#because he abused is still torturing his kid | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

skzdarlings · 7 months ago

Text

bodyguard: the first guard | part three | chan/reader

masterlist.

(part one of the previous story.)

( read on AO3 )

A sequel to the Bodyguard. Miroh’s daughter is assigned a bodyguard of her own. The past is confronted when old friendships and new enemies are pushed to the brink.

pairing: bang chan/reader content info: sequel to the bodyguard (felix/reader). this is a new reader perspective. the previously established story dyanmics: explicit violence, mentions of torture. mentions of past sexual abuse, detailed descriptions of needles. chapter word count: 12,525 words.

B E F O R E

“Happy fourteenth birthday.”

Felix looks up from his work. He underperformed in training today and landed himself a punishment. His good record spared him anything too painful, but he has been assigned cleaning duty. Taking apart, cleaning, and reassembling weapons is not difficult work – he could do it in his sleep – but it is tedious.

Tedium is its own kind of torture, especially these days with his mind in a state of tumult. He has grown closer to Chris with each passing day. Felix knows they are not meant to think of each other as friends, just fellow soldiers, but that is the word Felix uses.

My friend.

That is who stands over Felix now. Chris is smiling and holding something wrapped in what looks like a kitchen napkin. Felix blinks at it, then furrows his brow.

“Huh?” Felix says. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Could be!” Chris says.

Felix supposes Chris has a point. Felix does not actually know his own birthday because he bounced around foster care before he found himself in Miroh’s program. If his birthday was recorded anywhere, no one told him what it was. So it could be his birthday. The odds are not great but not impossible.

“Um,” Felix says, because no one has ever wished him a happy – or happy possible – birthday. He guesses the best reply is, “Thanks?”

“It’s not a trick, man,” Chris says, smiling. He laughs at Felix, though it doesn’t feel cruel, and ruffles his hair before shoving the little wrapped item at him. “Here,” Chris says. “Got it especially for you.”

Felix unfolds the napkin and finds a cookie. It’s not the kind of food that is served at the regiment because their diet is so strict. Food is a sustenance and not a pleasure.

“Wow,” Felix says. It is a genuine surprise. Chris had to go out of his way to get this.

Felix feels embarrassed. He still struggles to cope with feeling in general. He almost yearns for a simpler, more naïve time, when he didn’t have to think or feel, just trust and follow. Now he is a flustered knot of embarrassment because Chris is giving him presents just because Felix mentioned he had never received one. It was an off-handed remark a few days ago, that he didn’t know his birthday and had never received a present but that it didn’t matter because he didn’t deserve it.

And he didn’t, he doesn’t, deserve any of it. Not a birthday wish or a thoughtful gift or Chris’s friendship. Felix has so much blood on his hands and he doesn’t how much of it is innocent. He never counted his kills like some other agents, stupid kids bragging to seem bigger and more powerful than their circumstances. Felix never did it for glory. He knew his place. Now he doesn’t count them because it doesn’t matter. It all comes back to him when he closes his eyes. He remembers what they were wearing, what they said before they died, the things they begged to a naïve, indifferent child.

He doesn’t count them because he doesn’t need a number to know it’s too much and he will never be able to take it back. He doesn’t deserve birthdays and friendships and Chris. He never will.

He doesn’t say this out loud. He knows Chris will argue with him, belligerent in his kindness and reassurance. Felix won’t listen in turn. The conversation would be useless. Rather than bother, Felix asks, “Where did you get it?”

“Hey, I know I’m trouble,” Chris says, still smiling, “but I got connections too, you know?”

Felix guesses he means Miroh’s daughter as she is the only agent with outside connections. They seem to have a tenuous understanding because she and Chris get in the most trouble. Chris, because he still bristles at commands and steps out of line. Her, because she’s Miroh’s daughter and held to a higher standard than the rest of them.

Chris can befriend almost anyone, garnering admiration in his peers if nothing else. His rebellious streak means no one wants visible association with him, but in the quietest of corners there is a whispered respect for the First Guard. He is as notorious as he is skilled and he has a natural leadership.

Felix supposes it is not outside the realm of possibility that even Miroh’s daughter would consider Chris a friend – but only somewhere even quieter than most.

Felix does not consider Miroh’s daughter a friend and he doubts he ever will. Her proximity to Miroh makes her an even bigger liability than Chris. Felix would never get close to someone like that, born into their position and too close to power for his liking.

“Miroh’s daughter, you mean,” Felix says.

Felix might keep his musings close to his heart, but that doesn’t mean Chris can’t read them anyway. Chris is a soldier by instinct if not choice. He is always one step ahead. It’s like he is inside Felix’s head. He seems to know what Felix will do before Felix does.

“Yeah,” Chris says. He rubs the back of his neck, breathing deeply. He looks almost sheepish, as if admitting he knows better. “She’s not that bad when you get to know her. Really.”

Felix is certain he looks unconvinced. It makes Chris laugh.

“You look worried,” Chris says.

“I do worry about you,” Felix says. He looks down at the cookie in his hand. It is hard to say out loud, but he manages a weak, “You’re my friend.”

Chris is suspiciously quiet. When Felix looks up, Chris has a determination to his countenance.

“Find me when you’re done here,” Chris says. “I wanna show you something.”

Felix, as usual, does as he is told. When his punishment ends, he tracks Chris to the barracks where the older boy is patiently waiting. He claps Felix on the shoulder but otherwise doesn’t stop to greet him. He is a little skittish as he leads Felix to their mysterious destination.

It is not so extraordinary in the end. Nothing around here is. Everything is cold chrome and sleek silver, one room much like the next, branded by Miroh as surely as its occupants.

Chris knocks out a ventilation panel then leads Felix to what looks like an unused crawl space, forgotten and collecting dust.

“Welcome to my office,” Chris jokes, still with that nervous laughter. It is putting Felix on edge.

“Is everything all right?” Felix asks.

“Well, no, Felix,” Chris says. “It isn’t. You know that now, don’t you?”

A couple years of shared assignments between the best and second best, the rebellious and the reluctant. A couple years of watching Miroh bludgeon his way through the world. A couple years of regret.

A couple years of friendship to change everything.

“Yeah,” Felix says. It is all he needs to say.

“Sit,” Chris says. There is a corner of the room that has been cleared of dust, this part of the hideaway evidently well-used. “Let’s talk.”

Whatever conversation Felix expects to have, it is not the one he gets. He sits and watches Chris, watches him breathe and measure his words. Chris is usually confident in what he has to say, even when staring down a barrel of a gun. This is more than disconcerting.

“I’ve been talking to some others in the program,” Chris says. “We’re all growing up. I’ll be eighteen soon. If we’re already strong, we’re just gonna get stronger. Miroh has complete control over us. I’m scared that if we don’t do something about it soon, then everything is going to get worse. A lot, lot worse.”

“Do something,” Felix says, his mind going a mile a minute. “What do you mean? Who else have you told about this?”

“People I consider friends,” Chris says. He puts a hand on Felix’s shoulder. “People like you, Felix.”

He thinks of the cookie in his pocket. His heart punches up with alarm.

“Miroh’s daughter?” Felix asks and this time he knows for certain his thoughts are very clear. He says her name – not even her name, her position, the daughter and heir of the very thing Chris wants to fight – and he says it with the obvious inflection of what-the-fuck-are-you-thinking?

“She’s a friend,” Chris says in a voice he usually reserves for an enemy. It startles Felix into silence. Seeing that, Chris smiles, trying to lighten the mood. “You don’t have to trust her,” Chris says. “Just trust me. Felix, I want to get us out, all of us. I don’t want that man or any other man like him to hurt anyone else. Not kids, not adults, not anyone. I won’t put you in more danger, I swear. That’s the opposite of what I want. I’m gonna protect you, okay? I’m gonna protect all of you. When the time comes to take a stand, I just want you to be ready. If something happens, if it all goes wrong…”

Felix looks at him, alarm and worry plain on his young face. Chris squeezes his shoulder again.

“If…” Chris swallows then continues, “If it is all goes wrong, I’ll pay the price alone. But I’d rather die trying to save all of you than live another day hurting innocent people for Miroh.”

“Chris—” Felix starts, an argument on his tongue.

“Don’t,” Chris says firmly. “If there was anything worth dying for, Felix, then it’s this. I’m gonna get you out. I’m gonna get you all out. I swear. Just be ready for when I say. Just trust me. Just be my friend.”

Felix spends a week after that in a state of restless turmoil. He sleeps poorly and fights worse and even spends a night in the Cell for his mistakes.

He doesn’t know what to think about Chris and his intentions. It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. But if it worked…

It wouldn’t take the blood off Felix’s hands, but it would be a start to something better. Felix has little thought for his own fate, undeserving as he is, but he thinks about Chris. Chris, the First Guard, who has been here the longest, who has watched the most people die, who has been punished the worst.

Chris deserves better.

Felix believes in Chris. He believes if Chris made an effort, then he would have what it takes to make a difference. Felix knows Chris is capable. He could do what he sets out to do.

It is not Chris that Felix worries about.

Felix observes Miroh’s daughter, studying her more closely than ever before. Felix trusts Chris’s general discretion but he worries Chris has a blind spot concerning her. They are the only two in their age category and they share a small barrack, the forced proximity undoubtedly creating a semblance of intimacy. Chris might trust her but Felix is not so biased. All he sees is Miroh.

Felix watches her. She doesn’t spend much time with Chris in public, her only close relationship with Seo Changbin. They are a bit notorious together. Felix would not call them the best fighters but they are tricky. He is pretty sure they throw their fights with each other and embellish more than necessary. Both like a good skull crash, more brutal than efficient. The trickery and brutality makes Felix more wary of her.

At the same time, her obvious friendship with Changbin shows she can care about someone else. The pair throw a mean punch but always patch each other up after.

Chris catches Felix watching them. They are having a go in the ring, punching and flipping, grinning when they think no one is watching. They have smiles just for each other.

“You look really deep in thought, mate,” Chris says, laughing. He hands Felix a water bottle while toweling down his own sweaty neck.

“Huh?” Felix finally breaks his concentration. He takes the water and smiles one of his instinctive but fake smiles – the kind he uses on a mission, when he is trying to convince an adversary that he is an innocent, unassuming kid.

Chris sees through it, of course. He lifts an eyebrow at Felix then follows his line of sight to the ring.

“What?” Chris says, laughing again. His own ears turn a little red as he teases, “You got a crush on her or something?”

“Ew, shut up,” Felix says, throwing his own towel at him. He feels flushed despite the fact it is vehemently untrue. He is not used to being provoked with that line of teasing. “No,” he says certainly. “I have no feelings for anyone. But I think they might.”

“Huh?” Chris looks between Felix and the ring. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, look at them,” Felix says. “They’re a little too close, don’t you think?”

Presently, Miroh’s daughter has Changbin pinned to the mat. She is on top of him and whispering something that makes them both snicker.

Chris stares at them. After a beat of contemplative silence, he laughs. Felix recognizes the fake sound, the same disarming humour Felix uses when conning someone.

“Yeah,” Chris says. “Hey, I’ll be right back, yeah?”

Felix watches Chris amble over. He says something to the duo and Changbin retaliates with some non-descript shouting and flailing. Miroh’s daughter rolls her eyes. She grabs Chris by the collar and yanks him into a fight.

The rest of the day progresses without much fuss or bother. Miroh has no jobs for them today so the schedule is just training and recuperation.

Felix manages to avoid punishment today. He tries expelling his anxiety in a fight but it does not fully work. Felix has come to realize he is not very good at letting go. Belief, emotion, the good, the bad: all of gets clutched in his fists and held to his heart.

Fighting tires him but it is not a satisfying tired, of exerted muscles and a pumping heart. He feels weary and everything everywhere is so loud, the chrome and steel of the Miroh facilities like an echoing dome. It cycles all that noise in an agonizing reverberation. It feels inescapable. He goes to the barracks which are smaller but it makes the claustrophobia worse.

Laying in his bunk, rubbing his temples, Felix dreams of a quiet room of his own.

It is then he remembers Chris’s hideaway. Chris miraculously dodged punishment today so he retreated to the barracks a while ago. Felix doesn’t want to disturb him but he figures Chris won’t mind him using the hideaway on his own if he’s careful.

They are permitted access to the training room for the few hours between work and mandatory repose. The hideaway is en route so it is easy for Felix to stealthily retrace his steps without raising suspicion. He disappears in the security blind spot the way Chris showed him.

Felix is in the tunnel when he hears a noise. He worries he was followed despite being so careful, but then he realizes the noise is ahead of him, not behind him.

He freezes in the crawl tunnel, trying to discern the sound. It doesn’t sound like talking, more like… breathing? Heavy breathing.

Then he hears a laugh that he recognizes as Chris. And he is not alone. The other noise is a sigh, a lighter, more feminine sound.

Oh.

Apparently, Chris’s hideaway is not just for talking to friends. The sound of kissing and sighing is more friendly than his conversation with Felix, that’s for sure.

Felix is frozen for a minute, too stunned and embarrassed to think of moving. He has to shuffle backwards to escape because he can’t turn in that part of the crawl space. If this was a mission, he could do it, but this is personal. He doesn’t want to get caught but it’s not because it will compromise any job; it’s because it will be awkward.

He scuffs his shoe in his backwards shuffle. It clangs, a subtle sound, but one that makes him wince.

It goes quiet around the corner. Felix knows he was heard and there is no time to escape. Seconds later, a frantic looking Chris is in the tunnel, red-faced with a line of sweat on his brow. His uniform is clearly dishevelled and Felix gets even more embarrassed.

Those feelings need somewhere to go. It comes out of him in a burst of frustration.

“What are you doing?” Felix demands, his voice breaking.

“Nothing!” Chris says, clearly a knee-jerk reaction. Then he takes a breath and says, “Look, I can explain—”

“It’s not Miroh’s daughter,” Felix says. He can’t even pose it as a question because he refuses to believe Chris could genuinely be that reckless and stupid. Befriending her is one thing – a stupid thing – but fooling around with the daughter of the powerful man who owns them is begging for tragedy.

“I’m not stupid,” Chris says.

“It doesn’t matter,” Felix says. “Whoever it is, you need to stop.”

“Look—”

“Seriously, Chris!”

“Felix—”

“It’s not worth it!”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Chris snaps. “You’re not normal and you don’t understand what it means to care about someone like that.”

It is obviously thoughtless, blurted in the head of the moment. It hurts anyway. Felix wonders if Chris can see the pain on his face because Chris looks immediately remorseful.

“Look, I didn’t mean it like that—” Chris starts.

“It’s fine,” Felix says. “You’re right.”

“Felix—”

Felix pushes backwards and leaves without waiting for any protest. He does not stop, marching all the way back to this bunk. Anger and embarrassment have finally dissipated by the time he returns. It has been replaced with determination.

Chris is the best, but he has been compromised whether he wants to acknowledge it or not. He feels too much, for everyone and everything, and it will get him in even more trouble than he is already in. if he retaliates with thoughtless provocation when it’s just Felix confronting him, then what will he do when it’s Miroh and the stakes are even higher?

Chris said he would protect them all. He swore to succeed at any cost, including his own life. There is no one swearing the same for him. No one has ever protected him.

Felix is the second best. He has never left a job unfinished and for that he is not deserving of the protection Chris is offering.

It won’t clean the blood on his hands, but if Felix can save a life worth more than his own, then maybe it will start to justify all of this, all of him.

Chris was right. Felix is not normal. But he was wrong say that Felix doesn’t know what it means to care about someone. Because of Chris, Felix knows how to care. He knows what he has to do.

Chris can try and save them all.

Felix is going to save Chris.

P R E S E N T D A Y

Miroh’s main facility has fallen.

It sounds so dramatic for something so anticlimactic, like you are describing the collapse of a kingdom and not the shutdown of his main office operation.

