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Hello! Here I am, yet again posting a themed fic at the wrong time! I'm trying okay, but shit keeps getting in the way...

Description: The day before Valentine's, you and Pero are sent on a mission to repair a broken machine at the sister factory to the one you work at. And of course, the hotel reservation gets screwed up, and obviously you end up having to stay much longer than expected.

Warnings: Pero Tovar x Female Reader (no descriptions of reader beyond being female), both main character's pov, Valentine's Day theme, forced proximity, only one bed, coworkers to friends, friends to dating, vague references to a planned SA but no descriptions whatsoever, protective!Pero.

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Word Count: 11,572 Sirowsky's Masterlist All dividers by the amazing @saradika-graphics

“Is this a joke?” You’re too stunned to even be upset about it yet, because this is just too fucking rich.

“I’m afraid not,” your supervisor Gary apologetically shakes his head. “Look, if there was anyone else we could send, we would, but…”

“But what? There are two thousand people working here, so don’t tell me you don’t have anyone else to send,” you grumble, not really out of anger, that’s not part of your overall makeup, but more out of nervousness.

“I meant in the sense that you’re probably the only one who can put up with him for that long.”

“That doesn’t mean it would be easier on me. It just means I can tolerate feeling like shit better than most.”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s a bad deal for you,” he sighs, and he does look like he feels genuinely bad about it, but he’s also not leaving any options open for you.

“And you’re still not gonna budge, are you?”

“We have to send someone…”

He gives you the details for the hotel and the keys to a company car, and you’re given one hour to go home and pack for at least a two-day stay in the neighbouring town. The factory where you work is relatively new, only about ten years old, but it’s been performing excellent from the start, which means a sister factory has been in construction for the past two years just a hundred-and-fifty miles to the east. It was officially launched six months ago, and there have been very few hiccups since.

But a couple of days ago, a complex overhead crane began to malfunction, and then completely broke down, and that’s the machine which you have quickly become a master at handling, despite only having been working here for a little over a year. And you’re happy to go and help the new factory back on its feet, that’s no problem at all, you’re only excited about the fact that the company is doing so well, since it means you’ll get to keep your job. Your issue with all this is that the only person who really knows how to mechanically repair this particular machine, is Pero Tovar.

He’s been working here since the mother factory was first built, and he was the one who hatched the idea to build the crane, and then both designed and built the damned thing, largely on his own. He’s a genius, for lack of a better word, but he’s also the most unfriendly person you’ve ever met. And now, you have to not only work with him on repairing the damaged one, but you also have to travel and live with him for as long as that takes.

Gary told you that he’d made reservations for you at the nearest hotel to the sister factory, but that they only had one room available, since it’ll be over Valentine’s Day, so you’re quite certain that no matter what happens, this is gonna be a horrible week.

It’s still only 7am when you arrive back at work with your small suitcase, locate the correct company car and throw your luggage in the trunk, but you don’t get in. You have no intention of angering your travel mate, so you’re not gonna assume anything in terms of whether he wants to drive or not. You lean against the side of the car with your arms crossed and your cap pulled low over your eyebrows, trying not to think about just how much this is gonna suck.

He arrives just a couple of minutes later, parking his own car and then walking over to you with brisk steps. You’ve never seen him dawdle, but he never seems rushed either. More like he just has his own pace through life which he keeps to no matter how fast or slow the world around him is moving. Like he’s perpetually unaffected by absolutely everything, which he probably is.

“You wanna drive, or should I?” you ask before he reaches the car, so you’ll have time to move out of his way if you need to.

But he doesn’t answer. He just walks up to the boot and throws his bag into it, shuts it, then heads for the passenger side. A bit surprised, you take the driver’s seat, but you’re sure as hell not gonna ask him why he doesn’t wanna drive. It just seems out of character, so far as you know him, because he’s always in control of everything around him. He’s the one person in the entire factory who has every license required to operate every piece of machinery or vehicle available, and he never seems the least bit unsure of what to do or when.

Still, he’s not a supervisor. He has the same rank as you, which seems ridiculous given the disparity of skills between you, but it does mean that technically he can’t order anyone to do anything. And you’ve never heard him try. People very nervously come to him with their problems or questions and for the most part, he just sighs and takes care of it, usually without a word but with a fair bit of growling. And if it's something simple enough that the person asking should be able to do it themselves, he’ll begrudgingly instruct, or show them, no doubt hoping they’ll never bother him again.

But for all his expertise, the only times he outright tells people what to do, is when they’re asking for help. Beyond that, even on the occasions when he overhears operators talking about a problem and he knows how to sort it out, he never says a word without being asked. And you’ve never been able to work out if it’s out of a deep respect for rules and procedure, if he just doesn’t give a shit, or if he secretly enjoys hearing them struggle with stuff that’s simple to him. He’s about as easy to read as a book with every page blacked out.

Which is one of the many reasons why you’re glad it isn’t a longer drive, since you wouldn’t dream of trying to start up a conversation with him. But even without asking, you know he doesn’t want to stop by the hotel and check in before going to the factory, so you head straight there. They’re expecting you, evident in how the gates swing open before you’ve even come to a full stop in front of them, so you roll your window down and wave to the security camera as you drive through.

Parking by the large Arrivals entry at the back, where all new materials are brought in, you step out and wait for someone to come and escort you inside. Since you’re not employed at this factory you can’t enter the factory floor without a yellow vest and a supervisor to take you to the area that you’ll be working in. Safety procedures are so precise that not even Tovar, who’s done this several times before, is allowed to step foot inside without an escort.

“Good morning,” a cheerful older woman greets you after just a minute. “I’m Hannah, supervisor of the assembly team.”

You notice that she only introduces herself to you, so she’s clearly met Tovar before. She’s carrying two vests and hands them to each of you, waiting until you’ve put them on fully before she invites you inside.

“How big of a failure are we talking about?” you ask as you follow her out of the morning sunlight and into the crisp white, fluorescent lighting, which seems so dark in comparison.

“Complete. My estimate is that we’re looking at both mechanical and hydraulic malfunction, and there also seems to be a problem with the software.”

“In that case we have to consider the possibility that the software is the root cause.”

“I wasn’t aware the crane could sabotage itself,” she ponders, turning a corner around a plastic processing machine before you reach the assembly section, which sits two floors lower down to make room for the giant overhead crane in question.

