#even cut out like a longer forty second interruption immediately prior to this. just about to go show it up

[unproduciblesmackdown]

bit of this deh uk tour interview ft. killian lefevre (connor murphy) & tom dickerson (jared kleinman) with tom's story about originally auditioning for connor

[fanficimagery]

Imagine your sister having you move in with her after the last of your family has passed away. Living with superheros and agents never ever crossed your mind, but here you are. Fortunately for you, your sister's boyfriend grants you your own personal floor which no one visits less they've talked to you beforehand.

Brock X Reader

After SHIELD fell and HYDRA came out of the shadows, the world was in chaos. No one knew who to trust and people became paranoid of their city and state officials/representatives after it came out that there was a HYDRA mole within the President's inner circle. It took months and a lot of trust for Captain America, along with a select few trusted individuals, to figure out who was clean and not a lying liar who lied.

No one no longer trusted anything affiliated with the name SHIELD, so it took a lot of persuasion for the World Council to put the Avengers in charge of their very own division. They were to be in charge of all the ex-SHIELD agents who were actually on the right side of things and to be in charge of training any new powered individuals in hopes of them putting their powers to good use.

It was a lot of work, but eventually everyone came together. But then your father passed away- the man you'd been taking care of since your mother passed- and your elder sister Pepper wanted to keep you close. And since you couldn't deny your sister anything, you made the decision to relocate.

Moving into Avengers Tower, you were momentarily starstruck by Captain America. It took Tony pouting and Pepper smothering her giggles for you to snap out it, and after quickly apologizing to Captain- call me Steve- America, meeting everyone else was fairly easy. However, your right eyebrow did twitch every time you saw someone in uniform or covered in blood and/or bandages. Tony thought it was hilarious, but your sister took pity and they relocated you to your own personal floor that had everything you needed so you didn't have to leave your floor if you didn't want to.

Life turned out pretty great, especially after landing the job of receptionist for the Tower. Making appointments, granting/denying entry, and reading everyone's file who stepped into the tower was a pretty easy gig. But sometimes there were some idiots who liked to make your job a little harder than necessary.

Sitting behind a desk, taking calls and making appointments on Stark's fancy tech was probably the easiest job you've ever had. Ogling the powered individuals and agents in tactical gear was a major plus of the work environment, but dealing with the entitled rich assholes who thought themselves too important to need an appointment all while keeping a smile in place was the downfall. Like right now for example.

"I'm sorry, sir," you say for the sixth time, internally screaming, "but I really can't let you up without an appointment. Miss Potts and Mister Stark are very busy people."

Entitled asshole #3 of the day sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You don't seem to understand-"

"I understand perfectly." You smile, adding a touch of pity to your expression. "But rules are rules. I could lose my job if I let you upstairs and you interrupt a meeting they're currently in."

The scumbag scoffs. "As if finding another job is so hard. There's a coffee house on nearly every corner needing a pretty face behind the counter."

Your smile falters, your eye twitches, and your gaze goes steely.

"Is there a problem here?" The gruff voice startles you and your gaze cuts to the left. Standing there is one of the agents who are usually in and out of the tower, but it's someone you've never seen before. Dark eyes, dark hair cut short on the sides and styled loosely on top, and a five o'clock shadow clinging to a very cut jawline.

Your fellow receptionist audibly swoons and you have to bite your tongue to keep from laughing. Quickly glancing at your screen where a pop-up is suddenly blinking from facial recognition being triggered as the agent stepped up to the desk, your smile turns more genuine and lax. "Agent Rumlow. You're early."

"Cap likes his men being punctual, sweetheart." His lips twitch in your direction and the scumbag quietly groans. His gaze narrows as he looks back to the annoyance of the day. "Now is there a problem? I don't think Mister Stark or Miss Potts appreciates you harassing their receptionists."

"Look, man, all I want is to talk with Miss Potts. I'm only in town for a few days and-"

"-and Miss Potts is a very busy woman. If you wanted a meeting with her, then you should have called weeks prior to your trip to see if there was a possibility we could squeeze you in. Dropping in at the last second is really not appropriate."

Scumbag puffs up as if to go off again, but agent Rumlow steps in. "There you have it, pal. You ain't getting upstairs so I suggest you take the loss and schedule an appointment for the next time you're in town."

The guy huffs, bends down to pick up his suitcase, and stomps off. Once he exits and the door shuts behind him, your shoulders droop. "Jesus Christ," you mutter. "That was the most stubborn one today." Your fellow receptionist chuckles and goes back to work, and the agent grins. Smiling sheepishly, you say, "Sorry, agent Rumlow. I shouldn't have said that out loud."

