#tech exceptionalism

[the-crooked-library]

y'know i gotta appreciate the David Suchet adaptation of Poirot for its accidental subversion of the autistic detective trope

like yes Poirot has rather obvious OCD and a few eccentricities as a side effect of being clearly gay and European, but whenever he needs to distract someone he just sends in Hastings like "ok go infodump to them about uhhhh cars" and Hastings goes and does it. before you know it there's been three tangents about car racing vs horse racing and the benefits of using a specific type of steel for manufacturing combs that are better on a horse's coat. his autism is entirely useless for crime solving but by god he will explain the horsepower efficiency of the newest Bugatti racing model in detail

[vettelcore]

now that i paid 3k to do the vet tech course all the doubts are starting to creep in lmao

[razielim]

90s Power Macintosh OSs were more like the modern Windows PC experience than you'd assume if you never used one or if your first Macintosh was the colorful zany iMac G3 acquired by many schools in the early 2000s. Sure, in the 90s if you had Microsoft, you were very likely still using MS-DOS, or Windows-through-DOS (until Windows 95) and therefore getting a bit more technical experience mileage. But a lot of people grew up using DOS like it was nbd to boot their games through the command prompt, only to grow up not particularly computer-savvy. Apple is not alone in pushing for non-specialization experiences; Microsoft also has had aspirations of becoming Extremely GUI (remember their weird and frustrating all-tile concept of the 2010s?) as part of its business strategy and regularly tries to make the "Home" (as opposed to "Pro") OS setup more difficult to use for technical purposes.

I cannot attest to the modern Mac experience but must mention that many CS/IT professionals/academics LOVE Macs. If a person loves LaTeX and/or Linux, I suspect they're at least Mac-curious. It was a whole fad with computer nerds in the 2010s to cobble together a Windows/Linux PC that looked and functioned as close to a Mac as possible if they couldn't afford a real Apple machine.

My opposing hypothesis is that declining tech literacy is mostly a consequence of the proliferation of Extremely GUI "don't even fucking worry about it" tech, and that's more a problem of using phone-as-computer or tablet-as-computer and wanting all computers to therefore function as a phone/tablet, rather than which laptop/desktop OS you go to bat for or which one you grew up with because the truth is all available laptop/desktop options require more tech literacy just to get started on than making do with a phone/tablet.

Also I know it's a joke, but the idea that someone more tech literate than you must be autistic... is a good way to notice you're perhaps not as tech literate as you think lmfao. Basic human curiosity, competence, and urge to tinker/play does not require a diagnosis! The problem with Extremely GUI solutions is not that they're Evil™ but precisely that they take these behaviors away as an option!

[reasonsforhope]

"A German bio-tech company has developed a naturally-occurring enzyme discovered in a cemetery into a near-market ready solution for recycling plastic without any loss of quality.

In 2022, GNN reported on a paper published by Leipzig-based scientists who first identified the enzyme. At the time, the enzyme was subject to a small side-by-side test, and caused the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic to decompose by a whopping 90%.

Pictured: Before and After: A container of PET after 24 hours of contact with the enzyme leaves only dye

Fast forward to the spring of 2025 and those same scientists have perfected the capabilities of that enzyme, called PHL7, and have founded ESTER Biotech to bring those capabilities to market.

Their initial plan to be finished next year is a bathtub-sized pilot project reactor. If successful, their 2030 plan will be four 350 cubic-meter reactors capable of processing 45,000 metric tons of PET plastic every year.

PHL7 and ESTER Biotech boast several advantages over chemical and thermal recycling methods. For starters, once the polymers of PET are broken by the enzyme into monomers, or single component parts, they have suffered no degradation of their material characteristics unlike some recycled plastic which is weaker or less stable.

Additionally, PHL7 is exceptionally stable from 32 to 203 degrees Fahrenheit (0-95°C), and per kilogram of plastic, a dose of only 0.02% to 0.06% of the enzyme is required—substantially less than existing alternatives. Their new version of the enzyme also recycles the plastic several hours faster.

“Our technology makes it possible to bring material flows that are currently burned back to the beginning of the cycle at the molecular level,” says Christian Sonnendecker, lead author on the paper of the enzyme’s discovery, and co-founder of ESTER Biotech at the University of Leipzig. “And with high energy efficiency and scalability.”

“We are only at the beginning. But we are convinced that when science, entrepreneurial spirit and social responsibility come together, a cemetery enzyme can become a beacon of hope for a better future.”

RECYCLING BREAKTHROUGHS: 

Scientists in Japan Develop Non-Toxic Plastic That Dissolves in Seawater Within Hours

Cornell Researchers Create First-of-its-Kind Durable and Recyclable Plastic

New Process ‘Vaporizes’ Plastic Bags and Bottles to Help Make Recycled Materials

Revolutionary New ‘Living Plastic’ That Could Slash Damage to the Environment Developed by California Researchers

ESTER Biotech’s enzyme is able to separate certain multilayer composites which are normally thought of as unrecyclable. In addition to the infrastructure of the pilot project, ESTER is currently working with two medium-sized partners to build a cost-efficient supply chain with an aim to reduce the enzyme price to between 100 and 200 euros per kilogram.

Though no currently-commercialized recycling method can compete with the cost of virgin plastic, a price between 100 and 200 euros will put it in line with existing competitors.

Fortunately for anyone in the space, the EU is not afraid to use heavy-handed regulation to guarantee plastic recycling rates. By 2040, under existing EU legislation, 65% of plastic production will be mandated to come from recycled sources. ESTER believes that with its potential to offer a higher quality “recyclate,” the incentive to pursue and expand enzymatic methods will increase."

-via Good News Network, June 13, 2025

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY on Mar 24, and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.

Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon's cloud for processing, even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

It's easy to flap your hands at this bit of thievery and say, "surveillance capitalists gonna surveillance capitalism," which would confine this fuckery to the realm of ideology (that is, "Amazon is ripping you off because they have bad ideas"). But that would be wrong. What's going on here is a material phenomenon, grounded in specific policy choices and by unpacking the material basis for this absolutely unforgivable move, we can understand how we got here – and where we should go next.

Start with Amazon's excuse for destroying your privacy: they want to do AI processing on the audio Alexa captures, and that is too computationally intensive for on-device processing. But that only raises another question: why does Amazon want to do this AI processing, even for customers who are happy with their Echo as-is, at the risk of infuriating and alienating millions of customers?

For Big Tech companies, AI is part of a "growth story" – a narrative about how these companies that have already saturated their markets will still continue to grow. It's hard to overstate how dominant Amazon is: they are the leading cloud provider, the most important retailer, and the majority of US households already subscribe to Prime. This may sound like a good place to be, but for Amazon, it's actually very dangerous.

Amazon has a sky-high price/earnings ratio – about triple the ratio of other retailers, like Target. That scorching P/E ratio reflects a belief by investors that Amazon will continue growing. Companies with very high p/e ratios have an unbeatable advantage relative to mature competitors – they can buy things with their stock, rather than paying cash for them. If Amazon wants to hire a key person, or acquire a key company, it can pad its offer with its extremely high-value, growing stock. Being able to buy things with stock instead of money is a powerful advantage, because money is scarce and exogenous (Amazon must acquire money from someone else, like a customer), while new Amazon stock can be conjured into existence by typing zeroes into a spreadsheet:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/06/privacy-last/#exceptionally-american

But the downside here is that every growth stock eventually stops growing. For Amazon to double its US Prime subscriber base, it will have to establish a breeding program to produce tens of millions of new Americans, raising them to maturity, getting them gainful employment, and then getting them to sign up for Prime. Almost by definition, a dominant firm ceases to be a growing firm, and lives with the constant threat of a stock revaluation as investors belief in future growth crumbles and they punch the "sell" button, hoping to liquidate their now-overvalued stock ahead of everyone else.

For Big Tech companies, a growth story isn't an ideological commitment to cancer-like continuous expansion. It's a practical, material phenomenon, driven by the need to maintain investor confidence that there are still worlds for the company to conquer.

That's where "AI" comes in. The hype around AI serves an important material need for tech companies. By lumping an incoherent set of poorly understood technologies together into a hot buzzword, tech companies can bamboozle investors into thinking that there's plenty of growth in their future.

OK, so that's the material need that this asshole tactic satisfies. Next, let's look at the technical dimension of this rug-pull.

How is it possible for Amazon to modify your Echo after you bought it? After all, you own your Echo. It is your property. Every first year law student learns this 18th century definition of property, from Sir William Blackstone:

That sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.

If the Echo is your property, how come Amazon gets to break it? Because we passed a law that lets them. Section 1201 of 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it a felony to "bypass an access control" for a copyrighted work:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

That means that once Amazon reaches over the air to stir up the guts of your Echo, no one is allowed to give you a tool that will let you get inside your Echo and change the software back. Sure, it's your property, but exercising sole and despotic dominion over it requires breaking the digital lock that controls access to the firmware, and that's a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense.

The Echo is an internet-connected device that treats its owner as an adversary and is designed to facilitate over-the-air updates by the manufacturer that are adverse to the interests of the owner. Giving a manufacturer the power to downgrade a device after you've bought it, in a way you can't roll back or defend against is an invitation to run the playbook of the Darth Vader MBA, in which the manufacturer replies to your outraged squawks with "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

The ability to remotely, unilaterally alter how a device or service works is called "twiddling" and it is a key factor in enshittification. By "twiddling" the knobs and dials that control the prices, costs, search rankings, recommendations, and core features of products and services, tech firms can play a high-speed shell-game that shifts value away from customers and suppliers and toward the firm and its executives:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

But how can this be legal? You bought an Echo and explicitly went into its settings to disable remote monitoring of the sounds in your home, and now Amazon – without your permission, against your express wishes – is going to start sending recordings from inside your house to its offices. Isn't that against the law?

Well, you'd think so, but US consumer privacy law is unbelievably backwards. Congress hasn't passed a consumer privacy law since 1988, when the Video Privacy Protection Act banned video store clerks from disclosing which VHS cassettes you brought home. That is the last technological privacy threat that Congress has given any consideration to:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

This privacy vacuum has been filled up with surveillance on an unimaginable scale. Scumbag data-brokers you've never heard of openly boast about having dossiers on 91% of adult internet users, detailing who we are, what we watch, what we read, who we live with, who we follow on social media, what we buy online and offline, where we buy, when we buy, and why we buy:

https://gizmodo.com/data-broker-brags-about-having-highly-detailed-personal-information-on-nearly-all-internet-users-2000575762

To a first approximation, every kind of privacy violation is legal, because the concentrated commercial surveillance industry spends millions lobbying against privacy laws, and those millions are a bargain, because they make billions off the data they harvest with impunity.

Regulatory capture is a function of monopoly. Highly concentrated sectors don't need to engage in "wasteful competition," which leaves them with gigantic profits to spend on lobbying, which is extraordinarily effective, because a sector that is dominated by a handful of firms can easily arrive at a common negotiating position and speak with one voice to the government:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Starting with the Carter administration, and accelerating through every subsequent administration except Biden's, America has adopted an explicitly pro-monopoly policy, called the "consumer welfare" antitrust theory. 40 years later, our economy is riddled with monopolies:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/monopolies-produce-billionaires/#inequality-corruption-climate-poverty-sweatshops

Every part of this Echo privacy massacre is downstream of that policy choice: "growth stock" narratives about AI, twiddling, DMCA 1201, the Darth Vader MBA, the end of legal privacy protections. These are material things, not ideological ones. They exist to make a very, very small number of people very, very rich.

Your Echo is your property, you paid for it. You paid for the product and you are still the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Amazon says that the recordings your Echo will send to its data-centers will be deleted as soon as it's been processed by the AI servers. Amazon's made these claims before, and they were lies. Amazon eventually had to admit that its employees and a menagerie of overseas contractors were secretly given millions of recordings to listen to and make notes on:

https://archive.is/TD90k

And sometimes, Amazon just sent these recordings to random people on the internet:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/20/amazon-alexa-user-receives-audio-recordings-stranger-through-human-error/

Fool me once, etc. I will bet you a testicle* that Amazon will eventually have to admit that the recordings it harvests to feed its AI are also being retained and listened to by employees, contractors, and, possibly, randos on the internet.

*Not one of mine

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/altering-the-deal/#telescreen

Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexa_%2840770465691%29.jpg

Sam Howzit (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SWC_6_-_Darth_Vader_Costume_(7865106344).jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[jadeharleyinc]

yeah, i would say "i value the end piece or the process of getting a tool to do what i want as easily as possible" describes my mindset and that of various programmers! i can't claim to speak for all but i think this is a significant part of programmer culture.

OP was fairly vague so i can't assume what kind of AI use they were talking about. but to me, the distinction is largely meaningless. i find "prompting an AI to write an entire fanfic according to your ideas" to be no different than collaging pictures together, gluing trash to a canvas, casually taking pictures with your phone, throwing pre-made game assets together, placing a urinal on a pedestal, calling a pile of store-bought candy a metaphor for your lover's death, and so on.

to me ideas like laziness and effort don't factor in (i think effort is cool but laziness is delightful too) and not even 'having the original idea' either. i do believe that if someone "picks up anything puts their name on it and proclaims it as art" then it's art, yeah! i'm a big duchampist in the sense that i think "the artist's act of choice is what elevates an ordinary object to the status of art" (to paraphrase what he said).

which is to say, i see art as a an act of curation ("i chose this object specifically", whether you made it or not), presentation ("...and you should look at it and engage with it") and self-expression ("...because i am saying something here"). as a counter-example, if someone makes ads or stock images for companies (or designs/produces urinals!), i'd call it "their creations" or "their body of work", but not necessarily "their art" or "their oeuvre", even though it involves effort, emotion, creative decisions, original ideas, and so on. unless they choose to call it art (explicitly or implicitly).

obviously this duchampist view of art is pretty extreme, but i think that by reducing the necessary criteria for "art" to the minimum, we open ourselves to new dialogues with new forms of expression, instead of doing the "but how can you call it art?" song and dance every time a new medium/tool pops up (video games, AI, the Brain Thoughts Visualizotron from the year 2125, and so on).

hopefully that makes sense!

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[ur-mag]

‘Exceptionally rare’ 205mph supercar hits auction at Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix with whopping £10m price tag | In Trend Today

‘Exceptionally rare’ 205mph supercar hits auction at Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix with whopping £10m price tag Read Full Text or Full Article on MAG NEWS

[moonlight-joy]

The BAU’s Secret Weapon

MASTERLIST

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Summary: No one at the BAU knew you were an expert in hand-to-hand combat—until you save Spencer from an unsub in the field.

Pairing: Reader/Spencer Reid

The BAU was a well-oiled machine, a team built on trust, intelligence, and skill. Everyone had their strengths—Morgan had his strength and tactical expertise, Emily had her experience in undercover work, JJ had her natural empathy, Garcia had her tech skills, Rossi had his wisdom, and Hotch… well, he was Hotch.

And then there was you.

You weren’t the fastest, the strongest, or the most experienced. You weren’t a profiler like Spencer or a former cop like Morgan. If anything, most of the team saw you as the quiet one, always diligent, always dependable, but never the one kicking down doors.

And that was fine with you.

You had spent years training in silence, perfecting skills you never really had the opportunity—or desire—to showcase. There was no reason to. Your job didn’t require it. Until, of course, everything went to hell.

