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Annihilation Tango: 4

Table of Contents/Description/Warnings Here

AO3

Alpha!Reaper/Gabriel Reyes x Omega!Reader x Alpha!Soldier:76/Jack Morrison

18+ ONLY, Omegaverse, Graphic Violence and Angst, Slow-Burn, Smut

MAJOR Chapter Warnings for Graphic Violence and Blood!!!

Chapter Summary: Your mission with Reaper doesn't quite go as expected and you end up covered in blood.

CHAPTER 4: Maybe I’ve Gone Crazy

New York was never a quiet city, and even in the dark of night cars passed by your hidden roof-top vantage point, the flashes from their headlights illuminating your and the Reaper’s masks for just a split second at a time before leaving the both of you in tense darkness once again, pensively watching the warehouse across the street.

“Has she disabled the cameras yet?” You asked softly, fingers drumming against your arm as you looked across the street at a patrolling guard on the neighboring rooftop, if only to distract yourself from the alpha next to you. You couldn’t just keep staring at him all night. He would notice if you kept at it, even with the masks.

(For all you knew he was staring back, and you quieted the thought even as it sent a thrill through your spine.)

“Should be down in the next thirty seconds.” He replied, clearly disinterested in you, voice short. But it was nice. You were half-tempted to turn on the recorder function in your helmet, just so you had good audio of his voice, but stopped yourself. That would be going a step too pitiful and you weren’t going to be caught dead doing something that sad. You would just have to remember what he sounded like instead like a normal person. Even though it sounded like sex itself and you wanted him to lean in close and whisper dirty things in your ear.

You nodded at him anyway, heart beating fast in your ears, still, thirty minutes after your initial high from touching his very muscular arm wore off. “We should split up once we’re in, cover more ground.” You spared one more glance to your right, but he was in the same statuesque stance as he was last time you’d checked - arms crossed almost casually, staring across the street and paying you no mind. You turned back to the man pacing in circles. “I’ll take the top two floors, you take the bottom two.”

Reaper grunted in an affirmative. “Just comm me if you find the package. Black plastic cases with blue stripes.”

“Sure thing, sugar.” You started as you tightened your bandolier around your chest and checked your helmet’s sensors again for the fifth time, the words flying out of your mouth out of habit before you could think. “Black case, blue stripes.”

And then you froze, almost choking around nothing.

Kill me.

“What-” Reaper made a noise in the back of his throat somewhere between choking and growling, leaving you with unease and embarrassment swarming deep in your belly. “Did you just call me?”

Oops.

“Um.” You cleared your throat as if that would help you now, mind running a million miles an hour flailing for an excuse other than the fact that it’s funny and you’re horny. “I, ah- Use my callsign and I’ll use yours, Angelface.”

And you’re digging the hole deeper and making the nicknames worse. Nice move.

Very sane. Much flirt.

He leveled the dead, black abyss of his mask at you, looking you dead in the face as much as he could, leaning over slightly to emphasize how much taller than you he was. “No.”

“Hmm.” Was that no to calling you your callsign or no to you calling him names? Either way, he was looking at you now, and towering over you, and god damn if your stomach didn’t do backflips. And he’d called your bluff, you weren’t going to back down now. “...How about Casanova, then?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Stud muffin?” You held back a giggle, hand almost going to your face over your mask.

“You’re on thin fucking ice, Kitty.” He ground out, emphasising the diminutive in response, and you chewed on your lower lip, fighting the nervous/excited jittering you needed to let out. Even though he sounded harsh, you swore there was a hint of amusement in there somewhere, sending butterflies blooming wild in your chest.

“Love of my life?” It came out as a half-squeaked laugh as you almost curled into yourself with embarrassment and something else you wouldn’t name.

Still, you could admit that one was a bit much.

“Shut up.” He growled, shoving you square in your shoulder hard enough to knock you down, bowling you over onto your ass, and turned away from you in a flash. “You’re going to give away our position.”

You stared at him for a second, eyes wide, idly rubbing at where he’d pushed you on your collarbone, a soft tingly feeling radiating from where his hand had been.

Was he being sheepish? What you wouldn’t give to see his face - whether he was being genuinely annoyed or if this was some kind of tsundere response to your flirting and therefore kind of adorable actually. He shook his head with an audible sigh, arms crossed again, but not as tense as before.

So that was something, at least. Nothing like embarrassing yourself to clear the air.

And then the giggles bubbled up in your throat despite yourself and the grumpy, lethal soldier next to you shooting you what you could only assume was a nasty look. “Okay, sure, I’m quiet.”

Another car passed by, lighting up the bone-white of his mask for a single, blinding moment before drowning the two of you in the night’s darkness once again.

You supposed you were just lucky you were too useful to kill outright. You doubted anybody else teasing him like that would be let off so easily. At least he hadn’t threatened you yet, so it’s a leg up on the first few times you’d met.

Another few seconds passed without a word in the now-comfortable silence before Reaper broke it. “Sombra’s patched in, but she can’t get an angle on the cases.” He nodded toward the building. “We’re up.”

“I’ll handle the guy on patrol, you go on in and start searching.” You shook your head with a sigh, but you pushed yourself up anyway, taking the time to brush the dirt off your ass, decidedly ignoring the weight of Reaper’s looming presence and the metaphorical egg on your face as he stared at you like you were a nuisance. But it was hard to tell with him. “Jumping to the southwest roof corner on three.”

