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buckyseternaldoll · 27 days ago

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Code Red

Summary: The mission was intel. But when you went dark, Bucky lost all control—and the code turned personal.

Disclaimer: graphic violence, captivity, non-consensual restrain/touch, implied sexual threat, psychological trauma, physical degradation, feral violence (Bucky), verbal abuse, violent confrontation, bloodshed, reader described as plus-size, TB* members appearance, happy ending

Word Count: 8,558

Author's note: I'm sorry for the dark theme. I'm at the hospital, drowned by my own unsafe thoughts due to my surroundings. I understand this would trigger many things so please, please scroll away if this is not for you.

Bucky had been tense ever since the mission briefing with Valentina.

You and he had been assigned to extract intel from someone out of his worst memories—someone from the part of his past he’d spent years trying to bury. And as fate would have it, you were going to be the one sent in close. Personal.

The cherry on top? No one else in the building—except Walker—knew you and Bucky were married.

It hadn’t been a deliberate secret at first. You both just liked the simplicity of it. No questions, no gossip. Quiet. Private. You’d meant to tell the others eventually, maybe once things calmed down between missions. But three years and numerous near-death assignments later, it was still just you, Bucky, and that worn silver band threaded through the chain of his dog tags; kept tucked beneath his shirt, close to his chest where no one ever thought to look.

Walker had only found out by accident—he’d overheard you both talking, low and domestic, about decorating the new apartment Bucky had gotten you. Being a married man himself, he clocked it immediately and, to his credit, had kept his mouth shut ever since.

But the issue wasn’t the secrecy.

It was the mission.

You were going undercover to get close to Volkov—a former HYDRA taskmaster who’d gone dark for years, now resurfacing through underground ops and illegal tech smuggling. Worse still, the tech in question was rumored to be more powerful than both vibranium and adamantium combined.

And Volkov?

He had a type. Curvy. Plus-size. Long, wavy red hair.

And within a heartbeat, Valentina had already decided it would be you—hair dye on standby before you even left the room.

Bucky hated every second of it.

Not because he didn’t trust you, but because he knew Volkov.

Volkov had been there during the brainwashing. Watching. Smiling. Not the man who gave the orders, but the one who enjoyed watching them followed. Bucky remembered him leaning in from the shadows, jaw sharp, eyes gleaming with control like it made him feel divine.

He wasn’t just another piece of the HYDRA machine.

He was proud of what Bucky became. Of how many he broke.

Volkov had chosen him to fight other enhanced soldiers. Had studied him like a weapon. Had whispered twisted encouragement while the programming crushed him over and over again.

And Bucky hated the idea of you having to flirt with the demon from his past.

He understood the mission’s importance. He really did. But logic had never stood a chance against this—being forced to stare down the man who once stripped him of everything, while watching the woman he loved play nice to get information.

There was no good place for him in this. No role that didn’t make his blood boil.

You noticed the tension winding through him as you both walked back to the common room. His steps were stiff, calculated. His jaw had been clenched since the briefing. He hadn’t said a word.

You knew why. You always did.

Bucky had told you pieces of his nightmares—never the full picture, but enough. The burn of restraints against his skin. The cold metal table under his back. The sterile sting of alcohol. And Volkov’s voice cutting through the silence like a blade, low and proud and amused. Watching. Always watching. Like a man admiring a piece of art that he thought he owned.

The moment you stepped into the common room, Bucky blew out a harsh breath. His eyes were distant, like he was already somewhere else. The muscles in his neck and jaw were drawn tight, veins standing out starkly against his skin like they could split open.

Without a word, he dropped onto the couch, his body sinking in as if gravity had gotten heavier. The worn leather creaked beneath him as he leaned his head back against the cushions, eyes slipping closed for just a moment.

Valentina wasn’t going to change her mind. That much was written across his face. She never did.

You followed, settling beside him, the fabric of your tactical pants brushing softly against his. The air between you still carried the faint antiseptic scent of the briefing room—cold, clinical, suffocating.

Your hand found his, and you laced your fingers through his metal ones, your palm warm against the chill of the vibranium plates. He flexed just slightly, like even that much touch reminded him he was here. With you. Not in that chair. Not in the red room.

“You okay?” you asked gently, your thumb sweeping over the knuckles of his hand.

He didn’t answer right away. Just exhaled again, slower this time, like he was trying to pace himself through the storm still building inside his chest.

“I’m not,” he admitted at last. His voice was gravel-thick, barely above a whisper. “But…”

He turned toward you, his blue eyes heavy with something unreadable—part awe, part ache. He took you in like you were the only stable point left in the room. Your hair still its natural color, your body warm and solid beside him, your expression carved with concern. Your wedding band, stacked with a few others, caught the low lighting just enough to glint—hidden in plain sight.

His gaze lingered there for a second, and then moved back up to your face. You looked worried. You looked like his, and that was what kept him grounded.

“But I’ll be fine,” he said, his tone softening just enough. He gave a quick glance around, then lifted your hand to his lips and kissed your knuckles, lingering there like he could breathe you in.

“We got this.”

He wasn’t saying it for you. He was saying it for himself. To remind himself that this time, he wasn’t going in alone. That even if you had to play nice with the monster, it was your mission. Not theirs. Not Volkov’s.

He’d been fighting demons for years.

And maybe he hadn’t slayed them all.

But he’d survived them. And now, he had you.

That was all that mattered.

─

Your jaw went slack the moment you saw the dress that Valentina had personally picked—laid out on the bed.

Red.

Not just red—blood red, silky, and scandalous. The neckline plunged lower than anything you’d worn outside of your own bedroom, and the hem looked like it might start a fight with gravity if you so much as bent over. You didn’t even have to lift it to know it would barely cover your ass.

You didn’t bother hiding your disgust. “Is she serious?”

You turned toward Bucky, dress still dangling from your fingers like it might bite. He hadn’t moved. Just sat there on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, staring at the garment with unreadable eyes. His face was a perfect mask—stone-cold, emotionless—but the vein ticking in his jaw betrayed him.

“I can ask for another one,” you said, your tone careful. “Too sexy for a married woman.”

You added a dry scoff under your breath, “Not like she knows, but—”

Bucky cut in, voice low and rough. “It’s nice.” A pause. “Should work on him.”

Another pause—longer this time—and then, his mouth twitched at the corner. “Definitely working on me.”

You rolled your eyes and gave him a light smack on the arm, but heat curled in your chest at the compliment. No smirk followed his words, no leering grin—just that quiet, reverent tone he saved only for you. The kind of tone that made you fall in love with him all over again.

He could’ve raged. Should’ve, maybe. But instead, Bucky just stood up and helped you with steady hands. Held out the necklace, clipped the clasp. Watched you with hungry eyes but never crossed a line. You knew he was mentally filing this all away—every curve revealed, every breath you took in that sinful dress—for when the mission was over and you were safely back in his arms.

You stepped behind the privacy divider and changed quickly, tugging the soft silk over your skin. The fabric clung like it had been sewn onto you, stretching taut across your hips and hugging the dip of your waist. You stepped back into view, adjusting the neckline in vain, before reaching for your hairpins.

Bucky helped you curl a few strands loose around your face, fingers gentle, eyes tracking every movement like he was touching something sacred.

You caught a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror and froze.

The red was devastating against your skin tone. Your curves poured into the fabric like molten gold into a cast, the neckline dipping low enough to hint danger and promise. Your breasts rose and fell in time with your breath, almost spilling over the fabric with every inhale. Your hair was gathered to one side in soft, tousled curls—polished, sultry, lethal.

And in the mirror, you saw him.

Bucky, still behind you, watching. His reflection stared like he wanted to devour something—someone. Like he was holding back a war.

His hands found your waist slowly, possessively. He pulled you back against him, his vibranium arm firm and cool against your side, his flesh hand sliding along the curve of your stomach. He pressed a kiss just beneath your ear, the heat of his breath scattering goosebumps across your neck.

“So fucking gorgeous, doll,” he murmured.

You felt the soft drag of his lips as he kissed down to your pulse point, then the gentle scrape of his teeth as he sucked lightly—just enough to tease, not enough to leave a mark. Professional. Barely.

The urge to melt into him nearly overrode the mission entirely.

“Your necklace,” he murmured, pulling back slightly. “Camera’s built in. I’ll be your eyes.”

He passed you the earpiece—small, skin-toned, nearly invisible. “For comms.”

You nodded, slipping it in, but your hands trembled just slightly from adrenaline or nerves—or the way he was still looking at you like the mission could go to hell for all he cared.

He took a step back and made you twirl once.

The silk flared high with the motion, fluttering like smoke around your hips. For a breathless second, the hem rode up just enough to expose the curve of your ass—barely covered by the black tactical shorts beneath. A teasing flash. A threat. A promise.

Bucky’s eyes locked onto the sight, and a low, guttural sound tore from his throat—half groan, half growl. He dragged a hand through his hair, like he was trying to keep himself from losing it right there.

“Fuck me, doll…” he muttered, voice thick. “You tryna kill me before the mission even starts?”

You gave him a soft, steady look—part smile, part shield. “You ready?” you asked.

But it was really him asking you.

His fingers brushed your wrist—once, twice—like a final tether before the storm. His voice came low and sure.

“With you?” His lips quirked. “Always.”

─

The nightclub, VØLT, was buried beneath a defunct hotel in the heart of the city—a forgotten husk above, but alive and feral below. Coded entry only, shielded from satellites, and loud enough to shake the bones in your chest. The air was thick with secrets and sin. Shadows clung to the corners, pierced only by strobes and flashing crimson lights. Bodies moved like smoke across the dancefloor, heat and perfume curling in the air like incense. The bass thrummed like a second heartbeat, relentless, primal.

You walked through it all like you owned the place. Head high, hips steady. The red dress painted on your curves, your heels clicking sharp across the concrete floor. The music pulsed low and sexual, the bass vibrating through your ribs.

Bucky’s voice was in your ear—steady, low, grounding. “Cam’s good. I’ve got eyes. You’re clear to move.”

You didn’t answer. Just exhaled slowly and zeroed in on the booth near the back.

Volkov looked different, but not enough. His hair was grayer, his jawline looser, but his posture—relaxed, draped across the velvet like he owned the room—was the same. A monster’s throne.

He was smoking something sharp and spiced, the bitter tang of his cigar mixing with the scent of the club. It made your throat itch. His smile was practiced, sculpted into something that almost passed for charm. Almost.

He watched you approach like a man dissecting prey.

“Evening,” you said, voice wrapped in heat and silk.

He didn’t return the greeting. Just looked you up and down with a hunger that made your skin crawl. “You’re late.”

“I like making an entrance.” You sat, legs crossed slowly, the hem of your dress sliding up to reveal just enough thigh. “I heard you’re holding something I want.”

His eyes dropped lower. “I find that hard to believe.”

“You shouldn’t,” you murmured, tapping a fingernail against the glass in front of you. “I have the money. I want the weapon.”

Volkov watched you with unsettling calm, blowing smoke sideways. You could feel the nicotine cloud brush against your cheek.

“You ask for quite a bit,” he said eventually. “Trust doesn’t come cheap.”

“Then tell me what does,” you countered.

He smirked, teeth glinting behind his cigar smoke like a wolf sizing up a meal.

“Come closer, принцесса (printsessa). Let me feel what I’m selling to.”

Your breath hitched. Just a split-second delay, but it was enough.

The music felt louder now, bassline pounding through the soles of your heels, up into your spine. Your blood thudded in your ears, hot and slow, like it was being pulled toward danger. You could feel every eye in the room watching you, sizing you up the way he was. Like meat. Like leverage.

Bucky’s voice sliced through the comm, low and razor-sharp:

“Don’t do it. You don’t have to—”

“I got this,” you whispered back. It was the only thing you could say. You had to say it for both of you.

Volkov patted his thigh, thick fingers spread. His smirk widened. His gold ring caught the red light like blood in moonlight.

Your feet moved on instinct, each step heavy with something coiled in your gut. You slid into his lap like silk stretched over barbed wire—fluid on the outside, jagged underneath. You perched carefully, your weight held taut in your thighs to avoid giving him too much.

But it didn’t matter. His hand snapped around your waist like a shackle, possessive and greedy. His palm was hot through the thin silk, rough where the rings dug into your flesh. A predator’s grip.

Then the second hand came up—slow, deliberate. It skimmed along the bare skin of your back where the dress dipped low, each finger a cold brush of oil-slicked arrogance. Your breath caught. The nausea started in your stomach and crept higher.

He leaned in close, his breath warm and sickly sweet from brandy and smoke.

“Mmm… you smell like sugar and sweat. Dangerous mix.”

His voice dropped, coiled around your throat like a rope.

“Do you make sounds when you wear red like this? Or do you just lay there and kill slowly?”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. You forced a smile, teeth aching from the tension in your jaw.

In your ear, Bucky’s comm had gone silent.

Then: a sharp inhale. Metal hitting something solid.

CLUNK.

You could hear it—his vibranium fist slamming the edge of a table, or a wall, anything to keep from tearing the comm from his ear.

He wasn’t speaking. But you could feel him—burning, locked down, seconds from detonation.

Volkov’s hand crept lower on your spine, fingers dragging over your skin in slow, possessive circles. He lingered at the small of your back, thumb teasing just beneath the fabric now, pushing boundaries with the casual boldness of a man who’d never been told no.

