warnings: set during citadel ep3, angst, pain, blood, nothing more than what's in the show
prompt: Reader/oc is a spy for citadel too but she known she was a citadel spy she was safe when the fall happened and when the train event happened and reader thought that they would let mason live a life without the spy life and them so she would continue help out with rebuilding citadel back up etc. maybe building some assets etc then when Nadia and he goes to the safe house they meet back up there some way or another if that makes sense to like Nadia some how got in contact with reader??
tag: @thefictionalgemini
It feels like you’ve waited centuries for that sound: the door opening. For years, you’ve lived in the safe house alone, never stopping your search for other Citadel members and doing what you can to aid them when needed. But few of them survived, and even less had reason to come to you.
But you knew, somehow — or at least hoped — that he would come home. That you’d see him again.
It feels like a dream, then, when Nadia steps through the threshold, offering you a crooked, familiar smirk before shifting aside so he’s in full view behind. There’s a sorrow in her eyes you don’t dare unpack, not yet. For now, your gaze crawls across his frame. He’s barely changed. Hair still short and brushed back, eyes still that unbearably bright blue. Laughter lines bracket his cheeks along with rough, red-tinted stubble, and it feels like no time has passed at all now. An eternity shrinks between you in a second, and your heart restarts, your world turning to colour.
“Mason,” you whisper, voice cracking, tears brimming. You want to run to him, fall into him and never let go, but Nadia is watching and… he is, too, with furrowed brows. Confused.
A cold wave crashes through you as you look at Nadia again, and her nod confirms your fear. He doesn’t know you.
Mason clears his throat, dropping the case to the ground and rubbing his hands together as though trying to warn him. “We know each other, then. You’re the one Nadia told me about. Y/N?” Your name twists across his tongue like a stumbling dancer in their first lesson. Unsure of the steps. Unsure of how it should sound.
Something inside you cracks, but in all your solitary years here, you’ve never allowed yourself to succumb to all the pain and grief dwelling inside you. You’ve never let yourself give up, not on him or on Citadel. So you tip your chin and hope it doesn’t wobble.
“I guess you could say that. I was usually in your ear.” You tap an imaginary earpiece, feeling awkward and stiff and lost. More lost, more alone, than you have in this empty house for years. “I worked on communications in Citadel. Never usually in the field.”
“I can’t believe you’re here after all these years,” Nadia said, voice soft as always. It’s clear that while Mason has lost his memories, she has found hers just fine, and you wonder how that’s fair. How it came to be. “How did you know we were coming?”
“I didn’t. I’ve been here since we went dark ten years ago.”
“Are there more?” Mason glanced around, rubbing the back of his neck. “More people waiting for us?”
You shake your head, a pang of well-hidden grief shooting through you. “No. Just me.”
His gaze snaps to you without warning, piercing and all-consuming and utterly surprised. “You’ve been hiding here alone for the last decade?”
“Yep. So if I start talking to myself, don’t be too worried. I’m not used to company.” You smirk and turn away from him, rubbing your aching sternum. “It was Carter who told me to head here. Said he’d be in contact. We were back and forth for years until he went dark, too. The only connection with Citadel I had left. I tried to track him down, but… I don’t have the field experience. Not like you. Think he’s alive, though.”
“You know where he could be?” Nadia asked.
“I have my theories.”
“As much as I’d love to hear them, I need a shower first. That okay?”
“Knock yourself out.”
She traipses up the stairs with a final, pointed glance as though to say “You’re welcome" for leaving you alone with him. But you’re the opposite of thankful. In front of Nadia, you might be able to act professionally. Unaffected. But it’s just the two of you now, and the man you love doesn’t even know you, and he’d always had a knack for completely unravelling you.
The silence is stifling. You motion to the living room, to the couch. “You should sit. You look like you’ve had a rough time of it.”
His smile is wry. “That’s one word for it.”
You follow him in, and he sighs as he plonks himself down. He pulls a lighter from his pocket and begins flicking it, and for a moment you’re certain that you were wrong; that he knows himself, knows you. It’s such an old, familiar habit. So many times you listened to that metallic click, let it soothe you as you figured out a plan today.
He catches you watching, then, and hope is washed away as quickly as it came. There’s none of that old fondness in his eyes, even if natural confidence still oozes from him like blood from a wound.
He’s Mason, but he isn’t your Mason.
The man you’ve been waiting for, the man for whom you prayed over and over to be alive, is not here anymore.
“Didn’t Bernard ever contact you?” he asks finally.
“No.” You narrow your eyes, wishing you were comfortable enough to sit beside him. Wishing you could reach out, touch him. Ask him where he’s been. You’re not sure you want to know. A lot can happen in ten years, especially to a man who doesn’t know his own name. “Should he have?”
“He’s the one who came to me. Told me who I was. He needed my help.”
That bastard. He’d left you in the dark. Disposed of you. You want to believe that he walked away too, that he needed it to be this way to keep any agents still living safe, but… He could have contacted you. Could have found you here. This safe house is one of the few Citadel-owned places left untouched, unknown by your enemies. Perhaps the silence had protected you, but it also drove you crazy. You’d felt like a prisoner most days, always waiting for your computer to ping or an agent to show up and liberate you.
