#and didn’t know how to ask without dying

[geminiwritten]

en español ; joaquín torres

fandom: marvel

pairing: joaquín x reader

summary: after joaquín returns from a two-week-long mission things feel different, then he convinces you to go undercover with him where tensions rise—only for him to leaving you wanting more... until he stops by your office for a very intimate spanish lesson

notes: danny ramirez, the man that you are, holy fuck... like this dude has me in a chokehold??? what i wouldn't do for him (there's nothing, absolutely nothing)... i really hope y'all enjoy this! it was inspired by few different things and i had a blast writing it, so please let me know what you think! (p.s. i highly recommend watching the papasito music video and anthony vs. danny hot ones before reading)

warnings: swearing, alcohol, sexual tension, probably some very incorrect spanish (i'm apologising in advance), mention of guns / weapons, italics, lots of pet names / nicknames, SMUT (dirty talk, f oral receiving, unprotected p in v, semi-public-ish sex) 18+ ONLY MDNI!!!

word count: 19998

You fall into your desk chair, careful not to spill your fresh mug of coffee as you fumble for your headset. You’re late—just barely—but if you’re lucky, Sam won’t notice. 

You slide the headset on and quickly sort through the programs running on your computer, eyes flicking across several screens. Then you take a deep breath, adjust your mic, and open the comms line. 

“How’s my favourite flyboy today? Still got all your limbs attached and your pretty face unscathed?” 

“Careful, hermosa,” Joaquín says, his voice smooth in your ear. “Sam’s on the channel. He might get jealous.” 

You smile to yourself, tracking their positions on your middle monitor. “Please. Sam knows who my favourite is. He’s come to terms with it.” 

Joaquín chuckles. “You trying to make me blush?” 

You roll your eyes despite the smile tugging at your lips. “If I wanted to make you blush, Torres, I’d be using more than just my voice.” 

There’s a beat of silence, the soft crackle of the open frequency filling your ears. 

Then Joaquín clears his throat, loudly. “Mission. Flying. No dying. Need to focus.” 

You laugh quietly, watching his heartrate spike on a screen to the left. “You better be careful, pretty boy. Can’t show you how much I’ve missed you if you don’t make it home.” 

“Show me?” Joaquín echoes, grin audible. “How?” 

“Come home in one piece and you’ll find out,” you say, voice low, teasing. 

His heartrate spikes even higher, and you have to bite your lip to keep from giggling. 

“Jesus Christ,” Sam sighs. “Can you two at least try to be professional?” 

There’s another beat of quiet—only brief—before, at the same time, both you and Joaquín say, “No.” 

You can practically hear Sam roll his eyes. “Why the hell did I let him convince me to hire you?” 

You grin to yourself, eyes still flickering across your screens. “Because unfortunately for you, Cap, you’ve never met a more skilled analyst who’d rather work seven days a week than have a social life.” 

“Joaquín is your social life,” Sam mutters. “I unknowingly hired the two most annoying best friends in the world.” 

“You forgot talented,” Joaquín pipes up. “Two of the most annoying and talented best friends in the world.” 

Sam groans—loud, frustrated—but he doesn’t argue. Because unfortunately, you’re both right. You’re two of the best people he could’ve found for the job, and despite the never-ending banter and insufferable tension, he’d be lost without either of you. 

You met Joaquín in the Air Force. You were first stationed together at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and it didn’t take long for the two of you to get close. At the time, you were both lower rank, training in field surveillance, comms, and tactical ops before choosing your respective career paths. But even across continents and during off-grid missions, you stayed close. 

Joaquín contacted you a little while after he first met Sam, asking for help tracking a super-soldier anti-nationalist group in Munich. You didn’t ask questions—you just helped—and after it all came to a head, Joaquín couldn’t wait to introduce you to Sam. 

Long story short, you were quickly recruited, given an office and a ton of cool tech, and now you’re their guy in the chair. Sam probably only regrets it a little, considering you’re actually very good at being in the chair—which makes up for all the unprofessional banter between you and Joaquín. 

“Eyes up, Torres,” you murmur, watching the live feed on your main monitor. “Two heat signatures ahead. Could be guards. Could be raccoons. Either way, I’d keep your pretty face out of sight.” 

Joaquín exhales, amused. “You must really miss me, hermosa—the way you keep callin’ me pretty.” 

Your cheeks flush, heat crawling up your spine, because yeah—you miss him. Like crazy. They’ve been halfway across the world for two weeks now, and it’s the longest you’ve gone without seeing him since you started working for Sam. 

To say you miss him is a gross understatement. But he can’t know that—not really—because whatever this thing is between you two, it’s fun. Playful. It isn’t serious or deep. It’s not soul-crushing or gut-wrenching like the paralysing crush you’ve been nursing for years. 

And there’s no way Joaquín needs to find out about that. It could ruin everything. 

“Can you blame me?” you ask, keeping your voice light. “I haven’t seen you in two weeks. What else is a girl supposed to do besides fantasise?” 

You can almost hear his grin. “You fantasising about me now, baby? Damn. This suit just got a whole lot hotter.” 

Then Sam’s voice cuts in, low and sharp. “Can we please focus? The place is crawling with armed hostiles and I’m not dying in a building that smells like asbestos and cat piss.” 

“Noted, Cap,” you say, eyes flicking to his heat signature on your screen. “But for the record, Torres—you’re my favourite fantasy.” 

It’s not a lie—and it makes his heartrate jump again. 

“Oh my God,” Sam groans. “Why do I even talk?” 

“You love us,” Joaquín says, voice low and breathless as he inches toward a door, slowly cracking it open. 

“No, I tolerate you. There’s a difference.” 

You watch the hallway clear, two red dots vanishing from the drone feed. “All clear ahead. Turn left at the next hall. Intel says the artifact is in the records room—bottom floor, east wing.” 

“Copy,” Joaquín says, his voice dropping as he reins in his focus. 

You lock in too—eyes fixed on the screen, breath held, fingers hovering over your keyboard. As much as you love your job, it’s stressful. Especially when the people in the field are the ones you care about most. So you’ve made it your personal mission not to let anything go unseen. 

You watch closely as Joaquín moves down the hall, turns left, and starts down the fire stairs. Sam is still working the perimeter, keeping out of sight and watching for any hostiles that might be closing in on Joaquín. 

It’s taken them two full weeks to find this place—after a discouraging series of dud leads. The artefact isn’t even being hunted, just protected. And for what? None of you know. But from everything you’ve gathered, it’s intel that could open the door to disaster. 

So Sam made the call to find it before it became a hot item—before someone could sell it on the dark web and hand a new villain the keys to world domination. 

What he hadn’t expected was for the mission to take two whole weeks. Fortunately, things have been quiet enough lately that they could afford the time—but that doesn’t mean it’s been fun. You’re pretty sure Sam is one more questionable pizza topping away from leaving Joaquín in Jakarta. 

A heat signature two floors above the records room catches your attention. Your eyes track it, nerves creeping up the back of your neck. You’re just about to say something when— 

“Holy shit,” Joaquín says, voice low and a little breathless. “It’s actually here.” 

You lean in, fingers poised over your keyboard. “Confirmed visual?” 

“Uh… yeah. Package secure?” 

Sam’s voice cuts in, flat. “Seriously?” 

“Dead serious, man. It’s just… sitting here. It’s actually here.” 

You let out a slow breath, tension easing from your shoulders as you watch the heat signature double back—moving away. 

“No traps, no alarms…” you say, scanning the feeds. “Someone’s either cocky or stupid.” 

“Or both,” Sam mutters. “Let’s wrap this up. I’m ready to never think about this city again.” 

Joaquín chuckles softly, his smirk practically audible. “Bet you’re smiling right now, hermosa.” 

“Maybe,” you reply, despite the very obvious grin on your face. “But you’re not out of the woods yet, pretty boy. Stay focused.” 

Joaquín laughs again under his breath. “Focused. Right. That’s what I am.” 

Your eyes flick to his vitals. “I can tell. Your heartrate’s through the roof again.” 

“Can you blame me?” he says. “Your voice in my ear, calling me pretty and saying all this smart stuff… this whole situation’s a little distracting.” 

You roll your eyes. “You forgetting the part where Sam’s one bad mood away from killing you?” 

“No. Just ignoring it.” He pauses at a corner, scans, then moves. “How mad do you think he’d be if I said I’m only doing this to impress you?” 

You lean back slightly, grinning to yourself. “He’d pretend to be annoyed. But secretly? I think he’s just relieved you deal with me so he doesn’t have to.” 

“Deal with you?” Joaquín echoes, voice soft and teasing. “Baby, you’re the reason I get out of bed every day.” 

Your heart lurches, but you keep your voice steady. “Keep talking like that and I might start hacking into your home security system.” 

“Do it,” he says. “I’d sleep better with your voice in my ear.” 

Your cheeks flush, breath catching. 

“Still here,” Sam cuts in. “Still sweating. Still regretting every life choice that led me to this team.” 

You glance at his vitals and smirk. “Vitals are solid, Cap. No cardiac distress.” 

“Yeah, well, if Torres drops anything on the way out, I’m blaming both of you.” 

Joaquín chuckles as he heads toward the extraction point. “Relax. We’re good. We’re almost out.” 

“God,” Sam sighs. “I cannot wait to get home.” 

“Hope you’ve got a hero’s welcome planned, cariño,” Joaquín says. 

You roll your eyes, smirking. “You want a medal or a kiss?” 

“Definitely the kiss,” he replies. “Medals are nice, but they wouldn’t taste as good as you.” 

You choke on nothing, face burning, pulse thrumming as you watch him move through the building toward where Sam is waiting. 

There’s a beat of silence—a loud, charged pause as you scramble for a comeback. 

“Wow,” Sam chuckles. “Think you broke her, Torres.” 

“Nah,” Joaquín says, smug as ever. “She’s just thinking about all the ways she’s gonna show me she missed me.” 

You draw a sharp breath, one hand gripping the edge of your desk, the other white-knuckling your coffee mug. 

“Alright, flyboy,” you mutter, trying not to smile. “That’s enough. Just get home safe.” 

“See you soon, princesa,” he says, voice low and warm in your ear. 

- 

The next twenty-four hours are the longest of your life—you’re sure of it. 

You try to distract yourself with work while Joaquín sends updates on their journey home, but you just can’t sit still. You’re too excited. You feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, except the presents aren’t going to be there when you wake up. No—you have to wait until six p.m. for Joaquín to be back. 

Once you finish work, you head home to your studio apartment—the one you spend less time in than your office—and put on a movie. Then another. And another. Because you’re too anxious to feel tired. Eventually, you drag yourself to bed and lie awake for a few hours before giving up at four a.m. and jumping in the shower. 

You take your time getting ready for work—doing your hair, a little makeup, picking your clothes, having a long breakfast. Then at six a.m., you’re out the door and on your way back to the office. 

Only twelve more hours to go. 

You settle in at your desk and try to review data from Sam and Joaquín’s mission, double-checking every log, every report—anything to keep your mind occupied. It feels like hours pass, but when you glance at the clock, it’s barely been one. 

So at seven a.m., you get up for a coffee, moving through the motions slowly and deliberately. 

By now, the office is starting to fill up. It’s never packed—Sam keeps the staff lean—but a few government liaisons, data crunchers, IT specialists, and engineers have started drifting in for the day. You know them all, and usually you’d be happy to have a little chat in the kitchenette while your coffee brews. But not today. 

Today, you’re stuck in your head—counting down the minutes until Joaquín walks through the door with that stupidly handsome grin on his face. 

God. You feel ridiculous. Missing him this much when he’s just a friend. 

Except, he’s not. Not to you—hasn’t been since the day you thought you lost him on a mission in Seoul. That was the moment it hit you. The moment you realised how much he meant to you—how in love with him you really were. 

He turned up hours later, a little battered and bruised but very much alive. And you wanted to tell him how you felt. Wanted to just blurt it out. But you didn’t. You couldn’t. Because it wasn’t worth risking what you already had. So you kept quiet, buried the feelings, and went on being his best friend. 

That was years ago. And now you’re so deep in the friendzone—so used to the playful flirting and easy banter—you couldn’t climb out if you tried. You’ve come to terms with it, of course. Accepted it. And decided that having even a small piece of him is better than not having him at all. 

You spend the next few hours sorting through analytics and going over maintenance logs from the mission—nothing major. Just a few software bugs and one broken ‘feather’ because Joaquín clipped a wing trying some fancy manoeuvre Sam explicitly refuses to teach him. 

By lunchtime, you’ve fielded a few queries from the engineers and booked in a meeting with one of the legal advisors about Sam’s passport renewal. It never fails to amuse you how superheroes still have to deal with the same boring admin as everyone else. 

The afternoon slips by faster than the morning, hours ticking past as you lose track of time in a haze of meetings and emails. You’re finally heading back to your office when your stomach grumbles—loudly—reminding you that it’s probably well past your five p.m. snack break. 

You swing the door open, mentally halfway to your snack drawer, when— 

“Look who finally decided to show up,” Joaquín says, sitting in your desk chair with that stupidly handsome grin. “And here I thought you actually missed me. Was it all a lie?” 

Your heart lurches. Your lungs seize. And instead of flashing him a smile or a snappy comeback, you just freeze. Everything in your arms hits the floor—your tablet, your phone, a folder you don’t even remember picking up—all crashing down with a clatter that makes you flinch. 

Because it’s not just that he’s handsome. No—he’s unfairly handsome. Criminal, even. Dangerous to your health, your peace of mind, and your goddamn ovaries. Joaquín Torres, sitting in your desk chair like he owns the place—with a freshly grown moustache and goatee—is nothing short of lethal. 

“You okay, hermosa?” he asks, grin fading as he leans forward a little. 

“I told him to shave it off,” Sam says dryly, stepping in behind you. “He looks like an Antonio Banderas knockoff.” 

Joaquín scoffs. “Please. I’ve got way more charm than that guy.” 

“Than Antonio Banderas?” Sam says, incredulous. “You’re delusional, you know that?” 

“I prefer endearing,” Joaquín grins. 

You still haven’t stopped staring at him—at the facial hair that’s apparently capable of triggering a full-blown hormonal crisis. 

“Delusional and endearing are not synonyms,” Sam adds, seemingly oblivious to said crisis. 

Joaquín’s eyes flick back to you, brows drawing slightly together. “You breathing, baby?” 

Your heart kicks again at the nickname you should be used to by now—and somehow, that’s what snaps you out of it. 

“Yeah—uh,” you clear your throat, “I’m breathing. I’m good. I—welcome back! But isn’t it early?” You glance at your wrist, searching for a watch that isn’t there. “Shit. Where’s my phone? Oh.” You crouch down and grab it from the floor. “Oh. It’s past six. Huh. That meeting must’ve run long. I didn’t even realise. I—” 

“Breathe,” Sam says, laughing softly as he drops a hand on your shoulder. “Just breathe.” 

You inhale deeply, cheeks burning, and glance back at Joaquín’s stupidly gorgeous face again. 

“So,” he says, mouth curling into a smirk that should be illegal, “you like it?” 

You shrug, trying to play it cool. “It’s… okay. Looks good, I guess.” 

Sam snorts. “Oh, she likes it, alright.” 

You turn around and smack him in the chest, shooting him a look that could kill—but he doesn’t flinch. 

“Alright, then,” he chuckles, stepping back. “I’ll let you two get caught up.” 

You roll your eyes and duck your head as you start gathering everything you dropped. You keep your gaze down, even when you hear footsteps and see Joaquín’s hands join yours, collecting papers that spilled from the folder. 

When you’ve finally got it all, you stand and hug the pile to your chest, letting your eyes meet his again. 

“So,” he says, still grinning as he holds out what he gathered, “about that kiss.” 

You shake your head, fighting the smile tugging at your lips. “Forget it. You’re dreaming.” 

He shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe. But hey, I’m coming over tonight anyway.” 

You arch a brow. “Oh? And why’s that?” 

He leans in slightly, eyes sparkling. “Because my place has no food… and yours has food. And you.” 

Your cheeks heat, but your voice doesn’t waver. “You’re impossible, you know that?” 

“Maybe,” he says again, that grin going a little soft. “But you love it.” 

You struggle to focus on wrapping up your work with Joaquín hovering around your office—ranting about the mission, touching your stuff, looking at you with that goddamn moustache on his face. What would normally take five minutes takes almost twenty, but by seven o’clock, you’re both in a cab on the way back to your apartment. 

When you open the door and step inside, Joaquín walks in like he lives there too. He drops his duffel by the lounge and heads straight for the fridge, pulling it open to inspect the contents. You know him well enough by now to know exactly what’s coming next—he’s going to complain about your lack of ingredients, then insist on cooking anyway. And somehow, it’ll still be delicious. 

“You know, cariño,” he calls, leaning deeper into the fridge, “most people throw milk out when it starts to smell bad. Let alone when it’s chunky.” 

“I haven’t been home much lately,” you say, a little defensive. “My best friend was on a mission and I was busy making sure he didn’t die.” 

“So you could kill me yourself with expired dairy products?” he asks, still wearing that ridiculous grin. 

You roll your eyes and bite back a smile, choosing to ignore him while you kick off your boots. He keeps rummaging through the fridge while you make your way through the small apartment, closing blinds, turning on lamps, and queuing up the show you haven’t touched in the two weeks he’s been away. 

“I’m going to shower,” you say, pausing at the edge of the kitchen. 

He glances over his shoulder, smirk firmly in place, brows raised. “That an offer?” 

Your eyes widen, cheeks burning. “God. What was in the water over there? You’ve come back even worse than when you left.” 

“Maybe I just missed you,” he says, stepping toward you. 

The kitchen isn’t big—much like the rest of the apartment—but with Joaquín standing barely a foot away, it feels downright claustrophobic in a very specific, very dangerous way. 

“You still haven’t given me my hero’s welcome,” he adds, eyes sparkling. 

You tip your head, ignoring the way your pulse spikes. “Didn’t have time to get the medal minted.” 

His grin turns wicked. “Guess you owe me a kiss, then.” 

You don’t answer. You just step forward, slow and deliberate, closing the space between you like it doesn’t matter at all—even though your pulse is in your throat. His brows twitch, surprise flickering across his face, but he doesn’t move. He holds his ground. 

You tilt your chin up, rising onto your toes until your lips are just a breath from his. 

His breath stutters, and you catch the sharp rise of his chest—like he forgot how to breathe. That cocky smirk slips away as your eyes linger on his mouth, then drop to that stupid goatee. Because of course he found a way to be even more ridiculously attractive. 

You could kiss him. Right now. You could close that tiny gap and change everything. 

But instead, your voice drops low—steady despite the way your nerves are buzzing. “You sure you’re ready for that, Torres?” 

His pupils blow wide, cheeks flushing. You see it. You feel it—the flicker of nerves under all that swagger. 

You drag your fingers lightly down the front of his shirt, watching him go still, revelling in the thrill that rattles up your spine. 

His throat bobs with a swallow, and you know you’ve got him. For once, he has no comeback. 

You smirk, dropping back onto your heels. “Didn’t think so.” 

Then you turn and walk into your room, heart pounding, head spinning, but your steps still steady. You shut the door and fall back against it, covering your face with your hands to keep from screaming out loud because God, that was hot. And holy shit did it take every ounce of self-control not to just kiss him. 

Eventually, you push off the door, strip out of your clothes, and step into the ensuite bathroom. You turn the shower on hot and wait while the water heats, wondering if Joaquín would notice if you took a little longer than usual. 

Which... you do. Because that ache behind your hipbones is insistent, and if Joaquín is going to be here all night, you can’t just be sitting beside him horny as hell or you might end up doing something stupid. 

So after a long, hot shower—and some quality time with the detachable head—you change into your pyjamas and emerge from your bedroom. The rest of the apartment smells like butter and garlic, and Joaquín is standing in front of the stove with a little crease between his brows as he flips what you assume is a grilled cheese sandwich. 

“Grilled cheese?” you ask, leaning a hip against the counter. 

He shoots you a sideways glare. “It’s the only thing I could think of with your serious lack of food. But it’s not just grilled cheese—it’s gourmet. With mozzarella—that I’m pretty sure isn’t off—garlic, caramelised onion, and basil.” 

You lift a brow, nodding slowly. “I’m impressed. And hungry.” 

He smirks. “And the tomatoes you had were too soft to put in the sandwiches, so I made a sauce.” 

“Wow,” you say, turning toward the cupboard. “Sounds like I had plenty of ingredients for you.” 

You can almost hear him rolling his eyes as you get out a couple of plates and wine glasses, knowing full well that you might not have much food in the house, but you definitely have wine. 

He finishes grilling the sandwiches and flips them onto the plates, garnishing them with something green that you hope is a herb and not something wildly out of date he found in the fridge. Then you pour each of you a glass of wine before taking your plate into the lounge room. 

“Hopefully you won’t be able to tell how stale the bread is,” Joaquín says as he sits beside you, his knee knocking yours as he shoots you another pointed look. 

You roll your eyes. “Please, sourdough doesn’t go off. Just gets chewier.” 

He frowns at you, eyes wide in disbelief. “That’s literally the definition of stale bread.” 

You just shrug, taking a generous sip of wine before biting into your sandwich. And God, it’s almost inhuman how this man can make some of the best food out of the crappy ingredients you have. 

“That good?” he asks, watching you with a smirk. 

“It’s alright,” you mutter, mouth still full. 

He chuckles. “That moan you just made says otherwise.” 

Your eyes widen. “I moaned?” 

He laughs a little harder, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he watches your cheeks turn pink. “Don’t be embarrassed, hermosa. I love the little noises you make.” 

Your heart lurches and your eyes snap down to your plate. 

“Wonder what other noises I could get out of you,” he mutters, low but just loud enough to catch your attention. 

You swallow hard on the half-chewed bite, wincing as it catches on the way down your throat. You cough and reach for your wine, taking a long, burning gulp that only fans the heat spreading through your chest. 

You cough again into your hand, struggling to catch your breath. 

“You okay, cariño?” Joaquín asks, light laughter in his voice. 

“Fine,” you choke out. “I’m good.” 

He laughs softly, clearly amused but too hungry to press you any further. You watch his profile as he takes a bite of grilled cheese, chews, and swallows—and damn if that doesn’t just deepen the wildfire of nerves and heat roiling through you. 

Two weeks away from Joaquín, and every ounce of resistance you’ve spent years building up is gone. Shattered. Nowhere to be found. You feel like some virginal schoolgirl, wide-eyed and helpless, just watching his throat move as he swallows another bite. 

His eyes flick toward you, brows drawn, and you quickly drop your gaze back to your plate. You stuff the sandwich into your mouth and take a big bite to stop yourself from blurting out something dumb—like how insanely hot he looks when he eats, or how badly you want to know what that facial hair would feel like between your legs. 

“Hear anything from the lab?” he asks, snapping you out of your spiralling thoughts. 

You shake your head. “Not yet.” 

He nods slowly. “Sam’s probably bugging.” 

“Why?” 

“Reckons it’s something big,” he says. “Something dangerous.” 

You tilt your head. “Like what?” 

He shrugs. “Dunno. Maybe something alien.” 

“Nah.” You take another sip of wine. “It’s probably old data from some collapsed organisation. Looked more like a hard drive than an explosive.” 

As if on cue, your phone lights up, buzzing on the coffee table beside your wine glass. You drop your sandwich and reach for it, tapping the answer button and pressing it to your ear. 

“Doctor Chen,” you greet. “How’s it going?” 

“The captain was right,” Maya—one of Sam’s lab techs—says. “This is dangerous.” 

Your brows pull together as you lift the phone away from your ear and put it on speaker so Joaquín can hear too. 

“What is it?” 

“Old Stark tech. Data, to be precise,” Maya replies. 

“Have you told Sam yet?” 

“Not yet. You were my first call. I figured Joaquín was with you.” 

Your cheeks flush. “Oh. Uh, yeah. He’s here.” 

Joaquín meets your eyes and gives you a cheeky little wink, lips curving into a smirk. 

“I’ll see you both first thing in the morning,” Maya says. “I’ll call Sam now.” 

“Okay,” you reply, shoving Joaquín’s thigh with your knee. “Thanks, Doctor Chen.” 

The line goes dead, the soft disconnect tone buzzing through the quiet room—Joaquín having paused the TV without you noticing. 

“What kind of data do you think it is?” he asks, brow furrowed. 

You shrug. “Who knows. Maybe something that’ll finally tell us how to shut you up.” 

He scoffs, leaning in just a little. “Or maybe something that tells me exactly how to get you to kiss me.” 

Your heart stutters, breath catching just loud enough for him to hear. 

“Or,” he adds, eyes dancing, “I just keep saying shit like that until your brain short-circuits and you snap.” 

You suck in a slow breath, trying not to smile. Trying not to give him the satisfaction. 

“God,” you mutter, nudging him with your shoulder, “you’re so fucking annoying tonight.” 

He just grins wider and takes another bite of grilled cheese—completely unbothered, maddeningly smug. And of course, your traitorous eyes fall to the line of his jaw as he chews, which does nothing to help your situation. 

- 

“It’s not just old Stark data,” Sam says, standing at the head of the small conference table. “This hard drive contains preliminary code for the foundational architecture of Stark’s first AI.” 

“As in J.A.R.V.I.S.?” Joaquín asks. “The computer that ran his house?” 

“J.A.R.V.I.S. didn’t just run his house,” you cut in. “He was integrated into the Iron Man suits, and he was part of Ultron and Vision. In the wrong hands, this data could be... catastrophic.” 

“Right,” Joaquín nods. “So... we destroy it?” 

“We can’t destroy it,” Milton—one of Sam’s more insufferable government liaisons—says. “Per federal protocol, all recovered Stark-origin assets are to be logged, quarantined, and transferred to a Level Four secure facility for presidential review and Congressional oversight.” 

Sam sighs, visibly holding back an eye-roll. 

“Quarantined for review?” you echo, incredulous. “Graves, this kind of data in the wrong hands could—” 

“And what authority do you have to decide that?” Milton cuts in with his usual sneer. “Who’s to say you won’t use it to recreate this... jervis?” 

Milton is easily your least favourite person in the office. He’s a stickler for rules, an arrogant idiot, and completely insufferable—but he does make a good target for your and Joaquín’s boredom-induced pranks. Like the time you rearranged his keyboard to spell something wildly inappropriate and watched him struggle to fix it for thirty minutes. Or when you convinced him that ‘Camo Friday’ was an official dress code. 

Needless to say, he’s not your biggest fan. Or Joaquín’s. But unfortunately for him, you’re both basically Sam’s second-in-command. 

“It’s Jarvis,” Joaquín says flatly. “J-A-R-V-I-S. Want help with the alphabet, or are you still stuck on the letter J?” 

Milton’s lips curl, eyes narrowing—ready to fire back—when Sam steps in. 

“We haven’t made a final decision about the drive,” he says firmly, glancing between Joaquín and Milton. “I’ll speak with the Department of Damage Control myself. Until then, it stays here, under full-time protection.” 

Joaquín sighs. “Don’t tell me—” 

“You’re not on protection,” Sam cuts him off. “I’ve got others for that. I need you somewhere else.” 

Joaquín sits up straighter, head tilted. “Where?” 

Sam glances at you and nods. You quickly plug your tablet into the display, and a second later, the intel you and the logistics team pulled together flickers up on the screen.  

“Matías Navarro,” you say, zooming in on the mugshot of a stern-faced, middle-aged man. “Clean on paper, but deeply embedded in tech smuggling rings. Works through proxies, keeps his hands clean. No one knows where he gets the tech, and none of his buyers care. He’s been arrested a dozen times, but he always walks.” 

You switch to a series of ledgers. “His name is tied to the building we found the hard drive in—not currently, but previously. He either sold it or abandoned it. Either way, he’s the last known owner.” 

“So,” Joaquín says, “we find Navarro and… question him?” 

You nod. “Exactly. He’s mostly dealt in weapons and arms. He might not have known what was on the drive—but if he did, or if he made a copy, we could be in serious shit.” 

“Right.” Joaquín nods. “Where do we find him?” 

“Club Calavera,” you reply, tapping your tablet until a picture of a dark brick building fills the screen. “It used to be a Latin dance club. Now it’s more like a networking spot for arms dealers and petty crime lords who like to salsa.” 

“Navarro’s a regular,” Sam adds. “Every Saturday. Like clockwork.” 

“Club Skull,” Joaquín snorts. “Subtle.” 

“You should fit right in, then,” you say with a smirk. “You’ve got all the subtlety of a brick through a window.” 

His eyes go wide. “Fit in? I’m going in? Like… undercover?” 

You nod. “That’s right, pretty boy. You’re our distraction.” 

“Distraction?” he echoes, brows shooting up. 

“I need to talk to Navarro,” Sam says, “but I can’t just walk in—not with all the high-profile thugs that frequent the place. I’d be too easily noticed.” 

“Hence,” you say, grinning at Joaquín, “our distraction.” 

He shifts in his seat, eyes flicking between you and Sam. “Alright. What kind of distraction?” 

Sam folds his arms, smirking. “It’s a Latin dance club, Torres. What do you think?” 

“You want me to dance?” Joaquín asks, voice cracking. 

“Oh, no, flyboy.” You lean forward, grin turning wicked. “We don’t just want you to dance, we need you to cause a whole damn scene.” 

He swallows hard. “How?” 

Sam chuckles. “Ever seen The Mask?” 

“That movie with Jim Carrey?” 

Sam nods. 

“You want me to cause a scene in the middle of a club full of criminals big enough to distract every single one of them?” Joaquín asks, brows drawing tight. “I—I can’t. No one could. It’s impossible.” 

“Oh, come on,” you sigh. “You’re Joaquín fucking Torres. If anyone can cause a scene that big, it’s you. Plus, you won’t be alone.” 

He frowns. “What do you mean?” 

“You need a dance partner,” you reply simply, tapping your tablet. 

The screen flickers before bringing up three headshots of three different women, each with a brief bio beside the names—abilities and all. 

“Kate Bishop,” you say, enlarging the first photo. “Hawkeye-in-training. She worked with Clint for a while. Definitely has the social skills to work the room, plus charm and skill.” 

Joaquín shakes his head. “No, she won’t blend in. Not in a Latin crowd, at least.” 

“Okay,” you nod, moving to the next photo. “Ava Ayala, a.k.a. White Tiger. Fluent in Spanish and has the physicality to back us up if things go south.” 

Joaquín considers it, tipping his head before shaking it again. “No, it won’t work. I’ve heard she prefers solo missions—might not adapt well to a cover role that requires dancing and mingling.” 

You take a deep breath and move to the last photo. “Alright. Elena ‘Yo-Yo’ Rodriguez. She’s great at going undercover and knows how to stay cool under pressure. Plus, she can get you out fast if needed.” 

Joaquín’s eyes flick from the screen to you, then to Sam, back to you, and then the screen again. 

“I don’t doubt her skills,” he says. “But have you seen her operate in this kind of scene? Nightclubs and criminal networks require a certain… finesse.” 

Sam sighs and pulls out a chair, dropping into it. “Well, you can’t dance alone.” 

“I know,” Joaquín says firmly. “But I can’t walk into a club full of criminals and half-ass it with someone I don’t know or trust.” 

