Warnings: PA reader, workplace romance, boss/employee relationship, power imbalance, canon-typical violence, blood/injury, she falls first but he falls harder, secret identity, idiots in love, mutual pining, oral sex, vaginal fingering, vaginal sex, unprotected sex
Summary:
Fresh out of college and desperate for a life that belongs only to you, you move from Boston to Gotham and somehow become Timothy Drake-Wayne’s personal assistant.
The job comes with a terrifyingly high salary, a boss who forgets to sleep, and a city with rules you have to learn before Gotham teaches them the hard way.
Author’s Note:
as evidenced by this fic and my Dick fic, i love writing both characters as professional yearners lmao
The first thing you learned about Gotham was that nobody reacted to sirens.
In Boston, sirens still changed the shape of a street. People looked over their shoulders, irritated, curious, or concerned, and cars performed the usual awkward choreography of trying to get out of the way. Gotham did not bother. Gotham heard sirens the way other cities heard rain. It registered them, adjusted for them, and kept moving.
You stood on the sidewalk outside your new apartment building with one suitcase by your knee, a duffel cutting into your shoulder, and your phone clutched in one hand while three police cars screamed past the intersection without slowing.
Nobody around you looked up.
The broker had called the neighborhood “up-and-coming.” Your mother had called it “a cry for help.” Your aunt had sent you four articles about Gotham crime statistics and then followed up with a voice memo that began, “I know you think we’re overreacting, but—”
You had deleted the voice memo at South Station.
That was not fair, maybe. Your family loved you. They loved you so much it had become advice, warnings, opinions, emergency plans, blind dates, shared locations, and a constant chorus of questions about whether you had really thought this through. By the end of college, home had become less a place than a committee meeting about your future.
Gotham had been a decision made from exhaustion, stubbornness, and the frightening clarity of being twenty-two years old with a degree, a checking account that made you anxious, and no desire to move back into your childhood bedroom.
The Wayne Enterprises listing had appeared between two administrative assistant jobs and a communications coordinator position at a nonprofit that required 3 years of experience for entry-level pay. You had laughed when you opened it.
Personal Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer.
Wayne Enterprises.
Competitive salary.
Discretion required.
Ability to manage complex scheduling needs, executive communications, high-pressure situations, confidential materials, and rapidly shifting priorities.
You had assumed the listing was either fake or meant for someone whose résumé included phrases like “family office” and “international liaison.” Still, you had applied because it was one in the morning and your standards had been damaged by panic. You had written a cover letter that was honest enough to embarrass you in daylight, attached your résumé, and hit submit before you could talk yourself out of it.
Two weeks later, you were in Gotham.
Three interviews after that, you were standing in the lobby of Wayne Tower in your best blazer, trying not to look as if the polished black floors and vaulted ceiling had personally insulted your tax bracket.
The receptionist smiled at you with the serene calm of someone who had seen billionaires bleed on marble and still knew where the spare visitor badges were kept. “You can go up now. Mr. Drake-Wayne is expecting you.”
Your stomach performed an athletic maneuver.
“Great,” you said, in the tone of someone for whom nothing had ever been great.
A woman in a cream blouse met you near the elevators. “You must be here for the PA interview.”
“Yes,” you said. “That’s me.”
“I’m Tam Fox.” She shook your hand firmly. “I work in executive operations. Tim is running two minutes late, which is actually early for him.”
You smiled because she smiled, and because “Tim” seemed too casual for the name Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, who had spent the last week existing in your mind as a LinkedIn profile with cheekbones, a terrifying job title, and a net worth you tried very hard not to think about.
“Fair warning,” Tam said as you approached a corner office. “He reads fast, talks faster when he’s tired, and forgets that most people cannot follow three conversations at once.”
“That’s weirdly comforting.”
“That was the goal.”
Inside, Timothy Drake-Wayne stood behind his desk with one hand braced on a stack of folders and the other wrapped around a coffee cup. He was younger than he looked in official photographs, or maybe he looked exactly twenty-three, and the rest of the world had decided CEOs were not supposed to. His tie was slightly loose, his sleeves were rolled to his forearms, and he looked tired enough that the alertness in his eyes felt almost unfair.
“Hi,” he said, setting the coffee down as if remembering he needed a free hand. “Sorry. That was a terrible start. Tim Drake-Wayne.”
You shook his hand. “I know.”
His mouth twitched. “That would be the building with my family’s name on it.”
“One of your names,” you said before you could stop yourself.
For half a second, you were certain you had ruined your life.
Then he laughed.
After that, the interview became less terrifying and more impossible to read. Tim asked about scheduling, confidentiality, difficult personalities, crisis logistics, and the conference you had once helped salvage after it lost its venue forty-eight hours before opening. When he asked who had handled the vendors, transportation, catering, and revised schedule, you admitted, “Mostly me.”
Tim leaned back in his chair. “Why wasn’t your supervisor doing any of this?”
Because she had cried in the bathroom and told you she trusted you, which was the sort of thing people said when they wanted you to accept responsibility without being given authority.
You chose the diplomatic version. “She delegated.”
Tim looked at you for a moment. Then he wrote something in the margin of your résumé.
Three hours later, Tam called to offer you the position.
The salary was high enough that you asked her to repeat it, then accepted before anyone at Wayne Enterprises could realize they had made a clerical error. By the next week, you were officially Tim Drake-Wayne’s personal assistant, and your new life in Gotham had become less theoretical and much more terrifying.
You had no idea that, ever since your interview, Tim Drake-Wayne had not quite managed to stop thinking about you.
The first two weeks were a trial by calendar.
“You have a nine with Lucius Fox, a nine-thirty with legal, a ten with Applied Sciences, a ten-fifteen with the mayor’s office, and a ten-thirty with the children’s hospital board,” you said on your fourth day, standing in his office with a tablet in one hand and a file tucked under your arm.
Tim looked up from his laptop. “That can’t be right.”
“It is.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
He rubbed both hands over his face. “The ten-fifteen was supposed to be next week.”
“The mayor’s office says you confirmed yesterday.”
“I was, for all practical purposes, concussed yesterday.”
You stared at him.
Tim went still.
The office went quiet around the sentence.
Then he said, very carefully, “That was a figure of speech.”
You lowered the tablet. “Do you often confirm meetings while metaphorically concussed?”
“Only when I’m operating on two hours of sleep and a questionable amount of caffeine.”
“That is not better.”
His mouth twitched. “Can you move the mayor’s office?”
“I already did.”
“You did?”
“They’re now Friday at two. Legal is sending someone to sit in on Applied Sciences, and the hospital board is getting a written statement from you by end of day. You still need to call Lucius, because apparently he can tell when you’re avoiding him.”
“Everyone can tell when I’m avoiding Lucius.”
“Then maybe stop making it obvious.”
Tim looked at you for a long moment, and you wondered if you had gone too far.
Finally, he said, “You’re very good at this.”
Your heart did something stupid.
That was when you should have known you were in trouble.
Your feelings for Tim did not appear suddenly or dramatically. They accumulated.
It was in the way Tim listened to you even when his mind had clearly moved three steps ahead. It was in the way he never made you feel stupid for asking questions, only concerned when you did not ask them soon enough.
After that, wanting him became harder to pretend away. You told yourself it was normal to admire someone you worked closely with. Tim was brilliant, and brilliance was attractive when it came with kindness instead of cruelty. He was also your boss, which made the whole thing inconvenient, inappropriate, and something you intended to manage quietly until it died of starvation.
It did not die.
It adapted.
Learning Gotham itself became another part of your job. What you did not learn, at least not quickly enough for Tim’s blood pressure, was how to live in Gotham like someone who understood that survival was not supposed to be optional.
It came to his attention on a Tuesday evening in your third week, when you left Wayne Tower late and decided to walk home in the rain.
You made it four blocks before your phone rang.
Tim’s name appeared on the screen.
You frowned, shifted your tote higher on your shoulder, and answered. “Is something wrong?”
“Where are you?”
“Walking home.”
There was a beat of silence. “You’re what?”
“Walking home.”
“From the office?”
“Yes.”
“In the rain?”
“It’s water, Tim.”
“What route are you taking?”
You glanced at the street signs. “I don’t know, the normal one?”
“The normal one,” he repeated.
“The one my phone suggested.”
Another silence. This one was worse.
“Are you wearing headphones?”
You touched one earbud. “Only one.”
“Take it out.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re walking home alone after dark in Gotham and outsourcing situational awareness to Google Maps.”
You stopped under the awning of a closed tailor shop. Rain dripped from the edge in a steady line. “That feels a little dramatic.”
“Tell me what street you’re on.”
You did, and Tim made a sound that could only be described as a restrained scream.
“Okay,” he said, in the tone of someone trying very hard not to scare a civilian. “Turn around.”
“What?”
“Turn around, walk back to the intersection, and go into the diner on the corner. It should still be open.”
“Tim, I’m six blocks from my apartment.”
“You are two blocks from a corridor that empties after six-thirty because the streetlights have been out for a month and GCPD response time there is abysmal.”
You looked toward the next block. It was quieter than you had realized. Not empty, but thin in a way that made the street’s damp shine suddenly look less cinematic and more like a warning.
A car rolled slowly past. You watched it until it turned the corner.
“I’m going to the diner,” you said.
“Good. Stay on the phone.”
“You’re being a little intense.”
“I’m aware.”
“And bossy.”
“I’m also aware of that.”
The diner was exactly where he said it would be. You sat in a booth near the window, ordered fries because you felt bad taking up space, and tried not to feel like a child who had been caught doing something reckless.
“Are you at the diner?” Tim asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m sending a car.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“Tim.”
“You can be angry at me from the car.”
“I’m not angry.”
“You sound angry.”
“I’m embarrassed.”
His voice softened. “That wasn’t what I wanted.”
You watched rain bead on the window and realized how much you had not noticed before.
“I didn’t know,” you said.
“I know.”
“I’m not helpless.”
“I know that too.”
The simple certainty of it made your throat tighten, which was deeply inconvenient because you were in a diner with fries on the way and your boss in your ear.
Tim exhaled over the line. “Gotham has rules. They’re not fair, and they don’t always make sense until something happens. People who grew up here learn them early. You didn’t, so I’m going to have to teach you.”
“You personally?”
“I’m very qualified.”
“You’re the CEO of a Fortune whatever company.”
“Which means I’ve survived a lot of board meetings in Gotham.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” he agreed. “The board meetings are worse.”
A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.
When he spoke again, his voice had shifted, quieter around the edges. “The car’s two minutes out. The driver’s name is Marcus. He’ll have your name.”
“Okay.”
“And tomorrow we’re talking about your commute.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It is.”
The car arrived exactly when he said it would.
When you reached your building, Tim said, “Text me when you’re inside your apartment.”
“You’re still being bossy.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll text you,” you said.
“Thank you.”
Upstairs, after locking both locks, you texted him.
Inside.
His response came almost immediately. Good. Sleep well. And don’t use the alley door. Ever.
You looked toward the kitchen window, which faced the narrow black cut between buildings.
How did you know about the alley entrance?
Tim answered, It’s Gotham.
That was not an answer.
It was, however, the first time you wondered whether there was more to Tim Drake-Wayne than bad sleep habits and executive stress.
After that, Gotham lessons became part of your routine. Tim taught you not to stand too close to the curb, not to trust empty streets, not to ignore changes in sound, and not to ask questions if a shopkeeper started lowering the gate in the middle of business hours.
“I’ll make you a list,” Tim said.
He did.
It was three pages long, with the heading Basic Urban Safety Considerations.
You wrote under the heading: Gotham for People From Cities That Have Normal Problems.
Tim laughed so hard he had to set his coffee down before he spilled it across three quarterly reports.
You liked his laugh. That became a problem. Then you liked making him laugh, which became a much worse problem.
The phone appeared on a Thursday.
Your own phone was perfectly fine. It was a previous-generation smartphone you had bought refurbished during senior year, with a battery that had developed opinions of its own.
Tim noticed it, because of course he did.
When it buzzed against his desk one morning and immediately dimmed, Tim looked at it.
“What?” you asked.
“Your phone battery is at twelve percent.”
“It has character.”
“It’s eleven in the morning.”
“I charged it last night.”
“That’s worse.”
“It works.”
“It works badly.”
“It works economically.”
“It dies before lunch, and you live in Gotham.”
That was unfair because it was reasonable.
“It’s fine,” you said.
He smiled, but it faded faster than usual. “I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” You softened because he did look serious, and because his concern had a way of getting under your defenses before you could lock them properly. “But I can’t just buy a new phone because my boss has Gotham anxiety.”
“I’m not asking you to buy one.”
“Tim.”
He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a matte black box with no branding.
“What is that?”
“A phone.”
“I gathered.”
“WayneTech prototype. Technically.” His expression was careful in a way that made you immediately suspicious. “Better battery life, satellite fallback, emergency routing, panic button. Three presses sends your location and live audio to a secure response line.”
“What secure response line?”
“A private one.”
“Private like Wayne Enterprises security?”
“Private like people who can get to you faster than standard emergency services in certain parts of Gotham.”
You stared at him.
Tim’s face did something very small and very guilty.
“Timoth Drake-Wayne, I know that you did not just offer me a phone with secret features that connects to a private line used by, what, Bruce Wayne? Robin? Red Robin? Batman? Some terrifying combination of all of the above?”
“It can also call standard emergency services,” he said quickly.
“Tim.”
“And you can disable anything you don’t want. Location only sends if you trigger the alert. Same with live audio. I’m not trying to track you.”
“You understand why this is weird.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m just hoping it’s redundant and you never have to use it.”
“You’re my boss.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t give me secret billionaire technology because my battery sucks.”
“I can if it’s issued as an employee safety device.”
“Is it?”
“It can be.”
You stared at him.
He winced. “It isn’t yet.”
“I’m not saying no forever,” you said. “I’m saying do it properly.”
Tim took the box, his fingers brushing the edge where yours had been a moment before. “Okay.”
The box went back into his drawer, but the weight of it stayed between you.
The employee device policy appeared three business days later.
It was, annoyingly, excellent. Wayne Enterprises issued upgraded phones to several employee groups, with privacy protections, emergency-only location sharing, access logs, and an option to decline without penalty.
Tam stopped by your desk and set a matte-black box down. “Before you ask, yes, I made Legal explain the access logs twice.”
Tam studied you for a moment. Then she tapped the box with one finger. “Set it up before you leave tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
You set it up at your desk after most of the floor had emptied. The process walked you through privacy terms, emergency contacts, medical information, and the secure response option.
There was a field labeled Preferred Wayne Security Contact.
Below it, already listed, was Timothy Drake-Wayne.
You stared at the screen.
Then you deleted his name and selected the general Wayne Security line instead.
Five seconds later, your desk phone rang.
You looked toward Tim’s office. His door was open. He was standing behind his desk, phone to his ear, looking through the glass wall at you with the blank expression of someone who had been personally wounded.
You answered. “Yes?”
“You removed me.”
“I selected the appropriate professional contact.”
“I am an appropriate professional contact.”
“You are the CEO.”
“I’m also the person most likely to answer when you need help.”
“That is not as comforting as you think it is.”
“It should be.”
“You are the least available person I’ve ever met.”
“I would answer for you.”
The words arrived quietly.
Your hand tightened around the phone.
He looked as if he regretted saying it aloud, or as if he had not meant to say it with that much truth in it. Through the glass, across the dim office floor, he seemed younger and more tired than the city believed him to be. He also seemed impossibly far away.
“That’s the problem,” you said.
Tim was silent.
“I need this job,” you continued, keeping your voice even because the alternative was worse. “I like this job. I like working for you. I also need you to know where the lines are.”
His face changed. Not dramatically. Tim was too controlled for that. But something in him went still and careful, as if he had finally heard the thing underneath everything you had not been saying.
“You’re right,” he said.
You let out a breath.
“I’m sorry,” he added.
“You don’t have to be sorry for caring.”
“I do if I make it complicated for you.”
You looked at him through the glass and said, “Thank you.”
He nodded once.
The call ended.
You kept Wayne Security as your preferred contact.
Tim did not bring it up again.
That was the first time you thought he might feel something too.
After that, Tim became almost painfully careful. He still looked after you, but through policy, security protocols, and practical adjustments that applied to more people than you. He stopped calling after hours unless it was work-related.
You hated how much you missed it.
Then came the gala.
The Wayne Foundation’s annual winter benefit took over a museum three weeks later, turning it into a glittering maze of flowers, security checkpoints, and donors whose clothing probably cost more than your first car.
You were working, which made it easier: tablet in hand, earpiece in place, comfortable shoes hidden under a formal black dress.
Tim, unfortunately, looked like a problem.
He wore a black tuxedo with the resigned elegance of someone who had been put in formalwear since childhood and had never forgiven anyone for it. His hair was neater than usual, his smile was more practiced, and every time he slipped into charming-rich-boy mode, you felt a private grief for all the tired, sharp, funny parts of him the room did not get to see.
He looked composed. He also looked exhausted.
At nine-thirty, you intercepted him near the staff corridor with a glass of water and two minutes of unscheduled silence.
“Drink,” you said.
His eyes flicked down to the glass. “Is that an order?”
“A professional recommendation.”
“Those are scarier.”
He took the glass and drank half of it. The polished mask slipped a little as soon as he was out of the donors’ sight.
You smiled, and his gaze caught on it in a way that made the noise of the gala seem to recede.
“You look nice,” he said.
Your brain emptied itself like a drawer dumped onto the floor.
Tim seemed to realize the same thing one second too late.
“I mean,” he said, “you look very—” He stopped, as if every available adjective had become a legal hazard. “Appropriate for the event.”
“Appropriate for the event,” you repeated.
He closed his eyes briefly. “That was worse.”
“It was.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You can tell an employee she looks nice at a formal event without HR rappelling through the ceiling.”
His eyes opened. “HR doesn’t rappel.”
“This is Gotham. Don’t be too surprised.”
That got him. His laugh was quiet, but it loosened something in his shoulders.
Then he looked at you again, and the humor softened into something that was harder to pretend away.
“You do,” he said. “Look nice.”
Your pulse moved to your throat.
“Thank you,” you said, because that was safe, and because you wanted too many unsafe things.
A crash sounded from the main hall.
You and Tim both turned at once.
It was not a small crash. It stopped music, conversation, and every heartbeat in the room.
Tim’s expression changed so fast it frightened you.
The exhausted CEO vanished. Something colder and sharper took his place.
“Stay here,” he said.
“Tim—”
“Staff corridor. Door locks from the inside. Stay away from the main hall.”
He was already moving.
You grabbed his sleeve before you could think better of it. “Where are you going?”
His gaze dropped to your hand, then lifted to your face.
For one impossible second, he looked torn.
Then the lights went out.
Emergency lighting washed the corridor red. The museum alarm began to shriek. Tim caught your wrist, not hard, but with immediate certainty, and pulled you through the staff door as people began running in the main hall.
“Move,” he said.
You moved.
The staff corridor was narrow, red-lit, and loud with the muffled chaos of the main hall. Tim guided you into a service alcove near the freight elevator, already typing one-handed on the black phone you had only seen once.
Then laughter crackled over the museum’s PA system.
Not the Joker. You knew that much, and it was horrifying that you knew enough about Gotham to be relieved by the wrong kind of laughter.
“Wonderful,” Tim muttered. “Pantomime.”
“Who?”
“Low-tier thief with high-tier commitment to theme.”
“Should I be comforted?”
“No.”
He pulled something from inside his jacket and pressed it into your hand.
A phone.
Not the one Tam had given you earlier. That one was in your pocket.
This one was matte black, unbranded, and horribly familiar.
“Tim,” you said slowly.
“I designed it for you.”
The words landed too carefully to be casual.
You looked down at the smooth black screen, then back up at him. “This is the one you offered me the first time.”
His hand stayed near yours for half a second before he drew it back. “Yes.”
“Tam already gave me one.”
“I know. This one is different.”
“Different how?”
“Extra emergency routing. Nothing invasive,” he said quickly. “Your privacy terms are built in.”
“You designed a custom phone for me and just carry it around in your jacket?”
His expression barely changed, which meant he was probably embarrassed. “I was waiting for a reasonable time.”
“And this is the reasonable time?”
“No,” he said. “But it is the available one.”
“Tim—”
“Listen to me.” His voice was low and urgent, and every word landed with terrifying precision. “Stay here. Keep low. This hallway leads to the east loading dock if you need to run. Wayne security will eventually come to this corridor. If anyone comes through that door who is not security or me, you go straight down the hall to the last door on the left. Do not wait. Do not let anyone redirect you.”
“And you?”
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” Tim said. “It’s an instruction.”
Your fingers closed around his phone. “You’re scaring me.”
His expression flickered.
“I know,” he said, and the apology inside it hurt worse than the fear.
Another sound came from the hall. Metal striking marble. Someone sobbed. Security shouted. The PA system squealed with feedback.
Tim touched your shoulder, brief and steady. “I need you safe.”
Then he was gone.
You crouched in the red-lit service alcove with the phone in your hand and the horrible certainty that Tim had just run toward a crime scene with the focus of someone who knew exactly what to do.
Minutes changed shape during a crisis.
You learned that quickly.
You stayed where he had put you for what felt like an hour but was probably less than five minutes. Voices moved through the corridor twice. Once, two catering staff hurried past, whispering frantically. Once, a security guard ran by with his radio pressed to his mouth. You tried to follow the instructions in your head. Stay down. Watch the door. East loading dock if you need to run.
Then someone slammed into the staff door at the end of the corridor.
You flinched so hard your shoulder hit the wall.
The door rattled. A voice cursed on the other side. Another voice said something you could not make out. The lock held.
The phone Tim had pressed into your hand buzzed.
You looked down.
A notification had appeared on the previously black screen.
EMERGENCY MODE ACTIVE.SAFE ROUTE: EAST LOADING DOCK.
A simple map blinked to life, leading you toward the east loading dock.
In the corner was the name of the active safety profile.
DRAKE PROTOCOL.
You stared at it for half a second too long.
Your thumb hovered over the words longer than it should have.
The door rattled again. This time, the lock cracked.
You did not think. You moved.
Tim had told you to go to the east loading dock, so you went east. You kept low, one hand against the wall, Tam’s phone heavy in your pocket and Tim’s clutched so tightly in your other hand that your fingers hurt. Behind you, the door gave way. People entered the corridor laughing and arguing about whether the “rich idiots” had gone through there. You slipped through the next door before they saw you and found yourself in a storage room full of folded tables and museum display equipment.
There was another door on the far side. You crossed to it, eased it open, and nearly collided with Red Robin.
You stopped so abruptly that your shoulder clipped the frame.
You knew him from news footage, blurry photos, and distant rooftop sightings. Gotham’s vigilantes occupied a strange space in public consciousness, half emergency service and half urban myth. You knew Batman, obviously. Everyone knew Batman. You knew Nightwing because the internet had feelings about Nightwing. You knew Red Robin as the one with the staff, the cape, and the reputation for being frighteningly smart.
He stood in the doorway in red and black armor, domino mask cutting sharp lines across his face, cape settling around him like a shadow. He was taller up close than he looked in news footage, all dark armor and sharp angles in the dim service hallway.
For half a second, you were relieved.
Then he said your name.
Not “ma’am.” Not “miss.” Your name.
Your grip tightened around the phone.
Red Robin went still.
The silence was tiny. Maybe less than a second. Maybe nothing to anyone else.
To you, it was everything.
“Oh,” you said.
Red Robin’s mouth pressed into a line.
You knew that mouth.
You knew that stillness.
You knew the way his shoulders carried responsibility like it had been fitted there by hand.
The storage room door behind you opened.
Red Robin moved before you had time to turn. His staff snapped out with a metallic hiss, striking the first intruder in the chest and sending him backward into the second. He caught your arm, pulled you behind him, and the fight became motion. Efficient, brutal, almost silent compared to the chaos outside. Two men went down before either could shout. A third reached for something at his belt, and Red Robin’s cape cut across your view as he disarmed him with a precision that made your stomach drop.
It was over in seconds.
Red Robin stood over three unconscious men and did not look at you.
You stared at him.
The museum alarm kept screaming.
Finally, he said, “Are you hurt?”
Tim’s voice, altered slightly by the mask or the suit or his own effort, but not enough.
You swallowed. “Are you kidding me?”
He turned then. Even with the mask, you saw the wince.
“Now is not the best time.”
“You’re Red Robin.”
“Now is really not the best time.”
“You’re Red Robin.”
“I heard you.”
“You gave me a panic-button phone.”
His mouth tightened. “Yes.”
“That goes to you.”
“Yes.”
“Not Wayne Security. Not some private corporate response line. You.”
A fractional pause.
“As Red Robin,” you said.
His silence was answer enough.
“And if you don’t answer?”
“It routes to me first,” he said. “If I don’t respond, it escalates.”
“To who?”
Another pause. His mouth tightened.
You stared at him. “Oh my god.”
The comm at his ear crackled. He tilted his head slightly. “I have her. East storage, three down. Moving to loading dock.”
A pause.
“Yes, I know.”
Another pause.
His jaw tightened. “Nightwing can stop laughing anytime.”
You made a sound that was not quite hysteria but had ambitions.
Red Robin held out a gloved hand. “We need to move.”
You looked at his hand, then at the unconscious men, then at the door behind him.
There would be time later. There had to be, because if you let yourself process this now—really process it—you were going to stop moving, and Tim had been very clear that stopping was not an option.
You took his hand.
He led you out.
At the loading dock, Red Robin guided you straight into Tam’s waiting arms.
Tam hugged you once, hard. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” you said honestly.
Red Robin said, “Stay with her.”
Tam nodded once. “Go.”
He looked at you one more time, then vanished into the rain.
You stood there with the phone in your hand and your entire understanding of your employment contract rearranging itself into something insane.
By midnight, the official story was that Tim Drake-Wayne had been evacuated with several major donors and spent the rest of the incident coordinating with security from a safe location.
You heard it while sitting in a Wayne Tower conference room, wrapped in a shock blanket you did not remember accepting.
Tim appeared forty minutes after Red Robin disappeared.
He came in through the main conference room doors wearing his tuxedo again, tie missing, hair damp, a shallow cut at his jaw, and the expression of someone who knew he was walking into consequences.
You looked at him.
He looked at you.
Tam and Bruce left with suspiciously convenient excuses.
Tim stayed near the door.
You sat at the conference table with the shock blanket around your shoulders and the phone on the polished wood in front of you.
For a while, neither of you spoke.
Then you said, “You’re Red Robin.”
Tim closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
There it was.
No denial. No corporate language. No careful sidestep into things you were not cleared to know. Just yes.
Your eyes stung suddenly, which made you angry because fear had passed, danger had passed, and apparently now your body had decided to be dramatic in a conference room.
“You said my name,” you said.
“I know.”
“You could have pretended.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Tim’s face softened with something that looked painfully like regret. “Because you were scared, and I needed you to listen.”
That was the worst answer because it was good.
You looked down at the phone. “How many people know?”
“Family. A few allies. Lucius. Alfred.”
“Of course the butler knows.”
Tim winced. “Technically.”
You pressed a hand over your eyes. “I’m angry.”
“I know.”
“I’m also relieved you’re alive.”
His expression shifted.
“And confused. But mostly angry.”
Tim came closer slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal or a bomb. Maybe both. He stopped on the other side of the conference table, leaving distance between you that you hated and appreciated in equal measure.
“You can resign,” he said. “With full severance, references, whatever you need. If you want another job somewhere else, I’ll help arrange it without interfering. If you want to stay at Wayne Enterprises but not work for me, that can happen. You don’t have to decide tonight.”
Something twisted in your chest.
“You already thought through my exit options.”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re prepared.”
“Because I care what happens to you.”
The room went very quiet.
Tim looked down, jaw tight. “That was inappropriate.”
“Was it untrue?”
“No.”
“I don’t want to resign,” you said after a long pause.
Tim looked up.
“I don’t know what I want long-term,” you continued. “But I don’t want to leave because something complicated happened.”
“Complicated,” he repeated.
“You’re Red Robin, my boss, and possibly the most sleep-deprived man in America. That’s complicated.”
“Fair.”
“I do think I shouldn’t be your PA forever.”
Pain flickered across his face before he controlled it.
You hated that too.
“I don’t mean because of tonight,” you said. “I mean because I’m good at this, and I don’t want to become someone whose whole career is being useful to one man, even if that man is—”
You stopped.
Tim’s attention sharpened.
“Even if that man is what?” he asked softly.
Dangerous ground. Worse than alleys, scaffolding, and laundromats that were not laundromats. This was the kind of danger you had walked toward willingly for weeks.
You chose honesty, because apparently near-death experiences made you stupid.
“You.”
Tim went still.
The conference room felt too bright, too corporate, too full of glass walls and secrets.
Finally, he said, “I can talk to Tam about a promotion track. Executive operations, maybe special projects. You’d report to her, not me. It would be real, not a favor.”
“You don’t have to solve it tonight.”
“I know.”
“You’re doing it anyway.”
“I’m trying not to do anything else.”
The words landed between you with devastating precision.
Oh.
You stared at him, and Tim held your gaze like he had already decided to accept whatever damage the truth caused.
“You feel it too,” you said.
His breath changed. Barely, but you heard it.
“Yes,” he said.
The answer was quiet. It still wrecked you.
You pulled the shock blanket tighter around yourself because otherwise you might reach for him, and that seemed like a bad idea while you were still shaking and he was still bleeding from his jaw.
“We can’t do anything about that right now,” you said.
“I know.”
“And you need stitches.”
“I don’t.”
“You absolutely do.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You are still lying about injuries to the person who knows your calendar, your caffeine intake, and your fake workout blocks.”
His mouth twitched.
You picked up the phone from the table.
“I’ll keep this,” you said.
Tim’s gaze flicked to the phone, then back to your face. “Okay.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m done being angry.”
“I know.”
“Or confused.”
“I know that too.”
You slipped the phone carefully into your bag, as if the wrong movement might shatter something already fragile and cracked.
“Medical first,” you said.
“Okay.”
“Then we discuss my job.”
“Okay.”
“And then, eventually, when there is no active crime scene, no head wound, and no direct-reporting relationship, we can discuss the other thing.”
Tim’s eyes lifted to yours.
There was something in them now that you had never seen so openly in his office. Want, yes, but also restraint. Hope under discipline. A man with too many masks allowing one of them to slip because you had asked him for honesty and he had given it.
“The other thing,” he said.
“Don’t make me say it in a conference room.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“You absolutely would.”
His smile came back, small and real.
Your heart, traitorous and exhausted, leaned toward it.
Two weeks later, you were promoted.
It was not because you knew Tim’s secret. You made absolutely sure of that.
Tam brought you into her office with an offer letter, a revised title, and a salary increase that made you stare at the page for a full ten seconds without breathing.
Executive Operations Coordinator, Special Projects.
You would report to Tam, not Tim. It was a real job with real responsibilities, and Tam made sure you understood that before you could ask.
“You earned it,” she said. “And before you start thinking Tim pushed this through because he is emotionally compromised, he recommended you for advancement two weeks before the gala.”
She turned a printed memo toward you. You caught only a few phrases before looking away.
Exceptional crisis judgment.
Operational instincts exceed current role.
Should be placed where she can build institutional authority.
You looked away before your face could do something embarrassing.
“Tim has many flaws,” Tam said. “Undervaluing competence is not usually one of them.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes if you want the job.”
You looked at the offer again. You thought of Boston, your packed boxes, your family’s concern pressing against every decision you made until Gotham had seemed less like a city than an escape hatch. You thought of your first day in Wayne Tower, your panic in the elevator, Tim laughing when you said one of his names was on the building.
Then you thought of the storage room, Red Robin saying your name, and Tim across a conference table telling you he cared about what happened to you.
You signed the offer.
You found Tim on the roof of Wayne Tower at sunset, which was not where CEOs were supposed to be but was exactly where vigilantes apparently spent their emotional processing time. He was in shirtsleeves, jacket abandoned on the low wall beside him, tie loose, wind tugging at his hair. The grotesques along the roofline loomed dark against the bruised evening sky.
“Do all Waynes brood on rooftops,” you asked, “or is this a you thing?”
Tim turned. His expression changed when he saw the envelope in your hand.
“You signed.”
“I did.”
The tension in his shoulders eased so visibly that it hurt your chest.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“You earned it.”
“That seems to be the company line.”
“It’s the truth.”
You walked to the wall beside him, leaving enough space between you for sense and not enough for comfort.
You looked at him. “I think I’m staying.”
Tim’s gaze held yours. “In Gotham?”
“At Wayne Enterprises. In Gotham. In the life I apparently live now, where my former boss is Red Robin and my new phone has emergency settings designed by a vigilante with a corporate email address.”
He huffed a laugh. “Former boss.”
“That’s the part you heard?”
“It’s an important part.”
“It is.”
The wind moved between you, cold enough that you folded your arms.
Tim noticed. Of course he noticed. “Do you want my jacket?”
“No.”
“You’re cold.”
“I am establishing independence.”
“You can be independent and warm.”
“That sounds fake.”
“It’s not.”
He held out the jacket.
You stared at it, then at him.
“Tim.”
“It’s a jacket, not a marriage proposal.”
You laughed despite yourself and took it. It was warm from his body and too expensive to just drop on the roof, and putting it on felt like accepting something you had been refusing in pieces for weeks.
Tim watched you, careful and quiet.
“I report to Tam now, but you’re still the CEO.”
“Yes.”
“And Red Robin.”
“Also yes.”
“So this is still complicated.”
“I know.”
His patience should have made this easier. It did not. It made you want to step closer.
So you did.
Tim’s attention dropped briefly to the movement, then returned to your face.
“I don’t remember what it’s like to not love you,” you said.
He went completely still.
You could not believe you had said it. Once the words were out, though, you refused to take them back. You had spent too long managing feelings privately, folding them into professional smiles and calendar updates, pretending every kindness did not land somewhere tender.
“I tried not to,” you continued. “You were my boss. You’re rich in a way that makes me want to audit reality. You have a family name that opens doors by existing. And I’m…not. I’m new to Gotham, new to this job, and trying very hard not to confuse the first person who made me feel steady with someone I was allowed to want.”
Tim’s voice was low. “Did you?”
“No.”
His expression softened.
“That was the problem,” you said. “I knew exactly what it was.”
For a moment, the city seemed to fall away beneath the sound of the wind.
Then Tim said, “I don’t know when it became love. I only know that it did.”
Your breath caught.
He looked almost embarrassed by the confession, which made it worse and better and impossible.
“I didn’t understand what was happening at first,” he said. “I thought I was relieved to have someone competent. Then I thought I was worried because you were new to Gotham. Then I thought about you walking home in the rain so much that Nightwing threatened to block my number after I texted him at three in the morning for the third night in a row.”
A laugh slipped out of you, unsteady.
Tim stepped closer. “I tried to keep it professional.”
“You did.”
“Not because I didn’t want you.”
The words hit with enough force to make you forget the cold.
He seemed to hear it after he said it. His mouth parted slightly like he might apologize, but you shook your head.
“Don’t you dare take it back.”
“I won’t.”
The space between you had become very small.
Your hand moved first. Not far. Just enough to touch the front of his shirt, your fingers resting over the place where his tie had been loosened. Tim looked down at your hand as if it were more dangerous than anything he faced in a mask.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
You had imagined Tim asking like that. Careful, direct, almost formal with the effort of giving you a choice.
You had not imagined how much it would undo you.
“Yes,” you said.
He kissed you as if caution were the last thing standing between him and disaster.
For one breath, it was almost unbearably gentle. His mouth touched yours, then paused there, asking without words. The city moved around you in sirens and wind and distant traffic, but Tim stayed still, giving you room to choose.
So you chose.
You rose onto your toes and kissed him back.
Something in him changed then—not snapped, not broke, but gave way. His hand found the lapel of the jacket he had put around your shoulders, fingers curling into the fabric as if it were the only safe place to hold on. You felt his breath catch before he kissed you again, deeper this time, less like a question and more like an answer he had been trying not to write down for months.
By the time you pulled apart, his forehead was almost touching yours, and neither of you seemed willing to be the first to remember the rest of the world.
His gaze dropped to the jacket around your shoulders, then back to your face.
“I should not be thinking about how good that looks on you right now,” he said.
Your breath caught.
“That’s your takeaway?”
“I’m trying to be normal.”
“You are failing.”
“I know.”
You smiled, and he kissed you again just because he could, because some impossible permission had been granted and neither of you knew how to be sensible with it yet.
Eventually, you made it back inside. Sensibility returned somewhere between the rooftop door and the executive elevator, mostly because the building had cameras and you both remembered at the same time.
Tim walked you to your office because it was late, because he was still Tim, and because you let him. The new space was smaller than his but bigger than your old desk, with a door, a window, and your name already printed on a temporary placard.
He stopped outside.
You stood in the doorway, still wearing his jacket.
“This is where I say goodnight,” he said.
“Is it?”
“It should be.”
You looked at him for a long moment. The professional part of you admired the restraint. The rest of you resented it.
“What do you want?” you asked.
Tim’s eyes darkened.
The hallway was empty. The office floor beyond it was dim, most of the staff gone for the night. Somewhere far away, the cleaning crew moved down another corridor.
“That’s a dangerous question,” he said.
“I know.”
“I want to kiss you again.”
“That seems manageable.”
“I want to do more than kiss you.”
Your pulse jumped.
Tim did not move closer. That was the thing about him. Desire was there, clear and intense, but so was the discipline. He would stand in a hallway and let honesty burn through him before he would use it to corner you.
You loved that.
The realization arrived without ceremony and with terrible timing.
You did not say it. Not yet. There were some truths too large for office hallways.
Instead, you stepped into your office, turned on the light, and looked back at him.
“Come in, then.”
Tim’s composure cracked.
Only slightly. Only enough.
He entered and closed the door behind him.
For a few seconds, neither of you moved.
Tim’s gaze stayed on you.
“You’re very careful,” you said.
“With you? Yes.”
Heat curled low in your stomach.
You crossed the office and stopped in front of him. “You can touch me.”
Tim’s hand came to your waist first, over your dress, warm and steady. Then the other settled at your back. He drew you in slowly, and when you lifted your face, he kissed you with all the care he had promised and all the hunger he had not.
The office disappeared by degrees.
There was his mouth, his hands, the press of your back against the door when he guided you into position with a soft sound and swallowed your gasp. There was the slide of your fingers into his hair, the way he shuddered and made a noise deep in his throat when you tugged, the sudden knowledge that Timothy Drake-Wayne, brilliant and controlled and impossible, could come undone if you touched him just right.
He kissed along your jaw, then stopped.
“Still okay?”
“Yes,” you said, breathless. “Tim, please.”
His eyes closed for a second, as if the word did something to him. Then his mouth found your throat, careful at first, then less so when your hand tightened on his shoulder.
Your hands found the buttons of his shirt. He went still beneath your fingers.
“Is this okay?” you asked.
A laugh broke out of him, low and strained. “Yes.”
“You’re allowed to answer faster.”
“I’m trying not to embarrass myself.”
“That might be my favorite thing you’ve ever said.”
He kissed you again, and the buttons became less cooperative under pressure. When his shirt opened beneath your hands, you found warm skin, hard muscle, and the faint raised evidence of a life you were only beginning to understand. You touched one scar lightly before you could stop yourself.
Tim’s breath caught.
You looked up. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
There was a story under your fingertips. Many stories, probably. Too many for one night. You kissed the place instead, gentle enough that his hand flexed against the door beside your head.
He said your name like a warning.
You smiled against his skin. “What?”
“If you do that again, my plan to be responsible is going to suffer.”
“Your plan sounds boring.”
“My plan is respectful.”
“I respect it.”
“You are actively undermining it.”
“Yes.”
Tim looked down at you, and the heat in his face made your knees feel unreliable.
Then he picked you up and turned, placing you onto the edge of your desk.
The movement startled a laugh out of you, but it dissolved when he stepped between your knees. His hands slid along your thighs, still over fabric, still giving you time. You pulled him closer by his open shirt and kissed him until the careful rhythm broke into something messier.
His phone buzzed.
Both of you froze.
Tim dropped his forehead to your shoulder. “I’m going to kill him.”
You were breathing hard. “Who?”
“Statistically, Dick.”
The phone buzzed again.
You started laughing and could not stop.
Tim groaned, but there was laughter in it too, helpless and frustrated and young in a way you rarely got to see. He pulled back enough to check the screen, then made a face.
“Emergency?” you asked.
“No. He sent a bat emoji.”
You laughed harder.
Tim typed something one-handed.
“What did you say?”
“That I’m resigning from the family.”
“He’ll believe that?”
“No.”
The interruption should have killed the moment. It did not. It softened it, turned the sharp edge of want into something warmer, more sustainable, less likely to burn through every careful choice you had made.
Tim put the phone facedown on your desk and looked at you. “Can I take you to dinner?”
“Now?”
“Not now. Now I should walk you home and behave like someone who remembers that tonight was a lot for you.”
Your expression softened despite yourself. “Do you always have to be reasonable?”
“No,” he said. “I’m making a deliberate effort.”
You touched his open collar. “Dinner sounds good.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I have plans tomorrow.”
His eyebrows rose. “Do you?”
“I do have a life outside this building.”
“I know. I’m proud and devastated.”
“Saturday.”
“Saturday,” he agreed.
You slid off the desk, and he steadied you with both hands. For a second, you stayed close, neither of you willing to end the contact completely.
You buttoned his shirt because someone had to, and because the intimacy of doing it made him quiet in a way kissing had not. When you reached the last button, his hand covered yours.
“I’m glad you came here,” he said.
You had no clever response, so you kissed him once more, soft and lingering, then stepped back before one of you forgot where you were.
Tim walked you home.
At your building, the flickering light above the door had been fixed. The bulb burned steady and warm over the entrance, catching on the old brick and the damp railing.
You stopped on the first step and looked up at it.
“Tim.”
“Yes?”
“Did you fix my building light?”
“I did not personally.”
You turned to look at him. “That is not a denial.”
“No,” he admitted.
“You know, most people flirt with flowers.”
“I can do flowers.”
“You fixed exterior lighting.”
“You said the hallway was dark.”
“I said that once.”
“I listen.”
That one got under your skin.
For a moment, you only looked at him. He stood one step below you, which made you almost level. His tie was loose, his hair still slightly mussed from your hands, and his jacket was back on by then, though he had only put it on after making sure you were not cold on the walk over. He looked nothing like the polished CEO from the gala two weeks ago. He looked tired, careful, and very real.
You reached for the door.
Tim did not move to follow.
Of course he didn’t.
He stood on the sidewalk with his hands still at his sides, waiting. The restraint should have annoyed you by now. Instead, it made the desire sharper, because every step closer to him had to be yours if you wanted it to be. He would not take a single inch you did not hand him.
“Tim.”
His eyes lifted to yours.
“Come upstairs.”
The words landed quietly between you, but they felt heavier than anything you had said in your office. There was no company logo behind you now. No executive floor. No desk with your new title waiting outside the door. Just your building, your key, your choice.
Tim’s gaze searched your face. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You can change your mind at any point.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.” You opened the door and held it. “Come upstairs.”
This time, he did.
The stairwell smelled faintly of old paint, rain-damp coats, and someone’s dinner from two floors down. It was not glamorous. The third-floor landing had a cracked tile near the railing. The radiator pipes clanked behind the walls. Your neighbor’s dog barked once as you passed, then apparently decided you were not worth the effort.
The key shook once in your hand before you got it into the lock. You hoped he did not notice. He almost definitely noticed. He was kind enough not to say anything.
Inside, your apartment was warm in the uneven way old buildings were warm. Tim entered behind you, closed and locked the door, then looked around with the same attentive curiosity he brought to everything.
“It feels like you,” he said.
Your throat tightened unexpectedly. “Messy?”
His laugh was quiet and warm.
“Alive.”
You reached up and loosened his tie the rest of the way.
“I’m still sure,” you said.
The last of his restraint shifted.
He stepped closer, slowly enough that you could have moved away, and lifted one hand to your face. His thumb brushed your cheek, light and reverent. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
“I want you to.”
He kissed you.
The first touch of his mouth was soft, almost controlled, but the gentleness did not last. You knew now what it felt like when Tim gave himself permission. You felt it in the way his hand slid to the back of your neck, in the way he drew you closer, in the quiet sound he made when you opened for him.
You gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him closer until there was no polite distance left between you, only the warmth coming from his body.
His free hand found your waist, firm enough to make your breath hitch when he drew you in. Tim caught the sound against your mouth and went still for half a second, as if he had to survive it.
Then he did it again.
Your head tipped back, his hand warm at the nape of your neck. “Tim.”
“I know,” he said, though his voice had gone rough.
“You don’t, actually.”
His mouth moved to your jaw. “Then tell me.”
You threaded your fingers into his hair, and his breath caught. “Touch me.”
His hand slid down your side, over the curve of your waist, then lower to your hip. He paused there, fingers flexing once through the fabric of your skirt.
You kissed him again because you wanted to, because you could, because this was your apartment and your choice and you were tired of wanting carefully.
Tim’s hand slipped beneath the hem of your skirt.
The first touch of his fingers against your bare thigh made your whole body respond. He felt it. You knew he did because his mouth faltered against yours, and for one breath, all the careful intelligence in him seemed to short out.
“You’re very distracting,” he murmured.
“You’re one to talk.”
His smile brushed your cheek, then disappeared against your throat. He kissed his way down slowly, learning your responses with every press of his mouth. When his teeth grazed the sensitive place beneath your ear, you gasped and tugged at his hair hard enough to make him groan.
The sound undid the thing that told you to be careful.
You pushed his jacket off his shoulders. It hit the floor somewhere near your shoes. His shirt followed badly, buttons undone between kisses, your hands impatient and his no better. When you finally got the fabric open, you slid your palms over his chest and felt the hard shiver that moved through him.
He was beautiful like this. Warm, scarred, and breathing unevenly under your hands.
Your fingers found one of the pale marks near his ribs. You touched it softly, and Tim’s hand closed around your wrist.
For one second, you thought you had hurt him.
Then he brought your hand to his mouth and kissed your palm.
The tenderness of it almost ruined you.
“Bedroom?” he asked.
Your pulse jumped.
You nodded.
You grabbed his hand, and this time, when you got to your bedroom, you were the one who walked him backward until the backs of his knees hit the edge of your bed. He sat, looking up at you with his shirt open, hair mussed, mouth flushed from kissing, and you had the sudden, dizzying realization that Timothy Drake-Wayne was in your room because you had invited him there.
Desire moved through you with startling clarity.
You reached for the buttons of your blouse.
Tim’s gaze dropped to your hands, then lifted back to your face immediately, as if he were trying very hard to be respectful and suffering for it.
“You can look,” you said.
His laugh came out strained. “Thank you.”
You undid the buttons slowly, then let the blouse slip from your shoulders. Tim stopped breathing for a second.
Tim stopped breathing for a second.
That was worth everything.
You stood in front of him in your bra and skirt and watched the last of his practiced composure fall away.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
You touched his hair. “You’re overdressed.”
That got you a smile, quick and devastating.
“Fix it, then.”
So you did.
You pushed his shirt down his arms, and he let it fall somewhere beside the bed. His undershirt followed. You took your time because you wanted to, because he was letting you look, because every scar and line of muscle told a story you would not ask for tonight but wanted to learn someday. When your hands reached his belt, he caught your fingers gently.
“Still sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Because we can slow down.”
“I don’t want to slow down.”
His eyes darkened.
“I want you,” you said.
That did it.
Tim pulled you into his lap.
You gasped, arms going around his shoulders as his mouth found yours again. Sitting perched on his thighs made everything feel closer, hotter, harder to control. His hands moved over your back, then down to your hips, guiding you against him until the hard line of him pressed between your legs through too many layers of fabric. The friction was blunt and maddening, enough to make your hips move again before you could think better of it.
The pressure made you moan into his mouth.
He broke away with a sharp breath. “I need you to keep making that sound.”
You smiled, breathless. “Bossy.”
“Former boss.”
“Still bossy.”
He kissed you again, and his hand slid between your bodies.
When his fingers touched you through your underwear, your hips jerked. Tim watched your face as he did it again, slower, firmer, learning you with that devastating focus you had seen in boardrooms and crisis calls and rooftop confessions. Your head fell forward against his shoulder.
“That’s it,” he said softly.
The praise made your body tighten.
His fingers moved with patient precision, stroking you through the thin fabric until you were clinging to him, breath coming unevenly against his neck. It would have been embarrassing how quickly he figured you out if he hadn’t looked so undone by it, too.
“You’re so responsive,” he murmured. “God, you’re—”
He stopped himself.
You lifted your head enough to look at him. “So what?”
His fingers pressed more firmly, and the question dissolved into a gasp.
“So much better than anything I let myself think about,” he said.
You kissed him because if he kept talking, you were going to come before he had even taken your underwear off.
Tim seemed to like that. His free hand slid up your back, unclasping your bra with a competence that would have annoyed you if you had not been so distracted by his mouth. He drew the straps down your arms, slow enough to make your skin prickle, and when he looked at you, the hunger in his face was edged with something almost tender.
“Can I?” he asked, his hand hovering.
You nodded.
“Say it.”
Your breath caught. “Yes.”
His mouth closed over your breast, and the first wet heat of it made you arch against him. Tim’s hand tightened on your hip, holding you steady as his tongue moved over your nipple, then his teeth grazed carefully enough to make you gasp without hurting. You could feel him smile against your skin before he did it again.
“You’re smug,” you said, though it came out weaker than you intended.
He lifted his head. “I’m observant.”
“You are very pleased with yourself.”
“I’m pleased with you.”
That was unfair enough that you kissed him to shut him up.
The next few minutes became a blur of hands and heat, his mouth moving over every place he could reach while your underwear stayed frustratingly in the way. Tim laid you back carefully, as if your bed were something sacred and not a mattress you had ordered online with free shipping. He kissed down your body with devastating patience, over your throat, between your breasts, along your stomach, until your fingers twisted in the sheets and your breath turned uneven.
When he hooked his fingers into your skirt and underwear, he looked up at you.
You nodded before he could ask.
He still asked. “Can I take these off?”
“Yes.”
He drew them down your legs slowly, kissing your thigh once as he did. By the time he settled between your knees, his eyes had darkened, and you were trembling with anticipation and the unbearable tenderness of being desired by someone who kept asking because your answer mattered.
Tim kissed the inside of your thigh.
Then higher.
The first touch of his mouth against your clit made your whole body jolt.
He paused immediately, one hand spreading over your hip. “Okay?”
“Yes,” you said, almost laughing because your nerves had nowhere else to go. “Very okay.”
His smile turned wicked for one brief, breathtaking second. “Good.”
Then he stopped being careful in all the ways that mattered least.
He lowered his mouth again. Pleasure built slowly at first, then faster as he found the rhythm that made your thighs tense around his shoulders. One of his hands slid up to lace with yours against the sheets. His other arm hooked across your hips, firm enough to hold you in place when you started to move against his mouth. You said his name once, then again, and the second time, he groaned like hearing it hurt him.
That was what pushed you over.
You came with your fingers locked around his, your free hand buried in his hair, your body tightening as he worked you through it with slow, careful strokes of his tongue. When it was too much, you tugged weakly at his hair, and he lifted his head at once, kissing your inner thigh with a gentleness that made the aftershocks worse.
For a while, you only breathed.
“You are dangerously good at that,” you said eventually.
His laugh was low and a little wrecked. “I’m taking that as positive feedback.”
He climbed back up your body, kissing you on the way, and when his mouth met yours again, you could taste yourself on him. The intimacy of it made you shiver. Tim felt it and kissed you deeper, his body settling over yours with careful weight.
You reached for his belt.
This time, he let you.
His breathing changed as you opened it, then his briefs, your fingers brushing over his cock through the fabric. He was hard enough that the first touch made his hips shift despite the control he was clearly trying to maintain.
His mouth found your neck as you pushed his slacks and briefs down far enough to wrap your hand around him. He groaned into your skin, low and rough, and the sound made heat gather in your core again even though you were still sensitive from his mouth.
You stroked him slowly, learning the weight and heat of him, the way his breath caught when your thumb passed over the head, the way his hand fisted in the sheet beside your shoulder. Tim was beautiful like this too, undone in pieces, control unraveling under your touch.
“If you keep doing that,” he said, voice rough, “this is going to end very quickly.”
You smiled. “Is that a threat?”
“It is a warning.”
“Very civic-minded of you.”
His laugh broke into a groan when your hand moved again.
Then he kissed you, and the humor burned away.
“Condom?” he asked against your mouth.
“In the nightstand,” you said, then hesitated.
Tim went still immediately. “What?”
You looked up at him, suddenly aware of how close he was, how warm, how careful. “I’m on birth control. I was tested after my last relationship. There hasn’t been anyone since.”
His breath changed, but he did not move. “I’m clean too.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” he repeated, voice rougher.
You touched his cheek. “I don’t want anything between us.”
For one second, the restraint on his face looked almost painful.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He kissed you then, deep and unsteady, and when he settled between your thighs again, your legs opened for him almost instinctively.
Then he guided himself to you. The first press of him made you both go still.
You had expected him to be careful. He was. But careful did not mean unaffected. His forehead dropped to yours, his breath shaking as he eased inside you, slow enough to make you feel every inch. Your hands gripped his shoulders, your body stretching around him, pleasure and pressure tangling until your eyes closed.
“Okay?” he asked, voice strained.
“Yeah,” you whispered. “Just give me a second.”
He did. Of course he did. He held still with impossible control, kissing your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. It was almost worse than movement, the tenderness of it, the way he seemed determined to make room for every part of you. Desire. Nerves. Trust. The frightening softness underneath it all.
When you shifted your hips experimentally, Tim groaned.
“You can move,” you whispered.
His eyes opened, and the look on his face stole the rest of your teasing.
He moved.
Slowly at first, giving you time to adjust, each thrust deep and careful enough to make your breath catch. Your fingers slid into his hair. His mouth found yours, and the kiss turned messy as the rhythm built between you.
You hooked one leg higher around his hip, and the angle changed.
Pleasure struck with such sharp intensity that you gasped.
Tim froze for half a breath. “There?”
“Again.”
He obeyed, and your back arched off the bed.
The careful rhythm fractured after that. His control held, but barely, worn thin by the way you clung to him and the sounds you could no longer fully hide. One of his hands slid beneath your thigh, holding you open for him, and his mouth dropped to your shoulder as he thrust deeper.
“You feel so good,” he said, his voice rough enough to scrape. “I thought about this too much. About you too much.”
Your nails dug into his back. “Tim.”
“I know.” His mouth brushed your jaw. “I know, sweetheart.”
The endearment should not have hit as hard as it did. It did anyway. You clenched around him, and Tim’s rhythm faltered for the first time, a harsh breath breaking from him as he fought not to lose himself too soon.
“Say that again,” you whispered.
His eyes found yours. “Sweetheart?”
You nodded, breathless.
Something in his face went devastatingly soft.
He kissed you, then slid a hand between your bodies, fingers finding the place his mouth had left sensitive and aching. “Come for me again, sweetheart.”
You did not stand a chance.
The pleasure built faster this time, driven by his fingers, his voice, the deep, steady movement of him inside you. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, then clawed at his back, then the sheets as the tension wound tighter and tighter. Tim watched you as long as he could, his own composure breaking apart with every sound you made.
When you came, your orgasm hit you hard.
Your body tightened around him, your cry muffled against his shoulder as pleasure rolled through you. Tim groaned, losing rhythm for one breath, then another, his hips stuttering as he followed you over. He buried his face against your neck, one hand braced beside your head, the other holding you close as he came with a broken sound that made your chest ache.
Afterward, the room went quiet except for your breathing and the clank of the radiator.
Tim stayed over you for a moment, careful not to crush you, his face tucked against your throat. You could feel his heartbeat where his chest pressed to yours, too fast and very human.
Eventually, he lifted his head.
His hair was a disaster. His mouth was swollen. His expression was so open that you wanted to look away and could not.
“Okay?” he asked softly.
You laughed, exhausted and warm. “You can’t ask me that like you didn’t just rearrange my insides.”
A smile broke across his face, tired and real and a little dazed. “Positive feedback?”
“Glowing review.”
He kissed you once, smiling against your mouth, then carefully withdrew. You missed him immediately, which was embarrassing, but Tim did not go far.
He came back with a warm washcloth and cleaned you up with the same quiet focus he brought to everything else, gentle enough that your throat tightened. Then he disappeared once more, returned with a glass of water, and waited until you had drunk half of it before he seemed satisfied.
Only then did he look toward the window. A sliver of Gotham showed through the gap in the curtains, dark and wet and flickering with distant light.
“I should probably go,” he said, sounding like he hated every word.
You looked up at him. “Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
His hand stilled where it rested on the edge of the mattress.
“My heating is terrible,” you said. “And my bed is small. But you can stay if you want.”
Tim looked back at you with that same carefulness, though it was softer now. “Are you sure?”
You touched his cheek. “Yes.”
He turned his face and kissed your palm. “Then I want to stay.”
“Good.”
He climbed back into bed, drew the blanket over both of you, and tucked you carefully against him like he had every right to be there and still could not quite believe he was allowed.
For a while, neither of you said anything.
Outside, Gotham kept moving. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, low and familiar now, threading through the night with the hum of traffic and the occasional groan of old pipes. You had once thought the sound meant you had made a mistake. That you had come too far, too fast, chasing independence into a city that did not know how to be gentle with anyone.
Now Tim’s arm was around you, your door was locked, the phone he had given you was charging on the nightstand, and the city beyond your window felt dangerous and strange and yours.
For the first time since moving to Gotham, the sirens outside did not make you wonder whether you should have gone home.
They sounded like the city continuing around you.
They sounded, strangely, like home.
credit to @uzmacchiato for the cherry divider and @toxisyddy for the Robin divider ❤️💛
Summary: Tim likes...monitoring and failsafe measures in a relationship. But he's also down bad. Warnings: Tim's stalker tendencies?
You learned very quickly that the public perception of Tim Drake was a lie.
Or not a lie, exactly. Just a half-truth, like most things about him.
To the world, Tim Drake was the polite one. The reasonable one. The Robin who grew up into Red Robin without breaking too loudly. He was the kid genius, the awkward genius, the one who spoke too fast when he got excited.
Tim Drake loved quietly in public.
He loved like a complete menace in private.
From the beginning, you had been…remarkably unbothered by the vigilante thing. That alone seemed to short-circuit something in his brain.
You didn’t flinch when he disappeared out of your window at midnight. You didn’t panic when he came back bruised. You didn’t ask him to stop. You asked if he wanted soup or silence.
That, more than anything, convinced him you were dangerous to his sanity.
He introduced you to his family carefully, like he was afraid you might spook. Bruce, who watched you like he watched everything. Alfred, who decided he liked you immediately and made sure you were never without tea. Dick, who clocked the intensity in Tim’s eyes within minutes and raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Jason, who smirked and muttered something about “finally.” Cass, who studied you, then leaned against you like a cat choosing a favorite chair.
You fit. Too well.
So Tim did what Tim always did when something mattered.
He planned.
It started small enough that you didn’t question it.
A package waiting for you at the end of the week. A scarf, absurdly soft. A book you’d mentioned once in passing, a specific edition you hadn’t even realized existed. A pair of boots that fit perfectly, like he’d measured you while you slept.
“You didn’t have to,” you told him the third time it happened.
“I wanted to,” he said easily, eyes bright behind his glasses. “You survived another week. That deserves a reward.”
You laughed, assuming it was a joke.
It wasn’t.
By the time you realized the gifts had become routine, it was already normal. Expected. End-of-week offerings like a ritual he refused to skip. If you protested, he only smiled and kissed your knuckles and said, “Let me take care of you.”
You let him.
You let him do a lot of things.
Your phone buzzed constantly with check-ins, not demanding, never accusatory. Just Tim being Tim. Home safe? Did you eat? Text me when you leave. Your location was shared automatically, a quiet little icon that pulsed on his screen wherever he was.
Once, you forgot your phone on the kitchen counter.
By the time you realized and went back for it, Tim was already there.
Not waiting in the doorway. Pacing inside.
“You didn’t answer,” he said, voice too level.
“I left it inside,” you said, holding it up. “It was on mute.”
His hands came up to your face like he needed to anchor himself. He breathed you in, slow and shaky, then kissed your forehead too hard.
“I don’t like not knowing where you are,” he said softly.
You threaded your fingers through his hair. “I’m right here.”
That helped. Some.
The locket came a week later.
It was beautiful, antique gold, delicate engraving. Inside was a photo of the two of you, taken candidly, your head tipped back in laughter, Tim looking at you like you were the moon.
You wore it without hesitation.
You didn’t notice the tiny tracker tucked beneath the photo.
The teddy bear came after that.
It was ridiculous, oversized, soft, clearly expensive. Tim pretended it was a joke, shrugged when you raised an eyebrow.
“Something to keep you company when I’m not around,” he said.
You hugged it. It smelled like him, he had sprayed his cologne on it. You slept with it tucked under your chin, fingers curled into its fur.
Tim watched from a camera hidden behind one of its eyes.
Not like a stranger would. Not like something cruel.
He watched the way you breathed when you slept, the way you murmured when you rolled over, the way you clutched the bear tighter when your dreams grew restless. He watched because you were beautiful when you forgot to guard yourself. Because knowing you were safe made his chest settle.
Sometimes, your sleepy sounds pulled something darker from him. Something needy and sharp and wanting. His hand would slip under his pants.
He never told you that part.
What he did tell you, he told you shamelessly.
“I think about you constantly,” he said one night, sprawled on your bed, bo staff leaning against the wall. “Like, clinically. If I brought it up to a therapist they’d prescribe something.”
“You already have a therapist.”
“She’s very proud of my coping mechanisms.”
You rolled your eyes. He caught your wrist, tugged you closer, grin crooked and dangerous.
“You know,” he murmured, lips brushing your ear, “sometimes I wish I could just crawl inside you and sleep there. No noise. No distractions. Just you.”
You stared at him. “Tim.”
“I know,” he said cheerfully. “Unhinged. I’ve accepted it.”
In bed, he was worse.
Teasing. Patient. A menace with a smile.
He praised you like it was his job and ruined you with it anyway, voice low and intent, eyes never leaving your face. Every sound you made felt like it belonged to him.
When you tried to hide your reactions, he only tilted his head, amused.
“Louder,” he told you, thumb warm where it rested on your clit. “Make it pretty for me. I know I taught you better than that.”
The way he said it, half pride, half mockery, made heat curl low in your stomach.
He let you handle his gear, his weapons, his staff. He watched the way your hands wrapped around the smooth length of it, the focus in your eyes.
Possession, with Tim, was never about control for its own sake. It was about certainty. About knowing. About making sure nothing, no one, could take you from him without going through hell first.
When you curled around that ridiculous teddy bear at night, Tim Drake smiled into the dark, utterly undone, already planning what he’d give you next.
Despite him enjoying being a menace, he'd melt at praise.
The first time you caught it, you’d been standing in your kitchen, surrounded by groceries you hadn’t remembered asking for. He was unpacking them with brisk efficiency, already organizing your pantry like he lived there.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” you’d said, gentle, automatic.
He froze. Just for a fraction of a second. Something tight passed behind his eyes.
