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ghostbeam · 3 months ago

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Oblivi_n.exe | Dabi/Touya Todoroki

Touya Todoroki, known as ‘Dabi’ to the league, quirk class: cremation, mech title: Blue. You’re his new handler.

As Dabi’s new handler, you’re well aware of his history, how frequently he goes through handlers assigned to him. Not that he ever uses them—it’s more complete resistance. You’re not particularly good at your job. Transferred from the PLF for lack of success in handling any of their pilots, you’ve always been far too gentle. You lack authority. Your pilots never respected you. You don’t think Dabi will be any different. You give it a week.

Notes: okay wow hiiiii it’s been a long time since I’ve posted an actual fic (nearing almost a year now😬) this is something I’ve been working on for a bit. I have mech brain rot curtesy of @streimiv and @hawnks (both of whom this is dedicated to bc there’s no way I could have written this without yapping to them abt it and also mint helped me come up w the acronym for HERO’s) and we’ve all got our own mech fics in the works atm but anywayssssss this is kind of my baby atm but I hope it makes sense it’s very inspired first and foremost by pacific rim and then also NGE (mostly through consumption of YouTube vids bc I haven’t actually watched it pls don’t hate me) it’s a whole mess of things and Dabi is kind of a bitch and reader is slowly coming into herself and at the end of the day they both wanna be metal fused to one another forever (no matter how hard he denies it) also I’m not a huge computer person idk if this title makes sense so don’t make fun of me pls ok anyways I hope u like it!!!!

Warnings: 18+, minors DNI, pilot!Dabi x handler!reader, there’s no explicit sexual content in this part, not even a kiss sorry guys, mentions of robot gore (exposed wires, insides described as guts), brief descriptions of being trapped inside a small space, descriptions of burning while inside said space, mention of surgery to fashion a metal jaw onto someone, mentions of child abuse (nothing graphic just allusions to the todoroki family and touya’s past), angst, many run on sentences, a small cliff hanger

Words: 7.9k

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 (coming soon)

You are nothing without your machine.

It’s the first rule, the first thing beaten into his brain by his father. You carry the burden of the mech alone, or you’re weak. You don’t exist.

U.A. raises the best and brightest pilots, navigators, mechanics, and handlers, each one carefully trained to ensure the most important outcome: winning. It should be protection. It should be defense. But if Touya has learned anything at all, it’s that winning means glory. It means worship. It means HERO’s (Human Engineered Robotic Objects) are saints, and pilots are gods.

Touya used to be one of those best and brightest before his accident.

First son to Enji Todoroki, Touya was supposed to be the golden child, the first Todoroki to pilot without a handler. He was supposed to carry the burden alone, something his father couldn’t do, something only one man has ever actually been capable of.

But Touya is born weak, bad bones, a brain unable to handle all that the mech needs to unload onto it. One too many accidents results in him being expelled from the pilot program, his HERO discarded and collecting dust in its pod, and Touya is promptly transferred to mechanics.

It should have been a smooth transition. If one kid can’t handle it, the next will. Because they have to.

He doesn’t take the news well. It’s a fit of tears, a persistent fight, unable to accept the loss of his machine—of his body. Because Touya loves it. What he lacks in strength, he makes up for in pure passion, and despite being unable to handle the burden, there’s no denying that he’s good. He’s almost perfect.

But almost is not enough for Enji Todoroki, and no matter how hard Touya tries, he’s made up his mind.

After months of mechanics, Touya makes a decision. When the next fleet of HERO’s is deployed for the next kaiju battle, Touya sneaks in among the chaos, tucked neatly inside the chest of his machine where he belongs. It doesn’t take long for things to go south, for Touya to get caught in the crossfire, losing control of his mech and burning from the inside out.

It should be an excruciating death, stuck inside a machine made for war, fire raining from above as a battle continues on outside without him.

But he survives, because what he lacks in strength, he makes up for in resilience, and his mech is programed with solutions to every situation. He’s stuck inside for months before he’s found.

Tomura Shigaraki rescues him, pries open the chest of his mech and pulls him from inside. His group feeds him, takes him in, fashions a new jaw for him made from the metal of his mech, and allows him the decision to join their cause or go back home.

And since there’s no home to go back to, Touya finds his footing with the league and becomes one of their top pilots. One who vehemently resists any and all handlers.

…

Touya Todoroki, known as ‘Dabi’ to the league, quirk class: cremation, mech title: Blue. You’re his new handler.

Following closely behind Tenko, formerly Tomura, he quickly explains to you the in’s and out’s of the pilot/handler relationship, along with a warning about Dabi’s resentment toward the whole idea. You try to keep up, but he talks quickly and uses his hands a lot. Even so, you can tell he’s a natural leader, something he had to grow into after overthrowing the man who raised him. His story is a tragic one, and it resonates with you because Tenko came out the other side stronger. Now, the league is a community with a cause, one you really believe in. Even if you and Dabi aren’t the right fit, you still have a place here.

You follow Tenko into what he calls the garage, a large floor of the abandoned academy that serves as the league’s base, this part of it full of HERO’s and mechanics all focused on the machines in front of them. It’s completely different from how HERO’s were worked on at UA, where you grew up, and even the PLF didn’t have one dedicated floor to this sort of work. You can feel the energy of the room buzzing on your skin, music blasting from old radios and mechanics tossing tools towards one another in a familiar routine. Tomura leads you to Dabi and his HERO, Blue, though you’re instructed not to call it a HERO around him. With goggles over his eyes and gloved hands, he brings two wires from Blue’s ankle together, sighing at the way they spark each time they connect.

“Dabi.” Tomura calls over the music coming from the radio hanging off of Dabi’s waist. He drops the wires and his gaze flickers toward the two of you. Pushing his goggles up to his forehead, he gives you a once over. His eyes are the brightest you’ve ever seen—kaiju blood blue—and burn scars litter his body. He’s striking in a way you’ve never seen, almost too beautiful to be human. Giving Dabi your name, Tomura explains that you’re taking over as his handler, seeing as he couldn’t keep the last one for more than a couple of days. “She’s your last handler. If you can’t keep this one, then go ahead and fry your brain. See if I care.”

“You say that every time.” Dabi calls from around sucker as Tomura walks away, leaving you alone with your new pilot.

You just your hand out in a greeting, “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Eyeing your hand, Dabi shakes his head and turns his back to you, picking the two wires back up and connecting them again, despite the same spark from before igniting between the two. He looks back up at Blue, touching his fingers to the slim lines starting at the back of her ankle and running all the way up her leg. You peak over his shoulder at the wiring, noticing that he’s connecting two of the wrong ones.

“It’s the wrong wire.” You tell him, and he spins around to look at you, tearing his goggles from his face as he scoffs.

“Here we go.” He sighs with a roll of his eyes, pulling the candy from his lips and tossing it onto the tool cart without a care. “Handler know-it-all bullshit. This is my mech.”

You push passed him and grab the similarly colored wire from beside a red wire and connect it with the one in Dabi’s right hand. Blue lights up cyan through the thin lines that run along each of its limbs and torso, connecting with the two cameras within its head, which seem to blink before the light reaches them.

In an instant, you’re being pushed up against the hard metal, a strong arm over your chest—pinning you up against the HERO. Dabi, now having discarded his goggles, looks at you full of white, hot rage.

“Don’t fucking touch her.” He growls. You’re suddenly aware of the close proximity, eyes flickering between the snarl across his lips and his angry gaze. For a beat, you both freeze, the air suddenly charged like you’re waiting for one another to strike. Snapping yourself out of his hypnotic stare, you push against his chest, forcing him to let you go.

“If I’m going to be you’re handler, you’re going to have to trust me with her.” You remind him. He lets out a harsh laugh, like he can’t believe you would suggest such a ridiculous idea.

“I don’t trust anything but this machine.” He speaks, turning away from you to seal up the machine’s exposed wires. It’s a challenge you’re willing to accept.

“Well, I’m here to change that.” You tell him, before turning on your heel to leave him alone.

He thinks he’ll give you a week.

…

One of the worst parts of being assigned a handler, Touya thinks, is the way that pilot/handler living quarters are set up. He assumes the academy, before it was abandoned and turned into a base for the league, created this sort of set up so that handlers could keep a close eye on their pilots. The handlers Touya has burned through up until now also assumed the same.

The door that connects both the pilot’s and handler’s dorms doesn’t lock, and all of Touya’s past handlers have taken advantage of this fact. He’s been pulled out of bed far too early, pushed around and commanded and barked at. Most handlers behaved as if pilots belonged to them, which was the sentiment drilled into their brains from being thrown into such a fucked up system at a young age.—unless you were a pilot of status like a Todoroki. While he league dedicates a lot of its time to reversing these ideas, most handlers look at Touya like some kind of challenge, this arrogant pilot begging to be tamed. It never takes long for them to realize how easily he’s able to flip the switch on them. You’ll be no different.

But hours pass and you still haven’t entered. You don’t swing the door open and demand he apologize for his behavior earlier. You don’t try and punish him with training regimes, a command of a set of push ups, a schedule you expect him to follow, an extremely detailed meal plan. The entire evening comes and goes without so much as a sound on the other side of the door so he knows you’re even behind it.

He falls asleep unnerved by this, waking up late into the night in a cold sweat, expecting you to barge in, rip the covers from his body and demand to train together. When he wakes up (peacefully) the next morning, there’s no sign of you. He rises from his bed, drinks orange juice straight from the carton and eats a candy bar for breakfast. He fiddles with the navigation screen from his mech that stopped working a couple of days ago, tools spread out on the counter in front of him. Once he’s got the thing working again, your knock sounds from the unlocked door between the two of you. He thinks this might be it, the commands he expects to fall from your lips at the ready as he swings the door open, but you stand there, nervous, hands twitching as your eyes finally meet his.

