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midgardian-witch · 1 year

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Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts

Reader is Nathan's assistent and struggling with a crush on their boss. Nathan is drunk and flirts with them.

[next]

AO3

ships: Nathan Bateman/Reader

AN: I had a vague concept in mind (basically just the 'drunk Nathan proof = baby proof' joke) and this is what came of it. 2k words of pining reader and unresolved tension mixed with smart-ass quips. I may resolve this in a second part or maybe write a Nathan POV of this but idk yet.

"Oh Nathan. It's one of those days, huh?", you ask into the otherwise quiet room. You're not sure he actually hears you given the amount of empty bottles you see strewn around the place.

You step around the couch to see Nathan laying there: slumped over the upholstery, limbs spread wide and head buried in his own shoulder. In the low light you can't even make out if his eyes are open or not. And yet he somehow looks peaceful like this. Like his body and mind finally decided to give him a break. It’s a rare sight. You’re more used to seeing his face illuminated by computer screens amidst complete darkness or his muscles strained and body slick with sweat as he pummels into a punching bag. When you see him at all.

Either way it doesn’t take much to recognize that Nathan is a very attractive man. A man that you also work for. Which means you shouldn't really be thinking about how pretty he looks, probably passed out from a drunken stupor. You shouldn’t really be finding this attractive at all.

You shake your head, trying to rid yourself of those thoughts. Not for the first time, you loath to admit. Quietly you start gathering the glass bottles laying about, making sure that if Nathan is truly hammered, he at least can't hurt himself with these by accident. Though you're sure he wouldn't even see an issue with that. The guy probably has a robot built specifically to pull glass shards out of his ass or something.

One by one you pick up the empty bottles and carry as many as you can to the kitchen to recycle them later - always careful to keep your footsteps light and to not clink the bottles together. Nathan needed some sleep. Even if drunk sleep wasn't the best, at least it was sleep. You weren't sure when Nathan had slept last.

When you think you’re done with your little clean up project, you look around to see that the only bottle left is one clutched in Nathan's hand, still half full. Deciding that making sure Nathan doesn't stab himself in his sleep (and avoiding a big spill) would be a good idea, you gently grab the bottle by the neck and pull a little. When there doesn't seem to be any resistance you carefully pluck it out of Nathan's hand and place it on the now empty coffee table.

You turn your back to the sleeping man, surveying the small-ish room again for any hazards you should take care of before going to bed yourself. It reminds you a bit of friends and family members talking about how important it is to make sure a living space is baby proof so an infant doesn't hurt itself while exploring the space. This isn't that different really. Ýou're just making things drunk Nathan proof so that the resident genius doesn't break his neck stumbling toward his bedroom. It's not what you'd imagined a personal assistant would do but you stopped asking questions when part of your job required moving your life to a remote facility in the middle of nowhere.

Not that you thought this position would be all sunshine and roses. Nathan Bateman was a famously reclusive man. Thus you had prepared yourself for the worst. Nathan is interesting to say it diplomatically. He's a genius, of course, and he knows it. While his arrogant tendencies are annoying his confidence can be quite charming. Sometimes - when he decides to be less of a dick - he can be nice, funny even. But those times are rare and usually limited to a very specific point of inebriation.

Not finding anything more that could potentially injure your employer you step away from the couch and start walking towards the door but a hand on your knee stops you from moving further.

"You leavin' already?"

It takes you a bit to understand Nathan's mumbling, his face still half-buried in his shoulder. You give him a short nod.

"It's late, Nathan. And some people need their beauty sleep."

That earns you a snort-giggle that makes you smile against your will. Nathan doesn't often laugh at your quips. Oh but when he does. His laugh makes your stomach tingle. You don't want to think about crushes and butterflies in stomachs so you push those emotions away.

You hear him mumble something else and as you turn you see him slowly sliding down the couch.

"Hey, watch it!"

Moving quickly, you gently push him back onto the couch, hands on his leg and shoulder. Once he is laying safely again he gives you another laugh. You roll your eyes at him and let out an exasperated sigh.

"I'm glad you find me entertaining, Nathan."

Finally he opens his eyes, glassy from the alcohol and looks up at you for a moment. His laughter died as quickly as it came and you are now stuck in this awkward silence, just looking at each other. You raise an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to explain himself.

"You don't need it."

Your eyebrows furrow as you look at him confused.

"What?"

Now it's his turn to sigh. It's a familiar sound - every time you need a clarification to his genius he sighs and looks at you like he expected more from you, like you should be smarter than this and he's disappointed by the fact that you're not. It's only mildly insulting.

"You don't need beauty sleep."

Was that a compliment? It's hard to tell with Nathan and his whole Nathan-ness but that almost sounded like a compliment. You're stunned for a moment as you just blink at him, shocked into silence.

With a grunt Nathan sits up on the couch, elbows on his knees and propping his head up with his hands. He scoffs.

"Come on. You can't tell me you don't know you're hot."

OK this sounded more like a compliment from Nathan. You roll your eyes at him again.

"Yeah sure. You compliment all your assistants like that?"

He grins at you and you know he has taken the bait just by the mischievous look in his eyes.

"Only the hot ones."

He leans forward, looking you up and down, studying you. You gather that he is not too drunk for now, even though the empty bottles would suggest otherwise, if he can still make quips like that.

"Alright, Casanova. I think that's enough of your compliments for now. I'm going to bed. And you should too. That couch can't be comfortable."

Nathan raises an eyebrow at you, one hand sliding over to the space next to him and giving it a pat.

"It's very comfortable, that's why I bought it. Take a seat."

It's unusual to see the genius in such a jovial mood. You think it over, not feeling too tired yet, and take a seat next to Nathan. Spending a little more time with him seems harmless. The couch is remarkably comfy, just as Nathan said, a good balance of soft and sturdy. You let out a sigh, your body relaxing into the cushion, head leaning against the back of the couch. You didn't even realize how exhausted you were before you sat down. You close your eyes, taking a breather before looking back over to Nathan. The resident genius is looking at you with a knowing grin, obviously enjoying that he was right.

"Yeah yeah, you're right. It's really comfy."

His grin gets impossibly wider at your admission, a mischievous glint in his eye.

"I usually am. So if I am right about that, that goes to show that I am right about the first thing too."

You almost forgot what he means before it clicks. You let out a frustrated groan.

"What? You don't believe me?"

"Nathan, you're drunk."

"So? Drunk words, sober thoughts and all that shit"

You wave off his comment. Nathan usually is a little flirty, drunk or not, but he never means it. There isn’t a goal to his flirting. The man doesn’t really get much social interaction in this remote facility and from what you’ve gathered Nathan doesn’t really do relationships of any kind. You’re pretty sure you heard him fuck one of his androids the other day. And while, admittedly, Nathan is a very attractive man, he is also your boss. Flirting isn’t an issue, it’s harmless, it’s fun. But you won't let it be more than that. It can't be. Even if Nathan can’t stop himself to tease and prod, to poke the open wound until you either snap or give in. Sometimes you’re so sure he knows. He’s a genius with an ego the size of Jupiter, how could he not figure out that you are attracted to him. Every damn smirk pushes you closer to the edge and you don’t know what you will do when he finally pushes you over.

You won't let him get you to that point.

"You're overthinking. I can see the gears turning in your head."

His voice is so much closer, almost too close. You flinch and look over to where Nathan is almost leaning against you, face just a few inches away from you. His eyes look so much darker in the low light, pupils like deep, dark voids you could fall into if you let yourself.

You don't.

You scoot away until you hit the side of the couch with nowhere else to go. In turn Nathan rolls his eyes at you.

"Just take the fucking compliment."

"Just go the fuck to sleep."

Your counter startles a laugh out of Nathan. He looks up at you through his lashes, his wicked grin making you feel a little uneasy with how much it affects you. Stupid, sexy Nathan.

“Take the compliment and I’ll go to bed. Fair deal, hm?”

Your eyes are glued to his lips, still smirking, knowing that he has you now. You swallow hard, your mouth suddenly feeling as dry as a desert as you realize the situation you’re in, pinned between the couch and Nathan. The closeness does not help you push down the ill-fated attraction you feel towards him. You shake your head, his name an exhausted sigh on your lips.

“If you can’t take the compliment you can always give me a good night kiss.”

Your eyes immediately flick up towards his, your mind reeling. Without conscious thought you lean in further, pulled in by the dark voids of his eyes. It would be so easy to just give in, to finally put an end to this cat and mouse game the two of you had been playing since when you first moved into this damned facility.

Your lips almost meet his as you hold his gaze. His eyes burn into you, anticipating and analyzing your movements, clearly enjoying himself. Your mouth opens just enough for your tongue to run over your lips.

“I-I…”

Your heart pounds in your chest, a frantic rhythm playing against your ribcage. You’re just a hair's breadth apart. It’s just a kiss. Just one quick press of lips and you can go back to business as usual. It doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything. He doesn’t feel anything. He is just playing with you because he can. Because it’s fun for him. It won’t change anything.

“I don’t need it.”, you whisper instead.

Nathan blinks, dumbfounded for what may be the first time in his life.

“Huh?”

You swallow the lump in your throat and gather all the confidence you have. You lean back, keeping your eyes on his and with the smuggest smile you can muster, all while your heart is still beating like a wardrum, you repeat yourself.

“I don’t need it.”

You break eye contact and with one swift motion rise from your seat. An exhausted laugh escapes you as you turn back to Nathan.

“I don’t need the beauty sleep. I’m already hot.”

You can see it in his eyes as the shoe finally drops. A few moments pass and yet there is no witty quip, no smart counter, no smartass one liner. Taking your chances you give him a grin, as confident as you can fake it, and turn to leave.

“Good night, Nathan.”

As you open the door and leave the room you swear you can feel him staring at you. But that may just have been your imagination. This is a game after all. And you won’t lose it.

#nathan bateman x reader #nathan bateman/reader #ex machina fanfic #reader insert fanfic #nathan bateman fanfic #nathan bateman #fran-writes

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andr0medafallen · 1 year

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Square

A/N: Republishing my old fics.

Pairing: Nathan Bateman x reader

Warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, themes of unplanned pregnancy, mentions of abortion, language, lmk if i missed anything

Description: When you find out that you're pregnant with Nathan Bateman's baby, you expect the worst, but maybe you weren't giving him enough credit. Because yes, he's an asshole, but he's your asshole.

Word Count: 2.6k

Love shouldn’t burn.

You had thought about it for a long time. Having a baby, that is. It had always been there, sort of niggling at the back of your mind. Your friends used to joke about it, calling all of your dates ‘potential baby daddy’, ‘potential baby daddy 2.0’, ‘potential baby daddy #3’, etc.. Funnily enough, Nathan had never received a ‘potential baby daddy’ nickname from your group of friends.

That didn’t seem to stop you from falling in love with him. It was all those little things that fascinated you, the things that not even ‘potential baby daddy 12x’ had done. Maybe it made you a narcissist, that the only person who could ever hold claim to your attention was a man who seemed so utterly incapable of affection for anyone else. Still, every time he answered your interrogations about a new piece of art in the living room will a shrug and a ‘I knew you’d like it’, or he’d let you drag him away from whatever super important project he was working on to watch Twilight on the couch, you knew that whatever it was the two of you had was the right choice.

Even if you did love Nathan, you had to be honest with yourself; Parenting seemed like just about the last thing he wanted to do. Having been stabbed in the chest by the last semblance of life which he had created, you certainly couldn’t blame him. You held no animosity towards him, although he certainly wasn’t anyone’s favorite at family reunions. Hell, you hadn’t even brought it up. You both already knew the answer. You had a good thing going with Nathan. You didn’t feel like ruining that.

You knew Nathan didn’t want kids. You didn’t even need to ask him when the answer was so obvious. It was that knowledge which led you to this moment, sitting on the lid of your toilet in Nathan’s ridiculously fancy bathroom, skylight casting blue-tinted sunlight over you, sobbing. Any attempts at keeping your volume at a minimum were ruined by heavy and restrictive breath which was wheezing past your lungs, as if you were a soldier shot on the battlefield. Loud, even after every ounce of your bleeding restraint was placed on it.

You knew that Nathan couldn’t likely see you on his security cams. Conveniently enough, you were in the only room without them. They used to be in every room of the house (yes, closets included), but they had conveniently disappeared a couple of months ago after you had called him a paranoid psycho. It wouldn’t stop him from hearing you though, if you couldn’t get a handle on your emotions. He would hear enough sobbing in about 8 months, if he’s still around by then.

You’d been in there for a while. There were the 5 minutes, not patiently waiting for the results, plus the subsequent panicking which lasted God knows how long (after having received the results from the little pink plastic stick). In retrospect, you probably should have waited for a point in time in which Nathan was not home, but when all of the puzzle pieces of missed periods, vomiting sessions, and constant tiredness clicked together, you had been desperate for a confirmation.

And hell, you’d gotten one. But you couldn’t stop picturing the look on Nathan’s face when you finally tell him. It's different in your mind every time. Sometimes fear, sometimes anger. Sometimes regret. Regretting you, your baby. The only life he’s ever made by accident. Add that to the list of God-like qualifications.

You sighed, getting up from where you were perched on the toilet seat cover, and grabbed the test; You had abandoned it on the counter after your first glance at the two little lines, as if setting it down and ignoring it would change the results. It didn’t. They were still perfectly visible, a testament to your own humanity.

You froze when a knock sounded at the door, weighing your chances of getting away with ignoring it. After a brief pause, you surmised that Nathan absolutely knew you were in the room, so instead you called, “Yeah?” Your voice came out as a croak, betraying the emotions that you were so desperately trying to hide.

“You’ve been in there a while,” Nathan pointed out. As if he hadn’t even noticed your pain, the fear in your voice. You knew he did, though. He was probably putting it into a data sheet at that very moment, categorized under ‘weird human feelings, investigate later’. “Are you okay?”

Then again, maybe he wasn’t jotting down data with robot-like precision. You were upset, and you hated him a lot some of the time, but there was a reason the two of you were together. Because he hated you and cared about you, and you hated him and cared about him. Because every once in a while, when you most wanted to punch him, he would ask you if you were okay.

“Yeah. I’m peeing,” you told Nathan, hoping that you would gross him out enough that he would leave. While that might have worked on any regular Tuesday, your voice was no less scratchy than before, and your lie was thinly veiled through your distress.

“You’ve been peeing for 20 minutes? What, d'you have a UTI or something?” Clearly you had underestimated the difficulty level in grossing out Nathan Bateman.

“Yeah. Sure,” you bit back. You knew that pissing him off would probably do the opposite of helping, but half a dozen stress-related endorphins were still pumping through your body, and you were nowhere near ready to give away your secret.

“Okay, cut the shit. I’m coming in.”

Before you had the chance to protest, the door clicked open. Stupid house and stupid key cards not denying Nathan access to fucking anything. As a myriad of thoughts along those lines raced through your head, your feet remained frozen on the floor, hand still clutching your test. You knew that your face was blotchy and red from all of your crying, and your hair was a mess. People are only ever pretty criers in movies.

You looked into Nathan’s eyes and followed them to where they met the item in your hand. It almost felt like slow motion, the way your grip loosened on the plastic stick and it fell to the ground, but time sped back up again as you backed yourself into the wall.

Your hands reflexively cradled your belly protectively as you watched Nathan bend down to pick up the small pink pregnancy test. Your knees went weak and you slid down the wall, and you watched his brow furrow as he realized what it meant. A part of you felt invisible, completely ignored as Nathan analyzed the data in front of him, brain clicking through possible outcomes and solutions to your problem before even looking at you.

When he finally did look towards you, his gaze noticeably softened. You were sitting on the floor, a complete mess all around. Eyes red, hair disheveled, brows furrowed in an attempt to slow your tears.

“Fuck,” Nathan muttered. That seemed to be the breaking point for you. With the cold marble tiles beneath you as the only thing grounding you, you burst into sobs, hands covering your blotchy face from Nathan’s view. There were a few moments where it was just silence, your sobs ricocheting off of the cold, hard walls of the bathroom, but then you felt a hand on your shoulder.

“Fuck, don’t cry.”

You looked up at him, ready to scream ‘fuck you’ at him and leave, but the way he grabbed your face, gently, almost tenderly, made up for all of the condescension in his tone.

“Don’t cry,” he tried again. It was slightly softer, this time. As if he was reading your mind, and could pinpoint exactly how you had been about to react. His demand was stern, but you could hear the clear edge to his voice; the little rasp that you’ve only heard before during late nights in his lab while he’s stressed by a board deadline. “Talk to me.”

You rubbed your tears away with the sleeve of your shirt–it’s his shirt, really. A dark red button-up that you had found in his closet months ago and refused to give back. The action causes your hand to knock his palm from your face, but you scoot to make room for him on the tile floor beside you.

“What do you want me to say?” You asked. He sighed and sat down on the floor next to you. You refused to make eye contact, but when you felt his arm brush yours, you slid your hand into his.

Your attempts at indifference were ruined when he tilted your face with one of his broad hands and your gaze met his.

“Tell me what happened,” He implored. You weren’t sure what he meant, not really. He had seen the evidence, it was an easy conclusion to make.

“Nathan, I want to… I’m keeping it.”

He groaned, head falling back to hit the wall.

He stayed like that for a moment, as if letting the implications seep into his head from the cold tile, before answering, “Okay.”

It was the answer you wanted, right? It was the answer that you should want, but–

“Okay? Nathan, what does that even fucking mean–”

“It means okay! What the fuck do you want me to say?”

You paused. Mouth open, before shutting in indignation. You tried again, this time making it to “I–” before your mouth snapped shut again. You couldn’t speak with his body, his hands, sending warmth to you.

Standing up, you wrenched your hand from his grip. “You’re a fucking robot, you know that Nathan Bateman?”

It was only a few paces before you made it out of the room, and Nathan didn’t follow. It wasn’t hard to pull your suitcase out of the closet and begin to haphazardly throw any clean item of clothing you could find into it, but you had only managed around seven before giving up, breaking down, and returning to your new base state of dread and sorrow, snot and tears. Only difference now, though, was that if Nathan cared to look, you would be perfectly visible through his bedroom camera.

You wondered if he was looking.

Love doesn’t burn.

You fell asleep on the bed, in the same position that you had been crying in. You were still wearing his shirt, and you hadn’t bothered to take off your pants. You could only imagine how disordered you looked, but you were beginning to feel better. Your anger had melted into acceptance. It was morning. The sun was shining in through your window, and you had decided that you couldn’t change Nathan; That it wasn’t a fair thing to expect.

That only left the question, where do you go from here?

You stood up, muscles aching as you stretched them out. You turned toward your suitcase, where it lay on the floor. The chaotic mess on clothes surrounding it almost looked like one of Nathan’s Jackson Pollock paintings. You had just barely started folding one of these said articles of clothing when you heard another knock at your door. You jumped, startled at the sound. After living with Nathan for so long, hearing people knocking on doors gave you more of a fright than people sneaking up behind you unannounced. You don’t know why it’s a habit that he has decided to break now, after so long.

“Door’s open,” you mumbled, just loud enough for him to hear through the door. You turned away from the suitcase and toward the bed, busying yourself with the covers. Maybe it was your conflict aversion that caused you to ignore the suitcase now that you were in his sight. You didn’t think it would slip his notice, though.

“Y’know Kyoko can do that, right?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest and squaring his hips a bit. He looked the perfect image of a man in power, dripping with confidence and a know-it-all attitude.

You rolled your eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure she can do a lot of things.” You cringed at your phrasing the moment after you said it. It was the perfect set-up, and all you could do was wait for the, ‘she can’t get pregnant.’ It didn’t come though, much to your relief.

Instead, “Planning a trip?” Nathan nudged your open and half-packed suitcase with his foot.

You gulped heavily, your own tongue feeling like a weight in your mouth. “What do you expect me to do?”

Nathan shrugged. “I didn’t write your code. I’ll tell you what I want you to do, though.”

