i can still see the smoke. i can still smell the fire.
rick flag x reader
summary: "sometimes i think maybe this is my true penance for all the wrong i've done. getting to have you in my arms, but never truly being able to hold you."
word count: 9k
a/n: i? finished? this????? i seriously worked and reworked this for nearly two weeks and finally got it to a place i like enough to post (: my first time writing for flag (and writing anything in quite a while) so be gentle
i hope you enjoy (:
You had a special talent. It wasn’t overtly unique and wasn’t something particularly hard to come by, you just happened to be the very best available.
Amanda Waller had known this, and it was why she recruited you in the first place, and it was why she had you sat in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere Montana. She knew your abilities were best attributed to a recon mission like this one, and she knew that no matter what the task would take to compete, you would make sure to see it through. The nano-explosive in your brain stem not your only incentive, the other in the form of a burly brown haired Colonel.
She hadn’t originally thought that you could be another pawn to play to keep Rick Flag’s loyalty, but it seemed that the universe had dropped your affections for each other in her lap and she was happy to exploit them.
In her very meager defense, you also had not expected to become so infatuated with him, or that he'd find his way into your chest and stamp his insignia on your heart.
You hadn't thought he’d be a problem in the beginning. You hadn’t thought the bubble of emotion that formed in your stomach at his sight was anything more than lust and the thrill of the impending conquest. You had felt the same thrill jolt down your spine when you saw the multitudes of other guards, rangers and soldiers had been funneled through the machine in the hopes of taming you. To you, all they were was flesh, blood, and opportunity. Nothing more than a means to an end. A way out.
“Heard you’ve fucked up more guards than anyone in this damned place,” he had said to you in his southern lilt.
He shadowed a dower looking Amanda Waller, her bulldog expression locked on you as you meticulously polished your toenails.
The viper’s smile that spread across your oiled lips worked as your answer.
Both the lip balm and nail varnish were contraband that you had procured through batted eyelashes and pulled heart strings of the weakest men and women who surrounded you on the daily. It wasn’t unusual that you would be in possession of prohibited items. In your first week behind bars at Belle Reve, you had weaseled your way into many of the guards lives and consciousnesses, and had begun a promising stockpile of vending machine snacks and gossip magazines.
“You the new watchman?” you asked, eyes still on your paint job as you ran the edge of your fingernail across your skin to catch the pink polish on your cuticle.
“This is Colonel Rick Flag. And he sure as hell isn’t a new plaything for you to maim, (Y/L/N),” Waller chided, “he’s here to operate as your captain once you take me up on my proposal.”
It was only when she spoke his name that you looked up from your primping to take him in.
The glance you had acquired upon their entry had not done him justice, and the shock of his handsome features caused Waller’s cryptic proposition to fall on deaf ears. He was beautiful; with hazel eyes rimmed with dark lashes, high cheekbones, and an angular jaw covered in sparse facial hair. He was thick, well toned and tall, something you could tell even from his distance. As you followed the thick cords of muscle of his exposed forearms to his hands, you watched as thick fingers flexed at his sides and you couldn’t help the fleeting notion that they would feel delicious against your bare skin.
You would have never imagined that in just one short year, Rick would be pulling you away from life saving missions to pin you himself with his mouth and those very same fingers.
You often wondered if Waller knew at that moment how taken you were with Rick. If she had chalked your salivating up to deadly glee over a new victim to ensnare, or if she knew that he piqued you in a different way. You wondered if she thought Rick’s ruddy skin and ticking jaw were due to his disgust for criminals, or if she knew it was due to his flustering and overwhelming attraction to you.
It was something you would never know, and most days, didn’t want the answer to.
Amanda Waller saw all, but your connection with the colonel was something so strange that even she could not have predicted it. She already had her contingency plan with Flag and June, surely adding you to the mix would have been overkill. At least, that’s what you told yourself as your skin burned with his scarce touches and your heart hammered when he met your eyes with a simple smile.
Earlier on that day, when you and Harley secluded yourselves from the hordes of men around you to suit up, you had assured her that Flag would be your next victim.
A means to an end.
A pawn to play to get us out.
When you were both free to roam Gotham City, you and Harley had crossed paths on occasion and had both seen the other’s crimes up close. She knew your strategies, your games and abilities. She knew of your easy seductions and the effortless control you took over the weak willed (and some not so weak) that fell into your trap.
But as the day progressed, your ruse began to fall flat, your emotions becoming much more genuine than fabricated. The dry banter and sarcastic jokes traded between you and your commander caused genuine joy to seize in your chest and sting your cheeks. His concerned expressions and soft inquiries of your well being after each altercation feeding a need for honest affection that you had done your best to bury years ago.
And as the final crescendo of battle ended and Rick embraced a newly freed June Moone, your relieved demeanor turned lovelorn and sour at the sight of their reunion. Though, as quick as you could comprehend the falter in your expression, you had disguised it by grabbing your wounded side.
When the helicopter had arrived to usher your squad back to Belle Reve, you heard Waller bark for June and Rick to join her in her own private plane. When Harley had moved to link her paper white pinky through your own in comfort, you knew that anyone who had been looking your way could see through your farce, including Waller.