So you tried again, without thinking too hard about it.
“Thank you, babe,” you said instead. “That was really sweet. You’re so thoughtful.”
The effect was immediate and catastrophic.
Tim went still like he’d been struck by lightning, shoulders slowly creeping up toward his ears. His mouth opened, then closed. His ears went pink. Then red.
“Oh,” he said, faintly.
You tilted your head. “You okay?”
He nodded too fast. “Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Fine.”
But his hands shook for the rest of the evening, and when you kissed him goodbye, he clung to you like you were oxygen.
You tested the theory the next week.
Another end-of-week gift, this time a necklace that matched the locket perfectly, understated and elegant, exactly your taste. You didn’t protest. You stepped into his space instead, cupped his face, and smiled.
“Thank you,” you said softly. “You’re so good to me.”
Tim made a sound. A small, helpless one.
From that moment on, it was over for him.
You learned quickly how easy it was to undo him. A little praise, warm and sincere, and he was gone. Eyes bright, smile soft and stunned, devotion written so clearly across his face it almost hurt to look at.
If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging.
He fetched things for you without hesitation. A glass of water. Your sweater. The charger you’d left in another room. All you had to do was sigh or mutter about inconvenience, and he was already moving.
And when you thanked him he went pliant.
Physical affection turned him into something boneless. You’d learned that too.
You’d pull him down onto the couch, straddle his lap, and kiss him slowly. His hands would hover at your waist like he didn’t trust himself to touch. You’d pepper his face with soft kisses, cheek, temple, jaw, until he melted, nuzzling into you like he needed to be held together.
Your fingers slid into his hair, tugging just enough to make his breath hitch.
He whined. A small, needy sound he didn’t even try to hide.
“You’re so cute when you help me,” you murmured once, smiling against his mouth.
Tim buried his face in your neck and breathed you in like he might cry from it.
He needed reassurance the way some people needed sleep.
Sometimes it slipped out of him late at night, when you were tangled together in hoodies and sheets, the city quiet beyond the windows.
“You won’t leave me, right?” he asked once, voice carefully casual in a way that fooled no one. “I already…I already have everything planned.”
You stilled, listening.
“We’ll live in a big house,” he continued, words tumbling faster now. “Not like my parents’ place. It won’t be miserable. It’ll be warm. Lived-in. You can have whatever room you want. I’ll buy you all the pretty clothes and jewelry you like, but inside we’ll just wear old hoodies because that’s better. And...and if you don’t want biological kids, that’s fine, I’ll get a vasectomy, it’s not a big deal...”
“Tim,” you said gently, lifting your head.
He stopped instantly, eyes wide, searching your face for alarm.
You cupped his cheek. “Hey. Pause.”
His shoulders slumped, shame flickering across his features. “Sorry. I just...”
“I know,” you said, kissing his nose. “I love that you’re serious. I do. I just need you to breathe with me, okay?”
He nodded, pressing his forehead to yours. “Okay.”
You meant it when you said you had nothing to hide from him.
So when he asked tentatively if he could borrow your phone sometime, you handed it over without hesitation.
That trust wrecked him more thoroughly than anything else.
He lay beside you on the bed, scrolling quietly while you read. He went through your notes app first, heart pounding, expecting lists. Plans. Fantasies. Proof that you were already building a future in your head the way he was.
There was nothing.
No timelines. No secret hopes. No meticulously outlined dreams.
His chest tightened.
Pinterest was next. Boards upon boards of things you liked: colors, textures, aesthetics. Then, finally, two boards that made his breath catch.
Wedding dresses.
Engagement rings.
Nothing else. No venues. No themes. No saved vows.
Just silhouettes. Cuts. Metals. Stones.
His disappointment lasted maybe five seconds.
Then his brain kicked into gear.
That was enough. He could work with that.
He gave your phone back without comment, curled into you, kissing lazily along your jaw like nothing monumental had just happened inside his head.
It wasn’t until two nights later, when you were half-asleep and tucked under his chin, that he said it.
“Clear your schedule in two weeks,” he murmured, kissing your temple.
You hummed. “For what?”
“I’m proposing that weekend,” he said calmly, like he was reminding you to pick up milk. “I’ll give you options.”
You blinked. Once. Twice.
Then you laughed softly, pressed a kiss to his throat, and said, “Okay.”
Tim exhaled like the world had finally clicked into place.
summary you couldn't say that you ever dreamed of a group of twelve-year-olds intervening in your love life, but maybe you weren't too upset about it. cws no spoilers/au with no dying sun, friends to lovers, painfully oblivious protagonist wc 3.6k words
thank you anon for requesting, i wrote this swift af i'm not gonna lie. the title comes from the taylor swift song state of grace, i'm very funny. i've only see phm twice, i'm hoping to see it again thursday :)))
The sun shone into the classroom in the way that you always enjoyed, the irritatingly bright and bug-corpse-filled overhead fluorescent lights turned off while you graded papers. It was always the most relaxing like this, with the sun shining light on the desk, rather than the lights that always felt like they were two seconds away from giving anyone who had to be around them for too long a headache.
However, it also meant that you would soon have company, a routine that you had also grown accustomed to over time.
Like clockwork, Ryland Grace appeared at almost four in the afternoon on the dot, the moment that he was finished with his own grading (though he was often just keeping more scientifically inclined students after class because they had more questions). Ryland was popular with the kids. He was funny and kind, he cared about the students more than some teachers, and each and every one of them felt comfortable coming to him with anything and everything.
Granted, you were in the same boat. He was the science teacher, and you were the English teacher. But, you were both popular with the children because you were able to relate to them to help them. Both of you were always there to help, to make school more bearable for children who were being forced to be there. Naturally, the two teachers with the most whimsy in the school were the most popular with the kids, and the two closest of any of the faculty members.
“Mr. Grace, to what do I owe the pleasure?” You asked, setting down the pen under the guise of faux-professionalism. But that was dropped the moment he tugged a desk closer to yours, sitting on the desk rather than the chair, and tossing a crocheted ball of the Earth at you. Or, as you had come to discover, lava… apparently.
“I’m just here for my daily community service, teaching the school English teacher how to do physics.” He joked, reaching his hand out as he caught the ball you tossed back at him. Because that was part of the routine, too. Ryland liked to tell you all sorts of things about science, but mainly physics, because it was the one that you found the most interesting; at least, in the way that he broke it down. “So, what did you want to learn today? I was thinking that we could learn about stars, you seemed to like that last time.”
You smiled as you tilted your head down, finishing the paper that you were working on before setting the stack of them off to the side. Ryland’s smile was infectious when he sent it your way, but it always was. He was sweet, and he always came here to talk to you. But you were both always talking to each other, anyway. You ate lunch together, chaperoned the same field trips, and presented at assemblies with each other instead of anyone else. You were naturally closer to each other than anyone else.
That closeness didn’t come without its pitfalls.
Ryland was very, very attractive. Especially when he wore his cozy-looking sweaters and his glasses the wrong way. You always found him beautiful, and you didn’t understand how he was still single. You knew his last relationship hadn’t gone well, from what he told you. He’d told you that she thought his head was too high in the clouds, that he didn’t have quite as much ambition towards a relationship as he had toward his work and the science that he studied.
Still, he was too beautiful to be single, in your eyes. Though you weren’t complaining. You would, admittedly, hate it if he were in a relationship.
“Stars,” You finally mused, tilting your head as you thought about it. “Later, we’ve gotta talk about the field trip in two days; we haven’t talked about it yet.”
“Well-hey-I’ve tried, you just said ‘sorry, I’m reading Romeo and Juliet right now’. Crazy excuse by the way, who reads Romeo and Juliet recreationally?”
You tossed a balled up sticky note at him before showing him the paper you had been grading. “Not recreationally, Ryland, it’s our current lesson.”
“You’re torturing the kids? No wonder they’ve been asking to stay after class with me instead.”
“Hush.” You groaned, but you couldn’t help the little laugh that bubbled up in your throat. Ryland didn’t have a problem, necessarily, with the books that you taught or with books in general. But he certainly did like picking on you about it, just like you enjoyed picking on him for a month straight when he was the unfortunate teacher who had to show a grade of kids the dreaded birth video. “Field trip. Planetarium. Stars. Are we taking the same bus?”
“We always take the same bus; let Mrs. Johnson deal with the other one.” He joked, but his words were true. There wasn’t a time in recent memory that you had gone on a separate bus from Ryland. You often sat across from each other, but you sometimes sat together if there were too many kids for you to sit across from each other. He liked to sprawl out in the seats, though. Using the bus bench as his own personal bed until he complained about whacking his head when the bus bumped too hard.
“True, yeah, okay. Same bus. I was thinking that we could do two lunch breaks since there are more kids than usual this time around.” Ryland groaned at the idea of having to wrangle the kids for two separate lunch breaks, but you raised an eyebrow. “Imagine if we had to give one hundred and fifty kids lunch at the same time in public, Ry, that would be horrendous.”
“Yeah, alright. But we-” He made a motion between the two of you, far too exaggerated when you were giving him your direct attention. “Are having lunch together.”
“Sure, let Mrs. Johnson handle the other lunch, too.”
The thing was, Ryland liked being around you. He insisted upon it, really. Just as you did, even if you weren’t as blunt. But you figured it was just because he was nice, because you were both friends and hung out outside of school. You knew he didn’t have many people he was close to, if any. So you figured he just liked having the connection, which was why you never once allowed yourself to wonder if he reciprocated the feelings that you made a habit of hiding from him.
“Good, deal. Now, can I teach you about stars?”
“Mm… you got any snacks?”
“Obviously.”
Ryland jumped down from the desk as he passed you a share-sized bag of Sour Skittles that he had certainly taken his share from earlier. That, however, didn’t stop him from eating them while he stood behind you, giving a presentation on your whiteboard in a way that only he could give. Nor did it stop him from walking out with you, insisting that you both get coffee before you go home, even though it’s not typical for people to get coffee on the way home from anything.
The next day came quicker than you would have liked. Ryland walked in with you, because you both discovered a bit ago that you lived relatively close to each other. Sometimes, you carpooled. Other times, he liked to tail you just to annoy you. Today was no different than any other day, your fingers tapping along your coffee cup as you walked into class.
Handing back the papers that you graded, you leaned against your desk as you went over everyone’s papers and their different interpretations of love that they gave in their papers. You, of course, had noticed that there was a lot more snickering within the class since you’d started the lesson on this story. You figured, at the time, that it had something to do with kids being kids. The idea of romance made them giggle. It was probably something that kids did back when you were their age, so you didn’t think much of it at first.
“So, I want you guys to find your favorite adaptation of this classic and do a paper or presentation on it for the midterm. Can anyone think of a real-life adaptation of Romeo and Juliet?”
There was more snickering from one side of the room, and one student from said side raised their hand for your attention.
“Yes, Ashton?”
“Yeah, um, can I do mine on this class? Sometimes I think it’s an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.”
More snicking, especially when you gave perhaps one of the more perplexed expressions you had given in class before. “Okay, no to… whatever that means.” You responded, moving on to the next student.
“I think what Ashton means is that Mr. Grace is like totally in love with you and he talks about you all the time and stuff, but you can’t be together because of the principal.”
Some students nodded in agreement, but you just felt your jaw fall open as yourself trying to speak but not feeling anything coming out, causing to more laughing in the class. “Okay, first of all, totally intrusive and inappropriate, but I’ll let it slide this time. Second of all, I don’t think he’s totally in love with me, and third, I don’t think the principal would care, not that it’s any of your business.”
“No, Miss, he’s definitely in love with you.”
“I sincerely don’t think that’s true. And anyway, it has nothing to do with adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, let’s get back on track about that.”
One of the girls in the class audibly sighed at your insistence, but you just continued on with class even though you could feel yourself still a bit flustered. You were pretty flustered throughout the day, which was ridiculous because a bunch of twelve-year-olds teasing you shouldn’t fluster you. Naturally, it was a part of the job. But something about it was different. Because children were nothing if not honest, to you, at least. And they liked you and Ryland; they’d been rather clear about that. Meaning that they certainly weren’t out to humiliate you.
Did just about everyone think that there was something going on between the two of you? You were a bit surprised, given the fact that you doubted that Ryland felt that way. But you were left curious and warm throughout the day. Even during lunch, you found yourself sharing food with Ryland like you normally did. All he ever ate was Ramen, so you often took it upon yourself to try to make him eat other things. Granted, he still just went back to his old reliable Ramen.
You were still thinking about it even when you were getting in the car together, but he distracted you pretty quickly when he diverted the car away from home and toward a restaurant that you’d both been talking about going to for a while.
“I’m definitely not dressed for this, Ryland. And I think it’s reservation only.”
You were standing outside some new, fancy Italian place that you had been salivating over the prospect of for a week now. But you didn’t like going to fancy places alone, and you didn’t feel confident enough to ask Ryland to go to dinner with you. So you figured that you would wait for a bit until one of your other friends was free enough to go, which was getting harder since they all had… families and stuff.
“I made a reservation, and you look beautiful.”
He brushed it off like it was nothing, leaving his side of the car before you had the chance to even process the compliment. You opened the passenger door, but were perplexed by him holding out his hand for you. You just quirked a brow and unbuckled, taking his hand as he helped you out of the car (you didn’t need help, but you’d take the contact, anyway). Ryland, in fact, had made a reservation for two about five days ago. That was probably day three of you showing him pictures of their housemade alfredo and telling him that you’d die if you got to taste it. So, maybe he was trying to kill you.
But he sat across from you, and he ordered wine, and he paid for everything. It felt like a date; it had all the makings of a date. But you didn’t want to assume; it felt wrong to assume. He was your friend, a close, close friend who was bringing you out to dinner after work so he didn’t have to keep hearing about how badly you were craving pasta while he was trying to make the most of his forty-nine cent chicken noodle Ramen noodles. It wasn’t anything more than that.
When he was taking you back home, he stopped outside of your house, still talking about something stupid that one of his students had done during the day. He was always so animated when he spoke, and you couldn’t help but be too enthralled to even notice that you were even home. But he eventually stopped speaking, his head turning so he could look at you.
“I think we’re here,”
“It does look pretty familiar.”
You had half a mind to remember what the kids had said earlier about him being ‘totally in love with you’, but they were just kids, right? Unreliable narrators. You opened your mouth to say something, to tell him about what they had said. But something about the way that his eyes met yours made you pause, your smile falling a bit. Everything felt tense, neither of you knowing exactly what to say. You were almost certain that his eyes moved down to your lips, and you were positive that your eyes had moved down to his lips in return.
But Ryland cleared his throat, and you turned your gaze toward your house when he did.
“Thank you for dinner, really. I’ll pay you back.”
“No, no, absolutely not. I paid, you just have to suffer the consequences of having an extra fifty dollars in your bank. Tough ask, I know.”
You smiled and moved to grab the door, but what the kids had said was still giving you pause. You contemplated for all of ten seconds before you leaned over to kiss his cheek. It could easily be perceived as platonic; you knew that. But you felt his skin heat up under your lips for the brief moment you had them there, your eyes locking on his for a moment before you moved back toward the door. “Really, thank you, you’re the best man in the whole galaxy.”
Maybe you were being bold, but maybe it didn’t matter. It was predominantly like nothing had happened the next morning, but that was mainly because you were both very busy trying to wrangle kids and last minute permission slips for the trip to the planetarium. Some of the kids who had made the comments in your class the other day were on the trip, so you made sure that they were on a different bus since the attendance turnout meant that you were going to be sitting next to Ryland.
That effort was… fruitless.
More children than you knew were under the distinct impression that you were both in love with each other. At the very least, they were all under the clear impression that Ryland was in love with you, and you were pretty sure you had kept your pining on the down-low.
If it wasn’t one kid taking a picture of you both sitting together to post online, it was another group of kids insisting upon sitting across from the two of you in the front of the bus so they could somewhat loudly talk about you both being ‘their favorites’ and saying that you should ‘get married so you can be their favorites and also be married’. You just ignored it, though you could still see a little pink flush on Ryland’s cheeks. And maybe that was confirmation, a bit of one at least.
Once you were inside the planetarium was when the teasing became a bit more relentless, though.
You’d both been called up by one of the employees to do a demonstration for the kids before they did it, a standard thing for the teacher to be called up first. You were supposed to show them how to pull the lever that would move one of the projectors, and it was helpful to have Ryland up there since he actually knew what he was talking about and what to point out. But the lever was a little stuck, and instead of just waiting for assistance, you both decided to just un-stick it instead of wasting people’s time.
The issue with that, though, is that you were both a bit clumsy.
Fixing it meant pulling really, really hard. And eventually it freed itself, but Ryland just about crashed right into you. Your hands immediately shot out to his shoulders to stabilize yourself and make sure that he, too, didn’t fall on his ass. But your eyes were on his as he held onto you in return, apologizing for almost ‘treating you like a bowling pin’. You were both very close, though. Touching each other, eyes locked on each other. And the kids noticed, a few whistles coming from some of them.
That noise made you both jerk apart, going back to the presentation.
But you couldn’t help wondering. What if they were right? You didn’t expect them to be right about personal, adult matters. They were children; what did they know about romance? But Ryland was a talker, and if he did like you, he probably made it… obvious.
Shit, he did make it obvious. You’d just been an idiot about it.
All the following each other around the school, bringing you snacks that he knew you liked, sharing coffee, and going to shops after work. He had been just about properly courting you in every single way besides asking if he could properly court you, and you couldn’t put it past him to admit to his students that he was carpooling with you for energy efficiency or something. He was someone who liked to talk, and he often overshared. But he didn’t even have to do that. Because he had been obvious, he basically took you on a date, and you just didn’t notice.
The moment the first lunch break started for the kids, you let Mrs. Johnson handle her group while your group explored. But while they were watching the light show, you were tugging Ryland off by the sleeve into a more secluded area. You were nervous to ask, to talk to him about any of this, but you felt like you had to. You wanted to, because you knew that you had just been too oblivious to read a single one of the very obvious signs that he had been dropping.
“We should probably, uh- what’s wrong?”
“Was that a date?”
“What?”
“Last night, was that a date?”
“Um…”
Ryland rubbed the back of his neck, looking away from you. But you reached up to him now, your hand on his chest, resting over the dorky t-shirt that he had decided to wear to work that day. His attention turned back to you, his cheeks flushed.
“Do you… want it to be a date?”
You smiled softly at his question, “Yeah, I do.”
Ryland seemed a bit stunned for a second. For a man who had spent so much of his free time hanging out by himself, he was a bit surprised that you were openly admitting that you wanted to go on a date with him. But he also wasn’t the type of person to deny himself of something that he absolutely wanted. Something that he knew you wanted, too.
“I think all of our students want it to be a date, too. My kids are persistent that you’re ‘like totally in love with me.”
His cheeks flushed a bit darker, but he laughed this time. Ryland let one of his hands move to your cheek, sighing when you leaned into his touch. His thumb stroked over your cheek delicately, like you were made of porcelain. “Yeah, maybe a little.” He admitted, his eyes moving back to your lips like they had done the night before. “Can I kiss you?”
“Yeah, quick. Don’t want any of them to make any illegal bet money off of us.”
You weren’t sure who closed the distance first. You just knew that you were never going to forget the feeling of his lips pressed against yours, or how soft his hair was in your hand when you finally got to tangle your fingers in it for a moment. When the kiss broke, he was just about to go back in for another before he heard talk about Pluto from the other room, his head perking up like he’d been activated by the gaseous giant.
“C’mon, wanna make sure they don’t call poor Pluto a planet in there.”
Laughing, you let him drag you back into the other room by the hand. You were a lot more relaxed throughout the day, laughing with him now that you both knew the truth, now that you knew what exactly this was. But you did end up giving the kids the illegal bet money that they wanted anyway when you held hands on the bus, and especially when he dozed off with his head on your shoulder on the way back.
As grateful as you were, you would never live down a bunch of middle schoolers being what got you both to stop being so oblivious.
Pairing: Prince Valarr x Lannister!Reader (She/Her, "You" and "Y/N" referred )
Summary:
Everyone thinks she has the perfect life: the face, the jewels, the husband, the sons, the kind of future that kingdoms are built on. Married to the second in line to the Iron Throne, she is meant to one day stand as queen consort of the Seven Kingdoms.
So why does it still feel like she is standing at the edge of her own marriage?
What no one sees is the loneliness beneath it, or how a man can be faithful, trying, and still leave the woman beside him starving for something gentler, warmer, and finally spoken aloud.
Warnings:
“good husband, terrible at being loved correctly” marital grief, soft devastation, emotional neglect, arranged marriage, pain, old feelings that never died properly, domestic loneliness, beautiful wife, dumb man, devastating yearning, Valarr fumbling the woman of all time, Valarr being foolishness (unfortunately), Kiera bashing? (kind of), angst to the max
You had not been born cold.
That was the thing no one at court ever understood, though courts were forever mistaking silence for pride and reserve for disdain. You had been raised amongst lions, and lions were loud creatures even when finely dressed. Casterly Rock had rung with bright laughter through gilded halls, with splendid tempers, sharp tongues, and easy boasts, with uncles and cousins who embraced noisily, quarrelled noisily, and made peace just as noisily over wine. The Lannisters were beautiful in the way songs preferred—fair and golden, bright as hammered coin in sunlight, with green eyes clear as sea glass and crimson cloaks spilling from their shoulders in rich folds. Their guards were red cloaks, their banners red and gold, and their pride was as old as the Rock itself.
You were all of those things too. You had the pale gold hair, the emerald eyes, the fine bones, and the lion’s pride.
You simply had not inherited your kin’s ease with noise.
As a girl, you had often stood just behind the others, smiling softly while the room filled around you. You felt things too deeply and spoke too little. In the west, that had been understood for what it was: shyness, reserve, gentleness turned inward. Your mother would smooth your hair and call you tender-hearted. Your cousins would talk enough for three people and pull you laughing into their games regardless. At Casterly Rock, no one mistook your quiet for frost.
At King’s Landing, they did.
By the time you came east, the match had already been measured in ledgers and whispered over at council tables. Prince Valarr had thought, in the vague, careless way young men often thought of futures not yet nailed down by older hands, that he might one day marry Keira of Tyrosh. Not for love, perhaps not at first, but because she had been there, and because she had been easy in his company in a way few women were. Keira was clever and handsome, and quick enough to laugh at him without making him feel small for it. He knew the tilt of her chin when annoyed, the cadence of her voice in gardens and hawking fields, and the little courtesies that had begun, over time, to feel like the first stones laid in the road of something more.
Then Prince Daeron was offered Keira instead.
It was called a finer match. A wiser one. A more useful one. Men with rings on every finger said so in grave tones, and women in jeweled sleeves nodded as though marriages were bolts of silk to be weighed and priced. For Valarr, as though some god in a bitter mood had chosen to salt the wound, there came a bride from the westerlands with Casterly Rock at her back and Lannister gold in her veins.
“Lannister coin will strengthen the crown,” Prince Baelor had said.
What Valarr heard was simpler and crueler: Keira is gone, and you are to be paid for in gold.
He said nothing, because princes were not reared to complain prettily when duty was laid upon them. He bowed his head, accepted the terms, and stood in the hall like something carved while men older than he was decided the shape of the rest of his life.
You arrived a moon’s turn later beneath banners stirring in a dry black wind off Blackwater Bay. The day was bright and pitiless, all hard light on pale stone and brazen helms. You descended from your litter in crimson velvet lined with lion fur, gold thread at the hems, your hair partly hidden beneath a jeweled net. You came with a small train of handmaidens chosen by the royal household to ease your settling into court—though in time they would become far more than attendants.
You curtsied before the royal family with perfect grace.
Your hands did not tremble.
Your face was composed so beautifully that one might have mistaken calm for indifference.
Valarr looked at you as one might look upon a polished shield: fine enough, but cold to the touch.
You saw the look and hated him a little for it. You were already frightened, already trying not to show it, and the thought that the man you were to wed believed you proud and unyielding felt like one more weight laid on your shoulders before the marriage had even begun.
Their wedding, your wedding, was a splendid misery.
The sept was full. Candles burned in long pale ranks beneath crystal stars. Silk rustled. Swords whispered against scabbards. Lords in dark velvets and ladies crusted in gems watched with the bright, hungry stillness courts reserved for unions that mattered. The singers sang. The bells rang. The court smiled as though it had not just watched one bride exchanged for another like a treaty clause amended after midnight. Valarr did all that was expected. He cloaked you. He kissed you when the septon bade it. He danced. He drank. He smiled until his jaw ached.
Across the hall, Keira sat beside Prince Daeron in Tyroshi silk and pearls, graceful as enamel on ivory. Daeron leaned to murmur something in her ear. She laughed softly. Valarr saw it. He hated that he saw it. He hated even more that the sight of her followed him into the bedding chamber that night.
You sat on the edge of the bed in crimson silk, your back very straight, your hair half-unbound and spilling over one shoulder in pale waves that caught the candlelight. The chamber smelled of wax and spiced wine and crushed rose petals underfoot, with smoke from the brazier lingering faintly in the rafters. Outside, the distant noise of revelry rolled through the stone like surf.
“You may look at me as though I am a sentence passed upon you,” you said at last, “but it will not make the door open again.”
Valarr, half-undressed, turned toward you.
There was no tremor in your voice. No plea. No tears.
He ought to have admired that. Instead he said, sharper than he meant, “Did they teach you to say that in the west?”
“No,” you answered. “In the west they taught me not to beg where I am not wanted.”
For one ugly moment, he almost laughed.
That should have warned him. That should have told him there was wit in you, and hurt pride, and some slender hidden softness held upright by sheer will. That should have been the beginning of something honest between you.
Instead, it became the shape of what followed.
And yet it was Valarr, strangely, who first saw the truth of you. Not in any song-worthy fashion, not by moonlight in a garden or with vows half-spoken into a kiss, but in the common, unbeautiful places where the heart sometimes showed itself despite all effort.
At your first feast in the capital, the great hall had been a roar of voices. Targaryens at one end, mighty lords at the other, silver dishes flashing beneath torchlight, musicians sawing at strings, courtiers pressing too near with curiosity dressed as courtesy. You bore it beautifully, because Lannisters did not tremble where anyone could see. You answered what was asked. You smiled when proper. You lowered your head when expected. But beneath the table your hands were clenched so tightly your nails bit crescents into your palms.
Valarr, seated beside you, went still after some time.
Then, without announcement and without looking at you, he said quietly, “You need not stay until the final course. I can say you are tired from the journey.”
You turned, startled.
He only reached for his cup as if nothing of consequence had passed between you.
But when the roasted swan came out and every eye in that end of the hall was drawn toward some drunk Reach lord making too much of himself, Valarr rose and offered you his arm with princely ease.
“My lady wife has had a long day,” he said to those nearest. “I’ll see her to her chambers.”
There was no mockery in it. No impatience. Only simple understanding.
It should have meant nothing.
It meant everything.
Later, in the corridor beyond the hall, where the noise fell away behind thick stone and a pair of servants hurried past carrying trenchers slick with grease, you let out one long breath you had not known you were holding. Torches hissed in their brackets. A draft from some stairwell touched your cheeks coolly through the heat left by the feast.
Valarr glanced at you. “You looked as though you were about to bolt like a frightened doe.”
To his surprise, you laughed.
Not the little polished court laugh women learned young, the one meant to smooth over a man’s vanity. This laugh was warmer, younger, unguarded. It eased something in his face in answer.
“I may yet,” you said.
“That would be difficult in those skirts.”
You looked down at the heavy fall of crimson silk and, for the first time since coming to court, smiled with your whole mouth.
That was how it began.
Not with passion. Not even with hope at first. Only with the dangerous tenderness of being seen.
He did other things too, all of them small enough that another woman might have called them nothing at all. You, being made as you were, made a home of them. He noticed you ate little at feasts and had simpler food sent up afterward—warm bread, honeyed apples, broth with herbs—saying only that royal cooks ruined everything by over-seasoning it. In crowded corridors, he shifted so careless young knights and swaggering men-at-arms had to go around you rather than brush too close. Once, when you woke from a bad dream in the Red Keep—strange stone, stranger bed, no sound of the sea, only the vast uneasy silence of a place full of watchers—you found a lamp had been left burning low. He had noticed, on the second night of your marriage, that you slept poorly in darkness. He never mentioned it.
You loved him for that most of all.
You were not a woman who fell quickly, but you fell completely.
Quiet women often did. They loved in hidden, stubborn ways. They built whole cathedrals inside themselves and let no one hear the labour of the stone. By the time you were carrying your first son, you were already his in every way that mattered, not merely by law, nor by bed, nor by duty, but in that soft and terrible place where a wife begins to turn toward her husband before anyone else in the room, where she saves thoughts for him, where evening feels unfinished until his step sounds in the corridor.
The handmaidens chosen for you by the royal household saw it before anyone. Ellyn saw how you brightened when Valarr came unexpectedly to break his fast with you. Myria saw how you kept the books he favored nearest the chair by the window. Ysilla saw how you wore more black and red than crimson and gold after marriage, not because anyone asked it of you, but because you wanted to please him. They saw, too, how frightened you were of wanting too much.
And perhaps you had reason.
Because you were everything a prince ought to have wanted. Beautiful, dutiful, gentle, highborn, fertile. The court said so often enough. They praised your grace, your modesty, the calm way you carried yourself through the dragon-haunted strangeness of King’s Landing. They said you were a good wife to the second heir to the Iron Throne. They said you would be a good mother to princes. In time, they would say you might even be a good queen.
You were lovely enough to be admired. Soft enough to be praised. Obedient enough to make old men nod in approval.
And still, in your husband’s eyes, you lived beneath another woman’s shadow.
Keira.
Not because he was dishonorable. That was the misery of it. Valarr was married to you now. Keira was wed to Daeron. He did not touch her. He did not shame you with open disloyalty. He was too decent, and too proud, for that. He respected the life that had been laid before him. He came to your bed. He gave you sons. He stood where a husband ought to stand.
But sometimes respect was not the same thing as surrender.
Because Keira had not been some passing fancy. She had not been a pretty stranger glimpsed across a feast hall. She and Valarr had spoken first. Walked first. Laughed first. They had become close in the quiet, unguarded way two young people sometimes did before anyone named it aloud. There had been gardens, and hawking fields, and those long, easy conversations that taught one person the shape of another. By the time the court began speaking of them as a likely match, the ground had already been laid.
Then the plans changed.
Daeron was offered Keira.
Valarr was promised you.
No vows were broken, because none had been spoken. No betrayal had happened, because the world had cut them off before either could claim such a word. That only made it worse. Their story had not ended in scandal or sin. It had ended in silence, in duty, in a future folded away before it had fully begun.
And so it lingered.
Not in any way the realm could condemn. Only in the small, unbearable ways a wife noticed and no one else did.
In the way his face would still alter, faintly, when Keira laughed from across a room. In the way he never overstepped, never lingered too openly, and yet seemed to go still for half a breath whenever she entered his notice. In the way older courtiers still smiled sometimes when their names rose together in talk, as though remembering some gentler version of the future before politics had done what politics always did and laid human hearts out like pieces on a board.
And Keira herself was not innocent in it.
Not cruel, perhaps. Never openly. Never enough to disgrace herself. But darker than simple kindness allowed.
She moved through the Red Keep as though she belonged there, and that belonging itself felt like a quiet triumph. She spoke to Prince Baelor without seeming foolish. She laughed with Daeron’s kin and was laughed with in return. At feasts, no one mistook her pauses for uncertainty. At hunts, she rode with the men, speaking over hoofbeats as though she had been born to it.
And when she looked at Valarr, sometimes there was still something there.
Not enough for anyone to name.
Only enough for you to feel.
Enough to make your stomach turn cold.
Enough to make you understand that though she had married Daeron, some corner of her still kept the memory of what might have been. Not because she wanted to take him from you now. Not because she meant to start some vulgar little war between women. But because certain feelings, once grown properly, did not die only because wiser people arranged otherwise.
That was the cruelty of all of it.
He did not cheat on you.
She did not tempt him.
No one crossed the line.
And still you knew, with the miserable certainty of a wife who loved too deeply, that you did not have him whole.
Once, after a feast where Keira had moved through the room with her usual easy grace, you found yourself alone with her by a bank of candles guttering low beneath painted saints.
“You are well loved here,” you said before you meant to.
Keira looked at you then, really looked, and some brightness went out of her face.
“No,” she said softly. “Only well worn-in.”
You blinked, startled.
She traced one finger along the stem of her wine cup. “Do not mistake fitting into a room for belonging to it.”
Then, after the smallest pause, she said, “Men are not the only ones who learn to live with what they were given.”
That was when you understood.
Keira had wanted him too.
Not foolishly. Not all at once. But slowly, in the dangerous way friendship became fondness and fondness became something neither of them had been allowed to finish.
You had married him.
She had not.
And still, some part of her looked at you and saw the woman who had been given the life she once thought might be hers.
That was the first time you hated her a little.
Not because she was cruel.
Because she was honest.
Because in that one quiet sentence, she told you she knew exactly what sat between the three of you, and had chosen to carry it so gracefully that no one would ever dare call it grief.
Then someone called her name, and she turned away before you could answer.
You thought of that moment more often than you wanted.
Because in the end, it seemed true of all three of you.
Keira had lost the life she might once have had.
Valarr was trying.
That was the worst part.
If he had been cruel, perhaps you could have hated him. But he was only blind, and there was no easy way to stop loving a man who kept reaching for the life before him and still failed to see it.
At first, you told yourself it did not matter.
Valarr had married you. He had come to your bed. He had touched your belly when your first son moved and smiled in wonder. He had stood over you after the birth, smelling of leather and wind and cold air from the yard, and bent to the babe with a softness you had never seen him turn on anyone.
“A son,” he said.
You, white with exhaustion, damp-haired, aching from two days’ labor, looked up at him with something terribly hopeful still alive in your eyes. “Yes,” you whispered. “A son.”
He touched the child’s cheek. His face changed then, softened by wonder in a way that made you love him a little more, poor thing. You thought perhaps this was how doors opened. Through children. Through patience. Through quiet trying.
“What shall we name him?” you asked.
Valarr did not answer at once. His fingers were still on the babe’s face. “Aelor,” he said finally.
It was a prince’s name. A good name.
You smiled, tired and radiant. “Aelor, then.”
Valarr kissed the child’s brow. He kissed your forehead too, but only briefly, and perhaps only because the midwife stood watching.
You told yourself it was enough.
Women had made whole lives from less.
You learned his habits with the devotion of someone trying to solve a riddle no one else believed existed. You learned how he liked what wine he preferred during evening meals in the winter, what books he reached for when angered, how he hated too much noise at supper after council, and how he softened at the sound of a child laughing nearby. You kept his household well. You bore yourself with dignity among dragonlords and vipers. You learned High Valyrian lullabies, though the words felt awkward in your lion’s mouth.
You wrote letters home and waited for letters back. At first, you wrote carefully bright things: the weather, the beauty of the royal gardens in spring, the little kindnesses of court, the way Prince Valarr had once noticed when you were overwhelmed at a feast and brought you away without embarrassing you, the way he warmed your side of the bed in winter, the way he smiled, once, when the babe first closed a hand around his finger.
The replies came late, smelling of cedar and sealing wax and distance.
Your mother wrote of her health, of which cousins were soon to wed, of a septon newly come to the Rock.
Your father wrote less.
When Aelor was born, the letter from the west was rich parchment and fine words. You have done your house honour. A son strengthens your place. The realm sees your worth now.
You read it twice.
Then a third time, more slowly, searching for something else between the lines. Are you well? Are you happy? Does he cherish you? Are you lonely?
There was none of that.
After Baelon, the message was colder still in its own polished way. A second son brings further pride to your name and secures your position admirably. You have done all that was asked of you.
All that was asked of you.
You folded the letter carefully, set it aside, and cried so quietly that Myria, seated only a few feet away with embroidery in her lap, did not at first understand what she was hearing.
There were moments, too, when you tried very hard to belong not only to Valarr, but to his world. You tried to sit with him when his kin were present, but Targaryen talk moved strangely around you—old names, old grievances, dragon memories you had no part in, glances that carried the weight of shared blood. You would add a word here or there, smile where you ought, ask a question politely, and feel at once the slight pause that came after, the subtle shifting of a conversation that had not truly expected your shape within it.
No one was unkind.
That was the misery of it.
Prince Baelor, your father-in-law, grave and measured in all things, would always speak to you with perfect princely respect. He was never unkind. That was part of the hurt. But when you tried, once, to ask his thoughts on some hawk from the Reach that Valarr had mentioned admiring, Baelor answered kindly enough and then turned almost at once to one of his brothers over some question of levies and patrol roads. You stood there smiling with your hands folded while their voices moved on around you like water over stone.
It was not that he disliked you.
It was worse.
You were dutiful. Quiet. Manageable. In a household crowded with louder tempers and more difficult kin, you were never thought likely to cause scandal, discord, or trouble. Others drew the eye because they were troublesome, glittering, or politically useful.
You were simply the one no one worried about.
And in a court like that, a woman who brought no trouble was too easily mistaken for a woman who needed nothing at all.
You felt foolish afterward for minding.
Foolish for wanting more than courtesy.
Foolish for thinking that becoming a wife ought to have made you less of an outcast in your own husband’s family than you had been on the day you arrived.
At first, Valarr noticed some of these things.
He simply did not understand what noticing required of him.
Then your second son was born.
By then, the court called yours a strong marriage. Fruitful. Fortunate. A prince with two healthy heirs and a lady wife who comported herself flawlessly—what more could a man ask? Men toasted him for his good fortune. Women praised your grace, your gowns, your modesty, your sons. Singers called you the Golden Princess. Only those who watched closely saw that you smiled less.
Valarr still came to your chambers, though less often after the second child. At first, you thought it was weariness. Court had grown heavier around him. His father pressed more upon him. The realm always wanted something from men born too near crowns. Then one evening, while he fastened the clasp of his mantle before the fire and the nursery beyond the inner door murmured with soft child-sounds, you asked very gently, “Will you come to me later?”
He did not even turn.
“I have heirs enough,” he said.
The silence after was so complete that you could hear a torch sputtering in the corridor beyond and the faint scrape of a maid’s slipper over the rushes outside the door.
You sat at your dressing table with your hair half-braided, staring at his reflection in the polished silver mirror. He had not meant, perhaps, for the words to sound as they did. Valarr had a rare gift for the wound he did not intend.
Still, he had said them.
Not, I am tired. Not forgive me. Only that.
As if you had been something to pass through, and now pass beyond.
He must have felt something of the change afterward, because he began bringing you gifts: a hawking glove from Myr, a comb of worked ivory, a length of sea-green silk, a carved cradle-piece for little Baelon, a silver mirror backed with lions and dragons twined together.
They were all costly. They were all beautifully made.
Not one of them was right.
The glove was stitched in the Tyroshi style Keira had once worn. The silk was a shade you despised against your skin. The comb was too delicate for the braids you favored. The mirror was a princely apology offered by a man too cowardly to speak plain words.
You thanked him for each one with perfect courtesy.
Then came the morning that killed something in you.
It was early, scarcely light. The room still held that bluish hush before dawn when everything seemed suspended between worlds. Your younger son had cried in the night and been carried off again by his nurse only a little while before. You had not gone back to sleep properly after. You lay awake beside Valarr, one hand resting over the ache in your side, watching the first pale seam of day beneath the curtains and listening to his breathing in the dark.
He stirred beside you then, not fully waking, his face still turned into the pillow. For one small foolish moment, you thought he was troubled. His brow had drawn faintly, and there was something strained in the way he breathed, as though some dream had hold of him. Without thinking, with the softness that had always been your ruin, you reached for him. Your hand came to rest on his bare shoulder, gentle, instinctive, almost tender enough to be a prayer.
And then, rough with sleep, still half-lost to whatever place he had wandered in dreams, he murmured one name.
“Keira.”
The world did not shatter loudly.
That would have been kinder.
It only went very still.
Your fingers slipped from his shoulder as though you had touched iron in a flame. At first you thought you must have imagined it. You had to have imagined it. But the cold came at once, thin and sharp and absolute, running through you from the inside out like sea-wind in winter. Valarr breathed once more, deeper now, and opened his eyes a little. He saw you sitting upright. He saw your face.
And in that instant, he knew.
“[Y/N]—”
You had already risen.
He pushed himself up, all sleep gone, horror rushing in where drowsiness had been. “[Y/N], wait.”
You crossed the chamber barefoot, one hand hard against your mouth as if to hold something inside yourself—not anger, not words, but some smaller, uglier, more humiliating sound. That was the cruelty of it. You had reached for him to soothe him, thinking he was uneasy, thinking perhaps he needed comfort, and instead he had opened his sleep-ravaged mouth and given you another woman’s name as though it lived somewhere truer in him than you ever had.
“Listen to me,” Valarr said, rising after you. “I did not mean—”
You turned then.
He had seen you grave, shy, dutiful, pale with childbirth, smiling with your sons, overwhelmed in crowded halls, but never like that. Never stripped so bare of composure. You looked as though he had struck you.
Not only hurt. Shamed.
Keira. Another woman’s name, from your own husband’s mouth, spoken in your bed while dawn still lay over the marriage like a blessing not yet spent.
Your lips trembled once. “I know,” you whispered.
That was what undid him. Not accusation. Not fury. Only that soft, awful answer.
I know. I know you did not mean it, which means it was true enough to live beneath thought. I know there is still a place in you where I am not the woman you wake beside. I know I reached for you in kindness, and you answered me with the shape of someone else.
Tears rose despite your pride. They came too quickly, too hot, too helpless. You turned away sharply, but not before he saw them. And once he saw them, you hated it all the more, because now even this grief—which felt private, humiliating, too raw to survive daylight—had become something witnessed.
Valarr took a step toward you and stopped, because he did not know how to cross the distance he had made with one word.
“[Y/N]—please.”
You laughed then, and it was a dreadful little sound, broken straight through. “Do not,” you said, your voice shaking so badly you scarcely knew it for your own. “Do not beg me not to feel it. You have already said it.”
He reached for you then, not boldly and not even with certainty, but like a man who had finally understood that you had not been made of stone, only taught to stand still while he hurt you.
You flinched from him.
That seemed to wound him too, but not enough. Never enough.
Your breath broke on the next inhale. You covered your mouth harder with your hand, but it was no use. The sound came anyway, small and torn and mortifyingly real. Not graceful tears. Not silent suffering. A wounded sound, the sound of a woman who had held herself together for too long and discovered too late that the thing splitting her open would not even have the decency to do it in private.
Then you fled into your dressing room and shut the door between you.
He heard you crying.
That was the worst memory of his life afterward. Not the name itself, though that would have been wound enough. It was the sound of you weeping on the other side of a door, where you thought he could not reach you, and his own uselessness before it. Prince of the realm, husband in name, and still unable to mend what he had broken because he had never learned how to kneel before grief he himself had caused.
Inside, Ellyn found you first. You had sunk onto the stool before the mirror, one hand pressed to your chest as though you might still your own heart by force. Your hair had fallen loose over one shoulder. Tears slid down your face helplessly, no longer quiet, no longer controlled. You had cried silently before. This was worse. This was breath catching and shoulders shaking and the miserable humiliation of being unable to stop.
Ellyn dropped to her knees at once. “Oh, my sweet lady,” she murmured.
That broke what little composure remained.
You bent forward and covered your face, and then you were sobbing in earnest, your whole body shaking with it. Myria came running at the sound. Ysilla shut the outer door and drew the curtains before any passing servant or curious groom in the corridor could glimpse you undone. No one asked you anything at first. They simply gathered around you. Myria held your hands. Ysilla fetched cool water no one drank. Ellyn pressed your head against her breast as if you were no princess at all, only a girl far from home who had loved unwisely and been made to know it.
When you finally managed to speak, it came out raw and small and ruined.
“I thought—” You had to stop. Your breath caught again. “I thought he was having a nightmare.”
Ellyn made a sound then, one of those quiet wounded noises women make for one another when words are not enough.
“I touched him because I thought—” Your voice broke completely. “I thought he was troubled.”
That was somehow worse than the name itself. Worse because it laid your tenderness bare. Worse because it meant you had gone to comfort him and been answered with another woman’s ghost.
Then came the truth that had been choking you from the moment it happened, and once it was out you could not stop it.
“I tried so hard,” you whispered. “I tried so hard to be enough.”
Ellyn’s eyes filled. “You were never meant to earn what should have been given freely.”
After that, you changed.
Not at once. Not sharply enough that a man like Valarr—emotionally armored, proud, slow in all matters of the heart—could point to the very day and say, there, there is where I lost her. But the change came all the same.
You remained perfectly dutiful.
That was part of the tragedy. Had you screamed, or raged, or publicly shamed him, the court would have named it a quarrel and expected its end. You did none of that. If anything, you became more flawless.
You dressed with exquisite care. You stood beside him in public without misstep. You managed the household superbly. You gave him no scandal. You continued to be gentle with your sons, and soon the court began to praise you not merely as a great lady, but as the very model of what a prince’s wife should be. Shy, they called you now. Reserved. Pious. A little sad, perhaps, but sweet with your children. And oh, how devoted you were as a mother.
That part was true.
People saw you in the gardens with Aelor and Baelon, your golden head bent while they chattered over pebbles and petals and insects caught in childish hands. They saw you kneel without complaint to tie a little shoe, to wipe a mouth, to kiss a scraped palm. They saw how your face softened for your sons in a way it never did for anyone else. Women at court began speaking of you tenderly. Poor shy Lady [Y/N]. So pretty. So well-mannered. Such a good wife. Such a good mother.
And because the world was cruel in ordinary ways, they praised you most just as you became loneliest.
After the second boy was born,
Valarr did not become cruel in any way that court singers would have understood. He did not raise his hand to you. He did not shame you before the realm. He did not bring whores beneath your roof or make a spectacle of betrayal. In some ways, that made it worse. He became, instead, the sort of man whose neglect could be mistaken for virtue.
He loved his sons.
Gods, how he loved them.
He would return from the yard smelling of horse and leather and cold air, and the moment he crossed the threshold of your chambers, his face would change for the boys in a way it no longer changed for you. Aelor would cry out and Baelon would reach with both arms, and Valarr would go to them at once, smiling with that unguarded tenderness you had once thought, in the first sweetness of marriage, might one day be yours too. He would lift one child high and settle the other against his hip, laughing when little hands caught in his hair or tugged at the chain about his throat.
You would rise when he entered, because wives did, because princesses did, because some part of you still did it in hope rather than habit.
Often, he would not even see that you had risen until after the boys had been kissed, admired, and praised.
“Look at you,” he would say to them, warm as summer. “Have you tormented your lady mother all day? Have you eaten well? Has Baelon’s cough eased? Has Aelor been brave?”
Only then, sometimes, would his eyes flick to you.
“You ought not keep them up too late.”
“They should have thicker cloaks in this wind.”
Always through the children.
Always around you, rather than to you.
You learned there were griefs so small and daily that no one named them. To stand in your own chamber, hands folded in silk, and watch your husband smile as though the room had become blessed simply because his sons were in it, while the woman who had borne them stood only a few feet away and might as well have been another carved chair. To know he was not a bad man, not truly, only a man who had somehow placed all his softness in one part of his life and left the rest to starve. To be unable even to resent him properly, because the sight of him loving your children was beautiful, and you had prayed for that beauty before either boy had drawn breath.
That was the shameful part.
You were glad he loved them.
You only wished he did not seem to love them in place of you.
Once, in early autumn, you gathered your courage and asked if you might all go hawking together—only the four of you. Your voice was careful when you said it, as if softness itself might save the request from being damaged.
“The weather is fair,” you told him. “Aelor has been begging to see the birds flown, and Baelon loves the horses. Might we go, just us?”
Valarr looked almost surprised, then agreeable enough. “If you like.”
For a day and a half, you were absurdly happy.
You chose warm wool for the boys yourself. You had little gloves lined in fur brought out for Aelor. You made certain Baelon’s hood was mended where the stitch had loosened. You packed honey cakes and apples sliced small, a flask of watered wine for Valarr, and sweet milk for the children. You dressed not as a princess at court, but as a wife hoping to be a wife, in a dark green riding gown that would not startle the hawks. Even Ellyn smiled to see the color in your face.
When the morning came, the yard was crisp with cold and the sky pale as hammered steel. The horses were saddled. The boys were bundled and shining with excitement. You had Baelon in your arms and Aelor tugging at your sleeve when Valarr came down the steps.
He was not alone.
Prince Baelor was with him. So were two uncles, three cousins, and a knot of sworn men behind them. One of the hawk-masters came too, along with a pair of young pages, and by the time the little party moved out through the gate, it had become not a family day at all but something half progress, half princely outing, full of male voices and easy familiarity and the old blood-kinship from which you always stood a little apart.
Valarr seemed not to notice.
Or worse, perhaps he did notice and thought nothing was amiss.
“Aelor, ride with your grandsire” Baelor said, and Aelor went delightedly, because he was a child and proud of such things.
One cousin took up a conversation with Valarr about hounds and a boar seen three days earlier in the kingswood. An uncle laughed over some old hunting memory. The hawks shifted and rustled. Leather creaked. Hooves struck the frosted ground.
You rode at the edge with Baelon before you and your little basket strapped behind the saddle.
Every now and then, Aelor would twist around in his seat to look for you, waving when he found you and shouting, “Mother, look!” each time a hawk lifted, or a dog barked, or a horse stamped. Baelon kept patting your gloved hand and leaning back against your breast as if, by childish instinct, he knew you needed the closeness more than he did. When the company halted near a thin stand of leaf-bare trees, you dismounted and laid out the food you had packed for the four of you.
The pages and grooms ate it too.
Valarr praised the cakes without realizing what he was saying. “These were well thought of.”
When you finally went to your chamber, Ellyn helped unpin your hair and found dried salt at your temples where the wind had touched tears you had never wiped away.
There was another time.
Months later, when you asked again—not for hawking this time, but for something simpler.
The market.
Nothing grand. Nothing intimate enough to frighten him, you thought. The city was lively that morning, the weather fair, and the boys were old enough now to be delighted by cluttered stalls and sugared almonds and toy sellers and little carved beasts. You thought perhaps that was safe enough. A family thing. A public thing. A modest thing. By then, you had learned not to ask for too much.
So you waited until Valarr had broken his fast and the boys were still talking eagerly over some little painted cart Aelor had seen from a window the day before.
“There is a market near the Street of Flour,” you said, keeping your tone light. “The children would enjoy it, I think. We might all go together. Just for an hour.”
Valarr was reading some note from council. He looked up only after a moment.
“The market?”
“Yes.” You smiled, because smiling made requests sound smaller. Safer. “Aelor would like the toy stalls. Baelon loves anything with wheels. And there is a woman who sells sugared apples in the autumn. I thought—”
“It is a good idea, wife,” he said.
Your heart rose too quickly.
Then he added, in the same practical tone one might use when discussing cloaks or horses, “But I think I should take only the boys.”
You went still.
Valarr folded the note once. “The streets will be crowded. It would slow things if all of us went.”
The room remained warm. Somewhere behind you, Baelon was humming to himself over a crust of bread. Aelor had started talking about apples without understanding any of it.
You heard your own voice come out very small. “Slow things.”
“I only mean,” Valarr said, not quite looking at you fully, “with guards and nursemaids and the children and you besides, it becomes more of an event than an outing. They will enjoy it better if it is simple.”
If you are not there, the words seemed to finish.
You stood very still. “I see.”
He must have heard something in your voice then, because he frowned faintly. “It was not meant unkindly.”
That almost made it worse.
“Of course not,” you said.
Aelor looked up from the table. “Mother, are you coming?”
You smiled at him. You had become so very good at smiling. “No, sweetling. Today you shall have your father to yourself.”
Baelon, hearing only the uncertainty in your tone, stretched his arms toward you at once, and you took him up because otherwise you might have begun to cry before everyone.
Valarr rose. “Have them dressed warmly.”
You nearly laughed again at that. Warmly. As if you had not already thought of their cloaks, their mittens, the scarf Aelor complained of but always needed. As if mothers did not live inside such details by reflex.
When he had gone, taking with him the sound and certainty of the outing, you stood in the middle of the chamber with Baelon on your hip and felt, for one humiliating instant, as though someone had slapped you.
Ellyn found you a little later in the dressing room, not yet changed, still with Baelon’s little shoe in your hand because you had been the one lacing it when Valarr told you that you would not be coming.
“My lady?” she said carefully.
You did not turn. “He said it would be slowed down if all of us went.”
Ellyn closed her eyes.
You gave a thin, breathless laugh. “All of us. I am all of us.”
Then, because the boys were already laughing in the courtyard below and you could hear Aelor calling excitedly about horses and sweets and carts, you pressed the shoe to your mouth and cried without making a sound.
When they returned, Aelor came bursting in with stories about ribbons and nuts and a painted spinning top. Baelon had sugar on one cheek and a little wooden cart tucked in both hands. They were delighted. They loved you. They climbed into your lap at once and tried to tell you everything all at once, as if by saying it to you they could somehow include you after the fact.
You kissed them and listened and smiled in all the right places.
Then later, after they slept, you broke over the sight of the little market basket still sitting unused by the door.
These were the griefs no one wrote songs for.
The market basket untouched.
The riding cakes eaten by pages.
The waiting lamp gone dark.
The seat beside him filled by sons and cousins and fathers and not by you.
The way he would say good idea, wife and make you feel, for one heartbeat, chosen, only to brush you aside with perfect reasonableness the next.
You stopped trying to fill every silence after that.
At supper, you no longer told little stories from the west that no one in King’s Landing understood. You no longer placed the choicest pieces on Valarr’s plate before he could reach for them. You no longer reminded Aelor to tell his father what he had learned that morning. You ate what was before you and let the clicking of utensils fill the long spaces where a wife’s warmth had once been.
The boys noticed, though children never knew how to name what they noticed.
Once, Aelor climbed onto the bench beside you and asked, puzzled, “Mother, why do you not give Father the honey anymore?”
You nearly dropped your spoon.
“I think,” you said after a long pause, “your father can reach it himself.”
The child considered that with solemn seriousness and then pushed the honey dish toward Valarr anyway, because children hated imbalance instinctively.
Valarr thanked him.
He did not understand why you looked away.
So the days went on.
The court went on mistaking your ruin for grace.
And still, you loved him.
That was the true humiliation of it.
That night, after the boys had finally been coaxed to sleep, you remained in the nursery long after there was any need for it.
Aelor had one hand curled into his blanket. Baelon had turned onto his side, cheek soft against the pillow, breathing in the deep, even rhythm of the truly sleeping. The brazier had burned low. Candlelight trembled against the walls and turned the carved beasts upon the bedposts into long, wavering shadows. You sat upon the floor between them, your back resting against the settle, one hand still lying loose upon Baelon’s coverlet as though, if either child stirred, you meant to soothe him before he woke.
You did not hear Valarr come in at first.
It was only when he spoke that you looked up.
“You will wake stiff there,” he said quietly.
His voice was low enough not to wake the children.
You looked at him, then back at your sons. “I had not meant to stay.”
But that was not true, and both of you knew it.
For a moment he said nothing. He stood in the doorway with one hand braced lightly against the frame, still in his shirt and half-undone doublet, as though he had come looking for you and had not expected to find you here like this, hidden amongst the little quiet breaths of your children.
Then he stepped inside.
The floor gave a faint creak beneath his weight. He stopped first at Baelon’s bedside and drew the blanket a little higher over the child’s shoulder. It was such a small gesture that it ought not to have mattered. But you watched his hands do it, careful and gentle, and felt that old ache move through you again.
When he turned back to you, he did not speak at once.
Instead, to your surprise, he lowered himself down before you.
Not onto the settle. Not into one of the carved chairs.
Down.
Kneeling.
That alone was enough to make your breath catch.
He did not reach for you. Perhaps he knew you might pull away. Perhaps he feared you would.
The nursery was very still. Beyond the shuttered window, somewhere in the yard below, a guard’s step passed and faded. Aelor sighed once in his sleep and settled again.
Valarr looked at the rushes, then at his own hands, and only after that at you.
“I do not know how to mend this,” he said.
You went so still it almost hurt.
His mouth tightened, as though even that much truth sat badly on his pride.
“But I know,” he said, more roughly now, “that I have done you wrong in ways I was too blind to see while they were still small.”
You stared at him.
He let out one slow breath. “I thought being dutiful to you was enough.”
The words seemed to fall between you and stay there.
You looked away first.
The candle near Baelon’s bed had bent low enough that wax had begun to spill crookedly down one side. You fixed your gaze on that instead, because looking at Valarr while he said such things felt more dangerous than you knew how to bear.
He spoke again, quieter now.
“I think perhaps I have hidden inside duty,” he said, “because it was easier than admitting I did not know how to be better than dutiful.”
Something in your chest tightened so sharply you had to press your hand against your skirt.
“You do not need to say this now,” you whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
That silenced you.
He swallowed once. In the low light, he looked younger somehow. Not softer, not quite, but less armoured. Less princely. Only a man at last standing before the hurt he had made and finding no clean way around it.
“You have given me more grace than I earned,” he said. “You have given me sons. You have kept my house. You have borne…” He stopped, and for the first time his voice faltered. “You have borne me at my worst, and I let you do it alone.”
Your eyes burned at once.
You hated that they did.
You hated more that some part of you, bruised and foolish and still too full of love, wanted so badly to believe him that it felt like another humiliation all its own.
Valarr looked at you then in a way he had not in a very long time. Not glancing. Not passing over. Looking.
“You deserved more than courtesy from me,” he said. “You deserved to be cherished.”
Your breath shook on the way out.
That was the word, then.
Not duty. Not kindness. Not patience.
Cherished.
You had not known until that moment how badly you needed to hear it spoken aloud, or how cruel it was that it should come now, when you were already too wounded to receive it cleanly.
For a moment neither of you moved.
Then, very carefully, as though approaching a frightened creature that might still startle and run, he lifted one hand and laid it over yours where it rested clenched in your lap.
His palm was warm.
You did not pull away.
That was the mercy you gave him.
Only that.
His thumb moved once, a small, unthinking stroke across your knuckles, and you nearly broke at the tenderness of it because it came so late, so simply, and from the same man who had taught you to live on so little.
“I cannot unsay what I said,” he murmured.
No. He could not.
The wound of it still lived between you.
But he was here now, kneeling on the nursery floor while your sons slept only feet away, speaking as though duty had finally failed him and left him no shield but honesty.
You looked at your joined hands and said nothing.
After a long while, Valarr bowed his head over them.
Not a prince’s bow. Not something formal. Only a tired, aching lowering of himself, as though shame had at last found the proper posture for his body.
When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.
“But if you will let me,” he said, “I would learn.”
That was all.
Not a vow.
Not a promise grand enough to heal you.
Only a beginning so small it might have been mistaken for nothing.
And perhaps that was why it hurt so much.
Because even then, with his hand over yours and your children sleeping near enough to hear if either of you wept, hope still came like pain in another dress.
So when the red-cloak guard came,
it felt less like temptation than like grief taking on another shape.
His name was Ser Lucan Hill, though once, long ago in the warm sunlit yards beneath Casterly Rock, he had only been Lucan. A boy with wind-burnt cheeks and scraped knees and a wooden sword forever tucked beneath one arm. His mother had served a lesser household branch tied to the Rock, and Lucan had grown beneath lion banners all his life. As children, he had played with you in those half-wild, half-guarded ways children of unequal station sometimes did before adults remembered themselves. Once, when you were very small, you had given him one of your toys to share—an old carved lion with one ear slightly blunted where you had dropped it on stone. He had treasured it absurdly. Beneath a stair-arch one hot summer afternoon, you had both made a childish promise over it, solemn as septons, that one day you would be husband and wife, because children thought love meant only I like you best, so you shall stay.
Then you had grown.
And he had not stayed.
He rose instead. Not high enough to dream madly, never that, but high enough for a crimson cloak and a sword at his hip and the grave reserve of a man who had learned the line between wanting and speaking.
You spoke to Lucan only once alone.
Not truly alone, of course. Nothing in King’s Landing is ever truly alone. There are always footsteps somewhere beyond the turn of a passage, always servants with lowered eyes, always guards at a distance pretending not to listen. But for a little while, there are only the two of you beneath a narrow stone gallery where the late light slants red through the arrow-slits and paints bars across the floor.
He stands in his crimson cloak with his hands clasped behind his back, as if he is afraid to let them hang loose lest they betray him. He is broader now than the boy you once knew, quieter too, but some things have not changed. He still tips his head a little when he is nervous. He still looks at you as though your silences mean something and are not merely empty spaces for other people to fill.
“My lady,” he says.
You almost laugh at that, though there is nothing funny in it. Once, he called you [Y/N] with scraped knees and dirt on his cheek and a wooden lion clutched in his fist. Once you had both been small and foolish enough to think that liking someone best was the same thing as being allowed to keep them.
Now he calls you my lady.
Now you are a prince’s wife.
Now he stands with the care of a man who knows exactly how dangerous tenderness can be when spoken aloud.
“You need not be so formal with me,” you say, though your voice comes out softer than you meant it to.
“Yes,” he says after a pause. “I do.”
That hurts more than it ought.
For a little while neither of you speaks. Somewhere below in the yard a horse stamps. Farther off, a child laughs—one of yours, perhaps, though you cannot tell which. The sound rises bright and then is gone.
Lucan’s eyes flick to you and then away again. “You look tired.”
It is such a small sentence.
No prince has asked you that in earnest in a very long time.
You lower your gaze to your hands. “I am well.”
He does not insult either of you by pretending to believe it.
The light has shifted enough now to catch on the red of his cloak. It reminds you absurdly of summer at the Rock, of banners snapping over stone, of childish games in the yard. The memory comes so swiftly it almost steals your breath. You remember pressing the little carved lion into his hands because he had no toys of his own. You remember him looking at it as though you had given him the crown itself. You remember the two of you swearing beneath the stair-arch, with all the solemn stupidity of children, that one day he would be your husband and you would be his wife and the lion would sit between you so neither of you forgot.
You should not think of such things now.
You think of them anyway.
“Lucan,” you say, and the name feels dangerous in your mouth after all these years.
He goes very still.
You do not know why you ask it. Perhaps because you are lonelier than pride can survive. Perhaps because he is the only person in this place who ever looks at you and sees the girl you were before you became useful. Perhaps because some part of you wants to know whether you imagined that old childish tenderness, or whether it had lived somewhere real once.
“If things had been different,” you say quietly, “if we had found one another again when we were older—”
Your throat tightens.
You almost stop.
But you have already come this far, and pain has made you reckless in small quiet ways.
“If that had happened,” you finish, looking not at him but at the bars of red light on the floor, “do you think you might have been happy with me?”
The silence after is terrible.
Not empty. Full.
When you finally force yourself to look up, Lucan’s face has changed. There is grief in it now, plain and unhidden, the sort of grief only a man of low enough station and old enough love would ever dare carry before you without dressing it up as politeness.
He swallows once.
Then he says, very softly, “I liked you then more than I had any right to.”
Your breath catches.
He gives a short breath that is almost a laugh and not a laugh at all. “Gods, I was a fool for you.”
You stare at him.
No one has ever said anything so simple to you in a way that felt so devastating.
