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p-artsypants · 4 years

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Integrity (Part 2)

Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. - Overwhelmed with her responsibilities, guilt, and drama, Marinette has an emotional breakdown in front of everyone, and even hands over her earrings in a moment of weakness. Only for a few seconds, but the damage was done. Adrien’s pretty quick on the uptake like that.

Ao3 | FF.net

It was now 11pm. Adrien and Plagg both laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

That was...a lot.

“Your father...” began Plagg.

“Yeah.”

“...is Hawkmoth.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not...that surprising.”

“Yeah.”

They continued to lay there, silently accepting all they had seen.

“And Marinette is Ladybug.”

“Yeah.”

“Crazy day.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“I’ve never seen him cry before.” Said Plagg.

“I’ve only seen it once before. I had assumed he cried when mom disappeared, but he never did in front of me.”

“It was...kind of reassuring.”

“Yeah.”

“And your mom is still...”

“Yeah.”

Gabriel had said a lot down in his secret garden. How sorry he was, how guilty he felt, how he knew he had gone too far, the times he almost quit, even though he was so close.

Adrien hadn’t been able to say a thing.

His mother was right there, but Gabriel had hid her, because he didn’t know how to explain to his son what he had done.

“You know,” said Plagg. “I get why he thought get my and Tikki’s miraculous would help. But it’s really a last resort thing. There’s other ways to treat a magical coma.”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“Emotionally drained, and just...seeing my mothers face...”

“I get it.” Said the Kwami, nuzzling up to his face. “We’ll figure it out.” Plagg afforded him a few more minutes of quiet contemplation before asking, “Are you going to help him?”

“Yeah.” Adrien said absent-mindedly. Then clarified, “obviously not the way he asked me to.”

Gabriel had explained the situation. That he needed the Ladybug and Black Chat Miraculous to bring Emilie out of her coma. He had been using Lila and Chloe as triggers to set emotional teenagers off, but with Lila out of the picture, he needed someone else to fill that roll.

Adrien had asked, in the calmest voice he could muster if Lila knew he was Hawkmoth.

Gabriel had clarified that no, only Nathalie knew. And now, now that he was standing up for himself and proved himself trustworthy, he was being let in on the secret.

He had the brain power to thank his father, but it sounded pretty hollow to his own ears.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to say anything else. His father just kept talking. The truth spilled out of him like a fountain, like he was relieved to finally confess all of these terrible things he had done.

Adrien imagined that when he finally came face to face with Hawkmoth (again) he’d punch the man in the face, and then when he was defeated, he and Ladybug would scream it from the rooftops. Then he and Ladybug would share a deep kiss as Hawkmoth was loaded into the squad car.

He never imagined his father in that scenario.

But, hauntingly enough, the reveal wasn’t as agonizing as it probably should have been. He hadn’t even cried. He shed a few tears at his mother’s face, but that was a given. With his father, it was just shock. And a little frustration and guilt directed at himself. How had he not known sooner?

“Shouldn’t we tell Marinette?” Asked Plagg, breaking that self-deprecating spiral before it began.

“Yeah...we probably should. But I...don’t know if I can. I haven’t even told her my identity.”

“You don’t expect to fight him on your own?”

“No. I really don’t want to fight my father. Not after he was so...vulnerable. And he trusted me.”

“Trust means little when you’re a terrorist, Adrien.”

“Maybe...but it means a lot to me...”

“Okay.” Plagg patted his cheek. “What’s ideal in this situation? Not realistic, ideal.”

“We...get my father to hand over his miraculous, I take it to Marinette, and together we find a way to wake up my mother...and then I don’t loose either of my parents.”

“You know your father isn’t going to hand it over. Even if you tell him who you are. And I can’t recommend enough for you NOT to do that.”

“No, no I won’t do that. That’s too risky. I saw how desperate he was.”

“So what do we do? We can’t wait.”

“No, we can’t. But...since we know where he lives, we know where he sleeps.”

“What? You’re going to take it while he’s sleeping?”

“Nope.” Adrien turned to smile at him. “You are.”

“Me?!”

“There’s not any code against Kwami’s taking another’s miraculous, is there?”