Greeted by a shirtless Touya, hair mused from sleep, cargo pants hung low on his hips, dog tags swinging against his chest, his scars on display, unashamed and proud. The sight of him knocks the breath out of you, and you clear your throat in embarrassment, hoping your state of dreaming comes off as nerves rather than lust.

“Dabi. Or do you prefer Touya?” You smile. When he doesn’t answer, you continue. “I wanted to see if you wanted to eat breakfast together in the caf. I think we should start over. Yesterday was—”

You’re promptly cut off, “I already ate breakfast.”

With a harsh slam of the door, he leaves you stunned in your room.

You eat alone.

When you started as a pilot, back when you’d entered UA (a few years about Touya’s accident), you went into it believing you could change the world. The exam had placed you into the position of handler, and you were assigned a pilot who had always seemed a little frightened of you despite your obvious lack of authority. Bringing the fact up to your instructors did nothing. They all assured you that this was the ideal dynamic, that the handler always had the upper hand, but you hated that feeling. You weren’t a team like you expected to be; you were urged to control your pilot. You were there to keep them in line, not to be a pillar of support. The bond was never built on trust, and the soul link was always a looming threat. No matter how many pilots you went through, the link was never held as a gift, but a prison, something you would both be stuck with for the betterment of society, a sacrifice to make.

You’d been expelled from the handler program after guiding your pilot to help save another in the wreckage of your first battle together, resulting in the damage of your pilot’s HERO. Your pilot was okay, but the other couldn’t be saved, and you were blamed for the damage of both mech’s.

When you found the league (or when the league found you), you were working with the PLF, but proved to be a weak handler. Every pilot you were assigned to took advantage of your optimistic outlook on the kind of relationship dynamic that pilots had with their handlers. Despite all that you had been through at UA, and with the rest of the pilots you’d been paired with after, you never gave up the hope that handlers and pilots could behave as a team, or, even better, one entity.

Tenko had taken one look at you and demanded you’d be transferred to the league. There hadn’t been much of a choice in the matter, not that you really cared. You were miserable everywhere else. But when you arrived at the abandoned academy and taken a peak behind the kudzu covered walls where each and every area of the building acted as multiple moving parts in collaboration with one another in order to create one massive system, you realized that this was the future you imagined for yourself—and for the world you lived in.

Tenko saw something in you that day, something you aren’t sure you even see in yourself. And so Dabi was your first task, one that’s proving to be very difficult. But he doesn’t treat you like all the other pilots before had. He doesn’t use you. In fact, it seems like he wants nothing to do with you. And while that’s a problem, it’s still one you can work with.

You’re broken from your thoughts by the sound of a voice through an overhead intercom asking for everyone to meet on the first floor of the academy at their earliest convenience. Judging by the quick movements of those around you, you figure you’d better head downstairs as soon as possible.

The meeting on the first floor makes you very aware of just how small the league really is. While it’s definitely not a tiny organization, it’s still much smaller than both UA and the PLF. With everyone piled up like this in one group, you realize it feels more like a community, and the hum of conversation that surrounds you comforts you in a way you’ve never felt within the walls of any other academy before.

There’s discussion about the upcoming mission, one which may be the league’s most ambitious yet; the plan to hijack a mech and kidnap a pilot may be a little unorthodox compared to the league’s past missions, but the jaded pilot they’re targeting has a high chance of joining the cause. Or that’s what they have assumed. As the bodies move and speak around you, it strikes you how different this meeting is from any other meeting you’ve ever been a part of. Tenko is less a dictator and more a wrangler for the disembodied voices of your peers.

You don’t know much about his story, save for the vague details you’ve heard, but Tenko’s status as a lone handler is something you find yourself curious about. If he’s able to work without a pilot, why can’t you? It’s an idea you keep in your back pocket, one you think you can fall back on if things with Touya don’t work out. But you want them to work out. So badly.

You aren’t sure what it is about him, but he’s reignited that spark inside of you. You know he’d rather you give up, and maybe the you from a couple of months ago would have, but something about him—and this place—won’t let you leave.

As you observe the meeting, you take the time to look around the room, taking in your peers and their attentive faces as they listen to Tenko intently. You turn to your right, your eyes meeting a pair of blue ones, impossible to miss. Dabi holds your stare for what feels like ages, and when your colleagues erupt in a fit of many simultaneous discussions, you tear your eyes from his to observe the commotion. When you glance back in his direction, he’s gone.

You don’t seem him again after that. You train with other handlers, get to know your peers a little better. Everyone else seems to be welcoming, and most offer you sympathy when they find out you’re Touya’s new handler. From what you can gather, he’s had his fair share of them, all of which have quit or left in hysterics due to his harsh nature. When you ask around about where he could be, you’re told that he’s most likely in the garage, a place you assume he’s in more often than not.

You don’t know if you’ll ever get used to the garage. A place so completely different, so against the ideas and beliefs of any other academy you’ve been a part of, the chaos and community within is so foreign to you. You find Touya with Blue, working inside of her chest, where the cockpit is.

“Touya!” You call up to him and watch as he peaks his head over the edge of her metal plating. Annoyance falling across his face, he jumps down from where he stands, landing hard on his feet in front of you.

“What are you doing here?” He questions, his figure so tall and imposing above you. He’s not particularly muscular, not even all that tall compared to Tenko, but he makes you feel small regardless, in more ways than one. Rolling your shoulders back, you stare straight into his eyes, unwilling to back down.

“I figured you wanted your space today.” You explain, as Touya moves around you to get to his rolling cart of tools, forcing you to turn toward him and follow him if you want him to hear you. “I know adjusting to a new handler is rough, and I never want to make you uncomfortable. But I was thinking we could try some of those pilot/handler bonding exercises. It might be good to start training like some of the others do.”

He drops the wrench in his hand onto his cart with a loud thud, turning around toward you with a look of disbelief on his face. “Pilot/handler bonding exercises? They really brainwashed the shit out of you at UA, huh?”

At the mention of your past academy, your eyes widen in surprise. You had no idea he knew about that. Clearing your throat in order to compose yourself, you speak again, “I left UA for a reason. I have no attachment to their methods, but you guys do the same stuff here, so what’s the issue?”

“The issue is that I never asked for a fucking handler in the first place, especially not one as eager as you.” He spits, “Sure, you’re understanding now, all that bullshit about ‘giving me space,’ but the moment you get a lick of power over me, you’ll change. You’re not different.”

“I don’t want power over you. This is an equal exchange. Pilot’s and handlers are meant to be a team—” You try and argue, but he doesn’t let you finish.

“That’s what they told you, right? We’re a team, and as teammates, you make sacrifices. And it doesn’t matter if one of you turns into the other’s braindead dog because that’s your place.” His words hit you hard, the exact thought process you went through when leaving UA, completely disillusioned with their idea of “teamwork.” He’s right, and you know it, but since coming here, you thought that wasn’t how it had to be.

“Look, trust me, I get—” You’re cut off again.

“You went to UA! There’s no trusting you.” He scoffs, “It’s not like you’ll last here, anyway.”

“You are such a hypocrite! You’re from UA!” You retort, throwing your arms up in desperation. “You can hate me all you want. You can resist and resist and fry your brain ‘till there’s nothing left, but I believe in this shit. And you don’t get to tell me that I don’t, or tell me I’ll turn into something I worked so hard to get away from.”

Touya stands there, surprised by your outburst, completely unaware that you were capable of all of that. He doesn’t say anything back, and you roll your eyes. “So fuck you, and, by the way, her angel port is smoking.”

At your words, he turns in a rush, seeing the smoke billowing from Blue’s chest as he climbs his way up her form. Once inside his machine, he extinguishes the port and allows himself to relax. There are two things on his mind in this moment: how you could have possibly known it was the angel port without being inside of Blue’s chest and how, for the first time in a long time, he feels bad for his handler.

But for you, it’s the first time you’ve ever held your own against a pilot before, and that feels good.

…

Something feels weird.

Off, unsettling, strange.

He realizes, much to his dismay, that it’s your absence. Despite only having you around for such a short time, Touya has realized that your lack of presence now feels wrong. He hates it. He hates you.

He can’t find you. You haven’t knocked on his door. You’re not in the caf, not the garage, not the sparring floor, not in your room. And he did check—without knocking.

He’s not even sure how he can feel an absence. You aren’t a regular part of his life, and he never wanted you to be. But he feels all fucked up.

During training, Touya jams Blue’s halo core and she leaks vibrant neon from between her ribs. It takes him half an hour to get her reboot her system and rips one of the cables attached to the back of his suit in the process. He spends the afternoon cleaning HERO fluid off the sparring floor.

During repairs, he shocks himself over and over while trying to fix her core, fingers burning from the sparks each time he arranges the wires inside. The cameras in her eyes won’t work from the reboot, and Blue won’t let him unlock the lens panel to fix it. It’s almost like she’s mad at him too.

He’s a complete mess. It’s your fault. He has no choice but to go looking for you. Again.

He searches every wing of the academy before concluding that you’re in your room. He barges through the joint door, spotting you at the counter in your tiny kitchen. You’re surprised by the intrusion, a frightened gasp falling from your lips as you jump in your seat. You turn toward him, prepared with angry words on your tongue, but Touya speaks first.

“You’re not getting an apology out of me, so don’t expect it.” He begins, moving to stand in front of your swiveling kitchen stool as he looks down at you. “But I’m willing to be civil with you, so we don’t have to do this shit anymore.”

