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partycatty · 1 month

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a depressed and drunk johnny cage in his trailer on his birthday and we decide to surprise him. Us being a good bestfriend bake him a cute little cake with happy birthday spelt out in frosting and get permission to go deliver it to him.

what’s he supposed to do when he’s drunk and a cute little thing like us does something so sweet? sure it’s his birthday, but he thinks you deserve a gift and he ends up fucking you in his trailer.

love ya 💙💙💙

ARF ARF BARK BARK GRRR WOOF

johnny cage > happy bithday

you surprise your best friend on his birthday. he returns the favor.

warnings: smut ofc, he's drunk (i knowwww he's a canon recovering alcoholic BEAR WITH MEEE) SUB JOHNNY NATION RISE UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i kinda made him beg like a dog icl so hes kinda ooc oops

notes: INTENTIONAL MISSPELT TITLE!!! and this fic kicked my ASS. it took me like a week to get the courage to finish this holy fucking shit.

word count: 2.8k

[ masterlist ]

• you and johnny went far back. you had ties in the filming industry though you weren't on screen yourself. this drew you two together, even before you careers blossomed.

• you worked next door to his production, and you recall johnny expressing to you his annoyance for having to work on his birthday. he sounded... more miserable than usual, and it left a weird pit in your stomach.

• during your break, you ran into a nearby supermarket and purchased all the equipment you'd need: cake mix, frosting, sprinkles, and two numerical candles that spelled out 30. it took blood sweat in tears for you to bake this cake in record time, and decorating may have not been your strong suit but the purple frosting and gold lettering turned out... decent. hey, it's edible nonetheless!

• tip-toeing your way to his trailer, you were sure he had to be inside. you even double checked with his staff, and he was on an extended break while filming. standing at the door, you knock a couple times, and a stuffy, groaning voice responds.

• "m'busy," you know it's johnny's voice but it sounded far sadder than anticipated. hopefully the cake would cheer him up?

• you reply with his name through the crack in the door, and there's some shuffling before the door swings open. you don't even have time to wait or process the situation before johnny tugs you into his trailer by your arm. your face darkens slightly when you notice his flushed face and parted lips. his hair was messy, and the smell of alcohol poured from his mouth. the top few buttons of his dress shirt were undone, giving you a peek of his bare chest. any other situation, you'd be head over heels, but his appearance concerned you.

• "are you drunk?" you ask with a hint of bewilderment, and johnny can only wipe his eyes and nod weakly, giving you a lopsided grin that unfortunately makes you feel weak in the knees. you swore to god to never act on this little crush, since he was a celebrity and all, and you knew better than to put your genuinely good friendship at risk.

• "you made me a cake?" johnny's gentle, almost tearful voice tore away any anger that began to bubble up and replaced it with warmth. you nod and hold it out to him, and the faint candlelight flickers against his skin beautifully. he was so soft when he was drunk at times, and only you got to see this warmer side compared to his typical cocky ways.

• "it's... not my best work," you shrug sheepishly, looking down at the cake. when you look back up, you notice johnny's lashes are wet as they flutter, looking down at the cake with you. he sniffs, and wipes his eyes quickly.

• "you spelled it wrong." his smile doesn't falter but the tears threaten to spill.

• "what?"

• "doll... look," johnny's finger trails the iced words. "you forgot the R."

• oh, shit. you did. the cake reads HAPPY BITHDAY JOHNNY in the most confident gold lettering. the time crunch must've made your proofreading not too accurate. you blush and try to move the cake away from view, sliding it onto his vanity.

• as you were about to sputter useless apologies and try to move on, johnny takes a step closer and fully embraces your body in his large arms, his form completely overtaking yours and trapping you in his grasp. johnny's head buries itself in the crook of your neck as he squeezes tight, nearly knocking the wind out of you.

• on instinct, your arms try to wrap around his body, gripping his shirt tightly. johnny mutters something incoherent, his drunken ramblings a key trait of his state.

• "you're so sweet to me," he mumbles tearfully, peppering kisses along your neck. sure, he was affectionate typically, but he was kissing your neck. he was drunk, but... your heart fluttered.

• "hey, hey..." you rub his back soothingly, hoping maybe you could stop him from attacking your neck in hopes it'll cool your rising heat. "because you're my best friend."

• he whines into your neck, presumably in appreciation of your words. your neck begins to have a faint smell of alcohol.

• "such a sweet girl..." he doesn't stop. his hands wander to your lower back, pulling you in harder. this worries you, deeply.

• "johnny," your voice is warning as they find their place on his broad shoulders. "easy, easy, you're drunk."

• "whassat matter," he bites down into your flesh, making you yelp in shock. "mean so much to me."

• when his hands find their way to your ass, kneading at the flesh, you shove him away with furrowed brows. "you don't want this," you warn him, fighting every single urge to not pounce on him in that moment. "this is... really, really stupid, i mean, it's just a birthday-"

• johnny shuts you up quickly with a kiss, slamming his face against yours so hard you feel the clack of his teeth. his face cups yours, borderline squeezing your cheeks as his lips dance with yours. when he finally pulls away, a string of saliva connects your lips and it sends you weak in the knees.

• "doll," he huffs, wiping his mouth. "birthday or not, i've wanted you for so long." he's breathless and nearly incoherent, like this was his only shot at what he truly wanted. johnny was infamous for admitting shit when drunk, so you knew that this was true for the most part. this was only reinforced when he suddenly dropped to his knees, level with your stomach as he placed fluttering kisses along the front of your shirt.

• "please, i..." he pressed his face into the fabric, fists bunching up around the back. "i'll make you feel real good, if you let me..." his hand snakes under your shirt, rubbing circles in the flesh of your waist as he looks up with pleading eyes. your hand moves downward, raking gently through his hair.

• "you really want this?" you ask gently, toying with his hair. "no going back."

• his lips brush against your stomach as he teeters between kissing the skin and speaking against it. "i want you so bad, doll."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

• all it took was your permission, and johnny was on you in seconds. he backed you into his vanity, sending various items clattering to the ground. he fit so snug between your thighs, settling there to make out with you. perhaps he didn't even notice, but he was gently rutting into you as your lips connected, expelling desperate whimpers down your throat that only fueled your long-time desire. his cock could just barely make out the dip between your folds, but he pressed a little harder and made you gasp when your clit received unexpected attention.

• johnny pulls you in by the waistband of your pants, pressing your bodies impossibly closer as he panted in your ear. "let me taste you," he begged in a low whisper as he hooked his thumbs under the fabric. "i'll be good, i'll be so good."

• jesus, it seemed he wanted to eat you out more than you wanted to be eaten out. you'd never seen this flavor of eagerness in a man and it admittedly took you some strength to not giggle at how johnny fucking cage of all people became a lost, drunken puppy between your legs.

• "go on, pretty boy," you pant as your lips brush. the smell of alcohol brings you back to reality for only a moment.

• johnny decided that words took too much effort and instead dropped to his knees before you, shoulders holding up the weight of your plush thighs as he parted them hungrily to not waste a second more.

• the poor man forgets to even remove your pants before he's pressing his nose onto your heat, eyelashes fluttering as his heart swells with adoration. your scent, your heaving chest, your pretty thighs weighing his shoulders down, it was all too much. his pants feel a size too tight as his boner strains against his slacks.

• you get his brain going by jumping your hips up to get your pants past your ass, letting him pull them down the rest of the way. he throws them far, far away and latches himself again onto your pussy, now only divided by the fabric.

• "you were so eager before," you groan, thrusting forward slightly to put more pressure. "take them off."

• "no," he mutters against your panties, the vibrations making you jolt. "want this to last." his tongue flattens, drawing a long stripe up the fabric. when your panties stick to your pussy, it makes out the shape and he groans at the tease.

• "hold on," he places your thighs back down, trying to calm his breathing and flushed face. "i... i need this first. please." he unbuckles himself and pulls his slacks down to his thighs, giving you a view of his rock solid boner. it honestly looked painful, and you felt pity even if he looked adorable like this. his eyes were downward, fidgeting with his loose belt in shame. he chuckles breathily. "it's so hard, it hurts."

• "that's..." you struggle to find words when your mouth goes dry staring at his thick imprint. "that's alright." your voice was flat, trying to hide your desperation at his need to ask for permission. he didn't need to ask.

• johnny swallows thickly and lets his pants drop, followed by his boxers. his cock was blushed and seeping with precum, twitching once when he looked back up at you. he lets out a small moan, getting far ahead of himself as he positions his hips against yours. he gasps when the contact is made, stuttering his hips ever so slightly. johnny's hands find your thighs again, squeezing down hard to ground himself to not cum immediately. sober and platonic interactions were already far too much for his raging desire for you, so actually getting what he craved was beyond overstimulating.

• you were sick of waiting, so you snake your arms to rest atop his shoulders, hands raking through his undercut. you grip down slightly and he bites his lower lip in response, eyebrows knitting together as his wet eyes burn through yours. you glide your cunt along his throbbing dick and he jolts forward, resting his damp forehead against your shoulder.

• johnny understands you're just as eager as him and begins to thrust into your damp panties, but quickly decides it won't give him what he needs, so he hooks them with his thumb and stretches them aside. his tongue darts out to wet his lips, his eyes are glossed over and all he can fixate on is your pleasure.

• his tip notches between your folds and settles nicely, earning a hiss from the both of you from the warmth. johnny bucks forward eagerly, sliding himself up and down seamlessly due to how soaked you were. your folds hug his cock in just the right way, and you feel yourself already feeling heavenly every time your sensitive clit bumps against his tip.

• "fuck, doll," he hisses into the skin of your neck, placing open mouth kisses. "i want to last, you're - ngh - making it so hard... so hard..." he trails off, groaning when you slip and make his tip kiss the entrance of your cunt, making his knees buckle. "'m gonna cum just from this... god, you're so beautiful, beautiful girl-" his praises become increasingly more high pitched and you can tell by the way he begins to stutter his hips that he's close, unable to last long and it's driving him wild.

• johnny wasn't ever this needy, ever this pathetic. you reduced the cocky a-lister to a near-sobbing mess as he slips across your cunt, finding a momentum difficult from how slippery the entire scene has become. his cock is soaked, dripping down his leg due to your arousal.

• just as your orgasm builds up, as does his, johnny pulls away and lowers himself, gripping the flesh of your ass to pull your hips to his mouth. now thoroughly soaked and clenching around nothing, your cunt is desperate for a release that johnny happily provides, latching onto your clit, and shoving two fingers deep in your hole. he flattens his tongue, shaking his head slightly and flicking your clit relentlessly.

• your orgasm rides up on you rapidly, overwhelmed by the direct pleasure and how filled you were from two of his long fingers alone. wanting to lurch forward as your body trembles, johnny uses his other hand to sit flatly on your stomach, pushing you up against the mirror of the vanity and forcing you to take his lapping and fingering.

• johnny couldn't stand to have your pleasure soak his cock, shockingly. he needed, needed to taste the mess you were making for him or he just might die. you shake, trying to writhe and twitch as your orgasm fights you in waves. loud moans are pulled from your throat with each pulse of pleasure. your arousal soaks johnny's face, effectively soaking his nose and chin as he devours all you have to offer. he matched your moans with high-pitched whimpers, brows knitting together as his eyes clench shut. he was in heaven just as much as you were.

• he continues to lap at you until you force him away by his hair, his mouth becoming borderline painful as he eats you out through your orgasm. you giggle, as it slightly tickles. johnny looks... well, still drunk, but now a new kind. pussydrunk? lovedrunk? either way, the glossy look on his face suits him.

• as your chest heaves, attempting to recollect yourself, everything about the situation comes back to reality. you just grinded against your best friend. your best friend made you cum from his mouth.

• "what's that look?" johnny asks, wiping his mouth with his forearm. his eyes are glittering with delight.

• "nothing," you shrug, his grin contagious. "you did good, johnny."

• "yeah?" he seems proud of himself, glancing downward for a moment. he squeezes your thighs lovingly, placing a gentle kiss on them before finally standing up.

• "yeah." just as you respond, you look down to his cock, wondering if maybe he'd need some help getting there, too. it seemed only fair, that is, until you notice it's semi-hard and soaked. you sit up and lean forward, looking past your legs and onto his trailer floor. cum is splattered onto the flooring, some of it dripping down his thigh. "you came from giving head?"

• "how could i not have?" johnny's sheepish at your observation, but owns up to it quickly as he tucks it back into his slacks. "you're incredible." his face is tinted pink.

• "you're too sweet," you giggle, and johnny helps you down from the vanity as your legs wobble. giving up on finding wherever the hell your pants went, johnny leaves for a moment and returns with a pair of pajama pants, presumably a pair he kept in the trailer for his princess naps.

• "look who's talking... hey, speaking of sweet," johnny laughs, rubbing his hands together. "you and me wash up, and we have some cake, yeah?"

• "i like that plan," as you jump into the pants. johnny visibly tenses up seeing your breasts bounce from the jump, and he can't ignore the way your thighs and ass jiggle. "where did i put it, anyway?"

• you both look around the trailer for a moment, the memory of placing the cake down hazy among the rest of the event. you let out a small gasp, realizing that the cake was on the vanity, the one you got fucked out on... or rather, it was. the cake was splattered on the floor, frosting spread out and depressingly smeared anywhere it could reach. you frown, and johnny hovers behind you as you both look over the mess.

• "that sucks," johnny sighs, but his voice sounds uplifting. "that's alright, i ate something better."

• "don't be gross," you giggle, swatting at his form behind you. "that was perfectly good cake."

• "we can make another," johnny offers. "together. and i'll make sure you spell it right this time." his arms wrap around your middle, pulling you in close and breathing in the scent of your hair. the sweat, perfume and natural smell you carried always drove him wild, but he was now comfortable enough to bury himself in it. you lean into his touch, sighing as the heat from your bodies provides the perfect comfort.

• "happy birthday, johnny," you mumble softly, rocking back and forth in his arms. johnny responds into your hair, his voice breathy and warm.

• "thank you, doll."

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat x reader #johnny cage #mk1 #johnny cage x reader #johnny cage smut #mortal kombat smut #marley writes ☆

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dreamingofbucky · 11 months

Text

THE REPORT

Miguel O'Hara x Spider!F!Reader (one shot)

summary: You failed to report to Miguel after a mission and he makes it a living hell for you. to teach you a lesson, he makes you meet him after everyone's gone home and has a special punishment just for you.

tags/content warnings: slow burn til it isn't, grumpy!miguel, cockwarming like that's the whole plot, consensual smut. p in v. fangs. praise kink, size kink. age gap (reader is 20, mig is almost 30 idk). reader is a sister figure to gwen.

Word Count: 6.1k

author’s note: not beta read. this was so fun to write! hope you enjoy <3

Living in Spider Society was chaotic, but you loved it. You enjoyed it so much, but there were times you liked to visit other universes and even your own. You haven’t been back to your own universe in months due to work though.

You’ve been to Gwen and Hobie’s ones countless times, even stayed multiple nights. Albeit you being a few years older than them, about to turn 21, they were your closest friends in Spider Society. They got your humor, they understood your mess, and they’d fight for you.

With Jessica Drew being older and busy with her own relationship, and then Peter B Parker with MJ and Mayday, you were glad you had these Spiderteens to hang with. You felt like an older sister to them sometimes which helped with the whole identity crisis you had the first month moving to Earth-928 and feeling so alone.

And then there was Miguel. He was technically your boss and he was so cold, so standoffish toward you. Even after he recruited you, you’ve seen him less and less around missions unless you had to go to his office to report any difficulties with anomalies. You felt miniscule under his gaze most times. But then… even as much as you hated to admit how he made you feel though at random times when you felt his gaze linger a little longer than normal.

It’s probably been a week since the last time you had to go up to his office to relay a report, yet the grumpy man’s eyes were everywhere in Earth-928. You felt his eyes everywhere. Your spider senses went haywire whenever you felt him near. But it was more than just a tingle to you. It was a strange feeling you couldn’t pin down. But you brushed it off anytime that specific feeling came around.

You did have some hard times though in this new universe you called home. You had your own Peter back in your own universe until he passed. It was your canon event, after all. Something you still hated thinking about.