He nodded, still looking at you without comment.

What exactly was he looking for?

You swallowed and put on your game face anyway, clenching and unclenching your hands in turn, if only to relieve some tension. “One.”

He turned away from you, finally, pulling out his shotguns with a flourish and twirling them around his fingers before grabbing onto them properly.

You would roll your eyes at him if that wasn’t at least a little sexy. Dramatic son of a bitch.

“Two.” You laid a hand on his shoulder, feeling warm cords of muscle tense beneath your touch, like they had when you’d brought him here.

It made you wonder if anyone ever just held him for the sake of it. You would, but at this point you think he’d rip your arms off for even attempting it.

“Three.” You exhaled slowly, everything going quiet for one, beautiful moment.

And you were off, landing being the lone watchman without so much as a sound.

Reaper dissolved into mist as soon as you materialised and seeped under the door and into the building, leaving you to take care of the guard like you'd asked.

Deep breath, hands up, muscles loose.

Your boot scraped against loose concrete dust and made an ever-so-soft sound underneath you as you pushed off the ground, but you were already in the air and onto him before he could so much as turn around.

The last thing he saw before he was teleported to New Jersey was your palm crashing against his nose and a spray of blood.

You winced at the impact, but shook it off with a huff, straightening out your gloves. Hmph, he’d bled on you. You’d liked these gloves, too. Would have to get them cleaned.

One down, however the fuck many to go.

You teleported to the other side of the roof door, just inside the first landing, following Reaper’s lead. The fading incandescent bulb lit up the dingy stairwell just enough to prevent night-vision from working right, and tempted you to take off your mask completely just so you could use your enhanced sight to see better than your color cameras could, but you kept your helmet firmly on. You only took off your mask as a civilian or on Continental grounds for a reason, even if it was unlikely any of these fuckos would ever see you again to justify it. The ones left alive, that is. Which you hoped would be most of them. Mass murder tended to attract unwanted attention.

At least there weren’t any shotgun blasts going off from Mr. Shooty Shotgun McSplode. Yet.

You stepped softly onto the next landing and crouched behind the door, peering through the thin, yellowed window onto the floor beyond it. The night was quiet to the point of being eerie - no people loitering about in the storage area, but the crates you were looking for weren’t there, either. So you took a deep breath and teleported to the other side so no one heard the latch, making your round around the top floor of the building, treading lightly, and looking for anything that fit the brief.

You looked into the first few latched cases, even though you knew they weren’t the target, spending a minute to take in any information about the people you would be going up against if you were seen. The first one you opened was full of pistols, carefully stored in foam cases without ammunition, ready to be shipped. After that, were literal bricks of cocaine, which made you roll your eyes and shut the case just as soon as you’d opened it, and after that lay bags of pink-tinted pills.

A drug ring, then. At least now you felt less guilty about stealing from them.

And there was a rocket launcher in the next one. Tacky. You closed the case and stopped fooling around, standing up higher and looping into another room.

You turned the corner just to be met with the butt of a gun smashing into your nose, mask not breaking but still ramming right into the center of your face, leaving your ears ringing. The man in a bomber jacket lifted his gun at you as you fell back against the wall and blinked to regain your bearings. Ow. You looked back up and narrowed your eyes. Now he was two guys in a bomber-jacket, smirking at you with his pea-shooter as if that was enough of a threat to have you quaking.

How cute. Really terrifying.

You pushed a hand underneath your mask to press against your nose, grunting at the sting lancing through your face - but at least it didn’t feel broken, espite the feeling of blood dripping past your upper lip and into your mouth, tinging your taste buds with salty iron. You looked back up at him as you stood back up straight, gritting your teeth with a scowl. “Surrender now and I won’t have to hurt you.”

He had the soundness of mind to laugh at you for the audacity of threatening him when you were apparently unarmed, his eyes closing for the split second you needed to shoot your leg out at his ankles, sweeping his feet out from under him, catching his falling gun in your hands, before you straightened back up and pointed it down at him just as he hit the ground.

You rolled your shoulders, stretching them out now that you weren’t threatened with a 22 to the face, absentmindedly nudging at the fallen, dumbstruck man on the floor with your boot, sending him to join his buddy in Jersey.

Have fun with your friend.

You scanned the room for cameras, and when you found none, you lifted your mask up barely enough to wipe the blood on your mouth onto your jacket sleeve to prevent it from dripping onto the floor. You knew better than to just spit it out the easy way and give them your DNA. This would have to do for now.

At least your sleeves were black and easy to wash. You weren’t seeing double anymore, and had a gun to pawn off for extra cash. All good things.

The last room had nothing but a cluttered table and half-filled crates, like this guy had been sorting through something. You raised an eyebrow as you got closer, catching the shine of the product as it hit the light. You picked up the small, silver-colored bar and tossed it in one hand, feeling at the weight.

Ooh, unbranded platinum, if you were right. Maybe white gold? Probably melted down from stolen goods either way, and worth money in auction.

You’ll just take a bit of that. Just enough not to weigh you down. Every little bit helped, after all.

A gunshot interrupted you, and you dropped the bar with a metallic *ting*, listening for any more.

Another.

From somewhere below you, you were sure of it, the sound muffled by the concrete between, and you stilled, silently praying that one of these guys hadn’t gotten the luckiest shot of their life and shot Reaper right through the skull. It wasn’t until you heard a distinctive shotgun blast in response that you relaxed, and the amount of relief flowing through you all at once was embarrassing if you were honest with yourself.

