please write more keys fluff there’s not enough of it 😭
Plus One
Walter 'Keys' McKeys x F!Reader
Content: Fluff that's not really fluffy (sorry lol), Touch as the most important love language, Nerd!Walter x Out Of His League!Reader, Swearing Word Count: 3,9k Synopsis: Walter brings his long term girlfriend to a work event and his boss is more than surprised by the 'mismatched' couple.
The annual summer barbecue at Soonami sounded significantly more dreadful than it actually ended up being. For weeks Walter had complained about mandatory socialization, passive aggressive networking and what he thought of as poor attempts to gather marketing material for recruitment ads disguised as performative team bonding.
But despite all that, he ended up spending most of the evening quietly attached to your side, looking far more relaxed than he would ever willingly admit. He enjoyed himself for most of it, because it was an evening spent with his favourite person and free food. The first summer barbecue you managed to join him for.
The rooftop garden itself was beautiful in that polished, overly curated way tech companies seemed obsessed with to appear modern, friendly and relatable all at once. Warm string lights crisscrossed above the seating areas, little lanterns glowed between flowerbeds and somewhere near the bar, a group of developers were passionately arguing over game mechanics while sipping on fruity cocktails with ridiculous names. The epitome of modern day hipsters.
Impressively so, the space also overlooked most of the city skyline, golden light lingering on the walls nearby as the evening settled into something softer and warmer.
You still felt a little out of place at Walter’s work events sometimes, even after nearly three years with him. Not because anyone there was unkind to you or anything.
Over time, mostly through rushed lunch breaks Walter occasionally invited you up to the office for, late evenings where you physically had to drag him away from his desk and the handful of coffee breaks Mouser would invite you for, you’d slowly become familiar enough with his coworkers that being around them no longer felt intimidating.
Maybe that's why Mouser greeted you with immediate excitement the second you arrived, several people from marketing complimented your dress and someone from HR practically lit up remembering you from the Christmas party half a year ago.
But it never really lessened the way these events still managed to make you feel slightly overdressed, sort of undereducated and entirely too overstimulated all at once.
There were moments where you simply sat back and listened to everyone speak rather than trying to piece together what half of it actually meant.
You would think a party might finally pull people away from work for a few hours, yet somehow every conversation still circled back to coding problems, server crashes and deadlines hanging over everyone’s heads. Even here, surrounded by music and drinks and warm summer air, their minds seemed permanently wired into the company itself.
Walter, brilliant, direct and perpetually exhausted Walter McKeys, who spent most of his life buried beneath lines of code and half finished cups of coffee himself, always seemed to notice whenever that feeling of not belonging started settling over you. And somehow, with nothing more than a hand rubbing your back or a quiet explanation murmured beside your ear, he always managed to make you feel like you belonged there with him anyway.
Opposed to that, some of his coworkers would argue you were out of his league. Some driven by sheer confusion, some by jealousy. You caught glimpses of it every now and then, in the slightly surprised looks people gave the two of you, the brief pause when they connected quiet, chronically meticulous Walter McKeys with you standing beside him in a floral cocktail dress and leather boots, an oversized knitted cardigan draped loosely around your shoulders in a way that somehow made the entire outfit look even softer.
Walter’s mother made that cardigan for you after deciding store bought knitwear was soulless. The sleeves were slightly too long, the rust coloured wool soft from constant wear and Walter loved it for reasons he couldn’t properly explain without getting flustered.
It became part of you after his mother surprised you with it during your second visit to their house, wrapping it around your shoulders with the kind of quiet affection that made it feel less like a gift and more like something she had already decided belonged to you. Even then, she seemed to know you were meant to stay in her son’s life.
“You know”, Mouser said at one point during the night, leaning against a table, “you being here genuinely improves Keys’ social skills by at least thirty five percent”
Walter looked unimpressed, but you had to hide your smile. “That statistic feels fabricated.”
“Oh, absolutely is”, Mouser admitted instantly. “But I stand by it.”
You finally laughed out loud while Walter’s hand settled on your back, grounding himself in the conversation with one of the few colleagues he actually liked not tolerated. The night itself had been genuinely nice because of that. The kind of evening where Walter smiled more than once without even realizing he was doing it, simply because you were there beside him.
