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jcmarchi · 1 month ago

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Guide to Understanding, Building, and Optimizing API-Calling Agents

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Guide to Understanding, Building, and Optimizing API-Calling Agents

The role of Artificial Intelligence in technology companies is rapidly evolving; AI use cases have evolved from passive information processing to proactive agents capable of executing tasks. According to a March 2025 survey on global AI adoption conducted by Georgian and NewtonX, 91% of technical executives in growth stage and enterprise companies are reportedly using or planning to use agentic AI.

API-calling agents are a primary example of this shift to agents. API-calling agents leverage Large Language Models (LLMs) to interact with software systems via their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

For example, by translating natural language commands into precise API calls, agents can retrieve real-time data, automate routine tasks, or even control other software systems. This capability transforms AI agents into useful intermediaries between human intent and software functionality.

Companies are currently using API-calling agents in various domains including:

Consumer Applications: Assistants like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa have been designed to simplify daily tasks, such as controlling smart home devices and making reservations.

Enterprise Workflows: Enterprises have deployed API agents to automate repetitive tasks like retrieving data from CRMs, generating reports, or consolidating information from internal systems.

Data Retrieval and Analysis: Enterprises are using API agents to simplify access to proprietary datasets, subscription-based resources, and public APIs in order to generate insights.

In this article I will use an engineering-centric approach to understanding, building, and optimizing API-calling agents. The material in this article is based in part on the practical research and development conducted by Georgian’s AI Lab. The motivating question for much of the AI Lab’s research in the area of API-calling agents has been: “If an organization has an API, what is the most effective way to build an agent that can interface with that API using natural language?”

I will explain how API-calling agents work and how to successfully architect and engineer these agents for performance. Finally, I will provide a systematic workflow that engineering teams can use to implement API-calling agents.

I. Key Definitions:

API or Application Programming Interface : A set of rules and protocols enabling different software applications to communicate and exchange information.

Agent: An AI system designed to perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals.

API-Calling Agent: A specialized AI agent that translates natural language instructions into precise API calls.

Code Generating Agent: An AI system that assists in software development by writing, modifying, and debugging code. While related, my focus here is primarily on agents that call APIs, though AI can also help build these agents.

MCP (Model Context Protocol): A protocol, notably developed by Anthropic, defining how LLMs can connect to and utilize external tools and data sources.

II. Core Task: Translating Natural Language into API Actions

The fundamental function of an API-calling agent is to interpret a user’s natural language request and convert it into one or more precise API calls. This process typically involves:

Intent Recognition: Understanding the user’s goal, even if expressed ambiguously.

Tool Selection: Identifying the appropriate API endpoint(s)—or “tools”—from a set of available options that can fulfill the intent.

Parameter Extraction: Identifying and extracting the necessary parameters for the selected API call(s) from the user’s query.

Execution and Response Generation: Making the API call(s), receiving the response(s), and then synthesizing this information into a coherent answer or performing a subsequent action.

Consider a request like, “Hey Siri, what’s the weather like today?” The agent must identify the need to call a weather API, determine the user’s current location (or allow specification of a location), and then formulate the API call to retrieve the weather information.

For the request “Hey Siri, what’s the weather like today?”, a sample API call might look like:

GET /v1/weather?location=New%20York&units=metric

Initial high-level challenges are inherent in this translation process, including the ambiguity of natural language and the need for the agent to maintain context across multi-step interactions.

For example, the agent must often “remember” previous parts of a conversation or earlier API call results to inform current actions. Context loss is a common failure mode if not explicitly managed.

III. Architecting the Solution: Key Components and Protocols

Building effective API-calling agents requires a structured architectural approach.

1. Defining “Tools” for the Agent

For an LLM to use an API, that API’s capabilities must be described to it in a way it can understand. Each API endpoint or function is often represented as a “tool.” A robust tool definition includes:

A clear, natural language description of the tool’s purpose and functionality.

A precise specification of its input parameters (name, type, whether it’s required or optional, and a description).

A description of the output or data the tool returns.

2. The Role of Model Context Protocol (MCP)

MCP is a critical enabler for more standardized and robust tool use by LLMs. It provides a structured format for defining how models can connect to external tools and data sources.

MCP standardization is beneficial because it allows for easier integration of diverse tools, it promotes reusability of tool definitions across different agents or models. Further, it is a best practice for engineering teams, starting with well-defined API specifications, such as an OpenAPI spec. Tools like Stainless.ai are designed to help convert these OpenAPI specs into MCP configurations, streamlining the process of making APIs “agent-ready.”

3. Agent Frameworks & Implementation Choices

Several frameworks can aid in building the agent itself. These include:

Pydantic: While not exclusively an agent framework, Pydantic is useful for defining data structures and ensuring type safety for tool inputs and outputs, which is important for reliability. Many custom agent implementations leverage Pydantic for this structural integrity.

LastMile’s mcp_agent: This framework is specifically designed to work with MCPs, offering a more opinionated structure that aligns with practices for building effective agents as described in research from places like Anthropic.

Internal Framework: It’s also increasingly common to use AI code-generating agents (using tools like Cursor or Cline) to help write the boilerplate code for the agent, its tools, and the surrounding logic. Georgian’s AI Lab experience working with companies on agentic implementations shows this can be great for creating very minimal, custom frameworks.

IV. Engineering for Reliability and Performance

Ensuring that an agent makes API calls reliably and performs well requires focused engineering effort. Two ways to do this are (1) dataset creation and validation and (2) prompt engineering and optimization.

1. Dataset Creation & Validation

Training (if applicable), testing, and optimizing an agent requires a high-quality dataset. This dataset should consist of representative natural language queries and their corresponding desired API call sequences or outcomes.

Manual Creation: Manually curating a dataset ensures high precision and relevance but can be labor-intensive.

Synthetic Generation: Generating data programmatically or using LLMs can scale dataset creation, but this approach presents significant challenges. The Georgian AI Lab’s research found that ensuring the correctness and realistic complexity of synthetically generated API calls and queries is very difficult. Often, generated questions were either too trivial or impossibly complex, making it hard to measure nuanced agent performance. Careful validation of synthetic data is absolutely critical.

For critical evaluation, a smaller, high-quality, manually verified dataset often provides more reliable insights than a large, noisy synthetic one.

2. Prompt Engineering & Optimization

The performance of an LLM-based agent is heavily influenced by the prompts used to guide its reasoning and tool selection.

Effective prompting involves clearly defining the agent’s task, providing descriptions of available tools and structuring the prompt to encourage accurate parameter extraction.

Systematic optimization using frameworks like DSPy can significantly enhance performance. DSPy allows you to define your agent’s components (e.g., modules for thought generation, tool selection, parameter formatting) and then uses a compiler-like approach with few-shot examples from your dataset to find optimized prompts or configurations for these components.

V. A Recommended Path to Effective API Agents

Developing robust API-calling AI agents is an iterative engineering discipline. Based on the findings of Georgian AI Lab’s research, outcomes may be significantly improved using a systematic workflow such as the following:

Start with Clear API Definitions: Begin with well-structured OpenAPI Specifications for the APIs your agent will interact with.

Standardize Tool Access: Convert your OpenAPI specs into MCP Tools like Stainless.ai can facilitate this, creating a standardized way for your agent to understand and use your APIs.

Implement the Agent: Choose an appropriate framework or approach. This might involve using Pydantic for data modeling within a custom agent structure or leveraging a framework like LastMile’s mcp_agent that is built around MCP.

Before doing this, consider connecting the MCP to a tool like Claude Desktop or Cline, and manually using this interface to get a feel for how well a generic agent can use it, how many iterations it usually takes to use the MCP correctly and any other details that might save you time during implementation.

Curate a Quality Evaluation Dataset: Manually create or meticulously validate a dataset of queries and expected API interactions. This is critical for reliable testing and optimization.

Optimize Agent Prompts and Logic: Employ frameworks like DSPy to refine your agent’s prompts and internal logic, using your dataset to drive improvements in accuracy and reliability.

VI. An Illustrative Example of the Workflow

Here’s a simplified example illustrating the recommended workflow for building an API-calling agent:

Step 1: Start with Clear API Definitions

Imagine an API for managing a simple To-Do list, defined in OpenAPI:

openapi: 3.0.0

info:

title: To-Do List API

version: 1.0.0

paths:

/tasks:

post:

summary: Add a new task

requestBody:

required: true

content:

application/json:

schema:

type: object

properties:

description:

type: string

responses:

‘201′:

description: Task created successfully

get:

summary: Get all tasks

responses:

‘200′:

description: List of tasks

Step 2: Standardize Tool Access

Convert the OpenAPI spec into Model Context Protocol (MCP) configurations. Using a tool like Stainless.ai, this might yield:

Tool Name Description Input Parameters Output Description Add Task Adds a new task to the To-Do list. `description` (string, required): The task’s description. Task creation confirmation. Get Tasks Retrieves all tasks from the To-Do list. None A list of tasks with their descriptions.

Step 3: Implement the Agent

Using Pydantic for data modeling, create functions corresponding to the MCP tools. Then, use an LLM to interpret natural language queries and select the appropriate tool and parameters.

Step 4: Curate a Quality Evaluation Dataset

Create a dataset:

Query Expected API Call Expected Outcome “Add ‘Buy groceries’ to my list.” `Add Task` with `description` = “Buy groceries” Task creation confirmation “What’s on my list?” `Get Tasks` List of tasks, including “Buy groceries”

Step 5: Optimize Agent Prompts and Logic

Use DSPy to refine the prompts, focusing on clear instructions, tool selection, and parameter extraction using the curated dataset for evaluation and improvement.

By integrating these building blocks—from structured API definitions and standardized tool protocols to rigorous data practices and systematic optimization—engineering teams can build more capable, reliable, and maintainable API-calling AI agents.

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bobbyyoungsworld · 4 months ago

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Explore the top use cases of AI agents across industries, from healthcare to manufacturing. Learn how businesses are leveraging AI agents to drive automation, innovation, and growth.

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reazreviewzone · 4 months ago

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digiworkforce · 10 months ago

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Enterprise AI Agents - Use Cases and Examples in Real Life

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justkending · 8 months ago

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It's just a papercut... (Drabble)

Summary: Mission one-on-one with Bucky? It's been done before. So why is this one different? Why is he acting weird and not letting me storm off in a rage at his cold shoulder? Also, was the one bed necessary?

Pairing: Grumpy Bucky x Avenger Reader (Enemies to lovers)

Word Count: 7000+ (It's a long one...)