You still have to walk halfway through the rest of the factory to reach the control panel, but while you do, you get a good look at two sides of the machine. It has a scientific name, but all workers just call it MAP, short for the three processes it’s capable of performing simultaneously: moulding, assembling, and packaging.

“If the software fails to accept new commands, especially if they’re related to the assembly arms rather than the material deposits and moulds, then it can end up over-reaching or colliding with itself, which isn’t necessarily visible on the outside, since the turning radius is shorter than it appears to be.” You rattle off the explanation without pause, and she turns her head to the side to look at you while you continue to walk.

“You mean it can crash into itself without us noticing?”

“Unfortunately, yes. And when it happens because of a software problem, there’s no guarantee the system will be able to identify the collision and inform you about it, so then the only option it has is to default to its primary security mode and completely shut itself down. But we won’t know if that’s what’s happened until we’ve had a chance to look at the failure logs.”

You’re highly aware that Tovar is walking right behind you, and it makes you feel self-conscious in terms of your knowledge about the potential problem. He knows so much more than you, and yet here you are, talking about the machine that he developed as if you’re every bit as familiar with it as he is. You wouldn’t even blame him if he told you to shut up and leave it to him, because honestly, he’d be well within his rights to. But he doesn’t say a word.

Reaching the control panel, you find a whole group of operators waiting with tools of every kind, ready and possibly even eager to pitch in and start fixing stuff, but you merely nod at them and then the two of you set to work. They won’t be able to help with anything until you’ve identified what the actual problem is. Still with his mouth firmly shut, Tovar begins to dismantle a cover which protects a kind of black box, designed to record and store all malfunction log entries of the operating system for the entire machine, while you start tapping keys to assess how big of a problem you might be dealing with.

“Shit… The system’s completely crashed,” you relay your findings to your colleague. “We might be looking at a partial or even complete reconstruction.”

As always, without being asked a direct question, the grumpy Spaniard doesn’t reply, but you’re expecting that. You’re just trying to keep him informed. But when he manages to gain access to the box, what he finds is even worse than you’d imagined. The box contains servers, about a hundred of them, and there’s a small screen on one end where he can access specific logs by searching for dates and times. But when he activates the screen, it’s already displaying thousands of entries, all flashing red to indicate problems.

“We will need to look at the main servers,” he instructs, and the operators immediately spring into action to unscrew the access panel for the primary system.

It only takes them seconds, and then the core of the computer is revealed. There are about five hundred servers in there, each with its own little sequence of tiny lights on the front, to indicate where there might be problems. They can shine green, yellow, and red, but also flash in each colour and in a specific order to tell him what’s going on. But more than half of them have gone dark. Not shining red or flashing, but completely dark. Dead. Which means those servers have suffered such a catastrophic failure that they’ve burned through their circuits.

“That didn’t happen all at once, did it?” you guess, peering over Tovar’s shoulder after he kneels in front of the open panel to take a closer look.

“No. This started months ago and slowly built into a cascade. The entire computer must be replaced and the operating system re-uploaded and installed.”

You can’t quite hold back your heavy sigh of disapproval as you realize just how long this is gonna take. It was bad enough to be stuck here and living with the unfriendliest person in the world when it was just gonna be for a couple of days, but now it’s looking more like it’s gonna be a couple of weeks.