You refused to look back at him to see if he spared you a glance of his own. If you had, you would have met the gaze of a very emotionally muddled man.
Months later it had become clear to most that your relationship with Rick was not just that of colleagues, most glaringly so to Amanda. She had been monitoring your juvenile flirting through the coms you both wore in your ears, saw the warm looks you exchanged and your affectionate body language. She even spotted with her eagle eye vision the lingering hand Rick would leave on the hollow of your back before handing you over to Belle Reve staff. The small, panicked gasps you would take when Rick was being ambushed and his insistence to locate you before doing anything else on the battlefield was also observed by Waller with devious glee.
You without a doubt that she had seen you slip up in Midway City and was alert to your interactions with Rick, when she supposedly accidently told you that Rick would be commanding every subsequent Task Force X mission. He would be immediately relocated from D.C. to Louisiana, and would be transferred from any remaining ARGUS work.
“He’s proved a suitable leader,” she’d said, “he has the chops to keep you people in line.”
Amanda Waller chose her words precisely and articulated them like a weapon. She wasn’t the type of woman to have a slip of the tongue.
While this registered to you, and set off a flare of worry in your brain about what the notoriously calculating woman could do to you, the way your heart began to race at the idea of Rick becoming a permanent fixture in your life drowned out any reasonable doubt or anxiety.
After the first Task Force assignment, you both had begun to build up a foundation of trust and camaraderie with each other.
Your relationship should have felt strange, you were two people as opposite as they come.
He had been raised in a loving military home in Louisiana with a white picket fence and home cooked dinners. You had been kidnapped and coerced into a life of crime by a couple of mad men who conditioned you with pain and terror.
While you were plunging a knife into their respective throats when you finally saw your chance to escape; Flag was graduating the top of his class at West Point.
When you were stealing gems, talking your way into dying billionaires' wills and wracking up assault charges; Rick was working with the Navy Seals, getting his first serious girlfriend and discovering his love for golf and triathlons.
But somehow, you both worked. You were both tough, committed and ruthless. You both loved rainy Sundays, bagel’s from Lucy’s in downtown Gotham, black and white television and the smell of cedarwood. You both hated when people said “pacifically” when they meant “specifically”, the waxy taste of apple skins and the feeling of warming up your extremities after being in the cold. You both grinned knowingly at the other when an old joke would surface; roll your eyes at the other’s incessant teasing; and grow warm and flustered when the other was too close in proximity.
“Oh god, you would like Tom Clancy books,” you snorted a laugh.
Rick put on an affronted expression, “what? And you don’t? He is a damn good author.”
“I’m not saying he’s some dime-a-dozen guy, I’m just saying that he writes books for masculinity glutens with a hard on for guns.”
“I think you just described someone like me, darlin’.”
He sounded amused and it made you smile, “you’re much more than a masculinity gluten with a boner for bullets, Flag.”
“Ya? Am I?” he stopped in his tracks so he could look down at you with a cocked brow.
“Of course,” you replied, “you’re also a pretty face.”
He snorted and shook his head.
(A week after you returned from that operation, a paper package was smuggled to you by your newest mark in the prison. It’s contents? Without Remorse by Tom Clancy, with the scrawled signature of R. Flag on the inside cover.) (You felt so fat with happiness that you thought you might split at your seams).
You seemed to talk about anything and everything with him, no topic too serious or sill to borscht. You loved learning everything about him, soaking up the knowledge and using it to sustain you on lonely nights in your cell.
Although, something that your extensive conversations with your captain did not entail, were mentions of Dr. Moone. After you had seen first hand the lengths he had gone to save her, you had just assumed that she was the all important love in his life. You assumed there would come a day when you’d board the helicarrier to spot a ring laying purchase on his forefinger, and you’d have to cough up a well-wished sentiment for him and his bride.
You had tried to bring her up, but Rick always seemed to work around her mention whenever possible. Odd, as he seemed anything but chaste and hesitant when he had pulled her from the Enchantress’ corpse and held onto her for dear life.
He kept mention of her so closeted that if you had not been in Midway City, you might not even know that he was a man spoken for, especially with the coquettish demeanor he held around you.
Ruminating on the reasons why or why not he wouldn’t talk about June with you was anything but healthy. Were you his secret? His emotional mistress? Was he embarrassed of his life? Of her? Of you? Did he not trust you as much as he let on? You couldn’t find an apt conclusion that made perfect sense.
Eventually, you did get your answer, when you had offhandedly commented on a new watch he wore and had asked if it had been a gift from June.
“June, she, uh, she didn’t buy it. She, well, she didn’t buy it and won’t be buying things...” his jumbled words came out in awkward intervals and you could tell there was a tender pain behind them.
It was her first and last mention from him, and you couldn’t help but feel the jealousy in your stomach simmer and cease knowing that you were now the only woman in Rick’s life. And the only woman he wanted at all.
A month after Rick had confessed his split from June, your relationship boiled over to the place of no return. Spilling your emotions and sullying any professional integrity Rick still masqueraded and any notion that you were just a femme fatale out to pick him apart.