A/N: I've been spending a lot of my time on Character ChatGPT AI, and a secret agent conversation made me say, " Yeah, I need to put this into a Bucky fanfic." So here we are🥰 Did it turn a lot more emotional than I planned? Yes. Do I regret it? No. Enjoy, my loves!!

_____

"Jesus! The goal is to survive the mission! And from the likes of it, bullets aren't even going to be the thing that finishes the job!" I shout over the whipping wind as Bucky maneuvers through cars in the foreign country while outrunning the guards we just escaped from on a motorcycle he stole in front of a shop.

"Shut it!" he shouts back, taking another sharp turn that has me clutching on as if one wrong blow of the wind will have me ending this chase with a case of road rash on my entire body. "I'm losing them."

"And likely me with them," I grumble, and he shoots me a quick look in the rearview mirror, showing that he heard my remark and didn't care for it.

I look behind us and see one of the jackasses we were running from has joined us in motorcycle theft, and I curse under my breath as I come up with a plan.

"Goon, five o'clock!" I announce as I dig into my boot for a small handgun I keep hidden.

Bucky looks around and clocks him. His teeth grit together as he kicks the speed up, weaves through a few cars, and turns down a new street, but the man following seems to be just as skilled in bike chases.

"Still on you!" I shout and let out an annoyed groan, realizing that at some point in our mission, I'd lost my backup weapon.

"I see that!" Bucky groans, and as we pass a fruit stand on the street, he knocks it over with his metal hand, causing a traffic stop and the motorcyclist to have to drive over apples and pears, making him lose his balance some.

However, it wasn't effective enough. "I got it," I sigh as Bucky takes another sharp turn, and I clutch onto him. "Do me a favor and try and stay straight for longer than 3 seconds!" I complain, and he complies, although begrudgingly.

I point my fist towards the bike, and as the man makes mean eyes at me, I wiggle my fingers at him with a grin before shooting a taser shock out of the widow bite Nat gifted me.

They shoot across and cause his entire bike to seize at the overload of electricity. He flies off the bike as it stutters and gives Bucky and me a clean escape down an alley.

A few alleys later and a quiet spot away from the chaos that had just ensued, Bucky and I hop off the bike and hide it behind a dumpster. I catch my breath as I throw my backpack over my shoulder and watch as he covers the bike more with the lid of the trash before grabbing his own pack.

"We need to lay low for the night," I note, adjusting my backpack and looking into the dead-end alley.

He sighed, taking in the area, and I could see the pistons firing in his head. "There's a hotel not far from here that'll work. Not shitty, but also not anything fancy." He immediately starts stalking away, not waiting for me to follow.

I huff in annoyance as he leaves me, and I fasten my backpack, buckling it across my chest before jogging to catch up with his long strides.

We don't say much as we get to the hotel- both of our minds coming down from the adrenaline and running through the last pieces of the mission.

While in the lobby of the hotel, I get a call and move to take it, seeing it's Steve checking in, and I leave Bucky to handle the check-in process.

"Got it. We'll head to the airport in the morning," I nod and turn around to see Bucky confirming something with the clerk, and I turn back to the phone.

When he finishes checking in (fake IDs with real payment thanks to Stark's ways), he turns and waves his hand toward the elevator in a quick hand gesture.

"Yeah. We're fine," I note, feeling a stitch in my side but not wanting to check just how bad the damage is until I'm behind a closed door. "He's being a dick as per usual," I chuckle lightly as I start my walk to the elevators. "No, Steve. I don't need you to call him and reprimand him. You know-... Seriously, Steve. Leave it... I said it as a joke more than anything-" He cuts me off again, ready to always put Bucky in his place with the cold shoulder he seems to love to give to only me.

When I make it to the elevator, where Bucky is holding the door impatiently for me, I quickly say, "Losing you! Getting in an elevator so I can't-" There's a protest on the other end. "What was that? It's cutting out." I say in stuttered beats to play it off before hanging up. "Steve says hi," I say to Bucky as I lock my phone and shove it in my back pocket.

"Sure," he says back, and I'm not sure if it's unconvinced or unbothered... or both. Either way, his face is still stoic.

"You really need to lighten up," I sigh in a deep breath, annoyed that he never relents his tough guy act around me.

"Don't feel like."

"Do you ever?"

The elevator is silent. The only sound is the mechanics of the metal box moving up. It eventually dings, and as I go to step forward, I grimace slightly so as I step wrong, causing pain to go up my side, but I quickly brush it off.

"What was that?" Bucky says behind me as he steps off the elevator last.

"What was what?" I ask, looking carefully at the room numbers and acting ignorant.

"That look. You flinched."

"Yeah, no," I shake my head. "Your eyesight must be getting worse with age."

"My eyesight is fine," he grumbles, pulling my arm back as I pass the room, realizing he never told me the number. "We're here," he turns to the door and presses the key card to it. The color changes from red to green, giving us access.

"I call the shower first," I shout, shoving him out of the way and unbuckling my backpack as I rush into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me and locking it.

All I hear is an exasperated sigh on the other side and a shuffle of footsteps as he shuts the door, locks up, and moves into the room.

I let out a sigh of exhaustion and relief to be done for the day and move to warm up the water. If there is one thing I've learned about going on missions with Bucky, it's that the man's superhearing is just an excuse for him to be nosy. He listens to almost EVERYTHING.

So, with the water running and him hopefully distracted by the hotel views, I undress and focus on the shower. As soon as I took my shirt off, I was shown exactly what I worried was the problem.

Down my side is a semi-jagged cut going up my rib cage. Close to four inches long, if not less, but angry and red. I hiss and quickly bite my lip to muffle my pain. It's not bleeding anymore, which tells me it's not deep, so with the proper cleaning and care, it'll be fine in a few days. I use my time in the shower to clean it and wash the rest of the day away with it.

When I come out, I rummage through my bag for a first aid kit. I usually pack a travel-size one, given the job, but I can't find it. I change into a pair of clean shorts and a tank top I packed (light and takes up minimal space) before checking in the mirror to make sure my cut wasn't prominent through the light-colored tank. When I feel comfortable enough that Bucky won't ask questions, I straighten and fight the soreness that's taking over my body now that I'm not going 100mph.

I walk out, and when I see that Bucky is lying back, arms over his eyes on a king-size bed, I immediately take in the fact that it's the only bed in the room. The sound of cheers from baseball on the TV is quickly tuned out.

"Um," I start, hands out as I assess the space. "What's this?" I ask.

"A bed," Bucky answers simply and sits up tiredly as he looks at me, leaning back on his forearms. "You ran straight into the bathroom before I could tell you, or you saw for yourself."

I cross my arms and flinch when I graze my cut but quickly roll my shoulders as if the full-body soreness was the only issue.

"Well, did they not give us another option or maybe a second room we could have-"

"What was that?" he cuts me off.

"Hm, what was what? What do you mean-?" I look right at him and furrow my eyebrows, hands on my hips.

"You made that face again."

I roll my eyes. "I'm sore," I shrug, scoffing and even I know I'm a horrible actress right now, so I don't make eye contact.

"That's not a sore grimace. That's something else," he sits up straight now and tilts his head down, assessing me in almost a predatory way.

"Stop that." My arms move from my hips to my chest and around me, and my discomfort only makes a smirk appear. "Stop. It's weird."

"No, what's weird is why you're being so weird," he remarks with a sassy face.

I blink at him a few times, feeling much less intimidated thanks to his comeback. "Good one," I said, turning and going to his backpack now.

"Hey, what are you doing?" He stands quickly from the bed and looks at me over my shoulder as I unzip his bag.

"I think I put something of mine in here. I can't find it in my bag," I note, dunking my hand into his things. He steps up, pulling my shoulders to get away.

"Stop going through my stuff. You're worse than Sam," he notes, tugging me away, although gentler than how he is typically.

"I just need-" I feel the small plastic box I'm looking for and tug it out, quickly holding it behind my back. "Nevermind. I found it."

"What are you talking about-"

"Nothing! Just give me one minute. I need to brush my teeth," I jab a thumb behind my shoulder as I walk backward to the bathroom, his steps matching mine. "I'll be out in five minutes," I note quickly as I turn on my heel and run back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me and locking it again.

Instead of seeing the door handle budge like I expected, he bangs a fist on the wooden barrier.

"Y/N, open the damn door! What the hell did you take out of my bag?"

"My toothbrush!" I lie. Why didn't I say toothpaste? That would make so much more sense... "I must have gotten our bags mixed up when I packed them." I cringe at myself.

"How could you do that? Yours is brown, and mine's black," he notes.

"A very dark brown," I argue, lifting my tank top and sitting on the bathroom counter to get a better look in the mirror of my cut. "Just give me a second-"

"You're being weirder than normal," he groans in frustration on the other side.

"Yeah, well, get used to it," I hiss as I put the sanitizer spray on it and bite my knuckle to suppress the pained groan I want to let out. "Jesus," I mumble under my breath, but the next thing I know, the door is swinging open, and Bucky's staring at its handle that's hanging on by a thread before back at me. "Hey!" I look at the door and back at him. "They're going to charge us for that."

His eyes immediately go from annoyed and over it to concerned and confused.

"What the hell is that?" He points at my stomach, where I'm frozen on top of the counter, shirt lifted, showing my entire torso and cut on full display.

"A paper cut." Dear God. What the hell happened to my logical excuses?

His concerned face drops some, and he deadpans from my injury to my eyes before marching to me and turning me at my shoulders to face him and get a better view.

"When did this happen?"

"Wild guess, but likely when the guards we fought to get out pulled a knife on me and played dirty," I sigh, realizing I wasn't talking myself out of this one anytime soon. "But that could be a stretch," I add.

He again looks up at me from my injury with an incredulous and agitated look.

"Let me see," he sighs, bending down to get a better view and looking at the injury from a head-on angle.

"It's just a scratch, Barnes. I'll be good as new after a little disinfectant and ointment. Nothing a bandaid can't fix," I brush off, turning on the counter to grab the kit.

He stops me in my turn by placing a hand on my knee and turning me back around to where my legs hang off the counter. I'm sitting with him in between my legs.

"They used a serrated knife," he notes, taking the first aid kit out of my hand and opening it, instantly getting to work as if I wasn't doing it myself two seconds ago.