It feels like an apocalyptic demise.

You and Chan fight your way out of the building, taking on the people who fight in your name. Your father’s name. Miroh.

Miroh is dead. Irrefutably broken, little more than a heap of meat on the tarmac. With him gone and the only named heir on the run – you – this facility will shut down to maintain security.

Miroh ran a meticulously compartmentalized business. There is protocol for everything so even if one part of his operation fell, the rest could continue unimpeded. Miroh tried to establish a legacy that could rival old money like his enemy, going so far as to predict his own demise. Miroh has long braced for the eventuality of his end, so he made sure his business could fracture and run without him.

He did everything in his power to make you just like him, a little broken fracture of himself to ensure that legacy. But then he could not actually face what he created. He could not actually let go. He was the only one with the perspective and power and he had to keep it that way.

Miroh would not have accounted for your rebellion, not for the sake of someone else. For a friend.

Flashes of the last twenty four hours play in your mind. You can hardly pinpoint the change in yourself. It feels like this was somehow inevitable, despite how much you would have balked at the idea before. But now it is all that matters. It’s all that makes sense in this chaos.

You have to find your friend. This facility will be empty in a matter of hours, but there are others. Changbin is in one of them. You have no idea where to start.

One thing at a time, you tell yourself. Before you can ruminate on anything behind or in front of you, you need to fight. You do not have time for introspection or planning. You need to get away. Away from this place, away from your dead father.

Away from his soldier, the First Guard, Bang Chan, who for some reason is helping you escape.

You don’t know why. You seriously doubt your barely coherent pleading broke the conditioning and literal torture that made him into this thing.

You don’t have time to find out. At the first opportunity, you break away, leaving him with a handful of operatives to fight. It should keep them all occupied while you escape.

You do not want to risk trapping yourself in an enclosed space, so you do not venture to the parking garage where the company vehicles are stored. Some of them will be programmed and bugged. You feel bad targeting a civilian, but stealing one of their cars is the safest bet. There are some administrative employees who complete menial tasks for the company, those with next to no clearance level. They park their personal cars around the facility. You pick one that is easy to reconfigure without a key to boot.

Minutes later, you are driving for an exit. Your whole body is aching but you push through it. There will be time to recuperate when you are in the clear.

Sirens wail and alarms blare, every security measure in action. Your escape is certainly not a clean one but it doesn’t matter. You just need to get away.

If you can get off the facility grounds, you can lose any adversaries in the back country roads. The route to the facility was intentionally designed to be a convoluted labyrinth, making it difficult for enemies to approach without giving the facility ample preparation time. You know the paths better than anyone. You can get away.

A soldier marches right into the middle of your escape path.

It is too brazen for a regular agent. They would not be so stupid to try that, knowing you would just barrel into them.

You speed closer and recognize the First Guard. Chan is unflinching as ever, standing in the middle of the road as if he intends to stop your car with his body. He is strong but not that strong. You know that. But he looks like an inhuman phantom, looming there in his combat gear and mask, unphased and unharmed despite the hour of nonstop violence.

But that’s not the reason you stop. You think about him in that van. You could only see his eyes but they were expressive, the tilt of his head inquisitive.

You slam on the brakes. The car stops inches from his body but he doesn’t even blink.

Your heart is racing, breath bursting in gasps. He strolls around the car as if he was just waiting for his ride.

Soldiering instinct propels your hands. You draw a gun as he opens the passenger-side door. He bends down and looks at you, his brow quirked with a silent question. Your hand shakes and he is too good not to notice. You know that, but a regular person would never guess because he does not take his eyes off yours.

He disarms you, faster than a blink. He drops into the passenger seat, then slams the door and shoves the gun in its storage compartment.

You stare at him. Your gaze follows the line of his stark profile. His hairline is a little sweaty but he doesn’t look out of breath.

You don’t know what to think.

This is the longest you have been in his company since you were kids in training. Your memory of him is insubstantial, having spent little to no time with him personally. But it hardly matters what he was. Now he’s a soldier above all soldiers, a shadow filling this small civilian car. He’s not the biggest man in the world but he’s overwhelming all the same, partially because of his uniform and partially because of his posture. He feels too big for this little human space. His knee hits the gear shift, his thighs bulky in the small seat, his shoulders broad where he leans back.

He looks across the car and meets your eyes. You think about how many people have met this gaze, maybe in a moment just like this, sitting across from Miroh’s asset in a little civilian vehicle before he put a bullet between their eyes or snapped their neck. You have seen the results of his missions even if you were not involved in them. The statistics and numbers speak for themselves. Those eyes have seen more death than life and right now they are resolutely focussed on you.

You jump when he lifts his hand. He says nothing but turns the rearview mirror in your direction. You reluctantly peel your gaze away from him. You see what he sees: a vehicle in rapid pursuit of your own.

“Shit,” you say. You shove the mirror back into place. Your hands collide for a split second.

You can’t linger on the weirdness of this moment, that the First Guard is your ally, sitting in the passenger seat and helping you escape.

You drive. The other vehicle chases you down. You get past the easy security measures, blowing past gates and guards. When you approach the last gate, Chan rolls down the window and twists his body. He pulls the stashed gun and aims somewhere. Your eyes are on the road so you don’t see exactly what he does, but the gate slams shut between you and the pursuing vehicle, trapping them on the other side.

Then it is just you, him, and the road.

He puts the gun away. He sits back. He rolls up the window. He makes it seem like a routine, still unphased while your heart pounds with adrenaline.

You do not look at him. You do not speak. You focus on escape, taking a convoluted path through the countryside just in case. When the facility is far, far behind you, you take a back road and pull into a shadowed space between some trees.

You slam to a stop, shift the gear to park, but keep the engine running. You clutch the steering so hard, you imagine it cracking beneath the force of your grip.

Chan still does not speak. The last time he spoke was on that rooftop. What now?

A damn good question.

You look at him. He is not sitting the way you would expect a machine of a man to be sitting. You would have thought the First Guard would sit straight-backed and braced for confrontation, but his slouch is almost insouciant. He sits with his knees apart, his body slanted where his elbow rests on the door. One gloved hand strums the door and the other is draped over his thigh. He looks at you without any expression you can interpret.

You are tired. Your body hurts. Your father is dead and the operation is changing and your only friend is suffering and you can’t do anything about any of it. This morning you held a modicum of control over your life – or you thought you did – and now everything has spiralled.

You know logically that Chan is a victim of Miroh, but right now it does not matter. He is an infuriating figure of composure, not to mention your father’s greatest weapon, and that combination snaps the elastic thread of your patience, already stretched to its limits.

“Take off the fucking mask,” you say.

He stares at you, his expression still unreadable. You are tempted to reach across and rip the mask off his face. You would definitely not succeed, no match for his reflexes on a good day, but logic is inconsequential in the face of your emotions.

He doesn’t test you. He stares for another moment then raises one gloved hand. He unhooks the mask and peels it off. He runs the other hand over his face and through his hair.

You are not sure what you were expecting. The same brown eyes stare back at you, lined with a smudged shadow to look as dark and intimidating as possible. His brows are thick and dark, his hair as black, sweat loosening the slick style so a single curly tuft falls over his forehead.

You follow the slope of his nose down to his mouth. His mouth is closed and he is not smiling. He has full lips, almost too pretty for what he is. Glancing at that mouth on that too-pretty face, you picture a dimple smiled. The memory is almost a blur, a smear of an image over his face. You blink and it’s gone, his stoic face staring back at you.

“What is it?” he says. His voice is like the rest of him, too big in this small space. You swear it shakes the car and the earth under it, though that is ridiculous. It’s just a voice. He’s just a man.

Except he’s not. He’s something else, something that should not have done what he did. You have a million questions. You need those answers before you can continue but it all jumbles together in your head. It’s all too much, the flashes of today, of the past, of an uncertain future full of even more violence.

You finally turn off the engine and get out of the car. You have no intention of going anywhere, but you need space.

You pace in a long line, breathing in and out, using every trick in the book to ease your racing heart. After a minute, you hear the passenger door open. You look over your shoulder at Chan.

You can’t help the instinctive reaction to measure him like an adversary. It doesn’t help he has pummelled you twice in the last few months, not to mention his horrid reputation in an already horrid place. It would be stupid not to brace yourself.

He approaches you cautiously. He has the gall to raise a hand like you are the wild thing and he is the tamer.

“Easy,” he says. His voice is not so booming out here. Other than the dark combat uniform, he almost looks normal, his whole face open to you, eyes narrowed with intense focus.

It makes you breathe harder, the exhale shaky. He notices because he tries to placate you.

He smiles.

It is forced and unpracticed, but there are those dimples, just like you thought. You would have been less startled if he bared his teeth like an animal. The smile unnerves you, undoing all the calming work of your exercises.

“It’s all right,” he says in a frighteningly gentle voice. He tilts his head as he looks at you. “It’s just me, yeah?”

Just him. Like that should comfort you. You suppose you can marginally see things from his perspective, that maybe he has proved himself. After all, he helped you escape. It is obvious he is not doing this for your father or he would not have let you kill him. This is not part of a grand plan. There is no strategy. It’s all over.

It’s just you and him.

It does not comfort you the way he evidently thinks it should. Now is the time to ask those million questions, but you are beyond words. You are a live wire and that pitiful attempt at a truce ignites a flare of angry sparks.

You were built to fight. It punches out of you. Literally.

Chan is faster than you. He dodges your swing with ease, fast as an electric current himself.

“Hey now,” he says, holding out both hands. “Don’t—”

You know you can’t win this fight. You know it’s stupid to try. But each swing flies out of you, instinctive as breathing. He catches every blow, bats your hands out of the way, but he doesn’t swing back. His refusal to fight infuriates you. It makes you feel as helpless as you are.

An aggravated cry spills out of you, a strain behind your eyes as you take another swing.

“Stop it,” he snaps, his smile gone.

He finally goes on the offense, catching your hands and pinning them down. There is a moment of struggle before you feel the driver door at your backside, his body caging you in. You rear up against him but he holds you down, hip to hip, hand to hand.

“I said stop it,” he says. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” you ask, voice breaking. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Your chest is pressed against his, moving with your breath while he stands like an ungiving wall. You glare at him and he stares back. His brow furrows in seeming confusion. He closes both eyes and breathes out, a steadying breath.

You thought seeing him lose composure would make you feel better, but you feel worse, more unnerved than before.

He looks at you, a muscle in his jaw feathering when he clenches it. You stare at it as he releases you.

“You must know I can’t trust you,” you say.

You make the mistake of lifting your hands to shove him away. You do not intend to punch him again, the worst of that aggression gone, but he doesn’t know that. You suppose you can’t blame him for his instincts after your demonstration.

When you lift your hands, he grabs your wrists. Swiftly and effortlessly, he pins your hands by your head.

“Oh,” he says. His eyebrows lift and his face is far more expressive than you expected. “I’m the one who can’t be trusted, right?”

“Excuse me?” you snap.

“I’m doing my job, yeah,” he says. “Yesterday you were running jobs for Daddy and today you shot him dead. Wanna talk about erratic behaviour? Wanna talk about who’s unpredictable? About who can trust who here?”

Your mouth parts with a useless, breathless rebuttal, stammering and empty. You didn’t expect that many words from him, not when he has been a silent shadow for so long. Never mind the easy, casual speech, every colloquialism and the taunting hurl of daddy. It makes you think of that scathing, troublesome boy he once was, as sharp with his tongue as everything else. But he is not that boy. You know for a fact he was broken. He has done all those jobs for Miroh without causing any strife in the operation. He is a weapon and nothing more. He exists to follow orders.

Until today. Until you.

“So?” you finally say, because what else can you say?

“So?” he repeats.

“So.” You have those million questions, but there is only one that really matters. “What are we? Soldiers without a general? Because right now it seems like we’re two people who have no reason to trust each other and no reason to work together.”

Your gazes are locked and you measure each other. Not that you are much of a threat to him. He has you pinned with very little effort. If you were at your fighting best, you like to think it would be a little challenge, but right now you stand no chance against him.

But he doesn’t want to hurt you or he would have done it already.

He drops your hands. He doesn’t step away, still regarding you with that scrutinous eye, but it is a menial demonstration of trust.

You drop your arms. You stare back at him, refusing to show the depth of your weakness. You think his body might be keeping yours upright, your legs so weak. You do everything in your power to keep your wild emotions in check, to keep the tears in the back of your eyes. You breathe deeply.

“I’ll help you find your friend,” Chan says, the last thing you expect him to say. You can only watch as he sighs and speaks. “You were my last mission,” he says. “Miroh told me to bring you in. I did. He wanted me to watch you. I am. He wanted me to be your—” He laughs but it is not a happy sound, dry and devoid of pleasure. “Your bodyguard, I guess.” He shakes his head. “Consider this me following orders,” he says. “That’s what I do, yeah? I follow orders. And I don’t leave a job unfinished. Ever.”

“And Miroh?�� you say tentatively. “The fact I killed him?”

He shrugs dramatically, hands open in surrender.

“Miroh didn’t make me his bodyguard,” Chan says. “He made me yours.”

It is such preposterously simple logic that you laugh, a disbelieving bark of a sound. You look around at nothing, like the answer to your ridiculous circumstance is in the trees or the road.

When you look at Chan, he is still looking at you, his brow quirked inquisitively.

“Well?” he says. “Is that enough? Can we work together to finish this last job?”

“Your job,” you say slowly. You meet his eyes. “So that’s what I am to you?”

It’s meant to be an easy question with a reassuring answer. He is a soldier. You are his job. He will do what you ask. It’s as simple as that.

He tilts his head as he looks at you. His contemplation is too heavy. It was a simple question for a simple soldier who should speak no language outside of missions and reports.

His gaze is searing and it makes your heart skip a startled beat.

“Yes,” he says. He speaks the word like it’s exhausting to say out loud. It lands with a thud on an exhale. “My job.”

His forearm is planted by your head. His other hand grips your bicep. He is keeping you in place with his hips and thighs. You can feel the tension in his body.

You have no idea why you do what you do. It comes from the same place as those desperate punches. You know it’s useless, you know nothing will come of it, but you ride the propulsion of adrenaline. Your body, on the brink of desperation, has been pushed to its utmost capabilities in the last couple hours. What does it want? What do you want?

What did you ever really want?

You kiss him.

It shocks you both. Unlike the punch, he does not know how to retaliate. He stands there, breathing into your mouth. He is neither encouraging nor withdrawing.

You stop quickly and wipe your mouth. Mortification sets in.

None of this is like you. You blame stress. Your body is confused and hurt. You need recuperation. Whether you like it or not, you need comfort too. It is a deep internal call, only human. But you won’t be getting that from the solid, inhuman wall around you.

You push at that wall and it finally gives. Chan steps back. You doubt a punch would have moved him so easily as that kiss.

“Ignore that,” you say. “Adrenaline. I’m still – not right.”

He just stares, once more a silent shadow. You breathe out in a huff.

“Okay,” you say. “And we’re back to the staring. At least I know you’re still working.”

You turn to open the car door, effectively ending the tense exchange. Chan walks away. He silently circles the car to reach the passenger door. You look at his face, once more stoic and expressionless. He doesn’t look at you, dropping into the vehicle without another glance or sound.

You close your eyes. You take another deep breath of fresh air.

Maybe this is good. Maybe Chan is the ally you need right now. Someone level, someone only concerned with mission parameters. Someone who will not become compromised because of emotion.

Because you are very compromised.

You are not thinking clearly. You need a plan and some water and rest.

You get in the car. You start the engine. You don’t speak another word.

You drive for hours, wanting distance between you and the destruction.