You were somewhere in South Africa fighting a Superman-wannabe. You had already lost a handful of Rick’s men, along with a second rate thief that you never bothered to learn the name of. For most of the fight, your fire power felt like offence, just deflecting his power but doing nothing to damage him. As you watched the carnage the space man brought down around you all, you couldn’t help but think that the only way you were making it out alive was if you found a place to hide and wait out the worst of it. If it weren’t for the bomb in your neck and Rick and Harley fighting tirelessly on the frontlines, you would have.
After what felt like an eon of fighting ray vision, teleportation, and super strength; the tremor the alien had been emanating into the earth stopped and the crumbled ground under your feet finally ceased it’s vigorous rumble. The air soon rang silent and his presence had completely vanished from the sky.
Without any confirmation that the threat had been defeated, other than the terrified locals slowly emerging from their hiding spots, you let out a pant of relief. You could finally hear your labored wheeze and the blood pulsing in your ears. Without the distraction of battle and the race of adrenaline, you now felt the full weight of your injuries. You likely had a dislocated shoulder, a broken ankle, and a litany of scrapes and cuts that would need medical attention, but you couldn’t care. It had by far been your most grueling Task Force mission to date, and all you could do was collapse onto the graveled remains of the city and hope for a long respite from the action.
Until you heard your name.
At first his call didn’t register. You were exhausted and focused on slowing your respiration rate. You had your uninjured arm over your head as you took deep steady breaths to calm and center yourself away from the searing aches in your body. Shamefully, you hadn’t even thought of your teammates’ fate yet, too focused on not vomiting from Co2 intake and pain. But, when he had come closer, your voice being screamed with terror and determination, you snapped back to the reality of your situation.
Rick.
Rick was calling your name.
Rick was alive and he was calling your name.
Your heart picked up once more, all actions to self soothe forgotten, as you pitifully tried to scramble to your feet in search of him. The wordless thrum of your pulsing blood now sounded so much like his name.
Rick. Rick. Rick. It beat in a study rhythm to drive you up onto your feet and to him.
As you hobbled on shaky legs and used the rebar next to you as a crutch, Rick came into your field of vision.
Worse for wear but still a sight for sore eyes, there he stood. Honeyed hair black with soot and arms bloodied from the attack. His shirt was torn at the collar and he had long lost his tactile jacket and vest. He looked like a man stripped. A man who had seen hell and lived to tell the tale, and he was staring at you with eyes bulging with fear and a grimace on his lips.
When he recognized that it was you who he’d found supported by a block of cement, the thankful relief that washed over him was tangible. His chest deflated, his shoulders sagged and his expression made the seamless transition to pure relief.
He whispered your name once more before he ran to you, borderline sprinted with the energy he had left.
“Rick, I-” you began but didn’t finish before he collected you in his arms and held you firm and steady to his chest.
“Where the hell were you? I couldn’t fuckin’ find you,” his words wavered with unshed tears and pent up anxiety.
“Hey,” you hushed him, as you dug your fingers into the tattered fabric of his shirt, “It’s alright. I’m ok. I’m ok and so are you.”
You felt his chest hiccup against your own and your stomach clenched.
“You can’t, baby, God, fuck… you just, nothing can happen to you. I need you right here, I need you here,” he spoke with such unflinching conviction and raw emotion you felt your own tears strain in your throat and sting your eyes.
“Ok. Ok, Rick. I’m here. I’m with you, I’m with you as long as you want.”
He held you with a hand pressed to the base of your neck and his other on your lower back to push you flush to him. One of your own hands was still tangled in the cotton of his shirt, while the other mimicked his own as it lay on the nape of his neck. His face was buried in the side of your head, just above your ear. Your own was snug under jaw, your nose firmly planted in his neck to inhale his intoxicating scent.
Sweat and gunpowder and iron and cedarwood.
A loud crash from afar jolted you both from the brief calm you had stolen to jolt you apart from one another just long enough to locate the noise’s origin. Once you both realized it was not a threat, and just King Shark moving a large piece of scaffolding, you relaxed again.
The moment of forgotten circumstances had passed, and it seemed Flag knew this as he sighed, his forehead coming down to rest on your own.
“What a fuckin’ mess this’ll was…”
“You’re telling me,” you chuckled humorlessly, shifting your weight away from your hurt ankle that had begun to throb again.
“And yet,” he was quick to reply, “and yet, durin’ all that space monster alien bullshit, all I could think about was you.”
Your eyes moved from where they were planted at your feet to his own, which were closed. You felt his hands migrate from the other continents on your body to cup your cheeks.
“All I ever think about is you, darlin’. Every mission, every operation, my mind is on the objective, sure. But in the back of my head just chirpin’ away is this voice that needs to know where you are. Needs to know if you’re safe, needs to come up with somethin’ to say to make you laugh or somethin’ to say to make you slap my chest the way you do just so I can be close to you…” he swallowed thickly and finally opened his eyes.
They were as kind and impassioned as you’d ever seen them, with something extra that you could only pin down as love.
“And, just, when I’m not with ya? You’re still… you’re still there. Do you get what I’m saying? What I’m trying to say? That you have been runnin’ around my head every second of every minute since the moment I saw you.”