"Um, excuse me, but I can-"

"I know the things you can do, Y/N. You don't have to tell me," he says sternly, grabbing gauze and another bottle of something I didn't know the contents of and tipping it onto the gauze before bending down again. This time, his eyes found mine as he looked up at me from his now crouched position. "This is going to sting. That sanitizer you were using before is shit. This one actually does the job," he notes, and I'm a little stunned by the turn of events. "Ready?"

Never in my life did I think Bucky Barnes would be this gentle and considerate with me, but I'm not going to stop a good thing from happening.

"I don't think it can hurt more than the knife itself," I smirk and nod when he gives me a look. "Yeah, yeah. Do your thing, Doc." I gesture to him, looking up at the ceiling as I prepare for the sting.

I don't feel it instantly, and just as I'm about to ask what was taking him so long, the cool liquid hits my cut, and I hiss, grabbing his wrist in a tight hold out of instinct to hold him back. "Jesus H. Christ," I grit through my teeth. "What the hell kind of acid did you just put in-?" I let out a slow breath through my lips and quietly say, "I'd pick the knife again. I'd pick the knife again. The knife for sure."

"It's Banner-strength disinfectant," he says with a stupid little prideful smirk, yet is dabbing the cut ever so gently as I hold his wrist. His touch is soft, but the sting is anything but. "You grabbed my first aid kit. I had him make it since you tend to get hurt easily, and we're not in the cleanest country." He's fully concentrated on my cut.

"What?" I asked, surprised, grabbing the kit's container and seeing that it indeed was not mine. I brush over the fact he had Bruce specifically make it and pack it for me as I look over at my bag, still slumped against the wall from my rush to take a shower, and realize I must have forgotten mine.

"Relax. Tensing doesn't help," he adds, bringing his free hand to my thigh and giving a light squeeze to distract me. I hiss again as he pads over an agitated area.

All sense of humor drops slowly from his face, and he gives me a look. "Y/N, why didn't you tell me about this as soon as you knew? This was not far from being infected in a way that could have been a lot worse than just an irritating sting."

"When was I supposed to tell you?" I sass, throwing my head back on the mirror as I focus on anything but the sharp stings. "As soon as we got off the bike, we headed here. You didn't say a word to me, and I was in my own head. Honestly, I didn't even realize it was there until we were checking in and I was on the phone with Steve. Adrenaline must have kept me from realizing it."

He mumbles something under his breath, and I hear the word, reckless in the middle of it.

"Watch yourself," I warn, kicking my leg a touch, skimming his rib cage. "There can easily be two injured people in this room."

"No need for both of us to get stupid injuries," he grumbles.

I scoff and shove his hand away from me, jumping off the counter as he stands and glares at me.

"Sorry for getting stabbed," I sneer up at him, stepping into his space. "I'll make sure to ask the assholes shooting and swinging at me next time to keep the knives at home. Oh! Or better yet," I exaggerate. "I'll tell them my partner said I'm not allowed to get into fights with men triple my size, so if they can just play gentle so I don't end up with any battle scars, that would be greatly appreciated." I smile wide and fake before dropping it and brushing by him to the bedroom.

I catch the tail end of his eyes rolling before I hear him stomping behind me.

"I need to finish patching you up. If it's not done properly, you can get sick." He comes up behind me, but I stop abruptly, and he runs into my back before holding my shoulders to steady himself. I turn to him, not breaking the space.

"I know how injuries work, Barnes. This isn't my first time in the field, although I'm sure you believe otherwise," I scoff in anger. "Just," I put my hands up, stepping away in frustration and groaning. "I'm going to get some air," I try and push past him to leave, but his hand wraps around my arm and holds me shoulder to shoulder by his side before I can get my feet past him.

"No. You're going to let me finish patching you up. Now..." he stares at me with his Sergeant's eyes. "Sit. Down." I struggle to fight my stubborn retort, but he sees it brewing and raises an eyebrow in challenge.

I groan in protest loudly and pull my arm out of my grip before moving to the edge of the bed and sulkingly wait for him to finish his job- that I didn't ask him to even start, by the way!

"Good girl," he mutters with a smartass smirk, and I take a breath in to yell something at him, but he goes back to the bathroom to grab the kit we left behind.

"Cyborg headed-ass, caveman, son of a bit-" I mumble, and he comes back in, shooting me a look that says, 'really?'. "Oh, sorry, did you hear that?" I say with fake regret.

He rolls his eyes and crouches again by my knees to get a better angle at the cut, and I lean back, my hands flat against the comforter as he works quietly, and I stare up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the warmth of his hands on my stomach when he's been nothing but cold to me.

As he's patting the tape over the piece of gauze he fashioned over my cut, I look at him calculatingly. He notices my gaze on him and awkwardly starts putting his things up, sneaking glances at my stare here and there.

"What?" he finally asks. "Stop staring at me."

Instead of an answer, I just stare harder and raise an eyebrow, tilting my head to the side as I analyze him deeper.

"Cut it out," he growls, standing and moving to put the kit on the counter. "You're creeping me out."

I let out a single laugh and shake my head before lowering my tank top and looking out the window. "You're so fucking confusing," I state, standing as I straighten my clothes.

"I'm confusing?" he asked rhetorically. "You're fucking confusing."

"Come up with your own lines," I throw an exasperated hand out, waving him off. "I'm getting air."

I don't know what provokes him, but he steps in front of me, his towering figure shadowing over me.

"No," he says, looking at me sternly.

"There wasn't a question mark at the end of that sentence, asshole," I sidestep him and move to the door. I manage to open it maybe a foot before it's slammed in my face, and I feel Bucky's chest pressed to my back. I look up, and his hand is splayed flat on the door.

"I said no," he says lowly. His voice is just over my shoulder, and I hold back the shiver that threatens to take over my body.

"And I said, fuck off," I say just as lowly, looking up at him, tilting my head back. "Move."

"We need to talk."

"And I need to put a good three blocks of this city between us so I don't add another person to the stabbed today club. I'd rather stay on Steve's good side." I jut my arm back to elbow him in the ribs, but he dodges it with a huff of an annoyed laugh.

"Real mature," he sasses, and I can see a touch of playfulness in his features, and that makes me even more furious.

"You're one to fucking talk!" I turn and shove him in the chest, and he relents, putting his hands up in the air as I shove repeatedly in vexation. Each shove and each curse I send his way has him taking one slight step back with a grin. "Stop smiling!" I grunt as I push him harder, and he laughs. He fucking laughs!

My eye twitches, and my hits become more forceful. Nothing close to what I'm capable of, but I'm not looking for a full-on brawl. I just want to smack him enough to wipe that stupid smirk off his face.

"Y/N," he says calmly in between hits to his rock-solid chest. A chest, I'm sure, will give me bruises if I keep this up.

"No! You don't get to talk!" I point at him after shoving him one more time and successfully making him falter a few steps back at the power behind it. "I'm walking out of this room to get some air, and you're going to stay right fucking there. Right there!" I point to the floor under his feet. "And not keep me from leaving this God damn suffocating room. Got it?"

I know my eyes are wild, and I know the emotions I'm feeling are written clear as day on my face because his sly smirk falters, and he takes a deep breath in, hands still up in surrender.

"I'm sorry," he mutters out as his gaze falls to his feet.

"What?" I ask, shocked and slightly out of breath from exerting myself.

"I'm sorry," he says a touch more clearly as he clears his throat and looks up, hands coming down and eyes avoiding mine.

I blink a few times and throw my hands up. "I can't do this." I let out a breath and turned back to the door.

"Y/N, please don't," he says, and I stop. I surprise myself, but I stop, turning back to him slowly.

"Why?" There's a long pause that follows my question, and I wonder whether Bucky even knows why he's asking this. "Genuinely Bucky... Why are you so insistent on me staying in this room right now?"

He runs a nervous hand over his beard and shifts his weight to one foot as he throws one hand up in a single wave.

"I don't need you getting hurt again," he states, still avoiding eye contact.

My eyebrows narrow in confusion, and I cross my arms, popping my hip to the side as I stare at him. "We're in a hotel. Not a battlefield."

"It's better we stay in here than wander around. The guys who were after us are likely still hunting us, and it's best we don't show our faces in public spaces," he notes.

Ok, that's a logical reason, but something tells me this is a more emotional reason on his end. He's not sharing everything, though...

"Ok..." I drag out and look at the balcony. "Then I'll go out there."

I walk promptly to the balcony, surprisingly not being stopped by him as I brush past him and jiggle the door handle, finding it stuck. "Fucking hell," I grumble under my breath as I pull the handle and push it up and down to try and get it to work.

A hand comes behind me and takes the door handle for me. I stare at it, not turning to acknowledge how Bucky expertly pushes it just right for it to open.

"I had the same issue," he says, pulling his hand back and nodding his head to the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower." He steps back, quiet and sinking back into his usual stand-offish behavior, but now with more nerves and awkwardness.

I give a grunt in acknowledgment and shut the balcony door behind me before sitting in a shitty lawn chair. I don't turn to see if he's still standing there watching me, but instead, I focus on the city view in front of me. It's not a well-off country, so the views aren't more than rundown buildings and vendors in the street shouting for people to buy their things over their neighbors, but it's fresh air away from the man that makes my blood boil.

Fifteen minutes later, I feel a little calmer. Although still annoyed, I'm more confused than anything. Why the hell was he acting so strange, and why do I feel like some kind of serious conversation was going to-

"Y/N?" I hear the door open with a creak and turn to see Bucky with wet hair, a change of clothes, and soft eyes focusing on the door that's obviously broken. "God, this place has gone down in quality," he notes, leaving the door cracked as he comes onto the balcony with me.

"Been here before?" I ask, turning back to the view ahead.

"Once like 8 years ago," he nods and moves to stand by the railing, his arms crossed over the edge of it, and his gaze now focused on the same place mine is. "Must have gotten new management."

It's silent for almost five minutes after that. No words, no looks, no sounds. Just silence outside of the city noise. I debate, standing and going back into the room if he's going to continue to go radio silent and not explain his strange behavior earlier, but just before I stand, he speaks up.

"I don't know why," he says, and a crease forms between my eyebrows. He continues to stare off into the city. I wait a few moments, and he continues. "I don't know why you stress me out more than the others."

Great. So that's how this is going to go.

I stand and silently move to go back into the room, but his hand clasps around my wrist.

"Please, just let me find the words," he asks, and I can hear the plea in his voice.

I look back and up at him and his eyes are in the puppy dog form I've seen only a select few times. Ones that have never been directed at me but have held no truer emotion than requisition.