“I mean, it’s rude. But if it’s for the Kwami’s own good...” he put a paw to his face. “I’ll do it. Nooroo is hurting with your father.”

“I think the peacock is here too. It might be in the safe.”

“Oh!!” Plagg cried.

“What?”

“I saw it! Adrien! When we broke into your dad’s safe! There was a peacock brooch in there in disguise and I didn’t even think about it!!”

Adrien groaned. “Damn, Ladybug even guessed that my father was Hawkmoth all that time ago!”

“He akumatized himself though. He threw you off.”

Adrien finally sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re right. We have to be smart about this. If his miraculous goes missing the morning after he told me, I’m suspect number one.”

“So how do you want to pull the greatest heist of the century?”

“Go take the peacock first, and then get the moth. I will run the shower and hide in the bathroom. As soon as you have them, we’ll transform and go to Marinette. That way, if he wakes up at any point and comes looking for answers, I’ll have an alibi.”

“Not a strong one, but it’ll work.”

“It has to work. Then, I’ll pack my fencing duffel and disappear for a few days. Until Ladybug and Chat Noir can talk to him.”

“Yeah, that’s not suspicious.”

“I’ll leave a note, that lets him know everything is going to be okay, I just need a little time to process everything.”

“I have a feeling he’s not going to take well to that.”

Adrien wiped his hands down his face. “I mean, we could consult Ladybug first if you think that’s better!”

“Nah, I think she’ll appreciate you acting quickly and discreetly.”

Adrien looked at the clock. “Okay. I’m not sure what time he goes to bed. But I’ll pack up my bag now. Can you spy on him?”

“I’ll be the most serious I’ve ever been in my entire existence.”

“Watch out for Nooroo too. He might alert my father.”

Plagg gave him a considerate look. “Something tells me he won’t.”

So Adrien gathered his belongings. A few days worth of clothes, toiletries, and a few possessions he couldn’t leave behind if things went south, including his passport and birth certificate. After a moment of consideration, he shoveled Plagg’s cheese stash into a garbage bag.

“Hey! What’s the big idea?!”

He tossed the cheese bag into his duffel. “It’s suspicious.”

“What? You think he’s going to rifle through your room?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Then he scrounged around and found a little gift box. It would hold both Miraculous perfectly.

At midnight, Plagg went out for the first Miraculous. He returned only a few minutes later, empty handed. “Your father was still down in the basement. I’m going to go back down and watch for when he comes back upstairs. You should try to get a little sleep. I’ll wake you when I have the peacock.”

Adrien nodded, but didn’t think he could actually sleep. He was completely exhausted after this whirlwind of a day. He now knew the two biggest secrets in all of Paris. If he wasn’t Chat Noir, it may have been enough to turn him on his head.

But as it stood, he was Chat Noir, and he had a job to do.

Time stretched on, and the longer he waited there, in the dark, the longer he worried. What if Plagg was caught? Of course he could phase through anything, and he was smart enough not to lead back to him. But then his father would immediately be on edge.

The house was silent. In the huge halls and thick walls, it was impossible to hear what was going on. The door could open at any moment.

There was a creak, and Adrien held his breath.

“One down.” Plagg whispered.

Adrien exhaled, despite his heart pounding. Now is when the risk was greatest. Now he could be caught with stolen goods.

“Is my father asleep?”

“Looks like it.”

Adrien nodded, and took the peacock brooch. He put it in the box, and took it, and his duffel bag, with him into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

He set the box on the counter, and then went over and opened the window.

“Take it when you feel it’s safe.”

“Roger that.” Plagg gave a serious nod, before disappearing into the house.

Adrien turned on the water, and then took a seat on the toilet.

And waited.

It would be okay. Everything would work out fine. His father hadn’t figured him out as Chat Noir yet, and he even confessed that he greatly trusted Adrien. So...his father would be asleep. Not guarded, not paranoid. Just sleeping.

Minutes dragged on, as all he could do was sit there and catastrophize.

“I got it.” Plagg announced, appearing silently.

Adrien jumped at the sound. But lost his voice at the sight of the butterfly pin in Plagg’s paws.

“It went smoothly?”

“Nooroo saw me.”

Adrien shut his eyes in defeat.