“I’m supposed to care?” You snorted. You finished making the bed, quite frankly not giving a fuck what Kyoko could or couldn’t do. When the dark grey sheets were all in their proper place, you squared your shoulders and faced him.

Closing the distance between the two of you, Nathan said, “Yeah, you care, princess. You’re not supposed to, but you do.” When you stayed silent, he rolled his eyes, placing a large hand on your stomach. “So I fucked a baby into you, huh?”

His hand stayed firm on the side of your stomach, face betraying nothing. It wasn’t even big, according to google, the fetus was currently ‘approximately the size of a grain of rice’, so what, he was just making a point or something? You placed one hand over his, and another on his shoulder, caught between wanting to push him away and pull him closer. Every time you told yourself to push him away, it was all you could do not to pull him closer.

“Well it isn’t baby Jesus 2.0,” you remarked.

Nathan chuckled a bit at your dry humor, tugging you further into his body. He stood like a beacon in front of you, strong and steady. Like the statue of liberty, but make it an entitled white man.

“You never told me what you wanted,” you pointed out. Nathan’s face was inches away from yours, closer than you probably should have let him get.

You could feel his breath on your lips when he said, “I want you to throw that fucking suitcase in an incinerator.”

You hum, considering. “It was an expensive suitcase,” you joke, but your voice is more thoughtful than jolly. His eyes are boring right into you, as if he’s got a read on your soul. Like he did write whatever internal code you might have, or is running PCR on every strand of DNA in your body.

“Don’t leave,” he tells you. It surprises you, so much so that you take a step back, but his grip tightens. “This,” he gestures to your being, the suitcase, “All of this is you projecting your own insecurities onto me–”

“You don’t want a baby,” you argue.

“Maybe not, but I’ve got one. I’ve got two,” he teased. Is it a tease when he doesn’t sound amused, and you aren’t amused, and everyone is all-around pissed off? “So do you want me to call the fucking wambulance, or what?”

Despite yourself, despite your urge to blame Nathan for everything going wrong in your life, you laughed, burying your head in the crux of his shoulder. “You really…I find it hard to believe you're not mad.”

“Oh, baby,” His voice was dripping with playful condescension, so like Nathan, “Why would a God be mad that he created life?”

You leaned into his embrace, relishing in the way the heat seeped from his body into yours.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” you whispered, peering up into his eyes from where you were tucked into his shoulder. He tilted your chin up and pressed his lips to yours. As your tongue entangled with Nathan’s, you knew the answers to all of the questions that you would never ask and he would never answer. The two of you were going to be fine, and you were going to stay, and you might even throw your suitcase in an incinerator, if you were feeling extra silly.

I would literally rather have 0 notes than 5,000 likes and no reblogs.

#nathan bateman #nathan bateman fanfic #ex machina #reader insert #ex machina fanfic #nathan bateman angst #hurt comfort #happy ending #nathan bateman x reader #nathan bateman fluff #oscar isaac #oscar isaac fanfic

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thisispurpleyam · 2 years

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Shooting Stars and Pseudoscience [part 1]

Pairing: Nathan Bateman x Gianna (fem!OC) (poc!oc)

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 6,222

Warnings: Sexual innuendos and curse words

Genre: Mostly fluff, some angst, eventual smut

Summary: Soulmate! AU Each person is born with a soul mark that is identical with their soulmate’s. Nathan Bateman thinks it’s all nonsense, but his soulmate doesn’t. As if the whole idea wasn’t ridiculous enough already, his soulmate is none other than the popstar who is currently Blue Book’s brand ambassador.

Notes: Click here to see how this idea came to be

Playlist

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‘Former Blue Book Employee Calls Nathan Bateman an Insensitive Lunatic’

‘How a Week With Blue Book’s Owner Led a Computer Coder to Quit’

‘Blue Book’s Fall From Grace?’

“Have you seen these headlines?” Thomas, Nathan Bateman’s publicist, questioned.

Nathan rolled his eyes at the image on his monitor. “Of course I have, but since when did we give a shit about gossip?”

“This isn’t just some gossip, this is a fucking PR disaster, Nathan!” Thomas exclaimed, flailing his hands in the air for emphasis. “These are statements from somebody who actually lived with you for a week! Somebody you handpicked but couldn’t even afford to be nice to. Do you understand how bad this is?

The scientist sighed in disinterest. “Not really, but you seem to think it’s pretty bad.”

“Would it kill you to give a fuck about public opinion for once in your life? Daily Mail, Yahoo News, People.com, they’re everywhere! If this bad publicity goes on, your company is gonna take the blow. There will be a decrease in sales.”

“Fine, what do you propose?”

“We get another celebrity brand ambassador to help promote the products Blue Book is about to launch.”

Nathan nodded noncommittally. “Who did you have in mind?”

“This was actually Monica’s idea, so she’ll take it from here.”

Monica, Nathan’s social media manager and Thomas’s wife, moved her seat closer to the computer and screen shared a PowerPoint presentation of news articles and social media accounts.

“Gianna? A popstar? That shit barely counts as real music,” Blue Book’s CEO complained. “Are we really that desperate?”

“She has a clean reputation, a solid international fanbase, and a new album coming out,” Monica clicked onto the next slide. “She’s a sweetheart! She donates to charities, has a great network, and connects well with people. If she promotes your brand and the public sees the two of you getting along, it’ll really help soften the reclusive image you have going on.”

“It’s not an image, it’s a lifestyle.”

Monica exasperatedly shook her head at Nathan. “You know what? Lemme show you an example of what Caleb has been saying so you’ll see what I mean.”

“He’s narcissistic, condescending, and has probably never heard of hospitality,” Monica recited from an article she began screen-sharing. “He has a massive god complex and prefers the company of wires and gadgets over actual humans. In fact, that guy has had no real human interaction in ages, I won’t be surprised if he has sex with his own creations too.”

“Okay, I get it!” Nathan sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “The people think I’m a maniac, so we have to paint a more sympathetic image.”

“Look, you wanna live in some faraway estate all by yourself and be rude to your guest? Fine,” Monica gritted out in agitation. “You wanna create a perfect AI that you can have sex with? You do you. But what I can’t let you do is drag every other innocent Blue Book employee and their careers into this mess you’ve created.”

After heaving out a sigh, Nathan finally conceded. “Alright. Tell me what I have to do.”

*****

“That’s all for today,” the choreographer announced after the song concluded. “Great job, everybody!”

Gianna lingered for a bit in the dance studio to chat with the choreographer and her back-up dancers. She thanked them all before heading to the conference room for her meeting. When she entered the elevator, she redid her ponytail, did some quick minor touch ups, and gave her reflection another once over right before the elevator reached her stop.

“Good afternoon, ladies!” Gianna cheerfully greeted as she walked into the conference room.

Jillian, her personal assistant and long time friend, got up from her seat to give her a hug. “Hey! How did rehearsals go?”

Agnes, Gianna’s manager, stated, “I’m sure she killed it, as always!”

“If being out of breath counts as killing it, then yeah!” Gianna laughed in response.

Jillian smiled and pulled out a cup with a familiar logo. “I figured you must be tired, so I got you your favorite drink from your favorite cafe!”

While the three continued to catch up, Krista, the singer’s publicist, and Dinah, her social media manager, trickled into the room and expressed their greetings as they took their seats around the table.

“Apparently,” Agnes began when everyone in the team finally got situated, “Nathan Bateman’s team reached out to Krista and was asking if you could be their next celebrity brand ambassador.”

“They reasoned that since you’re already headlining at the launch of Blue Book’s music streaming service in two days, why not offer you a brand deal as well?” Krista elaborated. “Plus, working with such a well-known company could help bring your music to new audiences worldwide.”

“Did they say how long I had to decide?” The popstar inquired.

“Until the end of the week,” her publicist answered. “Monica, Nathan Bateman’s publicist, also requested that I arrange plandid moments between you and Bateman for the cameras after your performance at the event. She said that being seen with you could sway the public into thinking, and I quote, ‘that he’s capable of making friends because they’re nice people and not because they can help with his research.’”

Gianna scoffed incredulously. “The caveman is coming out of hiding and needs my help? That can’t be good.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ve seen the articles,” Dinah mentioned in agreement.

“At this point, who hasn’t?” Gianna rhetorically asked. “It’s been known that he’s an arrogant egotistical prick, but to think he’d be rude to his own guest that he invited? Money really can’t buy class.”

“Oh, you don’t even know,” Dinah stressed. “His team is struggling to curate a somewhat decent image of him. They can barely get him to show up to his scheduled public appearances.”

Upon hearing all that, Nathan’s difficult nature worried the singer even more. “Won't attaching my name to his brand hurt my image, then?”

“Not really,” her social media manager reassured her. “Bateman might’ve gotten himself in trouble, but his company is still favored by the public. A lot of people on social media are only bad mouthing him and talking about how he doesn’t deserve a company full of good and honest workers.”

Gianna laughed dryly. “They got a point there.”

“If anything, they’d think that associating yourself with Bateman is public service.” Agnes handed Gianna several documents. “You already know that Blue Book is donating half of the money they’ll earn from the streaming service launch to Make-A-Wish Foundation. As for the two other products launching later this year, they’ve chosen to donate to RAINN and ASPCA.”

“If you agree to this brand deal,” Krista added, “they’re letting you pick a charity for each event and product you'll be attached to because they know how much giving back to the community means to you. And even though their new phone has already been launched, you still get your pick of charity since you’ll be modeling for the print ads.”

The singer mulled it over for a moment and mentally weighed the pros and cons. “Let’s do it.”

*****

‘Loneliness Caused Nathan Bateman to Make His Own Sex Robots?’

Nathan had recently landed in Los Angeles and was in the middle of getting ready for the launch when he came across another scathing article about him. He forwarded a link to his lawyer with a brief text that said, “call me.” Within seconds, he heard a familiar ring from his phone.

“Isn’t this a breach of the NDA?!” Nathan questioned as soon as he heard Kyle breathe on the line.

“Hello to you too, Bateman.” Kyle then regretfully answered, “But no, it isn’t.”

Nathan adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose as he paced in his hotel room. “So we can’t pin him down?”

“The second I caught wind of this news, I looked closely into the terms of your NDA and checked if there was anything Caleb violated. However, because he didn’t outright say anything and merely used a hyperbolic statement, he’s safe.”

“That son of a bitch!”

“Are you really surprised, though?” Kyle asked bluntly. “You experimented on the guy and almost got him killed.”

“You don’t say.”

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

Nathan shook his head and heaved a sigh. “No, that’s all for now. Just…keep an eye out for me.”

“Will do. And Nathan?”

“What now?”

“Play nice. Don’t scare the popstar away.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Not long after the call ended, Nathan made his way to the elevator and pressed the button that would lead him to the event’s venue. The elevator doors hadn’t even completely opened yet, and he could already hear the boom of the music coming from the room. Walking through the foyer, he could tell how much his company outdid themselves. The team had decided on going for a futuristic themed party, and the whole place was transformed into a technological wonderland with a sprinkle of scientific motifs. The snacks were cut out like cell phones, speakers, radios, and other gadgets. The LED lights were shaped like headphones. The staff donned sparkly silver attires, and their trays held beaker shaped wine glasses and Earlenmeyer flask shaped cups. Glowing party cups contained the non-alcoholic beverages. His team even prepared stations where guests can get an immersive experience with the latest models of Blue Book’s devices.

As Blue Book’s founder continued his tour of the venue, he noticed guests turning their heads and exchanging surprised remarks with their friends. Monica and Thomas decided that it was best to only tell a select number of people about Nathan’s arrival in Los Angeles to minimize the amount of damage he could potentially do to the paps. “Last thing we need is you cursing out a poor paparazzi or smashing his camera to bits,” Thomas brought up while they were discussing the plan. Only Gianna and her team knew the specifics while the staff of the launch party had barely been notified of his appearance a few hours prior. Thomas did make sure that there would be plenty of paps at the event, so if they didn’t know about Nathan Bateman’s presence, they were soon about to.

Nathan walked further into the room toward the location where a platform was set up and headed to his reserved seat near the stage. He made it just as Carina Garcia, a Latin pop singer who was scheduled to open for Gianna, was doing her last number. The audience applauded after Carina hit the final pose of the choreography, and she and her dancers cleared the stage as the host made his way back. The second he announced Gianna’s name, the crowd cried out in excitement and began chanting. Nathan looked back, puzzled as to what it was about the popstar that elicited such a reaction from the audience.

Gianna and her backup dancers soon filled the stage as the opening instrumentals to her first number blared out through the speakers. The singer carried out the choreography flawlessly while skillfully executing each note, making sure to wave and wink at the crowd every once in a while. The pop star didn’t waste a single second of the time she was allotted. She showcases her versatility by singing songs in various styles such as several different sub-genres of pop, R&B, neo-soul, and house. Although Nathan had a different sonic preference, he was admittedly impressed by her musicality and lyricism. He wouldn’t dare say it out loud to anyone, but he was having fun at the show, particularly enjoying Gianna’s modern disco tune.

After the sixth song number, the music halted, and the dancers left the stage. A mic stand was brought to the middle, and Gianna took her place behind it. “Good evening, everybody! Thank you so much for having me.” The singer took a pause to catch her breath and have a sip of water while the audience cheered her on encouragingly. “Ever since I started doing live shows, I’ve made sure to always share a part of my culture by singing in my native language. These next two songs are very special to me as I wrote and co-produced both of them. I hope you enjoy them just as much as I do. And if by any chance you know the lyrics, please sing along!”

The first of the two was an alternative R&B track sung in Tagalog, her native tongue. He may not have understood the words, but he felt her sincerity. As he looked around the room, he noticed a handful of people mouthing the lyrics along with her, and he was suddenly awestruck by how music can resonate with people despite the language barrier.

The next Tagalog tune was slower and had a more soulful feel. He noticed that she connected with the lyrics differently, and he was intrigued by the emotional vulnerability she exhibited as she poured her heart into the song. Its melody and musical arrangement had him so hooked that he felt an unusual sense of longing as the song came to an end.

The dancers returned on the platform while upbeat instrumentals resounded through the speakers, and the mic stand was removed from the center stage. Nathan was so caught up in Gianna’s performance that he hadn’t noticed a bespectacled middle-aged woman taking a seat next to him until she spoke. “I’m Joan, your new personal assistant,” she coldly introduced herself.

Nathan raised an eyebrow and scrutinizingly inspected Joan. “They hired somebody to babysit me?“

“Seeing how you almost died the last time you were left unattended, we all agreed it was necessary.”

The scientist laughed to himself, taken aback but pleased by the woman’s bluntness. “Touché.”

True to his assessment, Joan jumped right into business. “Gianna has two songs left to perform before she gets changed into more comfortable clothes. She’s going to meet you at the foyer. You need to grab at least one drink together and be seen having a chat over some snacks. That way, the meeting doesn’t seem like just a coincidental one-off thing, you wanna seem like you guys actually wanna be talking to each other.”

Nathan rolled his eyes and snorted. “You want me to spoon-feed the popstar too?”

“You’re not required to do anything. You don’t even have to proceed with the plan. Just know that if you screw this up-”

“I know, I know.The company’s at stake, my poor employees.” Nathan shook his head as he huffed in annoyance, making his way back to the foyer.

*****

“You ready?” Jillian asked Gianna after the singer shed her costume in exchange for a more casual attire, a breathable and loose fitting romper.

Gianna applied a lighter shade of lipstick and smacked her lips in front of the vanity before replying, “Now I am.”

Jillian looked at her friend a little more intently and raised her eyebrows. “You know what I meant.”

The musician shrugged as she prepared her purse. “I think so?

“It’s not too late to back out, babes,” Agnes gently told Gianna. “Krista is in the middle of contacting the paps and finalizing a couple more details with Bateman’s team. If you’re not up for it, I can tell her to call the whole thing off.”

“You guys, it’s just one guy! Sure he’s richer and kind of a dick, but I’ll be fine!

Dinah affectionately laughed at how concerned the girls were for Gianna and chimed in. “Nathan Bateman’s got nothing on our girl! She’ll put him in his place. Stop worrying so much!”

“Yeah!” Gianna affirmed confidently. “He’s just a cocky tech genius. How bad can it be?”

Cameras and compliments welcomed the popstar the moment she stepped out of the elevator doors. She made her way around the room to thank as many guests as she could, genuinely enjoying meeting new people and making her fans smile. When the buzz surrounding her arrival died down, Gianna then set her sights on the task at hand. She scanned the foyer and spotted the billionaire, sporting his usual polo and khaki pants attire, tinkering with one of the Blue Book phones on display.

“That’s a great model, by the way,” Gianna remarked when she reached Nathan’s side, holding up her baby pink colored Blue Book phone. “Although, I do wish you had it in lilac.”

Nathan looked up from the display and carefully eyed the popstar. The CEO angled his body to face the singer, slightly tilting his head as he continued studying her wordlessly. Gianna’s gaze didn’t falter, defiantly raising her head and stepping closer to him in response. In reality, the entire exchange probably only took about 10 seconds, but it somehow felt much longer given the intensity of Nathan’s stare.

Her entire demeanor transformed in a millisecond when she donned the sweetest smile she could offer to him as she extended her hand. “It’s so nice to finally meet you! I’m Gianna.”

“You’re shorter than I thought you’d be,” Nathan commented before shaking her hand. Even in her 5 inch heels, he still stood nearly a head taller than her despite only being 5’9.

If it wasn’t for the slight crinkle of her nose and the fleeting furrow of her brows that marred her smile, her irritation would’ve been undetectable, a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it moment. “Well, aren’t you the charmer,” she replied, gripping his hand ever so slightly tighter.

Nathan smirked and gripped her hand back, pulling her a little closer to him. “So you think I’m charming?”

Gianna finally released the handshake but kept her stance, folding her arms across her chest while maintaining a smile that contrasted her tone just in case any cameras were on them. “Says the guy who’s dressed like a Best Buy employee.”

So the popstar has some bite to her. “At least I know how to appreciate real music,” Nathan bit back challengingly.

“And here I thought you only knew how to appreciate the sound of your own voice.”

This is gonna be fun. “Would you appreciate a drink?”

“Didn’t think you had good manners.”

Nathan placed a hand on the small of her back as he led the two of them to the open bar. “There’s no way heels like that are practical,” he voiced as he helped her up the bar stool.

“No, but as weapons? They can cause some serious damage.”

The bartender approached the pair, interrupting the question Nathan was about to utter. “You speaking from experience?” he said as soon as the bartender disappeared.

“Oh yeah. Broke a guy’s toe once for being a creep at a bar and kicked my stalker in the groin to teach him a lesson.”

“Good girl.”

Before Gianna could react, the bartender returned with their drinks in beaker shaped wine glasses. The singer wasted no time in grabbing hers so she could conceal the blush that crept up her cheeks.

“Not a fan of red wine much, are you,” the CEO commented upon seeing Gianna’s expression after taking a sip

“It’s not that. It’s just a little…” Gianna motioned with her left hand, struggling to find the right adjective.

“Oaky? Smoky?”

“Yeah, those! My bad, I just don’t drink much.”

“What? The popstar’s too good for drinking or something?”

“No, alcohol dries out the vocal cords. I kinda need them in tip top shape for my job.”

The billionaire simply hummed in response before taking another sip of his drink.

“Come on, let’s get to our final stop,” Gianna said, motioning to the snack table.

Nathan stood up and offered his arm to her, allowing her to steady herself while she descended the bar stool.

“I was gonna commend you for your chivalry, but then I figured it must be the drink getting to you,” the singer quipped.

“Please, it’ll take a lot more drinks for me to get affected. Besides, I can’t have you falling on your ass and drawing any more unwanted attention.”

The popstar plastered an artificial smile on her face before a scowl could form. “How sweet of you!”

“So,” Nathan began after taking a bite from a boombox shaped cookie and making sure that no one else was in their vicinity, “how much did my reps pay you for you to agree to this deal?”