“Fuck…”

~~~ You don’t arrive at the hotel until almost 9.30 that evening, after trying to get as much of the dismantling as possible done, so you’ll be able to get started on the rebuild already tomorrow morning. And you’re so tired by the time you get to the room that you don’t even care about having to sleep in the same room as Tovar. All you want is just a shower and then as many hours of rest as you can possibly get. However, when you walk into the room and see a large double bed, instead of two separate ones, sleep suddenly seems very far away indeed.

“T-there were supposed to be two beds…” you nervously stutter, while racking your brain to try and remember exactly what Gary had said about the booking.

Did he say that they only had one room available, with double beds, or with a double bed? The more you think about it the more convinced you become that it was in fact the latter, and your pulse jumps to what seems like twice its normal pace. But your colleague doesn’t respond, nor does he look the slightest bit concerned about it.

“’I’m gonna go talk to the front desk clerk again,” you say while already heading for the door, grabbing a key card on your way out.

Pero sighs deeply after hearing the door close behind you. Nobody likes him, for good reason, so he isn’t surprised that you don’t want to share a bed with him, but it also offends him somewhat. It’s not like he’d ever do anything to you. He’s not a kind or sweet person, but he sure as shit isn’t an abuser either. He would never lay hands on a woman without permission, and he’d rather chew off his own arms than hit someone who couldn’t possibly defend themselves against him. There’s no victory to that kind of fight.

But of course, you can’t know how he thinks since he never shares any of his thoughts with anyone. Hence the sigh. The likelihood of another room being available is very low, though. Gary wouldn’t have booked this if there was any better alternative available within the company’s budget, so while he waits for you to return, he takes a quick shower and brushes his teeth.

You come back just as he leaves the bathroom, which is right next to the front door, so the two of you almost collide in the hallway. And if he isn’t mistaken, he catches a glimpse of you eyeing his naked upper body with what doesn’t appear to be disgust or disinterest. More like the opposite. It’s only there for a millisecond before you’ve schooled your expression and turned your entire face away, but he could swear there was a sliver of desire within you just then, and he’s quite surprised at how much that pleases him.

“Uh… wh-.. Hrm…” you try, but whatever you meant to say, it doesn’t seem to find its way out, so you simply pass him in the hall and head for your suitcase which is parked at the foot of the bed.

Since he’s done with his evening toilet, Pero ends up following you there, rounding the bed behind you and pulling the covers back on the right-hand side of it. He’s only wearing his boxer briefs and when he sits down, his back is to you, so he can’t see if you steal any more looks at him, but it does secretly bemuse him to imagine that you do.

“There weren’t any other rooms available,” you finally manage, just after he lays down and pulls the covers over himself. “They apparently have a Valetine’s Day special here every year, offering all kinds of romantic couples spa treatments and even a speed-dating event, all of which seem to be very popular.”

Your voice is small and nervous, as if you’re worried that he’ll scold you for speaking too loudly in his presence, which seems excessive. He’s never been cruel to you. At least, not by any of his own definitions of cruelty. He’s lying on his side with his back to you, so he can’t read your expression, but he wonders if you’re actually scared of him, because that’s what it sounds like. It’s quiet for a minute then, and all he hears is the zipper on your suitcase being opened and you grabbing some things before heading for the bathroom, so he assumes everything’s okay, and with the day you’ve had, he falls asleep not long after.

He wakes up to his alarm the following morning at 5:45am, and rolls out of bed on routine, heading for the bathroom. Rounding the foot of the bed, he notices that the covers on your side are already immaculately made up and when he looks up, he finds you sitting at the small table in the corner by the TV, dressed and ready, fiddling with your phone. Momentarily confused, he glances at his wristwatch, wondering if he set the alarm the wrong time or something. Because why would you get up earlier than you need to when you got in so late last night?

He would’ve slept another half-hour himself if not for the fact that you need to go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast since you didn’t have time yesterday to buy something you can eat in the room or on the way. Your head is bowed as you’re looking at the screen, but he can still see how tired you are, so clearly, you didn’t sleep nearly as soundly as he did, which seems to match with your nervousness last night.

And while he’s doing his morning toilet, he realizes that something about seeing you look so tortured really annoys him. Deep down, he knows why, but he doesn’t allow himself to go there. Returning to his bag on his side of the bed, he steals glances at you, trying to quell the stronger feelings that your presence keeps stirring up, but he can’t seem to gain control of himself, which leaves him sour and cranky. So, when he finally has cause to speak to you, it comes out with much more of a sting than he’d intended.

“Let’s get going.”

It sounds harsh and almost accusatory, which comes as a surprise to Pero himself, because you’ve been ready to go since before he woke up, so he has no right to hurry you on. Still, you don’t protest or challenge him, even though you absolutely should, and as he leads the way down the corridors to the elevator, he wonders if he truly has left such a horrid impression on you over this past year, that you genuinely do fear him.

You’re a happy person. He’s not good at interacting with people, but he’s excellent at reading them, and he’s been working closely with you since you first started, so he’s had plenty of opportunities to study you. And what he’s seen is a lot of humour and a generally positive attitude, even when things are tough. You’re the one who keeps everyone’s spirits up in the breakroom, coming up with little games and puzzles to keep your coworkers entertained and let them forget about the problems out on the factory floor.

But he hasn’t seen that side of you for even one minute since the two of you were sent on this repair mission, and the only reason he can see why that would be, is because you’re on your own with him. It’s not like the two of you haven’t been on your own in your sector of the factory before, but it’s different when you’re in an unfamiliar environment surrounded by people you’ve never met, and can’t even go home to your own bed at the end of the day.

Pero has never had more than temporary relationships with women, because he does know how unfriendly he is and why he behaves that way, which means that there’s a lot he doesn’t know or understand about the fairer sex. But what he does have extensive experience with, is seeing how the world treats you, and how powerless you often are to change your own circumstances or even keep yourselves safe.

He’s lost count of how many brawls he’s gotten himself into, and walked away from largely unscathed, simply by intervening whenever he’s witnessed men behaving badly towards women. He doesn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart, he’s not even sure his heart is good at all, but simply because it irks him. And he doesn’t expect or accept any thanks for it because he only does it to keep from losing his fucking mind with the urge to vomit all over those kinds of guys.

But now that he watches you hurriedly fill a plate from the breakfast buffet, ignoring all the things he knows you normally love to indulge in when you get the chance, like the Nutella croissants and raspberry yoghurt with fresh berries, he realizes that he’s the only one who’s being disrespectful towards you right now. He should apologize for barking at you, maybe compliment your cute red nail-polish with little white hearts, or perhaps express some concern over how tired and stressed you look.

Instead, he finishes filling his own plate and takes his seat opposite you, without a word spilling over his lips.

Work is slow and tedious, each new hard drive being installed takes about twenty minutes because each one has to be independently connected to the core system, in the correct sequence, before you can move on to the next. And on top of that, the hydraulics in all eight of the machine’s mechanical arms needs to be replaced, which is where most of your focus lies, while Tovar primarily works on the computer.

