Hello!! It's my first time requesting a fic type thing so I have no idea what I'm doing but would you be willing to write for North x reader Fluff or headcanons from Red Vs Blue? It was my favorite show and now that I'm getting back into it I have a major lack of content from the fandom, so whenever you like pretty please.
North Dakota/Reader fluff
( -_•)▄︻デ══━一
You weren't special, not a freelancer or a high-ranking worker, but you were important. You were never meant to be a soldier, a guard, or a weapon shaped by the program. You were a technician. Not the best, but you never fucked anything up, and that made you a shiny cog in a machine full of them. Even if very few people ever bothered to notice. While armored figures moved through the halls of the Mother of Invention with purpose and authority, you lived in the background. Beneath consoles. Inside maintenance shafts. Elbow deep in systems that were falling apart faster than the Director would ever admit.
Most nights found you on the floor with tools scattered around you, hands blackened with oil and dust from corners that never got cleaned, quietly fixing what everyone else depended on and rarely acknowledged. You didn't complain. You didn't demand recognition. You simply did the work because someone had to, and also, you fucking live here.
Agent North Dakota first saw you during the later hours, when the ship was most quiet, and the air felt colder. Those are the hours when Theta struggles most. Sleep doesn't come easily for an AI that thinks two hundred times faster than everyone else, and North going for a walk is an easy way to help soothe him.
North finds you during those hours, always working, always mumbling, humming, or cursing softly under your breath as you repair pipes and fix wires with a focus so complete it makes the rest of the world fall away. The only wariness you show for either of them is thinking out loud about how much it would suck not to taste things. You speak to him gently. You explain things as you work. You never treat him like a problem to be managed.
That alone earns Theta’s trust. It also earns North’s.
North notices all of it. It only deepens the trust he already places in you.
Theta’s sleepless nights mean North’s sleepless nights. North never pulls him offline. It scares him. So North stays awake, even when he knows he will be punished for it later.
When Theta apologizes for needing comfort, North always tells him the same thing. Never apologize for needing comfort.
Eventually, you start joining the three AM walks. Theta loves you for it.
From that point on, North starts gravitating towards you when he's not with his sister or the other freelancers. He lingers nearby during downtime. He chooses routes through the ship that happen to pass wherever he can hear your voice. He watches your hands with the same attention he gives a battlefield. You become part of his nights, walking the halls with him and Theta in tired, companionable silence.
There is no single moment of realization. Instead, it happens slowly, quietly, in pieces.
It happens when he notices that being near you makes the constant pressure of everything ease just a little. It happens when he realizes he trusts you around Theta without having to worry about what either of them says. It happens when he doesn't just walk back to his room when Theta feels better and waits for you to be done so he can escort you back to yours and make sure you actually sleep in your own bed and not one of the cafeteria tables.
You never demand anything from each other. You simply exist in each other's space with patience and kindness. That is enough.
Despite being one of the deadliest shooters on the ship, North is never gentle with you. He touches you confidently. His hands are always warm. Grounding. Steady. When he rests them on you, it feels intentional every single time.
Physical affection starts small. Sitting next to you and leaning so close that your heads bonk into each other. His elbow finds your shoulders while you chat to other people. Standing slightly in front of you without consciously meaning to. He puts up a good front of such a civil and composed man, but you can read the possessiveness between the thoughts.
He doesn't rush intimacy. When you finally kiss, it is slow and steady and full of warmth. He isnt gentle about this either.
Theta adores you. Any kindness you show the AI is returned tenfold. Theta feels safer when you are present. He sleeps more easily when you join the late-night walks. He trusts you completely. He set off little fireworks when you and North kissed for the first time.
North worries about you constantly, but he is careful not to let that worry become suffocating. He respects your competence and your independence. He never doubts your ability to do your job. Still, he's overly aware of the difference in your ranks and the risks in that, and it never leaves him.
His attention tracks your position automatically. South teases him about it more than once, calling it a permanent babysitting instinct. North only shrugs. He doesn't feel the need to explain himself.
Your job means you spend entire months on the ship without leaving, and his means he goes weeks off of it, so he checks in the moment he can. If you seem tired, hungry, hurt, or distracted, he notices before you say anything.
If you are cold, he runs back to his room to throw one of his old jackets at you. If you forgot to eat yesterday, he's sneaking some of his own food onto your tray. If you are exhausted, he slows his pace so you don't need to bother catching up.
Caring for you becomes reflexive.
North doesn't hide his affection like a secret. But he doesn't ever reveal it to anyone else either. He stands close to you. He keeps an arm around you. He holds your arm in crowded rooms where the cameras can barely track you.
Anyone who notices doesn't say anything. This is not something he will apologize for.
Wash once mutters that the two of you look like a rom-com montage while he is trying to eat. North only pulls you closer, you ask why the fuck Wash is eating with his helmet on.
He is quietly proud of you. He brags without bragging, mentioning your work or your skills in casual ways that make it clear how highly you should be regarded.
North doesn't need noise or constant conversation. His favorite moments with you are the quiet ones. Sitting beside you while you write down notes that, yes, Mr. Price, you do need to dust your consoles every few years and can't just neglect them and be surprised when they break! Leaning against each other during late-night watch shifts while you consider murder after someone put tinfoil inside the microwave. Polishing his equipment. ;)
Your presence grounds him. With you, he allows himself to rest in a way he rarely does.
North is quietly one of the smartest people in the program. He reads people well. He notices intentions. He understands things long before others do.
North’s trust is rare and deeply given. Once you have it, he relies on you in ways he doesn't rely on others. You become an anchor, alongside Theta and South.
North remembers everything about you. Important dates. Preferences. Injuries. Allergies. Passing comments you made months ago. He writes things down if he has to. Forgetting something about you simply doesn't feel acceptable to him.
That is the moment you realize you love him.
To the rest of the program, Agent North Dakota is calm, capable, and unshakable.
With you, he is warm and worried and deeply gentle in a way he allows almost no one else to see. Loving you is something he chooses every day, intentionally and without hesitation.