You’re not exactly sure what “this shit” is, but Touya looks a little worse for wear at the moment, so you don’t question it. He places a tray from the caf down in front of you that you hadn’t noticed in his hands upon arrival, says nothing else, and turns to leave the room. After shutting your joint door, you look down at the tray of food, noticing one of his suckers placed onto a vacant compartment of the tray.

You’re greeted the next morning with a knock on your door, Touya dressed in his pilot’s suit on the other side as you swing the door open. “C’mon. You’re gonna watch me train today.”

You watch him turn around to leave, expecting you to follow. You rush to pull on your combat boots and grip your dog tags in your fist as you rush to catch up to him. He doesn’t spare you a glance as you fall into step beside him, taking a look around his dorm before he leads you through the exit door.

“You need to get a feel for my fighting style.” He explains as you walk down the corridor. “I’m not saying I’ll listen to you when it comes down to it, but it’s important for you to know.”

You nod, agreeing that you should definitely observe him inside of his HERO. By understanding his moves, you’ll be able to understand the way he thinks, and you’ll be able to help him in actual combat if needed. He’s already said he won’t listen to you, but it won’t stop you from trying. He stops abruptly, turning to look at you, and you stop with him.

“If we’re gonna do this, it’ll be on my terms. I’m not your dog.” He tells you, seriously. He eye’s you up and down, taking in your expression as you nod at his words. “If anything, you’re mine.”

He begins walking again, leaving you in your spot, irritation filling your chest as you watch him, smug. “Asshole.” You curse under your breath.

“What’d you say?” He barks, turning to look at you abruptly.

“You’re an asshole.” You speak louder. He walks back toward you, making sure to tower over you intimidatingly as he looks down at you in annoyance. His eyes flicker down to the tags around your neck before hooking a finger on the chain and pulling you closer.

“Watch it.” He drops the chain and walks away again.

You follow him to the sparring floor, and he shows you where to go to watch. Stood behind a large window that looks over the sparring area, other members of the base watch the HERO’s engage in combat below. You spot Tenko and he motions for you to stand beside him.

“I knew he’d warm up to you.” He comments. The last of the previous battle finishes and you watch the two enormous machines retreat to the sides of the area, their pilots emerging from their chests with their handlers rushing to the bottom of the mech’s in support.

“He hasn’t. He’s not.” You shake your head. You aren’t sure why you deny it, if it’s some way to keep your expectations low or if there’s some kind of embarrassment aspect to the whole thing. Whatever is happening between you and Touya feels intimate and private, something that the two of you need to figure out for yourselves, not something meant for the eyes of others.

“Hm. Okay.” Tenko shrugs. “Guess not.”

You hadn’t noticed Touya enter his mech at all. You see the swing of one giant mechanic arm, too close to the window you stand behind, and you’ve shifted your full attention to the scene at hand.

The enormity of the room surprises you, despite the fact that you had seen it just moments before. But when you’re truly looking at it, watching these huge machines go at each other, the way the ground shakes, the leaves outside shake, the deep forrest clear in view from the wall that opens out to the greenery (the lack of a wall is likely from the academy’s abandoned state, but it’s a good feature to have on the sparring floor when giant robots are toppled over onto various surfaces).

The way Blue moves is electric, mechanic movements almost feel fluid with the way that Touya pilots her, easily dodging attacks from their opponent and moving around them in the most graceful way a giant machine can. It’s beautiful, unlike any fighting style you’ve ever seen in a HERO before.

“He’s showing off for you.” Tenko observes from beside you. You don’t argue with him, only because you can’t dispute it. This is your first time seeing him in action. It makes your heart beat out of your chest. There’s this ache like you should be inside with him, cables connected to both of you, tucked neatly inside of Blue together.

It doesn’t take him long to get his opponent on their back, the heavy thump against the floor jostling the ant-like figures on the ground below, handlers waiting for their pilots to finish. It goes on like this for a while, his training, using different methods of combat and winning each time. He’s amazing, and you can tell why his reputation is the way it is, second only to Tenko, who you have yet to see in action.

When he finishes his last session, you watch Blue walk to the edge of the room, and Touya emerges from her chest, jumping the long way down her body without any issue. You watch as he looks toward the window you’re behind. He waves at you, an acknowledgment of your presence, and you wave back, though you aren’t sure he can actually see you.

It’s the beginning of everything for the two of you. You think Tenko was right.

He lets you stay with him afterwards while he does maintenance on Blue. He helps you climb up the path to her chest, hauling you over the edge to sit inside with him. He turns around abruptly, holding a hand up before allowing you to walk any further.

“Do not touch anything.” He warns, completely serious, before letting his hand fall and allowing you further into the cockpit. You take in your surroundings, the guts of his machine, analyzing the different control panels and screens that line the interior. You can tell he takes good care of her, and he spends a lot of time in here. It looks lived in, stickers stuck to metal plating and pieces of him all over. He’s made a second home in between the ribs of his mech. You feel a little jealous, though you aren’t sure of what.

The two of you sit against the left side of Blue’s interior, waiting for her updates to finish, the loading screen on each of her monitors display a fire graphic that grows with the increasing percentage on screen. Between you and Touya sits an opened bag of sour gummies, which Touya picks out the lemon flavor and drops the candy in your palm with each new handful he gathers.

“How do you know all this stuff?” He questions around a mouthful of sour cherry, “Like, the real names for things, where stuff goes, how to fix them. That day with the wires…”

“I spent a lot of time around mechanics at UA, and then also at the PLF.” You explain, picking the yellow colored candy from his open palm as you speak. “I couldn’t connect with other handlers. I didn’t like how they thought, or how they viewed the pilot/handler relationship. Mechanics were mostly neutral, and they loved these machines like nothing else. They reminded me of why I joined UA in the first place.”

“Hm.” He nods, thinking about your past. “Well, I guess if you spent so much time around actual professionals…I could maybe use your help sometimes in the garage.”

“Really?” You question excitedly, a spark lighting up your eyes as you swerve your head toward him. He feels something tight in his chest at the sight.

“Yes, but only on the outside. I don’t want you messing with her insides, yet.” He establishes. “And never alone. I have to be there at all times.”

“Of course, yes, oh my god. Touya!” You smile, gripping his shoulder firmly, a gesture of thanks, communication of how much his trust means to you. “I’ll be so careful with her, I promise.”

“Yeah, well, you have no other choice.” He shrugs, throwing another pile of candy in his mouth. “I’ll kill you if anything happens to her.”

You take the threat seriously, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s realized that you’ve wormed your way into his life and he hadn’t even noticed just how entangled you were now.

As the weeks go by, you spend a lot more time together. You work on blue together, and you rest inside of her chest, sometimes allowing yourself to drift off against his shoulder on especially tiring days. He sits beside you in the caf, and while he doesn’t always say much, the feeling of his arm against yours is comforting. You can tell people are starting to notice, and they’re starting to talk. You’re being dubbed someone who’s tamed him, but you know how far from the truth that is.

Despite your differences and the petty arguments that come up when Touya feels like you’re intruding on his independence, you’re growing attached. You wonder if he is, too.

…

Spending time together in the garage becomes the new normal for the two of you. Being in each other’s dorms feels far too intimate, so you always meet in the garage. This way, one of you is always busy doing something with your hands. There’s no room for any strange feelings in the pit of your stomach to seep in.

You sit in the crook of Blue’s neck, watching Touya as he repairs the lenses in her “eyes.” Blue has three pairs of eyes; in her head, her chest, and down near her hips, which all footage is projected onto monitors inside the cockpit so that Touya has a full view of what’s in front of him.

He’s so peaceful while he works, you’ve noticed, almost like he goes somewhere else completely. It’s a part of him you don’t think many people get to see, a piece of him just for you, and you want to be selfish with it.

“Can I ask you something?” You question, leaning your head back against the metal. “But you can’t get mad.”

He looks up at you, still fiddling with a lens, a mocking look on his face. “I’m not making any promises.”

You take a deep breath, preparing yourself for the possible fallout of the question you’re about to ask, “What do you think about the soul link?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’d never do it.”

You nod your head in understanding, “yeah, I get it. It’s weird, right? The idea that someone else would be inside your brain.”

“It’s fucking invasive.” He says.

“You know, at UA it always felt like a threat, you know. Like, it was a way for a handler to control their pilot, not a tool or a bond like it should be.” You begin, thinking back to how you viewed the soul link back then. You didn’t like how the bond was presented as this power that a handler holds over their pilot, a threat to keep their pilot in line. But, you could understand how the link could be used for good. “But since coming here, I can tell it’s not all bad. People trust each other here. I mean, there’s obviously some people who abuse it, but, for the most part, everyone seems to understand what it really means to be a pilot and a handler.”

You’re mostly just thinking out loud, but Touya doesn’t say anything to your ramblings. He continues to work on the lenses, and you can gather that he doesn’t want to talk about the subject anymore. But you can’t let it go, yet. There’s something you’ve been worried about since you met him.

“And what about…your brain? They say when a handler and a pilot don’t complete the soul link, the pilot will eventually fry their brain.” You can’t help it. You think about it all the time, what will happen when he can’t take it anymore. The closer you get to him, the realer it feels. “Are you ever worried about that?”

He looks at you, an expression you can’t quite make out fall across his face as he stares. It’s almost soft, the way he looks at you in this moment. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

The truth is, this is a reality Touya has accepted. He’s not afraid to die, and he never has been. He’ll probably die inside of Blue, and he has no problem with that fact. He doesn’t need to be around for long, just enough to show his dad what he’s capable of.

“C’mon.” You stare. “That’s not fair.”

“Shit. I left some of the screws for this in my dorm.” He curses. He looks where you lounge, tucked into Blue’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on her, okay?”