He’s better at it than you or anyone of the other operators, so it’s only logical, and you’re somewhat relieved to not be around him much today. You hadn’t been able to bring yourself to lay down next to him last night, so you’d spent the night on the floor instead, thankfully waking up early enough that you’d had time to make your side of the bed before he noticed. Not that you’re sure why he’d be bothered by that. He doesn’t give a shit about your comfort, so why would he care where you sleep?

Unfortunately, this means you haven’t gotten much sleep at all since the floor was hard and cold and you kept having to change positions to keep various body parts from going numb. But working on the mechanical arms means working with the sister factory operators, and they’re proving to be just as good fun as your regular coworkers, so while the day might have started out crabby, by lunchtime you’re feeling pretty good. Until you hear that Tovar has left the factory over lunch, taking the car into town to eat, without asking if you might wanna tag along.

You wouldn’t really have expected him to ask, that’s not his style, but he could’ve let you know that he was leaving to give you a chance to go with him and maybe buy some breakfast for tomorrow or just a damned Valentine’s gift for yourself. Today is the 14th after all, and since it was supposed to be a day off for you, you had a whole day planned back home.

Nothing fancy, just a nice solo dinner and dessert, a spa bath and some skin pampering, and then just relaxing on the sofa with the book you’re currently reading and some of your favourite music. It would’ve been a perfect day. But instead, you’re literally covered in engine grease, the kind used for airplanes, no less, and there’s no point in washing more than your hands before digging into your microwave meal which you bought from a vending machine outside the management offices.

Your colleague returns within the allotted half-hour break, which seems odd considering the time it usually takes to order a meal, receive it, and then eat it, plus the drive back and forth into town. But you’re sure as hell not gonna ask him about it. He’s made it clear he wants nothing to do with you. So, you get back to work, doing your best to ignore him for the rest of the day.

However, it being a holiday, albeit a small one, the staff aren’t gonna stick around until 9pm like last night. They start packing it in before 6pm, and since you can’t be there without a chaperone, you’re both forced to leave early as well, which means you now have an entire evening to spend with the one person you’ve ever met who hates spending time with a single living thing. On fucking Valentine’s Day.

He drives this time, and you’re so tired and fed up with this whole situation that you never even ask if you can stop by a grocery store on the way. And once back in the hotel room, you’re all but ready to collapse and sleep for the rest of the evening, but then you remember that you’re not in any way interested in sleeping next to your travel companion, which just sours your mood even more.

“Do you need the bathroom any time soon?” you ask after arriving back in the room, and he just shakes his head, so you grab your toiletry bag and some clean cozy clothes from your suitcase and then lock yourself in there for what’s gonna be a very long shower.

For a long while, you just sit on the floor underneath the spray, and cry. Maybe because you feel particularly lonely today, or maybe just because you’re so tired, but whatever the reason might be, you don’t care enough to try and work it out. But after what has to be an hour, possibly even more than that, you start to feel overheated, so you quickly clean your hair and scrub your skin before stepping out and getting started on some moisturization.

You still don’t wanna go out into the other room, though, so you take your time blow-drying and styling your hair, even though you’re just going to bed. Then you clean and dry all your product bottles before putting them back into your toiletry bag. And then you can’t find any more excuses to stay in there any longer, so with a deep sigh, you unlock the door and step out into the cool and dry air of the bedroom, heading straight for your suitcase without even looking to see where Tovar is.

Until something catches your eye. There’s a glimmer towards the head of your side of the bed, and when you look up, a little gift box is sitting on your pillow. You turn around once, scanning the room, but he isn’t in there. What is in there, sitting on the small table in the corner, is a classic silver tray with a cover, and a single red rose resting in front of it.

Confused, you look from the silvery little box with a perfect bow on top, to the silvery tray in the other end of the room, utterly unable to connect the dots and unsure of where to even start with this. Finally, after at least a minute of perplexed deliberation, you decide to open the gift first. It’s about the size of the palm of your hand, and it isn’t wrapped, so you can just lift the top half of it off, but once you do, you kinda forget how to be a human being for a split second.

Because this must be from him. But how the fuck does he know? You’ve never had a genuine conversation with the man, and he’s never once expressed any interest in learning anything personal about you. So, how could he possibly know that you’ve wanted a d’amour gold diamond necklace from Cartier for years, and just never felt like it was an acceptable expense? It’s not the priciest piece of jewellery, just shy of a thousand bucks, but that’s still way beyond what you feel is acceptable to spend on what’s essentially just an accessory.

Yet, here it is. The exact piece you’ve been dreaming about one day feeling like you can gift yourself. It makes no sense. Tearing your gaze off the sparkling jewellery to try and regain some clarity of thought, you then remember the tray, and slowly approach the little table, suddenly extremely curious but also kinda worried about what might be under that cover.

The rose is also of the expensive type, as big as a coffee cup saucer and blood red, with a sweet and soft aroma. You know the kinds of florists who sell these and it’s about the last place you’d ever expect to see Pero Tovar. The mental image alone is enough to make you snort. And then you lift the cover and once more lose your marbles, because the tray is absolutely filled with all your favourite treats.

From strawberries to your favourite sour candies, to caramel brownies, peanut butter cookies, your favourite chocolate, grapes, and two bottles of the best sparkling water you know. Even if your solo Valentine’s hadn’t been cancelled you never would’ve treated yourself to all this. And once again you’re left wondering how in the hell the unfriendliest man in the world has accomplished this.

But he’s not here, and his phone is sitting on the bedside table on his side of the bed, so you can’t reach him. Which has to mean he did all this so that you’d have a night to yourself in the middle of all this work, and the thought damned near makes you cry again. So instead, you take the necklace out of the box and put it on, then you grab the tray, move it onto the bed, turn on the tv and snuggle up while you search for something to watch.

He comes back around midnight, to give you as much space as he can without making himself miserable with too little sleep before work tomorrow, and he tries to be quiet when he steps out of his shoes and sneaks into the bathroom. Once he’s used the toilet and brushed his teeth, he stays in the bathroom while he undresses and then quietly makes his way to the bed. But once he sees you, he has to stop for a moment and just look at you.

The bedside lamps illuminate you where you lay, curled up against the headboard with the covers bunched up as a third pillow for you to hug, still fully dressed and with the tray of sweets in the middle of the bed, most of it already eaten. You’re holding the rose so that the soft petals touch your cheek, and around your neck the thin chain and tiny diamond glimmers. You’re far away, sleeping soundly with a slight smile in the corner of your mouth, and it makes him feel warm to see it.

You always smile, even when you have no apparent reason to. It’s how he’s used to seeing you, and it’s an unexpected relief to have that smile back. It takes him several minutes before he realizes that he’s been staring at you for far too long, and promptly reaches over to lift the tray out of the bed and take one of the spare blankets to cover you with, before he carefully crawls into bed beside you and falls asleep still watching you smile.

