Ryland Grace is not a coward, he’s just a normal guy. An I think that he actually still might have said yes if he’d had the time and space to think about it tbh.
Like how much time did the other applicants have before they even put in their applications? How many discussions and hours and days and weeks did they have to make the decision to even apply? How much more time did they have before they signed the contract and made it irrevocable?
Grace had three hours. Three hours and the illusion of choice. Of coirse he said no! I would like to think that I would be willing to die for earth if backed into that corner, but I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to do it in three hours.
Also, this was such a long shot. The odds that it would work were so infinitesimal even if all went to plan. They were “asking” him to die for a long shot when he already didn’t think he was capable of. He didn’t think he could do it. His self-esteem was not the best.
Also, collectivism was not really his thing. He had people that he cared about, but they would all be either old or dead (his friends) or middle-aged (his students). The Hail Mary, even if successful, was not going to make a meaningful difference in most of the lifespan for any of the people he cared about. His students would either survive against the odds or they’d die of cold or hunger or starvation or sickness whether he succeeded or not.
They were asking him to die, in three hours, for the tiny chance of a better future for people he didn’t know. Everyone he did know would either survive or die without his input in the time it took for him to get there and the beetles to get back. He didn’t believe he could even do what they were asking him to do. They were asking him to die with no time to think or to choose, for the idea of a future for people he didn’t know, for a tiny chance of doing something that he didn’t even think he was capable of in any event.
Of course he said no! But if he had the time and space and a better reason, we know he would have said yes, because he did for Rocky.
Book Rocky: okay so I thought of this really cool design for a ball I could move around in so I wouldn't die in your atmosphere bc I reaaally want to see your ship, but I wouldn't want to impose. Would it be OK if I took a look around, question?
Book Grace: OF COURSE!!! I want to show you human technology! Lemme just go tide up real fast.
Film Grace: what the fuck are you doing in a ball
Film Rocky: didn't you hear?? We're roomies now. Why do you live in a dumpster, question?
Film Grace: you can't just say "we're roomies now"
Film Rocky: *holding up a sign that says "I CAN DO WHAT I WANT, STATEMENT"* sounds like a you problem. Let's make me a room I'm not going to live in this fucking mess
rocky: im not a scientist, im like the least qualified person on this ship, the only reason i survived while the actual scientists died was pure dumb luck :(
ryland grace's internal monologue like every five seconds: oh my god this guy is like a supergenius, he's literally the best engineer i've ever seen, there's no way every other eridian is this smart, like do you even KNOW how cool you are-
meanwhile grace is like: im a coward, im selfish, i put myself over the entire world, im not brave
and rockys like: grace is the bravest person ive ever met. he is brave and selfless in ways he cannot see yet and if he will not tell himself that then i will say it for him
Summary: You just finished your first read of what soon becomes your favorite book series, and now you have to beg your gothic literature obsessed boyfriend to read a young adult fantasy trilogy.
Pairing: Jason Todd x Amazonian!Reader
Word Count: 3.3k
Content Warning: Fluff, crack fic, small bantering, maybe a little cheesy, chill bf/dramatic gf dynamic, cursing, second person, no use of y/n, the folk of the air SPOILERS
A/N: This is for this request from @inesvisible !!! Thank you so much for it, i had WAY too much fun writing this. As always I hope you enjoy
•───────•°•🕮•°•───────•
The book closes with a thud in your lap. Head in your hands you begin mumbling versions of “ohmygod” and “holy shit” under your breath repeatedly.
From the other side of the couch, your boyfriend lifts his gaze from his book with a cracked spine and raises an eyebrow at you. An amused smile creeps onto his face as he watches you digest the last pages of your book. It might be a little odd, but Jason always enjoyed watching you read.
The reading dates you would set up were some of his favorites. You’d make cookies, tea, light a couple of candles, and the tv echoed with a soft jazz of whatever hour-long animal crossing video you’d found on YouTube (from what you’d told him, they made you feel less lonely). You’d never get more than two pages in until you started making faces, the expressions that would cross your features made him feel like he was reading the book with you. At some points you’d start mumbling the scenes to yourself without realizing. It was such a stark contrast to how Jason read; he typically needed complete silence to focus, maybe a lamp next to him, and he wouldn’t move from his spot on the couch for hours on end. He’d have one pen, possibly a highlighter to annotate if he was feeling colorful.
The only thing you both had in common while reading was how immersed you both got. The tea would cool to a lukewarm temperature, Roku City would cast a purple hue across the living room long after the YouTube playlist ended, the world could be ending outside, but you would both still be on the couch. The only interruption of the night being when you reached across the small expanse of the couch, in order to push his reading glasses back up the bridge of his nose when they’d slid down too far.
