mouth to stop her calling for help, her feet bound. She’d done nothing but give him hell as he’d been laying into her, keeping her cries and groans of pain silent as he’d kicked her in the ribs hard enough to know he’d damaged something at least.
She’d not made it easy for him to tie her down, worried about what they were planning next, she’d managed to headbutt him in the mouth, and the way he clutched at his jaw when he’d left gave her a sick satisfaction, though her temple now hurt more than she’d like to admit. But they’d only covered her mouth after she’d screamed obscenities at them for an hour or so, hoping to attract attention, hoping if the BAU were on their way, Emily and Reid would be able to find her fast before they could dispose of her.
Bugsy didn’t want to go like this. Tied up like cattle, gagged and beaten, the spirit kicked out of her as the dehydration gnawed at her limbs, making her too weak to even try wriggling out of the binds.
She felt herself dropping off to sleep, or maybe it was a concussion, he’d slammed her face into that mirror quite viciously, she wouldn’t be surprised if it had rattled her head around. Fighting with her eyelids to stay open, she jumped in her battered skin as the door unlatched, and she thrashed on the rickety bed to get away from the impending second beating.
But it wasn’t Cyrus. A fawn haired woman entered, her eyes falling on the girl on the bed, where blood trickled down her cheek, pouring from her nose like a thick liquor. Frowning, she was on high alert as the woman approached, a small, damp cloth in her hand.
“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you honey,” She hushed, approaching the young girl. Bugsy didn’t believe her for one second, her head pulling away from her as far as it could, her eyes wild and distrustful as the woman kneeled down beside the bed. “I’m Kathy,”
Bugsy debated jabbing an elbow in her face then and there, telling her in few words to stay as far away from her as possible, that the moment she was free she didn’t care who she hurt; she was getting out of here even if she had to crawl.
“That woman’s your sister right?” The blonde said, and the words stopped her heart for a moment, giving the woman the chance to run the cloth over the dribble of blood, “Emily,”
“Where is she?” She tried to ask, but the gag made it little more than a muffled cry, the woman’s eyes turning down in sadness. Pity. Bugsy hated every second of it.
“She’s okay, she’s worried about you though,” Kathy said, wiping under her nose, making her wince at the feeling, “Put up a hell of a fight after they took you away,”
She must have rolled her eyes, or perhaps it was just telling on her face that that didn’t surprise her as the older woman wiped over the superficial cut on her forehead she hadn’t realised was deep until the cloth went over it and she yawped like a dog having it’s tail pulled.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Kathy cooed, and she seemed genuinely guilty as she did. She tutted, shaking her head, fighting the urge to smooth the girls hair down the way she did when her own daughter was upset, “Emily said they’ll be coming for us at 3am, Cyrus has a mass suicide planned but they think they can stop him, you just have to hold on a little longer honey,”
“I want to see her,” Bugsy tried to talk again despite her mouth being covered, only for it to come out unintelligible once more. Huffing, she resigned herself to glaring at the ceiling, biting back frustrated tears. Kathy seemed to want to say something else, but thought better of it as the twenty something year old turned away from her to stare out the window, as if she were being dismissed.
Sighing, she rose from the bed and headed for the door, praying the FBI would get them out in time, before Cyrus put his plan into action.
–
Bugsy didn’t start panicking until it hit 2:50. She’d managed to kick the small analogue clock on the beside into working, the red numbers seeming to take a millenia to change over.
Yet it wasn’t until 3am neared, and the hallways remained silent, did she start to wonder if Kathy had been telling the truth at all. What if they had found out Emily and Reid were FBI and not her? What if they’d already been caught?
She really had wanted to see Emily, wanted to scream at the woman, who had meant well, to bring her sister to her or she would make every damn bible basher in this compound regret the day they were born. She felt helpless. She despised feeling helpless.
It was only when she heard shots rattling from outside did the cold fear set in. 2:52. Any minute now.
