Pairing: Maekar Targaryen x f!lady in waiting!reader
WC: 9.9k
Warning(s): +18 MDNI, Explicit sexual content, oral sex (giving and receiving), P in V sex, AFAB reader, power imbalance, touch-starved, mutual pining, argument to lovers, emotional vulnerability, size difference, praise kink (light, reader to character), rough sex (consensual, explicitly negotiated), scar worship, dirty talk (mild), male restraint / loss of control, confident reader, oblivious/avoidant pining, second person / reader insert (no use of y/n), no beta we die like Viserys
The hour had grown shamefully late by the time you decided you were done waiting.
Three weeks. Three weeks of turned backs and engineered absences and the particular cruelty of a man who could fill a room with his presence even while pretending to be entirely unreachable within it. Three weeks of watching Prince Maekar Targaryen look straight through you with those violet eyes and finding nothing in them that acknowledged what had been building between you for months.
You found him at dusk.
The armoury sat quiet at that hour, the training yard beyond it emptied of squires and knights alike, nothing remaining but the last copper light bleeding through narrow windows and the distant sounds of the castle settling into evening. Torches guttered softly along the walls, catching the dull gleam of hanging steel and leather.
Maekar stood at the far end with his back to the door, methodically checking the edge of a blade with the focused attention of a man determined to be unreachable.
He had been unreachable for weeks.
“You have been avoiding me,” you said. The words landed flat in the quiet. Maekar did not turn around.
“I have been occupied.”
“You walked out of a room yesterday because I entered it.”
“I had somewhere to be.”
“Maekar.” His name left you with enough weight that his shoulders stiffened visibly. “Look at me.”
He set the blade down with deliberate care and turned. His expression was exactly what you had expected — closed, guarded, wearing that particular blankness he deployed when he wanted to be mistaken for someone who did not feel things.
You knew better. You had always known better when it came to him.
“Whatever you believe you need to say,” he said flatly, “I would ask you to reconsider.”
“I have reconsidered for three weeks.” You closed the door and stepped further into the room. “I am done reconsidering.”
“Then be brief.”
“Why are you pulling away?”
“I am not pulling away. I am exactly where I have always been.”
“You are a liar.”
Something dangerous flickered in his violet eyes. “Mind yourself.”
“Or what?” You crossed your arms. “You will glare at me? You have been doing that for months and I am still here.”
“Clearly.” The word came out clipped, almost cruel. A deliberate blade.
You refused to flinch from it. “Something happened. Three weeks ago you were—” You stopped, steadied yourself. “And then suddenly you were gone. Present in body and completely absent in everything else. I want to know why.”
“Nothing happened.”
“You are lying again.”
“I am not accustomed,” he said with cold precision, “to being called a liar repeatedly.”
“And I am not accustomed to being deliberately shut out by someone who—” You stopped again.
Maekar’s eyes sharpened immediately. “Someone who what?”
The silence stretched taut between you.
“Someone who matters to me,” you finished quietly.
Something moved across his face so quickly you almost missed it. Pain, naked and immediate, there and gone before he could fully suppress it. His gaze dropped briefly to the floor.
“You should not say that.”
“Why not? It is true.”
“It is—” He stopped. Started again. “Unwise.”
“Unwise.” You stared at him. “That is what you have for me.”
“It is the honest answer.”
“No.” You took another step closer and watched him resist the instinct to step back. “It is the coward’s answer, and you are not a coward. Try again.”
Fury crossed his face instantly, the way it always did when he felt cornered. “You presume too much.”
“Then correct me.”
“I am correcting you by telling you this conversation is finished.”
“It is not finished.”
“I say it is.”
“And I say you are running away and dressing it up as dignity.” Your voice had risen now, heat climbing through your chest. “For weeks, Maekar. Weeks of barely a word, barely a look, and you cannot even give me the courtesy of an honest reason—”
“The honest reason,” he said sharply, “is that this—” his hand moved between you, a short furious gesture— “should not continue.”
“What should not continue? We have done nothing—”
“Exactly.” The word came out ragged at the edges. He turned away from you immediately, a hand pressed hard against the nearest table. “Exactly nothing. And it should remain that way.”
You stared at the rigid line of his back.
“Why?” you asked quietly.
“Because I am not—” He stopped.
“Say it.”
“Leave it alone.”
“Say it, Maekar.”
“Because I am not built for this.” The words came out low and furious and slightly broken at once. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I am the fourth son. I have been trained since birth to be useful, to be the sword, to stand behind better men and serve the family’s purpose. That is what I am for.” His shoulders had drawn up tight beneath his doublet. “Not—” A rough breath. “Not this.”
The silence that followed was enormous.
You stood inside it and felt something build in your chest that you did not immediately have a name for. Hot and painful and expanding outward until your hands had begun to shake with it.
“Not this,” you repeated softly.
“No.”
“You are not built for being cared for.”
“I am not built for—”
“You are not enough.” The words came out barely above a whisper. “That is what you mean. That is what you actually believe.”
Maekar said nothing. Which was its own answer.
And that was when it happened.
Something white and furious ignited behind your ribs entirely without permission. Not sadness. Not heartbreak. Pure blazing rage on his behalf, at every person who had ever let him believe that, at every comparison and every dismissal and every moment that had carved this particular damage so deep into him that he recited it now like scripture.
You crossed the distance between you before thought intervened.
Your hands hit his chest and pushed.
Maekar’s back met the stone wall with a dull impact, his eyes flying wide with pure shock — not at the force, though that seemed to surprise him too — but at you. At the fact that you had done it at all. That the person standing before him with their hands fisted in his doublet and fury written plainly across every feature was you, someone half his size, someone he could have moved aside with one arm—
He did not move at all.
“Do not,” you said. Your voice shook with it. “Don't you dare say that to me.”
“I—”
“No.” Your hands tightened against the fabric of his doublet, knuckles pressing hard against the solid warmth of his chest beneath it. “You do not get to stand there and tell me you are not enough. You do not get to decide that. You do not get to spend weeks pulling away from me because some ancient cruelty convinced you that you were made only for function and nothing else—”
“You do not understand—”
“I understand perfectly.” Your eyes were burning now. Furiously. “I have watched you for months. I have seen what you are when you stop performing severity for long enough to simply exist. And you are—” Your voice cracked slightly. You pushed through it. “Maekar, you are extraordinary. Not despite what you are. Not in comparison to anyone. Yourself. And the fact that you cannot see it—”
“Stop.” His voice had gone rough. Unsteady.
“The fact that you have been standing in this family your entire life believing yourself a sword and nothing more—”
“I said stop.” Rougher now.
“It makes me want to—”
“Stop.”
He kissed you.
Not gently. Nothing like gently. His hands came up and caught your face and his mouth found yours with the sudden desperate urgency of a man who had simply run out of other options — who had used every deflection available to him and found you still standing there, furious and certain and refusing to let him be small, and had no idea what to do with that except this.
It lasted one stunned breathless second.
Then he pulled back.
His hands still cradled your face. His breathing had gone ragged. Those violet eyes searched yours with something almost panicked in them — the expression of a man who had just done something irreversible and was only now calculating the consequences.
“I should not have—” he began roughly.
You kissed him back.
Not as apology. Not gently either. You pulled him down by the front of his doublet and kissed him with the full force of everything you had just said and everything you had been holding quietly for months and felt the exact moment the last resistance went out of him completely.
Maekar made a sound against your mouth that you felt in your spine.
His hands slid from your face into your hair, tilting your head back, and suddenly he was kissing you like a man discovering water after a drought — not with careful reverence but with something rawer and more desperate beneath it, like he could not quite believe this was allowed and intended to have all of it before someone told him otherwise.
He broke the kiss with a ragged breath, forehead dropping against yours. His hands were shaking. You could feel it where they cradled your head.
“I have been—” His voice was wrecked completely. “Gods. I have been trying—”
“I know,” you breathed.
“You should have let it be.”
“No.” Your hands slid up his chest, feeling the hard planes of him beneath the fabric, the rapid thumping of his heart betraying every bit of composure his expression had ever pretended to. “I should not and I will not.”
A rough sound escaped him.
His eyes searched your face in the torchlight — violet and open and utterly unguarded in a way you had never seen from him in any council chamber or training yard or castle corridor. The severity was gone. The careful blankness gone. Just a man, terrified and wanting and finally, catastrophically out of excuses.
“You mean this,” he said quietly. Not quite a question.
“I have meant it,” you said, “for a very long time.”
Something in his expression broke entirely open.
His mouth found yours again, slower this time, deeper — and gods, the difference of it. Still hungry but the panic beneath it easing now into something that felt dangerously close to wonder. His hands moved through your hair with a care that contradicted every rough and prickly thing he had ever said or done, like beneath all of it, beneath the sword and the severity and the practiced distance, there had always been this.
Someone who simply needed to be told he was allowed.
“Maekar,” you murmured against his mouth.
A shudder moved through him at his own name spoken like that.
“Gods help me,” he said roughly. “I do not know how to—” He stopped. The admission visibly cost him. “I do not know how to do this.”
Your heart turned over completely.
“Yes, you do,” you whispered. Your hands found his face, thumbs brushing the line of his beard, the old scars beneath it. He exhaled shakily at the contact, eyes falling briefly closed. “You already are.”
That alone seemed to cost him — you could feel it in the rigid tension held through his entire body, in the way his hands remained carefully at his sides where he had lowered them despite the kiss deepening between you. Like he had given himself permission for this much and was terrified of reaching for more in case it proved too much to ask.
So, you decided for him. You took his hands. He went completely still as you lifted them from his sides and placed them — slowly, deliberately, holding his gaze the entire time — against your waist.
Maekar stared at you like you had done something incomprehensible.
“You are allowed,” you assured quietly.
His throat moved. His fingers remained motionless against your waist for one suspended moment, barely making contact, as though the fabric between his hands and your skin was the only thing keeping him tethered to composure.
Then, haltingly, his grip tightened.
Just slightly. Just enough to feel the warmth and solidity of his hands spanning your waist, large enough that his fingers nearly met at the small of your back.
The breath that left him was unsteady.
You rose onto your toes and kissed the corner of his jaw. Felt the muscle there jump immediately beneath your lips. His hands tightened further at your waist, involuntary, like his body was responding entirely without his permission.
You kissed along the sharp line of his jaw toward his ear, unhurried, feeling the roughness of his beard against your lips and the warmth of his skin beneath it.
“You are—” His voice had dropped to almost nothing. “You should not—”
“Maekar.” You pulled back just enough to look at him. His face was flushed, violet eyes dark, every line of him radiating the strain of holding himself still. “Stop telling me what I should not do.”
His jaw tightened. But he said nothing.
You kissed his cheekbone. The high plane of it, just above the beard, where the old pox scars tracked faintly beneath your lips. He made a sound so quiet you almost missed it. Something helpless and involuntary swallowed almost before it could exist.
Your hands moved to the front of his doublet, working the fastenings with steady fingers while his breathing deepened above you. Each button gave way and Maekar stood and let it happen, stood and watched your face with those dark eyes like a man waiting for the dream to end.
You pushed the doublet from his shoulders. It fell in the narrow space between his back and the wall, behind him. Beneath it, linen stretched across broad shoulders and a chest that rose and fell with increasing unevenness. You spread your palms flat against it and felt his heart hammering beneath them, rapid and entirely beyond his control.
Something deeply fond moved through you at that.
“Still with me?” you murmured.
“I think so,” he said roughly.
You laughed softly and felt him exhale shakily in response, his hands sliding fractionally further around your waist like they were making decisions independently of him.
You kissed his throat then. Open mouthed, slow, just below his jaw where his pulse beat rapidly against your lips. Maekar’s head tipped back slightly, an involuntary concession, his fingers pressing harder against your waist.
You kissed lower. The rough scrape of his beard gave way to the warm skin of his neck, and you felt the shudder that moved through him at the contact, felt his grip on you tighten to something that was no longer gentle—
You bit him.
Not hard. Not cruelly. A deliberate scrape of teeth against the curve where his neck met his shoulder, your lips pressing warm against it immediately afterward.
The sound that left Maekar was nothing like anything you had heard from him before. Low and rough and dragged from somewhere entirely beyond his composure. His entire body went rigid for one suspended second—
Then it was like watching a dam break down.
His hands moved.
Suddenly, completely, with a decisiveness that stole the breath from your lungs. One arm swept around your waist and hauled you flush against him with a sureness that made the floor feel uncertain beneath your feet, the other hand sliding into your hair and tilting your head back, and then his mouth was on yours and gods—
Gods.
Nothing hesitant in it. Nothing careful. He kissed you like the last three weeks of distance had been a physical pressure he had been holding back with both hands and your teeth against his skin had finally, catastrophically, released it all at once.
You made a startled sound against his mouth. Maekar just swallowed it and kissed you harder.
He walked you backward through the armoury with complete certainty, steering you through the low torchlight without breaking the kiss, one hand spread wide and immovable at the small of your back and the other still tangled in your hair. The back of your thighs met the edge of the long wooden workbench, and he lifted you onto it without apparent effort — large hands spanning your waist and depositing you there like you weighed nothing of consequence — and stepped immediately between your knees.
The new height brought you almost level with him and he took immediate advantage, cupping your face in both hands and kissing you with a thoroughness that made rational thought extremely difficult.
“Maekar—” you managed between kisses.
“No.” The word came out low and absolute. “You had your turn to talk.”
You laughed and he caught the sound with his mouth and made a rough noise against your lips that sent heat rushing straight through you.
His hands left your face and began moving — not hesitantly now, not waiting for guidance. Large and warm and entirely purposeful, sliding from your jaw down your throat, tracing your collarbones with a focus that suggested he intended to learn every inch of you and had decided to begin immediately.
When his fingers found the lacing at the back of your gown he paused for just a moment, just long enough to pull back and find your eyes. The question was there without words. Still him beneath the urgency. Still that fundamental core of a man who needed to know he was not taking something without being allowed to.
“Yes,” you said before he could ask it.
Something moved across his face. Raw and unguarded and painfully honest.
Then his hands resumed with steady, certain fingers, unlacing slowly at first, then faster as the fastenings gave way.
“You have no idea,” he said roughly against your temple, voice low enough to vibrate through you, “what you have done to me.”
“Tell me,” you breathed funnily.
His hands stilled briefly at your back. “Months.” The word came out almost pained. “I have spent months trying to—” He exhaled roughly. “And you simply—” A sound of frustration. “You walked into a room and I forgot how to be sensible.”
The confession hit somewhere directly behind your sternum.
“Good,” you whispered.
A rough laugh escaped him. Short and startled and entirely real. You felt it against your cheek and stored it somewhere permanent.
His hands resumed their work.
“You are,” he muttered, the lacing finally giving way entirely, “the most inconvenient thing that has ever happened to me.”
You pulled back to look at him. The torchlight caught the flush beneath his beard, the dark intensity of his eyes, the silver threaded through pale hair falling slightly over his forehead. He looked thoroughly undone and absolutely furious about it and so devastatingly his that your chest ached with it.
“Likewise,” you said softly. The look he gave you afterward nearly stopped your heart.
Because beneath the urgency and the feral edge of finally having broken loose — there it was. What lived underneath all of it. What had been living underneath all of it for months in training yards and castle corridors and cold battlements at dusk.
Not just wanting. Something far more dangerous than that.
His forehead dropped against yours.
“I do not know,” he said quietly, the roughness in his voice now carrying something almost bewildered beneath it, “how to be careful with you.”
Your hands rose to his chest. “Then don’t be.”
The breath that left him was long and shaking.
“I may not be able to stop,” he warned lowly.
“Maekar.” You held his gaze. “Do not make me bite you again.”
He stared at you for one moment.
Then something shifted in his expression — the last fragment of restraint dissolving into something that was equal parts exasperated and consumed and desperately fond — and he kissed you again with the full and undivided attention of a man who had just been given permission to stop pretending he wanted anything else.
The lacing gave way beneath his hands with gratifying speed.
Maekar worked with focused single-mindedness, fingers steady now where they had mildly trembled earlier, the fabric loosening incrementally as the fastenings came undone. You sat on the edge of the workbench and let him, your hands resting against his chest, feeling the heat radiating through the linen still covering him and the rapid thumping of his heart beneath it.
The gown loosened around your torso.
Maekar’s hands moved to your shoulders, sliding beneath the fabric to push it downward, and then his patience — which had already survived considerably more than it was built for tonight — ran completely out.
The sound of tearing fabric split the quiet armoury like a small thunderclap.
Maekar went absolutely still.
You bit the inside of your cheek against the laugh trying to escape you.
A beat of silence.
“I—” he began.
“Don’t,” you said.
“The seam—”
“Maekar.”
He looked at you. The expression on his face was genuinely extraordinary — caught somewhere between mortification and the barely contained urgency of a man who had not actually stopped wanting what he had been reaching for, the two things warring openly across his features in the torchlight.
“I will have it mended,” he said roughly.
“I am sure you will,” you agreed pleasantly.
His eyes narrowed slightly at your tone. Then the fabric shifted and his gaze dropped and every coherent thought visibly left his head at once.
You were bare beneath it.
Completely. Deliberately. The torn gown pooled at your waist, the torchlight warm and gold across your skin, and there was absolutely no question that this had not been accidental.
Maekar stared. The silence stretched long enough to become something else entirely.
“You,” he said. His voice had dropped to something low and rough and barely functional. “You planned this.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you mean,” you said serenely.
His eyes dragged slowly back up to your face with an expression that suggested he was reconsidering everything he thought he knew about you and finding the revision both alarming and catastrophic in equal measure.
“You came here tonight,” he said slowly, “without—”
“Maekar.”
“Deliberately.”
“The armoury can get quite warm,” you offered.
Something shifted in his expression then. The mortification burned away entirely, replaced by something darker and more focused, and the look he gave you was nothing like anything you had seen from him before. Not the prickly severity. Not the careful blankness. Something that had been living underneath all of that for months, patient and hungry and entirely done waiting.
“You,” he said quietly, “are going to be the absolute death of me.”
Then his hands were on you.
No hesitation this time. None. Large and warm and completely certain, sliding up from your waist and cupping your breasts with a directness that dragged a sharp breath from your throat. His thumbs moved and your head fell back immediately, a sound escaping you that echoed faintly off the stone walls.
Maekar made a low rough noise in response.
“Gods,” he breathed. The word came out reverent and wrecked at once, his eyes moving over you in the torchlight with an intensity that felt almost tangible. His hands moved with growing urgency, learning the weight and warmth of you, and you could feel in every touch the months of restraint finally broken loose — not gentle, not careful, just present and consuming and entirely focused on you.
His head bent.
His mouth found the curve of your breast and your fingers flew immediately into his hair, loosening whatever order remained in it and sending pale silver-threaded strands falling forward as he pressed an open mouthed kiss against your skin.
The groan that left you was embarrassingly immediate.
Maekar responded to it like a man receiving confirmation of something he had suspected and filed carefully away — his mouth moving with sudden purposefulness, tongue warm against your nipple while his hands held you steady against him.
Your grip tightened in his hair.
He groaned against your skin and the vibration of it shot straight through you.
“There,” he murmured roughly against your breast, the word low and satisfied in a way that was entirely new from him. Like he had discovered a language he had not known he spoke. “I want to hear that again.”
You gave him exactly what he asked for.
His mouth moved across your chest with growing confidence, learning what made you gasp and returning to it with focused intent, his large hands spanning your ribs and holding you exactly where he wanted you with an ease that made you feel impossibly, wonderfully small against him.
At some point his mouth travelled upward again, kissing the curve of your throat, the line of your jaw, finding your mouth with sudden renewed urgency while his hands remained occupied and his thumbs moved in ways that made coherent thought genuinely difficult.
You broke the kiss with a rough breath. His forehead dropped against yours, both of you breathing unevenly in the warm torchlit dark.
“The dress,” you managed. “You owe me a dress.”
A sound escaped him. Short and low and startled — that real unguarded laugh again, the one you had been collecting like something rare.
“Add it to my debts,” he said roughly against your mouth.
“Your debts are mounting, my prince.”
His right index and thumb pinched the sensible mount of your breast and stole whatever you had been planning to say next directly from your throat.
“Then,” he murmured, low and certain and devastating, “allow me to begin repaying them.”
Your hands found the hem of his linen shirt. Maekar pulled back slightly at the contact, just enough to look down at your hands, then back up at your face. Something flickered briefly in his expression — that old reflex, the instinct to stop this before it became something he did not know how to carry.
You held his gaze and pulled the shirt upward.
He let you. Lifted his arms without being asked, a concession so simple and so enormous from him that something ached sweetly in your chest at the sight of it. The linen cleared his head and you dropped it somewhere behind him without ceremony.
Then you looked at him and forgot, momentarily, what you had been about to say.
The torchlight caught him gold and shadow — broad shoulders, the hard planes of a chest dusted with pale hair, the evidence of years of training written into every line of him. A scar crossed his left side, old and long-healed, another at his shoulder. Marks accumulated quietly over years, worn without comment, without complaint.
Your hands rose before thought intervened.
You pressed your palms flat against his chest the way you had through the fabric earlier, except now there was nothing between your skin and his and the warmth of him nearly stole your breath.
Maekar went very still beneath your hands. You felt his heartbeat. Rapid and entirely beyond his control, hammering against your palm with a candour the rest of him would never willingly allow.
“You are—” He stopped. Something worked in his jaw. “You should not look at me like that.”
You dragged your gaze up to his face. “Like what?”
“Like—” The words seemed to cost him. “Like you find something worth looking at.”
The ache behind your ribs sharpened immediately into something almost painful.
“Maekar.” Your hands slid slowly upward across his chest, feeling the warmth of him, the solid reality of all that restrained strength beneath your palms. “I have found something worth looking at since the first time you glared at me on a battlement.”
His throat moved.
“That was not—” He stopped again.
“You are breathtaking,” you said quietly, a faint smile accompanying your words.
Something shifted in his face. The vulnerability flickering through before the familiar impulse to suppress it could fully engage. Your fingers traced slowly across his shoulder, following the line of the old scar there with deliberate gentleness. Maekar’s breath caught.
“Does it bother you?” you asked softly. “When I touch them?”
A long pause.
“No,” he said roughly. Then, quieter, “That is the problem.”
Your heart turned completely over. You leaned forward and pressed your lips against the scar at his shoulder. Felt the sharp intake of breath above you, felt the hands at your waist tighten convulsively.
Then you kissed across his collarbone. His chest. The old, healed line at his ribs, your lips warm and unhurried against each mark while Maekar stood and endured it with the expression of a man being quietly and thoroughly dismantled and lacking any remaining means of defence.
“You are doing it again,” he said. Strained.
“What?”
“Being—” A rough exhale. “Kind. About things that do not require kindness.”
You looked up at him from where your lips rested against his ribs. “They require it from me.”
The flush that climbed his face was immediate and violent, spreading beneath his beard and straight to the tips of his ears. He looked furious about it in the way he always did when caught feeling something he had not prepared for.
You rose back up at the workbench’s edge and kissed the line of his jaw, his cheekbone, the corner of his mouth.
His hands slid up your bare back, warm and spanning and pulling you closer against the heat of his chest, your skin against his now with nothing between you and the contact stole a soft sound from you both simultaneously.
Maekar pressed his mouth against your temple.
“You are going to ruin me,” he said quietly. Not an accusation. Something far more honest than that.
Your arms wound around his neck.
“I think I already did,” you murmured against his jaw. Then you found his throat again — the place you had bitten before, still faintly marked — and pressed your tongue there deliberately.
The sound that left him resonated through his entire chest as his arms tightened around you completely.
“Again,” he said. Low and immediate and entirely without shame this time. The commanding quality back in full force, the vulnerability of a moment ago folded back underneath it — except now you knew it was there, now you had seen it, and no amount of authority in his voice could fully conceal it from you anymore.
You smiled against his throat and obliged.
His hands had been moving through your hair, your mouth still warm against his throat, when you leaned back from him and slid slowly, deliberately, from the edge of the workbench.
You felt the exact moment he realised what you intended when he looked down and saw how your knees met the stone floor.
The expression that crossed his face was unlike anything you had ever seen from him. Not the flush of embarrassment. Not the guarded severity. Something rawer than open shock, moving through every feature while his hands remained suspended where they had been, hovering uselessly in the air where your hair had been a moment ago.
“What are you—” His voice came out entirely wrong. Rough and halting and stripped of every trace of the commanding certainty of moments ago. “You do not have to—”
“I know,” you said simply.
Your fingers found the laces of his trousers.
“I want to,” you added, and looked up at him while you said it, held those violet eyes deliberately while your fingers worked the fastenings loose, and watched the words land somewhere so deep inside him that his jaw tightened against whatever sound tried to escape.
“You—” He stopped. Tried again. Failed again.
The laces gave way.
Maekar inhaled sharply through his nose, a sound so controlled it betrayed exactly how much effort the control was costing him. His hands had found your shoulders now — not pushing, not guiding, simply resting there as though he needed something to hold onto and you were the only solid thing available.
You freed him slowly.
The rough sound that left him at that alone nearly undid you entirely.
He was already hard — he must have been for some time, you suspected, given the considerable evidence — and warm and heavy and when you wrapped your hand around him and simply held for a moment, looking up at his face, the expression you found there stopped your breath completely.
Wrecked did not cover it.
Maekar looked like a man who had been struck. Colour high beneath his beard, eyes dark and blown wide, chest heaving with the effort of breathing evenly. His hands on your shoulders had tightened to something that might leave marks and you found you did not mind that even slightly.
But beneath all of that — beneath the hunger and the shock and the barely contained urgency —
Something bewildered. Something terribly, painfully young. Like he was genuinely unable to comprehend that you were here, on your knees, looking up at him like this. Like the image of it did not fit inside any version of himself he had ever been allowed to imagine.
“You do not—” he tried again, jaw working. “I am not—”
“Maekar.” Your thumb moved over the tip of his cock and his entire sentence dissolved instantly. “Let me.”
A shaking breath left him.
You held his gaze one moment longer. Making sure he saw it — the intention in your eyes, the complete and utter absence of reluctance, the certainty that this was chosen and deliberate and wanted.
Then you leaned forward and took him into your mouth.
The sound he made was immediate and violent and nothing like anything that had left him all evening. His head fell back against the shelving behind him with a dull impact he seemed entirely unaware of, a rough broken noise tearing free from his chest as his hands flew from your shoulders into your hair — not gripping, not guiding, just holding, fingers tangled and shaking against your scalp like he needed the contact to confirm this was real.
You took your time. Deliberately. Thoroughly. The way you had kissed his scars earlier — with a focused attention that communicated unmistakably that this was not obligation, not performance. That you were here because you wanted to be here, on these cold stone floors, with this impossible prickly furious man coming completely apart above you.
“Gods—” The word came out shattered. “Gods—”
His hips shifted forward fractionally, involuntary, immediately arrested as though he had caught himself. Still trying to restrain even now. Still terrified of taking too much.
You took him deeper in direct response.
“Seven hells—” The curse left him in a rough exhale, every muscle in the hand tangled in your hair tensing simultaneously. “You— I cannot— gods, you have to—”
He did not finish the sentence. Could not, apparently. You looked up at him through your lashes and that was what finished it.
Meeting his eyes from where you knelt — watching the full devastating wreckage of his composure written openly across his face, the flush and the parted lips and the shaking jaw and the violet eyes looking down at you with an expression that contained hunger and wonder and something so much larger than either that it had no clean name—
Maekar made a sound that came from somewhere entirely beyond dignity.
“Please,” he said roughly. Barely audible. The word seemingly startling him as much as you, like it had escaped without permission — Prince Maekar Targaryen, the sword of the family, the prickly unmovable fourth son, pleading to the ceiling of an armoury with his hands shaking in your hair.
Something triumphant and tender and desperately fond moved through you simultaneously.
You gave him everything.
He lasted considerably less time than his pride would probably prefer, which you found entirely endearing. The hands in your hair tightened with sudden urgency, a rough warning that was also half a question, and you answered it by staying exactly where you were and he broke apart above you with your name leaving his mouth like something torn free from the centre of him.
Not gods. Not a curse. Not a prayer. Your name. Just your name, rough and wrecked and reverent all at once.
The silence that followed was enormous.
Maekar stood against the shelving breathing like he had run a considerable distance, chest heaving, one hand still tangled loosely in your hair and the other against the wall, almost as if he needed it to keep balance. You rose slowly from the floor, brushing stone dust from your knees with the composure of someone who had absolutely planned all of this, and looked up to find him staring at you.
The expression on his face nearly made your heart stop.
Not the satisfied blankness you might have expected. Not even the lingering hunger. Something bewildered and open and completely undefended, sitting raw across every feature in the torchlight. Like what had just happened had rearranged something fundamental inside him and he was still taking inventory of the damage.
His mouth opened. Closed.
“You,” he said finally. His voice was completely destroyed. “You are—” He stopped. Seemed to genuinely lose the words.
His hans moved to your face, slowly, cupping your jaw with fingers that still trembled slightly. His thumb traced once beneath your cheekbone.
“I did not know,” he said quietly, “that someone would—” He stopped again. Jaw tight. “That I could—”
“You can,” you said softly.
His eyes closed briefly. You rose onto your toes and kissed the corner of his mouth. Maekar exhaled shakily against your cheek.
Then his hands found your waist with renewed purpose and he walked you backward toward the workbench again. The look in his eyes when he pulled back to find yours was nothing like the bewildered wreckage of a moment ago.
Certain. Focused. Warm beneath the hunger in a way that was entirely new from him.
“Your turn,” he said quietly.
He lifted you back onto the workbench like you weighed nothing.
The ease of it still sent heat rushing through you — the casual certainty of those large hands spanning your waist, the complete absence of effort, the way he stepped immediately between your knees and looked at you in the torchlight with that focused unhurried attention that had migrated from training yards and council disputes and settled here, on you, with its full undivided weight.
“Maekar—”
“No,” he said. Quiet and absolute. “You had your turn.”
“You said that already.”
“And I meant it both times.”
His hands found the fabric pooled at your waist — the ruins of your gown, the torn seam still hanging where his impatience had destroyed it — and pushed it further down your hips with steady purposeful fingers. You lifted slightly to allow it and the fabric fell away entirely, leaving you in nothing but the torchlight and his gaze.
Maekar looked at you.
Slowly. Completely. With the focused thoroughness he gave everything — as though you were something that deserved to be properly examined before anything else could proceed.
The flush climbed your own face this time.
“You seem to be gaping, my prince,” you said conceitedly.
"Perhaps," he said lowering his mouth again to your sternum and upwards. "Or perhaps I am simply wondering how you manage to be so insufferably, distractingly beautiful," he murmured against your lips and closed the distance again.
His kisses were slower than before. Deeper. With the particular quality of a man who has just had something enormous confirmed and is no longer in any hurry to pretend otherwise. His hands moved across your bare skin with a thoroughness that suggested he intended to learn every inch of you and considered this a reasonable allocation of his evening.
His mouth left yours and travelled downward yet again.
Your throat. Your collarbone. The curve of your breast where he had been earlier, returning with renewed focus, and the sound you made when his mouth found your nipple again was immediate and entirely undignified.
Maekar made a low satisfied noise against your skin.
“There,” he murmured. The word vibrated warm against you. “I have been thinking about that sound.”
“You—” Coherence was becoming genuinely difficult. “You have?”
There was no response to your question, him being entirely focused on savouring your breasts to a point where you thought he would devour them entirely,
“Maekar—” you pressed whining.
“Mm.” Not really listening. Occupied.
His hands slid down your sides, your waist, the curve of your hips, with an attentiveness that made your skin feel oversensitive everywhere he had not touched yet. He took his time. Deliberately. Like he was paying something back with interest and intended to be thorough about it.
His mouth followed the same path downward, pressing open kisses across your stomach while you sat on the edge of the workbench and tried to remember how breathing worked.
When he lowered himself to his knees in front of you the sound that escaped you was involuntary and immediate.
Maekar looked up.
The sight of him there — this enormous severe prickly man, on his knees, violet eyes finding yours from below with an expression of complete and utter focus — nearly stopped your heart entirely.
“Consider it returned,” he said quietly.
Then he pulled your thighs over his shoulders and lowered his head to tour core, and every coherent thought you possessed simply ceased to exist.
He was not tentative. Not uncertain. Maekar approached this the way he approached everything — with complete commitment and zero interest in half measures — and the wet, filthy sounds filling the quiet armoury within moments were yours and entirely beyond your control.
His hands held your hips with firm certainty, keeping you exactly where he wanted you with an ease that made you feel helplessly, wonderfully at his mercy. His mouth and tongue moved with focused intent, learning what made your breath catch and returning to it immediately, cataloguing every reaction with the same attentiveness he gave a training yard or a tactical problem.
“Gods—” Your hands flew into his hair, fingers tangling in the pale silver-threaded strands. “Maekar—”
He made a sound against you that vibrated through your entire body. Your grip tightened. He did not seem to mind even slightly.
“Look at me,” he said against your inner thigh, pulling back just enough to speak. His voice had dropped to something rough and low that resonated somewhere in the base of your spine. “I want—” A brief pause. Something working in his jaw. “I want to see you.”
You looked down and found his eyes already waiting.
He held your gaze and resumed and the combination of it — those violet eyes watching your face with naked focused intensity while his mouth worked with devastating thoroughness — unravelled the last remnants of your composure completely.
The tension coiled so tight it became almost unbearable.
“Maekar—” His name came out broken. “Please—”
Something moved in his eyes at that.
He pressed closer, arms wrapping around your middle and pulling you against his mouth with sudden decisive urgency, and the tension snapped apart all at once. You came with his name on your lips and your hands fisted in his hair and your entire body shaking with it, and Maekar held you through every tremor with steady certain hands like he had always been built for exactly this.
Like he had been built for you specifically and simply not known it yet.
The silence afterward was soft and golden and full of your uneven breathing. Maekar rose slowly from his knees.
He stood before you in the torchlight, flushed and thoroughly dishevelled, pale hair falling loose around his face, and looked at you with an expression so open and unguarded that it nearly made your eyes sting.
Not the bewilderment of earlier. Something that had moved past bewilderment into something quieter and more settled. Like a man who has just understood something he had been refusing to look at directly for a very long time.
You reached for him.
He came without hesitation — no flinching, no deflection — and let you pull him in until his forehead rested against yours and his hands settled at your waist and the warmth of him surrounded you entirely.
“Still think,” you murmured softly, “that you are not built for this?”
A long pause.
“No,” he said roughly. The word came out almost wondering. Like the answer had surprised him.
Your hands found his face. Thumbs tracing the line of his now wetted beard, the scars beneath it, the high flush still colouring his cheekbones. He closed his eyes briefly the way he always did when you touched him there.
“Good,” you whispered.
His hands tightened at your waist.
“We are not finished,” he said. Lower now. The commanding quality returning beneath the softness, threading through it rather than replacing it.
Heat rushed through you immediately.
“I thought so,” you agreed.
He pulled back to look at you, something certain and hungry and devastatingly focused sitting in those violet eyes. He had you on your back against the workbench before you had fully processed the movement.
One moment upright, the next flat against the worn wood with Maekar’s hands braced on either side of your head and the full commanding weight of his attention pinning you as effectively as anything physical could have managed.
The torchlight caught him from above — flushed, breathing hard, pale hair falling forward around his face, every trace of the prickly guarded prince burned away entirely — and gods, the sight of him like this did something catastrophic to your ability to think clearly.
His forehead dropped briefly against yours.
“I want—” He stopped. Something working visibly in his jaw. “I need you to tell me.” His voice came out rough and strained and carefully controlled. “If I—”
“Maekar.”
“I am not—” Another stop. The flush deepening. “I do not want to hurt you.”
The vulnerability beneath the urgency hit somewhere directly behind your sternum. You reached up and took his face in both hands.
“You will not hurt me,” you said clearly.
“You do not know that.” His eyes searched yours with an intensity that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with that bedrock quality of him — the thing that made him reposition himself between danger and others without thinking, that made him remember injuries, that made him protect fiercely everything he considered his. “I am—” A rough exhale. “It has been some time. And I—” He stopped completely. The flush had reached his ears. “I do not do things gently when I—”
“Good,” you said. He blinked. “I do not want gentle,” you said. Plainly. Clearly. Holding his gaze so he could see every word landing true. “I want you. All of it.” Your thumb traced his jaw and felt the muscle jump beneath it. “Do you understand what I am telling you?”