His breath rasped against your ear, faster now—he was getting off on this. On the power. On you.

“Such a soft thing,” he murmured. “You ever had someone ruin you just to rebuild you sweeter?”

Your body went cold. You kept the mask on, but your fists were curled in your lap, nails digging into your skin to keep the rage from surfacing.

Then he raised his voice, just enough for the nearby guards to hear. Mocking.

“She’s the kind that moans when you just touch her. Right here—”

His hand pressed hard against your lower back, fingers flexing, suggestive.

“—and she melts.”

And that was it.

Bucky’s voice cracked back through the comm, no longer calm. He sounded wrecked.

“Pull out. Now. I swear to God—”

“I’m fine,” you whispered, through clenched teeth. “Just another minute.”

But he wasn’t fine. You could hear it now—his breath was short, shallow, furious. He was pacing, maybe. Staring at your feed. Muscles bunched and twitching, jaw locked so tight it probably ached.

His voice returned, low but raw, like it scraped up from his ribs:

“You’re not a pawn,” he hissed. “You’re my goddamn wife.”

Those words landed low in your chest, sharp and full of heat.

You inhaled slowly, steadied your hands, and leaned in just enough for Volkov to think he’d won. Close enough to feel the heat of his neck.

“Dock 65,” he finally whispered. “Tomorrow. Midnight. Alone.”

You smiled, soft and slow. Then you rose—graceful but fast, sliding off his lap like a knife from its sheath.

His hand didn’t leave you until the last second, dragging over the curve of your ass like he had the right. Like he owned even the air between your bodies.

You didn’t flinch. You didn’t look back.

You walked toward the exit with your chin high, every muscle taut, your dress swaying around your hips like liquid flame. But your legs trembled from effort. Not fear—restraint.

Then his voice filled your ear again, low and ruined.

“Come back to me. Now.”

─

You entered the hotel room, hit by the a of heat that had nothing to do with temperature. Rage hung in the air—thick, suffocating. Something acrid and metallic burned your nose. The air felt charged, like a thunderstorm was caught in the walls.

Your eyes dropped to the corner where your shared luggage sat—shredded, the zipper teeth split wide like a scream. One of the hard cases was caved in, the shape unmistakable. That was the sound you heard through your comm. The clunk. His fist.

Bucky stood near the window, shoulders heaving like a man coming down from battle. His chest moved fast, his breathing ragged. The moonlight through the blinds glanced off his metal arm, glinting off the knuckles that were still clenched, twitching. His jaw flexed, teeth grinding so hard you thought you could hear the bone creak.

Then his eyes found yours. And the fire there almost knocked you back.

“Goddamn doll,” he growled, voice barely human, thick with rage. “I swear to God, I’m going to rip that fucker’s head off with my bare hands.” His vibranium hand flexed again, sharp and jerky. “I’ll carve his spine out and feed it to him.”

But you were already crossing the room. No hesitation.

You threw your arms around him before he could move again, before he could spiral deeper into that dark place. Your cheek pressed to his chest, the fabric of his shirt damp with sweat, heart pounding like a war drum beneath it.

“I hated every second of it,” you whispered, your voice raw and tight. “That wasn’t easy for me.”

His arms wrapped around you a beat too late, stiff and tensed—as if he was afraid he’d break you. You held him tighter, anchoring both of you. His body trembled—not fear, not grief. Fury. A possessive, helpless rage that had nowhere to go.

“Baby,” you whispered, tilting your face up to his, “shhh. Baby, look at me.”

He didn’t. Not right away. His eyes were still far away—still watching that bastard touch you, still hearing the way he spoke to you like you were something he owned. You knew the image was carved into Bucky’s mind like a scar.

“I’m fine,” you said, brushing your fingers over his jaw. “He didn’t get me.”

His eyes finally snapped to yours. Hungry, desperate, searching for proof. For any sign that Volkov had left a mark.

“He touched you,” he said, voice hoarse, almost childlike with the weight of it. “He fucking touched you. I watched it—I felt it, like it was me.”

“I know,” you said gently. “But we got what we needed. Dock 65. Tomorrow. He bought it. It worked.”

His hands came up slowly, cupping your face like you might vanish if he let go. He exhaled a long, shaky breath against your forehead. The scent of him—sweat, adrenaline, and the lingering trace of that smoky cologne he wore on missions wrapped around you like armor.

“We can kill him later,” you whispered with a small, bitter smile.

Bucky still didn’t smile. He pulled you tighter against him, one hand sliding to the back of your head, cradling it.

“You’re not bait,” he murmured, voice low and guttural. “You’re not some decoy for men like him. You’re my wife.”

The word cracked open something raw between you.

Wife. Not asset. Not agent. Not distraction.

Just his.

You didn’t speak. You just stayed pressed against him, holding his trembling body as he tried to cage the storm inside him.

His arms were iron around you, but the tension in him was raw, barely contained fury simmering just beneath the surface. Yet somehow, he held you like you were fragile glass—his fingers digging into your sides not to hurt, but as if afraid to let go, afraid you’d slip away. You wanted more than anything to let yourself be crushed by him, to be pressed into his heat so hard that every memory of Volkov’s filthy hands was scorched away.

You pulled back just a fraction, enough to look up into those icy blue eyes—eyes that burned with a jealousy so fierce it made your skin tingle. Your voice was low, smooth but thick with emotion, a threadbare mix of exhaustion, defiance, and need.

“Bucky…”

His thumb brushed beneath your eye, wiping away a phantom tear you didn’t realize you’d shed. You saw the flicker of guilt, the sharp edge of helplessness. But there was no brokenness in you to find, only fire.

You stepped closer, letting the soft rustle of your dress brush against his worn tactical vest—the fabric whispering secrets of where you’d been, what you’d endured.

The red silk clung to your curves like a second skin, a promise, a warning. The slit teasing open your thigh, the low back bare and vulnerable, but now reclaimed, like a battlefield you’d already won.

You reached up slowly, your fingers threading into the thick strands of his dark hair, pulling him closer—closer than the sharp scent of gunmetal and sweat that clung to him after every fight. His breath hitched in a way that made your heart shatter and heal all at once.

“I don’t want to remember him,” you said, voice a velvet thread laced with steel. “Not how he touched me. Not how he looked at me like I was a prize to be bought or broken.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched until the muscle twitched. But you pressed your hand to his chest, feeling the steady, heavy beat of his heart beneath the fabric, slow and sure under your palm.

“I want to remember you.”

His breath was shallow, erratic, like he was drowning in everything you were saying—and everything you weren’t.

You carefully removed your earpiece—the faint click breaking the silence between you like a vow. You set it aside, eyes never leaving his.

You slid your hands down the ridge of his collarbone, across the hard planes of his chest, tracing the line of muscle and scars that made him whole—the man you loved.

You stepped close, your voice dropping to a sultry whisper that barely brushed his skin. “You know,” you murmured, eyes locked on his, “when we were in front of the mirror earlier… I couldn’t stop noticing you.”

His gaze sharpened, dark and dangerous, like a storm about to break.

“You were so hard, pressed against me like you wanted to claim every inch of me. Like you wanted to tear me apart and make me yours right then and there.”

Bucky’s breath hitched, thick and ragged. His chest rose sharply beneath his shirt, muscles taut, pulsing with a tension that was almost unbearable. You could feel it—his need, his fury, his desperate hunger—all radiating off him in waves.

You lifted your hand slowly, deliberately, and pressed a featherlight kiss just below his ear, where his pulse beat wildly. The heat of your lips sent a shiver racing down your spine and made his whole body tense against yours.

His breath caught, low and rough, a sound raw with longing and restraint. His metal hand slid to your waist, firm and possessive, pulling you closer until there was no space left between you.

You trailed your fingers up the curve of his neck, feeling the roughness of his stubble under your touch, the scar beneath his jaw like a secret you were privileged to trace.

Your lips hovered over his skin, voice husky with need. “I want you, Bucky. Right here. Right now.”

His lips crashed against your neck, hot and demanding, searing a trail of fire down your skin. His mouth was hungry, worshipful, each kiss a claim—a promise and a warning.

But then his eyes flicked to the door, the weight of the mission pulling him back like a chain.

You pulled away slowly, breath mingling with his, your fingers still curled possessively against his neck.

“We’ll finish this,” you promised, voice thick with heat and something deeper. “I’d rather die tangled in your arms than spend one more second remembering Volkov’s filthy hands on me.”

His jaw clenched, voice low and rough, trembling with rage and need. “You’re mine, doll. No one’s going to touch you like that. Not while I’m breathing.”

His grip tightened around your waist, holding you close as if letting go might make you vanish.

And in that fierce embrace, you both found a fierce kind of sanctuary—a quiet promise that no matter what came next, you belonged only to each other.

─

You’d arrived at Dock 65 before the promised time, hidden beneath the skeleton of an abandoned shipping yard on the outskirts of Salzburg. The salt from the sea clung to the air, sharp and metallic, biting into your nose with every breath. Bucky had come with you, shadow-silent and lethal, staying just out of range to avoid compromising your cover. His presence was a tether, his voice in your ear a steady heartbeat.

“This feels off,” he murmured, low and tight. “Too quiet. Too clean.”

He was right.

The plan was simple—classic infiltration: see the tech, verify it, grab what we need, then vanish. You’d done this a dozen times with him. It should’ve been routine. It felt like muscle memory.

But the silence was heavy. Not tactical—vacant.

You padded across concrete in soft boots, slipping between rusted containers and steel pylons slick with dew. Your heartbeat matched your footfalls—measured. Focused.

Bucky’s voice hummed in your ear again. “Back’s clear. But I don’t like how easy this is.”

You were already at the final checkpoint—a thick steel door sunk into the loading bay, blinking with a red biometric scanner. The security was laughable. Almost like an invitation. A bad joke wrapped in confidence.

Still, you knelt and worked the panel, fingers flying. “Almost in,” you whispered.

The door clicked. The metal whirled and groaned as it peeled open.

And that’s when it hit.

A sharp prick—hot and thin, like fire beneath your skin. You gasped, stumbling back.

“Fuck,” you hissed, stumbling back instinctively. You reached for your weapon, but your fingers fumbled.

Bucky’s voice snapped in your comm. “What happened? What was that—?”

Your limbs went liquid. Your knees buckled.

You saw the hallway shift and blur. Lights smeared into streaks. A cold wave swept over you, then nothing.

Everything went black.

─

You woke up to cold. Not just in the air, but in your bones.

The scent hit first—rust and sweat and old blood. Your head pounded, dull and heavy, like you were underwater. Every sound was muffled.

Then came the sting in your wrists. The raw burn of rope—tight, too tight. Ankles too. Spread just far enough that it made your muscles ache.

Your gear was still on. Mostly.

But it didn’t feel like armor anymore.

The sleeves of your tactical suit had been shredded—slashed open by a knife meant to scare more than wound. Your zipper had been dragged halfway down your chest, the thick material parting under Volkov’s probing hands. One shoulder was bare where the fabric had been tugged aside, revealing the flush of your skin beneath the cold air. Your belt hung lopsided—holsters gone, gear stripped like trophies. Gloves missing. Boots scuffed from a fight you barely remembered before the sedative hit.

The chill in the room clung to your exposed skin, humid and damp like sweat that didn’t belong to you. And those cameras—silent red eyes blinking from the corners—watched you without blinking. Recording every breath. Every tremor.

You were still conscious. Still aware. And that was the worst part.

Volkov wanted you lucid for this.

Your arms ached from being bound above your head—metal cuffs cutting into your wrists, slick with sweat and blood. Your legs were tied at the ankles, the chair cold beneath you, bolts secured to the floor like this was always part of the plan. Like he’d been waiting to catch you like this. Waiting to make a spectacle of you.

Of course he was talking. He always talked first—like the sound of his voice was foreplay.

“I told them,” he muttered, dragging a chair toward you with a long, grating screech that raked across your skull. “Told them you’d fall. Doesn’t matter how trained you are. Everyone breaks. Especially the pretty ones.”

He sat. Legs wide. Elbows on his knees. Staring at you like you were already bleeding. Like you were his.

“You’ve lasted longer than I expected,” he said, his tone almost admiring. “But it’s coming. The breaking.”

His fingers reached forward again—those same thick, ringed fingers that had unzipped your suit, that had ghosted down your neck when you were half-awake. The scent of cigar smoke and synthetic cologne still clung to them, mixing with the tang of sweat and metal in the room.

His knuckles brushed your cheek. You flinched.

Not because you were afraid. But because you were furious.

And that fury—white-hot and blinding—was the only thing keeping you upright. And Bucky. Out there. Closing in like a storm beneath your skin.

But you couldn’t let Volkov see that.

So you swallowed the bile in your throat, forced your limbs to sag like the sedative still held you. You let your eyes flutter, like you were slipping under again. You made your voice small. Weak.

Why me?” you rasped, voice thin but laced with just enough bait. “What is it you want, really?”

He chuckled, the sound low and cruel. “Why not you? You were on my list the moment I saw you in that club. All that attitude, all that strength. It’ll make the footage better.”

Your stomach turned, a leaden knot of disgust and rage.

Still, you kept your face slack. You played your part.