“He didn’t say anything. He actually smiled at me and pointed at the pin. He wanted me to take it.”

Adrien sighed in relief. “Then we did it.”

“Almost. We have to get these in the Miracle Box.”

“Right! Plagg, Claws Out!”

—

The first stop was the school. He had to drop off his overnight bag. A part of him wondered if it would have been alright just to take his bag with him in the morning, since it was his fencing bag, but there was always the risk that Gabriel would stop him and search through it in the morning. He couldn’t risk anything.

Normally, when he was this high strung, he would savor the rush of the wind, and the secrets of the night.

But not tonight. It was far too dangerous to leave for long.

He landed on the roof of the school, and climbed down to the courtyard. Thankfully, the locker room was open, and he was able to quickly stuff his bag in his locker. The school looked different at night. Eerie, quiet, and too dark for someone without night vision to walk through. He stayed only long enough to stash his bag, before leaving again. He couldn’t worry about security cameras.

And thankfully, Marinette lived right next to the school.

He landed on her balcony, not really caring if his fall woke her up.

Peering in her window, he saw her curled up, sleeping peacefully. He had half a mind to just leave the box and let her sleep.

But no, this was too important. He had to make sure she received it.

He knocked his knuckles against the glass.

She stirred.

He knocked again.

She turned her face towards him, and he could see her squinting at him. And then her clock.

Finally, she stood and opened the hatch. “Chat Noir? What’s wrong? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Far too late to be making house calls to pretty girls,” he joked, but it lacked luster. “But I got you a present.”

“At 2 in the morning?”

“It can’t wait. Sorry. But I think you’ll really like it.” He handed over the box. “Don’t wait to open it. But I can’t stick around. I trust you more than anyone in the whole world. I know you’ll know what to do with them.”

“What are you talking about Chat? You’re acting really weird.”

“I know, I’m sorry. We’ll talk later, okay? I just—I got to go.”

Perhaps he was seeking comfort, or maybe he was just hopped up on adrenaline, but he swooped down and pressed a kiss on her forehead. Then without anything else, he fled.

—

Chat Noir dropped into his bathroom, the shower still running, the door still closed. He had left soft music on too, just in case someone called to him and he couldn’t answer.

He dropped his transformation, and undressed. It wouldn’t do to come out of a hour long shower with dry hair.

He showered quickly. Just enough to be convincing. Then put on his pajamas, and left the room.

Sitting on his bed, cloaked in the shadows, was his father.

Though Adrien prepared for it, it still startled him. “Oh!”

“Have a nice shower? At 2 in the morning?”

Adrien gulped. “I was...I couldn’t sleep. I thought a shower would help.”

“And did it? Are you all calm and relaxed?”

No. “Yes?”

“Good.” Gabriel stood, and in a few quick steps, loomed over his son. “Where is it?”

“Wh-what?”

Gabriel grabbed him by the collar and yanked him upwards, forcing him up on his toes. “Don’t play dumb with me! I know you took it!”

“I didn’t—I don’t—!”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“I’m sorry!” Adrien burst, honest to god tears spilling over his cheeks. “I didn’t think you’d mind...”

“I wouldn’t mind?!” Gabriel screamed. “Are you stupid or something?!” He let go of Adrien who stumbled back. “Get it for me. Now!”

Adrien scrambled over to his TV and grabbed a DVD. The one his mother had starred in, Solitude. “Here...you were just so busy...I didn’t think...”

Gabriel stared at the case, wide-eyed. “Adrien...”

“Next time, I’ll ask. I promise.”

Gabriel sighed, dropping the case onto the bed. “This wasn’t what was missing. You were fine to borrow this without asking.”

“Oh?” Adrien wiped his face. “Then, what’s missing?”

“My miraculous.” He jutted out his jaw, and lowered his gaze.

Adrien resisted the urge to smile. It seemed he was a better actor than he thought. “Your...Miraculous is missing? But...did you check by your bed? Maybe it fell off your nightstand? Or wherever you put it when you sleep?”

“I wear it to bed.”

“Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“I’m used to it now. I have to wear it. I’ll wake up if I feel a strong enough emotion.”

