when FIRELORD ZUKO takes a liking to AVATAR AANG'S mysterious new BRIDE.
TORN BETWEEN TWO ROADS ! — aang x reader x zuko
PLOT. republic city is finally at peace, and for once, katara allows herself to hope—maybe now, after everything, she and aang can finally become something real. but when aang returns after eight months, he isn’t alone. he comes back with you at his side, introducing you as his wife. suspicious yet helpless, his friends do their best to welcome you, even as nothing about this sudden marriage makes sense. but while everyone else keeps their distance, one person doesn’t. and perhaps Zuko gets a little too comfortable with the avatar’s new wife.
CHARACTERS. AANG and ZUKO.
CHAPTER WARNINGS. 18+, mdni, angst, takes place 10 years after atla, age gaps, reader is 21, established relationship, fem reader, atla spoilers, no spoilers for legend of aang, not proofread.
(please check the story masterlist for the story warnings.)
WC. 5.8k
masterlist : story masterlist
chapter ten
art creds :: chamiii07, ilameys on x
a/n: guys by banner photos got taken down, so these will be my visuals from now. it is literally the cover for tbtr on wattpad.
p.s. this chapter is very poorly edited and not proofread at all, i will probably have to come back and change a few things, but the content will be the same.
One moment he had been sitting beside Appa with his thoughts tangled beyond repair, and the next, he found himself seated within the temporary residence Lord Shuren had prepared for him earlier during his recovery, staring blankly at untouched parchment spread across the low table before him.
The room remained quiet save for the faint scratching of tree branches against the windows outside.
A long brush pen rested loosely between his fingers while dark ink gathered heavily at its tip, dripping slow black stains across the empty parchment beneath his unmoving hand. He had already asked a servant for writing materials almost immediately after leaving Appa's infirmary chambers, and the idea had arrived to him with clarity.
Katara.
Of course, Katara.
She could heal Appa far better than the physicians here ever could, and if he was being honest with himself, part of him simply wanted to see someone familiar again after everything that had happened.
He wanted to hear Sokka complain loudly about the estate food, hear Toph mock the ridiculous formalities surrounding Hujiang, and hear Katara scold him for nearly getting himself killed in a storm before inevitably helping him anyway.
Spirits.
At this point, he felt he might genuinely cry just seeing one of them walk through the door.
The solution itself had been painfully simple.
Write to Katara and ask her to come. Have Appa healed properly.
He knew she would arrive if he asked her, and yet, the brush still hovered uselessly above blank parchment, because hesitation had settled inside him.
He was thinking ahead. Zuko had taught him that.
Not intentionally, perhaps, though watching Uncle Iroh guide the new Fire Lord navigate politics and diplomacy for the past years had forced Aang to understand something uncomfortable about the world.
Every action carries consequences far beyond the moment itself, and it is only amplified so for someone carrying the title of Avatar.
Usually, Aang ignored that lesson whenever possible.
He preferred simpler, kinder decisions.
But tonight he could not stop thinking.
His thoughts kept circling backward endlessly, searching desperately for the exact moment everything had begun unraveling.
Was it when he turned away from you within the marketplace to help the frightened child who had nearly collided with a merchant stall?
Or perhaps earlier, when he agreed to let you accompany him despite knowing you possessed absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever.
Then his thoughts drifted farther back.
To the storm.
To Appa screaming in pain beneath the lightning sky while Aang desperately struggled to keep control against the violent winds tearing around them.
Perhaps this entire nightmare truly began there.
He had known a storm was coming that day.
Any sensible airbender would have delayed travel entirely, especially with Appa already exhausted from weeks of flying across the Earth Kingdom beforehand. But Aang had grown too confident in his abilities recently confident in how much stronger his bending had become since the war ended, and he never stopped to considering whether Appa himself could safely withstand such conditions.
That single choice had led them here.
To Appa crippled within an infirmary. To Momo missing. To you—
Aang shut his eyes tightly.
Then came the next question.
If Katara arrived here, what then?
Lord Shuren already viewed him as the source of disgrace within his household. The advisor had taken enormous pride in personally caring for the Avatar during recovery, no doubt presenting himself openly throughout Hujiang as the man who aided the world's savior.
If Katara appeared suddenly and healed Appa within days, what would that do to Shuren's pride?
And even worse, what would happen to you afterward?
Aang had already come to understand the terrifying truth.
You did not possess freedom within this estate. Every decision surrounding your life seemed tied directly to your father's approval, to whatever preserved appearances best before the kingdom.
If Aang angered Lord Shuren further, you might suffer for it instead.
Frustration finally snapped through as he abruptly stood from the table, the pen slipping from his grasp before striking against the wood and splattering dark ink across the untouched parchment.
Aang dragged both hands harshly across his face while pacing toward the bed.
Then he simply dropped onto it heavily, staring upward toward the ceiling while exhaustion tangled painfully through his body.
Sleep was difficult as Aang found himself trying to solve a situation where no answer seemed capable of making everyone walk away unharmed.
But he still wanted to try.
Aang had not truly realized until this morning just how separated your chambers were from the rest of the estate.
No servant would answer him directly.
The moment he asked where you resided, conversation tightened around him before polite excuses followed, each servant suddenly remembering another task elsewhere within the manor.
Some lowered their heads respectfully while avoiding his eyes entirely, while others simply hurried away before he could ask twice.
Everyone knew.
The entire estate already understood how dangerous it would appear for the Avatar to seek you out after the events of last night. The servants did not even need instructions to avoid aiding him.
Fear for your reputation alone seemed enough to silence them.
Eventually, he came across two of your maids walking together through one of the eastern corridors.
Aang recognized them immediately.
The older one, Lian, carried herself with the same composed firmness she had displayed the first day he barged carelessly into your dressing chambers. Beside her stood Nari, visibly younger and significantly easier to read, her nervousness practically radiating the moment she noticed the Avatar approaching them.
Aang barely managed a greeting before Lian interrupted him calmly.
"My lady is unavailable."
The tone alone made it clear no argument would alter her answer.
"Please, I just need to see her!" Aang tried anyway.
"You should not." Lian replied simply.
Then, without another word, she continued down the corridor.
Nari lingered behind briefly.
The younger maid avoided looking directly at him while nervously twisting her sleeves between her fingers.
Aang lowered his voice slightly.
"I just want to make sure she's okay."
Nari hesitated, then finally, she answered.
"She is rather upset at the moment, so she remains alone." Her eyes darted quickly down the corridor afterward before she stepped slightly closer.
"If you insist upon seeing her...please ensure no one notices."
Even with directions, reaching your chambers proved difficult.
Aang stood out too easily.
The blue arrows covering his skin, the unmistakable robes of an Air Nomad, the heavy red outer garment returned to him earlier that morning after finally leaving your grasp—every servant who passed him looked twice before quickly pretending otherwise.
Still, he reached your chambers eventually.
He had spent nearly the entire night thinking of you. Even exhaustion had failed to silence his thoughts properly. Every time sleep threatened to pull him under, his mind dragged him back toward the abandoned house, toward the unbearable helplessness lingering across your face while you cried beneath his robes.
At some point during the night, amidst all the panic and confusion clouding his thoughts, an idea had finally taken shape.
A possible solution.
Something that might repair your reputation without forcing you to carry further humiliation.
Something that might satisfy Lord Shuren, preserve your dignity, and allow this terrible thing to stop swallowing your life whole.
The thought alone had kept him awake close to dawn, and even once exhaustion finally overtook him, he slept so poorly that waking came hours later than usual, long after the noon sunlight had already spread fully across the estate.
Yet despite everything, he had come here with purpose. With hope.
Aang entered the room without knocking first.
He opened the doors carefully, slipping inside quietly before shutting them behind him.
You looked up immediately from where you rested against the headboard of your bed.
The curtains surrounding the room remained partially drawn against the afternoon light while blankets covered your legs entirely, though your upper body remained visible enough that the bruises decorating your skin stood impossible to ignore.
"Aang...?"
Relief struck him instantly at the sound of your voice. He exhaled quietly before walking farther into the room.
You looked alright at first glance.
You looked alright if he ignored the bruising surrounding your wrists. You looked alright if he ignored the darkened marks staining your throat and collarbones beneath the loose robes draped around your body.
You looked alright.
But you were not.
Even so, you still offered him a small smile before lowering your eyes toward the blankets gathered over your lap.
"You truly should not have come here." You murmured softly.
Aang nodded automatically before realizing you had not been looking at him at all.
"...I know, But I needed to talk to you." He admitted quietly.
He hesitated before moving toward the side of your bed and lowering himself carefully beside it, kneeling close so that he no longer needed to raise his voice for you to hear him.
You looked visibly surprised by the gesture. Still, you did not stop him.
Neither of you spoke, then, unexpectedly, you broke the silence first.
"You have woken much later than usual today. Did you struggle to sleep?" You observed gently.
Aang rubbed lightly at the back of his neck.
"...A little."
A faint smile touched your lips.
"Me as well."
The softness behind your voice nearly made the bruises surrounding it harder to bear looking at.
Aang swallowed quietly before finally forcing himself to ask the question that had followed him through the entire morning.
"What happens now?"
The silence lingered and he wondered if perhaps you would refuse answering.
Then finally—
"Nothing."
Aang frowned immediately.
"What do you mean?"
Your attention drifted toward the windows before returning downward once more.
"Gen has disappeared."
The words struck him hard, and he straightened instantly.
"What?"
"I am unsure where he has gone." You continued calmly.
Though something beneath your voice betrayed that you already knew far more than you allowed yourself to say aloud.
But Aang noticed the faint tightening around your mouth.
You knew.
Perhaps not the exact destination, nor the details surrounding his departure, but you understood.
And truthfully, so did he.
No servant escaped the estate unnoticed, especially not during the night following such scandal. Guards remained posted throughout every entrance surrounding the manor grounds, and after yesterday's chaos, the household had become even more alert than usual.
Someone had allowed Gen to leave.
Someone had chosen silence.
You understood that already.
Very few people within the estate believed your accusations. Outside of your four maids and Aang himself, the household seemed far more willing to protect the image of a loyal servant than acknowledge the possibility of such ugliness growing quietly beneath their own roof for years.
After all, accepting your truth would require every single one of them to confront the fact that they had welcomed Gen warmly into their lives while never noticing what he truly was.
It was easier to believe you mistaken.
You smiled bitterly, though anger restrained carefully beneath your composure sharpened every word leaving your mouth.
Aang stared at you in disbelief.
"How is that even possible?"
You remained quiet briefly before answering.
"He left behind a letter for my father."
Something cold settled inside Aang's chest.
You laughed once, because your restrained anger had nowhere else left to go.
"He wrote that he no longer felt welcome within the estate after being accused of such terrible things." You explained quietly.
"He reminded father how loyal he remained to my brother all those years, and how even following Renji's death, gratitude alone compelled him to stay within our household despite possessing no obligation to do so any longer."
Your fingers tightened against the blankets gathered over your lap.
"He claimed he had begun viewing me as a younger sister," you continued, "and that hearing such monstrous accusations from someone he cared for so deeply wounded him beyond forgiveness."
Aang felt sick.
You inhaled slowly before continuing once more.
"So rather than burden the household further with scandal, he chose to leave quietly out of respect for the family who once showed kindness to an orphaned servant."
The silence felt suffocating. Then finally, you smiled again. A completely humorless smile.
"Quite touching, is it not?"
Aang remained quiet for several moments after your bitter remark faded into silence.
Then, almost instinctively, his hand moved toward yours.
The touch came carefully this time, being gentle so that he could pull away immediately if needed.
A small part of him loosened with relief when you did not flinch from it the way you had the previous night, though your attention lowered immediately toward where his fingers rested lightly across your bruised wrist.
Without seeming fully aware of it himself, his thumb brushed softly against the discolored skin there, tracing absentminded circles over the injuries.
"I...have an plan." He admitted.
"And you can say no if you want to. I mean it. If you hate it, then I'll help you think of something else instead."
He hesitated briefly before adding—
"But just hear me out first."
You studied him silently, then your eyes drifted back toward his hand resting over yours.
Slowly, you lifted your free hand and placed it gently atop his before carefully guiding his touch away from your wrist. The movement carried no rejection within it, and Aang immediately let you move him without protest while you shifted on the bed.
Your legs slipped carefully over the side of the mattress before your posture straightened properly, forcing you to sit facing him fully now rather than hiding beneath blankets and shadows.
"Thank you, Aang," you murmured softly. "But I sincerely doubt you possess a solution capable of salvaging this situation."
"Like I said, you don't have to agree." He answered quickly.
"It's just..." He hesitated, suddenly uncertain how to phrase it properly. "I don't know how you'd feel about leaving home."
The words startled you visibly.
"Leaving my home?" you repeated slowly, disbelief threading through every syllable.
The very idea sounded impossible. Hujiang had always been your future.
You were born here. Raised here.
Even your eventual marriage would not truly remove you from these lands, merely shift you from your father's estate toward the royal palace waiting farther within the kingdom.
Your entire life had been built around remaining exactly where you belonged.
And yet—
Something within Aang's expression made it painfully clear that the place he imagined for you no longer existed within Hujiang at all.
"Yes," he answered quietly.
"I mean... I don't know if you're still going to marry Prince Jinhai, but—"
Your brows furrowed instantly.
"What precisely does His Highness have to do with this?" You interrupted. "Are you suggesting the prince no longer intends to marry me?"
The offense beneath your voice surprised him immediately.
"No!" Aang exclaimed quickly. "That's not what I meant at all. I just thought maybe if—"
The chamber doors suddenly opened before he could finish.
"My lady..."
Lian stopped abruptly the moment her eyes landed upon Aang kneeling beside your bed.
The older maid's expression hardened instantly before snapping toward Nari standing awkwardly behind her, the younger girl immediately lowering her head guiltily beneath the silent accusation directed her way.
Then Lian addressed Aang directly.
"Avatar Aang," she began firmly, "it would be wise for you to leave the lady's chambers at once. Had another servant discovered you here, the consequences could have—"
"What is in your hand?"
Your quiet interruption cut cleanly through her scolding.
Lian paused, and only then did Aang notice the rolled parchment clutched tightly within her grasp.
The maid's fingers curled instinctively around it.
"It is a letter. Two arrived from the palace moments ago. One addressed to the lord advisor..." She hesitated briefly.
"And the other to you, my lady."
You looked ahead quietly for a moment before speaking again.
"I see. Read it to me."
Lian visibly stiffened.
"My lady, such correspondence is intended for your eyes alone—" She protested carefully,
"I shall not repeat myself, Lian."
Your voice silenced the room instantly.
Lian looked genuinely surprised, because even if she had witnessed your tone, she herself had never been subject to it.
Slowly, reluctantly, she unrolled the parchment within her hands while Aang remained perfectly still beside your bed, his entire attention fixed upon you alone.
My Lady,
I have rewritten this letter more times than I care to admit, and still I find myself unable to place these thoughts into words that do not feel cruel.
For many years, I accepted our betrothal as duty before anything else, yet somewhere along the passing of time, that duty became something far more familiar to me.
Your future beside mine had become so deeply woven into my life that I confess I had long stopped imagining a future in which you were absent from it.
Which is why writing this pains me more than I anticipated.
Had yesterday's events remained private, perhaps matters may have unfolded differently. Yet too many witnessed the aftermath, and the word of your disappearance beside Avatar Aang, followed by Gen's departure from the estate before dawn, reached my father, His Majesty.
I cannot burden him more in his ill state.
I shall continue searching for Gen so that the truth of this matter may finally reveal itself fully, because despite everything, a part of me still wishes to believe your words.
But I would be dishonest if I claimed certainty remains untouched within me.
You disappeared beside another man. You concealed your growing closeness with him from me.
I do not know the full truth of what transpired that evening.
And perhaps that uncertainty itself has become the greatest fracture between us.
You deserve honesty from me at the very least, and honesty compels me to admit that doubt has already settled where unwavering trust ought to have remained between two people promised to one another since childhood.
For that reason, I can no longer proceed with our betrothal.
Please do not mistake this decision for hatred toward you, for I possess none. If anything, I regret deeply that matters arrived at such a conclusion after all the years placed before us.
May the Spirits guide you toward peace in the days ahead.
— Jinhai
Aang could scarcely process the contents of the letter even after Lian's voice fell silent.
Part of him felt ashamed for the relief that had instinctively surfaced inside him the moment Prince Jinhai's words confirmed the broken betrothal.
The reaction itself felt ugly considering the devastation sitting plainly before him, because regardless of what future this might open for his idea, the truth remained that you had just lost the final thing anchoring you to the life you possessed only yesterday.
Your future. Your title. Your place within Hujiang.
Gone within a single letter.
And perhaps what unsettled him most was the realization that only moments earlier, before the maids interrupted, you had already reached the very conclusion he intended suggesting himself.
You had heard him speak of leaving home and immediately assumed Prince Jinhai no longer wished to marry you.
Aang had denied it instantly.
Yet somehow it had become true anyway.
You swallowed visibly before finally speaking.
"Leave us."
Lian hesitated only briefly this time as no argument followed.
The maid rolled the letter shut quietly before bowing her head and exiting the chambers with Nari hurrying silently behind her. The doors closed softly moments later, leaving only yourself and Aang alone within the room.
Then suddenly, you laughed.
The sound startled him.
"So, it appears His Highness found my adventures with the Avatar considerably less charming than you did." You murmured faintly,
Aang immediately shook his head.
"That's not fair."
"Is it not?"
"He should've believed you."
You smiled faintly at that.
"No. He should have trusted me. Belief proves useless once trust has already failed." You corrected quietly
Aang inhaled slowly afterward before finally forcing himself to speak.
"This is what I wanted to talk to you about."
You looked toward him again.
And this time, Aang did not hesitate.
"I'll accept your father's proposal."
The shock crossing your face appeared immediate.
"...What?"
"I'm serious," he continued quickly before you could interrupt.
"Your father wanted us married because he thought it would give you a better future, right? Then maybe we can use that."
You stared at him outright now.
"Aang—"
"You don't have to stay here anymore. That's what I'm trying to say." He pressed on.
Offense sharpened instantly across your expression.
"You believe marriage to you would somehow free me?"
"No, that's not—" Aang stopped himself before trying again more carefully.
"I mean...yes. Kind of. But not in the way you think."
You looked thoroughly unconvinced.
Aang hurried onward before losing his nerve entirely.
"You wouldn't have to leave immediately." He explained.
"Appa still needs time to recover, and I'm not leaving until I find Momo anyway, so nothing has to change right away. But once we're married, your father can't force you into another engagement just because Prince Jinhai backed out."
Your brows furrowed deeply.
"And then what?" You asked quietly.
Aang hesitated briefly before answering honestly.
"Then eventually I leave, but you'd still be my wife, so no one here could really do anything about it." He admitted.
The absurdity of the conversation nearly showed across your face.
"Aang—"
"I know it sounds weird." He interrupted quickly.
"But listen—I'm not asking you to actually be my wife. You don't have to do anything." He rubbed nervously at the back of his neck before continuing.
"You can stay here as long as you want. I'll visit whenever I can, and when you're finally ready to leave Hujiang...You could come to Republic City." His voice softened slightly.
You remained silent.
"You said you admired Toph when I talked about her," he reminded gently. "And Katara too. You liked hearing about how she changed things in the Northern Water Tribe."
A faint smile tugged briefly across his face.
"Katara would help you. Honestly, she'd probably love you."
That finally earned the faintest shift in your expression.
"And once you're settled, once you have your own life and your own place somewhere nobody controls every decision you make..." He exhaled slowly.
"We can end the marriage completely when you wish. You'd be free."
Zuko listened without interrupting you once.
The room had grown almost entirely dark by now, the torch left burning low and the shadows swallowed most of his features whenever he shifted even slightly beside the bed. Still, you could make out the tension lingering across his expression the longer your story unfolded, particularly once Aang entered it.
"He was only trying to help you," Zuko murmured quietly.
The words carried no accusation toward either of you.
He leaned his head back lightly against the side of the mattress, turning his face slightly away from you while staring somewhere toward the darkened ceiling beyond.
"Yes." you answered softly.
"It was an incredibly ambitious idea. One I would never have expected from him." A faint breath escaped you then, almost resembling laughter.
"But I was grateful regardless."
Zuko remained quiet briefly before asking—
"Seeing as how you are here today, I am assuming you agreed."
"Not initially." You paused.
"I actually struck him across the face."
His head turned toward you immediately, visible surprise crossing his features despite everything weighing upon the conversation, you laughed properly for the first time all evening.
"You hit him?"
"It was not one of my finer moments."
"Why?"
The question lingered between you quietly.
"Because it angered me." You admitted honestly.
"Not him. The situation itself." Your fingers tightened faintly against the mattress.
"It was not his responsibility to repair what happened to me. None of it was his fault either, and yet throughout that entire night, a part of me continued wondering how different my life might have remained had he simply never arrived within Hujiang at all."
The confession tasted ugly spoken aloud.
"I blamed his presence for ruining everything." you whispered.
"And I hated myself for it almost immediately because he was the only person trying to help me while everyone else doubted my words."
You inhaled slowly before continuing.
"The moment my hand struck him, I regretted it." Your voice softened further then.
"Because when I looked at him, I realized he had already been blaming himself too."
Zuko's attention remained fixed entirely upon you now.
You swallowed thickly.
"Everyone around me questioned my honesty, My father, the servants, even Jinhai..." Your voice faltered briefly before steadying again.
"And perhaps that was why I finally broke in front of Aang. Because despite everything, he was the only person beside me."
A few tears slipped free before you fully realized they had formed.
You shifted slightly on the bed, pressing your face briefly into the bedding beneath you to hide the evidence of them before finally turning back toward Zuko once more.
"I had not even noticed myself crying at first." You admitted faintly.
"Then suddenly he was holding me while I sat there mourning the fact that my own father abandoned me the moment believing me proved inconvenient."
The bitterness within those words settled heavily between you both.
"I agreed to leave," you whispered quietly, holding Zuko's eyes through the darkness despite the tears still clinging faintly to your lashes, "because for the first time in my life, I understood Hujiang could no longer remain my home."
A bitter smile threatened briefly before fading just as quickly.
"It is a strange thing," you continued softly, "how words written upon paper can alter the course of an entire life. A few strokes of ink, a signature at the bottom, and suddenly every future you had imagined for yourself no longer exists."
You exhaled weakly.
"Gen left behind a letter. Prince Jinhai sent one of his own. Neither man had ever occupied enough of my life to warrant such influence over it, yet their words carried more weight than my own ever did."
The confession lingered heavily between you.
"I think that was the cruelest part." Your voice lowered further. "Not losing my engagement. Not even losing my home."
A quiet breath escaped you.
"It was realizing how easily a letter can decide whether your life belongs to you at all."
The silence stretching afterward should have been the end of it.
Truly, it should have.
You remained lying where you were, your cheek resting against the pillow while Zuko sat beside the bed in the dim lanternlight, both of you too exhausted to continue speaking yet somehow equally unwilling to disturb the strange quietness settling through the room.
Outside the chambers, the palace had long since fallen asleep. Even the servants moving through the halls earlier had disappeared entirely.
Zuko exhaled slowly before lowering his head back against the mattress behind him.
"Aang would be furious if he knew you were telling me all of this instead of him."
The remark carried the faintest trace of dry humor.
You smiled weakly.
"No. He would only grow confused why I shared it with you."
Zuko looked toward you at the exact same time.
From where he sat beside the bed and where you lay turned toward him, there existed barely enough space now for either of you to pretend this still resembled proper conversation.
"You should hate me a little."
The statement arrived so abruptly that you blinked.
"Oh, I do."
A weak chuckle accompanied the remark, though it faded when he failed to return it.
"I am truly sorry for what I said this afternoon." He apologized, and the sadness that crossed his expression felt genuine enough to stir a faint guilt within you.
"You could not have known."
"That remains no excuse."
His answer came immediately.
"I spoke carelessly. Worse, I judged you before understanding the circumstances." His eyes lowered briefly.
"I have spent enough of my life resenting those who did the same to me. I should have known better."
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
"Well, I did tell you that you ought to have been more mindful." You said at last,
The corner of your mouth lifted faintly.
"But I shall not hold it against you. This once."
The warning earned the faintest huff of amusement from him.
"This shall be the final occasion upon which I forgive you so readily."
"You forgive me?" The disbelief in his voice nearly made you laugh.
"Do not sound so surprised."
"I had assumed I would be apologizing for considerably longer." He confessed.
"Perhaps you should." You stated with a taunting smile.
"Still, I have been informed that forgiveness is considered a virtue." You added after a moment
"And who informed you of that?" Zuko questioned, looking away from you, already expecting Aang's name.
"Unfortunately, my father."
A quiet huff escaped him.
"I find that difficult to believe."
You lifted a brow. "And why is that?"