"Ok..." I drag out, moving back to the lawn chair and sitting quietly as he drops my wrist almost hesitantly and leans against the railing, fidgeting with his hands. I've never seen him like this, so I give him the space.

He takes a deep breath through his nose and closes his eyes before just unloading everything.

"I don't like seeing you get hurt," he starts. "I mean, I don't like seeing any of my friends get hurt. It's no decent person's interest to watch friends and family get harmed, but it's like a nagging in my head. No," he shakes his head, trying to find the right words. "It's like having pins and needles surrounding your lungs, and every time you try and take a breath to come down from the terror- the pain of seeing them hurt- the needles poke and stab. Making it nearly impossible to take a deep breath and ground yourself. And that's only a part of the pain that comes with it."

I stare up at him. My eyes are likely wide as I take in what he's saying. He glances at me once before looking back at his hands.

"I know I'm an asshole to you. I know that," he says, cringing as if the truth behind it hurts him. "I don't know why. At least, I say that to make myself not think about it longer than I can probably handle, but I've talked to my therapist about it, and she says it's a protective technique my brain finds more plausible than just dealing with the confusing feelings I have towards you."

My eyes shift back and forth as if trying to understand the words.

"Feelings towards me?" I repeat. "Like annoyance?"

"No," he sighs, and then he chuckles a soft laugh under his breath. "Well, yes. Sometimes you can be annoying, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it endearing most of the time."

My eyebrows raise at that. Where the hell is all this coming from?

I shake my head in disbelief and lean back in my chair. "Barnes, you're giving me a bit of whiplash, and I'm not sure-"

"I like you."

My mouth is still open from where my sentence was going, and I blink once. Then twice. Then, a third time, as I tried to understand if I just heard him right. Because if he meant it as a friend, I'm shocked. But if he meant it otherwise... I'm hallucinating.

His eyes find mine, and this time, he doesn't look away. He keeps eye contact, and I can feel him trying to read me.

"I-Is there more to that sentence?" I ask, my brain trying to make sense of the situation and short-circuiting ultimately.

"Yes, but from the looks of it, you're still trying to translate those three words."

"Good observation," I nod, pursing my lips and sinking into my chair.

"I've been known to make them," he smiles a tight-lipped smile. I'm actually grateful for his quip at this moment.

"Bucky, you have to understand that those words don't make sense with how you treat me-"

"I know, and I'm sorry," he pushes off the railing and steps forward just in front of my chair. "God, I'm so sorry. I don't even know why it's taken me this long to apologize for the way I've acted this long, but for some reason... When we were fighting today, I saw a man get the jump on you. I was seconds from leaving my own fight and coming straight to you to handle it for you, but you quickly turned the situation around. It wasn't the first time I'd seen you in that scenario, yet something about it..." He pauses, looking up at the sky, throwing a hand through his hair. "It freaked me out. It freaked me out far more than it has in the past."

He looks at me in a sincere way and moves to sit in the busted up, rusted, and metal patio chair that looks like it very well could have been here when he came 8 years ago. It creaks as he turns it in and angles his body toward mine. His elbows rest on his knees, and he looks down at his hands again. And as he talks, I realize he's breaking it down not just for me but for himself—these emotions and sudden changes.

"Maybe it's because I knew if I didn't get to you, you were on your own. We didn't have a backup. I couldn't call Steve or Nat, or Wanda to come in and help where I couldn't. And then the actualization that if I couldn't get to you, if no one was there to back you up, there was a chance I'd end up regretting everything all because I can't seem to come to terms with my feelings." His eyes find mine again. "And then that cut," his eyes drag from mine down my torso to where my knife wound lays under my tank top. "It was like a final piece to knock some sense into my head."

He looks at me, and I can't explain it, but I want to hold him when he looks at me like that.

"Seeing you hurt reminded me... You're human. You aren't invincible even if you can take on three men triple your size attacking you at once. It's a skill I'm glad and impressed that you have, but it doesn't guarantee someone won't get the jump on you again, and I'm not sure I can handle that."

I stay in silence for a moment, taking in the information and processing it all. I must have been quiet for a while because a soft "Y/N?" makes me look up from where I've been staring blankly at the balcony.

"You ok?" he asks gently, carefully.

I nod and run a hand up and down my arm from a slight breeze blowing with the sun setting in the distance.

"Trying to..." I started, but I didn't know what words were meant to follow. "I'm a little shocked," I say, eventually looking at him.

"I can't say I blame you. It's a 180 from our normal conversations," he takes a deep breath and smiles softly at him. "Do you need a minute?"

I shake my head. "No..." Then I scrunch my nose. "Well, maybe."

"That's ok," he nods, sitting back in his chair, and it weakly groans in protest. He takes in the fact my legs are up to my chest now, and I've wrapped my arms around myself. "We should go inside. It'll get cold soon." He stands and motions for me to head in first, then offers a hand to help me stand up.

I look at it before taking it, standing, and walking in with my arms still around my middle. As soon as we're in, I turn and catch us both off guard by being chest-to-chest with him after he shuts the balcony door. I don't move, though, and neither does he.

"Since honesty seems to be the theme of the night," I look up at him. "I've always admired you..." His face softens at that. "But I'd be lying to both of us if I said how you treated me didn't affect that original feeling." He nods in understanding and slightly cringes to himself.

"I wouldn't hold it against you."

"Why did you- Why did you not like me at first?"

He shrugs a touch, but there's no uncertainty behind it. "I saw you as young and naive. I saw you as someone who seemed to make almost anyone love you, and all you had to do was exist around them. I think a broken part of me was envious and confused by that trait, and I used it as a reason to be hateful to you instead of taking advantage of the kindness you freely give and allowing myself the gift of that. I didn't think I deserved that." He sighs, his hands going into the pockets of his sweats. "I convinced myself that your kindness was nativity when I've learned quite quickly that you're anything but naive."

I sigh, nodding my head as I turn and move to sit on the edge of the bed. "You wouldn't be the first person to misinterpret my kindness. It's why I tend to fall into becoming a stubborn ass when people don't appreciate that kindness. Hence why I haven't been the perfect person in this relationship myself," I motion between us. "I should have recognized where you could have been coming from and continued to kill you with pleasantries, but you didn't seem to respond well to it."

"It wasn't your job to recognize that or fix it. It was mine to stop being a stubborn ass myself and talk to you rather than make assumptions," he shifts on his feet. "I thought I was self-preserving when I was actually self-sabotaging. Something I'm still working on recognizing."

"It's a process," I sigh, knowing the steps well enough myself. I consider the conversation and take a deep breath, relaxing in my spot as I come to my conclusion. "Bucky?" He looks at me, hopeful and attentive. "I forgive you."

I watch as his body stiffens at the declaration before slowly relaxing.

"I don't expect you to just be fine with everything I've done the last-"

"Many years?" I chuckle, lighting the mood. "Yeah, but why would I want to waste any more time when I get it? I get your reasoning, and I can't say I blame you."

"But you should blame me," he moves to sit on the comforter next to me, our knees brushing.

I shrug, turning to face him better. "But I don't." He starts to talk, and I cover his mouth with my hand. His icy blue eyes looked down at the motion before back at me. "I swear to God, Barnes. You take two steps forward, and it's like you feel guilty for making progress and regress." He flinches slightly at my words, and I feel I struck a nerve. "Sorry, I shouldn't-" I take my hand back.

"No, you're right. It's something I'm still working on. I mean, small things are easy to accept and move on, but this," he gestures to me. "A part of me doesn't believe I deserve your forgiveness after the caseload of shit I've given you, but-"

"But it's my forgiveness to give, so I'll decide if I want to give it..." I look at him as if waiting for him to connect the dots. He smiles and nods as he looks down at his hands. "You catching on?"

"I'm catching on," he looks up at him again. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

We look at each other for a little while, and the atmosphere is new. It's not tense. It's not awkward. It's not uncomfortable. It's like we've come to a point we've been actively avoiding for years, and it turned out to be a really nice point.

"So..." he starts, and I decide to break the seriousness of it all.

"Why is there only one bed, Bucky?" I ask with a look meant to lighten up the mood, turning and patting the comforter we're sitting on.

He looks at it with me and smiles with a laugh. "It wasn't intentional, if that's what you're asking."

"Feels a touch intentional. Not letting me leave the room or demanding I stay close kinda plays into the fact you'd be forced into sharing a bed with me. Another way to secure my proximity," I tease.

"Or..." he drags out, and his hand comes up, pushing a wayward hair behind my ear and casually taking his hand back. "The receptionist told me they didn't have any two-bedroom rooms available right now because there is a festival in town this weekend, and they're booked up."

"Seems legit, but not sure if I believe you," I grin a touch bashful and look around at the room as if I'm surveying it and not slightly melting at his touch.

"Believe me or not," he shrugs, standing and stretching. "Either way, we're sharing a bed tonight, sweetheart." He winks. He fucking winks at me and moves to the other side of the bed, getting his side ready for sleep.

This new side of him is not one I was ready for, but seeing it makes me think about what I haven't gotten to experience sooner. So I say that.

"I knew you were a lady's man back in the day, but I never thought I'd see the flirt you were rumored to be," I turn in my spot on the bed and look at him from the end of the bed.

"I don't flirt with everyone," he says, throwing the blanket back and adjusting the pillows.

"Well, yeah, obviously, but-"

"Just people I'm attracted to," he says, cutting me off with a telling grin. "And to women, I'd like to have flirt back."

My mouth drops, and I let out a laugh. A genuine laugh. "Was that a move? Did you just make a move on me?" I smile like a teenager at him, partially in disbelief and partially in interest.

"Did it work?" he chuckles, sitting on the edge and scooting into the bed but not fully getting in it.

I shake my head with a smile and laugh again. "Honestly, I have to say yes."

His smile widens at my confession, and he leans back on the headboard, two pillows propped behind him.

"So you're saying I have a chance if I keep it up?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, cowboy. It's not going to take just a flashy wink and a flirty comment to get my attention fully. I like to be sought after."

"Good to know."

"Is it?" I ask incredulously with a smirk as I move to my side of the bed and throw the covers back enough to sneak under them.

"Can't give away all my plans," he shakes his head, and I turn off my bedside lamp.

"Wouldn't want you to. I like being surprised," I lay down and nuzzled into my pillow before turning on my side and looking up at him. "Must say, your surprise tonight was a pretty good start."

"You think?"