He was still alive.

“Found them.” The ecoed words crackled through your Comm in one rushed breath, the Talon-issue earpiece distorting the sound of his voice and adding a layer of static to it you didn’t care for. Not nearly as nice over the radio.

“I figured, Romeo.” You let the name linger in the air as you resisted the urge to bash your own skull in for calling him that, you were so stupid, before you relented and continued after the short, embarrasing silence. “Where are you?”

“Northwest corner, second floor.” A pained grunt that sent dread down your spine. “You get everything out, I’ll cover you.”

Right. Because fighting wasn’t your job here, apparently, even though Reaper would no doubt leave an incredibly high body-count that would get you into way more trouble than this was worth.

Or get himself hurt. Not that it mattered to you that much or anything.

Still, fuck that, you weren’t going to stand for it.

You shook your head and turned on heat vision, looking Northwest and down through the floor at the fight going on two floors below you. It was easy to tell which of the glowing humanoid blobs was Reaper as soon as you switched cameras, he ran hot, after all, shining white on your viewscreen as he body-slammed someone headfirst into a wall, making you wince.

Ouch. Looked like that hurt. You hoped he hadn’t just sprayed that guy’s brains all over the wall.

Okay, there’s an access point you could jump to.

You teleported down to the fight without further thought, crouched behind some cold-black metal boxes and out of sight. You peered around at the dozen-plus people getting wrecked by your mission partner, switching back to normal cameras as you looked for your objective.

Damn it.

There wasn’t enough cover to get to the damn crate and teleport out without taking fire, even if you were fast - it was in the middle of the crossfire! Reaper was taking them down fast, yes, but not quite fast enough to end this comfortably, in between dissolving into mist to avoid their shots.

He let out another pained noise and you clenched your jaw.

Time to fix that, then.

You switched viewing modes again, the one camera inside your right cat ear taking over a small corner of your display, surveying the room while the rest of your head was safe behind the crates, even as Reaper tossed someone over your head and into the pile of cardboard boxes behind you with a sickening crack.

He didn’t get back up.

You swallowed, the depths of your debauchery just now dawning on you. You shouldn't have been reminded about how much you wanted Reaper to plow you in the middle of a firefight, but there you were, thinking about how easy it would be for him to toss you around.

That man was probably parlyzed at the very least and all you could think about was your sex life.

You blinked and turned back toward the fight, gears turning in your mind, surveying the enemy instead of just staring at Reaper and being useless, no matter how much you enjoyed watching him bowl people over like it was nothing.

You just needed to find someone in sight of the rest of his pals in the least cover, in the least crossfire, and then take him out in the most terrifyingly gorey manner possible to scare the rest of his buddies screaming off into the night, and away from your partner.

It’s worked for you before, no reason to think it wouldn’t now.

And as capable as Reaper was, each pained grunt from him worked your heart tighter and tighter into painful, writhing knots, instinct kicking in despite yourself and the knowledge that it wasn’t your job to protect him, dumbass, he’s not your alpha.

Protect him, have to, can’t let him get hurt, can't do this again, it’ll kill you this time, for sure, but he’s not yours, not yours not yours. Not your place, you’re not his, he can handle himself, you don’t need to coddle him, but-

You bit at your cheek until the pain forced your instincts to focus on the actual threats in front of you instead of worrying itself into knots over not being his mate.

Because it didn’t matter, he was your partner and who the hell would you be if you let him take all the fire for you, just because that was ‘his job’?

You would be a coward, that's what. And mama didn’t raise no coward.

So you grit your teeth and dug your nails into your palms, tasting the iron in your blood as if it was a grim warning, and steeled your nerve all at once, in less than a second, the ocean of your emotions settling into the eerie calm mirror-flatness you needed. Cold and precise.

Like flipping a switch, you slipped back into the headspace you’d lived in for years in the Crisis, and later in Tricell, as your team fell around you one by one, until it was only you.

But you needed it. You couldn't do this as yourself.

You were about to do something stupid and gruesome and attention-grabbing, but with any luck, it would end the firefight right here and now just like it had so many times before.

This was so going to fuck with your headspace.

And, oops, too late, no time to think about it any more, there’s a clean target across from you, reloading his magazine, not paying attention to you at all because one of his pals was trying to put Reaper in an incredibly ill-advised headlock as another reaches for his guns. “Taking out red jacket to your left.” You breathed into the comm, ducking back down behind cover.

“Understood.” Reaper growled as you heard a loud snap ring through the room, and you knew without looking that he’d just broken the neck of the one racing for his shotguns.

Here goes nothing.

You just hoped you didn’t get shot this time. This plan tended to get you shot.

With a slow exhale, you teleported just behind the man that’s just now raising his gun toward Reaper again while another two fire again, forcing him to turn into mist and reposition or eat lead. You turned away, instead focusing in on your target as he whirled around at you, drowning out all the other gunshots going off across the room as you shoved at the hand raising a pistol at you, hearing the crack of bones in his wrist, not holding back your strength even a little, even as white-hot pain flared across your right side and wrenched a scream from your lips - the resulting rumbling, bone-deep reverb of a shotgun blast at the person responsible fading into the background as white, implacable noise.