The team had been tracking a particularly brutal unsub, one who had already left three victims in his wake. Young women, all taken in broad daylight, all showing signs of restraint and violent struggle before they were ultimately left to die.

The BAU had narrowed the suspect list down to one man: Kyle Turner. Mid-40s, former military, dishonorably discharged, and exceptionally dangerous.

That was how you found yourself in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town, the air thick with dust and the scent of rusting metal.

Spencer had gone in first. It was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission, but the second he stepped inside, his comms cut out.

And then, all hell broke loose.

“Where the hell is Reid?” Morgan growled, scanning the area with his gun raised.

Static buzzed in everyone’s earpieces before Garcia’s panicked voice came through. “Guys! Reid’s comm just went dead! I lost his location!”

Your stomach dropped.

“I’m going in,” you said immediately, already moving.

Morgan grabbed your arm. “No way. We don’t know what’s in there—”

“I don’t care,” you snapped, shaking him off. “Spencer’s in trouble.”

You barely heard Hotch giving orders as you darted forward, your gun steady as you entered the warehouse. The dim lighting and eerie silence made your skin crawl.

Then you heard it—a struggle.

A grunt of pain. Spencer.

You ran.

The sight made rage burn through you like wildfire.

Spencer was pinned against the wall, his gun knocked to the ground as Kyle Turner—a man twice his size—wrapped a thick arm around his throat. Spencer clawed at the man’s grip, struggling for air, his face already red.

Turner was going to kill him.

Your gun was still raised, but you knew you couldn’t risk taking the shot—not with Spencer in the line of fire.

So, you did the only thing you could.

You attacked.

In three swift strides, you closed the distance, grabbing Turner’s wrist and twisting it hard. He barely had time to react before you drove your elbow into his ribs and swept his legs out from under him in one fluid motion.

Turner hit the ground hard, releasing Spencer as he gasped for breath.

But you weren’t done.

The unsub lunged for his knife, but you were faster. You pivoted, blocking his arm before delivering a sharp, brutal strike to his throat. He choked, eyes wide with shock, just before you drove your knee into his stomach and knocked him completely unconscious.

Silence.

Heavy breathing.

Then—

“What the actual hell?”

You turned to see Spencer, still leaning against the wall, staring at you like he had never seen you before in his life.

“…Are you okay?” you asked, breathless.

Spencer blinked. “I—yeah—I mean, yes. But what was that?!”

Before you could answer, the rest of the team burst into the warehouse.

Morgan had his gun raised, eyes scanning for threats, while Hotch, JJ, and Emily moved in behind him.

And then they all saw you.

Standing over an unconscious suspect.

And Spencer—who looked like he had just watched a Marvel fight scene in real life.

“What the hell happened?” Hotch demanded, taking in the scene.

Morgan looked at Turner, out cold on the floor. “Did you do this?”

You hesitated. “Um… yes?”

Silence.

Then—

“Since when can you do that?!” Emily exclaimed, stepping forward.

You shifted uncomfortably. “It’s… not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?!” Morgan repeated, pointing at the very unconscious unsub. “Pretty sure this dude would say otherwise.”

Spencer, still looking dazed, gestured toward you. “She just—she—she literally took him down in seconds. I was about to black out, and then she came in like some kind of—ninja.”

You winced. “I’m not a ninja.”

“You might as well be!”

Hotch, ever the professional, folded his arms. “How long have you been trained in hand-to-hand combat?”

You exhaled. “…A while.”

Morgan narrowed his eyes. “How long, exactly?”

You shrugged. “Since I was… fifteen?”

Everyone blinked.

“FIFTEEN?” Garcia’s voice shrieked through the comms.

You winced again. “I, uh… kind of grew up around people who taught me. I kept training over the years. It’s just… never come up.”

Morgan ran a hand down his face. “Oh my God, we’ve been bringing you on cases this whole time and didn’t know you were a secret weapon?”

Spencer was still staring at you, completely in awe.

You felt self-conscious under all their gazes. “I—I don’t like showing off. I just wanted to help.”

Hotch studied you for a long moment before nodding. “You did good,” he said simply.

That alone made the tension leave your shoulders.

But Morgan? Morgan was never letting this go.

“Oh, trust me, sweetheart,” he said, shaking his head with a smirk. “You are never living this down.”

You groaned.

And Spencer?

He just smiled at you, something soft and completely enamored in his expression.

Yeah, this case definitely changed things.

Back at the BAU, you were the talk of the team.

Morgan had officially nicknamed you "BAU’s Secret Weapon." Emily kept reenacting your takedown move in the bullpen. Rossi, to your horror, started placing bets on how fast you could take someone down in training.

Spencer, on the other hand, was still looking at you like you had personally rewritten the laws of physics.

“You okay?” you asked him later, nudging his arm.

Spencer blinked. “I think I’m in love with you.”

You choked on your coffee. “I—what?”

Spencer immediately went red. “I—I mean—not that I wasn’t before! But now I’m just—wow.”

You bit your lip to hide a grin. “So… me knowing how to fight is attractive?”

Spencer pushed his hair back, still flustered. “I mean… yes? Statistically speaking, a partner who is both intelligent and physically capable is—”

You cut him off with a kiss on the cheek. “Good to know.”

Spencer blinked, stunned into silence.

Morgan whistled from across the bullpen. “Damn, Reid, you’re having a great day, huh?”

Spencer just smiled, his hand slipping into yours under the desk.

Yeah.

It was a very good day.

Please support my work with like and comment

[piastriprincess]

if  i  wanna  stay  alive  (you  should  never  cross  my  mind)  ⸻  lando  norris  x  reader  .

featuring  lando  norris  ,  spy  au  ,  fake  dating tw  blood  ,  weapons  ,  character  injuries  ,  minor  character  deaths word  count 11.8k author’s  note  LANDO NORRIS MONACO GP WINNER WAOWWWWW !!!!! i  have  about  a  billion  requests  in  my  inbox  but  idk .  something  about  this  artwork  of  lando  by  @artist173  made  my  brain  go  brrrr  and  suddenly  i  had  almost 12k  words  of  agent  lando  norris  .  this  was  genuinely  a  feverish  write  and  i  hope  everyone  enjoys  this  as  much  as  i  enjoyed  writing  it  !  please  come  tell  me  what  you  think  or  send  in  a  request  <3  also  hoping  to  have  the  birthday  build - a - fic  up  sometime  next  week  !  title  is  from  killshot  by  magdalena  bay  .

You’re not surprised he’s already here. In fact, you kind of expected it. There’s something about him that suggests he’s always just arrived before you, just finished charming his way out of a dilemma he created for himself, just smirked like the world is a game and he’s two steps ahead of whoever he’s playing.

You enter the briefing room, and right on cue, Agent Lando Norris spins around in one of the swivel chairs, holding a paper cup of burnt coffee like it’s a martini (shaken, not stirred). “Well, well, well,” he drawls, eyes bright. “If it isn’t my favorite rival.”

You’re not rivals, not really — just trained together, sparred and surveilled each other too many times to count on your way to becoming full-fledged agents. The joke is still funny, though: a reminder that you’ve both made it, as concrete and tangible as the shiny access badges clipped to your clothes. So you just grin and play along, raising an eyebrow as you drop into the seat across the table from him. “This is awkward. I have at least three other rivals I like more.”

He gasps, faux-devastated. “And here I thought I was your number one boy. You wound me.”

“You’ll live,” you tease, checking your watch. You’re right on time, meaning your handler is late. She’s never late, which means something is up. Something big. You’re trying to figure out what it is, what you could possibly be here for, which you could probably do better if Lando wasn’t flirting your ear off.

“Come on. You know you missed me,” he says, chin in hand, leaning against the table with far too much amusement flickering in his eyes for an 8 AM briefing. 

“I saw you last Monday at the mass casualty response training,” you respond dryly, leaning in to mirror him across the table. 

“Exactly. Last Monday,” he emphasizes, like it proves something. “If I didn’t know any better, Agent, I’d think you were avoiding me.”

You smile, saccharine. “If only I could be so lucky.”

“Stop being so mean to me, or I swear to God I’ll fall in love with you,” he replies lightly, ridiculous grin on his face. Something warm blooms in your chest, which you promptly stamp down until it can never reach your brain again. 

“Good, you’re both here,” Agent Beatrice Hale says as she walks into the room, and you and Lando both straighten up in your seats immediately. You’ve been through eight months of grueling training, nearly two years now in the field executing the most dangerous missions in Europe, and the sight of your handler’s sleek grey bob and crisp pantsuit is still the scariest thing you’ve encountered on the job. “Let’s get started.”

The high-tech glass screen behind her flickers to life with a photo: a man, mid-fifties judging from the salt-and-pepper hair. Heavyset, with a slight paunch that not even his exceptionally tailored suit can hide. His smile is too white, almost wolfish. It’s the kind of face you instinctively don’t trust.

“This is Gabriel DuPont,” she says, dropping two thick dossiers on the table. “Publicly, he’s the billionaire tech CEO of DuPont Industries. Humanitarian. Philanthropist. Privately? He’s running one of the most sophisticated arms smuggling operations we’ve seen in the last decade.”

“We have a team on him, don’t we?” Lando asks before you can open your mouth to say the same thing. He flashes a quick smile at you, like he knows you’re going to be irritated that he beat you to it. “Russell and Hamilton.”

“Had a team,” Hale says matter-of-factly. “They’ve gone dark. Haven’t checked in for forty-eight hours. HQ is assuming they’re compromised.”

The room falls into a tense silence. Lando’s jaw ticks, and the strangest memory floats to the front of your mind: an early day in training, Lando much smaller and skinnier than he is now, practically getting pulled through an obstacle course by a tall, lanky guy. 

George. Compromised. You blink, hard, and the memory’s gone.

It’s part of the job. You all knew it when you signed up. But something about Hale’s businesslike tone makes your heart twist in your chest a little bit.

“Okay. So what’s the new plan?” you say, exhaling through your nose slightly to calm your heartbeat. 

Hale just smiles, clicks to the next photo. It’s a sprawling oceanside estate, all floor-to-ceiling windows and smooth white stone. “A softer approach. DuPont is hosting a weekend-long charity gala at his estate in Monaco. The guest list is small — business partners, old-money moguls, politicians with questionable morals. Headquarters has arranged an in: a wealthy couple, invited last-minute after a strategic seven-figure donation.”

You look at Hale. Then the twin dossiers on the table in front of you. “No,” you say. “No, no, no.”

Lando, of course, is beaming, leaning back until his chair nearly tips onto two wheels. You have to fight the urge to kick it out from under him. “Well. This is the best mission I’ve ever been assigned.”

“No arguments,” Hale says, and you groan. “You’re the only pair of agents who fit the profile. We have enough archived photos of you together from training to build a record. You have chemistry —”

“We have history,” you correct. “There’s a difference.”

Hale smiles, and it’s ice. “It will read as familiarity, comfort, trust to the outside world. That’s all we need,” she says, voice clipped, and you sink back into your chair.

“You’ll be posing as newlyweds. Wealthy, nauseatingly in love, enough money and clout to catch DuPont’s attention,” she continues, sliding the files across the table to you both. She doesn’t say the words, but all three of you know what’s implied. And enough attractiveness to keep it, should it come to that. 

“Newlyweds? Wow,” Lando says. “Should we get matching pajamas, babe? Maybe a couple’s massage?”

“I will strangle you in your sleep,” you say flatly, opening your dossier and pointedly not looking at him.

From the corner of your eye, his grin gets even wider. “That wouldn’t be very wifely of you.”

You flip through the dossier, pages and pages of a life carefully constructed for the two of you. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair. Young heir to a telecommunications empire and his aristocratic wife. Just the right amount of wealth and pedigree. Vacation home on Lake Como. A cocker spaniel named Beckham. 

You can’t do this. You’re going to vomit.

“You’ll have twenty-four hours to prepare before you fly to Monaco, and twenty-four hours to prepare there before the gala. Any questions?” Hale asks, and Lando raises his hand like a schoolboy. She gives him a look. “There are three people in this room, Agent. Don’t make me call on you.”

He turns to you, his smile slow and so obnoxious. “I’ll accept the mission on one condition.” He pauses dramatically, and you raise your eyebrows at him as if to say get on with it. “You have to promise not to fall in love with me for real.” 

You roll your eyes, but your grin gives you away. “Don’t worry, Norris. I think I’ll manage.”

“Honeymoon?” you say, throwing a stress ball at Lando.

“Oi. Don’t damage the asset!” he laughs, catching it a second before it smacks into his face. “Maldives, two weeks. Cheval Blanc. Waterfront villa, of course,” he says automatically, tossing it back to you. You’re sitting on the floor of a briefing room you commandeered earlier in the day to practice your covers, a sprawl of Chinese takeout boxes between the two of you. “What are my hobbies?”

You grab the ball out of the air with one hand, the other preoccupied with taking a bite of your sesame chicken. You think as you chew, swallowing down the bite before you answer. “Golf. Collecting expensive cars. You’ve recently started playing padel, getting pretty good. Where’d we meet?” 

He catches the ball and falters, massaging it between his hands. “It was that bar, um…”

“Lando,” you groan, pinching the bridge of your nose. “We met at Claridge’s. I was there for an engagement party for my cousin, the earl, and you were there for an after-work drink. I spilled champagne on your leather briefcase and offered to buy you a new one. You said no, but asked if you could have a drink with me anyway. You’ve messed it up three times now. Go read the paragraph on it in the file.”

“I hate us,” Lando says in reply, kicking aimlessly at his dossier. “Like, sorry, but our covers are such wankers. Claridge’s? That place is so posh.”

“Okay, Glastonbury boy,” you snort, and he chucks a pen at your head. 

“I mean it! We’d never go there,” he protests as you dodge it, giggling. “I’d take you on a way more memorable date than that.”

“Right. I know you, Norris. You’d take me to Mother Kelly’s pub down the way because it’s close to the office, make me split the check for two pints,” you deadpan as someone knocks on the door. 

You stand up, missing the way Lando’s eyes dim slightly at your words. But there’s no one there when you open the door. Just two stupidly expensive pieces of luggage, stuffed to the brim. 

“Oh, mint,” Lando says enthusiastically, scrambling past you to pull his inside and unzip it. Clothes practically spill out of the aluminum suitcase, overflowing with silk shirts and brand-name leisurewear. He whistles lowly, pulling a button-up polo out of the bag. It’s a white crocheted thing, red and blue piping on the collar and sleeves. “Look at this.” He strips his standard-issue black tee over his head, unbuttoning the polo and slipping it on.

You’d left your suitcase by the door, completely unexcited to look at whatever trophy-wife designer dresses the costuming department had chosen for you. You’d do every mission in your own beat-up jeans and a tank top if you could. You wish you had it in front of you now, though — wish you had anything to distract from the way your mouth goes dry at the smooth, muscular expanse of Lando’s chest, the white a brilliant contrast against his tanned skin.

He grins at you like he knows exactly what you’re thinking, the shirt settling around his torso with a lazy flourish. “How do I look?”

You swallow hard. “Like you’ll threaten to call daddy’s lawyer if the caviar on the yacht is lukewarm.”

He does a slow, exaggerated spin on his heels. “Admit it. Your husband is hot.”

“Eat your dinner,” you say fondly, tossing a fortune cookie at him. 

He catches it, cracks it in one hand as his eyes flick down to read the message. “Ooh. ‘Romance may be closer than it appears.’” He waggles his eyebrows at you.