You watch him jump down, much higher than his usual height at her chest, but he lands anyway. He doesn’t turn to look back at you as he jogs away. You climb up the side of Blue, and look at the lenses in her head. They’re already repaired, and you know Touya used the excuse of missing screw just so he wouldn’t have to talk about the soul link.

But it’s the first time he’s ever left you alone with Blue before.

…

As the mission draws closer, Touya throws himself into training. You’re on the training floor with him most days, standing behind that big glass panel as you watch him spar with his peers. He still doesn’t let you down on the floor with him until he’s full out of Blue and close enough to the edge of the sparring floor to get to you. You’re not allowed in the actual training area, and even though he says he doesn’t want you clinging to him, it’s really because he wants to keep you safe. Seeing your human body near the giant machines that are HERO’s makes him want to grab you and keep you inside of Blue’s chest forever.

You can tell all the training is taking a toll on him. With an excess of headaches and the occasional nosebleed, you continuously get into arguments about him cutting back on training inside of Blue. There are other ways for him to prepare that don’t involve his fragile brain being hooked up to an entity that takes so much. He doesn’t listen.

Later and later into the night, as your fellow pilots and handlers disperse and return to their rooms to sleep, Touya stays inside of Blue, testing her movements and sparring against test dummies and obstacles. Once you and Touya are the only two left on the sparring floor, you speak into the intercom attached to your head.

“Touya, I think you should take a break.” You tell him, “It’s late. Get some rest and then we can pick it back up in the morning.”

There’s a pause, then, “I’m gonna stay for another hour. Get some sleep. I’ll be done soon.”

“No, Touya. You’ve been at it for hours. You barely took a break for dinner. C’mon.”

“You know, you sound awfully like a handler trying to tell their pilot what to do.” He teases, but you can hear the irritation in his voice.

“You are insufferable. I’m worried about you.” You groan.

“I’m fine. Go sleep.” He insists.

“If I find out you aren’t out of here in an hour—” Your line is promptly cut off, leaving behind static in your ear. You sigh and throw your com to the side. You hope he’s telling the truth.

With one last look at Blue, you make your way out of the training floor and find your way back to your dorm.

Touya doesn’t answer the door when you knock the next morning. With a frustrated groan, you leave your dorm and head to the training floor, assuming he woke up early to get some extra hours in. The closer you get the the floor, you notice other members of the base rushing in front of you. Feeling panicked, you pick up the pace, jogging toward the training room to make sure something isn’t wrong. You collide with a body in front of you, nearly falling to the floor as you steady yourself. Toga stands in front of you, her cheeks red and eyes glossy as she explains something your mind can’t catch up to understand. The only thing you recognize is his name, and you’re running toward the training floor in an instant.

You watch as Blue stomps around the area, her arms swinging in all directions, losing her footing as she moves. Knowing you can’t do anything on the floor, you make your way up to the overlook, finding Tenko yelling into your intercom.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” You ask him, pulling the headset off of his head and placing it on yours instead.

“He’s out of fucking control. He won’t answer. I don’t even think he’s conscious in there.” He tells you, running a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots in anxiety. “You’re not linked yet, are you?”

You shake your head, closing your eyes in frustration as you try to think. You know it’s the only way. You have to take some of the burden off of him, make him share it with you. It’s the only way he’ll survive right now. “Do you think you can get into Decay right now and knock him down somehow?”

He hesitates, “I can get inside. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to touch him at all.”

“You have to.” You plead, desperately. “I just need him down for ten seconds, tops. As long as I can get inside of her, I can save him.”

He looks at you like you’re insane, and maybe you are. But you know you can’t live with yourself if you don’t try something. Tenko nods.

“I can do it.” He tells you. You rush passed him, following the stairs down to the training area. You feel Tenk grab your wrist firmly. “You bring him back, okay?”

“I will.” You nod.

He dodges Blue’s movements, weaving between her legs as he finally makes it to Decay. It takes a few moments for him to connect, but he goes straight for Blue. You watch the giant machines fight one another, but it’s clear that Blue’s lack of control hinders much of her ability. She needs Touya just as much as he needs her. It’s tough for Decay to dodge her swinging arms, but Tenko manages to knock her down quickly.

The fall shakes the room, but you waste no time running for Blue. Climbing over the side of her, you manage to touch your thumb to the pad on the outside to open her chest up. She begins to stand up, and you slip down, grabbing onto a bar beneath her ribcage. You let out a frustrated groan as you try to pull yourself up over the edge of the cockpit. Finally making it over, you see Touya sitting there, still connected to his pilot’s chair, eyes glazed over and blood gushing from his nose. You push the button that closes the panel in Blue’s chest, and you’re suddenly alone with him.

Touya’s body is being jerked around by the movement of the mech, and you hang onto the walls of her chest in order to make your way to him. You situate yourself in his lap, taking his head in your hands as you look at him with tears in your eyes.

“You fucking asshole! I told you to take a break.” You sob, resting your head against his as you try and think of what to do next. “Touya, please. Please, baby, I need to you come back. Just fucking come back so I don’t have to do this without your permission, please.”

With no response from him, you wipe your tears, coming to terms with the fact that you have to complete the soul link now, or he’ll die. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Touya. Please forgive me.”

The soul link isn’t exactly an action so much as it is a feeling, an experience. There’s no trigger for it, no way to make it happen. It just begins.

It’s Touya, aged thirteen, wild, chubby-cheeked and happy, in the pilot’s seat of his father’s HERO. It’s his drive, his determination, his anger, his hurt. It’s the day he snuck into battle, the day he couldn’t get out, flesh burning and fusing to the metal walls of his mech, the feeling now deep in your skin. It’s you, aged fifteen, hopeful, alive, shaking hands with your first pilot. It’s your heart, much too big and much too open for your line of work, it’s your passion, your fire, every piece of you that was broken down again and again until there was nothing left. It’s Touya and it’s you, and every single bit of your souls now tied together in one big knot.

There’s nothing but darkness. And then there’s screaming. And then you can hear everything. Every thought running through Touya’s brain right now echoes in your head as you slowly come back to yourself. He can hear the same of yours.

It’s overwhelming at first, to have two sets of thoughts in your head at the same time, but you manage to focus. You can feel an anger inside of you like you’ve never felt. It’s almost like it’s your own. You need to come back. You’ve lost control of Blue.

In an instant, you feel yourself come back to your body, now straddling Touya like before, you feel his arms shoot around you and he tucks his chin over your shoulder to pilot Blue like he’s used to doing. He pays no mind as he presses up against you, but you feel your heart rate increase at the closeness.

He’s so close.

I have to be. You’re in my lap.

Shit. I didn’t think—

Clearly.

I can’t fucking believe you. I told you we weren’t going to do this.

You were dying!

Then you fucking let me!

You’re jostled around in his lap for a moment as he stops Blue from destroying any more of the training floor, and Touya wraps an arm around your waist, holding you steady.

He gains control of her quickly, moving her toward the edge of the room. You tuck your face into his neck, not wanting to distract him and keeping your thoughts at bay so you don’t overwhelm him. He powers Blue down, severing the neural connection between the two of you, and shoves you from his lap and into the pilot’s chair like you’ve burned him. He storms out of the cockpit, climbing out of his machine and leaving you inside. You think about the argument you had within each other’s head, how Touya would have rather died than be linked to you like he is now.

You slump against the seat, comforted by the metal cage you’ve been left inside of.

#dabi x reader #touya todoroki x reader #bnha x reader #tw claustrophobia #just in case it’s like so brief and doesn’t describe much yet but I just wanna be safe #ghost.writes #ghost.fic

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bradshawssugarbaby · 1 year ago

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Uptown Girl - Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

summary: Bradley is in love with the admiral's daughter. He needs to win her heart the best way he knows how - serenading her with the help of his friends.

pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x reader

warnings: swearing, Jake teasing Bradley about being old.

word count: 2k

“Man, I can’t just go talk to her.”

Bradley put his head in his hands as he sat at the back of the Hard Deck with his friends. Running his long fingers through his short, golden-brown curls, he sighed before looking up, his hazel eyes full of anxiety and frustration. He’d been pining after a girl who’d become a regular at the local bar for a while - the first day he’d seen her, he was smitten.

She’d come in with her long hair pulled back into a sleek, high ponytail, a warm, friendly smile on her features as she spoke with a few others in the bar. Bradley had wondered who she was, and where she’d come from, a question none of his squadron seemed to know the answer to. That was, until their team lead, and Bradley’s surrogate father of sorts, piped up with an explanation, having heard Bradley audibly swooning over how great she was to everyone in earshot.

“That’s Admiral Simpson’s daughter. I wouldn’t try your luck there, if I were you, Bradley,” Maverick had warned, smirking as he took a sip from his beer glass as he looked over between Bradley and his mystery girl.

Bradley had gone quiet upon learning this information, unable to even fire back at his friend Jake’s retorts and quips about how Bradley was punching above his weight on this one, even as a skilled aviator. In a way, Jake was right, no amount of skill or experience in the air, no number of awards for his service, or medals of honor could put him in the same league as the Admiral’s daughter. Her father had recently become the commander of the entire Pacific fleet, and Bradley was just a lieutenant, serving as an aviator for the past 19 years, his entire naval career.

At nearly 40, Bradley was beginning to consider retirement, weighing his options between becoming a flight instructor for Top Gun, the very flight academy program that he’d graduated from himself, or, ending his naval career to enter civilian life happily. With the exception of Maverick, the rest of his team were considerably younger than he was, the next oldest being Jake, at barely 35. Admiral Simpson’s daughter was easily a decade younger than him, if not more, and probably accustomed to much more in life than anything Bradley could offer her. Naval rank aside, she was likely much more used to living the life of luxury, where as Bradley had never really experienced it, outside of the odd frivolous purchase here or there, like his 1972 Ford Bronco, custom painted bright blue to restore it to its former glory when he purchased it.