It was hard at first acclimating to Spider Society seeing so many Peter Parkers. Yours wasn’t Spider-Man, since you were the one in your universe, but the name was hard to adjust to hearing all the time, every day at work. That was the one thing you and Gwen had in common which was why you both were glued to the hip most of the time like real sisters.

Some might say it’s just trauma bonding, but you did ultimately feel like Gwen was like a younger sibling to you at this point. And no one really understood the hard adjustment to Spider Society like she did. It was comforting.

“You’re thinking again,” Gwen says, pulling you out of your thoughts. Her pink-blonde hair fell in front of her face as she busied herself with a journal. She liked to journal a lot more recently ever since she’s been spending more time with Miles.

You remembered her mentioning when she saw him after a year apart that she found his own journal of doodles. It was so obvious the crush she had on him, but you didn’t push or ask any questions.

A smile comes to your face as you see her doodling nonsense. You couldn’t admit that she wasn’t the best artist, but you let her have her vice whenever Miles was busy and off on different missions or even back in his universe to finish school. His parents still didn’t know he was Spider-Man, so he wasn’t around Spider Society as often as Gwen would like.

“No,” you counter. “Just letting my mind rest. Had a long week.”

Gwen’s bright eyes drifted up from the journal before a smile etched on her face. “Did you send your latest report to Miguel yet?”

Your spine stiffened at the sound of his name. “No, why? Was I supposed to? I thought Hobie was in charge of that this week?”

Sometimes Gwen, Hobie, and you would rock-paper-scissors whoever did the reports for the week. This week was supposed to be Hobie’s.

Gwen shakes her head. “No, I clearly remember Hobie mentioning it’d be you. He’s not even around today.”

“Oh,” you plainly stated. She was right, he wasn’t in this universe today. Had some protest to join back in his own universe. He invited you and Gwen, but you both wanted to be around in case you were needed. You urged Gwen to even spend the day with Miles, but he apparently had something to do with his parents.

Gwen whistles. “Miguel is gonna be looking for you then.”

Your eyes widened at that. “Fuck, no he can’t. I didn’t even prepare anything! We went two days ago, how am I supposed to remember each detail of what we did? Fuck, I’m going to find Hobie and–”

“Chill!” Gwen laughs. “Just go see him and let him know. Hey, maybe bringing an empanada will lessen the blow.”

You rolled your eyes at that before standing up. The room you both were in was quiet and not many spider-people were around. Gwen and you liked to come in here to either debrief, talk about Miles, or just sit in silence while she doodled and you thought.

You cherished her, you cherished every one of your spider friends. Well, except now with Hobie. Because now you’re for sure going to get a scolding from the boss man.

“Good luck,” Gwen sing-songed as you shook your head and laughed. But inside you were dying, your heart was starting to race as you left the room. You made your way through the building until you got to the elevator. The ride up was short and you even forgot the empanada.

Your fingers laced together at the front as the doors opened and you walked on the floor where his office was. It was unusually quiet. And darker than normal.

There wasn’t any big anomaly that had to be contained today or else you’d know. So where was everyone?

By the time you reached his office, you craned your neck up to see his platform high up and he was there standing, staring at a screen. He hadn’t noticed you yet, due to his inability to have spider senses, and you take your time looking at him.

His broad shoulders were facing you and you noticed his hands on his slim waist. You lick your lips at the sight. It wasn’t something you were proud of.

Call it hormones. You closed yourself off to any romantic flings or relationships the moment you moved here, but you still had those urges.

And they so happened to heighten whenever you were around the one person you shouldn’t have those urges around. Your attraction to your boss wasn’t something you expected, especially with him being a few years older than you… okay, he was definitely older. He never mentioned his age, but you overhead he was probably closer to 30. Which made him almost a decade older than you.

Your thoughts drift to a week ago when you saw him in passing. Spider-Woman was briefing you for a mission when he caught on to the conversation and halted his steps. He interrupted that conversation to scold you, letting Jess know that you wouldn’t be joining her that day.

You didn’t understand why. It wasn’t like the anomaly wasn’t someone you couldn’t handle. But you had to follow his orders and ultimately stayed back while he and the other Spiders went. Even Gwen and Hobie went.

That was a low blow on Miguel’s part. You’d at least thought he’d make the non-teens go on a mission together. You can’t remember the last time you went on a mission where Miguel was present. It felt like some days he didn’t even want you around.

As you think about Miguel, you hear shuffling up above you and you blink, brushing away the thoughts and focusing on what you had to do.

You shoot out a web to his platform and bring yourself up, landing on your feet. He finally turns at the noise and gives you a side-eye.

“What are you doing here?” He asks.

Your fingers find each other again as you fumble for a response. Here goes. “I-I had that report to tell you about. I thought Hobie was going to give it, sorry for the delay.”

His shoulders rise and fall with each breath before he turns around. His hand goes in the air behind him, waving off the screens he was just looking at. You caught a glimpse of another universe and Spider people shooting webs.

He had an eye on everything.

“That was supposed to be given directly after you returned from it,” he scoffs. He takes a step toward you and you try to hold your ground. Your breathing increases and his lips twitch.

“I know! Just a simple miscommunication, that’s all,” you try to laugh it off, but his stern face is anything but finding it funny.

“Do you know what I think?” He simply asks. The hairs on your arms stand as you look at him. His eyes smooth over your face, looking all over. They stop for a brief moment a little lower, on your lips, for more than a second.

“What do you think?” You ask breathlessly.

He takes another step closer, now inches away. He’s so tall compared to you, he’s basically caging you in at this moment without even knowing. You gulp.

“You’re supposed to be an example to them.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” he grimaces. “You’re older than them, yet you seem to act their age. It’s evident in the way you completely forgot to send in that report on time.”

“It happened once! And by accident! Like I said, it was because–”

“Take responsibility,” he spits. His hand goes to his hip and now you’re on the verge of hyperventilating. You didn’t expect a lecture when you came here. You expected Miguel to throw a fit, yelling at you, and then banishing you from his office within minutes. But you’re still here.

“Okay, I will,” you finally state. You feel deflated from the conversation already and you’re starting to get impatient at his obvious anger. Or annoyance. He seemed to be either angry or annoyed by you everytime you’re around.

“Okay, let’s hear it.” He crosses his arms over his chest, his elbows brushing against your chest in the process with how close he is. You take a deep breath.

“I’m taking responsibility for not giving you the report on time. I apologize, boss.”

He nods before turning on his heel and returning to his screen. You’re left confused and you even raise a brow at the odd reaction.

“Don’t you want the report now?” You ask, kicking your heel at the ground.

“No, not right now. I’m busy. Come back later.”

“But I had plans with Gwen,” you start, but he snaps his neck back at you and his eyes glow red. You stop talking immediately.

“Come. Back. Later.” He hisses, fangs showing.

“Right, will do,” you stutter out before attempting to run off that platform. Your two left feet make you trip and fall, making you have to shoot out a web to catch yourself before you planted face first on the floor below.

You didn’t dare to look up and see if Miguel saw that, you left as soon as your feet hit the ground.

By the time you went to regroup with Gwen, she wasn’t where you left her. It took you a moment to walk around the building before you found her outside, sitting and staring at the scenery. You climbed the structure she was on, upside down, before shooting out webs to anchor you, and lowering yourself and sitting next to her.

“How was it?” She asks, looking at you.

“Not so well,” you confess.

“Really? What happened?” Her eyes widen.

You shrug. “Not much, actually. I apologized and took responsibility for not giving it to him on time.”

“But? Your face looks like there’s a ‘but’ somewhere in there,” she laughs. You nudge her shoulder with yours and you frown.

“Yeah, there’s a but. He didn’t want the report. Told me to go back later tonight to give it to him.”

“That’s great!” Gwen smiles.

“How’s that great?” You ask, raising a brow. You decide to look out in front of you both and see the vast city before you. Although you’re upside down, you never get tired of the view.

“Because you have time to do the report and then give it to him, duh. You don’t have to verbally give it to him on the spot.”

“I don’t know,” you finally breathe. You place your palms behind you and lean back. Gwen does the same, mimicking you.

“You know, Jess mentioned that he’s a big softie under all that anger and macho-ness.”

“What?” You laugh, wondering why the hell she’s steering the conversation this way.

Gwen nods with a smile curling on the tips of her lips. “Yep. It kind of reminds me of those stupid sayings where if he makes fun of you, he likes you.”

Your body stiffens and you shake your head. “Gwen! What are you talking about? Miguel?”

There is nothing behind the reasons why he’s cold to you or why he’s made it seem like you aren’t worth being around. If he had any inkling of attraction toward you, you’d know. Spider sense or not.

“See tonight, then! And please let me know. I kind of made a bet with Jess… I have to win.”

You groan. “What?! You guys are betting on the most impossible thing. There is nothing there. He hates me, but like actually. There is no underlying meaning.”

“Sure,” Gwen laughs. “Anyways, Miles said he’s coming back tomorrow so we might have to raincheck on that girls night.”

“I thought that was tonight?”

“I figured we’d have to move it to tomorrow night the moment you mentioned Miguel needing to see you tonight. He’ll probably make you handwrite that damn report all night.”

You lean your head back and stare at the city above you. “Fine, raincheck. But nothing is going on, you’ll see.”

“Hmm,” is all Gwen says before you shake your head and laugh. You both stay watching the city in silence for a little longer before you go on with your day, dreading for the night to come.

***

“Miguel?” You call out into the darkness of his office. His platform is dark, with no sign of life from him or anyone.

Suddenly, you hear a fizzle in the air and then Lyla pops up into thin air. You almost yelp, hand flying to your chest.

“Hey! Miguel let me know for you to meet him in his quarters.” Lyla floats around you, disappearing and reappearing at random spots. Her pink glasses lower on the bridge of her nose as she takes a good look at you.

“His place?” You repeat, your mouth suddenly feeling dry. You’ve never been called to his quarters. He had a place of course in the city, but it was known that he’d stay multiple times a week at the floor of the building that acted as a penthouse for when he needed to be on call for anyone.

You were terrified that you did something else wrong and that’s why he decided to have this meeting in a more private location. You gulp, looking at Lyla.

“Don’t look so scared!” She laughs. “Come on!” She yells before disappearing and reappearing a few yards away closer to the elevator.

You follow with no argument before you both get into the elevator and it skyrockets a few more floors up. The elevator dings and you see Miguel in normal clothes, not his suit. It didn’t occur to you that he can wear something else besides his suit. You’ve never seen him without the suit, so this was weird.

Miguel hears your steps and he looks, a look of concern on his face. You instantly cross your arms over your chest, as if trying to hide yourself from his gaze. His eyes drift from your toes to your eyes before he looks at Lyla who appears in front of him.

“She’s here, boss,” she sing-songs before Miguel grunts.

“Thanks, Lyla. Now pause all updates unless it’s an emergency. Forward any updates to Jessica if there are any.”

“Only if you say it,” Lyla teases, twirling around Miguel’s body.

Miguel groans, rolling his eyes. “Lyla, do it.”

“Nuh uh, I need to hear it boss,” she pushes. This makes you giggle at the encounter but you shut your mouth as Miguel gives you a stern look.

“Please, Lyla,” he finally says with a bite to his words.

“Already done, boss, but I loved hearing that,” Lyla says before evaporating into thin air. The silence fills the room as you stand there, rocking back and forth on your heels.

“Where’s your suit?” He finally asks, heading to the kitchen. You follow blindly, unsure what else to do.

“I-uh, didn’t think I’d need it.” You looked down at your sweats and long sleeve, wondering if you should’ve looked more presentable. It was past dinnertime, way past that to be precise, the sky was dark outside his floor to ceiling windows, so it didn’t make sense to wear anything else. You wanted to feel cozy too. The softness of the clothes calmed you a bit with the anxiety of what Miguel might say.

You tried to write the report earlier, but your mind was a mess. You’d have to apologize for that again you were sure of it.

“You didn’t, just wanted to ask,” Miguel chuckles as he reaches inside his fridge and pulls out a water bottle. He turns to you and raises it, looking at you with a questionable face. You nod as he tosses you it and you open it, taking a few sips. You hear the crack of his own and his gulping.

You didn’t realize how much of a cottonmouth you had until you started drinking the cold water.

“So the report, do you have it?” He asks, heading toward you.

“About that…” you start. His jaw clenches and his eyes go red for a moment before they go back to the pretty brown.

“You didn’t do it?”

You shake your head, swallowing the lump forming in your throat. “No, I-I tried to. I swear, I can do it right now, just let me get my computer or a pen and paper.”

That’s when he laughs again. You’ve never heard him laugh before. It was like music to your ears. Your heart picks up its pace at the sound and the way his eyes crinkle at the motion. His teeth bare with the laugh and you notice the fangs popping out.

An inappropriate thought of him sinking them into you comes to the forefront of your mind and you suck in your breath and clench your thighs together. He pinches his brows, looking at you at the sudden sound you swore he wouldn’t be able to hear.

“Ven aquí,” he beckons as he waves you over to the other end of the place where a living room holds a few couches. The place isn’t decorated and it looks like it was just created as something to show, not live in. He sits on the edge of the couch and you walk over to him, keeping a few inches away.

You can practically feel his body heat emanating and your body betrays you as your knees get wobbly and you have to clear your throat. You curse yourself for having these reactions toward your boss in his private place.

Lyla couldn’t even interrupt you both as much as you’d like. You didn’t want to be scolded. You wanted to take the punishment of finishing the report in front of Miguel and then go home.

“Your heart is racing so fast,” he murmurs, causing you to gasp. Heat pools in your belly and your cheeks start to burn. He cocks his head to the side before sighing and running a hand through his hair. His biceps flex under his shirt and you bite your lip.

“It’s just hot in here,” you lie, fanning yourself to prove a point.

“The AC is on,” he counters.

“Of course,” you squeak. You try so hard to lower your heart rate, but it’s not helping being so close to him.

“Do you want to know what else I can observe?” He asks, looking up at you from beneath his lashes. Your ears are pounding as you intake a sharp breath.

“What?” You whisper.

He rises, getting close to you. He lifts a hand and traces a finger underneath your chin, causing you to tremble and your lips quiver. “I can smell the way your sweat is protruding. And it’s not from fear.”

“Oh,” you whisper again.

He bares his teeth, fangs glinting. “I can also smell you to the point where it’s driving me fucking crazy right now.”

“Smell me? Like my sweat and my scent?” You raise a brow. You’re not sure where he’s getting at this. Is he trying to intimidate you? Cause it’s working.

“I can smell your arousal,” he chuckles, getting closer to brush your chest with his body. You widen your eyes.

“Oh, uh, I’m so sorry,” you apologize, not knowing what else to say. You try to clench your thighs together, but that doesn’t help with the growing feeling between them. Your pussy is basically singing for him to touch it. You do your best to push down those thoughts, it’s utter humiliation that he can sense those things.

His thumb brushes your bottom lip and your knees almost give out at the gentle touch. It’s all confusing you to the point where you’re not even sure this is happening.

“You look confused,” he mutters.

“I-uh, I’m not sure what’s going on. I thought I was going to be lectured. I thought you’d send me away to finish the report or something,” you admit.

“You won’t be going on any missions anytime soon, how’s that for a lecture?”

Your heart drops at this. “What? How is that fair? I’m not the only one who missed a report, I’m sure!”

His hand drops from your face and you miss the feeling of it instantly. You stare at him and your anger is starting to increase. Scrunching your brows together, you exhale loudly.

“It’s completely fair for the way it was handled.”

It wasn’t wise for you to keep talking back to your boss, especially being alone with him. There wouldn’t be anyone around to save you if he started one of his rage arguments.

“The report can be done now, how about that?” he finally breathes. He retreats back to the couch and leans back, thighs spreading. His frame is large and your eyes immediately go to his core and then his crotch. You gulp, knowing you shouldn’t be looking in that region.

He says your name sternly and you look up before seeing a smirk pass his lips.

You shake your head and straighten your posture. “Of course, boss. Where do you want me to do it?” You ask, looking around for a desk or maybe he wanted you to complete it on the kitchen island. You still needed a paper and pen or a computer.

He makes a slapping sound and you turn toward it, seeing him slapping his thigh. You stare at him incredulously.

“Miguel?” You whisper. His eyes are no longer the light brown you remember from moments before. They've gone a little darker and red is seeping into the sclera. You gulp.

