Here For The Fics

Read that in a really cool voice please

[unknownficenjoyer]

In support for all the fanfics I love and their writers; this is a side blog where I will reblog everything I can and most likely squeal in the tags. Thank you.

This will be multifandom, in no particular order, and will probably post daily. If you follow me I have no idea why but Thanks :)

Edit Mar 22, 2026 : should probably add that I’m over 21 years of age, I do apologize.

- Unknown.

[chocolateshortcakesblog]

The calls

༄ Part 12 ❛ A selfish man ❜

Pairings~ Sabo x reader

Synopsis~ Your call, somehow, connects to the chief of staff — Sabo.

Word count~ 2.7k

✧ Masterlist ✧ Prev ✧ Ch.list ✧ Dividers from @somebitchprobably-graphicdump

It had been days since he got the mirror, it allows him to have video call with her through it however, it didn't really help with the desire of meeting her and being beside her, in flesh and real. He could barely do anything with this. He couldn’t understand what's wrong with the mirror, and why it wouldn't let him transport when it had been made for that very purpose itself. He couldn't help but wish for more, from her voice to her face, he had come a long way. Now, he knows what she looks like not through just a sketch he asked for but her in actuality.

It merely subsidied the desire in his heart of being by her side. No matter how many times he tried, the outcome remained the same. He didn't transport to the place he imagined even if it showed up on the reflection. He kept failing, even after he went through the trouble of asking her to give a tour of her room and memorize it.

Do I not remember it correctly?

That wasn't the case, the mirror showed the reflection of her room whenever he imagined it. He wished Robin would let him try transporting to her room itself but she persisted on trying it in this world at first. He couldn't blame her for that, they didn't know how exactly it works. It would be better to try it here, but Sabo’s patience was slipping away. He couldn't keep himself at bay anymore.

The thoughts of being able to see her, meet her, touch her made it impossible for him to not give it a try. Lately he has been that way, but he knew the risks involved. He couldn't just do that, what if he disappeared from the face of this world and never return? What about everyone in the army? What about Luffy? It was too risky to be actually performed.

He couldn't get himself to do it, but he couldn't stop himself from wanting to do it either. He was in a predicament. He has to set this straight somehow, do something or—

.

.

.

Sabo found himself in a hazy place, white haze floated around him— in a way that fuzzes his vision. Not a sound, not a person in view, not a place, nothing— emptiness surrounded him.

The face of a child emerged in the distance— far enough to not make out the features of it completely but close enough to the get gist of it. It's slipping away from his memory slowly like sand slips away from his hands. He knows who exactly it was, “A-ace?”, his voice low and barely audible not that he needed to shout it out here.

The black hair, the arrogant smirk, the freckles, the— what was it again? How did he actually look like? Why can't he remember his face completely? What was the shape of his eyes? Eyebrows?—

A gloved hand of his reaches out to touch him, only to pass through the white haze surrounding them. He clenched and tried again but to no avail, the gloved hand didn’t even grazed the boy let alone touch him.

“You left us, right?”, Sabo could hear it even though the boy's lips didn't move.

The boy turned away, his back was only thing visible to Sabo as he walked away. Sabo hurried behind, walking then running. But he doesn't seem to be getting closer at all— he's far, too far away.

He reached out a gloved hand to grab him only to open up his eyes and reaching out to the ceiling of his own room.

Sweat dripped from his forehead, his entire body maybe, his breathing ragged and his hand reaching out to nothing in his room. “Another one?”, he mumbled to himself.

Clenching his fist and he sat up in his bed, wiping away the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand.

He hadn't had these nightmares for a while. It was bad in starting when he regained his memories. He would barely be able to sleep and even if he did, he would be met with these nightmares constantly.

They tormented him for almost two months. Yes, two whole months.

When suddenly, she entered his life, she made it easier— her voice made it easier. She would indulge him in conversations at night which allowed him to relax and got rid of nightmares for him. Her voice made it so much easier for him— so much and yet, he is back here.

His gaze fell upon the time on the clock, it read 4:27 am. He wondered whether she would be up right or not. It was a stupid question, why would anyone be up in the tread of night? Or maybe in the rise of morning?

Well, he was..

It wouldn't hurt to try, right? He thought.

He reached out to the den den mushi kept on the side table of his bed, he dialed her number, he remembers it as clear as day. He pauses for a moment after dialing 4 digits, what comes after it again?

8976—

He mumbles to himself, “8,9,7,6…”, his hand trembled at the thought of having forgotten it.

He ran a hand through his bangs clenching at them, his breathing ragged as he tried to recall what's follows ahead.

“8,9,7,6”, he couldn't remember it.

He rushed off his bed, to his desk, flipping through his journal to get— get till the last page where he had noted down her number. He exhales shakily as he turns the page to finally see the number.

He couldn't get himself to dial it, he stared at it in daze. Only the sound of clock ticking and his breathing could be heard. He hated it— hated forgetting! Even if it was normal to forget numbers this long.. how could I not remember hers?

It was equivalent to the nightmare he had, more maybe worse— if he hadn't noted it down, he would've lost it forever..

He couldn't muster up the courage to dial her number until he had memorized it by heart. He repeated it over and over.. and over.. and over..

Huddled up over his desk, repeating it until he had memorized it by heart.

Before he knew it, it was morning again. The sunlight gleamed through the shades of curtain by the window. He looked at the clock which read 6:43 am.

He sighed and got ready for work as if he didn't just spent the entire night memorizing her number as if it was his lifeline. As if his life depended on it.

.

.

.

If anyone saw him right now, they wouldn't be able to tell that he barely slept last night. He was good at hiding it, maybe a bit too good. Though, Koala and Hack could easily see through it, through his act and that facade of pretending to be his usual.

Robin realized it after sometime, it wasn't difficult to tell he was on the edge the entire time. “Is something bothering you?”, she asked out of spite.

Sabo’s eyes widened before relaxing again, he avoided her gaze, “Yeah, the mirror y’know—”, his voice was low and unsteady, wavering slightly.

“I want to meet her..”, he admitted the truth that had been sitting at his heart, weighing him down like a dead weight.

The desire was eating away at him. He could barely contain himself anymore.

Robin smiled softly, “Then, maybe.. let's have someone else test out the mirror? It can help in knowing whether there's a problem with the mirror itself or..”, she trailed off letting him fill the gaps of her sentence.

He understood what it meant, or me, huh? He figured it almost instantly but still it made his heart drop just thinking about it.

It wasn't entirely impossible, maybe it was just him—

He shook his head slightly trying to not indulge such thoughts, “But who? And— I can't really disclose about this to everyone”, he ran a hand through his blonde strands.

A sigh leaves him, “Not even Dragon-san? Or Koala?”, Robin asked.

He shook his head, “No”

“Besides, I blurted it out to you. I didn't meant to tell anyone”, he added.

However, this bugged Robin, it was clear that there was more to it than he was letting her in on. Besides, there was that conversation about character as well. She couldn't understand what it could actually refer to. It barely even made sense, plus, Sabo was drunk during that conversation which made the situation more difficult to comprehend.

But it was clear from the way he insisted on not letting anyone in on this. She couldn't ask him outright either. The way he is keeping it in his heart tells her that she shouldn't pry out of her way.

“Then, want me to try it out?”, Robin asked.

Sabo looks at her with contemplating gaze, but nods almost instantly. They didn't have any other option to begin it.

Robin tried the mirror and surprisingly, it worked. It worked perfectly for her.

She could transport at will, even use it to come back which confirmed one thing. That the mirror worked just fine.

Robin looked at him as he wondered it wouldn't work when he tried, “Maybe you should try transporting to her room itself. Now, we have confirmed it works fine. Though, I would suggest more trials but you look impatient”, she smiled softly.

Flustered, Sabo nodded, “Maybe, I am.”

He glazed at the clock which read 4:24 pm— a time when she wouldn't be at her apartment.

“I will try it and comeback right away”

He took the mirror in his gloved hands, imaging her room— it appears in the reflection of the mirror; still and calm. He exhales deeply and closed his eyes imagining himself transporting there, being there, the desire to be there.

And when he opened his eyes again, he was in the middle of her apartment. He took a shaky breathe in, it was real.. her room. The lights were turned off, clearly implying that she wasn't home yet.

Emotions swirled within him of happiness and excitement. He looked around the dark room, devoid of any human presence expect for his but utterly calm and collected just like her.

His heart beats loudly in his chest, he is finally where he had been wanting to be. I can't believe it— it worked. I am really here.. he swallowed hard.

He fiddled with the switch turning one of the lights on. Just a look, wouldn't hurt right? He stared at the every detail of her room, every corner. Bunch of emotions swirled within him, he wished for this moment for so long.

To be here— by her side.

He doesn't know when he felt so much content before. He needs to memorize the place before he forgets again. He can't forget it or else he wouldn't be able to comeback here. Something to take a pic— ah, I didn't brought anything with me. He clutched the mirror away in the inner pocket of his coat.

His gaze falls on every corner of the room, a shaky breathe in as he burns the image in his mind. He couldn't afford to forget this one.. not at all.

That's when he heard a click sound from the door.

Huh? It can't be?

He looked at the time which read quarter to five, she couldn't be back already!

The handle of the door turned, and the door slowly opened up revealing her behind it.

He fumbled for the mirror in his pocket to leave the place immediately but before he could do that, her gaze had fallen on him.

She looked at him in horror then astonishment. This wasn't how he planned to visit her for the first time. He merely wanted to test it out not meet her right now.

In a better outfit, with a gift in his hand, with a sly smirk on his face—

Not like this. He wasn’t prepared to see her right now. Why is she back so soon?

No, more importantly, he was in front of her— standing before her. He was seeing her for real this time, and then the realization hits him more prominently, excitement and nervousness coursed through him.

This was the moment he longed for, for so long. He longed to see her, meet her, hold her for real. Not through just the screen or through the Den den mushi but for real. And finally, he was before her— something he wished for.

He took in a shaky breathe, it was difficult. What am I supposed to say?

Hi, y/n! I'm here, it's me?! No way!

He clenched his fists at his sides, unaware of how to— or what to say to her at this moment. He wished to see her but never really thought what to say to her when he would.

And besides, he didn't plan on seeing her right now. He was just going to check it out and go back instantly and come back later— with her permission.

Not like this, not like some thief..

Her gaze fell upon him, her eyes widen in utter disbelief. Flabbergasted by his appearance, she stood still by the door for a moment before the words left her, “S-sabo?”

He flinched upon hearing her voice, it sent shivers down his spine. He doesn't know what is he supposed to say to her. Is he supposed to nod and say yeah? He didn't know.

So, he just stood there in complete silence as she took in his form standing before her.

Ugh, he couldn't believe he got in her home like this. It frustrated him.

She took a step towards him slowly, “Sabo? You? Here? How?”

He tried to form words in his head but it was no use. He could barely register the turn of events in his head let alone form coherent sentence at the moment.

What is he supposed to say? How— what? Something! Anything, he has to..

He is here now, afterall.

And in a moment, she crossed the distance between them. His heart was pounding so fast in his heart that it feels like it could pop out right now. He could see her up close. He hadn't realized it before but now seeing her up so close, he noticed how much angelic and innocent she looked. Completely unlike him— who goes around making trouble and killing people.

Am I doing right? Should I even be here?

He hadn't given it that much thought before. He hadn't cared about this being an another world, it didn't matter to him before. But now, he actually wondered if it was alright for him to be here.

Just seeing her right now makes him question that.

He got pulled out of his thoughts as he felt her soft hands on his cheeks, probing the skin as if checking whether he is real or not. For the first time, he realized how sullied he was. An angelic hand touching him, it felt unreal. To be here, in front of her, and her grazing his skin like this.

“Y/n”, he manages out. He didn't know what else to say but he, at least, managed her name out.

She looked up at him with an innocent gaze that makes his heart race. His heart could barely contain itself right now, she is adorable, he admitted to himself.

Her eyes practically beamed at him, “You’re here for real?!”, she asked with excitement coursing through her voice. He could tell, she was excited to say the least.

“Yeah”, he murmured. He didn't know what else to say. He wanted to talk about a lot of stuff when he meets her but right now, none of that came to his mind.

She gave him a wide smile, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him an embrace. His breath hitched at the action, his gloved hands remained frozen at his sides, his eyes widened.

He hadn't anticipated her to hug him, not at all. He couldn't get himself to wrap his arms back in a similar way, he just couldn't do it. How could he? With hands like his? Hands used in combat on daily basis— he can't even remember how many he had killed with his dragon claw. And he is supposed to hug her back with those hands? He couldn't fathom the idea at all.

However, the selfish desire in his heart. The urge to pull her in, hug her back won over.

He let himself relax, and wrapped his gloved hands around her, pulling her further into the embrace.

I guess, I am selfish man, afterall.

☆ Next (Pending)

Taglist : @darmine @kio-kookie @mymmyrym @serenityblu @aionions-iqlauk @unknownficenjoyer @3mb3r8 @jhsluvv @rubyys-domain @imanevens @keyutii @kyomiforest @nikita001 @lalacute03 @stup1dlysmart-human @baa3baa3 @napforalifetime @noble-17 @leonkennedyismybae @pienismysoul

If you'd like to be added to the list, lemme know!

[deadlyshatteredtribe]

I see people are getting a little too comfortable with me so let me reiterate this.

I support black queers

I support black mental health

I support black outrage

I support black anger

I support the black experience

I support black lives

Don't ever pretend the black experience is anything that should not be taken seriously. And you do not have to be in a group to understand the pain. I'm happy to live and thrive without the existence of racist people around me.

[lettersunderthecrypt]

Tracks Left Behind Prologue

Pairing: Tim Drake x AFAB!Reader x Batfamily

Summary: While she raced across continents beside metal titans, Gotham’s sons tore through shadows hunting the ghost she’d become.

Rating: M/NSFW

Content Warning: Violence, Destruction, Gunfire, Emotional Distress, Implications Of Abduction, Anxiety, Fear

Words: 10k

A/N: Prologue is up!

Official Playlist

Prologue | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Y/N got it. Tim had priorities. Responsibilities. She really did understand. Wayne Enterprises chewed up hours with polished teeth, all chrome smiles and boardroom glass, and being head of tech meant Tim lived half inside code, half inside a calendar Bruce probably paid someone exhausted to color-coordinate.

She understood the Manor, all cavernous rooms and old money shadows. She understood Elana; girlfriends deserved time. She understood whatever else Tim hid, all the weird rich kid activities she’d spent years pretending were normal. Private flights. Sudden bruises. Emergency meetings at midnight. Excuses that smelled like smoke and antiseptic, always with Alfred watching as if he could iron secrets flat with a single raised brow.

She understood all of it because she’d always made room for Tim. Always shaped herself around the empty spaces in him. Always told herself friends didn’t leave over silly things like no time, no calls, no plans, no one choosing you first anymore.

But that night, sitting on Tim’s couch with the city pressed dark and wet against the windows and the blue glow of his computer making him look like a sleepless ghost in a hoodie, understanding turned heavy in her chest. It sat there beside the ache she wouldn’t name, both of them curled up together like ugly little pets. Tim had invited her over to make it up to her—his exact words, tossed through a text after three canceled plans and one awkward run-in at the Manor, Elana’s hand looped through his arm, her smile like she’d found a room Y/N used to live in and changed the locks.

