warnings/tags… set in season 5, sassy!reader, a bit wordy, does this align with canon? idk, prolly not, fwb!steve, food service employment trauma
The buzzing of the front door neon sign blends into the occasional non-commotion of Hawkins Pizza Hut.
Usually, the beat-up cars of lanky teenage boys would be whirring in and out of the parking lot, delivering a handful of pizzas to the families of four or five who decided to “take advantage” of the newly claimed Pizza Hut Fridays. This deal consists of 3 large pizzas and a liter of Coke (very obviously advertising the “new” Coke made to compete with its rival: Pepsi), and was quite a popular steal amongst the conventional Americans living in Hawkins, Indiana.
You’ve nearly memorized the deal after repeating it over and over again through the phone of an unknowing customer just trying to get “their usual”. As if you could recognize their voice that easily when there had been a hundred other middle-aged fathers trying to place an order for Michael.
“Thank you for calling Pizza Hut, how may I help you?” you perform, masking the gravel in your voice with a perky, upbeat flair. The mom on the other side of the phone sounded nearly as exhausted as you felt, though the cigarette fry that crackled in her vocal cords was quick to turn you off from smoking anything that would result in it. Spoken over by her order, you can hear a gaggle of children in the back screaming over something unimportant, no doubt the reason why this mother had been ordering pizza in the first place.
“Actually, Miss, we currently have a promotional Pizza Hut Friday deal that gets you three–” before you could finish your script, the woman cut you off with a short cough, ‘No thanks, sweetheart. Tell ‘em the address ‘s Forest Hills’ and a harsh beep that signaled the call was over.
You sigh, placing the phone back on his hook with a click! and turning to continue slipping through a new copy of Teen Beat from your backpack. The Hawkins Pizza Hut falls back into its soft neon sign hum and Billboard Top 100 radio.
Robert, the newest delivery boy, comes in to pick up the pizzas for the Forest Hills mom, thanking you with the nod of his head. He must barely be 16, you think, judging by the tacky curve of his hair and awkward motion of his limbs.
On his way out, Robert holds the door open for someone else to walk in. You guessed this from how a sudden wave of heat came from the summer night outsideand cut through the air conditioning. Though, you couldn’t have guessed who had walked through the front door.
Steve Harrington. Former King of Hawkins High, and now, neighborhood babysitter. To you, though, he was just a piece of shit overall.
A mannerable, customer service smile spread on your lips as he approached the front counter, thighs clad in lightwash jeans that seemed just one size too small. A small part of your brain wasn’t complaining, though.
“Welcome to Pizza Hut, how can I help you?”
Steve looks almost as irked as you felt, making it known with the obvious roll of his eyes. An astonishment crossed your mind: how did so many girls fall for this?
“Uh, yeah. Pick up for Harrington? I got four pizzas,” Steve says, successfully avoiding eye contact by sifting through his wallet for cash. He must’ve called in the order when Sarah was still working earlier this evening.
“Aw,” you pouted, looking pitifully at the crumpled pile consisting of an unidentified number of one dollar bills and a 20 he’d placed on the counter. You weren’t sure it even hit $27. “Spending your whole Scoopsies paycheck on 4 lousy pizzas? Whatever happened to your future, King Harrington?"
Steve debated telling you he’s now working for The Squak, but he decided against it when he realized how humiliating it would be explaining that his job was to play sound effects for Hawkins’ new radio station.
You stuck out your bottom lip, feigning sympathy. But Steve was caught on the ingenuine twinkle in your eye. Despite your condescention, he tilted his head ad gave you one of his classic Harrington smirks. “Says the girl working in the Hawkins Pizza Hut on a Friday night,” Steve jeered, “I see you’re still as stuck up as you were junior year.”
Ah yes, spring semester third period History with Ms. Click. The class where half of the kids would fall asleep to old VHS tapes of war renactments and the other half would push up the bridge of their glasses while explaining in gritty detail what the codes in World War I meant. You were closer to the latter, frequently volleying with Steve over the lack of respect he brought to the class. You always had a soft spot for teachers who often dealt with backtalk.
You gave Steve a tight-lipped smile, narrowing your eyes at the cocky raise of his eyebrows. Obviously, it wasn’t enough of an ego bruise that you had to spend your fall break home from college in the dingy Pizza Hut you’ve been working at since you were 17, because the universe decided to send you the same bad omen you’d been crossed with many times before.
After there was Ms. Click’s history class, there was Casey Walker’s Senior Halloween party. Admittedly, you didn’t know what you were doing when you had thrown back three beers in the span of two minutes, and you definitely didn’t know it would land you in Casey Walker’s bathroom with Steve Harrington’s tongue down your throat. The same Steve Harrington you’d hooked up with in the locker rooms of the public pool last summer after graduation and definitely the same Steve Harrington that was looking at you with the hungriest look in his eyes right now.
Hunger.
Oh right, the pizza.
You pick up the money from the table, scoffing off his diss with the shake of your head. “My hand’s feeling a little light from how amazing this customer service has been,” your hand weighs up and down comedically with your comment, the other hand offering up its palm for a tip. Steve doesn’t budge.
“Do the offhand sarcastic comments come with this ‘amazing customer service’?” he air quoted, resting his hip against the counter. You could tell he felt like one of the heartthrobs on the cover of a blockbuster tape. Maybe Michael J. Fox. “Or is there something else you could, uh… offer me?”
At this point, you weren’t surprised. If his looks didn’t make up for it, Steve would be just as desperate looking as the next guy in Hawkins begging for some action.
“Not happening, Harrington.” Your rejection was met with a sigh that was made for the silver screens. It was his turn to pout, except this time you were convinced it was at least one ounce real.
“How about this for a tip,” he started, licking his lips to channel that classic heartthrob energy. It was almost working. “You and me, Enzo’s, Saturday night at 6?”
“Is Steve Harrington asking me on a date?” you questioned. It was treated with a nod. A sincere nod.
You studied his face, noting the hopeful glaze over his eye and innocent upturn of eyebrows. There was no Harrington smugness on his face, only a soft curl of his lip that was more charming than any smirk. You wonder where this Steve came from.
A ding indicated that the kitchen had finished packing up another order. You turned to grab the four boxes of pizza, unquestionably for the pack of children he was most often seen chaperoning, and placed it in front of the boy.
pairing: steve harrington x reader
word count: 2.5k
summary: you don’t do dates. you do the backseat. you do frantic, messy sex on hideous shag carpet, killing time in a metal box while you both wait for the world to change, or maybe for it to just end. the rules of the crawl are simple. but whatever this thing with steve is? it's not even close.
warnings: 18+ mdni, st5 spoilers, friends with benefits to ...?, piv sex, touch/affection-starved!steve, sex as coping, ‘no-strings’ relationship, fwb with rules, rough hate sex, van sex, no-kissing sex (?), light power play, dirty talk, teasing/taunting, end-of-the-world angst, lil bit of mean!steve but in a nuanced s5 way, oh look he’s love-starved in this one again
a/n: ...fine. I caved. here’s angsty van-fucking w steve
Crawl nights always start out the same.
You, in the passenger seat, snapping gum between your teeth with your boots kicked up on the dash. Steve, slumped beside you, flipping through that same dog-eared copy of Cosmo he’s read so many times he could probably recite it in his sleep.
Crawl #8.
Two hours, eleven minutes, and counting.
The walkie’s been quiet tonight. And god, do you hate it. Because nights like this have started to feel dangerous in a whole new way. Because silence leaves room for thought, and thinking opens up doors you can’t afford to walk through right now.
The van’s parked beneath the treeline on Cornwallis, though it’s less than a pathetic excuse for a cover. The branches are stripped bare this time of year, skeletal limbs clawing at the sky, dripping silver in the cold moonlight.
There’s nothing to do here. Nothing to chew on except the same square of Wild Cherry Bubble Yum, sucking the sugar dry until the flavor’s gone and your jaw starts clicking louder than the aimless buzz of static.
It’s been months of this. Months of driving around in circles, chasing ghosts, getting nowhere. Months of Hopper’s vapid updates crackling through the radio while you and Steve rot in the van like two strangers locked in the same cage.
Except, you're not exactly strangers, are you?
No. Not after hours spent side by side in the dark, listening for things that aren’t there, waiting, hoping, pretending that this isn’t the closest thing either of you has had to a date in months.
But you don’t do dates.
You do the backseat.
You do frantic, messy sex on ugly shag carpet, killing time in a metal box while you both wait for the world to change, or maybe for it to just end already.
You fuck until it hurts, until your skin stings and your lungs burn, until the sound of your own blood is louder than the relentless beep-beep-beep-beep of the telemetry signal.
You fuck. You wait. Then you fuck again.
No restaurants, no movies. No roses or candles or foreplay.
None of that normal, mundane shit. Not anymore.
It’s just this. This van. This backseat. This hideous carpet and those cheap vinyl seats that squeak every time the car rocks.
This strange, suspended limbo where you touch each other like it doesn’t mean anything—just habit born of frustration and boredom—only it’s getting harder each time to keep pretending that’s true.
The windows are fogged up like hell tonight, late-December air leaking in through the busted seal on the back door. It nips at your skin, makes you squirm, sends a chill sharp enough to forget the gnawing emptiness that’s slowly eating you both alive.
Your foot’s wedged up against the ply lining, his jacket bunched beneath your head in a makeshift pillow. His skin glistens with sweat, slick to the touch; boy runs hotter than a furnace, even in the dead of a Midwestern winter. You feel his palms burn against the back of your thighs when he hoists up your legs, hooking them around his waist.
If you close your eyes, if you pretend hard enough, you can drown out the high-pitched beeps bleeding through the headphones beside you. Replace the crackle of static with the desperate slap of skin on skin, the creak of the van as it rocks and shudders with each snap of his hips.
But it's his voice that shatters your focus, his chest heaving against yours while he pants close to your ear:
“You know we’re—we’re not supposed to be doing this, right?”
No shit.
It’s kind of funny, actually. You almost laugh.
But the sound that comes out of your throat is less a laugh and more a strangled exhale, one that’s cut off and jagged because, well, it’s a little difficult to make noise when he’s fucking into you this fast, this hard, his weight pinning your ribs to the carpet with barely any room for air.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” you manage, voice thick with breath and taunting mirth. Your words get punched out in uneven bursts that match the frantic pace of his hips. “Did you want to stop so you can ask for permission?”
You tip your head back, glancing pointedly at the walkie sitting on the dash, then turn back to him with a smile so saccharine it's nearly cruel. Lips pouty, brows scrunched in mock sympathy, it’s all, Too much for you to handle, huh? Poor baby.
It’s the same bullshit game. Every time.
You poke, you prod, you tease and you push, because he always has to push back. The suggestion that he can’t keep up, can’t fuck you good enough to hold your attention, that’s his hairpin trigger.
You feel it in the muscle running down his back, how it ripples under your fingers as his pace quickens, hips snapping harder.
It used to fluster him. God, it used to make him sputter: pink cheeks, hand to the back of his neck, indignant little huffs and breathless excuses. Back then, a jab like that—must be losing your edge, huh, Harrington?—was enough to make him roll his eyes and pretend he didn’t care as much as he did.
But the end of the world has a way of sanding people down.
And Steve Harrington has been ground into something different.
Sharpened by way of dulling, it’s left him callous. Darkened his appetite where he once craved softness: vanilla sex, vanilla sweetness.
Now, he doesn’t flinch at sharp edges. Doesn’t crave the normal, mundane shit. Not like he used to.
“You’re really kind of—hah, fuck—insufferable, you know that?” He breathes, teeth dragging down the curve of your neck, lips sealing around your pulse point to suck. It’s not hard, doesn’t hurt, but it stings all the same when you realize he's keeping it gentle on purpose. Aiming for bruises soft enough to fade come morning. None of it ever meant to last.
“Insufferable, huh?” you murmur, laughter breathy and slurred as he grinds you down into the carpet. “Jeez, big word for a guy who—”
You don’t get to finish. Not when he shifts, driving up at an angle that has your back arching off the floor. The pressure makes you clench around him involuntarily, a sharp gasp torn from your throat.
“Who’s what?” He’s impossibly close now, nose to nose, every ragged breath he draws leaving you gasping for your own. His arms cage you in, sparing no room to squirm away as he quickens his pace. He’s zeroing in on one spot and one spot only, hitting deep enough to make your eyes sting, pressure winding tight in your stomach.
“Finish it,” he murmurs, undercurrent of a command that has you clenching around him harder. “You had something to say, didn’t you? Say it then. Come on, baby.”
And it’s strange, isn’t it? This push-pull inside him. The way he taunts with a word so sweet and disarming as baby. The way he’s rubbing over your clit, caressing, really; two fingers, gentle circles and careful pressure. His other hand’s holding yours against the carpet, only he isn’t holding you down, no, he’s holding you in. Holding you close, holding onto you, fingers laced together, palm to palm.
And all the while, he’s got you pinned under his gaze. Staring down over the bridge of his nose, molten amber, sharp as broken glass, those eyes don’t miss a single thing. Sweat beads at his temples, hair falling into his eyes with every thrust as he tilts his head just so, predatory smile playing at his lips while he revels in the rapid flutter of your lashes, the way you struggle to return his gaze.
You squirm under the weight of it all, his attention, his intensity, the thick press of him nudging deep-deep-deeper inside.
"Yeah? Right there?"
He lets out a quiet sigh, almost a laugh, tongue lolling out to drag across his bottom lip. A flash of white teeth, a hairline fracture in flawless porcelain, it’s all mock sympathy; Too much for you to handle, huh? Poor baby.
“You close already? Gonna come for me?”
“Shut u—oh my—fuck!"
The pleasure slams into you all at once, more pain than relief. You clench around him like a vice, pulsing helplessly, squeezing, whimpering, endless waves of blinding-white heat crashing through you. The force of it cuts deep crimson half-moons across his skin.
“Shit!” He comes not a second later, collapsing onto his elbows and burying his cry into your mouth.
You’re still trembling through the tail-end of your orgasm when he slants his lips, licking into you, tongue sliding over yours in a slow, insistent rhythm that steals what little breath you have left. You’re too wrecked to question it, too gone to do anything but part your lips for him, panting wildly into the heat of his mouth. The aftershocks are making your whole body jolt, stomach tensing each time he draws out slowly before sinking back in, fingers refusing to let up on your throbbing clit.
He doesn’t stop talking afterward, either. Never does.
Quiet praises muffled against your lips, words tumbling free like he can’t hold any of it in:
Yeah, there you go. Keep coming. Let me feel it. So pretty, you know that? All fucked-out on my cock.
The blood’s rushing so fast past your ears it’s hard to hear much of it at all.
And yet, in the deafening roar of your own pulse, his words feel more real than anything he’s admitted in the light of day.
That's it. All mine, just like this.
...
The Wild Cherry bubble pops in the quiet of the van.
A tacky patch of it clings stubbornly to the corner of your mouth, and you chase it with your tongue just to have something to do.
The van smells like warm vinyl and sweat. Crisp deodorant. Steve’s shampoo.
Heat still clings to your skin in places you don’t want to acknowledge. Your thighs tack slightly against the faux leather when you shift.
Another pop of the bubblegum punctuates the silence like a starting pistol, restlessness coiling in your stomach until it snaps into confession:
“I think we should establish some rules.”
Steve freezes mid-page flip. For a guy who acts like nothing rattles him anymore, he’s still a stickler for order. Rules are the anchor he clings to when everything else is falling to shit.
His eyes snap to you.
“Rules?” he repeats. “For what?”
As if he doesn’t know.
You don’t bother answering, just let your gaze drift to the back.
The place where you’ve been making all your worst decisions since Crawl #4.
The ridiculous, shag-carpeted shrine where your self-control goes to die on its knees. Where Steve Harrington’s mouth has done just about everything, including the thing Rule #3 is about to outlaw in permanent ink.
He follows your gaze, blinking once, twice. His jaw tightens so sharply you can hear his teeth click.
Looking back, that should’ve been your first warning.
But you, idiot that you are, reach into the glove box instead, pulling out the beat-up WSQK notepad with the frayed spiral and the coffee stain on the cover.
You start writing.
Rule #1: No talking about it outside the van.
Rule #2: No touching once we’re done.
Rule #3: No kissing.
Rule #4: This e—
“—Woah, okay, hold on—give me that.” He snatches the notebook from you mid-scribble, lifting it up to read.
His eyes skim the list, and you watch his expression shift in real time.
Steve Harrington has never been good at hiding his face. It’s always been a little unfair to him, expressive in ways he’d probably kill to tone down. He tries to school it now, but you catch everything.
Confusion. Disbelief. Annoyance.
“No talking… fine, whatever,” he mutters, eyes darting back and forth. “No touching once we’re—” He squints, incredulous. “No kissing?”
He looks up at you then, blinking like he’s waiting for the punchline.
“But... we did that already. Like, a lot.”
You clear your throat. “Yeah. That’s why we’re making this list now.”
Something in his expression pinches, subtle but sharp. “Right. Sure. I mean, yeah. Makes sense if you were... if you weren’t into it.”
You shake your head, unconsciously mirroring the divot between his brows. “It’s not about that, Steve. I just… I don’t want this turning complicated, that’s all.”
He scoffs, quick and humorless. “Yeah, 'cause there’s nothing complicated about this, right? What, a whole legal contract just so we can... make out in a van?”
“Make out?” you echo, raising a brow.
He reddens. “You know what I mean.”
Wordlessly, you pry the notebook from his hands and finish writing the last rule.
Rule #4: This ends when the Crawls end.
He falls silent. Stares at that line for a long time.
Long enough that you start to wonder if he’s about to laugh, or call this whole thing off, or just climb out of the van and never look back.
When he finally lifts his head, his eyes aren’t the same. They’re muddled, knotted, dark with something you’ll never be able to put words to.
“The hell does that mean?” he asks quietly.
“It means… when the Crawls are done, this stops.” you say, equally quiet.
He blinks, slow. Once at you. Once at the notebook.
His head drops again, nostrils flaring in a tiny, sharp breath.
The page crinkles under his thumb.
“Yeah,” he says finally, voice low. “Okay. Rules. Sure.”
That should’ve quieted the ache inside you. It only stirs it up worse.
He keeps his eyes fixed on the page, jaw working quietly as he idly spins the plastic ring along the spine.
He draws in a breath.
“Except, just—” He falters, swallowing it back with a light shrug. “That third one seems kinda unrealistic, don’t you think?”
You tip your head, letting your voice lilt playfully. “Why, you don’t think you could do it?"
His eyes snap to yours, quick, sharp, the dim light doing nothing to soften the way he's glaring.
You hold his stare for all of one, two, three seconds before he huffs and looks away, eyes rolling to the ceiling.
Without looking at you, he thrusts his hand out. “Gimme the pen.”
You place it in his palm.
Jaw tight, he bends over the page and scribbles something fast at the very bottom, the scratch of the pen hissing sharp.
You don’t see what he’s added until he tosses the notebook back into your lap.
And later—when the weight of your own choice collapses in on itself and you’re left trying to make sense of the pieces—you’ll remember the way his hand trembled.
You’ll remember the tight press of his lips. The quiet, swallowed words he never let out.
And you’ll realize this was the moment where things truly went wrong.
Two letters. Pressed so hard into the paper you can feel them from the other side.
you’ve both been working at the daily planet for a while & aren’t officially dating but cat has lectured you that many times to put everyone out of their misery and just FUCK already !!!
&&&& ur the biggestttttt tease ever. wearing low cut tops & running over to see him with reports in your hands like “clarkieeeee!!! got some things for you to look overrr” <3333 bending down to his desk justtttt enough so your pushed up tits are directly at his eye level. he’s lucky you turn your back to say hi to jimmy for a second so he has time to adjust the almost painful tightness in his pants :((((
but when you start leaving nasty lil sticky notes on his desk? he’s a goner.
it starts sweet….the cutest lil “thanks for the coffee!!” scribbles on your pink notes. but within a few days, you decide to start getting, fun, with it.
clark’s late, as always, rushing through crowds where his head peaks like a hundred feet over everyone, hurrying down to his desk, glasses slightly crooked and tie undone. he slumps down in his seat, eyes instantly catching the baby pink stuck to his notebook.
of course, he reaches out to open it. expecting maybe another thank you for the meal he bought you yesterday, something about an overdue article, a piece to look over. but his eyes almost pop out their socket when he reads it.
"i get wet at the thought of u ;)"
scribbled in a hot pink glitter pen you think you’ve had since 5th grade (this note was important, okay???!!!!), adorned with messy hearts.
clark chokes on his own spit, breathlessly creaking out to jimmy “uhm-goin’- going to- bathroom break” which lois hears, cocks a brow and shoots back “you don’t need to announce your bathroom breaks, smallville. you do know that right?”
“yea- jus’, uh- wan’ you guys to- to know that’s wha’- i’ll uh- be doing. that’s what i’ll be doing.”
lois gives him an ‘okay loser’ look and goes back to writing.
clark spent 15 minutes trying to clean his cum off the daily planet bathroom walls. pretty long bathroom break, smallville.
a/n - thank u to angel @inbred-eater for feeding into this idea 🐾
would you write for david’s character in we own this city?
heheheheh I haven’t finished the show all the way, but here’s a little something!
David McDougal x Reader; 18+; mdni
-
You hadn’t seen him in nine months.
Not since the last time he kissed you like it was a mistake. Like he regretted the sound you made when his hand slid up your spine. Like he hated how much he wanted to hear it again.
Back then, you weren’t partnered. Not officially. Just two names stapled together on the kind of half-dead case nobody else wanted. You stayed too late in the office, let exhaustion bleed into intimacy in ways neither of you were willing to name. Long glances across badge files. Knuckles brushing at the coffee pot. The hiss of breath in the back of a cruiser, your palm pressed flat to his thigh while he whispered don’t.
And then it was done.
No calls. No messages. No goodbyes. Just you, packing your shit into a box. Transferred. Out. Done.
Now, you’re back.
And he’s sitting across from you like nothing’s changed.
-
The Baltimore PD conference room is too warm. Stale coffee hangs thick in the air, and the AC hums uselessly above your head. You can hear someone shouting about warrants down the hall, their voice clipping through the open door. The table between you is scarred, old. Your folder rests against your thigh, edge curled like it’s been clutched too tight. Pen between your fingers, tapping. Measured. Rhythmic. A heartbeat you can control.
He’s leaned back in his chair like it doesn’t ache. One ankle crossed over his knee. That same wrinkled button-down he always wore when he was trying to pretend he slept. His sleeves are rolled to the forearms. His jaw’s still sharp under a week-old beard, and his eyes, tired and steady, don’t leave you. Not once.
Then he smirks. Just a shift in his mouth. Barely there.
“Look who came back after all.” His voice is lower than you remember. Scratchier. Like gravel ground into something smoother. Familiar enough to piss you off.
You don’t blink. Don’t give him the satisfaction. “They reassigned me,” you say. “You’re welcome.”
He makes a sound, and you don’t know if it’s a laugh or a sigh or a fuck-you under his breath, but it fills the space between you like smoke. He leans back farther in the chair, creak of the metal legs loud under the buzz of overhead lights.
He doesn’t say anything else.
Not what are you doing here.
Not you shouldn’t have left.
Not I missed you.
And he doesn’t have to, because it’s already crawling under your skin. The heat of his gaze, the way your name looked on the new briefing packet beside his, the slight tilt of his head when you walked in. Like he was bracing for a punch that never landed.
You shift in your seat, adjusting your blazer. Your collar’s a little too tight, like your own body is trying to shrink under the weight of this room. You’ve been in shootouts that felt safer than this silence.
He watches you, still not speaking.
The pen taps again. Once. Twice. You force your hand to still.
-
There’s a ring of coffee on the table between you. Half-finished reports. The quiet hum of a laptop screen. You stare at your notes, but all you can feel is the static buzz of memory. His mouth against your shoulder, his voice low at your ear, “You should go before I do something stupid.”
But you didn’t go. You stayed long enough to watch him undo your belt in the dark. Long enough to remember how he looked at you like you were a problem he didn’t know how to solve.
You left the next morning anyway. Didn’t even take the coffee he handed you.
Now? Now you’re partners. Officially. Temporarily. For the Gun Trace Task Force case. And he still hasn’t said your name again, like it’s some boundary he’s decided will erase whatever happened between you.
You glance up once and he’s already looking at you. That smirk is gone now. And his eyes, they’re not cold. Not distant.
They’re quiet. Like he’s not sure if you’re really sitting across from him. Like he doesn’t know what to do with you now that you are.
-
Two days later, you’re in a borrowed PD vehicle, crawling down Fayette at half-speed while the heat rises off the cracked pavement in shimmers. The air outside is thick. Baltimore’s kind of August, the kind that sits heavy on your lungs and smells like sweat and asphalt and something sour caught in the storm drains.
The windows are cracked just enough to let the street noise in, sirens two blocks over, someone yelling about being late for court, the rumble of a dirt bike cutting through traffic without a plate. The breeze is barely there, and the AC’s been fighting for its life since you pulled out of the garage.
You’ve barely spoken. You can feel the silence sitting between you like a third passenger, bloated, ugly, loud in the way it isn’t. The radio’s off. The GPS clicks every few minutes like it’s clearing its throat. You keep your eyes on the windshield, but your thoughts are stuck sideways.
You keep thinking about his hands. How they looked on your waist. How they held. Not like a man trying to fuck you, though he did. But like he wanted to remember the shape of you. Like maybe, if he didn’t let go, you’d stay.
Now those same hands are gripping the steering wheel like it owes him something. Knuckles tight. Forearms flexed beneath rolled-up sleeves. His wedding band finger still bare. You wonder if he ever wore one. If he’s ever belonged to someone like that.
The dashboard light flickers. You glance at the clock. “We’re late,” you murmur, voice low, half-hoarse from the stale air.
He nods once. “Surveillance got pushed. We’ve got an hour.”
You don’t respond but you both know what that means.
Field overnight. Motel.
Neither of you says the word, but it echoes anyway. Loud as gunfire in your chest.
You pull your badge from your bag, thumb running over the scuffed plastic. Then your burner. Then a tin of mints you open just to do something. Your fingers shake more than you expect. You close the tin before he sees.
You don’t look at him. Not when he glances at the dashboard again. Not when his jaw clenches, like he’s thinking better of something. Not when he pulls into the motel parking lot, gravel crunching beneath the tires.
The place looks like a thousand others. Beige, boxy, bleached in sun. Two floors. Thin railings. Soda machine with a flickering LED. The kind of building that always smells like mildew and cover-up spray, no matter how clean the sheets are.
You stay in the car. He gets out first, leaves the engine running. The driver’s side door closes with a dull thunk. You watch through the windshield as he walks up to the check-in window, posture rigid, hand on his badge like it’ll make this less awkward.
You can’t hear his words, but you know the rhythm, requesting two beds. One room. Field rate. Flashing the ID. Politely distant, so no one thinks twice.
The clerk says something, and you don’t hear the reply. You hear the way David’s voice goes sharp and tight, like it’s caught on a hook. “…That’s fine.”
You close your eyes. Just for a second. Just to let the moment pass through you.
When he comes back, he tosses the key card onto the center console and says nothing.
You don’t look at him when you pick it up.
You just get out of the car.
-
The air outside hits like a slap. Humid. Stale. Stinking of car exhaust and cigarette ash. Your blouse clings to your back within seconds, sweat pooling at the base of your neck, soaking into the band of your bra. You sling your bag over your shoulder and follow him without a word.
He walks ahead without glancing back, his steps loud against the metal stairs.
You wonder if he’s hoping you’ll turn around. You wonder if he’s hoping you won’t.
The key clicks in the lock and the door creaks open.
One room. One bed.
The room smells like off-brand bleach and old carpet. That heavy, synthetic tang that never quite masks the years of sweat and cigarettes soaked into the walls. The curtains are stiff with dust. The light by the bed flickers once when you flip the switch, then hums a dull, yellow glow over the cracked lampshade.
There’s one bed. A full.
The kind of mattress you’d never choose, but it’s there, soft in the middle, the blanket tucked within an inch of its life. Neutral enough to pretend it means nothing.
You toss your bag to the floor with a thud. The zipper clinks against the radiator. You kick off your boots and don’t look at him. Not when he shifts behind you. Not when he exhales, quiet and sharp like he’s biting something back.
You cross the room and close the bathroom door behind you with a soft click. The mirror’s fogged on one corner even though there’s no steam, just a shitty seal. The light overhead buzzes faintly, like a trapped fly. You turn on the tap and cup cold water into your palms, splash your face, run it down your neck.
You drag a hand through your hair, push it off your forehead. The ends cling to your temples. In the mirror, your reflection looks pale. Tight. Jaw locked. Mouth set in a line like you’re bracing for an interrogation, not this
Through the thin walls, his voice cuts in. Rough. Unapologetic. “I’ll take the floor if you’re gonna pretend we’re strangers.”
The words echo.