“That’s the whole point,” you say, setting your tablet down with a sigh. “You’re supposed to go in, pick someone from the crowd, and make it look spontaneous. A big, passionate moment. If it’s too polished, too rehearsed, they’ll sniff it out.” 

He leans forward, bracing his forearms on the table. “I get that. But it still has to be someone I’ve got chemistry with. Someone I’m actually attracted to.” 

You frown, glancing at the screen full of attractive women, then back at him—feeling your stomach twist, even if you don’t want to admit why. 

“They’re all attractive. I don’t see the—” 

“Sure,” he interrupts. “But what if there's no chemistry? This is a club full of Latinos. They’ll smell fake passion from across the dance floor, cariño.” 

You cross your arms and lean back in your chair. “So what are you saying? You won’t do it?” 

“Of course I'll do it,” he says, smirking now. “But I’ve got one condition.” 

You look at Sam, deadpan. “He’s got conditions now.” 

Sam chuckles. “This guy.” 

You turn back to Joaquín. “Alright, pretty boy. What’s your condition?” 

“You dance with me.” 

The room falls silent. 

You freeze, breath catching. “M–Me?” 

He grins. “You, hermosa. It makes sense. We’ve got chemistry, and all you have to do is follow my lead.” 

You glance at Sam, half-panicked. “I’m not a field agent. I’m not—” 

“Actually,” Sam says, thoughtful, “it does makes sense. The two of you could sell it. No extra variables, no risk of another agent blowing the op.” 

Your eyes widen. “You’re not serious. I—I can’t even dance.” 

“You don’t need to,” Joaquín says. “You just have to let me lead.” 

Your heart is pounding now, nerves sparking like live wires, sweat prickling at the back of your neck. You’re not built for this. You’re the guy in the chair. The one locked behind bulletproof glass and a million firewalls. 

“Joaquín, I—” 

“It’s the only way this works,” he says, his smile infuriatingly smug. 

“Kid’s got a point,” Sam adds. 

Your eyes bounce between them, wide and overwhelmed. “I’m barely trained for combat. If something goes wrong, I—” 

“That’s why I’m there, cariño,” Joaquín cuts in, voice low. “You don’t have to do anything except look pretty—which you already do—and follow my lead.” 

You’re running out of excuses. And Joaquín is looking at you with those big, stupidly pretty brown eyes that always get him his way. You don’t want to say yes. But you really don’t want to say no. Not to that face. Not to Sam’s, either—especially when he’s looking this hopeful and just a little smug. 

“Fine,” you mutter, glaring at Joaquín. “But if either of us die, I’m going to kill you.” 

He just grins—impossibly smug, unfairly hot. A walking wet dream with tight sleeves and a killer smile, practically glowing with anticipation. 

The next few days are a whirlwind of intel, training, and—to your immense displeasure—costume fittings. Because you can’t just wear jeans and a top. No. You have to look like a part-time salsa dancer and full-time prison groupie, which apparently means a sparkly dress with a hemline that barely covers your ass. 

But that’s not even the worst part. 

The worst part is that Joaquín refuses to practice with you. He won’t even show you a few steps. Because, like you said, it has to look spontaneous. It can’t be rehearsed or choreographed, or someone might clock it for the distraction that it is. 

So he won’t dance with you at all—which is not exactly something you ever thought you’d be begging him for. Not unless you’re talking about the horizontal tango—because in that case, yeah, you could definitely see yourself begging. 

“Ouch,” Sam mutters, freezing mid-step. “That was my foot.” 

You scowl up at him, arms stiff where they rest on his shoulder and in his hand. “I told you, I don’t fucking know how to dance.” 

“Relax,” he chuckles. “You’re not auditioning for Dancing with the Stars. You just need to get through one song without crushing Joaquín’s toes.” 

“If he doesn’t want his feet stomped on,” you snap, glaring across the room, “then he should be the one teaching me.” 

Joaquín rolls his eyes and pushes off the wall, tapping something on his phone to lower the music blaring through the overhead speakers. You’ve taken up residence in Isaiah Bradley’s gym for the past few days, using the open space—and the crash mats—as Sam attempts to teach you the basics of salsa dancing. 

It’s not going great. 

“You need to move your hips more,” Joaquín says. “Feel the music. Don’t fight it.” 

“‘M gonna fight you in a minute,” you mutter. 

Sam laughs again, clearly amused, as Joaquín steps in behind you—close—his hands landing firmly on your hips. 

Your eyes go wide. Your spine snaps straight. Your fingers dig into Sam’s shoulder. 

“Ouch,” he murmurs, wincing. 

“Shut up,” you hiss. 

He bites back a laugh. 

“Okay,” Joaquín says. “Let’s move through the steps slowly.” 

Sam nods and starts moving. You follow, trying to count through the steps you’ve half-memorised. Then— 

Joaquín steps in even closer, chest almost brushing your back, and without a word, he guides your hips into the right position. Your feet falter. Your heart stutters. His hands are big, steady—thumbs pressing lightly into the small of your back as he shifts your weight, encouraging a more natural sway from your hips. 

“Too stiff,” he murmurs, voice low. “You’ve gotta loosen up, cariño.” 

Then his hands trail—slow and deliberate—up the curve of your waist, just high enough for his thumbs to graze the underside of your ribs. It’s a fleeting touch, but it leaves a trail of fire in its wake. And then, like it was nothing, he steps back—cool, casual, unaffected. 

Your breath catches. Heat rushes up your neck and into your cheeks, your brain short-circuiting as your body fights to stay upright and not melt into a puddle of incoherent desire. Sam watches the whole thing unfold with an amused grin, clearly not missing the way your knees nearly buckle. 

“You okay?” he asks. “You’re lookin’ a little pink there.” 

“I’m fine,” you snap. 

Behind you, Joaquín turns the music back up and says, far too casually, “She’s just tense.” 

Sam snorts. “Oh, I don’t think that’s the problem.” 

You grit your teeth and take a deep breath through your nose, summoning every ounce of self-control you have to not to completely lose it. 

“Okay,” you mutter, “let’s go again.” 

You take it from the top twice more before Sam’s phone rings and he’s called away for a meeting with logistics. By that point, you’re tired, sweaty, and still wishing you’d said no, but according to Joaquín, your hips are moving much more naturally. 

You try not to think too hard about him watching your hips while you dance. 

While you stretch and cool off—which mostly just means lying on the floor scrolling through your phone—Joaquín starts boxing with Isaiah. And holy hell if that isn’t making you thirstier than two straight hours of salsa dancing did. 

You try to focus on the video of a puppy eating raspberries currently playing on your phone, but your eyes keep drifting to the other side of the gym. To him. 

Joaquín’s in the ring—gloves on, shirt off, moving like a goddamn dream. His skin gleams with sweat, muscles flexing with every jab and pivot, the line of his back carved like something out of a museum. Even his hair is damp, dark curls falling over his forehead—and God, you want to run your fingers through it, tug it just a little to see what kind of noises he’d make. 

You swallow hard, watching the way he bounces on the balls of his feet, light and fast. Isaiah swings, Joaquín dodges, and you’re embarrassingly close to moaning when he ducks and throws a clean uppercut that lands with a satisfying smack. 

Your imagination fills in the blanks way too fast. What those hands would feel like dragging down your body. What that mouth could do if it wasn’t behind a mouthguard. You’re picturing him pinning you up against the ropes for a very different kind of workout when— 

“Enjoying the show?” 

You startle, eyes flying up to find Joaquín leaning on the ropes, gloves resting on the top strand, smirk wide and knowing. His chest is rising and falling, skin glistening, and there’s a wicked gleam in his eye that says he’s seen every second of you ogling him. 

You blink. “Nope.” 

He laughs. “You’re a terrible liar. Come here.” 

“What? Why?” 

He grins, pushing open the ropes. “Get in the ring.” 

You frown. “Absolutely not.” 

“Come on,” he says, stepping aside so you can climb through. “You’re going undercover. You should know how to throw a punch in case something goes south.” 

“I did a combat course,” you say, slowly climbing up and stopping in the middle of the ring. “A few years ago." 

“And I haven’t eaten a donut since Tuesday. Doesn’t mean I’m in peak condition.” 

Isaiah laughs from the corner, tossing Joaquín a towel. “Have fun, lovebirds,” he calls, hopping down from the ring. “Try not to injure each other.” 

“I make no promises,” Joaquín says with a wink, then turns back to you, holding out a pair of gloves. “Hands up, cariño.” 

You roll your eyes, sighing, but slide your hands into the gloves anyway. “If I get hurt, I’m suing.” 

He steps closer to tighten the straps on your gloves, and you try—really try—not to stare. But his chest is right there, slick with sweat, rising and falling with every breath. Your eyes flick to the constellation of tiny moles scattered across his collarbone and up the side of his neck, and your brain starts wandering where it definitely shouldn’t. 

Like how warm his skin would feel under your mouth. 

How he'd taste. 

Whether that facial hair would scrape or tickle. 

“You spacing out on me already?” he asks, smug. 

You blink hard and force your eyes back to his. “No. Just visualising how hard I’m going to hit you.” 

His smile grows. “Hot.” 

You scowl, cheeks burning. “I hate you.” 

“No, you don’t,” he says easily, stepping back and raising his hands. “Alright, let’s start with a jab. Front foot forward, hands up, aim for my shoulder.” 

You shuffle your feet and throw the first punch. It’s not awful, but it’s definitely not impressive. 

And he dodges it with infuriating ease. “Again.” 

You go again—harder this time—and his face lights up. 

“There we go,” he says, circling you. “Now try a cross. Pivot your back foot a little. Twist at the hips.” 

He moves around you slowly, correcting your stance, touching your elbow here, your shoulder there. Every brush of his fingers lights you up like a fuse. You try to focus on your footwork, your form, anything other than the way he’s watching you—like he’s memorising every move. 

And when you land a solid hit against his open palm, his smile turns molten. “Damn. Maybe I should be worried.” 

“You should always be worried,” you mutter, blowing a lock of hair out of your eyes. 

He steps in close, lowering his voice. “You’re better than you think.” 

You swallow. Hard. Because now he’s too close, and you can smell him—sweat mixed with something warm and spicy, like cinnamon, cedar, and something darker, something dangerous. His eyes flick down from your face to your body, not even trying to pretend he isn’t checking you out. 

“You’re staring,” you say, a little breathless. 

He smirks. “So are you.” 

The space between you shrinks, and suddenly the air feels thick—too warm, too charged. 

“You’re dangerously close,” you tease, trying to keep your voice steady while your heart beats like a war drum. 

He leans in just a little more, hot breath ghosting over your damp skin. “Close enough to hear your heartbeat,” he murmurs, voice low. “It’s fast.” 

Your breath hitches, and you force yourself to look anywhere but at his lips. 

“Careful,” you murmur. “I might start thinking you want to spar for real.” 

He grins wickedly. “Oh, I’ve got moves that don’t involve gloves.” 

You laugh, but it’s shaky. “That a challenge?” 

“More like a promise,” he says, eyes darkening with mischief. 

He steps even closer, just enough for your bodies to almost touch, the heat radiating off him setting your skin alight. Your hands twitch, itching to reach out, to feel the solid strength beneath those muscles. But instead, you bite back the impulse, take a breath, and jab forward, aiming a quick punch at his bicep. 

He’s faster—too fast—and his hand catches your wrist, grip firm. “Not bad,” he says, voice rougher now. “But you’re getting distracted.” 

You glance down at his fingers wrapped around your wrist—strong and warm—then back up at him. “Maybe I like being distracted.” 

He chuckles, low and throaty. “You have no idea what you do to me, cariño.” 

Your cheeks flush, and suddenly the gym feels smaller, the world reduced to just the two of you—the thud of your hearts, the quick intake of breath, the heat humming beneath your skin. 

He leans in again, his breath warm against your lips. “One more round? Winner gets to decide what happens next.” 

You bite your bottom lip, eyes flicking down to his mouth, then back to his gaze. “You’re on.” 

You throw yourself into the next round, fists flying, breath ragged—but he’s relentless, every move calculated to push you harder, closer. He’s not holding back anymore; his feet are quick, his hands even quicker. You feel like you’re flailing, only landing punches when he lets you. 

Then, without warning, he ducks a blow and catches you from behind, one arm wrapping tight around your neck. Not enough to choke—just to claim. His other hand finds your hip, fingers digging in, pressing bruises into your flesh. Your pulse spikes as your body freezes, caught between wanting to fight and drowning in the heat of him pressed against you. 

Your breath hitches as you recognise the undeniable length of him digging into your ass—heavy and hard. His mouth hovers just at your neck, warm breath teasing, lips barely brushing. “Careful, nena,” he whispers, voice thick with something dark and urgent. “You’re playing with fire.” 

Your hands tremble, heart pounding in your throat. Every second, every shallow breath drips with desperate hunger. His fingertips dig into your skin, pulling you impossibly close—his hips grinding slow and deliberate against your ass. 

You want to say something, anything, but the only sounds are your uneven inhales and the thump of your racing heart. Then—just as your resolve begins to crack— 

The gym door swings open, and Sam bursts in. “Alright, what’s the verdict? Lunch or more sparring?” he calls out, completely oblivious to the heat hanging thick between you two. 

Joaquín straightens, sliding his arms away with a slow, wicked grin, eyes sparkling with amusement and something more primal. He moves off to the side of the ring, turning away from Sam—no doubt hiding the bulge in his gym shorts. 

You’re burning up, cheeks flushed crimson, every nerve screaming as you struggle to breathe normally. 

Sam quirks his head, brows furrowed. “You alright? Is he pushing you too hard?” 

God. Something is too hard. 

You shake your head. “N-No. Just... sparring.” 

“Right,” Sam says, not sounding fully convinced. “Well, go clean up. I’m starving.” 

- 

After a shower—a very cold shower—a quick lunch, and several meetings, you’re back in your office combing through security tapes from Club Calavera, scanning for any familiar faces that might compromise tomorrow night’s mission. 

You’re midway through last Saturday’s tape when Joaquín pops his head in the door, grinning like he hadn’t pressed his hard dick against you just a few hours ago. 

“Sam’s hungry,” he says. “Again.” 

You clear your throat. “Already? It’s—” You glance at the clock, brows lifting. “Oh. It’s nearly seven.” 

“Yeah,” he says, stepping in and closing the door behind him. “He wants wings.” 

There’s nothing overtly threatening about the way he stands in front of your only exit—but it still feels dangerous. Being alone with him in this tight little four-by-four office, with nothing between you but a desk and a couple monitors, feels very dangerous. 

You’re not sure what changed while he was away on that last mission—all you know is that something did. And now, the tension between you is almost impossible to ignore. 

“Wings,” you echo, dragging your eyes back to your screens. “Got it. The usual?” 

“Yep,” he nods. “Extra ranch.” 

You smirk as you open a new tab—typing in only a few letters before the URL auto-fills. 

Joaquín frowns. “What’s that look for?” 

“Nothing,” you say quickly, shaking your head. 

His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t press. He just stands there, back against the door, watching you order the food with his bottom lip caught between his perfect teeth. 

“There,” you say, clicking submit order. “Death wings for Captain America, and a baby batch for The Falcon.” 

His eyes widen as he tries—and fails—to fight another grin. “I knew you were laughing at me. It’s not my fault I was born with a spice intolerance.” 

You lean back in your chair, rolling your lips to suppress a giggle. “I wasn’t. I swear.” 

“I’m brave in other ways,” he mutters, folding his arms across his chest. 

“I know.” 

You stare at each other for a beat too long. The air thickens, tension crawling over your skin, heavy and charged. Your eyes trace the line of his jaw, the sharp slope of his nose, the curve of his cupid’s bow beneath that maddeningly hot little moustache. 

Your fingers twitch over your keyboard, itching to touch him. To grip his shoulders. Tug his hair. Wrap around his hot, hard— 

Bang, bang, bang. 

Joaquín startles as Sam shoves at your office door from the other side. 

“Move your ass, Torres,” he calls, voice muffled. 

Joaquín exhales a shaky breath and steps aside—and you swear you see him subtly adjust himself in his jeans. 

“Wings ordered?” Sam asks, pushing the door open. 

You nod. “Death by buffalo coming right up.” 

He grins. “Good. Now get your asses to the conference room. Tactical support wants to run one last debrief.” 

“Ooh,” you say, jumping to your feet. “Do I get any weapons?” 

Both men whip toward you—eyes wide, brows drawn—and in perfect unison say, “No.” 

You sit in the meeting, pretending to listen, while mostly ogling the way Joaquín is testing out his gear. Without the wings, he’s going to be packing an assortment of easily concealed weapons, and something about the way he handles everything with practiced ease has you squeezing your thighs beneath the table. 

His hands are sure and precise—strong fingers wrapping around grips, forearms flexing subtly with each flick and pop. There’s a quiet confidence in the way he inspects every piece, the kind of focused intensity that makes your pulse quicken. 

His jaw tightens slightly, eyes narrowing in concentration, brows drawing together just enough to highlight the sharp line of his cheekbones. It’s like watching a master at work—every subtle motion deliberate, effortless. The way his muscles tense and relax, the small, almost imperceptible shifts in his stance… it all speaks of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing, and how much power he wields beneath that calm exterior. 

You can’t help but admire the rhythm, the flow, the way he seems to command the weapons almost as if they’re extensions of his own body. Your gaze lingers longer than it should, tracing the sinew in his forearms, the curve of his wrists, imagining what it would feel like to be touched by those hands—steady, confident, and undeniably capable. 

“You need a napkin, or are you just gonna keep drooling on the table?” Sam asks, startling you out of your daydream. 

You whip toward him, brow furrowed, one hand swiping instinctively at the corner of your mouth while the other smacks his bicep. 

He chuckles. “Wow. I could call HR, you know.” 

You roll your eyes. “Do it.” 

“Actually,” he says, tilting his head, “I think Joaquín should call HR, with the way you were eye-fucking him across the table. But the boy’s too stupid to notice.” 

Your eyes snap to the front of the room, expecting Joaquín to still be there—but he’s not. In fact, it’s just you and Sam left in the conference room. Even the weapons have been packed up and hauled off. 

“Oh,” you blink. “Is it over?” 

“Been over for a while,” he says with another soft chuckle. “My wings here yet?” 

Your eyes go wide. “Shit. The wings.” 

You jump up and dart out of the room, jogging down the hall to the front reception where you told the delivery driver to leave the food. Thankfully, it’s still there—and when you pick up the bag, it’s warm enough that Sam won’t kill you. 

With a relieved sigh, you carry the wings back through the building, past the now-empty conference room, and straight to Sam and Joaquín’s office at the very back—the one with the giant, obnoxious Captain America symbol frosted onto the window glass. 

“Special delivery,” you say, walking straight toward the table surrounded by low blue lounges. 

You pull out the Styrofoam containers and start sniffing each one to determine which is which. Sam appears beside you with three cans of beer, and Joaquín flops onto one of the lounges, grabbing the bag to pull out a wad of napkins—because you always ask for extra. 

“Shit. They forgot the wet ones,” he says, glancing up at you. 

“Don’t worry,” you mutter, “we’ve got enough wet wipes to stock a preschool.” 

Joaquín chuckles as you cross the room toward Sam’s desk, opening the middle drawer of the cabinet and pulling a fistful of wipes. 

“God, I’m starving,” Joaquín groans. 

You turn back just in time to see him sliding one of the containers toward himself. Your brow furrows, eyes narrowing, and just before realisation hits—before you can say anything—he opens it and lifts a wing to his lips.  

“Joaquín—!” you yelp, eyes wide. 

His gaze flicks to you, confusion creasing his brow—then it hits. 

His cheeks flush immediately, sweat prickling at his hairline and sliding down the side of his face. His eyes go wide, his body locking up—the wing still caught between his teeth.  

“That’s Sam’s!” you exclaim, rushing over. “Spit it out, you idiot. You’re gonna go into cardiac arrest.” 

“Wait,” Sam leans forward, eyes bright. “Did he just—?” 

You nod. “Yeah.” 

“One of mine?” 

“Yep.” 

“Holy shit.” 

“Joaquín,” you say firmly. “Spit the goddamn wing out.” 

He does, letting it drop back into the container with a wet plop. 

“Gross,” Sam groans, sliding the container away from Joaquín. 

“You okay?” you ask, biting back a grin. 

He looks like he’s been pepper-sprayed. Face red, eyes watery, lips puffy, breath coming and going in shallow gasps. 

“Uh uh,” he groans, shaking his head slowly. “Burns.” 

“I know, baby,” you giggle, unable to stop yourself. “I’ll go get some milk.” 

He nods slowly, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. 

You let out another laugh—louder this time—as you run out of the room and jog down the hall, pivoting into the kitchen. You yank the fridge open, pull out the bottle of milk, and retrace your steps. 

By the time you return, Sam is grinning like a demon, face smeared with sauce, and Joaquín is full-on wheezing, fanning his mouth with his hand. 

“What happened?” 

“He drank the beer,” Sam says, clearly very entertained. “Made it worse.” 

“My god, Joaquín,” you sigh, dropping the milk in front of him. “Didn’t you smell the hot sauce?” 

He shakes his head, already chugging from the bottle. Milk dribbles from his lips and down his jaw, sliding down the column of his neck—and suddenly, you’re having thoughts. Filthy ones. 

You drag your eyes away, cheeks hot. 

Jesus Christ. Even watching him drink milk is hot now? 

“I just don’t understand how your tolerance for spice is so bad,” you mutter. “You’re half-Mexican for crying out loud.” 

He stops long enough to gasp for air—then burps like a frat boy. “That’s racist.” 

“It’s not racist,” you say, rolling your eyes. “I’ve been to your house. Your mama’s tamales are hot. And delicious.” 

“Ooh,” Sam smirks. “Tell me more about his mom’s tamales.” 

Joaquín shoots him a slow, deadly look over the milk carton as he continues drinking. 

“His mom makes the best food,” you say, finally opening your own container of wings. “The rest of his family can handle heat just fine—but this pretty boy always gets a custom serving. Mild.” 

“Wow,” Sam snorts. “Way to let the ancestors down, Torres.” 

Joaquín finishes the entire bottle of milk—though it was only half full—before he’s finally able to breathe normally again. His cheeks are still flushed, his hair a little damp, but at least he no longer looks like he’s about to explode. 

“Better?” you ask, smirking behind a half-eaten wing. 

“You know,” he says, leaning forward, that stupid, smug grin back in place, “might help if you kiss it better.” 

You raise your brows. “Your mouth?” 

He shrugs, eyes sparkling. “Probably a couple of places you could kiss that’d help.” 

Your eyes go wide, pulse spiking. Across from you, Sam chokes on a mouthful of chicken. 

“No,” he says between coughs. “Stop it. Both of you. I am not sitting here while you do your weird flirting shit. Leave me out of it.” 

Joaquín just grins, completely unaffected, and opens his container of mild buffalo wings. It shouldn’t be sexy, the way he sinks his teeth in and tears the meat off the bone. Or how his tongue flicks out to catch a drop of sauce at the corner of his mouth. Or the low, satisfied groan he lets out, like it’s the best thing he’s tasted all week. 

But God, when it comes to Joaquín Torres, you are well and truly screwed—just not in the way you want to be. 

- 

Your heart is in your throat. Your hands are trembling. Your back is sweating. 

Every step you take deeper into Club Calavera brings you one step closer to puking. 

The inside of the club is soaked in red light and velvet, thick with smoke and perfume. Velvet booths line the walls, half-hidden in shadow, crowded with people who look like they have knives in their boots and secrets in their smiles. The bar glows low and warm on one side of the room, casting amber light across bottles arranged like trophies. 

The music is bass-heavy, slow and deliberate, and the dance floor pulses with bodies moving close—too close. Everything sparkles—sequins, sweat, the occasional flash of a watch or the glint of a gun tucked just out of sight. 

It’s the kind of place where everyone’s watching, everyone’s working an angle, and no one’s here by accident. 

You feel completely exposed without so much as a headset or earpiece, but Sam insisted—strictly no comms. It’s too risky in a place like this. 

Teddy from logistics is ‘in the chair’ tonight, doing what you’d usually be doing—watching live feeds, monitoring heat signatures, keeping an eye out for trouble. You all know the signals. The procedures. Where to meet if it all goes sideways. But none of that is making you feel even remotely safe in this den of criminals. 

You take a slow, deep breath and continue weaving your way through the crowd, keeping your chin up—confident, not cocky. Your movements are measured. Deliberate. 

You know where you’re going. You’re not nervous. You fit in. 

“Hey, gorgeous,” someone murmurs beside you. 

You offer a small, coy smile, then duck away, putting several bodies between you and whoever that was—for good measure. 

The club is crowded enough to disappear in. You just have to make sure you don’t move too fast. Don’t draw too much attention. 

Not that this goddamn dress is making it easy not to draw attention. 

It’s gold and slinky, catching the light with every step, made from a breathable stretch-knit lamé mesh—fine metallic threads woven into silky, weightless fabric. The outer layer is a sheer gold sparkle mesh, densely packed with glittering micro-sequins that flash like fire under the club lights. 

It’s cut obscenely short—the hem grazing your upper thighs—with a scooped neckline just low enough to tease, and long flared sleeves that shimmer from shoulder to wrist. It doesn’t cling—but it follows your shape with a sleek, deliberate grace that leaves no doubt it was tailor-made for you. 

Beneath all that glitter, the bodice is reinforced with a discreet layer of ballistic fabric—a Kevlar-knit that’s thin and flexible enough to contour to your body, but strong enough to slow a small-calibre round or deflect a blade. So, as long as any would-be attackers aim for the dress and not your legs, you might just have a shot at making it out alive if things go sideways. 

“Excuse me,” you murmur, voice low as you squeeze between two people who were definitely not excusing you. 

You pop out of the crowd at the edge of the dancefloor just as the music shifts. It pulses low and slow at first, a sensual rhythm driven by a deep reggaeton beat. Then a plucked guitar winds through the bassline—sharp, teasing, almost flirtatious—while maracas and other percussion add a soft shimmer beneath it all, like heat rising off pavement. 

There’s a slinky sway to it, like hips rolling in time with every beat. The tempo is deliberate, confident, impossible to ignore—each note coaxing movement, inviting bodies closer. It’s the kind of music that wraps around you like smoke, warm and heady, and refuses to let go. 

You don’t see him at first—just feel it. That ripple in the air. A subtle shift in energy that tells you someone is watching. 

And then you spot him. 

Joaquín steps through the crowd like it’s parting just for him. He’s traded his usual tactical black for loose tan trousers that hang low on his hips, a gold chain draped from the belt loops. A crisp white shirt is thrown over a fitted tank, sleeves rolled up like he’s halfway between saint and sin. His hair’s slicked just enough to look intentional, a single curl falling over his brow, and there’s a glint of gold at his throat that catches the light every time he moves. 

He doesn’t just look good—he looks dangerous. Not in the gunmetal, locked-and-loaded way you’re used to. This is softer. Smouldering. The kind of danger that tempts instead of threatens. The kind that makes your breath hitch and your knees weaken. 

And he’s looking at you. 

Head tilted, tongue grazing the inside of his cheek like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. Like he’s been thinking about this all night. All week. About you in that barely-there dress. About what’s underneath it. About how many people are in this room—and how little he cares. 

Your stomach flips. 

Your whole body hums with anticipation. And you haven’t even touched him yet. 

You're still catching your breath when he reaches you. 

No words. No warning. 

His hand slides around your waist, the other catching your wrist, fingers brushing the underside of your arm like a question. Your body answers before your mouth can—yes. Whatever this is, yes. 

The music throbs through the soles of your feet as you move deeper onto the dancefloor. His hand drops lower, finding the curve of your hip. He steps in—chest to chest—warm breath grazing your cheek. 

You take a deep breath, reminding yourself that you’re working. This is work. Just a distraction so that Sam can get to Navarro. 

But right now, with Joaquín’s fingers splayed across your lower back, guiding you into the sway of the beat, your focus is wrecked. 

And this doesn’t feel like work. 

His body moves against yours with practiced ease—hips rolling slow and sweet. The rhythm is deep, deliberate, and he follows it like it’s stitched into his bones. His thigh slides between yours as he guides you, hand firm at your waist as you pivot together—tight, fluid, seamless. 

You loop your arms around his shoulders, fingertips grazing the back of his neck, and his mouth is suddenly very close to your ear. 

“Hola, mi vida,” he murmurs, “estás espectacular.” 

You might not know much Spanish, but you’ve spent enough time around Joaquín to know exactly what he just said. 

You tilt your head just enough to meet his gaze. “So do you.” 

He laughs under his breath—low, dangerous—and dips you. Hard. Your spine arches, body bending back over his arm, one hand clutching his shirt for balance. His mouth drops to your chest. Breath ghosting over your skin—warm, damp, too much. 

He lingers there. Like he's waiting for permission. 

Then— 

His tongue darts out. Wet heat against your chest. 

You yelp—then freeze. 

The crowd around you stills. Heads turn. All eyes on you. 

“Showtime, cariño,” he mutters, low and smooth, just for you. 

He pulls you up again—slowly. His hand drags from your spine to your waist, fingertips digging in like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. And if it weren’t for his grip, you’re not sure your knees would hold. 

He doesn’t even glance at the crowd. He just smirks. 

Because this was his plan all along. This is why he hasn’t practiced with you all week. Why he refused to rehearse. 

Because Joaquín Torres knew exactly how he was going to play you—just like he’s about to play this entire room full of criminals. 

The music builds again, deeper, filthier. That slinky reggaeton rhythm thickens with every beat, and Joaquín takes the cue. His hands slide down your waist, anchoring you as he rolls his hips into yours, slow and smooth—grinding to the beat like he’s got all the time in the world. Like no one else is here. Like the two of you don’t have an entire operation riding on this moment. 

Your hands grip his shoulders, then slide up to the back of his neck. The world narrows to the heat between your bodies, to the heavy pulse of the music, to the way he leans in close and breathes against your skin. 

“You’re doing so good, baby,” he murmurs, lips brushing your ear. “Just like we practiced.” 

You snort—soft, breathless. “We didn’t practice.” 

“Exactly,” he smirks. 

He spins you suddenly, one arm looping around your middle to keep you close as your back hits his chest. His hand splays across your stomach, pulling you flush against him, and he starts to move again—grinding up behind you in slow, rhythmic thrusts. Filthy. Hypnotic. Perfect. 

Someone in the crowd whistles. 

You tilt your head just enough to meet Joaquín’s eyes over your shoulder. He’s looking down at you with heat, with purpose. Selling it for the crowd—but that look doesn’t feel like an act. 

Your gaze flickers past him, scanning the shadows—and there. You spot Sam slipping through the crowd, unnoticed, just as planned. 

Good. 

You drag your eyes back to Joaquín and grind back into him, slow and intentional. He groans—quiet, but real—and dips his head to the crook of your neck. His lips skim your skin, his breath hot and shallow. 

“Still working?” he murmurs. 

You bite your lip. 

“Because if this is just a mission…” He trails off, tongue flicking just beneath your jaw. “You’re the best actress I’ve ever met.” 

You laugh—shaky, hushed, raw. “Shut up and dance.” 

So he does. 

He drags one hand down your thigh, slipping briefly beneath the hem of your dress, just high enough to make your breath catch. Then he spins you again, facing him, and pulls you back into his chest with a practiced flourish—showy enough to earn a cheer from the sidelines. The lights flicker like heat lightning across his face, casting gold in his eyes, sweat glinting at his hairline. 