The silence in the car is piercing, your head aching after the first hour. The little space acts like an echo chamber for your tumultuous thoughts. You keep replaying the day, every death and cry. You think about your security team strewn across those stairs, just another casualty in Miroh’s game. You think about your father, the unplanned murder but the utter lack of regret in your heart.

You think about Changbin. Your reckless side wants to look for him right now. You cannot stand to waste another second. Based on your father’s words, he could be anywhere, subject to any number of horrors. But despite the whirlwind tempest of your mind, there is a soldier inside you and she is more pragmatic. You are in no condition to fight. Even if you knew Changbin’s exact location, you would be no use to him. You need to rest, formulate a legitimate plan, then attack.

You can’t afford to make any mistakes. Better than anyone, you know the forces you are up against.

You pull into a highway fill-up station at dusk. The car needs fuel and so do you. There is a little shop near the fuel pumps, the place deserted other than the bored cashier behind the counter.

There was some cash in the glove box, enough for necessities. You will inevitably need to steal or manipulate, but you prefer to lay low tonight. You were careful to avoid traffic cameras and security tv as you exited the previous city. By the time the car is reported and Miroh’s operation works out your connection, you will be off the grid.

You turn off the engine and reach for the wallet. Chan snatches it first.

“What are you doing?” is spoken in unison.

“I’m going to buy us some fucking water and food,” you say.

“Are you? Really?” He gives you a pointed up-and-down look. “You gonna do that looking like you just played cannonball with a cement wall?”

You have not gotten a good look at yourself, just a flash in the rearview mirror, but he is probably right. You feel like utter shit so you must look it too.

“Well, you can’t go in there either,” you say. Even without the mask, he is clearly in an unusual uniform. A bored clerk will remember a terrifying soldier in combat clothes marching through his shop.

Chan flashes you a dimpled smile, frighteningly charming.

“Sure I can,” he says. “Just have to blend in.”

Your eyes widen as he discards both gloves then opens the neck of his shirt. You stare as he efficiently strips off his top layers.

If he looked powerful in the uniform, he looks as just as intimidating without it. He doesn’t boast gargantuan proportions but he doesn’t need it. There is lethal strength to the rolling musculature of his sturdy body.

You shouldn’t care. Soldiers strip all the time, long assignments and shared compartments making it an inevitability. But Chan is not just another soldier. In your head, he is that living shadow, covered all the way up to his eyes in the Miroh black and blue. Seeing all that skin is a startling reminder of the man under the mask.

You find Chan watching you, amused. That stupid eyebrow is quirked again.

“What?” you snap.

“Nothing,” he replies. “Be right back. Don’t miss me too bad.”

You roll your eyes, slumping in your seat as he gets out of the car. You have half a mind to drive away but you are pretty sure he would find a way to manifest at your destination anyway.

You watch as he enters the shop in a nonchalant stroll, wearing just his pants and boots. He waves at the cashier and says something that makes him laugh.

To his credit, Chan looks like a regular guy on a hot day, casually perusing a gas station shop. He makes small talk with the cashier and they laugh some more.

You knew Chan was a good soldier but you didn’t expect him to be such a good agent too. He is probably better at the civilian act than you. You are standoffish and opt for a quiet demeanour, blending in through invisibility rather than a persona.

Chan walks in and out, the cashier unaware of the nature of his customer. You return to the road with a full of tank of gas and some sustenance.

“Are you going to put your shirt back on?” you ask.

He gives you a side-eye as he shrugs the outermost layer back on. He doesn’t do it up. You refuse to act like a glimpse of his bare chest means anything to you.

Except it does. When he sits there with his knee against the console and his skin showing and a tuft of hair over his forehead, he looks like a person. He is a person, one who has been subject to some of the worst horrors of Miroh’s operation.

There is no denying Chan is a complicated figure, unwillingly complicit in atrocities. He acts like a normal person with a fully cognizant mind, but you just witnessed for yourself how easily he can fake that. You do not know how much of the real Bang Chan is actually inside him.

“Chan,” you say after a long time. The sun has almost fully set, the sky in its navy gloaming.

“Yeah?” he says.

There are no words that suffice. You could give an entire speech and it would be virtually meaningless.

“I’m sorry,” you say, leaving the breadth of the apology up to his interpretation. You keep your eyes on the endless miles of highway that stretch ahead. There is a long journey in front of you. There is a longer road behind you.

The car is illuminated with golden light from passing cars and overhead lamps. It flashes over his face in the deepening darkness.

“Don’t be,” Chan says. He crosses his arms in a protective position, looking out his window though there is nothing to see but the highway and passing cars. “None of this was your fault,” he says.

You laugh, a similar humourless sound to his earlier laughter.

“That’s not entirely true,” you say, thinking of all the missions you deliberately ran for Miroh. You thought you could make it mean something. You were just like your father, believing the ends would justify the means. You never tortured Chan yourself, but you were part of the operation that kept him in chains. There was nothing you could do to save him, but you certainly never tried.

He looks at you. You hear him move, the crinkle of his clothes, the water bottle he twists in his grip.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” he says. “Seriously. Today was crazy. Everything’s crazy. You’re not responsible for it.”

“I’m not not responsible,” you say. “My team is dead. My friend is gone. My dad – well, you can’t say I didn’t do that.”

“He had that one coming,” Chan says, his laugh a little more real. “No offense, but your dad kinda sucked.”

You find yourself laughing more genuinely too.

“Yeah,” you say. “I think we can agree on that.”

You fall into silence but it is more comfortable than before. There has been an undeniable tension since the moment he climbed in this car, looking at you with questioning confusion as you pointed a gun at him. You were panicking but he must have been equally bewildered. To him, you were a mission. He lives by his orders.

“I should apologize to you,” he says.

You look at him with obvious surprise. He meets your gaze, his expression sincere if not a little chagrined. His dimples show with a faint smile but it is not very happy.

“I’ve been an ass,” he says. “Today was – well.” He runs a hand through his hair.

“Trust me,” you say. You try to lighten the mood with your tone. “I’m a Miroh. You will never have to apologize to me for as long as you live.”

He doesn’t laugh or even force that pretend sound. He stares ahead, his gaze sorrowful and faraway.

“Sorry, that was—” you begin.

He forces a smile and shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says. “Truce?”

Smiling feels awkward and your injuries probably make you a terrifying sight. But he accepts it, nodding at you. The car does not feel like such a claustrophobic space after that. The air is clear as it can be, considering who you are.

Neither of you has an identity right now. You were tethered to the same monstrosity and now it is gone. Everything is different.

You are too tired for another late-night heart-to-heart. It is time for rest.

There is enough cash for a cheap motel room. You find a quiet inn off the highway, sequestered beyond trees and countryside fields. You finally look at yourself properly in the bathroom mirror. You decide Chan’s earlier remarks were a severe understatement. You look like a battleground more than a soldier.

You injures will repair themselves with time, but it is a grisly sight. You shower for now. The soap and water helps.

You don the same shirt and underwear. New clothes will be a necessity. You mentally plan tomorrow, everything you will need to accrue before you formulate an attack. You have already mentally plotted the closest facilities, but you will need to verify their function and security protocol before striking.

You are mentally strategize as you exit the bathroom. You are distracted, thinking nothing of the fact you are wearing underwear and a shirt.

Chan already showered because you insisted, knowing you would take longer with your injuries. He is sitting on one of the single beds, sorting through his weapons. There is the gun you stole from Miroh plus his own array of armaments, things so well hidden you did not realize he even had them. They are laid out on the bed. He sits at the foot in his combat pants and nothing else, his dark hair damp and face bare.

You stroll past him, feeling his eyes as they lift from a gun to your bare legs. Now that you have scrubbed the worst of the brutality from your body, you feel like something of a person again. His flicker of attention ignites an undeniable spark in your belly. At first, it startles you, because the First Guard is the absolute last person you should ever think of like that.

But then you look at him. He has turned his eyes back to his work, saying nothing as he reloads the gun with second-nature efficiency. He is holding a weapon but, despite his conditioning, he is just a man.

You are a grounded person. You keep your head down and go about your tasks with confident certainty. He is here, you are here, it has been a long day, and it is not unusual for soldiers to seek comfort before the dawn of a new fight. Comfort is as important in healing and recuperation as anything else.

You sit on your own bed and look at him. He is effortlessly attractive with his dark hair and dark eyes, the sloping muscle of his firm body. You trace his chest and abdomen with your eyes. He does not lift his gaze, his attention on the gun.

“Do you want to fuck?” you ask.

Bang Chan is the best soldier in the force. You are pretty sure he has never fumbled a weapon quite so spectacularly. It clatters to the floor and he kicks it under your bed.

“What!” he says. He doesn’t look at you as he retrieves the gun, laughing a comically nervous giggle. “Um… what?” he asks again. Before you can answer, he shakes his head. “That’s uh, wait. Um. No. Bad idea, right? I mean—”

“It’s just a suggestion,” you say, not really offended. “It’s been a long day. It doesn’t mean anything. We’re both adults here.”

As you say it, you consider his circumstances. Chan has spent his entire life in the house of Miroh. He is not innocent but he might be inexperienced. This man has killed dozens of people and worked dozens of dangerous operations. His body is built for violence, not pleasure, and certainly not his own.

You find yourself blurting, “Have you ever…?”

“Yes,” he says firmly, brow furrowing with annoyance.

“All right, all right, just asking,” you say. You decide not to push the topic because it clearly makes him uncomfortable. You just cleared the air and you don’t want to muddy it again.

You change the topic swiftly. You make some empty remark about the weather as you turn on the small television. It’s an old contraption, buzzing with static as it flickers to life.

Chan resumes his work. He puts his head down to concentrate.

Your gaze inevitably strays to him.

His hair dries curly. It feels like an unusual thing to know about the First Guard. He looks so much younger with a clean face.

You jump when that face lifts. He looks at you.

“It wasn’t… you know…” There is a hunch to his shoulders, his eyes dropping to his work. “I just did it on missions, ya know?”

“Did it,” you say. “On missions.” It doesn’t register right away, partly because you are tired and partly because you did not expect him to continue this conversation. “You mean sex?” you ask. “You had sex on missions?”

“I had sex for missions,” he corrects, eyes on the weapon he is disassembling. He is acting like the conversation is meaningless, his attention divided, but you know his task does not require that degree of concentration. He could take that thing apart in perfect darkness.

“For missions,” you repeat. “What, like a honeypot type scheme? You?”

It seems ridiculous at first. You picture the First Guard smashing through windows and tackling you in stairwells. There is nothing seductive about that raw violence. But then you look at the man in front of you, young and handsome, the one who so easily charmed that cashier while pretending he was someone else. You picture him in a suit and tie, maybe a t-shirt and jeans. He would be devastating with the right preparation.

Chan is the best. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise you he would excel regardless of the scheme.

“Something like that,” he says. He finally loads the magazine. “It wasn’t so bad, though. Seriously.” He twirls the gun with an effortless flourish. The grip finds his palm like the pistol is a part of him. “Trust me. My body was used for worse things. You get that too, yeah?”

You suppose you relate well enough. You were raised in the same program, put through the same grueling regimen. You have done things and you are not proud of them all. Your circumstances are not the same, though. You are each uniquely situated in your positions, even if you started in the same place.

We’re all that’s left.

Changbin’s voice in your head causes your mind to drift.

“What about you?” Chan asks, drawing you back to the conversation.

“Me?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “You.”

The First Guard is asking you about your sex life. You woke this morning in a safe house and put on combat gear, ready for another mundane day of field work. Somewhere in the middle of that was a cascade of violence. Now Bang Chan is asking about your sexual proclivities. If you weren’t so exhausted, you would laugh.

“I mean, nothing special,” you say, sufficing for the boring truth. “Mostly just this. Sex doesn’t really mean anything to me. It’s like exercise. Long nights on a job. You know. Fellow soldiers on a mission. Sometimes a civilian hook-up.”

You can’t parse the expression on his face. His gaze is somewhat judgemental, or maybe it is just scrutinizing, intensely focussed. It bristles your nerves. Your tone is more derisive when you say, “I’m not a romantic.” You hold his intense stare in your own. “Sex is just a bodily function to me. Sometimes the body needs the release or the pleasure or whatever, so I satisfy it and move on. That’s who I am. I work. I get the job done. That’s what I have always done.”

What you always did. You are not sure how to describe yourself anymore. You nonetheless punctuate that definitive statement. You assume that is the end of the conversation.

Then Chan asks, “So there’s… no one… for you?”

If he was any other soldier, you would think he was angling for flirtation, but he just turned down your very blatant offer. You do not know why he has any motivation to ask such personal and irrelevant questions.

It is not worth the argument. You conclude with a simple, “No.”

He nods, rocking his whole body with the force of his too-casual gesture. The tips of his ears are red, though your gaze does not stay there. You are quickly distracted by his bicep. He lifts an arm to rub the back of his neck, muscles softly rippling. His brazen questioning coupled with his awkward shyness is incongruous.

You think it is unlikely you will ever understand this man. He has been taken apart and put back together too many times. Fragments of him seem to fire all at once and in great contradiction.

“What about Changbin?” he asks. “He must be pretty special to you. Ya know, for you to have done all this for him.”

You are simultaneously struck by repulsion and sentiment. Changbin is very special and you regret not realizing it sooner. He has always been at your side, taking hits to protect you well before he became your bodyguard. He is the person who kept you smiling. You understood each other on a different level. His friendship was a rare gift and you took it for granted. Now you would do anything to have it back.

But also…

It’s Changbin. Ew. You are an only child but you feel a brotherly affection for him. Picturing him in any other context is nauseating. It just feels wrong.

You have such a visceral reaction of disgust that Chan laughs. He puts up his hands as if in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry, my bad,” he says. “Just friends, then?”

“Yes,” you say. “Though there’s nothing just about it.”

You have replayed that rooftop exchange a hundred times, torturing yourself with every possible outcome. If only you did this, if only he did that. You rearrange every second, trying to find a version with a different ending.

You wonder how he will react when he finds out what you did. Aha, murder princess living up to her name! he might say. The old man should have seen it coming. I knew you could it, but of course I did. I’m so much smarter and better looking than everyone else here.

You smile at the idea but it fades quickly.

Changbin was with you last night. He was sitting within arm’s reach, his scar under your fingertips. Now he could be anywhere and it’s all your fault. Not just because of the rooftop mistakes, but because of every mistake you made before that.

You exhale. Your shoulders shake. Chan watches you close a fist around a pillow.

“You all right?” he asks.

“I’m ending it,” you say.

“Sorry, what?”

“I always thought Miroh was an inevitability.” You are speaking out loud but mostly to yourself. Your gaze is fixed on some distant point, your mind and heart miles away. “But he wasn’t,” you say. “No more soldiers. No more experiments. No more bribes and theft and terror. My father is dead and I am going to do what I should have done a long time ago. I am going to make sure his work dies with him.”

You look at Chan. A day ago, you both existed for Miroh. Now you are two people planning to dismantle an empire from a motel room and a stolen car.

“Do you have a problem with that?” you ask.

A part of you is braced for the worst, that he will reject it, that he will revert to some kind of conditioned programming and drag you back to a facility for condemnation.

Even while you think it, you know it won’t happen. The eyes staring back at you are as clear as your own.

“I’m just the bodyguard,” Chan says. “I go wherever you go. Always.”

You feel invigorated to start now, but you are tired beneath the burst of adrenaline. You need to let your body heal.

The room is dark and you doze in the light of the television. After a couple hours, you roll over and find Chan is still awake. He is laying on his bed, arms crossed and eyes open. He is watching the shopping channel, ad after ad after ad, with far more intensity than it merits. His mind must be somewhere else. You can only imagine what he is thinking about.

You wonder how much he knows about himself. He responded to your half-coherent treasonous pleading. Does he remember hating Miroh? Or is he truly only helping you because of mission parameters?