You even managed to convince Walter to dance with you eventually, though calling it dancing felt generous when it was really just the two of you swaying together in a quieter corner of the rooftop, drinks still stubbornly clutched in both your hands because neither of you felt like setting them down somewhere and risking losing them afterward. It made the whole thing slightly awkward, his movements careful as he kept his glass tilted away from your dress while your arms looped loosely around his neck, laughing every time the two of you struggled to navigate your glasses up to your mouths.
You smiled up at him like he’d granted you your biggest wish of the night. And honestly, maybe he had.
Walter’s arms settled around your waist with familiar ease, the touch present beneath the fabric of your cardigan, while his expression softened into something quieter the longer he looked at you. You laughed at something barely worth laughing over, probably one of his dry muttered comments.
It was a familiar dynamic between the two of you by now. You laughing and Walter looking at you like he couldn’t quite believe you were real.
This was his world surrounding you on all sides and yet he still gravitated toward you like nothing else there held his attention for long.
“You know”, you mused eventually, glancing over his shoulder toward the scattered groups of employees across the rooftop, “I thought the Christmas parties were exceptions because people left town to be with family and stuff, but there aren’t many dates here, are they? I’m basically the only plus one.”
Walter followed your gaze as the two of you continued swaying softly. There weren’t many partners there at all, now that you mentioned it. Mostly employees clustered together in little groups, drinks in hand while conversations drifted to the same old topics.
There were women around, though far fewer than you would’ve liked, most of them from marketing or HR with a handful of external artists and designers scattered throughout the crowd, but very few people had actually brought partners with them.
“Babe”, Walter said gently, squeezing your waist once as quiet amusement slipped into his voice, “most of them don’t have anyone to bring.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him properly, your expression deadpan. "Right, forgot nerds don't have girlfriends. Y'all scare them away, clearly"
Walter laughed beneath his breath while you rolled your eyes.
His attention drifted back across the rooftop for a moment afterwards, eyes scanning over the crowd. He’d genuinely never seen this many employees gathered in one place before. Usually everyone disappeared the second work hours ended, retreating back into their own lives and apartments until the next morning dragged them all back again.
A few coworkers looked surprised every time their eyes landed on the two of you, probably trying to process the fact that their co-worker had a girlfriend who looked like you standing in his arms.
You looked beautiful tonight.
Painfully, distractingly beautiful.
Your hair fell in soft curls around your shoulders, the flowers scattered across your dress somehow matching the color of his shirt perfectly and every time you laughed, people nearby instinctively glanced toward the sound without meaning to.
Walter wasn’t stupid. He noticed the attention. But more than that, he noticed the envy underneath some of it too.
Because despite the endless teasing he got at work, the sarcastic comments about the sticky notes you hid in his laptop bag that he carefully lined up along the frame of his monitor instead of throwing away, or the times you showed up at the office with coffee and enough patience to physically drag him home after fourteen hour shifts, most people there wanted something like that too.
Someone who looked at them the way you looked at Walter and vice versa.
He leaned down eventually, aiming a kiss toward your lips only to miss slightly when you laughed again, the kiss landing near the corner of your mouth instead.
“Don’t overthink it”, he murmured softly.
“I’m not overthinking”, you replied with a smile. “Just observing.”
One of his hands slipped from your waist then, fingers catching yours instead before he awkwardly attempted to twirl you beneath his arm despite still holding his drink in the other hand. The movement was clumsy enough that both of you immediately burst into laughter halfway through it, nearly colliding into each other again once you stumbled back against his chest.
Walter definitely wasn’t the type to show off or intentionally draw attention to your relationship, but he wasn’t oblivious to the occasional glances either, nor the quiet surprise whenever someone looked between the two of you for a second too long. And he was definitely aware of how beautiful you looked tonight.
As far as Walter was concerned, nobody else in the world came close to comparing to you anyway.
But knowing everyone else could see that you were the one choosing him back? Yeah, he’d admit privately that he liked that part too.
A few moments later though, because it was always something with this company, you noticed a change in atmosphere before you understood the reason for it. A subtle shift rippled through the crowd, a nearby conversation abruptly cut off and several people glanced toward the entrance almost at once. It wasn’t dramatic, nobody announcing anything or reacting loudly, but the mood around you shifted just enough to feel it.