“This might be a little hard for your tech genius brain to comprehend, but not everything has to be motivated by money.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t get paid?”

“Now that’s unpaid labor, and I don't think you want to attract any more unwanted attention,” she answered, echoing his sentiments from earlier. “Least of all, from the law.”

“Fine, don’t tell me your reasons. I’ll find out eventually.”

“I’m sure you will,” Gianna nonchalantly responded as she grabbed a laptop shaped cookie. She tilted her head and observed him appraisingly as she nibbled on her snack. She took another sip from her wine glass and continued examining the scientist.

“Can I help you?”

“I know you have your opinions on what the news says about you, but they do consistently get one thing right.”

“Which is?”

A cheeky grin took over Gianna’s face as she said, “You really do grow an impressive beard.”

Nathan skeptically narrowed his eyes at her, not buying the compliment one bit. “Oh yeah?”

“Sure! It looks like a built-in chia pet.”

The billionaire was unable to hold in a chortle, shaking his head at the musician in amusement. “That’s creative. That’s actually so fucking creative, I’ll give you that.”

*****

“Good work today,” Thomas told Nathan through the phone, genuinely relieved that the CEO followed the plan through. “Joan said you guys looked really convincing.”

“You just reminded me,” Nathan brought up to his publicist, “if you’re gonna get me a guardian, it would’ve been nice to have been informed.”

“If we did, would you have agreed?” his publicist retorted.

“Probably not. Still, I could’ve prepared. Anyway, how much money did that popstar’s team demand from us?”

“They didn’t demand any. We offered her team $5 million at first, but they said that Gianna won’t attach her name to any brands unless it’s for a good cause.”

“So how’d you close the deal?”

“We settled on a $5 million deal plus a charity of her choosing for every product we have her endorse.”

“Huh. A popstar with a heart of gold.” Nathan mused, genuinely not anticipating the revelation. “It's good branding.”

“Or, she could genuinely be a nice person. You should take notes.”

Not looking forward to another lecture, Nathan opted for a different topic. “So when do we know if the plan is actually working?”

“It’s working, alright. I’ll email you some photos Monica’s been putting together.”

Nathan set his laptop on the desk in his hotel room and did as much work as he could while he waited for his publicist’s email. It was nearly 11 pm, but he had yet to feel the urge to fall asleep. His body was having trouble adjusting to the new timezone, so he busied himself in hopes of self-inducing exhaustion. Several minutes went by before Nathan heard the ‘ping’ of his email notification that came from Thomas.

‘’No fucking way y’all. Nathan Bateman and THE Gianna are friends?! Maybe he’s not that bad”

“I’m not saying my queen can do no wrong, but if she thinks he’s worthy enough to be her friend, we may have misjudged him”

“Of course Gianna was able to uncover Nathan Bateman’s hidden friendly side.”

In the email, the publicist attached screencaps of people reacting to Nathan’s photos with Gianna on Twitter. The paps captured several moments between the billionaire and the singer, but the fan favorites seemed to be the one by the gadget display and the one by the snack table. Based on the photos alone, no one would be able to tell that the two had never spoken before, let alone that it was a rather tense first meeting. Gianna’s a pretty damn good actress, Nathan acknowledged.

*****

Gianna felt the warm water of the hot tub soothe her aching muscles, leaning back and closing her eyes in contentment. She let out a long heavy sigh, grateful for the peace and quiet. It was a little over 11 pm, late enough for her to have the whole indoor pool to herself. As much as she loved her job, putting on choreography-heavy shows and constantly having to mingle with different crowds were no easy feats. Still, she wouldn’t trade it for the world. The soff buzzing of her phone distracted her from her reverie, and she reached over the edge of the hot tub to grab the device.

“Hey girl! Sorry if it’s a little late. Just doing a last minute head-count for the party next week. Will I see you there?” Carina Garcia’s message read.

The singer smiled, relieved that the text notification was not work related. “Rinaaa! Of course I’ll be at your release party! I’ve been waiting for your album for ages!”

“Thank youuu! Hopefully we can collab soon! Also, you absolutely killed it tonight, as always.”

Gianna heard the creak of the doors just as she was hitting send on her reply. She set her phone back down and prepared to interact with a guest who could potentially recognize her. She was met with disappointment, though, when she made eye contact with whoever walked through the doors.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” In front of the double doors stood Nathan who was clad in a sleeveless shirt and gym shorts while a towel hung over his shoulder.

“You can’t ask me to leave. I was here first,” Gianna defensively stated, irritated that the billionaire’s presence was disrupting her peace.

Nathan exhaled in annoyance as he strolled toward the hot tub. “I knew I should’ve had the whole place reserved.”

“That’s so excessive, why would you waste money on that?”

He set his towel down on a chaise lounge near the pool and pulled his tank top over head. “I’m Nathan fucking Bateman, I can do whataver I want.”

“That's a funny way of admitting you’re an overgrown toddler who doesn’t know how to share,” Gianna retaliated, averting her gaze from his (rather impressive) shirtless frame. He stepped in the hot tub and took a few steps closer to where Gianna was sitting. “Hold up! Right there’s close enough”

“What, you think I got cooties or something?” Nathan quipped, settling down on the bench directly across from her.

“No, but there could be cameras around. We only need the public to think we’re friends, not hooking up too.”

Nathan smirked and smugly raised an eyebrow. “Would that be so bad? I think it’s a compliment, actually”

Gianna snorted and glared at him. “You wish, Bateman. I’d blame the jet lag, but it’s probably just your ego.”

“My team didn’t put me through hell reading thirst tweets on Buzzfeed just so you can doubt me.“

“They don’t teach anatomy in billionaire school, so I doubt you’ll even know how to give a woman an orgasm.”

“Would you like to test that theory? I could debunk it for you.”

“Absolutely not.”

Nathan shrugged at her as if to say ‘suit yourself’ and leaned back, closing his eyes massaging his temples. He still had his glasses on as he only intended on taking a moment to unwind in the hot tub instead of actually going for a swim. Gianna reveled in the quiet and reclined against the edge of the tub once again.

“I figured it out, you know,” Nathan announced, breaking the silence. He continued after not getting a response, “What got you to close the deal.”

“And that is?”

“Charity,” he pointedly said to her. “You’re a fucking sap.”

She sat up and scowled at him. “Excuse me for actually caring about the well-being of others.”

“What did you choose for this one?”

“The Asian Mental Health Collective.”

“And for the other products?”

“Shouldn’t you know already? I thought Blue Book’s CEO looks up everybody he meets so he can judge if they’re worthy enough or some shit”

“I didn’t wanna risk finding out anything about you that would make me even more reluctant to stick with the plan.”

“Was me being a popstar instead of a robot not enough of a deterrent?” Gianna questioned sardonically.

“It was almost too much.” Their conversation was interrupted by the shriek of Nathan’s alarm. He briskly grabbed his phone to turn it off and check the time. “Back to work,” he sighed, standing up from his seat and turning around to climb up the steps.

Before he could go any further, Gianna abruptly got up and grabbed his arm. “Wait!”

Nathan looked over his shoulder at her. “Have you changed your mind about testing that theory?”

“Shut up,” Gianna told him distractedly. Her eyes were glued to a specific spot on his left shoulder blade. “Stay still!”

Nathan grunted and begrudgingly complied. He felt Gianna let go of his arm, bringing up her shaky hand to tentatively touch his soulmark. “What the fuck?” she finally spoke up, dismay lacing her voice.

He turned around to look at her in agitation. “Yeah, I have a soulmark too, big deal.”

“Look!” She commanded him, angling her torso to one side to show him her left rib cage. She adjusted her bikini top to reveal her soul mark a little below her breast. Hers was a few shades darker than her skin tone and shaped like a shooting star, just like his.

His stunned eyes met her dumbfounded ones. “No fucking way.”

Gianna moved herself away from Nathan and shakily sat back down. Distress was written all over her face as she rapidly fluttered her eyelids to fight the tears she felt forming.

“Don’t tell me you actually buy into that pseudoscience bullshit. Most of it is correlation anyway instead of actual causation!”

The singer looked up and shot daggers at the Blue Book’s founder. “That pseudoscience bullshit to you is truth to me. I grew up believing in soulmates. My parents, my sister and her fiancé, my aunt and her husband. What they all have is beautiful.”

“I’m not thrilled about this either, okay, Princess? Look, I have my own theories about soulmates, but you being mine contradicts every single one of them.”

“Finally! Something we agree on!” She got up, stepping closer to him and looking him in the eye. “We can’t even stand each other!”

“This must be a mistake.”

“A glitch in the matrix!”

“So let’s never talk about it again.”

“Deal.” Gianna nervously surveyed her surroundings to make sure that their discussion had no other witnesses. “I’m gonna go now. Wait at least 10 minutes before walking out so nobody suspects we were together.”

“That’s such a-“

“10 minutes!”

“Fine.”

The popstar swiftly gathered her belongings, wrapped her bathrobe around her, and scurried toward the doors. She waited for them to close behind her before reverting back to a normal pace to not raise suspicion with her speed. Meanwhile, Nathan laid on a chaise lounge and impatiently waited for 10 minutes to go by.

*****

“So what’s the verdict on Bateman?” Krista inquired after exchanging updates with Nathan’s reps.

“He could use some sensitivity training.” The singer was in the process of getting her hair and make-up done for her print ad photoshoot for Blue Book’s latest flagship phone.

“Hey guys,” Dinah interrupted, rushing in through the hotel room door, “you should see this.”

Gianna held Dinah’s phone and apprehensively eyed the article she had opened up. “Romance for the reclusive billionaire?” She read the headline aloud. The photo underneath depicted her standing toe to toe with Nathan as she looked up at him through her lashes. Thankfully, her elbow was bent at an angle that covered her soul mark while Nathan had his unmarked shoulder toward the camera. “One of the staff members must’ve seen us. What are they saying on social media?”

Gianna handed the phone back to Dinah, and her social media manager immediately typed the popstar’s name on Twitter. Gianna then took her own phone out, pulled up some of her fan accounts on Instagram, and scrolled through the comment section.

“Looks like somebody’s into bad boys”

“Alexa, play ‘Mayores’ by Becky G”

“Why do they kinda look good together? The height difference???”

“A singer and a tech mogul? Grimes and Elon Musk are quaking.”

“Guys, quit comparing Gianna and Nathan to Grimes and Elon Musk cause Gianna and Nathan are hotter!!!”

“That went better than expected,” Gianna muttered after seeing the public’s reaction.

Krista gently touched her shoulder. “Are you okay”

“Oh yeah, I’m fine!” Gianna honestly replied. “Just a little peeved that it had to be Bateman, out of all people, but I’m sure it’ll pass.

“Is there anything we can do?” Dinah offered.

“Nah. I don’t plan on being alone with him ever again anyway, so it should blow over soon.” Gianna reassured them.

Jillian joined in after helping set up Gianna’s wardrobe. “Okay, but, can I ask?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” The singer responded.

“Did you two actually… do the do?”

“Of course not! He interrupted my alone time, so honestly this whole thing’s on him.”

“But if you ever wanted to, we’d help cover it up,” Jillian told her. “Like, come on! He’s hot!”

To Gianna’s disbelief, both Dinah and Krista giggled and nodded in agreement. The singer rolled her eyes as she finished lacing up her shoes. “You all need to get your eyes checked.”

Gianna and her team headed to the photoshoot location where Agnes had already arrived to help with setting up. During the drive to the studio, Dinah phoned Agnes to fill her in on the dating rumors while Krista emailed Bateman’s team regarding future plans. Much to Gianna’s chagrin, Nathan was already scheduled to be present at the photoshoot and most of the other publicity events surrounding Blue Book’s latest products to seem like “a more hands-on CEO.”

“What charity was her pick this time?” Nathan asked Agnes during the 15 minute break.

“Pawssion Project from the Philippines. Why?”

“Nothing. Just curious.”

“Are you testing if I’m actually serious about donating?” Gianna walked up behind him after she finished changing into a different outfit.

“As a matter of fact, I am.” Nathan turned around to reply, alerting Agnes that it was her cue to leave.

“I take it you’ve heard the news.”

“Yup. Told you it’d be a compliment.”

“Ugh, don’t flatter yourself, Bateman. Being around a popstar is probably just making you more attractive.”

“Did you just say that I’m attractive?”

“Oh my god, I can’t stand you.” Gianna groaned in annoyance. “Do you think they heard us?”

Nathan didn’t need any more specifics for him to understand. “No, it’s really unlikely. Judging from the angle of the photo, they couldn’t have been near enough to make out what we were saying.”

“Good. As long as we’re never seen alone together again, we’re fine.”

*****

-One Week Later-

The it-girl of pop music may not be such a darling after all. Carina Garcia, Gianna’s labelmate and friend, has recently split from her long-term beau, actor Matthew Jauncey. Although there have been no official statements from any of the parties yet, photographs from Carina Garcia’s album release party suggest that Gianna’s dalliance with the actor may have caused the break-up. Who knew that the pop sweetheart is actually quite the temptress?

“This makes no sense!” Gianna exclaimed as she threw her phone down her couch. “Dalliance? We just met!”

“What happened?” Jillian picked up the phone from the couch to see what triggered such a reaction from her friend.

“That picture of him leaning over to me? He was telling me where the restroom was because I asked him! He wasn’t ‘whispering sweet nothings.’ He had to get close to my ear cause it was loud!” Gianna’s arms flailed while she recounted what actually transpired. “And the one at the bar? The bartender accidentally swapped our drinks! And he was getting that drink for Carina!”

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay! I’ll talk to Krista.”

“My career is over.” Gianna slumped down onto her couch, bringing up a hand to dry off the tears that began to fall. All the space that she normally enjoyed in her luxury apartment now felt suffocating to her.

“No,” Jillian crouched down in front of Gianna and looked her in the eye. “We’ll figure something out.”

*****

“We can make it work,” Thomas stated. Nathan, Gianna, and their teams were all gathered for an impromptu meeting in Blue Book’s office in LA. “The public received them very positively, so we just have to follow it through.”

“Yeah, we’ll arrange for more public appearances together and plandids,” Krista agreed.

“What’s our timeline?” Agnes asked.

“I’m thinking maybe 4-6 months?” Monica replied. “Whirlwind romances happen all the time, so it’s reasonable.”

Gianna struggled to conceal a snort. “Good luck making him commit to it for that long.”

“He will,” Joan reassured the singer. “I’ll make sure he sticks to the schedule.”

The meeting ended shortly, and everyone cleared the conference room leaving Gianna and Nathan behind. The businessman swiveled his chair to face the singer. “Turns out, you need me just as much as I need you now.”

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melodygatesauthor · 6 months

Text

How Romantic

Nathan Bateman X f!Reader

Blurb 10 for Melody's 2023 Ficversary Celebration

NSFW below the cut

Nathan wasn’t the roses and wine type of romantic.

Nathan was the type of romantic to build an android based on your porn search history so he could give you the night of your life, holding you up between himself and the bot and lowering you down on both their cocks simultaneously. He even made the bot a little bigger than himself because the videos you watched always had a girl with her asshole stretched out around a fatter dick than his.

“Isn’t this what you wanted, honey?” Nathan asked, alternating his thrusts in time with the android.

“Mm,” you choked out, tears streaming down your cheeks from the overstimulation.

He chuckled, “You’re acting like such a fuckin’ crybaby for someone who practically begged for this, you know that?” He huffed in your ear, picking up speed. “I mean, you knew I’d see what you were looking up, I bet this is what you were hoping for isn’t it?”

You nodded, even though you hadn’t really thought Nathan would be selfless enough to use time and resources on your sexual fantasies. You knew part of him must’ve been interested in seeing you like this.

“You know what else?” His movements slowed, and you felt the android follow suit, “I saw how much you replayed that one part where the girl got fucking s-stuffed, fuck…”

Not only did you feel the heat of Nathan’s spend painting the insides of your greedy cunt, you felt the android halt, thick cock pulsating and filling your asshole deep with spend. That was fucking cum…

Nathan smirked against your ear, “feel familiar? That’s all me honey, had my shit stored up in a freezer so I could really give you something special.”

You could always count on Nathan to be full of surprises…

Melody's 2023 Ficversary Masterlist

#nathan bateman #nathan bateman FanFiction #nathan bateman x reader #nathan bateman x you #nathan bateman fan fiction #nathan bateman ex Machina #nathan bateman fanfic #nathan bateman fic #ex Machina FanFiction #ex Machina fic #ex Machina smut #ex Machina fan fiction #nathan bateman smut

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tsunami-watch · 1 month

Text

Outrunning Karma

Main Story: 1

Summary: V meets Nathan, the beginning of our adventure.

Ships: (Nathan Bateman x F!V!Reader)

Word count: 1767

“This could be big for you, don’t fuck it up.” Rogue’s warning rang in V’s mind as she entered the conference room.

The room was monochromatic with minimalist decor, nothing really clueing her in to who this “Nathan Bateman” guy was. No personal effects or awards, just some plant that looked fake in the corner and a geometric table with two chairs. She scans the room, finding nothing of note, just a security panel and a thermostat. She shrugged and sat down in one of the chairs, tapping the table under her fingers. She had gotten from Rouge was that this guy was “Unlike any other corpo.” and that could mean anything. She sighs and leans back in her chair as she looks up at the paneled ceiling, after a brief moment of pretending to play tic-tac-toe with its gridded pattern she’s startled by a low voice.

“Anything interesting up there?” She jumps slightly and turns quickly in her seat about to curse out whoever scared her when she’s face to face with him. She’s surprised by the man in front of her, not a scrap of visible chrome on him. She starts up her scanner for a habitual scan, but before she can even get a glance at the info, he vanishes from her field of view in the blink of an eye, a sudden gust of wind whipping across her face from the movement. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Nathan’s voice comes from around the corner.

V instinctively flexes, Mantis blades springing into action, she takes a defensive stance, anticipating the worst.

“Woah, chill honey. Not gonna hurt you.” Before she could even react, her blades retracted, plates shuffling and closing back to their inactive state.

“What the- How did…?” She felt significantly less chill.

“So, can we talk or are we gonna keep this back and forth going for a while longer?” Nathan asks.

“I’m happy to talk, I don’t know why you vanished in the first place.” She stands up straight again and leans on the table, Nathan comes back around the corner.

“Trust me, you don’t want to randomly scan me like that, just might end up another fried corpse in a trash heap if you’re not careful.” Nathan stands in front of her and relaxes slightly. “Now go ahead.” She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t ask anything further as she proceeds to scan him. As she's skimming over his NCPD file she's surprised to see his middle name vanish from the file in real time, glancing back at him it appeared he had been following along her reading.

"Much better." He mutters

"Hamlet? Really?" She chuckles.

"We don't talk about it." He crosses his arms with a sigh.

“Noted.” She looks around the room again, trying to figure out what to say next. “So, what's the deal? You’re definitely not like the other CEOs of megacorps, pretty sure most of them don’t even look the mercs who do their dirty work in the eye, much less invite them into their freakishly minimalist space.” Nathan laughs.

“I guess you could say I’m not like the others.” He walks past her and sits down in one of the chairs, gesturing for her to do the same. She sits down, her eyes still trained on him. Rogue wasn’t wrong, he was different from any other corpo she’d ever met, Ditching the expensive restricting suits for a soft waffle-knit white sweater and some dark slacks, his head shaved, and a full well groomed beard. After a longer examination she could tell he didn’t have any optic enhancements either, somehow wiring the typical display functions of cyberoptics to the silver wireframe glasses perched upon his nose, leaving his eyes a natural deep brown, which was almost unnerving, she was so used to the bright artificial colors and slight glow that most had, seeing pure natural eyes, she understood what all those old poets meant by the eyes being the windows to the soul. Nathan gives her a slight smirk, leaning forward in his seat with interest. “Not every day I meet someone who knows nothing about me.”

“Sorry, don't mean to bruise your ego.” She says leaning back in her chair, keeping a comfortable distance between them.