~~~ The alarm on his phone is automated, set to 6:15am for the entire week, and it goes off when it’s supposed to. He turns around and reaches for his phone but then hits snooze instead of turning it off. He’s dead tired and not at all in the mood to get up, so he tries to go back to sleep, hoping the alarm will magically turn back time and give him another two hours. But then that feeling hits him. That feeling which tells him something’s off and he needs to be alert, so he opens his eyes.

He’s still lying on his left side, facing your direction, so when he looks up, he meets your eyes staring back at him. You’ve sat up and you look tired and confused, but also… softer, maybe. Less tense than you have these past two days.

“When did you get in? I didn’t hear you.” You seem truly surprised to not have noticed him coming back, but then, you have no idea how stealthy he’s had to be earlier in his life, and how those skills still serve him on occasion.

“Midnight,” he sleepily slurs without lifting his head off the pillow.

“Oh. I was trying to stay up… to thank you.”

He doesn’t reply to that, because he really doesn’t know what to say, and he much prefers silence to outing himself as both stupid and incompetent where conversation is concerned.

“I spent all night trying to figure out how you could possibly know how much I love all these things,” you quietly continue in your raspy morning voice, which he finds himself enjoying far too much, “but then I decided that it doesn’t really matter. Because I know you aren’t nearly interested enough in people to ever stalk anyone, so however you found these things out, I don’t think there’s anything bad about it.”

You haven’t asked him anything, or indirectly posed an inquiry of any kind, so there’s nothing for him to answer, which is why he simply keeps looking at you. But in his mind, he recalls all the moments when he’s overheard you talking to your colleagues, freely sharing your interests, tastes, and dreams, as well as what things annoy, scare, or unsettle you. And he wonders if you’re even aware of how much you openly reveal about yourself without hesitation.