"You're fine," he assures you. "People might make light of the work you do as a receptionist, but they don't take into account the assholes you have to deal with on a daily basis. You're allowed a sigh of relief after dealing with that."

You mock swoon, holding a hand over your heart. "Why, Mr. Rumlow, I do believe you've just become my favorite person ever." That earns you a chuckle and you almost really do swoon. His smile is fuckin' lethal.

Before you can say anything else, your screen pings. Glancing at it, you see it's a message from Tony.

     'Stop flirting with Rumlow and send him on up. It's weird.'

     'Aye, aye, second boss man.'

After hitting send, you turn your gaze back to agent Rumlow. "They're expecting you upstairs. I assume you know the way?"

"'Course I do, darling." He raps his knuckles against the desk before walking backwards, he then turning and heading for the special elevator that goes up passed the average Stark Inc. floors. Then once settled inside the elevator, he faces the closing doors and winks before he's hidden from view.

"Holy shit," you utter, picking up a file that was laying nearby and fanning yourself with it.

The second receptionist chuckles. "Holy shit indeed. Brock Rumlow is not only one of the best agents SHIELD or the Avengers has ever had, but that man is hotter than hell."

"I don't doubt that. Especially the hotter than hell part." Your friend giggles and you put the file down, composing yourself immediately when you see the lobby doors open. "Okay. Shut up about Rumlow now. We need to concentrate on work and not what his dick might look like."

Your friend cackles and you immediately regret your words when everyone in the lobby startles and glances your way.

Over the next week you're treated to watching Agent Rumlow come and go from the tower. He and another agent had apparently been reassigned temporarily, and you were quite grateful since he and Agent Rollins made quite the eye candy. It also helped that Agent Rumlow seemed to scare off anyone giving you trouble because they didn't make an appointment or missed one.

Thankfully, however, your time off has come up and you're quite looking forward to relaxing the next four days. Even if it means you don't get to see the hot agents come and go.

You have dinner with your sister and Tony, and spend some down time with the Avengers who are not on-call by playing some video games or going out and exploring the city.

Then on your third day off, your favorite football team is scheduled to play- the Dallas Cowboys vs. Atlanta Falcons. The only sport fanatics- Sam and Bucky- were busy, so it appeared you were going to be watching alone. You ordered enough food for four people in case the boys got back early, then headed to your bedroom to change into a Dak Prescott jersey, some small sleep shorts, and a pair of knee high socks.

As you waited for your food to be delivered, you let the pre-game play as background noise while pulling down a small stack in plates and a handful of utensils in case guests popped in.

The elevator dings nearly forty minutes later and you practically skip over to greet the delivery boy. Only.. it's not a delivery boy. Oh no. It's more like delivery men. Agent men.

Coming to a stop several feet away, your right eyebrow raises in surprise. "Rumlow. Rollins. This is a surprise."

Their stoic expressions immediately melt and Rollins lights up, whereas Brock turns curious.

"G'Day, love!" Jack Rollins greets, his usual murder-face vanishing when faced with a friend as he enters your domain.

Brock follows, plastic bags swinging from his hands. "You live here, sweetheart?"

"Yeah. The floor is accessible only to those given permission to visit." Realization dawns on both men and you slowly grin. "You've pressed the button before, haven't you?"

"Yep. Never worked," Rollins muses. "Now where do you want these, sheila? He then asks, you trying not to giggle at his Australian accent as he raises the plastic bags in hand.

"Kitchen is good," you say, gesturing them to follow. They do and you huff a laugh when you glance over your shoulder and see them glancing around your place. You have an entire floor to yourself, it being an open-floor plan with the only doors leading to the two bedrooms which each have their own bathrooms inside. Then watching as Rumlow and Rollins set the bags of food down, you say, "JARVIS scans everyone in the elevators. If they press the button for my floor and aren't on the approved list, the elevator won't budge. If you've been approved, JARVIS will let the elevator stop on my floor."

"No offense, sweetheart, but how does a secretary land a place like this?" Brock asks.

You shrug. "My sister wanted me close. We're all that's left of our family and when she asked me to move in, I did."

"Sister?" Rollins asks, brow furrowing.

"Have you guys not noticed my last name? Seriously?" Brock and Jack shrug, and you laugh. "Potts. I'm Y/N Potts. Pepper's younger sister."

"Holy shit."

"You can say that again, mate."

"Now that that's out of the way," you grin. "How did you guys get up here?"

"Oh. Uhh. Shelly?" Brock says, stating it as a question rather than an answer. "She was working the desk downstairs when we getting ready to leave for the night. Delivery guy left the food and she asked us to bring it up after typing something on her computer."