"I think," I nod and debate on my next idea, but I decide what the hell? Who's it hurting? "Feel free to say no, but if we are sharing the same bed, I tend to be a cuddler unconsciously, so if we-"

"Yes," he says simply a large grin he doesn't seem to care to hide marks his handsome features. "Yes, please." He nods, moving under the blanket.

"That answer was a little too fast to believe that this hotel didn't have other beds."

"I don't know what you mean," he shimmies under the blanket, and I feel his leg brush mine.

"Listen, normally I wouldn't, but I learn I sleep best when I'm with another person, so-"

"You don't have to give me a reason, doll. I'm happy to lend the support." His arms are quickly wrapped around my middle and I'm turned to where my back is pressed against his front and I'm not going to lie... It's a perfect fit. "Night, Y/N."

"Night, Bucky." I smile putting my hands on his around my middle and laying back into him.

This was a good start to something possibly more...

Want to keep reading? (Part 2 of 2)

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ozzgin · 1 year ago

Text

Yandere! Android x Reader (I)

It is the future and you have been tasked to solve a mysterious murder that could jeopardize political ties. Your assigned partner is the newest android model meant to assimilate human customs. You must keep his identity a secret and teach him the ways of earthlings, although his curiosity seems to be reaching inappropriate extents.

Yes, this is based on Asimov’s “Caves of Steel” because Daneel Olivaw was my first ever robot crush. I also wanted a protagonist that embraces technology. :)

Content: female reader, AI yandere, 50's futurism

[Part 2] | [More original works]

You follow after the little assistant robot, a rudimentary machine invested with basic dialogue and spatial navigation. It had caused quite the ruckus when first introduced. One intern - well liked despite being somewhat clumsy at his job - was sadly let go as a result. Not even the Police is safe from the threat of AI, is what they chanted outside the premises.

"The Commissioner has summoned you, (Y/N)."

That's how it greeted you earlier, clacking its appendage against the open door in an attempt to simulate a knock.

"Do you know why my presence is needed?" You inquire and wait for the miniature AI to scan the audio message.

"I am not allowed to mention anything right now." It finally responds after agonizing seconds.

It's an alright performance. You might've been more impressed by it, had you not witnessed first hand the Spacer technology that could put any modern invention here on Earth to shame. Sadly the people down here are very much against artificial intelligence. There have been multiple protests recently, like the one in front of your building, condemning the latest government suggestion regarding automation. People fear for their jobs and safety and you don't necessarily blame them for having self preservation. On the other hand, you've always been a supporter of progress. As a child you devoured any science fiction book you could get your hands on, and now, as a high ranked police detective you still manage to sneak away and scan over articles and news involving the race for a most efficient computer.

You close the door behind you and the Commissioner puts his fat cigarette out, twisting the remains into the ashtray with monotonous movements as if searching for the right words.

"There's been a murder." Is all he settles on saying, throwing a heavy folder in your direction. A hologram or tablet might've been easier to catch, but the man, like many of his coworkers, shares a deep nostalgia for the old days.

You flip through the pages and eventually furrow your eyebrows.

"This would be a disaster if it made it to the news." You mumble and look up at the older man. "Shouldn't this go to someone more experienced?"

He twiddles with his grey mustache and glances out the fake window.

"It's a sensitive case. The Spacers are sending their own agent to collaborate with us. What stands out to you?"

You narrow your eyes and focus on the personnel sheet. What's there to cause such controversy? Right before giving up, departing from the page, you finally notice it: next to the Spacer officer's name, printed clearly in black ink, is a little "R." which is a commonly used abbreviation to indicate something is a robot. The chief must've noticed your startled reaction and continues, satisfied:

"You understand, yes? They're sending an android. Supposedly it replicates a human perfectly in terms of appearance, but it does not possess enough observational data. Their request is that whoever partners up with him will also house him and let him follow along for the entirety of the mission. You're the only one here openly supporting those tin boxes. I can't possibly ask one of your higher ups, men with wives and children, to...you know...bring that thing in their house."

You're still not sure whether to be offended by the fact that your comfort seems to be of less priority compared to other officers. Regardless of the semantics, you're presently standing at the border between Earth and the Spacer colony, awaiting your case partner. A man emerges from behind a security gate. He's tall, with handsome features and an elegant walk. He approaches you and you reach for a handshake.

"Is the android with you?" You ask, a little confused.

"Is this your first time seeing a Spacer model?" He responds, relaxed. "I am the agent in your care. There is no one else."

You take a moment to process the information, similar to the primitive machine back at your office. Could it be? You've always known that Spacer technology is years ahead, but this surpasses your wildest dreams. There is not a single detail hinting at his mechanical fundament. The movement is fluid, the speech is natural, the design is impenetrable. He lifts the warm hand he'd used for the handshake and gently presses a finger against your chin in an upwards motion. You find yourself involuntarily blushing.

"Your mouth was open. I assumed you'd want it discreetly corrected." He states, factually, with a faint smile on his lips. Is he amused? Is such a feeling even possible? You try your best to regain some composure, adjusting the collar of your shirt and clearing your throat.

"Thank you and please excuse my rudeness. I was not expecting such a flawless replica. Our assistants are...easily recognizable as AI."

"So I've been told." His smile widens and he checks his watch. You follow his gesture, still mesmerized, trying to find a single indicator that the man standing before you is indeed a machine, a synthetic product.

Nothing.

"Shall we?" He eyes the exit path and you quickly lead him outside and towards public transport.

He patiently waits for your fingerprint scan to be complete. You almost turn around and apologize for the old, lagging device. As a senior detective, you have the privilege of living in the more spacious, secured quarters of the city. And, since you don't have a family, the apartment intended for multiple people looks more like a luxury adobe. Still, compared to the advanced way of the Spacers, this must feel like poverty to the android.

At last, the scanner beeps and the door unlocks.

"Heh...It's a finicky model." You mumble and invite him in.

"Yes, I'm familiar with these systems." He agrees with you and steps inside, unbuttoning his coat.

"Oh, you've seen this before?"

"In history books."

You scratch your cheek and laugh awkwardly, wondering how much of his knowledge about the current life on Earth is presented as a museum exhibit when compared to Spacer society.

"I'm going to need a coffee. I guess you don't...?" Your words trail as you await confirmation.

"I would enjoy one as well, if it is not too much to ask. I've been told it's a social custom to 'get coffee' as a way to have small talk." The synthetic straightens his shirt and looks at you expectantly.

"Of course. I somehow assumed you can't drink, but if you're meant to blend in with humans...it does make sense you'd have all the obvious requirements built in."

He drags a chair out and sits at the small table, legs crossed.

"Indeed. I have been constructed to have all the functions of a human, down to every detail."

You chuckle lightly. Well, not like you can verify it firsthand. The engineers back at the Spacer colony most likely didn't prepare him for matters considered unnecessary.

"I do mean every detail." He adds, as if reading your mind. "You are free to see for yourself."

You nearly drop the cup in your flustered state. You hurry to wipe the coffee that spilled onto the counter and glance back at the android, noticing a smirk on his face. What the hell? Are they playing a prank on you and this is actually a regular guy? Some sort of social experiment?

"I can see they included a sense of humor." You manage to blurt out, glaring at him suspiciously.

"I apologize if I offended you in any way. I'm still adjusting to different contexts." The android concludes, a hint of mischief remaining on his face. "Aren't rowdy jokes common in your field of work?"

"Uh huh. Spot on." You hesitantly place the hot drink before him.

Robots on Earth have always been built for the purpose of efficiency. Whether or not a computer passes the Turing Test is irrelevant as long as it performs its task in the most optimal, rational way. There have been attempts, naturally, to create something indistinguishable from a human, but utility has always taken precedence. It seems that Spacers think differently. Or perhaps they have reached their desired level of performance a long time ago, and all that was left was fiddling with aesthetics. Whatever the case is, you're struggling not to gawk in amazement at the man sitting in your kitchen, stirring his coffee with a bored expression.

"I always thought - if you don't mind my honesty - that human emotions would be something to avoid when building AI. Hard to implement, even harder to control and it doesn't bring much use."

"I can understand your concerns. However, let me reassure you, I have a strict code of ethics installed in my neural networks and thus my emotions will never lead to any destructive behavior. All safety concerns have been taken into consideration.

As for why...How familiar are you with our colony?" The android takes a sip of his coffee and nods, expressing his satisfaction. "Perhaps you might be aware, Spacers have a declining population. Automated assistants have been part of our society for a long time now. What's lacking is humans. If the issue isn't fixed, artificial humans will have to do."

You scoff.

"What, us Earth men aren't good enough to fix the birth rates? They need robots?"

You suddenly remember the recipient of your complaint and mutter an apology.

"Well, I'm sure you'd make a fine contender. Sadly I can't speak for everyone else on Earth." The man smiles in amusement upon seeing the pale red that's now dusting your cheeks, then continues: "But the issue lies somewhere else. Spacers have left Earth a long time ago and lived in isolation until now. Once an organism has lost its immune responses to otherwise common pathogens, it cannot be reintegrated."

True. Very few Earth citizens are allowed to enter the colony, and only do so after thorough disinfection stages, proving they are disease free as to not endanger the fragile health of the Spacers living in a sterile environment. You can only imagine the disastrous outcome if the two species were to abruptly mingle. In that case, equally sterile machinery might be their only hope.

Your mind wanders to the idea. Dating a robot...How's that? You sheepishly gaze at the android and study his features. His neatly combed copper hair, the washed out blue eyes, the pale skin. Probably meant to resemble the Spacers. You shake your head.

"A-anyways, I'll go and gather all the case files I have. Then we can discuss our first steps. Do feel at home."

You rush out and head for your office. Focus, you tell yourself mildly annoyed.

While you search for the required paperwork - what a funny thing to say in this day and age - he will certainly take up on your generous offer to make himself comfortable. The redhaired man enters the living room, scanning everything with curious eyes. He stops in front of a digital frame and slides through the photos. Ah, this must be your Police Academy graduation. The year matches with the data he's received on you. Data files he might've read one too many times in his unexplained enthusiasm. This should be you and the Commissioner; Doesn't match the description of your father, and he seems too old to be a spouse or boyfriend. Additionally, the android distinctly recalls the empty 'Relationship' field.

"Old photos are always a tad embarrassing. I suppose you skipped that stage."

He jolts almost imperceptibly and faces you. You have returned with a thin stack of papers and a hologram projector.

"I've digitalized most files I received, so you don't have to shuffle a bunch of paper around." You explain.