Your lips parted and you could feel your jaw shake with the prospect of speaking. Your eyes glazed with tears and you swore your heart was pounding as hard as it was in your chest so it could break through your rib cage to reach him. You wouldn’t mind if it had. It was already his, what would be the problem if he had it in his possession?
“But, it’s not just me… is it? This isn’t a one way street, right?” the tenderness from his confession had left him soft and exposed, his voice breaking with fear, you realized, because you had yet to say a word.
“Of course it's not. Oh, Rick,” you choked out, forcing yourself to speak.
“It’s not just you. It never was. I was always here, I am here.”
You moved to cup your hand around one of his own that lay on your face. You wiggled your fingers between his palm and your skin so you could grip him and show him the gravity of what you had just said.
The fear was wiped from his face once more, and you were rewarded with a boyish smile. You watched as his skin turned pink and the tips of his ears burned the same. You never once in your life had seen a person so beautiful. Happiness just looked so good on him.
You couldn’t help but to smile back, a gurgled laugh thick with emotion came from your throat and he returned it with a lovesick giggle. You felt his hands fasten themselves tighter against your cheeks, and he let his nose descend upon your own, brushing the tip all along your face. He ran it down the bridge of your nose; over the apple of your cheek, around the curve of your ear; down your jaw and up your chin until his lips hovered over your own; and he paused.
You could smell his breath and the shadowy scent of his aftershave with his proximity. You tilted your chin just a hair closer to his face and swore you could already taste him in the damp erotic air between you.
With a shaky exhale and a cautious lick into his parted mouth, Rick responded in tandem with the gentle brush of his lips against yours. It was just a tease, just an introduction to what was to come, and after he heard your needy whimper, it seemed he couldn’t hold back any longer as pressed his mouth to yours once more. But this time with more passion, with far more hunger and with a notable eagerness.
Rick groaned deep and sweet with pleasure. He finally had you. He had captured you once and for all and you didn’t want to escape.
It became the worst kept secret in Louisiana and beyond that you and Colonel Rick Flag were something of an item. Something that outwardly, Waller disparaged and scoffed at, something that she waxed on about to her superiors that she was taking care of. Inwardly, it was thought of as a high achievement, and helped tack on an inch to her height and blow wind into her already inflated ego.
June and Rick had been her first orchestration, and she used their bond until it had run dry. Without Rick’s heart or the Enchantress’ possession, it was easy to banish Dr. Moone from her mental rolodex of pawns and move onto her next pet project. Eventually, when you lost your novelty to Rick; when your sob story no longer endeared him and he was bored of your crassness; she would rid herself of you, too. You were helpful, sure, but no criminal was worth the success of her vision.
For the time being, she worked with the angle she could to achieve the best mission outcomes, by having you and Flag work together and work twice as hard as to protect the other. It was why she turned a blind eye to your stolen kisses and rushed love making in the bathrooms of government planes. It was why she knew that you would be the perfect operative to send to rural Montana and corner the notoriously private and standoffish Dr. Denis Krane, a mad scientist on the run with vital United States intel and ARGUS secrets.
“Huntsville is a forgotten town, just shy of off the grid. The weather this time of year calls for intense snowfall and below freezing temperatures. Because of this, you will be spending the night in a secure motel to regroup and rest before the three of you are extracted back to Louisiana in the morning,” she did her best to repress the sneer that came across her face as both you and Rick suddenly became much more interested in the operation. Robert DuBois, who would also be accompanying you both on the mission, only rolled his eyes at your intrigue.
“I do not think I need to remind either of you about the contingency for your brief stint with freedom, do I?” Amanda glanced between you and DuBois, who didn’t have a problem holding back his own sneer. Rick’s excitement turned tart at the mention.
Your mission was to make contact with Dr. Krane, seduce him and retrieve the information he kept on his person at all times: a small flash drive full of shady dealings and blackmail material.
When Waller had described it to you earlier in the day, you almost laughed. You had been pulling schemes like this on old, lonely men since you were sixteen. The work you were expected to do would take far less than the time she allotted, and then you were granted a full night alone in a motel room with your boyfriend? You started to wonder what exactly the catch was. But you chose not to dwell, you were never given ample time with Rick to simply relax and enjoy each other’s company without the looming threat of the end of the world crashing around you. You were going to savor this opportunity.
Now, as you sat sidled up against him in a garishly designed bar, you couldn’t help but wonder if you’d ever felt this content before in your life. Rick’s arm was slung around your shoulders, gently stroking your shoulder, with your nose buried in the column of his neck. You drew diagonal lines on his jugular and mandibular muscle as your hand followed a similar pattern on his abdomen.
Rick looked just about as pleased as you felt, leaning down regularly to press soft kisses to your hairline and to chuck under your chin up so he could press his mouth to your own in a sensual embrace that never failed to leave Robert gagging.
“You do really have to do that while I’m right across from ya?” he asked after the fourth or fifth time Rick indulged in you.
“You jealous, DuBois?” Rick smarmed, never taking his eyes from your own as you both shamelessly ogled the other.
“Yeah,” you followed in a saccharine voice, “jealous?”
“Please, don’t make me retch,” he scoffed into his glass of bourbon.
