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Pirates and Penguins

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Sidney Crosby x fem!reader

Sid takes you on a date

warnings - sarcastic reader, man hater reader, explicit language, late twenties reader, use of y/n, 4.6k words

authors note - thank you for all the love on part one, here's a slightly longer update <3

When you got home that night, Cass texted you a picture of Ellie asleep in her signed Crosby jersey with a thankyou and a reminder to check in about your head the next morning.

You saved the photo, added it to the folder on your phone of you three and then put your phone on your bedside table and headed for a shower.

Your head was still throbbing, and it felt good to finally get clean after the eventful night. You wondered if Sidney would actually text you, sure he'd seemed genuine, but in your experience athletes like that loved to play the white knight, and while the idea of a date awakened a few butterflies, you didn't hold out hope.

You were in your home office the next day when the text came through, the text tone muting the Noah Kahan song playing through your headphones.

You stared at the screen, wondered if it was worth breaking your concentration to check and decided against it, flicking your phone onto silent and going back to the funding application you were trying to finish.

You'd been working on it for weeks, a quarter of a million dollar grant for the charity you were director of that you desperately needed in order to be able to afford to pay you employees for the next two quarters.

You thought doing a PHD in a foreign language would be easier than trying to secure funding in this economy, but still, this is why you took the job, mind numbing paperwork or not.

It wasn't until Roberto—your feral cat—brushed up against you that you noticed the shadows were starting to get a little longer on the walls and you should probably take a break.

While you boiled the kettle you finally checked your phone, smiling at the text from Cass saying Ellie point blank refused to take her jersey off.

And then there it was, a text from an unknown number nestled in amongst the emails from work and Instagram notifications.

Hey, it's Sidney, how's the head today?

You tempered the butterflies, told them to settle down and take a breath before you replied.

It's still a little sore, but no serious damage

You placed it down again, letting the steam rise from your cup of peppermint tea in the low evening light. If you really thought about it, the fact that hockey God Sidney Crosby was texting you was kind of insane.

It was also really, really funny. Mainly because you had little to no time for athletes in a romantic sense, and maybe you were getting ahead of yourself, but then again he'd been the one to mention dinner.

Regardless, you had bigger fish to fry currently, and at the end of the day, even golden retrievers were still dogs.

That's what you get for not being a Penguins fan

You startled at the laugh that crept up your throat, God you hated it when men were funny, next thing you know he'll turn out to be charming too.

That's crazy talk from the captain of a team with less Stanley cups than the Pirates have World Series Chapionships btw, even crazier from a man who wants to take me for dinner

You knew it was a risky text, that you definitely didn't know this man well enough to be dogging on him for his very hard earned wins, but also you were who you were, you weren't about to change it up just because he was hockey royalty.

*Will be taking you for dinner, also I worked very hard for those cups

You couldn't help the cackle you let out at that, the man was funny, you'd at least give him that.

You planning on actually asking me? Or just hypothesising about it?

Your phone dinged again but you ignored it in favour of searching the fridge for enough ingredients to scrape together a meal, you made a mental note to do groceries in the morning before you saw Cass and Ellie.

What are you plans tonight?

You stared at the takeout menus pinned to the corkboard and typed out your reply.

Takeout and the new dinosaur documentary…

The reply came instantly.

An hour long enough for you to get ready?

It annoyed you that you smiled at that, making dinner plans was the literal bare minimum and you were grinning like an idiot.

And yet.

Yeah, you picking me up, el Capitan?

Send me your address?

So you sent it over, ignored the judgemental look from Roberto and headed for a shower while you tried not to overthink the last twenty four hours worth of events.

You FaceTimed Cass while you ran a brush through your hair.

"Hey sexy, how's my two favourite girls?"

"We're fine, although I'd be better if I hadn't just gotten an email from you know who," Cass had you propped up on the counter in her kitchen, you assumed Ellie was elsewhere if she was talking freely about Ellie's dad.

It was a sore subject for a multitude of reasons, the main one being he was a fucking asshole you'd like to run over with your car and then maybe feed to a crocodile for good measure.

Still, there was a reason he wasn't in Ellie's life—a decision he had made without thinking about it twice—so you were concerned why suddenly he was getting in contact.