Instead of reacting, you surged forward, ignoring the pain searing through your body as you hooked a leg around his and pulled back, knocking him off balance enough that you could spin him around to face everyone else as he fell, pulling him back upright as you wrenched his broken arm behind his back until it his shoulder popped out of its socket, and his scream captured the attention of at least some of his buddies. You groaned through your teeth and tried not to scream as you jostled whatever gunshot you’d gotten for your trouble while grabbing your human meat shield, but still, you had him.

You needed an audience for this, and it seemed like you’d gotten a few of them off of Reapers back now, and tentatively flickering their guns between you and the black mist whirling around the room and whisking their friends away to god knows where. You sunk your hand into his hair, yanking him back against you close and wrapping your other hand in a bruising grip around his chest, ignoring his pained wheeze even as you felt his ribs give under your grip with a sound too similar to breaking celery for comfort.

There were still eight people standing, not including you or Reaper.

Had more come in here since this started?

Either way, it ended now.

You knew, you knew, if you focused in on the man squirming in your grip just right, right where the base of his skull met his neck you could just -

-CRACK.

His body went limp, still rigid and standing, three feet away now instead of pressed against you - you were numb to the blood spraying onto your visor and over your body and over the floor and his friends and, you just stared at it gushing and flowing and spraying - as the body first landed on its knees, and then bodily slumped face-down onto the concrete, arm flopping limply beside it.

Or, what would be face-down, if it still had a face, and his head wasn’t still clutched by the roots of it’s hair in your left fist’s death grip, blood slopping out of the severed neck and puddling deep red on the floor, and it choked, even dead, gargling as it lost air and body all at once, even though it died nearly instantly, cut off cleanly at the brainstem.

By you.

And the room was dead quiet, the people in front of you frozen in either fear or disgust - while you stood stock still, exposed and raw like a nerve desperate to bury itself back into safe, warm darkness - blood drenching you from head-to-toe, running off your jacket in rivers to join the rest of it on the concrete, pooling around the treads of your combat boots and reaching wider, and wider, and wider, and-

You stood like that, still, for two seconds, using all your energy just fighting off the shakes that threatened to overtake you as empty adrenaline coursed through your bloodstream, forcing you to take several deep breaths of blood-thick air through your nose as you regained some amount of composure, lest you lose yourself in the moment completely and regress into the quiet, catatonic version of yourself that you were afraid of becoming again.

(Last time it had taken three psychiatrists and one Jack Morrison to pull you back out.)

You let out a measured breath, and tilted your head to look at them one by one, holding their rapt attention like an actress holding in a breath between lines of her soliloquy, wiping the blood off the camera on your helmet with your jacket sleeve, and levelled the last eight gangsters alive with a glare you hoped they felt in their nightmares, even through your visor.

“Who’s Next?” You snarled out, near-manic and spitting in the inside of your visor, but it did the job, sending the group into frantic motion all at once, people shoving at each other as they scrambled to get through the one doorway, not bothering to take the time to close the door properly, leaving you alone as it slowly, slowly, swung itself shut.

Alone, with a severed head held too-tight by the hair in your fist.

The door closed with a dull thud.

You dropped the head to the floor, head reeling in dizzy circles and frozen to a halt at the same time.

You blinked.

And lost your composure all at once, curling in on yourself against your knees, gasping in your breaths and only barely succeeding at staying upright at all, vision tinted with that awful shade of red that always took over your nightmares.

Red, red, red, all the way down, down to the flesh, to the bone and underneath, everything was always so red, you couldn’t run from it if you tried, you can’t run, you can't run, you can’t run-

Bootfalls sounded, catching your attention and jarring you from your thoughts all at once, everything in your brain screeching to a halt as you remembered you weren’t alone in there. You lolled your head to the side to find Reaper staring at you from a solid ten feet away, too far away for you to reach, the most sheepish in demeanor you’d ever seen from him, but you couldn’t pull together the threads of your thoughts enough to feel self conscious at the way you were panting, almost wheezing, off-balance, and shaking, not even finding it in you to care that the miniscule chance you’d ever had of fucking him just dissapeared into vapor right in front of your eyes, too caught up in the nauseating mix of a frozen mind and overthinking crashing into eachother and resulting in what would probably sound like AOL dial-up noises if it was made tangible.

You swallowed around the taste of ichor to no relief, mouth feeling suddenly full of sand.

Reaper stood still, like he was waiting for you to do something, before he stepped closer, slowly, one step at a time, the hesitation reminiscent of someone approaching a scared animal, until his shoes were covered in the same blood yours were. He put a hand on your shoulder, steadying you, and all at once you realized you were listing forward and had almost fallen to the ground without realizing it, Reaper practically holding you upright all by himself.

You just stared up at him dumbly, not sure what he was getting at.

And then he shook his head and squeezed just slightly - enough to pull you back into the moment that much more without hurting you with his claws. “Let’s get you back to base and cleaned up. You're going to get fleas.”

Right. You had to take him and the cases back to Talon.

He coaxed you back upright completely, not exactly gentle but not exactly rough either, holding you by both shoulders for a moment as if he was making sure you could stand before he let you go. A whisper-quiet whine left your lips when his hands left you, insides screaming at you to go to him, (warm, safe, alpha, mine), but body refusing to cooperate with you. He ignored it anyway, even though he’d almost definitely heard it.

Still, he was looking at you, with another appraising look, lifting at the right side of your jacket to peer at your wound, making you shiver as he leaned down to look closer, still too dazed to enjoy his attention on you as he hummed. “The medbay can get you some stitches and a round of antivirals. Don’t need you to catch something.”