“That is not what it says,” you laugh, getting to your feet to try to snatch the paper from him. He’s too quick, though, holding it above your head with one hand and grabbing your wrists with the other.  

“Maybe not on paper,” he grins, eyes flashing with amusement, “but definitely in the room.”

You have to admit, being a nepo baby’s wife isn’t so bad. 

You knew MI6 had money, but you’d never seen them spend it like this. When the taxi came to pick you and Lando up from headquarters, you thought they’d taken a wrong turn before they got to Heathrow. Instead, they directed you to a small terminal, ushered the two of you onto a literal private jet. Buttery leather seats, personal TVs at every angle, the works. Neither of you are new to the agency anymore, but you couldn’t help your excitement, playing poker and raiding the gourmet snack drawers for the entire flight. When you landed, a shiny silver exotic convertible was waiting for you at the hangar; you know next to nothing about cars, but Lando spent about five minutes circling the thing, telling you every spec, and you could have sworn you heard him squeal like a little girl when he finally settled behind the wheel. Even the clothes they’ve given you for the day aren’t nearly as bad as you expected — a pair of designer jeans, platform sneakers, and the softest sweater you’ve ever felt. Although there is the ring to contend with, a solitaire diamond that must be at least five carats ostentatiously set high on a silver band. It feels weighty on your hand; you keep spinning it around your finger like it’s going to ground you, a real reminder of how unreal all of this is. 

But the hotel trumps it all. 

When you first pull up to the historic building, you’re mostly just glad to be out of the car. Lando drove like a complete maniac, fast and fearless, and the roads from the private airport in Nice to Monaco weaved through the mountains in a way that made your stomach twist. You step out of the car, catching your breath, and let Lando lead you with a hand on the small of your back into the hotel, where you promptly lose it again. 

The lobby is stunning, low-slung red velvet couches scattered around the circular room underneath a chandelier that’s bigger than your apartment hooked to an intricate stained-glass domed ceiling. It feels like you’ve stepped into a bygone age, or a work of art, or maybe the drawing room from Titanic. You clutch Lando’s arm a little tighter as you walk together to the reception desk. This is it. The first test. 

“Normally I’d be all about you marking your territory, but your nails are kind of cutting off my circulation right now,” Lando whispers in your ear. You giggle and blush, playing it off as a sweet nothing from your husband, and loosen your grip. 

“Bonjour,” the front desk clerk welcomes you. “Name, please?”

“Sinclair. Shouldn’t you already know that?” Lando tosses off casually, with all the unearned arrogance of the idle rich, and you stare. He’s good. Better than you expected him to be, even. “We have the — it was the Diamond Suite, wasn’t it, baby?”

At the pet name, you step on his toes hard, and he somehow manages to turn the grimace into a smile. “I think that’s right,” you drawl poshly, not even looking at the poor desk clerk. “But the butler did the bookings.”

The clerk offers you a polite smile, white-gloved fingers flying over his keyboard. “Ah, oui. I see your reservation here,” he pronounces, Monagesque accent rounding the vowels in an unfamiliar way as he slides two keys across the marble counter. “Here are your room keys. Bienvenue à l’Hermitage.” 

“Baby?” you hiss under your breath as you thread Lando’s fingers with yours and make your way to the elevators, pulling your suitcase behind you. “What are you playing at, Norris?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, with the tone of someone who is absolutely not sorry, not even a little bit. “Would you prefer sweetheart? Muffin? Snugglebug?”

The doors slide open with a soft chime, and you yank Lando into the elevator. Lovingly, of course — like a newlywed who can’t keep her hands off her husband, not like a girl trained in six different martial arts styles. “I thought we said no pet names,” you say through a blinding smile as the doors click shut.

“It’s for authenticity,” he says, all innocence. “I’m newly married to my beautiful wife. It would be weird if I didn’t call you something sweet.”

You sigh, running a hand through your hair as you relax against the velvet-tufted wall. “Baby is fine. Maybe love. But if you call me snugglebug during the gala, I will push you off the balcony.”

The soft smile that crosses his face is enough to make you instantly regret what you’ve agreed to. “That’s the spirit, baby.”

The hotel room is, predictably, absurd. Polished wood floors, expensive furniture, floor-to-ceiling French doors that frame the harbor like a million-dollar painting leading to a balcony that spans the length of the suite. There’s a fireplace. A grand piano that you know damn well neither of you can play. And in the middle of the room, the biggest, most opulent bed you’ve ever seen, stacked with pillows and enough throw blankets to outfit the entirety of your agent class. 

You both stand there in silence for a moment. Then you clear your throat, dropping your bag. “You’re sleeping on the floor.”

“No way,” Lando says, pouting as he runs a hand through his dark curls. “C’mon. We’re two ridiculously attractive, very emotionally mature adults. We can share.”

You snort, looking at him like he’s sprouted a second head. “Lando. What would give you the impression that I’m going to share a bed with you?”

“What if the room’s bugged?” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “Or what if DuPont’s got drones outside, or something? Doesn’t exactly sell the cover if you’ve got me curled up by the fireplace like a golden retriever.” 

You open your mouth to respond, then pause, because — well, he does have a point. 

“It’s for the sake of the mission,” Lando tries like he still needs to convince you, looking at you with wide eyes, and you promptly shut your mouth again. You don’t say anything, technically, but it’s like he can read you like a book, smiling triumphantly in the face of your silence. 

“You could at least pretend to be disappointed,” you say evenly. An admission of defeat if you’ve ever heard one.

He flops on the bed, starfishing his limbs over the expensive mattress and grinning up at you in a way that makes your heart do something annoyingly unprofessional in your chest. “I’m heartbroken, baby. Truly.”

“That’s it. We’re making a pillow wall tonight.”

The rest of the day is quiet, the kind of day you normally hate on missions. You’re a field agent — every second of inactivity feels torturous, precious time you could be saving the world that just slips through your fingers. You can tell Lando feels the same, if his relentlessly bouncing knee is anything to go by. So the two of you go over the mission plan until the words begin to blur together. Exit options. Likely locations of incriminating evidence. The note on the final page: In the event that any agent is compromised, retreat. Do not attempt rescue. 

Lando reads the note, promptly slams his dossier shut, and insists on ordering one of everything on the room service menu just to piss off Hale. You don’t argue, especially not when truffle fries and miniature cheeseburgers start showing up at the door every fifteen minutes. Somewhere in between the lobster and the lava cake, you admit you’d never seen the Mission: Impossible movies, and Lando, eyes bright, declares you have to have a marathon. You end up sitting on the bed for hours, pillows between you as you eat popcorn, mocking the ridiculous CGI and the fact that the movies get absolutely nothing right about your line of work just to annoy Lando. But he’s a good sport about it, even joins in after a while as the TV light flickers off your bare legs and the moon rises over the harbor. 

You must have drifted off some time during MI:3, because when you open your eyes next your side is pressed against the pillow wall, there’s a crick in your neck, and your head is resting on Lando’s shoulder. He’s still asleep, curls slightly mussed and lips parted, brows furrowed the way they are when he’s concentrating on a mission briefing. He must have slept that way all night, you realize, just so he didn’t disturb you. 

Something about the idea makes your heart ache in your chest. 

“Fifteen minutes before we need to leave for the gala,” you call through the door, applying your lipstick with a practiced hand. “Please tell me you’ve at least started to get dressed.”

You’d commandeered the bathroom nearly an hour ago under the pretense of complicated hair and makeup — costuming had left detailed instructions in your suitcase, and you were expected to pull them off effortlessly. Lando, of course, could probably start putting on his suit five minutes in advance and still be fine. It was infuriating sometimes how easy it was for men. 

Still, when you catch your reflection in the mirror, you can’t help but feel like the extra time was worth it. Your hair, normally pulled back neatly, tumbles in voluminous waves over your shoulders. The subtle hints of makeup accentuate your face, making your eyes more luminous, your cheekbones sharper. The delicate earrings and necklace catch the light, make you sparkle. And the dress. Oh, the dress — a floor-length, fitted black velvet creation with a shocking slit up the side, tailored to perfection on your curves, equal parts structured and sleek. 

You look dangerous. You look like someone else entirely. Or maybe like a version of yourself you don’t let out very often. 

“Almost ready. Can you help me with my tie?” Lando calls back through the door, snapping you out of your thoughts. 

“Yeah, one second,” you reply, grabbing your holster and snapping it around your thigh, just above the top of the slit. The perfect finishing touch. You blot your lips once in the mirror, then push the door open, heels clicking against the floor with a purpose. That is, until you stop short, breath catching in your chest. 

Lando’s standing near the window, half-turned towards the setting sun, pulling the bow tie around his collar. The tux fits him too well, all clean lines on broad shoulders and crisp black on white that makes his tan skin glow. He’s freshly shaven, jaw sharp, and his curls are gelled back in a way that makes him look older, more polished. 

You’ve always known Lando was attractive. It’s not news, but it’s not something you let yourself dwell on. Not in your line of work, when letting your guard down even for a second can cost more than you’ve ever been willing to give. But this — the tux, the hair, those eyes that can’t quite decide what color they want to be? The effect is striking. You sort of can’t stop looking at him. 

“Still need help?” you croak, voice hoarse for some reason, and when he turns at the sound of your voice he straightens so fast you think he might give himself whiplash.

His mouth opens, then closes again. “Whoa.”

You raise an eyebrow, trying not to look as pleased as you feel. “That all you got?”

“I just…” His eyes drag down your body for one excruciatingly slow moment. Then he blinks, shakes his head slightly like he got hit. “Shit. You look stunning.” There’s none of the usual flirtation or teasing in it. Just something quiet, awestruck, and it makes your throat tighten unexpectedly. 

“Don’t get sentimental on me now, Norris,” you say, voice as light as you can possibly make it as you cross the room, hands reaching up for his tie. It’s muscle memory at this point — the back-and-forth fold, the loop, the gentle tug. You’ve done it before for other missions, with other partners, but never quite like this. Never with his eyes tracing over your face like he’s trying to memorize it. Never when you’re standing so close you can smell his cologne, something spicy and ineffably Lando. It’s intolerable, really. You wish your heartbeat would calm down a little bit. 

“There,” you say, straightening the stupid tie slightly as you finally, blessedly pull the knot tight and step back from him. “Now you look somewhat presentable.”

His mouth quirks up at the side, like he can hear your thoughts. “High praise.”

You don’t respond, hands clammy as you turn towards the door. “Come on. We’ll be late.”

You should be nervous. It’s natural. In fifteen minutes, you’re going to walk directly onto the home turf of a very dangerous man, a man who compromised two of the finest agents in Britain. 

But you know your pulse is thrumming under your skin for an entirely different reason. 

The moment you and Lando step into the place, you kind of want to gag. The mansion is modern, clearly expensive, and a pantheon of bad taste — all ugly pop art and tributes to the genius that is Gabriel DuPont. After the third lifesize ice sculpture of the billionaire in as many rooms, you’re wondering how nobody has investigated him sooner. The place just feels dirty, illicit somehow. Like underneath the shiny exterior, there’s something rotten waiting to be unearthed.

You know what the two of you are looking for: offshore account statements, connections with other known underworld figures, money that disappears in your fingers like invisible ink. Lando’s meant to distract DuPont, keep him talking for long enough for you to make your way to the office and copy as much of the information as you can find. 

As you approach the door to the main ballroom, Lando rests his hand on the small of your back. “You ready?” he ducks his head, speaking into your ear, and your skin prickles at the sensation.

You nod. “Let’s do this.” 

His grin washes over you like the nicest kind of champagne buzz as he pushes the door open and guides you into the room. The place is teeming with Europe’s elite. You recognize several heads of state and at least three kingpins on the MI6 Most Wanted. Lando laces his fingers with yours, squeezes your hand tightly, and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

You do your rounds, fake laughs bubbling from your mouths like the golden liquor in your flutes. Lando plays the room like he was born to it, that smooth, relaxed charm of his illuminating every conversation. He brushes your hair out of your face, dances close to you, rests his hand low on your back when you pose for photos. When someone asks how long the two of you have been married, he leans in close again, like it’s gravity. “Feels like forever, doesn’t it, baby?” he says lowly, in a way that makes your breath catch. 

It’s easy, pretending like this. Maybe a little bit too easy. You keep catching yourself smiling at him in a way you don’t have to fake at all.

“This isn’t working. We should split up. We’ll cover more ground,” you say quietly after your third turn around the room. After all, a girl can only take so many inane conversations with tech-bro CEOs who think NFTs are a personality trait before she starts to crave a little action. 

Lando, to his credit, doesn’t fight you. He just nods, taps his ear lightly, and a burst of static explodes somewhere near your temple. “Comms on, yeah?”

“Comms on,” you reply, tapping your ear back and nearly managing to tamp down your giggle when you see him flinch. 

“I’ll get you back for that,” he warns, but he’s grinning. 

You smile back, peeling off into the crowd without a backward glance. “I’d like to see you try,” you tease through the comms, making your way to the bar. 

You settle there, watching Lando thread his way through the crowd towards the east wing and DuPont’s private rooms. You’re just turning to order a drink when you see him. 

Gabriel DuPont is standing on the balcony, overlooking the back garden like he’s surveying his kingdom. His hands press against the railing with force, knuckles white. There’s an anger you recognize there, a rage that unsettles you. The other thing you recognize is that this is the best chance either of you will get.

“Target spotted. I’m going in,” you speak, walking purposefully towards the other side of the room. 

Lando’s voice is in your ear almost immediately. “What do you mean you’re going in? Where is he?”

“Balcony. South end, facing the garden. I’m fine. Just — execute Plan B. His office, now,” you whisper through your teeth as you approach DuPont. 

“Copy,” Lando mutters. There’s a pause, static echoing in your ear, then: “Be safe, yeah?”

“Always,” you murmur as you step through the double doors. Showtime. 

“Excusez-moi. You wouldn’t happen to be the host tonight, would you?”

DuPont turns, and for the briefest moment his eyes drop to your exposed leg. You hold your breath until he smiles, sharklike, and you know you have him fooled. To him, you’re just another bored housewife with a little too much money to spend. If only he knew. “Oui, c’est moi. Enchanté. Sinclair, yes?”

You blink, surprised he knows you enough to recognize you by face. Headquarters have clearly done their job. You laugh politely, stick out your hand to shake. “That is my better half, I suppose.”

“And where is your mysterious husband tonight?” he asks silkily, lifting your hand to his mouth and kissing your knuckles. You try to ignore the way your skin crawls. 

You inch closer, touch his chest lightly, fingers brushing over his lapel. “With all his time spent at the office, I stopped asking that question a long time ago.”

Lando’s voice crackles to life in your ear. “You don’t need to remind me. I’m already there. Got some stuff already.” He chuckles. “This shit is too easy.”

DuPont watches your face, cruel eyes darting over your features, and you school your expression into something neutral, presentable. “He is a silly man, to leave you alone looking like such a vision.” 

His hand falls heavy on your waist, and you manage not to recoil at the touch. You giggle, instead. “You’re too kind, sir.”

“Tell me,” he purrs, inching closer, “do you dance?”

You smile, sultry. “I used to, before I married a man with two left feet.”

“Please, allow me to prove myself,” he smirks, guiding you back into the ballroom. “I promise not to step on any toes.”

“I hope you didn’t intend that double meaning,” you say as he pulls you too tight to his body, waltzing slowly to the string quartet’s music. He merely laughs in response, a hoarse sound, like he’s not quite used to doing it. 