She showed up anyway because she was stupid about people she loved. Because Tim was Tim. Because once, when her mother died and her world went paper-thin and unreal, Tim had sat outside her bedroom door for three hours until she opened it. Bruce had made sure she never felt like an orphan in a house full of ghosts. Alfred started making her tea the way her mom used to, even though she’d only mentioned it once.

Tim typed. And typed. And typed.

Y/N sighed from the couch, dramatic enough to make a point, soft enough to be forgiven. The controller sat abandoned beside her thigh, the video game paused on a menu screen she’d been pretending to care about for twenty minutes. She curled one socked foot under herself, chin tucked into the collar of her oversized sweatshirt, and stared at the back of Tim’s head until her eyes burned.

He did not look over.

She sighed again, louder this time, the kind of sigh that should have come with a tiny theater curtain and one spotlight.

“What’s wrong?” Tim asked at last, not turning fully, his fingers still moving over the keyboard. His voice had that clipped edge he got when his brain was somewhere else, and his body had been left behind to deal with the humans. “You’ve sighed twice.”

“I’m bored,” Y/N said.

Tim frowned at his screen as her boredom had appeared in the code. “Play some video games.”

Y/N’s pout arrived instantly, familiar and reflexive, her mouth pulling down as she tipped her head against the couch. “I wanna play with you. You’ve been working for, like, ever?”

Tim let out a breath through his nose, the almost-laugh he used when something was not funny but he needed it to be smaller than it was. He finally glanced back at her, and for half a second she saw him. Her Tim. Tired eyes, messy hair, guilt flickering like a faulty bulb. Then he looked back at the computer.

“I have a lot to get done, you know that,” he said. “It’s important. Can’t you find something else to do?”

The words weren’t cruel. That was the worst part. Just ordinary, practical, the kind you could defend in the morning, polish up and make reasonable. Y/N stared at him, and something small inside her went very still.

“That’s what you said last time,” she said, standing before she could decide not to. Her voice stayed bright because, of course, it did. Her smile came with it, automatic and awful, stretching over hurt like wrapping paper over broken glass. “And the time before that. Tim, why even invite me over if I’m going to be a trophy piece on your couch so you feel better about yourself?”

Tim’s shoulders tightened. He did not look at her, but she saw the irritation catch in the set of his jaw, saw the headache forming before he even lifted a hand to rub at his temple.

“Y/N,” he said, and there it was, that tone. The one that made her feel twelve years old and too loud in a room full of adults. “Some of us have responsibilities. I’m sorry you’re bored, but you need to do something with your life other than follow me around. Quit acting so pathetic.”

Silence dropped between them so hard it felt physical.

The city hissed outside. His computer hummed. Somewhere in the apartment, the heater clicked on, filling the room with dry warmth that made her skin feel too tight. Y/N looked at Tim, her smile staying exactly where it was, obedient as a trained dog. For a moment, she thought about screaming. About throwing the controller at his stupid, expensive wall. About saying, I had a life before you got too busy to notice it. I had grief before you decided I was inconvenient. I had a mother once. I had you once.

Instead, she lifted her bag from the floor.

“I gotta go home anyways and do some stuff,” she said lightly. “See you later.”

Tim turned then, remorse arriving too late and too small, as a coin dropped in a cathedral. “Alright,” he replied, his voice softer now. “Text me when you get home safely.”

“Okay!” Y/N chirped because the alternative was falling apart in his doorway, and she would rather eat glass. She slung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the door. “Love you, see you soon. Whenever you’re not working,” she added under her breath, the grumble escaping before she could swallow it.

Tim sighed behind her. “Sure, whatever, see you soon.”

That was the last thing he gave her for a long time.

Outside, Gotham smelled like rain, exhaust, and old stone. The pavement shone beneath the streetlights, black and silver and slick as oil, and Y/N hugged her sweatshirt tighter as she walked to the curb, refusing to look back at the warm square of Tim’s apartment window. She pulled out her phone with fingers that had started to tremble and called Damian first, because Damian was blunt and mean and weirdly comforting in the way sharp things could be comforting if you knew where to hold them. It rang once before it went to voicemail.

A text came through before she could even lower the phone.

Damian: Y/N. Leave me alone; I’m doing something important.

Her smile wobbled. “Cool,” she whispered to nobody. “Love that. Very emotionally nourishing.”

She called Jason next. He picked up on the fourth ring, background noise loud behind him, voices and engines and something metallic clattering.

“What?” Jason said.

“Wow,” Y/N said, forcing brightness into her voice until it glittered. “Hi to you too, sunshine.”

“Y/N, I’m busy.”

“Everyone’s busy. I’m starting to think there’s a club and I wasn’t invited.”

Jason exhaled, impatient. “Are you actually in trouble?”

The question hit harder than she expected, because no, she was not in the kind of trouble they respected. No blood, no gun, no broken lock, no villain with a dramatic outfit and a theme. Just a heart doing something embarrassing in her chest.

“No,” she said. “I just wanted to talk.”

“Then stop acting like a child,” Jason said. “Call somebody else.”

The line went dead.

For a while, Y/N stood under the awning of Tim’s building, rain misting cold against her cheeks, phone still pressed to her ear. Her smile had gone numb.

She tried Dick last because Dick was safe, because Dick always answered with warmth even when he was tired, because Dick had once carried her from the Manor couch to her room after she fell asleep during movie night and had teased her for drooling on his shirt for two straight weeks. He did not answer. A minute later, her phone buzzed.

Dick: Sorry, busy.

Y/N stared at the three messages lined up in her phone, each one a tiny door closing.

Okay, she thought, and the word had no shape at all. Okay. Okay. Okay.

She texted Tim when she got home safely because she had promised, and because some habits were harder to kill than hope.

Y/N: Home alive, tragically. Gotham failed to kidnap me again. 0/10 city performance.

Tim did not answer until morning.

Tim: Good.

A week passed, and Y/N stopped texting first. It was not dramatic. There was no declaration, no final paragraph, no wounded monologue sent at 2:13 a.m. and regretted by sunrise. Just radio silence, as if their story had quietly slipped into canon divergence: the moments that could have mattered written out, the plotline going elsewhere.

One night, she just looked at her phone, thumb hovering over Tim’s name, and realized she was tired of offering little pieces of herself to people who treated them like clutter. She put the phone facedown and opened a horror game instead, letting digital darkness swallow the room while something chased her through flickering hallways and screamed from the vents. Monsters were easier. Monsters wanted something obvious.

The boys did not notice.

At first, that hurt worse than the silence itself. Then, slowly, the hurt became weather. It rolled in, soaked her, passed. Six months unfolded with cruel softness.

At the Manor, Elana became a fixture, pale sweaters and calm smiles, her hand resting lightly on Tim’s arm, her voice gentle enough to make every insult sound like concern. She laughed at the right volume. She never sprawled across the couch. She never stole fries off Jason’s plate, never argued with Damian about movie adaptations, never climbed onto Dick’s back in the hallway because her feet hurt, never filled the kitchen with flour at midnight because she saw a cake recipe online and became briefly possessed by vanilla extract and delusion.

“She’s just a lot,” Elana said one evening when Y/N’s name drifted into the room like smoke.

Y/N was not there, but the words reached her anyway days later through the strange, humiliating ecosystem of people who thought gossip became kindness if they delivered it with a wince.

Jason had apparently snorted. “That’s one way to put it.”

Dick, softer but not defending her, had said, “She can be intense.”

Damian had said something in Arabic that no one translated for Elana, and Tim had only sighed.

Y/N smiled when she heard. Of course, she did.

Bruce still called. Alfred still sent her home with containers of soup and stern instructions disguised as polite suggestions. Y/N still answered Bruce with “Dad” because he was, in all the ways that mattered and none of the ways blood could explain. But she stopped coming to events. She stopped lingering in the Manor kitchen. She stopped giving Elana the chance to tilt her head and say, “We missed you,” in a voice that meant, Look how well we breathe without you.

And to her own surprise, Y/N started breathing again.

It happened in uneven little ways. A morning where she woke up and didn’t check if Tim had posted anything. An afternoon wandering a bookstore for two hours, buying three books she didn’t need. A night laughing so hard in David’s garage she had to sit on an overturned tire because her knees gave out, the air thick with motor oil, rubber, metal dust, and the sharp lemon cleaner he used obsessively but pretended not to care about.

David stood under the open hood of a rust-red pickup, grease smeared along his forearm, his dark hair tied back badly enough that pieces kept falling into his face. He was tall and slim in that deceptively sturdy way mechanics got, all roped muscle from lifting engines and hauling parts and fighting with bolts that had chosen violence. He pointed a wrench at her like a weapon.

“I’m telling you right now,” he said, “if you make me watch another possessed doll movie, I’m blocking you.”

“You cannot block me,” Y/N said from her throne of stacked tires, swinging one leg. “I know where you work.”

“I work here.”

“Exactly. Terrible operational security.”

David narrowed his eyes. “You’re smiling like a goblin. I hate when you smile like a goblin.”

“That’s rude. This is my charming face.”

“That is your I’m-about-to-traumatize-me-with-a-YouTube-video face.”

Y/N gasped and pressed a hand to her chest. “I would never.”

“You sent me a video titled ‘Top Ten Animatronic Malfunctions That Feel Cursed’ at midnight.”

“And you watched it.”

“I thought it was about Chuck E. Cheese workplace safety!”

“It was educational.”

“It was pizza and a demonically possessed Chuck E. Cheese mascot.”

Y/N laughed, full and bright, and the sound bounced off the garage walls, startling a sleepy orange shop cat from a pile of old towels. For a moment, the laugh felt almost unfamiliar coming out of her, too big for the room, too honest for a body that had spent months learning how to make grief sound like jokes. David watched her with a faint squint, the wrench lowering slightly.

“What?” she asked, still smiling, though it softened under his attention. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Yeah,” he said. “A real expression. Freaky stuff.”

Her smile faltered at the edges.

David turned back to the engine, but his voice stayed careful in the way his hands never were. “You heard from them?”

The garage seemed to quiet around the question. Outside, a car passed with bass rattling its windows, and somewhere deeper in the shop, an air compressor kicked on with a growl. Y/N looked down at her phone lying screen-up beside her, blank and black.

“Bruce called yesterday,” she said. “Alfred threatened me with soup.”

“Good. Alfred’s the only one in that castle with a working brain.”

“Bruce has a working brain.”

“Bruce has a guilt complex wearing a billionaire suit.”

Y/N huffed a laugh despite herself. “Don’t be mean to my dad.”

“I’ll be mean to moneybags if I want.”

Y/N’s smile came easier that time, then faded. “No. I haven’t heard from them.”

David’s jaw flexed. He set the wrench down too softly. “Not one?”

“Nope.”

“After six months?”

“Technically Tim liked a meme I posted.”

“Y/N.”

“What? It counts. Digital affection. Very modern. Very bleak.”

David wiped his hands on a rag, the motion sharp enough to betray him. He was the confrontational one between them, the one who said the thing in the room even if the thing had teeth. “They’re assholes.”

“They’re busy.”

“They’re assholes,” he repeated.

She looked away, her throat tightening in that sudden, traitorous way she hated. Her smile returned, polished and immediate. “They have lives.”

“So do you.”

“Debatable. I spent three hours last night watching someone rank Resident Evil monsters by marriage potential.”

David blinked. “Please never explain that.”

“Coward. Lickers were ranked high than you think they would be."

“Please, I'm begging you. Don't explain why.” He came around the truck and leaned against the workbench across from her, arms folding, eyes fixed on her face like he was trying to catch the truth before she could dress it up. “You don’t have to make excuses for people who hurt you.”

Y/N picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. Yes, I do, she thought. That’s how you keep loving them without becoming angry enough to leave.

Out loud, she said, “I’m not making excuses. I’m being emotionally mature.”

“You are sitting on a tire in my garage wearing a sweatshirt with a cartoon skeleton on it.”

“Emotionally mature people can enjoy skeletons.”

“You cried over a fan edit yesterday.”

“It had good pacing.”

David’s mouth twitched, but he did not let her pull him all the way into the joke. “I’m serious.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

He softened then, irritation draining into something steadier. “I just hate it. You keep acting like you’re fine because you think being fine means they didn’t break anything.”

The words landed with horrible precision. Y/N looked at him, and for one terrifying second, her face forgot what to do. The smile slipped. The brightness dimmed. Underneath it was exhaustion, raw and young and badly hidden.

“I don’t want them to be bad people,” she whispered.

David’s expression changed, not pity, never pity, but understanding, with its sleeves rolled up. “They don’t have to be bad people to be bad to you.”

Y/N swallowed. The shop smelled like oil, rain, and old coffee. The cat kneaded the pile of towels, indifferent to human collapse. For months, she had been telling herself that being forgotten was not the same as being abandoned, that being replaced was not the same as being unwanted, that Elana had not stolen anything because people were not rooms and love was not furniture. But the truth had teeth no matter how gently she tried to hold it.

“I miss Tim,” she admitted, so softly it barely survived the air.

David nodded once, like he had expected that, as if the sentence did not offend him. “Yeah.”

“And I’m mad at him.”

“Good.”

“And I still love him.”

“Unfortunately, you have terrible taste.”

A wet laugh escaped her. She pressed the heel of her hand under one eye before anything could fall. “Don’t make me laugh when I’m being tragic. It ruins the aesthetic.”

“Your aesthetic is haunted animatronic with cherry flavored lip gloss.”

“That’s literally so rude and so accurate.”

David smiled, then, small but real, and nudged her knee with his. “Come on. Help me close up. I’ll buy food.”

Y/N narrowed her eyes. “You’ll buy food?”

“Yes.”

“Like, food food? Or gas station food?”

“Don’t disrespect gas station food. It has saved lives.”

“It has ended lives.”

“Only the weak.”

"I am not eating a seven eleven taquito."

She slid off the tires, landing beside him with a little hop, and bumped her shoulder into his arm because contact came naturally to her when she felt safe enough not to think about it. David pretended to stumble like she had body-checked him with Jason-level force, clutching his ribs and wheezing theatrically until she rolled her eyes and shoved him again. The garage lights hummed overhead, warm and buzzing, painting the tools gold and the concrete floor amber. Outside, the rain had slowed to a mist, silvering the lot beyond the bay doors.

For the first time in months, Y/N did not feel like a ghost haunting someone else’s family.

She felt bruised, yes. Still tender. Still angry. Still waiting, in some humiliating corner of herself, for her phone to light up with Tim’s name and prove that she had mattered after all. But beside David, with grease on her sleeve and laughter still caught in her throat, the waiting did not feel like the whole world anymore.

Her phone buzzed on the workbench.

Y/N froze.

David looked at it, then at her.

For one ridiculous heartbeat, hope rose in her like a match struck in the dark. Tim. Dick. Jason. Damian. Someone. Anyone.

She picked it up.

Bruce: Alfred made too much soup again. He insists this is accidental. Dinner tomorrow?

Y/N stared at the message until her eyes stung, then smiled, real and aching.

Y/N: Sorry, Dad, looking for a new car tomorrow.

Bruce: Would you like me to join?

Y/N: It’s okay! I got it! Big girl duties.