"What does that poor excuse for a human want?" you asked, brushing mascara through your eyelashes before entering your closet to pick an outfit.

"He wants to see Ellie." Your heart dropped through your stomach.

"Excuse me? Please tell me I heard that wrong," Cass shook her head with a sad smile.

"Unfortunately not, no. I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet," that was our code for 'please don't push me to talk about this right now' so you respected it, swivelling the conversation.

"Okay well, when you're ready, we'll do girls night and talk it through, yeah?" Cass nodded with a grateful smile.

"You wanna hear something that'll cheer you up? You can't tell Ellie yet though," Cass stopped chopping her carrots, staring at you properly through the screen.

"And what are you getting ready for at this time of night?" You couldn't help the laughter, God this girl knew you so fucking well.

You stood back from the phone, letting her get the full view of the black mini skirt you'd landed on. The long sleeve deep purple coloured top you were wearing was actually hers, and the black knee length boots had been gifted to you from Ellie two Christmases ago.

"I have a date," you replied, moving to the kitchen to feed Roberto and sort through your handbag.

"And would that date be with a certain Pittsburgh hero?" You could hear her cackling even while you dug through the bottom of the fridge for a redbull.

"You know anyone else who asked for my number recently?" You quipped back, cheering when you found one amongst the Pepsi Max.

"I know quite a few actually, only one that made you blush though,"

"You take that back right now," you protested, tapping the screen to check the time.

"He moves fast, I'll give him that, where's he taking you?"

"I have no idea, I only found out I was going like half an hour ago," you replied, emptying your bag out onto the counter to look for your wallet.

"He just booked reservations? On a Friday night?" Cass sounded reliably sceptical.

"Babe, he's Sidney Crosby, and this is Pittsburgh." You deadpanned.

"Point taken, you ready to go viral?"

"Go viral for what? It's one date, and he's a man,"

"Sidney Crosby. Pittsburgh." Cass rolled her eyes.

"Yeah yeah okay, I hear you, it'll be fine," You weren't really that worried about it, but you understood why Cass was, you would be too if it was the other way around.

"So, are you excited?"

"Do not make me say I'm excited over a man taking me for dinner, it goes against my morals," you whined and she cackled down the phone, a little voice started calling in the background and she bid you good luck before hanging up.

The thing was, you were excited. For fucksake.

You pushed that thought to the back of your mind, flicking on the Pirates highlights from spring training.

Twenty minutes later your intercom buzzed, and you would be admitting to absolutely no one how your heart jumped a little at noise.

You buzzed him in, checking your appearance in the mirror one last time—the bruise above your eye wasn't great, but at least it partly matched the colour of your top.

Three quick knocks sounded on the door, and with a final glance you went to let him in.

When you swung the door open the butterflies took flight again. Sidney stood there in dark jeans, white t-shirt underneath an open blue shirt and crucially to your heartrate, a backwards cap.

And look, you like to think you had self control, that you couldn't be swayed by such simple things.

And yet suddenly you can feel heat creeping up you neck and pooling in your cheeks and your bed that hasn't had a man in it for years is calling your name.

"Hi," he says, all causal like he hasn't just short circuited your brain for all rational thought. Fuck.

"Hi," it's that moment that you realize he's holding flowers in his hand. More accurately, he's holding flowers in his hand and blushing like he might be nervous.

Okay, you can work with this.

"Nice flowers captain, you're almost forgiven for the puck incident," and just like that you snapped out of your backwards cap induced haze and turned to walk back into your apartment with a giggle.

You placed them on the kitchen counter, trying to remember where you'd put the vase Cass had gotten you when you moved in here only to realize you'd stuck it on top of the cabinets.

"Beautiful women deserve beautiful flowers," he said. You turned back towards him and snorted.

"Very smooth big boy, do me a favour and grab that vase down will you?" He nodded, placing it down on the counter in front of you.

And then Roberto started screaming, and Sidney Crosby—hockey legend and three time Stanley Cup winner—was jumping backwards against the cabinets with a yelp.

"What the hell was that?" He half yelled, and you couldn't keep the cackle in that time.