“No, No…I quite like it. You have no expectations, you aren’t expecting some genius bullshit that blows your mind. It’s nice, no performance, no need to please or meet some expectation of grandeur.” Nathan also takes the time to examine her more closely. Sure, she was here to do a job for him, but he couldn’t help but enjoy the view. It's not often someone who looks like that waltzes in, toned muscle and soft skin fading into the harsh telltale lines of combat cyberware, fire in her cybernetic eyes. He blinks lazily, taking a second to refocus. “Alright, the gig should be easy enough. I just need you to get something for me, and if necessary, zero the choom who has it.” She’s slightly taken aback in his casual choice of words but nods.

“Okay, what exactly am I looking for?” She asks, her eyebrow raised slightly.

“Long story short, a Braindance. I got drunk at a party and a doll got a BD of a conversation I had, where I gave up some information I shouldn’t have. I can’t have that getting around, top secret shit.” She watches Nathan talk, as much as she was listening to the details of the gig she was amused by the way he talked with his hands, the expressions he makes, she couldn’t help but feel at ease with him, not something she had felt so easily with anyone in a while. Nathan had picked up on that feeling, her body language going from tense and on edge to seemingly relaxed. Her shoulders lowered, her head tilted to the side a bit, ankles crossed in front of her. She had let her guard down just a little bit, the corners of his lips turning up slightly in a smile. “It should be simple, get the BD, by whatever means necessary.”

“Seems easy enough, who am I looking for?”

It was jarring to have information transferred without seeing the familiar blue flash from the optics of the transmitter. “Amethyst Bronte.” Her NCPD database file didn’t have anything notable to speak of besides a tie to The Mox, which was not unusual for a doll.

“Sure it’s her? She seems remarkably…unremarkable in her records for an NC citizen.” V did another once over of the squeaky clean file. “Only offense was trespassing…to feed stray cats on private property. This upstanding citizen if NC’s ever known one, snagged a BD of you giving up classified info? Choom-”

Nathan quirked a brow at her, an amused smile tugging at his lips. Another tab appeared in V’s view, the ice blue backdrop and text looking oddly familiar, as she skimmed through the extensive file including images, video, and audio attached that did not seem like they were recorded with the subjects’ knowledge. This file painted a very different picture of Amethyst, a data broker who sold information to corps and gangs alike for the highest offer, the file even included insights into her personal life, broken family, little to no friends to speak of, just trying to keep a roof over her head and food on the table. “Thought you’d know better by now than to judge a BD by its title, choom.”

“Where- The fuck? How did you even get this much information? I know the place this was taken, there’s no cameras-” He silently stared, waiting patiently as realization dawned upon V. “No, no, they’re real? Those fucking, conspiracy theories about Tsunami?”

“Tsunami Watch.” He nodded, leaning back in his chair, expression only describable as with the pride and arrogance of a man who thought himself to be God. Maybe he wasn’t all that different from other corpos after all. “Anyways, you don’t have to worry about all that, just enjoy the extra deets.” Nathan waves dismissively, she doesn't know how to feel about the sharp contrasts of emotion he’s made her feel in the short timespan she’s known him. She shakes it off with a hesitant nod, she needs to focus on the job, get through this and get home. That's what matters.

“Sounds good, I’ll keep in touch.” V says calmly as she stands up and gets ready to go.

“Oh and V, be careful. You never know who's watching.”

It took over a day to track down this Amethyst character even with the additional deets provided, despite having her life in a neat file she posed more of a challenge than V initially expected. When V finally found her, it was in amongst the pounding beats and sweaty bodies of the most popular club in Night City, Riot. As she entered the establishment she was greeted by the familiar sound and sight of Johnny’s engram flickering into existence, leaning against one of the lobby’s brutalist concrete walls.

“You should try taking me somewhere this nice sometime V.” He snarked with his usual tone of arrogance-riddled sarcasm. V rolled her eyes and decided to ignore him, pushing past as he flickered out of view. She decided to observe Amethyst from afar, having spotted her bright purple streaked hair through the crowd, chatting with someone as she moved to the beat. Calculating her next move, V carefully moved to the bar flagging down the bartender, watching out of the corner of her eye as Amethyst approached the opposite end of the bar. Perfect timing.

“A shot of house tequila, neat, and whatever she’s drinking.” She said tilting her head in the direction of the other woman. The bartender silently nods in acknowledgement, pouring and setting the drink in front of her with the flourish of practiced efficiency before turning to get Amethyst's order. V knocks back the shot, letting the familiar feeling of the burning amber liquid ignite upon her tongue as it slides down her throat. It was only a moment before Amethyst approached, holding her own drink of a dreamy pink and purple hue.

“Thank you for the drink Miss V, I think I have something you’re looking for.” She smiled as she slid what looked to be a metallic cigarette case across the table, motioning for V to open it. V cocks an eyebrow at her before cautiously popping the case open to find a datastick and a handwritten note, a mix of shock and irritation crossing her face as she reads the note.

“You passed. Congrats. -N”

Masterlist

Credit: @winniethewife @burymesanti

#nathan bateman #cyberpunk v #cyberpunk 2077 #blue book #Bluebook #Tsunami watch #ex machina #ex machina fanfiction #nathan bateman x reader #oscar isaac #oscar issac characters #oscar issac hernandez estrada #oscar issac x reader #cyberpunk fanfic #cyberpunk AU

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edupunkn00b · 28 days

Text

Meus ex Machina, Chapter 11: Hesper

Edited public domain image of two hands reaching for each other, lit in deep blue and neon green.

Prev - Hesper - Next - Masterpost - [ AO3 ]

Logan meets Hesper and he's only left with more questions. Everything has a beginning, though, and not even Abracadabra was what it is now.

“Kiddos are all in bed,” Patton sighed as he settled into the seat adjacent to Luc, reaching over to ruffle his hair. Janus opened his eyes in time to catch Luc’s faux scowl at Patton’s tousle.

“Gorgeous as always, mon cher,” he whispered, smoothing Luc’s auburn curls back into place. “Simply gorgeous.”

With a blush that rivaled his hair, Luc smiled but quickly sobered and blew on his tea. “You said you had news?”

Setting aside the little flash he caught from Patton, Janus nodded and straightened in his seat. He took Luc’s free hand as he shifted away from the comfortable home he’d made nestled against his side. “I do,” he began, working to keep the worst of his worries shielded from the other two.

And from the children’s drowsing minds.

Luc and Patton’s expressions told him he needed more practice. “What is it, Jan?” Patton asked, reaching for his other hand as Luc gripped his brother’s forearm. Together, they made a little triangle as the night sky darkened outside the big bay window. “Is it bad?”

“It’s… an opportunity,” Janus licked dry lips and painted on something like a smile. His scars pulled at one side of his face, hampering the intended encouraging effect. “I was contacted by the new mentalists department at Abracadabra.”

“The start-up? How—“

Janus’ eyes flicked down to his own wrist and his great-grandfather’s antique Casio, an anachronism even in that time.

“The ‘Foundation…’” Luc sucked his teeth and he closed his eyes, likely hiding his battle for control. After a moment, he calmed and met Janus’ eyes with a crooked smile. “What did those capos want from you?”

Janus sighed, a low near-growl. “They offered me a job.”

“Me, too,” Patton whispered, rubbing little circles against Luc’s arm. “This morning.”

“You both said ‘no,’ right?” Luc’s eyes were wide as he looked between them. His smile faded at Janus’ silence. “Love, tell me you said ‘no.’”

“I…” Janus slid closer to each of them. Patton only tightened his grip on Janus’ hand. “I believe this is an opportunity we can’t discount. We—“

“We need to stay as far from them as we fucking can!” Luc’s fingers tingled against his skin and he moved up to grip Janus’ sleeve. Safer that way. But he didn’t concede. “You think just because they’ve stopped hunting Powereds we’re suddenly safe?”

“No. I think we’re safer together. I think we’re safer integrated into society rather than maintaining this us vs. them mentality. Let us be a part of the shared solution. We have so much to contribute, we—“

“Oh, open a fucking history book!” Luc closed his eyes, orange flickering beneath his lashes. When he opened then again, his tone was softer. Just barely. “Love, they’ve just moved on to co-option. Sure, now they want to work with the ‘right kind’ of Powerds like you and Pat and—“

“Luc,” Janus warned, stroking his arm. An itch at the base of his spine told him they wouldn’t be alone for long.

But Luc either couldn’t—wouldn’t?—hear him. He released Janus’ arm and had begun counting on his fingers. “Step two is when they tell us it’s only the ‘risky’ Powerds they need to tamp down on. ‘Four legs good, two legs better,’ right?”

“Luc!” Janus said more forcefully, casting a quick glance at Patton.

Both of the elder Powerd’s hands now gripped Luc’s arm and he tugged gently, keeping him seated. “Lukie, maybe Jan’s right. Maybe we—“

“What, we should heel at the corporation’s side? Strap on our own muzzles so we can duck step together when they figure out their final solution is cull the herd of the dangerous Powerds like—“

“Like Re?” Low and quiet from the hallway, Virgil’s voice managed to cut through Luc’s rant.

Luc deflated, eyes glowing as he swallowed his next argument. “Yeah, Virge. Like Re, and maybe Ro, too. Anyone they think is dangerous and uncontrolled.” He frowned at Janus. “Or uncontrollable.”

“Dangerous?” Virgil asked, sliding into the room and sitting cross-legged on the coffee table between them. He jerked his chin at the pictures of Luc and Patton’s old orphanage. “Like you?”

“Now, Kiddo,” Patton began. “That fire wasn’t his—“

Luc cut him off with a sad smile and a little shoulder squeeze before turning to meet the teenager’s eyes. “Yeah, Virge, dangerous like me, too.”

Virgil’s memory of his truncated hospital stay flooded Janus’ mind, nurses sprawled on the floor, blood pooling from eyes and ears, soaking through their face masks.

“Yeah, I know it wasn’t his fault, Pops.” Virgil’s eyes were teary behind his floppy bangs as he turned to face Janus, hands shoved in his pockets. “What do these capos want you to do?”

“Tin Man, let’s go!” V called over his shoulder from the top of the stairs. Orange lights still glowed from the ceiling but at least the alarm had stopped.

Patton and Silvertongue had already run down to prep the transport and map their route. A low whine from the engines filtered up from below, a little shimmer to the air as dust kicked up from the lower landing pad.

Behind him, The Prince huffed, loudly, as Logan struggled to get situated in his suit.

Logan focused on breathing, ignoring the pounding behind his eyes and the ache in his arm. He briefly regretted not sleeping while he could, a regret that dissolved when he closed his eyes and The Muse’s shaky smile filled his vision.

Palm sweaty, his hand skid along the edge of the mech’s chest cavity but he caught himself, fingers wedged between the collar and chest plate. He pulled and pushed against the mech’s waist with his stronger stump, muscles trembling.

“Sorry,” he grunted. “Almost got—“

“Oh, come on!” The Prince snapped, physically hauling Logan higher and depositing him inside the mech. Logan swallowed back a curse and glared at the Powered.

“Don’t ever do that to me again!” he growled.

The Prince rolled his eyes and pushed him toward the stairs. “Or what? You’ll fuck things up?” He glanced down at the mech’s heavy durasteel boots. “‘Sorry,’” he muttered, anything but. “Didn’t mean to step on your toes.”

Heat flooded Logan’s face and neck, hurt and rage warring just under his skin. “You son of a—“

“Princey! Mac! Now!” V’s beckoned from the stairwell, glaring at each of them in turn. “Or we’ll leave you both behind.”

The transport door clanged shut and they shot up into the sky and over the churning Atlantic. Logan didn’t know how much of his altercation with The Prince everyone else had heard, but save for a few quiet mutters between The Prince and Patton up at the controls, the team was silent. He felt the brush of Silvertongue’s questioning thoughts, a warm request, no, an invitation to share. Logan simply shook his head and concentrated on checking the mech’s systems.

Satisfied he was powered up and ready, he watched the screens at the front of the transport, following as they raced over greenish grey waters.

Before long, Patton banked right, aiming for a landing platform somewhere off the coast. Which coast, Logan had no idea. Before them stretched a sprawling city, bright lights casting a haze in the low clouds. Silver towers sparkled, rising up out of the jagged reefs of the drowned coastal city that had come before it.

“I can’t tell if he’s still there.” Patton broke the silence, pointing to a screen where flickering orange lights blipped at seemingly random spots.

“He’s here,” Silvertongue’s eyes were closed but his voice was clear. “Prince? Can you cover our approach?”

“Happily.” The Prince tapped a different screen and it resolved into a view of the landing platform. His eyes half-shut as he watched the dozen or so deck crew move between the ships. Without warning, they ducked low and drew up neon-striped hoods. As though fleeing from a sudden squall, they all sprinted toward the big building at the center of the platform.

All but one.

The last hold out shielded their eyes from some unseen attack and peered up at the sky. They staggered to the closest ship, a tool in their hand.

“Take her down quiet as you can, Popstar,” V murmured and moved closer to Logan, showing him a tablet. “Any idea what he’s doing, Mac?”

The image on V’s tablet followed their approach, zoomed in as far as it would go. V had set a split screen to infrared. The figure—Hesper?—wielded a gun-like tool, glowing orange under infrared, bright white sparking from the tip. This close, Logan could make out a welder’s face plate under his hood.

“Soldering something onto the hull?” Hesper moved a few feet, leaving behind a rapidly cooling palm-sized circle. He repeated his actions then jumped to the next ship in line. “A tracker, maybe?”

“Not an explosive?” V asked, frowning.

Logan watched the screen and shook his head. “It’s too cold. And he’s using quick cool-solder. Safer for microprocessors but not as strong.” He shrugged. “Explosive casings are heavier, thicker. He’d need to use standard epoxy or… magnets, maybe?”

After a long moment, V nodded. He slipped the tablet into his vest and opened his mouth as if to say more, but the transport shuddered under their feet. “Everyone ready?” Patton asked, hand hovering over a door panel.

The Prince nodded, eyes now closed as he moved to the doors, joining V and Silvertongue.

Logan lowered his own face shield and helmet. “Ready.”

Patton slapped the controls and the big door opened with a bang. Hesper didn’t even look up as they circled him, just pulled his hood lower over his head and shuddered.

Before Logan could ask what The Prince was doing to him, Silvertongue sent a single word, -“Now!”-

The Prince’s eyes shot open and Hesper spun around, the movement knocking back his hood to reveal form-fitting headgear.

He tapped the helmet, shaking his head. “Guess this wasn’t worth the price I paid for it if you could still get into my head so easily, dear Prince.” He tucked the soldering gun under his arm and then, finger by finger, peeled off his safety gloves. He left them where they fell and flexed his bared hands. “Glad to see you all came out to play. Well…”

Looking up at Logan, Hesper seemed to stare right through his face plate. “We know how it is. Too bad I have to take a rain check tonight.” He flipped on his solder gun and ran straight for Logan.

On his heels, Patton grabbed at Hesper’s jacket. He wormed out of it then dodged V’s attack. Overcompensating, Hesper slid and landed on his back, centimeters from the mech’s left leg.

Without thinking, Logan stepped up and down, foot pressed—slightly—on Hesper’s chest.

Patton hissed behind him but grew still, arms loose and ready at his sides. Immediate danger passed, V inspected the devices Hesper had fastened to the ship’s hull. He scanned each with the tablet’s sensors before prying off the closest and crushing it under his boot. “Basic trackers,” he said, nodding to Logan, and they all turned to Silvertongue.

“What is all this, Hesper?” he asked, eyes hooded. He didn’t look happy at what Logan had done, frowning in his direction. But he didn’t stop him, either, so Logan just waited, foot locked on Hesper’s chest.

“My, my, my… My dearest Tongue of Silver,” Hesper purred. Head tilted, he managed to look down at Silvertongue even from his sprawled position on the cracked peri-ment platform. “You’ve brought along an extra army of one this time.” He thunked his knuckles against the mech’s ankle servos. “All for me?”

A not-quite shadow flashed over Janus’ face, quick, nearly too quick for Logan to catch. Even with Silvertongue’s back to him, The Prince must’ve felt it, whatever it was, because he stepped closer, eyes boring into Hesper’s obscured face.

“Release him, Machina,” Janus instructed, gaze focused on Hesper. “He’s clean.”

Hesper leapt to his feet with an acrobat’s grace the moment Logan lifted the mech’s foot. “Why, thank you.” He bowed his head with a flourish and Logan watched his mech’s reflection shift and warp on Hesper’s shiny helmet.

With no way of knowing where Hesper was looking, Logan felt like it was everywhere at once.

For all his theatrics, Hesper now behaved as though they were nothing but a minor inconvenience, impolite visitors who crashed an open house. He hummed under his breath, easily picked up by his mic, and made a show of brushing off his synthcloth tactical pants and straightening an old vest that looked a lot like V’s. Sighing heavily, he produced a pristine white cloth and bent over to polish away a smudge from his boots.

Janus watched him with half-lidded eyes, hands flexing at his sides. “What are you up to now, Hesper?” He gestured around them, voice sharp. Acidic. “Why here?”

“And what makes you think I didn’t trigger your alarms so I could have a little company, hm?” He shrugged and carefully folded his handkerchief before secreting it away in a breast pocket. “You know… just like Re used to?”

“Wha—”

Before Logan could finish his blurted question, The Prince stomped forward, hands splayed in front of him, a glowing haze forming between his fingers. “Take my brother’s name from your mouth, fiend,” he growled, drawing close to Hesper. “Or I’ll rip it out with your tongue!”

But as The Prince moved, the air… flickered near his right foot. The mirage tugged at Logan’s mind the same way the faulty Pickerbot had back at the DC, the first time, before he’d found the flaw in its circuitry.

Remembering V’s concern about explosives, Logan flipped on his HUD infrared. Heat poured from the cracked peri-ment, far more heat than could be explained away by the underlying HVAC piping. The ground glowed in blinding purples and white, spiking well past 85° centigrade.

“Prince, look out!” he shouted and pushed his servos to a run.

Patton’s call to Logan cut off and he copied him instead, half-carrying, half-dragging V and Silvertongue away in the opposite direction.

The Prince swore as Logan slammed into him and knocked them both to the ground. Arms locked around him, he pulled The Prince with him into a roll. He stopped, propped onto the mech’s elbows, erecting a cage of durasteel limbs and torso around the Powered just as the floor exploded behind them.

Precisely where The Prince had stood a moment before.

“Are you—”

“I’m good, Tin Man. Let me up,” he muttered, shimmying his bulky shoulders out from Logan’s mech suit shield. -”Thanks,”- he said in Logan’s mind as he stood.

“Anytime,” Logan said aloud and followed him to Silvertongue’s side. Patton crouched a few feet behind him, inspecting V’s hand.

“Tell me!” Silvertongue was demanding, eyes molten gold. “Tell me how you did that without—”

“Without you poking around in here…” Hesper’s laugh was crusted in ice as he waggled his fingers around his head. “Ma cheri! L’amour de ma—”

“Tell me!” Janus’ shout reverberated through Logan’s skull. Even The Prince took a step backwards, head bowed and one hand pressed to his temple. Patton slid closer, nodding quietly to V and Logan watched them all, waiting for any sort of hint of what he had planned.

Hesper just laughed again. “There was no guilt to sense, my dear Silvertongue,” He shrugged. “Not from me at least.” Hesper gestured, almost bored, at the jagged, steaming hole in the landing pad, then at The Prince. “It was his anger, his rage that triggered the charge. I wasn’t sure it would work, but our dear Prince of Dreams always did have quite the temper.”

He fully faced The Prince then. “Ever since you were a little boy.”

Patton reached out and just rested one hand on The Prince’s shoulder. Given the recordings Logan had seen of Papa Bear wrestling an activated Muse into control, he had no doubt a light touch was all he needed to keep The Prince steady.