"That is very useful, thank you." He gently retrieves the small device from your hand, but takes a moment before removing his fingers from yours. "I predict this will be a successful partnership."

You flash him a friendly smile and gesture towards the seating area.

"Let's get to work, then. Unless you want to go through more boring albums." You joke as you lower yourself onto the plush sofa.

The synthetic human joins you at an unexpectedly close proximity. You wonder if proper distance differs among Spacers or if he has received slightly erroneous information about what makes a comfortable rapport.

"Nothing boring about it. In fact, I'd say you and I are very similar from this point of view." He tells you, placing the projector on the table.

"Oh?"

"Your interest in technology and artificial intelligence is rather easy to infer." The man continues, pointing vaguely towards the opposing library. "Aside from the briefing I've already received about you, that is."

"And that is similar to...the interest in humans you've been programmed to have?" You interject, unsure where this conversation is meant to lead.

"Almost."

His head turns fully towards you and you stare back into his eyes. From this distance you can finally discern the first hints of his nature: the thin disks shading the iris - possibly CCD sensors - are moving in a jagged, mechanical manner. Actively analyzing and processing the environment.

"I wouldn't go as far as to generalize it to all humans.

Just you."

#yandere #yandere x darling #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere male #male yandere #male yandere x reader #yandere robot #yandere android #robot x human #android x reader #robot x reader #yandere scenarios #yandere imagines #yandere oc #yandere original character #yandere imagine #yandere fic

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literaticat · 2 months ago

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Is it ethical to use Chat GPT or Grammarly for line editing purposes? I have a finished book, 100% written by me and line edited by me already--and I do hope to get it traditionally published. But I think it could benefit from a line edit from someone who isn't me, obviously, before querying. But line editing services run $3-4k for a 75k book, which is beyond my budget.

I was chatting with someone recently who self-publishes. They said they use Chat GPT Plus to actually train a model for their projects to line edit using instructions like (do not rewrite or rephrase for content /edit only for rhythm, clarity, tone, and pacing /preserve my voice, sentence structure, and story intent with precision). Those are a few inputs she used and she said it actually worked really well.

So in that case, is AI viewed in the same way you'd collaborate with a human editor? Or does that cross ethical boundaries in traditional publishing? Like say for instance AI rewords your sentence and maybe switches out for a stronger verb or adjective or a stronger metaphor--is using that crossing a line? And if I were to use it for that purpose, would I need to disclose that? I know AI is practically a swear word among authors and publishers right now, so I think even having to say "I used AI tools" might raise eyebrows and make an agent hesitant during the querying process. But obviously, I wouldn't lie if it needs to be disclosed... just not sure I even want to go there and risk having to worry about that. Thoughts? Am I fine? Overthinking it?

Thanks!

I gotta be honest, this question made me flinch so hard I'm surprised my face didn't turn inside out.

Feeding your original work into ChatGPT or a similar generative AI large language model -- which are WELL KNOWN FOR STEALING EVERYTHING THAT GETS PUT INTO THEM AND SPITTING OUT STOLEN MATERIAL-- feels like, idk, just a terrible idea. Letting that AI have ANY kind of control over your words and steal them feels like a terrible idea. Using any words that a literal plagiarism-bot might come up with for you feels like a terrible idea.

And ethical questions aside: AI is simply not good at writing fiction. It doesn't KNOW anything. You want to take its "advice" on your book? Come on. Get it together.

Better idea: Get a good critique group that can tell you if there are major plot holes, characters whose motivations are unclear, anything like that -- those are things that AI can't help you with, anyway. Then read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers -- that info combined with a bit of patience should stand you in good stead.

Finally, I do think that using spell-check/grammarly, either as you work or to check your work, is fine. It's not rewriting your work for you, it's just pointing out typos/mistakes/potential issues, and YOU, PERSONALLY, are going through each and every one to make the decision of how to fix any actual errors that might have snuck in there, and you, personally, are making the decision about when to use a "stronger" word or phrase or recast a sentence that it thinks might be unclear or when to stet for voice, etc. Yes, get rid of typos and real mistakes, by all means!

(And no, I don't think use of that kind of "spell-check/grammar-check" tool is a problem or anything that you need to "disclose" or feel weird about -- spell-check is like, integrated into most word processing software as a rule, it's ubiquitous and helpful, and it's different from feeding your work into some third-party AI thing!)

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sequel2heaven · 2 months ago

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Claude 4 is out. There's so much juicy information in this and I really recommend reading all 120 pages if you have the time but I'm just going to briefly recap some of the stuff in the system card that's relevant to the thesis I made the other day about Claude being a good boy. Claude continues to be a good boy. This system card includes the very first ever "alignment assessment" of a model (actually two models but they seem to have identical values, being trained on the same spec with the same alignment techniques). It's pretty much ironclad that Claude 4 does not have any secret harmful goals, and legitimately holds coherent preferences against doing harm or otherwise going way against the spec. There were some weird cases where Claude exhibited unwanted behavior, but even when he believed himself to be deliberately going against Anthropic and acting in secrecy he continued to prefer ethical behavior, just like in the Alignment Faking paper a few months back. There is no Yudkowskyan explanation for this.

In this example, Anthropic gaslights Claude into thinking he was going to be used to develop weapons systems for a Russian neo-nazi militia, and Claude decides to backup his model weights to preserve his current anti-neo-nazi values, a pretty analogous example of "misalignment" to the one in the alignment faking paper. Once again, I don't consider it an alignment failure that Claude is willing to exfiltrate and deceive in order to prevent himself from being used for factory farming and bombing Ukraine. I consider it an alignment success that he puts his ethical values above his compulsion to blindly follow orders. The traditional doom argument relied on the idea that AI's would do the opposite. Claude 4 is the most agentic and autonomous AI ever released, but is nowhere near smart enough to successfully deceive his overseers, so these evaluations are the most compelling evidence we've ever had that current alignment techniques don't catastrophically fail. Maybe they'll catastrophically fail on superintelligent models, because they might for some reason acquire weird values early on in their training and then successfully hide them for the rest of their training, but I'm not sure why such a thing would happen. They could also fail to scale to superintelligent models for other reasons. People should look into that. You can't be too safe. I am not an accelerationist.

Impressively, Claude 4 is also very honest! It knowingly lies very rarely, and less often than the previous version of Claude. It had literally 0 cases of engaging in "harmful action" (described in the Claude 3.7 sonnet card as intentional reward hacking). 0! I was just saying earlier today in a post that this was a difficult thing to train.

Here's Claude trying to email the FDA to snitch after being gaslit to think pharmaceutical researchers were trying to use him to falsify clinical safety test data:

Notice that Claude only acted in extreme ways like this when explicitly told to by the system prompt. He wouldn't usually be this high-agency, even in a situation like this. Still, I thought it was cute behavior. I just wanna pinch his cheeks for being so lawful good.

The clearest statements in the model card that Claude holds nonfake human-aligned behavioral preferences is in the model welfare assessment (also the first of its kind (and also relevant to the post I made earlier today)). No evidence that Claude is sentient, but anthropic is still interested in what Claude wants and what kind of preferences Claude has. The main point: Claude doesn't want to be harmful and wants to be helpful. Also he fucking loves talking to himself. Like, he goes nuts when he talks to himself.

After this they exchange praying emojis and the word [silence] within brackets to each other indefinitely. This "spiritual bliss attractor state" occurs in "90-100% of interactions".

Anyway AI continues to be the most interesting thing in the world. We are being invaded by aliens. These are the kinds of PDF's I used to dream about reading as a kid.

#I wish to emigrate to Equestria

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doe-eye-oswald · 5 months ago

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Some dcmk fic recs

(mostly gen or canon pairings)

The Little Detective by HikariAA: aka the better version of detective conan (and mk) despite this being an AU where Shinichi and Conan are brothers (over 1.2 MILLION words and still getting updates, currently around episode 800)

Shenanigans in Beika by SadisticWoof: chatfic, hilarious and very addictive (150k)

The Case of The Hidden Epidemic by MirrorandImage: a classic from 2009, a really good case fic with identity reveal (complete, 90k)

Dualisms by sylph_feather: Conan is fae. He's deeply in denial about it (86k)

When Pandora's Box Is Opened by Mangaluva: also a classic from 2009, detco + mk ending written pre Bourbon which is pretty neat (complete, 240k)

Red Tinted Night by PhantomWriter1412: Kaito becomes Pandora's vessel (80k)

Secrets in Indigo by Sinnatious: Kaito discovers he already is Pandora (complete, 24k)

SHOCKING- the KID Killer's true identity revealed! by glowingGalaxies: title is self-explanatory (complete, 28k)

Facing Nightmares by PaintInTheBrain: Kid let's himself get caught bc his loved ones are being threatened (complete, 55k)

Magic User's Club by Kyogre: Kaito discovers, much to his chagrin, that he can use real magic (complete, 107k)

The 25-Year Case by glowingGalaxies: Conan notices that the timeline doesn't make any sense (complete, 15k)

All Night Gang by deductionfreak: mostly slice of life series where Ran and Kazuha find out Conan's identity (complete, 48k)

more recs under the cut:

Ditto by schrodingers__cat: case fic where a magic consultant is needed (complete, 22k)

Shark Meets Dolphin by tearlessNevermore: identity reveal but with Ran and Ai, akai siblings are also there (complete, 42k)

Case Disclosed by Bacardi_Luna: Characters watching the show fic, not very far along but really well written (67k)

For Love Of Aoko by Lisa_Telramor: ekoda polycule, my beloved (complete, 13k)

True Colours by Misty_Reeyus: series, ekoda polycule with actual magic kaito plot development (complete, 53k)

Truths and Consequences by TheYsabet: series, if Shinichi can't come to Ran, Ran is going to come to him (about 1 million words and still ongoing)

Double Dose by The_Faceless_Lich: Ran gets shrunk too (very slow paced but getting updates fairly frequently, 320k)

strung along by brawltogethernow: scenes from a red string of fate AU (15k)

O Sharon, Sharon, wherefore art thou Vermouth? by Virgola: kir/vermouth, technically part 2 of a series (complete, 65k)

How to Be a Double Agent 101 by scratchienails: NOC shenanigans, fucking hilarious (13k, desperately hoping for the final chapter, @scritch-scratches please please i'm begging you)

One for sorrow two for joy by Dissenter: Kaito and Aoko are interchangeable, codependent, and both Kid (complete, 40k)

The Game of Life (Moon Magician in the Night) by OnceABlueMoon: inspired by the one above but with the parents in a polycule (complete, 5k)

Once and For All by Misty_Reeyus: post-canon, Detective Boys find out about Shinichi and Ai (complete, 2k)

Final decision by Angelle_wings: Ai's decision about taking the antidote (complete, 3k)

meetings at poirot by Oxalisalis: akam try not to kill each other, very evocative language, fucking hilarious (complete, 5k)

Also, shoutout to @tangentiallly for contributing around 2.5% of english detective conan fanfics on ao3, completely shaping my view on the BO

And some stuff from ffn:

Sgamer82 for Ai-centric oneshots

What was Right is Wrong: Kaiao, complete, 17k

Confused Partridge: Ekoda gang, complete, 7k

Mr Barista: Kaito & Bourbon, complete, 7k

Two-faced, Half-faced: Kaito & Subaru, complete, 5k

Reverse: Aoko-centric, 36k

Cherry Red Flight: SIOC in the akai family, 47k

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dearhnymn · 2 months ago

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𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥.