"Because from everything you have told me this evening, he appears to have possessed remarkably little faith in forgiveness."
The observation lingered between you.
Your smile faded slightly.
"He loved me."
The answer arrived immediately.
"He loved me very much."
Zuko did not dispute it.
You had spoken of abandonment, of betrayal, of a father who refused to believe you when it mattered most, and yet there remained no hesitation when speaking of his love.
For a moment, he found himself wondering whether that made the situation better or infinitely worse.
"Perhaps." He conceded quietly.
"He was not a cruel man." You spoke, and your expression softened.
It was painfully obvious to him that you were trying to convince yourself of a lie.
"No, I do not believe he was." Zuko agreed so as to not worsened your mood.
Silence settled once more.
Then—
"But I listened to all of that, and the only thing I could think about was how badly I wished someone had protected you sooner." He said quietly,
The confession settled heavily between you.
You stared at him for a long moment, something tightening painfully inside your chest at the sheer sincerity behind the words.
There was no performance in Zuko. No attempt to charm you. If anything, he sounded almost frustrated with himself for admitting it aloud.
For years, you had grown accustomed to people speaking about what should become of you.
Even your grief had only been met with solutions rather than understanding, every wound treated as something to be managed and endured with dignity rather than simply mourned.
Then Aang had arrived and, somehow, without intending to, disrupted all of it.
You still remembered the way he would listen without immediately offering an answer. The way he seemed far more interested in how something made you feel than in what ought to be done about it.
It had frustrated you at first. Then it had become comforting, and without even noticing, you had grown accustomed to being seen by him.
And tonight, after listening to every humiliating and painful detail of your life unravel, the only thing troubling Zuko seemed to be the fact that no one had stood between you and the suffering.
It left you strangely speechless.
"I am not certain what to say to that." You confessed.
"You need not say anything."
The answer came quietly as his attention remained upon the torch on the wall.
"I only thought it deserved to be said." He admitted.
The room settled into silence once more, one that wasn't the strained silence of strangers struggling to fill empty space.
Your attention drifted toward him, inevitably toward the scar crossing his face.
A scar that had kept you curious ever since you had seen him, one of which you finally knew the suffering behind it.
"Does it still hurt?"
The question escaped before you could reconsider it.
For a moment, Zuko appeared surprised. Then his hand lifted instinctively toward the burn before understanding quietly settled across his expression.
You had not been asking about the scar.
"No," he answered softly.
Something in his voice eased.
"Not anymore."
The reassurance carried more meaning than the words themselves, and whether he intended it or not, it reached far beyond the old burn upon his face.
You nodded slowly.
There was something unexpectedly comforting about that answer, perhaps because both of you understood it had never truly been about the scar at all.
Pain had a way of convincing you it would remain forever, only for time to quietly prove otherwise when you were no longer paying attention. The realization settled gently between you, unspoken yet somehow understood all the same, and neither of you seemed particularly inclined to disturb it with further conversation.
The night had already stripped away more honesty than either of you intended to offer, leaving behind a silence that felt strangely easier to inhabit than words.
You simply stared at each other, finding an odd understanding in your vastly different pasts.
Neither of you moved back.
Neither of you seemed fully conscious of leaning closer either, exhaustion dragging every thought slower than usual while grief and memory and warmth tangled together and you couldn't stop quickly enough.
Then your lips touched.
Softly.
So softly that for one suspended second it barely felt real at all.
You remained there in stunned stillness afterward, your breath caught somewhere painfully high within your chest while warmth spread sharply beneath your skin.
Zuko did not move either. The weight of the moment rested quietly between you both, neither deepening the contact nor breaking it, simply existing there within the terrible intimacy of realizing what had just happened.
Then his hand rose carefully toward your face, the touch against your cheek hesitant and cold, made to undo you entirely.
And without thinking, you shifted upward, closer toward him in return.
Pain shot violently through your shoulder.
A sharp gasp tore from you immediately as agony ripped across your back, wrenching you completely out of the haze. Your body recoiled on instinct while shock crashed into you all at once, your eyes widening as reality finally caught up with what had happened.
Spirits.
Zuko moved instantly, one hand reaching toward your arm to steady you.
"Did your wound reopen—"
"Leave."
The word escaped you too quickly, your voice trembling that it barely sounded like yourself.
Zuko froze.
And then the moment reached him too.
You watched the realization settle across his face in awful silence while he stepped back from the bed, one hand lifting toward his face before stopping midway there, the slight tremor in his fingers visible even within the dimness of the room.
Neither of you spoke.
There was nothing either of you could possibly say that would not make the moment cease to exist.
Zuko walked quietly toward the doors before leaving the chambers without another word.
The torch on the wall flickered once after he was gone, casting the room into shadow before the flame steadied itself again.
You did not sleep for the rest of the night.
chapter twelve coming soon...
a/n: well.
[taglist open] (please mention under the latest chapter or the story masterlist)
currently thinking about: hot parents leon and reader at the family function, a little wine drunk and still stupidly in love after all these years.
can we talk comes on.
you immediately light up like “oh, this is our song!” and start singing the lyrics at your husband from across the room until he finally gives in and pulls you in.
it's not even a real dance dance either — he just slides in behind you with one arm around your waist, your back to his chest while you both sway together to the music. and it’s so, so nostalgic because you’ve done this a thousand times before. completely in you guys’ own little bubble while you sing the words and leaning back into him.
“can we taaaalk, for a minute.” “girl, i waaant, to know, your naame.”
and your kids are in the background like “🙄 oh my god here they go.” because every single time this song comes on y’all start acting like you’re twenty something again
when FIRELORD ZUKO takes a liking to AVATAR AANG'S mysterious new BRIDE.
TORN BETWEEN TWO ROADS ! — aang x reader x zuko
PLOT. republic city is finally at peace, and for once, katara allows herself to hope—maybe now, after everything, she and aang can finally become something real. but when aang returns after eight months, he isn’t alone. he comes back with you at his side, introducing you as his wife. suspicious yet helpless, his friends do their best to welcome you, even as nothing about this sudden marriage makes sense. but while everyone else keeps their distance, one person doesn’t. and perhaps Zuko gets a little too comfortable with the avatar’s new wife.
CHARACTERS. AANG and ZUKO.
CHAPTER WARNINGS. 18+, mdni, smut, angst, hurt with comfort, small argument (i don't think it even counts), penetration sex, no protection (do they even have protection?), my own version of plan b used, pregnancy talks, slightly insecure reader (regarding katara), takes place 10 years after atla, age gaps, reader is 21, established relationship, fem reader, atla spoilers, no spoilers for legend of aang, kinda proofread.
(please check the story masterlist for the story warnings.)
WC. 6.3k.
masterlist : story masterlist
chapter three
a/n: i did end up splitting the chapter, so this one is alllllllll aang <3
p.s: was my ass too dramatic and delusional in this chapter. or am i just a sucker for a yearning aang?
"Hahh ! Hahh !"
A frantic jerk of his hips met every mewl that escaped your lips. His palms, warm and desperate, pressed against you to anchor you to him, driving himself upward.
Your thighs ached, muscles straining as you pressed your legs tightly around his abdomen to maintain your balance. You moved atop him with a swaying grace, your palms flat against his chest.
"Ahh! Aang!"
Your voice was a plea. Reaching down, you caught his hands, guiding them from your waist to your breasts. You squeezed the soft weight of yourself, imploring him to keep his touch there.
"Does it- does it f-feel good?"
Your question broke in the air as you easily found a rhythm, your body struggling to accommodate the fullness of him, the heat of his presence soaking into you.
"Yes! Ahh! Please!"
His response was just as fractured, his composure long since surrendered to the warmth of you.
His hands weighed down on you, smoothing over the swell of your breasts as his fingers rolled rhythmically around the peaks. The friction was searing and intense; it felt as though it were burning through your very bones.
Then, as his hands left your skin to brace firmly against your hips once more, you understood clearly. Aang was on the precipice, teetering on the very brink of his breaking point.
"Are you close? Hahh! Ngh-! Please! Please tell me- Ah! tell me you're close!"
Aang is beseeching, his groans turning mindless as he slurs.
"N-no, my love. Not y-yet."
Your answer only makes things worse for Aang, seeing as how he was close to exploding, the fire within him getting smaller and tighter till the space could no longer contain the heat.
"Please! I can't-! Can't hold on- Ohh!"
His warnings were futile the moment his head was thrown back into the pillow, legs folding up as his thighs came up, letting you support yourself on them, back arching momentarily.
You could feel him crammed inside you, his release warm as his whines grew, eyes begging as they opened again, meeting yours in desperation.
"Ohh! Oh! T-too much!"
You continued your movements, the muscles burning in your legs as you doubled your force, your fingers quick and nimble as they reached between your thighs, aiding you in your own release by adding pressure to your nerves.
"Oh spirits! Please! I can't!"
Aang groans, eyes screwing shut as his fingers dig into your flesh, gripping tighter than the coil currently building in your stomach.
"Just one more...please, my love..." you gasped, your voice trembling with the weight of your impending climax.
"Give me j-just one more."
Aang couldn't find words; he could only offer a frantic, desperate nod as he heaves. He let out a low, guttural moan, his hips stuttering upward to meet your descent even though he had already spent himself.
The friction was overwhelming as you rode the peak of your desire, seeking the shattering release against the velvet warmth of him.
Then finally, the world splintered into light. You arched your back, crying out his name, the waves of pleasure crashing over you.
In the wake of your release, the heightened sensitivity of his body betrayed him; caught in the throes of your ecstasy, Aang felt the pull of a second wave.
With a choked sob of pleasure, he surged into you once more, his body shuddering as he surrendered to another release.
Silence eventually reclaimed the room, save for the ragged synchronicity of your breathing.
As the haze began to lift, you leaned forward. Looking down, you saw him flushed a deep, beautiful crimson, his chest heaving beneath you. His eyes remained blown wide, dazed and exhausted.
A soft chuckle escaped your lips as you lowered your head to rest on his chest, remaining perched atop him in the quiet aftermath.
"Wow," you murmured, tracing the line of his collarbone, "you held out for a lot longer this time..."
"Ouch," Aang breathed, sounding as though you had delivered a stinging rebuke rather than a compliment, though a lopsided grin tugged at his mouth.
You chuckled again, lifting your gaze to meet his dazed expression.
"This takes me back to our first time." You teased, shifting your weight to sit upright once more, your silhouette framed by the dim light.
A groan vibrated through him, and he brought his arms up to shield his eyes from your playful reminiscing.
"Ugh...do not remind me..."
You chuckled at him, leaning forward to place a brief kiss to his cheek.
"Come, let us get cleaned up," you commanded gently.
But Aang merely sank deeper into the pillows, his limbs seemingly made of lead.
"Need a minute..." he pleaded, his voice thick with the lethargy.
"Very well," you conceded.
As you pulled yourself free from his embrace, a small, wounded whine escaped Aang at the loss of your warmth.
But before you could retreat, his arms snaked around your waist, pulling you off balance as you sit once again.
"Rest for a while," he muttered into your skin.
You gave a mock huff, leaning back against his strength.
"I cannot! I have to clean myself and have my tea."
"So many rules..." he sulks, though his grip loosened, allowing you to slip away.
From the tangled sheets, he watched you walk away, his eyes trailing the graceful lines of your bare form.
He noted with a flicker of bewilderment how steady your gait remained, entirely unbothered by the exertion.
Pouting faintly, he let out a huff, unable to understand how you could remain so effortlessly composed while he felt utterly undone.
Once you had finished cleaning up, Aang had followed after you once you vacated the bathroom, moving to clean himself as well. You had quickly asked a maid who was walking past your room to have a hot water and a cup delivered.
As you waited, you retrieved the box of tea leaves, opening it with practiced ease before measuring out a small portion into the infuser. The delicate sphere clicked shut just as a soft knock sounded at the door.
The maid entered without delay, placing the tray upon the table across the room, and you offered her a brief word of thanks before she excused herself just as quickly.
Crossing the room, you set the infuser into the cup and lifted the kettle, pouring the steaming water over it, watching as the color slowly unfurled into the liquid, deepening with each passing second.
You brought the cup to your lips after a few minutes, turning to rest back against the table, the edge pressing lightly into your lower back while you took a careful sip.
The bathroom door opened behind you, and you glanced over your shoulder to find Aang stepping out, a towel secured around his waist as he smoothly walks over to you.
"Does that thing really work?" he asked with a quiet curiosity beneath it. His hand rose to brush a stray strand of hair away from your face before he leaned in to press a kiss to your forehead.
"We have avoided pregnancy thus far," you replied, a faint smile touching your lips. "There is little reason to doubt it now."
Aang only hummed, moving as his shoulder coming to rest beside yours against the table.
"I don't know," he murmured, tilting his head slightly, his thoughts already moving ahead of him.
"Sometimes it feels like...if something is meant to happen, it just will. No matter what you do."
You turned your head slightly toward him, a hint of amusement in your gaze.
"Oh? And you have come to this conclusion just now?"
He huffed a quiet breath, almost sheepish, though his face remained thoughtful.
"Not just now," he said.
"It's just...the way things work sometimes. Like the Avatar."
Your brows drew together faintly. "How so?"
Aang shifted his weight, turning a little more toward you, caught in the trail of his own thoughts.
"I don't think the spirits decide when the next Avatar is born," he said slowly, choosing his words with care and trying to frame his idea correctly.
"I think they wait for it to happen. And when it does...the only thing left is to end the life that came before it."
The words were a lot more heavier than his tone suggested, and you took a few moments to your self to understand what Aang meant.
"So the spirits cannot create life," you said, watching him closely now, "only take it?"
Aang gave an uncertain shrug, his gaze coming to you.
"Maybe," he admitted.
"I don't know if that's the truth...it just feels that way sometimes."
You did not respond immediately, choosing instead to observe him, watching carefully as he turned toward you fully. He looked as though he wanted to say more, a restlessness that had not been there a moment before clear in his eyes.
Before you could make sense of it, he moved, stepping closer until he stood directly in front of you.
You watch him as you lifted the cup once more, intending to take another sip, but his hand came up without warning, stopping the motion midway.
He took the ceramic from your fingers with gently and set it aside on the table beside you, the faint clink of it sounding louder in your mind than it actually did.
"Aang?" you asked, looking up at him, your head tilting as your brows drew together in quiet confusion.
He did not answer.
Instead, he sank to his knees before you, the movement unsuspecting. His arms came around your waist with a weight that felt heavier than his frame allowed one to believe.
His head dropped forward, resting against your stomach, his cheek pressing into the soft fabric of your robe as though seeking refuge within your warmth.
"Why stop life when it is inevitable?" he murmured, his voice almost lost against you.
You inhaled carefully, your hands hovering uncertainly before settling on the edge of the table behind you, bracing yourself against it, both for balance and for thought.
"What are you trying to say, Aang?" you asked, and even though your voice was quieter, it wasn't any less steady.
"I'm not trying to say anything," he replied quickly, though the contradiction lay plainly within the words.
He shifted slightly against you, his grip tightening just a fraction.
"Just...would it be so bad...?"
The implication did not escape you.
You exhaled, your posture easing to allow your weight to rest more fully against the table, your fingers curling against its surface.
"Aang....it was your idea to wait two years."
"I know— I know," he insisted, the words tumbling out, his voice muffled as he pressed closer, hiding his face further against you, avoiding the weight of his own words.
A quiet laugh escaped you despite yourself, your hand lifting to rest on his head.
"What has gotten into you?" you asked, keeping you tone gentle on noticing his hesitant nature.
At that, he pulled away.
The movement was abrupt, and he rose to his full height once more, his hands still stationed at your waist as he looked down at you.
"Everywhere I go," he began, "I see parents with their kids. Teaching them things, guiding them, showing them how the world works. Here, in the Fire Nation, in the Earth Kingdom... everywhere."
For a brief moment, he looked younger. Not the Avatar, just Aang, speaking aloud a dream he had clearly carried for a while.
"And I just think...I'd love that. I'd love to teach someone Air Bending."
The words were out for interpretation, and you nodded slowly, understanding not just the meaning, but where in his heart it had come from.
Then, just as quickly, his expression shifted as his composure faltered, a nervous jitter taking over his face.
"That's not the only reason of course!," he added, his hand rising from your waist to cup your cheek.
"I really do want that life with you."
He was sincere, and you couldn't help but a smile grace your lips.
"I know. But you said you wanted to wait," you reminded him gently, trying not to appear dismissive.
"You said you wanted time for us. To travel, to live, for it to be just us, before anything else."
You continued, anchoring him to his own words.
"And I agreed."
"That is...a reason," Aang admitted, his voice faltering slightly.
"Not the only one..." The rest of his words left unspoken, unsure whether to continue.
You did not let the silence stretch.
"What is the other reason?" you asked, and there was no mistaking the intent behind it, you wanted a clear answer.
Aang sighed, his palm still resting against your cheek, his thumb brushing faintly against your skin.
"I knew that once we settled in Republic City...I wouldn't be able to stay," he said slowly, afraid his admission might offend you.
"Not for long, though. I thought if I gave us those two years, I could figure things out. Make more time and learn how to be around more."
Your expression shifted at that, the weight of a single word settling deeper than the rest.
"What do you mean, you wouldn't be able to stay?" you repeated softly, focusing on the only words that mattered to you.
Aang's gaze flickered, the answer already there, though he hesitated before letting it come.
"Being the Avatar...it doesn't really stop," he said.
"Not after everything that's happened. The world is still healing from the war, and there's always something that needs fixing, somewhere I need to be." His jaw tightened faintly, more so in acceptance and not frustration.
"I knew the time I spent with you...those months away from everything...it would mean I'd have a lot to catch up on."
He paused, the words seemingly no enough for what he was trying to say.
"But I don't regret it," he added firmly.
"Not for a second. It was the first time in a long while that I didn't feel pulled in a hundred different directions. I got to just...be with you."
You listened without interrupting, trying to search beneath the words.
"Were you afraid you'd be an absent father?" you asked after a moment.
Something vulnerable crossed his face then, your words seemed to have pulled at a fear he had already spent far too much time thinking about.
"That's part of it," he admitted, his tone low.
"I thought if I gave it time, that in two years I could sort things out, make sure that when we finally..." His voice trailed off again, words stuck behind his nerves.
His lips pressed together as color rose faintly along his cheeks, betraying the rest of his thought before he could finish it.
Aang stepped closer without a word, his hands bracing against the table behind you, trapping you gently between his arms as he lowered his face into the curve of your neck, hiding the warmth that had crept into his face.
"When it happens..." he murmured against your skin, his voice softer now, less certain but no less sincere.
"...I would be able to take time off, and be there throughout your pregnancy. I want to be there. For everything."
Your breath hitched faintly at that, the words making your heart lurch in your chest before you could steady it.
"Aang..." you whispered, touched by the weight of what he had considered, what he had planned without ever saying it aloud before.
Your hands rose slowly to his shoulders, applying just enough pressure to guide him back. He responded immediately, pulling away, though he did not move far, stopping just enough for your eyes to meet his again, his arms still braced on either side of you.
You lifted your hands to his face then, cupping his cheeks with a gentleness that matched his own earlier touch, holding him there before leaning forward to press a soft kiss to his lips.
You did not pull away immediately, remaining there to feel his warmth linger against your skin while the question you had buried for months finally rose to the surface.
Slowly, you drew back just enough to look at him properly again, your hands still cradling his face.
“How can you love me so much?” you asked, the words leaving you with a tremor you could not conceal.
Aang blinked, very obviously caught off guard by it, and for a moment, he simply shrugged. The gesture was almost boyish with its uncertainty, offering no answer where one was so clearly needed.
Something inside you tightened, the old fear you had tried so desperately to bury beginning to rise again.
"You know," you continued, the undercurrent remaining sharp, "I saw Katara in the city."
The name settled between you, and Aang stilled under its weight, the warmth from moments ago draining quietly from his face.
"I think I understand why you cared for her so deeply."
His expression faltered, the joy draining from it as he searched for a response that just did not come.
And you did not give him time to find one.
"No," you corrected yourself, your voice tightening. "That is not right."
Your eyes held his, unwavering now.
"You love her, don't you?"
He straightened at once, your hands slipping from his face as he reached forward instinctively, his voice breaking through with urgency.
"My love—"
You stepped away before he could finish, the movement cutting him off just as surely as your words had, creating space between you. The table was no longer at your back, nothing to anchor you now except your own resolve.
"I do not understand it," you said, your voice weak as you spoke.
"Back then...I was content. More than that, I was grateful. The man I believed would remain as unrequited love, the one bound to me in a marriage without love, had turned to me and said otherwise."
The words left your lips with difficulty, each one tasting bitter, though you did not stop, the chains circling around your heart loosening in tandem.
"I did not question it." You went on, your composure thinning at the edges.
"I did not allow myself to. I thought if I did, you might remember...where you once stood. Who you once stood beside."
Aang did not move.
"But now," you said, your voice dropping, quieter, more fragile despite your effort to keep it steady, "I know better. I know that you love me."
Your breath came slower now, doing little to steady the rising tension.
"So tell me..." You continued, meeting his gaze fully, refusing to look away, "Why do you love me?"
The question had finally left, feeling as though the weight of it had been physically stripped from your being.
You had felt breathless by the end of your words, despite having spoken so softly. You weren't sure if he had heard you.
Aang had heard every word. Loud and clear.
And he didn't have an answer for you.
"I don't know."
The words landed with a quiet finality, a ringing building in your ear as you fought to keep your expression from breaking.
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"My love..." Aang began, hesitating, the words breaking before he could fully form.
"What?" you cut in, the restraint slipping, your insecurities bleeding through.
"Just say it. Just—" You stopped yourself, feeling yourself falter in spite of your efforts. "Be honest."
Aang held your gaze, and nodded.
"I will be," he said.
"I will be honest and tell you that...for the longest time, when I thought of my future...I saw Katara."
The words landed exactly where you expected them to, yet your jaw still tightened.
This was not new information. You had known it long before this moment, long before you had ever allowed yourself to stand beside him. And yet, hearing it spoken aloud, hearing Aang say it carried a different kind of pain.
"I would think about everything," he continued.
"What our life would look like. How many children we might have. Whether they would take after me, or her. I wondered if they would be Air Benders...or if they would carry her bending instead."
The life he described sounded painfully familiar to him, each word carrying the weight of something he had once wanted with complete certainty.
"I imagined it all. A home, a family...a legacy."
You tried to hold yourself together.
You truly did.
But the tears gathered despite your effort, slipping free before you could stop them, betraying the composure you had fought so hard to maintain.
You saw him shift forward, one step, instinct pulling him toward you, but he stopped himself the moment he caught sight of your expression, the firmness in it enough to make him opt to stay put.
"I can't say those feelings disappeared the moment I met you," he went on, his honesty unwavering even now.
"That wouldn't be true."
You braced yourself, though for what, you were not entirely sure.
"But somehow...they changed," he said, something solemn lined through his voice.
"I didn't notice it at first. But after a while...it was your face I started seeing instead."
Your breath caught again, your gaze lifting back to him, surprise breaking through your sullen face.
"I didn't understand it," he admitted, a faint crease forming between his brows.
"It didn't make sense to me. I felt guilty. I thought...I thought I had betrayed her somehow."
Saying it aloud appeared to unravel him slightly, guilt threading deeper through his words.
"I knew what she felt. I knew she cared about me in the same way, and I couldn't stop thinking that choosing you would hurt her."
He exhaled slowly, the sound heavier than before, his thoughts gathering again before he continued.
"I never figured out when it changed. Or why..." his voice was more subdued now.
"I wish I could say it was something simple...that I saw you once and just knew. Like it was love at first sight. But it wasn't like that." His lips curved faintly, but there was no humor behind it.
"I didn't even realize it was happening until it already had."
He takes a step forward, still hesitant in approaching you, even after you had evidently let your guard down.
"For a while, I thought something was wrong with me," he added, the memory clearly carrying equal parts guilt and fondness.
"I kept finding reasons to be around you. Every moment I had, I wanted to spend it with you." A faint breath escaped him, almost a quiet laugh at himself.
"I even thought maybe you had done something to me. Some kind of...spell. That I couldn't stop thinking about you no matter how hard I tried."
"Aang..."
"I can tell you the truth," Aang said at last, the hesitation gone.
"I can't stop caring for Katara, or any of my friends."
The admission did not waver.
"But I can also tell you this," he continued, taking a step toward you, closing the distance making you draw your eyes upward.
"I love you."
You felt it then, not just by the words alone, but in the way he said them as he stood before you, stripped of everything except what he felt.
"I tried to deny it."
The words continued spilling from him now that he had finally allowed them out.
"Back then, I kept telling myself it was still her. That I just needed time, that I was confused. That we were only married in name, that it would pass." His gaze dropped, unable to hold yours.
"But it didn't. It was already too late."
He drew in a breath, though it did little to steady what came next.