You snorted, “don’t act like you don’t look at my ass every time I turn around. I may not have eyes on the back of my head, but Harley sure does love to gossip.”
Robert’s mouth opened to reply but came up mum.
“You’re doin’ what now?” Rick’s temper flared around the edges of his voice and a warm well in your stomach began to boil.
“What I’m doin’ is going to get another drink and wait for this bloke,” he retorted blandly before he made his escape from the booth in favor of a puckered vinyl stool at the bar.
“With a name like Bloodsport, you wouldn’t expect him to run away scared.”
“You sayin’ I ain’t scary, sweetheart?” he smirked down at you, his blush pink lips quirked.
“Not even close,” you said, “you’re very scary, baby. My big, scary attack dog who seizes to kill any man who looks at my ass.”
“Damn fuckin’ right,” he replied as he zeroed in on your lips again.
Kissing Rick was unlike anything you had ever experienced. His lips were petal soft and marzipan sweet, his kiss was firm and held fiery passion each time. His hands touched you with a confidence and certainty that never failed to make your blood thrum with pleasure. His arms held you tightly and with the most delicious hint of possessiveness. Everything he did to you set your nerve endings on fire and tingled your fingers with their blissful buzz. You were of the devout belief that anything Rick did to you, he’d do it damn good.
Rick ran two fingers over the skin of your shoulder, having snuck his hand past the collar of your shirt as you continued your idle chit chat. You’d taken to manipulating and massaging the muscles of his left biceps. He strained the arm a week before in a mission and had been complaining about its painful tenderness since. At first you thought his unease was due to his injury, until you noticed just how considerably he was leaning into your touch and knew something else was wrong.
“Hey? Earth to Flag. What’s up?” you asked with lingering worry, pressing a chaste kiss to his collarbone to call him from his mind.
He turned his head from where he had been staring down to you. When he met your concerned gaze, he sighed.
“Just DuBois, that’s all.”
You grinned, “Still getting over the fact that your friend thinks I have a nice ass?”
But you didn’t elicit a laugh like you’d hoped, instead he grumbled deep in his chest.
“S’not just that. He keeps fuckin’ lookin’ over to us. Just don’t like it,” as he spoke he pulled you closer to him.
“It’s his mission, too. He’s just doing what he’s told,” you replied, not bothered in the slightest by the older man’s presence, especially now that he was across the room and giving you and Rick some much needed privacy.
“Just wish it wasn’t,” he muttered, “makes this all feel like a fuckin’ job and not a night out like we deserve.”
Rick was the idealistic one of the pair of you. He believed firmly that if you worked enough for the Suicide Squad and strived to become a model prisoner, you would be released on bail from Belle Reve in no time. He had a picture of a little house in NoLa, a garden out back, a dog for him and a cat for you. He pictured himself retiring to a desk job or taking up his old job at ARGUS while you pursued anything your heart desired. He’d told you on more than one occasion that he had no problem supporting you fully until you found what you were passionate about.
“All I need is you, darlin’. Everything else, we’ll figure out.”
But you, hardened by life and cynical of the universe's ability to do right, weren’t as positive. You recognized that Rick’s dream was only granted to those who had a great deal of luck, something you stopped believing in a long time ago. Whatever omnipotent being watched over the universe had dealt you a dead hand of misgivings, tragedy and the instruction card that comes in the back. The life Rick envisioned only happened if Amanda Waller saw fit to it, if the negligent and corrupt heads of Belle Reve allowed it. And those were all powers that you believed were far more mighty than any karma or good deed points you’d racked up.
But, you rarely had the heart to tell your beloved of these factors. That Waller would rather see you dead than free, and that Belle Reve had granted parole to less than five percent of it’s inmates over the last two decades. You just indulged him in his fantasy and tried to forget about all extenuating factors.
And that’s what you did now.
“Is this what you’d do? If we were on date night? Take me to some nasty wilderness bar and feel me up in the booths?” you poked a finger below his ribs where you knew he was ticklish, and Rick squirmed.
“And what if I did? I think that sounds like a pretty good evenin’,” he said, tone slowly warming back to normal, forgetting his gripe.
“Ok, but I think I would want you to take me to a nice restaurant every once and a while. Or, oh! Mini golf! The kind with all the fancy water features.”
Rick chuckled and nudged your ear with his nose, “we could do that. Whatever you want, baby, we’ll do.”
You grinned up at him, showing your teeth off to your molars. You loved the idea of your large boyfriend holding a small candy colored putter, hunched over in concentration to make his ball through some ridiculous obstacle.
“I think I’d still take you to dive bars, though. Always have loved ‘em. Hell, it could even be our thing after this,” he propositioned.
Butterflies erupted in your stomach, “I like the idea of having a thing with you.”
“You already do, darlin’.”
You hummed and brought your hand to his cheek, “Good.”
Pulling him down to meet your lips, Rick had already begun to close his eyes when you were interrupted.
“Hate to break up the love fest, but Krane is a block away,” came Robert’s voice through the coms.
Rick stopped short of your mouth and cursed under his breath.
“Fuckin’ ruining everything,” he muttered, not caring if DuBois heard him.