You’d wasted your life waiting. For Bernard. For Mason. For Citadel.
Your fists clench at your sides, and you can no longer look at Mason. “I didn’t think you’d made it out,” you admitted, voice thickening just slightly. “I thought you were dead.”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “I don’t understand,” he said quietly. “They just left you here, no contact with any of us? Why?”
“Maybe they didn’t want anybody finding out about this place. It’s the only sanctuary we have left. They wouldn’t compromise that by communicating with me, and honestly, I didn’t know what else to do. Citadel was my life. I had to keep trying, keep hoping…”
It’s a lie, of course. Mason was your life. Citadel was a close second. Bernard had known that; perhaps that’s why he hadn’t bothered to find a way through to you. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted you to know that Mason was still alive, because you’d never been discrete about your feelings for him. You wouldn’t have let him go without a fight, and they’d needed their entire operations to become invisible.
They needed him to forget while you stayed here, a ghost in a house much too big for one person. They’d known that you’d wait for eternity if it meant the chance to see him again.
You finally sit in the armchair across from him, folding your hands on your lap as anger glows like embers in your gut. “I thought you were dead,” you admit. “Carter told me about the train, the explosion… He told me you were probably dead. Both of you.”
Mason looks down at his hands. “I can’t get my memories back. They were destroyed. Gone. I know that I should know you, but I don’t.”
You swallow the lump in your throat. “I guessed as much.”
“There’s no other way, right?”
You shake your head solemnly. “Not that I know of. Then again, nobody tells me anything, clearly.” You can’t help the bitterness seeping into your words.
He rubs a thumb across his chin. “It’s weird. I feel like…” He trails off, and you lean forward curiously.
“What?”
A shrug. “I’ve seen your face before. I got flashes sometimes — memories, I guess. You were in them.”
Your heart lifts just a little.
“And your voice.” His volume lowers. “I heard it. I never knew whose it was. Thought I was going crazy. But it’s yours. It was you.”
Your fingers begin to tremble. You don’t know what to say. It feels cruel, somehow, him telling you this. Dangling hope in front of your face. He can’t know how much it hurts, of course, but it makes you grit your teeth all the same.
“So where did you end up all these years?” you ask, hoping the answer might give you some closure. Some truth.
“I went by Kyle. Got married. Had a daughter.” His mouth upturns at the corners, and it makes you want to die.
He got a new life. You were here, rotting, waiting, and he was making a family.
“Where are they now?”
“Back home,” he says. “With Bernard’s wife. Safe.”
You nod. It’s an effort to keep your features smooth as your gaze snags on a bloodied tear in his jacket. “You’re hurt.”
In an instant, you’re up, heading into the kitchen to grab a first aid kit. When you get back, you motion to his jacket and he takes it off obediently, wincing. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”
A deep one, clearly made by a bullet. You sigh and perch beside him, forgetting that you should probably ask before getting this close to him. Forgetting that you’re not the one who should be tending to his wounds anymore.
He hisses when you dab the saline-soaked cloth to the graze.
“You used to be tougher,” you tease.
He smirks at that, crooked and warm if not steel-edged as a knife. Electricity buzzes through you, because you’ve missed the way he tries not to laugh at your shitty jabs. The way he tries to hide his humour, but it comes out through his cracks all the same. “I wouldn’t know.” And then: “Will you come with us to find Carter?”
The question throws you off-guard, and you look around. This prison is also your shelter, and you’re not sure you know how to jump back into the real world, a world of crime and violence and him. He’s married. He isn’t yours. And why should you aid them, when Bernard cut you away from the rest of the group so cleanly?
“I don’t know,” you confess quietly. “I’ve been hiding for a long time. I think I’m more useful here.”
“We could use all the help we can get.”
The cloth comes away red, but the bleeding has stopped. You get the bandages ready and hum, pretending to deliberate.
He stops you with a hand across yours. “I mean it. I don’t remember how to do this.”
“It’ll come to you.” You snatch your hand away; keep unrolling the bandage. Maybe it’s weak, maybe it’s cowardly, but you need a moment to breathe after this. Need a moment to adjust to a world where Mason isn’t dead, but still isn’t Mason. You need to figure out if keeping this house safe, keeping Citadel and its missing members safe, is worth it after the way they’ve pushed you aside.
“We need you.”
“You did okay without me for the last ten years,” you snap, wishing immediately you could take it back.
Overwhelmed, you abandon the bandages and the wound, averting your gaze because even now it feels too heavy, too dangerous. Like he could strip your skin and bones away if he wanted. Like he could leave you raw.
You used to like that about him. Now you hate it. More so because he doesn’t even realise he’s capable of it.
“I was living a lie.” His voice is firmer now. Raspier. “I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t choose it!”
“Neither did I!” you erupt. “I thought you were dead, Mason! I was here, alone, always wondering if you were. Wondering whether anything would ever change! And now you’re here and you don’t know me, but you’re asking me to be somebody I haven’t been in a very long time. What am I supposed to do with that? How the hell am I supposed to be okay with it?”