It was then an even worse thought struck her. What if they didn’t bother to come for her? Reid and Emily were safe downstairs, at least that was how Kathy had made it seem. If they got the women and children, the agents out first, she wondered if they would leave her for last since she wasn’t their top priority.
2:53 stared back at her.
At least Emily would make it. She was more important, had more going for her. She was supposed to be an only child anyway, mom had said it herself. Bugsy was the product of a failing marriage and a shared bottle of 1896 Bourbon that had been a wedding gift they’d never opened.
2:54.
She could have sworn she tore something the way her head snapped to the door as it swung open on its hinges, as if two large men had thrown their weight into it. But it wasn’t two men at all, just one frantic Derek Morgan with an FBI grade assault rifle.
The relief in his eyes was immediate, and he pulled a pocket knife from his boot, rushing over to where she lay, almost in shock, wondering if he was real at all, her heart pounding as she heard shouting in the corridor.
“I’m gonna get you out, kid,” The man promised, slinging his gun over his shoulder as he sliced through the rope on her ankles, her eyes trained on the 2:55 that watched them as if to laugh at them.
She whimpered, cursing behind her gag when she heard footsteps pounding through the hallway, and she was sure they were going to get caught. She thought then it would have been better if they’d forgotten about her, that at least Derek would have been safe, and he could have made sure the children got out safely, could have gotten Spencer and Emily medical.
Derek whirled on the doorway the same as she did as a tall figure all but skidded around the corner, his legs weak as hers felt, too long and not at all built for running. Clumsy almost.
Spencer. She should have known from the way he looked white as a sheet the moment he saw her it was him, but maybe she really did have concussion, as it seemed within moments he was fussing over her face, tearing a little too sharply at the tape over her mouth.
She thinks she groaned, or maybe cursed him out, as he started apologising immediately, his eyes a puppy kind of sad as she stared up at him, Derek handing him the knife to cut her arms free.
He was talking, but she couldn’t make a lot of it out, just that he was really sorry, it was 2:56 now. It was like her brain switched itself back on when she realised she was free, and the two of them were trying to haul her to her feet.
“Come on, princess, we gotta get out of here,” Derek said, as Spencer looped an arm around her waist, helping her limp across the room where her weak limbs did little to hold her upright, her ribs throbbing with every step, “We managed to stop Cyrus from detonating it manually, but the circuits are all still live,”
Morgan took the lead with the rifle, knowing some of Cyrus’ men had stayed to look for them, that they would go down with the building even though he’d already shot their leader the moment they’d breached the front door, because that was how loyal they were. They’d proven so already with the wine.
She kept her groans behind tight lips as they made it down the stairs, knowing Spencer didn’t mean to hold her bruised bones so tight, that he was just worried and her legs were doing the bare minimum to keep them both moving very fast. It wasn’t until they made it within a few feet of the door that they seemed to pick up the pace.
And she saw why.
Jesse, Cyrus’ child bride that had been the reason they’d come here in the first place was holding the detonator, her face tear streaked at the sight of her husband and prophet dead on the floor, the people responsible all but dragging a lame girl through the foyer and to the doors as if they hadn’t killed a handful of her flock tonight.
Bugsy saw the moment Jesse decided she wanted vengeance on them, but then, she guessed Spencer had already acted as he slung one of her arms over his shoulder, yanking her out the front door in a matter of seconds as Morgan pulled up the rear, and the two men shoved her down behind the small wall outside the church steps.
Bugsy expected the bang to be louder as the rubble flew over their heads, the floor shaking with the impact of the bomb detonating, and it was then she realised one of Derek’s large warm hands held her head into his shoulder, protecting her already rattled skull as best as he could. Spencer had done the same, throwing half his body over her back as he covered his ears, the two men tucking into the wall tightly and waiting for the dust to settle.
Spencer started coughing first, though his position over her never faltered, and she heard his chest wheezing, and knew they needed to move away from the thick smog that blew into their faces. Morgan released her ear, tipping her head back to check her over once more.