There’s a crackle of static in your ear. Then Lando’s voice, tight through the comms unit: “Well. Don’t you two look cozy.”

Your jaw ticks, concentrating on the steps. “I’m sure my husband would know it’s extremely valuable for us to make this connection. So he wouldn’t mind,” you add, like it’s an afterthought to your earlier comment. It’s for Lando’s benefit, of course, but DuPont can’t know that.

He smiles, eyes narrowed. “Well. You may want to keep him on a tighter leash,” he says softly into your ear, turning you so you have a perfect view of Lando at the bar. A gorgeous, leggy blonde in red is smiling a little too brightly at him, touching his arm like he belongs to her. Something hot and ugly coils in your stomach at the sight. 

You force a smile. “Oh, she’s just a shiny toy. I’d just hope he’s not too distracted to do what we came here for.” Lando looks up then, hearing your words in his ear, and your eyes lock for a moment over DuPont’s shoulder. The moment feels charged, electric — like you can’t be the first to look away, or something will snap.

“Thank you for the dance,” DuPont murmurs in your ear, smile tight, and you nearly jump. To be honest, you’d half-forgotten he was there. Didn’t even hear the music stop, too busy staring into someone else’s eyes from across the room.  

“Of course,” you say, eyes fixed solely on Lando and the blonde. DuPont kisses your hand again and walks you off the dance floor to the bar, offering to get you a drink. You nod, and as soon as he steps away, you hiss into the comms. “Wow, Lan. Red really suits you.”

“You seemed busy,” he snarks back to you. “Practically on top of DuPont. Had to entertain myself somehow.”

“It wasn’t real, Lando. It’s the plan,” you say, voice clipped. 

“Yeah. Mine was, too,” he replies, all innocence.

You roll your eyes, even though he can’t see you. “Whatever. Do you have the drive or not?”

There’s a long pause. “Uh, yeah. But we may have a problem,” Lando says tightly. “Security guards by the main entrance clocked me, I think.” You scan the room, watching the way the guards are speaking low and urgent into their walkie-talkies, and swear under your breath. 

“Yeah, you’re burned. DuPont must have said something. Fuck.”

“Thought you had eyes on him?” Lando asks, voice low as he heads towards you. When he glances over his shoulder, the guards begin to follow him, walking slowly like there’s nothing wrong. 

You grimace, smoothing your dress. Glance over to the bar, even though you know DuPont won’t be there. “Got distracted.”

“Really? By what?” he says, and even though he’s walking full speed towards you trying very hard not to get noticed by several highly trained security guards, you can hear the smirk in his voice.

“You’re insufferable,” you say through a blinding smile when he reaches you, linking your arm around his. “Best exit’s the kitchen, I think. Through the north corridor.”

The two of you make your way there quickly but casually, guards following at a steady distance as if to avoid a scene. You push through the swinging kitchen door, and the second it closes behind you, Lando grabs a frying pan off a rack.

The first guard bursts through the door seconds after you. You take him low, sweeping his leg and smashing the butt of your gun into his temple when he loses his balance. Lando catches the second one in the jaw with the pan, then follows up with a right hook that sends him crashing into the prep table. Another crashes through a side entrance. You turn and kick hard at his chest, stiletto digging into his skin, and he staggers back with a wail.

The guards keep coming, but you’re holding your own. You and Lando move like a well-oiled machine, practiced and precise, backing each other in the carefully choreographed routine of combat. You’re steps from the back stairwell, from freedom, when a guard you’d taken out earlier comes charging forward, something silver glinting in his hands. You’re a second too late realizing it’s a knife.

You’re turning to the side, calculating the best place for you to take the hit and keep moving, when Lando shoves you out of the way, swinging wildly towards his temple. The guard falls hard, and Lando flinches backwards, something clattering out of his hand to the ground and skittering across the tiles. You barely have time to turn and lunge for the drive before the last guard is scooping it up, running full speed back down the corridor and disappearing through the swinging doors. 

“Fuck,” you say, running a hand over your face. “We lost it.”

“No time. We’ve got to get out of here,” Lando replies, pulling you down the back stairs and out the door into the quiet night. You run all the way down the moneyed gravel driveway toward the car, breath burning in your chest and ankles twisting beneath you. 

You don’t realize anything’s wrong until you round the corner, the silver car gleaming in wait for you, and Lando stumbles against you. You catch him like a reflex, and he exhales sharply. When you pull your hand away, it’s red with blood. 

“Yeah,” he grimaces sheepishly at the look on your face, cheeks pale in the moonlight. “I may have gotten a little bit stabbed.”

You limp back into the darkened suite, shutting the door quietly behind you and leaning against it to catch your breath. Lando’s already making his way to the bathroom, shrugging off his jacket as he goes. His dress shirt is sliced open where the security guard’s blade caught him — a clean slash to his right ribs, fresh blood still staining the expensive linen a bright crimson. 

“Counter. Shirt off,” you call over your shoulder, kicking off your heels and rummaging through the minifridge, cold fingers closing around one of the tiny bottles of vodka. You slam it shut behind you, follow him into the bathroom where he’s obediently stripped off the shirt. You kneel to inspect the cut, hands tracing delicately over the edges of the wound; thankfully, it’s shallow enough that your extremely limited medical skills can fix it.

“You know, if you wanted to see me shirtless, all you had to do was ask,” he grins down at you, voice thin but cocky as ever. “Didn’t need to nearly blow our covers to do it.”

It’s not funny. You don’t know why he’s smiling. You snatch a cotton pad off the counter, douse it in the vodka, press it to the cut hard. He hisses, jaw clenching, and something about the reaction eases a little of the tension in your shoulders. 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” you say, fixing your eyes on the cut so you don’t have to look at his face, the way his eyes are laughing even now. “Taken the hit for me.”

“Right, next time I’ll let you get stabbed, then,” he replies lightly. 

You slap the gauze to the cut more forcefully than necessary, just to make him feel the ache. “He was my guy. I could’ve handled it. You can’t put the mission in danger just to keep me from getting hurt.”

Lando flinches, and you can’t tell whether it’s from the pressure or from your tone of voice. You want to shrink away from it yourself when you hear it — the sharpness, the tender underbelly of it threatening to claw its way to the surface. “I get hit and I’m the one getting yelled at? Not even a thank you for my heroic sacrifice. Chivalry really is dead,” he sniffs.

You look up at him incredulously, tearing the bandage open with your teeth and smoothing it across the gauze. “Do you think this is funny?”

“I mean, a little,” he shrugs, smirking. You get to your feet, backing away from him like the separation will give your lungs the room they need to breathe. “I know we lost the drive, and I’m sorry, but we’ll get it back, and I’m fine. All’s well that ends well, yeah?”

“You don’t get to say that. You could have been killed. What, do you think if you bleed enough for me I’ll be impressed?”

“Dunno. Would you be?” he teases, eyes bright. 

“Jesus,” you hiss, cheeks burning, and his smile grows impossibly wide. 

“Relax. I’m kidding,” he rattles on, swinging his feet against the counter like he doesn’t feel the way the walls seem to be closing in around you, breath heavy and aching in your chest. “Honestly, I don’t know what you’re getting so worked up about, it was barely a scratch —”

“Because I thought I was going to lose you!” you snap without thinking, the uncomfortable truth scratching out of your throat like a shard of glass. 

The room keeps the words alive, sound echoing over and over off the tiled walls. At least they finally, finally knock the smile off his face. Instead he just stares at you, eyes wide like you’ve sucker punched him. And then, before you do something stupid like cry in front of Lando Norris, you storm out of the bathroom. 

You’re in your pajamas under the covers by the time he comes back to the bedroom a few minutes later, joggers slung low on his hips and toothpaste flecking the corner of his mouth. He walks around the bed without a word, grabbing the remnants of the previous night’s pillow wall off the floor. 

“It’s okay,” you say too quickly, and Lando just looks at you, something unreadable brewing in those stormy eyes. “We don’t need to. I don’t want it to crowd the cut,” you add, as if it’s purely logistical. “Medical exemption for one night.”

It’s a weak excuse, probably the worst lie you’ve ever told, and both of you know it. Lando drops the pillows in his arms, and you can see his soft smile even in the twilight darkness of the room. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”

The adrenaline thrumming through your veins is wearing off, leaving exhaustion in the empty space it abandons. You tell yourself that’s why you don’t have the energy to roll your eyes at him, as he slips underneath the covers carefully, trying not to disturb the bandages. Despite the lack of pillows between you, the bed feels smaller than it did before, warmth radiating off his body. You lay there, staring at the ceiling, not touching him, trying very hard not to unravel the fragile composure you’ve managed to hold on to. 

“You know, people typically close their eyes as a prerequisite to going to sleep,” Lando’s voice sounds teasingly from somewhere beside you. When you turn to look at him, his eyes are already on your face. “You okay?”

“Fine,” you say, throat croaking for some reason. 

His face softens. “No, you’re not.”

He inches hesitantly toward you, like if he goes too fast you’ll bolt, and wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you gently into his chest. You exhale shakily against his skin, burying your face in the crook of his neck. He smells like sweat and cologne and the unmistakable coppery scent of blood. You don’t cry, won’t allow it. But you let yourself lean into him a little more, enough to feel the steady rise and fall of his chest all over your body. Enough to remind yourself he’s still breathing.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs into your hair, fingers tracing small circles on your back soothingly. “I’m okay. ‘M not going anywhere, yeah? Gonna keep annoying you for as long as I can.”

You huff out a small sound, half laugh and half breath hitching in your throat. “You say that like it’s something for me to look forward to.”

“Come on. Don’t pretend you don’t love it,” he says as his fingers brush over your bare shoulder. 

You pull back just enough to see his face, eyes searching over the small, pleased smile you find there. “I could live without the stab wounds.”

“Couldn’t live without me, then?” he says, voice low, tongue pushing against the corners of his mouth the way it always does when he’s being cheeky. You wish your eyes weren’t following the motion. 

Your cheeks heat in the darkness, like he’s discovered something you should be embarrassed of. “Don’t push your luck, Norris.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, grinning that ridiculous grin as he rolls back onto his back. You stare back at the ceiling, pretending not to hate the space between you. “Just… glad you’re okay.” 

That should be the end of it. You should close your eyes, go to sleep, pretend his ridiculous flirting doesn’t affect you. Pretend you know exactly what’s been for the mission and what’s real. Pretend you never let the tiny part of your heart with his name on it crack open in front of him tonight.

“Lando?”

He turns back to you, and the look in his eyes nearly knocks the breath out of you. “Yeah?”

That’s when you kiss him. It’s hesitant at first, more of a question than anything, like all the uncertainty you’ve been carrying all evening has no place else to go. But then Lando sighs against your mouth, his hand coming up to cup your cheek in a gesture so sweet that it makes your heart ache, and assurance settles in your chest like it wants to make a permanent home there. He tastes like peppermint, mouth warm and soft against yours, tongue pushing at the seam of your lips. As your mouth moves slowly against his, your hand traces gently down his side, and he winces as your fingertips graze over the cut. But then you pull your hand away like an apology, and he fucking whines against your lips like he’ll die if your hands aren’t on his skin.

“Lando,” you breathe into the sliver of space between you, nose brushing against his. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

His pupils are blown wide, black bleeding into watercolor irises. “Please,” he whispers back, so reverent that it shatters something inside you. “You can hurt me however you want.” 

So you pull him on top of you like it’s something inevitable, like the mission was always leading here: to his hands braced on either side of you, to the low throaty sound he makes when you wrap your legs around his waist, to the way his breath hitches against your mouth as you roll your hips against his. You let him take you apart, all mouth and hands and an impossible sort of tenderness; let yourself fall to pieces underneath the warmth and the weight of him, over and over again. 

Afterwards, when the silence settles between the two of you like gunsmoke after a shootout, Lando falls asleep almost immediately, face pressed against your shoulder and arm flung across your waist like it’s second nature. You lie there perfectly still, your chests rising and falling in sync, letting the weight of giving him something you can’t take back settle into your bones.

You’re awake before the sun. Really, you’re not sure you ever fell asleep, hovering fitfully in that twilight zone where everything feels like a dream or maybe just a warped version of reality. You wish that was the case — you keep pressing your eyes shut like if you try hard enough, you can erase the entirety of last night, like you can just take back the biggest liability you can imagine. Like you can go back to a world where you didn’t admit that Lando Norris means something to you.

But when you open your eyes again, you’re still there, pressed to Lando’s side. His breath is warm on your neck, lashes brushing against your shoulder, the sunlight glowing golden on his bare skin. He’s beautiful. It’s terrifying. Suddenly, his arm around your waist feels less like care and more like another restraint you have to work your way out of. You slip out of the bed, extricating yourself from his embrace as delicately as you can. Put on your MI6 t-shirt and make coffee on autopilot. When you take the first sip, you wince at the bitterness. It tastes like punishment, the type you deserve for letting yourself want something you can never, ever have.

The sheets rustle lazily behind you, and when you turn, Lando’s already propped on his elbows looking at you, eyes crinkling at the corners with affection and something that looks a little like triumph. “Morning,” he says, voice still rough with sleep, and the grin he gives you is blinding. “Just checking — does this mean I get to kiss you without a cover story now, or do I have to call you Mrs. Sinclair to get you to come back to bed?”

You can hear the mattress creak as he shifts, sitting up a little more, and for a moment you picture what it could be like if you were a different girl. You could make him a cup of coffee, crawl back into bed, kiss him and let it mean something without risking his life and yours. 

“Funny,” you say instead, voice tight. “Just part of the mission, yeah?”

Confusion flickers over his features, and you force your eyes away. You can’t look at him. Won’t. “What are you talking about?”

You keep your eyes trained on the horizon, grip your mug tighter so he can’t see your hands shake. “I know it’s nothing special, so let’s not make a big deal out of it. You flirt with everyone, Lando. It’s, like, your thing.”

He laughs, sharp and disbelieving. It’s the worst sound you’ve ever heard. “I really, really don’t.”

His voice is heavy with the self-defeat you recognize from a particularly bad score in training, when he’d get in a mood so black he’d swear he wouldn’t make it to the agency. Back then you’d comfort him, help him train, get him out of his head. Anything to keep yourself from hearing the way his voice shattered around the edges. 

You don’t know what to do when you’re the one who’s caused it. 

The silence between you stretches for another long moment. Lando runs a hand through his messy curls, expression shuttered. “Is that what you really think of me? That I just — shag my way through missions?”

“I think it doesn’t matter what I think,” you say, trying very hard to keep your voice level. “I get it. We made a mistake, got carried away. It didn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not to you,” he mutters, and it lands like a kill shot.

“Lando,” you try, but he interrupts you before you can finish. 

“I knew you would do this, you know? Knew the second it felt real you’d fucking — shut down, like you always do.” He laughs helplessly. “Couldn’t stop myself, though, could I? ‘Cos I’m such a fucking flirt that I just fall into bed with everyone who looks my way.”

You step forward, and he flinches away from you. “Lan, I didn’t mean to —”

“Yes, you did,” he snaps, eyes alight. “You freaked out and couldn’t handle whatever this is, so you decided to make it feel small for yourself. Make me feel small, too. Well, congratulations, agent. You fucking nailed it.”

He pulls his shirt over his head, not even bothering to turn it right side out, and gets out of bed. 