You move slower now, reaching for the scratchy motel towel, dragging it down your face like you can wipe away the heat blooming in your cheeks. You dab your collarbone, your jaw. Still staring at yourself like you might crack under the pressure if you blink too hard. Then you open the door.
He’s leaning against the dresser, arms crossed. Gray undershirt stretched across his chest, collar loose, fabric worn thin at the edges like he’s had it longer than he should. His forearms are bare, tanned, freckled, lined with tension. His knuckles are pale against the curve of his biceps.
He looks up. Eyes half-lidded, unreadable. Tired. Like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and it’s catching up to him all at once.
You walk past him slowly, deliberate, a breath closer than you need to be, and your arm brushes his. Heat sparks where skin meets cotton.
“We’re not strangers,” you say, voice low. Even.
He doesn’t move, but something changes. A tick in his jaw. You hear the way his breath catches. Just a little. Like maybe he wishes you were.
You toe off your socks one by one, push them aside with your foot, and straighten. “Just bad at staying gone.”
That gets his attention. His eyes sharpen. And when he speaks again, his voice has lost its patience. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “You were.”
Your head turns.
And there it is. That look. That thing between you that never died, no matter how many months passed. No matter how long you went pretending it hadn’t happened. That slow-burning, gut-twisting ache of something that’s never been finished.
The motel light flickers, shadows shifting across the carpet.
He’s still standing by the dresser, but his shoulders are tighter now. His hands have dropped to his sides. His feet shift like he’s not sure if he should move forward or turn around and leave the room.
You look at him then. Fully. The curve of his throat. The deep lines around his mouth. His chest rising with each quiet breath, slow and deliberate like he’s talking himself down.
You should lie down. Turn off the lamp. Pull the blanket over your head and pretend it’s just another surveillance night. You’ve done it before. You could do it again.
But then you say, “You look tired.” It’s barely a whisper. A peace offering. A challenge.
His brow furrows like he doesn’t know what to do with that softness. But he steps closer. “So do you.”
Your mouth is dry. You swallow once. Your arms are still at your sides, fingers twitching like they want to do something. Touch him, maybe. Or shove him. Or both.
“You gonna do something about it?”
The air goes still. No sirens outside. No hum of conversation through the paper-thin walls.
Just him. Right in front of you now.
And just like that, the dam breaks. He kisses you like he never stopped. Like the months didn’t matter. Like he hated that you made them matter.
Your back hits the wall with a dull thud, drywall biting into your spine. His hand is already on your hip, rough and firm, thumb digging into the soft space just above your waistband like he’s planting a flag. Like your body remembers who it belonged to before either of you were willing to admit it.
His other hand curves around your jaw. Not rough. Not possessive. Just there. Solid. Grounding. Like he’s checking you’re still real, still warm, still you.
You feel it all at once: the heat of his chest against yours, the tension coiled in his arms, the prickle of stubble on your chin as he tilts your face up. His mouth tastes like burnt coffee and old breath mints, but it doesn’t matter. It’s him. Bitter and familiar. The ache you tried to forget.
You don’t realize you’re shaking until he presses in fully, every inch of him against you, thigh slotting between yours, his body heat chasing away the motel chill still clinging to your skin. Your hands find his shoulders, your fingers curling in the thin cotton of his undershirt.
“You think I didn’t want you here?” he growls against your mouth, voice gravel-rough and splintered at the edges.
You gasp, breath hitching. “Didn’t act like it.”
He pulls back just enough to meet your eyes. Just enough for you to see the storm behind his. “I was pissed.”
“At me?” you ask, heartbeat stuttering.
“At myself,” he murmurs. “For letting it get that far. For not stopping. For not fucking calling you.”
Then he kisses you again, harder this time. Like punishment. Like prayer. His teeth catch your lower lip, and when you whimper, he swallows it down like oxygen.
All those quiet months crash into the space between your ribs. Every unanswered text, every moment you forced yourself not to scroll through old call logs, every night you laid in a bed that wasn’t his, thinking about how he touched you like it wasn’t allowed but still did it anyway.
He walks you backward to the bed, not with force, but inevitability. Your knees hit the edge of the mattress. His hand is already tugging at the hem of your shirt, pushing it up, fingers skating over your ribs.
The lamp casts a dim amber glow over everything, enough to turn the shadows into water, to make his eyes look darker, deeper, hollowed out from everything he never said.
“Take off your shirt,” he says, voice like gravel soaked in heat. Like it costs him something to ask.
You do. Slowly. Deliberately. Letting the fabric peel off your skin, your spine arching as it passes over your head. You drop it to the floor, and his gaze drags over you like a touch, neck to breast to stomach, so heavy it nearly buckles your knees.
His mouth is on you before you can breathe.
He kisses your collarbone, then lower, across your sternum, down your ribs. Not neat kisses. Open-mouthed, tongue dragging, teeth scraping just enough to make you shiver. You feel his breath on your breast before his mouth closes around it, warm, wet, needy. His hands are all over you now, one palming your ass, the other dragging down your spine, possessive and greedy like he’s trying to learn everything again before he forgets.
Then he’s undoing the button on your jeans. His knuckles brush the soft skin just below your bellybutton, and he curses under his breath, “Jesus, you’re warm”, before pushing the denim down your thighs, fast and clumsy and so familiar it knocks the air out of you.
When his fingers slide beneath your underwear and find you already soaked, he exhales sharply through his nose like he’s trying to keep control. Like the full weight of it just hit him.
“Fuck,” he mutters, jaw tight. “Just as good as I remember.”
You bite your lip, eyes fluttering. The pressure of his fingers is maddening, just resting there, not moving, letting the pad of his middle finger slip through your folds in slow, wet passes. Testing. Measuring.
“Then stop teasing.” Your hips twitch, seeking more.
He looks up at you, dangerous, wrecked, and somehow still fucking smug. “Not teasing,” he says. His voice has dropped lower, raspier. His finger circles your clit, feather-light, enough to make your breath catch. “I’m learning you again.”
He presses in deeper. One finger. Then two. The stretch is perfect, your body pulling him in like it’s been waiting. Like it never stopped waiting. His free hand braces at your waist as he sinks to his knees, mouth dragging down your stomach.
Your breath hitches sharply, involuntary.
“David!”
He shushes you. Not gently. “You gonna let me,” he mutters, mouth at your hip, “or you gonna keep fucking talking?”
You come on his fingers and mouth once, quiet, gasping, thighs shaking around his wrist. Your hands are flat against the motel sheets, nails digging in, trying to ground yourself as your muscles twitch and your breath stutters.
He watches the whole thing. Eyes locked on your face as you fall apart. His fingers still moving. Just a little. Just enough.
Then, before you can even catch your breath, he kisses you. Hard. Brief. A warning. And lowers himself back between your legs. No teasing. No clever line. Just his mouth on you like he’s starving. Like this is the thing that kept him up for months. The thing he jerked off to in the dark. The thing he didn’t let himself need.
And now that he’s got it? He’s not stopping.
His tongue parts your lips, slow and deep, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of you. He flattens it against your clit, drags it in wide, deliberate strokes that send sparks down your spine. You cry out, head tipping back into the mattress.
He groans into you. It vibrates through your pelvis.
You thread your fingers into his hair, messy, too long at the crown, and tug.
Hard.
He moans. Loud.
Then licks you again, dirtier this time. Messier. His mouth wet, open, sucking you into him like you’re the last good thing he’s allowed to taste. When your hips twitch, he locks his arms under your thighs and pulls you closer, mouth dragging deeper like he wants to drown.
Your heel slips on the comforter. You hook your calf over his shoulder to stay grounded.
“Jesus, David.”
He doesn’t pause. Just growls something low and incoherent into your cunt like he’s lost the ability to speak properly. His nose brushes your clit as he licks into you, and when you whimper and twist your fist in his hair, he humsx pleased. Proud. Addicted.
You come again. A jagged, toe-curling second orgasm that crashes through you like a freight train. Your thighs try to close around his head, he shoves them back open without lifting his mouth.
“Fuck, David! Fuck!” You’re panting. Barely conscious. Barely there. But he doesn’t stop.
You come again. Third time’s sharp, high, wrung out of you like a cry for help. By the time he’s kissing his way back up your body, your skin is soaked in sweat, flushed and buzzing with aftershocks. Your hips are still twitching, your lips parted like you’ve forgotten how to breathe.
He braces over you, mouth shiny with you, chin slick, eyes dark.
You’re clinging to him like your nerves haven’t stopped vibrating.
“I didn’t…fuck. I didn’t think you’d still want this,” you whisper, voice raw.
His forehead drops to your collarbone. He nods, barely there. “I tried not to.”
Then he reaches between you, lines himself up, and thrusts in deep. Like he’s pushing the truth into you with every inch.
You cry out, your nails dragging down his back, your legs curling around his hips like you need to hold him there. Like if he leaves you now, you’ll split open. He doesn’t pull back right away. Just stays buried to the hilt, his chest heaving against yours.
When he moves again, it’s deliberate. Controlled. His hand comes up to your jaw, tilting your face toward his. His eyes never leave yours. He fucks you like he’s angry you made him feel this way. Like every thrust is a punishment. Like this thing between you is too big, too dangerous, and he’s trying to break it down into something physical, something he can handle.
“This doesn’t mean anything, right?” you whisper, half-laugh, half-spite.
His hips slam forward, hard. Deep enough to knock the breath out of your lungs.
You gasp.
He presses his forehead to yours, panting now. Shaking. “Don’t start, woman.”
“Say it,” you breathe, voice cracking. “Say it didn’t mean- oh!”
He slams into you again, rougher than before. The slap of skin echoes in the cheap motel room. You yelp, hand flying to his bicep. He grabs your thigh and hikes it higher around his waist, locking you in place.
“You want this to mean nothing?” he growls. “That what you want, sweetheart?” He fucks you harder. “Want me to pretend you’re just a good lay?”
Another thrust. The bedframe groans. “You want me to stop thinking about you every goddamn night?”
You don’t answer. You can’t. You’re shaking, mouth open, eyes wide.
“You stayed,” he says again. Quieter. Hoarser.
He slows, but doesn’t soften. “You always fucking leave, but you stayed this time.”
You reach up, palm to his cheek, and feel the scrape of stubble bite into your skin. His jaw is clenched so tight it’s shaking. “I always come back to you,” you whisper.
He looks at you for a long second.
Then he kisses you, once, twice, over and over. Quick, desperate, ruined kisses that say everything he won’t. His hips don’t stop moving. He’s still buried in you, still fucking you like he’s trying to leave bruises in your soul.
When you come again, you’re already crying. He follows you over seconds later, buried deep, moaning your name into your shoulder like it’s the only thing he still believes in.
This time, he doesn’t pull out. This time, when you fall asleep with his hand on your stomach and your legs tangled with his, he doesn’t move.
summary: you survive the metropolis museum and just really miss clark. its a shame you have to settle for a disappointed superman instead
content: a lecture from superman, clark kent is silly, everyone's in love!!
As it turns out, the building toppling into the museum was kind of Superman-bait.
You figure this out on your hospital bed, the gash on your arm freshly wrapped in bandages and gauze. You're embarrassingly winded after all those lung tests, and are still seeing spots from when you had a light shone into your eyes. Though her work is done, the nurse who did it is hovering over your side, her eyes fixed to the TV.
“There’s a major development in our story involving the Metropolis Museum of Art,” one of the newscasters begins, her tone rehearsed in that way all people on TV speak. “We have just received word that the collapse of its neighboring building, an empty but newly built office complex, was caused by an explosive placed on its fourth floor.
“Officials believe that this device was planted to distract emergency services from the bank robbery in the Central Business District. While it is still unclear how much money was stolen, early estimates suggest losses upwards of seventy-thousand dollars. Bill Rossi is on location with the details. Over to you, Bill.”
The screen cuts to a man in his mid-forties, his mustache thick and his lips pressed thin. There’s a few awkward seconds where he stares into the camera before smiling. “Thank you, Linda. Eyewitnesses believe that this may have been the work of some metahumans, with some reporting seeing ‘a blue figure with a laser gun’ blowing a hole in the side of the building…”
Your focus wanes as the camera pans over to the bank, blue goo dripping down where a wall used to be. First responders rush across the screen, walking through the wreckage of it all.
You wonder again why you chose to live in Metropolis over Central City.
You’ve never been so excited to see the steps out of the metro.
Your arm aches like crazy and you really just wish you could call Clark, but your phone fell out of your purse sometime when you were being rushed to safety.
It’s hard not to believe that this isn’t another example of the universe punishing you. You wanted a Clark-free day, and it’s what you’re getting.
Instead, you’re forced to settle for his freaky doppelganger, because Superman is leaning against a streetlight a few feet away from your metro exit.
The sentence sounds insane to even think about, but it’s a fact. He waves and grins at the few people who pass by, who beam smiles back at him. You get the urge to prod at his dimples, which are made even more pronounced by the upturn of his lips.
You weren’t lying when you told Clark that you thought Superman was great. As you walk past him, a kid wraps herself around one of his legs, and he crouches down to talk to her. The girl’s dad trails behind her, looking just as starstruck as he speaks with the hero about the thunderstorm that hit Metropolis last night.
Superman seems so genuinely happy about getting the chance to talk to everyone, and you find it surreal that he’d saved you just a few hours ago. You can’t wait to tell Clark about your first meeting with his not-friend.
Superman’s gaze lands on you, and you feel your heart break free from your ribcage.
He’s just as striking up close, the sweetness of his face offset by the intensity of his eyes. A frown flips his features, and he kindly excuses himself from the conversation he’s having before he…
Huh. That’s funny.
Superman starts walking somewhat in your direction.
You turn your eyes forward and keep walking. His gaze is so intense, you almost feel bad for anyone who’s ever been on the receiving end of it.
The rich timbre of his voice drags your thoughts away from your walk. Distantly, you hear, “Excuse me, I need to speak with you.”
Your steps falter ever so slightly, but you continue walking. You resist the urge to be nosy and look to see who Superman is flagging down, instead looking in your purse to make sure Clark’s dumb paperweight is still inside. You hadn’t checked if it’d cracked in the commotion, and you feel a little sick at the thought. You’d almost died for this thing, after all.
“Ma’am?” Superman says again. This time, he’s right beside you.
For the first time since you’ve gotten discharged from the hospital, you stop moving.
You hadn’t had much time to really look at Superman earlier. He’d flown you out of the museum and said something a little rushed and frantic — maybe a ‘get to safety!’ — before he was hurrying back inside to save more lives.
As you stare up at him now, you have a little more time to really look at him. He sounds beyond upset, but he’s just as gorgeous as he is on TV — a fact that you’ll be sure to leave out when you recount this to Clark.
You turn around to see if someone is standing around you, and frown when you come up empty. The only person on this half of the street is you.
“Oh. Hello, Superman. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were talking to me.”
“I understand. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve been meaning to speak with you,” he says, his hands falling to his hips. His eyebrows are knit together in what looks like… disappointment. You can’t help but feel like you’re in trouble.
“Okay,” you say, drawing out the last syllable. You can’t quite tell if the hospital was thorough enough in their concussion screening. “Do you mind if we do this while we walk? I really need to get back to my apartment.”
“Of course.” His voice is so agreeable you find yourself getting a little distracted. He redirects you by kindly gesturing ahead, and you find yourself leading Superman back to your home.
“Would you like me to fly you there?” he offers. “I’m sure it’d be a lot faster.”
“No, thanks. It made me a little sick last time.”
It’s not that big of a deal to you, but Superman’s frown seems to worsen. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it could make people feel like that.”
“Don’t be. It was either that or getting crushed by a falling building, right?”
Your joke seems to fuel Superman’s bad mood even more. You walk a little faster, letting him lengthen his strides.
“That’s actually what I wanted to speak with you about.”
“The museum?”
He nods, and when he turns to look down at you, the edge of his cape brushes your arm. The fabric is impossibly soft.
“When I found you, it seemed like you were walking further into the building. Is that correct?”
You wrack your brain to the moments before you were taken out of the building. Had it really only been three hours ago? It feels like it’s been a week since then.
“Well, kind of. I wasn’t trying to, like, run into the flames or anything, but I was picking up something I’d dropped. And it just happened to be further away from the door.”
The vein on his forehead seems to twitch. “Do you understand how dangerous that was?”
Your head throbs similarly. “Sorry, what?”
You aren’t sure you’re hearing him right. Is Superman… trying to lecture you?
“I feel the need to ask you what you were thinking,” he says, completely serious. “You were putting your life at risk.”
“I was hardly in danger.” You only half believe that, but can’t find it in you to agree with him. He’s somewhat hijacked your walk home, after all. “It was only an extra few seconds that I was inside the building. And, did it really matter? You were there to save me, anyway.”
“And I’m glad I was.” Superman says, his eyebrows bunching together. “Who knows what could’ve happened if I wasn’t there? Those seconds could’ve been the difference between life and death.”
You frown, but don’t respond. He’s stopped trailing slightly behind you and is now walking alongside you, absorbed in his rant.
“What could’ve possibly been so important that you were willing to risk your life for it?”
Someone gives you an odd look as you pass by. You can only imagine how weird this looks: Superman arguing with a civilian in the middle of the street. It definitely isn't something you see everyday.
Or any day, actually. You've never heard about Superman lecturing someone on proper emergency response before.
“It was a paperweight.” The admittance kind of hurts. It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud. “A Superman paperweight from the museum.”
He blinks, his eyes widening a fraction. He stutters out something, and you tilt your head, confused.
“I need you to understand that what you did was incredibly stupid. You can not and should not be putting yourself in danger for— for a thirty dollar piece of glass!”
You’re impressed at how accurate his price guess was, but irritation still flares up in your chest, souring your mood. “No offense, but you can save the lecture for someone who needs it. I’m not an eight year old.”
He holds up a finger to correct you. “Clearly, you do need it—”
“You’re not my friend or my boss,” you say, just like an eight year old, “so I appreciate the concern, babe, but I think I’m fine.”
Superman’s steps falter. His eyes glance upward. Then, they shift somewhere to the left of you. Your eyes widen as the apples of his cheeks pinken with blush.
The shiftiness, the glancing away and then around before back at you… you’ve seen it all before.
Superman has the exact same reaction to the nickname as Clark.
His doppelganger, the same man who looks just like the superhero when his glasses are off. But that couldn’t possibly mean…
No.
There’s no way.
Are you seriously considering the idea that Clark is Superman? Just because they get embarrassed the same way?
You’re being ridiculous. Superman’s name is Kal-El, and he’s some guy from Krypton. You’ve read Clark’s articles about him, the ones he’s written after interviewing him.
Interviews only Clark seems to be able to get.
You must be concussed. You're definitely just confused.
Superman continues to rattle off words at you, almost pouting with how frustrated he is. The words enter in one ear and out the other as you take him in.
From a distance, he and Clark look similar enough. They’re around the same height and have the same hair color, and the strands free of gel even seem to curl the same way. They share perfect dimples, and even though Clark hides in those baggy suits of his, you’ve seen him in those nice t-shirts he has. There’s no hiding that frankly, he’s built. Just like the man speaking with you now.
But Superman shows his face. All the time. He’s not like Batman or The Flash with their masks and hidden identities. Superman is a real man from Krypton, who probably goes home to his massive superhero lair under the city. Not your little apartment complex by the park.
But… there was the blushing. The way Superman knew exactly how much the paperweight was — the same paperweight Clark complained was too expensive. The way he knew just what metro stop you’d be getting off at, and his odd interest in your safety.
Your head is reeling.
“—I don’t have to be your friend or your boss to be worried about you,” Superman says when you tune back in. You stare blankly at the outline of his back. Could this really be Clark? “It’s up to all of us to look out for each other. The job doesn’t just fall to the people we know.”
Superman walks alongside you a little too naturally, like he’s done it a million times before. He even interrupts his rambling to remind you to watch your step when you pass by the sidewalk with the broken slab of concrete. The way he leads the charge back to your apartment is like second nature.
“So, I’m sorry, if you didn’t want to hear this, but it was very important to me that I spoke with you about this,” Superman says, gesturing very seriously.
At the end of the street, you let your steps slow, gaze fixed on the man as he continues to speak.
He’s frowning when he says, “I’m sure that you have plenty of people at home that care about you and worry about your wellbeing. So, when you act recklessly like this, you’re not only—”
Without a spoken direction from you, or with you gesturing in any way, Superman turns on his heel and leads you around the corner. Right in the direction of your shared apartment.
You grab the back of his flowing cape and tug.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t do much. He staggers back a step, but you think it’s more to do with the shock of you pulling him back, rather than any show of your strength. Superman whirls on you, startled. You step forward until your chests are nearly an inch apart, staring directly into his eyes.
“What—”
“Clark Kent,” you hiss under your breath. “You must be very proud of yourself.”
His features blow wide with shock. He blinks owlishly, surprise swimming in his blue eyes. “W-I’m not… What?”
“Oh, come on, farmboy.” You lean back to cross your arms, frowning. “I can’t believe all it took was one conversation with you in your costume to figure it all out. You couldn’t have at least pretended not to know where our apartment was?”
Superman — Clark — pulls you closer by your shoulders, holding your injured arm very gently. He throws a few glances around the empty street, like he’s checking to see if there really is no one around. It's only when he’s certain the area is clear that he coughs and lets you go.
“That’s a pretty big assumption,” ‘Superman’ says, his voice taking on an even more authoritative tone. “And one that’s untrue.”
“Superman.” Your voice softens as you say it. He stands up straighter, like he’s trying to make himself even larger than life. “You can hide under that cape all you want, but Clark Kent is going to bleed through no matter what.”
He opens his mouth, about to protest, but you continue.
“You still blush when I call you ‘babe,’” you say, watching his face light up with embarrassment. “And you still nudge me twice to switch spots so you can walk closer to the street.”
“I—That’s… you can’t…” His lips flatten into a line, frustrated, while he wrestles with what to say. When he grimaces, it looks all too familiar.
It does nothing but make you more sure.
The man in front of you is your best friend. There’s no doubt about it.
A second later, the urge to argue leaves him.
He drops his voice to a whisper, and you finally hear it for the first time today.
There’s no Superman-tone-of-voice when he speaks, no puffing out of his shoulders, or a dazzling smile meant to put scared people at ease.
He’s just your Clark when he asks, “Can we talk about this at home?”
(For the second time in one day, Clark takes you flying. This time, he makes sure to go a lot slower.)
“Krypto,” you echo, slumping back against his couch cushions. “You named your dog Krypto.”
Clark looks the picture of innocence in front of you, your knees knocking together where he sits in front of you on the ottoman. He’s since changed out of the Superman suit at your request — the sight of the symbol on his chest was making for a very distracting conversation.
As you look at Clark now, in a pair of jeans and one of his old Hanes t-shirts, you have a hard time believing the words he’s saying. He looks like any old person you’d find on the streets of Metropolis while he explains the powers and the flying to you.
Maybe you should’ve made him leave the suit on.
“He’s not even mine. I was just… dogsitting.”
“No wonder you refused to tell me what his name was.”
Clark smothers down a smile. “A bit on the nose, isn’t it?”
“Hmm. Just a bit.”
You take another sip from the glass of water he gave you. He’d told you that you were only allowed to ask questions if you’d finished the cup, but you know he’d answer no matter what.
“The whole thing with the yellow sun is pretty crazy,” you add thoughtfully. “If you photosynthesize, does that mean you’re kind of like a plant?”
“Well, I don’t photosynthesize, so, not really.”
You make a noise that’s between a scoff and a laugh. “You said, and I quote, ‘the Earth’s yellow sun is the source of my powers.’ That sounds a lot like photosynthesis to me.”
It’s kind of endearing how seriously he takes your half joke. He perks up at the chance to explain something. “Plants don’t have powers, the last time I checked, but I understand where you’re coming from. They’re converting light energy to chemical energy, but—”
Clark trails off when he looks over at you, and you don’t bother with hiding the smile on your face.
“...You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you? So you don’t have to hear the rest of my lecture about your safety?”
“There’s more?” You try not to sound shocked when you say it, but you do. “And it’s not my fault you’re so easily distracted, Superman. All I did was ask you if you’ve been faking being asleep all this time. You were the one who wanted to go into the specifics of if it’s really necessary for Kryptonians to eat food or take naps.”
He mumbles something like, “It was a really good question, actually,” before he replaces the empty glass you’re holding with his own hand. He tugs you up from the couch and you trail behind him dutifully.
You swipe over his calloused palm and squeeze until he has to let go.
He moves to the fridge and you watch him intently from your new seat atop his counter. You really like Clark. You find yourself charmed by most things he does, whether he’s hunched over his laptop working or filling up your cup.
He presses his side against your left thigh when he hands it back to you. “Here you go.”
You feel warm. “Thanks, superstar.”
Clark’s eyes shine. “That’s going to be right up on the list of nicknames with farmboy, isn’t it?”
“Oh, you bet. I’m trying to decide which one I like better.”
“I’m partial to both, I think.”
“That’s good. I like Big Blue, too.”
“I’m sure Green Lantern will be stoked to hear that.”
You lean heavily on his shoulder, and he curls an arm around you, taking care not to disturb the bandages around your bicep. Usually, you’d find the silence in the room discomforting. But there’s something so natural about being in Clark’s apartment, letting him bring you glasses of water and teasing him about whether or not he’d classify as a plant.
He squeezes your side and you let out a pleased sigh.
“Hey,” he teases. “You wanna explain why you were at the museum and not halfway to Civic City earlier?”
Right. You’d almost forgotten that you’d lied to him about that. Your chest pangs with regret.
“I was buying you a gift.” You gesture back in the direction of his front door, where you left the piece of glass by his key dish. “Remember? The ridiculously expensive paperweight?”
“Yeah, I remember.” His voice is light, but you recognize this sidehug for what it really is.
Clark is softening you up to get you to confess. And the worst part is — you think it’s going to work.
“What was the occasion, though?” he adds, very nonchalantly.
“No occasion,” you answer quickly. You squeeze your eyes shut and try not to lean too close to him. “It was just because.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s real sweet of you.”
“Well, you’re a sweet friend.” You press your lips together firmly to try and resist the urge to spill your guts to him. “You don’t believe I’d buy you a gift just because?”
Clark laughs. “I believe you. But I also know that’s not the case right now. I notice a lot more than you think.”
“Yeah? And what are your supersenses telling you, Superman?”
He seems amused. “Well, I can hear the sound of your heart beating a little faster.” He brushes your hair away from your face to look at you better. “You blink more often when you lie, and you try not to look at me as much. But you also don't like eye contact when you're embarrassed, so sometimes it's hard to tell. I usually can though."
His words have pulled the rug out from under you, and he can tell.
You’ve never felt so… seen before. You notice all of Clark’s weird quirks because you really like him, and honestly have for a while. You never once expected that he’d been doing the same for you — taking note of your tells and habits.
The little smile on his face grows. “You’re not the only one who knows the other person so well.”
You can’t help it. You poke at one of his dimples, and his warm laughter curls up inside your chest.
“Whatever, detective.”
“Are you going to tell me, then?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll pay for your coffee next week,” he bribes.
“You do that anyway,” you point out. “I’ll tell you for free. As long as there’s no dinner pancakes for the next two weeks.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Deathly.”
He crosses his arms in front of his chest while he mulls it over. The idea is very serious to him, apparently.
After a few seconds, he says, “Alright, fine. No pancakes. Now get talking, superstar.”
Your lips press together while you look at him, and his eyes remain on your face even when you glance away.
The feeling of his gaze feels like little pinpricks on your skin. You wonder how much of that is Superman, and how much of that is Clark.
This entire situation is just so embarrassing.
“I was avoiding you,” you admit, dropping your voice to a whisper.
The words sound harsh, but he seems to take them head on. His head tilts. “Why?”
You whack his shoulder. “Did you forget the part where I joked about wanting to be in Superman’s harem? And then immediately told you that you were the spitting image of him?”
Clark’s lips turn up into a closed-mouth grin.
“You freaked out, and then I freaked out, so I assumed—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, cutting off your rambling with a hand on your thigh, “I wasn’t freaked out by what you’d said. I was worried you’d put it together. About me being Superman. You’d never seen me without my glasses on before.”
You frown. “My first thought when I realized that you looked the same wasn’t that you were Superman. I was more annoyed that you looked cute with or without your glasses on.”
Clark flushes red. You preen.
“My glasses,” he says, like he’s just remembered something. He pats around his collar until he finds the frames, the temples tucked into the neckline of his shirt. “I forgot to tell you. They’re Hypno-Glasses. They kind of mess with your head. Trick you into thinking I look a lot different than I actually do.”
He slips them on, and your lips part.
It’s just like it was last night. The difference on his face is there, you just can’t pinpoint where, or how.
You urge Clark closer until he’s standing between your legs, your gaze transfixed on his face. His eyes go a little crosseyed with how close you are, the remnants of his blush still lingering on his cheeks.