Maekar stared at you.
“You are—” The words seemed to fail him entirely.
“I am certain,” you said. “I am telling you I want it rough. I am telling you I have been waiting weeks for this and I am done waiting.” A beat. “I am also telling you that I am considerably less fragile than you seem determined to believe.”
Something shifted in his expression so completely it was almost visible as a physical thing — the last protective restraint dissolving, replaced by something dark and focused and entirely done being reasonable.
“You are certain,” he repeated. Not a question this time.
“Maekar.” You held his gaze. “I came here tonight practically naked.”
A sound escaped him that was almost a laugh and almost something else entirely. Then his mouth found yours and whatever he had been about to say disappeared completely.
He kissed you with the full pent up force of weeks of deliberate distance, of every turned back and every carefully engineered absence and every moment he had spent convincing himself he was not allowed — and you felt every single day of it in the urgency behind it, in the hands sliding beneath your thighs and repositioning you against the edge of the workbench with sudden decisive purpose.
He settled between your thighs and you felt him — all of him — and the sharp breath that left you was immediate and involuntary.
Maekar stilled.
“Still—”
“Yes,” you said firmly.
His jaw tightened. His hands gripped your hips. And he pushed forward slowly, carefully despite everything, a concession to that bedrock protectiveness that apparently even weeks of pent up wanting could not fully override—
The sound you both made simultaneously when his cock went smoothly into your dripping cunt echoed off the stone walls.
“Gods,” he breathed. Barely audible. The word stripped of everything except pure involuntary honesty. His forehead dropped to your chest, both hands gripping your hips hard enough to anchor you both to reality, every muscle in his body held in rigid check while he gave you a moment to adjust.
You felt— full. Completely. Wonderfully overwhelmingly full, the stretch of him settling into something that sat on the precise edge between too much and exactly right.
“Maekar.” You wrapped your legs around him. “Move.”
Something in him simply let go.
He drew back and thrust forward and the workbench scraped against the stone floor with the force of it and you cried out into the quiet armoury with absolutely zero remaining concern for who might hear.
Maekar groaned low against your throat.
“Again,” you managed.
He obliged.
And again. And again. The careful deliberateness of moments ago burning away entirely as the rhythm built — deep and certain and relentless. The workbench protested steadily beneath you while his hands held your hips exactly where he wanted them with a grip that would leave the memory of his fingers on your skin for days and you found you wanted that. Wanted the evidence of it. Wanted to carry it back to Queen Myriah’s chambers tomorrow like a secret pressed beneath your skin.
Maekar was not quiet about it.
That surprised you — this man who guarded every reaction, who suppressed every sound, who had spent a lifetime performing composure — coming apart above you with rough broken noises pressed against your throat that he seemed entirely beyond managing. Low and urgent and devastatingly real, dragged free by every movement, every sound you made in response, every time your hands gripped the back of his neck and pulled him closer.
Like he had been holding all of it for so long that now the dam had broken there was simply nothing left to hold with.
“You feel—” His voice came out wrecked and wondering against your jaw. “Gods, you feel—”
“Don’t stop,” you breathed.
A rough sound. “I could not.” Said with complete and utter certainty. “I physically could not.”
Your back arched off the workbench.
His hand slid beneath it immediately — that same instinct, even now, even like this — supporting you, keeping you from the hard edge of the wood while the other gripped your hip and his rhythm deepened into something that stole rational thought entirely.
“Look at me,” he said roughly.
You found his eyes.
Violet and dark and completely unguarded, holding yours with an intensity that had nowhere left to hide — every wall down, every practiced blankness burned away, just Maekar looking at you like you were the only solid thing in the room and he was holding on accordingly.
The expression on his face finished you.
Not the hunger, though that was there, overwhelming and undeniable. But underneath it — wonder. Still wonder. Even now. Like he still could not entirely believe this was real and had decided to look at you directly until it became impossible to doubt.
“I see you,” you whispered. His rhythm faltered for one broken moment.
Then his mouth found yours and he kissed you with everything he had left and the hand at your hip tightened, the workbench scraped and you stopped thinking in words entirely.
The tension had been coiling for weeks — through every turned back and every engineered absence and every moment of deliberate distance — and when it finally broke it broke completely, your whole body arching against him while his name tore free from your throat in a way that would absolutely echo and you found you did not care even slightly.
Maekar followed you over the edge moments later, his cock throbbing inside you and filling you up so deliciously.
Your name again. Just your name, the same as before — rough and broken and said like it was the only word he had ever been certain of.
The silence afterward was vast and golden and full of ragged breathing.
He did not move immediately. Simply rested his forehead against yours, both hands gentling from their grip to something that was almost cradling, chest heaving against yours while the torchlight flickered its slow indifferent commentary across the walls.
You lay on a workbench in an armoury with a discarded torn dress and a thoroughly dishevelled prince and the distant sounds of the castle carrying on entirely without you.
“Maekar,” you said eventually. Soft, nails gently caressing his scalp.
“Mm.” Not fully returned yet.
“The workbench survived.” A long pause.
Then that laugh. Low and startled and utterly real, resonating through his chest and into yours where you were still pressed together.
“Barely,” he said.
You smiled into his shoulder. "Think this thing is sturdy enough for a second assault?"
His laugh deepened against your throat where his face had finally landed. His arms tightened around you once — brief, fierce, communicating something he did not yet have words for — before he pulled back enough to look at your face with that new expression. The one that had moved past bewilderment into something quieter and more permanent.
“You are—” He stopped. Looked almost frustrated by his own inability to finish the sentence.
“I know,” you said gently.
He looked at you for a long moment.
“No,” he said quietly. “You do not.” His thumb traced once across your cheekbone. “But I find myself— wanting to explain it to you.” A pause in which he seemed to surprise himself. “Eventually.”
Your heart turned completely over.
“I am not going anywhere,” you said.
Something settled in his face at that. Deep and slow like a foundation finding solid ground.
“No,” he agreed. “You certainly are not.”
The next morning, you had managed the dress. Barely.
The torn seam had required creative pinning in places that would not have survived close examination, which meant you had changed entirely before dawn and disposed of the evidence with the focused efficiency of someone who had absolutely thought this through.
You had not, however, thought about what your face could tell.
Queen Myriah’s chambers sat warm and bright in the morning light, the fire already built up against the early chill, and her grace herself sat composed and unhurried before her mirror while you worked through the familiar ritual of her morning hair with hands that were almost entirely steady.
Almost.
You had been telling yourself for the better part of an hour that you were perfectly fine. That nothing in your bearing communicated anything unusual. That you were a consummate lady in waiting with complete command of your own expression and the events of last night were entirely invisible on your person.
You were doing very well at believing this.
Until the door opened and Maekar stepped into the room.
He had managed himself considerably better than you — composed, dressed, every trace of last night’s dishevelment erased, only the faintest shadow beneath his eyes suggesting the hour at which he had eventually sought his own chambers. His gaze found you immediately, the way it always did now, and something shifted briefly in his expression before the careful blankness reasserted itself.
Your hands stilled in Myriah’s hair for exactly one betraying second. Heat climbed your face with the subtlety of a siege engine.
You resumed immediately. Smoothly. Professionally.
In the mirror, Queen Myriah’s eyes moved from her son’s face to yours. Then back to her son’s. Then back to yours.
The silence lasted approximately four seconds.
“Maekar,” she said pleasantly. “How unexpected. You rarely visit before council.”
“I had correspondence to discuss.” His voice was admirably even. “If you have a moment.”
“Of course.” Myriah’s eyes returned to her own reflection, her expression settling into something that was almost serenity and was in fact the most dangerous thing you had ever seen on a human face. “Though you look tired, my son. Did you sleep poorly?”
A beat.
“I slept adequately.”
“Mm.” Her grace examined her reflection with great interest. “And you—” this to you, in the same pleasant tone— “you look rather flushed this morning. Are you well, my child?”
“Perfectly well, your grace,” you said. With tremendous composure. “The fire is just warm.”
“It is, isn’t it.” A pause. “Maekar, does she not look remarkably well this morning?”
The silence that followed was catastrophic.
You did not look up from her hair. You focused on it with the complete and total dedication of someone whose life depended on a particular arrangement of pins.
“She looks—” Maekar stopped. Cleared his throat. “Fine.”
“Fine,” Myriah repeated thoughtfully.
You could feel her smiling in the mirror without looking at it. The specific quality of it radiating outward like heat from a particularly self-satisfied fire.
“Your correspondence,” you said to her reflection. Firmly. “Shall I fetch it after I have finished your hair, your grace?”
“There is no hurry.” Her grace was the picture of morning leisure. “Maekar, sit. You are making the room feel crowded standing in the doorway like a man who wishes to be somewhere else.”
He sat. With the expression of someone accepting a siege they know they cannot win.
You finished the final pin with hands that were absolutely trying not to shake.
“There,” you said. “Your grace.”
Myriah examined her reflection. Turned her head slightly left. Then right. The gesture of a woman entirely satisfied with her hair and entirely unconcerned with that being the subject under discussion.
Then she looked at you directly in the mirror.
“You may take a moment as well,” she said pleasantly. “You have been standing since dawn.”
“I am perfectly—”
“It was not a suggestion, my dear girl.”
So you sat.
The three of you existed in the warm morning quiet of the solar for one extraordinary moment — Queen Myriah composed and radiant, you studying the middle distance with tremendous focus, and Maekar to your left apparently finding the grain of the table deeply fascinating.
“Well,” said Myriah eventually. In the tone of a woman setting down a winning hand at cards. “This is very pleasant, is it not?.”
Maekar’s ears went red. You became very interested in your own hands.
Her grace looked between you both with the expression of a woman who had navigated the politics of two great houses, raised four sons, and survived the court of King Daeron with her dignity entirely intact — a woman, in short, who had seen absolutely everything and could not currently be less surprised by any of it.
The smile she was not quite suppressing was the most Dornish thing you had ever witnessed.
“I always did think,” she said lightly, returning to her own reflection and touching one pin with a satisfied air, “that the armoury at dusk was terribly romantic.”
The silence that followed had texture.
“Mother—” Maekar began.
“The correspondence can wait,” said Myriah serenely, already rising from her seat and making for the door. “Enjoy your morning, children.”
I just had to make Maekar's version more reader-domineering, I could not resist myself. So, what are your thoughts on this one??
Summary: A young lady resents her unwanted betrothal, and attempts to flee the Red Keep. Unluckily for her, even the most gallant of knights does not wish to aid her escape. (Inspired by Queen Charlotte.)
Word count: 2.2k
Warnings: none. (Reader does not have any description, name or house mentioned!)
A/N: This has not been proofread and I haven’t published fanfiction in five years, so I might be a bit rusty!
Cross-posted on AO3 (for registered users only, because I’m scared of my work being scraped by AI).
A disclaimer to add to that: I do not consent to my work being used to train AI models of any kind. That includes character AI and similar websites.
Part two!
Her septas had always told her anger was an unladylike emotion to have. On any other day, she would perhaps try to remember their teachings and temper her exasperation. Today was not like any other day, however, and fire burned in her soul as she stormed into the Godswood.
Her father had sighed deeply as she ran off, but he did not try to stop her. He was well aware of her displeasure at her betrothal, though he did not care to understand why. In his eyes, she could not have hoped for a better match. The heir to the heir was a match well above her station. Gods willing, she would be queen of the Seven Kingdoms one day, and yet, she was unsatisfied for reasons unbeknownst to him. Women and their whims and emotions, he mused quietly as he followed the Hand of the King, Prince Baelor, into the Tower of the Hand. They still had much to discuss before the wedding in a week's time.
His daughter's betrothed had not been present for their welcome, to his disappointment. His daughter had seemed strangely happy at the absence of the Young Prince, however, smiling slightly as Prince Baelor explained his son had not yet returned from his hunt. That happiness was in stark contrast with her current state.
The young lady lifted her skirts slightly as she hurried deeper into the Godswood. She was not sure where she was headed, but the sight of a tall wall in the distance lifted her spirits slightly. She knew the chances of a true escape were more than insignificant, but she did not know what else to do.
She had known of her future duties as a lady and a wife since before she could even read. The prospect of marriage had always struck fear into her heart. She had seen the tears on her elder sister's faces as they stood before a Septon, kissing cruel men old enough to be their fathers. They had all married into great Houses, her father had explained when she shared her doubts, so her sisters should consider themselves fortunate. She had never heard of a notion so nonsensical. Nothing about their lives seemed fortunate to her.
She rather liked her life as an unmarried lady. Her father, despite it all, doted on his youngest daughter. She got away with things most ladies would have received a beating for, and he had never pressured her to find a husband. Until now, it seemed. Likely because he had been plotting this betrothal for many months now, she thought bitterly. It broke her heart to know that her father had not even given her the opportunity to choose a husband for herself.
They had left for King's Landing not even a full day after he had broken the news to her. He probably knew she would have attempted an escape plan, had he given her more time to mull it over. Tears started sliding down her cheeks as she neared the red walls separating the royal castle from Blackwater Bay.
She did not know anything about her husband-to-be, and perhaps that is what scared her the most. If she had heard tales of him, any at all, she might know better what to prepare herself for. Any tale she had heard of the Targaryen princelings, though, had been worse than the last. Prince Aerion is said to be cruel, vain and heartless, while his brother Daeron was a useless drunk. In contrast, she had not heard much of the heir's sons. She did not know whether that was good or bad, but she did not wish to find out. Even her father had remained tight-lipped on their long journey here. She was not sure why he had not tried to comfort her, even if he had to lie about the prince's nature by doing so, but she did not think it boded well.
As she finally approached the wall, she found herself out of breath. Her maid had tightened her corset more than normal this morning, clearly expecting the young lady to meet her betrothed today. She was glad she was spared that humiliation, at the very least.
She happily leaned against the red stone wall when she arrived, heaving slightly. All shame left her as she decided to sit down, her back to the wall as she tried to blink away her tears. The day had barely started, and she was already overwhelmed. The smell of King's Landing as they entered through the gates, the sheer magnitude of the Red Keep, the burning eyes of the onlookers in the outer yard. The careful judgment in her future father-in-law's strange eyes. She could not imagine herself living here, constantly gawked at and constant pressure to be the perfect wife. She already longed for home.
After what seemed like an eternity, she finally found the strength to get up off the ground. She took a few steps back, carefully assessing the wall. She had heard of the grandness of the Red Keep, but this wall did not seem so tall, all the way in the back of the Godswood and with only the Blackwater behind it. Perhaps she was delusional, but she did not think this was an impossible task. She had climbed many a tree as a young girl, after all, and she had become quite proficient at it.
She held a calculating look on her face as she touched some slight dent in the wall, assessing whether her foot would have enough grip to hold on to it, when someone cleared their throat loudly behind her. She jumped away from the wall immediately, turning around so fast she almost got dizzy.
The man in front of her was covered in a black cloak, covering his doublet underneath. His pants and boots were the same shade of black, and she silently mused whether he was a Sworn Brother who had lost his way. He had short brown hair, eyes a color she could not make out at this distance and a curious, kind smile on his face. She had to admit he was quite handsome, though she knew it to be an inappropriate thought.
When she did not say anything, the man decided to speak first.
"Good morrow, my lady. Are you in need of any assistance?"
She shook her head slightly at him, and turned back to the wall. "I am perfectly fine, good Ser, thank you. You may leave me be,” she said.
Unbeknownst to her, the man's amused smile only grew at her words, and he observed her silently.
"I might, if you answer my question."
Her temper rose at his obnoxious response, turning back to him in annoyance.
"Depends on the question," she replied roughly, narrowing her eyes at him in deviance. That only made his smile grow and his eyes sparkle, however.
"What is it are you doing?" He asked, shifting his weight from his right leg to his left, eyeing her curiously. Unlike the people in the courtyard, he did not look like he was judging her for her bad manners or whatever else she lacked in their eyes. He simply seemed genuinely curious, which confused her a great deal. She did not understand him, and that frustrated and scared her in equal measure. Who exactly was he?
"Nothing," she was quick to resort, crossing her arms.
He chuckled at her response, shaking his head slightly.
"It does not appear that way, my lady."
"And yet it is the truth. What business is it of yours, anyway? Are you some sort of guard send to drag me back?"
His eyes lit up at her words. He clearly knew something she did not, and it unnerved her greatly. Men can be so insufferable, she thought bitterly.
"I am not, do not worry. I am merely curious," he replied, tilting his head at her slightly, encouraging her to answer his question.
She contemplated it for a second, before deciding she did not actually care if he knew the truth. What difference did it make, anyway? If he wanted to return her to her father, he would have done so already.
"If you must know, I am attempting to climb over this wall."
The amused look in his eyes did not disappear, though he did seem slightly bewildered.
"Climb…? Whatever for?"
He must not know who I am, she thought bemused. She rather enjoyed this back-and-forth with him, and she had not had the chance to express her true feelings to anyone as of yet. Why not just subject this random guard to it? Let her true feelings get back to the two princes who had sealed her fate. Not to mention her father.
Her brows furrowed at the thought, and his silly question. She turned her back to the man once more, determination flowing through her.
"Because I think he may be a monster," she replied simply as she attempted to hold on to the smokeberry vines. When she tried to pull on it, however, she found they broke off almost immediately. She let out a disappointed huff as she stood back to reassess.
"A monster?" he repeated dumbly. His amused smile had left his face, though she did not see it. His gaze was almost hurt now, eyeing her carefully.
"Yes. I fear for my life, in fact. Now, would you be so kind as to help me?" She turned her head towards him, awaiting his answer. He plainly ignored her question, however, and instead returned one.
"Who is it you speak of?"
She rolled her eyes at him and let out an annoyed breath.
"That, Ser, is none of your business. Now, if you please–"
"I fear I cannot help you until you answer me, my lady," he replied easily, a slightly smug look on his face now. He crossed his arms, observing her leisurely. What a strange man, she thought. Surely he knew who she was now? What other maiden had arrived to the Red Keep recently, with enough fear in her heart to attempt an escape in this manner?
When he did not relent, she huffed again. She stepped closer to him, waving her arms around slightly in annoyance. "Prince Valarr, of course. No one will speak of him, not even my father. That cannot mean anything good. He must be as cruel or useless as his cousins, if not worse."
A chill went down her spine at the thought of him being worse than Prince Aerion. Was such a thing possible? A flicker of emotion she could not place crossed his face. Now that she stood closer to him, the daylight reflecting in his eyes almost made it seem like they were two different shades. She could not determine what that reminded her of, but her stomach twisted slightly at her inability to place it.
"Ah, I see," was all he said, continuing to eye her curiously, shifting slightly on his feet. His lack of words frustrated her. What could he possibly want from her?
"Now, will you help me? Please?"
"One more question, my lady," He did not wait for her reply, but he seemed entertained by the scowl forming on her face. "Do you believe all Targaryens are monsters, as you say?"
She faltered slightly. Did he want to trick her into speaking treason, leading her to be executed?
"I would never speak such treason, Ser. Now, if you please…?"
"You want me to lift you over the wall so you may escape from the Red Keep?" He tried to clarify once again.
"That is what I said, yes," She said, beyond annoyed at his antics now.
"People will notice you are missing, will they not?" He questioned, not caring in the slightest for her clear annoyance.
"That is not my problem, for I will be long gone by then. Do not worry, they won't know you helped me. Now come on, make haste."
He once again stood there silently, not moving a muscle. She was quite done with him now, and attempted to climb the wall by herself. Once again, to no prevail.
"I have no intention of helping you, my lady," he said, a smile in his voice. His eyes twinkled at her, and she finally saw that his left eye was a brown hue, whereas his right eye was a bright blue. It would be quite enchanting to see, if he was not the most vexing man in the Seven Kingdoms in that moment.
"I am a lady in distress," she called out, desperation evident in her voice. "You refuse to help a lady in distress?" She came down from the wall again, approaching him. She stood only an arm's length away from him when he responded.
"I refuse, when that lady in distress is trying to escape the Red Keep, only so that she does not have to marry me."
Her eyes widened in shock at his words, and she took a quick step back. She suddenly remembered where she recognized those eyes. He had the same dual-colored eyes as his father, Prince Baelor. Those judgemental eyes seemed so soft now as he gazed upon her.
"Hello, gevie. I'm Valarr."
Note: gevie means ‘beautiful’ in Valyrian.
Hope you guys enjoyed! If you did, I would really appreciate if you reblog, like or leave a comment!
UPDATE: I just published part two of this story! I hope you guys like it!
Summary: After their unfortunate introduction in the Godswood, the Young Prince attempts to reassure his bride-to-be.
Word count: 2.6k
Warnings: none! The reader has no name or description of her appearance or her house.
A/N: thank you so much for all the kind responses to the first part! I can’t express how much I appreciate it and much it motivates me. Since so many people asked, here is a part two (and there’s a part three in the works)!
Cross-posted on AO3 (registered users only).
Never in her life had she felt as much shame as she had when she ran away from the Young Prince. It made no matter that it had transpired a day past, she was convinced the embarrassment would never truly leave her.
She was quite convinced that there would be severe consequences. That the Prince would come to humiliate her in front of the whole court, or that he would inform his lord father and their betrothal would be called off. The latter scenario would have been her ideal outcome mere days ago, but now, she was not so sure. He had seemed kind, and rather handsome, and she had been the one to insult him horribly. In truth, he had done nothing wrong, except perhaps accept a betrothal with a stranger. Did he even have a choice in the matter, or were they in the same boat?
No matter how much she tried, she could not get his gaze out of her mind. Amusement, awe, contemplation and mild vexation all seemed to swirl in his very different, but equally stunning eyes. Whatever must he think of her now?
Despite all odds, she had not seen her betrothed since the Godswood. The royal family had allowed her and her father to dine privately, as she claimed to be exhausted from their travels. A mild exaggeration on her part, and a weak attempt to evade her inevitable fate, but a reprieve they granted her nonetheless. The news would have come as a relief, had her father not chosen that moment to try and lift her spirits. She had witnessed those same speeches with her two older sisters, and they had not been effective in the slightest. If she recalled correctly, it had only ever made them weep louder. So, she set out to simply agree with everything he said, hoping it would be over soon.
"My dear, you must know this is for your own good. Right?" he looked to her in confirmation, and she nodded carefully.
"He is not like his wayward cousins, I assure you. I met with him just this afternoon, and–"
She dropped her fork loudly on the plate, shock evident on her face before she attempted to mask it, coughing into her hand weakly. Her father gave her a puzzled look before continuing, not truly caring what made her behave that way.
"He was quite a charming young man. He was much like his father, who you would agree was amiable, yes?"
She nodded again before the words she wanted to say, finally found their way out of her mouth.
"I– He… he did not say anything about me?" She asked, warily, before quickly clarifying. "About my… absence?"
Her father shook his head in amusement, simply believing his daughter to be uninformed on the business of lords, as she often was. (Or pretended to be.)
"No, my dear, you were not expected to be there. Betrothal negotiations are not for ladies like you to worry their pretty little heads over."
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. This was going to be a long dinner.
When she had still not heard as much as a peep from the royal family after breaking her fast with her father, she was starting to get worried. The worst scenes she could think of started going through her head. She had spoken treacherous words in front of a member of the royal family, after all, and had insulted his cousins in a manner deserving of the noose. If they would even be so kind, she thought fearfully. She did not believe the Targaryens to be above burning people alive, even now, without access to their dragons.
Her father had left immediately after he finished his meal, murmuring something about preparations and the Prince Baelor. She was honestly relieved to watch him go, glad to have some space and time to think. Her chambers, to the credit of the royal family, were gorgeous. Despite the fact that these chambers were temporary, as she would move to her marital chambers soon enough, they were richly decorated in her house colors, with beautifully intricate tapestries covering the walls. The cozy atmosphere, thankfully, reminded her of home. She cozied up into a large armchair by the fire, sipping on her tea as she stared into the fire. While the Conclave had already determined that spring had arrived at long last, today was an unusually chilly day.
Her quiet peace did not last long, however. Not long after her father's departure, a gentle knock sounded at her door. She let out a small sigh before calling out for them to enter. She did not move a muscle, waiting to see who wished to speak to her.
When she looked up at the sound of her door opening, her eyes widened at the sight of her betrothed. She stood up quickly and straightened up, while he closed the door softly behind him. This was very inappropriate, she knew. An unmarried lady should never be alone with a man, not even her betrothed. Before she got the chance to object, however, the Prince had already started speaking.
"I do not mean to distress you any further, my lady," he spoke, a faint smile on his face. Her face burned up at the reminder of her words the day before. She felt more like a lady in distress in this moment than she had in the Godswood, in truth. She had seen a glimpse of freedom then, whereas she knew now that was not only hopeless, but that she had also made a disastrous first impression with her royal husband-to-be.
"I simply wished to ask you whether you would like to take a walk with me in the Godswood, my lady?"
They did not speak much before they reached the Godswood. He clearly had something to discuss with her that he did not want prying eyes and ears to pick up on. Prince Valarr, however, seemed completely at ease despite the exchange between them yesterday, so she was not sure what to expect from him this time around. Once they had walked far enough into the gardens, so much so that they could no longer see the entrance, only then did he speak up.
"My lady," he began, "I must know, for both of our sakes, why you do not wish to marry me."
His voice was beyond soft, and he was clearly trying to put her at ease. She felt anything but at ease, though, as she lowered her eyes to the pale grass in shame before she responded.
"I did not wish to insult you, Your Grace, only–"
She felt a soft touch below her chin, and then he lifted her head up softly to meet his gaze. Despite the chill in the air that day, her whole body warmed at his touch.
"Valarr. I am just Valarr to you."
She simply nodded softly, now mesmerized by his handsome face. What is it she wanted to say to him again? She was painfully aware of the fact he stood way too close to her than was proper, but Gods, she did not wish for him to go. After a few seconds of them simply staring at each other, his brows furrowed slightly before he spoke.
"Do you truly believe I am a monster?"
Her eyes widened at his words, and she quickly took a small step back and shook her head. Once again, he continued before she could speak her mind.
"Then why?" he asked softly, the faintest hint of hurt evident in his tone.
"I– Your Gr–" he gave her a pointed look, and she quickly corrected, "Valarr. It is not that I do not wish to marry you, but rather that I do not wish to marry a stranger. You have to understand, I do not know you, but the things they whisper of your cousins..."
"I do not know you, either," he interrupted gently, a faint smile on his face again at her words. "Except that you are… terrible at climbing a wall."
She could not help but let out a snort at his words, shyly looking away from him. She simply gestured to her elaborate dress, partly covered in a light-colored cloak.
"I dare you to try and climb a wall in this contraption."
A huff left his lips and his eyes sparkled at her again, and she found she rather enjoyed making him laugh. He had a lovely smile.
"What is it you wish to know about me?" he suddenly asked.
He had slowly led them to a marble bench, standing in front of a small pond. He slowly parted from her side, sitting down. He nodded his head at her and then at the spot next to him on the bench, urging her to sit down. She hesitated at first, but then decided there would be no harm in it. He was not here to punish her, and the damage to her reputation that their solitary walk, without any chaperone, brought was likely already done. She sat back down next to him, careful to keep an appropriate distance. When she turned to him, he had an expectant look on his face.
"What do I want to know…?" she repeated dumbly, and he nodded at her encouragingly. She thought for a moment, but she already knew the answer.
"Everything."
He contemplated that answer for a moment. "All right. Everything?" he clarified, and she nodded gently. He took a deep breath before answering her.
"Many say I take after my father, but I fear I do not take after his warrior qualities. I am not a very good knight. Even my own lord father fears I may end up mortally wounded at even the simplest of tourneys, so I do not get to fight any real opponents. I may resent him for it, but I know deep down that he is not wrong to do so."
She could see a deep sadness cross his face before he continued on, undeterred. "My favorite treats are lemoncakes. I rather detest wine, or any sort of liquor, for that matter. My cousin Daeron's obsession with it has put me off completely."
That put a slight smile on her face. He thought for a moment before continuing.
"I most enjoy reading about history, particularly regarding Old Valyria, and most of all, good conversation," he said, giving her a pointed look that made her face heat up. "If I had not been otherwise occupied, I think I would have liked to become a maester."
She look at him in surprise. A Prince of the Realm, becoming… a maester? Her shock did not deter him, however, and he continued speaking.
"I have a scar here," he pointed to the lower left side of his torso, "from falling off my horse during one of my earliest tourneys. And I am very nervous about marrying a girl I'm only just meeting a week before our wedding."
She gaped at him, lost for words.
"But I cannot show it as you can. I cannot climb over a wall, because I am second in line to the Iron Throne, and that would… cause a scandal."
She felt an immense shame at his words, and lowered her eyes out of guilt.
"But I promise you, I am not a monster. Just Valarr."
His soft voice made her look up again tentatively, and he smiled encouragingly at her.
"Becoming the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms will not be an easy task, even if it is still many years away, Gods willing. It will require a lot of hard work, and you may grow to resent me for forcing that life on you," a melancholy look crossed his face quickly before he continued, "I do not wish for you to feel you are obligated to marry me. If you do not wish for this, you can tell me and I will put a stop to it. But I will warn you, it won't be without consequence. Both of our reputations will be affected, but I fear yours most of all. Still, that may be preferable to you in light of the prospects."
His words left her speechless. He was a better man than she could have ever hoped for, and that made her choice that much more complicated. As much as her brain told her to resist, to not agree to this marriage out of pure spite for having it forced on her, her heart never failed to flutter when his gaze was on her. She was not sure she would be well-suited to be Queen, but would she not be able to learn to weather the storm if she could grow to love him? That is all she ever longed for in a marriage, after all, and he was a much more likely candidate for that than most.
He let her mull over his words in silence, though his soft gaze never left her form. After a few minutes, it seemed he could no longer handle the silence, and a small smile formed on his lips before he spoke again.
"I am sure you hear this often, but you are incomparable, my lady," he said with a softness in his tone and his gaze she had never seen before in a man. "No one told me you'd be this beautiful. You may be too beautiful to marry me. People will talk… given I'm a monster," he continued, false exasperation in his voice as he gave her a teasing smile.
She let out a laugh that was much too loud to be considered ladylike, but for once, she did not care. He laughed loudly along with her, and the sound made her heart skip a beat.
Just as she was about to speak up, she heard footsteps approaching. She looked up with a hint of fear in her eyes, scared of getting caught. When she saw her father approach, however, she was not sure how to feel. Surely, he would be happy to see her speaking to her betrothed, at the very least?
He did not look at them with much surprise, just a faint grin on his face and mirth evident in his eyes. His scheming had paid off for the first time in his life, it seemed. Meanwhile, Valarr had stood up with confidence at the sight of the older man, walking towards her father and reaching out to shake his hand. She quickly followed him, not wanting to miss any part of their conversation.
"You must be the man responsible for my possible future happiness," he said as he looked at her, "she was just deciding whether or not she wanted to marry me."
She and her father were both shocked at his words, their faces falling into identical expressions.
"Your Grace, she is, of course, overjoyed to become–"
Valarr simply shook his head at her father, interrupting him.
"No, my Lord, I actually believe she is still deciding. She might decide to escape over the wall instead," He smiled widely at her, a glimmer in his eye once again. "Either way, the decision is entirely hers."
He gave a pointed look to her father that she did not entirely understand, before approaching her. She gazed up at him in slight admiration. He smiled at her before softly grabbing her hand, bringing it up to his face. The soft press of his lips made her heart flutter so violently that it almost scared her.
He left without another word, leaving her alone with her father at the pond. He did not say anything to her, as the look in his eyes said more than words could. I told you so. She just huffed at him, already annoyed at the smug look on his face. She did not say anything else to him, simply wrapping her arm around his as she led them out of the Godswood, back to their chambers.
I hope you guys enjoyed this much-requested second part! If you did, I would really appreciate it if you would reblog or leave a like or comment!
Update: part three is out now!
People that asked to be tagged/asked for a part two (sorry if you didn't want to be tagged): @dewofdawn1 @beeofthesea @asunshine15 @luckygoddes @li-zayne-wife @tayssauchiha @rebeccawinters
summary: Meeting the parents is always stressing. It especially is so when your dad's Batman, and your mom is what many would consider a terrorist cult leader, while his dad is an alien come to conquer Earth and his mom is... weirdly normal. (Or: four times you meet each other's parents individually, and the one time they all meet.)
pairing(s): mark grayson x al ghul!batsis!reader, batsis!reader x platonic batfamily, batsis!reader x platonic al ghul family
word count: 14.8k
warnings: i imagined them to be around 20-ish?, swearing, a smidge of spoilers from the comics but nothing too detailed, au of the two-parter linked down below (it can be read without reading that first, but if you want to understand reader's backstory you'd need to do that), enstablished relationship, suggestive maybe, making out, mark is kinda a sugar baby, oliver is a baby because i say so, nolan and debbie are still together for the same reason (debbie pls take him back), implied suicide, mention of hell and torture, conner kent is mentioned as reader's ex, other than that lots of fluff and banter!!
author's note: i know this batsis sounds cheesy in comparison to the one of the that girl is corrupt-verse, but let me explain: yes, they're the same person, but she's grown since then and has found her peace. also, this is just a funny AU, so don't worry, her and conner don't break up in the original fic!! as always, beta-read by my wonderful @lechelovestoyap <3 dividers from @uzmacchiato!
au of ⮕ that girl is corrupt | could you raise her to love me, maybe?
— one.
“He’s late.”
“I know he is.”
“I didn’t expect him to be.”
It’s twelve fifty-five. Mark was supposed to be here twenty-five minutes ago, and your father’s not amused. You raise an eyebrow, highly doubting his words. “You didn’t? Really?”
He taps his fingers on the table. “Meeting your girlfriend’s father is an important thing, if you value the relationship. I didn’t think he had it in him to show up late — not after all the psychological warfare you surely subjected him into.”
You roll your eyes, moving around the appetizers on your plate. The place is nice– because of course Bruce Wayne would choose nothing but the best restaurant to publicly humiliate his daughter’s boyfriend. It’s a rooftop restaurant that only makes boujee Italian dishes, where a reservation would take you months to get without the name Wayne attached to it, and while normally you’d love to eat here, you’d rather do so without the looming threat of your father reducing Mark’s ego to smithereens. “Evidently so, it wasn’t enough.”
You’re pretty sure that you reminded him of this lunch so many times that he must’ve dreamed about you — and not nice dreams where you’re nice to him and fulfill all his fantasies, but those ugly ones where you turn into a seven-headed demon and yell at him to be on time for once. The fact that all your brothers are sitting at a nearby table with horrendous wigs and fake mustaches is not helping.
You even dressed up — which you never do. Sure, you’re always stylish, and a picture of you in a bad outfit would probably sell for thousands in gossip magazines, but this time you put in the work. Nice black dress. Silver Rolex. Pearl earrings that belonged to your grandmother in hope of softening Bruce up.
Generally, the nice dress should’ve served as an incentive for Mark to show up and for your father to see him seriously. Now, it looks like you’re compensating for your chronically late boyfriend.
You’re looking at your phone screen and setting it back down face-down on the table every five minutes. Dick and Jason have been cackling about something — no doubt Mark getting his ass handed to him somewhere around the world — for the last three minutes, and you swear you’re about to throw a salad knife at them.
God, the salad knife. You even taught Mark cutlery etiquette just for this. Will he ever need to know the difference between the fork used for the first course and the one for the main? Probably not, but anything to placate your father’s dislike for him.
“You act like you’re never late,” you grumble to Bruce. He pokes at your shoulder, “That’s because I never am.”
Finally. Some words you can throw back at him. Crossing your arms, you say, “Ah, you aren’t? Well, what about mine and Cass’ Christmas recital? We were doing Swan Lake, Father, and we were the leads. Then there were about a dozen council meetings at school– talking about the only ones you showed up at, by the way. Then it was Tim’s birthday last year, and Clark’s birthday, and Selina’s birthday, and my graduation, and Barry and Iris’ baby shower–”
“Fine, fine,” your father hisses, squinting at his watch. “But he better be here in the next ten minutes, because I’m not waiting for him then, and you shouldn’t either.” he lowers his voice, “I thought you were done for good with alien hybrids and supes after breaking up with Conner. Between the two of them, I’m not sure which one I despise the least.”
You deadpan. “I could say so much worse about all your ex girlfriends, but for the sake of public appearances, I’ll leave it at that.” the simple fact that your mother’s in a terrorist cult should make him ashamed of trying to give you relationship advice.