“You kill me,” you whispered, slurring the words just enough, “you lose what I know. HYDRA vaults. Weapon caches. Secure lines. Things your people couldn’t even find.”

He paused.

There it was. That flicker of greed in his eyes. That hesitation.

You leaned into it.

“Let me talk,” you said, breathing shallowly, trembling just right. “Water. Hands free. Just a little. I’ll give you something.”

He stood again—slow and amused—and crossed to a small metal table at the side of the room. Tools. Restraints. Maybe something sharper. You couldn’t see all of it, but you heard the clink of something metal. A chain. A blade.

You clenched your teeth. Not yet.

A drop of sweat rolled from your temple down to your jaw, and you caught your reflection in one of the black-glass camera lenses. You barely recognized yourself.

But your eyes—your eyes still held fire.

You could see it.

And somewhere out there, Bucky saw it too.

Because you knew. You felt him like gravity. The echo of his fury, the weight of it marching toward you. He’d tear through walls for you. And he was close. So close.

You just had to survive a few more minutes.

Volkov picked up something—something you didn’t want to look at—and turned back toward you.

“You think you’re stalling,” he said with a grin, eyes glinting like broken glass. “But this? This is the good part.”

Your jaw tightened.

You let your chin drop forward, your eyes go dull again.

But inside, you were coiled wire, stretched thin. Every heartbeat was a countdown.

You weren’t stalling for your life.

You were setting the stage for his execution.

─

(Bucky's POV)

He heard it—the faint pop of compressed air, like a dart or a silenced shot. Then a low thud.

Your voice followed, barely audible in the comms—one last breathy fragment before the drug pulled you under. Slurred. Straining.

“Sweet, sweet printsessa. I’ll ruin every tight little hole until you’re nothing but broken.”

Volkov.

That voice.

That fucking voice.

Bucky didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. Every muscle in his body locked, like a tripwire had snapped taut in his chest. The world around him went sharp and silent—no more footfalls, no night breeze, no humming electricity from the docks.

Then—

Static.

Your line went dead.

Gone.

And Bucky snapped.

He was moving before he even realized it—sprinting, boots pounding against the dock’s gravel and steel. The radio in his ear buzzed, someone trying to hail him, but it was just noise. White noise. Meaningless.

His blood roared like fire through his veins, hot and bitter, his heartbeat hammering so loud it drowned out everything but the image—you, helpless, in danger, with that bastard’s voice still echoing in his head. That threat. Those words.

It wasn’t just rage. It was something deeper. Older. Something that lived in the marrow of his bones, coiled like a beast.

But he didn’t lose himself.

Not this time.

No—he harnessed it. Focused it. Weaponized it.

The Winter Soldier was awake—but for once, he wasn’t in control. Bucky was. And that made him even more dangerous.

His metal hand clenched so tightly the plates creaked, servos humming under strain. He leapt over the low railing between two shipping containers, landed in a crouch, and kept going—his movements faster, heavier, more brutal with each second.

He tore through a bolted gate, didn’t even feel the sting of metal slicing his palm. Pain didn’t register. Nothing did. Just the map in his mind—your last known location. The building ahead. That thick steel door.

He saw it, even as his breath fogged in the night air—what Volkov must’ve done. You’d been careful. So fucking careful. But he’d planned for this. Had something in place. A trap meant for you.

The woman he loved.

His wife.

Mine. Mine. MINE.

The thought pulsed with every stride, every heartbeat.

He hit the access panel beside the locked door with the full weight of his vibranium fist. It shattered instantly. Sparks rained as he jammed a wire into the circuitry, bypassing the system with muscle and rage, not finesse.

The door creaked open—and what Bucky saw beyond it turned his fury into something nuclear.

Cameras. Chairs bolted to the ground. A metal table with restraints. Tools. Blood.

And your scent—faint, but there.

He felt his soul fracture for half a second.

Then he moved.

Fast.

Silently.

A predator.

He would tear Volkov apart piece by piece—not for the information, not for revenge. But for you. For every breath he stole from your lungs, for every second of fear he put in your eyes, for daring to think he could touch you.

And if there was a god—he hoped Volkov would scream.

Because Bucky wanted him to scream.

─

The second Bucky breached the reinforced door, the scent of blood, sweat, and fear punched him in the gut.

You.

He felt you in the room before he saw you—your pain, your rage, your heartbeat fraying at the edges. Something ancient and monstrous twisted inside him.

The air changed. He knew before he looked. And then he saw you…

Strapped to a bolted-down chair. Tactical gear torn open. Skin bruised and shivering under flickering light. One wrist raw where the rope had bitten deep. A trail of dried blood traced the curve of your neck. The air hung heavy with copper and mildew, and the blinking red cameras watched like silent executioners.

You looked up—just barely. Your eyes found him.

Fire behind glass.

Tears unshed. Fury held in trembling muscle.

Then Bucky saw him.

Volkov.

Standing just feet away, an iron rod clutched lazily in one hand. A SIG-Sauer P226 slung at his hip. His lips curled into a grin that didn’t quite hide the madness beneath. He hadn’t touched you again—not yet. But the look on his face said he planned to.

“You should’ve brought flowers if you wanted to interrupt,” Volkov sneered. “Didn’t know they let backup dogs run loose these days.”

Bucky didn’t speak.

Not yet.

He walked forward—slow, deliberate, methodical. His breaths were sharp and clipped, like drawing air through broken glass. A predator’s prowl. Precision in every step.

“You here for a trade? A martyr’s end?” Volkov taunted. “C’mon then. Let’s make it cinematic.”

Still, Bucky said nothing.

He moved until he stood directly between you and Volkov—shoulders squared, stance rooted. His left hand—vibranium—automatically reached back, as if shielding you by instinct alone.

Then—

He snapped forward.

His voice tore through the room like a thundercrack.

“This woman—” he roared, pointing directly at you, body shaking with raw fury, “—is my wife!”

The word wife detonated in the air.

Your head jerked slightly. Even through the haze, even through the pain—you heard him.

“MY FUCKING WIFE! Not your toy. Not your hostage. Not something for your sick little games.”

Volkov’s smirk cracked. It slipped—just slightly—but enough to see the twitch in his jaw.

Bucky’s vibranium fingers curled into a fist. The sound was like metal grinding on metal.

“You touched her,” he seethed. “You looked at her like she was yours. I’m going to make you regret ever drawing breath.”

Volkov moved first—fast, confident, stupid.

Bucky met him halfway.

He pulled his sidearm mid-stride and fired. Two shots. One aimed for Volkov’s shoulder, the other for his thigh. Volkov twisted with inhuman reflexes—the first bullet grazed his bicep, the second slammed into a steel support behind him.

Volkov returned fire—a sharp, calculated double tap.

Bucky slid sideways, felt the bullet nick the edge of his arm. Didn’t matter. He was already moving.

They collided like freight trains.

Bucky’s knife flashed out from his belt—a matte black combat blade, narrow and deadly. He slashed upward, fast, aiming for Volkov’s abdomen. The Russian twisted, caught the blow with his forearm—blood sprayed in a fine arc.

Volkov spun, boot kicking Bucky square in the chest. He staggered back one step—just one.

Then launched himself forward again.

Knife to knife now.

Volkov drew his own—shorter, serrated, HYDRA-issued. Their blades clashed, metal sparking, skimming skin and armor. The room filled with the sound of grunts and steel colliding. Bucky’s body was pure muscle and memory—every move learned in blood, every strike meant to kill.

Volkov ducked a slash and drove his blade into Bucky’s left side, just under the ribs.

Shit.

Bucky grunted. Twisted. Let it dig an inch deeper—then used it. He grabbed Volkov’s wrist and pulled, driving his own blade straight into Volkov’s thigh, burying it deep.

Volkov howled.

But he was trained. He didn’t drop.

He struck back with his elbow, cracked it into Bucky’s jaw. The blow rattled Bucky’s brain for half a second—enough for Volkov to sweep his leg under Bucky’s and take him to the floor.

They rolled—grappling, snarling, blades scraping armor and bone. Bucky’s metal hand caught Volkov’s throat. He squeezed—hard. Volkov gagged, slammed his elbow into Bucky’s side, but Bucky didn’t let go.

“You think pain makes you strong?” Bucky growled. “You don’t know pain.”

He slammed Volkov’s head into the ground. Concrete split beneath.

Volkov, bloody and furious, managed to roll away. Pulled a hidden pistol from his ankle holster and fired.

One shot went wild.

The other grazed Bucky’s shoulder, slicing through the edge of his suit.

Bucky dove low—shoulder-first—tackled him against the metal table. It folded in half under their combined weight. Chains rattled down like rain.

Bucky disarmed him in a heartbeat—knife spinning across the floor. Pistol kicked away.

Now it was just them.

Fists.

Steel.

And rage.

Bucky landed a blow to the ribs that bent Volkov sideways, then drove a knee into his gut. Volkov coughed blood, still fighting, still moving. He threw a headbutt. Connected.

Bucky’s vision flashed white. But his body kept going.

He ducked under a punch and drove his metal arm up into Volkov’s chin.

Crack.

Teeth scattered.

Volkov dropped.

But Bucky wasn’t done.

He grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room—into the steel wall. The impact echoed like thunder. Volkov slumped, dazed, broken.

Bucky moved in.

Each step was deliberate. Measured. Deadly.

Volkov made one last move—limping, bleeding—toward a blade still on the floor.

Bucky stepped into him.

And drove his vibranium fist into Volkov’s gut. Deep. Bones snapped. Blood spattered.

Then came the uppercut. Vicious. Perfect.

Volkov flew backward. Hit the floor. Didn’t get back up.

Bucky stood over him, breathing like a war engine, sweat and blood dripping from his brow, muscles flexing with each ragged inhale.

He could kill him.

One more hit.

One.

But then—

He looked at you.

Your bruised wrists. The blood on your neck. The silent strength in your eyes.

And the fury softened—just enough to make room for control.

Bucky stepped back.

Grabbed one of the thick cargo chains from the floor. Industrial. Cold.

He wrapped it around Volkov like a vice. Again. Tighter. Again. Until Volkov’s ribs creaked and his mouth filled with the taste of metal.

Bucky looped it through the floor bolt. Yanked it tight.

Then knelt, voice low and lethal in Volkov’s ear.

“You’ll live just long enough to rot in a black site,” he hissed. “Every day knowing you lost to me. That you never got to touch her again.”

He stood.

Wiped the blood from his mouth.

Then turned.

And saw you.

Bruised. Bleeding. Breathing.

Still you.

And in that instant, everything else in the world disappeared.

—

The moment his eyes met yours, something in him shattered.

He crossed the room in a heartbeat.

“Doll—” His voice broke, hoarse with something primal.

His hands were already on the restraints, fingers shaking as he worked through the tight buckles with mechanical precision. The cold touch of his vibranium palm met your bruised wrist, and you winced—more from reflex than pain.

“Shit. Sorry. I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He flinched like he’d hurt you.

“Bucky,” you whispered. “It’s okay. I’m—”

“No,” he rasped, his gaze sweeping over you like he was cataloging every mark, every scratch, every tear in your clothes. “It’s not. Look at you. Fucking look at you.”

His breath hitched. Blood smeared his temple, a gash cut across his jaw, and the left side of his torso was soaked in red—where Volkov’s blade had torn beneath his ribs—but he didn’t register it. Didn’t care.

He knelt in front of you like a soldier before an altar, pulling the bindings off your ankles with a desperate kind of tenderness. Every time the rope gave way, he touched the skin beneath, thumb brushing gently across raw flesh like he could erase it.

“I should’ve gotten here sooner. I should’ve known.” His voice cracked again. “I heard what he said to you over the comms—I heard—God, baby, I should’ve fucking—”

“Bucky,” you said again, firmer this time. You leaned forward weakly, your hands finding his bloodied face and cupping it between your palms. “I’m here. I’m okay.”

He shook his head like he didn’t believe you. Or couldn’t.

“I saw your face when I walked in,” he whispered. “I saw what he did.”

Your lip trembled, but you forced it still. “He didn’t… get far. I was drugged, restrained—but I don’t think he…” You swallowed hard, bile rising. “I think he wanted to wait. To make it worse. I could feel it.”

Bucky’s entire body stilled. Frozen.

Then his jaw flexed, and a tremor rolled through his shoulders.

“I was going to kill him,” he admitted, voice like shattered glass. “Right there. Would’ve torn him apart with my bare hands and smiled while I did it.”

“I know,” you said softly. “And if you had, I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

His eyes met yours again—steel blue, raw. “But you did stop me, didn’t you?”

You nodded. “Because I still need you, Bucky. I don’t need vengeance. I need you.”

For a long second, neither of you moved.

Then he slowly leaned forward, resting his forehead against yours. His blood mixed with your tears. His hand—metal, unyielding—cupped your jaw with a touch softer than silk.

“You’re my whole goddamn world, doll,” he whispered. “They can take the mission. They can take the tech. But they touch you—”

“I know.” You closed your eyes. “They didn’t.”

You sat in silence another beat. Long enough to breathe. Long enough to feel your body again. It hurt—every inch—but it was still yours.

And you were still his.

Finally, you pulled back just enough to look at him again. “Can you move?”

He nodded, wincing as he stood. The stab wound was clearly more than a graze now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

“Good. Because we’re not done yet.” You exhaled and braced a hand on the chair, pushing to your feet.