“Where are you going?” you say, voice small as you watch him move. 

“Anywhere but here,” he mutters back, stalking towards the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him so hard it makes the crystal in the chandeliers tremble. You stare at the door frame, listening to the shower run until the coffee goes cold in your hand. 

Wonder if when he said you could hurt him however you wanted, if he ever pictured this.

The invitation arrives a few hours later, a personalized summons on heavy ivory cardstock that feels like wealth beneath your fingertips. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair, you are cordially invited to an exclusive dinner on the Kickback this evening, hosted by Gabriel DuPont in recognition of your generous support. 

And at the bottom, a note, inked in the cruel, thick penstrokes of your target himself: I truly hope to see you both there.

“It’s a test,” you say, pacing back and forth from one edge of the bedroom to the other, bare feet sinking into the rug like quicksand. Lando’s perched on the edge of the bed, running his thumb over the embossed lettering. “He suspects us.”

“Or a trap,” Lando mutters, tossing the card at the nightstand. “Yacht anchored in the middle of the harbor? No one to hear us scream?”

“It doesn’t matter which one of us is right,” you sigh, running a hand through your hair. “We have to go. It’s our only chance to get the drive back. We don’t have a choice.”

“We never do,” he says quietly. His hair is still damp from the shower, curls sticking to his forehead, and he looks exhausted. Not in a way that shows, not to anyone else. But you’ve known him long enough to know the tired set of his jaw, the red-rimmed eyes that make your chest ache to look at. 

You turn, crossing your arms over your chest. “Are you going to be able to do this?”

He raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

You look out over the water, not sure you can face him when you ask what is sure to rank as the most pathetic question of your life. “I mean are you still mad at me?” you ask, biting the inside of your cheek until you taste copper. 

When he answers, it’s completely devoid of emotion. “Why would I be mad at you?”

It’s worse than if he’d shouted. You’ve screamed and bickered and fought over the years enough times to know Lando’s dramatic reactions down to the letter, know the way his moods rage intensely and then dissolve like a summer storm. This — the cool detachment, like you’re a stranger he happened to stumble into a mission with — this is new. It lodges somewhere behind your ribs like a lingering bruise. 

“Don’t worry,” he adds, standing up and grabbing his watch off the dresser roughly. You’ve seen him handle a Glock with more tenderness. “I’m not going to let you down.”

The words, unspoken, hang in the air between you two. Not like you did to me. 

When you pull up to the harbor, the yacht looms ahead of you, a sparkling vision of teak and chrome. Staff in creamy white jackets hand you champagne flutes the second you step off the dock and direct you to a table at the bow of the boat, where DuPont is holding court with the other couples. It’s a small party, full of people wearing designer labels and icy smiles, sipping expensive wine and pretending to be relatable. 

The two of you mingle. Lando kisses your cheek when someone makes a joke about newlywed bliss. You laugh and rest your hand on his chest — if the phrase includes sleeping with the best friend you have and then shutting down emotionally to keep you both safe, then sure, it’s newlywed bliss. Through it all, Lando keeps his hand wrapped together with yours, like he’s trying to remind you he’s not going anywhere. You’re grateful for the kindness, even when it feels like twisting the knife of guilt that’s already stuck in your chest. 

You’re introduced to another couple, an American CEO and his third wife, very blonde and very surgically enhanced. She eyes Lando like he’s on the menu, makes a teasing comment about how lucky you are. You laugh and blush as Lando says he’s the lucky one. 

“How did you two meet?” the woman asks, and your stomach drops. You’re on thin ice already, DuPont’s security team watching your every move. You’re sure they’ve noticed the tension between the two of you already. If he hesitates, even for a moment —

“We met at a pub, actually,” Lando says casually, not missing a beat. “This place called Mother Kelly’s. It was the day before I started my job, and I wanted to scope out the neighborhood a bit. Walked in, and there she was — this girl sitting at the bar, hair pulled back, no makeup on, drinking a Guinness. Most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I offered to buy her a drink, thought I was being really fucking smooth. And she looked me dead in the eyes, pointed at the pint and said ‘Open your eyes, mate. I’ve already got one, don’t I?’” He huffs out a laugh. “Cheeky as anything.” He pauses for a moment, and his voice is softer when he speaks again. “And then she smiled at me, and that was pretty much it. I’ve been gone for her ever since.”

The women at the table coo, marveling over the sweetness of the story. But you just stare at him dumbstruck, your heart hammering beneath your ribs. 

Because that’s not Claridge’s. That’s not Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair’s story. 

It’s you and Lando’s. 

You remember everything about that day. Lando, scrawnier then, a rush of dark curls and that heart-shaped smile, lounging on the barstool next to you after five minutes like you were the best of friends already. The London rain came down hard just as you were settling your tab, so you ended up staying for another drink — he could talk you into anything, even then. The two of you played darts for hours, and you won every time until the last game, when he suggested a friendly bet and then proceeded to hit six bullseyes in a row. He’d hustled you for hours, just for a tenner and to hear the surprise in your laugh when he beat you. 

I’ve been gone for her ever since. Suddenly, you feel dizzy, sick to your stomach at the way he’s steadfastly refusing to meet your eyes. 

“Excuse me for a moment, ladies,” Lando murmurs to the women beside him, color high in his cheeks, and you’re too slow to stop him. He slips away with the easy charm of someone who’s been doing it his whole life, like he didn’t just turn your entire idea of him — of the two of you — inside out without a second thought. 

You know in your bones what he’s doing. Playing the hero. Finishing the mission himself because he can’t bear to see your face after he bared his soul. You’d do the same, if you were him. Two sides of the same coin, always have been. 

You watch the door like a hawk. Ten agonizing minutes pass. Then fifteen. And Lando doesn’t come back. 

In the event that any agent is compromised, retreat. Do not attempt rescue.

Fuck that. You’re going in.

You push your chair back, ignoring the way it scrapes against the deck, and walk with purpose towards the cabin without even bothering to excuse yourself. You can hear the shocked whispers behind you, and a thought tugs at the rational part of your brain that it’s not how Mrs. Sinclair would ever leave a room. But if Lando’s been gone for as long as he has, your cover’s certainly been blown, anyway. 

You let the sliding door slam shut behind you, press your eyes shut for a moment. The yacht blueprints are still burned in your mind from the night the two of you watched movies together, as clear as the sound of Lando’s laugh. You have to press your hand over your mouth and stifle a gasp at the thought you might never hear it again. 

The yacht is labyrinthine, all twisting corridors going down multiple floors. If you were DuPont, and you’d caught Lando, you would put him in the engine room on the bottom floor, deep beneath the waves. You head for the emergency stairs, at the back of the ship. As you walk, you pass a nondescript door. You keep walking, glancing through the porthole as you go, and stop dead.

Clearly, you were wrong about what DuPont would do. Because Lando is inside, tied to a chair, arms behind his back, flanked by two guards. His nose is bleeding, one eye swollen shut and purpling rapidly. The billionaire stands facing him with his back to the door, calmly smoothing something at his breast pocket and swirling a tumbler of amber liquid, with a third guard standing ground behind him. 

“Where’s your wife?” he says mildly. Somehow, it’s more frightening than if he was screaming. “Not coming to save you?”

“She’s not involved in this,” Lando lies through his teeth, words slurring together slightly. Protecting you to the bitter end, even after everything you’ve done. “She’s not like me. She doesn’t know what I do.”

DuPont laughs, that strange, raspy sound again, and it sends a chill down your spine. “Agent, I didn’t think you’d lie to me.” He walks closer to Lando, fluidly pulls something out of his pocket. Blind fear envelops you when you realize it’s a gun, aimed at your partner’s head. “Tell me who she is, and I’ll let you walk.”

Lando turns, spits blood onto the floor. Then slowly, deliberately leans forward until his mouth is pressed against the barrel, the cool metal pulling at the plush pink of his bottom lip. “Go ahead. Kill me,” he grimaces, looking up at DuPont through his eyelashes. “I’d die before I let you hurt her.”

DuPont cocks the gun, and that’s when you strike. 

One guard crumples before the door swings open fully, your shot blasting cleanly through his forehead. You don’t wait to see him hit the ground; you’re already whirling around, a swift kick landing squarely to the chest of the guard backing DuPont. It stuns him enough for you to swing your arm around hard, cracking the butt of your pistol against his temple. He stumbles, back hitting the wall as he begins to slump. You grab for DuPont, but you’re off balance, and you only manage to pull his jacket off as he flees out the door. 

Regroup. Two down. One to go. You turn, but the other guard is already waiting for you, hands steady and gun aimed at your heart. You raise your hands, like you’re caught, and he relaxes slightly. Your eyes flick over to Lando, who kicks his legs out hard and knocks the guard to the floor. You don’t hesitate before you put a bullet in the guy’s chest. 

The room would be silent, if you couldn’t hear your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. You scan the room, grab a pair of scissors out of a desk drawer and start hacking at the zip ties on Lando’s wrists. 

His head lolls towards you, blood spattered at the corner of his mouth. “You weren’t supposed to come back for me.”

You keep trying to cut through the last zip tie, but your hands are shaking too badly. “Don’t be an idiot,” you say, shaking your head. “I wasn’t gonna let you down.”

His smile is soft, trained on you. “You never have.”

You finally cut through the plastic, catching him just before he slumps forward entirely. Immediately, you know he’s worse off than you thought; your arms go around his torso on instinct to hold him up and he yelps, sharp and broken, like you’ve smacked him. 

“You okay?” you ask, trying to shift his weight carefully.  

He groans anyway, face pale. “No. But thanks for asking,” he grits out, somehow still flirting even with what feels like multiple broken ribs. “Let’s get DuPont.”

You balance him against the desk, pull out your walkie. “HQ, this is beta team. We need extract,” you say clearly, sliding it back into your pocket. Five minutes, and you’ll be on the first helicopter back to London. “We’re not getting DuPont. We’re getting you out of here alive.”

Lando coughs, and there’s something wet behind it. “We can do it,” he insists, stubborn to the end. “Walk me up to the upper deck.”

“Lando,” you sigh. “What’s the point? We need to cut our losses here. We don’t even know where the drive is.”

“Jacket,” he says, eyes catching yours, almost too sharp for someone who looks like death warmed over. “Inside pocket. Saw it when you pulled it off him earlier.”

You blink once, then dive for the crumpled clothing, hands raking over the fabric. Sure enough, there’s a little pocket stitched into the silk lining. You rip it open, pull out the unmistakable sleek black drive, stuff the thing in your bra for safekeeping. 

“Okay,” you say, convinced. “Let’s get that son of a bitch.”

He grins back at you, only the slightest bit unfocused. “Help me up, Mrs. Sinclair?”

You drag him back up the stairs one step at a time, his arm slung around your shoulders, your free hand gripping your pistol tight. The harbor air hits your skin like a slap, salty and electric. When you get to the upper deck, DuPont is at the bow, trying to activate the emergency launch controls on the tender. Trying to make a coward’s escape.

You prop Lando against the first railing you can find. “Stay here,” you warn. Then you run at DuPont, tackling him before he can lower the boat into the water. 

The fight is messy, brutal. Your gun clatters out of your hand as he backs you into the rail. The poles clatter against your skull, vision flashing white, but you hit back harder. He swings at you, wild, but you’ve been hit worse, by people better trained. You twist, knee him in the ribs, elbow up under his chin. He staggers. You drive him back with everything you’ve got.

And then there’s a pair of hands grabbing his arms from behind — not steady, not strong. But enough to buy you time.

Lando.

You snap the cuffs onto DuPont’s wrists and slam him to the deck, and it’s over. Or at least it would be, if your extraction team was here, and if Lando wasn’t collapsing on the deck in front of you like the effort might well kill him. 

“Fuck, did you hear me? Extract extract extract,” you scream into your walkie again, voice hoarse, then toss it aside, turning back to Lando. His skin is paling rapidly, breathing shallow. “Stay with me, Lan.”

“That takedown was pretty hot,” he rasps weakly, head lolling to the side. 

“Shut up,” you say, voice cracking in a way you can’t even pretend to control. “You just gotta hold on for a couple more minutes, okay?”

His fingers find yours, grip loose like he doesn’t have the strength left in his hands. “We got him.”

“Yeah,” you nod, sniffling wetly. “Yeah, we got him. And we got the drive. And you’re gonna be okay.”

He shakes his head, and you can see him fading. “Was a good last mission,” he says quietly, looking up at you through his eyelashes. “Liked being your husband.” His eyes slide shut, and you shake him slightly, but he doesn’t respond. 

“You can’t die, Lando, please,” you try to speak, but it’s interrupted by the tears that have started to pour down your cheeks. You press your forehead against his, let the warmth of his skin comfort you. “You stupid idiot pain in the ass, I love you. I’m sorry I was scared before, but I love you and you can’t die before I get to tell you that. Please. Just — don’t let me down. One last time. Don’t you dare fucking die.”

No answer. All you can hear is the soft sound of the waves crashing against the hull, drowned out by your own sobs. 

And then finally, finally, the sound of helicopter blades whirring above you. 

The fluorescent lights hum like the world’s most annoying hold music. 

You’re seated at one end of a long, steel table in a debrief room, a folder full of mission notes and clearance forms spread out in front of you. The same stale coffee is in a cup in front of you. You’ve let it go cold, same as your nerves. 

“All in all, despite the... irregularities, the mission was quite the success,” Hale says, looking incredibly pleased with herself. “Gabriel DuPont is in custody. The drive is secure, and the information you collected has helped us pinpoint several other arms dealers in the European market. Only three dead, no civilians injured.” She clears her throat. “We’ll discuss the breaches of protocol another time, given that your quick thinking likely saved each other’s lives.”

Across the table, Lando grins at you with the air of someone who narrowly escaped death and is prepared to make it your problem. The bruise on his eye has faded from brilliant purple to a sickly yellow. There’s stitches across his side and his arm is in a sling, but he looks unfairly good for someone who nearly bled out on a superyacht less than a week ago. “Thank me later.”

“I saved you last,” you counter, raising an eyebrow. “Technically, you owe me.”

“One near-death experience and suddenly she’s keeping score,” he says, shrugging his shoulders and smiling that stupid, ridiculous smile at you.

“I’m thrilled your trauma hasn’t impacted your ability to bicker like twelve-year-olds,” Hale says dryly. “But it will affect your working hours. For now you’re both on administrative leave. Two weeks’ recovery time, minimum. Please try not to cause any international incidents in that time period,” she sighs. 

Lando looks at her innocently. “No promises.” 

Hale dismisses you, and you focus your eyes on your folder, neatly stacking everything. You haven’t really had the chance to speak to Lando since the mission ended. The ground feels unsteady between you two, tension pulling taut like a trip wire. But he doesn’t seem to be interested in speaking, and you don’t want to push, so you head for the door after your handler. 

“So, about what you said earlier,” Lando pipes up, and you turn back.

“About owing me? I’ll take a pint, when you’re healed up,” you say as lightly as you can, eyes tracing over his face. 

“Actually, I was talking about on the boat when you said you loved me,” he replies casually, grin on his face, and your stomach drops. “But I’ll go for a pint whenever you want.”

“It was — I was trying to keep you conscious,” you stutter, unprepared and voice hoarse.

His smile grows. “Well, it worked. I’ve been very conscious of it ever since.”

“Oh, shut up,” you groan, but there’s a laugh behind it somewhere. 