Finally, Mark Grayson graces the entrance doors. Like you had kindly asked him — which in your world means threatened without a sharp object in your reach — he’s wearing that light blue Ralph Lauren polo you got him for Valentine’s Day, and those Levis jeans that aren’t baggy but not even skinny that make him look like someone who can actually dress himself up nicely.
Thank God– so he knows how to listen when he wants to. You told him a thousand times to wear something casual, but not too shabby so as to let your father think he didn’t care about meeting him — guess setting the clothes out on his bed helped. His hair is brushed back as usual, his smile nervous as the waiter brings him over to your table, and in his hand is a bouquet made out of colorful tulips. He gives you a crooked smile, one that says, I’m sorry, I love you, please don’t hate me, I swear there was an alien invasion I had to stop before coming here.
“Hi,” he whispers, bowing down to leave a kiss on your cheek. You glare at him, tapping your bicep as your father rises from his seat, hand extended. Mark tries to smile at him, but it comes out as an anxious wince instead when they shake hands. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr Wayne– sorry for the delay, there was… traffic downtown. I’m sure you’d understand.” he holds the flowers out. “I also brought you flowers.”
Bruce blinks, eyebrow twitching. Your brothers are staring over their menus, not even bothering to hide their spying, while the waiter waiting for their order looks at them with the eyes of someone who wishes they didn’t pay him enough to deal with such buffoonery. In the end, the playboy facade of your father always prevails, and he gives Mark a polite, tight smile. “The pleasure is all mine,” it clearly isn’t, judging by the grip he’s got on his hand, “try to be on time next time, will you? Counting traffic and all.”
You take a deep breath. If you want to get out of this lunch with your honor still intact — and with a boyfriend still — you can’t keep giving Mark the cold shoulder. Once you’re out of here, you’ll berate him all you want — but as long as you’re here, you’ll have to look positive towards him. Even nice, perhaps. But only if he behaves well.
As Mark takes a seat beside you, your father settles the flower on the empty seat beside him. They slump like they know this is going to be a disaster.
Nervous, your boyfriend looks between you and your dad, still glaring at each other, then at the barely touched appetizers in the middle of the table. Then, of course, at the table right beside yours, where your brothers are pretending to be very interested in their menus. “Uh…” he lets out a nervous laugh, “I– I hope my timing didn’t ruin your first impression of me.”
Your father’s first impression of him was doomed ever since Omni-Man appeared on national television and destroyed half of Chicago by beating him to a bloody pulp, but you won’t be the one to tell him that. Bruce finally drags his gaze out of yours and offers him a dubious look. “That’s the last thing I’m worried about.”
Mark pales. Right. He’s probably more worried about the whole Viltrumite thing, as well as his daughter’s preference for half aliens. “Right. Of course. Well–”
“Can I get your order?” The waitress has a polite smile on her face and is clearly unaware of the tension at the table when she rounds it, notepad in hand. Your father doesn’t even hesitate, “I’ll take today’s special.”
You’ve been here enough times to know your favorite dish without looking at the menu. “I’ll take the cacio e pepe.”
Mark scrambles for the menu. You sigh, finally uncrossing your arms and placing a gentle hand on his forearm. “Take the lasagna. You’ll love it.” He nods and stutters out to the very amused waitress, “I’ll pick the lasagna then.”
Before the woman can go, Bruce stops her. “Oh, one last thing,” he points to the table full of gossips beside yours, “tell security that Mr Wayne wants them out.”
“Awe, c’mon!” Dick whines, his mustache standing crooked over his top lip. “Things were just starting to get good!” the waitress smartly decides not to linger and disappears in the kitchen. You can already see the headlines: WAYNE FAMILY TERRORISES RESTAURANT PERSONNEL OVER LUNCH WITH DAUGHTER’S BOYFRIEND. Oh, Vicki’s going to have a field day with this.
Bruce manages to drag out every single one of your brothers in something that is very close to being the most embarrassing five minutes of your life, in which you make sure to brief Mark again on keeping his best behavior. “No mention of your father. Straighten up your shoulders. Don’t make him smell your fear.”
Mark raises an eyebrow, “Wait, he can smell fear?”
You blink. “Don’t doubt that for even a second. And don’t let him make you nervous — it’s how he guesses whether you’re serious about me or not.”
He pouts, hand coming up over yours. “I may be nervous, but I am serious about you.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me that — tell him.”
Lowly, he laughs, pressing a soft kiss on your cheek — it’s best to stick to that as far as your father’s in a mile radius. “Thanks for the advice, babe– what would I ever do without you?” he noses at your temple, “Also, have I told you how ravishing you look?”
Despite everything — the fact that you should be mad at him for being late, the looming threat of your father’s disapproval and your brothers’ constant mingling — you find yourself letting out a hint of a chuckle. “Ravishing?” you muse, “God, Mr Grayson, have you gone back to your studies or what?”
He frowns. “Hey, I don’t need to go back to studying to know a new word to compliment my beautiful, stunning girlfriend, okay?”
You tap his jaw, “If flattery could get you somewhere with my father, beloved, it would get you everywhere.” A sigh escapes your lips, “A shame he got so flattered up over the years that by now he’s immune to that.”
Mark pats your hand. “I’m sure we’ll find another way to soften him up.”
Having been together for almost a year now, you should’ve known that he was being way too optimistic.
As you had expected, Bruce is ruthless. He asks countless questions circling what for him is the real problem — Mark’s father, of course — and whenever he makes jokes, they are passive-aggressive, with no real intention of easing the tension up. He asks why he left college, how fast his brother actually grows, how the two of you met, if he had heard of you before, if he has a job– common father stuff, if it wasn’t for the fact that he asks every question like it’s the one that could finally grant him the death penalty. You’ve got to pat yourself on the back, though, because your boyfriend replies like a champ every time, which means the psychological warfare training camp worked on him. Somehow.
It doesn’t seem like it’s working in softening your father, though, because with every answer, his eyebrows crease more and more. With how it’s going, you’d bet he’ll look like he aged twenty years once you get out of here, and soon enough, he doesn’t even try to hide asking about Nolan anymore.
You get it, okay? Common Bat concern or whatever it is for him. But this was supposed to be lunch to officially meet your boyfriend, not to collect intel on the aliens that Clark doesn’t really like.
“So,” Bruce starts again, “how does your father plan to… atone for his actions?”
Your hand tightens around your fork, and Mark discreetly places his palm over your thigh, caressing your skin over the dress. It’s reassuring, but you bitterly think that you should be the one comforting him and not the other way around, because your father is blaming him for something he hasn’t done. He doesn’t say it, but he clearly thinks that he and Omni-Man can’t be much more different.
Mark, bless his soul, just sits there and takes it for your sake, because were he to fight back Bruce would never let him live that down. “Well, he joined the Coalition of Planets a while ago, he’s gotten back to strictly protecting the Earth and has the intention of fighting against Viltr–”
“Just what is wrong with you?”
While Mark freezes, Bruce nearly drops his fork, because you’re giving him the same look your mom uses whenever she wants to kill him — which is more often than anyone would imagine. For a moment he wonders if you’ll take the fish knife and just stab him right now out of annoyance, but he’s quickly reassured when you don’t make a move for it. “You in the first place should know how hard it is to be judged by your parent’s actions — and whether you believe it or not, everyone at this table has risked dying at least once because someone saw their father in them.”
You’ve lost count of how many times you and Damian have been blamed for Bruce’s actions, and even if your little brother took the brunt of the hit thanks to Morgan Ducard, your father is the last man who should be making questions about parentage. “You have no right to ask him such questions, because yeah, you’re my dad, but you’re just getting to know Mark. And if you’re more interested in getting to know his father and trying to understand if he’s got the intention to destroy the planet, then pick up your goddamn phone and call Nolan Grayson, not his son Mark.”
Under their bewildered looks, you get up from your seat and smooth your dress down. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom.” your heels click on the pavement as you cross the room, only to disappear behind the women’s restroom door. Great. Now it’s just Mark and your dad’s glare towards him.
Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to calm his nerves down. Clearly, he’s torn between his worry about you dating yet another stupidly overpowered alien and your happiness. “I’m sorry, Mark, but– you understand, right? After all the things your kind has done to humans, I can’t help but question your intentions towards my daughter.”
Mark can feel the uneasiness creep up on him — he wasn’t exactly comfortable earlier, but at least your father wasn’t comparing him to genocidal maniacs. “With all due respect, Mr Wayne, but I am not like the other Viltrumites, and I have no intention to hurt your daughter in any way.”
Your father sighs tiredly — the sigh of a man whose children continue to mess around with aliens to the point that he fears who are going to be your parents-in-law one day. He holds up his index finger, “Give me one reason why I should trust you with my daughter. One, and I’ll make sure to get to know you before I compare you to your father next time.”
“Well, first of all, I love her very much,” he could write paragraphs on that — and he actually does, when he’s off-planet and only has his notes app as a means of entertainment. “And I’d never do anything to hurt her in any way, and–” he lowers his voice, “well, it’s kinda embarrassing to admit this to one of the first vigilantes, but… I’ve seen so many horrendous things in the last few years of my life that without even knowing it, she reminds me of why I do what I do, and why I need to keep on going.”
Bruce doesn’t show particular appreciation, but raises an eyebrow at last — and, for once, not in doubt, but in curiosity. “And, yeah, sometimes things get shitty– um, sorry about that– but then I think that it’s all for her safety and it’s like everything settles back to place. I don’t even think she knows how one smile from her is enough to turn my days around.”
This time, your father positively perks up, eyes widened the littlest bit. He pauses for a moment, speechless, then: “She smiles when she’s with you?”
It’s not that you’re completely emotionless, it’s just that it’s hard to get a smile out of you. In all the years you’ve been with him, Bruce has seen you smile only a handful of times, and they were all mostly with Damian. Mark stares at him like he’s crazy. “Uh… she does?” It sounds more like a question, but it’s just because he doesn’t know if he said something he wasn’t supposed to.
Bruce takes a deep breath. Okay, okay. He already got over Starfire a long time ago, he managed to get over Conner twice already — once as Tim’s best friend, twice as your boyfriend — and one day, he’ll probably have to get over Jon being a constant in Damian’s life, too. How bad can another alien in the family be, as long as he makes you happy? “And how much?”
Mark is now looking at him as if he just grew another head. “Dunno — I don’t count how many times she smiles in a day.” a shrug, “Often, I’d guess.”
You come back from the restroom, and suddenly, Bruce is very aware of how you instinctively lean towards your boyfriend, and how his arm immediately wraps around your shoulders, thumb caressing the bare skin there as if he’s done it already a million times. And then he looks at how you’re still wrinkling your nose at him in annoyance, and thinks about how you looked so at ease when he came back from kicking your brothers out of the restaurant.
In the end, for once in his life and yet again for his children, Bruce Wayne relents. When Mark excuses himself to go to the bathroom, he nudges you with his elbow. “You chose a nice one,” he admits despite himself. “Well done.”
— two.
“Remind me when we can leave again?”
“As soon as the event’s done, Mark.”
He pouts — he’s been doing that a lot in the past two hours, and it probably has to do with the suit he’s wearing. Mark has never been one for dressing up, but even if he was, you’re pretty sure that Dick’s suit is fitting him a little too right — not that you’d ever dare to complain about that.
Now, it’s not that Mark doesn’t have nice suits: he just doesn’t have the expensive kind people use once for events and then let rot in the dresser out of sheer money squandering. So, as your father gave you little to no warning for this event, your boyfriend is stuck wearing one of the other Grayson’s suits, as between all your brothers he’s the most similar one to him in measurements. Unfortunately, Dick has all his suits tailored, so Mark’s biceps are just a little too snug under the shirt’s sleeves, and he’s adjusted his tie at least a hundred times since you got here.
Bruce is somewhere in the Gotham sewage system looking for Killer Croc, hence why you’re here: no matter how hard Mark tried to convince him that he could’ve handled it for him, your father still insists on the no Metas in Gotham rule — and the fact that he’s more like an alien rather than a human with powers doesn’t really work in his favor.
So now you and Mark are in an expensive-looking ballroom with high ceilings and marble floors, where the tables with food are more than the chairs to take a seat on. Crystal chandeliers shimmer over your heads and the guests are too busy sharing polite conversations to notice the way everyone is clearly judging everyone else.
“How do you and your brothers handle this?” your boyfriend mutters, thumb rubbing circles over your waist. “This feels like high school all over again. They can’t possibly really think that they’re all friends.”
You shrug, resting your cheek on his shoulder and taking a sip from your champagne glass. “It’s for charity, beloved. Handle just a few more hours, please.”
“Hours?!” he whisper-yells, quietening down when you shush him. “Yes, a few hours. It’s for a good cause. The species at risk of extinction will forever be grateful for your help.”
He stares off into the distance, “Then how is it that the only brother of yours present tonight is the one that dislikes me the most?”
Damian stands at the other end of the hall, with his arms crossed and a murderous look set on your boyfriend like he isn’t getting coddled left and right by all women present. His cheeks are red from all the pinches they’ve been giving him, and his hair is a bit more mussed than it was when you left the Manor — estimating all the pats on the head he got would be nearly impossible.
You shrug. “He believes in the cause. The others are helping B.”
“Well, I could’ve helped, too.” Mark shakes his head in sorrow, “He’s here to keep an eye on me because he hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” you counter, “he just feels deeply doubtful about you and our relationship because he got my father’s paranoia and is completely sure that you want to conquer the world alongside Viltrumites or something.”
Your boyfriend blinks. “Ah, I got it. So he despises me.”
“Stop being so dramatic.” You roll your eyes and down the last drops of your champagne, then push the empty glass to his chest. “Listen, Romeo, there’s an open bar in the name of all species leaning towards extinction. Would you be so kind as to get me another drink while I go save Damian?”
He takes your glass without a word and moves for the crowded bar, then disappears between high-society pricks and whatnot. Across the room, you share a pointed look with Damian, one that says Will you behave, or am I going to leave you to your own defenses?, and you still start to cross the hall even if he removes his eyes from you in what clearly means I will not bend, just because he’s your little brother and you love him very much.
A hand on your shoulder stops you on your tracks. “Do you have a special interest in alien hybrids or is your new intended just a coincidence?”
Your shoulders slump. You take a deep breath to calm down, because you don’t even need to turn around to know whose voice this is. “Talia,” you greet calmly, turning around. “What a surprise.”
“Talia?” she raises a brow in disdain. She’s wearing an emerald satin dress, scarily similar to your deep blue one, and she’s got a hand over her hip like you’re the problematic one between the two of you. “Again with that first name madness? I am your mother, sweetling. Refer to me as such.”
Your eye twitches. “Will it get you to leave earlier?”
She thinks about it for a moment. “We’ll see.”
You shake her hand off your shoulder, “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” Talia pouts in that manner that almost makes her look like a normal mother and not an assassin trained to lie and pretend. “Your father got to meet your new partner, didn’t he? It’s not fair that I didn’t meet him.”
You deadpan. “First of all, he’s not exactly new– we’ve been dating for almost a year. Second, the last time I had you come over to meet a boyfriend you put liquid Kryptonite in his drink, and then tried to cut him in half with a magic sword.”
She rolls her eyes, “Well, he survived, didn’t he?”
“Mother.” you both turn to look at Damian, poking his head from behind your hip. “What are you doing here?” He's hugging your legs, playing the part of the shy kid for all to see, but you both know better — you’ve seen him hide butter knives from the buffet table in his sleeves once, and you don’t doubt that he’d be able to do that again.
Talia purses her lips. “I fear your father may have had a bad influence on you two — all you ask is what do you want and what are you doing here, but what about a nice, good evening, Mother, we are so happy to see you again?” she scoffs, “Your father has poisoned you with his American ill-manneredness. I thought he was better than that.”
“I know you preferred the champagne, but they were taking forever to bring the new bottle out from the back, so I just got you a piña colada–” Mark stops in his tracks right behind you, drinks still in his hands, blinking at your mother like she’s a ghost come to take him back to hell. With the subtlety of an overweight hippo in a ceramic store, he leans towards your ear and whispers, “You have a sister?!”
Both you and Damian look at him like he just lost all the esteem you had in his regards — which already wasn’t much to start with. You sigh, hissing, “She’s our mother,”
Mark’s eyes widen, and she looks at Talia, then at you, then at her, then back at you. “Your father is a cradle robber?!”
Your mother raises a judging eyebrow in his way as you elbow him on the ribs. Talia does not show her years, all thanks to all those dips in the Lazarus Pit over the years — as it slows aging with use — and the entire team of dermatologists that your grandfather kidnapped just for her as soon as she turned thirty. “He’s not. She looks young, but she’s fort–”
“Not a day over thirty,” she interrupts with a tight-lipped smile.
You pucker your lips. “Whatever. Anyway, trust me, she was old enough when she had us.” Reluctantly, you pull Mark forward by his arm, “Mark, this is Talia Al Ghul — my mother. Mother, this is Mark Grayson — my… intended, as you’d say.”
Talia extends a hand, “A pleasure to finally meet you.” you slap Mark’s arm away before he can shake it, and grab your mother’s wrist to rip a skin-like sticker on her palm. “No DNA scans for you tonight, Talia,” you hiss. “You didn’t even try to hide it.”
Mark would argue that he didn’t notice, but something tells him that it’s not the right move when your brother already thinks he’s the stupidest thing that ever happened to the whole planet. Your mother shrugs. “Trying didn’t hurt. He was falling for it– it’s not my fault your friends all have very interesting biologies, but such disappointing grey matter.”
Your boyfriend raises an eyebrow, “What’s that mean?”
You deadpan, “Stop running your mouth, you’re just proving her point.”
“Our lineage is doomed,” Damian grimly mutters. You glare at him, “Says the guy who has accepted bullying from old women all night.”
“Feel free to come by the League’s headquarters whenever you want,” your mother cuts in, looking at Mark with a fake sweet smile, “we’d be happy to have you.”
“Thanks,” he replies, not totally convinced. “Um– League for what?”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she reassures him, then looks at the watch on her wrist. “Oh, would you look at that– your grandfather is waiting for me with Croc a few stores below Gotham’s streets. Are you in the mood for a nice family reunion?”
“No,” you and Damian reply immediately. She sighs, “A shame. Well, I have to go now.”
Before turning on her heel, she sends a pointed look at you. “If his lineage wasn’t what it is, I’d probably tell you that he’s not good enough for you. But,” she scrolls her shoulders, “we could always use resources such as his muscles. As long as he’s… containable.”
She disappears in the crowd of socialists soon after, and Mark is left gaping at you and Damian. “I don’t know why, but I always figured your mother was… dead, I guess.”
You side-eye him, “Never told you she was.”
“I know,” he mutters, “is she always this weird?”
“She’s not weird,” Damian corrects him, “she’s sophisticated. For the likes of you, anyway.”
You slap him on the back of his head, then turn to Mark. “She’s a terrorist.”
“She prefers highly-skilled assassin,” your brother grumbles.
You roll your eyes, “The League she was talking about? League of Assassins. The grandfather she mentioned is Ra’s al Ghul — the Demon’s Head. He started the whole operation and trained both me and Damian for a time.”
For a moment, Mark just stares at the both of you in disbelief. Then, barely containing the tone of his voice, he asks, “Your grandfather is fucking Ra’s al Ghul?”
Your grandfather isn’t really known to the grand public with his real name, but to anyone who has fought against the men of the League at least once and, mostly, to the Government, it might as well be as known as the benefits of drinking water. Innocently, you blink. “You didn’t know? I figured Cecil would have told you that.”
Frantically, he looks to where your mother disappeared, “We let a world-scale terrorist get away just like that?”
Damian scoffs in scorn. “Didn’t you hear her, dim-wit? She said they’re working with Croc. I’m sure father will handle it just fine.”
A loud BOOM! resounds from under your feet, and the shaking of the ground nearly makes you topple down; the crystal chandeliers rattle as the music stops, and everyone starts screaming. Holding both you and your brother steady, Mark eyes the latter, “He’s handling it just fine, is he?”
Refusing to let him win the argument, the boy tsks. “Mishaps happen.”
Rolling his eyes in fake annoyance, your boyfriend kisses your temple and ruffles Damian’s hair even if he protests. “Get everyone out, okay? I’ll go check in on them — make sure the city’s foundations aren’t about to collapse.”
“Try not to be too vincible while doing so,” your brother grunts out.
— three.
“I still can’t believe we’re here.”
Mark is giggling into the bed sheets like a teenage girl, his chin propped up on his palms as he sways his feet back and forth in the air while looking at you get ready. You huff a laugh out, “Mind helping me tie this bikini or should I do it all by myself?”
He jumps up before you can even finish the sentence, and immediately moves his hands to grab the loose strings of your top. His initial excitement slowly dies down when his hands fumble uselessly against the back of your neck, “Wait– I can’t figure this thing out. Why are there four strings?”
“You wrap two at the front in a bow,” you explain, still holding your hair up, “and the other around your neck. Wanna try one on?”
He finally finishes up the back bow, and uses the other untied strings as an excuse to wrap his arms around your front, chin poking your shoulder. “I’ll pass.” He plays with the purple strings for a moment just to get a better peek at your boobs right under his eyes, then finishes the second bow and affectionately rubs his cheek against yours. “It suits you so well, though. It’s like staring at the sun– if I look a little too long my eyes will burn.”
You hum, reaching for the waist bead chain you had left on the suite’s table, “Wow, looks like we have a charmer.” He pulls your back flat against his chest again and kisses the bare skin of your shoulder, nosing the hollow of your neck. “You’re aware that this is, like, the best birthday ever, right?”
“I am,” you reply, pleased, kissing the corner of his mouth. His hands rest over your belly button as he gets some more snuggles out of you, and you pat his forearm condescendingly. “Come on, tiger, you got enough cuddles last night. William and Rick are already waiting for us down at the beach.”
Getting Mark a vacation for his birthday was an idea you’d come up with after seeing how ragged he ran himself in the last few months; the only question that remained was where to take him. Then he’d brought you on a double date to meet his best friend William and his boyfriend, Rick, and the machinations to make this vacation happen began.
At first you wanted to make it simple — ask him where he wanted to go, who he wanted to go with and just book the tickets and hotel for him. Then William chimed in and said that he probably would’ve liked a surprise better, and scrapped your idea of a mountain resort for a tropical destination instead, suggesting Aruba and saying something about Mark always wanting to relax on a beach. Then he added that maybe, just to enrich the gift even more, he and Rick could’ve come too — and really, what a monster would you have been to let them pay for their own tickets when you’ve got access to all your father’s money?
(You know that William probably just had you bring him and his boyfriend to a destination they already want to see, but honestly, as long as Mark’s happy, you don’t really care.)
Mark grumbles, rubbing his forehead on your neck, “That’s the only thing I have anything to say about. Inviting William and Rick, babe? We could’ve spent all this time by ourselves. Alone. In here, or possibly in the private jacuzzi on the balcony.”
You peck his temple, “We’ll have time for that! But now your best friend is waiting for us down at the beach, and he’s begging for those scuba diving lessons we booked.”
Your boyfriend sighs. “He’s such a leech.”
Pinching his hand with no real malice, you snort. “He’s your best friend. Give him some credit.”
Later on, he’s happy to find out that you packed a pair of swimming trunks matching your bikini — at least they will make the whole beach with the lovebirds experience less dreadful. He’s been so used to being William and Rick’s third wheel that sometimes he forgets he doesn’t have to be that anymore.
Once he’s done in the bathroom, Mark comes out to the living room again, finding you sitting on the plush armchair, a sarong tied to your waist and sunglasses pulled over your hair. You look up from your phone at him, an eyebrow raised, “Can we go now?”
He’s the one to worry about the beach bags, of course, because being on vacation doesn’t mean he doesn’t have powers anymore. William whoops when he finally sees the two of you approaching hand in hand the sunbeds he already picked out this morning. “Thought you’d never get here!” he exclaims, hands over his hips as he glares at Mark settling the bags down. Then he turns to you, pointing to his best friend in an accusing manner, “Is this guy bothering you?”
“Not yet,” you assure him.
“Ha, ha, ha,” your boyfriend grits out, straightening out two towels on the sunbeds. “go on. Talk about me like I’m not here, and like it’s not thanks to me that you’re here, dude.”
You and William share a look, then he snorts and goes back to berate Mark. “Well, it’s not thanks to you. She booked the vacation.”
“Technically, this is his birthday present,” you reply.
“Technicalities, technicalities,” William waves you off. “So, are we going scuba diving or not?”
Lunch follows the one hour scuba session, and the four of you find yourselves sitting on a table of the beach bar, sunglasses pulled over your eyes, hair still damp with saltwater. William hums while sipping his drink, then clinks his glass with Mark’s. “Now, this is the kind of life you dream about! No monsters, no alien invasions — just us, the clear water and everything included.”
Rick presses his hands together as if in prayer, then bows his head ridiculously towards you. “All hail, the Waynes’ credit card,”
“Cards, Rick, cards,” you correct, amused.
“One last question– if you hadn’t booked this vacation, what would you have gotten Mark?” William asks, by now far too invested in finding out just what your money’s length goes to. You shrug. “Oh, you know, normal stuff. A car, or that one figurine of Science Dog that he insists has been retired from the market.”
Both Mark and William gasp. At the same time the latter shrieks, “He could’ve gotten a car?!” your boyfriend, bless him, screams, “I could’ve gotten the Limited Edition Groundhog Day Celebration Action Figure made exclusively for ten buyers?!”
His best friend stares at him, deadpanning, like he’s got a ghost in front of him and not the guy he grew up alongside for all these years. “Bro. You could’ve gotten a car.”
“Who cares?!” by now, Mark’s hysterical, looking at you with big puppy eyes as you sip your drink. “I’ll have to buy a car anyway, someday — but the Limited Edition Groundhog Day Celebration Action Figure made exclusively for ten buyers? That’s something I’ll never get to buy in my life.” he intertwines his hands and looks at you with all the hope a praying man holds for deity. “Can we still get it?”
Flabbergasted, William stutters. “I’m more worried about the fact that you know that figure’s name by memory than the fact you just scrapped a car for Science Dog.” Rick nods. “How is it that it’s limited edition if it already was intended for just ten buyers?”
You’d already ordered it long before getting on the plane to come here, but having Mark being so clueless about all of this is just too funny to pass up. Twirling the ice cubes in your glass with the straw, you look at him, as serious as ever. “Why would I? You’ve already got your birthday present.”
He looks positively crestfallen, and drops his forehead on your elbow like he’s begging — which, to be fair, he kinda is. “I’ll be the best boyfriend there is — please! I’ll hold your bags for you, always. I won’t complain anymore when you ask me for back massages.” he lowers his voice, making sure only you can hear. “I’ll eat you out for, like, a month straight.”
You deadpan. “You act like you don’t already do these things — aside from complaining. You do that a lot.” sighing, you hold your hand out and say the magic words. “Get me my phone.”
He squeals, scrambling for your beaded bag slung across the back of his seat, and William shakes his head. “The two of you are unbelievable.”
Mark’s already too focused on kissing every inch of your face as you scroll through your phone to respond. When you show him that the figure’s already bought and is set to arrive the day you come back from this trip, his eyes well up with tears — actual, serious tears he’s about to shed over what everyone else will just call a toy. “I could actually marry you on the spot.”
“Make sure not to sign any prenup before doing that,” William snorts.
You shush him and press a kiss over Mark’s salty, damp cheek — already stained with tears like the man he is. He takes a body shattering beating without a single peep, but a rare action figure? That’s a different story. “You’re such a nerd,” you tease, affectionately scratching his jaw with your nails. “It’s a wonder how you and Tim manage not to get along.”
The vacation is everything you’d hoped it would be. You have time to detox from Gotham’s air and take a break from Batgirl, all with the great, wonderful excuse of your boyfriend’s birthday. It also gives you a reason to wear all the bikinis you’d impulsively bought last year after sales at your usual boutique, and of course lets you stare at Mark’s physique all you want without any single remorse.
Whenever he notices your staring, he just smirks and then teases, “Wanna take a picture? It’ll last longer.”
The expanse of his back is even more enticing now that it’s tanned and shiny from his latest dive. You don’t even remember how much you spent on this trip, but you know for sure that it was money well spent. “I’ve got the real thing right in front of me,” you reply easily, shifting to lie on your stomach to tan your back. “No reason to downgrade it to a picture. Not to mention, in your case I fear that a picture would last less.”
He doesn’t reply and you’re not looking at him, so you don’t see his reaction — but judging at how he slumps in the sunbed right next to yours not a whole minute later, you’d guess he didn’t enjoy the joke. “You know how your brain inevitably makes you think sad things when you’re having fun because you can’t ever really have nice things?” he sulks.
“Go on,” you hum, used to his antics by now.
“You guys… you’re basically immortal, right? With the whole Lazarus Pit thing, I mean.” Ah. You know where this is going.
“My grandfather’s lived for more than eight-hundred years with the Pit, and he’s become a psycho. Do you want me to live a thousand years and become a psycho?”
He’s silent for a moment, thinking. “I’d rather you don’t. But… it’d be better than not having you at all. Would you get mad at me?” When you don’t respond, he specifies, “For resurrecting you, I mean.”
Softly, you sigh. “Don’t ask me that, Mark.”
He fiddles with his bathsuit’s strings. “I’m just wondering. You can’t blame me for that.”
You let a few minutes pass — you have to think about it. “Nothing in this world is given for free, beloved,” you say in the end. “I’ve been dead for… four, maybe five hours last time — before Ra’s dropped me in the Pit. And I vaguely remember dying, but I do remember Hell.”
Slowly, Mark perks up. “You’ve been to Hell, too?”
Letting out a dry laugh, you shake your head and drop your forehead on your arm. “Not on a work trip like you were. I got tortured by demons for everything I did, Mark. That was my punishment, and the worst thing is that I knew that I deserved it.”
He blinks. “Sometimes I feel like you leave out too many details from your life.”
“Some things are better not said.”
He snorts even if he clearly isn’t amused. “So. Do I have permission to resuscitate you or not? I’d never be able to go on knowing you’re down in Hell getting tortured.”
“it’s not as simple as that,” you pop open the sunscreen bottle, putting some onto your arms, “You don’t take everything and give nothing. Every time you get put into the Pit and come back, you become different. Your soul's getting more and more corrupted. Usually, a period of madness follows every use of the Pit. It’s not nice, Mark. When I came back from mine, nobody would even look at me the same anymore.”
“Better than nothing, no?” you stare at him, gaping, then ask, “Did you just hear what I said?”
Mark winces. “How many years will it take for you to become a psycho, anyway? It’s better to have you be a little weird than not have you at all.”
You scoff. “Why are we even speculating about my death?”
“Because it already happened once.”
“Yeah. By my own accord, if I remember that correctly.”
He grimaces, “Don’t say it like that.”
“It’s what happened, beloved.” a shrug, “I’ll die again, one day — hopefully by natural causes — and you’ll have to either get over it or accept that if you make me come back, I may never be the same.”
One of his hands reaches for the sunscreen bottle, taking it and pouring some into his palm. “You’d rather stay in Hell than be with me for a few more centuries?”
“I’m just saying I’d rather die than become like my grandfather.” In some hidden part of you, you still love Ra’s — because to you he wasn’t the horrible man everyone knows; he’s cherished you all your life, and growing up he was the closest thing you had to a father. You two have more things in common that you’d rather admit, and that genuinely scares you, because while to you he’s always been just grandfather — a great warrior and leader — he’s some people’s worst nightmare. Mass-murderer, eco-terrorist and all of that.
You don’t know if you’ve atoned for your sins, or if when you die you’ll go back to Hell. You can just hope all the good deeds you’ve done in the last few years, combined with Bruce insisting on regular attendances to mass despite none of you actually believing in God, will get you at least out of the torturing range down below.
Mark massages the sunscreen over your back, quiet for once. “The thought of living thousands of years and seeing everyone I love die,” he mumbles, grim, “it keeps me up at night.”
“Don’t think about what you’ll have in a thousand years,” you reply, calmly. “Think about what you have now, and what you want to do tomorrow. You’re closer to your thirties than you are to your thousands, and you’ll be for a long time.”
He’s quieter for the rest of the day, but in a soft way rather than a melancholic one — like he’s savoring the moment and not thinking about when it will end. Later that night, when your skin’s still warm from the sun and Mark’s hair is still frazzled with saltwater, you’re sitting on a booth at the same beach bar from earlier, watching William and Rick as they play whatever alcoholic game the bar had to offer.
Your head’s resting on his shoulder, pareu now tied over your chest as he traces patterns on the skin of your arm. “Want to join them?” he asks, gently nudging your temple with his chin. You shake your head, shuffling closer. “I’m fine where I am.”
Chuckling, he tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear. “Yeah, you’re right. I feel like I could stay here forever.” you take his hand in yours and play with his fingers, utterly serene. You’re always so stressed about everything usually happening in your lives that seeing you so calm soothes him, too, by default.
When the music gets a little too loud and there’s more drunk people than sober ones on the dancefloor, Mark tugs you up to stand. “C’mon, let’s take a walk.”
You hold onto his arm affectionately as you reach the shore and start strolling alongside it without a care in the world, humming to the distant music’s sound and watching the faraway lights of the resorts. “We should do this more often,” you suggest quietly.
Your boyfriend laughs. “We would if it didn’t always feel like the world crumbles every time we take some time for ourselves.”
You huff out a laugh. “You’re right. I really want to see what destroyed Gotham for the umpteenth time when we come back to our lives.”
He stops, the water reaching his soles, and takes your hands in his. He brings them to his mouth and presses soft kisses to your digits, humming, “Wouldn’t it be nice not to constantly feel the weight of the world on our backs?”
“It would,” you agree, slumping on his chest. You kiss the corner of his mouth once, twice, then laugh a little when his fingers pinch your hip, then rest there. “Although I think that’d be much easier for me to do, rather than you, Invincible.”
He noses the apple of your cheek. “We could get out of the loop for a while,” he suggests, tempting. “Dunno… I could find a way to get you to that moon outpost the GDA doesn’t use anymore. I bet we’d have fun there.”
“What about Alsimna, then?”
At the mention of your pet alligator, Mark bursts out laughing. “Sometimes I think you love that thing more than me.”
“I don’t,” you assure him, patting his chest. “But if I were to choose… let’s say it would be a tough choice.”
He scoffs, then dives for your mouth. “You’re lucky I love you despite your weird preferences.”
His hands on your waist are warm, and they caress the entire surface of your back as your lips mould over his, a relieved groan leaving him. One of your hands reaches for his nape, and you play with the short hairs there as your noses bump. The two of you depart slowly at the same time for the same reason, and sighing, he presses his forehead against yours. “What is it, dad?”
Nolan Grayson is standing above you, wearing khaki pants and a button up. In his defense, he has made his breathing particularly loud for both of your instincts to kick in and hear him come. “Hi,” he says awkwardly. “You, uh… you must be Mark’s girlfriend.”
“I am,” you reply cooly, “you’re Mr Grayson, I presume.” presume my ass. His face was all over the news a few years ago as he beat your boyfriend to a pulp.
His feet touch the ground as the two of you move to shake hands. “Ah… yes, yes. I’d figured Mark would’ve told you something about me.” His voice has an edge to it, one that says, do you know who I am and what I did? And if you do, are you scared of me?
You press your lips together. “I heard. Fortunately, I come from a family where a kill count like yours isn’t something that weird to have.”
His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. He looks over to Mark, who’s still got an arm wrapped around your waist, almost as if asking, where exactly did you find this one? “And… do I happen to know them?”
Your reply is a shrug. “My grandfather, probably. My father has never been on that side of the family business and my mother’s… not that weird.” an assassin for hire and a man who threatens the entire population over global warming are two very different levels of crazy.
“Ah. I understand.” he totally doesn’t, but he isn’t there to meet you. He moves his attention toward his son, “A kaiju’s destroying Long Island. Cecil still doesn’t want me back in the costume, but Superman’s off planet, and while Hawkman’s at it… he’s doing a real shitty job.”
Mark’s shoulders slump, and sadly, he looks over at you. “We should’ve gone for the moon when we had time for it, babe.”
You pat his back reassuringly, “Go save the world, hero. Me and the resort will still be here when you come back from it.”
He pecks your temple. “You’re a lifesaver. I’ll be back before you know it, promise.”