He thinks you must fear a great many things to be so ready to be known. To have such a need to never be misunderstood or caught on a lie that you’ll tell complete strangers about your thoughts and feelings on almost any subject, just to ensure they’ll know in advance why you might react negatively to certain things. Because that way, no one can ever call you a liar or attack you for being dishonest or unapproachable. He thinks you must be terribly scared of people in general, and that being completely open is your way of both protecting yourself and ensuring you won’t become closed off from the entire world.

But for all your vigilance, like everyone else around him, you don’t seem to notice him when he works within earshot of you, or just passes by close enough to overhear a few words or sentences of whatever conversation you happen to be in. He’s good at blending into the background when he chooses to, but he’s also aided by the fact that everyone overlooks him because they know he won’t interact with them even if they try, so it’s like their brains scrub him out of their senses to make sure they don’t waste any energy on him.

“What I do need to know,” you continue, oblivious to his internal memory trip, “is why you would ever spend a thousand bucks on a gift for someone you don’t care the least bit about.”

The alarm goes off again, and since he’s wide awake now, he sits up and switches it off, turning away from you as he throws his legs over the side of the bed.

“We need to get going,” is all he replies, fully aware that he’s avoiding the issue and using the fact that you still haven’t asked him a direct question as an excuse not to answer.

But he knows the answer. He knows it painfully well. And there’s a part of him who seriously hates that truth. You’re always unsure around him, for good reason since he’s never made it possible for you to be comfortable and relaxed in his presence, but his dismissal this time is more than just rude. It’s cruel, because it leaves you completely unable to judge his behaviour.

Did he do this for you because he’s trying to manipulate you? Or because he expects a favour in return? Is he trying to get into your pants? He can tell even without looking at you that these questions now flood your mind, as the tension of fear makes the entire room electric from one moment to the next.

Ordinarily, you don’t shy away from tough conversations. You hate it when things hang in the air like thunderclouds waiting to strike at you. But you’re also smart enough to pick your battles and you’ve understood from day one, that all discussions involving Pero are gonna be largely pointless, especially when he behaves this erratically. But he wishes you would pick this fight. He hates to see your fear. If only he had the guts to let you know that.

The workday continues just like the previous ones, with the two of you on separate tasks, him working on the computer and you out on the main body of the machine, teaching the operators how to reset and mend the hydraulics. You’re tremendously skilled at all functions of this complicated machine, especially considering how short a time you’ve spent learning it, so he’s never concerned about you working on it. The sister factory operators, on the other hand, he could outright strangle with their own incompetence.

And it only gets worse today, after he overhears a conversation between a few of them while they’re making their way to the lunchroom. As usual, they don’t notice him still working where they slowly pass while quietly speaking amongst themselves, and the first sentence he hears is enough to set his teeth on edge, so he abandons the work and sneaks after them.

He’s in a seriously bad mood that evening, and you can’t help but think it has to do with you, for some reason. He doesn’t wanna look at you and every time he has to, his mood seems to sour even more, and since you have no idea what you could’ve done, it just scares you. So, by the time you get back to the hotel, around 9pm, you’re not even thinking about laying down in the same bed as him.

Using the same tactic as the first night, you offer him the bathroom first and then take your time in there once he’s done. Then you sneak out and quietly pull the covers and pillows down on the floor, where you make a bed for yourself. You don’t hear anything from him, so you assume he’s already asleep, and after a little while, you manage to drift off as well. But the floor is hard, and you’re not used to that, so you wake up frequently as your body goes sore and occasionally numb from the pressure, forcing you to switch positions.

All of which means you don’t really get a lot of sleep, and by the early hours of the morning you’re finally all but passed out from exhaustion. And of course, that’s when his alarm goes off. You’re sleeping so heavily just then that you go back to sleep the moment the alarm is turned off, and it isn’t until you feel a hand on your shoulder that you finally wake up fully, with an instinctive, sharp jerk away from the unfamiliar touch.

“What are you doing on the floor, Sonriente?” he asks, and he still sounds almost angry, which makes you shrink away from him.

But you can’t find a single word to explain how he is the reason why you’ve put yourself in such an uncomfortable position, so you just turn away and start trying to wake your limbs up enough that you can stand and maybe begin to feel a little less vulnerable. Surprisingly though, as soon as he sees what you’re doing, he immediately reaches out and helps you until you’re sitting on the edge of the bed. Which only further confuses you because why would he help you when he’s angry with you?

You’re trembling slightly when he lets go of you, and you’re not sure if it’s because your limbs are still in the process of waking up or if it’s adrenaline, but either way, he notices, and it seems to connect the dots for him.

“You sleep on the floor because of me?” he quietly asks, while slowly backing away from you, and he looks either shocked or hurt. You can’t tell which.

“I don’t know why you’re so angry… but whatever I’ve done-…”

“No,” he cuts you off sharply, shaking his head and closing his eyes as if it’ll somehow make all of this go away. “It is not you.”

There’s something very raw and open about him in that moment. As though his innermost being is exposed and trying to crawl back into the shadows of his heart, but hindered by whatever this thing is that’s making him so angry.

“It is never you…” he barely whispers, and now he is the one who’s trembling.

“But then… why? Why could you barely even look at me yesterday, and why did it seem like you only got angrier every time you did?” you question, feeling slightly bolder now that you’re starting to see how vulnerable he is in this situation.

A ripple seems to go through him, and suddenly all the hairs on his arms stand up, and the trembling in his hands intensifies.

“I can’t say it.” He’s gritting his teeth as he speaks, so the words come out in a slight growl, but you can sense now that this isn’t directed at you at all. “But I would never hurt you.”

He sinks to one knee on the floor in front of you, still with his eyes closed and his head bowed, and his fists closed tightly against his thighs, but somehow you’re not the least bit scared of him anymore. You slip off the bed and drop to your knees before him, carefully reaching a hand up to his shoulder to see how he reacts, and the moment you make contact, another ripple goes through him.

But in the aftermath, he softens. His shoulders drop and something seems to unlock within him, so you decide to take both his hands in yours, fully expecting him not to accept the small act of comfort. But he does. Piece by piece, he surrenders, first by letting his hands be held, and then by holding yours in return. He’s breathing hard, and you can see the pounding of his heart in his neck and on his temples, but the longer you hold onto him, the calmer he becomes.