“Aquí,” he states firmly. You oblige, getting closer and bumping your knee with his before you stand in between his spread thighs.

Your heart continues to race and you’re surprised you haven’t passed out from it. He pats his thighs again before he leans up for a moment, wrapping his strong arms around your waist and pulling you in so easily. He lifts you up like you weigh nothing before you’re straddling his thighs, legs on either side of his.

It happens so quickly all you can do is gasp and then balance yourself by placing your hands on his shoulders. His very broad, strong shoulders. Your fingers clasp them tightly and you swallow.

“Isn’t that better?” he whispers. You bite your lip, not sure how to respond. His hand lifts to brush your cheek before pushing strands of hair behind your ear. The movement is delicate and completely opposite of how Miguel holds himself in public. You’ve seen him swat a butterfly once that wasn’t even bothering him and his grumpy persona is all you know.

“Tell me,” he demands. You part your lips.

“Yes,” you finally admit. His hands move to your waist and press hard, enough for you to gasp. Your fingers dig into his shoulders and he hisses.

“What are we doing?” You ask, courage finally bubbling out of your chest.

“I’ve noticed things about you, reina,” he whispers, holding you tighter.

“You have?”

He nods. “The way you look at me. Your heart races when you’re near me. Your pussy craves my touch, I can smell it everytime.”

“What? No, it’s not–” you scream but he pulls you closer on his thighs until your core brushes against his. You feel something right under your pussy and you realize it’s his erection.

Your hips instinctively roll at the feeling and you groan, biting your lip.

“See? You can’t deny the way your body is wanting me. I can’t lie and say I haven’t thought about it too. That I don’t feel the same way.”

“Miguel,” you squirm underneath his hold but that only makes your hips roll even more into his erection and it sparks something in you. It feels so good and a moan leaves your lips. He grunts, fangs hitting his bottom lip for a moment. A slight red dot forms from the incision.

“Besame,” he asks, smoothing his hands up to your torso, over your arms and then to your cheeks. You feel intoxicated from his touch.

He wants you to kiss him. You can’t deny that, you’re already so far gone now. Without a delay, you nod and lean in, crashing your lips to his. A moan escapes your lips while a hiss leaves his. You feel a slight prick from his fangs and you gasp.

“Sorry, reina,” he says, licking your bottom lip.

You take a few deep breaths, lifting a hand from his shoulder to run it through his hair. You don’t do it gently, call it payback for the fang bite. But it only rouses him more, your fingers grasping harshly at his strands. He pulls you in then again to kiss you and then pushes his tongue into your mouth. He kisses you with fervor and you let him. Your hips begin to roll over his erection and it hits the spot you need it to.

“Take these off,” he slaps your ass and hooks his thumbs into the waistband of your sweats. You nod before lifting yourself and he pulls them down. You shift awkwardly until your sweats are off and then you’re straddling him with just your panties. His calloused palms touch your thighs and he groans.

“Fuck, your skin is so soft.” He murmurs before smoothing his hands over your thighs before moving to your panties.

“Do you want me to take these off too?”

He shakes his head, lifting a hand. You see a talon come out from his finger and he’s quick to cut the fabric of your panties. You gasp and he smiles.

“Hey!” You yelp.

“My turn,” he moves on, moving his hands to pull down his own pants. You have to lift yourself again, your panties falling from the motion. You watch as he slides his pants down enough until they’re past his knees. You finally look down and gasp, not expecting him to be bare underneath. No boxers, just his erected cock ready for you. A glint of pre-cum is at the tip and your mouth salivates at the thought.

His hand goes to his cock and he starts to move it up and down. He hisses through the movements before he licks his hand and continues the motions. You widen your eyes.

“Are you ready for your report?” He breaks your thoughts.

You lock eyes with him. “T-the report? Right now?”

He nods. “Sit on my cock, reina, and give me the damn report.”

Your cheeks burn and you look around the room, wondering if this is some kind of dream. You lift your hand to your other arm and pinch. It hurts, so you know you’re not dreaming.

He’s still fisting his cock as he waits patiently. His eyes are redder than before and he licks his lips.

“Miguel,” you whisper.

“You’re so wet for me already, I know it,” he laughs.

He wasn’t wrong, but your brain was turning into mush. You muster the courage to finally do as he says. You lift yourself enough to hover over his core and his hand moves from his cock to your pussy and you gasp from the feeling of his fingers running along your wet folds.

“Fuck, you’re going to be a tight fit. But I can’t warm you up, I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“Wait, why?”

“Another punishment, now sit on my cock before I change my mind about everything.”

You didn’t want to know what else he planned for your punishment and you knew it wouldn’t be nearly as enticing as this. He’d probably make you work at the cafeteria or some shit.

“Okay,” you meep, finally lowering yourself onto his tip. You hiss at the feeling of his wet tip entering you.

“Come on, you got this,” he coos as his hands move to your waist to help lower you down. Inch by aching inch, you lower until you’re full of him. His girth practically splits you in half and you bite your lip, holding in a cry.

“You’re so pretty like this, sitting on my lap with my cock stuffed inside you.”

You let out a deep breath. “You’re so big, Miguel, I need a moment.”

“Take your time, you’re not leaving anytime soon.”

Your heart skips a beat at that thought. It takes a moment for you to adjust to his length before you’re ready to roll your hips. It feels like the world has flipped upside down and you’re in heaven. Sparks run all along your spine and throughout your body.

His cock twitches inside you and you start to roll your hips, closing your eyes.

“Open your eyes,” he demands. You whip them open and stare at him. Your hands dig into his shoulders again as you roll your hips again, causing him to groan and tighten his hold on your waist.

“Now, the report,” he repeats.

“Oh, yeah, uh–” you mumble out. Your mind can’t concentrate on that damn report as your pussy clenches around his cock. He stills your movements.

“We can only continue if you start talking,” he says.

That’s when you realize what he’s doing. He’s not going to take you off his lap until you’re done with the report. You’re not sure if you’ll be able to handle that. Your orgasm is already rising to its peak with the small movements. He’s so big, hitting your g-spot perfectly. Each roll of your hips sends you closer and closer to your release.

“Okay, well,” you start. “Hobie and I were able to handle the Vulture from Earth-673. It was good and–ah–we got him contained.” You say, biting your lip to keep from coming.

“And?” Miguel presses, lifting his own hips to drive his cock a little more into you. An exasperated pant leaves your mouth at this. He’s cruel.

“And that was it, that was all we did. Nothing else happened,” you mumbled out quickly.

“That’s not what I saw on the screens,” he hums. He moves a hand to roam down between your cores. His thumb presses gently against your clit and you clench his cock before whimpering.

“Miguel!”

“What else happened?”

You try so hard to think back to the mission that happened days ago. You curse Hobie for not sending the report or reminding you that you had to do it.

That’s when you remember something. You smile. “Gwen was handling that train cart that fell off the platform and then Hobie and I focused on the people on the ground. We got them all.”

“And what else?” Miguel starts to circle his thumb over your clit at a faster pace. You groan and hang your head back. His movements stop.

“Miguel, please,” you squirm, trying to get back that friction against your clit by rubbing yourself over his abdomen. He hisses and shakes his head.

“You forgot about the canon event you didn’t stop,” he reminded you.

That didn’t seem like important information to tell him. You all worked hard to prevent canon disruptions. It was an obvious task that didn’t need to be vocalized. He raises a brow. You take a deep breath and nod.

“Y-yeah,” you mumble. “We allowed the canon event to happen successfully.”

“Good girl,” Miguel coos before placing his thumb back on your clit and his other hand grasps your waist tight enough and he lifts you enough to slam you back down on his cock. You scream, falling on him and wrapping your arms around his neck. Your hands bury in his long hair.

“So good for me,” he whispers in your ear as you roll your hips some more, chasing that high.

“I’m close,” you whine. You feel his lips graze your neck and before you know it, you feel pain and little stabs at your skin. His fangs sink into your skin and that only causes you to moan loudly and squeeze his cock even more. He grunts before removing his fangs from your neck.

“You did so well for me, you can come whenever you want to, reina,” he whispers. And before you know it, both hands go to your waist and he’s lifting you up at an alarming pace and slamming you down on his cock.

You’re both panting loudly, the only sounds in the room are your cores slapping and your pussy drenching him in your arousal.

“Fuck! I’m going to come,” you whimper.

“Come all over my cock, baby,” he stutters as his pace of slamming you down grows sloppy. You nod and lift your head to look at him. His eyes are less red and his features have seemed to go a little softer.

Before you know it, you’re screaming and coming over his cock. He doesn’t stop though, he continues to jut into you until his hips still and his hands shake on your waist. You feel the warmth spread inside you and you know he just released inside you.

“Fuck,” he sighs.

You lay your forehead against his chest and his hands are soft to the touch as he rubs your bare back underneath your shirt. You shudder underneath his touch, but you try to calm your breathing. Your pussy clenches around his softening dick and he groans.

“I can get off,” you whisper, attempting to lift your hips, but his hold on you tightens.

“No, not yet.”

“Why?” You giggle. You lift your head and you’re nose to nose with Miguel. His eyes dance around your face before he answers.

“I think you need to repeat the report once more.”

“What?!” You scowl.

“I’ve got you here now, what’s the problem? You can’t repeat the same thing you just said? Or are you too cockdrunk to think of anything?”

You didn’t want to tell him that he’s right. The last few minutes are a blur and the mission of a few days ago is at the back of your mind already. You whimper as his hands lower to your ass and squeezes. You try to lift your hips again, but he slams you back down on him. The friction only causes your arousal to rise again.

Fuck, you’re never going to leave are you?

His erection starts to grow again in you and he smiles like a jerk.

“The report, repeat it. If you stumble once, you’re starting over. I have all night.”

You roll your hips, fully drowning in him and obeying his every command. You’re too far gone at this point to fight.

You nod, biting your lip before starting the report again. You mumble a few times and you curse yourself as he takes a moment to lift you and slam you on his cock a few times. You scream his name relentlessly before having to start the report over again.

You don’t get off his lap until the sun peeks from the horizon and filters through the penthouse.

#marvel au #miguel fanfic #miguel o’hara x you #miguel o’hara smut #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara atsv #atsv #atsv fanfic #atsv x you #miguel spiderman #spiderman 2099 #spiderman 2099 x reader #across the spiderverse fanfiction #oscar isaac #oscar isaac characters #miguel o'hara fanfiction

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no-droids · 1 year

Text

Another Rough Day

gif credit @chrishemsworht

Part Twenty of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 13.7K

Warnings: Angst, violence, canon-typical blood and gore, language, hurt/comfort

A/N: i wanna thank yall for sticking around during my hermit era, in the time ive been gone i am now officially a junior at a university majoring in aerospace and it’s a fuckin nightmare and i hate everything and god help us all literally kill me and I will be posting INCREDIBLY slowly because of that (I’m talkin weeks or months in between updates yall, im sorry I can’t dedicate more time to this but I am going to finish this fic within the next handful of chapters idk maybe 5 or 6 so you shouldn’t have to wait too too long). As a heads up there will be hard angst as we enter the final arc, there will be hurt and it’ll get dark but everything is gonna turn out alright so thanks for sticking with me and continuing to stick with me. im sorry if you dont like it or your expectations were subverted or if this isn’t what you’d hoped it would be after following and waiting around for so long but this was planned a long time ago and it took me a good year or two to recognize that I started writing this fic for me and now I’m going to end it writing for me and I hope yall can respect that

ALSO I asked my best BEST FRIEND in the entire world @cptnbvcks to collaborate with me for this after we both took a very long break from creating and she drew some GORGEOUS artwork for this chapter so it will be posted at the end, everyone please go follow her and say hello

ps brittany girl you’re a fuckin menace i had to use my own two ears and listen to ethan literally say the words “the mandalorian cums, hard” what the fuck was that im actually suing

anyways chapter below the cut lets get serious yall

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You take two of them down before they even realize they’re being attacked.

Your aim is as swift and steady as if Din were behind your shoulder right now, calmly pointing out which stationary tree to hit next in rapid succession. You’re positioned perfectly at the bottom of the ramp to take full advantage of the ambush, the only thing running through your mind is strategy and the constant calculating of angles and ricochets. The other three troopers are trapped inside the open Crest and you’re right next to a large boulder that you can step behind for cover, but it proves unnecessary as the rumors were apparently true.

They’re… awful.

Not a single blaster is even fired in your direction—you think you see maybe one panicked red shot bounce around in the hull, but that’s it. The troopers fumble for their guns and trip over each other at the unexpected attack—a few scream like children through the modulators, but you’re temporarily deaf to anything besides the screech of your weapon hitting its target and the crumpling of armored bodies.

Later on, if someone were to ask you to describe exactly what happened—who died first, who ran for cover, who cried out for help—you don’t think you’d be able to. You don’t even really feel like a person right now. The entire thing is cold, robotic survival instinct, pure ruthlessness rising in your soul for the first time in your life. It feels sick. Wrong in your bones. Born from preemptive defense in fear of your life, but that doesn’t mean you stop. Not until all of them stop moving.

You empty the entire fucking canister for a handful of stormtroopers, firing plasma and char marks across every square inch of the pristine hull even after the last one drops. Your heart is beating too fast, your finger keeps pulling the trigger multiple times even after the blaster clicks uselessly, completely empty and beeping a warning that it must’ve begun emitting ages ago. Being out of ammo scares you—you suddenly feel vulnerable, even though the very far away logical part of your mind reminds you that they have to all be dead at this point and no physical threat was ever able to graze you.

Regardless, you quickly spin behind the boulder and grab another canister from your belt, giving it a spare check for leaks while the empty one slides and drops to the rocky ground. It’s the first time you’ve ever had to reload this weapon instead of just pointing and shooting, but the mechanics are relatively simple and your brain makes up for your lack of coherent thoughts with lightning fast perception. What's difficult is that your hands are starting to shake now that you’re not aiming, you’re not breathing correctly because you’re not really breathing at all. You can’t tell the difference between the adrenaline-fueled dissociative silence that muffles everything around you or if it really is just that quiet now. No more clatter of armor, no modulated voices or terrified screams. No blasters, no footsteps along the ramp, no birds singing.

You quickly pause to lift your elbow and check the enormous eyes blinking up at you, tiny claws still holding tight to the fabric of your tunic and completely unharmed, and then you force yourself to move. The blaster is held out in front of you while you walk forward and your finger rests on the trigger, begging to be pulled again. It’s suspenseful and terrifying in a different way than before—now it’s less about psyching yourself up for confrontation and more about the fact that any sudden movement could mean your very swift end.

Silence. Silence. You’re numb and raw at the same time, walking up the ramp as your eyes fly everywhere, not even registering the blood or gore, just searching for movement. You don’t know if you feel like a predator or prey, you’re that much more brutal and inhuman because of how fucking terrified you are. You count four stormtroopers in the hull laying crumpled and still on the metal floor, but the one in the far corner only has blood on his shoulder. You quickly swing the blaster around to remedy that, but then—

“P-Please don’t kill me!”

His words remind you of something. Reality, maybe. A world outside yourself and the kid’s survival, the living beings behind the bloody armor your enemies wear.

It’s a miracle your finger stays hovering over the trigger, and you watch him throw the blaster at your feet with a clang and scramble to show you his empty hands. “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me—I’m not loyal to the Empire, I don’t want to be here, please, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die—”

Behind the mask, your expression furrows. Stormtroopers are loyal to the bitter end, what is he saying? They embrace their expendiality, it’s the only thing that makes them any sort of a real threat. Kuiil told you horror stories about them during your childhood, the cloning facilities and the propaganda they’re force fed since infancy. It’s nearly impossible to find one who hasn’t been raised from birth to serve the Empire, no matter how crumbled and trace its remaining authority may be.

No, this is a trap, it has to be. Your expression twists with dread after hearing him speak, readjusting your aim with the blaster and preparing yourself for the years of nightmares that’ll follow—but then he cries out, “Wait!” and then removes his helmet with trembling hands.

You pause, staring down at him in shock.