He immediately steadied you.

“Hey—slow. You sure you’re okay?”

“No,” you said honestly. “But I’m upright. I’m breathing. We came here for more than him.”

Bucky looked at you like you’d just grown wings. Like maybe you were the strongest person he’d ever met.

You gestured to the side door—half-open, dimly lit.

“Volkov said he kept it behind security doors. Tech that could outrun vibranium and adamantium. We find it, we finish this. Together.”

He gave you a long look. Then nodded, bloody and steady.

“Together,” he said.

And this time, it wasn’t a promise.

It was a war cry.

—

You settled beside Bucky, your fingers still trembling from the adrenaline, but your voice stayed steady as you pulled out your comms. The sterile hum of the damaged room was pierced by your quiet command.

“Val, I need backup. Volkov’s down, but his intel’s too valuable to lose.”

Your words felt heavier than air, each syllable soaked in urgency and the weight of what you both had just survived. The faint crackle in your ear answered with Val’s cool, unwavering voice—a beacon cutting through the dark.

“Copy that. Bob and Yelena are on standby in the city. They’re moving in now.”

Relief unfurled inside you—a fragile thread of hope amid the storm. Familiar voices. Reinforcements racing through the city’s shadows toward your location. A lifeline tethered to survival.

You glanced at Bucky, whose breathing had slowed, chest rising and falling like a war drum now beating for peace. Your touch found his bruised shoulder, gentle but grounding—an unspoken promise that this fight wasn’t over, but you’d face it together.

Meanwhile, Bucky turned back to Volkov, seizing the moment to inflict just enough pain to crack the enemy’s stoic facade.

Codes and coordinates spilled out under Bucky’s relentless pressure—every word a strike against Volkov’s will. The new tech’s location was now clear, an ominous prize tucked in a forgotten warehouse.

Without hesitation, Bucky led the way.

Your mind raced as you scanned the data, heart pounding in your chest. The place was rigged—dangerous. Lethal. But destruction was necessary.

Bucky moved with purpose, expertly setting charges that would erase the tech and any trace of its existence.

Explosions roared behind you, shaking the ground. The acrid scent of burning metal and plastic filled the air.

Back in the quiet aftermath, you knelt beside Bucky. Your hands moved carefully over his wounds—bruises blooming purple, cuts still fresh. You ignored the heat of your own exhaustion, focusing on him.

The metallic taste of blood still lingered on his lips, but his skin was warm under your fingertips—healing fast, fueled by sheer will and some stubborn human resilience.

Your touch was gentle. Deliberate. Calming the storm inside him.

His wild eyes softened. He exhaled. The tension in his jaw eased under your care.

Volkov lay unconscious, wrapped tight in steel chains—conscious enough to curse in his dreams, but powerless.

You met Bucky’s gaze.

And in that look, shared a quiet understanding:

The worst was behind you.

For now.

—

The low hum of the jet thrummed around you, the tension from the mission fading like smoke.

Bucky lounged back in his seat, that cocky smirk never leaving his face as he nudged you gently with his metal arm.

“You comfortable now, wife?”

The moment the word left his mouth, Yelena shot upright like a firecracker had gone off beside her. She slammed her fist on the intercom button with enough force to rattle the entire jet cabin.

“You two were fucking?!”

Your cheeks flushed a hot, creeping red, heat blooming across your neck as all eyes snapped to you and Bucky.

Bob burst into delighted applause, grinning ear to ear like he’d just won the lottery.

Yelena’s glare sharpened, her voice dripping with playful disgust.

“Seriously? You could do so much better than some grumpy, hundred-year-old man.”

She shot you a smirk full of challenge.

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t hide the soft smile tugging at your lips, your voice low and teasing as you leaned into Bucky’s side.

“I’m too down bad for him already, Lena.”

Bucky caught your hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a slow, deliberate kiss to your knuckles, his steel-blue eyes sparkling with a tenderness that made your heart thud painfully in your chest.

The warmth of his touch was a stark contrast to the sterile hum of the jet’s engines.

Yelena groaned, throwing her head back dramatically.

“I’d rather die than witness all this PDA shit in real life. Please, no more!”

Before you could respond, the intercom crackled to life.

Ava’s voice came through, shocked and high-pitched:

“Who—what??”

Then Walker cut in, with his usual dry edge:

“Is the cat out of the bag now?”

Bob chimed in happily, clapping again.

“Finally! Took you two long enough.”

Suddenly, the intercom blasted again, this time it was Alexei—loud, exuberant, completely unfiltered:

“YESSSSSS, AVENGER PAPA AND MAMAAAAAAA!! AVENGER BABY IN MAKINGGG!!”

The cabin exploded into laughter.

Yelena groaned as she slammed the intercom button once more, shaking her head at the glorious madness surrounding you.

Bucky smirked down at you, eyes soft but mischievous.

“Looks like we’re famous now, love.”

You nestled closer, hand tightening around his, feeling the rare calm of being home amidst the chaos of your lives.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fic #bucky x reader #bucky x you #avengers #thunderbolts* era fic #winter soldier fic #bucky barnes imagines #bucky imagines #bucky fic #bucky barnes one shot #bucky x female reader #dark bucky barnes #bucky barnes x plus size reader #tw: dark themes #feral bucky barnes #જ⁀➴ by elle

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solxamber · 2 months ago

Text

Workplace Hazards: Romance || Idia Shroud

You're a feral SS-class Esper with no off switch. He's an anxious shut-in SS-class Guide just trying to game in peace. Through lies, HR nightmares, dramatic near-deaths, and one candy ring proposal, you accidentally become soulmates. Government benefits may or may not be involved.

Series Masterlist

Life, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to take a sharp left turn off the highway of normalcy and drive screaming into the wormhole of cosmic horror.

One day you’re just a person trying to buy goat milk, and the next, the sky rips open like a microwaved burrito, belching out monsters that look like someone tried to 3D print your worst nightmare with a spaghetti code of malice and slime. Scientists call them "Gate manifestations." Everyone else calls them "oh no no no NO—"

But humanity, being the scrappy little infestation it is, adapted. Not by solving the actual problem (of course not, that would require shutting up billionaires and redirecting global funds from "missile measuring contests"), but by evolving. Or rather, mutating—suddenly a percentage of the population started exhibiting terrifying, physics-optional powers.

These people are called Espers—a sanitized title that really just means "Congratulations! You are now licensed to punch interdimensional horrors in the face and traumatize yourself in the process."

Now, if the Espers were just laser-wielding sad little soldiers, that would be one thing. But no, their powers came with a side effect: unmanageable psychic noise. Think psychic radiation plus the emotional intensity of a sleep-deprived theatre kid on their third espresso shot.

This is where Guides came in. Not to lead anyone (the name is misleading, like “boneless chicken wings” in Ohio), but to stabilize Espers before they exploded into a Category Five Meltdown and leveled half a city block because someone forgot to restock the vending machine.

Guides don’t just talk you down—they shove their psychic aura into your brain like a weighted blanket made of competence and condescension. They are therapists, emotional janitors, and living surge protectors. Some are kind. Some are terrifying. Some, unfortunately, are hot.

So now the world runs on a system: gates appear, Espers go in and fight, Guides catch them when they fall out twitching and covered in monster goo. Rinse. Repeat. Cry. Go to therapy if you’re lucky. Take a nap if you’re not. Don’t die. (Please. HR paperwork is a nightmare.)

And if you’re very unlucky—like catastrophically, cosmically doomed—you fall in love with your Guide.

But that’s not your fault. That’s life now, baby.

You’re an Esper. A good one, actually. Or you were. You were ranked S-Class and living the dream: minimum paperwork, maximum destruction, and you had a Guide who made you drink tea and pretend your trauma was a garden to be tended. You even humored him and tried to visualize your “inner zen koi pond” until the koi started screaming back. Good times.

But then came The Incident.

Now, to be fair, the gate had looked normal. It wasn’t your fault it turned out to be a Class Alpha Instability Spiral—whatever the hell that means; you don't read the reports, you're just the explosion part of the team.

It also wasn’t your fault the emotional stress made you unlock a new tier of Esper abilities mid-battle. And it definitely wasn’t your fault that you accidentally bent the laws of physics so hard that five square kilometers of space-time decided to just... sit this one out.

But sure, blame the walking psychic warhead. Classic.

Congratulations! You're now SS-Class. The extra “S” stands for “Somebody please help.” Your previous Guide has politely resigned, citing “irreconcilable sanity differences.” HR gave you a pamphlet called So You’ve Accidentally Become a Government Weapon, and you were told your new classification required a compatibility reassignment.

Soul-sorting algorithms that spat out exactly one name. One room number. One very troubling lack of further details. Because while every other high-ranking Guide had reviews, commentary, threat assessments—your new match had... whispers.

"Doesn't take anyone."

"Turned down a whole squad of Espers."

So naturally, you knocked on the door.

Then knocked again.

And on the third knock, after contemplating whether this was some elaborate prank designed to push you into spontaneous combustion, you heard it: a whispered, "Come in," like the voice of someone who’d been emotionally concussed by mere social interaction.

The office was dark. Not ominous-dark, more... someone-didn’t-want-to-pay-the-electric-bill dark. The curtains were drawn. The monitor light was the only glow in the room, and behind it was a figure so slouched, so cocooned in hoodie and existential dread, you almost mistook him for a sentient couch cushion.

Idia Shroud.

SS-Class Guide. The Anti-Social Sorcerer. The Mothman of Mental Stability.

He looked up at you like you were the ghost of an unpaid internship and visibly recoiled.

"Hi," you said, very brightly, like this wasn’t clearly a mistake and the man before you hadn’t just contemplated leaping through the window to escape human contact.

He blinked. Slowly. "You're the SS?"

“Apparently,” you replied, sitting down calmly and very much not vibrating with barely-leashed doom energy. You folded your hands in your lap like someone who hadn’t just melted part of the training center during compatibility testing. “And you're going to be my Guide.”

That clearly short-circuited something in his brain because he made a strangled wheeze that sounded like a laptop dying.

So, obviously, the next logical step was pretending to be emotionally stable.

“Yes, I’ve been told I have excellent boundaries,” you said, lying through your teeth. “I meditate. I go to therapy. I drink water.”

Your nose might have twitched at the last one. Idia squinted.

“I’ve... seen your incident reports.”

Ah. Well. Time to double down.

“And yet,” you said, flashing a smile that could win awards for Most Suspicious Aura, “the test matched us. Fate, right?”

Idia looked at you like fate had personally wronged him.

You maintained eye contact. Calm. Cool. Collected. Just another emotionally well-regulated citizen of the world, absolutely not about to snap and launch a fireball into a vending machine if it ate your coins again.

And to your surprise, after a long, tense silence and a muttered line that sounded suspiciously like, “If I ignore it, maybe it'll leave,” he didn’t kick you out.

He just sighed. Opened a drawer. Pulled out your file like it physically hurt him.

And so it began.

You and the man who looked like a sleep-deprived curse word.

Esper and Guide.

Chaos and more chaos.

Willing participant and deeply unwilling participant.

Honestly, this was going to go great.

Idia sits next to you like someone forced him into a live-action horror movie adaptation of his worst social nightmares. He perches at the very edge of the couch, knees turned sharply away from you, shoulders hunched like he’s expecting to spontaneously combust just from proximity. He’s sweating. Actively. You can hear it.

He doesn't look at you—doesn’t dare to. Eye contact might trigger some kind of emotional subroutine he’s buried under six years of anime quotes and avoidance. So instead, he glares at the floor like it owes him money and says in the driest, most pained voice you've ever heard:

“…I’m going to initiate touch now.”

You blink. “Cool. I won’t bite.”

“Statistically, there’s still a 17% chance.”

Before you can ask how he got that number, he reaches over—very gingerly—and clasps your hand like it’s a ticking time bomb. It’s the least affectionate, most clinical hand-hold imaginable. And yet—

Your brain goes silent. Completely. All the psychic noise, the static, the ghost of that one Gate entity that’s been whispering “eat drywall” for three weeks straight—gone. You breathe out, deeply, for what feels like the first time in months.

“Oh,” you say, blinking slowly. “That’s… good. That’s really good.”

Meanwhile, Idia has gone stiff as a corpse. He looks at you, then at your hand, then back at you like you’ve just transformed into a philosophical dilemma.

“How are you alive?” he asks, genuinely horrified. “You’re… you’re an unstable esper. Your baseline resonance is like an overcooked spaghetti noodle wrapped around a hand grenade. You should be fried. You should be paste. What the hell have you been doing for guidance?”

You shrug. “My last guide made me listen to podcasts. And sometimes put a warm towel on my neck.”

Idia just stares at you in disbelief. “A warm towel?! A warm towel?! That’s like trying to fight a house fire with herbal tea!”

You grin at him, relaxed in a way you haven’t been since your promotion. “Hey. I’m adaptable.”

Then you wink.

He jerks his hand back like you just slapped him with a legally binding marriage proposal. “Okay, what does that mean?! Are you flirting? Threatening me? Both?!”

You stretch luxuriously on his couch, now absolutely high on the absence of psychic distress. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Guide boy?”

He looks at you like he’s re-evaluating every decision that led him to this moment—including being born.

You close your eyes, content, while Idia frantically Googles “how to tell if your newly assigned Esper is insane.”