"Hmm. She must have been giving you temporary access to drop off the food," you say. Both men nod and glance around again, and you smother a smile when you see their gaze drawn to the TV. "Well if you guys are off for the night and don't have any plans, I ordered a lot of food if you want to stick around and watch the game. There's beer and other drinks in the fridge."

"Ace!" Jack cheers, turning to dig through the bags he and Brock had just brought up.

You chuckle and then glance at Brock, coloring slightly as his gaze drop down to your bare legs then back up towards your navy blue jersey. He grimaces. "Cowboys fan, sweetheart?"

"Don't hate," you say. "I'll agree to Romo being a pansy ass QB, but Prescott is actually pretty decent. Beasley and Witten are beasts, and you can't tell me otherwise." He holds his hands up in mock surrender and you gesture to the food once more. "Now come on. Grab a plate and fill it. If Clint decides to drop in tonight, he'll eat all the egg rolls."

Jack holds a beer out to Brock as he passes by and the two men waste no time in helping themselves to the food.

As the night progresses, neither men hide their amusement as they see a completely different side of you. Gone are the pant suits and pencil skirts and calm demeanor, and in their place is a screaming football fanatic wearing the smallest shorts ever threatening the ref on TV because he missed throwing the flag on a face mask call.

You don't know what possesses you to give agents Rumlow and Rollins access to your floor, but you do and you've never been more happy. After that first night where they stayed to watch the game with you, something just clicked with them. Jack Rollins was strictly a friend, sometimes a flirtatious one, but Brock Rumlow was something else. Neither of you dared speak of it and you were content to just tiptoe around whatever it was.

And then once they realized they had access to your floor, it seemed like there were no boundaries. Brock and Jack dropped by a lot, but of course they always asked beforehand. If you were working, they managed to coincide their lunch break with yours, or if you were off you either cooked or ordered in to have lunch with them. They even sometimes crashed in your spare bedroom when their shifts got separated and one or the other didn't want to go to their own apartment alone.

Tony was indifferent to your weekly, sometimes daily visitors, but Pepper was wary of them because of their deep undercover stint in HYDRA. However, one particular incident had instantly warmed your sister to Brock.

It was one of your off days and a day Pepper had taken off for some much needed retail therapy when you ended up back at your place. You had stepped off the elevator, sighing in contentment and kicking off your shoes. Pepper followed suit, but then came to an abrupt halt when she spotted someone sleeping on your couch.

"Y/N, is that..?"

"Hmm." You glance in the direction she is staring, smiling softly. "Brock? Yeah. He and Jack drop in when they pull doubles and don't feel like driving to their place."

"Oh. I wasn't aware-"

"Don't make it weird, Pep. Well.. any weirder."

Pepper opens her mouth to retort, but Brock snuffling in his sleep stalls her. "Fury wants all the mangoes," he mumbles. "My mangoes."

You snort and Pepper dissolves into a bout of giggles. "He sleep talks," you tell her. "It's adorable."

The elevator dings softly, and you and your sister turn around to see a tired agent Rollins step off. He smiles politely at Pepper before stepping up to you, he giving you a one-armed hug and a kiss to your temple.

"Room free, love?"

"All yours, Rollins. I'll wake Brock."

"Thanks. Miss Potts," he then nods as he greets your sister, walking off towards your guest bedroom.

Your sister glances at you and you shrug, grinning. Then stepping around your couch, you find a small portion to sit on that's near Brock's hip and gently shake him awake. "Time to wake up, handsome. Your shift starts in ten minutes."

It takes a few moments, but Brock eventually wakes. He smiles sleepily, yawns and stretches, and then is thrown into full wakefulness when he spots your sister. He greets her formally and Pepper hides her smile, she watching him curiously as he grabs his stuff to take his leave.

"Mr. Rumlow?" Pepper calls out. She waits until he turns around. "How do you feel about mangoes?"

His nose scrunches. "Hate them. Why?"

"No reason." Pepper's faux innocence makes you cackle, she dissolving into laughter of her own when Brock frowns at your reaction.

After that day, things had been smooth sailing.

It was rare that all the ladies of the tower had the same night off, so when that time came everyone got together to relax, eat, have drinks, and talk about what's been on their minds as of late.

Pepper, Natasha, Wanda, Darcy, and Jane were well onto the third bottle of wine and settled quite comfortably in the lounge area of your apartment with music playing softly in the background. While everyone was talking and laughing, Jane was the only one distracted as she scribbled notes on a pad of paper you had tossed at her when she started scribbling on napkins.