“Kid! You okay?” He fretted, noticing the way her nose had started bleeding again from all the movement; the way the bruise had already started blotching her cheek from where Cyrus pistol whipped her.
“I didn’t think you’d come for me,” Was all she could say, and Derek thought it was the saddest he’d ever heard her.
Reid was pulling her to her feet then, where he was still hovering over her, despite the fact the blast had already cleared, still sputtering and hocking up a lung, but it didn’t stop her from throwing herself at his middle, burying her face in his dusty sweater, not caring one bit if he jostled her aching ribs.
He was trying to be gentle with her as he squeezed her back, but she knew by the way he pressed his face into her hair he needed it just as badly.
“You saved my life,” He said, his long arms wrapping around her waist, hauling her whole body against his.
She laughed through a cough, their cheeks brushing past one another as she pulled him in tighter, thankful, relieved.
“You saved mine,”
And then she heard Emily. Emily, who sounded frantic and heartbroken as she called for her, her voice breaking as if she was crying, or atleast on the verge of, and as comforting as Spencer’s long arms around her cracked ribs were, she needed to see her sister was okay.
Ripping herself from his embrace immediately, she tore off after the sound, and there she was. Her older sister, who had always seemed immovable, like she wouldn’t so much as budge for a bucking horse, like water couldn’t drown her, or however many unsubs she’d faced could stop her from catching them. Her older sister, who looked like she’d taken a few punches of her own, judging by the blood on her blue blouse, that looked around the crowd of fleeing people with watery eyes and a shaking bottom lip.
“EMILY,” She yelled, her voice a bleat, a lamb calling for its mother, as she sprinted down the steps, whatever strength she had left carrying her to where Emily was rushing towards her, taking the stairs in threes, “EM-”
She crashed into her sister’s chest, and it was only then she started crying.
“I swear I’ll never give you trouble again, I’ll never talk back, I’ll never be a bitch ever again-” It was all a slew of mumbles against her sisters shirt, that was beginning to wet through at the rate the tears were coming, “I thought he was going to shoot you-”
“I was so scared, Bug, oh my god,” Emily murmured into her hair, squeezing the life out of her baby sister that sniffled and sobbed, “You don’t ever, ever do that to me again,”
Bugsy shook her head, clawing at Emily’s back as she pulled her closer, feeling Emily stroking her hair softly to calm her even in the slightest. They stayed like that until she managed to wrangle her sobs into little sniffs, the fire burning her eyes where it burned the rest of the church to ashes.
She stayed with Emily for a month after that.
+4. The one where you leave the altar.
She knew she was turning heads, walking down the street of a drizzly day in Virginia, hair wet and sticking to her face, makeup running down her cheeks, and the sodden, dove white wedding dress clasped in her hands as she paced towards the government building.
Whether the guards recognised her as the Ambassador’s daughter, or whether they really didn’t want to get into it with a bride looking like that on her day, she didn’t know, but they opened the door for her nonetheless, exchanging raised brows as a trail of wet followed her gown over the marble floors.
Heading up the desk, she flashed her driver's licence, which was enough to gain her a visitors pass she didn’t bother putting to use as she headed for the elevator, her ballet pumps squeaking under the body of the dress. Waiting for the doors to start closing when she finally let a few tears slip, burying her face into her cold, drenched palms, undoubtedly making the mess of mascara even worse.
Her heart gave a leap when she heard someone stop the doors, hoping she could get to her sister with little delay, and she quickly wiped her face with whatever was left of her pretty, dobby cloth shawl she had yanked on before she’d ran.
Whatever excuse she was about to give, whatever one liner she was about to drop to clear the awkwardness this agent was about to walk in on was sucked out of her when she saw Spencer staring at her, his briefcase in his hands he’d used to hold the doors, a wide eyed look plastered on his face as soon as he saw her state.
