here's a prompt i guess? basically just engiespy where they're flirting and engie says something that gets spy really flustered and he (spy) freaks the fuck out internally
thank you for the request!! I'm a bit rusty so here's just a short little thing I scribbled down over a couple hours, enjoy!
Subtlety - Engie/Spy, ~1.4k
ao3
Spy gets bored. This is the main driving factor behind most of what he does at this godforsaken company, with so little for a man like him to do. He is a bored man with a good amount of simple coworkers and one hardhatted member in particular has been sending him some odd signals as of late—lingering glances, out-of-place touches, other designators of hopeful feelings. Easy prey. It’s what leads Spy to a dispenser in the middle of battle, with no real injuries besides overconfidence that anyone besides a man so buried in his own head would catch. And, it’s what he senses is what leads Engineer to wait until everyone is cleared out of the nest before he allows himself to notice, his gaze snapping to Spy before he approaches.
“Shouldn’t you be stickin’ your lil’ knife somewhere else, Spy?” It’s the smile in particular Spy can’t miss. Friendly as the one he’d give to anyone else, but there’s an edge to it he can’t quite place, the one complexity he feels like he hasn’t figured out yet.
“Well, it’s been such a slow day today. Very little for me to do. I decided if I was going to be standing around this would be a good place to do it.”
“And why would that be?”
It’s cheesy, but it’s also Engineer he’s talking to. “A nice view is a rare thing to come by in a place like this.”
Engineer’s brow starts to furrow, which doesn’t seem like the proper reaction to a sentence like that. “What part of this is nice to you?”
Slowly: “Surely you can guess, laborer.”
“Oh, I definitely can,” with a look that Spy can only describe as cryptic. He finally properly comes over at this point, folding his hands on his dispenser. “This view better for you?”
Spy was expecting that any of this would catch him, well… at all off-guard. This is proving much more difficult than he expected.
It’s certainly something that Spy reaches a brave hand out to adjust his hat for him, tilting it crooked in the way that he often wears it, and Engineer doesn’t even seem to flinch.
“That’s better,” he says, with the kind of smirk that usually works wonders, and he gets nothing.
“Awful forward, don’t you think?”
He has to take a moment to recalibrate after that, and he has to wonder if he’s just not as sharp as he used to be or if there’s something else at play. “I can do it again, if you’d like.”
“What, touch my hat? Or do you mean to say somethin’ else?”
“Which is your preference?”
“Surely you can guess.”
There’s something that isn’t right in the way he responds so fast, seems to have such an iron-grip on the reins of the conversation. A sign that Spy may have miscalculated, but that won’t stop him from saying, “Your hints haven’t been particularly subtle.”
That calmness in his expression. It’s maddening. “They weren’t meant to be.”
“Lusting after a coworker on company time is a strange look on you, my friend.”
“I can’t say it’s anything I didn’t expect from you.”
“Oh, so you’ve been thinking about it, have you?” He feels a lot less confident in it than he’d prefer, and he knows the desperation for something shows, but it slips out of him regardless.
And it's there—barely, but it is. The slightest hitch in his smile, a stumble. It's a start. "If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were tryin’ to get a rise outta me."
And it all comes crumbling down again. Spy smiles, feeling his stomach twinge just a little for reasons he can't quite place. He can’t grasp how that seemed to catch him so easily. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to remark on it.”
Engineer's grin just widens. As friendly as always but a bit less than innocuous this close, especially when he moves further into the space between them, leaning over on his dispenser, confidently closing the gap in a way that's unmistakably intentional. An unmissable wash of something less than innocent in the way he says, "Y'know, if you wanted to get me to blush, sweetheart, there's much easier ways to do it.”
Spy has long since lost control of the situation, but turning and covering his mouth like a schoolgirl certainly does not help his case. It's always driven him mad how the severe tint of Engineer's dreadful goggles means he can never tell when he's being watched--but Engineer has a way now of making sure Spy knows he's being pieced apart with his eyes, looking him up and down, without even moving his head. Deeply flattering, almost as much as it is frustrating.