The elevator dings and every lady calms down, turning to see who was crashing their night.

Agent Rollins steps off, yawning, and his perfectly gelled hair looking a little out of place. Everyone goes eerily quiet, but you grin at his sleepy state.

"Room open, love?" He asks, already heading towards your guest bedroom.

"Nope. But you're more than welcome to wake him and send him to mine. He's only been sleeping for three hours."

"Thanks, sheila."

As Jack disappears, the ladies all turn back towards you. You shrug innocently as Pepper hides her smile behind her glass of wine. But before anyone can say anything, a sleepy Brock walks out of your guest room in nothing but his boxer briefs. Wanda's eyes widen before she quickly averts them, Natasha appraises him quite blatantly, Darcy gapes, and even Jane stops doodling long enough to watch a half naked Brock disappear into your room.

"Agent Rumlow?" Natasha then amuses. "Nice."

"I swear it's not what it looks like," you quickly defend, chuckling.

"They're in the awkward stage," Pepper says. "It's adorable."

"Damn girl. Get some." Darcy waggles her eyebrows, Jane snorts, and you groan.

"He is quite handsome," Wanda quietly muses. "I did not know he had all those muscles."

You sigh longingly, nodding. "So many muscles."

"Mhm. What exactly are agents Rumlow and Rollins doing here?" Natasha wonders.

"They sometimes sleep here when they work double shifts." You shrug. "Brock got in just before you all showed up and Jacky's shift just ended. He prefers the mattress in the guest bedroom rather than mine and Brock, the weirdo, can sleep anywhere."

"And you're just immune to all that?" Darcy asks, waving her hand in the direction of your room.

"Mostly." Jack reappears, he too now half naked. You roll your eyes and Pepper snickers, and everyone else watches his bare back as he stumbles towards the kitchen. "All good, Jacky boy?"

Having gotten himself a glass of water, Jack chugs it before setting the glass in the sink and flashing you a thumb's up.

"How are you not climbing him like a tree?" Darcy asks, incredulous.

Your nose wrinkles in distaste. "It's Jack," you say as if that's reason enough.

"Jack's a sweetheart," Pepper tell them. "It's Brock she has to keep an eye out for. He's trouble."

"So much trouble."

The girls all giggle, but for the next two hours they forget about the men sleeping in your rooms. Then when you all decide to call it a night, Tony, Steve, Bucky, and Clint all have to be called down to escort Pepper, Darcy, Wanda, and Jane back to their rooms. Natasha is the only one capable of walking without injuring herself and it takes you longer than usual to clean-up since you have to concentrate really hard to not drop any glass.

Then after taking a brief shower and brushing your teeth, you quietly walk up to your bed. Brock is sprawled on his stomach in the middle of your bed, no sheet or blanket covering him. Before you can think about, your hand raises of it's own volition and swings down to slap Brock on the ass. He grunts and scoots over, and you climb into your side of the bed.

He climbs under the blanket with you and before you can find a position you're comfortable with, Brock reaches out for you and rearranges you so your back is to his chest. Then after moving your hair aside, he hooks his stubbled jaw over your left shoulder and pulls you close so your butt is pressed against his groin. His hand finds it's way under your shirt and you tense briefly before you feel him relax and his thumb starts to brush back and forth over the skin of your stomach.

"Comfortable?" You muse, grinning and finally relaxing.

"Mmmm. Ladies finally decided to leave?"

"Yeah. Everyone but Natasha had to be carried out."

Brock huffs a laugh. "Heard y'all talking. I'm trouble, huh?"

"You know you are," you say around a yawn. "You enjoy walking around my place half naked too much. If I weren't so tired or half drunk, I'd have probably caved tonight and got some, as Darcy would say."

"Dammit." Brock's chest shakes with suppressed laughter. "Rain check?"

"Definitely."

[ignis-scientia-estrogen-brigade]

Hoo boy, these chapters get keep getting longer and longer. I need an editor pls send help

Up until now, I would’ve said you didn’t need any prior knowledge of my pre-Road Trip fics to follow along with the plot, but this chapter in particular heavily references the lore I’ve established in my other stories (the skull necklace, the spectacles-pried-clean-off-his-face incident, etc). As a side note, the word ‘Neminis’ is Latin for ‘nobody’; although I couldn’t get around not naming the sister, I thought it’d be a fun nod to the redhead’s anonymity in previous works.

If you haven’t read any of my other fics, you could probably get away with skipping this chapter altogether; the next (and last!) chapter will be the smutfest you’ve all been hoping for!