He stands up, limping towards you until he’s close enough that you can see the raised pink scar by his lip. “So, did you mean it?” His tone is still light, teasing, but you can see the question in his eyes, the way something real hangs in the balance of your answer. 

You let your eyes flit over his face, one you know better than your own reflection. One that became your friend, your partner, your shield. One you nearly lost, that you couldn’t walk away from even when every protocol told you to run. 

You sigh, looking down. “I failed the mission.”

He scrunches his nose, and you fight the urge to kiss the wrinkle. “What do you mean?”

“You told me you’d accept it as long as I promised not to fall in love with you,” you shrug. “Really messed that one up, didn’t I?”

He beams at you like sunshine breaking through the clouds. “Well, it took you long enough.”

“Are you gonna kiss me, or what?” you tease, and he doesn’t say another word. Just steps forward, cups your jaw with his good hand, and kisses you like it’s the only order he’ll ever follow again. 

[jellesreid]

Bun in the Oven

In which Spencer’s influencer girlfriend announced her pregnancy (Fluff!) Soon to be dad Spencer x influencer soon to be mom reader

masterlist

word count: 1.8k

tags: dad!spencer, mom!reader, pregnant reader, influencer reader, Instagram, pregnancy reveal, pregnancy announcement, couple, in love, relationship, BAU, behavioural analysis unit, girl mom, gathering, party, family, friends, aesthetic, Elle greenaway, Jennifer jareau, jelle, Penelope Garcia.

warnings: none! fluffyyyy

notes: I have changed my layout I usually use a GIF but I am running out lol. There will probably be a part 2 to this. I hope you enjoy!

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You and Spencer had kept your relationship a secret from his friends for a couple of months when you started dating but the secrecy didn’t last long because of your large following on social media.

While your fans couldn’t tell who Spencer was based on the pictures you had posted, his friends specifically Penelope and Elle who were apparently pretty big fans of yours didn’t take long to figure out that you were Spencer’s secret girlfriend and he was their favourite influencers mystery boyfriend.

You still hadn’t posted anything with Spencer’s face in or tagged him in anything partly because he only made an Instagram account solely to look at your pictures and follow a select few members of the BAU team.

When you met Spencer it wasn’t exactly a coincidence, you had seen Elle’s Instagram come up on your explore page before, and after a quick look at her feed, you’d seen a picture of Spencer at a coffee shop you visited occasionally.

You became a regular at that coffee shop, the green tea and strawberry matcha were both exceptionally nice and seeing the brown puppy-eyed FBI agent was a bonus of the trips.

After realising, that despite you both locking eyes each time you saw each other, he wasn’t going to be the one that made the first move. You sat at his table one day while he was lost in a sudoku puzzle. Now you had been dating for close to three years, and neither of you could be happier.

“Oh my god!” Penelope shrieked from her tech den, “Elle!”

Elle rounded the corner standing in the doorway hand in hand with JJ, “What is it? It’s only,” Elle looked down at her watch, “8:25 in the morning.”

“Did you see her post!” Penelope still spoke at a high volume that really wasn’t needed for this early in the morning.

“Whose?” JJ asked her eyebrows knitted together.

“Y/N’s! Look,” Penelope ushered them in with the motion of her hand signalling for them to come closer.

On the screen in front of her was your most recent Instagram post.

Elle covered her mouth with her hands after she let out a small gasp.

“No way! That’s great,” JJ exclaimed happily.

“He’s going to be the best dad!” Penelope started, “And obviously she’s going to be the best mom.”

“Spence is so great with kids,” Elle smiled widely.

“He’s great with Henry, Micheal and Isabelle,” JJ said quickly getting up a picture from a day when Spencer babysat for her and Elle.

“And Jack,” Elle added.

When they heard Spencer’s voice coming from the bullpen they were quick to call him in at the same time.

“Ladies,” Spencer said when he reached the doorway with a coffee in his hand.

“When were you going to tell us!” Penelope shouted at him.

“Tell you what?” Spencer said flustered trying not to let his face show that he had a secret.

“That Y/N is pregnant, that you’re going to be a dad?” Elle said.

“How did you know?” Spencer asked rubbing the back of his neck.

“Instagram duh,” Penelope rolled her eyes.

Spencer groaned, “She was supposed to mute you, apparently that’s something on Instagram. We had something planned.”

“Oh,” Elle frowned slightly.

“I’m sorry for ruining it,” Penelope pouted.

“There’s a gathering at our place on Friday, Please act surprised when she tells you and please stop anyone else from finding out,” Spencer pleaded with her.

“On it,” Penelope said as she started taping at her keyboard at the speed of light.

Luckily Friday came with no one else finding out. Everyone was at yours and Spencer’s apartment, you had decided that while you both had enough money you wanted to wait until you were engaged before buying a house, the apartment was large enough for three by all means.

Spencer had his arms wrapped around your waist and his hands rested on your stomach almost immediately after you had revealed the news to his co-workers.

They were all delighted that you were pregnant although you could tell by Penelope’s not-so-ecstatic reaction that she already knew, that’s when you remembered you forgot to mute them from your Instagram.

“Baby I messed up,” You turned and pouted at Spencer.

“What’s wrong angel?” Spencer asked moving one of his hands to play with the ends of your hair.

“I didn’t mute them from my Instagram, they already knew. I should have just waited to tell people I ruined it,” You frowned with tears in your eyes. It really wasn’t as big a deal as you were making it to be right now but it was most likely the hormones.

“It’s okay darling,” Spencer kissed the top of your head, “I’ll admit, I knew Penelope, Elle and JJ knew but I promise they were the only ones and I made sure no one else found out.”

“Why didn't you tell me they knew!” You folded your arms.

“Because I knew how excited you were about surprising everyone and I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”

You groaned, “You’re such a good boyfriend I can’t even be mad.”

“Well thank goodness because I don’t want you to be mad at me,” Spencer laughed, his hands returning to your stomach.

“You can’t even tell in most clothes yet,” You stated.

“That’s true but I know our baby is there.”

Penelope came skipping toward you both, “Stop hogging her Spencer, we need girl time.”

“I’m just taking care of her,” Spencer looked into your eyes with love.

“Boring, you can do that later we need to gossip,” Penelope took your hand and dragged you towards the kitchen where Elle was.

As soon as the door was closed Penelope started playing rapid fire with her questions, “When are you and Spencer getting married? Do you want a boy or a girl? Oh, who cares either it will be gorgeous. Ooo when are you telling your fans who Spencer is?”

“Okay,” You laugh, “What happened to one question at a time?”

“You’ll have to excuse her she’s a little crazy,” Elle laughed pulling you into a hug, “Congratulations.”

“Thank you, um the questions so… I’m not sure we will get married when we are ready, I would love a daughter of course but I would also love to have a boy. Spencer thinks it’s a girl based on my bump. I don’t have a plan on telling my fans who Spence is I don’t think it’s important and as you both already know keeping a low profile is important for FBI agents.”

Elle nods, “All valid points, I don’t think Spencer would want to be on social media like that.”

“You’re right,” Penelope said.

You nodded picking up a piece of chocolate cake from the tray on the counter.

“You’re going to be the best and hottest parents ever,” Penelope squealed.

“Thank you,” You said sitting down on one of the seats at the breakfast bar, “I’m so tired.”

“Have you not been sleeping well?” Elle asked concerned.

“I get a little nausea at night and it’s definitely worse when I’m worrying about Spence too I’m just thankful he has been teaching and hasn’t gone on as many cases lately.”

Elle frowned and rubbed your back, “I get it, it’s a demanding job but if you speak to Spencer I’m sure he’ll think of something, like doing more case files at home instead.”

“I’m going to get Spencer,” Penelope said.

“No you don’t have to,” You started but by the time you finished the words Penelope had left the kitchen.

Penelope came back into the kitchen with Spencer following behind her with a worried look covering his face making the wrinkles in his forehead more prominent.

“What’s wrong darling?” He asked.

“I’m just tired.”

“You need to rest I’ll wrap things up and then we will rest together sweetheart. How does that sound?” Spencer kissed your head.

“It sounds good but I feel bad they haven’t been here long and they are your friends,” you frowned.

“Honey, I don’t care if they had only just walked through the door, if you’re not up to it they can leave,” He rubbed your back lovingly.

“I just want hugs,” You whispered but loud enough for him to hear and the two women in the room to go ‘Awww.’

“Come here,” Spencer helped you up from the chair and instantly wrapped his arms around you.

“I need to do my Instagram post,” You groaned into his neck as you looked at the clock on the kitchen wall.

“Let’s sit on the sofa, we can choose some pictures together,” He locked his fingers with yours as you walked into the living room together.

JJ spotted Elle across the room and made her way over to her wife, “She looks exhausted.”

“She is, she feels bad about everyone having to leave though,” Elle said wrapping her arms around JJ’s waist.

You rested your head on Spencer’s shoulder as you scrolled through your camera roll.

“How about that one, you look gorgeous,” Spencer kissed the side of your head before his phone dinged with a message. He took his phone out of his pocket and read the message from JJ that said ‘Elle and I will start asking people to leave :)’ Spencer smiled and liked the message and put it away before you could see.

“Hm, maybe. I want one of us though.”

“I think some of us are going to head out now, we have the kids to pick up,” JJ told the pair after making her way around the small group of people there.

“Are you sure?” You asked.

“Yeah, we can all hang out another day, and get some rest. I’ll send you some pictures of Isabella at her school show tonight,” JJ leaned down and hugged you.

“Oh please do!” You exclaimed, “Bye guys, I hope you had fun, sorry I wasn’t much fun to be around.”

Elle kissed the top of your head, “You were fine, we understand, have a nap.”

“It was still fun, you’re always fun, we love you guys,” Penelope said heading towards the door with Derek after he said goodbye to you and Spencer.

——————

“Have you chosen the pictures yet honey?” Spencer asked bringing two cups of peppermint tea into the living room.

“Yep and posted, I think you’ll like them,” You smiled, snuggling closer to him as he picked up his phone to look at your post.

“Do you ever read the comments?” He asked after leaving his own comment on the post.

“Sometimes, I like a few of the comments but people can be mean and there’s always people speculating who you are.”

“You know you can mention me, I wouldn’t mind. My account is private and I’d never have my full name on there so it’s mostly safe,” Spencer looked at a couple of comments with his phone in one hand and his other hand rested on your stomach.

“Really?” You asked excitedly already picking up your phone to tag him in the picture.

Spencer nodded, giving you a soft kiss on your lips, “I want everyone to know you’re mine.”

—————————-💓————————

[marlynnofmany]

A Temporary Shipwreck

Our luck was just garbage lately. First the client for our latest delivery wasn’t on time to pick up their order, then once we were finally ready to take off, the exceptionally dense asteroid field had shifted to the point where our word-of-mouth map wasn’t accurate anymore. And then, as we tried to maneuver through the mess, some local jerk in a sporty cruiser sideswiped us and never looked back.

Good news: our shields did their job and prevented any damage.

Bad news: that asteroid field was full of junk, including the remains of something mechanical that turned out to be a broken gravity generator. Our little yellow ship got stuck to the side of the scrap heap like a lemon on a pile of compacted cars. At least Kavlae got the solar sails folded in time.

So, there we were, with no other ships in sight. Our own ship’s gravity tech was enough to counteract the pull coming from this thing, so nobody was falling down in the hallways, but escape velocity was going to be a problem. Mimi came up from the engine room to study the readings on the scrap heap, and he didn’t like the odds of igniting something with our thrusters. He also wasn’t wild about the idea of getting up close and personal in a space suit to try turning the generator off. Everything was unstable out there.

Captain Sunlight decided we would send out a distress signal before trying anything rash. The disagreeable client we’d met earlier (by docking ship-to-ship, not landing anywhere sketchy) was long gone, and there weren’t any official civilization centers nearby. But we’d seen other ships on the way here, not to mention the terrible driver who hit us, so surely someone else would be along who could help out.

The captain muttered about raiders in a way that suggested she didn’t want to worry the rest of us, then she shooed everyone away from hanging around the cockpit, and told us to find something else to do.

I did some muttering of my own, mostly about the driving skills of whoever had been at the helm of the cruiser. Maybe all the non-asteroids in this asteroid field were because of drunk drivers. I had no idea if the locals went in for that kind of intoxicants, but it seemed possible.

I thought of something else to do, and headed for the cargo bay. That client who was late earlier had also refused part of the shipment we were supposed to give them. Thankfully they’d paid the whole price for the delivery service, but it was an unpleasant interaction all around. Yes, today has just been a delight from the start. Anyways, they’d left us with a box of food that no one was excited about. I heaved it off the floor and took it to the kitchen where Eggskin was chopping roots on a counter.

I set the box down by their feet. “Ta-dah.”

Eggskin gave it a look. “Oh my,” they said, putting aside the food prep. They dried their scaly yellow-green hands on a cloth, folded it fastidiously, then opened the box and removed one can of many. “There certainly is a lot of it.”

“Is it the kind you thought it was?” I asked, picking up another can. The trade-language label declared it to be the highest quality gelatinized food-flesh that money could buy. With extra sodium. Yummy.

“I’m afraid so,” Eggskin said, digging through the box in hopes of finding something else at the bottom. “This is edible by all species onboard, but I can’t promise anyone will enjoy it. Plus I’ll have to put extra attention to balancing the crew’s sodium intake at significant portions.”

“At least it lasts a long time,” I said, finding the expiration date. I was pretty sure I knew which standard time system it was referencing.

Eggskin reached the bottom, then arranged the cans back into tidy columns. “I’m not surprised someone didn’t want this. It wouldn’t be difficult to over-order.”

The ship’s intercom chimed. Captain Sunlight said, “Will Zhee, Trrili, and Coals kindly join us in the cockpit? I’d like a consultation about translations and what may be a Mesmer vessel.”

I wasn’t a Mesmer or a translator, but I was curious, and Eggskin was cocking a browridge at me like they knew that.

“Go ahead,” said the cook/medic, turning back to the roots on the counter, with a detour to wash any box germs off their hands first. “Just shove that into a corner, will you?” They pointed their tail at the meat products.

“Sure thing.” I moved it to an out-of-the-way spot, then hurried toward the cockpit. I heard Zhee’s bug feet clicking down the hall ahead of me.

When I arrived, I found Trrili lurking in the hallway, a collection of shiny black-and-red exoskeletoned limbs that didn’t fit comfortably in the cockpit when anyone else was there. She didn’t acknowledge me, but she definitely saw me with her range of vision. She politely folded a pincher arm so I could peek into the room.

Zhee was there, shiny purple and taking up an awkward amount of space. I didn’t even see Coals at first because he was on the opposite end of the size scale: short and stocky and standing on the other side of Kavlae’s pilot chair. Brick-red scales were barely visible over her sleeve as she adjusted the focus on one of the screens, flapping her frills in what looked like concern.

Wio was in the other seat, her tentacles fiddling with the controls, with Captain Sunlight standing in between, but all the rest of my attention moved to the spaceship shown onscreen. It was electric blue and exceptionally glittery.

The captain gestured with a yellow-scaled hand and said, “You can see why I thought of Mesmer construction.”

Zhee flicked an antenna. “It is stylish, for certain, but not shaped like a Mesmer vessel.”

Trrili agreed. “I’ve never seen one formed like that before. Perhaps the ship-builders were impressed by the awe-inspiring coloration schemes of all things Mesmer, but no, that is not one of ours.”