The next day, Y/N was standing at a broken-down gate, peering in with a wince.

The used car lot sat wedged between a pawn shop with barred windows and a laundromat that flickered like it was one bad electrical bill away from becoming a crime scene, which, in Gotham, meant it was practically upscale. 

A crooked sign over the entrance read Marv’s Motor Mart in peeling red letters, though half the bulbs were dead and the M blinked whenever the wind moved wrong, turning the whole thing into Marv’s Motor Art, which Y/N decided was probably more honest. Rows of cars slouched across cracked asphalt under a low, bruised sky, their paint dulled by grime and city rain, their windshields marked in soap pen with prices that ranged from suspiciously affordable to is this a confession? Somewhere behind the fence, a dog barked once and then apparently reconsidered its involvement.

Y/N stood at the edge of the lot with her hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands, her purse heavy with an envelope of cash she had saved in painful little increments, babysitting money here, freelance odd jobs there, money she had refused to touch even when takeout had whispered her name like a demon from the fridge.

Buying a brand-new car in Gotham was, in Y/N’s opinion, something only a person with a trust fund, an insurance fetish, or a medically concerning lack of pattern recognition would do.

Someone could carjack it before she made the first payment, the Riddler could turn the engine into a crossword puzzle, or Bane could rip it off the street and throw it at Batman because apparently Gotham’s villain community did not believe in property values. And insurance, as she had learned from her own two eyes, did not usually cover being thrown by a big burly man at a middle-aged dude cosplaying as a bat. She had checked. Not officially, maybe, but enough angry forum posts from Gotham residents counted as a civic archive.

“Okay,” she muttered to herself, staring down the rows of sad metal beasts. “Just a normal adult purchase. People buy cars all the time. I am a person. Allegedly. This is fine.”

The owner sat in a cramped office booth near the front of the lot, a dingy little structure with nicotine-yellow blinds, a plastic desk fan rattling in the window, and a coffee maker that looked like it had survived at least one hostage situation. He was a wide man with a gray mustache, a faded baseball cap, and the hollow-eyed resignation of someone who had negotiated with too many Gotham customers and possibly one or two henchmen. He looked up when Y/N stepped inside, gave her a once-over that stopped at her purse and then her face, and scratched his cheek with a pen.

“You buying or browsing?”

“Buying,” Y/N said, then immediately added, “I hope. We’ll see.”

His expression did not move. “Budget?”

“Cash.”

That made him sit a little straighter. “How much cash?”

Y/N smiled sweetly, which was her favorite way of refusing to be robbed. “Enough for a car that starts, stops, and doesn’t come with a body in the trunk.”

“Bodies cost extra.” He jerked his thumb toward the lot. “Go look. Let me know what you like.”

“Comforting business model,” Y/N said, but he had already gone back to whatever he was doing on a tiny television propped on a filing cabinet, the screen full of static-laced news footage and a reporter standing beside a smoking crater that everyone in Gotham would forget about by dinner.

Outside, the air smelled like damp concrete, old motor oil, and the metallic tang of incoming rain. Y/N wandered slowly between the rows, trying to look like someone who knew what she was doing rather than a woman whose entire car knowledge came from David ranting at her while elbow-deep in engines and a few racing games she had absolutely cheated at. A silver sedan with one different-colored door stared back at her with cloudy headlights. A minivan listed slightly to one side like it had secrets. A compact car with a missing hubcap had great student car written on the windshield, which Y/N felt was rude because even broke students deserved hope. She passed a black SUV that looked like it had been stolen, unstolen, stolen again, and then sold here out of exhaustion. She passed a little blue hatchback that might have been cute if not for the smell of ancient cigarettes radiating through the closed windows like a curse. Nothing fit. Not really. Some were too small, some too expensive, some too aggressively haunted by the previous owner’s bad decisions.

Then she saw it.

It sat near the back of the lot, half-hidden beneath a sagging tarp that had slipped off one side, dust softening its shape until it seemed less parked than sleeping. A Camaro. An older model, broad and low and beautiful in a way that made absolutely no sense for her life. It was mostly yellow, bright even under the grime, with black stripes running over it like markings on some ridiculous mechanical insect. Like a bumblebee, she thought, and immediately hated how charmed she was. 

There was something sly about it too, almost as if the car was daring her to notice that there was more here than met the eye. It looked impractical. It looked expensive to fix. It looked like it would attract every car thief in a three-mile radius and at least one villain with a branding issue. It looked like trouble wearing racing stripes.

Y/N fell in love instantly.

“No,” she whispered, walking toward it. “No, absolutely not. We are not doing this. We are not emotionally bonding with a car. That’s how people end up on reality shows.”

The Camaro remained silent, which she took as suspiciously smug.

She reached it and dragged her sleeve across the driver’s side window, clearing a streak through the dust. The interior was shadowy and surprisingly intact, worn but not destroyed, the seats dark, the dashboard aged but not gutted. She cupped her hands around her face and peered inside, then blew at the glass because apparently she had become the kind of person who flirted with abandoned vehicles. Dust puffed back at her, and she coughed, waving it away with a grimace.

“Okay, rude,” she told the car. “You’re pretty, but you have no manners.”

Something inside the dash clicked.

Y/N froze.

She waited, breath caught in her throat, eyes narrowing at the dark interior. Nothing else happened. No movement. No radio. No sudden demonic laughter. Just the distant buzz of traffic and the owner’s television muttering from the booth.

Cool. Great. We’re already in psychological warfare, and I haven’t even asked the price.

She turned toward the booth, ready to call the owner over, but the man was already staring at her through the window. The moment their eyes met, he pointed at the Camaro with his pen like he had been waiting for a cursed prophecy to reach the correct page.

“Take it,” he called through the open door. “Five grand.”

Y/N blinked. “That’s cheap.”

“Yep.”

She looked back at the Camaro, then at him. “Why?”

“It can’t sell.”

“That’s not an answer. That sounds more like my obituary.”

The owner sighed and shoved himself out of his chair, stepping into the doorway of the booth. “Car creeps me out.”

Y/N stared at him. “That is somehow less reassuring.”

“Does weird stuff.”

“What weird stuff?”

He flapped one hand. “Radio plays. Lights come on. Battery drains and then somehow don’t. Horn went off for twenty straight minutes last month when nobody was near it. Door locked me out once.”

“That sounds like a haunted car.”

“That’s why it’s five grand.”

Y/N glanced at the Camaro again. The black stripes looked almost too sharp beneath the dust, the yellow paint glowing faintly under the gloom. Her common sense, already weak from years of Gotham conditioning, tried to crawl up from the basement of her brain and wave a little flag.

“That’s sketch as fuck,” she said.

The owner shrugged. “Probably needs a fix, but I ain’t fixing it. I’ll give you a deal. Five grand if you finance, four if you have cash.”

Y/N crossed her arms, trying to look like David had taught her anything beyond “do not buy anything making a noise that sounds wet.” She tilted her chin toward the Camaro. “Two.”

The owner’s expression flattened.

She smiled.

He stared.

The Camaro sat between them in dusty silence, looking far too pleased with itself.

Finally, the owner looked at the sky, exhaled like a man surrendering a family curse to a stranger, and said, “Take the fucking car.”

Y/N pointed at him. “That is not a sales pitch normal people use.”

“Do you want it or not?”

“Yes,” she said too quickly, then winced at herself. “I mean, with healthy suspicion.”

The paperwork took less time than it should have, which did not help the healthy suspicion. The office smelled like stale coffee and old paper, the desk sticky beneath her elbows as she signed forms while the owner watched her count out cash with the hungry relief of a man unloading a cursed object before it learned his home address. She half-expected a raven to hit the window or the lights to flicker. Instead, the fan rattled, the little television hissed, and somewhere outside, the Camaro’s headlights blinked once.

Y/N’s pen paused.

The owner saw it too.

Neither of them spoke.

After the title was signed and the keys were dropped into her palm, the owner followed her outside with a portable jump starter and the energy of a man approaching a sleeping tiger with unpaid parking tickets. 

The Camaro did not start on the first or second try. On the third, it made a low, offended grinding noise that caused Y/N to whisper, “Baby, please, I already paid for you,” while the owner muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer.

They fiddled. They jumped it. They turned it over. The owner popped the hood, poked around, cursed, adjusted something, jumped back when the horn gave one short, sharp beep, and then pretended he had meant to do that. Y/N stood nearby with the keys in her hand, equal parts thrilled and increasingly certain she had purchased a vehicular poltergeist.

Finally, the engine caught.

The Camaro rumbled low and deep, not smoothly, exactly, but with a strange living vibration that rolled through the asphalt and up Y/N’s legs. The headlights glowed, brightening through the dust, and the radio crackled for one eerie second before settling into silence.

The owner stepped back. “There. Runs.”

“That sounded like a threat.”

“Drive safe. No refunds.”

Y/N slid into the driver’s seat and immediately felt ridiculous happiness bloom in her chest. The interior smelled like old leather, dust, and something faintly electrical, like rain hitting a power line. She ran her hands over the steering wheel, grinning despite herself. “Hi,” she whispered, because apparently she was fully committed to the bit now. “Please don’t kill me. I’m poor and emotionally fragile.”

The radio crackled.

Y/N stared at it.

Nothing.

“Great conversation,” she said weakly.

She waved goodbye to the owner, who waved back with the stiff relief of someone watching a curse leave town, and pulled out of the lot into Gotham traffic. For the first few blocks, it was glorious. The Camaro moved like it wanted to run, even under the sputter and shake, its engine growling beneath her like a large animal clearing its throat. Y/N laughed once, delighted and nervous, gripping the wheel as rain began tapping against the windshield. For the first time in ages, she felt like she had done something just for herself. Not for Tim. Not for the boys. Not to make Bruce worry less or Alfred proud or Elana’s smile twitch. Hers. A reckless yellow-black thing bought with cash from a man who looked like he wanted it exorcised.

Then the ride got shaky.

The wheel trembled beneath her hands. The engine coughed. Y/N’s smile faded.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no, don’t you dare. We are in the honeymoon phase.”

The Camaro jerked like it had hit an invisible pothole, which in Gotham was honestly still possible. A plume of smoke bloomed from the hood, gray and thick, curling up into the rain.

“Okay,” Y/N said, voice rising. “That’s rude. That’s actually so rude.”

By the time she limped it into David’s garage, the Camaro was smoking as it had just survived a boss fight, and Y/N was making small bargaining noises under her breath. David looked up from beneath the hood of another car as it rolled into the open bay, his expression shifting from mild curiosity to horror with comedic precision.

“No,” he said.

Y/N parked crookedly and climbed out with both hands raised. “Before you judge me.”

“I’m judging you.”

“You haven’t heard the story.”

“I heard the engine. That was enough story.”

She gestured grandly to the Camaro, which hissed from under the hood with theatrical misery. “I bought a car!”

David stared at it, then at her, then back at it. “Congratulations. You bought a shitbox.”

“It has character.”

“It has organ failure. It's leaking everywhere.”

“It was cheap.”

His eyes narrowed. “How cheap?”

Y/N’s mouth pursed.

“Y/N.”

“Two thousand.”

David went very still, which was always more alarming than when he got loud. “Two thousand cash?”

She smiled.

He stared at her like he could see the exact shape of her missing survival instinct. “Tell me everything.”

So she did. She told him about the lot, the owner, the dust, the weird lights, the radio, the haunted-car discount, the jump-starting, and the way the owner had said, "Take the fucking car," with the desperation of a man handing off a cursed amulet. David listened in silence, arms crossed, grease on his jaw, his expression growing more incredulous with each sentence until, by the end, he looked like he wanted to call someone, though whether it was a tow truck, a priest, or Bruce Wayne remained unclear.

“Are you stupid?” he asked finally.

Y/N gasped. “That’s a hate crime against girls with dreams.”

“Take that shit back immediately. No alarm bells rang? None? Not one tiny bell in that haunted little head of yours went, Hmm, maybe the dirt-cheap demon Camaro is dirt-cheap for a reason?”

“It was cheap,” Y/N said.

David opened his mouth, closed it, then dragged one hand down his face. “That’ll do it.”

“Exactly.”

“That was not agreement.”

“It sounded like emotional surrender, which I accept.”

He pointed toward the Camaro. “You drove a smoking car across Gotham after a man told you it does weird stuff.”

“I barely drove. I limped heroically.”

“You should not be heroic in traffic.”

“Batman does it.”

“You are not Batman.”

“I could be.”

David’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “I hate this city.”

Despite everything, he came closer and rested a hand on the Camaro’s hood, immediately pulling it back with a hiss when the heat bit his palm. “I’ll take a look at it later. I’m slammed right now, and I’m not letting you hover while I diagnose whatever financial poltergeist you dragged into my garage. Come by tomorrow.”

Y/N looked at the Camaro, then at David, her excitement dimming under the practical weight of his tone. “Do you think it’s fixable?”

David’s expression softened, but only slightly, because he liked to ration tenderness as if Gotham taxed it. “Most things are fixable. Some things are just expensive.”

“Don’t say expensive. My bank account is listening.”

“Good. It needs to learn fear.”

She left the Camaro with him overnight and spent the rest of the evening pretending not to worry. She tried gaming, but every dark corridor made her think of the car sitting alone in David’s garage. She tried reading, but the heroine’s brooding love interest kept transforming into a yellow Camaro in her imagination, which ruined the atmosphere. 

By morning, she had convinced herself that David would find something ordinary and annoying, a bad alternator or a cracked hose or whatever mechanical phrase sounded expensive enough to hurt but not enough to destroy her. She arrived at the garage with coffee for both of them and a pastry bag from a bakery she liked, because bribery was simply affection wearing a trench coat.

David was at the front counter, writing something on a clipboard. He looked up when she came in and immediately winced.

“Oh my God,” Y/N said. “Why do you look guilty?”

“I didn’t get to it.”

“You said you would look at it.”

“I said later. Later became a customer’s transmission trying to die on my floor and Mr. Alvarez’s niece crying because her brakes were making a noise like a fork in a garbage disposal.”

Y/N held out his coffee, suspicious but forgiving because she was tragically consistent. “So you abandoned my child?”

“Your child is a haunted Camaro.”

“Still.”

He took the coffee. “I can look at it now.”

The garage was quieter than usual, the morning light coming through the high windows in pale strips that caught dust and made the air look almost soft. The Camaro sat in the far bay, cleaner than yesterday, only because the rain had washed thin rivers through the dust. Its yellow paint gleamed in streaks beneath the grime, black stripes cutting over the hood. David crouched by the front, popped the hood, then rolled beneath on a creeper with the practiced ease of someone who spent half his life under things that could crush him.

Y/N perched on a stool nearby, pastry bag in her lap. “Do you want moral support?”

“No.”

“Do you want a croissant?”

“Yes.”

She smiled and set one on the workbench for him. The garage was filled with the faint metallic clink of tools, David muttering to himself as he inspected the undercarriage. Y/N swung her feet, watching the Camaro’s headlights with narrowed eyes.

“I know you’re weird,” she whispered to it. “But weird is okay if you’re not murdery.”

The radio crackled.

Y/N’s spine went stiff.

“David?”

From beneath the car, his voice came muffled. “What?”

“Did you turn the radio on?”

“No.”

“Cool. Love that.”