(SFW; Click on the link above or the cut below for the full text of Chapter 4.)

It took two weeks of dedicated searching, but the shortlist of women living in Lestallum that matched the criteria of the individual Ignis was hoping to find proved to be mercifully brief. According to the census records and telephone books Ophelia had combed through during her lunch hours, forty-seven Altissian merchants had established permanent residency in Cleigne in the last twenty years, but only a dozen of them had married native-born Lucians; of those twelve couples, five were deceased, four had returned to the island archipelago of Accordo, which left three possible leads to explore.

The first couple the strategist had tried ringing up on the phone ended with him spending almost an hour discussing his Elegant Orange Cake recipe with a very kind but very hard of hearing old woman, who had evidently mistaken the Date Of Birth line on the most recent census for the last four digits of her citizenship identification number, resulting in a fifty-year discrepancy on her paperwork. He didn’t even bother dialing up the second couple, since Ophelia had pointed out to him that their wedding announcement clipping she’d found in the digital archives of the local newspaper had been dated for only six months prior. The third couple, unfortunately, no longer appeared to have a working landline, but the home address listed for one Mr. and Mrs. Neminis had remained active and unchanged for the last thirteen years.

Which is why it took yet another week for Ignis to drum up enough courage to follow through with the whole dreaded ordeal, because the very last thing he wanted to do was make an unsolicited house call that might’ve devolved into him sobbing in a puddle of his own snot and tears on the floor of some stranger’s kitchen. It’s only when his coworker-turned-personal psychiatrist jokingly threatens to slip salt into his morning Ebony rather than sugar for each day he chooses to postpone the inevitable that he finally resolves to put an end to his waffling, but strictly under the agreement that she help him navigate the unfamiliar path to house located just beyond where Randolph hammered out his eccentric weapons.

So help him she does, just as she’d helped him come to the grudging conclusion that some closure was better than none, and he listens to the sound of Ophelia scolding children who are playing precariously close to the main thoroughfare as he follows her up the city’s northernmost hillside. She had even gone so far as to cajole Mr. Tostwell with her usual charm into letting them close up the grill early, so that they might make it to their destination before the sun went down that evening; there was never really a good time to tackle these sorts of things, but Ignis didn’t want to risk dropping an emotional bombshell on Mrs. Neminis in addition to interrupting her supper.

Try as he might to suppress his anxiety, the strategist’s heart is nearly in his throat by the time they reach the front doorsteps of the address in question; he knew this bloody endeavor of his was likelier than not to fail—the odds of the stars aligning and this truly being the immediate relative of his former protégé were mind-bogglingly steep—but the keen intuition that had served him well in the past is causing the hairs on the back of his neck to tingle, and something in his gut is telling him to prepare himself for what lay just beyond the threshold.

Before his trembling fingers can ring the doorbell, however, Ophelia touches her hand to his elbow and speaks in a low voice. “Would you like me to wait outside? I recognize this has the potential to be a rather intimate conversation.”

“That’s not necessary,” he says, masking his unease with a cheeky grin. “Who will help stabilize my severed spine if my knees decided to collapse out from under me?”

He then swallows his reticence and presses the buzzer, listening intently for anything—a clanking pipe, a running faucet, a squeaky floorboard—that might indicate signs of habitation within the home. His heart pounds harder inside his ribcage with each passing second, until his ears prick at the sound of light footsteps padding through the foyer from the other side of the door.

A loud creak follows. “May I help you?”

The strategist’s occluded eye widens as the voice greeting him from inside the doorway slowly registers in his mind; the logical half of his brain understood that similar vocal patterns were relatively common among closely related kin, but the other half nearly short circuits under the strain of not quite comprehending the fact that he wasn’t actually talking to her.

“Are you Mrs. Neminis?” he asks.

“I am.”

He’d rehearsed his side of the conversation more times than was probably necessary—something to the effect of ‘I do so hate to be a bother, but it has come to my attention that you may be privy to a tidbit of sensitive information I’ve sought after for quite some time now’ had been rattling around inside his head for several days—but all traces of rationale suddenly escape him, and he blurts out his next words without nary a second thought. “I think knew your sister.”

A long pause. “My sister?”

He can barely hear Mrs. Neminis over the sound of his own pulse screaming in his ears. “I’m not entirely sure if I’ve run into a dead end here, but I have reason to believe you might be related to a young woman who worked as part of a security retinue in Insomnia some years ago.”

Her footsteps shift ominously against the hardwood floor of the landing. “Who are you, exactly?”

He hesitates, until he feels Ophelia’s hand brush against his shoulder. “Go on, Ignis,” she says. “She can’t very well help you without giving her the whole picture.”

