#JUST IN CASE since it technically maybe counts? as an activity that brought me a smidgen of pain | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scuttling · 3 years

Text

Lean on Me

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Gender Neutral Reader Word Count: 4,717 Tags: SFW, Fluff, 5+1 Trope, Obliviousness, Mutual pining, Aaron Hotchner deserves good things, Canon typical injury Summary: Five times you want to kiss the frown off of your boss's face, and one time you actually do it. *Requested by Anon. Link to AO3 or read below! “It doesn’t make sense.”

You stick a tack in a photo of a murdered woman—unfortunately one of many you’ve stuck to this board—and turn to face Hotch, who is looking over your handiwork with a quizzical expression.

“What doesn’t?” He takes a few steps closer, crosses his arms in front of him.

“Why would the unsub leave his comfort zone? The first six abductions occurred within five miles of the college, so why did the seventh and eighth happen almost twelve miles away?” He reaches for the board, traces his finger along the circle Reid had colored in on the map. “We profiled that he’s disorganized and far from confident, so why would he do that?”

He looks over at you, frowns, and not for the first time your gaze is drawn to the little crease between his eyebrows that always forms when he is puzzled, worried, confused, stressed, or otherwise unhappy. In short, it’s there kind of all of the time.

For the first time, though, you think of how easy it would be to lean over, press your lips there, smooth it out, and maybe even get him to smile for a change. He has a great smile, when he lets people see it.

You shake the daydream, rewind back to the question he asked, and wrinkle your nose in thought.

“Maybe his circumstances changed? It's summer now, and there are still classes, but students aren’t living in the dorms. Maybe he moved back home or got an apartment off campus that’s within that area—or a job.” He sighs, runs a hand over the back of his head, nods.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. That’s good. I’ll mention it to the others.” He pulls out his phone, and you grab another photo, another thumbtack, but something stops you and you lay a gentle hand on his arm.

“You don’t have to think of everything, you know. That’s why you have us.” He exhales, his shoulders losing a little of their tension, and that forehead wrinkle gets a little less deep.

“Sometimes I forget that not everything needs to be done the hard way. Or by me.”

“What? You, Aaron Hotchner, doing things the hard way?” you tease, and you are gifted a glimpse of his rare, unfiltered smile.

“Okay, enough pointing out my flaws,” he says with a raised eyebrow, though he’s still smiling, and as he looks down to type out a text, you remember to pull back your hand.

“I would never.” He looks up from his phone at that—maybe at the conviction in your voice, which you hadn’t exactly intended—and his expression softens further.

“I know you wouldn’t.” You hold eye contact for a moment, and then turn to finish preparing the board, pinning up another photo of another woman and reminding yourself that they need you to focus on the task at hand. Two weeks later, you knock on Hotch’s office door, a stack of completed consults in your hand. He looks up, that familiar notch in between his brows, a scowl on his face; when he sees that it’s you, he tones it down a little.

“Draw the short straw?” he asks, and you figure that’s because everyone knows he is in a bad mood and they’ve been avoiding this office all day. You shrug.

“It was rock, paper, scissors, but yes.” He huffs a short laugh, and you smile, step toward his desk. “Anything I can do to lighten the load?”

“Technically you’re adding to it,” he says with a glance at the files in your hand, and you set them on one of the chairs with a purposefully loud thump and then take the other seat.

“Technically. But technically, you only need to review my consults; I can review theirs. Right?” He mulls it over a moment, like the thought never crossed his mind—of course Aaron I have to do everything myself Hotchner would never suggest such a thing, even as the team sits in the bullpen with nothing to do, seeing who can throw M&Ms into Spencer’s mouth from the furthest distance.

“Technically,” he agrees, and you pluck a pen out of his pen cup and take the first file off the pile, open it in front of yourself, careful not to cut into the workspace he’s occupying. You both smile softly down at your work, and you actively do not think about that wrinkle between his eyebrows.

About an hour later, he reaches for his mug out of habit but finds it empty; you stand, take it in your hand, and he makes a noise of protest.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know,” you say, and you walk toward the door. “I need some too. I’ll be right back.”

You pass through the bullpen—apparently the M&M contest led to a sugar crash, because Spencer is laying with his head on his desk—and grab your cup off your desk, take both to the break room to fill them.

Derek appears next to you as you’re stirring your sugar in.

“Coffee date with the boss?” he asks with a curious expression, and you shake your head.

“Of course not. I’m helping him with the overwhelming amount of paperwork on his desk so his mood improves, instead of just ignoring him.” You raise an eyebrow in challenge, and Derek scratches the back of his head.

“Never thought of that,” he admits, and you pat him on the arm and take your coffees back upstairs.

Hotch looks up at you as you set his mug down, says a soft thank you, and you grab the pile of files you brought up, separate them, and head back downstairs.

“You review mine,” you say to Derek, handing him a stack, “Emily take Spencer’s, Spencer take Derek’s, I’ll take Emily’s.” They look at you like they have no idea what to say, and you just smile, tap the top of Spencer’s head with a folder. “I’ll come back down and grab them in a little bit.”

“Yes, boss,” Emily says, and you grin on your way back upstairs. Hotch is standing when you arrive this time, looking out the window over the bullpen.

“What did you do?” he asks, turning to you, frowning again. You’re so close that kissing that wrinkle would be effortless. All you’d have to do is lean in.

You smile.

“I delegated, Hotch. You should try it some time.” You put your hands on his arms and guide him back to his desk. “Now what can I help you with?”

By the end of the day, his desk is clean and his bad mood is long gone. He closes the last of his files, sighs deeply, covers your hand with one of his, and says thank you.

The next morning when you come in, there is a steaming latte and a cookie on your desk, and you can’t stop smiling the rest of the day. Your next case is draining, children abducted and left for dead, and everyone is on edge, but no one more than Hotch. You’re fairly certain his face hasn’t relaxed since the initial briefing, and he’d be a prime candidate for the old ‘your face will get stuck like that’ joke, if anyone was up to joking.

The team catches the unsub, saves one child, but not until after three are dead; you take a late flight home because no one wants to stay another night in a town it feels like you’ve failed, and everyone curls up to get some rest except you and Hotch.

You try to read the book you brought along—a science fiction dystopian novel, something to get you out of your head and away from real life problems—but you’re a little distracted by Hotch’s sighing. It’s become an every-five-minutes thing, and while you’re definitely on board with sighing as a way to decompress, he’s not decompressing. He looks like he’s in pain mentally, exhausted physically; you’re not sure how everyone else was able to ignore it and go to sleep, but then you figure everyone else may not be as in tune with him as you are. As observant.

As in love.

Not that that matters: you know your issues, and some of his issues, and there’s the whole superior/subordinate thing which doesn’t really do anything for you except give you a stomach ache. It would never work out, even if he somehow, miraculously, were to love you back—and that’s a pretty big if in and of itself.

But still, you notice him, can’t help it, and the sighing is getting to be a little much. You sigh yourself, put your finger in between the pages of your book, and walk over to take the seat next to him; he looks over at you, frowning just like always, and you carefully close his file and set it aside.

Neither of you say anything to the other, just look each other over for a moment, and then you lean lightly against his shoulder and flip back to the beginning of your book.

“I still dream of the island. I sometimes approach it across water, but more often through air, like a bird, with a great wind under my wings. The shores rise rain-coloured on the horizon of sleep, and in their quiet circle the buildings: the houses grown along the canals, the workshops of inkmasters, the low-ceilinged taverns.”

You keep your voice low and soothing, and you are just turning to page fifteen when you feel the weight of his head drop onto your shoulder.

The crease between his eyes melts away in sleep.

You read until you make it home, and you wake him up with a gentle nudge before the rest of the team drifts back to consciousness. He looks at you, blinks slowly like he’s trying to remember where he is, and then gets a little sheepish when he puts two and two together, realizes he fell asleep on your shoulder.

You just shake your head, give his arm a squeeze, and head back to your seat to gather your things. You, Hotch, and Emily are catching the elevator to the parking garage—after staying two hours later to work on some rush consults straight from Strauss—when he looks at something on his phone that makes him groan aloud. You and Emily share a look, and you ask what’s wrong.

“I just remembered I’m supposed to have a treat for Jack to take to school tomorrow and it’s, what, seven thirty?”

“So just stop at the supermarket on your way home; no one can tell the difference anyway,” Emily says, but you and Hotch both shoot her a skeptical glance.

“It’s all about the treats at a school like Jack’s,” you supply, and Hotch looks over at you like he’s surprised by your comment. “If they’re not homemade, the parents talk. Plus there’s probably an allergen list a mile long: no nuts, no eggs, no soy, no dairy. You have to pick him up from Haley’s tonight, right?” You’re pretty sure, but when he nods he confirms it. “So pick him up, go home and get some dinner, put him to bed, and I’ll text you when I’m on my way over with the goods. I have a great recipe for vegan apple cinnamon muffins that will go over really well.”

“You really don’t have to do that; I’ll figure something out,” he says, but you just shake your head and pull up the recipe on your phone.

“Forget it, it’s already done. I have everything I need at home already; let me help,” you murmur softly, and when he looks at you with the furrowed brow that comes with accepting kindness from someone else, you almost forget it’s not just the two of you in the elevator. It’s only when Emily clears her throat that the eye contact breaks. He nods.

“Okay. Thank you; I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything.” The elevator dings and it stops at the parking garage; the three of you get off and head in separate directions for your cars. “I’ll text you.”

“Goodnight,” Emily says with a grin, and you wave at her, hop into your car, and head for home.

About two hours later, you show up at Hotch’s door with two dozen apple cinnamon muffins, and unbleached, whole wheat flour in your hair, and he has coffee brewing, a smile on his face.

“You don’t know how grateful I am,” he says as he ushers you into the kitchen, takes the boxes of muffins from your hands, and pours you a cup of dark, delicious coffee. You sip it slowly, savoring the taste—you should have known he’d have incredible coffee—even though it’s far too late for you to be indulging. Unless you’re working a case, you usually switch to decaf by three.

“I know you are. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think you’d appreciate the gesture.” You lean forward, open a box, and pull out two muffins, handing one to him. “I made a couple extra so we could taste test; if I accidentally put salt in instead of sugar, you’re on your own,” you joke, and you wait for him to taste it before taking your own bite.

“That’s delicious. There’s really nothing unapproved in here?” he asks, and you shake your head.

“Nope, it’s all healthy and allergen free, except for the flour, but that wasn’t on the list you sent.” He reaches a hand toward you, and you don’t realize, at first, that he’s brushing the flour out of your hair.

“Messy baker,” he teases, and your heart feels really full, being in his kitchen like this, warm muffins and fresh coffee, even if your hair is a mess. You smile, and he smiles back before dropping into that serious expression, eyebrow wrinkle and all. You think about brushing your lips there tonight, but this feels like two steps forward, and you don’t want to risk taking that step back. “Next time I’ll help you.”

“Oh, next time? You plan on needing my baking expertise again? Fair warning, this is the only recipe I know, so I hope you like apple cinnamon muffins.” You take a sip of your coffee, look up at him, and he takes another bite, nods his head.

“I do. Especially these.”

In a perfect world, what comes next would be a cinnamony, coffee flavored kiss, but the world’s not perfect, and you yawn instead. You look down at your mug like it’s betrayed you, and Hotch chuckles low.

“It’s decaf. I know you usually stop in the afternoon; I wouldn’t forgive myself if you were up all night because of me.” You have always been a person who falls in love with all the little details about someone, so the fact that he’s noticed this, remembers this, makes your heart beat a little faster. “I should let you go. You’ve done so much today, between staying late and baking for Jack—for me. You need to get some sleep.”

He’s right, it’s nearly ten, and you should be getting back home, but this is a moment you never want to end.

You just nod, though, and he reaches out to brush his hand over your back when he walks you to the door.

“Thank you again. I really appreciate that you did this for me,” he says, soft, like he still can’t imagine you would.

“You’re welcome, Hotch. Any time, really; I’m happy to help.”

You get home, clean your kitchen, and have a very late dinner, and the smell of good coffee and apples and cinnamon is still in your nose when you drift to sleep. “You didn’t hear what he said,” Hotch snaps almost a month later, with one hand splayed on his hip and the other on the table in front of him. The moment you saw him engaged in an argument with a member of the Sheriff’s department, fire in his eyes, you’d grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into a small conference room, shutting the door behind you. It took almost three minutes of staring at each other for him to say something instead of just glaring at you for interrupting the pissing contest.

“I don’t need to know what he said. I know you, and I know you handle people like that with a quick, sharp remark and then you wash your hands of it. You don’t argue back and forth, you don’t draw it out. You would have regretted it if you did that today, so I stopped you.”

“You think you know me so well, do you?” he asks in an unkind tone of voice you can’t identify, haven’t heard from him before; the expression on his face is familiar, though, a scowl that only puts emphasis on his handsome features—it’s unfair, really.

You exhale, cross your arms.

“Yes, and I know you well enough to know you’re irritated with him, not me, so cut the shit.”

It’s the first time you’ve ever been quite that direct with him, and certainly the first time you’ve ever sworn at him; your immediate instinct is to apologize, but he surprises you by huffing a laugh. The angry lines of his face smooth into something softer.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. He just—I can’t stand people like that.” He scrubs a hand through his hair in irritation. “We’re here to work—to do a job they couldn’t finish on their own. Not to be… objectified.” He mutters the last word, so low you almost don’t hear it, and then there’s a knock at the door. Derek enters.

“Sheriff wants a word, Hotch; do you have a sec?” With one last look at you, he nods, brushes past him to leave the room. Derek gives you the barest hint of a smile. “He was defending your honor, you know.”

You frown. You didn’t know.

“That jerk was talking about me?” you ask, clarifying, and he nods.

“Something about assuming you’re an athlete because he likes your ass. Set the boss man off.” You walk over to him and leave the room together, heading back to your workspace.

“Well Hotch is right, we’re here to work, not to be objectified. I can see how he would get angry.” Derek shoots you a flat, questioning glance.

“You think he’d be getting that worked up if it was my ass that guy was talking about? Or Emily’s?” The two of you stop outside the conference room, and you cross your arms, lean against the doorframe, frown.

“So what are you trying to say? That he sees me as being weak, thinks he needs to defend me? I'm as capable as either of you.” That may not be strictly true, because you’re a little more brains than brawn, like Spencer in that way, but you can hold your own and you thought Hotch knew that.

Derek just laughs, shakes his head, and ducks into the room. You follow, so confused.

“I thought you were just playing it close to the vest, but you’re oblivious, aren’t you?”

“Oblivious about what?” Emily asks, pen between her teeth, feet kicked up onto a chair, and you shrug.

“I’m still not sure. Hotch got into an argument with a deputy about me, and I asked Derek if Hotch thinks I’m weak and that’s why he felt like he had to defend me.” She smiles broadly around the pen, pulls it out of her mouth with a grin.

“Oh, honey. That’s not it. You know that’s not it, right?”

“I clearly don’t know what’s going on at all, so no, if you’d care to enlighten me,” you say, sinking into an empty chair. “I hate it when you guys are cryptic.” You love your team, but they have a habit of doing this all the time, saying things to each other with their eyes, or just a few words that don’t have any sensible meaning that you know of. It’s like they live to talk over your head, to say things without actually saying them.

“Okay. Hotch has a thing for you,” Emily says simply, and you blink.

Well that’s the very last thing you’d expected to hear.

“He absolutely does not.” You look at Derek, who’s making a face like you’re the one being crazy; you laugh out loud, can’t help it. “He does not. I’m pretty sure Hotch doesn’t have things, and if he did, he wouldn’t have a thing for me.”

“Why not? Because that would be too convenient, since you have a thing for him too?” Derek asks, taking the seat across from you, and you grab the nearest case file, flip it open and focus your attention on it.

“I care about him, the same way I care about all of you, and he maybe needs a little more care—but you guys are reading into things.”

Thankfully, you don’t have to say anything more, because Hotch, JJ, and Spencer return, and you all have a lead to work.

You can’t help but wonder if you’re being obvious about your feelings, though, especially later, when you get back to the hotel and the group decides to have a drink at the bar.

JJ and Emily hit the pool table while Derek and Spencer head up for drinks, and you are left sitting with Hotch at the table, pressed together in the inside corner of a booth.

“Tired?” you ask him, because he does look worn out, his tie a bit loose, his eyes a little red. You know he doesn’t get much sleep when you travel, and you can’t imagine he’ll go to bed even when this little detour is over.

“Always,” he sighs, but when he looks over at you, he smiles, just a little. “Just can’t wait to get out of this town.”

“Yeah, it gives Southern hospitality a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?” The people you’ve interviewed today are, on paper, quite respectable, but there’s a Desperate Housewives, ‘everyone is sleeping with someone else's spouse’ kind of thing going on, and it’s honestly exhausting. To your surprise, Hotch laughs.

“It really does. I don’t think I’ve ever missed the quiet solitude of my apartment quite this much.” You lean back against the vinyl of the booth, sigh.

“I miss my apartment, but it’s been too quiet lately. I prefer the sounds of someone else sharing space with me: the coffee maker percolating, the news in the background, the shower running, the sound of flipping the pages of a book or magazine.” You look down at your hands, because you’re getting a little more emotional than you usually let other people see. “Sorry. I’m not typically this open about being…”

You trail off, but Hotch looks over at you, concerned, the wrinkle between his eyebrows even more noticeable when you’re sitting this close. You think, just briefly, of running your thumb over it, but with your luck, Derek or Emily would see, and you’d never live it down.

“Lonely?” he finishes softly, and when you nod your head, he covers your hands with one of his own, bumps his shoulder against yours. “I get lonely too. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” You look up at him, feeling a little vulnerable, and his expression softens. “When we get back, maybe you could come over for dinner some night. Nothing fancy,” he clarifies, and you smile, “just two lonely people being a little less lonely.”

“That would be really nice.” You can see Derek and Spencer approaching out of the corner of your eye, and Hotch must too, because he removes his hand, slips back into the slight, persistent frown you have come to know and love. Derek looks at you, raises an eyebrow, and hands you your beer. You try to tell him to shut up with your face, plan to follow up later to see if that actually worked. “We have an agent down on the second floor,” Spencer says into his comms, and you immediately want to slap him in the back of the head.

“Don’t say agent down, kid; I’m like, slightly wounded at best.” You hold a hand against the stab wound on your side—the unsub honestly just grazed you, and you’d knocked him out with a single punch, which made you feel pretty awesome—and reach out the other so he can help pull you to your feet. Your hand comes up to your own walkie button. “I’m not down, I’m fine—just slightly stabbed,” you add, and Spencer is getting his cuffs on the unsub when Hotch and JJ burst through the doors.

Well, Hotch bursts. JJ follows behind looking strangely winded for one of the most naturally athletic people you know.

“What happened? Are you alright?” he asks, and you lift your shirt to show him the sluggishly bleeding gash.

“I’m fine, see? It’s not even deep. Spencer saw blood and got a little ahead of himself.” You turn to Spencer, who sticks out his tongue, then back to Hotch, who looks haunted and pale, with that goddamn wrinkle between his eyebrows again. He’s bent down, looking over your wound seriously—you’ve had worse, so much worse, that you don’t understand why he’s so worried about it—and then he leans up, presses a hand to your cheek, and pulls you close for a soft, tender kiss.

If this were a movie, right about now a camera would be panning around you in a circle, as you wrap your free hand around his neck, pull him closer, melt against his body like it’s all you’ve been dreaming of for months, and the two of you would break apart smiling, maybe even kiss again.

It’s not a movie, though, so you just bleed out against your hand and freeze, because Hotch is kissing you at a crime scene and you almost got filleted, so you’re not sure if this is a you got hurt, so I’d better kiss you kiss or an I’ve been wanting to kiss you forever, and you got hurt so I have to kiss you kiss.

When he breaks the kiss, you’re both breathing a bit heavily, and you don’t know what to do, so you just lean in and press your lips to that wrinkle between his eyebrows that you’ve been thinking about so frequently since the first time you noticed it. You brush a hand through his hair, and when you pull back, he’s smiling.

“What was that?” He covers your hand on your side with his own and helps get you toward the elevator so you can be patched up by the EMTs; JJ and Spencer are left staring, open-mouthed in your wake, with an unconscious unsub at their feet, but neither of you are concerned about that.

“I’ve been thinking of doing that for months now: to kiss that spot between your eyes so you’ll stop frowning for a change. Since I couldn’t, I decided to find other ways to help you stop frowning so much. It kind of became my life’s mission.” He sighs, puts his arm around you and holds you close while you wait for the elevator to bring you to the ground floor.

“I stop frowning when you’re around because you’re around, not just because of the things you do for me,” he tells you, and he presses his lips to yours for another warm, soft, perfect kiss. “I’ve been thinking of doing that for months now.” You tilt your head, make a sound of contemplation, and he chuckles softly. “What is it?”

“I think those cryptic idiots we work with might be onto something,” you say with a grin, and when the elevator lets you off and Hotch helps you toward the ambulance to be patched up, Derek and Emily are waiting with concerned looks on their faces. They must be pretty confused to see you’re grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, you guys were right; Hotch does have a thing for me!” you call as you walk past them, and when your wound is properly dressed and wrapped, you put your arms around his neck and let him kiss you until the frown and accompanying wrinkle are nothing but distant memories.

*The novel excerpt is from The Weaver by Emmi Itäranta.

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#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x reader #ask answered #anon #prompt #aaron hotchner x gn reader #hotch x gn reader #request

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twotapbuz · 3 years

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The leader and a body guard(Rin x reader)

(Sorry this took so long, school sucked all of my motivation away. You can find the rest of the series here: Eloni )

warning: violence, slight angst with a happy ending

Sometime after the rock revolution, Neon J decided to leave for a 3-week vacation

This meant that you and your coworkers would need to report to Rin

The first couple of days were difficult because Rin didn’t seem to care about the reports and would flirt with whoever was giving him the report

It wasn’t till week two that things began to spiral

1010 had been in the middle of a performance when a fight broke out in the crowd

You jumped out of where you were standing to help control the crowd

You assessed the damage after everything calmed down

The venue + stage was partially destroyed, Purl-Hew lost his glasses and an eye, Haym lost an arm, Zimelu and Eloni’s faces were cracked, and Rin was missing

Rin was missing

This was bad news as the factory still hadn’t been repaired yet which meant that he couldn’t be brought back until Neon J came back

And if Neon J found out that you lost a member of 1010, you and your co-workers would be fired

So your group split into two parts, one half would take Zimelu, Haym, Purl- Hew, and Eloni back to Barraca Mansion while the other half would search for Rin

You were placed into the latter

It had been nearly an hour since Rin was discovered missing and there still was no sign of him. You were definitely going to get fired. While the concert was in Cast Tech, you along with several others were sent to search Metro Division in case he simply went back to Baraca Mansion without telling anyone. You were about to head back when you heard the sound of crashing metal.

“Hello, is anyone there?” You didn’t mean to say anything, but you were caught off guard. Against your better judgment, you began to walk towards that alley. You were desperate to find him after all.

“Stay back! RETREAT!” shouted a panicked autotuned voice. It was Rin.

“Rin? Is that you? Are you ok?” you rushed down the alley to find Rin hiding next to a dumpster.

“Don’t look at me!” Rin was trying to cover the right side of his face with his arm.

“What? Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah! Do not worry about me, I’ll make it back fine,” Rin tried to stand up, still covering his face, but immediately fell back down because his leg was missing.

“Look… everyone’s worried about you and you won’t be able to make it back by yourself with that leg,” you gestured at Rin’s broken leg. Please let me help you, I know some shortcuts.” You offered your arm. Rin hesitantly lifted his hand for his face and grabbed your hand for support. The metal that covered the right side of her face was gone, revealing the damaged hardware underneath.

You involuntarily flinched, he may not have been human, but it was still pretty jarring to look at something that looked like a person who was missing part of their face. Rin also flinched, covering his missing face with both of his hands now.

“I’m so sorry about that”, you rubbed your neck, “I just… well I didn’t expect the injury to be that bad.”

“You aren’t going to scream, are you?

“What? No, I'm very sorry about that. Besides I’ve seen way worse” you joked, trying to release the tension. Rin hesitantly uncovered his face once again and grabbed your hand and pulled himself up. The two of you dodged the groups of people walking through Metro Divison.

As the two of you were walking through, you couldn’t help but wonder about Rin’s reaction when it suddenly hit you, 1010 got severely injured during the rock revolution. One of these injuries included all of them losing their faceplates. Their fans unsurprisingly freaked out which caused 1010 to explode due to some protocol Neon J must’ve implemented. Your heart sank when you realized Rin’s reaction wasn’t because he was worried about his image, but he was scared of you screaming and what would follow afterward.

——————

After that incident, Rin seemed to act differently towards you. He took you more seriously and listened to your reports

Even after Neón J came back, Rin still came to you for your reports

Probably just practice for when Neón j retires, you thought

As the weeks passed, the time spent on the casual chats you had increased to the point you’d forgot to give him the actual report several times

“And that’s how we got Quienne and Bebe.” Rin had just finished telling you the story of how they got their cats by Haym and Eloni smuggling them in through a box. This was one of many of the 'behind the scenes stories' that Rin had told you. While they didn’t act that much different when they weren’t on camera or in front of a crowd, it was nice to be trusted enough to hear about their personal lives.

“So what about you?”

“Hm?”

“Do you have any good stories? I don’t think it’s fair if I tell all of my secrets after all~.” Rin teased

“Well, I do have one. I was at a dance audition and waiting for my turn to perform and this dude that was performing was pretty much a circus act. He was doing all these frontflips and backflips and it was just crazy. Wish I had recorded it.”

“You used to be a performer? How come you stopped?” Rin curiously asked.

“Nah, I never made it past the first round of auditions. I didn't really mind since I only entered to support a friend.” You sipped on your coffee

“That’s a shame.” Rin paused for a moment. “You know I could always offer you lessons.”