There was a pause, then David rolled out from under the car, eyes fixed on nothing, face blank in a way that made her stomach drop.

“What?” Y/N asked.

He stared at the ceiling for a moment.

“David.”

“I must be dreaming,” he said.

She slid off the stool. “Why?”

“Because there is a robot’s face in the undercarriage.”

Y/N stared at him. “David, just fix the car.”

He looked at her slowly. “What am I supposed to fix? I’m looking at a head.”

“Stop joking around.”

“I am not joking.”

“You’re always joking.”

“I joke about ghosts because ghosts are fake. I do not joke about finding Optimus Prime’s basement cousin under your Camaro.”

Y/N planted her hands on her hips. “David.”

“FaceTime me.”

“You’re ten feet away.”

“I need you to see what I’m seeing from the angle of regret.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“FaceTime me.”

She pulled out her phone with a dramatic sigh and called him. He answered while lying back on the creeper, then rolled under the Camaro again with his phone pointed upward. Y/N watched her own screen, unimpressed for the first half second, ready to scold him for being ridiculous.

Then the image shifted beneath the car.

There was, in fact, a face.

Not a normal face, not even a decorative piece that looked face-ish if someone had consumed too much caffeine and childhood trauma. It was mechanical, plated, and angular, tucked into impossible machinery where no face should have been. Dark metal, yellow armor glimpsed through the undercarriage, seams and shapes too precise to be random. And then its eyes opened, glowing a clear electric blue that filled Y/N’s phone screen like twin stars waking in a basement.

Y/N screamed.

The Camaro rumbled to life.

David shot out from under the car so fast the creeper skidded across the floor and slammed into a toolbox. He scrambled up, grabbed a baseball bat leaning near the office door, and planted himself between Y/N and the car with the wild-eyed courage of a man who had absolutely not agreed to be part of any alien invasion before lunch.

“Stay back!” he snapped, bat raised.

“From my car?” Y/N squeaked.

“That is not a car!”

The Camaro lurched.

Panels shifted.

The sound was enormous, metallic, and layered, not like metal breaking but metal rearranging itself according to a logic too advanced for human panic. The hood split, wheels pulled inward, doors flared and folded, black-and-yellow armor sliding over limbs as the Camaro rose from the floor. It was not smooth. Not graceful. The garage was too small, and the transforming robot seemed painfully aware of that about three seconds too late. One arm knocked into a hanging light, sending it swinging wildly. A shoulder clipped the side mirror off a customer’s sedan. A foot came down on an oil pan with a crunch that made David produce a strangled sound of financial despair. The robot stumbled backward, hands lifted, then banged into a shelf of parts. Boxes toppled. A hubcap spun across the floor. The orange shop cat exploded out of the towel pile in a streak of offended fur and vanished into the office.

Y/N and David fled to the opposite corner at the exact same time, colliding shoulder to shoulder behind a stack of tires.

The robot, huge and yellow and black and very clearly trying not to make things worse, scurried into the farthest corner with both hands raised. He hit the wall anyway. A framed certification dropped from a nail and shattered on the floor. David made a wounded noise.

“My insurance,” he whispered.

Y/N clutched his arm. “There is an alien robot in your garage.”

“My insurance does not have a box for that.”

The robot crouched as much as his size allowed, blue eyes wide, hands still raised in a posture so unmistakably nervous that some terrible part of Y/N’s heart immediately softened.

David, apparently immune to the tragedy of giant glowing eyes, grabbed a small rubber sanding block from the shelf beside him and tossed it. It bounced off the robot’s chest with a sad little thwap.

The robot whined.

Y/N smacked David’s arm. “That’s rude!”

“It’s a robot!”

“He made a sad noise!”

“He’s eight feet tall and living in your car!”

“Still rude!”

David did not apologize. He kept the bat raised, his knuckles white, eyes darting over the robot’s body as if trying to identify a kill switch, an engine block, or at least something he could invoice. Y/N slowly stepped out from behind him.

David grabbed the back of her hoodie. “Do not.”

“Let go.”

“Y/N.”

“He’s scared.”

“We’re scared!”

“He’s more scared. Look at him.”

“I am looking at him. That is the problem.”

Y/N gently pried his hand off her hoodie and stepped forward with both arms raised, palms open. Her pulse hammered so hard she could feel it in her teeth, every survival instinct shrieking at her to get behind David, call Bruce, call Alfred, call literally anyone who owned body armor. But the robot was pressed into the corner, shoulders hunched, optics flicking between them and the damage around him. He looked too big for the room, too young for his own body, and entirely too alone.

“Um,” Y/N said, voice wobbling but soft. “Hello? Sorry if we spooked you. You spooked us.”

The robot stared.

David muttered behind her, “Great. Diplomacy with the garage cryptid.”

The robot’s head tilted slightly, and the radio inside his chest crackled to life. Static fuzzed first, then chopped fragments of stations, voices flashing in and out like someone spinning a dial through the city.

“Sorry...” the radio said, the word stitched from one voice, then another. “If... I... spooked... you... humans... hiding...”

Y/N’s breath caught. “You were hiding from humans?”

The robot looked down. The radio crackled again, this time catching a late-night host’s silky baritone, then a commercial jingle, then a woman’s bright laugh. “Hiding... safe... must... remain... unseen.”

David’s face had gone pale. “That thing is using the radio to talk.”

“He,” Y/N said automatically.

David stared at her. “You do not know that.”

Y/N glanced back at the robot. “Are you a he?”

The robot seemed to think about it. Then the radio clicked through static and landed on a cartoonish movie line, deep and dramatic. “I am... he.”

Y/N pointed at David without looking away. “He.”

David threw one hand up. “Fine. He is using the radio to talk. That is not better.”

The robot’s optics shifted toward the bat in David’s hands.

David tightened his grip. “I’m not putting it down.”

“He’s scared of it.”

“Good. It’s scared of my mighty stick.”

“David.”

“What? I’m establishing dominance.”

“You are holding a baseball bat at a giant alien robot who accidentally murdered an oil pan.”

“My oil pan mattered.”

The robot made another low, mournful sound, looking toward the crushed pan.

Y/N took another cautious step forward. “It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, because David’s going to mourn that pan for three to five business days, but no one’s hurt. Are you hurt?”

The robot’s gaze moved to her, and something in his chest shifted with a soft mechanical whir. He lifted one hand, touched his own throat, then shook his head.

“You can’t talk-talk?”

Static. A fragment of a sad song. Then, “Voice... damaged.”

Y/N’s chest tightened. “Oh.”

Behind her, David lowered the bat a fraction despite himself. “Damaged how?”

The robot’s optics dimmed and brightened. The radio flickered through a storm of voices, too fast to catch, then settled on a solemn news anchor. “Battle... long ago... far away.”

Y/N and David exchanged a look.

“Far away as in Blüdhaven,” David said carefully, “or far away as in Mars?”

The robot pointed up.

Y/N looked at the ceiling.

David looked at the ceiling too, then closed his eyes. “I knew it. I knew space was going to make my day worse eventually.”

“You’re from space?” Y/N asked.

The robot nodded.

She absorbed that with the calm of someone whose brain had temporarily unplugged itself to avoid responsibility. “Okay. Great. Space car. Normal Tuesday.”

“It’s Wednesday,” David said faintly.

“Don’t correct me during first contact.”

The radio crackled, and a clipped game show voice said, “Correct!”

Y/N’s eyes widened. “Was that a joke?”

The robot’s eyes brightened. A small series of beeps chirped from him, almost shy.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You’re so adorable. Adopted..”

“He is not adorable,” David said. “He is an extraterrestrial hiding as a Facebook Marketplace nightmare.”

Y/N turned back to the robot. “Do you have a name?”

The robot straightened slightly, then seemed to hesitate. The radio spun through several stations, catching bits of music and old advertisements, static chewing through syllables. Finally, from a children’s program voice, then a weather report, then a bright radio DJ, came, “Bumble... bee.”

Y/N’s face softened at once. “Bumblebee?”

The robot nodded, the motion careful, and one of his door panels fluttered slightly like a pleased wing.

David stared. “Your alien robot car is named Bumblebee.”

Y/N pressed a hand over her heart. “That’s adorable.”

“That is not the word I would use.”

“It fits him.”

“He fits nowhere. He is currently denting my wall.”

Bumblebee looked back at the wall and made another guilty whirring sound.

Y/N immediately pointed at David. “Don’t make him feel bad.”

“I’m the victim!”

“You threw something at him.”

“He transformed in my garage and took out three shelves!”

“He panicked.”

“I am panicking.”

As if to prove it, David backed toward the office while keeping his eyes on Bumblebee. He patted the workbench blindly until his hand found his phone. Y/N watched him bring it up, thumb moving too fast.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Calling the cops.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, David.”

“There is an alien in my garage!”

“And you think Gotham cops are equipped for that? Half of them can’t handle traffic cones without escalating.”

David hissed her name, but she lunged and snatched the phone from his hand just as the call started ringing. “Y/N!”

She ended it, clutching the phone to her chest. “He’s nice.”

“You have known him for four minutes.”

“Five, and he apologized.”

“Through a radio!”

“He’s doing his best!”

David looked at Bumblebee, then at the cracked certification glass on the floor, then at the customer sedan missing a mirror. “We are in over our heads. There is an actual alien in my garage. An alien. From space. Hiding as your sketchy discount Camaro. And not to mention the property damage. What am I going to tell my insurance?”

Y/N glanced around. The place did look like a very polite tornado had tried to assemble furniture. “I’m sure insurance companies in Gotham have heard worse.”

“Worse than alien robot?”

“Bane.”

David opened his mouth.

Y/N lifted one finger. “Thrown cars.”

His mouth stayed open.

“Riddler traps.”

He pointed at her, then lowered his hand.

“Joker gas.”

“Okay, stop.”

“Penguin umbrella bullets.”

“Stop helping.”

“I’m just saying, property damage has range here.”

David dragged both hands through his hair, accidentally smearing grease near his temple. “You are not understanding the scope of this.”

“No, I am,” Y/N said, though her voice went softer as she looked back at Bumblebee. The robot had folded himself as small as he could in the corner, blue eyes moving between them. “I’m just also understanding that if we call the cops, they’ll call someone worse, and someone worse will call someone richer, and then someone with a lab and no soul is going to cut him open because they’re curious.”

Bumblebee went very still.

David saw it too. His anger faltered, replaced by something wary and uncomfortable.

Y/N stepped toward Bumblebee again, slowly, her palms open. “No one’s cutting you open,” she said, feeling the ridiculousness and the promise of it settle in the air together. “Not in Gotham. Not in David’s garage. Definitely not after I paid three thousand dollars and trauma-bonded with your dusty little windshield.”

Bumblebee’s optics brightened.

David made a strangled sound. “Do not bond with the alien.”

“Too late.”

“You cannot keep him.”

“He is not a stray cat.”

“He is worse than a stray cat. Stray cats don’t become Camaros.”

Bumblebee’s radio clicked and caught a smug commercial voice. “Built... different.”

Y/N slowly turned to David, delighted.

David stared at Bumblebee in betrayal. “Do not joke with her. She will encourage you.”

Bumblebee’s shoulders rose, almost like a sheepish shrug. The motion made a loose shelf groan, and he immediately froze again.

Y/N bit her lip to keep from laughing. Fear still buzzed under her skin, electric and real, but it was tangled now with wonder so sharp it almost hurt. She had spent months feeling left behind by a family full of secrets, and now here was one standing in front of her, enormous and impossible, speaking in radio ghosts from the corner of a mechanic’s garage. For a moment, something in her chest ached with recognition; she could see Bumblebee’s loneliness, raw and wordless, reflected right back at her. It was a strange comfort, terrifying and intimate, to realize she wasn’t the only one on the wrong side of belonging. The universe, apparently, had looked at her loneliness and decided to throw a giant alien robot into it with all the subtlety of a brick through a window.

“What are you hiding from?” she asked.

The garage quieted.

Bumblebee’s eyes dimmed. Static crawled from his chest, low and uneasy. For a moment, the radio caught only fragments, too broken to hold. “War... enemies... lost... alone...” The words came from different voices, each one making the sentence feel stitched from wreckage. “Protect... Earth... hide.”

David’s posture shifted. His bat lowered another inch.

Y/N swallowed, something tender twisting through her. “You’re alone?”

Bumblebee did not answer at first. Then, from an old song, soft and mournful, the radio gave, “All by myself...”

Y/N’s face crumpled before she could stop it, not fully, not enough to cry, but enough for David to see. She hated that. She hated how fast her heart made room. She had room for everyone. Stray cats, wounded friends, terrible men with excuses, alien cars with broken voices. It was exhausting, being built like an unlocked door.

“Okay,” she said, too brightly, because her smile came when she was overwhelmed and she could feel it happening. “Well. Good news, Bumblebee. You are now alone in a garage with two idiots, which is technically less alone.”

David looked at her. “I object to my inclusion.”

“You’re the one with the bat.”

“I am the rational idiot.”

“You were going to call the cops.”

“Because I have survival instincts.”

“Debatable.”

Bumblebee made a series of chirps that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

David pointed the bat at him again, less threatening now and more wounded pride. “You’re on thin ice, space Camaro.”

“Don’t call him that.”

“He is a space Camaro.”

“He has a name.”

“Fine. Bumblebee is on thin ice.”

Bumblebee’s radio chirped, “Brrr.”

Y/N laughed, startled and helpless, the sound spilling out of her until the fear in the room loosened by one small notch. Bumblebee leaned forward slightly, curious, and she lifted a hand before she could think better of it. David made a warning noise, but she ignored him. She stepped close enough to touch the back of Bumblebee’s hand where it rested near the floor, yellow metal warm beneath her fingertips, not like a car left in the sun, but like something alive beneath armor.

Bumblebee went perfectly still.

“Hi,” Y/N said softly.

The radio crackled, then answered in a gentle borrowed voice, “Hi.”

David muttered something that might have been a prayer or a very creative curse and set the bat down on the workbench, though he stayed close enough to grab it again if needed. “Okay. So he’s alive. He’s polite. He’s from space. Great. Fantastic. My therapist is going to make so much money.”

“You don’t have a therapist.”

“I’m going to need one after this.”

Y/N glanced over her shoulder. “So you’re not calling the cops?”

David looked at Bumblebee for a long moment. The robot watched him back, cautious and bright-eyed, massive hands still open to show he meant no harm. Finally, David exhaled through his nose. “Not yet.”

Y/N beamed.

“Do not make that face,” David said. “This is not approval. This is postponement.”

“Tomato, potato.”

“No, it is not.”

“Everything important wears a trench coat eventually. Detectives. Cryptids. Emotional repression.”

David blinked. “How are you like this during an alien encounter?”

“Consistent branding.”

Bumblebee beeped.

David shut his eyes briefly. “I cannot believe I’m being outnumbered by you and a radio robot.”

Y/N turned back to Bumblebee. “Can you turn back into the car? Not because we don’t like this version. Very cool. Ten out of ten. Terrible for David’s blood pressure, though.”

Bumblebee looked around the garage, seemed to calculate the space, then gave a hesitant nod. He moved slowly this time, carefully, folding back down with mechanical precision that still made Y/N’s bones feel like they were humming. Panels slid, limbs tucked, wheels shifted, armor sealed, and within moments the Camaro sat there again, dented dust and all, as if the last ten minutes had been a shared hallucination brought on by fumes and poor financial decisions. Only the destroyed corner of the garage proved otherwise.