Nolan smiles, a little embarrassed. “So, who’s your grandfather?” he asks, like Long Island isn’t waiting for him to drag your boyfriend there. Placidly, you reply, “Ra’s al Ghul.”
Slowly, he blinks. Then, recognition hits. “Ah.”
Mark sighs. “Okay, dad– c’mon, let’s go.”
He leaps up in the air, soon followed by the man. He waves his hand at you from the sky, “Don’t cry too much, okay? I’ll be back soon!”
Raising an amused brow, you put a fist over your hip, “Mark.”
Confused, he pauses mid-air and turns. “What?”
“You’re still in your bathing suit. You might want to change.”
He looks down at his clothes — a funnily stereotypical Hawaiian, unbuttoned t-shirt and the same purple briefs matching with your bikini he put on this morning. “Oh.”
— four.
loml💞😍🌸: Hi. When are you coming over? The cookies turned out decent by the way.
Mark G: hi babe, sorry i forgot to tell you i couldn't come over :( mom and dad are on a date and i'll have to watch oliver for the night
Mark G: you could come over tho ;)))
loml💞😍🌸: Your brother will literally be there.
Mark G: who cares💔 he's a baby he'll be down in like five minutes
loml💞😍🌸: The last time you said that he cried as soon as we got out of his room.
Mark G: okay MAYBE he's a little dramatic but he loves you a lot. not as much as i do tho 👁️👅👁️
Mark G: so you coming over or nah?
“I still don’t think this is a great idea.”
“Why not? You’re a natural, babe, just look at how he’s snuggling up to you!”
You’re starting to think that Damian was right about your boyfriend being your archnemesis, because you think you just got cheated out of your dear night off, usually spent at your very comfortable, very silent apartment, for a night at the Grayson’s house playing babysitter full time. In your arms, Oliver — Mark’s very little, very purple alien baby brother — coos and reaches for the strands of your hair falling over your shoulder, chomping on them like they’re one of his toys.
You like Oliver, you really do. He reminds you of your own brother when he was little, just like all babies do, but he’s hyperactive, and Mark knows he’s not going to lie down in five minutes — hence why he abandoned him with the likes of you with the pretense of cooking dinner. “For my beautiful guest,” he had swooned, bowing down to your height with puckered lips and a spatula in his hand, waiting for a kiss. Oliver had the right inkling to promptly headbutt him in the teeth.
The cookies you had spent all afternoon making and still turned out a little burnt sit on the counter in one of Alfred’s topperwares, waiting for dinner to be finished before being tasted. You still have some doubts on whether they’re edible or not, but Mark’s survived worse than a couple of bad cookies. He’ll be fine, you’re sure.
Mark’s busy over the stove, wearing a kiss the cook apron that he insists is his father’s, and he’s cooking premade hamburgers like they’re some kind of michelin star worthy meal. Technically, he just has to cook the meat and slap it into a bun. Practically, he’s making a show out of it, cooking onions and whatnot to add into it.
Oliver is babbling something you’re not sure about, playing with the loose strings of your — Mark’s — hoodie while sitting on the counter in front of you. He looks as far from falling asleep as one can be, but you’re surprised to find yourself actually not minding it; he’s a lively kid who smothers you with wet kisses every time he sees you, and the thought of him growing up so fast actually makes you sad.
“How long is he going to stay a baby, again?” You ask Mark as he turns the burgers over the pan. He shrugs, “Dunno. He’s been a baby for a while now, but dad says that by next week he’ll probably be a toddler already.”
You pout at Oliver, and he giggles and grips your nose in his hand. “Stay a baby, Oliver, stay a baby. You don’t need to become an adult. The adult world is made of taxes and agony, and the teenage world is made of drama and mood swings, and the prepubescent world is made of pimples and mean kids. Never grow up, it’s not worth it.”
He blinks at you like he gets your train of thought, then decides to blow a raspberry in your face. You grimace half-heartedly, “See? It won’t be socially acceptable to do that to me anymore once you grow up. Stay a baby and I’ll let this slide.”
He grips your jaw and brings your face closer to his, taking a bite out of your cheek, babbling very eloquently, “Bay-bee.”
Surprised, you blink. “What was that?”
He points at you, “Bay-bee.” then turns to point at Mark, “Bee-luh-wud.”
You blink. Mark turns to stare at his brother, stunned. “I think he may be starting to spend a little too much time with us,” you muse, and that’s kinda true — he’s basically monopolised your guest room from all the times your boyfriend had to bring him around after one of his parents’ spontaneous dates. He’s now picked up on the names you use for each other, you guess.
“Bay-bee.” he repeats, slobbering all over your face. Mark gasps indignantly, “Hey, that’s my girlfriend, you heathen! Stay away!” he sends playful slaps his way, not actually hitting him, and Oliver squeals in delight, throwing himself in your arms. You giggle and give in to the fun, running away from your boyfriend as he threatens the very serious measure of tickles and cuddles. “Go, go!” the baby gurgles in your arms, sticking his tongue out at his brother behind your back.
(You often wonder just how sentient of a baby Oliver actually is. Guess you’ll find out only when he grows up, which may as well be next month.)
Soon, Mark catches up to the both of you, and you squeal as his arms circle your waist and lift both you and his brother up to drag you back in the kitchen. “My prisoners!” he bellows, with a fake deep voice. “I’m ready to fatten you two up well to be my own dinner!”
The hamburgers could be worse — the buns are a little burned from when he followed you around the house, but it’s still better than what you usually come up with over the stove. Oliver plays with his mashed potatoes on the high chair, babbling and squealing, and all of this feels almost domestic.
You’ve never had this — a normal childhood, with a little brother on the high chair with your mother trying to feed him while your father coaxed you into eating your vegetables. You and Damian instead got intense training from day one, and were more used to the taste of your own blood rather than a meal a little burnt, but made with love.
You’re happy that yours was not a normal childhood, because you really don’t want anyone else to experience it. You look at Oliver, drawing faces on his plate, and think about Damian at his age, offering you a bottle with poisoned water given to him by your mother to see if you’d fall for it. If you had to go through that so that no one else would experience it, then so be it; you just wish Damian got to be raised by your father, in a softer environment that maybe would’ve let him become an actual kid instead of a miniature sized adult.
“–ou even listening to me?”
Mark’s hand engulfing yours on top of the table startles you out of your thoughts. You remove your eyes from Oliver to look at him, blinking. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
Amused, your boyfriend sends a raised eyebrow your way. “Penny for your thoughts?”
You sigh, “Nothing,” you insist, glancing at his brother. “It’s just that he’s really cute. Reminds me of my brother.”
At first, Mark jokes, “Damian was once a baby as cute as Oliver? Impossible. I bet he was born with that frown on his face.” When you let out a small chuckle, his expression changes, like something has just clicked in his brain. He sends a side eye to Oliver, still babbling to his mashed potatoes, then looks back at you, eyes softer as his hand tightens around yours.
“You, uh… ever thought about having one?” With me, the hopeful subtext reads.
He expects you to jump out of your seat and start yelling at him — like any other sane girl your age would do — but he’s surprised when you just start moving around the french fries on your plate. This might just be the closest thing you’ve ever come to nervousness, he thinks. “I’m not sure I’d be a good mother,” you mumble, “I mean… better not be one rather than being one like mine, y’know?”
You move your hand up to take a napkin and wipe at Oliver’s face, “But then again sometimes I feel selfish, because I’d like one of my own. Is that a stupid thing? I know it probably is.”
His shoulder slump, face pulling into a sad frown. “Don’t talk about yourself like that,” he whispers, “you’re not like your mother. You’re kind and absolutely nothing like Talia. Oliver doesn’t even know how to pronounce your name and yet he’s crazy about you.”
The laugh that comes out of you is a rather bitter one. “Yeah, maybe that’s why he’s crazy about me — because he’s still not conscious enough to fully comprehend how I was raised.”
“Babe.” Mark calls out, serious. “You literally grew up in an assassin training camp. If he could understand, he’d be thrilled.” He gives you a crooked smile, “Besides, I think you’d make a great mother. You’re already one to Damian, in some way — the guy literally worships you. You do realise that you’re probably more of a mom to him than your actual one, right?”
You shrug. “Well, that’s what happens when your brother’s almost ten years younger than you and your mother is emotionally and physically unavailable.”
A few moments of silence pass, broken only by Oliver’s babbling. Then, just to ease the tension but also because you truly believe it, you say, “I think you’d make a decent father, too.”
A frown, “Decent? I’d make a spectacular father.”
You hum, “Right, right. Our hypothetical kid will have an emotionally repressed mother and a father that feels way too much.”
He tuts, “A father that takes them flying. Do you know how many points that gets you for the Dad of the Year Award? A thousand, at least.” he intertwines his fingers with yours and drags your hand up to his lips, pressing them against the back of it. “And you’re not emotionally repressed. A little unstable? Probably. But do not undermine yourself just because of how you were raised, okay? You’re smart– I know you’d be able to parent well enough.”
You can’t help a little laugh from escaping you. “If you say so, beloved… but just so you know, we’re not having a kid anytime soon.”
He pales. “God, don’t even joke about that,”
You play with Oliver on the couch while his brother cleans up in the kitchen, then pick a movie that seems PG enough for him. When Mark comes back from the kitchen, he bows down from the back of the couch to press a kiss on both your heads, then grimaces at the TV. “The Bee Movie– really, babe?”
You frown. “What’s wrong with it?”
You find out what’s wrong with The Bee Movie soon enough, but thankfully, Oliver doesn’t take long to fall asleep after dinner. He’s now cuddled up on your chest, breathing softly, and Mark caresses the soft tufts of hair on his head with a gentle hand. “I’ll go take him up to his room,” he murmurs softly, pressing a kiss on your lips, “and then I’ll come back for you,”
Now, making out with your boyfriend on his family’s couch with his little brother sleeping upstairs isn’t probably the smartest thing you could do, but believe it or not, sometimes you have urges, too. And seeing Mark being so good with a baby is, against all you’d like to enjoy instead, way too hot.
You’re giggling into each other’s mouths like teenagers, noses bumping and hands on the back of the other’s head, and at some point he moves to peck the tip of your nose. “Have I ever told you how much I love you?” he asks, his palms moving to your hips to drag you in his lap.
Settling over his thighs, you hum, smile on your lips, eyes darting to his then to his pink cheeks, the little mole on his temple, his mouth– everything your pupils can scan. “You might have mentioned it once or twice before, yes,” you muse, already preparing to dive back in. But just when you’re about to stick your tongue down his throat again, you hear a rattle from the door — someone turning the handle without any luck, as Mark had locked it as soon as you entered the house earlier.
Startled, the two of you turn to look at the front door. “Robber?” he whispers, lips still hovering over the corner of your mouth. Then you hear the jingling of keys, and you swear you’ve never moved to stand up again so fast in your entire life.
By the time Debbie Grayson opens the door, she finds the two of you suspiciously put together, sitting straight on the couch with the weird movie from earlier still playing. “Hi, mom,” Mark manages, voice strained, “I, uh… didn’t expect you to be back so soon.” His arm’s slung over your shoulders with flaunted propriety, as if to say, we weren’t absolutely about to engage in some good and nice pre-marital coitus, priest. That superspeed of his surely comes in handy when you need to look presentable again in less than ten seconds.
She sighs. “Your father got called away for an emergency — a kaiju’s trying to destroy Los Angeles, apparently.” she looks tired, and you can’t tell if it’s from the late hour or the fact that it’s probably the umpteenth time one of their dates has been interrupted by an emergency. But then she notices you, and her face lights up. “Is she who I think she is?” she asks her son– excited, maybe? You can’t really tell. Your mother didn’t look that happy to meet Mark, if not for the prospect of getting some Viltrumite DNA in the League’s labs.
A bit awkward, Mark pats your shoulder. “Oh, yeah, she is. Mom, this is my girlfriend. Babe, this is my mom.”
You get up to properly shake her hand, trying to give her a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs Grayson.”
“Oh, please,” she gushes, eyes wide and an unremovable grin on her face. “Call me Debbie. I’ve heard so much about you that I might as well know you already.”
You stutter. “Oh, um… yes, sorry.” a bit uncomfortable, you shift your weight from one foot to another. “Uh… I was just about to go.”
She waves her hand up in the air, “Nonsense! Please, feel free to stay. Would you like anything to drink?”
She quickly moves to the kitchen, dropping her purse on the couch. Mark groans, “Mom, you make it sound like I’m a horrible host who never offers anything,”
Debbie raises an eyebrow. “Well, you never offer anything to William,”
“He’s been my friend long enough that he can fend for himself!” he gets up from the couch, too, and gently lays a hand over your waist for comfort. Too busy staring at him, you don’t notice his mom reaching for your radioactive treats. “Ooh, cookies?”
Before you can yell at her not to touch them because you're pretty sure they’re more cancerogenous than most processed foods, she’s taken a bite out of one of them. Her grimace is instantaneous, but then she looks at the unfamiliar tupperware they were stored in, and probably figures that her son wouldn’t randomly start cooking sweets when he never even tried to. Chewing painfully, she looks at you, “Um… you made these?”
“I did,” you say apologetically.
Her swallow sounds like regret. “Oh, well… that was nice of you, honey. Just… make sure the oven’s set to the right temperature next time. And try to put in more sugar than salt. Other than that, they’re awesome!” as she moves to the sink — no doubt to wash her mouth with soap after the disgusting food roulette she just became a victim to — Mark puts his hand in the back pocket of your jeans, pinching the skin through the fabric
You yelp, then glare at him. He leans his head down to whisper, “I thought you said they came out decent,”
“Decent doesn’t mean good. It means passable.”
“Are you saying that you wanted to murder me with hazard cookies, and just tried to kill my mom?” he blinks, “Wait, when you said I would’ve been a decent father, did you mean that I would’ve just been okay at it?”
You shrug. “To be fair, the cookies were made for you and your stomach of iron.” you pat his chest, “As for the father thing– don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get better… sooner or later.”
Before your boyfriend can rebut anything, Debbie turns back to look at you, her eyebrows in a barely contained frown as she no doubt is still recovering from that bite she took out of the cookie. “So– um, what do you do for work?”
Sitting down for a mug of tea on the counter, you soon find out that Mark apparently forgot to tell his mother who you’re the daughter of — which is quite literally the first and sometimes only thing everyone knows about you — and that you’d been dating for a little over a year now. Apparently, he has been talking nonstop about you since much before that, and she just thought you’d been together for two years or so.
Debbie is a kind woman — funny, even. It’s weird to see someone’s mom being so normal and making tea, because the thing your mom specialized in was trying to kill you. Sipping her ginger tea, she smiles honestly, “I think I sold a house or two to associates of Wayne Enterprises. Wonderful people — I’ve never heard a bad word of Bruce Wayne from those working with him.” Another sip of her tea, and she turns a bit more nosey, “I didn’t know he was married, though.”
“Oh. Well…” you wince a little, “he and my mother are, let’s say… separated. They never had a wedding, but are actually still married.”
Curiously, Debbie raises an eyebrow, “How so?”
You shrug, “In our culture, the consensus of the woman is enough for two people to be considered married.”
The woman’s eyes widen, and she carefully sets her mug down. Then she stares at Mark, sitting beside you without a care in the world, looking as calm as ever. “Oh. That’s, uh… that’s peculiar. I– where’s your mother from, exactly?”
“Somewhere in the Mid East. When my grandfather moved to Tibet, they didn’t really have a name for the region he came from yet — probably Persia.” That actually was more or less eight hundred years ago, but you can’t really say that to poor Mrs Grayson. Her husband actually being a couple thousand years old must already be enough for her. “But don’t worry. Even if the only participating party is the woman, a ceremony is usually still needed.” sometimes. You’re not sure it’s actually needed, but she’s looking at you like you’re going to trap Mark in something, and she needs reassurance.
“It’s okay, mom,” her son assures, arm slung over your shoulder. “Those are, like, old traditions her family doesn’t follow anymore.” he knows very well that he’s lying, and he doesn’t look remorseful — not one single bit. Pointedly, he looks at you, as if to say please back me up or she’s going to freak out. “Right?”
You avoid his eyes, and unconvinced, you say, “Riiight.” Who's going to tell him that more than twenty years later after their supposed wedding, your mother still insists on the fact that she and your father are married?
Debbie takes a relieved breath. Reassured, she claps her hands as if to wake herself up from the stupor she had fallen in, “Wonderful! So, when are your parents up for dinner?”
— + one.
“Parents doesn’t mean the whole family,”
“Too bad for you that father has moved the meeting to the Manor, then, because we’re not going away.”
Tapping your foot on the pavement in irritation, you glare down at Damian. “You sure have a lot to say for someone so little.”
He growls. “Who’re you calling little? I’m the same size as you were at my age!”
Unconvinced, you rest a hand over your hip. “No. I was definitely taller.”
Now almost thirteen, Damian still has to properly meet the famous miracle called growth spurt that Bruce has been telling him about ever since he was nine and tall as a park bush. You pinch his cheek a little meanly, “Does Dami Boo Boo want his mommy? I’ll have to call a wambulance if things escalate.”
Your brother seethes. “Call mommy– let’s see how she deals with you picking on me.”
“Kids,” Talia hums from the armrest, scrolling through a photo album, “behave.”
“Look at her,” you gesture towards her, sharing a look with Damian, “more than fourty years–”
“Thirty,” she immediately corrects.
You take a deep sigh, “Thirty years in the League of Assassins and suddenly she’s here playing house in Father’s home. Where was this trad family instinct when we came to live here, Talia?!”
“For you, and for tonight, it’s mom,” she tuts, turning a page on the album. She looks like the exotic version of a typical high society housewife, somehow, green qipao and all. “Don’t you want this dinner to go well? I figured my astonishing presence was indispensable for an adequate result.”
Again, you and Damian share an unconvinced look. Then, “Who even invited you?”
She raises an eyebrow, staring at you two over her album. “I had figured Deborah Grayson did so when she asked you when your parents were available for dinner.”
Your eye twitches. “You have bugs in the Graysons’ house?”
“Don’t bother trying to remove them, or else I’ll just add more. Besides, even if I didn’t, it was your father who invited me.” she gasps at the sight of one picture, “Oh, look at how delightful the two of you look here– it’s almost like you weren’t trying to kill each other all the time!”
“I wonder whose fault is that,” you grumble before moving to see the picture. It’s one of those photos that look vintage but actually isn’t — this is just your grandfather and his obsession for old cameras. You’re standing side by side in your old training clothes — which meant black iga bakamas and white compression shirts — and while it doesn’t look like you’re trying to kill each other, it does look like you at least attempted to.
You’re both staring at the other — glaring, daring them to try to hit again. You’ve got a bloody nose while Damian, always the more unfortunate one, has a black eye and a livid cheek. The image is turned all the more funny by the fact that he can’t be older than five in it. “You brought grandfather’s albums,” your brother says, displeased.
“Actually, your grandfather brought them,” she says it like she’s announcing the weather — like your cult leader grandfather is just an old guy who likes fishing and watching football and not a world infamous eco-terrorist. “He’s down in the Cave, talking to your father.”
You and Damian share a look, and for once, you agree on one thing: nobody’s getting out of the Manor alive or whole tonight, especially not you two.
Not too long after, Ra’s himself enters the library, with Jason and Dick in tow. “We’re keeping an eye on him,” the former explains at your raised brow. For an eight-hundred-something years old demon, your grandfather looks like a weirdly normal, abnormally rich grandpa — green turtleneck, black suit trousers, the works. They’ve put in effort to look as less assassin-like as possible, it seems, because you’ve never seen your grandfather dress so normal in your entire life. Even when he’s got no battles to fight, he’s usually in his armour, either because he’s very proud of it or because he’s got no intention to have anyone ever think he could be an easy target.
You groan. “You, too, grandfather? What, did we leave Ubu back in Nanda Parbat? At this point, he had the grounds to be invited, too.”
He doesn’t even blink. “Ubu is waiting for me in a hotel downtown. I brought you a bowl of my shorbat al-adas.”
You pause, then re-evaluate. “…Okay. You can stay.” Alfred never got the recipe quite right, anyway.
Said butler, bless his soul, peeks his head through the door opening. “The Graysons ought to arrive at any moment now, if you’d care to take a seat in the dining room.”
WIth great disappointment, you find out that he must’ve been into this conspiracy, too, because the seats across the dinner table are the right number for all of you. You shake your head, exasperated. “You guys understand that Mark’s parents were supposed to meet just Bruce, right? I didn’t tell them to prepare for a whole family reunion.”
“Technically, they were prepared for me, too.” Talia huffs.
You deadpan. “I told them you weren’t coming.”
The look she sends you matches yours. “You sure have a lot of faith in me, huh?”
You could tell her for the thousandth time all the reasons why, but it’s not a good idea to fight with your mother just minutes before she’s supposed to meet your boyfriend’s parents and you want everyone to make a good impression. So you just sigh, take out your phone and text Mark.
Hey. I know this is sudden, but my mother’s here as well. Ra’s too. And all the others.
After he reads it, there’s a pause you quickly recognise as pure panic.
i thought it was going to be just us and our parents?? i know that we’re bringing oliver too but DAYUM
like do you want me to make it out alive or not
“Fool,” Damian hisses, peeking at your screen. You slap him on the side of his head and lecture, “Quiet.”
You’ll be fine. Hopefully.
A moment of silence.
Viltrumites are not allergic to Kryptonite, right? Because the al Ghuls have so much of it that they sell it to Lex Luthor. Just wondering.
Three dots appear on the screen.
dad says he’s never tasted it, but we shouldn’t have any problems with it
mom made her casserole but i’m not sure it’s going to be enough at this point
Well, someone better tell Nolan Grayson that Kryptonite isn’t for eating, but you won’t be the one to do that. Anyway, it’s good to hear.
“Not a single mention of the League,” you tell your mother and grandfather in the spare minutes you have before the Graysons come around. “I don’t want to hear anything about world domination and partial annihilation of the Earth’s population. Make a joke about the Chicago incident, and you’re out of here. Got it?”
Talia rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”
Ra’s huffs. “I should feel free to express myself however I want with your in-laws. Isn’t that what your generation keeps blabbering about these last few years? Expressing yourselves without judgment?”
“That doesn’t apply to terrorists,” Tim utters. You point to him. “What he said.”
The doorbell rings. Alfred speeds off the stairs to greet the Graysons, and you give a last nasty glare to Ra’s and Talia. “One sentence phrased badly, and you’re out of here for the rest of your lives.”
Oliver is the first one to slip through the front door, swinging past Alfred and crashing on your legs. “Hiii!” he shrieks, grinning up at you. The kid grows at an astonishing pace, going from being barely a toddler to a five-year-old in just a little over three months. You smile at him, picking him up by his armpits, “Hi, buddy, how’s it going?”
He settles over your hip, gripping the collar of your jumper as Debbie, Nolan and Mark cross the threshold, all greeted by Alfred. “I learned how to write your name yesterday. Wanna see?”
You wave at the Graysons while nodding at Oliver, “Sure, bud. How about some dinner first?”
Debbie holds up a pan. “I made my casserole.”
Alfred takes it without hesitation. “Thank you, Mrs Grayson, there was no need.”
“It’s Debbie, please,” she waves him off, “can I call you Alfred?”
The latter blinks, unfazed. “Sure.”
“I brought pastries from Paris!” Mark adds from behind his father. The glare he sends to Oliver isn’t subtle at all. “And you, little homewrecker– what did you bring?”
He seems to think about it for a while. Then the poor kid turns to you, eyes watery, stuttering, “I– I didn’t know I had to bring something…” his grip on your jumper tightens, “are you going to kick me out?”
“Of course not!” you assure him, sending a nasty glance at his brother. “Don’t worry, Oliver, Mark’s just being mean.”
Oliver, in all his purple glory, sticks his tongue out at him. “Bleeh! Rat!”
The box of French patisserie is quickly left to Alfred’s care as Mark lunges for Oliver. “You little–!”
Nolan puts an arm in front of him, blocking his attack. “No fighting,” he chastises.
Your father finally comes down the stairs, Talia following close behind. Your brothers all hide behind the railing, not actually invisible and very loud, while your grandfather just stands at the top of the steps like some conqueror to his new city. By now, it’s clear to everyone that the only one approaching this dinner with actual peaceful intentions is Alfred.
Bruce’s smile tightens when he sees Nolan — clearly, he hasn’t forgotten the footage of him in Chicago, nor will he ever be able to do that. “Bruce Wayne– pleased to meet you.”
He shakes hands with both Nolan and Debbie before doing so with Mark, all under your mother’s inquisitive stare. By looking at them, you’d think the detective was her. Oliver pokes your jaw, then whispers in your ear, “Your mom’s really pretty.”
At the same time, Talia leans in to affirm to Bruce, “That kid is purple,” like he hasn’t got eyes to see for himself. “I noticed,” he deadpans.
“Oliver takes his skin tone from his mother’s lineage,” Nolan quickly explains, “it should fade over time.”
Your mother stares at him up and down, and God, is it funny to see Omni-Man — mass-murderer, thousand-year-old Viltrumite, ex aspirant conqueror of Earth — cower the littlest bit under her gaze. She’s scary when she’s judgy, but he should’ve seen her during your upbringing. It is true that mothers always get softer after their second kid. Bruce pats her shoulder, trying to ease the tension up. “Forgive her– this is Talia. She’s, uh…”
“Mrs Wayne,” she introduces, and the only thing keeping you from slapping your face is the fact that you’re still holding Oliver in your arms. Genuinely, your father should get started on the divorce proceedings, because she cannot keep dragging this marriage thing for the rest of their lives. It’s really getting too complicated to explain to people. She doesn’t move to shake their hands, and instead continues to stare at them like they’re a really ugly painting in an art exhibit.
Uncomfortable, Mark moves to stay behind you. You cough loudly, then propose, “Why don’t we all sit down at the dinner table? The food’s already set.”
The dinner goes as bad as one would’ve expected.
It was doomed from the start, honestly, even without putting in the equation both your sets of parents’ backgrounds, when Oliver sat beside you. Then Mark sat on the other side, making any seats beside you unavailable, immediately causing Damian’s utter indignation. And rather than just voice out his complaints, he ìtook the seat on Oliver’s left and started stealing things from his plate whenever he wasn’t looking — or worse, adding vegetables to it, causing the kid’s frustration and confusion because I just finished the peas and now there’s more!
Ra’s and Nolan get weirdly along with one another — one mass-murderer to another, you guess. Bruce never quite lets them finish a conversation, probably scared of what the possible outcome would be, and even if you highly doubt that the Graysons know of his nightlife, the tension in the air never really leaves.
Your brothers taunt Mark every chance they get. Dick makes so many jokes about them sharing the same surname that at some point you lose count. Jason takes one look at him, tells him that he looks scrawny, then goes back to his potatoes. Tim impromptu quizzes him on comics you didn’t even know existed, and suddenly you discover that Science Dog’s topics are very far from the talking dog comedy you thought it was. Every once in a while, Damian glares at him with the same blazing heat of a thousand burning suns, and you catch him trying to poison his water when Mark’s off to the bathroom.
The only one who seems to be having a good time is Debbie, of course — the only one at this table without any criminal records.
She compliments Alfred on the food. Shares anecdotes about her boys to your mother, who, despite initial doubts, seems to like her just enough. She asks your father how the company’s new campaign is doing. Questions your brothers on what they do in their lives without a single ounce of judgement in her eyes.
Then Talia takes out the family album right before the dessert, and suddenly half the table’s crowded behind her with their phones out to take pictures for blackmail. Alfred snatches a photo of you at three in a war ceremonial dress so fast your mother almost doesn’t notice. Mark snaps a picture of you in a bowl cut and says that if you have a kid, their hair won’t be spared from the same suffering you both have been subjected to as children. Bruce nearly cries when a picture of you holding newborn Damian shows up.
But, hey, at least no one’s trying to kill anyone like the last time. And when Debbie takes out her phone and starts showing you pictures of Mark as a baby, butt naked and running around their yard, you think that this could be going much, much worse.
In the end, you still get out to the balcony to get a breather, and are immediately joined by Damian. He’s quiet for a few moments, then mutters, “He’s not a complete idiot, compared to the last one.”
Amused, you raise an eyebrow at him. “You mean that he didn’t even flinch whenever you put rat poison in his food?”
He shrugs. “This one has a purple brother and often shows murderous intent, but somehow, he’s still far more acceptable.”
Smirking, you nudge him a little. “Is it because his mom said you’re really cute?”
Suddenly, he’s avoiding eye contact and his face is all red. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
Later on, you say goodbye to Mark with a kiss on his cheek and a pat to his shoulder. “Good work today, soldier,” you hum, “let’s see if next time goes as well.”
He pales. “Next time?” he whispers, “I don’t know how many times more I can handle your mother asking me about my future plans for the planet while your grandfather tries to bribe me into being a part of some weird experiment.”
The Graysons leave the Manor with warm smiles and firm handshakes. You take a deep sigh when the door closes, then turn to Alfred with the most serious expression he’s ever seen. “The next family reunion better not be until my funeral.”
Meanwhile, on the ride back home, Debbie Grayson scrolls her phone as she chuckles. “Did you know there’s people out there speculating that Bruce Wayne is Batman? It’s crazy, really, the guy looks like he barely has any time for himself, let alone for a whole vigilante secret life.”
Mark and Nolan share a panicked look in the rearview mirror, then the former laughs nervously. “Yeah,” your boyfriend agrees, “how crazy would that be?”
in which, MARK GRAYSON gets hit with an aphrodisiac and runs to the only person on his mind; you.
‧₊˚✩彡
includes: mark grayson x bestfriend!reader, fem!reader, mature content (17+), tension, lowkey situationship w/ best friend labels, pwp, piv, dry humping, premature ejaculation, cumming in boxers (markus u loser lmfao), unprotected sex, dirty-talk, obsessive behavior, breeding kink, aphrodisiac, cream-pie, 4.7k words.
‧₊˚✩彡
kinktober masterlist.
YOUR PHONE was vibrating; again. harsh, singular notes echoing and buzzing through your room, stealing you from the comfort and ignorance provided by sleep. worming its way through your thick comforters, the ring-tone frayed dangerously on your last strings of patience-- finally defeating you as you sighed, deeply, reaching for your cell-phone. the only person contacting you at such an ungodly hour would be your best friend; his texts scurrying off against the digital fibres of your screen frantically, as if he was word vomiting with his finger-tips.
blinking regretfully at your screen, the harsh lighting from your phone was blinding in contrast to the familiar darkness of your room; mark's name dashed across your screen and you think vaguely, i should have never let this man's notifications by-pass do not disturb.
a series of texts, spanning just under an hour, glow tauntingly against the shadows of your face.
---
'hi i am coming back rn' - 12:56 am
'dude i hate space some weird alien thing like... spat in my face bro' - 12:58 am
'i tjink it thought i was being rude when i looked disgusted but tbf who DOES THAT?? who spits in a strangers face' - 12:58 am
'cs that dude did it AGAIN like sorry i am not familair w ur customs ya dick' - 12:59 am
'anyways i thinkn im fine im grossed out sure but i feel fine so wtv' - 1:01 am
'my finger tips r tingly......... like weirdly tingly..................' - 1:27 am
'ok so a little bit more of me is tingly now. not a fan, would not recommend.' - 1:36 am
'i feel so weird can i come over ik ur prolly asleep bu t ur bed is better than mine n i think i js need to sleep this off' - 1:40 am
'u can say no tho duh' - 1:40 am
'i take that back, sorry. you cant say no.' - 1:42 am
'im coming.' - 1:44 am
'fuck' - 1:45 am
---
another sigh ripped itself from your lungs, and your phone met the plush of a pillow as you discarded it haphazardly from your grip. mark could be a stubborn boy sometimes, eager in his actions-- often doing before thinking. rolling onto your side to get what little rest you'd acquire for the rest of the night (you and mark had never truly been able to sleep whenever someone hosted a sleep-over; giggling wildly into the lazy hours of the night, time slipped through your fingers like sand with him. easily, and as natural as remembering to breathe); a thought wiggled its way into the depths of your mind, and you smiled ever so slightly as your eyelids grew heavy.
you were sure this was just another time where mark was acting before thinking.
✩✩✩
the act of subtlety had never been mark's strong suit-- a fact you were sorely reminded of as the sound of your window being slid open screeched throughout your bedroom. the noise was jarring, loud; as if the inanimate object itself was yelling, mark is here!
gripping your window-sill with an odd sort of clumsiness and disorganization, mark crawled through your window heavily. it creaked underneath your best friend's weight, wood splintering softly in his wake-- as if this was some sort of unpracticed affair; the bulkiness of it all caused one of your eyebrows to quirk upwards as you sat up in your bed. "mark?" you questioned, rubbing your fist to your sleep-rimmed eyes in an attempt to shoo away exhaustion.
mark swallowed; he stood silently for a moment, his labored breathing the only sound reverberating through your bedroom, before he ran a hand through his hair.
(a nervous tick he had adopted from his father; odd.)
"hey," he said hoarsely, your name following the greeting lightly. the way he sounded, the way he recited your name-- it was almost as if he wanted to say more. like there was more on his mind he was unable to utter; because his mouth clamped shut into a thin line.
"are.. you hurt?" you asked eventually, because good lord, why was mark acting so odd? "you said your finger-tips were ... uh, tingly. and then you followed with the rest of you was feeling tingly too..." your voice trailed off, your unnecessary rambling a cheap effort at lightening the mood.
the boy shook his head, before peeling off his costume's cowl. "no--! no, not hurt," he reassured, faint traces of the mark you knew bleeding through the intense air of the room. "sorry." mark apologized meekly. his dimples popped ever so slightly as you watched him chew on his bottom lip-- the fat going practically raw and bloody underneath the inhumanely sharp canines mark housed.
one of your arms reached side-ways to flick on your bed-side lamp, soft yellows and oranges illuminating your bedroom. when the light reached your best friend, your eyebrows furrowed. mark's cheeks were flushed a romantic shade of red, and his brow-bone glistened underneath a sheen layer of sweat; black locks clung to his forehead, and, had you have been able to see it-- his pupils would have been blown unnaturally large. "mark," you rasped out, motioning for him to come closer, "what's wrong?"
the tips of mark's ears now started to burn the same shade as the rest of his face, his pulse spiking as he slowly approached you. your carpet crunched softly underneath the weight of his boots, and mark took post near the end of your bed. sitting, he rested his elbows on his knees, and held his pretty little head in his hands. "i.. uh, i don't know-- nothing's wrong."
"you don't look like nothing is wrong." you commented, your patience for the boy running thin as he dodged your question again.
there was silence in your room for what felt like an eternity; you stared expectantly at your best friend, and he bore holes into your wall as he stared straight ahead-- still, avoiding your question.
he sighed, suddenly, before mark's hands met the neck-line of his hero costume. using little to no strength, you watched him rip the fabric, tearing it down the center of his abdomen. the tear stopped right at his belly-button, and he began to shrug off the uniform hastily. between the ruffling of your bedsheets at his movement and the sound of fabric being torn from his body (mark was so dramatic), you had almost missed the words that fell so plainly from his lips.
almost.
"it hurts." mark had mumbled simply.
your head tilted, eyes squinting. despite having heard him perfectly fine the first time, you still questioned the meaning behind his words. "what?" you gaped, your irises tracing the faint flex of his biceps as he peeled his arms from the sleeves of his hero costume. "what hurts? i thought you said you weren't injured--"
mark cut you off, his voice uncharacteristically rasp. desperation. "i'm not injured," he countered, as if that explained everything-- why he had been so eager all of a sudden to show up to your house.
"you're really fuckin' confusing me right now, mark," you sighed, dragging your hands up and down your face. "how can--"
mark cut you off again; except, this time, it was not with words. he stood from your bed, turning to face you. taking barely two strides had left him only a few feet away from your figure; he exhaled shakily, before gesturing downwards, "it hurts."
eyes following his motion, you felt suddenly stupid for not spotting the terribly large boner mark was sporting. in his defense-- even from overtop the sturdy fabric of his costume, it looked painful. resting along his lower stomach, you watched it pulse and jump, seemingly defiant of mark. "oh." you squeaked out, feeling something bloom desperately within your core.