“that's really nice, but I’ll have to decline. No amount of practice can fix these two left feet.” You looked at the clock, realizing half an hour had passed. You quickly said your goodbye and left to avoid getting into trouble. Rin watched your back as he left, unsure why he couldn’t take his eyes off you.

——————

Rin was walking to his dressing room when he saw you walking alongside several other security staff. As rude as it sounded, Rin normally wouldn’t think twice about the people he worked with. Most staff would either quit from being harassed by crazy 1010 fans or get fired for secretly being 1010 fans who used the job to get access to 1010 content, or worse, 1010 themselves. Rin shuddered as memories of one of the many incidents came back. Rin could count on both of his hands the amount of current staff that has been working for over a year and you were one of them. Rin began to think about the early part of his career when he and his family would actively engage with the staff, talking about both of their personal lives and inviting them over to hang out in the mansion. He and his brothers stopped interacting with the staff after the high turnover started. What was the point of talking with them if they were going to quit and avoid 1010 like the plague or get fired and be avoided by 1010 like the plague. He was glad that he could talk to you. He also liked the sound of your voice and how your eyes sparkled brighter than the LEDs that lit up him and his brothers. Rin blushed at the last thoughts. The sound of your voice and the sparkle of your eyes? It’s not like he was in love with you or anything. He was technically your boss and your relationship was completely professional. Yeah, your interactions were one of his favorite parts of his day and your smile would always brighten his day, but even if he was in love with you(which he is not) there’s still the challenge of gaining the approval of his family and having to deal with his fan’s harassment. He couldn’t let you go through that. Though Rin couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to talk with you outside of work…even go on a couple dates… maybe he was in love afterall.

——————

You walked past Rin and smiled. Despite your attempts, you fell for Rin's charm just like his fans did and it took you no time to notice this. You knew you were never going to say anything, afterall, everyone knows the rule about not dating coworkers and Rin can choose practically anyone, why would he pick you?

——————

It was the first concert after the rock revolution

The fans were extra antsy due to the lack of content, so it was all hands on deck

You were positioned on the front of the stage

This concert was no different than the previous ones, 1010 were performing, a couple of their fans attempted to jump on the stage, and you could barely hear your own thoughts over the mix of music and cheering. Suddenly both of those stopped. You looked at the stage and so 1010 standing still in mid-performance. You were told about this situation during training: it was either a malfunction or a hacking. You prayed that it wasn’t the latter. 1010 suddenly began to move in sync, but it was different from their normal in sync movement. You saw two fans get tackled to the ground as a red saw blade passed them at what would’ve been chest height. Your radio buzzed loudly as you were given your new orders:

“Get everyone out of there.”

It was chaos as you rushed around to get everyone out of the venue. Those with superhuman abilities(pyrokinesis, levitation, etc) stayed behind to prevent 1010 from leaving the venue. Despite not having any abilities, you stayed behind too. You were running around in the back looking for anyone who still might be there when the rubble from an explosion behind you knocked you to the ground. You quickly got up and saw Rin towering over Neon J. Without thinking, you quickly grabbed a nearby pipe that came from the newly busted wall and smashed it over Rin’s head. This managed to stop his attack, but it also brought his attention to you. He suddenly ran towards you, grabbed you, and threw you against the wall. Your consciousness began to fade in and out as your head collided with the wall. You saw Rin approaching you, then darkness, Rin raising his arm to strike, darkness again, Rin being pulled away by Neón J, darkness again, the inside of an ambulance, and then nothing.

——————

You woke up in a hospital room. Your eyes scanned the room: on your right was a monitor accompanied by an IV drip. On your left was a small table with flowers, a get-well balloon, a couple cards, and a Rin with a worried face sitting on one of the chairs of the room. Rin noticed you were awake and quickly rushed before stopping unsure of what to do.

“Y/N” Rin said, unsure of what to do or say

“Rin”

“Y/N… I’m so sorry about what happened- I didn’t want to-I couldn’t stop- if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you-” Rin began to stutter out of guilt. He kept making sentences but giving up on them and starting new ones.

“Rin, please” Rin paused and looked at you. “It’s not your fault, I know you would never do this” the two of you sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before you continued, “You know... if the offers still up… I’d be happy to accept those dance lessons when I get discharged." Rin began to smile

“Yeah, the offers still up”

——————

Neon J walked through the hospital’s halls. For the past two weeks, he had been personally escorting Rin to your hospital room. He knew Rin felt responsible for your injuries so he didn’t object to this despite the possible security risks(he couldn't keep his boys locked up). He had heard from Rin that you had woken up and he was glad that you were ok, but he had to cut your visitor time short due to an interview that all 1010 members must be present for. He walked into your room to find the two of you sleeping with Rin’s head on your lap.

“It’ll be fine if Rin misses one interview.” Neon J thought as he closed the door. He also began to wonder how long it will be before Rin introduces you officially to the family.

#NSR #NSR 1010 #no straight roads #rin #1010 rin #nsr rin #neon j #nsr x reader #no straight roads x reader

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ridiculousn3sswrites · 3 years

Text

Pressing Issues

*Dick Grayson x Reader

*Summary: Detective Dick Grayson has never been annoyed by another person as much as journalist Reader.

*Warnings: Swearing, talks of gun violence (relevant to a case Dick is working on), mention of robbery (case mention), cop stuff. Let me know if I missed anything.

*A/N: I made a post talking about this idea a while ago and finally wrote it.

Tip Jar

**********

When Detective Dick Grayson stepped on the scene, he didn’t expect anything different from what was told to him on the way there. He went about doing his thing - talking to the officers on the scene, chatting with CSI - when he heard his partner let out an exaggerated groan. Dick looked over, confused at the noise. His partner just rolled his eyes, nodding towards a woman with a press badge. “Man, why’d they send her?”

“Who’s that?” Dick asked. He’d never seen her before, but she was definitely attractive. He’d had a few press statements on other cases, and he never really saw the issue with the press. Maybe that was just from growing up around Bruce and all the media attention that brought, but the journalists he’d spoken to in Bludhaven had never been rude to him.

“That’s (y/n), she’s a monster.” His partner provided no further explanation as the woman walked up to them.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but you can’t be on the scene,” Dick immediately said. He was surprised the other officers didn’t stop her at the tape.

“Right, but those officers weren’t giving me any answers,” she told him. His partner let out a laugh.

“Grayson, you can deal with her, just get her out of the tape,” his partner said.

“Rodriguez, always nice to see you.” She smiled at his partner, but her tone was dripping with sarcasm. “Haven’t gotten any better at your job since the last time we spoke, have you?”

“Grayson, get her out of here.” Rodriguez lost any amusement he had with the woman, and Dick knew he should get the journalist out of there before things escalated even further. Dick led her away from the scene, right to the edge of the tape but away from the small crowd that were always nosing around scenes.

“Detective Richard Grayson, how can I help you out?”

“(Y/n) (L/n), lead crime journalist for the Bludhaven Gazette. I wanted to get a feel for the scene before we put anything out about it,” she explained. “Anything you can share about what happened?”

“Alright, well we have two males hit in a drive-by, one dead on the scene. We don’t know much about motives or anything, but we’re suspecting rival gangs based on the fact this happened in a grey-zone,” Dick told her. It would be vague enough to satisfy her readers, but didn’t put anything too speculative out there. She was shaking her head as she wrote down what he said. “Wait, what’s all that about?”

“What?”

“The head shaking? What, you don’t agree with the police statement?” Dick was trying to joke with her, but he was still confused.

“It’s not a grey-zone, but I wouldn’t expect the cops to know that,” she said, challenging him. Dick tried to think back to his nightly activities, trying to figure out if he missed anything with how the city was divided. As far as he knew, this area was unclaimed. “Right, so that’s it?”

“Well, yeah. We just got on the scene not too long ago.” She just hummed, and he wasn’t sure if it was in acknowledgement or disapproval. “Hey, what’s your beef with Rodriguez?”

“For a Detective, he’s shit at his job,” she told him, clicking her pen as she put it back in her bag.

“Care to elaborate?”

“A kid got snatched, broad daylight, and Rodriguez was the lead on the case. Gave up after a few days. I dunno where you’re from, but where I’m from, we don’t give up like that, especially on a kid,” she said. “I wrote articles talking about it, and Rodriguez doesn’t like me because I called him out on it.”

“Wow, you’re pretty cutthroat,” Dick said, whistling lowly.

“I just don’t give you guys any slack. Be good at your job and you have nothing to worry about.” She smiled at him before turning on her heel and walking away. He watched as she put her phone to her ear, probably talking to someone back at the office. She scared him a little, but he was always up for the challenge.

**********

Rodriguez was right. Dick was always down for accountability, but the way you brought it into his life was a bit much. Every time there was even the slightest hint of a development, you were there with your opinions about what he was doing wrong, and if you ever had any praise for him, it was so sparse he couldn’t even tell it was praise. He was just trying to look through some files to piece together your little cryptic ‘it’s not a grey-zone’ hint, when Rodriguez tapped on his desk.

“What’s up?” He asked, looking up at his partner.

“You got a visitor.”

“God, don’t tell me…”

“Surprise, your worst nightmare is here, Grayson.”

“Aw, I got a new nickname?” You asked Rodriguez as you dropped in the chair next to Dick’s desk. Dick had to stop the groan from escaping him, really not wanting to deal with you.

“She’s your problem now,” Rodriguez said, walking away. Dick almost wished he could go with him.

“Alright, (L/n), what is it now?” Dick asked, putting down his files.

“You have ID on one of the victims and it was a guy with no connections to anything on the Underground, but no progress on the shooter? C’mon, Grayson, I thought you’d at least be better than Rodriguez.”

“I’m working with what I have,” he huffed, fighting the way he wanted to roll his eyes.

“You’re not looking at all your options. Put away the gang files, they’re not the ones you should be looking at,” you almost ordered him. “I’m practically doing your job for you at this point. I gotta run, I have an interview.”

“You’re leaving the Gazette?” Dick was almost hopeful. That would definitely make things easier on him.

“No, smart one, I’m the one doing the interviewing.”

“Wow, who would’ve guessed with your shining personality,” Dick shot back, finally annoyed.

“I’m a ray of sunshine, just not with cops,” you said with your fake little smile before leaving him there. It took everything to not slam his head against his desk.

**********

Dick always thought he was good under pressure, but this was intense. With your little article that came out the day after you talked to him - apparently your interview was with the victim’s wife - public pressure was increasing on the department tenfold. He hated to admit it, but you were good at what you did. He was almost pissed off at himself after reading the article, and that was saying something.

He needed to close this case so he could get you off his back, and he needed to do it fast. Not only did you put pressure on the department, now his superiors were putting even more pressure on him. He knew you were cryptic with what you knew, but you wanted him to put together the pieces. When he was out for his nightly patrol, he was trying to piece together what little hints you dropped.

Dick had to admitted he was silently fuming as he sat on the rooftop across from the scene of the crime. After all, what did you know? It’s not like you had access to the databases he did, both legally and in the legally grey. What did she mean it’s not gang-related? It has to be, this is disputed territory right now.

And of course something sketchy had to happen while he was doubting you. A black town car pulled up to the block, someone getting out of the passenger seat and scanning the area before going back to talk to someone in the back. Dick cursed as he grabbed his binoculars, trying to watch the scene closer to see if he could get any more information from the sketchy scene. He zoomed in on the man in the backseat, a guy dressed in an expensive-looking suit wearing sunglasses at night (like an asshole), silver rings adorning his fingers.

“No way,” Dick mumbled, taking a picture of the rings to send to Barbara later. One of them in particular looked familiar, but he couldn’t exactly place it. “How the hell did she…”

After whoever it was seemed satisfied with how the scene looked, the person got back into the car and it pulled off, the tires screeching in the quiet of the night. As soon as Dick finished his patrols for the night, he sent the picture off to Barbara. She called him as soon as she ran the picture. “Hey, where’d you see this guy?”

“By the scene of that drive-by a couple weeks ago,” Dick explained. “I recognize that big ring he’s wearing on his middle finger, but I have no idea where from. Can you help me out?”

“Yeah, that’s a Baglio family ring,” she told him. “I can’t get an ID on the guy, but you remember that Italian family we were having trouble with out here? Same family.”

“Damn, she was right then. Technically not gang related. Hey, does the mob count as a gang?”

“I mean, technically, but they aren’t really recognized as gangs when it comes to like popular recognition. Does that really matter, though?”

“It’s a matter of me being technically right, so yes.”

“You’re annoying, has anyone told you that lately?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Okay, good talk then.”

**********

Actually having a solid lead meant that he was able to close the case a lot sooner than he previously thought. Sure, he wasn’t able to actually bag whoever was in the back of the town car, but he was able to track down the shooters. At the press conference announcing the arrest of the shooters, he could see you right there in the front row with the other reporters. Dick caught your gaze for a second, and he almost missed the small nod of approval you gave him. For a moment, he thought he’d finally get on your good side again.

Then again, the peace could only last for so long. Every single case he was on, he could bet there was an article about it soon to follow. You’d appear at every crime scene, moving on from antagonizing Rodriguez to finding Dick and immediately bothering him. You’d drop your little cryptic hints when he was having trouble with cases, and somehow they’d actually be useful once he decoded them. The thing that probably bugged him the most was how you managed to get to his desk almost every day he was working on particularly difficult cases. You never let him get to the point of forgetting about cases, especially for the ones that involved people that stayed away from the Underground.

He could understand not wanting cases to go cold, but the fact that you were coming into the precinct every single day to bug him about developments was a bit much. Dick could handle a healthy amount of shit talking, but there was just something about your shit talking that got him on edge. Everything about you just got under his skin, and seeing you so often was really not helping that out. It got to the point where he started trying to avoid you just to keep his sanity.

“Grayson, (L/n) just got on the scene, you wanna run?” Rodriguez asked as soon as he spotted you talking to the officers at the tape. Dick quickly looked around, trying to find someplace he could disappear to. The only real option would be to go look like he was talking to the CSI team, but he didn’t want to disturb them actually doing their jobs. Before he could make a decision, you were already approaching.

“Grayson, stop running from me. You know I know where you work,” you called out to him.

“I should really get you banned from the precinct,” he shot back, a small frown on his face.

“You know you’d get bored without me,” you said, rolling your eyes. “So, whatcha got for me?”

“Why are you talking like you’re on this case? Technically I don’t have to tell you anything more than the other officers told you.”

“So what I’m hearing is go ahead and write whatever I want.”

“For fuck’s sake-”

“Ooo, that’s the first time I’ve heard you curse. I like it. So, what’s the news?”

“It’s a robbery, one injured, but we have a couple witnesses and it sounds like we have a pretty solid perp description. We’re just waiting for the witnesses to meet with the sketch artist and then we’re sending out the sketch to the papers and news outlets,” Dick told you. “There, satisfied?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. Glad this one’s an easy one, I’d hate to have to write about you again,” you told him, turning around with a small smile on your face. “See you later, Grayson.”

“I sure hope not,” he decided to call after you. He could faintly hear your laugh, but the thing that caught his attention was the fact that you decided to flip him off as you walked away. Dick froze for a second, not sure if he should be highly amused or pissed off. He settled for somewhere in the middle, leaning more towards being pissed off.

When you put out your article, it was a simple, tell the details, share the perp sketch type of article. Dick was pleasantly surprised that there were no real call outs about him; as a matter of fact, his name was only mentioned once with the request that anyone who sees or has information about the suspect contact the tip-line immediately. He smiled at his laptop, taking the lack of criticism as praise. He was even willing to take the shit talking from Rodriguez, because as far as he was concerned, Rodriguez was just jealous that he never got this type of reaction from you.

**********

Dick didn’t realize he actually somewhat enjoyed your company - if he could call it that - until you stopped bothering him. You moved on from targeting him, bugging other detectives and officers about their open cases. He would hear complaints, as well as some pretty unsavory things, about you from the people you were bothering, and he was surprised about the amount of times he almost jumped to your defense. You were the biggest pain in his ass - constantly bugging him about his cases and making sure that he didn’t forget about your existence - so why did your disappearance bother him so much?

He got used to seeing you around the precinct (just not talking to him), but then he noticed when you stopped showing up. You didn’t show up to crime scenes, you didn’t show up to the precinct, you just weren’t there anymore, and that worried him. He tried asking around about you, seeing if maybe you were there and he just didn’t happen to run into you, but he met the same response: relief that you’d stopped coming around. It got to the point where he was checking the Bludhaven Gazette’s website to see if you’d written any new articles. Nothing.

Dick figured there’d be no way to really contact you; it wasn’t like he could just call your job and be like ‘hey, why isn’t this journalist bothering me anymore?’. He tried pushing you to the back of his mind, but he found himself still looking for you. It annoyed him - even when you weren’t there, you still managed to find a way to bug him. Before he knew it, a month had passed without seeing you. Then, as he was trying to schmooze up to a DA at the Policeman’s Ball, he could hear the telltale groan of another officer. You were there.

Sure enough, there you were in a black cocktail dress, a flute of champagne in hand, talking to someone he vaguely recognized from a different precinct. He wanted to excuse himself from his conversation just to see where the hell you’d been, but he knew he couldn’t risk it. He’d just have to find you later.

Then you slipped away yet again. Dick kept seeing glimpses of you here and there, but he could never catch up to you. It wasn’t until you went to the bar that Dick finally found his opening. You were talking to someone, but he didn’t really care at the moment. He slid up beside you at the bar, ordering a drink. He could see you straighten up at the sound of his voice, knowing he had your attention. As he took a drink of the whiskey in his cup, he turned to look at you.

You were a lot more done up than you normally were when you were working, but he couldn’t say he strongly preferred either. You looked amazing either way, just in different ways. “(L/n), funny running into you here.”

“Grayson,” you greeted, taking a sip of your own drink. “I can hardly believe this is an accident considering the way you’ve been watching me all night.”

That took him off guard, just enough to make him choke on his drink for a second. As soon as he regained his composure, he tried to figure out how to come back from his blunder. “Well, yeah. I thought I was seeing a ghost considering how you just disappeared.”

Not his best work, but you gave an amused smile so he would count it as a win. “Aw, you missed me.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. It was just weird not being bothered every second of my work day.” You tipped your glass back, the last of your drink passing your lips. He watched as you swallowed before putting the glass back on the counter, leaving some bills folded under it.

“Ah, I see. Well, I guess I’ll see you around, Grayson.” You stood from your seat, giving him one last look before turning to disappear back into the crowd. Dick would have to work fast if he wanted to catch up to you before you slipped through his fingers yet again. He paid for his drink and left a tip as fast as he could, scanning through the crowd for you again. You were about to disappear down the hallway towards the bathrooms, and he still had to make his way through the crowd as politely as possible while also avoiding conversation. Damn social conventions.

You walked down the hall, wanting to escape to the bathroom for a few minutes to compose yourself, when you felt a hand around your wrist. You whipped around, not knowing who would be daring enough in a room full of police, just to see the last person you wanted to. “Grayson, let go of me.”

“No,” his voice was firm before he realized it must’ve been a little jarring to just get grabbed. “Sorry, but no.”

“What do you want?”

“Why are you even here?”

“It’s my job. I’m reporting on this damn thing,” you practically hissed, trying again to tug your wrist free from his hold. “Why do you care so much?”

“You’ve been MIA for a month and then suddenly you just appear here of all places? What gives?” He said, stepping towards you. You took a step back, trying to keep the distance, but your back just hit the wall behind you. You were forced to look up at him, the storm in his blue eyes surprising you. Why did it matter so much?

“I got sick, alright? My editor thought this would be an easy returner,” you snapped, trying to maintain your glare with him. It was a little difficult with how close he was to not get flustered, but you did what you needed to. “Why, did you miss me?”

You could tell that pissed him off by the smallest flare of his nose, but before you could take in the victory, he hit his arm on the wall above you. He kept it there, trapping you between his body and the wall. He wasn’t pressed against you just yet, but you wouldn’t be opposed to it if it was. “Why do you like pissing me off so much?”

He really didn’t see the opportunity he presented you with. You grabbed his tie the slightest bit, giving him the chance to pull away if he wanted to. When he didn’t, you used it to pull him down to your eye level. “Have you ever considered how fun it is?”

There was a moment of pure silence between the two of you, the faint noise of the party still going on just down the hall reminding you that you weren’t actually alone. Your gaze flicked down to his lips for just a moment, and then it was over. You don’t know who closed the distance first, but it didn’t really matter. The kiss was heated from the beginning, messy with tongue and teeth but you weren’t going to complain about it. Your hold on his tie tightened, pulling him closer to you. Dick’s arm moved from pressed against the wall above you, one hand fisting in your hair and the other wrapping around your waist to pull your body against him.

“God, I hate you,” Dick panted soon after he broke the kiss.

“Why do I get the feeling you don’t?” You tried teasing, even though your voice was a lot more airy than you would care to admit.

“You annoy the hell out of me.”

“I’m a journalist that doesn’t give cops any wiggle room, of course I do.” He rolled his eyes, making you smile. You pressed another kiss to the corner of his mouth. “But you still missed me.”

“I guess I did. Do you maybe wanna get out of here?” You raised your brow, knowing he had to know how that sounded. It took him a second, but it finally clicked. “Not like that! Get some food or something. You probably aren’t annoying all the time.”

“You underestimate me,” you joked, making him smile. He has a pretty smile. “But I’ll take you up on that. Just make sure you behave yourself.”

“You’re the one who kissed me!”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” You freed yourself from his arms, making your way back down the hallway towards the exit. It took him a second, but you heard Dick following close behind. He pressed a hand to the small of your back, making sure you wouldn’t slip from his fingers again.

**********

Dress Inspiration

Permanent Tag List: @treatallwithkindness, @laic2299, @delaber

#dick grayson x reader #dick grayson imagine #nightwing imagine #dc imagine #reader insert

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mintymiknow · 3 years

Text

Trust Fall - ch. 15 | Lee Minho

summary | character profiles | masterlist

Pairing: Lee Minho/Lee Know x Reader

Summary: Your mission with SKZ is about to come to its end, and so is, perhaps, your time with them. Of course, feelings become clearer as well, and so you must make the most of whatever is left

Genre: Secret agent/spy au, romance, angst, action

Word count: Approx. 7.7k

Warnings for this chapter: Highly suggestive and implied mature content (nothing explicit, but I’ve added another warning just before the part starts in case you want to skip it!)

A/N: Another long wait, I’m so sorry for that; I’m just super busy. But, here is chapter 15! I might not be able to update for another long period because my academic requirements are very heavy for the next few weeks. I hope this tides everyone over for now, so please enjoy this chapter! Have fun, and don’t hesitate to drop an ask for any questions or comments!

Slumped on the couch of the lounge room are a few of the boys, eyes glued to the TV screen as another sappy rom-com plays out. Changbin is half-asleep when the on-screen couple kisses, but Hyunjin, on the other hand, squeals and shoves Minho in an attempt to tease him. The older agent furrows his eyebrows in confusion, causing the long-haired agent to laugh.

Chan chuckles softly as he reads the new book Seungmin got him, “Minho isn’t sappy like the guy in the movie, Jinnie.”

“I know, but maybe he can try.” Hyunjin continues to tease, “Where is y/n when I need her to help me with this?”

Minho lightly smirks, shaking his head in amusement, “She’s in the lab with Jisung. Those two couldn’t rest without testing the serums and whatever.”

“Then why is Seungmin here and not there?” Jeongin teases.

Seungmin pinches the younger’s cheek, “Because I already did my part. The stuff they’re doing is now super science-heavy, and you know I lean more on the medical side of this.”

Jeongin giggles when he flops back down on the bean bag, resting his hands behind his head as he does so, “I can’t believe we’re about to wrap this case up. It feels like it was just yesterday.”

Felix looks up from his phone and tilts his head, “I think it’s been...a few months?”

“More or less.” Chan hums, flipping the page of his book.

“I’m gonna miss y/n.” Felix pouts cutely, “She’s a really good friend. She’s caring and listens well and always makes sure I’m resting these precious eyes. She’s like a big sister.”

“Well, she is a doctor.” Hyunjin chuckles, “Caring is part of her nature, I guess.”

Jeongin grins, “Maybe, but it is her personality as well. And, she’s really fun to be with during free time. She’s a bit reserved, but she’s willing to try out activities if we ask her to.”

“Yup, sounds like a big sister.” Minho laughs.

Suddenly, Changbin is much more awake as he sits up and gently elbows Minho’s rib, “Not to you, lover boy.”

Felix makes his way towards Minho to sit next to him, clinging to his arm and pouting his lips, “Can you convince y/n to stay even after this case? Pretty please?”

“I don’t think I can do that, Lix.” Minho says apologetically, “First, her agreement with Jung was to leave as soon as her job here was done. Secondly, I don’t think we can just have her waltz right back in when she was the one who left back then.”

Chan hums as if deep in thought before stating, “Technically, she can work here again, but that would depend on Jung’s judgement, and if she really wants to.”

“Yikes, Min. Just say you want her to stay.” Hyunjin laughs.

“I do.” Minho smirks, “But like I said, she’s an independent woman and I’ll respect whatever decision she has to make.”

Seungmin shrugs, “Never did I think I would see the day that Minho has the look of love in his eyes once again.”

“Hey, I look at you guys with love.” Minho smirks playfully.

Hyunjin scoffs before chuckling, “In what universe?”

“Come here, Hwang.”

Minho crawls over to Hyunjin, and the two proceed to have a mock wrestling match. Hyunjin lets out a shriek just as the lounge room door opens to reveal you and Jisung standing in both confusion and amusement.

“Well, hello.” Hyunjin says as if he didn’t just shriek with a shrill voice.

You stifle a laugh by biting your lip - which, by the way, sends arrows to Minho’s heart - while Jisung grins cheerily and waves at the group. “So, y/n and I are finally done!” the scientist beams, “The solution has been tried and tested, and we’ve made several vials of it already.”

The two of you walk towards the other agents who are now sitting up on the couch or bean bags. You pull a small bottle from your bag and show it to the agents, “This is it.”