“Hey,” you gripped his jaw with purpose, “the faster this is over, the faster we can head back to the motel and continue our night.”
Rick heaved out a breath and leaned back into the booth, “I know, you’re right.”
“When am I not?” you said with a wink.
Rick rolled his eyes.
“Just have a drink with Robert, watch my six, and we’ll be back by eleven.”
Rick nodded tightly, the vein in his forehead beginning to pulse with tension.
“(Y/L/N), gotta do this now, he’s about to enter,” DuBois reminded, as he used his placement at the bar to peer out the window.
“On it,” you said, pressing your ear to the com and gathering your winter coat that lay across the wood back of the booth.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” you slipped your arms through the sleeves and gave Rick’s cheek a quick kiss before you were headed for the back door.
Rick knew the plan inside and out, something he was sure to do whenever you played a major part in whatever operation he was heading. But he never got used to letting you go into a fight alone. Call him pig-headed or old fashioned, but all he wanted to do was keep you safe, and letting you launch yourself head first into trouble never failed to leave him pissed off and restless.
Rick grabbed his own coat in a strangled grip and he walked over to where Robert sat.
“Trouble in paradise?” the other man mused, a smirk on his face.
“Fuck off, will ya?” Rick replied, motioning the bartender over for a drink.
Dr. Krane entered moments later. He took a seat close to the window at a high-top table, and pulled out a worn paperback from his coat pocket. It would be mere minutes before you reentered as your alias and bypassed Rick in favor of the mark, doing everything in your power to woo him and get the drive. Rick tried not to look at the door and remain nonchalant like every other bar patron. Although, when you did enter, he visibly stiffened.
Rick had seen you in action a handful of other times, but he had always had a task of his own to distract him. He had never fully seen you pull apart someone with your manipulations and take whatever you wanted. But, as you took a seat a few tables away from Krane, Rick was shocked at how you had transformed from the woman he had just had in his arms.
You had pulled your hair back to reveal your intensely beautiful face. He could tell you had rubbed your skin with snow to run your makeup and make your cheeks glossy and wet. Your eyes were bloodshot, your shoulders high and your hands buried in your coat pockets. You looked small, absent and overly timid.
He watched from the corner of his eye as you loomed your head low and gave a whispered sigh. You shuffled yourself close to the wall and didn't look up from the tabletop, where you pushed around salt particles and struggled to hold back tears.
You weren’t vying for Krane’s attention by making a scene, by sauntering over to buy him a drink or flirt with him, you were being strategic and cunning. You knew your mark and what made him tick and you were executing your character perfectly. After less than ten minutes of Krane’s repeated glances your way, he finally called out and asked if you were alright. Rick turned his back to the exchange and hoped Robert would take the lead to watch for anything fishy.
“Folie à deux,” Robert spoke, calling Rick’s attention.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s French,” he continued, “Roughly, it means the presence of the same delusional idea in two people close to the other.”
Rick didn’t need to pry to know what he meant.
The ride to the motel was full of tense silence.
You had been right, it had taken you less than two hours to exploit Krane and get the drive. After you had pocketed it seamlessly, you excused yourself to the bathroom and slipped out the window. You felt a warm nostalgia as you hiked yourself onto the toilet and pushed the glass up. You hadn’t shimmied out of a window after stealing from some short-sighted man in years.
When you dropped into the icy ally below, your feet skated beneath you. You put your arms out for balance but you were studied at the waist by familiar hands. You looked up to see Rick, with a hood covering his brunette hair and a stern look on his face.
“Thank you, colonel,” you smiled, but he didn’t return your cheeky pleasantry.
Once he was sure you weren’t going to slip, Rick let you go and began to walk toward the getaway car, where you assumed Robert already was. All residual excitement and adrenaline from your heist was lost as you watched his figure sulk into the night, the street lights and falling snow flickering his vision.
You knew that Rick wasn’t a big fan of letting you work alone, but he had never acted so cold to you after you had completed your mission before. Quite the opposite, he would scoop you into his arms, look you over ad nauseam with whispered coos and concerned questions until you silenced him with a kiss of survival, reminding him that everything was ok now.
When you finally caught up to him, he and Robert were already in the beat down Mazda, the ancient heater rattling and spitting out pitiful excuses for warmth.
“Got it?” DuBois said around the filter of his cigarette, looking at you in the rear view mirror as you climbed in the backseat.
“‘Course,” you replied.
You fished the drive from the inside pocket of your down jacket and placed it in his outstretched palm.
Robert took the drive and secured it in the locked military briefcase that had been by Rick’s feet in the front.
“Nice work. Now let’s get the hell outta this podunk nightmare.”
Rick had refused to acknowledge you the entire drive, and he continued to ignore your existence when you arrived at the motel. He didn’t open your door when the car had parked. He didn’t lace his fingers with your own when you walked to the property office. He carried your small duffle bag, but he seemed to only do it out of spite. You half expected him to ask for a third room with how he was snubbing you. Thankfully, he didn’t.
With two rooms now in your purchase, you walked to your respective rooms. When you arrived at rooms four and five, Rick handed Robert a key, who gave him a mock salute.
“Don’t have too much fun now, kids.”