You don’t need to see him to know he’s panicking.

But you feel better than you have in weeks.

You exit the Gate with all the dignity of a baby deer on roller skates. Technically alive, mostly upright, and riding the high of “I didn’t die today” like it’s a stimulant. There’s smoke rising from your gloves, your hair’s doing a very bold interpretation of ‘windblown,’ and you’re about three seconds from either vomiting or adopting nihilism as a full-time lifestyle.

And then—you spot him.

Your Guide.

Idia Shroud.

He’s lurking in the far corner of the clearing, half-shielded by a vending machine and what looks like pure, unfiltered spite. His hood’s up, his glowstick hair is practically vibrating, and he’s watching the post-Gate Espers like a cornered Victorian orphan who’s about to throw hands over the last piece of bread.

One comes within five feet of him and he physically recoils, clutching his comms tablet like it’s a crucifix. You're ninety percent sure he hissed.

So naturally, you make a beeline for him.

“Hi honey, I’m home,” you chirp, still crackling with energy like a downed power line.

He jolts like you just poured emotional commitment down his spine.

“Oh my GOD,” he mutters, dragging you by the sleeve like you’re radioactive (which, in fairness, you might be). “What took you so long?! I was standing here surrounded by—by unregulated feelings and eye contact and—oh my god, one of them tried to hug me.”

You let him pull you behind a barrier, where he sits you down with the dramatic flair of someone absolutely done with his entire existence. He doesn’t even wait—just snatches your hand and starts stabilizing you like he’s diffusing a bomb, holding on like letting go might summon the apocalypse.

Instant, blessed silence.

Your brain, which had been screaming like a dial-up modem on fire, goes quiet. Your chest unknots. You remember that oxygen exists and taking it in is actually encouraged. You sigh, blissed out, while Idia makes a face like he just stuck his hand in radioactive soup.

“I know it was, like, a gate collapse or whatever,” he mutters, eyes fixed on the skyline like he’s begging some higher power for patience. “But maybe next time don’t take so long to get out? You were in there for seventy minutes. I counted. Every second was emotionally damaging.”

You grin, eyes still hazy. “Aw. You missed me.”

“I panicked,” he snaps. “There’s a difference. I had a backup plan. It was called ‘run.’”

You lean toward him with a smug little hum. “You care.”

“I don’t care,” he says immediately, voice cracking like a damaged violin string. “I just don’t want you getting so emotionally unhinged you come back here all weepy and soulbond-seeking and—” he gestures vaguely. “Clingy.”

“I’m not clingy,” you say, still not letting go of his hand.

“You’re currently latched onto me like a trauma koala,” he deadpans.

You wink. “So you do care.”

Idia looks at you like he’s actively calculating how many regulations he can violate before someone notices. His expression lands somewhere between “why me” and “I should’ve become a dental assistant.”

But he doesn’t let go.

In fact, he shifts slightly so you can lean against him more comfortably. Not that he says anything about it. No. That would imply emotional maturity and gross things like “communication.”

Instead, he mutters, “You smell like space lightning and poor decisions.”

You beam at him. “Thanks. It’s my natural musk.”

And despite everything—despite the chaos, the imminent paperwork, and the looming threat of another Esper trying to trauma-bond with him—Idia doesn’t move away.

You’d like to think it’s because of your immense charm.

He’ll tell himself it’s just because it’s the most efficient way to keep you from frying your nervous system.

But deep down—deep down—he’s already doomed, and you both know it.

Congratulations. You’ve adopted a reclusive Guide with the emotional range of a scared wet cat.

And he cares.

Desperately.

You were having a very productive day doing absolutely nothing.

Flat on your bed, hoodie pulled over your face, limbs at the exact angle of maximum immobility, you were experiencing true stillness. The kind of stillness monks meditate decades to achieve. You hadn’t moved in hours. If someone were to enter your apartment right now, they’d probably mistake you for a corpse, but with worse fashion sense.

And then your phone rang.

You ignored it. Of course you did. Whoever it was could wait. You were on a spiritual journey to become one with your mattress. But it rang again. And again. And then came the messages. Ping. Ping. Pingpingpingping—

With the groan of someone who’s known true peace and been dragged back to hell, you reached for the phone.

[Guidia]: B-Class pest in hallway. Halp. He's monologuing. [Guidia]: SOS. EMERGENCY. COME NOW. I’M NOT KIDDING. [Guidia]: HE'S OUTSIDE MY OFFICE. HE HAS A CLIPBOARD. [Guidia]: I’M HIDING BEHIND MY ROLLING CHAIR. [Guidia]: IF YOU DON’T COME I’M FAKING MY OWN DEATH.

You stared at the messages. Debated pretending you didn’t see them. Debated harder. Lost.

Twenty minutes later, you're standing in front of the office building, internally mourning the loss of your free day and dressed like a walking stress nap with an energy drink in hand. You shuffle into the building, make your way to the guide floor, and as soon as you turn the corner—

There he is.

A junior Esper. Knocking on Idia’s door with the determined rhythm of someone trying to summon either a guide or God himself.

You slow down, then stop completely a few feet away, watching the scene with mild interest and the deadpan curiosity of someone who’s just been pulled out of bed to witness this madness.

He looks fresh out of training. Blue hair perfectly combed, posture painfully upright, shoes that don’t have a single scuff on them. He’s also got that nervous, earnest vibe that screams “will fill out extra paperwork if asked.”

You raise an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

He turns, a bit startled, then gives you a hopeful little smile.

“I’m here to meet Guide Shroud,” he says. “I heard he’s an SS-Rank and that he has only one Esper on his schedule, so I came to ask if he’d consider guiding me!”

You blink slowly. “You’re…?”

“B-Class!” he says proudly. “But I’ve been training hard. My instructors say I’ve got potential!”

You resist the urge to say “uh-huh” and pat him on the head. It is bold, you’ll give him that. You’d admire it more if you weren’t already picturing Idia foaming at the mouth behind the door.

Before you can respond, the door opens a crack—and a pale hand shoots out, grabs your wrist, and yanks you inside like you’re being abducted.

The door slams shut behind you. You spin and there’s Idia, crouched behind his desk, wide-eyed and absolutely vibrating with panic.

“WHY is he still out there,” he hisses.

You shrug. “He’s got dreams?”

“I SAW THE CLIPBOARD.”

“What’s on the clipboard, Idia.”

“I DON’T KNOW. GOALS? AMBITIONS? A LIST OF ICEBREAKER QUESTIONS?”

You give him a flat look. “So you dragged me out of bed—on my day off—because a baby Esper wanted to talk to you?”

“Did you SEE him?! He’s wearing a BUTTON-UP. He brought a PEN.”

“And your solution is what? Hide in your office until he dies of old age?”

“YES,” he says, without shame.

You sigh, long and dramatic. “Fiiiine.”

“You’ll get rid of him?”

“Yes.”

“WITHOUT making a mess?”

“No promises.”

You step out of the office, roll your shoulders, and walk up to the junior Esper with your best tired-but-stern government-employee face.

“Hey,” you say. “Guide Shroud can’t take you.”

His face falls. “Oh. Why not?”

“He’s bonded.”

“Oh.” He looks down, disappointed. “Wait—bonded? Like, permanently?”

“Yep.”

“…To who?”

You tilt your head and flash a smile. “Me.”

A beat passes.

“Oh,” he says again, eyes wide. “I—I didn’t know. That’s amazing. Congratulations! You two must have a really powerful connection.”

You nod solemnly. “We do. He definitely doesn’t hide under the desk every time I sneeze.”

“I hope someday I get to experience something like that,” he says, eyes shining.

You pat his shoulder like the elder cryptid you are. “Maybe. But for now, go back to your training. Don’t skip on the cardio. Gates love people who skip cardio.”

He scurries off with a polite bow and a visible resolve to become the best version of himself.

You reenter the office. Idia’s peeking from behind his chair like a horror movie extra.

“Gone?”

“Gone.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you’re soul-bonded to me and emotionally unavailable.”

Idia goes still. Then slowly slinks out of hiding and collapses into his chair like a dying star.

“I can’t believe you just lied to a government-registered Esper,” he mutters.

“I can believe I did it to get my day off back.”

“…Fair.”

You yawn, stretch, and head for the door. “Anyway, congrats on our fake bond. I expect fake anniversary gifts.”

“I'm gonna submit a fake complaint to HR.”

“Romantic.”

Idia glares.

You blow him a kiss and leave.

You realize just how feral Espers are for high-grade Guides when one tries to poach yours in broad daylight, in public, with the social grace of a raccoon trying to steal your fries at a bus stop.

You’ve just finished a gate run, which—if you ignore the part where you took on three more phantoms than assigned, broke your regulator, and got launched through a wall—went rather well. Minor details, honestly.

Idia, however, is not ignoring any of that. He is, in fact, still cataloging your crimes in a tired monotone that suggests he’s preparing a very long, very strongly worded complaint for HR. Possibly engraved on stone tablets.

“You absolute menace,” he mutters, slumped against the wall beside you. “You promised—promised—you wouldn’t go after the untagged ones unless backup arrived, and what did you do? You ran at it. With a stick. A stick.”

“It was a long stick,” you say helpfully, grinning as you lean a little more of your weight against him, fully aware he’s too drained to push you off.

“I had to leave my desk, you tyrant,” he hisses. “Do you know what it’s like being forced to cross a city-wide barrier while wearing socks with holes in them?! My soul is chafing.”

You laugh, and the sound is light and easy, the kind that says this is all routine for you now—him grumbling, you ignoring, the two of you attached at the hand like mismatched puzzle pieces that somehow just work.

It’s been nearly a year since you first met, and though Idia still resembles flight response in human form, he doesn’t flinch when you touch him anymore. He doesn’t hide behind walls of screens and sarcastic muttering. These days, he’ll even look you in the eye if he’s feeling particularly emotionally reckless.

And today, you’re halfway draped against his side, gripping his hand like it’s your personal grounding wire, while he complains about your irresponsibility with the dulled, weary cadence of someone who has long accepted his fate.

Everything is calm. Peaceful. Slightly sweaty, but serene.

Until it happens.

You feel it first—a disturbance in the air, a sort of psychic shift like a mosquito entering your periphery. And then a hand—not yours—wraps around Idia’s other hand.

You both freeze.

You turn your head slowly, like a haunted doll in a horror movie, and lock eyes with the offending Esper: a stranger, grinning with the unnerving intensity of someone who’s never once respected personal space in their life.

Their grip is firm. Their eyes are gleaming. You get the immediate and unshakable impression that they brush their teeth with motivational speeches and do pushups while listening to alpha wave affirmations.

“Hey,” they say brightly. “I felt your energy from across the lot. You’re an SS-ranked Guide, right? I need a sync. This is urgent.”

You blink. They just walked up. Grabbed his hand. Started a conversation. Like you’re not right there. Like you’re not holding his hand already.

Idia makes a noise. A terrible, high-pitched, panicked noise that sounds like a dying computer fan combined with a stress wheeze. His grip on your hand turns into a death clamp so intense you briefly lose sensation in your fingers.

You can feel his aura spiking erratically, his hair going from blue-flame to fire-hazard, his whole body broadcasting something between fight and flight but mostly error404.human.exe has stopped responding.

The other Esper keeps smiling.

So naturally, your half-dead, gate-fried, emotionally responsible brain decides to handle the situation with grace, poise, and logic.

“That’s my bonded Guide, how dare you?” you say loudly, voice ringing across the field like you’ve just declared war at a royal banquet.

The Esper blinks. “Wait—bonded?”

You stare them down with the weight of a thousand lies and the calm of someone who has absolutely no plan but is fully committed to whatever this is now. “Yes. Bonded. Anchored. Spiritually entangled. Aether-twined in the eyes of the Bureau and every known deity.”

The Esper takes a step back. “Oh. I—I didn’t realize, you weren’t listed—”

“It’s private. Sacred. We don’t believe in paperwork,” you say solemnly, as if this is an ancient vow passed down from your ancestors and not something you just made up to avoid watching Idia break down like a damsel in the middle of a syncing field.

“I—I’m sorry,” they stammer, already backing away like you’ve slapped them with a restraining order made of pure energy. “I didn’t mean to—good luck with your, um. Bond.”

And then they run. They actually run. Kick up dust and everything.

You turn back to Idia, who’s frozen in place like his entire reality has blue-screened.

“What,” he croaks, “the hell was that?”

“A problem solved,” you say, settling back into your lean like nothing happened. “You’re welcome.”

“You told them we were bonded. In public. Do you have any idea what you just—? That’s a federal registration. There’s ceremonies. There are retreats. I’m going to start getting targeted ads for matching sync robes!”

You shrug, resting your head on his shoulder with the peacefulness of someone who knows, with every fiber of their being, that they have zero intention of fixing this. “Eh. If the ad algorithm knows something before you do, maybe it’s just fate.”

“You’re the worst,” he whispers, deeply and with feeling.

And yet, his grip doesn’t loosen. Even with both your hands clasped like that, even after the emotional equivalent of a car alarm going off in his soul, he keeps holding on.

So really, you figure everything’s fine.

After one little white lie (okay, two), things spiraled faster than you expected. Who knew that telling two different Espers that you and Idia were bonded would spread like someone set the office gossip group chat on fire and dumped rocket fuel on it?