Chan smiles in awe, his warm eyes looking at you, Jisung and Seungmin proudly, “I can’t believe you guys did it. That’s amazing.”

“Now give y/n a reward kiss.” Jisung says quickly before clearing his throat, “As I was saying, we can report this to Jung and get the plans rolling and whatever. The solution is ready, this case is going to close!”

“I’m ready to wrap this up.” Changbin says as he stands up and stretches, “Should I file a report for Jung?”

Chan nods, “I’ll go with you.”

Hyunjin leans back on the couch, “Let us know what he says.”

Minho follow suit and gets up as well, nodding at the younger agent’s words, “Got it.”

The eldest agent then gestures for Changbin and Minho to follow him out of the room. With Chan and Changbin walking ahead, Minho briefly stops next to you and flashes a small smile. He doesn’t say anything - just smiles - while his eyes swim with a million emotions at once. You manage to pick apart a symphony of sadness, pride and happiness in the swirls of his eyes, but you aren’t quite sure what he meant with his gaze.

In response, you give him a gentle smile and nod your head. You aren’t sure what you’re nodding to or what that response was supposed to mean, but you did hope that it somehow made things...easier and lighter for the both of you.

With that, Minho lets out a soft chuckle and calls out to Felix, “We’ll contact you when Jung tells us the next step, alright?”

The freckled agent playfully salutes, “Got it!”

Minho regroups with Chan and Changbin by the door and from then, the three agents make their leave and walk towards the main HQ. Hyunjin pats the couch, gesturing for you and Jisung to sit down. You both do so, finally feeling relaxed after working for hours straight. Jeongin melts into the bean bag once more, his smile wide as he speaks, “Now that this case is coming to an end, what has been the best and worst part of this case for you, y/n? Since you’re kind of the ‘newbie’ here.”

“Worst part is definitely getting chased by Cle’s agents and nearly dying several times.” you say lightly with a playful shudder, “And...finding out about Hyunbin’s true identity.”

Jisung, despite being younger, is definitely taller, so he smothers you with what he calls “Jisung’s 100% successful comforting hugs”. The gesture makes you chuckle as you reciprocate the hug, holding your now best friend close to you. Jeongin hums as he tilts his head, making the mischievous glint in his eyes very obvious, “And the best?”

“I…” you trail off, a faint shade of pink on your cheeks, “...being able to be friends with you guys…”

Felix pretends to cry where he sits, bringing a hand to his heart. Jeongin imitates his friend, though his fake-crying is much more exaggerated. Hyunjin looks like a child who was gifted with the best toy in town, and Jisung snuggles closer to you. Seungmin, for a few seconds, smiles like a friendly puppy with sparkly, bright eyes before switching into a more devious expression, “And being able to date Minho?”

“I - ” you trip on your words, pointing a finger at your friend, “We aren’t dating! Or at least...I don’t think we are. I already made that clear.”

Seungmin wiggles his eyebrows, the hum coming out of him nothing but taunting, “But you do love him, don’t you?”

“I love all of you.” you pout.

Hyunjin nods his head with a soft smile, “I’m very grateful that you do love us, but you gotta admit you love Minho in a different way.”

“That’s…” you trail off, sighing and melting in Jisung’s arms as the male continues to hug you, “It’s just really complicated.”

“How so?” Jeongin genuinely inquires.

“After this case...I…” you can’t seem to bring yourself to finish your sentence; you don’t even know why it’s so difficult, but the words remain stuck in your throat.

“We know you’re going back to Gongjak.” Felix says sadly, “But can’t you...stay? Stay here with us instead?”

“There’s a reason why Jung and I came to the agreement of me leaving when this case or mission was over, Lix.” you say apologetically, “My earlier years in SKZ brought in a lot of pain and suffering that can’t be erased no matter what. In fact, working on this case brought in more of that. It was just...made easier thanks to all of you, but...it still brought an abundance of heartache. I don’t think...I actually don’t know, Lix. I haven’t thought about the aftermath, come to think of it.”

Seungmin offers a reassuring smile, “Don’t worry about it, y/n. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. No need to be so hard on yourself.”

“Yeah. We want you to do what’s best for you.” Felix adds in with a beaming smile, “Besides, you may not be with us physically, but we’ll keep in touch, yeah?”

“Of course.” you find yourself smiling, a fluffy and warm feeling blossoming inside you that consumed every inch of you with comfort.

But there also is a bittersweet inkling that stains that feeling; a gnawing irritation that causes you to think the worst - to think that when this is over, everyone will move on with their lives like you never crossed paths in the first place.

You wanted the case to end already, yet at the same time, you wished it didn’t.

A day later, you, Jisung, Seungmin, Jung and the other agents circled around the lab table, a variety of bottles, vials and test tubes laid out on the surface. Jisung explains how the solution works, and without wasting any more time, you use the solution on the Cle serums the team has gathered so far. Within seconds, the copper-like liquid fades in color, turning into nothing but a transparent, clear liquid.

Holding one test tube up, you say, “We’ve basically rendered it harmless, but I still advise against directly getting it onto your skin as it might mildly irritate it. But...the solution makes it safe to dispose of Cle’s serums now. The solution renders the serum into its weakest state, and once mixed with water or evaporated in the air, the chemical properties are gone and make it safe to throw.”

“I see.” Jung smiles and nods his head approvingly, “You’ve outdone yourself this time, Dr. Song.”

“I had great help.” you shrug, turning to Seungmin and Jisung with a small smile; the two males mirror the action.

Chan crosses his arms with a twinkle in his eye, “So, now that we’ve established this, what’s the next step, sir?”

Jung nods, “Yes. We proceed to interfere with Cle’s first transaction.”

The head gestures towards Minho who responds with a nod, “The most recent intel our team has gathered is that Cle is going to entertain a negotiation with an undisclosed third-party in two days in Jeju. This negotiation is said to be for the transaction of several crates full of their serum.”

“Yes.” Jung confirms, “So, we’ll head to Jeju tomorrow and anticipate the business transaction. We will interfere and stop them at all costs. This is one step towards eradicating their entire serum operation as from what the agents have gathered, most of Cle’s completed serums are being sold off in this particular transaction.”

Minho nods, “I suppose Chan, Changbin and I are going?”

Jung puts a finger to his chin as if contemplating a thought; a few seconds pass before he nods definitively, “Yes, you three. I’ll accompany you as well. I believe we should bring Felix as well, so that he can assist with communications and the mainframe systems of the hotel Cle’s transaction is happening.”

“He hasn’t been on a field mission outside of HQ in a while.” Chan chuckles lightly, “I’m sure he’ll appreciate coming with us.”

Jung smiles with an amused laugh, “Is that so? Well then, he’ll come along. I suggest you all get your rest as we’ll be flying to Jeju tomorrow. I’ll have Felix arrange for the flight and accommodations now.”

Chan nods his head and gestures towards the door. With that, Minho and Changbin follow him out of the room. You offer Jisung and Seungmin a smile before speaking, “I’ll clean up here. You two can prepare the solutions for the agents.”

Jisung flashes you a grin and waves, “Cool, thanks y/n!”

Seungmin follows him out the door after saying his thanks, leaving you in the room with Jung. You assume he’s going to take his leave as well, so you busy yourself with tidying up the lab table. However, the head clears his throat and breaks the silence, “Dr. Song.”

You nod your head, “Yes?”

“I am assuming that you want to tag along tomorrow?”

“Yes.” you chew on your lip, “Am I...not allowed to?”

“Oh, no. You are allowed to, but...I strongly advise against it.” Jung states.

This has you tilting your head as you furrow your eyebrows and ask, “Why?”

“We’re dealing with officials and bosses of Cle there.” Jung explains carefully, “And that may include Baek. I know how he...triggers you and I’d hate to see you go through turmoil in such a stressful mission. Minho would hate that.”

“Minho won’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.” - is what you want to say, but you choose to keep it to yourself.

Instead, you reply, “I appreciate your concern, but I...personally want - no, need - to be there. I was there, working for Baek when this serum first came to be, and I want to see with my own eyes that it’s being stopped for good.”

Jung furrows his eyebrows with concern, “Are you certain, Dr. Song? I know Minho will do everything in his power to keep you safe, but he can’t guarantee that. I can’t either. You’re much safer here.”

A small smile spreads across your lips as you nod at Jung’s words. “I know, but I believe this is something I can’t miss out on. If you will let me, I will go as well. I promise not to hinder or get in the way of the mission.” you say with an unshakable firmness.

Jung chuckles lightly, shaking his head, “No wonder he likes you so much. Well, if that’s your choice, I will not stop you. Do get some rest though, Dr. Song. We shall leave tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mr. Jung.”

With that, the head politely bows and you mirror the action. He then exits the room, leaving you alone to tidy up the lab.

Later on, when all tasks have been finished and each agent is off to do their own things or preparations, you finally make your way back to the living quarters, taking Jung’s advice to get some needed rest for the final mission tomorrow. As you walk across the lobby and approach the elevators, you see Minho standing with Chan, the two males talking with smiles on their faces; it always amused you on how those two were nearly inseparable. It was bittersweet, as seeing Minho in a softer, gentler light was nice, but his bond with Chan also reminded you of what could have been between you and Hyunbin.

Chan notices you from the corner of his eye and smiles, “Oh hello, y/n.”

You nod and smile back, “Hi.”

Minho gives you a smile, and Chan tries not to bite his lip in giddiness. The younger male speaks, “Heading to your room?”

“Yeah, get some rest.” you answer, gesturing to the two, “I assume you two will do the same? Or are you going to follow Jisung and Hyunjin to the bar?”

Chan laughs, “No, but close. I’m going to the snack bar. I...lost a bet and owe Jeongin a snack.”

You chuckle, “Interesting event.”

Chan grins, a hint of mischief brewing in his eyes, “Minho’s gonna get some rest though...so…”

Minho lightly smiles before playfully smacking Chan’s shoulder. The older male lets out a warm laugh just as the elevator arrives and the door opens. The three of you step in, but Chan gets out ahead at the floor of the snack bar.

As the elevator ascends to your floor level, Minho leans against the wall and chuckles, “You can say no, but - ”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t even finished.” Minho laughs.

You chuckle, shaking your head in amusement, “Yeah, but I already know what you’re gonna say.” you lightly pat his chest, “So yes, you can stay.”

“You really can’t stay away from me, huh?” Minho teases.

The elevator door opens, and the two of you walk towards your room. While walking, you playfully scoff, “Me? You’re the one going to my room.”

“But you can refuse. You just don’t want to.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you want to be with me.”

“I could always go to Seungmin’s room to annoy him.”

“No.” you blush after realizing how quick you responded, “I mean...Seungmin needs the rest...so...no. Don’t bother him.”

“You need the rest too.”

“I rest better when...you’re with me.” you choke out.

Minho smirks, “What was that?”

“Nothing.” you grumble after getting your door unlocked and stepping inside.

Minho follows after you, closing the door with a click. After kicking off your shoes and hanging your lab coat on a hanger, you flop onto your bed and release a relieved sigh. Minho chuckles as he joins you, sitting by the edge. “Jung told me you were insistent on coming along.” he says.

You close your eyes and hum, “Yes. I just...it’s like closure for me.”

Minho nods, a small smile on his lips, “Alright. But y/n, this might be more dangerous than all the previous missions you’ve gone to with us. We’re talking about a really important business transaction, so Cle is surely going to have much more skilled protection.”

“I know.” you reply, “I promise I won’t get in the way.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Minho sighs, laying down next to you so your arms rested against each other, “It’s your safety.”

“I…” you look for the right words, “I’ll take care. I’ll stay away from danger. I’ll stay with Felix.”

“That seems to be best.” Minho hums, reaching for your hand to weave your fingers together.

You give his hand a quick squeeze. The two of you lay side-by-side in silence, allowing the tranquility of the moment to settle and blanket over you. Minho is about to doze off when you suddenly speak, voice soft and hushed almost as if you were afraid to break the silence.

“The case is really almost done, huh…”

Minho slowly peels his eyes open and hums, “Yeah.”

Another second of silence.

“What’s it like for you agents? When a major case or mission is done?” you ask, and Minho can tell you’ve shifted your head to look at him and not the ceiling.

The male blinks a few times before answering, “Well, life goes on. We take a day or two off, preferably to recuperate or recover especially if we have injuries. Then...more missions and tasks.”

“What are you going to do after this?” you ask, though really, the question is directed more to yourself than to Minho.

“Eat, sleep and probably hang out with the boys.” Minho says casually, “You?”

And the dreaded question.

Technically, both you and Minho were aware that the original agreement you and Jung had was that you’d return to Gongjak after this case. But things happened, feelings bloomed and second thoughts resurfaced, so now, going back to your job at the hospital didn’t seem too...exciting.

With a sigh that held all your confused thoughts and contemplating musings, you answer, “I haven’t thought about it until now.”

Minho is about to open his mouth to say something when he stops abruptly; he closes his mouth when he feels you shifting around to climb on top of him, essentially laying above his body. The male can’t help but smile to himself as you lie down atop him, your head perfectly rested against his chest. As if on instinct, he wraps one arm around you while the other gently strokes the back of your head.

“What’s gotten into you?” he laughs lightly.

“I just…” you trail off and release a chuckle, “...wanted to relish the moment.”

“Hmm...hey.”

This prompts you to lift your head, eyes meeting Minho’s sleepy yet soft gaze. A slow smile eases its way to the agent’s lips as he whispers, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

But Minho doesn’t answer your question; instead, he gently presses his lips to yours, allowing you to adjust to the languid, sweet pace he set for you two. You reciprocate his kiss in an instant, humming in delight when the male deepens it ever-so-slightly. The kiss was like sugar melting on top of a hot cinnamon roll to form a syrup-like consistency; it oozes and covers you with a thick, warm and sweet feeling.

When you both pull away, you whisper against Minho’s lips, “I should be the one saying ‘thank you’ to you.”

“You know we’re going to argue about who says what to who for hours, right?” Minho jokes.

You laugh with him, resting your head on his chest once again. “Whatever, Minho.” you mumble.

Minho lets a few seconds pass before he angles his head to check on you. When he sees that you’ve fallen asleep, a warm feeling blooms in him yet again. Soft snores escape your semi-parted lips, he’s almost tempted to kiss you again.

But he doesn’t and simply chooses to run his fingers through your hair, lulling you further into sleep. With his other arm still wrapped around you, Minho closes his eyes as well, allowing himself to, as you put it, relish the moment before succumbing to sleep.

The next day, the Jeju team is driven to the airport by two of the other officers in the organization. In one car, it’s you, Felix and Minho, while in the other one is Jung, Chan and Changbin. Once at the airport, the team is ushered towards a more private area where a “private jet” of sorts is provided. The rest of the team is also there ahead of your group.

You gape your mouth in awe, causing Minho to smirk at you. He ruffles your hair before walking towards the jet with the other agents and Jung. Felix falls into step beside you and loops an arm around yours, “Government connections kind of situation.”

“I see.” you chuckle lightly, walking with the freckled male towards the jet.

Once settled inside, Changbin takes a quick nap while Minho and Chan are busy going over some papers and files. Jung is eating some of the food being served while talking to other agents. You and Felix sit across each other, sharing a slice of cake that was served. “Have you been to Jeju, y/n?” Felix asks.

“Yeah, but mostly for seminars and medical or science work.” you reply, “You?”

“A few times for missions. I’ve been there for vacation once or twice with the other boys.” the younger male chuckles, “But that was I think two years ago or so.”

“Must be exciting for you to be back, then.”

“Yeah! It’s a really nice place.” Felix grins after chewing a piece of cake, “When we get the chance, we should all go...in a non-mission context of course.”

“Sounds good.” you offer a small smile; would that still be possible even after you walk away from all of this? All of them?

You don’t dwell on those thoughts much longer because Felix begins to share a story on how he and Jeongin got “lost” in Jeju for a day while the older boys were busy sightseeing. You tune out any worrisome thoughts and opt to give all your attention to Felix’s storytelling, smiling once more at his innocent enthusiasm.

After some time, the team arrives at Jeju and is once again greeted by pre-arranged agents - according to Chan, they’re SKZ agents stationed at Jeju. After each of you gets all your belongings, the Jeju team ushers everyone to the designated transportation and is driven to the hotel where the mission should be taking place.

While Jung and Chan are warmly getting things settled with the receptionist, you and Minho stand to the side and watch. Changbin and Felix seem to be looking outside where the hotel looks over to a beautiful beach.

“You know,” Minho starts, “it would be more fun in here if we were actually in Jeju for a vacation and not a mission.”

You grin, “Yeah? Felix did mention that.”

The agent half-smirks, half-smiles, “How does a Jeju vacation with us sound? Me, Chan, the other boys?”

Your cheeks blush a faint pink shade as you smile at the male, “You know I’d like that.”

“Oh? You would?”

“Definitely.”

“Hmm.” Minho’s lips curl into a smile as he reaches for your hand, holding onto it with a gentle squeeze, “Guess I’ll have to tell Chan about that.”

After a few more minutes, Chan and Jung return with keys and room assignments. The head explains that the agents need to go through the main plan and backup plan as soon as possible, as well as scout the area for an advantage against the enemies for tomorrow’s mission. While he’s talking to Changbin and a few other agents, Chan walks over to you and Minho.

“In case you wanted an explanation,” the eldest agent starts with a smile, “we’re here a day ahead of the actual mission date so that we agents can have some sort of upper hand.”

You nod, “So you can check on the hotel’s layout, familiarize yourselves with the surveillance and tech systems, right?”

“Yeah, exactly.” Chan chuckles, “Felix does a lot of that. As for Minho, Changbin, me and the rest of the team, we’re also here earlier so we can have some sort of bearing as to how the main plan goes, where to go and what to find in case we need to use backup plans, and routes to utilize in worst-case-scenarios.”

“I see.” you smile, “I was kind of wondering why Jung had us all go so early when the actual mission is tomorrow.”

“Yeah, it’s normal. But you can also use this time to check on the bottles of solutions and get some rest afterwards.” Chan smiles at both you and Minho, “Come on, time to work.”

With the agents spending the rest of the day getting ready and familiarizing themselves with the place and going through plans, the evening comes by quicker than expected. You did your part and monitored the solutions the team had brought and made sure everything was safe and intact in that aspect. Afterwards, you had dinner with Felix before the younger agent excused himself to check on the tech equipment one last time.

It wasn’t that late yet, probably 9:00 in the evening, when you returned to your hotel room to rest. You got showered and changed into your sleepwear before grabbing a book Hyunjin had lent you for the time being. Seated on the bed with your back against the headboard, you immerse yourself in the said book.

An hour and a half passes by when you’re more than halfway through the book when you hear a knock on the door, followed by a familiar voice speaking your name - it’s Minho, of course.

You get up and open the door for the male, greeting him with a tilt of your head, “Am I needed for something?”

Minho chuckles, “Nope. Just wanted to see you.”

You don’t fight the blush that spreads across your face, “Oh...well...don’t just stand there I guess.”

You step to the side to let Minho in before closing the door and locking it once he does. You both walk further into the room where you sit on the bed and yawn, “Are you guys done preparing for tomorrow?”

Minho sits next to you and stretches before leaning back to lay on the bed while letting out a breath of exhaustion. “Yeah, it’s time to rest.” he hums, closing his eyes.

“Let me guess...you've decided to rest...or actually - sleep - in my room again?” you laugh.

Minho laughs, his smile so stupidly charming, “You know me so well.”

“I’m not surprised.” you smile at him, playfully grabbing a pillow and lightly smacking him.

The male lets out a comical “oof” before sitting up and wrapping his arms around your shoulders, burying his face at the side of your neck. You stifle a giggle, running your hands through his hair, “I can see you’re very tired. I suggest you sleep now.”

Minho lifts his head, resting his chin on your shoulder to look into your eyes with a sleepy smile. You chuckle, lifting a finger to lightly tap the tip of his nose. “Are you going to oppose my...medical suggestion?” you joke around.

“And what if I will?” Minho smirks in response.

“Naughty patient.” you pout.

A switch triggers in Minho, and his smirk turns more mischievous as his eyes twinkle with a hazed excitement.

“I’ll show you naughty.”

**[Warning: heavily suggestive themes begin here, but nothing explicit. Still, it highly implies intimate acts and may describe things vaguely, so should you wish to skip this, press CTRL + F (or any command to help you search for words on a webpage) and search “And so after you both clean up and take a shower”. You can continue reading from there]

You roll your eyes at his flirtatious remark, but the male is quick to silence any sort of snappy remark that tries to leave your lips. In an instant, his lips are on yours, clashing with a burning hunger. The force of it all causes you to gasp, and Minho takes the opportunity to kiss deeper; of course, you don’t resist and respond to his advances with equal zeal.

Minho gently grabs your wrist, effortlessly pulling you on top of his lap. While you straddle the male, your arms wrap around his neck to pull your bodies closer. Minho continues to kiss and kiss and kiss until you pull away, a panting mess with swollen lips and very flushed cheeks. He, however, doesn’t give you a second to breathe as he latches his lips onto the skin of your neck, starting with feather-light kisses.

“Minho.” you breathe out, unconsciously tilting your head back slightly.

He just hums, a faint smirk forming on his lips just before he proceeds to press open-mouthed kisses on the junction between your beck and shoulder. After you gasp out again, said kisses now turn into occasional licks and sucks, surely promising a canvas of purple blooms the next day. As if he couldn’t make things any more...heated, Minho’s hands freely roam your body, traversing every inch like he needed to feel something. You press yourself closer to him, humming in satisfaction.

When he pulls away, his eyes are on you, dark with desire but still retaining its warmth. “I think you know where this is going, but I’ll only push through if you’ll let me.” he whispers, placing a peck on your lips.

You can’t help but giggle, nodding your head, “I’m all yours.”

“So am I.”

With that, the agent grabs the hem of your shirt, lifting it up and pulling it over your head. Soon follows your shorts and underwear, leaving you bare. It wasn’t as if this was the first time Minho saw you naked; the moment of intimacy you both shared in your room after the rooftop was the first.

Yet as you sit on Minho’s lap, very much aware of his eyes on you, the tips of your ears burn red. Minho, however, doesn’t waste any time in littering every inch of your body with kisses, his lips grazing your skin in a dangerously addicting way; every kiss, lick and nibble on your body sends tingles of pleasure in their wake, causing you to shudder in delight.

With his face buried into your chest, your fingers come to tangle into his messy hair, tugging the strands whenever his lips grazed a certain area; the sound that leaves Minho’s lips spurs you on, giving his hair another tug. Growing slightly impatient, the male holds onto your hips, using subtle movements to grind you down onto him. Yet another gasp - or maybe it was a moan now - escapes you, and it just makes the male guide your movements quicker.

His lips leave your chest, returning to hungrily kissing your own lips. Tongues meet and dance in a fiery performance, wet and sloppy sounds echoing in the hotel room. Minho sucks on your tongue, one hand leaving your hips in favor of caressing a certain area.

“Minho, please.” you whisper shakily, disconnecting from the kiss, hands gripping his shoulders.

The male chuckles warmly, his breath fanning against your skin. He shifts around, carefully laying you down on the bed with him looming over you. He kneels for a moment, unbuttoning his shirt while smiling fondly at you. You playfully roll your eyes, hearing the sound of his belt clinking. When he leans over you again, your arms automatically snake around his neck.

You peck his lips and ask, “Are you...sure we can be doing this? Especially if you have a mission tomorrow?”

He responds with a slow kiss on your lips, “All the more reason for us to do this.”

You furrow your eyebrows with a slight pout on your lips. “Meaning?” you mumble, mind going to a fairly negative direction such as “his life being in danger in tomorrow’s mission, leaving you with the possibility of him getting gravely injured or even dying”.

Minho chuckles lightly, bringing a hand up to gently sweep a few strands of hair away from your face. He places a gentle kiss on your forehead, then your nose, then your lips. “Nothing.” he starts, a small smile on his lips before he says your words from the other night back at you, “I’m just...relishing the moment.”

He distracts you with a hypnotizing kiss, slow and intimate compared to the hungrier ones you shared not too long ago. With his lips feeling like velvet sliding against your own, the male pushes in, earning a pleased gasp from you. Shifting around to make sure both of you were comfortable with everything, Minho supports himself with one arm while the other snakes behind the small of your back, arching it to bring your body closer to his.

Maybe it was the prospect of tomorrow’s mission being more serious and dangerous than usual. Maybe it was the idea that this may be the last time you two get to spend a night like this before you walk away and leave SKZ behind for good in favor of returning to your life as a doctor in Seoul’s top hospital.

Or maybe it was the realization that yes, you both loved each other and wished you realized sooner so you could have more time with each other.

Nonetheless, Minho’s thrusts tonight were filled with urgency; no, it wasn’t a pathetic or desperate sense of urgency, but more of an urgency to get his feelings and intentions across - an urgency to know if you felt the same. An urgency to make sure that if this was surely the last, then it should at least be monumental.

His kisses, though slow and now sloppy with how you were both moving against each other in perfect rhythm, held a delicate yet solid promise that kept you grounded. The agent moved his hips with purpose as did you, lips clashing and breaths mingling. Your nails raked the skin of his scarred back, digging into the flesh as if it were the only way to keep him with you. Your cries for his name and moans of pleasure entered his mouth like a mantra, filling him with more purpose, and his own groans and grunts sent tingles and showers of shivers through every inch of you.

Soon, the male has you seeing stars of ecstasy, blinding you and filling every sense with unexplainable pleasure. With one last shaky cry of his name coming from you, Minho sees the stars as well, now burying his head between your neck and shoulder as he slowly halts his hips. You both remain in place for a few more seconds; Minho lightly kisses your neck while you run your fingers through his hair, both of you catching your breaths.

After a while, Minho pulls away and looks at you, smiling warmly, “I’m sorry, I know you already took a shower.”

“It’s fine.” you chuckle, sitting up as he does, “Just...stay”

“Of course.”