You hold onto the frames and push them up slightly, until they no longer obscure his features.
It’s so weird. It feels like your eyes are straining, but when you blink, the tension is gone, and Clark’s face changes.
“Woah.” It’s all you can manage to say.
He looks a little shy under your attention, which is funny when you consider the fact that he moonlights as a public figure. “How different do I look?”
You hum, letting the glasses slip back down his nose bridge. Your touch lingers on his shoulders. “Not too different. It’s kind of like… like when Catherine upstairs got her haircut. Your face is the same, but it’s also managed to change everything.”
His eyes dance over your face, and you find yourself a little self-conscious. You wonder just how well he can read you with his enhanced senses. Your hands feel clammy.
“Sorry, it’s hard to explain. You already know you still look cute, if that’s what you’re worried about,” you add.
He smiles to himself, his eyes cast downwards. “I’ll sleep a lot better tonight, thanks.”
“You’re always welcome, Clark.”
His line of sight trails down to something by your side, and he stiffens. “Your arm.”
You glance down and see what he’s so worried about. The cut on your bicep has bled through the bandages slightly, a small blot of red blooming there.
When you look back up at Clark, he’s already digging through the cabinets over the sink.
“What’re you looking for?” you ask, raising your voice over the sound of various cleaning supplies being knocked over.
His head pops back out, a white box in his hands. “This.”
It’s a first aid kit, which he drops down next to you on the counter. A thin layer of dust flies up, and he waves it away with the back of his hand. Clark cracks open the container and begins to take stock of what’s inside, his face screwed up in thought.
“Hey, Superman,” you say, leaning over on the counter to look through it with him. It’s full of all the medical supplies you could ever possibly imagine. “What hospital did you rob for this?”
He raises an eyebrow at you, reaching for something towards the bottom. “I bought this myself, actually.”
“I thought the big yellow Sun helps you heal.”
“It does.” He answers you absentmindedly, squinting at a small packet of… something.
You pick up a yellow tube on the top of the pile. “Then who’s the Neosporin for?”
“You.”
Clark gives you about five seconds to let the words sink in before he says, “Ha! Here it is.”
It’s a roll of bandages. He gestures for you to stick out your arm, which you do without a word. You feel dizzy.
“Sorry—this is for me?”
“Yep.” He’s winding another thin layer of the material around your arm again, looking very concentrated. He frowns, rewraps a section, then continues again when he’s satisfied. “Do you remember that time you almost cut your finger off chopping onions?”
“That’s an exaggeration. The cut was hardly that deep.”
He laughs. “Well, it made me realize that you’re… a lot more fragile than I am. So I got this in case you ever really did hurt yourself.”
Clark had gotten all of this for you. He’d bought all of these things that he’d never use himself, just in case you’d ever need it.
It feels like you left your heart in the sky while soaring a thousand feet over Metropolis. You fight down the lovesick look threatening to take over your face.
“The man said at the hospital that a little bleeding is normal,” he explains. “I’ll just have to add another layer of bandages and then apply pressure, and then the bleeding should stop. We’ll have to go back if it’s still bleeding after half an hour, though.”
“The man at the hospital,” you repeat. “You were at the hospital?”
Clark freezes where he’s applying firm pressure to your cut. “Superman may have passed by today.”
“While I was there?”
“Maybe. You might have been. It’s a big hospital.”
You think you’re on your way to falling really in love with Clark Kent.
You pass him a piece of medical tape, which he uses to seal the bandage neatly. He takes care to press it down flat, making sure there aren’t any creases. He’s awfully committed to the task, glancing over the wrap, testing your circulation and seeing if it’s too loose.
“I was really worried, you know,” he says, after checking the bandage for the fiftieth time. It’s obvious that it’s secure, but he seems to need something to do. “I didn’t recognize it was you until after I got you out of the museum. And I almost didn’t believe it.”
“Oh, Clark, I’m sorry for lying about where I was. I was embarrassed by what I’d said, but I also just needed…”
Things you can’t admit to him.
“…I guess I wanted to be alone today.”
He seems to wilt.
“The paperweight was an apology gift,” you admit, a little ashamed. “I felt so bad not talking to you. I was going to go down to the park and eat lunch, but I was really just thinking of you the entire time.”
Clark’s smile doesn’t meet his eyes. “I know that I worry, and I’m not going to apologize for that. I worry because I care about you. But I am sorry if I… make you feel coddled. I don’t mean to, I just want you to be okay. So if you—you ever want space, or a day to yourself, I understand—”
“No, Clark, that’s not it at all,” you answer unthinkingly.
“It’s not?” He looks beyond confused. “What is it then?”
You hadn’t thought this far into the conversation when you responded to him a second ago.
How do you even begin to explain this to him? Sure, you avoided him because you were embarrassed, but you also avoided him because you were scared. Scared of your feelings, scared of wanting to be more than friends, scared of what that’d do to your friendship.
But this is Clark. You refuse to let him think he’s done something wrong for even a second. You have to tell him the truth, even if it means humiliating yourself all over again.
“Well…” you begin, unsure. You resist the urge to bury your face in your hands, unable to take the look on his face. He’s so earnest. “You’re my best friend, if you couldn’t tell already.”
“Uh oh,” he jokes, tapping your side. “This can’t be good.”
“I don’t want space from you. That's kind of my problem.”
“Why would that be a problem?” It’s such a genuine question that it makes your heart ache. “I love spending time with you, too.”
“It’s ‘cause I really like you, Clark. I like you so much I got scared and told you I was leaving the state. I like you so much I thought a day away from you would make my feelings more normal. I—I like you so much I spent thirty dollars on a stupid paperweight for you!”
He looks winded. You watch his eyes widen with each word, and your stomach churns anxiously.
“Honestly, now that I think about it, you could’ve gotten that paperweight for free, right?” you ramble on. He’s staring at you, his mouth parted in surprise. “I mean, you could've just flown in dressed as Superman and probably asked for one.”
“It’s not the same, though.” The soft lilt in Clark’s voice makes your head spin. You’re momentarily distracted by him caressing the skin of your thigh, but he makes sure you’re looking at him when he says, “It means more because it’s from you. Someone who I also like. A lot.”
Oh, you think to yourself.
“Oh,” you say out loud.
Clark’s amused. “Do you really think I let just anyone drool on all my sleep shirts?”
“Wow.” You dig a finger into his chest, your face heating up. “Who knew Superman was such a dick?”
“I thought I’d have to watch a horror movie all by myself tonight,” he says, a teasing smile on his face.
You thread a hand through his hair, and he leans into your touch. You’re shaking a little. “Maybe you’d actually be able to finish one without me there.”
He beams at you, practically shining. “But then who’d be there to grip onto my shirt and make me turn on all the lights?”
“Hmm. Dunno. She sounds very reasonable, though.”
”Very.”
“The night isn’t over yet, Clark,” you remind, hand sliding down his chest. “We can still watch that horror movie.”
His eyes light up, his gaze flickering over your face. “I actually had something in mind.”
“Clark, fuck—oh my god.”
He smiles, pressing a tender kiss to your jaw.
“Holy shit,” you gasp out. “You’re actually fucking crazy.”
His arms tighten around your sides, and you think you’re clutching onto him so tightly it’ll draw blood.
“When you said you had ‘something in mind,’ I didn’t think you meant something like this!”
Clark tilts his head. He looks down.
All the way down.
From the top of one of the tallest buildings in Metropolis.
You wouldn’t be surprised if you walked right into a flying bird at this height. The concrete ledge he's lowered you down onto feels halfway to crumbling.
“Hey, you’re okay,” he says, aiming to soothe. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
You give him the most incredulous look you can muster. “Clark, you know I trust you with my life. But what are we doing up here? Besides raising my blood pressure, that is.”
He laughs again, the slight breeze biting his cheeks. “If you’d unlatch yourself from my neck, you’d be able to see.”
“I’d also be able to fall one hundred stories to my death.”
Clark exerts no effort when he turns you in his grasp, despite your death grip on him. He spins you around in the direction of the city, and you hold your breath, afraid to breathe wrong so high up.
In front of you, is the most gorgeous sunset you’ve ever seen. The horizon is lit up in a smattering of gorgeous purples and pinks and oranges, and you gasp.
“Oh,” you say, relaxing in his hold. “I thought you were doing this to mess with me.”
Clark smiles into the crown of your head. “As if I’d ever do such a thing.”
You really like Clark. You can’t believe you ever thought you’d be able to wish away your feelings for him.
“I’m returning that paperweight if you drop me, by the way.”
“Oh, honey, please, anything but that.”
You kiss Clark Kent in front of the Metropolis sun until your knees buckle and you nearly slip off the building ledge.
Thankfully, he makes sure to pick up where you left off when your feet are on solid ground again.
Ivyyy @supermans_wife
OH MY GOD OH YMG FOD OH YMG FODKD
roe @gothamsurvivor
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
oomf are you okay
Ivyyy @supermans_wife
↳ replying to @gothamsurvivor
IM AT MY FRIENDS HOUSE AND JUST LOOKED OUTSIDE OF THE FUCKING WINDOW AND I SAW SUPERMAN MAKING OUT WITH SOME GIRL ON SOME ROOF WHAT THE HELLLLLL
not carly @c4rlycane
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
that was me sorry ❤️we’re asking you to please respect our privacy at this time
JustinIT @justinit04
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
Holy shit are you serious lmfao
Ivyyy @supermans_wife
↳ replying to @justinit04
I AM NOT KIDDING.
attachment: [supermanhasagfthisisnotadrill.jpg]
🍒 @iluvtheflash
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
His tongue is definitely down her throat… DELETE THIS NOW PLEASEEEE
[CLOSED] SUPERMAN IS CUFFED 😭😭 @ sup3rman
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
Excuse me ma'am, not to be disrespectful or rude but could you please take post down. That is my sister who was killed by a metra train. And it this post is very disrespectful. Idk who you are or if you even know her but I need you to take this down please.
D4RKNESS @FILLTHEV0ID
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
#Supershit getting a girl before me 🥀
star | 8 days until s2!! @ robintruther
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
Thank you ivy I actually can not wait to list your account and this photo as my thirteenth reason
BONUS:
Clark pokes your side, voice rough with sleep. “What are you doing?”
You look up at him through the glasses you stole from him. They really do absolutely nothing — they’re just a magical pair of blue light glasses.
Clark’s pretty as a picture laying on your bed, the rising sun painting his back golden. You press a kiss to his arm, the closest part of him you can reach.
You smile. “Nothing. Just catching up on some Superman hate posts.”
notes: clark the people's prince thank you for bringing back the concept of #RealMen. let me know if u had a blast i know i did!!!
summary: lovergirl at heart, you've decided love isn't anything you're willing to risk pursuing again after your last boyfriend. and then comes clark kent who's a little too perfect at breaking down those walls. and isn't that terrifying?
word count: 10.8k...yeah <3
a/n: the word count getting longer when i edited oh i'm sure. this one was serious to me. like notes app outline, specific through-line playlist, pinterest board inspo serious. hope it's serious for you guys too hehe fem!reader, no spoilers, avoidant attachment tbh, bit angsty but happy ending! happy reading, let me know what you think <3
If there was anyone more cynical about love in Metropolis than you, you’d be delighted to know.
It’s not like you’re against love by any means. In fact, you really, well, love it. You love your friends and you love seeing them in love. You enjoy romance books and love songs and romantic comedies. You take pleasure in finding the ways in which love is around you each day.
You’ve just decided that romantically, it’s not for you. Not anymore, at least.
It’s been three years since you swore off of it and honestly? You’re doing great! So what if sometimes a viscous yearning creeps through your apartment on a Sunday night? That hardly means anything!
Relationships are one thing and you’ve had your fair share. Once in high school, a couple in college. They never ended well, not like how you would’ve wanted rather. Sometimes they faded like a bruise and other times you were left alone and behind in the rearview.
But none of that mattered to you anymore once you met Ben.
Six years ago, you fell in love. Ben was a dream and a half. The kind of guy you bring home to your parents and revel in the way they gush over him and the both of you together. The kind of guy someone writes songs about with a swooning guitar and lyrics that wax poetic. The kind of guy you marry. At the time, Ben was it for you.
Then, three years ago, Ben broke your heart. You hadn’t seen it coming. It felt completely out of left field. You believed you were everything each other wanted until he was walking out the door.
“I’m not..happy anymore. I don’t know how to make you happy.” He had said and you remember a nauseating confusion coursing through your veins. What did that mean? You were happy….weren’t you? And before he walked out the door, “I hope you find someone who does.”
He clearly had. Two months later he was engaged to another woman you’d had in your home at dinner parties and holidays and suddenly it all clicked. You’re only slightly embarrassed to admit how long you cried and the amount of sweets you ate to try and feel better.
While the wound was still fresh, the ache cutting so deep in your bones, you decided you never wanted to risk feeling like that again. It took you a while before you felt like you were yourself again.
Two years ago, you got a job as a columnist for the Daily Planet. A basic “how-to” column that you’ve come to love, even if you’d rather be writing something more substantial. There, you met Clark Kent.
He was everything Ben wasn’t from the second you were introduced. The second he’d fixed his striking blue eyes on yours and smiled at you, something inside you jolted. And you’ve been petrified ever since.
Because if there was anyone who could make you consider taking that risk again, it was Clark.
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It’s a busy day at the Daily Planet. Well, it’s always “busy” but it’s especially so today. The printers are working overtime and there’s people fluttering all about, checking edits and typing like there’s no tomorrow. An argument splits open near the coffee counter.
Deadlines will do that to you.
You’d arrived earlier than usual, earlier than you needed to considering you were basically done with your newest “how-to” for the next print. Still, the only time you can pin Perry White down to talk to him about writing for something other than your column is on his way from the coffee machine and back to his office.
“But Perry, I think I’ve really got something here! If you’d just look at it-” your footsteps are hurried as you keep pace with Perry. He stops suddenly and you nearly stumble over yourself, words getting cut off.
“Look kid, I appreciate your enthusiasm but right now I need you to stick to your how-to’s,” he fixes you a look and fits his cigar between his lips before resuming his trail to his office. You sigh, but you don’t want to give up that easily.
“But could you at least just-” you start to plead and then you’re cut off again. He holds up a finger this time and heaves a sigh.
“I’ve given you my answer, kid. We’ve got a deadline to meet.” The words form around the cigar in his mouth. You wither, footsteps faltering.
“Yes, Chief,” you sigh, to which he just shakes his head. Your shoulders sag, the entirety of your body drooping like a wilted rose. When Perry’s out of earshot you toss your head back with a frustrated groan.
This wasn’t exactly where you thought you’d be by now. Two years seemed like enough time to establish yourself at the Daily Planet. Your little column that’s shoved towards the back of the paper seemed like as good a stepping stone as any towards writing about something more.
It’s not like you dislike your column, in fact, you really enjoy it. You just feel like you have more to offer after two years if Perry would just give you the chance one of these days.
You’re admittedly, a little visibly pouty on your way to your desk. It feels a little childish, like you might as well cross your arms and stomp your foot with a hmph! You don’t, of course. Though maybe it’d provide some kind of emotional release. That’s why toddlers do it, right?
As you near your desk you notice there’s a new coffee cup waiting for you by your keyboard. The culprit, you notice next, is standing next to your desk with his bag still on his shoulder like he just got in. Which, he probably did.
It’s hard for you to stay grumpy at the sight of Clark. His tie is slightly askew and he’s holding his own cup of coffee, hot where yours is iced.
He’s far too nice to you, you think, but he’s a wonderful friend. And God knows you were in dire need of a good one after what happened. Sometimes though, when you start to feel a little lonely, you wonder if he’d be a wonderful boyfriend too, but you’re quick to shove that aside.
It’s better for you to just be friends. Less scary that way. Less of a risk that you end up absolutely demolished again, too.
“Was just dropping this off. Just how you like it,” he says when you’re within earshot, motioning towards the coffee that wasn’t there when you’d gone after Perry this morning. You can see the ring of condensation it leaves against the lacquered top of your desk. You smile at him.
“Thank you. You know you don’t have to.”
He matches your smile and shrugs.
“Yeah but I want to,” he says. There’s a faint pink that blushes his cheeks but you think it might just be the lighting. Still, you revel in the fact that he wants to do a nice thing for you. You try to quell it. The familiar fear of getting too close to someone again prickling your skin.
On paper, Clark is the perfect guy to be with after Ben. He’s charming and patient and kind, overwhelmingly so, to everything and everyone he encounters. He never fails to make you smile. Doesn’t hurt that he’s devastatingly handsome, too.
Truth is, Clark Kent scares you to death.
“How’d it go with Perry this morning?” he asks, breaking you from your thoughts. You deflate, frustrated all over again. A grimace pulls at his face at the look on yours and the huff that escapes you. “That bad?”
“He refused to read it! Appreciates my enthusiasm but wants me to,” you twist your voice into your best impression of your editor-in-chief, “stick to my how-tos.”
You relish in the chuckle your impression pulls out of Clark. He opens his mouth to say something and is cut off.
“Stop flirting and get to work, Kent. We’ve got a deadline,” Perry’s voice seems to boom as he strides past your bullpen on the floor. Clark flounders, cheeks warming into an embarrassed red. You’re all too aware of the amount of eyes on you and you feel yourself start to fold inwards.
The two of you look at each other and Clark flashes you a tight lipped, shy smile. He motions towards his desk across the way and you nod, wordlessly communicating with each other.
“Thanks again for the coffee,” you say before he can walk away.
“Anytime, really,” he says as he passes. There’s a fleeting press of his hand against your back. Your breath gets stuck in your throat, heat radiating out from where his touch lingered. You steel yourself for a beat before sitting down at your desk.
The ice in your coffee shifts as you log into your computer. You glance over to Clark though you can only see the back of his head from here. The side of your hand brushes against the cold drops of condensation on your coffee cup. Goosebumps skitter up your arm.
When you finally take the first sip, a pleased hum drifts out of you. It’s just how you like it, like he had said, but it’s also better somehow. Familiar, but different in the best way.
Just like Clark, you think.
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Despite it being sarcasm, you can’t get Perry’s insinuation that Clark was flirting with you out of your head. It’s been weeks and no matter how hard you try, it stays at the back of your mind constantly. And it’s starting to do a number to your nervous system.
Sure, maybe your interactions can be read as flirtatious but Clark’s also your closest friend. It’s just friendly banter and actions to show you care. Hardly anything romantic.
That’s what you keep telling yourself anyway.
It’s a Wednesday towards the end of summer when you start to notice something different.
The second the workday ends, you’re logging out with a swiftness. You’re not alone. Nearly everyone at the surrounding desks does the same.
There’s a shuffle of sound as everyone starts to pack up their things. The corner of your notebook bends as you shove it in your bag and you curse under your breath. You’re inspecting it, trying to bend it back into place but the crease is still there in the corner. Annoying.
“Heading out?”
The sound of Clark’s voice behind you makes you jump in surprise, your bag falling from your hands and to the ground. You’re pressing your hand to your chest, trying to calm your racing heart. He at least has the decency to look apologetic when you turn to face him.
Clark has a bad habit of sneaking up on you. You’re not sure how someone so…big can be so quiet. Or how he only seems to be able to sneak up on you, considering his occasional clumsiness tends to alert his presence. Too busy always trying to not occupy so much space that he almost seems to occupy even more.
“Sorry! Sorry.” He’s dropped to the ground to retrieve your bag and bent notebook for you. His lips press together in a sympathetic grimace as he hands them over. Your hand falls from your chest to take them.
“Jesus, you’re like a stealth agent or something, Clark. I’ll never understand it.” You shove the notebook into your bag and sling it over your shoulder. He shakes his head and is reaching to grab your water bottle for you before you even get a chance to turn around and get it yourself.
He holds it out to you and you smile your thanks. There’s a shock of something almost magnetic when your fingers brush his in the exchange. You try not to flinch away too noticeably.
“Do you have plans? Like, now?” he asks, almost a little nervous. It makes you nervous and you hesitate in your movements. The corners of your eyes crease as you narrow them quizzically at him. “Sorry, that was..really forward.”
“No…why?” You start to walk away, full trust that he’ll follow you. He does. You slide your water bottle into your bag as you walk, Clark keeping pace. “Do you?”
“Oh! No, no I–Well…maybe?” he stumbles over his words and you glance at him out of the corner of your eye. His shoulders straighten just a tad. “There’s this new ice cream place that just opened downtown and I saw it and thought of you and I was wondering if maybe you wanted to check it out?”
You nearly trip over yourself, a pit dropping from your throat to your stomach. He thought of you. Is he asking you on a date? He thought of you. A mirage of emotions rushes through you and over your face. Clark starts to panic at your silence.
“Totally friendly!” You let out a soft breath. He thought of you. “Obviously! We don’t have to, unless you want to. And it doesn’t have to be tonight, sorry I didn’t–”
Clark’s a panic rambler you’ve come to notice. It’s rather endearing if you’re honest. The two of you pause outside the elevator. You nudge him with your shoulder which jostles you more than it does him.
“Tonight’s great, Clark,” you say, cutting off his rambling. He looks at you and breathes something like a sigh of relief at the sight of your smile. The elevator dings and the doors slide open. He lets you in first, mumbling under his breath.
“Great. Great, okay.”
Clark leads you around downtown Metropolis, his hand hovering just above the small of your back as a guide when needed. You fall into step and easy conversation the whole way, Clark making you laugh without even trying to be funny.
You mention the argument that you heard break out by the coffee this morning and he tells you it was Jimmy and Lois arguing–Jimmy annoyed that Lois has used up all the sugar. He mentions his Ma is planning to come visit him in the coming weeks and you swear you can feel your chest start to expand at the evident admiration for her in his voice.
“Here it is!” he announces a few minutes later as you turn a corner.
The first thing you notice is the red, yellow, and blue striped awning with scalloped edges. A sign above reads Super Scoops in bright letters and a bold font. The obvious hero homage makes you snort but the small line out the door leads you to believe it must be good.
“How’d you find this place?” you ask, relishing in the shade the awning gives while you wait in line.
“Just happened upon it on the way into work today,” he shrugs. He hopes you don’t realize his route to work from his apartment never crosses this section of downtown. If you do, he’s none the wiser.
“And the whole,” you wave a hand around, “Superman of it all isn’t at all why you wanted to try it?”
You’re teasing. Poking a jest at his superhero work connection. Clark scoffs a little though there’s no malice behind it, and briefly wonders if maybe you’ve figured him out. (You haven’t.)
“No!” his voice pitches up an inch. “I know you like ice cream and you just did that how-to bit about summer and I just thought you might like it s’all.”
There he goes again. Thinking of you and sending your heart ablaze. You need to get a grip.
The line moves quickly for which you’re thankful. When you get to the counter, you opt for a swirl of soft serve on a cone and Clark gets his in a cup. The price seems a little outrageous for what you’re getting and you accredit it to the theming.
You pull out your wallet and Clark gives you a piercing look, bumping your hand away though not unkindly. You go to protest but relent and put your wallet back in your bag when he swipes his card. He shoves his wallet back into the pocket of his slacks, stepping off to the side with you.
“I could’ve paid for that, you know,” you say, eyes locked onto the employee dispensing the swirl of chocolate and vanilla onto a cone. The uniforms here are rather silly. Blue t-shirts with little red capes attached, the parlor’s logo on the back.
“I know. I didn’t want you to,” he states simply, like he’s telling you the sky is blue. You probably should’ve expected it. Small town, farm boy chivalry and such.
Clark collects your ice creams from the teenager behind the counter who looks a little miserable. You accredit that to the uniform. He passes your cone off to you as he leads you out the door.
A comforting silence hangs around you as you linger in a little grassy patch next door. There’s kids running around and a dog chases them off leash. A hum of delight escapes you at your first taste of the soft serve. It’s exceptionally good.
Golden rays of the fading sun cast a radiant haze around the outline of your body. Ice cream is starting to melt around the rim of your cone. The surface tension breaks and a rivulet slips over your knuckles. You let out a soft gasp, more an exhale than anything and quickly lick it off.
Clark’s looking at you. Endearment glimmers in his irises, the sunlight reflecting off of it. You’re trying desperately to ignore the sticky feeling on your knuckles. You need to wash your hands. Or steal a generous glob of hand sanitizer even.
You catch his eye and feel pinned by his stare. You blink at him.
“What?” you ask. A thorn of self-consciousness pokes at you for a brief moment. Clark shakes his head.
You’ve got a smear of vanilla soft serve across your left cheek from when you tilted your hand to lick the ice cream off your knuckles. Your eyes are doe like. Backlit by the setting sun, the fleeting rays highlight the frizz in your hair, creating a halo around your head.
Clark thinks you’ve never looked more beautiful.
“You’ve got a little..” he gestures towards his own face. You bristle with a light embarrassment. Before you can reach up to wipe away the ice cream from your face, Clark beats you to it.
He’s somehow procured a napkin and softly wipes the ice cream you smeared across your cheek away. You don’t remember seeing him grab them on your way out of the parlor.
Time seems to slow. The seconds drag by like the pouring of a thick stream of honey. The moment feels incredibly intimate for what it is. Your breath stills in your lungs.
“There we go,” he says. He turns and tosses the napkin into the trashcan. The spell breaks. Your fingertips reach up to graze against the spot he cleaned. You drop them before he can turn back around to catch you.
“Thank you,” your voice feels a little shaky. Clark smiles at you with a soft shake of his head, a silent don’t worry about it, and takes a bite of his ice cream.
“This is really good,” he says, swallowing it down. He looks so..boyish in this moment and it does something funny to your heart. Combined with him wiping your face clean, you’re a little afraid you could go into spontaneous cardiac arrest.
You’re staring at him, something sweet and awe-like in your eyes. Something in Clark brightens at your attention. His cheeks twinge pink and he smiles softly.
“Careful,” he points at your cone that’s starting to melt down to your fingers again. You blink away, embarrassed at your staring and hurriedly lick up the melted cream. What is going on with you?
Clark seems to have figured out a way to weasel himself inside and poke at your tender bits, making things in your chest twitch and move in a way they hadn’t in years. You weren’t sure when he had been able to step in so close to do so.
It feels all too familiar, yet different, just like that coffee he’d brought you a few weeks back. Your heart stutters, the beat spelling out an uh-oh.
You think you might be falling in love with him.
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Things steadily progress with Clark after your ice cream not-date.
You’ve crossed into hug territory. Simple side ones when you see him in the office in the mornings. Longer, more proper ones when you go your separate ways after a hang out. Each one starts to untie the rope that’d been knotted around your heart three years ago.
The risk grows more and more each day and now it feels even more ominous. Because now Clark’s more than just a potential romantic partner, he’s also one of your closest friends. And the thought of losing him in two ways instead of one scares you infinitely more.
You don’t mean to work so late on a Friday but it happens anyway and when you log out and pack up your things, the moon has risen completely in the sky. Clark has stayed late today too but you wonder if he was just waiting for you to finish so he can walk you home.
You’ve never asked and he’s never outright offered except for the very first time. Now it’s just become something unspoken. A given in your friendship. You appreciate it all the same.
He lingers outside your apartment with you tonight and you can tell something’s bothering him. Like he’s holding himself back, restraining from something. You go to ask if he’s okay or what’s wrong but you never get the chance.
Because Clark asks if you want to get dinner with him tomorrow night.
“Like a date. A nice, proper one with dinner and dessert.”
And despite the fear that shivers down your spine and the choking anxiety like a lump in your throat, you agree.
“Yes. Yeah, that sounds…nice.”
You hope your smile looks real and not as scared as you feel. He seems to buy it. He’s beaming with glee, trying to hide the intensity of it and failing. Quite adorably, you might add.
“Okay. I’ll pick you up at 7.” He states. No sense of a question, just a simple statement. Warmth rushes through you.
“Okay.” The word is pushed out with a breath. Clark smiles at you.
“It’s a date!”
His enthusiasm is comforting and you squeak out a confirming uh huh! which is all you can seem to muster. Words are failing you. He reaches out to squeeze your hand briefly instead of hugging you goodbye tonight.
You’re grateful for the change, certain he would’ve been able to feel your racing heart when your chest pressed against him. You watch him walk a few strides down the hall before you go inside.
You’re already nervous when you wake up on Saturday morning. You spend a lot of the day panicking, over both the mundane and existential. Should you wear a dress? What if this goes horribly sideways and the two of you never speak again?
The usual.
In the end, you decide on your nicest dress, or rather, the nicest date night dress you own. You feel good. So long as you don’t think too seriously about it all.
You’re trying to practice some age-old breathing exercise in the mirror to calm your nerves. Trying not to overthink too much about your shoes or your hair or how this is your first date in three years. You’re interrupted by a knock on your door.
A quick glance at the clock on your way to the door shows it’s seven on the dot. You’re a little surprised at Clark’s punctuality. Not because you didn’t think he wouldn’t be but because you’ve never experienced it before. A punctual date, that is.