It was perfect.
“Did you enjoy your book baby?” His voice not quite succeeding in hiding the amusement of your reaction.
Your hands pause momentarily from wiping down your face and meet his painfully green eyes, awe painted across your cheeks. “It. Was. PERFECT.” He knew right then what was about to happen. So, he shut his own book delicately placing the pen between the pages and sat cris cross on the couch waiting for the inevitable rant that followed every one of your books. “Jason, I can’t even put into words how fantastic this trilogy was- I want to read them all again already.”
He snorted while watching you flail your hands around while explaining the plot. His eyes momentarily glanced down to the unassuming cover. You paid no mind to his drifting eyes and continued explaining how a human girl became the queen of the fae, something about not wanting to kill a snake because it was actually her husband, how she killed it and actually got her husband back, and how the main character finally got some form of peace in the end. He nodded along cataloguing every word that left your mouth.
“Jason you don’t get it,” apparently his small nods and hums wasn’t the response you were looking for tonight. “All she wanted for the three books was power, it’s all she worked toward. She would never make deals with the faeries, she never trusted them, never did anything to sacrifice her power. But when he turns into a snake, she starts begging to any higher up to bring him back.” He watched your hands brush through the roots of your hair, testing to see if that will help you conceptualize the brain altering series you just finished. “She says she’ll make any bargain- that she would even resign from her position as the queen to get him back. Do you know how insane that is for her to admit? It’s not out of character exactly, but that level of desperation. Oh my goodness it was life changing, that level of yearning is so ugh.”
He smiles at your recollection of the novel. You always spoke so much more passionately than him, the way your eyes sparkled after you finished a story rivaled every masterpiece in the Louvre. Jason always admired how you wore your heart on your sleeve. Despite to what he’d admit, you were both emotionally driven, but you were the only one who was proud of it.
“Jay, you have to read it.”
That brought him right back to earth.
Now, Jason is always taking book recommendations, but he had his lane and he liked to stay in it. He knew what genres he liked, what he enjoyed; so, he very rarely experimented outside of it.
“Baby…” he draws out the nickname, and you don’t even let him finish. Crawling over the mess of blankets on the couch, you sit up on your knees in front of him.
Hands clasped together your head is looking down and he’s trying to bite back the nervous grin at your display. “Please Jay, pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseeeeeee.”
He sighs out your name, and you look up at him hopefully. “You know I prefer reading classics.” Convincing him to read YA fantasy was going to be a difficult task, but you weren’t going to give up yet.
Dropping your hands you frown at him. His eyes narrow at the expression, he knew your tactics. “No-” was all he got out before you dropped the bomb.
“If you don’t love me just say that.”
He groaned and threw his head back. “C’mon don’t get like that.”
“I’m just stating the facts, Jason.” He brings his gaze back to yours, with a painting on his features that couldn’t be described as anything but unimpressed. Propping an elbow on the back of the couch you sigh in mock devastation while resting your head on your hand. “What’s a girl supposed to believe when her boyfriend won’t even read a book for her.”
He pursed his lips at the obvious manipulation. At his reaction, you stand from the couch. He tries to grab your arm to pull you back in, but you wiggle out of his grasp. It didn’t matter how much he worked out or that he was double your size, his strength was always going to be child’s play to you.
You pick up your book from where it fell on the floor, and your name falls from his lips like a plea.
That’s when it hit you.
You’re not entirely sure why that made it click, but you knew how to convince him to read the book. Turning away from him with a smirk, you walk the seven steps to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
His eyes are on your back the whole time. You hum for a moment before announcing, “No Jason I get it, it’s fine.” Alarm bells started ringing in his head, t levels of passive aggressiveness you could reach needed to be studied. That’s when you turn back to look at him, leaning against the kitchen counter, book still in hand. “But I’m sure if Diana asked, you would have finished them by tomorrow.”
His jaw practically unhinged at your statement with a scoff of disbelief.
When you were first introduced to his family a couple of months ago, his brothers teased him relentlessly. At first, you weren’t quite sure why they were poking fun at him with the fact that he was dating Wonder Girl. The general assumption was just that this is how brothers act, and you were the first girl he had brought home.
But after one too many comments about being Wonder Girl, you turned to Jason and asked a question that was supposed to be just for the two of you. Unfortunately for Jason, Dick heard. He practically howled when he heard you ask about why his siblings had a Wonder Girl obsession. Bruce did try to calm him down but it was no use; Dick had grown a shit-eating grin with a red-faced Jason threatening him from across the table. That’s when he betrayed his deepest secret.