You and Walter walked back over to Mouser and a few other colleagues that were all sitting around a small fire pit and Mouser straightened next to you. “Oh man”, he breathed out in a half-groan and you furrow your brows instinctively.
Walter barely reacted outwardly at first, though you watched the exhaustion settle onto his face with immediate familiarity, like he already knew who had shown up before looking.
“What?”, you asked quietly, feeling the way his hand slipped from your back and around your waist, pressing his fingers into your side almost absentmindedly.
Mouser kept staring forward, but responded anyway. “Boss.”
You turned just as Antwan stepped out of the elevator and immediately understood why the mood had changed. Nobody was alarmed by the sight of him, but it still seemed as if the people were mildly confused by his appearance.
Everyone else looked softened by the evening, slightly rumpled from drinks and warm weather, relaxed in a way employees rarely got to be around each other.
He didn’t fit the atmosphere at all. Antwan looked like he’d walked out of an entirely different event and accidentally entered this one on his way to a private bathroom or something. Expensive jacket thrown over one shoulder, tinted glasses still resting on his nose despite the sun having set already, phone in hand while he continued some loud conversation about investor meetings.
Walter had talked about him enough over the years that you recognized him immediately, though none of the stories prepared you for the sheer level of self-importance radiating off him in person. You've never seen him at any other event.
People greeted him carefully as he passed and Antwan barely acknowledged any of them. He wandered through the area with complete disinterest until his attention landed on you.
He stopped walking, his gaze lingering for a moment, as if trying to place you. “You new?”, he asked casually, his phone still pressed against his ear as if respect for both conversations wasn't a given.
You blinked once. “No.”
That seemed to genuinely confuse him, but you even more so. His brows furrowed as he glanced at you over the rim of his shades, clearly trying to place you somewhere within the company.
“Huh”, he muttered. “Marketing?”, he tries again, though you couldn't understand why you had to work for the company to be at the event, or why you being a plus one would come as such a surprise.
“I don’t work here”, you explained and Antwan finally glanced past you, eyes landing on Keys before returning right back to you.
To him, Walter barely factored into the equation at all.
“Then why on earth would you be here?”
The question wasn’t threatening, nor particularly hostile, but there was something undeniably dismissive underneath it, something that made it obvious Antwan genuinely couldn't comprehend why someone like you would willingly spend your evening at a company barbecue surrounded by developers and exhausted office employees.
His attention remained entirely on you as he spoke, phone still lifted near his ear from whatever call he’d been pretending to care about moments earlier, his expression caught somewhere between curiosity and amused disbelief. Respect for either conversation was apparently not a given.
You tried to smile politely, instinctively stepping closer into Walter’s side until his arm settled more securely around your waist, your fingers curling against the front of his shirt while his thumb brushed absentmindedly against your hip through the fabric of your dress.
“I’m Walter’s girlfriend.”
For the first time since walking over, Antwan looked genuinely entertained. Not surprised in any normal sense either.
It was the kind of reaction someone had after hearing an unexpectedly excellent joke, his attention fully snapping toward the two of you as the phone call lost all importance. His thumb lazily ended it without even glancing at the screen, phone dropping into the pocket of his jacket while he openly studied Walter now.
“Keys? Funko pop lookin, square headed Keys”
The way he said it made your brows pull together almost immediately, finding his comment more than distasteful. The tone behind it, the subtle disbelief as his gaze flicked between Walter’s arm around your waist and the way you leaned into him without hesitation, gave you a good enough picture of someone you would not converse with under any under circumstances.
Beside you, Walter stayed perfectly composed, sipping on his highball as if this entire exchange didn't bother him the way it actually really did.
Only someone who knew him well would’ve noticed the slight tightening of his jaw or the near invisible shift in posture that always appeared whenever he was forcing himself to stay polite. None of his colleagues, let alone his boss, came close to that.
Antwan let out a quiet laugh beneath his breath, shaking his head slightly like he genuinely couldn’t process what he was seeing.
“That’s fascinating”, he mused. “Thought the guy went home and just... stared at code until morning, a good wank if he finds the right video, but you...”