It’s him, you recognize him immediately. It’s the same face from a hologram puck you bore into your memory, spent multiple days staring at so you’d be able to spot him under any disguise or circumstances. Oshua Ryler. Your quarry, the fifth puck, the one Din was out Maker knows where searching for before this entire mess happened. A stormtrooper? His puck said nothing about the Empire, this doesn’t make any sense. What is he doing here? Stormtroopers don’t have pucks, they don’t have bounties or relatives or loved ones searching for them. They’re brainwashed, replaceable, faceless soldiers in suits of armor and they don’t even have names.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begs again, staring at you with wide eyes even as he cowers. “I have a family, I-I just want to go home, please—”

“Shut up.” You can’t think straight with him crying like that and you’re wasting so much time just standing here trying to process when your brain had to literally shut itself down to even do the things you’ve already done. You have to kill him and escape, you have to—you can’t trust this complication, not with the tiny claws currently digging into your back and reminding you of your purpose, but it was so much easier when he had on a helmet. You hate looking at his face. It’s going to haunt your dreams now, just like the man you stabbed on Corellia.

“Please don’t kill me—please don’t kill me,” he screws his eyes up and breathes over and over instead, and your stomach wrenches with disgust. His posture and expression are so fucking pitiful, you can barely keep your eyes on him through the overwhelming nausea and aversion that climbs up your throat. He’s with the Empire, and they’re looking for the baby. You know what needs to be done. Pull the trigger, just one small movement from you and it’ll be all over. It would be the easiest thing in the world, it would be so easy.

But then instead, you ask, “Why are you a stormtrooper?”

“I’m n-not—I hate the Empire—”

“The Empire is ashes.” You don’t know if you’re yelling or whispering with how much blood is roaring through your ears. “They hold no power anymore. Why are you with them?”

“Because the one thing they have left is money!” The quarry shrills the words at you, ghostly pale to the point of turning green. “Th-They buy troopers now—they opened up a whole new market for the smugglers, there’s a base nearby that’s used for training and…” He stares wide eyed at you and gulps. “C-Conditioning.”

Your brain is already going a trillion lightyears an hour and it doesn’t have the capacity to empathize or understand anything beyond the child’s survival and the relevant details right now. “Were they expecting the baby?”

“W-What?” He squeaks up at you.

“Was the bounty put out on you a trap set by the Empire?” You ask him, lifting your free arm just enough to flash him the tiny child clinging to your side. “He said they’re coming after the baby, so tell me if this was planned from the beginning.”

“Who is ‘he’?” The stormtrooper asks, furrowing his eyebrows and looking around. “What are you talki—”

“Tell me if the bounty on you was a trap to take this baby!” You roar, your blaster shaking as you aim it down at him. Your mind is acutely focused on the tiny claws hanging onto your tunic, the continued safety of the kid and the life or death situation facing him that you were given absolutely no information about. “Now—”

“If it was I didn’t know!” He quickly cries out, pleading with you and clamping his eyes shut in terror under the barrel sight. “I don’t know anything about a b-baby, or a bounty! They just put blasters in our hands and told us to search for a ship and to bring back anyone we find alive, I swear!”

You’re silent for a moment, biting your lip under the mask and caught halfway between discerning and stalling. You could still kill him. You should still kill him, time is ticking down and more troopers could be heading this way any second.

Shit. “Who put the bounty out on you?” You ask sharply. It might not be a completely fair question, but he can’t exactly blame you for not feeling completely fair right now.

“I—I don’t know,” he gasps, clutching his bleeding shoulder. “Could’ve been anyone—my mother, Cyra, o-or my dad, Obediah, or Thia, or Benja, or S—”

“Thia,” you interrupt his rambling, catching the slurred word and repeating it back to him.

“Yes!” Oshua jerks his head up, tears and hope immediately filling his eyes at the sound of her name, “Yes, Thiadura Celi Ryler, that’s my sister!”

Maker, if he’s lying, then he’s fucking brilliant at it. You look towards the cockpit of the ship, biting your lip under the mask. Get to Nevarro, tell Karga and he’ll… something. Din was cut off before he finished. Help? Know what to do? You’re lost, but you have a clear directive and the precious seconds are sliding by. The controls are right up there, two steps to the ladder and less than a minute until you’re rising into the atmosphere.

But then you think back to the terror in Din’s voice. The blistering panic that made him speak faster and with more urgency than you’ve ever heard from him. Get to Nevarro. Tell Karga. Get to Nevarro. Tell Karga.

You look back at the quarry. “How many of you are there?”

“At the base? Around three hundred,” he immediately spills. “Half of us are in the hole right now getting brainwashed, they do it in shifts, but they can be mobilized in a few hours. There were a lot of bodies outside when we were ordered to split off, maybe a third of our squadron, but the rest were still shooting at whatever was—”

“So around a hundred left,” You finish breathlessly, almost wanting him to speak faster and cut to the chase so you can calculate quicker. “How many were dispatched on the search?”

“Uh, there were eight groups of five sent in each major direction,” he informs you, still trembling on the ground. “Told us not to come back until we covered the entire sector.”

Of which, four you’ve already taken care of. In other circumstances, you’d be nauseated at the thought, but right now, it’s just another number to subtract, just more panicked math in Din’s frightening absence. That leaves at least sixty troopers left wherever the base is, minimum, and likely a couple more hours before they’ve combed the sector. If this wasn’t a preconceived trap purposefully set for the kid, then that means reinforcements haven’t arrived yet but likely will soon. And if this is a base meant for training and conditioning, then that also means there’s a chance not all of them will be loyal yet.

You make the decision immediately.

“Okay,” you announce, clicking the blaster’s safety switch and holstering it, sounding lightyears more certain than you feel. “Then you’re going to help me carry out a rescue mission, and I’ll take you back to your sister.”

“You…” He looks uncertain, blinking at your blaster and slowly lowering his hands. “You want to rescue the men?”

Ideally? Sure. Realistically? You don’t say anything in response. Instead, you kick his regulation firearm at your feet further away from the quarry just in case your judgment is flawed, and then turn around and grab one of the bodies behind you.

Your adrenaline is still blaring so fast that you only just barely note the severity of what you’ve just done and what you’re continuing to do. The corpses aren’t real to you right now, they’re inanimate things that you need out of your ship before you can close the doors to it. They are, however, heavy as fuck, but the only other adult here has a wound in his arm from the gun on your hip. Regardless, you have experience with lifting dead weight without a big, strong, capable man to do it for you.

“Help me out here, kid,” you mutter over your shoulder, and in response, you feel his claws dig in and climb up just a little bit until he can peek out in front of you. Thankfully, the burden is suddenly lifted and you can quickly slide the dead troopers down the ramp with ease. It takes hardly any time at all—you just yank and haul and release and all four of them tumble the rest of the way all by themselves.

When you stand back up, Oshua hasn’t moved and he’s looking at you with a pale, queasy expression. Glancing down, you see that your white robe is now stained with streaks and patches of rusty blood. Instead of swallowing back bile at the sight and bolting to the shower to scrub off every last remaining trace, you breeze past it, noting nothing more than a change of color. Dirtying your white, pristine clothing with the consequences of protecting this baby—you’d rather have blood-soaked fabric with an unharmed kid clinging to you than any other combination of those things.

“Can you make it up to the cockpit?” You ask the quarry, kicking his rifle off the ship before closing the ramp and then gesturing up the ladder. Your voice is calm and steady but your hands are beginning to shake again. “I need as much information as possible about the base.” You know that’s where Din is, judging from the wall of blaster screeches that drowned him out through the comm. Logically, you know you could be headed right into a trap, and every instinct inside you wants to find safety, but… you just cannot imagine flying the ship away from this planet without Din onboard. It isn’t fucking happening, you’ve made your choice.

Without waiting for a response, you climb the ladder and plop down in the pilot’s seat of the Crest. While Oshua finds some way to clamber up the steps behind you in bulky stormtrooper armor with one good arm, you hold the kid closer on your lap and begin flight checking. Din will be fucking furious, but the scolding you’ll be sure to get is the least of your worries right now. Following his instructions and going back to Nevarro is just making shit infinitely more dangerous for him, turning what could be a potential rescue mission into an undeniable suicide mission. Even if Karga somehow decides to send a few guild members along to infiltrate the base, it’ll be a war you want to avoid.

Besides. What did you always tell him about running away from him, even when he instructs you to?

It’s just… not really your thing.

---

They’re everywhere.

They crawl like flies out of the base, and for every single body that falls, three more spill from the open doors. Rapid fire plasma beams launch from the end of Din’s blaster, melting white armor with every twitch of his gloved finger. Their aim is terrible, as is to be expected, but the sheer number of them more than makes up for it, as is by design.

Din’s heart pounds with exertion, his breath comes in ragged huffs through the modulator as his helmet identifies and isolates which body is closest to him, which body he needs to bring down next. His blaster is so hot it nearly burns his hand, even through the thick gloves he wears. When he runs out of ammo, he holsters the pistol and swings his rifle from around his shoulder, spinning to catch a handful of troopers behind him in the obliterating blast.

He’s not thinking much. He can’t think, even though your safety and that of his son is currently dangling by a thread. If he focuses on that, he’ll be dead before he can even picture your faces. He just reacts, he maims and kills without a single thought in his mind. Blood splatters, screams and sirens blare as he becomes surrounded by more and more troopers. Din can hear the sound of plasma colliding and ricocheting off his armor; every single one of them is a potential injury he could currently have but might not even be able to feel right now.

His helmet starts beeping rapidly and he turns just enough to see, highlighted in bright red on the screen, two enormous artillery turrets slowly rising up out of the roof of the imperial base. He feels a fierce flash of anger burn in his chest, it’s like a lightning strike to his veins.

Din needs to go.

And yet… if he was another man. If he wasn’t a father, or a husband, if he had no family and no attachments like the creed declared he should, he would go. With just a twitch of his fingers, he could be launching into the sky and retreating as far away from this battlefield as he could reasonably get. He’s never been the type to run from a threat, but this isn’t just a threat. Dozens of troopers are gaining on him, they’re trampling their own dead to get within range. Plasma pings off his shoulder, another one hits his back as they flank from behind. He can feel the heat through the sizzling beskar, he can see them surrounding him on all sides, and the propulsion trigger for his jetpack is right there under his wrist.

Din holds his ground and continues firing, he plants his feet firmly to the dirt with only one thought in his mind.

Run, sweet girl. Run.

---

You type in commands to scan for Din’s signal, quickly locating it through the Crest’s computer onboard. Not far from here, three minutes or less. The ship rumbles to life beneath you, slowly lifting off the rocky ground and rotating in place as it hovers. It’s not on autopilot but you feel like you are, you can barely feel your hands as they move the yoke forward and the Crest takes off in the direction of Din’s blinking frequency.

“Tell me about defenses,” you instruct Oshua, restlessly bouncing your leg while the baby coos.

“Two plasma turrets on top of the base,” the quarry quickly answers. “There’s usually guards stationed around the perimeter, but everyone who’s capable will be outside right now.”

Your mouth twists downwards under the mask. Blasters don’t scare you much from this high up, but Din’s armor doesn’t cover every inch of his body, he’s not completely invincible. Doubt churns in your stomach, but you have to stay focused on one task at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed. The turrets, then. “Are they automatic?”

“Manual,” he corrects with a shake of his head.

“Radar?”

“Old. Only engages above fifty meters.”

You eye your altitude and dip the Crest considerably, beginning to weave through the rocky canyons and dodging crumbling cliffs while you travel. “What about ships?”

“None,” Oshua says, “except for a passenger shuttle used for transport. TIEs are flown in the Vesta sector, this base is remote and used for basic training only.”

“Anything else?” You ask, stomach twisting with the knowledge that barely four questions is all you’ve got. You’re planning to drop into an imperial base to save the man you love and you can’t think of a single other question?

The quarry shrugs, and your heart slams, does somersaults in your chest at the mere notion that you could fucking die here. Today, in two minutes or less, you could die here. The child in your lap looking over the ship’s front panel with a quiet determination in his eyes could die here. Din could already be dead—that signal broadcasts his location to this computer regardless of whether he’s still breathing or not. He could already be gone and you’d be flying the baby right into a trap without knowing any differently.

Whelp, you think while taking a deep breath, some strangely calm existential acceptance beginning to flood your soul. If he isn’t dead, he will be soon if you don’t make it to him on time.

You immediately lift your wrist and speak into the communicator. “Mando?” You have no idea if he can hear you, but you need to try anyway. Your voice is still firm, there’s a strength to it you don’t feel in your chest, but it certainly sounds convincing. “I’m coming to get you. Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside. If you can’t, I’ll just… uh. Try to figure something else out.”

That’s it. That’s it, improvise until you don’t have to. Even if you’re lacking confidence, you can at least scrounge up some conviction. Your arms gain feeling again while you veer the Crest through the stony terrain, the familiar reverberations under your feet begin to fill your body with a powerful sense of purpose. Your breaths begin to come steady, every falling rock you see through the transparisteel feels like it drops in slow motion, allowing you to evade them easily. It would normally be stupidly dangerous to fly this low with so many unexpected obstacles and hazards narrowly missing the ship, but considering what you’re flying into, a few boulders seems comical.

“Where’s your helmet?” Oshua asks out of nowhere, and for a second, you don’t think you heard him correctly.

But then it strikes you all at once what he’s attempting to imply, and the sheer lunacy of the thought is enough to make you laugh while you clutch the controls. “I’m not a Mandalorian.”

“You wear the armor of one,” he points out… rather fairly, you have to admit. “You cover your face like one. You have a blaster that fires Philithiorium, a rare and expensive gas native to Mandalore’s stratosphere, and you’re a bounty hunter—”

“I’m not a Mandalorian.” Your words are short and cutting, you have a daunting task to focus on and don’t feel like having small talk right now. “I’m not a bounty hunter, either.”

But then again, Karga made you a member of the Guild, didn’t he? He handed you Oshua’s puck and said this one is for you to find, and you are technically part of a Mandalorian clan. All of this seems like it happened without your knowledge. You may be marrying a Mandalorian, you may wear his armor and mother his child and shoot a blaster with his signet branded into it, but war isn’t in your blood. This robe was a costume when you first made it, this armor was a relic that was restored as a hobby. In a sense, it still feels that way. The mask covering your face lended itself to a temporary surge of bravery earlier, but beyond that, the only thing that’s keeping you moving forward now is your family. The man you love that may or may not be alive right now, the baby holding tight to your leg while the ship sways and weaves through the stony landscape.

Your eyes quickly flick down to the child in your lap, both of his three fingered hands clutching onto the stained fabric of your knee without moving a single inch. He’d know, you tell yourself. If his father is gone, he’d already know somehow. Din is still alive, and he’s counting on you.

---

There’s too many for Din to handle.

They swarmed him, overpowered his endless artillery with massive numbers and there’s nothing he can do anymore. The backs of his knees are kicked from behind and he slams down to the ground with a clatter, his sizzling hot blasters are ripped from him, and Din folds his hands calmly behind his back even as one of the stormtroopers barks out, “Binders,” to another one, who disappears quickly in response. In the meantime, a few of them apparently decide to just attempt holding his arms in place, and their measly combined grip is almost enough to make him roll his eyes under the helmet. These imperial soldiers are even more pitiful than they usually are, but his silent resolve to stall to ensure your escape is enough to keep him stationary and compliant for the time being.

Eventually, a few voices call out from beyond the crowd and there’s some movement from the back. Dozens of troopers with their blasters all pointed at him begin to shuffle to make way, careful to keep their barrels aimed at him while a path slowly forms. The crowd of white parts and a stormtrooper with a singular red pauldron on his right shoulder saunters confidently towards Din as he kneels on the ground.

An officer, he assumes. Conveniently missing from the firefight, the scanner inside his helmet would’ve caught the change in color and Din would’ve made sure to kill him first.

“Well now, what do we have here?” Comes his thin metallic voice through the tinny filter. The officer studies him curiously for a few moments, before slowly looking down by his feet, reaching out one cheap, plastic covered foot to gently nudge the body of a dead trooper on the ground with a sigh. “What a shame.”

Coward, he thinks, his lip curling with disgust under the helmet.

“This is an imperial training base,” he turns his attention back to Din to inform him when he doesn’t immediately respond, rather stupidly he might add. “How were you able to find us?”