Now you’re both sitting in HR.

The room is sterile in that special, soul-draining way that only HR offices can achieve—walls too white, chairs too plastic, a single wilting plant in the corner that’s seen more existential dread than most therapists.

You’re slouched in your seat, one leg bouncing like a ticking bomb, while Idia sits stiffly beside you, arms folded, looking like he wants to sink through the floor.

He's glaring at you with the intensity of a thousand blue suns. You can feel the judgment radiating off him like he's trying to guilt-force an apology through sheer mental anguish.

"Look," you mutter, nudging his boot with yours. "It’s not that bad."

"You told people we were bonded,” he hisses under his breath. “Twice. You turned it into an office-wide feature presentation. They sent us an official celebration cake, do you understand how terrifying that?”

You grin. “People love love.”

“I’m allergic to attention,” he snaps. “Do you know how many people tried to make eye contact with me this morning?”

“I made your life more efficient. Think about it—if we just roll with it, you never have to guide another Esper again. No more weirdos grabbing your hand in public. No more field calls. No more small talk.”

Idia pauses. You can see the moment he processes it. He goes very, very still, like a prey animal realizing the trap is actually a very comfy bed with Wi-Fi.

“…If I say we’re bonded, you're the only Esper I’ll ever have to guide,” he murmurs, eyes flicking toward the ceiling like he’s consulting an invisible divine entity. “I could work from home forever. No more missions. No more rando Espers breathing at me. I could build an AI version of myself for you to sync with. I wouldn’t even need to be conscious.”

“There you go!” you whisper, triumphant. “Fake it till we make it. Just smile, nod, and look like you tolerate me.”

“I don’t know how to smile on command.”

“Perfect. That’s our natural chemistry.”

Before he can spiral further, the HR door opens and a clipboard-toting, tired-eyed official waves you both in.

You sit. Idia sits like he’s never sat before. The HR guy folds his hands and gives you both that “I don’t get paid enough for this” expression all HR personnel master within the first week of their job.

“So,” he says. “You’re claiming a bond. You understand that means your sync scores, mission pairings, and emotional resonance charts are now considered federal data.”

“Absolutely,” you say confidently.

“Nope,” Idia says at the same time.

The HR guy pauses. “Right. Let’s just verify a few details.” He flips through the clipboard. “When did you begin your relationship?”

“About eleven months ago,” you reply smoothly.

“Two months ago?” Idia echoes, blinking. “Wait, what?”

“Where was your first official sync?”

“Field 17,” you say.

“The cafeteria,” says Idia.

A silence. You shoot him a quick look and whisper, “Why would we sync in the cafeteria—”

“I was thinking of lunch!” he hisses back.

HR guy clears his throat loudly.

“Okay,” he says, clearly fighting for patience. “Can you describe the moment you knew you were psychically compatible?”

You nod solemnly. “He touched my hand during decompression and I felt peace.”

“...When I almost blacked out from terror on field 206” Idia mutters.

You both blink at each other. There’s a horrible, choking silence.

The HR guy just sets down his pen, pinches the bridge of his nose, and sighs like he’s about to file for retirement. “Are you sure this is a real bond?”

Panic grips you like a sudden gust of wind. You think, fast. There’s only one thing left to do, one final act of desperation.

You rise from your chair.

Idia blinks. “What are you—oh no.”

You drop to one knee. “Oh yes.”

You pull out a ring. It’s a candy ring, the one you were saving in your jacket pocket for a sugar crash emergency. It sparkles like cheap sugar-coated destiny.

“Idia Shroud,” you say, with all the theatrical sincerity of a soap opera star in a season finale. “From the moment we synced, I knew you were the only socially avoidant, high-strung disaster I wanted to illegally claim government benefits with.”

Idia makes a noise that’s one part static feedback, one part soul exiting the body.

“Will you continue this extremely bureaucratically convenient charade with me?” you say, offering the candy ring with reverence. “For the tax write-offs and the peace of never having to talk to anyone else ever again?”

The HR guy is stunned. Mouth open. Not blinking. Probably buffering.

Idia stares at the ring. Then at you. Then at the HR guy. Then at the ring again.

“…I hate you,” he whispers, but lifts his hand anyway. “It better be lemon flavor or I walk.”

You slide the ring onto his finger like this is a fairy tale gone deeply, deeply off script.

HR makes a note. “...Right. Well. You’ll receive your bonding paperwork in three to five business days.”

And just like that, the meeting is over.

You and Idia walk out in silence, side by side, your new “engagement” ring glinting like the chaos it truly represents.

“...I hope you choke on candy,” he mutters.

“You love me.”

“No one will believe we’re bonded.”

“Oh, honey,” you grin, linking your arm through his. “They already do.”

These days, you and Idia have reached what scientists might call a stable orbit, and what HR calls a “gross misuse of company time and space.” But whatever. That’s between you, Idia, and the slowly dying office fern neither of you have watered in months.

You don’t bother him too much anymore—which is to say, you only rearrange his collectible figurines once a week now instead of every time you enter his office. And in return, he no longer looks at you like you’re an invasive species he’d like to report to pest control. Progress.

Sometimes, your days are quiet. Idia’s hunched over in his gaming chair, absolutely violating some poor boss monster on screen while whispering insults under his breath like, “Die, you HP-bloated RNG hellbeast,” and you’re sprawled face-first across the couch like a very emotionally fulfilled potato.

You’ve made a perfect depression nest out of spare jackets, your limbs dangling off the side like you’ve been freshly thrown there by fate itself.

You should be working. Technically. But Idia’s the one who put the “Do Not Disturb Unless You’re On Fire” sign on the door, so really, you’re just honoring the sanctity of that promise.

Other times, you swing by with takeout—because you both forgot to eat lunch, and if left alone, Idia will subsist off instant noodles and spite. You shove a container into his hand and collapse next to him on the couch, your thigh pressed against his as he awkwardly elbows you for space but doesn’t actually move away. Not that you’re keeping score.

(You are. You're absolutely keeping score.)

"Okay," he says, opening his container. "So this season's adaptation is garbage—they cut the backstory arc, the budget tanked, and the studio didn’t even animate the hair properly, it’s criminal. But the original light novel? Peak fiction. High literary art. Shakespeare is in shambles.”

You nod sagely as you munch on your fries. You don’t know what the hell he’s talking about—something about time loops and cursed bloodlines and a vampire love interest who’s actually a sentient program??—but you listen anyway.

Not because you care about the plot.

But because he talks with his whole soul, voice quickening, eyes gleaming like he’s just rolled a nat 20 on the Charisma check against social anxiety. He flails with one hand, gesturing wildly with his chopsticks like a tiny conductor of chaos, while his other hand never leaves yours.

And sometimes, in those moments—when he’s mid-rant, flushed with nerd rage, and you’re half-listening, half-dozing, fingers tangled with his—you catch yourself looking at him a little too long.

You catch the sparkle in his eyes, the way his shoulders drop around you, the way he stops stuttering when he gets excited and trusts you to listen even if you don’t understand.

And it takes every single molecule of willpower in your rapidly melting brain not to say anything.

Not to say how much you like these moments. Not to say how much you like him.

Because, sure, you’re fake-bonded. Pretending. Faking it for HR and for peace and quiet and to stop weird Espers from flirting with your favorite (and only) antisocial Guide.

But maybe—just maybe—you wouldn’t mind if it weren’t pretend at all.

Despite being a somewhat unmotivated little gremlin who once filed a formal complaint about being asked to show up to a meeting before noon, you have a bad habit of pushing yourself too far when it came to gates.

Not for glory. Not for stats. Not even for the sweet, sweet serotonin of a job well done. No, you did it because you’d seen what happened when gates breached—when help came too late, when the wrong Esper got caught in the crossfire, when someone broke apart in a way no guide could patch back together.

You remembered one of your old friends, a Guide with the sunniest smile and a laugh that always rang louder than anyone else’s. Until one day it didn’t. They’d walked out of a particularly bad gate breach in stunned silence, hands shaking, mouth opening and closing like they wanted to say something—anything—but couldn’t. They handed in their resignation the next day.

So yeah. Maybe you were lazy about laundry and paperwork and showing up on time. But when it came to gates, you didn’t play around.

You fought like hell to make sure no one else had to go through what your friend did. You fought out of bounds. You fought monsters that weren’t yours. You fought so Idia never had to wear that hollow, too-still expression you remembered from that day.

And today?

Today was bad.

A sudden gate, not enough backup, and you were the highest-ranked Esper present. Which meant it fell on you.

You lasted twelve hours in there. Twelve hours of back-to-back fights, suppressing, clearing, burning through your stamina like your life—and everyone else’s—depended on it.

By the time the gate sealed and spat you out, you were barely standing. The world tilted hard to the left, your vision turned into that weird static-y filter they use in horror movies right before someone dies, and your stomach made a noise that might’ve been a scream. You took one step before your knees gave out.

You didn’t hit the ground.

Because suddenly, there were hands on you—arms catching you just before you collapsed, dragging you out of the danger zone with a surprisingly solid grip for someone whose most strenuous physical activity was switching charging cables.

You didn’t even need to see him to know who it was.

Idia. Your Guide. Your terribly anxious, semi-voluntarily associated handler, whose voice was sharp with panic as he dragged you to the safe zone and sat you down with all the gentleness of a malfunctioning robot.

“Oh my god—oh my god, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to die? Is this your new thing? Is this a hobby now?!”

You tried to respond but only managed a weak groan and a half-choke that might’ve been, “I’m fine,” or “I’m dying,” honestly it was 50/50.

He pressed his hands against your temples and started guiding immediately, energy steady and practiced. You felt the tightness in your chest start to ease, your pulse gradually slowing, your lungs actually filling up for once instead of fluttering like a dying balloon.

It was kind of nice. You hadn’t realized how close to blacking out you were until the static started fading. And then—

SMACK.

“OW—!”

“Shut up,” Idia hissed, yanking his hand back after slapping your shoulder hard enough to knock your soul a little looser. “You—you absolute fool of an Esper, you think I have time to be picking your half-dead corpse up off the ground like this?! I have three games on cooldown and a raid to prepare for next week and a life, you inconsiderate idiot!”

You opened one eye. “Wow, you’re yelling so much. Are you worried about me or just mad your stream got interrupted?”

“I’m both,” he snapped, color rising fast in his cheeks. “This—this can’t happen again. If you do this again, I’m gone. I’ll walk. I’ll— I’ll turn off my communicator. I’ll delete my file. I’ll fake my death. I will abandon you.”

You hummed, barely keeping your head upright. “You’d never.”

“I would.” His voice cracked like glass under pressure. “Don’t—don’t you dare test me. I mean it. I don’t want to… I don’t want to see you like that. Not again.”

You blinked at him slowly, the weight of exhaustion settling back into your limbs now that the adrenaline had burned out. And maybe it was the guiding haze, or maybe it was just him, but you let yourself rest.

Just for a little.

Because despite the dramatics and the hissy fit and the aggressively uncoordinated yelling, you knew what that panic meant. You knew what his hands trembling over yours meant.

And if your Guide was threatening to fake his own death for you, well… wasn’t that kind of romantic?

You took a few days off after The Incident™, otherwise known as You Being A Reckless Maniac Who Nearly Died On The Job While Your Guide Watched In Real-Time. The official report called it “extreme physical exertion in a high-risk environment.” You called it “a regular workday.”

But now, by some miracle of medical leave and your supervisor’s desperate plea for you to “please just stop doing this to us,” you were free.

And what did you do with your precious, well-earned downtime?

You healed your soul.

Which, for the record, looked a lot like wearing the same hoodie for three days, eating spicy chips with reckless abandon, and watching a reality show so unhinged it had to be imported from three countries over and aired exclusively at 3 a.m. due to moral concerns.

It was everything you wanted. Stupid people making stupid choices while you lived vicariously from the safety of your couch.

You were mid-cringe—some poor contestant had just confessed their love to the wrong twin—when someone knocked on your door.

You paused the TV and blinked. You weren’t expecting anyone. Delivery? Nah, you hadn’t even ordered anything today. Maybe the neighbors—

You opened the door and froze.

Idia stood there. Hoodie too big. Hair slightly frizzed as usual. One hand holding a plastic bag that looked like it could house a small cow, the other awkwardly dragging a suitcase. A suitcase.

You stared at him.

He stared at you.

Then, without saying a single word, he walked right in. No greeting, no explanation, just brushed past you like he’d done it a hundred times before and knew exactly where he was going.

He set the bag down with a thunk, the suitcase with a thud, plugged a drive into your media player with all the confidence of someone who had practiced this, and loaded up an anime you didn’t even recognize—something with neon colors, probably three timelines, and a cast of beautiful characters with extremely tragic backstories.

Then he turned to you.

And stared.

Not a single word. Just pointedly stared until you sighed, flopped back down on the couch, and scooted over to make room for him.

He joined you immediately. Threw a blanket over the both of you with the elegance of a man conducting a sacred ritual. Pulled your hand into his and laced your fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Still didn’t say anything.

You glanced at him. “So… are you living here now?”

No answer.

“Did you bring me snacks at least?”

He reached into the bag with his free hand, pulled out your favorite candy, and passed it to you without looking.

You raised an eyebrow. “You’re really committing to the whole silent anime protagonist thing, huh?”

He finally opened his mouth.