The air between you crackles. 

Then—he leans in, voice low, mouth ghosting yours. “Tell me when this stops being a game.” 

You don’t answer. You can’t. 

Because you’re not sure it ever was. 

“Confía en mí, mi amor,” he murmurs—trust me, my love—and you barely have time to register the words before he spins you out with a flick of the wrist, one hand still gripping yours. 

Your body twirls away from him, dress shimmering beneath the lights, the crowd around you gasping at the drama of it—and then you’re pulled back in just as fast. 

He catches you tight. 

One hand at your back, the other sliding low as he grabs your thigh and lifts—hitching it high against his hip, his fingers digging into your flesh. Holding you there. Staking a claim. 

Your breath punches out of you, caught between the sudden closeness and the weight of his grip. His eyes are dark, gleaming with heat and purpose, and you’re not sure which part of this is still the performance. 

His lips are inches from yours, breath warm, tension thick between you as the music pulses around your locked bodies—sweat, sequins, heat, and hands, everything glittering under low crimson light. And still, the crowd watches. Spellbound. 

So you decide to give them something to watch. 

You swallow hard, gather what’s left of your composure, and let your hand slide slowly down his chest—fingertips tracing the line of his sternum, dragging over warm fabric, feeling the beat of his heart beneath your palm. You sway your hips with the music, then pivot—smooth and deliberate—until your back is flush to his chest again. 

His breath catches. You feel it. 

You roll your hips back into him, slow and sinful, and his grip tightens on your hips. 

Your hand snakes up behind you, into his hair, curling tight just enough to make him tilt his head. Then, with a smirk tugging at your lips, you twist to whisper against his jaw—soft, breathy, just for him. 

“Papacito… ay, qué rico tú.” 

You feel the way his whole body reacts—his inhale sharp, his fingers flexing against your skin, his composure cracking for just a second. Just long enough for you to feel victorious. 

But then—he snaps. 

He grabs your hand and spins you back around to face him, hard and fast. His grip is sure, his eyes burning. He’s flushed now, lips parted, chest rising with every breath like he’s trying to get a grip—but losing it. On you. 

And then he drops. 

Not suddenly—deliberately. 

His hands trail down your sides as he lowers himself, eyes never leaving yours. Not until his breath hits your chest, lips ghosting over your damp skin. 

His mouth moves lower—hot, open, dragging over the glittering fabric until it settles just below your navel. The pressure is maddening. More suggestion than kiss, but it sets your nerves on fire. 

He rests on one knee. His breath is hot through your dress. His grip, searing. 

You feel his nose graze along the line of your panties, the heat of him soaking through the fabric. He lingers—mouth parted, exhale shaky—and you know that if he moves even half an inch lower, you’re going to moan out loud. 

Your knees almost buckle. 

So you do the only thing you can—you throw your arms up, eyes fluttering closed, and let the music carry you. You sway to the rhythm, pulse thudding in your ears, hips shifting just enough to brush against his mouth again. 

And when you dare to look down… 

He’s still there. On one knee. A hand branding the back of each thigh. 

Looking up at you like you’re the only thing in the world worth getting on the floor for. 

And God help you—you want him to stay there forever. 

But after a few beats, Joaquín lifts his head slowly, mouth brushing over your dress on the way up, trailing heat with every inch. His hands slide up your thighs, over your hips, gripping tight as he rises. 

You meet him halfway. 

Your fingers sink into his hair. Your body moulds to his. Breath mingling. Lips so close—so heartbreakingly close—you could count the seconds before they meet. You can feel the heat of him, taste the want on his breath. 

His mouth hovers over yours, a whisper away. The music fades. The crowd vanishes. It’s just him. Just you. Just this. 

Then—he pauses. 

His eyes flicker. Something cracks beneath the surface—heat, hesitation, hunger. 

And he pulls back. 

Not far. Not fast. Just enough to tear the moment in half. His gaze locks on yours, sharp and steady, full of something unspoken. A promise, maybe. Or a warning. You’re not sure which—only that it leaves you aching. 

Your breath catches. Your chest tightens. You blink up at him, dizzy, throat thick, trying to smile like it hasn’t cost you something. 

He leans in again, lips grazing your cheek—not your mouth—and whispers, “Sam’s clear.” 

You nod—barely, heart pounding so loud it drowns out the music. 

Then he steps back, slow and sure, every muscle coiled like he’s holding something back. 

You follow his lead, putting just enough distance between you to play the part. You sway with the rhythm—two agents, two dancers, nothing more. 

But your body still burns. 

And the ghost of his mouth still lingers, like a secret you’ll never know. 

Eventually, Joaquín leads you off the dancefloor and toward the bar, his hand warm and steady at your lower back. 

Eyes follow you—hungry, speculative. You feel them trailing over your thighs, your back, the glitter of your dress. Men watch like they’re waiting for their turn, like they saw the performance and think it was an invitation. But you don’t care. You’re too distracted by the phantom of Joaquín’s mouth, the ache of something unfinished still pulsing behind your ribs. 

At the bar, he flags the bartender down with a subtle nod and orders for both of you—something cold and sharp that might steady your nerves. You rest your hands on the counter, trying to slow your breathing, trying not to look at him, trying not to feel too much. 

“Pretty bold dance out there,” a voice says beside you, too close. 

You turn your head to find a stranger leaning in, all confidence and cologne, eyes skimming your neckline like he owns it. 

“How about a private encore?” 

Before you can respond, Joaquín shifts. Not aggressively. Not even visibly angry. But his body angles between you and the guy with a quiet finality, one arm draping casually across the bar behind you. 

“She’s not available,” he says, voice low but pointed. 

The stranger laughs like he’s not threatened—like he hasn’t realised the mistake he's made. “Didn’t look like that a minute ago. Looked like she was auditioning.” 

You barely see Joaquín move. Just the way his jaw tenses, the slight twitch of his fingers curling at the bar, the heat rolling off him in waves. But it’s enough. 

You touch his arm gently. “We should go.” 

He doesn’t look at you right away, not until the guy finally backs off, muttering something under his breath as he fades back into the crowd. Then Joaquín turns, his gaze softer now—but his hand is still tight on your waist. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, voice thick. “Let’s go.” 

Getting out of the club, into the night, and down the street is all a blur. Your feet move, but your mind is still back on that dancefloor—on Joaquín’s wandering hands, his breath hot against your skin, his eyes burning. 

Your chest aches at the memory of his mouth hovering over yours. Close enough to taste. Close enough to make you believe. He could’ve kissed you. He should have. He was going to. But he didn’t. 

And you can’t stop asking yourself why. 

By the time you reach the van parked a few blocks away in a shadowy side street, you’re grateful one of you is paying attention, because you don’t even remember the walk. 

Joaquín opens the passenger door and helps you in like you’re breakable—like you’re something valuable that needs securing. He reaches across and buckles you in, knuckles brushing your thigh in the process, lingering just a second too long. 

Then he’s gone again—door shut, around the van, into the driver's seat. He jams the key in, turns the engine, and starts reversing slowly out of the alley. Like nothing ever happened. Like you didn’t just nearly shatter years of friendship in a single, heated moment. 

You stare out the window while he drives, lost in your thoughts and the lingering warmth of him on your skin—sweat, spice, and something that feels specifically made for you. Something that makes your heart race and your knees weak. 

“Where did you learn that?” he asks suddenly, voice low and rough. 

You frown, turning to face him. And God, is it a sight. Flushed cheeks, sweat-damp skin, eyes glittering even in the dark. 

You clear your throat. “Learn what?” 

“What you said to me,” he says, glancing at you before turning back to the road. “When we were dancing.” 

“Oh.” You shift in your seat, dragging your gaze away from him. “Just one of those songs you always play.” 

“Right,” he mutters. “Do… do you know what it means?” 

There’s a beat. Only the soft hum of tires on asphalt fills the silence. 

Then you murmur, “Daddy, oh, how delicious you are.” 

His breath hitches. His knuckles go white around the steering wheel. 

You wait another beat before adding, “That’s right, yeah?” 

He nods. “Right.” 

He shifts in his seat—subtle, but telling—and you don’t dare let your eyes drop to his lap. 

He clears his throat. “The—uh—the pronunciation was good. Accent could use some work.” 

You snort—sharp and dry. “Thanks for the feedback. I’ll be sure to pencil in some extra Spanish practice.” 

“Let me know if you need a tutor,” he says, smirking now. 

Your heart thuds—heavy, too hard. You want to tease back. You want to slip into the familiar rhythm, the easy banter. But you can’t. Because now you’re confused, and a little wrecked, and everything feels off. 

“Oh, you don’t have time for that these days, Falcon,” you say, forcing a lightness you don’t feel. “I’m sure Gabe or Ceilia would be happy to give me lessons.” 

Two of the engineers you’ve often heard Joaquín arguing with in lightning-fast Spanish. 

“Gabe or Ceilia?” he repeats, tone unreadable, eyes fixed on the road. 

You don’t answer. You’re not sure what you could say. 

So you just turn your head back to the window, watching the quiet city blur by, willing yourself not to cry. Not yet. 

Not until you’re alone. 

- 

You wake up to a bright streak of sun slashing across your face. 

Your eyes are sticky—thanks to all the tears—and your body aches. You stretch your legs out and roll onto your back, careful not to slip off the couch cushions you curled up on last night. 

After regrouping at the office, both Sam and Joaquín offered to drive you home. You declined them separately—telling each you’d already agreed to leave with the other. It took some careful phrasing and a few weirdly timed trips out the front door, but it worked. And eventually, you were left alone. 

You stripped out of your dress and showered—because of course Sam has a shower at the office—before changing into a spare set of clothes you keep in case of emergency. Which, as it turned out, meant an old pair of loose gym shorts and one of Joaquín’s worn Air Force shirts. 

Then you settled in front of your computer and worked until it felt like your eyes were bleeding. You filed mission reports, checked maintenance logs, combed through security footage, and even tried digging deeper into Matías Navarro. But by four a.m., you were in Sam and Joaquín’s office, curled up on the low blue lounges and crying yourself to sleep. 

Partly from exhaustion. 

Partly from heartbreak. 

Mostly because you have no idea what to do about Joaquín Torres now. 

The sound of your phone vibrating against the table forces you to sit up. You rub at your eyes, yawn widely, and reach for it, flipping it over to see Joaquín’s goofy caller ID photo lighting up the screen. 

You stare at it, gnawing on lower lip until the call ends. Then a notification pops up—missed call from Joaquín—followed by a flurry of texts asking how you are, where you are, and if you want to hang out today. 

It’s Sunday. Which means usually, you’d be dragging him to a market or a movie—something sickeningly wholesome, the kind of thing real couples do on their days off. But you’re not a real couple. You never were. And you really need to remember that. 

So you slip the phone into your pocket without replying, deciding to do it later—when you’re less raw. 

With a heavy sigh, you push off the couch and head for your own office, pausing only to start up the coffee machine on the way. You wake your computer, rubbing at your temples as the screen flickers to life. While you slept, it’s been classifying intel, parsing Navarro’s comms for patterns, links, anything actionable. And surprisingly, it’s found some. 

Good. Now you have something to show Sam so he doesn’t kill you for working all weekend. 

You skim the new data for a few minutes before deciding that no amount of international weapons trafficking can be dealt with without caffeine. You’re halfway out your office door when— 

The alarm blares. 

You flinch. “Fuck!” 

Then you jog down the hall, push through the doors into reception, and swing around the desk. You punch your code into the alarm panel and silence the sirens—leaving only the sound of your pulse hammering in your ears. 

The system has been glitching for weeks—tripping randomly, resetting itself, spamming your phones with false alerts. But still, you drop into the chair and run a security check just in case, scanning for any open doors or tripped sensors. 

Once you get the all clear, you sigh and head back to the kitchen—now in desperate need of that goddamn coffee. 

You spend the next half hour glued to your screens, sipping coffee like it’s oxygen and stretching your sore back every five minutes. You’re so deep in the data that you don’t even hear your office door open. 

Not until— 

“Did you sleep here, cariño?” 

You jump, knocking your chair back a couple inches and sending your coffee mug clattering across your desk. 

“Shit, Joaquín,” you mutter, reaching for the tissues. 

“Sorry,” he chuckles, stepping in and snatching the box before you can. 

Luckily, the mug was nearly empty. There’s only a small puddle to mop up—which he does for you, dabbing at the spill with a clump of tissues, careful not to let anything touch your electronics. 

“There,” he says, tossing the wad into the bin. “Now, are you gonna answer me?” 

You frown. “Answer what?” 

He rolls his eyes and sits on the edge of your desk, invading your space and flooding your senses with the sharp, fresh scent of his cologne. He’s clearly just showered, and God, it’s almost rude how good he smells. 

“Did you sleep here?” 

Your cheeks burn. “Maybe.” 

His smile fades, eyes narrowing. “You told me Sam was taking you home.” 

“And I told Sam you were taking me home.” 

“So you lied.” 

You shrug. “Embellished.” 

He groans, tipping his head back. “Por Dios, me vas a matar algún día.” 

You squint up at him, lips pursed. “Something about God and dying?” 

He looks back at you, amused now. “You really need those Spanish lessons, mi amor.” 

“Well,” you sigh, dragging your eyes back to your screen, “I’ll try to squeeze it in, but I’m a field agent now. My time is valuable.” 

He chuckles again, low and warm, and shifts on the desk—just enough for his body to inch closer. Close enough to feel. Close enough to make your skin heat and your heart race. 

“What are you doing here, anyway?” you ask, forcing yourself not to look at him. 

“The alarm went off,” he says, holding up his phone. “Then I checked whose code turned it off and saw that you’re working. On a Sunday. You know Sam’s going to kill you, right?” 

You frown at your screen. “So if you figured I was working… why are you here? To watch me type?” 

He pauses, eyes fixed on you. You feel the weight of it, even as you refuse to meet his gaze. He knows something is off. He’s not stupid. He probably knows you better than you know yourself—and this? This isn’t normal. Not your usual rhythm. Not your usual banter. 

“Actually,” he says, sliding off the desk. “I’m here for your Spanish lesson.” 

That gets your attention. 

You glance up, brows pinched. “What are you talking about?” 

He moves toward the small whiteboard on the wall beside your desk and plucks the marker from the tray. 

“Joaquín,” you sigh, spinning in your chair to face him. “I don’t want a Spanish—” 

“Ah,” he cuts in, brow raised. “En español.” 

You give him a deadpan look. “I don’t know it en español.” 

He smirks. “Then it sounds like you really do need a lesson.” 

You exhale hard and lean back in your chair, crossing your arms and then your legs. “Go on, then. Maestro.” 

His eyes light up. “Muy buena, cariño. Now you’re getting it.” 

You don’t reply. You just stare at him, lips pressed into a flat, unimpressed line. 

He turns to the whiteboard and scribbles a phrase. You try not to look at his forearm as it flexes with each stroke of the marker—but God, it’s hard not to. 

“Alright,” he says, turning back with a smirk. “Go on.” 

You squint at the words, digging through years of memories—listening to Joaquín talk, watching him text his mother, the cheeky little notes he used to write in your birthday cards. 

“Estás... muy... guapo... hoy,” you say slowly. 

He chuckles, stepping closer. “It’s not ‘ess-tass.’ Loosen your tongue, cariño. Eh-stás. More breath. Less bite.” 

You roll your eyes, but try again. “Estás muy... guapo... hoy.” 

“Don’t chew it,” he says, folding his arms—and Jesus, do his biceps have to be so distracting? “It’s not gwaah-po. It’s cleaner. Crisper. Guapo. Let the ‘g’ glide. The ‘o’ is round. Like your mouth when you—” 

He stops—and laughs quietly, eyes gleaming. 

“Never mind. Try again.” 

You scowl at the board, determined not to let his arms—or his mouth—throw you off. 

“Estás muy guapo hoy.” 

He doesn’t say anything at first—just looks at you. Then that slow, dangerous grin spreads across his face. 

“Eso, mi amor,” he says. “You’re getting it.” 

Your lips twitch, but you don’t let him see it. You roll them together and raise your brows instead—quietly daring him to give you the next one. 

He turns back to the board and quietly writes out three more phrases. Each scribbled letter winds the tension tighter, threading the air with heat and anticipation—but you don’t know why. Not yet. You recognise some words, sure, but you can’t piece together the full sentences. 

“Me vuelves loco,” he says, overpronouncing it like a smug high school Spanish teacher. 

You sit up a little straighter, arms still folded tight across your chest, and echo, “Me vuelves loco.” 

He quirks an eyebrow. “Bien. De nuevo.” 

You know he’s just told you to say it again—more from the look on his face than his words. 

“Tell me what I’m saying first.” 

He grins, eyes darkening with something dangerous. “You drive me crazy.” 

Your breath hitches, pulse spiking—but you manage to keep your cool. 

“Me vuelves loco,” you repeat. 

He nods. “Very good, cariño. Next one?” 

You drag your gaze away from his stupidly handsome face—ridiculous facial hair still perfectly intact—and squint at the next phrase. You don’t recognise it. 

“Ponte… de… rodillas?” 

He chuckles—low, throaty—and steps forward, stopping directly in front of you. “It’s not a question, mi amor. Say it like you mean it.” 

Your brow furrows as you look past him at the board. 

“Ponte… de rodillas.” 

He moves closer, voice dropping. “The ‘r’—you’re swallowing it. It should roll. Just a little. Ro-dí-llas. You’re saying it too flat.” 

You try again. “Ponte de… rodillas.” 

He tsks. “Softer on the ‘ll’. It’s not rod-ee-yas, it’s ro-dee-yas. Let it melt. Let it glide off your tongue.” 

You give him a look. “If you think I’m going to get turned on by grammar—” 

“Not grammar,” he smirks. “Just me.” 

You roll your eyes—but he’s stepping even closer now, towering over you, eyes gleaming with that same reckless hunger he wore last night. 

“Say it right,” he murmurs, “and maybe I’ll listen.” 

“Listen?” 

He nods once. “Maybe I’ll do what you’re telling me to do.” 

You’re breathing harder now, your chest rising and falling beneath crossed arms. Your legs feel heavy, unsteady—too tense to stay crossed—so you shift in your chair, uncrossing them as Joaquín watches every movement like a predator tracking prey. 

“Look me in the eye,” he says softly. “Say it again. And mean it.” 

You clear your throat and meet his gaze. “Ponte de rodillas.” 

There’s a beat—one, long charged second where he just stares. 

Then—he sinks to his knees. 

His hands slide up your thighs as he settles between them, a wicked smirk curling his lips. He looks entirely too pleased with himself—and something else. Something darker. 

“See?” he murmurs. “Estoy de rodillas por ti, mi amor.” 

Your heart is in your throat, pulse pounding like a war drum. It fills your ears, thrums beneath your skin. Every nerve ending burns where his hands rest—just above your knees—like he's branding you. 

“Next one,” he murmurs, leaning in. 

Your voice catches before you can speak. You’re frozen, eyes locked on him as he lowers his face between your thighs, gaze fixed at the apex. 

You force yourself to look away—back to the board—blinking until the letters come into focus. 

“I… I don’t know.” 

“Just try it, baby,” he says, breath hot against the tender skin inside your thigh. 

You swallow, voice shaking. “N-Necesito… sentirte… adentro.” 

He draws a sharp breath, jaw tightening like he’s barely holding himself together. His hands slide higher, fingers slipping beneath the hem of your shorts. 

Your whole body tenses. 

“Joaquín, I—” 

“Uh uh.” He pulls back slightly, just enough to make you ache. “Dilo de nuevo.” 

You blink down at him. “What?” 

“Say it again,” he murmurs, dark eyes dragging up to meet yours. “And I’ll reward you.” 

Your head spins. He’s still there, between your legs, looking at you like you’re something holy and wreckable all at once. This has to be a dream. There’s no way this is real. 

But the heat is real. The ache. The want. 

“Necesito,” you say slowly, breath shaky, “se—sentirte adentro.” 

He groans low, sliding his hands higher, fingertips brushing the edge of your panties. 

“Better,” he mutters. “But I know you can do it right, cariño.” 

You clutch the arms of your desk chair, grounding yourself, trying not to move. Trying not to beg. 

“Necesito sentirte… adentro.” 

His hands move again—slow and sure—one hand pushing your shorts aside, the other tracing down your centre, teasing along the fabric of your panties. He lets out a deep sigh before pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses to the inside of your thighs, moving higher with each wet press of his lips. 

“Better,” he mutters against you. “But it’s not ‘sen-teer-teh’—you’re flattening the ‘i’. It’s sentir—longer. Feel it in your throat. Let it roll.” 

His thumb drags gently along the crease between your thigh and your core, teasing the elastic. 

“You want it?” he whispers. “Say it right.” 

Your grip tightens on the arms of your chair. You close your eyes, suck in a breath, and try again—voice lower now, weighted with need. 

“Necesito… sentirte adentro.” 

A sound escapes him—almost a growl—and he dips lower, mouthing you through the fabric. You gasp, hips twitching. The heat of his breath, the shape of his mouth—it’s overwhelming. 

“Good girl,” he says softly, lips dragging over you. “Almost perfect.” 

You whimper, your body arching involuntarily. “Tell me,” you whisper. “Tell me how to say it.” 

He chuckles against you, the vibration sharp and sinful. “You’re rushing it. Slow down. Let me hear you want it.” 

His hands are steady on your thighs now, anchoring you open as his mouth hovers just above your pussy. Breath hot, cheeks flushed, dark eyes locked with yours—waiting. 

You draw a breath, forcing your voice to steady, and say, “Necesito sentirte adentro.” 

“Sí,” he groans. “Eso es todo, mi amor.” 

Then his fingers hook around the fabric of your panties and shove it aside. His mouth is on you just as quick, tongue hot and slick and merciless as he finally rewards you—lapping at your wetness like a man starved. 

You break—letting out a broken cry. One hand flies to his hair, threading through the curls, while the other grips the edge of your desk. Your hips lift into him as his broad tongue licks a slow stripe from entrance to clit. He groans into you, the vibration sending sparks shooting up your spine. 

Your thighs shake, breath coming hard and fast, but Joaquín doesn’t let up. He works his tongue in slow, devastating circles around your clit—just light enough to drive you insane, just heavy enough to make you twitch with every pass. Then he flattens it and licks up again, long and firm, before closing his mouth around your clit and sucking—slow, purposeful, obscene. 

“Así,” he growls into you, voice low and ruined. “Así me gusta verte.” 

Your hips buck. Your fingers tighten in his curls. 

“Joaquín—” 

He slides one hand higher, fingertips trailing over your inner thigh before gliding straight to your entrance. He drags two fingers through your folds—slow, deliberate, torturous—coating them in your slick, collecting the wetness, then finally pushes in. One knuckle, then two, sinking deep into your heat, his breath catching as he feels how ready you are. 

You gasp—sharp and high-pitched—and he groans into you like the taste is making him drunk. 

“You’re so wet,” he murmurs against your cunt. “Mierda.” 

You whimper something incoherent, every nerve in your body screaming, and he curls his fingers just right—hooking them inside you, hitting that spongey spot that makes your thighs spasm and your mouth fall open. 

And still, his tongue doesn’t stop. He licks and sucks and flicks, lips wrapped around your clit like a prayer, and when he groans into you—low and wrecked—it sends a full-body shudder straight through you.  

“Say it again,” he pants, fingers pumping deep and slow. “Say it. Dímelo otra vez.” 

You’re half gone—hips jerking forward, body sliding closer to the edge with every wet, filthy sound echoing between your thighs. 

You choke on your breath, trembling as you manage to say, “Necesito sentirte adentro.” 

He growls—honest-to-God growls—and his fingers speed up, curling faster, thumb brushing your clit just as his lips close around it again. 

“Buena chica,” he rasps. “I’m going to make you cum with my mouth, with my fingers—todo lo que me pidas.” 

Then he sucks—hard. One long, deep pull with tongue and fingers working in tandem, filthy and focused and fucking lethal. 

You cry out, hips bucking, the hand on his hair holding him against you as you grind on his mouth. 

He groans into the mess he’s made, lapping it up like it’s sweetest thing he’s ever tasted, fucking you with his fingers while his tongue traces lazy, hungry circles. 

Your body shakes. You grip his hair like a lifeline, breath shattered. 

“Joaquín,” you pant, tugging on his curls. “Joaquín, I need—I need—” 

“Gonna cum, baby?” he murmurs, curling his fingers again. “Gonna cum on my tongue?” 

You let out a strangled moan as he licks you again, the tip of his tongue swirling around your clit as his fingers pump in and out with an obscene squelching sound. 

“Joaquín,” you say again, firmer this time. 

His eyes flick up, meeting yours. 

“Necesito sentirte adentro.” 

He freezes. Everything stops. His fingers stop mid-thrust and he just stares at you, lips glistening, eyes wide. 

“Joaquín Torres,” you say, breathless, chest heaving. “I need you inside me. Right fucking now.” 

For a moment, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Just stares up at you like you’ve broken something in him—something sacred. 

Then, slowly—deliberately—he pulls his fingers from your body and rises to his full height. 

You whimper, aching at the loss, feeling hollow. 

His face is flushed. His lips are swollen and slick. He looks wrecked, staring down at you now with wide eyes and an expression so raw it makes your chest tighten. 

“Are you sure, cariño?” he asks, voice quieter now. “We don’t have to. I—” 

“I’m in love with you,” you say, rising from your chair to stand in front of him, a small, sheepish smile tugging at your lips. “And I’d really like it if you fucked me right now.” 

He just stares. Lips parted. Eyes wide. Brows drawn like he’s trying not to cry or laugh or do both at once. 

Then, slowly, his lips curl into that familiar grin. The one you know too well. The one you love more than anything else on Earth. 

“I knew it,” he says. “I fucking knew it.” 

You roll your eyes, biting back a grin. “Oh, did you now?” 

He nods, arms sliding around your waist, pulling your body flush to his. “Why do you think I just gave you the best head of your life?” 

Your brows lift, and a laugh bubbles from your throat despite yourself. “Of my life?” 

He nods again, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. 

“I don’t know,” you murmur, gaze dipping to that stupid moustache—still glistening with your slick, making your thighs clench. “I didn’t even cum…” 

His grin drops, and he growls. A deep, guttural sound—low in his throat and hot on your skin—as his hands flex around your waist. Then in one fast, fluid motion, he twists your bodies and slams you back against the desk. 

You gasp, hands flying to grip the edge for balance. But before you can speak, his mouth is on yours. 

And fuck. 

It’s not sweet. It’s not soft. It’s not careful. 

It’s years of holding back, years of wanting, all pouring out in one searing, breath-stealing kiss. His lips crash against yours, tongue demanding entry, teeth nipping at your lower lip like he’s angry he waited this long. 

Your arms wind around his neck, pulling him closer, tighter, until there’s nothing between you but heat and desperation. He kisses like he wants to devour you—like he’s trying to rewrite every second you spent not doing this. 

His hands fumble at your waist, tugging at your shorts, pulling them down as you shift your hips to help. Once they fall to the floor, he starts yanking at his belt with shaking fingers. 

“Fuck,” he mutters against your lips, breath ragged. “Fuck, I’ve wanted this—I’ve wanted you—for so long—” 

You reach down to help, fingers brushing his as you undo his fly and push his pants and briefs down just far enough. His cock springs free, thick and flushed and already leaking against his stomach. 

Your hand wraps around him on instinct—hot, hard, pulsing in your grip—and he curses again, burying his face in your neck. 

You stroke once. Twice. Just enough to hear him moan against your throat. 

Then—he pulls back, eyes wild, teeth clenched as he grabs the base and drags himself over your still-covered core. Nothing but the soaking wet scrap of lace left between you. 

“Feel that?” he rasps. “That’s what you do to me.” 

He pushes again, the thick head of his cock dragging over your clit through the soaked fabric, the pressure maddening. Your hips jerk, mouth falling open. 

“Fuck, baby,” he mutters, dragging the tip down your slit again. “You’re so fucking wet.” 

Your hand grips the desk, the other tangled in his curls as you breathe out, “Joaquín—please—” 

He looks at you like a man on the verge of losing control. Then he nudges your nose with his, resting his forehead against yours, breath mingling, eyes blazing. 

“Say it again,” he breathes. “One more time. Necesito sentirte adentro.” 

Your breath shudders as your eyes lock on his, your voice barely more than a whisper—raw, pleading. “Necesito sentirte adentro.” 

He groans—low, filthy, possessive—and grabs your thighs, lifting you onto the edge of the desk so fast it knocks the breath from your lungs. Then his hands are under your shirt—palms searing as they skim your stomach, over your ribs, until they find your bra. 

Without hesitation, he shoves it up—then your shirt—baring your breasts. He groans, deep and guttural, eyes locking on you. “Fucking perfect,” he mutters, voice reverent and wrecked. 

His mouth latches to your chest, hot tongue flicking over your nipple before his lips wrap around it and suck—hard. His other hand is already at your soaked panties, pulling them to the side again, and you feel the head of his cock notch against your entrance. 

“Please,” you gasp, one hand tangled in his hair, the other clawing at his bare back. “Joaquín—now.” 

He lifts his head, eyes burning, forehead resting against yours again. 

“You want me?” he asks, cock dragging along your folds. “You want every inch?” 

You nod, breathless, trembling. “Yes. I want you to fill me up. I need to feel you inside.” 

He curses under his breath, grips your waist, and thrusts forward. 

All the air leaves your lungs in a strangled cry as he slides inside—slow, thick, relentless. He doesn’t stop until he’s buried to the hilt, your bodies pressed tight, his mouth open against your throat. 

“Jesus, baby,” he groans, “you feel so fucking good. So warm. So tight. So perfect around me.” 

You whimper, legs wrapping around his hips, pulling him deeper—closer. He starts to move, hips rolling forward, dragging his cock nearly all the way out before driving back in with a filthy, wet sound that echoes in the office. 

“Fuck,” you gasp, nails raking down his back. “Just like that—don’t stop.” 

“I’m not stopping,” he growls, thrusting harder now. “Not until you scream my name. Not until everyone in this damn city knows you’re mine.” 

His hand slides up again, squeezing your breast, thumb flicking your nipple as he pistons into you—faster, deeper, every stroke hitting that spot that makes your vision go white at the edges. 

“You’re gonna cum for me now,” he pants, “and I’m gonna feel every second of it. You hear me?” 

You nod—wild, breathless—but it’s not enough. 

He thrusts hard, dragging a moan from your throat. Again. And again. Every push deeper, rougher, angling just right. Your head tips back, your hands scrambling for purchase—on the desk, on his shoulders, anywhere. 

“Fuck, Joaquín—” you gasp, already so close. 

But suddenly, he stops. 

Buried to the hilt and breathing like he ran a marathon, he stills, chest heaving. 

“Look at me,” he growls, his hand catching your chin and forcing your gaze to his. “I said look at me.” 

Your eyes snap open, dazed and wide, vision blurred. 

“I fucking love you, cariño,” he says—raw, desperate. “So fucking much. You feel that?” He rolls his hips, just once, dragging a broken sob from your lips. “That’s what love feels like. Me, inside you, losing my fucking mind.” 

You whimper, thighs trembling around his waist, and he doesn’t wait. He starts to move again—deep and punishing, hitting every spot that makes you see stars. 