Adrien ran over the information his father had given him earlier. He couldn’t let on that he knew any information about the Miraculous, but he did have the Ladyblog as a source if he slipped up.

“What about the little moth thing? The...karmi?”

“Kwami.” Gabriel clarified, “and his name is Nooroo. I’ve ordered him to obey...but it could very be likely he took it from me. At least, that’s the most likely scenario.” He frowned a little harder. “It couldn’t have been Nathalie…?”

“Do you want me to help you look for it?”

“No.” Gabriel sighed, patting his shoulder. “I’ve already caused you to lose sleep. You have school in the morning.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“Thank you, Adrien, I knew I could trust you.” And with a solemn nod, he left him alone.

Adrien sank to the bed, exhausted.

A solid alibi, great deflection, and even offering to help. It looked like he was in the clear. But that would only last so long.

“That was terrifying.” Said Plagg, sitting next to him.

“You’re telling me.”

“You technically didn’t lie either. You didn’t take it.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I’d feel guilty about it.” He looked to the door. “That Miraculous, or the power of having it, has changed him so much. He used to laugh, Plagg. He told puns and we joked and had fun. He was still always cutthroat and serious in the fashion world, but when he came home...” he rubbed at his eye. “He never yelled at me like that.”

“So those tears aren’t faked?”

Adrien shook his head. “I’ve never been more scared in my life. I thought he...I thought he might actually kill me.”

“But he didn’t. You’ve got a bag packed, and once we figure out how to help your mom, we’ll be back and put everything right.”

“Yeah. Okay.” With a slow exhale, Adrien rose from the bed and made his way over to his desk.

Dear father,

After all the information I learned last night, and your treatment of me afterwards, I have decided that I need to leave for a while. I just need to process this, and I can’t at home. I will be staying with a trustworthy friend, and I will continue to go to school. I won’t have my phone on me. If you need to get in touch with me, you can meet me at the school, where there are witnesses.

I’m really sorry. I’m just a little scared right now.

Love,

Adrien.

He put the note in his wallet, making sure to remember to leave it somewhere his father would see tomorrow.

He was so tired. So exhausted. His head throbbed, and his legs hurt from being so tense.

He took out some Ibuprofen from his nightstand, shook out two pills, and swallowed them with a sip of water.

The water was cold, but he didn’t remember getting it. Must have been after the reveal. He had been in so much shock.

“Adrien?” Plagg asked.

“Hmm?”

“Tikki’s here. Are you okay if I leave for a while?”

“Yeah. No threats of Akuma anymore.” Adrien spoke drowsily. “Go and tell Nooroo I said hello.”

Plagg smiled him. “Get some sleep, kid.”

—

Marinette stared at the spot on the railing that Chat had jumped off of long after he left.

He was acting really really weird.

“Well?” Asked Tikki. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

“I guess...but...” She worried her bottom lip. “It’s probably okay, right? Nothing suspicious about giving a random female civilian a gift at 2am.”

“Just open it already!” Tikki cried, impatient.

Marinette giggled at her. “Alright alright.” She pulled the tabs, and popped the top flap.

In a blindingly bright flash of light, two small figures appeared.

Marinette almost dropped the box.

Tikki floated closer. “Nooroo? Dusuu? Is it really...”

“Tikki!” They both cried, zipping to her and embracing her.

“I don’t understand...” Marinette breathed. Then, she glanced down into the box that rattled in her hand. Two brooches, a peacock and a butterfly, rested inside.

“How did he...where did he...?”

“Oh!” Cried Nooroo, flying into her face with the biggest smile imaginable. “You’re Adrien’s friend! The cute one! You’ll watch over him, won’t you?”

Despite the overload that was happening right now, Marinette was quick to put the pieces together.

“If you care about Adrien...so that means...Gabriel really was...?”

Nooroo nodded, much more sadly this time.

“How did Chat figure this out? How did he get you? Did he go up against Hawkmoth alone?!”

“No. Plagg came and got me while Gabriel was sleeping.” His eyes widened. “I can say his name!”

“The bond must be broken then!” Exclaimed Tikki. “You’re free from his control!”

“Oh thank you!” Nooroo cried nuzzling into her face.