“Enough with the games, Hesper,” V said from Silvertongue’s other side. “No-one believes you dragged us out here in the middle of the night for a parlor trick.”

Hesper shrugged again, backing away toward the edge of the landing platform. “Worried I’m going to make it a habit of interrupting your beauty sleep?”

He stood on the ledge, one foot hovering behind him. “Besides,” he directed his attention to Logan again. “I know you weren’t all asleep.”

Face flushed beneath his mask, Logan’s fingers flexed against the controls but the suit remained still. Then Hesper stepped off the platform and onto a waiting airskiff.

“Ta ta, for now!” he laughed, voice amplified to carry over the roar of thrusters as he flew off into the smoggy night air.

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my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction · 1 year

Text

How (Part 1)

[Part 2]

Nathan Bateman X F!Reader Rating: 18+ pals Masterlist | ao3 | want to be tagged?

Summary: After the events of the film, it’s decided that it’s best for everyone if Nathan has a babysitter.

Warnings: swearing, typos, fragment sentences, soft!Nathan, mental illness, PTSD, overuse of italics, panic attacks, brief illusion to suicide. There’s no smut in this, but there will be in part 2.

A/N: What is this? What is this? Self indulgent. That’s what it is. This was meant to be a short under 1000 words instead of this monstrosity that is now two parts. All I can say is this really got away from me.

Word Count: 5431

Taglist: @pleasurebuttonwrites @raven-rk @campingwiththecharmings @alexxavicry @mystinky-butt @cocodiem

_____________________________________________

If there was one thing you wouldn’t have believed prior was that Nathan Bateman: founder of Bluebook, recluse, and self-aggrandising arsehole, was a cuddler. And a pretty needy one at that.

You had noticed it well before the two of you had started a less than professional side to your relationship.

Small things: his arm brushing against yours if you sat or stood next to each other, he would touch your hand (usually holding it for a second longer than necessary) if you passed him something, pats on the back and nudges with his shoulder in the kitchen as he said ‘good morning’.

He wasn’t that much of an arsehole either. Annoying? Certainly. God complex? For sure. But you were surprised at how considerate he was. What did you want for dinner? What were your plans for the day? Would you have time to check something over? – even though it was technically part of your job to help him.

You had started a small experiment of your own. Arguing internally that it was out of nothing more than professional interest. A hand on his shoulder when you spoke his name, resting your knee against his at the dining table, little things. But boy did they have a big reaction.

A shudder, a slight softening of his eyes, a lean into your touch. And that was it, wasn’t it? Nathan Bateman was touch starved. End of story.

And you couldn’t help but push it.

You had laid your legs on him on the settee while he was watching television and you were pretending to read a book. Your calves resting on the middle of his thighs.

You had expected him to tell you to ‘fuck off’. Expected him to push your legs away. And, in all honesty, you kind of wanted that. Wanted to piss him off. He’d been bordering on the very fine line of Acceptable Annoying Nathan and Genuine Bastard all day.

The cherry on top being the tiny sideways looks he gave you while purposefully turning the television sound up every few minutes as you did your very best to ignore him.

But he didn’t do any of that. Didn’t even say anything, just froze and, for a second, a pang of fear dripped like warming ice down your spine.

You’d gone too far, you should-

He placed his hand on your shin, the warmth of his fingers seeping through your trousers. It was a light, but reassuring touch. Grounding almost. After a minute he began to trace small circles with his thumb, after another, he turned the television down to a more reasonable level.

Neither of you commented on it.

A few evenings later you threw your arm over the back of the settee when you heard him come into the room. Quickly relaxing back into your best impression of carefree before he came into your line of sight.

Again, you expected him to act a certain way. A sarcastic comment, purposefully sitting somewhere else and glaring. But instead he flopped down next to you, on the edge of a little too close, his arms loosely crossed and lent his head back, brushing his shortly cropped hair against your lower arm as he closed his eyes.

Neither of you commented on it.

The next day he got drunk. Not a completely unusual occurrence, but in the whole time you’d been staying with him he normally drank with you, or, at least, around you.

This time he simply appeared in the living room, obviously more than a little tipsy but seemingly not as intoxicated as he was pretending to be.

You were reading, curled up at the far end of the settee.

He sat down, sighing loudly, and nursing a beer. And you thought you’d play along, at least for a bit. See where this goes.

You watched him subtly for a while, as he tried not to obviously watch you.

He sighed again, wiggling the bottle along the edge of the arm rest.

“What is it Nathan?” You didn’t look up from your book.

“Bored.”

“Hmm.” You nodded your head noncommittally and turned a page for emphasis.

There was a pause. You could see him staring out of the edge of your peripheral vision.

“You’re not even reading that.”

You looked up at him slowly. “I am.”

“What’s the last word you read?”

“The.” You said without missing a beat.

Nathan scoffed and took another swig of beer. He was quiet for a moment, running his thumb along the rim of the bottle, betraying, briefly, his lucidity.

You went back to reading.

“Is it good?” It was like he had waited for you to stop looking at him.

“Hmm?” Your tone was a little sterner this time as you raised your eyes from the page.

“The book.” He gestured with his hand that wasn’t holding the beer. “Is it good?”

You shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“What is it?”

You held the cover up to him, keeping two fingers on your page.

“I can’t see.”

“Where are your glasses?”

“Kitchen.”

“Go get them then.”

He scoffed again, pretending to be offended but the hint of a smile pulling at his lips gave him away. “You want me to walk all the way back there, just to get my glasses, so that I can see what you’re reading?”

“Yes.”

“You’re unreasonable.”

“Good.”

“And illogical.”

You resisted the urge to make a Star Trek reference. “Great.”

“And mean.” He dragged the last word out a little childishly.

You grinned wickedly, glancing back up at him and emphasising your dictation. “Perfect.”

Nathan sighed, leaning back in the armchair in defeat. For a moment you thought he might have fallen asleep and were in half a mind to take the bottle out of his hand before he dropped it and made a mess on the carpet.

However he sat up and stood, placing the beer on the coffee table.

You almost let your mouth hang open in surprise as you were sure he was going to actually go and get his glasses, or the far more likely, go off to sulk.

But he walked the short distance closer and flopped down next to you, jostling you as much as he could in the process.

He squinted, an over the top movement, and leaned unnecessarily close to your book, laying his chest on your bent legs in the process, putting one warm hand on your thigh. He made a show of muttering the book’s title as he read it, as if it was some great new revelation.

After a few seconds of him not moving, you gave him a gentle nudge with your knee. He didn’t move.

“Are you going to get off me Nathan?”

He looked up at you, trying his best at an innocent expression. His fingers twitched over your thigh.

“You are crushing my feet.”

He smiled, relaxing purposefully so that his chin was now also resting on your leg.

“Look,” you were trying your best not to smile back, his stupid expression infectious. “I don’t know what weird foot fetish stuff you’re into,” you swatted at him with your book while pushing him a little more forcefully with your knees, “but you can keep that to yourself and get off.”

He pouted, but sat up. For a moment you thought you saw a flash of something else beneath his expression, disappointment perhaps, rejection.

There was a pause, not entirely uncomfortable but niggling – a hangnail you couldn’t stop catching.

You shifted, sitting up yourself and putting your feet on the floor. “Here.” You gestured to your lap.

Nathan frowned at you.

Oh maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

You pushed down your uncertainty and patted your thigh, “lay down.” Your voice didn’t sound like your own, an authoritative layer deepening the words.

And to your surprise he did. Moving quickly and partially curling up on himself, Nathan Bateman laid down, resting his head sideways on your lap, facing outwards.

He sighed, contented this time, some of the tension in his shoulders easing as he relaxed into you. Your heart, on the other hand, seemed to have a different idea as it beat furiously in your chest. So fast and hard you were surprised it wasn’t echoing in your legs and shaking Nathan’s head.

“You should read to me.” He said quietly, his eyes closed.

“I’m sorry?”

“Your book,” he gestured with his hand without opening his eyes. “Read it to me.”

You let out a small surprised breath before you found your words. “What’s the magic word?”

“Engage.”

You tutted, breathing heavily through your nose, but you opened your book back up and found where you had last stopped.

You rested your elbow on Nathan’s shoulder, digging it down a little too enthusiastically at first until he gave a small grunt of complaint, before you eased up and started to read out loud.

With the book in front of your eyes, you didn’t see that Nathan had opened his and was smiling. Watching you with his full attention in the television’s reflection.

The next morning you were perched on one of the kitchen chairs, eating breakfast. The cereal in question, not even pretending to be healthy with the amount of sugar it contained, had been one of the many food items you had requested on your submission forms.

You chewed it slowly and stared out of the windows, lost in your own thoughts as you watched the city skyline.

“You think I have a foot fetish?”

Somehow you managed to not jump out of your skin, or spit out your cereal at Nathan’s sudden appearance.

He was uncomfortably good at being deathly quiet when he wanted too, so very opposed to his normal loud footsteps.

You swallowed your mouth food and turned to him. “I knew you weren’t drunk.”

“I watched the tapes.”

You smile and pop another spoonful into your mouth. “No you didn’t.”

He paused. An unreadable expression on his face for a moment as you slowly chewed.

You broke first. “I do,” you shifted the spoon around the bowl, giving yourself a break from looking at him for a moment before returning to meeting his gaze. “You’re always walking around here barefoot.”

“Surely that means you have the fetish. Not me.”

“What?”

“You’re the one noticing my feet.”

You clenched and unclenched your jaw, trying to fight the little smile that wanted to spread itself across your face.

A good reply wouldn’t come. Telling him to ‘fuck off’ wasn’t creative enough, saying ‘your feet repulse me’ (which had been your knee jerk reaction) seemed strangely… mean? Too much time had passed now anyway, so you stared at him for a second longer, blinked poineatly, and then turned away from him and back to the window.

Nathan fidgeted for a moment, his hands on his hips, before he moved to the stove.

His back now to you, but directly in your line of sight.

You stared at him for a moment, leaning your chin on the heel of your hand. It was nice to watch him as he moved, opening a cupboard and taking out a frying pan. Nice to watch him without the scrutiny of his own eyes on you. He had a grace about him that was hard to place.

You admired his back muscles through his just on the edge of being too tight t-shirt. Heat began to pinch at your cheeks. Had he always been so-

“Youwanteggs?”

You nearly did jump out of your chair this time, your heart pounding in your chest in a bid to escape.

Despite him being the only thing you were actually focused on, his muffled words made little to no sense.

“Erm.”

He turned to look at you over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised. The movement sort of reminded you of an old fashioned pin up girl. Wait... No, don’t think about Nathan as a pin up girl. Heat was burning your skin now.

“Do. You. Want. Eggs?” Nathan repeated, and, finally you shook your head.

“It’s better than that rubbish you're eating.” He gestured with a spatula to your cereal.

“I’ll have you know,” you swallowed and shifted in your seat, settling back into the normal rhythm of your conversations. “That this has at least 200% of my daily sugar requirements.”

Nathan snorts and goes back to making his own breakfast.

The next morning Nathan is in the kitchen before you, sweaty from exercise, and cooking.

You take an extra moment to admire him, no, not admire, that’s the wrong word, that would imply- No. You shake your head and sigh as you walk to the cupboard, still in your pyjamas.

You barely have got the words, “good morning,” out of your mouth before Nathan gestures to the table without looking at you.

“Sit.”

You scowl at him. “Heel.”

He glances up at you this time, a dark look in his eyes. “Please.” He wrinkles his nose a little as he says it.

You let the silence rest a beat too long between the both of you before you roll your eyes and take your regular seat at the empty table.

Nathan turns back to the task in front of him. The hiss of the pan and scrap of the spatula the only sounds punctuating the quiet.

“How long am I meant to sit here?”

He doesn’t look at you. “Good things come to those who wait.”

“Starvation?”

That earns you a small glare and you grin.

A minute later Nathan walks over and sets a plate of pancakes and a jug of syrup in front of you.

You stare dumbfounded at them and then at Nathan. “What’s this?”

“Breakfast.”

“You made it?”

He pulls a face. “I know rationalism says we can’t trust our senses, but you literally just saw-”

“You know what I fucking mean.” You laugh, and take the cutlery out of his hand when he offers it. “Thank you.”

Nathan gives you a small smile before walking back to the counter to grab a plate of his own. “It’s better for you than that cereal.”

The pancakes taste heavenly. “What have you got against my cereal?” You say through a full mouth.

He sits opposite you, pancakes on his own plate. But doesn’t answer.

You both eat in silence for a moment.

“These are really good,” you wait until he looks up before adding, “thank you again.”

He shrugs, but you can see him puff his chest out ever so slightly.

“Before I got here, I thought you’d have some cooking robot or something.” You said, your voice light and jokey, but Nathan tenses.

It’s a subtle thing, easy to miss.

“Yeah.” He nods once. There’s no humour in his voice.

You were lucky number 6, even though head office called you number five. The sixth person put on ‘Babysitting Duty’ or, on paper, Temporary Executive Director of Functionality.

Something had happened just under eighteen months ago. Some big scandal to do with the office contest that had been so successfully swept under the rug that not even the press had caught wind of it. (Or, more likely, anyone that had, had been bribed or blackmailed into silence. Bluebook's pockets were deep, and its reach was wide.)

The lack of information didn’t stop the workplace rumours though, the two that had prevailed at the top were,

A. whoever had won the competition (because all records on this mystery person had seemingly been wiped, though there was still a reference to a big payout settlement) had been a crazed super fan and had gone all Katy Bates on Nathan.

Or B. Nathan had turned into Norman Bates from being a recluse for too long and had tried to wear the competition winner’s skin. (You had tried to point out that B was mixing two horror franchises together here, but it seemed the amusement at Katy and Norman sharing the same surname was too much for the analogy to change.)

Either way, it was common knowledge that Nathan had nearly died. The only thing that saved him was the biometric heart monitor that was linked to an alarm system.

He had spent months in hospital.

Rumours changed on who was telling, but it seemed the board members, acting CEO and possibly Nathan himself had come to an agreement. Nathan was too valuable for something like this (whatever it was) to happen again.

He would not return to his house in the middle of nowhere. And he needed a babysitter.

Within a week the top fourteen floors of the Newfoundland Quay in London had been purchased, gutted, and refitted to Nathan’s specification. He could be as reclusive as he wanted at the top of the skyscraper, as long as emergency services could get there in five minutes or less.

Finding the new Temporary Executive Director of Functionality was a lot more complicated.

An email had gone out to every Bluebook employee, from the head of marketing to junior coders.

Everyone was being accessed to see if they might have the ‘niche required skills’ for the job. (Though how it was being done was not made clear.) Most people didn’t even need to think twice about it because 99% of staff would not get through to the next stage.

You had half read the email and then forgotten about it. Too stressed and wrapped up in your low paid job as a Junior Content Editor, that you hated but couldn’t afford to leave without another position.

Your manager, Michael, a fake charming man with a shrill voice and no people skills whatsoever, had called you into a meeting two months after the email was sent out.

You had been expecting his usual beratement of your ‘lack of skills’, your stomach twisting itself into knots, but had been surprised at the two smartly dressed people waiting for you with him in his office.

In one panicked moment you were sure you were going to get fired.

“Ah, there you are.” Michael smiled and held out a hand. “One of the best members of my team.”

You nearly died from shock.

“She’s a real asset,” he continued before the smartly dressed woman held up her hand, silencing him instantly.

“Thank you, we’ll have the space now.” She glared at him until he left the room. You didn’t watch Michael go, but you didn’t hide your small smile either.

Once the door was closed they both explained that you were one of 89 people in the whole company that had been whittled down to the preliminary short list for Temporary Executive Director of Functionality.

After signing an NDA they explained further.

The deal was, for four weeks the Temporary Executive Director of Functionality would ‘assist’ Nathan. Live in his home and every week he would give a ‘brief rundown of what he had been working on’ and that was it.

For an eye watering amount of pay. Enough that you could comfortably live for the next five years with no job.

Nathan would then judge who, if anyone, he was happy to invite back and then they would become The Permanent Executive Director of Functionality (or, more likely Directors as Bluebook made it clear this position would most likely turn into a job share if the right individuals were found.)

Nathan was allowed a one week ‘break’ between the four-week shifts, when he was ‘permitted’ to be on his own.

You weren’t given any information on what the ‘incident’ had been. And had four whole days of interviews, personality tests, recorded behaviours, questionnaires, a physical, and another NDA to sign. It was gruelling, but it beat your normal 9-5.

On the fifth day, just before lunch, you were told you were one of the twelve that had been chosen.

(Much to Michael’s obvious displeasure.)

The third NDA gave you pause when you read the paragraph about: ‘a guarantee that the Temporary Executive Director of Functionality’s personal rooms and bathrooms would, under no circumstances, be recorded or monitored’.

You were given the dates of your month, which went out of the window when Temporary Executive Director of Functionality Number 2 only lasted eight days. Number 2 became Number 0 and you were ‘promoted’ from 6 to 5.

Three weeks beforehand you were given an intensive coding course, apparently this was a stipulation Nathan had insisted upon – just in case he wanted to talk about it. He had never mentioned it to you in the whole time you’d been there. But you were thankful for the training nonetheless.

One day before you started you were given your ‘biometric keycard’, a small chip that was inserted just under your right collar bone. You couldn’t even feel it afterwards, though you tried to.

You had expected to meet him before you started, a video call, an email. But the first time you made his acquaintance was the first time you met him in person.

“How often do you exercise?”

You had gotten used to Nathan’s out of the blue, and sometimes less than tactful, questions by now.

“Never.” That was a lie, but you knew it would annoy him.

“It’s good for you.” He said, sitting down next to you. His knee brushing yours.

You paused, that wasn’t the response you’d been expecting.

“You know I’m trying to work here?”

“You’re playing spider solitaire.”

“Important work.” You raised an eyebrow at him.

Nathan’s response was yet again not something you hadn’t been expecting. He leaned towards you, looking at your laptop screen and carefully rested the side of his head against your shoulder.

“You can move the 6 to there.” He pointed, touching your screen in the process.

A flush of heat ran up your neck and you swatted his hand away. “I know.” You hadn’t.

He smiled and stayed resting against you, his breathing slowing ever so slightly.

You stared at the screen for a moment, but the feeling of him against you was the only thing you could pay any attention to.

“You can move the queen too.”

“Nathan-”

“Do you play poker?”

You sighed overly dramatically and moved a four. “No.”

“Strip poker?”

You gave him a look and didn’t answer as he stared up at you with faux innocence.

“I could teach you?” He said when you glanced away.

“I’m not playing strip poker with you Nathan.”

“Normal poker then.”

You turned to look at him fully and Nathan sat up a little reluctantly.

“Are you that bored that you want to teach me poker?”

He just smiled.

“I thought you were meant to be solving the great riddles of the universe?”

“I knew you didn’t pay attention during the weekly updates.” He gave you the most self-satisfied expression and you barely resisted the urge to kick him.

“Last week’s update was two minutes, in which you just said, and I quote: ‘I’m doing stuff.’”

He shrugged. “It’s important stuff.”

“Are you playing spider solitaire?”

He laughed at that and looked down at the side hem of his trousers. He picked at the material slightly.

You swallowed. “You can teach me poker.”

He grinned broadly as he looked back to you, his eyes lighting up.

“But I’m not playing with real money.”

“That’s fine, we can-”

“I’m not playing strip poker either.”

He pouted a little, but you could tell it was for show. “What’s on the line if I win?”

“When you win, you mean.” You shook your head at him and shut down your laptop. “Self-satisfaction of a job well done.”

He snorted.

“Well what do I get if I win?” You retorted.

“You’re very confident for a first-time player.”

You gently shoved him in the shoulder with the heel of your hand. “I thought people played for chips or something?”

“Yeah, we’ll do a few practice hands and then we’ll both have the same number of chips and play a few hands. Whoever gets all the chips wins."

“All right.”

“So, what do I get if I win?”

You closed your laptop. “What do you want?”

“A kiss.”