You and Minho then lay on the bed, cuddled up in each other’s arms, the soft cottony sheets pulled over your bodies. As usual, you rest your head where it fits perfectly by the crook of his neck, hands gently rested on his chest. Minho wraps his arms around you, ensuring that you were as close as possible. Now, Minho was much more used to not falling asleep, so it doesn’t surprise him that you’re drowsier than he is right now.

With a yawn, your words slur as you speak, “Good night, Minho. Don’t die on me tomorrow.”

He chuckles to himself, kissing your forehead, “Good night. I promise I won’t, y/n.”

As expected, you fall asleep within a few minutes, snuggly safe and secure in his arms as you snore your exhaustion away. Minho tucks in a strand of hair behind your ear and kisses the crown of your head. With his lips against your hair, he mumbles, “I love you.”

If he notices the way you shift even closer to him, he doesn’t say anything.

If you could sleep for another hour, you’d gladly take the offer. Who wouldn’t? The hotel bed was amazingly soft and comfortable, and the man holding you close made you feel safe and warm. However, it’s mission day, and a sudden knock on your hotel door followed by a cheerful “It’s Felix” wakes both you and Minho up.

You’re still a bit groggy, head filled with sleep, so Minho gets up and puts his pants back on. He opens the door to reveal a smiley Felix, waving in greeting, “Good morning, Minho.”

“Morning, Lix.” Minho offers a small smile before stepping to the side to let Felix in.

By the time you’ve shaken the sleep from your eyes and are more awake now, Felix is already by the corner of the room, sitting on a chair with a laptop on the small table. You grab the sheets and use it to cover your bare body, stuttering at the morning’s events, “Felix?”

Felix chuckles, eyes never leaving his laptop, “Morning, y/n!”

Your eyes dart to Minho who is leaning against the wall near Felix. “You said you’d stay with Felix during the mission, so here he is. You’ll both stay here.” the older agent explains.

“I see...but Minho…” you clear your throat, eyes wide as you glance down to the sheets covering your body to get the male to realize what you’re trying to get at.

Minho walks over, placing a kiss on top of your head before whispering, “You can get dressed in the bathroom. Promise, Lix is a good kid; he won’t look.”

With that, the agent drapes one of his jackets around your shoulders and offers a small smile. “Lix.” he says warmly.

The freckled agent nods with a smile, bringing his hands over his eyes, “I’m not looking. Trust me!”

You stifle a giggle, looking at the younger male with amusement. You then get out of bed, shooting Minho a playful grin before sticking your tongue out. Grabbing your clothes, you make a beeline for the bathroom and close the door. While you’re getting dressed inside, Felix removes his hands from his eyes and cheekily whispers at Minho, “Wait ‘til Jisung hears that you and y/n were busy making love the night before a mission.”

Minho raises an eyebrow and smirks, “Gotta make everything worth it, right?”

“Right.” Felix clicks his tongue.

You then come out of the bathroom to see Felix now laying on the bed, elbows supporting him as he types away on his laptop. Minho is fully dressed by now, and by the looks of it, he’s ready to leave the room. A small frown meets your lips, and an anxious feeling bubbles in your stomach as reality sinks in. The agent does his best to offer an assuring smile, walking over to you. He gently takes your hands in his, squeezing gently.

“It’ll be fine, y/n.” he pecks your lips, “Trust me.”

You nod, succumbing to a moment of weakness by leaning closer and wrapping your arms around his torso, head leaning against his chest. Minho reciprocates the hug, encircling his arms around your figure as he presses another kiss to your temple. After a moment, he pulls away just enough to look into your eyes, “Also, y/n. I need you to hold onto something for me.”

You tilt your head when the male pulls a small pouch from his pocket, placing it in your hands. It seems like there’s a liquid inside the pouch as you gently feel it with your fingers. “What’s this for?” you inquire.

Minho winks, “Just hold on to it. Don’t use or open it, just keep it with you. Later on in the mission, you’ll know what to do with it and what it’s for.”

You offer a small smile and nod, “Alright.”

The male then gently puts a finger under your chin, tilting your head up. He leans in, pressing his lips to yours in a slow, deep kiss. You blush after hearing Felix stifle a squeal from where he lays on the bed, hugging a pillow to contain his giggles. Minho pulls away much too soon for your liking and whispers, “See you later.”

“See you later.” you repeat, voice barely audible.

Minho then gives Felix a high-five before wishing each other luck. Then, the older agent is out of the room, leaving you with the freckled male. Felix pats the bed and grins, “The mission’s starting soon, but I hacked all the cameras, so if you want to observe, stay here!”

You chuckle, taking a seat next to Felix, “Alright.”

“Oh, I brought some packed sandwiches in case you’re hungry.”

“Thanks Lix.”

Almost an hour passes before any actual developments in the mission happens. You and Felix are still seated next to each other on the bed, eyes on his laptop screen. While watching the static screens, you ask, “Are they supposed to interfere during the meeting or right after?”

Felix hums, tilting his head from side to side, “It depends on the situation. The agents tend to adjust their plans accordingly. Though judging from this setup, I’m pretty sure they’re interfering right after. You know...to give Cle a false sense of success. That’s honestly Minho’s style.”

“I see.” you nod, “That seems best. It might be easier to deal with Cle’s guards and fighters that way too.”

“It’s a bit double-edged.” Felix pouts, “It may be easier, but it can also be difficult to deal with both fighting and making sure that they don’t escape.”

“That’s...true.” you hum.

“But...Minho isn’t the type to let anyone escape as soon as he’s set his eyes on them. Same with Chan and Changbin.” Felix smiles, “They’ve got this.”

You both stop talking, however, when a figure enters one of the meeting rooms of the hotel. “I’m surprised they don’t check for CCTVs or anything, especially if they’re doing shady business.” you whisper.

Felix chuckles, “Technically, the meeting rooms don’t have CCTVs. I installed micro surveillance cameras in every room just for this mission.”

“I see.”

You and Felix watch two men - one stranger and Dr. Baek - sitting in the meeting room and apparently talking to each other. Nothing much happens for a few minutes, the two men just sipping their glasses of water while snacking on some peanuts. However, when the meeting door swings open, you and Felix peer closer to the laptop screen, watching out for any developments.

Neither of you, however, expect to see Jung walking into the room calmly and greeting the men with a bow.

And it’s not just him.

Seconds later, Chan and Minho are by his side, arms crossed as they nod in acknowledgement towards Dr. Baek and the other stranger.

You and Felix look at each other at the same time; your eyes are filled with panic and confusion as Felix remains speechless. You both turn to look back at the laptop screen; Jung, Chan and Minho are now seated across the Cle members, their body language composed and calm as Jung seems to be speaking with Dr. Baek.

“I thought…” you trail off, throat running dry.

Felix scans his laptop screen for any other activities in other places and areas. When nothing seems out of place, he checks his phone for any messages from any of the other agents from the team, including Changbin. When he gets nothing, he sighs, “I don’t...I don’t know. This isn’t part of the plan. They didn’t mention anything like this, not even in the backup plans.”

While Felix is busy observing and mumbling “what are you planning, sir?”, your eyes remain glued to Minho’s face through the laptop screen. His eyes are dull yet sharp, lifeless yet cold. There’s an emptiness to his eyes, but even through a screen, you can see a threatening, dark storm brewing in them.

Then, as if he knew you and Felix were watching, Minho side-eyes into the micro camera. The freckled agent doesn’t notice as he’s too busy trying to contact Changbin, but you catch it immediately. Of course you do; Minho doesn’t move his head in the slightest, but you know he’s looking into the camera, his quick side-eye like he’s piercing straight at you. After, he returns his gaze to the two Cle members.

Then he smirks.

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catxsnow · 4 years

Text

WARMING UP

Request: May I request a Batfam X Batmom!Reader? Her and Bruce have been together for about a half a year now and the boys are still getting used to her. They don't think she knows about their activities but she does. One night she tells Alfred that she'll cook and let's him have a break. After calling the boys multiple times and they don't come to dinner she brings it down to the batcave and they're like,"How did you get in here? How did you know?" She laughs and says, "You're bad at hiding things."

Warning: Nothing really. fluff

A/N: Hope you enjoy!

GIF not mine

Word Count: 1.9k

The craziest part of dating Bruce Wayne wasn't the fact that you got to stay over in a huge manor with nearly everything that you could ever imagine, it was the fact that he was ridiculous to think that you didn't figure out his secret.

Bruce and his kids were constantly covered in bruises and no matter how hard they tried to hide them, you had seen them. Not to mention that every time you and Bruce every slept together, you saw the scars that laced his body. He never talked about them and you could only assume that it was something from his past that he wasn't ready to reveal yet.

So, you kept quiet. You didn't bring up the fact that him and his kids were covered in thick scars or that they would show up with random cuts and bruises whenever you saw them.

It took you a while to piece everything together. The wounds, the reflexes, the knowledge that something bad was going to happen before it even did, and mainly, the random disappearances. You were dating Batman. His kids, were the long chain of Robins.

Bruce was shocked when you brought it up to him. He wasn't sure if he was more shocked that you had figured it out so quickly or how you were so calm about the matter. He told you the truth about his life, what he did in the night, and that you were completely right.

Your knowledge about the truth was kept quiet to his kids. They didn't fully trust you and you couldn't blame them. It hadn't even been a year since you and Bruce had been officially together, they had every reason not to trust you. Damian was the most weary of you, he was protective of his father.

As much as you loved Bruce's kids, they were far more reluctant to let you into their inner circle. It wasn't just because they didn't know you, but getting involved in their lives only meant putting you in danger. You tried to make things go smoother with them - particularly by trying to make sure that you weren't trying to force them to think of you as their mom.

Besides, you weren't technically even moved in yet. Though, you stayed over enough to make them believe that you did. Bruce joked with you lots that you may as well just bring all your things over.

That evening, you had decided that it was time to show off your cooking skills. With your sleeves rolled up to your elbows and your hair tied back, you were deep into making a delicious meal. The rare times that Bruce came over to your tiny apartment, he always raved about how good your cooking was - hopefully his kids would agree.

"Miss (Y/N)," Alfred was surprised to see you in the kitchen. He was so used to making every meal that having someone using his space had come as quite a shock.

"Alfred!" you grinned at him. After being used to cooking only for yourself, having to amp up the portions was taking more of a toll on you than you thought. "I thought I would make dinner tonight, I hope you don't mind. I should have asked first."

"Not at all," Alfred assured you. "Would you like any help, Ms. (Y/N)?"

"Thanks, but I'll be okay. Relax for the night," You offered. "I never see you take the night off when I'm here."

"As you wish," Alfred smiled at you before leaving. You got back to work, nearly working up a sweat by everything that you had on the go. As much as you enjoyed cooking, it was definitely easier when it was just for you and Bruce, not six hungry kids too.

Less than an hour later, you had finished preparing and plating everyone's food. To be honest, you thought that this had to have been one of the best meals you ever made in your life. You just hoped that everyone else thought so to. It was the first time that all the kids were in the house for a meal together since you had started dating Bruce.

You loved Bruce, a lot. In the relatively short time that you dated him, you had fallen in love with everything that he stood for and what he represented. Between his days of maintaining Wayne Enterprises and nights of being Batman, you realized that you wanted to spend your life with him in the busy life he had.

That meant that you had to ensure that you were liked by his kids as well. They were a big part of his life and you didn't want to be a part of this family without them liking you. They had already changed from when you first met all of them. They were kind to you, even though they felt that sometimes you were just a distraction in Bruce's life.

The more time you spent there, the more they realized how good you were for him. Bruce spent a lot of time alone, it wasn't hard for him to sometimes forget that he was just human too. You brought that side out in him, a side that everyone forgot that he needed.

"Bruce!" You called. Your voice echoed throughout the huge house but there was no reply. "Bruce, dinner!" How did Alfred gather everyone so easily? "Damian! Tim!" Still no answer. "Steph! Cass! Goddammit."

With a sigh, you left the dining room and ventured out to see where they could be. None of the boys were in their room and Bruce wasn't in the office meaning there was only one place they could have all been gathered: the batcave.

Bruce had shown you how to get in and out of it, however he told you that going down there by yourself had to be for emergencies only. Technically, this wasn't one of those cases but the food was getting cold and you had to assume that they were getting hungry. So, you opened up the grandfather clock and opened the entrance.

It was the first time that you were going down there on your own. The steps seemed to be creepier without Bruce's hand clasped with your own. Shaking off the eerie feeling, you continued your trek down the stairs. The closer you got the the bottom, the more you could hear their voices.

Just as expected, all the kids, along with Bruce and Alfred had been down there. Half of them were crowded around the various monitors and the other half working on gadgets or training. It was incredible how they all just worked so well together - despite all their disputes. You knew Jason and Dick weren't happy to be back, Tim was less than eager but accepted it. Damian still lived in the manor, he was used to it. Steph and Cass didn't seem to mind being back to their old home.

"Dinner's ready!" You announced. The sound of your voice brought everyone to a stop. Alfred and Bruce were the only ones that knew that you knew their secret making it quite the surprise for everyone else to see you so nonchalantly there by yourself. "It's getting cold..." You trailed off as no one moved.

"How..." Dick trailed off. His head was cocked to the side as he tried to figure out how you knew where they were. "How are you down here?" It was pretty obvious that if you knew how to get down there, you knew why it was there too.

"Bruce showed me," you explained.

"Father, you told her?" Damian looked over to Bruce. He was surprised that in such a short amount of time that you guys had been dating that he was so willing to tell the truth. It was clear that Damian didn't think that you guys were far enough into a relationship to know the family secrets.

"Bruce, are you serious?"

"You haven't even been together a year."

"Come on guys, do you really think I'm that oblivious?" You rhetorically asked, cutting them off before they could argue with Bruce any longer. "You guys aren't very good at hiding it within the comfort of your own home, it didn't take me that long to find out by myself. I've known for months."

“Hmf, maybe you do deserve to date Batman,” Jason joked to himself. You could see in the corner of your eye that Steph had jabbed him in the ribs for that comment. Not that you would ever pick favourites - but these weren’t technically your kids and Steph was easily your favourite.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Tim asked. He nearly looked hurt by the fact that you kept your knowledge a secret. Then again, he could understand why. His brother's were always a little hostile when it came to new comers - you were still part of that group. "Why didn't you say anything?" He changed his question and looked over at Bruce.

"It doesn't matter why," You answered for your boyfriend. "Look, I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner but it wasn't really important, was it? Now, come on - I made dinner and I spent a lot of time on it and the longer we're down here the colder it's getting. We can talk about this after."

It was the first time that you had used your 'mom voice' on the kids. Your hands were placed on your hips and you watched them all expectedly. Thankfully, they listened to you. Everyone, aside from Bruce left back to the dining room.

As each of the kids passed by you, you had pulled them in to place a loving kiss on the side of their heads. Half the time you had to stand on your toes just to be able to reach. You had picked up the habit with them a while ago, and since none of them complained, you kept it up.

It was the only time that you ever felt like they cared about you just as much as you cared for them.

As soon as it was just the two of you, Bruce tugged you into his arms. His hands rested on your hips and he instantly brought you in for a kiss. You smiled into it, bring your hands up to the back of his neck.

"Thought they were gonna take that a lot worse," you confessed between kisses. Bruce finally pulled away from you. "You think they'll ever warm up to me fully?"

"They grew up learning not to trust anyone," Bruce told you. You played with the hairs at the nape of his neck - easy for him to tell that you were nervous. "I think that if they're going to warm up to anyone, it's going to be you. My smart, loving, beautiful, sexy, girlfriend."

"Bruce Wayne," you shook your head. "Such a suck up." A grin spread across your face as be brought you in for another long kiss. Bruce trailed his hands down your sides until landing on the curve of your ass. You pulled him in to deepen the kiss, pressing your bodies flush against each other.

"(Y/N)! Come on!" You couldn't tell which of the kids were yelling your name, but you took that as your queue to head upstairs as well. At least they were eager for you to join them - whether it was because they wanted you to or because you had made the food they were eating. You weren't going to complain either way that they had called your name, not Bruce's.

"See, warming up to you already."

#batfam #batfam x reader #batfam imagine #bruce wayne #bruce wayne imagine #dc one shot #dc imagine #dc #batfam one shot #batmom #batmom imagines #batmom x batfamily #batfam x batmom

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extemely-thoughtful-person · 3 years

Text

More Chapter 6 Predictions, more specifically: Idia's Unique Magic, and Pomefiore vs Ignihyde

For anyone who hasn't gotten the memo, unique magic plays a huge role in the twisted wonderland main story line. Each time a new chapter is released, we get to see the unique magic of the main dorm's respective students. With some exceptions from the most recent Chapter of course (we still don't know Rook's). Every unique magic reflects the personality of the user in some way, and this can be used for conflict in the story. So today, we're going to be looking at the possibilities for Idia Shroud's unique magic, and there are a few different possibilities.

So to start off, we need to look at the other unique magics used by the Overblot victims of the past chapters and find out what they have in common. And there are a few different things that all of them do have in common.

All unique magics are a direct reference to the person they're based off, and it is a reference to something the corresponding villain has done, or is known for doing. (Ex: the Queen of Hearts was known for beheading anyone who didn't agree with her)

This factor was pointed out by @mia-pon289 stating that the unique magic of the Overblot victims was a manifestation of what they hated the most, and that they reflected the trauma from their childhood, so when the magic is cast, the person they are up against gets to experience a small sample of their trauma. (Ex: Riddle was always restricted by the rules, and could never be happy or normal because of it, thus his unique magic allows the person to share in his restrictions by losing their magic.)

All unique magics (expect for the recent one) play the important role of setting off the Overblot. (Ex: Riddle used his collar on Leona, and the collar broke). However the exception to this rule is in Chapter 5, and the reason the pattern was broken is because Jamil is NOT a dorm leader, but a vice instead.

The unique magic is used on the person who is considered their enemy. This is definitely the case for all chapters, because in most of them, it was dorm leader vs dorm leader or vice depending on the circumstances. In chapter 5, Jamil used his unique magic on Neige because Neige was the one they were up against competition wise and not Vil. Neige was the enemy, not Vil.

Given this information about the magic, we can now ask the question: what is Idia's unique magic?

Their are a four different possibilities I can think of off the top of my head, and some seem pretty accurate, while others might not be that close. I'll give the list and an explanation as to why along with references and possibilities. However there is a high chance none of these are actually correct because every prediction I've ever made has never happened.😑

1) Life for Life (let's make a deal)

This unique magic idea is a reference to Hades, and his ability to make deals with mortals. Basically how it works is that Hades can take away something from a person (like strength or freedom) and in exchange, preserve the life of another person. However, if the person under protection gets hurt, then the deal breaks.

How this unique magic would work for Idia is that its basically the same thing, exchanging a favor for a favor, but if he fails to hold up his end of the bargain, then the magic is cancelled. We've actually seen Idia doing something like this, except it wasn't magic, just a competition: the Star gazer event.

How does this fit into the pattern? Idia wants to be left alone and hates interaction. One thing that I can relate to in this senecio is that whenever Idia says something important, no one listens, and the only thing that happens to Idia is that he loses his confidence and patience. So having an interaction were you lose something instead of gaining something would definitely make a person see that Idia hates talking. So they would lose something in exchange for another's wellbeing.

2) Necromancer (bringing the dead into the living world)

This idea is another reference to Hades, or more specifically, his job as ruler of the Underworld. He keeps track of all the souls who come into the world of the dead.

Idia would be able to bring spirits from the Other side to Twisted Wonderland, and they would fight for him. One of the magic rules is that ghosts can only appear in places with a high concentration of magic. Idia would be able to sustain an area making it possible for ghosts to appear. He would also be able to vanquish them. The reason we didn't see him using this power in the Ghost marriage event was because he was caught off guard.

Again with idea of social interaction, it makes him uncomfortable. So imagine trying to appease a crowd of dead people, instead of living ones. Now try fighting them. You'll find it pretty difficult.

However, this one is the least likely to be the case, because Idia would've tracked down Ortho's soul and brought it back. But we still don't really know much about that. My money is on Ortho being dead from the start, so...

3) Misfortune ( bad luck always follows)

Unlike the previous two, this one doesn't have that close of a reference to Hades, maybe his terrible luck and things not always going his way, but besides that, I don't really know.

Unlike every unique magic that we've seen, this one would work differently. Every magic so far is active, meaning that it is a spell the people can cast against someone. This magic would be passive, meaning that it's always activated with no way to turn it off, but it can still be amplified and made stronger. This magic would bring bad luck to either himself, or everyone around him.

However, this might not be his unique magic, but it could tie into the Shroud family curse, or something. I think that Pomefiore going up against Ignihyde is a good, but also bad choice because Vil's unique magic is Cursing objects, and Idia has probably had bad experiences with whatever curse is running through his family. I think that since Idia is human, his inhumane traits of flaming hair and pointy teeth are a result of the Shroud family curse. As for bad luck, that's another result of the curse. And because of the bad experiences, in chapter 6 I believe Vil is going to cast a curse on Ortho. Vil can't curse people, but he can curse objects, and I think that Ortho would count in this case because he isn't a human being.

4) Gateway to Suffering (portals)

Hear me out on this one. We've seen teleportation magic before from the Diasomia students, but this isn't just snapping yourself from one location to another, this is literally tearing a hole through time and space and bending said space to open a gate from one location to another. This is a reference to the planets alignment in the Hercules movie, more commonly referred to as the prophecy of the Fates.

There are two ways this one can work:

Freestyle. Basically it has no limits to where you can open a portal or go to. You have limited magic energy, but the possibilities on where you can go is endless. However, you need to know where your going and what the place looks like in order for it to work.

Kindred Link. You can only open a portal that leads to a person you know. In other words, if you met someone, and you remember their name and face, then you can open a portal that leads straight to them.

I believe the second one is the more likely option. Idia doesn't like being around other people, but sometimes, you need help with something important and you don't have the right skills to do it then you could bring someone over to you who can help. Idia has stated in the past that he hates working with other people, but I imagine there's a time when he needs help with something, and he doesn't like to resort to that. But his unique magic betrays him by getting help. And he probably hates it. Or maybe the portals can open to where he's needed most.

There are a few other reasons why I like this one. If we end up seeing Idia playing against RSA in the upcoming Magift tournament, then this unique magic would be incredibly useful. It's against the rules to cast spells on players, but technically you wouldn't be casting magic on the player. You could easily move people around the field to where they're needed most, and it wouldn't violate the rules. Another consideration is Chapter 7 when we go up against Diasomia. If we, or someone else, ends up getting captured and imprisoned by Malleus, then this would be the magic used against Malleus to free the prisoner, causing Malleus to Overblot in the process.

And maybe there's a way to customize the portals with magic so we can go home. Who knows?

______________________________

Anyway, that's all the ideas I have for Idia's magic. I might make a later post about the possibilities for Epel's unique magic. If you have any other ideas on the topic, feel free to add to the list.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!☺️

(Also yes. The kindred Link and the bad luck magic ideas are both references to the Brawen twins Raven and Qrow from RWBY :3)

#Twisted Wonderland #Ignihyde #ignihyde #pomefiore #diasomia #idia shroud #vil schoenheit #epel felmier #malleus draconia #RSA #i did a thing #and i'm not sure how i feel about it #food for thought #rook hunt #twst #twisted wonderland idia

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that-other-him · 3 years

Text

In the belly of the Leviathan

Warmind!Au Destiny story inspired by and tying in with @hdreaper 's own story just posted. Please enjoy!

Fear was something of an old hat to Winter. Memory skips left her anxious, quarantine duty made her anxious, being cut off from Rexy, her frames and the network made her anxious, the anxiety making the memory skips worse made her anxious...

But the fear she'd been living with for the last month blew all of that out of the water.

Ra-1, the fist of Rasputin, the Dragon Ascendant, had personally sent her a message to say that if she didn't start doing exactly what he told her, he'd activate the code-black killcodes built into her Rasputin Exo body, and blow her Exomind into electronic spaghetti. After all, she was wired into the Charlemagne network, and had a documented set of fears he could abuse. She'd gather confidential data for him, she'd send him warnings of Charlemagne's actions, and she'd allow his scientists to try and duplicate Rexy, and the fear of final death would keep her in line.

But.

But but but.

Rasputin's records of her had been accurate...once. Yes, she was still afraid, but her body was no longer a Rasputin model. It couldn't be; that whole area was considered an infohazard now, and her last body was never coming home. And without that final threat, she'd found the courage to do something...stupid.

So here she was, on Ra's flagship in deep space with Charlemagne's blessing. She'd met up with lance troops a few times for debriefs, but recently she'd been allowed to spend time on the flagship itself, ready for Ra to send her where he wanted her. But that same set of interface skills that had allowed her access to Charli's files had also granted access to just a few of Ra's.

Winter paced back and forth in the tiny cabin she’d been assigned. She wasn’t sure if it was some kind of power conservation action, but the light down here barely cut through the shadows. She could have headed up to one of the main decks where things were a bit less claustrophobic, but Ra’s soldiers were everywhere there, and being the only blue-lit Exo on the entire ship guaranteed her the kind of attention that, if things went wrong today, could get her killed. She checked the ship’s clock fruitlessly. Somewhere out there, right now, Ra himself was boots-down on Riis. The data scraps she’d found didn’t say why, or for how long, but there was no question that he was just a little vulnerable right now.

Just a little would have to be enough; her Guardian contacts, who she’d affectionately nicknamed Fireteam Fuzzy, had cut their way through all kinds of monsters since she’d met them, and she’d made damn sure they knew exactly how dangerous he would be. She’d helped Fuzzy find their targets and coordinated some bounties for them down in the Quarantine zone, and when she’d outlined her proposal, they’d agreed to pass it on without question. It could have been typical guardian bravado, but she knew they’d lost friends to Ghostbuster rounds in the attack on the farm a while back. Maybe they actually trusted her.

Maybe that trust was going to get them killed.