Rick was already opening the door and walking inside, so when you told Robert to fuck off, he likely didn’t hear you.
When you entered the room, you toed off your snow-caked boots and discarded your damp jacket. After you locked, you made your way inside to where Rick was sat on the bed.
You had never felt the type of anxiety that spurred in your veins like you felt it now. The sole perk of the unconventional relationship you had with Rick was that you didn’t have to fight like normal couples did. Your fights came out of unadulterated danger and the fear that came along with that. They were always resolved with loving words and him between your legs, showing you in every way he could that he was glad you were safe. But this? This simmering anger? You just weren't used to it.
“You all good?” you asked with hesitation as you pulled at your sleeves with worry. You tried not to think about how just hours earlier Rick had been feeling you up through the fabric.
He drew in a sharp breath through his nose and looked at you, “no, no I’m actually not.”
“Oh, okay…” you trailed off uncomfortably and took a step forward, “do you wanna talk about it?”
“Am I fucking joke to you? Are we a joke to you?” he bypassed any preamble with an accusatory bite.
“What?”
“I just had to sit for two hours watchin’ you with him, y’know. I watched you, and I started to feel like it all felt pretty familiar,” he stood suddenly, his face darkening with anger.
Your heart raced in your chest and your shoulders pulsed with spidering tension.
“Are you kidding me? Baby, that was all an act. You know that,” you reached for his arm to diffuse him, but he retracted it quickly.
“Everyone thinks I’m this big idiot, y’know that? Everyone at the interior and at ARGUS. Fuckin’ Flag, here he goes again, fallin’ for another woman with all this baggage,” Rick said, “but I always brush ‘em off. Because who cares! I don’t! I care about you, and what we have, but-” his jaw clenched and his lips curled in, “that. That show back there? It’s makin’ me feel crazy.”
“Rick, what are you saying?” your fingers flexed into the hems of your sleeves, itching to touch him and make this all better.
“What I’m sayin’ is… I’m sayin’ I’m freaking out,” he shook his head, “was anything of this real?”
He motioned hastily between you both.
“Or was I just another one of them?” he gestured behind him, in some vague way to point back to the bar.
Your throat felt like it was coated with thorns as your breathing became ragged with fear. Your stomach bubbled with nausea. Your skin felt hot and your eyes burned with shame.
The only man you had ever loved, the only person who had ever shown you any compassion or care in your entire life, stood across from you close to despondent as he questioned everything that you had built together.
And you fucking deserved it.
Trauma or not, you had lived your life as a bad person. You stole and you cheated and you lied to anyone and everyone to get what you wanted. You had only cared about your needs dismissed any fallout in favor of them. You’d hurt people, ruined lives and families, and for what? Money? Jewels? Notoriety? None of that meant anything now as Rick watched you with a bleeding heart.
This was your true moment of punishment for all the chaos you had caused.
“Please,” you choked through rising tears, “please Rick, please know that that’s not true. Please, please know that every second of us has been real.”
Rick sniffed and placed his hands on his hips, averting his eyes from your own.
“You know everything about me,” you stepped closer, “you know what I thought in the beginning and what I told Harley. You know that I started to fall for you that day in Midway and that whatever ruse I had created went straight out the window. You know that one of my biggest heartbreaks was watching you kiss June. Watching you kiss her and it not being… just please, Rick.”
You had begun to sob, his pain and doubt too much to bear.
“I have faked a lot of things in my life, but I could never fake what we have. I could never fake how I feel about you. Everything that I do and say out there, it’s not me. You know me. You are the only person who ever really has,” you voice squeaks.
Without giving it much thought or weighing the consequences, you closed the distance between you two and grasped his hand to placed it on your chest.
“Do you feel that?” you settled his palm over your heart, “it’s freaking out, isn’t it? And it does that any time I’m near you. Any time you look at me, any time you brush your hand across my back, any time you kiss me or tell me how important I am to you.”
Twin tears fell down his cheeks as Rick closed his eyes.
“My heart has never beat so fast for anything or anyone else in my life. Sometimes I swear it beats so hard just so it can be closer to you,” you huffed a pitiful laugh and to your surprise, he returned it.
You sniffled and felt snot drip down the back of your throat as Rick came to grasp your wrist. For a moment, you thought he was going to remove your hand from his and your heart shutters. He must have felt it because his brows pulled together and his grip held strong.
“Sometimes I think mine does, too.”
He opens his eyes and they are thoughtful, but they are still haunted with sadness.
“You’re right. I do know you… sometimes I think I know you better than I know myself, which I know doesn’t make any damn sense,” he chuckled softly, “but I don’t care. Because if I lost all of me tomorrow, I would just be happy to remember you.”
You choke out your own laugh, laced with tears and coated in mucus as he continued.
“And I think that just gets to me… the way I feel about you gets to me sometimes. ‘Cause this ain’t my first rodeo, I’ve been hurt and tricked and scoured and I -” he paused, “and sometimes I think it’s impossible to have fallen for two women who are a part of this strange world I’ve entered, and I start to doubt.
S’not right, I know, but sometimes it still happens. Tonight, with fuckin’ DuBois and Krane, ‘guess it all just crept in. All those thoughts that I do my best to keep away.”
