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fictional-men-ruin-lives · 7 months

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Playing with fire (Handsome Jack x reader)

Originally posted on AO3 but decided to also add it here.

Word count: 4470

Warnings: none We don't count swearing, right?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51037378

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The day was going as terrific as you could have imagined it. You were supposed to check some of the speech drafts for the opening of the new Eridium laboratory on Helios. Nice and easy, just reading them through and correcting when necessary. Supposedly not more than two hours of work.

“What the actual fuck.” You whispered to yourself in horror as you stared at the screen in front of you. You read the first paragraph again to make sure it was not just a bad dream, then opened the other documents quickly and read them as well. You rested your forehead on your hand, staring at the screen in disbelief.

What awaited you were pages upon pages of barely understandable blabber which nobody of a sound mind would have submitted. You had to read every paragraph multiple times to get a grasp of what it’s talking about and even then, it was still not completely clear. The choice of words, sentence structure, lack of any sort of factual basis for these speeches… It was horrible. You were reading word vomit of someone who had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to be about. Only when you pulled out the original reports and plans done for the laboratory did you finally manage to grasp what the speech was supposed to talk about.

“Are they idiots?” You were shocked and in absolute disbelief of how bad it was. The sheer amount of work that awaited you made you terrified and honestly, pissed off. It was not your job to draft these speeches, only to check them, but now you’re the one who must not only shorten them, but also write everything completely anew.

The more you’re reading, the angrier you get. The text was unsalvageable, while you could use the ideas from it, all had to be rephrased at least, at worst written anew completely. It was supposed to be submitted until the lunch break but in this state, it will take you much longer than that to present something that is not a complete disaster.

After a short swearing session to let go of the anger, you finally got to work to try correcting this disaster. You have been working for not even an hour, each minute getting more frustrated and miserable, when Jack started spamming the call button to summon you into his office. You stopped writing, taking a deep breath as you stretched your fingers above the keyboard, trying not to get more agitated. However, your boss’ timing could not have been worse. This was the last thing you needed at that moment, to have him interrupt you out of boredom while you’re having a shitty day already.

You got up from your desk and walked through the door that separated his office from your tiny working space. You went out into the spacious room and walked up through the empty space until you reached the stairs leading to Handsome Jack’s desk. He was sitting right where he always did, by the table in front of the gigantic window with view on Pandora. His back was turned towards you but as he heard your footsteps, he slowly turned around in his chair, ostentatiously checking his watch as if he was timing your arrival.

"About time, kiddo." He snorted, leaning against his desk as you walked up the stairs and stopped right in front of his desk.

“What do you need, sir? I have enough work as it is” you sighed, full of annoyance. As much as you usually entertained him bossing you around or whatever human right violation he decided to do, today was really not the day for it.

"Oh, quit whining. I'll be out for the day and you'll be in charge of the office. Which basically means I want you to sit at your desk and look pretty, like you always do." Jack grinned at you, a glint of mischief in his eyes. He seemed to be in a pretty antagonizing mood today. "You don't mind, right? Don't want you getting bored or anything, pumpkin. I mean, you always sit at your desk not doing anything anyways, so what's the difference?"

Your eyes widened in surprise and disbelief as you heard that. Was this really what he thought of you? As if you had no work to be done at all and you were only there to entrain his whims, as if you did not coordinate his schedules, correspondence and direct Hyperion requirements for him every day, day and night?!

“Not doing… for fuck’s sake, some idiot just sent me a speech that is such complete bullshit that I need to rewrite everything instead of getting on with your schedules and correspondence. You call that just not doing anything?!” you scoffed, even more pissed and now impatient to finally hear what he wanted from you. The sooner he says it, the faster you can go and finish what you had to. You will probably have to stay overtime anyway, given how it’s going so far.

Jack rolled his eyes and looked at his watch again, completely unbothered. «Jeez, why's everyone gotta be so touchy? What I'm saying is, all you do is sit at that fancy desk, looking all dolled up for me and jumping when I say jump." Jack gave that insufferable smirk, meeting your eyes with a challenging intensity. "Basically, you're on my payroll just to be my bitch.” He added in a quite menacing and playful voice, looking forward to seeing your reaction.