"i-i can go," mark offered, stuttering nervously. "i just-- it went from like, zero to a hundred so fast--! one second i was fine, the next i was tingly, and then..." his voice trailed off, and hot burning shame crawled up the back of mark's neck. "i didn't know what to do. you- you were the only thing on my mind, suddenly and--" mark cut himself off, shutting his mouth into a thin line. the next time he spoke, it barely came out as a whisper. "i don't mean to make you uncomfortable, i know we're just friends," he mumbled sweetly, "but... if you aren't completely and utterly repulsed by me at this point, then i'd really.. uh, appreciate your help."
his confession, along with the compassion that oozed from his soul-- despite the less than ideal situation he caught himself in-- caused something to flutter to life within your ribs. it practically knocked the wind from your lungs, and the ambition (greed, hunger, restlessness) in your voice had even caught you off guard. "i can help you." the sensation of your panties dampening and clinging to the outline of your cunt unmistakable-- eyes darting down to his erection, your clit pulsed. "that's what.. best friends are for anyways, right?"
at your enthusiasm, mark seemed to flush an even deeper shade of pink— his tongue darting out to wet the plump of his lips. “are- are you sure?” he questioned, fingers playing the rip in his costume. “i kinda jus’ showed up without… asking if it was okay, you don’t have to feel obligated to help me if you don’t want to,”
“mark.” you broke his rambling quietly, swinging your legs out from underneath your comforter; the cool air that circulated your bedroom raising goosebumps along the fat of your newly exposed thighs.
the boy whispered your name back, an echo of his deepest, most riveting emotions terribly clear in his voice.
“i told you,” you started, curling a finger towards him to motion him closer to you— like expected, (like a good boy), mark obeyed wordlessly. “this is what best friends are for.”
your desire to aid mark certainly— was not out of the blue.
the both of you had been inseparable since early childhood; your bond growing suffocatingly strong day by day. wherever you went, mark followed blindly under the guise of friendship; but you both knew it was something stronger. something always there, lurking underneath the mask of comfortable touches, lingering glances, and joint souls. a singular night, years ago, you and mark had been fourteen; underneath the expanse of washington’s starry sky, your lips had slotted against his in a blind fury of affection. wrapped up in teenage innocence, mark had kissed you back with the same intensity, like he’d never get the chance again. despite this, you and him agreed to remain friends; the fear of change, fear of losing this friendship outweighing the complicated, uncharted waters of love.
the refusal, however, to make anything official didn’t stop your feelings from intensifying tenfold upon your later teenage years— mark’s, too, undying. instead, they bloomed into palms that groped far more than best friends should, and petty arguments that— instead of ending in a fit of giggles— ceased with his lips crashing ceremoniously onto yours.
nevertheless, you were now facing a line the both of you had not crossed before. as mark stood in front of you, his fingers fiddling with the rip of his hero costume, there was uncertainty and blurred lines. sweat beaded at his temples, and you could tell his self-restraint was wearing thin. mostly, though, through the uncharted fogs of intimacy-- there was lust.
"sit." you whispered, patting the bed beside you. mark did as you told, swallowing thickly. the heat radiating from his body was nothing like you had felt before-- as warm as mark usually ran, this was something entirely different. you leaned towards the boy, tilting your head slightly, to begin pressing kisses to his neck.
mark's breath caught, and his chest stuttered. there was a thick, heady need slowly blooming from his core-- and your touches, as light and teasing and beginning as they were-- were not enough. despite this, his chin moved upwards, allowing you better access to the skin on his throat. mark said your name; it was low, like a warning. "you're being so sweet," he groaned lightly.
you smiled against his pulse-point, before sucking on the flushed skin. "you say that like it's a bad thing."
"normally, it's not," mark shivered. "but i- i'm not normal right now."
that got your attention-- peeling yourself from his neck, your lips were plump and lazily coated in your saliva from your kisses. "what do you mean?"
"i told you," mark glanced down at his hands in his lap, which were busy slowly grazing the edges of the outline of his cock. "that stupid alien thing got it- it's powder all over me."
"so?" you questioned, not understanding how the two things connected.
mark flushed impossibly deeper, and you really looked at him.
he was panting, chest heaving up and down. his fingers kept twitching against his throbbing dick, and-- well, he was a mere two seconds away from drooling on you. "...you think the alien thing was an aphrodisiac?"
shamefully, mark nodded-- answering your question. "i-i've never been this hard in my life!" he exasperated, thumbs dipping into the fabric of his ripped costume, the need to yank it lower becoming all-consuming.
leaning forward again, your lips ghosted mark's jaw with ease. "okay," you whispered, vibrations sending shivers down your best friend's spine, "how do you want me to help you if i'm not allowed to be sweet?"
the sound of fabric ripping echoed through-out your bedroom again, and glancing downwards, what remained of mark's costume was dangling lifelessly from his knees. "i want," mark started, voice wavering, "i want you to let me use you."
"use me?"
mark nodded. taking advantage of your position so close to him, you felt a sturdy palm grasp the side of your face; he tilted your head, big brown irises meeting your own. "this isn't what i envisioned for our first time," the boy confessed, his breath fanning across your lips erotically. "i wanted to take my time with you."
your stomach flipped and swirled at his confession, arousal pooling thickly within your cunt. "you've thought about fucking me before?" you question; despite knowing the answer is yes (only because you cannot count the times you've fucked yourself to sleep to the thought of mark-- painfully aware the feeling is mutual), you want to hear him say it.
"no-- i've thought about making love to you," mark hums, eyelashes fluttering against your cheek due to proximity. "it feels almost.. uh, disappointing i'm not going to be doing that to you right now."
mark stood, suddenly, kicking off the remainder of his costume and discarding it aimlessly on your bedroom floor. hovering over you, he leaned forward, pressing you onto your back on the mattress.
your faces came tantalizingly close again, only now mark was lingering a few inches above you. "i don't think this will be disappointing," you express, bottom lip getting caught in between your teeth as you watch mark lick his own slooowly.
"it won't," he confirms, closing the gap between the both of you. your lips touch and the contact almost feels electric-- charged with anticipation and carnality. "and i'll make it up to you another time if it is." he mutters in between kisses, lips heavy and greedy as his mouth slots against yours. "i just-- i need you so bad, baby."
you hum, too wrapped up in the feeling of his lips on yours to pull away and speak. you toss your arms around his neck, pulling mark impossibly closer to you, and you feel him grind against your clothed pussy.
he moans whorishly at the action; every bump, every ridge, every vein of his cock more sensitive than he's ever felt in his life. the sound bleeds into your mouth, and you take the chance to stick your tongue straight down his throat. mark's hands take post on either side of your head, and he leans onto his forearms to steady himself above you-- his hips unrelenting in their movements against yours.
back and forth, over and over and over again.
the only thing separating the both of you now is mark's boxers (an embarrassingly large and crude wet spot forming where the tip of his dick rests) and your pajama shorts and panties. unhappy with this, your counter-part sticks a hand down your shorts to peel them off of your legs-- pausing his rutting until the shorts are off your frame, only to continue with a renewed hunger against your panties. "fuck," mark curses.
it's odd, hearing your best-friend curse; no, scratch that-- it's arousing hearing mark grayson curse. the swear falls from his lips, born out of impetuosity. the sound shoots straight to your pussy, and you can't help but moan.
in return, you hear mark gasp; your own sound spurring an entirely different version of the boy you love to life. he continues to hump, grind, and fuck you over-top your undergarments-- his swollen tip caressing your clit deliciously with every thrusts of his hips.
the both of you aren't even kissing anymore-- just breathing heavily, too entranced in the ecstasy of dry-humping to care about being close to each other in any other way.
"o-oh fuck," mark stutters suddenly, face falling immediately into the crook of your neck.
your eyebrows knit together momentarily, before you feel mark's entire body go rigid. "are you--?"
he nods, and a moan rips itself from his throat, almost as confirmation to what you suspected. it isn't long before the damp spot on his boxers becomes soaked-- his cum seeping through at an alarming rate. it falls in globs onto your panties, and in any other situation-- you'd be laughing.
but a good fifteen seconds have passed and-- mark is still cumming. his cock twitches underneath his underwear and he still, impossibly so, is leaking like a faucet. the worst part of it though, you realize, is that his dick is still painfully hard-- mark's orgasm having little to no aid on his arousal.
when he finally peels himself from the privacy of your neck, watery brown eyes meet yours. he opens his mouth, and you think the boy is going to apologize-- because that is a very mark grayson thing to do-- but all he asks is: "can you take me without prep?"
having caught you off-guard, you falter momentarily.
mark swallows, sucks his teeth, and then speaks again-- not waiting for you to answer his proposed question. "actually, i don't really care," he muses, his palms going to rest on your waist, "you will."
"mark--" you begin, watching him shrug off his ruined boxers easily. they fall to the floor, and you feel panic wash over you; to say mark is well-endowed would be an understatement. his cock glistens underneath the lighting from your bed-side lamp, and no amount of ambient lighting makes it look any less daunting than it is. it's not the width that's the issue-- it's the length. "holy shit, no--! i'll need something--" you try.
mark cuts you off by flipping you onto your side and pushing you further onto the bed. crawling to you, he settles in between your legs, straddling one of your thighs. the other he's got hoisted up on his shoulder by your ankle. "shh," he hushes, pressing a chaste kiss to your calf by turning his head, before using a finger to hook into your panties and pull them to the side. mark hisses, watching your cunt practically sparkle with slick. "look at how wet you are-- it'll be good, m'promise," he hums, aligning himself with your entrance.
the burn of his cock stretching you out follows not too long after his reassurances-- pain erupting from your cunt in a delightful way. mark falters, and you can see some of the boy you love resurface in this pussy-drunk, aphrodisiac infected version of mark grayson. "i know, i'm sorry," he coos. it's useless though-- as mark continues to push into you, inch by inch. "it'll feel good soon, baby, just-- haah-- let me get it in all the way."
when he bottoms out, it almost feels like mark is in your lungs. he's deeper than you thought was possible, and the way his face scrunches up suggests that he, too, feels euphoric.
without warning, his hips start to move-- his cock gliding in and out of your weeping cunt with ease. you cry out, your own hips rocking to both somehow meet his pace and thrash away from it. "ooh shit mark," you gasp, head lolling to the side.
mark only huffs in response, continuing to rock in and out of you desperately. "god-- needed this pussy s'bad," he groaned, tilting his head again to connect with your lower leg. you feel his lips begin to litter open-mouthed kisses to your ankle, the tip of his cock nudging your g-spot repeatedly.
there isn't much you can do back, in such a crude position, but you try to match your best friend's pace regardless. without thought, you shove a hand underneath your tank-top-- fingers instantly connecting to your stiffened nipples to roll them back and forth. the added stimulation has your back arching, and mark moans at the sight.
"that's right," he encourages between breathy moans, hips bucking wildly against your body-- the sound of your thigh meeting his v-line creating obscene noises that reverberate through your bedroom. "feels s'good, doesn't it? g-god, you're all i've been t-thinking about since that stupid shit got into my s-system," mark whines, bottoming out inside you once again, only to push his hips deeper-- grinding and reaching places inside your pussy you didn't even know existed. "like, all at once; it was just you: your face, y-your scent, your-- fuck!-- your perfect tits n' cunt,"
mark's mindless babbling only causes your pussy to clench around his fat cock harder-- squelching and pulsating pornographically. "y-yeah?" you manage to ask, eyes rolling into the back of your skull as he begins to thrust again.
"yeah." mark confirms this with zero hesitation, sweat beginning to drip down his brow-bone and onto the bridge of his nose as he fucks you deeper. "all i could think about while fuckin' cecil was rambling on and on about shit i- i don't even care about," he groaned, head tilting backwards in pure bliss. "'c'mon invincible, didn't you get the reports on the possible foreign allyship colony in-- no, you old fuck, i don't care about that--!" mark's mockery of his boss causes you to laugh-- although it's cut short when the boy impales you on his dick again. "in fact, the only thing i-i've cared about in the past--ohh-- hour is filling my best friend up with my cum."
that causes your eyes to shoot open, and you can't conceal your shock. "w-what?" you sputter, although the way your cunt strangles mark's cock is evidence that you're not as opposed to that idea as you may seem.
"i- i can't help it, i need it," mark whines, his dick throbbing against your walls. "needed you to be wrapped around my cock, n' you let me have that," he begins, "n' now i need to stuff this pretty pussy with my cum so you'll be leakin' me for days." every thrust of his hips now is pointed-- purposeful.
your jaw goes slack, and against your better judgement, you don't argue with him; in fact, you're nodding wordlessly along to his chatter, cunt aching now with the need to be filled. your moans fill your room harmoniously with mark's.
"shiiit," mark groans, brows furrowing, before suddenly pulling out of you. you whine at the loss of him, immediately missing being full, before you feel the boy yank you towards the head of your bed. naturally, you roll onto your back from your side.
mark grabs the leg of yours he had been straddling, bringing it to his second shoulder so now both of your legs dangle near his head. leaning forward, he grasps onto your bed-frame, while aligning himself up with you again.
your back arches violently off of the pillows as mark fucks into you again, this time, not giving you time to adjust to his size. "fuck," he curses, eyes rolling into the back of his skull, "i d-don't know how i didn't immediately bend you over the second i got into your room-- shiit--! i needed this so bad,"
"too busy being nice." you groan softly, and through squinted eyes, you can see the corner of mark's lips tilt upwards.
his grip tightens on your headboard, knuckles going white at the intensity in which he's grasped onto it with. "fuuuck, it doesn't matter now, though, huh?" you shake your head, moaning desperately, and mark grins. "that's right, pretty girl, it- it doesn't. all it means is-- is that i've gotta' make up for lost time."
thrust after thrust, you suddenly feel a hot coil in your stomach begin to form. "mark," you gasp out, fingers tangling themselves in the sheets of your bed as your orgasm approaches quickly.
"oh," mark cries out, terribly in tune with your body as his own hips begin to twitch-- the loss of rhythm in his thrusts apparent as he chases his own high. "wan' you to cum all over this cock, baby," he whispers, fingers digging into your headboard. "and- and i'm going to-- haaah-- fill this cunt up with my cum, breed this sweet fuckin' pussy,"
at his words, and the idea of being filled to the brim with your best friend flooding your mind-- your cunt begins to spasm uncontrollably. "i- i'm cumming," you sob, back arching and hips twisting away (unsuccessfully) from mark's incessant thrusting.
"ooh, fuck--! yes, yesyesyes, cum all over me, that's r-right sweetheart, shit," mark follows suit not long after-- his cock pulsing and spilling his seed into your pussy at an alarming rate. he's groaning, swearing, gasping at the sensation of your cunt greedily sucking up his cum, and he rides out his high by fucking it deeper into you. "fuck-- can't waste any of this cum, right? if- if you wanna be bred, you have to take all of it," mark rambles, hips rocking into yours.
your legs tingle from where they rest on mark's shoulders-- the sensation almost enough to distract you from the heavy weight that still rests snuggly in your cunt.
almost.
through thick lashes, you glance downwards at where you and mark are still connected; although he's catching his breath, you feel mark's cock twitch to life within you again. "mark," you warn hoarsely, voice destroyed from being fucked.
mark swallows, a guilty sort of look painted across his expression. "m'sorry," he apologizes, before he retracts his cock from your cunt-- only to slam it back into you again.
you gasp at the action, toes curling and hips thrashing. "i- i can't--" you try, but mark interrupts you.
"i know," he coos, still thrusting in and out of you now, his pace quickening rapidly. "but- but i jus' need to cum again," mark argues, face scrunching at the sensation of your pussy gripping onto him-- your body's way of saying you need him to stay inside of you without words. "just one more time, okay? m-make sure-- oh fuck-- make sure this cunt is stuffed to the brim."
you nod wordlessly, chin tilting backwards as delirium washes over your body-- far too cock-drunk to tell mark you know he's lying; to tell him you know he won't be able to stop cumming inside of you, spilling into your most sacred part, bind himself to you. to tell him you know the aphrodisiac won't wear off for another few hours, that this is far better than him taking it slow with you, that you wouldn't want to be anywhere but underneath him for the rest of your life.
all you say, instead, is through gritted teeth-- as he bottoms out again, harshly, punishing your g-spot. "t-that's okay," you slur, nails dragging down mark's lower stomach, "this is what best friends are for."
PLUVOiA 25’ ® - masterlist
loren's thots: this was more plot than porn im sorry </3 it lowk feels too intimate for kinktober too like damn...... idk i think some of the appeal is the tension between reader and mark but idk u tell me. in any case i hv other mark works if this one doesnt tickle ur fancy, but i hope it does!! it tickles mine tho i lowk need this man to knock me tf up!
Imagine meeting modern au aerion on love island LMAOAOAOAOO
Oh my god this is the best request everrrr! Wasn’t planning on watching the new season because I can never watch on time and coworkers always spoil it for me, but now I might have to! Here’s my thoughts:
First of all, the chances of Aerion even getting on the show are low. As soon as his casting gets announced, his brothers, ex-girlfriends, and probably even his father would be contacting TMZ with problematic videos of him in hopes that he gets removed
Aerion ONLY wears red or black swim trunks with the Targaryen house crest on them. Some older members of his family are upset that he would disgrace their house with an appearance on such a scandalous dating show, but he gives zero fucks.
In the first coupling up ceremony, Aerion would absolutely be first pick if the ladies had the choice during that season. His family name, perfect body, and nonchalant attitude would make him seem so mysterious
He would absolutely be the main villain of the season. In fact, that would be his game plan from the get-go. If there was a female villain, I could see him not liking being paired with her because she takes the attention away from him.
You enter as a Bombshell in week 4, and Aerion is immediately so down bad. He’s sick of all the other Islander’s bullshit. You chose to pair up with someone else initially, but he ensures he is paired with you by constantly talking about you, allowing the camera to catch him staring in your direction, and talking shit about the man you’ve paired up with.
During a kissing challenge, Aerion causes drama by refusing to complete it with his partner and insisting on you. The kiss goes on much longer than needed, his tongue prodding at your mouth and teeth biting down on your bottom lip as he pulls your head closer to his and pushes his knee in between your legs.
The viewers are so enticed by this, that they vote to pair the two of you up, whilst eliminating your previous partner.
The two of you get sent to the Hideaway, and things get steamy quick. So much so that the majority of the footage cannot be shown, but viewers take note of the hickeys scattered across your neck and collarbones when you leave the next morning.
During Casa Amor week, the producers keep trying to pair Aerion with a new girl, but he makes it clear that he isn’t interested. In the ladies Villa, you are paired up with a charming new suitor who the viewers begin to ship you with, but this doesn’t last long
Aerion bribes an assistant producer to use his phone, then sends out inflammatory tweets about your new bae, which go insanely viral. Surely enough, he is voted out and Aerion has you all to himself again.
The two of you are once again solidified as fan-favorites, and the envelopes handed to you during the final episode. Aerion gets the grand prize, you the blank card. He passes his envelope to you, loudly stating that he doesn’t need money from this “stupid TV show”.
He got what he was really after, a pretty girl on his arm and public attention. The press goes insane once they realize that the two of you do in fact stay together after the show, and a large diamond ring appears on your finger less than three months after filming ends
(Daeron watched every single episode, originally with the intention to vote Aerion out every single week. But he slowly starts to root for the two of you after the Hideaway.)
Slow Lazy Mornings with your Beloved Dragon Husband
Aerion Targaryen x Reader -
!Warnings! 18+ Only, Aerion (obviously), mentions of sex, breeding kink??, like one curse word, fluffy themes
A/N: Hi All! I have been craving to write more ever since my last post and this little snippet just popped into my head! Its definitely wayyy lighter than the last one! Let me know what you all think, hope you enjoy <3
💞 You wake up slowly as the early morning sun shined through your chamber window. His strong lean arms are wrapped tightly around your waist as you have one hand buried in his platinum blonde locks and the other gripped his shoulder tightly. One of your legs was slung around his hip bone trapping him in, not that he planned on leaving this sweet bliss.
💞 He absolutely insists that you both sleep facing one another, You could fall off the bed…..I have to make sure you're safe is his number one excuse but we all know he just loves to press his mouth and nose right on your neck and between your breasts and lightly suck, almost like a he’s using a pacifier. You never minded or cared, you felt special knowing your adoring husband felt comfortable enough around you to sleep peacefully in your arms.
💞 Aerion growing up never felt he had received the sort of love, care and affection he received from you, his sweet, kind and loving wife, hence why he grips onto you tightly once he drifts off into an endless sleep.
💞 You slowly start to stroke his hair, making him moan almost immediately at the movement. His grip then tightens even more than it did before.
“Aerion, if you squeeze me any harder you might just kill me.’ you joke, your chest lightly moving in a chuckle, makes his head bob a little.
Aerion forever one for the dramatics always replies “Mmmhm..don’t say things like that my pretty wife, you know I couldn't live with myself if anything were to happen to you…especially if I was the cause” his voice was muffled with how far in your cleavage he was, you were shocked he was even still able to breathe…
💞 Your bodies have played this senario millions of times that they were practically on autopilot, his lips soon find yours, hot, wet and full of desire. Aerion had always been a messy kisser, teeth, tongue, lips, spit, he put it all to very good use.
💞 Aerion pulls away slowly from you, his tired eyes meeting yours for the very first time, lips puffy and red, they look oh soo extra kissable in this moment.
“Our day is going too be filled with tons of fucking my dear.” he said bluntly.
Your cheeks turn bright red, sending tingles straight between your thighs. Even though his bluntness shouldn't come to a surprise to you at this point, it's the context of the words that will always continue to make you bashful.
“I will spill my seed into your womb repeatedly until you give me a son, an heir” his gaze turned dark as he stared into your soul, he moved so his whole body was on top of yours, settling right between the heat of your legs. “A dragon reborn.” his voice rumbled so low you almost didn't catch it. His fat tip pressing at your tight wet hole.
Breathlessly you reply with the exact words you know will set him off “Fill me up my beautiful dragon” you flash him your best doe eyes “I can take it.”
💞 By the time the morning is over, you and Aerion are spent and exhausted from a session of “dragon making” as your husband sometimes likes to put it.
💞 He is shockingly always extra gentle with you during aftercare, My lady wife needs her body taken care of and nourished if she is carrying my offspring. A dragon always cares for it’s own. Those words always continue to sound foreign every time they reach your ears.
💞 He takes his sweet time lathering you in the finest of soaps and oils while you share a bath.
💞 Demands the servants bring you a well balanced meal to start the day. Most of the food consisting all your favorites that he would take extra special note of over the fortnight you have been wed.
💞Although he may never formally say the words he so desperately wants to shout at the top of his lungs “I have become absolutely mad in love with with you, I do not wish to part from you from this day fourth” his actions definitely speak louder than words, and you were happy to live every moment of it as long as you were with him. Your dragon.
Summary: A young lady resents her unwanted betrothal, and attempts to flee the Red Keep. Unluckily for her, even the most gallant of knights does not wish to aid her escape. (Inspired by Queen Charlotte.)
The Godswood Escape
A Walk in the Godswood
The Great Yard
The Great Sept of Baelor
Maegor’s Holdfast
The Library
The Sworn Sword (coming 7 June)
TBD
TBD
…?
I cross-post all my work on AO3 as well!
If you would like to be tagged, please let me know! You can leave a comment here or under one of the chapters, or send me an ask or DM.
Yandere Akotsk! Men when Reader already has a child.
Summary: How do they act when their wife already has a child from her previous marriage?
Pairing: Dark! Aerion Targaryen x Wife Reader | Dark! Valarr Targaryen x Wife Reader | Dark! Daeron Targaryen x Wife Reader.
Warning: dark content, sexual content, death of the child (Aerion), depression, conspiracy and death, psychological abuse, child neglect (Daeron), infidelity, violence, etc.
A/N: Hello everyone! I'M BACK!!; I honestly don't know what I did with Valarr's part (for some reason I have almost no ideas for him). I've had this in drafts since Akotsk came out, but I never finished it because I've been having a lot of health problems lately, although I'm feeling better now. Anyway, I hope you like it!
NOT CORRECTED
ASOIAF MASTERLIST
Aerion Targaryen
When you married Aerion, you had already been a widow for two years and had a three-year-old child to care for. You still hadn't fully recovered from the death of your first husband; it was an open wound in your heart. You had truly loved your husband and married him for love, but your father considered your mourning excessive. You were still a young and beautiful woman; your womb could still bear more children. He had called your mourning a "waste" and a "dispossession of time."
That's why, when you caught Aerion's attention and he asked for your hand in marriage, your father didn't hesitate to arrange a betrothal. It wasn't long before you were married. Aerion was a difficult husband... nothing like your first husband. He demanded your time and constant attention, becoming enraged when you paid attention to anyone other than him. No one was safe from his anger, not even your son. He seemed to feel a particular disdain for your young son, making it clear more than once that he disliked his presence. He even used to say that it would be best to send the child to live with your family so he wouldn't "get in the way."
Aerion flew into a rage when you rejected his idea, causing him to yank hard at your hair and squeeze his free hand against your throat. You simply told him, "He's a child and needs his mother close." He hissed at you disdainfully, very close to your face, "That child is no longer your priority. Now you must take care of me and my future children."
Aerion had taken the idea of getting you pregnant very seriously. There wasn't a night he didn't force you to share his bed, even when you were exhausted and your femininity ached. He simply wouldn't give you a break. You couldn't spend time with your little one because Aerion wouldn't allow it; he had sent wet nurses to care for him. All to keep him away from you. The truth was that Aerion hated the child and would rather have him dead than have him near you. At night, he often thought that if he had a dragon, he could have it devour your annoying child.
Although years passed and your son was able to live with you at the court, you didn't see him often. Aerion demanded that you give all your attention to the children you had with him. Your son had grown into a handsome and charming young adult, perhaps a little reserved. It devastated you when you learned that he had been accidentally killed while at the training camp. You simply couldn't believe it; you were deeply hurt. Anyone would think that a husband would comfort his wife in such a situation, but Aerion wasn't that kind of husband.
He simply looked at you with disdain and disgust as you sobbed in your chambers, dressed head to toe in black, sitting at the foot of the bed with your hands covering your face and clutching the doublet your son used to wear. Aerion cleared his throat, approaching you and without hesitation grabbing the cloth and roughly pulling it from your hands. You gasped and looked at him with tearful eyes. Before you could say anything, he firmly gripped your jaw, digging his fingers into your cheeks. He spoke to you reproachfully and demandingly.
“Enough. Stop embarrassing me. Everyone talks about how depressed you are. What does one dead child matter? Focus on the living children you have, especially the one inside you now.”
Valarr Targaryen
Valarr had known you since you were both children. Your father worked at court and later on the council, so you spent a lot of time with the princes, especially Valarr, since he always sought you out whenever he had free time. He had been in love with you throughout your childhood and adolescence, so he didn't take it well when you married someone else, although he accepted it. You were happy, and so he was happy, even though he wanted to kill your husband.
When your husband died of a fever less than a year after you married, leaving you with a large pregnant belly and a broken heart, Valarr didn't hesitate to become your rock. He took care of you and ensured you continued living in the Red Keep with him, under his almost controlling care.
Valarr was there for you when you were sad, he was there when your baby kicked for the first time, he was there when your water broke, and he was there for you during childbirth. Everything was meticulously planned to make you feel safe and protected, wanting you to feel indebted to him so that when he asked you to marry him, you wouldn't be able to refuse.
When he married you, your son was just a baby, so he didn't hesitate to raise him as his own. He was a constant father figure in the little boy's life, and even after his own children were born, he never abandoned your son. He cherished the child, though he preferred the power that having the boy's affection gave him over you. When you were upset with him because of his controlling attitude, he always used your son as a weapon to keep you under his control.
That always worked. You thought he acted that way only because he was trying to protect you and your child. You thought that with time he would calm down, but that didn't happen. When you became pregnant, everything worsened; he was even more controlling, not even letting you leave your chambers unless he was with you. You felt like all the servants were watching you; you felt cornered and suffocated.
One day, while your husband was in a council meeting, you decided to send your servants to the kitchen to prepare some delicacies for yourself. When you were sure you were alone, you took your child in your arms and slipped out into the garden. It was the best ten minutes of your life: the scent of the flowers, the sun, the birds singing... without anyone bothering you.
It was a brilliant plan. You slipped back into your chambers unnoticed; no one knew you were gone, and you had a few seconds to yourself. You thought it would all end there, a harmless little rebellion that would become your little secret... but you hadn't counted on your husband having taught your son very well. The little one revealed everything to Valarr.
“Father! Mother and I went to the gardens... just her, me, and the baby, it was great!”
You tensed at your son's excited squeal. Valarr held the child in his arms, his shoulders stiffening. He gave you an icy look that made you swallow hard, but what frightened you most were his words and the seriousness with which he spoke them.
“Is that so...? That was dangerous for you and the children... but don't worry, my dear, I'll make sure that from now on you're safe in our quarters throughout your pregnancy and even after... who knows?”
Daeron Targaryen
Your marriage to Daeron was arranged between his father and yours, so at first, he didn't care much about you. You were a little older than him and quite attractive; he wouldn't deny it. As far as he knew, you had been a widow for some time and had a young daughter of six. Your first marriage was also arranged when you were very young; it wasn't a happy or loving one.
So it didn't surprise him that you were so quiet and reserved. During the first few months of marriage, he ignored you, only spending time with you occasionally to fulfill his marital duty. He continued with his normal routine of getting drunk, going to brothels, and sleeping with any woman who crossed his path.
That was until Daeron fell ill. As his wife, you took care of him and spent sleepless nights with him. This awakened strong feelings in Daeron; your touch relaxed him, made him feel appreciated and loved. Before he knew it, he was obsessed with you. Even after he recovered, he would feign illness from time to time just to receive your attention.
Everyone seemed to whisper about the prince's sudden change. He was still a drunk, but he no longer frequented brothels or slept with the maids. Instead, he was with you and your daughter all the time, though he was clearly uncomfortable around the child.
Daeron ignored your daughter. He wasn't cruel or anything like that (at least he didn't think he was). He simply didn't want to be near her because he wasn't her father, and that gave him an uncomfortable feeling. He didn't like the idea of you having a child with another man. When you became pregnant, your daughter started getting jealous. The little girl clearly didn't want you to stop spoiling and caring for her.
Daeron noticed the girl's attitude, which made him paranoid and worried that she might harm the baby. He'd also had dreams and visions where he was sure he saw your daughter in the crib of his unborn child, and when he approached, he saw the baby dead. He began to subtly manipulate you, suggesting that perhaps the best thing would be for the girl to go to her father's house or even to your house so that you could take care of her and raise her. Although you initially refused, you eventually agreed due to your husband's pleading pleas.
Shortly after your daughter left, Daeron seemed more relaxed and at ease, still following you everywhere, as always. You exchanged letters frequently until, gradually, over the years, the letters stopped arriving, which worried you. Your husband comforted you, unaware that he was the one intercepting and burning the letters your daughter sent you.
Daeron hoped you would forget your former daughter. Now you have a daughter with him, a new marriage, a new family. You, Vaella, and he were the perfect family. He didn't want anyone to destroy the harmony. He hoped your daughter would marry and never see you again. He didn't hate her; he simply wished she didn't exist. He comforts you when he sees you sadly gazing out the window. He comes closer and hugs you, placing kisses on your cheek.
“Relax, dear, I'm sure she's very busy. After all, she's a young lady now... she must have many responsibilities. Come, darling, let's go see our little Vaella.”
In which the reader is Maekar’s daughter and married to Daeron (look at their targs, okay), but the reader and Valarr are in love with each other.
Valarr x reader, Daeron x reader, maybe Valarr x Reader x Daeron
(incest, nothing else, maybe smut in later chapters)
Call me Kiera of Tyrosh, the way I’d fold for these men.
Okay, enjoyed, also ask are open ❀
Like 1.5k
[part 2]
────── ❀ ──────
Daeron was missing, of course, he was. You don’t know what your father was thinking, allowing him to go off with Egg. Daeron would be fine; he always was. Though you were worried about Aegon and the trouble he was probably getting himself into at the moment.
The bumpy carriage ride made your stomach turn. You focused only on deep breaths so as not to throw up. Your lady-in-waiting tried to help by fanning you, but the only thing that you thought would help was finally getting out.
Your discomfort amused Aerion. You only wished you had something to throw at him or at his horse to knock the smirk off his face.
“I will strangle you in your sleep if you don’t stop talking.” You told him and closed the window curtain.
He didn’t acknowledge your words as he rode off ahead of you. Thankfully, your prayers are soon answered as the carriage stops and the door opens for you. The ground beneath your feet settles your stomach. The chatter of the traveling party fills your ears.
You take in the Ashford Castle unimpressed, and you find your brother to kick the back of his ankle, your lady-in-waiting following behind you, gathering your dress in her hands, trying to keep it clean.
Aerion sneers at a rather tall man. As you find him, you pretend to trip as you kick the back of his leg. He stares you down, both of you daring each other to say something else. Of all your siblings, only you and Rhae could put him in his place.
You watch his face, and all the words you're sure he wishes he could say are painted clearly on it. He glares at you as he walks away to find and bother Valarr.
You look at the tall man, “Don’t listen to him, his words are normally cruel,” and you leave him.
You found your brother in the sea of people, exactly where you expected him to be, talking to Valarr.
Valarr greeted you with a smile and a kiss to your cheek, “cousin.”
“Valarr.”
“Father asked for you,” Aerion told you with an annoying smirk on his face, before you could join their conversation.
────────── ❀ ──────────
You wandered the halls of Ashford looking for whatever room your father was in. You found him with Bealor and the tall man from earlier. A hedge knight, you learned from the conversation they were having.
You passed him and stood beside your father, who slouched in his chair. You waited until they finished whatever they were talking about before greeting your father and uncle.
You waved to the hedge knight as he left, and watched his cheeks turn a rosy color.
“He's a fucking hedge knight.” Your father scuffed ed at you.
You nodded, acknowledging the fact, “but he's a tall, somewhat handsome hedge knight,” you countered.
“And you have a husband.”
That hadn’t stopped you and Valarr from finding comfort in one another, nor your husband Daeron from burying himself in whores. There were worse things than your eyes wandering over a hedge knight. He looked up at you, and you spoke first, “Aerion said you wanted to see me.”
“I did not.”
“Well, how unfortunate that I am here and not enjoying the festivities then.”
“Do you know where your husband would be?” Maekar asked.
A laugh slipped out of your lips before you could stop yourself. The answer was the same as it always was, some bar, “drinking, probably whoring, somewhere.”
Your father had thought that marrying you to one another would stop Daeron from his nightly activities, that you were meant to fix him, as if your poor brother could be fixed. You’d have to stop his dreams to do that. A few times, the two of you had shared a bed, and he told you about them. He had warned you about your own future a few times. You’d had a few dreams yourself, seen things that couldn’t be true, like a great black dragon burning down King's Landing, but the dragons were dead, which you told your husband each time he spoke of seeing them.
We are the blood of the dragon, though, he’d tell you each and every time, before he fell asleep on your chest. Which was the same thing Valarr told you at both of your weddings.
What good was dragon blood when they were all dead?
Maekar stood up and left the room, muttering about your brother’s being missing and how if they weren’t here by tomorrow, he’d find them himself.
Baelor looked at you still in his seat, “Are you feeling alright?”
You nodded your head, “Yes, why?”
“You look pale,” He told you. You always assumed that Baelor knew about Valarr and yourself; he always had a look in his eye when the two of you spoke to one another. You wondered if he worried about another Blackfyre rebellion, caused by his own son and niece. But if he did know, he never said anything.
“The ride was uncomfortable. I just need to rest.” You told him and curtsied before you left the room.
────────── ❀ ──────────
You always liked watching tourneys and jousts, something about watching men knock each other off their horses filled you with delight. You liked watching Valarr and cheering for him; it was one of the only times you were allowed to claim him in public. Daeron could be good if he tried, but he rarely tried.
You sat beside Aerion, clapping for all the opponents. The laughing storm was as great as the rumors claimed. Your father had considered him for your husband, but something changed his mind. Maybe it was the laughing storms' own whoring, but what did that matter if Daeron did the same? He wouldn’t have been a bad husband, no worse than your brother was.
“I will fight for you, tomorrow, sister,” Aerion told you as he leaned back into his chair. You knew Aerion was jealous that Maekar had married you to Daeron instead of himself. Aerion had wanted a dragon bride and to have dragon children. The thought made you roll your eyes. That was the only thing you were grateful for in your marriage. Aerion would not be a good husband, not when he lived in delusion.
“You need not do that, brother.” You told him, “You must fight for Lady Ashford, it is her nameday, I wish for her to be named queen of love and beauty.”