It is easy to forget when he is a bare-faced, curly-haired young man slouching in a motel bed, but Bang Chan is lethally competent. He knew all of Miroh’s innermost schemes. It will come in handy now, but it makes him an irrevocably dark character, whether it was willing or not.

You wonder how much Changbin would trust him.

Wait.

You were so distracted with your plans, you did not question a moment in your conversation.

Chan mentioned Changbin.

You never told Chan the identity of your friend. When you were pleading with him, you just called him a friend.

Maybe Chan heard you talking to your father. Maybe he knows about your relationships because that was his job. Maybe he just guessed because Changbin volunteered himself in the ring.

Maybe Bang Chan remembers more than he is letting on.

You fall asleep to the soft drone of the television. Your mind is walking in circles and you dream of similar rings. Nightmares of chrome cages and steel traps, a suffocating helplessness squeezing your ribcage.

In your dreams, the room fills with smoke, a charcoal smog that chokes you as quickly as the compression on your chest. You look down but you can’t see your body, only feel it. Your invisible body struggles against invisible bindings. You gasp for breath.

Your father appears. It is him holding you down, a heavy hand in the middle of your chest. You cry out. You want to move but your body is trapped.

You close your eyes. When you open them, Changbin is there. He is still a teenager. His head is bleeding – why is his head bleeding? – but he wipes the blood as if it’s nothing more than sweat, all his focus on you.

Of course it is. He’s your friend. He’s here to save you. How did you not see it before? It’s like you have been moving through the world in a fog, the same grey smoke that envelopes you now. His face is the only clear image, gawky with youth but alive and real.

The weight is lifted off your chest. Black spots swarm your vision as you suck in a lungful of air.

When you look again, Changbin is grown. He looks like he did a day ago, dark bangs in his eyes, stocky build ready for a fight.

“I’m not leaving here without you.”

Not leaving here.

His voices dances around you. You are trapped in your body, a screaming, shrieking force, watching through dead eyes as the world spins. People pass but they don’t hear you. You try to reach for someone but your body doesn’t respond to your thoughts.

A labyrinthine stretch of road unfurls then disappears. You are standing in the infirmary at the main facility. You stare at yourself, the younger version of you. You are already dead behind the eyes, resigned to your situation. There are masked doctors around you. A tray full of needles. You watch as the long point penetrates your skin. You’re just a child, arm so small in comparison.

Your child face contorts with pain, an expression your adult face cannot mimic because you cannot control your face.

You remember the pain, even if you cannot cry. It was like nothing you had ever felt. The pain meant it was working. The medicant was only administered to you when it had been thoroughly tested. The first injection killed every subject except one. The second program was a success.

The children were writhing in pain for weeks, screaming and crying, begging for parents that never came. Yours did, looming over your bedside, touching your feverish forehead and speaking through the fog of pain.

An investment, Miroh called it. You’ll thank me one day.

Changbin is there. He is a child too. They put a needle in his skinny arm. He winces but he doesn’t cry. He isn’t scared of the needles or the pain, but he isn’t eager either. He is just there, his head down.

You blink and he is grown. The needle is still in his arm, only it is not an injection but an extraction. You watch the fullness of his face wither. They are taking too much. He becomes a child again, screaming in pain.

The same pain moves inside you.

No, worse.

Worse.

You never could have imagined a worse pain. It courses through your whole body, peeling apart your insides while you lay there, helpless, watching.

Your father stands over you. You’ll thank me one day.

He disappears. For a flickering moment, you see Bang Chan. Curly-haired, dimpled cheeks. He stutters and shakes like a bad film projection. His face contorts, changes. Wide dark eyes stare at you, his face covered in rain – water – tears? Pouring down his cheeks, mouth open and a mute cry in the grey.

You want to touch him but you cannot move. His face flickers again. You feel a tiny, infinitesimal twitch in your pinky.

Then he disappears altogether. Your father is there. He grabs you by the shoulders and slams you down, straight through the earth, holding you there in the darkness where no one can find you and you cannot move.

“Hey—” comes a voice, somehow reaching you in the depths of that pit. “Hey, hey, hey, wake up.”

In your dream, your father shoves you.

In reality, you are thrashing in a motel bed.

It takes a minute to realize you are awake, that everything was just a terrible dream. Your adrenaline is a white hot heat in your chest, your voice a strangled shriek as you clamour around the twisting sheets.

“Hey, it’s all right,” Chan says. “You’re just dreaming, whoa, easy, c’mon… It’s all good. Easy now. Breathe for me, okay?”

It feels like your first breath in years. It goes down shaky, your vision blurry. You realize Chan is holding your wrist, lightly but carefully. You blink up at him. He turned on the bedside light at some point. Half his face is lit in gold as he looks at you with concern. It is such a strange expression to see on him. These were the same eyes glaring at you over that uniform mask. Now that brow is pinched with worry, his own breath a staggered thing.

“You all right?” he asks.

You are sitting upright. You look at your wrist in his hand.

“Did I try to punch you again?” you ask.

“You missed,” he says, smiling. Then he shakes his head and says more seriously, “It was my fault. You were yelling in your sleep so I woke you up. I guess it was too fast or something. Just, you know, I don’t think the walls are very thick here.”

“Right,” you say. Your heart is still stampeding. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he says. “You… you good…?”

“Yeah,” you say. You are too weary for patience, so sarcasm spills out of you. “Peachy.”

He opens his mouth but you don’t wait to hear it. You slide out of bed and land on shaky legs. Your whole body is covered in a sheen of sweat. You want to shower, wash away the nightmare and the terror.

You are a light sleeper. You never dream like that. It is a testament to your exhaustion that you fell into such a deep sleep.

You tell yourself it was a dream, but your reassurances don’t work. Because it wasn’t really a dream, was it? It was flashes of real moments, real faces, real pain.

You stand under steady stream of hot water. You watch as the heat and the torrent opens a few scrapes, the water at your feet turning red. You think of Changbin with a needle in his arm, all that red pouring out of him. Standing there, helpless to do anything, like you are right now.

You have no idea where he is. You look at the scar on your palm and think of him in the moonlight, him in the ring, him at your side. A smile, a joke, a reassurance. A hand in yours, a promise.

He knew you better than you know yourself. He predicted this exact crisis of identity.

When it’s just you and you’re trying to decide who you want to be, not who your father wants you to be… When you’re trying to remember everything and you can’t decide what was real and what was just training and what was Miroh…

He drew that line across his palm. You picture a chasm of a wound, gaping and red, rushing red at your feet.

Just remember me, he said. I didn’t bleed because I believe in Miroh. I’m your soldier, not his.

True to his word, a man of principle to the end, he is bleeding for you right now.

In all your years of training, fighting, and soldiership, of missions and schemes, tricks and plots, you have always kept composure. Now it all weighs on you at once, every single second of your life, and it’s too much.

When was the last time you cried? You can’t even remember. It pours out of you now, big ugly gasping sobs that spill into the shower. You sit down where the water is pooling in pink. You wrap your arms around your legs and draw them up to your chest like a child.

You do not know how long you sit there, crying until it feels like there is no more water left in your body. It must be a long time because the water runs from hot to lukewarm. It feels strange to heave dry sobs with the shower still pouring down on you.

The water abruptly stops. You lift your head.

Chan stands there. He doesn’t look at you directly, his expression solemn, but he turns off the water and gets you a towel.

It feels surreal. Bang Chan is moving around a small motel bathroom, helping you like he has helped you all day. You stare at him with scrunched, sore eyes, your throat too strained to speak. You drop your legs and let him wrap the towel around you. Your heart kicks with momentary fright when he scoops you up, an effortless sweep.

No one has ever done something like this for you. You wouldn’t have let them, even if they tried.

You need it. You never realized how much you needed it. You are certain you will feel embarrassed in the morning, but right now you put your arms around his neck and cling for dear life.

He says nothing. He hooks an arm around your back and the other under your legs. He carries you back into the room and lays you in your bed, adjusting the towel for your modesty before pulling the blankets over you.

You continue to sputter and hiccup, looking at him as he moves. You wonder if he looks like this on a mission, determined and swift.

No. The First Guard wouldn’t fix the pillows under your head. He wouldn’t tuck the blankets around you.

Bang Chan stands over you, wearing nothing but his combat pants, no weapons or masks or piercing stares. He has curly dark hair and a soft face. When you touch his bare shoulder, he looks at you with a heart-shattering amount of tenderness. You didn’t know anyone could look at somebody that way, never mind him, never mind at you.

There’s a person inside him. There’s a person inside you. You don’t know who either of those people are, but you want to know. You need to know.

You curl your hand into a fist and feel the scar on your palm. A day ago, none of this would have mattered, but you know why it matters now.

“We have to find him,” you say. Your rasping voice is barely above a whisper.

Chan slowly cups his hand over yours, his palm to your knuckles, holding your touch against his shoulder. He squeezes your fingers. He nods.

“We will,” he says.

“You’ll help me?” you say.

“Yeah.” His own voice is a rasp, skirting the edge of emotion too. He swallows it down and smiles at you. “Like I said. I go wherever you go. Always.”

He sits with you in the soft golden light of that small bedside lamp. You do not think you can sleep again, but then exhaustion settles over you.

You are on the cusp of sleep when he touches your forehead. Your eyes meet briefly. It wakes you with a heart flutter, similar to a dream that drops you into reality. It is the heart-racing thump of a sudden fall. The kind that feels so real, more like a memory than a dream.

#bang chan x reader #chan x reader #bang chan x you #chan x you #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #skz x you #stray kids x you #bang chan fanfiction #stray kids fanfiction #skz fanfiction

404 notes · View notes

jaysgirlx · 9 months ago

Text

❝ 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ❞

❥ pairing: valentines jason todd x f!reader

❥ summary: this is your first valentine's day with jason after well he died and came back, he needs everything to be perfect for you to make for all the lost time.

❥ warnings: bit of angst, mentions of abuse/torture, tons of fluff & smut, unapproving dad Bruce Wayne

❥ wc: 4.3k

"Jason stop it, c'mon Bruce is going to catch us" you squealed, while your boyfriend pressed kisses all over your neck. "I don't want you to get banned from seeing me again, especially with Valentine's upcoming!"

Jason groaned and lifted his head up from your hickey-stained neck. "Even if Bruce does ban me, there's no way in hell I'm missing our first Valentine's," Jason says, laying his head on your chest. The two of you comfortably lay in your bed, cuddling while your parents were asleep a couple doors down.

You'd grown up with Jason, you'd always known him as a troublesome kid but that didn't stop you from developing a crush on the guy. You never thought of saying anything until you learned he'd gotten adopted after his dad kinda just disappeared.

For weeks you'd missed him, you missed how dumb antics, you missed the way he was always following you around and you missed his dumb smile. God, you loved that cheesy grin he always gave you..

Until one day he appeared on your doorstep, telling you that Bruce, his new dad was finally allowing him to visit his old friends. You thought he'd forgotten you but it was far from it and you knew then and there you definitely had a thing for Jason Todd.

It still took a while for either of you to confess your feelings. You thought you would crack first but Jason did instead when he learned that some guy from your school had a crush on you. He didn't mean for it to come out but he was just so jealous, "Why go out with him when you have me huh? I'd make a much better boyfriend. Just go out with me"

He wasn't wrong because he did, a week later you were on the best date of your life. Jason took you to this amazing amusement park that was happening in the middle of Gotham City. The whole night was spent on games and junk food, and Jason Todd got his kiss on the cheek that wasn't from Barbara.

Over time your relationship developed into something more, you couldn't help but spend more and more time with him. He eventually asked you to be his girlfriend and you've been his ever since.

"Well, I don't want to risk it okay? You need to get home before Bruce notices, don't you guys have patrol tonight"

"Okay fine, fine but first, I have something for you princess"

You watch as Jason pulls out what looks to be a ring box. "Woah, wash slow your roll buster, we are only 15 you can't freaking propose!" you whisper scream, praying that your shock wouldn't wake up your parents.

"Princess calm down, it's just a promise ring," Jason said rolling his eyes as if this was normal. "I wanted to give it to you before our date tomorrow, so you'll already be wearing it"

Jason sat up a bit and cleared his throat while he looked at you nervously, "I'm not sure if I've made this clear but…I love you y/n. Like really love you and you're the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with. So I got this promise ring, it's like a sign of me promising myself to you if that makes any sense"

"You love me?"

"Yes, I love you y/n and you don't have to say it back okay? We're young, I have years to come to hear you say it"

You were silent as he slipped the ring on your finger. You could tell from the moment he opened the box it wasn't cheap but you couldn't complain he bought it for you. Because he loved you. And you wanted to say it back but you were scared, scared to fully accept that you loved him.

Jason didn't care if you said it back or not because, in his eyes, you were the only one who accepted him. He looked at you sweetly and gave you a soft smile before getting out of your bed and heading towards your window. Now was the time to say it, to tell him you loved him but you just couldn't m

"I'll see you tomorrow okay sweetheart? I'll pick you up at 7" He says climbing out the window with one of his cheesy grins.

At the age of 15, you'd never be happier to be young and stupidly in love with Jason Todd. Ever since he moved in with Bruce, the two of you didn't get to see each other a lot, and that caused tension between him and Bruce. Jason believed he deserved a later curfew so he could visit you but Bruce was against it, he didn't think it was safe.

Tonight Jason snuck out to see you, the two of you had Valentine's Day plans and wanted to confirm them and we'll spend time with you. You were his world, you were one of the biggest reasons he became Robin. You were the one he wanted to protect no matter what and you knew that.

What you didn't know was this would be the last time you'd ever see Jason at least until you saw his casket. The two of you never celebrated your first Valentine's and you never got to tell Jason how much he meant to you. You never got to tell him how stupid he was for sneaking out, how much you didn't deserve this wrong, and that you did love him back.

7 years later

Everything had to be perfect.

Currently, it was February 14th and Jason had woken up with what was probably the worst news he could've gotten over a phone call.

Dear Mr.Todd, we're sorry to bother you on such a busy day but your reservation at Gotham Restaurant has been canceled due to a surge of higher-paying customers. We can reschedule your reservation for free at any time. We are sorry for this inconvenience.

"You're kidding me right!" Jason yelled, banging his fist against the wall. Out of a day, it had to snow today huh? Your first Valentine's since the two of you got back together. The first Valentine's since he died. Jason had never been able to give you the Valentines you deserved and when the two of you got back together, he immediately started planning.

"No Sir, we are very sorry for this inconvenience and we can try and get you another reservation elsewhere but-"

"Nowhere else is going to have any free spot and even ignoring that my girlfriend wants to go the Gotham Restaurant not anywhere else"

Well, that is what you had told him when he asked what restaurant would you like to go to that you hadn't been to yet. This wasn't how today was supposed to go. Jason had the whole day planned out. What should've been waking up in his followed by breakfast in bed, shopping, lunch, more shopping, dinner at your favorite place, a movie, dessert at your favorite ice cream shop, and ending with hopefully some cuddling if you didn't mind was now all ruined.

Jason had needed today to be perfect especially after you got over the fact that your dead boyfriend was not only alive but also vililangte who was formerly a crime lord. The fact you still wanted to be with him after all this time bewildered him this led him to believe he was probably on thin ice with you so today had to be perfect.

Since it was already Valentine's Day he knew no other restaurant would have any space for a reservation so that meant he'd probably have to cook the two of you dinner. Jason had quite the stocked fridge so he didn't see it as a bad idea but he knew you'd be disappointed for sure.

His entire relationship was riding on today being perfect and it was already failing. While Jason tried to get dressed he quickly noticed that it was already passed 8 o'clock. He was late, He said he'd make you breakfast in bed at 8 which made him late. Could today get any worse?