“Bugsy,” It was somewhere between surprise and sadness, jumping into the elevator before the metal could shut again, the button for the sixth floor already lit up in a ring of red, “What are you- I didn’t even know…”
“Spencer!” As seemed to be a common occurrence between them now, she threw two very cold arms over his shoulders, tugging him for a hug he quickly reciprocated, feeling like she needed it in the moment, “It was so awful, I just couldn’t all those people staring at me, and he- I just feel so-”
“Hey slow down,” He soothed, slipping his favourite cardigan off his body to put over her shoulders, ignoring the way he cringed as it quickly got sodden, “Let’s get you to Emily, I’m sure we can fix this,”
She nodded, though he could tell she was still shaken up, the elevator dinging to a stop on the fifth floor where an agent looked ready to step in, his face dropping when he saw the sight.
“Sorry, we’re full,” Spencer said, with little room for discussion, pressing the button to close the doors once more, and taking her by the elbow as she began shivering, “We’re gonna be just fine, you look beautiful,”
She laughed sadly with a roll of her eyes, the tears sticking to her cheeks. She knew she looked no better than a drowned rat, windswept and disgruntled, her dress full of muck from the street.
“Thankyou, Spencer,” She mumbled, the door sliding open to the sixth floor, where Penelope and her everlasting smile greeted her favourite boy genius.
She almost dropped her glitter pen when she saw the woman stood next to him looking like Dorothy dragged through the twister.
“Oh you poor little lamb, what has happened to you honey!” She all but cried, the cute little pom poms in her hair bouncing as she brought Bugsy closer, taking her hands tightly. “Your hands are ice! You’ll catch cold with that wet hair, and your gorgeous dress-”
“Garcia,” Spencer cut her off, though the woman didn’t seem to mind being manhandled into the kind grip, he guessed her state had her letting her guard down, “This is Bugsy, Emily’s little sister.”
Penelope gasped, her ponytails swishing around some more, the gems on her glasses as bright as the light in her eyes as she yanked the younger girl in for a tight hug.
“It is so nice to meet you! Emily talks about you all the time,” She said, pulling away and fumbling through her pockets for her fresh pink handkerchief she always carried around, mopping up the girl's eyeliner.
“She-she does?” Bugsy asked, sniffling, her body trembling as the AC beat down through the water ladened on her body.
“Of course she does, come on, let’s go get you coffee, I have a new machine in my office that makes the best espresso-” Garcia grabbed her hand as if they were kids in the playground, as if she’d known the girl years, which she sort of had. She had, of course, stalked every single one of Emily’s known relatives, even a distant cousin that never left Europe, and that had thrown up the quiet corner of the internet that Bugsy took up.
“I needed to talk to my sister, if that’s okay,” Bugsy braved enough to say, the swishing of her dress on the carpet making her wince, practically hearing the gallon of rain that soaked the expensive fabric.
“Ofcourse! How silly of me, I’ll bring it out right to you, little bug. You just go with Spencer,” Handing him the handkerchief, she set off towards her ‘bat cave’ in search of a hot beverage for the shivering woman, “Spencer, clean her makeup!”
He did as he was told, dabbing the water off her face as he led her to the BAU, where Emily and Morgan sat on their desks, chatting as they finished off lunch, Emily flicking through photos on her phone of baby Henry that JJ had sent over to her that morning from maternity leave.
“He’s just the sweetest little boy, he’s got the biggest blue eyes just like Jayj,” She said through a smile, “You know Will even said-”
“Holy shit-” Morgan cut her off, and she glanced at him, wondering about his use of a curse. Following his eyes over her shoulder, she swivelled in her position to see where Spencer led a very wet, shaken version of her little sister through the doors of the BAU, a snowy ball gown hanging off her, a veil clinging to her hair that had seen much better days.