“But she is not.”
You only glared at him, “Wait to fight for me on my name day.” It was easier not to fight with Aerion, even just for the fact that you did not wish for your father to give you a lecture. He was already in a bad mood because of Daeron and Egg being missing.
Aerion only turned back to the fighting in front of you. You watched as Valarr unhorsed the Hightower.
────────── ❀ ──────────
You found Valarr in his tent after you sent his servant away and helped him out of his armor.
“I heard your husband is missing.”
“And I was told your wife is a day behind us.” You countered. You had always wondered why the gods had been cruel enough to make you have feelings for someone that you could never fully be with, except in stolen moments like this.
You tried not to think about his poor wife too much, because if you did, you would leave, you’d stop. Sometimes you wished your father had married you to the Baratheon because at least that way you’d have space between you and Valarr, stopping this.
He kissed you as you untied one side of his chest piece, “Lucky us.”
All those thoughts left you when he said that, because yes, you were lucky to have stolen moments. You smiled as his hands enveloped your hair and your arms wrapped around his neck.
You stopped the kiss, and he bit your lips to taste you again, greedily. “I’m worried.” You confessed to him on hand on his chest and as his own hand played with your hair.
“Your father will find your brother’s, I’m sure they are fine.”
You shook your head, “Not about that.”
He cupped your face and made you look up into his eyes, “Then about what?”
You had dreaded the idea, but you had seen it in a dream. Dearon had seen it as well, and his dreams came true
“I‘m with child.” You told him. You were more sure it was his than Daeron’s.
( modern au!post accident. memory loss ，but he's finding his way back ，even if he had to take a different path. reader and baelor are around the same age ，plus valarr and matarys <3 )
After a devastating accident leaves Baelor Targaryen in a six-week coma, he awakens to discover that the last twenty years of his life have vanished from memory. Struggling to reconcile the man he remembers with the husband, father, and leader everyone insists he became, Baelor is forced to navigate a world that moved forward without him. As his devoted wife quietly guides him through recovery, and his family learns to love him without demanding he remember them, Baelor begins piecing together the life he lost—not through memories, but through the people who never stopped waiting for him.
Word Count: 9.6k
[Chapter 1/?]
When consciousness finally returned, it did so reluctantly.
The first thing Baelor became aware of was sound. A steady electronic rhythm pulsed somewhere nearby, its measured cadence cutting through the darkness that still clung stubbornly to his mind. Beneath it lingered quieter noises—the soft hum of air conditioning, the distant squeak of wheels crossing polished floors, the muted murmur of voices beyond a closed door. The sounds reached him long before understanding did, drifting through the fog of unconsciousness until they gradually pulled him toward wakefulness.
For a long time, he remained suspended between sleep and awareness. Thought itself felt heavy, as though his mind were struggling through deep water. His body seemed impossibly distant. He registered discomfort before he registered anything else: stiffness in his limbs, pressure in his chest, soreness that appeared to exist everywhere at once. Even breathing required more effort than it should have. Slowly, relentlessly, the sensations drew him upward until remaining asleep was no longer possible.
His eyelids felt weighted when he finally forced them open.
Light flooded his vision. For several seconds the world remained frustratingly blurred. Shapes existed without definition, colors without edges. Gradually, however, his eyesight adjusted, and details began emerging from the haze.
The ceiling appeared first. Dark wooden beams crossed warm cream-colored panels fitted with recessed lighting that cast a soft golden glow throughout the room. It was not the sterile white ceiling he would have expected from a hospital.
His gaze drifted lower. An entire wall consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Morning sunlight poured through the glass, spilling across polished hardwood floors and illuminating the skyline beyond. Towering buildings stretched toward the horizon, their windows catching the pale gold of early morning. The view suggested considerable height, the sort reserved for penthouses and executive suites rather than ordinary hospital rooms.
The room itself looked less like a medical facility and more like a luxury hotel suite.
A sitting area occupied one corner, furnished with cream-colored sofas and armchairs arranged around a low wooden coffee table. Built-in bookshelves lined one wall, filled with carefully selected volumes that looked more decorative than practical. Fresh flowers stood throughout the room in elegant arrangements, introducing subtle bursts of color against the neutral palette. A large television had been mounted opposite the bed, while an open doorway revealed what appeared to be a private office beyond—a proper office, complete with a desk, monitors, and filing cabinets.
The entire space had clearly been designed to disguise its true purpose.
Yet despite the luxury, signs of its function remained impossible to ignore. The faint scent of antiseptic lingered beneath the fragrance of flowers. Medical monitors stood beside his bed. An IV line disappeared beneath the sleeve of his hospital gown. Equipment occupied discreet positions throughout the room, concealed as carefully as possible without ceasing to be functional.
Hospital, indeed.
The realization settled heavily inside him. His brow furrowed as he searched for an explanation, only for movement near one of the cabinets to draw his attention away from the question.
Until that moment, he had not realized anyone else was present. A woman stood near a wardrobe, quietly organizing several pieces of clothing. Several overnight bags sat open on a nearby table. Folded sweaters had been arranged into neat stacks. Books rested beside charging cables, paperwork, notebooks, and an assortment of personal belongings that had clearly accumulated over time. She appeared to be returning a folded cardigan to one of the bags when she noticed his eyes were open.
Everything stopped.
The cardigan remained suspended in her hands.
For a second, she simply stared. Then all color drained from her face. The word escaped her like a breath. "You're awake!"
Baelor attempted to respond, but his throat felt impossibly dry. The effort produced nothing more than a rough sound.
The woman was moving before he could try again.
What struck him immediately was the efficiency of her actions. She crossed the room quickly but without panic, setting aside the cardigan before reaching the bedside. Her hand moved automatically toward the controls attached to the bed, raising him slightly. She retrieved a glass of water from the table beside him, guided the straw toward his mouth, and steadied him when a sharp flash of pain crossed his expression.
"Don't talk yet," she said quietly. Though her voice trembled, her movements did not. "I'll get the doctor."
A doctor.
Less than a minute later, the door opened, and several nurses entered, followed closely by a doctor carrying a tablet.
"When did he wake up?" one of the nurses asked. The question was directed toward the woman.
"About a minute ago."
The nurse nodded without hesitation, as though the answer came from a source she trusted completely. Another nurse glanced toward the far corner of the room and sighed. "You still haven't gone home? Or did you get here early?"
The woman offered only a tired smile.
Following the nurse's gaze, Baelor finally noticed what he had overlooked before.
The office area wasn't merely part of the room. It belonged to her.
An open laptop sat on the desk beside several neatly stacked folders. Handwritten notes covered a notebook lying open beside the keyboard. A charger snaked across the floor toward an outlet. Two empty coffee cups occupied one corner of the desk. A folded blanket had been draped over the back of a nearby chair.
Whoever this woman was, she had not been visiting occasionally. She had been living here.
The realization sharpened when he observed the nurses interacting with her. They did not speak to her with the politeness reserved for visitors. They spoke to her like someone they saw every day. Someone who belonged here almost as much as the staff themselves.
Doctor Mallister eventually approached the bedside and introduced himself. His demeanor was calm and reassuring, the confidence of someone who had spent decades guiding patients through difficult situations. He began with simple questions. Baelor's name. His date of birth. Basic details that required little effort to answer.
The doctor appeared encouraged by the responses.
"What year is it?"
Baelor answered automatically.
The silence that followed immediately caught his attention. Doctor Mallister exchanged a glance with one of the nurses. Then he asked another question.
"Who is the current chairman of Targaryen Holdings?"
"My grandfather."
Again, silence.
This time, the doctor slowly lowered his tablet. Doctor Mallister studied him for a moment before asking the next question. "Baelor, what is the last thing you remember?"
The answer came immediately. "A board meeting one evening."
The doctor nodded. "Can you tell me about it?"
"My father was there."
Fragments of the memory surfaced with surprising clarity. Baelor could still picture the conference room, the polished table, the reports spread across its surface.
"We were discussing expansion plans."
The doctor's expression remained carefully neutral.
"And after that?"
Baelor frowned.
The answer should have existed.
A drive home. A phone call. Dinner. Something.
Anything.
Instead, he found himself staring into a blank space where memory ought to have been.
The harder he searched, the more obvious the absence became. "I don't know."
Silence settled briefly over the room.
Doctor Mallister did not immediately move on. Instead, he asked another question. Then another. Names. Dates. Events. People. Some seemed ordinary. Others felt increasingly strange. Baelor answered each one as best he could.
With every response, however, he became more aware of a subtle shift in the atmosphere around him.
The nurses exchanged occasional glances. The woman near the windows had stopped pretending to organize paperwork.
Even Doctor Mallister's expression seemed to grow more serious with each passing minute.
Eventually, the doctor lowered his tablet. Rather than continuing the assessment, he pulled a chair beside the bed and sat down. The gesture alone made Baelor uneasy.
"Baelor," he began carefully, "you were involved in a serious accident. You've been unconscious for six weeks."
Six weeks?
His last memory felt recent enough to touch. It certainly did not feel six weeks old. Yet despite the significance of the revelation, Baelor found himself distracted by something else.
Doctor Mallister wasn't finished. The concern visible on the man's face suggested the coma itself was not the primary issue.
"There is something else we need to discuss."
The room seemed quieter suddenly. The steady rhythm of the monitors felt louder.
"Based on your responses today, your memory appears to be anchored approximately twenty years in the past."
Baelor simply stared at him.
Twenty years?
The words made no sense. His mind rejected them immediately.
Twenty years?
That wasn't possible.
Doctor Mallister continued speaking, explaining observations, memory assessments, and neurological trauma, but the details blurred together before Baelor could fully process them.
His attention had shifted elsewhere. To the woman standing near the windows, perhaps. She had gone completely still.
One hand remained resting on the edge of the desk she had been using. The other hung motionless at her side. Her face revealed almost nothing, yet there was something in her posture that caught his attention immediately.
She looked as though she had been expecting bad news. As though she had already understood what the doctor was about to say before he said it.
The realization unsettled him for reasons he couldn't explain. The assessment continued for nearly another twenty minutes. Additional questions followed. More examinations. More observations. Eventually, Doctor Mallister seemed satisfied that further discussion would accomplish little for the moment. He rose from his chair.
"We can discuss everything further later."
His gaze shifted toward the woman.
"Mrs. Targaryen, may I speak with you outside for a moment?"
The title caught Baelor's attention instantly. Mrs. Targaryen?
Almost without thinking, Baelor's gaze drifted downward to his left hand. A simple wedding band rested there, the metal worn smooth from years of use. The sight of it felt strangely intimate. This wasn't a ring that had been purchased recently or worn out of obligation. It carried the subtle marks left behind by time itself, evidence of countless ordinary days spent on his finger. For several moments he stared at it before slowly lifting his head again.
His eyes found the woman standing near the windows.
His wife?
There was no flicker of recognition. No forgotten memory suddenly returning. She remained, in every practical sense, a stranger. He knew her name only because others had spoken it. He knew she was his wife only because the doctor had addressed her as Mrs. Targaryen. Yet somehow this stranger seems to occupy the most important role in his life.
The contradiction left him speechless.
Across the room, she met his gaze. Whatever she saw in his expression seemed to tell her everything she needed to know. She offered a small, composed nod before following Doctor Mallister toward the door without protest. Neither of them spoke as they left. A moment later the door closed softly behind them, leaving Baelor alone with a growing sense of unease he couldn't quite explain.
Outside, the conversation proved far less straightforward.
Doctor Mallister guided her toward a quiet consultation room a short distance down the corridor before explaining the situation as gently as possible. The extent of Baelor's memory loss remained unclear. The brain was unpredictable, particularly after severe trauma. Some patients recovered memories gradually over weeks or months. Others experienced only partial recovery. Some never regained what had been lost at all. There were therapies available, specialists who focused specifically on memory rehabilitation, treatment plans that could be explored once Baelor's condition stabilized further. Yet every possible path led back to the same unavoidable truth.
She listened because she knew she had to. She nodded when appropriate. She asked questions when necessary. Yet the doctor's voice seemed increasingly distant, as though it were coming from the far end of a long tunnel.
Because only one thought kept repeating itself inside her head.
Twenty years.
Twenty years ago, Baelor hadn't known her.
Twenty years ago, she had never attended that charity gala. They had never shared awkward conversations over stolen desserts in a hotel kitchen. They had never become friends. Never fallen in love. Never built a life together one year at a time.
Twenty years ago, she did not exist in his world.
Neither did their marriage.
Neither did their family.
Neither did their sons.
To him, everything that mattered most to her had simply disappeared.
By the time Doctor Mallister finished speaking, tears were already sliding silently down her cheeks. She hadn't even realized she was crying until she felt them reach her jaw. For six weeks she had prayed for this exact moment. She had sat through endless consultations, memorized medical terminology she never wanted to learn, signed forms she barely remembered reading, and spent countless nights sleeping in an armchair beside his bed. Every difficult day had been endured with a single goal in mind.
Wake up.
Just wake up.
She had convinced herself that nothing else mattered.
Now she realized she had never prepared for the possibility that he would wake up and not remember any of it. "He won't remember me?"
The words emerged quietly, broken by emotion she could no longer contain. Doctor Mallister remained silent for a moment, because there was no comforting answer available. There is no reassurance capable of undoing what had happened, even after years of practicing medicine.
She pressed a trembling hand against her mouth, fighting unsuccessfully to maintain her composure.
"He won't remember our boys?"
Valarr was seventeen. Matarys was fifteen. For six weeks, they had visited whenever possible, balancing school, exams, and their own fear while waiting for their father to wake up. They had celebrated every small improvement. They had learned to read medical updates the way other teenagers read weather forecasts. Every day, they had asked the same question.
How is Dad?
And now, after all that waiting, the man they loved would look at them and see two strangers standing in a hospital room. The thought shattered something inside her.
Doctor Mallister allowed her a few moments before speaking again. "We need to take this slowly."
She nodded, though she barely heard the words.
"You may call the family. I'll explain the situation to everyone personally. When the children visit, make sure nobody pressures him. No testing. No overwhelming him. No attempts to force memories. Let him adjust first. Right now, the most important thing is reducing stress and giving him time to orient himself."
Another nod followed automatically. She understood the instructions.
Whether she could emotionally process them was another matter entirely. Drawing a shaky breath, she wiped quickly at her eyes and reached for her phone. There was no time to fall apart. Too many people were waiting for news.
The first call was to his parents.
The second was to each of his siblings.
Every conversation began exactly the same way.
"He's awake."
Relief exploded through the line before she could say anything else. Questions followed almost instantly. Was he conscious? Was he speaking? Was he in pain? Was he recovering? The flood of emotion was so overwhelming that more than once she had to pull the phone slightly away from her ear.
For a few precious moments, every conversation followed the same pattern. The moment she said that Baelor was awake, emotion rushed through the other end of the call so strongly that she often had to pull the phone away from her ear. Questions came immediately afterward, tumbling over one another before she could answer any of them properly.
Each time she reached that part of the conversation, the reaction changed. The relief vanished into stunned silence. She found herself repeating the same words over and over, each repetition making them feel no more believable than the last.
"He thinks it's twenty years ago."
"No, the doctors don't know whether the memories will come back."
"Yes, he remembers who he is."
"No, he doesn't remember..."
She never quite managed to finish that sentence without feeling her throat tighten.
He doesn't remember us.
By the time she ended the final call, the news had already begun spreading throughout the family. She returned to the suite feeling strangely detached from her own body. The room looked exactly as it had an hour earlier. Sunlight still poured through the enormous windows. The city still stretched beyond the glass. Medical equipment still hummed quietly beside Baelor's bed. Yet everything felt different now. The miracle they had all prayed for had arrived, but it had brought something none of them had anticipated.
The first visitors arrived less than an hour later.
His parents came together. She noticed them before they entered the suite itself. Through the partially open door, she caught sight of familiar figures moving quickly down the corridor. His mother reached the room first, abandoning any attempt at composure the moment she crossed the threshold. The older woman's eyes immediately found her.
"Oh, sweetheart … "
The words barely left her mouth before she closed the distance between them.
The embrace nearly shattered what little control she had managed to regain. For a moment, she found herself leaning into it, allowing someone else to carry a fraction of the weight she had been holding alone for weeks. His mother said nothing further. She simply held her tightly, one hand rubbing soothing circles against her back as tears gathered in her own eyes.
His father entered more slowly. At first glance, he appeared composed, every inch the chairman who had spent decades navigating crises without allowing emotion to interfere. His suit remained immaculate despite the obvious haste with which he had arrived. Yet the longer she looked at him, the easier it became to see the strain beneath the surface. His expression was controlled, but the tightness in his jaw betrayed him.
Doctor Mallister explained the situation again.
The older man listened without interruption, his attention fixed entirely on the doctor. When questions came, they were practical ones. He wanted details about neurological scans, treatment plans, recovery timelines, and specialist consultations. He approached the problem the same way he approached every crisis in life: by gathering information and identifying what could be done next.
His wife approached it differently, just like a mother would. The moment the explanation ended, she asked only one question. "Does he remember his family?"
Doctor Mallister hesitated.
The pause itself provided the answer. Tears immediately filled the older woman's eyes. She looked toward her daughter-in-law and visibly struggled to maintain her composure. Beside her, her husband lowered his gaze briefly. He said nothing, but for a moment his carefully maintained calm seemed to falter.
Eventually, his mother reached for her daughter-in-law's hand and squeezed it gently. There was nothing either of them could say that would make any of this easier.
A short while later, another arrival was announced. Maekar entered first, with Dyanna beside him. They had clearly come directly from wherever they had been when the call arrived. Maekar still wore the expression of a man who had spent the entire drive trying to process information that refused to make sense. Beside him, Dyanna's concern was far less guarded. The moment she saw her sister-in-law, she crossed the room and embraced her without hesitation.
Maekar remained quiet throughout most of the doctor's explanation.
He listened carefully, arms folded loosely across his chest, his attention fixed entirely on the doctor. Outwardly, he appeared composed. Inwardly, however, the news had clearly struck him harder than he wanted anyone to see. Twenty years was not a small gap. Twenty years ago, Baelor had been a different man.
When the explanation finally concluded, Maekar's first concern was immediate. "Can he see visitors?"
Doctor Mallister listened patiently as Maekar asked his question, then folded his hands in front of him and assured the family that visitors would be allowed. The important thing, he explained, was moderation. Baelor was still recovering physically, and the discovery of the memory loss had placed him under considerable emotional strain. Familiar faces could be beneficial, but only if everyone understood that their presence was meant to support him rather than overwhelm him. Too many people at once, too many explanations, or too many emotional conversations could easily do more harm than good at this stage.
Maekar accepted the answer with a quiet nod. He had spent enough time around hospitals during the past six weeks to understand that recovery rarely followed a schedule anyone could control. Beside him, however, Dyanna looked visibly stricken. Her eyes immediately found Baelor's wife across the room before returning to the doctor.
"He doesn't remember the boys either?" she asked softly.
The question seemed to hang in the air.
Doctor Mallister's expression gentled, but he shook his head.
"No. I’m afraid not. Earlier, he stated that his grandfather is still the chairman of the company."
The sadness that crossed Dyanna's face deepened immediately. Her shoulders slumped slightly as she looked down at the floor. Like everyone else, she had spent weeks praying for Baelor to wake up. Now that he finally had, she found herself grieving a loss nobody had anticipated. The thought of Valarr and Matarys walking into that room only to discover that their father no longer remembered them was almost unbearable.
Before anyone could continue the discussion, the sound of approaching voices drifted down the corridor outside. Even through the thick hospital doors, the voices were unmistakable. Someone was clearly speaking too loudly. Someone else interrupted before the first person had finished. A brief laugh followed. Under normal circumstances, the noise would have been reassuring.
Today it felt different. Moments later, the doors opened, and Aerys, Alys, Rhaegel, and Aelinor appeared together. Judging by the fact that they had arrived simultaneously, they had clearly coordinated their schedules and come directly from wherever they had been when they received the news.
The confidence with which they had entered the corridor gave way to something much heavier as they took in the expressions around them. The reality of the situation settled over them immediately.
Aerys was the first to speak. His eyes moved from Doctor Mallister to Baelor's wife and then around the room before settling back on the doctor.
"Is he okay?"
"He is stable. He's awake, responsive, and communicating normally."
Visible relief washed across every face in the room. Though, it lasted only a moment.
Then the doctor began explaining the memory loss. As he spoke, the reactions varied dramatically.
Alys lifted both hands to her mouth, her eyes widening with every sentence. By the time the doctor finished describing the apparent twenty-year gap in Baelor's memory, she looked genuinely stunned.
Aelinor simply stared. She remained perfectly motionless throughout most of the explanation, watching the doctor with an expression that suggested she was still waiting for him to clarify that there had been some misunderstanding.
Rhaegel reacted differently. A quiet curse escaped him under his breath before he dragged a hand through his hair and looked away toward the windows. The movement was brief, but the frustration behind it was obvious.
Only Aerys remained completely still. His face gave away almost nothing. "Twenty years?" The disbelief in his voice echoed what everyone else was already thinking.
Doctor Mallister nodded once.
Then, the questions came from every direction at once.
Did Baelor remember any of them? Did he remember the accident? Did he know where he was? Did he understand how much time had passed? Would he recognize their parents? Would he recognize the state of the company? Could the memories come back? How often did something like this happen? Was there treatment? Therapy? Medication? Anything?
Doctor Mallister answered each question patiently, drawing upon the same calm professionalism that had carried the family through the past six weeks. Unfortunately, his answers contained far fewer certainties than anyone wanted. Every explanation seemed to lead back to the same frustrating reality: nobody could predict what would happen next.
As the discussion continued, a strange atmosphere gradually settled over the room.
The relief remained undeniable. Profound relief.
For six weeks they had lived with uncertainty hanging over every day. Every phone call from the hospital had carried the possibility of devastating news. Every update from the doctors had been analyzed and reanalyzed. Every small improvement had become a reason for cautious hope.
Relationships he had spent years building no longer existed in his memory. Milestones that had once shaped his life were gone. Birthdays, anniversaries, family holidays, arguments, celebrations, achievements, disappointments, victories, failures—the countless ordinary moments that accumulated over twenty years and slowly became a life had been erased.
Everyone else still carried those memories.
Baelor did not.
The realization weighed heavily on every person present. Eventually Doctor Mallister raised a hand, bringing the discussion to a halt before another wave of questions could begin.
"When you see him," he said carefully, looking around the group, "remember what I've already told Mrs. Targaryen."
Every eye turned toward him.
"Don't test him. Don't try to force memories. Don't overwhelm him."
His gaze moved deliberately from one family member to the next, ensuring that each person understood the importance of what he was saying.
"If he asks questions, answer them honestly. If he wants information, provide it. Let him decide what he's ready for and what he isn't. Right now, our priority is helping him feel safe, supported, and oriented. The more pressure he feels, the more difficult this adjustment will become."
The family exchanged glances.
Under ordinary circumstances, a room filled with Targaryens would have produced at least three competing opinions and a lengthy argument within minutes.
This time nobody objected. The situation was too fragile for pride and too serious for stubbornness.
One by one, they nodded their understanding.
Baelor was awake, everything else could wait. For now, simply having him back felt like enough.
And so, as the first shock gradually settled into a new reality, the days that followed began to establish a strange and uncertain rhythm of their own.
Every morning began the same way. Baelor would wake beneath crisp white sheets and spend a few moments staring at the unfamiliar ceiling overhead while reality slowly reassembled itself around him. The floor-to-ceiling windows that dominated one side of the suite would already be glowing with early sunlight, illuminating the city skyline beyond. The luxury of the room remained startling even after several days. Nothing about it resembled the hospitals he remembered. The polished hardwood floors, the carefully curated artwork, the sitting area arranged with expensive furniture, and the private office tucked beyond the main room all combined to create an illusion of normalcy. Only the medical equipment surrounding his bed prevented him from forgetting where he was.
Yet no matter how beautiful the room appeared, the confusion remained.
Every day brought new reminders that the world had continued moving without him. Conversations frequently referenced events he couldn't remember. Relationships had evolved. People had aged. Entire lives had unfolded beyond the reach of his memory. Sometimes the realization struck unexpectedly, leaving him momentarily disoriented. Other times it arrived in quieter ways, such as watching his father interact with his siblings or listening to family stories that seemed to belong to someone else's life.
Despite it all, however, Baelor remained remarkably patient.
Frustration visited him often, particularly during physical therapy sessions or moments when missing memories became impossible to ignore, but it never seemed to linger for long. There was an inherent gentleness to him that even the accident had failed to erase. Whenever someone explained something he had forgotten, he listened attentively. When people accidentally referenced memories he no longer possessed, he apologized for not remembering rather than becoming irritated by the reminder. More often than not, curiosity eventually overcame frustration.
He wanted to understand.
If he could not remember the missing years, then perhaps he could learn about them. And increasingly, he found himself trying to learn about the woman who was apparently his wife. At first, his curiosity stemmed largely from observation.
She was impossible not to notice.
The suite bore evidence of her presence everywhere. Over the course of several days, Baelor gradually realized that she had not merely been staying in the room—she had effectively moved into it. The corner near the windows had transformed into a functioning workspace. A sleek laptop sat permanently on the desk alongside neatly organized folders, legal documents, company reports, notebooks filled with handwritten notes, and an ever-changing collection of coffee cups. A cardigan was almost always draped across the back of one chair. Chargers occupied several outlets. A blanket remained folded on the sofa, suggesting she occasionally slept there despite the availability of far more comfortable accommodations elsewhere.
The arrangement fascinated him because it contradicted the image he had unconsciously formed of her.
From the outside, she seemed composed. The room revealed how much effort composure likely required.
Doctors visited several times a day, and Baelor quickly noticed that many of them addressed updates to her first. Treatment adjustments, medication schedules, rehabilitation plans, specialist consultations—she seemed to know everything. She carried a notebook with her almost constantly, recording details with meticulous precision. Entire pages were devoted to medications alone. Dates, dosages, instructions, side effects, follow-up appointments. The organization bordered on astonishing.
What impressed him even more was that she never appeared overwhelmed by any of it.
When nurses entered the room, they greeted her with the familiarity reserved for someone they saw every day. Family members routinely checked plans with her before arranging visits. His parents often asked her opinion regarding practical matters. Even employees from the family company occasionally appeared carrying documents that required her review or approval.
Everyone trusted her.
The pattern repeated so consistently that Baelor eventually stopped viewing it as a coincidence.
She occupied an important position in the family. Not simply because she was married to him. Because people genuinely relied on her. The realization made him increasingly curious.
One afternoon, after a particularly exhausting physical therapy session, he found her seated near the windows reviewing a thick folder while participating in a video conference through an earpiece. Sunlight streamed through the glass behind her, illuminating the city skyline and casting a warm glow across the room. Her attention remained fixed on whatever discussion was taking place on her laptop, yet she still somehow noticed when he shifted uncomfortably in bed.
Without interrupting the meeting, she reached for the water glass beside him and handed it over.
Only after he had taken a drink did she return her full attention to the screen. The movement was so automatic that it startled him. She hadn't even needed to think about it. The meeting concluded several minutes later. Once she closed the laptop, she immediately reached for another document.
Baelor watched her for a moment before speaking. "You work a lot."
She looked up, appearing mildly surprised by the observation. A small smile touched her lips. "Sometimes."
The answer made him laugh softly. "That's not a convincing lie."
Her smile widened slightly. For a moment, she seemed younger somehow. "You caught me."
The conversation should have ended there. Instead, Baelor found himself continuing. "What do you actually do?"
That question earned a genuine pause. She set the document aside before answering.
The explanation that followed lasted considerably longer than he expected. She described her role within the family company within Public Relations, ongoing projects, responsibilities, departments she supervised, and decisions she regularly handled. Within the gaps of her tasks, she also vaguely explains the past events that Baelor had missed. The more she spoke, the more impressed he became.
By the end, he was staring. "That's a ridiculous amount of work. For PR, you are certainly busy."
A quiet laugh escaped her. "Some weeks are worse than others."
"And you've been doing all of that while living in a hospital room?"
Her expression softened. "I've had help."
The answer felt suspiciously incomplete.
Baelor suspected she had carried far more responsibility than she admitted. That realization lingered long after the conversation ended. As the days passed, he found himself seeking out opportunities to talk to her.
Not because he felt obligated. Because he genuinely wanted to.
She never volunteered information about their marriage. Never tried to convince him of feelings he couldn't remember. If anything, she would simply try to slip in more information about the global events, just to paint a clearer picture of the world Baelor missed. She never placed expectations on him. In many ways, she treated him with the same patience one might offer a stranger recovering from a serious injury.
The restraint only made him more curious. One evening, after most visitors had gone home and the room had settled into some quietness, he found her seated in the armchair near the windows. The city beyond the glass glittered beneath the darkness, thousands of lights scattered across the skyline like stars.
She was reading through paperwork when he finally spoke.
"Can I ask you something?"
She immediately set the folder aside. "Of course."
Baelor hesitated for a few seconds. Not because he feared the answer, but because he wasn't entirely certain how to phrase the question.
"How … when did we meet?"
For a moment, she didn't answer. Her hand paused over one of the tea tins.
Then a smile appeared. If anything, it seemed unexpectedly fond.
"You really want to know?" A soft laugh escaped her. "It was a Targaryen Foundation charity gala."
Baelor groaned immediately. "Oh, no."
She laughed again. "What?"
"My favorite time of the year. It was awful."
"I spent most of the evening trying to leave."
That caught his attention. "You were invited to a charity gala and spent the evening trying to escape it?"
"I wasn't invited. My manager was, and I was working."
The kettle clicked softly behind her. She poured hot water into two cups before continuing.
"Our department had been helping organize part of the event for weeks. I'd spent three straight days dealing with seating charts, donor requests, last-minute sponsorship changes, and people who apparently believed the world would end if their names weren't printed in exactly the right font size."
Baelor laughed.
She carried one of the mugs toward him before settling into the armchair beside the bed. "By the time the event actually started, I was already in a bad mood."
"You were in a bad mood the first time you met me?"
"I was in a terrible mood before I met you."
He looked genuinely delighted by that.
She shook her head, smiling into her tea. "I'd spent the entire evening listening to people talk about themselves. Every conversation sounded exactly the same. Everyone was trying to impress everyone else."
"And then I arrived?"
"No, prince charming, you were already there." The smile in her eyes deepened. "The problem was that nobody could find you."
Baelor blinked. "What do you mean nobody could find me?"
"I mean, your father was looking for you. Your grandfather was looking for you."
His expression immediately became more concerned.
She took a sip of tea before continuing. "Three board members were looking for you. Two donors were looking for you. Somebody from the press wanted a quote."
"And where was I?"
The smile she had been trying to suppress finally escaped. "In the kitchen."
Baelor stared. "The kitchen?"
Baelor's disbelief was immediate. He shifted slightly against the raised hospital bed, the movement prompting a faint wince before he reached down to readjust the blanket over his lap. His wife, meanwhile, sat comfortably in the armchair beside him, one leg tucked beneath her as she cradled her tea between both hands. The steam curled lazily upward, catching the warm glow from the floor lamp positioned nearby.
"The kitchen. With Maekar."
His eyebrows climbed higher.
"I don't believe you."
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. She lowered her gaze briefly to her cup, clearly revisiting the memory in her mind before looking back up at him.
"I found you standing beside a dessert cart with a pastry chef asking if you two can keep ‘just a few’ for yourselves."
For several seconds, he simply stared at her. Then he laughed. The sound filled the room unexpectedly, rich and genuine and completely unrestrained. It was the first time in days she had heard him laugh quite like that. His head tipped back slightly against the pillows as amusement overtook him.
"This story is getting less and less flattering."
"It wasn't supposed to be flattering."
"I thought wives were meant to make their husbands look good."
"Not when they're caught hiding from their own charity gala."
The smile refused to leave his face. He could see it. Not remember it. That distinction still felt strange.
He couldn't recall the evening itself. He couldn't picture specific details. Yet the version of himself she described felt familiar in an entirely different way. He could almost imagine the scene unfolding before him: a crowded ballroom full of politicians, executives, and donors, while he and his younger brother disappeared into the kitchen to negotiate custody of stolen desserts.
"And you just walked up to me?"
She shifted slightly deeper into the armchair, turning sideways so she faced him more fully. One hand rested around her mug while the other absently smoothed a crease from her trousers.
"I walked up to the kitchen because I was trying to find somewhere quieter."
The memory seemed to draw her further in as she spoke.
"The ballroom was unbearable. The speeches hadn't even started yet, and I already wanted to go home."
Baelor laughed softly. "And instead you found me and my brother trying to pocket some cakes?"
"You immediately offered me one."
"I did?"
"You told the chef that a stranger’s vote could count as double, because ‘she is not influenced by anything but your masterpiece on its own’."
She was smiling openly now.
The amusement in her eyes made it obvious she had replayed this memory many times over the years.
"You were very serious about it."
Baelor rubbed a hand over his face, groaning quietly through a smile. "That actually sounds like something I'd say."
"It sounded very convincing at the time."
"Please tell me the chef didn't believe me."
"He absolutely did not."
The two of them laughed together. The sound lingered warmly within the suite before fading back into the quiet hum of the evening.
"Maekar left after the chef gave up and let you two keep some in a box. But we ended up talking for almost an hour."
As she spoke, Baelor found himself watching her more than listening to the details. There was something captivating about seeing her like this. For days, he had known her primarily as the woman managing medication schedules, speaking with doctors, balancing work calls, and making certain he followed every instruction given to him.
"About what?"
"Everything." She gave a small shrug before taking another sip of tea. "Work. Books. Travel. Family." The smile returned before she even continued. "You spent twenty minutes complaining about a board member who kept trying to introduce you to eligible women."
Baelor nearly choked. The expression that crossed his face was so immediate and horrified that she burst into laughter. "I did not."
"You absolutely did."
"I'd just met you."
"Exactly." She laughed softly, lowering her cup onto the side table before it could spill. "But it was also the first honest conversation I'd had all evening."
The warmth gradually settled back into silence.
Outside, the city glowed beneath the night sky. The reflections of distant skyscrapers shimmered across the floor-to-ceiling windows while traffic moved like streams of light far below. Inside the suite, the atmosphere felt insulated from the rest of the world. The only sounds were the occasional beep from a monitor and the low hum of the air conditioning drifting through hidden vents.
Baelor found himself watching her. Watching the way her eyes softened whenever she reached a memory she particularly loved. Watching the small smile that appeared before certain stories. Watching the way affection seemed woven through every recollection, without her ever intentionally placing it there.
She wasn't trying to convince him that they had been happy. She didn't need to. It was obvious, even for him.
"So what happened after that?" he asked.
She glanced up. "After the gala?"
He nodded. For the first time, something almost shy crossed her expression. The smile that followed was smaller than the others. "We became friends."
The answer surprised him. For a relationship that had apparently led to marriage and children, he had expected some dramatic story. A whirlwind romance. Some grand gesture.
Instead, she said it with complete certainty.
Friends?
"Just friends?"
"For a while."
He shifted slightly higher against the pillows, and before he could even reach for them, she leaned forward automatically, adjusting one of the cushions behind his shoulders. The gesture was so instinctive that neither of them seemed to notice it until afterward.
"How long is a while?"
The smile widened. "Long enough for everyone around us to become irritated."
Baelor laughed. "Oh, we were those people?"
"You were definitely one of those people."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning everybody knew you liked me except you."
His eyebrows rose immediately.
"That's harsh."
"It's true!"
"I find that difficult to believe."
The look she gave him was so thoroughly unimpressed that Baelor immediately suspected he had lost whatever argument he had been attempting to make.
"Baelor," she said, setting her teacup down on the side table with deliberate care, "you invited me to lunch three times in one week and somehow convinced yourself it was networking simply because I worked at a PR firm."
For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then his entire expression collapsed. The devastation was so genuine, so immediate, that she couldn't help laughing.
The sound filled the room, so warm and familiar, and Baelor found himself smiling despite himself. He leaned back against the pillows, shaking his head as though he had just received deeply disappointing news about a man he happened to share a name with.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
His gaze drifted upward toward the ceiling. The movement was so dramatic that it almost seemed rehearsed. One hand lifted slightly from the blanket, palm upward, as though he were appealing directly to some higher power for assistance.
He closed his eyes briefly.
"I thought I'd have a better game. I can't defend that."