Lucan’s voice drops lower. “If the fates had been kinder in this life, I think I would have loved you a very long time.” He looks away then, jaw tightening once before he masters it. “And I think I would have spent that life trying to make you happy.”
You shut your eyes.
For one hideous, suspended moment, it feels as though your heart is being torn cleanly in two—the life you have, and the life no one ever meant you to have, laid side by side at last.
When you open your eyes again, he is still standing where he was, but there is distance in him now. Restraint. The old hard wall of understanding built back up brick by brick.
“But the fates were not so kind in this one,” he says.
Then he bowed, and when he straightened, he was a red-cloak guard again, and nothing more.
Later, much later, after your family has gone and the castle has swallowed the day whole, Ysilla comes to your chamber with a little parcel in her hands.
You know at once it must be from him.
Your heart begins to pound.
“Does Valarr know?” you ask, too quickly.
“No, my lady,” Ysilla says.
Ellyn is already crying. Myria will not meet your eyes.
You tell them you ought not take it. You say it because it is what ought to be said. Because you are a prince’s wife. Because you are a mother. Because somewhere beneath your ribs there is a small new heaviness you have not yet named aloud, though your body has already begun to know it in the queasy mornings, the strange weariness, and the way your gowns have started to sit differently across your middle.
Perhaps it is nothing.
Perhaps it is not.
You do not say a word of that either.
Myria kneels before you and whispers, “My lady, please.”
So you take the parcel.
Your fingers are trembling badly by the time you peel the wrapping back.
Inside is a small carved lion.
Plain wood. Smooth with age and handling. One ear blunted.
For a moment, the chamber disappears.
You are seven again in the Rock’s summer heat, pressing your favorite toy into a boy’s hands because he has none, because you like him best, because children think love means here, take what I treasure; I trust you with it. You hear your own little voice swearing that one day you will be husband and wife. You hear his answering promise, so earnest it had made you laugh.
He kept it.
All this time, he kept it.
Your hand closes around the lion, and the other goes, without thinking, to the slight tender secret low in your belly.
Then you begin to cry.
Not prettily. Not quietly, at first. It comes up through you like something breaking at last, and you bend over the little lion with your shoulders shaking while Ellyn catches you, Myria presses one hand to your back, and Ysilla turns toward the door to guard what little remains of your dignity.
Because he remembered.
Because he remembered the child you were.
Because somewhere beyond these walls there might have been a life in which that remembrance became a home instead of a wound.
And because, even now, with another child perhaps beginning its silent life beneath your heart, you know exactly where you will sleep tonight.
In the prince’s chambers.
In the great cold marriage.
In the life the fates chose.
You cry until there is no breath left in you, the little wooden lion clutched so tightly in your hand that the carved ear bites into your palm. Ellyn says your name once, very softly, as if she fears you might shatter completely if spoken to any louder. Myria is crying too. Ysilla has turned her face toward the door, guarding your grief the way other women guard jewels.
But none of them can help you.
Because the worst part is not the lion.
Not the memory.
Not even Lucan’s quiet voice in that red-lit passage, telling you that in a kinder life he thought he might have loved you a very long time.
The worst part is the hand that drifts, helpless and unthinking, to your belly.
The worst part is knowing that by this time next year, they will call you blessed again.
They would praise your beauty, your sweetness, your grace, your fertility.
No one would know that on the night you first held your third child beneath your heart, you were on the floor weeping over a little wooden lion and mourning the life you had never been allowed to live.
And that, perhaps, was the cruellest thing of all:
The realm would call her blessed for the very life she was mourning.
Trilogy Summary: You have made peace with loving Jack Abbott quietly.
Chapter Summary: Jack Abbot could be a real bitch; grief just made him efficient with it.
Reader is ex-MSF (doctor's without borders) and a current attending PTMC
Rating: Mature (M)
Word Count: 8k
Tags/Warnings: hurt/some comfort, grief, lot of talk about death, cancer (brief), slow burn, no pay-off in this part, friendship, lots of cursing, deeply incorrect medical information
Author's Note: this story and my last one were both kinda angsty. I'm normally not an angsty writter, and yet. Also the title is a direct rip off of a dimension20 quote (thank u emily axeford, the woman and storyteller you are, no one is doing it like you) and another story I posted on ao3 about Whittaker's religious trauma.
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“Every time I page your department you’re the only one who answers,” Jack said sliding up to you as you stood at the nurse’s station with your laptop. He had paged infectious disease for a basic STI consult. Not exactly something you were often called for.
“Well, you’ve managed to insult everyone in my department. I’m the only one who is willing to tolerate you,” you replied looking up at him.
He looked more haggard today. Instead of his normal shit-eating, sardonic smile, the grin on his face was thinner and seemed almost fragile. You didn’t like it when Jack seemed fragile. He must have caught your study because he batted away your attention.
“I called you down here to evaluate a patient, not me,” he said.
“You paged infectious disease, actually, not me. Did you know I’m not even on call? But you insulted Yasmine so much that she refused to come down here.” You asked.
“I’ve said worse to you than anything I’ve said to her,” Jack replied.
“I seem to recall punching you the first time we met,” you pointed out.
“I also seem to recall you broke your hand because you had such shit form,” he replied.
“Shit form,” you repeated under your breath. He was right, but rude to bring it up—even if you brought it up first. “Stop bullying my doctors. I’m tired of coming in on my day off.”
“Tell your doctors to be less sensitive.”
“We’re infectious disease, Jack. We’re going to be slow and methodical. Page someone else if you want speedy results. Hell don’t page us at all. It fucks up our metrics.”
“I don’t care about metrics. I care about patients,” he said sharply.
“In what world did I say I didn’t care about patients?” You asked exasperated. “This is why people find you difficult, you know.”
“And yet it hasn’t scared you away, yet.”
“It would be a real feat if you managed it now. You were like this when we met and back then you carried a gun,” you said. Jack snorted.
“Feels like a lifetime ago.”
“It was a lifetime ago. Our friendship has its learner’s permit.”
“So we became friends when you punched me in the face?”
“Nah. We became friends when you patched me up and taught me how to punch someone without breaking my hand. Was useful a few times after that.”
“Well, glad I was good for something back then,” he said.
-- -- --
A decade and a half ago you were starting your first placement with MSF, stationed on the outskirts of Syria. The civil war had decimated the country and the humanitarian need was substantial. The heat was comparable to growing up in the southern United States, so it was not the shock to your system that it was to others on your team.
No, what rattled you was the destruction of a place that was once so beautiful. There were pieces of history and culture lost to ravages of human hatred and greed. Families were forced out of their ancestral homes and yet were grateful to be alive. The grief of your surroundings settled in between your bones. Sometimes, on bad days—days where you lost and lost and lost—the grief that lived amongst the rubble threatened to swallow you. You would bury your head in your thread bare bedding, attempting to stifle any emotion that might escape.
It was on one of these bad days that the US military swaned in and tried to take over your camp. By no means were you in charge of the camp. As an infectious disease doctor, you were in charge of a lot of logistics—more than other doctors—but nowhere close to an authority figure.
When a bright eyed Seargant and his platoon (gaggle? cadre? you still were unclear what the terms were) of half a dozen 20-somethings traipsed into your camp telling you to move for “your own good”, well you lost it a little.
“Fuck off, Uncle Sam,” you snapped as you and your fellow workers went about disinfecting materials.
Along with ensuring cholera and diphtheria didn’t rear their ugly heads—you were also in charge of ensuring proper disinfectants were used on equipment. Two nurses, one from Lagos and one from Burmuda, were helping you.
“Ma’am,” the auburn haired man started.
“It’s doctor, actually,” you snapped.
“Doctor,” he said. You could hear the patience thinning in his voice. Good, yours was thinning, too. “We have the authority to ask you to move.”
“No, you don’t,” you said. You had no idea if they did or not. But fuck the colonizing, imperialist US military if they thought moving doctors was going to be easy.
“Doctor, it isn’t safe,” the man said.
“We’re well aware our job isn’t safe thanks.”
“There has been insurgent fire nearby,” he snapped.
He was about your height. He looked bulky with all the gear strapped to his person. He also looked sweaty. There was a smattering of freckles across his cheeks and neck. You wondered if he knew that just today you had tried and failed to treat sepsis, or had to deal with such a bad case of gangrene the surgeons ampuated, you wondered if this fresh faced military yes-man had an inkling of the grief his presence had caused in the region.
Perhaps it wasn’t fair to blame one person for centuries of violence and unrest, but you were getting tired and losing the optimism that had sent you across the globe in the first place.
“Oh no,” you said mockingly. You looked at your nurses, your friends. “Did you guys realize what we heard last night was gun shots and not fireworks?”
They stifled their laughter and took the sonogram wand out of your hand while you focused on your stand off with the military man in front of you. His uniform read “Abbot”.
“Look, lady,” he started. “My job is to secure the area. You aren’t in charge. So take me to whoever is.”
“Find them yourself, fucker,” you snapped. “Some of us have a job that isn’t destabilizing a region.”
“Watch your mouth,” one of the young men behind Abbot said looming closer.
“You’re a child,” you said to him. And he was. He couldn’t have been older than 19. When you were 19 you were getting blind drunk at frat parties conning men out of alcohol and loose change for fun.
“Doctor,” Abbot said, he sounded exasperated. “I don’t have time for this. Your camp is in our way.”
“Our humanitarian camp is in your way? Oh no! Poor US Military.”
For some reason, out of the many jabs you’d thrown at him in those few minutes, that was the one that made him step into your personal space. You felt, more than saw the large automatic weapon he held.
“I’m sure you’re thrilled with your position on your high horse but incredibly enough the world isn’t black and white. You’ve seen nothing. You’ve not seen the fear in people’s eyes when they’re being shot at. You haven’t seen the carnage that an IED does to a human body. You don’t know anything. You’re helping pregnant ladies and that’s great, but some of us are doing real medical work.”
You noticed two things. The insignia on his uniform that marked him as a doctor, too. And that his jaw was much, much harder than the punch you threw with your fist.
“Fuck!” You said at the same time he said,
“Did you just fucking punch me?”
You heard your friends, Sunday and Patricia, shouting as one of the children that followed Abbot began manhandling you to the ground. One moment you were standing clutching your injured hand and the next you were on the ground. The man yanked your arms behind your back. You were a lot of things, stubborn—sure, but you were definitely smart, which is why the feeling of a gun’s muzzle against the small of your back made you freeze.
“Get off of her!”
“That is a violation of our UN Charter!”
At the same time you heard the thunder of footsteps approaching from your camp, a pair of ziptie handcuffs were being placed around your wrists and you faintly heard someone say your were being arrested. You were pretty sure that was illegal—but there wasn’t much you could do with a giant weapon pointed at you. The pain in your hand was taking up a lot of your brain space, so it was hard to keep track of the other happenings across the camp.
You were shoved in the humvee while Abbot apparently went to talk to the camp facilitators about moving the location. You fumed. The fury sat heavy in your chest as you glowered at the two young men who put you in the car, one of which wouldn’t even make eye contact with you.
You flexed your hands against your bonds and shifted so they wouldn’t press so intently against your radial nerve. You continue to stare daggers at the boys until the door next to you opened as Sergeant Abbot got in the car.
“You’ll be released tomorrow morning,” he said. “We’ll have to take you to our base and process you before we can officially release you.”
“Suck my dick,” you snapped.
“Right,” he said signing. He ran a hand over his face, “Did you hurt your hand?”
You went silent. Your hand was throbbing and you suspected it was broken, but you weren’t going to tell him that. If you were being released tomorrow you’d have Sunday patch you up when you got back. Hell, you’d do it yourself to avoid talking to these men any longer than you had to.
“Your camp director was a lot kinder than you.”
You said nothing.
“Still said no to moving the camp.”
You did your best not to smile, but you suspected everyone knew.
“Tough break for the most powerful military in the world,” you said. Abbot just snorted.
“Where did you go to medical school?”
“UNC Chapel Hill,” you said clipped.
“UPenn myself,” he said.
“An Ivy League medical school and you’re out here instead of making millions of dollars?”
“Same could be said for you.”
“UNC isn’t an ivy,” you snorted.
“Sure, but it’s prestigious,” Abbot pressed.
“What can I say? The MSF recruiter had really good pens,” you replied blithely.
To your surprise Abbot laughed.
The rest of the short ride passed in relative silence. Although you caught a sharp glance Abbot threw at the man who’d arrested you. There seemed to be a unique tension in the humvee you knew you were not responsible for. You suspected your arrest was made more out of emotion than anything else.
When the vehicle arrived at the small base, you were processed and briefly interrogated about any terrorist connections you might. Honestly, it didn’t seem like their heart was in it. The questions weren’t particularly difficult and the interrogator seemed bored more than anything.
By the time you were given a shitty cot in the medical tent, your hand was discolored and the throbbing was beyond painful. Unfortunately, that’s when Abbot found you.
He wasn’t in his whole uniform anymore but was wearing a sand brown T-shirt with sweat stains and patches, with his fatigue pants. You couldn’t help but appreciate the way his shoulders filled out the shirt and the confidence with which he walked through the tent.
More than that, you noticed the kindness he doled out without reservation. He spoke to each person, patient or military personnel. He spoke to people who were clearly native Syrians in badly accent Arabic. You knew it was badly accented, because it sounded a lot like yours.
His smile lit up the whole tent and you hated it. You hated that you found him hot. You really hated that you wanted to see him without his shirt on. More than that you hated that he was going to notice your hand when he came over. You weren’t sure you could handle him touching you. This man is the reason you were detained and half-assedly interrogated by the US Military.
And yet.
And yet when he realized that you broke your hand he reset the dislocation carefully and wrapped your dominant hand delicately. He made a joke about how all good doctors need to be ambidextrous anyways and you laughed. You noticed he had a light bruise on his cheek but nothing compared to your broken hand. It was embarrassing.
“You don’t punch well,” he said after he had brought you dinner. It was about as good as what you would have gotten back at the MSF camp.
“I noticed,” you replied ruefully. The acidity in your tone had worn off throughout the day.
“Did you tuck your thumb?”
“What?”
“Did your tuck your thumb in your fist?”
“Maybe?”
“Well that’s why. Here stand up,” he said.
You were both in the medical tent. There were a couple men in the back corner already asleep so for all intents and purposes it felt like you both were alone. He showed you how to wrap your fist and hold your body so the next time you threw a punch it wouldn’t end with broken bones, at least not yours.
The feeling of his calloused hands on your skin sent tingles up your spine. You allowed him to maneuver your hands, shoulders, and hips at his whims. There was a traitorous part of you that wished he would bend you over the desk he was working at and fuck you senseless. It had been a good two years since anyone had fucked you well and you knew in your bones the grief that lived ever present in your body might abate for just a second if you let this man put his hands on you.
Then you saw the black band on his finger.
“You’re a good teacher,” you said instead of voicing any of your less than professional thoughts.
“No shortage of idiots to teach in this place,” he said chuckling. He had sat back down in the office chair and you leaned back on the cot.
“I think we both know my opinion on that,” you replied. He smiled and said,
“Well, I appreciate you letting me teach without telling me to “suck your dick” this time,” he said.
“Night is still young, Abbot,” you replied laughing. You crossed your legs and looked at him. “How’d you end up here?”
“I was poor and wanted to go to medical school,” he said simply. “Serving my country was a plus. What about you?”
“I already told you about the pens.”
“I’m being serious.”
You took a deep breath. What was the harm in a hint about your traumatic back story? It wasn’t like you’d see him again after this. People knowing too much about you always made you feel exposed.
“My fiancé cheated on me and we had matched to the same hospital. Different residencies, but same place. I’ve always been a bit…rash, but as soon as I sat through the presentation for MSF I knew that I couldn’t do anything else. Did my infectious disease/emergency medicine residency in Antwerp and then they sent me here,” you said.
“This is your first placement?” He asked.
“Yeah, I’m on month five. I’ll go on break in a few weeks,” you said.
“How are you finding it?”
You hesitated.
“Sad,” you finally said.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
You couldn’t help but think maybe your experiences were more aligned than previously assumed.
The military returned you to your camp the next morning. Despite thinking you wouldn’t see Jack Abbot again, every so often the two medical teams would trade for materials. During the hand offs, you and Abbot would chat and joke. You grew to look forward to the weeks the military stopped by, well you began looking forward Jack, at least.
His group was only in the area for a couple months before moving on, but it was enough time for you both to become good friends. He told you about his wife and even you fell a little in love with her. He told you about his life in Pittsburgh and how he didn’t think he was going to reenlist. Over the past few weeks, you realized the two of you had become real friends.
The last night before his crew shipped out to a new location he handed you a piece of paper. It had his email, domestic phone number and address on it.
“Don’t be a stranger. My wife couldn’t believe I made a friend halfway across the world,” he said.
“Honestly, I’m only friends with you to steal your wife,” you told him.
“I can’t blame you. Although, now I’m less than thrilled I’ve been teaching you to fight,” he sighed.
You laughed and knocked your shoulder against his. “You’re a good friend, Jack. Stay safe, okay?”
“You too, Rocky,” he replied.
“I hate that nickname,” you sighed.
“And that’s why I’ll never let it go.”
-- -- --
“Why did you teach me to fight all those years ago?” You asked the man in front of you.
This seemed a better direction for the conversation than badgering him about what triggered his melancholy. The lines on his face spoke to age, but it was his eyes that held the grief which had been such a consistent companion of his.
“Because your punch was pathetic,” he replied.
“Fair,” you agreed. “But for the rest our overlap those next few months you taught me how to protect myself and make sure that any future punches weren’t pathetic.”
Jack sighed and ran a hand over his face. It was the same thing he did all those years ago, he was just…grayer now. “You were the first person I’d met since my wife that hated the US military. It was before I was ready to hate them and…”
“You needed people in your corner not theirs,” you said realizing.
“I knew that my required service was almost up. Darcy and I had talked about joining up with MSF. She was a fantastic anesthesiologist. But Robby recruited me before MSF could and so, we stayed stateside. You told me I was a good teacher and I guess I wanted to prove you right,” Jack told you.
You had only met Darcy a handful of times before she passed away. Each time you liberally flirted with her just to watch Jack’s face go red with annoyance. She was everything Jack claimed her to be and more. She was charming, smart and beautiful. More than that, she was also funny and creative, perhaps a bit dorky.
One of the few nights that you had spent in Pittsburgh during your furlough from MSF had been spent wine drunk in their garage while badly throwing clay in her at-home pottery studio.
You still had the lumpy, misshapen mug sitting on your mantel.
A few months after that night, Darcy had been killed by a drunk driver and you worried Jack was going to follow her.
You wondered if Jack felt that way about you when your friend died. The reason you were no longer with MSF was two-fold: you had been in harm’s way one too many times (some people would say shot, but that felt dramatic, it was on a bit of a wound in your thigh) and your best friend had contracted a particularly aggressive cancer. You had volunteered to help care for her while she was in treatment.
For a year and a half, most of your life was consumed by ensuring Farah was going to chemo, taking her medication, eating, had someone nearby to comfort her when she inevitably threw up what she ate. You also made sure to do your own physical therapy and recovery, but Farah was the priority.
You watched your best friend, the platonic love of your life wither away and die.
Grief had followed both you and Jack. But perhaps that was life. Grief was part of living. It was the contrast that ensured joy was felt and appreciated.
That is what you tried to tell yourself at least.
“What happened tonight, Jack? That consult was basic and not something you’d normally page us for.”
You had noticed he had seemed fragile earlier, but at your soft tone, the one dedicated for moments like this—moments when the world seemed to be too much—you saw the facade Jack had so painstakingly built begin to crumble. Instead of pressing again, you squeezed his arm and stood.
“Follow me,” you said closing your laptop and leading him through the ebbing chaos of the ER. A few nurses and residents appeared before the two of you, but you redirected them before Jack could get distracted.
“The roof is closed,” he mumbled when you both got into the elevator.
“Not going to the roof. I’m fucking normal,” you said.
“And scared of heights.”
“That too,” you agreed.
The doors dinged opened to the infectious disease floor. In between your offices and the medical library was a small alcove that overlooked the river. There were two armchairs and you were pretty certain you were the only person that used them. At this time of night they were certainly deserted.
You sat Jack in one and took the other. Just barely, you could make out the reflection of Jack in the glass. He was sitting with his shoulders straight and near his ears. You relaxed back into the chair until your head was resting on the top and you were looking at the ceiling.
“It’ll be nine years next week,” Jack replied quietly.
“An annoyingly big yet unsatisfactory number,” you replied.
You both were staring out the window but through the reflection you watched Jack toy with the ring on his finger.
“I felt like I missed her less this year.”
You weren’t sure what to say to that.
“I don’t think she would be upset.”
“It certainly feels weird,” he replied.
“Hmm,” you replied, but you knew.
You had this great bright ball of golden sunlight that light in your heart when you were surrounded by your friends. And when Farah died that sunlight dimmed. You could go days without thinking about her, but then sometimes your fingers would itch to call or text her and you’d remember again.
She was dead.
Her phone number belonged to someone else.
There were no more inside joke or jabs.
There were no more impromptu phone calls or rants.
There was just no more.
The woman who had been most constant relationship in your adult life was dead and sometimes, you missed her so much it felt easier to join her than to wait it out.
“I lost a woman, victim of a hit and run tonight. Just a little too similar and a little too close to home,” he finally said after a bout of silence.
That you definitely understood. Farah had died nearly three years ago and working with cancer patients still made you jumpy. You’d take all the ER pages if it meant your colleagues would cover the oncology ward.
“That must have sucked,” you told him. “What a bitch.”
“What a bitch, indeed. Makes you question the point of it all.”
“What do you mean?”
“All of the things we’ve seen, all the things that have happened. How can people carry on? The only thing keeping me going is this fucking job—but half the reason I’m depressed is this fucking job.”
“I dunno,” you sighed. “Maybe for those moments of joy. The ones that fill your chest and you remember why life is so beautiful. And sure; they leave, but they always come back again.”
“I can’t remember the last time I had those moments,” Jack sighed.
“I write mine down,” you told him fishing a small notebook out of your bag. It was the size of your palm.
Inside was a simple numbered list. Jack flipped to a random page and saw:
76. A cat fell asleep on my lap purring. (6/8/2021)
77. Farah ate a full lunch and did not vomit! (6/9/2021) (I wish you would stop celebrating when I don’t vomit) (make me bitch)
78. Farah’s parents dropped by and weren’t passive aggressive (6/9/2021)
Jack smiled at the interplay between you both. He had not had the chance to meet Farah before she passed and you hadn’t taken him up on his offer to accompany you to the funeral. You watched as he flipped through the pages.
134. Mr. K finished antibiotics and his white blood cell count is rebounding. No one thought he was going to make it. (5/18/2023)
He flipped a few more pages.
179. Jack bought me coffee. I love having a beverage. (8/26/2023)
He laughed at that one. He remembered that day. It was a particularly rough night at the ER. Multiple patients came in with some kind of obscure parasite and it had taken you the bulk of the night to figure out what it was and where it came from. Jack was positive he was going to watch your normally cool demeanor finally combust.
He closed the notebook and before handing it back to you saw inscribed in the corner: it is what could be.
“It is what it could be?” He asked.
“What about it?”
“Isn’t the saying “it is what it is” something about radical acceptance?” Jack snorted handing you back the notebook.
“Sure, but sometimes radical acceptance means missing the opportunity for change,” you replied.
“There are things you just can’t change, Rocky,” he sighed.
“Sure, you, Jack Abbot, can’t single-handedly fix the healthcare woes in our country. But you can change how you teach the up and coming doctors—you have changed how you teach them. You are kinder, more empathetic, and far more thorough than anyone who taught us. I’ve seen too much to sit back and take it on the chin.”
He scoffed. “You’re an optimist.”
You shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ve spent most of my career in war zones and instead of giving up, I figured out what I could do and then did it. I can’t change geopolitics—and the people that can certain have no intention to—but I can make sure my patients have clean equipment and bedding. I can make sure they’re treated with kindness and care. I can fight for them tooth and nail. I’m under no illusion as to what the world is like, but I refuse to be cowed by it. It’s easy to know the world is shit, but it’s harder to do something.”
“And what, you think I’m not doing enough?” He asked, his tone more acerbic than before. You sighed and thought for a moment before replying.
“I’m asking if maybe you’ve lived with your grief for so long that you’ve forgotten what it came from. Grief is love. It’s the remnants of what could have been. Love isn’t a feeling, Jack. It’s action. It buying your wife flowers when she had a bad day, or advocating for better hours because she’s always tired. Love isn’t passive, it’s active.”
He was scoffed. “No offense, Rocky. But you lost a friend. I lost my wife and my leg. Your grief ain’t got nothing on me.”
He said it in a light tone but you heard the edge to the comment. Suddenly, you were back in the Syrian rubble fifteen years ago, staring down a head strong sergeant. The anger and rage at being belittled reared up through your chest and settled in your throat.
You had matured over the years. Your first instinct was no longer to throw a wild haymaker. Instead you clenched your jaw, released it and said.
“I’m sorry you’ve had such shit friends, then Jack. Next time, text me when you’re having a bad day. Don’t have the hospital call me in on my day off. And be nicer to my doctors. I think I’ve hit my threshold of Dr. Jack Abbot for awhile,” you said simply.
You stood and walked a few steps to your office. You heard Jack say your name and stand after you. You badged into your department offices and let the door shut behind you. You turned the corner, opened your office door and sat down. Distantly, you could hear knocking on the offices.
Your office was an homage to your loved ones. Photos and Knick-knacks from friend and family filled the space. Photos of you and Farah from high school and college were appropriately cringey but the love and care was evident in the way you both held onto each other.
Angrily, you wiped away an errant tear and gathered your bag. Instead of walking out the front where you suspected Jack likely still was, you headed out the back through the medical library into the back stairwell and eventually the cold night air.
-- -- --
Your weekend plans were hospital free, thank god. You didn't have to think about patients or Jack or anyone for a blessed two whole days. Instead you spent Saturday cleaning your house top to bottom, blasting music far too loud for the size of house you lived in.
You took your dog to the dog park. You went to your favorite book store. You filled your day with things you loved.
And that night, when there weren't chores to do or errands to run or books to read, and you were laying in bed you couldn't help but think about the words Jack said to you the night previous.
"Your grief ain't got nothing on me."
It was something that had been a subtle constant in your friendship. Jack always seemed to hold your respective experiences against each other, measuring to see which of you was allowed to be sad and depressed. More accurately, measuring when you were and were not allowed to tell him he was being a depressed, defeatist asshole.
He was not always like that, it came in waves. Most days, he would grab the day by the throat, and force it to bend to his will. His iron will was one of your favorite and least favorite parts of him. But sometimes he was under this insane assumption that just because you never held a gun during your time in a warzone, meant that you hadn't seen or experienced the same things he had.
You had seen the trauma IEDs, land mines, and automatic weapons caused to human flesh. You knew exactly what the anguished cries of a mother who lost her child to starvation sounded like. You knew what the tears of children orphaned by conflict looked like. There were parts of war you did not know. You didn't know what it was like to take another life, but you knew the cost of war far better than he did.
It wasn't anything you ever argued with him about it. You weren't exactly keen to relive those memories. Still, you wished you could shake him, or slap him, and remind him that his suffering--while great--was not winning any competition. There was no competition to win.
Grief was ever present. It gnawed at your heart and lungs. Sometimes it kept you from breathing.
Tonight, you found yourself nearly swept under the high tide of grief. It was large and ominous. Overwhelming thoughts of anything else. All you could think about were the patients you had, the ones you lost, the ones who you saved but who weren't any better off, and even worse you kept thinking about Farah.
You knew what she would say to this: "Every experience reshapes and rebuilds you into something new. You're in charge of what that new things is. So make it great."
What you were feeling was more than just sadness at the dismissive nature of a friend, though. If you were honest with yourself--and in the dark of night, curled in the safety of your bed you could be--perhaps what you were feeling was more akin to heartbreak.
It's not like you held out hope that Jack was going to suddenly fall in love with you. In fact, you weren’t sure you would be able to handle that if he did. Because you knew Darcy, it felt messy in a way that was too uncomfortable to parse.
So you had kept your feelings to yourself.
It wasn't sad; there wasn't a perpetual ache in your chest because he didn't feel the same way. It was just the way life worked sometimes and Jack’s friendship was enough. The problem, however, came from how none of your romantic prospects held a candle to way that Jack made you feel.
When he spoke to you, his eyes never left your face. It was intense to get used to, but then it made you feel so seen. He never let you trail off in a story or get overshadowed in a conversation. In many ways, he knew you better than you knew yourself. He knew how to talk you down when someone at the hospital ignored your sepsis protocols, or how you carved out time each week to see your goddaughter, because you believed in the importance of having many adults in a child's rooting for them.
When you spent time together, it wasn't tedious or exhausting like it was with some people. Being around Jack added to that golden ball of sunlight in your chest, that held all the energy from your friendships. Being around him was energizing and exciting. Most of the time.
But every so often, it felt like he saw someone who wasn't you. Someone who was naive and unclear about the horrors of the world. As though you hadn't loved and lost. As though you hadn't seen the tragedies of war and destruction.
People were never just one thing, and Jack was not a perfect, idealized man that could do no wrong. He was human and had blind spots. Some of those blind spots hurt more than others.
Implying that your love for Farah was somehow less than his love for Darcy was not a hurt that would be easily healed.
Perhaps it felt like heartbreak because your love for your friend was so fundamental to how you viewed yourself. You gave up your MSF career to care for Farah as she went through cancer treatment. For nearly two years, each of your decisions had her in mind. Sometimes it was a terrible burden, but it was time you wouldn't trade for anything.
So to have Jack ignorant to the gravity of that friendship, maybe it meant he didn't know you as well as you thought--as well as you hoped.
And maybe that meant--maybe it confirmed--what you had always suspected:
Jack Abbot was not in love with you.
So the emotional balled up in you chest, battling against your ribcage felt like a reminder of all the grief that had long been present in your life, but this time it was the solidification of a grief that had been ignored. Your heart broke that night.
-- -- --
Sunday morning you were sitting on your front porch when you saw a familar truck circle the block. The first time, you thought you were seeing thing. But then your dog raised his head and began to wag his tail. Hank had always loved Jack. The third time you saw the truck, well, it was beginning to get old.
Finally, the fourth rotation of the truck resulted in him parking in front of your house. You could have gone inside, but there was a nosy part of you that was curious about what he was going to say.
He was stiff getting out of his truck and you suspected he came to your place straight from a night shift at the hospital. You stopped keep track of his shifts years ago--it was concerning how many hours each week he worked, better for you not to know.
He looked just as tired and haggard as he had on Friday night.
"Fourth time's the charm?" You asked as he limped up the steps to your porch.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied sitting down in the chair next to yours. He stretched his leg out stiffly and rubbed at the top of his thigh.
You didn't say anything and continued reading your book while sipping at your cooling cup of coffee. It didn’t taste like anything now. Hank, unaware of your inner turmoil at Jack's appearance, excitedly ambled over to him and sat in front of him expectantly.
"Well, at least someone is excited to see me," Jack said scratching the dog's ears.
"Fuck off," you snapped, angrier than even you had expected.
You refused to look at him, but out of the corner of your eye you saw Jack rear back in surprise. Most of the time you were the calm and collected one in the friendship; he was the the hotheaded. Slowly, Jack eased back to looking at Hank and eventually said,
"I'm sorry,” it sounded placating more than genuine.
"Thank you for that lackluster apology."
"Christ, Rocky, cut me some slack. It's the anniversary of my wife's sudden and tragic death."
"No," you replied simply.
"No?" he asked.
"You don't get to use Darcy as an excuse to be a dickhead. Unfortunately for you, I knew her too. So, try again."
He let out an angry huff and said, "You can be a real bitch, you know that right?"
"Not the first or last time I'll hear that," you said.
"What do you want me to say then?"
"I want an apology for assuming my love for my friends is somehow less than your love for your wife," you explained calmly.
“I spent almost twenty years with Darcy,” he said.
“I know, you were high school sweethearts. I’ve know Farah since freshmen year of college. She saw me through the same stages of life.”
“Darcy was my partner,” he snapped.
“And Farah was the one person who supported me no matter what. Just because I didn’t share a bank account and fuck her doesn’t mean I cared about her less.”
“It’s different!” He exclaimed.
“Sure, in the way we made decisions for most of our relationship, I agree. But for the last three years of her life, there was not a decision I made that didn’t consider her. She was deeply entangled with my life and when she died. It felt like someone had ripped out part of me.”
The conversation had started off angrily, but now you were tired. You wanted Jack off your porch and you wanted to get on with your peaceful Sunday. All of the emotion that had been building was released and you felt tears prick at your eyes.
Incredibly enough, you were an adult and didn't need to take out your emotions of the people close to you; instead you processed them and released them. The white hot anger and deep pit of despair had been felt and unfettered from your depths and now, all that remained was a weariness.
Jack's silence was stretching.
"I think we might just see the world in fundamentally different ways," you said standing.
"Rocky--" he started.
"Jack, don't," you said sharply. "I have spent the last nine years being a listening ear for your grief. I have been more than happy to do that. I knew how amazing Darcy was. Of course you'd grieve. But every time I bring up the things I've seen or expereinced, it's a competition I can't win. I don't really know how bad war is because I've never fired a gun, as though half the reason I left MSF wasn't because I was shot. Or I can't understand what it is like to lose someone important to you, because it wasn't my spouse. You don't own grief."
"You were shot?" He asked. The growing redness of his face was sudden pale.
"Yes? What are you talking about? I talked to you about it when I came back."
"No, you said you got hurt," he said angrily. The redness was back. "See, this is your problem. You keep all your thoughts and feelings inside and then get pissed when people don't read your mind."
"I do not," you scoffed.
"Really? I didn't even know Farah died until I saw the obituary. That was your best friend and you didn't tell anyone!"
"I wasn't exactly doing well that week, Jack," you said. "I held her hand as she died. I was having a hard time."
"This is the first time I've ever heard that! I had no idea you were there when she died! I had no idea you got shot! You don't tell anyone anything! Do you know how upsetting it is to never know what you're thinking or feeling? Friday was the closest you've ever gotten to telling me I've upset you. That's not fair. You talk about the importance of friendship all the time, but you're a shit friend sometimes."
It felt like he had slapped you. You were an open book. He could have asked you anything and you would have answered. It wasn't your fault he was perpetually uncurious.
Perhaps if you had more time to think or if you had been less upset, something less idiotic would have come out of your mouth next,
“Maybe you never showed an iota of curiosity about my life. I was convenient emotional replacement for someone you lost,” you said. You knew it wasn’t true as soon as you said it.
“Oh fuck you,” Jack nearly spit. “How dare you—“
“Deign to compare myself to her?”
“No, you asshole. Pretend like you aren’t important to me. Christ. You’re mean when you want to be,” he said almost ruefully.
You didn’t respond. You weren’t sure what to say. But you both felt the angry energy dissipate from the porch. You snuck a peak at the man next to you. He was pinching the bridge of his nose. It was a common pose you saw him adopt with particularly dense residents and medical students. Rude.
Eventually Jack said, “Have you spent our whole friendship thinking I didn’t want to actually know you?”
“No?” Even to your ears it sounded like a question. “Jack, I—“
“Nope, it’s my turn to talk now,” he said cutting you off. “Why did you never offer the information? Why keep it to yourself?”
"I didn't think you wanted to know."
"What?"
And if you thought you were heartbroken before, it was nothing compared the way Jack's voice broke on your porch just now.
"I just figured if you didn't ask, it meant you didn't want to know," you said.
"That's what you thought? And you were still friends with me?" he asked. You shrugged.
He sagged back into the chair and you found yourself sitting down next to him.
“Jesus I’ve been a shit friend.”
“No, Jack,” you began but he held up a hand.
"Rocky, I..." he started. "I always want to know. I just thought you didn't want to share."
"Oh."
"Why in the world did you think that I wouldn't want to know about your life? You're my friend."
You just shrugged, suddenly feeling very small.
"Maybe your friends have failed you," Jack said. He was looking at you and even if your eyes were firmly in front of you, his gaze bore into the side of your face. "How someone so vibrant and interesting could remain convinced that people around her don't want to know her is astounding to me."
"No, it's not anyone's fault," you started.
"I'm serious, Rocky. You're amazing. Do you just think no one wants to see that?"
Christ, it was too early for this.
"I think we've strayed too far from the topic at hand," you said, desperate to get him away from this topic. Jack
"That's fair. And you're right. I do hold my marriage above friendships. But I was thinking about it yesterday and I would be just as devastated if you or Robby died. As for the warzone shit...I still maintain not shooting a gun means you don't carry the same guilt I do, but maybe that's a good thing," Jack admitted.
"I'll agree about the guilt. I think we can share in the survivor's guilt, though."
“Fine, so glad we get to share something so special,” he grumbled.
You both lapsed into silence and eventually Jack said,
“What was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“Doing MSF?”
And so you told him. You told him about the constant battle against competing political groups, the fights for resources and the inability to get a good shower. But you also told him about all your friends around the globe. You told him about your travels during your furloughs—how Jordan was your favorite country you’ve ever visited.
You caught Jack watching you with something akin to awe. It made you uncomfortable.
“Stop that,” you grumbled.
“What?”
“Staring at me like that.”
“Sorry, Rocky, but unfortunately for you I kinda feel like I’m meeting a new person.”
“Fuck off,” you replied nudging him with your shoulder.
“Did Darcy know about any of this?”
“The blanket on your ottoman is from Jordan. I sent it to her,” you replied.
Jack snorted. “I can’t believe you told her and not me. I can’t believe I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough to try.”
“I dunno, it’s one of those things I think we learn as kids and we’re lucky if we figure it out by the time we die,” Jack replied sighing.
“I think you’re giving me too much grace,” you said.
“You’ve given me plenty over the years. I think you’re due some yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“But seriously, you told Darcy about Jordan and I’m just now learning about it?”
You laughed.
He sighed and leaned his head against your shoulder. “God I miss her.”
“I know,” you said grasping his hand in yours. “I doubt you’ll ever stop.”
“I wouldn’t get rid of this pain if it meant I didn’t know her. I imagine it’s the same with you?”
“For Farah and Darcy. I didn’t know her well, but she was magnetic.”
“She liked you a lot.”
“Feeling was mutual.”
“In another life, you probably could have stolen her.”
“In another life I would have tried.”
Jack hesitated, his thumb brushing absently across your knuckles. “Do you think…”
The bottom dropped out of your stomach. You panicked, desperate for him not to finish his sentence, for fear of what he might say, for fear of what it might do to the two of you. You’d made your peace with loving him this way quietly and distantly. The idea of him putting voice to it—acknowledging something you’d closed the book on years ago—felt like it could unmoor you.
But he let the silence collapse between you. “Nevermind, I think we’ve had enough emotions for one day.”
Relief hit you fast and sharp, “Thank god.”
-- -- --
another author's note: I've had this idea rattling around in my brain for awhile and I have no idea if people will like the same way I have, so thank you for reading if you got this far <3
Pairing: Jimmy Olsen x afab!Reader
Synopsis: You’re a journalist at The Daily Planet, assigned to investigate a high-profile case involving a corrupt tech mogul. To get the inside scoop, you need to go undercover, and Jimmy Olsen, eager and secretly smitten, volunteers to pose as your partner. What is the worst that could happen?
Word Count: ~10k
Tags: fluff, coworkers to lovers, undercover mission, fake relationship, jimmy is a cutie, no spoilers for superman 2025!
Warnings: alcohol consumption
A/N: i swear as soon as i saw jimmy in superman, my eyes went heartshaped. i need more fics!!
Swinging open the doors of The Daily Planet, you nearly lose your grip on the precarious stack of papers in your arms. Another hectic day, no doubt filled with hours hunched over a keyboard but today feels different. Today, you finally had a breakthrough.
For the past two months, you’ve been investigating a high-profile tech mogul. When whispers of corruption began to circle the company, you were the first to dig deeper. What started as rumour quickly unravelled into something much bigger: through tireless research, you uncovered disturbing inconsistencies in their so-called charity foundation. Massive donations were being made, yet no meaningful change followed. You had the paper trail. You had the motive. Now, all you needed was the final piece; a confession.
You dropped the papers onto your desk with a satisfying thud, then spun on your heel and made a beeline for Perry White’s office. The familiar click of your shoes echoed over the newsroom’s chaotic soundtrack, the clatter of keyboards, the buzz of urgent phone calls, the ever-present aroma of too-strong coffee. It was your daily backdrop, your battlefield.
The sound of your footsteps must have given you away, because a familiar voice cut through the din.
“Hey, ____!”
You barely turned in time before Jimmy Olsen appeared in front of you, nearly colliding with your shoulder. His freckled face lit up with his usual boyish energy.
“I got you a coffee!” he said, holding it out with both hands like an offering.
He’d been doing that a lot lately, showing up with your favourite order, always perfectly made. Like clockwork. Like he knew your schedule better than you did.
You took it with a small smile, already grateful for the warmth in your hands. “Thanks, Jimmy.”
Your eyes flicked back to Perry’s office door, your mind already rehearsing what you were about to say.
Jimmy falls into step beside you, coffee in hand, talking before you can even process what he’s saying.
“So, I passed by that bookstore you like, you know, the one with the weird cat in the window that hates everyone except you? Yeah, that one. Anyway, they’re having some kind of midnight poetry reading this Friday. I almost went in to grab you a flyer, but I didn’t want the cat to bite me again. It’s totally personal at this point.”
You hum distractedly, gaze fixed ahead. Perry’s office looms, the weight of your evidence heavy on your mind. The pieces are there, but the risk of misstepping still knots your stomach.
Jimmy keeps going, unbothered.
“Also, I found this podcast about unsolved corporate scandals, and not to brag, but I think you’d be a better host than the guy running it. Like, ten times better. You have this voice when you talk about stuff that matters… not that I listen too closely or anything. I mean. I do. But not in a weird way.”
You blink, barely registering the shift in his tone.
“I just mean,” he continues, voice softer now, “you’re really good at what you do. And people notice. I notice.”
That makes you pause, your steps faltering just slightly. You glance over at him.
He shrugs one shoulder, cheeks tinged with the faintest blush. “Anyway. The world’s ending, journalism is chaos, your inbox probably hates you, but I got you coffee.”
You stare at him for a second longer than necessary before taking the cup from his hand.
“Thanks, Jimmy,” you say, quietly this time.
He gives you a small, genuine smile, not the cheeky grin he usually throws around the newsroom, but something a little more careful. Like he’s waiting to see if you noticed what he really meant.
You turn back to Perry’s door and knock.
The heavy door creaks open and shuts behind you with a thud. Perry White barely glances up from behind his cluttered desk, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers, sending a slow curl of smoke toward the ceiling. The scent of it mixes with stale coffee and aged paper, the perfume of stress and decades of deadlines.
He finally looks up. “You look like hell.”
“I’ve been working on something big,” you reply, stepping forward, paper stack tucked under your arm, heart thudding.
Perry leans back, exhaling smoke through his nose. “That supposed to impress me?”
“No,” you say, placing the papers on his desk with a satisfying slap. “This is.”
He stubs out his cigarette with a grunt and flips through the pages. His brow furrows as his eyes scan the printouts, bank statements, fake invoices, donation receipts that lead to nowhere.
“LexTech’s foundation,” you say, pacing slightly as you explain. “Huge donations coming in, but nothing substantial going out. No programs, no funded research, no infrastructure. It’s a shell, and I have sources saying the money’s being funnelled to offshore accounts tied to military-grade tech.”
Perry whistles low, eyes still on the evidence. “That’s one hell of a claim.”
“I’ve got the records. I just need the proof on-site, something from the inside. They’re throwing a gala next weekend. Closed invite list. Black tie. Press isn’t welcome, but… they’ve got a thing for power couples. I can get in. If I have a partner.”
Perry raises an eyebrow, cigarette bobbing between his fingers. “Undercover?”
You nod firmly. “Just long enough to confirm what I already suspect. Catch someone talking, take a few photos—”
“Photos,” Perry cuts in, stabbing a finger toward the papers you’ve laid out on his desk. “That’s what I need. Proof people can see. I want eyes on the inside. Real pictures. Crisp, clean, incriminating. None of that blurry, half-lit garbage you get from hiding behind a ficus with a telephoto lens.”
And as if the words themselves were a summoning spell—
Click.
The office door swings open with its usual old-hinge groan, and Jimmy Olsen leans halfway inside, camera slung around his neck like it was sewn there at birth. His hair is a little mussed, cheeks slightly pink from the wind outside, and he’s holding a takeout cup in one hand like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to drink it in here.
“Hey, boss, you wanted—oh.” His eyes land on you. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Perry glances up at him, then smirks, that knowing, predatory grin that always means trouble for somebody. This time, apparently, it’s trouble for you.
“Olsen,” Perry says, leaning back in his chair. “How do you feel about tuxedos and tech billionaires?”
Jimmy blinks. “Uh… neutral? Slightly intimidated?”
“Perfect,” Perry says, jabbing the air with his cigarette. “You’re going undercover with her. Couple’s gala. I want photos, the kind that make front pages and ruin reputations.”
Jimmy’s gaze snaps to you like a magnet, eyes lighting up in pure, unfiltered excitement. “Wait — with ______?”
You give him a sidelong look, keeping your expression neutral even as heat creeps up the back of your neck. Perry, naturally, bulldozes right through the moment.
“Yes. As a couple,” he says flatly. “That’s how these high-society snakes operate. No press badges, no plus-ones. You’re going in together, smiling, sparkling, and blending in.”
Jimmy’s eyebrows nearly vanish under his fringe. “Oh.”
“Cover names,” Perry continues. “Something glossy but forgettable. I’ll have Carla book you a room at the hotel where the event’s being held, two nights. The place is crawling with security, and I don’t want you driving in and out like amateurs. You stay on-site, play the part, and get me the shots I need.”
Jimmy’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again like he’s buffering. His gaze flicks between you and Perry, then back to you, the corner of his mouth twitching in a way that makes him look almost giddy.
You narrow your eyes. “A hotel room?”
Perry doesn’t even glance up from lighting another cigarette. “It’s a suite. I’m not a monster.”
Jimmy nods too fast, too many times. “Right. A suite. Cool. Yeah. We’ll, uh, blend. Totally blend.”
You cross your arms. “You’ve never blended a day in your life.”
He grins, boyish and shameless. “That’s why I’ve got you. You’re, like… stealthy. And composed. And smart. And you make me look… you know… less obvious.”
Perry exhales a long stream of smoke, already done with the back-and-forth. “You’ve got forty-eight hours. Don’t waste it. And no funny business. If I hear about either of you climbing out a window or crashing a chocolate fountain, I’m sending Lois next time.”
Jimmy straightens like he’s just been sworn into office. “No windows. No fountains. Got it.” Then, quieter, to you: “This is gonna be great. I mean, dangerous. Obviously dangerous. But also… great.”
His grin is so open and hopeful you almost forget how much work this is going to be.
The moment Perry waves you both off, you’re already reaching for the doorknob, wanting fresh air before the smell of cigarette smoke burrows into your clothes. You step into the bustling newsroom, but you don’t get more than three paces before you hear quick footsteps right behind you.
Jimmy’s trailing so close he could be your shadow.
“This is gonna be amazing,” he says, falling into step with you. “I mean, for the story. And for you. And for Perry. And, okay, maybe a little for me.”
You keep walking, flipping through the mental checklist of what you’ll need to prep before the gala. “We’re not there to have fun, Olsen.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, grinning so wide it’s almost suspicious. “But still. It’s undercover! We’ll have fake names. Fake jobs. Maybe even a fake backstory. Ooh, I could be, like… a retired race car driver.”
You glance at him. “You don’t even own a car.”
“Right, okay, maybe that’s too much,” he says, undeterred. “What about a millionaire cheese tycoon? My grandfather invented string cheese. That explains my wealth and my approachable charm.”
You sigh, pushing open the swinging door that leads to your desk. He follows without missing a beat.
“I’m thinking something simpler,” you say. “Names we can remember. Professions that won’t collapse under basic questioning.”
Jimmy hums thoughtfully. “So not ‘Lord Jimothy of Camembert’?”
You shoot him a look over your shoulder. “No.”
He chuckles, but then his voice softens just slightly. “Still… I’m glad Perry picked me for this. I know you could’ve done it with Lois or Clark, but… you got me instead.”
It’s said with that same earnest warmth you’ve learned is 100% genuine, and it makes you look away before you’re tempted to respond with anything that might sound too sincere.
He’s still talking as you reach your desk. “Oh! And the hotel, two nights! I mean, that’s practically a mini vacation. Except, you know, with black-tie criminals. And possible security chases. But, like, the vibe is there.”
You drop your bag onto your chair and start gathering your notes. “You’re exhausting.”
Jimmy just smiles, leaning against your desk like he’s perfectly at home there. “You’ll thank me when I get you the perfect shot.”
Your apartment is quiet except for the muted swish of fabric and the clink of hangers. A half-zipped suitcase sits open on your bed, spilling formalwear across the comforter. Your heels are lined up neatly on the floor like soldiers, and next to them is a smaller bag full of your equipment, notepads, voice recorder, spare batteries.
You’ve been in a rhythm for the past hour: fold, pack, check list, repeat. The hum of the city outside your window is background noise now, muffled by the evening air drifting through the cracked pane. You’ve just started rolling up a dress to fit into the corner of your suitcase when a quick, eager knock rattles the door.
“Come in!” you call, expecting maybe a neighbour.
The door swings open, and Jimmy Olsen steps in like a burst of fresh air. He’s wearing his usual flannel, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and his ever-present camera bag slung across his torso. His grin is instant, wide, and boyish.
“You’re packing!” he announces, stating the obvious as if it’s breaking news. “Oh man, this is really happening.”
Before you can respond, he’s halfway into your room, his gaze flitting everywhere. He’s not snooping, there’s no malice in it, but there’s an open curiosity in the way his eyes linger on your bookshelf, the stack of mugs on your desk, the photographs pinned above your workspace.
“Wow,” he says under his breath, smiling like he’s just stepped into an exhibit. “This is… very you.”
You straighten up from your suitcase. “That’s either a compliment or a very polite insult.”
“It’s a compliment,” he says without missing a beat. Then his eyes land on your bed, more specifically, the small stuffed animal propped up against your pillow.
“Oh-ho,” he says, and before you can protest, he’s already walking over. He picks it up gently, cradling it in both hands. His voice softens. “You sleep with this?”
“It’s just—” You stop yourself from getting defensive, but he’s already smiling down at it.
“It’s cute,” he says simply, turning it over like it’s fragile. “Totally makes sense for you. I like it.”
You clear your throat and pluck it from his hands, tossing it back onto the bed. “Focus, Olsen. We have a fake life to invent.”
“Right, right,” he says, though he takes a slow spin in your room like he’s memorizing it. “So… cover names, fake jobs, fake how-we-met story. We could say we met at a gallery opening. Or on a train. Or maybe at some swanky charity luncheon where you dropped your program and I heroically picked it up for you.”
You give him a flat look. “We’re not doing the rom-com version of this.”
“We’re supposed to look like a couple,” he insists, grinning. “Rom-com rules apply.” He stops pacing, suddenly thoughtful. “You should be an art curator. And I’m your rich benefactor who fell for your impeccable taste in paintings. Or maybe I’m a world traveler who—”
You cut him off with a raised hand. “Keep it simple. Easy to remember.”
He tilts his head, studying you for a moment. “Okay, but… there’s still one thing we need to work out.”
You’re halfway through folding another dress when you glance at him. “Which is?”
He hesitates, scratching the back of his neck. His voice drops a little, almost shy.
“So… um… can I touch you tonight?”
You blink, caught off guard. “Jimmy—”
He waves his hands quickly. “Not like that! I mean for practice. You know, for the gala. We’ve got to look like we’re used to it. If I wait until we’re surrounded by suspicious billionaires to put my arm around you, you’ll tense up and we’ll look fake. But if we get used to it tonight… it’ll feel natural tomorrow.”
His words tumble out in a rush, but his gaze stays steady, earnest. “I just want us to look convincing. And… I dunno, it might be kind of nice, too.”
“Fine,” you reply, zipping up your suitcase. “But don’t annoy me.”
Jimmy grins like you’ve just promised him front-row seats to the world’s greatest concert.
“Me? Annoy you? Never.”
Jimmy’s arm hasn’t left your shoulder since you stepped out of the cab. Not once. Not in the lobby, not while checking in, not while waiting for the elevator. He’s practically leaning his whole weight into you as the bellman leads you both down the carpeted hallway toward your suite.
You shoot him a look from the corner of your eye. “You do know you can let go now, right?”
He tightens his grip just slightly. “We’re in character. Gotta commit.”
“You’ve been committing for twenty straight minutes.”
“And it’s working,” he says with a smug little tilt of his head. “We look like the picture of young love.”
You snort. “We look like you’re afraid I’m going to run away.”
He gasps in mock offense. “Would you?”
“Depends how long this arm thing lasts.”
The bellman, a tall man with a perfectly pressed uniform, keeps a straight face, but you’re almost certain you catch the faint twitch of a smile. Jimmy, completely unbothered, gives him a cheery nod like they’re already friends.
The bellman stops at the end of the hallway, sliding the keycard into the door with a practiced flick. The lock clicks open, and he pushes the door wide, gesturing for you to step inside first.
Jimmy’s arm is still welded to your shoulder as you walk in, and it takes effort not to trip over the ridiculous plush carpet.
The suite is… gorgeous. Cream walls, soft golden lighting, a little sitting area by the window with a view of the city skyline glittering in the dusk. The air smells faintly of lavender and something expensive you can’t quite place.
The bellman wheels your suitcases in, setting them neatly near the foot of the bed. Then, with a polite nod, he slips out, shutting the door behind him.
It’s only then that your eyes land on the bed.
The one bed.
King-sized. Perfectly made, the duvet folded just so. Rose petals scattered across the pillows.
You blink. Slowly. “What…?”
Jimmy follows your gaze, and his mouth drops open. “Oh.”
“This is…” you begin, taking a cautious step toward it, “…the honeymoon suite.”
Jimmy freezes, eyes wide. “They… Perry… Carla… they booked the—” He laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well. That’s… something.”
You turn to him, brow arched. “Something?”
“I mean—” he waves his hands, stumbling over his words “—hey, silver lining, right? Big bed! Uh… really big bed. And, uh, romantic lighting for… photos?”
You just stare at him.
“Strictly professional photos,” he adds quickly, holding his palms up. “Very… uh… cozy… professional photos.”
You drop your bag by the dresser, still eyeing the bed like it’s a live grenade.
“Well,” you say finally, “we’ll just… split it.”
Jimmy perks up instantly. “Split it? Yeah. Totally fine with that. You can have, uh, whichever side you want. Or both sides, if you’re the starfish sleeper type. I can just…” He makes a vague motion, “…cling to my little edge.”
You cross your arms. “Or you could take the couch.”
Jimmy’s face falls like you just suggested throwing him out into the alley. “The couch? It’s, like… six feet away from the door. What if there’s a break-in? Or a fire? Or, worse, what if you need me to grab something from the minibar?”
You give him a flat look. “I’ll risk it.”
“I’m just saying,” he continues quickly, “for realism’s sake—”
“You are not sleeping next to me for realism’s sake.”
He grins. “Well, maybe a little for realism, but also because the couch is tiny and my spine is already a mess from carrying camera gear all day.”
You sigh, glancing at the couch in question. It’s more decorative than functional, all stiff cushions and narrow arms. He’s not wrong, he’d be miserable after an hour.
“Fine,” you say at last, pointing at the bed. “But I get to pick my side.”
Jimmy’s grin is immediate and far too pleased. “Deal. I’ll even promise not to steal the covers.”
“You’ll break that promise in your sleep.”
“Probably,” he admits cheerfully, already tossing his bag onto the bed like it’s his. “Oh, by the way, I call dibs on the side closest to the coffee machine.”
You groan. “We’re not here for the coffee, Olsen.”
He smirks, flopping back onto the mattress and sinking into the ridiculously plush duvet. “No, but it’s a nice perk.”
The bathroom is warm with steam from the shower, your dress hanging neatly on the back of the door. It takes you longer than you’d like to get ready, smoothing your hair, applying just enough makeup for the “effortless” look, slipping into the sleek black gown you’d chosen for the gala.
You tug the zipper up your side as far as your arm can reach… and stop. No amount of twisting or contorting gets it any further.
You let out a slow sigh, staring at yourself in the mirror. The thought of calling him in here makes your stomach knot, not because you don’t trust him, but because… well. You know Jimmy. And Jimmy will make this a thing.
But there’s no way around it.
You open the door and step into the suite. He’s at the table fiddling with his camera lens, wearing his tux jacket unbuttoned, bowtie hanging loose around his neck.
“Jimmy?”
He looks up, ready to answer casually, but the words stop dead in his throat. His eyes widen, sweeping over you in stunned silence.
“Oh—uh—wow.” He blinks rapidly, as if trying to reboot. “I mean. You—uh—wow.”
You shift your weight, trying not to feel self-conscious under his gaze. “I can’t zip the back. I need help.”
“Right! Yes. Totally. I can… I can do that.” He pushes back from the chair so fast it nearly tips, straightening his bowtie like that will somehow make him more qualified for this job.
As he steps closer, you can see the pink dusting his cheeks. He swallows, eyes darting anywhere but directly at your bare back. “Okay, um, just—just stand still. I’ve got it.”
His fingers brush the zipper, and you feel the lightest touch of his knuckles against your skin. His breath hitches almost imperceptibly, but he keeps going, carefully pulling the zipper all the way up.
“There,” he says softly, almost to himself. “Perfect.”
You turn to face him, and he quickly steps back, clearing his throat. “You, uh… you clean up really well. Not that you don’t always look—uh—good. You just… tonight you look… like…” He waves his hands helplessly, grinning at his own inability to finish the sentence. “…yeah.”
“Spit it out, Olsen.”
He gives a little laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “You look incredible.”
The hotel elevator hums quietly as you descend, Jimmy still sneaking glances at you like he can’t help himself. By the time you both step into the lobby, the sleek black town car Perry arranged is already waiting at the curb.
Jimmy rushes ahead to open the door for you, gesturing grandly like a chauffeur from an old movie. “Your carriage, m’lady.”
You give him a look, but slide inside. He follows a beat later, the door shutting with a muted thunk. The driver merges smoothly into the evening traffic, city lights flashing past the tinted windows.
For a few seconds, it’s quiet — then Jimmy clears his throat.
“So… just to be clear,” he says, fiddling with his cufflink, “when I said you look incredible, I meant like… top-tier, jaw-dropping, people-are-gonna-think-I-hit-the-dating-lottery incredible.”
You arch an eyebrow. “You’re still on this?”
He shrugs, a sheepish grin tugging at his lips. “I’m just saying… it’s going to sell the cover story. No one’s gonna doubt we’re together when you walk in wearing that.”
Before you can reply, he slides an arm around your shoulders, casual but deliberate. “Speaking of selling the story…”
You glance at the arm now resting across your gown. “You’re doing this already?”
“Realism,” he says, the word sounding much too pleased in his mouth. “Gotta keep the practice going.”
You roll your eyes but don’t shrug him off, which only makes his grin widen. He shifts slightly so your sides press together, and you can feel the warmth radiating from him.
The driver turns a corner, the skyline glittering against the dark. Jimmy tilts his head toward you just enough that his voice drops. “You know… if we keep this up, people might start thinking we’re actually—”
“Don’t finish that sentence, Olsen,” you warn.
He chuckles, leaning back with the most satisfied look you’ve seen all day, his arm still exactly where he wants it.
The car slows in front of the gala’s entrance, a gleaming stretch of marble steps and gold-trimmed doors. Paparazzi cameras flash in a staccato rhythm, catching every glimmer of sequin and silk that passes by.
Jimmy is out of the car before you can reach for the handle, opening your door with a flourish. “Careful,” he says softly, offering you his hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
You take it, more for balance than anything, but his fingers curl around yours with a surprising steadiness. The warmth lingers as he helps you up the steps, his palm resting lightly on the small of your back.
Inside, the air is perfumed with champagne and expensive cologne. Crystal chandeliers throw prisms of light across the room, and waiters weave through the crowd with silver trays of hors d’oeuvres.
Jimmy leans in, his voice low near your ear. “Okay, game faces on. We’re the charming power couple everyone wishes they knew.”
You smirk. “And you’re sure you can pull that off?”
“Watch me,” he says, a little too confidently.
Within minutes, he’s introducing you to strangers with a smoothness you didn’t expect. “This is my partner,” he tells one sharply dressed woman, his tone dripping with easy pride. “She’s brilliant. Changed the way I think about, well… everything.”
The woman smiles politely, but you catch the way Jimmy’s eyes linger on you even after the conversation moves on.
He guides you through the room like you’re the only person he needs to keep track of — fetching you a champagne flute without asking, leaning in to murmur quiet jokes between greetings, brushing his hand against yours every time you drift apart.
It’s all part of the act. It has to be.
And yet… the way his gaze softens when he looks at you doesn’t feel like acting at all.
As you sip your champagne, you spot him. You see him just past the champagne fountain, tall, perfectly coiffed, his smile the kind you only get from knowing the law can’t quite touch you. The CEO.
And he’s not alone. Flanking him are two other heavy-hitters in the tech world, their suits custom-cut, watches worth more than your yearly salary. They lean in close to each other, talking in low, conspiratorial voices.
You nudge Jimmy lightly with your elbow. “Got eyes on the prize.”
He follows your gaze, and his expression shifts, the eager grin melting into something sharper, more focused. “Alright. You get in close, work your magic. I’ll circle, make it look casual, get the shots.”
“Remember,” you say quietly, “I need the whole group together. Faces clear, no one blocking anyone.”
He taps the camera hanging from his neck. “Trust me. I’ve been waiting for this all night.”
You split up, you toward the hors d’oeuvres table that just happens to be in their orbit, Jimmy drifting into the crowd like a man with nothing more than champagne on his mind.
You time your approach carefully, weaving through conversations until you’re close enough to overhear snippets. Words like contract, quietly transferred, and offshore pepper their conversation. Your pulse kicks up. This is it.
Slipping your hand into your clutch, you tap the voice recorder hidden inside and angle yourself so your bag faces their little circle.
Across the room, Jimmy is in motion, the picture of an affable party guest, greeting people, “accidentally” wandering into frame. His camera clicks in slow, measured bursts, each one timed to catch the CEO and his friends mid-laugh, mid-handshake, mid-whisper.
Through the shifting crowd, your eyes meet briefly. He tilts his head, the subtle signal you agreed on. He’s got them in frame. All of them.
The conversation in front of you grows more animated, one of the moguls gesturing with his drink. You lean ever so slightly closer, feigning interest in the food display, the recorder drinking in every word.
“…wire transfer will clear by Friday… not on the books… foundation keeps the press happy…”
Bingo.
You glance toward Jimmy again, he’s stepping back now, pretending to admire the chandelier as his camera captures one final, perfect shot: the CEO, flanked by his allies, their glasses raised in a silent toast.
You’re just about to melt back into the crowd, recorder safely capturing every damning word, when someone steps into your path without warning. You bump hard into a shoulder, the impact jostling your clutch.
“Whoa there,” a smooth baritone says, steadying you with a hand that lingers a little too long.