David stared at the car.

Y/N stared too.

The driver’s side headlight blinked once.

David pointed at it. “No. Do not be cute. You broke my stuff.”

The radio crackled from inside the car, muffled but clear enough. “Sorry.”

David’s face twitched.

Y/N leaned toward him. “You’re forgiving him.”

“I am not.”

“You are. I can see it.”

“I am calculating damages.”

“With your heart.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” he admitted, rubbing his forehead. “But I’m beginning to understand why those Wayne people needed a break. You are a magnet for catastrophic nonsense.”

The words were meant as a joke. Y/N knew that. David’s tone had softened around them, rounded the edges. Still, something flickered through her chest, a small old bruise pressed by accident. Her smile stayed, but it thinned.

David noticed immediately. His expression changed. “Hey. That was not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean them.”

“I know.”

He studied her, jaw tight with guilt. “Y/N.”

She waved him off before his kindness could make her cry. “It’s fine. I’m fine. We have bigger problems. Like, for example, my car is an alien and your garage now has lore.”

David hesitated, then let the subject go because he knew that pushing would only make her retreat. “Fine. Practical concerns. Where is he going to stay?”

Y/N looked at the Camaro.

The Camaro’s headlights blinked.

“With me?” she offered.

David stared at her. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because you live in an apartment building.”

“So?”

“So your neighbors already complain when you vacuum after eight.”

“That was one time.”

“You tried to make a midnight smoothie.”

“It was a craving.”

“It was rocks in a blender.”

“It was frozen fruit.”

“It sounded like roadwork.” David gestured at the Camaro. “You cannot keep a transforming alien robot in an apartment garage.”

Y/N considered this. “Bruce has space.”

“No.”

“I didn’t say I would tell him.”

“No.”

“Wayne Manor has like, twelve garages.”

“Y/N.”

“And a cave probably.”

David went silent.

Y/N paused.

They stared at each other.

“No,” David said slowly. “Don’t say weird rich kid activities in that tone.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought something.”

“I’m always thinking something. It’s a curse.”

He jabbed a finger toward her. “We are not bringing your billionaire dad into this until we know what this is.”

“He’s not my billionaire dad. He’s my emotionally complicated billionaire dad.”

“That is worse.”

The Camaro’s radio crackled again, catching a warm oldies station. “Family... matters.”

Y/N turned to the car. “Exactly.”

David pointed at the hood. “You stay out of this.”

The hood gave a faint little vibration, almost like a chuckle.

For a while, they stood in the ruined garage with the impossible sitting between them, and the morning moved on outside as if the world had not cracked open. Cars passed. Rainwater dripped from the awning. Somewhere down the street, someone shouted at a parking meter with the intimate fury of a Gotham native. Y/N felt her life tilt, not violently, not yet, but enough that she knew nothing was going back exactly where it had been. She had bought a car because she needed something of her own. Instead, she had found someone hiding.

Maybe that was how it always happened in Gotham. You went looking for transportation and found a secret with headlights.

David sighed, long and defeated. “Okay. Here’s what we’re doing. I’m closing the bay door. You are going to help me clean up before my next client gets here and asks why their sedan looks like it lost a fight with a refrigerator. Then we are going to figure out how to hide a giant alien robot car from the government, the cops, your emotionally complicated billionaire dad, and whatever the hell he’s hiding from.”

He glanced at the window as if half-expecting a batarang or a clown mask to appear in the rain-bleared glass. “Let’s just hope nobody in a cape or a questionable suit drops by to ask why there’s a giant robot from space t in Gotham. Or worse, that news about the car doesn’t get out. Our luck, it’ll be Bats or someone with more explosives than sense beating down the door.”

Y/N nodded solemnly. “That sounds like a plan.”

“It is not a plan. It is a panic outline.”

“Still counts.”

David looked at the Camaro. “And you. Bumblebee. No more transforming indoors unless someone is actively dying.”

The radio clicked. “Scout’s... honor.”

Y/N gasped. “He’s adorable.”

“He is a liability.”

“He can be both.”

David stared at her for a long moment, then laughed once, sharp and disbelieving, the sound breaking through the last rigid layer of terror in the room. Y/N laughed too, not because any of this was funny in a normal way, but because normal had clearly fled the building and left no forwarding address. Bumblebee’s headlights blinked in a rhythm almost like amusement, and the radio hummed quietly, tuning through stations until it found a bright, ridiculous pop song that filled the damaged garage with cheerful drums and a chorus about survival.

David groaned. “Tell him to turn that off.”

“Bumblebee,” Y/N said, touching the warm hood with her fingertips, “can you turn it down?”

The volume lowered at once.

David’s eyebrows rose despite himself. “At least he listens.”

Y/N smiled at the Camaro, real and soft and full of something dangerously close to wonder. “Yeah,” she said. “He does.”

And for reasons she could not have explained without sounding completely unhinged, that mattered. After months of silence, months of messages unanswered and rooms quietly rearranged around her absence, a strange alien hiding in a dusty Camaro had heard her. He had listened. He had answered. It was absurd, maybe even doomed, but as Y/N stood in David’s ruined garage with oil on the floor, rain on the windows, and a secret from the stars humming beneath her hand, she felt chosen by something again.

David picked up the broken mirror from the customer’s sedan, looked at it, then looked at Bumblebee with exhausted accusation. “You’re paying for this somehow.”

The radio crackled, then broadcast a crisp advertisement. “Cash back rewards!”

Y/N lost it laughing.

David covered his face. “We’re dead. We’re all dead.”

Bumblebee’s engine purred, low and sheepish and alive, and outside the closed bay door, Gotham kept growling on, unaware that one of its back-alley garages had just become the safest hiding place in the world for a yellow-and-black alien who had chosen, of all people, a broke, chaotic girl with too much heart and not enough caution.

Prologue | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Character Profiles Here:

Y/N: 23 yrs old

Tim Drake: 23 yrs old

David: 23 yrs old

Jason Todd: 26 yrs old

Dick Grayson: 28 yrs old

Damian Wayne: 19 yrs old (idk in any story I feel weird writing about kids unless it's specific to the story - it makes me feel ugh)

As always, likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated, but reposts (ON ANY SITE/BLOG) are not permitted.

[quinntells]

⟢ ENIAC (Caine x Reader) PT. 15

Song inspo: None! Spent my whole time on YouTube

⟢ = General

Words: 1.5k+

Content Warnings: Electrocution (Comical), slightly jealous Caine, Jax being an ass.

The crackling of the campfire has set a calm wave over everybody, surprisingly for you at least, since you felt that this crowd was not easy to lull to a relaxed state. Sitting in a circle, on fallen tree branches, you sit by yourself on one, Pomni with Ragatha, and Zooble with Gangle. Standing by the grill, cooking up burgers and wieners, he hums a tune, one that you can pinpoint to be from a Disney film, but not able to tell which one it is exactly. Caine, Bubble, and Jax, nowhere to be seen.  

Your feet play with the dirt on the ground, making shapes and maybe figures that aren’t well done. You sniffed at the air, almost wishing your stomach would growl from the wonderful scents that wafted in the air. Turning your head to your left, you see Gangle and Pomni make s'mores for themselves, as Ragatha bites into hers.

Then you wondered momentarily how Zooble eats, since they’re holding a burger between their hands, eyes reflecting with a shine derived from the fire. 

“Hey, Zooble, how do you eat?” You asked out loud.

The color figure looks to their right at you, stopping mid bite. “Huh? I kinda– uh, just smash it into my face but like, gently? And a bitemark will appear. Here, let me show you.” 

And so it does, even a bite sound is played during their action. You smile, fascinated. 

“That’s so…” You didn’t even know what to say.

“‘Cartoonish’? I think that’d be one way to describe it.” Zooble inserts, and you could almost see them smiling.

“Yeah! I’m assuming that’s how it works for Kinger, too?” You question, as the group's eyes move to Kinger.

Taking note of this, Kinger turns around, raising his index finger. “Basically, anyone who doesn’t have physical lips. Even Gangle works similarly since her face is smooth, just a bit different.”

Gangle nods as she finishes her bite of the s’mores and clears her throat. “Mhm.” She smiles.

Your eyes are wide with amusement. “I’ve always been really interested in animation. Seeing it in person is otherworldly, though.” 

Kinger resumes cooking away, having fun playing grill dad. “It was a key detail when this place was being created.”

“I guess it can make the whole thing more… ‘appealing’ or bearable at times.” Zooble stands up for a moment, throwing in firewood. 

“I like it. My mother never really let me watch kids' shows. Or do anything kid-related…” Ragatha whispers the last part, but not quietly enough for all to hear. 

Pomni rubs her thumb against Ragatha’s hand. “I can say the same thing. I guess as a kid, I considered having to grow up quickly rather than taking the time to enjoy my childhood.” 

You see Gangle grow slightly saddened. “My mom and dad were… always judgmental about it all. Especially about anime. They acted l–like… I couldn’t be more than a child.” She picks at her s’more.

Zooble shakes their head. “Just because they said, doesn’t make it true or right.”

“Plus, as sappy as it may sound… It’s often the case that people are like that because they themselves have things they like and have been shamed for; therefore, they’re just stuck with that mentality.” You deliver the message with care, smiling at Gangle, who does so back.

Kinger walks back to the crowd. The moon shines upon all of you (eye close and smiling), false stars lying across the night sky, as you could hear the symphony composed by grasshoppers. With a plate in hand full of burgers and hot dogs, he offers every one of you some, and no one could find it in themselves to reject him, Zooble grabbing seconds. 

He sighs. “I can attest to that. Adults, children, no matter the age, or other factors, will be controlled by what the world has taught us. What one must remind oneself of is that what may seem ‘traditional’ and widespread sometimes has to be unlearned.” A moth passes by, momentarily catching Kinger’s attention. “And, while that may be challenging, it’s not impossible. But at last, work tires people, but people can succeed even through struggle.” 

You smile and nod, taking a bite out of your grilled meal. 

“What a sentimental crowd. I am so glad I missed most of that.” Jax stretches, yawning to highlight his lethargy. 

Walking towards Kinger, he takes the plate away, greedily biting into the rest of the burgers and hot dogs. Zooble groans as Ragatha stares at him in dejection, as she wanted to try her second option of a meal. 

“It was actually an enjoyable conversation amongst the group! Something I’m sure you’d know none of.” You say, with a cheek in hand as you place your elbow on your knee. 

Jax huffs, mouth full of meat and bread. “Hwateva, rosur.”

Just as you were ready to shoot back another comeback, Bubbles, along with Caine, suddenly appeared, joining the team once again. 

“Hello, my cuddle-puffs… and Zooble. I have come back for tonight's last item on the itinerary.” He floats closer to the group.

“That being?” Pomni questions, raising a brow, hoping nothing convoluted. 

Caine blinks, happy to be asked about his plans. “Sitting around the campfire and making s’mores–” He looks down at some of their hands that held the sweet treat. “Oh. You… already made some… WELL!” He stops, thinking what else there is to do. 

“Uh, why not tell stories or something? That’s a common activity in camping.” You mention, poking Caine’s arm supportively.

He jumps from the sudden contact, but joyfully springs back to his charismatic self, adjusting his camping vest. “This is a very good idea! Thank you so much, my incredible, indispensable idea innovator.” He pokes your forehead with soft pressure. 

Zooble and Jax eye each other.

“Take a seat then, you colorful m–MOTHERFU–maniacs!” Bubble announces, licking himself all over. 

Everyone goggled, alerted by his actions.  

“Okay, I’ll sit next to ya.” Jax throws a half-eaten hot dog at you, and you just barely avoid it. 

Caine shakes his finger. “Why not on this empty, dead tree trunk? Looks like it needs you.” 

Jax clicks his tongue (or odes the noise). “Nah, I think… I don’t think. Just sit over there, Caine, what difference does it make?” He pushes.

“What about for you, Jax?” The AI delivers the rabbit's name with a frigid tone. 

The two end up focused on one another's moves, awaiting the next words.

Meanwhile, Kinger swiftly takes a seat next to you, waving as you turn your head to look at him and grin.  

“I have sat!” Kinger mentions.

Zooble, who had been studying the scene closely, throws a pebble at Jax. “Sit down, both of you.”

Jax grimaces at them, rubbing his side where the pebble had hit. “I was gonna.”

Caine grumpily sat as Bubble continued to float around. “This is fine.”

“Well, does anyone wanna start?” Pomni asks.

“Jax is scared of corn. Maybe let’s focus on a horror story with a corn maze.” Zooble suggests.

“If only I could say a certain set of words.” He rolls his eyes.

“You’re scared of corn?” You ask, amused at the fact.

“Yes, would you like to see?” Caine makes a corn cob appear in his hand.

Too close to Jax.

The periwinkle male jumps away. “Agh!” 

The crowd giggles.

“Again!” Gangle shouts.

And so ensued a night of teasing (bullying on Jax’s terms) rather than telling horror stories. 

Slowly but surely, there were only two left. Perhaps three if you count…

“I think this adventure was fun. It seemed like others enjoyed it.” You begin.

Caine, who had moved to the edge of the trunk next to yours to be closer, stares at the campfire. “You think so?”

“Heck yeah. Even Zooble was interacting. Earlier that day, they had gone into the forest to look for various plants, such as mushrooms and flowers, since Gangle wanted to make flower crowns.” You explained, pointing your thumb behind you. 

He turns his head at you, eyes glistening with fulfillment. The look seemed familiar to you. 

“Did… did you e–enjoy today?” His voice quivered.

“O–of course. I had fun.” You feel like you are both getting closer to each other. Inching. 

“Even when I’m around?” Caine asks. You could hear the insecurity in his voice. 

“Well, I’m having fun right now, aren’t I?” 

He stays quiet, confused about whether to believe your words or look for any apparent flaws within himself.

And then you do something…

Raising your hand carefully, you lay it on top of his head, or dentals? You had no clue, but it felt right. And in slow motion, you pet him, delicately and silently telling him, it’s enough. He is enough. 

“Ah– I…” He remains silent, taking in the moment. 

That is, until it begins to storm, with lightning landing on both of you, which makes you two shake up from the electrocution. Stuck in place, eyes interlocked, you both stammer as words attempt to come out of your throats. 

“I can’t believe you let this floozy tempt you, Caine! I thought we had something special!” The moon cries.

a/n: IT'S MEEEEEEEEEE! Anways, my apologies for the much longer wait. After I had finished finals, I was super tired and decided to invest my time into some personal stuff like hobbies and such. I also was focusing on another project and one that was commisioned art by somemone I know. So I have been busy, ah!