“Right.” He clears his throat in an attempt to dislodge the frog that has mysteriously taken up residency there. “I’m a former strategist and advisor to Lucian royal family. I was also employed as a dagger and lance specialist at the Citadel before the crown city fell.”

Nothing but empty silence emanates from the threshold for several agonizing heartbeats; before he can apologize profusely for the unwanted intrusion and make a beeline for the city’s central plaza, however, he hears the sound of the door creaking on its hinges and widening further. “Won’t you two come inside? I think I need to sit down for a moment.”

The strategist’s legs remain frozen in place; he generally disliked entering other peoples’ homes, since he didn’t particularly enjoy the experience of bumbling around unfamiliar layouts like a behemoth in a porcelain wares shop. But his knees finally yield when Ophelia grips him gently by the elbow, and he trails closely behind her as they pass through a series of hallways leading to what he presumes is a living room.

“I’m sorry for dropping in on you like this unexpectedly,” he says as Ophelia guides him to sit in a nearby chair. “I tried calling ahead of time, but it seems your phone number listed in the local directory is no longer working.”

“My husband had it disconnected a few years ago,” Mrs. Neminis replies, her voice so eerily similar to that of her sister’s that it leaves the strategist wondering whether they might have been twins. “It was getting to be prohibitively expensive, what with power at such a premium during the long night.”

“Is your husband also home?” Ophelia asks. “We’d been on the lookout for an Altissian merchant residing in these parts, which is how we found you.”

“Regrettably, no. Former merchant, I should add—he gave up the trade to focus on ferrying refugees back to Accordo, which is where he’s headed at the moment. If I were to guess, he’s probably floating somewhere near Angelguard right about now.”

The strategist nods solemnly. “An admirable effort, to be sure.”

He then listens as Mrs. Neminis settles into a seat a few feet to his left. “So—my sister,” she begins. “She’d been interested in the pike from a young age, which is why she ultimately made the move to Insomnia. Is that how you came to know her?”

“Correct. She was an early pupil of mine, and show great promise with the halbert. If I recall, she climbed the ranks faster than anyone else in her hiring pool.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Scientia.”

“Scientia,” she echos, her voice suddenly sounding miles away. “You were one of the Crownsguard who served the last king of Lucis. I remember reading about your name in the papers—this country owes you a great deal of gratitude. You have my thanks.”

His cheeks warm slightly, and he wipes a clammy hand on one thigh. “Think nothing of it.”

A lull descends on the three figures sitting in the living room; Ignis ruminates on the thoughts that are clouding his mind, pondering how best to broach the subject of his wayward protégé’s whereabouts, until Mrs. Neminis seemingly recognizes the question hovering on the tip of his tongue and does the difficult work for him.

“I presume you’re not here to tell me you’ve miraculously heard word from her,” she says quietly.

A cascade of numbness washes over him like a rising tide. “I was actually hoping you might have.”

“Hope—such a strange concept, when you really think about it.” He hears Mrs. Neminis shift against the cushions of her seat, and a long sigh escapes her. “One never quite realizes how much hope they are able to cling to until they’ve gone and lost nearly all of it.”

But then he does begin to feel something, like a scalpel being inserted just under the collarbone with such surgical precision that the pain isn’t obvious until after the sharp blade has already punctured the walls of the heart. “Indeed,” he says, his voice utterly deflated.

“Did you know her very well?”

The strategist narrows his clouded eye, recalling to mind memories of the men and the women he had entangled himself with over the years, before they had all become entirely irrelevant in her shadow. “I did,” he replies softly. “We were quite close at one point.”

“It’s good to hear she had at least one trusted confidant at the Citadel. I know she was feeling rather despondent right after she got there, since our parents had pelted her with guilt for leaving in the first place. I’m sure the only reason they forgave her is because I ran off with a sailor I barely knew and took the heat off of her.”

He snaps out of his reverie long enough to glance up at her. “Are they still alive? Your parents, that is.”

“They’re not, sadly, although they lived longer than anyone probably expected them to. Sometimes I think the only thing that kept them going was the hope that she might walk through their front door one day.” Another shift against the cushions; another long sigh. “I was told a starscourge infection had devastated their town and wiped out all but a few people living there, but the more likely reality was that they simply died of a broken heart.”

Ignis hears his companion stirring on the seat to his right. “I’m terribly sorry,” Ophelia says. “So many have lost so much in the tragedy. My thoughts are with you.”