You pause at the door for a beat. Then, you shake out your hands and swing it open.
Clark stands at your doorstep with a bouquet of fresh cut flowers. Peonies and delphiniums, chamomile sprinkled amongst blushing roses in a brown paper wrapping tied with string. He must’ve stopped by the florist for these, you think. It might be the prettiest arrangement anyone’s ever shown you, let alone given you.
Clark is staring at you, jaw a little slack. You feel yourself start to fluster under his gaze, shrinking slowly.
“Wow. You look..” his voice trails off, eyes dropping to what you’re wearing and back up to lock with yours. “You look great.”
Your smile is a little shy, bright around the edges. The heat beneath your skin makes you feel like you could burst into flames.
“Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself,” you say. He’s wearing clothes similar to what he wears to work, a charcoal pair of slacks and the usual white button down but he’s not wearing a tie and the sleeves are pushed up his forearms. It’s really doing something to you.
A blush rises on his cheeks and it’s his turn to offer you a shy smile. He clears his throat.
“These are for you,” he says, holding the flowers out for you to take. The paper crinkles as you take them from him. Your fingers brushing sends a pleasant zing! down your back. You can’t resist pressing your nose against the blossoms.
“They’re beautiful,” you say on an inhale. Clark could say the same about you ten times over. “Come in. I’ll put them in a vase and then we can go?”
You back up to let Clark inside and he closes the door behind him. He stands in the tiny entryway. It’s not very big, your apartment; it looks even smaller with him standing in it.
“You can come in further, you know?” your laugh carries through the air like a breeze. He lingers in the entry of your shoebox kitchen now. The bouquet lays gently on the little kitchen table tucked away in a nook off the kitchen.
You’re grateful for the boost of height the kitten heels you decided on give you, albeit small, as you reach up to grab your favorite vase. Clark’s eyes trail after you as you flit around the kitchen. Watching as you bring the vase to the kitchen sink to fill it with water and take it over to the table.
You untie the string and paper around the bouquet and place the flowers in the water with the utmost of care. It’s a perfect fit. You fluff it a little bit, arranging it so each blossom has space to shine. Then, you slide it to the center of your little homely kitchen table.
It’s picturesque. And so are you, standing with your hands clasped, admiring it. Clark wishes he had a camera. You turn and look at him, taken aback a bit at the sweet look in his eyes.
“Ready?” you ask. Clark blinks like he’s been shaken out of a stupor.
“Right. Yes! Let’s go.”
He follows close behind you as you grab your bag off the hook by the door and lock up. It’s your turn to follow him as soon as you leave your building. Ever the gentleman, he walks on the outside of the sidewalk and offers you his arm to hold.
Butterflies that have laid dormant inside you start to revive and flutter around your stomach. It’s a beautiful night in Metropolis, the sky clear and the air fresh. You think you’d be satisfied if you never made it to dinner and just walked around all night instead. Your feet might not thank you though.
He takes you to a nice restaurant a few blocks over. A place as nice as this was always reserved for anniversary dates in the past, never for a first. This specific one Clark leads you into, you’d never been to. The reservations always too hard to come by.
You’re a little awestruck when you walk in. Your eyes dance around, taking it all in as you get seated. Beautiful artwork decorating the walls. The tables covered in pristine white linens. The lights are low and there’s music playing softly in the background. Clark pulls your chair out for you and pushes it in.
“This place is so nice,” you say, as you sit. “How’d you even manage a reservation with so short notice?”
Clark looks a little sheepish, his shoulders hunching upwards towards his ears.
“Oh I, uh- This is going to sound presumptuous and I apologize. I got one a while ago. It’s just taken me so long to work myself up to asking you out.” He says it like a confession. Something in you preens at the idea of Clark liking you so much, he’d plan so far ahead for a first date with you.
Your nerves start to ease as the night progresses and maybe the bottle of red wine you share helps a bit too. It’s easy with Clark. As if you’ve always been doing this. It sends a thrill through you.
Slowly but surely, your defenses start to come down. The hesitancy and fear that normally holds you back starts to fade. Clark starts to see you really shine with each new thing he learns and each new laugh that escapes you.
Just like he said when he asked you out, you get dessert after dinner. A rich slice of the most decadent chocolate cake you’ve ever had in your life. Your eyes close when you take the first bite, a delighted hum escaping you louder than you’d like.
“Oh my god,” you open your eyes and the amused admiration in Clark’s eyes is clear as the moon in the sky. You get a little shy, your skin prickling under his gaze. “This is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
You gesture for him to try it. Clark’s reaction almost mimics yours.
“Golly,” is all he says and you laugh a little at his choice of word, both of you going in for another bite. The cake is gone almost embarrassingly fast but you’re both too stuffed to care. The waiter drops off the check as you take your final sip of wine, draining the glass.
He reaches for it without hesitation, doesn’t flinch at the total, just slides his card into the fold and sets it on the edge where it’s quickly retrieved. You fold your arms and rest them on the table, your hands holding on limply to the space above your elbows.
The edges of you feel fuzzy. Your head is tilted a little towards your shoulder, a serene smile on your face. To Clark, you look radiant even in the dim lighting. When the waiter brings back his card, you watch as he signs and puts his card back in his wallet.
He offers you his hand to help you out of your seat and neither of you let go as you walk out of the restaurant. In fact, you make the move to intertwine his fingers with yours and swing them a little between you. He pulls you into his side and you giggle, your shoulder bumping his bicep.
You feel giddy head to toe. Maybe it’s the lingering effects of the wine. Maybe it’s Clark’s fingers slotted between yours. Or the way he’s been looking at you all night.
All you know is you feel more happy than scared and it’s been so long since you’ve felt this way that you’ve forgotten how good it feels. And maybe it’s your lapse in memory or maybe it’s Clark but it feels even better this time around.
You’re laughing at something Clark says–he’s been making you do that a lot tonight–when there’s a call of your name. The laughter gets stuck in your throat and dies out quick, your steps faltering on the sidewalk. Clark’s eyes are swimming with concern when he looks at your face.
“Is that you?” Ben’s voice is just like you remember it. You turn towards it and your hand falls out of Clark’s grip when you catch sight of him. Because standing next to him is Jane. Beautiful, alluring Jane who drank your wine at your hosted parties and probably slept in your bed when you weren’t around.
You think you might be sick.
“Oh my god, how are you?” Ben gives you a hug, like you’re still friendly and things ended amicably. Like the last time you saw him he didn’t put your heart through a paper shredder. Your limbs feel wooden as you half-heartedly reciprocate. Ben steps back and wraps his arm around Jane’s waist. “You remember Jane?”
She lifts her left hand in a wave and the streetlight overhead catches on the ring on her finger, making it glint. At least she looks a little awkward at the whole situation. You nod, a pounding starting to form behind your brow.
“Yeah, I..I remember,” you reply. You take a deep breath, force yourself to smile and sound way more friendly than you feel. “Good to see you.”
The puzzle pieces start to click into place in Clark’s head. He’s not completely aware of your dating history but he’s easily figures out that’s what this is. And that you’re completely beside yourself. He’s quick to wrap an arm around your waist, steady and strong. You relax a bit without even realizing.
Ben catches the motion and his eyebrows raise a hair. He has to look up at Clark, not by a lot but enough that you notice it if you’re paying close attention. And you are. Then Ben looks at you, silently waiting for an introduction.
“Oh. Ben,” his name tastes like venom on your tongue. “This is-”
“Clark Kent.” He finishes for you, taking a step forward and extending his hand. You think you can see Ben wince from Clark’s grip but it’s gone as soon as it arrives. (And if Clark put more of a grip into the handshake than normal, well that’s nobody’s business but his own.)
There’s a beat of silence that passes. The four of you stand on the sidewalk, almost mirror images of each other. The same wave of nausea passes over you, the pressure in your head getting worse.
“Well, it’s good to see you. I’m glad you found someone who makes you happy,” Ben says, voice genuine. Something in you bristles at that, taking it more as one final nail in the coffin jab at you. Clark feels you stiffen in his hold. You’re not sure what to even say, lips parting but nothing coming out.
It doesn’t seem to matter. Ben nods at you and Jane gives you a tight smile as they pass. You blink at their retreating figures. You’ve long since gotten over the love you held for him but you didn’t expect the pain of it all to still linger.
You don’t want to let this one twisted encounter ruin the great night you’ve had with Clark but you can feel your reservations start to creep back in. It’s like Clark can see you start to slowly build those walls back up after he’d worked to pull them apart all night.
“Hey, you okay?”
You focus on the good. The softness of his voice. The care in his eyes. The steadfast grip of his arm around your waist. You inhale and on your exhale, flash him a shaky smile.
“Yeah. Yeah, that was just…” A plethora of words dance around your head. Weird. Unexpected. Awful. Horrifying. “Strange.”
Clark nods and glances over his shoulder in the direction they walked off in. He looks back at you, your eyes locked where his just were. He clears his throat softly and your gaze finds his.
“Sorry but, I couldn’t stand that guy.” A sudden laugh, loud and genuine bursts out of you. A sentence so unlike Clark and yet, you can tell he means it. His eyes crinkle at the corners at the glow that’s started to come back to your face. He almost hadn’t noticed how dim you’d become in that guy’s presence.
“Yeah,” you say, as your laughter dies down. Your smile softens. “Me too.”
Clark walks you home, conversation still full but maybe not as lively as it had been pre-Ben and Jane. You hate how they seem to haunt you like this. But you revel in how easy it was–and is–for Clark to make you laugh again.
He expects the night to end at your doorstep but you invite him inside for a little while longer. You’re a little surprised, mostly delighted when he agrees.
“Make yourself at home,” you say, kicking off your shoes and walking into your kitchen. Clark toes his shoes off and neatly arranges them next to yours. “Do you want anything to drink?”
Clark glances over and can see you grabbing two glasses down from a cupboard near your tiny stove. You set them on the counter and at his silence, look up to where he’s standing.
“Oh! Water’s fine.”
He takes interest in your photos hanging on the walls and the knick-knacks on your shelves. He particularly likes a corkboard you’ve got hung up with a bunch of mementos pinned: movie ticket stubs, fortunes from fortune cookies, postcards, one of your first how-to pieces from the Planet, a photobooth strip of you.
You bring your drinks in, and set them on the coffee table, water for him and another glass of wine for you. You sit, knees pulled up on the couch and your feet tucked beneath you, your body facing Clark. You like how he looks sitting in your space. Like he fits right in.
You talk for hours about anything and everything that seems to come to mind. You share the abridged version of Ben and Jane and your chest goes warm at how quick Clark notices your need for a subject change. He switches gears smoothly. You laugh so hard your stomach hurts.
The hours tick by without either of you paying much attention. Your drinks sit empty on the table and when the conversation lulls, you take them into the sink. Clark checks his watch when you leave the room.
“Oh gosh, it’s late,” he says. You come out of the kitchen to an apology. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up. I hadn’t realized it was so late.”
“Clark, it’s okay,” you shake your head with a smile. His mouth is twisted into an apologetic frown.
“Still. I should let you get to bed.” Only then do you realize how tired you feel.
You walk him to your front door and watch him put his shoes back on. When he straightens up, you take a step closer to him.
“I had a really good time tonight.” You say softly. Your eyes shine in the dim lamplight.
“Me too.” Clark smiles. He swallows and shifts on his feet. “Would you..wanna do this again?”
“I’d like that.” You nod, smiling widely up at him. He nods.
Clark leans down to hug you goodnight, his arms wrapping tight around your waist. Yours reach up and over his shoulders. Your body sinks into his and you think you could stay right there forever. After a beat, he pulls back but you don’t let go right away.
With your arms around his neck and his around your waist, it leaves hardly any space between you both. Suddenly, the air feels similar to the moment before lightning strikes nearby in a storm. Your gazes both fall from eyes to lips and back.
Clark’s tongue darts out to wet his lips and you track the motion with your eyes. You swallow, lips parting only just. He starts to lean in and your eyelids start to flutter shut. Your hands are trembling from both anticipation and uncertainty. Not about him, but about the unknown. You send a quick plea outwards that he doesn’t notice.
There’s no telling what lies on the other side of letting Clark kiss you, a faint warning siren echoing in the back of your mind. You decide to ignore it the second his lips brush against yours. You’ll cross that bridge when it comes.
The siren fades into a silent static hum, your senses flooded with ClarkClarkClark. Of the gentle press of his lips to yours, pliant and willing. Of the press of his body against yours as you eagerly push up to reciprocate.
You wonder briefly why you hadn’t done this any sooner. There’s such an ease to it that you almost feel like you’re experiencing deja vu. Like there’s another version of you that wasn’t burned, that gets to kiss Clark like this all the time. You’re envious of her immediately.
His hands slide to your hips to pull you even closer to him and that dreaded siren breaks through the static in your brain. You pull back, your hands falling to his shoulders. Clark’s glasses are askew and have fogged up considerably but he doesn’t seem to care.
“Wait,” you say breathlessly. He’s quick to renew the gap of space between your bodies.
“Sorry-”
“No, no, it’s not- you’re okay,” you pause, chest heaving. You try to catch your breath, coming up short. Your arms fall from his shoulders as you take a step back. “I think I need a second.”
The wounded expression on Clark’s face makes you feel considerably worse. He resembles a confused, kicked puppy and you think you might be sick.
You turn on your heel and make a beeline for the bathroom. Clark catches your shaking hand wiping at your eyes and doesn’t think twice before following after you. To apologize, if anything. Convinced he’s done something wrong enough to make you cry.
The counter of your bathroom is cold against your palms. You take a couple deep breaths in and out. Mentally kicking yourself because why can’t you just be normal about this and cursing Ben (and his bloodline, too) under your breath for causing your aversion to love in the first place.
You turn the tap on, splashing cold water on your face in hopes that it’ll shock your system back to normal. Back to how it felt mere moments ago when you were kissing Clark.
A gentle knock on the door makes you jump.
“Honey, talk to me. What’s wrong?” Your heart pinches, a piece of it chipping away at how sad he sounds. You don’t say anything for a beat. “Did I…” a defeated sigh, “sorry, did I do something wrong?”
You turn the water off.
“Oh, Clark,” you sigh. He hears the lock click and then the door swings open. This time, his heart twists at the expression on your face. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just..”
You let out a sad laugh and then your eyes are pinching shut. You press your face into your hands.
“I’m just a mess.” Your words are muffled against your palms. Clark tsks in disagreement and takes a step towards you. His fingers circle around your wrists and he’s so soft with you, you think you might burst into tears all over again.
“Hey, hey, no. Look at me,” his voice is equally tender and you let him pull your hands away. The reveal of your eyes shiny with unshed tears chips away at his heart. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing, I’m fine,” you sniffle, rapidly trying to blink away the tears. One slips past anyway and he quickly smooths it away.
“You’re most certainly not fine,” he says, voice still gentle but firm. Your shoulders slump. Clark sighs. “Let’s get you some water. That sound good?”
You nod, looking at the floor. He leads you over to your couch and sits you down before getting you a glass of water from the kitchen. He’s back faster than you expect and you whisper a quiet thank you when he hands you the water.
He doesn’t sit until you’ve drunk a considerable amount. You cradle the cup in your hands, looking anywhere but at Clark.
“I’m sorry,” you finally say. You spare a quick glance up at him. “It wasn’t anything you did, I promise. I just…I haven’t done this since..”
“Since Ben?” Clark fills in. You look at him with a small smile that’s equal parts embarrassed and sad.
“Yeah. I just spooked myself a bit,” you say. Clark nods in understanding.
“You don’t have to apologize for that,” he says, resting a hand on your knee. Your eyes focus on it.
“Okay. I just don’t want you to think it’s because of you,” you say, gaze lifting to his eyes. They’re looking at you like you’re made of porcelain. He scoots a little closer to you on the couch and lightly brushes a stray piece of hair behind your ear. His palm settles on your cheek.
“We can take it slow, yeah?” Clark offers. You perk up, a little surprised. After all this, he still likes you. He still wants to try with you. The realization makes you ache. You nod, anyway.
Slow is perfect.
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The air outside has started to go cold, summer finally fading away into a brisk autumn. You’ve five more dates with Clark now under your belt. It’s slowly getting easier, less scary though you can’t deny that your brain continues to do risk assessments over each new romantic gesture.
He brings you a new assortment of flowers each time. The newest, a golden arrangement featuring sunflowers and dahlias, sits in the usual spot on your kitchen table. The sun reflects off the petals through the window.
Clark’s at your apartment again in a handknit sweater his Ma made him, sat at the table and warming his hands with a cup of cocoa. Speaking of..
“My Ma is visiting this weekend,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“And she’d…like to meet you.”
The world seems to still, your body going with it. You blink at him, lips parting and closing.
“Oh!”
Clark rushes his words out, sensing the rising panic in your chest.
“You don’t have to, I know we’re taking it slow and this is definitely, probably not even remotely close to that. But I’ve talked about you so much she won’t stop asking about you, even before this started. It’s only if you want to.”
Your heart picks up at the image in your head of Clark including you in his updates to his Ma. It makes you burn from the inside, a sweetness pooling in your veins. He talks about you. The pendulum swings back and forth in your head as you consider it.
“Okay,” you say. Clark raises an eyebrow at you.
“You’re sure?” When you nod, he beams. He gets up from his seat and comes over to press a kiss against the top of your head. His excitement is sweet to witness. “I’ll call and let her know.”
On Sunday, you go over to Clark’s for dinner.
You shift nervously outside the door to his apartment. Your fingers are stiff from the brisk air outside and from the tight grip you have on the flowers you picked up on the way over. You close your eyes and take a deep breath, willing your body to still.
Then, you lift your fist and knock it against his door. You’re wiping your palm against the front of your pants when he answers the door. His smile is blinding.
“Hi,” he steps aside to let you in. The door closes behind you and he dips his head to kiss your cheek in greeting as you’re toeing off your shoes. “You look nice.”
“Hi,” You smile, nerves still going haywire beneath your skin. “Thanks.”
“Clark? Is she here?” You can hear her voice from the kitchen and you glance at Clark, grip tightening on the small bouquet in your hand. You’re a little nervous that it's not as nice as it could be. Clark presses a hand against the small of your back and you remember to breathe.
He leads you the short distance to the kitchen in lieu of a response. As soon as she sees you, her eyes light up. You smile nervously at her and give a small wave of your hand.
“Ma, this is-” Clark starts to say, but he’s quickly cut off.
“You must be, y/n!” Her accent is thick as honey and it warms your heart.
“Hi,” you hope your voice doesn’t sound as nervous as you feel. “These are for you, Mrs. Kent.”
You hold out the flowers to her and she takes them with a soft audible aw. Then she’s pulling you into a hug and saying, “call me Martha.”
It takes you a beat to huge her back. You can’t remember the last time you’ve been hugged like this. Different from how Clark hugs you, different from your own mother’s hugs. This one has a specific air of home to it that’s overwhelming.
You look at Clark over her shoulder who looks extra smiley. When she pulls back, she looks at the flowers again. Then she turns to Clark who already has a hand extended to take them and go put them in water.
“Clark has told me so much about you,” she says. A hand, weathered and gentle from age touches your cheek. “You’re even more beautiful than he described.”
“Ma,” Clark says, from the kitchen sink. You smile, loving that boyish part of him that still gets embarrassed when his mom shares something she probably shouldn’t. Martha tsks and angles herself slightly to look at him, her hand falling away.
“I’m serious, Clark.” She turns to you and lowers her voice a smidge. “He’s always talking about you, it's hard to get him to stop. I knew I had to meet the girl he’s so sweet on from the second he mentioned you.”
You can feel your skin start to flush. Your eyes catch onto Clark who’s arranging the flowers in the vase and setting them on his own kitchen table.
“You’re the only girl he’s ever been like this over,” she says almost conspiratorially. Your body softens, something distantly familiar coursing through your veins. Clark catches your eye and smiles at you and it leaves you a little dizzy.
When the food is ready, the two of them fall into a rhythm, bringing dishes to the table. Watching the two of them interact, you can tell where Clark gets it from. His mannerisms and certain words and phrases in his vernacular.
Clark pulls out both yours and Martha’s chairs when you sit to eat. The food is delicious and you make a note to ask Martha for recipes when the night ends.
It’s as easy to talk to her as it is Clark. She asks questions about you and your job and your family. And she also asks about you and Clark. How you met and when you started “going steady” as she puts it. You’re particularly fond of the stories she shares about Clark when he was little. Even more fond of the red blush that covers his cheeks at the more embarrassing ones.
In the back of your mind though you can’t get Martha’s words out of your head.
You’re the only girl he’s ever been like this over.
It unnerves you slightly. And at the same time, you wonder how you could even begin to describe how much it means to you to have his Ma treat you so kind and warm. Like you’re already part of the family. Your mind starts to analyze a risk assessment, a voice in the back of your mind poking and prodding and whispering that something this good has to come down.
Clark reaches for your hand at the table and gives it a quick squeeze, momentarily pulling you out of your spiral. You look at him with a soft smile, ever grateful and surprised that he can read you so well.
At the end of the night, Martha hugs you tight again and you soak it in.
“It was so good to meet you, dear,” she says, pulling back from the hug. Her hands hold onto your forearms.
“You too,” you smile and she gives your arms a squeeze. She looks at Clark, who’s holding your purse for you in his hand.
“You make sure she gets home safe, Clark.”
Clark lips twitch. “I know, Ma. I always do.”
He’s true to his words, walks you safely home and all the way to your door like he always does. You linger outside the door until you’re toeing the line of inviting him in. He kisses you goodnight, soft and sweet, his hand cradling your jaw and yours pressed against his chest.
It quiets your brain enough for you to get to bed but when you wake up the next morning, it’s racing immediately again. You’re distracted during the work day and no matter how much you try, you can’t get it to stop. A steady downward spiral.
Clark comes home with you after work. You’re unusually quiet on the walk to your apartment and through dinner–leftovers from the night before that Martha insisted you take home with you.
You clear the table of dishes and Clark helps you wash up. When the two of you go to sit on your couch, Clark sits first and holds out a hand.
“C’mere,” he says, all but pulling you to sit in his lap, though really you might as well be straddling him. For the first time all day, the chatter in your brain starts to dim. “What’s wrong? You’ve been unusually quiet all day.”
You look down at your hands in your lap and shrug. You’re not sure how to phrase it even if you tried.
“It’s..nothing. It’s silly,” you finally say, still refusing to look at him.
“Hey,” his voice is a soft caress against your skin, gentle like his fingers that tilt your cheek so you look at him. “It’s just me. You can tell me.”
Your gaze roves his face, stars in your eyes. Clark pushes a stray hair behind your ear, his fingertips grazing your cheek like a feather. His eyes haven’t once strayed from yours.
A shiver runs down your spine and you try not to squirm. It’s still new being seen like this. Like he’s looking right through you, straight into the messy walls of your subconscious. You swallow, your mouth dry and the words hang in a lump in your throat.
“Just..when I met your mom yesterday,” you can feel the sting of tears behind your eyes, feeling a little silly. Clark’s looking at you, so tenderly it squeezes your heart in your chest. “She hugged me. Like really hugged me.”
The corner of his mouth twitches and something shimmers in his eyes as he scans your face. One hand rubs against your arm and his thumb on the other spreads a tear across the apple of your cheek as he wipes it away.
“Honey, that’s a good thing. Yeah?”
“I-” You close your eyes and take a deep breath, nodding though your shoulders inch up towards your ears. “Yeah. Yes. I dunno, it just…”
Your shoulders drop on an exhale and your eyes flutter open and latch onto his. Clark looks at you with quiet reassurance. His fingertips trail against the skin of your arms featherlight while he waits for you to finish your thought.
“It felt like home,” your voice is so quiet it’s almost a whisper. Clark's eyes seem to soften even more than they already were. The corners of your mouth twitch into a small smile. You look away to wipe at your eyes, damp fingertips coming to rest along the side of his neck. “Been a while since I’ve had that.”
Your eyes lock back on his. Something familiar is swirling in his eyes, your breath getting stuck in your throat for the briefest of moments. Your heart starts to play a symphony against your ribcage. Clark’s hands have migrated to the small of your back.
“You’re starting to feel like home,” he says. Your fingers against his neck can feel the timbre of his voice. There’s a rush of warmth that covers you from head to toe. It’s dizzying enough to leave you a little nauseous, though there’s a fleeting thought that wonders if it’s because his words feel like a euphemism for the L word.
Despite the onslaught of emotion you feel, your lips start to curl into a giddy smile just as Clark leans in to kiss you. His lips slot against yours, slow and sure and it’s enough to steal the breath from your lungs. Your smile gets kissed away but the giddiness doesn’t fade.
His hands on your back pull you closer towards him and your thumbs press against his jawline. Your body feels like it’s starting to liquify in his arms as you melt against him. You pull back and Clark steals one more lingering kiss from you. It elicits another soft smile.
You don’t open your eyes right away, breathing in deep through your nose as you press your forehead against his. His thumbs rub circles against your back and his nose nudges yours. You blink your eyes open and lean back enough to look at him fully.
You run a hand through the mess of curls on his head, eyes as soft as the edges of your smile. Clark’s looking at you like you hung the moon. The simplest of thoughts pops into your head. A flash of fear shocks your body. You push the feeling down and away, locking it up deep in the gooey center of your heart.
But you can’t lock away the thought that races around your brain like a news headline.
You’re a thousand percent, without a doubt, in love with Clark Kent.
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It’s an almost difficult realization for you in the coming days. The familiar dip in your stomach, a pull on your heart, like passing by an old friend in the grocery store. Things are safe with Clark, you’re safe with Clark. But it doesn’t quell the stutter of fear in the beat of your heart that’s been opening itself back to love.
You can’t help it but you do the best thing you know how. You pull away even though it’s twisting your heart into knots. A part of you hopes that he’ll break things off if you push hard enough. Maybe it’ll hurt less that way.
Because what if you love him too much, too hard that he slips away? In your head, it’s better to withdraw now and first before he ever gets the chance to. Logically, you know it’s unlike Clark but you can’t help it. You’re not feeling very rational right now. Common sense has seemed to fly right out the window.
Clark feels utterly confused. You keep things about the same at work but the second you get home, he can feel you pulling away. You stop answering his calls. You don’t let him kiss you, barely let him hold your hand.
He goes into fix-it mode, trying to retrace his steps and figure out if maybe he did something but he comes up short. He tries talking to you about it but you shrug it off, insisting everything is fine when he can clearly tell it’s not.
He decides that maybe you just need a day or two to yourself and he acquiesces, giving you the space that he thinks you need. When he does, you think maybe he’s finally pulling away too and even though it makes you ache, you think it’s for the best.
But when space doesn’t work and you still won’t talk he knows something is really wrong. In his head, he makes a loose plan. He’ll get you to talk to him somehow, if anything to just get some kind of closure if you’ve decided this isn’t something you want to pursue with him anymore. The thought makes him ache but he has to know.
A couple weekends after dinner with his mom, you’re in your apartment staring at the wilted flowers on your kitchen table, wondering if you should maybe get rid of them. But that feels like getting rid of Clark somehow and you can’t bring yourself to do either of those things.
There’s a knock on your door and your heart knows it’s him before you do. You open the door and there he stands. His nose is pink from the cold and there’s a sadness so heavy in his eyes it stabs at the tender bits of your heart.
“We need to talk,” he says, and then at the last second, “please.”
You don’t say anything, just step aside to make room for him to come in. You close the door behind him with a click.
“What’s going on?” he asks as soon as you turn around. You fold your arms, hugging them to you like some kind of armor.
“What do you mean?” you try to play a little dumb and Clark huffs. It’s the first time you’ve ever seen him anything close to angry.
“You know what I mean. It’s what I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me about for weeks.” he sounds the slightest bit exasperated. “You won’t talk to me outside of work anymore. You won’t let me close enough to do much of anything. You’ve stopped returning my calls. It’s like you’ve completely pulled away.”
He sounds hurt more than anything.
“Did I do something? What happened?”
You close your eyes and sigh. “No Clark, you didn’t do anything. Nothing…happened.”
“Then why. Why are you pulling away?”
“Maybe we’re just better as friends!” you burst out, arms falling to your sides. “We were moving too fast. Maybe it’s just…easier if we just go back to being friends. Nothing more.”
“Don’t do that,” he says and you blink at him. Your eyebrows furrow.
“What? I’m not-” you pinch the bridge of your nose. Your words have started leaving you both so fast your sentences almost overlap. “Clark-”
“You’re quitting before things get tough. You can’t do that.”
“What? I’m not..I’m not quitting. God, Clark I-” your voice starts to break. “I’m trying to protect myself. I’m terrified.”
Clark’s shoulders soften. “Terrified?”
“Yes,” you say and now the words won’t stop spilling out of you. “I’m scared to death of…of this. Of you! Of us! Of…of all of it! I’m scared.”
Clark looks like a kicked puppy again.
“Me? Us?” his voice sounds so small and your heart twists. “Why?”