“Fuck you” You were disgusted at his comment, already having enough of this conversation. It was like the usual day working for him though, the bickering and the degradation. Only today your patience was running thin.

The corner of Jack's mouth curled into a smile at your comment, and he stood up from the table and walked over to your side. He leaned with his back against the table and lowered his head to around your height, his lips right by your ear. "I'd love it if you did." Jack chuckled, straightening up slowly with an overconfident smirk on his face, arms crossing on his chest confidently. In a mocking tone, he added "I know you'd love it, too, you're practically in love with me."

You take a deep breath, calming yourself down. If you entertained his bickering again, he’d keep you in his officer forever. You put on a professional and very fake smile as you look back up at him.

“Did you call me because you were that bored or do you have something you wanted me to do? Because I do have more important matters to attend to, sir.” You say sweetly, disregarding his comment entirely. Although, you couldn’t help yourself and made his title sound more like a mockery.

Jack smirked, enjoying your attitude. He pushed himself off the table nonchalantly, taking step closer to you. His face darkened and although your instinct was telling you to step back, you remained in place, watching his movements closely. "Did I call you? No, kiddo, I summoned you.” His voice was full of venom as he grabbed the back of your neck to keep you steady in place. “You should be down on your knees, grateful for the honor of even standing in my presence, practically begging for the chance to be of use to me.” He made sure the point got across as he let go, pushing you away. You take a step back to catch your balance and throw him an angry glance.

"Anyway, I'll be out of the office for the day. But don’t get too comfy, I’ve made sure you’ll have your hands full while I’m gone. " Handsome Jack then switched completely and flashed his signature smirk. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“Yeah, I will be busy correcting that shit. I swear to god, a child writes better than that idiot. Who the fuck even hired these people?” You scoffed, massaging your neck. A rant to someone was really needed as you could almost burst with anger now, especially that Jack was also pushing your buttons.

"It was me, babe. I hired them for you. You know, just to make your life as difficult as possible while I’m gone so that you miss me." Jack grinned at you, his expression and tone of voice dripping with sarcasm. He was taking pleasure in your suffering and once he got a reaction out of you, his face was twisted by a mad, satisfied smirk.

“You hired these imbeciles? What the fuck.” You looked at him with a mix of disappointment, disgust and disbelief on your face. “Do you just enjoy pissing me off that much or do you really not care about making Hyperion function well?”

“These speeches are bullshit anyway unless they come from yours truly.” Jack casually dropped himself onto the table, legs crossed, giving you that all-too-familiar, evaluating look. "You've got this fiery thing going on when you're angry; I like it." His smirk was infuriatingly smug. "And yeah, I handpicked the top-tier idiots especially for you. Just to get under your skin. And look! Works like a charm every time."

“I could kill you right now.” You whispered in all seriousness while staring daggers at him. You meant every word you just said, enraged at him taking pleasure in your suffering. If there was one thing you hated more than anything, it was dealing with stupid people and apparently Jack knew that. Jobs like this felt completely disrespectful and a waste of your potential and time.

“Come on, sweet cheeks, you can do better than that.” His honeyed voice encouraged you as his eyes were locked on your face, expecting you to get more annoyed.

“Do not bother me or I will send your confidential information to the Crimson Raiders.” Handsome Jack just raised an eyebrow and started chuckling upon hearing how serious you were when you threatened him. The threat was just empty words and you both knew it, nevertheless, his actions took you by surprise. You were completely done, you swiftly turned around, deciding that you cannot be in the same room as him anymore or you would do something you’d regret later.

He didn’t even try to stop you, as you went down the stairs and towards your own office, observing you from afar, satisfied at how he just managed to piss you off.

"Didn't peg you for the gutsy type," Jack quipped from behind you, a hint of surprise - or was it admiration? - in his tone. "After that high and mighty act earlier? Seeing you square up to me like that... Gotta admit, it's kinda hot."

You still didn’t look back but raised your hand to show him the middle finger. His laughter started ringing in the office immediately.