Despite all these reasons why Bradley should just forget this juvenile feeling crush he’d developed on her, he couldn’t shake it. Every time he caught a glimpse of her stunning smile, or heard her infectious laugh, the sweetest sound his ears had ever come across, he couldn’t help but fall right back into it again, like a trap that was set perfectly for him. Bradley was head over heels, but worst of all,

“You’re fucked, man. You can’t win here.”

Bradley sighed again as he shook his head, bringing himself back to the present moment. He looked up at Jake, who, upon seeing the confused look on Bradley’s face, laughed and repeated himself.

“I said, you’re fucked, man. There’s no winning here, you either go in there, you say hi to this girl and you ask her out, her dad finds out and you get your ass shipped out to another base faster than you can salute, or you ask her out and she turns your old ass down, either way, you’re going to end up unhappy and not with her,” Jake shrugged as he sipped his beer, leaning on his pool cue.

Bob, the more shy, reserved of Bradley’s team, shook his head. He pushed his glasses up on the end of his nose, adjusting them as he set his plastic cup down on the bar counter, shrugging his shoulders as he interjected, a rare occurrence for Bob, most of the time.

“I mean…Bradley could probably win her over,” He said quietly, nodding his head, “It wouldn’t be hard, I mean, he has an impressive career record, he’s a nice guy, he’s not bad to look at,” Bob shrugged, “I think he could pull it off. It’s her dad I’d be worried about. But, maybe he wouldn’t care so much? It’s not like Bradley’s gonna – what’s that term again? Hump and go? Surf and turf?”

“You mean hump and dump?” Jake snickered, shaking his head, “I think Brad here’s a bit old to pull off the hump and dump nowadays anyways. Maybe 20 years ago.”

“Easy, I only just turned 39 in June, thanks.”

“39 is practically old enough to be a grandfather, Bradley,”

“Oh come on, it is not,” Bradley frowned as he looked at his friends. Bob fiddled with his glasses nervously, avoiding eye contact, Jake smirked as he held back a laugh, and Reuben and Mickey pretended they didn’t hear the conversation, focusing instead on their game of darts taking place a couple of feet away, “Is it?”

“How many years older than you is Mav, man?”

“I dunno,” Bradley shrugged his shoulders, “22, maybe? 23?”

“Right, so when he was 39, you were…?”

“Uh,” Bradley looks up at the ceiling as he counts in his head, trying to work out the math, “16?”

“Right…you see where I’m going with this?”

“Fuck, you’re right, I could be someone’s grandfather. Jesus Christ,” Bradley frowned, shaking his head as he sipped his beer again.

“Relax, you’d have to had a kid at like, 23 or earlier, who also had a kid young for it to work, but it’s not impossible, is all,” Jake nodded matter of factly as he sipped his drink. Jake grinned as he spotted the girl in question walking by their seats, his elbow sharply poking Bradley in the ribcage as he nodded his head slightly in her direction.

“Now’s your chance, loverboy. Take it now if you’re gonna shoot your shot,” Jake whispered with a smirk on his lips.

Bradley nodded his head once and took a deep breath as he set his beer bottle down on the table. With a nervous smile, he put his aviators down over his eyes to hide their anxious gaze before heading over to the piano. If there was one thing Bradley could do to win her over, it’d be serenading the bar with a fun, classic upbeat tune. Normally, he’d go for his favourite, Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lewis, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Bradley put a hand on Jake’s shoulder, his grip firm as he leaned in to whisper to him.

“How confidently can you sing Uptown Girl?”

“You mean like, “uptown girl, she’s been living in her uptown world, I bet she’s never had a backstreet guy…?” Jake laughed as he cocked his eyebrow, singing the chorus of the song in his slightly off key baritone, “Oh, you’re not seriously doing this, are you?” He drawled, shaking his head before shooting Bob, Reuben and Mickey a look of disbelief.

“I love that song!” Bob said enthusiastically as he stood to his feet, “We’ve got your back, buddy, let’s go win her heart!”

Jake rolled his eyes and laughed before following Bradley and his friends to the piano. Bradley took his seat on the piano bench, lowering his sunglasses to make eye contact with his dream girl’s gaze, a confident smirk on his face as he winked at her before putting his glasses back on. He wasn’t sure if it was the beer coursing through his veins or the sheer smitten head over heels side of him taking over, but his new found confidence had Bradley playing the opening bars of the 80s hit on the piano, his friends offering nothing but encouragement for his somewhat ridiculous idea. It wasn’t the smoothest way to get a girl’s attention, but, it was different, and would almost certainly stand out in her mind, he reasoned with himself.

“Uptown girl, she’s been living in her uptown world. I bet she’s never had a backstreet guy, I bet her momma’s never told her why,”

Bradley sang out, his deep, gravelly voice ringing out as he carried each note perfectly in tune as he played the song’s melody on the piano.

“And now she’s looking for a downtown man, that’s what I am,”

Bradley’s eyes met with hers as he sang, unable to stop himself from smiling wider than he probably should have as he belted the song out, making it clear that out of the crowd of people around them singing along, his full intent was just to get her attention on him.

“And when she knows what she wants from her time, and when she wakes up and makes up her mind,”

Bob, Jake, Reuben and Mickey harmonized alongside Bradley, making for a perfectly imperfect set of backing vocals. While none of the four of Bradley’s backup singers were particularly great singers, their harmonies were enough support for Bradley to carry his way through the song without looking like he’d just lost his mind and started breaking out into song.

“She’ll see I’m not so tough, just because, I’m in love with an uptown girl, you know I’ve seen her in her uptown world. She’s getting tired of her high class toys, and all her presents from her uptown boys, she’s got a choice,”

As Bradley continued to sing it out, with his friends as moral and vocal support, he noticed that his mystery girl was making her way closer to the piano, seemingly leaving behind whoever she had arrived with as she inched her way towards the man who was apparently serenading her in the middle of a crowded bar near a naval base. She flashed him a smile, her cheeks a soft blush as she raised an eyebrow at him. Bradley couldn’t tell if the blush in her features was from embarrassment or flattery, but he hoped it was the latter of the two.

“And when she’s walking, she’s looking so fine, and when she’s talking, she’ll say that she’s mine,”

Bob and Jake began dramatically singing with one another, using Jake’s empty beer bottle as a makeshift microphone, while Mickey excitedly drummed along with his hands on the wooden top of the piano. Reuben began dancing slightly as he sang along to the words, all four men now completely immersing themselves in their performance with Bradley, and all four likely contemplating how they’d get Bradley to repay them for their public humiliation in the name of getting him a potential date.

Bradley grinned as she approached the piano, her hands resting on the wooden top as he played the last few notes of the song, his eyes completely fixated on hers. To him, at that moment, she was the only person in the room. The only face he cared about in the crowded bar was hers, and now, it was right here, standing in front of him.

“You’ve got quite the talent,” She curled her sheer, gloss-coated lips up into a grin as she leaned on the top of the piano, looking directly at Bradley.

“I’m a man of many talents, this was just a couple of them on display,” He nodded his head once, trying to keep his composure as she leaned towards him, willing his eyes to not wander down her body, “I’m Bradley. Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw, US Naval Air Force,” He said his title with a sense of pride that he hoped didn’t come off as bragging.

“Nice to meet you, Lieutenant,” She grinned, pointing to his empty beer bottle that sat atop the piano beside her, “Care to grab another one of those with me?”

“Absolutely,” Bradley said as he hopped off the piano bench at an almost breakneck pace, leaving Jake, Bob, Reuben and Mickey fighting off fits of laughter at Bradley’s eagerness.

#bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw fic #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x you #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw x you

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fatehbaz · 10 months ago

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British ships carrying plants and seeds from around the world arrived in Botany Bay on January 20 1788. This story is overshadowed by convict ships and Royal Navy vessels, but the cargo on board also had a lasting impact. Colonists, convicts and Indigenous Australians were all affected [...]. Some of these plants [...] were food sources [...]. Others were attempts to expand the British Empire. Could the new territory be exploited as a tropical plantation? In the parliamentary debate over destinations for convict transportation [considering potential locations for sending prisoners], Sir Joseph Banks and James Matra, both members of James Cook’s 1770 expedition [to the South Pacific], spruiked the potential of the new colony as an extension of the empire. Matra claimed the colony was “fitted for production” of “sugar-cane, tea, coffee, silk, cotton, indigo and tobacco”. Banks claimed Botany Bay was an “advantageous” site, with fertile soil [...].

Two plants carried by the First Fleet stand out as examples of botanical imperialism: prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) and sugarcane.

Banks, as head of the Royal Society of London [and as a close adviser to King George, and also as a plant-collecting botanist who turned the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London into the world's leading botanical garden], selected these species as experiments to compete with European trade rivals. His goal was to break a Spanish monopoly in producing fabric dye and to expand British cultivation of sugar outside the West Indies.

Prickly pear cactus was imported because it is the preferred food of the cochineal insect.

Dried cochineal were crushed to make a vibrant, colourfast scarlet dye for textiles. Discovered in the New World by Spanish colonists, cochineal replaced kermes, another insect that had provided red dye since antiquity. Cochineal dye was ten times stronger than kermes or vegetable dyes.

From cardinals’ capes to British officers’ red coats, cochineal was a product for elite consumers signifying power, wealth and prestige.

New Spain, based in Mexico, had a monopoly on cochineal. Banks wanted to break the stranglehold on the scarlet dye by establishing production in New South Wales.

Plants infested with the precious insects were imported from Brazil in 1788. The project soon failed when the cochineal died, but the cacti survived. Colonists used cacti as natural fences and drought-resistant animal fodder.