Silence. The grip on hands held behind his back is even looser now. He just tilts his chin up slightly in defiance, the scanner inside his helmet locating each weapon strapped to the man’s body and highlighting it red. Small text boxes blink into existence under each one with a manufacturer and classification—a BlasTech E-11 rifle, a Merr-Sonn thermal detonator, a Kolvo vibroblade—and Din is severely unimpressed with the quality. The detonator is the only weapon that even catches his eye, and that’s only because the chamber inside that houses the explosive baradium has a release mechanism that’s completely dead. Useless, then. Good to know.

After a long moment of quiet tension where Din refuses to speak and the officer continues to confidently scrutinize him, in some strange sort of silent battle of egos that only one seems to have a genuine interest in, another stormtrooper makes his way to the front, shoving past his fellow soldiers to address the superior in charge.

“Commander, we’ve sent out an alert for an intruder,” he tells him, slightly out of breath from running through the crowd in the lightweight armor. Din wants to roll his eyes, but what he says next makes him snap to immediate attention. “The fleet informed us that Moff Gideon is currently on route.”

Gideon. The last time someone spoke that name, it was a quarry on Coruscant and you just barely managed to stop Din from suffocating the bastard for even saying it aloud before freezing him in carbonite. It would’ve meant half the return on a hunt that lasted nearly a month but he saw red and his hand was crushing his windpipe before he realized what happened. But he’s dead, Din thinks with a clenched jaw and fists tightening behind his back, he watched that TIE fighter explode and slam into the ground, crushing the man inside it. The wreck was unsurvivable, he can’t be alive.

“For what? This Mandalorian?” The trooper in charge scoffs in response, and Din remains completely mute.

“Yes, sir,” the other one confirms. “Orders were to capture him, alive.”

“Hm.” The officer turns his attention back to him, less analyzing and more musing while he tilts his head. “I see,” he eventually says, and he sounds like he’s grinning, before strolling slightly closer as Din stays completely still on his knees. “He must want the beskar. I’m sure it’s worth more than this entire battalion combined.”

All of a sudden, a gloved hand carelessly catches the rim of his helmet and tugs, and Din’s movement is explosive. He launches off the ground, arms easily slipping from the pathetic grip they were being held in and his fist colliding with the side of the officer’s flimsy white helmet, the plastic making a deafening crack against his face.

Multiple hands immediately rush forward to grab him and yank him back down again while the commanding trooper stumbles backwards in shock, and Din amicably drops to his knees and folds his hands behind his back once more like nothing happened at all.

“Binders!” A trooper behind him roars loudly once more, and a few men surrounding him begin trotting away this time.

The officer in red stands a few feet away from him now, grabbing his helmet and twisting it back to its proper position on his head where it was skewed. There’s a shattered hole near his jaw where the material splintered and busted like the cheap piece of banthashit it is, and while he might normally feel pleased with himself for being able to see his skin peeking through, it just fills him with more righteous fury. It’s such a punchable jaw.

After a few awkward moments of silence, the other one clears his throat and continues. “He… has inquired about the location and status of a child that should be accompanying him.”

Din inhales deeply through his nose and grinds his teeth. He wants to snap their necks one by one for even just mentioning his son, but there are just too many, more than even his whistling birds can neutralize. Still, he gave you as much of a head start as physically possible. You should be rising into the atmosphere right now, making the jump into hyperspace towards safety. Karga will know what to do—he’ll protect his family, separate you and the boy so the threat is evenly dispersed instead of collected all in one place, and arm dozens of trained hunters to keep watch over you both individually. It’s the best Din can do, and it’s the only thing keeping his knees planted on the ground and his body completely motionless while they continue speaking.

“We are combing the sector for a ship with as many men as we can afford to lose,” the trooper in red says, but his voice filter is shattered and now sounds like a puny little droid with a broken voice box, “but our numbers are unimpressive. Assistance may be required.”

It’s too late, Din thinks, mouth twitching under the beskar with a satisfied smirk. They’re wasting their time, looking for a ghost. You’re both long gone by now. They’ve got no idea you even exist—

“He also spoke of a girl.”

And then he feels his heart stop in his chest. Every single cell in his body turns to fire, it’s a fucking miracle he doesn’t move a muscle in response. His sweet girl, the one so far removed from the nightmare of the Empire that she made best friends with the orphans of it. How the fuck did he know? He shouldn’t even be breathing, let alone gathering information about you, how did he know?

But then Din thinks back, remembering your makeshift bed on the floor, your panicked eyes and heaving chest as the quarry taunted him with a sick little smile. Who’s this, Mando? She’s just darling, isn’t she? Does Gideon know your crew has a lovely new addition?

“A girl?”

The trooper nods. “Moff Gideon insisted that if the Mandalorian did not have a child with him, then a girl would likely be protecting him instead.”

He’s going to kill them, Din decides. Every single one of these imperial pigs, every single soldier standing right now is a dead fucking man. The blood pumping through his body suddenly turns to acid, deadly black hate poisoning his soul. His heartbeat morphs into a war drum, the armor strapped to his limbs is the barrel of a gun. He’s going to fucking kill them and leave an imperial base full of bodies to greet his old nemesis upon his return, and he’s going to enjoy every single second of it.

Except, then—

“Mando?” The sweetest voice in existence suddenly crackles through the earpiece under his helmet. “I’m coming to get you. Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside. If you can’t, I’ll just… uh. Figure something else out.”

And, as Din kneels there in surrender, surrounded by a crowd of enemies he thought he destroyed long ago, all the anger—all the fury and defiance and murder surging through his veins—suddenly morphs to fear.

The emotion is so foreign and old to him, it feels like a face he barely recognizes and a name he can’t remember. He’s panicked before. He’s been in situations where a threat has made him blind with rage, he knows what it’s like to look death straight in the eyes and say that he’s busy and to come back another time. This is different. This is ice cold that freezes over beskar.

He can’t speak out loud to warn you—he can’t move his hands to press the button on the back of his helmet and allow him to talk without detection. There’s plasma turrets on the roof of the base, he can see them right now. The helmet’s scanners say they’re manned and engaged, and though he is outside and this is how you retrieved him before whenever he needed a quick escape, he has fifty fucking imperial blasters trained on him and you know absolutely nothing about this threat. You’re flying right into a war zone and if either you or his son dies, he won’t ever be able to forgive himself.

Behind the helmet, his eyes fly to each and every trooper, wondering which blaster will be the one to do it. Which weapon is going to be the one he can’t block in time when you descend, the one that’ll kill him right in front of you. Which turret will be the one to obliterate the Crest with you and his son inside of it.

“Maker, where are those fucking binders—” he hears someone behind him snarl, but the white noise of pure terror roaring through his ears drowns them out. His chest starts heaving against his will, sheer panic begins to blur his vision. For the first time in his life, his armor feels too heavy, his lungs feel like one of these boulders are sitting on them instead of beskar.

All too soon, his helmet starts making a familiar sound that signals quietly in his ear, alerting him of an incoming ship, and the only thing he can physically do is count down the seconds to prepare himself for what is to come.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

Like lightning, Din breaks the grip of multiple troopers and surges up, tackling the officer in red to the ground. There’s a clatter as they both slam into the rocky floor, but in the ensuing scuffle, he easily snatches the thermal detonator from his side holster and holds it up for everyone to see, before pressing the red button on the front and hearing it begin to beep rapidly.

---

You’re right on time.

The Crest rises up through the rocky cliffs surrounding the base and you spot the turrets you were warned about. Weapons controls are already engaged and you’re too low to be detected by radar—you fire once, twice, and blast both of them to smithereens from behind before they can even rotate around to target you.

Alarms start wailing but the guns are destroyed. It’s not comforting, though; blasters won’t touch you up here, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fire at Din on the ground. Your eyes dart across the sea of white, looking for a flash of silver anywhere, and then you spot him instantly in the chaos.

For some reason, the troopers in his vicinity all seem to be bolting away from him. Their rifles are down, clutched in their hands while they nearly fall over each other to run away as fast as possible, and your heart soars when you spot his jetpack firing up. Din launches into the sky while another trooper is revealed underneath him, seeming to juggle something in his hands and then throw it into the crowd of retreating soldiers, but the sight of the man you love rising into the air while a flurry of blaster shots from the far edges of the imperial structure follow him gives you the confidence to immediately turn the guns down towards the horde of troopers.

“Which ones are in charge?” You ask Oshua breathlessly, who leans forward and points out the transparisteel.

“Red pauldrons—” he barely has time to say it before you aim and fire at one of the troopers wearing red that was closest to Din, the plasma beam launching from the Crest so powerful and devastating that it outright obliterates the surface he’s laying on. Pieces of shattered armor fly and a smoking crater of rubble is all that’s left behind, but your mind is whirling and you’re already onto someone else wearing red at the edges of the complex, and then two more near the doors, and then another—

To their credit, you think the sixty or so soldiers in training seem to figure out that you’re not aiming into the enormous collection of them. If you were, the damage would be catastrophic and spraying everywhere, but you’re precise and meticulous with your shots, and the only ones who are loyal enough to the cause to hold still and raise their blasters at the incoming threat tend to be the ones you need to mow down anyways. The rest of them scatter in all directions, scrambling over each other to escape and then disappearing into the distant boulders surrounding the base—but you notice that not a single one of them runs back inside the safety of its open doors.

The hull dips with the weight of Din dropping in, and relief floods your soul even as you continue raining hell down on the superiors in charge. Any flash of color you see is a target, your eyes lose focus of everything, your vision blurs and turns monochrome as you just search for red.

“Lift up!” You hear Din’s voice roar from the hull. You can hear his rifle unloading through the open door. “Now! We have to go now!”

You press the button to shut the hull door with Din inside and punch it, rising so fast that the shove of gravity makes it difficult to keep your head up. Through the sudden surge of downward force, you just barely manage to raise your incredibly heavy arm to push the button that pressurizes the Crest and ignites the launch boosters, preparing the vessel for space travel. Outside the transparisteel, the gray sky begins darkening as the atmosphere eventually disappears. The ship’s engines roar, burning so much fuel at once that you’re actually accelerating through the climb, you’re boosting through the gradual ease of gravity as the planet’s curvature and glow becomes softer and softer below you.

As soon as the blackness of space begins to fill the windows, the slight subsiding of force allows you to plug in the coordinates for Nevarro with less difficulty, but you’re still moving, still rising, still escaping. You can’t find it within yourself to slow down, but then something catches your attention.

Claws suddenly dig sharp into your thigh, sharp enough to sting and cause you to wince, and you look down to see that the kid has gone incredibly tense. Deadly tense. Your heart is still pounding even though you’re away from danger, you’ve got Din in the hull, everyone is safe, and yet—

It flickers into existence all at once. One second it’s just space, just the endless depths of nothingness spread out for light years in front of you, and within the blink of an eye it’s suddenly there.

A star destroyer.

Your body freezes in horrified awe, having never seen a ship so fucking big in your entire life. It looks like a massive satellite, the size of an enormous asteroid instantly appearing in your vision and dwarfing the vastness of space around it. All the stars you used to dream about are suddenly blotted out within a fraction of a second, terror so immense seizes your soul that you stop thinking. You stop calculating, you stop being yourself for a split second that lasts an entire lifetime.

Before you can move a single muscle, the computer beeps quickly and lurches the Crest into hyperspace.

---

The stars streak across the transparisteel like so many times before. Utter silence nearly deafens you with how abrupt it is after so much noise, but the peace it used to bring does nothing to quell your fear. Everything is the same as it always was, same bursts of light as you hurdle faster than it towards Nevarro, same quiet, same rumbling hum of the ship. But now, everything has changed.

You hear the quarry next to you suddenly inhale and exhale loudly, and it shocks you a little bit, reminds you that there’s a person next to you and another is on your lap. Other people exist outside of the vision of death that just flickered out of existence just as quickly as it appeared. They’re breathing, Oshua is shakily unbuckling his seatbelt, life is continuing on in the quiet cockpit but you can’t seem to move like he is. You can’t seem to breathe like he is. It’s only when the baby slowly maneuvers himself around on your thigh and blinks up at you, placing a tiny hand on your stomach that you finally feel air enter your lungs.

After a moment, you reach down and click open your seatbelt with trembling fingers, scooping the kid up in your arms and slowly attempting to stand. Everything feels wobbly and dreamlike, you have to brace yourself on the headrest to prevent yourself from falling back into the chair again.

“That was…” Ryler mutters, his voice sounding foggy and distant, “uh. A close one.”

You look over at him, recognizing that he’s speaking but not quite able to understand the words right now. Red catches in your vision, and you blink down at the way he’s clutching his left shoulder, the smear of blood darkening the white armor he’s wearing. You blink a few more times at the sight of it, and though it feels like you normally would be sickened at the wound, somehow shocked out of your state of shock, it does nothing to you. When you look back up at his face, his expression seems strangely grateful, even when it’s screwed up in what you know must be excruciating pain. You did that, a quiet voice whispers in your mind, even though the rest of it seems incredibly blank.

Instead of responding, you stumble a few steps over to the ladder, spinning around and hesitating for a moment. You’re severely lacking in coherent thought, but one thing seems to break through. You’re not sure if you have enough coordination to do this safely right now. However, when there’s movement in your peripheral and you look to see Oshua gently offering his right arm to you, seeming to understand you’d like to use both hands for this, you snap back to your senses just the slightest bit and hug the baby tighter to your chest. Carefully, you begin making the slow climb down the ladder with the kid, still trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline. Your limbs feel extra heavy, but eventually the floor meets your feet.

Din is standing there when you slowly turn around, armor gleaming and still as a statue, but he has his back to you. His helmet is tilted down at the ground, and when you follow his gaze, you’re met with the sight of the bloodstains of dragged bodies that leave dark red streaks all the way up the ramp.

You feel something this time. It’s… cold. A burning, searing cold that creeps into your skin. Like your heart decides to pump nitrogen through your chest instead of warm blood. You did that.

There’s a sudden urge inside of you to speak, to address him and inform him of your presence, tell him everything is okay, everything worked out, but you can’t find it in yourself to say a single word. You can’t find a single word to say. The kid twists as best he can in your clutch, his ears drag against your chest to greet his father, but for some reason, there’s still a strange sense of fear in your bones. It’s enough to wake you up slightly, it’s enough to tell you it’s not over yet. There’s a terror in your heart that hasn’t left since he first called over the comm and begged you to run, a crippling dread that you thought climaxed after seeing that star destroyer appear, but it’s somehow only increased after laying eyes on him like this.

You watch as his helmet turns, slowly meeting the pauldron on his shoulder, and for some reason, you feel yourself harden. Your feet brace against the metal floor like this is another threat you have to face, you let its unyielding metallic strength transfer up through the souls of your boots to your heart in your chest.

But the second you hear cheap white armor clatter as the quarry steps down the ladder behind you, Din bursts into movement. He suddenly spins and storms up to you in one single step while catching your holstered blaster on your hip. It’s out and aimed in the blink of an eye, and it’s a miracle you remember how to speak before he remembers how to kill.

“Mando—” you warn, just in time for the quarry to land on the floor of the hull and turn around to reveal his face.

Din holds there for a second, his helmet locked on Oshua’s features. His gloved fingers twitch wildly on the trigger of your gun held over your shoulder, like he has to remind himself multiple times not to. You hear Oshua’s armor clack while he likely raises one good arm in surrender, but then Din’s helmet moves a fraction of a millimeter to your face and holds there. He just stares down at you, and the air feels heavy, your body feels heavy, the feather light child in your arms feels heavy.

Slowly, he lowers his arm, lets it fall while he continues looking at you from behind the visor. You look back at him, unblinking, unfeeling, and there’s a few seconds that last an utter eternity where nobody moves. Nobody speaks, nothing happens, but then a soft coo comes from your arms before you can finally break eye contact, knowing there are still some things that need to be done.

You eventually turn around and lift your chin to address Oshua.

“You have to go into carbonite,” you inform him quietly. Your voice sounds strange, like it’s coming from outside of yourself. “We’re taking you to Nevarro, and then you’ll be transported to your home planet. When they unfreeze you, your sister will be there to collect you.”

He looks uncertain, one hand still raised while the other hangs uselessly at his side, and you don’t blame him.