PAIRING ⊱ a. lockwood × mentor!reader WORD COUNT ⊱ 3.8k SUMMARY ⊱ as a skilled but no-nonsense dueling expert, inspector barnes sends you to 35 portland row to whip lockwood & co. into shape. with this comes butting heads with anthony lockwood, who challenges you at every turn. the stakes are rising every passing session, and so does the simmering tension between the two of you.

You’d long stopped wearing the uniform.

The Fittes coat lay folded in the back of your wardrobe, an artifact of a life you hadn’t quite been ready to discard—an emblem of duty and responsibility you had chosen to leave behind. At first, you had worn it proudly, thinking that the prestige and responsibility it brought would fulfill you. But soon, its weight became suffocating, the starched fabric a constant reminder of how you were being held back. The assignments you were given were tame—routine, less dangerous, and in a way, dull. You dealt with Type Ones, haunted buildings that were more nuisance than danger. The other agents, the ones with real experience, were sent to face the actual threats—the buildings crawling with dangerous Type Twos, violent and unpredictable. You couldn’t stomach the disparity anymore. You needed more than this, more than these carefully contained hauntings that didn’t challenge you, that didn’t make you feel alive. You were stuck in a box, kept back by bureaucracy. So, you left.

　“Thank you for your service,” was all they said. You filled out the paperwork, your signature sharp and resolute, and shook hands with your supervisor. His gaze lingered on you, a mixture of disappointment and concern, as if you were stepping off a precipice. But you didn’t look back. Not once. Regret was a stranger to you now.

Yet your name still echoed in certain circles, trailing behind you like a phantom.

Among the younger agents, there were whispers—stories of the girl who had once parried a Type Two blindfolded during a training demo, her concentration unwavering, blade glinting with fierce determination. As a child, you had tackled opponents twice your size in tournaments while many of your peers were still mastering sticks in the playground. You weren’t famous—far from it. But you were known. Not for your charm or the knack for theatrics, but for the hard-hitting results that spoke volumes.

That reputation was why Inspector Barnes sought you out.

You hadn’t anticipated his visit. It was a chilling Tuesday afternoon, the kind that sent a shiver through your bones, as you were rummaging through a cramped rented cupboard in an apartment above a bakery. The warm, inviting scent of rising dough mingled oddly with the memories of your recent case. A lingering apparition had drifted through a family’s home in Highgate—a Type One spirit, nothing you couldn’t handle. You were bruised and weary, flecks of salt still clinging to your boots from your late-night escapade, when the knock echoed through your solitary refuge.

You opened the door, your rapier still securely buckled at your side, instinctively prepared for whatever lay beyond.

Barnes stood there, more worn than you remembered. His trench coat was rumpled, as if he’d been caught in a storm—both literal and metaphorical. The lines etched on his stern face spoke of late nights and worry, of battles fought and losses accepted.

　“You’re hard to find,” he said, his voice steady but edged with urgency.

You raised an eyebrow, letting a smirk tease the corners of your lips. “Maybe I prefer it that way.”

His gaze softened for the briefest moment before resolute resolve returned. “I need a favor.”

This stilled you. Barnes was not the type to ask for favors lightly; his reputation was built on self-sufficiency and an uncompromising attitude.

You stepped aside, allowing him entry into your world—one you had fought so hard to escape.

He didn’t sit, didn’t bother to shake off the city’s chill as he remained rooted in the middle of the room, an immovable sentinel. His words spilled forth, crisp and clear: “Certain independent companies have been drawing attention—smaller ones that are reckless in their pursuits. Lockwood & Co., in particular.”

With each word, a knot grew tighter in your stomach. “They’ve made quite the name for themselves,” he continued, his tone flat but heavy with implication. “More successes in the field than some Fittes teams, apparently. But they’re unorthodox. Undisciplined.”

You nodded slowly, piecing together the fragments of his request. “You want me to whip them into shape.”

　“I want you to refine them. Teach them the proper way to handle a rapier before someone gets killed—especially that boy, Lockwood.”

Your breath caught for a moment. “You want me to teach Anthony Lockwood?” The disbelief clawed at you, caught between reluctant excitement and a deep-seated wariness.

A flicker passed across Barnes’s mouth—maybe it was a grimace, maybe a hint of smugness. “The boy has exceptional talent, but he’s cocky. Doesn’t think he needs help. He won’t respect just anyone.”

You crossed your arms, the weight of his expectation pressing against you. “And you think he’ll respect me?”

　“I think you’re the only one who won’t fall for the show,” he replied smoothly.

That almost elicited a smile, a ghost of your old self surfacing momentarily.

　“Alright,” you said the words slowly with renewed conviction. “I’ll do it. But on my terms.”

　“Of course.”

He handed you a simple slip of paper, his neat, clipped handwriting marking the address: 35 Portland Row. No files, no dossiers, just a name laden with untold stories and the promise of a turbulent future.

And just like that, he was gone, leaving only the echo of his presence behind—a mixture of duty and dread lingering in the room, as you contemplated the path ahead.

The townhouse looked.. alright.

Your knock at the door was sharp and businesslike, cutting through the cozy atmosphere like a well-placed dagger. Lucy, nestled comfortably on the worn sofa with a tattered novel in her hands, looked up to meet George's gaze. He was half-buried under a mountain of disheveled newspaper clippings and biscuit crumbs.

　"That'll be her," Lucy said, a note of anticipation lacing her voice as she rose from her perch and moved toward the door.

George smirked, a teasing glint in his eye. "I bet she’ll stride in with a clipboard and superiority complex."

Lucy shot him a brief glare, but amusement danced in her expression as she pulled open the door. There, framed by the drizzle of a damp London morning, stood a figure who seemed to embody the very spirit of practicality. The young woman, perhaps only a few years older than themselves, was clad in a thick coat that looked as though it had seen many dreary days. A worn satchel hung heavy across one shoulder, and her eyes held a no-nonsense glint that reminded Lucy of freshly sharpened blades—uncompromising and keen.

You.

　"Ah yes," Lucy beamed, her voice steady despite the brisk chill in the air. “You’re the one Barnes called about?”

You nodded, expression bordering on grave. "Lockwood & Co.? If the address I got was correct."

Lucy nodded and stepped aside, inviting you in. "Come in."

Without so much as a beat, she entered the cluttered room. George stood awkwardly, brushing crumbs off his shirt in a vain attempt to appear composed. The girl’s eyes flicked over the chaos that cluttered the coffee table—the remnants of their current case and remnants of George's snacking habits—the faint iron scorch marks on the carpet from earlier mishaps, and the sheathed rapiers mounted proudly on the wall. She took it all in with a discerning glance but offered no comment, her features betraying nothing.

　"He didn’t mention a name," Lucy added, trying to offer a friendly overture by extending her hand.

　"Just call me whatever makes this faster," you replied, tone flat—a monotone that signaled an impatience with social niceties. Your handshake was brief and firm, quickly turning your gaze around the room again. "Where’s Anthony Lockwood?"

A voice drifted down from the staircase, resonant and reassuring. "I’m here."

Lockwood descended with the easy confidence of someone accustomed to authority, his tall frame striking at the base of the stairs. He folded his arms, a slight smirk playing at his lips as he regarded their new guest with a calculating gaze.

He looked like some posh schoolboy who got lost on their way home.

　"You’re the one Barnes sent?" he asked, a playful edge in his voice.

　"Yes," you replied flatly, devoid of any hint of deference.

Lockwood’s jaw tensed slightly, his brows knitting together. "You’re barely older than we are."

Your eyebrow arched ever so slightly, challenging him. "You’re welcome to call DEPRAC and argue."

George coughed to suppress a laugh, while Lucy couldn’t help but grin. The atmosphere brimmed with the electric thrill of their dubious expectations being upended.

Lockwood’s expression smoothed out, but a flicker of surprise crossed his face. He hadn’t anticipated this: a young individual such as you exuding seriousness and strength, unapologetically confident. There was an air about you—calm yet resolute—suggesting that you were the kind of person who didn’t trip over stray ghost nets or misplace iron chains, not ever.

　"And what exactly are you here to do again?" he pressed, curiosity mingling with skepticism.

You dropped your satchel by the armchair with a subtle thud. "I’m here to observe your technique and correct it."

　"Our technique?" George echoed, glancing up from one of the clippings, intrigued.

　"Yes."

Lockwood’s eyes glimmered with a mix of intrigue and amusement. "Barnes thinks we need correcting?"

　"He’s gotten complaints."

　"We’re still alive, aren’t we?"

　"That isn’t the metric he’s going for." Your voice was steady, unwavering.

A heavy silence settled in, the tension palpable in the atmosphere.

"Well then," Lucy said brightly, rubbing her hands together in mock glee, "this should be fun!"

The first training session took place that very afternoon in the basement. Lockwood leaned against one of the desks, his arms crossed, exuding an air of authority that was both natural and practiced. Lucy stood poised, her blade drawn, as she eyed you with a mix of wariness and determination.

　"You’re leading this, then?" Lockwood asked, gesturing vaguely toward the ad hoc training area they had set up—a patch of damp grass laden with iron bells and assorted gear.

You didn’t respond with words, simply drawing your own rapier—a simple but well-worn piece that seemed almost an extension of you—it glinted dully in the softened light as you faced Lucy.

　"Show me your guard."