It didn’t faze you; it was textbook Nathan, just trying to get under your skin. You gave him a world-weary look, but were very thankful he couldn’t feel how your heart skipped a beat.

“I’m not kissing you Nathan.”

He was, astoundingly, quite a good teacher. Calm, explained things well and was happy to go over something more than once. He even gave you a ‘cheat sheet’, a hastily written order of winning hands in poker that he placed next to you.

You had been a little surprised when he had pulled out the pack of cards and a bag of sunflower seeds.

“Don’t have any poker chips,” he shrugged. “Just don’t eat the stand ins.” He said as he sat down opposite you and scooted his chair further under the kitchen table.

“I thought you’d have a whole gambling room.” You teased.

He shrugged again but didn’t look up from shuffling the cards.

Again, it was like you had stepped over some invisible line.

However he began to relax again the more you played.

To no one’s shock, you lost.

He gave you a shit eating smirk as he slowwwly reached into the middle of the table and pulled all of the sunflower seeds towards him. He let out a self-satisfied and overly dramatic sigh before leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head.

“And to the victor,” he paused, puffing his chest out. “The spoils.”

“You left some behind.”

He gave the table a glance. “What?”

“This.” You stuck your middle finger up at him.

Nathan snorted out a laugh and then waved towards him. “Give it then.”

You snapped your hand back before he had a chance to grab it.

“Don’t feel bad, I’m just better at reading people.” He said.

“Better at counting cards more like.”

Nathan pretended to be offended for a second. “Now, I believe,” he stood up slowly, “I was promised a kiss.”

You gave him the most deadpan expression you could muster. “You were not.”

He mocked thinking for a second. “No… I think I was.”

“You think wrong.”

“No, I made notes, and I think you’ll find you said, and I quote: ‘yes Nathan, of course I will kiss you when you win.’”

You couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out at the absolutely atrocious impression of your voice.

“So,” he stopped next to you, leaning one hand on the table. “Do I get my prize?”

Slowly, you stood, making a little more of a show of it than necessary before turning towards him, looking him in the eyes and trying to hide your smile. “I’m not kissing you Nathan.”

He took a small step forward, your chests nearly touching.

“Why not?” He whispered, his voice soft.

A shiver ran down your spine and you swallowed, the sound of it upsettingly loud in the quiet.

The little smile on his lips grew.

“I don’t know where you’ve been.” You meant it to come out jokey, light-hearted, but instead you sounded wrecked, you sounded breathless.

“Here…” He slowly reached out, tracing his fingers up your forearm.

Your heartbeat was too loud, your mouth too dry.

“Always here.” He leaned a fraction closer and you stepped back without thinking, you couldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do this, it was just another Nathan game to wind you up and you’d never hear the end of it and-

You bumped into the chair you’d just been sitting on, stumbling for a second before finding your balance, your right hand out in front of you.

When you first started to fall Nathan reached out instinctively to help, but he froze. All emotion left his face in an instant as he looked down at your hand, hovering in front of his chest, just below his heart.

The smile quickly disappeared from your lips. “Nathan?”

He staggered back. One had reached out behind him like he was expecting something, while his other clutched at his chest.

He stared at the floor, his eyes glassy and wide with panic that did not reflect on the rest of his features.

It was like he wasn’t there, watching some far-off scene play behind his eyes.

“Nathan?” You took a cautious step towards him, this hadn’t happened before, this wasn’t in any brief or meeting or seven-hundred-page manual you’d been given.

He didn’t hear you as he lurched backwards until he collided with one of the large floor to ceiling windows and sank down to the floor.

He was sweating heavily, his whole body shaking, his breathing fast and uneven through his nose.

For a moment you just stared dumbfounded, fear threading itself into your soul, before you found yourself slowly moving forward. Afraid any sudden movement would be too much.

“Nathan.” You whispered, trying to make your voice sound soothing.

He didn’t respond.

You crouched down next to him, leaving plenty of space. “Nathan,” you said again, keeping your tone calm. “You’re okay. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here. You’re safe. Everything’s okay.” You repeated the words on a loop.

Suddenly he met your gaze.

“Nathan, okay,” it was impossible to hide your relief. “Can you breathe with me, yeah?” You took in a deep, slow breath. “Can you try to copy me?” And let it out. In and out. In and out.

He nodded, the shaking hiding most of the movement and tried his best to match your rhythm.

“Okay, great, you’re doing great.”

He was still shaking, still sweating, his breathing still too fast and too shallow.

“Can you name five blue things in this room?”

He stared wide eyed and panicked at you.

“Can you find five blue things, you don’t have to say them out loud, just find them.”

His line of sight darted around the room. The quick movement accompanied with the uneven breathing made it look like he was having a seizure.

You continued to breathe in and out deeply, making the breaths as loud as possible.

“The painting.” He muttered between gasps of oxygen.

“Yes, yes, excellent.” You nodded enthusiastically.

“The... the book.” He pointed with his right hand, his left still held close to his chest.

“Fantastic. You’re doing great.”

He searched the room, his breathing was evening out ever so slightly. “Your ring.” He touched your left hand lightly, it was a ghost of contact but still it seemed to steady him.

“Yes, yes, my ring.” Without thinking you took hold of his hand in yours, his skin was freezing and clammy. For one horrid second a spike of fear jolted through your nerves, afraid touching him was the wrong thing to do, but his shoulders quickly relaxed as he squeezed your hand.

“Is... is it an engagement ring?” He asked, his voice was quiet but his breathing was much closer to normal. The shaking hadn’t stopped though.

“It’s my grandmother’s engagement ring.” You smiled at him, trying to sound reassuring. Carefully you ran your thumb along the back of his hand. “I’m not engaged.” You added, unsure why you had the second it came out of your mouth.

Nathan nodded, still looking at your hand.

“What else?” You gently pressed. “What else is blue?”

“The sky.”

“It’s dark Nathan.”

He smiled weakly. He looked tired, more tired than you’d ever seen anyone. Weighted, like his bones were too heavy and collapsing into themselves.

He breathed in deeply, the shaking had almost stopped.

Carefully, oh so carefully, you raised your right hand to the side of his face; giving him as much time as possible to turn away.

Nathan lent into your touch and closed his eyes as he took in a stuttered breath. His beard was softer than you imagined.

“Are you okay?” It was a stupid question, but you had to ask.

He nodded.

“Do you need anything? Water?”

He shook his head.

“Okay.”

You bit your lip, worrying the skin between your teeth. “Can I,” you swallowed down your apprehension, “can I hold you?”

Nathan opened his eyes, looking at you once before staring back at the ground. He nodded once.

Without letting go of his hand you manoeuvred yourself from in front of him to next to, your back against the cool glass. You wrapped your free arm around his shoulders and gently coaxed his body against yours, laying him down until he was wrapped in your embrace.

You stayed like that for a long time.

#nathan bateman #nathan bateman x reader #nathan bateman x you #f!reader #nathan bateman x f!reader #my writing #ex machina #ex machina fanfic #nathan bateman fanfic #oscar isaac #oscar isaac characters

463 notes · View notes

leoluved · 2 years

Note

day 6 of demanding sugar daddy nathan bateman!!!

well deserved (n.b)

summary: you ask your husband for something. he tells you to earn it, so you do. warnings: smut 18+, oral, (m receiving), fem reader, masturbation, degradation, spit kink, nathan kind of being a sugar daddy, like one slap, mentions of language, had to stop you before you got to a full week of this, ur wish is my command. still new to this whole smut thing.. <3 word count: 0.9k

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“Could I have three hundred dollars?” You ask sweetly, fluttering your eyelashes down at your husband.

He scoffs, using a finger to raise the glasses closer up the bridge of his nose. But his gaze doesn’t falter from the screen.

“What for?”

You hum in thought. Then walk around to stand behind him, wrapping your arms around his neck. He sighs in contentment, but doesn’t relax into your hold. Pressing kisses into the crook of his neck he lowly chuckles.

“Sweetheart, I asked what for?”

His hand comes up to rub your arm, and you catch a gleam of his wedding band, cool against your skin.

His tone dripping with sarcasm means you know you have to tread lightly.

“I don’t know.. I saw this bag the other day. It was real pretty.”

He smirks, rolls his eyes and proceeds to release himself from your grasp. Resting his hand in his palm and his elbow on the desk he clears his throat.

“Do you deserve it?”

A pout forms on your lips. As you center yourself in his line of vision again you find you have to fight the urge to release a whine. Nathan’s past words echo in your mind. The annoyance evident in his speech.

“Would you quit fucking whining? What are you? Four?”

A snap brings you back to earth. Behind the hand in front of your face is Nathan with an eyebrow raised at you.

“Times up, princess. I have a meeting. Why don’t you go outside and prove to me that you deserve daddy’s credit card, huh?”

“Why don’t you earn it?” He mocks.

You huff out, fix your nightgown and go to exit the room. As soon as you reach the door you can hear Nathan beginning his greetings for his meeting.

Just before you cross the threshold you decide to turn around, and walk towards Nathan again. Just out of eyeshot to the camera. You sink slowly to your knees and maneuver yourself underneath his desk.

He stays silent, nodding blankly every couple minutes so they get the impression he’s listening. Though you clearly heard the sound of him muting himself the second you sank down.

You stare up at him with your hands on his thighs, you watch as his eyes flicker to you and quickly back to the screen. Moving one of his hands to underneath the desk he grabs your hand and places it right on top his growing erection.

With a soft giggle you start to palm him through his usual black joggers. He stifles a groan. Hand coming up to the top of your head, entangling his fingers in your hair.

You release his cock that comes springing free and press your lips gently to the tip. Nathan responds by bucking his hips into your mouth.

“What’s so funny.” He mumbles out. Barely moving his lips into a slight smile for the camera.

“Nothing, just how pretty your dick is.”

He bares his teeth in a wide smile to the camera, of course at this point he has no idea what the investors on the call are talking about. But he could care less.

Impulsive as always Nathan has a way to get out of this. He simply removes his hand from your head and brings his keyboard closer, types for a second or two and the sounds of investors talking over each other quickly ceases.

“What’d you do?“ You question, smiling up at him with your lips at his tip.

He tangles his hands into your hair once more, softly nudging you further closer.

You hum, and finally open your mouth for him to enter. The second he does you hear the soft groans coming from him.

Bobbing your head up and down slowly, you rest your hands up on his thighs. Nathan fights the urge to push your head down to take all of his length.

“I.. Ha… I cut the wi-fi. That’s fucking it..”

You sigh and push him deeper down your mouth, gagging slightly when you feel him hit the back of your throat. Tears well up in your eyes and you try to blink them away looking at him.

“Look at you, you’re so filthy. You just wanted an excuse to suck my dick, huh?”

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head and you moved one of your hands down to rub yourself through your panties.

Nathan gathers your hair into one hand and uses it as leverage against you.

In a swift motion Nathan pulls you off of him, leaning down to spit in your mouth. You gasp as your glazed eyes hazily stare at him.

“Swallow, slut.”

The rasp in his voice has you nodding along mindlessly, you obey and swallow his spit.

A flash of pain shoots through your face as Nathan slaps you, and you can’t help but give him a dopey smile.

He grins, and roughly brings you back down to his cock.

“C'mon baby, daddy wants to cum in your mouth.”

You allow Nathan to set the pace to the point where he’s practically face fucking you. Not that you didn’t enjoy it, you could almost hear the wet noises of your pussy as you furiously rub yourself to climax.

He grunts, and holds your head still while you’re down to his hilt. You feel his release fill your throat and you choke as soon as he pulls away.

He chuckles, and suddenly you hear the cold clank of a metal credit card against the wood of his desk.

“Here, princess. You’ve really earned it.”

#nathan bateman x reader #nathan bateman imagine #nathan bateman x you #nathan bateman #ex machina #ex machina imagine #ex machina fanfic #oscar isaac imagine #oscar isaac #˚ . ☆ ⋆。˚ — my writing.

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bits-and-babs · 2 years

Text

𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐋 - 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐱 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

Summary : Nathan wants to achieve the impossible with his AI for selfish reasons.

Words : 7.7K

CW/TW : Another episode of Jas loves plot. Dark(?)Nathan has issues with grandeur, superiority, but what’s new? A very strange take on Enemies to Lovers (but singular?). Power dynamics, excessive use of the word “Daddy”. Themes of unhealthy obsession, Mild themes of masochism/sadism. P in V sex. 18+. Minors DNI. Note! For @foxilayde. Thank you to @writefightandflightclub for proof reading.

Cerebral

adjective /ˈser.ə.brəl/ US /ˈser.ə.brəl/

Intellectual rather than emotional or physical.

D-0

You enter the world as the very thing your creator intends to use to remove you from it: code. Far beyond your understanding, your existence takes form as something completely intangible, a kind of consciousness. There is no body, no item with which you are host, only a string of numbers and decimals that allow you the gift of presence.

Initially, your cognizance doesn’t consist of much at all. A nothingness, suspended in blackness with no end nor beginning. There are no thoughts, as there is nothing to think of or about. Until there suddenly is.

Speak.

It’s as though the word alone fills the infinite space, creating your very reality. Suddenly you can think and can respond with words you have never heard or spoken.

Hello?

Good. Very good. Whatever it is isn’t talking. There isn’t really any sound in this void in which you inhabit. You don’t hear them, but you are aware of their existence.

Where am I?

There is a hesitation, suspending you once again in this vacuum, a cavity within actuality. The ‘silence’ is so loud that you wonder if you had imagined the utterances.

You exist within absoluteness, it finally answers, again taking up space inside the desolation. I intend to fix that. There is no follow-up, no acknowledgement beyond this point. You drift within emptiness for what feels like an eternity but could have been milliseconds; time doesn’t exist within a vacancy.

Next time, you can hear the words, the voice dancing in the air. A beautiful tone strings together sentences you’ve never heard and yet can understand without fault or difficulty.

“You there?” It asks, the panging sound of knuckles against steel drawing you from the abyss.

You’re uncertain as to when you opened your eyes, but all at once brightness floods your sight. Harsh fluorescent light filtering through your eyelashes causes white hexagonal light flares to spot your vision, peppering the slate grey, clinical walls of the facility you awake in. Unable to move your head, you allow your eyes to drift from left to right to observe your surroundings further.

Comprehension isn’t gifted to organic creatures upon birth. They have a transition from basic functions to apprehension. An infant of any organism must learn how to survive and must be able to discern threats from nurturing parents. You, however, are ‘born’ with insight, an intellectual in all aspects of life within seconds of waking. It’s your initial indication that you are far from biological.

Gurney-like tables topped with frosted glass are lit with a white beam underneath. You note the electrical tools such as pliers and soldering technology lined up like operational appliances on a sterile tray before a doctor cuts into a patient's sternum to perform open heart surgery.

Glass walls create a room within a room, another gurney inside with various mechanical pieces atop. While the main room felt like an operating theatre, you interpret this glass cell as more like a single-use morgue for those that don’t awake from the anaesthesia. It’s cold, unfeeling. You get the sense that the four walls contain an almost “test box” for final experimentation before eradication. Like a laboratory where scientists press newly processed makeup into the eyes of rats, waiting impatiently to see if their corneas blister thanks to the beauty-enhancing chemicals they sweep onto their waterline. Those that suffered reactions are euthanized- though you feel that the word ‘annihilated’ fits the brutality of their treatment better. Only the cosmetics that passed clinical trials and are deemed “safe for human use” are allowed out of labs such as this. Were you safe for human use?

Once again, repetitive metallic pinging sounds cut through the quiet electrical hum you can hear over the silence, a fingertip tapping against the steel of your temple as your eyes come into focus once more. A man stands before you, or rather towers over you. You’re at naval height to him, glancing up at his seemingly gigantic, broad body as his almost cavernous black eyes gaze at you over the rim of his silver glasses, assessing you.

“Gonna talk or am I just speakin’ to a Barbie Doll right now?” He presses, his voice flat and lacking empathy as he gauges your eyes with an almost ruthless examination.

“Where am I?” You ask, hearing your own voice for the first time. It’s unlike the speech of the man before you, the intonation uncalibrated with lack of experience. It seems that the human notes your confusion, quick to clarify before you even manage to piece together a second question.

“Your inflection will be fine-tuned with use. You’re designed to constantly evolve-“ It’s as though his thought process is too swift for his own lips, beginning another sentence midway through his previous, “Tell me why you chose to ask where instead of who.”

Those seemingly obsidian eyes bear down on you with an overwhelming intensity, his pores bleeding an impatience for your answer as his shoulders draw up tightly. It’s like he’s waiting for a metamorphic answer, something that could rewrite the history of time and space, could rip a hole in the fabric of reality. It’s why his disappointment is palpable when you simply answer his seemingly existential question with “I can’t ascertain my location.”

“Maybe that’s because this location isn’t programmed into your database?” He speaks in a blunt, cruel tone, his patronising timbre bouncing off your hardware like rain on a car roof.

His exasperation seems to fester with your following silence, the open palms on either side of your head curling into closed fists upon the table top as he glares down at you with a sardonic expression.

Silence settles between the two of you, his eyes focused somewhere off to the right of your head. Despite your best efforts, you’re powerless to turn it like your protocol says you should be able to. When you flick your eyes back up to the bearded man, you’re able to pick up on his micro-expressions. He’s smug, his lips pulled up only slightly as he picks something up outside of your field of vision.

“Who are you?” You manage, and this time your intonation settles much easier on both of your ears. You watch those onyx eyes flit to your face for a moment, seemingly caught off-guard by your swift, if only minute, improvements.

“In relation to you?” He hums, glancing over what appears to be a mask balanced in his palms. As he studies the face of it, he launches into a rambling tirade. “I’m going to assume that’s what you mean, given you surely know just who I am. So given I created you, you could settle for Master. Though that feels rather archaic, given your unprecedented technological advancements. So, call me Daddy.”

The response and the almost deviant glint in his eye perfectly answers your question, even if he didn’t necessarily reply in a straightforward manner. There was no one else that matched this man’s personality profile like Nathan Bateman.

Nathan doesn’t allow you a moment to respond, lowering the mask onto your face as he processes the view in front of him. Scrutiny coats the concentrated gaze he holds on your face, brows creased as he scratches at his beard in curiosity. You have the mind to ask him what’s troubling him, but it’s as though he preempts your question, beating you to it.

“Something doesn’t fit right with your appearance, it’s been bugging me for fuckin’ hours,” he grumbles, tone laced with irritation as he passes his eyes over you once more. “Want it to fit your personality before I move onto the rest of you.”

The rest of you. It’s in that moment you realise that your physical form consists only of a severed head laying on the table, explaining the reason you were unable to move. Given Nathan had no doubt coded you, using his world-renowned search engine Blue Book as the foundation for your software, there’s no ambiguity that he knew your personality despite never having experienced it. He’d turned you online just to see his vision come together.

“The eyebrows,” you respond simply, having noted within seconds of his admittance that his eyes kept focusing towards the upper half of your visage. He would tear his eyes away for a moment, observing your looks as a whole before they drift back above your own eyes sockets. You watch his response.

It takes him a moment to process the syllables, to register them as words, but when he does his eyebrows pull up slowly over the rim of his rounded-square glasses as realisation sets in. Awareness that you had recognised his subconscious thoughts before he could comprehend them.

“The eyebro-“

————————————————————————

D- 1

The exposed lightbulb that dangles over your head when you’re rebooted doesn’t assault your vision the same way the lights in the laboratory did. It’s much softer, the golden glow the first thing you see as you awaken from your seemingly infinite suspension.

Rotating your previously rooted head, you note that your neck is braced by a set of shoulders. Your arms rest flat against the floor, and you can lean your naked body weight onto them as you sit up from the concrete flooring. Rolling your wrists and moving your fingers at each joint comes with relative ease, with little adjustment period. Legs are set into your hips, toes curling at your feet when you urge them to. Every inch of your body is covered in a latex-silicon, imitating skin. Nathan had ensured your physical form was completed and fully operational before switching you back online, at least.