“You’re welcome?” Marinette returned, holding the Kwami. Though she was unsure what she had to do with this at all. “How did Chat or Plagg find you?”

Nooroo shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t get to talk to him. I went into the brooch when he took it off of Gabriel.”

“I’m just...I’m so confused. I have no idea how...and why me? Why Marinette? He couldn’t possibly know who I am!”

“He did say you’d talk later.” Tikki reminded, helpfully.

“And another thing! Where did he have to run off to so quickly? He practically shoved this into my arms!”

“I guess you could stay up all night speculating, or you could go to bed and get answers tomorrow.”

She growled. “Hold on. I just—Spots on!”

As soon as the transformation completed, she had her yo-yo out and called him.

The call didn’t connect.

Nor did the five others she tried.

Her tracker clearly showed he wasn’t transformed, so what was the point?

“Spots off.” She grumbled.

“Any luck?”

“No. I have no idea what’s going on! He’s not transformed, or else I could go to him. What if he’s in danger? What if—?”

“Marinette. You are way too paranoid for your own good. You have both of the Miraculous here. So he can’t be in too much danger.”

Marinette gave Tikki a half-hearted glare. “Yeah...I guess...” Then she looked to Nooroo and Dusuu. “Would you like to go back in the Miracle Box?”

They both got really excited at that. “Yes! Yes please!”

“I know!” Sang Tikki. “I’ll grab some snacks and join you in a little bit! I can leave now that there’s no threat of akumas!”

No more akumas.

It had only been a year or so. But the idea of never having to fight an Akuma again was so foreign.

There were still criminals in Paris. She wouldn’t have to give up being a hero. But, things would be easier now.

She could take a vacation!

“Earth to Marinette!” Tikki chirped.

“Oh! Right, sorry. Just...processing some things.” She got out of bed, and lifted her mattress to reveal the hidden cubby where she had stashed the Miracle Box. She placed the brooches in their compartments, making the two kwami’s vanish from her room.

“You okay if I join them?”

“Yeah. If you wanted to go find Plagg and invite him too, you can. And if you wouldn’t mind checking in on Chat?”

“I think Plagg would love to celebrate with us. I’ll go find him.”

With Tikki checking in on the situation, Marinette started to relax.

She snuggled in her blankets, replaying that kiss with Adrien again. It was her go-to comfort place. His hands warm on her shoulders, his lips pressed so gently against hers.

He had said it wasn’t a celebrity thing, but...how many times had Ladybug interacted with Adrien? Enough to constitute for even a friendship?

She knew Adrien liked Marinette. Not ‘like like’ but he sought out her company, and asked her for advice. He had snuggled against her on the train, and held her close when they slow danced. She did believe that his feelings had grown stronger when he found out who she was.

But how strong those feelings were in the first place, she didn’t know.

She didn’t understand. How could he love Ladybug so much that he hesitated dating a girl who was right in front of him, and who liked him back?

This warranted more talking. She just hoped that she wouldn’t ruin her own chances.

“We’re back!” Tikki chirped, phasing through the window.

Plagg was with her. “Sweet victory, huh?”

“Somehow, I thought defeating Hawkmoth would be a lot less...underwhelming.”

“Things aren’t over yet.” Plagg said seriously. “The kid has a pretty huge favor to ask. A couple, actually. But he wants you to relax for now.”

“How did he find out? How did all of this happen?”

Plagg grinned. “Turns out I’m great at espionage!”

She smiled. “Well, Nooroo told me that much. But how did you and Chat figure out who he was?”

“Long story. I don’t have the attention span. He’ll tell you later. Now, Tikki promised me some cheese quiche?”

Marinette sighed to herself. It looked like she really wasn’t getting any information tonight. “Help yourselves. She knows where the leftovers are.”

Tikki nuzzled her forehead. “Why don’t you go to sleep? Regardless of the Hawkmoth drama, you had a really stressful day.”

“Thanks Tikki.” She took one last look at Plagg. “I take it, that you being here, means that Chat’s safe? He’s okay?”

“Yeah, he was just about to go to bed.”

“Why did he rush off?”

“He had a feeling someone was going to check on him.”

“Oh. Okay. As long as he’s alright...”

“Bug. Go to sleep.”