Roberto swanned around the corner, looking equal parts alarmed at the presence of a man in his space and pleased that he'd freaked him out.

"That was bad of you Roberto, be nice to my guest," you said as you arranged the flowers in the vase before placing them in the center of your coffee table.

You picked him up, holding him close to your chest with a giggle and turned to face the slightly bewildered looking Sidney.

"This is Roberto Clemente, all time best Pirates player and feral alley cat that adopted me the second week I lived here," Roberto placed his head on your shoulder, brushing his cheeks against your neck with a purr.

"Ah, the cat distribution system strikes again," and it wasn't often that you were at a loss for words—although that might be statistically inaccurate around this man—but you stood open mouthed at the man in front of you.

"And what does Sidney Crosby know about the cat distribution system?" He laughed in response, watching with something that looked a little like trepidation as you let Roberto down and he wound around the mans legs.

By the time you'd made it to the restaurant you had belly laughed most of the way through the car ride. You realized pretty quickly that while Sidney didn't talk half as much as you did, he seemed pretty content to listen to you talk.

They seated you set back in a little alcove, daisies on the table with a little candle but enough lighting that you weren't straining your eyes just to see each other.

While you waited for the waiter to bring you your aperol spritz you quizzed him.

"So, other than being captain of the Penguins and Canada's national hero, who are you, Sidney Crosby?" He looked at you then, eyes flicking from your eyes to your smile and back again before sitting back in his chair.

So he told you, about his parents and their never ending support, even if it wasn't always delivered in a way that felt constructive. He told you about trying out for other sports but feeling at home on the ice in a way that he never found anywhere else. He told you about how the only thing he can watch during playoff season is animal documentaries and how he thinks he knows who he is without hockey, but he's kind of terrified to put it to the test.

You listen, mentally logging all the little bits of him that he's chosen to reveal, laughing when he talks about the time Nathan MacKinnon took a running jump off the deck at his lake house but slipped and broke the boards.

When your food arrives—lasagne for you and chicken Alfredo for him—you can't help the statement that slips out.

"You're not what I was expecting, you know."

He looks up from his food, tagliatelle twirled around his fork half way to his mouth and stops.

"I'm hoping that's a compliment," he smiles.

"I just mean, I've met a lot of male athletes, and I can maybe count on one hand the ones I've liked," you said, mouth salivating a little at the cheese pull on your lasagne.

"Do you work in sports?" The question shocked you, not because that was a particularly outrageous question, but because you were surprised with all your talking you hadn't mentioned your job.

"No, but I was D1 lacrosse at Vanderbilt for four years so I'm pretty familiar with frat boy athletes," you were too focussed on not burning your mouth on your food to see the way he looked at you.

"Do you still play?"

"What, lacrosse?"

"No, ice hockey,"

"Oh would you look at that, captain thinks he's funny,"

"I've been told I'm very funny actually,"

"Oh I'm sure. But no, I don't play anymore. You know that gambling thing that's like 'when the fun stops, you stop'?" You grabbed the waiters attention, ordering another aperol spritz before settling back in your chair.

"No, but I'll take your word for it," he replied.

"Okay well it's always on gambling ads, to stop people getting themselves into soul crushing debt. Anyway, I apply the same principle to my life. Lacrosse stopped being fun for me, so I quit when I graduated. And like, I'm not saying my philosophy is to quit when the going gets tough, I just mean that if it's difficult but worth it then fine, if it's difficult and you hate it, cut your losses."

He had this little smile on his lips while he listened to you talk that had you blushing again, conscious that maybe you were making a fool of yourself by preaching life advice to a professional athlete in one of the most physically demanding sports in the world.

"Sorry, that probably sounds insane when you've had to work as hard as you have to be where you are." He was silent for a few seconds while the waiter cleared your plates before settling forward again.

"That actually sounds like the kind of life advice a lot of athletes could do with hearing, I think it's a really smart way to approach life." You flushed again, pressing the back of your fingers against your cheeks to cool them down.

"You've never hated it? Hockey, I mean,"

"Not once."

"That's a pretty special thing you know, I'm not sure many people can say that about their jobs."