Jason Todd’s childhood crush was Diana.
That’s when it clicked. Apparently, he was obsessed with Wonder Woman and Dick had to hear all about it in his early days as Nightwing. Alfred even pulled out a picture of Jason in a Wonder Woman sweatshirt and matching sweatpants, he couldn’t have been over than nine. He was missing one of his front teeth, but that didn’t stop him from smiling like he’d won the lottery. The photo was probably the cutest thing you’d ever laid your eyes on, Jason doesn’t know it, but Alfred gave you a copy of the picture. It’s treasured, hidden behind the photo framed on your nightstand.
His crush on Diana was the most innocent secret, and Jason had acted like someone had uncovered a body he’d hidden. He was nothing short of mortified when you found out, but behind the deep flush and scars on his cheeks you saw his freckles. A small ounce of evidence that the eight-year-old boy who became Robin was still there behind the years of cruelty.
There at that dining table, watching his family tease him, felt like a scab was healing. Because here, Jason Todd was more than just the Robin who once stared death in the eye. He was more than the child who watched the world fail him. He was the boy who let himself believe in magic again and allowed himself to fall in love.
Yet as much as you loved him, you never let him forget about his crush. It was most likely why he didn’t tell you or wanted you to find out. This was your favorite fact about him, and you used it against him constantly. It got to the point he made you agree to a truce where you wouldn’t bring it up anymore. He had actually begged you, dropped down onto his knees and all.
He knew you never meant it in a serious way. It was just really funny to you that he had a crush on your Diana, and the fact that he was embarrassed about it made it that much better. There was really no shame in having a crush on her either, it was a prepubescent rite of passage. It was harder to name people who didn’t have a crush on her at some point.
His eyes narrowing at you brings you back to the moment, “you said you wouldn’t use that anymore.”
“Yeah well, my word isn’t worth much.”
There’s a wrinkle in between his eyebrows from the confusion. “What the hell is that supposed to mean.”
Raising your arm with the book in hand, “you’d get it if-” you chuck the book at him. “You read the book.” The paperback hits him square in the chest and he catches it with his left hand, keeping it there for a second.
He rolls his eyes, but there’s a smirk he’s trying to hide. He never thought he’d get this life- to have someone who would laugh and read with him. He never believed he’d be gifted someone who would be soft with him despite all his rough edges.
Had it been anyone else, he would’ve told them to fuck off and forget about the book. For all his vices, his one virtue was that he could never deny you anything. He supposes that’s why he resigns to the idea. He was already picturing the smile on your face when he’d ask you about it. He could draw the way your eyes would shut from smiling so wide from memory.
So, with a deep sigh he throws his head back and mutters, “Fine, but I’m only reading the firs-”
Before he can even open his eyes or finish the sentence, your arms are wrapped around his head.
Your head was buried in the crook of his neck and the force from which you shot yourself across the room made him fell back into the couch. His hand instantly went to cradle the back of your head, with the other rested on your back as you laid on top of him.
You stayed like that momentarily, just lying there holding each other. The scent of your floral perfume felt like a breath of fresh air in the Gotham pollution he was accustomed too. Then after a second of him being able to breath again, all the air in his lungs is robbed from him as you prop yourself up over him. When he looks up at you, he thinks he can finally die happy. The way your hair falls around your face, the remnants of a laugh on your lips, the way you look incandescently happy behind your eyes- it was as if he was falling in love all over again.
“You’re going to love it, I promise.”
He gives you an “mhm,” since it was all his brain could manage to put together. He knew he would find some joy in it, even if he ended up not being fond of the book. If anything was tied to you, he would love it. It may not be his genre of choice, but he would find you in between the pages and that was enough.
•───────•°•🕮•°•───────•
As the days passed you could tell he was slowly getting more and more into the book. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, he was invested. You could tell by the little comments he’d give you as he read. He would pause in between reading and give you an inquisitive look if you were near, or he would shoot you a text or call. It made you laugh with every development from the first book.
“This Locke guy is giving me weird vibes.”
“Are you sure about Cardan? He’s kind of a dick.”
“Why won’t Madoc just let her be a knight? It’s not that serious.”
The updates he was giving you from the first book made you remember how much you’d forgotten.
“Dain’s bad news isn’t he?”
It was frustrating how easily he could decipher books and predict what are supposed to be shocking twists. There was Bruce to thank for that.
The call came in while you were watering your plants in your apartment.
“Madoc killed the royal family?”
The shock in his voice made you laugh.