And it did when you told him you wouldn't eat breakfast with him because your boss really needed you at work for a couple of hours and he had already been on his way to your apartment. "I'll be back early enough for us to go shopping, and go to the restaurant. mkay? I guess we'll have to miss the movie" you said through the phone while simultaneously getting dressed for work. "Can't wait to go the Gotham Restaurant, can't believe you got us a reservation babe."

"Yeah about that…" Jason couldn't do this, he couldn't tell you that actually, you guys weren't getting dinner anywhere and that he was going to cook at home. You sounded so excited and so happy and he didn't want to be the reason that went away. "You'll love it alright. I'll pick you up from work around 6 for your shopping spree and then we'll get dinner"

"Jay I don't need to go shopping, dinner is enough really-"

"I want to take you shopping okay? I have enough saved up to spoil you and that's what I plan to do sweetheart"

Your heart hummed at the word sweetheart. It had been so long since Jason had called you that. It felt surreal because at times he didn't feel like Jason, well not like your Jason. The Jason who kissed you like his life depended on it, the Jason who was obsessed with holding your hand, the Jason who told you he loved you.

When Bruce called you and told you Jason was alive you didn't believe him. Jason was dead, you were at the funeral just like everyone else and knew how he died. A small part of you blame Bruce, this wouldn't have happened to Dick and even if it did he would've found him. Bruce tried telling you a couple more times but you ignored him. Your boyfriend, no your Jason was dead. The next time you hear about it was from Dick because Jason was out for blood. Joker's if we had to be specific.

You didn't want to believe him but Dick had loved Jason like they were biological brothers and you knew he wouldn't lie. He warned you that Jason was different and that I should be wary of him.

You took his advice and made sure not to walk home alone and tried not to go out at night but one day you had a rough day at work and you decided to visit Jason's grave. You left red dahlias on his tombstone and sat down next to it. You started talking to it about how your boss yelled at you and called you incompetent. "You would have called him an asshole for that if you were here," You told him how much you missed him. You knew he was alive but it felt so much easier talking to the tombstone because it felt like he was really there.

You did this consistently for about 2 months, you had caught on that someone was watching you. It was Dick because when you did actually see the figure they were much taller than Dick and they stayed hidden, Dick wouldn't have a reason to do that. It made sense to alert Dick but you didn't because you knew who it was and you weren't ready to face him.

Eventually, you heard from Dick that Jason had changed and that maybe you should talk to him but you still needed time. That didn't stop Jason from approaching you at your apartment. You were startled because your little high school boyfriend was suddenly 6 feet and over 200 pounds. He was practically all muscle and you were kinda scared. That didn't stop you from crying in his arms.

It took a while for the two of you to adjust to being in each other's lives especially when you never stopped having feelings for him. When you admitted that to him, he asked for a second chance. That he'd be yours even if you weren't his. So you let him be yours.

"Okayyy, I'll see you at 6 hun," you said just as you cut off the call.

Jason paces around his bedroom trying to figure out how the hell he was going to get the reservation back.

The two of you arrive at the mall, and you wait while Jason parks his motorcycle. It was shocking how there were barely any cars in the lot. Jason assumed that maybe people were just busy cause of Valentine's. You were so excited to go in that you ran over to the doors to get inside except you couldn't.

Closed for Construction, the sign read.

Jason didn't think today could get worse but it did. "No no no! This wasn't supposed to be Damn it!" He said angrily. He had even called the building, they were supposed to be opened. Construction wasn't for another 2 weeks, it was just his luck that they decided to start early. "Jason it's fine, I told you I don't need to go shopping. It was very thoughtful of you though to want to spoil me but you're already getting me dinner at the best restaurant in the city"

"There is no dinner! Our reservation got fucking and canceled and…Today is ruined y/n. Let me just take you home."

"Jason why didn't you tell me, I can promise you today is not ruined. Jay, are you even listening to me?"

Jason was hardly processing your words though because all he could think was losing you. You would dump him and he would go back to hating himself and his very existence. Would life go back to being a reminder that he died? He was tortured endlessly until he was finally out of his misery. No matter how hard the Joker tried to convince him that you hated him he wouldn't believe him. The part of you wearing his promise ring is what kept him going. What got him through the beating. What made it easier to look at the scars.

What left did he have if he wasn't able to love you. He was yours, he didn't know how to love others and he didn't want to because he would always love you. When he was watching you he realized that even though it had been 7 years you were still the same.

Still had the pretty smile and that contagious laugh, still had a knack for books and enjoyed it. You were still his, at least he believed so. And the one thing you asked him, he couldn't deliver. You messed up your first Valentine's and now he was going to mess up this one too.

"Jay for fucks sake, would you look at me!!"

Jason wasn't sure if it was that cursing that made him snap out of his spiral or maybe it was the fact that you were holding his hands. It had only been 2 weeks since he reintroduced himself into your life, and had been avoiding affection. He knew it was cause he was so big now and you were a bit scared. But right now you weren't. You were holding your hands with his. You were looking at him with what looked like pain and so much regret but you were smiling at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Just shut up okay? And listen to what I have to say"

After you had finally managed to calm him down you knew you needed to tell d him how you had felt. "When I lost you, I regretted so much Jay but what I regretted most was not telling you that I loved you and it hurt. It hurt knowing Joker had you and that you were in pain but what hurt more was that you were really gone."

You paused and slowed your breath a bit.

"I know it seems like you owe me something like you need to make up for lost time or show me you're worth love but I already know that Jay. I've been yours since we were kids, m'kay? "

"But I do owe you, I owe you the goddamn world if possible"

"For what Jay?"

"Accepting me again I know I'm different than I'm used to be. I'm more shut out and I know I definitely look different. There is so much you accepted just cause I love you"

You groaned annoyingly and raised your hand up and shook it in his face, "Have you even noticed that I'm still wearing this promise ring? The one you gave me?"

Jason had, you wondered why you still wore it. It was so tiny and was probably uncomfortable. It was a tiny gold band, he had paid Selina for that had a diamond on it. To others, it clearly looked like it could be an engagement ring and you still wore it because you still, did being to someone whether was dead or alive. People tried to convince you to move on and take off the ring but you didn't listen.

"You still have it..."

"Mhmm, believe me now?"

"How about we get dinner to go at some random place, come to my place and we'll eat and cuddle while watching some movies"

"You're okay with just that?"

"I'm okay with anything as long as I'm doing it with you Jay, that's the whole point"

Jason smiled and held you in his arms, "can't believe you're still all mine"

"C'mon let's go to the movie theater and see what they've got"

And that's exactly what you did.

The two of you were cozied up on your bed, with a bunch of food. Jason bought himself chili dogs and got you pancakes to make up for breakfast. Who knew pancakes tasted better at night?

Jason also bought 2 tubs of Ice Cream to substitute as dessert. You may not be eating at that fancy restaurant but you were still having the time of your life.

"I swear you hated chili dogs when I was alive?!"

"I always liked them I just never wanted to admit it else that would've been the only food we'd ever eat"

While the TV played in the background you looked over at Jason who looked the happiest he'd been all day. There he was, your Jason. He was there, under all those scars he was still there. Jason noticed you were staring you looked over at you, and leaned in to place a soft kiss on your lips. "I've missed the taste of your lips" he whispered quietly

He kissed you again and this time you wrapped your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. "I've missed you, Jay," you said in response. Jason didn't hands on his way to your hips and he pulled you closer, right onto his lap. You still hadn't adjusted to Jason being so big, so when your hands found your way to his muscles you were surprised to feel him groan while you felt him up a bit.

"Sweetheart, if you keep this up I'm going to do something you might regret"

"I didn't regret my first time with you, I'm not going to regret it now babe"

He groaned again this time grinding his hips upwards against yours. Jason swiftly switches your position, putting you underneath him. His kisses quickly became more eager while his hips rutted into you, "Baby, I don't have any-"

"Don't need it, got on the pill a couple years back" you said softly, gripping his shirt. "I promise I want this, so let's get these out for he was please?"

Your pleas were enough for Jason to take off your dress, you'd worn a red satin dress. He'd always liked you in red, especially when it was just for him. Jason had on a tux except he replaced the jacket with his favorite leather one. Regardless, he still looked so good, as he always did.

His leather jacket was already on your bedroom floor, you tried to undress him but he stopped you. "The scars…I don't want to scare you again"

"You won't, I promise. I'll even kiss them, they're a part of you Jay and you're mine" you say tugging on his shirt. With a sigh, he silently takes off his shirt. You raise your hand to touch him but stop and make sure it is okay. He doesn't verbally answer but he gives you a nod. You trace his scars with your finger but one sticks out the most, his neck scar.

You move your face closer to his neck, and kiss his scar, "You're still as beautiful as ever, you're still my Jason" you say while you pull away from his neck. Before you can even read his reaction, Jason kisses you again, rough and with more of a need. Jason had told you he'd met other people but in the end, he could ever think of you. You were the only person who made it just for him.

You'd had your own set of boyfriends which all seemed to end up the same, they'd get too close and you'd dump them. You couldn't imagine loving anybody the way you loved Jason. Jason's body pressed against yours with his hand on your back, pushing you into him. Your hands made your way to his pants, tugging at the waistband. "Patient baby, I'll take em off for you"

The sound of a belt hit your floor but you didn't care, you kept kissing him like your life depended on it. You didn't fully remember when Jason took off your underwear but you remember him, "Jay when did get so..."

"big?" he finished for you with a chuckle, "Yeah, there's a lot you're going to have to get used to with me" His tip pressed at your cunt, earning a disapproving groan for you. You didn't like how slow he was going, you knew he was doing it because he didn't want to hurt you but you weren't 15 anymore you could take it.

You wrap one leg around his waist pushing against his back. Jason liked the way you squirmed underneath him, practically begging for him to fuck you. After a couple minutes, he gave in and sunk his cock right into you. Your nails dug into his back, feeling the stretch of his cock inside you. You felt so embarrared you came on his cock from just him entering"

"Did you just-"

"Shut up please"

Jason looked down at you, his cheeks flushed red, while he was breathing very quickly

"Jay why aren't you moving"

"Can't baby"

"What do you mean you can't?"

"I mean if I move, I'm going to cum on the spot sweetheart so please bare with me" he groaned out, trying to adjust to your warm cunt hugging his cock. Slowly he began to move, using one hand to grip the sheets in hopes he wouldn't blow his load too quickly. His other hand was on his hip, trying to steady your body. Your hands were on his face, caressing his cheeks. Whenever he blushed it was so obvious, you used to tease him all about it even though you loved it.

He down to capture your lips again, allowing your arms to find themselves around his neck. Each thrust was messier than the last, getting rougher after each second. Sex now was so much more different than when the two of you were teens. Jason did things you didn't even know he could do. Once he'd found your g-stop he began to abuse it, earning a chocked moan from you every time. He was studying what you liked, what made you feel good and you loved him.

He let go of the sheets and placed both hands on your hips, giving you even tougher thrusts and even biting on your neck. Your entire body was on fire, you were overwhelmed notnonkynfrom his size but the feeling of Jason's body pressing into yours. You couldn't feel so good.

You always knew Jason was a bitter, also long as he didn't draw too much blood you were alright with it. A soft moan left your mouth as you came again, cum running down your thighs while Jason continued to fuck you. Jason thought about overstimming, making you beg for him to stop because you'd feel too good.

"Didn't know my girl was into biting" He said, while lifting up one of your legs to push deeper into you. You'd cum for tbr second time but he needed you cum one last time at least before he came. The rough slaps of skin and moans filled the room. Making it hard for you to not cum again on the spot. You felt so good you couldn't even complain that he was teasing you "Fuck you're really sensitive sweetheart"

You hid your face in the crook of his neck while his hips pounded into yours. Your legs shook while you whispered in his ear, "If you don't stop m'gonna cum again, Jay pleaseeeee"

He didn't stop though, instead, you came another two times. Makes a mess of cock. "Such a good girl f'me, just let me fill you up and we'll be done. I promise sweetheart" He gripped your hips tightly before releasing inside you. The two of you exchanged a couple more kisses while you both rode out your orgasms.

You whimpered while he pulled out of you, missing his warmth already. He watched as his cum poured out of you, dripping on the sheets. You laid back on the bed, while he hovered over you for a brief moment.

Once he laid down next to you and though he was panting he pulled your body onto his lap. You rested your head on his chest just as he used to do to you. That reminded you, there was something you needed to say, "Jay can I say something I've been holding in for a long time, yeah?"

"Mhmm, what is it, sweetheart?"

"Jason Peter Todd, I love you"

❥ a/n: happy valentine's to all my lovelies!! i hope everyone enjoys this fic and also has a nice valentines day, whether it's with someone or by themselves.

❥ taglist: @meowkn, @kazzattack, @woodenanemone, @yourlocalcringydaydreamer , @orchidsangel, @millyhelp

820 notes · View notes

morverenmaybewrites · 24 days ago

Text

Jason Todd x Reader | Perspective on Love

How has their understanding of love changed? asked by @/citrussaurus

Heartbreaking take: I don’t think it has (yet).

Sometimes, people who have undergone severe trauma can be mentally frozen at that age–and Jason has a lot of trauma to go around.

As a child, Jason had been abused–both emotionally and physically–by both of his parents: his mother was a drug addict, meanwhile his father was an abusive drunkard.

There wasn’t a lot of warmth in that rundown shack in East End, and he quickly learned to fend for himself.

I think, as a child, all Jason ever knew of love are fleeting glimpses of it, unformed and unfamiliar, like the roiling shadows underneath the waters of Gothams: a girl from East End will choose to give her jacket to her sister, even if it means risking frostbite herself, a homeless man, so thin that you can count the grooves of his ribs, gives up his meal so that his dog can eat for the night.

And he’ll watch these and he’ll think, Why? Why give up your comfort for the sake of another person?

Not because he’s a naturally hard person, but because even as a kid, he became what he needed to be to survive.

And nothing soft ever survives in Gotham City.

Maybe he’ll experiment, the way children often do: he gives up a night’s worth of food to leave it beside his mother, so that she’ll have something to eat when she wakes up, he’ll drape a moth-eaten blanket over her despite the fact that it will leave him cold for the rest of the time.

Most of the time, she’ll ignore these gestures, but sometimes she’ll reward him.

(And that is what Jason thinks of it as: a reward).

The weight of her hand on top of his head, ruffling his hair, a blank but well-meaning smile, the briefest touch of her lips against his forehead.

And you know what? For a long time, he’ll think that is love. Because it felt warm, good, to be seen by someone, to have one’s presence be wanted, needed.

(And when one is starving, even the scraps of something is better than the absence of it. He is from East End, after all. He’s learned to make do with what he has.)

When Bruce adopts Jason, he brings this mentality with him, for one does not so easily forget lessons that take a lifetime to learn.

The setting changes, but the idea remains the same: love is a reward, something to be earned, its scraps something to be fought over, like any other resource.

And I think Bruce (who, make no mistake, does love his children) did little to dissuade him from this fact.

Maybe it’s the simple, immutable fact that all parents cut their children in a hundred different ways, no matter how much they love them. Or maybe it’s Bruce’s own version of love: the obsessive, almost manic way he demands perfection from his family and himself.

(After all, how can the world hurt you if everything is made perfect, every mistake corrected, every weakness categorized and accounted for?)

But I think this attitude only strengthens Jason’s love-is-something-to-be-earned mentality. He thinks that this newfound family’s love will only be earned if he himself is perfect: if every target is hit through the bull’s eye, every case solved within twenty-four hours, every training session performed to Batman’s exacting standards.

His kidnap and subsequent torture by the Joker only made it worse. Deep down, I think Jason thinks that if he did everything right, if he didn’t disobey Batman that night, if he had turned on his trackers, if he was the perfect little golden boy his family expected him to be, then maybe they would have loved him enough to keep searching for him, to find him.

(To not abandon him to his fate.)