"I had a teammate once that said the only other thing it was comparable to—apart from other major league sports—was farming, in the sense that it's not just a job, it's a lifestyle." You thought about that for a minute, for what it must be like to have something be so all consuming.

"Can you say it about your job? That you've never hated it, I mean."

"Yeah I think so, there's probably been flashes of hatred, but it's not the job so much as the barriers the job presents, I'm pretty good at finding my way through them though," The waiter chose that moment to bring dessert menus over.

"Do you want to split something?" he asked, eyes flicking up over the menu in front of him.

"One thing you should know about me? I do not share food with anyone, not even Cass and she's been my best friend since we were eight and I'm godmother to her kid," He laughed at that, a full belly laugh where his head tipped back and you got a perfect view of the muscles in his neck.

"Noted, in that case, do you want to get out of here?" That was what you'd been waiting for, and it must have shown on your face. So what if you kind of wanted to sleep with him, this was your first date.

"Wait—no I don't mean—god I'm screwing this up," he took a breath and you let one go as your unease melted at the panicked look on his face.

"I just meant, there's a crumble shop a couple of blocks over that Geno, Kris and I go to after night games and I wondered if you wanted to go, but we can stay or—I can take you home,"

It was at that moment, you realized you might be truly fucked. Finding a man this endearing was going to damage your psyche.

"Yes to crumble, no to going home," and there was that smile again.

"Okay—okay, good."

You didn't argue when he put his card down for the bill, instead finishing off your drink and ducking out to the bathroom to run some cold water over your hands and give yourself a quick talking to.

"He is just a man, and dinner and dessert is the bare minimum, get ahold of yourself." You stared at the woman reflected in the mirror, at the light pink in your cheeks after a couple of drinks, at the little bit of mascara on your eyelid that must have smudged.

The door to the stall behind you opened to reveal a waitress you'd seen a few times earlier. She washed her hands next to you, turning to grab a towel to dry them before eyeing you.

"He is just a man, but for what it's worth me and the girls in the kitchen can see he's really into you," and then she was disappearing out the door with a smile.

You met him at the entrance, let him put his hand on the base of your back and walk you out in the direction of the crumble shop and tried not to think too hard about how well it fit there.

"So what is it you actually do? Other than finding your way through roadblocks," his hand dropped, fingers winding through yours in a way that felt far too smooth for two people who'd known each other twenty four hours. His hand was warm too, soft in a way you didn't expect.

"I'm the director of a youth charity. I oversee a team of about twenty to provide rehabilitation for juvenile offenders," you stopped, waiting for the inevitable scoff.

About your age, your mission or just the general absurdity of rehab for convicted felons, you'd heard it all. From everyone. Ever since you'd got the job.

Except it didn't come.

Instead, he was looking at you, something that looked a whole lot like admiration on his face.

"That's incredible, how long have you been doing it?"

And for the third time tonight, you were left speechless. Maybe the bar was in hell, for something like this to impress you, but your job was important to you, you'd fought hard to get it and even harder to make it viable.

"Thank you, other than Cass you're the first person to say that and actually mean it." He brought you guys to a stop, pulling open the door of a warmly lit little shop, holding it open and gesturing for you to go inside.

"Sidney! You didn't have a game tonight," the man behind the counter looked like he was in his late sixties, laugh and smile lines on his face, a baby blue apron adoring his chest.

"Not tonight, I brought a friend to try your crumble though, best in the city," watching him chat back and forth with the man—who you later learned was called Lou—settled the remaining bit of anxiety in you that said he wasn't all you'd hoped he'd be.

A woman came out from the back, rounding the bench to give Sidney a hug before turning to you and giving you one too. This man actually might be the death of you if the way he chatted so effortlessly with these people was anything to go by.

Eventually the couple left you to it, you with your apple crumble and him with his rhubarb.

"So, how long have you been the director at your charity?" And you realized that that wasn't the first time he'd done that, circled back around to an unfinished conversation, like he was hanging off every word, like he cared.

"Three years, it's been hard, but I love the challenge, and more than anything I love being able to help these kids. They're so young, and they deserve to be able to change their lives around if that's what they want. When I started I said that if we could help one kid a year change things for the better then it would be worth it."