"I'm sorry I can't give you a straight answer," he admitted, the helplessness in his voice sounding crueler to himself than it ever could to you.
"I wish I could explain it properly. I wish I could make it make sense."
His hand lifted unconsciously, pressing against his chest, fingers curling into his skin of his left side.
"All I know is...when I thought about leaving you...I—"
The words faltered as his breath hitched, his hand tightening against himself.
"When I tried to forget what I felt for you..." he continued, though the sentence strained, breaking under its own weight.
You stepped closer without thinking, your concern rising faster than you could contain it.
"Aang...?"
He swallowed hard, his voice breaking as he forced the words out.
"I thought it would kill me."
The confession broke something open.
"Aang!" you cried, the restraint shattering entirely as you closed the distance between you, your arms wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him into you without hesitation.
He bent into you, his posture folding slightly, his arms tightening around your waist as he held onto you with a quiet desperation, his breath uneven against your neck.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, the words rough and strained beneath everything he had been trying to hold back.
"I'm sorry I can't assure you more than that..."
"No," you said quickly, your voice trembling.
"No, I'm the one who should be sorry." You pulled back enough to look at him, your hands rising to his face, wiping at the tears you had not noticed until now.
"I'm sorry to have doubted you. I'm sorry, Aang."
Your touch softened as you held him there, your gaze steady despite the tears still clinging to your lashes.
"I love you," you said quietly.
His breath steadied just enough to answer.
"I love you," he replied, with no hesitation, as he leaned forward, closing the space between you in a kiss that carried everything he had failed to explain.
When you pulled back, the tension that had filled the room had softened.
"Thank you for being honest," you said, your composure returning with a smile.
Aang only nodded, the motion simple as his gaze remained on you a moment longer before he noticed the way your eyes slipped away, a faint shyness settling over your expression.
"What is it?" he asked, curious at your sudden timidness.
You hesitated for a second, then spoke bashfully.
"It seems my way of speaking has begun to influence you," you said, a small smile forming despite everything that had just passed.
"I must admit...it was rather nice to hear you speak like that."
Aang's lips curved into that familiar grin at once, flashing his teeth at you.
"Oh?" he teased, his arms slipping around you again, drawing you closer with an ease that returned as naturally as his breath.
"But if I keep talking like that, I won't be the same guy you fell in love with, will I?"
"No," you replied, looking up at him, your chin resting lightly against his chest as your smile tenderly. "You won't."
And then you perk up as you remember something, leaving his grasp as you held onto his hands.
"Were you serious about us...trying for a child?" you asked at last, the uncertainty in your voice betraying how carefully you had been holding the question back.
Aang's grin appeared instantly.
"Nahhh."
You stared at him flatly.
One look at your face had him straightening immediately.
"I mean—no! Wait, that's not what I meant." He laughed nervously, hands lifting in surrender before he hurried to explain himself.
"I was serious. I swear I was serious." His voice softened after the brief panic, honesty slipping back in easily.
"It's just...something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I wanted to tell you instead of keeping it in my head forever."
You watched him carefully, waiting for the rest.
"And," he continued, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, "I do hope that someday we'll have a lot of kids."
Your brows lifted slightly.
"Really?" you asked. "And how many exactly is 'a lot' to the Avatar?"
Aang considered it with alarming sincerity.
"Maybe five."
The silence that followed was almost laughable.
Slowly—very slowly—you turned your head to look at him properly, disbelief written so plainly across your face that even Aang began to look uncertain.
"Are you serious?"
The worst part was that he still looked completely genuine.
"Yeah," he answered simply.
You stepped away from him at once, crossing the room in long strides until you reached the abandoned cup of tea resting on the table.
Behind you, Aang blinked in shock before scrambling after you.
"H-Hey!" he called, half laughing already.
"You have finally managed to frighten me," you say with a sharp exhale, lifting the forgotten tea and drinking the rest in one go despite how cold it had become.
At that, Aang broke into loud laughter, following after you without hesitation.
"Isn't that cold by now?" he asked between amused breaths.
"It still serves its purpose."
That only made him laugh harder.
"Seriously though," he said, still smiling as he came to stand beside you, his fingers moving thoughtfully against his chin, "is five really that crazy?"
You looked at him in complete disbelief.
"You have my full permission to take a second wife."
Aang gasped dramatically.
"Wow," he said, placing a hand over his chest. "That's so considerate of you, my love."
The teasing barely left his mouth before your palm smacked against his chest.
He only laughed louder as it settled between you, fading naturally, the warmth of it lingered in the room even after the sound itself disappeared.
Aang's smile softened first, eyebrows knitting together before he finally spoke again.
"I can't give you a child right now," he admitted, his voice low once more. "I'm sorry."
Your gaze lifted to him immediately, the apology catching you off guard.
"It's alright, Aang," you assured softly. "I want to wait."
"I know," he said quickly, though there was still strain beneath the words.
"It's just..." His shoulders dropped slightly, exhaustion surfacing through the cracks again.
"I don't know how long you'll have to wait."
You frowned at that.
"What do you mean?"
Aang hesitated for only a second, deciding in that moment to come clean to you and share matters that he definitely shouldn't be speaking of.
"The reason I've been here for the past month is because..." He exhaled slowly, rubbing at the back of his neck yet again forcing the words out.
"The Fire Nation is getting close to a civil war."
The cup nearly slipped from your fingers, and you set it aside before it actually does.
"What?"
"I didn't know how bad things were before I brought you here," he continued quickly.
"If I had known sooner, I never would've asked you to come." His expression tightened, his own regret seeping through.
"Yesterday's meeting was the first time I realized how serious it actually is."
"How serious?" you questioned, your attention entirely fixed on him now as your worry became obvious.
"There hasn't been violence yet," Aang answered, the reassurance coming with little comfort.
"They're still trying to negotiate, and that's a good sign. I'm hoping it stays that way."
"And how long will it take to resolve?"
Aang shook his head.
"I honestly don't know. There are groups rising against Zuko's rule, and every time one issue settles, another pops up somewhere else."
"What do they want?"
Aang let out a breath through his nose.
"He won't tell me."
Your brows pulled together sharply.
"What do you mean he won't tell you? You're the Avatar."
"I know," Aang replied, running a hand over his face.
"I'm supposed to keep balance between the nations, but this..." He paused, struggling to articulate it properly.
"This is different. It's not one nation threatening another. It's a rebellion growing inside the Fire Nation. I don't know how far I'm supposed to step in. And it's harder because Zuko's my friend."
"If you cannot help directly," you said carefully, "then what have you been doing here for a month?"
Aang leaned back against the table, weariness finally becoming visible in full.
"I've been helping him gather allies," he admitted. "Meeting old friends. Talking to leaders across the nations."
You stared at him in disbelief.
"He has the Avatar running errands?"
That earned the faintest huff of laughter from him.
"It sounds bad when you say it like that," he muttered.
"But people trust me. They trust what Team Avatar built after the war. I'm just trying to use that trust to help him."
"And then what?" you pressed softly. "How does any of this end?"
Aang went quiet.
For a long moment, he said nothing at all, his eyes lowering toward the floor before his hand came up to clutch at the side of his head, exhaustion creeping into his countenance.
"I don't know," he admitted honestly. "Right now, I really don't know." Then his eyes lifted to yours again.
"And honestly? I don't want to think about it tonight."
"Aang..."
"I'm just glad you're here," he interrupted gently, the tension in him easing the moment he looked at you properly.
"Where I can see you. Where I know you're safe."
Your chest ached, but you smiled nonetheless.
"I'm glad I'm here too," you answered earnestly.
The heaviness lingered in the room still, just as suffocatingly, and after a brief silence, you decided to pull him away from it before his thoughts start to spiral.
"Aang?" you hummed lightly, your voice carrying something sweeter now.
"Hm?" he answered absentmindedly.
"Do you realize..." Your smile widened slowly. "You are still standing here in nothing but a towel?"
Aang blinked.
"Oh yeah—"
His sentence cut off abruptly into a startled yelp.
"Hey!"
Your laugh rang through the room the moment your fingers tugged at the knot, the towel loosening instantly beneath your hands.
Aang barely caught it in time, clutching the fabric to himself with both hands while staring at you in complete betrayal.
You were already halfway across the room laughing, and Aang's gasp echoed behind you.
"That was evil!" he shouted after you, horrified and amused all at once as he scrambled to keep the towel in place around him before chasing after you.
You moved to the bed, settling yourself with your legs stretched out before you as you watched him.
"Why are still holding on to it? You won't be needing it here..." You suggested, your voice lulling with amusement.
With a slow, deliberate motion, you reached for the knot of your robe, loosening it until the silk fell away, baring yourself to his gaze.
Like a lemur caught in the open, Aang freezes.
His eyes fell to your chest by instinct, only to avert his gaze in that very heartbeat, his cheeks flushing.
"We just took a shower." He reasoned, though his voice lacked the conviction of a true protest.
"Are you saying no?" You tilt your head as folded your knees toward your chest, an invitation that left little to the imagination.
The towel slipped from his hands.
Your giggles became uncontained as Aang moved toward you. The mattress dipped under his weight, his shadow engulfing you.
"I believe..." he began, his voice dropping an octave, his eyes glazing over as they remained fixed on your lips.
"It is my turn to take the lead."
"Is it?" You tease, his eyes meeting your at that.
"Mhm."
"Then," you whispered, a challenge in your eyes, "best of luck to you."
The sky had not yet begun to lighten when Aang woke you up.
The world outside remained wrapped in darkness, the palace still and quiet in those early hours where even the wind seemed to tread softly. A faint chill lingered in the air, though it never quite reached you beneath the warmth of your blankets.
Aang was already awake.
He had been for a while.
Kneeling at your side, he leaned over you slightly, careful not to disturb you too quickly, his thumb brushing slowly across your forehead, moving strands of your hair away from your face tenderly.
"My love..." he murmured gently, barely breaking the silence. "Wake up."
You stirred at his touch before you did to his voice, your nose scrunching faintly as you shifted beneath the sheets, turning instinctively toward him.
Your eyes barely opened, still heavy with sleep, as your body responded first, your arms lifting to wrap around him, pulling him closer to you as his knees hit the side of the bed.
Your cheek pressed against his shoulder, your bare skin warm against his, and you let out a quiet hum of protest, caught between sleep and waking.
"I have to head back to Republic City," he said softly, one hand settling at your back.
"Do you want me to bring you anything from home?"
The word rung in your mind, briefly waking you up more.
Home.
You didn't answer the question, opting to tighten your hold on him, your face pressing further into him as a quiet complaint slipped from your lips.
"You're going back?" you mumbled, your voice soft and slurred with exhaustion.
He only nodded with a hum.
"How unfair. Now that I'm here...you have to leave."
Aang exhaled quietly.
"Yeah, I know." he admitted, almost apologetic as his fingers traced slow lines along your shoulder.
"We just have to be a little patient," he continued, "I'll be back in three days. I promise."
You nod, pulling back to see if you could trace out his face in the dim room.
"...Come back safe," you murmured, not having any requests.
Aang smiled, though you couldn't see it properly.
"I will."
Reluctantly, he eased himself out of your hold, and the loss of his presence was immediate leaving you to feel colder than it had any right to be.
He reached for the blanket, pulling it back up over you properly, tucking it around your shoulders with care.
Then he leaned down and a soft kiss was pressed to your forehead
"Go back to sleep," he whispered. You barely stirred in response, already drifting again.
Aang watched you with a smile, picking up his glider that was leaning against the nightstand, before he quietly made his way out.
chapter five coming soon...
a/n: writing smut for this is so difficult. cause tell me, why am i getting flustered using the usual smut lingo for this story?
[taglist open] (please mention under the latest chapter or the story masterlist)
SUMMARY: You were born a non-bender, but Aang tries to make you feel included.
WARNING(S): fluff, angst
WORD COUNT: 5,197
PAIRING: Adult!Aang x reader
A/N: Hope you like it! Comments and feedback are always welcome.
MASTERLIST
The first time Aang got you out of the house to teach you, he was all smiles.
Bright and hopeful, excited to share something that mattered to him. You don’t think you’d ever seen him look that happy, especially by the fourth attempt.
Airbending.
The others thought you might pick something up eventually. Water, earth, maybe even fire, but nothing ever came of it. And deep down, you knew nothing ever would.
You weren’t a bender.
You weren’t going to wake up one day and move the ground beneath your feet, or shift water with your hands, or throw fire. It wasn’t something you could learn. It wasn’t something anyone could promise you. You weren't born to be able to bend.
But Aang didn’t let it go.
And you didn’t have the heart to take that from him, no matter how much it pained you.
So you let him pull you out of the tower you’d been calling home for years now and take you to the Southern Air Temple.
You’d been there before, back when it was you, Katara, and Sokka, following him around while he showed you around. You’d seen far greater things, but the temple in ruins always settled heavily in your heart. It felt different now. More overgrown. Quieter.
Still beautiful though.
And you knew how much it meant to him.
You ran your hand along one of the columns as you walked, the stone cool under your fingers. You wondered if he ever thought about what this place used to be. If being here made it harder or easier.
“Okay,” Aang says, clapping his hands together as he turns to you. “Airbending. My area of expertise.”
His grin widens. And just like that, he looks like himself again.
You cross your arms loosely, raising a brow at him. “Confident?”
He moves past you, then circles back, positioning himself a few feet away. His posture shifts without him thinking about it. He looks lighter on his feet, shoulders relaxed, arms loose at his sides.
“I have to be,” Aang says easily. “I’ve only been doing this my whole life.” He steps back a little, giving you space. “Besides, you've made it through three trials. You haven't given up.”
“Three failures,” you correct.
“Three attempts,” he says, like it matters.
You sigh, finding your sandals more interesting, the dirt beneath them crunching with every press-down you make. You're pulled out of the hole you begin making up in your mind when Aang claps loudly again. The crack had made you flinch.
“Okay! Airbending isn’t about forcing anything,” he starts. “That’s why it’s hard to explain. You don’t grab it like the earth beneath your feet, or push it like fire. You… move with it.”
You nod, even if you don’t fully get it.
He gestures for you to stand straighter. “Feet apart. Don't stand too stiffly. You don’t want to lock yourself in place.”
You adjust, trying to copy him.
“Good,” he says. “Now, don’t think about making something happen. Just focus on what’s already there.”
“The air,” you say.
“Yeah.” He gives a small nod. “It’s everywhere. You don’t need to have a source like water or earth. You just… connect to it.”
You take a breath, slower this time.
Behind him, the wind moves through the open temple, brushing past the columns, slipping through broken archways. You can feel it on your skin, faint but constant.
“Okay,” he says. “Follow me.”
He steps into motion, slow and controlled. His arms move in a wide circle, like he’s tracing something invisible.
You mirror him. At least, you try to. Your movements feel heavier. Less natural. Like you’re thinking about every step instead of letting it happen.
“Loosen up,” he says gently. “You’re resisting it.”
“I’m not trying to,” you mutter.
“I know...”
You exhale, forcing yourself to relax your shoulders. Your arms follow his again, slower this time, less rigid. You shift, trying to follow what he’s doing again.
“Better?”
“Yeah. That’s good,” he says. “Now just…move your arms. Slow at first.”
You copy him, lifting your hands and pushing them forward in the same motion he just showed you.
Nothing happens.
You try again.
Still nothing.
Aang doesn’t say anything right away. He just watches on, further heightening the fact that you were aware he was observing your every move.
“Try not to think about it too much,” he says after a second.
You let out a small breath. “That’s kind of hard not to, especially when I’m trying to make something happen.”
“I know,” he says. “But if you focus on making it happen, it won’t.”
You glance at him. “That doesn’t sound very helpful.”
He laughs. “It’s true, though. Don’t think on it too much.”
You shake your head a little, but you try again anyway. This time slower.
Less stiff, more loose.
Going with the flow.
For a second, it almost feels right.
Almost.
“Now shift your weight,” he adds. “Don’t stay rooted. Airbenders don’t stand still if they can help it.”
You step lightly to the side, copying the way he moves. He’s already adjusted, already onto the next move before you've barely finished the previous action.
You’re a step behind. Always a step behind. Never able to keep up with the rest of them.
“Okay,” he says. “Now guide it.”
Your arms move through the air, and for a second, you almost think you feel something pulse within your palms.
But it’s gone before you can figure out what it might be.
Probably nothing to be honest.
You drop your hands with a huff. “Yeah. Still nothing.”
Aang steps closer, not an ounce of discouragement on his face. “That’s okay. It takes time. With more practice, you're bound to get something out of it. It gets easier. Trust me.”
“For you maybe,” you say. “You’ve been doing this since you were a kid.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from it.”
You give him a look. “Aang, I can’t move a leaf, I couldn't shift the water from the stream, I couldn't move the stupid pebble that Toph had me attempt to move. Zuko even tried having me light the fire for the camp we set up. We almost froze. I can't move anything!”
“Not yet,” he corrects. Oh, how you wonder where he gets his patience and his calm from? Something you were surely running out of.
You sigh, but there’s no real frustration behind it. Yet, anyway.
He hesitates for a second, then moves behind you. “Can I?” he asks.
You nod. His hands hover near yours before settling lightly over them. Gentle, warm to the touch.
“Let me guide you,” he says.
You feel him push your arms through the same motions as before. Slower this time. More steady.
“Breathe,” he adds quietly. The warmth of his words tickles your ear.
You try to match his pace, his breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
The air moves around you, brushing past your arms, your face. You can feel the wind, how it responds to him. The subtle breeze he lets swim in and out through your hair.
“Feel that?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
You almost laugh at the sensation, but you keep going. Letting your hands move with his instead of trying to lead on your own.
For a second, the motions feel easier. Like you’re not working as hard to exert them, act them out.
There's barely anything happening. Most of which is done by Aang. But the air in front of your hands stirs.
You pause.
“Did you—”
“I saw it,” Aang says quickly, a little quieter now. “Keep going.”
Your focus breaks.
And just like that, it’s gone. You let your arms fall.
“Of course.” You huff in defeat.
Aang doesn’t move away right away. “You felt it, though, right?” he asks.
“Barely.”
“It’s still something.”
You turn your head slightly, glancing back at him. “It only worked because you were helping. I’m not even sure that was me just now.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe you just needed to stop trying so hard.”
You don’t answer that.
After a second, his hands drop away from yours. You miss the warmth of them in an instant. The lack of his touch makes you want to pull him close again.
“Do you want to try again?” he asks. Chin dipping to try and get your eyes to meet his own. They don't. He looks down at the ground before waiting for your response.
You look at your hands, then back at him.
“Maybe later, if that’s okay.”
"It's okay. We can take a break."
-
The hill you found and settled on feels nice and cool underneath your touch as the sun dips.
Long shadows stretch across the mountains, swallowing the land around them, making it quieter. Emptier. At peace.
You and Aang sit side by side, and you disturb a patch of grass by pulling grass stems from the ground. You'd guess your anxiety was to blame for impulsively messing with perfectly good grass. Aang had lain back, eyes darting up at the sky. His thoughts wandering, you'd guess as much, seeing as his fingers stopped tapping against his stomach.
For a while, neither of you speaks.
The wind moves gently through the open air, brushing past softly, reminding you of the reason for being there in the first place. You figured Aang could've been reminded of home. Of everything he lost, but who were you to speak for him?
Aang exhales slowly.
“It’s weird,” he says.
You glance at him. “What is?”
He doesn’t look at you. Just out.
“The sky. The temple, all the antiques we keep finding. Everything.”
His fingers curl slightly against the grass as he sits up.
“I used to think the temples would always feel full,” he admits. “Like, no matter what happened… I could come back, and it’d still feel like home. Still… alive.” There’s a pause. “But it only reminds me of how everyone I've ever known...is gone.”
That lands heavier than anything he’s said all day.
You don’t interrupt. You just listen.
“They’re gone,” he continues, voice quieter now. “The monks. My friends. Gyatso. The stories they all used to tell, the way we used to celebrate, the food we would eat… even the stupid games we played.” A soft, broken laugh slips out of him. “I’m the only one left who remembers any of it.”
Your chest tightens.
“I don’t even know if I remember it right anymore.” He finally looks down at his hands. "I keep thinking that if I die, my culture dies with me. What if I forget something important?” he whispers. “What if it all just… disappears with me? No one but me can carry on my past. My whole life rests in my hands.”
There it is. His fear. It hits you harder than you expected. Because for once, this isn’t about being the Avatar.
This is just a boy, a man now, sitting in the ruins of his home, terrified of being the last voice of his people.
You don’t think. You don’t weigh your next words. You just… say it.
“Then I’ll carry it with you.”
Aang freezes.
You don’t stop.
“I’ll learn it,” you add quickly, heart racing now. “All of it. The stories, the traditions... Whatever you remember, I’ll remember too. I won’t let it disappear.”
He’s staring at you now.
Completely still. Like he’s not sure he heard you right.
“And if you’re worried about it ending…” You hesitate, then push through it anyway, the words tumbling out before you can stop them.
“I’ll give you a legacy.”
The silence falls heavily on you both. You look out into the valley, feeling the wind settle.
And the second it leaves your mouth, you second-guess your words.
Oh.
Oh no.
Your breath catches. “I-I didn’t mean—”
Aang’s expression changes.
“You’d… What?” he asks softly.
You shake your head quickly, heat rushing to your face. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just mean, I mean I did, but not—” you let out a nervous breath, stumbling over yourself. “I just meant I’d help. However you needed, I—”
“You’d give me children?” he interrupts.
That stops you. Your mouth opens agape, then shuts.
His voice is so quiet you almost miss it. You look at him properly now. Really take in the man before you. Give him children? You'd be stupid not to want a family with him.
Something in your chest settles warmly.
“Yeah,” you say, softer this time. “If you wanted me to. The only thing I could really give back.” You release a nervous laugh.
Aang’s eyes search yours, like he’s trying to find any sign of hesitation. Doubt. Anything that screamed that you were just trying to make up for what you lacked in, but you weren't
There isn’t any. Because you meant it. Even if you didn’t take into account how much you did until just now.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says, but there’s no strength behind it. No real push. No malice. Just a hint of genuineness.
“I know,” you reply. A beat. “I want to, though.”
That hits him harder than anything else.
You see it in the way his breath stutters slightly, the way his shoulders drop just a fraction, like something inside him is loosening up for the first time all day.
“You’d really…” he starts, then stops, swallowing. “…you’d learn everything?”
You nod. “Everything you’re willing to teach me.”
For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Then his hand reaches for yours. Slowly, hesitant. Like he’s still asking permission to touch you, when he has every right to. When you don’t pull away, his fingers tighten slightly around yours.
“That means a lot to me, Y/n,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper. "I never even considered the idea of having children right now.
You smile, just a little. “I figured. It looked like your heart stopped for a second there.”
A soft huff of breath leaves him. almost a laugh, but not quite.
The wind returns, gentle once more, curling around the two of you as if it felt the heaviness settle between you. Like it had listened in.
Aang glances down at your joined hands, then back up at you.
For once, he doesn’t try to turn it into a joke right away. He just looks at you.
Like he’s still catching up to what you said and what it means. Not just the words, but the fact that you meant them. That you said them so easily, like it wasn’t something huge you placed in his lap.
It was.
You can tell by the way he keeps holding your hand, squeezing every now and then, like letting go would break up the moment too fast.
“I don’t know what to say,” he admits after a while.
You let out a small breath through your nose. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“I feel like I should.”
“You don’t have to.”
His mouth twitches a little at that, but it fades just as quickly.
“I just…” He looks away for a second, out at the valley below, at the fading light and shadows. “I’ve spent so much time thinking about what I lost that I never really thought about what could still happen. What I could still have.”
Your thumb brushes lightly over his knuckles before you can think better of it. Aang notices. His shoulders loosen again, but not enough.
“You make it sound simple,” he says.
“It’s not simple.”
This turns his attention back on you.
“It’s just not impossible either,” you say quietly. “There’s a difference.”
He studies your face for a second, and you can almost see the thoughts moving behind his eyes. Aang was never very good at hiding what he felt, but this is different. He's less open. More careful. Like he’s afraid of letting this conversation go in the wrong direction. Of making you angry.
“You'd really give me children?” he asks again.
Not because he didn’t hear you the first time. Because he needs to.
You nod once. “Yeah.”
“And learn all of it?”
“Yes.”
“The stories, the customs, the food, the prayers, the weird games—”
You smile a little. “You’re really trying to sell it now.”
That earns a breath of a laugh. Then he goes quiet again.
“Even if you can’t bend?”
There it is. You had a feeling it would come back to that.
You look down at your lap for a second before answering.
“Especially then.”
Aang frowns. You take a breath.
“I can’t give back from the lack of bending,” you say. “I know that. I know I’ll never be part of your culture in the same way you were born into it.” You pause, picking at a blade of grass near your knee. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t love it because it matters to you. It doesn’t mean I can’t help keep it alive. This could be one of the only things I can give back.”