I think deep down, Jason feels as if he’s done something that made him unworthy of being loved, and (either consciously or unconsciously) constantly does things he believes will help him earn it.

Deep down, he’s still that little boy from East End, the one who’d do anything just to feel a bit of affection, because the scraps of something is better than the absence of it.

Now, how does this affect his relationship with you?

I think Jason tries to be the perfect partner.

(Emphasis on tries, he knows little about people, and less about relationships, but dear God, he tries.)

Jason’s quiet in a way that suggests that he’s almost scared to disturb the space around you. He cleans up after himself (and you) with an almost military precision. Some of it is simply habit, things he picked up over the years. Growing up among the dust and dirt and refuse in East End, he hates seeing anything dirty.

But most of it?

It’s Jason trying not to make a nuisance of himself.

After all, you’re a lot less likely to ask him to leave if he’s, at the very least, a good roommate.

And while he’s always been observant, he pays attention to you to an almost unnerving degree. The things that you like, the things that make you laugh, and most importantly, the things you dislike.

As a child in East End, doing or saying the wrong thing might mean hard words and harder fists and a night on the cold concrete, curled up around his bruises like a soft-shelled thing.

As a teenager, it might mean Bruce’s disappointment: so thick and heavy that it was almost suffocating. Jason thinks that he will never forget the way it filled all of the space in the room and made it hard to breathe.

(And how, everytime he failed, he expected to be told to pack his bags the next day).

But with you?

It somehow feels worse, it feels as if he has a lot more to lose. This formless, nameless thing between the two of you, so fragile it feels like glass in his hands.

So he tries to be the perfect partner. Exhausting as it is, unsustainable as it is, for no one canbe perfect all the time.

Still, Jason tries.

Because he’s from East End, because he’s from Wayne Manor, and finally because he’s Jason Todd and all his life he’s been content on living on scraps and here you are handing him your whole heart as if it’s nothing at all and he has no idea what he has done to earn it.

(So he does a little bit of everything. Hoping it will be enough. it has to be enough.)

Every time he makes your coffee just the way you like it (despite you never telling him how) and carefully leaves it by your side, as if the act of handing it to you would make him a nuisance.

Every time he quietly picks up after you without complaint, despite you calling that it’s all fine and that the two of you should just crash on the couch and watch a movie.

Every little thing he does to try and be perfect, is him asking you to please, please, find him worthy, to look at him and find something worth loving.

It is him asking you to please let him stay.

#jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #arkham knight x reader #jason todd #red hood #arkham knight #ask game

188 notes · View notes

i-am-the-n1-trash · 2 months ago

Text

I'm rereading Tim Drake: Robin and honestly, Tim and Bernard's relationship just makes me so emotional. The fact that they both see each other as the 'bad one' in the relationship, with the other being their 'savior' says so much about their previous relationships.

Tim's biggest canon relationship is obviously Steph and, though I love her to death, their relationship was at points extremely unhealthy, and Tim was often shamed for his actions. He's the bad guy when Bruce won't let him tell her his name. He's the bad guy when Darla kisses him without consent. He's the bad guy for avoiding her when she comes back from faking her own death (against her will, I'm aware, but still), even though their relationship hadn't been in good terms at all when she 'died'.

Though Tim has his fair share of romantic relationships, only two outside of Steph, to me, are as meaningful or well-known enough to warrant exploring, and those are Ariana and Tam (There was definitely guilt with Lynx, but that was from the "she's possibly a criminal" kind, and his issues with Cassie come from a very different place too.)

In both these relationships, there are many times where Tim sees himself as the bad guy. With Ariana, he struggles with his growing feelings for Steph and the guilt of keeping a secret identity from someone he loves, not to mention the fact this is his first serious relationship and he constantly feels like he's messing up. With Tam, the secret isn't a problem anymore, but he ends up constantly putting her in danger just from knowing him, and that puts him off the idea of pursuing a relationship with her altogether.

With Bernard, though, it's the first time in a long time he has a complete fresh start. He's been stuck in a cycle of breaking up and making up with Steph, because they see each other as safe and familiar, but even that is something Tim feels guilty for.

Bernard is someone he knew, who Tim has enough history with to trust him, but who he is still getting to know now as the adults they've become, with no expectations of each other. He still sees himself as the bad guy, as the liar hiding his identity from him. They have a couple step backs, like when Tim has to ask him about the cult as Robin, but even then Bernard makes it clear that while he's angry, he understands why he's doing it, by doubling down on the fact that, regardless of Tim's current actions, their relationship is still a happy part of Bernard's life. (This comfort doesn't work that well, because Tim is a dumbass who doesn't realize Bernard knows he's Robin, but I digress.)

Essentially, to Tim, Bernard is the first baggage-free relationship he's had for a very long time, and he's somewhat plagues by the secrets he's keeping from him. To Tim, he is lying and putting him in danger, and Bernard, who he sees as a bright light in his life, deserves better.

On the other hand, we don't have that much info on Bernard's past relationships outside of Darla/Laura and Tim, but it's still easy to see that this boy is overflowing with self-deprecation.

In both Batman: Urban Legends and Tim Drake: Robin we see that his parents are, in the first one, very unaware of his life, and, in the second one, incredibly disapproving of his 'lifestyle' and even borderline emotionally abusive. Bernard really never met their expectations since he was young, and while he seems almost dismissive of this, you can tell it strikes him deep.

The one big thing we know about Bernard is the cult, and that already tells us everything we need to know. No one joins a cult if they have lot of self-love and confidence, especially not when the cult's main idea is to let go of all your problems through torture.

So when Tim, a guy he's had a crush on for years, someone he knows (or eventually finds out, the timeline is ambiguous) is not only a superhero, but his favorite superhero, Robin, he sees himself as dirty. As tainting Tim's heroism. Bernard is a likely depressed queer kid who fell victim to a cult, who has a history of self harm, with a bad relationship with his parents. To him, Tim is the one good thing in his life, and he says it outright even when they are having what's possibly their first big fight (unbeknownst to Tim, who, as I mentioned, is a dumbass <3).

He doesn't blame Tim at all for lying or keeping a secret identity, because Bernard sees himself as second to Robin in Tim's eyes and never once tries to fight back on that idea. Bernard considers Robin to be more important than himself, in general, and doesn't see anything wrong with that. To Bernard, Tim is the best thing that has ever happened to him, and the fact that they're dating is a blessing he doesn't believe he deserves.

In conclusion, these should like. Talk to each other. Please. And also both go to therapy. They love each other so much

#anyway this is my essay as to why the seraph from 35mm is the timbern song ever #also this is a half assed character essay ok please no one get mad at me if i accidentally said something wrong i am just a girl #dc give bernard more screen time right now or die #the reason people complain he's boring is bc 1. they haven't read td:r and 2. DC WONT LET HIM SHOW UP ANYWHERE ELSE #anyways. tis past my bedtime and im insane about these two #tim drake #bernard dowd #timbern #dc #dc comics #my post #mi's late night rants

190 notes · View notes

gwenthebard · 1 year ago

Text

I love Nimona for like, literally saying "not everyone can be saved by being shown the truth". The Director literally sees a teenager (?) attempt to impale herself on a sword, get saved by a man literally saying he's there for her, and watches her cry into his arms because he cared enough to save her, and still is willing to blow up half the city to kill her

There's no hesitation or moment of regret, she's thoroughly brainwashed with hate and would have been happy if Nimona did impale herself. She wouldn't have slept wrong if she had blown up the city. There was never a story where The Director was redeemed

So often in media with these themes there's an idea that everyone can be redeemed if people talked, that everyone has a potential to become good, that even the worst villain can want to do good in the world and give up their hatred. She Ra literally had the emotionally abusive mom Shadow Weaver still manage to turn around to help her kids. The idea that, if you spend enough time with someone and put enough effort into them, they will change

Nimona was almost a breath of fresh air for being able to say "yeah, sometimes people are bastards and too thoroughly set in the ways they grew up in. Sometimes you can't just give a grand gesture and speech and make everyone change their mind. It's not your fault, and you don't need to torture yourself trying to justify your existence to these people"

#nimona

2K notes · View notes

zepskies · 2 months ago

Text

Lost on You - Part 11

Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x F. Supe!Reader

Summary: 1983 is a big year for you. You’re finally chosen to join the ranks of Payback, led by the most (in)famous supe in the world: Soldier Boy. He’ll never admit that he’s trying his damndest to figure you out. You’ll never admit that he’s actually growing on you. But the problem with this game is deciding who’s the predator, and who is prey.

AN: In this episode, we're in for a team up, Greek mythology, and possibly the biggest reveal yet…

Word Count: 3.2K

Tags/Warnings: Angst, mentions of abuse/torture, PTSD, violence, and another cliffhanger (sorry).

🎵 YouTube Playlist || Spotify Playlist

🎙️ Series Masterlist

Part 11: Heroes and Monsters

The only thing the TNT Twins ever bought with their money was a lavish mansion in Vermont. It was high on a hill, flanked by forest, and therefore perfectly secluded when Ben and Donna broke through the oak wood doors of their house.

“Hey, kids,” said Ben. He strolled into the living room with a smooth, purposeful gait.

The twins jumped with a start on the couch. A loud and crass action movie was playing on the screen.

“Ben,” Tessa gasped.

“Donna?!” Tommy said, pointing from Donna to Ben. “What…what’re you guys…how did you get…”

“Ooh, is that Pulp Fiction? I wanted to see that one,” Donna remarked. Her brows furrowed. “But wait, it’s still in theaters. How’d you get a VHS?”

“Oh, um, Tarantino gave me a copy as a favor, so we wouldn’t have to sit in the theater with all the mouth breathers,” Tessa said, with a wrinkle of her nose.

Tommy’s face slid into a smirk. He raised a conspiratorial hand to his mouth and pointed at his sister.

“She sucked his dick.”

That tidbit of information was accompanied by a lewd hand motion, and gagging sounds. Tessa angrily punched her brother in the shoulder.

Ben raised a brow. He made slow steps forward with an edge of menace. The twins caught on and stood up straighter, but somehow looked even more like cowards as they immediately started groveling.

“We’re so, so sorry, Ben,” Tessa tried.

“It wasn’t our idea,” Tommy added. The twins backed up near the glass doors, Tommy nearly tripping on the Persian rug.

“Of course it wasn’t,” said Ben. “You idiots barely have two brain cells to rub together.”

“Please don’t kill us,” Tessa pleaded. “Or at least, not me. I didn’t really do anything—”

“You bitch!” Tommy said incredulously.

“Shut the fuck up!” Ben snapped. “Here’s what’s gonna happen.”

He was stopped short by a rigorous shootout on the screen as the movie played. The sound of it was like a machine gun, bullets spraying over and over. It made his breath hitch. His eyes began to glaze over as a memory overtook his vision. Of being strapped to that metal slab, and Eisenstein and his team trying to find out what could actually hurt him, on the inside.

Ben’s chest grew impossibly hot. Distantly he heard voices calling his name.

Before he even realized what he was doing, the smell of burning filled the air, and that terrible, nuclear power escaped from his chest.

When he came to, he blinked the gaudy living room back into frame. Except now, it was burnt to a crisp. There was a large gaping hole where the French doors and most of the wall used to be, leading to a sunny day.

The TNT Twins were gone.

Shaking the fog and blackness from his mind, he turned and only saw Donna. She’d been cowering behind a piano. Slowly she came out of her hiding place with wide, horrified eyes.

“What the fuck did they do to you?” she whispered.

Instead of answering her, Ben strode out of the ruins and grabbed her arm, hefted her to her feet, and took her back to the car. She slid into the driver’s seat and started the car with shaking hands. He settled in the passenger seat and got out the cell phone he'd stashed in the dashboard compartment.

“Yeah?”

“Arthur, it’s me,” Ben said.

“How’d it go with the TNT Twins?”

“They can’t help.”

“What? Why’s that?”

“Because they’re fucking charcoal, that’s why,” Ben snapped. There was a pause on the other line.

“Okaaay,” Arthur said. “Well, I’m still working on some leads on Sirena. In the meantime, I found Gunpowder. He had a little unfortunate incident at a gun show in Texas, so he’s on some mandated R&R.”

Ben blew out a frustrated breath, but he nodded. “Where?”

“Kempton, Pennsylvania.”

Ben and Donna arrived at the Hawk Mt. Shooting Range. There were several steps up to the main building, then even more forest behind as it surrounded the base of a mountain.

“There’s literally a Hawk Mountain Sanctuary not even an hour from here. It’s like going to Sea World to hunt Shamu,” Donna groused.

“Would you shut the fuck up already?” he said. “I don’t want to hear any more of your tree-hugging bullshit.”

“That’s another thing. You’re always so fucking belittling,” she said with a glare sent his way. “Does Sirena like that about you? Or is she just deaf and blind?”

Ben grabbed her arm and yanked her to a stop. He raised a warning finger.

“Keep her name out of your fucking mouth,” he said darkly. “One more smartass word and I’ll sure as shit make you regret it.”

Donna’s mouth snapped shut. She was still angry, but she had the presence of mind to avert her eyes. When he was satisfied, Ben released her. They kept walking, but no matter how he tried to shut her words out, they kept filtering back into his mind.

You’re a bully. A fucking monster. And sooner or later, she won’t be able to stomach you anymore.

He managed to push that thought to the back of his mind as they entered the building. Donna either knocked out or killed the handful of staff members, while Ben continued on to the back of the shooting range.

Well then. Someone ate their fucking Wheaties.

Gunpowder was a bit bigger since Ben last saw him. He hardly recognized his former sidekick, now a grown-ass man in his late 20s. At least he wasn’t so scrawny anymore.

And he heard the moment Ben stepped into the outdoor range. After he fired off one more birdshot, Gunpowder whipped around with a large shotgun in hand. His face fell into shock when he saw Ben.

A dead pigeon landed on the ground between them.

“Charlie,” Ben greeted, with a tilt of his head. He stalked forward. The man opposite was frozen in shock, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d pulled the trigger on his gun anyway.

“S-Soldier Boy—”

Ben ripped the weapon out of his hand. He closed a hand around the younger man’s throat and walked him back until he hit the fake mountain wall that framed the shooting range.

“Ben, he didn’t even know!” Donna said from behind.

Charlie shook his head in agreement. “I didn’t! I swear—”

“Oh, I know. But I bet you didn’t ask any fucking questions, did you?” Ben said.

He remembered that day with perfect clarity. He remembered how the rest of them turned on him.

Except for you.

“But you’re gonna make it up to me,” Ben said, with a grim smile.

Charlie was shocked, as if he’d expected a quick death. “H-How?”

“You’re going to help me find someone.”

“Who?”

“Sirena.” Ben’s lips twitched humorlessly at the ashen look on Charlie’s face. “You remember her, right? She’s the other teammate you guys sold out and giftwrapped for the fucking Commies.”

Ben slammed him harder against the wall, and his chest began to glow. Charlie’s face fell further into fear and horror.

“Ben!” Donna warned. She didn’t dare touch him, but Ben could feel her close by. He glanced at her over his shoulder.

“The TNT Twins were probably useless, but we need him,” she reminded him. “We need every body we can throw at this.”

Ben hated to admit it (so he wouldn’t), but she had a point. It took him a minute to wrangle in his ire, taking deep breaths to try and calm the power inside him. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

This time, it actually worked.

His hand fell back to his side, letting Charlie breathe freely.

“Let’s go.” Ben turned on his heel and headed out.

“Where, uh…where’re we going?” Charlie asked, rubbing his sore neck.

“Looks like we’re getting the team back together,” Ben said grimly.

He tilted his head.

“Well. What’s left of it.”

Two weeks seemed to be an eternity in this cell. Somehow it was even more dull than when you were in Siberia. At the very least, the torture broke up the day.