“I’m sorry… for ever letting you think you had to protect yourself from me,” he eventually whispers, and his voice trembles with the anger that still simmers within him. “I promise you will never have to.”

You feel like you’re seeing him for the first time all over again, or at least seeing sides of him you never would’ve thought even existed if this stupid trip had never happened. And it emboldens you in terms of how much you dare to stand up for yourself and demand a few explanations. Because you sure as shit have questions and it’s about time he answers them.

“Why did you buy me the necklace, Pero?” You keep your tone soft, but you also let your voice remain strong to let him know you’re not gonna tolerate any excuses, and then you wait patiently while he gathers himself.

“Because you were stuck here with me,” he eventually begins, and his voice is full of uncertainty now, which is something you never thought you’d hear from this man. “I know you had plans for Valentine’s and it all got ruined, but then you also had to put up with me and I just thought… maybe it would bring your smile back for a while.”

“My smile?” Of all the reasons to give someone a gift, making them smile is certainly good enough. But this particular man wishing to make you smile is entirely unexpected.

“You always do. Like there is a happy little film playing on the insides of your eyes all the time. Have you not noticed how everyone you meet smiles back at you?” he wonders, and you think back to all the people you’re regularly around, and then all the people you’ve met for the first time recently.

And he’s right. Everyone always smiles at you, even the most sour office workers whenever they have to set foot in the factory where they’re no longer the experts on everything because their knowledge is all theoretical and they wouldn’t be able to operate much of anything out there on the floor. Everyone smiles at you. Except Tovar.

“You are sunshine,” he continues, “drawing people in with your light and warmth. It is impossible to resist.”

“But you do. I’ve never seen you smile, not at me or anyone, for any reason, not even a smirk,” you counter, before you slip a hand out of his to reach up and gently lift his chin, because you need to see his eyes. “So, why are you suddenly acting like this matters to you?”

It takes him a minute, in which he keeps trying not to look at you, but his eyes still return to meet yours every few seconds, as if he really can’t resist.

“It always makes me happy to see you,” he finally admits, and he looks so small and unsure suddenly, which stuns you somewhat, because you would never even have imagined that Pero Tovar could look anything but tall, broad and competent. “I’m sorry that I am not better at showing you this.”

It’s still so difficult to wrap your head around this, because in the entire year you’ve been around him, this man has never shown any level of care for another human being, whatsoever. As in, you’ve seen him sigh and continue working as if nothing happened, after a guy standing next to him accidentally crushed his own foot.

“So… you’re saying you care about me?” you ask, needing the outright confirmation before you’ll even be able to begin accepting it.

He pauses again. But this time, he meets your eyes the whole time.

“Yes.”

You’re a little late to work this morning, but he’s very relieved to have had the conversation you ended up having after waking up. It had damned near broken his heart to find you on the floor, knowing it was all his fault for being such a fucked-up person that he can’t even tell you he wasn’t angry with you. And he’s absolutely certain that anyone else would’ve either gotten angry with him or just tried to avoid the conversation all together.

But not you. You always take the hard road, because that’s how much honesty means to you, and you always manage to do it without losing your temper or getting rude about it. It’s one of a long line of things he admires about you. And that’s precisely why he’s never dared to actually talk to you. He doesn’t know how to do any of that. How to have honest and open conversations without losing his shit at some point. It’s destroyed every relationship he’s ever tried to have, and he’s been so scared of losing the calm and harmony you bring into his life by just existing in his presence, that he never would’ve attempted it.

But this morning was different, because you didn’t get angry or defensive or even demanding. You just kept opening doors for him and for the first time in at least twenty years, he found the courage to step through them, one by one. And now, when you park at the sister factory for your fourth day of working on MAP, he feels like maybe this won’t be as bad of a day as he had initially thought.

As usual, Hannah comes out to escort you both, but there’s a grim look on her face today, and while Pero can guess the reason behind it, you still have no idea what happened here yesterday.

“Good morning. I’m afraid we’re a bit short-staffed today so you’ll have to make due with just two extra pairs of hands on the hydraulics.”

“Is there a flu going round, or something?” you ask, which is a valid question given that you worked closely with the three men who are out sick today and who could’ve infected you with a disease.

“No, no. It seems there was an incident here yesterday, and a few of our workers were injured.”

“Oh. Was it another malfunction?”

“It appears to have been an altercation, actually,” Hannah explains, to which you raise a shocked brow. “None of the boys are talking about it, so we don’t know exactly what happened, but between them they have broken hands, arms, noses, ribs, a dislocated shoulder and a shattered knee. So, whatever went down, it was serious.”

At this point, Pero notices a slight stutter in your steps, just before your head turns ever so slightly in his direction. You know that he can fight, and you know he isn’t afraid to get in the middle of it when he wants to, so you’re probably guessing that he was involved in this altercation and that it explains his temper problem from yesterday. All of which is correct, and none of which he intends to confess to in front of the supervisor, which is why he’s relieved when you don’t say anything.

Once by the control panel for MAP, however, where no other operators are working, since they’re already busy with the hydraulics, you only wait until Hannah’s moved out of earshot before you come at him.

“What the hell, Tovar? Did you mess up those guys?” Your voice is low, but the tone is heavy with accusation and even a bit of disbelief, so you clearly never noticed the darker shades of these particular operators as they worked with you.

“Yes,” he admits without shame or hesitation, to which your shock doubles.

“Why would you do that?”

He doesn’t want to answer this one, so he gets to work, hoping you’ll let it go as you usually do when he shuts you down. But of course, this is one of those times when you decide to take the fight, probably because of the progress with communication you had this morning.

“None of them even worked with you, what reason could you possibly have to break their fucking bones?”

Disgusting words spoken in entitled and arrogant voices suddenly flood his mind once more, and his anger re-emerges with full force. But he manages to stay in control of himself, so while he turns his head to meet your questioning gaze, none of that anger spills onto you, and it only takes you a second to realize why. Your breath seems to die inside your lungs and for a moment he worries that you’re about to pass out. But then you suck in a shaky breath and tears form in your eyes as the understanding dawns on you.