A wrinkle burrows between his brows. For moments, he remains unreadable until he finally looks up at you. “We weren’t just working together, were we?”
You can’t answer him. You don’t want to have to tell him that you were in love, that everything that made life worth living had been snatched away the day he went missing.
“Tell me,” he demands, standing up. “Tell me, Y/N. Were we together?”
Your chin wobbles, and you can’t keep pretending. You can’t keep ignoring the hole in your chest. “Yes.”
It’s clear he doesn’t know what to say, and you know that there is nothing he could. Nothing that would make it easier, at least. You are cursed, the one who will remember. The only one who longs for endless nights tangled between the sheets and stupid back-and-forths through his earpiece. You’re the only one who remembers the rush you felt when you worked together, him in the field and you safe by your computer.
You’re the only one who remembers the night he told you he loved you, and the morning you said it back. He gets to move on, gets to feel nothing but indifference, while you carry a decades’ worth of grief and yearning and pain on your back. And you could deal with that before, when your days were made of aimlessly checking for messages or signs of Citadel activity and scrambling your eggs and staying in your pyjamas because nobody saw you anyway, but now he is inescapable and you find yourself wanting to shut the door in his face just so you don’t have to look at it and see the man you used to know buried under the haze and amnesia and this new life you have not been apart of.
Eventually, he steps forward — and somehow looks apologetic. “I wish I remembered,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. But do you honestly want to stay here, alone? There must have been a reason you stayed. It wasn’t just for the view, right?”
For you, you want to say. I was waiting for you.
But he’s right. Your memories might remain intact, but you were once much more than this. You were quick, determined, unrelenting. It had taken years before you stopped searching for sign of Mason every day. But you had. You’d dwindled. Perhaps you’d given up without realising it.
The person you used to be would never have grown this despondent. You would have stitched your own broken heart back together and yanked back your power, proving to Citadel you’re a worthy asset. The only one skilled enough to perform what they needed. To fight terrorism and organised crime from behind a screen.
You miss that fire in your belly. Now, it's no more than ash.
Finally, you turn your hardened stare back to him. “No. It wasn’t just for the view.”
He nods as though he knows your mind has changed, determination sharpening his own face. “Then you’ll help us.”
“I’ll help you,” you decide. Even if it hurts. Even if you’re not sure you want to anymore.
The back of his hand brushes yours, and your skin tingles. You look down and know it was no accident; his fingers twitch from the impact like a bird stunned after hitting the window. When you lock eyes, you see a flicker of him. Your Mason. Arrogance and softness all at once. A lion ready to pounce because he’s never known how to stay still. How did he manage it, being a family man?
What did he think when he saw glimpses of you?
It doesn’t matter. Your Mason might be gone, but so is Kyle. He’s someone new now, and you’ll just have to get to know this new version of him.
Just as he’ll have to get to know this new version of you. You’re not sure who you’ll be yet, still scarred and unsure, but you think that if he can walk through your door and find you against all odds,, maybe you can find him, too.
He keeps his eyes on the view behind the window, eyes turning the same forest green as the trees outside. Still, his arm is warm against yours, his broad shoulders squared and ready.
“Good,” he mutters, sending you a half-smile. “Because I’m going to need somebody to tell me who I really am. Who Mason Kane is.”
That, you might just be able to do. “An asshole,” you quip dryly. “Mason Kane was an asshole.” And god, did he love it when you said so.
As though it’s ingrained in his muscle memory, Mason lets out a chuckle — half-joy and half-disbelief. He raises his brow, flirtatious though you’re not sure he knows it yet. “That right?”
“Yep.” You cross your arms over your chest and try to stifle your hope, but it’s no use. It comes anyway. “With a capital A.”
This man might not be Mason, but he’s a hell of a lot like him. For now, that has to be enough.
Focus on My Heart (hurt/comfort, sensory overload): Reader gets bit by a radioactive spider a bit later and goes through sensory overload during school, Peter comforts them through it.
What Was I Made For?: Based on the lyrics from, What Was I Made For by Billie Eilish. Reader going through a seasonal depressive episode and Peter helping her through it.
Need to Sleep: Reader is stressed and not getting enough sleep. Peter is concerned and determined to help them through it, encouraging and eventually forcing them to sleep.
Cracked Phones: Peter helps you through the loss of a loved one like you helped him get through Ben.
CONRAD FISHER ⋆·˚ ༘ *
The 4th Confession : Conrad confesses his feelings for you after a week of fighting and makes sure you know his feelings are real.
PERCY JACKSON—and other pjo/hoo characters
You’re here, you survived, this is real: After your single trip to Tartarus, you’ve come back a different person, but not for the better. Everyone notices, but especially Percy as he becomes desperate for you to open up, hurt that you’re struggling in silence and knowing that keeping it inside is too close to tearing you apart.
Why didn’t you tell me? Part One after a fight on the Argo II, reader tries to hide their injury but Percy is determined to find out what’s wrong.
Part two
GARRICK TAVIS— the emperion
Next Time, Don’t Make Me Come Find You: Where Garrick could never miss a hint of your pain. You’re a Melgren, raised to hide it. But even your walls aren’t enough for him.