You lifted your head to stare at him blankly, voice small, and scratched. “What?”

“You’re the one who got shot and then turned herself into Carrie.” He spoke slowly and over-exaggerated, but it was still almost too fast for you to process, nodding at the corpse to your left. “There’s no knowing what he had in his system. That was reckless, kitten.”

Kitten?

You shivered as the cold metal claws left you again to clench and unclench idly at Reapers side.

“Oh.” You blinked, joining his gaze at your side and just now paying any attention to the long line blasted through your tanktop and the clean hole in your jacket - a deep, oozing wound sliced through your side, rough and torn around the edges, all soaked through with dead man’s blood. You couldn’t tell yours and hid apart, even through the dizzying pain of you pressing your hand against it to stem the blood loss. “I... guess I did.”

Christ.

Reaper shook his head and sighed audibly as you stumbled to follow him to the pallet, boots feeling more like lead than rubber, but all you could hear was the rushing, ocean-crash sound of blood in your ears, gaze unfocused on the world around you. You just focused in on the three red shells of his chest armor to keep you upright as he walked backwards until his legs hit the payload. (If you had paid attention you would have noticed his hands were up and ready to catch you.) You sidled up next to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, resting your weight between him and thos eotherfucking crates, this time feeling him look down at you at the almost intimate, soft touch of your gloved hand against his arm, instead of staring straight ahead like he had both times before. You didn’t look back at him, staring ahead of you at a spot on the wall.

If you weren’t about to check out of reality completely you might have liked feeling so close to him, close enough to appreciate his radiant warmth for even just a second.

You teleported him to the Talon warehouse you’d been introduced to earlier, now left completely alone among the carnage you’d created. You shut your eyes tight and turned away from the last in a long line of bodies, laying both hands on the crates, and joined him.

The only part of the base you’d been shown was a vast, dull grey warehouse with concrete floors, both a loading bay and aircraft hangar rolled into one, speckled with more palettes like yours and a jet or two, and even a helicopter, way off on the other side.

Fuck, you felt like you could sleep for a month.

You leaned against the crates, curling one arm protectively around your side and trying to take some deep breaths.

“Don’t bleed on the cargo,” Reaper huffed, grabbing your arm in his clawed hand and pulled you off, wrenching a pained cry from your throat, nearly passing out into his arms like a fucking movie damsel as your vision swam with darkness. He paused, grip softening all at once, not pushing you off of him when you leaned your forehead against his chest armor. “...Can you walk?”

You nodded tiredly, and with an overly-dramatic sigh, he was leading you out of the hangar and through the halls by the arm before your mind could catch up with the fact that you were even moving, legs clumsy underneath you as you struggled to keep up with his longer strides. At one particularly sudden turn, you’d fallen over completely and landed in a swirl of mist instead of hitting the ground, back upright and next to him a split second later before you could even tell what was happening.

He didn’t say anything about it.

Neither did you.

He pulled you through too many turns for you to keep track of as your brain started to become even more fuzzy, in reality probably only three, but at that point everything felt like you were watching through glass, a screen between you and the world, more than just the helmet that actually was.

You stopped in front of a pair of sliding doors, which scanned the both of you with ominous red scanner-thingies before opening with a cheery beep. Reaper ushered you, still somehow heartbreakingly gentle, even through all the pulling and catching and pushing, into something resembling a military med-center, all stark-white tile, but smaller than the ones you were familiar with, other rooms branching off of the main one with navy-blue cots and horrifically bland hospital curtains.

It smelled the same as the disinfectant they used at Overwatch’s mobile med unit.

“Prep an OR and get me a crike tray, I can’t tube her!!”

You closed your eyes hard at the memory, focusing on the blinding pain in your side instead until it was gone as quick as it came, swirling around in your foggy consciousness until it was once again in the background.

A woman - a redhead, hair up in a loose bun - walked up to you with surprised eyes, gaze sweeping over Reaper first, but eyes going wide once they landed on you. Reaper said something you didn’t process for several seconds, by which time you were once again being herded to a new room, which had a cot, and a dinky little shower in the corner. The smell here wasn’t as strong, and you breathed a little easier.

(He’d said to get you some clean clothes, some antivirals, and a suture kit.)

Reaper pushed you to sit down on the cot, still handling you like an actual feral cat that would run off on him, stopped for a moment, staring at the wall instead of you, and left through the still-open door, hands still clenching and unclenching at his sides, leaving you alone, dazed, still not altogether there mentally, and in the middle of a very dangerous base full of very dangerous people.

You would’ve left right then if you’d had any presence of mind or energy left - who knows what these people wanted with you - but just for that moment it was easier to sit down and stare blankly at the ceiling, lying down with your legs still hanging off the cot and allowing a few tears to run down your face, right where no one would see them.

The woman from before walked in not even a minute later with a set of clean, black clothes of soft jersey knit, helping you sit up so you could check their size. A bit big probably, but they would be fine. They were softer than anything you owned currently (the shirt was even a turtleneck), so it’s not like you would complain. She pulled out a pair of those angled scissors hospitals kept to cut people out of stuck-on shirts, setting them on the side table as you dropped the clothes next to you on the cot.

“Let’s get you cleaned up and do a neuro exam before we get you stitched up, yeah? The shower’s not very big, but it’ll get the blood off.” She smiled shakily but still brimming with a gentle softness. “But first, do you want some morphine? Some of the guys around here refuse it for whatever reason, but really, it makes everything so much easier for everyone.”