Without insects to feed on them the plants spread, uncontrolled, to cover more than 60 million acres of eastern Australia by the 1920s. Poison, crushing and fire failed to stop the cactus. [...] Opuntia cacti remain an environmental hazard. [...] The roots of these early imperial projects are deeply embedded in Australian culture and history, with an enduring legacy.

---

All text above by: Garritt C. Van Dyk. "The botanical imperialism of weeds and crops: how alien plant species on the First Fleet changed Australia". The Conversation. 25 January 2024. [Some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized text within brackets added by me for clarity and context.

#multispecies #tidalectics #ecology #archipelagic thinking #prickly pear in australia

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lovelytsunoda · 3 days ago

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love, actually | robert 'bob' floyd

summary: recently appointed admiral robert floyd feels overwhelmed in his new position, and unprepared to fill the shoes of the late admiral thomas kazansky. when he inherts the job, he also inherits tom's old secretary. cue the romance. inspired by hugh grant's storyline in love, actually

pairing: admiral!bob floyd x secretary!reader

warnings: mentions of death and greif was she secretly in love with that old man (because same) we may never know! mentions of addiction (but not with our two main characters!), can be considered to be a minor part of the heather and tommy universe (see 'tell me something girl (are you happy in this modern world)!) so many navy inaccuracies it would make a real admiral's head spin, professionalism simply does not exist in the pacific fleet

the office was barren, devoid of the remarkable life that had once occupied it. the large oak desk that had once held family photos and love notes from the admiral's wife was now empty, save for the top of the line desktop computer. admiral kazansky's wife and kids had been by earlier in the week to collect his things. bob hadn't been there, but he'd heard from natasha that it wasn't a pretty sight. she said that heather kazansky looked frail, and slightly lost without her husband of thirty years by her side. tom was her soulmate, and she'd gone through the pain of watching him die slowly.

cancer was a bitch.

this wasn't how he had wanted to come in to the job. although it was no doubt that he was the best man to lead the pacific fleet (and with an endorsement from maverick mitchell, nobody was going to question his appointment.), he was now wondering if he was really ready.

"admiral floyd?"

bob turned around. standing in the doorway in a skirt that was certainly not navy issued, was a tall young woman with round glasses and soft features. she wore no makeup save for the mascara on her eyelashes.

"hi, i'm y/n. i was admiral kazansky's secretary. and, i suppose, i'm now yours." her voice was soft and gentle, like music to bob's ears. "i brought your welcome packet and agenda for the day."

"admiral robert floyd." he stuck his hand out for her to shake, ignoring how clammy his palms suddenly seemed to feel. "but please, call me bob."

"that's your callsign, right? does it mean anything?"

bob rolled his eyes. "baby on board. they call me that because of my youthful appearance."

she laughed briefly, a cheerful and somewhat abrupt sound, before she looked at the empty office, her face falling again. "he was a good man."

"he was." bob agreed somberly.

"i loved that old man, i really did."

for a second, bob felt like something had tripped in his brain. she loved him? it seemed so cliche when he thought about it, but weren't cliches there for a reason? the pretty young secretary with the silver fox admiral. but what about heather? and his kids? he'd been married to heather since 1987, and from what bob knew of the admiral, he was an honorable man in all aspects of life.

this confusion must have shown on bob's face, because the secretary simply laughed, turning to face him with her arms crossed over her baby blue blouse.

"like a father, admiral. admiral kazansky and i were never involved. he was a family man. i'm the same age as his middle child." she didn't know why she was spitting out words like this. divulging too much information would be unprofessional and- "i actually used to go out with his eldest son when i first started working here. i was young and dumb and mitchell kazansky was a few years older and smooth talking. and then i broke up with him and he went to rehab. he's doing good now. he got married four years ago, i think. i've met his wife, she's a sweet girl." stop. fucking. talking. y/n.

in truth, bob only caught half of the word vomit. he was too preoccupied with the way her eyes sparkled behind her glasses, and the way her crossed arms accidentally pushed up her cleavage. she was totally wearing a push up bra. jake and bradley could probably even accurately guess her boob size. bob couldn't, but didn't need to to wonder what it would be like to rest his head against them, feeling her arms wrap around his tired frame.

"anyways." she exhaled, cheeks rosy with embarrassment. "i'll let you settle in. just so you know, your friday meeting with the commanders got moved up. it's nothing to worry about. come find me at lunch and i'll give you the brief. i used to make them for tom all the time, especially when he got sick."

"thank you." bob said graciously. "i really appreciate it. would you actually mind staying with me during the meeting? just to make sure i don't put my foot in my mouth."

she smiled, passing him a file folder. "of course, admiral. i'd love to."

the afternoon meeting came faster than bob would have wanted, and he was still struggling to make heads or tails of half the reports that his secretary had left on his desk. having a meeting this soon into his tenure seemed unusual, and for a moment he wondered about the severity of the content being discussed.

of course, he couldn't worry for long. through the panes of glass in the office doors, he could see y/n out at her desk, applying a thin layer of chapstick while she waited on hold with someone. her desk was filled with little baubles and a few small plants were on the filing cabinet behind her.

she looked calm and carefree, unbothered. and bob was smitten. completely and totally smitten. sure, it was a workplace harassment suit waiting to happen. and yes, it was never a good idea to get involved with people at work, especially when you outranked them.

but in that moment, bob floyd simply couldn't care less. especially when she gave him a flirty little wave from behind her desk, and even more so when the collar of her shirt dipped just enough that bob could see the edge of her lacy white bra.

this woman was going to be the death of him.

"bob?" she called out, poking her head through the doorway. "the commanders are here earlier than expected. have you had a chance to look over the notes?"

fuck. he couldn't admit that he was so distracted that he forgot to read the file. "uh, about half of it?" he explained sheepishly. "it's a lot."

she flashed him an understanding smile. "if you get lost in the meeting, i can take over. i used to do it for tom all the time."

"thank you. you're a lifesaver."

she winked, backing out of the room. "you owe me one, admiral."

the commanders filed into the meeting room, gathering around the round oak table like they were king arthur's knights. bob recognized a few of them, including jake seresin. he took a seat underneath the world map that was used to plot out missions, y/n taking a seat beside him.

and bob floyd wished he was a better man because as soon as he saw that skirt slip up her plush thigh, he was a goner. he forgot why he was even in that meeting in the first place. to his credit, he did fairly well, answering questions about the transition of power in the pacific fleet, and what was going on with some current matters that had gone unfinished when the previous admiral had passed. whenever bob seemed to stutter or falter in any way, y/n jumped in to rescue him, with a well-worded response delivered in such an effortless manner that he wondered why he was the admiral and not her.

jake caught him staring, a glean of admiration in his eyes as he watched the secretary (who was one of only two women in the room, by the way) outline a budget for the coming year. the commander kicked his former platoonmate under the table, holding back a laugh. bob shot him a dirty look before redirecting his attention to y/n.

after the meeting, and after shaking hands with what felt like every commander in san diego, jake stayed behind to chat with bob, eager to 'catch up' on everything the other had missed since their assignment with maverick. but really, jake just wanted to rib his coworker about the pretty secretary.

"dude, kazansky's secretary? come on."

"jake, shut up." bob could feel his face going pink. "it would be unprofessional at best, harassment at worst. her boss just died, for god's sake!"

jake laughed, hands tucked into the pockets of his dress whites. "i'm sure that they make porno's about this kind of thing. i say go for it. you only live once, admiral."

"hangman, go fuck yourself."

there was a knock on the office door, and y/n stuck her head inside the office. "admiral floyd, commander seresin. its five, so im on my way out. if you need anything, there's a post-it with my personal number on it in your welcome packet. don't stay too late, you'll make me look bad." she grinned at bob, waving at him before ducking back out of the office again.

bob shouted after her, something along the lines of 'see you in the morning', but he couldn't hear himself think over the sound of jake's laughter.

"what!"

"dude, look below your fucking belt. you're fucked."

_______

life went on, and bob found himself settling into his role as admiral nicely. of course, he wasn't doing it alone. y/n was a massive help in meetings, and they had started tag-teaming on important topics: putting together elaborate slide presentations, models and poster boards before every meeting with the fellow admirals or the commanders. there was a meeting with the president's aide scheduled for the new year, and surprisingly, bob wasn't worried about it. he had even gone as far as to help y/n decorate the office for christmas.

every day, she showed up in a trendy, fashionable and flattering outfit that definitely went against navy regulations, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. especially not when those leather slacks of hers made him so achingly hard that he spent half of his lunch break in the private bathroom jerking off. it wasn't the good admiral's fault that his secretary was so stunningly beautiful and sweet and kind and funny and so many other things that made him wonder if it was finally time to consider finding a life partner.

the pair had started sharing their lunch breaks, and bob was enjoying getting to know her outside of the office. she was easy to talk to, and he was convinced he had never laughed as much as he had when he was with her.

and that's why he was so worried when he saw that she had put in for a transfer request.

_____

they were one week out from christmas, and the base was getting ready to send all non-essential staff home. that meant that y/n was getting a much needed break, and while bob would be considered to be 'on-call', he got to go home as well. the last meeting of the year was finished, and y/n was cleaning up the round table in the conference room when she heard hushed voices from the cracked door in bob's office.

"robert, you understand what you're getting yourself into, right? the kind of trouble you'd be opening up for her?" natasha trace's voice was low and not quite venomous, but not calm either. "don't think that people haven't figured out why you hide in the bathroom over your lunch break, bradley told me about your little crush. you can't act on it, bob. i'm sorry, but you just can't. she's your subordinate. unless one of you transfers out. no matter how much you think you'd be able to make it work, it just not possible."