—

This chapter is a lot shorter than the last, but it felt like a good stopping point. I’m going on vacation next week, so this won’t update for a little while. I’ll probably update ‘Longest Night’ first. But thank you all for the comments, likes, kudos, and favorites! I love you!

@redheadeddemon16 I think you wanted me to tag you?

#miraculous ladybug #ml #ladybug #chat noir #gabriel agreste #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrienette #adrinette #ladynoir #identity reveal #fanfiction #integrity

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calumcest · 4 years

Text

taking the long way home

[ao3]

“May we have your attention for flight BA8227,” the tinny voice of the announcement says, and Ashton’s stomach sinks. They never announce anything he wants to hear; there’s never any we’ve upgraded hardworking and broke session drummer Ashton Irwin to first class, he’s also been given unlimited air miles and a refund on his overpriced tuna melt. “We are sorry to announce that this flight is delayed by approximately seven hours. This is due to unforeseen adverse weather conditions. I repeat-”

aka their flight is delayed au

Ashton Irwin does not, repeat not, like flying.

He thinks it’s a perfectly rational thing to dislike. He’s not afraid, by any means – it’s just such an inefficient way of getting anywhere. He’ll spend an hour getting to the airport in order to be two hours early for his three hour flight, and then spend another hour on the other end getting to wherever he actually needed to go because airports are never anywhere convenient. Not to mention the patting down he inevitably gets at security, the fifteen minute wait for them to check whether or not the dark shadow in his bag is a tube of lip balm or a stick of dynamite, and the ridiculous price of the lunch he’s forced to buy in Duty Free. All of that would perhaps, perhaps, be just about tolerable, if his flights were ever on fucking time.

So far, however, Ashton’s day is running fairly smoothly. He’d not even been ‘randomly selected’ at security for a pat down, and the lady in Costa had taken pity on him when he was fumbling with his coins (seriously, why the fuck are five-pence coins so small?) and given him his tuna melt panini for ten pence less than he owed. He’d even made it to his gate an hour before departure time, picking the most strategically placed seat so he can jump up and join the queue as soon as boarding is announced. All in all, Ashton’s having the most bearable day he could possibly have in an airport.

The universe, however, seems to have other plans. Despite it being January, despite the weather forecast saying it might snow, as soon as a single snowflake hits the runway, the entire fucking airport loses its shit. Flight after flight gets cancelled, delayed until the morning, and the airport is suddenly filling up as people aren’t getting on their flights. Ashton’s flight makes it all the way until half an hour before boarding is supposed to start, keeping Ashton’s hopes high, when-

Great. Fucking great. Not like Ashton has places to be, people to see, a life to live, a home he would like to get back to before the age of ninety. It’s already eleven p.m.; if Ashton’s rudimentary maths is accurate, his flight won’t be departing until nine a.m., if at all (he adds a few hours onto the delay, because he knows better than to trust airlines).

Groaning, he drags himself out of his well-selected seat and over to the information desk, where a small crowd is starting to gather, jostling impatiently to try and hear what the one harassed-looking employee is saying to the man at the front of the queue.

“Can you fucking believe this?” the guy behind Ashton grumbles. He’s got a familiar Aussie twang, but Ashton doesn’t even turn around to bond with him – testament to how bad of a mood he’s in.

“Yes,” Ashton says darkly. “It’s a fucking airline.”

“Fair point,” the guy says. “Reckon they’ll have any hotel rooms left? We must be the ninetieth flight delayed because of adverse weather conditions.”

“I’d rather take the extra compensation money and sleep on my suitcase,” Ashton says. The guy behind him laughs.

“Need the money?” he says, sympathetically. “I’ve been there, mate. What do you do?”

“I drum,” Ashton says. “Session musician.”

“Sweet,” the guy says. “I play guitar. Session musician, too, but my band’s trying to make it.”

“Oh?” Ashton says, interest finally piqued enough to turn around and get a good look at the guy. He’s about Ashton’s age, maybe a little younger, with a long, sweeping blonde fringe that Ashton’s impressed managed to cling on through to the 2020s.

“Yeah,” the guy says. “Heading out to LA to record. You?”