Hey! You wanna read more of my works like this? Try reading these:

𖦹 𝜗𝜚 ENIAC ( Caine x Human! Reader) PT.1: You're insecure? Don't know what for. He firmly believes you to be the embodiment of love. ♱

𖦹 𝜗☁︎𝜚 ENIAC (Caine x Human! Reader) PT.2: He can solve nearly all the problems, but why can't he find the perfect solution for you and him? ♱

Along with the other parts and works with Caine! ♱

Banner by: cursed-carmine on Tumblr

Taglists: (my taglist got deleted, so my apologies if you're not under this list, please do mention it if so)

@theilluminatidragonqueen @livingdeadgrl996 @savvysaffron @kcandyliciouss @darksanctuaryseer @the-unhinged-raccoon @lizardboyy @chumchumnie @echoes-of-a-fallen-star @w31rd-0n3 @captainlith @hyper-pink @sparklesoar @hasai69 @brothersgrimmsnarl @kittenlover614 @@squishymochi12 @teenagevoidbearpalace @squishymochi12 @unknownoperator @​​stranger-chan @bihexualandferal @valen-yamyam16 @nogiggleonlybitter @martinys-world @multifandomfreshness

Please comment down below if you'd like to be added!

[pixelatedbullets]

me and my delusions again

[unknownficenjoyer]

Can they be our delusions? Please?/hj

[savvypirate]

Hiii Sav <3 ! I recently stumbled upon one of your fics and have been HOOKED, gen just read all of them last night… I was wondering if you’d like to write a lil something with Shanks? You can add any other characters you think would fit as well! With a reader that likes to wear their clothes like a cape/coat or hat or those flip floppers Shanks has. I know if i had access to some of these suckers wardrobes i’d be playing dress up

A/N: Hi Anon!!!! This literally made my day when you sent it! Listen, I will always write something for my favorite red headed idiot. And I, too, would be stealing his clothes. I hope you enjoy it!

Warnings: Slightly suggestive, Shanks is a tease

You steal his clothes- Shanks x Reader

First thing was first, the shirt? Too big. Second, the pants? Also too big. The shoes? Ginormous. You knew your boyfriend was huge, you slept by him every night, got held by him far more often than not, but you hadn't really worn his clothes aside from a shirt of his to go to bed in and typically, you ended up without it on anyway so there really was no point in wearing a shirt to bed.

You stared at yourself in the mirror and giggled a bit as you tied the shirt up in the front so it wouldn't be falling off of you. Then you grabbed a belt to make sure the pants didn't fall completely off you. How the hell was he this huge? He was 6'6" and pure muscle. What. the fuck.

But God, he was fun to climb....

Anyway, back to your current problem at hand, making sure the pants didn't fall down. You tightened the belt as you reached up to mess with your hair a bit, fluffing it as you did so. You thought you didn't look half bad in his clothes. It also helped that they smelled like him, something warm and salty like the ocean. It instantly made you smile. His secret also was that he had three cloaks. Different shades of black but you grabbed one to go with the wildly patterned pants that he wore. Sometimes you questioned his fashion choices but they were comfortable so really, you didn't blame him much. You smirked to yourself as you put the cloak on and you nodded, quite impressed.

"Well, well, Yonko, is it?"

You whirled around when Shanks spoke up. You hadn't even realized he had come into the cabin.

"Shanks!" You screeched. "What're you doing in here? You're supposed to be meeting with Beckmann."

"Ended early, Was gonna come see if you had gotten up or not clearly, love, you have." His warm eyes were filled with amusement and heat as he looked you over. "You look quite good." He hummed as he took a step closer to you. "Does this mean you're taking my duties over as captain?"

You scoffed as you shook her head. "Please, I think I'll pass. I just enjoy your clothes." You told him and he chuckled as he backed you up against the wall, single hand sliding to your waist as he leaned over you.

"It just so happens, I enjoy you in my clothes too." He muttered as he leaned down so his lips brushed your ear, causing you to shiver. There was just something about the powerful man in front of you, crowding you against the wall.

"However..." He pressed his lips down your neck and smirked against your skin as he felt you lean up into him to feel him closer. "I think the crew will find this hilarious, want to show them?" He chuckled as you rolled your eyes, laughing a bit.

"You're a tease, Red." You muttered and he chuckled as he leaned down to kiss you.

"Sure, but I can just think of all the things I want to do to you while you wear my shirt tonight if you're dressed in my clothes all day, now can't I?"

And don't you worry, the crew thought it was great and they started to call you 'Boss' and then that night, well, Shanks quite enjoyed taking his clothes off of you.

[hxney-lemcn]

Beauty marks were said to be the remnants of where your past lover kissed you the most. It was a lovely idea, that someone had loved you so reverently in the past that it managed to leave an imprint as dots that littered your skin. And how lucky were you? To have someone in this lifetime love you just as, if not more devotedly. Lips connecting imaginary lines as they silently vowed to kiss each and every mark that was scattered across you.

You're not sure what you did to deserve this all consuming love, but you were sure to give it back, after all, you wanted to make sure new marks dotted their skin in their next life.

⸻ Link (loz), Sidon, Malleus Draconia, Kalim Al-Asim, Jade Leech, Rook Hunt, Silver Vanrouge, Toge Inumaki, Yuji Itadori, Utahime Iori, Kento Nanami, Mitsuri Kanroji, Kyojuro Rengoku, Tamayo, Yoriichi Tsugikuni, Tanjiro Kamado, Boothill, Dan Heng, Jing Yuan, Natasha, Himeko, Hanya, Argenti, Jiaoqiu, Sunday

If you liked this go read this fic by @maopll that explores this idea as well!

[unknownficenjoyer]

Wanted to tag everyone possible 2/2 sorry to spam, please interact with the og post.

[hxney-lemcn]

Beauty marks were said to be the remnants of where your past lover kissed you the most. It was a lovely idea, that someone had loved you so reverently in the past that it managed to leave an imprint as dots that littered your skin. And how lucky were you? To have someone in this lifetime love you just as, if not more devotedly. Lips connecting imaginary lines as they silently vowed to kiss each and every mark that was scattered across you.

You're not sure what you did to deserve this all consuming love, but you were sure to give it back, after all, you wanted to make sure new marks dotted their skin in their next life.

⸻ Link (loz), Sidon, Malleus Draconia, Kalim Al-Asim, Jade Leech, Rook Hunt, Silver Vanrouge, Toge Inumaki, Yuji Itadori, Utahime Iori, Kento Nanami, Mitsuri Kanroji, Kyojuro Rengoku, Tamayo, Yoriichi Tsugikuni, Tanjiro Kamado, Boothill, Dan Heng, Jing Yuan, Natasha, Himeko, Hanya, Argenti, Jiaoqiu, Sunday

If you liked this go read this fic by @maopll that explores this idea as well!

[unknownficenjoyer]

Making sure to add every tag I can. 1/2 (hopefully.) Again not my work show the original post love!

[lufzs]

One piece f/o and their damn yearning.. ESPECIALLY if they’re a pirate and you don’t travel with them on their ship (whether you’re a pirate on a different ship, you’re a marine, a regular civilian or just had to go on a solo mission for awhile off their ship, etc)

When they see you, be ready to just be overwhelmed with their attention and affection. Even if your f/o is the less affectionate type, they’d still be all over you even if they’re not physically smothering you to death. Constantly asking if you need anything, if you want to go anywhere, or just silently following you without a word. Imagine them prolonging their time with you as much as they can because being away from you physically hurts so much.

(Self indulgent side bit here but I can imagine Luffy specifically would just straight up tell you his feelings unlike most OP charcs. “I missed you!” “Stay with me more. When you’re away my heart gets all weird.” He’d never force you to stay, but he sure as hell will be all clingy for as long as he’s able to)

[diviniyae]

heart dividers pt. i

credit not needed. recoloring welcomed. feel free to edit as you need!

[diviniyae]

heart dividers pt. ii

credit not needed. recoloring welcomed. feel free to edit as you need! more here!

[blueberry-jjk]

KISSING YOUR NECK, BUT IT'S SENSITIVE

requested by anon! hope you'll like it!

characters: Satoru Gojo, Kento Nanami, Choso Kamo, Megumi Fushiguro, Yuji Itadori

SATORU GOJO

You were standing at the kitchen counter, minding your own business as you waited for the kettle to whistle. Satoru had been suspiciously quiet for all of three minutes, which usually meant he was either pouting or planning something.

You felt the air shift as he materialized behind you—no footsteps, just the sudden presence.

"You know, for a sorceress, you’re very easy to sneak up on," he hummed, his voice a low vibration near your ear.

Before you could retort, he reached out. His long, slender fingers gathered your hair, pulling it over one shoulder to expose the pale stretch of your neck. You froze. "Satoru—"

He leaned down, his nose brushing the sensitive skin of your nape first, a teasing puff of air that already had your heart hammered against your ribs.

Then, he pressed his lips there. It was a firm, searingly warm, and devastatingly slow kiss. He added a tiny, sharp nip with his teeth right at the base of your skull.

Your knees buckled, nearly giving out. A violent shiver racked your frame, and you felt yourself stumbling.

Satoru's arm hooked around your waist, hauling your back flush against his chest so you wouldn't hit the floor. He buried his face in your hair, laughing that smug, breathless laugh.

"Oh wow," he whispered. "You’re shaking sweetheart. Should I stop? Or should I see if I can make you forget how to stand entirely?"

He laughed, then leaned back in, his nose brushing the spot he just bit, and you realized it'll be difficult for you to make that tea.

KENTO NANAMI

Nanami was having a "day." A long, grueling, curse-filled day that should have ended at 5:00 PM but had dragged on until nearly midnight.

When he finally walked into the apartment, he looked like he was carrying the weight of the world. You met him at the door, reaching up to help him loosen his tie.

"Go sit down, Kento. I’ll get you some water," you murmured, turning toward the kitchen.

He didn't let you get far. He reached out, his hand wrapping around your wrist and pulling you back into his space. He didn't say anything, he just turned you around so your back was to him. He moved your hair aside with a tired hand, and then he leaned down.

The kiss he placed on your neck was grounded in pure, unfiltered exhaustion and a deep need for connection. It was heavy and lingered for several long seconds.

As his lips moved against your skin, your knees buckled. You would have collapsed entirely if his other hand hadn't wrapped around your waist, anchoring you to him.

You let out a shaky breath, your whole body vibrating with a shiver that wouldn't stop. Nanami froze, his eyes widening. He turned you around in his arms, keeping them locked around you.

"My apologies," he said, though his voice was thick and devoid of its usual clinical edge. He pressed his forehead against yours. "I seem to have found a weakness. Stay here please. I think... I might need this more than the water."

CHOSO KAMO

Choso was still learning the "rules" of human intimacy, but he was an incredibly fast learner when it came to you.

He was fascinated by the way your body reacted to him—the way your pulse jumped, the way your skin warmed under his touch.

You were looking out the window, watching the sunset, when Choso approached. He didn't really understand the concept of personal space when it came to his favorite person.

He draped himself over your back, his arms snaking around your waist. He tilted his head, looking at the curve of your neck with an intense sort of affection.

He pressed a kiss to your nape—deep, warm, and pulsing with his own unique intensity. He nuzzled into the spot, his teeth grazing your skin as he hummed low in his throat.

You buckled. You would've hit the floor hard if Choso wasn't essentially a super-organism. He caught you before you’d even dropped an inch, hoisting you up so your feet barely touched the ground.

He turned you in his arms, looking at your shaking hands and your blown-out pupils with genuine wonder.

"You shivered," he observed, his voice a quiet rumble. He looked almost proud. He pressed his thumb to the spot on your neck, watching the way you winced and melted simultaneously. "I like this. I want to do it again. Tell me if it’s too much though..."

MEGUMI FUSHIGURO

The dorms were quiet, and you were sitting on the bed in Megumi’s room, leaning back while he sat behind you, ostensibly reading something.

The silence was comfortable, filled only with the sound of the wind outside. You stretched, tilting your head back, then forward to crack your neck, unintentionally offering him a perfect view and opportunity.

Megumi’s eyes strayed from his phone. He’d been thinking about doing this for weeks, his internal monologue a mess of 'Is this too much?' and 'She’d probably hate it.' But the sight of you so relaxed, so trusting, broke his resolve.

He leaned forward, his shadow falling over you. He tentatively pressed his lips to the very center of your nape. It was soft, almost shy at first, but when he felt you gasp, he grew bolder, lingering there and breathing in the scent of your shampoo.

The reaction was instantaneous. A heavy shiver rolled through you, and as you tried to adjust your weight, your legs felt like they’d turned into water.

You slipped sideways, your balance gone as you fell completely onto his bed. Megumi dropped his phone, his hands flying out to catch your shoulders.

"I—I’m sorry! Are you okay?" he stammered, his face erupting in a fierce blush. But then he saw your dazed expression and the way you were still trembling lightly in his grip. The panic in his dark eyes shifted into something deeper, something more grounded.

He pulled you back until you were tucked between his knees, his chin resting on your shoulder.

"I didn't know... you liked that so much," he muttered, his voice dropping into a register that made your toes curl. "I'll remember that for later."

YUJI ITADORI

Yuji is the type to do it completely accidentally.

He was just being his usual, bubbly self, hanging onto you while you both tried to decide what to order for dinner. He was leaning over your shoulder, looking at the menu on your phone, his chest pressed against your back.

"Ooh, get the spicy ramen! I'm craving it!" he chirped. To emphasize his point, he nuzzled his face into your neck, and in a fit of spontaneous affection, he planted a loud, wet kiss right on the nape of your neck. He wasn't expecting you to drop like a sack of potatoes.

"Whoa! Y/N!" he yelled, his reflexes kicking in as he snatched you out of the air by your waist. He set you down on the sofa, looking panicked. "Did I hurt you? Did I hit a nerve? I’m so sorry, I’m too strong sometimes—"

He stopped when he saw you. You were clutching the cushions, your face bright red, your legs still twitching with the remnants of the shiver he’d triggered.

Yuji’s eyes went wide. The playful energy died down, replaced by a sudden, heavy awareness. He sat down next to you, crawling into your space until your knees were touching. "Wait... did you like that?"

He reached out, his hand sliding to the back of your head, his fingers tangling lightly in your hair.

A mischievous grin spread across his face. "If I do it again, promise you'll try not to fall off the couch this time?"

[unknownficenjoyer]

Thank youuuuu!

[savvypirate]

Because of a situation I’m in for the next 3 days… Ace and Reader puppy sitting?

The fella I’m with is about 7 weeks old and is a Great Pyrenees puppy. He has massive paws that he’s not quite gotten used to, as not only does he often trip but he has no breaks, rather he just does this full body tackle/flop onto the ground. It his equally hilarious, cute, and concerning as it sounds.

(He fell down a slight slope and fell on his face and it was like his little body was a spring.)

He is chewing basically everything, but in particular likes to chew my socks/feet, our shoes especially if they’re akin to the material that crocs are made of, cardboard, his actual toys and wood.

He definitely knows the word no and often voices his displeasure being told it. But! He’s a good boy, a very goofy boy who is laying on my feet asleep as I write this.

Thank you.

- @unknownficenjoyer (pls tag me if possible thank you <3)

Hello!!! @unknownficenjoyer !! LISTEN I GOT THIS AND IT MADE ME SO HAPPY CAUSE I LOVE PUPPIES. ESPEICALLY FLUFFY PUPPIES. SO I HOPE I DO THIS WELL. Also Ace staring down a dog is such a hilarious image so I hope you enjoy this. I had so much fun writing this too. I also just want to squish the puppy you're dog sitting, okay?

Requests are open!