Pushing that thought away and herself to her feet, Winter shoved her way past the door and started striding away towards the lifts. One way or another, with the Ira Terra still out in the styx, any news of the strike would take time to arrive, if her information had even been good in the first place. If she was going to stew in uncertainty, she may as well do it somewhere that felt less like a prison cell. Ra may have been a terrifying, merciless, wannabe-tyrant, but the facilities he provided for his troops were actually first rate. She’d find a sim-station no-one was using and throw herself into some story until the guillotine had, one way or another, dropped.

She had made it to the first brightly lit corridor of the barracks floor when her whole body exploded into pain.

Protocols cut in, protecting her mind from the overwhelming agony, partitioning and quarantining it. The feeling of burning alive dipped, sank, then seemed to drain from her whole body into solely her left forearm. When she could see again, she was crumpled against the wall of the corridor, chest heaving, digital heart still pumping on overdrive. It felt unpleasantly like the worst of the memory blips-she was in pain, alone, with no idea why or what to defend against. She cast her eyes down and to her left, and just like with the blips, her circumstances slotted into place. Set into the casing of her arm, where her network interface and uplink were supposed to be, were a smoking ruin of burned and self-destructing circuits. Her only remaining Rasputin hardware, her connection to her frames, to Rexy, to the ship’s system.

Ra-1 had just tried to kill her.

Oh, if she had thought she’d been afraid before, it paled in comparison to the terror that swallowed her now. It felt like her heart was going to burst out through her chest. There was no way her guardians would have told him she was responsible, right? They knew she was undercover, and even in the heat of the fight, he could have sent the kill codes at any time. They’d keep her secret...

...until their dying breaths.

There was a crackling noise that initially failed to cut through the panic, until it resolved unto the familiar voice of the great warlord, and even as the announcement rang out the ship’s engines powered into life and rumbled the flagship into thunderous motion.

“Attention, warriors of the Broken Lance. A guardian strike team has just made an attempt on my life, using information given to them by a traitor within our ranks, Winter-1. The guardians have been dealt with, and I have already ensured she has been rewarded as a traitor deserves. However, an example must still be made. Have her remains gathered and waiting for me upon my return to the Terra. Her masters shall have her broken husk returned to them. A commendation to the squad who has her corpse in my office upon my arrival. Ra out.”

Oh.

Hmm.

Ah, ok.

Winter was pretty sure she’d just lost a minute or two by the time her awareness came back to her. She still felt like she was about to die (fully independent of the hundreds of trained and eager killers probably now closing in on her position) but the freeze instinct was graduating to flight. She had an exit strategy, at Charlemagne’s insistence. It wasn’t a good strategy, but the warmind had explicitly ordered her to try. She reached out with her interface to the subroutine she’d left running on the ship’s server, and-

Ah. Her eyes once again turned to the sparking, melted mess where her interface was supposed to sit. It felt like one of her senses had been scooped out; a huge, gaping wound where the network was supposed to be. Nevermind just the escape protocol, without the access codes built into it, ninety five percent of the systems in the ship would no longer recognise her as a person, including the ones required to log into any network access point on the ship. She knew where her escape protocol was located, and could theoretically trigger it if she could reach an unsecured terminal.

But right now she could already hear tramping boots approaching from the barracks and she had no choice but to run.

She lost count of how many times she blipped as she led a desperate game of cat and mouse through the guts of the ship. The Ira Terra was bigger than the Stultorum had been, back when she’d served upon it, but if the ship ran about the same, the cargo deck mid-flight would be on skeleton crew with nobody caring if an unsecured terminal was technically a security violation. So she kept heading down and back, focusing on that one thought to the exclusion of all else. When she blipped in this time, she was halfway down a corridor created by two shipping containers, moving towards the illuminated sign of a shift breakroom. She took the next step and immediately fell nearly to the floor, sprawling gracelessly and nearly braining herself on the container. Oh-she’d been shot. That explained why her right side and upper leg were one big mess of static and pins-and-needles. She supported herself on the side of the crate and limped forward, conscious of the shouts and stomping boots echoing from somewhere in the distance behind her. She made it to the door, shouldering it open, almost collapsing with relief when her flickering vision was met with the friendly glow of an open terminal. She immediately dragged herself to it, closing the chat and shipwide alert windows to immediately start digging for her protocol.

She must have been five seconds in when she heard the shatter of breaking crockery behind her.

Slowly turning to face the noise, Winter looked into the eyes of the exo washing the dishes in the kitchenette, set into the corner of the breakroom. For a moment, both were still, surprised, the other Exo’s hand still in the air where it had been holding the coffee mug a moment ago. Then his eyes flicked to the screen of the terminal, where a moment ago had been the bounty on the only blue-lit Exo on the ship.

She didn’t even question trying to engage him. She whirled back to the screen, fingers flying as she desperately raced to run the command. The man had no weapons, probably no combat training, but he crashed into her from behind and her leg went out from under her, skull bouncing off the frame of the screen as he tried to wrap his arms around hers, voice bellowing that he’d found her. She was so close it burned, even more intense than the pain. She gripped one of her hands with the other and shoved it over her shoulder as hard as she could, outstretched thumb punching into his optic and causing a very human scream that no amount of mechanical upgrades would prevent. His grip slackened, and she pulled herself out of his arms and high enough to see the screen.

There were shouts behind her, the sounds of guns being brought to attention, the exo at her feet was tightening his grip again, and her vision was fading into black on the edges.

She hit the last key on the screen.

Everything went white, then black, silent and cold.

It was maybe ten seconds before the first ship thundered across her line of sight in the perfect silence of vacuum, the many supporting ships of Ra's fleet rushing to keep up with the flagship as it finished positioning itself for the jump. Even its coasting speed had brought it far enough away from Winter to render it a tiny dot in the distance, before there was a flash of light and the ships were gone.

Her transmat had been a random distance in a random direction, untraceable, and searching for her would delay the ship's travel to pick up Ra. She'd be left behind in the void, passing beyond its signal jamming, allowing the beacon hidden in her circuits to finally begin transmitting. A waiting friendly vessel would be on route to pick her up, provided the fleet hadn't shot it out of the sky.

Which left Winter here, curled in a ball as the moisture on her clothes crystallised. In theory, Exos were built to be vacuum-resistant, but she had a feeling that resistance didn't account for there being two bleeding holes in her dermis.

The thought drifted through her brain as her senses shut down one by one:

Who would claim her first: the cold, the bleeding, or her rescue?

She found herself thinking that she didn't want to die again.

Slowly, the black faded back to white.

#destiny 2 writing #warmind au #Winter-1/2/3

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fromthedeskofelizabeththird · 3 years

Text

Habanero

You're a good girl, well behaved.

Absolutely not the type to rail random guys in nightclubs.

Until you are.

Fandom: BNHA

Pairing: Aizawa x Reader, eventual polyamorous Erasermic x Reader

Rating: Gen

Trigger Warnings: Referenced child abuse, blood

AO3: Here | Want to support me? I have a Kofi

Chapter: 4/16 (all chapters)

You were scared of a lot of things: bugs, dark places, ghosts, drowning and more. Your friends often joked that you were a wimp and you’d bever been inclined to disagree.

There was one thing, however, that scared you above all others. It sent shivers down your spine and left your legs wobbling from under you.

It was the door to your father’s home office.

Your father was a prosecutor and a pretty notorious one at that, famous for the number of guilty verdicts he had achieved over the years. He had an incredible advantage, of course- the same lie detection quirk that he had passed onto you. He spent most of his evenings alternating between his work and home offices, going over the details of cases and preparing for a never ending stream of plaintiffs.

His home office was a near perfect replica of the one in the city, complete with a golden name plaque on the door. You passed it every day, multiple times a day, and each time broke out in goosebumps as if the door watched you in turn.

It wasn’t only the plaintiffs your father needed to find guilty.

Your father was not in the least bit conservative with his quirk. You spent many an afternoon there, jaw clenched and skin crawling at his line of questioning.

Tell me�� why were you late?

Tell me… how long did you study?

Tell me… who were you with?

You hated being left so exposed and, in retrospect, you weren’t in the least bit surprised that you ended up vanilla instead of habanero, desperately seeking a simple married life.

The anxiety of standing outside of your father’s home office stayed with you into adulthood, even now that you had your own home. You had started to believe it no longer had an effect on you; that you no longer remembered how it felt.

As you stood outside of the hospital door, though, you remembered clearly.

Hand trembling, you reached up to knock.

━

SEVERAL HOURS EARLIER

“Maybe if I move it that way…”

You scrolled through your calendar and let out a sigh at the appointments already there.

“No good, no good.”

You sat back in your chair and stretched, popping your shoulders and wiggling your toes.

“Maybe…”

You had a moment of inspiration, only to groan and click out of the window.

With the sports festival around the corner, your schedule was on the verge of taking a beating. Between modifying your office hours to make appointments with students to discuss their offers, to making room for counselling for those suffering disappointment, to keeping your usual appointments and open office hours, you were starting to consider bringing a futon and moving into your office for the foreseeable future. You’d known it was going to be a tight squeeze, but hadn’t counted on it being this bad.

You logged out of your computer and climbed out of your chair, giving your back a quick rub before leaving your office. You needed an IV of coffee, but a cup would have to do.

You were still thinking about your itinerary as you passed the 1-A classroom. Normally, between Kirishima, Bakugo and Iida, you heard the classroom long before you passed it. Today, though, it was silent and you peered through the window.

You’d heard that they were going on a trip with Thirteen to the USJ for specialist training and, if their empty desks were anything to go by, had already left. You had taken a tour of the facility during your initial induction and it had taken everything you had to keep your jaw from hitting the ground. You knew that UA was well funded, but it didn’t really sink in until then.

You wondered how they were getting on. Had Bakugou destroyed anything yet? Had Midoriya broken any of his bones?

You were still considering it as you passed the faculty lounge, dragged out of your thoughts by the sound of voices within. It sounded like the principal, though you weren’t sure who he was speaking to. You wondered if it was a private conversation and you should come back another time.

You knocked a couple of times before peeping around the door.

“Sorry,” you said, “am I interrupting?”

You really had heard the principal and he appeared to be sharing tea with All Might.

You weren’t sure you would ever be prepared for the sight of All Might in his skinnier form. Like most youngsters of your generation, you had watched his heroic acts in awe. You hadn’t known he was going to join the faculty at the time of your own job application and still found your heart racing whenever you passed him in the corridors.

You had signed eighteen different nondisclosure agreements after successfully taking on the job at UA, of which well over half related to the Symbol of Peace. You knew that he had been injured very badly and was losing his strength at an alarming rate. Even so, it was difficult to adjust to the reality.

“Ah, (Name), come in, come in,” said Principal Nezu, “we were just sharing a cup of tea, would you like some?”

You wanted coffee, but Nezu had already started to pour.

“Of course,” you said, closing the door behind you and taking a seat.

“You got here just in time,” said Nezu, pushing your cup across the coffee table. “We were discussing the fundamentals of teaching.”

“That sounds interesting,” you said, taking a sip of tea. “You must have a lot of insight.”

All Might twitched beside you, visibly restless. You wondered how long Nezu had been talking.

“Apologies,” he said, setting down his cup, “I should get going. I’ve already rested for far too long.”

He got up and walked towards the door, taking a deep breath before transforming into the muscular form the world knew and loved.

You would never get used to that either.

“So, (Name),” said Principal Nezu, “how are you finding the school? I trust you’ve had support from our staff?”

“Everyone’s been really kind,” you said. “I know they’re busy with their own workloads this term, but they’ve had so much time for me.”

You wrapped your hands around your cup, warmth flooding your fingers. You wanted to explain how grateful you were for the opportunity -that not so long ago your life had been falling apart- but you never got the chance, for the door to the lounge flew open and a student stormed inside.

“Principal Nezu! Something terrible has happened!”

It was Iida from 1-A, dressed in his hero costume and visibly out of breath. Your blood ran cold and you glanced across at Nezu, who had gotten to his feet.

“USJ...there’s been an invasion at USJ! Please help!”

Nezu’s response to the matter was swift and efficient. He turned to you, visibly transformed from the mild mannered principal who had offered you a cup of tea.

“(Name),” he said. “I’m going to gather everyone available. I need you to liaise with the authorities.”

“Of course,” you said, setting aside your tea and whipping out your phone.

“Meet us there,” he said as you began to dial.

“S-sir?”

You weren’t a pro hero; what possible use could you be?

━

His intentions soon became clear.

While your colleagues rushed into the danger zone, you stayed behind with the police, hitching a ride with Tsukauchi to the station once the area was secure.

Time was of the essence. You had read enough crime statistics to know that villain attacks very often came in waves, making the next few hours crucial to the safety of UA. Having a human lie detector on hand during the interrogations was more than a little bit useful.

You only wished you could concentrate.

Everything you knew about the incident came straight from Tsukauchi, so even though you had never actually seen the full extent of the carnage, you knew enough for your imagination to run wild.

You knew that the students had escaped with minor injuries and, while Shouta was badly hurt, he wasn’t dead. You couldn’t stop thinking about it, especially since the only image of the incident you had seen was that of his goggles broken on the floor.

You sat beside Tsukauchi in the interrogation room, silent as they brought in prisoner after prisoner. You only spoke to activate your quirk; only dragged yourself out of your contemplations to ask the same set of questions.

Three hours later, you knew only fractionally more than you did to begin with. The villains you’d caught were blatant throwaways, with no knowledge at all of the man they’d followed into battle or a greater scheme. They’d all wanted to take a shot at the symbol of peace and had no idea how close they had come to succeeding.

“Are you going to be alright?” Tsukauchi asked as interrogations came to a close.

You knew you must have looked a mess, popping aspirin and pinching the bridge of your nose.

“I’ll be fine,” you said, “honestly.”

“I’ll organise a car to take you to UA,” he said, but you shook your head.

“No, no that’s okay. I need to go somewhere first.”

━

Technically, you had two places to go first.

You stopped by the police station washroom to freshen up, leaning over the sink as the migraine set in. You pinched the bridge of your nose and watched as it began to bleed.

You weren’t used to using your quirk for such a long period of time and had almost certainly overdone it. The bleeding began to slow and you switched on the tap, washing away the blood on your face before plugging your nostrils with tissue paper. Unfortunately, you had still managed to bleed on your collar.

Just your luck that you would use your quirk too much on the day you decided to wear your new white blouse. You cursed at your reflection, trying and failing to adjust your shirt in such a way that it wasn’t noticeable.

Even now, you couldn’t concentrate.

You had never crossed paths with so many villains in one day. You had watched your father cross examine witnesses and plaintiffs many, many times, but had never been in his shoes. You hated it.

You knew exactly how they felt when you activated your quirk, recognised the squirming as it crawled through their skin. Part of you had enjoyed it, knowing that their discomfort in that moment did not compare to the violence they had inflicted on others.

Shouta.

The violence they had inflicted on Shouta.

He was a hero, you told yourself. He had signed up to fight those very same villains.

Even so, you hated them for it in ways you’d never hated a villain before.

You thought back to your training and took a deep breath.

“This is normal,” you whispered. “This is normal. This is a negative emotional response to a distressing situation. This is normal, we’ll move on.”

You took another deep breath, but your heart still rattled.

What is it that’s bothering me?

You reached into your purse for your makeup, painting away the shock for now at least.

We can work through that later.

━

PRESENT

And so, there you were, standing outside of Shouta’s room in the hospital.

They’d put him under the care of one of the best doctors in Musutafu, who assured you that surgery had been a success and his life was not in danger. There was a high chance his quirk would be affected by the damage to his orbital floor but even that was lucky, all things considered.

You tapped at the door and let yourself inside, taking in the calm and quiet of the room. Shouta was tucked up in bed and connected to numerous monitors, their steady beeps breaking the silence. You closed the door behind you and crept over to the bed, taking in the bandages that covered almost every inch of his body.

You had always known that heroes risked death and worse on a daily basis but had never seen it in person. You didn’t know how to feel about seeing him bloodied and broken. You had seen this man naked; you’d held onto the arms that a villain had broken. Did it always feel this personal?

You took a seat next to his bed, taking note of exactly how much of him was covered in bandages. You wouldn’t have known it was him if you hadn’t been told otherwise.

You didn't know what you had expected to find at the hospital, only that it would give you closure.

Why, then, did you still feel so uneasy?

You recalled his words from only recently, after you had given him a faceful of pepper spray.

Why would you try and confront a villain without help? You could have gotten yourself killed.

You need to be more rational in these things. Running head on into danger gets people killed.

Why hadn’t he followed his own advice?

Truthfully, you knew exactly why.

He had been well aware of the danger, but made the call anyway. He had analysed the situation and prioritised the lives and safety of his students over his own. It was the right thing to do and the rational part of you knew that, but you didn’t feel very rational right then.

You had to report back to Nezu; had to adjust your schedule ready for trauma counselling. You weren’t the only one who had been exposed to an unprecedented amount of villains that day. 1-A had almost certainly seen too much too soon.

You knew you had to leave, yet felt guilty as you got to your feet.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, hoping that your words would reach him through the anesthesia. “I have to go...but I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”

You promised yourself that you’d skip lunch if you had to.

“See you,” you said, leaning over to kiss his forehead as if on autopilot.

Your heart skipped a beat once you realised what you’d done.

Oh God, what were you thinking?

You reached into your purse for your chapstick as you left the room, so focused on painting away the kiss that you didn’t notice his fingers twitch.

#aizawa x reader #eraserhead x reader #shouta aizawa #aizawa shouta #boku no hero academia #habanero

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boop-le-snoot · 4 years

Text

PARTY FAVOURS | CHAPTER 3

Rating: Explicit.

‼️TW: Reader is EIGHTEEN! Recreational drug use, smoking and alcohol consumption, deeply internalised self-loathing, very questionable moral standards. Daddy kink taken half-seriously. BDSM themes in later chapters - explicit content will come with it’s own TWs. FIRST PERSON POV.

Summary: You’re Peter’s classmate, a child of rich and famous but uncaring parents. Getting paired up for a lengthy project with the boy was an interesting turn of events and you don’t know whether to feel blessed or cursed when you develop, seemingly, a perfectly normal, harmless crush on Tony Stark. Fueled by feelings of inadequacy and boredom, your life spirals out of control - and you’re lucky your newfound friends are there to pick up the pieces even if you cannot find it in yourself to believe these amazing human (and not so human) beings voluntarily give you more than a fleeting glance and an offhanded thought. And they brought cake!

A/N: Peter always unapologetically stealing all the uwus. It’s the MCU law, sorry, didn’t make it. Tony Stark can ✨rail me✨. Enjoy, deviants.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet

Beta read by the lovely and patient @miscmarvelwritings ! She deserves THE WORLD! I’m not kidding. Please visit her and show her some love, my homegirl is stressed 💖✨

I didn’t see Bruce nor Tony for a week. The doctor was away on some science conference (he sent me one dorky selfie next to a whiteboard full of barely intelligible equations as proof), Tony was in California, having some sort of a board meeting. How do I know? Peter, out of lack of better things to do, constantly texted me updates on his science patron’s whereabouts and what-abouts.

In times like these, it took me for a loop - I was on a first name basis with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. In the beginning, I was intimidated - I avoided them both like the plague and tinkered in the lab with headphones on whenever I could, until Tony made a comment so snarky I couldn’t resist joking back. That’s not to say Bruce was a social butterfly, but even he gave into my tomfoolery after seeing me stand calmly throughout several of Tony’s hissy fits.

What amazed me even more so was that despite Tony being literally an insufferable little brat, I still longed after him. Sure, the man was hot as hell - but his physical traits were much less significant when it came to my feelings towards him than the amount of sheer drive and willpower he possessed. He was stubborn - that’s another trait we shared - and unapologetically himself in every damn situation.

I could write poetry about the million expressions in his face, about the shine in his eyes.

But I won’t. He’s a technical guru. Ever since I started hanging around the tower, I became much more conscious about what I posted online. Not to say I had a Stark fan blog or anything, but I’d stopped scrolling through the tag, even if I didn’t actually click on any articles. I dutifully reblogged pictures of Tom Ellis instead - while he was a very fine, distinguished man, he wasn’t Tony Stark. I enjoyed looking at the first and enjoyed being around the other. And even though my feed still had the occasional “I love arm” shitpost, I focused on aesthetic pictures and quotes instead - things I had an active internet presence for.

My personal life wasn’t very interesting. I didn’t have any close friends and any and all sex I’ve had was just a bunch of one night stands, fueled by alcohol, selfish lust and the occasional joint. Despite having a fair share of kind, generous lovers, the morning after left me feeling a little bit emptier every time. I thought about getting a boyfriend or something… But quickly became totally clueless as to where I could find one. Men under twenty-five could barely hold my interest long enough to have a casual chat and I wasn’t naive enough to think there were a lot of honest, well-intentioned thirty-somethings that wanted to date my high school ass.

Peter had a crush on me, I knew that. The boy developed one or another kind of feelings for anybody who showed him the tiniest bit of kindness and it alarmed me. In any other case I would have bailed on him, gently, of course, to spare him the disappointment but my selfishness got in the way. I regretted it every day. A wave of desperation rose in me every time I thought about moving on without seeing Tony or Bruce, without Peter shyly smiling at me as he explained how the things he created worked. A faint hope that one day, his schoolboy puppy love will grow into a brotherly kind of regard was the only thing that kept me afloat in my sea of guilt.

As the Fall rolled around, so did my gloomy mood. It was hard to be sad when the sun was shining and the birds were chirping outside, but with clouds hanging over the city like a lead curtain, the bottled up negativity rose to the surface uninvited. Mother had returned from her business trip, adding an uncomfortable, hollow sort of chill to the house wherever she stood. I don’t know what was worse - the hours we spent in one room ignoring each other or the immaculately structured questions she asked me about my studies and extra-curriculars. Mother didn’t ask me about my friends, or my feelings or any of the other things a mother was supposed to give a damn about.

I was an asset to her company and that was that. If you would have asked her, she would tell you I’m old enough for her to mind her own business - which was technically true. Yet according to her, I’ve been old enough since seventh grade. My dad answered his messages sporadically, sometimes with a two-word answer and sometimes with a cocaine and booze fueled rant eleven texts long. I felt sorry for him. I really did.

My phone was blowing up. Party invitations, likes from people I saw once or twice (“oh my god, you’re, like, so hot, what’s your Insta”), DMs from guys looking to score an easy piece of ass. I never answered. If I wanted to party, I just sort of showed up and everybody went along with it. I took care of my appearance and it showed - never once was I turned away from a party. Everyone wanted to dance, to share their drinks, to light up and get faded together and fade into the city, into the cold air and grey sky.

Skirt swaying and top clinging to my chest, I danced. The sweaty, heated bodies around me did the same. Not one of us cared, it was a Tuesday night and the place packed way too many people. An arm snaked around my waist, startling me. I had to begrudgingly crack open an eye to see the bastard in the dimly lit room.

“I saw you at the bar, you looked bored. Maybe you need something to cheer you up?”

So not a creepy rapist. Just your friendly neighborhood drug dealer. At house parties like these, there was always The Guy. He never danced, he sipped on the same drink all night yet always looked like he was having the time of his life. I was no stranger to the occasional joint, or even something more stimulating…

“I got the good stuff, sweetums, you’ll be fine and dandy in no time.”

Eh, what the hell. I inconspicuously danced with the guy to the middle of the crowd, exchanging a few crumpled dollar notes for a baggie of two pills. In no time, I chased one down with a hastily poured Jack.

The world did become better, as the drug dealer promised. People were nicer, friendlier and I almost didn’t believe mother was a useless, stone cold bitch. I almost didn’t care that I was deeply, madly in love with a man as unreachable as Olympus. If I squinted, the guy sitting at the bar looked kind of like Tony, tan, dark hair, worn jeans and a band tee.

So I danced. I danced and I stared right at him and then we danced some more. I closed my eyes, letting his arms grab me and pull me, I let his beard scratch my neck where he sucked a mark on me, I let his rough palms choke me against a wall in one of the bedrooms on the second floor of the house. It felt good to be wanted. It felt great to be needed as he rutted inside of me, hitting that sweet spot with every twitch of his hips.

It felt lonely when he left, pressing a kiss to my forehead and saying something dumb like “Be good, kid.”. I don’t remember what exactly it was, only that I had to turn my face away from his breath that reeked like weed and vodka.

To shake off the void that made home inside of my chest, I went to the roof to get some fresh air. The house had a nice patio on it - I actually knew the owner - that hosted more plants than I’d care to count. There was an ashtray and an abandoned pack of cigarettes. I greeted the faintly blooming sunrise surrounded by a cloud of smoke, shivering in the autumn mist.

Sounds of the party became less prominent with every passing minute as people geared up to go home and get a few winks of sleep before going to work. New Yorkers weren’t really thoughtful partying on a Tuesday, but then again, neither was I. The city always was busy - even then, at the crack of dawn, the dull throb of a bassline was rudely interrupted by a blaring car alarm followed by dogs barking in aggravation.

The more I sat there, the bleaker everything became. I had enough common sense to know I was just coming off the drug but for once, I had been happy and content for several hours without a care in the world. It had been too long since I felt that way and what’s a little low after a good high?

Mother left for her early conference at five AM sharp, I entered my house at five-thirty, making a beeline in the shower and immediately dumping my alcohol and cigarette soaked clothes into the wash with the smelliest detergent I could find. I gave similar treatment to my body and my hair, using the chemically-smelling products on my body and on my hair, brushing my teeth multiple times.

By the time I was leaving for school, only a faint smell lingered in the air where I’d previously entered, so I set the air freshener to automatically spray the obnoxious mist every ten minutes. Mother gets home at twelve for lunch, that should be more than enough time for any remnants of my partying to disappear into the lilac and lavender fumes.

The Valium I’d popped to deal with the aftermath of Molly made my brain sluggish. One look in the mirror and I hastily put my sunglasses on - the ashen colour of my face and the slightly crazed look wasn’t very complimentary to my complexion. The teacher didn’t give a damn. I stared blankly ahead of me for most part of first period.