“Tell me you love me,” he growls, one hand sliding up under your shirt again to squeeze your breast, fingers pinching your nipple until you're writhing. “Tell me, baby. Say it.” 

“I love you,” you gasp, voice breaking as he thrusts deeper, harder. “Fuck, Joaquín—I love you—I love you—” 

“That’s it,” he mutters, pressing his forehead to yours, fucking you like he means it—like he needs it. “Say it again.” 

“I love you.” 

His mouth crashes to yours mid-moan, swallowing the sound as he pounds into you, the desk rattling beneath your ass, every stroke sending shocks of heat down your spine. You can feel it building—tight and dangerous—coiling deep in your core like a spring about to snap. 

“You gonna cum for me, mi amor?” he rasps, lips dragging along your jaw as his thrusts start to stutter. “Gonna cum on my cock like a good girl?” 

Your entire body is shaking, one hand in his curls, the other clawing down his back as you choke out, “Yes—yes, I’m so close—don’t stop—” 

“I won’t,” he promises, voice wrecked. “Not until I feel you lose it. I want it all, baby. Cada maldita gota.” 

His hand slides down your torso, fingers finding your clit and rubbing tight, filthy circles in perfect rhythm with his hips. The pressure hits you like lightning—sharp, electric, blinding. 

“Oh my God, Joaquín—" 

You break. 

You fall apart. 

Your orgasm hits with devastating force, tearing through you in waves, pulsing around him as he groans—loud, low, carnal. He thrusts once, twice more, then stills inside you with a harsh, broken shout of your name, spilling deep as he holds you close like he’ll never let you go. 

You’re both panting, chests heaving, grinding slowly to ride out the high and clinging to each other in the aftershock—sweat-slicked, breathless, totally undone. 

He doesn’t pull out. Doesn’t move. Just presses a soft kiss to your temple and stays buried deep inside you. 

“I’m so fucking in love with you, it hurts,” he whispers. 

You let out a breathless laugh—half delirious, half disbelieving—and tip your head up to look at him. His hair is a mess, his face flushed, his lips swollen from kissing you stupid. He looks wrecked. Ruined. Beautiful. 

“I can’t feel my legs,” you murmur. 

He grins, still inside you, still pressed so close you can feel his heartbeat hammering through his chest. 

“Good,” he says, smug and a little dazed. “Means I did my job.” 

You smack his shoulder, giggling now, and he catches your wrist—pressing a kiss to your palm, then the inside of your elbow, then the curve of your jaw. 

“You’re such an idiot,” you say, fingers carding through his curls while his lips assault your neck. 

His nose nuzzles into your skin. “Yeah,” he whispers, “but I’m your idiot.” 

“God help me,” you mumble, smiling into his shoulder. 

He pulls back just enough to look at you, his expression so open it makes your stomach flip. “You okay?” he asks, voice low and sincere. “Not just physically—I mean, really.” 

You nod, heart suddenly so full you feel like it might burst. “Yeah. I’m better than okay.” 

His smile softens. “Good. Because I’m not pulling out until I get at least one more necesito sentirte adentro.” 

You bark a laugh, head falling back. “You’re insatiable.” 

He shrugs, hips shifting just enough to make you gasp. “And you’re going to be fluent soon.” 

You tip your head forward, looking at him through your lashes, voice dropping to a sultry murmur. “Necesito sentirte adentro.” 

“God,” he groans, dropping his forehead to yours. “Vas a ser mi muerte.” 

He rolls his hips again, and you suck in a breath—he’s still hard, still thick and hot, dragging through your slick with maddening pressure. Your fingers twist tighter in his hair as you lift your chin and kiss him—hard and soft all at once, pouring everything into it. 

But then— 

You stop. And pull back. 

That sharp little ache flares behind your ribs, reminding you why you were in this office on a Sunday in the first place. Why you cried yourself to sleep. Why you weren’t even sure you could look at Joaquín today, let alone fuck him. 

He blinks, brow creasing. “What’s wrong, mi vida?” 

“Last night,” you murmur, eyes dropping to where your hand is fisted in his shirt. “Why didn’t you kiss me?” 

He gently hooks a finger beneath your chin, guiding your gaze back to his. “On the dancefloor?” 

You nod slowly. 

“I didn’t kiss you on that dancefloor in front of a hundred criminals because I didn’t want our first kiss to be undercover,” he says softly. “Didn’t want you thinking it was just for show.” 

“Oh.” Your lips twitch into a smile. 

He chuckles, soft and low. “Is that why you were upset? Because I almost kissed you and didn’t?” 

You nod again, slower this time. Cheeks burning, heart thudding. 

“Oh, mi amor,” he sighs, voice warm with laughter. “What am I going to do with you?” 

“Well,” you murmur, fingers curling tighter in his hair, “you could start by fucking me again.” 

That’s all the encouragement he needs. His lips are back on yours in a second, hips rolling forward, his hard length pushing into you with the most delicious stretch. You moan against his mouth, hiking your legs up higher around his waist to feel him deeper. 

His hands grip your hips with bruising intensity, searing fingerprints into your skin—marks you know will make you squeeze your thighs every time you see them. 

And then— 

Ping! 

The sound of your phone cuts through the soft whisper of skin on skin. Neither of you can help but glance at it, sitting screen-up on the desk right beside where Joaquín is fucking you slowly. 

“What’s that?” he asks, eyes narrowing. 

“Just a motion alert,” you reply. “I set it up a while ago when I was working a lot of weekends because Sam would come in and scare the crap out of me.” You look back at him, eyes trailing over his face so close to yours. “Doesn’t help though. I didn’t see the notification when you came in.” 

He frowns. “So it alerts you when someone enters the building?” 

“Yep.” 

“Right.” His eyes flick to the phone, then back to you. “So... someone just entered the building?” 

Your eyes go wide. “Fuck.” 

You grab the phone and unlock it with shaky fingers, bringing up the security system app and quickly flicking through the camera feeds until you find movement. 

Your breath catches. “It’s Sam.” 

“Shit,” Joaquín hisses, pulling out so quickly it leaves you winded. 

You let out a pathetic little whine, and he can’t help but chuckle as he fumbles with his pants. 

“Later, baby. I promise,” he says, stealing one last kiss. “But Sam is going to be here in a few seconds, and he’s going to know what just happened in here if we don’t—” 

Knock, knock, knock. 

“You in there, kid?” 

You both whip toward the door, seeing Sam’s blurred silhouette through the frosted glass. 

“Quick, cariño,” Joaquín whispers, helping you off the desk. 

You scramble into your shorts, yank your bra and shirt into place, then turn to Joaquín, raking your fingers through his wild curls—both of you stifling laughter like love-drunk fools trying to clean up a crime scene. 

Knock, knock, knock. 

“I can hear you.” 

You clear your throat, nod at Joaquín, and step around the desk toward the door. As you grab the handle, you glance back—and spot a little pool of evidence on the desk. 

“Joaquín,” you hiss, pointing at it. 

His eyes go wide, and he quickly sits on it, trying to look casual—as if he hadn’t just been buried inside you right there thirty seconds ago. 

Then you yank the door open, plastering on your most innocent smile. 

“Hey, Sam!” you say, probably a little too brightly. 

His hand was poised to knock again, but he drops it slowly, eyes narrowing as they bounce between you and Joaquín. 

“Hi,” he says, slow and suspicious, stepping into the room. 

You shuffle back toward the desk, sliding in beside Joaquín, praying to any god that might listen that Sam can’t read the Spanish on the goddamn whiteboard. 

“What are you two doing?” Sam asks, brows raised. 

“Working,” you both say, in perfect unison. 

Sam cocks his head, clearly unconvinced. “Really? On a Sunday?” 

You nod. “Yep. I was running data on Navarro all night and found a few leads. He frequents this deli in Washington Heights, owned by—” 

“Why does it smell weird in here?” Sam interrupts, sniffing the air like a police dog. 

“Weird how?” Joaquín asks. “I came straight from the gym, so if it’s sweat, that’s probably—” 

“Did you two have sex in here?” Sam exclaims, eyes wide—locked on that fucking whiteboard. 

“No,” you say quickly. “I was learning Spanish. Joaquín was teaching me—” 

“I know what that says,” he cuts in, pointing at it, brows drawn and lips pursed like he’s trying not to gag. 

“I was just being funny,” Joaquín says, tone light. “Nothing happened.” 

Sam raises a brow. “Oh, okay. So if I check the security footage, it’s not going to show anything?” 

Your heart lurches, your cheeks burn, and you turn toward Joaquín, burying your face in his chest with a groan. 

You hadn’t even thought about that stupid little security camera in the corner of your office. 

“I knew it!” Sam cries. “I can’t believe you two. This is a place of work,” he goes on, already climbing onto his high horse. “You just violated my trust—and the trust of everyone on this team. This is an environment for professionalism, not sex. I can’t believe you’d do something so reckless, so—” 

“Didn’t you bring a date back here the weekend after we started operating?” Joaquín asks suddenly, brows raised. 

You lift your head, blinking. “Oh my God. You did! What was her name—Kylie? Casey?” 

Sam freezes. His expression drops. 

“You know,” Joaquín continues, turning to you, “we could probably find the footage from that night. I think I remember the date.” 

“Wouldn’t take long,” you add, grinning now. “Could scrub through it before we erase ours.” 

“Okay!” Sam blurts, throwing up a hand. “Okay. You heathens win.” 

Joaquín grins, wide and smug, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and pulling you closer. 

“Go through the cameras,” Sam instructs, already backing toward the door. “Delete the footage. Both incidents.” 

“No offense, Sam,” you mutter, grimacing, “I really don’t want to see that.” 

“I’ll do it,” Joaquín says cheerfully. “I’m actually a little curious about how Captain America—” 

“Enough,” Sam snaps, pointing at Joaquín—but the twitch in his lips betrays him. “Do it. Go home. Take tomorrow off. Hell, take the whole week if you’re going to be all over each other like this. Just don’t defile any more government property.” 

Then he’s gone. Out the door and down the hall, muttering something about kids these days. 

Joaquín hops off the desk and wraps his arms around you, smiling like a sinner who just got a free pass to heaven. 

“You think we should keep a copy?” he asks, eyes gleaming. “I bet it’s hot.” 

Your thighs clench instinctively, and you wrap your arms around his neck. 

“Oh, definitely. And Sam’s too—for blackmail. Just in case.” 

Joaquín laughs. “God. Could you imagine if Captain America’s sex tape got leaked?” 

“Might boost his approval rating,” you snort, moving to slide into your chair. 

He stands behind you while you pull up the security system app, his arms around your shoulders, lips brushing over your hair again and again. 

He murmurs it at first—I love you, I love you, I love you—until the words melt into Spanish, growing filthier, hungrier. You can’t understand all of it, but it doesn’t matter. 

Because you’ll make him teach you. 

Slowly. Thoroughly. 

Between your legs. All fucking night. 

END.

[sunsetmade]

Symptoms: You

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Bucky ends up getting sick leaving his girlfriend to take care of him— even when he’s grumpy.

There was a specific kind of stubbornness that only came with a hundred-year-old super soldier who refused to admit he was sick.

Bucky had been sniffling since he got home—quiet at first, trying to hide it—but she noticed. His shoulders were drawn up, tense with the kind of discomfort he wasn’t ready to admit to, and his eyes, usually so clear and alert, were glassy. A flush high on his cheekbones gave him away more than anything else. That, and the subtle wobble in his steps as he moved through the apartment.

From the kitchen doorway, she watched as he tugged a blanket haphazardly over his shoulders, trying to look functional. Steady. But the illusion cracked with every dragging step and shallow breath.

“I’m fine,” he said, again. That made four times now.

“You don’t look fine,” she said gently, arms folded as she leaned against the doorframe.

He didn’t look at her. “I always look like this.”

“No, Bucky. Usually you look tired. Now you look sick and tired.”

He shot her a look over his shoulder, a glare that should’ve been sharp but barely registered as a pout. It dissolved entirely when he stopped halfway across the room, bracing himself against the arm of the couch like just walking had winded him.

She walked over, pressing a cool glass of water into his hand without waiting for him to ask. “You need to sit down.”

“I’m not—”

“Bucky.”

Just his name, softly spoken, but with a firmness that made his shoulders sag in defeat. He took the water with a quiet grunt, eyes avoiding hers as he sank into the cushions. She followed him down, crouching beside the couch and reaching up to brush the damp strands of hair off his forehead.

Her touch made him close his eyes briefly. His skin was hot beneath her fingers, flushed and clammy. Not just tired. Burning up.

“Let me take your temperature.”

“I don’t need—”

“If you argue again,” she warned, lifting a brow, “I’m going to take your arm off and use it to hold the thermometer still.”

That finally earned a faint spark of amusement, barely a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You’re bossy when I’m dying,” he muttered, voice hoarse.

“You’re not dying. You’re congested.”

Beep.

She showed him the display: 101.3°F.

He didn’t even flinch. “I’ve had worse,” he mumbled, half-asleep already.

“That’s not the point.” She huffed out a chuckle.

She stood up without waiting for a reply, disappearing down the hall. Bucky slouched further into the cushions, blanket pulled tighter around him, muttering something about “being babied” like it was a crime. But he didn’t move. Didn’t protest when she returned a few minutes later with a bowl of soup, a cold washcloth, and the thermometer still in hand like a silent warning.

She set the tray down and knelt beside him again, dipping the cloth into the water and wringing it out with care. He watched her through heavy lids, blue eyes hazy and rimmed red from fever. She didn’t say anything about the way his hands were trembling. Or how his flesh hand stayed curled tight against his abdomen, like every breath hurt just a little.

She just pressed the washcloth gently to his forehead, soft and cool.

He exhaled slowly, leaning into her touch and sliding his metal arm around her waist.

“You don’t have to take care of me doll,” he said after a long pause, voice barely above a whisper.

“I want to,” she replied simply, tucking the blanket higher over his chest. Her fingers brushed his collarbone before pulling away, gentle as the rest of her.

Bucky’s gaze flicked to her face, and for a long moment, he just looked at her. Really looked. Fever still dulled the usual sharp edges in his eyes, but something quiet and unguarded rested there now. Something soft.

“‘S not exactly how I pictured our night,” he rasped.

“I know,” she murmured, smoothing his hair back again, letting her fingers linger this time. “Me neither.”

He exhaled through his nose, the sound tired, but content in a way that made her chest ache. Leaning back slowly, he let his head fall against the couch cushion while she adjusted the blanket higher up his chest, tucking it gently under his chin. He didn’t flinch when her hand brushed his jaw in the process. If anything, he leaned into the touch—barely, but enough to make her pause.

The room had gone still, wrapped in warmth and the soft hum of the heater. The spoon resting in the bowl beside her made a faint clink when she stirred the soup absently, her hand still resting on his blanket-covered chest. His eyes were closed again. Not asleep, just… resting. Giving in.

Then, her voice came through the quiet.

“Do you want to lie down, Buck?”

“No,” he whispered. “‘M good right here.”

But not even a minute passed before he shifted, sluggish and deliberate. He nudged his head gently until it found her thigh, testing the weight of it like he wasn’t sure he was allowed. She didn’t move. Only adjusted slightly to support him better, her hand already finding his hair again.

He let out a low breath, one that seemed to deflate the last of his resistance, and nestled his cheek against her leg. The fever had him flushed and sluggish, but this—her—he trusted enough to let go.

“You okay?” she whispered, thumb tracing a line just above his temple.

He hummed softly. It wasn’t a yes, not fully, but it was close enough.

She didn’t speak again. Just carded her fingers through his thick hair, slow and rhythmic, her nails barely grazing his scalp. Comfort. Anchor. Something solid for him to sink into.

He didn’t say much after that. Didn’t need to.

His hand found her knee, warm and heavy, fingers curling gently around the curve of it like he just needed to feel her there. His thumb moved once, brushing her skin—just once—and then stayed. Quiet thanks.

She kept brushing her fingers through his hair, and when she whispered that he should try to sleep, he didn’t answer. But his breathing slowed. Grew deep. Steady.

And then—still.

He’d fallen asleep in her lap.

His vibranium arm hung limp off the side of the couch, the metal catching the last bit of fading daylight, fingers twitching faintly as if even in sleep, part of him still lingered half-aware. But the rest of him—the real, human parts—had melted into her like she was something safe. Something known. His cheek was warm against her leg. The weight of him there was heavy but not burdensome. Never that.

She kept her hand in his hair a smile resting on her face. Gentle. Reassuring.

Time passed like that. Minutes stretching, soft and undisturbed.

By the time he stirred again, the room had dimmed. Evening had settled, casting shadows along the walls. He blinked slowly, groggy, his brow pulling together as he tried to make sense of the hour.

“How long was I out?” he rasped, voice thick with sleep.

She looked down at him, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Couple hours.”

His brow creased. He shifted slightly, then stilled again. “You should’ve moved,” he murmured. “Bet your legs are numb.”

“They are,” she admitted softly.

He lifted his head an inch, enough to glance up at her through squinted eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugged, looking down at the curls spilling over his forehead. Her fingers brushed them back gently, tucking them behind his ear. “You looked peaceful.”

He didn’t respond right away. His hand still rested on her leg, the weight of it grounding both of them. Then, just above a whisper—

“You’re too good to me, doll.”

Her gaze lifted to his, surprised by the quiet tenderness there. “You’d do the same,” she said.

And he would. She knew that.

His eyes softened. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I would.”

She brushed her hand over his face again, her knuckles grazing his cheek. His skin was still warm, fever lingering, but his breathing had steadied.

“I still might take your arm if you try to get up tomorrow,” she said, half a tease, half a threat.

He gave a rasp of a laugh, low and rough in his chest. “You wouldn’t dare.”

She smiled. “Don’t test me.”

A grin ghosted across his lips, tired but real, and he let his head fall back onto her leg with a sigh. This time, he shifted just enough to bury his face there, nose pressed into the curve of her thigh, like he needed the closeness. Her warmth. Her smell. Something real to cling to in the haze of fever and exhaustion. He pressed light kisses to her bare thighs making her giggle.

“Stay a little longer,” he murmured, breath tickling her skin.

She didn’t answer.

She just curled her hand in his hair again, her other brushing lightly along his shoulder, and stayed right there—holding him through the quiet, until sleep took him again.

⸻

Bucky woke slowly, the early morning light filtering through the curtains and casting a soft, golden haze over the room. They were now in his bedroom. His body felt lighter, the tight ache in his chest from the day before finally loosened. The fever had broken sometime in the night, leaving him just tired—and comfortably warm.

Warm, because she was still there.

He yawned, stretching his arms out with a low groan before letting them settle again—one draped possessively around her middle, hand splayed against the soft fabric of her shirt, keeping her close. She was tucked beneath the blankets with him, curled into his side, her head resting against his shoulder, their legs tangled somewhere under the sheets. His chin found its place atop her hair as easily as breathing.

His fingers flexed slightly against her stomach, pulling her in even closer, like his body couldn’t stand even an inch of space between them.

A soft, sleepy smile tugged at his lips as he felt her begin to stir beside him.

She mumbled something incoherent and shifted, rolling toward him until they were chest to chest, her cheek now pressed over his heart. Bucky moved without thinking, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face, his thumb ghosting along the curve of her cheek.

“Good morning, doll,” he rasped, voice still heavy with sleep.

She grumbled in reply, nuzzling closer with a sniffle, her breath warm against his chest. Then, without even lifting her head—

“You got me sick.”

He chuckled, the sound rough but amused, and tilted his head to look down at her. “Guess we’re even now.”

“No,” she mumbled, her voice thick. “You were a pain when you were sick.”

“And you love me anyway,” he muttered smugly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

She grumbled again in a way that sounded suspiciously like agreement, wrapping her arms tighter around his waist, burying herself in his warmth.

Bucky shifted just enough to look at her fully, eyes soft, hand tracing slow, absentminded circles against her back. “You stayed with me all night,” he said quietly.

“You drooled on me.”

He grinned. “Still nice of you.”

“Shut up,” she whispered, the smallest smile on her lips now, even through the sniffles. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his t-shirt.

“Need anything?” he asked gently, voice low, rough with affection. “Water? Blanket? Revenge?”

She shook her head against him. “Just this.”

Bucky stilled at that—then held her tighter.

“Okay,” he murmured, lips brushing her hair. “Just this.”

And he didn’t move. Didn’t let go. Not even when her breathing slowed again, soft and steady against his chest.

He stayed right there, wrapped around her like a blanket, like he’d never let her go.

[multific]

Kiss With a Curse

Yelena Belova x Reader

Summary: You can take pain with a touch, but at a cost. Every time she returns from a mission, bruised and battered, you reach for her, willing to suffer so she doesn’t have to.

As a young child, you were cursed with a gift, take someone’s pain into your own body with a single touch.

You’ve only ever used it for one person and she never wanted you to. But when you collapse from the weight of all you’ve taken, it becomes clear what’s been building between you all along.

The door creaked open at 3:12 in the morning.

Rain tapped on the windows with a rhythm, the kind of sound that should lull you to sleep.

But you were wide awake, waiting.

She stumbled in, breath ragged, her jacket torn, blood soaking through her sleeve. Again.

You were already getting up from the couch, blanket sliding from your lap.

"How bad?" you asked quietly.

She didn’t meet your eyes.

"It looks worse than it is." Her voice was hoarse. The lie was familiar by now.

She flinched when you stepped close, and not from pain. From knowing what you’d do. What you always did.

“Don’t,” she murmured, almost a plea. “Not tonight.”

“I’m fine,” you lied back, just as easily.

You pressed your palm gently to her side, where her ribs had turned angry and purple.

The glow was faint, your gift never needed light to be felt, but the warmth passed through her, and the pain passed into you.

Your breath caught but you tried not to show it.

You felt your knees dip slightly. Her pain became yours and it made your vision blur. But you steadied yourself.

She gripped your wrist. “I said don’t. It’s not your job to bleed for me.”

You smiled softly. “Too late.”

She let you do it. She always lets you.

But her jaw clenched the whole time, her hand tightening on your arm like she was trying to anchor you to this moment, to the world, to her guilt.

You were both quiet as you sat her down.

You fetched the tea she’d never drink for the pain she no longer felt. And you curled beside her when she let you, your body aching where hers used to.

The next time, it went differently.

You didn't collapse so much as fold.

Gently. Quietly. Like a flame running out of air.

She found you on the bathroom floor, eyes unfocused.

It had been too much. A gunshot wound this time. Deep. Maybe mortal, until you touched her.

She’d screamed your name as it hurt her worse than the bullet had.

When you came to, hours later, your chest felt like it was full of broken glass.

And she was sitting beside you. For once, not pacing, not leaving.

Her hands were shaking in her lap. She looked like she hadn’t breathed in hours.

“You can’t do that again,” she whispered.

You smiled, your voice thin. “If it means you live-”

“No,” she snapped. But it was quiet, broken. “No heroic speeches. I’m not worth dying for.”

Your hand reached out and touched hers. “You are to me.”

She stared at you.

And for the first time in all the years, in all the careful distance, she let her walls crack.

“You shouldn’t love me like this.”

“You don’t get to choose how I love. I just do.”

Her throat bobbed. “Then I don’t want to keep hurting you.”

The silence was fragile.

And then, she bent down, her forehead resting against yours. There was no blood between you this time.

Just heat. Just breath.

"I feel safe when you touch me,” she whispered, “and I hate that because I know what it costs you.”

You laughed, tired and gentle. “Then maybe it’s time you let yourself feel safe without it hurting me.”

She kissed you.

Not in hunger or desperation, but in love. Completely and utterly in love.

Her lips were soft. Careful. Almost scared.

Like you might fall apart again. Like she might, too.

You kissed her back, pain and all.

Weeks later, when the bruises had faded and you no longer woke in sweats from phantom pain, she came home early.

You were cooking.

Your apartment smelled like garlic and warmth.

Your power, peacefully inside you, unused.

She dropped her bag at the door and watched you for a long time. You wore soft clothes. Your hair was a mess. There was a scar on your cheek that she hadn’t kissed yet.

“You’re staring,” you said, without turning.

She crossed the kitchen in two strides, wrapping her arms around your waist from behind. Her head rested on your shoulder.

“I missed you,” she murmured. “Even though it was only four days.”

You leaned into her. “I’m always here.”

“I know. And I don’t deserve it. But I’m going to try to be the kind of person who does.”  

You smiled, setting the pan aside to face her. “Then I’ll keep choosing you until you believe it.”

And she kissed you again.

~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

Wattpad

/DO NOT TRANSLATE, STEAL OR REPOST ANY OF MY WORKS TO THIS OR OTHER PLATFORMS/

[freakthatdoesthewriting]

💌 — Changing Yourself?

Hector / Gn Reader ; fluff , dying your hair , curious hector , worried hector , post love route with hector

Type — Drabble ; Inspired by me starting at the vent above my head in our bathroom when i was dyeing my hair

Not proofread! Sorry for any mistakes

——————————————————————

“What are you doing?” A familiar, concerned, voice came from above your head. Eyes and hands poked out from the air vent above your head, and despite the intrusion, you gave Hector a bright smile.

“Dying my hair.” You said simply, turning to look at him more comfortably.

“But… Why?” He sounded concerned and confused, like he truly couldn’t fathom why you’d be doing this. You didn’t think he didn’t understand the concept of dyeing your hair though, just why you specifically would be doing it.

“I just felt like a change.” You smiled at him but he didn’t even seem to register.

“B-But! You don’t need to change! Why would you ever need to change, your perfect as you are…” His voiced raised just enough for you to see how concerned he was.

It wasn’t that Hector was against change, it was scary to him yes, but he understood it had to happen, what he was against is the idea that you had to change yourself. The thought that you felt the need to change, when he saw you as something so perfect as you are made his heart break.

You gave him an affectionate look, heat rising to your cheeks at his admission of finding you perfect. It was so Hector to be caught up in something like this.

“It’s not like that, Hector.” You started, thinking of the best way to word your thoughts.

“I wasn’t unhappy with the way I looked before, I just thought it would be fun to do something different.”

Hector paused, fiddling with his hands in thought. The silence worried you, and without thinking you spoke again.

“Will you feel differently about me if i change…?”

Hectors eyes widened and he literally jumped out of the vents so he could see you face to face.

“Mi Amore, changing your looks would never make me feel any differently about you. You are… You… and as long as you’re still you my love for you will only continue to grow. Nothing in this world could change that.”

He reached out for you but stopped before he touched you, silently asking for permission to hold you, to feel you. You grabbed onto his hand and moved it to your face, making sure to steer him clear of your hair. He caressed your cheek ever so gently, and you both sat there quietly for a moment, basking in the comfort of each other.

“Why were you so quiet before…?” You asked hesitantly.

Hector looked away, like he was ashamed, but he quietly answered you. “Truthfully… I do not like change… It scares me. What if something goes wrong, what if this small change leads to something bigger, what if the changes take you away from me…”

You laughed, not in a mocking way, in a gentle affectionate laugh.

“Nothing could take me away from you Hector.”

“You promise…?” His eyes were pleading, desperate to hear you say the word.

“Promise.” An affectionate smile spread across your face as his relaxed for the first time since he showed up.

You brushed your knuckles against his cheek, a gentle, affectionate gesture. He gave you an awkward smile, but his eyes were filled with love and adoration that was unmistakable.

“Do you want to keep me company?” You asked.

Hector beamed and nodded his head. The rest of the time was spent enjoying each other’s company. Hector even helped you rinse the dye out of your hair. And he was honored to be the first to see it, and the first to say how stunning you looked too. Who knows, maybe one day Hector would let you dye his hair.

[chanceofwhat]

Based off of this short by @someoddwritings for @aroace-get-out-of-my-face ‘s Safety Alarm AU

(Basically, magic user Ford dies and Stan goes nope and resurrects him.) (read their thing first though it’s really good and makes this read better)

“So,” Ford eventually has to ask, “how did you do it?”

Stan blinks at him from the armchair. It’s late, he’s still tired from the incident, and he was expecting they’d go to bed soon. Instead, now Ford’s talking, and his tone sounds like he’s trying too hard to keep it light.

“Do what?” is the first thing Stan’s brain offers, because how could he possibly know something Ford doesn’t know?

“Don’t be obtuse, Stanley.” Ford rolls his eyes, “How did you resurrect me? Did you memorize a spell beforehand? Did you even use an incantation?”

Oh, this. Of course. Stan shrugs,

“Nah. Actually, I’ve got no idea what happened there. I just sorta… focused. I’m thinkin’ it was probably easier because you do so much magic stuff, so I figure you had a bunch of magic in you already or something.”

Ford furrows his brow,

“That’s not really how that works, Stanley.”

“Well, clearly it is, ‘cause you’re here.”

“Yes. I’m here. Because you brought me back to life.”

Stan makes a dismissive “eh” sound and shrugs again. Ford fully does a double take,

“‘Eh’?! What do you mean ‘eh’?! You resurrected me! It took you less than a minute! I was dead, Stanley—“

Stan winces at the word,

“Can we stop talkin’ about that? I don’t wanna think about it anymore.”

“No,” Ford feels himself get louder as he grows increasingly agitated, “I need you to understand the magnitude of what you accomplished! You performed a true resurrection in under a minute without—“

“Shut up!”

Ford’s loud confusion quiets as Stan begins to shout,

“I know you were dead, so stop fucking saying it! I saw your head cracked in half, I saw your ribs crushed into little bits, I saw your heart smushed flat, I KNOW. And I’m not lookin’ forward to sleepin’ tonight because I’ve been seein’ it all again every time I close my eyes. I’m probably gonna have nightmares about that forever, and I’ve got no fucking idea how I fixed it!”

Stan slumps further into the plush chair, looking miserable,

“I don’t know how I fixed it, and I don’t know if I could ever do anything like that again. I barely even remember doing it. I just know I saw you and… you couldn’t be dead. It was wrong. I remember thinking it just had to be fixed and you couldn’t exactly do it so I had to fix it and my hands felt funny and I got all dizzy and then you were back, so I was done, and that was that.”

Ford looks at his face exhausted brother sympathetically. He gets it— he still thinks too often about the state he found Stanley in originally, tied up and dying of heatstroke in the trunk of his own car. He remembers the magic he performed to bring his dying brother to him, the surge of energy that his determination brought; that’s something he knows about magic, it feeds on passion and intensity, it works better the more you want it.

Yet, some selfish part of Ford can’t stop thinking about how much work it was for him. The locator spell, the teleportation— both with incantations and specific methods that called upon his expertise— finding his brother within the car, cooling him down, not having enough magic left to bring him into the house with anything but his tired muscles, and that’s not even considering the safety alarm itself—

And Stanley hadn’t even been dead.

It took time after all that for Stanley to recover, and Stanley hadn’t even been dead. Ford died today, and all he has to show for it is a twinge in his back and his legs from how he was awkwardly forced to the ground when the boulder landed on his upper half. When he awoke 36 seconds after his own death, he didn’t even have a headache.

He wants to tell his brother how impressed he is, how incredible such a controlled, intent-based display of magic is. He wants to shout and throw something because how could anyone perform something as complex as a true resurrection without the proper use of spells or incantations, it’s a flippant dismissal, even an offense, to everything he thinks he knows about magic.

Between the incredibly loud, emotionally intense warring sides in Ford’s head, his voice comes out calm and gentle,

“I can prevent nightmares, if that would help.”

