Learn to love again
Gary "Roach" Sanderson x Reader!Makrov's ex wife
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You had lived in shadows for so long that sunlight felt foreign.
Being Makrov’s wife had meant silence, obedience, and the constant crack of his temper lurking in every room. You hadn’t been a partner, not really, you had been an accessory. A pawn he flaunted when it suited him, discarded when it didn’t. And when the marriage finally snapped under the weight of his violence, you fled.
The world didn’t forgive easily, though. Everyone knew your name. His wife. The one who’d shared his home, his table. Some thought you were complicit. Some thought you were dangerous. Some thought you’d crawl back to him.
Task Force 141 didn’t trust you at first. Why would they? You were a liability wrapped in scars. But one man kept watching you with quieter eyes, Gary “Roach” Sanderson.
He didn’t treat you like you were a ghost of Makrov’s world. He didn’t question every breath, every word. He just… listened.
The first time he found you crying in a dark corridor, your hand still trembling from a nightmare, he didn’t ask questions. He just handed you a mug of tea, sat beside you, and let silence stretch until your chest eased.
“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he murmured, soft Scottish lilt curling around the words.
It was dangerous, the way his gentleness dug deeper than Makrov’s cruelty ever had.
Because Roach wasn’t supposed to matter. You weren’t supposed to feel safe, or laugh at the dry humor he slipped into conversations. You weren’t supposed to catch yourself staring at his hands, steady, capable, or at his eyes when they softened just for you.
But one night, when a mission left you both stranded in some snow-beaten village, sheltering in a half-collapsed cabin, the warmth broke through. He was patching up a cut on your arm, brow furrowed, when you whispered, almost bitterly:
“You know what they say about me, don’t you? That I was his. That I let him”
Roach’s hands stilled, but his gaze was steady when he met yours.
“You were never his,” he said firmly. “He took. That doesn’t mean he owned. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean you can’t take your life back.”
The words cracked something open in your chest. And before you could stop yourself, you were leaning into him, lips trembling as they met his.
It wasn’t desperate. It wasn’t violent. It wasn’t a claim.
It was soft. Fragile. Like touching a future you never thought you could have.
And when he kissed you back, careful but certain, you knew that for once, you weren’t Makrov’s shadow anymore. You were yours.
And maybe, if the world allowed it, you could be Roach’s too.