“I told you, you’d enjoy it.”
He scoffed on the phone.
The next time you saw him he had finished the book. It was just a night for both of you to relax together after a long week. You weren’t sure of the specifics, but you knew he and Bruce were trying to crack down on something down at the Iceberg Lounge. He was burning himself out slowly but surely. And in a last-minute effort to give him a break, you planned one of your famous “wind down nights” with him.
He was currently lying on top of you and letting out soft moans into your neck while you played with his hair. For all his tough guy act, he really did love coming home and getting to just be an unapologetic version of himself with you. He didn’t have to be Robin, Red Hood, Bruce Wayne’s ward, he was just Jason.
And for the first time in his life, he knew that was enough.
“You can admit you liked the book y’know” Your voice came out breathless while his arms tightened around your waist.
He does nothing but hum into your frame. Shaking your head, you shift your head slightly and pull at the roots of his hair so that he can actually see you. Giving him a knowing look, he sighs in resignation.
“Yeah I thought it was good.” He mumbles.
You snort. “Wow I didn’t know it would be such a sacrifice to admit you liked something that wasn’t published a minimum of a hundred years ago.”
He sticks his tongue out at you in response.
A small huff of laughter escapes you, before you kiss his nose. “I saw you swipe the second book anyway. I knew you liked it regardless of what you said.”
“Then why make me say anything?”
“Because I wanted to hear you say that I was right.”
He rolls his eyes with no malice behind them. “I always tell you you’re right.”
Shrugging your shoulders, a sly grin grows on your face. “Still nice to hear.”
Then after a shake of his head, he leans in. The kiss was slow but passionate, full of everything he never had to say, that he was completely and irrevocably yours.
When he pulls away he’s got a wicked look in his eye.
“I think of you often, I can’t stop.”
It was a quote from the book- meant to be endearing you’re sure. But you can’t stop yourself from cringing at him.
“Oh my god,” you push him while you scrunch your nose and he laughs like he got the reaction he wanted. “You’re so cheesy you know that right.”
“Only for you baby.” He mutters retaking his place in the crook of your neck. “Only for you.”
•───────•°•🕮•°•───────•
Bonus:
“Stop moving your going to mess it up.”
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” He mutters while looking at your work.
His left hand is held in between both of yours. Your hunched over the bed while the brush of the black nail polish paints his nails.
“Jason It’s Halloween,” you mumble while focusing. “It’s not exactly unheard of to do a couple’s costu- There!” You pull away as you finish the final stroke.
He looks ever the part of the High King and you can’t help but snort.
“What’s so funny?”
“Well, it’s a little ironic no?” At the blank look on his face you decide to specify. “Well in the books Cardan is one of the fae and Jude is mortal. And well, I’m the Amazonian and you’re the human.”
“Is that one of the reasons you liked the book? It reminded you of us?”
“I mean a little bit, Jude reminded me of you though.”
There was an incredulous look across his face. “Really?”
“Yeah,” the answer was honest as it spilled from your lips. “When I first met you, you had the same distrust for the world which was warranted- for both of you. Then slowly, you started letting people into your circle and you actually became someone you were comfortable with. You see the same growth from Jude through the three books, and it reminded me of you.”
He looks stunned, as if he was watching you unlock the inner workings of his mind. You didn’t want to freak him out too much with the psychoanalyzing, so you dropped a little joke.
“You’re both also freakishly hot.”
He knew what you were doing. You’d done it more times than he could count. You had a habit of saying something funny when the air got to serious at a time that might not be appropriate. Yet, he couldn’t ignore what you said.
You’d seen him. He had been recommended so many books over the course of his life, but no one had shaped the recommendation because they saw a version of himself in a book. It was something he never knew he wanted. The version of himself that you were referencing wasn’t one he necessarily loved, but it still made his heart flutter. To know that someone saw every ugly nook and cranny there was of him and still chose to be with him at the end of the day. That someone would be there on the good days and the bad.
To know that someone loved him completely and blindly. He knew you loved him, but this made it feel like he was hearing it for the first time all over again.
He pulls you impossibly close to where you can taste his breath on your tongue,
“By you I am undone forever.”
•───────•°•🕮•°•───────•
A/N: Sooooooo this is my finally deciding that I’m going to do a reread of tfota.
project hail mary is like i'll make you believe that friendship will save the world. i'll make you remember that our society rests on the backs of teachers and scientists. i'll make you see that even the most cowardly can be brave. i'll make you horny for sandra huller. thank you greatest scifi film of the last 10 years
kaledo-art
origamiaround
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ellievsbear