Stan looks at him. Ford offers a small, tired smile,

“I know a spell that induces dreamless sleep. I’ve used it on myself before. I can use it on you, if you’d like.”

Stan nods, a small movement.

“That would be nice.”

Ford nods in return.

“Let’s go to bed, then. I think we’ve both had enough excitement for one day.”

When they walk down the hall to what Ford expects to be the guest room only to find Ford’s own room, extended a few extra feet with an extra bed in it, Ford can’t bring himself to argue. Especially not with how grateful Stan looks.

He all but tucks Stan in, using what little magic he has available this evening to ensure him a dreamless sleep and help him drift into it. When Stan conks out, he brushes a strand of hair out of the peaceful, sleeping face before putting himself to bed as well.

When he wakes up only an hour later, plagued by images of Stan’s death that he’s not sure he’d be able to heal the same way, he gives himself a dreamless sleep as well.

[foxtrology]

inertia (1)

reed richards x reader

star sailor series | ao3 link

notes: hi. so i’ve been writing this fic over the last three weeks (yes, three entire weeks, i know) and honestly it would not exist in its current form without my best friend, who is a literal physics major and walked me through so many of the equations and techy parts so reed didn’t sound like a fraud. i love her for that.

also, fun fact: reader is neurodivergent (i borrowed some of my own neurodivergent tendencies to shape her), so if you pick up on that... you’re right. thanks for being here!

word count: 12k

─────

You’ve always preferred rooms with humming machines to those filled with people.

It wasn’t shyness, not really.

Just an overwhelming awareness of your own rhythm, too far removed from the world’s noisy metronome. You knew early on you understood things differently—less about feeling out what someone meant, more about isolating the structure beneath their words, the pattern in their tone, the physics of an interaction.

Most people called it brilliance. You called it survival.

The Baxter Foundation didn’t feel like survival at first.

It felt like exile.

A postdoctoral placement handed to you like a sealed fate—"promising," "potential," "gifted." Euphemisms for "difficult," "obsessive," "odd."

They said Reed Richards might know what to do with you.

You assumed they'd meant “handle.”

But he didn’t handle you. He saw you.

Reed Richards wasn’t what you expected.

The name carried weight: prodigy, theorist, treasured in the scientific community. You imagined arrogance, an aging wunderkind with a room full of accolades and a voice like static.

But the man who stood waiting for you at the base of the Baxter Building's elevator looked almost misplaced—rumpled in a navy button up, absent-mindedly smearing graphite on the sleeve as he scribbled into the margin of a battered notepad.

He had those lines around his mouth—the kind that softened a face rather than hardened it. A sharp nose, brown eyes, and that unmistakable streak of grey curling through otherwise dark hair.

At first, you assumed it was dyed—it looked too perfect. But it was real. Of course it was.

You hadn’t realized you were staring until he tilted his head.

“You're early,” he’d said, voice warm and textured. Then, a smile that lit up his whole face—eyes first. “I like that.”

That was two years ago.

You’ve since learned Reed keeps a second toothbrush for you in his private quarters upstairs, though he’s never pointed it out.

You discovered it one night after a double shift, when he gently steered you towards the bed in his guest room instead of letting you fall asleep under your desk again. He didn’t say, “Stay with me.” He just adjusted the pillow, handed you a glass of water, and made sure the bathroom light stayed on.

It’s quiet love. A sustained frequency. A knowing.

On Tuesdays, you both eat lunch in the server room because it's the only place in the Baxter Building that maintains the kind of white noise you can disappear into.

Reed brings you a sandwich without tomato—he learned after the first week that you can’t stand the texture—and sets it beside your research without interrupting your thought process. You don’t thank him out loud. You just leave the crusts in the pattern he finds funny, concentric squares, always precise.

Sometimes, he laughs at that. Sometimes, he files it away like data.

Today, the two of you are working on a stabilization algorithm for experimental gravitational anchors—Reed's theory, your math. The simulation keeps failing, and Reed mutters something under his breath about quantum decay before turning to you.

“Show me again how you’re quantizing the drift interval,” he says, pushing his chair slightly closer to yours.

You don’t flinch. He always asks to see your work like this—not to correct, but to understand. He thinks your brain is a mystery worth mapping. And maybe it is.

You pull up your calculations, annotated with your usual shorthand that no one else in the lab pretends to follow. Reed doesn’t blink. He reads your annotations like they're a shared language.

“You inverted the modulus,” he says quietly, quite in awe. “God, that’s...elegant.”

You look down. Compliments still stick to you like static. You’ve never known what to do with them.

“It was obvious,” you murmur, tapping the screen once to clear the render.

“Not to me.”

His voice carries something like reverence. Not the kind people fake when they’re talking to someone younger, or different. His is heavier. Sincere. Measured.

You chew the inside of your cheek.

“Can I show you something?” you ask.

That’s how you always start, even though Reed never says no.

The observatory lab is empty when you both arrive.

He unlocks it with his palmprint, but you go in first, navigating in the dark by memory. You’ve had an idea simmering for days—a tweak in boundary calibration using harmonic frequency overlap, something even Reed dismissed initially as too unstable.

But last night, at 2:43 a.m., your model ran clean for the first time. No drift. No bleed. Pure coherence.

You bring it up on the projection wall, fingers moving fast. Words tumble when you’re excited—sharp, fast, too much for most people. Reed doesn’t interrupt. He never has.

When the model stabilizes on the fourth run, you glance over your shoulder.

Reed is watching you.

Not the simulation. Not the math. You.

You freeze.

He steps forward slowly, like if he moves too fast you might vanish.

“You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”

You look back to the projection. “No. But it was worth it.”

He exhales a soft breath, close enough now that you can feel the warmth of it on your temple.

“You can’t burn like this all the time,” he murmurs, but his voice doesn’t hold judgment—only concern.

“I can,” you reply simply. “And I do.”

He lets out a low laugh, almost involuntarily. Then, more gently, “Let me take care of you. A little.”

He says it like a hypothesis. Something untested.

You don’t answer. Not out loud. But you lean into his shoulder—not quite a nod, not quite an invitation—and he stays there. Long enough that the simulation cycles again, quiet and steady in the background.

Later, you’ll find that he’s updated the cafeteria schedule in your calendar to make sure no one disturbs you between 12 and 2 p.m. on Tuesdays. You’ll notice that he’s ordered extra noise-cancelling panels for the lab, without ever saying why. That the lights outside your lab space dim slightly when you stay past midnight.

All Reed’s doing.

He never says it out loud.

But this is how he shows you.

In recalibrated thermostats. In cups of tea left cooling on your desk. In letting you be silent when silence is the only thing that fits.

The world outside moves too fast. New York never sleeps, never softens. There’s always construction in the distance, always an ambulance shrieking down Fifth, always people spilling from cafés and rooftop bars like they’re late for something invisible.

But in the Baxter Building—six floors above the ghost of the old Avengers Tower—the hum of your controlled environment remains undisturbed.

For now.

It’s the kind of phrase that hangs in the air longer than it should, like steam after the kettle's been lifted, like the echo of a chord when your fingers already left the strings.

You don’t hear it, of course. Not consciously. But the sensation trails you anyway, ghost-like, as the day folds open and the building shifts around you.

You return to Lab B-3, where a data stream from the gravitational anchor prototype pulses in pale blue on the screen. You prefer this room to the others—less foot traffic, colder air, fewer variables. The walls are lined with the modular panels you installed yourself, after three months of fighting sensory burnout from the old fluorescents. The air purifier in the corner hums at a frequency you can tolerate.

It smells faintly of dust and ozone, like a server farm on a rainy day.

You’re cataloging the last ten hours of micro-interference logs when the door hisses open behind you.

“Hey.”

You don’t turn. It’s a mistake, maybe, but you assume whoever it is has entered the wrong lab.

You’ve put the sign up: DO NOT DISTURB — QUANTUM MODELING IN PROGRESS. A laminated shield between you and the rest of the building’s noise.

The voice cuts through again, sharper. Louder.

“Hey—don’t ignore me.”

You blink at the screen. Your heart doesn’t race. It clenches, tightens like your ribcage is shrinking inward. You turn slowly.

It’s Dr. Ian Delmont. One of the senior engineers. Jacket unzipped, badge swinging loose around his neck like a noose that can’t make up its mind. His face is already red, already pulled taut around the mouth.

You recognize the body language...shoulders set forward, hands ready to gesture. Angry people always move in patterns. You learned this years ago, the way some people learn fire drills.

“Why the hell did you rewrite my core schematic without logging the revision?”

You stare at him.

“I didn’t rewrite anything. I optimized the redundancy logic. It was bottlenecking the chain reaction model.”

“That’s rewriting.”

Your voice stays steady, your mouth forming the words in the exact order they should go. “No, it's not. It’s a correction. The existing code couldn’t handle parallel iteration under dual-load conditions.”

“You didn’t clear it with me.”

“It was a bottleneck,” you repeat.

Ian’s voice raises. “I don’t care if it was a goddamn chokehold, you don’t get to touch my work without authorization.”

He says it loud enough that it ricochets off the walls. Too loud.

Your neck goes hot. You feel it in your jaw, down your arms. Your hands twitch just enough to knock your stylus from the table and you bend down to retrieve it—too fast. You bump the corner of the desk, hard. The pain doesn’t register, but the sound does.

Too loud. Too loud.

Ian takes a step forward.

“Every time I turn around, you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong—”

“I was fixing it.”

“You were showing off.”

That does it. You freeze.

This isn’t about the code.

You blink. You don’t blink. You can’t remember. You try to open your mouth, but your tongue sits wrong in it. The sound you try to make stalls halfway up your throat. Your hands curl into themselves like you could fold out of sight.

The lights feel wrong. The texture of your sleeves is wrong. The hum of the purifier is gone, replaced by the jagged, ugly timbre of yelling.

“I don’t care what Richards says about you,” Ian mutters. “You don’t run this place.”

“Hey.”

The sound comes from the door. Not a shout. Not sharp. But it cuts through everything like glass through butter.

You both turn.

Reed Richards steps into the room like he’s always belonged there, like his presence is not new or sudden or charged with a heat you’ve only ever felt in gamma pulses and untested energy chambers.

His mouth is tight, drawn. There’s nothing soft about his expression now.

“I suggest,” he says slowly, like each word has been smoothed against the edge of a scalpel, “you take your tone down. Immediately.”

Ian hesitates. Then his jaw sets. “With all due respect, Dr. Richards—”

“No,” Reed interrupts, walking further into the room, voice calm and sharp all at once. “Don’t. Don’t try to play seniority. This isn’t about protocol. This is about how you just cornered one of my lead researchers and yelled at her while she was running live code on a multivariable anchor model.”

“I was confronting—”

“You were posturing,” Reed cuts in. “And you were wrong.”

Ian blinks. Reed’s voice doesn’t rise. It doesn’t need to.

“She didn’t rewrite your schematic. She corrected a critical flaw that should have been caught weeks ago.” He stops beside you. Not in front of you, not shielding—beside. “The only reason that anchor hasn’t destabilized is because she stepped in.”

Reed turns his head slightly, glancing down at you. His eyes soften, fractionally. He doesn’t touch you, but he lets the silence hang, as if waiting for you to reclaim your voice if you want to.

You don’t. Not yet.

“Ian,” he says without looking away, “I want you out of this lab. Now.”

Ian’s mouth opens, then shuts again.

Then he leaves.

You’re still breathing too fast. You know you are. You can feel the microtremors in your fingers, the irregular skip of your pulse. But the room feels real again. Your body is slowly remembering where it ends.

Reed waits until the door hisses shut.

Then, “Can I sit?”

You nod, once. He pulls a chair close—closer than he usually would in a shared lab space—and sits beside you with the kind of silence that doesn’t ask anything from you. His knees are angled toward yours. His forearms rest loosely on his thighs. His whole posture is a quiet question you don’t have to answer.

You stare at the screen. 

“I wasn’t showing off.”

Reed lets out a sound between a sigh and a laugh. Not at you. With you. “I know,” he says gently.

“I just…saw the error. It was obvious.”

“I know.”

He pauses.

“You don’t need to explain yourself to anyone in this building. Least of all him.”

You press your thumbnail into the meat of your palm, grounding.

“I’m not good at…tone.”

“That’s not a flaw.”

“I always think I can just fix it quietly and not deal with the…other part. The confrontation.”

He nods once, his eyes still fixed on you. “The way the world expects communication isn’t the only valid way to exist in it.”

Something in your chest cracks open at that. Quietly. Invisibly.

You lean back against the chair, your breath finally settling into a rhythm.

Reed stays where he is. His presence doesn’t press against you—it anchors. He’s always been like that. Dense and still, like a planet with just enough gravity to make sense of things.

You glance over at him.

“Thank you,” you say finally.

He shrugs. “I don’t like mean people.”

You look down at the table. You trace a line in the condensation ring your tea left behind earlier.

“Are you going to fire him?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “But I’m going to make it very, very clear who’s indispensable here.”

You don’t ask who he means.

You already know.

Later that night, you’re still in the lab, long after the rest of the building has gone dim.

Reed comes back with a takeout container—your favorite, though you don’t remember ever saying it aloud. He doesn’t mention the incident again. Just passes you the food, leans back in the corner chair, and starts updating his lab journal aloud, knowing you like to listen to the way he thinks.

Outside, New York glitters like a malfunctioning galaxy. Inside, the lights are low, the air quiet, the world small and manageable.

Just you, your notes, and the man with the grey streak in his hair who watches you like you built the constellations from scratch.

A quiet love, not yet named.

But it’s there.

Always has been.

It’s late now, nearly eleven, but the labs on the upper floors of the Baxter Building don’t abide by clocks. Here, time stretches. Pools. Slows down when the work is good. Speeds up when the math gets too beautiful to let go of.

You and Reed are the only ones left.

Everyone else has long since clocked out, their departure announced by the usual symphony of zipping backpacks and elevator chimes. The security team downstairs knows better than to check on you. You’re a known variable—an equation that balances best in silence, after dark, with only the man beside you and a cooling takeout container between you and the void.

Reed is sketching something in his notebook—a systems flowchart annotated with arrows that curve and overlap like a child’s drawing of a galaxy.

He’s humming, under his breath. Just a few bars of something he’s probably not even aware of. It’s familiar, not because you recognize the tune, but because you’ve heard him do it before, under the same kind of fluorescent moonlight and the same clean, ticking quiet.

You finish logging the day’s simulation data, close the terminal, and pull up your schedule for the upcoming weeks. The glowing display casts faint shadows over your face, which you don't notice but Reed glances at, once, over the edge of his notebook.

Monday. Field trip.

You hadn’t forgotten. Not exactly. It had just sat at the bottom of the week like a pebble in your shoe—felt but not seen.

You stare at the words for a beat too long.

VISITOR OUTREACH: 9:30–11:15 — RICHARDS / YOU

Group: PS 22 — Grade 2

Your fingers twitch at your side, a muscle memory of anxiety without the adrenaline to match. You don’t say anything, but your mind is already running the old loop, quiet and tight, like rewinding a tape you didn’t want to play in the first place.

You’d been paired with high school seniors last time.

They came in loud, late, and bored. One of them had a vape pen tucked into their hoodie drawstring.

You remember the boy in the back who asked if you “did anything real” or if you just “sat in rooms with graphs all day.” Another mimed falling asleep when you began explaining atmospheric coding inputs for small-scale gravitational fields.

You hadn’t raised your voice. You hadn’t snapped. You just shut down the projection early and handed the rest of the presentation off to the intern whose voice sounded like she smiled even when she didn’t mean it.

Afterward, you’d sat on the roof of the Baxter Building and stared at the clouds. Told yourself they were just kids. Told yourself they didn’t know.

But it stuck. The way they laughed when you said you worked on electromagnetic resonance feedback models. The way one of the girls whispered “so basically nothing” to the boy next to her like you weren’t even there.

They didn’t know.

That your work stabilized quantum harmonics in the kinds of silicon they tap on all day, every day.

That your programming makes the screen light up when their crush texts them back.

That the interface delay they complain about in video games used to be twenty seconds instead of two, and you helped design the equation that closed that gap.

They didn’t know you once pulled Reed out of a theoretical blind alley and into a breakthrough he’d later call elegant, a word he doesn’t use lightly.

They didn’t know how much you cared. That the caring was the point.

So after that, you asked to be reassigned.

“Elementary school kids,” you’d told Reed in his office one morning, already chewing at the inside of your cheek. “They’re too small to be cruel yet.”

He didn’t laugh, but you remember his eyes. How they softened. How he nodded and said simply, “Okay.”

And now here it was. Monday. Second graders. A classroom full of kids with juice boxes and velcro shoes and hands that still shoot up when they’re curious.

You can handle that. Probably.

You close the schedule tab. The screen goes dark.

Reed looks up from his notebook. “Everything okay?”

You nod once.

He doesn’t press. But he waits.

You speak without looking at him. “Monday's outreach.”

He leans back in his chair, notebook on his lap. “Right. You’re with me.”

You nod again.

“I asked for the younger group this time,” you add quietly, almost like you’re confessing something. “The older ones were…”

You trail off.

You don’t finish the sentence, but Reed catches the thread anyway. Of course he does.

He doesn’t say they were cruel. He doesn’t say you didn’t deserve that. He doesn’t fill the silence with anything easy.

Instead, he says, “You’ll be good with them.”

“Because they’re not old enough to be bored yet?”

“Because you care,” he says, looking directly at you. “And kids remember that. Even if they can’t say it.”

You pick at the corner of your sleeve. You’re still thinking about Monday. About the fear that your voice will tremble again. That the wrong word will come out. That your quiet will make them fidget and giggle and whisper.

But then you think about the last time a kid visited the Baxter—seven years old, wandered away from the main tour. Found his way into your lab by accident. You showed him how magnets repel in zero gravity fields and he tried to high five you with both hands at once.

You’d smiled for hours after that.

Maybe Reed is right.

Maybe caring is enough.

By the time you both shut down your stations and gather your coats, it’s nearly midnight. Reed holds the elevator for you without asking. It’s just the two of you, the soft gold of the lights reflecting off the brushed metal doors as they slide shut behind you.

You watch the numbers tick down.

Reed stands beside you, shoulder not quite brushing yours. Quiet, like always. Present, like always.

“Do you want me there?” he asks suddenly, softly, as the elevator hums downward. “Monday. With the kids.”

You blink. “You’re already scheduled for it.”

“I know,” he says. “But do you want me there?”

It feels like a trick question. But it’s not. It’s just Reed, offering steadiness in the places you don’t always know you need it.

You nod.

He nods too.

Outside, the city glows like it’s forgotten how to sleep. Yellow cabs streak past in lazy arcs. Rain clings to the pavement like it’s not ready to let go.

You stand under the awning of the Baxter Building, both of you half-heartedly pretending to check your phones, neither of you quite moving to go. It’s a ritual now—this lingering. Like the day doesn’t want to end, so you don’t let it.

Reed finally speaks, his voice low and near your ear.

“You know…you do more than keep this place running. You are this place.”

You glance at him. He’s looking at the sky like it might answer back.

“And if some bored teenager can’t see that, it’s only because they’re too young to understand the shape of things.”

You swallow. The city smells like damp concrete and neon and early summer.

You don’t reply. But the words lodge somewhere behind your ribs.

And they stay.

In the space between you and Reed, that sentence hums like background radiation—silent, but measurable.

He doesn’t look at you, not directly, but the softness in his posture says enough. The kind of softness he reserves only for you. For late nights and unsaid things. For quiet field trip fears and tired bones after thirty-seven straight hours in the lab.

You shift your weight from foot to foot under the awning, fingers fidgeting at the edge of your sleeve. The city is wet and warm and humming in that uniquely New York way—trash trucks groaning down Sixth Avenue, a taxi horn blaring three blocks over, the subway beneath your feet thrumming like some subterranean heartbeat.

Reed checks the time on his phone, but it’s performative. He’s not really looking at it.

“You can stay upstairs if you want,” he offers. Voice neutral, like he’s suggesting you borrow a pencil.

You know what he means.

His quarters above the Baxter labs—spare and quiet and clean, like an extension of his brain. You've stayed there before. Once after a storm knocked out the subway, once when you got a migraine so bad you couldn’t walk home without throwing up. The guest room is always ready, with a weighted blanket you know he ordered just for you. The lights dim at 30% automatically, and the fridge always has tea.

Still, you shake your head.

“I don’t want to bother you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

You shrug one shoulder.

“But I’d feel like I was bothering you.”

There’s no irritation in your voice. It’s just a fact. A line drawn lightly in pencil, not ink.

He doesn’t argue. Reed knows better than anyone that pushing you when you’re already overstimulated only drives you deeper into the quiet.

“I’ll walk you,” he says.

You almost tell him it’s not necessary.

That you’ve done the walk a hundred times alone. That it’s late and he must be exhausted too. But something in the way he says it—low, certain, without any edge—stills your protest before it can take shape.

You nod once.

The streets are emptier than usual, rain thinning to a mist that catches in your hair and softens the world around the edges. You button your coat up to your chin. Reed tucks his hands into his pockets, his long strides slowing instinctively to match yours.

You don’t speak for the first few blocks. You don’t need to. It’s not awkward—it’s companionable. Your silences have always been functional. Built like scaffolding. Structural.

You pass a late-night falafel cart and the warm, oily scent of fried chickpeas folds around you. Someone’s playing Miles Davis through a cracked open window above a bodega. A cab splashes through a puddle without slowing down.

You glance at Reed. His hair is slightly damp from the rain, curling a little at the edges. The grey streak catches in the streetlamp glow and glints like metal. He looks tired, but the good kind—brain-tired. Soul-deep contentment worn like a worn-in coat.

There’s something in the way he carries himself now that feels looser than it used to. Since you.

You think about that sometimes. The before of him.

You’ve seen the photos.

You’ve read the papers.

The man with ideas too big for gravity, with headlines like The Modern Da Vinci and Richards' Law stapled to his name before he was even out of his twenties.

You used to resent those profiles.

How they smoothed over the things that mattered.

How they all insisted on brilliance and ignored what he really was...careful. Constant. Gentle in ways that science rarely rewards.

He wasn’t always like this. He told you, once, in a rare moment of openness, that he used to believe love would only slow him down. That affection dulled the edge of genius.

He doesn’t say things like that anymore.

But he doesn’t say the other thing either.

You know what you are to him—friend, confidant, collaborator.

His mind matches yours, nearly. But not quite.

You run faster. Not always more elegantly. But faster.

You see the equations before he does.

You make intuitive leaps he can only reconstruct in hindsight.

He admires that. You see it in the way he watches you work, the way he lets you lead without hesitation.

And still, he hasn’t said the thing.

Because once it’s said, it can’t be unsaid. And Reed Richards has never risked a variable he couldn’t account for.

“You know,” he says softly as you cross Park, “when you rewrote that module today… I think that was the first time I felt—” He pauses. “Old.”

You glance at him. “You’re not old.”

He chuckles. “My knees would disagree.”

“That’s not science.”

He smiles. “No. But it is gravity.”

You snort.

He watches you carefully. Then says, “You don’t realize how good you are, do you?”

You look down at the sidewalk. The rain has turned the concrete slick and mottled.

“I do. I just don’t know how to be proud of it.”

He nods like he understands. “Because pride implies…audience.”

You don’t answer. But your silence agrees with him.

A block later, you say, “You’ve taught me how to be better without making me feel small.”

It slips out before you realize it. The kind of truth that rarely finds a voice.

Reed stops walking.

You look back at him. He’s staring at you like he’s memorizing the moment.

“You’ve done that for me too,” he says quietly.

It should be more than that.

But it isn’t. Not yet.

Your building is a brick structure tucked on a quieter side street. Sixth floor, walk-up. Rent-high, because New York is cruel and physics has been paying you back a lot recently.

Reed’s been here before—once when you locked yourself out, once when you were sick with a stomach bug and couldn’t get out of bed to pick up your prescription.

He always waits at the foot of the stairs.

Tonight is no different.

You fish out your keys and glance back at him.

“I’m okay,” you say.

He nods. “Text me when you’re in.”

You hesitate. Then, a beat later, “Thank you for walking with me.”

“Always.”

You step inside. The door swings shut behind you with a soft click.

Reed watches the rectangle of light shrink until it’s gone.

Only then does he turn.

He walks back slowly, hands deep in his coat pockets, rain heavier now. The city is hushed, its noise folded in on itself. His shoes splash through puddles he doesn’t try to avoid.

He thinks about you.

The way your voice tightens when you talk about the things you care about.

The way you never apologize for being brilliant, just for being visible.

The way you notice every small thing—every decimal, every gesture, every change in temperature—and store it away like evidence that the world can be read if only you learn its language.

Reed Richards has spent his life searching for patterns. For the math behind miracles. He’s found some. Lost others.

But you?

You remain his favorite unsolved equation.

He doesn’t say the thing. Not yet.

But it lives just under his tongue, waiting.

The next morning you wake up earlier than you meant to.

Not by choice. Not by discipline.

But because your upstairs neighbors, despite living in an apartment complex with allegedly soundproof walls, have spent the last six and a half hours making the most expressive use of their vocal cords.

Moans.

Laughter.

Something you’re fairly certain was a vase being knocked over around 3:12 a.m.

You’d counted.

You’d logged the minute it started—12:49 p.m.—and the moment it finally slowed to quiet again, or at least to something muffled enough that you could hear yourself think.

There was nothing logical about it, and therefore nothing you could fix. No formula to solve thin drywall. No algorithm to isolate human behavior into something quiet, contained, reasonable.

So you’d stared at the ceiling. Then at your wall. Then at your ceiling again.

And now it’s 5:47 a.m., and your alarm hasn’t even gone off yet.

You sit up.

The air in your apartment is slightly too warm—residual heat from the radiator you can’t adjust. Your mouth is dry. The muscles in your back ache in the specific way they do when your sleep’s been interrupted just enough to confuse your circadian rhythm but not enough to explain it to anyone else.

You don’t bother lying back down.

Your morning routine is exact. Not out of compulsion, but out of necessity. A lattice structure of steps that keep the rest of the day from collapsing.

Boil water. Black tea, no milk.

Brush teeth—no mint toothpaste, only the kind with baking soda, because you hate the artificial sweetness.

Shower. Warm, not hot. You step out and wrap the towel tightly around you like armor.

Dressing is harder. The shirt you wanted to wear feels off today—too scratchy, too bright. You change into the navy knit Reed once said brought out your eyes.

That memory shouldn’t matter, but it does. You feel steadier when you put it on.

Bag. Notebook. ID. Keycard. Noise-canceling headphones, just in case.

You skip breakfast.

You always do when you’ve been overstimulated. It makes your stomach feel like wires have been crossed.

The subway is half-empty this early. The kind of silence particular to Friday mornings—the city not quite buzzing yet, just flickering. You stand near the doors and stare at your reflection in the opposite window, your face hovering over the tunnel blur outside like a ghost.

You think about the model you left open in Lab B-3. About the field trip on Monday. About whether or not you remembered to reroute the final data loop in the harmonic anchor sequence.

You think about Reed, and then try not to.

By the time you arrive at the Baxter Building, it’s just before seven.

You enter through the side entrance, swiping your badge through the sensor and waiting for the familiar mechanical click. The lobby is dark except for the ambient lighting that glows along the baseboards. The city hasn’t reached in yet.

And then you see him.

Reed.

Sitting on the bench just inside the front hallway like someone who forgot what time it is—or didn’t care.

He’s wearing the same navy coat from the night before, his hair still slightly damp from whatever morning shower he took before stepping into the day. His notepad is on his lap, open, but untouched.

He looks up at the sound of the door.

“Hey.”

You blink.

“You’re early,” you say.

“So are you.”

“I didn’t sleep.”

He stands slowly. “Your neighbors again?”

You nod, already tugging your bag strap higher on your shoulder.

“I’m thinking of writing them a formal request to conduct their mating rituals at a lower decibel range.”

That makes you snort, despite yourself.

“They’d probably just find that hot.”

Reed’s laugh is soft. “You’re probably right.”

He falls into step beside you without needing to be asked. You head toward the elevators together.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” you say as you press the button. “You're never this early unless there’s a test run.”

“I was hoping you’d show up early,” he admits, sheepish but not apologetic. “You didn’t text last night.”

You look down. “I forgot.”

“Neighbors really did a run on you, huh?”

You ket out a breathy laugh meeting his eyes.

Soon the elevator arrives. You both step in.

He doesn’t say anything else, but the quiet settles around you like a blanket. You don’t have the words for it, but you know he does this often—positions himself near you, close but not invasive, like a planet finding the right orbit. Something about it always makes you feel tethered.

The elevator stops on your floor.

As you exit, he doesn’t turn toward his own lab. He follows you.

“I figured I’d sit with you for a bit,” he says simply, “if that’s okay.”

You nod. You don’t say thank you, but your body does—shoulders uncoiling, pace slowing, your breath evening out.

Your lab still smells faintly of ozone and the synthetic lemon Reed always insists on using in the electronics-safe cleaning spray. You flick on the under-lighting instead of the fluorescents. It’s quieter that way.

He watches you unpack, the same way he always does when he’s not pretending to be distracted by his own work. You can feel his gaze—clinical, affectionate, reverent.

You settle at your station and glance over.

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Some.”

He sits across from you at the small corner table, flipping open his notebook. “I kept thinking about the field trip Monday.”

You groan softly.

Reed smiles. “You’ll be fine.”

“They’re going to ask me if I built Fortnite.”

“Just say yes.”

You narrow your eyes. “That’s unethical.”

He shrugs. “You do kind of power their world.”

You chew the inside of your cheek.

“I know you’re dreading it,” he adds, more gently. “But you’re going to surprise yourself. I’ve seen you explain quantum turbulence to a twelve year old. You used two chairs, a glass of water, and a slinky. It was borderline performance art.”

You allow yourself the smallest smile.

He studies you for a beat.

“I waited this morning,” he says, voice lower now. “Because I wanted to see you before the day started. I figured if you didn’t sleep, you’d need a buffer.”

You look up at him.

“A buffer?”

“For the noise. The world. Everything.”

You don’t answer for a long moment.

Then, “You’re good at buffering.”

Reed closes his notebook. His eyes don’t leave yours.

“Only for you.”

You look away too quickly. Your stomach flips, your thoughts scatter like dropped dice.

This happens sometimes.

The intimacy of Reed. The nearness of what he doesn’t say.

The feeling that he’s handing you something fragile and invisible, and asking you to decide whether to name it or leave it untouched.

You pull up your simulation model and begin reviewing last night’s logs.

He watches you for another minute, then opens his notebook again and starts annotating something beside you, close enough that your knees brush once, and neither of you moves.

The morning settles.

Quiet.

Unspoken.

Waiting.

The building wakes slowly, like a body stretching into motion. The light outside the lab windows tilts, warmer now, brushing across your workstation and catching on the rim of your teacup. You don’t drink it, but it’s there—heat fading, a symbol of routine more than comfort.

One by one, the others begin to arrive.

Keycards beep. Footsteps echo off tile. The rhythmic click of heels and the soft, buzzing shuffle of rubber soles on linoleum fill the air in the way only a scientific institution ever sounds. Conversations start up in clipped, caffeinated tones. Someone’s talking about a failed simulation in Lab A-2. Someone else is complaining about the elevator skipping floors again.