“What happened to you? You look like hell!” Peter’s exclamation, while usually would’ve alarmed me, barely made a dent in my stupor.

“I feel like shit, too,” Admit what you can’t deny. Deny what you can’t admit. “I didn’t get any sleep. Like, at all.”

Peter frowned, the crease between his eyebrows growing deeper with every passing second. I flinched when his hand tentatively touched my forehead - the pounding in my temples slowed to a dull throbbing but it was still unpleasant when someone was all up in my space.

“Jesus, you’re as cold as a corpse. Maybe you should go see the nurse,” His worry bled into me too. Like hell I was going to the school nurse! They were specifically trained to recognize the signs of substance abuse.

“I’ll head home straight after school, I think we’ll have to skip our sciencing,” No way also I’d be letting Tony and Bruce see me like this. Oh my God, I was a mess. “Mother’s home.” I added. Even the emotional frostbite I’d get from being around her was more tolerable than being a downer for Peter and Tony.

Peter’s face immediately softened in sympathy. He knew almost everything about my relationship with my family, including him actually seeing my mother that one time. He told me she gave him the creeps and I don’t blame him at all. The stoicism that was required for her work made my mother an unbearable person to exist around outside of her fancy office on the top floor of a glass high-rise building.

“Okay, but promise to text me if it gets worse. You might have caught the autumn bug that’s been going around,” He obviously said the last part to calm himself down. Sweet little Peter, naïve child. I solemnly nodded nonetheless.

When I got home, I went straight to bed. Tony was being Tony, as usual, but in a strangely kind way. I suppose it should’ve made me feel better and it kind of did, but then it went downhill from there. I couldn’t explain why I started crying. I bawled my eyes out at how unfair this god-damned world was and when the doorbell rang… Let’s say, the delivery boy hightailed it out of there once the bag of takeout was deposited into my arms. I looked and felt ghastly.

I ate as much as I could and dropped into a restless nap, drifting in and out of sleep with exhausted exasperation. There had not been a time where I felt so low after popping a pill and I was equal parts alarmed and satisfied. For one, the drug dealer didn’t lie like they usually do - the stuff was good and I still had the other pill hidden away in a bottle of painkillers, inconspicuously mixed with other white pills but shape distinctive enough for me to recognize should I have need in taking it again.

The thought of well, taking it again, was fleeting. I had school tomorrow and a missed science bender to make up for. A few buzzes of my phone later, I felt happier. Better. Not so down anymore. I meant every word that I said - Bruce was very precious, kind and gentle. And so, warm and soft. And totally kissable.

Well, fuck. What do I do now?

#bun writes #party favours #tony stark x reader #tony stark x y/n #bruce banner x y/n #bruce banner x reader #stephen strange x reader #Stephen Strange x y/n #I've already got a room in Hell y'all welcome to book one nearby

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danger-xylophones · 4 years

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Major Buir (Plo Koon x reader)

{masterlist}

Words: 3.7k

Warnings: Unedited, Plo Koon trying to flirt but not quite understanding how to make the swoon, Wolffe being the embarrassed son, potential second hand embarrassment for the reader because I think that Plo is very sweet but is not well versed in the art of flirting. Clones being dumb and cute. Angry Wolffe, potential fluff overload-I got a little carried away.

Notes: Yeeee it’s my first time writing for Plo-would it be wrong to tag?...I’m gonna do it. @a-dorin , I would like to thank you for inspiring me to write this. I find myself steadily becoming a Plo simp and your fics have only accelerated my downward spiral.

Also, this was only supposed to be about 1.5k words...woops

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“From this, we can conclude that the remnants of the Ehterium cluster supernova would provide a suitable route around this Separatist controlled rat’s nest.” You sniffed carefully and lowered the pointer to tap against the ground but it landed on your foot. Swiftly, you moved it again so it actually tapped against the durasteel floor of the briefing room. A few chuckles slipped from the gathered cloned men and Jedi generals currently scanning over your notes on the holomap that had witnessed the little slip-up. “Though I can understand the hesitance-which is why I have also taken the liberty of charting a different course around the cluster entirely. It would take much longer though and would put you in more danger in the long run as you’d be exposed and out of range for too...long.” You trailed off, suddenly self-conscious of the overuse of the word ‘long’. Even though you’d worked for the GAR since the start of the clone wars (and technically before that if you counted all the academy training) you’d never gotten the hang of the ‘intimidating analytics and tactician officer’ schtick despite trying. You were often compared to a little mouse in the academy-even when you were wielding a blaster. But that hardly mattered when you were one of the top tacticians in the army and the Jedi were very kind to you. Especially General Plo Koon. He was incredibly patient with you as you adjusted to life with the 104th after being transferred from the 205th and he gave off this very warm and loving vibe.

And thankfully your new general was among the Jedi present-calmly looking at you with hands clasped behind his back, respectfully silent as the other masters muttered over the maps you’d provided. You met his eyes uncertainly. While it wasn’t like this was your first time pitching a new tactic to a general it was the first time you’d ever pitched an idea to so many people (eight, to be exact) that were so high ranking. The room was currently occupied by yourself, Depa Billaba, Obi Wan Kenobi, Cody, Anakin, Ahsoka, Rex, Commander Wolffe, and Plo Koon and while none of them were ever rude to you it was hard to not be intimidated. You weren’t the one that had to go through with this plan-they did. They were the ones in danger. Sure, you could lose your job but they could lose their lives. So, you looked to Plo Koon as he would be sure to tell you what he thought.

Perhaps he was so open with you because he could read you better than anyone else? He always knew what you were thinking and knew exactly what to say to help you. If you were honest, it was no wonder why you two were fast friends. And it wasn’t a surprise when you realized that certain feelings had crept up on you. Although you had resigned yourself to never act on them for both of your sakes there was no helping the admiration that prompted you to value the Kel Dor’s opinion over anyone else’s. And just like so many times before, it seemed like Plo knew this for he offered a single nod to you when your eyes met. The tension fled from your shoulders instantly as a silent sigh of relief slipped from you. Plo Koon approved. You had done good. He knew how hard you had worked on the new plans and could cite several instances where he had stumbled upon you slumped over your desk as the testimony to your dedication. Each time the Kel Dor quietly lifted you to your feet and encouraged you to leave the work for the next day as he escorted you back to your quarters. Once the two of you got there, he’d always, always place a secure hand on your shoulder with a squeeze that just barely made his talons dig into your greys as he bid you goodnight before sweeping away with one last order to get some sleep tossed over his shoulder. It was similar small gestures like those that gave you hope that were your situations different-he being a normal citizen like you and not a Jedi with no trace of war-that maybe something could happen. But alas…

“I must say, Major, I do believe you’ve outdone yourself.” Kenobi was the first among the Jedi to speak with one hand clasping his chin and the other clasping his elbow in typical Obi Wan fashion as he scanned over the details once more.

You dipped your head with a carefully practiced, “thank you, General” as your immediate reply though deep inside, your pride swelled. This was possibly your most ambitious plan yet and one that had presented significant challenges. While you were a good tactician, your strong suits lie in terrestrial combat and not space. It felt great to be validated.

“Yes but…” Depa Billaba began with her arms dutifully crossed over her chest as she scrutinized further, “what are we to do about this asteroid field that cuts through our path?” The Jedi asked calmly and you brightened at the mention of it because you had banged your head against it every which way. The asteroid field was the one thing you couldn’t accurately account for as the data you had received on it initially had been outdated. And you explained as much to her.

“However, I am happy to tell you that I may have found a way to...acount for this hazard.” You cleared your throat and leaned over the console to zoom in on the area in question. “This asteroid field is large, messy, and problematic, and had you asked me how to avoid it earlier I wouldn’t have had an answer. But, I think that the best course of action is to separate-to make it look as though the three of you-” you pointed to the generals you were specifying, “are escorting Depa Billaba till she comes in range with the nearby medical station. That way if any Separatists follow you, you can still maintain the element of surprise because I know that if we can make General Billaba’s starship appear vulnerable that they will go for it. Worst case scenario, you dust off the guns a little preemptively. Best case-” again, you clicked another button that revealed a dotted red path through the holo projection, “you can use the asteroids as extra cover while you navigate through this path.” You paused a moment, eyes shifting to gauge the reactions of everyone. From across the table, your eyes met with Commander Wolffe’s who raised an eyebrow at you. “Clone intelligence has informed me that this path might be outdated as well but we will be active on the comms to offer guidance through the field as you go.” Commander Wolffe gave a firm nod and, again, the Jedi and clones retreated inwards to try and think of any situations that they would need to be prepared for. In the weighted silence that followed, you were keenly aware of Plo Koon drawing closer to you as he methodically circled the console before you. His hands remained clasped behind his back the entire time and you couldn’t help but watch him as he approached.

He came to a stop right next to you-close enough for your arms to brush and for his warmth to seep through the fabric of your greys. Plo Koon remained quiet for a little longer, leaving you more time to fight the instinct that told you to lean closer to him before he moved his arms. His taloned hand brushed the back of your own and his vambrace bumped your forearm as he brought his arms up to cross over his torso. You couldn’t help but dwell on the feeling of even that minuscule contact which almost caused you to miss the compliment he paid your way.

“Uh...th-thank you, General.” You coughed into your fist in a not so subtle way to correct your stutter. “But really, my plan is only good because my data was good. You should really thank your men that got me the information.”

The Kel Dor made a huffing sound that would have sounded like a laugh if not for the heavy overlay from his mask. “Believe me, Major, I will but you do deserve some of the credit.” He stressed, even going so far as to grasp your shoulder very briefly. You could still feel the imprint of his touch when he moved his hand away.

“Anakin, you’re being unusually quiet.” Obi Wan saved you from further implosion as he addressed his former padawan. You and Plo Koon both turned your attention back to the other occupants in the room and you were unsettled to find General Skywalker’s eyebrows furrowed in scrutiny as he glanced between you and the Jedi Master. Perhaps more alarming though was Wolffe’s face. He was staring at Plo Koon with what you could only describe as a bug-eyed look.

“Just thinking, master.” Skywalker eventually answered. Your jaw tensed in uncertainty though the younger man said nothing more regarding the visual dissection of your interaction.

The meeting continued for a few more minutes with you working to finalize the more minute details and to take measures to establish backup plans that would most likely be abandoned by the Jedi at the first sign of conflict and the Jedi began to disperse with their own CO’s. Eventually, that left just you, Wolffe, and Plo Koon. At the first sign that the meeting was adjourned, you began to pack your things up and to log off the computers but instead of leaving you to your own devices like you thought he would, Plo Koon remained with you. He casually waited at the console you had left him at with his hands clasped before his diaphragm, a common gesture for him you’d noticed, while Wolffe awkwardly hovered near the door.

“Was there anything else you needed, General?” You asked, glancing over your shoulder at the Kel Dor. He stood up straight and approached with light footsteps.

“Not particularly, Major, but I would like to congratulate you once again on another excellently thought out plan.” Plo Koon’s voice was as calm as it ever was but there was something there-a slight lilt you weren’t familiar with or maybe it was better described as a squeak? Slowly spinning on your heel, you turned to face him.

“Well,...thank you, General. It...It’s my job.” A part of you swore at your inability to take a compliment properly while the other parts were all focused on Plo Koon. Sure, he’d complimented you on your plans before (he did during the meeting) but he had always reserved the more serious praise for after the missions and the debriefings. He’d never stayed after the preliminary meetings.

“If you don’t mind, I’d prefer if you called me Plo Koon-it feels far too impersonal to be addressed as ‘general’ outside of meetings.” The Kel Dor explained with a raised hand to stop you from saying anything else till he had said his piece.

You blinked. Once. Twice. Before eventually sliding your gaze over to Wolffe who had a hand clasped over his eyes. That gesture only added kindling to the confused fire as you returned to the man in front of you. There didn’t seem to be anything amiss-his mask looked in place and to your knowledge, he hadn’t been in the medbay recently. “As...whatever you wish...Plo.” You swallowed, his name-something you’d said in your head thousands of times before-felt foreign on your tongue. “You can of course call me ‘Y/n’...then.” You offered uncertainly.

“Of course,” he echoed with a nod. “I’ve always thought your name fitting.”

“Thank you…?” You asked uncertainly.

“I just mean that it is a strong name and you bear it well.”

“...” Again, you couldn’t help but look over at Wolffe who had taken his face in his hands in what could only be described as a picture of absolute mortification. His helmet was awkwardly squished into his chest as he shook his head from side to side, lips moving as he formed words you couldn’t hear from where you stood. “I...uh...I like your name too, Plo. It’s gentle…?” You tried as you returned your attention to the Kel Dor and raised one shoulder in a half-shrug.

He brightened, back straightening up as he continued to regard you. “Thank you, I’m rather fond of it myself.” A silence fell over the two of you-horribly tense and laced with an awkward air you had no way of dissipating anytime soon. Averting your eyes from the Jedi, you rolled your lips in and bit them as you fished for something else to say.

“Is...are you sure there wasn’t anything you needed, General?” You finally asked after shifting on your feet for the third time.

Plo Koon shook his head, less in a form of denial and more like he was trying to shake himself out of a stupor before answering. “I’m positive but while we’re on the subject of names I feel it is important for me to inform you of the new one circulating amongst my men.”

You raised your eyebrow at the Jedi, not missing the way Wolffe froze entirely. “A new name for me or…?”

“For you.” Plo nodded. “It seems as though they’ve taken a liking to calling you ‘Major Buir’.” There was something in his voice that told you he was smiling (or the Kel Dor equivalent of smiling) beneath his anti-ox mask.

“Buir?” You questioned as your mind raced to dig up a definition for the Mando’a word you’d heard assigned to the Jedi on multiple occasions. “As in what the Wolfpack calls you?”

“Indeed. Are you familiar with Mando’a?”

“After fighting alongside the clones?-of course, but I’m afraid most of the terms I know relate to fighting, tactics, or swearing.” You explained promptly with a glance to Wolffe at the mention of his language-the clone in question looked frozen in his spot and it seemed like he was no longer alone as you could swear you saw the familiar red hair of Boost and the silver of Sinker ducking behind the doorway.

Plo Koon suddenly leaned forward, getting closer to your height as his voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Buir is Mando’a for ‘parent’, Y/n.” Immediately, it felt as though someone had locked you in carbonite-your heart was still warm as it surged with affection for the men of the 104th yet at the same time your body felt the familiar frozen tingle that so often accompanied the sensation of treading through uncharted territory. You were keenly aware of Plo Koon’s proximity and the way your heart sped as a result. In an attempt to combat this you took a deep breath to steady yourself and regain control over your vocal chords. But that was a mistake as Plo’s natural scent infiltrated your senses. He smelled of leather and fresh air, of tea tree and some other piquant scent you couldn’t name that you knew was the remnant of one of the contraband candles he had hidden aboard the ship. It was so him-something the standard issue GAR soap couldn’t hide-that it overwhelmed you in an instant and you found yourself leaning closer. He, a flame, and you, a moth.

Your lips parted slightly as your face relaxed and you swore that you’d never felt calmer. It felt like someone was wrapping you in a hug; you felt safe, wanted, and adored. “But...if they call you that and are now calling me that…” you began through the sudden dwam your mind floated in. The pieces were starting to fall into place. “Then...General Plo Koon,” your voice suddenly became firm as you forced yourself to step back, “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

Plo Koon straightened up, his hands finding their usual resting place crossed in front of his stomach. “I am. Was it not obvious?” He asked, his held tilting to the left just slightly.

You briefly thought back to the somewhat strange string of compliments he’d paid you that lead up to this. “Uh...no, not really.” You explained quickly, eyes now flickering around the room in an attempt to come up with a reply to this revelation.

“Hmm.” Plo Koon hummed. “My apologies then. Boost encouraged me to be forward-perhaps it was not enough?” You blinked up at him, gaping like a fish-if that was Plo being forward then you wouldn’t have stood a chance if he had taken a subtle route.

Before you could say anything though, Wolffe’s explosive voice cut through the briefing room as he rounded on Boost. “You told him to do what?!” The commander barked at his red-headed brother who had long since abandoned hiding behind the doorway and was now standing tall with his chest slightly puffed.

“Oh come on, Vod, we both know the General likes ‘em! And Major Buir wasn’t going to pick up on it anytime soon. I was just trying to help!” He huffed back, practically getting in Wolffe’s face.

“Meddling isn’t helping, Boost!”

“I dunno-seemed pretty effective, Commander.” Sinker chimed in.

Wolffe wheeled on him next. “Don’t tell me you were in on this too!” The one-eyed clone seethed. “If you weren’t my brother I’d-”

“Boys!” You snapped, having heard enough. The three brothers stopped immediately and turned to you; each one bore a similarly sheepish grin. With a shake of your head, you turned back to Plo who had watched on in amusement. “Plo, I’m flattered but...what about your code? I know attachments are dangerous and I wouldn’t want to be the reason you-”

The Jedi master raised a hand. “My dear, attachments aren’t dangerous. It is how they can be used against a Jedi that is.”

“I don’t follow.” You tried only for Plo to shake his head.

“Yes, you do.” The Kel Dor dropped to your height again. “Y/n, if attachments themselves were dangerous Jedi would also be forbidden from being compassionate.” You were stricken silent, painfully aware of the three pairs of eyes currently fixated on the two of you. “But even if they were, I’d still find you worth the risk.” Your heart melted, a soft ‘Plo’ slipping past your lips that made the Kel Dor incline his head. “I know you care for me too, Y/n, so...are you willing to be with me?”

You bit your lip in thought, a smile creeping across your face as you looked up at the Jedi. “I’m guessing there’s no talking you out of this?”

“You may try but my feelings will persist.” Plo countered immediately-a lightness to his voice you hadn’t heard before.

You chuckled briefly and let your gaze slide over to the three clones now curiously peering at the two of you. You took in their identical faces and the imploring looks each one was giving you. When had the Wolfpack wormed their way into your heart? Probably around the same time their general did. You turned back to Plo Koon. “I say...of course,” You smiled and slipped onto your toes to wrap your arms around the Kel Dor’s neck. He returned the embrace with a low hum, his arms slipping around your waist, “ner Jetti.” You could hear whooping and hollering from the entrance to the briefing room.

……………………………………………………..

The barracks were dark and crowded later that night-many of the men from the 104th had all crammed into one room to watch the holofilm you’d smuggled onto the starship. It had been about three weeks since the fateful meeting that led to the union of you and General Plo Koon and each day had brought a new development in your aliit as word of your relationship spread. For the most part, none of the men were surprised-some even commenting on how Plo Koon was apparently unable to tear his eyes off of you during meetings, holocalls, or your brief but frequent trips to the base on Coruscant. But there were a few who weren’t expecting it at all.

But everyone you’d told had been supportive. And now as you sat curled into Plo Koon’s side with clones draped all around you as most dozed off in the peaceful barracks you could safely say that you’d found where you belong.

A tug on your arm pulled you away from the nearly impossible to hear holofilm (the few soldiers that were still awake had turned the volume down so they could let their brothers sleep) and to the clone currently barely awake with his head on your lap. “What is it, Boost?” You asked in a whisper, keenly aware of the sleeping Sinker and Wolffe on Plo’s other side. Still, your voice managed to catch the Jedi’s attention as he turned his head towards the two you.

The red head stared up at you blearily, a yawn interrupting him before he began speaking. “I just wanted to say that I’m happy you and general buir are together now. And that I’m glad I could help.”

A breathy laugh escaped you that Plo helped quiet with a hand over your mouth. He dipped his head to gesture at Wolffe who grumbled and curled closer to Sinker in his sleep. In retaliation, you batted his hand away and rolled your eyes at the Kel Dor before looking back at the sleepy man. “I am too, Boost. Thank you.” You answered fondly, letting your head fall against Plo’s shoulder.

“Like I said-” he cut off to yawn, “happy to help...major...buir.” Boost trailed off as his eyes closed and he wormed his way closer to you.

You smiled. “Thank you, ner ad’ika.” As Boost officially fell victim to dream land you turned towards Plo who had watched the exchange carefully. The same feeling of being hugged, of being safe, wanted, and loved infiltrated your senses but you now recognized it as Plo’s signature. Still bearing that soft painted smile, you pressed your forehead to his. A final whisper of thank you slipped from you as you resigned yourself to stay in that moment forever.

#plo koon x reader #plo koon #star wars #clone wars #star wars: clone wars #tcw #wolfpack

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dimigex · 3 years

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New Altered Reality Chapter!

A03 / FF

I think it’s been like . . two years since I updated this story XD oops. The story is linked at the top if you want the full chapter and/or story. This is only a portion of the new chapter because it’s over 6k words

"Why don't you go train for a little while? It might take your mind off things." Rin made the suggestion as gentle as possible, ignoring the frustration that seethed just beneath the surface of her calm. She wanted the apartment to herself for a few hours and desperately needed Kakashi to stop fussing over her. Then, she'd be able to relax the way that she was supposed to. The man's constant attention put her on edge.

Since the doctor's appointment four days ago, Kakashi had been acting like a brooding hen. When Rin stood up to get her book from the bedroom, he'd jumped to his feet and offered to go instead. He didn't want her standing long enough to cook or clean, so he'd taken over those duties as well. While Kakashi was decent in the kitchen, he'd kept everything bland and refused to add any salt to the dishes. If the man mentioned her blood pressure one more time, Rin was fairly certain that hers would rise to dangerous levels when she yelled at him.

At Rin's words, Kakashi glanced up from the book in his lap. The man's brow furrowed as he marked his place with a finger. "What if you need something while I'm gone?"

"Then, I'll get it myself," Rin answered. She moderated her tone to placating rather than annoyed. It was more difficult than she expected. "I'm hardly an invalid, you know?"

"The doctor said you needed rest." Kakashi argued for the umpteenth time, as if Rin had forgotten it, as if he would give her a chance to forget it.

Rin held up her hand to stop Kakashi's next arguments before they could form. Slowly, she counted to five under her breath. The idea of laying in bed or on the couch for even one minute longer made her physically ill. She had done everything that she was supposed to: drinking glass after glass of water to keep herself hydrated, keeping the lights dim and the room quiet, resting on her left side whenever possible. There had been a dozen tiny things that might make a difference, or might not.

While that scenario would sound like a dream for some women, to Rin, it was a nightmare. She missed the days when training and missions kept her mind and body racing. When she was in the village, Rin kept herself busy wherever the hospital needed an extra set of hands. She hadn't chosen her specialization yet, but she was leaning toward pediatrics. Most medical nin worked in triage and emergencies, but there were plenty of quiet days as well. Rin liked the idea of helping children feel better rather than focusing on battle injuries.

Rin realized that her mind had drifted from the topic at hand and brought her eyes back to Kakashi. She couldn't help but appreciate the changes in her husband in the past few days, even when they annoyed her. In some ways, he was more like himself and others, he was totally different. Rin could manage the symptoms of her pregnancy; she'd done that when morning sickness left her more or less living on the bathroom floor for two months. But, she couldn't handle the hovering worry that radiated off of Kakashi.

"Why don't you go see if Minato has an update on your team?" Rin suggested, pushing into a sitting position.

Apprehension entered Kakashi's eyes. The man still hadn't been able to explain his nervousness over the chunin exams, no matter how much he tried. Rin almost felt bad for bringing up the memory, almost. Team Seven was the only distraction that could get Kakashi out of her hair for an hour or two. Sensing the man's wavering resolve, Rin pushed. "I'm just going to take a bath anyway. A cool one," Rin amended when Kakashi opened his mouth. He had been reading one of her many books about the dos and don't of pregnancy; Rin wished that she'd thrown them out once she finished.

"I'm sure he would have sent someone if there was news," Kakashi countered. His voice lacked its usual certainty, however. He wanted to know what was happening with his students as much as Rin wanted some time to breathe.

Rin nodded, running a hand through her hair. "Probably, but it would be good for you to get your mind off this mess." She gestured around the apartment. "Besides, if I need you, I can create a clone to find you. I still know how to do some things."

Over the past few months, Rin had been developing her chakra control. Once her pregnancy had been confirmed, she'd been removed from active duty. With missions off the table, she spent more time at the hospital. Even so, Rin was only permitted to assist with certain cases, so she spent her free time working through exercises that improved her control. Hopefully, that would allow her the freedom to study more medical ninjutsu after the baby was born. If she'd learned anything from being on a team with hotheaded Obito and reckless Kakashi, it was that a medic was always necessary.

"You promise you'll come find me if you need anything?" Kakashi's voice held a note of uncertainty that surprised Rin. When she nodded, he tucked a strip of cloth into the book on his lap and placed it on the table. "I won't be gone long, but maybe you're right. I'm sure there are rumors about teams finishing the second exam by now."

"Take your time," Rin offered, schooling her face to impassivity. If she looked hopeful at the free time, Kakashi would see the trap. He stood, stretching the stiff muscles in his back, then glanced in her direction. A slight frown appeared on his face.

He's debating whether or not to kiss me, Rin realized with a start. While Kakashi had changed significantly over the past few days, the hesitancy about displaying emotions with her remained. Honestly, it didn't bother Rin as much as his lost memories did. Kakashi had always been private and reserved with his affections. Deciding to meet him halfway, Rin caught his hand with hers and squeezed. Kakashi exhaled in relief.

"Go on," Rin prompted, dropping her fingers away. "I'll be good, I promise."

A smile tugged at the corners of Kakashi's mouth as he stepped closer. To Rin's surprise, he leaned in and pressed a warm kiss to her forehead. An unfamiliar explosion of heat washed through her chest at the gesture. "I'll bring dinner home," Kakashi continued, completely unaware of the effect he had on her. "Don't even think of trying to make it while I'm gone."

"Promise," Rin laughed, hoping that her smile disguised the fact that she had just been considering that very thing.