For several moments, he remained staring upward, apparently trying to come to terms with the fact that a previous version of himself had apparently spent weeks courting a woman while somehow convincing himself it was a professional networking exercise.
"And you still married me?"
The question slipped out before he could stop it. The humor lingered for only a moment before the conversation naturally quieted. Neither of them immediately looked away. The words themselves had been lighthearted, but the meaning beneath them was not.
The room seemed suddenly smaller, wrapped in the soft golden glow of the lamps that illuminated the suite. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city shimmered beneath the night sky, thousands of lights scattered across the darkness like distant stars. Somewhere in the background, a monitor continued its steady rhythm, while the faint hum of the air conditioning blended into the silence that settled between them.
Baelor found himself watching her.
Really watching her.
Not as his caretaker, and not as the woman who seemed to know every medication schedule, every doctor's instruction, every detail of his recovery, either. But perhaps as the woman he believed he fell in love with.
The title still felt strange in his mind. Every time he thought it, it carried the same sense of disbelief.
His wife? The woman sitting across from him. The woman who had spent six weeks sleeping in hospital chairs. The woman who somehow managed to balance conference calls, company responsibilities, and his recovery without ever appearing resentful. The woman who had spent the past hour telling him stories about a version of himself he could no longer remember.
For a brief moment, the years she carried and he had lost seemed to settle quietly into the space between them.
Eventually, she smiled a smile that was filled with affection that seemed far older than the conversation they were having.
"Of course I did."
Baelor felt something tighten unexpectedly in his chest. Not memory. He knew what memory felt like now—the constant frustration of reaching for something that should have been there and finding only emptiness.
This wasn't that.
The feeling arrived quietly, without warning, as he sat there looking at her beneath the warm light of the hospital suite. Her tea sat forgotten on the side table beside her chair. Several folders remained stacked near her laptop, abandoned halfway through whatever work she had been doing earlier. Beyond the windows, reflections of the city lights shimmered faintly against the glass behind her.
Baelor realized he still couldn't remember any of it.
He couldn't remember meeting her at a charity gala. He couldn't remember becoming her friend. He couldn't remember falling in love with her. He couldn't remember proposing. He couldn't remember standing beside her at their wedding. He couldn't remember the first apartment they had shared, the birth of their sons, family holidays, anniversaries, arguments, reconciliations, or any of the thousands of moments that had apparently built the life they now shared.
All of it remained beyond his reach.
And yet, as he watched her sitting there across the room, smiling at him with a tenderness that felt entirely unforced, he found himself wishing he could remember. Not because people expected him to. Not because he felt pressured to recover what was missing. Not even because he wanted answers. He wanted those memories because they belonged to her.
Because every story she told seemed to reveal another reason why the man he had once been had chosen her.
And, increasingly, why she had chosen him in return. For the first time since waking up, Baelor realized that wasn't quite the same thing as wanting his memories back. It was something far more personal than that.
The boys arrived on the third day shortly after lunch time on a weekend, entering the suite with the careful composure of people who had spent the entire journey rehearsing how they intended to behave. Their mother had spoken to them beforehand, and although Baelor hadn't been present for the conversation, he suspected he could have repeated it almost word for word. Doctor Mallister had given the same instructions to everyone who came through the doors of his hospital room. No testing. No pressure. No attempts to jog his memory through old stories or photographs. Simply spend time with him. Allow him to adjust. Allow him to find his footing in a world that suddenly seemed to contain two decades he could no longer access.
The older boy entered first.
Baelor's attention settled on him immediately, and for a moment, he found himself staring with such concentration that he almost forgot to greet him. His mother had shown him photographs over the past several days when he asked, and his wife had pointed out faces and names often enough that he knew who the teenager was supposed to be, but photographs had not prepared him for the reality of standing in the same room as him. The resemblance was startling. Not merely a collection of similar features, but something deeper and more instinctive. It felt unnervingly like looking at a reflection distorted by time. Valarr had inherited his height, his build, his eyes, and the same strong lines of his face. Even the way he stood carried echoes of habits Baelor recognized in himself. If someone had shown him a photograph and claimed it was an image of himself at seventeen, he might have believed it.
Only one feature broke the illusion: a striking streak of white ran through the dark hair at Valarr's temple, beginning near his forehead and disappearing into the rest of his hair. The contrast drew the eye immediately. It wasn't the pale coloring of age but the distinctive silver-white that occasionally appeared among Targaryens from birth, a trait that had become something of a family trademark over generations. Rather than looking unusual, it somehow suited him perfectly.
Without realizing it, Baelor continued staring.
Valarr noticed almost immediately. The teenager's hand rose automatically to his hair before he gave him a suspicious look that suggested he had experienced this reaction from strangers his entire life.
"What?"
The question carried enough wariness that Baelor couldn't help smiling.
"I was just looking at your hair."
The younger boy was already grinning as he dropped into one of the armchairs near the bed. Unlike his older brother, Matarys seemed incapable of concealing his emotions for more than a few seconds at a time. Everything appeared openly on his face before he could think to hide it. Nervousness, amusement, curiosity, relief—each feeling flickered across his expression with complete transparency.
"He spends twenty minutes fixing it every morning."
"I do not."
"You absolutely do."
"I literally don't."
Their argument continued with the rhythm of brothers who had repeated variations of the same conversation hundreds of times before. Baelor found himself listening with growing amusement as Valarr attempted to defend himself while Matarys cheerfully undermined every argument he made. The exchange was familiar in a way that felt strangely comforting. There was no self-consciousness behind it. No careful effort to perform normality for his benefit. They were simply being themselves.
Eventually, Valarr gave up entirely and sank into the chair nearest the window.
Nobody mentioned memory loss. Nobody asked what he remembered or whether certain names sounded familiar. Nobody attempted to fill the missing years with endless explanations. Instead, they spoke about school, friends, football, upcoming exams, teachers they disliked, and countless ordinary details that might have sounded insignificant under different circumstances. Yet as Baelor listened, he found himself increasingly fascinated by all of it. These weren't merely stories. They were glimpses into the lives of two people who, according to everyone around him, were among the most important people in his world.
What struck him most was how different the brothers were despite their similarities. Valarr possessed a steadiness that reminded him strongly of the way his father carried himself. He seemed inclined to think before speaking, often pausing to choose his words carefully before contributing to the conversation. Matarys, meanwhile, appeared incapable of remaining still for longer than thirty seconds. He talked with his hands, interrupted himself midway through stories, jumped between topics with remarkable speed, and possessed energy that seemed to fill every available corner of the room.
Together, they were unexpectedly easy company.
The longer they stayed, the more Baelor found himself relaxing. He asked questions and they answered them. Occasionally, one brother corrected the other. Occasionally, both disagreed entirely about what had happened during a particular event. Their mother intervened only when absolutely necessary, usually from her desk near the windows, where she continued balancing hospital life and work.
At one point, while the boys argued over a football match, neither could seem to remember the same way, Baelor found his attention drifting toward Valarr again.
The resemblance remained difficult to ignore, because he looked so much like him.
There were moments when Valarr laughed or turned his head a certain way that felt almost like catching sight of himself unexpectedly in a mirror. The experience was profoundly strange. This wasn't a younger brother or a cousin. This was his son. A seventeen-year-old young man who had somehow grown up while existing entirely beyond the reach of his memory.
The realization should have felt painful. Instead, what he mostly felt was curiosity.
Curiosity about who Valarr had become.
Curiosity about Matarys.
Curiosity about the countless years he could not remember sharing with them.
By the time they eventually stood to leave, the room felt noticeably quieter than it had only a few hours earlier. His wife accompanied them into the corridor, promising to call later that evening, while Baelor remained where he was, listening to the muffled sounds of their voices through the partially open door.
Baelor had not intended to eavesdrop.
The conversation simply carried through the partially open door.
Visiting hours had ended nearly twenty minutes earlier. Valarr and Matarys had lingered until the nurses began making polite suggestions about letting their father rest, and eventually all three of them had stepped out into the hallway. Baelor had assumed they were saying their goodbyes before heading home for the evening. He had settled back against his pillows with a book resting open in his lap, more interested in the comfort of holding it than actually reading it. The room was quiet apart from the distant hum of the air conditioning and the steady rhythm of the monitors nearby.
Then he heard his wife's voice. The same voice he had heard soothing nurses who looked exhausted after long shifts, reassuring anxious family members, and calmly explaining medical instructions back to him when he inevitably forgot some detail. Somehow, however, it always sounded slightly different when she spoke to their sons.
"I'm serious," she was saying. "Just spend time with him. That's all you need to do."
A dramatic sigh immediately followed.
"Mom," Matarys groaned, drawing out the word with the particular exasperation only teenagers seemed capable of producing. "We've been doing that."
"I know."
"You've told us this every day."
"Because it's important."
Another sigh followed, this one noticeably more restrained.
"We know not to test him," Valarr said.
"I'm just reminding you."
"You remind us every time."
For a moment, there was silence. Baelor could practically picture the expression on his wife's face despite not being able to see her. Whatever look she was giving them seemed to communicate enough on its own because a second later Matarys laughed.
"See? That's the face."
"What face?" she asked.
"The face."
"There is no face."
"There is absolutely a face!" Valarr said.
Baelor found himself smiling before he realized it.
The conversation continued, accompanied by the faint sound of shifting footsteps. He imagined them standing outside the suite near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Valarr was probably leaning against the wall with his hands shoved into his pockets. Matarys was almost certainly moving around while he talked. Their mother was likely standing between them with her arms crossed, attempting to maintain authority over two boys who clearly had years of experience ignoring her lectures.
A few moments later, Valarr spoke again. "Are you coming home tonight?"
The question was followed by a brief pause. Baelor lowered the book slightly.
"I don't think so," his wife replied.
"Mom..." The disappointment in Valarr's voice was immediate.
"Tomorrow’s Sunday," Matarys added.
"I know."
"You've been here all week."
"I know."
The silence that followed felt longer this time. Baelor found himself listening more carefully than he intended. Tomorrow's Sunday.
Over the past few days, he had learned enough to understand that Sundays carried significance in their family. Various relatives had mentioned weekly lunches, gatherings at his parents' house, and new traditions that everyone seemed to know by heart except him.
"Grandma said she'd make breakfast tomorrow," Valarr said quietly.
His wife laughed softly. "Your grandmother says that every Sunday."
"Yeah, but she asked if you'd be there."
"If Grandma wants to take over for a few hours, maybe."
"A few hours?" Valarr repeated.
"A few hours."
"That's not the same as coming home."
"You're staying because you don't want Dad to be alone."
Baelor stared down at the unopened book in his hands. Outside, his wife didn't answer immediately. When she finally did, her voice was much softer than before.
"He wakes up confused sometimes."
Neither boy interrupted.
"He doesn't always know where he is straight away. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and needs a few minutes to orient himself."
The explanation was delivered matter-of-factly, but Baelor felt something tighten unexpectedly in his chest.
"I know there are nurses here," she continued. "I know the doctors are here. I know he'll be fine."
A brief pause followed. "But?" Matarys prompted.
"But I don't want him waking up alone."
The silence afterward seemed to settle warmly through the hallway.
It wasn't uncomfortable. It felt like understanding.
Eventually, Valarr spoke. "Grandma can stay tomorrow."
His wife's immediate response carried equal parts affection and disbelief. "Valarr—"
"No, seriously. She'll love it."
"Your grandmother has her own life."
"Mom, it's Grandma. It’s Dad’s mom."
The certainty in his voice earned an immediate laugh from Matarys. "He's right. I will bet my lunch money on an immediate ‘yes’."
"Fine."
The reluctant surrender was greeted with immediate celebration. "There we go." "Progress."
"You two are unbelievable!"
"We get it from Dad. You always say that!"
The response came so quickly that all three of them burst into laughter. The sound drifted through the doorway and into the room, warm and effortless. It was not the polite laughter of people trying to make the best of a difficult situation. It was the easy laughter of a family who knew one another completely.
Baelor sat quietly and listened. He couldn't seem to stop.
When the conversation finally moved farther down the corridor and the voices faded from hearing, he remained where he was, staring toward the darkened windows overlooking the city below.
He couldn't remember any of this.
He couldn't remember Sunday breakfasts.
He couldn't remember family traditions.
He couldn't remember teaching Valarr how to drive, helping Matarys with school projects, or sharing ordinary evenings with his wife.
He couldn't remember any of the thousands of moments that had apparently filled the last twenty years of his life.
Yet every day seemed to offer another glimpse into the life he had built.
Summary: A simple servant from the Riverlands is forced into the world of King’s Landing when she must take the place of a noblewoman promised to Prince Aemond Targaryen.
The Riverlands were heavy with rain that night.
You had always loved the sound of rain, how it muffled the world into something soft and calm. But that night, the calm felt false. The house was too still.
The corridors too quiet.
You were preparing herbs for the kitchens when a young maid entered, breathless.
“The Lady wants you,” she said, wringing her hands. “In the great hall.”
You frowned. It was far too late for your mistress to summon you.
“Did she say why?”
The maid shook her head quickly.
“No, only that you come at once.”
You wiped your hands on your apron and followed her through the dim corridors. The torches burned low, their flames trembling in the draught. Your heart began to pound, though you could not say why. You were a servant, nothing more. Servants were called for many things.
But when you stepped into the hall, you realised this was not one of those things.
Your Lord and Lady stood side by side before the hearth. Their daughter sat behind them, hunched and pale in her chair, her fine gown dishevelled as though she had been crying for hours. You froze where you stood, clutching your hands before you.
“My lady,” you said quietly, bowing your head.
“Come closer,” she ordered.
You obeyed, each step echoing across the cold stone floor.
When you stopped before them, your Lady studied you with sharp, restless eyes. Her husband’s jaw was clenched tight, as if every word he had to say might shatter him.
“You have been in our service for many years,” the Lady began. “You are quiet, loyal, and no one outside this household knows your face well.”
You hesitated.
“Yes, my lady. I have always tried to serve faithfully.”
Her gaze drifted to her daughter, whose eyes filled with tears.
“You must swear what we discuss here will never leave this room.”
Your stomach turned.
“I swear it.”
The Lord cleared his throat, his voice rough.
“Our daughter has been promised to Prince Aemond Targaryen, the second son of the King. The betrothal was arranged months ago, and word of her journey to King’s Landing has already reached the court.”
Your eyes flickered to the young woman in the chair. Her hands were clasped tightly over her stomach.
“She… she cannot go,” the Lady said in a low, trembling voice. “She carries the child of another man. A knight in our service. If the Crown learns of this, we will be ruined.”
The words struck you like a blow.
“My lady, what will you do?”
The Lord’s expression hardened.
“We will send you in her place.”
You blinked, certain you had misheard.
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” the Lady said sharply. “You are of similar build, and with the right clothes, the right manner, few would question it. You will go to King’s Landing as our daughter, marry Prince Aemond, and secure our house’s future.”
Your mouth went dry.
“But I am not noble. I have no titles, no learning, no-”
Her voice cut through yours.
“You will learn. You will speak only when spoken to, walk as you have seen her walk, and keep your eyes lowered. They need not know the truth.”
You shook your head in disbelief.
“My lady, please, they will see it at once. I cannot deceive the King, the Queen, the Prince-”
The Lord’s voice thundered across the hall.
“You will do as you are told!”
The sound silenced everything. The rain, the fire, even your breath. You stood frozen as he stepped closer, his anger twisting his features.
“If you refuse, your family will pay the price. Your father works my land, does he not? Your mother tends my orchards? Think carefully before you speak again.”
Your heart dropped. You thought of your parents, their small home by the river, the way your mother smiled whenever you returned with flowers from the meadow. They would not survive without this house’s favour.
Tears welled in your eyes, but you forced your voice steady.
“I understand, my lord.”
The Lady’s tone softened, though her face did not.
“You will be cared for. We will provide gowns, jewellery, and a new name. You are to call yourself by our daughter’s name in every breath you take. If anyone suspects you, deny it. Smile and lie, for all our sakes.”
You turned to the young woman who sat weeping beside the hearth. She could not even meet your gaze.
“My lady,” you whispered, “is this truly what you wish?”
Her sobs grew louder.
“I cannot marry him,” she cried. “He is a dragon, and I am already ruined. Please, forgive me.”
Forgive her. That was all she said, as if forgiveness could make you something you were not.
---
The next morning came quickly.
They bathed you in scented water, combed your hair, and draped you in silks that felt foreign on your skin.
Jewels were fastened around your neck, and rings slid onto your trembling fingers. You looked into the mirror and did not recognise yourself.
The Lady’s maid pressed a folded letter into your hand.
“For the Queen,” she said. “You will give it to her upon your arrival.”
You stepped outside to the waiting carriage. The air was cold, and the ground glistened with dew. The Lady and Lord watched as you climbed in, their faces unreadable.
“Remember who you are now,” the Lady said softly. “You are our daughter. You were born to wed a prince.”
The door shut before you could reply. The horses lurched forward, and the manor faded behind the mist and rain. You sat alone, the letter heavy in your lap, your heart hollow.
The road to King’s Landing took four days.
You passed villages and rivers, hills and distant keeps. The closer you came to the capital, the more uneasy you felt.
The Red Keep rose high above the city like a crown of bloodstone, sharp and proud against the pale sky.
When the gates opened, you stepped into a world that was not your own.
Gold cloaks lined the courtyard, their armour gleaming. Ladies in silk whispered from behind fans. You could feel their eyes on you, measuring, judging.
Inside, the Queen herself awaited you.
Alicent Hightower, poised and elegant, with eyes that seemed to see everything. You knelt before her, offering the letter with trembling hands.
“My lady,” she said gently, breaking the seal. “Rise, please. You are welcome in the Red Keep.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” you murmured.
Her smile was small but kind.
“You must be weary from your travels. The King wishes to bless your union soon, though he is frail and resting tonight. You will meet the royal family at dinner tomorrow.”
You curtsied again, heart pounding.
“As you wish, Your Grace.”
A servant led you to your chambers, larger than any space you had ever seen.
The walls were draped in red, the bed carved with dragons, and the windows opened to the sea.
You stood there, trying to steady your breathing.
When you finally looked out the window, your gaze fell upon the training yard below. A group of knights sparred with wooden swords, the clatter of steel echoing faintly through the courtyard. Among them stood a man with long silver hair, his movements precise and powerful. When he turned, you caught the gleam of an eyepatch beneath the sun.
Prince Aemond Targaryen.
Even from afar, you could sense the chill that surrounded him.
His stance was proud, his expression unreadable, but there was something captivating about the way he moved, controlled, graceful, as if every strike were a piece of music only he could hear.
You did not know why your chest felt tight as you watched him.
Perhaps it was fear, perhaps awe.
Or perhaps, deep down, it was the first stirring of something far more dangerous.
That night, as you lay in the vast bed that did not feel like yours, you thought of home, the rain, the wildflowers, and your mother’s soft humming by the fire.
Now all of it felt distant, as though you had left not only the Riverlands but the person you once were.
Tomorrow you would dine with dragons.
Tomorrow, your lie would begin.
Morning came with the sound of gulls outside your window and the slow chime of bells from somewhere deep within the Keep.
You woke in a bed far too soft, with sunlight spilling through the curtains like molten gold. For a long moment, you forgot where you were. Then the memories rushed back, the rain-soaked manor, the carriage ride, the letter pressed into your trembling hands.
You were no longer yourself. You were a noblewoman promised to a dragon.
A soft knock came at the door. When you opened it, a young maid curtsied deeply.
“The Queen requests your presence for the midday meal, my lady,” she said, avoiding your gaze. “She asked that you join the royal family in the gardens.”
Your throat tightened.
“The gardens?”
“Yes, my lady. Prince Aemond will escort you.”
“Prince Aemond?”
She nodded, her tone respectful but curious.
“He asked for you himself.”
You could not remember how you dressed, only that your hands would not stop shaking.
When you caught your reflection, you hardly recognised the woman staring back, she looked too composed, too fine. But your eyes, uncertain and afraid, stayed your own.
When you walked to the courtyard, he was waiting.
Prince Aemond Targaryen stood under a stone archway, the morning light falling across his pale hair.
His posture was flawless, his hands clasped behind his back. The eyepatch gleamed black against his skin, sharp and stark, yet it did not mar his beauty. If anything, it made him seem carved from something ancient and unyielding.
He inclined his head when he saw you.
“My lady.”
“Your Grace,” you replied, your voice soft, unsure.
“Shall we?”
He offered his arm.
You hesitated only a second before taking it. His sleeve brushed yours, and though he wore gloves, you could still feel the strength beneath his stillness.
The gardens stretched wide and green beneath the castle walls. Roses climbed over trellises, jasmine spilled down marble columns, and the air was rich with the scent of lavender and warm earth.
You felt a strange sense of comfort here, among the flowers, you could almost forget the deceit woven around your every breath.
“You favour the gardens,” Aemond said as you walked along the gravel path.
“I do,” you admitted, glancing at a bed of peonies. “They remind me of home.”
“Your home in the Riverlands?”
You stiffened slightly. You had rehearsed this lie, but the words still caught.
“Yes, my prince. My mother kept a garden by the river. It was… smaller than this, but very dear to her.”
Aemond looked at you sidelong, his expression unreadable.
“Few of noble birth tend to their own gardens.”
You smiled faintly.
“Then perhaps I am simply unusual.”
His mouth twitched, the faintest ghost of amusement.
“Unusual, perhaps. But not unpleasant.”
You felt warmth creep into your cheeks and turned quickly to the roses beside you. Their petals were the colour of blood, heavy with dew. You reached out to touch one, your fingers brushing the silk of the bloom.
“They are Targaryen roses,” you said softly, eager to fill the silence. “They only grow within the walls of the Red Keep. Their roots do not take in foreign soil.”
Aemond’s brow lifted slightly.
“You know much about flowers.”
You smiled, still facing the rose.
“I love them. They speak in colours and scent. They tell stories without words.”
He said nothing for a long moment, and you dared to look at him. He was watching you, his one visible eye steady, bright as amethyst in the sunlight.
“What story does this one tell?” he asked.
You hesitated, glancing back at the crimson petals.
“That it is proud and unyielding, but lonely. It grows where others cannot reach it.”
Something flickered across his face, surprise, perhaps even pain. Then it was gone. He looked away.
“You see much,” he said quietly. “More than most.”
You wanted to ask what he meant, but you sensed the walls closing around him again, and so you said nothing.
The Queen joined you later for the midday meal laid out beneath the shade of an oak tree. The table gleamed with silver dishes, though you could barely eat for the nerves coiling in your stomach.
Aegon arrived first, already half drunk, his grin wide and teasing.
“So this is the famed bride of my brother,” he said, dropping into a chair. “He’s been uncharacteristically quiet since your arrival. You must have bewitched him.”
Aemond’s voice was calm but cold.
“Mind your tongue.”
Aegon only laughed.
“See? He even defends you. Perhaps you’ll tame the dragon after all.”
You flushed deeply, unsure where to look.
The Queen gave her eldest son a sharp glance, and he fell silent with a sigh.
Helaena was next, smiling dreamily as she sat beside you. Her eyes, pale and distant, flickered between the flowers arranged on the table.
“You smell like the meadows,” she said suddenly. “Do you like butterflies? They are better companions than men.”
You smiled softly.
“I like them very much.”
“I thought so,” she replied with a nod, and began tracing circles on the tablecloth.
The Queen gave you a kind, if weary, smile.
“I trust the journey was not too difficult?”
“It was long, Your Grace,” you said honestly, “but the welcome has been… generous.”
Aemond glanced at you from across the table. His expression softened just slightly, and for a fleeting moment, it felt as if the lie might be bearable.
After the meal, Aemond offered to walk you back to your chambers. The corridors were quiet as your steps echoed through the stone halls.
“You endured my brother well,” he said after a moment.
You smiled faintly.
“He means no harm, I think.”
“He means only harm. But he is harmless regardless.”
That earned a small laugh from you before you could stop it. His head tilted slightly, as though surprised by the sound.
“You laugh easily,” he said.
“Not always,” you admitted, lowering your gaze. “But sometimes, it is all one can do.”
He stopped before your door, looking down at you with a gaze that made your heart twist.
“You are not what I expected.”
You looked up at him.
“And what did you expect, my prince?”
He studied you in silence for a moment.
“Someone vain, perhaps. Proud. Like all the others. But you are not like them.”
You felt his words settle deep in your chest, too heavy and too tender at once.
“Rest well, my lady,” he said finally, stepping back.
“Good night, my prince.”
When the door closed behind you, you leaned against it, breath unsteady. The scent of roses still lingered on your hands, and for the first time since you arrived at the Red Keep, the fear in your chest eased just a little.
You did not know it then, but that morning walk among the flowers had changed everything.
The days after your walk in the garden unfolded like a dream you feared would end too soon.
The memory of the prince’s voice lingered in your head, low and even, with words that revealed more than he meant to. You had seen something then and it had stayed with you.
The Keep’s servants now looked at you differently. Some bowed a little lower, some whispered a little more. You did not dare ask what they said, though you caught your name paired with Aemond’s often enough to know that your quiet existence was no longer unseen.
One morning, as you sat at the window of your chamber, the light spilling through the lattice in soft gold, a knock sounded on the door. When you opened it, Aemond stood there.
He was dressed in dark riding leathers, his hair pulled back neatly, his eye cool and clear.
“I am told you have not yet seen Vhagar,” he said. “That will not do. Come with me.”
You blinked, startled by his sudden presence, and nodded.
“Of course, my prince.”
He frowned slightly.
“Do not call me that when we are alone. Aemond will do.”
You followed him through the Red Keep, the corridors dim and cool. Servants bowed as you passed, their gazes curious.
The weight of his silence filled the air, though now it felt less distant, more thoughtful. When you reached the outer gates, the air was bright and sharp with the scent of sea and stone.
He led you down the slope beyond the walls, where the cliffs opened toward the dragonpit.
The sound of wings, distant and thunderous, rumbled in the air before you even saw her.
And then there she was.
Vhagar.
A creature of ancient majesty, her wings folded like mountains, her scales gleaming dull bronze in the light. She exhaled a breath that rippled the ground, her single eye, old and knowing, turning to her rider.
“She is older than the Conquest itself,” Aemond said quietly beside you. “Some say she remembers Valyria. She has outlived every rider but me.”
You could only stare, your heart beating fast.
“She is beautiful,” you whispered.
He looked at you then.
“Most say she is terrifying.”
You smiled faintly.
“Perhaps beauty and terror are not so different.”
Aemond’s lips curved, a shadow of amusement.
“You speak like someone born of dragon blood.”
You shook your head.
“I have no such fire in my veins. I am only a woman who sees wonder where others see fear.”
For a moment, neither of you spoke. The wind carried the scent of ash and salt, Vhagar’s breath a deep rhythm in the distance. Aemond’s gaze lingered on you, not with the sharpness he wore before, but with a kind of careful curiosity, as though you were another secret of the world he wished to study.
“You are not like the women of court,” he said after a pause. “They flatter and chatter, but you... You listen. Even when there is silence.”
“Silence often tells the truth that words cannot.”
Aemond turned his face to the sea, his expression unreadable.
“There is truth in that.” He took a step closer, his voice quieter. “Do you fear me?”
The question caught you off guard. You looked up and met his gaze, the pale light glinting off his sapphire eye.
“I do not,” you said softly. “Should I?”
His mouth twitched, a ghost of surprise.
“Most do. Even those who claim to love me.”
“Then they have never looked properly,” you said before you could stop yourself. “You are not cruel, Aemond. Only guarded.”
He inhaled, slow and steady, and for a heartbeat, you thought he might reach for you. But he did not. His hand fell to his side instead, his control returning like a tide.
“Come,” he said at last. “The light fades quickly here.”
You followed him back up the slope. The silence was no longer heavy, only filled with something unspoken, like a thread drawn between you both. When you reached the Keep again, he paused at the door.
“You said once that you liked the scent of lilacs,” he said. “They do not grow in King’s Landing, but I will have them brought for you.”
You blinked, caught between surprise and gratitude.
“That is not necessary.”
“I did not ask if it was,” he replied, though his tone was softer than his words. “Good night.”
And with that, he was gone.
That night, you lay awake, replaying his voice in your head, his nearness, the heat that had crept beneath your skin when he looked at you. Somewhere beyond the window, a dragon roared in the dark, and you wondered if your heart had begun to burn like theirs.
The lilacs arrived three days later.
You found them waiting in a silver vase on your writing table, their petals a pale, trembling violet that filled your chamber with scent.
You had not expected him to remember his promise, nor to keep it so soon. But there they were, fragrant and delicate, their colour a small rebellion against the Red Keep’s cold stone.
Aemond had not spoken to you since that morning by the dragon pit.
You thought perhaps he regretted the attention he had shown, that he had turned his mind elsewhere. Yet the lilacs told another story.
That evening, as you were pressing one of the blossoms between parchment pages, there was a knock upon your door.
You turned quickly, startled, and found him standing there again, the prince, without armour or cloak, dressed plainly in dark velvet.
“I thought you might like to walk,” he said.
There was no demand in his tone, only a quiet certainty that you would agree. You nodded, smoothing your gown.
“Of course.”
The corridors were mostly empty. Aemond’s stride was unhurried tonight, his hands clasped behind his back. You walked side by side through the torch-lit halls, down to the lower gardens where the air was cooler and the lanterns glowed like captured stars.
For a long while, neither of you spoke. The silence felt different now, not distant, but shared.
He was the first to break it.
“You seem at peace among growing things,” he said. “Why?”
You smiled faintly.
“Because they ask for so little, yet give so much. They need only light, water, and time. People, on the other hand, are never content with simple things.”
He glanced down at you.
“You speak as if you have known much discontent.”
“I have known enough,” you said quietly. “But I find peace in small tasks. Cooking, tending to flowers... they are things that do not lie.”
Aemond’s gaze lingered on you, and his voice softened.
“Honesty is rare in this place. Perhaps that is why I find myself... drawn to it.”
You felt heat rise in your cheeks.
“You surprise me, Aemond.”
He gave a low, thoughtful hum.
“You are not the first to say so, though not always kindly.”
You walked on, and he guided you toward a small stone bench half-hidden beneath ivy. When you sat, you realised he was watching the night sky rather than you. The moonlight caught on the sharp lines of his face, turning his silver hair to white flame.
After a long pause, he spoke again.
“Do you ever wonder what people see when they look at you?”
You turned your head slightly.
“I suppose they see a woman who does not belong here.”
His mouth twitched.
“Perhaps. Yet I see a woman who looks at the world as if she could forgive it.”
You hesitated, unsure how to respond.
“And what do people see when they look at you?”
He was silent for a moment.
“A monster, perhaps. A prince to fear rather than love. The boy who lost an eye and gained a dragon.”
You swallowed, your heart tightening.
“Do you think yourself a monster?”
His jaw flexed.
“Sometimes. It is easier than thinking myself a man.”
Before you could stop yourself, you reached out, your fingers brushing the side of his face. He flinched, not from pain, but surprise. The rough line of the scar beneath his eye was warm under your touch.
“You are not a monster,” you said softly. “You are only what life has made you.”
His breath caught. For a moment, he did not move.
Then, very slowly, he turned his face into your palm, the gesture so fragile it almost undid you.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low.
“You should not touch me so. It gives me thoughts I should not have.”
Your heart stuttered.
“And what thoughts are those?”
His eye lifted to meet yours, bright and searching.
“Ones that would make the gods frown.”
You withdrew your hand gently, afraid that any further boldness would shatter the moment. The air felt charged, heavy with something neither of you dared name.
After a time, Aemond rose.
“You should rest,” he said quietly. “It grows late.”
You nodded, unable to find words.
As he turned to leave, he paused.
“Keep the lilacs near your window,” he said. “Their scent suits you.”
When he was gone, you sat a long while on the bench, the moonlight silvering the petals that had fallen into your lap. You could still feel the warmth of his skin against your fingertips.
You were certain, then, that something within both of you had changed, quietly, like the first bloom of spring underneath the snow.
The Red Keep had a way of making even the smallest whisper feel like a shout.
Every footstep echoed, every glance seemed to carry scrutiny. You had grown used to it in a way, walking the corridors as the Lady’s daughter, answering questions with careful poise, smiling when required. Yet the longer you remained, the heavier the weight of deceit pressed against your chest.
It began quietly, almost imperceptibly. A servant in the kitchens paused a little too long as you passed, a flicker of recognition in her eyes before she turned away.
A page boy lingered near the stables, watching you with curiosity too sharp for innocence. And Aegon, the eldest prince, asked questions that pricked like needles, probing not only your mind but your past.
But none of these unsettled you as much as Aemond.
He had begun to watch you differently now. His glances lingered, sharp and precise, as though he were attempting to see beneath the careful facade you had been forced to construct. He did not accuse or confront, not yet. But every time your eyes met, you felt his scrutiny as a weight on your chest.
It was late one afternoon when the moment came. You were in the solar, arranging lilacs in the silver vase he had sent, the scent of the flowers filling the room. Aemond appeared in the doorway without knocking, silent as a shadow.
“You are meticulous,” he said, his voice calm but carrying an undercurrent of tension. “And careful with your hands. You take care as if everything depended upon it.”
You froze, startled by the intensity of his gaze.
“I… I like things to be ordered,” you said softly. “It makes the world easier to manage.”
He stepped closer, and for the first time, you noticed the subtle stiffness in his stance.
“I wonder,” he said slowly, “if you are always so careful, or if there is something you hide.”
Your stomach dropped.
“I… I do not understand, my prince.”
His eye narrowed slightly.
“Do not lie to me.”
You swallowed, your hands gripping the vase until the flowers trembled. “I have never lied to you.”
“Have you not?” His tone sharpened, though his eyes flickered with something softer beneath the suspicion. “You arrived as another, yet you are not her. You speak of your childhood, your home… yet it does not match what I have been told.”
Your heart pounded, and you realised there was no way to avoid this confrontation. The lie had lasted long enough. The warmth between you both, the slow bloom of trust and affection, hung precariously in the balance.
You took a deep breath, setting the vase aside.
“It is true,” you said quietly. “I am not your promised bride.”
Aemond’s violet eye widened slightly, then darkened with anger.
“Then who are you?”
You stepped forward, your hands open as though offering peace.
“I am a servant of the family you were promised. Their daughter… she cannot marry you. She is with child, and she loves another. I had no choice.”
His jaw flexed, tension radiating from his shoulders.
“You deceived the Crown. You deceived me. Do you know the danger you have brought upon yourself?”
“I know,” you said, your voice steady despite the fear threading through it. “I meant no harm. I only did as I was told. My name is…” You paused, then spoke it softly, the truth finally free. “…and I care for you more than I ever imagined I could. From the moment we walked in the gardens, from the day I saw Vhagar, I…”
He flinched, as if your words were a weapon.
“You speak of love,” he said, his tone harsh, almost incredulous. “Do you think that will absolve you?”
You stepped closer, despite the chill that had settled between you.
“I cannot take it back. I cannot undo what has been done. But you must know… I never meant to deceive you for my own gain. My heart is yours, whether you believe it or not.”
For a moment, he did not move.
The silence stretched long enough for your courage to falter, for fear to creep back in. You feared he would turn, leave, and let the weight of your lie be your end.
Then, suddenly, he left the room, his footsteps echoing down the corridor. You were left alone with the lilacs, their scent bittersweet, and your chest heaving with a mixture of relief and dread.
You did not sleep that night.
Every creak of the Keep made you flinch. Every shadow seemed to harbour judgement. You imagined the worst, that the prince would never forgive you, that the Queen would learn, that your life would crumble entirely.
Yet when morning came, the world had not ended.
The corridors were quiet, the servants unaware of the storm that had passed in your chamber. And when you made your way to the training yard, you saw him there, sword in hand, striking with precision and fury that made your heart ache in ways you could not name.
He paused when he saw you. His chest rose and fell, his expression unreadable.
You felt small, exposed, yet compelled to approach.
“My prince,” you said softly. “I… I would beg your forgiveness. I will leave, if you wish, and never return. I only wanted-”
“Do not,” he interrupted, the word sharp but not cruel. His sword lowered slowly, the tension in his shoulders giving way just enough for you to see the struggle beneath. “Do not speak of leaving. You have no choice, and… neither do I.”
He stepped closer, and for the first time, you saw the storm behind his eye. Not rage, not suspicion, but something darker, possessive, fierce, and undeniable.