You look up — and it’s him.
The CEO.
Up close, his tailored suit is even more immaculate, his cufflinks gleaming under the chandelier light. His cologne is sharp and expensive, the kind that’s meant to impress but sits heavy in your nose. And his smile is just as polished as it was from across the room, but now you see the thin layer of smugness beneath it, like he’s sizing you up for ownership.
“My apologies,” you say quickly, stepping back to reclaim your space.
“No harm done,” he replies, voice dripping with charm that feels rehearsed. His gaze takes a slow, uninvited sweep from your hair to the hem of your dress. “I haven’t seen you here before… and I would remember a face like yours.”
The urge to roll your eyes is almost overwhelming, but you keep your expression polite, professional. “First time at one of these events.”
“Well, I hope it won’t be the last,” he says, taking a small step closer, his hand finding the back of your arm as if testing the waters. “I enjoy meeting interesting people. Perhaps you’d like to join me for a private tour of the wine cellar? We could… talk business. Somewhere quieter.”
Every instinct in you is screaming No. You open your mouth to excuse yourself—
And suddenly there’s a familiar warmth pressed against your side.
“Sweetheart, there you are,” Jimmy’s voice cuts in, all lightness on the surface but with a steel thread running underneath.
You glance up to see him already sliding into place beside you, his arm wrapping firmly around your waist. His hand rests just at your hip — steady, sure, and warm. He doesn’t squeeze, but there’s a subtle pull that places you slightly behind the line of his body, a subtle claim of space you didn’t realize you wanted until now.
“I was wondering where you’d wandered off to,” he adds, looking down at you with a smile so convincing you almost believe it yourself.
The CEO’s expression twitches, just for a second, before recovering into something cooler. “And you are…?”
“Her partner,” Jimmy answers without hesitation, extending a hand to shake. The smile on his face doesn’t reach his eyes, and you can tell from the faint shift in his arm that the handshake is firm enough to send a message. “We were just about to grab some champagne together.”
There’s a pause, not long, but long enough for you to feel the CEO measuring the situation. His gaze flicks to where Jimmy’s thumb is moving in a slow, unconscious circle at your waist, the ease of the way you lean into his side, the way his body angles protectively toward you.
“Of course,” the CEO says at last, stepping back with that same practiced smile. “Enjoy the evening.”
He turns, melting back into the group of moguls without a backward glance.
You let out a slow breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “Well. That was—”
“Creepy?” Jimmy offers, still not moving his arm away.
“Very,” you agree. You tilt your head to look at him. “Thanks for the save.”
His grin comes easy, but his eyes still have that faint edge to them. “Anytime. Part of the job… and maybe a little not part of the job.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Not part of the job?”
He shrugs, finally, reluctantly, letting his arm drop from your waist. “Just… couldn’t let some guy think he could swoop in like that.” Then, softer, almost to himself: “Especially not with you.”
Your heart skips, but before you can answer, Jimmy speaks up, “Let’s stick together for the rest of the night, huh?”
And for the first time since you arrived, you don’t feel like arguing with him.
“So… what do we do now?” you ask, glancing back toward the cluster of moguls. The night is far from over, the gala still humming with polite laughter and the clink of crystal.
Jimmy follows your gaze, then tilts his head, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Well, we might never be at one of these parties again… might as well enjoy it?”
You try, really try, to keep your expression neutral, but you feel the corner of your mouth curve upward. “I guess… it could be fun.”
That’s all the encouragement he needs. His grin lights up like you’ve just given him the best idea in the world.
Before you can blink, he’s turned, intercepting a passing waiter with flawless timing. Two champagne flutes are plucked from the tray with a flourish, and he pivots back to you like some overly charming movie extra.
“Madam,” he says, offering one with a little bow.
You take it, shaking your head, but there’s no hiding the smile now. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously good at blending in,” he corrects, taking a sip from his own glass. “Besides, Perry said we had to act like a couple, and couples enjoy the party, right? Dancing, mingling… maybe stealing a macaron tower when no one’s looking?”
You laugh, the sound surprising even you. “That’s not a thing.”
“It could be,” he says, eyes sparkling. “Come on. Let’s make the most of it. No one’s looking at us like reporters right now. We’re just…” His gaze softens, lingering on you for a second longer than necessary. “…us.”
Something about the way he says it makes you sip your champagne just to break eye contact. Still, the warmth in your chest has nothing to do with the drink.
Jimmy polishes off the rest of his champagne in one smooth sip, then holds out his free hand.
“Dance with me.”
You arch a brow. “We’re here for work, remember?”
“Exactly,” he says, undeterred. “Nothing sells the happy-couple cover like a slow dance in the middle of a fancy party.”
You glance toward the parquet floor in the center of the room, where a live quartet plays something low and elegant. Couples sway together, all glittering gowns and sharp tuxedos under the warm glow of the chandeliers.
“Jimmy…” you start, but he’s already grinning, hand still extended like he’s daring you to refuse.
You sigh, setting your glass on a nearby table. “Fine. But if you step on my foot—”
“I won’t,” he promises instantly, eyes bright. “Probably.”
He leads you onto the floor with surprising confidence, one hand finding yours, the other settling lightly at your waist. At first, his movements are a little stiff, the rhythm hesitant, but within a few steps, he finds it — guiding you gently through the turn of the music.
“You’re… not bad at this,” you admit.
His grin widens. “Don’t sound so surprised. I’ve got hidden talents.”
“Like lurking with a camera and photobombing billionaires?”
He laughs, the sound warm and genuine. “That’s one of the less romantic ones, yeah.”
The music swells, and for a moment, the crowd around you blurs. Jimmy’s hand at your waist is steady and warm, his thumb brushing lightly against the fabric of your gown. He leans in just enough for his voice to reach your ear.
“You know,” he murmurs, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think this part wasn’t acting.”
You glance up at him, his face is flushed, but his gaze is steady.
“Careful, Olsen,” you say lightly. “You’re starting to sound sincere.”
He smiles, softer this time. “Maybe I am.”
The music drifts toward its final notes, and neither of you rush to break the hold.
The music fades into something livelier, and the dance floor fills with laughter and clinking glasses. You and Jimmy drift back toward the mingling crowd, blending easily among sequined gowns and polished cufflinks.
He’s in his element now, greeting strangers with an easy smile, nodding along to half-stories about stocks and golf clubs, all while keeping you in his periphery like you’re his anchor in the chaos.
You pause near a table stacked with champagne flutes, taking a moment to sip and scan the room. That’s when you feel it, a subtle shift, like someone’s watching you.
You glance across the floor and spot him. Jimmy. Camera raised, lens glinting under the chandelier light, angled right at you.
The shutter clicks.
Your eyebrows lift, and his eyes widen like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He lowers the camera a little too quickly, rubbing the back of his neck.
“What was that?” you call softly when he comes closer.
“What was what?” he says, all innocence, except for the faint flush creeping over his cheeks.
“You took my picture.”
He shrugs, avoiding your gaze in a way that’s almost comical. “It was… uh… part of the cover. Couples have pictures of each other, right? Totally normal.”
“Uh-huh.” You tilt your head. “And you needed to take it when I wasn’t looking?”
“That’s when people look the best,” he mumbles, then seems to realize what he’s said. His ears go pink. “I mean… for authenticity. For the story. Just, real moments, you know?”
You can’t help the smile tugging at your lips. “Sure, Olsen. For the story.”
He tries to grin, but it comes out sheepish, his fingers fidgeting with the strap of his camera. And yet, you can still feel the way his eyes linger on you — even without the lens.
The champagne keeps coming. Neither of you are exactly counting how many glasses you’ve had, but you know the room has softened, the gold light feels warmer, the music richer, the people less intimidating.
You’re leaning against a tall cocktail table, laughing at something ridiculous Jimmy just whispered in your ear about the CEO’s bowtie looking like “a very angry bat,” when the next song kicks in, something upbeat, brassy, and entirely too tempting.
Jimmy’s eyes light up. “Ohhh, we have to dance to this one.”
You shake your head, smiling. “You just want an excuse to make a fool of yourself.”
“Exactly,” he says, already setting his champagne down and holding out his hand.
You let him pull you back onto the floor, where the slow elegance from earlier is long gone. Now it’s a whirl of clapping, spinning, and laughing couples. Jimmy throws himself into it with zero shame, trying out moves that are equal parts swing dance and something he probably learned from a YouTube tutorial at 2 a.m.
You can’t help it, you laugh, doubling over slightly when he twirls you with way more enthusiasm than finesse.
“You’re ridiculous,” you say, breathless, as he does a dramatic dip that nearly takes both of you down.
“Ridiculously charming,” he corrects, grinning wide. His hair’s gone a little messy, his bowtie is askew, and you think maybe he’s never looked more like himself.
At one point he spins you so you’re back-to-back with him, then leans around to grin at you before pulling you in again, your hands clasped, both of you laughing like you forgot why you were here in the first place.
By the time the song ends, you’re both flushed and breathless, grinning like idiots. He hands you your champagne back with a little bow.
“See?” he says between breaths. “Blending in can be fun.”
And you have to admit — it really can.
You’re still catching your breath when you notice it. Two men in dark suits lingering near the edge of the crowd, their eyes locked on Jimmy.
At first, you think maybe you’re imagining it. But then one murmurs something into a discreet earpiece, and the other starts moving toward you.
You lean toward Jimmy, keeping your smile in place. “Don’t look now, but I think we’ve got admirers.”
He tilts his head just enough to catch a glimpse over your shoulder. “Security,” he mutters, all the lightness in his voice gone. “And I’m guessing they’ve figured out I’m not on the official photographer list.”
“Uh-huh,” you say, lifting your champagne to your lips in the most casual move you can muster. “So what’s the plan?”
Jimmy’s eyes dart toward the side exit near the band. “We… dance our way out?”
Before you can argue, he sets his glass down and takes your hand again, launching you both back into the crowd. From an outsider’s perspective, you’re just another couple laughing their way through the music, but every turn, every spin he gives you edges you closer to that side door.
You’re halfway there when one of the security guys calls out, “Sir! Sir, could I see your—”
Jimmy twirls you so you’re facing him again, his hand warm at the small of your back. “Kiss me,” he whispers quickly, eyes darting to the guard now threading through the crowd.
You blink. “What?”
“Cover,” he says, before leaning in and brushing a quick, innocent kiss to the corner of your lips. You can feel him smiling against your skin. “Now we’re just that annoying couple.”
It works, the guard slows, rolling his eyes and muttering something under his breath, clearly unwilling to wade into a romantic moment in the middle of the dance floor.
The second he turns away, Jimmy’s hand finds yours again. “C’mon,” he says, grinning as you both slip out the side door, the night air hitting you like a cool splash of water.
Once you’re safely around the corner, you stop, catching your breath.
“That was… reckless,” you say, though you can’t help the small laugh that escapes.
“Recklessly brilliant,” Jimmy corrects, pushing his hair back and flashing you that boyish grin. “Besides, you have to admit, that was kind of fun.”
You shake your head, but your smile gives you away. “You’re impossible.”
“Impossible to catch,” he says, winking.
The walk back to the hotel isn’t long, but the cool night air feels like a relief after the press of the gala. The adrenaline that had you buzzing moments ago is ebbing now, replaced with a comfortable, shared silence.
Somewhere between the side door of the venue and the corner by the hotel, Jimmy had managed to coax your heels off you. You hadn’t even realized how much your feet hurt until you were padding along the sidewalk in your stockings, his polished shoes clicking steadily beside you.
He’s carrying the shoes in one hand, your clutch tucked under his arm, and you’re wrapped in the warmth of his tux jacket. The sleeves are too long, the shoulders broad, and the faint scent of his cologne, warm, clean, with a trace of something sharp, clings to the fabric.
By the time you step into the hotel lobby, you’re both smiling in that tired, unguarded way that comes after a shared adventure. The elevator doors slide open with a chime, and you step inside together.
The doors close, soft music humming through the speakers. For the first time all night, there’s no crowd, no cover story, no need to keep up the act.
Jimmy glances down at you, the corner of his mouth lifting just a little. “You okay?”
You nod, adjusting the jacket around you. “Better than okay. Just… tired. And my feet may never forgive me.”
He chuckles, glancing at the shoes in his hand. “Guess I earned some points carrying these, huh?”
You give him a sidelong look. “You did alright, Olsen.”
For a moment, the only sound is the quiet hum of the elevator. He shifts his weight, leaning one shoulder against the wall, still holding your shoes like they’re the most natural accessory in the world.
“I like this,” he says quietly.
You blink. “Like what?”
“This,” he gestures between you, the jacket draped over your shoulders, the shared quiet, the soft hum of the ride up. “It’s… nice.”
The elevator doors glide open, and you both step into the hallway. Jimmy still has your heels in one hand, the other stuffed into his trouser pocket, his steps slow to match yours. Neither of you speak as you make your way to the suite, the soft carpet muffling your movements.
He unlocks the door and steps aside to let you in first. Inside, the suite feels warmer than you remember, maybe it’s the faint buzz of champagne still in your veins, or maybe it’s just the quiet, the way the city noise fades behind the thick glass windows.
Jimmy sets your shoes gently by the dresser, shrugs off what’s left of his tux jacket from his own shoulders, and drops it on the back of a chair. You’re still wrapped in the one he’d given you, and you don’t feel like taking it off just yet.
You glance toward the bathroom, but the thought of moving all your things in there feels exhausting. You’re tipsy enough that the idea of making it halfway across the room in your current state seems like a chore.
“Just… turn around,” you say, your voice light but not joking. “I’m going to change out here.”
Jimmy blinks once, then nods immediately. “Yeah. Of course.” He pivots to face the window, hands sliding into his pockets, posture deliberately still. You can tell, just from the way his shoulders are set, that he’s taking this seriously.
You reach up, tugging at the zipper of your dress, but your fingers fumble uselessly. “Ugh. Jimmy?”
He turns his head just enough to glance at you over his shoulder. “Need help?”
You nod, and he crosses the room without hesitation, his expression soft and focused. He takes hold of the zipper, careful not to touch more than he has to, guiding it slowly down until the fabric loosens around your shoulders. His knuckles brush your skin once, lightly, and you feel his breath catch, but he says nothing.
“Got it,” he murmurs, stepping back.
You watch as he turns away again without you having to ask, eyes firmly on the city skyline outside. It’s the kind of small, wordless trust that makes your chest feel unexpectedly tight.
“Thanks,” you say quietly.
“Anytime,” he replies, his voice just as soft.
You pull the dress off, trading it for the soft comfort of an oversized T-shirt and a pair of loose shorts. The moment the cotton hits your skin, you feel lighter, no tight zippers, no pinching heels, no layers of gala formality weighing you down.
“All clear,” you call.
Jimmy turns around, eyes flicking over you once before he gives a little grin. “Wow. From movie star to… extremely cozy in under a minute.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Are you saying this is a downgrade?”
He lifts his hands in mock defense. “Nope. Just saying you pull off both.” His smile turns lopsided. “But I think this version of you is the real one.”
You roll your eyes, but there’s something about the way he says it, gentle, unguarded, that keeps your lips from pressing into a full smirk. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And yet, somehow, you keep me around,” he says, kicking off his shoes. He’s already loosened his bowtie and shrugged out of his vest, leaving him in just his crisp white shirt and slacks.
You sit on the edge of the bed, stretching your legs out with a groan of relief. “I can’t feel my feet.”
“Probably because I carried your heels like a hero,” Jimmy teases, walking over to plop himself on the other side of the bed without asking. He bounces a little as he lands, the mattress shifting under both of you.
“You really are like a golden retriever,” you say, leaning back on your hands.
He grins. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Somehow, and you’re not entirely sure when it happens, you both end up stretched out on top of the duvet, lying side by side. The city glows through the window, painting the room in soft amber light.
The conversation meanders easily, from the absurdity of the party to ridiculous hypotheticals about what your cover identities would do on a Sunday morning, to laughing over the time Jimmy got locked in a supply closet with Clark for three hours.
At one point, you’re both laughing so hard you have to catch your breath, and when the laughter fades, there’s a quiet that feels… different. Not awkward, not tense, just full.
Jimmy’s lying on his side now, propped up on one elbow, his gaze tracing your face like he’s memorizing it. “This is nice,” he says softly.
You swallow, your heart thudding a little harder than you’d like. “Yeah. It is.”
And neither of you move to change that.
The room feels suspended in amber, warm light from the city seeping in through the curtains, the faint hum of traffic far below, the both of you stretched out on top of the duvet like you could stay here forever.
Jimmy’s lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, and there’s something in his expression you don’t see often, not his usual easy grin or playful spark. This is quieter. More careful.
He takes a slow breath, his fingers drumming lightly on the duvet before going still. “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while.”
Your brows lift. “Tell me what?”
He smiles a little, almost shy, but there’s determination in it. “That I like you. A lot. More than I probably should for someone I work with.”
You open your mouth, but he keeps going, words tumbling out like he’s afraid if he stops, he won’t start again.
“I don’t even remember when I realized it. One day you were just… you — smart and stubborn and impossible to keep up with, and then suddenly, I couldn’t imagine the newsroom without you. I mean, I’ve always thought you were pretty. That was the easy part to notice.” His grin tilts, fond and a little embarrassed. “But then I started noticing all the other stuff. How you don’t let anyone push you around. How you’re… scary in a good way, but you still remember how people take their coffee. How you’re always ten steps ahead but never rub it in.”
He glances down at his free hand, flexing it against the sheets like he’s grounding himself. “People at work joke that I’m your puppy dog. And they’re right. I follow you around because… well, because I like being around you. And I thought maybe I was hiding it okay, but… I don’t think I was.”
His eyes lift to yours again, earnest and warm. “I’ve almost told you a dozen times. Like when we were working late last month and you fell asleep at your desk, and I covered you with my jacket. Or when you chewed out that city official and I thought, ‘Yep, that’s the woman I’d get in trouble for.’ Or the time you were on the phone with Perry, pacing in those ridiculous socks with the cartoon cats, and I realized I was just… grinning at you for no reason.”
His voice softens, steady but full of something raw. “I don’t know how you didn’t know. I thought it was obvious. Every coffee I brought you. Every stupid errand I volunteered for if it meant sitting at your desk for five minutes. Every time I made you laugh and pretended it wasn’t the best part of my day.”
Jimmy lets out a slow breath, his gaze still locked on yours. “I don’t expect anything from saying it. I just… couldn’t keep it in anymore. Not after tonight. Not after… this.” He gestures vaguely to the two of you, the bed, the shared jacket, the quiet.
For a moment, it’s just you and him and the soft thrum of your heart in your ears.
For a second, you can’t quite find your voice. His words hang in the air between you, warm and steady, and you feel them like the echo of a heartbeat in your chest.
You push yourself up onto one elbow so you’re facing him fully. “Jimmy…”
He’s watching you carefully, like he’s trying to read every flicker of your expression, bracing himself for whatever’s coming.
“You’re an idiot,” you say softly.
His eyes widen just a little, but before he can protest, you go on. “You’re an idiot for thinking you had to keep that to yourself. For thinking I wouldn’t notice.”
His brow furrows, confusion flickering there. “Wait, so you did know?”
You shake your head. “Not exactly. I mean… I noticed the coffee. And the errands. And the way you always somehow ended up next to me in meetings. But I told myself you were just… being Jimmy.” You pause, your voice dropping. “I didn’t want to hope for something if it wasn’t real.”
A small, incredulous smile tugs at his lips. “It’s real.”
You nod once, and for a long moment, you just look at each other. It’s not tense, not awkward, it’s charged with something warm and unspoken, something that’s been quietly growing for months.
You reach over and rest your hand over his where it’s splayed on the duvet. His fingers curl around yours almost instinctively.
“I like you too, Olsen,” you admit, and the weight that lifts from your chest feels almost dizzying. “Always have. I just didn’t know how to… say it.”
His grin is small but impossibly genuine, and it lights up his whole face. “Guess we’re both idiots, then.”
“Guess so,” you echo.
For a while, neither of you move, your hands still linked, the quiet wrapping around you like a blanket. And then, almost shyly, Jimmy shifts a little closer, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him even through the layers of clothes.
The air between you feels different now, softer, heavier, like every word has pulled you closer without either of you realizing. Jimmy’s eyes drop briefly to your mouth, then back up to meet your gaze, as if asking a question without speaking.
You don’t answer out loud. You just give the smallest nod.
He leans in slowly, giving you every chance to stop him, his hand loosening from yours only so it can skim up to rest against your cheek. His palm is warm, a little rough from years of handling cameras, his thumb brushing gently along your skin.
When his lips meet yours, it’s not hurried or demanding. It’s careful, a soft, tentative press, as if he’s still making sure this is real. You feel him exhale against you, the tension in his shoulders melting the longer the kiss lingers.
You lean into it, tilting your head slightly to deepen the connection just enough, the warmth of him seeping into you. It’s not the kind of kiss that burns, it’s the kind that anchors, the kind that says all the things you’ve both been carrying for too long.
When you finally pull back, you’re both smiling, small, a little breathless, but steady.
Jimmy keeps his hand on your cheek for a moment longer. “Been wanting to do that for… way too long,” he admits, voice low and a little shaky in the quiet.
You smile back, just as softly. “So have I.”
And this time, when the silence settles in again, it’s comfortable in a way you’ve never felt before.
Neither of you moves for a while, still caught in the softness that lingers between you. Jimmy’s thumb traces a slow line along your cheekbone before his hand drops, only so he can close the small space between you completely.
You shift so you’re lying on your side, and without hesitation, he mirrors you. His arm slides easily around your waist, pulling you in until your forehead rests against his chest. You can feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, faster than normal, but evening out the longer you stay there.
The duvet is still beneath you both, but his warmth is enough. He tucks his chin slightly, his breath ruffling your hair. “This okay?” he murmurs.
You nod, the motion brushing your temple against him. “Yeah. More than okay.”
One of his hands stays at your waist, the other resting lightly against your back like he’s afraid if he lets go, you’ll disappear. You don’t bother closing your eyes right away, you’re too aware of the quiet rise and fall of his breathing, the way his hold on you tightens whenever you shift.
Minutes stretch into something softer, heavier. Your thoughts blur, the champagne and the long day settling in your limbs. Eventually, your eyes drift shut, and the last thing you’re aware of is the faint press of Jimmy’s lips against your hairline, a barely-there kiss meant more for him than for you.
When sleep finally takes you, you’re still tangled together, neither of you letting go.
The newsroom is buzzing as usual, phones ringing, keyboards clacking, voices trading deadlines over the noise, but for once, you take your time walking in. The smell of fresh coffee greets you, mingling with the familiar scent of newsprint and ink.
When you reach your desk, you stop short.
There, front and center, is the latest edition of The Daily Planet. The headline sprawls across the top in bold letters:
“LEXTECH FOUNDATION EXPOSED: MILLIONS FUNNELED OFFSHORE”
Beneath it is your byline. Your story.
A grin spreads across your face before you even realize it. Every long night, every lead chased, every tense moment at that gala, it’s all there, printed in black and white for the city to see.
But that’s not all.
Sitting neatly beside the paper is a coffee cup, your coffee cup. The exact order you always get, just how you like it. No note, no explanation. Just there, waiting.
You pick it up automatically, warmth spreading through your fingers, and glance across the room.
Jimmy’s at his desk, pretending to be absorbed in whatever’s on his computer screen. But what really catches your eye is the corkboard behind him.
Pinned among press passes, ticket stubs, and random clippings is the photo: the candid he took of you at the gala. You hadn’t even realized he’d kept it. In the picture, you’re mid-laugh, champagne glass in hand, the lights behind you turning the whole scene golden.
Your grin softens into something quieter, something just for him.
When Jimmy finally looks up, you’re already watching him. He gives you that same boyish smile, the one you’ve been seeing differently ever since that night. And it’s all you need.
You lift your coffee in a silent toast. He winks in return.
And in that quiet, wordless exchange, something between you has shifted, and there’s no going back.
Imagine Dennis Whitaker gushing over his new girlfriend on the walk into work only to be stopped in his tracks when Santos asks if you two are exclusive yet.
He's used to small town dating, and is so ridiculously smitten with you, he didn't even consider that you might be seeing other people too. Suddenly it makes sense how he landed someone SO out of his league - yeah he's fine to be one of the guys you delight with your company sometimes, but he's not going to be the only guy you date.
After twelve hours of spiraling and asking everyone who'll listen whether they think you're seeing other people (Dana says no, Langdon says yes, and Robby just tells him to get a grip) he finally crashes through your front door the second you pull it open. He looks on the edge of tears and practically throws himself into your arms as you drag him to sit on the sofa beside you and wait for him to pull himself together enough to tell you about what you imagine must have been a very challenging shift, wondering if you'd missed some catastrophe on the news.
"I don't want to see other people! I didn't even think that was a thing until today! I just want you." Tears start as soon as the confession does, the poor, exhausted farm boy falling into your lap and looking up at you with big pleading eyes, wondering if he's making this whole situation worse with his dramatics. You're a little bit stunned as you comb his hair out of his face and try to work out what's brought this on. Unfortunately, Dennis takes your silence as just a continued chance to plead his case, thoughts spilling out quicker than his lips can keep up, "I wouldn't date you if I wasn't serious about you, and I barely even know anyone else in town, let alone half as great as you, and I know you're so much cooler than me but I think I'll be a really good husband someday and I'll always be kind to you and I just don't want you to think anything else..." He can't quite bring himself to ask if you are in fact dating anyone else as the soothing feeling of your fingers in his hair finally grounds him enough to give you a moment to reply, the warmth in your voice immediately reminding him exactly why you're all he ever wants in life,
"I don't want to date anyone else either Dennis, I feel the same as everything you just said. I think. I missed some of it, but it all sounded good to me." You can practically taste the sigh of relief on Dennis's lips as they crash against yours, hands desperately clinging to you as a promise that he's never letting go.
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summary: being a broke, exhausted, young adult wasn't ideal, but that's life. all it took were cheap walls, and a new york slice, for you to learn there was truly more to it. you were given a chance to revive the colors within your soul, and it felt like it was fate--nothing could stop you from going down this new path. well, maybe an avoidant, dumb boy could...right?
⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹
word count: 8.8k
warnings/content: fluff, hurt/comfort, somehow ventured into angst?, fem!reader, set right after the plot of No Way Home, friends to idiots to lovers, references to reader working in public health (self-indulgence *wink-wink*), got kinda introspective and reflective at the end, peter being avoidant, peter also needing a hug (and getting said hug), reader learning to put herself first, but they both learn to grow is to change :) (please bear with me if this bad)
a/n: guys, i started this in 2022 and totally forgot about this. i read a frank langdon fic (never seen the pitt though LOL) that got me off my butt, and inspired me to finish this. got off track several times within this, and it shows...BUTT it actually got beta-read!! (shout out rose!) also, peep the New Girl and Princess Diaries references
⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹
The worn-down steps you routinely followed every morning were usually joined with the infuriating pitter-patter of the leaky faucet, destined to become the death of you. Today was no different; Until it wasn’t.
The constant beating was suddenly disturbed by an eccentric commotion coming from the room next door, separated by a cheap, thin wall–situational abnormality growing due to its long-time abandoned status by its last inhabitant as a result of ‘slumlord’ exploitation. Whoever fell for the old man’s tactics must be desperate, you thought, brushing it off, but not enough to extinguish your growing curiosity. So, you continue getting ready for your internship, one that pays you just enough for it to be worth it.
The ruckus becomes amplified as you fight your way out the door, the janky doorknob refusing to cooperate. Just as you find yourself standing near the source of the recent clamor, a figure rushes past you, the only thing you catch being a cardboard box labeled ‘Star Wars’ in rushed, Sharpie lettering, and slams the door shut to their new residence.
You walk up to the door, raising your hand to knock on the door lightly, but you're cut short by the light reflecting off your wristwatch, catching your attention.
Remembering you’d rather not be chewed out by your manager again this week, you rushed down the creaking stairs and out the entryway, to be met with the morning rush. Taking a deep breath, you let yourself mellow back into your routine. Finding the identity of this mysterious person will have to wait until you come back.
…
Trudging back up the stairs in your scrubs, you glance at the door residing next to yours, and wonder if you have the energy to work up the confidence to finally feed the curiosity that's been bubbling inside all day.
But you come back to your senses when you remember the aching throb on the side of your abdomen and the hassle with the doorknob, the only obstacle between you and your bed.
Frankly, after the day you had and all the people who decided to make your job harder than it already is, all you needed was a quiet atmosphere to help wind you down. But as you hear the whir of a sewing machine from next door, you realize your fantasies of a relaxing evening have very low chances of becoming reality.
Finally getting the door to budge open, you feel the presence of a headache blooming. “This is going to be a long night,” you mutter, dragging your hands across your face.
The ambiance of the room shifts with the hazy, evening sun, soon filled with feelings of euphoria as you strip from your sweat-infused work clothing and tread into the shower. The steam manages to distract your bodily aches and mental exhaustion as your soul escapes from their grasp.
Even as you make an effort to scrub every resistant community member’s misdirected anger, it’s obvious that they aren’t going down without a fight, so you step out and throw on a less restrictive ensemble and collapse on your bed. With the creaking of your mattress springs trailing behind, you reach over to turn off your lamp light, allowing darkness to envelop the room with the hug of night.
Lying on your bed, twisting and turning, trying to get comfortable, couldn’t be any more difficult as you hear the continuing angry whir of a sewing machine passing through the paper-thin walls.
You groan as you realize your trusted home remedy of taking on the persona of a housecat was not fixing anything--absolutely nothing at all. It got to the point where you actually had to try to find a solution, and not ‘Wanda Maximoff’ it into existence.
Pushing yourself off your bed, not even caring about rehearsing the first meeting, you shuffle your way to the door. But for the third time today, the doorknob had a personal vendetta against you and decided to make life a little bit harder than it should be--that was your last straw.
You huff frustratingly and knock-no-bang on the door of the source of that belligerently annoying sound. You can tell the person on the other side has the same problem with the doorknob as they struggle to open the door. You realize the culprit revealed themself when you look up and are met with soft brown eyes, belonging to a guy around the same age as you--a cute one at that.
“Hey I know we haven't met but I’m your next door neighbor and I've had a very long day at work and I would really appreciate it if you could keep it down whatever..” you peer past his shoulder and see some kind of full bodysuit at his desk but he swerves to catch your eye before you're able to distinguish any details. “..craft project you have cooking up in there,” you hesitantly finish, becoming slightly confused.
You look back up at him, frustration filling your eyes as he stands there, seemingly frozen. Just as you’re about to turn around to head back in, he speaks up, apologizing profusely.
“I am so sorry. I honestly didn’t realize I was bothering anyone. I can totally stop if that would make it better?”
“No, you’re fine,” you countered, not wanting to cause any issues. “Just-” you started, “- could you keep it down a bit?”
“Y-yeah, of course. At least you told me about it and not the elderly guy a few doors down,” he offers as a way to ease the agitation filling the surrounding atmosphere.
It didn’t work very well. You half-heartedly chuckle when you realize the conversation was over just as soon as it started.
“Um-” you click your tongue lightly, “I’m gonna head back, so I guess goodbye?” trying to sound neighborly, only for it to come out in a pissy, tired tone that only shows up when your body can’t fight exhaustion any longer.
“Oh, oh yeah, it was nice meeting you and I-I’ll make sure to keep it down over here!”
A ghost of a smile paints itself on your face in response as you slide back into your studio. Slipping back into bed, you fall asleep much more easily due to the sudden change from the hums and bustle from next door to complete and utter silence.
…
..Beep Beep
You woke up to the sound of your ringing alarm- the only sound you woke up to that morning.
“I guess he really did keep to his promise,” you muttered, still fighting the morning grogginess.
Relishing the only breath of freedom that your job has to offer, you make a plan to spend your Sunday catching up on miscellaneous work and getting ahead of due dates.
Even as you build time in your week for this kind of stuff, making sure to work around your clocked-in hours, becoming on-track to earn your bachelor's earlier than you thought was soon discovered to be something you shouldn’t have signed up for so blindly.
Yet as you make your way to get dressed for the day, you can’t help but feel this nagging feeling in the back of your mind, like you’d done something minuscule, yet the memory will sit dormant in your head, only making itself known when it taunts you in the middle of the night. And as you make your way around the time-passing jobs you set for yourself, the once nagging feeling starts to propel itself to the forefront of your mind and becomes more prominent every minute. You fear for the worst–that you’d actually have to confront it.
Hearing the slam of a door outside your studio apartment made you realize the reason for your endless guilt. You didn’t think telling someone to keep it down would cause you to feel this bad, and yet, you can’t help but feel the need to apologize.
Normally, you're not the one telling others to keep it down, and he obviously didn’t mean to disturb anyone, but he was the nut using a sewing machine in the late hours of the night. And living between walls like these, you could hear everything: keeping it down, especially at night, would be common sense. Right?
No, no, you just needed to stop the back-and-forth debate about the guy whose name is still a mystery to you and just set things right so your mind wouldn’t be at war anymore.
But- I should apologize for my tone, or at least give a proper, neighborly welcome, you think. At least it was you who told him to keep it down, and not one of the residents who make a noise complaint when someone makes the faintest bit of noise at night.
You would know; being their target when you first moved in was not enjoyable.
Frustrated, you slip your shoes on to do your favorite thing to calm down–taking a walk through the real-life manifestation of the definition of overstimulation. Maybe it’ll help you decide on which route to pick with the next-door neighbor situation. Do you ignore it, let it pass, or attempt to make a bond with your newfound neighbor? Lord knows you need one. At least to grab the results of your night-time online shopping before it gets stolen.
It all came to an end when the smell of a savory concoction started swirling around you from around the corner, leading your feet right to the answer of your latest debacle.
“Pizza,” you muttered, “you can manipulate anyone into forgiving you with that,” you sputter to yourself as you start to make a fool-proof plan. Operation neighbor-truce was officially a go.
…
Trudging up the ancient stairwell, with the cheesy delight practically burning your hand off, you run through your scripted re-introduction while working your way over to his door. You knock on your neighbor’s door, sentences practiced to perfection.
Yet as he opens up the door, every bit of your plan flees, leaving your mind blank; only improv could save you now.
“Um,” you blank, struggling to break the tension as you retain eye contact with the man you confronted yesterday. He beats you to it, somehow making you feel even worse.
“Did I disturb you again? I am so sorry,” He starts anxiously sputtering, “I truly didn’t mean-” You cut him off, wanting to accidentally Pavlov him into apologizing every time you see his face.
“No!” you interrupt (a tinge too loud), cringing at your hypocrisy, “I hated the way we started yesterday, and I totally get it if you couldn't care less,” pausing your rambling to catch your breath, “But I really want to restart.”
You take a deep breath to regain your composure. “Hi, I’m your next-door neighbor, Y/N, and I wanted to welcome you to this state-of-the-art building," gesturing to the greasy box. Your free hand juts out as you leisurely introduce yourself.
“Also, as a sorry for your first impression of me being my wonderful self post-work shift,” you quickly add on.
He stares at you for a second before taking your hand and introducing himself with a smile.
“Hi, I’m Parker-” he pauses and shakes his head, seemingly messing up, “um Peter Parker; not just Parker,” He awkwardly chuckles. “And I accept your welcoming-apology combo pizza. Please, come in,” he says, opening the door wider as he gladly gestures to you inside.
“I hope it’s pepperoni,” was heard muttering behind you as you shuffled around each other, entering Peter’s apartment, similar to yours.
…
“So you’re telling me that someone almost started a fire because they forgot about their turkey in the dryer?” Peter questions, not believing anything about your other neighbor next door.
“I swear!” you exclaim, “I know it sounds fake, but I spent days afterwards struggling to get rid of the burnt turkey smell that somehow permeated into my apartment walls!”
You and Peter fall into a comfortable silence, the buzz of New York’s nighttime traffic backing it up. Your legs splay comfortably in front of you as you lean your head against the metal bars of his fire escape. Lying down the half-eaten piece of pizza in the box, you ask the question that’s been dying to be answered-
“I know I came here to put yesterday in the past, but I have to ask, what in the world were you doing using a sewing machine quarter till midnight?”
Peter’s content expression falters for a split second, trying to come up with a believable lie.
“I um,” He stammers, closing his eyes for a second, trying to regain his composure, “I just had a hole in my um.. My work clothes. You know how it is, coming out of high school, trying to survive in New York City. The last thing I needed was to waste more money than I needed to.”
“Tell me about it.” You agree, succumbing to his lie, while he lets go of the breath he didn't know he was holding, shoulders slumping in relief. You reluctantly nod down at your watch, not realizing what time it is.
“Shoot,” you start panicking.
“Hey, what's wrong?” Peter asks, confused by the sudden change in emotion.
“I didn’t realize how late it was. I’ve got to go, I have work in the morning. I’m so sorry!” you hurriedly explain, scrambling to stand back up, bummed by the sudden ending of your hangout.
He senses your guilt and reassures you that you did nothing wrong. You both climb back into the small studio apartment.
But before you were able to head back into your place, he catches your attention, “hey, uh… sorry that I held you up so much,” as if he was expecting you to interrupt with a flurry of reassurance, he continues, “I know that we just met but I’m kinda going through something right now and didn’t know how much I needed that until you came over.”
You give him a sweet, tender smile. “I’m glad I could help, and if I’m being honest, I don’t think I realized I needed that, too. Maybe we could hang out again sometime?”
“Yeah, I’d really like that,” He responds, “And I’ll try my best not to give in to the addiction of my sewing machine.” He adds on, giving you a playful smirk.
“I might just have to come over again if you do.”
You both gaze at each other, seemingly locked in a trance, until a loud crash from the next floor up brings you both out of it. Giving him a sheepish smile, you pad back into the privacy of your identical studio apartment, not realizing your “operation neighbor-truce” kickstarted a tradition neither one of you was willing to break.
…
You’ve always had the habit of doing “spur of the moment” actions, and most of the time, you’ve come to regret them–not this time. The moment you realized your most recent “spur of the moment” didn’t come back to haunt you was when Peter came knocking on your door, exactly a week later, staring at something on the wall with a hot, fresh pizza taking residence in his grasp when you opened your door.
From him teaching you about the wonders of Star Wars to you showing him how addictive trashy reality shows were, you’ve never spent another Sunday bored or lonely. And with the collection of residents that live there, it was truly a wonder that you found each other, the only bright light in each other's lives at that point.
But then Peter started acting off; something obviously wasn’t right. The signs started showing up when you started seeing him sport bruises that weren't there the previous week.
And it became more and more obvious as time went on, no matter how hard he tried to cover it up. There would always be an injury he would fail to cover that you couldn’t help but glance at every so often; the injury that he would always have an excuse for, ready to blame a new inanimate object every week.
And it sure didn’t help when scrolling on social media, you would see Spider-Man stopping more and more crimes, even more violent than the last.
The thought couldn’t help but creep into your mind that-no, no. That’s impossible; there’s no way that Peter Parker, your next-door, awkward, nerdy genius, would be Spider-Man. Every time the conspiracy popped into your mind, a detail would extinguish the theory.
So, in the end, you just brushed off any new injury, bruise, or healing wound as a result of clumsiness and continued with your weekly traditions. You thought this Sunday would be the same, ignoring any new discoloration for both of your sakes.
…
It was your turn this week to provide the “Sunday dinner” and you couldn’t be happier, even though your boss asked you to come in on the only free day of the week. As retribution, she let you off earlier than expected, allowing you to grab the pizza earlier than you initially expected, opening up to you the possibility of more time together.
Walking home from the pizzeria, you skimmed the most recent article about Spider-Man’s latest debacle, not paying attention to your surroundings, when a wave of people came surging out of a random restaurant, almost knocking you to your feet. Just as you regain your balance, you realize your hand is several pounds lighter. You start to dread the fact that your box of pizza is currently missing, and you’d have to pay for another. Just as you are about to turn around, a sound recognizable to any given resident of New York City draws you out from your headspace. You look up to see not only your pizza webbed to the restaurant's awning but a red and blue figure swinging in the distance.
You take the sudden pause in everyone's life as they pull out their phones, grab the pizza from its sticky webbing, and weave through the frozen crowd. Coming into the vicinity of the run-down building, you slow down as you enter through the sturdy doors and start to climb up the ancient stairwell up to the all-too recognizable fourth floor.
As you reach the door, you take a quick peek into the pizza box to make sure nothing fell off during your little escapade. Seeing as nothing was wrong, you nod in satisfaction, proud that you were able to get from your work to the pizzeria, and finally back home in under an hour while your pizza went through a romp.
You knocked on the door once, twice, maybe three times, and yet you were met with silence.
“Huh,” you muttered, confused about why Peter didn't answer the door yet.
You had his schedule down to a T. He never had anything planned during this time; neither of you did. You double checked your phone, internally crossing off the idea that you forgot to tell him that you were getting dinner tonight early. You fished out the “emergency” key Peter had given you, internally damning your overcrowded keychain, and let yourself in.
“I’ll just surprise him when he gets home,” you softly spoke to yourself as you forced the finicky door open.
Re-locking the door, you were met with the rustle of the window across the apartment opening. You felt your heart fall to the pits of your stomach as you rushed behind the semi-wall, the only thing separating you from the intruder. Just as you hear the window closing, you peek your head out from the wall to get a description of the intruder, if you had to resort to fleeing the premises.
“Holy shit.”
…
Both you and the figure stared at each other. The only difference was that your mouth was gaping open in shock, and his face was overtaken with fear.
Looking back, you were your missing neighbor, drenched in sweat, and dressed in Spider-Man’s suit with his mask hanging from his hand. You push the pizzas onto the nearby counter and start the seemingly long trek to Peter with your face still glued together in shock, mouth sputtering open and closed like a fish out of water.
Peter’s face morphed from fear to cowering in on itself, trying to protect the last bit of warmth from your friendship before it would inevitably end-
“How are you not dead yet?”
He looks back up to meet your eyes, filled with worry instead of disgust.
“I mean seriously,” you start, huffing incredulously, “With all that I’ve read, how have you not gotten yourself killed from what you put yourself through?”
Peter's tensed-up shoulders started to melt with relief as his true identity was met with a genuine worry and comfort for his well-being, and not fear and horror for what he was accused of.
“You aren’t scared of me? Like not even a smidge of worry that I might..” He trails off.
“What…like you might kill me? Of course not!” You answer with humor woven through the worry and relief of your tone.
Your smile starts to fade when you realize Peter’s expression hasn’t wavered.
“Peter,” you grab his attention, “You aren’t actually worried you might hurt me…right?”
Right as you finish your sentence, Peter’s face starts to contort to prevent any tears from spilling over, and his breathing turns erratic as he melts to the ground. You rush over to catch him before he can hit the floor, and you lower both of your bodies till you are both secure on the ground.
“Hey,” you grab his face, making his eyes connect with yours, “It’s ok, you’re ok. I’m here, I’ll always be here”, You inhale and exhale, “There's nothing you could do to get rid of me. I’ll be here, even when we’re angry, or sad, or even when you just don’t want me to; I’ll always just be one thin wall over”.
Releasing the dam that held the wave of tears, Peter breaks down in your arms as you hold him close to your heart with his head tucked under your chin.
“It’s ok, just let it all out,” you say as you steadily rub small circles on his back. You stop rocking when the tears fail to continue. Hearing a sniffle, you look down and meet his bloodshot eyes.
“Hey, I’m sorry for all of this,” Peter starts, “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and now I’ve made a mess on your sweater”.
You follow his line of sight to where his eyes meet your chest. “Peter, it’s just a sweater, and I can throw it in the wash”.
Grabbing his attention, you scratch the crown of his head, making his eyes shoot back up to meet yours. “There’s absolutely nothing to be sorry for; it’s not healthy keeping this all bottled in, and I don’t know how long you’ve kept it in, but it was bound to come out one way or another; it just happened to come out with me.”
Releasing him from your hold, you start to stand up.
“You know what’ll make you feel better? Some lukewarm pizza and trashy reality TV.”
…
It’s been two and a half weeks since Peter’s secret identity was accidentally revealed to you. But since then, your bond has just steadily strengthened to where you knew exactly what the other needed from one glance at their face.
It was a simple Wednesday evening; spent heating yesterday’s leftovers and swaying around the studio floor to the music blasting in your headphones-
BANG
You jump up, causing your headphones to clash on your counter, pushing a drying pan to clatter on the ground. You swing around to try and locate the noise when you see a red and blue figure standing on your fire escape, pointing to the lock on your window.
Walking over to unlock the latch on your window, you let Peter in, and instead of going straight to the couch, he falls into your arms with a grunt. You watch as he struggles latching onto his mask to take it off while you readjust your grip under his arms. When he finally gets a good grasp and pulls it off, you take a sharp breath, scanning his face and taking in the numerous bruises, cuts, and abrasions.
“Jesus, Peter, what the hell happened to you?” you mutter, holding his chin to take in the damage, causing him to hiss. “Sorry Pete”, you exclaim, dropping his chin to regain your grip on his arm.
“Let’s get you to the bathroom, yeah?”
You drag him to the small room at the end of the hallway and lift him onto the toilet seat, causing Peter to groan.
“I know, I know. I think I have a small first aid kit somewhere, but if not, I’m just going to grab some stuff to clean you up, okay?” You pat his cheek as you stand up to locate the kit; lord knows you won’t even attempt to fight him to see someone qualified. You start to dig through the junk drawer and pull out the small first aid kit you got the day you moved in. You reach over to grab the hydrogen peroxide and a bottle of water. Rushing back to the bathroom, you tap Peter’s head repeatedly to make sure he didn’t die, and start cleaning up the blood. Peter squints his eyes open, adjusting to the brightness of the bathroom.
“Hey, pretty boy, let’s keep those eyes open, yeah?”
Peter lazily watches you struggle to clean him up, at some point hissing in reaction to you pushing too hard on one of his cuts.
“Sorry!” you wince, dropping his face to wring out the bloodied rag, “It would be really helpful if you could direct me around this. I thought I told you this, just because I intern in health, does not mean the scrubs aren’t performative. You need actual medical attention beyond this bathroom.”
He mumbles something, too quiet to make out, while you run the rag under water.
“What was that, sweets? You gotta speak up for me. I know it's hard, but we gotta make sure you stay awake, ‘kay?”
“M’kay,” Peter drawled out, spidey-senses catching the tremor in your hand and voice, “You don’t gotta do this for me.”
“And let Spiderman bleed out in my bathroom? I’m good,” you sarcastically replied, “And besides, I could never let you deal with something while you're hurting, that's what friends are for.”
While you turn away to grab the hydrogen peroxide from the counter, Peter lifts his head, eyes dimming, as they meet your back.
“Yeah.. friends” he whispered.
You turn back around with the rest of the needed supplies and finish fixing Peter up, with hisses and following soothing apologies.
“There, all fixed. I have to say, this is probably my best work,” you joke as you use two fingers to softly move his head around to inspect while his eyes are glued on your face and eyes. “You hungry? I think I have some leftovers?”
“No, I think I just need to sleep. If I can crash on your couch?”
“Yeah, no, you’re sleeping in an actual bed; I am definitely not letting you out of my sight tonight, nor am I letting you sleep on that dingy couch in this state.”
Peter puts his weight on the counter as he pulls himself up from the toilet and trudges behind you back into the main area, too tired to fight back. He lets you lead him to your room as you fight with his suit to peel it off. Running around to your dresser, you pull out a worn t-shirt and a pair of sweats he left over a while ago. It takes a couple of minutes, but Peter and you manage to get the clothes on, fighting with his half-conscious state.
He doesn't even have the energy to question the sleeping arrangement before he falls onto the bed, a blanket quickly following. His eyes become heavy with every second, as he feels a dip on the other side of the bed. Right before he fully let himself rest, he felt a slight pressure on his forehead, like a fluttering kiss.
“Goodnight, sweet boy,” you whisper, “You’ll be okay, I won't let anything happen to you, I promise.”
…
Peter wakes up the following morning to rays from the sun penetrating through the sheer curtains you refused to get rid of. You, however, were nowhere to be seen. So, he does the most reasonable thing–follow the smell of food cooking.
“Hey Pete, I got some breakfast cooking up, you’ve got to be hungry by now.”
He grunts in response as he treks over to the small kitchen area. You push a plate full of breakfast foods into his chest as he comes into your presence. As you join him at the small table, silence quickly fills the room, only forks scraping across the ceramic plates daring to break it. You drop your fork and quickly rub your face.
“Peter,” you start, “you can’t just..”
“ I can't do what?” he challenges.
“You can’t go around, putting yourself in harm's way, like you have nobody caring for you or worrying about your well-being.”
“That's because I don't.” Peter stares you directly in the eye
You falter, “What do you mean ‘you don’t’?”.
“I mean ever since I 'killed' Mysterio, I have lost people left and right, and now, because of a single decision, I lost everyone; I have no-fucking-one, that's what I mean.”
Silence quickly and suffocatingly fills the room again. As Peter stares down at his plate, jaw clenched, you whisper, “You have me.”
Peter lifts his head to meet your dimmed eyes.
“You have me, Peter, and I don’t think you realize that. You don’t know how scared I get every time I see your alias in a headline or how sick I become with worry every time you have a new injury. Seeing you last night in that state scared me so badly.”
You stop and take a breath before you continue: “You're not invincible, no matter how many times you put that mask on. Like it or not, people do give a shit about you, one of them being me. So this is your choice, you can either start to confront your past and put your wellbeing first, or you can keep on ignoring the hurt inside of you.”
Peter continues to stare at you, with tears starting to dim his vision.
“It’s a decision that you need to make by yourself. Now I’m gonna go for a walk, I want you to call me when you make up your mind.”
You start to get up, not breaking eye contact until you turn to grab your shoes and keys. As you go to turn the doorknob, it starts to act up. You turn around, using your back to push open the door, catching Peter’s eyes again, the last thing you see being the tear falling down his face before the door burst open and you slipped out, leaving Peter alone to defeat the war waging in his brain.
…
Peter watched as the food on his plate lost its warmth, growing cold as the love and security he had watched walk out through the door, forcing him to come face-to-face with what he had become so accustomed to before he had met you.
Trying to bounce back–all alone, after losing friends, family, and mentors–was hard. He knew it would take a toll on him, but he didn’t know just how much it would hurt. He threw himself back into the world that he found comfort in–the world he’s able to hide behind a mask in, and paradoxically hold a sense of control.
And yet, he never realized how much he missed having someone in his “regular” life. He didn’t know which gods answered his wishes, or what finally fell into place, but deciding to fix up his suit, a layer that took everything away, would change his life for the better and give him back something he thought he had lost forever.
You pounding on his door late at night threw him back into the life he had to let go of. He knew someone would get hurt if he continued trying to separate his two sides, but they started to muddle together.
He became greedy–sloppy in following the rules he initially set for himself, in return for the comfort of it all, for the pounding in his chest, the ringing in his head. You’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly: the world slamming its weight onto his shoulders, being labeled as a murderer, and giving everyone reason to run, and yet, you stayed. He knew he was taking the warnings for granted.
Now? He’s coming back to the fact that he’ll lose what he cherishes yet again.
Peter has two choices: move past his past and continue as he was, or learn to face his history and overcome it with someone by his side. He eyed his cellphone, lying on the counter, tossed onto the surface after being dragged in from the previous night.
He’s one call away, either from being shoved back to the dark prison of his mind or learning to heal, even if it hurts.
His chair scratched against the floor as he moved to make his decision. Grabbing the phone, his fingers shook as he started to type in the number he had memorized time and time again, seared into his brain as the one person he could always go to after having nothing and no one. The phone rang, breaking the suffocating silence.
“Hey-”
You abruptly interrupt him with a frantic tone, making his heart plummet.
“Peter, baby-thank god-there’s some fucker down here by that one pretentious record shop you dragged me to last month, in some huge metal suit-oh shit- you just need to get here no-,” the call hangs up on your distraught tone, but not before Peter booked it to your bathroom to grab his still blood-stained mask.
…
“-Get here now! I know your super-self is a hot topic, but I need you,” you yell into a phone that disconnected you from a holy grail.
You hold your hand to your forehead, stuck in the middle of the same situation you argued with Peter about. Turning around in a state of hyperventilation, you see an alleyway tucked between two miscellaneous buildings ahead, and book it.
Twenty feet away, you feel the ground vibrate with the steps of what looks like an oversized metal rhino headed straight toward-
“OH MY GOD,” you begin to screech as you lift into the air, only stopping when your vision begins to focus, a familiar scheme of colors enveloping your body.
You shift to grasp onto Peter’s abdomen and shoulder, digging your head into his neck so as not to watch him swing across buildings hundreds of feet in the air, until you feel your feet slowly descend onto solid ground. Opening your eyes to meet the white covering his own, you shudder out whatever air you held in your throat.
Peter takes hold of your shoulder, checking your state, ensuring your safety before his own.
“Are...are you ok? He didn’t hurt you or anything?” his head frantically moving like you were the only one capable of keeping it on straight, ensuring your safety before his, “I need to go deal with him, but you? You stay put right here until I come back, alright?”
You nod your head, eyes shellshocked, and eyebrows furrowed in a state of frenzy as he places his gloved hands on your cheeks to slightly pull down your head, placing a chaste, fabric-covered kiss on your forehead, “Good girl.”
You snap your head up as he swings off, back towards the scene of the crime. You take a second to look around at your surrounding environment, at the moment, of a roof, with a feeling of heat invading your cheeks, and crawling up your ears.
“There's nowhere I can go,” you mutter, allowing your feet to lead you to the ledge to attempt to keep an eye on him, only able to see flashes of glinting nickel, red, and blue in the distance. So, you lower yourself until you feel the gravel underneath your still-shaking body and take several deep breaths as you wait for him to come back to you.
…
The overcast clouds ahead swirl, mirroring your body pulling itself in and out of a daze. Feeling a hand on your shoulder, you pull yourself back to earth, yelping at the contact.
“Woah, woah, it’s just me,” he pulls off the mask, “it’s just your Peter,” not wanting to frighten you further.
You clamber back onto your feet and throw your weight onto him, shoving your face into his chest as he reciprocates fully, “I know you’ve dealt with much worse, but it’s so much worse than I thought it would be in person.”
“I know, that’s why I’m scared.”
You snap up your head, but not before he lets go, instead moving an arm to hug your shoulders as he leads you to the edge, giving you a signal telling you to hold on, and leaps off the rooftop. Sweat, a tinge of iron, and the musk that you could only associate with the feeling that being with Peter brings–the only things grounding you as you fly through the wind of city smog and the smoke of defeat.
This time, however, your eyes stay open, prancing around as you spot your apartment fire escape up ahead. As he lands both of you safely, you take this chance to confront the man. You know him too well to know he won’t take this excuse for avoidance for granted.
“Peter, wait-” you clasp onto his wrist as he tries to leave “-we can’t just not talk about this, please don’t shut me out, not now,” you plead with him as you feel him slipping away, both physically and emotionally.
You search his face for any sort of reaction, yet it remains blank, his tell-tale sign of shielding you out. You reach out and find nothing, you feel nothing, even as he still stands there with a guarded look you’ve waged an ongoing war against for months.
But this time it’s different; you pull back and wave your white flag, letting go of his wrist, dragging your arms to closely guard what you’ve given to him so openly. You let your face fall so openly, watching as his eyes widen slightly, the only reaction you’ve been able to coax out of him.
“I can’t do this, Peter. I love you, but how can I trust that you reciprocate it if you can’t give yourself the grace to fill your soul with your love?”
Silence, but not without eyes pleading you to take back your surrender. But you refuse to fall so easily as you force yourself to squeeze both your body and bruised heart through the unlocked window.
…
It’s been several weeks of radio silence- no Sunday pizza, no friendly banter, nothing. And granted, the last time you saw him, you gave him a taste of his own medicine, but your body was still adjusting to the lightness that comes with a bare heart. You’re beginning to tell how much it’s actually impacting you; you’re barely holding onto your scholarships at this point, while also struggling with your community health internship (it’s become obvious how you were able to snag it with so little academic experience).
But you refuse to be the one to reach out–Peter’s a grown adult too, with the free will to at least say something, and yet, crickets.
Maybe if you hadn’t forced the ultimatum on him, if you hadn’t gone for the walk, he would still be in your life, still making outdated pop-culture references, still nudging your knee in the late evenings, still invading your heart and mind at all times, still-
No, you force yourself out of your spiral, I told him, it was his decision whether or not to let me in, it’s not fair to play this one-sided game of cat and mouse. It doesn’t matter if the world is ending, again, he needs to make his choice… your manic pondering halted as you come up with the conclusion that he made his choice.
Yeah, he made it the second he refused to engage, even after you played his damsel-in-distress. Maybe it’s delusional thinking, but you don’t have time to dabble into healthy coping mechanisms-you’re already late at this point- as you slam your door, leaving your spiral to brew.
…
Peter jumps at the unmistakable sound of your door; each time you leave, becoming more aggressive as he continues to avoid and push away his problems. He doesn’t know why he’s actively avoiding you; who is he kidding? He knows exactly why. Phone in hand, he stares at it, begging for Strange to take him back in time.
He was ready–he had his decision ready–but too much time had passed. If he had just called after you, begged you to stay, he wouldn’t have psyched himself out–he wouldn’t have single-handedly proved to you why you’re right. You always are; you’ve weasled past his built-up walls and watched in the dark, studying his every tell and give, until you knew how to break him down.
But he knows you could never; instead, you’ve dedicated your craft to supporting his weight, but he refuses to accept it.
Days pass, and nights are spent lying awake. He can’t figure you out, or he can–his mind won’t let him figure out why he’s so hesitant to let you back in after kicking you to the curb. His heart, on the other hand, knows exactly why.
As much as he lets his mind think that it’s safer to continue on this track and continue to shut you out, he knows he can never truly do that to himself, to do that to you.
So, he continues to let his mind wander until he can figure out how to muster up the courage to face you, to face the truth and the reality of the situation at hand.
Soon enough, it becomes too much but not enough to claim defeat, so Peter does the next best thing: surround himself with you in theory. His days blend–wake up, go for a walk, trashy reality TV, patrol, rom-coms, and repeat.
Sometimes, he catches himself hoping you hear, hoping that the walls convey his pining and need for your presence, and yet you don’t respond.
…
It was a particularly grueling evening of patrol, one of those days that he knows will leave an annoying ache in his back for him to deal with in the morning. Peeling off his suit, he goes through the usual steps of the rest of the night, finally dipping into the couch and grabbing the remote near the movie rack.
He doesn’t know how it happened, but he subconsciously gravitates towards the DVD you left behind on a random Sunday. He doesn’t know why he still has it, but he doesn’t complain. It was one of your favorites, one you would always turn on after a difficult couple of days, several of those watches being with him. The Princess Diaries: It wasn’t one he fully paid attention to, but he still recognized the plot and bantered with you as the characters make stupid decisions, and continue to prance around the truth. So, he plops it in the player. He realizes why you like it so much.
Maybe it’s the distance between you that makes him crave the memories. Maybe he finally decided to listen. But nearing the end, Peter comes thrashing around for the remote, pausing on a certain scene, one that feels all too familiar to him.
As he watches Michael be delivered a M&M-covered pizza, his head flares with a radiating flash of heat, chest pounding, as he finds his answer. It was in front of him all along, you. His worldview comes crashing down as pieces click together faster than he can control them.
He didn’t need some multiversal answer; he just needed you, he always does.
…
It felt like you didn't even know what day of the week it was, your body reverting to the monotonous routine of going through the motions. You trudge through the apartment building, one foot in front of the other, until you stop.
Your brain malfunctions as you look up in confusion. You see his door, and your heart does a small flip, until you push it down, and push through until you reach your door and practically slam your way into your home.
Peeling off your scrubs, you push through your state of exhaustion and continue going through the motions until you end up in your worn college freshman t-shirt and a pair of lounge shorts.
You practically sink into your couch, comforted by a lack of silence that hugs your mind, still stuck in a state of overstimulation. And you just relish in it.
It isn’t until a series of knocks, a sound you knew exactly who it belonged to, disturbed your state of solitude. Against your better judgment, your heart leads the way as you pad to the doorway. You open it, just enough to see him standing there with the facial expression morphing from hopeful to a kicked puppy when he catches your reaction. And there he stands, holding a pizza.
“It’s not Sunday.”
“It’s been a lot of Sundays, just making up for lost time,” he gives you that grin that almost makes you want to swing the door all the way open.
You eye him, “What do you want?”
He drops his expression, licking his lips like he has the gall to prepare to talk to
Your eyes drop to the pizza box he opened up. It takes a second, but it hits you. Down, sitting on the top of the pizza, were a handful of M&M’s arranged in one word: sorry. Your eyes shoot up to meet his–sheepish and shifty, until they meet yours. Your mouth opens and closes, head shaking in disbelief, as you open up the door wider and step aside.
Peter takes the unspoken invitation to silently slide inside and walks over to place the pizza on your kitchen counter. You pad back inside, opting to sink back into your couch, once a source of comfort, now barely supporting you from going down. Peter opts to stand, walking around, something stemming from his nerves.
“The Princess Diaries, huh? I knew I wasn’t crazy when I heard ‘Stupid Cupid’ coming from your apartment,” you’re words cutting through the silence. Nothing followed.
You open your mouth, ready to offer up another retort, until you’re interrupted.
“No, I…I need to to get this out before I decide to turn around and walk right out that door,” he stares everywhere but you, “The past few weeks have been nothing but torture for me. I mean I resorted to watching ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ and…” gesturing towards the candy-covered pizza, “‘The Princess Diaries’ to fill the space because I missed you, and I needed you. I didn’t know how to reach back out and grab your hand, to interlock, because I was scared, I am scared. I know I don’t talk much about what happened in my life before this apartment and before meeting you. But I lost people, I lost everyone I loved, because of who I am. I mean, I was scared shitless when I called you, and the only thing I heard was you in danger. I…I,” he takes a shuddering breath, not realizing your eyes began to glass over.
“I couldn’t lose you, not when you’ve made such an imprint on my life–not when you taught me how to love again. And I know it doesn’t excuse my actions, and I know I don’t know how to truly make it up to you, but I am so sorry I hurt you when I thought I was helping you, that I was pushing you away when I thought I was protecting, saving you. I don’t know if you truly know just how much you, our Sundays, and everything in between mean to me. I don’t think I knew it at the time, but when you saw me in my suit for the first time, and your first comment was about being worried for me, I was gone–long gone. And I don’t care if this ruins everything, but I would do anything to be able to grow with you forever. If you even loved just half of how much I love you, I would be the luckiest-”
You cut him off, reaching to cup his cheeks, as your lips softly meet his. It’s sweet, tender. It catches Peter off guard, standing there in shock, until his heart kicks his brain into motion. His hands curl to rest on your neck and pull you in closer at the small of your back. Your ears buzz with frequency as his lips gently glide against yours.
It’s nothing like you thought it would be; instead of fireworks in your head and butterflies swarming in your stomach, the world silences itself for once. White noise of adoration and contentment fills up your ears, blocking out anything and everything as you can only focus on this.
You pull away, a giddy smile resting across your face as you search his eyes for more. And he follows up.