“Shut up. The sad backstory part is about to start.”

And that was that.

Apparently, your healing arc had a guest star now. One with a suitcase, great taste in melodrama, and a grip on your hand that never loosened.

You wake up with a distinct sense that something’s wrong.

Not life-or-death wrong. Not “gate-breach-imminent” wrong. More like “you-fell-asleep-in-a-position-that-defies-basic-anatomy” kind of wrong.

Your limbs are a mess. There’s a hoodie-clad arm loosely wrapped around your waist. Your face is very much pressed into someone’s collarbone. Someone who is radiating body heat like a human furnace. And you, like the enlightened creature you are, sniff before you register what your eyes are seeing.

Wait.

You blink blearily, and that’s when you realize: the human furnace is Idia Shroud.

You’re practically draped over him. Your leg is slung over his hips like you own him. His fingers are curled gently in your shirt like you’re his last tether to life. It’s less “sleepover” and more “Netflix and accidental marriage.”

And just as you situation begins to settle in, he stirs.

You freeze.

He opens his eyes.

And then—it happens.

He makes a sound. A terrible, wretched sound. Like a dying Roomba. Or a haunted fax machine possessed by a demon with asthma.

Then he squints down at you, eyes wild with confusion and betrayal.

And with a trembling breath, he whispers, “…I hate you.”

You blink. “What.”

“I hate you,” he repeats, louder this time, like you’re hard of hearing and he’s your dramatic high school ex. “I hate you. This is all your fault.”

You squint. “Did the genre shift? Are we friends to enemies now? Or, like, lovers to enemies to something worse?”

He sits up with you still partially on him and gestures dramatically at the tangled blankets like he’s presenting evidence in court. “Look at this. Look at what you’ve done to me. I used to be a recluse. I used to avoid human interaction. I had peace. Quiet. I had ten hours of gaming time per day.”

“You still have that,” you point out. “You just make me sit in the room now and pass you snacks.”

“Exactly!” he snaps. “I started liking it! I started looking forward to your dumb commentary during boss fights! I started… craving your presence like some kind of socially-adjusted moron!”

You stare.

He rants on, wild-haired and red-faced and approximately one and a half steps from throwing himself out a window. “You fake proposed to get out of HR trouble! And then you stole my hoodie! And you keep showing up in my space and making it better and more tolerable and I hate you for it!”

Your mouth twitches. “You sure this isn’t just a confession disguised as slander?”

He glares at you. “Don’t flatter yourself. I am merely experiencing symptoms of long-term emotional contamination. Also known as affection. A known virus."

You’re laughing now, arms still loosely wrapped around him. “So you like me.”

“I can’t believe I fell for you,” he groans, throwing his head back dramatically. “Of all the people in this world, I had to fall for the unhinged disaster gremlin who pretended we were bonded because it was ‘funny.’”

“You asked me to keep the lie going!”

“Because you said we were soulmates in front of an HR rep with a clipboard!”

You grin. “Okay, but was I wrong?”

He makes a noise that sounds like a tea kettle having an emotional breakdown.

Then he slumps like he’s aged thirty years in three seconds and mutters, “Just reject me already so I can go die in some cold, dark corner of a server room.”

You kiss him.

It’s soft and simple and smug. Mostly because he’s still glaring at you and now he’s also short-circuiting. His ears go bright pink.

You smile against his lips and ask, “So. You wanna make the fake bond real?”

He glares harder. “You’re the worst.”

And then he kisses you again like he’s never been more offended to be in love in his entire life.

Idia hated that he was a high-class Guide.

It was like being the rare shiny Pokémon everyone wanted to catch, except instead of admiration, it came with a nonstop barrage of overcaffeinated Espers trying to hold his hand without warning and HR emails that read like increasingly desperate dating profiles: “This one is only mildly feral! Just give it a shot :)”

He didn’t want to “give it a shot.” He wanted to crawl into his anime pillow fort and watch seventeen episodes of Mecha Scream Force: Ultimate Uncut Directors’ Deluxe Edgelord Edition in peace.

And then your file landed in his inbox.

Subject: SS– BATTLE-LEVEL ESPER. NOTES: Known anomaly. Exhibits unpredictable energy flux due to post-gate mutation. Possibly cursed. Re: Sync pair recommendation – IDIA SHROUD. Good luck. [Attached: a video of you almost biting into a monster’s neck mid-fight]

Idia stared at it for a full minute. Then he closed the file, reopened it, and checked the name. His name.

“Whyyyy me?” he whispered to the heavens, even though he was indoors and had blackout curtains drawn so tightly it looked like the void itself lived there.

Clearly, he’d wronged someone in a past life. Probably a whole list of someones.

When you walked into his office, he expected chaos. He expected explosions. He expected you to tackle him to the ground screaming “LET ME ABSORB YOUR AURA” or something equally traumatic.

Instead?

You looked at him, grinned like this was a lunch break, and approached him.

Then you stuck your hand out like you were offering him a pen.

“Yo. You guiding or nah?”

Idia blinked. The sheer normalcy hit him like a truck.

You just kept smiling, not even a glimmer of feral gate trauma in your eyes, and said, “Wanna do the hand thing or are you one of those forehead touchers?”

Idia was so caught off guard he actually stuttered, “J-just hands is fine.”

“Neat,” you said, and took his hand like it was no big deal. Like you hadn’t allegedly suplexed a gate beast using only your pinky. Like you didn’t have a file thicker than some light novels.

And… that was it.

You let him guide you. No whining. No dramatic speeches. No weird vibes. Just sync.

When it was over, you looked at him and said, “Wanna grab noodles?” and then skipped off to bother a vending machine.

Idia stood there for several minutes, buffering like a corrupted cutscene.

You weren’t loud. You weren’t clingy. You didn’t even try to oversync. And your handshake? A solid 8.5/10. Firm, but not emotionally traumatizing.

He texted Ortho:

“I think I found a non-feral one. Do you think they’re a spy.”

Ortho replied:

“Or maybe they’re just not like the others.” “Bro do NOT fall in love.”

Idia stared at your file again that night. He looked at the chaos reports, the combat records, the notes scribbled in red pen by HR.

And then he thought about your stupid little grin and how you didn’t even complain when he made you wait twenty minutes while he charged his noise-canceling headphones.

Maybe—just maybe—you weren’t going to ruin his life.

Yet.

The first time Idia waited outside a gate for you, he genuinely thought, How bad could it be?

Spoiler: it was bad.

He was standing there with his coat flapping awkwardly in the breeze, hunched like a socially anxious gargoyle, trying to blend into the concrete.

But alas—there was no blending in when you were wearing a neon SS-rank Guide badge that practically screamed, “HELLO! I’m high value and emotionally unavailable for syncing, please invade my personal space immediately!”

Espers began swarming.

Like moths. No. Like moths with abs.

“Yo, you synced up with anyone?” said one particularly muscular guy who was chewing gum with the intensity of someone trying to seduce through molar power.

“Wanna test compatibility?” offered another, already reaching out like this was some kind of handshake.

“I could use a cool-headed Guide like you,” purred a woman who looked like she bench-pressed trucks in her downtime.

Idia, for his part, simply froze. Not because he was considering it. No. He was buffering. His brain was lagging so hard it was displaying the mental equivalent of the spinning beach ball of doom. Why were they all so close? Why was that one flexing?

He wanted to vanish. He wanted to dissolve into the sidewalk. He wanted you to COME OUT OF THE GATE ALREADY.

And then, like some kind of disaster-themed magical girl, you stumbled out of the gate with your jacket halfway falling off your shoulder, a smear of monster goo on your cheek, and your smile crooked from adrenaline.

You blinked at the scene. Idia surrounded by sparkle-eyed Espers. And you? You grinned like a menace and called, “Aww, were you being courted while I was gone?”

He immediately flushed three shades of cherry blossom pink and hissed, “W-would it kill you to come out faster?! I almost got bond-napped!”

You just laughed, clapped him on the shoulder (with the force of a medium earthquake), and said, “Don’t worry, Shiny Badge. I’ll be faster next time.”

And shockingly… you were.

Next gate, you practically threw yourself out as soon as the rift closed, stumbling directly into Idia like you were being ejected from a monster meat blender.

He squeaked. You beamed. And every other Esper in a ten-foot radius suddenly looked like they’d just found out their crush was married.

“You happy now?” you asked, trying to wipe blood off your face with a wet napkin. “Did I make it in time to preserve your purity?”

“I am never wearing that badge again,” Idia muttered, clinging to your arm like you were his emotional support chaos.

But secretly?

He was just a little happy you’d listened.

A few months into this partnership—not that Idia was counting (he totally was, he had a spreadsheet tracking your interactions and categorized emotional events, but that’s beside the point)—he was enjoying what he considered peak compatibility.

You didn’t ask invasive questions. You brought snacks. And most importantly, you didn’t try to poke at his psyche with metaphorical chopsticks like all the other Espers seemed to enjoy doing.

So when a baby B-class Esper showed up outside his office and refused to leave, he had one reaction.

Panic.

He were earnest. Bright-eyed. Starstruck. Speaking through the office door in a tone that suggested he was auditioning for a sports anime.

“I just believe it’s my destiny to be guided by the best! And the system says you have many open slots!”

Idia, crumpled in his gamer chair like a depressed shrimp, texted you in the most pathetic SOS syntax he could manage.

SOS. B-Class pest in hallway. Halp. They’re monologuing.

To his relief and eternal confusion, you actually showed up. On your day off. Dressed in sweatpants and judgment, hair a mess, holding an energy drink in one hand and existential dread in the other.

He thought—great, you’d flex your seniority, threaten the rookie with HR, maybe gently suggest they find a less traumatized Guide.

But no.

You looked at the Esper, and said, “Sorry. He’s bonded. To me. Permanently.”

The B-class Esper’s eyes widened with sparkling heartbreak. “O-oh. I didn’t… I didn’t see a bond registration?”

You didn’t even blink. “It’s private. For, uh… spiritual reasons.”

The kid left with a sniffle and a salute—a salute, like they’d just witnessed a great romantic tragedy.

And you?

You slurped your energy drink and said, “You’re welcome. You owe me dinosaur nuggets.”

And Idia, poor Idia, just sat there in the background with his hands halfway to his face, mumbling, “I’m gonna fling you out the window. Then I’m gonna follow.”

He just curled up in his chair, stared at the ceiling, and began calculating how long he could fake his own death before HR caught on.

And the worst part?

The lie worked too well.

Idia had survived a lot of things in life.

He’d survived MMORPG guild drama. The Y/N self-insert fic someone wrote about him that got 80,000 kudos and a spin-off comic. That fic someone wrote about him marrying Malleus in a pasta-themed AU that still somehow had an 8k comment thread.

But this?

This was unforgivable.

He was in HR. Again. With you. And no one had even punched a hole in the wall this time. This was all preemptive HR. Preventative HR.

The worst kind of HR, because it meant someone somewhere thought he might be a problem. Him! A problem! As if he didn’t already take up negative space in most social situations!

And you—you, the original source of his misfortune—you were just sitting beside him like you hadn’t just committed the equivalent of marriage fraud by loudly claiming, in front of at least seven witnesses and a vending machine, that the two of you were bonded.

Permanently. Irrevocably. Like a pair of idiot soulmates who'd stumbled out of a romcom written by an unpaid intern.

As if the “we’re bonded, teehee” debacle with the B-class Esper wasn’t enough to shave a year off Idia’s already stress-shortened life, it had happened again.

Some random esper held his hand post-gate when you were both still high on adrenaline and trauma, and instead of, Idia didn’t know, punching them or using your words like a normal person, you just went “excuse me, that’s my bonded Guide, how dare you,” like you were a jealous ex.

That was the moment the rumors really took off.

And now here you were. Both of you. In HR.

Because HR had questions. Many questions. And neither of you had done the bare minimum, which was maybe talking about what fake answers you should give in advance. Like you didn’t even rehearse. Not a single shared Google Doc. No coordinated lies. Just vibes.

So when the HR guy (who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet, including the bottom of a sulfur pit) asked, “When did the bond occur?” you said October 3rd and Idia, with absolute confidence and zero hesitation, said March 22nd.

There was a pause.

Not a silence. A pause. The kind that echoes through generations.

“And where did it happen?” the man asked again, in the voice of someone whose therapist was going to be hearing about this in excruciating detail later.

You, smiling: “Field 17.”

Idia, barely restraining a grimace: “The Cafeteria.”

Another silence. This one more like an oncoming freight train.

“Do you at least know each other’s middle names?”

Idia blinked. “They have a middle name?”

You, helpfully: “His is ‘Trouble.’”

The HR guy looked like he aged six years in that moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed deeply, and began massaging his temples in slow, pained circles like a man who had seen the abyss and wished it had swallowed him.

And then.

Then you moved.

Idia saw it happen in slow motion. You stood up. Reached into your hoodie pocket. And pulled out something shiny and crinkly. Something artificial. Something glowing with malevolent intent.

A Ring Pop.

A goddamn Ring Pop.

“Don’t do it,” Idia whispered, “I swear to everything, if you—”

You dropped to one knee in the middle of the HR office like you were auditioning for a live-action soap opera.

“From the moment we synced,” you said, voice loud, clear, and completely free of shame, “I knew you were the only socially avoidant, high-strung disaster I wanted to illegally claim government benefits with.”