Vogelbaum had taken a few vials of your blood to analyze, but otherwise, you were left alone.

Your only companion was John, who you discovered was just a ten-year-old kid. He was occupying one of the untold number of cells in this lab. You couldn’t pinpoint exactly where he was, but he felt close by.

You two had been having daily conversations. He told you that he’d grown up on this compound, in the very room they held him in. He didn’t remember his parents, if he had any. He only remembered Dr. Vogelbaum, some guy named Marty, and a few others in the facility.

All of them had run experiments of their own on him. It had broken your heart to hear it from a child.

They’ve burned me a lot, he admitted once, with a sniffle. It never leaves a mark, but…it hurts.

I know, bud. I’ve been burned before, you said, disheartened for him. They wanted to find out how strong you are, huh?

Yeah, I guess. What about you?

Not very, is the answer. I’m more durable than the average human, and I heal a little faster, but…not that strong. My powers don’t really help me as much physically.

What’re your powers?

Well…I’m a siren.

You sensed his confusion. He didn’t know what that was, though he maybe didn’t want to admit it.

Have you ever seen adventure movies? You know, the ones about pirates and buried treasure? you asked.

Um, I’ve seen movies, but Vogelbaum called them documentaries.

What were they about?

Pioneers in the Wild West. The old South. How we conquered the Indians, and why America’s the best country in the world. Stuff like that.

You grimaced. So that wasthe kind of education he was getting in this place.

Okay, a lot to unpack there later, you said. But anyway, you read books, right?

Yeah. They give me a lot of books.

That, you could work with.

Okay, have you ever read The Odyssey? Greek mythology.

Y-Yeah. I remember Odysseus. He’s a hero.

Right, exactly. Well, one of the creatures he comes across on his journey are the sirens. In the story, they live on an island. They’re beautiful women, with beautiful voices. They lure sailors in with their songs and their magic, and the men fall under their spell, every time. They end up wrecking their ships and falling to their deaths.

So…the sirens are monsters.

Yeah, they are, you agreed. Your shoulders deflated with your deep sigh.

I can…compel people. If I touch them, I can make them do whatever I want. Especially men. I know when they’re lying. I know what’s in their hearts when they look at me. And I’ve used that to my advantage. To use them.

That fell between you two for a moment. You could sense John thinking, processing.

Do you like your powers? John asked.

You smiled humorlessly.

No, you answered. You’d never admitted that to anyone before. They’re meant to manipulate people, to hurt people.

I don’t want to hurt people, John said, after a beat. But…I um. I did a couple times. You know, on accident.

I’ve known people who hurt others on purpose, because they can. Because it’s fun. You don’t sound like one of those people.

I don’t want to be. They…want me to be a hero one day.

His voice sounded small again, and almost scared. Like he was afraid of what he could do, and possibly, what Vogelbaum and Stan Edgar and everyone else wantedhim to be.

Well, that’s good. You should never hurt someone just because you can. Or even, just because someone hurt you, you advised, even knowing you were a hypocrite.

Then, an idea formed in your mind. How many times had they burned him without leaving a single mark?

Are you strong, John? you asked him.

Yeah, he replied.

For the first time since you woke up in this nightmare of a place, your smile was genuine.

How strong?

Ben claimed the master bedroom for himself. Charlie and Donna took root on the couch, catching up and reminiscing on how their careers had shaken out after Payback was dismantled. Donna mostly complained about being a permanent fixture at Voughtland.

“At least they got you set up with something stable,” Charlie said. He passed a blunt back to Donna after a long puff. “I never know where the hell I’m gonna be, week after week. Always putting me up in some piece of shit hotel.”

“At least you don’t have to take pictures with snot-nosed kids all day,” she replied, though she eyed him with a smile. Charlie caught the look, with a smile of his own.

“You look good,” he said. “I like the haircut.”

“Oh, stop.” She absently toyed with a strand of her shoulder-length hair. She’d been dying it a deeper red lately. “You really grew into that helmet though.”

He chuckled bashfully. Said helmet was resting on the coffee table, next to the big bag of weed Ben had bought on the way to Virginia. Charlie leaned closer to her and pointed a finger toward wherever their esteemed leader had fucked off to.

“He’s smoking like a chimney, even more than he used to,” Charlie said.

“He’s self-medicating,” Donna nodded. “The Russians did a number on him.”

Part of her maybe twinged with guilt, but even now, she felt justified in her decisions. It wasn’t like she could go back and change anything. Still, if she had known that it would all end up here…

“Christ,” Charlie shook his head.

They stopped their conversation when Ben’s heavy boots thudded back into the room. It seemed that he’d finished his nap, and now ventured out in search of booze. He grabbed the whiskey bottle on the dining table and a glass from the kitchen to give himself a generous pour.

“Uh, I’m thinking we could get some food,” Charlie broached. He got up from the couch. “I don’t mind grabbing something for us.”

“Sit your ass down,” Ben said sharply. He nodded at the landline phone. It sat on an accent table next to the couch. “Order something that delivers, because no one’s going any-fucking-where.”

Charlie pressed his luck one more time. “I’ll be right back, I swear—”

Ben sent him a look of warning. It was enough to make the younger man deflate in surrender.

“Pizza it is,” he said. When Ben turned to head back to his room, Charlie couldn’t help muttering, “For the third time in a row.”

Ben heard him, of course, but he just rolled his eyes. He returned to the bedroom and cracked up the radio on the nightstand. He couldn’t stand hearing any more of Donna and Charlie bickering about what to put on the pizza or what to watch on TV. In a way, it reminded him of old times.

Fuck old times, he thought. He didn’t even much enjoy them the first go around.

He set his glass down on the nightstand and laid in bed over the covers, folding his hands over his chest. He closed his eyes, but rest wouldn’t come to him. He thought of you, and where those bastards at Vought might be keeping you. He could only imagine what they were doing to you, and by now, he had a good imagination.

His jaw clenched with anger, and he drew a hand over his face in frustration.

He felt like he’d already failed.

He’d promised you that you weren’t going back to a cell, that he wouldn’t allow it…and that he’d protect you.

Believe it or not, Ben knew what he was; or more accurately, what he wasn’t. Despite how he’d propped himself up otherwise, deep down, he knew he wasn’t a hero.

But if he could make just one honest save in his long, long life, he’d be damned if it wasn’t you.

No matter how you tried to convince him, John was reluctant to try and escape his cell. You sensed that he didn’t want to leave the facility, even after everything they’d done to him.

At the end of the day, you realized, this was the only life he knew.

Look, I know you’re scared, but we can help each other, you tried to reason with him. I have a…well, I have a boyfriend. His name is Ben. I know he’s looking for me, but I’m not sure he’ll find me here. I need to get back to him before Vought tries anything else.

John didn’t answer you. You sighed. Maybe a softer approach…

What scares you most about leaving? you asked.

I don’t know! Look, just…just leave me alone!

John, wait—

I said leave. Me. ALONE!

The force of his shouted thoughts made you wince. The connection snapped back on you like a rubber band as you lost focus, giving you a stinging headache that radiated behind your eyes. You gasped and rubbed at your temples.

You felt bad for pushing him, but you really needed his help, damn it.

Just when you were about to try and reach out to John again to apologize, and hopefully soothe him, the door of your cell opened.

Vogelbaum was back with a couple of guards armed with tasers and guns. This time, the doctor had a few more empty vials.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

You pursed your lips, but you made no moves to evade him when he came over to sit beside you on your cot. He swabbed at the inside of your arm where he intended to pierce a vein with the needle he held, followed by vials one, two, three, and four of your blood.

“What are you taking my blood for, exactly?” you demanded to know. This was the second time already. “What happens after I fulfill your objective as bait, and you try to set your little trap for Ben?”

Vogelbaum glanced up at you. “We’re not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Somehow, that still didn’t make you feel any better.

“And why is that?”

“I’m taking your blood to run additional genetic tests,” he said, for the moment ignoring your question.

“Why? What genetic tests?” you pressed.

“Well, this is something we haven’t seen before. It’s going to require a closer look, and some close monitoring of your progress.”

Despite his stoic expression, you sensed a spark of interest in him, of clinical fascination. It reminded you of Dr. Eisenstein. Immediately you were set on edge. Prickles of unease crept down your spine and made you feel cold.

“What do you mean? The Russians’ experiments didn’t do much of anything,” you lied.

“I’m not talking about that,” said Vogelbaum. He finished taking your blood, removed the needle, and cleaned you up.

“Then what?” you snapped. You were losing patience and getting even more worried.

Vogelbaum applied a small bandage where he’d pricked you with the needle, then stepped away.

“Congratulations,” he said in his usual monotone, as he pocketed the vials. “You’re pregnant.”

AN: 🫣 hides until next week lol

Next Time:

We come to Payback's Avengers: Civil War moment!

“Look, we don’t have to do this,” Charlie tried. “Just let him get Sirena out of there. After what you guys did, she doesn’t deserve that.”

Ben glanced at his former sidekick. He actually seemed sincere.

Too bad Noir wasn’t about to go for it. He had Vought’s dick so far up his ass, he wouldn’t likely take a shit without Stan Edgar’s say so. He crouched into a fighting stance and unsheathed his katana. The rest of the guards poured in to flank around him and Mindstorm.

Ben rolled a crack out of his neck.

“Fine. If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you’ll fucking get,” he said.

Noir started charging at him first, but Donna shot off a fireball in his direction.

Chaos ignited from there.

▶️ Keep Reading: PART 12

Join Patreon 🌟 || Series Masterlist

Soldier Boy Masterlist || Main Masterlist

Soldier Boy Tag List:

If you would like to follow along as I post each chapter, please follow my side blog @zepskieswrites with notifications on so you don’t miss out. 💚

@spnwoman @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @adoringanakin @rizlowwritessortof @chernayawidow

@midnightmadwoman @deans-spinster-witch @chriszgirl92 @lyarr24 @ladysparkles78

@deansbbyx @sarahgracej @this-is-me19 @kazsrm67 @jacklesbrainworms

@foxyjwls007 @iamsapphine @roseblue373 @lacilou @fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like

@waynes-multiverse @my-stories-vault @syrma-sensei @alwaystiredandconfused @globetrotter28

@mrsjenniferwinchester @charmed-asylum @waywardxwords @k-slla @deanbrainrotwritings

@jackles010378 @deans-daydream @deanwinchestersgirl87 @rachiem4-blog @just-levyy

@leigh70 @kmc1989 @ghostslillady @siampie @jessjad

@beautyvaliant @mimaria420 @kaleldobrev @pieandmonsters @twinkleinadiamondsky

@stoneyggirl2 @sl33pylilbunny @spnfamily-j2 @mostlymarvelgirl @artemys-ackles

158 notes · View notes

loving-barnes · 10 months ago

Text

LOGAN HOWLETT - 'HELL'

A/N: And here I am, still writing and I am here for it. I am actually trying a lot here.

Pairing: Logan Howlett x mutant female reader

Warning: mentions of blood and torture

Summary: Y/N shares how she escaped 'hell'.

Please, do not read if you are under 18. This story includes mentions of abuse.

Words: 4300+

Important note: Again, Logan is a tall MF, because they fucked up in the movies. Also, Hugh Jackman!Wolverine.

A TOUCH OF HOPE MASTERLIST | Chapter One

LOGAN HOWLETT - 'HELL'

Y/N was lying on the grass, enjoying the warm sunlight rays. Her right hand was in the air as she tried to make the force come out in a ball-shaped form. She finally made some progress.

Charles helped her train in his office. He aimed to teach her to make a protective shield around another person. Two weeks in, she made some progress. But the goal was still far away. On the other hand, she did learn something new.

The ball-shaped forcefields were bewitching. Y/N could admire her power up close. It was a thin blue layer of radiant energy with a hint of silver sparkles. Beautiful. She hoped to get better and become useful. Now, she had the chance after all those years. It brought tears to her eyes for many reasons.

If only I could get you out.

The nightmares appeared every night. They changed, playing twisted games in her sleep. It was hard to close her eyes. Her past, her present, it all got mixed. They were suffocating her. And his face kept coming back to her.

“How’s it going with her training?” Hank asked the Professor. He was standing at the window, watching Y/N in the distance from the office.

Some of the teachers, the X-Men, were present, discussing the newest addition. The last one who entered the conversation was Logan, smoking his cigar. One look from the Professor, and he extinguished it against his palm. He gritted his teeth when he felt the burning sensation on his palm.

“She’s making progress,” said Charles with a smile. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

Storm walked to a window, watching the kids enjoy the sunny afternoon outside. And there, far away, she noticed Y/N practising her little forcefields. “Her ability is convenient, powerful. She would be great on missions.”

“That is the plan. I want Y/N to be able to protect other people, too. She can create the forcefield around herself and in smaller forms. It might take us more time before she reaches her goal,” said Charles.

“I don’t like her,” Scott confessed to them. “There’s something off about her.” Everyone’s eyes were on him.

“What, that she doesn’t want to let anyone in because she doesn’t trust easily?” Storm glared at her friend.

“She’s not telling us something.”

“Would you tell your life story to a group of strangers you know for two weeks?” Kitty added. “If there is something off about her, the Professor would tell us.”

Charles sighed and turned to his friends. “There is something I need you all to know.”

“He, there it is,” Scott grinned.

That single sentence got everyone’s attention. Charles wheeled into the middle of the room, eyes looking at every person present. Logan frowned. Storm was intrigued, and others kept their faces neutral.

“Years ago, when I had been searching for more mutants, I managed to find Y/N. At that time, she was a teen who happened to discover her mutation. The plan was to bring her here. I wanted to send Hank to get her.”

“Why didn’t you?” Logan asked.

The Professor sighed. “She kept slipping off.”

“What do you mean?” Jean asked, confused.

“When I wanted to find her location, she was nowhere to be found. Not as a mutant or a human,” Charles explained. “I thought she died. And then, months later, I stumbled upon her again. As I tried to reach her, she slipped again.”

“Oh, right,” Hank said. “I remember you thought there was something wrong with Cerebro.”

“The Cerebro was fine. Until this day, I have no idea how it kept happening.”

“So, she’s a telepath?” Bobby asked.

Charles shook his head. “There was a time when I believed she was. It would make perfect sense. Only strong telepaths can shut their minds. That would explain why I couldn’t reach her.”

“So, when you saw her the first time since Logan brought her, you knew who she was. You didn’t need to read her mind?” Storm chimed in. Her eyes kept staring at the Professor.

“That is true. However,” Charles turned to face Logan. “The fact that you found her was a mere coincidence. You two happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

He didn’t comment on it, only shook his head in disbelief. “Is that all, Charles? Or is there more to this story?” He suspected that the Professor wasn’t telling them the whole truth.

“This is all you need to know, now.”

Groans echoed around the office. That answer didn’t bring enough satisfaction. What was he not telling them? Logan was ready to push his buttons. He needed to know more. Everyone deserved the truth. With a sigh, he stood back. “Why so mysterious?”

“I will tell you more once I have more answers,” said Charles calmly. “For now, all we need to do is to help her train. She wants to be better. She suffered enough, and she wants to turn her life upside down.”

“She asked you not to read her mind,” Jean raised a brow.

“I don’t need to read her mind. We talk a lot when I teach her. I promised not to look in. When I met her, it all came screaming at me. All you need to know is I trust her.”

Scott scoffed and shook his head in disbelief. “That’s it?”

The meeting ended shortly after that. Everyone dispersed around the school. Logan’s legs brought him outside, his eyes quickly finding the young woman far away, resting on the grass.

For the last two weeks, he didn’t talk to her much or see her for that matter. He observed from afar. Logan noticed how she started to open up to some of his friends. She tried to get to know each member of the school. Storm, Kitty and Rogue spent most of their time with her. With them, she was able to laugh freely and smile. Damn, that smile. He wanted to see it more.