“It’s ok,” you reassured, “I get it, this whole thing seems so crazy from the outside and it-”
Rick stopped you.
“S’not ok, baby. It’s not. I shouldn’t doubt you, and I sure as hell shouldn’t’a just accused you like that. Especially on the one night that we get to pretend we’re normal.”
“But I get it, ok? Just know that. Know that I’ll understand if you have doubts or worries, and I’ll never have any problem proving them wrong with everything I have. Because I am madly in love with you Rick Flag. And I would do anything to soothe your heart.”
Rick’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes widened. You had never said it before. There was a healthy amount of fear in exchanging those words, something neither of you had had the guts to broach and tackle until now. For you, a love virgin, it was the fear of not knowing if what you felt was love. For Rick, it was the basis of the fight you had just had, Robert’s words in the bar articulating his fears perfectly.
But under yellow lights in Northern Montana, his hand to your heart and tears in his eyes, he knew that all his worries had been for nothing. This was real. You were real and so was this moment, and hell if he didn’t love you back.
“Fuck,” he let out and his shoulders fell, “I love you, too. Man oh man, do I love you.”
He wasted no time crashing his lips to your own. Sweaters and thermal wear stripped from your bodies and tossed around the room as he finally had the chance to take you in a proper bed and for a significant amount of time.
His skin was warm under your cold fingertips and his hips ground into yours at an eye crossing pace. His hands were everywhere, groping and stroking and loving every part of you he could reach. His lips sprung marks across your neck and played delicious tunes to your mouth as he thrust inside you. His words an endless loop of I love you’s, moans, grunts and everything that you needed to hear.
“I love you.”
“I know you. I know you. I know everything about you.”
When Rick had had his fill of your body and you were faint from orgasms, you both ceased to simply revel in the lazy time that stretched in front of you. There was no lack of affection or a drought in traded love declarations. You catalogued his freckles and he drummed his hands in a coy rhythm against your ass that had you peeling with giggles. You tried to braid his growing hair and he counted off all the shades he swore he saw in your eyes.
As the cards of the prehistoric alarm clock flipped it’s numbers to early dawn, Rick brushed your hair from your eyes. The impending doom of your time together running out had begun to break through and you could tell it was making him antsy.
“What if we ran away from here? Jus’ got in the car and drove?” he whispered with reverence into the air.
You simply raised a skeptical eyebrow and he shook his head.
“If we left now, I’m sure we could get in contact with someone who could figure out how to get that shit outta your neck. Hell, maybe with a gun to his head Dr. Krane would even figure it out,” he laughed but there was little humor to it, only frantic desperation.
“Baby, let’s not even talk like this, ok? It’s too depressing,” you offered him a small smile and moved to kiss his palm.
“I know it sounds crazy, but just… don’t you deserve happiness? Don’t I? Don’t we? We have this chance now, we could run off like thieves in the night and just, fuck, just be together,” his other hand came to grasp the other cheek he didn’t occupy, “we could be so happy.”
For the second time tonight, your throat grew thick with tears and a dull hopelessness ached in your chest.
“I know. I do, and we could,” you said, “but there is no way we could go where Waller couldn’t find. She’d tear the world apart to find us. Toss us in solitary and throw away the key. We’d never see each other again, and I can’t risk that.
“This is one problem that can’t be solved with loopholes or cutting corners. I have to fight her fights and serve out my sentence for what I’ve done. And that’s just that.”
You could tell your objection frustrated him, but most of all you could tell he was just sad. Sad, that this was the way it had to be. Chance nights in shitty motels and stolen moments that would never be long enough.
“S’not fuckin’ fair.”
Your lip quivered and you sighed, “you’re right. It’s not… sometimes I think maybe this is my true penance for all the wrong I've done. Getting to have you in my arms, but never truly being able to hold you.”
“Then what about me? Shouldn’t all the good shit I’ve done weigh this in our favor?”
“Maybe you were a bad man in a past life and have yet to even the scale,” you mildly joked, and to your effort, you earned a small smile from Rick, which is all you really wanted.
You both ran out the clock in each other's arms, making love and smiling and laughing and telling little stories of whatever you could think of. Around four, Rick dozed off with you tightly wrapped in his arms. You did your best to commit his sleeping form to memory, not knowing if you’d ever get the pleasure to witness a truly relaxed Rick Flag ever again. When you were sure you’d never forget the pout of his lips or how his eyelids twitched with dreams, you allowed yourself to get some shut eye of your own before you were set to head back to prison. You pressed yourself deep into his chest and tucked your head under his chin.
As you snuggled against his bare skin and listened to his even breathing, you wished you could stay forever in his arms, wrapped only in him (his body, his warmth, his scent) and the thick blankets of the motel. You wished you could sleep forever to sustain this moment, so you would only know the solace of slumber, and the safety and love he provided.
and fin! i really hope you enjoyed, if you did, i would love to hear it (: i am still on the fence on how this is structured, but i just really wanted to add into the great rick x reader fics out there (there will never be enough lol)
if you did like this, i sort of already have a part two lined up, and about 3k+ words from various iterations of this story i could post as blurbs, too (: so let me know if you want either of those things