"That's a beautiful thing, you know,"

"What do you mean?"

"That drive to help people, to push through the hard bits and make a difference,"

You nodded, moaning a little at the crumble.

"Okay this is incredible, I can't believe you've been gatekeeping this place,"

"Gatekeeping? I didn't know you until this time yesterday!" He laughed.

"Yeah, and? This should have been the first thing out of your mouth, screw the apology!" That garnered you another laugh, and you stomped on the idea that you could happily listen to that laugh for many days and nights to come.

"What did you do after college then? Before the charity I mean," he asked again, scraping his spoon round the bottom of the cardboard container with a satisfied sigh.

"Ellie was barely a year old when we graduated, so I mostly just did bar work so Cass could work too, one of us did night shift and the other one did day shift for a few years until we had enough money to send Ellie to daycare."

Those years had been hard. The hours and the pay and the apartment that wasn't big enough for two, much less three. They were the cause of one for the biggest arguments you and Cass had ever had because she couldn't understand why you were doing this for her, but you'd never waivered, never walked away.

She hadn't either, not when things were so bad you had to leave your parents house, not when you couldn't get over the same boy that kept breaking your heart, not when she'd had to sit with you at the hospital after you'd gone back to a guy you knew was going to hurt you and not when you'd quit your sorority and you couldn't tell her why.

"They're really important to you," he said it more as a statement than a question.

"They're my only family, but we don't have enough time for that tonight, it's getting past my bed time." You said with a laugh, firmly shutting the door on that line of questioning.

Unicorn of a man he may be, but this was still your first date.

So he gathered up your container, chucking them in the bin and bidding Lou and Marie goodbye before taking up your hand again and starting the walk back to his car.

"Why baseball?"

"What?"

"I'm trying to figure out how baseball fits into your life, between lacrosse and Vanderbilt and Cass and Ellie and running a youth charity, but I can't work it out," you laughed a little at that, at the genuine confusion on his face.

"My grandad was a Pirates fan, I spent most of my time at his house when I was really young and I'm kind of obsessive about things. After he died it just always makes me feel a little closer to him,"

Sid nodded his head, squeezing your hand a little tighter for a few seconds.

"Also baseball is the greatest sport on earth and I will not hear any different," and you watched as he tipped his head back again, mouth opening to let out a big laugh just as you reached his car.

"The guys are going to have a field day with this," he said as he held open the door for you.

"You told the guys about me?"

"Of course, they all saw the puck incident. They'll be wanting a full debrief once I've dropped you at home,"

"You hockey players are worse than teenagers honestly," he just laughed again as he shut your door.

The radio was quiet in the background on the way home, the warmth in the car lulling you into that place somewhere between awake and asleep before you really realized what was happening.

At some point the car rolled to a stop, and you flicked your eyes open to see the familiar box plants of you street.

Sid was out the car before you could even get your seatbelt off, taking long strides around the bonnet until he was opening your car door for you once again.

"And they say chivalry is dead," you mocked.

"Not where I'm from,"

"Where's that, the stone age?"

"You wound me y/n"

"I'm kidding, the salt and pepper hair is really doing it for me," you giggled.

When you made it to your apartment door, you had a sudden feeling like you didn't want this night to end.

"Thank you for letting me take you to dinner, I had a really good time," God he was so fucking cute.

"Don't get a big head about it, but this was the best date I've been on, and now, I'd like a kiss to round off the night." You smirked.

All he did was laugh before big hands were coming up to cup the side of your face, thumbs brushing over your cheek bones and eyes gazing into yours with something that looked an awful lot like adoration, which was insane.

"You're something else, you know that?" And then his lips were coming down on yours, warm and soft and oh so delicious as you opened your mouth.

His hand migrated to the back of your head, tilted your head back slightly so he could have better access and deepened the kiss a little more.

By the time you pulled away you're brain had gone quiet for the fourth and final time that night at the hands of this man.

"Yeah, best night of my life." He murmured.

You turned to unlock your door, unable to keep the grin off your face.

"Goodnight y/n."

You stared at him from inside your apartment, Roberto winding around your feet.

"Goodnight Sidney Crosby, I'll see you around."

Oh you were so fucked.

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