He captures your lips again, this time impatient, making up for lost time. Your hands slide up to tangle your fingers in his hair, butterflies starting to flit around in your stomach as you begin to grin into the smile, lips slotting against each other as you reach a rhythm.
Each caress against him injects life back into your palpitating heart. It isn’t until you let go, him chasing after the loss of warmth, that you chuckle. Peter lets his forehead fall against yours as he has a relieved smile that paints itself on his face, ears tinged red, cheeks flushed.
“Hi.”
“...hi,” he manages to breathe out.
“Took you long enough, a bit too long in my opinion.”
He gives you a breathy laugh as he captures your lips again, now instead placing familiar, chaste kisses, and picks you up as you both land on the couch.
You aren’t sure when you lingered over to the furniture, but you didn’t complain as both of your eyes searched each other, finding relief in the burning cheeks and dilated pupils.
You can’t help but shake your head, smiling, as you slide off his lap and tuck into his side. Taking a deep breath, you melt into him, head dropping onto his shoulder, as he turns to kiss you on the crown of your head while his arm snakes around to hold you close.
“You know, before all of this, I was ready to leave and move to some place halfway across the country–somewhere smaller, and a little less lonely. I spent days hoping for someone, something, to show me my silver lining in all of this; something to tell me I’m not crazy for sticking it out. And then someone decided to send you my way–you and your sewing machine,” you lean your head up as his eyes meet yours.
“I didn’t know it at the moment, but everything finally just fell into place, even when I thought it was just a myth.”
Peter gives a smile, one that can tell you everything–every crease and slope holding its own message. In that moment, it didn’t matter what was going on in the world, what role you had to fulfill, because you had each other, fully and wholeheartedly incandescent.
And so, the sun begins to set outside your window, its final rays spilling over the curve of Peter’s nose and onto your features.
With that, your current chapter in life is coming to an end, one filled with highs and lows. However, endings are never truly set in stone, but rather marked by a transition crafted with hope. Although the sun’s descent falls over your little apartment, it will soon rise again. And even as the moon marks its absence, the light will still shine upon your soul.
You can’t count on life to stay still; everything it creates is born to be ephemeral, so as long as the light shines, you must grow. But you never have to truly do it alone. Even as one of life’s true constants, the sun always changes–and so will you.
But don’t grow to be afraid of change, learn to let it weave into your story, for you’ll never truly know what good it will bring until you begin to open your head and your heart.
Summary: You loved solitude, so, naturally, you end up with one of the clingiest boyfriends to ever walk the Earth. You wouldn’t change him for the world.
Warnings: None, very fluffy, very domestic, he is so incredibly babygirl to me.
Navigation | Prompt List | Requested
You’re the kind of person who thrives in silence. Not the eerie, heavy kind, but rather the weightless hush of early mornings before the world has had its coffee. The kind of quiet where you can hear your own thoughts echo back at you, and everything makes a little more sense. You like the way solitude fits you like a well-worn sweater. A space to breathe, to think, and just to be.
So, naturally, you fell in love with a man who treats personal space like a shared resource. Joaquin doesn’t just walk into a room. He enters like he’s always belonged in it, like it’s never been quite right without him. And somehow, he always manages to make it better. Warmer. Lighter.
You’ve never met someone who operates like gravity the way he does. Like you don’t even realise you’ve started leaning towards him until you’re already in his orbit.
It used to drive you a little bit mad. The way he’d end up pressed to your side on the couch, full of casual affection. The way he’d slide into the kitchen behind you just to rest his chin on your shoulder and say ‘whatcha making?’ even when the answer was very obviously toast. The way his knees bumped yours under the table like it was his version of Morse code.
Joaquin Torres is a barnacle. A charming, golden-hearted barnacle. And you, reluctantly and then all at once, grew fond of the barnacle life.
Saturday mornings are Joaquin’s favorite. He’ll never say that out loud, not in so many words. But, it’s more than obvious in the way he lingers in bed just a little too long, humming under his breath, nosing at your shoulder like some overgrown, needy cat. It’s in the way his arms snake around your waist when you try to get up, anchoring you back to him with a lazy groan of protest.
“Stay,” Joaquin mumbles into your shirt, muffled and warm.
“Baby, I need to pee,” you laugh, gently prying at his arms.
“Betrayal,” Joaquin whispers, dramatically. “Is this what our love has come to?”
You untangle yourself with all the grace of a tired octopus, padding to the bathroom while Joaquin turns and flops face-first into your pillow like the world’s most dramatic boyfriend.
By the time you return, Joaquin has commandeered your side of the bed entirely, limbs sprawled like a starfish, blanket kicked off halfway. The sun’s made a golden square across the sheets, and his hair, ever disobedient, is sticking up in odd angles. He looks up at you when you climb back in, all slow-blinking affection.
“Mornin’,” he says, voice still rough with sleep.
“Good morning,” you reply, pressing a kiss to the edge of his jaw, just because.
Joaquin grins, eyes closing again, and that’s how you spend the next twenty minutes, with your limbs tangled, skin warm, the world held at arm’s length.
You’ve never been a morning cuddler. You’re the type to wake up and immediately crave space. Clarity. A cup of coffee in silence, maybe the gentle sound of birds through the window. You used to slip out of bed like a ghost, careful not to wake anyone.
But, Joaquin changed that.
Now, you find yourself lingering. Letting yourself be pulled back into the gravity of him. You’ve learned to love the way he holds you like something precious and irreplaceable. Like your heartbeat is something he needs to sync his own to in order to keep it steady.
The kitchen is your sanctuary. Everything in it is arranged by you, from alphabetised spices, stacked mugs in their allocated corners, cutting boards cleaned and leaned against the backsplash at perfect angles. It’s not about control, exactly. Just peace. Order. A quiet kind of joy.
So naturally, Joaquin makes it his mission to invade it at every opportunity.
“You don’t need to be here,” you tell Joaquin one evening, as he looms behind you while you stir pasta.
“I want to be here,” he says, resting his chin atop your head with an exaggerated sigh. “You smell like garlic and joy.”
“You’re bothering me.”
“Am I?” Joaquin asks, arms wrapping around your middle, lips grazing your ear. “Or am I enhancing the experience?”
“You’re going to get hot oil on your face.”
“Worth it.”
You elbow him gently, but don’t tell him to leave. Because, the truth is, you kind of like the way he’s always there. It’s maddening and sweet and weirdly grounding. He makes the space feel alive, like the scent of basil and the sound of his laugh belong together. You pass him a spoon to taste, and he dips it into the sauce with great ceremony.
“Mmm. Yup. That’s marriage material right there,” Joaquin declares, eyes sparkling.
“You say that every time I cook something edible.”
“And I’ll keep saying it until we have a courthouse date, beautiful.”
Your cheeks heat, even though he’s said it a dozen times before. You roll your eyes, and he beams like he’s won something.
You’re curled up on the couch that evening, legs tucked beneath you, a book open in your lap. Joaquin flops down beside you, entirely uninvited, entirely unsurprising
You’re three chapters in and doing your best to focus, but it’s hard when he keeps scooting closer in tiny increments. First it’s a knee brushing yours. Then a shoulder leaning in. Then an arm slung casually over the back of the couch.
Joaquin doesn’t say anything. Just orbits. Eventually, he rests his chin on your shoulder and sighs dramatically. You glance at him from the corner of your eye.
“Yes?”
“I’m bored.”
“I told you to watch your show.”
“It’s not fun without you.”
You close your book with a resigned sigh. “You’re impossible.”
“I’m adorable,” Joaquin corrects, eyes wide with feigned innocence.
“You’re both.”
Joaquin grins, triumphant, and curls into your side like a loyal puppy. You stroke his hair absently, and he hums like a man thoroughly pleased with his life choices.
You used to think you needed solitude to feel whole. That space was sacred. A kind of armor. Joaquin never tried to break it, he just made room for himself inside it. With patience. With laughter. With all the warmth of someone who never needed to be invited because his love was always soft and sure and certain. You didn’t know how much you needed that until he gave it to you.
One afternoon, you catch Joaquin reorganising your bookshelf. It should set off alarm bells. You’re territorial about your books. They’ve been curated with the kind of precision normally reserved for museum exhibits.
Joaquin is squatting on the floor, tongue poking out in concentration, rearranging them by vibe of all things.
“I’m switching it up,” Joaquin says when he notices that you’re stood there staring. “This shelf is books you’ve cried over but keep recommending anyway. This one is things that feel like late autumn in New York. This one is sapphic yearning with a lot of trauma.”
You stare at him incredulously.
Joaquin just grins. “You like it?”
You open your mouth to argue. To say something about spines being even or the sanctity of the color gradient. But, then you see it. The way Joaquin’s fingers linger on the cover of your favorite novel. The way he’s handled your books with the same delicate care he gives to old flight gear or archived Falcon wings.
You close your mouth, cross the room, and kiss him stupid.
Joaquin blinks up at you afterward, dazed. “So, that’s a yes?”
“Touch them ever again and you die,” you reply, deadpan, but unable to suppress a loving grin.
“Fair. Noted. Love you.”
“Love you more,” you say, and mean it so hard your ribs ache.
You wake up one night and find Joaquin on the balcony. He’s leaning against the railing, barefoot in one of your oversized sweatshirts, hair tousled from sleep. The city hums softly below, streetlights blinking, a distant siren wailing, the quiet heartbeat of something bigger than both of you. You step out beside him, arms crossed to ward off the chill.
“Couldn’t sleep?” you ask.
He shakes his head. “Too quiet without you.” You bump your shoulder into his. He reaches for your hand without looking, fingers intertwining easily.
“I used to love my own space,” you murmur.
“Used to?”
“Now I just love sharing it with you.”
Joaquin smiles, soft and sleepy and full of something that feels like forever. “I promise I’ll always make room for you too,” he says.
And in that moment, with the city below and the stars overhead and Joaquin’s hand warm in yours, you believe him.
You still love your space. The quiet. The stillness. The little sanctuaries of your mind that no one else gets to see. But now, they’re filled with pieces of him. A hoodie slung over your desk chair. A mug with his initials beside yours. You wouldn’t change it for the world.
pairing: frank langdon x fem!reader (no use of y/n!)
summary: eight months after langdon leaves, you run into him by chance, and honestly, he looks like he needs a friend. and with your new, upcoming role at the pitt, you need all of your residents on your side. while you didn't expect taking him under your wing to be easy, you definitely didn't expect to become his friend. and you certainly didn't expect... whatever comes after that.
word count & rating: 30k, M (18+! minors get out or i will verbally beat ur ass)
warnings: still slow-burning, eventual SMUT, you know i love a little porn with plot, protected p in v, oral (f receiving), hints of a handjob, lot of kissing, tons of dirty talk (langdon cannot shut up to save his life), the rivals become friends and then lovers, major sexual tension and slightly awkward flirting, afab!reader, dana stays (!), frank gets divorced (!), mentions of addiction and sobriety, lots of swearing, banter, angst, descriptions of a previous, inappropriate but consensual workplace relationship, brief mentions of another tough, previous relationship the reader had, patient gets into a minor altercation with the reader, likely inaccurate medical talk (i am a woman with google, reddit, and a dream), not beta read please do not roast me for typos i missed
author's note: well, this is part two. for those of you who missed the previous note, this was all supposed to be one fic but it's a 44k word fic and tumblr apparently has a 1,000 paragraph limit (who knew). this was the only logical way for my brain to break this one up, sorry for the weird difference in word count. if anyone wants to read it all in one part, you can find that on my ao3 linked above! hope you enjoy, i love ya all tons! -mags
MARCH 23RD, 2026. (4:30 PM)
You don’t see Frank Langdon for a long while after that. It’s like he was an illusion— something out of a nightmare that had come to life. He was back in your life for a year and then gone in an instant. The whiplash hurts just a little bit.
Despite his absence, the ED returns to normal for the most part. The new residents and med students find their place, each day a bit easier compared to their first. You find yourself drawn to each of them in a specific way, much like your friends and fellow older residents.
Whitaker becomes your shadow. He grows more confident under your supervision, often turning to you for advice when he feels he needs it. He gets closer with Robby, and you watch as your attending takes him more under his wing each day. Robby tells you that he’s glad the kid picked right when it came to looking for a mentor in his senior residents. You have to pretend that doesn’t make you want to hug him in the middle of the ED.
Santos slowly but surely turns into one of your favorite people to work with. It’s something you should have expected, but after that first day, you didn’t know what to do with her. She comes to work the next day with her head a bit tighter on her shoulders, showing you a level of respect that had been missing hours before.
(She tells you months later, when she’s more comfortable with you, that she also had no idea what to do with you after you gently told her off. She was used to being embarrassed in front of everyone when she made an error. You hadn’t done that. She knew she had to get on your good side after that.)
You find yourself calling for her to tag along for more complicated procedures, giving her a bit more leeway than you give the others to do more high-risk things. You know exactly why you do it, and so does Collins. For the sake of your sanity, she doesn’t bring him up— she just gives you a look each time you play favorites.
Javadi stays below your radar for the most part. She continues to stick with McKay when she returns, but she warms to you when she finds out about Langdon’s nickname and why the rest of the doctors call you Risky. She’s competent when she’s not second-guessing herself and continues to surprise you when she pulls solutions for cases seemingly out of nowhere. You’re constantly telling her to speak up more.
Mel is a bit of a different story. She’s incredible at what she does. She’s a second-year resident and doesn’t require as much of your coaching or supervision. But, even though she doesn’t need it, you can’t help but keep an eye on her. It almost feels like an obligation.
In doing so, you grow to love that girl. She’s compassionate, she’s sweet, and she leaves a piece of her heart in each case she takes on. When she tells you she’s trying to get better at compartmentalizing things, you have to refrain from scolding her. She’s a breath of fresh air, and you’re excited to work with her each time you’re paired together.
Things are the same, but they feel completely different. His absence is felt. It’s something you have to keep reminding yourself of. You had always wanted to get rid of him, but now that he had left? You can’t believe you ever wanted him gone.
However, in due time, you get used to it. You stop looking for him when things go to shit, you stop expecting to argue when you clock in, you stop it all. And it’s fine. It’s just fine.
Other things take precedence. Work overtakes your life. You date around a little. You continue to apply for fellowships. You get rejected from a lot of them despite how great they tell you your application is. A lot of them don’t like the fact that you transferred. It doesn’t matter how glowing your letter of recommendation from Robby is.
You’re good at what you do. You know that you are. These programs are telling you so. But some of them want more from you. Those that you favored certainly seem to. You ignore the anxiety that floods your body when Robby recommends that you reach out to Klein to see if he’d write you another letter.
It has you reconsidering your career path. It was something that had always been super cut and dry in your mind. Medical school, residency, fellowship, attending. That was the path, particularly for someone as research-intensive as you were. But maybe it didn’t have to be.
It’s something you think about constantly as you continue to hear back from the programs you’ve applied for. It’s something you’re thinking about as you run your errands on your day off.
It’s something you’re thinking about as you see Langdon for the first time in almost eight months.
You run into him at the grocery store, of all places. And it’s about as awkward as you expect.
He’s over by the produce, inspecting each apple he picks up with the same level of intensity he used to operate with. You’re in your own little world, headphones on and plugged into an episode of a podcast that had just been released that day. As sad as it was to say, these errands, these places you went to, and the little shops you looked around at were your time. It was your space outside of work to block out everything else and to only focus on what you needed. And you didn’t like that time being interrupted or that facade being broken.
Especially not by Langdon of all people.
You're not expecting to see him here, and you’re certainly not expecting to see him as you look up from your handwritten list to reach for a carton of berries that are diagonal from him. When you lock eyes, you feel your stomach drop and then immediately come back up your throat. You swallow what you’re feeling back down, but remain frozen in place.
Why was he here? You’d never seen him here before. You assumed he was still in the city, but you didn’t know he lived in your neighborhood? Or did he not? Was this just a trip over to your neck of the woods for fun? Or…
Your racing mind does nothing to ease your stomach. After your last conversation with him, you don’t know where you stand. After everything that happened over the course of his last shift, you’d be surprised if he even remembered it. The only thing that gives you any sort of comfort is the look on his face and the shade of ghostly white he’d turned the second he’d seen you. At least you were on the same page.
“Hi,” you say, voice curt and slightly panicked.
His comes out the same. “Hey.”
As you completely freak out and you flash your eyes from him to the bag of fruit in his hands, the only thing you can think to say is, “That’s a fuck ton of apples.”
It’s not what he’s expecting in the slightest, and he quite literally has to blink at you to make sure he heard you right. “Uh… Oh. Yeah,” he stammers, looking down at the bag. He seems to find his way as he says, “I’m, uh… hoping if I eat one a day, you’ll stay the hell away from me.”
It’s your turn to blink at him. That comment snaps you back to reality, and the scowl you’re more used to wearing around him finds a home on your lips. “I’m assuming it’ll have the same effect if I start chucking them at you, too.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Only one way to find out.”
The tension between you doesn’t completely dissipate, but it becomes easier to work with. However, you still don’t know what to say or how to go about talking to him. So, you sigh and decide to go with, “What are you doing here?”
He lifts the basket in his hand. “I needed food?”
“No, I mean, you don’t live around here,” you say with an eye roll. “Why are you here?”
Langdon presses his lips together and looks away from you, as if he’s figuring out exactly what to say. The action has you narrowing your eyes. “There’s some cookies Tanner likes that they only sell here,” he seems to decide on. The basket lifts again. “Trying to get dad points.”
“Well, the kid’s got good taste,” you say, nodding in approval as you eye the cookies.
You want to ask more. You know there’s more to whatever’s behind his hesitant expression. You want to ask how he’s doing, what’s going on in his life, and why he’s actually at this grocery store.
But you can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. At least not here. Perhaps not with you. He’s stiff, uncertain, awkward— you’ve never seen him awkward. You’ve also never seen him outside of a work environment. You’ve been out with coworkers and your cohort back in school or and have hung out in the park after a shift, but that was always with your colleagues. Never outside of that and never on your own.
You don’t know what to say. It’s hard to know what’s off-limits or what he’d actually want to talk to you about.
So, you say, “Well, it’s good to see you,” you try. “You look good. Or, uh, better.”
His brows pull together for a second, then he nods. “Thanks. It’s, uh—” It’s like he doesn’t know how to talk to you like this. He’s shifty, bouncing back and forth on his heels, as if he’ll bolt at any minute. “It’s good to see you, too.”
You don’t know why you do it. Maybe it’s because you feel bad for him, maybe it’s because you don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s because you know that if you were in his position, you’d want someone to do it to you.
Whatever it is, you find yourself grabbing the small notebook you had written your grocery list in and flipping to a blank page. You can feel his eyes on you as you quickly write something, rip the piece out of the book, and then fold it up. Your hand almost skims the berries below as you hold the paper out to him. “Take this.”
The confusion on his face only grows. “What is that?”
You push it at him. “It’s my number,” you say. “You don’t have it. And it’s clear you don’t want to talk to me in a grocery store, if at all, which I get.” You shrug. “But if you ever want to talk to someone about, I don’t know… work, life, anything. Text me.”
He’s looking at you like you’re handing him a bomb that’s about to go off. “I have some— I have people to talk to.”
“I’m sure you do,” you tell him. “And you don’t have to talk to me. But if you need to… talk to someone with better bedside manner than you, who, I don’t know? Already knows all the worst parts of you? I’m here.”
Langdon stares at the piece of paper, then at you, then back down at the paper. He’s frozen, and the moment that passes between you feels like a month. Just when your arm begins to get tired from being outstretched, he takes the paper from you.
He nods after he does so, slipping it into his pocket. “Uh. T-Thanks,” he stammers. “I… I appreciate that.”
You’re not going to get any better than that. Not right now. So, you nod back at him and grab a container of berries in front of you to put into your cart. “Take care of yourself,” you tell him, then glance down at his basket. “And good luck with the cookies.”
You’re gone before he can say thank you, too taken aback by your conversation to verbalize anything coherent. One short interaction with you and he feels like a tornado just ran through the grocery store, and he’s the only one left standing.
He feels the corner of the piece of paper sticking into his leg slightly, and the weight of your words weighing him down.
He’d never get you. But he was no longer resigned to that idea.
APRIL 2ND, 2026. (2:00 PM)
You meet him for coffee on one of your days off.
He texts you approximately three days after your encounter, apologizing for any awkwardness and letting you know that it was, in fact, good to see you, even if he didn’t act like it. He takes you up on your offer, letting you know his schedule so you can work it around your own.
You’re not sure what to expect when you walk into the shop. You don’t know what he’s going to be like, what he’s going to want to talk about-- what he wants this to be. Does he just want to make amends? Does he want to talk about his rehabilitation journey? Does he want to hear about work? All of the above?
You know you’re overthinking it, but you can’t not. You’re getting coffee with Langdon. You didn’t do things outside of work. You never saw him out of scrubs unless the team was going out. It was just a bit odd, and you couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t.
It’s something he addresses the moment you sit down with him. He’s arrived before you, having grabbed a table in the corner that has two mugs on it. Your brows shoot up in surprise as you realize he’s remembered your coffee order, and you exchange niceties as you sit down.
After a beat of awkward silence, he sighs. “This is fucking weird, isn’t it?”
You shrug and bite back a smile. “Only as weird as we make it.”
He shoots you a look, one you haven’t seen in a while. It almost makes you nostalgic. “So, how do we make it not weird?”
“Well, typically, conversations start with questions,” you say slowly, and you find that he’s already rolling his eyes. “These can be anything from ‘how are you’ to ‘what’s new?’”
He shuts his eyes, though you don’t miss the humor in them when they open. “How are you?” he asks. “What’s new?”
“I’m good,” you reply, and it’s honest. Because you are good. You’re much better than you were the night you left him on the curb. “Everything’s pretty much the same. My residency finishes up in a couple of months, so… I’m just prepping for Boards and then for the transition.” You feel a bit bad talking about the residency he should be finishing up with you, so you quickly move on. “How are you?”
He reaches for his mug, a sigh heaving from his chest as if he were dreading the question. “Oh, you know. Recovery is great. I’m loving every second of it.” His voice drips with sarcasm, and his shoulders sag at the look you give him. After a moment, he quietly says, “I’ll be nine months sober tomorrow.”
Something akin to pride warms your chest. “That’s huge, Langdon,” you say earnestly, and when he tries to shrug it off, you shake your head. “No, I’m serious. That’s a big fucking deal. You should be proud of yourself. I mean that.”
He doesn’t say anything to that. You don’t expect him to. Instead, he decides to ask about something that you hope had escaped his notice. “You said you’re prepping for the transition?”
You glance at him, sighing as you reach for your mug. You know the exact reaction you’re going to get when you say, “I’m attending starting in July. Me and Collins. Boards willing.”
Taking a long sip of your coffee, you can’t help but note that he got your order exactly right. Asshole. Because now, you can’t complain as he starts to laugh. “No fucking way.”
“I’m in charge of you next year,” you mutter. “So, I’d choose my next words very wisely.”
“I’m not—” He shakes his head. “I’m not laughing at you. I just can’t believe it. You were so set on the fellowship. You were making me feel bad about not being prepared for it.”
You sink back into your chair. “My applications came off a little… unfocused? That was the word that was used, I think.” His brow furrows. He’d never call anything you did unfocused. You continue, “I’ve found that I’m really good at a lot of things. I just don’t know what I’m best at. I’m going to do my fellowship when I’ve figured that out. Whenever that is.”
You’re expecting him to make fun of you. To laugh again or do whatever it is that he does to get on your nerves. But he doesn’t. All he says is, “I don’t think that’s a bad choice.”
The look on your face is weary when you ask, “No?”
He shakes his head, grabbing a sugar packet from the container on your table. “Not at all. It’s mature. Don’t do something or settle because it’s what you think you’re supposed to do.”
It’s a strangely sage piece of advice from someone you rarely get it from. It’s also something you think you desperately needed to hear, but you’d never tell him that.
With a small smile, you nod at him in thanks. “How’s Abby? The kids? Did you get ‘dad points’ or whatever for the cookies?”
The grimace that pulls at his lips morphs his whole face, and suddenly, you feel like you’ve made a major misstep. It’s another question he was dreading. “Abby and I… uh—” He fiddles with the sugar packet in his hands. “We’re… separated. In the process of filing for divorce.”
Well, now you feel like the asshole. “Oh, fuck, man,” you say, another heavy sigh leaving your lips. “I’m sorry.”
Langdon shrugs, and it’s a pathetic attempt to act like he doesn’t care. You don’t call him out on it. He rips the packet and dumps the contents into his coffee. “It was a long time coming.”
Quiet settles between you, and for a moment, you don’t know how to respond to that. Then, like a reflex, you say, “Was it because of the—”
“It wasn’t because of the fucking dog.” It’s as if he anticipated it, and there’s a piece of you that hates that he can predict you so well. The other piece of you is pressing your lips together to refrain from laughing as he shakes his head in annoyance.
But then, he does something he’s never done before. He looks at you— at your face, at the smile you’re poorly concealing, and the glint in your eye that he always noticed but had never admired. And then, he starts to laugh.
It’s not loud or boisterous. It’s a soft chuckle, one that lasts as he continues to shake his head and grins softly as he hears you do it too.
“You can tell me I was right, it’s okay.” Your voice is lilting, and the humor written into your expression makes him shake his head. “There’s a first time for everything. I’m not stoked that it’s over a dog, but I’ll take what I can get.”
A long and heavy sigh leaves him, and he wipes a hand down his face. “Yeah,” he replies. “You were right. He’s cute as hell, but it... it was a bad idea. The kids love him, though.”
“I’m sure they do,” you say, then nod at him. “She made you keep the dog, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says. “That thing’s mine. She passed him off to me right when I got out of rehab.”
You snort. “Good for her. And what a sobriety present.”
“You’re telling me.” He makes a face. “It could be worse, though. Gives me something to focus on other than how fucked up my life’s become.”
Your lips purse, and you push them to the side. “Don’t do that.”
“What?” he asks. “It has. And I’m not saying that to get you to pity me. It fell apart, and it’s my fault.”
“Maybe,” you say lightly. “But you don’t have to torture yourself over it. That’s not going to help anyone involved.” Langdon sends you a half-hearted glare, and you throw your hands up. “I’m serious. You make it everyone’s problem when you’re miserable. You’re fixing yourself. Be kinder to yourself about it.”
He takes another long sip of his coffee. Then, after a minute, he says, “Thanks.” It’s the best you’re going to get from him. You’re just happy he’s finally, actually acknowledging your attempts at encouragement. “How’s The Pitt?”
His attempt to shift the conversation is not subtle, but you go along with it. “It’s less chaotic than when you left it,” you say. “The newbies are pretty much acclimated now. Everyone else is doing well. We miss you.”
His expression is skeptical when he asks, “You miss me?”
“Some days,” you admit with a shrug. His brows rise higher. “It’s boring having no one to argue with. I like Collins and Mohan too much to yell at them.”
A small smile graces his features. “Well, if it makes you feel any better,” he begins, “I miss it too. Arguing and all.”
It does, in fact, make you feel better. But still, you say, “You can’t fight with me next session, though. I own your ass.”
“Oh, no,” he sighs. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna go full-metal despot. I can’t handle that.”
“Only for you. Half-metal despot for everyone else.” You shrug. That glint in your eye has returned. “I’m gonna be your nightmare.”
He sighs ruefully into his mug. “Like you weren’t already.”
“I’ll be nice,” you assure him, resolving the act. “But, yeah. You have to at least pretend like you respect me.”
“I’ve always respected you,” he states, and the immediate honesty in his voice catches you by surprise. “That was never the issue. The issue is that you’re a pain in the ass.”
You hold your fingers up like a phone despite the feeling that’s twisting your stomach. “Hey, Kettle? I’ve got pot on the line telling you to go fuck yourself.”
There’s humor in his expression as he shakes his head. “I’ll keep everyone in line.”
“Be nice about it,” you warn. “I don’t want any of the newbies shitting their pants because you start bullying them in July.”
“I would never,” he scoffs.
“Santos would say differently,” you chide.
He rolls his eyes, shifting uncomfortably. “She was different.”
“She is,” you say. “She’s also different than you left her. She’s probably my favorite resident to work with.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. She’s good, Langdon.” He shakes his head. “If you get over yourself, you might realize it, too.”
He has nothing to say to that. For a minute, you think you’ve made him mad. But then, you realize he’s thinking.
He’s not looking at you when he asks, “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot,” you say.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” He motioned between the two of you. “You don’t need to be doing any of this. I don’t deserve it. But you are.”
His question stumps you, because honestly? You don’t quite understand it yourself. Given your past, you should be leaving him to rot. You should make his life a living hell the second he returns to the ED. He doesn’t deserve the kindness you’re extending to him.
But you still do it. There might be some part of you that pities him. Maybe it’s because it’s not all his fault. Perhaps, it’s the fact that it hasn’t all been bad.
But you think it’s more of the fact that, regardless of your best efforts to get rid of him, you know Langdon. You spent four years of med school with him and have a year of working together under your belt. You know him.
And despite the nickname he’d given you, you don’t give up on people you know. Especially when you know they might just need you.
“I don’t… really know why either,” you tell him, and your blunt words have him huffing a laugh. “But I think… I think it’s going to be hard for you to come back to work after everything. Even if you’re doing everything right. And I think I’d want someone in my corner if I were in your spot.”
Langdon stares at you in disbelief. “I’m…” He blows a breath through closed lips, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t fucking understand you.”
You shrug. “Join the club.”
“No. I mean it. I don’t get you,” he says. “You realize that I don’t know if I could do the same for you, right? I don’t know if I would be able to be this… nice.”
You eye him. “You’ve never been able to. That was kind of our whole thing.” He’s still looking at you like that. The sigh you release is laborious, and it almost hurts going out. “Not everything’s a contest, Langdon. We don’t always have to compete. There are no winners or losers anymore. We work together now. We’re in the same boat, and that boat doesn’t move unless every single person’s rowing. Stronger in numbers and all that.” You grab your mug, coffee almost lukewarm now. “Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re going to need someone to be nice to you in order for the boat to keep going. If I have to be that person, so be it.”
He scoffs. “I don’t need to be coddled.”
“No, but you’re going to need support,” you respond. “And we both know that I’m a little more forgiving than Robby is.”
That shuts him up almost immediately. He knows you’re right. More than right, actually. He’s barely spoken to him since July. Langdon’s antsy to get back to the floor, but dear God, he does not want to face Robby.
Not after everything he owes him.
He watches you take a long sip of your coffee— the way you gently put it back down onto the table and shift the handle to face yourself. Then, he watches the way you meet his gaze, staring at him as if you’d just said the simplest thing in the world.
Of course, you were going to help him. Of course, you were going to be nice to him. Why wouldn’t you be? Why wouldn’t you help him? Simple questions like that had simple answers to you.
He gives it another second before he looks away. “Thank you,” he says quietly, and he hopes he sounds as genuinely grateful as he feels. “Really.”
“Don’t worry about it,” you say. “I got into this field to help people. It’s kinda what I’m good at.”
Langdon chuckles. “I still don’t get you, though.”
“Well, you can figure me out better when you get back.” You point at him. “But not too well. I don’t want you telling the other residents what my weaknesses are. I can’t take all of you at once if you revolt.”
“The other attendings would help out,” he offers.
“Yeah, but the only ones that I’m confident can fight are Abbot and Ellis. They won’t be there to help.”
“Robby can throw a punch.”
“Sure, but would he?” you argue. “Before he could, he’d get called to like, do a Craniectomy with his eyes closed and tell me I’m on my own.”
As he laughs, you launch into another hypothetical, hands waving enthusiastically as you explain yourself, you find yourself falling into an easy sort of conversation with him. He keeps up with you as usual, but his typically sharp words are replaced with something a bit more loose. Kinder, even. It’s a change that you don’t immediately notice, but when you do, you can’t help but feel a little strange.
What’s even stranger, you realize, is that to anyone else in the shop, you two might look like you were actually friends.
It doesn’t unsettle you as much as you thought it would.
JULY 4TH, 2026. (6:45 AM)
You keep in contact for the next couple of months.
It starts out slow— a text here and there, mostly questions about work, asking when you two were free to meet for coffee next, and talking about how things are going for each of you. A video that you’d like the other would like thrown into the mix. It’s not a lot, but it’s consistent. You know his Type-A brain could use some consistency.
As the two of you got more comfortable with each other, it became even more consistent. You’ll text him a photo of a gnarly or crazy injury in the middle of a shift (a month an a half ago, an eighteen year old girl came in with a pencil through her cheek after the kid she was tutoring threw a tantrum, and a photo went to both the ED group chat and Langdon), he’ll send a picture back of his dog in the park.
It becomes almost like an instinct. Anytime something out of the ordinary goes down, you feel like you have to update him. Your text chain from last Monday looked something like this:
7:34: code security just called on a twenty-five year old guy who escaped his bed and just tried to stab mckay with his rugrats pocket knife. starting the day off strong!
ahmad should have let her handle it. i’d put my money on mckay any day.
10:12: first foreign body of the day. want to guess what it is and where?
who’s the patient?
fifty-seven year old guy
give me kitchen utensil up the ass for $400, alex
ooooh half credit. shaving cream bottle up the ass
holy fuck. how does that even fit up there?
he saying he fell on it?
you know it
okay my turn
15:17: just picked tanner up from day camp. inside day because of the rain-- he told me one of the kids got one of those counting bears stuck up their nose. he might be on his way to you
javadi’s on triage today, will tell her to look out for it
didn’t even know those things still existed
this camp is old school. only tech allowed is movies
no cocomelon?
i told you i’m not raising an ipad baby, risky.
16:56: anti-vax couple is currently trying to convince mel that their zinc supplements and prayers are enough to protect their high-risk kid that has chicken pox
tell mel she has MY prayers.
she’s handling them well
one of these days she’s going to snap and i’m gonna parade her around like rocky
i’ll play the theme music
also are we still on for coffee on thursday?
obviously. it’s your turn to buy
You continue to get coffee with him every couple of weeks. At first, you tell yourself, it’s just to keep him in that aforementioned routine. But, each time you meet up, it becomes that much easier to talk to him, and you can no longer pretend like you don’t enjoy his company.
You learn more about him— about who he really is. It’s more than just his base level likes and dislikes that you’ve picked up on: you learn about where he’s from, his family, and how he grew up. What he likes to do on his days off, how he’s started coaching his Tanner’s U-6 soccer team in his free time. You learn that he’s just a bit too into it, something you make evident by the subtle side-eye you give him when he mentions how they’re not getting a play he wrote up for them.
You also learn just how nervous he is to return to work. He’s slightly more withdrawn in the week leading up to it, and despite how much you reassure him that things will be fine, he doesn’t seem to listen to you.
(Things change, but they don’t. You’ll take what you can get.)
Last night, before you fell asleep, you’d made sure to send him a text, figuring that he’d be on his phone. You knew there was no way he’d be sleeping tonight.
before you come in tomorrow, i just want to tell you
i tried to tell robby that the fact that your first shift back is a fucking full moon fourth of july shift is cruel and unusual
but despite our circumstances i am 100% sure that you’re going to kill it
You watch as the three little dots at the bottom of the screen appear and then disappear. You can picture him typing at his phone and deleting every self-deprecating thing he’s thinking, knowing you’re not going to respond well to it. But, in a surprise turn of events, he chooses to be honest with you.
thanks. i’m freaking the fuck out.
take a breath. you’re going to be fine
easier said than done
i’ve got your back, dude. we all do
please try to sleep a little
i can’t have you being both anxious and exhausted tomorrow i can only deal with one of those things
It took a minute for him to respond, but when he did, it was a short, heard. thank you.
That took you to today, in the PTMC parking lot, where you stood outside of Langdon’s car, waiting for him to notice you.
He’d been switching between listening to something and hyping himself up, unaware of anything around him. There’s something inherently sweet about it, and you almost don’t want to ruin it for him.
But you two need to be clocked in within the next fifteen minutes, and you don’t trust him not to throw his car in reverse and drive away.
So, you beat on the passenger side window.
You think his entire soul leaves his body. He practically jumps out of his seat, hands flying up like he’s reaching for something above. You have to press your lips together to hold in your laughter as he glares at you, rolling his window down.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks, still trying to catch his breath.
“Good morning to you, too,” you say. You lean your elbows on the ledge of the now-open window. “Happy comeback season.”
He huffs, looking away from you. “Couldn’t you see I was like, in the middle of something here?”
You nod in understanding. “In the middle of deciding whether or not you should go in, right?” When he scowls at you, you can’t help but smile. “Can I come in?”
Langdon stares at you for a second before muttering to himself and slapping the unlock button on the driver’s side. You’re greeted by the AC that’s blasting in his car and slump into the seat. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Well, at least you’re awake,” you reply. “The five Red Bulls you’re gonna shotgun today will only carry you so far.”
“Yeah, but I could have gone without the jumpscare. Way too early for that shit,” he says.
You shrug the comment off, glancing around. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in your car before.”
“And after that, you won’t ever be invited back.”
You send him a look. “Good morning, Langdon,” you repeat, and your tone has him shutting his eyes and turning away from you. “How are we doing this morning?”
He doesn’t say anything for a long while, and for a moment, you think he’s giving you the cold shoulder. But then he mutters, “I can’t go in there.”
“Sure you can,” you say.
“No,” he whispers. “I can’t.”
“Completely disregarding the fact that the future of your career relies on you walking through those doors in thirteen minutes,” you start, catching him rolling his eyes out of the corner of yours, “you’re on the schedule and don’t have coverage. People are going to be more mad at you if you leave than if you go in.”
You didn’t think that your attempt at a joke was going to help in any way, but somehow, it has him seriously considering your point. He pinches the bridge of his nose, leaning his elbow on his door’s armrest. “What if it’s awful?” he asks.
You don’t recognize the person beside you. You’ve never seen him like this. This nervous, this scared. He was always the pinnacle of confidence, for better or for worse. He was self-assured, cocky, and completely in control of himself.
This wasn’t that guy. And it freaked you out enough to decide that you weren’t going to stand for it.
“Okay,” you begin, turning your body in the seat to face him, “as you so eloquently and gently said to me when I was freaking out this time last year, ‘get your fucking head on straight. You are not Flight Risk-ing it right now.’”
A surprised laugh escapes him as he rubs a hand down his face. “We’re going there?”
“Oh, yeah. Been waiting to use your horrendous bedside manner on you for a year. It’s time.” You point at him. “We need you in there, and we need you to be on it because no one can do what you do.” You take a moment, and in that moment, he meets your gaze. Involuntarily, you find that you voice gets softer as you say, “I fucking need you, so get the fuck out of your head and let’s go.”
Langdon just stares at you in that way that he does. He’s always staring at you like he’s trying to figure you out. It’s as if you’re some impossible equation to some cosmic disturbance. Like everything in his life makes some sort of sense but you.
He could say something sentimental, tell you how he really feels about all of this, and let you know exactly what everything you’ve done for him leading up to this point means to him. He really thinks about it.
But, instead, he chooses the comfortable route and says, “I’m surprised you remembered all of that.”
You scoff. “How could I not? It was the first time I’ve ever been yelled out of a panic attack. Only you could do that.” You mumble that last part, but he still hears it, evident by his soft chuckle. You lean your shoulder into the backrest, lips curling upward. “You with me?”
When he sighs, he practically inhales all of the air in the car. But still, “Yeah. I’m with you.”
“Good,” you say. You grab your go-bag at your feet and go to open the door. “Breathe. I told you. I’ve got your back.”
Before you can make your exit, Langdon grabs your wrist. The action has you staring at him in surprise. “I know I keep saying it,” he begins, “but… thank you. You’re— you’ve been… just--” He slows himself down, and when he’s collected himself, he squeezes your wrist. “Thank you.”
You’re still caught off-guard by the fact that he’s willingly touching you, but find yourself nodding at him with a small smile that you hope is encouraging. “I’ll see you in there,” you tell him.
He follows you inside five minutes later, anxious, antsy, and unsure. But when he catches your eye and you give him that same smile, some of the… everything he’s feeling evaporates.
It’s a small thing that feels like a victory in his book. Maybe everything will be fine.
JULY 4TH, 2026. (11:34 PM)
i can’t move, he texts you that night, when you’re finally tucked in bed, eyes barely staying open. that was so brutal. it might rival the pittfest shift.
i’m still recovering from getting shoulder tackled by that lady in the sexy uncle sam costume, you respond. she should play for the fucking steelers when she gets released from jail.
they could use her. her form was incredible
perlah already has the security cam footage of that btw
i know. she sent it to the group chat already (remind me to add you back to that)
i’m glad my bruised ribs could spark joy
You watch through partially closed eyes as those three dots appear and disappear.
we should go to game this year, he finally says. they’re so bad that it could be fun
pitt outing to the steelers? i’m in
get abbot on a blackstone STAT
There’s another pause in your conversation. Then, it might be hard to get all of our schedules to align.
It’s then that it clicks for you.
frank langdon
are you asking me to hang out outside of work
you say that like we don’t do it already
that’s just coffee. you’re asking me to like HANG OUT and DO SHIT with you
shut up
ooooooo you want to be my friend so bad
i never thought we’d get here
i’m going to bed
You snicker to yourself, fingers flying across your screen as you type out, let’s do an october game or something. get the PTO in early.
A minute passes before your phone vibrates again. i’ll start looking at tickets tomorrow.
You’re about to turn your phone over and go to bed for the night when it buzzes again. i couldn’t have done today without you.
you could have, you respond. but i’m glad i was there. hell day and all.
me too.
i’ll see you tomorrow for day two.
SEPTEMBER 24TH, 2026. (5:00 PM)
The change in your relationship doesn’t go unnoticed.
The second Langdon returned to work, each person on the floor had clocked that something was different between you two. You still argued. You still made fun of each other on an hourly basis, and you still occasionally disagreed about the right way to approach a case. But there was something less malicious about it now.
You’d insult him, but it was accompanied by a soft nudge on the arm. He’d snipe back at you, only to smile to himself when you walked off. More often than not, you’d walk in for a shift with him or head out together. He knew exactly how you liked your coffee and would make it when he had a free moment, handing it off to you while you were moving from case to case.
You weren’t just working together anymore. You weren’t amicable for the sake of the smooth operation of the ED. You were friendly. It looked like you actually liked each other.
Three weeks in, Princess tells the nurses that she saw the two of you actually laughing together in the break room. Something about med school cadaver labs and peanut M&Ms. It doesn’t make any sense to her, but then again, none of this does.
It’s a straight-up Twilight Zone episode for everyone who isn’t you and Langdon. You two don’t really question the change. It’s just something that happened.
After that text on the Fourth, you start hanging out outside of work.
While a lot of your days off don’t always align and your personal life schedules aren’t always in sync, you find yourself with him on the days that do. It’s never anything overly exciting: you tend to run errands together, you’ve gotten lunch-- you’ve even gone to his apartment once.
It’s nice. It’s easy. It’s… what having a friend should be like.
But then, he shows up with a pizza on one of those rare days you both have off.
It starts with a short, What are you doing tonight? text. It’s not uncommon for him to check in now, especially when he knows you’re off work. Even more so when he’s also off. But he’s never texted out of the blue to ask about your plans for the day.
You reply with a simple, nothing. why? All you get is an ominous :) in response.
About an hour later, there’s a sharp, three-beat knock at your door. You shoot up from your couch in confusion, whipping your head in the direction of the sound. Was he—? No. No way. He didn’t know where you lived. Or did he? Had you told him?
You pause the episode of the reality show you’re catching up on and make your way to the door, shaking your head in disbelief. When you look out your peephole, you see him rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, holding a thin box in his hands. Oh, my God. He was here. And he brought a fucking pizza.
After you get over your brief moment of shock, you reach down to open the door. Langdon’s eyes immediately meet yours, and a smile grows on his lips as he sees what you’re wearing. “Cute shorts.”
“Shut up,” you mutter, fighting the urge to pull your oversized sweatshirt down further to hide your PJ shorts that are accented with little stethoscopes. “It’s my Bravo rot day. I wasn’t expecting company.”
His grin gets wider. “I like to surprise you.”
You hum a noise that sounds something like agreement. “Guess those apples aren’t working, huh?” you say, leaning up against your doorframe.
”Well, I got a pizza,” he replies, lifting the box up and shaking it lightly. “How do you like them apples?”
You stare at him blankly, allowing the absolute bomb of a joke he just threw out there to stew in its awfulness for a moment. Langdon’s smile falters, and he shifts awkwardly. “Good Will Hunting?” he says, as if he has to explain the reference for it to land.
“I know what it’s from,” you state. “I just can’t slam the door in your face because I’m frozen by the shock of how bad that was.”
“Oh, c’mon, that was—“
“Nope. I lied, it’s not shock. It’s rigor mortis. You literally killed me and now I—“
“Just take the pizza and shut the fuck up,” he mutters, shoving it out in front of him.
Reflexively, you hold up your hands to accept it and laugh to yourself. You step back and hold the door open to let him into your apartment, and the sigh of relief that leaves his lips is audible. “How the hell did you get my address?” you ask.
“The Pitt directory is incredibly detailed.” He hangs his coat up amongst the many you keep on hooks in your tiny entryway. “My God, you have a lot of jackets.”
“They each have their own purpose,” you reply automatically. Dana’s constant ribbing about you showing up in a new one each shift has trained you to do so. “My home address is in the public directory?”
He at least has the decency to look just a bit sheepish when he turns around. “Not the public one.”
A scandalized gasp escapes you as you put two and two together. “Fucking Lisa.”
“I told her I had to drop something off at yours,” he reasons with a shrug, then motions to the pizza. “I wasn’t lying.”
“And that traitor was just willing to give out my home address to you of all people? What, is she gonna leak my social next?”
Langdon chuckles softly, shaking his head. That familiar smirk pulls at the corners of his lips. “She told me she’d only do it for me. I told you she’s got a thing for me.”
“That thing is aiding and abetting,” you mutter, and you bite back a smile as he snickers again.
That smile stays hidden as you turn to take the pizza to your kitchen island and set it down. Langdon’s already opening it the second you turn away to grab some napkins. He clocks the look on your face as you stare at him and the slice that’s already in his hands.
Your lips start to curl in disgust when he says, “Oh, relax. I only got olives on my side. Your shit’s on the other.” He rolls your eyes and takes a bite as your scowl turns into something more satisfied. “Freak.”
“You’re the freak,” you mutter. You open one of the cabinets next to your stove to grab two plates. “Use a plate, you heathen. Let’s have a society, alright?”
“I’m not taking etiquette lessons from a girl I’ve seen do multiple body shots at Lucky’s,” he says, mouth full. You scrunch up the napkins in your hand into a ball the second you hear ‘body shots’ and chuck it at his head. He catches it effortlessly. “I’m just saying.”
You pull a piece of pizza from your designated side. “That was med school. I’ve basically aged twenty years since then. I’m much more mature now.”
“Right. You only do one now instead of multiple.”
You nod. “Exactly. And then I’m in bed, hungover for twenty-four hours the next day.”
Langdon laughs, then that laugh turns into a sigh. “We used to be out until three in the morning and then wake up at seven for class. What happened to us?”
“We’re old, is what happened.” You take a bite of your slice. “Speaking of old, where are your kids today?”
He rolls his eyes at your comment, but answers despite it. “They’re with Abby visiting her parents. I’ve got them for the three days I have off next week, but it’ll mostly be me and Sadie. Tanner has school.”
“And the dog?” you ask.
“At my apartment. I took him to the park this afternoon, and he knocked out the second we got back. Woke up to eat, then fell right back asleep.”
“It’s genuinely insane to see how domestic you’ve become.” The sweet tone of your voice has him scowling at you. “I’m serious. Also, feel free to bring him next time we hang out.”
Despite the casual way he nods and despite the fact that you guys hanging out has now become commonplace, he has to pretend that your use of the words ‘next time’ doesn’t excite him a little. “Thanks. Tanner says I should start bringing him to work.”
You make a sarcastic sound of agreement. “We’ve had rats in the ED. Why not dogs?”
“Exactly,” he says. “Maybe I’ll file with HR for a therapy animal.”
“I still can’t believe Lisa gave you my address,” you mutter. “That has to be like, three different types of illegal.”
“Oh, c’mon. I knew the neighborhood you live in. She was just helping.”
“Yeah, but what if you were like a total fucking weirdo?” Before he can say anything, you continue, “I mean, more than you already are? What if you were stalking me? I know she’s in love with you, but man, you’ve been in HR for forty years. Do your job.”
“She’s been trying to set me up with her daughter since she heard about the divorce,” he tells you. At your confused look, he explains, “Lisa. She’s got a twenty-something-year-old daughter who just left her husband. Thinks we’d be good together.”
Your brows raise. “And you’re not jumping at the chance to do that?”
“Uh, no.” He shakes his head. “I don’t do set-ups. Or blind dates.”
“You make it really easy to forget you’re so conceited sometimes,” you mutter, dodging an olive that he throws your way. Your mouth drops at the sound of it plopping onto your rug. “Pick that up now. If you ruin my runner with your gross fucking olives, I’m gonna get Robby to switch you to nights and I’m telling Ellis to bully the shit out of you.”
He rolls his eyes but does as he’s told, shaking his head. “It’s not about looks,” he tells you as he walks over toward you and crouches down. “I just… I don’t like being surprised. I like to know what I’m getting myself into.”
You eye him carefully as he rounds your island to get to your trash can. “Okay? Then join an app?”
Langdon looks physically repulsed by the idea. “Because no one ever lies on the internet.”
“Jesus, man. I don’t know, then you can wander around a farmer’s market with your dog and Tanner and Sadie looking lost.”
He eyes you for a moment, then pretends to consider it. “That might not be a bad idea. I’ve never thought about pimping out my kids to pick up women.”
The sarcasm in his tone isn’t missed, and you throw your hands up. “Fine. I tried. You can die a miserable old man. You’re already halfway there anyway.”
“I just don’t know if I’m ready yet,” he admits through a chuckle. He reaches at his plate to grab his half-eaten slice of pizza and takes a bite. With his mouth full, he says, “Getting back out there with someone is just…” He grimaces, swallowing. “That sounds fucking awful.”
“Why?” you ask. “I think it sounds kind of exciting. It’s good to meet new people.”
“I don’t want to meet new people,” Langdon tells you. The way it comes out makes it sound almost like he wasn’t even thinking about the words before he said them. You notice the way his eyes flick to yours for a moment and then immediately flick away. Your heart stutters, and you can’t even explain why. “I mean, I—“ His cheeks tint the slightest shade of pink, and you pretend you don’t see it. He forks a hand through his hair. “The idea of getting to know someone like… that again is just so…”
You know what he’s trying to say. You also know what he’s not saying, too.
You understand him so well, yet you don’t at all. He was so puzzling. He’s someone who always came off to you as relatively straightforward. He was self-assured; cocky, even. He was someone who’d been told one too many times that he was good at what he did, maybe even that he was better than everyone around him, so he’d started to believe it. Maybe a little too much.
He gave his time to those he thought were worth it. He was confident, and he knew who he was. He didn’t care if he was an asshole or who hurt along the way. It didn’t matter what anyone thought about him as long as he knew that he was in the right.
But as you watch Langdon— watch him be shy and unsure and uncomfortable in front of you, you realize that you barely knew who he was outside of your career. Sure, you knew loads about him. You knew about his personal life and his likes and interests. But you didn’t know him. You’d never talked with him like this or had him admitting things like this.
You wanted to hate the fact that it totally endeared him to you. But, for some reason, it didn’t.
That would never stop being weird.
“I get it,” you say. “I didn’t want to meet anyone after I called off my engagement with Jamie. I shut myself off to everyone for like, a year.”
“I remember,” he mutters. “Watching Donovan try to hit on you every other week during labs was painful.”
“Oh, God. That was painful for me, too.” The smirk that slides onto your face is both sarcastic and involuntary. “I saw on LinkedIn that he just started a neurosurgery fellowship. Maybe I should have given him a chance.”
Langdon rolls his eyes. “The world does not need two Doctor Donovans.”
You can’t help but snort. There’s a beat of silence before you admit, “You know I didn’t get into another real, serious relationship until about three months into my residency in Boston?”
His brows rocket to his hairline. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” you say. “Nobody really… piqued my interest until then.”
“That’s almost impressive.”
You shrug him off. “I’m exceptionally picky.”
He makes a noise of agreement. “So, who was he?”
“Huh?” you ask, fully hearing him but not at all expecting that question.
“Who was the guy that finally ‘piqued your interest?’” he clarifies.
He’s not expecting the silence he’s met with. You stare down at your plate, biting the inside of your cheek, and Langdon knows he’s asked the wrong question.
“He…” You swallow and tear a piece from the crust that’s left on your plate. “He’s irrelevant,” is what you finally decide on.
You say it because he is. Truthfully, up until this conversation, you hadn’t thought of him in weeks. You know it doesn’t seem like it, and it definitely doesn’t seem like you’re anywhere close to being over it, but you are.
It doesn’t mean it isn’t still hard to talk about.
Langdon stares at you. “Is he?”
You meet his gaze with a heavy sigh that takes a lot out of you. “No. He’s not,” you admit. You keep your voice light. “But every day, he becomes more irrelevant. And every day, I come to some new realization about him and know that what happened was for the better. And that’s all I can ask for.”
Thankfully, Langdon doesn’t have any more questions for you regarding that. Relief washes over you as you realize he’s moving on, but you know he’s not going to forget it. Unfortunately, it’s not like him to forget things.
“New topic,” he says quickly, like he’s trying to get your mind off of whatever you’re thinking about as soon as possible. “Because I need to know. Does that work?” You lift your brows, cueing him to continue. “That stuff you were talking about. That… farmer’s market, kids stuff. Does that actually work?”
A small smile tugs at your lips, and you shrug once more. “Dude, women eat that shit up. At least, y’know. Some of us.”
“Seriously?” he asks.
“Oh, yeah,” you say. “A hot dad asking if we’d recommend the blackberries or the raspberries more?” You shake your head with a faux longing expression. “Hook, line, and sinker.”
The smirk that suddenly glides over Langdon’s lips is something lethal, and it makes your stomach flip. He leans up against the counter. “A hot dad?”
Your eyes roll so hard you think they’ll fall out of your head. “Circumstantially and hypothetically.”
“Of course,” he says, nodding as if he understands. But that look stays on his face. “But I’m curious. Would that be something… that would work on you?” At the surprise that morphs your expression, he shrugs. “Hypothetically.”
You look at him with suspicion. “I don’t know?”
“You don’t know?” he parrots. It’s clear he doesn’t believe you. “You just posed a very specific hypothetical, and you don’t know?”
“Oh, my God, okay. Hypothetically, you loser,” you repeat, hoping everything you’re about to say sounds casual and not as weird as you’re suddenly feeling. “The independent variable would have to be… I don’t know? My type? Looks like he actually cares about the kids he’s pimping out?”
“The independent variable being the guy,” he clarifies.
“Yes, Doctor Langdon. Very astute,” you say. “Validating your ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ award status with each day you live and breathe.”
He leans over your counter, placing his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. His brows furrow in mild interest. “And what exactly is your type?”
You feel heat rise to your cheeks almost instantly. Never, in a million years, did you think you’d be standing in your apartment with Frank Langdon, chatting about your type over a pizza he bought for you. “When did we start talking about me?” you ask. “This was supposed to be about you and how you’re too afraid to go on a date.”
“And now it’s about both of us,” he shoots back. “Because you talk a big game for someone who isn’t dating either.”
“I am,” you say, and the admission obviously catches him by surprise. You almost feel bad about the way his face drops.
Langdon blinks at you. “Seriously?”
“Is it that hard to believe?” you ask with a teasing smile.
“No,” he says, the word rushing out of his mouth. “No. You know that you’re— You’re— y’know. It’s not hard to believe. I just…” He trails off again, but continues to look at you in surprise. “Seriously?”
“I’m serious,” you chuckle, because it’s all you can do. “I mean, it’s not serious, but yeah. We’ve been on like, two dates, and I’ve been texting him a little. I met him online. He’s cute, he’s nice, and he works in Finance—” The face he makes at that has you scowling. “What?”
“Nothing. I just didn’t think you were the Finance-Bro type.” Before you take offense or respond to that, he asks, “So, it’s going well? You like him?”
“It’s going fine,” you say. “He’s nice. Fun to talk to. He thinks that me being a doctor is ‘super dope,’ which is, y’know, an upgrade from the last guy I dated.”
“But you don’t like him,” Langdon presses.
You make a frustrated sound. “I don’t know yet!” you say, exhausted by this sudden interrogation. “Isn’t that the whole point of dating? To figure out if you actually like them?”
“I typically decide if I’m interested in someone before I start dating them, but that’s just me—”
“Well, I’m not you,” you say, while your voice is soft, there’s an edge in it that tells him it’s final. “And I actually like to get to know people. I like to take my time when it comes to this shit, alright?”
“To feel things out?”
His words catch you by surprise, and you’re sure it shows on your face. “Yeah.”
Langdon nods after a moment. “I guess we’ll agree to disagree.”
You snort. “Nothing we aren’t used to.”
He huffs a soft laugh and takes another bite of his slice. You’ve disagreed plenty of times before. More than you probably should have (sometimes the two of you just liked to argue for the sake of it, but that wasn’t a crime). But this one lands differently. Something feels off. There’s this unusual, unfamiliar tension that you can’t shake but want nothing more than to get rid of. You can tell he feels the same.
“When are you seeing him again?” he asks, his previous line of questioning back on course.
You refrain from rolling your eyes. “Next Saturday, when I’m off. We’re getting brunch.”
“Oh, man,” he chuckles. “He likes you.”
“What?” you whine. “We’re getting brunch. We’re not ring shopping.”
“No guy is going to brunch with someone he’s casual about. Drinks are casual. Maybe even dinner. You get brunch with someone you like.”
“Or,” you say, shifting uncomfortably, “you get brunch because you’re dating a doctor and her schedule is horrendous.” Langdon simply shakes his head with a chuckle. “You told me you haven’t been on a date in years. How would you even know that?”
“Because I do,” he states, and it is exactly that— a statement.
(What he wants to say is that the reason he knows is because he can’t imagine anyone not liking you, but with your history, he also knows it may come off as a little hypocritical or unreliable. So, he bites his tongue and keeps it short instead.)
“Well, if you know this so well,” you say, “maybe you should start finding girls you want to take to brunch.”
The sound that comes out of him is something between a sigh and a groan. “I told you, I’m not—”
“I meant when you’re ready,” you cut him off, putting your hands up in surrender. “I don’t think it’d be a bad idea for you to get back out there.”
It’s then that he looks at you. Like, really looks at you, with that intensity you know so well. “You think so?”
“I mean, why not?” you ask. “You’ve been officially divorced for like, three months, right? Separated for longer? You’ve had your mourning period. And you’d be a hot commodity. It’s okay to have some fun if you want it.”
Nothing. He says nothing to that. He just continues to stare at you. And then, when you think you can’t take it anymore, he turns away. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”
The awkward turn this conversation had taken was something that you weren’t anticipating. Why was he so weird about this? If he didn’t want to date, that was fine. This was you attempting to offer him some encouragement. You couldn’t care less if he started seeing people. That was up to him. You were just trying to be a good friend.
Because that’s what you two were, right? You were friends now, or whatever your version of that was. You talked like friends, acted like them, and now you were hanging out outside of work. That was the definition of friends.
You swallow the bite of pizza you’ve been chewing and, because you can’t think of anything else to say to break this sudden tension, you glance at your paused TV and ask, “Want to watch some girls fight about some really awful men?”
Langdon looks up from his plate, hesitancy written across his face. “I’m really not into that stuff.”
You’re barely listening to him as you move to the sofa to grab the remote. “That’s what they all say.”
SEPTEMBER 26TH, 2026. (9:45 PM)
“So,” he says, pointing at the women who are currently on-screen, “just to clarify. She was her friend. And she slept with her boyfriend of nine years.”
“Correct,” you reply.
“And she and the boyfriend lied about it for seven months because they thought they weren’t going to get caught?” He glances over at you, and you nod in confirmation. “And they’re still lying about it, despite the fact that they have cameras on them at all times?”
You motion to the boyfriend who’s now talking. “Look at him. Look at that stupid fucking outfit and his god-awful moustache. Do you think he’s capable of understanding long-term consequences?”
Langdon laughs. “That’s actually kind of insane,” he says. “Are these shows always like this?”
“When they’re good, yeah. I love drama that doesn’t involve me. Sue me.”
“Well, I would have joined the cohort Bachelor night if I’d known they were like this.” He says it as if he’s joking, but you know there’s a part of him that means it.
You snort. “Well, you were always slow to learn what was right.” Before he can refute that, you point at him. “Also, I wouldn’t have let you join. That was for the girls. It was my safe space away from your bullshit.”
“Inclusivity means nothing to you,” he scoffs, chuckling as you reach over to kick his arm with your foot. He nods up toward the TV. “And okay, the two of them were married?”
“Yeah. But they were never, like… on the same page about shit,” you say. “It almost seemed like they weren’t sure about getting married when they did it. It was kind of weird.”
A huff of a laugh escapes his lips. “It’s like that sometimes. Happens more than you’d think.”
“Does it?” you ask. When you don’t get an answer, you shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m dramatic or overly romantic, but I just can’t imagine agreeing to marry someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
You see him nod slowly out of the corner of your eye. After a beat, he responds, “I did.”
That has you looking at him. “What?”
He tries to play it off, similar to how he acted when he was talking about his separation. He doesn’t fake the whole casual thing very well. “Abby and I… we were in a rough spot before she got pregnant. Neither of us did anything or whatever. But we were growing apart. I think we started to realize that while we loved each other, maybe we weren’t completely… compatible.” He meets your confused stare that’s burning a hole in the side of his face. “She wanted kids and wanted to get married earlier than I was ready for. I wanted that later, when I was deeper into the whole residency thing. I didn’t know if I could be a doctor, a husband, and a father, at that age, at the same time.”
You do know. You might know it a little too well.
“That’s a normal thing to want,” you tell him instead. “On both of your ends.”
“I know,” he says. “Then, right before we graduated from med school, she told me she was pregnant. And while it didn’t… y’know, go with my plan, I was still excited about it. We both were.” He sighs, wiping a hand down his face. The action makes you wonder how many people he’s actually talked to about this. “So, we got engaged, we moved in together, just the two of us, and it was great for a while. I had come to terms with the fact that I was going to be that doctor-husband-father trifecta. But then, we started fighting again. And I started thinking about the future, and I had this moment where it was like, ‘the only thing the two of us have in common is this kid. And if that’s all we have, that’s not what I want.’”
You weren’t expecting this level of vulnerability from him. Despite his obvious discomfort, it’s clear he’s wanted to get this off his chest. It’s nice that he trusts you enough with it.
But still, you can’t believe some of the stuff he’s saying. “There obviously had to be some love still there,” you reply, hoping to make him feel at least a little better. “You still married her. You stayed with her.”
“We got married because it felt like the right thing to do.” He says it like it’s a fact. “We stayed together and had another kid because it felt like the right thing to do. And, yeah, I loved her, and I don’t regret it at all, because we raised two incredible fucking kids. We did that together. But I also think… I think she deserves better than the person she got. Who I was during our marriage, I mean.” You watch as his face morphs into something like shame. “She deserved better than to be married to an addict.”