"Wow, you're easy."
"I think," he says, after an embarrassingly long time, "there is some value you should consider in subtlety."
"Interesting way to say 'you got me', don't you think?"
Spy thinks he probably knows a lot less about Engineer than he thought, and feels like he probably just walked straight into a seasoned hunter's trap. "Since when were you so forward?"
"I don't think you've been paying attention, sweetheart."
"You've been working hard to slip under my radar."
"Oh, it ain't hard." Being properly dissected is a new feeling. It shouldn't be as thrilling as it is. "You don't know me at all, Spy."
He finally manages to find just enough footing to say, as smoothly as he can, "Perhaps this is something we could remedy... over some drinks, tonight?"
"That’s it, you’re finally makin' some sense."
"Hmm. And if you have any other ideas, for things we could do over drinks tonight…”
“I’ll think about it real hard and let you know—”
"Hey, numbnuts, are you too busy chit-chattin' or can you do your fucking jobs?"
They separate, unfortunately not in time before they’re fully within Scout’s view, who’s appeared abruptly behind them in the way he often does, with a weeping gunshot wound in his shoulder and blood gushing from his mouth that gurgles as he talks.
Spy's usually much more aware of his surroundings. This may be an issue. "Engie, Heavy's been booking it from spawn for the last five minutes because your teleporter's in goddamn pieces. You know he's not gonna get here until nineteen-fucking-ninety, fix it before I actually blow a freakin' fuse."
Thankfully, he can always be trusted to miss quite literally any important detail presented to him. It seems he has more important things to worry about.
If his teleporter’s down, Engineer definitely hasn't been paying attention either. Interesting fact to note. Spy draws his balisong out of a deep pocket in his suit, idly flicking it open and closed. "Does running away from a fight to curse out your teammates count as being hard at work, Scout,” Spy says, smoothly, “or are you somehow exempt from this rule?"
Scout leans against the dispenser as Engineer moves away from it with a frown, pressing his forehead against the top as he groans. "Spy, if their sniper gets me one more time I am actually going to put a knife through my goddamn forehead and he wouldn't be alive if you were doing the thing they pay you to do, so do you want me living to push the cart or do you want to do it yourself? 'Cause at this point either way is fine with me but I dunno what your skinny-ass legs are gonna do there--"
"Scout, do you know the meaning of the word 'brevity'?"
"Do you know the meaning of the word 'my foot up your freakin' ass' or do I have to show you, Spy?"
"Very subtle." He can still feel Engineer's eyes on him, trailing him as he walks around the building, only gone when he cloaks and leaves. It's a shame that Scout seems to have such a compass for where he's least needed. He was interested in seeing where that moment would end up going.
Oh, well. He guaranteed himself another chance. He'd like to see what Engineer has to say when he's had a bit of time to think about it, knowing how fast his mind seems to work.
Yes, this is going to be a problem. He can already tell.
Defend Pandora against Prometheus, for opening the box :>
Okay, so sorry I’m behind on these. I will get them all I swear
Nymphs and satyrs of the Jury. My client stands accused of being the cause of all human suffering. She opened a ‘box’ that she was explicitly told not to, and released all the dangers in to the world.
But in this opening statement by the prosecution, I see a common misconception about the case. It was not a box. That is a mistranslation. In fact, it was a jar. A jar that she was given by the Gods who wanted her to open it. She was designed (in the account by Hesiod) as punishment for Prometheus’ trick of stealing fire and giving it to the mortals.
Hephaestus built her shape, Athena gave her the skill of the loom and beautiful decoration, Aphrodite “was to bathe her head with grace and difficult desire and limb-fatiguing care”, and Hermes gave her thieving ways and a cunning mind. All parts of her were designed to be a gift to Epimetheus (who was told not to accept any gifts from Zeus, but did so anyway).
Her opening of the jar was a punishment towards mortals and Prometheus. She wasn’t stupid in opening the jar. It was what she was designed to do: her purpose. Is a thing evil when it obeys its nature?