You don’t look up.

You’ve already built a wall of focus, exact and methodical—three simulations running in parallel, an error log cycling in your periphery, two graphs comparing harmonic distortion levels under varying environmental noise inputs.

Reed hasn’t moved far from you since you sat down.

Every now and then, he leans slightly over to ask a question—never invasive, always curious. He taps the edge of your screen to point out something and waits for you to explain it in full before speaking again. His voice stays low. His body language remains small.

He is very, very careful with your space.

At some point, you adjust the variables in one of the testing loops. Reed notices before you explain why.

“You brought down the feedback tolerance?”

You nod. “I think it’s overcompensating for impulse drift. If we calibrate to a slightly lower resilience threshold, we might expose the weak nodes in the structural harmonics.”

He lets out a low hum of appreciation.

“I wouldn’t have caught that.”

You glance at him.

“That’s because you were trained to trust the tolerances.”

Reed raises an eyebrow, amused. “And you weren’t?”

“I was trained to notice what doesn’t belong. Even if it doesn’t make sense yet.”

He leans back in his chair, studying you with something just shy of awe.

That’s when the others start to notice.

There’s no whispering. No gossip. That’s not the culture here. Baxter doesn’t reward spectacle.

But still, people look.

It’s subtle—an extra second of eye contact, a glance exchanged between postdocs in the corridor. Even in a building dedicated to research and theoretical physics, attention has a shape. You feel it.

You’re used to being watched when you speak, but this is different. They’re watching him.

They’re watching how Reed stays near.

How he lowers his voice when he speaks to you.

How he doesn’t interrupt when you’re mid-thought.

How he laughs at things you don’t mean to be funny.

How he tracks your gestures with the full, unguarded focus of a man trying to memorize not just the content of what you’re saying, but the rhythm of it, too.

You register the attention. You don’t engage with it. You would get too flustered.

Instead, you pull up a different dataset.

Across the room, someone’s looking at you over their glasses. You minimize the screen and adjust your chair slightly so your back is to the rest of the lab.

Ben Grimm arrives around 9:15, coffee in hand, hoodie pulled up like armor against the morning.

You like Ben.

You liked him even before you knew him—when all you had was a list of his mechanical engineering contributions and the curious note in his file that simply read “Reed’s oldest friend. Trustworthy. Not academically inclined. Smarter than he lets on.”

He sees you before you see him.

“Hey, Doc,” he calls out, his voice gravelly but warm.

You glance up and, for the first time since the building really began to fill, smile openly.

“Hi, Ben.”

He walks over slowly, avoiding the edge of the test rig you have set up. His eyes sweep the table, reading the mess of wires and calibration notes without actually processing them, which is part of his charm—he doesn’t pretend to understand your work. He respects it anyway.

“You eat today?”

You blink. “Not yet.”

“You want half my bagel?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“It’s everything seasoning.”

He grins. “You’re too sharp for your own good.”

You raise an eyebrow. “I’m just observant.”

Reed, still beside you, chimes in dryly, “She’s also allergic to sesame.”

Ben winces. “Oh, right. My bad.”

You wave it off. “It’s not lethal.”

Ben hands you a sealed granola bar from his pocket instead. “From Alicia. She said you looked pale last week and told me to keep snacks on me in case I ran into you.”

Your mouth twitches.

“Tell her I said thank you.”

“Tell her yourself. She’s coming by Monday.”

You nod, then return to your screen, not rudely, just efficiently. Ben doesn’t take offense. He pats the table lightly and leaves you to your work.

Once he’s gone, Reed glances at you sidelong.

“You like Ben.”

“He doesn’t talk to hear himself speak,” you reply.

Reed smirks, folding his arms across his chest. “So I guess I should be worried.”

You don’t answer. But something in your cheek lifts. A small, unspoken response. Reed ntoices it. Files it away like he does everything about you.

By late morning, you’re too deep in the math to notice anything else.

Three out of five anchor simulations fail—but not catastrophically. The new feedback threshold is revealing the pattern you hoped it would. Reed asks if he can run his own version of the loop. You nod without turning, already exporting the baseline parameters to his terminal.

You hear someone outside the glass wall whisper, “Is Richards still in Lab B-3?”

And then, “I think he’s shadowing her today.”

“He shadows her every damn day.”

You pretend not to hear. You shrink slightly into your collar. Not from shame. Just to stay small.

Reed doesn’t respond to the comment. But you notice that he reaches over and very quietly pushes the door shut.

Not to hide.

But to give you quiet.

The rest of the morning passes like this—like a film spooling out in perfect rhythm. Reed occasionally types beside you. Sometimes you work in parallel, other times in sync. You don’t speak unless necessary, but the air between you is charged in a way you can’t name. Not love, not yet. But a proximity to it.

And even though others look—at him, at you, at the space between—you don’t notice anymore.

You’re too busy trying to catch the shape of something hidden in the data. Something just out of reach.

Like truth.

Or a confession.

Or gravity.

Fridays at the Baxter Building settle into their own kind of orbit.

Every lab has its rhythm—Lab A-2 always wraps their protein sequencing early, because Dr. Lyman likes to jog at 1:15 on the dot. Tech Ops syncs their systems for overnight updates before noon. Environmental Engineering runs its daily dehumidifier diagnostic with exaggerated ritual, a kind of inside joke no one explains to the interns.

It’s been that way since you arrived. It wasn’t written anywhere, but you learned it all the same.

And the unspoken tradition...Reed Richards forgets about time.

By now, everyone has made peace with it.

On Fridays, he’ll get caught chasing some quantum trajectory through a dozen notepads and open tabs, muttering to himself about temporal flux interactions or pattern resonance mismatches. If someone reminds him what time it is, he’ll blink, check his watch as though it’s betraying him, and then wave his hand vaguely in the air—“Take two hours, go. Ben, order something greasy.”

And everyone will. With relief. With a kind of reverent affection for their slightly scattered, brilliant leader.

Except you.

You stay.

Always.

It’s nearing 12:45 when the lab thins out. Ben claps his hands once, loudly, to announce, “Twenty-four-inch from Mario’s. I got half with olives, don’t fight me about it.” Someone cheers from the hallway.

You don’t look up.

The simulation in front of you is finally stabilizing under increased pressure loads, and Reed’s scribbling new hypotheses across his tablet at a manic pace—“If we compensate for decay acceleration by adjusting the sequence resolution window down to 10 seconds, the cross-bridging might resolve on its own—”

You hum without meaning to, fingers typing out the updated code.

“I’m serious,” he says, pushing his chair closer to yours, legs brushing under the desk. “We’re so close. This could finally solve the vibration decay issues in the dynamic anchor builds.”

“It won’t,” you reply calmly, running the next set. “Not unless you account for the spectral density shift around the 170 Hz mark. It’s going to collapse again.”

Reed pauses.

“You already ran this model.”

You nod.

“When?”

“Last weekend.”

He looks at you like you’ve handed him a paradox.

You let the silence stretch, then: “Try adjusting the constraint to reflect a Gaussian distribution, not linear. The peaks are too soft, and the algorithm’s compensating for noise that isn’t actually noise.”

Reed exhales slowly, reverent. “How does your brain do that?”

You don’t answer. You don’t have the words for how you see things. You just do.

He smiles like he’s in the presence of something sacred.

He leans in again, close enough that his shoulder presses lightly into yours. You shift slightly to give him access to your terminal, and he doesn’t pull away.

He’s always been tactile like this—with you, at least.

Hands brushing yours when you pass equipment.

A palm steadying your wrist when you’re assembling small, sensitive components.

Once, you found yourself gripping his forearm without realizing it during a particularly volatile magnetic resonance test. He didn’t mention it. Just let you hold.

But today, it’s different.

Today, something lingers.

You're both staring at the screen. The simulation is stabilizing now, running longer than it has all week. Your throat tightens with something like triumph, or relief, or maybe just fatigue disguised as euphoria.

Then, softly—soft enough that it catches you off guard—Reed reaches up and brushes his thumb across your cheek.

You freeze.

Out of disbelief. Out of awe.

His hand is warm. The pad of his thumb gentle.

The touch isn’t performative. It’s not even decisive.

It’s hesitant. Like he needed to check that you’re real.

That this moment isn’t just one of his half-formed ideas scrawled into the margins of a late-night notebook.

Your eyes flick toward him.

He’s already looking at you.

Something unspoken and heavy passes between you. It hums underneath the fluorescent buzz of the lab lights, underneath the whirring fans of the machinery, underneath the working theory you’ve spent days fine-tuning.

You don’t lean in.

But you don’t lean away.

He doesn’t move his hand.

You don’t say a word.

Ben opens the door a few feet down the hall, holding a pizza box in one hand, a Coke in the other.

He sees you.

Sees Reed.

The hand. The closeness. The moment.

And just as quietly as he entered, he steps back. Sets the pizza down on the nearest desk. Walks away without a word.

You and Reed don’t notice.

The simulation pings complete. For the first time in eleven models, it doesn’t fail.

You blink.

Then breathe.

Reed drops his hand, slowly, like it doesn’t want to leave but knows it has to.

You don’t say anything. Neither does he.

But something has shifted.

In the lab’s stale, climate-controlled air. In the simulation still pulsing faintly on your screen. In the trajectory of two minds moving dangerously close to each other’s center of gravity.

You get up first, walking to the sink in the corner to splash water on your face. The cold helps. Reed stays in his chair, scribbling, though you can tell his mind isn’t entirely on the notes.

You find the pizza box. It’s already cold. You bring two slices back to the workstation.

You don’t mention the moment. Neither does he.

But all through the second hour of your “break,” you work with that electric tension still threaded between you.

You pass him a slice. He accepts it.

He says your name, once, softly, like an answer to a question you haven’t asked yet.

And you don’t look up. Not yet.

You’re afraid that if you do, everything will change.

Or maybe—it already has.

“Hey,” Reed says again, this time your name folded into it, spoken low and careful, like he’s afraid of breaking it. Like he’s afraid of breaking you.

You don’t answer right away.

Because you know what he’s asking without asking.

And you know that if you answer—if you meet his gaze now, if you name the thing humming between you—it won’t go back in the box. It will take shape. It will have mass. It will alter the gravitational field between you forever.

You chew the edge of your lip and keep your eyes on the simulation results, blinking too fast.

He doesn’t push. Reed Richards never pushes.

But he stays there, watching you like a question he’s been trying to answer for years. Like a proof that’s always been just outside the edge of comprehension.

He wants you.

You can feel it in the heat of his gaze, in the way his hands twitch with unspent energy, in the way he shifts closer every time he speaks. He wants you the way he wants knowledge, reverently. With hunger and hesitation in equal parts.

But more than that—he respects you. And that respect builds a boundary he’s too careful to cross without your invitation.

So he doesn’t speak again. Not yet.

Instead, he clears his throat gently and leans back into the moment he knows how to inhabit best—the work.

“You were right about the Gaussian window,” he murmurs, eyes returning to the data on your screen. “The mean deviation narrowed just enough to stabilize the micro-vibrational bleed. Look.”

He tilts his tablet toward you.

You peer at it, grateful for the anchor. “The variance dropped below 0.0003. That’s lower than the threshold for secondary echo.”

Reed nods. “It’s still not perfect. But it’s holding. For now.”

You echo it before you can stop yourself. “For now.”

He smiles at that—soft, and only for you.

The tension doesn’t break. But it shifts. Warms.

You pull up the residual energy pattern charts and begin comparing them to your older models. Reed swivels his chair to face you fully, chin resting lightly on his knuckles as he watches you work.

Your voice steadies.

“I think we can reduce the decay rate even more by using a layered harmonic buffer. Not just a single envelope. Something like... like a tri-modal stabilization frame.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Using phase-offset looping?”

“Yes,” you say, eyes lighting up. “But slightly desynchronized. So each frequency compensates for the loss in another—like an algorithmic relay. Less like a barrier, more like... a conversation.”

You feel him watching you, not the charts.

There’s a kind of electricity in your blood now, not from caffeine or adrenaline but from being understood, seen at the level you need to be.

And for once, the way you talk—fast, disorganized, precise, too much—feels like the exact shape of something he’s been waiting to hear.

You meet his gaze finally.

He’s smiling.

That soft, quiet, wrecked smile of his. The one he only wears around you.

“You know,” he murmurs, “you say I taught you how to be better without making you feel small. But you make me feel like I don’t have to be better all the time. Like just being...with you is enough.”

You don’t know what to do with that sentence.

It sits too heavy in your chest. It rearranges your molecules.

Reed notices your hands twitch—how your fingers twitch at your sleeves when the air gets too loud inside you. He leans forward just slightly.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” you say too quickly. “You didn’t.”

Then, after a breath, “It’s just... I don’t know what to do when people say things like that.”

“Okay,” he says. “Then we don’t have to do anything. We can just stay here. With the work.”

But there’s softness in the offer. No withdrawal. No hurt.

Just the way he always gives you room.

It’s quiet again.

The others are still gone. Outside the lab, Friday spills forward in lazy arcs—someone arguing about where to eat next week, a song playing faintly from someone’s portable speaker. You can hear Ben laugh somewhere near the stairwell.

Inside, Reed starts sketching again. You realize, after a while, that it’s not a schematic. He’s drawing the harmonic layering you suggested, but not in code—in lines and waves, almost like music. It’s abstract and a little chaotic and not how he normally works.

It’s your method. Translated.

You watch him for a moment. Then you reach over and pick up a stylus of your own.

You add to it without asking. Adjust one arc. Shade one line.

He doesn’t flinch.

This is your intimacy. Shared language in waveform. A courtship of the mind.

The pizza gets cold. No one bothers you. Not even Ben, who peeks through the glass once more and then nods to himself like he's witnessing a rare solar event—better not to interfere.

And Reed…

Reed reaches over again at one point, softly, thumb brushing your cheek once more. This time he doesn’t look away when he does it. And you don’t freeze.

He doesn’t kiss you.

Not yet.

But you both feel it coming.

Not like a crash.

Like a calculation converging.

Like an inevitable, elegant solution.

Friday settles into its soft descent.

Outside, the city shifts into its end-of-week hum. That specific kind of tonal change—less frantic, more languid. Like the buildings are exhaling.

But in the lab, the world is still quiet, contained in the steady blinking of data streams and the near-inaudible whir of cooled processors.

You sit on the floor now, legs crossed beneath you, a cluster of components spread around you like offerings. The modeling station sits nearby, quietly compiling your last run.

Reed is at the console, sleeves rolled up, hair curling faintly at the temples from the humidity that’s crept in through the vents. He’s biting the corner of his thumbnail absently—thinking.

You watch him.

And then you remember.

“Did you finish the sensory-feedback demo for the field trip?” you ask, voice soft but cutting clean through the air between you.

He blinks up from the console, eyes going immediately bright.

“I did. Mostly. I was going to test it tonight.”

You tilt your head. “Can I see it?”

He smiles—a real one, unguarded and boyish. The kind he only wears with you.

“You can help me run it.”

He gets up, walking to the supply cabinet in the corner, pulling down a heavy black case the size of a carry-on. You follow, standing now, hands folding in the sleeves of your sweater as you watch him unlock the case with the smooth familiarity of a man who designs entire universes and still finds joy in the click of good mechanics.

Inside, a scatter of wires, motion sensors, a series of spherical objects that look like oversized ping pong balls, each one patterned with conductive filament and dotted with touch points. You recognize the layout—a modular, reprogrammable interface system with haptic feedback, originally built for mobility therapy.

“You modified the base algorithm,” you say, eyes narrowing with appreciation.

“For kids,” he replies. “It runs a simplified tactile-reward loop. Kind of like a visual puzzle—kinetic memory reinforcement. Color-coded neural feedback.”

“Accessible interface?”

He nods. “Built for neurodivergent learners. Adaptive texture mapping. It reacts to the user’s input in real time. No static pathways. No performance grading.”

Your chest tightens a little. Not painfully. Just precisely.

“You built a toy.”

Reed shrugs. “It teaches basic physics concepts. Friction, acceleration, force vectors. Just…disguised as fun.”

“That’s not just a toy,” you murmur.

He watches you closely.

“No,” he says. “It’s not.”

You set it up together on the floor of Lab B-3, moving the tables back, laying the tiles out in careful rows. The modular touch-nodes blink softly as they come to life—first red, then green, then a low, pulsing blue.

The algorithm kicks in after calibration. Reed holds the interface tablet, flipping through the menus. You hover close behind him, watching how he reprograms the environmental variables on the fly.

“Want to try it?” he asks.

You nod.

He sets it to manual mode. The first node lights up in your periphery. You move toward it, tap it lightly with your finger. It flashes yellow, then blue, and vibrates beneath your touch.

You laugh, just once—quick, surprised.

“Positive reinforcement,” Reed says softly. “Each node has a different tactile response depending on approach angle, velocity, and touch pressure.”

“So they learn physics by playing.”

He nods. “Exactly.”

You test the next one. And then another. As the nodes light up, the floor becomes a low-lit constellation, flickering gently around your movements. It’s beautiful. You crouch down near one, tracing your fingers across the filaments, letting the haptic buzz hum beneath your fingertips.

“Reed,” you say quietly. “This is... really, really good.”

He kneels down beside you.

“I just wanted to build something that made them feel like science was listening back.”

You look over at him.

That sentence hangs there, too delicate to touch.

Your hand moves before your brain registers the decision—slowly, instinctively—and you reach for him.

You had reached for his hand but landed on his thumb.

Just his thumb.

You wrap your small hand around it gently, like it’s the only part of him you can hold without consequence.

Reed freezes.

Not from discomfort. From something else.

He turns his head toward you, slowly, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he moves too quickly. His smile is soft, stunned. As if he can’t believe you’re doing this. As if he’s afraid that if he acknowledges it too directly, it might stop.

You don’t look at him. You just hold his thumb in both your hands, watching the floor blink beneath you.

It’s a strange gesture, almost childlike in its simplicity. But to you, it’s everything. It’s grounding. Permission. Trust.

Reed lets out a breath like he’s been holding it for years.

He doesn’t move his hand away.

Instead, he uses the other to reach forward and adjust a setting on the control interface without looking. The lights shift. The nodes pulse in a new pattern. You follow them without letting go of his thumb.

He’s smiling now, wide and quiet.

Completely and utterly gone for you.

You test every mode together—gravity simulation, frictionless slide, kinetic echo. Reed talks softly through each setting, explaining how he rewrote the original code to simulate Newton’s Laws in modular intervals, adjusting for sensor latency so kids could trigger reactions with slower or less precise movement.

You ask questions. Not because you don’t understand. But because you do. You want to understand it his way.

He answers everything.

By the time you’re done, the lights in the lab have dimmed into their evening cycle. Reed packs up the demo system slowly, like he’s folding something sacred.

You’re still holding his thumb.

Finally, gently, he uses it to tap the back of your hand.

“You know,” he says quietly, “you don’t have to hold back around me.”

You look at him, expression unreadable. You squeeze his thumb once, then let go.

“I’m not,” you say.

And you aren’t.

Not anymore.

The lab is dark when you both leave.

Outside, the city has begun to cool. You walk beside him in silence, shoulders brushing once, then again. Not by accident.

You don’t talk about the moment on the lab floor.

You don’t have to.

It happened.

It exists.

Like an inevitable, elegant solution.

The sky has turned the color of television static. Not black, not gray, just faded. Soft enough to feel unreal. Streetlights flicker on in stuttering intervals. A breeze curls up the avenue and catches at the hem of your coat.

You and Reed stand just outside the Baxter Building entrance, neither of you moving to leave, as if there’s some invisible membrane between the lab and the world you’re not quite ready to pierce.

You should go home.

That’s the next step, isn’t it?

That’s what people do when the day ends. They go back to the place with their name on the lease and try to remember who they are when no one’s asking them questions.

Except your place has neighbors.

And thin walls.

And you're too tired to pretend your own exhaustion doesn’t vibrate at the same frequency as their pleasure.

You shift your weight from foot to foot, knuckles tucked deep into your sleeves. You can feel the buzz of the day behind your eyes—not anxiety, not anymore. Just too many thoughts stacking on top of each other like tetris blocks, and you don’t have the energy to make them fit.

Reed stands beside you, hands in his coat pockets, quiet as ever. The edge of his sleeve brushes yours every so often, an unspoken rhythm that makes you feel here.

Not tolerated. Not managed.

Just here.

Ben soon exits the building. Hoodie zipped to his throat, a half-eaten brownie in one hand. He slows when he sees you both.

“Well, well,” Ben says, raising an eyebrow. “You two finally gonna leave the building or should we start paying you rent inside the lab?”

You glance at Reed.

He shrugs, noncommittal.

Ben smirks. “Alright. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Then he gives Reed a look. “Which ain’t much.”

Reed doesn’t respond, but his smile is quiet. Affectionate.

“Goodnight, Ben,” you say softly.

“Night, genius.”

He walks off into the dark.

You stay.

Reed doesn’t ask if you’re going home.

You don’t say anything for a while. You just look at the sidewalk. The cracks in it. The faint smudge of oil near the curb. The headlights of a cab bending light across Reed’s cheekbone, catching on the streak of gray in his hair.

Finally, you say, “Can I stay?”

You don’t explain. You don’t need to.

He doesn’t ask why.

He just turns to you, and for a split second, something in his expression softens so completely it’s almost painful. His eyes widen like he’s been caught off guard, but then his entire face warms, lips parting slightly, like you’ve just handed him something fragile and beautiful and unexpected.

“Yes,” he says immediately. “Yes, of course.”

You nod once, eyes down, and he opens the glass doors for you with his keycard.

Reed’s private quarters are located on the top floor, built into the architecture like a quiet secret.

The space is sparse but intentional. One long wall is lined with windows that overlook the city—lights shimmering like data points, static and alive at once.

You’ve been here before. The air smells like him. The surfaces are all smooth, clean, designed for function rather than comfort—except the guest bed, which he quietly upgraded after the second time you stayed, replacing the stiff mattress with something memory foam, orthopedic, weighted blankets in navy and grey.

He never mentioned it. But you noticed.

Now, you step out of your shoes and move instinctively toward the small kitchen alcove, placing your bag on the counter where you always do. You hear Reed behind you, taking off his coat, the soft clink of keys being set in the ceramic dish by the door.

“I didn’t want to go home,” you say, very quietly.

“I know,” he replies.

He fills the kettle without asking. He doesn’t ask if you want tea. He just knows that the ritual helps.

You settle on his couch while he prepares everything. There’s something deeply intimate about watching him move in this space—not as a scientist, but as a man who’s built a life designed for quiet. For stillness. For you.

“Did you finish that secondary circuit loop in the interface?” you ask, voice small.

“I did,” he says, turning toward you with two mugs. “Replaced the original buffer with a superconductive braid. Reduced the thermal variance by thirty percent.”

You take the mug with both hands.

“That’s going to make it more stable in hands-on mode.”

He nods. “Exactly.”

You sip the tea. It’s perfect. Rooibos, no caffeine. Subtle and warm.

You look down at your knees.

He sits beside you, not too close, not too far. Just right.

“I’m still thinking about that tri-modal stabilization relay you suggested,” he says. “It could actually be used in more than just the interface model. If we layer it into the resonance prototype, it could compensate for secondary harmonic bleed without adding mechanical dampeners.”

You glance at him. “It wouldn’t even need a power supply. It would just borrow from the existing vibrational field.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

You smile faintly. “We should test it this weekend.”

“We should,” he agrees.

But neither of you move.

You sit there in the dark, the city lights flickering behind the glass, the tea cooling slowly between your palms.

And then, Reed shifts slightly closer.

His fingers brush the side of your hand where it rests on the couch cushion.

You don’t pull away.

“I’m glad you asked to stay,” he says, quietly.

“I don’t always know what I need,” you admit.

“You don’t have to,” he says. “Not with me.”

You turn your hand palm-up.

He hesitates—barely a second—and then sets his own hand into yours. Warm. Long fingers. Calloused thumb.

You wrap your hand around his thumb again.

It’s small. Stupidly small. But it feels like precision.

Like the alignment of orbitals in a new chemical bond—unexpected, improbable, but somehow inevitable.

He stares at your hands like they’re a proof he’s just solved.

And you can feel it now, radiating off him.

That Reed Richards is completely, irrevocably in love with you.

It sits in his stillness.

In the way he lets you hold him without needing to be held back.

In the careful cadence of his breath next to yours.

In every half-finished sentence he doesn’t speak because he’s still calibrating the right moment to say it.

You close your eyes.

The lab can wait.

The world can wait.

Because here, in this quiet room on the top floor of the Baxter Building, the noise of the city fades into static, and two brilliant minds sit side by side, slowly, carefully falling into something that even physics doesn’t have language for.

Yet.

You’re still holding his thumb.

The weight of it feels small and ordinary and terrifying, in the way intimacy always is when it sneaks in sideways—quiet, soft, patient.

The tea between you has gone slightly cold, but neither of you moves.

Reed glances at your hand in his again like he’s not sure it’s real. Like he’s afraid any shift in air pressure might break whatever this is.

He doesn’t want to lose it. You can feel that. It lives in the quiet of his body. In the way he breathes more carefully now, like your closeness has changed the atmospheric composition of the room.

You can’t explain it.

Not exactly.

But you know the moment has arrived—like a threshold has been crossed without either of you noticing when.

You lift your eyes.

Reed is already watching you.

And then you kiss him.

There’s no warning. No lead-in. No poetic pause.

You just lurch forward and kiss him like your brain caught fire.

You cup his face with both hands—awkward, determined, imprecise. You feel the stubble on his jaw beneath your palms. You feel the soft surprised puff of his breath as you press your mouth against his with more force than you intended.

Reed makes a startled noise.

You pull back slightly, embarrassed, but he surges forward like a current finding its charge.

His hands find your waist, anchoring—not possessive, not demanding, just present. And then his mouth is on yours, properly this time. He kisses you with a slowness that makes your skin buzz, then deeper, until you forget how to think.

You chase it.

You chase it harder than you meant to.

You end up half in his lap, straddling his thigh on the couch. He grunts softly in surprise as you pull him closer by the collar of his shirt. Your hands roam. One settles in his hair, the other at the base of his neck, grounding yourself in the shape of him. His body is warm and solid and older than yours in a way that feels deeply comforting—experienced, steady.

“Wait—” he whispers into your mouth, breathless but laughing.

You pause.

“I—God, I didn’t think—” he tries to say, and then you kiss him again.

It’s clumsy and desperate and real. Your teeth bump once. Your nose is probably smushed too hard against his.

But Reed groans quietly like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Because it is.

Because it’s you.

Eventually, you slow. Not because you want to. Just because you run out of breath. You ease back a little, your forehead resting against his, both of you flushed and dazed.

His fingers trace up your spine, slow, careful, reverent.

You say nothing for a while.

Then, softly, eyes still closed, you murmur, “I need to take a shower.”

He blinks, dazed.

“Oh,” he says, voice rough. “Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

You make no move to get up.

He doesn’t push.

Then, without looking at him, you say, “Will you come with me?”

Reed stills.

It’s not a seductive invitation. Your voice is too quiet. Too vulnerable.

You mean with you. Not to see you.

There’s a difference.

A difference he understands immediately.

He exhales once, very slowly.

“Yes,” he says.

The bathroom in Reed’s quarters is clean and understated. No clutter. Neutral tones. A single towel folded perfectly on the heated rack. The kind of space made by someone who needs things to stay quiet, even in private.

You peel off your clothes with your back to him. You don’t ask him to turn away. You just move, deliberately, like someone trying to stay present in their own body. You don’t rush.

He undresses behind you.

You don’t look.

Not because you’re afraid.

Just because this isn’t about looking.

When you step under the water, he follows. The spray is warm. Steam begins to rise immediately, curling around your shoulders, softening the edges of the room.

You don’t speak for a long time.

He helps you rinse shampoo from your hair.

He rubs a towel gently across your upper back, washing you between passes of the water.

You stand in the quiet, eyes closed, while he reaches for the soap, his hands careful and broad. You’ve never felt so heldin a room without touch. Even when he does touch you, it’s so measured. Like he’s calibrating pressure in real time.

He never touches more than he needs to.

He never looks longer than you let him.

You begin to wash him in return—his arms, his back. Your fingers map the ridges of his shoulders. The plane of his chest. 

He smiles at you when you look up at him.

You smile back.

Afterward, you towel off side by side. You slip into the oversized sleep shirt he keeps in the guest drawers—the one you claimed without asking the second time you stayed over. Reed pulls on a soft cotton shirt and gray sweatpants, hair still damp, curls a little unruly.

You both brush your teeth in silence. The kind of silence built on trust, not absence.

You spit and rinse and then, leaning over the sink, you say, “You’re not what I expected.”

Reed glances at you in the mirror.

“I’m not?” he asks, toothbrush in hand.

You shake your head. “You’re a better equation.”

He stares at you for a moment, then leans over, presses a kiss to your temple, and whispers, “So are you.”

You fall asleep in his bed, facing each other.

You don’t touch—not at first. But at some point, your foot slides across the sheet and brushes his calf.

He doesn’t bother to move.

You drift off like that.

And he stays awake for a while longer, just watching you breathe, memorizing the sound of it, calculating the half-life of the moment in real time.

He doesn't think there's a formula for this.

But if there were, he’d already be solving for you.

taglist: @totallynotshine @the-curator1 @christinamadsen @imaginemixedfandom @randomuserr330 @princess76179 @little--spring @mielsonrisa @he-is-the-destined @in-pedros-smile @aysilee2018 @stormseyer @or-was-it-just-a-dream @strawberrylemontart1 @lovetings @peelieblue @just-a-harmless-patato @lizziesfirstwife @princessnnylzays @stargirl-mayaa @vickie5446 @everandforeveryours @jxvipike @sukivenue @neenieweenie @i-wanna-be-your-muse @sonjajames2021 @fxxvz @indiegirlunited

[sharieb]

First Kiss Withheld for a Bittersweet Goodbye

Pairing: Rafayel x non-MC! reader

Genre: Angst Request: Helloooooo, I really love your works esp those non mc and I was wondering if i could request you to write about this idea of mine that popped up before I went to sleep.😭 it keeps bugging my mind although I'm having exam, I wonder how Rafayel would react to you not knowing how to kiss when he initiated the kiss first. But instead of telling him that you don't know how to kiss, you just dodged his kiss instead because somehow you isekei'ed into his world(and he knew it, not a secret) so knowing that one day you'll go back to your own world and leave him behind.(and knowing his love story with mc and how they tragically sacrificed for each other, how could you possibly accept these intimate gestures from him?) You just thought you didn't wanna do those intimate(though you both are dying for it, though you dont know how to kiss so if you guys kiss that'll make the kiss your first kiss while he already had his with her, mc. Somehow all the boys ive loved before reference) but instead you wanted to actually get to know him, the him aside from the game. So when the day that you're leaving finally comes, you guys bickered about who's gonna watch who walked away so you insist you watch him walking back and you watch him because you told him "it hurts less for you."(but who'll know what universe decided to do at that point? Will you be able to go back to your world or will he dragged along with you to your world? I'd choose the former since the world would go crazy if they know our sea god is real😓 but feel free to go along with my idea or not 💋) and if they were to get separated, they will forever forget about this short term memory. You never isekei'ed into his world(he's still your fav game char) and he never has you in your memory. (Pls if u don't understand, u don't have to reply. It might be too confusing since English is not my first language😭🙏🏻)

I gathered pieces of each result that I thought were really good and combined them instead. Here is the finished draft

The waves lapped softly at the sand, a rhythmic hush that seemed to follow Rafayel wherever he went. He stood barefoot on the shore again, pant legs rolled up, his white shirt lazily unbuttoned. You found him where you always did—avoiding responsibility with a handful of shells, half-sanded and glimmering in the sun.