"Come on, admit it, kiddo. You absolutely eat up all this attention, don't you?" Jack called out to you as you were entering your office, his tone full of smug satisfaction. He knew he could push your buttons and he seemed more than happy about it, his smile becoming a downright sadistic smirk. He was your boss after all, whatever he wanted, he could have. The fact that you got away with such open disrespect towards him was only thanks to him being entertained by you and aiming exactly for that- getting a reaction out of you.

You shut the door loudly behind you, angry. Angry about the speeches you had to correct, angry that it was because of your boss, angry that he could play you like this and piss you off.

You sighed as you sat down by the desk in your tiny but private working space, trying to calm your nerves from the interaction with Jack. He made it clear that what you’re supposed to do is useless, but you also knew that if you didn’t deliver, he could have a reason to fire or punish you. That was the last thing you needed.

It was now full focus time as you took headphones out and put on some music. For the next couple of hours, you were correcting everything that’s wrong, swearing from time to time when reading something completely ridiculous and not making sense. As the time was going by, new documents and data pads were being scattered on the table for comparison and to use as resources to straighten up the facts.

By the late afternoon, you finally managed to get the texts fully corrected and edited up to your standards, although they sounded nothing like they originally did. You didn’t care. It was way better than it was, which was all that mattered. As you finally clicked the ‘submit’ button, you took a deep breath and stretched, satisfied that you’re done. You glanced to the side to check the time- it was already 3p.m.

A small break wouldn’t hurt, right? Especially that the lunchbreak was taken over by the need to finish the correction, so you basically kept working since 9 a.m. without a moment to eat something better than snacks and coffee.

You stood up and stretched some more, hearing how your back cracks from being in a stiff position the whole day. Straightening out your clothes and grabbing a data pad to continue checking Jack’s schedules, you headed out of your miniature office. Almost as soon as you stepped out into the hallway, you heard someone calling out to you in the distance.

"Get your pretty little ass over here." Jack’s voice was unmistakable. Even though it was a demand, it sounded a bit more friendly than you would have expected. Fortunately, you had managed to calm down over the past couple of hours, so you were ready for another round of Jack’s whims.

“Of course.” You rolled your eyes and turned around to head back into your boss’ office, walking comfortably, not rushing. Reading badly written texts had seemed to exhaust you extremely as you had had to actually pay a lot more attention to understand what was going on. So much so that right now you would have killed for a painkiller as reading something this bad caused you a headache.

As you were approaching Jack's desk, you noticed that he's not alone. Your boss was sitting with a man, probably someone high ranking, and talking excitedly about something. You didn’t have a chance to see the stranger’s face yet as he was sitting with his back towards you. Jack seemed completely unbothered by everything, his eyes on the executive and not paying attention to you entering. When you got a bit closer, you caught some of Jack's side of the conversation.

"No, no, it's fine, absolutely alright. No harm, no foul. They were freaking bandits anyway. Don't want them getting in the way.”

You stopped walking once you reached the beginning of the stairs, not wanting to interrupt him while he's talking to an executive. After all, that man was a lot more important than you.

The executive laughed at something Jack said a moment later. Your boss leaned on his hand as chuckled. Shortly, he realised that you arrived and smirked your way.

"Oh, and that’s the pretty little thing I got myself as an assistant. The one I have working her fingers to the bone all day long every day."

The executive turned around to see you, his sharp dark eyes looking you up and down closely. He had dark hair with golden highlights under the light, his tailored suit was also decorated by gold details. The man’s movements were more graceful and powerful than Jack’s, he emanated natural charisma.

"She's got a nice ass." The executive admitted, his voice was smooth, nice to listen to.

"Damn right she does." Jack chuckled, nodding. "The perfect little work horse, that one. A great little piece of tail, too."

You glared at him while moving your tongue over the tips of your teeth, looking to the side briefly in annoyance and then looking back at him, thinking how you should react. Suddenly, an idea popped up in your head. You knew exactly how to get back at Handsome Jack for today, you got excited at your plan potentially working out.

After all, there was one thing your boss hated more than anything else.