You wanted to laugh in her face. Why the fact that she was cute, and little, and ginger, and in Talon was so fucking hilarious, you had no idea, but it was. How the hell did she end up here? Still, you nodded, and, after letting you check the little rubber-stopped bottle to make sure it really was morphine, she gave you enough to take the edge off while you got cleaned and stitched up.

You went to shrug off your jacket, but pain shot sharp through your torso when you moved again, making you hiss. You set your arms back down dejectedly, looking at the (nurse? doctor?) in front of you with a sigh. “Can you help?” Shit, your voice was hoarse. You needed some fucking water.

She just looked at you with watery, sweet, hazel eyes and nodded.

It took a while to get your clothes off, even though she saved time by cutting your shirt and bra off you completely and forcibly reminded you of hospital stays passed.

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, it looked like.

“Don’t you worry, Dr. Zeigler’s the best we got. You’re in good hands.”

“What’s your name?” You murmured just to fill the silence, and drown out the familiar voices circling in your brain - trying not to wince when her tiny gremlin hands wrenched your pants off much harder than she needed to, her eyes flickering between the patches stuck to your neck and your several tattoos, instead of on what she was doing.

“Don't mention the tattoo, please.”

She paused for a moment, big eyes searching yours, before she nodded, eyes back on your side instead of the conspicuous military tattoo on your left leg that you really should’ve had removed ages ago.

Stupid sentimentality.

“You’d be surprised how many people here are ex-military, you know.” She pressed her lips into a thin line, shaking her head with a grimace. “Me included. I doubt anyone would make a big deal of it.”

She started working on your shoes and socks.

She smelled like flowers and tea, a calming note to it that had you almost listing off more than once before she was shoving at something else painfully and jerked you back awake - but then again, that might just be the shock of getting shot sinking in. Either way, she must be a beta. No way would she go without scent blockers as anything else, working in a place like this.

Still, she was a judgy beta with careful, scrutinizing eyes that kept flickering between the patches on your neck and the door like she was expecting something. You just looked away from her and didn't meet her gaze, taking the time you had here to come back to yourself more now that you were somewhere relatively safe, even if not completely, and no longer in blood-soaked, ruined clothing.

“Not that surprising, I guess.” You said, thinking back to the familiar way Reaper held himself, the confidant strides and stiff posture. It made sense, unfortunately.

You were there, too, after all.

“I’m April.” She said with a smile as she finished, your underwear still on for now, thankfully, before she grabbed a bottle of antiseptic and poured it onto some sterile gauze, covering up her mild smell with pungent ethanol. You wrinkled your nose at it. “U.S. Army Mobile Surgery Unit. What about you?”

“Well, April, I’d tell you, I really would, but then I’d have to kill you.” You laughed humorlessly, tensing as her hand approached your side, anticipating the moment when you would probably scream like a bitch baby. “But you can call me Kat.”

She rolled her eyes at you, but a smile creeped onto her face anyway. “Well, that’s just typical.”

Then she pressed the gauze to your wound, making you shout at the pain and lack of warning, cleaning it out as best as she could, pulling screams out of you in staccato, digging your hands into the sheets as she rubbed her grubby little fingers into the cut even deeper than you would have, squeaking out apologies every time you cried out.

At some point something metallic crashed over in the hallway, making her jump and hit you right in your wound, making you shout again, even as some kind of commotion broke out with accompanying thunks of bodies, but she just told you to ignore it with an exasperated shake of her head, finishing up and pressing a temporary waterproof dressing over your skin.

Comforting.

“That… happen often?”

“Depends on the season. You know how Alphas get, even on meds. And this place? Chock full.” She stood up with a shrug and a thin smile, re-tying her hair. “Now, do you think you can shower by yourself?”

You sighed. At least the scent blockers on your neck were waterproof, even if she kept nervously looking between them, your face, and the door. (And no doubt the sound of a heavy body hitting the ground outside your door, signalling the end of the altercation in the hall before it was silent again.)

You had a sneaking suspicion the rumour mill was going to flip it’s lid no matter what you did here.

Something weird was going on here.

You managed to slip off your underwear by yourself before she helped you stand, only slightly woozy on your feet despite your bloodloss.

Another win for the SEP program.

You paused, now fully naked. Except for one thing.

Your fucking helmet.

You stepped into the small shower without further fanfare, drawing the curtains closed with an annoyed huff, and taking the visor off with your good arm once you were sure April couldn’t see you, handing it through to her. She didn’t get to see your face, at least. Even if you couldn’t hide anything else. You could keep this to yourself.

The water pressure in this particular Talon base sucked ass, but at least you got the temperature to a decent luke-warm. You closed your eyes, letting the remaining blood flow off you, thankfully very little left now that your clothes were off and your wound was washed off. You didn’t need to wash out your hair, either, thanks to the helmet.

You turned it off after staying in there until the water was cold, having been careful not to get your head and neck too wet for your visor, and stuck a hand out for it before anything else, placing it back on your head with a scratchy “Thanks.”

April helped you dry off and shrug into the new turtleneck and sweatpants, gentler now than she’d been with your clothes. Sometimes showers felt more like magic than hygiene, and you felt more grounded and normal than you’d been for the past hour, head clearer and heart rate finally settling down.