“I was here to record,” Ashton says, and then they’re interrupted by a tall guy rushing up, clutching a duffel bag in his arms.

“Sorry, Mike,” the guy says, slightly breathless. “The toilet’s a fucking mile away, and possibly in another dimension.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the fringe-owner (Mike?) says, rolling his eyes. “Hey, I’ve made a friend. He’s Australian and a session musician too. I’m considering replacing you with him.”

“Ashton,” Ashton says, nodding at both Mike and New Guy. He does a (subtle) double-take when he properly looks at New Guy, because Christ, he is fucking gorgeous. He’s got blonde hair that curls beautifully in the way that Ashton’s never managed to get own hair to, baby-blue eyes that blink at him from under dark, inky lashes, and a dimple on one side of the lips he’s currently biting.

Well. Consider Ashton fucked.

“Michael,” Mike says, nodding back. “And this is Luke.”

“Hi,” Luke says. “Sorry, I swear I’m not queue-jumping.”

“Wouldn’t matter to me if you were,” Ashton says. “You’re behind me.”

“You’re not very principled,” Luke says. Ashton shrugs.

“Never claimed to be,” he says.

“Ashton wants to sleep on his suitcase,” Michael informs Luke.

“I said the same thing,” Luke says. “I need the money.”

“I want a bed,” Michael says.

“You just want somewhere without me to call Calum,” Luke says accusingly.

“Can you blame me?” Michael says. “I’ve got to spend an extra seven hours with you now. Hey, maybe Ashton’ll take you off my hands.”

“No can do,” Ashton says, although his dick very much thinks yes, please, it would be my honour. “I need my beauty sleep.” Luke frowns.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he says, slightly petulantly. Michael pats him on the shoulder.

“Of course not, babe,” he says patronisingly. “Hey, Ashton, you’re next.” Ashton turns around, surprised at how fast the queue has moved, to see he is indeed the next person in the queue.

“Good evening, sir,” the lady says, tiredly, when Ashton slaps his ticket down on the counter. Ashton feels a stab of pity for her. It’s not her fault that airlines are determined to suck the joy out of life.

“I want the compensation money,” he says, figuring it’s best to cut to the chase.

“Thank goodness,” the lady says, scanning his ticket, “because we don’t have any hotel rooms left.

“Hear that?” Ashton hears Luke say to Michael.

“Yeah, Luke, I’m stood just as far away as you,” Michael tells Luke.

“Right,” Ashton says. “Is the flight actually going to leave tomorrow?”

“Not a clue,” the lady says, tapping away on her keyboard. “The money will be in your account in three business days, Mr Irwin.”

“Thanks,” Ashton says, picking up his suitcase and ticket and moving to the side to put his ticket and passport away.

(And yeah, maybe he fiddles a little more than strictly necessary with his suitcase, zipping and unzipping it a few times for no reason, until Luke and Michael finish with the customer service lady. It doesn’t mean anything.)

“…might not even be into guys, Mike, oh my God, fucking stop, stop,” he hears Luke hiss, sounding like he’s pleading, and he looks up from his suitcase to see Michael heading towards him with Luke trailing behind.

“Well?” Michael prompts, when they get to Ashton. Ashton looks at him questioningly, wondering whether he was supposed to overhear and comment on whatever Luke was talking about. “You’re going to spend the night with us, right? Us Aussies have to stick together. I can’t leave you on your own with British people in good conscience. Plus, I want to call my boyfriend, and I need someone to look after Luke.”

“I’m fucking twenty-three,” Luke says. “I can look after myself.”

“You left your passport in the hotel,” Michael says.

“Yeah, and then I remembered that I forgot it,” Luke says.

“Once you got to the airport.”

“So? Our flight’s got a seven hour delay,” Luke says. Michael rolls his eyes.

“I’m going to call Calum,” he says. “You two find somewhere nice and cosy for us to sleep tonight. Pick the best chairs.” Without waiting for a response, he strides off, phone already in his hand.

Great. Now Ashton’s stuck with possibly the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen, and he’s in a terrible mood so he can’t even flirt.