You feel your chest tighten slightly. “Langdon…”
“I mean that,” he says, looking you directly in the eye. You can tell he does. “And, yeah, I love her. I still do. And I like to think that I’ve changed. That I’m better, and I’m still trying to do right by her. But I…” He sighs, and it almost sounds like it’s being forced out of his chest. “I love her as if she’s family. Because she is. I love her because she’s my children’s mother. I don’t think I… I don’t love her the way I…”
“...The way you should love your wife?” you finish, because he doesn’t seem to have the words to.
Langdon throws his head back and squeezes his eyes shut. “God, I’m such an asshole.” His voice comes out muffled against his hands as he says, “I’ve never said any of that out loud. I must sound fucking awful.”
He doesn’t sound great, you agree, but he sounds honest. He sounds fair. He…
“You sound like a guy who’s divorcing his wife,” you state, unsure of what reaction that’s going to elicit. He just looks at you between his fingers. “You sound like a guy in a relationship where nobody… fucked up beyond repair, or whatever, but you just grew apart. I’m sure you both could point fingers, her more than you—” You shrug when he shoots you a look. “—but growing apart from someone doesn’t make either of you an asshole. You both were trying to do your best and do what you thought was best for your kids.”
He takes a moment to sit with this. You can see him absorb it. Then, “And you sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
A long, heavy sigh escapes your lips. Reflexively, you find yourself glancing down at your left ring finger, and you bring your knees to your chest as you think on this.
“Maybe a little,” you say after a beat. “Jamie and I were not… compatible, as you said.” You shrug, tension growing in your shoulders. “I didn’t realize it until, like, months after I left him, but yeah. Looking back now, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know we wouldn’t have made it. Even if—” You stop yourself, throat clenching and catching your words. “Even if certain things had been different.”
He wants to ask. You can tell that he does. You pray that he doesn’t. You don’t think you’ll ever be ready to talk about that.
Luckily, Langdon seems to get the hint. But not enough of a hint to refrain from saying, “If it makes you feel any better, I knew you two weren’t going to last.”
A surprised laugh erupts from your mouth. “How the hell is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Because he was a dick,” he replies, a small smile pulling at his lips as he watches you.
“You met him twice,” you argue, eyes narrowing. “We ended things four months into my first year of school.”
“Yeah, and both times I met him, he was a dick.” The insistence in his voice makes you laugh again. “I’m serious. Even back then, I knew you deserved better than that. He was miserable. It didn’t even seem like he liked you.”
Your smile dips at that, and while you hope he doesn’t notice, you know he does. “I’m not sure he did at that point,” you admit, then shake your head. “It doesn’t matter. That’s all in the past. What I’m trying to say is, there were reasons that we grew apart. We both played a part in it. And most of the time, that’s what causes people to end things. I don’t want to say it’s normal, but it’s… in that instance, it is. Normal. People outgrow each other.”
He casts his eyes up at the ceiling with a heavy breath. “I guess they do.”
It’s quiet then. The sound of your favorite reality show characters arguing fills the now-empty space, and for whatever reason, it all compels you to say, “For what it’s worth?” He turns his head to look at you. “I like to think that you’ve changed, too.”
You watch his face as your words hit him— how it changes into something foreign. Something unreadable. It’s as if he’s trying to figure you out, but there’s something more behind it. You want to tell him to join the club.
As you try to decipher it, he swallows, never breaking eye contact. “Yeah?” he asks. “You mean that?”
“I do,” you say. “And I think it’s all for the better.”
Once again, all you can hear is the sound of the girls on TV fighting about who’s in the wrong. However, this time around, there’s a new tension in the air. It’s something unspoken, but it’s something tangible. You wonder if he can feel it too.
As he continues to look at you like that, you think he might just be able to. It makes you chuckle uneasily and scrunch your brow. “What?”
Langdon shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says.
You kick him with your foot again. “That look’s not nothing. What?”
He presses his lips together, hesitating just a moment longer than he probably should. “I’m just… really glad you came back into my life,” he tells you. Your stomach flips, not expecting anything like that to come out of his mouth. But he’s not done. “I can’t believe I wasted so much time not knowing you like this.”
The words hit you like a freight train. They almost have you immobilized. Because you can’t think of anything else to say, you manage to say, “Only took you eight years to realize it.”
He turns back to face the TV, pieces of his hair falling into his eyes. “Well, you said it yourself,” he says quietly. “I’m slow to learn what’s right.”
And, regretfully, as your cheeks blaze and your chest starts to tighten in that way that’s become so common around him, you come to an absolutely horrid realization.
You can no longer pretend that you don’t know what this tension between you two is.
You know exactly what it is.
And fuck, it is awful.
OCTOBER 3RD, 2026. (2:08 PM)
You get a call from Dana halfway through your date, and it’s unbelievably well-timed. So well-timed, in fact, that your Finance Bro date is convinced that it’s a staged excuse to leave.
No matter how many times you try to look apologetic while you’re on the phone or how many times you explain to him that sometimes, on extremely busy days at the hospital, this happens, he genuinely doesn’t believe you. You take that to mean that he’s on the same page as you about how well this date’s going.
It wasn’t that it was bad. It really wasn’t. That spark had just… died out. Whatever bit of interest that you had in him had faded the more that he only spoke to you about… well, anything. About his job that you didn’t care about. About his ever-important life and his family that summered in The Hamptons. About his interests, what he was reading, the golf he played, and the places he’d traveled. Or, maybe it was how he notably neglected to ask questions about you and yours.
The mask had been ripped off, and the shiny newness of it all had dimmed. You’re not completely sure how or why it happened so quickly. You suppose that sometimes it just happened that way.
You arrive at PTMC with the go-bag you keep in your car on your shoulder, filled with a pair of backup scrubs and other miscellaneous items. You’re still in the clothes you’d worn on the date. It wasn’t anything fancy or out of your wheelhouse, but the eyebrows you raise give you pause. The majority of these people had only seen you in scrubs or sweats with zero to no makeup on. The rare occasions that you’d go out together were the only exception. The first time you’d forced Mohan to go out for drinks with you, you’d told her that seeing her out of them was like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. Maybe this was the same.
Dana lets out a low whistle. “Look at you, all dressed up with nowhere to go,” she says. There’s an air of approval in her voice. “Where are you coming from?”
You heave a heavy sigh as you plop your bag on the counter. “A date,” you reply shortly, and you feel Collins’ gaze immediately on you. You point at the two of them as both of their eyes light up. “Don’t get excited. He sucks.”
“They all do,” Collins says, your fellow attending now looking slightly apologetic. “I’m ready to give up.”
You pump a fist at her. “Right on.”
Dana deflates in front of you. “I’ll pretend like that doesn’t completely bum me out. But, I guess it was good timing. I was feeling bad that I’d called you.”
“No, I’m glad you did. He thought you were bailing me out, actually. Didn’t stop bitching about it until I paid for brunch.” Collins blinks at you in surprise, and Dana’s jaw drops. You sigh once more. “Yeah. So don’t feel bad.”
With the shake of her head, she says, “Where the hell are you finding these guys?”
“Hell,” you say. “Hinge. Pittsburgh. It’s all the same thing.”
“Shit-talking the city is never a good way to start a shift,” you hear a voice say as they approach to hand a chart to Dana. By the time you look at him, Langdon’s already given you a once-over, but something in his expression falters as he meets your eyes.
Dana’s already scolding him before he can say anything. “Risky Business over here was on a date, idiot. I wouldn’t have called her in if I’d known that,” she tells him, motioning to you. “You told me she’d be free tonight.”
You glance away from him to look at Dana in confusion. “What?” you ask, then motion to the doctor beside you. “He told you I was free?”
Langdon goes rigid. “Oh, fuck,” he mutters. “That was today?”
It’s said in such a way that you almost believe that he forgot. That it was so incredibly busy that it had completely slipped his mind, and he’d thrown out your name when it was decided that reinforcements should be called in.
But there’s something in your gut that tells you that that’s not quite the case.
You see Dana and Collins exchange a knowing sort of glance before looking back at Langdon. They seem to be riding the same wave as you.
Instead of saying anything to him, Dana huffs a soft, disbelieving laugh and then turns to you. “I’d scrub up. We need you out here.”
“Heard,” you say slowly. A strange mixture of annoyance and confusion graces your expression, and you shoot a look at Langdon before walking away.
Had he purposely sabotaged your date? Sure, it had been going poorly, but there was no way he could have known that. Even if it had been the perfect third date, he knew you well enough to know that there was no way you wouldn’t come in if asked. He knew. He fucking knew exactly where you’d be and—
God, this was so like him. Here you were, thinking there was some sort of blossoming friendship between you. You were even foolish enough to think that there was a moment (more than one fucking moment, actually!) between you two back at your apartment. That he might actually like you, not just respect you.
But no. There would never be. Even after everything you’d been through over these last couple of months— even after everything you’d done for him. Because at his core, he was an asshole, and that’s what assholes did. He was still trying to ruin every potentially good thing in your life just to play some little mind game for his own entertainment and benefit.
You hear his footsteps trying to catch up with you as you make your way to the on-call rooms. “Hey, hey, slow down,” he says, falling into step with you. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t remember that that was today.”
“Yeah, you did,” you snap. “Because the last time I checked, you don’t forget things. So don’t pull that shit.”
His head rolls in aggravation, but you can’t tell if it’s because he feels caught or if it’s because he feels bad. “I forgot this time. We’re slammed here, and you were on my mind and—”
“I was on your mind?” you repeat in disbelief, go-bag slamming against your side as you whip around to look at him. “What the fuck does that mean? What, were you thinking about me on this date that you and I both know I was on, and you thought, ‘hmm. What perfect timing. Let’s ruin this thing like I’ve ruined everything else in her life.’”
He has the audacity to shake his head. “You know, you missed your calling as a drama major,” he scoffs. “You’d be killing it in a local production of Waiting For Godot.”
Your hands clench into fists at your sides. Your voice is laced with a quiet sort of fury, making sure not to attract any attention as you say, “First of all, there are no women in Waiting For Godot, so that’s another shitty reference, you fucking idiot. My God, man, crack a book every once in a while.” At that, he smiles in disbelief, like he can’t believe that’s what you chose to focus on. “Second of all, I’m not being dramatic. This is what you do! This is what you’ve always done. You see me want something, and then all of a sudden, you decide that I can’t have it.”
“Did you even want this?” he asks. The volume of his voice and rage in it now match yours. “You just told Dana how awful it was. I got you out of there.”
You feel like pulling your hair out. “That’s not the point—”
“Then what is? I don’t get why this is such a big deal.”
“And I don’t get why you care so much about the fact that I’m dating!” Your voice goes up a level, and you shut your eyes to calm yourself down. When you reopen them, Langdon is staring at you intently. “What is it? Why do you care?”
His arms immediately cross over his chest. “I don’t.”
“Clearly,” you begin, motioning a hand in his direction, “you do. I just want to know why.”
“I don’t care if you’re dating,” he barks. The frustration in his voice is palpable. “Why would I? Why would I concern myself with that aspect of your life?”
“I don’t know, Langdon. Why would you?” You know you’re going back and forth in a continuous, torturous cycle, but you’re too upset and angry to care. “Are you pissed off that you’re scared to date and I’m not? What, because we’re suddenly friends, you think you should get to vet everyone before I get with them?”
“Vet everyone— what the hell are you talking about?” He throws a hand in your direction. “Do you actually think I’d want a say in that?”
“You wanted one tonight,” you say with a shrug. “And you got it. It worked. Congratulations. I’m here and not with the guy who wanted to take me home.”
Langdon tilts his head in a way that makes it look like he’s going to grimace, but finds the willpower to refrain from doing so. “And I’m sure that you’re missing that discussion about how Atomic Habits changed him as a person after the most boring three minutes of your life.”
“Oh, my God.” Your eyes narrow, and a small, disbelieving laugh bubbles in your stomach. “You’re actually mad about this. This is crazy. What is your deal?”
“I’m not—” He puts his face in his hands as if he’ll be able to disappear from this conversation if he can’t see you. “I don’t have a deal. I’m not mad—”
“Oh, you are. You’re so fucking pissed right now,” you laugh, crossing your arms over your chest. “I haven’t seen you this pissed since I diagnosed Doctor Clarke’s impossible patient before you.” Your smile only gets wider as he shifts. “Dance, monkey, dance. Let’s see how far we can go.”
He rolls his eyes, turning on his heel to leave the room. “You’re fucking ridiculous. I’m not doing this with you right now. I’m gonna go do our job, okay? Go save some—”
“Is it because he was hot? Is that what made you mad?” You’ve taken on a rather patronizing tone that you know is a little much, but you don’t care enough to stop. “Because he had money? Because he comes from a nice family? Because you don’t think I deserve that?”
That’s what gets him to stop in his tracks and abandon his exit strategy. His brow furrows deeply, and he looks at you in disbelief. “What?”
His reaction has you shrugging again, though you pull your arms closer to your chest. “It’s just like med school. You don’t think I deserve it. You never thought I worked hard enough, so you made sure I never got the things I wanted. You went out of your way to work harder to make that happen and—”
“Is that what you think this is?” he asks incredulously. Langdon’s looking at you like he just made some sort of game-changing discovery. “Is that seriously what you’ve thought since school?”
With a soft scoff, you reply, “You never gave me a reason to think otherwise.”
The intensity of his gaze continues to strike you. You’re not sure how much longer you can take it. But he won’t look away. Not until he shakes his head with a tired, soft chuckle and says, “Oh, Flight Risk. You’ve got it all wrong.”
Your lips part in confusion. What does he mean? You had it all wrong? You’d despised each other for years. Competed for years. Were you— how could you have been wrong? This had been a requited hatred, something that you assumed would stretch generations. Centuries. An old, deep-seated grudge would be seeded and solidified between your family and the Langdons. That’s how it was supposed to be. He wasn’t supposed to throw this curveball.
What was he saying? And more importantly, how long had you apparently been wrong?
You uneasily resign yourself from the argument, eyes on him cautiously. “What does that mean?”
Langdon pinches his nose, throwing a hand up in exasperation. “What do you think it means? You’re the smartest person I know. Figure it out.”
You don’t believe him. There’s no way you could be wrong. He constantly ruined things for you. Nothing was ever easy with him. He’d made sure of that, thanks to his constant, exhausting competitive nature and his unwavering will to make you work harder than ever before. There was no other way to interpret that.
But he was saying there was. That you’d read it wrong. How could you have…?
Had he had different intentions? Had he thought that it was different between you? No. You may have been friends now, but back then, he hated you as much as you hated him. He wouldn’t have done half the shit he did to you if he didn’t. Half the shit you did to him had to have made him hate you.
Right?
That rivalry between you two was not one-sided. But maybe it was for different reasons.
Everything between you was a competition, one that made both of you want to beat the other. To think smarter, to work harder-- to be better. And it worked. Perhaps the lengths you’d gone to weren’t necessary, but at the end of the day, it had made you better doctors.
Better.
Was that what it was?
“You’re not mad because you think I don’t deserve him,” you say slowly, like you’re still piecing this together. “You’re mad because you want me to do better.”
A noise that sounds a bit like a laugh escapes him. “Yes. Very astute. Validating that Academic Achievement award each day,” he mutters, repeating the jab you’d sent his way last weekend.
You want to unpack more of his previous statement. But there’s more to this. Something other than your Med School relationship. It’s more pressing than any of that, and it continues to linger in your mind.
Disregarding his joke completely, you say, “But you were mad because I was on a date.” You’re not sure what waters you’re testing here, but they’re uncharted. “Weren’t you?”
You see him swallow. But he says nothing. It’s all you need.
“You told Dana to call me in because you were pissed knowing that I was out with someone,” you continue. It’s like it’s all coming out at once. All of these realizations are coming to fruition, and you physically can’t help yourself from verbalizing them. “What was it? Was it just the thought of me and him that’s got you like this? Was it because you were thinking about what we were doing? If I was having fun with him?”
Your voice is smooth. Lethal. Somehow soft. Langdon squirms before you, rolling his eyes in an attempt to look unaffected and annoyed. The power of it almost satisfies you. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now, I—”
“Or,” you say, eyes narrowing as you read his body language and piece everything together. A small, disbelieving smirk tugs at your lips. “Was it because you were thinking about me getting all dressed up for someone who isn’t you, and you couldn’t fucking stand it?”
Langdon’s entire state of being changes right before your eyes. In fact, the temperature in the room shifts the second those words leave your lips. His mouth snaps shut, his brows draw back, and he takes a full step away from you. But his eyes give him away. They always do.
They’re calculating, if not slightly panicked, like he’d just been found out and was looking for an escape route. But there was none. Not when you were looking at him like that, with that stupid fucking smirk on your face that slowly disappeared as you realized he had no retort to that comment.
Did he—? Was he—? Were you—? Had you been right?
He’d told you himself that you were good at noticing things. It was a requirement of your chosen career. You figured that what you said probably had some sort of truth to it, but you weren’t expecting this type of reaction. You weren’t expecting him to completely shut down in front of you, floundering for words that couldn’t seem to reach him.
Fuck. You were right, weren’t you? He was jealous. He didn’t sabotage your date because of your stupid fucking grudge. He was jealous.
You’re not sure which one is worse.
You blink at him, your voice smaller now. “Langdon?”
It’s then that he’s saved by the bell— literally. By some cosmic fucking timing, he’s paged by Mel, who’s asking him to come to Trauma Two for a heart attack, and seconds later you get a call from Dana who’s sending you to North Seven for a broken fibula. You both glance at your phones to hang up, then back up at each other, looking more freaked out than either of you has ever seen each other.
You point at the door without looking away from him. “You should—”
“Yeah,” he agrees, way too quickly to be normal. He breaks his gaze to motion at your go-bag on the cot. “You should—”
“Yeah,” you repeat. “I’ll, uh—” Unsure what to do with your hands, you turn to dig through your bag for your scrubs. “We’ll… uh, talk about this… later.”
Langdon’s already out the door when you hear him say, “Hopefully not.”
“Okay,” you say curtly. “I’m good with that, too.”
The door slams and you have to take a seat on the cot to collect yourself.
There’s barely any time for you to change and scrub your makeup off your face before Dana’s paging you again.
You fly out of the on-call room, mind elsewhere.
OCTOBER 3RD, 2026. (6:58 PM)
You don’t see him again until the end of your shift, and it's not your finest hour.
On your last case of the day, you’d been tasked with casting a simple broken bone-- something that Robby had offered to you as a relaxed, parting gift and a thank you for coming in. It was a drunk, nineteen-year-old boy who’d been day drinking at his frat and had made the brilliant decision to jump off a deck and onto a folding table in the hopes of breaking it cleanly. He’d succeeded in breaking both the table and his wrist.
You should have seen it coming. He wasn’t all there. Not totally in control of his reflexes, unsure of what exactly was going on. The team had been working on getting his blood alcohol levels down, but there was still something off.
In the middle of your typical conversation, talking points, and assessment questions, you’d tweaked his arm the wrong way when trying to get it into a sling. It had been an accident. But it’d hurt him.
And the pain had surprised him so much that he’d pushed you off of him with his free hand, sending you flying back into the monitor so hard that it knocked the wind out of you and sliced your forehead open.
Whitaker, who’d been accompanying you, immediately sprang into action, holding back the boy as he started yelling profanities at you. It had gotten so loud that it’d attracted the attention of the entire ED, specifically Robby and Donnie, who just so happened to be walking by.
The situation had been diffused with ease and grace (as was par for the course with Robby), and by the time he’d turned to you to make sure that you were okay, Langdon was already in the room.
“You alright?” Robby asks after Whitaker had given him a recap of what had happened.
“Yeah,” you say, removing your fingers from your head. The blood that had dripped down them was sticky and wet, and you grimaced at the look of it. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Langdon says, as if it’s a fact. “You need stitches.”
You glare at him, looking at Robby to see if he concurs. He takes a step forward and examines your head with a squint. “I don’t know if it’s a stitches-level cut, but you know what we say here.”
When he removes his hand from your face, you sigh. “We don’t fuck with head shit.”
Robby’s eyes crinkle as his lips stretch into a soft smile. “Not exactly. But you’ve got the spirit,” he says. He turns to Langdon. “Evaluate her and then start an incident report. And then you,” he says, whipping back to point at you, “are going to clock out and take tomorrow off. You sit on your ass and do nothing all day. You hear me?”
Your frown deepens, and your stomach sinks at the idea of Langdon now being responsible for patching you up. But you push all of that down and nod. “I hear you.”
The monotone, desolate sound of your voice makes Robby chuckle. “Alright. Good work today, kid. Be careful with that arm next time.”
It’s when Robby starts to talk to the frat boy that you look over at Langdon. His eyes flash with a slight panic before he takes a breath and nods at you, motioning for you to follow him. You look at Whitaker and Donnie, who have successfully subdued the kid, then shut your eyes. Reluctantly, you do as you’re told.
As Langdon searches for an empty room, you can’t help but mutter, “I’m fine. Robby said I don’t need stitches.”
“And he told me to evaluate you,” he shoots right back, opening the curtain for you for room eight when he realizes it’s free. “I don’t deviate from orders.”
That gets an actual, true laugh from you. The motion of it pulls at the cut, and you wince. “That might be the funniest thing you’ve ever said.”
He pulls the curtain shut as you sit down on the bed, shifting uncomfortably. The tension in the room is thick. It’s palpable and genuinely painful, and you purposely avoid his gaze each time he makes a move.
You don’t know what to say to do. How were you supposed to pick up from where you left off? How could you? There was no casual way to talk about it, and judging by the way you could feel his eyes on you every time you so much as flinched, you figured he was on the verge of bolting too. Some pair you two were.
With gloves now on his hands, Langdon turns to you to examine the cut. You pretend you don’t notice the way he hesitates before he goes to grab your face, his touch just a bit too gentle to be professional. You can feel the warmth of his fingers through the gloves as they cup your chin. You cast your eyes to the ceiling as he tilts your head.
“You alright?” he asks quietly, finally breaking the silence. It almost startles you. You look at him for the first time since entering the room, only to find that he’s staring at your cut.
“Yeah,” you rasp, clearing your throat soon after. “I’m fine. I should have been expecting it.”
Frowning, he asks, “Expecting him to deck you?”
Your scowl matches his now. “He was still drunk. Erratic. He’s a nineteen-year-old frat boy at Pitt. I should have expected the way he was going to react to pain.”’
“That’s not on you,” he mutters, moving to grab an antiseptic wipe.
You sigh, trying your best at a shrug. “It doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t. It happened. We signed up for this shit. Gotta take it in stride and be better next time.”
Langdon looks like he has about a million things to say to that when he turns to face you, but he presses his lips together like that will keep them in. Instead, after a moment, when he’s carefully wiping the cut, he asks, “Do you want me to beat him up?”
A surprised laugh escapes you, and the second your body moves, the antiseptic hits you the wrong way and starts to burn. Your smile stays on your face despite the way you wince. “I’m not allowing you to lose your medical license over Chad from Sig Chi.”
Finally, Langdon’s lips twitch upward. “Why not? I’d win. Break his other arm. Teach him not to touch my attending.”
Something stirs in your chest at that, but you push it deep down in the hopes of forgetting about it. “I think Whitaker’s got that covered,” you say with a chuckle. “He basically jumped on the guy after he did it. Started yelling at him and everything. I didn’t think the sweet boy had it in him.”
“Well,” he says, reaching for the flashlight he kept in his pocket. You squint at the light as he flashes it at you, lifting one of your eyes to make sure everything’s in check. “Remind me to thank him for that.”
When the light turns off, you blink rapidly, attempting to readjust to look at him. This time, it’s harder to push that feeling down. Still, you manage to do so. “I already told him I’d buy him a drink the next time we go out.”
You hadn’t, but you’d meant to. You’re not sure why you’d said that, other than the fact that it was something to say. To put some distance between you two. He wasn’t responsible for thanking him; you were.
God, you hated this. This feeling of not knowing where you two stood. You liked to know every angle of every situation and problem before you made a move. It’s the first thing that Klein had noted about you. He’d said that it was what made you good at your job. You were thoughtful and calculated, but never too in your head to make a decision. You were three steps ahead.
You’d blushed like a fucking schoolgirl and told him that you were just quick on your feet.
But now, here you were, drowning with cement blocks on those feet. You weren’t good at this. The medical world you knew. You could pull off miracles simply by accessing that little Rolodex in your mind, pulling out the right card to make the right move. But this? There were no notes. You weren’t told how to act, how exactly to be good at it. Nothing about this was natural.
And then there was the fear. Out there, you weren’t scared of anything. Sure, you were careful and you were worried, and sometimes the worst of those worries came true. But you were rarely afraid. You couldn’t afford to be.
You couldn’t afford to be now, either. You couldn’t make the wrong move. And in all honesty, you weren’t sure what the right move was. Not after…
“Well, Robby was right. You don’t need stitches,” Langdon suddenly says, snapping you out of your spiral. “And you’re not concussed, which is good. We’re gonna give it a little glue and bandage it up, and you’re gonna have a nasty bruise for a little, but you’ll be fine.”
You had figured all of this (you didn’t think the cut was deep enough for stitches, and you hadn’t felt the slightest bit dizzy), but a wave of relief washes over you anyway. “Good,” you say, moving to stand up. “I can patch myself up from here. Thanks for—”
“Sit down, Hawkeye,” he mutters, putting his hand on your shoulder to gently push you back down. “I’ll do it.”
You let out a sharp sigh. “Langdon, seriously, I’m—”
“Sit down,” he repeats. His voice has turned firm, and you know there’s no use arguing. When you look up at him in surprise, his eyes soften. “Just… please. Let me do this for you.”
You hold his gaze for a moment longer than you probably should. Then, you nod.
He nods back, and he gets to it.
He works in silence, wordlessly gathering all the things he needs to fix you up. It’s a quick process, one that takes under five minutes and one that you absolutely could have done yourself, but you don’t say anything more about it. You just rotate from staring at the ceiling, then at the side of his face, and then to the floor.
A minute in, you ask, “Is this your way of apologizing for sabotaging my date?”
You’re at the point of your rotation where you’re looking at him, and you see his eyes close momentarily. You’re expecting a deflection, a rebuttal, some other contrarian point. But instead he says, “Yeah. Something like that.”
He meets your eyes, reveling in the surprise in them for a moment, before returning his focus to your forehead. You press your lips together. “Okay,” you say lightly. Then, like you’re speaking to a skittish animal, you ask, “Are we gonna talk about that?”
Langdon’s fingers falter as he finishes gluing. He goes quiet on you. You don’t think you’re going to get an answer until, “Depends on where your head’s at.”
You can’t help the grin that spreads across your mouth. “My head’s currently in your hands—”
“You know what I mean,” he chuckles. Your chest warms as you see the subtle shade of pink his cheeks have tinged. “What do you— If that all were—” He clears his throat, like that will make the words come out easier. “How does… that make you feel?”
“What?” you ask. “The fact that you absolutely have a thing for me and your eyes completely glazed over in a jealous rage and you—”
“I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you,” he all but whines. When you give him a look, he relents. “But… yeah. That.”
You take a moment to collect your thoughts. You want to say the right thing. You don’t want to scare him off. But you also want to figure out how it actually makes you feel.
However, before you can do that, you need clarity on something. “You said I had… whatever I thought about med school was all wrong. What does that mean?”
His throat bobs, and it takes a minute for him to swallow the visible lump. Truthfully, he never thought he’d ever be having this conversation with you. He wants to— needs to phrase it the right way. Especially now.
“I… Back then,” he begins, unwrapping a Steri-Strip. “I never hated you.”
You stare at him. “You sure had some way of showing that.”
“I didn’t like you,” he says, watching as you purse your lips at the correction. “But I didn’t ever hate you.”
“Of course,” you agree, sarcasm laced within your words. “Because there’s a huge difference between those.”
“There is,” he says. “I was just— Listen.” He releases a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. “Everyone else in our class was good. They were competent. But I remember looking around during a lab and just knowing that I was better than anyone else there.”
Though it is, unfortunately, the truth, your lips part, trying to figure out where he’s going with this. “And so much more humble, too.”
He ignores you. “And I liked that. That was fine with me because I wanted to be the best. Then, you walked in, and you had this look on your face like you had something to prove. But right after, you sat down next to someone and immediately started talking to them. And I didn’t get that. I wasn’t raised like that. I didn’t understand how you could want to prove something but also want to make friends with the first person you met. There was something about you that told me I should be keeping an eye on you.” The feeling of his fingers on your forehead suddenly starts to feel a little too warm. “So, when you ran out of the room on the first day, I thought I was safe. But then, in the next class, the professor asked this question that nobody knew the answer to. And I remember everyone just staring at her in silence until your hand went up. And you just rattled off this insanely detailed answer that sounded like you were teaching the class instead of her.”
You remember this all too well, too. Heat rises to your face as you think of how insufferable you must have seemed. “Well, you said it yourself. I had something to prove.”
“That’s when I knew I had to worry about you,” he says. “And that, I don’t know. It made me excited. I don’t know if that’s selfish, but it was the first time I felt like I had competition. I wanted to see what you were trying to prove and how good you really were. I wanted to keep that going. So, I just started… intentionally trying to push you. I started calling you Flight Risk to piss you off—”
“Oh, I remember—”
“—and competing with you because I wanted to see what you could do. I know I could have probably been nicer about it, but like I said, I’m not good at that. I wasn’t— I’m not… friendly like you.” He smooths a strip down, and his touch is gentler than before. “But you were good. You were really fucking good and you started scoring higher than I did. On everything. And that snapped me into gear because it made me want to be better. But it seemed like the better I got, the better you wanted to be. And then… it just became fun,” he says, grinning, looking just a bit nostalgic. “Don’t get me wrong, it was hell. I hated that I had done it to myself some days. But it made me better than I thought I could be. And seeing what you could do? I knew you hadn’t had any type of competition before. And after a while, I started to want you to be better, too, because I knew you could be.”
It’s just about what you assumed when he told you that you had everything wrong. In your head, knowing him, it was the only thing that could have made sense. But the whole admission still catches you by surprise.
There was something about being seen by someone. About someone intrinsically knowing things about you that no one else had caught on to as quickly. Because he wasn’t wrong. You had walked into that class with something to prove. It was one of the best Med programs in the country, and you wanted everyone to know that you belonged there. You hadn’t had competition in a while and had gotten bored with it all. You’d never had someone rival you in that way before.
He’d used the word exciting, and in a strange, treacherous way, it had been. It was exciting for you to have someone not just at your level, but someone who forced you to perform to an even higher standard. There was something about someone who demanded that you be better.
While you didn’t agree with all of his tactics, and yes, he probably could have been nicer about it, it felt good to officially know that he had always seen you not just as a threat, but as an academic equal.
“So, yeah. You had it wrong,” he continues, nearly finished working. “I never hated you. I hated that you gave me a run for my money, but never you.” With a deep breath, he then mutters, “And now, I’m admitting that I like you and you still haven’t said anything about how you feel about it, which is awesome.”
You have clarity with him for once. For better or for worse.
You like Langdon, too. It’s something you’ve known for a while but have tried desperately to ignore. After everything you’ve been through, as your relationship has completely flipped on itself— it’s an idea that you’ve resigned to. It’s something that’s been brewing for a long time, and now, it’s finally broken to the surface. It still makes you a bit uneasy, nervous even, but it’s also… exciting. For lack of a better word.
It’s been a desperate search to try to identify the thing you’ve been feeling since you first got coffee with him. Why your heart keeps stuttering when you look at him, why you’re excited to see him day after day, why you look forward to bantering with him, and why it never gets old.
You like him. You do.
It’s a strange feeling— something you haven’t felt since you left Boston. And while that scares you, something about this one tells you that you don’t have to be. No more running. No more fear.
No more Flight Risks.
“I’m okay with that,” you finally say. He stops what he’s doing the second the words leave your lips. “I mean, I don’t agree at all with what you did and think it was shitty of you to—”
“Yeah, I know, I’m an asshole. We’ve known this for years.” He doesn’t seem too focused on the second part of your statement, more occupied with the first. He crouches down to meet you at eye level. “But… that first part. You mean that?”
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from smiling too hard. “Weirdly enough, I do.” As if that won’t get your point across, you meet his equally excited gaze. “I like you, you asshole. About as much as you like me.”
You get one of those smiles in return— the one that completely transforms and lights up his face. “About as much?” he mutters, returning to finish bandaging you up.
“Yeah,” you say. You’re grinning just as stupidly as he is. “You’re obviously way more into me than I’m into you. I’m not at the level where I’d sabotage a date you went on—”
“My God, I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?” he groans. He smoothes the last strip down, fingers lingering for a moment longer than they should. It’s a simple thing that makes your heart stutter. “Alright. You’re all set.”
“Thank you, Doctor Langdon. Incredible job.” You stand from the bench, and instinctively, you reach up to feel his handiwork. “So, what now?”
He turns to you, taking his gloves off. “Now, you go home and do exactly what Robby told you to do. Nothing.”
The teasing note in his voice has you glaring at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Oh, you mean for you and me?” he asks, chuckling as your look sharpens. “Now you wait for that glue to dry, and we turn that Steelers game in two weeks into a date.”
You’re marginally surprised by how fast he came up with that, and you find yourself narrowing your eyes. “Was that your plan all along?”
He shrugs, suddenly just a bit shy. “It might have crossed my mind.”
“I was wondering why you hadn’t let me pay you back yet,” you grumble.
“I’ll take a page out of Finance-Bro’s playbook and let you pay for brunch before the game.”
With a scandalized gasp and the beginnings of a protest on your tongue, you shove past him to leave the room, but find that’s grabbed you before you can make your exit. Your heart races at the feeling of his hand on your hip and the way he grips you to turn you to face him. He nearly forgets what he’s going to say when you look up at him.
“I’m serious, though,” he gets out after a second. “I… I do, y’know. I really like you. I want to do this right.”
His sincerity makes your heart swell. You put your hand over his and remove it from your side, choosing instead to interlock your fingers. He glances down at your hands, then back at you. “We will.” Squeezing his hand, you say, “Thanks for patching me up.”
He squeezes your hand in return, and God, he looks fucking giddy about it. “Thanks for giving me a chance.”
You return to the floor moments later, Langdon following close behind, both of you desperately trying to keep the dopey-looking smiles off your faces. You’re not sure if anyone notices, but thankfully, no one says anything.
They seem to be too focused on the injury you’ve acquired.
The shifts are in the process of transitioning, and you lock eyes with Ellis the second you walk up to the nurses’ station. “What the hell happened to you?”
Santos’s head pops out of the hoodie she’s putting on as she realizes you’re back. She whistles when she sees the bandage on your head. “Nice battle scar, Jasper.”
Sighing, you take off your badge and place it on the counter. You wave Dana off as she moves to get a look at you. “I’m fine. Got too close to the frat boy in South Three.”
“Little shit swung at her,” Dana mutters.
“He hit you?” Ellis asks, incredulous.
You hold up a hand. “Pushed me,” you correct. “Don’t worry. Langdon already threatened to beat up the nineteen-year-old, guys. He’s got it covered. Chivalry isn’t dead.”
You hear him scoff, but the warmth in his voice doesn’t miss you when he says, “You're unbelievable.”
“But Whitaker did jump him for me, so we’re all good,” you say, nodding at him as he approaches the station with his go-bag. He flushes when he realizes what you’re talking about. “Held him down and everything. That was impressive, kid.”
He shakes his head with a small smile. “It was nothing.”
“Not nothing. You saved me from the wrath of a boy who’s listened to ‘No Hands’ one too many times,” you say. Then, you address the room. “I’m fine. Thank you all for the concern.” You point at everyone in warning. “Nobody actually beat up the frat boy, please. I’m gonna go sleep this off. I’ll see you all later.”
You head off to your locker with a wave, exhaustion hitting you the second you realize you’re off the clock. You feel Langdon’s eyes on you as you walk away, but don’t turn around. There’s no need for any of your coworkers to suspect that anything’s changed between you two. Not yet.
(They’re well past suspicion. They’ve noticed the change in your relationship since Langdon returned. There’s a secret pool going about when and how something’s going to happen. But it’s cute to see you two try.)
When you’re out of sight, he takes his stethoscope off his neck, wanting nothing more than to follow you out. It’s then that he notices the way that Dana’s looking at him. “What?”
She glances down at the counter, then back up at him. “She left her badge,” she says. “Do you want to run out and give it to her, or do you want me to hold on to it until Monday?”
Langdon reaches for it so fast that Dana thinks he might hurt himself. Still, he’s casual when he says, “I got it.”
He’s already chasing you down when he hears Ellis mutter, “I’m sure you do.”
As the team laughs quietly, he doesn’t turn around and tell the team to ‘fuck off’ like he wants to. Right now, he’s only got one thing on his mind, and it’s something he should have done months ago.
You’re no longer at your locker by the time he gets there. He doesn’t find you until you’re already at your car, just about to get inside.
He calls your name— your real one. Not your last name or your god-awful nickname. The sound of it makes you turn around in confusion.
It happens so quickly that you almost don’t process it. One second, he’s jogging over toward you, the next, he’s in front of you, hands cupping your cheeks and head dipping down to press his lips to yours.
You freeze as you realize what’s happening. He’s kissing you. Frank Langdon is kissing you.
It’s sweet. Chaste, even. His touch is feather-light yet strong, holding tight but allowing you to pull away if this isn’t what you want. There’s no force to it, but still, you find your knees buckling, and you have to hold onto his arms to keep yourself upright.
It’s short. He’s completely stolen your breath from your lungs in mere seconds, and before you can even attempt to respond or deepen it in any way, he’s pulling away. You grip his arms tighter as you meet his gaze, your eyes wide and pupils completely blown out.
The smile that spreads across his lips warms you from the inside out. “You forgot your badge,” he says softly. “And I think I forgot to do that.”
You let go of one of his arms to grab his shirt and pull him down toward you. “Shut up,” you murmur, the words barely making it out before his lips are on yours once more.
You can feel his smile stretch as you take the lead. His hands return to your cheeks, tighter now that he knows you’re on the same page.
This one’s more intense. It’s much less sweet and way more intentional, and you allow your go-bag to fall from your shoulder to hit the ground. He crowds you, pushing you up against the door of your car. When your back hits it, you gasp, which allows him to slip his tongue in your mouth.
You’re sure you two look ridiculous, like you’re two teenagers who are trying to get their last makeout in before curfew, but you don’t care. You don’t know if it took him actually kissing you to actually process and solidify your feelings for him, but Christ, something clicks.
You’re not just interested in pursuing Langdon (Frank— if you’re going to kiss him like this regularly, you should really start calling him Frank). It’s not some sort of schoolgirl crush that you’re testing out by agreeing to go on a couple of dates with him. You like him. Like really, fucking like him.
His hands find their way under your shirt, skimming gently along your back in a way that makes you shiver. He’s so close to you that you practically grind against him, and he rips himself away from you like he can’t take it anymore. But he doesn’t move, forehead still brushing yours.
You stare at him, chest heaving up and down, and lips slightly swollen. “You should have led with that,” you say breathlessly, smiling as he chuckles to himself.
His hands are still on your hips, and his thumbs draw circles into them as he turns back to you with a smirk. “Yeah?” he asks. “My little confession back there didn’t do it for you?”
“I loved hearing it,” you reply, tightening your grip on his shirt. “But that got your point across better.”
Frank shakes his head with a smile, and he’s leaning in to kiss you again. This time, he’s all in.
You’re back up against the door, both of you allowing the other to explore anywhere they’d like. Normally, you’d have a little shame or a little decorum, but the craziness of this situation seems to hit you both at the same time. After years of knowing, hating, competing, working, helping, and then finally liking each other, you might have some lost time to make up for.
You know that someone could walk out and see you. You’d be teased about it to the ends of the earth. But none of that matters.
This matters. He matters.
The second he groans into your mouth, you pull away to start kissing down his jaw. He has to physically stabilize himself by putting his arm on the roof of your car above your head. The other grips your hip harder.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he says lowly, and you feel your stomach flutter.
“Who says I can’t finish it?” you ask.
You’re playing with fire and you know it. He grips your face and moves you to look directly into your eyes. “You want to—?”
“Yeah,” you breathe, nodding into his hand. “Do you?”
He looks insulted that you even have to ask. “Of course I do,” he says. “But, I-I had this plan. I wanted to like, impress you and—”
“You impress me every day.” You say it like it’s a fact and he damn near melts into your arms. “And we can still do that if that’s what you want.” You smooth out the wrinkles you’ve put into his shirt. “But, if you want to meet me at my apartment and start that plan tomorrow, I’m also open to that.”
You raise to press a quick, reassuring peck to his lips, but Frank has other ideas. He makes a helpless sound, and he full-on kisses you. The second he feels you smiling into it, he starts making his way down your neck. “You make me— I can’t—”
Once again, it feels like he has to physically remove himself from you. He steps away, leaving you standing there, pupils blown out, lips swollen, and cheeks blazing. Then, he points at you. “Your apartment,” he manages. “I’ll meet you there.”
For good measure, he catches your hand as he drops his, squeezing it once before pressing his lips to the back of it. Your heart swells.
“Drive safe,” you rasp, voice breaking on the last word as you watch him walk away.
You blink, taking a moment to gather yourself. You’re barely processing it as you grab your go back, fighting the smile that’s threatening to break out on your face.
No fucking way that just happened. No way.
OCTOBER 3RD, 2026. (8:23 PM)
Somehow, he manages to beat you back to your apartment.
You’re surprised to find Langdon waiting for you, sitting on a bench outside your building. He’s looking around, knee bouncing up and down in what you hope is anticipation and not anxiety or regret.
It’s not until he locks eyes with you that you start feeling nervous yourself. But it’s a good kind of nervous, something akin to excitement. It’s jittery, even. Like you’ve consumed too much caffeine on an empty stomach.
(Adrenaline rush is the word you’re looking for, but you’re too in your head to realize it until later.)
He stands when he sees you, wiping his hands on his pants, then immediately stuffing them into his pockets. Instinct takes over as things start to go more real, and you say, “What, did you go ninety trying to get here?”
He throws his hands up. “I’ve lived here longer than you. I know how to get around.”
“Mmhmm,” you hum, passing him to unlock your building’s front door. “I hope you abided by all street signs.”
“Only the important ones,” he says, catching the door as you open it, allowing you to enter.
You snort at that, launching into some sort of mindless small talk to get your mind off the fact that both of you know what’s about to happen. It’s something about work, about the frat boy who knocked you over, and about a function that’s happening later on this month. But your mind’s on other things.
Jesus, you feel like you’re in high school. You shouldn’t be this anxious. You can’t remember the last time someone made you act this way— this distracted and antsy. Sure, you’d been excited about… others when you’d first started seeing them, but it was nothing like this. At least, you couldn’t remember it being like this.
You know what you want to do. You’re pretty sure he’s on the same page. But still, that anxious anticipation claws at the back of your mind.
When you make it to your door, you’re talking about something that occurred the last time you had a function with the team. Something about karaoke and the song Dana had forced you to sing with her.
By the time you’ve unlocked it, it’s practically irrelevant. You reach in and turn the lights on before you enter.
“By the way, do you want anything to drink?” you ask, pulling your keys out of the lock. “Water? I might have seltzer in the fridge? I’d offer food, but I haven’t been grocery shopping in like, two weeks and—”
When you turn around to look at him, you’re cut off by him bringing his lips to yours. The second the door closes, he’s cupping the space between your cheek and your neck and moving you gently against the wall— though he kisses you with the same fervor as he had previously.
Or we could do this, you think. This works too.
It’s somehow gentle but intense. His lips are soft, but his hands are rough. Sturdy. While he’s gripping your head, he’s careful not to touch the cut by your hairline. He’s both holding back and refusing to give up. It’s like he has something to prove to you, but you’re not entirely sure what. It’s a jumbled-up mess of contradictions that leaves you confused, but honestly, it’s exactly what you’d expect from him.
His other hand runs up your arm, immediately sending goosebumps up your body. “In case that prick didn’t tell you,” he murmurs against you, “you looked fucking gorgeous when you walked in today.”
Langdon kisses you once more despite the fact that you’re laughing. Your cheeks burn when you pull away from him, resting your forehead against his. “I don’t remember if he did,” you admit. “Wouldn’t have mattered either way.”
You can’t help but mirror the grin that takes over his face. “No?”
“No,” you repeat. You pull back, brushing some of the hair away from his eyes, before your hand falls to his jaw. “I knew he wasn’t going to stick.” Before he can lean in to kiss you again, you put your other hand on his chest to stop him. “Still fucked up of you to sabotage my date, though.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you,” he mutters, dipping down once more to shut you up.
Your lips meet again, and this time, you know exactly what he’s trying to prove. It’s all about keeping that promise. It’s about proving to you that you made the right choice— you’re here with him instead of out with the other guy, and it’s for a perfectly good reason.
It was so like him to compete for something he’d already won.
A nip at your bottom lip has a soft gasp escaping the back of your throat, and you swear his grip tightens on you at the single noise. He’s tense. You don’t know if it’s because he’s unsure or if he’s holding back, but both give you pause. His hands drift lower, fingers running along the hem of your shirt. They skim your stomach, and it has you securing your hold on his neck.
“We don’t have to do this,” you say breathlessly, biting the inside of your cheek as he starts to make his way from your neck. “It’s fast. W-We just-- If this isn’t something you’re ready for, I—”
“No,” he murmurs. “No, I want this. I— Fuck—” The feeling of your hand running against the backside of his head distracts him and he tries to regain focus. “I’m good.”
While he seems certain, you still ask, “Are you sure?”
His response is to simply rise from your neck to your lips, kissing you with enough force that gives you all the confirmation you need. Your back hits the wall, harder this time, and he slips his tongue back inside your mouth. One of his hands travels to the spot where his lips were previously, the other working to take off the jacket you’re wearing. The grip on your neck is grounding, and you help him get rid of your jacket before forking a hand through his hair.
Frank’s nearly heaving when he breaks away, fingers moving to grab your chin. “I’ve wanted this for months,” he states. The hand at your back snags the waistband of your pants, pulling you against him and positioning you so that one of his legs is slotted between yours. He kisses you on the jaw, pulling you forward so that you’re practically grinding onto his leg. “I want you.” Your eyes flutter as he returns to your neck. “I mean it. Never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Your body feels like it’s on fire. Adrenaline has flooded your bloodstream, and you’re hyper-aware of everything. Every sound he’s making, every gasp or whine you’ve released. The feeling of his hands against your skin that’s riddled with goosebumps. The taste of his lips. The wear and tear of the twelve-hour shift he just worked (and the one you joined in the middle of) doesn’t show at all. You’ve never felt more energized, and you’ve never seen him this alive.
You want to tell him that you want him, too. You’re feeling everything you presume that he’s feeling— excited, nervous, the feeling of being this… into someone. It still blows your mind that you can and you do feel this way about him. It’s even crazier that he feels the same.
But you can’t verbalize any of that. Not when the air has been sucked from your lungs and not as you practically dry hump his leg in the middle of your hallway. So, instead, you shift to brush your thigh against the length of him, savoring the way he shivers.
“Well, then, fucking do something about it,” you say, just a bit too mean and a bit too impatient.
He makes a sound somewhere between a groan and a snarl against your neck, and the heat of his breath has a chill running down your spine. “Always with the fucking attitude,” he grits.
You fist his shirt so hard you think you might rip it. “You’re the one saying you want me,” you mutter. “You have me. We both know you’re not a gentleman.” You grind against him once more. “So do something.”
It’s like a switch flips. As if he’s been in the shadows waiting, and those were his trigger words. Frank shakes his head in that way he does when he can’t believe you. You grin against his lips when he kisses you again, and even that seems to be too much for him right now. There’s a strange feeling of relief that washes over you when you realize he’s just as overcome by you as you are by him.
“Take off your clothes,” he says, inhaling sharply as he pulls away from you. He’s already dropping his sweatshirt on the floor. “I’m not fucking kidding. Take them off right now.”
Despite the fact that he’d given the order, he’s the one pulling off your shirt. He stretches the collar when it passes your head, making sure not to brush your cut, and discards it on the floor. You help him out of his, already walking backwards toward your bedroom as he attaches himself to you again.
He’s more exploratory now, hands everywhere he was hesitant to search before. It sets you completely alight, breath hitching the second he starts pulling at the waistband of your pants. You’re standing at the foot of your bed before you do it, legs hitting your mattress. You grab his shoulders to stabilize yourself.
When he realizes where you are, he puts an arm around your back, slowly reclining you back to lay you down. It’s a soft landing. He hovers over you with one leg still stationed between yours. He breaks from the kiss, and his mouth trails down your chest, dipping to the fabric of your bra. You arch into him when he presses a searing kiss just above your breasts.
Going further down your stomach, he speaks against your skin when he says, “You drive me fucking crazy.”
You perch one of your legs up, thigh brushing his side. His fingers toy with the top of your pants, and you shift into him. “What else is new?”
Frank glances up at you, meeting your gaze. It’s a silent question that’s asking for your permission. You nod at him immediately, heart whirling as a small smile tugs at his lips. “No,” he says, latching his fingers around your waistband. He pulls the tie, letting the strings fall. “You don’t get it. I can’t—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. He begins to bring your pants down your legs, sucking in a breath when he looks back up at you. You hear your pants hit the floor. “It’s so… easy with you. I don’t have to think when I’m with you, y’know?” You tilt your head at him, unsure of where he’s going with this. “But then, it’s like— you look at me like that and I can’t think straight. I used to hate you for it.” He wets his lips, staring at you like he can’t process the fact that he’s standing here. He bends down, leaning forward to be at your eye level. “I never know what to do with it. It’s fucking debilitating.”
You suddenly feel completely exposed, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re nearly bare. It’s as if he can see right through you. You shift further up onto your elbows, brushing your hand against the one he has on your hip. “Then don’t think,” you tell him softly. “It’s just me.”
He stares at you for a moment longer, then shakes his head. “Just you. Right,” he says, almost to himself. When your brow creases, the corner of his lips twitch up. “You really have no idea what you do to me, do you?”
He doesn’t give you a chance to respond. Before you can even fathom a way to reply to that, he’s moving, crouching down at the foot of your bed to hook his fingers around the sides of your panties and slide them down. “Just you,” he repeats, almost scoffing. “Like I haven’t thought about this every fucking night since I came back to work.”
You gasp, both at the admission and the sight of him on his knees in front of you. “You have?”
“Don’t act surprised.” Frank rises slightly to kiss the inside of your thigh. “I know you’ve thought about it too.”
You huff despite the way your heart beats out of your chest and ignore his comment. “So, I was right when I said that you’re way more into me than I’m into you,” you tease.
With a disbelieving scoff, he looks up at you. “Hard to believe that when you’re as wet as you are right now,” he mutters. He runs his fingers over your cunt, reveling in the airy sound that escapes your lips. “Jesus. Would have gone down on you the second we walked in if I’d known you were like this.”
The filthy words take you completely by surprise and have your nails digging into your sheets. You don’t have a witty response for that one, especially not as he slips a finger inside of you. “S-shit.”
He works it slowly, testing. Seeing what you like and what you’ll take. He thumbs lightly at your clit, gaze locked on you to see how you fare. You moan at the touch, but immediately want more than the slower pace he’s giving you. As if he can read your mind, he adds a second finger.
You curse, hips bucking into his hand. “Yeah?” he asks. “That what you want?”
“I want—” Your own ragged sounding gasp interrupts your words as he curls his fingers. “Fuck. F-Frank…”
His eyes snap to yours. The sound of his first name falling from your lips has him gripping your hip harder, pinning you down onto the bed as he continues to work. “You keep saying that, and I’ll give you anything you ask for.” Encouraged, he starts to move faster, grinning as you grip his bicep. “Tell me, baby. C’mon. What do you want?”
You’re finding it hard to speak. Your head’s spinning, your throat’s gone dry, and your chest feels heavier each time he pumps his fingers into you. Somehow, you manage, “Your mouth.” You squeeze him tighter. “Frank, p-please.”
His mouth is on you before you can even say the word please. You slap a hand over your mouth to contain the sound of surprise that erupts from you. He zeroes in on your clit, alternating between licking and sucking in a way that has you immediately grinding into his face. Your back arches as his fingers pick back up, and the moan you release comes out muffled against your hand.
Frank registers it after a beat. “No,” he says, and the feeling of his breath on your cunt makes you squirm. “Get your fucking hand off your mouth. I want to hear you. Dear God, let me hear you.”
You’re not thinking clearly enough to do anything other than what you’re told. Your eyes roll back into your head as his lips return to your clit, and you can feel yourself tightening around his fingers. You don’t know how you're close already, but you are.
You feel him chuckle against you, and the vibration of it has you forking a hand through his hair. “So fucking agreeable like this, huh?” he chides. “Not gonna be a pain in my ass if it means I’ll get you off.” He removes his fingers for a moment to slide his tongue deeper down. “Would have done this earlier if I’d known this was all it took.”
You knew he’d be mouthy. The whole bickering and bantering shtick was kind of your thing. You didn’t think that would change if you two ever got to this level. But this… was something else. It was a whole other side of him that you’d never thought you’d see.
It’s exactly what you need from him, and it brings you ever closer to the edge.
When he slides his fingers back in, he adds a third. You let out a desperate noise, head lolling into your mattress. He operates like he does in the ED. He’s calculated. Intense. Precise. Just a bit reckless, throwing a curveball here or there. But he also knows what he’s doing. He’s confident about it, but is still willing to learn exactly what you like to adapt and get the job done.
One of those curveballs comes flying in as he pulls his mouth from your clit, lips wet and glistening against the low, soft light of your room. “Fuck, I’ve wanted this for months,” he repeats his sentiment from earlier, shaking his head. His eyes are blown out. He looks crazed. Starved, even. “Been waiting for you.”
He watches your face scrunch in pleasure as he curls his fingers, the hand on his bicep surging to his opposite wrist. “Shit,” you whisper. “I’m— I’m close.”
“Yeah, I know you are. I know you’re right there. I’ve got you.” But he’s not done. “But, just so you know. I don’t ever want you to give me the ‘it’s just me’ bullshit again,” he mutters, picking up the pace of how he’s pumping into you. He slides his hand from your hip to rub at your clit. “It’s you. That’s the fucking point. And I can’t believe I actually have you.”
You feel that tension in your stomach get even tighter, and the sounds that are coming out of you are downright pathetic. “Frank, I—O-Oh, my—”
“So, you’re gonna come for me,” he begins, slightly out of breath. “And then I’m going to keep trying to convince you that I’m the type of guy who deserves you.”
You’ve just barely processed his words when his mouth returns to your cunt and he continues his work. You try to keep yourself steady for him, but fuck, you can’t help it. You thrash around, bucking your hips into him as if you’re chasing your release.
“Fuck,” you curse, and if he continues doing exactly what he’s doing, you know you’re done for. “I’m gonna—”
“That’s it, c’mon,” he says against you. He knows. He can feel just how tight you are, and he sees the way your jaw drops open. “Come for me.” Your eyes screw shut. “Fucking do it. Give it to me.”
The second he finishes speaking, you’re gone. You do as you’re told and you come.
He had described his feelings for you as debilitating. You’re not sure you understood what he meant until now. You’d described pain as debilitating before. Sadness, too. It always had some sort of negative connotation.
But this? This was all the right kinds of it.
You thrash around on the bed, crying out as it overtakes you. Frank holds you in place, chasing you down as you ride it out. It blazes through you like fire, and you can feel it spread all throughout you. It’s something all-consuming and overwhelming, and it has you saying his name like a prayer. He groans into your core, and you swear you might come again.
But, before you can, Frank pulls away, gently laying you back down onto the bed. He’s careful now, every movement contrasting the things he was doing or saying not even a second ago. His gaze locks on you, your eyes still shut, and your chest heaving. He can’t help the feeling of satisfaction that races through him.
When you open your eyes and see the look on his face, you don’t even think about your next move. You grab him by the neck and guide his lips to yours, kissing him with the same fervor that he gave to you. You can taste yourself on him, and something about it sends a chill down your spine. When he hums into your mouth, you can feel him smiling.
“I’ll take it I did well?” he asks, because of course he does. The question comes out mumbled as he nips at your lip.
“Don’t start acting humble now,” you mutter, finding yourself smiling as he chuckles softly. That chuckle morphs into a groan as you palm him through his pants, and he stops kissing you to hang his head in the space just above your shoulder. “This okay?” you ask gently, watching the way he grits his teeth.
“Yeah,” he grunts. “I just— fuck—” Your fingers travel below his waistband, just barely brushing his cock. For a moment, you think he’s going to latch his teeth onto your collarbone, but he holds himself back. “It’s just b-been a while since I’ve—”
“Been a while for me too,” you assure him, voice lower than a whisper. You can feel how hard he is against your hand, and all you want to do is help him out. “I’ll go slow.”
He lets out an airy laugh, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “That’s the problem.” You stop your movements, looking at him in concern. “If you do what I think you want to do, this’ll be over before we really start it.”
Your brows shoot up, any hesitation in your expression vanishing as it gets replaced by a small smirk. “Really?” you tease. You run your thumb along the head of his cock and he hisses into your neck.
“Don’t,” Frank warns. “I-I’m serious. I’m not gonna last.”
You nod, removing your hand from him and running it up his abdomen to grab his waistband. “Okay,” you say. “So, what do you want?”
He shakes his head, still a bit dazed. “What?”
“You asked me what I wanted. It’s your turn to tell me what you want.”
His response is almost instant. “Inside,” he says, like he’d been thinking about the answer before you’d even asked the question. His cheeks flare red, but he stands strong. “I want to be inside of you.”
The thought of it has your heart racing, and you’re sure that he can hear it. You nod at him, and the second he has permission, he’s moving to take his pants off. As he does so, you remove your bra, having completely forgotten that you had it on. It gets thrown to the floor with the rest of your clothes, and you move back on the mattress, giving him the space he needs to join you.
He acts fast, so fast that you barely get a chance to look at him before he’s kissing you again, pushing you into the pillows that sit on your bed. The feeling of his hand cupping your breast has you grinding against him. A low noise rumbles in his throat, and he uses his other hand to pin you to the bed.
“D-Do you—” he stammers as you move your lips down his neck. “Do you have—”
“Nightstand drawer,” you say, knowing exactly where his mind is.
He uses one hand to lift himself off of you and reaches into the drawer with the other. When he grabs the condom, he rips it open with his teeth, straddling himself over you as he takes it out. “Always so fucking prepared,” he mutters. “Always one step ahead of me.”
You laugh, not even thinking before you say, “Well, I had very different plans when I left the apartment this morning.”
Frank’s eyes snap up to meet yours, and you immediately know you’ve made a mistake. You can’t help the nervous sort of excitement that stirs in your stomach. “With who? That guy?”
Your mouth parts, and you blink at him, desperately trying to come up with something to say. “I—” You shake your head. “I didn’t know how it was going to go.”
He nods slowly, condom now on. When he leans over you, you can feel how hard he is against your stomach. You inhale sharply. “You were going to sleep with him tonight?”
“I mean—” He tilts his head, and everything about it reads as a warning. You cut yourself off as his eyes narrow slightly. “I… I don’t know. If it had gone well. Maybe.”
“Maybe,” he repeats. The glint in his eyes is dangerous, and you grip his wrist that’s sitting beside you. “Maybe.”
Oops. You might be in trouble. Because you feel like playing with fire, you raise a brow. “What if I had?” you ask. “How would that make you feel?”
He scoffs, and before you register what he’s doing, you feel him drag the head of his cock around the opening of your cunt. He leans forward, stabilizing himself on one arm that’s placed next to your head. The contact and the heat of him make you inhale raggedly. Suddenly, his other hand is skimming your forehead.
“The second— and I mean the second this thing is healed,” he begins, running his fingers just below the area of your cut, “I’m going to bend you over the fucking table and show you exactly how that makes me feel.”
You don’t have time for a rebuttal. No time to tell him off, to tease him about being jealous, or even to laugh. Because suddenly, he’s moving that hand down to guide himself into you.
You both gasp, and you fork your fingers through his hair as he bottoms out practically the moment he’s in. He takes it slow— painstakingly so. There’s a bit of a stretch, one that gets more comfortable as you adjust to the length of him. His head falls to your chest, groaning against your skin.
“But for now,” he says shakily, trailing up your body with hot, open-mouthed kisses, “I’m gonna show you the reason you’re here with me and not with him.”
Your grip on his hair tightens the second he starts to move, and he grunts into the side of your neck. You curse, lips brushing his ear, the feeling of… everything sending you into a spiral. How his hips snap into yours. The way he cups a hand around your breast, testing each movement he makes to see exactly how you like to be touched. How he murmurs your name as if it’s something sacred.
You might just understand what he means about not being able to think straight when he’s around you. Because right now, you can’t think about anything other than him.
He whispers an unintelligible word, then groans. “Fuck. You feel incredible,” he says. “Knew you would. Never disappointed by you. Fucking ever.”
“Shit,” you rasp. “I need— ngh.” An involuntary moan breaks through to interrupt your barely audible words. “M-Move faster.”
You’re surprised when he laughs. The sound is rough and breathy and almost cruel. He shakes his head as he continues his pace. “After you say shit like that? Y-You try to bait me and make me jealous, and you think you make the rules?” he asks. His fingers fall from your chest to trace down your side. “That’s not how this works. You’ll take what I give you.”
Your back arches off the mattress, and you find yourself grinding against him to get some sort of new, harder friction. It catches him slightly off guard, and he grabs your hip to stabilize both himself and you. “Frank, p-please,” you damn near whimper. His eyes screw shut and his jaw clenches. “I-I need you. Please. Don’t— shit. Don’t be mean.”
With a deep and guttural groan, he starts to move faster. With the look on his face, you’re not sure if it was a voluntary choice or not, but regardless, he gives you what he wants.
It’s a struggle to keep the self-satisfied smirk off your face, and when Frank opens his eyes to look at you, it’s the first thing he sees. He tells himself he’d stop just to spite you, but he knows he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. You feel too fucking good.
So, instead, he just mutters, “Stop that.”
Your smile grows, and you bite your bottom lip in the hopes of keeping it from forming. “Knew you’d fold.”
“Hard not to when you’re begging like that,” he says, moving to rest his forehead on yours. “Not happening again.”
(You both know it’s a lie the second he says it. But it’s fun to pretend.)
You’re grinning unabashedly when you cup his cheek and lean up to kiss him. This one is messier. It’s just as passionate, if not more, but it’s sloppy, harder to keep up with each other as he continues to pound into you. It’s a steady, quick, gratifying pace, one that already has tension pulling inside your stomach.
“Fuck,” you moan into the kiss, breaking away as he hits just the right spot. It has you heaving in a breath, and that intensity you know so well washes over his expression. “You— I—”
“Oh, shit,” he grins. “That's it, isn't it?”
You nod vigorously, clawing at his shoulder as you fight to ground yourself. “D-Don’t stop,” you plead. “That— You— You feel so good. Please.”
Something about that seems to send Frank over the edge. He hears you loud and clear. Gripping your hips tighter, your head knocks back into your pillow as he seems to move even faster. You wrap your legs around his waist to bring him in closer, and he makes a noise that comes from somewhere low in his throat.