His face changes at that. Softens. Something about those words gets through to him in a way the other words of the gang couldn't. Maybe it's because he knows you’re not saying it to make him feel better.
You’re saying it because you’ve already decided.
“I don’t want you to think this is all you’re good for,” he says after a moment.
You look at him, caught a little off guard.
“What?”
He turns toward you more fully now, his hand tightening around yours.
“The only thing you could really give back?” he repeats softly, using your own words. “Don’t say it like that.”
Heat crawls up your neck in half embarrassment, and half of something else.
“I just meant—”
“I know what you meant.” His voice stays gentle, but there’s something firmer in it now. “But you make it sound like you have to make up for something.”
You open your mouth, then close it. Because there isn’t a clean lie waiting to spill past your lips. Aang notices that too.
“You don’t owe me a legacy,” he says. “And you don’t owe me children just because you can’t bend.”
Your throat tightens a little.
“I know,” you say, but it comes out softer than you intended.
He watches you for another second, then shifts closer, close enough that your heads are leaning against each other.
“You don’t have to try and even the score for what you think you're lacking in,” he says. “Not for me.”
His words land hard. Too hard.
Because some part of you had thought exactly that, even if you didn’t want to say it out loud. That if you could never stand beside the others in the way they did, through bending, through power, through something useful, then maybe you could still give him something that mattered.
Something lasting.
You stare down at your lap for a second, blinking against the sting behind your eyes.
“I didn’t mean for it to sound like that,” you say quietly. “I’m not trying to make up with children for my lack of bending with you.”
“I know.” He says it immediately. Reassurance following his understanding. “I know you’re not.”
It helps. His words. A little.
You breathe out slowly.
“I just hate that I can’t help out sometimes,” you admit. "Heck, even Sokka is out there being a hero... But what can I do?"
Aang goes still. Because he finally understands what’s underneath all of the hurt you've bottled up inside of yourself.
The discouragement after every attempt. The way you'd look away from everyone's eyes after every attempt. The way you'd say it’s fine, when it clearly wasn't.
He shifts again, this time dipping his head enough that he can see your face better.
“What can you do?” he repeats quietly. And it's just him, sitting with the question instead of brushing it off.
You don’t answer right away because you’ve already answered it a hundred times in your head. Nothing, was always your response. He frowns as though the crease in your forehead gave you away.
“You think being a hero is just about bending?” he asks.
You give a small shrug. “It helps.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
You glance at him, a little caught. He doesn’t look away.
“You think Sokka is a hero, but he can't bend?” Aang presses.
You hesitate. “Yes, but—”
“But what?”
You sigh, frustrated now. “But he still does things, Aang. He fights. He plans. He actually contributes when something goes wrong.” You shake your head a little. “When things get bad, I’m just… there.”
The words come out flatter than you meant them to. Like you’ve said them before. To yourself. Too many times.
Aang’s expression tightens.
“You’re not ‘just there,’” he says.
You don’t argue. You don’t agree either. You just look away again.
“Do you remember the canyon?” he asks suddenly.
You frown slightly. “What about it?”
“You were the one who figured out how to settle the feud between the Gan Jin and the Zhang tribes,” he says. “You made them work together to get us out of being eaten by those canyon crawlers.”
“Wasn't that you—”
“And the village near the volcano?” he continues. “You were the one who convinced the villagers that they needed to evacuate.”
You shake your head. “That’s not—”
“And when Appa got hurt,” he adds, quieter now, “you stayed with him the whole night. You looked over him, you lost sleep over it too.”
You go still because you do remember that memory.
You remember thinking it didn’t count. That it wasn’t enough.
“That’s not fighting, though,” you say, softer now.
“No,” Aang agrees. “It’s not.”
He leans in just slightly, not crowding you, just enough that you can’t ignore him.
“But it’s helping.”
You swallow.
“It’s paying attention,” he continues. “It’s seeing things the rest of us miss because we’re too busy trying to win something.”
His voice softens. “And it matters.”
You look at him again because he’s not trying to make you feel better.
He’s not reaching just to say something nice. He means it.
“But when something actually happens—” you start.
“You’re there,” he says, cutting in gently this time. “You don’t run. You don’t hide. You stay.”
Your chest tightens.
“That’s not nothing.”
The wind shifts around you again. You look down at your interlocked hands.
“It doesn’t feel like enough sometimes,” you admit.
Aang nods. “I know.”
That catches you off guard.
“I get that, trust me,” he adds. “I’ve felt that too.”
You blink at him. “You?”
“Yeah.” A small, almost self-conscious smile tugs at his mouth. “Being the Avatar doesn’t automatically make you feel invincible.”
You let out a quiet breath. That… comforts you more than you expected it to.
Aang studies your face for another second, then reaches out again. This time, slower, more deliberate, as he nudges your right cheek with his left hand, before pressing a gentle kiss on it. You don’t pull away.
“I'm sorry if we made you feel that way. You don’t have to be like the rest of us to matter,” he says.
You let that sit. It doesn’t fix everything. But it settles the war that was waged inside you anyway.
“You really believe that?” you ask.
He nods.
“I wouldn’t be sitting here with you if I didn’t.”
That makes you look at him again. A small, uneven smile pulls at your lips.
“You’re really bad at letting people wallow in their self-pity,” you mutter.
He smiles back, softer now. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been told that.”
You huff out a quiet laugh, shaking your head.
"Why do you keep talking like bending is the only part worth carrying on?”
That shuts you up again.
He’s not angry. If anything, he sounds a little sad. A little frustrated that you still can’t see what he’s trying to tell you.
“My people weren’t just airbenders,” he says. “They were monks, teachers, healers. They made toys for kids and baked fruit pies and played games and told stories they’d told a hundred times before.” A small smile pulls at his mouth. “They were annoying sometimes. And stubborn. And really nosy.”
A laugh slips out of you before you can stop it. Aang smiles a little wider when he hears it.
“My culture didn’t live in bending alone,” he says. “It lived in how we treated people. What we believed. How we lived.”
He looks down at your joined hands. “And you’ve been trying to understand that part of me since the day we met.”
Your heart settles.
“So no,” he says softly. “You wouldn’t be giving me the only thing you could offer.”
You swallow.
“Aang…”
“You’d just be giving me more of you.”
His words are so simple they almost hurt. You don’t know what to do with them. So for a second, you do nothing. Then your hand tightens around his. His eyes flick down to it, then back to your face.
You shake your head a little, a laugh leaving you, thin and shaky. “You always know how to make me feel stupid in the nicest way possible.”
That finally gets a real laugh out of him.
“You’re not stupid.”
“Mm.”
“You’re not.” He presses firmly, gently.
You look over at him. “I heard you the first time.”
“Good.”
The breeze picks up around the two of you, cooler now that the sun has dropped. It lifts a few strands of your hair and brushes the fabric on his sleeves.
Aang leans back on one hand, still facing you.
“I think I’d like that,” he says after a while.
You blink. “What part?”
He smiles, small and careful. A beat. “All of it.”
Something in you eases. Not all the way, but enough to let you breathe easier.
“Even if I can't bend?”
He tilts his head, brows furrowing in feigned shock. “You can't bend!”
You let out an offended noise and shove at his shoulder.
He laughs, catching your wrist before you can do it again.
“I’m kidding,” he says.
“You’re not.”
“Okay, maybe a little.”
You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling a lot brighter now, and he is too, and the heaviness from a minute ago doesn’t feel quite so sharp in your chest.
He keeps hold of your wrist for a second longer than he needs to. Long enough for the mood to shift again. Just slightly.
His smile fades first, not into sadness, but something more aware. Serious. You felt it too. The tension.
The way he raised his hand and his thumb brushed once, almost absentmindedly, over the side of your face.
“Aang,” you say softly.
His eyes avert from your lips, falling on your softening gaze.
You lost your train of thought, the words you wanted to say falling off the tip of your tongue. Maybe it was nothing. His name just felt easier than everything else sitting between you.
His eyes search your face anyway.
“Yeah?”
You shake your head, but not because you want to take it back.
“Nothing.”
His mouth curves faintly. “You sure?”
“No.”
He studies you for another moment, then glances out at the valley again.
“You want to stay here tonight,” he says. “If you want, of course.”
You lift a brow. “You mean avoid going back and getting interrogated by Katara?”
“That too.”
You smile. “Tempting.”
“Very. It’s quiet here.”
You look around. The grass. The temple in the far distance, worn down but still standing strong, like Aang.
“It is.”
Aang nods, then looks back at you. Letting the quiet air take over as he took in his favorite view. You. Who went back to pulling at the patch of grass you disrupted, he can't help but let his smile grow.
“I love you.”
There it is again. His plain honesty. It always got the best of you. You feel your face heat up, but there’s no point in pretending you didn't hear him.
“I love you too,” you say, expression timid, but still facing the ground.
His heart beats faster. This was it for him. You were it. All he'd ever want, so long as the universe allowed you and him to last. To be.
His shoulders drop. His mouth softens. He looks younger for a second, and older too. Like the boy and the man he’s still becoming are both sitting right here beside you. Making your head spin and your heart full.
The wind curls between you again. Gentle. Familiar.
And this time, when the silence returns, it doesn’t feel empty.
It feels full.
Aang glances at your joined hands once more, then back at you, his expression almost shy despite everything you’ve just said.
"So you really want children with me?"
"Yes, Aang." Your grin grows as you stifle a laugh.
“Do you want to start...on our legacy?” he asks.
You smile.
“Right now?” you ask.
Aang freezes. “Right now?”
You shrug, biting back another laugh. “You’re the one who asked.”
His brain immediately starts short-circuiting.
“Okay, wait, hold on—” he lets go of your hand just to gesture wildly, before stopping again. “I didn’t mean like right now, right now, I meant like, someday right now. Future right now. Not, this exact moment on a hill—”
You’re fully laughing now.
“Aang—”
“No, because there’s—there’s steps!” he insists, pointing at the ground like the steps might appear if he believes hard enough. “There are definitely steps. We skipped all of them.”
“You asked!”
“I didn’t think you’d say yes that fast!”
You tilt your head. “You wanted me to say no?”
“No!” he says immediately. “No, definitely not that either, just, maybe a warning? A little preparation time?”
You grin. “You’re panicking.”
“I am not panicking,” he says, voice an octave higher than usual. “I am calmly evaluating a very big, important, life thing—”
He stops. Looks at you. You’re still smiling at him like this is the best thing that’s ever happened.
“You’re serious, though,” he says, quieter now.
You nod. “Yeah.”
That does it. He exhales, shoulders dropping, all that frantic energy softening just a little.
“Okay.”
A beat.
“Okay,” he repeats, like he’s trying to convince himself he’s got this.
Then.
“Not right now, though,” he adds quickly.
You laugh. “Not right now.”
“Good,” he says, relieved. “Because I think I’d pass out.”
“You’d pass out?”
“Immediately.”
You bump his shoulder. “Avatar, master of all four elements… defeated by the talk of children.”
He points at you. “You’re the one who started it!”
“You asked!”
“And I regret nothing,” he says quickly, then pauses.
You laugh again, leaning your head against him. He relaxes this time, letting your head rest against his shoulder, still a little flustered but smiling anyway.
“We can start with the easy stuff,” he mutters.
“Like what?”
“Like… teaching you those games I used to play here,” he says. “Much safer.”
Being reborn as the daughter of a psychotic, murderous alien from a comic book you kinda remember reading leads you to having to grit your teeth and play ‘loving daughter’ to avoid having your skull caved in. With daddy issues like that, is it really surprising that you go on to sexually torment the protagonist of said comic book? Not that he seems to mind.
(Mark Grayson x Reader)
Maybe you liked reincarnation and transmigration stories so much because it seemed so inconceivable of it being even close to plausible. Maybe if you knew the sheer fright you would feel in such a story, you wouldn’t have entertained the notion in the first place.
Well, being reborn into what you thought was a fictional world wouldn’t be too bad if you woke up in Pokemon. Now, that sounds like a good time. Getting to leave home as a minor and not having to worry about money when you can just beat the shit out of your fellow trainers seems pretty good, actually. Way better than your actual situation, cruelly so. In fact, you think God or whatever entity-concept-bitch that threw you into a new life should recompense you. Maybe if you monologued hard enough you’d be given what you’re owed—
Are you being dramatic? No. No, you’re not. And if you are, then maybe you’re allowed to be a little obnoxious when you have a bloodied behemoth of a man with a scarred face and metal arm staring down at you, expression not dissimilar to a feral animal with rabies.
Judging by how the screams and sound of buildings collapsing has long gone silent, you suspect that the alien world you were born into was now distinctly lacking its lifeforms. It’s almost a shame. Your new species looked like pretty space elves, like something out of a shut-in nerd’s erotic sci-fi fanfic.
You’re almost disappointed that you have to die as a toddler, you’re pretty sure you were going to grow up to be quite the beauty based on how your new mother looks—
Oh, she’s probably dead too.
You feel like you should be crying right now, but you remain motionless, pinned under the gaze of an apex predator that seeks to maul you, without the right to even grieve.
In the depths of your fractured mind, you realize that this doesn’t seem to be in character for the man, if you can even call him that, before you. You should already be dead, like an ant carelessly crushed by the heel of an uncaring giant. But you’re still alive.
He speaks, and your heart nearly stops.
“So, you are the one that your…mother sought to protect. Once, she was a fine warrior, ravenous and uncaring, but you made her…weak. Pathetic, even. It was almost a mercy to put her down, free her from the sad morsel of flesh she has degraded into.” He leans down now, fully looming above you, your wooden cradle acting less like protection and more like a trap, leaving you unable to escape.
“And for what? To nurture you beyond what her teat can offer—“
Does he have something against breastfeeding?
“—Viltrum had no tolerance, even when it came to weeping babes—“
Oh. You know who’s standing above you now, Negan voice be damned to the worst layer of hell.
“Yet, here you lie, a new generation of our dying empire; weak and disappointing. The only spawn I have sired, the only being in the universe that shares any blood with me—“
Anything else he says is drowned out by your own internal screaming. Your father is Conquest and he's a deadbeat. The unhinged psycho from yet another superhero comic that delights off suffering and broken bones.
But, this information, while horrifying, brings a clarity that washes over you like cold water. You’re currently a toddler, a Viltrumite one, sure, but a toddler, nonetheless, with a pathetic grip and too small limbs, reliant on your now dead mother to care for you. But you’re Conquest’s child. His family, even if the term is a foreign concept to him, and that makes you special. That gives you a chance to survive. You know his isolation, his loneliness. You know how easily Viltrumite pride crumbles when its few survivors found love on Earth, folding like a house of cards. Nolan was the outlier and then the rule.
The way of survival was clear to you, another remanent from your past life; play the fool, stupid and oblivious.
So, you embrace your new body and abandon shame, and throw your hands into the air, making grabby hands at the murderer, asking for ‘uppies’.
(You’d cry later.)
He ends his traumatizing soliloquy, going frighteningly silent.
Yeah. He looks like he’s going to kill you. So, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“Da!” You cry out, giving him a gummy smile.
Maybe you should have just let him kill you.
His face remains as impassive as stone but after another painfully long pause, he reaches down with bloodstained hands and picks you up, holding you from under your arms, large fingers completely covering your ribs.
“You are Viltrumite in blood only, your weakness would have had you purged—“
You let out a childish laugh, innocent and pure, desperate not to get ‘purged’ as he put it, “Silly da!”
That gets him to shut up. You ignore the way he flexes his fingers, the way they dig into your skin, more than capable of crushing your bones—
Your stupid, tiny hands grip his, as if willing—pleading him to not end your second life.
“You are so new to life, so sheltered, you cannot even comprehend who holds you, what I am even capable of doing. Your own mother has been slain by my hand,” he muses. “You truly…perplex me. Do you know who I am by sheer instinct? Does our blood tie us together so intrinsically?”
You kind of want to laugh at how much his words piss you off. What an annoying way to speak. Without even realizing it, your little fingers start to squeeze and you hear his surprised intake of breath. Your hand pulls away, to reveal the beginning of a bruise on his finger.
Oh, fuck.
“So young, and your powers are already appearing? This feeling, is it…” He lets out something similar to a laugh, ugly and unnatural, “There is value to you yet, child.”
He abruptly lets you go, and you fall back into your crib, too shocked to even yelp. Who drops a child!? The only thing you do is stare up at him in shock. He smiles down at you, and you almost piss yourself.
“You…are different. I will not take you with me. Do not fret, for I will be watching.” He promises, expression odd, “The being you will become, so unlike what we should be…I look forward to it. After all, you are mine.”
And as sudden as he appears, he’s gone. And you’re left, feeling slightly bruised, alone in your crib on a now dead planet.
How were you supposed to survive, exactly!?
*
You did survive. It seems like your planet had ties to the Coalition, who only arrived after everyone died. Pretty cowardly, really. But, you can’t really complain since they did retrieve you from your broken home , taking you with them. To fight for their cause, but beggars can’t be choosers in a brutal subversion of superhero media. Why couldn’t you have ended up in Venture Bros?
The cherry on top of this train wreck of a situation is that they immediately clocked you for being a half-Viltrumite, presenting you to their leader, Thaedus. Tad, as you sometimes called him, when you wanted to annoy him.
He trained you, along with many others, who drilled it into you to survive, to be stronger than the Viltrumites that threatened the safety of all life and freedom as you know it. You were their ace in the hole, their hunting dog, the hope of the Coalition. Mongrel and messiah in one. They made sure you were educated, well versed in their code of ethics. That your loyalty would always be to them. Questionable of them to do, frankly speaking, but they kept you clothed and fed, so you had no reason to protest.
The company wasn’t so bad at least. Under the Coalition, you’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of people, from all ends of the universe, some kind, others absolutely terrified of your mere existence.
Allen fell into the former category, always seeking you out, sharing anecdotes from his missions and asking for you to share your own. And with Allen, came Telia, a higher ranking member than you both that you trusted to not spit on you for being ‘Viltrumite scum’ or whatever it was that some practically scornful cadets called you. Little did they know who their leader truly is.
*
You’d figure you wouldn’t see your ‘father’ after he killed your mom, but fate was unkind and Conquest is bat-shit insane. But at least he didn’t rat you out. You still wonder why he annihilated your home planet when you were clearly proof of compatible breeding. Honestly, genocide was a mercy compared to what you know they wanted to do to Earth, what they would probably do to you, if they caught wind. It was for the better they died, unfortunately. Even if their only survivor carried their legacy as recessive genes.
Not that you would ever ask him, even if you did often have the opportunity. Whenever you least expected it, when you were too concentrated on your mission, whether it was peacemaking or inspecting a new planet to add to the Coalition, he would appear, killing whatever adversary you were facing gleefully, expecting your gratitude and admiration for it, so you’d grit your teeth and call him ‘father’, despite the humiliation. You were still too weak, too scared to act how you wanted to. Which was to cave his skull in.
Other times, he would just follow you. Silent, like a spectre. Or a fucked up looking dog.
It was worse when he tried to copy the acts of physical affection you shared with others. His hugs usually broke one or two ribs and his head pats left you with a bump. You’re not even sure how he learned about them in the first place. Other times, they weren’t…too painful, at least.
*
“Child,” he calls after slaughtering the fleet you were leading on a recon mission. “You grow stronger, yet you still lack the true strength of an Viltrumite.”
“Is that so?” You laugh, good natured, noting Shez’s head by your feet. He was your pilot. A good man and father from what little you knew about him.
“Sometimes I wonder if I should have taken you with me, if I still should,” Conquest admits.
“That’s an interesting thought,” you smile stupidly, trying to keep the murder off your face.
“But you are…more interesting like this.” He concludes. And you wonder why someone like him was committing probably the highest level of treason. For some daddy-daughter time? The Empire obviously didn’t do family, bonds were meaningless to them, but apparently not to Conquest anymore. Did the isolation from his race finally get to him? Was he really that simple? That…lonely?
Another long moment of silence passes before he leaves you with your broken ship and dead crew.
“Okay?” You whisper, making eye contact with Shez.
*
You were on your way back to base after surveying a planet of bug people, they had no warriors or weaponry to speak of and their technology was nothing to write home about. Unfortunately, they had nothing to offer to the Coalition. At least that meant Viltrumites would have no interest in them either. No, that sounds wrong——
Your thoughts are cut off when you’re suddenly tackled mid-flight, and before you know it, you find yourself in a stone cube your father apparently dragged around as shelter. A house? Just without a bed. And everything else. It was sad and barren, only having some supplies and what looks like a…cake? On the ground before you, messily frosted a deep red colour. You hope that isn’t blood, actually.
“You told me once how some species choose to celebrate their day of birth. A foolish sentiment,” he rumbles, sitting before you.
You can kind of remember rambling about birthdays. You usually just say whatever pops up in your mind so his thoughts don’t swerve into killing you. The most terrifying thing about him was how we could go from looking like the psycho killer he is to giving you big, sad eyes. It almost humanized him.
“Oh, it’s not my birthday,” you start to say before noticing his expression, “It’s— it’s your birthday?”
“I do not recall when I was born.”
Neither of you say anything for a moment.
“You said there would be singing,” he scowls.
“Oh, well, only sometimes, like rarely, actually—“ you notice his glare, and duck your head. “Happy birthday to you…happy birthday to you…”
*
While you didn’t have to worry about debt or making something of yourself like in your past life, your current life was uniquely difficult.
You were growing wary (and scared) of having to placate your ‘father’. You don’t believe he would snitch to the Empire about your existence, that would be mutually assured destruction, so you were finding little reason to continue your ‘hangouts’ with him and you were beginning to worry if you were impacting the plot too much, god forbid your existence becomes the reason he survives.
So, you’re going to Earth, to hide yourself being the bigger, flashing target that was Mark Grayson. Let him deal with Conquest when the time came.
…and maybe you missed having a home. And the PlayStation, you definitely missed that.
And after years of having Conquest rough you up (break your bones and rupture your organs) to test your might, you weren’t looking forward to him trying to give you some type of sick ‘becoming an adult’ beating.
So, you told Thaedus you were going on leave, a vacation, really. You needed a break from the continued mess that was your life. What better than reliving the mess that was your past life instead? When your biggest worries were meeting the disappointment of your parents rather than having to placate your colonizer father.
“You want to go to Earth…? The planet that inhabits the only other half-Viltrumite we know of, that is currently the Empire’s main focus?” Thaedus blinks at you. "For fun?"
“What, I’m not allowed to sightsee? Take a load off? I see, so I don’t even have the right to take time off! I mean, I’m already a child soldier so I might as well be under Thragg’s rule—“
“And that’s the only reason?” Your fellow Viltrumite interrupts.
“What? Worried I’m going there to revive our dying civilization with Nolan’s son?” you tilt your head, smiling blandly.
And the conversation ended pretty quickly, after that. Not before he tried to once again ask you to bring your sperm doner over to your side. Which was another hard no. You were not going to mess with canon.
At least Allen seemed a little more thrilled.
“They really do grow up so fast,” Allen wipes a tear from his eye. “But, look at you, finally putting yourself out there, getting some work-life balance! Earth will love you! Well, some of them are pretty paranoid after the whole ‘Viltrumite killing thousands’ thing, but you’ll be fine! Just be yourself! Well, maybe not ‘yourself’—“
“Worried?” You tease.
“No, not at all!” He laughs nervously, “It’s just that sometimes you can be just a teensy bit…mean? Which I love! Great banter between us! It’s our thing! But, maybe, the Earthlings will see it as psychological warfare…?”
“Me? Mean? I wouldn’t say that, in fact, others would describe me as nothing but pleasant!” You chortle, disregarding everything he said, and Allen awkwardly joins you, muttering something under his breath that suspiciously sounded like a prayer.
*
Allen told you to just hang around the moon and someone would pop up to greet you. You hope it isn’t the Immortal.
You internally curse when the Immortal appears, rage clear on his face as he shoot’s up, ready to attack. How embarrassing of him, really.
You tackle him back into Earth’s stratosphere in a sudden burst of speed, breathing in sweet, probably polluted air.
“Take me to your leader?” You ask, arms stilled wrapped around his shoulders. “Or better yet, have him head over to me. A welcoming committee would be nice.”
He only lets out another shout, throwing a punch towards your face, so you grab his arm, throwing him over your shoulder before deigning to fly away then waste any more of your time trying to talk to a knockoff…Vandal Savage?
You instead head to New York City, normally known as a magnet for trouble, in any other reality than this one. You definitely stand out in your Coalition uniform, but people barely spare you a second glance from the park bench you’ve currently claimed as yours.
You watch a group of nearby pigeons fight over a hot dog bun before a presence blinks next to you. Honestly, Cecil’s teleportation was comparatively primitive to other civilizations you’ve come across. A lot more wasteful too.