I honestly didn’t know how they could tell. Spaceship design was not my specialty. It looked like a normal enough shape to me: pointy in front and all that. And it sure did sparkle. But our friends the bug aliens weren’t the only ones who liked that kind of paint job.

Captain Sunlight nodded her lizardy head. “That’s a good sign, then. The raiders I was told to watch for are definitely Mesmer. An insult to the species at large, I’m sure.”

Both Trrili and Zhee angled their antennae in a way that looked like they agreed.

The captain continued. “Before we contact them, I have a question about the ship’s name. Can either of you shed some light on that?” She looked at Trrili and Coals, the translation experts, as she had Wio bring it up on the smaller screen.

Trrili hissed quietly, seeming thoughtful.

Coals said, “The lettering is regular enough, but I’ve got to admit the spelling is a little odd for Doorway. Maybe it’s a different trade language using the wrong symbols…”

Trrili said, “Or yet another made-up sound, here to annoy us.”

Coals nodded. “Or that.”

I studied the words on the small screen while the glittery ship coasted along on the big one. They didn’t look like anything at first, then I sounded them out. Phonetically, they were very similar to the Doorway words for ‘your’ and ‘mother.’ I burst out laughing. “Does that say ‘Yer Mama’??”

The rest of the crew stared at me with alien eyes. Captain Sunlight asked, “Is that a significant phrase?”

“Sort of,” I said, catching my breath. “Call it a friendly insult. A funny thing to name a spaceship.”

Wio said, “Either way, they’re probably not raiders. Should we contact them before they leave? They don’t seem to have spotted us over here.” She waved a tentacle at the big screen, where the ship was maneuvering around a different junk heap.

As I watched, they launched a long cable with something on the end, which caught on the scraps. Then they began reeling in what looked like an inert warp drive, and I laughed again. “They’re fishing! That’s why the ship is glittery; it’s a bass boat in space! Please contact them; I have to see if they have the accent I expect.”

At the captain’s nod, Kavlae sent the message in their direction. The ship finished reeling in its catch. Then it turned and headed toward us.

A human face appeared onscreen. “Hey, y’all need a hand?”

I grinned and waved from behind the captain while she politely explained the situation. Two other humans who looked much like the first in an extended-family sort of way peered over the speaker’s shoulder.

In no time flat, the glittery spaceboat was all set up to tow us out of the miniature gravity well, with their fishing hook held by our ship’s grabbing arm. Wio made sure it was properly in place while Mimi appeared out of nowhere to keep an eye on the ship’s damage readout. The captain gave the go-ahead.

They hauled us out of there as easy as landing a minnow. And they were mighty pleased about it.

Captain Sunlight said, “Thank you! We are deeply grateful for your help.”

“No problem at all! Say, you want to land that bird and give her a once-over somewhere with atmosphere? The Island isn’t far, and you can buy us a drink in thanks.”

Some polite questioning from the captain got us a description of the local hangout: a place that had once been a mining operation, and was now a not-on-official-maps trading post. Apparently it had its own gravity generator and atmosphere, along with a force field to keep the asteroids and space junk from slamming into it from all that gravity. The way they described it made it sound like a hollow planet the size of a small town, with entrances on two sides that were kept free of debris. The air quality was, as the man said, “The best money can buy.”

That gave me an idea. Before I could speak up, Mimi told the captain that a manual inspection would in fact be a good idea, and Trrili hissed from the hallway that she would be more than enough of a deterrent to keep away any troublesome types that might be there.

That must have made it over the speakers to the other ship, because the man laughed and said, “The only troublesome types are folks just having a beer! We keep away the real problems with stories about raiders in these parts.”

Captain Sunlight kept her expression calm as she said, “Then I think we’ll take you up on the invitation. Kindly lead the way.”

I whispered to her, “Ask if they want the canned meat.”

“The what? Oh, right.” Captain Sunlight turned back to the screen. “Would you like some packaged food with that drink? We have a box of gelatinized meat in good condition we’ll be happy to give you.”

I piped up, “It’s the best money can buy!”

“Aw yeah, love that stuff!” the man said. “Sure thing! C’mon and we’ll lead you over to the Island.”

We followed the glittery fishing boat through space, and I called Eggskin in to give everyone a rundown on what kind of human drinks they should politely decline.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[eobe]

🐱 Angry Crosshair kitten thrashing a tooka doll with his cute tiny hind pawsies 😂

I got inspired to this quickdoodle from this and couldn‘t resist 🤩🫠 So the idea credits go to @exceptionally-minded and justly to @superiorsniper 🫶

Taglist, today some cute art for you 🫶 @eclec-tech @lonewolflupe @bixlasagna @returnofthepineapple @sunshinesdaydream @covert1ntrovert @general-ida-raven @vrycurious @dystopicjumpsuit @chaicilatte @groguandthebadbatch @justanotherdikutsimp @ladylucksrogue @spaceyjessa

[coffeeandbatboys]

Is this true @exceptionally-minded?

Tech is short for Technically

[seat-safety-switch]

Couple weeks ago, I was watching the evening news when a commercial came on. Usually, I skip those suckers. Change channels. Couldn't do that this time, though, because the television I was watching was in my neighbour's living room. And although the binoculars I was using to look into said living room are exceptionally high-tech, they do not contain a television remote. Always leaving something on the table for the 2.0 version, those fucking scam artists.

Here's what the commercial was: a prayer line. You could dial in and pay nine cents a minute to have a group of folks working in a call centre pray for you. The handsome-yet-celibate dude wearing an insanely expensive suit droned on about something I couldn't hear, but the message was obvious. If I got them to get their god to do my bidding, then maybe I'd be able to win at a salvage auction for once.

The only higher power I believe in is the universe's ability to put its thumb directly on me as soon as I start to get a little smug, almost as if my hubris leads inevitably to a moderately funny downfall. Couldn't hurt to bring in another guy and make them fight.

Thing is, I don't have a phone. Sure, I have a smartphone, everyone does, but it can't make phone calls. Or send data. Or light up more than about half the screen. So I had to help myself to one of the public-use phones at the police station, pretending that I was calling home to my wife to come bring my insurance card. I think the precinct desk clerk was starting to get suspicious around hour two, but she went on break shortly after that and was replaced by someone who I could repeat the same bullshit story to. Four hours in total of god-bothering, I figured, would at least score me a low-mileage Intrepid with subframe damage.

Friends, it did not work. Well, it kind of worked. I ended up with a recent Mercedes luxobarge that was running perfectly well, had low kilometres on the clock, and was immaculate inside and out. Exactly the opposite of what I was looking for. Repulsed, I immediately put it back up for auction and got several thousand worthless dollars of profit, instead of a cool shitbox. That's what you get for trying to mess with the fates.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI and the fatfinger economy

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me at NEW ZEALAND'S UNITY BOOKS in WELLINGTON TODAY (May 3). More tour dates (Pittsburgh, PDX, London, Manchester) here.

Have you noticed that all the buttons you click most frequently to invoke routine, useful functions in your device have been moved, and their former place is now taken up by a curiously butthole-esque icon that summons an unwanted AI?

https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-buttholes

These traps for the unwary aren't accidental, but neither are they placed there solely because tech companies think that if they can trick you into using their AI, you'll be so impressed that you'll become a regular user. To understand why you find yourself repeatedly fatfingering your way into an unwanted AI interaction – and why those interactions are so hard to exit – you have to understand something about both the macro- and microeconomics of high-growth tech companies.

Growth is a heady advantage for tech companies, and not because of an ideological commitment to "growth at all costs," but because companies with growth stocks enjoy substantial, material benefits. A growth stock trades at a higher "price to earnings ratio" ("P:E") than a "mature" stock. Because of this, there are a lot of actors in the economy who will accept shares in a growing company as though they were cash (indeed, some might prefer shares to cash). This means that a growing company can outbid their rivals when acquiring other companies and/or hiring key personnel, because they can bid with shares (which they get by typing zeroes into a spreadsheet), while their rivals need cash (which they can only get by selling things or borrowing money).

The problem is that all growth ends. Google has a 90% share of the search market. Google isn't going to appreciably increase the number of searchers, short of desperate gambits like raising a billion new humans to maturity and convincing them to become Google users (this is the strategy behind Google Classroom, of course). To continue posting growth, Google needs gimmicks. For example, in 2019, Google intentionally made Search less accurate so that users would have to run multiple queries (and see multiple rounds of ads) to find the answers to their questions:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Thanks to Google's monopoly, worsening search perversely resulted in increased earnings, and Wall Street rewarded Google by continuing to trade its stock with that prized high P:E. But for Google – and other tech giants – the most enduring and convincing growth stories comes from moving into adjacent lines of business, which is why we've lived through so many hype bubbles: metaverse, web3, cryptocurrency, and now, of course, AI.

For a company like Google, the promise of these bubbles is that it will be able to double or triple in size, by dominating an entirely new sector. With that promise comes peril: growth must eventually stop ("anything that can't go on forever eventually stops"). When that happens, the company's stock instantaneously goes from being a "growth stock" to being a "mature stock" which means that its P:E is way too high. Anyone holding growth stock knows that there will come a day when those stocks will transition, in an eyeblink, from being undervalued to being grossly overvalued, and that when that day comes, there will be a mass sell-off. If you're still holding the stock when that happens, you stand to lose bigtime:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/06/privacy-last/#exceptionally-american

So everyone holding a growth stock sleeps with one eye open and their fists poised over the "sell" button. Managers of growth companies know how jittery their investors are, and they do everything they can to keep the growth story alive, as a matter of life and death.

But mass sell-offs aren't just bad for the company – it's also very bad for the company's key employees, that is, anyone who's been given stock in addition to their salary. Those people's portfolios are extremely heavy on their employer's shares, and they stand to disproportionately lose in the event of a selloff. So they are personally motivated to keep the growth story alive.

That's where these growth-at-all-stakes maneuvers bent on capturing an adjacent sector come from. If you remember the Google Plus days, you'll remember that every Google service you interacted with had some important functionality ripped out of it and replaced with a G+-based service. To make sure that happened, Google's bosses decreed that the company's bonuses would be tied to the amount of G+ activity each division generated. In companies where bonuses can amount to 90% of your annual salary or more, this was a powerful motivator. It meant that every product team at Google was fully aligned on a project to cram G+ buttons into their product design. Whether or not these made sense for users, they always made sense for the product team, whose ability to take a fancy Christmas holiday, buy a new car, or pay their kids' private school tuition depended on getting you to use G+.

Once you understand how corporate growth stories are converted to "key performance indicators" that drive product design, many of the annoyances of digital services suddenly make a great deal of sense. You know how it's almost impossible to watch a show on a streaming video service without accidentally tapping a part of the screen that whisks you to a completely different video?

The reason you have to handle your phone like a photonegative while watching a movie – the reason every millimeter of screen real-estate has been boobytrapped with an icon that takes you somewhere else – is that streaming services believe that their customers are apt to leave when they feel like there's nothing new to watch. These bosses have made their product teams' bonuses dependent on successfully "recommending" a show you've never seen or expressed any interest in to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/15/the-fatfinger-economy/

Of course, bosses understand that their workers will be tempted to game this metric. They want to distinguish between "real" clicks that lead to interest in a new video, and fake fatfinger clicks that you instantaneously regret. The easiest way to distinguish between these two types of click is to measure how long you watch the new show before clicking away.

Of course, this is also entirely gameable: all the product manager has to do is take away the "back" button, so that an accidental click to a new video is extremely hard to cancel. The five seconds you spend figuring out how to get back to your show are enough to count as a successful recommendation, and the product team is that much closer to a luxury ski vacation next Christmas.

So this is why you keep invoking AI by accident, and why the AI that is so easy to invoke is so hard to dispel. Like a demon, a chatbot is much easier to summon than it is to rid yourself of.

Google is an especially grievous offender here. Familiar buttons in Gmail, Gdocs, and the Android message apps have been replaced with AI-summoning fatfinger traps. Android is filled with these pitfalls – for example, the bottom-of-screen swipe gesture used to switch between open apps now summons an AI, while ridding yourself of that AI takes multiple clicks.

This is an entirely material phenomenon. Google doesn't necessarily believe that you will ever want to use AI, but they must convince investors that their AI offerings are "getting traction." Google – like other tech companies – gets to invent metrics to prove this proposition, like "how many times did a user click on the AI button" and "how long did the user spend with the AI after clicking?" The fact that your entire "AI use" consisted of hunting for a way to get rid of the AI doesn't matter – at least, not for the purposes of maintaining Google's growth story.

Goodhart's Law holds that "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." For Google and other AI narrative-pushers, every measure is designed to be a target, a line that can be made to go up, as managers and product teams align to sell the company's growth story, lest we all sell off the company's shares.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpis-off/#principal-agentic-ai-problem

Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Index_finger_%3D_to_attention.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

--

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[tashtush]

We Ask for Your Discretion (Chapter 1)

18+ Homelander/queer female reader, Madelyn/reader, Homelander/Madelyn. Pre-s1. Stalking, noncon, dubcon, mommy kink, praise kink, rough sex, voyeurism, threesome, corporate nonsense, manipulation, homophobia, trauma, sexual coercion, cunnilungus, vaginal sex (smut in future chapters)

AO3 | gif

Homelander has a new fixation. Madelyn does damage control.

Chapter 2

“I don’t think ‘The Deep’s Liquid Dreams’ is going to fly as a concept.”

You had been helping develop Vought’s new meditation and sleep app, VoughtMind, its conception a prompt response to the Flight 37 tragedy. After facilitating several distraught focus groups, it was determined that the answer to the nation’s unrest would be guided meditations performed by a roster of lesser-known supes. From calming tracks such as Moonshadow’s Nervous System Reset to Being Seen with Invisi-Lass, there would be a soothing balm for your existential dread.

“What do you mean?” Lisa asked with faux exasperation, barely containing her grin. “It would be a guided track, narrated by his truly. It’d be relaxing. We could even play marimba sounds in the background.”

Lisa was your long-time friend and coworker, and you were both on the same team: The “Shut-eye Squad” (a mandated nickname you chose to never utter outside of the office). You were responsible for the development of VoughtMind’s sleep feature.

“I don’t know, I think it’d be better suited for V-Rotic,” you laughed wearily, scribbling down the idea in your notebook. On some exceptionally dull, meeting-heavy days, you wished you could work for that team. While some might shy away from the task of developing super sex toys and erotic audio stories, you weren’t one of them.

You had been working as a UX designer for Vought for a year, honored by the opportunity to be a small cog in the massive, omnipresent, and culturally influential institution. You storyboarded features, sketched countless wireframes, and did your best to ensure seamless user interaction.

And to optimize all the ways a user could upgrade to VoughtLife Plus, of course.

While you had experience working in tech, nothing about your old offices compared to the grandeur that was Vought Tower. It was a force of nature, casting its shadow over the city like an unyielding, steel sentinel. Every day, you felt a small swell of pride and trepidation when you approached its entrance, gripping your laptop bag in an attempt to ground yourself.

What excited you most, however, was the fact that it was home to the Seven. Just knowing that they all slept on the 99th floor gave you a little thrill every time it crossed your mind. But despite your technical proximity, they might as well have been living on a different planet.

You knew that there were plenty of private corridors that separated them from the Vought commonfolk. While they dodged being pestered for selfies, you simply contented yourself with the knowledge that you were employed by the company that helped them save lives—or, if you were being honest with yourself, the company that released those stupid movies you loved to hate.