“Because I..” you’re almost panting. “Because I love you, Clark. I love you and it scares me because I never wanted to fall in love again. I never wanted to risk the pain of losing someone again. I didn’t want to risk the possibility of things ending just like they did with Ben three years ago.
And then I met you and I just knew if anyone would change my mind it would be you. The thought of being loved by you scared me and at the same time I was scared by how much I wanted that. And I tried not to but falling in love with you was the easiest thing for me to do.”
You’re not sure when you started crying or when Clark got close enough to be able to wipe your tears away with his thumbs. He looks pained at the sight of your tears but beneath that is a joy so vibrant it almost glows.
“Hey, hey, hey,” his voice is a soft melody in your ears. “I love you, too.”
It doesn’t sound as scary to you when he says it outloud. You sniffle, unable to fight the smile that spreads across your face. It’s teary and you’ve got a sudden worry that your nose is running.
“You do? Even still?”
Clark lets out a soft laugh and nods, wiping away fresh tears that have fallen over your cheeks. “Yeah, honey, I do. Even still.”
“It’s an awful lot of work,” you say. Through a wet laugh, “I’m a mess, clearly.”
“No it’s not. Not for me. Not when it’s you.”
The look in his eyes is so intense and serious, you’ve no choice but to believe him. Your heart soars. You sniffle again, feeling like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders. Your fingers curl themselves into the fabric of the sweatshirt he’s wearing.
“Are you gonna kiss me or not?” you tease and it pulls a smile out of Clark. He presses his lips to yours, so tender and soft, it leaves you melting like that ice cream cone he bought you what seems like a lifetime ago.
Love this go around feels familiar, but it’s different, better even in all the right ways. It’s like returning from a lifelong journey and sinking into a hug.
It feels like coming home.
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as usual, tagging some people who might be interested (if not u can ignore) & those who asked hehehe: @stevebabey @brettsgoldstein @almightyellie @katsu28 @sanguineterrain @anonymouse1807 @superemobitch @manicandobsessive @clonesdserveb3tter @lalameors @celestialend @claudiwithachanceof @pessimisticmoon @clarkstwin @cupid4prez
faye’s ( @sunsburns ) most recent bob fic (WHICH WAS AMAZING GO READ) just reminded me of that one scene in romeo & juliet where the montagues like crash the capulets party. and it’s like forbidden love with romeo and juliet yk.
like.
pov ur crashing a party with joaquin and sam (obviously sam is keeping yall in check). and bob (juliet) is just like watching yall crash this party while valentina (lord capulet) like hates ur guts. like secret relationship, forbidden love, catch my drift….
bob reynolds x thunderbolt!reader (post thunderbolts, minor spoilers!)
“Are you sure you want me to do this?”
You’re standing over Bob with a pair of scissors in your hand, the other poised on your hip.
He nods. “Yeah. It’s getting too long, isn’t it?”
You frown. Reaching out with your free hand, you run your fingers through his hair like you’re already mourning it. “But … it’s so nice. I don’t want to ruin it.”
Bob shakes his head. He’s feeling rather lovesick, and he’s not sure if he’s asked you to cut his hair because he actually needs it, or because he just wants you touching him. Either way, he’s not backing down.
“You won’t, baby,” he says. “It’s only a trim. An inch or less.”
“I know, but— what if I cut off too much?”
Bob honestly wouldn’t care if you cut it all off. Well, maybe he would, ‘cos then you wouldn’t have anything to tug on when you’re kissing him. What he’s trying to say is he doesn’t care what you do to his hair — you’re perfect and so is anything you do.
“You won’t,” he repeats firmly.
You hesitate, biting your lip. “You sure you don’t want me to just take you to the salon?”
Bob never wants to step foot in a salon ever again. The last time he saw a hairdresser was when Valentina convinced him it was a good idea to go blonde, and he walked away with the dumbest corn-coloured hair he’d ever seen. It was never going to suit him and he knew it sitting in that hairdresser’s chair, but he couldn’t say no. He’s just lucky he didn’t have to dye it all out in the end.
Bob shakes his head. “No, I want you to do it,” he says. Then, because you still don’t look convinced, “Please?”
Something about the way he’s looking at you must unravel you, because you cave.
“Okay, fine,” you sigh. You move around the back of his chair and start running your fingers carefully through his too-long hair. Looking over his head, you meet his eyes in the mirror. “But don’t blame me if it’s awful.”
Bob would roll his eyes if he wasn’t so in love with you. “It won’t be,” he says patiently instead, smiling at you.
You make a face at him but get to work with no further objection. Bob sits contentedly and lets you separate his hair into smaller chunks. He watches you in the mirror and wonders if you know you pretty you look. He feels infinitely lucky to have you, especially when he’s got people like Yelena and Bucky to compete with. But you’ve chosen him.
He doesn’t even flinch when you pull out the scissors and start chopping. The soft shink of the blade cutting through his hair fills the quiet air, chunks of chestnut brown falling around his feet.
“I hope I’m doing this right,” you mumble to yourself.
“You’re doing great, honey,” Bob tells you, though he can’t really tell at all. For all he knows you could be giving him a mullet, but he doesn’t care.
He’s too busy enjoying the feeling of your hands in his hair, and then your hand on his shoulder when you hold it to steady yourself. He especially likes it when it’s time to cut the front of his hair, and you move to stand by his knees.
You nudge his knee with yours. “Spread your legs?” You ask softly.
Bob’s face goes hot but thankfully, you’re too focused on the task at hand to notice. He spreads his knees so there’s space for you in between them. You move forward and Bob can’t resist sliding his hands over your hips under the pretense of holding you steady.
“Thank you,” you say.
After that Bob has a hard time concentrating on anything but you. You’re so close he can smell your perfume, sweet enough to make him lightheaded. You’re achingly careful as you trim the hair at the front of his head, tiptoeing to get a better angle. Bob holds you steady, hands warm on your hips and thighs.
By the time you step back, he doesn’t want to let you go. His hands linger but you don’t seem to mind.
“I think I’m all done,” you say, more to yourself than him.
You lean closer, eyes studying his hair as you run your hand through the locks at the front, and Bob can’t help studying you in turn — your lips, your nose, your pretty eyes. Your closeness leaves him dizzy, worse when, oblivious to Bob’s inability to function, you get your hand under his chin and tilt him up towards you.
“Lemme see, babe,” you turn his head to the left, then to the right, studying your handiwork. You turn him back to face you and hum, satisfied. “It looks good, I think. You wanna see?”
Bob nods, putty in your hands. You move out of the way, taking your warmth and sweet scent with you, and Bob’s able to see his reflection in the mirror. His hair looks, in his opinion, perfectly fine. It’s not terrible, like you thought it would be, and it’s nothing spectacular, but that’s not what he wanted anyway. He looks like himself again.
“It’s perfect,” he tells you. He turns his head this way and that, runs a hand through the shortened ends of it. “I love it, you did so good.”
You smile shyly. It’s a cute look on you. “Really?” You ask, shoulders creeping towards your ears.
Bob nods and gets up, unable to stay away from you much longer. He meets you by the sink, where he gets his hands on your hips again.
“Mm-hm,” he nods earnestly, thumbs now rubbing circles into your waistband.
You beam up at him, warm from his touching. You reach up and stroke a hand through his new hair.
“You look handsome,” you compliment sweetly.
Bob’s heart hammers. He hasn’t gotten used to your compliments and doesn’t think he ever will. Rather than try to say something back and most likely stumble over his words, he shuts his eyes and kisses you.
⟢ synopsis. you’re only here to try and understand why bucky’s suddenly gone off the rails and joined a new team, leaving you, sam and joaquín in radio silence. the last thing you expected was to find comfort in a stranger. a kind stranger named bob.
⟢ contains. spoilers for thunderbolts*, takes place during the 14 month later period. nothing too crazy, mostly plot. reader is described as female. bob is a cutie!! reader and joaquín are sambucky children of divorce :(
⟢ wc: 9.7k+
⟢ author’s note. wrote this with a vague idea and a dream. i don't know. don't ask pls.
You were here strictly for business.
The lobby was all polished glass, military-grade charm, and propaganda dressed in gold. Cameras flashed like fireworks along the crimson carpet, catching every inch of shine from designer suits and sharp smiles. A towering digital screen looped the promo again: "The New Avengers: Built for Tomorrow." You watched from the fringe as the montage played, the images slicing together in quick succession—John Walker throwing the shield with over-practised precision, Yelena Belova dismantling a room of dummies in under twelve seconds, and Ava Starr phasing through a concrete wall with a smirk. Hero shots. Sanitized. Manufactured. All of them.
You didn’t blink as you were ushered to an elevator.
Growing up, the Avengers Tower never really felt real to you. Sure, you’d seen the photos, the documentaries, the endless footage of press conferences held on its front steps. Hell, you’d even walked past it with your parents whenever you visited New York—but it still felt like it belonged to another world entirely. Untouchable. Almost mythic.
You never imagined you’d walk inside.
And yet now, riding the elevator up with a slow-climbing hum and nerves that prickled beneath your skin, all you felt was dread.
It was a strange kind of emptiness—the feeling of finally reaching something you once admired, only to realize it had been gutted and repainted in someone else’s image. The marble floors had been waxed clean, but the history here wasn’t. You could still feel the ghosts under the polish. Somewhere between the seams of the rebuilt walls and reprogrammed elevators, there was once a legacy. Real one. But it didn’t belong to the people in charge of this event.
You were crammed in with a handful of Congress members and defence contractors, all of whom smelled like cologne and quiet greed. Congressman Gary was there too, smiling too much, already half-drunk from the limo ride there. (He said it would be the only way he’d survive an entire night listening to people praise Valentina Allegra de Fontaine). Gary had been the one to suggest your attendance might smooth things over. It might make the New Avengers feel like someone from Sam’s camp was willing to listen. Get on their good side—that whole thing.
But you were here for an entirely different reason. His invitation was exactly what you needed to get in, though.
Underneath your gown—sleek, formal, and designed to draw no conclusions—you had a mic stitched into the seam of your strapless bodice. Hidden, but live. Your earpiece buzzed softly with Joaquín’s voice, casual as ever.
“If Sam finds out we’re doing this, we’re so dead.”
You bit the inside of your cheek, trying not to be overheard as the elevator operator gave a rehearsed speech about the tower’s restoration—how it stood now as a symbol of “unity, rebirth, and strength.” You resisted the urge to roll your eyes. The tower didn’t feel like a symbol. It felt like a stage.
“He’ll take away your wings at most,” you murmured, gaze fixed forward. “Relax.”
You could practically hear Joaquín pouting through the comms.
“I just got them back.”
“Then let’s not make a scene. Gary said it’d be good optics to have someone on our side here. We’re doing Sam a favour.” A pause. Then, quieter: “I’m surprised you didn’t want to come with me. You’re cleared for field work.”
“No, thanks. As much as I adore red carpet politics, I don’t think I can be in the same room as de Fontaine without committing a felony. Might get myself in trouble.”
“And I won’t?”
“You’re better at smiling.”
“You’ve never seen me smile.”
“Exactly.”
You exhaled through your nose, the tiniest edge of a grin forming before you could stop it.
“Just... try not to piss anyone off for five minutes, yeah?”
You didn’t answer. The elevator chimed. The doors slid open with a muted ding, and you stepped into a wall of flashing lights and artificial warmth.
The event space had been reconstructed on the upper floors, a showroom designed to impress donors and government officials alike. White marble floors stretched endlessly beneath towering banners that hung from the ceilings like monuments. Each one bore the new emblem of the team—sleek and stylized, but hollow. You could see the press eating it up already.
A digital display behind the podium read:
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE.
MEET EARTH’S NEWEST MIGHTIEST HEROES.
Your stomach turned.
“You still with me?” Joaquín asked.
“Yeah.” You nodded once, moving deeper into the room as your eyes scanned the crowd for familiar faces. “I’m here.”
“I’m gonna need camera access,” he said. “There’s a chip tucked under the gem on your bracelet. If you can slide that into an outlet somewhere, I’ll be able to map out the floor’s electrical system. Should help me locate the control room.”
“Guy in the chair,” you muttered, lips twitching into a faint grin. It was impressive—his gadgets, his confidence. Typical Joaquín.
Congressman Gary had vanished into the crowd, but you didn’t mind. Better alone than attached to a man who introduced you as a pet project. You plucked a glass of champagne from a passing tray, the cold stem grounding in your fingers, and sidestepped toward the edge of the room.
An outlet revealed itself by a floor-length curtain. You knelt, as if adjusting your heel, and casually broke the gem from your bracelet, slipping it into the socket with practiced ease.
“Okay,” Joaquín said, voice clearer now. “Give me a minute to get my bearings. While I’m working on this, try not to look like a loser in the corner. Mingle or something.”
You scoffed under your breath. “Easy for you to say—you can talk anyone’s ear off.”
“You calling me annoying?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. Go see if you can find Bucky while I work on this, would you?”
Right. Bucky Barnes.
You weren’t here to mingle. You weren’t here to sip champagne or shake hands or sweet-talk your way into the New Avengers’ good graces. You were here for Sam. And more specifically—for Bucky. Wherever the hell he was hiding.
The plan was simple enough in theory: Get a read on what Valentina was playing at. Try to talk to Bucky. Get ahead of whatever fallout was brewing between him and Sam before it turned into a full-blown civil war again. You’d offered to go because no one else would.
Joaquín was trying to stay neutral (and failing). Isaiah had dismissed Bucky as a long-lost white man with too many ghosts. And Sam refused to speak to Bucky since the news broke about the New Avengers. And Bucky hadn’t said a damn word back.
So here you were. You were the only one left who might still be able to stand in the space between them without setting off alarms, even if you were biased.
You still didn’t understand how Bucky could do it. How he could go from testifying before Congress about accountability and reform, to standing beside Valentina Allegra de Fontaine like she hadn’t personally undone everything they’d fought for. Like he hadn’t been there when Ross tried to throw his friends all in cells. (Sure, you weren't there for it either, but Sam told you all about it; the accords were one of the reasons the Avengers broke up.)
Valentina wasn’t just dangerous—she was calculated. Clever. The kind of dangerous that worked in the shadows, smiling for cameras while quietly tying strings around people’s necks. She had her ex-husband arrested, sabotaged Wakandan outreach missions, and picked through the wreckage of post-blip heroes like she was drafting a fantasy football team. The fact that she now had a unit of enhanced individuals marching under her payroll and calling themselves the New Avengers made your stomach turn.
And Bucky was one of them.
You believed Valentina was guilty the second Bucky first mentioned she’d recruited John Walker. Walker—who had murdered a man in public, with blood still wet on the shield—and somehow walked free. Charges vanished. Headlines redirected. Now he was being repackaged as a hero again, and Bucky was standing next to him like nothing had happened.
You couldn’t wrap your head around it. No matter how many angles you looked at it from, it didn’t make sense. And the more you thought about it, the more it burned in your chest.
What was he thinking?
Why hadn’t he said anything?
Why wasn’t he here?
You pulled in a slow breath as you stepped further into the room, letting the sound of clinking glasses and diplomatic small talk wash over you like static.
The room was grand in a gaudy way—shiny surfaces and marble floors that reflected the chandelier light too harshly. Everything screamed polished excess, like they were trying to distract from the blood under the polish.
You tried to scan the crowd for Bucky, but there were too many faces, too many government suits and PR smiles, none of them him. You told yourself that when you did find Bucky, he’d have some kind of explanation—something to loosen the knot in your chest, something that could push down the rising anxiety. Something that could explain how the man you once trusted was now parading around in a suit under Valentina’s thumb.
Instead, you found Congressman Gary. Or rather, he found you.
He was already three glasses of champagne deep—five, if you counted the shots you’d seen him down on the way—and he beamed like he’d found a shiny toy in a sea of suits.
“There she is,” he said, slinging an arm around your shoulder like you hadn’t just been avoiding him for fifteen minutes. “You have got to meet some of these people. Big names. Big wallets.”
You were too polite to shrug him off, even as he dragged you into a circle of De Fontaine’s investors. Their grins were just a little too sharp, their eyes a little too eager. The way they looked at you made your skin crawl, like you were a chess piece they hadn’t quite decided how to play yet.
You smiled tightly. Shook clammy hands. Answered vague questions. Nodded while they spoke about “opportunities,” “rebuilding legacy,” and “rebranding heroism.”
One man leaned in closer, his breath thick with bourbon. “You know,” he said, voice oily, “with your background, you’d be a perfect candidate for the new team. Valentina has a real eye for talent, and we’re building something bigger than what came before. Something better. You could help shape it from the inside.”
You swallowed your disgust with a sip of champagne. “I’m not really looking to join anything right now.” That was a lie. You already had a seat in the team Sam was putting together. But he did not need to know that.
He chuckled, as if that wasn’t an answer.
“Okay, I’ve got eyes,” Joaquín said suddenly in your ear. His voice broke through the haze like a rope thrown across stormy water.
You exhaled in relief. “Excuse me,” you told the group, already turning away. “I need to grab a drink.”
They nodded, already moving on to the next opportunity in heels. Gary wasn’t too happy, though.
You drifted from the circle, walking slowly toward the open bar. On the way, you passed a tray of themed hors d’oeuvres—tiny “Avenger” sliders with edible logos, cupcakes shaped like shields and guns.
A mounted camera in the corner caught your eye, its red light blinking lazily above a velvet-draped sculpture.
“See me?” you muttered.
“Yeah, I see you,” Joaquín replied.
“Still no sign of Barnes.”
“Scanning crowd pings now,” he said. “Either he’s ghosting the place or he got another haircut and I can’t recognize him. Which would be so like him, by the way.”
You sighed and accepted another drink from a passing server, something dry and too expensive, and kept moving.
You figured you’d shaken at least six hands tonight that belonged to people who’d love to see your head on a stick—if not for the lucrative optics of you standing here at all. You were an opportunity to them. A symbol. A bargaining chip in a war they didn’t even understand.
Your dress caught suddenly.
You stumbled—only a step, but enough for the chilled drink to slosh dangerously near the edge of the glass. You turned on instinct, hand rising to fix the silk scarf that had slipped from your neck and shoulder.
A man stood behind you, wide-eyed, hand half-raised like he’d been about to catch you.
“I—I’m so sorry,” he stammered. His voice was low, a subtle rumble barely audible over the layers of clinking glass, conversation, and ambient music. “—stepped on your dress. Sorry.”
You blinked, caught off guard.
He looked like he didn’t belong here. Not in the way the others did. No glossy name tag, no designer smugness. His suit was clean, but not flashy. Understated.
“It’s fine,” you said quickly, instinctively adjusting your scarf where it had slipped from your shoulder. You shook out the fabric of your dress around the ankles, heart skipping in the echo of that voice. Something about the way he said it—apologetic, soft, like he genuinely meant it—caught you off guard.
“Sorry,” he mumbled again, even quieter this time, eyes dropping to the floor. His dark hair fell over his face, almost like he was trying to shrink three sizes. You could hear a faint, awkward laugh in his voice. “Uhm… yeah. Sorry.”
He didn’t linger. Just turned and slipped back into the crowd before you could even process anything. No second glance. Just a gentle pivot and a few long strides back into the crowd, swallowed instantly by the sea of shoulder pads, press passes, and sharp perfume.
You stood there for a second, staring after him.
He moved differently from the others. No performative swagger. No politician’s posture. No tray in his hand, so he’s definitely not a server. He was quiet in a way that made you feel like you’d imagined him, like he’d only brushed through this reality for a second before vanishing into another.
You didn’t recognize him.
And you should have.
For all the files you’d scoured, the profiles and photos, the research you’d buried yourself in to prepare for tonight, you’d made it your job to know every player in this room. Who to watch. Who to avoid. Who might be useful.
But not him.
You turned back toward the bar, but your mind didn’t follow. Not entirely.
Who the fuck was that?
You were just about to ask Joaquín to pull a facial scan when something in your periphery stopped you cold.
John Walker.
He was only a few steps away, mid-conversation with some high-level sponsor, until his gaze landed on you. And then he froze.
The look that crossed his face was quick, recognition, discomfort, maybe a flicker of guilt, but he buried it just as fast, turning away without a word. He pivoted like a man avoiding a ghost, ignoring the way the sponsor he spoke to called after him.
“Walker just made a hard left into the hors d’oeuvres,” Joaquín muttered in your ear, low and amused. “You see that?”
You exhaled, more irritated than surprised. “We’re not here for him.”
“Yeah. I think he knows that too. That’s why he’s pretending he’s got important shrimp to eat.”
That pulled a faint smile from you, biting down the urge to laugh.
Typical. The last time you’d seen Walker in person, he was seated in a courtroom with his jaw clenched so tight you thought he’d snap a molar. You’d testified in his case, alongside Sam, Bucky, and everyone else who had to witness what happened in Madripoor—what he did to that man in the square. The shield, slick and red. The silence afterward, heavier than any explosion.
You never fought him. Never had to. But you'd been on opposite sides of that mess, and he knew it. Hell, you’d spoken directly to his discharge. Your words were probably still echoing in the back of his skull.
The way he turned away just now… yeah. He remembered you.
“I’m surprised he didn’t start barking about national security,” Joaquín quipped in your ear again. “Do you think we should trail him?”
You hesitated. You didn’t want to. Just the idea of following in Walker’s smug footsteps made your jaw clench.
But Joaquín pressed, “He might know where Bucky is.”
And that was the problem—he was right. And you hated how much sense it made. Of course, Walker would know. You also hate how Walker and Bucky were probably friends now.
A camera flash caught your eye, and you instinctively straightened your posture, smoothed your expression. No time for a scowl, even if that’s all you wanted to wear.
You adjusted your gown, tugged lightly at the hem, checked the wire hidden at your waist, and started walking in the direction Walker and that ugly barret he wore had vanished.
The crowd shifted around you like tidewater—polished politicians and strategic handshakes, investors with too-white smiles and drinks that cost more than your rent. Every few steps, someone waved. A few shook your hand like they knew you, like you were an old friend they’d been waiting for. A woman asked for a photo. Another leaned in and whispered, “Are you joining the new team?” like it were a secret worth selling.
You deflected with a nod and a vague smile, each interaction leaving a layer of static behind your eyes.
It was strange how quickly the attention shifted now that you were in the spotlight. Recently, you’d spent most of your career standing behind Isaiah while Joaquín and Sam did the talking. You liked it there. It was quieter. Easier to breathe. Now, suddenly, they were holding out chairs for you at the table.
The whole thing felt like theatre. Scripted and glassy. Lines rehearsed. Costumes ironed. Every player doing their part beneath the blinding stage lights.
You still weren’t sure what was worse—that Bucky accepted Valentina’s funding, or that he and his new friends let her call them The Avengers.
Sam was right to be angry. He should be. He’d already turned down President Ross’ private offer to hand him the reins of a military-funded global response team. The same offer that Valentina had repackaged, repurposed, and handed off to people who were too coward to say no.
“He’s on the east end, talking to Ava starr and another woman. I think she’s Valentina’s assistant. Oh—shit. He just pointed at you.”
Your chest tightened. You turned too fast, momentarily losing your bearings in the rotating lights and mirrored walls. East—east—
And then someone stepped into your path.
A wall of a man appeared in front of you so suddenly, you nearly collided with him; broad-shouldered and bearded, dressed in a burgundy suit that looked just a size too tight across his chest.
He smiled widely, eyes bright like he’d been waiting for a moment like this all night.
“I know you,” he said, voice thick with a Russian accent. “I’ve seen you on the televisions. You shake hands with the new Captain America.”
You blinked. “I—uh, yeah.”
“Ah!” He laughed, clapping one heavy hand to your shoulder with surprising gentleness for a man who looked like he could punch through drywall. “Very brave of you. Very good. You look different in person. In a strong way. Like a panther. Or mongoose.”
You tried for a diplomatic smile. “Thanks, I think.”
“Oh! Where are my manners,” he said, dramatically straightening and offering his hand. “I am Alexei Shostakov. The Red Guardian.”
You knew that, but you didn’t know he’d be so... loud.
You took his hand, his grip warm and firm. “Pleasure to meet you, Alexei.”
“Kind. Very kind,” he said, eyes gleaming. “You remind me of my daughter! You have same fire in eyes. Around same age, too—you could be friends! Yelena is always looking for new friends.”
Yelena Belova. That name lit something up in the back of your mind. You’d seen the files. The attempted murder of Clint Barton. Her brief status as an independent threat before being absorbed, quietly and conveniently, into Valentina’s new game.
And suddenly, Alexei’s smile widened even more.
“Yelena!” he bellowed, cupping his hands to his mouth as if you weren’t standing in the middle of a very public, very polished gala. “Come meet new friend!”
Several heads turned. Cameras flashed—bright, blinding. You winced against the burst of lights, regretting everything from your dress colour to your decision to show up at all.
But it was too late. He leaned in beside you, one arm suddenly draped over your shoulder like you were posing for a family Christmas card. “Smile!” he boomed, and before you could protest, he struck a dramatic flex, biceps pressing into your back like steel girders.
You caught a whiff of expensive cologne and vodka.
In the corner of your eye, a flash of short, bleached blonde hair was making its way through the crowd with frightening determination. Elegant, yes—but there was no mistaking the sharpness in Yelena Belova’s gaze. She wore a sleek black suit like it was made of knives, a funky eyeliner design, hair slicked back and every step carved with purpose. And beside her—
Your heart dipped.
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
Poised. Smirking. Watching everything.
“Be careful. Yelena is coming your way with Valentina.”
Thanks for the warning, Joaquín. Delayed. But thanks nevertheless.
You stood up straighter, willing your heartbeat to slow down even as Valentina’s eyes zeroed in on you like a predator clocking a foe.
Wonderful.
You leaned slightly toward Alexei, trying not to seem as panicked as you felt. “Can I ask you something? About Bucky Barnes?”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, cutting you off before you could finish the question. “Bucky! Yes, yes. The Winter Soldier. Very cool. Very handsome. Like Soviet James Dean.”
You blinked. “I mean—do you know where he is?”
But Alexei was already on another tangent. “We fought in Uzbekistan once, did you know this? I threw him through a door. He did not like that. But I like him. I like him very much. Quiet, serious type. You know he never answers my texts?”
“Right. Yeah. That tracks.”
And then—
“Oh, what a pleasant surprise,” said a voice sharp as champagne fizz and just as bitter. De Fontaine. She cut into the conversation with the smoothness of someone who was always in control, grinning like she knew a secret you didn’t. A glass of bubbly dangled between her fingers, catching the light just enough to draw attention. As if she needed help with that.
“I was just about to introduce you all,” she said, placing a perfectly manicured hand on Yelena’s arm as the blonde finally joined your little nightmare circle.
“What is this?” Yelena asked flatly, eyes flicking between you and Valentina.
Valentina didn’t bother to answer—just gave a smug little hum and tugged Yelena closer, corralling her between you and Alexei. The four of you shifted automatically into position, an unspoken reflex in rooms like this.
You could feel the cameras turning like sharks in bloodied water.
Flashes burst across your vision. The moment was already captured—your stiff shoulders, your frozen smile. A picture-perfect lineup of cooperation.
And you could feel it: this wasn’t a coincidence.
This was intentional.
Valentina leaned in, voice cool and sugary against your ear as more bulbs burst. “I am so pleased to see you here,” she cooed, “considering how close you and Sam are.”
“I mean, I had to come congratulate you,” you said tightly, lips barely moving. “Recreating the Avengers. That’s… big.”
She beamed at the cameras, teeth white and wolfish. “Someone had to.”
“Of course.”
Another flash. Another frozen pose.
You winced. Sam is going to kill you.
Valentina fielded the sudden swarm of questions like she was born in front of a podium—deflecting, redirecting, charming. Every answer was deliberate, each word chosen like a chess move. Stability. Legacy. Global confidence. Alliances.
They lapped it up like champagne, snapping photos, nodding, laughing. You stood beside her, barely blinking, jaw tight behind your polite smile.
You weren’t meant to be part of this show. You were supposed to be on the outside looking in from the in the crowd.
When the flashes finally began to die down and the clamour shifted elsewhere, Valentina turned with that too-perfect, too-white grin. She glanced at Yelena and Alexei like she were dismissing children.
“Would you two mind?” she asked, breezy as ever. “I’d like to have a quick little chat.”
Yelena’s gaze flicked toward you. Not unkind. But cautious. Reading you like a live wire.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, her brows subtly knitting.
“Oh, everything’s perfectly fine,” Valentina replied before you could speak, her hand already at your back. “Go fetch a drink. Mingle.”
It wasn’t a suggestion.
You barely had time to glance back at Yelena—at the slight, suspicious narrowing of her eyes—before the crowd swallowed her and Alexei whole.
Your earpiece crackled to life. “She’s taking you to the balcony,” Joaquín said, voice low and taut. “There are no cameras there. I won’t be able to see, but I can still hear you.”
There was a pause, then: “I’ll keep looking for Bucky.”