She was tying your boots for you when someone knocked at the door, making you raise your eyebrows. You turned to her for help, but she just shrugged at you unhelpfully - her wide, almost panicked eyes almost made you not answer, though, like she knew who it was.

“Come in?”

Don’t be Moira, Don’t be Moira, Don’t be Moira.

The door creaked open, revealing Reaper, half-leaning on the door frame and swaying slightly on his feet, most of his armor nowhere to be seen, and holding some kind of plastic-wrapped medical tray. He waited just long enough for April to finish tying your shoes before he leveled her with what you guessed was a glare and growled out a single: “Out.”

She lost her composure all at once, shooting up straight and stumbling on her way out the door, squeaking high and girlish as she passed him, able to throw one last panicked look back at you before Reaper slammed the door shut in her face.

“You shouldn’t terrorize the medical staff.” You wheezed out, curling an arm around your side as he dropped the tray on the side table and knocked your ruined clothes to the floor, making you frown and quirk an eyebrow at the same time, staring bemused as he kicked the one chair over to the bed, and sat down in front of you without saying anything else. Close enough to touch each other, if you wanted. “They’re gonna poison you one of these days if you’re not careful.”

“Too late.”

Um?

You’d caught the ever-so-slightly visible waver in his step, like he wasn’t fully awake, somehow, making you shoot him a concerned look he couldn’t see. “...You good there, sunshine?”

“Worry about yourself.” He said, moving closer, leaving no room for argument, even though the mist that flared off his body was… much more active than usual, pouring off him in waves.

But you didn’t really know enough about him to know what that meant.

You swallowed, not sure what he was even doing there in the first place, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m fine, really, I just need to rest another few minutes before I port back to the Continental, and Doc can stitch me up fine, so, whatever it is you want, I can deal with in a bit, just-”

You cut yourself off, noticing he wasn’t wearing his gloves just as he was pulling on new disposable ones, then went on to peel open the sterile tray without paying much attention to what you were saying.

Oh.

It was a suture kit.

“Doc’s a fucking butcher, and Kepner’s worse. Somehow. Would patch you up with super-glue if she could just so she can move on to the man with his guts hanging out.” He said in a kind of benign scorn, like he’d been on the receiving end of said treatment more than once but didn’t know what to do about it. “Now lift up your shirt.”

Your brain froze.

Excuse me? Am I fucking dreaming?

“What, and you’re better?” You barked out a laugh, resisting the urge to shrink back from him and run away, but then again, he was warm, you were close enough to feel it through all the layers of his clothing, and you really wanted to pitch forward and just. Lean on him, maybe stare at the tight black turtleneck he wore that matched yours. But you didn’t really think he’d appreciate it, especially with how oddly nice he’d been earlier. “You’re telling me you can throw stitches better than a fucking surgeon?”

“Yes.” He said simply, continuing to pull out a pair of forceps, and then used one of them to pull out a curved needle that had string already threaded through the tiny opening.

You don’t know if it was blind trust or the confident way he handled the forceps just as easily as anybody else you’d seen that made you believe him, but you did.

“Why, though?”

He just stared at you for a second before he went back to setting up.

You translated that as him looking at you like you’d said something dumb that he wouldn’t dignify with an answer.

Was he really going to stitch you up for seemingly no other reason than wanting to? That… seemed a bit hard to believe.

You worried at your lower lip, a really irresistably dumb idea popping into your head, hesitating for a moment and looking for cameras in the room. There weren’t any. You had a sneaking suspicion Reaper would know and wouldn’t be caught dead being kind to someone on tape, so there was that...

Besides, you liked Reaper a hell of a lot more than some of the other people who knew what you looked like.

You placed a hand on either side of your helmet and slid it off gently, setting it on the cot next to you.

“Hello,” You smiled tentatively with a little wave, trying to gauge some kind of response from him.

You had the privilege of seeing with your own eyes how Reaper stilled all at once, frozen as he was laying out his supplies, his right sleeve ridden up just enough that you could see a patch of his skin. It felt like a secret, knowing that his arms were an ash-brown, and it made you smile. How many people had even the slightest clue what he looked like?

He was staring at you for sure this time, you just knew it.

You looked back at his mask, tilting your head. “Cat got your tongue?”

...

“Don’t be stupid.” He said low, voice a note deeper than before, and even more lovely to hear without the extra layer between you and him, something that simple enough to send shivers up your spine. “Just lift up your damn shirt so we can get this over with.”

And he ruined it.

“Wow, just what every woman wants to hear.” You rolled your eyes, before turning your gaze firmly to a small digital clock on the other side of the room, heat rising up your face. “Um… I can’t lift my arms that high.”

He sighed, heavy and deep. “Just... lay down on your side, then.”

You bit your lower lip, but nodded, turning around and laying down on your side so you faced away from his heavy gaze and towards the wall, somehow hoping that if you didn't look at him then your racing heartbeat would calm down.

You jumped at the first touch - a surprisingly gentle hand tugging at your hemline. You forced yourself to relax, breathing deep and counting your breaths. His fingers were warm, so warm, on your skin, just barely touching you as he folded your new shirt over itself until he could see your wound just under your ribs. He peeled off the temporary dressing, making you suck in a breath through your teeth at the pull.

Shuffling sounds behind you, and the snapping of gloves as if he was changing them out for new ones now that he’d touched something that wasn’t sterile. “You’re not allergic to lidocaine?”

“Nope.” You sighed, knowing what was coming, and not looking forward to it.