He frowned. Why did he think that?

He saved her ass, and now she felt like a magnet. He tried to resist, but it was hard. Would it be that bad to know her more? He brought her here, where he promised she’d be safe. And from what he had learnt, Charles knew about her existence for a long time.

Sighing, he moved forward. He took out the cigar that he hadn’t finished and smoked on his way to her. His eyes lingered on her body, eyeing her from head to toe. Compared to their first unexpected meeting, she seemed relaxed and happy. The bruises were gone. Only faint scratch marks remained.

Her hand was still in the air, creating small forcefields. The need to talk to her got stronger. As if she were a water that would extinguish Logan’s thirst. Fuck, he wanted to know her more.

“Hey, kid. How’s the trainin’ going?” he asked when he was close enough for her to hear him.

Y/N turned her head to the side, eyes locking with his. “It’s fine, I guess,” she said with a fleeting smile. “I am trying to figure out how to make a forcefield around another person,” she explained.

“Any luck?” he leaned against the nearest tree. He held the cigar with his fingers.

“No,” she sat up. “I got better at creating it in the shape of a ball. It still does glitch. But it’s a step forward. If only I knew how to project it around another person.”

“It cannot be that hard,” he raised a brow. “It looks so easy.”

She laughed at that. “If only. It requires a lot of concentration and energy. I can protect a person if they are next to me. I can wrap us into the forcefield. That’s about it.”

A gentle smile appeared on Logan’s face. “Like you did when I took you out of that dive bar.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh yeah,” she nodded. “I forgot about that. It was wild. I remember fragments of that day. Shit, the last days before you brought me here are kind of hazy.” She stood up from the grass and wiped off her lower back and ass.

Logan’s eyes followed her every move. “Wanna walk with me?” the question was out before he could think about it. Even he was surprised he had asked that.

“Sure,” she nodded. “I wanted to explore the estate a little more.”

Side by side, they walked away from the school and the noise. The estate reminded her of a gigantic park filled with trees, surrounded by nature and peace. She noticed there were well-trodden pathways. The students must have walked around the place many times.

“How did you get to that bar anyway?” he had to ask.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I kept walking until my feet brought me there. All I knew was to get as far away as possible.”

He took a deep breath. “What happened to you?”

Y/N bit her lower lip and looked somewhere away. “Um,” she hesitated. Was it wise to share it already? “I escaped a lab. I was a guinea pig for five years,” she admitted.

“What?” It was hard to believe what she said. Why was he so surprised? He had his suspicion about this before.

“Yeah,” her eyes were focused on the ground, ashamed of the story. “I’m surprised they didn’t kill me. Five years to keep a mutant for an experiment is a long time. Before you ask, I have no idea how I managed to survive the torture and imprisonment for that long. Those years are a blur.”

“Shit,” he sighed. “Sounds like a hell of a life.”

Y/N lifted her head, scanning Logan’s face. “The Professor didn’t say anything to you?” When he shook his head, she was impressed. “And here I thought you would already know about everything.”

“It’s your story to tell, Y/N. It’s up to you if you want to share it with us,” said Logan.

Out of nowhere, she started to giggle. Logan didn’t understand what was funny. “You know, you don’t seem that kind of a guy who does this a lot. But it’s nice.”

“Shut up,” he rolled his eyes. He took another drag of the cigar. And Y/N laughed a little more. “When did you discover your mutation?”

The smile disappeared. “I was around fifteen when it happened,” Y/N replied. “And it started a life full of misery and darkness.” One of her hands reached for a tree, mapping its texture with her fingertips. After all those years locked up in a lab, she never thought she would feel nature under her hands again.

Logan didn’t question further. He noticed it was a heavy topic for her. She wasn’t ready to give him the details. Somehow, Logan felt he was the only person, except Charles, who got information about her past.

“What is your mutation?” It was her turn to ask questions. She wanted to know more about Logan. Even though his rough exterior told the story of a withdrawn, grumpy man, he had the softest eyes. Were they green? They seemed like it.

They stopped walking. Logan turned to her and brought his hand to his chest. When he closed it, three metal blades slid out of his skin.

Y/N’s mouth opened. “Shit,” she cursed. “Does it hurt?”

“Every time. I’m used to it by now,” Logan said. “They are made of adamantium.”

“Adamantium?”

“One of the strongest metals on Earth.”

Her fingers reached to the claws. Logan’s eyes followed her moves. She wanted to touch them. Before she could, she put her hand away. “Sorry, it’s just fascinating.”

Logan’s heart skipped a beat. “Well, that’s a first,” he commented. “No one said anything like that before.”

“I’m sorry,” she took a step back. “I didn’t want to overstep. Never had much opportunity to admire other mutations.”

“It’s fine.” The claws retracted into his skin. Y/N’s eyes noticed the wounds instantly close and disappear. Her hands quickly reached for his hand, fingers caressing the spots where the lesions would be.

Logan couldn’t believe what he had witnessed. It’s been a while since he felt such a gentle touch on his skin. Her hands were soft and delicate. He cleared his throat. “I heal quickly. In a matter of seconds,” he explained before she could ask.

Her eyes lingered on his hand until she realised what she was doing. “Oh, sorry,” she let him go and hid her hands behind her back. “That was rude. I am so sorry.”

She made him feel things he hadn’t experienced in a long time. It made him flustered. “That’s okay, kid.”

The intense moment ended, and they moved forward. Y/N’s face was burning hot, embarrassed by what she did. Her mind focused on the trees and the pleasant weather around them. The air was warm even though it was autumn. The leaves were sparkling with a range of colours, coming from green to yellow. Some of them were red. It was her favourite season of the year.

“I’ve heard you save mutant children,” she changed the topic as they approached the school grounds.

“Charles finds them, and some of us would collect them,” he explained. “I was on a mission to get a child that needed our help. Unfortunately, it was a failure. The facility was a trap. I was glad I got out. Later that night, I stumbled upon you.”

Y/N pressed a hand against her chest. “What facility?”

“The one hidden in Salem,” he replied. “Why?”

Y/N felt as if her soul left her body. All colour drained from her face. “Oh god,” she brushed her fingers into her hair. “It’s my fault,” and then she hid her face in her palms.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he turned his body to her. “What are you sayin’ there, kid?”

It took her three deep breaths to look him in the eye. He wasn’t angry. It looked like he was concerned. “I was locked there, in the lab, for some time. I escaped a few days before we met.” Panic bubbled inside of her. “I know who you were looking for. I know the kid.”

That night, that moment, it all came rushing back. It was like a movie, reflecting in front of her eyes. She felt it all: the pain, the horror happening in front of her eyes. She knew the child. He helped her escape. And she couldn’t take him with her. His screams echoed inside her mind.

Logan gripped her shoulders. “Y/N, look at me.” He said her name for the first time. That did the trick, and she looked up, eyes meeting his. “There you go. Take a deep breath.” He could see she was listening.

“I have to tell you what happened,” she whispered. “You need to know. It’s my fault you went to a trap.”

Logan brought her inside the school. His hands rested on her shoulders as he walked with her through the hallway. When something happened, all the teachers would gather around immediately. Professor X would call them to his office.

He helped Y/N take a seat on an armchair. A bottle of water appeared in front of her. It was levitating in the air. It was Jean’s doing.

“What’s going on?” Hank was the last one coming inside, closing the door behind him. He had a white lab coat on him, and his glasses were on the tip of his nose.

“This better be good,” Scott scoffed. His hands were wrapped around Jean’s shoulders, holding her close.

“Stop being a dick, dude,” Remy scowled. “Keep your mind shut.”

Y/N glared at Scott. He was the only person who didn’t sit right with her. That’s why, most of the time, she would ignore him. Luckily, he was sweet to Jean.

She grabbed the floating water bottle and took a sip. “Logan told me about the failed mission,” Y/N started to talk. Her voice was low and timid. “He told me he went there to get out a child. He went to a facility that was in Salem - the same place where they held me.”

Charles tilted his head, listening carefully. His face remained neutral. No one could read what he thought.

“I know the kid,” she told them. “His whole body can stretch as he wishes.”

“Elasticity,” Hank stated.

“How did you escape?” Kitty’s voice interrupted the stream of Y/N’s thoughts.

“There were five of us locked in that lab. We were in cells designed to suppress our mutations. It made sure we wouldn’t harm anyone or try to escape. That changed when they brought in JJ.”

“JJ?” Logan questioned that name.

“Jerome Junior,” she explained. “For an eleven-year-old, he was cunning. Because he was the youngest, he had the most energy. The rest of us were barely holding on.

“Never underestimate a child. That’s the greatest advice I’ve learnt in there. I don’t know what happened or how he did it, but the doors to our cells opened. Somehow, he was able to get us out. That’s when hell on Earth started. To get out, we destroyed the place.”

Y/N could feel the smell of chemicals and fire around her. As if she was back there, trying to get out of prison.

The pain in her body was excruciating. After all those years of experiments and torture, she was almost free.

There were bodies on the floor - killed guards and scientists as well as two other mutants who shared the hell with her. They got them before she could put a forcefield out to protect them. So much blood was on her hands and face. When she looked down, there were red puddles. The smell was nauseating.

“Let’s go,” one of the mutants shouted. The man was bleeding from his thigh and arm.

“Where’s JJ?” Y/N asked, looking for the kid. She lost him during the fight. “I’m not leaving him here.”

“We don’t have time to get the kid. They’ll kill us if we don’t leave!”

She was turning around, trying to find a way to get to him. “I said I am not leaving!”

“Fuck this, I’m out,” said the mutant and fled the scene without anyone else.

Limping, Y/N ran out of the destroyed lab and walked through the hallways until she found a swarm of guards holding the child. Guns pressed against the boy’s head as they put a collar on his neck. It beeped once, and a tiny light turned green.

JJ’s eyes found Y/N standing on the other side of the room. He did one last thing before they packed him into a truck - he shook his head. It was a sign for her to leave. Her vision blurred as tears hit her eyes. The boy got them out, and she couldn’t save him.

“I tried to get him, save him, but they took him away,” her voice broke. She let the tears fall. “He was eleven, for fuck’s sake. He somehow got us out. I wanted to do the same thing for him, and I couldn’t.”

“How do you know it was him?” Jean asked.

Y/N thought back, trying to get to the point when she realised he opened the cells. “I remember him stretching his fingers. He must have found a trigger on the table that opened the doors.”

Ororo reached for her hand, squeezing it tightly. “You did your best. You tried.”

“It’s not enough,” she shook her head. “Even now, I feel like a traitor.” The story was not over. “When I left the building, I wandered for a few days,” she continued. “I got some old clothes and hid everywhere - in the woods, old buildings. Without energy, I happened to injure myself more. I even took a fall before I found the dive bar. My body was in pain, my head a mess, and I don’t remember much when Logan got me out.”

Silence spread around them. They all let the information sink in.

“When I came to the facility,” Logan started to talk. The attention was on him. “Many soldiers were guarding the place like their own eyes. They were ready to kill anyone who approached the building. I managed to get in but never got far away,” said Logan. “The place was a mess. As if a bomb exploded inside.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Kitty spoke up. “Why would they keep the place highly secured if it got damaged and took the child away? Think about it. Maybe they’ll use it as a cover-up. No one would think that the lab was still active.”

“Kitty’s right,” said Bobby. “In the end, there are only two options. Either they did take him away, or he’s there, well hidden from the world.”

“They did it to evoke confusion,” Jean added to the conversation.

“Scott, Jean, try to find as much information as possible about the facility in Salem. We’ll be better prepared to take him out of there,” Charles gave instructions.

Y/N jumped on her feet, letting the water bottle drop on the floor. “I’ll go with you.” All eyes were back on her.”I have to get him out.”

“You need to train more,” said Scott strictly. His hands fell off Jean. “You’ve been here for what two weeks? Forget about it. You’re not going on this mission.”

“Mind your tone, Scotty,” Logan warned him with a snarl.

“She doesn’t know how to fight or use her ability. She’s a newbie, a trainee. I will not put anyone’s life in danger because of her,” he pushed himself from Jean and approached Y/N. “If we go to get the boy, she’s staying here. Period.”

Logan was close behind Y/N, ready to step in. But she stood her ground, not afraid of the Cyclops.

Jean reached for Scott’s shoulder. “That’s enough, Scott.”

Y/N approached Scott with one long step, glaring at him. “I survived a lot of things in my life. You don’t know what I am capable of, so don’t underestimate me, Cyclops. And don’t be a dick. I’ve never been rude to you, never did anything to you. So don’t raise your voice at me. I am not afraid of you.”

“Oh yeah?” he challenged her. “You better start talking about your past life then. We know nothing about you.”

Her fists clenched hard until her knuckles were white. There was a lot of anger building inside of her. And it showed. The forcefield started to glitch around her.

“You can’t even control your power, Y/N,” Scott mocked her. “Look what you are doing.”

“Y/N, please, calm down,” said Charles calmly. “Same goes for you, Scott.”

She closed her eyes and took a step back, relaxing her posture. She knew better than to get riled up. When her blood pressure lowered, she looked at Scott again, shaking her head in disbelief. What a dick!

Turning on her heel, Y/N left the office without another word. Her walk was brisk, taking long steps to be outside as soon as possible. Of course, there would be a person who would make her freedom difficult.

I will get you out.

She wrapped her arms around herself and walked through the driveway to the estate’s main gate. She didn’t want to leave. She needed to walk and think.

Y/N wanted to get little JJ out of that hellhole before it was too late. Fear crawled through her back, tapping on her head. What if they kill him before they get there? He saved her life. He helped her escape. It’s her turn to return the favour and secure him a better life here in a school for mutants.

There was another thing that drove her to save the boy. But she didn’t want to open that door. After all those years, it was painful to think about it.

Fucking bitch! How could you?! Cries were echoing in her mind. Psycho! Murderer!

“Y/N,” she heard Logan’s voice behind her. That made her halt and sigh. “You okay?”

She pressed the bridge of her nose. “Yes,” she said.

“You are full of shit, ya know that?” he laughed. “Just admit that you are pissed.”

She spun around. Her eyes could kill. “I’ll get JJ with or without help. I don’t give a shit what you say. I will be the one who will get him out of that place.”

“I know,” Logan nodded, understanding. “I won’t be the one who’ll stop you. If I were you, I’d do the same thing. And I would punch Scott in the face.”

She couldn’t help but giggle. “You have your way with words, Logan.”

“I was thinking about becoming a motivational speaker,” he shrugged and smiled at her when he made her laugh again. “Bobby was right. We only have two options, and we must prepare before we leave to get the kid. I was there. I saw how many guards were securing the facility. One or two people won’t do it. We need a strategy.”

“All I want is to help, get him out of there so he can have a better life than I ever had. I don’t want him to experience that much torture. I need…” she started to choke on words. “I need…” Tears escaped her eyes as she felt the pain inside her soul. Was this a panic attack? Her heart was beating fast. The world was crumbling down.

Logan was quick enough to close the distance. His hands found her shoulders. “We will get him out. You hear me, bub? I can’t tell you when. We must prepare for the mission and gather information. We won’t make it far without a strategy.”

She gripped his flannel shirt tightly, holding for dear life. “I worry he’ll be dead.”

He shook his head. “You said he was cunning. He’ll find a way to survive.” Without thinking, he pressed her body against his, holding her. “While we are planning, you’ll be training your power and how to fight.”

She closed her teary eyes. As much as the hug was unexpected, it was comforting. “Promise me I’ll go with you.”

Logan nodded twice. “I promise.”

#Logan Howlett x female reader #Logan Howlett x reader #Wolverine x reader #Wolverine x female reader #James Logan Howlett x reader #Logan Howlett x female mutant reader #A touch of hope #Marvel fanfiction #Wolverine fanfiction

762 notes · View notes