He then listens as Mrs. Neminis taps her fingers along the arm of her chair absentmindedly. “It’s hardly polite to speak ill of the dead,” she murmurs, “but I often wondered if my parents would’ve held out the same kind of hope for me, had our roles been reversed. My sister was the one with the red hair, but I was more of the surly stepchild, as it were.”

The strategist’s eyebrows furrow behind his visor. “Did you break contact with her after you moved to Lestallum?”

“Not at all. We might’ve had our own petty sibling rivalry, but I was always happy to receive letters from her once she took up office in Crown City. Reading her rant about the neverending stream of arrogant men who tried courting her was always good for a laugh.”

“She was quite the charming talent—everyone who met her was immediately captivated by her.” He allows himself to indulge in a small smile, but his grin quickly fades. “The world is undoubtably a little dimmer without her in it.”

Mrs. Neminis’ fingers have evidently moved on from their tapping, and Ignis picks up on the sound of her plucking at a loose cushion thread. “You know, between you and me, I think she was always destined to die young. A flame that burns twice as hot only burns half as long, as they say.”

“She… certainly left her mark on those closest to her.”

“I mean, really—can you imagine what she would’ve been like at twenty-five, or even thirty? She would’ve made a terrible mother, if she’d carried an infant around even half as roughly as she did her beloved pike.”

The imaginary scalpel in his heart twists further still. “I’m not so sure about that. She could be rather accommodating when called upon, at least in my experience with her.”

“Would you happen to have any personal anecdotes of her you’d be willing to share? After all, there’s no better way of honoring the dead than by keeping their memory alive.”

His hand moves to his visor, if only to mask the sudden dampness plaguing his eyelids. “Well,” he says, “she was smart as a whip, and a quick learner. She managed to pry my spectacles clean off my face once using nothing but her lance and a well-placed foot to the hilt.”

Mrs. Neminis laughs beside him. “That sounds like something she would’ve done. I know she had used her steel-toed boots to ward off more than one overly ambitious suitor in the past.”

“This was back when my eyesight was only marginally better than it is now, mind you, so I probably shouldn’t be giving her too much credit.”

Her chuckles continue for several moments before eventually fading into silence. “Thank you for that. It truly warms my heart to know she was remember so fondly.”

“I can only hope she was happy. In the end, at least.”

But the somberness in his tone doesn’t quite match the cadence of Mrs. Neminis’. “I don’t see why she wasn’t,” she replies merrily. “The last letter I received was her droning on and on about a man she had apparently fallen head over heels for, although she refused to tell me his name no matter how hard I pressed her.”

The wincing in his heart eases a tad, and a weak smile touches his lips. “You don’t say? How curious.”

“You know how silly young women can be—they positively love their secrets. Although I suppose if one has to meet the Draconian prematurely, taking their leave on a high note is the way to go.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Silence befalls the living room once more, and Ignis rakes a hand through his hair as he heaves a sigh. He then hears the sound of Mrs. Neminis leaning forward in her seat, followed by the sensation of her fingers pressing gently against his forearm.

“I know this wasn’t the outcome you were hoping for,” she says. “I’m left with quite a few unanswered prayers of my own.”

He covers her hand with his own and offers her a placid expression. “It’s all right. I’ve certainly unearthed more than I was realistically expecting to find.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“I just—”

His voice wavers, but for once in his life, the strategist doesn’t shy away from his own vulnerability, or attempt to hide his despair behind an aloof facade. “I just want to let it be said that she was dearly loved by those she chose to share herself with. As long as there’s someone out there who knows that, it’s enough.”

“I have a confession to make.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t particularly care for the taste of coffee.”

The strategist frowns. “Then why on Eos are we paying good money to sit here and choke down bitter Coeurl excrement?”

Ophelia’s melodious laughs ring out beside him. “Because it’s not polite to look a gift Chocobo in the mouth, especially when you’re the one who offered to buy.”

They were, in fact, sitting on a bench overlooking Taelpar Crag just a few hundred paces away from the Coernix Station; not wanting to stay in Mrs. Neminis’ hair for too long, and not wanting to immediately bolt home to wallow in pity, Ignis had proposed stopping by the same coffee kiosk as before to grab a quick cup in an effort to take his mind off what had transpired inside the house on the hill.

Her giggles subside and she resumes a measured tone. “I hope you don’t feel like I coerced you into doing anything you didn’t want to do. I know this was rather difficult for you.”

He can feel the chain of his necklace encircling his throat, but it no longer threatens to strangle him like a hangman’s noose; rather, the skull pendant seems almost to have increased in lightness, the weight of the pewter pressing against his collarbone more comforting and less suffocating than before.