But you also don’t feel like saying anymore, not unless he decides he doesn’t want to go in willingly. Normally you might’ve tried to empathize, offer him further reassurance beyond just a couple short sentences, but you don’t. Speaking feels difficult, thinking feels difficult. You’re still in survival mode, not active but reactive. There’s also no reason for you to lie to him about this, and you can see him glance at Din standing silently behind you, who hasn’t moved a muscle.

He eventually nods and you walk him over to the chamber without another word, watch him turn to face you as he backs into the opening while you reach up towards the control panel.

But then there’s a moment. One where you hesitate slightly, one where your vision flashes back to the sight of those bloodstains on the floor, and that burning cold fills you again, so cold it feels completely numb.

“I’m… sorry,” you whisper quietly to him, though your voice sounds so empty. There’s so much emotion that should be there but isn’t, so much regret and pain that should break through but can’t. “I’m sorry I… killed your friends.”

Later, you’ll think about how you felt absolutely nothing saying it. Your heart doesn’t constrict with remorse at the mere words leaving your mouth, guilt doesn’t flood into your soul, pain doesn’t wrack through your bones. You could’ve been saying anything at all and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

He blinks at you, flicking his eyes between yours for a second or two, but then you press the proper button and watch the gas quickly freeze him where he stands. He’ll be conscious the entire time, but Karga will send him to the correct location and you have no doubt that this elemental purgatory is leagues better than where he just escaped from. It’s a benefit being the last quarry to be retrieved—he’ll only have to spend a few days trapped in here before being reunited with his family.

When that’s done and Oshua is a complete statue in front of you, bulky white armor now colored a dull metallic gray and frozen in time, you will yourself to finally turn around to face the enormous mountain of a presence behind you. The baby gently reaches out for him, but Din doesn’t move from where he’s stood. Your blaster is still clutched tightly in his hand, and he isn’t looking at you.

Slowly, you walk over and stop directly in front of him in the middle of the hull, blinking at him while the helmet subtly moves to lock onto your face. The kid begins wiggling in your arms, making soft impatient noises while you both stand in complete silence across from each other.

After a few moments, you hear him flick your blaster’s safety on by his side and then toss it carelessly to the ground. It skids along the floor, light enough to be mostly quiet. Gloves reach out as he carefully takes the kid from you and settles him in the crook of one arm, and then he looks you up and down, still not saying anything.

Your eyes follow his movement, watching his arm slowly reaching out to you, and you think he’s going to cup your jaw, or brush your hair back. Give you some sort of physical reassurance since he hasn’t spoken a single word of it.

Instead, Din suddenly grabs the armor clinging to your chest and starts ripping it off you with one hand. It clangs to the floor so loudly in the silence of hyperspace, the kid’s ears twitch and flutter with each shattering bang. You hold still while he does it, you barely respond except the unavoidable movement your body experiences as the pauldron is yanked from your shoulder and thrown against the ground. The ammo belt is tugged over your head and hurled away, the thigh braces are snatched from your legs and they clang to the floor, and the pearly, opalescent fabric revealed underneath is stained in dead man’s blood, rusty and in such great quantities that it shows up as brown instead of red.

“Are you hurt?”

He sounds… dead. So monotonic that you can’t possibly gauge his emotional state. He doesn’t move. His fists don’t clench, he says every single word like it means the same exact thing as the last. If nothing at all was a person who could speak, they’d use his tone of voice.

“No,” you eventually whisper.

The helmet nods once, and then he spins around and walks away without anything else. Without saying anything, without touching you, or double checking you for injuries in case you were lying. You stand utterly still while Din climbs the ladder with the kid cradled in one arm, and you don’t even flinch when the door to the cockpit slides shut behind him. You have no idea how long you stand there in the splitting silence afterwards, numb and unmoving.

You feel… nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The hard defenses you strapped to yourself today to reconcile the things you had to do are still high and strong, guarding your soul even if he stripped away your physical armor. Self preservation is still animating your body, and your facial expression barely changes. Your first thought, as soon as you remember that you can have one, is that there are things that still need to be done. Tasks to complete.

Alone, you shower the lingering traces of blood off your body, the normally clear and refreshing water running a sickly, toxic brown. Alone, your stomach rolls and suddenly decides to empty itself of the very little that was in it as the scalding drops rain down over you—mostly liquid and bile that easily rinses down the drain. The water is too warm, it beats down on you like blazing hot sand pelting your skin in the desert. You feel like you did those first few months with Din, where the silence was suffocating, where you’d only interact with the baby if he was on a hunt or if you could tell he didn’t know how to calm him when he was fussy. If you were in hyperspace, you usually spent time by yourself in the hull while he lived in the cockpit, and if he decided he needed to be in the hull for whatever reason, then you’d trade places with him. It was… isolating. Lonely by yourself. The quiet used to haunt you before it became your cherished friend, but now it’s a betrayer, a ghost that whispers memories and nightmares in your ears.

When you finally finish rinsing the blood from your skin and get dressed, you see the sheets that used to make up your bed now have fried holes in them from your charred plasma marks, the inside of the hull is covered in them and the trails of dried blood where you dragged the bodies down the ramp. Your armor is still strewn about the hull, the kid’s hovering shield lays dead in the corner. Everything you meticulously cleaned and organized and collected and created, now the scene of a bloodbath. One committed by your hand, your blaster still laying uselessly on the floor forever linked to this atrocity.

You spare a glance towards the ladder, but you don’t want to come face to face with Din yet. You already knew he’d be furious, but… you had hoped that he’d at least…

What? At least what? Comfort you? Coddle you after you deliberately ignored his instructions? What exactly, in the past year or so of learning Din’s inner workings and intricacies, would ever give you the impression that he’d come give you a big hug after you purposefully defied him? You flew the kid directly into an imperial base after being told to protect him, you ignored every order he gave to you in the moments he thought would be his last, and though you did it to save his life, you have a feeling that Din has never valued his life even a fraction of what you do.

The misery stabs at your soul, but your mind is finally beginning to process things logically. He’s alive, the kid is alive, the quarry is secure, and you’re all onboard the safety of this ship hurtling through hyperspace where nobody, not even the Empire, can touch you. You weighed the consequences before making your decision, you did what you had to do. If he wants to be mad, then he can fucking well be mad and you’ll find some way to comfort yourself. At least he’s here being mad, at least he’s alive and safe and breathing and mad, and your rare act of disobedience is to thank for that.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realize it’s probably easier than it should be to reconcile the punishment. Right now, you welcome the exclusion, the negativity and sorrow beating itself into your soul. Four innocent people died today on this ship, gunned down under your blaster while they panicked and ran for cover. You keep hearing their screams.

So you start to clean up the hull, needing another task to focus your thoughts on. You work to erase every inch of the evidence of your deeds, make it disappear like the pool of blood Din once cleaned up while you were sleeping and never acknowledged again. You only allow the bloodstains to fuck with your head for a single moment, and then you swallow back the nausea until you’re a blank slate again and sink to your knees with a rag in your hand. After that, your vision stops focusing and it just becomes red contrasting against gunmetal gray, and you work tirelessly to get rid of all remaining traces of it.

Then you start on the blaster marks, you need them gone. After a few informed attempts at mixing cleaning chemicals, you find one concoction that allows you to wipe them away like they’re nothing more than dirt that got tracked in. The Crest’s oxygen recycling system works overdrive to constantly purify the air so you don’t get high or pass out, but your nose still stings. It’s fine, it’s sterile, it burns a bit but it smells sharp and metallic and keeps you hyper focused on the task at hand.

After that’s done, you pick up the charred blankets and ball them up to throw into the trash vent. You don’t feel anything as you do it. You don’t think about how long it took you to collect these over months and months of being stuck on this ship, how comfortable they were when everything else was industrial and rigid, how many nights you spent with Din curled up in their softness while he breathed easy and warm. Sheets are just luxuries, they can afford to be lost.

Next, you gather your armor and wipe it down with the rag, put it away along with your blaster. The stained robe goes in the trash, along with the sheets and the blood soaked cloth you used to clean everything. They’re all ruined, you’ll never be able to make them right again.

The hull is sparkling clean when you decide to take another shower. Nothing on you is dirty except your hands, but you feel filthy. Wrong, cold, numb, cold, stained, cold.

After scrubbing your skin raw under the water and changing clothes again, since you don’t really know what to do with yourself anymore, you slowly climb the ladder to the cockpit, keeping perfectly silent. When you reach the upper platform and come face to face with the closed door, you can just barely hear Din’s whispered voice speaking quietly to the baby beyond it.

You raise your hand for a moment, hovering your knuckles over the metal, but then it eventually falls. Instead, you look over and spot the corner, the same corner Din bunched himself into when he snapped at you for even suggesting going on a hunt with him, blew up at you for the mere notion of something happening like what happened today. You back yourself into it in defeat and slowly sink down on the floor, resting your head against the metal and hugging your knees to your chest since you don’t have a tiny baby to take their place.

You can’t sleep. You don’t even try, it’s pointless. The concept feels foreign the longer you sit here by yourself. You don’t hear Din or the baby anymore, but you feel… so fucking awful that it’s fitting that you don’t knock or go looking. You don’t want to hold that sweet child with hands that were covered in blood just a few hours ago. You killed more people than you can count on your fingers today, and of the ones who had done nothing wrong… They screamed like younglings, ducked for cover and were able to fire off one single useless shot in the mayhem before you closed their eyes forever and left their bodies to rot in armor that wasn’t ever their choice to wear.

You didn’t know they were kidnapped and smuggled and forced into that situation. You couldn’t have known, but that isn’t the point. In this case, knowing doesn’t make one bit of difference.

You also can’t face Din yet, not like this. You don’t want him to see you cowering, shattered with guilt over the decisions you made under pressure. How will you ever get him to forgive you for not listening to him when you can’t even forgive yourself for the result of your choices? Din is a hardened man who grew up in blasterfire and bloodshed, just because you love him doesn’t mean he’s going to magically become someone he isn’t. You’re here letting guilt sink sharp claws into your chest over four dead men when he had a good fifty or more corpses scattered on the battlefield around him. You decided to wear that armor, you decided to fly into an imperial base with the kid on your lap, and this is now your penance. You’ll accept it with your back straight and your chin held high.

Figuratively, of course. Physically, you’re smaller than you’ve ever been. Crumpled up into a ball, taking up as little space as possible, curling up as tight as you can like an animal protecting all your vulnerable parts during a brutal attack.

So, since he isn’t here to comfort you himself, you just try to think about what he would tell you. A long time ago, what would he tell you?

Din would tell you… that you killed someone. Multiple people, this time. He’d also tell you that it doesn’t matter what he tells you, what you could have reasonably foreseen or what you should have done. The end result won’t change. You own this now. You’ll carry their deaths with you.

You take a few deep breaths, self-soothing with the undeniable truth that would be murmured matter of factly from his quiet voice. He wouldn’t argue with you. He wouldn’t deny the decisions you made or the consequences of them. It happened, and at the end of the day, you either learn how to handle that, or you don’t.

And, for the four you did shoot, you were responsible for freeing ten times that amount. You’re responsible for reuniting Oshua Ryler with his family, even if your place in yours is momentarily shunned. You’d rather be out here alone than in there with the kid, wondering where his dad is or if he’s even still alive. You rescued Din and now he gets to be here to shut this door on you, hold his son, and whisper calm reassurances to him. If you listen really hard and imagine, you can pretend they’re for you, too.

That’s it. Focus on them both, alive and well together. Focus on the bodies wearing white armor that were moving, the ones that were bolting away from the imperial training base as fast as they could, free from the torture of imprisonment and conditioning.

Finally, you close your eyes and slip into unconsciousness. It’s not a testament to your exhaustion, but rather just how long you’ve been left to sit here by yourself. Hours, maybe. Time is strange in hyperspace.

You dream of a faceless man ringing bells.

---

When you wake up, a small baby has been placed in your arms, and you’re being dragged into a strong, secure beskar hold on the floor.

“Din,” you suddenly lift your head as soon as you’re conscious and nearly bonk it into solid metal, apologies rising in your throat before you even remember where you are. You did what needed to be done to keep your family alive and together and you’d do it a thousand times again if necessary, but that doesn’t mean you won’t apologize anyways. After the deeds you’ve committed today, regret feels as natural on your lips as speaking your own name. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know you’re mad at me but I—”

“Shh,” he whispers, running his gloves through your hair. He’s still wearing his helmet, he hasn’t taken anything off yet. “Don’t say anything. Just… stay here, stay right here with me.”

“I tried to save you,” you croak, tears instantly flooding your eyes. You did save him. You saved him and the baby and yourself but you’re so physically and emotionally exhausted that all you can recall is your intent. “I tried. Wasn’t gonna leave you there by yourself. I tried to be brave, like you—y-you wouldn’t have left without me.”

His arms tighten around you, cradling you in such a strong embrace that you burrow into him, you find a place for your head on the hard metal strapped to him and bury yourself there, wishing that you had shovels of dirt being piled on you to justify the death you still feel staining your soul. Your heart is starting to pound now that you’re remembering, your body is starting to shake with tremors of shock now that you’re aware of your own skin again.

“I was so sc-scared, Din, I didn’t—didn’t know what was happening,” you lament through watery eyes, gasping it out in hopes that it’ll relieve the slightest bit of the gut wrenching guilt just mercilessly crushing you. It caught you before you could protect yourself against it, that armor you built around yourself isn’t on when you first wake up. “I-I didn’t want to kill them, but they were already on the ship and y-you said—you said they were coming after the kid s-so I had to, I had to—”

“Stop,” Din whispers, voice so quiet that you can barely hear him.

“I-I cleaned up the blood,” you turn your face against the cold beskar to let all the positives you listed for yourself before scrape across your throat. They don’t sound comforting anymore, they just sound like excuses. “It’s gone, it’s like it never happened, everything is okay now, I got the quarry, I protected the baby, I saved a bunch of people, you’re both safe—”

“Stop,” he chokes out. The modulator cuts off before you can hear his next breath, but you feel it shudder under your body. “St-Stop it, please.”

Your eyes clench shut so tightly you feel like the streaking stars outside are behind them, tears drop down against his pauldron and you press your face tighter to it like it’s a wound, like the pressure will somehow ease the bleeding.

“Listen to me,” he says very quietly, and you instantly brace yourself. The walls you just let down shoot right back up, your body physically tightens in preparation for another pain, another trauma, another scar you’ll carry, and you stop shaking. You stop breathing, even when his hand comes up to ease your face away from his armor.

“You,” he whispers, holding your chin so you’re staring right at him, and your eyes flick fearfully in between his behind the visor, “are a sweet girl.” Din’s leather thumb brushes along your skin, dragging over the tears below your puffy eyes. “Not,” his voice catches, “a Mandalorian.”

Your heart goes cold. Again, everything turns numb. It doesn’t matter that you already said this yourself out loud earlier today. It doesn’t matter that you acknowledged this fact, verbally insisted it more than once to hammer home the truth and felt some sense of comfort in it. For some reason, hearing the words from his mouth is a fucking knife to your chest.

“I taught you how to fight, how to shoot a blaster,” he murmurs, thumb catching every single tear that continues to fall as he speaks. “I taught you everything I know, everything that’s been taught to me. I taught you how to defend yourself, how to protect yourself when you’re in danger. I gave you your blaster, I gave you my armor, I gave you everything I could give you to keep you safe. And when I thought you were ready, I let you loose on Sanctuary II. Do you know why I did that?” The helmet tips forward the slightest bit at the question, probing deep into the most shattered part of your heart. “After all those months of fighting, and shooting, and training, do you know why I told you to run?”

You blink silently at him, a shaky breath quaking through you, and your expression wants to crumple under the reprimand. You’re so fragile right now, taking hit after hit after hit to the softest parts inside you, and you want to just give up. Let the guilt and remorse take you, let it wash you away. But then, instead…

There’s a flicker of something inside you. Something strong, endlessly strong, and it makes you want to revolt against what he’s saying. It replaces the hurt and fear and desperation for comfort with a strange sense of insurgence, like it did earlier when you were hiding behind a boulder, cowering and trembling and not wanting to die. You’re filled with a quiet urge to defend yourself in the face of this, stand up for yourself and refuse to be beaten down any longer.

“Because you needed to know how to escape danger,” he answers himself when you don’t. “You needed to know how to disappear, how to outsmart any pursuer and find safety, even the trained ones. Especially the trained ones. Anything else was meant to be your last resort. Not your choice. Not something you chose.”