“Holy shit,” She agreed, immediately darting for the girl that tugged Spencer’s cardigan tighter to her body, “Bugsy,”
“Emily, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t take up too much time- I just couldn’t do it- and I know mom’s always saying ‘Bring home a doctor, bring home a rich man,’ but I just couldn’t no matter how rich his daddy is, he wasn’t even too bad-” It all came out in a slur, not making too much sense, and she didn’t stop until Emily held up her hands, as if easing a wild dog.
“Woah, take it easy, kiddo,” Morgan hushed, as Emily brought a hand over her sister’s cheek, wiping away the last of the mascara, “What happened?”
Bugsy took a deep breath, looking between Emily and Derek, feeling the rain drip down her back.
“So a few weeks ago, Mom made me go to that stupid debutante ball,” She started, rolling her eyes already as Emily winced, knowing Elizabeth loved any excuse to dress her youngest up like a Barbie doll.
“I hated those things,” She confessed, shaking her head, “I thought you’d agreed you didn’t have to go to them anymore,”
“That was while I was in college, she said at least I could focus on my studies,” The girl explained, as Garcia tottered back through the office, a steaming cup of coffee in her beloved Bratz mug. Taking it from the chirpy woman, she took a deep gulp, not caring if it burned her mouth as she wished for the damn chill to go away, “Thankyou- But she made me go to this one on the condition she would pay off some of my college loans, and I was dumb enough to fall for her bribe,”
She huffed, taking another sip, her stomach warming with the hot liquid settling through her throat.
“You know how she is at these things, she knows everyone, and everyone knows her. I had four guys asking for my dance card within minutes of arriving there, it was like trying to walk through a dog pound wearing a meat suit, all the hand holding, trying to touch my waist- one guy even called me Madam Prentiss,” She grimaced, shuddering at the thought of it, “Madam? No one even calls mom that-”
“Focus,” Emily reminded gently, and she seemed to nod to herself, setting back on track.
“Right. And then he was there. Byron Hastings.” Bugsy said, wrapping her hands around the mug some more.
“Oh, isn’t he that super yummy bachelor that just inherited his fathers business?” Garcia jumped in, not noticing how it made her wince, “I hear his dad totally owns a bunch of shares in Facebook and as like just signed a deal with a new company that will change the future of computing-”
“Not now, baby girl,” Morgan said calmly, patting Penelope on her shoulder when she saw the bride’s crestfallen face.
“Right, sorry. Your turn, little bug,” She said, shaking her head and fiddling with her dozen rings.
“Yeah, that’s him.” She replied, running a slightly warmed finger over her eyelash where rain even collected there, “And you know, I wasn’t complaining, he was certainly easy on the eyes, and he smelled nice, like he just smelled rich, but man alive he was so boring,” She sighed, “I like computers as much as the next girl, no offence, but he didn’t once ask me what I was into or, and when I tried to bring up my degree he just patted me on the head and said ‘That’s nice’ like I was some child that had brought him a pretty colouring or something,”
“Ouch,” Emily grimaced, rubbing her arms over the cardigan to warm her up a little more, “And then?”
“And eventually, his dad and my mom cut a deal that we’d make a good pair. He said we could be married within the season, and suddenly everyone seemed up for it, and it was like no matter how hard I tried to dig my heels in, no one would listen, and mom just seemed so pleased with me-” She spluttered, sipping her drink to catch her breath, “I just let it happen and just thought, you know, maybe we could learn to like each other, or we could just be like mom and dad and separate in everything but paper,”
“It’s your life, who is she to tell you how you’re gonna live it,” Emily was outraged, the tip of her nose pink, her dark eyes stormy as her hands fell to her hips, huffing as if it had been her backed into a corner, “I can’t believe she would do this to you,”
“I was fine with it, really. It's not like its the fifteenth century when I’d be forced to consummate- anyway,” Bugsy rubbed her face, “I just got there, and mom put on my veil and told me I’d make a lovely Mrs Hastings, and just the sound of it- I couldn’t-”
“What on earth is going on?” A new voice cut through the BAU, and the group disbanded like kids caught trading answers to the homework. Rossi and Hotch stood by the unit chief’s office, brows furrowed at the wet bride and his team that tended to her as if she were a princess.