“I’m making paint again,” he said, as you approached. “Want to watch me crush innocence into powder?”

“You mean seashells?”

He smirked, not answering.

It was so typical of him, this blend of mockery and mystique. Of course, he’d skip his own meeting with Thomas just to gather shells. Of course,e he’d act like the entire world was optional, except you.

He dropped the shells into your hands like they were some kind of offering.

And then, without warning, leaned in.

His lips didn’t quite touch yours. Just a breath away.

You could feel the heat of him, sun-warmed and salt-sweet, close enough to taste the ocean on his skin.

You’d known this moment would come eventually. Rafayel doesn’t half-love anything, not a note, not a gesture, not a person.

But you couldn’t accept it.

So you turned your face.

Just enough to miss his lips. Just enough to shatter the illusion.

His breath hitched. Not a dramatic sigh, not the theatre he was known for—but something quieter. Realer.

“Am I… not what you want?” he asked, voice devoid of his usual glamour.

You opened your mouth. Closed it again. The truth clawed at your throat.

You’d known from the start: this wasn’t your world. You were a glitch in the rhythm, a background player in someone else’s grand symphony. Rafayel wasn’t yours to hold. He was the star of a love story already written in tragedy and sacrifice.

“You don’t understand,” you whispered.

He smiled thinly. “Try me.”

“I don’t know how to kiss,” you admitted.

Rafayel’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You don’t?”

You shook your head. “If we kissed, if this were my first, it wouldn’t just be a kiss. It’d be a promise I couldn’t keep.”

He frowned. “Because I’ve had her before?”

You nodded. “Yes. You and MC, your story. You both sacrificed so much. How could I ever ask you to share that with me? To make this moment mine?”

The teasing in his eyes faded into something quieter, an ache you recognised beneath his aloof mask.

“You don’t want to be another fleeting memory,” he murmured, voice rougher than usual. “Like the sea washes away footprints in the sand.”

“All I ever wanted is to know you, not just your story,” you said. “The Rafayel who collects shells and makes pigments from them, the one who’s petulant and stubborn and scared inside.”

He smiled then, a real smile, half amused, half resigned. “So you’re not afraid of kissing me. You’re afraid of losing me.”

You looked away because the truth was too sharp to face.

Soon, some time has passed, and eventually, your time here has come to an end. You’re standing by the sea, the rift shimmered, the invisible tear pulling your two worlds apart.

Rafayel refused to look at it as you stood in between him and the rift. His eyes narrowed in quiet rebellion. His usual grace is nowhere in sight. The coat’s gone. His hair is wind-swept. There’s paint on his hands.

He doesn’t speak first.

So you did instead.

“You should go.”

“No.”

“Someone has to turn away first.”

“Then let it be you.”

“No,” you replied. “I’ll watch you walk away.”

He laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s cruel.”

“It hurts less for you that way.”

You tried to smile. Tried not to cry. You didn’t want your final memory to be of you breaking.

He flinches. Like that truth struck harder than any goodbye.

Still, he turns. Walks slowly back toward the studio. One step. Another. His coat, tailored, soft, dusted with sand, billowed behind him like a curtain falling.

You memorised every detail. Because you had to. Because once you stepped back into your world, all of this would dissolve.

You whispered his name once.

He didn't look back.

You wake up early in the morning in you're bed with sea salt on your lips. No explanation. No memory.

Just a strange ache in your chest and the overwhelming feeling that you forgot someone important.

You boot up Love and Deepspace. Rafayel’s character stands idle in his studio background, sketchbook open in his hands. His usual smile graces his face, unchanged.

When he speaks, it’s with the same line he always says.

Except this time… there’s a flicker.

A pause in his animation. A second too long.

As if something in him almost remembered.

As if some part of him still feels your absence like the ocean feels the moon.

divider: @uzmacchiato

[yushi-ni]

could you write just like wishies reactions to walking in on something... indecent? like not the minors ofc but the freaks 😈 thank u! xx

ෆ NCT WISH ෆ 𝗈𝗇𝗋𝗂𝗒𝗎 + 𝗎𝗇𝖾𝗑𝗉𝖾𝖼𝗍𝖾𝖽 𝗏𝗂𝗌𝗂𝗍𝗈𝗋𝗌

꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱ masterlist

summary; onriyu and unexpected visitors, another member walking in on you two doing ‘indecent’ things

pairing; onriyu - sion version x you

genre; suggestive, smut

warnings; 18+ contains mature card game elements. mentions of make outs - oral (male + female receiving) face fucking unprotected twister

notes; hiii anon!!!! thanks for requesting 😛😛 ok i changed it up a little but and actually made this an actual fic rather than a headcannons because i felt like writing a whole essay again (hihi) BUT i’m also writing a proper ‘reaction’ version for you!!! i wasn’t sure if you wanted the wishies walking in on ‘you’ doing self care or if you wanted one of the other wishies walking in on ‘you and your bf’ so i opted for the latter!!! hope it’s to your liking but if you did want the other one, please let me know and i’ll try writing one with that scenario too!!!! i decided to make 3 different parts because someone got carried away a little bit.. (i’m someone hihi) so here’s sion’s part; NOT PROOFREAD my brain was so fried i’m sorry!!!!!

──୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ──

OH SION

it’s so easy to get lost in your little bubble of love and affection when it’s just you and bf. no care in the world or any sense of the real world outside. it’s been a while since your bf had a night off, no work, no appointments, no other distractions but you. as soon as his manager told him that the team was off the rest of the night, he called you and you quite literally hopped in a taxi and made your way to his dorm. you couldn’t really remember the last time you were able to spend a cozy night in with your bf, he has been so busy with work and yes you knew the downsides of dating an idol, sometimes you couldn’t see your bf for a few days or even get him on a phone call. he’s out of town or locked up in the practice room with his members. you didn’t mind, you support him through thick and thin, yes it gets lonely sometimes, not being able to go see your bf whenever you want to, not being able to just randomly stop by the dorm to have dinner together etc etc but it made the moments shared together a hundred times more memorable and special. it’s those moments that are worth the hours apart. time spent apart only makes you both realise how much you actually missed each other.. how much you actually craved and needed the other;

⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅ ୭ ˚. ᵎᵎˎˊ˗ 🌷🫧☁️

he didn’t get home long after he sent you a text, asking if you were free and wanted to come over. you’ve been on his mind non stop the past week. the last time he saw you was before he went overseas for concerts, after returning to korea he was so packed with schedules he didn’t even have the time to go see you. he texted you every free second of his day, saying how much he misses you and how badly he wanted to see you. you being you were very understanding and encouraging about the situation, he knows it’s hard on you but you never really show or express it towards him. not wanting to upset or discourage him. you reminded him you’d be able to see each other soon again and tonight was finally the time.

he hopped in the shower and put on some comfy clothes, he dried his freshly dyed brown hair and couldn’t help but speed clean his room a little bit before you would step foot in there. he walked into the living room where he was met with the two maknaes playing games together. “hyung!!! come!!! quick sit down, i’m winning” saku only glanced up at the sight of sion entering the room; “no you’re not!” ryo bumped his shoulder against the youngest, “you can’t even get to the 2nd floor without getting caught!” sion chuckled to himself as he almost threw himself onto the couch, watching his two young members, who were seated infront of him on the floor, play their current hyper fixated game. he took out his phone and sent jaehee a text, asking him to invite the two youngsters over to their dorm so he can spend some alone time with you. not even 2 minutes later, sakuryo was up and gathering their stuff to make their way over to the other house. a quick bye before the door was shut behind them. he can’t help but giggle at the thought of his younger brothers, you always joke about him being like their dad but no one can argue the fact that the two are just adorable.

he was scrolling through his netflix recommendations when he heard the doorbell ring. he got up so fast you’d almost think he got had places to be. as soon as he opens the door his grin is so wide, not wasting a second longer as he pulls you in and tackles you in a bear hug. you giggle but gladly accept the hug; “hi baby” you chuckle as you felt his arms pull you impossibly closer to him; “shhhh don’t talk pls, i’m having a moment here” you laugh at his words and he mirrors your reaction, his whole body laughing with him. freeing you from his deadly grip on you, he looks at you, his smile reaching the sparkling in his eyes. eyes shifting from your eyes to his lips and back up, grinning from ear to ear as he presses his lips on yours. you kiss him back, your arms coming up and naturally finding their way around his neck. pulling him down a little more. his hands moving up and down your sides, almost desperately trying to feel you under his skin in comparison to the sweet - tender kiss you’re sharing. you can feel him smile in the kiss, teeth clashing as he slowly pulls back. you look up at him, his hands coming up to your shoulders as he takes a tiny step back. lowkey looking you up and down; “yeaah-“ he says, more to himself than to you. followed by an approving nod; “just how i remembered” you gasp, laughing as you hit his chest. he pulls you in another hug, laughing as well, kissing the top of your head before he lets go and pulls you further into the apartment.

you’re sitting on the couch, cuddled up with your back pressed against his chest and your legs tangled up together. you’ve been trying to concentrate on the movie playing but your head is completely trailed off somewhere else. you look around the room, some interesting and bold chosen ‘art’ decorations suddenly made you realise you haven’t seen or heard the two maknaes the whole night yet. “wait, where are the youngsters?” - “mmh?” sion asks as he was processing the words; “oh they’re at the other dorm, playing with jaehee i think” - “ahh nawh i would have loved to see them, it’s been so long” your bf cleared his throat, shifting up a little bit as he sarcastically said; “yeah i’m very happy to finally see you too” you laughed as you sat up straight, turning your body to look at your bf. “oh cmon you get to see them everyday, i barely saw them the past few weeks!!” you couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on his face; “i’m sorry woman, i don’t think they came as a package deal when you agreed to be with the one and only oh sion” he giggled, mirroring the big smile on your face as you shifted your whole body around, your legs on both side of his body as you straddled his lap. “i should have read the terms of agreement better before making such decisions” your hands dramatically falling to his shoulder as you sighed out loud; “yeah sounds like a whole bunch of losses on your side” sion says, silent giggles falling from his lips, his hands firm on your hips. you look at him, taking in the way he looked back at you, the way his eyes are so bright and full of love, the way his flushed cheeks look so soft and how his hair naturally falls a little over his eyes. “what” he asked, looking you straight in the eyes, trying to make out what you were thinking about. you only smiled, a little teasing; “nothing” he throws his head back to lean against the couch, only humming a; “mhmh” as he can’t help but smile again. his eyes look so soft but you can’t miss the way his hands are gripping your hips a little more tightly. looking at you, raising his eyebrow (pls this video haunts me; video) waiting for your next move which he gladly accepts as you crash your lips onto his.

your hands in his hair, his busy wandering up and down your sides, soft moans filling up the room mixed with the sound of your lips moving against the other as you share a passionate kiss. seconds have passed, minutes have passed, time gets forgotten as you completely lose yourself in the moment. sion’s tongue finds yours as he fights you for dominance, a sweet kiss quickly turning into one of lust and need. you moan as he puts more pressure onto your lips, his body moving a bit forward, pressimg himself more onto you. you pull his head a bit back, he groans now it’s you who welcomes herself in his mouth now, you push him back till his back hits the couch again. his hands are strong against your skin, pressing you down more firmly. your grip in his hair only tightening as you roll your hips into his. he moans in the kiss, pulling his head back as your push your hips down onto his lower abdomen again, repeating the same movement, pulling his head back completely, giving yourself perfect acces to the bare skin on his neck. your lips work their way up his exposed skin, wet kisses as you almost make out with the sweet spot on his neck. soft sighs coming from your boyfriends lips, his hands coming up to your ass, pressing you onto him more. his eyes shut closed, focusing on the feeling of your lips, the pressure’s so strong you’ll for sure leave marks on his skin (but that’s a worry for later) he pulls you back, lips pressed back on yours in a split second, the kiss is more messy and desperate. hungry for more. your hips rolling into his as your almost desperately humping each other.

“mm fuck-“ sion groans; “t-too much yn fuck” his hands still your movements as he lifts you up from his lap. “if you don’t stop i’ll literally burst right here and now” you chuckle; “and that’s a bad thing becaaaause..?” you giggle at the sight infront of you. eyes heavy as he looked up to you. “because i have not survived more than a week without touching you to be finished in less than a minute, now get off” you couldn’t help but laugh as you swing your legs to one side, leaning back against the arm rest as your bf gets himself on his knees to adjust his sweatpants that show a wet stain from your previous position. “uhhuh mr oh sion, the great survivor of a little touch deprivation” you tease as you push him with your foot. he gasped sarcastically, one hand over his heart as the other brushed through his hair; “a little respect here please” he laughs as he positioned himself in between your legs. “mhmh respect is to be earned..” you pulled your bf closer by the strings of his hoodie. he scoffed; “don’t say things you’ll regret later” face inches away from yours; “make me” his eyes switched to a different tone, lips crashing on yours in a split second. hungry - sloppy and more desperate than he ever kissed you before. allowing himself access in your mouth, only grinning as you whine and moan into his.

his hand comes down to your clothed core, stretching your pants so the material tightens around your already soaked core. his fingers pressing down against your clit, you moaned, pulling away from his lips to catch your breath. sion smirked, his thumb now rubbing and working their way on your wet core. you pushed your hips up, thrusting into his hands as you were chasing the feeling of his hands. sion pushed your hips back down, pressing you into the couch as his fingers sped up; “stay still” he nodged his head in the crook of your neck, placing wet open mouthed kisses as he trails up to your jawline. repeatedly sucking and kissing the exposed skin as you throw your head back more. his hands still working their way on your clit. you moaned, a knot forming in your stomach, you throw one of your legs around his body, overwhelmed by the intense feeling of his fingers and lips. you whined; “fuckk- sion- i’m..“ - “i’m what?” his voice low and cocky. his lips were back on yours before you could answer. your hand came up to his hair as you desperately try to steady yourself down, you rolled your hips in his hand again, in need of more friction. almost reading your mind, sion’s hand comes to a halt and in a swing motion find their way in your pants, past the line of your panty. you moan loudly, gasp muffled in the kiss as he enters with two fingers, immediately pulling in and out as his thumb applies pressure on your clit. you try to kiss back, almost impossible as sion’s fingers keep working their way on your lower abdomen. “oh fuck-“ you whined.

the feeling in your stomach only getting more intense, building up as you can feel the heat blooming more and more. “sion-“ you whisper, almost helpless, breathing heavily. his mouth moving to your neck again, greedy, not wanting to miss any part of your exposed skin. his thumb is circling swift motions, pressing down just hard enough for the tension to get more and more intense. his name leaving your mouth in moans in chokes. “fuck yn, i missed the way you sound” you don’t reply, your voice not strong enough to let out any words, you only whimper as the knot gets stronger and stronger.

he lifts his head, he pulls his fingers out but before you can even plead, he pulls down your pants along with your panty in one motion. your legs up in the sudden movement, throwing your clothes somewhere on the floor. his voice low as he admires the view infront of him; “just as beautiful as always” you whine as you hit his arm, almost feeling shy under his strong gaze; “ya, my eyes are up here” sion chuckles; “baby as much as i love your eyes, i think i’ve got mine more focused elsewhere” his eyes are heavy and filled with lust, he drops to the floor, on his knees, crawling between your legs as he locks his eyes with you. your legs spread, your fingers in his hair, anticipating the feeling that’s coming. his mouth is on your thighs, open mouthed kisses dragged along the insides of your legs. his tongue licking his way to your now throbbing core, desperate for his mouth to come in touch with the one place you need him most right now, you can’t help but buck your hips upward, you feel the vibration of his groan into your skin as he presses you back down. arms around your legs, locking you down to keep you from moving. his kisses come to a halt, his eyes flicker to yours, smirking as he dips his head down. his lips are warm and soft, tongue entering you as he sucks and licks his way up and down, in and out.

your breath is stuck in your throat, you can only moan and cry out as his tongue flicks again and again. your grip in his hair tightens, back arged, head thrown back as your eyes roll to the back of your head. you can feel him smirk against your skin, not holding back, your sounds only making him more greedy to taste you. his mouth is moving as if he’s trying to make up for the time you spent apart. he’s sloppy, desperate and eating you out like a starved man. he hums, the vibration sending shivers down your spine, your body aches everywhere. you whine; “aghhh sion- pls- i can’t..” your breath is choking, you whimper as your chest is feeling heavier with every passing moment. your body is on fire, your legs shaking while he is still holding you down with his arms, one of your hands desperately reach for one of the pillows next to you, clenching the fabric as you start trembling, “sion- please” your mind is so high on the feeling. he groans, he feels your legs fighting to stay down. “fuck- don’t stop,” your stomach twists as sion pulls your body almost impossible more down, his face deep into you. he licks and sucks, almost ruthless. “come for me,” he says, his voice so low it you feel it through your whole body; “wanna taste you baby” his fingers are back on your clit. motioning in a way it literally makes you see stars. he presses onto you, the feeling of his mouth and his fingers makes your toe curls and eyes roll back. you can’t control the sounds you make, half sobs - half moans as you uncontrollably breath out in whined. you can feel the tears form in your eyes, your whimpers turning into cries, and only the sound of his name leaving your mouth as your orgasm rushes through you. your breath is stuck in your throat. but he doesn’t stop, he lets you ride out your high, licks up every single part of you, your body goes numb, completely slumps into the couch. your chest still moving from your heavy breathing. only then does he lift his head back up, smirking with his lips completely glossy and wet.

he can’t help the ghosting smile on his face as he’s hovering over you. you’re staring up at him, eyes pleading and fucked out. he moves down so his lips are brushing over yours; “malways taste so good,” his lips are on yours, more sweet and tender this time, slowly moving with yours in an almost perfect rhythm. you can taste yourself on his lips, his body now leaning down on you completely, arms on both sides of you to prevent his weight pressing you down. one of your arms swing around his neck, pulling him almost impossibly closer, you can still feel the high and rush from before. not aware that you’re still holding onto the pillow. his hand finds yours, intertwining your fingers. it’s only then you’re reminded that he’s still fully clothed when he grinds down onto you. again and again until his hips are almost moving on impulse. he’s pressing himself into you harder and harder, moans ruffled in the kiss by the feeling of the fabric on your bare, still sensitive, clit. you can feel the outline of his thickness through his sweatpants, you meet his hips midway, rolling your hips against his. it’s almost shameless, the way you’re grinding against him as if he didn’t make you cum a few minutes ago, but you can’t help it. sion presses himself down on you completely, his growing bulge pressing right against your heat. stopping your movements at the same time, his head drops to your shoulder, panting for breath; “fuck baby- i swear i’m trying to stretch this as long as i can” your hand goes to his hair, scratching his head with your nails, breathing into his ear; “don’t,” you can feel his dick twitch in his pants. he doesn’t let it linger for long, before you know it his pants and boxers are off, thrown into the room, somewhere with yours. his hard on upright, tip wet from the pre-juice. your core is throbbing just by the sight of his size. you bite your lip, mesmerised with the thickness, a soft chuckle coming from your bf; “ya.. my eyes are up here” you glare up to him, rolling your eyes at the amused look on his face. his hands go to the hem of his sweatshirt when you stop him; “just leave it on,” too eager and needy to even bother taking off more clothes than necessary. sion laughs, taking his dick in his hands, pumping it a few times as he steadies himself in between your legs again.

your hand comes up to take his length in your hand, pushing away his own, you stroke him up and down, fingers circling on his tip, spreading his pre-cum around his dick. your eyes look up to him, pleading, batting your eyelashes as you stick out your tongue, your free hand pulling his lower body more towards you by his legs. you slide down the couch a little more making him hover over you more so he has to kneel on one knee. he groans loudy, understanding your intentions, his honey eyes looking down on you as you pull his lower body closer and closer to your face. sion sighs loudly as he feels your kitten licks against his tip. you lick again, and again; “fuck don’t tease baby” you smile and with that, you come up to wrap your whole mouth around his member. sucking in your cheeks as you bob your head up and down. he leans forward, both hands steadying himself on the backrest of the couch. he looks down at you, the sight of him disappearing in your mouth has his dick twitching. you moan against him, the vibration rushing through his whole body. “fuckkkk-“ he hissed, he’s fighting demons to stay still, letting you do your thing and making him feel good. your mouth moving faster, you hum against him, saliva running down his dick. you let your head fall back a little bit, leaning against the couch, as you pull him with you in the same motion. sion repositions a little bit so most of his weight is on his leg that’s up. your hand comes up to stroke the rest of his length that you don’t have in your mouth. taking your time to make sure every inch of his member is ‘used’. he loves the way you feel around him, nothing can ever top the feeling of your mouth on his dick. he can only sigh deeply as he’s trying to fully concentrate on you. you suck him off in a way his head feels light, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, biting his lip, trying to suppress the moans from coming out. he can feel himself hit the back of your throat, your small hands working wonders on the base of his length while you take him as far as you can, from this angle at least.

a loud whimper coming from you when your bf suddenly thrusts into your mouth, his hands gripping the couch as he rolls his lower body into your face. you moan loudly, you let your hands drop to your sides, one grabbing his calves to steady yourself a bit. you can feel him hitting the back of your throat, hard. you hallow your cheeks a little more, creating more tension. you can only mirror the sounds coming from him. his eyes are fluttered shut, trying not to fuck himself into you too hard, but you make him lose his mind completely. totally immersed in the moment itself, he keeps rolling his hips down, the muffled sounds of your breathing and moans steadying his pace.

he pulls back and with a little plop your mouth gets detached from his length. you open your eyes by the sudden emptiness, sion sits back down again, on both knees as his hands come up to lift your legs. he squeezes your thighs as he puts them up to each side of his face. he positions himself in between, with his extremely hard on right at your heat, he strokes the tip over your core, a moan coming from both of you. he inhales deeply; “i can’t promise i can hold out long” a breathy giggle leaving his mouth. you rolled your eyes at your bf; “just fuck me sion” he chuckles- “your wish is my command” and with that, he pushes his tip in, leaning down, pressing your own legs against your body, feet touching the backrest of the couch, pushing himself in completely, stretching you out as you both moan at the feeling. when he’s completely inside, his hand grip the backrest, not giving you any time to adjust to the feeling as he buttoms out and thrusts back into your lower body. he’s quick to set a pace, fucking into you and quickly the whole room fills up with the sound of skin slapping against each other paired with the whiny sounds of moans. his hips snap against yours as he stretches you out with every thrust. he looks down at where his dick disappears in you, he groans as he places the other hand that was holding onto your leg on the couch as well. now snapping his hips in a new angle.

he moans loudly, biting his lip as he slows down his pace a little; “fuck baby, you feel so good” he grunts as he bottoms himself out, slightly pushing himself back in, but just the tip. “don’t tease,” you whined as you almost desperately tried to push him back in by his legs; “please-“ he snickered softly, pulling out, brushing his tip against your clit, rubbing you with his length a couple times before he thrusts back in, so deep your eyes roll back in an instant. he’s stretching you out so hard you cry out his name. he groans, letting go of your legs and places them around his middle, you pull him down, your arms around his neck to feel him closer. his head in the crook of your neck; his moans muffled against your skin as he rolls his hips. a steady pace, as you let him fuck you. you’re both a mess, fully immersed in the moment; body’s tangled in each other’s, moving together in an almost perfect motion.

you’re so caught up in each other’s you didn’t even notice the end credits started playing on the screen, or the fact you didn’t even close the blinds.. or the sound of the door getting unlocked. “hyung!” riku called; “sionnie-hyung, saku and ryo fell asleep so they.. WOW WAH WOAH!!!” both yours and sion’s head snapped out of your own little love bubble as he shot up from his position on top of you. both boys’ eyes widened as they stared at each other, riku completely frozen in the doorway while your bf had a panicked expression on his face, mirroring your own. “oh- i.. hyung- i-“ riku stuttered. “just give us a minute please,” sion says, laughing in embarrassment. still half in shock but he can’t help but giggle mostly out of an attempt to calm himself down. “no, yes, ofc, as many minutes as you need actually” riku says; “i- uh- i just came to tell you that the youngsters are sleeping over at our place” he smiled awkwardly, nodding his head in your direction as a small; ‘hi’. you smiled back, slowly feeling the rush of adrenaline coming down as you realise what is actually happening. “okay yeah great, thanks. you- uh- you can go now” your bf says as he brushes his hand through his hair. riku, clearly lulled out of his shocked state, slightly smirked at the sight infront of him as he backs out through the door.

a yelp coming from sion, like one you never heard before. (video; pls he’s so cute) you cover your face in your hands as you throw you head on the couch; “oh my god-“ you laughed, you hit his shoulder as he looks at you, not being able to hold back his laugh anymore. his hands brush through his hair again, a failed attempt to fix the messy look. “remind me to never have sex in your dorm again” you sighed as you palmed your face. “nooo but no one’s even here!” sion protested, laughing even more now. “no one?!!! was riku a hallucination just now?” you smacked his arm again, whining. he laughs when the sound of a new message on his phone pops up, he grabs his phone, still giggling because of the whole situation.

ʀɪᴋᴜ; 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘺𝘶𝘯𝘨? 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩? 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 :)

he only laughed, showing you the screen with riku’s chat. “that was not funny omg,” you breathed; “what if it was actually on of the youngsters coming home!” you looked at your bf in utter disbelief; “but it wasn’t, it was just riku” he laughed at you, typing what you believe is a reply to said boy. “if i wanted an audience i would have asked for one, just riku is just one riku too many” you let out a little laugh, unsure how you were going to face riku again tomorrow. “oh cmon, do you think riku is the holy virgin mary?? the amount of times i’ve heard him and his gf going at it, trust me they need to write a whole new book series called fifty shades of riku for all i know” you laughed, a genuine laugh this time. a deep sigh you didn’t even know you were holding in escaping from your lips. your bf leaned down to you, kissing your head; “mmh are we going to finish what we started tho?” - “oh sion!!” you pushed him away, your bf laughing amused; “i have a lock on my door!” you click your tongue; “you’re actually uncontrollable, yk that?” he nods his head, his eyes fully focused on you now; “mhmh but only for you”

[kjiscrawlingbackformore]

Peace - Act III : Chapter eight

Lottie Matthews x fem!reader

Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Summary: Reader comes back to her hometown and transfers to Wiskayok High School after getting expelled from her previous high school. Follows Junior year into Senior year, all the way up to the crash. (Eventual NSFW mdni)

Warnings: None

Mr. Weaver’s office was still a mess.

Same cracked lava lamp. Same eternal stack of papers leaning like a dying tree. A new addition: a coffee mug that read “I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right.”

You dropped into the chair across from his desk, backpack slumped at your feet. “This place is a fire hazard. Pretty sure OSHA would pass out walking in here.”

Mr. Weaver didn’t look up. “Made it to senior year, and WOW. Still not expelled. I’m proud of you.”

“Give me a week.”

He cracked a grin, then rifled through a manila folder until he found what he was looking for. “I have something for you.”

“If it’s a pamphlet on anger management, I already went. Twice.”

“No,” he said, sliding a sheet of paper across the desk. “It’s a letter. From Emerson College.”

You blinked, mind blanking on the random name. “What’s Emerson?”

“Only one of the best journalism programs in the country. But sure, shrug it off.”

You picked up the paper, eyes scanning quickly, her name printed in serif type near the top. It wasn’t junk mail. It was real. You felt a wave of suspicion flood you. What the fuck is this? Why do they know you? Also what the fuck is this?

“What is this?” You asked, cautiously.

Mr. Weaver leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head like a man extremely pleased with himself. “Remember that piece you wrote for the school paper? About the Yellowjackets’ win and how it brought the school together?”

You narrowed your eyes, already not liking where he was going with this. “What did you do?”

“I submitted it.”

You stared, eyebrows scrunching in confusion. “To who?”

“To a national student journalism contest. Sponsored by Emerson. They wanted samples tied to community impact and editorial voice.” He smiled. “And your piece had both.”

“You sent my stuff without asking?”

He shrugged. “If I’d asked, you’d have said no.”

You opened your mouth, and then after a beat closed it. “I-still-what?”

“They loved it,” he said, his tone softening. “Like, not ‘cute high school paper’ loved it. They flagged your writing and your photo layout. Said it had a real voice. Something raw. You got shortlisted for a merit scholarship. Full ride if you make it to the finalist round.”

You blinked. And after a beat of silence, and a staring contest. Your face saying ‘be fucking serious.’ and his saying ‘I am fucking serious.’. You scoffed. “You’re lying.”

“I’m many things. A liar? Not when it comes to good news.”

You stared at the paper again, something warm and flickering pressing behind her ribs. “I never even thought about college. Not seriously. Also, NEVER this kind.”

“Well,” Mr. Weaver said, “start.”

You shook your head. Your mind racing. You don’t have the funds, or the support to do this. How the hell do you start? “I don’t know what I’m doing. I barely got here to this school in one piece. No one in my family’s gone to college. I-respectfully this feels fucking fake.”

Mr. Weaver leaned forward now, elbows on the desk. His sarcasm slipped for once, voice level and sure. “Y/N, you’ve lived through more before seventeen than most people do in fifty. You survived things that would’ve knocked other kids flat. You didn’t just float-you created. You documented the world around you when it was trying to swallow you whole.”

You looked down, throat tightening.

“That’s what great journalists do,” he continued. “You’ve got the eye. The gut. The grit. You think you don’t belong in those spaces, but maybe those spaces have been waiting for someone exactly like you.”

Your voice was barely above a whisper. “What if I can’t keep it up?”

“Then you fail forward. You fall, get up, and write about it. But I’d bet on you, Y/N. Every time.”

You swallowed hard. Your heart clenching at the softness in his voice. He sounded so sure. So convinced. “You really think I could…do this?”

“I don’t just think it,” he said, offering a small smile, “I already submitted the application.”

You gaped, eyes wide in shock. “WHAT?”

“I said I’d treat you like a grown-up, didn’t I? Well, here’s adulthood, kid: sometimes people believe in you before you believe in yourself. And that’s not cheating. That’s just the luck of finally getting the right people in your corner.”

For the first time, you didn’t deflect. You didn’t joke. You just nodded, eyes glassy but grateful.

“Thanks, Weaver.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, already shuffling through a new stack. “Wait until you see how much essay editing I’m about to make you do. You’ve got potential, Y/L/N. But potential is just unused muscle. Time to work.”

You chuckled, and it made way for a smile. A smile goofier than you would've wanted to smile. You stood, letter still in your hand. As you walked out, you felt something flicker in your chest. Hope. And maybe, for the first time in a long time, a glimpse of a future that belonged to no one else but you.

[gigilovesmovies]

Pink!

Pairing: Joost Klein x reader

Summary:Joost helps you dye your hair

An:I’ve been thinking about dying my hair pink for so much time but i’m so scared to fry it,also sorry for the grammatical errors there are so many in this one(my first language isn’t English)

Also can you send me requests please 🙏🏼

….