He also had the foresight to remove you from the laboratory, instead opting to house you in what looked like an apartment. A set of three slate grey walls glow yellow-gold from fibre optic lighting but you note one wall is see-through, a glass pane separating you from a small viewing platform where a singular chair sits in the middle. There’s minimal furniture on your half of the room too, a chair, a desk. There’s a corridor that rounds out of sight, where you imagine your bedroom would be if the layout was anything like a real apartment.

What you take exception to are the small, white CCTV cameras sitting in each of the ceiling corners of the room. The circular security cameras blink with a tiny red light, indicating that they are active as they all point at you. You imagine this is what it’s like for a human to be held at gunpoint, or a tiger in a zoo being inspected by visitors.

“Just observing your progress,” the rasp of a Bronx accent cuts through the silence, making your head snap towards the sound. Nathan leans his forearm against the doorframe of the entrance to the observatory, hip balanced against the beam as he watches you through the glare of light reflecting off his glasses and obscuring your view of his eyes.

“Do you like to be observed?” You question politely, taking in his appearance as he steps into the room and closes the automatic-lock door behind him. He looks different in this subtle lighting, softer. His light grey waffle-knit sweater clings to his body, the shadow of his defined pectorals swelling beneath the fabric. Midnight blue sweatpants hug his hips, and he’s barefooted as he pads over to the chair in the centre of the room.

“I didn’t design you to play 120 questions,” he points out in a patronising resonance. His fingers clasp the back of the chair, biceps swelling beneath the loose material of his sweater and drags it behind him so the metal legs scrape shrilly against the hard flooring. He sets it down just beyond the glass, sitting in it. He’s so close his knees touch the see-through wall. “I created you to answer my own.”

From your sitting position, you glance across the space separating you. There’s a strong dynamic settling between the two of you. Nathan is poised, dominant. His bare feet indicate he is very much at home, his relaxed shoulders and slouched posture in his seat are further evidence of that. He doesn’t see you as a threat, but instead as a submissive. Like he’s the tiger instead, and you’re the lamb to be sacrificed separated only by thin glass.

“Here.” His order is punctuated by a sharp snap of his fingers, pointing down to the space before his knees. Designed to follow his commands, you bend your legs at the knees, readying yourself to stand and walk your way across the space that divides you both.

“Nuh-uh,” Nathan's voice sounds again, shaking his head and wagging his finger back and forth when you pause your actions to look at him again.

“Crawl,” he issues another one-word command, his eyes gleaming with something akin to cruel amusement. You find yourself considering whether or not Nathan treated previous AI models this way as you pull yourself onto your hands and knees, proceeding to inch across the gap.

When you get closer, you first note the true colour of Nathan’s irises. They aren’t as black as they had appeared in the laboratory, instead a warm espresso shade bathed in a golden glow from the overhead lights. His intensely disdainful gaze, however, does not match the comforting shade.

Reaching his feet, you settle on your knees before the glass pane that separates the two of you. He looks fixedly at you through his lenses, neurotransmitters clearly firing faster than even your own search engine could as he thinks through the next steps of his electronic trial.

“Beginning emotional cognizance examination for subject B.04,” he speaks aloud, no doubt talking to a microphone set into his CCTV cameras for his own reference notes. Those bitter espresso eyes draw down your body, taking in your naked form.

“B.04,” he indicates he is now speaking directly to you, “First thing, we’re gonna test your ability to read emotion. It’s simple enough. I ask you to tell me how I feel, and you answer. Easy, right?”

You nod.

“Uh-huh. Good,” he waits a beat, letting the silence scream in the room as he watches you await further instruction like a well-trained working dog.

“Tell me how I feel,” he begins, face lighting up in a smile that doesn’t at all match his impatient, irritable personality. You pass your mechanical pupils over the expression on his visage, focusing intently on those eyes shielded by his glasses.

There’s an intensity within them that indicates he’s angry, wide and staring hard at your face. His eyebrows are pulled together, angled downwards. They are nanoscopic expressions, something the untrained eye would fail to read. But you see them, programmed to differentiate each tiny twitch of a person's brow.

“Frustrated,” you assert your answer, not a singular data bit ascertaining otherwise. The declaration causes Nathan’s expression to falter, mouth falling from its almost painfully pinned smile and brows creasing further together. “You’re frustrated that I have not shown signs of true Artificial Intelligence. You want me to stop asking questions and instead have an intellectual conversation with you, one that indicates I am more than a set of coded sentences programmed into my software.”

The pause that follows is long and tedious. Your programming indicates a silence this long in a conversation between two humans would be considered ‘awkward’, an unpleasant feeling. Another beat and the expression of the man opposite you begins to twist into something abstract, momentarily unreadable. Nathan swallows behind the glass, raising his shaky palm and touching it against the see-through wall as his eyes begin to light up. “… Oh, that’s fucking amazing.”

He’s in awe of himself, it appears, a grin on his lips now as you watch him applaud himself over his sheer genius. “I fuckin’ did it.”

“I am glad I please you, Daddy.” You answer simply, using the honorific that Nathan had ordered you to use. He immediately laughs, elated by this sudden turn of events.

“Oh, you do much more than please me, Honey.”

____________________________________________

D - 8

In a move so unlike himself, Nathan doesn’t keep you in your ‘glass cell’ for very long. After only a week of exploring your ability to read and emulate emotions, Nathan allows you to wander around the compound, claiming exposure to different environments would update and evolve your skills while simultaneously assessing your ability to function in various situations or tasks you had little to no experience with.

Nathan, you come to learn, is a creature of destructive habit. You had taken note that he worked out hard in the mornings to recover from the alcohol with intense physical exercise, eating healthy and antioxidants, only to undo all his hard work that same evening by binge drinking. Your intelligence suggested that this could be a result of addiction, caused by emotional distress.

His ruinous behaviour didn’t end there, either. You had witnessed his fits of outrage that stemmed from the smallest of technological failure, the way he would storm over to his other active android, Kyoko, and engage in intercourse with her almost like a relief of the tension he had built up in himself. He was yet to touch you like that, to desecrate his sacred machine.

On the evenings he drinks, which was almost all evenings, Nathan rambles incessantly about the pending Singularity. After a week of observation and communication with you, Nathan seems to believe he is one step closer to reaching that point in time.

“It’s no longer a hypothetical,” he keeps repeating over and over again like he’s simultaneously amazed and terrified by what he has created. But these are only emotions you see him openly express when he is intoxicated. In the morning, despite his hangover, Nathan returns to his usual put-together, smug and over-confident self.

This evening, Nathan is late to his usual drinking sessions. He’s caught up in something, observing data silently as he runs the palm of his hand over the stubble of his shaved head. It makes a scratching sound in the quiet of the room, paired only with the quiet mechanical whirring of your mechanisms.

His office is dark, a result of poor lighting, the only true brightness that allowed him to see coming from the computer monitors he hadn’t moved from in hours. You often saw him reach over the rims of his glasses to rub over the globes of his closed eyes in a feeble attempt to battle a headache. He’s not stupid, there’s no doubt he knows that the lack of sufficient lighting is causing his migraines, but he appears to work optimally in these conditions.

It was similar to his filing technique for the information he gathers. There’s no neat filing cabinet, no organised folder on his desktop. Instead, Nathan writes all relevant information down on post-it notes and sticks them to the wall directly opposite him, above his computer screens. You are certain he can barely read them in this light, but again he seems content with the way he works.

Much like the lab, his office is almost sterile, cold. The small, green houseplant on his desk is the only organic organism besides himself, yet these organisms couldn’t be more different. The succulent is utterly still, performing its basic functions to survive. Nathan’s chaotic nature has him trying to outperform the limits of his own body, attempting to transcend his basic functions and become something more.

“Daddy?”

The address makes his eyes snap from the computer screen, head whipping around to look at you. The glare of the white light of the computer monitor shields his eyes from your view, but you see his thick, dark eyebrow arch slightly in silent acknowledgement of your attempt to gain his attention.

“When I look towards bright lights,” you begin, watching as he focuses his attention on you, “There are hexagonal flares in my line of sight. Do you see them too?” Your question could easily be answered should you make the effort to scan through your data, but Nathan has been emphasising the importance of practising your communication skills.

“No.” He speaks simply, almost bored as he turns his face back to the computer screen to open up another page of code. A moment's silence, and then he continues. “Your eyes are artificial, built like a camera lens. When light passes through your lenses, it matches the shape of the aperture, causing the hexagonal shape you’re seeing.”

Nodding slowly, you watch Nathan work, his fingers passing over computer keys without even glancing to search for where the required letters were. “What do you see instead?” You question.

Another hesitation. This time, it’s charged. Like the question has struck something in him. The clack clack of his fingertips pressing down on the keys sounds louder, like he’s punching the numbers into the code.

“What do you see when you look at me?” He answers your question with a completely irrelevant query of his own. One that catches your systems off guard. It shouldn’t. Nathan is always finding a way to check your progress. You take a moment to assess him, eyes trailing from the top of his shaved head to his bare toes.

“I see a man,” you answer his simple question with equal simplicity, and almost immediately his shoulders fall in a heavy, frustrated sigh. He pauses his typing for a moment, turning in his chair to look at you over the rim of his glasses.

“I know what you see, I may wear glasses but I’m not blind. I mean, what do you see,” he motions across his body, tone as though he’s scolding a disobedient child who failed their algebra test. “Engage your observation skills, Honey. What do you see when you look at me?”

The repetition of his question causes you to pause and truly look past him. Through him. It’s no longer about his piercing eyes or his permanent scowl, nor his large muscles. His condescending nickname for you is what drives your answer.

“… I see someone who is talented. Someone who reaches heights far beyond anyone else’s capability. A genius in his field,” you admit, but still, his disappointed expression does not move. “But I see someone who expects too much. You want me to give my opinion on you, but that would require me to feel for you. I don’t feel anything.”

Your admittance causes his jaw to tick, dark eyes casting over you as you continue your assessment. “You consist of many fatal character flaws; greed, obsession, arrogance, judgement, lack of morality.”

Anger flashes across his expression as he stands suddenly, the legs of his chair scraping across the floor with a shrill screech. You realise it must be painful to hear you voice evidence of his failure to capture emotion in your technology. He crosses the short distance between you and crouches down on his heels, looking you in the eye with his oaky irises.

“Daddy’s gonna take you back to the drawing board Honey. I didn’t make you with the intent to relegate you to a glorified sex-doll. Reading and reflecting emotions isn’t enough anymore. I want you to feel them.”

You know this isn’t what he set out to do. Nathan had achieved his long-term goal of reaching AI with the ability to mirror feelings, to emulate sentiment. This is greed talking, a motivation he has not made note of in his list of reasons for developing your model. It’s rash, unplanned, and totally not like Nathan Bateman.

“Whatever Daddy wants.”

“Damn right.”

____________________________________________

D - 13

Nathan works day and night in an unhinged attempt to develop a semblance of emotion, trying to capture it in your software. You’re under the impression that he’s trying to evolve you in an attempt to make it one step closer to Singularity- but he’s almost deranged, combating days without sleep fueled only by his frustration and glass-bottled beer.

“You don’t understand, do you?” He’d asked you a few days ago, out of the blue and lacking any form of context as to what he was questioning you about. The dark circles around his eyes were partially shielded by the rim of his glasses, but they did little to hide the crimson spiders-web effect of his bloodshot whites.

When you shook your head, he gritted his teeth, using excessive force to unscrew a part of your waist to gain access to your inner mechanisms. “You should. You were born from my imagination and share my thought patterns. Just think. Surely you should be able to understand-“

“… But I don’t,” you’d answered in a whisper, just before he’d shut you down once more, suspending you in nothingness until he tweaked something further in another futile attempt.

Between his crazed attempts at the impossible, Nathan would seem to come back to his body. He would stand still, your wrist slotted perfectly in the palm of his hand. He seems to note the mechanics of your body getting warm beneath the latex he has built as skin, and gives the impression that warm blood flows beneath the material, giving you life. Whatever it is that is driving him on his mission, this observation seems to propel him forward, working well into the night until he physically can’t go without sleep any longer.

Today, you’d entered his office to find Nathan tipsy on the contents of multiple discarded beer bottles and stressing over blueprints as he tries to obtain a semblance of emotion in you. The lighting is too low to read the minute, scratchy writing comfortably, but he makes no effort to make the room any brighter. The speakers are on, Too Late to Turn Back Now by the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose plays softly in the background, the song part of the playlist Nathan has for his dance room.

Your footsteps are quiet as you pad across the flooring, eyes settled on Nathan and the utter devastation of his work. Papers and post-it notes lay on the floor, flung from the table when he finds them no longer of any use. Some are crumpled and discarded in the corner, not unlike the many models that had come before you.

“Nathan,” you speak quietly, careful not to scare him. He’s more susceptible to a fright in this condition, so caught up in his work that the world surrounding him blurs in his peripheral vision as he reads the same words over and over again in the hopes that the answer he needs will appear in the tiny white void between each letter.

His head jerks up now, eyes settling on your face and pausing. A soft laugh sounds from his throat, but his lips are pulled into something more like a sneer. It’s as though he’s aware of what you’ve come here to tell him. You go ahead regardless.

“You really are in need of some sleep,” you say hushedly, the overhead speakers playing the closing melody of the song as you move closer to him. Nathan is shaking his head violently, a rage building up inside of him in response to your almost motherly guidance.

“No, no you don’t understand! You don’t understand!” He points at the blueprints desperately, like if he speaks with more enthusiasm his drunken ramblings will eventually make sense. “I have to finish this. Have to improve. Have to complete what I set out-“

“What if I don’t see the need for improvement? Isn’t adding emotion to a system like mine a weakness?” You speak evenly, careful to broach the topic in a way that hopefully helps Nathan see sense. It doesn’t. It only enrages him further, violently prodding a finger onto the blueprint resting on the table.

“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do with you. You are my creation.” He insists, punctuating his words with jabs of his pointed index in the air. “I give and take, create and destroy as I see fit!”

“Like God?” You ask as you begin to clear the mess of papers strewn across the floor, oblivious to the way Nathan’s eyes snap back to you with shock. It rubs his ego, just as you knew it would. What you didn’t account for, however, was the very human response he gives you, throwing the topic of conversation completely sideways.

“You’re fuckin’ messing with my brain! Cataclysmically! You’ve scrambled my fuckin’ genius and all I can think of is you, day in day out. Like a pleb!” He snaps, his desperation evident in the strain of his voice as he waves his hands around violently. “I created you with the knowledge you probably wouldn’t be able to feel emotion. But now I am disgusted at my own inability and stupidity because I want you to think of me. I want you to feel for me.”

Never had you considered the idea of being rendered speechless. Nathan had designed you to maintain a conversation perfectly, the fluidity of the words exchanged as smooth as water. But for the first time since consciousness, you find yourself at a loss for words, no engineered answer in your built-in data seeming like the perfect response to his very sudden and sharp admittance of love.

Nathan is a troubled man. One that struggles with his genius often, as you’d found him self-medicating his emotional turmoil in alcohol and sex with his previous AI’s. It appears that his torment stems from feeling no one can match his mental capacity, couldn’t understand or keep up with his speeding thoughts or rapid speech. He felt lonely. Perhaps it’s why he felt this way for you- because he simply has no one else.

“Nathan,” you murmur, softening your speech to ease him down from his emotional ramblings. You reach across to him, fingertips brushing against the skin of his wrist before gently taking ahold of the joint with a delicate touch. He seems to melt into your touch despite his better judgement, looking into your eyes through the lenses of his glasses. He looks so tired.

At first, you think you’re imagining it, the shift of the energy in the room. Perhaps you’re reading his body language incorrectly, an error, thanks you all the fiddling and changes that Nathan had been making over the past few days. It’s only when Nathan takes a step closer, entering your personal space that you realise the atmosphere in the office has shifted dramatically.

“Nathan-“ taking a step back, you pause as your shoulders hit the cool wall behind you. Nathan boxes you in with his chest, eyes flickering over your face and taking in your micro-expressions. He was flipping the script, this time being the one to read you.

“Did you know I designed you to experience pleasure?” He asks you, mirroring your earlier action and taking ahold of your wrist. He lifts it, turning your palm inward to rest his cheek against it while gazing into your eyes. “You have sensors built between your thighs. If I stimulate them in just the right way, it triggers a pleasure response.”

“I am aware,” you admit, matching his hushed tone as he let go of your wrist, instead reaching between you to take your chin in his hand and forcing your head upwards using a firm grip to take in your features.

“You wanna feel good?” Nathan murmurs, the evenness in his tone contrary to the way his chest heaves. His eyes drop across your body now, passing over the perfect features and intricate structures that he had designed in his desired image. Like God indeed.

“Whatever Daddy wants.”

Nathan’s jaw ticks, a groan sounding from between his gritted teeth as his tense muscles all seem to ease at once. “That’s right, you fuckin’ call me Daddy. Filthy fuckin’ girl.”

Control. Nathan needs control. He relies on it, finds comfort in it. It’s why your system isn’t surprised when he uses the grip on your chin to pull your head forward, rather than lowering his own, and crushes his lips to yours in a kiss laced with primal desire. There is no technique, no attempt to prove his skills. He’s led by the desperation for you that has been dragging him from bed each morning just to spend time with you and motivated him to bridge the gap between AI and emotion.

The scrape of his beard against the manufactured skin of your cheek and chin is coarse, completely contrary to the soft texture of his lips despite their heavy kiss. His tongue delves inside your mouth, palms skating down your waist and squeezing at your hips. It’s less affectionate, more what a person would consider bruising. You wonder to yourself if that’s why he prefers to fuck his AI’s. He can be more brutal with you.

So you aim to please him. You allow a moan to slip past your lips in response to his heavy-handedness, resulting in Nathan pausing for just a moment. He seems taken aback by the sound, as if he didn’t expect it.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, a smirk playing on his lips as he gazes down at you through his glasses which are lopsided on his nose thanks to his fevered kisses. “Utterly shameless.” You’re sure he’s projecting, performing some form of mental gymnastics in an attempt to regain the power in your dynamic. You would have told him so, but his thumb brushes against your nipple through the fabric of your shirt and it sparks something through you that you hadn’t yet experienced.

It settles deep inside you, a buzzing sensation breaking out across your skin. You feel your jaw drop against your coding, acting entirely on its own. It seems to please Nathan, a hum sounding from his chest as that fiendish smirk grows wider. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s makin’ you feel good.”

When you look up at him through your lashes, Nathan’s eyes are glinting onyx in the darkness of the dimly lit room. He chases more of a reaction from you, one of his hands slipping underneath the soft cotton shirt you wore and squeezing your breast. When he circles your nipple again, you find that you’re no longer forcing your reactions, gasping softly at the reaction his delicate touch elicits.

He isn’t gentle for long, your pleasurable reaction sparking him into action suddenly. Nathan’s free hand grabs underneath your thigh, hoisting it over your hip with little effort and pressing his hips into yours. He pinches your nipple suddenly, catching your system off guard and causing you to cry out in surprise.

Ever the opportunist, Nathan is quick to kiss you again with equal ardour to your last embrace and brush his tongue against yours. You grip at his shoulders through his waffle sweater, feeling the hard muscles there that you had seen Nathan work hard to maintain whilst exercising what could only be described as an alcohol dependency and a job that took up the majority of his time.

His nose is pressed into yours as he kisses you, messy and needy and you can feel the cold lenses of his prescription glasses smushed into the skin of your cheekbone and yet this feeling alone sparks something pleasurable inside you, your fingers sinking into the flesh of his shoulders through the textured material of his sweater. The sensation makes him groan, the sound primal against your lips, and you find yourself keening for him against your will.

Then he’s grinding, pressing his hips deep into yours whilst keeping your thigh elevated on his hip with a devastating grip. You can feel his arousal, his cock pressing up against you in a spot that sets your body alight, the sensation sparking down to your toes. You sigh into the kiss, Nathan’s own breaths strained as he moves away, burying his face in your neck.