You hadn’t meant to make friends with the lady on the street at the port town you and Ace had stopped at, but you had and now you were watching the gigantic, clumsy, most adorable puppy ever all the while your boyfriend was off looking for something to eat.

He had already ate earlier but that didn’t stop Ace. It never would. So, you’d taken to rubbing the puppy’s head, squishing him as you sat beside him. He was the most adorable thing ever and you wanted to keep him but you knew you couldn’t. How would a dog even do on a pirate ship? You had no clue. You didn’t care though. What you didn’t realize was how jealous Ace would get too.

“You are just so handsome.” You cooed to the puppy as he leaned against you, tail thumping on the ground as he gave you sloppy kisses. You had always had dogs growing up and you had honestly missed having one so really, watching him was healing a small part of you. “And you’re so sweet and soft.” You praised the puppy while he continued to kiss you and snuggle against you. “I wonder if I could steal you. I am a pirate after all.” You mused until you heard a throat clear behind you.

“Babe… What is that?” 

You turned and beamed at your boyfriend, the infamous Fire Fist Ace, who didn’t look amused in the slightest. You beamed brighter. 

“His name is…Fluffy.” It definitely wasn’t but the dog didn’t seem to mind as he leaned more into you. 

“Did you steal a dog?” 

“No. I met this nice lady on the street and she asked if I could watch him and here we are. We’ve had some adventures while you’ve been getting food. Speaking of” You glanced at him, raising a brow. “Did you bring me anything back?”

Ace elected to not look at you for a moment and then pulled out a bag from his pocket. “I found some of those treats you like and grabbed some.” He said, handing it to you but he kept his gaze on the puppy, staring down the dog with the biggest puppy dog eyes that screamed innocence but Ace wasn’t buying it. You didn’t pay much mind to it as you snatched them from him and grinned. 

“Thanks, babe.” You hummed as you reached into the back for one of the treats and sighed. “Anyway, we’re watching him for the afternoon.”

“Are we getting paid…?”

“Nope! Just in puppy kisses and cuddles.” 

Ace groaned as he sat down beside you and shook his head. “You’re ridiculous.”

And so it went, the day passed by with you and Ace watching Fluffy, playing with him, and you were particularly amused as Ace kept glaring at the dog for being so close to you. Who would have thought he was such a grump over animals and jealous. Though it also seemed that Fluffy was eating this up too. He knew what he was doing and Ace was getting more and more aggravated as the afternoon went on. Shooting jealous looks at the puppy as he clamored around the street and barked up at the two of you. Anytime you cooed and loved on the puppy, Fluffy would shoot a look at Ace, who’d scowled at him. It went on like that the entire day, you were unaware, or at least Ace had assumed so until you finally stopped for the day underneath a shady tree.

“Are you jealous?” You asked while the three of you lounged underneath a tree on a cliff that overlooked the ocean. Fluffy was resting his head on your lap, snoozing away as you ran your fingers through his fur. Ace narrowed his eyes at the dog. Typically, your lap was his spot where he could nap and be safe. He always felt safe with you and while he was jealous of the dog, he wasn’t going to tell you that. Why would he? It was clear you liked the dog and also clear that the dog liked you. He couldn’t ruin that even if the puppy had taken his nap spot.

“No.”

You giggled as you glanced at him and raised a brow. “Mhm… Right, are you jealous that he took your spot?”

He felt his cheeks heat up as the flames licked gently at his shoulders, embarrassment filling him as he turned away with a pout. You only giggled more as you reached over and poked his cheek.

“Aceeeeee.”

“Okay, yes, fine. I am jealous, he took my spot.” He grumbled and you giggled again as you reached out with your hand and pulled him closer. “I like to nap on your lap and he’s just there like he gets all of it.”

“He’s a puppy, Ace, and he’s cute. You’re cute too though.” You giggled, poking his cheek again as he grumbled, crossing his arms. 

“I’m cuter.” He countered and you couldn’t help but laugh again, leaning your head against his shoulder, the brim of his hat brushing your head.

“Mm. Maybe, you definitely aren’t as clumsy but his clumsiness is cute.” You smiled a bit fondly as you thought about all of the puppies you had growing up. “He reminds me of some of the puppies I had as a kid.” You told Ace, who then, stopped pouting, and gently raised a brow.

“You had dogs?” He asked and you nodded. 

“We did, lots of them actually. I don’t remember a time when I didn't have one when I was growing up until I set sail and met pops. It was like having a built-in best friend that was always there.” You smiled a bit as you continued to rub the puppy’s head, his little sleepy yips making you melt. “It’s been like having a piece of home today.” You told him softly and well, that made Ace a bit more as he reached over and pet the dog’s head. He didn’t have anything against animals, he liked the weird ones, and much like Luffy, he could get fascinated by them. But he never had a dog or a cat to call his own either. 

“I guess he’s alright." He muttered and you grinned, snuggling against him more as the evening sun started to sink over the horizon. Your eyes closed and Ace leaned his head against yours with a soft sigh. It was just you, him, and the fluffy puppy that had stolen your heart and honestly, Ace wouldn’t trade this for the world. 

Even if the puppy did steal his spot.

[savvypirate]

The One Bed Problem- Ace x Reader

A/N: Here's an Ace x Reader for you with the One Bed Problem Series I've started. Mentions of being drunk, you're pirates so its fine.

The first thing you realized when you laid down next to Ace was that the man was a personal heater. Now, you’ve stood by him before and felt his warmth radiate off of him due to his devil fruit but laying in a bed next to him was a completely different story. He was warm and the inn was cold. The two of you had partied a bit too hard at the tavern and had ended up in the inn above it sharing a room with one bed. Both of you had been too drunk to care at the moment but now that you’d sobered up some, you were realizing he would make a great cuddle partner. 

Unfortunately, Ace could be shy. He could be extremely shy and he’d get all red and stutter. It was cute. He was cute, you’d always thought that and didn't think there was much of a chance there, however, you didn’t know that he was thinking the same thing! 

The dark haired commander of the second division glanced over at you and bit his lip. “Hey, you cold?” He asked and you tugged the blanket up closer as your eyes met his brown ones in the dark. You blushed them, how could he be so handsome even in this light and half drunk still? He really wasn’t fair. You nodded as you scooted just a bit closer to him. 

“A little.” You admitted and he smiled at you, a faint blush on his cheeks as he lifted the sheets to have you scoot over to be closer to him. 

“C’mere” He muttered as you scooted over and he wrapped his arm around you, tugging you closer than you had thought he would. 

“Ace!” You laughed and he grinned while he let you rest your head in the crook of his neck.

“What? You’re cold. I’m literal fire. I think this is fine, don’t you?”

It sounded so simple coming from him and you couldn’t help but smile against his skin, melting into the warmth that was Fire Fist Ace. His hand rubbed your back and you sighed happily as you closed your eyes. He was warm and safe and there was nowhere else you’d rather be. 

[unknownficenjoyer]

Yippee! I’m late but it’s here!!

[dodgeballstuckonthegymceiling]

Felt like writing the fluffiest smut possible, and Caine seemed to be the best candidate!

If you like my work, please consider commissioning me or leaving a tip on Ko-fi (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

Give me your answer do

★ His focus always drifted to your mouth. Caine doesn't know why, but something about lips always fascinated him. Kisses dive him crazy. If you wore lipstick there wouldn't be a day where it ends up staying. Getting smudged by noon. Maybe because lips aren't something he has? Who knows.

★ Ask Caine, and he'll swear it's because you "Have such a pretty smile!" But there's no way you'd actually believe that. He really wasn't being subtle...

★ You've gotten so many love letters from him. It's actually impressive. When you sleep, he pushes them under your door. Written inside are things he'd never say out loud. Like describing the ways you make him short-circuit. Desire getting the best of him.

★ Gangle loves to draw different kinds of tropes. Thanks to her, Caine knows about romance clichés. Think "but there was only one bed" type stuff. He doesn't understand why people like it. But he mimics them anyway. Determined to get it right.

★ Caine is a romantic at heart. You don't just go out. He puts together a whole dinner, in a really fancy restaurant, and dresses you and himself up nicely. Putting you in the showiest dress/suit you've ever seen.

★ When he took you back to your room, you had to pull him inside by the collar. Knowing he was too shy to ask if he could come in himself. Caine seemed surprised. "Oh! -Oh, we're doing this now!" Followed by a very undignified whine.

★ You have to give him explicit consent before things get too heated. No, nodding your head isn't good enough. Caine has to hear you say it. If you don’t, he simply won't touch you.

★ This man has zero experience in bed. Before meeting you, he was a virgin. It would've stayed that way had you not stumbled into his life. Usually you take the lead, or just tell him what to do. Where to go. What you liked.

★ Caine really wants to bite you. But he knows you probably wouldn't like that. So he keeps it to himself. Unlike his praise. That, Caine shares freely. Letting you know how beautiful you are.

★ "Just like that, my dear" You felt pampered under him. His attention focused entirely on you. Looking pretty, and all for him. "I’m proud of you. So proud." He murmurs. Saying all the things he wishes you'd say to him. "Do you like it? I bet you do~"

★ You've noticed how he has a pretty selective memory. Meaning Caine can recall you do/don't like getting your hair pulled. And not your favorite color.★ Caine forgets simple facts. But preferences? Those stick to him, like it's superglued into his very code. Stored as important data (Because it is!)

[spenceragnewfics]

Hi my love ❤️ I'm currently obsessed with OPLA!Sanji reader and I've been eating up all of your fics about him. If it's okay for you, can you pls write something about Sanji with shy/flustered!reader? Like he just flirts with reader just to get a reaction out of her (i think it's so cute :3).

Anything for a Reaction

Sanji x fem!reader | shy reader | flirty Sanji | established crushes | teasing affection | blushy reader | soft tension | playful banter | One Piece Live Action | 4.5k words

Sanji figured out very quickly that you blushed for him.

Not for compliments in general, because Nami had called you pretty before and you had only smiled. Not for attention in the broad sense either, because Usopp could ramble at you for fifteen uninterrupted minutes and all you ever did was nod with patient amusement. No, what turned your face warm and your eyes suddenly very interested in the floor was something much more specific. It was him leaning a little too close in the galley to murmur good morning in that low, honey-smooth voice of his. It was him setting a cup of tea beside your elbow and calling you darling like he had invented the word for you. It was his hand settling lightly at the small of your back when the ship rocked, steadying you with all the ease of a gentleman and all the awareness of a man who knew exactly what he was doing.

At first, he thought it was an accident. A coincidence. A delightful little quirk of timing. Then he noticed patterns, and Sanji was far too observant a man not to trust a pattern when it emerged.

If he kissed your knuckles, your lashes fluttered. If he leaned in and praised your smile, your shoulders drew in just a little as if you could physically contain the heat in your face by making yourself smaller. If he called you my love in that soft, absent way he had when handing you a plate at dinner, you would go so pink so fast it was almost cruel.

He should have let you be.

He truly should have.

Instead, because he was Sanji and because you looked so unbearably sweet when flustered, he found himself returning to it again and again just to see the reaction.

The worst part was that you knew he was doing it.

That was what made it fun.

The morning it truly got out of hand began in the galley, as so many dangerous little things on the Going Merry seemed to. The sun had barely climbed properly over the sea, leaving the room warm with pale gold light, and the ship still had that half-asleep quiet to it that only existed before Luffy fully woke up and turned the day into everyone else’s problem. Sanji was already cooking, moving through the galley with his usual effortless grace, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, one cigarette tucked behind his ear for later. The smell of butter and herbs had filled the room before you even stepped inside, and somehow that always made it harder to stay away from him.

You told yourself you had only come in for water.

That was the lie, anyway.

The truth was that mornings with Sanji had become a private weakness. You liked catching him before the whole crew descended, before the noise of the day overtook the softer spaces between things. He was different then. Less theatrical, maybe. Still flirty, always flirty, but quieter about it. More intimate. As though the version of him that belonged to the early morning belonged a little less to the world and a little more to whoever found him there first.

Unfortunately for your composure, he looked up the second you entered and smiled in a way that made your pulse stumble.

“Well, there you are,” he said, turning back to the stove only long enough to save whatever was in the pan. “And here I was thinking the morning had forgotten to send me anything lovely.”

You had not even reached the counter yet.

Heat rushed into your face so quickly it was humiliating. “You say things like that before breakfast on purpose.”

Sanji glanced at you over his shoulder, one blond brow lifting with innocent charm. “On purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Darling,” he said, voice all wounded elegance, “I would never manipulate a lady’s morning.”

You gave him a look and reached for a cup anyway, because the alternative was standing there empty-handed while he smiled at you like that. “You absolutely would.”

He watched you pour water with entirely too much attention for such a simple task. “Only when rewarded with reactions this adorable.”

Your hand slipped on the handle.

Water splashed over your fingers and onto the counter in a messy little stream. Sanji moved immediately, one hand catching the cup before it could tip farther, the other sliding a cloth toward the spill with practiced ease. He was smiling, of course. Smiling and entirely too close now, his chest nearly brushing your shoulder as he leaned in to rescue your dignity from complete destruction.

“Easy,” he murmured, taking the cup from you with maddening gentleness. “If all I have to do is compliment you to make you lose motor control, I should like to know my own power.”

You stared very hard at the wooden grain of the counter. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” He said it lightly, but with that awful certainty he had whenever it came to reading you. That was one of the many unbearable things about Sanji. He flirted with everyone, yes, but when he cared to notice someone properly, he noticed everything. Every tiny shift in expression. Every breath caught too sharply. Every failed attempt at pretending his words did not land exactly where he aimed them.

He handed you the water once the crisis had passed. Your fingers brushed his, and even that tiny contact felt louder than it should have.

“Tell me something,” he said as he returned to the stove.

You should have said no. You should have run while there was still time.

Instead, because your self-preservation had apparently dissolved somewhere around the phrase anything lovely, you answered. “What?”

“Do I truly make you this shy,” he asked, turning something in the pan with infuriating calm, “or are you only trying to be cruel?”

Your mouth went dry.

He did not even look at you when he said it. That somehow made it worse. The ease of it. The confidence. As though he could toss a question like that over his shoulder and simply wait for your blush to answer for him.

You took a sip of water to buy time and nearly choked on it.

That, apparently, was answer enough.

Sanji laughed under his breath, not mocking, never mocking, but warm and quietly delighted. “Ah,” he said. “So it’s me.”

“Please stop sounding pleased with yourself.”

He finally turned, leaning one hip against the counter with the wooden spoon still in hand. Morning light caught along the sharp lines of his face and turned his hair almost gold at the edges. He looked unfairly good in kitchens. You had thought that from the moment you met him, and the problem had only grown more severe from there.

“My love,” he said, smiling fully now, “I am pleased with you, not myself.”

That was somehow worse than if he had preened about it.

You looked down at your cup, willing your face to cool and your heart to resume something like normal rhythm. “You really enjoy this.”

“I do,” he admitted without shame. “You blush so prettily. It would be a crime not to admire it.”

The thing was, if anyone else had said that to you, you might have hidden in the pantry for the rest of the day. But Sanji somehow made embarrassment feel less like exposure and more like being held under a very warm light. He never pressed hard enough to truly scare you. He just hovered at the edge of your composure and smiled whenever it gave way.

That was the problem.

It made you want to stay.

By lunch, the rest of the crew had caught on.