ILLEGALLY.

CLAIM.

GOVERNMENT BENEFITS.

In front of HR.

Idia's soul left his body. Again. He was nothing but a faint outline of smoke and anxiety in the shape of a man.

The HR guy did not react. He simply stared into space like he had become untethered from time and reality. Somewhere in the distance, someone’s computer pinged. A bird hit the window. The printer made a noise like it was trying to weep.

Idia looked at the Ring Pop. It better not be raspberry flavored. The worst possible option. The flavor of betrayal and poor decisions.

“If it’s not lemon, I walk,” he muttered, even as he extended his hand like the fool he was.

You beamed like you’d just won a reality show. Slipped the candy ring onto his finger with great ceremony. He stared down at it, sticky sugar starting to melt onto his knuckles, and wondered what series of decisions had led him to this moment.

You leaned close as you walked out of the office and whispered, “We’re truly fraudulently bonded now. I hope you’re happy.”

“I’m the opposite of happy,” Idia hissed. “I am… anti-happy. I am negativity incarnate. We are legally entangled. We have created an HR file. I’m going to have to explain this to Ortho.”

You smirked.

“Tell him it was a shotgun wedding. He’ll love it.”

You didn’t let go of his hand.

And—God help him—he didn’t let go of yours either.

It definitely got worse before it got better.

Ortho, for one, did not let him live it down. Not for a second. There was a party. A full-on celebratory bash. With banners. One of which read “Congrats on Your Emergency Government Sanctioned Soul Marriage!” in Comic Sans.

Idia had tried to crawl into the floor. The floor, unfortunately, remained solid. He was forced to attend the party in body, if not spirit.

Ortho had even made a slideshow, complete with sparkly transitions and lo-fi music, documenting “every known moment of you two being disgustingly bonded.”

There was cake. The cake said “Congrats, You Played Yourself.” It tasted like guilt.

But… after the glitter and humiliation settled… things became weirdly good.

You didn’t treat him differently. That was the weird part. You still flopped dramatically across his office couch like you’d just fought a battle with gravity and lost.

You still made horrendous snacking noises and tried to convince him to watch cursed reality TV. You still made offhanded jokes during his games that were so sharp and stupid that he had to pause the cutscene and stare into the screen like it was a black void of disbelief.

He never laughed—obviously—but his shoulders shook a little sometimes. Just from rage. Definitely.

Sometimes, you brought him takeout. Unprompted. Just dropped it on his desk like a raccoon delivering tribute and started poking through your own container.

You always let him talk about whatever show had emotionally ruined him that week. You even listened. Like, actually listened. Nodded at the plot twists. Called the villain a loser. Asked about the fan theories. Like what he said mattered.

And sometimes, when you were too distracted counting shrimp in your fried rice, brows furrowed like you were solving a shrimp-based tax puzzle, Idia would stare at you.

Not in a creepy way. Just in a very... intense... anime-protagonist-moment kind of way. Like if someone added a wind filter and dramatic music, it would be a whole romantic B-plot arc.

He’d stare and think: Please don’t change. Please don’t leave. Please let this be real, even if it’s dumb. Even if it’s fake government paperwork and Ring Pops and nonsense. Please let this nonsense stay mine.

And then you’d look up mid-chew, mouth full, and say something like, “Do you think shrimp ever get existential crises about tempura?”

He’d immediately look away, ears red, heart a mess.

He was doomed.

Absolutely, sugar-glazed, takeout-fed, soul-bonded doomed.

There was an emergency gate.

Idia was outside. He’d been outside for twelve hours. That was twelve hours of sunlight exposure, twelve hours of people trying to talk to him, twelve hours of not knowing if you were dead or just being dramatic. Which, okay, to be fair, the line between the two was thin when it came to you.

He paced. He vibrated. He glared at anyone who so much as breathed in his direction. Someone tried to hand him a water bottle and he hissed like a wet cat.

Every five minutes, he checked his comms, even though he wasn’t cleared for internal updates. SS-ranked Guide my ass, he thought bitterly, hands twitching. Can’t even get an accurate live feed on the one maniac I’m synced to.

He told himself—repeatedly—that he was only mad because he had to wait outside for twelve whole hours. That it was purely logical rage. That the sun had permanently crisped his skin and fried his nerves and this was just normal vitamin-D-overload fury.

He was a filthy liar and he knew it.

He was anxious. He was anxious because you were in there alone. Well, not alone—technically there were other Espers—but they were all juniors. Babies. Snot-nosed kids who couldn’t fight their way out of a tutorial level.

You were the highest rank inside. Which meant you would push yourself. Which meant he had to sit there for twelve hours imagining every possible worst-case scenario his very creative and extremely deranged brain could come up with.

So when you finally stumbled out—filthy, bleeding, and doing your best impression of a half-dead Muppet—Idia didn’t even think. He caught you before you hit the ground, arms wrapping around you like instinct.

You were half-conscious, mumbling something about how the last monster looked like your elementary school English teacher, and Idia just about blacked out.

He dragged you to the side with the strength of pure panic and adrenaline. You were barely upright, clinging to him like a sleep-deprived spider monkey, and he was guiding you with shaky hands and a full-body tremble of what the hell, what the actual hell, what is wrong with you.

And then—he slapped your shoulder.

Hard.

Harder than someone with his spaghetti-noodle limbs had any right to.

“Are you out of your mind?!” he snapped, voice cracking. “Do you have a single functioning brain cell?! Were you trying to die in there? Is that it? Were you like, ‘Wow, you know what would be awesome today? Ruining my lungs and my Guide’s entire life in one go’—was that the plan?!”

You wheezed a laugh and gave a thumbs up.

He smacked you again.

“You can’t do that again,” he said, quietly this time, guiding aura flaring warm and sharp around his hands. “You can’t. If this happens again, I swear, I’m done. I’ll walk. I’ll turn in my license. I’ll go live in the woods and talk to raccoons. I’ll abandon you. I’m serious.”

You blinked at him, eyes bleary. “That’s dramatic.”

“So are you!” he snapped, and ran another guiding pulse through your body, scowling.

You slumped into him, letting the energy steady your limbs, and mumbled something about him being overprotective.

He told you to shut up.

You smiled.

He didn’t mean it about leaving.

But you didn’t need to know that.

You took a few days off after the gate incident. Not that Idia was keeping track. Not that he had an entire spreadsheet titled “Gate Trauma Recovery: Dumb Gremlin Edition” with daily updates on your recovery status that he absolutely did not check every thirty minutes.

But okay, maybe he was spiraling a little.

Because no matter how many games he played or anime episodes he queued up, he couldn’t get the image out of his head—you, bruised and burned and half-conscious, slumping into his arms like you were seconds away from not existing anymore.

It lived rent-free in his head. It had set up a cozy studio apartment in his cerebral cortex and was not paying utilities.

So, naturally, like any emotionally repressed SS-rank Guide with the common sense of a decorative rock, he packed a suitcase.

In went his portable gaming setup. His backup backup controller. Six different cords for reasons known only to the universe. Two sets of headphones. His lucky gamer hoodie. A USB fan (essential). And then a bag of snacks roughly the size of 6 corgis, filled with everything from neon sour gummies to obscure off-brand Pocky flavors.

Then, in a fit of either romance or psychosis (jury’s out), he showed up at your front door.

You opened it mid–reality show binge, wearing pajama pants with some loud pattern that made his eyes hurt. He stood there, suitcase in one hand, snack bag in the other, looking like a socially anxious door-to-door apocalypse salesman.

Neither of you spoke.

Because what was he supposed to say?

“Hi, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way your breathing was shallow and your skin was cold and I panicked so hard I packed my whole life into a bag like we’re running away from a zombie uprising and now I’m here because not seeing you for three days makes me feel like I’m gonna hurl?”

Absolutely not. He would rather eat drywall. He would rather die.

So instead, he walked in silently like a weirdo, set his stuff down like it was totally normal, and plugged in his drive into your media player like this was just a casual day.

You, either out of kindness or shared delusion, didn’t question it.

You just moved things over on the couch to make room and handed him the blanket. Like this was normal. Like he hadn’t just barged in with a small suitcase of emotional instability and bad coping mechanisms.

He put on a new anime. One he’d been saving. One he hadn’t planned on watching until you could roll your eyes and make your dumb little commentary at the plot holes.

You leaned against him, not saying a word.

And he held your hand like you hadn't absolutely blown up his entire emotional firewall. Like he hadn’t nearly lost you. Like this wasn’t already his favorite memory.

He didn’t say a word the whole episode.

But his fingers stayed curled around yours like a promise he was too much of a coward to say out loud.

Idia woke up with a full-grown human person draped across his body like a weighted blanket with boundary issues.

His brain booted up slowly—first registering the dull ache in his spine from sleeping on your disaster of a couch, then the soft warmth of your face smushed into his shoulder, and finally the fact that your entire existence was currently entangled with his like some kind of romcom final episode cuddle position.

He did not survive twelve hours of panicked gate-waiting, emotional damage, and spontaneous suitcase-packing for this.

Actually, no. That was a lie. He absolutely did. And if anyone dared to move you right now he would bite.

But unfortunately for him—and also, somehow, for you—he had the emotional self-control of a feral raccoon near a garbage can of feelings. So when you stirred a little and blinked sleepily at him, he opened his mouth and said the first thing that slithered out of his traitorous brain.

“I hate you.”

Your eyes focused slowly. “...Huh?”

“I hate you,” he repeated, voice cracking like a cursed record. “I hate the way you act like it’s totally normal to almost die in my arms and then go eat egg tarts like it’s no big deal. I hate that you lie to HR like it’s your full-time job. I hate that you keep doing stupid dangerous things and now I can’t function unless I know you’re alive and breathing and not about to faceplant into death.”

You blinked. Then—as if you weren’t being confessed to in what could only be described as a monologue from a melodramatic anime villain—you grinned.

“You sure this isn’t just a confession disguised as slander?”

“I—!” Idia made a noise so high-pitched only dogs could hear it. “I can’t believe I fell for you. Out of everyone. I fell for a chaotic war goblin who proposes with candy rings and lies to government officials like it’s foreplay.”

You were still grinning.

“Okay,” you said, ridiculously chipper for someone in a horizontal cuddle chokehold. “So do you wanna actually permanently bond and make it official or are we just going to keep emotionally edging each other until one of us passes out?”

Idia stared at you like you’d just offered him the keys to the universe and then spit directly on his soul.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Short-circuited a little.

Then, quietly—so quietly you almost missed it—he said, “...Only if you still have that candy ring.”

You beamed. “I always carry the candy ring.”

He looked like he wanted to crawl under the couch and die from happiness. Instead, he pulled you closer and mumbled against your forehead:

“You are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Then he kissed you again like he never wanted to let you go.

You and Idia actually end up permanently bonded.

Legally. Emotionally. Spiritually. Psychically. All of the above.

You signed the forms (well, you dramatically slammed them onto the HR desk and said, “Guess we’re actually married now, huh?” while Idia tried to phase through the wall from secondhand embarrassment), synced up your brain waves or whatever, and boom—done.

And honestly? It doesn’t feel like fireworks. Or fate. Or some dramatic crescendo of music and soulmates.

It feels like wearing your favorite hoodie.

It feels like sleep.

It feels like finally putting your phone on Do Not Disturb and flopping face-first onto your guide.

Gates still suck. They still open at 3 a.m. when you're already two bites into a reheated burrito. They still spit out eldritch horrors that look like tax fraud made flesh. And yeah—you still fight recklessly. You're still you.

But now there’s a pause before you push too hard. Now there’s a voice—his voice—filling your head mid-fight going, “Hey, I don’t mean to backseat or anything, but MAYBE don’t solo the three-headed acid wolf?”

And you listen. Mostly. Sometimes. At least you try.

Because you remember what it was like, the way his hands shook the first time he caught you after a gate—your blood on his shirt, your laugh too weak, your legs folding like bad origami. You remember the way he smacked you while guiding, voice cracking, saying, “Don’t you ever do that again or I’m uninstalling myself from this entire dimension.”

So you ease up. A little. For him.

Life is still a mess. You're still a mess. Idia is a different flavor of mess, like the kind that alphabetizes their video game collection but forgets to eat lunch.

But it’s your mess now.

Sometimes, you watch terrible reality shows together and he pretends not to care but makes offhanded, emotionally devastating comments about character arcs. Sometimes, he lets you nap on his shoulder as he games and blushes violently if you drool on him.

Sometimes, he just sits next to you with your pinkies intertwined and doesn’t say a word—but you feel it anyway. That weird quiet peace. That “please don’t ever go into a gate without telling me again” kind of love.

And sometimes, when the world isn’t ending and your head isn’t splitting and the shrimp-to-rice ratio is finally correct, you kiss his cheek mid-battle and he yells, “This is emotional sabotage during a DPS rotation!” but he doesn’t pull away.

Life is chaos. But hey, at least now it’s your chaos. And you’ve got a socially anxious gremlin who chose you—every unhinged, exhausting part of you—on purpose.

And you’d choose him every time.

Series Masterlist ; Masterlist

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twisted wonderland #idia shroud x reader #idia #idia shroud #idia x reader #twst idia #guideverse x reader #guideverse #࣪ ִֶָ☾. guideverse

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