“I’ve got you,” he says. His voice is absolutely wrecked, and you feel yourself clench around him harder. It has him gasping out, “Fuck— I’ll g-get you there, baby. Don’t worry.”
You’re already pretty close to being there, but you need a bit more. Luckily, once again, he’s on the same page as you. He spits on his fingers and reaches down to rub at your clit. The sight alone has you whimpering. “H-holy shit. Frank, I’m— ngh. I’m fucking c-close again.”
“I know,” he grits. “And it’s the hottest f-fucking thing. “
Each movement of his is deliberate. He knows exactly how to act, how to operate, and what will work best. He has the right patterns and tricks, and knows just the right thing to say to make your head spin. You’d teased him relentlessly about his bedside manner, but this? This didn’t apply. Whatsoever.
He told you he’d get you there, and that wasn’t just a promise. It was a fact.
You can tell he’s getting closer to the edge as his face contorts and his words start to get less coherent. “So fucking beautiful,” he tells you, and God, does he mean it. “You’re fucking unreal. I-I can’t believe I get to have you like this.”
It’s the way he speaks that gets you. He’s desperate, that smart mouth of his now slurring out words with his eyes half-lidded. He straight-up grimaces as you get tighter, and you know that it’s going to be the thing that breaks you.
“I’m gonna come,” you manage to get out. It’s not a warning. “I’m gonna— Frank, I—”
“Do it,” he says. “I’m r-right behind you. F-fucking come for me again.”
You come within seconds. If you thought the last one was debilitating, this one completely wrecks you. Your orgasm tears through your body, and it’s something white-hot and blinding. You swear you see stars, especially as Frank continues to fuck you through it. He’s whispering things in your ear that you can’t process— things that you’re not even sure he’s processing. Because as you come to, you realize he’s just as gone as you are.
He didn’t lie. He wasn’t far behind you. He follows suit within seconds, finishing with a groan that racks his entire body. His chest is heaving as he hovers up above you, eyes closed and blissed out. He collapses into you, burying his face into the crook of your neck.
You’re both breathing heavily and sweating, and your room is finally quiet. You don’t know if you can move. All you have in you right now is to lift your hand and run your fingers through his hair.
He hums at the feeling, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to your pulse. He sits there for a moment longer, enjoying the feeling of your nails against his head. He allows himself to get his bearings before rolling off of you, making sure to be gentle as he slips out.
Frank all but collapses into the pillow beside you, staring up at the ceiling before turning his head in your direction. You meet his gaze when you feel it on you.
It takes all but three seconds for the two of you to start laughing.
You hide your face with your hands, giggling (giggling! The bastard has you fucking giggling) into them like you’d heard the world’s funniest joke. The sound comes out muffled, but it mixes well with his own.
Grinning, Frank perches himself on his elbow, reaching over to remove your hands from your face. You look at him in that way he was talking about— the one where he can’t think straight. He shakes his head as if it’ll clear it. “Don’t get shy on me now.”
“I’m not shy,” you insist, though the warmth in your cheeks would say otherwise. “I just— I can’t believe we did that.”
He narrows his eyes, asking a question he already knows the answer to: “In a good way or a bad way.”
You take your hands from him to gently whack him on the arm. “You know it’s in a good way,” you mutter.
“I know,” he replies. He focuses on your fingers as you intertwine them, knowing your silence a bit too well. “What are you thinking about?”
You glance up at him, pressing your lips together. “The honest or the cute answer?”
Humor graces his features at your response, but he says, “Honest. Always. I hate cute.”
Rolling your eyes, you laugh, because despite what just occurred, he’s still him. “I’m thinking about how badly I want to shower right now.”
A surprised laugh leaves him. “Seriously?” he asks, faux outrage laced within his voice. “I was that bad that you need to shower?”
You giggle again (goddamn it), turning onto your side. “No, I’m just—” You motion down at yourself. “The half a shift I worked is still on me. And now I’m sweaty. I feel gross.”
“You look pretty good to me,” he says, and when you roll your eyes again, he chuckles, rolling himself over to stand up. “I’ll get it going for you.”
You nearly reach over and kiss him then and there, but refrain from doing so. You fear you might start things up again. “Thank you,” you say. “I’ll meet you in there.”
He turns around before he gets up, excitement flickering in his eyes. “You want me to join?”
“You just told me you were going to bend me over the table the second my head heals,” you tell him blankly, biting back a smile as you watch his face go red. “I think we’re well past being shy about showering.”
“You’re fucking unreal,” he repeats, and the fondness in his voice doesn’t go missed. Something pulls at your stomach as you realize he’d said those words he’d said just minutes ago. You watch him walk into your bathroom, but before you can rally yourself to get up, he leans his head out to look at you. “What was the cute answer?”
Sighing, you smile softly as you look up at the ceiling. “You said last week that you were really glad I came back into your life,” you say. You turn your head to meet his gaze. “I was just going to tell you that I agree.”
His mouth parts, and he stares at you— but this time, there’s no confusing this look. You know exactly what he’s thinking, and while you might not have the right words to express it, it’s reciprocated tenfold.
It takes a moment for Frank to speak, but when he does, he says, “Get in that shower the second it’s warm.” He points at you before turning around to turn your shower on. “I mean it.”
The stupid, giddy grin that spreads across your face is bright and bold. Your hands return to cover your face, and you giggle once more.
(This time, you don’t mind it as much.)
OCTOBER 3RD, 2026. (10:30 PM)
You make it back into your bed after about an hour in the shower together. You’ve never been more grateful that your landlord pays your water bill.
What had started as something incredibly sweet and just a bit domestic, with Frank attempting to wash your hair for you, had somehow ended with him to splitting you open and taking you apart with his fingers, and he’d finally let you repay the favor by taking him in your mouth when you got back into bed.
(“I’m not letting you fucking waterboard yourself just to blow me,” he’d hissed, rolling his eyes as you frowned at him. “Right, I’m the bad guy.”)
You’d gotten into your favorite bulky sweatshirt and thrown him one of your many oversized shirts and a pair of sweatpants from your closet, ignoring his complaints about how they looked like floods on him. The last couple of minutes had been spent watching an episode of the reality TV show you’d shown him that he swore he didn’t like, talking intermittently and kissing during the commercials.
It was something you were still wrapping your mind around doing with him, but it was getting easier to believe with each passing hour.
But as you continued to think about it— about the brevity of the situation and what this meant or could mean for you and him, something nagged at you in the back of your mind. It reared it’s ugly head every time you looked at Frank and wouldn’t fucking leave you alone.
You had to get it off your chest. He had to know.
As one of the commercial breaks begins and you feel him turn to you, you put a hand on his shoulder.
“I need to be honest with you about something.” You blurt it out so fast that it almost scares him. “And you can’t tell anyone, but you… need to know this before… whatever this is continues.”
He blinks at you. “Well, I owe you one for not reporting me to the Board, so if you killed someone, I’ve got you.”
You laugh despite your sudden nerves, flipping onto your back to stare up at the ceiling. “I didn’t, but it’s good to know I can get to lie on the stand if something happens,” you say, picking at a loose string on your sheets.
He nudges you to get you to look at him, and briefly, you do. “What’s up?” he asks gently.
With a deep breath, you glance back up at the ceiling and say, “I mentioned last week that I didn’t get into a real relationship until I moved to Boston. And I didn’t say— I wasn’t super open to talking about it.” You see him nod from your peripheral, waiting for you to continue. “I’m going to tell you who it was, but you can’t judge me.”
“The fact that you think I’d judge you after everything you know about me is mildly insulting,” he says.
You look over at him. “It was Klein. My attending.”
His brows shoot up to his hairline. “Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit,” you mutter. You take a deep breath. “We started seeing each other three months into my intern year, and I was just… obsessed with him. Which is so fucking embarassing looking back, but… I was.” You fumble with your fingers that are resting on your stomach. “I was just so starstruck by him. He was so good and he was so accomplished and so… nice to me. He told me so many times that he was drawn to me because of the things I could do, and I couldn’t believe that he’d… picked me? And after Jamie, I wanted to feel like someone’s choice.”
Frank reaches over to cover your hand with his, intertwining his fingers with yours. It’s a small, quiet comfort, and there’s a piece of you that appreciates that he doesn’t attempt to console you. He just lets you continue.
“Things happened really fast between us. Like, way too fast. It was a secret, of course. Nobody knew. Nobody ever knew about the shit he did. I mean, I was practically living in his apartment by the end of my first year, and nobody suspected a thing. He had me considering whether it was worth it to renew my lease. And it’s one of those things that, looking back on it, I should have seen what was happening,” you say. “But he had this hold on me. And even if I had wanted to, it wasn’t like I could escape him. He was my attending. We worked together. He was supposed to be my mentor, you know?” You swallow harshly. “But it never felt wrong. Ever. Not until things started falling apart.”
Frank squeezes your hand. “You don’t have to—”
“No. I want you to know this. And there’s a point to this, I promise,” you assure him. He nods into his pillow, eyes never straying from your face. “Out of nowhere, a year in, he just decided he was done with me. He told me that something had happened where he reconnected with his ex-girlfriend or something, and they’d decided they were going to try things out again. And before I knew it, he was throwing transfer applications at me and connecting me with Robby and telling me I had to get out of Boston.” You shut your eyes, steadying yourself. “He told me I was too much of a ‘temptation.’ We couldn’t be in the same hospital because he was afraid of what I’d ‘make him do’ at his big age of forty-five.”
“What a fucking asshole,” Frank scoffs. “Jesus. I had no idea.”
“I didn’t tell anyone— haven’t told anyone. I didn’t want you guys to think I was able to transfer because I was fucking my attending,” you chuckle humorlessly. “But it happened. I fell for his whole… thing. I was way too old and way too smart to fall for it, but I did. And I left because he told me to, and I went to the place he told me to go. I didn’t know it would end up being one of the best things to happen to me, and I hate that I owe him for it, but yeah... It’s something I did that I have to live with.”
“You don’t owe him for anything.”
“I know. I know I could have transferred anywhere I wanted to without him. But, still…” you trail off. You shake your head as if it’ll clear the thoughts that are in it. “I’m telling you all of this because I don’t want… this to turn into that. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t escape me. If things go wrong, I don’t want it to affect either of our careers like it did mine. Especially with all the eyes that are already on you.” He goes to interrupt you, but you turn to him and continue. “I don’t want to be Klein. Despite the fact that we should be at the same rank, we’re not. I’m an attending. You’re a resident. If people find out about us, I don’t want it to reflect poorly on you. I know it’s not the same—”
You’re not expecting him to laugh, but he does. He wipes a hand down his face. “It’s not even close to the same thing.”
“Why are you laughing? This is serious, Frank. This is—”
“Are you going to treat me differently at work?” he asks you. “Play favorites? Lay one on me in the middle of an intubation?”
Your expression goes blank. “No.”
“Are you going to make me fill out a transfer application if you get pissed at me?”
“No,” you sigh, knowing exactly what he’s getting at.
“Are you or have you ever been unprofessional in your life?” When you go to object, he cuts you off. “With anyone but me?”
Scowling, you answer, “No.”
“Then it’s not the same. Because you’re not Klein,” he tells you, looking you directly in the eye so it’ll get through. “You’re not a reckless, manipulative douche who doesn’t care about the careers and futures of the people around them. He was twenty years older than you and took advantage of your talent and your kindness.” He shakes his head. “I can’t imagine you doing anything like that. Not just to me. To anyone.”
There’s a part of you that knows that. All of it. Frank was right— you weren’t reckless or manipulative. You’re not Klein. You’d never want to be, and you’d never allow yourself to be. But even after everything, he still lingers in the back of your mind.
You hate him for it. You hate him for a lot. But you hate him the most for that.
“I know,” you say again. “I just… I think we should take things slow. Make sure we’re not being reckless. I don’t want to rush into anything.”
His eyes haven’t left you since he finished speaking. Something flickers in his expression before he lifts up his arm. “C’mere.”
The action makes your throat immediately tighten, and you sigh before obliging. You nuzzle yourself into his side, cheek against his chest, as his arm drops to wrap around you. His fingers trace mindless patterns on your side, and suddenly, the overwhelming urge to cry overtakes you. You can’t explain it, and you don’t do it, but the tears pricking in your eyes have you biting the inside of your cheek.
He speaks against your hair. “You care too much for your own good, you know that?”
You huff. “It’s one of those weaknesses the newbies can’t know about.”
“No,” he says. “Not a weakness. Never a weakness.” He presses his lips to the top of your head. “It’s who you are. It’s my favorite thing about you.”
You shut your eyes at the words, and Frank feels your hand grip the shirt you gave him. Somehow, it endears you to him even more. Ignoring the burn in your throat, you grumble, “There are so many better things about me.”
His chest rises as he chuckles. He seems to disregard your comment as he asks, “I gotta say,” he begins, “you know that this isn’t taking things slow, right?”
Your cheeks burn, and you smack his stomach lightly. “No fucking shit,” you mutter as he continues to laugh. “I meant… more along the lines of how things progress after this. I want us both to be comfortable with it. I don’t want…”
“...You don’t want to be considering breaking your lease in a few months,” he finishes, and yeah— he’s taken the words right out of your mouth.
You sigh against him. “Yeah.”
He’s quiet for a moment. You know his pauses well enough at this point to know that he’s thinking. He moves his free hand to cover yours again. “Listen. I meant what I said before. About wanting to do things right,” he tells you. He plays with your fingers, and the simple action has your heart beating just a bit faster. “I know that this…was a little out of order, but from here on out, I mean that.”
You shift onto your stomach and place your chin on his chest to look at him. “Are you saying you don’t want to have sex with me anymore?”
“Absolutely fucking not,” he says immediately, a smile pulling at his lips as he feels you chuckle against him. “If I ever say that, take me out back and put me down like Old Yeller.”
“Heard.”
“What I am saying is that…” He trails off, searching for the right phrasing. He finds a moment later. “There’s a rule in recovery,” he begins slowly, “that you’re not supposed to make any big life decisions until you’re a year clean. I did that time and then some. Four more months of it. And even in those four months, so much has changed for me.” He meets your gaze. “But how I’ve felt about you hasn’t. That’s one of the only things that’s stayed consistent for me since we first got coffee.”
You feel your throat tighten. “Frank—”
“I did the time. I did the waiting. I waited to see if there was some sort of clarity I was missing,” he continues. “But I came up empty. Everything about you was clear.”
You don’t know what to say. Luckily, he has the words.
“We’ll take it slow. I’ve waited this long for you and I don’t want to fuck it up. Not this.” He sounds so sure. Insistent. Sincere. Those tears from earlier return, and this time, you don’t try to hide them. “So, yeah. We’re gonna go to that game. I’m gonna open the door for you and I’m going to pay for brunch even though you make way more money than I do, because fuck that guy.” You let out a watery laugh, and the sound of it makes him grin. “We’re gonna do this right, damn it. And if I’m lucky, you’ll kiss me at the end of the night, and you might like me half as much as I like you.”
His fingers readjust their grip on yours, and you squeeze them. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” you say, pressing your lips to his shoulder. “And I think you’ll get more than a kiss.”
Frank’s free hand raises in a fist, and he pumps it in the air. “She likes me! She really, really likes me!”
You groan, rolling your eyes as you go to remove yourself from him. “Oh, God. Not anymore. Ew.”
He grabs you before you can get too far, flipping you onto your back to hover over you. A yelp escapes you, and you try your hardest to keep the smile off your face. “C’mon,” he chides. “You were just talking about how bad you wanted to kiss me.”
“That was before you hit me with another bad reference,” you say. “It’s actually impressive how consistently shitty they are. You’re lucky you’re a good doctor because pop culture is so not your thing.”
It’s clear he’s not listening very intently, as he leans down and presses a searing kiss to your collarbone, making his way up. Against your neck, he murmurs, “I guess you’ll have to keep me around long enough to teach me what’s right.”
A breathless laugh leaves your lips. “T-That’s going to take a while.”
“That’s kind of the idea,” he says.
He pulls away from you, and you find yourself staring up at him. “Yeah?”
Frank pushes his lips together and stares at you, clearly unsure of his next words. “Last week,” he begins slowly, “you said that it’s normal for people to outgrow each other. That it happens.”
You nod, unsure of where he’s going with this. “Yeah. And I stand by it.”
He looks at you for a moment longer, then returns your nod. “Well, I don’t…” He bites the inside of his cheek, like he’s trying to figure out if he should say what’s on his mind. “No matter how this plays out, I… I don’t want to outgrow you. I don’t see myself doing that.”
A shaky breath leaves your lips, and yeah, those tears are definitely coming back. He’s always talking about how he can’t believe you, how he doesn’t get you, how unreal you are— you wonder if he’s ever stopped to consider that you feel the same way about him.
You cannot believe him. You can’t believe the things he’s done and can do, the way he’s bettered himself, and who he’s become to you. You can’t believe that this man, whose picture you once threw darts at as a joke at a bar in med school, is now admitting things to you like this and is making you feel this way.
You can’t believe that the person you had once wished nothing but the worst for was now one of the most important people in your life, and you’d do anything to help him feel that way. And you can’t believe that now, you know he’d do the same.
With a sniffle, you allow him to brush away a tear that falls, his hand lingering on your face to caress your cheek. “Then we’ll grow together,” you whisper, shrugging. “You can’t outgrow someone who’s growing with you.”
You see a lump form in his throat. You don’t realize he’s tearing up too until he lets out a watery laugh and asks, “Simple as that?”
“No,” you say, laughing along with him. “Definitely not simple. But I know you. And you know me.” You grin when you ask, “And when the hell have either of us given up on things just because they’re hard?”
There is no power above that could stop Frank from kissing you after that.
summary; from the outside, johanna seems to be making an effort at changing her attitude when it comes to lesser beings, but really, she's losing patience. she doesn't want to wait for you to come around. can't you see she's trying?
warnings; swearing, torture mention, weapons, gun use, murder, talks of bullying, drug abuse.
wc; 7.3k
notes; not exactly a happy ending but it's getting there.
part one.
--
The novelty of District Thirteen’s equality wore off pretty quickly in the days following Annie and Finnick’s wedding. You knew you should’ve put up a bigger fight against Plutarch. You had a hard time agreeing to make the cake, so you really don’t understand why you could’ve been exempt from attending.
While your appearance worked in the favors of the rebels, it quickly tanked what little you had reputation among the people in the bunker. You went from being a semi-unknown victor from District Eleven to enemy number one. And it’s all thanks to the stunt that guy from Twelve pulled.
He tried to corner you in the hallway, pissed you were allowed to live in District Thirteen after the way you praised the Capitol. And even when you tried to explain to him that your interviews were done years ago, he didn’t care. All he could see was the embodiment of hundreds of rumors that Johanna had started about you through the years.
You were going to teach the asshole a lesson when Johanna came around, coming to your defense, telling him to fuck off. As if you needed her to be your bodyguard out of all people. She thought she was doing you a favor by stepping in that hallway, but she’s ruined your image again.
Apparently, you got into Johanna’s ear somehow and told her that the people from Twelve are terrible. You influenced her to threaten him because you can’t fight your own battles. You needed your newfound soulmate to save you. And Johanna was more than happy to do it because you were able to manipulate her.
This whole this has been the biggest fucking joke ever.
You’re really beginning to hate it here in District Thirteen. You thought you’d be able to deal with the judgement about being Johanna’s soulmate, since you’re polar opposites. That’s how they see you, anyway, since she’s outspoken on her hatred for the Capitol, and you couldn’t wait to kiss the feet of the people that control you.
They say you don’t deserve such a Capitol-hating girl, or maybe you do, because you’re such a loyalist and could use a change of heart. Nevermind the fact that you were born in one of the strictest districts in Panem. You can’t go ten feet without seeing a Peacekeeper in the streets in Eleven. How would that ever make you love the Capitol and their obsessiveness with control?
This is on top of you praising the Capitol during your Victory Tour, of course. Which you recently came to learn didn’t sit well with almost all the citizens of Twelve. Including Katniss, by the way. Peeta couldn’t have cared less, he told you that you did what you had to in order to survive. It’s not your fault it worked and got the Capitol off your back faster.
Katniss couldn’t stomach it, and it’s mostly because she had these preconceived notions about you and Finnick when it came to the Capitol. The first one she came to realize was Finnick after the speech he delivered about President Snow, the rich, and the secrets that were born from both.
Through red hot embarrassment, she was barely able to tell you she thought Finnick was some casanova in the Capitol. That he wanted to have ladies lining up around the block to have a night with him. She didn’t realize it was all against his will and they were rumors started by the people around him.
She felt sick knowing she fell victim to the rumors created by the abusers. She thought he was nothing more than a player, she didn’t know he was in love with Annie and had been for years. She knew about Annie in the Quarter Quell arena, but a part of her thought that she was just another one of his lovers.
It took even more squeezing for you to get her to admit she had the same ideas about you. Which were mainly planted in her head by a certain lumberjack here. She initially thought you were carrying out a strategy, like Johanna had done the year prior. It wasn’t until she was surrounded by Finnick and Johanna for days on end, did she begin to reconsider.
You can’t entirely blame her. You didn’t defend yourself in the slightest when they were smearing your name. If you’d said something, then maybe she would’ve been able to chalk it all up to one giant lie. She thought your silence was an admission of guilt. That just tells you that you need to be louder when it comes to knocking Johanna down each time she gets back up.
Even that’s getting old, because you’ve been really trying to. Each time Johanna comes around with a new demeanor thinking she’ll be able to break through to you, you remind her it’s not that easy. Years of talking shit to your face and behind your back has caught up with the both of you. You’re now surrounded by thousands of people who don’t like you and seem to be on her side about things.
A side she supposedly doesn’t believe in anymore. Unless she makes some speech about how she was wrong, you don’t think anyone will be hearing you out. Even if she did something like that, most people are too far up her ass to listen. Don’t worry, Johanna’s right there along with them.
You don’t know how you managed to draw the short straw again. You don’t want to be her soulmate, and people can’t seem to understand that. You don’t want anything to do with her—you haven’t for years! She doesn’t want to accept that as her reality, which has forced you to turn to alternative options.
Katniss has repeatedly been sent to other districts, and you don’t mind the idea of exploring someplace new. Maybe there you can start new with people and make a difference that matters. This caused you to go to Plutarch, asking him if you could go to a district like Two, where Katniss has just come from.
It might not have ended well for her, but that’s because she’s the symbol of the rebellion. There’s no telling how they’d react to you. Besides, they have control of the Nut now, which is why it would be safer for you to go.
Plutarch wouldn’t bite. He doesn’t want you leaving Thirteen so close to the storm on the Capitol. So, you gave him an ultimatum instead. You told him to find you a solution to get you away from Johanna Mason and the miners from Twelve or you’ll figure something out on your own. If that means you have to be a stowaway on a random hovercraft, then so be it, because you won’t be trapped here any longer.
He put a pause on your conversation long enough to find Boggs. He’s in charge of security in District Thirteen. Plutarch asked him what he thought you could do, which caused him to ask you a couple questions about your schedule and if you’d been sticking to it. You told him you had, and you’d been picking up extra training classes lately to keep yourself busy, and from being approached by others.
Boggs went ahead and recommended Plutarch to get you in the next advanced class for soldiers to see where you were at. If you could stick with it, then they’d put you on a squad in a couple weeks and you’d be able to go to the Capitol soon after. There were no promises for the front lines, which you were perfectly fine with, but Boggs warned you that you’d be out of your comfort zone for longer than you’d probably like.
Whatever, that’s fine with you. If all goes well and the Capitol is taken over, you’ll never have to return to this nightmarish place. You’d be shipped straight home to Eleven once everything is sorted in the Capitol post-takedown. There’s a lot of plans that have to be carried out, which will cause you to be stuck there for almost a month after the rebellion is over, but that’ll be better than being forced to stay here with Johanna and Finnick and whoever else that hates you.
And the best news that has come out of the training so far is you’ve been cleared to go to the Capitol, already. Soldier York just wants you to continue with training as usual, take their final exam in a week, and then you’ll be assigned an official squad.
All you have to do is hold on for a little while longer, and then you’ll never have to look at this fucking place ever again. You’ll pick a spot in Eleven to disappear to, far away from Johanna. She’ll never get to see you again for the rest of her miserable life.
“I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.” Soldier York says, motioning to the door to go back in the bunker. “You’re free to go.”
You watch as most of the team heads for the door, wanting to continue with their schedule. For you, there’s an hour and a half of freetime before you’re meant to go to lunch. If you want, you could stay out here for a little while longer, especially since there will be training classes going on all day. You’re sure Soldier York won’t mind you hanging back for a bit.
You pick a weapon box to sit on, staring out at the trees, feeling mildly homesick. You would give almost anything to go home early. If it meant you had to spend hours picking apples in the orchard again, then so be it. You’d rather be in the scorching heat than bored out of your mind. There’s only so much training you can do before it’s repetitive and redundant.
“What are you still doing here?” York asks, lowering her clipboard to look at you.
“I have a free hour.” You tell her. “I was just going to enjoy the outdoors.”
“Plutarch has you on a runaway watch.” She presses her lips together. “If I have to chase you down, you’ll regret it.”
You laugh, shaking your head. “Nothing to worry about, here. I’m going to pass that exam and get shipped out. There’s no way I’m fucking that up.”
“Good.” She says.
You watch as she finds a spot in the shade to stand, writing on the clipboard. She’s waiting for her next class to arrive, which shouldn’t take very long. Once they’re warmed up, they’ll leave the area and you’ll have peace and quiet to enjoy. You really do miss sitting on your porch and talking to your neighbors.
The door to the bunker opens a couple minutes later, and out floods a group of teenagers. It looks like a beginner class, if you had even the slightest idea of joining, it’s out the window, now. She’ll have them do basic strength training and run a couple of miles. You’re not interested in that.
“(Y/n).” A familiar voice says.
You close your eyes, face twisting in irritation. There goes your peace and quiet, too.
“What do you want, Johanna?” You ask, turning to look at her.
She looks terrible, it has something to do with her leeching off the hospital. You’re not sure how the doctors and nurses haven’t spotted it by now, because it’s pretty clear what a morphling addict looks like. You can take Justin and Megan as an example—the tributes from Six in the Quarter Quell.
Johanna’s got that same pale complexion, her cheeks are beginning to sink in. She was skinny when she arrived in Thirteen, and she’s stayed that way. Despite the fact she’s on a meal plan that’s supposed to help her gain healthy weight. Her hair has finally begun to grow back in, but barely.
“I heard you signed up to go to the Capitol.” She says, arms crossed over her chest. “When did you decide that?”
“About a week ago.” You tell her, eyes narrowed. “Soon after Finnick and Annie’s wedding, it seems like people don’t like me very much anymore.”
Johanna’s eyes drift away. “Why would you even want to go there?”
“Go where?” You ask. “You mean talking about the guy from Twelve—”
“No, why would you want to go to the Capitol?”
You get to your feet to be at Johanna’s eye level. She looks at you, eyebrows raised expectantly. As if she’s entitled to that information. “I’m trying to get away from you.”
Johanna’s face twists slightly, blinking. “What makes you think I won’t go, too?”
“You’re addicted to morphling.” You spit. “Everyone knows it. They’re not going to let you out of here because of it. You’ve fucked yourself over.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not addicted, and even if I was, that doesn’t mean anything. As long as I can pass their stupid tests, they won’t say a damn thing.”
“Well, I hope you fail every single one of them, then.” You tell her with a smile.
—
The list of people you can talk to in Thirteen narrows every day.
There weren’t very many to begin with, but you thought you had a decent group. You’d talk to Haymitch, Beetee, Katniss and Peeta, at the very least. Sometimes Gale, because he’s always with Katniss. And Delly—a girl from Twelve—snuck her way into your social circle because she’s friends with everyone.
You steer clear of the obvious people, like Johanna and Finnick. And Annie, too, unfortunately. Since you’re sure she wouldn’t be very interested in the way you talk about her husband. It might send her in a spiral if you even told her just the basics of what he said about you in the Capitol.
Lately, though, people have been flaking out of the circle. Ever since Katniss found out she wasn’t invited to go to the Capitol, there’s been a lot of changes. She hasn’t been following her schedule since she came to the bunker, which means she’s months behind on training. If she can prove herself and pass the final exam, then they’ll consider allowing her to go.
Well, they told Johanna the same thing. So, the two of them, pissed off and vengeful, decided they would train together and live in the same apartment. That way, they could encourage each other to pass the final exam. They have a long way to go, though. Katniss’s ribs are still fucked from her time in District Two and Johanna had to cut off the morphling immediately.
You tried to continue to hang around Katniss after that, but once again, Johanna is infiltrating her mind. You can’t do it anymore. The last time you saw her, the first words out of her mouth were, “Johanna wanted me to tell you—”
You couldn’t help yourself, you couldn’t control the burning sensation that took over your body in the matter of seconds. “I don’t give a fuck what that stupid bitch has to say!” You screamed back at her, hands balled into fists so tight, it left a dull ache in your palms after.
It’s safe to say she’s too far gone for you to convince her to keep her opinions on the matter to herself. If Katniss thinks it’s a good idea to interfere in a situation that’s a lot more complicated than Johanna makes it out to be, then there’s no room for reasoning.
With Katniss went Gale, since he follows her around like a lovesick puppy. He’s not a loss to you, the two of you only exchanged a few words each time you spoke. It was just nice to be able to say you could talk to him.
Recently, you’ve put Beetee on a hold, too. He’s been around Finnick and Gale a lot designing weapons. You have a feeling that Beetee wouldn’t say anything to you, but you’re not interested in taking chances. Although, with the way Johanna treated Wiress and Beetee in the arena, he might be more on your side than you think.
Either way, your options have been narrowed down to three. Haymitch, who’s always busy in Command and seems less than interested in hearing you talk about training. Delly, who can sing praises of Katniss and Gale for hours on end. Or Peeta, who seems receptive to everything you talk about.
After you baked together for the wedding, you didn’t think you’d see much of him after that. But he actually asked for you to visit a few times this past week. The doctors haven’t told him no because it’s a sign of progress. He can be around people that were in the arena with him.
You think it helps that you don’t talk about Katniss, and if you do, it’s in a fairly neutral tone. You don’t have anything bad to say about her, but you don’t really have anything nice to say, either. Whatever comments you have on her behavior, you try to keep it to yourself, because he doesn’t need to know how you see things.
“How’s training?” Peeta asks, arms crossed over his chest.
It’s weird seeing him without restraints. Even though he sees you as a friend, they try to take precaution by keeping his wrists locked together. That way, his fingers can’t spread apart far enough to strangle you.
“The usual.” You tell him, picking apart the cards in your hand. “Are you playing or not?”
“I’m sick of being in here.” Peeta tells you, eyes looking past you to the glass, where the doctors are observing.
“Nothing I can do about it.”
“Maybe put in a good word.” He suggests.
You set your cards down on the table, keeping one hand on them while you turn to look at the one-way glass behind you. “Peeta’s been behaving himself, I think he should be let out more often.”
When you look back at him, he doesn’t seem very impressed. “You’re an ass.”
“Like I said, nothing I can do about it.” You tell him. “Did you hear the big news, or are they keeping it from you?”
“Katniss finally died?” Peeta’s question is cold.
When you first started hanging out with him, the way he would say things would give you the chills, especially when he was talking about Katniss. He used to be so in love with her, it was clear what he felt for her was real. Now he’s so indifferent about what happens to her or he wishes for her downfall.
“No.” You tell him. “And that wasn’t a very good guess.”
Peeta shrugs, he doesn’t care.
You continue, “The attack on the Capitol’s happening soon. You know how I’ve been training? It’s so I can join a squad.”
He laughs, shaking his head, arms uncrossing to pick up his cards. “That’s funny.”
“I’m serious.” You tell him. “I’m going to get out of here.”
“They won’t do anything with you.” Peeta says. “They’ll just want you as another face supporting Katniss. You’ll be a nobody.”
“Not if I can help it.” You sigh. “I want to kill President Snow.”
Peeta stares at you for a long moment. “Do it for the both of us.”
You finish out the game with Peeta before telling him you have to go. They’ve moved you to the Simulated Street Combat, which means you have to get there a little earlier than you would normally. They’re finally letting you onto the mock Capitol street they have built deep into Thirteen.
It takes a good fifteen minutes for you to get down to the room where Soldier York likes to set up in. You find her on a stool, blocking the door that leads to the Capitol street. She had her clipboard in hand, writing down notes like she usually does. There’s only a few other trainees in here, sitting on chairs that are oddly scattered through the room.
You find one in the corner, take a seat, and wait patiently for the room to fill with recruits. It doesn’t take long, they come in a steady stream. Before you know it, Soldier York is getting to her feet, clipboard at her side, but she doesn’t announce what squad you’re a part of. All she does is stare at the doorway, waiting for something.
You look over your shoulder, curious about what it is. You grit your teeth at the sight of Johanna and Katniss. They’re supposed to be weeks behind you in training. How the hell are they here already?
“The squads today are going to be—” Soldier York starts listing names, but you can’t hear her. Not through the roaring noise in your ears, egging you on to make a scene you’ll surely regret.
Johanna looks over at you, a smile on her face. She looks repulsive, and it might have something to do with how dirty she is. You don’t know when the last time she showered is, but it’s been too long. You can see where grease and oil has been smeared on her skin.
“The last squad will be Atlas, Pliny, Ashleen, Jett, Beatrix, Katniss, Johanna and (Y/n).”
You get to your feet, chair scraping against the floor, causing everyone to whip their head in your direction. Soldier York stares at you, your hands begin to curl into themselves.
“I can’t be in a squad with these two.” You tell her, motioning to Katniss and Johanna.
“Says who?” She asks, you don’t have an answer. “Unless Commander Boggs has given me instructions not to, which he hasn’t, you will work together through the simulation today.”
Today, that’s it.
“Fine.”
Your squad is sent through first, even though you were the last one formed. You’re geared up for battle with vests, guns, masks and backpacks full of supplies. You take charge as the leader, forcing Johanna and Katniss to be closer to the back.
The block is designed to go wrong with every turn you make, you know this better than the others, which is why you wanted to go first. You’re given instructions in your earpiece on navigation and missions. You gain ground, you destroy targets, you search buildings. You step on mines, avoid snipers, unjam your gun, get led into an ambush, and have to navigate the street by yourself when the official squadron dies.
It’s just a simulation, which is why you know it could never compare to the real thing. A part of you is afraid they’re setting you up for failure, but Soldier York is so insistent on doing things a certain way, which makes you hopeful that you’ll be able to defend yourself in the real situation.
After the block, you’re funneled into a shooting range, where Katniss’s camera crew waits to film you. You’re able to handle it for the first thirty minutes, but as soon as they start trying to direct you on how to stand and where to shoot, you lose what little patience you have left.
You put the safety on the gun, place it down on the table and pull off the noise cancelling earmuffs. You walk toward the camera crew, lip curled in anger, as you head toward Plutarch, who’s overseeing the entire thing.
“Plutarch.” You snap, he looks away from Katniss. “I’m not going to become another one of your props.”
“You’re not a prop.” Plutarch says.
You motion to Cressida, the Capitol girl in charge of directing the camera crew. “She was a minute away from coming over to me to adjust the way I stood so it looked good on camera. I’m not doing this with you.”
“Do what, (Y/n)?”
You tilt your head down at him. “I’m not going to be a part of your next star-crossed lovers bullshit. I hate Johanna. Do you understand that? I will kill her if you continue to do this.”
A smile hints at the corners of his lips. “Right.”
“Try me, Plutarch.” You get in his face. “Tell me, who’s going to move faster—the girl with the gun or the guard in the corner?” His eyes slide over the empty stall you came from. “Leave me alone.”
You look back at Soldier York, who has a hand raised, as if to ask you what you’re doing. You shake your head, and then slam through the doors beside Plutarch, done with training for the day. You’d rather sit in a room with Haymitch and listen to him bitch and moan about his liquor than deal with this shit.
Less than a minute later, the doors open after you. You ignore it, figuring it’s Plutarch or the camera crew. A hand grabs your shoulder, turning you toward them, forcing you to see that it’s Johanna.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” You shove her off of you. “Seriously.”
This doesn’t bother her. “You went through the simulation without a problem.”
“So?” You ask.
“Do you have any advice for Katniss and I? You always know what’s going to happen before it does.”
You can feel the exact moment your blood begins to boil. “Why would I give you advice on how to do better in training when I’m trying to get the fuck away from you?” Johanna opens her mouth, you cut her off. “You want some real advice? Give up.”
—
“Gale Hawthorne, please report for final assessment.”
He gets to his feet, sharing a brief look with Katniss, before he heads for the door that will lead him into the Block for the exam. There’s a feeling of uneasiness that comes over you, and you can’t really place your finger on why.
It’s not like you’re worried for his well being, Gale’s not really a friend of yours. And while they said there’s a technical issue in the Block, it should be nothing to worry about. You think Soldier York said it was a resetting issue, which is why there’s such a backlog of trainees in this room.
“Do they really have to call us in the same way the Gamemakers would?” You hear someone ask behind you.
You look over your shoulder, finding Finnick and Johanna sitting together a few rows back. You almost caused a scene about them choosing to sit behind you, but you had to remind yourself that they’re going to go through the assessment after you, so you’ll only have to deal with them for a short amount of time.
“They’re probably doing it on purpose.” Johanna says.
You look back at the door to the Block. You didn’t show up too long after Gale did, which means you should be called any moment now. If it’s anything like the last three tests they put you through today, you won’t have very much trouble.
The exam is split into four parts. The first part is an obstacle course intended to assess your physical condition, which didn’t take you long to complete. The second is a written tactics exam, so you don’t really have anything to say about it. And the third is a test of weapons proficiency, and it isn’t hard to take apart a gun and put it back together in time to shoot targets.
Well, to you it isn’t, at least.
You keep a sharp eye on the clock, curious on how long it takes for each recruit to get through the Block. So far, the average time seems to be about twenty minutes, but Gale gets it done in fifteen. You know this because the clock briefly flashes green, signaling that the recruit made it to the end.
He must not have had trouble with his weakness, then. You heard from some of the other people in this room that the final test is aimed to target a weakness of yours. If you can’t pass it, then you’re not fit to go to the Capitol. You wonder what they’ll do for you.
It doesn’t take long for the workers of Thirteen to get the Block reset. Before you know it, the voice is coming over the intercom again. This time, they’re calling you into the exam.
You get to your feet, heading for the door. Just as your hand comes in contact with the doorknob, you hear a familiar voice wish you luck. Without hesitation or looking behind you, you shove the door open and slam it behind you.
Her luck will only jinx you.
On the other side of the door, you’re met with a table. Across it is a vest, a gun, an earpiece and a backpack with supplies. Once you have everything on and it’s working, you’re instructed to head to the street, where you’re immediately ambushed by a group of Peacekeepers.
Muscle memory kicks in as you shoot back and duck into an alleyway that spits you out on the other side of the block. There, you’re met with a couple of injured Capitol citizens, who clearly need medical attention. As you step out to offer them your first aid kit, the voice in your ear orders you to shoot them.
You freeze where you stand, staring wide-eyed at the people in front of you. Your mouth opens, face twisting at the instructions. You adjust the gun in your hand, swallow thickly, and then follow through with the request. After that, you have a hard time continuing with the exam, wondering if any of the other recruits have had to do the same thing.
You make it to the other side of the Block, where you’re met face to face with Boggs, who seems impressed. He congratulates you on getting through without an ounce of hesitation. He stamps your hand with your squad number, which is 451, and tells you that he’ll walk you to Command, himself.
“What was with the Capitol people?” You ask after a long couple minutes of walking. “I heard that you have a segment that targets weakness. Is that what you thought was mine?”
Boggs shakes his head. “I did not decide that, I believe Soldier York did.”
“Where did she get that impression?” You ask him.
“She heard it from a couple of sources, actually.” Boggs eyes you, as if he knows what’s coming. “With the way you carried out the order, I don’t think she had it correct.”
“Damn right she didn’t.” You mutter. “Doesn’t that just put me at a disadvantage?”
“No, not with the squad you’re in.” He says, motioning to your stamped hand. “You’re with me, it’s a special unit of sharpshooters.”
“Really?” You ask, feeling a bit better. “Who else is in it?”
“You’ll get to meet them, now.” Boggs says, motioning for you to go into the room first.
You’re met with five unfamiliar faces, and one you recognize—Gale.
“This is the completed squad?” You ask.
“Not yet. We’re waiting on two more members.” Boggs tells you.
You squint your eyes, staring down at the floor, wondering who the two other people could be. Since Gale is here, you’d assume that Katniss will be in this squad, too. If it’s sharpshooters, Katniss is one of the best when it comes to hitting her target where it hurts. Which leaves only one other slot, and if it’s given to Johanna, you might lose your shit.
You’re made to stay in this room for the next hour while the order of recruits is carried out. You opt for sitting against the wall at some point, tired of standing around and doing nothing. You’re not really interested in talking to the other members quite yet, and you’re still not on speaking terms with Gale.
The next person that comes into the room is not Johanna, but Finnick. He has this stupid smug look on his face, which seems to falter somewhat when his eyes land on you. Maybe he was hoping you weren’t going to pass, or he wasn’t expecting you to be placed into the same squad as him.
It’s only a half hour later when Boggs announces the final person has arrived. It’s Katniss, and she’s rubbing her chin with an open palm, wincing when she does it. She offers Boggs a smile, which widens into a full grin when she looks at Finnick. You get to your feet, crossing your arms over your chest.
Plutarch emerges from a chair, coming to stand over a table so he can begin to explain what you should expect in the Capitol. He’s motioning to a flat panel on the table, which you can’t see, even though you’re standing right in front of it. It isn’t until he presses a button, allowing a holographic image of just one block of the Capitol to appear, are you able to see what he’s talking about.
“This, for example, is the area surrounding one of the Peacekeepers’ barracks. Not unimportant, but not the most crucial of targets, and yet look.” Plutarch must type some sort of code into the keyboard, because lights begin to flash. They range from a dozen colors, lights blinking at different speeds.
“Each light is called a pod. It represents a different obstacle, the nature of which could be anything from a bomb to a band of mutts. Make no mistake, whatever it contains is designed to either trap or kill you. Some have been in place since the Dark Days, others developed over the years. To be honest, I created a fair number myself. This program, which one of our people absconded with when we left the Capitol, is our most recent information. They don’t know we have it. But even so, it’s likely that new pods have been activated in the last few months. This is what you will face.”
You seem to gravitate toward the table, leaning in to properly observe. If this is just one block in the Capitol, you can’t imagine what the whole city will look like. Now there’s no wonder why you weren’t approved for the front lines. They’re going to be the guinea pigs.
When you look up at Plutarch, it seems he’s followed your train of thought, shaking his head just enough for you to catch it. He doesn’t want you to say anything about it. It’s like he knew you’d be smart enough to pick this apart. A part of you wonders if the soldiers being sent out in a few days would change their minds if they knew they were up against this.
But everyone’s so desperate to end the Hunger Games, it might not even make a difference to them.
Katniss and Finnick have joined you at the table, both of them reaching out to touch the lights. Finnick clears his throat, “Ladies and gentlemen…”
“Let the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games begin!” Katniss shouts, and then dissolves into laughter after. “I don’t even know why you bothered to put Finnick and me through training, Plutarch.”
“Yeah, we’re already the two best-equipped soldiers you have.” Finnick adds.
You roll your eyes, retreating back to the wall.
“Do not think that fact escapes me.” He waves his hand impatiently. “Now back in line, Soldiers Odair and Everdeen. I have a presentation to finish.”
They join you back on the wall, you listen to Plutarch finish out his speech. Once the meeting is adjourned, you shuffle out to the hallway. Katniss and Finnick split off to stand next to the wall, quietly debating on what they should do regarding telling their loved ones about the pods.
They settle on nothing.
You’re about halfway down the hallway when Haymitch comes around the corner, looking a little grave. You move out of the way, assuming he’s heading for Katniss, when he grabs your elbow.
“Come on, I have something to tell you three.” Haymitch says, bringing you right back to the door you came from. Katniss and Finnick look up at your approach. He lets go of your arm, motioning for you to stand next to them. “Johanna’s back in the hospital.”
You cross your arms.
“Is she hurt? What happened?” Katniss asks.
“It was while she was on the Block. They try to ferret out a soldier’s potential weaknesses. So they flooded the street.” Haymitch says.
“So?” Katniss asks.
“That’s how they tortured her in the Capitol. Soaked her and then used electric shocks.” Haymitch says. “In the Block she had some kind of flashback. Panicked, didn’t know where she was. She’s back under sedation.”
You press your lips together, staring at Haymitch. You’re not sure why he thinks you would care, it’s the karma she deserves. You’d even argue her getting taken by the Capitol with Peeta was the real first hit of it.
“You two should go see her. You’re as close to friends as she’s got.” Haymitch tells Katniss and Finnick. “I better go tell Plutarch. He won’t be happy. He wants as many victors as possible for the cameras to follow in the Capitol. Thinks it makes for better television.”
“Are you and Beetee going?” Katniss asks.
“As many young and attractive victors as possible.” Haymitch corrects. “So, no. We’ll be here.”
After this, Katniss heads off down the hallway with Finnick. You stand with Haymitch, watching them go for the nearest elevator. When you look back at Haymitch, your head is tilted.
“I’m not saying you should forgive her, but you’ll be in better graces if you visit her.”
“Who’s better graces?” You ask. “Gale? Finnick? Katniss?” You scoff. “All I’m going to do is tell her I was right. I told her she wouldn’t be going anywhere.”
Haymitch sighs. “Plutarch’s graces.”
“Why should that matter, you basically just confirmed we’ll be doing nothing in the Capitol.” You roll your eyes. “I’m not sure if they understood your message, but I got that loud and clear.”
“I hope not.” Haymitch mutters. “If Katniss knew she wasn’t going to do anything…”
“Yeah, I know.” You tell him. “Listen, I’ll consider visiting Johanna, but I’ve got better places to be.”
Haymitch nods, placing a hand on your shoulder. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. I know your situation in the Capitol was complicated, and it got worse when your tattoo came out.”
“I know, Haymitch. I’m the one dealing with it.” You tell him. “Which is exactly why she doesn’t deserve anything from me.”
—
You thought you’d be more anxious about leaving District Thirteen to go fight in the Capitol, but you actually feel the opposite. Everyone else has been running around to make arrangements, afraid of what they’ve signed themselves up for. While you feel at peace with the decision you’ve made.
It probably has something to do with the fact you’re finally leaving this place behind tomorrow. After the harassment you’ve received these past few days, you were almost sent out last night. Boggs called it a safety issue, since you were growing increasingly violent with each person that approached you.
You told him you could handle it, you didn’t want any special treatment, you just wanted to be treated the same way as the other members of your squad. You told Boggs if he really wanted to help, he would have a stern conversation with all the friends of Johanna to remind them you owe her nothing.
He took it into consideration, but you’re pretty sure he didn’t actually approach anyone on the problem. Definitely not Finnick, who showed up at your compartment last night, looking to talk.
“What you’re doing to Johanna is wrong.” He told you, standing in your doorway.
“And what is it that I’m doing?” You asked back, making a face at him.
“You’re not hearing her out.” Finnick said.
You huffed, “I don’t think you and her understand how insane you sound.” You motioned at him. “You two bullied me for years on end, and you think that just because she’s my soulmate, she’s entitled to my life? She’s entitled to my love? She scrutinized every move I made, smeared my name, and I should just forgive her for that?”
Finnick stared at you, “We never bullied you.”
“You started false rumors about me. You excluded me from alliances. You went out of your way to try to get me kicked out of the rebellion. And you’ve turned several victors against me. How is that not bullying?” You snapped back. “Just because you’ve never had to experience something like this firsthand doesn’t mean it hasn’t been happening.”
He didn’t know what to say. You thought it was finally sinking into that thick skull of his. One single apology you had to squeeze out of him does not erase years of emotional and psychological torture.
“You should still see Johanna.” He murmured. “Before we go.”
“Can’t promise I won’t kill her.” You told him lamely, waving your hand to dismiss him from your room.
He left, his words having no impact on you. You were already planning on having a conversation with her today, which is what you’re on your way to do. You wanted to wait until it was an hour before the hospital closed. That way, she wouldn’t be able to chase after you. The nurses will have her on lockdown.
And by the time she’s released tomorrow morning, you’ll be long gone.
This is the last time you want to talk to Johanna while you’re here.
You continue down the cement hallway, everything looks the same in the hospital. If it weren’t for the signs on the wall, you would’ve been lost three hallways ago. You turn another corner, met with a shorter walk because it’s a dead-end. Johanna’s room is the one on the right.
You stop in front of the glass window, looking through to find her with a wad of bandages held against her nose. On the first day of her being hospitalized, Katniss came to find you to tell you she made something for Johanna so she’d feel less homesick.
You told her you didn’t care.
You pull the sliding door open, causing Johanna to jump at the sudden noise. The hospital room is dimly lit by an orange light. If you’d visited in the daytime, they’d have the overhead fluorescent ones on, but since it’s so close to lights out, they’ve opted for a better option.
Johanna looks less dirty than when you saw her last. They must have forced her to have a sponge bath or something, since it’s unsanitary for her to be walking around the way she was. She places the bandage ball in her lap, sitting up.
“(Y/n).” She breathes.
“Johanna.” You respond flatly.
She blinks. “You came.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow.”
She nods. “I know, Finnick told me. How do you feel about it?”
“Good.” You tell her. “Ecstatic, really, because you’ll finally stop sending people after me while I’m trying to mind my own business. Which reminds me—don’t send me letters while I’m away.”
Johanna presses her lips together. “When are you going to forgive me?”
“Never.” You say. “I’ll be dealing with the rumors you started for the rest of my life. You know how many opportunities were pulled from me because I was so selfish? Why would I give you the time of day after that? You think you deserve it?”
“No.” She says quietly.
“Right.” You agree, nodding. “So pull your head out of your ass. And while you’re stuck in Thirteen—which I told you would happen—maybe you should try to get your act together. For someone who accused me countless times of being a lowlife, you haven’t made a real difference anywhere.”
Johanna goes quiet.
“You may think we’re fated to be together, but I will never be your partner.” You tell her. “I would rather die before I ever let that happen.”
“What about friends?” She asks. “I would rather be your friend than nothing at all.”
You shake your head. “I don’t surround myself with people who derive pleasure from judging others.”
Does anyone even read Hunger Games fanfics anymore?? I don't know, and I don't really care! I recently reread the series to get out of a reading slump, and now I'm hyperfixating again so... you guys get this which will probably turn into a multipart series because I FEEL LIKE IT, OKAY? Tl;dr: I'll do what I want.
Johanna Mason x fem!reader
Warnings: Massive HUGE warnings for violence, blood, murder, etc., but also an especially HUGE warning for sexual assault, trauma in general, explicit language (let me know if I've missed anything)
Word count: 2.5k
Summary: You're freshly home from winning the 73rd Hunger Games, and all you really want is for things to go back to normal for you and your brother. But now you're in the Victor's Village. And now Johanna Mason, who won the year before you, is your neighbor.
It’s not that you didn’t like the house in the Victor’s Village. It was objectively better than the cabin you and Leevee had lived in before. But at the cabin, you’d had neighbors. People who knew you, who looked after you and Leevee after the fever took your parents, even though you insisted you work in exchange for every loaf of bread, every mended pair of pants.
You took care of him as best you could, after your parents died. You dropped out of school and went to work in the lumber yards. Leevee went to school, of course, but his teachers didn’t teach him much of anything. There was something different about him, a bit off. Always had been, since he was born. The people in Seven called him slow, and maybe he was in some ways, but he was also kind and bighearted and quick to laugh and full of joy–traits hard-pressed to come by in a place like this. So everyone took to him and everyone looked out for him. They had a name for his affliction in the Capitol. But you didn’t like them naming something wrong with Leevee, as if what made him different was all there was to him. So you paid it no mind. To you, he was just your Leevee. Perfect just like he was.
It was hard to believe it'd only been three weeks since the Reaping. When your name had been called, you kept your eyes lasered in on the branches of a pine tree in the distance. You could hear Leevee calling your name from the crowd, confused about why you were on stage, and your heart felt like it was being pulled apart. But you would not cry. You wouldn’t let these Capitol people see you cry. It was not for them to see.
Your neighbor, Otta, a widow, had brought Leevee to see you before you had to leave. Only then did you let yourself cry and, even then, he hadn’t understood. He’d taken his handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to your face, and you told him to listen to Otta and the neighbors. That you were going away and you might not be back for a while, but that you loved him very much. Listen to Otta, you said. Keep those listening ears on, young man. And then he was gone. Or, rather, you were.
Before the Games, you hadn’t fancied your chances at winning. Sure, you were strong and, at eighteen, one of the oldest tributes. But you were very small, barely five feet tall, lithe and wiry. You could handle a saw and an ax fairly well from your time in the lumber yard, but you couldn’t imagine sawing through someone. You couldn’t imagine killing someone at all. Even worse was the thought of Leevee watching you kill someone or watching you die. You hoped Otta would cover his eyes.
The arena was the only thing in your favor during the 73rd Hunger Games. A coastal ecosystem. Not rainforest, like parts of Seven, but tall, spindly pines that bent in the wind. It wasn’t exactly like home, but you were nothing if not comfortable around trees. Your saving grace in the Games turned out to be your size. The trees were impossible but all for the smallest of the tributes–you and the youngest–to climb. The first night you spent in one of those pines, you thought you might crash to your death from all the swaying, but once you acclimated, it was like the tree was rocking you. It would have been nice if not for the cannons in the air, if not for the constant terror.
You managed to find plants to eat, to catch fish in the small river that trickled into the artificial ocean. Your Games lasted six days, and you spent most of it in the trees.
That last night… You knew you’d have to kill him. The Career from One. But he was so big–a full foot and a half taller than you and stocky to boot–and vicious. You didn’t even have a real weapon, just some river rocks and a bit of your shirt you’d been using as a sling. But One–you didn’t even like to hear his name now, didn’t like to remember it–he’d found the superior weapon. You’d woken up to your tree shaking, to the tell-tale crackling and groaning of a trunk in distress. One had an ax, and the trees here were so spindly, it’d be a matter of minutes before it toppled, especially with your weight at the top. You tried to scramble down far enough that when the tree fell, you wouldn’t die from it, but you still had a long way to go when the trunk cracked.
It was the landing that did you in. You hit the ground so hard it knocked your breath out. Knocked your brain pretty good, too, based on how blurry everything was afterward. You couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe for a few seconds, and that few seconds was all One needed. He was on top of you, and the weight of him made it even harder to catch your breath. You were faintly aware of your body fighting back, but it was like fighting back against a mountain. You screamed when he stabbed long hunting knives into either of your forearms, all the way through, pinning you to the ground, and almost passed out from the pain. This was it. This was how you'd die. You’d like to say you thought of Leevee, but all you thought of was how scared you were.
But… he wasn’t killing you. He wasn’t getting another weapon. He was… undressing? And suddenly you remembered that there were things worse than death. You screamed and screamed until your throat gave out. You didn’t care who saw you cry now, couldn’t have stopped the tears if you’d wanted to. People didn’t do this in the Games. They murdered each other. They hurt each other. They tore one another to bits. But they didn’t do this. Surely, the Capitol wouldn’t let this happen, wouldn’t let this air on TV. There was a line, surely. But as soon as you thought it, the hope left your body deflated and empty except for the man–the boy, mere months older than you–grunting above you. There was no line. Not where the Capitol was involved.
But somewhere in your pain-addled brain, you realized that he was… occupied, which meant he wasn’t keeping a close enough eye on his weapons. You screamed as you wrenched one of your arms out of the ground and pulled the knife from your other wrist. There was a moment, right at the last second, where he looked up and understood what you were doing, but it was too late by then. The last thing you remembered from the arena was plunging the knife into his neck.
When they made you watch the replay of your “victory,” you’d hardly recognized yourself. Covered in blood, lips curled up in a snarl, as if you were an animal. You hadn’t stopped at his neck. You’d stabbed him over and over and over. You’d stabbed his genitals so many times there was nothing left but a mangled, bloody mess. And then you’d passed out.
And, to be frank, you could never bring yourself to feel any remorse over it. For the others you’d killed, the ones who’d happened by your perch over the river, and died quickly from a stone to the temple–you felt awful. It tore you apart. But One? For what he had done to you, he deserved every moment of his gruesome, painful death.
Now that you were back in Seven, back with Leevee, and moved into the Victor’s Village, you knew that it would never be the same. Not with the people that knew you before. Everyone looked at you like a wounded animal, like someone to be pitied. The assault had traumatized the entire nation. Even the Capitol viewers had so disliked the “assault narrative,” that the Games Committee had put forth a blanket statement that, in the future, sexual violence would be met with a swift and immediate death. One of your old neighbors told you that you should feel proud that you made a difference in the future games, protecting future tributes. You’d gone home and vomited, as you did every night after you woke up screaming, sweating, feeling the weight of One on top of you.
Your solace these days was Leevee. You were struggling to get used to the isolation of the Victor’s Village, even though your tendency now was to isolate yourself anyway. He was so happy to have you back. He didn’t really understand where you’d gone. Otta and the others had told him you were “camping,” and that’s where you were when he saw you on the screens.
You didn’t need to work in the lumber yard anymore, so you spent long days with Leevee. Now that you had time, you were teaching him things that the instructors at school didn’t bother with, like how to read. And you’d left school so early to take care of him that you had learning to do, too. There wasn’t much of a library to speak of, in Seven, but oddly enough your house at the Victor’s Village had come stocked with books, and you were making your way through all of them.
Your favorite part of the day was your afternoon walk with Leevee. Long and leisurely. You spent a lot of time at the fountain in the center of the Victor’s houses. You gave him stones to throw in and fished them out, barefoot in the water. You had the fountain and the Village pretty much to yourself. Just Blight, who kept to himself, and Johanna, who’d won two years ago. You had known Johanna a little, at school, but you'd never spoken much, just in passing. You’d dropped out so early, there hadn’t been much time for friends.
Johanna seemed to have built some kind of improvised woodshop outside of her house, and she was out there quite a bit, but you never approached her. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who took kindly to strangers, especially since her Games, two years before yours. She’d been belligerent and hostile in the Capitol and, in retaliation, they’d killed her family. Officially, of course, they’d died of the fever. Unofficially, Snow’s roses, left on each of their deathbeds for Johanna to find when she’d returned from a day in the forest, were warning enough.
But you noticed her watching you on your walks with Leevee, when you played with him at the fountain. Felt her eyes on you and tried to ignore them. They were like everyone else’s–full of pity. And you were so tired of being pitied. Yes, it had been awful. Yes, there were nights that you jerked awake and wished One had just killed you instead of leaving you like this. But then who would Leevee have? He needed you.
One day, when you and Leevee walked past Johanna's house on the way to the fountain, you found her sitting on her porch steps, staring as usual. Her eyes were hard and direct, and you found it hard to meet them. You were tired of this. So tired.
“Leevee, go ahead to the fountain, young man. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Leevee happily ran ahead, and you whipped your head around to face Johanna, pulling yourself into as imposing a figure as you could manage in your tiny frame. Which, given that you had stabbed a man to death, was maybe more than you could hope for otherwise.
You glared at her, finally meeting her cool eyes. “Stop looking at me like that,” you spat, your voice steady and sharp.
Johanna looked almost… amused? She stood and walked toward you, smirking. “Like what, half-pint?”
You hadn’t really expected her to engage with you at all, and you were losing confidence quickly. Johanna was taller than you, more confident than you, cooler than you, tougher than you, prettier than you. You stopped yourself. Prettier? Who cares about prettier?!
“Like you feel sorry for me! Look at me like an animal or a fucking murderer, I don’t care. Just…” You deflated slightly, shifting your eyes to the ground. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Johanna was quiet for a moment, as if she was sizing you up. You wished you could tell what she was thinking. You wanted Johanna to like you or at least tolerate you but, then, did Johanna actually like anybody?
“Okay,” she said and shrugged. You couldn’t quite believe it. Would it really be that easy? “I’ll look at you like you are.”
“Like I am?”
“Mmhm.”
You waited for her to elaborate, but she never did, instead turning and walking back toward her porch. You shook your head and went to meet Leevee by the fountain. You hoped you hadn’t fucked it up. Was this Johanna’s version of friendly? You weren’t really sure. You got the feeling you’d know if she didn’t like you.
“Hey, Y/N!”
You stopped and looked behind you to find Johanna trotting up, holding something in her hands. She handed you the object–a small sailboat carved out of wood. You looked at the boat–so smooth, so beautifully crafted–and then at Johanna, confused.
“For your brother,” she explained. “To use in the fountain. It’s made of cedar, so it’ll float.”
You were stunned speechless, watching Johanna, who kept her eyes on some fixed point in the distance and wrung her hands as if she were… nervous? Johanna, nervous? And suddenly, she didn’t seem so intimidating to you, this girl who’d orchestrated a bloodbath to win the Games. Who’d been so filled with rage and hurt by the part she’d been forced to play, only to have everyone she loved taken from her. She wasn’t scary at all, you realized. Not really. She was like you. She was a scared, angry girl who’d done what she had to do to survive.
“Anyway,” she said, eager for the moment to end. “See you never, shortstuff.” She hurried back toward her house, but you yelled after her.
“Hey, Johanna! You could go on a walk with us sometime. You know, if you wanted.”
“Why would I want to hang out with you!?” she called without turning back.
You grinned. So Johanna might take a little work. That was okay. You had time. You had nothing but time now.
You approached Leevee, who was finding nearby sticks to throw in the fountain.
“Hey, young man,” you said, beckoning him over. “Look at this! Johanna made it for you!”
And, oh, you wished she could have seen his eyes light up. You had a hunch that she was still watching, from her window or her woodshop or wherever she’d planted herself. Leevee could melt anyone’s heart, even yours. Maybe even hers.
Pairing : Bodyguard!Joaquin Torres x Princess!Reader AU [vague description of reader being shorter than Joaquin)
A/N: thank you so much for this request anon and I wanted to write only one scene but then I got possessed by a tween on sugar rush and ended up writing some 8k words AND IT JUST KEPT INCREASING LMAOO. So here I am... with a whopping 13.5K words idk I went full ballistic w this :) I kind of imagined the princess to be from a South-Asian kingdom [My only references has been the movies I have seen lol (there is a film called Khoobsurat and a lot of rules and setting is inspired from this movie)], but I have left the descriptions vague so you can imagine the kingdom how you see fit. So here you go, this is my love letter to all the soft romance delulu girls who wants to annoy a man so much that he ends up falling for them, may you all get the book boyfriends you truly deserve <3 listen to Two Hands by Tate McRae for better experience during the scene [mentioned below]
Warnings: DUAL POV. ANGST ANGST ANGST!!!! Reader is a bad girl trying to be good. Inaccurate royal people's rules ig?, mentions of destructive behaviour, self saboutage, attention seeking people, sexist themes, paparazzi being assholes, family arguements, basically reader is a princess trying to follow her dreams, mentions of forced marriage, Inaccurate F1 rules and working? [reader is a racing enthusiast], also Joaquin Torres on a bike doing stunts in Vienna, you're welcome.
Word Count: 13.5K
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Bodyguard! Joaquin Torres X Princess! Reader
Your sash poked into your neck like a velvet noose.