“Should we be expecting four wet bridesmaids too?” Rossi asked, the two of them making the steps down to the floor, approaching the guilty faced woman, noting Spencer’s cardigan wrapped over her shoulders.
“Nope, just me,” Her joke fell flat as she met the stony face of Aaron Hotchner, who looked thoroughly unimpressed, “Nice to see you again, Mr Hotchner, sir,”
His gaze slid to Emily, mouth opening to share whatever scathing remark bounced around his mouth, but the younger girl beat him to it, everyone’s eyebrows raising when she all but cut him off.
“This wasn’t on Emily, sir, I just showed up out of the blue, I can go- I’ll go- I just need to figure out where I’m staying since I left my purse at the church- don’t you worry I’ll be out of your hair, Aaro- sir,” Bugsy stammered, plonking the mug onto Emily’s desk, backing away to the doors of the office, clutching her visitor pass tight in her fist.
Maybe it was because she looked so hopeless, or maybe it was the way his team shot him the same look of horror he would be so regimental, or maybe even it was the fact part of her reminded him of Sean, only his brother wouldn’t have had the courtesy to apologise for his mess.
Sighing, he gestured her to come back, “Wait,” He said her name, her government name because the other one didn’t fit right in his mouth, “Reid, get her some clothes out your go bag. Emily, tell your mother she’s safe and will be staying in Quantico until you can figure something out,”
Heaving a sigh of relief, she launched her still sodden form at the chief, wrapping him in a stiff hug, bolder than anyone else on the team had ever dared to be.
“I swear to god, Mr Hotchner, the next letter you're getting will be the best one yet,” She mumbled into his hard chest, and he fought off the way the corners of his lips twitched upwards. Patting her on the back gently, he ignored the way his dress shirt wet through.
–
let me know what you think! mAYBE A FEW MORE PARTS COMING UP ??
Edit: This is a part one of 3 or 4 I have planned, thankyou so much for all the love on this I did not expect the reaction 🥺🥺
alternatively titled soda.
track six of BROKEN MACHINE.
pairing ; aemond targaryen x strong!f!reader
synopsis ; he flinched away when your fingers brushed against his eyepatch. despite this, you reached out once more to pull it off, your touch ever so gentle—and this time, he let you. you whispered that he was beautiful as your lips grazed against the marred skin of his cheek. aemond didn’t believe you, but he let you say it nonetheless.
words ; 40.3k (my longest oneshot!)
themes ; heavy angst, action, smut (minors dni!), mild fluff, enemies to lovers back to enemies trope, slowburn, betrothed au
warnings / includes ; violence/war, several character deaths, descriptions of injury/blood, birth scenes, oral (f recieving), unprotected sex, slight breeding kink, hotd s1 spoilers, reader is fiercely team black, implications of rape (aegon), really really heavy angst, harwin is reader’s older brother, helaena is the sweetest ever :( jace and luke are reader’s best friends, rhaenyra is practically reader’s mother, lots of Emotions in this one, asoiaf politics and references for all of you book nerds
main masterlist. read on ao3!
It was said that you came into the world silent.
A problem with your lungs, the midwives had solemnly told your father, the Hand of the King, proclaiming you dead not three minutes after. Lyonel Strong was grief-stricken at not only having lost his dear wife to the perilous task of childbirth, but you as well.
But you were a fighter from the very beginning. At least, that’s what Harwin had told you. Once they’d laid you in your eldest brother’s arms, your airway had miraculously cleared up and you’d let out a hoarse, shrill cry—and the rest was history.
“I was twenty when you were born, you know,” said Harwin, voice rife with affection, reaching out to brush a lock of hair away from your face. “I was so scared that I’d lose you. Now look at you—eight years of age and healthier than ever. Are you excited to meet the new baby?”
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