“You’ll need quite a bit.” His voice was closer now, said as a warning, but still washing over you and calming you down as you caught the tail end of a version of his distinctive Alpha smell (smoke and amber) - a version that seeped into your brain and soaked it in dumb and told every inch of your body to relax and stay calm, that everything would be alright, and you listened to it even as you blinked in surprise that he was practically telling you to chill the fuck out just with his scent.

“Okay.” You breathed in a bit deeper, hoping that scenting him more would help, but still clawing a hand into the sheet beneath you, preparing yourself for what you knew would be a bad time no matter how many hormones Reaper sent flooding through your system to calm you down.

He plunged the needle into the raw edge of your wound, and you clench your teeth as your vision spotted white with burning, raw pain, even after he paused. You sucked in an unsteady breath, and he started again in a new place, and again and again until you lost count of how many times you’d been shot for these stupid fucking stitches, darkness creeping steadily into your vision until you floated in a barely conscious haze.

“I’m done.”

You didn’t realize you were crying until he stopped, and you felt his now-bare hand softly pressing flat against the back of your neck, the gesture of comfort normally reserved for pack members or best friends friends or mates making your face heat up even more than before, but still, you found yourself unable to resist the urge to press back against him and sigh heavily in relief all at once. So you did, sinking into his grip and relishing in the way it tightened over-so-slightly at the soft humm you let out in response, lighting up just about every neuron in your brain with a soft, glowy pleasure, your eyes drifting shut.

Apparently he knew you were an omega, somehow, or was guessing, but his intuition was embarrassingly spot on, and you almost melted into him right then and there when he gave you one last comforting squeeze. “The hard part’s over.”

Christ, you could never look at him again, why did you take off your fucking helmet?

He took his hand away, and you let out a barely contained whine at the loss and tilted your head back to chase his touch, floating in a cloudy place where the pain didn’t hit you as much.

And then he cleared his throat, breaking you out of your trance all at once and sending you crashing back to the reality of you laying down on a scratchy Talon med-cot, and he sounded like he was just as uncomfortable as you were, even if that was pretty damn unlikely, because you were fucking mortified, entire upper body warm from embarrassment an morphine.

And then he pat your shoulder. Fucking hell.

It was too painful to laugh at.

You wiped the tears off of your face and bored your eyes straight into the wall in front of you so you didn’t have to face him, hoping to preserve some modicum of dignity even as your voice cracked. “If you tell anyone about this I’ll fucking kill you.”

“You’re insufferable.” It was soft and gruff, without any real bite to it, and it made your heart clench in your chest with an unexpected resurgence of yearning.

God, the embarrassment was worth it just to be this close. You couldn’t stop the smile from forming on your face. “Good thing I’m so cute, then.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, princessa.”

Oh my god you were going to explode what the fuck, Reaper?

Was this how he felt when you called him cutesy nicknames?

You kept your mouth shut, afraid of eliciting more unexpected pet names from him.

You would explode.

Even though you felt him stitching you up moments later, the cold metal forceps a shocking contrast to his warm hands, you managed to keep yourself from squirming away from the pulling, awkward almost-pain at your side. And the one time you did, arching your back away from him, he’d grabbed your hip and pulled you back against where his leg hit the cot, shocking you into almost catatonic stillness in one swift motion, knee warm against your lower back.

Shit, that was hot. And you so totally shouldn’t think about him railing you while he was literally right behind you, caging you in with his muscled body, and you wished you weren’t too injured to make a move and you wished you were somewhere other than the middle of a clinic in a Talon base so you could just. Try something and make a fool of yourself kissing a mask.

It was enough to make you want to scream, or more likely just let the frustration build until you internally combust.

Which seemed like a good plan. Very easy to execute.

When he was done, he lowered your shirt back to its rightful place and pulled you upright, and you turned around just in time to watch him stand from his chair.

You swallowed, trying to think of something to say, something to keep him in there longer, but he wasn’t exactly the type of guy you asked to dinner, was he? Instead, all that came out was: “Valdez won’t cheap me on the commission for this, will he?”

Smooth.

“I’ve been looking for an excuse to kill him, so I doubt it.” He shrugged, pausing on his way out and more steady than he was when he’d come in, mist back to normal, barely-visible levels, and looked over his shoulder at you, hand lingering on the door like he wanted to stay, too, even as he went to close it, making some sad, attention starved part of your heart leap in anticipation. He cleared his throat again, looking away. “Don’t stick around. Moira’s flying in in the morning, but she has a bad habit of showing up early.” And then that part of you was immediately smothered with a pillow in it’s sleep. Jesus christ.

You raised your hand in a tiny, tired wave. “See you round, then.”

He hesitated, the brighter light from the hallway reducing him to a silhouette in the doorway. He shook his head. “You better hope you don’t.”

He shut the door behind him, the soft sound of the latch closing echoing in your ears louder than gunfire.

Somehow, you felt both more and less alone than you did this morning.

Later, in your hotel room, when you managed to look in the mirror, you couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

His stitches were perfect.

A/N: This chapter's title brought to you by Terrible Things by Brick+Mortar.

M-M-M-Mega Chapter! Finals week is stressin me but I was too antsy to get this out here ave it before I change my mind! Anyone have a guess as to what might've happened to Reaper in between scenes? He'll tell Kat eventually at some point down the line but I wanna hear what you guys think. If someone gets it right I'll let y'all know. The answer is really funny.

@seirensou @not-so-quite-human

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