It’s a horrible thing to see, watching as you involuntarily envision what could’ve happened, the nausea and sudden weakness which seems to creep into your very bones even at the mere suggestion of the plans that Pero interrupted by taking them out. If he’d needed any reassurance that his actions were just, your reaction is more than enough. But it only lasts for a few seconds, and then a different emotion begins to replace the fear and discomfort. It takes him a minute to figure out what it is, and just as he does, you step towards him.

The strength of your arms when they wrap around his waist is almost enough to bruise him, but he doesn’t mind. He might not often feel deserving of someone’s gratitude, as the things he occasionally does to aid them are largely self-serving, but he does this time. Not because this threat was more real than any other, but simply because he knows and cares about you. He’s tried not to. Tried every day not to let you creep further under his skin and infect him with your joy, but he never stood a chance.

You don’t speak and you don’t need to. Your body tells him the truth of what you’re feeling in that moment, in the tiny shivers which keep making you tremble against him, and the strained breaths you struggle to take with your face buried against his chest. He can feel how hard you’re trying not to cry, how you bite it back with each inhale and then almost lose control of it every time your lungs empty. But he also feels the relief within you when he wraps his arms around your shoulders and rests his cheek against the side of your head.

In this moment, he has become your safety. The place where you choose to be because it makes you feel better. And for all his accomplishments, his inventions and ideas, technical skills and comprehensive knowledge, this is the only time he can recall ever feeling truly proud of himself. Because you’re choosing him. You. The strongest and most impressive person he’s ever met.

~~~ That night, you fall asleep lying next to him, and although he’s tired after a long and emotional day, he stays awake for a little while just to look at you. Just to make sure you’re still smiling in your sleep. And in the following five days, which it takes to finally fix the machine, this becomes your routine every night. So, when the day eventually comes when it’s time to return home, you’re both mildly disappointed by the prospect of going back to your empty beds.

Still, it’s nice to come home. You see your cars still parked where you left them when you drive past the employee lot on your way to the company car slots. It’s past office hours so once you’ve collected your things, you drop the keys in a kind of mailbox designed specifically for that purpose, and then begin making your way back to your own vehicles. Neither of you are in a hurry, and he decides to walk you to your car before he heads to his own, just to help you feel safe. He’s noticed that you’re still rattled about the incident he prevented, in how you’ve been jumpier than usual.

“I never thought I’d say this,” you quietly muse once you reach your car, “but I’m gonna miss your presence tonight.”

You say it with a smile, but there’s insecurity within the expression, making him think that what you’re really going to miss is the feeling of safety which his closeness over the past week has given you.

“But it will be nice to sleep in your own bed, yes?”

“Definitely.”

“And we will meet for the debrief first thing in the morning,” he concludes, hoping to leave you with a brighter perspective. And perhaps also hoping that you’ll reassure him of your desire to see him again.

“The debrief?” Your question is genuine, reminding him that this is your first time working away and that you’ve probably never been told about the follow-up procedures.

“Yes. We must meet Gary in the morning and explain everything that’s happened and what we have done.”

“But won’t he have gotten continuous updates from the management team over there?”

“Of course. The debrief is to ensure that our recollection and experience of what has happened concurs with theirs, to eliminate the risk of either side trying to hide any problems or complications. So, we will need to tell Gary about the user errors which led to the breakdown.”

“Okay. But we’re not telling him about…” you trail off, unable to finish the sentence because the thought alone still makes you curl in on yourself.

“It would not do much good. Those men will be dealt with by the sister factory’s human resources unit.”

“How so? We never told them what really happened, so why would their HR get involved at all?”

“Because I hacked their phones and took a look at their search histories and saved videos, and even the small percentage of things I anonymously sent to their HR representative will be enough to get them arrested eventually,” he confesses, and it somehow still surprises him just how warm it makes him feel inside when he sees the relief in your frame.

“Careful, Pero. I might start spreading a rumour that you’re secretly the sweetest guy in the world,” you joke, but there’s a hint of seriousness behind the teasing tone.

“Go ahead, Sonriente. No one would believe you.”

He says it with a soft note to his voice, just to make sure you know he wouldn’t mind if you did decide to spread rumours about him, regardless of what they might concern, if it would in any way help you feel good.

“That’s definitely true,” you agree, mirroring his softness, and a slight spark lights up somewhere in your eyes then. “But you know, I kinda like that I’m the only who’s seen this other side of you.”

“You may take all the credit for this yourself, because no one else has a hope of drawing it out of me. But it seems, against you, I have no defences anymore.”

The smile you give him in response to that is enough to make him wish he could always sleep beside you. But this is where you finally part ways for the night. He waits until you’re safely locked inside your car before he heads over to his own, already missing your closeness when he takes a seat and buckles up, and already accepting the fact that he won’t get much sleep tonight.

It almost feels stupid how relieved you are to see him again the next morning. And the way his eyes light up when you walk into Gary’s office, just a few seconds past the dotted time, makes you wanna sit down on his lap rather than the chair beside him. But you notice how discreet his reaction is now that there’s an audience, compared to how directly he’s been allowing you to see his emotions while you’ve been couped up together in that hotel room. So, even though he might like you, he’s not prepared for the world to know about it, which is why you greet him with just a polite nod while you take your seat.

“Good morning,” Gary grumbles in his characteristically sour morning mood. “So, this took a bit longer than I’d hoped, but I see you got the MAP working again, well done.”

“Yeah. It was shot to shit when we got there,” you chip in, immediately back to expecting Tovar not to speak unless he’s asked a question, since that is still his normal state of being.

“I saw the pictures of the hard drives. Someone sure did a real number on that thing.”

“I’m guessing more than one someone. But we’ve shown them how to operate it correctly now, so hopefully it won’t happen again.”

He asks you to go over the repair process day by day, and he has a lot of questions along the way, and true to form, your colleague remains silent unless Gary addresses him, so it ends up being a lot of talking for you. But as it begins to wind down, you start to wonder if Pero is being deliberately silent specifically because he wants you to talk through it.

He’s always quiet at work, that’s not unusual. But this was his repair job, not yours. You were just the extra hands, which means that this debrief should be primarily directed at him, yet by keeping his mouth shut, he’s forcing the supervisor to focus on you. And in doing so, you’re getting a chance to unpack everything that’s happened, at least in your own head, even though you’re editing stuff out before you speak. Gary knows better than to push his top employee for a comment when the man is clearly not in a talkative mood, so it works perfectly, if indeed that is what the Spaniard’s doing.

“Alright, I think I’ve got everything I need, so unless either of you have anything you wanna add, we can wrap it up here.”

“Nope, all good,” you cheerfully declare, feeling lighter than you have in the past few days.

“No critique you wanna hurl at me? About the hotel or the car? No jackass operator giving you a hard time over there, or anything?”

From the corner of your eye, you see Tovar shift ever so slightly in his seat, and you wonder if he’s thinking about the men he hurt, or the one bed hotel room you initially hadn’t wanted to share with him. But he says nothing, so you just shake your head at your supervisor and then the two of you leave his office and head onto the factory floor to get started on your regular workday.

It’s nice to be back at your own station with your regular crew. It feels safe and familiar. But you find yourself thinking about Pero almost every second of the day. Wondering what he’s up to whenever you can’t see him at his station and wondering if he’s thinking about you at all whenever you do see him. He never looks at you while he’s working, at least not that you can tell, so by lunchtime you’re pleased when he falls in beside you while you walk towards the breakroom, although it is a bit disappointing when he still takes his usual spot at the far end of the room rather than choosing to sit with you.

But you do understand. It’s not like he’s gonna become a different person just because the two of you have begun to build a friendship, and you wouldn’t want him to. So, you take your usual seat and play along with the customary banter, answering everyone's questions about the sister factory and what you got up to over there, and it all feels comfortably normal.

Until someone makes a remark about Pero, the kind of thing you would’ve previously just ignored, but which now that you feel closer to your taciturn colleague, you suddenly find offensive.

“Bet this one charmed everyone’s socks off,” the operator smirks, throwing a thumb in Tovar’s general direction after you’ve just finished describing the difficulty of coming in as the experts and trying to find a good working dynamic with a different crew.

And in that moment, the fact that the Spaniard never defends himself, despite seriously fucking people up for just talking about hurting you, just makes you feel like it’s your turn to have his back and teach this crew not to talk about him like he isn’t even there.

“No, he didn’t. But he did manage to charm my pants off.”

You say it frankly, leaving no question that it’s the truth, even though you’re twisting the narrative a bit to make it sound like the two of you hooked up, when you’re actually just referring to him making you feel safe enough to sleep beside him in nothing but your panties and a top. Still, the effect it has on the entire room is worth the fib.

They all know you’re not easy. It takes a lot just for someone to get a date with you, courtesy of trust issues because of previous experiences. Nothing traumatic, thankfully, but enough that you always have your guard up and actively look for red flags in every guy you meet. Also, you’re very clear on what you want and what you tolerate, as well as what you don’t, which is enough to deter a great many men. So, for you to let a mystery like Pero anywhere near you, he has to have insanely good game, and not one of the people in that breakroom with you can picture a reality where that’s even possible.

Which results in a highly amusing blend of shocked and disbelieving faces, some frozen while they’re clearly trying to visualize this alternate universe, while others are just staring at Tovar, still sitting there perfectly calmly in his usual spot, reading something on his phone. And the best part is, none of them have the guts to ask him about it, because they’re all just as scared of him as you still were two weeks ago. Which means that all they can do is live with this incredibly shocking revelation, presumably forever.

You continue to chuckle about it for the rest of the day, and when the next shift arrives to relieve you, from a distance, you can see how they too are informed of this latest piece of gossip. So, odds are, this is now gonna be the talk of the factory for the foreseeable future.

“You know you will be the topic of discussion for a long time now,” Pero cautions as if he’s just read your mind, while he comes to help you clean up before you leave your station.

“It’s harmless, I don’t mind. Besides, it is true.”

“Technically. But I do not like them thinking of you as a conquest. Mine or anyone else’s.”

“Okay. Then shut them down,” you smile, and he can tell there’s a hidden meaning behind those words, but he can’t quite make it out, so you decide to spell it out for him. “Let’s go on a date.”

Your confidence ebbs out about halfway through the sentence, resulting in a sudden fade of both volume and potency, so the word date comes out all strangled and barely even audible. But you’ve said it now, so you might as well soldier on.

“What I mean is, I would like to go on a date with you. You’re free to decline, of course,” you elaborate, feeling more insecure by the second, even turning your head down to look at your shoes because you suddenly remember how much rejection stings, which you somehow hadn’t thought about until just now.

“Do you like empanadas?” he asks then, and his voice is soft, just like it always was when the two of you were alone together in the hotel room this last week.

“I’ve never tried them,” you confess, still unsure of what he means by that, but then he gives you a little smile.

“Then I will make them for you. My mother’s recipe is a bit spicy, but I think you can handle it.”

Relief and joy wash over you as you realize he’s agreeing, and your responding smile feels like it blossoms out of you. Like there’s no connection between your brain and your heart in that moment, it just happens because the feeling is too big to control.

“Okay. So… your place?”

“You choose. If you wish to have the option to leave if you feel uncomfortable: my place. If you wish to eat by a table and not sitting in the sofa: your place.”

“For the record, I know I’d feel safe at your place. But yeah, a table might be nice,” you chuckle, and he nods in agreement, so you decide to be bold. “How about tonight, maybe 6pm?”

“Sure,” he quietly agrees, but you can tell he’s pleased that you didn’t suggest waiting until the weekend.

“Great. And if you’re gonna cook then I’ll get dessert.” You say it while starting to walk towards the assembled crews, ridiculously happy to see them still flabbergasted at the realization that their grumpiest colleague apparently has more game than all of them.

But when you turn your back to him, you miss how his expression changes as he follows you, turning from a controlled interest and mild happiness, to almost tearful with gratitude that you’d still choose to spend time with him even when you no longer need to. He might not be ready to show it in front of the others, but the brightness you pour into his soul with just your smile and your willingness to give him a chance, would make him glow in the dark if it was visible. You might not have figured it out yet, but Pero Tovar already belongs to you, so all you need to do to have your forever Valentine, is simply to keep choosing him.

I’m not gonna write THE END on this one, because I feel like I’m gonna be returning to these two at some point, so please let me know if that’s something you’d like to see. All my love, always. /Jay

@pedrostories @harriedandharassed

#pero x reader

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