“I couldn’t leave you,” you admit to him quietly, voice shaky and tears still coming even as you try to speak up for yourself. The regret you carry has nothing to do with this, and you decide right now that you won’t feel bad for saving him. Your hurt comes from the meaningless things, the ones without any need whatsoever, not the necessary ones, and you tried. You repeated his words to yourself over and over again, told yourself to run, told yourself to get to Nevarro, and it wasn’t going to happen. “I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was,” he tells you. He says it softly, whispers it like it’s the gentlest thing in the world, but the power and inherent distance of the armor strapped to his body finds its way into the words. “And it was the wrong one.”

“What was I supposed to do?” You ask, just a hint of that rebellion swimming to the surface now, rising out of the waves of self doubt, the one that feels like a spine growing in your back, an energy coursing through your veins that makes your heart start to beat faster. Din’s hand slowly drops from your cheek but you don’t care. “Was I supposed to run away and just let you die?”

“Yes.” It’s quick and blunt and completely emotionless. Delivered like a punch to the vulnerable parts of yourself he taught you how to protect, and the utter silence following this single word is comparable to the physical pain you learned to defend against. It jabs hard against everything good and sweet and tender inside of you, and you’re left speechless even as he continues impassively. “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”

It takes a second, but then that unfamiliar feeling suddenly surges up, breaches with the power of an entire ocean. Your voices may be nothing more than whispers in the dark, you may be clinging to each other, holding each other with the softest, gentlest love in your hearts, but the strength of your conviction on this would rip metal apart.

“No.” The word holds the might of your entire being, and it stands alone and defiant in the face of everything you fear, everything that threatens you, him, and this child. Never. You’ll die before that happens. “I love you, and there’s nothing in this galaxy that would ever make me do that. Not fear, not danger, not the Empire, nothing. Not even you.”

Din stares at you. His visor reflects your hardened expression back to you, the force in your soul and the purpose in your eyes, and you don’t even realize the gravity of what you just said because like your love for him, gravity is a constant. It’s a fundamental truth cemented into the rules that govern your actions and it stays true no matter where you are, no matter what terror you face, or how scared you become. You have him, you have this little boy in your arms, and if that’s all you have, then you have everything.

After an eternity of this, of feeling his eyes pierce deep into you from behind the helmet while you refuse to wither under his stare, you watch him slowly turn and look down, landing on the sleepy child tucked between you both. He holds there for a long time, before finally whispering, so quiet that the modulator barely picks it up, “It was the wrong choice.”

You stay quiet. It happened. What’s done is done, you can’t change the past. He can scold and reprimand you about this as much as he wants, but you did the right thing and that decision is the only reason he’s even here to be able to do so. This exhausted child was reunited with his father because of your choices, and this exhausted father was reunited with his child. You won’t argue anymore, but it’s a certitude that lives deep in your heart now, builds a home there right alongside the both of them. Din eventually looks up, his eyes find yours again behind the visor, and his hand rises once more to gently cup your jaw.

“I… thought I’d enjoy seeing you in my armor,” Din finally whispers. It’s not what you expected, but his voice sounds… weak. Broken. “You wore mine once before, and it was…” He brushes his thumb along your cheek, and then his head shakes slightly, pushing the thought away. “It wasn’t real. It didn’t fit. It dwarfed you, it made you look out of place, it made everything soft and innocent about you stand out. I liked it because it wasn’t real.”

“Was it… really that bad?” You whisper back, partially to ease the tension just slightly but quickly breaking eye contact with him when you realize it doesn’t land correctly, it just sounds self conscious and sad. You try to find that conviction again, that strength and assurance that propped you up so sturdily before, but… Not a Mandalorian, he’d said. Of course not. Of course not.

“It wasn’t the armor.” Din gently tugs up on your face so that you look at him again. “It was you covered in blood. It was you purposefully putting yourself in danger. You killed multiple armed soldiers of the Empire, you dragged their bodies off the ship. And then you flew into an imperial base, where you killed the officers, too. You…” He shakes his head slowly at you while speaking, and although you can’t see his face, you don’t need to in order to hear the horror in his voice. “You… collected a quarry… in the middle of a massacre, sweet girl.”

Not a Mandalorian.

“You don’t chase down bounties,” he tells you. “You don’t fly into war zones. You don’t kill imperials, you don’t collect quarries, you don’t sacrifice yourself, or our son, to save me. You said you tried to be brave… like me.” His fingers tighten against your cheek, he dips his helmet to make sure you understand. “I’ll never ask you to be brave. I’ll ask you to survive.”

“I’m… sorry,” you finally whisper, and his arm drops from your cheek to join the other in wrapping around you and holding tight. They hug you and squeeze, encasing you and the baby in a beskar shield and staying there for a long time. Long enough for you to tuck your head back into its proper place under his helmet, long enough to start to feel okay with the silence again. It brutalized you the last time you were surrounded by it, it made you feel alone and desolate and barren inside. You greet it warily now, settling into it for an unknown amount of time until it’s forgiven once more.

After a while, Din quietly breaks it.

“How many?” He murmurs to you. You already know exactly what he’s asking, there's no more clarification necessary on his behalf.

You slowly close your eyes and think back to the smoldering craters, the blood soaked ramp, the fear in Oshua Ryler’s eyes as he begged you not to kill him.

“That didn’t deserve it?” You ask, clenching your eyes tighter at the memory. “Four.”

And maybe, maybe six or eight months ago, you would’ve begged for some guidance on how to reconcile that. Hell, maybe a few hours ago, you could’ve used his arms around you exactly like this, his low voice repeating the same things he’s already told you before, over and over again, if only for some semblance of stability when everything feels turbulent and uncertain. You’ll never be able to change it, though. This belongs to you now.

This time, all Din says is, “I’m sorry, too.”

And that covers everything.

The silence envelops you both again, but… there’s something else. Something that still sits deep in your worries, an image that isn’t a scar of what’s happened but a dread of what’s to come. You need to tell him. You don’t feel like saying it, you don’t want to speak it aloud for fear of bringing it into existence, but you need to tell him.

“Din?” You breathe out, and he makes a soft noise in his throat while cuddling you on the floor. “I saw…,” you whisper, every word sitting tight and reluctant in your throat. “Right when we made the jump, I was looking through the window and I-I saw…”

“A star destroyer.” He says it like… like it’s the worst thing in the world and also completely expected at the same time. He says it like he already knew, yet can’t even imagine. You lean every bit of your weight against him since you can’t hold him in return, squish him as best you can against the small corner and curl up even tighter in his arms for comfort.

He takes a deep breath, a shuddery sound you don’t think you’ve ever heard him make before. It holds untold anxiety, unsaid conflict, uncertain action, an unknown path forward.

“I don’t know what to do,” Din eventually whispers to himself, to you, to the baby in your arms. His voice is barely a breath through the modulator, his fingers digging into your skin with how many emotions he’s repressing. “What do I do?”

He sounds so distressed that you automatically feel your soul find the floor—instantly, you become steady and calm and you locate all that rationality that kept you going today. All your worries still twist deep down, all the guilt and the turmoil wrestles with your soft, easy nature until you can only find bits and pieces of it in the most vulnerable places inside you, but if he’s struggling this terribly, then the least you can do is offer some good, true, unwavering faith in times of uncertainty. You’re in hyperspace, everything worked out, and it’s going to stay that way for right now. If he doesn’t know how to talk about it yet, then you trust him enough to wait for him.

“It’ll be okay,” you tell him with a newfound confidence and purpose, carefully easing the baby into one arm so that the other can find its way to the other side of his helmet and pull him closer. Din tucks his head and allows you to brush your lips against the metal, whisper the words soft and steady to him. “We’ll figure it out together.”

---

@cptnbvcks thank you so much for the incredible art!

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #mando x reader #mando x you #reader insert #fanfic #star wars #rough day #no-droids

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needlereads · 26 days

Text

Makes You Unsteady

Bucky Barnes x agent!Reader

Warnings: fem!reader; anxious Bucky; soft Bucky; not canon compliant at all

A/N: oh boy, first time posting a Bucky Barnes ff. I've been scribbling these little interactions of Bucky loving a SHIELD agent, and finally decided dammit I'm going to post them.

He paused at the end of the hall. This was stupid. You were asleep by this time. What had he planned on doing, knocking on your door and disturbing you? You probably wouldn’t appreciate that.

Before James could turn back towards the elevator, he heard a click and the motion sensing hall light around the corner came on. Peering past the corner, he was surprised to see the very woman who had been occupying his mind, very much not asleep as he had presumed. You leaned against your doorframe, loitering for a bit.

What were you doing up?

You finally turned, your steps would take you further from him. He knew Darren’s room was a couple of doors down from you.

Your name escaped his lips before he could think properly about the consequences. You turned, squinted at him with tired eyes.

“James?”

“Where you headed?” He strode towards you, as if it was normal to be making rounds in these private quarters.

You rubbed your eyes. As he drew closer he could tell you were growing more alert, though still adorably dazed from a lack of sleep.

“Oh, just over to Darren’s.” Your best friend was always the default destination when you didn’t want to be alone.

“Is something the matter?” He didn’t usually try to pry. But he couldn’t just stand still and let you walk away, couldn’t bear to watch you seek comfort in someone else when he was physically in your reach and ready to give comfort himself. Maybe he was tired out of his mind too, to disregard his usual inhibitions, let alone the chance of you asking him why he was wandering the building barely an hour after getting back from a mission.

“You just got back. You’re early.” Your eyes climbed down his body and up again. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not.” Was it selfish that his heart glowed warmly to see you so concerned over his well-being? “Is something the matter? How come you’re up?” he asked gently again. Locks of bed-swept hair framed you face. His fingers twitched with the instinct to sweep them back and trace down you braid.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I could sit with you.” God what was he saying? “If you want, that is.”

“Yeah.”

James held his breath as you replied.

“I’d like that,” you said.

In your room, you both settled on your two seater sofa.

“Has it been like this for a while? Not being able to fall asleep?”

You shrugged. “It’s not so bad. I had a nightmare,” said, almost amused. “I don’t usually dream vividly, but tonight…”

He waited, hoping he wasn’t invading your privacy.

“It was the plane crash. The one my parents were in.” You had not been there for it, but your mind conjured images for you anyway. “As if I had been there too, like I had made my mom give up the window seat and then snuggled up to her side. I…was such a baby with her.” A breathy laugh left you. “Can’t even have the decency to be traumatized by something I actually went through. Like the burning building, or the explosion at the compound.” You didn’t catch his frown.

James swung his legs up, sitting criss-cross to face you. “Can I share something?”

You nodded.

“Sometimes in my sleep I feel like I’m falling and I can’t stop. It creeps me out and I can’t wait to wake up and stop falling.”

“The train,” you whispered.

He nodded. “But worse than that, worse than the nightmares about shooting on command, or the war battles that I don’t remember…I dream about my mom and sisters being killed. My mind convincing me that Hydra found them and shot each of them in the street, or that they drowned, or that they just…stopped breathing in their sleep.” He shook his head. “None of those things happened but I wake up and I want to throw up. I want to go back in time and hunt every Hydra piece of shit and kill them a hundred times over. I want…”

You stopped him with a hand over his metal one. “Don’t. Please.”

He was about to say he wanted to not wake up from his sleep either, and he could tell you had somehow heard those thoughts. He was pathetic, to break in front of you. He had no right to manifest such darkness in front of you. But your pleading eyes left him more breathless than the shame.

“Please?”

Anything, he would do anything you asked.

-*-*-*-*

He woke alone in your bed. Lifting his head towards the door separating your bedroom from the living room, covered with a navy blue patterned cloth. He made out your voice and footsteps on the other side. He really couldn’t be blamed for being able to hear you talking on your cellphone, especially when his name was brought up.

“- totally forgot to text you and then James and I both fell asleep. I’m sorry. Don’t be mad?”

A tinny laugh reached his ears. If he strained a bit he could hear the person on the other end of the phone. Probably Darren.

“I’m not. Just glad you didn’t try to ride it out alone. I was wondering when Barnes would finally make his move.”

You sighed, glancing at the door to your bedroom and stepping away, lowering your voice just short of a whisper. “He wasn’t – there was no move.”

Your friend uttered your name, exasperated. This wasn’t the first time he teased you about being in denial of love knocking on your doorstep.

“Hon, you deserve to love and be loved.”

“It’s not that.” You hesitated.

“Then what?”

You tugged at your hair. “Just…for someone who’s had so much taken from him, and who’s given up so much. I can’t…can’t ask that of him. I can’t be another burden for him.”

Darren was not happy with you. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. First of all, that’s not what you are. Second of all, it’s his choice to want you. Just like it’s yours to want him. Don’t even try to deny it.”

“I’m not denying it,” you said firmly. “But that’s all. Just a want. I…I can’t.”

You heard your name and whipped around to find James standing in the middle of the living room. You swallowed hard, trying to keep your breaths measured.

“Darren, I’ll see you later.” You ended the call.

James felt each pulse of his blood in his veins as he tried processing what he’d heard. He knew his hearing couldn’t be mistaken. The way you looked at him, with a quiet honesty, urged hope to bloom inside his chest.

“James.” You paused, and he swore the world slowed on its axis. “I…”

“You want me?”

You felt helpless under his full attention. His eyes searched you, so vulnerable and earnest. You refused to lie to him.

“Yes.”

Despite what you said to Darren, now, oh, your single word of confirmation sounded so clear and sweet to him.

“You think you’re a burden to me?”

He had quietly closed the distance between you.

You lowered you gaze. “I’m trying not to become that to you.”

He dared to touch his finger to you chin, encouraging you to look at him.

“Let’s agree right now, that you won’t refer to yourself like that again.” His palm curved around your cheek. He wanted to touch every inch of you.

He held you through the night. Not sleeping, and not tired; just relishing in the contact of your skin on his, your warmth bleeding into his.

-*-*-*

#bucky barnes x reader #x reader #winter soldier #bucky barnes

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syndxlla · 11 months

Text

best friends don’t look at each other the way we do

A low stakes, high reward, and self-indulgent Zelink fan fiction. Canon-compliant. Takes place between BOTW and TOTK.

Heavily inspired by my Zelink thoughts

I wanted to dig into the dirty, grimly reality of being the saviors of the world and not knowing how to be the savior of yourself. But you can find that safety in another person.

Fan fiction warnings: Canon-typical violence, eventual smut (in later chapters, characters are consenting adults), references to self-harm, eating-disorders, and a lot of angst. Each chapter will have chapter-specific warnings.

Chapter one: I used to tie your shoes

Song: We’ll never have sex by Leith Ross

Summary: Fresh off Hyrule Field, Link and Zelda have to face life after the Calamity, and come to terms with the long road to physical, emotional, and mental recovery.

Warnings: Vomiting, trauma, canon-typical violence, eating-sensitivity

Word count: 3.7k words

Author’s Note: I am so excited to share this. Please share and support this in anyway. I drew this art for the cover :) chapter begins after the page break. I love you guys. Also, these chapters won’t be heavily edited. Ignore any grammatical/spelling errors pls

Time. We never seem to have enough time. Green grass burns soft red embers into the field, a horse’s mane is rebraided at the nearest stable, and the stars shine as if nothing changed. Because it hadn’t, not really. The sun will still rise in the east and set in the west. The birds will still sing their songs at daybreak and the fireflies will still flicker at dusk. Nothing changed, but everything did. The air feels lighter, the sun feels warmer and yet Zelda’s fingers still shake as if she was in the snowy Hebra peaks.

The Princess by nature, is very gentle. She’s soft and patient at heart, but was placed under such strenuous situations all through her youth that caused her to often snap or lash out. But not now. Currently she is silent, stone-cold and confused. She was in shock. And Link could tell.

“Here.” He pulls out a baked apple from his pack, handing it to her. He has to get her attention twice before she finally takes it, their hands brushing for a moment. Her awareness returns to her gaze then, her bright-green eyes meeting his.

“I-I’m so sorry.” She sighs, her voice weak. “I’m just… so tired.” Link tries not to show his distress, but she notices his demeanor change as well. “How much further?” She says, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“Probably another hour and a half. It’s just through those mountains.” He points.