Not fully, perhaps. Nami was too perceptive not to notice the way you ducked your head whenever Sanji leaned close, and Zoro had made one of his irritating little huff-laugh sounds when Sanji called you sweetheart and you nearly walked into the mast. Luffy, thankfully, seemed too occupied by food to care about romance unless it personally interrupted his meals. But by now, the pattern was there for anyone observant enough to see.

Sanji, naturally, seemed to view that as encouragement.

At lunch, he set your plate in front of you last, even though he had prepared it first. When he bent near your ear to do it, he let his mouth hover close enough for his voice to slide over your skin like warmth.

“Made yours with extra lemon,” he murmured. “You always pick the brightest flavors first.”

You looked up too quickly.

He was already watching you.

The smile that touched his mouth then was quieter than the usual flourish, softer somehow, because this was not only flirting. This was noticing. The lemon thing was true. You had never told him that. He had simply paid enough attention to know.

That hit far harder than the line itself.

You felt your face warm all over again and immediately dropped your gaze to the plate. “Thank you.”

Sanji’s eyes softened at the sound of your voice going small. “Anything for you, darling.”

Zoro made a noise into his cup that sounded suspiciously like, pathetic.

Sanji ignored him with the composure of a saint and the self-satisfaction of a menace.

The afternoon only made things worse.

The sea had gone calm enough for everyone to drift into their own corners of the ship, and somehow you ended up alone on deck with a book you were not really reading and Sanji polishing knives near the rail because apparently the universe had decided your heart did not deserve peace. The sky was blue and open overhead, the wind softer now, and the Going Merry moved gently enough that it almost felt like drifting rather than sailing.

You had chosen a spot near the mast because it seemed safe. Respectable. Public enough that he surely would not turn his full attention on you there.

This was your second mistake.

Your first had been wearing one of the softer blouses you owned, the one with the delicate tie at the throat. Sanji had seen you in it once that morning and gone briefly, suspiciously quiet before recovering with enough composure to say, “You do realize, love, that dressing like that on my ship is an act of aggression.”

You had nearly fled overboard.

Now, in the lazy stillness of the afternoon, he looked up from the knives and caught you trying to focus on the same page you had been staring at for ten minutes.

“Are you reading,” he asked, “or am I distracting you from ten feet away?”

You refused to look up. “I’m reading.”

“Mm.”

That mm alone nearly ruined you.

It carried skepticism. Amusement. That velvet-threaded certainty that he had already read the situation correctly and was simply being charitable enough to let you deny it.

A minute passed.

Then another.

Then his voice came again, closer this time.

“I don’t think you’ve turned the page once.”

Your head lifted instinctively.

Sanji had crossed half the deck without you noticing. He stood beside the mast now, one hand braced above your head against the wood, close enough that the breeze brought you the familiar scent of smoke, spice, and whatever clean soap he managed to smell like even on a pirate ship. Your breath caught before you could stop it.

His eyes flicked to your face at once, catching the reaction, and warmed with obvious pleasure.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” he said softly.

You clutched the book a little tighter. “What is?”

“That.”

You frowned. “That is not an answer.”

“It is when I’m admiring you.”

Your poor heart.

It truly did not stand a chance.

He leaned just a little, not enough to corner, only enough to narrow the air between you into something charged and private despite the open deck. “Tell me,” he said, voice lowering into something that felt made for flustering you and nothing else, “do you know how pretty you look when you stop knowing where to put your eyes?”

That did it.

You made some small, mortifying sound and brought the book up as though you could hide behind it. Sanji laughed then—warm, helpless, so clearly charmed that even through the embarrassment a little spark of something sweeter lit in your chest.

His hand moved before you expected it. Gentle fingers caught the edge of the book and lowered it just enough for him to see your face again.

“There she is,” he murmured.

Your cheeks burned. “You are impossible.”

“And yet here you are.”

He said that one so softly it lost some of its teasing edge. The words hung there a second longer than usual. Not only flirtation this time. Something truer. You felt it in the way his smile changed, in the way his eyes stayed on yours instead of drifting to your reaction and away again.

A strange stillness settled between you.

The deck was not empty. You knew that. The sea was still there, the sails still moved overhead, somewhere behind you Usopp and Luffy were probably arguing over something idiotic. But in that moment it all seemed farther away than it should have been.

Sanji noticed your silence immediately.

His expression gentled. “Have I gone too far?”

The question came sincere and immediate. That, more than anything, made something in you soften. He flirted shamelessly, yes. He loved getting a rise out of you, absolutely. But he would never do it at the expense of your comfort. Never keep pressing if he thought he had truly overwhelmed you.

You shook your head quickly. “No.”

He searched your face, making certain.

“No?” he repeated, quieter now.

“No,” you said again, though the word came out smaller than intended. “You just…”

“Just what, darling?”

You looked down at the book in your lap because looking at him felt suddenly dangerous. “You make it hard to think.”

For once in his life, Sanji did not answer immediately.

The silence that followed was brief, but you felt it. When you finally risked looking up, he had gone very still in a way you were not used to seeing. Not frozen. Not unsure exactly. Just affected.

By you.

The realization hit your stomach like a dropped stone.

Sanji’s smile when it returned was slower this time, less polished. More real.

“That,” he said softly, “is the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”

You stared at him.

Then, because the world was cruel and because he never seemed content merely to win, he added, “Though I admit I’d like very much to hear you say it again.”

You laughed then, helplessly and despite yourself, and his whole face lit at the sound.

There it was again—that impossible thing he did where the teasing peeled back just enough for you to see how much he liked making you laugh, how much of this was about your blushes but how much more was about your smile. The flirtation had always felt playful before, but now there was something warmer under it, something gathering shape while neither of you quite knew what to call it.

Sanji crouched slowly in front of where you sat so he would not tower over you anymore. His forearms rested lightly on his knees. He was still too handsome at eye level. Possibly more handsome, which felt deeply unfair.

“I have a confession,” he said.

You eyed him suspiciously through your remaining embarrassment. “That sounds dangerous.”

“It is.” His mouth twitched. “I began this morning merely hoping to make you blush.”

“You succeeded.”

“Spectacularly.” His smile widened. “But now I find myself greedy. I should like to know whether you ever think about doing the same to me.”

The world stopped.

Or maybe only your brain did.

You stared at him with your lips parted and no thoughts left inside your head worth having. Sanji, infuriatingly, looked delighted by that too.

“I—” You swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He gave you a look so fond it nearly hurt. “Liar.”

“I am not lying.”

“My love.” He leaned a little closer, not enough to touch, only enough that his voice dropped into that warm private register that always undid you. “The way you look at me when you think I’m not watching could set the galley on fire.”

All at once, every stolen glance, every private little admiration, every moment you had lingered too long looking at his hands or his smile or the line of his throat when he laughed, came crashing back with humiliating clarity.

You wanted the deck to open and swallow you whole.

Sanji must have seen the panic flicker over your face, because his expression softened immediately. “Easy,” he murmured. “Easy. I’m not mocking you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

You nodded, barely.

He was quiet for a second, watching you in that attentive way of his that always felt like being read in the gentlest possible light. Then he smiled again, but smaller now. Softer. “Good.”

You tried to recover some dignity. “You’re still enjoying this far too much.”

“Without question.”

“That’s evil.”

“That depends entirely on whether you intend to flirt back.”

The breath left you.

You should not have answered. Truly. There were a thousand wiser choices available to you.

Instead, maybe because he was crouched there looking unfairly warm and amused and sincere all at once, maybe because he had spent all day making your heart stumble and you wanted, just once, to see what happened when the balance shifted, you said, “Maybe I would if I knew it worked.”

Sanji blinked.

Just once.

It was tiny. Anyone else might have missed it. But you saw it—the brief, perfect crack in his composure, the heartbeat where he had not expected you to say something like that.

And because you saw it, because he had spent all day collecting your flustered little reactions like treasures, courage sparked where there had only been nervousness before.

So you tilted your head and added, “Does it?”

Sanji stared at you.

Then he let out a short, disbelieving laugh and sat back slightly on his heels. “Well,” he said, voice rougher than before, “that was unspeakably cruel.”

A thrill went through you, warm and bright.

You smiled despite yourself. “You started it.”

“And now you’re finishing it, apparently.” He put a hand over his heart in wounded drama, but there was genuine heat in his eyes now. “Do you have any idea what that did to me?”

The answer, to your astonishment, was yes.

At least a little.

You had seen the way his gaze sharpened. The way his voice changed. The way he was looking at you now, not only amused anymore, but interested in a deeper, more focused way that made your pulse feel suddenly visible beneath your skin.

It should have sent you retreating.

Instead, you found yourself warming to it.

“I think,” you said carefully, “I’m beginning to.”

Sanji went very still again.

Then, slowly, he rose to his feet.

That might have been the moment when you ought to have reconsidered everything, because standing, he became harder to ignore. All long lines and warm presence and careful grace. But when he offered you his hand, his expression had gentled enough to steady you.

You looked at it.

Then at him.

“What is this for?” you asked.

“I’d like to show you something.”

“That is also dangerous.”

“Terribly.”

Still, you put your hand in his.

His fingers closed around yours with familiar warmth, and he drew you up from the deck with enough care to make the simple motion feel strangely intimate. He did not let go after. Instead he guided you a few steps toward the rail, away from the mast and into a quieter pocket of sun and sea breeze.

The ocean stretched blue and endless around the Merry. Light scattered over the waves. Somewhere behind you, the crew still existed, but Sanji had positioned you in one of those little corners of the ship where the world seemed to soften around its edges.

He turned to face you fully then.

“All right,” he said, voice lower now. “Since fairness matters to me deeply, I should like to return the favor.”

You frowned. “What favor?”

“This morning, darling, you informed me I make it hard for you to think.”

Heat rushed back to your face instantly. “I did not inform you. It slipped out.”

“A treasured distinction.” He smiled. “Now I think it’s only right I tell you that you do much the same to me.”

Your breath caught.

He must have felt your hand tense in his, because his thumb brushed once over your knuckles. Gentle. Grounding.

“You hide it better,” you whispered.

He laughed softly. “Only because I’ve had practice. Not because I feel it less.”

The words settled deep.

There was nothing theatrical in them now. No bright flourish. No wink. Just Sanji, looking at you with the kind of honesty that made his usual charm feel almost secondary.

Your throat tightened unexpectedly.

He noticed that too, of course.

“You really didn’t know?” he asked.

You shook your head a little. “You flirt with everyone.”

“That,” he said with a sigh full of fond exasperation for himself, “may be the most inconvenient habit I have ever developed.”

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

His smile warmed. “There. That’s better.”

You looked down at your joined hands. “So you only do this to get a reaction out of me?”

That earned you the look. The one that said you had asked a question with a more complicated answer than either of you had intended to step into.

“At first?” he admitted. “Perhaps.” His thumb moved slowly against your hand again. “You looked so sweet when you blushed. I’m not made of stone.”

“And now?”

Sanji’s gaze dropped briefly to your mouth before returning to your eyes. The motion was small. Still, you felt it all the way through.

“Now,” he said softly, “I think I keep doing it because I like seeing you flustered, yes. But more than that, I like being the one who gets to make you smile afterward.”

Oh.

That was worse.

Worse than the flirting. Worse than the compliments. Worse than all the carefully aimed teasing that had spent the day setting your nerves alight.

Because that was real.

You looked at him, truly looked, and saw it there plain as anything: the affection underneath the game, the way the teasing had become habit because somewhere along the line he had started treasuring your reactions not as victories but as pieces of you. Your shyness. Your blushes. The little smile you tried to hide after he made you laugh. He liked all of it. Not because it was entertaining, though it certainly was to him, but because it was yours.

You had no defense against that.

So, in the end, you did the only thing left to you.

You stepped closer.

It was not much. Barely half a step. But it changed the space between you all the same. Sanji’s breath shifted. His hand tightened around yours just slightly.

“If I say something now,” you murmured, staring somewhere near the center of his shirt because direct eye contact seemed impossible, “will you promise not to look so pleased with yourself?”

“No.”

That made you laugh helplessly. “You’re awful.”

“Desperately.”

You drew in a breath, summoned every scrap of courage you had left, and finally looked up at him. “I think,” you said slowly, “that maybe I like when you flirt with me because I know you’re watching for my reaction.”

Sanji’s expression changed all at once. Not hugely. Just enough. The smile softened. The warmth in him deepened into something more focused.

You kept going because stopping now would kill you.

“And,” you added, voice smaller, “I like that you notice.”

For once in his life, Sanji seemed momentarily out of polished lines.

He held your gaze, and there was such naked fondness in his face that it made your chest ache.

“My sweet girl,” he said quietly, “I notice everything.”

That was the end of you.

You made the most humiliating little sound and looked away instantly, but this time when Sanji laughed it was so warm and helpless and affectionate that you could not even resent it. His free hand rose, slow enough to give you time, and tilted gently beneath your chin until you were looking at him again.

“There she is,” he murmured.

You should have expected the phrase by now. It still undid you every time.

He leaned in only slightly, just enough that the sea breeze had to move around the two of you rather than through. “Would it be terribly unfair of me,” he asked, “to say you’re even prettier like this?”

You gave him a look that would have been stern if not for the blush still climbing your cheeks. “You know the answer.”

“Mm. That it would be unfair?”

“That it’s working.”

The second the words left your mouth, your eyes widened.

Sanji’s smile turned incandescent.

“Well,” he said softly, “that is very useful information.”

Before you could decide whether to die or jump ship, he lifted your joined hands and pressed a slow kiss to your knuckles.

The touch was warm. Lingering. Entirely too deliberate.

Your breath caught so sharply that his lashes lowered in obvious satisfaction.

“Sanji,” you whispered.

“Yes, love?”

“That was mean.”

“And yet,” he murmured against your skin, “you’re still holding my hand.”

You looked down.

You were.

Somehow that fact felt more intimate than the kiss.

He let your hand fall only enough to lace your fingers properly with his, and when you glanced back up at him, all the teasing in the world could not quite hide the tenderness in his face.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said.

You narrowed your eyes. “That sounds suspicious.”

“It’s elegant, actually.” His mouth twitched. “You keep letting me flirt with you, and I promise to continue enjoying every second of how shy it makes you.”

“That is a terrible deal.”

“For you, perhaps.”

You tried to maintain your dignity. Failed. “And what do I get?”

Sanji smiled, slow and bright and devastating. “Me, darling. Paying attention.”

It was such a Sanji answer that laughter escaped you before you could stop it. The sound seemed to please him even more than your blushes ever had. He looked at you like he had won something precious, and maybe he had.

Because there you were, still pink-cheeked and flustered and trying not to smile too hard, and there he was, holding your hand at the rail of a pirate ship with the whole world spread open around you, both of you suspended in that tender place where teasing had become something softer and far more dangerous.

In the end, you gave him the only answer that felt right.

“You are unbelievably smug.”

His grin widened. “And you,” he said, lifting your hand once more to brush his mouth over your knuckles again, “are unbearably cute when you admit defeat.”

You did not admit defeat.

Not out loud, anyway.

But when you stayed there beside him, blushing and smiling and letting him keep your hand in his while the sea glittered beyond the Merry, Sanji looked so pleased with the arrangement that it hardly mattered which of you had won.