You barely managed a breath of relief before Valentina cut in, sharp and smiling.
“Bucky’s not here tonight, if that’s really why you’re here.”
You stiffened mid-step.
Joaquín swore in your ear. Something heavy hit a surface—maybe his fist against a table—and you heard the scrape of a chair.
“What do you mean?” you asked, your voice light, falsely sweet. “I came to celebrate you.”
You crossed the threshold to the balcony.
It was quieter out here, eerily so. The muffled pulse of the gala was dulled by glass and distance. The cold kissed your skin through your dress. You could feel it biting at your exposed arms, but you welcomed the sting. It was honest.
Below, the city stretched like a glowing circuit board. Skyscrapers hummed with light. Traffic moved in golden veins. It was beautiful in the kind of way that felt removed. Untouchable.
Valentina’s heels clicked once against the stone floor, then stopped.
“Cut the bullshit,” she scoffed, voice low now. “We both know that’s not true.”
You turned your head, slow and steady. Her eyes were already on you. Unflinching.
“Where’s your friend?” she asked casually. “The little Mexican one?”
You flinched—just barely. Your jaw clenched tight.
Valentina smiled wider at that.
You opened your mouth to answer, to lie, to throw her off, to say something clever, but she leaned forward before you could, voice barely above a whisper.
Her lips were close to your collarbone, eyes locked on your chest. On the mic she couldn’t see.
“Hola, Joaquín,” she murmured, velvet-smooth. “¿Cómo estás? How’s the arm? Still broken?”
She pulled back with a grin full of satisfaction. Joaquín didn’t respond—not a breath. But you felt the burn of it in your gut. He heard her. She knew he was listening. And that was the whole point.
She got what she wanted. You could see it in the eyes, the tilt of her head, the calm sip from her glass, the curl of smugness just under her lipstick.
Valentina turned her back to the railing, facing you fully, her glass catching the amber light of the city. Her smile didn’t crack once.
“You know,” she began, like she was catching up with an old friend, her voice silked with charm, “you don’t have to keep playing both sides. It’s exhausting, isn’t it?”
You said nothing. Not because you didn’t have something to say, but because the words wouldn’t form. Your brain was too busy calculating exits, signals, whether Joaquín could hear any of this, or if he was already doing something stupid like storming into the gala uninvited.
“You show up with a wire,” she continued, waving her champagne flute like it weighed nothing, “a dress like that, pretending you’re just here to smile for the cameras.”
Her eyes dipped slowly, then back up.
“You do look stunning, by the way,” she added casually. “But we both know you’re not here for the press or to butter yourself up to me or my team. You’re listening. Recording. Digging...”
The flute met her lips again. Sip. Deliberate.
“Looking for Barnes,” she said. “Like he’s going to whisper some grand truth that’ll fix whatever little crisis your friends are having.”
You could feel your jaw tighten. Every word she spoke landed like pressure against a bruise you didn’t want to admit was there.
Valentina tilted her head, studying you with the kind of gaze that belonged in an interrogation room, not a rooftop party. “You’re sharp,” she said. “Good instincts. It’s why Sam keeps you close, right?”
Still, you stayed silent. Because anything you gave her, she’d twist. She already was.
“But let me ask you something,” she said, voice a shade lower, softer. “What’s loyalty really worth—if the people you serve are always the ones left bleeding in the dirt?”
A pulse of heat shot up your neck. You didn’t move, but she saw it.
Of course, she saw it.
“And for the record,” she added, twirling the stem of her glass, “I don’t have anything against Sam Wilson. Poor guy. I pity him, actually. The shit he’s put up with just for carrying that shield—God.”
She clicked her tongue with exaggerated sympathy.
“I’d kill to have Captain America on my team. The real one. Not Walker. That man is a pathetic as it gets. Hair-trigger temper, zero emotional intelligence—”
“Sam would never work with you,” you said, sharper than intended.
Valentina’s smile widened because you finally said something worthwhile. “Oh, I know,” she said, almost gleefully. “He’s a purist. One of the last. His morals are steel-tight. Fucking unshakable. A real Boy Scout. Steve Rogers made a good choice.”
And that was the part that hurt—the part that made you swallow back a flicker of doubt you hadn’t expected to feel.
“Where’s Bucky?” you asked, voice quieter now. “I just want to talk to him.”
She didn’t even hesitate.
“Bucky’s not missing or anything,” Valentina said. “He’s busy. Doing a job for me in Pennsylvania. Cleaning up some loose ends, you know the deal.”
You felt it before you could stop it—that tiny, invisible shift in your expression. Something cracked. Something gave her an answer you hadn’t meant to give.
“That supposed to scare me?” you asked, though it already kind of did.
“No,” she said. “It’s supposed to make you think. About options. About what someone like you could do with the right resources. With the right funding. Imagine it: you with your own team. Autonomy. Access. No more red tape. You make your own shots. We clean up whatever mess you leave behind. And, get this, you even get paid for it.”
You glanced toward the city, anything to avoid her eyes. Lights. Windows. Warmth. All of it felt so far away.
“And if I say no?”
“Then someone else says yes.”
She stepped back, brushing something from her blazer sleeve. “Just think about it,” she said, all silk and sugar again. “We could use someone like you. You belong in rooms like this, you know. Not chasing ghosts, or waiting for Wilson to approve your next move. You’re already breaking. I can see it. You wouldn’t be here tonight if you weren’t. I’m sure Captain America won’t be happy seeing your name in the headlines tomorrow morning: The Next Potenital Avenger.”
Her smile held, framed in the cold, glittering dark of the balcony. Then she turned and walked past you, the soft graze of her shoulder against yours more intimate than it had any right to be. A mockery of closeness.
“Enjoy the rest of your evening,” she said, already stepping back through the doors. “Tell Sam I said hi.”
The glass door shut behind her with a quiet click.
And the cold came in fast.
Not just the air, but the after. The silence. The wrongness of being left alone up here, the wind biting now that you weren’t so focused on not showing fear.
Your body finally remembered it was yours. Your fingers hurt from gripping the railing too hard. You eased your hands free, flexed them, saw the white draining slowly from your knuckles. You still couldn’t feel them.
Your mic hissed faintly to life, and Joaquín’s voice filtered through the static like someone calling out to you underwater.
“…you okay?” he asked, strained. Urgent.
You didn’t answer right away. Your mind was still racing through what Valentina had said, how easily she’d dodged your defences, how easy she was to turn your presence into a publicity stunt, how well she knew you—or at least thought she did.
She must be blackmailing Bucky. That must be it.
You kept staring out at the skyline like it might give you an answer. It didn’t. Just glass and steel and lights that blinked too slow to feel alive.
“No,” you finally muttered.
It didn’t come out strong. It came out cracked. Like the inside of your chest had gone hollow, and you were just now realizing it.
Joaquín exhaled through the comm, like he’d been holding his breath.
“I think legal action is our next step,” he said, tone snapping back into focus like a lifeline. “We can sue them for the name. Trademark it. Or maybe—maybe Sam tries to talk to Bucky again? We’ve still got options.”
You didn’t respond. Not yet.
The railing under your palm felt like ice. You blinked hard, fighting back the sudden sting in your eyes. Not from fear. From frustration. From the way every word she said still echoed in your head, sticky and sharp, leaving splinters behind.
You dragged in a breath.
“…that fucking bitch,” you scoffed.
“Yeah… I don’t like Valentina either.”
You jumped.
The voice came from somewhere behind you, softer, unsure. You spun around on instinct, stepping away from the railing.
That man.
The one who stepped on your dress earlier. He was sitting now, low in one of the patio couches near a sleek electric fireplace that flickered lazily against the dark. The flames glinted off the patio doors and caught the edge of his profile—brown hair, downturned mouth, eyes wide like he was the one who got caught.
You hadn’t noticed him when you came out here. And now that you really looked… you realized why.
He wasn’t trying to be seen.
He sat in the farthest corner of the couch, hunched slightly, knees close together, hands clutched like he didn’t know what to do with them. Like someone had planted him there and told him to wait. The firelight danced across his face, softening him. He didn’t look threatening. Just... startled. And oddly apologetic for existing.
He offered a small, nervous smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, like… scare you.”
There was genuine concern in his voice—concern for you, not about you. That was rare.
“It’s fine,” you said, because you didn’t know what else to say.
“Who’s that?” Joaquín's voice cracked through your earpiece.
You didn’t answer right away.
Your eyes stayed on the stranger, and for a moment, you debated whether or not to even breathe too loud.
“I don’t know…” You muttered.
“Okay, uh… I’ll try to do a voice match or something—see if anything comes up. Keep them talking.”
The man must’ve noticed the way you were half-turned, the way your fingers brushed against your ear.
He shifted slightly. “Who’re… who’re you talking to?”
You froze. And then, with a wince: “Uh… just… myself. Thinking out loud.”
There was a pause.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. I do that too. All the time, actually.”
You weren’t sure what to do with that. You weren’t sure what to do with him.
He looked different now compared to earlier. Still awkward, still nervous—but less like he was trying to shrink into himself and more like he was trying his best to meet you where you were. His eyes held yours this time. Not for long, though. They dropped to his hands and shoes after a while. But it was long enough to feel it.
You took a cautious step forward, angling yourself toward the fire, toward him, but still keeping a healthy distance.
“You um… You know Valentina?” you asked. Stupid. Of course, he did. Everyone at this party did.
“Uh… yeah. Something like that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I wasn’t like… eavesdropping or anything. It’s just—there’s a lot of people in there. And it’s… quieter out here.”
He hesitated, then added: “I’m Bob, by the way.”
His voice wavered, but not from dishonesty. He said his name like he wasn’t sure it would mean anything to you. Like he just told you his name to be kind.
You gave him a nod. Not a smile. But not cold either.
“Hi, Bob.”
A beat passed.
You debated telling him your name. Joaquín would probably advise against it. But you weren’t feeling tactical anymore—you were feeling tired. Bruised in a way you couldn’t name. And maybe you just needed to feel like a real person again. Like someone who wasn’t being puppeteered.
So, after a pause, you gave him your name.
Bob blinked. Then he offered a small, shy smile that cracked at the edges.
“Cool. Hi,” he said, breathless. His brows furrowed as his gaze dropped lower, his eyes catching on your waist, your hips. “Uh—sorry again, about your dress. I didn’t mean to step on it earlier. You looked like you were in a rush and I—well, I was definitely in your way.”
You felt your lips twitch. The barest curve, not sharp or defensive. A faint grin. Delicate. “It’s alright,” you said. “Bound to happen at places like these.”
His head tilted slightly, curious. “You come to stuff like this often?”
“Not often. Just sometimes.”
And it was only then that you realized you’d stepped closer.
Your arms had casually found their place against the back of the couch across from him, hands gripping the cool metal frame as your scarf drifted with the breeze behind you. You weren’t leaning in exactly, but the distance had shrunk.
When did that happen?
You tilted your head, letting your eyes linger a little longer now, more curious than guarded. You assessed him with a little more attention now.
“I’m guessing you don’t come to these events much?”
Bob immediately shook his head, a nervous, breathy laugh escaping his lips like it was running away from him. You could see the cloud of it in the cold night air, swirling and vanishing between you.
“God, no. This is my second one and it’s—it’s been a lot. I think I’m gonna ask to just stay in my room next time.” He gave a little shrug, slouching a bit. “It’s not like I do much anyway. I mean, I’m allowed to talk to people, and I like talking to people, but I’d rather not sometimes.”
That made you blink. Allowed?
The word snagged on something in your mind. There was something disarming about the way he said it, like he didn’t mean to offer that information but also didn’t think it was worth hiding. You couldn’t tell if he was joking, oversharing, or both. But it was too strange to ignore. Like it slipped past a filter that wasn’t built right. It made you hesitate, if only for a breath.
But he wasn’t watching your reaction. He was staring at the flicker of the fire, letting the silence sit between you like it belonged there.
You folded your arms gently across your chest, the smooth material of your dress whispering beneath your fingertips.
“You seem to be talking just fine with me,” you pointed out, softer now.
Bob looked down at his hands. Then back at you. Then away again.
“I… well…” he stammered, voice catching on another shy, almost embarrassed laugh.
And then you saw it.
The blush. A warm pink crawling up from the collar of his white shirt to the apples of his cheeks. Subtle, but not subtle enough to miss. Especially not in the glow of the firelight, which danced over his skin like it had a crush of its own.
“I… yeah, I... I don’t know. Some people are easier to talk to than others, I guess.”
Your mouth twitched before you could stop it.
“Yeah,” you said, “I’d say so.”
The smile that tugged at your lips came easier than you expected. Not just polite. Not guarded. Honest. Probably the first one you’d let slip all night.
Seriously, who the hell is this guy? And why did he make the night feel a little less awful?
He was cute. Not the kind of handsome that announces itself the second someone walks in the room, but the kind that sneaks up on you, quiet, awkward, totally unsure of how much space he takes up and trying not to be a bother. Like he wasn’t used to being looked at for too long and didn’t know where to put himself when he was.
You’d seen a lot of people in this world wear confidence like a costume. Bob didn’t even try. He wore uncertainty like a second skin, and somehow, it made him feel… real.
You liked the way he didn’t crowd you. Didn’t puff out his chest or pretend to have all the answers. He sat with his knees slightly knocked together, most of his hands swallowed by the sleeves of his jacket, like even they were too bold to leave out in the open. Maybe he was anxious. Maybe a little broken in the places that never healed right, but he felt safe. Your gut told you so.
And that made you more nervous than anything else tonight.
You caught yourself watching him again. The way he kept his hands mostly hidden in his sleeves, shoulders rounded forward. His suit was clearly tailored but still seemed a size too big, like someone had tried to wrap him in something expensive just to prove he belonged. And still, it worked.
His hair was brown and shaggy, a bit longer than most people would have it at these events, barely even styled, but you kind of liked it. It gave him a strange charm, even if the loose curls hid his eyes whenever he ducked his head.
You weren’t used to thoughts like this. Not ones this soft. Not ones that fluttered in your chest like nervous birds. Not often. Not like this. Not here. Not in places like these.
You came for Bucky. That was the plan. Show up, find him, talk. Clear the air. Maybe start patching things up with your broken little found family—cracks and all. But Bucky wasn’t here. Valentina played you like a fiddle, and now the whole night had soured. Tomorrow, you’d wake up to press statements and headlines, scrambling to explain why your name wouldn’t be on the next New Avengers roster. You’d spin it clean, of course. That’s what you did.
But none of that mattered yet.
In this strange little pocket of quiet, just outside the hum of power plays and champagne politics, you kind of just wanted something normal. Not mission normal. Not cover-identity normal. Real normal. A conversation that didn’t hinge on leverage or patriotism. A moment that wasn’t already weaponized.
Maybe you could stay for another half hour before you disappeared and joined Joaquín in the van downstairs, counting your losses.
And maybe it was the firelight, a flicker here, a flicker there, warmth and glow dancing in the night that influenced you. But you found yourself leaning forward a little more, walking around the couch, smoothing your hands down the front of your dress. You straightened your spine, trying to will yourself into being brave.
“Would you...” You paused, “um. Do you wanna grab a drink with me?”
Bob blinked, eyes flicking up to meet yours. He sat up straighter at the invitation, startled, like a puppy hearing its name for the first time. His lips parted. For a split second, you swore he looked excited. Maybe even hopeful.
But then he deflated.
His shoulders fell, his expression shifting to a quiet sort of apology as his eyes darted away. “I... I can’t. Sorry—”
“Oh.” You blinked, trying not to let your smile falter.
“I want to,” he rushed to say, almost stumbling over the words. “I do.”
“It’s okay—”
“No. No. I would. It’s just... I’m—I’m sober now.”
Your mouth opened. Then closed.
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry—” he added quickly, like he was terrified he’d ruined something.
But you shook your head, even stepping a little closer without realizing it.
“No. Don’t be sorry,” you said gently. “Seriously. Congratulations. That’s a big deal.”
He smiled at that, small and grateful. A little crooked and thin-lipped. It was cute.
“Thanks.”
You hesitated a moment, then tilted your head. “Can I ask how long?”
“Uh…” He scratched the back of his neck, eyes flicking upward like he was counting the months with the stars. “I think about a year now. I’ve only really started keeping track since I moved here, so... maybe like, seven? Eight months?”
You smiled softly, your heart unexpectedly warm.
“That’s still a long time.”
He gave a sheepish shrug, and his cheeks pinked again, like he didn’t quite know what to do with your praise. Like no one gave it to him often enough for it to feel normal.
“Some days feel longer than others,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching at his own tease.
You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of you, quiet, but real.
“What are you…?”
Joaquín’s voice fizzled to life in your ear, cracking the quiet like a crowbar to glass.
“Are you flirting right now?”
You froze, the smile instantly tugging at your lips again despite yourself.
When you didn’t answer, he laughed.
“Oh my god, you’re totally flirting right now! It’s so bad, but you so are! Who even is this guy?”
You turned ever so slightly, subtle as you could manage, and pressed a knuckle into your ear to mute him. Your cheeks warmed in tandem with Bob’s.
Bob blinked. “Sorry… did I, um—was that weird?”
“No, no,” you said quickly, maybe too quickly. “That wasn’t you.”
He just nodded, like your word was more than enough. Like you could’ve told him the moon was fake, and he’d say, huh, never really thought about that before.
You moved to take a seat across from him, the fireplace crackling softly between you like a low, slow heartbeat. The warmth of the flames painted him in golds and ambers, the flickering light catching the softness in his eyes and the loose fall of his hair.
You fidgeted with your fingers out of instinct. And across the fire, he mirrored the motion—thumb twisting around his knuckle, pinky tapping rhythmically against the inside of his sleeve. There was something strangely reassuring in that shared nervousness, like you were both waiting for the same storm to pass.
You let out a quiet breath, tension easing from your shoulders. “You said you moved here? Like, New York?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. His shoulders dipped too, visibly relaxing just a touch, like your voice permitted him to breathe. “I… uh, I lived in Malyasha for a while. But I’m from Florida. Born and raised. Where—where are you from?”
You tilted your head slightly, watching how intently he tried to keep eye contact and how quickly he broke it again. “I flew in from Washington.”
“D.C.?” he asked, and you nodded.
His eyebrows lifted, eyes wide for a split second. “Wow. Do you work in the White House or something?”
You huffed a laugh, smiling into your words. “Sure. Something like that.”
His head bobbed along with the answer.
“So you’re like… a really important person here.”
You laughed again, this time wider. Your teeth showed. It surprised you how easily you let your guard down. “I wouldn’t say that.”
But he was smiling too, softer now. Less anxious.
“You are,” he said, more sure of himself now. “I saw the way people looked at you tonight. Not—not that I was watching you or anything… just, it’s hard not to. You’re, um…”
You saw the moment he lost his words, saw them spill and scatter like marbles across a floor. His blush deepened, blooming across his cheeks in a full, unmistakable deep red colour. He ducked his head, eyes falling to his shoes again, and you watched him fight a shy, apologetic smile.
“…I can see why they’d want your picture.”
And just like that, your heart softened.
You leaned in a little, elbows resting against your knees. “Thank you, Bob. You’re really sweet, you know that?”
Bob looked up again, startled by the compliment, his mouth parting slightly like he didn’t know what to say to that. You weren’t sure if anyone had ever told him that before, and if they had, you could guess they didn’t mean it the way you did now.
He didn’t belong here. That much was obvious. Not with people like Valentina, not with cold smiles and polished lies. Not with mercenaries, politicians, and millionaires who hide behind their money. You could see it in the way he sat too stiffly on a velvet chair meant for lounging, in the way he tugged at his sleeves or tucked his hands away when he felt exposed.
“What’re you doing in a place like this, Bob?”
He blinked, tilting his head like he wasn’t sure what you meant.
You smiled, eyes squinting a little as you leaned forward more. “I mean, are you like, a sponsor? Investor?”
The words didn’t even sound right on your tongue, not when directed at him. The image of him swirling champagne and talking stocks was so laughably out of sync with the shy guy currently pressing himself into the couch cushions like he wanted to disappear.
“I don’t think you’re here for the politics,” you added, and there was a touch of something playful in your voice.
He chuckled softly, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Me? Gosh, no. I don’t… I don’t do politics.” He scratched the back of his ear, sheepish again. “That’s Bucky’s thing. I’m here for my friends.”
And just like that, your whole world tilted.
Your smile dropped before you could stop it. A subtle shift, but you felt it everywhere: in your spine, in your lungs, in the weight of your hands resting suddenly still on your knees.
You straightened. Slowly.
“…You know Bucky?”
The question came quieter than you intended, and Bob must’ve heard the change, the sudden stillness in your voice. His smile faltered, and he went still, too, sensing the tension without understanding it. His posture shrank, as if unsure what he’d stepped into, as if trying not to take up more space than he already had to upset you.
He nodded, a cautious kind of affirmation. “Yeah. He’s my friend.”
That stunned silence stretched long between you.
“I… I know he’s your friend too,” Bob added quickly, the words spilling out like he was trying to fill the void before it grew too wide. His voice was quieter now, softer around the edges, almost apologetic. “I heard you talking about him to Val, I—I thought maybe…”
You weren’t sure why he kept talking. Maybe because you hadn’t said anything. Maybe because your smile had disappeared too fast, and he could feel the way the mood had shifted even if he didn’t know why. His nervous ramble wasn’t meant to hurt, you could tell that. But it did. It did because the moment he said Val, something in you knotted tight again.
The warm glow you’d felt around him moments ago started to dim, curling in on itself like a candle snuffed out mid-flicker. Your heart gave a small, stupid lurch—embarrassed at how quickly you’d let your guard down. Of course he knew Bucky. Of course he was close to Valentina. The pieces slid together too easily now, fitting into a picture you didn’t want to look at.
You tried to pull yourself back together, quickly and quietly. You reminded yourself this wasn’t supposed to be about comfort. It wasn’t about soft smiles or normal conversations or maybe asking someone out for a drink. You came here with a mission, no matter how personal it was. To find Bucky. To set the record straight. This—this moment of peace with a stranger who felt safe—wasn’t supposed to happen.
He called her Val. Like they were friends. Like they knew each other beyond just work. Like he wasn’t just some shy, nice guy who complimented you under his breath and blushed when you smiled at him. Jesus, were you that easy?
A strange bitterness bloomed in your mouth. Not anger, more like disappointment. At yourself, maybe. For forgetting, even just for a second, what kind of place this really was.
You stood up.
The decision was sudden, impulsive, a small motion made louder by the way Bob flinched. His eyes followed you, something tentative and uncertain flickering across his face.
You reached for your earpiece, thumb brushing over the button to unmute Joaquín.
But Bob stood, too. Slowly, almost clumsily, like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to follow you or stay where he was.
“Did I—did I say something wrong?” he asked.
You froze. Your fingers stilled over the earpiece. You hadn’t expected that.
You turned, not quite facing him fully, but enough to catch the look on his face. His brows had drawn together, confusion etched faintly into his expression, and one of his hands was lifted just slightly, hovering in the air between you like he’d started to reach out and changed his mind halfway through. There were still several feet of space between you. The fire crackled low between you both, casting shadows across the expensive furniture and marble tiles.
“I’m sorry if I did,” he said, voice smaller now. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
That stopped you. “No… you didn’t…” You said, the words stumbling out, half-formed. You didn’t know why you tried to soothe him. Maybe it was the way his eyes had gone wide or the way he seemed to dread the thought of you walking away just when he was finally starting to settle into himself. It stirred something in you. Something that made your chest tighten.
You could’ve said never mind. You wanted to. Pretend his words hadn’t struck a nerve, hadn’t made your heart twist in your chest. But they did. It bothered you.
Bob blinked at you. “Oh,” he said, so gently it almost got carried off by the breeze.
A silence fell between you again. You wrapped your arms around yourself against the wind as you turned to look at him.
“Who are you, Bob?”
He straightened, caught off guard. “I’m... I’m Bob,” he said. “Just... just Bob.”
You tilted your head. “That’s it?”
He opened his mouth like he was about to say more, but nothing came out. His lips parted, then pressed shut again, the words retreating back into him like they were scared to be seen. He just shrugged helplessly. Like that’s all he had left.
And yet he kept looking at you like he was begging you not to go. Not yet.
You sighed, bringing your fingers up to your temple, pressing cold skin to your warm forehead. There was a pulse pounding there now, dull and insistent.
“I just…” You started, voice cracking faintly. “I came here looking for Bucky. I thought maybe I could get him to come home.”
“Home?” Bob asked carefully, his eyes soft.
“Yeah. With Sam. With us.” You hesitated, glancing through the tall windows behind him. The light inside spilled gold across the floor, where laughter echoed and people clinked glasses without a care in the world. Your eyes landed on the group you’d been avoiding all night—Bucky’s new team, huddled together with drinks, grinning like it was just another night to celebrate.
It made your chest hollow out.
“Ever since he joined Valentina’s little fuckass team or... whatever this is,” you said, gesturing vaguely toward the gala behind you, “everything’s just been so... shitty.”
You looked back at Bob, surprised to find that he’d stepped a little closer. Just enough that you could see the way his jaw twitched, like he was working through something he didn’t know how to say.
“Sorry,” you muttered, suddenly self-conscious. “Not to, like, dump all that on you.”
The cold bit into your arms. You rubbed them quickly, wishing you’d brought a coat.
“It’s not...” Bob started, and then, more firmly, “It’s not a fuckass team.”
You blinked. “Sorry?”
“They saved me,” he said, voice trembling just a bit. “Lena. Bucky. The others. They’re my family. We... we take care of each other.”
You stared at him, something icy curling low in your stomach. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said again, earnest. “I know it probably doesn’t look like it from the outside, but... they gave me a chance when no one else would. They didn’t treat me like I was broken. They... saw me.”
You wanted to believe that. You really did. But it felt like trying to swallow glass.
“Right,” you muttered, too tired to argue. “I have to go.”
You turned, reaching for your earpiece.
“Wait,” Bob said suddenly, like he’d only just realized this was goodbye. “Will I... will I see you again?”
You paused, fingers still hovering near your ear. The balcony lights flickered faintly behind you, and the sound of the city buzzed low in the background, as if the world were holding its breath.
You didn’t turn around right away.
Part of you wanted to say no. Make it easy. Clean.
But when you finally looked back at him, at the boyish worry carved into his face, the way he stood there with his hands half-raised like he didn’t know whether to reach for you or let you go, you felt that ache again. The one that whispered that maybe, despite everything, he meant what he said. That maybe there was still something worth salvaging in the strange, quiet warmth you’d felt earlier. Something real.
And you desperately wanted it to be real. You wanted it to mean something.
“I don’t know,” you admitted, voice barely above a whisper.
Bob swallowed. Nodded like he understood.
But his eyes lingered on you like he hoped the answer might change.
Pairing Robert “Bob” Reynolds x Female Reader
Summary On a slow morning, away from the pressures of the city, Bob helps quell your fears about the future [contains fluff, mild angst, the nickname ‘Robby’, cute superpower usage, wc 2.6k]
A/N I fell in love with Bob during Thunderbolts, and the events of this fic take place two years after the movie. A bit of maturing and healing have taken place—mentally and in terms of his powers. It’s my first time writing for him, so let me know what you think!
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Sunlight, bedsheets, and skin. Reality itself dawned with the visage of a dream. With a lone fingertip, you trace the line of his spine from the space between his shoulder blades to where the soft linen pools at his hips. Tiny hairs rise on his bare skin as he shivers. Bob envisions your soft smile and slow-blinking eyes before he tips fully into wakefulness. When he does, your touch stills midway along his back as you venture upwards.
Instead of car engines, birds sing outside. Rather than the sweeping windows of the Avengers tower, floral wallpaper and simple curtained panes allow the sun’s rays to paint the room. There’s no agenda, no meetings, no need to rush. This is the Catskills, and Manhattan is miles away.
You were grateful the team granted you two the weekend away at one of Bucky’s old safe houses. It’s a secluded rural farmhouse surrounded by oak trees—a scene fit for the silver screen.
“There you are,” you lilt.
Bob huffs a shy chuckle. “Hi.” He swallows when you comb your fingers through his hair. “Have you been up long?”
“Ages.” He frowns at that. “I’m kidding.”
A small smile breaks across his face. If you had been waiting long, he’d consider telling you that he’d had one of the best sleeps of his life. Then it’d make sense why he wanted to cling to it just a little longer.
He’d almost lost track of all his luck since he met you. A part of him feared it was bound to fade away, but even then, he’d be alright with life having given him time with you at all. It’d been a year since you met, and he couldn’t remember goodness ever prevailing this long. As far as he knew, there was a crash after every high.
But not all people were like vices he was once used to seeking: there one minute and gone the next. You’d stumbled into Bob’s life one chilly night on West 43rd and bonded over cheap slices. Sometime between then and him walking you home, you realized you liked having him around. Without so much as trying, he made you lean in closer, laugh too loud, lose track of time.