“Dueling peaks. I remember.” She nods. “I remember everything.”

“Everything?” He asks as he starts to dig around a pack on the rear end of Epona, searching for his rito attire. It was starting to get dark, and she hadn’t stopped shaking since they left Castle Town almost three hours ago.

Zelda nods once.

Her silence speaks volumes.

He yanks out his snowquill armor, finally. “Do you remember anything from the last hundred years?” She doesn’t answer right away, she instead takes a smaller than small bite out of the apple. “Zel? Can I put this on you? You’re still shivering.” He asks, looking at her blank, traumatized stare. “It’s from the Rito, it’s soft as a cloud and will keep you warm for the rest of the way.”

“The Rito.” She sighs. “Revali…”

Link realizes that she hasn’t had any time to process what she just went through. She had spent the last one hundred years deeply focused, probably in a trance-like state. He places a hand on her cheek. “Look at me.” His voice is gentle and welcoming, not forcing her at all. She looks at him, their eyes locking. “Breathe with me.”

They take two deep, heavy breaths. They sync their inhales, exhaling together.

“It’s over. It’s all over, okay?” He reassures her. “It’s not coming back. It’s just us now, alright?”

She swallows, still emotionless. “You’ve changed.” She says.

“So have you.” Link smiles in an attempt to comfort her. “Can I put this shirt on you?” He asks again. She answers faster than she usually had, nodding twice this time. Link bunches up the excess fabric before pulling the head-opening over her hair. He then guides each one of her hands through the arm-holes. Link takes a moment to adjust the garb around her torso until it was probably positioned around her shaking body. She immediately sighs in relief.

“You talk more.” She mumbles, looking at him as he gently wraps his fingers around her long, golden hair and softly pulls it out of the shirt, knowing how much it irritates him when his hair is loose underneath a shirt.

He smiles again, “I do. Some people say I don’t shut up.” He tries to lighten the mood.

“Like who?”

“Impa.” He sighs.

Zelda’s eyes light up with that name. “Impa?”

He hums and nods. “We can go visit her when you’re feeling stronger, okay?”

“Okay…” Zelda looked down into her lap, the skirt of her goddess dress was barely white anymore. “I am going to get stronger, right?” She asks, her voice tender and broken.

Link’s heart sinks. Not because he’s worried she won’t, but rather because he feels responsible for putting her in this state.

“Of course.” He reassures. He believed it. He wanted to believe it.

“I’m… just so tired.” She repeats herself.

“I know, come on, let's get you a bed.” He then picks her up bridal style from the ground. They had stopped in the first place to get that rito armor for her. She rests her head against his chest as he lifts her onto Epona. She smells like burnt oil and exhaustion. He probably isn’t smelling any better.

They wouldn’t get to Hateno until noon at the earliest tomorrow, and traveling wasn’t doing anything for her recovery. He gets on Epona behind her, letting her weak body rest against his chest as they make their way to Dueling Peaks Stable. The road is quiet, so much quieter than it ever has been. The pair of lizalfos always swimming in the river aren’t there, and even the crickets suppress their chirps.

It’s post-apocalyptic. Literally. Link isn’t sure how to feel.

She throws up a few hundred feet from the stable. She gags and lurches over the side of the horse, somehow managing to keep it off of anyone. Not much comes out, she hasn’t eaten in over a century, but Link frowns when he realizes the apple probably triggered it. He silently curses himself out for causing her any form of distress. She dry heaves violently, and Link tries to hold her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. When she finishes, she holds her breath.

She can’t decide if she feels like she lost a bit of dignity or not. She holds back the tears that well in her eyes. Link breathes in to say something, but she raises her hand in protest. She would rather they act like it never happened. Neither of them say anything from there on, they just keep riding the final minute of the journey.

Everyone at the stable was asleep except for an attendant… who was also treading precariously between consciousness and a deep rest behind the counter.

“Excuse me?” Link asks to wake him up, hopping off of Epona after making sure Zelda would still be comfortable in his absence. She would never admit she wasn’t.

The man stirs awake with a jolt. He yawns, slightly startled, “So sorry, young man.” Link wouldn’t necessarily call himself young. He smirks softly.

“I’d like to board this horse till the morning, and we’d like one soft bed, please.” Link nods before setting down the required rupees. The man squints his eyes, taking the money in hand.

“Ah! It’s you! Link, was it?” He asks when Link turns his back to help Zelda down from the horse. “Jeez, you haven’t passed through here in at least six months! We were holding onto that old mare for you!” He gestures to their stables where a small gray spotted horse sleeps. Link’s first horse since he woke up from his century-long slumber. He only rode her in the beginning, when he was doing chores between Hateno, Kakariko and one time a longer trip to Zora’s Domain. But she’s old and weak, which is why she was easy to catch when Link was still regaining his strength. He stopped taking her out when he found Epona in the western part of Central Hyrule.

“Yeah… you guys can let her free.” He says as he sets Zelda down on the ground. She holds her cold hands together.

“Well uhh.. we tried. You see, after four months at a stable we let go of any forgotten pony’s, but she kept coming back.” He chuckled, his voice exhibiting a distinctive nasality.

“Here,” Link hands him a red rupee, not wanting to discuss an old horse any longer when he literally has the closest thing to a God in this world resting her head on his back. “Keep her for another month, I’ll come take care of her then. Okay?” Link asks. “Can I get that bed now?” Not impolite or forceful, he never was. He’s assertive but has a comforting cadence to his tone. For being such a talented swordsman, guard and easily the most deadly hylian in the entire kingdom, he was never rude or condescending. He was welcoming, and little kids often looked up at him with intimidation when they first met him, but it didn’t ever take long until they were chasing him with tree-branches while he fled and begged for mercy, letting them take him down with ease. The kids at the stables loved him, knew him by name, and would play as him in their silly pretend games.

The stable-man replies, “Of course! But you only asked for one bed, it’s not big enough to fit both of you.”

“I know, it’s for her not me.” Link then starts to guide her into the stable, where it’s much warmer and safer. Just because it’s quiet doesn’t mean it's safe. Hyrule is a dangerous place by nature, especially if you’re two century-old Gods being hunted for sport with the faces of children.

“You won’t sleep?” Zelda asks quietly behind him.

He doesn’t directly answer, and instead guides her to the bed. She’s weary, and he’s terrified of her not waking up. He wouldn’t be able to sleep even if he wanted to. He helps the Princess sit in the bed, and kneels before her to untie her sandals. When he touches the leather, he immediately gets transported into another memory.

It rips through him, just like the memories he had images of. Suddenly, he’s kneeling in the same position, but instead he was outside of the spring of courage. He looks up to see the clear sky, it’s sunset, and then his eyes meet Zeldas. Her face is rosy, and her eyes don’t have the blank stare they possess in the current time. He looks down at his fingers, tying the straps around her ankle.

“Really, you don’t have to do that.” She hums. He doesn’t respond. He never did back then. He finishes wrapping the leather around itself and then stands up. His face is emotionless. She looks at him, they’re about the same height. “I won’t be long this time.” She says. “I’m not expecting much anyways.” She sighs and then walks past him, but before she can get very far, he gently grabs onto her arm, holding her back. He doesn’t say anything but she can read his expression. He’s trying to tell her to have faith this time, just one more time.

Surely the Goddess would commune with her.

She shakes her head, and wades into the warm waters of the spring. Link turns to watch her, how her hair cascaded down her back, how her hands balled into fists. She turns around to look at him, their eyes meet. She smiles.

He comes back as fast as the scene played in his memory. He blinks a few times, and looks up at her. She doesn’t look any different, very little—if any—time seemed to pass. He doesn’t usually experience memories with someone, he wonders if she realized anything happened. Link didn’t even consider the fact he would keep receiving memories after the fact. His stomach turns, he feels like he’s lived two completely different lives and is forced to remember things from one that he doesn’t even relate to anymore. He doesn’t feel like the same person, the boy he was a hundred years ago is a complete stranger to him.

Link much preferred this life.

And that scares Zelda.

“I just remembered something.” He says. Zelda hums in response, a light-hearted noise that implies an inquiry. He elaborates, “I used to tie your sandals for you at the springs, didn’t I?” He asks.

Zelda smiles for the first time since they defeated Ganon. It’s a small pull of her lips, not showing any teeth but her eyes finally light back up. After she had asked if he remembered her on the field, she collapsed, not even aware of her own exhaustion until that moment. He ran to her aid, and ever since then she felt woozy, it only got worse the further from the castle they got.

“You did, yes.” She says. “I never asked you to, but since I was in the dress, you insisted.” She sighs. Link grunts in response. “It was very chivalrous.” Zelda adds.

They look at each other for a minute. Not saying anything. It was late, and two beds down there was a set of kid brothers sleeping. Link remembered them from their last visit. One of them wanted nothing to do with him, trying to act mature and ‘cool’. Link eventually won him over, though. They don’t speak out of fear of waking anyone. Zelda’s smile slowly fades away, and Link swallows thickly. They will never be the same.

He pulls her sandals off, her feet are filthy with century-old mud. He silently smiles about that. The closest thing to a Goddess in the entire world has dirty feet. How human of her.

Then, after pulling down the heavy rito-down blanket so she can slide in, he helps Zelda swing her legs into the bed. He pulls the blanket up to her neck, she lays on her side facing him. Her hands find their way up to her face, resting her cheek against them. Link pulls a short stool over to the bed, sitting on it and looking at her, bending at the waist.

“You’re not going to leave me, are you?” She asks in a timid, sleepy voice.

Link’s heart just about breaks when she asks. “Never.” He shakes his head. He takes his gloved hand and tucks a piece of her loose hair behind her pointed-ears. He lets his fingers linger a little bit longer than they should. “I will never ever leave you again.”

“Promise?” She asks, her eyes heavy with exhaustion.

“Promise.” He whispers, “Just as long as you promise to never leave me, okay?” He asks, ignoring the lump in this throat.

“Promise.” She says, taking her pinky finger and sticking it out for him. He wraps his finger with hers, which is far daintier and softer than he's ever been. She is a Princess, after all.

“Wake up in the morning, okay?” He whispers.

“Mhm.” She hums as her eyes slowly close. He tries to disconnect their pinky fingers, but she holds onto his. He leaves his hand in that position, letting her hold it until she falls fast asleep.

Link doesn’t move his hand until he’s certain it won’t wake her up from her much needed rest. He looks at her gentle, soft face. No one even understands what she just went through, no one ever will. He’s worried sick that she won’t make it through the night, and he keeps leaning his head down to listen to her breathing, or places a few fingers against her forehead to check her temperature.

He does his best to stay vigilant the entire night, not once even looking away from her. But just before the sun rises, his body suddenly catches up with his mind. He also just had the most demanding battle of his life. His muscles started to ache, and he developed a headache. He was just a boy, after all. More than anything, his sword arm was weak, and fire-hot pain shot up and down through it. He probably overused it fightin the calamity.

He keeps telling himself that he’s fine. He has to be fine, for Zelda. His arm isn’t that bad, what really hurts was his heart. Usually he’d just down a fairy tonic and maybe go to the hot springs if he was in the area but this pain was different. A twisting and contracting ache in his chest pulled and tugged on his lungs and pulse. It’s the same pain he felt when he remembered Mipha, and more specifically, the pain he felt when he dreamed about his family before the resurrection.

The dream that gave him the memories of a little sister with blonde hair like his collecting fireflies in her pockets. Her laugh echoing, the call of an older man, the image of a royal guards sword leaned up against the dinner table. The touch of his father’s hand as he rubs Link’s back to sleep.

Link’s first sword.

He wakes up like a fire, standing up and almost toppling over. He didn’t even realize he had fallen asleep. He could hear the soft tune of the penny whistle playing the standard stable theme, and the two little brothers played tag outside. He curses and looks down at Zelda.

Her bed is empty, and his heart completely stops. He starts breathing hard and heavy, his entire nervous system feels as though it’s pulled into stasis. How could he make such a foolish mistake? He swings his sword over his back, strapping his shield to his leathers and turns around in a wild-hunt to see the Princess sitting at the round stable table, drinking out of a mug and speaking gently with an older man.

Link takes a breath of relief, and approaches the two.

“Good Morning.” She smiles up at him. Her voice sounded much better, and her eyes finally had life back into them, but she still wasn’t herself. Her skin still looked sickly, her face hollowed out and eyes droopy. Any progress is good progress, Link decides then and there.

“I… didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Link sighs. “I’m so sorry. When did you wake up?”

“Oh not long ago, maybe twenty minutes? I didn’t want to disturb you-”

“You should have.” He interrupts her and her words get swallowed out of surprise. Link realizes that he snapped at her a little, and immediately becomes apologetic. “I’m sorry, again. I just…”

“You’re worried about me. I understand.” She takes his hand, her bones frail. In many ways, she physically looked worse today than last night. But at least she could hold a conversation. He nods. Zelda notices the tension, and changes the subject, “This kind gentleman was telling me about when you saved the stable from a horde of lizalfos about a year ago.”

Link looks over at the man, Giahzo. “Oh that was nothing, it was just two green lizalfos and a blue one who wandered too close to the stable.” Link hums. Their hands were still held together by Zelda.

“Don’t be so modest!” The old man chuckled, “Without you, it would have been a disaster! The number of monsters means nothing, especially when you don’t know how to fight!”

“That’s very kind of you.” Link smiles and then realizes he and Zeldas hands, he’s the one to pull it away. “What are you drinking?”

“I’m not sure…” Zelda begins and Link immediately snatches the mug from her hand. “Hey!”

“You can’t just drink something mysterious.” Link scolds.

“Oh it’s just a bit of Hateno Milk.” The man assures. Link looks at him, then Zelda, and then into the mug to see the creamy liquid. He brings it to his nose and smells it, and then takes a sip of it. Sure enough, it was just milk.

“I’m sorry, Giahzo.” He apologizes and places the mug back down. “I’m just on high alert.”

“Do not apologize to me, apologize to this lovely young lady you’ve graced us with.” The elderly man smiles with a chuckle, his eyes wrinkling up with his age. Zelda smiles, blushing a little, “Tell me, dear, where are you from? We don’t get many new faces at this stable these days.”

Zelda looks at him, her eyes sad. A hundred years ago every person in Hyrule knew her face. She looks at Link, unsure how to answer.

“She’s from the Outskirts stable.” Link covers for her. “Her family used to reside in Central Hyrule before the Calamity.”

“Yes.” Zelda immediately chirps, “We’re headed to Hateno for…”

“A honeymoon!?” Giahzo smiles brightly. Both Link and Zelda freeze in their tracks, and Link hopes he doesn’t look as embarrassed as he feels. “Hateno is a great Honeymoon destination! Although I’ve heard Lureline is even more splendid!” He clasps his hands together.

“Research.” Zelda clarifies, “so sorry to disappoint.” She chuckles politely, making a conscious effort not to look at Link. “I’m researching… population dynamics in Hyrule.” She makes something up that sounds completely believable.

“Of course.” Link then says, “I’m just escorting her there, we are total strangers.”

That breaks Zelda’s heart.

She knows he’s just trying to be extra careful, pushing her anonymity as much as possible. And in a way, it wasn’t a total lie. But it cut her like a knife.

“I see…” Giahzo doesn’t seem convinced. “Well, if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to stop by. Hopefully the monsters will start to die down.” He smiles and stands up, moving outside.

Zelda is still afraid to look at Link, and he’s a little bit shaken up by the entire interaction. He knows the Yiga are still out there, he knows that there are people who will try to take advantage of her for power or money. He has no reason to suspect anything from the old man, but he can’t help himself from being deliberate. He senses her tension and walks back to the bed to gather their things.

“You should have woken me up.” Link says as he picks up a satchel full of food and readjusts his gloves.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was timid and tired. He turns around to see her, her green eyes looking up at him apologetically. “I didn’t know it would worry you so.” He approaches her.

“Of course it worries me.” He sighs. “I spent three years trying to get you out of that castle, I’m not gonna lose you on the first night.” He holds his hand out for her to trade, helping her up. She must not have rested as well as he thought, because as soon as she gets on her feet, she almost topples right over him. He catches her, holding her up before she collapses. “Woah there.” He mutters. “You alright?”

She nods, “Let’s just get to that house you told me about.”

—

chapter two

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