Mouser coughed into his drink trying to disguise a laugh and the sound alone made your expression sharpen slightly. You’d picked up on the weird dynamic surrounding Antwan, the nervous laughs, the automatic agreement, the way people bent themselves around his ego because he signed their paychecks.
But you still shot Mouser a pointed look and he immediately redirected his attention elsewhere, suddenly very interested in the rooftop view. If there was one thing you hated, it was people kissing ass and expecting something positive to come out of it at the expense of their friends.
Walter, meanwhile, said absolutely nothing.
Not because he agreed, because he knew better.
You could feel the restraint radiating off him beneath your hand, the effort it took not to respond with the dry sarcasm he naturally defaulted to around literally anyone else. That restraint translates into a tightening of his chest, his breaths not reaching his belly anymore and slowing down as if he was bracing instead.
Around coworkers, Walter was rarely sharp tongued, more quietly witty in ways people didn’t expect at first glance. Around Antwan he became carefully neutral, all measured responses and controlled expressions in the way employees often did around bosses they deeply disliked but couldn’t openly challenge.
Without even thinking about it, your hand slid higher against his chest, while his arm tightened around your waist in return, the two of you unconsciously grounding each other through touch the way you always did. You'd learned many ways to communicate over the years.
Antwan noticed that too.
Actually, he seemed incapable of not noticing it.
Every glance he gave Walter carried this underlying confusion, like he genuinely could not understand how someone he viewed as painfully average had somehow ended up with someone like you curled so naturally against him.
“You’ve been together long?”
This time the question was directed toward Walter instead of you and the shift alone seemed to surprise him slightly. You looked up at your boyfriend immediately, smiling gently as he glanced down at you for half a second before answering.
“Almost three years”, he responds, a small smirk now tugging at the corner of his mouth while his hand squeezed your waist, the fabric of your dress bunching up slightly from his grip.
That earned another genuinely stunned look from Antwan.
“Well, fuck me, bro”, he laughed, his eyes raking over the crowd as if waiting for someone to explain the punchline. He stepped back slightly, still visibly entertained by the entire situation as his eyes landed back on the two of you beneath the rooftop lights.
“Who knew he had it in him?”
Walter glanced down at you again, clearly debating whether enduring this silently or pretending to laugh along would get Antwan to leave faster.
The second your grin started slipping behind your own cocktail glass, trying to take a sip but failing, he caved. He laughed along with you, hesitant but real enough that Antwan looked pleased with himself afterward.
And somehow that made the whole situation even funnier to you.
Because beneath Walter’s composed expression, beneath the professionalism and restraint and careful neutrality, you could physically feel him getting defensive too.
"Trust me, I'm the luckiest girl", you muse, knowing it would both reassure Walter and maybe even annoy his boss a little, a clear win in your books. The smile you gifted Antwan then was genuine, confident too, but also a warning in disguise.
For a brief moment he just stared, still trying to figure it out, still carrying that subtle assumption that someone like him should make more sense beside someone like you than Walter ever could.
But Walter, despite how much he clearly wanted this interaction over with, looked at you with the kind of quiet affection Antwan probably couldn’t buy from another human being if he tried.
Eventually he let out a chuckle, before patting Walter on the back roughly. “Cheers, bro.”
Walter responded with nothing more than a tight lipped smile and a single nod, while Antwan wandered off almost immediately, already shouting towards the catering table about wanting a finger food plate done pronto.
“Okay", Mouser exhaled eventually, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as he glanced back at you. “In my defense, survival instincts kicked in.”
You laughed softly while Walter finally let some of the stiffness leave his shoulders, his arm loosening around you with his hand brushing small circles over your back now.
“You don’t have to explain”, you reassured him easily. With a boss like that, you assumed everyone had to watch their own backs first and foremost.
“I know the laughing thing probably looked bad, but when Antwan decides you’re the funniest thing in the room, your options are kinda limited”, he tries again, looking genuinely apologetic for enabling him.
Walter snorted, before taking another sip of his drink, waving it off. “I mean he’s not wrong”
You immediately turned toward him, a brow quirked in amusement. “Excuse me?”
“I absolutely look like I’d spend my evenings alone, staring at code in silence. It's all I did before I met you”
“That’s not the point.”