You blinked rapidly, the fake lashes heavy and clumped from the last-minute extensions someone insisted you needed. The tiara perched atop your head gleamed under the crystal lights, but it didn’t feel elegant. It felt like obligation, pressing down on your scalp with every inch of your heritage. Even your gown, a masterpiece of silver sequins and duchess satin... felt like armor, and the enormous flare of it made you feel less like a royal and more like a wedding cake about to topple over.
Despite the wardrobe struggle, you stood tall... you had to.
But your mind wandered like it always did. You found your focus snagged on the curtains in front of you. Deep burgundy, maybe velvet… or brocade? You weren’t sure. You wanted to run your fingers along them, and you raised your hand to feel the curtains, only for your eyes to fall on your white satin gloved hands, too sterile, too clean, and it irritated you further. the curtains were the only barrier you had between you and the bustling crowd in the halls.
Around you, event planners and makeup artists hustled past, speaking to each other, making sure the event goes smoothly. The Grand Hall of the Royal Palace overflowed with global dignitaries, foreign royalty, press, and every relevant elite worth impressing.
Today was your twenty-fifth birthday, your official introduction as Queen Regent-in-Waiting. A ceremonial declaration that once your brother, Prince Ramil, ascended the throne after your father, you would follow.
Assuming you didn’t implode first.
You fought to breathe in the corset cinched so tight that your ribs ached, but you didn’t dare shift. You had been trained for this, for the perfect postures and the Hollywood smile, since you were a toddler.
“Breathe, Your Highness.”
You didn’t have to turn to know who it was, his voice could be recognized by you in an instant. I was low and smooth, one syllable from him could cut through noise like a hot blade through wax. It always calmed you, steadied you, reminded you that amongst the plastique and fakeness of being a royal in 21st century, someone inside the palace walls was still real.
Joaquin Torres.
Ex Air Force.
Your Bodyguard.
From the corner of your eye, you saw him step closer, four paces behind you; exactly as protocol allowed. His hand reached forward with practiced stealth, brushing your fingers and leaving behind something small and familiar.
You glanced down to find a lemon candy, half-wrapped. You bit down on it immediately, the sharp citrus hitting your tongue like a jolt of electricity. Your lip twitched, and you grimaced.
“Thank you,” you murmured, barely moving your mouth, your smile still fixed.
“I heard you skipped lunch,” he replied, voice dry.
You rolled your eyes, “Don’t be dramatic, Torres. I had a large breakfast.”
“Let me guess. A strawberry Pop-Tart and black coffee.” He scoffed.
“It was two Pop-Tarts,” you hissed, and you could hear the soft huff of amusement he didn’t let anyone else hear.
Behind you, Joaquin stood at his full height. He was wearing his formal black three-piece suit; the same one he wore at all events. He looked handsome in it, better than any prince in extravagant clothing… although you liked him more in a tank top where his toned biceps were in full view. You never told him this, of course, because he would never let you live it down. Because Joaquin Torres could be a terrible flirt and a softie by heart, but he was a pillar of safety for you first… truly unshakable. He was your shadow, your shield, your most trusted friend.
He had been assigned to you at nineteen, back when your name was plastered on tabloids more often than national newsletters. You had been caught by paparazzi way too many times at places any princess shouldn’t be; clubs, celeb parties, bars in foreign countries... but mostly at illegal underground car racing events.
You were wild back then.
The media loved any chance they got to drag the royal family through the dirt, and had nicknamed you “Drift Princess” by the number of times you had been booked for driving your custom hot pink mustang at ungodly speed, so fast that your car was a blur in the paparazzi pictures. You still remembered your first photo that was everywhere in media for a month: your hot pink Mustang streaking through a back-alley track, smoke curling off tires, your grin wide and reckless.
You hadn’t cared at all back then, being the obnoxious spare to the throne, and nobody dared to stop you… until Joaquin had been thrown into your world, with his all-brooding eyes and scolding lectures. You swear you never saw his lips twitch back then, never.
You hated him at first; The way he hovered around you anywhere you went. The way he shadowed you, barked rules your way, blocked exits before you reached them. The way he cared when everyone else was just… tired of you. You fought him with everything; snuck past him, climbed walls, got black out drunk at unknown clubs, disguised yourself in hoodies and sunglasses. He found you every single time... He’d dragged you out of bars, carried you out of parties, intercepted sneaky getaways from the palace walls.
You believed he hated you too… until one night, he’d literally tackled you before you could climb over a 30 feet palace wall, one wrong step away from falling to your death. You’d been cursing him out as he picked you up and hauled you to your quarters looking ready to combust.
“your highness, You could’ve died!” he had shouted at you, practically shaking.
“Then I’d finally be free,” you’d snapped back.
Joaquin had gone still hearing that. His face dropped from angry to sadness, eyes burning with something you couldn't decipher.
“The next time you want to go,” he had yelled, “You tell me.” He pointed at you and then at himself. “I’ll take you. You can race at full speed or drink yourself into a coma with your rich friends, I don’t care. But I need to know where you are! I can’t protect you if I can’t find you!” You’d stared at him for a long time after that.
He’d been furious. You’d never had anyone scream at you like that. Never seen anyone that scared for you… not even your own family. That night, six years ago, had changed everything. He was still your bodyguard, but he had become so much more. Your secret-keeper, your movie nights partner, your only real friend, the only one who knew who you were beneath the crown.
The trumpet blared from the other side of the curtain, and you felt the anticipation of your arrival in your bones.
“It is my utmost honor,” the spokesperson announced, voice echoing around you, “to introduce Her Royal Highness, Princess y/n, first of her name, and third in line to the throne of Tavreshi!”
Your hands clenched, then released, you took a deep breath to prepare yourself as you waited for the cue of the trumpets.
Behind you, Joaquin murmured with a smirk in his voice, “Time to shine, Your Royal Driftiness.”
You bit back a laugh. “Say that again and I’ll trip on purpose.”
He leaned ever so slightly closer. “Not if I catch you first, which I always do.”
Your chest tightened at his words, but you didn’t respond.
That night at the fountain...
A heartbeat passed, and then his voice rang in your ears, this time a bit closer, “Show them who you are, princess. Good luck.”
Then the curtain opened.
The hall exploded in light and sound, flashing bulbs, camera shutters, music rising in grandeur. The applause surged like a wave crashing into your ribs as you stepped forward, looking at your family standing at the end of the staircase; Your grandfather – the king. Your parents and your brother, Prince Ramil, all beaming at you in pride and awe.
You smiled as you descended, not the plastic kind that you practiced so often. The real kind, showing your true self. And behind you, half-shielded in shadow, Joaquin followed your steps, four paces behind, hand hovered at his side.
Just in case you fell.
---/---/---
The golden ballroom gleamed with candlelight and polished marble, humming with music and gossip from the high society. You had stood beneath the chandelier, smiling through the weight of too many eyes. You had cut the huge birthday cake, and your father had danced with you first, proud of the woman that you had grown to be. After which your older brother, Prince Ramil followed, cracking a joke mid-waltz that made you want to flick his forehead.
Now, standing alone at the slightly raised podium of the room, the chatter was fading while the music grew louder, you tried not to twist your fingers. After all, this was the first time the event was in your honor.
You were twenty-five now, and officially named second in line to the throne. A future queen, in everything but title.
There were a thousand cameras clicking your every move, waiting for you to make a mistake so they can drag our name in tomorrow's headlines, well, you didn't blame them. They haven't had a bad news about you for five years now. They were hungry to see you fall. Diplomats, nobles, foreign royals watched you with curious eyes, the youngsters in awe of your rebellious nature poised so perfectly, and the elders with their judging stares.
Behind you, four paces behind, stood Joaquin Torres.
He didn’t care about the glittering gowns or the music. His serious eyes scanned the room for the 100th time. Exits, guests, and upper balconies. He was whispering into his comms again, his hand against his earpiece, tense as ever.
You glanced back slightly and muttered under your breath, “Would it kill you to relax a bit?”
Joaquin glared at you, standing straight, “Probably. Likely it would kill you too.”
---/---/---
She laughed at his deadpanned quick remark, pulling him from his scan for just a second. That was the thing about her; she could find sarcasm even in places armored with protocol and pressure.
She turned her head more now, catching his eye over her shoulder. Her smile crooked, she asked, “Dance with me?”
Joaquin blinked at her boldness, sure he had danced with her during lessons, but infront of everyone? He looked straight ahead, avoiding her glance; this wasn’t protocol, his recruiter’s voice rang in his ears, “you have to stay close to her Torres. And the minute you catch feelings, know that you have failed your duty.”
But before he could respond, he watched as a steward approached and gave a polite bow, earning her attention, “Your Highness, may I present His Royal Highness Prince Idris of Meira. He would be honored to have the next dance.”
She turned and accepted with perfect grace, as the tall tan skinned prince whisked her away to the dance floor.
Joaquin stepped back, his jaw tight, hands behind his back as he watched her take the foreign prince’s hand and let herself be led back into the dance.
“I’ve never seen her this graceful,” came a voice beside him. He glanced sideways to see Prince Ramil, y/n’s brother and current heir, standing next to him, drink in hand, posture relaxed but eyes sharp.
“She always is,” Joaquin said, neutral.
Ramil followed his sister’s slow turn across the floor. “Idris is a decent man.” He looked at his champagne, grimacing, “he’s quiet, loves to read, also, his small island nation mines diamonds for a living, so, he’s like loaded.” He slurred his words, and Joaquin’s heart raced as he glanced back at her, twirling on the dance floor, laughing.
Ramil went on. “You did not hear this from me but, the king’s planning a pact between them. He hasn’t said it directly, but it’s clear. I heard him talk to dad saying Meira is a good ally nation to have.”
Joaquin’s jaw ticked his gaze locked on how Prince Idris led you around the dance floor, looking into your eyes.
“Prince Ramil, The King has summoned you,” Sam Wilson, Ramil’s Bodyguard and Joaquin’s senior form Air Force, led him to the podium where the king sat, looking back at Joaquin and silently telling him not to spill this to anyone else.
He turned his attention back to the princess. From where he stood, it looked like they were flirting. She tilted her head, her hand resting on Idris’ shoulder longer than necessary. She was playing a part maybe, this was diplomacy and strategy and rebellion rolled into one, but Joaquin wasn’t immune to the slow, bitter burning that was silently creeping into his lungs.
Because he knew what it meant to stand too close to fire and not be allowed to touch it.
Joaquin had hated her at first. She was spoiled, entitled, downright unhinged, and the physical personification of pure chaos. She didn’t care about the rules, or etiquettes, or safety and image.
She was the poster child of what a kid becomes when they don’t hear no for an answer.
But then, he had seen her talk to the stable horses like they were old friends, he saw her take care of her cars and bikes like they were a part of her, always ending up covered in grease and dirt but with a content smile on her face when she finished. He saw her sneak into the servant’s kitchen to share a cup of tea with her maids. He saw her fighting a guy twice her size at a club in Thailand, smiling through bloodied teeth as he carried her out. He saw her cry when she thought no one was watching, in her brother’s arms after her grandmother’s funeral.
Somewhere between dragging her out of a racing pit with engine oil on her hands and staying up to argue with her about how to handle PR disasters… he fell.
He fell hard.
But the brutal truth stayed unchallenged; that knights don’t fall for princesses.
He shifted his weight. Checked his comms again. Sam Wilson, Prince Ramil’s bodyguard, muttered something over the channel about the southern gate being clear. Joaquin gave a curt nod in response, but his eyes never left her.
Their dance ended, and the hall burst into raging applause. They didn’t linger for long, but they kept talking all night. Her and Idris, walking around the room greeting guests together, sitting at the edge of the ballroom sipping drinks, smiling like they had known each other for a while, and maybe they did, after all, they both were royals.
Joaquin followed them, four paces behind, stone-faced. He couldn’t hear them, but he heard her giggle, and Prince Idris holding her closer than friends should. He saw just the flicker of her hand brushing her hair, the way she threw her head back when she laughed, something genuine and rare that only he had witnessed all these years. If anyone looked closely at his stone-faced expression, they’d think he was just another bodyguard doing his duty. But on the inside, the storm in his heart only grew. He was spiraling, seconds away from cracking as he saw Idris hold her by her waist.
The realization hit him like a truck; that one day, she might belong to someone else.
And he would have to watch it unfold, helpless.
---/---/---
It was midnight when the royal family gathered in the smaller private sitting room at the palace; a room reserved for “family conversations.” You had told him enough for him to know nothing good ever came out of that room anytime your grandfather had summoned the family there.
That meant no servants, no helpers… just good old family having a heated argument, with the tension thick enough to choke on.
The King stood by the fireplace, cane in hand, eyes sharp despite his age. Queen Miriam, your mother and King Consort Advit, your father, sat on one of the long couches, pale-faced and clearly exhausted. Prince Ramil leaned against a wall, drink in hand again, expression unusually unreadable.
You stood across from them all, still in your gown. Your heels had been kicked off, and your tiara long gone. Your voice trembled; not with fear, but with fury by what you had just heard the king announce to the room.
“You want me to marry him?” you spat. “After one polite conversation and a single dance, you think we are the best choice to be married?”
The King didn’t look at you, his gaze focused in the kindling in the fireplace, “This isn’t about romance, my dear. This is about diplomacy, the stability of our land. You were raised for this.”
You screamed, “I wasn’t raised to be sold off like property!”
“Mind your tone.” The king shouts.
“No.” you stepped forward, that made him look at you, his eyes blazing with fury as he witnessed you defy him, “I went to university. I’m the first one in this family who studied mechanical engineering. I built things with my own hands. I raced. I trained in secret because you won’t allow me to have a proper racing trainer! I almost died trying to learn racing and none of you cared! And I’m supposed to believe this is for my own betterment!”
Your mother reached for you gently, getting up from her seat, “Darling, your education was never meant to distract you from your duty-”
“It wasn’t a distraction!” you snapped, as your mother looked at you with pleading eyes, “It is my dream. It has been my dream since forever! I have told you I want to race Formula One. I want a life outside these walls. I can’t be poised and perfect forever mother!” your voice cracked, “I’m twenty-five years old, not a pawn on a chessboard for you to move however you please!”
Ramil’s voice pierced through, “You really think they'll let a royal heir drive 300 kilometers an hour in a tin box?” he moved towards you, resting his glass on the coffee table.
You turned to him, fighting tears, your eyes glassy, “I thought you would understand.”
“I do, y/n.” he breathes out, “but you cannot escape this, so accept it.”
Your father stood now, voice strained but measured, he takes your hand patting it gently, “Y/n dearest, we love you. We all want what’s best for you…”
“Then say something!” you begged, your voice trembled. “Don’t just make me accept this alliance, Help me dad, Please.”
Before he could say anything, The King’s voice rang out louder, “You will marry Idris of Meira within the year, I have made arrangements with his court. That is my final word.”
“Father, If I may…” your father’s words were cut off in an instant
“I said… that is my final word!” He slammed his cane on the ground, and it was like if time had stopped for a second.
Nobody moved, nobody breathed. The monarch had spoken, and his words were as final as a statement written on stone.
Your eyes swept the room, looking at your mother, your father, and your brother. No one met your gaze; out of shame or sadness... you would never know.
---/---/---
The doors had been closed, but the voices inside had been carried out perfectly. The servants outside stood frozen, and the bodyguards exchanged quiet glances. Some felt sorry for the princess, others were scared and somewhat anticipated of what would happen next.
Joaquin stood in the corridor just behind the corner, his jaw tight and his fists clenched as he heard your shouts and the King’s booming voice echo through the hallway.
A loud click of a lock opening broke everyone out of their trance.
He saw her when she fiercely walked back to her quarters; grabbing the front of her giant dress, barefoot, her heels in hand, her makeup smeared with tears streaking her cheeks. And despite all of this, her head was high and her back straight. She stopped in her tracks as she glanced back at the door, hoping for someone to stop her.
No one did.
Her eyes locked with his, and he saw a tear tumble down her face before she turned and continued on her way.
Joaquin moved immediately.
---/---/---
The corridor outside her private quarters was silent, save for the quiet, muffled sobs echoing from the other side of the carved rosewood door of her bedroom. He had ordered the guards to clear the area, and had updated the security protocols: only two people besides immediate family had clearance to enter the Princess’s personal chambers.
Him, and Asha, her handmaiden.
Joaquin stood still, jaw clenched, hands flexing at his sides. He wanted to slam open the doors and hold her tight, but he stood at his place, his patience hanging by a thread as each sob of her tore through his heart. She needed space after the whirlwind of information was dumped on her out of nowhere, but he couldn't just stand still and do nothing.
Asha paced nearby, her petite figure distressed, worry shadowing her usually bright face, her arms folded tightly across her chest, “The Princess hasn’t cried like this in years,” she whispered, almost as if afraid you would hear her. She had seen her grow from a toddler to now, her wise eyes held the worry a mother's would for her child.
Joaquin didn’t answer, he just nodded at her as he stared at the door, waiting for you to open it.
He recalled a different version of you that would throw tantrums like these for the most illogical reasons; a wilder, untamed version.
You were nineteen when he first met you, he bowed and greeted you as you made a sour face, spoiled and recklessness reeking from your aura, of an overgrown child with a royal title and money that could buy you anything you wished for.
“Princess of Speed,” the tabloids had called you. Others were less kind: “The Royal Wreck,” “Drift Princess,” “Crowned Chaos.”
He had seen you laugh about the mess the next day, but had also noticed how the smile never reached your eyes anytime you read the articles.
He had found you half-drunk on rooftops, snuck you out of red-lit clubs swarming with creeps, yanked you from the passenger seat of cars moments before they launched into illegal drag races.
But the worst night… he still had nightmares recalling how horribly wrong it could have gone if it wasn’t for him to act rogue and breaking protocol.
---/---/-----/----/-----
[Listen to Two Hands by Tate McRae for this scene for better experience]
Six years ago, Vienna
He’d gotten the intel too late.
Oil slicks were laid down past the first curve of the track with hard debris meant to cause a wipeout. The kind of trap designed for a car like hers, the fastest cars on the track. Anything going above 90 was not coming back from it.
She was going to die.
Joaquin gritted his teeth as he tore through the roads on a stolen Ducati motorbike, the roar of the engine screaming beneath him. The underground track loomed ahead; the dark, sharp, uncharted roads calling out to her as y/n sat poised behind the wheel of a goddamn Lamborghini, seconds from launching herself into it like it was just another thrill.
The crowd parted like the red sea as he blared his horn and skidded the Ducati across the tarmac, blocking her path just as she had hit the gas pedal at the starting point. The Lambo screeched to a halt in seconds, and he heard a rather interesting curse word screamed at him, fury blazing in the princesses’ eyes before she even opened the door.
She strutted towards him, wearing a short skirt and white top with a racing jacket, ready to fight him in the middle of the road, “What the actual—!”
Joaquin took off his helmet, walking to her in a hurry, “Forgive me, your highness, but I swear to God…” he snapped, stalking toward her. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
She looked more shocked than afraid to see him, but he didn’t care. He grabbed her by the arms, grounding her, shaking her just enough to make her look at him. Her entire body shook, as she processed that Joaquin was actually standing in front of her.
“There’s a trap on the curve. Designed for you to loose control in seconds.” He screamed as the crowd roared around them, watching the race start.
She opened her mouth to argue, but behind them, he heard it; racing bikes, at least four, moving fast and close to them.
“The paparazzi. They traced your car.” He looked at her with panic in his eyes.
She froze as soon as she heard the roaring bikes, two racing past them towards the road where she was supposed to crash.
Joaquin leaned in, lowering his voice. “Y/n, hey.” He held her face, “soon they will realize you’re not racing! You need to get on that bike. Now.”
She hesitated, but Joaquin pulled her with him, “Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder again.”
She groaned, rolled her eyes but climbed onto the Ducati behind him, silent as he handed her his helmet. She didn’t protest when he grabbed her hands and placed them around his waist.
“Hold on,” he muttered.
Then they were flying. The Ducati ripped through the confused crowd who wondered why she left the race, entering a maze of streets, the tires kissing death on every corner. Seconds later he heard it; bikes chasing them, the camera flashing. Joaquin zipped up his jacket to his chin, his face down, as camera flashes distracted him. Shouts echoed, calling y/n to look back, but she held him tighter, refusing to look up. He didn’t let himself feel anything; not the way her grip tightened around his body, not the way his chest burned as she grabbed his jacket.
He’d swore as he swerved his bike through uncharted streets, the pedestrians screaming obscenities his ways, but all he cared was to lose the paparazzi who were hell bent on getting a click. He knew in that moment he would do anything for her.
And if it meant risking everything; his life, his dignity, his job, his heart… so be it.
---/---/---
They lost the paps after 20 minutes of circling back and forth inside the city, and he was damn sure he was soon to be banned in this Vienna forever, if he was lucky enough not to be thrown in jail. Joaquin rode in silence, her arms still tight around his waist long after they were gone.
As soon as they entered her room, shedidn't even turned on the lights before turning on the TV... which flashed the latest news: “police have found two cars crashed into each other at the underground tunnel which seemed to have been a part of the illegal street races that had been happening at night. The perpetrators were captured, and one of them had been sent to the emergency ward with severe injuries.”
His eyes found her in an instant, standing in the middle of her hotel suite; her face illuminated by the TV's light, devoid of color, flushed cheeks, wind-tangled hair, knuckles white at her sides. The girl who was so used to take up all the room anywhere she was present, now looked small in the silence that followed as he shut the TV off.
Then she finally spoke, her voice barely a whisper, “Does nobody care if I live or die?”
He blinked, his breath quickened.
“Is my life so cheap that they can sell it for mere… pictures?” Her voice cracked on the last word. She turned to face him fully, tears welling, brimming. “Is that all I am? A price tag for the highest bidder?”
His throat tightened, watching her crumble in front of his eyes. He had never seen her scared, ever. Even when he reprimanded her for trying to jump off of the palace walls.
He stepped forward, “I do,” he said on his own accord, “I care.”
Something in her crumbled as he spoke, her lips trembled into a smile, as if she didn’t believe him, tears slipped freely down her cheeks as a sob wrecked through her.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered, her legs shaking while she hid her face in her hands.
Joaquin moved as if he was possessed, like his mind and body were saying two different things. But in three long strides, he was there. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in. She clung to him like she’d fall apart if she let go, sobbing into his chest, grief and fear and exhaustion of the entire day unraveling all at once.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “You’re safe.” He caressed her hair, soothing her back as she shook with every sob.
That night, he hadn’t screamed at her.
When she finally cried herself to sleep on the bed, curled like a child, he covered her and took a seat. He stayed by her side the entire night, sitting in the armchair next to her bed, watching her breathe.
Vowing to himself; this would never happen again. Nobody would ever come this close to harm her. because he would reach to them first
He would cross the ends of the earth to keep her from harm, and no one would ever come close to hurting her like this again.
---/---/---
That was the night something in Joaquin... shifted. That was the moment everything changed for him, when his heart began to flutter anytime, she was sad or close to danger. His heart seemed alive when she smiled, or laughed, or dragged him off to talk his ears off about engines and races and F1, breath stopping when she would mention any racer who looked cute in her opinion.
The Princess changed after Vienna. She didn’t run away from the palace; she worked with NGO’s and genuinely worked to change the lives of the underprivileged. She took responsibility, asked him to teach her how to drive safely and not gas her car from 0 to 100 in three seconds like a rookie. He saw her join university abroad, and he followed her to keep her safe. He saw her study for hours, write reports, and her own speeches for ceremonies and public events. he kept her at an arms distance, but close enough so the creeps wouldn't dare approach her at frat parties.
And somewhere in the middle of state visits and etiquette lessons, he had stopped seeing her as a spoiled kid and started seeing her as a person. Flawed, yes, but absolutely fearless.
But tonight, she was back behind that locked door like she’d been then. It had been years since she did this. He heard another sob echo through the closed doors, and that was his last straw. He turned to the door, “Princess,” he said softly, his voice barely above a whisper.
No answer.
He tried again, this time stronger, but still gentle. “Your Highness. Just open the door and let me know you’re alright.”
Her crying paused, and he heard her footsteps come closer. He rested his palm against the wood, gulping, debating what to say next, “I don’t need you to talk,” he said. “I just...” His voice cracked, and he took a deep breath, “I just need to see you. To know you’re okay.”
Joaquin felt her presence through the door; she was standing right behind it. Asha cast him a glance, walking to the door, resting her hand on his shoulder. He leaned his forehead against the wood now. “y/n,” he whispered the name only a few were allowed to use, “please.”
A moment passed, Asha looked at him and then at the door, and all of a sudden, they heard the sound of slow movement inside. A slipper scuffing the floor, and the turn of a lock - Click.
The door cracked open an inch, just enough to reveal a tear-streaked face looking up at him, her eyes red, pouting. Joaquin didn’t move. He just looked at her, and all the rage boiling inside him softened in an instant.
“Hey.” He said, “can I come in?” She gulped, breathing hard, and finally, she nodded.
---/---/---
When the door creaked fully open, she stood right in front of him; barefoot, her hair a mess, and her cheeks still stained with tears.
She was still in her dress, but now the satin of her flared gown had been ripped open at the skirt seam, and the sleeves were ripped apart. Joaquin realized that she had tried to get out of the dress on her own, but the corset restricted her moments, and she had decided that tearing up the dress in shreds was the way to go.
And honestly, he didn’t blame her.
Asha was already behind her, muttering, “Dear lord,” before hurrying to unfasten the shredded gown from the back. Her top loosened, threatening to fall down, and he quickly cleared his throat and turned around.
Joaquin walked out to the princesses’ sitting room, standing near the threshold trying not to think about how the corset hugged your chest to push your breasts up, and he had unwillingly witnessed the swell of them just seconds ago. He instead focused on your conversation with Asha as she frantically dressed you into your night clothes and cleaned you up as you blared out an angry rant onto your ancestors for repressing the women in your lineage that had led to this... unsure if he should follow inside or wait until he’s summoned.
Y/n whined at Asha like a child, “Burn the bloody dress. I don’t ever want to see that thing again!”
Then, her voice came for him, low and tired. “You coming in, or do you need a royal scroll to give you permission?”
He exhaled slowly at the sarcasm and stepped inside.
By the time the door shut, y/n had changed into her softest, most worn-out clothing: a faded 1970’s Monaco Grand Prix shirt that practically hung by a thread, and loose trousers rolled at the ankles. Her hair was still wild as Asha tugged at the knots, but to Joaquin, she now looked more herself than she had all night.
Asha braided her hair and she flopped face-first onto the bed with the dramatic flair of someone who’d just lost a war.
“No one enters,” she mumbled into a pillow. “Except you two. Got it?”
“I told the guards already. Don’t worry.” Joaquin says softly, walking to the sofa near her bed.
Asha got busy folding up the destroyed gown with practiced efficiency, getting it out of sight before y/n decides she actually wants to burn the gown.
Joaquin took off his suit jacket, draping it on the back of the sofa near her bed, and takes a seat leaning back, his arms crossed. “You alright now?”. Y/n turned her face to the side to glare at him, her cheek pressed to the velvet pillow. She opened her mouth to slap him with some snide remark, but before she could answer, her stomach gave a loud, angry growl.
Asha’s eyes snapped to her like a laser. “What have you eaten today?” she looks at the princess accusingly, her hands on her waist. The princess winced and slowly turned her gaze to Joaquin with guilt written all over her face.
He sighed, rubbing his temples, “Ay dios mio.” He pulled out his phone, “I’m ordering food. Real food, all your favorites.”
“And boba tea, my treat.” she mumbled into the pillow.
“Obviously.” He scoffed.
---/---/---
Fifteen minutes later, the mood in the room had transformed completely.
You sat cross-legged on the bed, your mood a bit better and face a little brighter. Your lap was covered in crumpled wrappers and boxes: fried chicken, spicy fries, mango pudding, dumplings, and, yes, the largest boba tea cup money could buy. You devoured it all like it was your final meal on earth.
Joaquin sat on your sofa watching you with amused disbelief, “I swear, you eat like you haven’t seen food in a decade.”
You took a big gulp of the boba tea, and spoke, “You’ve seen our palace menus. I’m lucky I still know what seasoning tastes like.”
Asha, sweeping up the bits of tissue and packaging, sat down next to you and swiped a stray strand of hair from your face, “I haven’t seen you throw a tantrum like this since you were twenty and your new designer shoes didn’t match with any of the purses you owned.”
“They clashed, Asha. It was a fashion emergency.” You said between bites, smiling at the memory. It had taken you some time to leave old habits of getting what you want anytime you want. You had learned how to act like a decent human being and not throw a tantrum at the smallest inconvenience.
Joaquin chuckled along with Asha, as she lovingly wiped your face with a tissue, helping you so you don’t spill the food.
You smiled at the sound that you so rarely heard, watching him look at you with a smile on his face, the way his eyes crinkled, and his canines peeked out a bit behind his lips. He was a handsome looking man in every sense, but more so, he was a good man. And sometimes, he took himself too seriously. It soothed your heart watching him sit back and relax once in a while.
Asha took your hand, rubbing it, and she asked you hesitantly, “So… Are you actually going to marry Prince Idris?”
You paused mid-sip, narrowing your eyes, “What do you think?”
Joaquin shared a look with Asha, and you giggled.
Not the cute kind, but the devious one that you involuntarily let out, any time before you did something crazy. You set the drink down and leaned forward like a child about to tell a ghost story. “Alright. I’ll tell you both a secret. But it stays between the three of us. Pinky swears.” You extend your hand to Asha, and she obliges.
Joaquin raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
The princess grinned wickedly. “C’mon, soldier boy. You know the rules.”
He scoffed at his nickname that you called him just to annoy him, and with an exaggerated sigh, Joaquin stood near the bed and held out his hand. She locked her pinky with his, and smiled.
She whispered, “Prince Idris is planning to abdicate.”
Both of them blinked, taken aback by the revelation.
You smiled and continued, “I knew him before, he did a semester at my college.” You sit straight, “nobody knew he was a prince, and even if they did, they didn’t care. I had guessed he doesn’t want the throne, living like he did back then. We talked for hours tonight, and he confirmed it... he will announce it in a few weeks.”
Joaquin’s eyes widened slightly. Then he leaned back in the chair and exhaled hard, “That’s great!”
Aveline tilted her head, suspicious. She gave him a look, one he dodged expertly, to which he replied, “…for you. It’s good for you because you won’t have to marry him.”
You nod, and go back to eating your food, when Asha yawned, stretching with a dramatic sigh. “Princess y/n, with all due respect…”
You rolled your eyes, “Oh my god Asha just go! Stop with the formalities!”
She happily gathered the trash and bowed to you, addressing Joaquin as she went away, “Do not let her burn the gown in the bedroom, she can do it tomorrow in the garden.”
Joaquin nods and you mutter, “I heard that?” as Asha left, closing the doors behind her.
And then, they were alone.
Joaquin huffed out a breath, leaning back on the sofa, exhausted after a long long night.
---/---/---
Having dismissed Asha, the final cleaning duties fell on you.
Not that you mind it, you did it all the time in college. It was a way to get your mind off of things. You cleared the bed in slow movements, the weight of the night falling on you. Torn silk, broken pearls, the remnants of your tantrum were all swept aside when you finally gave up. Joaquin watched you silently after you refused his help and hissed, “sit your ass down pretty boy.” his presence was dear to you, you never felt more at ease with anyone other than him.
He somehow always knew when you were going through a hard time, as if he looked right through you. At first, it scared you, but now, alone with him in your room, it was comforting.
She exhaled sharply and looked at him, strands of hair falling across her face. “You going to just stare at me like a statue, Torres?”
Joaquin chuckled his voice low, standing up. “Here to supervise your highness’ dramatic bedtime routine.”
“Dramatic?” you quipped, placing your hands on your waist, “thank the man upstairs you weren’t here to witness my meltdown.”
“Nah, I’ve been watching it all these years,” he muttered, and made you throw your pillow at him, which he caught with his insane reflexes, his biceps bulging through his white formal shirt, his tie loose, his vest still intact after all this.
Once the bed was cleared, you stretched with a loud sigh, arms above her head, and Joaquin seemed to look away, and you instantly retreated, realizing you just exposed your midriff to him.
“Sorry.” You muttered.
Joaquin paused for a beat, watching you, and then said, “I have something for you.”
That made you perk up instantly, eyes shining, “You do?”
He reached into his jacket on the sofa, and pulled out a small, black wrapped box... neatly tied with a pink ribbon. Your excitement knew no bounds as you hurried off to him, standing a head shorter than him now that you were out of your heels, your chin tilted up to meet his gaze, arms tucked behind your back like a curious child. Joaquin looked away for a second, smiling with his teeth bared, and gave the box to you.
You gently took the box and unwrapped it, the content inside made your heart jump.
Nestled inside was a silver necklace, its pendant was an oval frame holding a pale pink gemstone the size of your index nail. It was beautiful, you hesitate to even touch it, fearing you’d break the fragile looking stone.
“It’s a star sapphire,” Joaquin said quietly, making you look at him, “I found it some years ago on a trip to Jaipur. I… I kept it, kind of… because…” he trailed off.
Your fingers brushed against the chain. “It’s beautiful, Joaquin.” You looked up at him again, speechless, your lips slightly parted, a blush crept up your neck, and you asked him hesitantly, “Help me put it on?”
He nodded, stepping behind you. His hands were steady as he lifted the chain, and you brushed your hair to a side to give him access. For a moment, his scent; musk, dawn-like, and something uniquely him… washed over you. His fingers brushed the nape of your neck, and you let out a small exhale. His hands lingered, just a heartbeat too long, his figure looming behind you, before he stepped back as he secured the clasp.
“There,” he murmured, his voice husky. You turned back to him, your hand resting above the pendant, as the pink gemstone glistened against your skin, “Thank you… Joaquin.”
You looked at him to see his shoulders slumped, his hands fidgeting, he looked up at you, almost blushing, “uh… the necklace… I know it’s not much. I… it’s alright if you don’t like-” You cut him off by grabbing his shoulders and shaking him playfully, “Don’t be stupid, Joaquin. I love it, it’s more precious than anything I’ve ever worn.” He looks at you, his eyes crinkling as a wide smile spread across his face, and you added, “also… it’s pink so it will go with all my outfits.” you trailed off as you twirled in your room, earning a laugh from him.
“Well in that case…” he pulled another, slightly larger box from behind him and held it out.
You tilt your head, puzzled at how he materialized the box out of thin air, “how did you…”
“Just take it”
“Okay.” You smile, tearing it opens with childish glee and gasped, “You didn’t!” It was your favorite pastry. Rich chocolate layers with raspberry filling and tons of whipped cream from that tiny bakery near the end of the city that nobody knew you loved… except for him.
You squeaked, actually squeaked, jumping up and down, He saw how sad you got in the past few weeks when you were put on a strict diet to fit in your birthday gown, glooming to him about how you can’t even have your favorite sweets in secret because they will know. You looked at how happy he seemed watching you so ecstatic, and you couldn’t help it. You jumped into his arms, hugging him tight, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Joaquin froze, his arms hovering before he slowly wrapped them around you. You had no idea how long you stayed like that; before you pulled away and flopped into your sofa, feet curled beneath you like a cat, already devouring the pastry. You didn’t miss how he stood transfixed at your act, and slowly moved to lean against the nearest wall, hands in his pockets. To divert your mind off of how you still feel his body against yours, you mumbled between bites, “You know the crazy part? I didn’t even eat the stupid humongous cake they made me cut today.” You looked at him, and found him amused at this revelation, “Everyone got a piece and I was rushed off to ‘get presentable for your first dance with Father!!!' ugh! I didn’t even get a bite!”
Joaquin smiled sadly, watching you, “you should have just ordered them to give you some.”
“Ha ha.” You deadpanned, licking the remnants of the pastry from your fingertips, when you caught him staring at you, “What?” you asked.
“Nothing,” he said softly. “You’re just… happy.” His smile dimmed slightly, softened. “For the first time in a while.”
“Can you blame me?” you tilt your head, and perk up, “Can I ask for one more gift?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Greedy.”
You stood and walked to the center of the room, barefoot on the fine fur carpets, extending you had to him, “Dance with me.”
Joaquin blinked, straightening his back, “What?”
“You owe me a dance, soldier boy.” You laugh, “we were interrupted by a certain prince, remember?”
---/---/---
He did remember, the scene of her being led on the dance floor while he stood helpless in the back will forever be etched in his brain, he feared.
Joaquin took her hand, and it fit into his perfectly. She placed her other on his shoulder, and his hand found the small of her back.
“Just like we practiced?” he asks her.
“Just like we practiced.” She smiled, her face just inches away from him.
“Don’t step on my toes, princess.” He smirked, earning a slap on his shoulders, and he led her.
They moved in slow circles, the wind against the windows being the music, the low ceiling lights the witness to their waltz.
“Is your mood any better now?” he asked.
“Kind of.” She shrugged.
He looked at her for a while, the faint smile on her lips nly increased when he twirled her and bought her back in his arms, swaying. He assured her, “His majesty won’t make you marry Prince Idris if he announces his abdication.”
“I know.” She says, and her smile drops for a bit, “but there will be more prospects, better than the Kingdom of Meira… prospects I won’t have any say in.” she looked at his crooked collar, and adjusted it a bit.
“I want to drive in Monaco.” she said, eyes on him, “I want to feel the G’s on my body from an actual F1 car… I’ve studied that they are way harder than any sports car, not even a Bugatti can do that! You know, if you don’t strap in correctly in the racing pit, the G’s are sometimes so hard on your body you can get concussions.” Her smile was back, like she was imagining driving a racing car in the pit.” She took a step back and walked around Joaquin, her ands caressing his shoulders and then back into his arms, “I want to Travel more… Greece, Mongolia, Shanghai… Grandma went on a world tour when she was young, she used to tell me all kinds of stories from her days... I want to know who I am Joaquin, I can’t do that sitting in a castle.”
“Run away.” The words tumbled out of his mouth as he stopped in his tracks, realizing what he said.
“What?” She asked him, her eyes wide in shock.
He breathed out, “Run away, your highness. Don’t tell me you never thought of it.”
They stood in silence for a long moment, staring at each other in peril… hand in hand, their bodies close.
Y/n’s brows raised, he could see the gears in her head turning... And then… she smirked.
The same smirk that had gotten her into trouble too many times.
“Okay,” she whispered, eyes burning like stars. “I’m listening, soldier boy.”
---/---/---
Joaquin didn’t waste time. He stepped into the hallway to take a look; six guards, all mobile, every single one’s eyes on the door. Probably deployed by the king to give him updates on the princess. One of them, probably the newest one, seemed a bit startled to watching Joaquin slam open the doors.
Bingo!
Joaquin looked that guard dead in the eyes, and dropped his voice an octave, “Her Highness wishes for complete privacy,” he said firmly. “Only Asha and I are permitted. No one else enters.”
The guard exchanged glances with the others standing near, but Joaquin’s tone left no room for discussion. He nodded, and the guard next to him relaxed a bit but stood firm.
He needs another opening, not from the main hallway. So where? He rushed to the balconies, and saw the next one; prince Ramil’s quarters. There was a reason even princess y/n never dared to cross the balconies on her own, because the distance wasn’t the problem…it was the height. Below him there were three floors, one mistake and then fall was on concrete.
Inside, y/n began pulling open drawers and cabinets rushing to fill a duffle bag with anything she could. Asha rushed in a moment later hearing the commotion, eyes flicking from the princess’s hurried actions and to Joaquin, and she knew something serious was happening. She flexed her hands and joined y/n.
“Pack light,” Joaquin rushed in, urgency in his voice. “Clothes, cash, and jewelry. They’ll freeze your accounts the second they know you’re gone.”
Asha moved swiftly, helping y/n gather simple clothes, jewelry that could be sold easily, and a modest amount of cash. y/n, now dressed in black cargo trousers, a simple white t-shirt and her black leather jacket, stuffed the cash inside her pockets and shoes, looking at a baffled Joaquin and then shrugging, “I’ve seen spy movies, dude.” She turned to Asha, and gave her childhood handmaiden a tight hug.
“Take care of mom,” she whispered, “Tell them you were asleep, okay?” y/n said, wiping Asha’s tears, “just stay safe.”
Asha smiled despite the tears in her eyes, realizing this might be the last time she sees the princess, “You too princess, you’ve got this. Show them what you’re made of.”
With one last look around her quarters, Y/n joined Joaquin, who was already leading her to the balcony. y/n stopped dead in her tracks, “no, no, no! I am not jumping into Ramil’s quarters.”
“There are guards outside!” Joaquin hushed her, dragging her behind him, y/n whining as she followed.
Joaquin threw the bag first, and then climbed the railing and made the jump, perfectly, looking at y/n, “come on.”
“If I die Joaquin I will haunt your ass forever.” y/n looked at the sky, took a deep breath and climbed the railing. Joaquin stood guard as he prepared to catch her, but then she got down and tied her hair back.
“What the hell?” he whisper yelled.
“I don’t have Slenderman legs like you! I need momentum idiot!” saying so, Y/n ran to the end of the balcony and ran towards him with full speed, and like a cat, she jumped off of the railing to grab the other one… and missed.
Joaquin grabbed her hands as she squealed and hung on one side, trying not to scream. He pulled her up, and grabbed her waist as she hooked her leg on the railing and climbed up, breathing hard.
“You good?” he pulled her up to her feet as he slings the bag on his back. She looked him dead in the eyes, scoffed, and gently opened the door to Ramil’s quarters.
---/---/---
They tiptoe into the room, and find the living room to be darkened and quiet, the door of Ramil’s bedroom ajar, his figure under the covers. Y/n grabbed his hand as he looked ahead, the main door to the quarters was right in front of them, so they walked swiftly to cross the room.
Only to freeze as they hear the clink of a lighter opening.
Leaning against a pillar, lazily lighting a cigarette, Prince Ramil was right next to the door, his face illuminated by the lighter’s fire. Joaquin was quick to grab y/n’s arm and shove her behind him as Prince Ramil looked at the scene in front of him with his brows lifted.
“Well, hello.” he asked, voice low, “How do I owe the pleasure of you two sneaking into my quarters?”
Y/n let go of Joaquin’s hand, and stepped forward, crossing her arms. “I thought you quit smoking.”
Ramil stayed silent as he exhaled a slow stream of smoke, his gaze flicking between his sister and Joaquin. When he noticed the bag on his shoulder, his eyes softened, “You’re running away.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
Ramil exhaled loudly looking at his cigarette, then he crushed it on the nearest brass vase, and shoved his hands into his shiny grey silk nightgown, “Well, I always said you were the brave one.”
y/n blinked, sharing a glance with Joaquin.
“Take the underpass to the airfield. I’ll have the jet ready at the private hangar.”
“Brother…” Y/n gasped.
Ramil only smiled, “I won’t ask where you’re going. Don’t tell me either, y/n.”
He stepped forward, pulling her into a tight hug, “Live your life, for yourself, and for me. I’ll be the lazy brat heir who loves easy money to a nonexistent nation and follow silly rules." he sighed, "I'll make grandpa regret ever thinking he had any control over us.”
She let out a soft laugh into his shoulder, “I love you, bro bear.” He pulled back with a mocking grimace and ruffled her hair, “we were having a nice moment, dude.”
Ramil turned to Joaquin, throwing him a key, “Take the back stairwell, and keep her safe. I’ll have Sam take care of the cameras.” He smacked him on the shoulder, and opened the door.
“Stay safe.” Ramil told his sister, who turned back to take one last look and then held Joaquin’s hand, running.
---/---/---/---
The corridor echoed with their footsteps as they ran together without looking back, finding the gate to the stairwell as Joaquin worked on getting the ancient lock open, and as they descended down the stairs, they found Sam Wilson, Ramil’s bodyguard running up.
“I owe you one,” Joaquin muttered as Sam passed him a data card, and Joaquin gave him the stair keys.
“I’ll make sure the cameras loop for the next and past 10 minutes,” Sam grinned, glancing at y/n and bowing, “farewell, princess.”
“Thank you Sam.” y/n smiled as she ran downstairs.
---/---/---
Y/n’s boots pounded the cobblestones of the courtyard, breath shallow as she ran beside Joaquin, the cold night air biting at her cheeks. His hand gripped hers tightly, and he looked around alert of anyone moving past. His white dress shirt was partially unbuttoned beneath his dark vest, hair mussed from all the running, his brows raised in process, “Almost there, Princess.” he said over his shoulder.
But Y/n wasn’t looking ahead.
She was looking at him.
And suddenly, her chest clenched, not from the running, but from a memory that came rushing back so vividly it was like she was living it again.
---/---/---/---
Two Years Ago, Y/n’s 23rd birthday
The palace had long gone to sleep.
Moonlight spilled across the royal courtyard, over marble benches and carefully sculpted rose hedges. You were sitting barefoot on the edge of the stone fountain, your feet splashing in the water as the fountain’s droplets fell on the hem of your gown, the heels discarded beside you.
You had excused yourself as soon as the party came to a halt, your parents always made a big show out of your birthday as to tell the world, ‘Hey, look! She isn’t crazy anymore!’. You absentmindedly toyed with a silver ring on your fingers; one you never wear out in public. It had belonged to your late grandmother, whom you loved more than anyone.
Joaquin stood a few feet away, suit jacket slung over a bench, tie loosened, shirt unbuttoned at the throat. He watched her in silence, arms crossed, like he didn’t want to intrude but wouldn’t leave unless ordered to.
You looked up at him and scoffed, “Are you always going to look at me like that?”
He raised a brow. “Like what?”
Turning back to watch the moon’s reflection rippling in the water, you speak, “Like I’m one bad decision away from combusting.”
He chuckled softly, stepping closer. “You are one bad decision away from combusting.”
You smiled faintly, “Touché.”
He stood beside you, but not too close. Joaquin was always respectful, and always four paces behind you, especially in public.
“Why are you still here, Joaquin?” you asked, quietly.
“Because I will be fired if I don’t see you to your quarters tonight, princess.” He deadpanned.
You laughed, “no, I mean…” you took a deep breath, “You could’ve left after Vienna. No one would’ve blamed you.”
“I don’t leave people behind.”
You looked at him for a long time, your head tilting, “What if they are a reckless mess?”
He met your gaze, “Especially then.”
Silence lingered as the sound of the fountain filled the space between you.
“I don’t know if I am built for this, Joaquin.” you whispered, like a confession. “All these people, these rules. I feel like I’m suffocating under diamonds and…” she grabbed the hem of your gown, “this stupid gown. It’s not even real silk who even…” you almost got distracted until Joaquin spoke.
“You’re whatever you want to be, a princess, a high society lady, or a drag racing champion,” he said softly. “I’ll be here with you until you decide.”
You look at the sky above, watching the full moon shining down as the cold water grounded you to reality, “You shouldn’t do that,” you murmured. “Be kind to me like this.”
He turned his head slightly, looking down at you, “Why not?”
“Because I’m starting to count on it.”
He didn’t answer immediately. He let the question linger, as if deciding what to say next, “Don’t you trust me, your highness?”
You blinked, a smirk on your face, “only a little..."
He scoffed, “Seriously, Princess?”
A smile tugged at your lips “Okay, okay! I trust you.”
A breath passed between the two of you, he watched you and you played with the water.
You sat up slowly and looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time, the palace around you didn’t matter. The titles, the burden of the crown, your duty as a princess and his as you guard.
It was just two people looking at each other; a woman scared to take a leap, and a man ready to catch her when she does. This wasn’t just admiration. This wasn’t gratitude. He made you feel seen, not as a crown or a scandal… but as yourself.
You see the same thing in his eyes, the same feeling in his heart as yours.
“Looks like I’m in trouble,” you said, a broken smile forming.
“I know,” he murmured. “Me too.”
You take a step closer, close enough to feel his heat on your skin, and as being pulled by an unknown force… he staggered back, looking at his feet, “It’s getting late. I’ll escort you to your rooms, your highness.”
And though nothing more was said that night…
You didn’t forget the way he looked at you in the moonlight.
The way he stayed silent when he could have ruined everything.
That was the night you knew, you were in love with Joaquin Torres.
---/---/---/---
In the garage, your footsteps echoed across the large basement, and your eyes searched for your prized possession; a gift from your parents on your 18th birthday; a hot pink custom Mustang. You wondered what their reaction would be when they find out about you running away in it.
You find the car, gleaming next to Ramil’s black Range Rover, and you thank your past self for the maintenance job you did for the car only days ago.
Joaquin opened the door for you and tossed the bag in as you settled into the seat with practiced ease, closing the door behind you.
And didn’t get in.
You frowned, rolling down the window. “What are you doing? Get in.”
He shook his head, taking a step back. “I’m not coming with you. Not yet.” He said, ready to run the minute you start the engine.
“What?” Your voice cracked as you get out of the car and he groaned, “What the hell do you mean not yet?”
“This is not the time for you to be demanding y/n get in the car and go!” he shouts.
“I’m not leaving without you!” you shout back.
“Hush!” he panics, slapping a hand on your mouth, something he had never dared to do, “I need to stay behind and distract them. If I disappear with you, they’ll track both of us.”
Your heart began to pound for a different reason now; panic clawing at your throat, imagining everything horrible that might be unleashed on him, “No, no, you promised, Joaquin. You said you’d keep me safe.” tears brimmed in your eyes.
Joaquin’s chest rose and fell, his vest now open and his sleeves rolled up, he looked like a cursed prince who was to be sacrificed. He took a steady breath and stepped closer to you, his eyes locking on yours.
“They’ll hurt you, Joaquin!.” You shake your head, tears falling freely, “You don’t have to do the noble sacrifice act Joaquin!”
He held your face in his hands, smiling through his own tears brimming in his dark brown eyes, “You are amazing, princess,” he said, voice low and steady. “you deserve the world, and every good thing it has to offer. You’re more than the crown, and you need to listen to me when I say this; I love you. I’ve loved you for a long, long time. And it will break my heart to watch you be chained in this palace for nothing. So, go. Now. And let me handle the rest.” A sad laugh leaves his lips, as a single tear rolls down his face, “I’ll find you. I always do.”
Your throat tightened, and you let out a laugh, “You’re such an idiot.”
You grab the front of his shirt, and smash your mouth against his.
He grabbed your waist, pulling you closer. It wasn’t soft, or patient. It was pure, raging fire… forged in years of hidden glances, of duty, the ‘almost’, and all the things you were never allowed to say to him.
You pulled back just as fast, tears brimming in your eyes, “I love you too, soldier boy.” You whisper, caressing his face. He laughed as he rested his forehead against yours, “stay safe out there.”
“You too.” You say, taking to steps back, “and I’m sorry for this.”
You throw a clean punch on his nose, maybe a bit too hard.
He winced as he staggered back, grabbing his face as blood flew from his nose, “Ow! What the fuck?”
“In case someone asks why you didn’t follow me,” you said, wincing at the blood, “You can say I knocked you down in the garage.”
Joaquin stared at you, stunned, his face bloody, his lips parted like he wanted to say something.
And then he laughed, making your heart ache, and then waving, “bye, y/n.”
“bye.” You wave back, and all you wanted to do in that moment was to hug him tight and never let go, but that wasn’t possible.
So, you got into the car, revved the engine and looked at him for one last time…
And drove into the night.
---/---/---
One Year Later
The headlines had been relentless for weeks after she disappeared.
"Tavreshi's Rebel Princess: Vanished Without a Trace?"
"Royal Scandal: Drift Princess Gone Rogue"
"Abdication or Abduction? The Tavreshi Royal Palace Remains Tight-Lipped"
The royal palace stood as it always had; stone cold, high, immaculate, and painfully perfect. But everything inside it had shifted. A silence haunted the marble corridors and the sunlit courtyards. It was the kind of silence that didn't come from the absence of sound, but from the absence of chaos.
Princess y/n of Tavreshi had vanished without a trace in the dead of the night. No trail, no clues. She was gone like a whisper in the wind.
And the kingdom was grueling the people within the palace with a hundred questions.
“Where is the Princess?”
“Why hasn’t she been seen since her twenty-fifth birthday?”
“Was she exiled because of her rebellious past?”
“Was it true she was in love with Prince Idris and was heartbroken after his abdication?”
“Did she abdicate and went away in secret?”
The official statement was delivered after a few weeks, delivered stiffly by a senior advisor on a podium outside the palace;
"Her Royal Highness Princess y/n of Tavreshi has chosen to abdicate her title and step away from royal duties for personal reasons. She had left the palace for a peaceful retreat, and we ask for privacy and offer no further comment. Thank you."
But behind the curtain of diplomacy, everything was falling apart.
The King had lost his temper the day after Princess y/n vanished. He'd hurled a decanter of aged scotch across the room, shattering it into a thousand glittering pieces as Prince Ramil, and the king and queen reagent watched in horror, “She has humiliated this house! This nation!” he had thundered. “And you, Joaquin, were supposed to be her shadow!”
If it weren’t for Prince Ramil and Sam physically holding him back, the King would have broken Joaquin’s healing nose a second time. The man was trembling with rage, shouting about betrayal, national disgrace, and how he knew Joaquin had helped her escape. Joaquin was detained in the palace's interrogation room for three days. The questions came in waves; from the detectives, from the security head, from the King himself.
“Did you know she would run away?”
“When did you realize she is not coming back?”
“Did you kidnap her? Was this coordinated with outsiders?”
And Joaquin? He stuck to one story.
“I followed the princess to the garage,” he said calmly, every single time, “I assumed it was one of her tantrums, she’s run off before. I thought she’d feel better after a drive. But she punched me in the nose, and I fainted.”
“You didn’t call security?”
“I did when I woke up,” Joaquin replied, “I didn’t know she meant to disappear,” he said, eyes blank, voice steady. “I thought she'd calm down, like always.”
Prince Ramil matched the story with his version, “She never told me anything, I was drunk and sleeping in my room and I woke up to grandpa throwing a fit.” he shrugged.
They believed him. Or maybe they didn’t.
There was no hard evidence to contradict the various interviews. No surveillance footage, no recordings. Half the palace staff had heard the screaming match in the private salon the night before; the shouting, the smashed glass, the moment the princess had run to her quarters and how Joaquin had followed her, like he had done for the last seven years. The palace staff and security, especially the princesses’ handmaiden Asha had vouched for the fact that Joaquin had saved the princess from harm all these years, and he was always loyal to the crown and would do nothing to ruin its reputation.
Every shred of evidence worked in Joaquin’s favor.
The palace dropped the case on the condition that Joaquin be dismissed from royal service for “negligence in duty.” They made him sign a non-disclosure order and stripped him of honors.
But they didn’t know that the detectives were right; He had helped her get free.
---/---/---/------/----
One Year Later || Monaco Grand Prix
The spring sun high on the track as viewers settled on the podium, energetic and ecstatic to see their favorite cars race through the city of Monaco. Down by the pit lanes, cameras clicked furiously as reporters jostled for position, all hoping to catch the perfect candid shot of racers and crew.
But today’s buzz wasn’t just about the race… it was because every team was set to unveil their newest backup racer, and the media was in a frenzy; eager to break the news, snap exclusive photos, and flood social media with the first glimpse of the rising stars.
Joaquin sat stiffly in the VIP box, his cap pulled low, sunglasses shadowing his eyes with his arms crossed over his chest. He was trying to look relaxed, but even Sam, lounging next to him in a rumpled polo and chewing on a toothpick, wasn’t buying the act. Sam suddenly leaned forward halfway casually scanning the box, then froze.
“Bro…” he nudged Joaquin with his elbow, trying to stay subtle but failing, “Look at the guy in front of us!”
Joaquin didn’t react, “okay?”
Sam hissed louder, “I saw him at a gala once. That guy owns, like, every skyscraper in Singapore. You know those condos with swimming pools in the sky? When Prince Ramil said he’d get us the best seats, I didn’t think he meant billionaire-adjacent.”
Joaquin smirked faintly. “There are perks to working for a prince, Sam.”
Sam chuckled. “Yeah? Shame you got fired.”
“Wow. Thanks for that?” Joaquin glanced at him, deadpan.
Sam shrugged, grinning. “Just saying.” But the smile slipped from his face when he noticed Joaquin’s focus return to the LED jumbotron above the pit lane. “You look tense,” Sam muttered. “Like you’re the one about to go zero to two hundred.”
Joaquin didn’t answer him, only shrugged. There was a reason Prince Ramil sent Sam on a ‘laid back vacation’ with a plus one ticket to the freaking Grand Prix… he hoped to see a familiar face. His fingers tapped on his bicep, his eyes narrowed slightly, watching as a glossy video montage played on the massive screen highlighting reels of roaring engines, close-up helmet shots, and dramatic overhead drone views of the circuit. The announcer’s voice came through, polished and booming over the sound system.
“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Introducing the reserve drivers making their Grand Prix debut!”
The crowd erupted into cheers.
Graphic cards began appearing; each with the name and stat line of a new driver, their teams and accolades proudly displayed. Sam was mid-sip of his drink when the next name came up—and he nearly choked.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the newest backup driver for Team Mercedes... a former princess who earned her name burning rubber on the streets of underground drag circuits…”
Joaquin’s stomach dropped.
Sam blinked at him. “Wait. Did they just say—?”
The announcer’s voice rang out again, louder this time, over the rising noise of the crowd.
“You know her as the Drift Princess—but from this day forward, she answers to her own name. Give it up for Y/N Y/L/N.”
The screen cut to a live feed of the pit area. A figure in a black-and-silver racing suit, hands gloved, wearing a black helmet… she turned slowly toward the camera, her long braid swinging over one shoulder. Then, she raised her helmet just enough to reveal her face.
Her expression lit with the mischief of someone who knew they were rewriting their story, right in front of the world, she waved to the crowd as her fellow racers clapped and cheered for her.
Princess Y/N. Not a ghost, not a runaway. She was alive, and grander than ever.
Joaquin felt something snap loose in his chest; like a wire pulled too tight for too long had finally given way. The world around him that was deafening loud and electric, seemed to fall away into silence as his breath left him in one slow, shaky exhale, trembling through his ribs like a secret he couldn’t keep any longer. It was like watching a dream he never allowed himself to have walk into the light.
Y/n, his y/n.
Not the girl in glittering gowns upholding impossible expectations, not the princess the world had tried to box in on her responsibilities. But the version he’d always seen since he first bowed to her; the one who was stubborn with fire in her eyes and unshakable determination, the one who breathed freedom like it was oxygen, the one who once cried into his shoulder and told him she didn’t want to die.
Joaquin’s heart clenched, painfully, he didn’t know if it was pride or grief or longing.
All of it, maybe.
The crowd clapped and whooped, but he didn’t hear them. All he could see was the glint in her eye and the fire in her smile. She did it… she did what she swore she would become.
Sam turned to him slowly, slack-jawed. “Holy. Shit.”
But Joaquin wasn’t listening anymore, his eyes were fixed on his beloved.
---/---/---
Joaquin didn’t wait for clearance. He’d spent too many years memorizing the flow of high-profile security rounds and the way they rotated the shifts.
So, when the noise of celebration roared around him as the match ended, he walked past the pit crew and to the garage like he belonged there. No one questioned him, no one gave him a second look. After weaving through people bustling around and press running to racers trying to get an interview, he found the main area where the cars were parked, his eyes frantically searching for her amongst the sea of mechanics, crew and racers.
A flash of hot pink caught his eye, and like a magnet being pulled to metal, he followed it.
Y/n was there, wearing a black and hot pink leather jacket. talking to a young girl holding a mic to her, her eyes sparkling as she expressed how happy she is to be a part of team Mercedes. Her sleeves rolled to her elbows, hair tied back in a messy bun that looked like it had been through a storm and stayed standing anyway, her smile didn’t falter at all. She hugged the girl when the interview was over, while she was smitten watching y/n glowing in her form. She was a force untamed, who was finally free from all expectations.
Joaquin breathed as her eyes locked on his, a hand on his heart just to check if this was real, or just another one of his dreams in which he met her to be close enough and then wake up just before he could touch her.
Y/n froze, her eyes widening as she registered who was standing in front of her. For one aching second, she didn’t move, only looked at Joquin with shock and disbelief. And then she sprinted, laughing, “JOAQUIN!”
She ran full-speed at him with no hesitation and no care for who watched her or what anyone thought. Joaquin barely had any time to snap out of his trance and brace himself before she collided into him and jumped into his arms, laughing.
He caught her effortlessly, holding her tight as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders like he always had. “You’re here,” she whispered into his neck, shaking with joy. “You found me.” His heart thundered, his mind going foggy while he struggled to put his feelings into words. Instead, he held her tighter, grounding himself in the feel of her body against his, her laughter vibrating his chest.
“You did it, princess.” he finally said, trying to keep his voice steady, his eyes stinging despite the laugh bubbling in his chest.
Y/n pulled back just enough to see his face, her hands cradling his cheeks. Her thumbs brushed under his eyes, over his cheeks, his slight stubble, almost as if she couldn’t quite believe he was really standing in front of her.
“How did you…?” he asked, unable to finish the question, his voice cracked halfway through.
She stepped back with a lopsided grin, “Prince Idris helped me. After he abdicated, he helped me stay under the radar while I trained.” She held his hand, “Besides, a few of the F1 engineers knew me from the underground scene. It didn’t take much convincing; a couple races, a lot of sweat, and boom… Team Mercedes.”
“You just… walked into Mercedes and asked to join?” he said, half in awe, half in disbelief.
“I made a deal to stay in secret until today,” she laughed. “Turns out being a former princess with a crazy past has some advantages.”
"Tavreshi Royals will loose their minds over today." he breathed hard.
"I couldn't care less." she shrugged.
Joaquin shook his head, smiling despite himself, as he caressed her hand. There was a pause between them, the kind that wrapped arounds your soul like a slow exhale. The noise of the crowd outside still echoed beyond the doors, and they caught a few eyes of the crew inside, but here, right now, it was just them. His eyes softened as he looked at her; the laughter in her eyes, the fire in her soul. She was exactly who she was always meant to be.
His eyes dropped to her collarbone, where nestled against her throat, was a glint of pale pink. His breath hitched, “You kept it,” he whispered.
y/n smiled, the kind that twisted his insides, “Yes, Joaquin,” she said quietly, her fingers brushing over the pendant. “I still wear the necklace my love gave me.”
He let out a soft laugh in awe of what she just said, “You’re unbelievable.”
She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his, “You softie,” she whispered.
“Only for you,” he whispered back.
She stepped in closer, arms sliding around his waist. Her voice dropped, filled with a different kind of ache, “You think it was worth it? All that we gave up for this moment?”
He didn’t hesitate, “Every second.”
“Me too.” She whispered, caressing his jaw.
This time, when she kissed him, it wasn’t rushed or panicked or desperate. It was soft and slow with the weight of everything they never said. The years of what-ifs all poured into one kiss that tasted like sweet relief.
When they finally pulled away, she held his face, teary-eyed, “I love you, Soldier Boy.”
He smiled, eyes shining, “I love you too… Princess.” He pulled her into his chest, arms locked around her like a promise.
The End
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My Joaquin Torres Masterlist
My Masterlist
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I added all the blogs who were in my previous Joaquin torress fic and the blogs that reblogged and commented on the sneak peek, if you want to be removed or added in future fics pls let me know <3
janainaart
stormborns
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