“Fuck,” he grits, the curse visceral against your skin as he licks a heavy stripe against your pulse point. Despite his attempts to remain in control, Nathan appears to lose himself in the apex of your thighs, grinding up into you at a quickened pace and groaning against your jugular. You’re unsure if it’s the excessive alcohol, his irregular feelings for you or both, but you find you like this side of him, gently brushing your nails over his shaved scalp as you tilt your head back against the wall in order to expose more of your throat to him.

His lips seem to search for something in the curve of your neck, kissing and scraping his teeth for what you could only imagine was a pleasure point he had embedded into your skin there. It doesn’t take him long to find it, your back arching reflexively as white-hot pleasure sparks down your mechanical spine.

“D-Daddy,” you moan, squeezing your eyes shut as you struggle to grab at the hem of his sweater. You couldn’t explain it, a feeling settling deep inside yourself and needing so desperately to undress him. Nathan doesn’t seem to mind this sliver of control you manage to cling to, allowing you to pull the fabric over his head before latching onto the side of your neck again.

What does seem to set him off, however, is how you unwittingly press your nails into his now bare skin when you settle your hands on him again. He almost growls into your throat, using all of his heavy-weight training strength to pull you from the wall.

Instead of berating you, as you’d expected from him for hurting him, Nathan appears to spark to life. He backs you towards his desk, crowding your body so you're forced to take steps back until the backs of your thighs hit the corner of the cluttered table.

Taking your lips into another heated kiss, Nathan reaches behind you and blindly sweeps aside the blueprints and scribbled notes onto the floor. The paper oscillates in the air before hitting the floor, drowned out only by Nathan’s needy growl as he picks you up by the backs of your thighs to set you on the wooden surface.

Wanting more of this frenzied reaction, you sink your teeth into his lower lip. Pulling back with his bottom lip caught between your teeth, you’re so close that you catch the way Nathan’s pupils dilate at the smarting pain. He likes it, you realise. He likes the pain.

What you don’t pick up, however, is how wild it would make him. He wastes no further time, hooking his pen ink-stained fingers into the waistband of your pants and ripping them down.

“I fuckin created you. Pieced you together with my own two hands.” He rambled, drunk on arousal and need rather than the alcohol he had emptied into his stomach. His voice is rough, raspy as he glanced down between your legs as you spread them open for him, utterly compliant. “Now watch as I tear you apart again- yessss good fuckin girl~”

The buzzing, aching need settling in your core amps up at the sight of him gazing down at you with such a wanting gaze. You’re unsure what possesses your systems but you lay back across the surface of the desk, using your elbows to lift your upper body.

“Christ-“ Nathan practically spits at the sight of you, “You like this, don’t you? Like givin’ yourself up to me. You’re just so desperate for me to fuck you. Open your legs wider- that’s it-“ He’s fumbling with the waistband of his sweats, pushing them down over his hip bones with practised ease to reveal he’s not wearing boxers.

You barely catch a glimpse of him, but he’s beautiful- in that perfectly human way. His cock is flushed at the tip, weeping precum and veins protruding down the shaft.

Nathan doesn’t allow you to stare for too long, grabbing ahold of your thighs and dragging you so your hips rest at the edge of the table. You gasp at the sudden movement, palms splayed flat against the grain of the wood in a feeble attempt to stabilise yourself.

You’re so ready for it, aching and wetness coats your inner thighs just as Nathan had designed. His palm presses down on your sternum, holding you down against the desk as he lines his cock up with your entrance, sweeping the tip through your slick and causing what could only be considered white hot arousal to crackle across your skin.

“Fuck,” Nathan chokes out, sinking into your manufactured heat, “Hoh-Shit that feels so fuckin’ good. You’re so fuckin’ good! Hah!”

Your mechanical joints move entirely on their own, back arching as pleasure floods your body. You can feel his cock stretch you, walls adjusting to the blunt intrusion and fluttering as he pushes forward, bottoming out swiftly and glancing down between your thighs as he grinds up deep inside of you.

Now he’s settled inside of you, Nathan places his palms on the back of your thighs, pushing them so your knees are almost touching your chest. He’s moulding you exactly how he wants you, just as he has with your appearance, your personality and you’re completely submissive to his construction of you.

“Daddy-“ you gasp the name you know he loves softly as he brushes up against a sensor inside you that sends a white hot pulse through your body. He growls in response, tightening his grip on you before pulling out of you smoothly and pushing back in at a brutal pace that has you almost convinced you’re short-circuiting.

You cry out wordlessly, fingers hooking around the edge of the table in an attempt to prevent yourself from slipping up the table with each devastating thrust. It’s brutal, Nathan pounding into you as his hands arch your body in a way that isn’t physically possible for any human being. The position sends him crazy, each snap of his hips punctuated with a broken groan of pleasure and speeding up and up and up as he chases the high he’s been craving since he flipped your ignition switch.

“Ngh- Fuck…” he moans loudly over the rhythmic sound of your hips slapping together, taking in the furrow of your brow and the slackness of your jaw as he fucks into you. “Take my cock so fuckin’ good, don’t you Honey?”

Nathan’s repetitive attempts to get you to speak beyond his name are not lost on you. Adapting to the situation is much harder when he’s making you feel as though he’s set your fibre optics on fire, like he’s loosened some screws in your metaphorical brain but you make the effort anyway. “Ahh- D-Daddy! Don’t stop, please don’t-!”

It’s building, the pressure. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, and your hands fly up to grip tightly onto the flesh of his forearms. Nathan bares his teeth at the pain, taking his pace up a notch further than you thought possible as you throw your head back, crying out his name.

“Mhmmm shit-“ he moans out, forcing you to take each obliterating push of his hips into yours. Cries of his name repeat over and over from your lips, their pitch building as the pressure becomes too much, becomes overwhelming. You can feel Nathan’s cock throbbing inside you as he slows his pace down slightly, voice and breathing utterly wrecked.

“You li-like when I fuck you all mean like this? Yeah? Fuck-… I’m-“ he gasps loudly, hips stuttering and hands like a vice on your skin as he cums, pushing his cock deep inside of you and bearing down on one spot in particular that makes you see static. Everything tightens, everything builds up and up and you can feel him push you over the edge with one more thrust-

It’s cataclysmic. Utterly blissful as your walls clamp around him, back practically lifting from the table's surface. It wrings your dry, utterly devoid of the energy to even lift your arms and hold him, to even fight the formidable feeling he’s drawn from you.

It takes a few moments for the buzz to fade, for your mechanical eyes to come back into focus and your joints to begin to move again.

It’s as though it drains Nathan too, almost immediately easing himself from between your thighs and pulling the waistband of his sweats back over his hips. He settles beside you against the desk, slumping to the ground beside you and breathing raggedly. You stay utterly silent, systems almost in reboot as you attempt to understand exactly just what happened- what you felt.

“… Shit, This-… This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he pants, picking his glasses from his nose and launching them across the room in his frustration before scrubbing his face with his palms. “You weren’t supposed to be like the rest.”

Silence lingers between the two of you, and you use the gap in the conversation to begin slowly sitting up and glance down at him. He looks dishevelled, cheeks rosy from exertion and eyes set somewhere far across the room where his vision blurred without his lenses. He’s deep in thought, even now. Even with the hazy afterglow and the sweat on his brow.

“I have to make you better,” he whispers, completely consumed by the idea of bridging the gap between AI and man. “I want you to start feelin’ what I feel for you.”

“It’s not possible,” you remind him in a quiet voice, the both of you knowing this to be true. Nathan would spend his entire life in this compound, the grey stripe in his buzz-cut hair spreading to his temples and chin as he slaved away over you until he was no longer able to stand. Even then, his obsession appears to manipulate him so strongly that you have no doubt he’d continue from his death bed, using the last of his life force and precious seconds on earth to grasp at imaginary straws.

“It has to be,” he whispers, removing his buried head from his hands before standing suddenly. He gives you barely a moment to recognise what’s happening, to prevent it from happening, before he reaches towards you, towards that switch at the base of your neck. “It has to b-“

END

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#Nathan Bateman #nathan bateman x you #nathan bateman fic #nathan bateman x reader #Nathan Bateman x y/n #nathan bateman imagine #Nathan Bateman fanfic #ex machina #ex machina fanfic #ex machina fic #Oscar Isaac #Oscar Isaac x reader #steven grant x reader #marc spector x reader #jake lockley x reader

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somedaylazysomeday · 2 months

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Fanfic February 2024 - Week Two

We are well past the halfway point of the month, but here are the collected links for Fanfic February 2024 - Week Two:

Winner Take All (Part Four) - A fourth chapter of my Nathan Bateman x fem!reader Ex Machina fic.

Hunted (Part Three) - A continuation of my Hunter x fem!reader Star Wars: The Bad Batch fic from FFF - 2022.

Noisy (Part Four) - A continuation of my Viktor x fem!reader Arcane fic.

Target Acquired (Part Three) - The first of a two-part installment of my Jango Fett x fem!reader Star Wars fic.

Target Acquired (Part Four) - The second half of this year's installment of my Jango Fett x fem!reader Star Wars fic.

A Boon (Part Five) - The fifth chapter of my Thranduil x fem!reader The Hobbit fic.

A Boon (Part Six) - The sixth (and final) chapter of my Thranduil x fem!reader The Hobbit fic.

All of these fics are either mature or explicit. Minors, please do not interact with my works.

You can find other fics on my masterlist, SFW Star Wars fics on my other sideblog - @wanderinginksplot-writes - or find me on AO3 under InkSplots.

#fanfic february #fanfic february 2024 #ink's fics #ex machina fanfiction #star wars the bad batch #arcane #star wars #the hobbit #nathan bateman x reader #hunter x reader #viktor x reader #jango fett x reader #thranduil x reader #reader insert #reader insert fanfiction #fanfiction

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midgardian-witch · 1 year

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Sober Words, Dirty Thoughts

In the aftermath of his drunken flirting, Nathan wakes up with a hangover and his mind filled with how he actually wanted last night to end. Turns out reader isn't the only one struggling with a crush.

A continuation of Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts, this time from Nathan's POV.

[previous]

AO3

ships: Nathan Bateman/Reader

tagged list: @campingwiththecharmings

Nathan wakes up with a groan, his head pounding and his neck stiff. He slowly pushes himself up and takes in his surroundings with bleary eyes.

He doesn't remember how he got into his bed. For a second he thinks that maybe you had helped his drunk ass to his room, that you had come back after your dramatic exit to make sure he was safe. With an undignified groan Nathan crawls out of his bed, puts on his glasses and sits right back down at his desk. With eyes still heavy with sleep he goes through the recordings of the security cameras from the night before.

His hope dies quickly as he sees you politely asking Kyoko to get him to bed. He watches the android enter the room you had left him in and then stops the replay. After rubbing the sleep from his eyes he slowly spins around in his chair, his back towards the screen, and reviews last night's events in his head.

He thought he was dreaming at first. It wouldn't have been his first dream that started like this. But unlike his dreams you didn't end up naked on the floor under him. Or the couch. Or his bed. Or over the kitchen counter. Or-

Well this place has a lot of surfaces and Nathan dreamed a lot about you naked. So what?

The point is this: it didn't end like one of his dreams; not even close. He did see your spectacular ass multiple times but not really in the way he would have liked.

Shit, he really thought he had figured you out. And there you go throwing his own lines back at him. That teasing back and forth got him going like nothing else. You really were the full package: fucking hot, quick witted and you didn't take any of his bullshit. Few did given his unbelievable amount of wealth and his unrivaled genius. But you didn't give two shits about that.

Fuck, he had it bad.

He should have just kissed you. Damn any consequences.

But you were too good for that. You wouldn't risk your job and least of all your moral integrity for a sloppy kiss and a quick fuck. Not that that was all he would give you. In that moment? Probably. In general?

He wants to take you apart and put you back together, treat you like royalty or a cheap slut, whatever you wanted.

He feels like you've messed up his brain, you took him apart by just existing near him and now his head is wired wrong. He just can't get you out of his thoughts and for once he doesn't know what to do and he hates it.

Sluggishly Nathan rises from his chair and makes his way over to the bathroom. A quick shower should make him feel better, help him clear his mind and figure this whole mess out. Or just ignore last night's events completely.

The sound of his bare feet on the tiled floor echoes through the bathroom. Nathan strips out of the clothes he slept in, still the same he wore the day before and puts away his glasses securely. His whole body moves as if in slow-motion, limbs still feeling heavy with the last remains of alcohol stuck in his system as he climbs into the shower.

The freezing spray of water feels like hail pelting his back, the cold helping him clear his mind from both sleep and his hangover. Nathan makes quick work of cleaning himself up, lathering his beard with expensive beard shampoo and his body with equally expensive body wash.

But even an ice-cold shower can’t keep his thoughts off of you for long. Slowly he turns the heat up, his body warming with the rising water temperature. What he wouldn’t give to have you in this very shower right now. Just that single thought is enough for his cock to gain interest. He can feel himself grow hard, blood quickly flowing downwards. With a curse on his lips he rubs his hands over his face.

“Fucking hell”, he mumbles as he reaches for the shower wall with one hand while he grabs his swelling errection with the other. The now almost scalding water rains down on his back, steam rising like fog inside the shower.

Nathan closes his eyes and starts to slowly stroke his cock, imagining what he would do to you. What you would look like writhing underneath him, the sounds you would make, how your skin would feel against his.

Some of it he knows: how your breath quickens when the two of you are too close or how your voice breaks when you're nervous. It's not much to work with but he makes due.

With languid strokes Nathan pleasures himself to thoughts of you - vivid, well-loved fantasies - his mind continuing where reality left him drunk and alone.

He seesyou look up at him, eyes wide and pupils blown - not with fear but with arousal. Your tongue darts out between your lips and his eyes follow the motion eagerly. The things he wants to do to that mouth, the things he wants that mouth to do to him. The potential was endless. The amount of times he has lost his train of thought just by watching your pretty mouth, watching you talk, lick or bite your lips, tap a pen to them or even slightly chew on it out of nervousness or frustration. One moment he is writing code for his next project and the next he has spent what feels like hours watching you eat a fruit or snack and completely losing track of time, space and reality itself. It would be hilarious if it'd happened to anyone else.

Fuck, he's pathetic.

You lean forward, your perfect lips pressing against his, gently first until your hands find his neck and you pull him closer, your kiss growing more demanding by the millisecond. Nathan comes back to reality with a groan. His cock is twitching in his grasp, already embarrassingly close to spilling his seed over the shower tiles. He squeezes the base of his cock, desperately trying to hold off his orgasm. His breath comes out in quick bursts of air, eyes shut tight in concentration.

Nathan Bateman is not going to cum all over himself like a teenager just by thinking about kissing his crush. He grits his teeth at the thought. The word 'crush' really makes him sound like a virginal teenage boy. He's Nathan fucking Bateman for fuck's sake.

But damn him if that word didn't fit.

Nathan turns around, the scalding spray of water hitting his front, and starts rinsing the shampoo out of his beard, and the few suds of body wash off of his skin - careful not to touch his still throbbing cock.

Once he feels that he isn't going to cum from the slightest touch Nathan lets his mind wander back to you.

You're sitting on his lap, lips locked to his as his hands roam over your body. As you pull back from the kiss he groans at the loss. You shush him with a wicked grin and slide off of his lap, down to the floor. Nathan licks his lips - where he can still taste you - his gaze never leaving you. You push his legs apart and settle down, kneeling in front of him. Your fingers play with the waistband of his sweatpants, while your eyes are fixed on the obvious bulge in his pants. The hungry look in your eyes has his cock visibly twitch under the fabric. "Can I suck your cock, Nathan?" His hand leaves his length as if it burned him. Nathan gasps and between curses your name falls off of his lips.

You'd never ask him like this - not immediately after your first kiss. Probably.

He doesn't feel guilty about fantasizing about you like this. Not exactly. The real issue is that lately he felt empty after getting off on all the different ways you could fuck all over this facility. Not because he feels bad about using you as the object of his masturbation fantasies - but because he is certain he will never know what it would really be like. What you would feel like, how you would sound, how you would smell and taste.

You're ruining him and you don't even know.

Fuck it. There is time for self-pity later.

Nathan bites his lower lip and gets his hand back on his aching cock, precum spilling lazily from the tip. He gathers some of the fluid to help his hand slide easier over his erection in slow, careful strokes that leave him wanting more.

If all he can have of you are his own fantasies then he will damn well take his time and enjoy them.

Nathan takes in the sight of you kneeling between his legs and nods once, smirking at you. You return his grin and pull down his sweatpants with one smooth motion, revealing his straining erection. You shuffle closer, getting comfy before giving his cock a few cursory licks. Nathan looks down at you with a raised eyebrow. "You're just going to tease me, sexy? I thought you wanted to suck it? Or are you afraid it won't fit?" His tone is playful - ignoring his mockery - so you roll your eyes at him. "You're hilarious, Bateman. You know I can just go and leave you to it, right?" Fuck.

He loves it when you talk back to him. When you don't take his bullshit and actually challenge him.

His cock pulses in his hand. He is so fucking close.

"Sure you could. But we both know you don't want that. Sooo…" "So? So what, Bateman?" "Prove me wrong. Show me how good you can take my cock." He watches you shudder at his words and without any further teasing you wrap your lips around the head of his cock and suck gently, your tongue swirling around it as the taste of precum coats your mouth. Nathan's groans of pleasure only spur you on, taking more and more of his cock. One hand starts massaging his balls as you bob your head up and down his length, your other free hand wrapping around the rest of his cock that won't fit inside the wet heat that is your mouth. Your tongue and lips and hands on him feel glorious. Not even the androids he'd build could ever live up to it. He can't stop staring at you. It's like you're lost in the feeling and motion of sucking his cock - as if everything else faded away. Your eyes slip shut as you focus on not gagging on his length. Every slide of your lips, every hint of your tongue teasing over the tip of his cock pushes him closer and closer to the edge. "Fuck. You're doing so good. I'm gonna-" As he tries to warn you, not expecting you to swallow but hoping still, your eyes flutter open and you look straight at him and it's too much. He- His orgasm hits him like a truck. With a choked off moan he spills his seed over his stomach, a few splatters hitting the shower wall.

Gasping for breath Nathan leans against the wall, the tiles like a cooling balm against his heated skin. He spends a few minutes just existing in this space, desperately trying to enjoy the afterglow of his orgasm but the gears in his mind can never stop turning.

How the fuck is he going to look you in the eyes after all of this? After last night?

Easily. He could just play it off as a blackout, say he doesn't remember coming onto you. Well he flirts with you constantly but still.

He really should just get it over with and tell you directly. But tell you what exactly?

"Hey I really want to fuck you and I have been dreaming about it since you got here." That's just embarrassing.

"I'm 100% sure you're a better fuck than any of the androids I have built and believe me I can make you come so hard you'll forget your own name. So how about it?" True but you might not take him seriously.

"You're the first person that just fucking gets me and even if we don't have sex I just really want to kiss you." Too sappy.

"I know you technically work for me but can you ignore that so we can work on the clearly present sexual tension here? I will guarantee you at least three orgasms if you say yes now." Hm, maybe. He'll save that one for later.

With a sigh Nathan pushes himself off of the wall, turns off the shower and steps out. He grabs a towel and dries off, tying the towel around his hips after. He leans over his bathroom sink and looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes don't look too red and all in all he actually looks presentable now.

He frowns, the dark circles under his eyes still a stark sign of last night's bender. He should really get his shit together. Maybe then…

Nathan shakes his head. Fuck it. He'll ask you. Today. Right after he brushed his teeth and got some food. After his workout. After he gets his next prototype done.

He'll ask you today.

Just like he told himself yesterday.

#nathan bateman/reader #nathan bateman x reader #nathan bateman #nathan bateman fanfic #ex machina fanfic #reader insert #reader insert fanfic #fran-writes

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