“That is the point he made though.”
"Well, was he right about the rest too then?", you tease, chuckling as he took a long sip of his drink, his brows raising playfully as he stalled.
Mouser laughed at his reaction, nudging Walter, because to him, this whole thing was genuinely funny. You found yourself laughing too, not even needing an actual answer from him anymore.
Whatever he did before you didn't matter and you hoped there would never be an after either.
What you did care about though, was Walter finally looking properly relaxed again, the tension Antwan had dragged in with his mockery slowly dissolving now that he was gone. You press a swift kiss to his cheek.
“You should see him during crunch weeks”, Mouser told you once the conversation settled again, deciding the best way to recover from the awkwardness with Antwan was apparently exposing every strange work habit Walter had accumulated over the years.
He called it friendly fire.
Walter called it slander.
According to Mouser, Walter became borderline nocturnal during big deadlines, surviving entirely on cold brew and your little notes while re-organizing digital files no one else cared about and muttering insults at broken code under his breath for hours at a time.
“You say that like I wouldn't know what he's like”, you laughed while Mouser continued piling onto the story with increasing dramatics and your boyfriends' occasional complaints.
There was surprisingly little Walter could do that would genuinely scare you off now. Not after nearly three years together.
Not after late nights spent waiting for him to finally shut his laptop and come to bed, or the countless times you’d dragged him home from the office while he insisted he only needed twenty more minutes. You’d seen every exhausted, grumpy, overworked version of Walter McKeys imaginable at this point and somehow none of it had ever made you love him less.
If anything, it only made the other parts of him feel more special.
The conversation shifted as the night carried on, coworkers drifting in and out of your little circle while music hummed in the background and the city lights brightened below the rooftop.
At one point you found yourself talking with some girls from the marketing team about the content they’d been filming throughout the night, Walter angled away from you slightly, tangled in his own conversation with some guys on his support team.
You were midway through complimenting some ridiculous behind the scenes footage when Walter’s hand slid up from your waist, fingers catching the sleeve of your cardigan before it could slide down your shoulder.
The gesture was absentminded, automatic even. Like fixing things for you without thinking about it had simply become second nature to him.
Mouser trailed off mid sentence the second he noticed though, blinking at the absentminded little gesture like he’d just witnessed something deeply revealing. For a moment he simply stared at Walter, the way his fingers automatically fixed the slipping sleeve of your cardigan without ever interrupting the conversation around him felt like a declaration of love to him.
“Dude”, he said finally, pointing dramatically. “This is the kind of shit you do that gets you a long term girlfriend, huh?”
Walter let out a breathy chuckle at that, surprised by the sudden attention. He pulled his hand from your shoulder, stuffing it into his pocket like he’d only just realized everyone noticed him doing it before he even did himself.
You noticed too.
Even while still halfway invested in your own conversation with the marketing girls nearby, you felt his hand slipping away. You didn't interrupt or turned away from your own conversation rudely, you just registered it.
Meanwhile, the blush across Walter’s cheeks combined with the awkward readjustment of his glasses earned him absolutely no mercy from the rest of the group.
“Oh my God, he’s blushing.”
“Keys has game apparently.”
“Now this is sweet, Jesus”
Walter groaned while the others laughed around him. “A girl doesn’t just magically fall into your lap, you know”, he responded dryly, pointing at Mouser with his drink. “You need to be a decent person. Smell decent too. You should start with that”
The entire circle around him immediately burst into laughter loud enough to turn nearby heads and you nearly choked on your drink.
Mouser looked mildly offended, staring back at the group with a deadpan expression. “That was hostile for no reason”
Walter laughed and as if you sensed it, you caught the way he glanced over afterwards, eyes immediately finding yours in the midst of your own conversations.
He almost never said things like that out loud, not confidently anyway.
Normally any joke at his expense got deflected, either with awkwardness or sarcasm, but tonight there was something quieter sitting beneath his usual dry humor, something subtly self-satisfied that had to do with you just simply existing and deciding to exist right next to him.
Because maybe people were surprised. Maybe half the rooftop was still trying to connect someone like Walter McKeys with someone like you.
But at the end of the night, Walter still got to leave with your hand in his.