When your fingers pass through his hair yet another gentle time, a small sound rises in his throat as your nails scratch against his scalp.
“That feels good,” he sighs.
For someone who’d never quite be able to break, you treated him as though the opposite were true. Every touch was so thoughtful and careful that even he began to believe it might be possible after all. Maybe you saw that he was a bunch of tiny pieces held together by a renewed will to live. Maybe you were the glue.
“It’s getting so long.” You playfully rake some soft strands of hair into his face, and the feathery sensation makes him scrunch his nose. “You’re gonna disappear on me pretty soon.”
Bob combs his hair back to see you again, chest filled with a warmth that refuses to stay in one place.
“I promise I won’t.” The dual meaning of his words translates through his deep, blue eyes. “Gonna come find me if I do?”
You pretend to think, as if you hadn’t already done your share of saving each other.
“Maybe,” you say.
When his lips twitch with the threat of a smile, you poke his ribcage a couple of times to coax it out. It works like a charm. Before you know it, he rolls onto his back and pulls you to lie on top of him. Your legs fall on either side of his body.
“Robby, careful,” you chuckle in surprise.
He likes the pressure, the proximity. After a few seconds, you finally relax on top of him, scooting down his body enough to rest your head against his chest. His skin is warm beneath your cheek, and you can feel the rise and fall of each steady breath. One of his hands slips beneath your shirt to draw shapes across the small of your back.
Your eyes slip closed, and like a light switch, you’re transported back to the night you first met. Fluorescent lights shine above as the two of you sit across from each other near the front window of a pizza place. The steady buzz of chatter fills the air along with the rich scent of tomato sauce and oregano. Outside, pedestrians flutter by.
It’s a memory.
You can see your present selves too, standing over the shoulders of the yous forever bound to the past. You meet Bob’s gaze, taking in his boxers and muscled torso as his own eyes rove over you.
That night, the team had let him leave without Bucky or John tagging along. The independence wouldn’t have been a big deal in another life, but it felt like a rite of passage. They were finally beginning to trust in his ability to control the multitudes he contained. He could’ve gone anywhere in Manhattan, somewhere more bustling and lively, but he’d decided to take a walk and grab a greasy bite.
As Bob looks between your past selves, he can see the nerves in his gaze and the intrigue in yours. It was possible you had seen him on TV back when the city turned void. If you did happen to know who he was, you were sensitive enough not to mention that fateful day.
The real reason you’d struck up a conversation with him was because he’d held the door for you when you first walked into the pizza place, two strangers crossing paths in the city that never sleeps. There was a certain allure you couldn’t quite pin down, a palpable energy. Something behind his eyes.
It was no secret that those who wandered at night were often looking to feel a little more alive. Perhaps you’d met for a reason written somewhere amid the invisible stars.
Upon opening your eyes, you’re back in bed with him. You prop yourself up on his chest to study him.
“You took us back,” you say.
“Sorry,” Bob murmurs. “Wasn’t trying to.”
Sometimes, when he feels safe and thinks about you, his mind will pull you two into a lifelike memory. It wasn’t a matter of control; he simply allowed it to happen without fighting against it.
You run a light fingertip down his nose. “I don’t know if I believe you.”
Bob takes your wrist and kisses the heel of your palm. “But you liked it.”
“Says who?”
“The smile on your face.” As soon as he says that, you purposely flatten your expression. A chuckle rumbles through him. “Guess I’ll stop if it’s so unbearable.”
You could easily call his bluff, but the thought still stirs a small flicker of worry within you. Bob sees it in your eyes and squeezes you to quell it. There wasn’t a single part of him you hated. Not even the scarier, messier parts that often scared people away. It was their loss. It’d be hard to come across someone quite like him again.
•••
As the record player plays a jazzy instrumental, the sound of the spatula scraping against the bottom of the pan is a gentle accompaniment. Bob’s back muscles shift as he continues scrambling the eggs. It feels like you’re a koala bear with the way you’ve secured your arms around him, but he doesn’t mind. Not when it feels like this moment was handcrafted by tranquility itself.
You didn’t get many moments like this in Manhattan. Now that you’re seeing what it’s like to have him all to yourself with no check-ins, you realize you wouldn’t mind having this forever. Except, forever seemed to stretch like an empty void waiting to be filled. And it was up to you to do the shaping.
“Do you ever think about…” you trail off.
Bob waits for you to continue, but you don’t. “About what?” he encourages. It almost hurts how patient he is with you.
You tuck your nose into the space between his shoulder blades to inhale the scent of his shirt. “Thought you were a mind reader,” you accuse in a gentle attempt to deflect. “I want a refund.”
Laughing, Bob turns off the stove and faces you. “It’s your mind we’re talking about.” There’s a sparkle in his eyes as he speaks. “Not even I can get a read on that thing.” What he means is that he’d never invade your thoughts. He never had.
He tilts his head in that disarming, attentive way of his. “What were you gonna say?” His eyes remind you of the dark stare of a fawn, ever curious and searching.
You redirect your attention to the floor. “Stop looking at me like that.”
Bob lifts your chin back up with his index finger. “Like what?” It’s a painfully genuine question. “Like I value what you have to say?”
When you remain quiet, his eyes darken, and bright ribbons of molten gold swirl through his irises. It’s beautiful in an intimidating way that makes your stomach flutter; an attempt at levity. A small smile plays on his lips as his gaze returns to normal. You bite back a reaction because you know he’d done it on purpose, knows you like it.
“Tough crowd,” he playfully mumbles. “Talk to me, sweetheart, c’mon.”
“After breakfast,” you say. “The food’s gonna get cold.”
•••
Bob hums under his breath as he flips through a box of Bucky’s old vinyl. The house itself is even older, and the way the wooden floors creak tells the tale. He studies the cover art of the albums as you sit and watch from your place on the couch. You break your silence when you’ve had enough of the distance.
“Hey, Robby?” He redirects his attention to you. “Maybe we can pause the music browsing for a sec.”
With how quickly he steps away from the box, you’re convinced he’d been waiting for you to say that. The cushions dip as he joins you on the plush sage couch.
The entire living room is cozy. It reminds Bob of visits to his grandparents’ house as a boy. He remembers weekends and summers being dropped off when his parents claimed to need a break. It became a safe space that he never wanted to leave.
With his grandparents, there was no constant clamoring, shouting matches, or phone calls from the electric company threatening to cut the lights off. He played outside in the sun with the older kids and came back inside to homemade lemonade and playful comments about him having worked up a good sweat.
When he got older, and his grandparents passed away, his escape became the dingy basements of questionable acquaintances and back alleyways that never turned a lost soul away.
Bob reaches over to squeeze your thigh. “I’m all ears whenever you're ready.”
“It feels kinda stupid now,” you admit.
“Stupid and I go way back.” He’s sincere even as he jests. “Try me.”
You play with your fingers and bite the inside of your cheek. It feels like you’re a scared kid standing on a diving board at the deep end of the pool. All attention is on you. It’s time to jump.
“Do you ever think about the future? What it looks like?” you ask, pausing for a few seconds. “If people like us get a happily ever after?”
You meet each other’s gaze.
“People like us,” he repeats slowly. You can see the gears moving in his mind.
“I’m me, and you’re… you,” you say. “There’s no such thing as normal.”
Bob hums, not agreeing or disagreeing.
You exhale. “Everything’s starting to feel so perfect.” Bob waits for you to continue. “But it feels like I’m waiting for the rug to get ripped out from under me.”
“I hear you,” he says, reaching out to interlock his fingers with yours. He's quiet for a few thoughtful beats. “I don’t know what’s down the road, but I know what’s in front of me right now,” he says.
A silence stretches between you until he breaks it again. “Back when I tried the whole therapy thing, there was this idea called dress rehearsing tragedy,” he says. “It’s when you think of the worst so much that it gets hard for the good to shine through.”
You nod as you soak in every measured word.
“That was me every time things started to look up,” Bob admits reflectively. “I’m not saying that’s you right now—hell, you practically are the sun to me.” Your lips twitch upwards when he squeezes your hand.
“What I’m saying is we get this whole weekend together.” Bob leans in closer. “So let’s just be here.”
“And when the weekend ends?” you murmur, just to see what he says.
“I promise I’m in this for the long haul,” he assures. “Whatever it takes.”
Those last words linger in the air. Bob gives you his full attention when you shift as if you’re about to speak up. Instead, you brush your thumb over the back of his hand. His eyes never leave you. It’s a glimpse into what it must’ve felt like for him to be under your watchful gaze the night you met.
“Whatever it takes,” you echo.
So much in life seemed far away for you. Falling in love was for other people, marriage was for other people, buying a house and building a life was for other people. Not for you.
Bob offers a solemn smile. “I used to be scared all the time.” He thinks for a moment. “Now I refuse to be. Out of spite mainly.”
You huff a laugh, partly amused, partly in admiration. “I swear you’re not real sometimes. Like this is all just a dream.”
Bob chuckles. “I swear I am.” He kisses your cheek to prove he’s real. “Need me to pinch you? ‘Cause I can do that too.”
A small squeal escapes you as he reaches for your side, but he lets you push his hand away. You blink up at him in surprise when he stands and extends that hand to you.
“Let’s go,” he says.
You let him pull you to your feet, a spark of excitement stirring. “Go where?”
“The lake.”
•••
There’s a breeze that complements the warmth in the air. Grass crunches beneath your shoes as you follow Bob down to the shoreline. The still water shimmers in the light of the sun. Across the way, you can see somebody paddling in a canoe. There’s a bench beneath a cluster of birch trees, but Bob walks up to the water, and you stop by his side. Leaves rustle, birds chirp.
He snakes an arm around your waist and pulls you closer. You rest your head on your shoulder. It’s so still and quiet that your thoughts begin to settle. Bob was right. Neither of you knew the future. But in this moment, you at least know the feeling of standing beside someone you love. You know you’d be willing to fight for it. And maybe that was enough.
Bob looks at you after a while, cataloguing your features like it’s the first time. He closes the distance between you just as you’re about to jokingly ask if he’s looking for something. A pleasant warmth spreads through your body as his lips find yours. He kisses you tenderly, hands settling on your waist as you reposition yourself in front of him. Your fingers find their way to the nape of his neck, where you gently tug his hair.
Bob smiles into the kiss. Not for any particular reason, more like a culmination of things.
You pull away. “What?” you whisper against his lips, beginning to smile.
Bob’s cheeks warm as he shakes his head. “I’m just happy.”
“Me too.”
“We’re gonna be okay,” he promises.
Your lips find each other’s again.
-
Thanks for reading! All likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated. I promise I see them all!
bob has never been known to be loud. not loud like roosters drunken piano renditions in the middle of the bar. not loud like hangman's aura that commands attention in every room. bob is a quiet and calculated man.
but when it comes to you, walking across the stage to receive your graduate diploma, he's the loudest one there by decibels. he's unashamed as he whoops and hollers out your name in pride. the entire squad of people you love are either up on their feet or raising their arms high to cheer you on.
bob's not as physically loud and boisterous but his pride speaks volumes in the way he wraps you in his arms after the ceremony. he does his best to not crush the bouquet of flowers he meticulously picked out for you, but he doesn't hesitate to hold you for as long as possible. while he isn't the most versed in huge public displays in affections, it feels so effortless and natural with the way you pull him closer for a dramatic kiss. you're both too smiley to kiss for long as your teeth nearly clank together. you pull away only a few inches and the adrenaline in your body has you laugh in almost disbelief. you can't believe you're finally at the finish line. working year after year to get your degree has finally paid off.
"'m so proud of you sweetheart," his voice choking up as he sees your teary eyes.
"couldn't have done any of this without you Bobby," but he shakes his head in disagreement.
"yes you could have. you did this all on your own, honey. you put in all the hard work, I want you to be proud of that. give yourself all the credit," he lovingly chastises you while helping move the colorful tassel out of your eyes.
you both knew the significance and impact your support system had on your success. but that wasn't the point of today. for just a moment, Bob wanted you to set aside your humble nature and truly relish in your own accomplishment. he knew how grateful you were to everyone who has supported you, but this was your moment. nothing and no one should take away from the gravity of your own achievement.
"I can only take credit for the way the woman in front of me just about had a heart attack when i heard your name being announced," he snickers.
you playfully roll your eyes but still give him a bright smile. you've never felt so seen and loved until you met bob floyd. there is never a day that goes by where you don't feel his unwavering love in every bone of your body.
he can't help but kiss you one more time before letting the rest of your friends and family have their own congratulatory moments with you. it doesn't take but a glance to notice how he's still beaming with pride.
this isn't the first, nor last time bob will feel this overwhelming sense of pride and admiration for you.
but today, he can't help but be a little extra loud about it.
Warnings: Explicit sexual content (18+), oral (f receiving), face-sitting, mild dirty talk, repressed feelings (slight angst), established relationship.
A/N: I haven't written fic in a long time and it probably reads like it. I haven't seen anything MCU since Dr. Strange 2/Spidey until Thunderbolts yesterday so not caught up on the lore. This popped up in my brain after a nap on Wednesday. Let me know what you think!
♡♡♡♡
It’s quiet when he comes in.
Sometime between your drifting off and the quiet snick of the bedroom door shutting, you’re aware of the time. The numbers on your bedside read 3:07AM.
A late arrival, then.
A firm, broad chest pressed up against your back, heavy arm slung low over your waist. The smell of cinnamon and vanilla and the slow sigh of relief once he’s pulled you back into him just a little.
“Hi,” Steve says.
You hum, one hand patting his own over your belly. “Hi.”
Slow, measured breaths tickle your skin, the quiet of the room only disrupted by a soft kiss to your shoulder, the nape of your neck. It’s a little while before either of you speak again.
You know Steve needs it, the comedown after a big mission.
It always starts off predictable enough— get to the Avengers compound, debrief, chew someone out if they were being stupid and reckless on the job or gently bring them back down if there were any losses, shower, return his suit and weapons, a brief psych evaluation and physical check for injuries, then get on the road back to the city.
Once he’s walking through your front door, though, it’s not until you get a good look at him that you can know how things went. Still, it’s always Steve.
“You’re back,” you murmur, voice barely there.
Steve’s arm around your waist tightens, warmth of his skin seeping into your own over the fabric of your sleep shirt. It’s one of his, an old, worn thing he bought in Jersey back when he’d first woken up. There’s a couple of loose threads coming from the left sleeve and an old stain at the hem that you swear is blood — Steve refuses to confirm or deny it — but it’s and it’s yours and you wear it to bed more times than not.
“I am,” Steve’s mouth brushes your skin where the shirt’s slipped a little, goosebumps following their trace. His beard’s gotten a little longer, a testament to how much time he’s been away from the comforts of home and his electric trimmer. “Debrief ended about an hour ago, but I stayed for a bit to plan my agenda for tomorrow.”
Huffing a quiet laugh, you turn in his embrace. “You have an assistant for that, Commander.”
Steve chuckles, a soft, sleepy sound settling warm in your heart. He turns on his back, bringing you up into his chest, willing you closer, sighing into your hair.
His breathing’s slowed enough that you briefly wonder if he’s fallen asleep, though after almost a year of sharing a bed means you’ve caught to his tells that he has yet to drift off— the tension in his arms, the quiet, intermittent sniffles he gets before he knocks out, the fact that he’s barely really said a word about the mission at all.
“Good trip?” you murmur.
You feel him shrug, sheets rustling beneath him and that just—
Pushing off his chest, you sit up to turn on the bedside lamp. Soft, warm light fills the room, dim enough to not make your eyes hurt.
Something else does, though.
“Steve…”
A cut over his eyebrow and a bruise already turning yellow on his left temple. Red-rimmed eyes and a swollen lip. Somewhere beneath the collar of his shirt, a thin, red line extends up the side of his neck, already healing. You watch him wince when you lie a hand on his stomach, feeling the taut muscles there contract.
Your words fail, throat closing up. One of his hands wraps around your wrist, big and warm and comforting, even though you should be the one comforting him right now.
“Looks worse than it is,” Steve shrugs again. This time, you catch the way his lips thin out just a little, the slight twitch in his eye at the movement. “Y’know I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m used to it.”
At that, Steve’s fingers squeeze your wrist. He knows it’s hard for you, keeping up with what he does for a living. Technically, he could’ve retired years ago, but there’s something to be said about his insatiable need to do something to feel useful.
You know he’s talked about it with his therapist, and even Bucky and Natasha had tried to talk some sense into him about taking things easy, slowing down, moving into a less-exposed role once he’d handed the shield to Sam. But Steve Rogers is nothing if not stubborn, so he’d been made Commander and only deploys to missions that really need him. But he still deploys.
Steve’s thumb brushes over your skin, eyes on yours in the dim light, a quiet apology for now. You can’t help but let it go, leaning in to finally kiss him.
It’s a soft, sweet thing, the kiss. Mouths slotted perfectly over each other, Steve’s tongue only slightly running over your bottom lip until you open up for him, let yourself slide back down on the bed with him.
“I missed you,” you murmur, lips brushing his own. “A lot.”
“Missed you too, honey,” Steve sighs into the kiss. “A lot.”
He guides you to sit on his lap, the cradle of his hips warm and strong beneath your thighs. You can feel him through the thin fabric of your underwear and his sweatpants, can’t help but settle fully onto him as you stretch over his torso.
Steve tastes like mint and iron, undoubtedly from the injury to his lip, but you’ll have him like this and any other way you can get him as long as he gets to come back home. He sighs into the kiss, reaching a hand to cup your neck and angle your head the way he wants, the other slowly making its way down your back to rest above your ass. He swallows your resulting sound, making one of his own when you break the kiss.
You pull back, eyeing him suspiciously. “Steve.”
His hand doesn’t move, fingertips slipping under the waistband of your underwear. They rest there while he looks at you, a question in his eyes. The bruise on his temple will be gone in the morning, same as the cut on his brow, but you can’t help but wonder how he got them, who he had to fight this time around.
He can tell you’re distracted, hand on your nape squeezing briefly as if to bring you back to him.
“Honey,” he says and you sigh.
Steve lets you sit up again, hands slipping from your body to rest on your thigh as you sit cross-legged next to him. His half-lidded gaze meets yours, thumb brushing slowly over the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. He watches you for a minute, assessing, waiting for you to answer.
In the end, it’s only right to try to be the sensible one in this situation. “You’re still in pain, Steve.”
He shakes his head, squeezing your thigh softly. “Not that much. Just— I need to think about something else right now. Can’t sleep yet.”
This has happened before, a few times.
It didn’t when you’d first started dating. Being one of Steve’s only relationships since he came out of the ice meant he’d had time to work through some stuff on his own before he tried to be with someone else, so when he’d had difficult missions at the beginning of your courtship, he’d always been upfront about needing some time before he could talk to you about them.
Lately, though, something’s been happening. Every other mission seems to be more taxing than the last.
You’re sure you’re wholly unclassified to know any of the information Steve eventually divulges, even if unspecific, but it’s specific enough to worry you. He never tells you exactly what happens, but the mornings and days after he’s managed to work through whatever he needs by working you, he makes it clear that whatever they’re fighting isn’t just the universe’s bad guy of the month.
You’re not totally complaining, but you are concerned that your boyfriend needs to blow off steam in such a way before he even considers facing his feelings.
Steve’s hands on your skin bring you back to reality once more. He’s still there, in your bed, gaze questioning, wondering where you went.
You’re sure he has an idea, but it’s not something he’s willing to address tonight.
“Please, honey,” he says. “C’n sit on my face, I won’t have to put in much effort that way.”
Steve adds the last bit as if it’s nothing, but the thought of it alone sends a flash of heat down your spine.
“You always put in effort,” you concede a little, laying a hand on his stomach where his shirt’s ridden up, thumb brushing beneath his navel.
Steve smiles at that, slowly reaching for your hand and helping you rest back on his lap. He holds your hand on his stomach, the other resting on your hip once more.
“‘S that a yes? Gonna let me taste you, baby?” He asks and your resolve is slipping by the second.
You try one last time, though. Need to make it clear where you’ve gone the past few times in as many minutes. “Promise to talk to me in the morning?”
“Promise.” Steve’s answer is emphatic, the hand laced with yours squeezing sure and strong. “Just need to focus on something else right now.”
And so you nod, leaning back a little when Steve sits up to capture your lips once again. He winces as he does so, but smooths a hand down your side while he shushes you, tries to ease your worries.
His hands reach beneath your shirt, cupping your breasts, pressing you into him, roaming over your ass and your thighs as he takes your breath away. Breaking the kiss after a while, he takes a good look at you, lips a little red and swollen beneath his beard.
“Gorgeous,” Steve murmurs, lying back down. He looks so broad like this, laid out only for you. “Love seeing you in my clothes.”
Heat blooms low in your belly at the praise, flashes even hotter when you feel the faint line of Steve’s cock pressing into you.
“Yeah?” you ask, brow raised and a teasing grin upon your lips. “Gonna be you for Halloween this year, wear your stealth suit.”
Given Steve’s resulting blush, he didn’t expect that as an answer. He goes silent for a minute, gaze heavy on you, thumbs slipping beneath your waistband once more, stroking over your hip bones.
Laughing, you let yourself fall forward onto his chest, careful not to rest too heavily on him. “Oh my god.”
“It’s not my fault you look good in everything,” Steve says, sheepish. He helps you sit back up on his lap, big hands back on your thighs. “Maybe the techs can make a version just for you. We could use it.”
“For what purposes, sir?” You snort, shaking your head when Steve gives you a slow onceover. “You’re incorrigible.”
He shrugs, smirking and pretty, brief embarrassment gone. “I’m a paragon of duty and righteousness, I’ll have you know.”
You shake your head at him again, unable to help the smile that comes on.
“Up, baby.”
He helps you get your underwear off, first through one leg then the other, then helps you scoot up his torso and towards his face. Fingers laced with yours next to your legs, he helps you settle above him, the prickly brush of his beard on your inner thighs as he brushes kisses there making you shiver.
“Already, honey?” Steve murmurs into your skin, heavy-lidded gaze locked on yours. “Barely even touched you yet.”
You feel yourself flush, only made worse by Steve softly blowing on your cunt before he gives you one long, teasing lick. Then a second, and a third. He pulls you fully down on his tongue, holding tight onto your hips so you have nowhere to go.
“Steve,” you gasp, tugging on his hair.
Steve growls low in his chest at the feeling, beginning to lap at you in short strokes, sucking at your folds, making it so wet and messy you’re sure it’s dripping down his chin.
“Want you to come on my tongue,” Steve murmurs.
He places a loud kiss to your folds, gaze locking on yours just to make sure you heard him, only going back to task once he gets a shaky nod from you.
Grinding on his tongue, sounds wet and loud in the otherwise quiet room. Steve’s hands settle on your ass, helping you move on him as he fully flattens his tongue. He switches up his rhythm, slow broad licks all over your cunt making you shiver.
“You’re so good at this, fuck.”
You feel rather than hear him chuckle at that, teeth nipping at your inner thigh. He dives right back in, eyelashes fluttering closed, mouth closing softly around your clit. You shiver, tugging on his hair again as your thighs close around his head.
“Fuck, Steve,” you moan, the coil low in your belly dissolving into warm static spreading through your limbs.
It’s a minute before you fully come to, shaking a little through Steve cleaning you up with his tongue and soft kisses to your thighs. He lies you back onto the bed, gathering you up in his arms again all while murmuring soft and sweet. Pressing chaste kisses to your lips, he answers your quiet noises with his own, nosing at you as your eyes open once more.
“Back with me?” he says, face brightening at your soft sound. “There she is.”
You hum, burying your face in his neck. “My ears are ringing.”
Steve lets out an actual belly laugh at that, his entire body shaking with it, your own heart glowing from it. “That good, huh?”
“Shut up,” you groan, weakly pushing at his chest. Placing a soft kiss on his jaw at his half-hearted ow, you let yourself fully sink into him, sighing softly when you feel him do the same. Finally ready to sleep now, then. “I’m really glad you’re home.”
Steve brushes a kiss along your forehead. “Me too, honey,” he says, words coming slow and sleepy now. “Me too.”
going to basketball!luke’s game in his jersey and then he fucks you in to after 🤤🤤
ohhh this is over a year old i'm so sorry josie, but i see ur vision. it's giving the opening of 17 again tbh!!! and i’m talking a messy, sweaty, nasty fuck where he’s still running on adrenaline. (18+)
he finds you after the game with that look in his eyes—the one that’s half-cocky smirk, half-ravenous stare. sweat still clings to his temples, jersey clinging to his skin, and his hand slides to the small of your back the second you're close enough.
"you wear that for me?" he murmurs, voice low as his fingers tug at the hem of his old jersey hanging loose on you. it's long enough to fit oversized, but short enough that he can slide his hand up underneath it without anyone noticing as you stand in the back hallway of the gym.
you grin, "thought you might like it."
he doesn't say anything. just looks at you, teeth sinking into his bottom lip, and then you’re pressed up against the wall—fast, messy, urgent. like he's been thinking about this the entire game. like scoring points wasn’t the only thing he planned on doing tonight.
minutes later, you're in the locker room. not even locked. you’re bent over the bench, both of you still half-dressed, the cool wood digging into your thighs. luke’s jersey sways loosely on your body with every thrust, his number on your back bouncing in the mirror in front of you. and he’s obsessed with it.
“shit,” he breathes, one hand gripping your hip while the other slides up the small of your back, palm ghosting over his number. “look at you. y’so perfect like this.”
he watches the way your body moves, the way his name on your back means something. his breath is ragged, hot against your skin as he leans over to whisper, to kiss and mouth behind your ear.
his fingers slide around to your front, slipping under the jersey to touch where you’re already soaked. he runs wobbly, slopping, tight circles against your clit. “all that cheering. screaming my name. standing up in the front row looking like that.”
he’s still got his game shorts on, waistband pushed low, but everything else is gone. skin on skin, sweat-slicked and raw. you can feel his muscles twitch every time he thrusts in deeper, his hand gripping your ass, then sliding over the fabric of the jersey again like he can’t decide if he wants to fuck you or the idea of you in his colours.
and when you finally gasp his name, head dropping forward, he grabs your hair gently and tugs until you’re upright again, so you can see yourself. see the jersey, the flushed heat in your cheeks, the look in his eyes behind you in the mirror.
“say it again,” he pants. “wanna hear it.”
“luke—” it’s broken, almost a sob. your knees are shaking.
“that’s right.” he grins, smug and glowing. “say it like you did when i hit that three-pointer.”
summary: Partner. That word had been jammed up inside his brain for as long as he could remember. Gym-class partner, lab partner, work-out partner, partner-in-training, partner in this fucking life or death situation where we’re only going to get out alive if we trust each other more than I trust myself. And then he met you and the definition changed again.
warnings: domestic!frankie, marriage kink (if that’s a thing), oral (f receiving) but i think that’s an expectation from every frankie fic, improper use of a kitchen table, unprotected piv, no use of y/n, brief mentions of PTSD, improper use of Spanish, eating in bed
a/n: requested for my 100 followers event! Anon: hiiii firstly! congrats on the big one hundo you totally deserve it 🥂‼️ secondly wondering if I could rq a Pedro boy drabble with prompt number 12... I wanna do laundry for Frankie Morales :D “did you just wash these sheets?” “I did.” “they smell nice. and they’re still warm.”
🤍Masterlist
. . . I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.
Frankie fills the silence of the house without you in it with music. This house, it had been your choice, even though he never expressly made you choose, or even presented the dichotomy. This house, with its leaky faucet and janky AC unit and finicky pilot light, was what you wanted instead of a diamond ring, and so he gave it to you. First down payment, along with every other red cent you and he had both saved up, went into buying your first home together. This wasn’t forever, you both agreed (with only two bedrooms it wasn’t enough room for a baby, he often thought) but even as the real estate agent glanced around with disdain for the house and your budget, one look from you and it was settled.
“It has good bones,” you said, standing out on the concrete deck overlooking a postage-stamp-sized backyard. There were weeds in the corners and holes from some unknown animal but he could see the wheels in your head turning, imagining how you, like everything else you did, planned to tackle and wrestle control over it with your bare hands. “It needs work, but I think there’s something special here.”
“Yeah?” he asked, threading his fingers through yours, the real estate agent no doubt off somewhere inspecting the drains. “Is there something here?”
You grinned and shoved your nose then a soft press of your lips into his denim-shoulder.
“I’m sure of it.”
All his life, Frankie worked best in a unit. As children, his older brother, his younger brother, and him were practically inseparable, their physical similarities almost presenting as the same person but at different ages, and when that group disbanded because Oscar left for college, he went on to find another one. First, his army unit, then the boys. His boys. Left to his own devices, Frankie was terrible at remembering to eat, sleep regularly – focus on anything other than fixing cars and planes, really – but he’d do it for them. He hated to see that worried crease show up on Will’s brow when Frankie admitted he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He hated that Benny had to show up at his apartment to drag his ass outta bed to get him into the sunlight. And he hated when Pope felt obligated to take him out to bars to try and meet women.