You let out a deep breath as you calm down, determined to make the plan work. "Now that we stated the obvious, what can I do for you, sir? You called for me." You picked up on the men’s interest, playing to that image of an assistant serving only for the looks. It may have sounded friendly, flirty and professional, but your piercing eyes were indicating a different attitude.

The executive gave a smug grin back to you as Jack laughed. "She’s one piece of work but it’s just- ah, so entertaining. I can see her trying not to explode every time I open my mouth. I mean, hahahah, the self-control, it’s kinda impressive." Your boss leaned back, getting more comfortable but watching you closely. "I just wanted you to sit in on this meeting, sweet cheeks. Since you are such an integral part of the team and all, whatever else you think you are." His voice was filled with sarcasm, and it was obvious that this was not the real reason why you’re here. While talking, he motioned you to come closer and stand beside him, clearly satisfied with being able to order you around in front of someone.

You raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing what he’s saying to be true. But if he wanted to play, so be it. He just confirmed your decision, and he just made you that more determined to show him not to underestimate you.

You went up the stairs, coming up to where Jack had told you, but you stopped right beside the executive instead, sitting on top of the desk and leaning back on your hands. You crossed your legs, the mini skirt sliding a bit further up as you sat like that. “Are we celebrating? You never bring me on private meetings.” You pouted towards Jack but glanced down at the executive, smirking lightly. Now that you were closer, you noticed the sandalwood scent around the man. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Handsome Jack’s assistant, (Y/N).” You gave the man a mischievous smirk and reach out with your hand. He took it gently and placed a kiss on top of it, grinning as well.

“Cassius Goldcrest. My pleasure.” He replied and looked up at you, getting a closer look at your facial features.

Jack cleared his throat, gaining yours and Cassius’ attention back to himself. "Celebrating? Ha! No, we're brainstorming on how to squeeze every last drop out of these bandit losers for our gain. Because, you know, that's just good business."

The executive nodded but looked back at you as soon as Jack stopped talking. "You look... nice. Jack never mentioned that you were this good looking.”

Jack flashed that signature smirk at the comment, then turned his gaze back to you, leaning in close like he was letting you in on a grand secret. There was that unmistakable glint of pride in his eyes — to him, you were another shiny trinket in his collection. But his arrogance? That just gave you more room to maneuver and play his game. “Come on, kiddo. Did you honestly think I kept you around 'cause I enjoy your sparkling conversation? Nah, it's all about the looks, the pizzazz. But hey, I bet a part of you always knew that, right?"

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you, sir." I say sweetly, enjoying how he's absolutely underestimating me. "Since I'm here mostly to be the proof of your impeccable taste, I wonder why you never introduce me to your... well, let's say, your extraordinary company." My sight switches from being on Jack to paying more attention to the Cassius.

Jack's expression turned smug again as he heard the flattery, glad that you were not acting up too much. "Ya know what’s the best part of it all? I get a real kick out of having someone as eye-catching as you on meetings." He leaned towards you even more. “Everyone's eyes glue to you, but deep down, they know you're off-limits. Makes the whole charade a lot more entertaining, don't you think?”

"Awww, is that how you feel about me every day? How cute." You threw a playful roast at Jack, knowing that he cannot drop the appearances with an important executive being present.

The game has started.

The corner of Jack's mouth curled up in a small, annoyed smile as you teased him with that remark. His eyes now narrowed, trying to figure out what you were up to, if you just decided to be playful or genuinely go against him. You could see a silent warning in them but decided to play dumb and ignore it. That was what he intended you to present- a dumb, sweet, pretty assistant.

Cassius, on the other hand, must have found your comment highly entertaining as he bursted out chuckling. Your boss grinned at you, seemingly relieved that your small comment was received as more of flirtation than insubordination. It calmed him down a bit and he moved in his chair, sitting more comfortably.

"See what I mean? How can I be bored with her around." Jack chuckled, opting to use the situation to his advantage.

The executive grinned back at Jack and glanced towards you. A glint of fire noticeable in his eyes as he locked them with yours. "Well, if Jack’s right about something, it’s that you captivate the whole room, sweetheart.”