“You are mine,” he said quietly, yet with force enough to make your heart skip. “And I will not let you go.”
Before you could speak, he closed the space between you, his lips pressing against yours.
It was harsh, demanding, yet tempered with the care he had shown in small ways before. You felt yourself yield, trembling, caught in the weight of his claim, the fire in his touch, and the quiet warmth that had grown between you both.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested briefly against yours.
“We will face this,” he murmured, voice low and unsteady. “Together.”
And for the first time, the fear of the lie, the uncertainty of your place in his world, seemed bearable.
Sleep did not come that night, only the restless turning of thoughts that refused to still.
You laid under the soft linen sheets, staring at the ceiling while the faint sound of waves carried through the open window.
Every word he had spoken repeated in your mind, You are mine, and I will not let you go.
The taste of his kiss still lingered, a mixture of heat and fear, and you could not decide which part of it unsettled you more. He had left without another word after that, his expression unreadable, his steps heavy with something you could not name.
You rose with the dawn, hoping that the day would offer clarity, but instead, the Keep felt colder than before. The servants seemed quieter, the air heavier.
You could not shake the feeling that everything hung by a thread, your life, your secret, his mercy.
You found yourself in the gardens once again, where the lilacs had begun to fade. The petals trembled in the breeze, falling to the ground like the last remnants of a lie too heavy to bear. You touched one, your fingers tracing its fragile edge.
When you turned, Aemond was standing behind you.
You startled, your heart leaping to your throat. He wore his dark tunic, the one embroidered with subtle silver dragons. His sword belt hung at his hip, though his hand rested loosely on it.
“You should not walk alone,” he said. His voice was calm, but it carried an undertone of tension, as though he were restraining something.
You inclined your head slightly.
“I did not think you would come.”
“I considered not doing so,” he replied, stepping closer until you could see the faint bruise along his jaw, the mark of recent training. “Yet I found no peace without you in sight.”
You drew a breath, unsure how to meet his gaze.
“You should not have to see me again. You should tell the Queen the truth and-”
“I will not,” he interrupted sharply. “If you think I would hand you over to my mother’s judgment, you do not understand me at all.”
You hesitated.
“Then why have you come?”
He was silent for a long moment, the breeze shifting his hair, the sunlight catching the gleam of his sapphire.
“Because I do not know what to do with what I feel.”
You looked up at him, heart hammering.
“And what do you feel, my prince?”
He exhaled slowly, his voice low and rough.
“Anger, because you deceived me. Confusion, because I cannot hate you for it. And something far worse, because I know I could not bear to lose you, no matter the truth.”
You took a tentative step closer.
“You think it weakness.”
“It is weakness,” he said, though his tone had softened. “But one I would rather live with than the emptiness that came before.”
The confession was quiet, raw, and it stole your breath. You reached out instinctively, your fingers brushing his sleeve, the warmth of him grounding you in the moment.
“I never wanted to deceive you,” you said softly. “I was told I had no choice. I thought I would come here, play the part, and fade into the background. I did not think you would ever notice me, let alone care.”
He turned his head toward you, his eye sharp but no longer cold.
“And yet you caught me unawares. No courtly woman could have done that.”
You gave a small, broken laugh.
“Because I do not know how to be one.”
“Perhaps that is why you are honest,” he murmured.
Silence fell again, but this time it was tender. The space between you was alive with everything unspoken, fear, longing, the ache of uncertainty that had become something more than either of you had intended.
“I will protect you,” he said suddenly, his hand lifting to touch your chin, tilting your face toward his. “Whatever the cost. But I will have your truth from now on. No more pretence.”
“You have it,” you whispered. “All of it.”
His gaze searched yours for a long time before he spoke again.
“Then say it,” he said quietly. “Say what you feel.”
You hesitated, your pulse racing. Then you breathed the words that had burned in you for weeks.
“I love you, Aemond. I love you, though I should not, though I do not deserve to. I love you still.”
He inhaled sharply, as though struck by the force of it. His hand slid from your chin to the back of your neck, pulling you closer until his forehead rested against yours.
“You should not,” he whispered. “But you do.”
You closed your eyes.
“And you?”
He was silent for a heartbeat, and then his lips brushed yours, softer this time, deliberate and certain. When he drew back, his voice was quiet but steady.
“I do.”
The words settled between you like a vow.
That evening, the Keep seemed quieter than usual. You ate alone, as you often did, but your heart was no longer burdened by fear. The lie was gone. What remained was fragile, uncertain, but real, a truth born of fire and forgiveness.
You sat by the window until the stars appeared, watching the flicker of the training yard torches below. Aemond would be there, you knew, working his blade against the dark.
You touched the lilac petals on your table and smiled faintly, knowing that from this moment onward, whatever the world said, you would not face it alone.
The Keep had begun to change around you. Where before every glance and whispered word had carried the weight of suspicion, now it carried a different tension, one of curiosity, some awe, and, you suspected, a little fear.
Aemond’s presence had become inescapable, whether in the training yard, the gardens, or the long halls of the Red Keep. And the way he looked at you, lingering and deliberate, left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he considered you his.
You discovered the extent of that claim one afternoon when he appeared at your chambers unannounced. You were arranging herbs in a copper bowl, the scent of rosemary and thyme heavy in the warm air.
“You should not be alone here,” he said quietly, stepping inside. His eyes caught yours, sharp and intense, and the air seemed to thrum with his presence.
“I am careful,” you replied, trying to sound calm, though your pulse had quickened.
“Not careful enough,” he said, closing the door behind him. His hand rested briefly on the edge of the table, near yours, and the heat of him made your fingers tremble. “You belong to me now. I will not have harm come to you.”
You looked up at him, startled by the intensity in his voice.
“I am yours?”
“Yes,” he said simply, firmly, his one eye burning with emotion. “Do you doubt it?”
“I…” Your words faltered. You had feared this declaration, yet now that it came, it made your chest ache with something sweet and terrifying. “No,” you whispered.
He stepped closer, closing the gap between you. The faintest brush of his fingers against yours made your heart stutter.
“You will be mine in every sense,” he said softly, “and the world will have to accept it.”
You swallowed, trying to steady yourself.
“I… I do not know what that means.”
“It means that I will guard you,” he said, his voice low, almost a growl. “I will fight anyone who dares to challenge you, and I will claim you before all the world. You will not walk this Keep as a shadow. You will walk as my equal, my companion, my-”
He faltered, his words choking slightly.
His hands hovered near yours, uncertain, though the tension in his body made it clear he was close to losing control.
“Your wife,” you breathed, almost before you had thought it.
His head lifted sharply, eyes widening, and then he laughed softly, a low, astonished sound.
“Yes,” he said, the word carrying a weight and promise that made your knees weak. “You will be my wife.”
Your lips curved in a smile, and for the first time in weeks, you felt the full warmth of hope.
“Then I am yours,” you said, steady despite the tremor in your heart. “As you are mine.”
He drew you into an embrace then, strong and possessive, but careful enough not to hurt you. You could feel the power beneath him, the fire of his Targaryen blood, yet it was tempered by tenderness.
His cheek pressed to yours, and his breath whispered against your ear.
“I will never let you go.”
The days that followed were a whirlwind of preparation, both subtle and public.
Aemond began to appear at your side more openly, and though he spoke little, his hand brushed yours in the halls, and his eyes lingered on you in ways that left the courtiers murmuring.
Aegon, ever curious, asked pointed questions at meals, testing both your composure and your knowledge of courtly customs. You answered cautiously, aware of Aemond’s watchful gaze.
Helaena, with her strange, ethereal smiles, observed quietly.
“You are his,” she whispered once as you passed, eyes wide. “And he is yours.”
You nodded, unable to speak, your heart full.
One evening, as the sun dipped low over the Red Keep, Aemond led you to the outer balcony. The wind tugged at your gown, and the scent of the sea mixed with the roses below. He turned to you, his hand brushing yours, fingers intertwining.
“You are mine,” he said again, softer this time, yet with the same fiery certainty. “And I will not allow anyone to take you from me, not the court, not my family, not the world.”
You looked up at him, your chest tight with emotion.
“Then I will stand with you,” you said. “Whatever comes.”
His lips pressed to yours then, slow and sure, a kiss that promised protection, love, and ownership all at once. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.
“My dragon,” he murmured, his voice rough with emotion, “my heart, my wife.”
And for the first time, you believed it.
The court might whisper, the Queen might question, and the danger might always linger, but in that moment, Aemond Targaryen had chosen you, fiercely, irrevocably, and without hesitation.
The slow burn of your love, nurtured in gardens and libraries and stolen moments, was now a flame the world could no longer ignore.
The Red Keep was alive with whispers.
Servants paused mid-step to glance your way, noblewomen peered from behind fans, and even the guards seemed to notice the small shifts in the air. Yet through it all, you walked beside Aemond as though nothing had changed, the warmth of his hand resting lightly on your back.
He had chosen to make your presence known, subtle yet impossible to ignore. No longer did you move in shadows; no longer were you merely the substitute bride.
Now you were his. And the knowledge, heavy and sweet, filled your chest with a mixture of pride and fear.
The Queen watched you closely at dinner, her gaze sharp yet unreadable. She did not speak of your deception, nor of the girl you had replaced. Perhaps she knew that Aemond would not suffer interference.
Perhaps she simply wished to see what you were, tested under the eyes of court.
Aegon, as ever, was curious and talkative, leaning across the table to study you.
“You seem unafraid of the court,” he remarked, a smile teasing his lips. “I thought most would falter before my brother.”
You inclined your head, careful to meet his gaze evenly.
“Fear is wasted upon the inevitable,” you said softly, your voice carrying more confidence than you felt.
Aemond’s hand brushed yours under the table, and the simple contact sent warmth rippling through your fingers. He did not smile, only met your eye with a single raised brow that made your heart stutter.
After the meal, Aemond led you to the library, your sanctuary among the towering shelves and the scent of old parchment. He moved beside you as you traced your fingers over the spines of books, a hand occasionally brushing yours in passing, deliberate and possessive.
“You read too much,” he said quietly, almost a growl, though his tone carried a soft edge. “You study people and flowers and words, yet never the one who claims you.”
You looked up at him, startled.
“And what should I study?”
“Me,” he said simply, his voice low, intense. “All of me. You will need to know me completely, as I will know you.”
Your cheeks warmed.
“I am trying.”
“Trying is not enough,” he said, stepping closer. The heat of him brushed against your arm, and the library seemed to vanish, leaving only the two of you. “I will take what is mine, and I will claim it fully.”
You inhaled sharply, heart hammering, the tension between fear and longing nearly unbearable.
“And if the court disagrees?”
He smiled faintly, darkly.
“They will have to bow, or they will learn the cost of denying me.”
Later, as you walked the gardens, he paused beside a trellis of jasmine, brushing your hair back so that the scent enveloped your senses.
“Do you know,” he murmured, “that I have never allowed anyone this close?”
You shook your head.
“I could not guess.”
“Not because I could not,” he said, his eye softening, “but because I did not trust anyone enough. Yet you… you have drawn me out. And I am afraid that if I lose you, I will not survive it.”
Your fingers found his hand, gripping it lightly.
“You will not lose me. I am yours, Aemond. Even in the face of the world, I am yours.”
His lips met yours then, long and certain, the kiss claiming what had already been promised. When he drew back, his forehead rested against yours.
“Then we will face it together,” he said, his voice rough with unspoken emotion.
As the days passed, your bond deepened. You were no longer hidden, no longer quiet.
Aemond’s presence was fierce, protective, and constant. He walked beside you through the halls, ensured the guards watched closely, and allowed no hand to brush yours without his permission.
Possessive, yes, but gentle in ways that left your heart aching for more.
And through it all, the lilacs by your window reminded you of how far you had come from a frightened servant to a woman claimed by fire and shadow, loved fiercely by the dragon prince who would soon make you his bride.
For the first time, the thought of your wedding did not terrify you.
It promised not just love, but belonging, and the certainty that Aemond Targaryen would not let the world take you from him.
The Red Keep buzzed with a tension you had never known. The marriage between you and Aemond was no longer a secret, and the court’s whispers followed you like shadows.
Noblewomen watched with narrowed eyes, some curious, some jealous, while lords murmured speculation about the future of the Targaryen line. You had expected fear or disdain, but most offered only cautious courtesy, as if testing how far the dragon prince would go to claim you.
Aemond did not hesitate.
His presence was constant, a shadow at your side, and his hand brushed yours at every opportunity. The subtle claims he made, in gestures, glances, and touches, left no room for doubt: you were his.
One afternoon, he appeared in your chambers without announcement, his expression unreadable.
You had been arranging the roses from the gardens, their petals spilling like blood over the marble table.
“You are far too calm,” he said, his voice low and even, though the heat behind it made you shiver. “Do you understand what this court will demand?”
“I do,” you replied, trying to steady your voice. “But I am not afraid. I have you.”
His eye softened, the edge of anger and possessiveness blending with something warmer.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I will not allow them to test you. Not now, not ever.”
He stepped closer, the scent of jasmine clinging to his cloak. His hand found yours, fingers entwining.
“I will not share you,” he said quietly, pressing a thumb to the back of your hand. “And no one will question that without consequence.”
“I would not have it any other way,” you whispered.
He leaned down then, brushing his lips lightly against yours. The kiss was deliberate, possessive, yet tender, a promise sealed in softness and fire. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.
“Together,” he said. “Always.”
The days that followed were a whirlwind of preparation. Robes were fitted, jewels selected, and invitations sent across the kingdom. You moved through it all with quiet dignity, the court’s eyes upon you, yet you felt no fear. Aemond’s presence was a shield, his hand always brushing yours, a constant reassurance that you were not alone.
One evening, as the sun dipped behind the distant hills, he took you to a private balcony overlooking the gardens. Lanterns flickered in the wind, casting shadows that danced across the stone.
“Do you see this?” he asked, his voice soft. “The world is waiting for us to take our place, yet all of this-” he gestured at the Keep, at the distant city beyond the walls “It means nothing if we do not stand together.”
You leaned into him, fingers brushing the edge of his cloak.
“I stand with you,” you whispered. “Whatever comes.”
His hands rested on your waist, steady and firm.
“And I with you,” he murmured, pressing a lingering kiss to your temple. “Whatever storms may come, whatever whispers the court spreads, we face it as one.”
The moon rose over the gardens, silvering the petals of the roses at your feet. You closed your eyes, feeling the warmth of his chest against yours, the strength of his hold, and the fire that had grown between you both. In that moment, you knew nothing in the world could take him from you, and nothing in the world could take you from him.
The court might watch, and the world might whisper, but Aemond Targaryen had made his choice, and it was clear, unyielding, and irrevocable.
You were his.
And in the quiet of that stolen evening, with the wind carrying the scent of jasmine and roses, you realised that nothing had ever felt more like home.
The Red Keep was alight with preparation. Lanterns hung along the corridors, tapestries were brushed and polished, and the scent of roses and lilacs filled every chamber. The court buzzed with anticipation, nobles moving about in a careful choreography, yet all their whispers seemed to fade whenever Aemond appeared at your side.
You had grown accustomed to the constant presence of the dragon prince, to the subtle touches and lingering glances that left your heart thrumming.
And now, as the day of your wedding approached, the air between you was thick with excitement, anxiety, and a quiet certainty that had grown stronger with every passing moment.
That morning, he came to your chambers before breakfast, as was his habit. You were seated by the window, arranging fresh lilacs in a silver vase, their scent mingling with the morning air.
“You are calm,” he said softly, stepping close, his hand brushing yours. “Too calm for a bride.”
“I have you,” you said quietly, looking up at him. “I am not afraid.”
His eyes softened, and he leaned down to press a gentle kiss to your forehead.
“Then let them whisper. Let the world watch. Today, you are mine, and I am yours.”
The ceremony was set in the Great Hall, where sunlight poured through the tall, arched windows, illuminating the tapestries of dragons and ancient kings.
The court gathered, all eyes upon you as you entered, your gown flowing like a river of silver and violet, the lilacs from your chamber woven into your hair.
Aemond awaited you at the dais, his armour polished to a faint gleam, his single eye sharp and bright, but there was a softness in his expression reserved only for you. As you approached, his hand reached for yours, and the world seemed to narrow to the space between you.
“You are breathtaking,” he murmured, his thumb brushing lightly over your knuckles.
“And you are terrifying,” you replied with a small laugh, though your heart fluttered wildly.
He leaned down slightly, resting his forehead against yours before the ceremony began.
“Soon, all of this will be ours,” he whispered. “You and I, no one to separate us.”
The vows were spoken softly, your words clear and true, his promises fierce and unwavering. When he took your hands in his, there was no pretence, no hesitation, only the certainty that had grown between you over countless stolen moments, quiet conversations, and shared silences in the gardens.
“I, Aemond Targaryen, take you to be my wife,” he said, his voice low but carrying across the hall. “To claim you, to guard you, to love you, and to be faithful, until the end of our days.”
“I, [Your Name], take you,” you replied, “to stand by your side, to love you, and to be yours, in all ways, forever.”
When he pressed his lips to yours, the applause of the court faded to nothing. There was only the warmth of his hands on your back, the fire of his gaze, and the quiet certainty that you belonged to each other fully, completely.
Afterwards, in the privacy of your chambers, Aemond pulled you close, his lips brushing yours again in a softer, more tender kiss.
“We have survived the whispers,” he murmured. “And now, nothing can touch us.”
You rested your head against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your ear.
“We are together,” you whispered. “Finally.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice low and possessive, yet full of warmth. “Together, always.”
The lilacs on your table were still fresh, their scent mingling with roses and candle smoke, a quiet reminder of how far you had come. From a frightened servant of a scheming family to the wife of a dragon prince, you had found your place, and it was here, in his arms, in the fire of his love, in the life you would share together.
And as the sun set over King’s Landing, casting gold across the Red Keep, you knew that this was only the beginning.
Your love would endure all things, and Aemond Targaryen would be yours, wholly, for all the days to come.
The Red Keep had grown still. Torches flickered in the corridors, casting long, soft shadows across the stone walls. The court had retired, leaving only the hush of night and the faint scent of lilacs lingering in the air.
You stood at the window of your chamber, the moonlight spilling across your gown. The lilacs you had brought from your rooms earlier were now scattered across the table and in small vases, their fragrance mingling with the warmth of the room.
Aemond entered quietly, his eyes scanning the space before settling on you. He removed his cloak, letting it fall to the floor, and stepped closer. There was no armour now, no demands, only the raw intensity of him, the man you had come to love, fierce and protective, yet tender in ways no one else had ever seen.
“You are here,” he murmured, his voice low, almost reverent. “And I may finally breathe.”
You turned to him, a smile soft and quiet on your lips.
“I am here,” you whispered. “And I am yours.”
He reached for you, his hands gentle as they lifted your face to his. His thumb brushed along your cheek, and then his lips found yours, slow, deliberate, claiming you again in a way that left no doubt. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, and you could feel the fire of his heartbeat beneath your ear.
“Together,” he said, his voice rough yet warm, “in every sense. Always.”
You nodded, resting your hands against his chest.
“Always,” you echoed, your heart swelling with love, relief, and the quiet joy of belonging.
He led you to the bed, where the moonlight pooled like silver silk over the covers.
There was no hurry, no need for words. He held you close, one arm around your waist, the other brushing a strand of hair from your face. The scent of lilacs filled the room, mingling with the warmth of his skin and the quiet rhythm of your shared breaths.
“You are mine,” he murmured, possessive yet gentle, his lips brushing against your temple. “And I will guard you. Always.”
“And you are mine,” you whispered back, your fingers threading through his hair, your heart steady in the fire of his claim. “And I will follow you wherever you go.”
They were not grand declarations, no words of court or crown. They were simple, intimate, and real, a promise of love forged in fire and shadow, in gardens and libraries, in stolen moments and whispered confessions.
The night stretched around you, quiet except for the steady rhythm of two hearts, fierce and intertwined.
And as you rested against him, the lilacs blooming by the window, the warmth of his arms around you, you knew that this was only the beginning, a life of love, devotion, and slow-burning passion with Aemond Targaryen.
For in him, you had found not only a prince, but a home.
summary: you and your husband baelor going on your 3rd anniversary vacation
c/w: fluff, you're just a very spoiled wife who's glowing because you're loved rightfully by your husband
a/n: miss him sm, i have a lot of ideas and concepts for off campus but i can't bring myself to write it, not after i write for my dear husband baelor
It's your 3rd anniversary, you and your husband are going on vacation. You've been busy with your work more than he is, like what he always teases you because your work consists of pilates, going on for pretty brunch, matcha with your coworkers, and more.
He never complains about it because he knows it's not something to complain about. He'd ask about your day at the end of his long, tiring day while praising you for working hard and going through your day while he kneads your sore back and treading his fingers in your scalp.
And now you're exhausted, so you asked your husband to plan all of this anniversary vacation, for you've made the whole plan, itinerary and stuff for the previous anniversary and any trips you went. He just agreed and kissed your hair lovingly while murmuring in that soft, gentle voice of his. "Anything for you, sweetheart."
Now here you are, tangled in the bedsheets on a hotel room with an amazing view. No, you didn't have sex last night. You remember checking in, walking in the door, and throwing yourself on the bed.
Your hair is a mess now, like how it always is when you wake up. But your clothes are changed, soft sleepwear cling to your skin, and your face feels light, clear. Someone must've removed it so you can sleep comfortably.
Someone in question is currently in the shower, the sound of water seeps in through your ears. You still move lazily in your bed, don't find it in yourself to get up. After a few seconds, Baelor comes out of the shower, towel in his hips. He immediately smiles once he sees you awake.
"You sleep good?" He asks with his raspy voice from the morning hour, leaning down to peck a kiss on your lips.
"Very. A mysterious man removed my make-up and changed my clothes last night, isn't it intriguing?"
He shakes his head at your antics, though the small smile you can still see in his lips. He walks towards the window to open it, warm sunlight seeps through it.
"If that man happened to be your husband, is it still intriguing?"
"No. I wouldn't be concerned about it." You put your hand on your closed eyelids. "Also, is it not too early for morning sunlight? I can barely see."
"It's 9 am, sweetheart."
You look at the digital watch on the night stand. "Then where is my croissant and coffee?" You ask in the most pleading, spoiled tone possible.
"I already asked for them to be brought to our room. Figured you'd wake up by now." He says as he casually searches for his shirt. You look at him with a smitten look in your eyes. Ah, your perfect husband. You always thank the lucky stars that night he asked you to marry him.
"And why are all showered and ready this early morning again?" You ask him in a suspicious tone. "I was not warned you'd still be a morning person on our anniversary vacation."
You can see him huffs a smile. "I'm going for a quick run. We'll see and walk around the city after you eat your breakfast in peace, yes?" Now you remembered asking him to plan the whole vacation AND make all the decisions for him and for you because you want to relax and enjoy your peace. So you can't really argue.
"Approved. I also want to wear the prettiest dress for my walk today." You raise your brows.
"Understood." When he leans in again, you grab his jaw and kiss him longer, your hand feeling the stubble on his face. He gives you one last smile before walking out the door.
Not long after, you enjoy eating your breakfast in bed, scrolling through your phone. Then you take a quick shower and when you step out of the bathroom, your beautiful dress is already laid up on the sheets, along with your heels. Your skincare and make-up products are on the vanity table.
You glance up at your husband, a camera in his hand. "I hope I'm not getting it wrong. Fujifilm xm5, right?"
You smile like a fool in front of the bathroom door, still wearing white bath robe. "Yeah, right."
"Okay. I'm gonna get ready now."
The weather is warm and sunny, making the city look even more beautiful as you walk around slowly, your arm linked with his while the two of you wander through the crowded streets. Soft laughter and distant music fill the air, and every now and then, his thumb brushes absentmindedly against your arm.
"It's really beautiful here but it's so hot." You complain as your hand fans your sweaty neck.
"We can get gelato after taking that turn." He says as he fixes your hair gently so it doesn't get in your sight.
"How do you know that?"
"I did my research." He shrugs casually.
"You did, didn't you? You're just my perfect husband with your perfect plans and research, aren't you?" You say teasingly as you pepper the side of his stubbled jaw with your little kisses and he just chuckles.
Arriving at the booth, you're baffled because there are too many interesting flavors so Baelor decides one for you. After that, he leads you to the nearest canal, and that's when you know you're gonna go for a gondola ride. He immediately greets the local gondolier, which indicates he already booked it in advance.
He offers you his hand as you climb into the gondola, while the gondolier says something about your enchanting look in his broken English, and quickly comes up with remarks. "A woman can't be this beautiful if her husband ain't treat her right." You wink at Baelor playfully and he shoots you a look, clearly entertained with your generous praises.
You settle comfortably in your seat as the gondola sways softly beneath you. You look around to soak in the view when you hear a sharp click of the camera.
"Look at you now, being professional with your camera." You look at Baelor with poorly hidden amusement.
"I just know when to capture the perfect view."
You snort. "Oh my god, who taught you that?"
He shrugs carelessly while looking at the result in the camera. "Hard not when my wife is the best view among the beautiful city."
Your cheeks tint pink at his words. While you and Baelor are lost in the moment, the gondolier looks at you two fondly.
Baelor takes a lot of pictures of you, and he's a little bashful when you insist you take turns. The gondolier offers to take pictures of you both and you surprise your husband by kissing him on the lips when you ask him to kiss your cheeks.
When you're finally back at the hotel, you look at the previous pictures. They are beautiful and perfect. His voice catches your attention.
"Do you want to get dinner now?"
You look at him from the bed and eye him from head to toe shamelessly. He raises his brows, though he doesn't really deny his small smile at your intent.
"Can we skip to the good part?"
You give your most innocent look possible as he walks towards you.
"That is one thing I can't deny myself."
He says with a gentle, playful smile before you grab his shirt and push him down to the sheets. Your giggles echo the hotel room but it's not long because he muffles it with his kiss.
he's just perfect ain't he, btw i have an acceptance announcement to my dream major and uni in hours, hope i get in and wish me luck guys! 😋💓
synopsis: Your husband believes you are neglecting him in favor of your newly born babe.
cw: they have a babe!!, fluff fluff, slight humor, breastfeeding, making out, tongue sucking!!, jealousy, possessiveness, praise!!, pregnancy mention, (2.1kw).
“treason.”
you almost rolled your eyes at your husband’s mutterings, albeit fondly. it amused you, in a way, to see him so torn apart by such a simple matter. dramatic to a fault, your prince was, but you couldn’t help but love him regardless.
“you would call treason upon your own son?” you huff, finding the situation more humorous than it should be as you cradled the chubby babe to your breast. he was too preoccupied latching onto you and puckering for milk, oblivious to the mock disdain his father was currently displaying towards him. ridiculous, truly, but you never were one to call out aerion’s dramatics outward, instead sitting back and watching keenly as your husband fussed and snapped his teeth in search of your attention, hoping to garner it.
away from his own son. even now, having the heir he most ardently wanted, healthy and nursing from your breast in contempt, aerion still was not entirely pleased. still wanting to possess and monopolize every bit of it.
“i would,” he responded, lip curled lightly, even as he made his way towards the plush bed, where you and the babe were lounging, surrounded by pelts, pillows, and blankets. it was aerion’s order, for his wife and son would not want for nothing and receive every bit of comfort there is, at any hour of the day. “it is the greatest offense to steal one’s wife,” aerion continued, a frown now marring his handsome features as he slid under the blanket, molding himself to your back from shoulders to ankles, hooking his around yours. “more so a prince’s of the realm. a dragon’s.”
you had half a mind to contain the laughter that was bubbling in your throat at your husband’s words. he would rather take a spear to the heart than openly admit to missing you, to inquire you offer your consideration and affection to him, too. so, instead, he would find every which way to demand it, one more nonsensical than the other. it was confusing in the early stages of your betrothal, with all the fussing and squabbling, but over time, it slowly bloomed into unadulterated fondness, making your heart flutter.
your husband had always been a greedy man, wanting nothing else than to hoard everything he deemed worthy of him, like a dragon with its shiny treasures. most endearing, truly, but you would never relay that little thought to him, for you know aerion would show his teeth at any diminishing praise from you.
“he is not stealing anything,” came your soft protest, your lips twitching with amusement as you felt aerion’s arm curl around your waist, holding you tightly pressed against his chest, fingers spreading to encompass as much of your belly as possible, just to feel and paw at the clothed skin. “you know babes need all the care and vigilance from their mothers,” you lilted, before adding pointedly, leaning back against him. “and fathers.”
he scoffed, the puff of air brushing against your nape, where your husband was currently nuzzling, face tucked against your skin as he mumbled. “he needs too much,” aerion protested, the fingers on your belly pressing in, kneading at the pudgy skin, similar to a cat kneading. “he takes too much from you,” your husband continued, words slightly muffled by his incessant nosing against your neck, breathing you in, the smell of warm milk and motherhood drawing him in like a moth to a flame.
you didn’t respond, only huffing, your attention drawn to the peaceful babe in your arms, as one of his little hands patted at your breast, fingers curling onto the skin as he nursed. your expression melted, heart soaring with so much love and affection for the bundle nestled at your chest. you and aerion’s bundle. the most important thing in the world to both of you.
“even now, his greed knows no bounds, wife,” aerion complained again, chin hooking onto your shoulder, cheek pressing against yours as he watched the way his son suckled at your breast, content and unburdened, the corners of his little mouth smeared with milk as he cooed softly the more he nursed. “he’s been feeding for what feels like forever,” he pressed on, brows furrowing, making you stifle a soft snort of laughter, which only made your husband scowl. “and you seem to find my predicament highly amusing.”
of course you did. having your husband close to pouting over not receiving enough attention from you was prime entertainment when one was so swamped by the intricacies of motherhood.
“maybe just a little bit, my love,” you spoke, turning your face until your nose bumped against his cheek, wanting his gaze on you, urging him to meet your eyes. “but he needs it,” the words only make his frown deepen as he peers at you, lip curling in distaste. “how is he to grow into a strong dragon if he doesn’t feed, hm?” you wonder, but it’s all placating, wanting to coax out your husband’s agreement by using his own pride against him.
since before the babe was even born, all you heard was your husband proclaiming that his son was to be the strongest dragon. an exemplary targaryen. the one who would mount the world and bring renown to the family name anew.
and now he dared to complain when you were aiding his dreams to come true? feeding and nurturing his son to your breast as many times as the babe fussed, even in the dead of night, bone—tired with exhaustion.
he only sneered lightly, leaning in to brush your noses together, eyes half lidded with intent as he watched you. the frown between his brows eased just a bit when he saw your gaze being trained on him steadily, no longer on the babe. “he’s being a greedy little dragon, then,” your husband mumbled, not ceasing his nosing, pressing closer so his lips brushed against your cheek. “seizing all your attention and love for himself, while i am left bereft without my sweet wife's tending.”
your breath hitched from his words, and even more so when his tongue flicked out to taste the corner of your mouth, needy and insistent, pupils blown wide, eclipsing the purple of his eyes. he only looked at you like that when he wanted to have you, which was more often than a proper lady would want to admit. but you never minded. you loved being wanted by aerion. it felt exhilarating to be caught under the sheer intensity of his gaze; a predator prowling his next prey, a dragon circling his mate before giving into ancient instincts.
“you are being dramatic to a fault,” you accuse, breath thinning into soft puffs as your husband’s lips trail towards your jaw, peppering the curve with wet, lingering kisses, willing to make you falter. “we sleep in the same bed every night, and have supper—”
“and it is not enough,” he interrupts, pressing one last kiss to your soft chin before nudging your noses together anew, lips brushing as he spoke, tone low. “i haven’t bathed with you in moons, wife,” your husband reminds you, eyes sharpening in reprimand, as if you have committed a grave sin and must now repent. “haven’t had you cheer me on when i joust at tourneys, bestowing your favor upon me so i can come back victorious.”
he spoke truth, and you knew how much aerion cherished those moments, even if never said out loud. his eyes always sought out yours when he jousted, preening under your watchful gaze, pea-cocking only for you, especially when he won. the baths you missed as well. having the whole bath-chambers to yourselves while you washed each other, letting your hands linger and steam warm up your skin when ultimately your husband became too impatient not to have you against the tub, slick bodies moving languidly until you both came, tongues tangled and nails biting into each other’s skin.
aerion missed you.
the thought made you smile against his mouth, a secretive, fond thing, humming as you leaned to peck his lips, pleased to see him chasing your mouth when you drew back. “you know it was hard for me to move much, my love,” you whispered, lips touching as you spoke. “our little dragon demanded my rest more often than not,” a little smile in the corner of your mouth as you continued, offering another kiss, which aerion soaked up like a man starved, inhaling sharply through his nose as he meant to prolong it, but was denied. “and now look at him. chubby and cute as a button,” you paused for a moment for your husband’s gaze to clear from the brief haze of want, before murmuring. “healthy.”
aerion’s expression seemed to ease, chest heaving just so as he watched you, stagnant for now, as if acclimating to your words, to their meaning.
he sighed, moving closer, eyelashes fluttering as a long sigh parted his lips, brushing against yours as he murmured. “healthy,” aerion repeated, tone dipping into reverence. “you have given me a healthy, strong babe,” he continued, tipping his chin to slot his lips with yours, making you gasp softly. “a miracle.”
the words were poured into your mouth, aerion’s lips firm but slow against yours, coaxing you to reciprocate, to let him reward you for the blessing you brought into this world, for the pride that swelled into his chest every time he looked at his son, for all the days and nights you ached and wept from the pain of pregnancy. for his son and heir.
you couldn’t help but melt into his kiss, forgetting for a moment about the content babe suckling at your breast. oh, how you have missed your husband, even if he had kissed you plenty today. aerion couldn’t tolerate the absence of your touch for too long. it was like an itch under his skin that he couldn’t scratch, quieting only when your bodies touched, when he tasted your lips, when he felt your warmth seep into him and make a home in the marrow of his bones anew, simmering his blood.
“my good wife,” aerion crooned against your lips, his tongue swiping to lick greedily into you mouth, tasting you fully, swallowing the quiet moan emitting from your throat as he brushed the roof of your mouth and traced the ridges of your teeth. “giving me so much,” he murmured, tone shifting to a pleased rumble from deep within his chest the more he talked. “making me so proud.”
“aerion—,” his name slipped unbidden from your mouth, but it sounded muffled as your tongues tangled wetly, your husband relentless in his conquest of your mouth, coaxing your lips wider for more leverage, groaning when they gave away, lax and pliant for him to do as he wished with.
he was kissing you like he hadn’t in years, his lips wrapping around your tongue and sucking lewdly, eyes fluttering open just enough to watch you, to let his gaze feast on how debauched you looked as you allowed him such indulgences. as you let him slowly move back and forth, taking more of your tongue between his lips before drawing back until only the tip remained, just to repeat the salacious motion, making you whine from how wanton it felt.
“aerion—,” you tried again, half—moan, half—plea, eyes hazy and soft with pleasure, the word coming out garbled from the way he was still leisurely suckling on your tongue, growling in annoyance when you meant to draw back. his gaze was sharp as he gave one last, long suckle, leaning back, just enough to let you speak, your lips still brushing.
“do you not wish to—”
“w—we can’t, my love,” you hoped your tone was apologetic enough for him to let you continue and not dive back in to claim your mouth. “the babe—”
he scoffed, gaze drifting towards the bundle tucked against your breast, still nursing, but slowly drifting towards sleep. the little glutton was still going strong, puckering for more, milk—drunk even though his eyes were half—lidded with slumber and satiation.
you could see a myriad of conflicting emotions flit onto your husband’s features, only to relent moments after, a frustrated sigh leaving his swollen, spit-slick lips from how eager he had kissed you prior.
aerion turned, leaning in to press one last firm, lingering kiss to your mouth, letting his tongue swipe at the seam of your bottom lip before tipping back. “later,” he muttered, thick with unspoken intent. a promise.
you huffed, wanting to protest, but were rendered silent by the way he settled against you, still molded to your back, arm tight around your waist, holding you cuddled into his chest, his chin tucked onto your shoulder.
it made you relax, a small smile quirking your lips as you held the babe closer against your chest, lifting his body just a bit so your husband could easily see him without having to dip his gaze down too much.
“later,” you parroted, and felt your heart flutter when a pair of lips brushed your temple moments later, as if sealing that promise in place.
dailybridgerton
jbbartram-illu
tangentwithtanner
titsay
dededos
ellievsbear
romaincrisis