“I’m not dating someone just so they can be my mother,” Frankie muttered into the lip of his beer bottle. “I don’t need anyone thinking I need to rely on them like that.”
“Yeah, but you do better when you have people relying on you.” Pope’s dark eyes flitted from a woman at the bar top to him, with intention and full of force. “And I’m not saying I’m trying to get you to fuck your mother, but you need a partner.”
Partner.
That word had been jammed up inside his brain for as long as he could remember. Gym-class partner, lab partner, work-out partner, partner-in-training, partner in this fucking life or death situation where we’re only going to get out alive if we trust each other more than I trust myself.
And then he met you and the definition changed again.
You are his best friend. You are the woman he wants to fuck every day for the rest of his life. You are the first person he wants to tell good news to and the first person he wants to talk to when he’s had a shitty day. Your voice quiets something inside him that has been far too loud for far too long. You are a relief and a refuge. For all his faults, you love him and sometimes he can’t fathom why.
You are his partner – in life, in marriage (one day), and forever (he hopes).
“I might not always like you, Catfish,” you said to him in Will’s backyard for Benny’s birthday party. You had been drinking and every sip seems to bring you closer and closer to him. With your face tucked up into his neck, arms up under his flannel and hugging his waist, the only way he could be physically closer to you was if he was inside you – which he was about two seconds away from suggestion when you leaned in close. “‘M not always going to like you, but ‘m always going love you.”
And love him you did. You loved him when he decided to go back to school to get some additional certifications so he could maybe teach flight school. The army would pay for most of it, was a fucking relief to your shared thread-bare, cartoon-spider-web empty savings account. But what the army would not pay for was for you to go to nursing school. You worked in hotels for the events services branch, coordinating everything from weddings to conferences, walking (mostly running) from one end of the hotel to the next. Your sister got you a Fitbit for Christmas one year and after the holiday rush, you walked twenty miles in two days.
“After that, this nursing stuff should be a breeze,” you said flippantly as you signed your paperwork for admissions.
Of course you got accepted at one of the better hospitals in the city – he never doubted for a second you would – and as the fresh-faced trainee, you got stuck with most of the night shifts.
Which meant his days looked a lot like this: wake up at 6AM, drive an hour to the helicopter tour building on the coast, fly rich idiots around all day, eat the lunch you had prepped for the both of you on Sunday night, continue flying rich idiots around, drive home in two-hour traffic, change into his work overalls, go work on some cars Benny’s buddy had at the local garage for some extra cash, then go home, heat up dinner you also made Sunday night, and then attend to the most pressing thing you or the house needed.
Which could be:
Fixing the AC unit, resealing the back door so it would close properly, re-caulking the shower, building more attic space, repainting the back fence, or replacing the hand towel holder.
Frankie didn’t mind the hard work. It kept his mind and his hands busy. What he did mind was the house silent and eerily empty without you here.
He didn’t mind the hard work because even for a few hours, he got to hold you while you slept. He got to eat with you at 10:30 at night and it was the highlight of his day.
Pay your surgeon very well to break the spell of aging
Sicker than the rest, there is no test, but this is what you're craving?
Frankie bobs his head, his earphones carefully tucked up under his shirt to prevent the laundry from tangling up in them. He hauls out the latest load and moves onto the washer, fishing out one more sock when suddenly the lights go off. All of them. Total darkness.
And then light and he’s staring down the bottom of the drum.
Then dark. And light.
You. Your code. One you designed when you read that PTSD victims are often triggered into a fight-or-flight response when startled. You, who knew before he did, how to manage the symptoms, create workarounds, and find a pathway through, instead of not at all.
He takes out one of the earbuds and smiles.
“Hey, you’re home.”
You lean against the doorway, smiling that smile that is reserved for him and him alone. Sometimes he’s selfish and wants everything of yours to be only for him – all your smiles, your laughter, your sighs – but that’s like trying to capture sunlight in a butterfly net: too focused on the impossible and you end up missing the daytime.
“How goes this fucking Sysphian task?” You nod at the baskets of laundry at his feet, referring to how you’d often rant and rave about how laundry, the dishes, and grocery shopping were never tasks that could simply be done. He knows how much you hate being unable to cross things off your to-do lists, so he holds your hand during all of these rantings and kisses your knuckles when you take a breath.
“Good,” he shrugs. “‘Bout to fold your scrubs for tomorrow.”
“Ah, have I told you lately that I love you?” You swing into the room and kiss him on his cheek, on the division where his patchy beard meets his skin – the place that you most often claimed on him. Your fingers squeeze around his bicep as you pull away and your eyes fall to the basket behind him. You gasp with glee.
“Did you just wash these sheets?” You ask like you’d just uncovered buried gold.
He smirks, propping his hip up against the dryer. “I did.”
Without another word, you scoop them up in your arms and inhale sharply.
“Mhmm, they smell nice.” You bury your head in deep. “And they’re still warm.”
In the rare moments when you’re both home and going through laundry together, he never fails to scoop up a load of hot towels and dump them over your head, relishing in the girlish giggle from beneath the clean laundry. “It’s so toasty,” you whimper with glee.
“They’re not gonna be if you get your hospital gunk all over them,” Frankie tuts, going back to add a new load into the washer as you glare at him over the lump of sheets.
“Ha, ha. Move over, Mr. Morales, and watch a master at work.”
“Yes, Mrs. Morales.” It’s stupid but his heart always fumbles when he calls you that. It started as a joke, one that you initiated, but now it’s like berry jam on his tongue, sweet and sugary. He’s thought about calling you that while he’s inside you but figures he should save something for the wedding night.
He sidles back, giving you space near the dryer as you pick up a basket of t-shirts.
“You know there’s dinner waiting for you in the kitchen.” He shakes his head as you begin to fold the shirts with lightning speed and precision – a side effect of being the oldest daughter in a family of five kids.
“Yeah, but you’re in here,” you say and bump his hip. He bumps you back and helps with the load. “Besides, it’ll get done faster with two people.”
He can’t exactly argue with that, so he lets the silence grow. But it’s not silence, not really. In the distance, dogs bark. Outside the room, the temperamental AC grumbles, a sound he never thought he’d come to appreciate. Inside the room, fingers tug at fabric, the soft thump as the shirts grow into a continuous pile. Then there’s you, breathing in the lilac-scented air, the scent of his deodorant and sweat and something entirely unique to him– his Frankie-ness as you’ve called it many times without elaborating. I’d bottle it if I could, you told him, bathe in it. You’re kinda weird, he told you, and you know he likes it.
Every once in a while, his elbow brushes up against yours, yours skirting around his, but never colliding, an awareness of the other always present and attended to, a flow of familiarity and recognition he’s never felt before or known since.
Bit by bit, you’ve taken pieces of him into you, picked them up, held them to the light and found them beautiful, until a second bit of his soul lives outside of his body. He knows every inch of you, how every atom calls out to him, begs to be close to him, and held tight. It’s not sunlight he’s trying to keep safe, it’s your heart. Your precious, wonderful heart that is somehow so full, it was enough to fill him up too. Gold filling in the cracks.
Kintsugi, Benny called it, when he got obsessed with anime for three months that one time two years ago. Frankie never could remember the actual name, and maybe that wasn’t the point and maybe it was a little ridiculous, especially when it was explained by a deliriously drunk and bleary-eyed Ben Miller at one in the morning on his brother’s lawn chair.
Maybe a better way of thinking about it was how separate, disparate, jagged and raw edges came to fit together. How someone like him got a do-over, another chance to be remade in the kiln, and how someone like you was allowed to love unselfishly, to ask for things and never be threatened with reparations of some kind – as if loving you deserved some sort of compensation.
Pieces, broken and scattered – he looked up and saw you carrying yours, and you witnessed the scars and blood dripping from the shards of his own past, his life, his love, and despite how slippery his pieces were, how dried and empty and wanting yours were, something pulled them together and made them stay.
Something stronger than light.
Stronger than gold.
You shook his hand and looked at what you built together, the pieces that came together, and in the end, that was your partnership. A creation of something greater – home, family, love.
So much fucking love.
In the end, Frankie Morales used love to build his life, not death, and you’re the one who gave it to him.
He drops the last shirt on the stack and he turns, his fingers seeking the drawstring of your pants.
You know what he wants. You want it too. A singular desire in two separate bodies.
The inherent closeness of domesticity draws you into him, closing the already limited space as hands find waists and lips find skin. He drags his nose against your jaw, somehow already shaking, his teeth grazing your throat, unwilling and unable to press his lips to you, wanting to drag this out as much as possible. He squeezes your hips, thumbs flipping under your shirt to touch, touch, touch, until his fingers wrap around your ribs and you make your first sound of the night. It snags at his restraint, pulling it threadbare.
“Frankie,” you sigh and he cannot fight the cataclysmic pull towards you – he stumbles, pinning you to the laundry room wall, his tongue cupping your earlobe into his mouth and he sucks. The next noise you make is high and keening and it turns his touch frantic.
Caught between the wall and his broad shoulders, he does with you what he wants. He nips at your cheek, your neck, the dip of your clavicle, as his thumb presses up each knot of your spine, drawing out the tension from your body like draining poisoned blood, and by the time he pinches off your bra, you’re all but hanging onto him.
“Baby–,”
He can hear you say, it’s late, we have work in the morning, you don’t have to do this,
I’m not worth this
With a low growl that is all possession, all anger that someone ever made you feel like your love was too much, he tugs your shirt off, knocking his hat off as he goes. In the drift, he sees your eyes flutter, mouth twisted in pleasure and guilt – you don’t want to be asking for things like this – and so he silences every doubt, every worry that he’s tired or it’s too late or his knees are aching too much to make you feel the way you deserve – he kisses you with enough force to knock out every unpleasant thought you’ve ever had about yourself and flattens you against the wall.
You let him pry you open, his touch fervent and insistent, tasting of iced coffee and gum. He licks into you, telling you things with his tongue, the way he tugs your bottom lip between his teeth, in the soft puff of breath that escapes him when you cup the back of his neck. Closer, he begs, closer.
His wide palm arching your lower back into him, he squeezes your ribs, up under your breast, before finally taking your nipple between his thumb and the meat of his hand and twists, just enough to make you break apart from his demanding mouth, gasping as if tapped by a live wire. But it’s him who is electrocuted, who catches fire, who wants to be chewed down and swallowed up. He shuffles and pulls you into him, the throbbing in his pants bordering on painful. He rubs himself against you once and you sigh like you know he hurts. You nod.
Your fingers peel your shirt up and over your head as he cups one thigh then the other until your hips hug his waist, smearing the hem of his shirt up over his skin. He feels the heat coming from between your legs, the slight dampness, against his lower belly and he groans, low, right near that source of warmth he wants to die in.
You curl above him, tipping his head back, as you dive into his mouth again, fingers twisting into his hair, thumbs brushing his temple right where you know he tends to get headaches. Your tongue brushes against his upper lip, tasting his mustache, and his knees threaten to buckle.
“You’re gonna fucking kill me,” he laments, he praises, into the supple wetness of your tongue. You nod, pleased, and press your chest into him. He cannot fucking wait to get his mouth around your tits.
Mouth sealed to yours, hands cupping the meat of your ass, Frankie works entirely on sense memory to carry you into the kitchen, to a long wooden table beneath a wide window, white curtains closed and blinds shut.
This table had been one of the first purchases for the new house. Tan cedar boards with white knobby legs, it instantly reminded him of the one in his own childhood home, where he and his brothers fought over meals and did homework together. Where he held his mom after his father died and where he dropped his bag after coming home from a life too long spent fighting other people’s wars.
This table mattered to him and he’d be damned if it wouldn’t mean something to his own child one day.
That was something you too wanted to give your child, never having a table like this in your own life. You loved the stories he told about the table in his kitchen. How much it meant to him.
And now he was going to fuck you on it, this symbol of stability.
He just wonders how stable it really is.
His fingers clutching the back of your neck, arm running in tandem with your spine, he lowers you down, shifting your weight onto his arm so you don’t bump your head against the wood. He releases you but you protest, a muffled uh-uh, as he tries retreating. You loop your arms around his neck, tugging him flat against you and he feels your breasts mold against his chest, nipples already tight.
“Baby,” he breathes, sucking up and out of your mouth, “let me make you feel good.”
Behind him, he hears your sneakers clatter to the floor, your heels digging into his back as you toe off your shoes, and you shake your head.
“I am.” Kiss. A thumb under his bottom lip. “You do.” Breathless, reverent, grateful.
Grateful.
Grateful that he is kissing you.
Not good enough. God, he’s going to eat that self-loathing right out of you.
You whine, frustrated and hot, as he pulls back. He wants to go right for your pussy, but stutters at the sight of your unmarked tits. Smooth, flushed, heaving. There is no part of you he does not love, does not feel the need to worship on his knees.
But suddenly sour shame strikes him as he realizes enough time has passed since the last time you’d had sex for the hickeys to heal. He intends to amend that right now.
His thumbs rubbing soothing circles into your hips, to calm himself, he folds himself over you, dribbling kisses along your throat, over the wings of your clavicle, at the barest incline at the top of your breast, and then to the meat of your tit, the heaviness, the sway, and he bites down. Predictably, you yelp, nails scratching roughly into his scalp and that only makes him suck harder. You have very strict rules around where he can mark you, but on the places he can – oh, you beg him for it.
He palms your other tit, just to feel the goosebumps break out across your skin, to roll your nipple with the calluses on his palm. His teeth release, his tongue laving over that already pink and swollen skin, and he glances up, his other thumb coming to massage that fragile patch.
Being a pilot, a soldier, a brother, a son, those are the things he is. But Frankie lives – aches, pines, desires – to watch you come apart.
The purple bruise on your tit shining like a luxurious necklace, your eyes flutter open when you feel him pull up. Your fingers around his ears, your chest wet with his spit, you let him take you in. You give him this, because you know you’re about to get so much more. With your legs still wrapped around his waist, he can feel the soft cant of your hips, the quiet, patient begging, as you thought he needed reminding that you needed this. You rub up him, knees pinned to his ribs, and he lets you pull him into your mouth, grounding him. This kiss is brief, soft, a far cry from the tearing and biting that got you onto the table. Knowing exactly the state you need to be in to ask for what you want, he holds your jaw, thumb against the apple of your cheek and he slips his tongue out of your mouth. Again a protest, an instinctual reaction to the repeated pattern of abandonment, but like all cries for help, he quiets your squirming by sliding his thumb between your lips.
“Suck,” he murmurs gently. Your eyes flutter shut, your nails carving half moons into his forearm, lips creating a vacuum seal around his knuckle and you obey – you suck – and he rewards you with a trail of kisses across your sternum, over your breasts, to the soft swell of your stomach. He nuzzles your belly button and you groan, eyes still shut and his thumb still in your mouth. He bites, softer than before, just above the thatch of hair and you whine around his finger, body going supple for him. He slides his thumb out, dragging a shiny string of spit over your plush lips, down your chin, joining his other hand at the waist band of both your panties and your scrubs.
Any fast movement will awaken that anxious, overthinking, beautiful brain of yours, now that he has it fuzzy and unfocused, so he keeps kissing, keeps sucking and biting, that spot just above your curls. He tongues your hip, and then the other side, your bottom half wonderfully bare before you can open your eyes.
His shoulder bumps the back of your thigh as he stands up right, inhaling the sweat behind your knee, the pungent tang of your glistening curls, your almond butter body lotion. It’s hunger, he feels, but not a tangible hunger, one that can be so easily satiated. It’s not painful, or weakening – no, he is made stronger by it. He feels your blood pulse beneath his hand on your inner thigh as he opens you up and he’s made better by it.
He kneels, a holy servant before the divine meal of their goddess, on shitty linoleum beneath harsh lights in a kitchen he can barely afford.
Frankie takes your hand, kisses your knuckles, and slides your grip into his hair.
“Recuérdame cómo te gusta, nena.”
He eats. He consumes. He licks. He sucks. He slurps.
He tastes your dripping wetness on the seam of your cunt, before his tongue ever gets the chance to explore, to open, to divulge. He licks until he feels your breath hitch – a curse in the shape of his name, as if he needs scolding for making you feel so good – and then he opens his jaw and tongues your hole.
In a lust-drunk haze you once told him he has something better than DSL – he has a pussy-eating nose. He prods you with that nose you can’t seem to get enough of, licking in as far as he can, coating himself in everything as it leaks out of you, and he moans as he can feel it on his chin. You vibrate with the sound and above him, your fingers clench down into his hair.
“Oh, fuck, holy – fuck, Frankie–,” your trembling shakes the bowl of your hips, spilling his meal, so he sucks your clit in a way that makes your body freeze and then melt. You go limp, pliable, and gushing. He gets a few more moments of twisting and sucking and swallowing, until by the third time he puts his lips around your clit, you open-mouth whine and it’s like his body violently remembers he has a cock. He is seized with such a need to fuck you in this warm, wet place he’s dug out with his tongue, he doubles over and rests his teeth against your thigh.
“Frankie, I’m so close,” you writhe, chest flushed and brow sweaty.
Before you, he never knew sex could feel like this, could do this. Sure, he used sex to keep away those circling, vulture-like thoughts from time to time. But this, this drawing out and unthreading, unspooling, of himself and someone else, tearing at ego-drenched threads until all that was left was a being of pure want and desire – he didn’t know this was possible.
He didn’t know he could feel like this.
One more broad lick, coating everything in what he hope fucking smells like him, and you arch, thighs shaking, his hair in danger of being ripped from his scalp. You gasp as you flatten, the first orgasm of the night rolling through you, sweat making your skin salty, as though you had been breached by the ocean.
He laps you through it, of course, a nascent smirk on his face.
You open your eyes to this self-satisfied Frankie, eyes only visible over the top of your cunt, and you whine.
You reach for him and he goes, smearing your slick over your face, offering it to you in supplication on his tongue. He tastes your rising desperation, the way you sharpen your teeth against his lips, batter his tongue into the corner of his mouth, try to claim what your cunt already has. His hunger is an infection and your fever has reached a boiling point.
Your trembling fingers curl his shirt up his back, passing over the ruddy scar on his shoulder where he got hit with a stray bullet, the jagged white line over his ribs where a knife nearly split him open. He used to only fuck with his shirt on. He doesn’t now.
His shirt crumples to the floor as he sits up, you following, eyes dark, and you bite his pec muscle, your love for him twisting you into an anthropophagist. You want to consume him, like your pussy swallows his cock. Having him impale you is not enough; you want intercourse with him on a subatomic level.
You inch back to give yourself enough space to unbutton his jeans and he sees the wet slick left behind on the table. The heat behind his groin shoots up his spine and he grunts, burying his face into your neck where he tugs on your earlobe with his teeth, hands planted on either side of you.
“Hurry, baby, I gotta fuck this pussy,” he whispers against the curve of your jaw. He wants to leave a giant purple bruise there, this instinct to claim, to mark, stoking the roiling heat at the base of his spine and drawing up his balls.
But his attention snaps back to your hands when he hears a click, the release of his zipper is almost euphoric. He moans in relief, unable to see through his half-lidded eyes the explosion of goosebumps over your skin as his breath tumbles over your back and down your chest.
His urgent hands overwhelm yours, one pushing his jeans down his hips, the other palming your stomach, pushing you back and you go willingly, but seemingly mesmerized by the sight of his aching, flushed cock springing up against his stomach. You lie down, but only barely, still on your elbows, as he tugs you by your ankles to the edge of the table.
Your uneven breathing could mean a lot of things. He thought you were being complementary the first time you told him he was too big, but your eyes always widened at the sight of his cock.
“Do you need to be opened up some more, cariño?”
At his rawest, Spanish came out of him like a spilled bottle of molasses, sweet, slow, rich.
“Hmm? Tell me what you need. Hable mas alto por favor.” He rubs your knees, your thighs, hoping you’ll ask for what he wants.
“F-fingers, Frankie,” you swallow, eyes still latched on to his now weeping cock. You glance up at him, face open and full of trust, and he feels his dick pulse. “Please, Frankie, put your fingers in me.”
“Fucking anything.” He plants one hand and cups your mound, lost for a moment in the soaked curls, before pushing two fingers inside and thrusting. “I’ll fucking give you anything you want.”
His hips jerking slightly in tandem with the pulse of his fingers, his slacked mouth an indication of how unconscious his humping has become, as he watches you dissolve with every stroke of his hand. God, he didn’t know they made things this pretty. His hand pushes your knee up and back, finding room for three fingers and your eyes roll back in your head. You scrabble for anything to hold onto, fingers searching for the ghosts of your bedsheets, but finding none, your arms curl over your head and latch onto the other edge of the table. You present your fucking tits to him like you’re letting him admire artwork.
It almost brings him to his knees.
“Oh, I’m coming, oh, Frankie, I’m gonna –,”
He pulls out his fingers just enough to let you gush down his palm, his wrist, and he licks it up like a glutton. It drips a bit onto the linoleum and he smears it with his bare feet.
Frankie slides two fingers back in, his brain going fuzzy at being away from the clutch of your cunt for too long, when you grab his wrist.
You can barely breathe, your skin a pale pink, your cunt no doubt must be sore, but your eyes are as hard as diamonds in your skull. He swallows the flush of spit in his mouth.
“Now, Frankie,” you plead, fingers tight around his wet wrist, the hairs on his arm standing up at the sound of your commanding voice. “Fuck me, now, I need you inside of me.”
It always makes him a bit dumbstruck, the way you beg, the way you let him and only him see this side of you – this side of you that is sick with wanting.
His hand squeezes the base of his cock once, eyes fluttering, to remind himself he cannot blow his fucking load the instant the tip of him is inside you. He taps your clit, once, twice, lubing himself up as if he hadn’t moved around internal organs to make way for himself. He notches, then slides, white-knuckling his impending orgasm in favor of making this good for you. He steps farther between your legs, hands sliding from your thighs, up to your waist. He thumbs your nipple and your pussy twitches around him. He swears his heart flat out stops for a concerning length of time.
“How is a pussy this good all mine? All fucking mine?” He rolls his hips, pushing deeper, movements marionetted by the high-pitched whimpers and moans of your mouth. He could catalog every single one of them, has done so in the deep recesses of his brain, and it takes just a second to know when it switches from pleasure to pain.
He bends over you, you choking on his dick, and kisses you hard, shattering the tense look on your face.
“I love you,” he tells you, a secret that despite being well-known to anyone who sees him look at you, still feels precious and fragile. His hand plasters your hair to your sweaty neck as he kisses you desperately, speaking a language only you understand. “I love you so fucking much.”
You sigh into his open mouth. “I wanna marry you, Fransisco Morales.”
He is covered in gold. Dripping with it.
His nails at your hip dig into your skin and you know exactly what you’ve done.
“Say it. Say it louder, nena,” he snarls, face pressed into your cheek, and he thrusts forward with enough force to rock the table. The table legs squeak as you pin him to you one more time and nip at his ear. The last drop in the well, the rope slipping over the edge, the coil locked into place.
“I wanna fucking marry you.”
With a breathy grunt, he yanks you down onto his cock by your waist and slaps your ass with his balls. It’s been a while since your cunt has taken a beating like this. You clutch at the edge of the table again, mouth torn open.
He knows you like it when he plays with your clit, and he will, but he needs to get this out of him.
“Yeah? You’re gonna marry the guy who’s fucking your pussy so good right now?” It’s amazing that words escape at all through his gritted teeth, jaw taut. He watches as he disappears and reappears in you, your lips puffy and pink already but he needs more. He doesn’t want you to be able to walk out of bed tomorrow.
“Yes, Frankie – oh, god, there, right there – yes, I’m gonna marry you.” He tips your hips up as he pounds down and you arch, crying out at the angle, the depth, how full you feel. He fucks like he’s trying to bruise your ribcage through your pussy.
The thoughts in his head collide with the others, knotting together, blurring, until the only noise he can make, the only thing he can verbalize is the tight grunts, the hm, hm, hm, as he focuses on chasing this fire.
He feels it approach so fast, he’s nearly taken under by the intensity of his orgasm so he slows, grinds instead, and with his eyes on your face, he cups himself around where he’s split you open, feeling your lips suck in and out with every thrust.
He closes his eyes briefly, helpless against the waves of arousal that coat his fingers. He smears your clit with his thumb and his name is a split, jagged thing that burns your tongue. He wants that taste on his tongue again.
You throb once, a sharp climax warming your pussy, and he backs out, drops to his knees, and licks you up again. He can taste his sweat there this time and he groans. His hands slip over your skin from the sweat in the crease of your thigh.
The cries from your mouth are wet now, on the curve of a salty tongue. You tremble like your orgasm is a physical thing, thrumming under your skin, warming your blood and you claw at his forearm.
“B-baby, please–,”
Wiping his mouth on your inner thigh, then licking up the mess he made, Frankie stands. He swats your bottom lightly, tutting. He’s a mad man, he knows it, he can’t tell if it's delirium from the rough ache of his balls or masochistic joy in hearing you beg, but again he rubs himself through your folds. It’s not the same, not nearly enough, but it helps last just a bit longer.
“No crying until after I’ve made you come.”
“I’ve already come twice,” you whine as you buck your hips, trying to take him in deeper. “You said I can have anything I want.”
“And what does princesa want?” Yeah, there’s definitely something wrong with him.
Your eyes flash as your nails dig into his shoulders, that fire he so loves to stoke flaring out.
“I want to come on your cock, Mr. Morales.”
And he unravels, divinity calling his name.
His pace is slow, then rough, then deep.
The table is just the right height. He balances on knee on the lip, bending your knees over his shoulders, and fucking down into you. He’s going to snap you in fucking half and maybe he does but he’ll be there to seal you back up again.
Pour himself into you. Fill you. Make you whole once more.
Baby, please.
The first drip of tears starts out the corner of your eyes as you come, open-mouthed, throat exposed, a cry loud and in the shape of his name tearing from your lips, your body locking up, cunt squeezing him until he feels himself burst.
With a shudder and a groan, he spills, hot and flush into you. He comes, and comes, and comes, until his gooey spend is forced out of you and down the crack of your ass. He can’t see anything past the white spark in his eyes, feel anything but you and the tingle of his limbs.
The excess of you and him is everywhere, leaking out onto the kitchen table, soaking the wood. There’s a ringing in his ears he can’t quiet.
Your breath is hot on his neck, sweaty skin stuck tightly against his, he knows he’s crushing you, his arms given out at some point, but he really doesn’t think he can stand up right. He kisses your cheek by way of apology and thanks but you don’t seem to mind, your own gaze unfocused on the ceiling.
“Fuck, Frankie . . .”
He laughs, realizes his legs aren’t working, so trembling and uneasy, he slides out of you and manages to make it to the floor. He blames the sudden dizziness on a lack of food and then blames the dizziness for lying down on the floor.
His eyes flutter and somehow you’re suddenly curled up next to him, your palm resting over his pounding heart. His fingers find their way up into your sweat-damp hair, thumb gently rubbing against the knot at the base of your skull.
“Your back is gonna be killing you in about fifteen minutes, sweetheart,” you grumble sleepily into his chest, a grin on your face.
“I can’t feel anything below my waist right now.” He yawns. “So, we’ve got some time.”
You nod, absentmindedly stroking the dark hair on his chest.
“We need to talk about Pope’s birthday party this weekend. Will put us on drink duty . . . but I can’t really focus on anything right now.”
“Good,” he smirks with his eyes shut. “That was some of my best work.” And then he frowns. “You need to eat.” He pokes your side and you huff.
“Okay, if you’re awake enough to berate me, we can at least go to bed.”
Groaning, you pull him up and he threatens to stumble you both into the wall, but he kisses your cheek and swats your ass, before snagging a tub of ice cream and a spoon. He meets you in the bedroom with the cap off and a smear of chocolate around his lips.
You’ve got one of his shirts, grinning up at him from the center of the bed, and he’s torn about whether he likes you in his boxers, or nothing at all.
You take the ice cream from him before he has a chance to flop down on the bed.
“Not exactly a nutritious meal,” you mutter around the spoon and he turns his face from the pillow to glare at you.
“That’s the other dinner I made for you, so eat.”
Your giggle is all you can give to show your thanks.
He rolls onto his back, groaning theatrically, before tucking his hand behind his head, and his fingers coming to rest on his stomach.
Behind the lids of his eyes, he can feel you watching him.
“What?” He grumbles, feeling around for your foot to pinch your ankle. He hears you move so he knows he’s close. “Not the right flavor, princesa?”
“No,” you laugh and prod his hip with your toe. “It’s just . . .”
His eyes open, finding yours in the half-lit gloom. You’re grinning the spoon in your mouth, eyes bright with something unnameable. You shrug, eying his hand between you both.
“I just never knew Fransisco Morales could be domesticated.”
He wipes the chocolate off your chin with his thumb.
dededos
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
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theartofmadeline
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