“On the contrary,” he says. “It’s something I should’ve done of my own volition a long time ago. You were simply the spur I needed to get on with it.”

“Are you going to be all right? You don’t have to lie just to put my mind at ease.”

“I’m sure I’ll manage somehow.” He reaches out a hand and pats what he hopes is her knee. “Thank you for the kindness you’ve shown toward me. You do quite the honor to your namesake.”

“My namesake?”

“Ophelia—it means ‘to help’, does it not?”

“Oh. Right.” He hears her lean back against the bench, the scuffling of her feet echoing against the concrete balcony as she rests one knee over the other. “I’m happy I was able to be of service, if only just a little. Perhaps I’ll find a way to apply that helpfulness to my own life one of these days.”

His features furrow into puzzlement. “Are you in need of help yourself?”

She grows silent for a time, and it’s only when he begins to wonder whether he’d made himself audible enough that she stirs beside him again. “It just feels like something’s missing—I thought quitting my job at the power plant to become a baker would’ve been enough to make me happy, but I’m not feeling as fulfilled as I would’ve hoped. Like I traded the risk of radiation exposure for yet another contamination, by way of flour.”

“Work is generally a means to an end, at least for most people. Do you have any friends to keep you occupied?”

“I do, but they’ve all started families and moved on with their lives. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in the same rut I was in when my parents died, and it’s left me feeling rather alone.” His ears prick as she turns in her seat to face him. “Have you ever worried what it would be like to reach the end of you life, only to realize you never shared it with anyone else?”

“Truth be told, I didn’t even think I was going to make it this far.” He grimaces as he stares blankly into his coffee, then empties the stale liquid off the end of the bench before crumpling the paper cup into a waxy ball. “But I gave up hope a long time ago that I might meet someone who’d be charitable enough to embrace the complications of being with me. Seems rather unfair to subject a partner to a lifetime of my disability, wouldn’t you say?��

“I’d say that’s not really your decision to make for other people.”

“Come now, no one would willingly put up with my idiosyncrasies. The prospect of having to herd me around like a senile cat alone would make them want to positively tear their hair out.”

“I would.”

He looks over at Ophelia then, straining desperately to make out any recognizable glimpse of human features. But not even the aura of calmness and tranquility he can sense emanating from her is enough to agitate the damaged nerves in his right eye, so he resorts to doing exactly the same thing he’d admonished her for weeks prior and inches a little closer to her side of the bench.

“At the risk of coming across as a lecher,” he says carefully, “may I touch your face?”

The strategist might not have known what she looked like, but the grin in her voice is unmissable. “What happened to not being the touchy-feely sort?”

“Be that as it may, this is the only way I can ‘see’ anyone, so to speak.”

Rather than responding with a wry quip like he expects, he feels her hand reach over and draw his own from his lap, and soon the sensation of velvety soft skin registers in his mind as she presses his palm to her cheek. His fingertips trace the outline of her jaw before moving across the bridge of her nose; the bone there is both at once delicate and strong, and as his fingers glide up toward her forehead, he can make out the distinct furrow of a worry line centered just between her eyebrows.

He then drops his hand and offers her a small smile. “I can tell you’re quite beautiful. No wonder Cid always asks for you by name.”

But her own hand is still grasping lightly at his forearm, and she is close enough to his side that he can feel her warm breath on the exposed skin of his neck. “Would you consider letting me return the favor?” she asks. “I promise not to knock your visor askew this time.”

He snorts softly, but an inkling of anxiety trickles into his gut; he’d never been on the receiving end of a woman’s touch in public before, not even once, not even when he had said goodbye to the redhead for the very last time, even though all he had wanted to do was shout her name from the rooftop of the Citadel and carry her across the threshold of the home they would never have together.

But Ignis is no longer the man he used to be, back when appearances were everything and consummate professionalism was more important than telling the woman he loved how much she truly meant to him, and he wasn’t about to let himself make the same foolish mistakes of his youth. “Go on, then,” he says quietly.

Her hand meets his bare face, tentatively at first, then more deliberately as he yields to her touch. He can smell her Sylleblossom perfume mingling with the aroma of coffee that must have dribbled over the side of her cup while she was holding it, and his mouth parts slightly when her fingers graze the vertical scar that splits his lower lip. And although the strategist doesn’t quite understand it, she somehow feels like honesty and virtue and pure kindness all rolled into the palm of one gentle hand, and his eyelids flutter shut as her hair stirs in the breeze around them and tickles his cheek.

Then a whole new sensation registers at the back of Ignis’ mind, and an explosion of invisible fireworks goes off behind his blind eyes when he feels her lips brush softly against his own.