When the door shut behind Kakashi, Rin glanced at the calendar on the wall. She calculated how much longer she'd have to endure Kakashi's worrying before life could get back to normal. If everything went perfectly, they would meet their son in twelve weeks; Rin could hang on that long. She didn't have a choice.

When a brief knock sounded on the office door, Minato glanced up from the paperwork in his hand. Shikaku slipped through before he had time to answer, and Minato's heart leaped into his throat. "Has there been news?"

The second chunin exam was coming to a close, and there still hadn't been any word of Naruto's team. Minato knew that his son and his teammates were talented shinobi, but the exams were designed to be taxing. He'd seen just as many groups fail because of bad luck as poor skill. With the relative peace in the shinobi nations, fewer genin were advanced to the next rank. Minato agreed with the changes, but he could still remember all too well how quickly the ninja wars had started.

Shikaku shook his head as he shut the door behind him. "None about Team Seven."

Minato understood what the man wasn't saying; there were more important things to worry about than Naruto's advancement. Shikaku's son was also competing in the exams, he had to be wondering about the same things as Minato, but Shikaku remained detached. He stayed focused on the other matters that required his attention to keep the village running. Shikaku had been an excellent pick as Minato's second in command, and Minato didn't know what he would do without him most days.

Dipping his head in understanding, Minato pressed a thumb and forefinger against his eyes to stave off a headache. It had been a stressful week. When he wasn't torn between worries over Kakashi's memory and Naruto's performance, Minato had been dealing with chaos of having multiple villages together. There had been half a dozen fights to break up, tempers that needed soothing, and the exhaustion of hosting delegates. He cringed. "What is it this time? A broken nose over which kage is the strongest? Blood feud over the death of a distant relative? A comment taken the wrong way?"

"None of the above." Shikaku didn't crack a smile at Minato's attempted levity. Whatever he had come to say must be bad. Minato waited in silence. "I wasn't sure what to make of the report, so I brought it to you immediately. Someone made an attempt against the village barrier."

Minato shifted, mind flashing back to Kakashi's warning about Orochimaru. Even so, he forced himself to think logically rather than responding with a knee jerk reaction. "Did the Anbu tasked with that portion of the village find anything out of the ordinary? Which team was it?"

Again, Shikaku shook his head. "Obito's team deemed it a false alarm, something bound to happen with this many foreigners in the village."

Minato nodded without answering. Technically, his advisor shouldn't know the names of the men and women in Anbu, but Obito's presence hadn't been easy to hide, especially from someone who worked closely with Minato. Shikaku had been an effective jonin commander because he knew the strengths and weaknesses of every jonin in the village. There were few who weren't under his purview at some point, but Minato had no doubt that the man knew them as well. He wouldn't be good at his job if he didn't.

"Was there any evidence to suggest otherwise, anything at all?" Minato hated asking the question, but he couldn't afford to be lax with village safety during the chunin exams. There had been too many warnings to write this off as a coincidence. Though, he knew that if Shikaku had more information, he would have supplied it already.

Shikaku's sigh spoke volumes. He'd been under the same pressure as Minato the past couple of weeks. "No, everything appears to be in order."

Minato wondered if Shikaku had been thinking about Kakashi's warning when he brought that message. As much as Minato wanted to, he hadn't been able to keep that solely between himself and Inoichi. He relied on Shikaku too much to withhold such critical information. Even so, he held back as much as he could about Kakashi's memory loss. Until he figured out the cause, the less that everyone else knew, the better.

Tapping long fingers against the polished wood of his desk, Minato considered. He wanted to hear the report from his Anbu, but that would require summoning Obito. Or, perhaps, he could get by with asking Tenzo about it. The remorse that Obito had shown for what he did to Kakashi wasn't enough; the boy needed to realize that his behavior would not be tolerated. Minato decided to summon Tenzo once Shikaku left and get the full report on the disturbance. Though, he suspected it was a false alarm.

Sensing that he'd only skimmed the surface of Shikaku's reports, Minato nodded. "What else?"

A wry grin twisted the jonin's commander's face as he glanced down at the notes in his hand. "Uchiha Fugaku has requested a private meeting with you." Minato's eyebrows rose at that, wondering who Fugaku would want to talk about, one of his sons or Obito. It wasn't like the clan head to meet with Minato for something minor.

Minato dipped his head in understanding, then Shikaku continued his thought. "He requests a private meeting in the Uchiha compound."

The locale didn't surprise Minato. Fugaku must have found out something about the mystery surrounding Kakashi, but it wasn't something he wanted to risk being overhead. Which meant that it probably touched on some clan secret. Having the Hokage come to the compound instead of the other way around would raise the clan's opinion of Fugaku, at least. There were still some people, particularly in the Uchiha clan, who wished that Fugaku had become Hokage instead of Minato. Hopefully the man's information would be worth the hassle.

Minato glanced at the clock. It wasn't quite noon, and he was already longing for home. "When am I supposed to be there?"

Shikaku consulted his notes to be sure he was correct before speaking. "Tonight. Your schedule was too full to allow time during the day, and with the second exam ending in the morning, there wasn't another opportunity."

Fugaku didn't want to wait that long, Minato realized after a moment. He dipped his head in understanding; there were a million loose ends that needed to be tied up before the final exam could begin. Even problems as important as this one had to wait. Minato rubbed at his temples in frustration, then gestured for Shikaku to continue. "What else?"

(Full chapter and story available on A03 and FF, linked at top of the post)

#Dimi writes #Altered Reality Update #KakaRin #Kakashi #Rin #Full chapter available on Archive and Fanfic #This update is ridiculously old and I'm sorry #Hopefully this will give me inspiration to keep going

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saffronwritings · 3 years

Text

C L U M S Y | KIRISHIMA PART THREE

I let you down; I've been clumsy with your heart again. I guess you figured me out, Now here's a taste of my own medicine. (I let you down)

K I R I S H I M A | P A R T T H R E E (F i n a l)

[Part One],[Part Two]

C L U M Y M A S T E R L I S T

Word Count: 2.5k

Content warnings: Mild Cursing

A/N: I really hope this measures up to everyone’s expectations. I really like how this ended, but I’m worried you all won’t like it. I could have done a lot of things differently, but Kirishima deserves the best honestly. (Fair warning, not all in the Clumsy series get a happy ending. BUT I HAD TO FOR OUR FAVORITE SHARK BOI.)

Bakugou and Kirishima had locked eyes. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. “So, this is what your tutoring sessions have been?” Bakugou said through gritted teeth. You were left speechless. You didn’t know how to respond in a way that would get him to calm down. “This was my doing.” Kirishima spoke up after collecting himself off the floor. “The hell do you mean?” Bakugou spit back at him. You had looked from Bakugou to Kirishima to see if either of their demeanors had changed. Kirishima sighed and looked over to you with a sad smile. “I had a crush on her. I came onto her, I kissed her. She had nothing to do with it.” He admitted to his best friend. You didn’t want Kirishima to take the full fall, that was never the plan or intention. “Bullshit! You were on top of her on her bed!” Bakugou continued to shout.

You were sure that Iida was going to potentially investigate what was going on, since Bakugou kept shouting. He had every right to be upset in this moment, but you had to quickly think to diffuse the situation. “Like I said, I came onto her. She was laying down on her bed while I was looking through my textbook, I got onto her bed and kissed her.” Kirishima continued to defend you. He didn’t want you to get in the middle of Bakugou’s wrath. While he also didn’t want to lose his best friend, in this moment he wanted to protect you. He had been standing protectively in front of you as you sat in horrible silence. “Just stay out of this Y/N.” Kirishima had thought to himself, preparing to activate his quirk if necessary.

“Listen here shitty hair. You dare make a move on my girl?” Bakugou challenged. You could hear his hands starting to crackle with his rising anger. You quickly got up from your spot on the bed, moving past Kirishima to reach Katsuki. “Hey, look. He made a mistake. I didn’t stop him because I thought maybe it would help him with his feelings.” You stated, trying to diffuse the situation. “So, you were in on it too?” He pressed, backing away from you. He was looking back and forth the two of you in anger. “Bakugou, I need you to calm down-“ “You don’t get to tell me to calm down after swapping spit with this fake of a friend.” Katsuki cut you off. The words cut deep into Kirishima, hearing one of his best friends being so angry at him.

“Why is it always okay for everyone else to get what they want, besides me? Why am I the one who must stand on the sidelines. I always talk to you about you and your things. However, the favor is never returned! Had you even asked if I liked anyone, I would have maybe told you about my feelings for Y/N! Everything is always about you, Bakugou. You don’t care about anyone, but yourself!” Kirishima finally snapped. “I have been there for you at your lowest and at your highest. I support you in all your training and even help when I don’t feel up for it! That’s what best friends do. Yet, all you ever do is worry about yourself. You never come to see the others train. You never congratulate the others when they accomplish something new in their work. You don’t care about any of the others, and you especially don’t care about me.”

Your heart snapped in half hearing Kirishima finally voice his feelings to his best friend. You had no idea that he felt this way. He always appeared so chipper and happy to be surrounded by his friends. Kirishima was always so optimistic and supportive towards others. To see this side being brought to the light really hurt something inside of you. Yet, here you were, doing the same exact thing Bakugou was doing to him. You were being selfish. You were keeping this dirty little secret and you should have known that would hurt Kirishima. Of course, he would say he didn’t mind because that is what he was used to. Used to being the one to push his feelings aside for the sake of others. That’s just how he’s always been.

The room was silent. You hadn’t even noticed the tears that were silently falling down Kiri’s face until now. You felt ashamed that you were the one that caused this situation. Bakugou scoffed angerly and stormed out of the room – leaving the two of you in uncomfortable silence. “I never meant to make you fall with me, Y/N.” Kirishima spoke up, breaking the unbearable silence. You rushed over to him and through your arms around him. “I’m the one who let you down Kirishima.” You breathed, trying so hard to keep the tears from falling from your own eyes. Kirishima’s whole body started shaking with sobs that only made your heart hurt worse.

Over the next couple of days things had been awkward not only just between Bakugou and you, but the rest of the Bakusquad. Later the next evening after the whole escapade of Bakugou finding out your little thing with Kirishima, he had texted you saying that he wanted to break up. Which was honestly fair and you saw coming. The whole incident had left you feeling awful for multiple reasons; you had hurt not only Kirishima, but Bakugou as well, you had technically been cheating on Bakugou, and you made things so awkward with the rest of your friend group. It didn’t help that Kirishima also kept his distance from you. He was hurting in his own way after potentially loosing one of his best friends over a girl.

He knew better. He always knew better. Yet, when he called out Bakugou for his toxic behavior he almost immediately regretted it. Bakugou had been like a brother to Kirishima and the thought of loosing him always made him uncomfortable. He also felt bad for avoiding you as well when you had also taken the fall with him. He honestly didn’t expect you to back him up like you had done. He was just expecting you to let him take all the blame and go back to normal with Bakugou. That didn’t happen. Kirishima also half expected that after Bakugou had taken his anger out on him during one training session that maybe the tensions would die down.

Yet, here you all were, sitting in awful awkward silence at lunch together. “Did something happen where all three of you are all stingy now? Kirishima you passed the last exam; you should be excited!” Mina exclaimed, trying to brighten up the mood.

It was true that even though you and Bakugou were broken up and Kirishima and Bakugou were in a fight, that you all still sat together at lunch with the rest of your friends. No one had broken the news to Denki, Sero, or Mina about what had happened. “That’s because Y/N is such a great tutor! You should help me with my next exam.” Kaminari agreed, throwing a smile your way. You wished he hadn’t of said that, because the look on Bakugou’s face turned sour very quickly. “Yeah, Y/N, might as well give Kaminari lessons like you did for Kirishima. Maybe Sero will want some too, or even Mina if you swing that way.” He spat towards you. “That’s enough Bakugou.” Kirishima once again stood up for you.

“Tch. Whatever.” Bakugou sneered before standing up and walking away. His food that he just got from the cafeteria just sitting there. “What was that all about?” Sero whispered, looking from you to Kirishima. “Nothing. Just getting a taste of my own medicine is all.” You whispered, standing up yourself and walking away from the table. Kirishima wanted nothing more to console you, but at the same time he didn’t want Sero, Mina, or Kaminari to raise more questions than they already were. So, he stayed at the table as he watched you walk away in the opposite direction. “Okay… How weird.” Denki whistled out, feeling the weird tension hanging in the air. The three of them dropped the conversation and moved on to talk about how they were excited about their upcoming work studies. Kirishima couldn’t be bothered to listen though.

You hadn’t planned to run into Bakugou after walking out of the cafeteria. You had purposely left the opposite exit so your chances of running into each other were very slim. He stood against one of the hallway walls, arms crossed over his chest. He made eye contact with you and at first you shrank away. Before you could turn around and walk away, he softly asked, “Can we talk for a moment.”. Befuddled by the calm disposition he was putting off, you hesitantly walked towards him. You stood next to him but knew to keep your distance just in case. “Look, I’m sorry for what I said in there. I was hurt.” Bakugou started to explain. “However, shitty hair was right. I never really considered his feelings. I got jealous of the two of you hanging out because of how close the two of you were. I guess I knew deep down, yet I still went for you anyway.”

You were speechless. This was very unlike Bakugou to admit his wrongs and to even say he was in the wrong. “It sucked finding out the way I did, but Kirishima is a really good friend. I’d be stupid to throw that away. I also somewhat tolerate whenever you’re around too.” He admitted, a small flush to his cheeks. This information dump from him left you speechless. You weren’t sure what to say and he saw you staring at him with your mouth open. “If you keep your mouth open, you’re going to catch flies, you idiot.” He smirked, shoving your shoulder gently. A small smile crept up on your face as you realized he was trying to make amends. “I should be the one to apologize to you. I shouldn’t have kept secrets from you. I should have been honest with you from the beginning.” You also blurted out.

A chuckle escaped Katsuki’s lips as he rolled his eyes at you. “No shit, dummy. However, I get it. I can be hotheaded and easily loose my temper. Kirishima was right. I tend to only care about myself and not those around me. It’s about time I do the same for everyone else.” He exhaled, shaking his head. Almost instantly though his fiery personality came back to life. “But don’t get any smart ideas! I’m not going to be the nice guy all of a sudden. I’m just going to be a bit more considerate of everyone else’s feelings.” He snarled, yet you knew he was trying to hide that soft interior of his. You turned to him and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you, Bakugou.” You uttered, relaxing into his embrace since he too had hugged you back.

“I’ll beat the shit out of him if he doesn’t treat you right. I will also have no hesitation on trying to win you back if he doesn’t. Am I clear?” He murmured in your ear. You nodded your head before letting go of the embrace. “Oh, and shitty hair.” He called out, making you turn around in surprise. Kirishima walked out from behind the wall he was standing behind. “We’re going to be training tomorrow, so you better keep up.” Bakugou ordered. A knowing smile broke out on Kirishima’s face as he recognized this was Bakugou’s way of letting go of the tension. “Of course!” Kirishima acknowledged. The lunch bell rang as it signaled that their break was over, and the next class was getting ready to commence. “I’ll see you two in class.” He huffed before walking away. However, you couldn’t help but notice the small smile that was etched on his face before he turned away.

This left you and Kirishima together alone in the hallway. “Y/N, I’m sorry.” Kirishima started to say. You shook your head vigorously at his statement which left Kirishima with a puzzled look on his face. “No, I am the one who should be sorry! I should have asked you how you personally felt about the situation. I never took your feelings into consideration. I was being selfish. I wanted both but I knew that I couldn’t. I really liked Bakugou, underneath his tough exterior is a kind soul. However, you are the one that I want to be with. You always put others before you even if it means hurting yourself. With you, everything is effortless. I don’t have to worry about whether or not you’re going to explode at me, or to walk on eggshells with you. Kirishima, you are perfect for me, and I’m sorry that it took me this long to notice.” You blurted out.

Kirishima’s face had turned the color of a tomato, his head tilted down. At first you didn’t see the tears streaming down his face until he finally looked up at you with a smile embedded into his cheeks. “You are literally an angel, Y/N.” He laughed, wiping the tears from his face. Your smile softened as you placed your hand on his cheek and stroked some of his tears away with your thumb. “I’m not an angel, but I will try to be the best version of myself for you.” You confirmed, before placing a small peck onto his cheek. “Now let’s get going before we’re late for class.” You announced, holding your hand out for Kirishima to take, and he did, gladly.

….

A few weeks went by of normal hangouts, the occasional surprise date, and just easy-going feelings between you and Kirishima. Bakugou and Kirishima’s relationship was still a bit rough around the edges but overtime Katsuki had come to terms with the outcome. Truly, he was just happy to see both of you so infatuated with one another. Kirishima was doing everything right and that’s what made Bakugou content with letting you go. There were many questions from the Bakusquad and overtime they pieced everything together. There were no ill feelings between anyone, including you and Bakugou. If anything, the roles had reversed where Kirishima was your boyfriend and Bakugou was your best friend. From time to time, Kirishima got jealous, but you assured him there was nothing to worry about.

“Tch, if I wanted to take her back, I would. Now get over here Rock Bottom, stupid sparky wants us to have a rematch in Mario-kart.” Bakugou sneered. A smile immediately broke out over Kirishima’s face before placing a tender kiss onto your forehead. “Go kick some ass, Kiri.” You encouraged before the two boys ran off to the common room to cause havoc.

Taglist:

@devildom-express, @wallpaperpaint69

#kirishima x reader #kirishima imagine #bnha kirishima #kirishima eijiro x reader #kirishima eijirou #mha x reader #mha imagines #mha oneshots #bnha #bnha fanfiction #bnha oneshots #boku no hero academia #boku no hero fanfic #boku no hero academia x reader #my hero academia x reader #my hero academia #my fics #saffronsmhafics #mhaclumsyseries

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caitlyn-winchester · 3 years

Text

Pilot (Part 2)

Cordell Walker x daughter!Reader

word count: 1,554

warnings: dead parent, abandonment?, mentions of deportation

A.N. sorry I haven't been that active about updating this story. I had some school assignments to complete(and still do). this past week I just been very unmotivated to do anything. I'll try to post more! Thank u for your patience.

masterlist

“What are we doing out here again?” Bel asked me as we hopped over a fence that led to an open field.

“Just looking at the stars, I guess. My mom used to take me out here all the time, especially on a full moon.” I told her, sitting down on the grass

“Full moon, like tonight.” she realized.

“Yeah.” I pulled out my leather-bound sketchbook and markers. “She let me draw the starscape while she took some pictures on her camera. I've drawn every single full moon since I was ten, I've missed a couple since she passed. The first couple of months were difficult to get myself to come out here. She even made this sketchbook” I explained. Bel put a comforting hand on my shoulder. I was so lucky to have her, she is an amazing friend.

“She sounds amazing Y/N. I wish I could meet her.” She said and I just nodded. “Can I see your drawings?”

“Sure.” I handed her the book and she started to flip through the pages

“You're really good” she complimented

“Thanks.” I gave a small smile. I layed down on the grass and looked at the stars. It's been a little while and we’ve been talking, looking at the stars or I've been doodling the sky. We heard hard footsteps in the distance and looked over to see someone running in our direction. “What the hell? I breathed out and sat up. As the person got closer I recognized the person. It’s Ryan Marshall from school.

“Ryan?” Bel said when he was just about to pass us but he stopped when he heard his name.

“Hey guys!” he slurred. I rolled my eyes, great he’s drunk.

“Hey! You! Stop!” We heard from the same direction Ryan came from. Two police officers came running over and Ryan took off again. One police officer continued to chase ryan but the other stopped and looked at us.

“What are you ladies doing out here? Were y’all also at that party down the block.” he asked us pointing a flashlight at us. I put my hand out to block my eyes. Does he really gotta shine that thing directly in my face?

“No sir, we were just stargazing. We never stepped foot in that party. You can test us if you'd like.” I explained and Bel agreed with my statement.

“No, you guys don't seem drunk or anything. But you are trespassing.” he told us.

“Trespassing? I thought this was a public field.” I blurted.

“Last month this field was issued for game only during this season. You can only be on this field if you have a hunting license.” he explained “I’ll have to take you into the station for trespassing.”

“Can’t you let us off with a warning? We had no idea and you have no signs up!” I jabbed

“Sorry missy its protocol.” He read us our rights and asked us if we had any weapons and all the other police crap that's part of their ‘protocol’.

»»————-　★　————-««

Currently we are at the police station waiting for our parents to pick us up. Bel told me about her parents and how they might get deported since she was brought in. I feel terrible, I has no idea they changed the field over for a stupid game season. Just another thing I messed up. Luckily Stan Morrison was able to drop our charges since I explained exactly what happened and he understood. Unfortunately, we were taking in so our parents must pick us up since we are minors. We were waiting for probably a good thirty minutes when I saw my dad round the corner. I’m shocked he actually showed up, that’s a new one. I do really want to jump up and hug him but something in me is just mad at him for leaving us so I can’t bring myself to. Also being picked up at a police station was not my ideal first meeting of my dad after his absence.

“And here he is to save the day” I say under my breath.

“Good to see you too.” He said and approached us.

“Dad, this is Bel. Can we take her home?” I asked him.

“No. minors have to be picked up by their parents.”

“Well i’m not just leaving her here.”

“Then you can stay in a cell here tonight.”

Bel’s parents enter the police station. Dad takes his hat off and approaches them.

“It’s good to meet ya’ll. I've been out of town for a while so I don't really know Y/N’s social life. We should spend some time together.” he says.

“Stop it.” I whisper. He can't be serious right now.

“...Seems like the girls got into some trouble tonight so maybe we could help each other out.” he explains. Bella’s parents don't say anything as another police officer calls them back.

“Epic first meeting.” Bel sighs.

“I’m sorry, this is so embarrassing.” I apologize for my dad’s actions.

“For who? Lets go.” Dad shot at me and I just rolled my eyes. I grabbed my sketchbook off the seat and gave Bel a quick hug before leaving the station with my dad.

»»————-　★　————-««

The car ride home was an awkward one. Like what do I even say to him? ‘Nice to finally see you again after you abandoned us for almost a year’ I don't think that's the nicest thing to say. I felt sweet relief when I saw us pull up to my grandparents house. I took off my seat belt and opened the car door.

“Y/N,” dad warned. I stopped opening the door and started fidgeting with the edge of my sketchbook. “Want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?”

“I didn't know we were trespassing. There was no sign or anything to tell us pedestrians were not allowed on the field. Apparently they recently changed it or something, I don't know. Mom used to take me out to that field all the time. I didn't think anything of it.” I explained. He nodded in understanding.

“It's still dangerous. What if a hunter thought you were a deer and shot you? I don't like you out alone. I know you had Bel with you, but there's some bad people out there that can overpower you guys. I’d rather you be home for dinner with your family at night.” He told me.

“Oh like how you were home for dinner last night?” I challenged and he sighed. “Mom said you'd never be on a case too long.” I remarked.

“And I never meant to be.” dad said and I shook my head in disbelief. “This last case...it got complicated.” he explained.

“Complicated?” I scoffed. “A five minute phone call this summer, then nothing for three months! It’s bad enough we didn't have mom” I pointed out.

“We both gotta stop acting like she's going to come back.” he stated. I jumped out of the car and burst into tears. Uncle Liam was outside now and he tried to reach out to me but I ignored him. August was right in the living room when I entered the house.

“Y/N? What's wrong? What happened? Where’s dad” he asked me.

“Its nothing August. Just leave it alone.” I sniffed, trying my best to contain myself for my brother’s sake.

“Why were you at the police station? I thought you were just going to yours and mom’s spot?” he nagged on.

“I did. It's some kind of hunting ground now, you can’t go on it without a hunting license. You done with the twenty questions?” I snapped.

“Y/N, want to come have some leftovers?” my grandma asked me. Well she technically asked but she was actually telling me to get my ass over there.

“Sure Grams” I sighed and sat down by the kitchen island. She put down a plate of her famous pot roast and I dug in. While I ate she was cleaning up the kitchen.

“You’re not going to ask me what I did?” I inquired.

“No, because I know you’re a good, smart kid and you wouldn't do anything too damaging on purpose.” She offered me a kind smile. “Plus I know what tonight is with the full moon. I can put two and two together.” she laughed. Uncle Liam and dad walked in the house but I didn't hear them enter so I continued talking.

“Last month, they changed the field for ‘game hunting only’. I had no idea, so Bel and I got charged for trespassing. I can’t go out to that field anymore. Now I feel like another piece of mom is gone.” I confessed tears welling up in my eyes again.

“You can still go draw the stars, I know your mom would love for you to keep doing y'all's traditions. I'll even go out with you.” she offered.

“Thanks Grandma. I appreciate it, I really do, but it just wouldn't be the same.” I sighed.

“Not many things are going to be the same, Y/N.” she stated.

“I miss her so much.” I started sobbing. Grandma rounded the island and pulled me into a hug.

“I know you do sweetie.” she consoled, rubbing her hand in circles on my back, trying her best to comfort me.

A.N. sorry if you don't like to draw. Emily seemed like the type of parent that liked her kids to be creative, like August and photography. So I figured drawing could be what the reader and Emily did together.

PART 3 OUT NOW

#walker #cordell walker #cw walker #walker texas ranger #jaredpadelcki #gen padalecki #supernatural #walker x daughter!reader #micki ramirez #walker fanfiction

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heyitsani · 3 years

Text

Loving You is a Losing Game Chapter 3

Word Count: 6194

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Character death (not this chapter)

Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson

Summary: Something’s there that wasn’t there before...

Notes: Okay, chapter 3 here. If you want to know what their versions of the iconic outfits are, there are links at the bottom of the AO3 post but I’ll link them here too. Just be warned, it’s technically spoilers if you clink the links.

Jace’s jacket (worn with black shirt and no tie) with a pocket square to match Dick’s jacket.

Dick’s jacket (worn with a black shirt and vest, no tie.) sans pocket square.