A moment of silence passes and you can at least commend him for taking a seat next to you. You’re sure that he has a bunch of weapons and satellites honed in on you, but it’s brave of him regardless. Maybe you should thank Allen for opening a bridge in the first place. You doubt he’d be as chill if you weren’t wearing your uniform.
“So, I hear you have a Viltrumite problem,” you start, smiling.
“And I should assume you’re not here to add on to that?” He asks wryly. “Not here to spread word of the Viltrum Empire?”
You laughed as if he actually said something funny, “You know that not all of us were raised like that. No, there are outliers that weren’t indoctrinated from birth. Not of pure blood. Me…and Nolan’s kid. Is he too busy to say hi?”
“Extremely.” He narrows his eyes at you, and you can tell you’ve unsettled him. Oh, Mark wasn’t here was he? Looks like little Oliver would be arriving soon.
He meets your gaze, “I’m going to be blunt. I already figured you weren’t a hostile force because of your ‘friend’ already popping by, but I thought your little group was too busy to grant us any aid. So tell me this. What the hell are you doing here? You’ve already gave everyone a heart attack, to do what? Watch birds fight?”
“I’m on vacation,” you reply brightly.
He stares at you. “You’re here…on vacation.”
“Yeah, Allen mentioned Earth was an interesting place, if not a bit…behind. My old planet wasn’t too different actually! I mean before we started stripping it for resources. Don’t worry, everyone was already dead,” you continue. “Honestly, it feels nostalgic being here. In more ways than one.”
“For some reason, I don’t believe you and believe you at the same.” The man rubs his face tiredly, but you don’t take it as him letting his guard down. It’s probably a signal for something, you’re guessing.
“I’m being pretty polite, you know. I could have just came here undetected. I’m fast enough and I have the tech for it, but I wanted to meet you,” you admit, still smiling, though you doubted it was comforting. “You’re in a pretty tough position here, friend. Viltrum believes you can help replenish what they lost and the only reason they haven’t is because Earth is continuously racked with…internal issues. And they trusted Nolan, too much, a mistake you guys made too. Your strongest fighter would die to any Viltrumite, including me. Honestly, feels like you guys just have horrible luck. And it’s not going to get any better.”
“So what? The Coalition is going to back us up now? From what I’ve heard you guys haven’t had much luck against the Viltrumites either,” he retorts and you laugh again, throwing an arm around his shoulder and pulling him against your side. You can feel his tension despite his expression not changing. You doubt he’s ever been manhandled like this. “…awfully friendly, aren’t you?”
You’re being mean. But you have a lot of frustration that you aren’t able to take out against the one that wronged you. So, yes, you’re being a bully right now, making his weak, little heart almost go out, but you’ll make up for it. Someday.
You wonder if Donald is shitting himself right now. “I’ve killed two of them before. Viltrumites, that is.”
“Two?” He sounds unimpressed, but you can tell you only raised your danger level.
“Believe it or not, it was a major loss for them. Painted a target on my head the first time, the second time, they started getting a bit nervous,” you share, “The only way to kill one of us is to be stronger. Plain and simple.”
You’re lying a bit there, but you’re not about to share your weaknesses with him of all people.
“Roundabout way to sell yourself, I thought you were here to…relax,” he says, shifting in your grasp.
“I am, but even off duty, I took an oath to protect, especially when Viltrumites are involved. Don’t think of me as an enemy or something you need to worry about. If they come, I’ll help. And if I’m not fighting whoever they send, and they will send someone, I’ll just be enjoying the sights.” You pat his shoulder before pulling away. “I think we’ll become great friends…sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Cecil.” He’s playing nice, at least. “You can stay, we’ll even fund your…activities. But, the only way you involve yourself in any altercation, you wait for my call. Trust that you’ll be met with immediate consequences if you act out.”
With those final words, he’s gone. You’re amused that he only threatened you after you let go of him. He was definitely placating you the same way you did for your father.
“Some clothes and currency would be nice?” You call out to the sky, aware you’d be monitored during your stay. Voyeurs.
You were definitely going to take advantage of the taxpayers. Sorry, Americans.
*
You let out a sigh of contentment as you emerged from the ocean, heading back to where you left your towel. You’ve seen a lot of beaches over the years, but you never had the chance to actually enjoy any of them. So you figured you’d make sure of a private beach in Australia, uncaring of the actual owners.
Right as you bent down to pick up your towel, you had to dodge an incoming punch from the protagonist himself. Wow, he just got back on Earth and he came to visit you. You’re honoured.
“This isn’t your planet—“ you know he was about to make a speech about how colonization is bad, but he pauses, mouth agape as he takes in your form.
You meet his gaze, tilting your head. Ah, you understand now. In your last life, you weren’t a big fan of revealing outfits, but after interacting with a variety of cultures and species, you were comfortable in your skin, meaning sometimes you liked to wear sexy bikinis that didn’t leave much to the imagination.
“Yes?” You smile.
“Uh, you, uh, I’m not—you’re a Viltrumite!” He barely gets out, obviously going red under his mask.
“You definitely didn’t let Cecil finish before hunting me down, did you? And did he really give you my location before at least saying I’m a friendly Viltrumite like you?” You pout, crossing your arms, already sure Cecil is shouting into his earpiece.
“You—yeah, he’s bringing me up to speed now,” he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “You’re friends with Allen? He didn’t mention you…like at all.”
“Viltrumites aren’t something you can freely talk about,” you reply, “I’m sure you can guess why.”
“Heh, yeah, for sure,” he says awkwardly.
When you don’t say anything, he speaks up again, “You, uh, don’t seem that different from a human. My mom said even my dad took a while to get used to Earth. But you look great— like you’re doing great!”
“Well, compared to the Empire, the Coalition is all about diversity. They made sure I wasn’t an emotionally constipated killer.” You take pity on him and ignore his slip up. A part of you wants to mess with him a bit more, mostly out of envy for him having a human mom and an actual childhood, but that’s twisted even for you. “Did you want to join me?”
Okay, maybe you did have it in you.
“Oh, me? Wow, that’s, wait, no, I have a girlfriend! Oh my god, Amber,” he starts to mumble to himself guiltily. Did he come see you before his girlfriend? You’re flattered, even thought those two are on the brink of a breakup.
“You should get comfortable having me around, Mark.” You mention casually, “Cecil wants me to help whip you into shape. Allen mentioned you were a late bloomer.”
His cheeks flush again much to your glee. “You? But you’re—“
“Doubting me, are you?” In an instant, you’re behind him, kicking his knee in, so he stumbles before whipping around to face you.
Oddly enough rather than offence, he’s giving you the same stupid look as earlier. You look done and let out an ‘ah’. You turn around, arm covering your now bare chest. You weren’t that secure.
“Can you pass me my top?”
In a flash, he’s holding up the piece of fabric, his other hand covering his goggles. For that act of kindness, you pretend not to notice how affected he is by the sight of your tits. Honestly, he’s acting like he’s a virgin, which you know he is not!
*
You’re having the most fun you’ve had in a while, or maybe even the most fun you’ve had in this life.
You get to laze around, eat good food, beat the shit out of Mark for ‘training purposes’. Going on vacation really was the best, especially since you were basically waiting to get drafted to fight in a war. Right now, the best thing to do is nothing.
“You don’t pull punches, do you?” Mark hovers above where you’re perched on a cliffside, watching the sunset after hours of tossing him around.
“That’s what makes me so good at my job,” you grin up at him. Surprisingly, he smiles back at you. You guess being associated with Allen is like a ‘get-out-of-jail’ card here. Well, for now.
“You sure about that? You just smack me around and yell ‘dodge this’,” he teases. “By the way, you’re supposed to warn me before you hit me, not after!”
“I’m Pavlov-ing you. In a good way,” you clarify.
“I don’t thinking saying it’s the ‘good way’ actually makes it good.”
“Hmm, yeah, I guess you’re—dodge this!”
*
“He smells like grape juice,” you breathe, hugging the purple toddler to your chest.
“He doesn’t smell like grape juice just because he’s purple,” Mark retorts, crossing his arms as he watches you nuzzle your face into Oliver’s hair. “I don’t get why you wanted to see him.”
“He’s another halfie, we’re like a super minority right now,” you explain, “And I didn’t really see too many kids growing up.”
“How old are you?” Mark asks suddenly before backtracking, “Oh, wait is that rude to ask? I don’t mean it in a bad way, just curious if, uh, I’ll shut up now.”
“Worried I’m as old as your mom?” You ask. “No, I only recently entered adulthood like you.”
“Cool, cool, cool.” Mark nods, attempting to appear casual. “So, uh, me and Amber broke up.”
That’s earlier than you thought it would happen.
“Why?”
“I’m going to drop out of Upstate, I barely have enough time with the super hero gig and training, as is, forget about actually being able to be there for her. It wasn’t fair to her,” Mark admits. “It felt like we were holding onto something that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“You did sound like a bad partner,” you hum and he shoots you a betrayed look. “But, life isn’t so simple for you. You’ll find your peace eventually, Mark.”
You’ve seen it, after all.
“Oh, uh, thanks.” He rubs his neck sheepishly. It’s a cute habit, you hope it’s one he keeps even if it seems unlikely.
*
“—are you okay?” Mark appears in your vision, bloodied and bruised. “You…scared her off? Uh, asserted your dominance?”
“I’m not a dog,” you grumble, lifting yourself from the sand, as he collapses to sit beside you. “But, yeah, Anissa, was it? Older than us, way older. Any further confrontation between us would have led to more serious injury, so she cut her losses and left. Wish I could have bashed her head in permanently, but there’s always next time. If she was just a little slower…”
“You guys were faster than I thought was possible,” he shakes his head ruefully.
“Experience does count for something. At least, you’re good at taking a beating,” you console.
“Yeah, that definitely makes me feel better.”
“That’s what I’m here for; pina coladas and emotional support,” you grin mockingly before your face falls back into neutral dissatisfaction.
Mark pats your arm, “You’ll get her next time.”
*
“Wow, you really suck at this,” Oliver remarks, watching your character die for the nth time, the two of you sitting on the floor, engaged in the most broken game of all time. You'd rather play a RPG.
“Why do you even like playing shooters? Bullets are literally the most useless thing in space,” you mumble, tossing your controller away.
“Why do you keep playing with my brother when I’m the one that invited you over?” Mark wonders, slumped on the couch behind you.
“She just likes me better,” Oliver brags. “How long are you here for anyway? You said you were just on leave.”
“I’ve literally never taken any day offs, so like ten years, I guess. Or whenever they’re planning to take out the remaining Viltrumites,” you shrug, prompting Oliver to starting ranting about how he’s going to get the most takedowns.
“What are you going to do when it’s over? When there’s no threat?” Mark asks suddenly.
“What? Like, universal peace? I guess the same thing I’m doing right now,” you answer, unsure why he looks so pleased. Dork.
“Then I guess I’ll have to get to work,” he says as if he could just achieve it like that. Well, he would, but doesn’t know that.
“Maybe win a fight first.”
“Ohhhh!”
“Shut up, Oliver.”
*
Shit was going down. It was the average Ao3 user’s wet dream. Dozens of morally dubious Marks fucking everything up.
And, you were having your (Y/N) moment. And letting out some steam through violence. You can only blame your genetics.
“I’m gonna be real with you, babe, this is the most fun I’ve ever had,” a variant wearing a mask without lenses, revealing stupid Bambi eyes, admits, nose bleeding, staining his teeth red when he smiles.
“Aw, you’re going to make me blush,” you giggle after bringing a knee to his face.
“No, really! I thought the only kinda cool thing I could do was kill the Guardians again, but that was a bust! When you tackled me into a mountain, I think I got, like, a gratitude boner or something!” He exclaims, what a manic sweetheart he is. And he should be grateful, you saved him from having to survive the horrors alongside Darkwing Jr.
“Wow, you’re actually being serious about the boner thing,” you comment, doing your best to look into his eyes, and not at his—
“What can I say? You just do it for me, baby, maybe it’s your penchant for punching the shit out of me. Or maybe it’s those pretty legs of yours,” he admits shamelessly, “Actually, do you own any fishnet—“
You punch him into the ground and watch him bounce, but he only lifts his head to look at you like a lovesick puppy. “Marry me?
Okay, that’s enough. The sadomasochism thing was mostly a joke. He can get cannibalized. You’re pretty sure Rex is about to sacrifice himself and take that as an excuse to dip.
*
The day you’ve been dreading. Conquest’s arrival, and you do not want to stand ready for it.
People (and dogs) are going to die. Mark and Eve are going to get mutilated. And you don’t think you can live with that happening on your watch.
So when Cecil calls you for backup, you don’t ignore him. You cry a little, but you go.
When you see him about to tear Oliver in half, you dive down from the sky, landing a kick against his back, forcing him to drop Oliver, you’re barely able to catch him, watching Conquest land a couple feet away.
“That’s enough,” you declare, gently setting the boy down for retrieval, trusting Cecil to take care of him, and approach your father.
“It looks like you’ve improved at hide and seek, it’s been months since I’ve seen you, and you’re here? Your softness…I can only take responsibility for it,” he tells you, quiet compared to the devastation around you. His hand cradles your cheek when you’re close enough, gentler than he’s ever been with you. You raise an eyebrow at the absurdity. Did he miss you that much?
“That’s right, it’s your fault. You could have taken me in at any time, let me be molded into a ‘true Viltrumite’, but you didn’t. Why? All that loyalty to them but you falter now? I don’t understand,” you admit. “Families don’t exist for our people. You want me to be strong, but not enough that I be trained like the rest of you.”
“You were the only one to ever smile at me,” he states simply.
You really hated when you felt bad for him.
Your little moment is interrupted when you hear Mark shout.
“Get away from her!” You raise a hand, stopping his charge as he stares at you in confusion.
“Father, what are you doing? I thought maybe you wanted me to be the one to kill you, but it’s that not that,” you exhale steadily before continuing, “The day you didn’t kill me or take me, you became a traitor. You don’t care about the Empire, clearly, and based on the way you keep following me around like a sad, old dog, there’s more to you than just wanting to fight. What do you want?”
“I want you to live as you always have, without the influence of anyone but myself,” he says. “That way, you can still bear to look at me. That matters more than anything else. Treachery or even destroying this planet, it doesn't matter what I do, so you must remain as yourself.”
That’s almost sweet.
“I came here to drench myself in blood, but now, I will crush this planet against my heel, even if it’s against the Empire’s wishes, for attaching itself to you like a parasite, wasting away your potential and time,” he vows. “I will liberate you from this weakness.”
What?
“What!?” Mark, who was previously stuck in a shellshocked state, shouts.
Your father turns back to Mark, glee gone from his face, replaced with a look of loathing. Before he can move, you wrap your arms around him, feeling him stiffen in shock, as he stares down at you.
“Father! Dad! Dad, you’re right, I’ve gotten attached to this place, for better or worse. Maybe that makes me weak. But, I’m okay with that,” you nervously ramble, clutching onto the man like a lifeline, even thought you have to resist the urge to start shaking. You need to come up with something quick. “The truth is…that I want to start a life here. On a planet where blood and bonds ties us together, where families are forged. Because I’m…”
You silently apologize to Mark.
“I’m with child. Nolan’s son is the father,” you lie, looking your father in the eye. “Here, parents raise their child. They spend every day with them. And…and grandparents are very involved! They just pop up and spoil their grandkids…and that’s totally something I want.”
“A child?” Your father brokenly gasps, looking back at Oliver’s battered form.
“No, that’s not—obviously not! I meant, in my womb, dad!” You yell, pulling away.
He stares at your stomach like you have a bomb strapped to you. He stumbles back before flying away, concrete breaking under the impact. You wonder if canon even matters anymore.
You’ve saved thousands, but at what cost?
Mark finally regains the ability to speak, “We’re pregnant!?”
“I lie when I'm scared, Mark! You should know that!”
*
When you exit the washroom after a very long shower, you’re not surprised to find Mark in your hotel suite, awkward lounging on your bed, staring a bit too long at your fluffy bathrobe for it to be an admiring gaze.
“How was Rex’s going away party?” You ask, sitting next to him, crossing your bare legs.
“Great, I’m happy for him. They missed you, actually. Rex wanted to thank you for taking down that variant,” he smiles, and you take note that most of his injuries have already healed. You stopped the worst of it. “Rae too, looks like they’re a thing now. Didn’t see that coming.”
You hum, an urge to bully him hitting you. You turn to face him, “Do you want to have sex?”
“S-shouldn’t I buy you dinner or take you to a movie first?” He blurts out.
“You wanna take me out?” You ask.
“Yes, of course, I think we’re doing things a little…out of order?” He says. “I mean, sex is also, hmn, good. Really good.
“I was just thinking you should put a baby in me before Conquest comes back,” you explain casually. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. I figured we might as well go along with it.”
He chokes, and you bite back a smile.
He’s too easy.
“You don’t have to. It’s a better alternative than fighting him, but we can figure it out,” you continue, “Maybe we could—“
You’re cut off when he presses his lips against yours, hands cradling the back of your head. Any noise you make is swallowed by him. He pulls away, nose brushing against yours.
“Let’s do it,” he declares.
“Uh, I think your line is supposed to be ‘that’s crazy’ or ‘how can we have a baby’,” you reply, face feeling hot at his sudden boldness.
“I mean, it’s like you said, it’s the best alternative. I’d rather have Grandpa Conquest showing up than the bloodthirsty version,” he says, hand already moving to untie your robe.
“Dude, no way do you want a baby,” you blanch. Is this a game of chicken? Are you losing said game of chicken?
“We can at least try,” he says dragging you further up the bed. “And we can figure out the money thing. I wouldn't let the mother of my child go hungry."
“Well, uh, I mean, it wouldn’t hurt to try,” you bite your lip before he pushes you down by the shoulders, climbing atop you, pressing his mouth against your neck.
“We’re doing this for Earth,” he mumbles in between his sucking and biting.
“For peace,” you agree, a little breathless.
This was either going to cause Cecil a stroke or be some good wank material.
*
“I think I might be a little obsessed with you,” he admits from in between your thighs, face drenched.
Join the club, you think delirious.
Mc’s mom looking up from hell to see Conquest doing the same thing he shamed her for; loving their daughter: I’m going to rip his dick off
*
Mc:
Thaedus: what have you done
*
Cecil, after meeting mc: mass suicide?
*
Mc, bullying Cecil because she can’t kill her dad: damn I need therapy
Mc: I’m going to physically intimidate that old man again.
*
Mc, sobbing after hearing someone sing ‘happy birthday’:
Mark, the ‘someone’: I’m…sorry??
*
Mark: so you’re not pregnant 😔
Oliver, lying a couple feet away, bleeding out: can you do this shit somewhere else
*
Mark: why is that variant still here…and why is he holding roses
Mc: should we keep him as a dog or something
Mark: no??
*
GDA admins, after basically creating a sex tape: delete…or save🤭
*
Conquest: where is the womb??? Where is my grandchild being held!?
I feel like whenever I come up with a title before I actually write a fic, I end up changing everything and doing a rewrite, which is what happened here…I decided to make mc apart of the coalition rather than the empire, creating a more estranged relationship, the only way love could form since it would impossible if mc was raised the Viltrumite way…anyone still around from when I made the original poll? I prefer this version more since there’s more freedom to write the mcs personality when they’re not part of a regime
Anyway even the style of the fic changed from being manwha adjacent to becoming a mix of Gintama/adult swin humour lol
But yay over 6.6k words ughh lemme know about any errors, I’m so bad at editing
cw: fluff. suggestive a teeny tiny bit. self indulgent. could have continued forever. i might just.
it’s always warm and cosy in the fire lord’s private chambers. red silk sheets rest languidly on your waist as you lay bare on his chest. his arms, thick and solid, are loose at your back but you know how quick they’d tense if anyone was to storm in here.
but they wouldn’t. with it being a little after midnight, all of zuko’s fire lord duties are over and your duties being an earthbender in ba sing se continuing sometime midday, it feels like you have forever in his arms.
the air still smells of sweaty hot sex, which you just enjoyed a few moments ago with a mix of petrichor. warm, comforting and grounding.
you rest your head in your palm, your elbow digging into his cotton mattress and zuko’s honey amber eyes only drift to your exposed chest for a second, okay two, then he meets yours.
“hm? why’re you looking at me?” he rubs up at down your back soothingly and you sigh wistfully.
you brush his long onyx hair off his pectoral, out of his face and behind his ear to reveal his scarred eye. the sight of his complete face. pouty lips, glowing eyes. stupidly straight jaw and slightly crooked nose (apparently he broke it once as a child). it all makes you want to kick your feet in the air and giggle. but you hold it together, you’re a lady somewhat. eh, not really.
“it’s my granny’s birthday this weekend,” you drawl, looping your finger around a lock of his hair. you hold it straight underneath your nose like a moustache just so you can see his eyes quirk in amusement.
“i thought your grandparents were dead?” he asks, robust yet tender like the flames he uses to reheat your cold teas.
you let go of his hair, slapping his arm lightly.
“my blood grandparents, yes. i’m talking about my granny! she’s looked after everybody since we were babies. i’ve never known life without her.”
zuko hums, listening and unmoving.
“how old is she turning?”
“one hundred and eighteen. impressive, right?”
zuko pouts at you out of habit. just because you’re so close and he’s right there. you meet his lips in a wet smack, stretching your leg to rest over his lower stomach.
“you want me to come to her birthday i’m assuming?” he cocks his head slightly, picking an eyelash off your cheek.
that bluntness, the obvious statement now held between you both, makes you horribly shy. instead of his eyes, you’re looking at his nose. grumbling to yourself.
having a relationship with the fire lord, whilst you were a earthbender (one of the best, might you add!) from one of the smallest tribes wasn’t the easiest. for one, you knew the fire council wasn’t the most supportive with wanting fire royalty to stay firebenders, your dates would occasionally come with an entourage of help and your schedules often proved difficult to line up.
though you and zuko made it work, which lead you to the next stage. introducing him to your tribe.
“everyone’s inviting their boyfriends. a few have some from different tribes and kingdoms!” you draw your finger along his hard chest making incoherent shapes, missing out the clear fact that none of them are royalty, however. it’s a slow whisper, “i want you to be there too.”
your hand is snatched from his chest, curled into a fist and your knuckles are pressed against his lips. the eye contact alone gets your stomach swirling with lust. your leg hitches higher on his chest.
“i’ll be there. for sure.”
your smile could light up the night sky. could rule the tide and guide boats home. zuko finds it difficult to say no to you, especially when all your wants and asks are pretty much within his means. besides getting you a flying bison. he still hasn’t broken the news that it’s not likely you can have one since neither of you are airbenders. anyway.
but to you, as much as you love the luxuries his life can provide, you don’t see him as the royal fire lord. you treat him casually, like his friends do and at this earth tribe party, his only title will be yours. it’s times when you try to demand him to return back to bed in the morning that will always drive him crazy. these aren’t dynamics that are supposed to work, but they do.
“okay,” you roll your lips in, then out before flinging your whole body onto him in an embrace. it’s easy. how his arms circle around your smaller frame, your face tucking into his neck to place a kiss and how his gravely chuckle jumps out of him.
“okay, okay,” he squeezes your asscheek playfully, “what does your granny like? i can go down to the market and get her a few things.”
“you don’t need to get a gift, zu. i’m making her a bracelet that can be from the both of us.”
zuko’s grin doesn’t let up. the idea that even though he is your boyfriend, he will turn up empty handed and name your gift as his?
“sweet, but i’m not doing that. heavens forbid.”
you roll your eyes but lay your lips over his in a kiss which only turns into him pushing you onto your back into his bed and opening your legs so he can slot between them.
on the day of your granny’s birthday, you meet zuko without his entourage outside of your home.
“hello baby.”
you pause for half a second before resuming your pace. that doesn’t last long until you’re jogging up to meet zuko, just to look at him closer and faster.
“hi! you look adorable,” you coo and he doesn’t swat away your fluttering hand. he lets you cup his cheek, your eyes gazing all the way down his body.
he’s still in fire nation robes, but civilian ones. he stands before you, in your kingdom, sans a crown or any golden jewellery, his armour off. just burgundy trousers, black boots, a classic grey long sleeve undershirt and a maroon tunic on top. you know the fire insignia will be sewn on the inside of the sleeves if you had a look. the gold thread on the collar and ends of his undershirt are the only signs of wealth and quality. aside from that, he appears to just be your firebending boyfriend, going to an elder’s birthday.
zuko’s got his hair all up in a bun, one he’s embarrassed to have attempted numerous times to get perfect, so you looking at him with gooey eyes causes him to puff out his chest in pride. he lets a few hairs frame his face and like always, you tuck the side that covers his scarred eye behind his ear. the one thing that will always make it difficult to not mistake him for being the fire lord.
you’re too engrossed in his appearance to notice the wooden box he’s holding, about the width of his chest and four inches outwards.
“you look beautiful,” he hums, bending down to meet your face, “kiss me hello, princess.”