You’ve been feeling a little weird about yourself lately,not insecure just weird and specifically bored about yourself,the same face,features,hair looking back at you from the mirror,it’s not that you didn’t like how you looked,you just grew bored of your usual look.

You’ve been feeling a little weird about yourself lately,not insecure just weird and specifically bored about yourself,the same face,features,hair looking back at you from the mirror,it’s not that you didn’t like how you looked,you just grew bored of your usual look.

You needed to add something about yourself,customise your character.

The easiest way to achieve that was to dye your hair,and seeing Joost dying his hair blue only made the want intensify.

So one morning while explaining your boredom about yourself to Joost he decides to helps you like the good boyfriend he is.

“Come on get up let’s go sweetie,we’re going shopping”he says excitedly,getting up from the kitchen chair and stretching.

We arrived at the shop,we were inspecting the hair dye aisle,examining every little bottle of dye and the several choice of colours.

“What colour should I take” You ask joost not looking up from the container full of green hair dye

“What about blue” he says cockily”We could match”he continues handing you a blue hair dye

“Nuh-uh blue is your color Joosti”You answer him smiling,continuing your little investigation.

Then suddenly he gasps and jump excitedly”Pink!let’s dye your hair pink,it would go perfect with your hair”he rambles playing with a rebel strand of your hair

“Yes!pink highlights,pink highlights would look sweet”You answer back as excited as him so much that it made some people turn their head at you and frown

After debating on which shade of pink you should take and if you needed bleach you finally paid and went back home.You gathered all you needed as Joost started to wear his gloves and preparing the bleach.

Joost parted your hair and put them in little buns,so he would be able to bleach and dye comfortably without rebel strands of hair falling on his work.He continued the process calmly and carefully the music on the background creating a calm environment .

“You know I never dyed my hair” you declare looking at joost trough the mirror as if it was the most shameful thing in the world.

“Really? Not even when you were a teenager” he asks locking his eyes on yours through the mirror and smiling.

“Yeah my mom never let it me dye it,she was too scared it would fall out or whatever”you answer,smiling as you remembered all the time your mom scolded you for wanting to dye your hair.

“Well now it’s happening”he says leaning down to peck your cheek,he pulls out with an exaggerated “mwah” sound that made you giggle.

“Ewww you left spit”you say jokingly,wiping the little amount of spit he left.

“You wanna see real spit”he jokes as he wrap his palm on one of you cheek and lick your other cheek,making you wince in disgust, you couldn’t help but laugh,getting on your tip toes to lick him as well.

Loads of kisses and playful teasing later,the alarm rang,it was time to rinse.He sat you on your knees in front of the bathtub and gently dipped your hair and stared rinsing massaging my scalp,when he finished he wrapped my hair in a towel drying it carefully not to hurt you or pull your hair.

“Okay what do we think” he asks you,both standing in front of the mirror.You took a moment to admire his hard work,pink highlights,dyed perfectly all around your hair,just enough to add something new to yourself but not completely change it.

“It’s perfect”You say smiling and touching your hair,you turn to face him”Thank you baby,you’re the best boyfriend ever”I lean to press a kiss on his lips as his hands found your waist pulling you closer to him as he deepened the kiss.

“And you’re the best girlfriend”he answers,kissing you back smiling into the kiss.

Now everytime you looked at the mirror you felt good about yourself.Plus now you and Joost have a new activity to do from time to time,refreshing your pink.

[johnwickluva]

Heatwave

Smutty John Wick x Reader

Summary: A heatwave hits and your AC breaks but damn does your boyfriend look good sweaty and half naked.

Word count: 2.2k

Warnings: smut 18+ only and not really a trigger warning but like please be super super fucking careful if you ever choose to have shower sex.

A/N: it’s hot as fuck I’m dying 😩

The heat was too much. You laid on the couch in just a sports bra and boxers, literally feeling yourself sticking to the fabric of the sofa. Music played through a speaker throughout the living room as you felt like you were melting. The AC unit in your home had broken and although you had the money to get it fixed it seemed as though everyone in the city’s AC broke as well.

When you called the repair people they said the earliest they could get to you would be in a couple of days. You hung up the phone feeling defeated. Then you and your boyfriend John went to multiple department stores looking for a fan. You figured that nobody was prepared for this heat wave as every store was sold out. With a defeated feeling you both made your way home.

Now you were laying on the couch dying, while John attempted to call some people. You wondered if you had enough ice in the fridge to make an ice bath in your bathroom when he walked in. Looking up from your spot you saw your boyfriend in just a pair of boxers walking into the living room to join you. He sighed while sitting down on the opposite side from you.

“I have a friend. He’s willing to do me a favor but it won’t be till tomorrow.” John spoke up, rubbing your ankle.

You groaned out but sat up. Taking a closer look at him, he had a slight sheen to him from sweat. He actually looked… really good but you weren’t sure you could actually have sex with him while your internal temperature already felt like one hundred degrees. Still your stare was enough to catch his attention.

John smirked and flexed his arms, knowing how much you liked it.

“Oh fuck you.” You almost whined out. “It’s too hot. I’m sorry I find you attractive.”

Your eyes rolled as he let out a beautiful laugh. Something about this heat though was driving you crazy. Like John looked irresistible to you. Suddenly you got an idea. You got onto your hands and knees and crawled along the couch towards him, like a predator getting ready to pounce on its prey. He didn’t break eye contact as he watched you.

When you got close to John you tilted your head and leaned forward, licking a bead of sweat that was collecting on his neck all the way up to his ear and then his cheek. He shuddered but stayed still. You placed a large smooch on his bearded cheek and nuzzled, feeling the hair beneath your lips. Sighing out you brought your lips to his ear.

“Why don’t you fuck me in the shower, Mr. Wick?” You practically purred out while bringing a hand down to palm his growing erection through the fabric of his boxers. “You always make my pussy feel so good.”

John practically growled and grabbed your wrist. You stopped yourself from laughing. It didn’t take much to get him going, you could’ve simply asked to have sex and he’d be on board, but you loved talking dirty to him and seeing how it drove him crazy.

“Watch what you say sweetheart.” He warned.

“Or what?” You played along.

John’s hand tightened around your wrist and he brought it up to his mouth. He kissed your palm before bringing your pointer finger to his mouth, biting it lightly. You squeezed your thighs together and let out an almost inaudible moan. Without thinking you pushed your finger deeper into his mouth causing him to gag slightly. He glared at you and removed your finger. Then he pulled you on top of him so he was looking up at you.

“John, it's way too hot!” You whined, feeling your hot skin stick to his.

“Payback for being cheeky.” He smiled.

You tried to push yourself off of him but melted into his touch as he began to burrow his face between your breasts, kissing the sweaty skin.

“You want me to make you feel good? I’ll make you feel good.” He murmured.

You fell back onto the couch as John stood up. He turned and offered his hand so you could stand up as well. You could feel the giddy feeling bouncing around your whole body, knowing what was coming. The two of you made your way into the bathroom where you turned the cold water on.

You turned to John and wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders, your sweaty skin still sticking together. Pulling him down you kissed him. His hands immediately went to your hips as your lips connected. You groaned at his taste and brought one of your hands to caress his face, loving the feeling of his beard beneath your palm.

Pulling back you smiled at him, giving him one more quick peck before taking your undergarments off and stepping into the shower. You couldn’t help but yelp and arch away from the water. It may have been hot out but the complete change in temperature shocked your body. John chuckled, took his boxers off and got in as well.

It took a couple tries but you eventually just went for it and stood directly under the stream of water, letting the cold water cool down your body. After a few minutes you let John cool down as well before standing closer to him. You looked him up and down and gave a whistle to show you liked what you saw. He couldn’t help it and rolled his eyes but still blushed a bit.

You brought your hands up and let your fingers travel all the way down John’s chest, caressing his stomach before grabbing his cock in your hand and jerking him off. He let out a grunt and grabbed the back of your head bringing you in for another kiss. This time it was very heated. Despite the cold water on your back you felt yourself begin to warm up. His tongue swiped at your bottom lip and you invited him in.

Your tongues rolled around one another as they explored. You moaned as you felt John’s own hand reach down and begin rubbing your clit. Both of you couldn’t keep your hands or lips off each other. He shifted the two of you without breaking the kiss so your back was against the shower wall. Your hand automatically went to grab the support bar the two of you had installed to hold yourself up as he grabbed one of your legs and lifted it up, hooking it around his hip.

At this angle it was more difficult to rub John’s cock but you continued anyway. He trailed his fingers from your clit to your opening and slipped a finger into your pussy. You threw your head back, breaking the kiss and cried out. He fingered you a couple times before bringing his fingers back to your clit, rubbing and repeating the process until he was able to easily fit two digits in.

John placed his forehead against yours and you both stared into each other’s eyes while touching one another. He towered over you making it so he was looking down at you while you looked up. You moaned his name as the familiar feeling of an orgasm started to grow within you. This continued on for a few moments before the thigh of the leg you were still standing on began to shake.

Grunts and groans were still leaving John’s lips as he finally removed his fingers from you and brought his arm to grab your ass and then lift you so both of your legs were wrapped around him and he was holding you. Never would you let anyone else do this. The act was so dangerous and usually not even worth the pain it could end in but you trusted him to not slip and drop you.

You bit your lip and brought your hand down to grab John’s cock and direct it inside of you. The second you got the angle right he thrusted forward, pushing deep into you. Your head went back and hit the wall a little harder than you meant to again and his head went right to your shoulder as he began a pace that had you crying out. The cold water wasn’t even registering as cold anymore as it cascaded down and onto both of your bodies.

One of your hands went to grab a fistful of his hair while the other hand went down to rub your own clit as he massaged your ass. You could hear him almost whimpering as he began to trail kisses all over your shoulder and neck, sucking occasionally to leave a deep and dark hickey.

“You feel so good.” John mumbled against your wet skin.

You bucked your hips slightly to meet his every time he thrusted forward. The tightening in your gut was growing stronger and his words turned you on even more.

“I love your big fucking cock, John.” You moaned out. “Especially when you’re so deep inside my pussy.”

Without stopping his hips he pulled back to look at you. The hunger in his eyes almost made you come right then and there.

“You have a mouth on you woman.” He got out through gritted teeth.

“Only for my strong, sexy man.”

John’s head dipped down and his mouth found your breasts as he licked and sucked on your nipples. His noises were starting to become full on moans as his hips started to move faster and harder. Your own hand increased in speed as you played with your clit exactly how you liked. You could tell he was close as his thrusts became more desperate and sloppy. He began to trail his tongue all the way from your nipple to your neck to your cheek where he left open mouthed kisses all over.

The hand you had in his hair came down to hook around John’s neck as you tried to bring his body closer to yours. Your breasts were pressed up against his chest and your bodies moved hastily together. The water continued to run and rain down on the both of you as your toes curled. He could tell you were about to orgasm based on your volume increasing and your pussy pulsing around him.

“You gonna come, baby?” He asked breathlessly.

“Fuck yes! Come in me, come with me!” You sobbed out.

John let out a strangled, long and low groan as he pulled your ass as close as he could to his pelvis, getting as deep as possible before spilling his seed. The sight and feeling helped you achieve yours as well. Your back arched off of the shower wall as you threw your other arm around his shoulder and hugged him close, digging your nails into his back. It was a full body orgasm as you felt the pleasure from your head to your toes.

You whined against John as his hips still bucked occasionally. Leaning up you claimed his lips with another kiss once more. The two of you softly moaning into each other's mouths as your body’s came down from the high of your orgasms. All that could be heard was the shower running and soft noises of pleasure as you locked lips. You pulled back but not without biting his bottom lip.

“You’re fucking fantastic.” You said while looking deep into his eyes. “I love you.”

At this John chuckled.

“I love you too.”

He helped you step down and stand as you were a little wobbly on your legs. Since you were already in the shower you decided to clean up.

The two of you took your time washing each other's hair and bodies while whispering words of love to one another. Even though the water was starting to get too cold you wished you could stay in just a little longer because you wanted to be close to him but you knew the moment you stepped out of the shower it wouldn’t be long for the heat to take effect once more. Finally finishing washing you both stepped out of the shower, dried off and redressed.

The minute you opened the bathroom door you were met by a wall of humid air. You groaned out, displeased and turned to look at John.

“I can’t survive in this heat.” You complained. “I wanna have sex again but in a comfy bed.”

He smiled at you and shook his head while laughing.

“Not too tired?”

You smirked at him.

“Definitely not. That was just a starter but oh well. Too hot for anything else, I guess.” Your tone was hinting at something.

Whatever it was, left John confused for a few moments before he realized what you were saying.

“Want me to book a hotel room?” He asked.

You nodded your head excitedly, swaying your hips as you walked up to him. Your hands came up to rub his biceps and smooth chest while you bit your lip.

“That way we can fuck nasty all day and night and not die of heatstroke. I wanna be able to barely walk when we’re done.” You winked at him.

This time John was the one who smirked. He grabbed your ass and gave you a deep kiss before breaking away and going to find his phone but not before calling out,

“That mouth of yours is gonna get you in trouble someday!”

You just laughed and simply called back,

“Oh I know. I’m hoping it does.”

[bobskysworld]

Can you write a Jobe fic or like jobe headcanons

I miss you- Jobe Bellingham

pairing: jobe bellingham x fem!reader

warnings: tiny bit of angst

summary: if BvB was Jobe’s dream… why was he feeling so empty?

note: 🧍🏾‍♀️confession, i’m not so invested in the Bellingham brothers, so i hope i did Jobe some justice here

“yeah yeah i’ll join you guys later” Jobe told his teammates

walking into his empty hotel room, Jobe threw his training bag on the floor and fell on the bed with a sigh, Dortmund had proceeded the the round of 16s of the Club World Cup, spirits were high and the entire team was ready to celebrate.

so why did Jobe feel so empty

he was proud of his achievements so far, happy that the team was able to get this far yet he couldn’t bring himself to celebrate.

in reality Jobe would much rather be with you, back in Sunderland you’d attend matches, congratulate him with a kiss followed by a night of relaxation and pampering curtsy of you. when you couldn’t attend, you’d still be home ready to welcome and congratulate him.

now? the only thing that embraced him were the cold starchy sheets of the hotel bed.

the ring of his phone pulled Jobe out of his thoughts, he fished in his pocket and pulled it out, your name flashing across the screen with a picture of you smiling at him that he’d taken mid tickle fight back home serving as the background

“hi handsome!” you beamed on the other side “thought you’d be celebrating with the team”

“i’d rather be celebrating with you” Jobe answered honestly

“do the dortmund players know their newbie is a simp?” you joked, your laugh quickly dying when Jobe didn’t poke fun back

“hey now” you say softly “what’s wrong?”

Jobe sighed “do you think i made the right decision?”

“in terms of?..” you ask

“signing with Dortmund” Jobe replied “it’s just…”

he sat up “this distance we have now, it’s nothing compared to what we’ll have when we get back to Germany, plus the time zones and the critiques, God the critiques, everyone thinks i’m trying to be like Jude, that i joined Dortmund to be like him, i might as well have stayed at Sutherland or better yet joined Real Madrid-

“hey hey” you softly interrupted Jobe who was now breathing heavily, eyes glistening with tears waiting to fall

“breathe” you say to him “remember when we first announced our relationship?”

“yeah” Jobe said shakily

“and i was hyper fixating on the comments, the comparisons and the criticism about why would you date someone as dull as me” you call “what did you say to me?”

“the opinions of the bastards who wouldn’t be able to repeat what they’re typing to your face shouldn’t matter…”

“they’re just cowards with internet access” you finish off “think about that when you see those trolls, they don’t know you, they don’t know Jude, how the hell would they know if you’re alike or different?”

“you’re Jobe Bellingham okay!” you yell out

“i’m Jobe Bellingham” Jobe repeated

“and the distance thing…. i wanted to keep this a secret, surprise you before the preseason training but, i applied to and got accepted to Technical University of Munich” you smiled

“wait what?” Jobe asked with wide eyes

“yup!” you squealed “just stay in Germany until i complete my degree please”

“oh my God baby” Jobe laughed “you have no idea how happy you have just made me”

“even happier than progressing to the round of the 16s?” you tease

“know your limits now” Jobe jokes back “i don’t know what i would do without you”

“i guess you will never have to find out handsome”

before Jobe could get a word in his door burst open, the loud noise of the BvB players rushing in

“Bellingham, you’re not dressed?”

“we’re leaving in 10!”

“oh my God he’s talking to the missus”

“is that your girl?”

“HELLO MRS BELLINGHAM”

“get dressed oh my God!”

Jobe simply launched a pillow at his teammates before giving you an apologetic look and hanging up. giggling at your phone you typed out a quick goodnight message and warned him not to drink too much

As chaotic as this life was, with Jobe you wouldn’t have it any different.

[sparkaid]

Aid backed off a bit but continued to pry, a bit cautious as he held up a servo. “Ah- well- I was just…concerned.” He let his voice trail off, making himself smaller.

“Actually, I wanted an in to ask how you are,” he swallowed his nerves, “eh- medically? You don’t look all that great.”

With all the cannibalism, there’s no way things were great. It was a concerned medic’s duty to inquire from time to time.

For Sunder; How do you brush your dentae?? You have so many- I’m concerned.

" Why are you concerned about my dentae or my oral hygiene for that matter? You should be more concerned about if I attack you. If I decide to devour you, torture you. Not my dentae."

" You're a medic, use your imagination." well he may not tell them how he tends to his dentae but at least they're well taken care of...he needs them after all.

[thatone-churro]

y’know just as soon as i start getting comfortable with the idea of being open/relying on my dad and him being more comfortable with my choices than i feared, i can essentially throw all that out the window with how vehemently he yelled at me at the thought of my getting my septum pierced (even though i never said i was yet. i said my side before i decide anything else). also making underhanded remarks of me never getting tattoos other than the one for my mom. like okay don’t ask me why i don’t tell you about anything or talk to you or anything. what the fuck.

[seungisms]

perv!roommate!felix who absolutely loves living with you, he couldn’t ask for a better roommate. but sometimes you just make it so hard for him and his poor cock, especially when you’re prancing around in pretty little skirts and tiny tops that just seem to get smaller and smaller everyday

perv!roommate!felix who starts to think you almost do it on purpose, just to see him squirm and trip over his words when you catch him staring at your ass - blood rushing to his dick at the mere idea of you wanting his eyes on you

perv!roommate!felix who swears up and down he’s nothing but a gentleman, he just wants you to feel comfortable around him. but he often times finds himself laying alone in his room at night, briefs tangled around his ankles and dick so swollen and needy and begging for something other than his hand, imagining it was your cunt he was dribbling into instead of his hand - wanting nothing more than to bend you over and make you apologise on his cock for being such a goddamn tease. he’ll hardly be able to meet your eyes the next morning

perv!roommate!felix who has to excuse himself every morning when you walk around in your pathetic excuse of a towel, having the nerve to actually bend down right in front him, and he almost loses all self-control the second he steals a glance at your glistening pussy, looking so empty and sad without a cock spreading it open. and he can do nothing but get himself off yet again, too passive to actually call you out on your behaviour and he swears his dick is gonna fall off if he keeps relying on his hand, just praying he gets at least one taste of your sweet cunt in this lifetime

perv!roommate!felix who innocently offers to do your laundry for you every week, feeling his cock twitch in excitement when you happily hand your basket over, barely noticing your underwear drawer getting smaller and smaller as the weeks go by

perv!roommate!felix who feels so much shame when he sees the panties he’s collected peaking out from under his pillow, knowing he should just give them back to you already but they’re all so sticky and used with his cum - he couldn’t possibly stand the thought of you knowing how depraved he actually is

perv!roommate!felix who despite all his best efforts has an obsession with stealing your underwear and using them to get himself off, fisting them around his cock and imagining it was your pretty pussy he was fucking up into instead, or shoving them into his mouth to muffle the slutty groans he lets out while humping his pillow, a mess of drool and spit and cum staining the cute pink fabric

perv!roommate!felix who can’t stand the thought of your ever bringing someone home, so he’ll claim he’s just too uncomfortable with a stranger being in his apartment - but really he just hates the idea of someone else spreading you open on their cock, knowing he could fuck you so much better if you would just give him one chance

perv!roommate!felix who likes picking fights with you when you make a mess in the apartment, wanting nothing more than to fuck away the cute pout sitting on your lips when he scolds you

perv!roommate!felix who thinks you’re so pretty if it weren’t for your mouth, almost begging him to force his cock down your throat and shut you up once and for all

perv!roommate!felix who can’t find it in himself to be mad at you for long, especially not when he stumbles past your room later that night - he didn’t mean to look!! he swears!! but he’s never heard his name whined to prettily, and he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the sloppy way you fuck your fingers into your pussy, itching to be filled with something bigger and heavier

perv!roommate!felix who hates himself for it but he just has to pull out his phone and snap a few photos in this state, all drooling and sweaty and fucked out for him

perv!roommate!felix who hardly ever invites the rest of the boys over, wanting to keep you all to himself - he especially hates watching you flirt with hyunjin all night, dying to fuck the bratty attitude out of you for even daring to think of anyone other than him

perv!roommate!felix who has to settle for fisting your used panties around his dick yet again, so desperately wishing it was your cute cunt he was rubbing against instead of the stupid frilly underwear you love so much

perv!roommate!felix who sometimes sneaks into your room when you’ve left for the day, curling into your sheets and using the lingering scent of your shampoo to coax himself to orgasm - eyes shifting away when you question him about the weird wet patch left behind on your sheets when you come home

perv!roommate!felix who finds himself ‘accidentally’  walking in on you in the shower more times than he can count, tumbling out half-assed apologies but he always seems to take a tad too long to actually leave

perv!roommate!felix who tries his best to act like he wasn’t dying to fuck you, but he could feel himself cave in with each passing day, especially with the fuck me eyes you follow him around with that he was so sure he was making up in his head - until finally he gives in and finds himself slipping into your bed one night when the swell of his dick is just too hard to ignore - pressing his hot cock against your clothed cunt and whimpering out when he feels your wetness build up against the fabric of your underwear, begging him to dip in just once and he just hopes and prays you won’t wake up to find him rutting against you like pervert

perv!roommate!felix who can only think with his dick and can’t help himself from desperately humping against you, the feeling of your warmth flooding his cock and his fingers are slipping down to nudge your panties to the side before he can even stop himself, swollen dick bumping against your pussy and he’s so far gone he wouldn’t be able to stop even if he wanted to

perv!roommate!felix who gets too carried away, he knows he should stop now before you wake up and find your sweet roommate playing with your pussy, but you're whimpering in your sleep and bucking down to meet his shallow thrusts, just an inch he tells himself and he’ll leave you alone

perv!roommate!felix who can’t stop at just an inch, he’s just too greedy - before he knows it he’s stuffed you full and you're all he can think, see or taste. and he doesn't know you've been awake this whole time, legs spread and waiting for him to make his move. and you're parting your lips to mock him for being so pathetic that he'd have to crawl into your bed at night but before you can he’s hammering into you like a man starved, embarrassed sobs of please, i’m so sorry, just need t’ cum falling from his lips as he chases his high - drunk on the feel of your plush walls swallowing him up

perv!roommate!felix who gets one taste of you and can’t seem to get enough

[sunshinesfreckless]

His Spoiled Kitten

───୨ৎ────────୨ৎ───────୨ৎ───

Pairing: Idol!Lee Know x fem!reader

Summary: Leeknow loves showing his Favourite Girl who she belongs to.

Warnings: Luxury ownership. Designer collars. ehehehe minho being sexy

A/N: Leeknow arrived to the spoiled series… Han and Changbin are next, don‘t worry my kittens <3

୨ৎ Felix ୨ৎ Hyunjin ୨ৎ Bangchan ୨ৎ Jeongin ୨ৎ Seungmin ୨ৎ Changbin ୨ৎ Han

───୨ৎ────────୨ৎ───────୨ৎ───

Minho didn’t do flashy.

He didn’t need to. He did exclusive.

Her Gucci collection didn’t come from store shelves.

It came from private appointments, whispered calls, and sketches sent to his inbox for approval. Each one designed with her in mind.

A velvet handbag dyed to match the flush on her cheeks when she came for him.

A pair of gold heels engraved with his initials under the sole, so she’d always have him beneath her.

A perfume created by the Gucci lab with notes of peach nectar and white musk — he named it “Mine.”

“I want her to smell like she belongs to me,” he’d told them. “And something sweet. She is sweet.”

He never let her see the invoices.

She didn’t need to.

He’d slide rings onto her fingers mid-conversation, like it was nothing.

Fold jackets over her shoulders in rooms that weren’t cold, just to see her wear his name.

And when Gucci sent over a mini-dress designed for events — deep green silk, bare-backed, dripping with subtle crystals — he only had one response:

“She’ll wear it at home. No one else gets to see her in that.”

And she did.

In their bedroom.

With nothing underneath but a thong he bought to match.

────୨ৎ────

He once got her a travel bag.

Cream leather, soft as sin. Her initials embossed in rose gold on the side.

She laughed. “I don’t travel enough to need this.”

“You will,” he said, zipping it open. “Check the inside.”

She did.

It was packed.

With envelopes.

Each one labeled in his neat, sharp handwriting:

• Paris – for the kiss on the Seine.

• Tokyo – for the night we stay in.

• Milan – for the Gucci headquarters. I want them to see how perfect you are in person.

He’d planned it all. First class, black cars, suites with balconies — and a new outfit for each destination, custom-tailored to her measurements.

“Minho,” she whispered, teary-eyed.

He only smiled, pulling her into his lap. “Told you. You don’t lift a finger unless it’s to touch me.”

And she did.

────୨ৎ────

He swore he just came for a wallet.

Simple. Clean. Black leather, nothing flashy — just something to replace the worn one he’d been using for three years.

But the second she sighed, it was over.

Minho followed her gaze without a word.

The bag was a soft cream Gucci Jackie — butter leather and gold hardware. She didn’t even say anything, just looked once and turned away like it was nothing.

Like she didn’t know he noticed.

He tapped the glass counter lazily. “We’ll take the bag too.”

The cashier brightened. “Anything else? It comes in a set with three—”

“Yes,” he cut in. Didn’t even let her finish.

His Girl turned, eyes wide. “Wait—”

“Choose the other bags,” he said simply, leaning back on the counter. “Whatever you want, kitten.”

The cashier smiled. “Follow me, Miss.”

This wasn’t the first time. Not with Minho.

Her collection was ridiculous by now, a full spectrum of spoiling.

Minho never blinked. Never asked twice.

He just gave.

Like the day he came home with a little velvet box and pulled out a diamond collar.

Not a choker. Not jewelry.

A collar — dainty but unmistakable. With his name engraved in cursive at the center, studded with tiny black diamonds.

“Come here,” he’d said that night, low and calm, snapping it around her throat.

“Now everyone knows who my kitten is, right?”

He’d tilted her chin up, kissed her mouth softly.

And then ruined her on the floor like she was made to be taken with his name glittering at her neck.

God, he loved how it looked when she went down on him like that.

Diamond collar catching the light. Tears sparkling on her cheeks. His hand fisted in her hair while she gagged so sweetly around him.

“Mine,” he’d growled, hips thrusting deeper, “look how fucking pretty my girl is like this.”

Minho didn’t just spoil. He claimed.

────୨ৎ────

He cooked for her like it was sacred.

Wouldn’t let her near a single knife or pan. Just sat her on the counter, fed her from the spoon, kissed her when she whined.

“Let me help—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No, kitten. Sit there and look pretty.”

He’d press kisses to her knee. Sometimes he’d undo the straps of her dress and fuck her right there against the fridge before the water even boiled. He liked to see her tits bounce.

She was soft. Sweet. So good for him.

And he?

He was everything. Rich, controlled, a little dangerous — but hers.

────୨ৎ────

It wasn’t supposed to be used like this.

The scarf had been a gift — crimson silk, embroidered with tiny cats and cherries, a nod to her two favorite things. He’d tied it gently around her neck when he first gave it to her, pressing a kiss just beneath the knot.

But now, it was wet with spit and stuffed between her lips.

“Shhh, baby,” Minho cooed, thumbing away a tear from the corner of her eye. “You’re being so good for me, aren’t you?”

She whimpered, breath catching as he thrust deeper — slow, thick strokes that made her toes curl.

He was behind her, one hand fisted in her hair, the other resting on the small of her back, keeping her arched just the way he liked.

The scarf fluttered with every moan she choked on. Her Gucci gift — now her gag — pressed into her tongue like another brand of ownership.

And he loved it.

Loved seeing her spoiled and ruined, all at once.

A trembling doll made just for him.

“I should buy you another,” he murmured, voice low and amused. “One for every time I make you cry on my cock.”

He pulled back slightly, admiring the string of saliva that connected them to the scarf.

“Maybe one for every orgasm too. Hm?”

She could only sob in response, her walls fluttering around him like she was already saying yes.

────୨ৎ────

Minho had one room in their house locked.

She wasn’t supposed to go in.

But she peeked anyway, one day when he was gone for schedules.

What she found was a vault.

Dozens of boxes. Wrapped. Labeled.

Gucci. Cartier. Loewe. Rare editions. Archived pieces.

All neatly stacked, waiting for the right moment.

Shoes she hadn’t worn yet.

Dresses he never let her even see.

She was still standing there, stunned, when he walked in.

Caught red-handed.

“Tch,” he clicked his tongue. “Curious kitten.”

Before she could apologize, he was already lifting her.

He sat her down — right on top of the stacked boxes. Velvet, silk, leather beneath her thighs.

She gasped.

“Since you’re up here,” he said, pushing her skirt up with slow fingers, “might as well give you a reason to come back.”

Her back hit the wall of the closet. He slid in without warning, one hand around her throat, his other gripping her thigh.

“Every one of these gifts,” he grunted against her ear, “is yours. But I’m your favorite, right?”

She nodded desperately, gasping against his mouth.

“Say it.”

“You,” she whimpered. “You’re my favorite gift.”

He smiled.

And made her scream that line three more times.

────୨ৎ────

But oh — she was in love with him. Not just the diamonds or the handbags or the silken scarf still damp with the memory of him.

No, she loved the way he looked at her when she was curled up on the couch in his hoodie, hair a mess, a cat asleep on each thigh.

She loved how he melted when she fed his babies before he even got the chance — Soonie, Doongie, and Dori happily flocking to her, as if she’d always belonged.

And he did too.

Some nights, he came home exhausted. His limbs heavy from hours of practice, his voice hoarse, his energy drained. But then he opened the door — and there she was.

His girl. His home.

Bundled up in the blanket he always said was too warm, half-asleep, a drama playing on low volume, and the cats purring beside her like guardians.

Her eyes lit up when she saw him.

“You’re back,” she whispered.

And he’d kneel at her feet, bury his face in her stomach, arms wrapped around her waist like a man starved.

“You stayed up?”

“Always.”

Because no matter how much he spoiled her — she was the one who gave him peace. Who gave him softness. Who never let him go to bed without a kiss, or leave the house without a snack.

He pressed his lips to hers, slow and sleepy.

“You’re the best thing I’ve ever bought,” he teased, and she smacked his arm.

“I’m not for sale.”

“Exactly,” he murmured. “You’re priceless.”

And she was.

The one thing he couldn’t put in a shopping bag.

Only in his heart.