You can also read it on AO3 here

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Walking down the hall toward the dining room, Dick found himself actually nervous. The castle felt different after last night. After he had learned that Jace was as much of a prisoner as he was, or the others were. After Jace had saved his life. There was something about the man that seemed familiar in the same ways he found something familiar in the others.

But he couldn’t pinpoint what any of it meant. It had only been a few weeks since he had been trapped here and now he was actually viewing the situation in a positive light. He could practically see Bruce’s stoic face judging him and hear Damian telling him to stop being an idiot.

But what if he wasn’t being an idiot?

“Dick,” Wade greeted, holding the door to the dining room open for him. Dick gave his greeting before stepping inside to find Jace already seated at the table with a cup of something still steaming in one hand and a book in the other.

When he spotted Dick, Jace immediately set both items down and stood. “Dick,” the man said, clearly surprised to see him there. “Uh…good morning. Is…is everything okay?” Dick felt his nerves melt away into amusement as he watched Jace glance to Wade and then back to him, almost as if he was trying to figure out exactly what was happening.

“Well, you said I could dine with you when I first arrived,” Dick spoke hesitantly, his nerves sparking just a moment before settling again. He hadn’t really thought his actions through. He had just told Dana he planned to have breakfast with Jace when she had brought his usual tray. She had looked surprised, but immensely pleased at the idea. Jace, on the other hand, just looked completely surprised. “Does that offer still stand or…” He glanced over at Wade who had a hand over his mouth, but his shaking shoulders and eyes told of the smile he was trying to hide.

It took Jace a moment longer before he was able to shake himself out of his surprise and nodded, waving a hand at the various chairs of the long table. “Yes, of course! Please.”

Dick smiled at him before glancing at the options he had. He could sit at the opposite end, but felt like it would defeat the purpose of him coming down here at all. He wanted to get to know Jace. He wanted to know what it was that sparked so much loyalty in the people around him. And he wanted to know what it was that was just so familiar about the man.

So he passed the chair at the end and walked over to the one just to the right of the man. He paused when Jace moved over to pull out the chair for him, surprised at the act but not put off by it. “Thank you,” he said as he sat and Jace helped him scoot the chair in. Within seconds of Jace taking his seat again, Dick’s customary cup of coffee was placed in front of him and he smiled up at Dana in thanks. “Um, so what are you reading?” He asked, looking back to Jace, who was still watching him as if he thought it wasn’t real.

But the question seemed to snap him out of it. “Oh, just Pride and Prejudice,” Jace picked up the book and showed him. “Do you like reading?”

“Are you going to get mad if I say no…?” Dick gave an awkward smile, hiding behind his coffee cup. Jace looked scandalized but then let out a laugh.

“We all have our enjoyments.”

Dick hummed, amused at how much that phrase reminded him of Alfred. “I have never been very good at sitting still long enough to enjoy a good book. My interests lie with physical activity as opposed to mental activity.” Jace nodded and seemed to accept that answer as he took a drink of what Dick could now see was tea. “Is that Earl Grey?” He sniffed the air.

“Good nose,” the man nodded. “Someone important to me introduced me to it a long time ago and I never lost the taste for it.” Just like Alfred had tried with Dick but failed outside of Mint tea. But Jason…Dick quickly scrubbed that thought from his mind and focused on the here and now. Pulling up that grief wouldn’t do him any favors.

Instead, he turned his curious eyes onto Jace and studied the man for a few moments before gathering the courage to ask something he had been wondering for a while. “Can I ask you a question?” Dick asked, drawing the man’s attention back to him and away from the book he had gone back to reading. When he nodded, Dick took a deep breath. “How long have you been here?”

Jace was silent for a while, staring off in the direction of one of the many paintings adorning the walls. “Five years? But I wouldn’t know for certain without knowing the date. I lost track of some of the time. I was alone for a long while before the first person came through the wall.” Kassandra, Dick remembered from what they had told him. Wade had followed shortly. Then Dana and Ryan together. The most recent addition had been Jared, just a teenager, a few days before Bruce had come through.

“Does anyone know you are missing? Is there anyone searching for you?”

“No.”

It was said with such finality that Dick almost flinched. But he didn’t bother asking anything more about it because he could tell when someone didn’t want to talk about something. This was definitely one of those times.

“Would you give me a tour of the grounds after breakfast? Wade and Ryan gave me a tour of most of the inside, but I haven’t seen much of what else is out there,” he said, glancing toward the large windows covering one wall. They looked into the center of the castle, revealing what looked like a maintained garden. And Dick wondered who exactly was the person who took care of all the plants.

When he looked back to Jace, he found the man watching him with a curious look on his face. There was a few more moments of silence between them and Dick wondered if he would be denied the privilege of going outside after what happened yesterday.

“I can show you the grounds, sure,” Jace agreed finally. Dick smiled and nodded, looking out the window again before thanking Dana as she set a plate of food in front of him and another in front of Jace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting on one of the benches on the outer edge of the gardens, not far from the door that would let him back into the castle, Dick watched Jace moving around the beds of various flowers and plants. He had been surprised to learn it was Jace who was the master of the gardens and that the items needed for it just appeared.

Like everything else did apparently.

“The magic provides,” Jace had explained with a shrug when Dick had asked where the food and other items came from. The more he learned about what happened around the castle, the more confused he got. There was so much he didn’t understand, probably would never understand since he wasn’t magic and never would be.

But he didn’t mind the idea of being in a place that could sense a need and provide for it. Which was apparently what had happened in the case of the garden. Jace had wandered out there one day and wondered if he could clean up the area and the next day there were supplies available for him to use.

“You could come help,” Jace called out, smirking from his place kneeling next to a hydrangea plant that had been planted under the shade of a willow tree. He remembered Alfred saying they liked minimal sunlight, always indirect, and he wondered where Jace had learned that from.

Standing and wandering over to the man, Dick leaned against the trunk of the tree. “You don’t want me touching your plants. Unless you would like them to die. I am terrible with them. The green thumb is not something I have ever been accused of having.” Jace laughed and shook his head, leaning back over a patch of weeds he was pulling.

Dick took the moment to let his eyes drift over the shifting muscles he could see under the material of his shirt. He had been doing that a lot recently, watching Jace with eyes that spoke of more than just curiosity. Ever since the night Jace had saved him from the League assassins, he had begun to see Jace as more than just a man holding him here against his will.

And he knew Jace had been doing the same.

There were plenty of moments when he had caught the man watching him, a look he had seen in plenty of eyes in the past. But there was something much more respectful in the way Jace would look at him. Not like the cougars at Bruce’s galas or the people at the bars he would occasionally go to with a teammate or work friend. Jace looked, but he didn’t seem to lust in the way they did. In the way Dick was sure his own gaze relayed. But since Jace had yet to say anything, he figured the man either didn’t care or he didn’t notice.

“Where did you learn to garden?”

Jace froze in mid-pull of a weed before shrugging as he continued to pull the weeds. “A man I knew a long time ago. So long it often feels like it was a different lifetime.”

Dick considered his words, frowning when he realized he didn’t actually know how old Jace was. He just knew the man assumed it had been about five years since he had been brought here by the witch who had casted the magic. But that was it. Dick had assumed he was maybe a handful of years younger than him, but now he wondered if maybe Jace was closer to his age than he thought.

“Do you think you’ll ever get out of here?” The question came out before Dick had time to think about it and it surprised him just as much as it seemed to surprise Jace, given the look on his face when he sat up. “I mean, I assume you don’t want to stay here forever.”

He watched Jace sit back on his heels and look out to the distance. “I used to think about it every day, getting out of here. But it had been a few years since the thought crossed my mind. Even when each of the others arrived, I never had hope of breaking the curse.”

“And now?”

Jace shrugged and Dick felt his heart ache for the man. He had been there long enough and believed no one out in the world was looking for him, so he had resigned himself to this life. To never seeing the outside world ever again.

“I try not to live on hope,” Jace admitted. “I spent a lot of my younger years struggling just to survive and learned the hard way that trusting my fate to someone else can be deadly. I wish I could tell you what you want to hear, Dick. But I do not foresee the circumstances required to get us all out of here. Not even the great Nightwing can swing what the witch required.”

Considering the man for a moment, Dick smiled. “Well, I always live on hope. And a good friend of mine, who is very capable of magic, often tells me that there’s always a loophole.”

Jace narrowed his eyes at him and considered what he said before giving another shrug and going back to his weeds. Dick just remained against the willow tree and observed the man as he worked, silently hoping that Bruce was working on that loophole right then.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This is ridiculous, you know that right?” Dick laughed softly as Jace led him through the building, his large hands covering Dick’s eyes as they moved. But instead of answering, Jace just chuckled low in his throat and continued to lead Dick. And because Dick knew how to read a room, he stopped trying to get the man to tell him where they were going or to remove his hands from his eyes. It was obviously supposed to be a surprise and since things had been actually friendly between them the past few weeks, Dick knew he wasn’t in any danger.

There was the sound of a door sliding open, a screech of metal on metal and Dick could tell the moment the flooring beneath them changed. A deep breath also indicated a room change by smell. There was something familiar in the scent he took in, but he didn’t have time to pick it apart before Jace was removing his hands and allowing Dick to blink his eyes open.

And what he saw made his jaw drop.

“How…” He took a step forward, taking in the various gymnast equipment pieces scattered around the room. His gaze fell on the trapeze and he swore his heart stopped. He hadn’t flown in months, too busy helping the search for the missing heroes, but his body ached for the feeling. Not just a grapple across the city skyline, but something so much more familiar and freeing. “How did you know?” He turned and looked back at Jace, who had remained near the door with his hands in his pockets.

For a moment the man stood there, brows furrowed in thought and Dick felt confusion fill him. But then the man was shrugging. “One of the others mentioned it. And the magic provided.” And yeah, that made sense. He had talked about his family with a few of the others wandering around. But it didn’t sit right. There was something in the expression before Jace had answered that told Dick perhaps he had known without having to be told.

He didn’t bother pushing the subject though, opting to wander around the room instead and test out some of the equipment. He chalked his hands and pulled himself up onto the rings, testing their strength and range of motion. He could feel the familiar burn in his arms and shoulders, in his core, as he balanced himself on them and did a flip before dismounting with ease.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken advantage of the equipment that Bruce had spent thousands on for him when he had been taken in by the man. Or the thousands of dollars he had spent in the following years to upgrade and upkeep all of the equipment. He couldn’t remember the last time he had simply indulged in the feeling of freedom it provided him.

But he could do that now.

There wasn’t anyone expecting anything from him. He didn’t have to put on the suit each night just to fight a battle that he hadn’t started but somehow allowed himself to get sucked into. He didn’t have to set an example to younger brothers in hopes that they didn’t fall to the same fate that Jason had fallen to. He could just be Dick Grayson, the last of the Flying Graysons.

So he did just that. He pulled himself up onto the uneven bars and let his muscle memory take over, indulging in the emotion and freedom of it all.

It felt like coming home. It made this castle behind a wall of magic feel more like home than anything had in a long time. And he had Jace to thank for that. The man who he could see still watching from the entrance out of the corner of his eye.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Try this one with the gold,” Wade shoved a shirt at him, and Dick sighed with a certain fondness as he tugged it on. They had been trying on various shirts and pants for the better part of an hour and while Dick had been plenty satisfied with some of the items, the other man hadn’t been. Nothing had been the right look. But Dick knew when to pick a fight and when not to. This was one of those times it was better to just let the other person do as he saw fit. “Yes!”

Looking at himself in the mirror, Dick took in the black dress shirt he had tucked into the black slacks. It looked nice with the champagne gold jacket, fit him perfectly, but he didn’t see what had sold Wade on this particular one. It wasn’t more special than the others. Although, the jacket was beautiful with its floral embroidery and Dick could tell it was expensive just by the feel and fit. But overall, he had thought some of the other items had been more striking.

But Wade was the one making the decision here so Dick let him do his thing and he just allowed the man to dress him like a Ken doll.

“Here,” the man tugged the jacket off and offered up a black vest for Dick to pull on before putting the jacket back on as well. “Oh yes, perfect.” Glancing over at the bed, Dick felt himself smile at the familiar blue color that made up one of the silk ties that had been discarded fairly early on in the process. Nightwing blue.

A spark of sadness and longing hit his chest before he pushed it away and purposefully didn’t think about what he missed about his old life. He had made a promise and while he missed his family and friends, he was not miserable under the magic here. And Jace…had become something special to him. Dick couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something about him. Part of him wondered if the magic made him feel that way, but he also knew that the familiarity he felt couldn’t be carved from nothing. Magic didn’t work that way when it came to emotions.

“You look perfect.” Turning back to look at the mirror again, Dick had to agree. He looked like Richie Grayson. He looked like all the magazine spreads he had been forced to do over the years of being Bruce Wayne’s eldest ward. “He won’t know what hit him.”

Right, because this was a date. Jace had asked him to dinner, even if they couldn’t actually leave the castle grounds. The intention was clear. This was meant to be romantic. And the thought sent butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

“Ready?” Dick looked away from his reflection to face Wade and took a quick moment before nodding.

Without another word, Dick headed out of the room toward the staircase that would take him to where Jason was probably waiting for him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With a deep breath, Dick descended the stairs that led to the main ballroom of the castle. He had actually belly laughed when he had learned that the castle had an actual ballroom, bent over and everything. He wasn’t sure why he had found it so funny, but it had probably made Jace think he was just a bit insane. Thankfully, it hadn’t deterred the other man from whatever this was they were doing at the moment.

And when Dick had finally laid eyes on the opulent room, he had been breathless. It was like every historical film he had ever seen. Every beautiful piece of architecture in Italy that he had seen over the years. Stunning.

As was the man who was standing at the foot of the stairs talking to Ryan, waiting for Dick to arrive.

They couldn’t go out for a fancy meal and a movie or even just a walk through the city, but Jace had promised that they could still have a night that wasn’t quite like anything Dick had ever experienced. So he had agreed and accepted the invitation. Date his mind reminded him. He was on a date with a man who he was imprisoned with.

How had his life come to this?

The moment Jace spotted him, Dick felt his breath catch in his throat. The blonde locks had been side swept in an artful manner, making them look almost effortlessly windswept. And the deep blue suit coat he wore was tailored perfectly to show off broad shoulders and a trim waist. Much like his own, the fabric of the jacket wasn’t made of just a plain material, but looked to have a design on it, or perhaps pattern was a better description. Whatever the word was, it was a fine piece of clothing and Dick could easily appreciate it.

The same way he could appreciate the champagne gold pocket square the man had tucked in his breast pocket. Wade had planned this, even if he had acted like he hadn’t thought the gold was the right one. The evidence was right in front of him.

“Dick,” Jace greeted as Ryan sent Dick a nod before leaving the room. “You look…” He licked his lips and Dick found his eyes tracing the movement before shifting his gaze back up to the other man’s eyes. “You look perfect.”

Coming to a stop on the final step, setting Dick just over Jace’s own height, Dick smoothed a hand down his chest before resting it against his stomach. “I could say the same for you. That color is very much yours.”

“I find I prefer red, honestly. But blue has its merits.” There was a twinkle of amusement in the man’s eyes and Dick smile, not certain what it meant but enjoying it all the same. “Come on, Dana will have our heads if we take too long and our food goes cold.”

With ease, Dick accepted the offered arm and dropped the last step before walking next to Jace to the corner of the room where a small table had been set up for them. The table itself was decorated with various flowers and lit candlesticks, the cloth covering the table an almost pearl white. Something about it seemed to shimmer under the candlelight and lights above their heads. The plates, white trimmed in gold, were covered with silver covers and hiding whatever whispers of smells Dick was able to pick up. All in all, the set up was romantic but simple. It wasn’t nearly as lavish as he had thought it would be.

And that was just fine by him.

He had suffered through enough terrible and extravagant dates to last a lifetime. It was enough that this date was taking place in a literal castle. He didn’t need all the extra weight of expectations and fancy.

But he still appreciated when Jace led him to his chair and pulled it out for him, allowing him to sit before helping him scoot it in closer. Dick watched the man as he rounded the table and took his own seat, smiling across at Dick before looking over as Dana appeared with a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice.

Jace took the bottle from her and easily uncorked it with a pop before stand and moving over to fill Dick’s glass and then his own. Once the bottle was back in the chilling bucket and Jace had taken his seat again, Dick took up his glass and raised to toward Jace.

“To us?”

Jace let out a snort and raised his own glass. “To beginnings and possibilities.” Dick grinned and gave a nod, accepting that he had been beat. But he had never been very good with romance, despite his numerous relationships.

“I am curious what a castle thinks date-food is,” Dick commented, reaching for the cover over his food but found himself stopped when a hand appeared out of nowhere. Looking up, he found Dana giving him a stern look as she removed the cover herself and went over to take Jace’s off his plate as well. Glancing down, he had to smile at the items waiting for him. Just an appetizer then.

“A birdie told me it was your favorite,” Jace commented, smirking behind his glass as Dick looked up at him. Dick chuckled before picking up his cutlery.

Once the last of their plates had been taken away and they were left with just their champagne glasses between them, Dick took the time to glance around the room again and really take in the beauty of it. The faint music playing in the room just made it even more beautiful. A work of art.

His musings were interrupted when a hand appeared in front of his face, jerking him back into the present and pulling his attention to the fact that he had completely missed Jace getting out of his seat and walking over to him.

“Can I have this dance?” Dick raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What? I have learned a few things from the others and there isn’t much else to do for a date here. Isn’t it what would be done in the times when a place like this was alive and well?” And yeah, Jace made some good points.

So Dick accepted the offered hand and let Jace lead him to the middle of the room, watching the man curiously. There was only a moment of hesitation before Jace was slipping his hand around Dick’s waist and keeping a grip on his hand. Dick easily followed suit, placing his hand on Jace’ shoulder and looking up at the man. He sent a silent thanks to the ballroom dancing lessons Bruce had insisted on when he was younger. Definitely not the manner that the man had intended the knowledge to be put to use, but it was far more pleasurable to Dick than the stupid galas he had attended in the past.

When the chords of a new song struck, Jace swept them up into the movement. He took the lead easily and Dick found it almost effortless to follow it. It felt like breathing. Like everything seemed to feel these days now that he had accepted that Jace was just as much a prisoner as he was. If they were to be stuck here for an unknown amount of time, they might as well enjoy it together.

“You’re very good at this,” Jace commented, pulling Dick from his wandering thoughts. Smiling up at the man, Dick gave a shrug but offered no explanation as to why he knew how to hold his own. “Fine, keep your secrets,” he teased and Dick laughed.

“I need to keep some air of mystery about me, don’t I?”

Jace hummed and released Dick so he could spin him back to him and Dick found his breath stolen the moment he pressed back into the man’s solid chest. Hard lines from chest to hip pressed against each other in a way that was possibly more sensual than most sexual situations. And the look on Jace’s face told Dick all he needed to know in regard to how the other man was feeling right then.

He wasn’t alone in this feeling, whatever it was that was building between them.

It had been growing for weeks. Since that night in the woods. And it felt different than anything Dick had experienced in the past. Not with Kori or Babs. Not with any of the people he had attempted to date in the past. This was…he couldn’t quite put a word to what it was. It was strong and it was almost tangible. Like he could touch the air between them.

But really, he just wanted to touch Jace.

They took another spin around the room as the song switched to another, the piano and strings playing a beautiful tune. Dick licked his lips as he watched Jace’s face. Though the man was looking at him, Dick could tell he was well aware of where they were and what they were doing. While Dick couldn’t care less of what was happening around them in that moment.

Sliding his hand across Jace’s shoulder, Dick let his fingers dance up the back of Jace’s neck and into the small hairs on the back of his neck. He wanted to push up and close the distance between their lips, but he also didn’t want to break this moment. It felt important, it felt right. Like everything had purposefully been leading them to this exact moment and they needed to treat it with care. Dick needed to be sure that he wouldn’t ruin it the way he had ruin so many others. Because that was the only explanation, wasn’t it? He was the common denominator.

“Dick,” Jace’s soft voice called to him, once again pulling him away from his thoughts. “I need to ask you something.” Blinking, Dick refocused on Jace and gave a nod to tell the man to ask what he needed to. When Jace stopped their movement and Dick noticed they were now outside on one of the terraces, he felt a familiar sense of foreboding filling him. Whatever it was the Jace had to say, Dick wasn’t sure he was going to like it.

But he kept silent as Jace took a deep breath and led Dick to the railing, sitting on it and Dick following suit. “Are you…are you happy here?” Dick frowned. Jace hadn’t questioned his happiness in all the months he had been there. He hadn’t asked if there was anything he could do to make things better. Because he had just done them. He had just seemed to know what it was Dick needed in order to make his time there more tolerable.

“I am,” Dick answered, even though the thought of Bruce, Damian, and Tim filled his mind and made him frown.

Jace must have noticed because he leaned forward and covered Dick’s hand with his own. “Are you really? You don’t look very happy right now.”

Sighing, Dick looked out toward the wall of magic sizzling in the distance. “I miss my family, my friends,” he admitted before looking back to Jace. “I am happy with you and the others. But I can’t help but miss my life out there as well.”

Jace watched him with those penetrative green eyes for a moment before standing and tugging Dick, silently asking him to do the same. Nothing was said as Jace pulled Dick through the castle toward the familiar wing where Dick’s inability to quell his curiosity had changed everything.

“Jace?” Dick finally questioned as they entered the room that looked more destroyed than his mind remembered. He wondered if Jace had done the damage after Dick had run away from him that night. But he didn’t have time to ask as Jace led him to the table where the basin of green glowing liquid sat filling the room with its sickly glow. The watch still sitting protected in the glass case.

Jace dropped Dick’s hand and reached for the basin, picking it up carefully and turning toward Dick. “This can show you anything you wish to see. You just have to ask.”

Frowning, Dick furrowed his brows and looked down at the liquid. How could something as ominous looking as this liquid show him what he really desired to see? Looking back up at Jace, the man gave him an almost sad smile before nodding toward the basin. So Dick trusted him and took the object, careful of the liquid inside.

“I wish to see my family,” he said softly, hesitantly. What would it reveal to him? Would Bruce be with Alfred, trying to find a way through the wall? Would Damian and Tim be with the Titans on a mission like they had been when Dick had come into this world?

But as the liquid began to swirl and shift, Dick found himself looking at a scene that had his heartrate spiking. Bruce was dressed in his Batman gear, just beyond the outer edge of the wall of magic, and surrounded by the familiar footmen of the League of Assassins. Leaning forward, Dick watched with bated breath as the ninjas got in blow after blow.

“Bruce!” He gasped when one of the assassins seemed to get the upper hand and Bruce fell to his knees. Looking up at Jace with wide eyes, Dick saw the man had turned his back on him. “We need to help him! I need to help him. He can’t die! He’s the only one who could get us out of here. Please.”

He watched Jace’s back expand with a deep breath and then his shoulders droop as he released it. And when he turned to look at Dick, he knew exactly what it was Jace was feeling. Resignation. Dick had seen it in the mirror too many times to count. Had felt it far too many times and in relation to too many people.

“Then you must go,” Jace whispered, looking down at the basin. He reached out and took the basin without looking back to Dick and Dick wondered what he was supposed to do. But remembering that Bruce was out there right now, he didn’t ask the questions he wanted to ask. He didn’t question how he would be able to leave now when he hadn’t been allowed to before. Instead he moved forward and pressed his lips to Jace’s cheek before hurrying out of the room and toward his own to change into the waiting Nightwing suit.

It was only fear and experience that allowed him to work quickly in removing the dress clothes he currently wore and tug on the skin tight suit he hadn’t worn since the night he had come here. He rushed out of the room as he hooked his escrimas into their latches on his back and ran as quickly as he could toward the front door. The door where Jace stood waiting for him.

“Take this.” The man held out a vial of the green liquid and Dick knew exactly what he was offering. A way to see Jace after he had left. They couldn’t be together if Dick was in the real world, but they could see each other.

So Dick closed his hand around Jace’s and took the vial, holding on for a moment longer. “Thank you,” Dick whispered, hoping his eyes conveyed what he couldn’t say. “I’ll come back for you, all of you. I’ll find a way.” But Dick could tell Jace didn’t believe he would. He didn’t care though, Dick knew he would do whatever he could to save the man he had fallen in love with and the people he now considered to be his friends.

He would.

But right then he had a father figure and mentor to help save. So he tucked the vial in a protective pocket and gave Jace one last look before he rushed out the doors and straight toward the wall of magic. He was slightly surprised when no assassins came to try and stop him, but he didn’t think about it too much as he came into contact with the wall and began pushing his way through.

It felt just as malicious as it had the first time, cold and void of hope. It was consuming. And then it was over and Dick was left gasping on the other side of it and suddenly in the midst of chaos.

Immediately ducking out of the way of a punch, Dick grabbed his escrimas and turned them on as he leapt into the fight. “Batman!” Dick called out as he got close enough to help eliminate the assassins attacking the hero.

“Nightwing…?” The man seemed frozen, for once allowing his emotions to catch him off guard. But Dick didn’t have time for that as he worked his way through the now thinning assassins. They seemed to be backing off the closer Dick got to Bruce and Dick had to wonder what that could possibly mean. It would have to be something he figured out later though because the moment he reached Bruce, the last of the assassins had backed off and slid back into the shadows they hid in so well.

“Are you hurt?” Dick gasped, turning to help Bruce to his feet. But the man didn’t seem to have pulled himself out of his stupor just yet. “Batman!” He snapped, trying to get Bruce to come back to his senses. The tone seemed to work as Bruce shook himself and immediately looked Dick over.

“How? How did you escape?”

“I didn’t. I was allowed to leave.”

But Bruce didn’t seem to understand, looking back at the wall of magic with a frown.

“It doesn’t matter right now. Let’s get back to the cave.” With a firm nod, Bruce came back to himself and led them over to the batmobile that was hiding just out of the way. Dick gave the wall of magic one last glance, touching the spot where the vial Jace had given him was hiding, before following Bruce.

#jaydick #jason todd #dick grayson #beauty and the beast au #anikah writes

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