“thank you, kind sir,” you play, slinking your arms around his neck as he adjusts to hold the box on one hip.
outside your quiet apartment, zuko slips his tongue into your mouth, pulling you to him with a bare hand on the sliver of skin exposed from your sage bandeau and loose brown linen trousers. he grunts into the kiss, feeling the rumble of his large body with your hand on his chest.
“i’m so nervous for this,” he whispers against your lips, pulling you back in by sucking your tongue. you don’t have to reply before you’re practically moaning into his mouth, careful not to mess up his bun with the desperate need to rake your fingers over his scalp.
you manage to pull away, slightly breathless, “no, you don’t have to be! i’ve told everyone i’m bringing someone.”
he drops his head to your shoulder with a sigh, “but do they know it’s me?”
you smile, just a tiny one, “they’ve never met you.”
he growls into your neck, “you know what i’m asking.”
“do they know you’re the great and powerful fire lord?” he pokes your side and you yelp in a giggle, “two of my friends know of you. but nobody knows you but me.”
zuko lifts his head.
“nobody knows zuko, my zuko.”
he exhales, rubs his hand down his face.
“if i love you, so will everyone else,” you comfort, taking his hand in yours to start walking to the party, “now what’s in the box?”
the only people that mention zuko being the fire lord are a group of your little cousins who run circles around him, pulling at his maroon garments to get his attention.
there’s three of them— all missing teeth, holding stones to practice earthbending and full of questions for your boyfriend.
“are you the fire lord? you look like him!”
“no. he doesn’t have the crown.”
“but he’s only got one eyebrow,” your cousin points to their own eyebrows, “see, we have two.”
“is it true you know the avatar?”
“can i see some fire tricks? i can show you my earthbending!” complete with your cousin throwing her rocks in the air and them all plopping onto the ground with a clonk.
“zuko can talk to you all later about firebending. now where’s great granny?”
amongst all the balloons, banners and food, you follow the little fingers to the back where there is a stone stool, covered in forest coloured cushions and orange flowers. your granny is seated right in the middle, surrounded the older members of the tribe and all your agemates.
zuko smiles at the kids, lays his palm out in front of him to show off a quick small burst of fire. they all release a chorus of wows. “i’ll show you later if my lady here lets me.”
you roll your eyes, grabbing his heated palm as the kids squeal, “c’mon!”
zuko’s grip gets tighter when you near your family. all in multiple different shades of mossy green to honey yellows with the earth insignia at the sleeves.
“happy birthday granny!” you squeal, letting go of zuko to kiss your granny’s wrinkled yet soft cheek and hold her calloused hands. “are you enjoying your day?”
“my dear, i’m happy to see you’ve made it,” she squeezes your fingertips, crinkled eyes squinting up at you. there’s screams of kids in the background, the teens playing further back and your siblings chatting at one of the tables. but in the presence of your granny, your world stills, listening to every word she says.
“of course!” then you gesture zuko to come forward. he does cautiously, bowing lightly to your granny, the woman who’s taken part in raising you your whole life. “this is zuko,” then you giggle girlishly, “i think he’s the love of my life.”
you tell zuko this often, without the i think at the beginning. wrapped in his arms in bed, sugar dusted confessions beneath the sheets or when you take walks along the ocean at midnight. a few times it’s slipped out when he served you plates of food in front of his friends and every single time, he ends up with cheeks as red as his clothes.
“is it now? let me see this boy.”
zuko takes that as his turn to talk, hoping the sweat along his brow isn’t reflecting in the sun, “hello granny. it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
the smile your granny had for you falls, eyeing down the man you brought with you. you watch as she runs her eyes over his clothing, the golden stitching of his undershirt, his new freshly ironed robes. then his eye, the raised reddened skin around it.
“is this the fire lord?” she asks you and zuko’s wide pupils bounce to yours.
“that’s just his day job—,”
“do you love my child?” she presses, her attention back on zuko.
even you can’t judge where she’s going with this, your posture straightening as you await zuko’s answer, like there’s a possibility he will deny you in front of everyone you love.
it seems to be the easiest question of the day as zuko, still holding his gift, nods. “of course, with my whole heart. the easiest thing i’ve ever done.”
“awe,” you whisper and zuko grabs your hand with an ease unlike before.
one of your (rather annoying) aunties butt in, arms folded, seizing up the fire lord. “yn is one of our most beautiful women.”
“yn’s beauty is the least interesting thing about her.”
it’s as if the whole tribe goes silent, not quite understanding what zuko means. though here you see the qualities of the fire lord rise to the surface with the speed of a wildfire.
he stands tall, straight, rubbing his thumb on the back of your hand.
your granny squints with questioning, while your aunties gather with furrowed brows.
“yn is strong, kind and an intellectual. strong with her bending, strong in her willpower, strong to handle everything life throws at her and still stays by me day after day. the kindest human i’ve ever met. i’ve never seen her think about herself first and she’s shown me love in a way i’ve missed my whole life.” he kisses your palm, “checks for my wounds, offers to manage my accounts. then the smartest smartest person. proves me wrong daily, knows the most random facts and could rule a kingdom if she wanted. though she’d never admit it.”
you swat his arm at that, shyly looking to the ground, “stop zu!”
he laughs, his amber eyes are the softest they’ve ever been. he looks nothing like the fire lord who sits on his throne with the layers of robes and heavy golden jewellery. here he looks like a local boy from another nation, convincing his family he’s made for you.
“but also yes, yn is beautiful. i knew from the day i saw her that i’d love her.”
there’s a range of emotions on the members of your tribe. some with watery eyes, others with gleeful smiles. a few in awe, at the fire lord so effortlessly baring his soul for you in front of everyone who loves you.
“hm,” your granny huffs but you don’t miss the crescent moon smiles in her eyes, “you’d look good in green. yn you must have a shawl you can give him. a scarf?”
a peace offering. you chuckle, nodding unable to take your eyes off zuko, “yes i can, if he wants?”
earth nation robes reminds zuko of a specific period of his youth. he did look good in them. “sure. a shade that goes with the red.”
“also, i got this as a gift for you,” zuko bows when he hands the box to your granny, lightly settling it on her lap.
your granny loves a gift, a fact you didn’t mention to zuko because you knew it would only stress him out more. “oh! you didn’t have to, my boy.”
zuko glances over at you, in shock already. my boy? you shrug playfully.
“delicacies from my kingdom.”
the wooden chest is opened to find cheeses, fruits and chocolate over green fabric. some foods you’ve yet to even try. you point to a chocolate in the corner, white chocolate stripes over a block of milk chocolate.
“that one looks tasty!”
but you’re forgotten as your granny takes zuko’s hand with a greedy smile, you’re wondering if your boyfriend is about to get poached. “what a thoughtful gift. i will be trying these all.”
“everyone loves you here,” you whisper to him as you drunkenly sway to the music your family members play in the distance. “almost as much as i do.”
after practically sharing zuko with every mother, father, auntie, uncle, cousin and your granny who even told your boyfriend to pull up a chair after dinner to talk, finally they’ve given him back to you.
all in one green and red piece.
he’s only had a few drinks, nothing close to how many you’ve thrown back but with your tribe, you’ve always been able to relax. for zuko, it’s the first time he’s ever seen you so… yourself in public.
you’re not overthinking every comment you make. your laughs are booming, not covering your mouth. you also inhale all the food on the tables, swearing it’s better than anything he’s ever tasted because your tribe made it.
you’ve danced with every family member, dragged him away from your cousins when he had to answer his twentieth question about the avatar but just as you get him, your teen cousins ask him to spar. this time you fold your arms in front of zuko, protecting him from their weedy selves, “he’s here for granny and me! not to fight you!”
“sorry, have to listen to the misses here.” he pipes up.
so in zuko’s arms, away from your tribe, you appreciate the reprieve they give.
“how about i give up being the fire lord and just become your husband here?” he chuckles, kissing your forehead as he sways you to the music. zuko’s hands appropriately stay on your hips, despite the desperate want to grope you just a little.
you stare at him with wet round eyes, bottom lip jutted out, “don’t tempt me and you better not be proposing to me here.”
you’re pretty with the candle lights surrounding you, braided hair dancing to the opposite way of your hips. there’s even a daffodil tucked into a braid by an auntie earlier. the more you’ve drunk, zuko’s been on watch that your skirt is still facing the correct way and your bandeau isn’t revealing too much cleavage that you’d usually allow. every clothing adjustment attempt zuko’s made has been met with a deviant smirk from you.
you’re about to kiss him, yank his hair out of his bun and have his gorgeous locks flow all around his face. instead you have to throw up a wall of dirt when a little cousin comes zooming to your feet. “go back to auntie! zuko’s mine now.”
there’s a loud whine when the kid spins around, pottering back off.
“i’m not proposing to you now. you’ll know when i’m proposing to you.” he hums, kissing your cheek, pulling you tight to his chest. he inhales your hair like he always does, peppermint and wafts of orange.
“okay. not now though, i’m not ready yet,” you tell him firmly and zuko’s smile stays put. he nods in understanding. “i loved your little speech earlier.”
his cheeks beam a berry red, looking away from your piercing gaze. you look like you want to eat him in one gulp whilst simultaneously take your time with him.
“just wanted everyone to know i am serious about you and you know, despite my title and priorities… you’re important to me.” his lashes flutter over to you at the end. the grip on your hips tighten, pulling you in to feel his hardening length against your stomach. your next inhale is sharp.
“d-don’t. my family is here.” you warn, but you still snuggle against him, wrapping your arms around his neck and rubbing your nose against his, “you can’t be adorable and…” he brushes his lips along your jaw. you clench your eyes shut. “zu… we can’t. later.”
“i know, i know,” and you hear the lust heavy and thick in his voice. he lays one kiss behind your ear, “i love you more today than i did yesterday.”
you want to tug his hair, have him expose that throat so you can mark it up. “i love you too, so much more. you were so sweet with everyone, made me want to cry. take you home for myself.”
you shiver at the brush of cold air as the sky darkens, the lights surrounding you getting brighter to manage. zuko is quick, shrugging off the shawl you gave him earlier to wrap around your shoulders and lightly heating his hands to hug you back into him.
“i was on my best behaviour, wasn’t i?” he grins, stunning as always. your stomach can’t help but heat.
you nod, chewing down on your lip, “one more hour, we pack up the food and we go, okay?”
“it’s up to you, baby. whenever you want.”
“i’m rewarding you when we get back.” your tone ends on a sensual tilt, one that has all the blood in zuko’s body rushing south.
“you’ll be on my face then,” he mumbles and you can’t reply because aunties are rushing over to you, dragging you back into the crowd to sing songs and listen to stories.
you and Steve finally finish courting. beyond the sea au. [9k]
cw: reader is a mermaid shapeshifter! and a virgin, is very inexperienced, praise, guidance, mild talking you through it, soft sex, heat cycle, vanilla, language barrier, mature content for 18+ readers
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To be fair to Dariyay, she told you this was going to happen. If you stay out of your natural form for long enough and spend that time around a suitable mate, your body will go into heat. Mermaids change for a reason. The heat was to be expected.
You weren’t expecting it to feel as it sounds. It’s a warmth from your stomach, spreading everywhere that Steve touches while you’re sitting in his lap. His hands on your hips are burning you, and Steve looks unlike himself. His head thrown back, pretty moles dotting his face to be kissed, as though he’s become as uncomfortably hot as you have.
You slide as close to his chest as you can, nosing at his throat, thinking. “Dariyay and Robin, not stay,” you say. Robin’s taken to riding to Steve’s house on her bike so that she can take it to Nancy’s after work. She’ll need a ride.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so, honey,” Steve murmurs, sounding distinctly distracted.
“Can ask?”
“Mm-hm. Are you okay, though?” Steve peers at you through a slit of his eyelids. Pink blush climbs his neck. “Can you head upstairs by yourself while I ask? Just, you… you’re kinda looking at me like you’re about to eat me.”
You feel like you’ll die if you aren’t near him, but you don’t want Dariyay to see you like this. Not having a heat before doesn’t mean you aren’t aware of what they are, and what they do. You don’t want your sister to see you this tightly and obviously wound: the sex-talk she gave you was bad enough.
You shuffle against his hips. He hisses, and he laughs. “Honey, enough. Two minutes, let me make sure Dariyay’s gonna be alright with Robin.”
“It– it is hot–”
“I know, I can feel it. Feel you,” he says quietly.
“Please, just– upstairs with me, now, and– Robin and Dariyay go.”
“I gotta tell Robin first, she’s gonna be pissed that I’m not giving her a ride–”
“Dariyay can drive her.”
Steve tilts his head to the side. “Shit, yeah. She can take her. You’re a smart girl, you know?”
Your hips rock more insistently at the praise, even if he’s teasing. “Now, fast, kiss me and kiss more.”
Steve holds you tight by the hips to ease you back. “We’ll get caught,” he says with a big laugh. “This heat, I actually have some questions–”
“What question?” you ask, allowing the space he desires while the heat in your stomach melts like lava, slow and blistering.
“Well, you’re fucking boiling in your skin, babe, so I guess I’m wondering if it’s hurting?”
You press your hand to your tummy. “Small hurt. Lots want, lots sensitive?”
“Huh.” He’s so pink you’d think he was the one cooking in his skin.
You take his hand on your hip and begin dragging it over your tummy, but you don’t get far, interrupted by a quiet creak of the door.
“Sister?” Dariyay asks.
You both flinch. Dariyay is standing in the kitchen doorway with her empty plate, and she’s frowning, but it’s friendly for her. If she were mad, she’d be scowling.
“Oh,” she says, hesitating when she notices your position atop him, “sorry.” Then, in Mer, “I thought I heard my name. Are you okay?”
“I think it’s the heat,” you say. “It feels awful.”
She bites her lip. “Oh, okay. Do you– will you be okay, with him? You don’t have to choose a courting partner now if you’re not sure.”
Steve has a great talent for turning hot and heavy into gentle, steady. He shifts you downward and holds you close like you’re sick, not horny. It’s funny as it is assuring.
“I love him. He’s not the awful part,” you say.
Dariyay shoves her plates onto the nearest countertop. “Then it’ll be fun. Just be careful, okay?”
“He wouldn’t hurt me,” you say.
She offers a real smile. “That’s so gross. I will go, then, and play at being a human at the ray-dee-oh. Maybe I can get Eddie to come and be my entertainment.”
“He can be your courting partner.”
“I think he is destined to be my best friend,” she says, which is not a rejection. She says it like it could be a joke, or equally like Eddie might end up her husband. You’re wondering how okay with that Eddie’d be as the rattle of a bike being shoved against the front of the house echoes from the foyer.
“That’s Robin,” Steve says.
You let your embarrassment overtake the heat for a little while, forehead to Steve’s chest, listening to Dariyay scamper down the hall. She and Robin have a stilted conversation that ends with both girls laughing, and Robin shouting, “Happy for you, dingus!” down the hall.
“What say?” you ask his chest.
Steve tips your head back by the nape.
Your eyes go owlish. You’re unbelievably warm—Steve feels cold in contrast when he slips his arms under your thighs to lift you, but it’s not want or need you feel as he carries you upstairs, it’s adoring. He carries you without complaint, doesn’t huff about how heavy you are, nor the mess you leave in the kitchen. He may love to bitch but Steve’s never complained about looking after you, and doesn’t sound anything but eager as he elbows open the bedroom door, laying you out on the bottom of the bed. He’s laughing to himself. You’re inclined to feel it.
“Kiss?” you ask. “Please. Please? Please.”
Steve takes too long to lean down, but when he does the kiss is slow, his tongue working into your mouth while his hand curls behind your neck, leaning his weight into you carefully.
“Kiss,” you insist.
“This is kissing.”
You don’t know the human word for what you want, but there’s a thrumming in your chest and you know where you need his hands, his entire body. You wriggle up the bed with his shirt screwed in your gasp, forcing him to climb and follow. The kiss you take then is searching, your nose pushing against his nose until he returns the kiss.
He’s too gentle.
“Kiss,” you murmur into his mouth.
“Baby.”
“Please, kiss me.”
Steve frames your face in his paw of a hand, his eyes dark, his lashes kissing in their corners as he squints. “You remember what ow means?” he asks, which is patronising. You pinch him. He laughs. “Yeah, ow. I hurt you, you tell me no. Is that okay? Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” you say under your breath, so hot now that it’s uncomfortable. The only place even mildly cool is the apex of your thighs, your panties moving slick against the crease of your cunt as you search for traction. “Please. Kiss me.”
You take his hand where it’s resting at your hip and pull it to your tummy, wanting to force him lower and scared to at the same time.
Steve looks between your bodies. His thumb draws a circle into your navel, flicking your shirt over your belly button to expose the heaving plane of skin there. It’s not low enough.
“Touch you?” he says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper.
“Please.”
“Yeah?” He rests his hand over the bump of your cunt. “Here?”
You squirm.
Steve laughs nicely, shaking his head, and fits another kiss against your mouth, his hand drifting up to tease the hot skin of your stomach, a frustrating diversion.
You’re mildly annoyed and overly excited, your eyes squeezing closed as Steve kisses you so fiercely you can’t breathe. It takes long seconds, maybe a whole minute of kissing before you’re wondering how much air a human boy can go without, another minute to get him panting over your mouth. You make a noise into his kissing, a pleading, beggy sigh, your hips rolling up to find him hard above you.
There’ve been many mornings where you’ve woken to find him already hard behind you without so much as a kiss, but more recently you’ve started teasing it out of him, just to hear the hitch in his breath when you touch him, all pained longing.
You feel cruel, now. This is the pained longing.
You scrabble for his hand and guide it down again. “Please,” you whisper, practically choked with wanting, “need you, I need touch.”
“Sorry,” he whispers back, resting the tip of his nose on your cheek, like he’s collecting himself, “‘m I making it worse? Is it still hurting?”
“No, feels like… like it can hurt later, not now.”
“Like it could hurt, if you don’t– if we don’t fix it?” he asks.
“Mm,” you hum.
“Well, we can’t have that,” he says, the hint of his smile on your cheek as he pulls up.
His eyes are blown, cheeks full of red and the beginnings of dampness in the hair by his ears. It’s getting warmer in here, but you don’t want to ask him to open the window or turn on the fan. You can't picture the absence of him.
“You know what this is?” he asks.
“Mm?”
“This, baby,” he says, his hand turning, fingers laying over the softness of your cunt. “You know what this is, yeah?”
You know what you have, if that’s what he’s worried about, but you’re thinking he’s asking about sex, instead. “Dariyay tell me,” you say, “told me. The heat, and the– the fit?”
“Yeah. How we go together? She explained it to you?”
“Yes. Know it.” You knew of sex before, but Dariyay had given you specifics, because she’d seen the way you looked at Steve. Coupling is not much more complicated than you’d imagined.
“And that’s what you want?” he asks, tilting your head to the side with the flat of his palm, before dragging his pinky finger along your cheek.
“Yeah, that’s what I want,” you say, softly and quietly, happy to be touched however he wants to do it.
“Yeah? We can go slow.” That pinky finger drags down your neck, where he lays his hand at the base of your throat so gently it’s a wonder you can feel his touch at all. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Do you hurt me?” you ask him.
“No, never.”
You want him to realise that this is you knowing everything you want, despite the heat, the tug inside you begging to be taken. You wanted all of him before your insides began to melt. “You don’t hurt me,” you say.
He turns his head to the side, gathering your cheek again in his big hand to hold you. “You remember what love is?” he asks.
“Inside of love. Me and you.”
“Yeah, me and you. So this is something I need your help with.”
You settle back into soft sheets. He’s so pretty. You aren’t sure what to do now beyond let him have you. “Not know how to help.”
“Just talk to me, baby. That’s all I need. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I can talk you.”
He smiles at you strangely. Strange for Steve, so somber and measured. “I love your voice. Love your voice.” He kisses your cheek, your jaw, and your throat. “Here, your voice. It makes everything you say… It’s beautiful.”
You like this game. Exactly how it went when he kissed you that first time, the trail of kisses and praises down your wrist to your shoulder. He kisses you now, at the base of your throat and your chest despite the clothes, over your heart, his hair already a brown mess from your eagerness. You stroke it out of his eyes.
“Talk to me,” he says gently.
“Love your voice.”
“Yeah?”
“Warm, and… smooth.” You rub his back, demonstrating in the same way he had when he introduced the word. “In mornings, voice is– is not smooth. Like most.”
Steve’s hands are shaking.
You catch them, one on your tummy, one by your heart, and you hold them tightly. Can practically feel both your pulses beating in the press of your palms. “You are okay?” you ask him.
Steve breathes out suddenly. “No. I mean, yes. I mean–” He laughs. “I just want you and I’m scared I’m gonna– I’m scared you won’t know what you need, that I’m gonna hurt you, and I want you. Fuck, I want you.”
You laugh. “I am not scared,” you say.
“No?” he asks.
“No. So you– you kiss me, now? Please. And me and you, not scared. Not scary.” You squeeze his hands. “Sorry I not know how say.”
“You’re sorry? Don’t be sorry, are you kidding? You’re amazing. You’re so much– you’re more than I–” Steve giggles and tips down to rest his head on your chest. He squeezes your hands back, “I’m sorry I’m such a loser, I used to be so fucking cool and I knew how to do this, but you are really important to me, and I’m fucking so nervous.”
“Nervous word?”
“Like little scared.”
“Me?” you ask, lifting your chin, shoving at him until he’ll look at you. “Scared me?”
“Scared of me,” he says.
You laugh. “You are not scary, I say that. Listen me. You tell me talk, I talk, you do not listen.”
“Alright!” he says, laughing again, bringing your hand to his mouth to kiss. “I’m listening now. Nobody’s scared.”
“Little scared,” you say softly.
“Yeah?”
“Little.”
“Do you want me to talk you through it?”
Your lips part of their own accord. “Talk through?”
“Do you want me to tell you how we do it, before it happens? I don’t mind, baby.”
“Tell me,” you say.
Steve rubs your stomach slowly. “Sex is easy. It should be easy.” His hand sinks lower. “It’s mostly touch, yeah? And your–” He swallows around nothing, squares his expression, and lets his voice drop and droop into honey. “I can make you feel good with my hands, or my mouth, or I can fuck you. It doesn’t have to be fast, or rough, we’ll start slow. It’s just me and you in here.”
That’s the togetherness. You nod surely. “I know.”
“You do?” He licks his lips. “I figure first I’d warm you up, you can figure out what feels good and I can learn how to do it to you.” Steve laughs like it bubbles up. “Shit, I’m so fucking hard, I think you’re killing me.”
“Hard?”
Steve takes your hand and presses it to his stomach.
You laugh, but it’s all air, all breath as you feel down the solidness of his front. You’re not brave enough to touch him.
He shakes himself in front of you like he’s trying to dry off. “Alright, I’m gonna make a mess in my pants if I don’t take them off, so– so– I’m gonna take my shirt off.”
He begins pulling off his shirt and the damn breaks—you get your elbow in your shirt to yank it off, lift your hips and kick out of your skirt, searching behind yourself for the catch on your stupid bra until Steve’s taking you by the wrists. “I can do it.”
“Off?”
“Right now, let me get it.”
He lifts you up toward him, his forearms either side of you as his fingers slip under the line of your bra. It brings his face into reach again, any hesitation forgotten while you kiss his jaw, your lips parting, bottom teeth scratching upward as you bite him gently.
“Fucking thing,” he mumbles, letting the catch of your bra fall open.
“Fucking thing?”
“You. You’re such a fucking thing, you’re a nuisance, you…” Steve takes a very deep breath as he sits up and looks down at your naked chest, your bra having fallen into your lap. “You’re everything.”
Steve ducks down to kiss your chest, and you startle so hard you burst out laughing. The laughter doesn’t last, wobbling into weariness as he places half-moon kisses over your sternum, his hand just above it forcing you into the sheets. It wanders after that.
You flinch from his touch, right over your heart, then lower, and lower.
Steve doesn’t worry, but he does rest his face on your tummy and look up at you to ask, “Okay?”
“Sensitive.”
“Yeah, really sensitive. Feel good?”
“Do again?”
Steve runs his fingertips over your nipple, brushes his thumb into it roughly, smiling as you shudder. He kisses under your breast again then downward, hands swiftly following. He kisses your belly and your hip, kisses the band on your panties and rubs his nose into the fabric. You seize up, worried he’ll feel the wetness there and laugh, wanting him to be faster, wanting him to strip it away from you.
“Touch?” you ask.
He kisses your stomach with the same tenacity he’d have kissed your mouth, hand skirting around all fluttery and warm. You want him to go lower, but he doesn’t. He kisses and kisses and scratches at you with his teeth. He even eases the panties down to kiss along the line, anywhere but where you need him. You’re aching. Your heart is starting to go again, that neediness you felt at the kitchen table returned triple fold right there at the apex of your thighs.