"i love her, phoenix. and i don't know what to do."

"you keep your mouth shut and your dick in your pants. that's what you do."

she felt her heart grow tight in her chest. bob was in love with someone? it was probably another soldier, or a pilot. or, and she hesitated at the thought, was bob floyd falling in love with her?

she didn't know if she wanted to find out. because if she was wrong, and bob didn't feel the same way about her that she felt about him, it was going to lead to a lot of heartbreak.

she put in for a transfer to another fleet later that week.

________

"what the fuck? how could this happen, phoenix? what did you say to her?"

natasha gaped at the frazzled admiral, who was pacing behind his desk. "what did i say to her? i didn't say shit, bob. she must have overheard us and gotten the wrong idea."

it was christmas eve, and bob didn't even know why he'd come into the office. he supposed it was because he wanted everything pressing to be done before the holidays, but seeing the neon blue transfer request paper on his desk had thrown him for a loop.

"i can't function without her. she keeps this office going." bob wailed, running his fingers through his hair. "i need her."

"yeah." jake snorted. "in more ways than one."

"can it, hangman." natasha scolded. "you'd have to find a really good, sound reason for denying the transfer, you know. keeping her here without one would be an abuse of power."

"you think i don't fucking know that?"

"there is another solution here." bradley bradshaw suggested, leaning against the side of the desk. "her address would be in her files, right? why don't you go and talk to her?"

actually.....that wasn't a terrible idea.

"no." natasha glared at him, almost as if she could read his mind. "that would be another glaring abuse of power. do none of you have functioning brain cells? this is psychotic."

"but it could work." bob mused, scrambling to boot up his computer. "what woman doesn't love a grand romantic gesture?"

"that's my boy." jake roared with laughter, clapping him in the shoulders. "let's make this christmas miracle happen."

bob scrambled to pull up her personnel file, scribbling a street address down in his messy cursive. "okay, okay. how do we know she's home? i mean, it's christmas eve. she could be with family, or with friends-"

"trust your gut, admiral." jake encouraged. "rooster, grab the keys to the bronco!"

"i'm surrounded by idiots!" natasha cried, throwing her hands up in the air. "why am i even here?"

there was a fleeting sense of nostalgia as the former dagger squad members piled into rooster's sleek black bronco. it was cold for california, albeit the lake of snow on the ground. a strong wind was coming in off the ocean, pushing the bronco closer to y/n's house. bob was jittery, working his way through everything he wanted to say.

because how did he tell a woman that he loved her without even having gone out with her yet?

"alright, take a left at this next set of lights, and then a left at the stop sign after that." jake instructed, reading directions off of his phone. rooster was going at least ten over the speed limit, and natasha was praying that there were no police officers around.

"that's her house!" bob shouted, jumping to attention in the backseat. "the one with the the three volkswagens in the driveway. she still lives with her parents, the whole family drives german cars. i remember her bringing it up over lunch one day."

the bronco skidded to a stop in the middle of the road, forced to slow abruptly when bob threw his door open. natasha chased him out of the car, followed up by jake while bradley worried about where to park on the unforgivingly small street.

bob ran up the driveway, in between an suv and a sport model jetta before practically launching himself at the doorbell.

"y/n?" he called, ringing the bell. "its admiral floyd! can we talk for a minute?"

"she cant hear you, dipshit." jake reminded gently. "just wait for her to answer the door."

the front door crept open, y/n standing nervously behind it in a christmas sweater and jeans. on her feet where two large slippers that looked like reindeer heads.

"admiral floyd? what are you doing here?"

"please don't transfer." bob pleaded, the words coming out in a single breath. "i don't know what i would do without you. you consume my every waking thought, every breath. these past few months working with you have been the most rewarding months of my career and i know how selfish it must sound of me to beg you not to go, but the truth is that i've fallen in love with you, y/n y/l/n. and i can't let you leave the fleet without making sure that you know that."

she stood frozen in the doorway for a minute before a wide smile broke out over her face. "come here you big doofus."

she stepped out onto the front porch, grabbing bob by the lapels of his tommy hilfiger trench coat and pulled him in for a kiss. his eyes widened in shock before he leaned into it, arms settling to hold her protectively.

"i put in the transfer request so you could ask me out, admiral." she whispered, giggling slightly. "i guess it worked."

"yeah." bob breathed, leaning in to kiss her again. "i guess it did."

"god damn it!" bradely shouted, out of breath and he came up the driveway. "don't tell me i missed everything trying to find somewhere to park my fucking car?"

y/n laughed, pulling away from bob. "do you guys want to come inside? i'd feel awful making you stand out here in the cold."

jake shrugged. "why the hell not."

"cassie's here, so behave yourself." y/n warned, referring to tom kazansky's youngest, whom jake had a history of hitting on.

jake perked up. "oh, cassandra!" he called, walking into the house

"not a chance, seresin. teddy and i are still very happily married!" a voice called from within the living room.

"god damn it!"

y/n turned to look at bob. "i made a massive mistake inviting them in, didn't i?"

bob chuckled, kissing her forehead. "yeah. but i wouldn't be here without them, so cut them some slack. come on, let's go celebrate christmas."

#the christmas collection 2024 #top gun maverick x reader #top gun x reader #robert bob floyd x reader #robert floyd imagine #robert floyd x reader #bob floyd x reader #Spotify

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carbone14 · 7 months ago

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Le cuirassé USS North Carolina (BB-55) en appui de la Task Force 38 au large des Philippines – Guerre du Pacifique – 12 décembre 1944

Photographe : Official U.S. Navy Photograph

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defensenow · 7 days ago

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youtube

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lonestarbattleship · 1 year ago

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USS Missouri (BB-63) fires her 16 inch/50 caliber Mark 7 guns at a target ship in the Pacific Ocean, during Fleet Exercise '89.

Photographed by PH1 Terry Cosgrove, on October 14, 1989.

NARA: 6484943, 6484944, 6484945, 6484946, 6484947, 6484948, 6484949

#USS Missouri (BB-63)#USS Missouri #Iowa Class #battleship #Warship #ship #boat #October #1989 #Pacific Ocean #Fleet Exercise '89 #Cold War #united states navy #us navy #navy #usn #u.s. navy #my post

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mickandmusings · 7 months ago

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love you, miss you, mean it

*this is a two part series, read part two here!*

**I recommend listening to 'love you, miss you, mean it' by luke bryan. it's a slight inspiration for this story and it's part two. (sorry, my southern roots are showing oops) **

pairing: bob floyd x f!kazansky!reader

word count: 2.6k

summary: before the daggers, before the uranium mission, before even top gun and 'bob', there was just young bobby floyd, finding himself at the doorstep of the kazansky household, year after year, finding family between a father and daughter, and a new understanding of true love.

(based off a request, but i'll post it when i'm finished with both parts, it will give too much away! <3)

warnings: lots of sticky sweet fluff, I accidentally made Ice a single dad??, 'Bobby' as Bob's civilian name, most likely military inaccuracies

The very first time Bob Floyd found himself standing on the Kazansky's front door, he was seventeen years old. He had parked his hand-me-down pickup truck on the street in front of the house, crossed the yard in record time, and rang the doorbell. He was standing on the welcome mat in a spiffy black tux, his sweaty palms clutching a plastic box that contained a corsage made of light purple flowers. Bob had no idea what kind of flowers they were, more than happy to leave that to the florist, but he knew they were the same color as the bowtie that seemed to be choking him. He was incredibly nervous, pushing his glasses up his nose in a repetitive nervous habit. His sapphire eyes caught a tall shadow approaching the door, and Bob felt his spine straighten, his heart hammering in his chest. Bob had heard the stories of Admiral Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky, US Pacific Fleet Commander (and more importantly, Y/N's dad) but now, as Iceman stared down at him, he began to realize he certainly lived up to his callsign.

The Admiral's eyes were a cool blue, piercing through the teenage boy's frame as he looked him up and down. He had seemingly only just arrived home from work, still in his Navy attire. His well-pressed, wrinkle-free Navy uniform made him appear taller than he was, a looming presence that demanded respect. The flat, stoic look on his face seemed permanent, only cutting into a small upturn as he spoke.

"You must be the Bobby I keep hearing about."

Bob nods, letting out a measly, "Yes sir," before sticking out a clammy hand to shake Y/N's father's hand.

The Admiral shakes his hand with a firm grip, squeezing Bob's hand so tightly that Bob swore his blood flow had been cut off. Finally, he opened the front door wider to allow Bob in, speaking as he shut the door back into the frame.

"You should probably take a seat, get comfortable. She's been giggling upstairs for hours now, but I doubt she's ready. You'll get used to it, waiting around until she's ready."

Bob chuckles nervously, sitting stiffly on the couch as he watches the Admiral stomp about the kitchen, seemingly making a cup of coffee. The silence is deafening, Bob is too nervous to say anything, but the man's booming voice soon cuts the quiet with ease.

"So, Bobby, Y/N says you're a military brat too, is that right?"

"Uh, y-yes sir, my father, he's in the service as well, my grandfather was too, sort of the Floyd family legacy."

The Admiral nods, absorbing the information.

"What about you, do you have any plans to-"

"Dad!" Y/N's annoyed voice broke the Admiral's sentence. Her heels clack down the wooden stairs, her dress whooshing in the wind created by her motion. Bob turned his attention in the direction of her voice, standing promptly, his jaw dropping as he took in the sight of Y/N. She was dazzling in her pastel purple gown, a slight smile on her face as she spoke. "Stop trying to recruit my prom date."

Y/N and her father shared a look, seemingly speaking without having to say a word before she broke out into a smile, matching the wide toothy grin of her father, before turning back to Bob, a slight pink blush forming across her cheeks. Bob blushed as he saw her walk into the room, making his way over to her.