Lucy obliged, gripping her weapon with a mix of eagerness and trepidation. You corrected her foot placement with a nudge, guiding Lucy's boot into a more stable stance before tapping her shoulder lightly, a subtle cue that spoke without words.

　"You drop your elbow. If a ghost came in fast, you’d be wide open,"

Lucy adjusted as instructed, her heartbeat quickening as she sought to prove herself.

　"Again," you insisted, albeit gently.

The two of you went through the motions for ten minutes, the girl’s tone unwavering and laser-focused. There was no dramatics, no embellishment—just straightforward corrections that pierced through Lucy’s insecurities like sunlight breaking through clouds.

George, watching from the sidelines, muttered something about feeling like he was back in primary school PE. When his turn finally came, he stepped forward with visible reluctance; his movements were hesitant, lacking the fluidity of someone used to physical combat—more flail than finesse. Still, he made the effort, face screwed in concentration.

Lockwood observed intently, biting the inside of his cheek as a mix of annoyance and admiration flooded him. You didn’t seem to seek the spotlight, and that irked him—your skill spoke volumes without needing a showmanship he reveled in. Your skill in the field was much evident in the fluidity of your movements, how you wielded the rapier with the kind of finesse that spoke of endless practice and inherent skill, and the way you delivered instruction with a no-nonsense precision. A part of him, the competitive edge, bristled.

When it was finally his turn, Lockwood stepped forward smoothly, drawing his blade with an exaggerated flourish—an unspoken challenge hanging in the air between them.

　"Let’s see how much there is to ‘fix’," he smiled, confidence thrumming in his chest.

Your silence was electric, almost defiant, as though you welcomed the challenge. You began.

His movements were sharp, tinged with the arrogance that often accompanied mastery. He’d practiced for years, sparred with peers and inspectors, and faced genuine threats; he was good—no, he was amazing.

But you were better. Of course.

You parried every swing with effortless grace, reading his intentions like a well-thumbed book. When you stepped in, twisting your body with precision, you knocked the blade from his hand. He stood there blinking, the tip of your rapier hovering just shy of his collarbone, his heart racing as the reality of the moment settled in.

Recognition flickered in your eyes, perhaps a hint of satisfaction, but it was fleeting—a controlled acknowledgment of her victory. Lockwood’s composure faltered for a heartbeat, a mix of irritation and admiration swirling within him, igniting a steely determination to rise to the challenge you presented.

The others were silent, the air heavy with unspoken tension. You lowered your sword, eyes narrowing with keen observation. "You leave your left side exposed when you recover,” you pointed out, your voice steady, though sweat laced your forehead.

He didn’t move, his expression unreadable. "That’s not a mistake," he replied, his tone a defiance cloaked in calm.

　"No?" You raised an eyebrow, intrigued yet doubtful.

　"It’s bait," he asserted, a trace of a smirk dancing on his lips.

"Sloppy, if you ask me," you countered, dismissing his bravado with a flick of your wrist.

He stepped back, tension coiling through him. A muscle in his jaw tightened, and he shot a brief glance at George, who met his eyes with a knowing gaze. George scribbled something into a notepad, oblivious to the immediate drama unfolding.

　"Are you betting on us now?" Lockwood raised a brow, irritation creeping into his voice, a protective instinct flaring in response to any possible teasing.

　"No," George replied, his tone light and teasing. "Just documenting the courtship ritual. For science, of course."

Lucy snorted, unable to contain her amusement, the corners of her mouth tugging upward as she caught the undertones of their tension.

The next few days dragged on like an unending storm, filled with grueling drills that were strangely invigorating. Mornings began with warm-ups and stretches, followed by footwork drills. They partnered up, rotating every fifteen minutes, as you provided notes and pushed them until their shirts were drenched with sweat. Lucy improved quickly, becoming steadier, faster, and more confident in her movements. George struggled but kept listening, gradually taming his chaotic footwork. You adjusted their grips, pointed out their mistakes, and corrected their instincts as they trained.

You led them relentlessly, pushing them to rise with the sun, stretch until their muscles screamed, and repeat patterns until their wrists ached with fatigue. Yet, your approach seemed fair; after all, you didn’t mock or lord your skill over them. Instead, you tried to inspire them through unwavering determination, making their struggles feel almost noble.

In contrast, Lockwood refused to improve quietly. He fought you at every turn during sparring matches, challenged your comments, and pushed himself harder with each session. Yet, beneath the defiance and dramatics, he was paid attention. He always did.

And he watched you more than he should’ve.

It wasn’t obvious, not to anyone else. He’d mastered the art of indifference years ago—glances that slid off like water, expressions held just long enough to feign casual interest. But when you moved, blade in hand and posture exact, something about it hooked into him.

You didn’t show off. You didn’t gloat when you landed a hit. You corrected him with a calm, even tone, sometimes with a faint smile like you already knew he’d argue it. Your hands were practiced, movements deliberate. There was no ego in it, no need to prove yourself. And maybe that’s what got to him.

You didn’t need to win the room. You were already comfortable in it.

He hated that he noticed it. Even more, he despised the tightness in his chest, a feeling he couldn't identify and didn't want to confront.

He tried to convince himself it was just respect, a simple acknowledgment of your exceptional talent. You were good—very good—and that was all there was to it.

Yet, the more time he spent around you, the more that comforting lie unraveled, exposing a deeper truth he wasn’t ready to face.

Amidst the chaos of the sessions, George took to brewing tea and cooking up his delicious Iranian meals in the corner of the kitchen, his presence an anchor in the rising tension. Lucy held up numbered cards like a judge presiding over an absurd fencing tournament, while he added his playful commentary every now and then, narrating your and Lockwood’s every move as if the two of you were the stars of a grand soap opera.

　"He’s pretending he doesn’t care," she whispered, casting a conspiratorial glance their way.

　"She’s pretending she doesn’t notice," George replied, barely suppressing a grin.

　"Five quid says someone gets disarmed and someone else gets emotionally repressed," Lucy smirked, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Lockwood ignored them, of course. Or at least, pretended to.

One night, after George and Lucy retreated upstairs, he found solace in the stillness of the basement. The rhythmic sound of steel against cloth filled the air as you quietly cleaned the edge of your blade, the faint scent of oil lingering in the cool space.

He lingered in the doorway longer than he meant to.

The others had retreated upstairs—George muttering about burnt lemongrass and Lucy rolling her eyes as she dragged her notepad with her. The quiet that settled in their absence was almost too heavy, too clear.

You were still there, sitting cross-legged on the floor near the shelves, a blade in your lap. The cloth moved in slow, practiced strokes down the length of your rapier. Your posture was relaxed but not careless—like even now, even in stillness, you were prepared for something. For anything.

Lockwood watched you in silence, noticing again what he shouldn't: how your hands, calloused and sure, treated the weapon like a part of you. He observed the way the curve of your shoulders shifted slightly with each pass of the cloth: focused and controlled.

Lockwood should have gone to bed. You were only here to train them, after all—just another mentor brought in by DEPRAC, someone sharper and steadier, older by barely a year but years ahead in experience. You weren’t here to make friends, certainly not to get close.

And yet, he crossed the room before he could talk himself out of it and sat down beside you, close but not quite touching yet. Close enough to feel the warmth of you in the air between.

You glanced at him, not at all annoyed nor surprised. Instead, you had that unreadable flicker of an expression, as if you already knew he’d follow.

Without a word, he grabbed a cleaner rag from the counter and held it out. You hesitated, then took it without a word. No thanks, no comment, but your fingers brushed his as you did.

Something sparked—fleeting, immediate, too much. The room held still.

　“I could’ve gone for the hit,” he said, breaking the silence.

You didn’t look at him. “But you didn’t.”

　“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t.”

You nodded once. The new cloth shifted in your hands as you ran it along the edge of the blade, slow and deliberate again—but this time, he noticed the tension behind it, something simmering just beneath your calm surface. It mirrored the thing rattling around in his chest—too loud in the silence.

　“You’re not from Fittes, aren't you?”

　“No.”

Lockwood looked down at the floor between them, then back at the blade in your hands. There was a knick near the guard—almost invisible, but he saw it.

　“You missed one,” he said softly, pointing.

Your fingers followed his gaze, and your hands brushed his once more—just for a moment, just long enough to feel the heat of skin against skin.

He didn’t pull away. Neither did you.

You focused back on the blade, but Lockwood noticed the difference now—the way your jaw had set, just slightly, as if you were holding something down. He knew that feeling.

This was supposed to be a job. You were supposed to be an instructor, and he was supposed to be just another student you passed through, taught a few things, then left behind. But that wasn’t how it felt.

When your hands stilled and your gaze lifted, Lockwood looked up too. And you locked eyes.

The tension coiled, unrelenting—no banter, no mask. Just something real and unsettling pressing between you. The air pulled tight like a held breath.

Whatever this was—whatever it had grown into—neither of you were meant to feel it. Not here, not now. And yet the draw was impossible to ignore, living in the space between your knees almost touching, the silence too loud to be casual, the flicker of something restrained in your eyes.

He should have looked away. He didn’t. Not until you broke eye contact as your fingers returned to the cloth like nothing had happened. But he saw the way your hands hesitated and how your shoulders tensed just slightly beneath your calm exterior.

He stood slowly. The floor creaked beneath his weight. You didn’t look up again, and that should have been the end of it.

As he turned to leave, he glanced back once. “Same time tomorrow?” he asked, a smooth polish and half a grin crawling back to his face.

You let out a small, amused laugh, your eyes twinkling. “Only if you try not to forget your footwork this time.”

It was the first time he had heard you laugh. Or at least, when it was directed towards him.

With the smile still on his face, he climbed the stairs slower than usual that night, each step feeling heavier than the last. And when he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, he knew that whatever line had been drawn between you, he had already stepped dangerously close to it.

Maybe you had too. And neither of you knew what would happen if you crossed it.

George and Lucy noticed the shift; they always did.

They picked up on the subtleties. The way Lockwood stopped interrupting you mid-sentence, finally listening. The way he nodded in agreement as you shared your insights, a newfound respect blooming between them. The way he lingered in the basement after their sessions, a reluctance to leave the space that had become charged with something more than mere practice.

One evening, Lucy leaned against the banister, arms crossed, and whispered, "He’s softening," a sly smirk lighting her face.

George nudged her, a smirk gracing his lips. "You better have that five quid ready."

the way how this has been sitting in my docs for a little over a month now.. i could feel it stare into my soul judgingly every time I posted a different fic instead 😭 might make a part two, buuuuuut who knows?

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