“Gonna take these off, yeah? Give your cunt some attention,” he says quietly.
Cunt. That’s the word Dariyay had said, seceretive-like under her breath. Steve says it without shame, like it’s nothing to be ashamed of, so you don’t think as you ask, “Please, kiss?”
“Kiss you here?” he asks, hand on your thigh now, fingers slipping into the leg of your panties and hand coming up, forcing the fabric down.
You can’t help giving another giddy laugh. “Kiss me all place.”
Steve brings your underwear down to your knees and goes silent above you.
You press your legs together automatically, unsure, but Steve braces his hand on the softness of your inner thigh and eases the mere millimetres apart. Your heart lurches, but you aren’t as shy as you’d imagined. Maybe it’s Steve’s clear, rabid adoration, maybe it’s because he’s seen it before in simpler moments, maybe it’s the rampant tugging in your tummy and your cunt. It feels like you’ve needed this for hours.
“Jesus,” he murmurs, hitting at your thigh with the back of his hand, like a pat, worse when you shift your leg to the side to oblige him and feel the slickness that’s wetting you spreading over your thighs, “aw, Jesus, fuck. Fuck.”
“Fuck ow?” you murmur back. Or fuck now?
“Fuck like beautiful,” he says, his thumb ghosting up the softness of your cunt. You jump, tickled, and his eyes flash to your face. When he sees your bitten lip, he brings his thumb flat to your cunt and feels at you all over again. “You’re so wet.”
“Wet, I know,” you worry.
“No, it’s good. It’s pretty.”
“Kiss?”
“Can I?”
“Ask and ask and ask.”
Steve rolls your panties the rest of the way down your legs with some manoeuvring, kisses the inside of your knee, and suddenly pulls one leg over his shoulder, his face seeking into your cunt unabashedly.
“Ah!” you say, startled by the hot, wide press of his tongue, not sure what you were expecting as you’d begged to be kissed, but surely not this. “Steve.”
A nose pressed hard into the petal folds of you, his tongue against wetness, plushness, kisses up to the apex and then–
“Fuck!” you say, your heel digging into his naked shoulder. “Oh, no!”
“Oh no?” he asks, pulling away fast, wetness shining on his chin and cheek. “Hurt you?”
“No stop,” you say, taking his face into your hand and yanking. Don’t stop, you mean, but the words aren’t clear right now.
“Felt good?”
“Yes!”
“Don’t say oh no, you scared me.”
“What– hah–” You shiver, a burst of pleasure as he kitten licks your cunt, right against the sweet spot at the very top. “What say, honey boy?”
“You can say Steve?” He laughs, and you sigh, wondering if the pulse of wetness from you is visible to him where he’s ducked eye-level to your cunt. “Say anything. Say you like it.”
“I like it.”
“You like it?” he asks, brushing over your clit with his thumb.
You dissolve into some squirmy version of yes and discover it can feel even better than it does. Steve lays down, the entire lower half of his face to your cunt and kissing, working up to your clit to suckle until you squeal. Then he pulls away and licks at the wetness he’s spread around with his face, around your thighs and everywhere except where you need him. It’s ten times more sense than whenever you’ve touched yourself. (Not often, and never as expertly as Steve touches now, never constant, occasionally curious after he’s kissed you and disappeared to the bathroom.)
There is an exceptional Mer word for this sort of pleasure, and it slips from you in a whiny moan. He laughs into your cunt, kisses you again, the tip of his thumb at your opening now and feeling through wetness like he’s playing. It’s– it’s hotter than you’d thought. Fuck, your knee kicks in toward your chest as the pleasure gets burning and– and cresting, like it’ll hurt. You seize up and Steve pushes your leg into your tummy, murmurs, “Relax,” as the very tip of his thumb presses into you and his lips close around your clit and he sucks. He’s barely pushed into you when you’re crying out, startled, reaching for his hair to hold as the climax he’d been working you toward tenses your tummy and has your cunt pulsing over and over, weirdly tight.
It goes on for ages, has you half-crying beneath him, “Steve, oh no, oh–”
“Baby–”
“–Steve, Steve.” You cover your eyes, then immediately peek at him through your fingers, panting for air as the pleasure eases but doesn’t wane, not too fast.
He pulls away from you, his lips and chin and nose a shocking red, his thumb pulling out of your cunt with aching care. “Sorry,” he says, his eyebrows yanked together in fear, “did it hurt? I was just trying to–”
“In again,” you say, scratching at his scalp. You’re so in love with this stupid human you could shake him. “Is perfect. You are perfect.”
His lips flatten into a smug smile. “You’re perfect. Prettiest cunt I’ve ever seen. I knew… I mean, I know what you look like, but this is different.” He kisses your thigh, your tummy, then sits up and over you to bend down and kiss you on the mouth gently. “How was that? Are you feeling better? Less hot?”
“No.”
He kisses you again. “That was fast, so I guess it is about, you know, being ready for, you know...”
“I know?”
“Mating?” he asks reluctantly.
“Oh. Yes. Ready now, can you kiss me?”
“Can I kiss you? Or do you need another word? I’m starting to think you don’t mean kiss.”
You think about it for a second, chest still heaving under his hand. “Kiss me, angel,” you say.
Steve leans in and kisses you, tasting of you, smiling.
—
Steve is gonna cum in his pants like a fucking loser if he doesn’t get a hand on himself.
He unbuttons his jeans as he kisses you and shoves his hand into his boxers, squeezing around the base of his cock in a desperate bid to stop the worst thing that could ever happen from happening.
There is no word in the English language to describe how it felt to have your cunt pulsing down on his thumb. It’s not as though he could’ve entered you too deep like that, felt like a safe bet, and it sank into your heat without a problem. It felt like heaven. Steve’s pretty sure he’ll cum the second his cock even touches your cunt, but that’s a problem for Steve in five minutes or so.
That is, if you still want him to fuck you. He’s kinda shit scared he’s gonna hurt you. He hasn’t had sex with someone inexperienced in years and never with somebody so… oceanic.
You wrap your arms around his back and sigh, your face slinking down into his neck, kiss broken. Steve’s wondering if the foreplay was enough for you, if this painful heat is over, but you giggle and mumble into his chest, his ears piqued like a bloodhound at the sound.
“Together,” you say. “What word say before? Fuck like not ow… fuck me.” You’re voice is quiet and raw enough to force a bead of precum over his fingers.
“Jesus Christ,” he says.
“Please, Stevie?”
Oh my god. Steve whites out. You whine something in Mer and Steve grabs you under the arms to get your head on a pillow, you poor girl laid out in the middle of the bed this entire time. He not so expertly kicks off his jeans, and his boxers slip down his hips, his cock hard and aching as it bends up toward his stomach. Steve doesn’t wanna, like, shove it into your hand, but it might be nice for you to see it. He widens the gap between your bodies just enough to show you.
“This is how I’m gonna fuck you, honey,” he says, “I’m gonna work you open with my hand, and then I’m gonna ease into you, okay? ‘Cos you’ve never done it before, it’ll be so slow, yeah? So careful. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Take it now.”
“No, you can’t. You can’t, listen to me.”
You pout, but Steve laughs, kissing your sweaty forehead with a smack.
“Fuck me now and now, and slow, ready now,” you promise.
Steve grins at you with all the adoring he possesses, cannot express to you how much he wishes he could spread you open now and have you, but Steve’s not about to hurt you for the sake of five minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe fifteen. He entices you in for a pulling kiss, the distracting kind, head turning this way and that as he licks into your mouth and runs his hand over your hip, to your cunt, to all the slickness there.
The first finger pushes in easy. He does it slow, waits for pain. You huff a little but kiss him the same, so Steve gives a careful pump and drives in with a second finger.
That’s when you shudder.
“How’s that?” he asks, pausing.
“Fine.”
“Fine?” Steve slows the rock of his hand. “Hurting?”
“Good, just–”
“Just different, huh?” He twists his hand a little to press his thumb to your clit. “You tell me if it hurts you, honey girl,” —you melt like sugar at the name, as saccharine as it is— “I don’t wanna hurt you. You gotta talk to me, you know?”
“Not– not much talk, much, hah–”
That little hah sound has gotta be his favourite noise you’ve ever made. Like a shiver through a smile, not half as sweet as your urgent moaning with a thigh clamped around his head, it reminds him of your stupid laugh whenever you’re pleased. Totally self-indulgent.
He doesn’t try another finger for a while, isn’t sure how long, just kisses you and works into you until his wrist is aching from the upward thrust. Right toward the front, where he knows you’ll–
“Oh.” You turn into Steve, weight on your hip and torso moving into his touch to take it quicker. “Ah, Steve, touch please, touch there.”
He circles his thumb against your clit.
You flinch. Cry out a little at the pleasure and press your face into his shoulder as Steve eases that third finger into your cunt. He’s in ecstasy, his cock throbbing erratically against his stomach, head weeping and red as you whimper into his skin, his name on your tongue, your cunt dripping slick between the cleft of your ass.
“Wanna cum again?” he asks. “Say? Can you take it again?”
His thumb is dedicated now to your clit, rubbing in tight, wet circles as your thighs twitch, and twitch. You cum before Steve can hear your answer. It’s honestly faster than he meant. This heat in you is like a dial set to eleven.
This time, you’re annoyed. Laughing and angry, you shove at his chest and Steve wishes he had a camera to get your smile for keeps. “Said was ready! Tummy jump, now, you did.”
Steve kisses your nose. “Will you shut up? You liked it, didn’t you? You’re such a complainer.”
“Not complain! Ecstatic! Want Steve ecstatic, together, fix my ow.”
“You said it doesn’t hurt.”
“Need you, Steve. Please.”
How many times can a girl say please before Steve cums in his hand? Apparently, he’s got one more please left before he shoots. He has to squeeze himself especially hard to make that happen. Doesn’t have a chance in fucking hell to last, but (and he feels like a bitch even thinking it), it’s not like you’ll know he’s cumming fast. You haven’t exactly held out, here.
“Can you stay still?” he asks.
“No.”
“Okay, awesome,” he says, pinching your chin in his hand, forcing your eyes to his. “You don’t let me hurt you.”
“I love you,” you say.
Steve feels his eyes get hot and his nose burn right at the back. “Yeah?”
“Most,” you confide, wrapping yourself around him.
Steve gets his arm behind your neck, pulling you in for a kiss. It’s unbelievable, he thinks, that the crook of his elbow fits your head perfectly. That the girl he’s been searching for was waiting at the bottom of the ocean. With his free hand, he reaches down to squeeze his aching cock again, and you must know enough to lift your leg over his hip and close the gap.
“Ready?” he asks softly.
“Yeah, ready.”
Steve strokes your cheek. “I love you,” he says, “a lot.”
Your smile is especially bemused. “I know, tell me much and lots, tell me all time, do lots tell, always inside of love with me.”
“It’s true all the time,” he says with a pout.
“Steve!”
“I know, I know, I’m just making sure I tell you back.”
You nuzzle your nose into the side of his. “Tell again,” you say quietly.
“I love you,” he says, taking a wonky kiss from the corner of your lips.
Steve lines up and presses in.
You’re wet enough and relaxed enough that he could sink to the hilt, but he knows he can’t, and he won’t. He lets your chests touch but keeps your hips apart and rocks into you slowly, lets the pleasure in his stomach lick up his spine and take over every bit of sense he has left. He’s surprised it took this long to tell you he loved you plainly. It comes to the surface and lingers now, love you love you love you as you choke on a moan and hide under his jaw. Steve can’t let you stay there too long, drawing you up with murmured pleading, come back, let me see you, miss your face too much when you’re hiding, like an angel, real pretty sweetheart, tries to gauge your feelings as you take it. As he gives it, really. He feels like you’re not taking anything so much as you’re just there with him, his girl. It’s sex, messy and simple, but it’s your first time, and this is more new to you than it would be to most. All Steve wants is to make it gentle. You take it sweetly, breathing out right in his ear, your voice colouring each breath with an addictive pull. It makes it hard to last. Makes going slow the only way he’s gonna get through this.
“Okay?” he asks, when you’ve been quiet far too long, and he’s slowed to a pause inside you.
“Love,” you say, aiming for a big kiss.
Steve matches the kiss for every thrust and feels his thigh muscles go tight as violin strings as he sinks straight past any resistance to the hilt. He should not have done that, did not mean to, you’d rocked your hips down and he’s already pulling out, murmuring, “Sorry, angel, I’m sorry–” as you whisper a fervent, “Again, please.”
He checks your face.
“Again,” you say, eyebrows drawing together in pleasure.
So Steve sinks in and he fucks you slow, like a drag, a rut into heat and wet and plushness that makes him groan. Hits into resistance and feels how much you like it. Steve groans.
“Sound good,” you whisper.
“Can’t help it.”
“Beautiful.” You draw a hand over his abdomen. “What word?”
“Handsome?” he teases.
You reach down to his quads and pull at him, prompting another heavy thrust. Another. Steve takes a couple of kisses while he’s still breathing, but then he’s so close to heaven he has to stop.
“Okay?”
“Gonna cum,” he squeezes out.
“Cum,” you say, like you know what it means, and it doesn’t matter. Steve was too chicken shit to explain it, but he did ask you first, didn’t he? You pick up everything quickly.
“Can’t yet. Can’t. Didn’t fuck you like you wanted.”
“This what I wanted,” you say, abandoning his hip to take his face into your hand. You’re clammy and cool, now, not burning like you were. Your thumb rubs into his cheek slowly, like he’s made of glass. Like one of those Venus flower sponges from the ocean, thin and delicate as drops of ice. “Me and you. This is all what I wanted, okay? You fixed me.”
You smile at him with stars in your eyes as your hips shift and Steve has to pull out, cumming in his hand a second later, panting like his life depends on it as strings of cum line his fingers.
You stare in surprise. “Oh. Not happen to me.”
“It’s a boy thing,” he rasps out, dropping his forehead against your shoulder.
You reach between your legs to touch yourself, laughing as you do, like you’re drunk or high or something, giggly-soft as Steve tries to catch his breath.
You give up on whatever light exploring you’d desired and offer your arms for a real cuddle, hips flat together and sticky. “Hold me?” you ask.
Steve wipes his hand in the sheets with a sigh and gathers you into his arms. “Yeah.”
—
Did you know when a boy who loves you fucks you, it kind of feels like you’re the most beautiful girl who ever existed?
Steve fucked you and held you and kissed your cheeks and cuddled you to him and he never stopped asking how it felt, and if you were okay, and his hand had drifted down to your chest to touch you, to make you feel good, and all of it felt like a honeypot coil in your tummy getting tighter. ‘Mating’ or getting ‘fucked’ by someone who’s in love with you is better than all your best firsts. It’s like finding a new way to swim, like feeling the sun on your skin through the depths with a hand in your hair, raking it back. It’s like being kissed all over, all the time.
If merpeople developed the ability to change just to do this with one another, you totally get it.
Steve hugs you for a good ten minutes while you doze, tired, sated after a big meal, and then he gets up on his knees and puts his nose to your forehead without kissing you. “I’m gonna get you some water, and check that I set the alarm on the door. Do you want something to eat?”
“Do not go.”
“I’ll be fast.”
“Stay. Hold me more.”
So Steve lays down and holds you until you fall asleep.
You wake up again an indeterminable amount of time later to many different things. There’s a glass of water on the nightstand opposite you, a bowl of rice with cut slices of bright, fresh fish beside it. Steve is rolling deodorant onto his armpits in a pair of boxers sitting by your legs. You need to pee, a pain like a knife between your legs.
“Hurt,” you say softly.
Steve turns to you, his mouth puckered in worry. “Yeah, what hurts?”
“Pee.”
“Oh. That’s normal. Want me to carry you?”
“No,” you say with a laugh. “Not broken.”
“I can see that.”
You realise that he’s wiped you clean as you stand, which is oh so nice, and not at all a surprise from your kind boy, earning him a kiss behind his ear as you rush to the en-suite bathroom. You close the door but don’t lock it and do your business quick.
You’re delighted to find the extremely sensitive feeling and all your slickness is over. You wash your hands and face before opening the door some to peer at Steve through the gap. “Stevie?” you ask softly.
“What’s up, beautiful?”
You aren’t sure.
He scratches a hand through damp hair. “Come here,” he prompts when you fail to return, “come on, you can sit in my lap and eat something. You didn’t eat anything at breakfast.”
“You not eat anything. I had pancake.”
“You had a bite of pancake, that’s not enough.”
You head back to him and sit in his lap as he’s asked you, not worried about falling considering the speed with which he pulls you close. “Best bite of pancake ever. Ever. You feed me, best pancake.”
“Theyre not as good as the pancakes you made,” he says.
You shake your head, tracing along his beauty marks with a pearlescent fingernail. Thinking very hard about each word before it comes out, taking time to sew the sentence tightly, you say, “When you feed me pancakes from plate, your plate, it is important. Understand? Word, I think, like love. Mermaid feed you, mean…”
“Like a kiss?” he asks. “You kiss sometimes to share food, right?”
“Sort of like kiss, like, swear you care for me.”
“Hey, speaking of kisses, I got to thinking while you were sleeping. How come your spit doesn’t magically glue my mouth closed whenever we kiss? Isn’t it like, super strong?”
“What?” you ask.
“Your spit! You fixed your tummy with it, and my foot, but when we kiss we don’t get stuck together.”
“Only fix when hurt, duh.” You roll your eyes. “Whatever. Silly boy, not want talk to you.”
“Rude.”
You can’t fake a huff. You’re currently too heavily imbued with happy hormones to do anything besides sit here and wish he’d tell you he loved you again.
He taps at your nose with the tip of his until you lift your lips, kissing you briefly, then slotting his head over your shoulder, his hand spread and waving against your back. “So this sharing from the same plate thing, that’s important to you?”
You smile. Glad he can’t see it. He’d know you’re totally gone for him if he could. “Important for mermaid, inside of love, yeah? Many important.”
“Is that what made you… you know, excited?”
“Heat not s’posed happen but is wait happen, also? Make me, when share.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not be sorry. Not ever, please.”
“I’m not sorry about this,” he says, patting your shoulder, “just sorry I made you uncomfortable doing something I should’ve done before. We never shared before?”
“Has to be with want. Not like, uh, share foals and flounder.”
“You’re confusing me.”
“Has to be… go of love?”
“I have to do it because I love you?”
“Yes. Have to do because you love me, care me, give me.”
“Well, I’ve cared about you for a really long time, and I’ve been feeding you since we met, baby.”
You shake your head, picking gently at a mole behind his shoulder blade. Not to hurt him, only to feel it. “Plate. Feed me your plate.”
Steve leans into you with a loving sigh, smelling your neck. “I think I understand. It’s symbolic, like a tradition.”
“Tradition?”
“A tradition is something you do that has rules. You do it because it’s important, and because people have done it before you? Or, like, humans get married. You remember that from Watership Down? They say promises and exchange rings because it’s important to them. I understand it now.” His voice warms your skin. “You could’ve told me. I would’ve shared with you off of the same fork months ago.”
“Months!” You’re scandalised. You and Steve have not known each other for more than four months, you’d say.
Four months, and he is already so special to you. Just four months.
You figure you’ll explain the intention of the courting process some other time and encourage his head back instead, meeting his brown eyes, their almond shape gone soft from his long eyelashes. There are too many places on his face you’ve failed to kiss. You know you’ve never kissed above his eyebrows before, leaning up to rectify the issue quickly. “All Steve need kiss,” you say decidedly.
He offers his hand.
You kiss every finger, knuckle to tip, then his palm.
He holds your face in it when you’re done, giving your chin a little wobble.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Okay.”
“And you slept okay? Not tired?”
“Slept nice. Want you sleep and me next time.”
“Sleep with you, next time.”
“I know,” you say quietly. “Can tell something?”
“You can tell me anything. Not kidding.”
You hold your hands together against his tummy. “Feel… sad, now and before and before, when I can not… give word, right word. Feel like me and Steve, very important, and can not give words important.”
Steve draws along your face with a single fingertip. “Not give words important,” he repeats.
“All wrong word. I am sorry.”
“You don’t ever have to be sorry. Not for anything, and not for how you tell me what you need.”
“You have…” Steve deserves to hear how loved he is in perfect sentences, but you’re just not there. You understand almost every single word he offers up now, but it is so hard to recollect what joiner word to say and what order to say them in when you aren’t hearing them. “I learn more word, swear.”
“Are you kidding?” he says, shifting your legs over his lap to hold the small of your back. “I don’t know a single word in Mer that isn’t your name and you’re apologising to me? Do you hear that? You learned how to speak a new language so you could talk to me. You stay with me, you want to be here, and you think you need to be sorry about how you talk?” He tilts his head to better meet your gaze, ducking a touch, forcing your full attention. “You told me you loved me, earlier. You think that’s not good enough? That’s fucking everything. I don’t need you to say the right words, I only want you to tell me how you feel. As long as I know what you need, and you can complain, we’re fine. We don’t need anything else.”
Really? you want to say. Irony is you can’t think of the word. “You are okay?”
“Yes, beautiful, I promise you. I promise. Yes and yes and yes, you’re perfect.”
“Perfect most beautiful.”
“Most,” he says, raising his eyebrows at you.
It gets tiring, always learning. Some days Dariyay or Dustin try to teach you knew words and you cannot be bothered to ingest them, but it was worth it, in the end, to let Steve teach you. There are times like now where you’re trying hard to make sense and forgetting words you knew, and messing up the simple stuff in an attempt to use the more complicated.
You wonder why it bothers you. Steve knows every part of you, now. This is it. He has everything, and he wants you just the same.
“Need you,” you mumble, pressing your lips to his muscled shoulder. He is made up of such amazing shapes.
“Have me,” he says, rubbing a path down your spine, up again, slow as honey. “I promise, you’re everything I need like this.”
You glance at him sideways. He’s nosing down your arm, his eyes fluttered closed as though he’s forgotten where he is.
“You want share rice me?” you ask.
He smiles into your arm. “Yes. It’s important, right? From now on, me and you, we eat from the same plate. Good?”
He could lay you out right now and have you, that’s how good it is.
You wonder if he’d like that.
—
It’s a few hours later when Steve gets you into the bath.
All fucking remained gentle, yet you look like you’ve been through the ringer by the time you’re done. Steve wanted to see if he could get you to cum six times, and he achieved his arbitrary goal all too quickly.
You, while pleased, have the air of a woman who needs electrolytes. Steve gives you a glass of apple juice and you sip it in the tub, submerged to the waist in bubbles and blinking beautifully slow blinks.
Whatever it was that was making you want to be fucked so badly has certainly dissipated. You’d gone sore and achy in the middle of a second tryst so Steve had pulled out, kissing at the hurt he caused until you cried, real, big-drop tears that fourth time, and then the fifth. Steve sniffled his way through that fifth one with you, murmuring love into your skin, enchanted by the sight of you with your hands running over yourself.
The sixth was mostly accidental. Lazy, lazy kisses turned to a hickey which you’ve apparently never had, turned to you hot against his leg, your hips rolling. He didn’t have to touch you much to draw out a last climax, but the sound you made was borderline pained, so he didn’t try again.
“Are you okay?” he asks, kneeling beside the bath with his hand braces at your hairline, stroking.
“Yes.”
“Can you use a couple more words?”
“Feel full.”
Steve laughs, stroking down your cheek with the back of his hand. “Sated?”
“What mean?”
“Means you feel satisfied, like, everything is fixed. Like full, but without the feeling of, like…” Steve pets your cheek, then lets his hand fall further down. “Pressure.”
“Pressure?”
Steve squeezes your shoulder. “Like this?”
“Squeeze me.”
“Yeah, I’m applying pressure.”
“Oh.”
You take another mouthful of apple juice, but your question is loaded up before you’re done, and he can hear you swallowing as you ask, “Are you okay, angel? Did I hurt you?”
“Did you hurt me? Never, why would you think that?”
“You ask me lots times. Think if sex maybe hurt,” you say.
“It doesn’t usually hurt. Only sometimes, and most of the time by accident.”
“Oh.”
“Want me to wash your hair now?” he asks.
“Yes, please. Thank you. Best boyfriend.”
You’re not kidding, is the worst part. You close your eyes and offer your glass to him blindly with a content smile on your face, waiting for him to pour water over you and wet your hair.
He’s pretty sure you’re the first girlfriend he’s ever had to think this highly of him. He wants to earn it.
Steve taps your chin and kisses the slight bruise of a hickey, gentle, lest he hurt you twice. “You are really perfect,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He washes your hair carefully but quickly, wanting to get you out of the bath fast. He showered after your first fuck but needs to wash off again now, so he wraps you in a towel once you’re done and tells you to climb into bed, that he’ll sort everything out for you when he’s done.