"Y-You look," Bob swallows thickly, gaining his confidence. "You're beautiful."

Y/N blushes fiercely, straightening the lavender bowtie around Bob's neck.

"You clean up pretty well yourself."

The teenagers' awkward gazing is cut off by Ice clearing his throat loudly, his mug of coffee in his hand as he approached them.

"C'mon, kid. Your grandparents'll kill me if I don't get a thousand pictures of you two before you leave."

Y/N cut her eyes at Bob as he stuck his arm out for her to take, helping her over the threshold of the door and into the yard, the Admiral standing in front of them with his camera ready. They all went through the motions of a typical prom photo shoot-the corsage exchange, the awkward photos in front of the house, the send off.

Finally, she and Bob were down the road in his truck, Y/N smiling in his passenger seat, Bob's shoulders much more relaxed, not feeling nearly as tense in the presence of her looming father.

"Sorry about my dad," Y/N speaks over the music playing in the truck, squeezing Bob's hand where their hands intertwined on the console. "He's just a little protective, and, not very good at small talk." She chuckles lightly.

"No, no, it's fine. He was nice. Intimidating for sure, but nice. Made a joke that you take too long to get ready for everything."

"Of course he did," Y/N smiled and rolled her eyes, leaning her head on Bob's arm. The high school juniors had been dating for a little over six months, but both of them were head-over-heels.

The couple arrived and carried on as usual for teenagers on a prom night-mingling with their mutual friend and indulging on PTO-mom made snacks. As the night wrapped up, the last slow song of the night had Bob and Y/N swaying under the sparkling disco ball in the middle of the gym. Bob's tux jacket had been discarded on a chair hours ago, accompanied by Y/N's heels, both tossed about carelessly in favor of running back to the dance floor. Her head rested on his chest, his hands around her waist sweetly. Neither of them were paying much attention to the song playing, or the other numerous couples swaying next to them. Bob's blue orbs were focused entirely on the girl looking up at him from his chest, his hand moving to brush stray curls that had fallen in her eyes. As he looked at her face, his chest filled with warmth, a funny feeling erupting, one he had never felt before. His eyebrows furrowed, his forehead creasing.

"What's the matter, B?" Her voice came soft, just loud enough for both of them to hear.

"I love you," It came out blunt and honest, with no hesitation. Neither of them had said it before, and he watched as Y/N's face went from one of confusion to one of pure elation, a wide grin forming on her face as Bob lightly pulled her closer, their lips meeting in a kiss more meaningful than their previous ones.

That night, when Bob dropped her off back at her house, with the figure of her father sitting in their living room, he smiled as he helped her out of the truck and closed the door behind her. He walked her to the front door and kissed her again before saying goodnight, a permanent smile etched on his face. He watched her get into the house and waited for the porch light to turn off before peeling out of the driveway, his face aching from his never ending smile.

When he got into his own house for the night, his tux coat thrown over his shoulder, bowtie undone and his feet aching in his dress shoes, he collapsed onto his bed with a content sigh. His phone dinged with a new message, and he smiled as he saw Y/N's name flash across the screen. He opened it quickly:

I love you, too. I miss you already. Mean it.

A blush sprouted across his fair skin, typing back a reply as his heart soared.

Over the next few years, Bob found himself on the Kazansky doorstep hundreds of more times-weekend dates, barbecues, birthdays, study dates, movie nights, senior prom, just because, forgetting his house keys in Y/N's room, graduation parties, the list could go on and on forever. He had grown to find the Kazansky household his second home, Iceman's walls slowly melting towards the awkward boy his daughter loved. Y/N's father would allow him to stay over on long weekends and holidays through her first years of college and his of the Naval Academy, letting Bob tag along for family vacations. Bob slowly became an extension of the Kazansky family. Bob learned lots about the Admiral during his days and weeks of being in their home. Iceman loved things that made him seem less and less intimidating from when they first met. Tom Kazansky loved to make homemade banana bread, could often be found dozing off with a book in his hand, leaned back in the recliner closest to the front door, and the Admiral loved rom-com movies with a fierceness only championed by his own daughter. The father and daughter were a well-oiled machine, understanding each other in a way that Bob had never seen before. Bob would observe as the duo would work in fluid motion in the kitchen cooking dinner-knowing what each other was thinking without having to say a word. Y/N tossing her father spices and seasonings as he lifted the spoon to her mouth, and Iceman knowing just how she liked her coffee, her tea, and her favorite shape of ice. They knew one another inside and out, something Bob would often sit in awe of. It was a true display of love for one another, so loved that you know everything about someone, you know what they need without having to say a word.

When Bob had visited the Kazansky's over his final Christmas break from the Academy, he had expected the feeling of closeness and familial love. He found himself in the kitchen with Y/N, an Elvis Christmas record spinning in the living room adjacent. He wordlessly handed her the spoon from the pot he was stirring, her lips pursing as she thought for a moment, handing him a container of salt and other seasonings she knew were needed for the soup. Bob wordlessly adds an estimated amount in the pot before he stops abruptly, realizing what had just happened. His heart hammers, he and Y/N had been dating for nearly five years now, his time at the Academy coming to an end. They had suffered through nearly four years of a long distance relationship-he in Maryland at the Naval Academy, her attending college back in their hometown. They had made it through with phone calls and even letters, long lonely days and nights, and a love for one another that defied odds. He stopped stirring promptly, looking as Y/N was pressing cookie dough onto a pan, her eyes looking up at him.

"B? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." She smiled at him sweetly, wiping off her hands before placing them on his cheeks. "Do you feel okay? You're really red, you're warm. Do you think you're coming down with a cold?"

Bob couldn't make his dry mouth form many words, finally sputtering out a single sentence:

"I-I need to talk to your Dad."

Y/N's eyebrows furrow, looking at her boyfriend incredulously, as if he had grown another head.

"Um, okay? He's in his office. Bobby, are you okay?"

Bob nodded, leaning down to place a kiss on her head before racing off to the office on the second floor. Y/N only shook her head and continued making her cookies.

Bob knocks on the heavy office door, waiting for a response.

"It's open," Iceman's voice sounds from behind the thick mahogany colored door. Bob creaks open the door, Ice's cool eyes softening as he sees Bob enter.

"She drive you out of the kitchen already, Bob?" His voice was laced with humor. "She's too much like me, taking control of every situation. Sorry."

Bob laughs, "No sir, I just, needed to talk to you."

Ice narrows in on Bob's firmly serious expression, leaning back in his chair and looking at the boy man in front of him. Bob had grown up in the past few years, taller and more muscular thanks to the Academy. He only wore his glasses when required by the military, often opting for contacts when he was home, giving him a more mature look.

"What can I do for you, son?"

Bob's heart hammered in his chest. Was he planning on doing this now? No-he had planned for a lovely dinner, perhaps a walk on the beach before he did all of this. He had certainly, at least, planned on finishing the Academy before all of this, but after their interaction in the kitchen, the complete domesticity of it, paired with his overwhelming love for her, he knew now was the right time.

"Mr. Kazansky-"

Tom interrupts him, shaking his head in a good-natured manner. "How many times have I told you to call me Iceman, or Tom? I've known you for half a decade, I don't think the formalities are necessary."

Bob nods, understanding the man's warmth, but this was different.

"Any other time before this, and after this, sir, absolutely. But I'm coming to you for matters that pertain to Y/N, and I want this to be as respectful as possible."

Tom nods curtly, appreciating Bob's respectful nature, hands meeting in his lap as Bob speaks.

"Sir, I-," Bob swallows. He thought about this conversation a million times over and over as he stared at his ceiling at the Academy every night. "I love your daughter. I have for five years now. She is infinitely kind, and overwhelmingly beautiful. She's far too smart for me to keep up with most days, and she makes even my worst days bright. I think that's truly a testament to your parenting, she's the most headstrong yet considerate person I know. She loves fiercely, and looks after those she loves with the same fervor. She knows me unlike anyone else, and she's quickly become my feeling of home. Her music has taken over my truck, my headphones, and my inner thoughts. Her favorite movies have become part of my repertoire, and her favorite books sit next to mine on a bookcase in my room. Her things are scattered all over my apartment, and she is seeped into my every thought. When something good happens, she's the first person I want to call. When something bad happens, she's the first person I want to call. I want to spend the rest of my life with her by my side. I know this is sort of sudden, but I've spent every night for a year thinking about this, and I-I would like to marry Y/N. I graduate from the Academy in less than six months, and I'll be in aviation school, and I just-I want her to know she's a priority for my future. If I have your blessing, I would like to ask her before I go back to the Academy."

Tom's head nods, standing from his chair behind the desk, causing Bob to stand, Tom's palm meeting his in a handshake, a sign of respect. He suddenly pulls Bob into a hug, a tightness that is only matched by Y/N herself, the infamous Kazansky suffocating hug.

"You've got my blessing, kid."

Bob nods in understanding, pausing as he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He smiles lightly at Y/N's name and several emojis beside her name on the screen.

It's lonely down here. :( Love you, miss you, mean it.

He smiles at their simple loving joke that had survived from when she had first said it years ago. He pockets his phone again, looking up at Iceman with a newfound confidence.

"Thank you, Ice, sincerely. Y/N means more to me than I feel like I could express in words."

Tom's face breaks out into a smile, his eyes twinkling with something that might have been the beginning of tears, but that's yet to be confirmed. He lightly slapped a hand on Bob's shoulder.

"For what it's worth, you've got my permission. But it's not mine that matters, kid, it's hers."

part two out now!

#bob floyd x reader #top gun #top gun imagine #top gun maverick #bob floyd #bob floyd fluff #request

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