It was seven in the evening when you and Lisa finally finished preparing for a particularly stressful presentation. You tried to avoid working late at all costs, but you underestimated how challenging it would be to market a Deep-themed mental health experience. Lisa stood and stretched, her daily signal that she was done for the day, until her gaze landed on her desk.

“Shit,” she muttered, lifting her mug to grab the coffee-stained folder beneath it.

“What’s that? Someone’s birthday card you forgot to sign?” you asked, craning your neck curiously.

“No, I was supposed to deliver these documents to floor 79 today,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. She stayed in that position for a moment too long, then turned her attention back towards you.

“Could you do me a huge favor?” she asked, pressing the folder between her hands in a plea. “Could you run up and drop this off at the front desk? I’m already late for a dinner reservation and I won’t be here to do it tomorrow morning.”

“79? I’d be happy to, but I don’t have access,” you said. Lower-level employees were generally barred from visiting higher floors, but some, like Lisa, had special privileges when needing to relay confidential information.

“Here, take my key card,” she said, pulling it from her pocket. “You’ll have access now.”

“Oh, sure then,” you replied, plucking the card from her hand. You examined it, noticing that it looked nearly identical to yours, save for the smooth finish and gold-embossed “V”. Crisp. Corporate.

“Thanks, you’re the best,” she said with a winning smile, hoisting her backpack over her shoulders.

She made her exit, and you were left alone in the dark office, folder and key card in hand. You started toward the elevators in the lobby, listening to the low, steady hum of idle printers. It was kind of eerie, but in an oddly soothing way. Like standing on a beach at night, when it was usually so bright and bustling with activity.

When you arrived at the elevator doors, curiosity bubbled up inside you. How different would the higher floors be? You heard a myriad of rumors floating around the water cooler, and you realized that this could be your chance to corroborate them. Were there spa facilities amidst the large conference rooms, offering around-the-clock massages and steam room sessions? Would you be able to find one of the alleged corporate cocktail bars and make yourself a company-funded cosmo? You once even heard that they got John Legend to perform in a break room for some VP’s birthday, while the biggest surprise you ever got was a box of assorted bagels. But again, you weren’t complaining. You loved bagels.

The elevator doors opened and you stepped in, surveying the sleek grid of blue, glowing buttons. You’d never been this high up before. You’d never had a reason to be, and it almost felt like you were committing a crime when you held the card against the adjacent scanner. It only just occurred to you that there was definitely a camera pointed at you—that you could get into real trouble, and anxiety twanged in your chest when you heard the telltale beep of confirmation. You pressed “7” and “9”, doing your best to assuage your fears. It was late. No one would notice you–and if they did, they’d be too exhausted after a long day of meetings and trying to care about anyone but themselves. Security would probably be too preoccupied with trying to keep people out of the tower, rather than deal with one errant employee.

You weren’t about to miss the opportunity to find that spa.

The elevator began to ascend, and it wasn’t long before it came to a smooth halt. The doors opened, and an employee you’d never seen before quietly shuffled in to stand in front of you. She was dressed sharply, had a clearly intentional hairstyle, and was generally just more put-together than you. You stood uneasily, feeling self-conscious in your jeans and what now felt like a much-too-whimsical sweater. Before you could stew in discomfort for too long, however, the elevator stopped just moments later, and she filed out as quickly as she entered. You breathed a small sigh of relief. After a few more seconds of imperceptible ascension, you idly wondered at what floor the slacks ended and the three-piece-suits began. With a bright ding, the doors slid open once again.

You froze. He was wearing a different kind of suit.

“Hiya,” you heard him say, his voice clear, masculine, and practiced. The voice you had heard on-repeat for years, that lived in every household, movie theater, and classroom across the country. It could command a stadium, stop any criminal dead in their tracks, and apparently cause your heart to drum violently against your chest.

It was Homelander.

With his strong jaw, coiffed blonde hair, and startling blue eyes, he was even more handsome in person. That, in combination with his impeccably clean suit and perfect posture, made him emanate an aura of otherworldliness.  

He strode into the elevator, entering “99” into the console with a gloved finger. He then stood casually beside you, behaving as if this wasn’t one of the most surreal moments of your life. He wasn’t especially tall, but he might as well have been 6’5” with the sheer weight of his presence.

Should you say something? You shifted awkwardly in place, fingers gripping the folder like a lifeline. You had to say something, right? You shot him a sidelong glance, daring yourself to break the silence and not squander this once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

“Um, I’ve never pictured you taking an elevator,” you said a little too quickly, a little too quietly. What? You immediately regretted opening your mouth. You figured that this is what people meant when they said they were starstruck.

You saw the corner of his lips quirk up slightly before he turned his head toward you, his strangely unnerving eyes making contact with yours. The elevator suddenly felt very small, and the sensation of his proximity to you amplified considerably. He paused for a moment, then leaned toward you, raising his dark eyebrows in a question.

“Well… how do you usually picture me?” he asked slowly, a tinge of unmistakable amusement in his voice. His eyes flickered downward for just a fraction of a second, so quickly that you might have imagined it. You felt your heart continue to pound as he awaited your answer, painfully aware that your ability to banter was compromised.

“Flying head-first through windows?” you said, shrugging your shoulders sheepishly. “Though, I-I guess that isn’t very economical.” Your voice trailed off into an awkward silence.

He let out a huff of a chuckle, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a charming smile. The elevator came to another halt.

A few more executives filed in, and you turned away from him, trying to salvage any of your humility by playing it cool. After the elevator continued, the console’s digital display finally settled on floor 79. Relief flooded you, and you shot him a smile before hastily stepping past the open doors. You only saw his face for about a second, but it was all the time you needed to notice that his grin had fallen, his eyes staring at you as the door slid shut.

You felt like you could breathe again, as if you had suddenly emerged from being underwater for minutes. You wandered to the front desk in a haze, realizing that it would probably benefit you to listen to Mister Marathon’s latest collaboration with VoughtMind: Outrunning Panic.

—

The next day, you couldn’t keep Homelander out of your mind. Was he teasing you? Could he have actually been flirting? You replayed the encounter over and over in your head for approximately… all day, so much so that the presentation you were dreading all week was demoted to an inconvenient afterthought. What felt monumental to you was likely just a mundane second of his (larger-than) life, so you tried your best not to dwell on that possibility.

He was charming. That was his thing. It was one of the qualities that made him so damn lovable whenever you watched him speak heroic to the public. He was often very flirtatious with the female talk show hosts who effortlessly coaxed answers out of him, even the most seasoned of professionals failing to suppress their girlish giggles. You were just another inconsequential pull of his magnetism.

When you arrived in the office that morning, you immediately had to tell someone about it. Anyone. You beelined toward Ami, a copywriter on your team, and quickly recounted the night’s events. She stopped in her tracks, swiveling her desk chair to slowly land in your direction. Her jaw literally dropped.

“That’s crazy that you say that,” she said, “I actually saw him this morning while I was grabbing coffee in the cafe.”

That was strange. A whole year working here, and you hadn’t even heard of him being anywhere near your floor.

“Really? Did you talk to him?” you asked in a hushed voice, not even trying to hide your excitement. Meeting Homelander was a big deal, even for a Vought employee.

“I didn’t. He was giving extreme ‘don’t even try to talk to me’ vibes. He ignored me. Honestly, it was kind of unsettling,” she said, grimacing slightly. “It didn’t surprise me, though. I’m sure people are usually begging for his attention. It looked like he was talking to a manager or something, but I have no idea why,” she shrugged.

“He looks older in person,” she added off-handedly. “Still hot, though.”

“Hmm,” you responded absent-mindedly, fingering the key card that was still nestled in your pocket. You wondered what the odds were that Homelander would meet you in an elevator and then immediately visit your office the next morning. It was almost certainly a coincidence. He was known to dip his boots in all kinds of products, from star-spangled defense weapons to top-brand cereal boxes. You remembered seeing a meditation concept scribbled onto a whiteboard called Sounds of America, complete with a single bullet point that read “eagle sounds”. Maybe getting Homelander to do voice work was the execs’ chosen hook for getting the app off the ground. Everyone was scrambling to release an MVP in response to Flight 37, so getting him to record guided patriotism was guaranteed to draw attention.

You weren’t able to get any more answers from your circle, not even from Lisa, who blew up your texts with a full-on interrogation. You both delved into every minute detail of the encounter, analyzing everything from his body language to the tone of his voice. It was thrillingly juvenile, but you quickly ran out of material to wring from your memory.

Lisa: What did he smell like?

Me: I don’t know. Nothing?

Lisa: boring

Lisa: you know, he could probably smell you

Me: Stop. ✋

It was then that you knew it was time to put the phone down.

You had no other choice but to simply continue your workday, the annoying need to earn money competing with your racing thoughts.

—

The following Friday, you were leaving a conference room after an exhausting, four-hour workshop. Ever since the allegations about the Deep had surfaced, it was mandated that the entire company go through extensive sexual harassment training.

You woefully chewed on a granola bar as you walked down the hall, fueling yourself for another two hours of fighting the urge to fall asleep. You turned a corner, and to your bewilderment, you caught another glimpse of that damn, iconic flag cape. You promptly turned back again, and you had never felt more like a cartoon.

It was him. Again. But this time, he wasn’t alone—he was talking to a woman, and the sounds of their hushed voices carried down the hall. You felt absurd hiding behind the corner, but with your current track record, you didn’t trust yourself to remain calm. You peeked over just slightly, trying to make out who she was; maybe it was the manager that Ami had seen him talking to in the cafe. You squinted, and her features finally came into focus.

Madelyn Stillwell?

Yet another celebrity you thought you’d never meet. Again, why was the Vice President of Supe Management anywhere near you? She was much shorter than you imagined, even with heels, but she still projected refined, intimidating professionalism. They were deep in discussion, and to your horror, you realized that you needed to pass them to get to your next meeting. You took a deep breath to ground yourself, reminding yourself that you were an adult, before emerging from behind the corner. As you walked toward them with as much nonchalance as you could muster, you started to pick up a snippet of their conversation.

“–Listen, just–just don’t worry about it,” he said impatiently, waving his hand.

“We’ve discussed this,” she said firmly.

“Okay, okay. Jesus.”

They were taking up most of the walkway, so you angled your body to quickly sidle past them. You saw him glance at you for the briefest of moments in your peripheral vision, but you made it to the door before you could catch anything else.

You had never heard him speak so crassly before, which was saying a lot, considering it wasn’t all that crass. You weren’t one for piety,  but it still surprised you to hear him take the “Lord’s name in vain”. He was involved with Capes for Christ, after all. You’d only ever seen his squeaky-clean media appearances, so you shouldn’t be surprised that he had his rough, unedited moments like everyone else.

During the following weekend, you became cognizant of just how inundated you were by his face. When you went on your customary shopping run, you saw it on billboards, posters, bus benches, and on at least ten percent of the products you found in the grocery store’s aisles. You were even haunted by a statue of him while enjoying a picnic in the park, his large, stone likeness looming just feet away from your blanket.

When Monday evening came, you were walking home to your apartment when you swore you saw something—someone—flying through the sky.

It had to be the Frequency Illusion. Because Homelander was all you could think about, your mind tricked you into believing that you were seeing him everywhere.

Sometimes, you even thought that you could feel him.

It was like you were experiencing a sense memory, your body reacting the exact same way it did when he stood next to you in that elevator. It was incredibly odd, but you easily brushed the phenomenon aside. You were having too many late nights worrying about the fate of your project, and you were prone to letting your imagination run wild when you were sleep deprived.

As the days turned to weeks, however, your obsession gradually died down. Homelander once again receded into the backdrop of your life, joining the ranks of other set dressing such as street signs or Taco Bell. Life finally resumed its typical, relatively boring thrum.

You salvaged your work, got drinks with your team, and routinely melted into a puddle on your couch. Work, fun, sleep, repeat. Your run-in with Homelander was reduced to a fond memory, an escape to the time he maybe flirted with you. It was a story to be told at many parties to come, a fantasy that would keep you warm on lonely nights.

—

You came into the office early one Monday morning, wanting some uninterrupted time to catch up on the work you blew off Friday. You had an unusual pep in your step, iced coffee in hand, as you approached your desk in the empty room. As you began to water your plants, you noticed a sleek, black envelope placed directly beside your keyboard. You looked around at the surrounding desks, realizing that no one else had received one.

You slid your finger to break the seal and pulled out a piece of paper, its texture expensive under your thumb. Vought’s logo was engraved in the upper right corner, signifying that this was an official correspondence. Curiosity consumed you, so you scanned the page’s contents as quickly as you could.

Please join us for our 5th annual

Gala for Crimefighting Bigotry

Saturday June 27, at seven in the evening

The Vought Palace Ballroom, 871 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Black tie attire

You stared at the elegant typeface, still not understanding why you were the only one invited. You flipped the paper over in the hopes of finding an answer.

As a member of the Super Spectrum Alliance, you are cordially invited to Vought’s fundraising Gala for Crimefighting Bigotry. We’ve selected you as part of an initiative to celebrate the richness of our company’s commitment to diversity.

We stand for truth, justice, and the importance of sexual identity to both our heroes and employees.

Join us for an evening of food, drinks, raffles, and a special performance by Melissa Etheridge. All proceeds will be donated to The Born This Super Foundation, which provides resources for at-risk LGBTQIA+ youth.

You looked up from the invitation and stared blankly ahead, trying to process what you had just read.

The Super Spectrum Alliance was essentially Vought’s pride club, founded by some well-meaning queer employees a few years back. You attended an SSA meeting once, but quickly abandoned it when you learned it was usurped by a suspiciously straight member of the People team. It was apparently an attempt to ensure all club activities and discussions fell in line with company values. Regardless, your name must have been included on the member roster.

The invitation read like code for “you’re one of our resident queers and we need you to look good for the cameras.” You weren’t upset, though—quite the opposite. In fact, you felt a jolt of excitement as the implications finally hit you. These things were exclusive. 

Incredibly wealthy people attended these. Supes attended these. You had seen footage of similar Vought events on the news and gossip forums alike, knowing full well that this was a deeply coveted position you were in.

As far as you knew, you were the only openly queer employee in your corner of the office, so you were certain you wouldn’t have a familiar face to cling to. That considered, you weren’t about to not go. This was an insane opportunity; if not for your career, then for the chance to enjoy an evening of the finer things (like winning something stupidly expensive in a raffle.)

What would it be like? Would you manage to mingle with the elite, camouflaging yourself with shop talk and unearned confidence? Or would you sit at the bar the entire time, scrolling through your phone to distract from your inevitable social breakdown? Probably the latter.

You spent the first half of your morning browsing photos from past galas, needing to emotionally prepare yourself by knowing what to expect. You scanned image after image of philanthropists in glamorous suits and dresses, clutching their champagne flutes with an ease that only came with money. You would also occasionally spot a supe socializing within the sea of bigwigs. You saw Queen Maeve smiling with politicians, Translucent wearing a bow tie (and nothing else), and many more heroes of varying levels of notoriety. You stopped scrolling when a photo of Homelander filled your screen. He was enchantingly mid-laugh while presenting an award to someone, and you were once again struck by how attractive he was.

You thought about him for the first time in over a week, his intense expression between the closing elevator doors flashing in your mind. Would he be there?

Also, more importantly, what the fuck were you going to wear?