Your attention was now all on the executive, seeing how he was slowly falling for the act. Or he saw your intentions through-who knows? Could be both.

“And yet I’m trapped in this office day and night.” You used the Cassius’ comment to go further, sighing deeply, longing in your voice. You turned to the side to look through the gigantic window down on Pandora, leaning even further back and showing your legs off as you switched the upper and lower one with each other.

The man tilted his head back in laughter as you said that, his voice sounding a lot more masculine than Jack's. His eyes followed the movement of your legs, you could feel that Jack’s did the same. You caught a glimpse of your boss; it was visible that he started getting more suspicious.

"What a waste. A pretty young thing like you should be out there enjoying life, seeing the universe, having fun. Not stuck in some office like a prisoner." Cassius put a hand on top of your leg in a reassuring manner, which didn’t escape the other man’s attention. "I don't know why you're keeping her here. If it was me, I'd get her outta here in a blink of an eye. She seems like a real... spark." The executive added.

“Would you do that? I’m pretty sure Jack wouldn’t miss me too much, since he keeps me here only for the looks anyway.” The question you asked the executive sounded innocent, sweet and oh so naively. Seemingly overwhelmed by the perspective that the dark-eyed man was truthful in his promise, you placed your hand on his for a moment.

This was a perfect setup.

You glanced at Jack and noticed that his expression changed the moment you got closer to Cassius, anger-or maybe disgust? - clearly visible on his face. He was drumming his fingers on the table, clearly tense.

“Ah, seriously, is this how low you got? Like, you can lick his boots as far as I care.” Your boss said nonchalantly but he was watching you attentively, wanting to see what you decide.

“Oh, come on, give her a break, Jack. She’s wasting herself out here, would it not be better to give her a chance to shine?” Before you had a chance, Cassius came to your defense.

Jack’s eyes shot right to him; viciousness now clearly visible. You have never seen him so full of rage like this up close.

“Oh, so this is what we’re doing now. You little piece of shit just want to waltz straight in and get smart with me, like I have no fucking clue about my own people. Listen up, sunshine.” Jack got up from his seat and came right above Cassius, glaring down at him. “She’s here because I chose her. You see, I've handpicked her, she's the best damn assistant I've ever had. She's got the brains, the skills, and the loyalty, and hell, what an ass as well. And if your tiny, malfunctioning brain ever suggests she'd do better with the likes of you bottom-feeders, I'll make sure your next assignment is checking oxygen levels in airlocks...from the inside."

Cassius remained silent, actual fear visible in his eyes. The confidence disappearing the more Handsome Jack got enraged.

“Now, why won’t you be a good little pet and leave my office. Right. Now.” Jack whispered menacingly and left enough space for the man to get off the seat and quickly head to the exit. Your boss then straightened out and sighed angrily, placing hands on his hips.

The air could be cut with a knife, the tension in there was that thick. You slowly started getting off the table, wanting to also get out of there as soon as possible. The fun was over.

“Nah-ah-ah-ah. Where the hell do you think you’re going.” Handsome Jack’s voice was quiet and tense, warning you. You stopped right where you were, slowly looking up at him to meet his intense gaze.

“I have to admit, you’re way smarter than I thought. You actually really, really pissed me off, kiddo, congratulations.” He chuckled sarcastically as he walked towards you, slowly, looking you up and down. There was something wild in his look.

You’re screwed.

“What’s the matter, sweet cheeks? What happened to that courage, that stubbornness of yours?” In a fluid motion, Jack slammed you against the table, hands trapping you on either side. Up close, the details of his mask were all the more menacing, his face so close you could feel the heat of his breath. His voice dropped to a dangerous growl. "Let's get one thing straight, kiddo. I'm the one running the show here. You ever try a cute little maneuver like that again, and I promise, it'll be the last thing you ever do." His fingers slid to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear, a gesture that, coming from anyone else, might've been tender. But from Jack? It was a chilling reminder of his control. Goosebumps erupted on your skin. "Got it? You’re mine."

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