He showers and dries off, returning to the bedroom with a towel around his waist and a smile. You’re cross-legged on the bed with one of your encyclopedias in the dip of your legs, the towel falling down your chest some, your written list of phonetics poking out behind the cover, but you aren’t studying. You’re tracing pictures with your finger, eyebrows lightly pinched.
“Wet hair,” you say.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Fix.”
“‘Bout to.”
“About,” you correct.
Steve chuckles to himself. “Yeah.”
“About means… same, means close, means like new word.”
“Kind of. It’s a hard word to explain.”
“About to go to bed,” you say. “Have in Mer, kind of.”
“You do?”
“Not so different.”
Steve dries your hair and does his best to fix it. Dariyay fixed it for you this morning and he wouldn’t have gotten it wet, only the sex seemed to have knocked it out of place and frizzed it to high heaven. He gives it his best shot and you trace shapes into his stomach where it stays near your hand. Steve won’t ask to fuck again, but your touch and the fresh memory of what it felt like to do that to you has his cock stirring. He wills it down. Wonders if he’s a sex pest now, or if you’re just that beautiful.
It’s funny. You’ve been pretty this whole time, but Steve can’t believe how much worse it’s gotten over time. He didn’t think you could get any prettier.
“Ecstatic,” you murmur.
He tips your head back. “You are in love with me.”
“Yes?”
“No, like. You’re a loser. You’re gone for me.”
“What is loser, gone, shush. Say mean thing, think I not know, I know.” You scowl at him. “You are loser.”
He wrinkle his nose. “Am not.”
“Yes. Much loser.”
“Wanna get dressed? I have the softest pajamas ever with your name written all over them.”
“Name all over?”
“It’s a saying. Like… if I say I’m jumping for joy, I’m not really jumping, but I could be.”
“Joy happy?”
“Yeah.”
“We jump for joy, mermaid. Swim up to surface, jump, swim down. Fun.”
“It sounds awesome.”
“My name written all over, not real, but mine, mine a lot, so. Saying.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“More saying human? Mer not have much saying. Mer more–” You pause. “Yes and yes.”
Steve takes the time to sort it through. “You guys say what you mean. Humans are funny. We have lots of sayings. We have one that goes, ‘he drinks like a fish’, which means he likes a lot of beer.”
“Fish not drink beer?” you say, laughing.
“No, they don’t. It’s stupid, it’s because people think fish drink a ton of water. Hey, should we go swimming later?” he asks, digging through the top dresser drawer until he finds the sweet blue pajamas he has hiding away. They’re for your hard days, of which you don’t have many, but the softness never fails to draw your awe. He thinks they’ll be nice for the occasion, extra comfort after a big first experience. “It’s been a while.”
“Not swim. Dariyay tell, after heat, water and me make tail.”
Steve snorts at the joke, even as he falters. “You’ll get your tail back, huh?”
“Have… what call? Foal.”
“Baby. You’d have a baby.”
“Right. Oh, forgot. Two means.”
His stomach jolts uncomfortably at the idea of you changing back. “Yeah, it’s one of those words… Shit, you’ll really get your tail again? I don’t want you to leave, yet. Dariyay said you have to go home soon, didn’t she? But there’s so much you haven’t done, I wanted to take you on a real date, and on a rollercoaster, and to the movies, take you rollerblading. There’s so much stuff. I don’t want you trapped in my pool again, but maybe I can go with you?” He can’t think of a way to stay with you. “Don’t go yet. Please.”
You give him your own rare brand of puppy dog eyes. “Not want go, Steve. Tell you. You and me tomorrow and tomorrow, and love you, and– not want. Miss tail, but miss you more,” you say, shrugging. “Get dressed now? I am cold.”
Steve gives you your pajamas and diverts the conversation from changing. He has the feeling that he is being very, very selfish, but he cannot bring himself to let you go.
The second he sits down, you get on your knees and shuffle around, pausing, shy for potentially the first time in your whole life. “Can I hold you?” you ask.
Steve lays down and you follow, interlocking on your sides like commas. You wrap your arms around him very specifically; the bottommost one looped around his matching arm, and the upper over his neck, your hand on his cheek, holding him like you’d asked.
“Best thing,” you say, turning your hand to stroke his cheek. It is such a light touch that, for a second, he wants to squirm away. He relaxes the longer you do it, coaxed into total stillness, his eyes growing heavier and heavier. “My boy.”
Your fingers tumble down to the thin line of a scar that spans across his neck.
“Hurting?” you murmur.
He closes his eyes. Lets himself melt into your chest. “Nah. Not for a long time.”
⋆𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔:⋆
thank you for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed it! I would love to know what you thought, but no pressure 🩵
Also how about Tasm!Peter signing up for a club just because his crush is in it
Be More Chill
Summary: Peter joins a club because you're there.
Warning(s): Mentions of a past mugging! That's it, I think:)
Notes: This is 3k words!! If you read the notes be prepared for the random name drops of other heros and Tony Stark lol. I like the premise of this one honestly? So maybe a part two in the future idk..
Peter Benjamin Parker has done a lot of stupid shit in his life.
Becoming Spiderman was at the top of the list but there were smaller things. Like the time when he was a freshman; baby-faced and too lanky for his own good and he foolishly trusted that Flash Thompson after his burst in popularity would still be his friend. That if he ignored the childish name-calling and the shoves in the hallway he could pretend that this Flash was the same Flash that would share his lunch with Peter when money got tight. It hadn't worked that way, of course, and within his first week of high school, Flash had made Peter's life a living hell, using every secret ever shared with him against him. And by the end of the first month, Peter knew what the inside of a toilet looked like better than he knew his way to his classes.
There were times when Peter, New York born and raised, would get lost and have no idea where he was. There had been times of getting off at the wrong bus stop, the wrong station, and even wrong turns on his bike, and while, yes, he's found some of the best food places that way, made lifelong friends with alley cats and deli owners. But he'd always end up late, scolded by Aunt May, his friends, and his professors.
There are even smaller moments, moments when he stutters while talking to an attractive person. When he dropped a quarter that made up part of his dollar and he was forced to go without a drink for the rest of the day. Moments, like right now where he wonders if the spider bite didn't just give him powers but if it also made him remarkably stupid in moments where he needed his brain the most.
“You…you.. want to join the Superhero Journalism club?”
Peter feels like his heart is gonna leap from his chest, his tongue weighing more like a brick than a slab of flesh. “Y-yeah! I mean with the rise of superheroes nowadays, it seems like the place to be.” The place to be? God, Peter wanted to march back out the doors he came from and play in traffic. Why is he like this?
Your eyes narrow. You're not sure if you believe him, you've seen him around the likes of the Campus' cool kids. It was honestly unbelievable that high school cliques still have some type of hold here. Sure, there isn't a set group of nerds or goths, but Preps and jocks? They were proving to be something you could escape. Peter Parker, however, is a grey zone. He isn't a nerd, a goth, a prep, or a jock; his clothes were always clean, comfortable, and honestly? They always looked within your budget. He's tall but not in a basketball or football player way but in a way that's always made you look twice. Your eyes always found him in your shared classes— watching with meek interest as he twirled a pencil between his fingers at an impressive speed. You've seen him carry books piled high and probably the weight of two eight-year-olds without breaking a sweat.
You're pretty sure he's some type of failed experiment, maybe even one of the heroes you and your club study so closely. It would make a lot of sense, too much sense actually but with the abundance of heroes appearing left and right, who exactly would Peter Parker be?
“Fine.” You eventually nod, slow and your eyes still narrow. “Fine, fine, fine. Okay, but there are rules to know if you join.”
“Of course–” Peter's head bobs eagerly. He could do rules, every club had rules. “What are they?”
You turn away from him gathering the books you had put down upon his entrance to the library. The books ranged from things about your coursework to research on powers manifesting in humans as far back as the first King of England. You pull them close to your chest and glance back at Peter, nodding for him to follow you. “First rule is you sorta have to sign a waiver.”
“A– a waiver. I–” His lashes flutter in shock as he keeps pace. “Why?”
“It’s a new rule enforced by the school actually.” You admit hesitantly, “Sometimes, in our research, we find things we probably shouldn't have. Things we would never share, of course, we have some dignity. But a lot of heroes… they like their privacy and when it's threatened, well…”
“Is it that bad?”
You pause, thinking. Truthfully, no. It wasn't. The heroes had never gone to the extent of physically harming you or the other members of the club; scare you, however? Daredevil has got the drop on you walking home more than once, he swears he doesn't mean to scare you but there's always a smirk twisting at his lips whenever you scream. Shelton could tell you horror stories about Moon-knight, the white-clad… Hero… anti-hero? Vigilante. The white-clad vigilante was nothing short of a menace, even on his good days and Shelton would tell you, his voice pinched with annoyance that that man's good days were rare. There's Chrys, short for Chrysanthemum, who has this weird thing going on with the Iron Fist. She liked to pretend it was nothing, that his interest in her started and stopped with her simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But she always got this wistful look in her eye whenever he was brought up, a look only a lover could muster. A strange fit of anxiety whenever the green and yellow super battled it out with a new big bad in Time Square.
There was a running bet in the club, how long she'll last before she tells them what they already knew. Layla has had a; Congratulations on banging a superhero! Banner hid in the trunk of her car for months.
“No. It's not bad all the time.” You finally say, your voice soft. “A girl who recently graduated, Pepper Potts used to be a part of our club, she's working for Tony Stark now and–”
“Tony Stark? As in super genius asshole, Tony Stark?” Peter asks.
“Don’t forget the playboy billionaire part.” You mutter. The two of you come upon your group scattered about two different library tables. There are papers and pencils everywhere, laptops open and some left unattended. You look back at Peter, your face deadly serious, “I’m not kidding. Don't forget that part because with the way he randomly pops up around here, he will give you shit for not remembering.”
“What's annoying?” Shelton looks up from his laptop and does a double take at Peter before looking at you in surprise. “New member?”
“ Supposedly and Tony. Tony is annoying.” You place your books on the nearest table, rousing Layla from her writing. The girl glances at you then Peter, sparing him a smile.
“Don’t call Tony annoying. He funds the club.”
“If you call buying two hundred dollars worth of Chinese food every Saturday in an attempt to impress Pepper 'funding', sure.” You mutter.
Layla snorts looking back down at her paper. “Whatever, you tell him the rules?”
“Doing it right now. Rule two: If you have a connection to a Hero, you tell us. It helps all of us in the long run– also it doesn't give me a heart attack when they suddenly appear at my window because you're out of town on a family vacation.”
Shelton shoots you a glare. “It was one time and I chewed Moon-knight out for it, okay? He said he probably won't do it again.”
You meet his glare head-on, your lips pulling into a weak snarl of annoyance. “Probably isn't good enough. He not only broke my window but called my apartment shitty!”
“You don't live on Campus?” Peter interjects and there's a collective chuckle that passes through the group. Peter looks around a bit lost, “What is that a stupid question?”
“Nah, it's just–” Chrys snorts from her spot near Shelton, a pencil she was balancing on her nose falls but she continues, “She used to live on Campus. All of us did but once we started this club and Heroes started taking us seriously they sorta show up randomly and scare the shit out of dorm mates. The school had so many complaints against us it's a miracle they didn't kick us all out–”
“Miracle? More like Pepper batting her pretty little eyelashes at Tony Stark and getting him to donate something big in our name.” Layla says firmly, shooting you a look before pointing the tip of her golden pen at Peter. “Which is why we do not call Tony Stark annoying, not only does he buy us Chinese food– he's the reason we have funded apartments off campus. Which you'll be getting one if you live on campus–”
“I don’t.”
“Good! Now rule three: and this is our most important rule, don't steal pens. It's the worst crime you can commit and I will throw you in stupid jail.”
Peter hesitates before looking at you, asking in a small voice, “Do I want to know what that is?”
You finally settle at the same table as Layla, pulling out a chair for Peter. “She’ll lock you in the library's basement for two hours. Three, if it's her favorite pen.”
“Four, if it's your second offense,” Chrys adds with a smile. “I took her pen by accident last week and she locked me down there for five hours and fifty-two minutes. I didn't mind, it was the best sleep of my life.”
Peter settles beside you with a small laugh thinking you and Chrys must be joking, being locked in the mothball-smelling basement wasn't the worst punishment, it'd leave you lightheaded at most but no one would go that far over a pen. Right? But Peter takes in the rather serious look on your pretty face and Chrys slight cringe as she recalls the moment and his laughter fades. “You’re not joking, are you?”
“Sadly, no,” Shelton mutters, annoyed. Peter looks over at him and the man is pushing to his feet, a sheet of paper in his hands as he goes closer to him. He stops just before Peter and slides the paper to him. It's the waiver and rules, he realizes and in the biggest, boldest letters is rule three.
RULE THREE: DO NOT STEAL PENS OR OTHER WRITING UTENSILS FROM YOUR FELLOW MEMBERS!
And in smaller words, italicized and in parentheses is the added sentence:
(Especially if they're Layla's. God help you if they belong to Layla.)
Peter looks back up at Shelton, his mouth agape. “This is serious?”
“As a heart attack, Parker.” You reply from his side. You had already opened your books and were looking through them lazily but Peter jolts. You knew his name, he means— it was a given, you had recognized him when he entered the library, your eyes had lit up in the way they would when seeing someone familiar. Had even questioned him on his eagerness to join but you knew him, his name. You remembered even when the two of you had only shared a few words in the past, you remembered his name when it took his professors two semesters to do so and he saw them nearly every day. Peter tries his best not to let the delight show on his face as he turns his gaze back to you but he knows he fails when you look up at him with a slightly confused look before clearing your throat.
“Rule four, the last rule–” You start, tapping your finger against his page. But Shelton snorts.
“It's technically not a rule and certainly not the last one.”
You snatch Layla's pen— she lets out an annoyed grunt, nearly a growl— and launches it at the mousy man who catches it and instantly drops it back in the curly-haired woman's hands before she could strangle either of you. He sticks his tongue out at you before turning on his heels and going back to his table and a laughing Chrys. Shaking your head at the two of them, you look back towards Peter who's already watching you with a smile that makes your heart stutter in surprise.
“A-anyways,” You cough, tearing your eyes away from him as quickly as they connected. Layla chuckles under her breath but you ignore her in favor of tapping Peter's paper again. “Last rule: you have to have a favorite Superhero. Doesn't matter if they're from the fifties or they're a more modern one but you have to have one, your first project will be on them.”
Peter ponders for a moment, his head slowly nodding. Easy enough, he could just say himself. Spiderman. Who doesn't love Spiderman? But you also said it could be anyone and Peter remembers a younger version of himself who was once obsessed with Steve Rogers and the mantle he adopted during the World War; Captain America. It was easier to do a paper on someone who had their whole life documented, someone who was dead and all their secrets out to the world than come up with a lie on how exactly he hunted down Spiderman and knew about his favorite foods and colors. Still, he can't help but be curious, “Who did you pick?”
“Oh my god,” Layla mutters. She quickly pushes away from the table, grabbing at her papers with so much annoyance it makes Peter flinch. He looks back to you, expecting some kind of hurt look but instead, you look…. Embarrassed. Layla shakes her head, curls kissing her cheeks as she does so, “You might as well as her to recite the Bible in Japanese, it'd be shorter.”
“I’m not that bad.” You try to defend yourself but Layla cackles.
“No, you are. You went on a rant last weekend about Spiderman and his coloring on his suit was smart of him. Something about standing out against the grey of New York but not suicidal-ly so like Moonknight.”
Shelton looks over once again with an amusement-filled grin. “He resents that by the way.”
You shoot him a betrayed look. “You guys talk about me?”
“Sometimes.” Shelton waves a dismissive hand. “He knows you through Daredevil or something, they're the ones who gossip about you. Actually, is it true that you threw a lamp at Daredevil, or was Moonknight just pulling my l–”
“Anyways!” You interrupt, your voice high. Layla shakes her head and wanders toward the other table. “My favorite hero is Spiderman. He's great, I met him in passing once and–”
Peter's brain blanks. You met Spiderman? You met Peter and he can't even remember it? His mouth opens then closes, and his brow dips. “You met Spiderman?”
The question only seems to make you more embarrassed. “Uh, yeah. Back in high school, he uhhh, saved me from a mugging and comforted me afterward. He's been a favorite ever since, you know?”
Peter racks his brain, forcing himself to think back. High school wasn't something he liked to look back on but he met you around that time, you two were the same age– only months apart, and back then he usually stuck to Queens meaning you had to go to his school or at least one of the neighboring ones. Peter thinks and thinks and thinks and something clicks in his brain, a memory shaking itself free of dust and shoving the others aside;
He remembers it now and can see the same girl in your gaze from that night. Your hair had been longer, a mess from your struggle to keep your belongings and fight the grip of the thug. You had been crying, sobbing out for anyone, someone to help you. When Peter got there, he heard several nearby heartbeats and saw red, felt anger coursing through his veins. So many people were willing to let you get hurt, to stand by and do nothing. He doesn't remember the fight but he knows it passed quicker, quicker than most because of his anger at the situation. He had strung the man up from a nearby light post and turned to you and barely got a word out before you burst into relieved tears.
Awkwardly, Peter hugged you. Stayed with you till your tears had dried and made horrible jokes that make him cringe looking back on them now but then, it had made you laugh and smile. Then, he walked you home; talking your ear off the whole trip and you let him, adding your own whispered words that left him grinning under his mask. When he left you at your door, he had given you an unseen smile and told you to stay safe.
It was weird how you had in a way. Peter, Spiderman, had never run into you again. You had become a blank face in the endless one of people he had saved— you got older, smarter, prettier, and ran with Heroes that Spiderman had partnered with, worked with, or even fought against. It was the most dangerous position you put yourself in and yet, you couldn't be any safer with the number of Heroes that actively looked out for you. Strangely, even though you and Spiderman had gone your separate ways, the two of you had stayed in the same circle. It was only chance that kept you two apart. Fate playing a game of cat and mouse and now here you are, unknowingly, speaking to your favorite hero once more.
Finally, Peter lets a small smile slip onto his face. He looks at you a little differently now, his eyes lit with mirth. “Yeah, you know…he's my favorite too.”
It's absolutely too cute the way you perk up at that. “Really?”
“Really. I even…. Well, Rule two is to tell you if I have a connection with a Hero and…”
Your face glows, you shake your head disbelieving but your cheeks are stretched into a broad grin. “No, no way. You aren't telling me what I think you're telling me-”
Peter knows he's screwed in the long run but if it keeps that same bright look on your face, that same smile directed at him, he'll leave that problem for future Peter to handle.
☆ summary : during the mission inside victor gideon’s hospital, you make the mistake of hiding an injury from leon. he notices anyway and unfortunately, it’s much worse than you let on.
☆ caution : serious injury (reader), blood, mission related violence, tension and banter, canon resident evil style tension and atmosphere, resident evil requiem setting.
☆ note : third instalment to the crybaby rookie mini series.
the surgical wing of the hospital sits in a suffocating quiet, but it only ever feels like that after something awful has already fucked everything in its path and left nothing but the aftermath behind. there’s these overhead lights that are flickering sporadically down the length of the corridor, some are completely dead while others have a faint electrical buzz that echoes just barely against the tiled walls. the air smells sharply of antiseptic—like a typical hospital, but underneath that sterile scent is something sour that clings to the back of the throat. overturned crash carts sit abandoned along the hallway, drawers pulled halfway open where gauze packets and syringes have spilled across the floor. stainless steel trays lie scattered where someone must have knocked them aside in a hurry and the wheels of an empty gurney spin lazily where it sits half tipped against the wall.
leon moves ahead of you with his usual caution, flashlight steady in his hand as the beam glides across open patient rooms and darkened examination bays. most of the doors hang crooked on their hinges, revealing hospital beds left exactly where they were abandoned, restraints still strapped loosely across the mattresses. his posture is tight, shoulders squared, obviously the posture of a man who’s survived too many situations like this.
you follow a few steps behind him, though.. it’s getting harder to keep the same pace. each step sends a dull pulse of heat through your side, something deep and throbbing beneath the layers of your vest and dress. it started earlier you know—back when the two of you forced your way through the lower patient ward but adrenaline had carried you through it at the time. now, sweet reader.. the rush has begun to wear thin, leaving the ache behind in its place. you keep your arm wrapped tight across your middle with your fingers curled into the fabric as if you’re just cold, like it’s nothing more than a habit. but you know it's because you don’t want him to see.
leon slows near the end of the hallway to check an examination room on the left, the beam of his flashlight sliding briefly across overturned stools and a cracked monitor screen before he steps forward again. you try to keep up, but the floor seems to tilt slightly beneath your feet, your shoulder brushing the wall as you steady yourself.
“(name)..?” leon says after a moment, your name leaving him almost absentmindedly, like something about your footsteps finally caught his attention.
“m..hn..?” you respond, the sound barely coherent as you blink slowly at the back of his jacket.
he stops walking. and slowly, leon turns halfway toward you with the beam of his flashlight drifting across the floor between you both as his eyes settle properly on your posture. “what’s the matter with you?” he asks, voice still low but alert now, casual tone gone as he takes in the way you’re leaning against the wall.
you shake your head weakly, though the motion makes the dizziness bloom harder behind your eyes. “jus—um.. feelin’ a little dizzy..” you murmur, trying to straighten even as your fingers tighten reflexively against your side.
“dizzy?” leon repeats, the word flattening as he studies you. his gaze drops almost automatically to your hands, and that’s when he notices the shine along your fingers. deep, red wet. the flashlight lifts slightly, the beam catching the dark stain spreading through fabric and dripping from where you’re trying to hold it in.
“jesus christ,” he mutters under his breath.
there was blood that had already begun to dry, tacky along the edges where it’s been there long enough to thicken. it isn’t fresh. it’s been bleeding for a while.
which means you’ve been hiding it.
leon crosses the distance between you in two quick strides, crouching immediately as the flashlight slips from his hand and rolls across the floor. his movements are fast but he knows what he's doing, its efficiency—much better than your reaction to him getting hurt on a mission one time and you cried like a baby dressing his wound. life of an empath.
leon grabs your arm and pulls it away from your side, exposing the torn fabric underneath. the second the pressure lifts, fresh blood wells up through the opening. he looks at you dead in your face and you know you can’t look him in the eye—so he forces your to with a turn of your jaw.
“why would you do something so stupid, huh?” he mutters, though the tension in his voice isn’t anger so much as something tighter, something so close to panic. “why didn’t you say anything?”
your head tips back slightly against the wall, vision swimming as the flickering fluorescent lights above you smear together. “i didn’t wanna disappoint you..” you admit quietly, the words sounding almost apologetic. “you said i did so good.”
for a second leon goes completely still then he exhales sharply through his nose and tears open a sterile gauze packet with his teeth, pressing the thick padding hard against the wound. pain flares instantly, sharp enough to drag a quiet gasp out of you as your body jerks.
“i did,” he mutters, voice rougher now as he guides your shaking hand down over the gauze. “i did say that.” he presses your palm firmly into place, making sure you keep the pressure there. “hold onto this, alright? keep pressure on it and keep talking to me.”
your fingers barely cooperate, trembling as they press weakly against the bandage. “leon..” your voice wavers slightly, the edges of your vision beginning to blur. “i really don’t feel good..”
he’s already pulling a compression wrap from his kit, hands moving quickly as he begins securing the gauze around your side. “yeah,” he mutters dryly, trying to keep his tone steady despite the way his jaw has tightened. “i figured. you know, i’d be worried if you said bleeding out was a good time.”
the weak joke pulls a small, breathy giggle from you, the sound almost delirious as your head tilts slightly to the side. “funny guy..”
your smile fades slowly as your eyes drift back toward his face, studying him with a hazy focus. “leon.. you’re so handsome..” you murmur again, voice softer now. “if i die.. will you be sad..? don’t—don’t replace me with someone prettier than me.. get some old guy who’s a little mean to you, like chris..”
his head snaps up immediately. “don’t say that,” he scolds, the words cutting through the air as he tightens the wrap around your side. “we’re getting out of here. you’re gonna get stitched up, and then you’re gonna explain why you thought hiding this was a good idea.”
you blink slowly, eyelids growing heavy. “can i ask you something..?” you mumble.
leon sighs faintly as he finishes securing the bandage, though he doesn’t stop working. “anything, but i need you to keep your eyes open.” he gives your cheek two soft (but firm) pats that make you a little more alert and you whisper an apology.
your voice comes out quieter now, drifting somewhere between consciousness and exhaustion. “would you ever see me as anything more than your coworker..?”
his hands pause for half a second before continuing their work. “in what way are you asking, sugar?” he asks.
your gaze drifts back to him, unfocused but earnest. “in a… boyfriend-girlfriend way..”
leon lets out a quiet breath that almost sounds like a tired laugh, of course. of course you decide now is the time to ask that as he’s pressing his hand firmly over yours, reinforcing the pressure against the bandage so you don’t bleed out.
“survive this,” he says, voice low and steady despite the tension running through him. “and you’ll get my answer.”
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