“Sorry about him,” Luke says, and he does actually sound sorry. He’s worrying the bottom corner of his lip with his teeth, and Ashton wonders absent-mindedly whether there’s a cause behind that particular nervous tic. “You don’t have to stay with me. I mean, like, obviously not, you don’t even know me. Michael’s just…like that.”

“Don’t worry,” Ashton assures him, because something in his gut is screaming that he really, really does want to stay with Luke. “I could use the company.”

“I thought you wanted to sleep…?” Luke trails off.

“Who ever gets what they fucking want in an airport?” Ashton says, and Luke laughs, laughs, and Ashton’s stomach flips in a way that’s nearly pleasant and almost-probably isn’t to do with the tuna melt he ate earlier. He resolves to try and make Luke laugh as much as possible for the next seven-plus hours. “Let’s find some good seats to hog before the rest of the flights tonight get cancelled.” Luke nods, biting his lip again, and grabs his and Michael’s bags, following in Ashton’s wake.

Ashton, for all of his hatred of airports, is a master at finding the perfect seats, so it’s really no surprise when he spots a secluded little square of seats tucked away behind a wall that looks like it’s a dead end but isn’t. He’s kind of proud, though, when Luke makes a noise of surprise and approval, and tries not to let it go to his head.

(He doesn’t succeed.)

“Mike’ll be gone for, like, three hours at the very least,” Luke says apologetically. Good, Ashton wants to say. Get you all to myself. Sounds a bit serial-killer, though, when he thinks about it, so he doesn’t.

“His boyfriend?” he enquires, hoping it’s coming off very much as I, too, am interested in having a boyfriend and not a man with a boyfriend? What is the world coming to? Luke nods, so Ashton reckons he got close enough.

“Yeah,” Luke says, a small smile forming on his lips. “Calum. They’ve been together as long as I’ve known them.”

“How long’s that?” Ashton asks, curious.

“Ten years? Something like,” Luke says. Ashton whistles.

“That’s a long time for someone your age,” he says. Luke makes a small noise of outrage.

“My age?” Luke says indignantly. “You’re what, like, twenty-six?”

“Twenty-five,” Ashton corrects. “See? I said I needed my beauty sleep.” Luke scowls, but it’s good-natured.

They busy themselves with getting comfortable for a few minutes. Ashton leaves the seats by the window that’ll get draughty in the morning for Michael (first come first served, he thinks) and picks the row opposite Luke to stretch out on, kicking off his shoes and using his backpack as a pillow. From the corner of his eye, he sees Luke take a travel pillow and thin blanket out of his duffel bag, and for some reason Ashton’s heart decides that’s the cutest thing Luke’s done so far tonight.

“So, where in Australia are you from?” Luke asks, fluffing up the tiny pillow as best he can.

“Sydney,” Ashton says. “You?”

“No way,” Luke says, turning around to face Ashton. “Me too!” He sounds so excited that Ashton doesn’t have the heart to point out that it’s not that surprising, given Sydney has a fifth of Australia’s population.

“Whereabouts?” Ashton asks, hoping it’s not coming off as stalker-esque.

“Western Sydney,” Luke says, swinging his legs up and lying down on his row of seats. “Like, Oakville kind of area?”

“No way,” Ashton says, because that is a little bit more exciting than simply being from the same massive city. “I’m from Richmond.”

“That’s so weird,” Luke says happily. “What are the odds of bumping into someone else from western Sydney in Heathrow Airport?”

“Well, you’re here with Michael, aren’t you?” Ashton says, lying down and arranging his coat over himself.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t be bumping into him,” Luke says. Then, as though the thought’s just struck him, he adds- “Hey, he said you play?” Ashton nods.

“Yeah, drums,” he says. “I can play guitar and a little bit of piano, too, but drums are my main love.” Luke grins, eyes crinkling around the corners, making Ashton’s stomach swoop.

“That’s fucking sick,” Luke tells him, and he sounds so earnest that Ashton actually believes that this random guy thinks Ashton’s ability to hit a drum with a stick is cool. “Our band needs a drummer, actually. I bet Michael’ll try and recruit you.”

“I don’t know,” Ashton says, pretending to muse. “My going rate is pretty high.”

“Oh?” Luke says. “Will ten pounds and a can of coke do?”

“I’ll do it for just the can of coke,” Ashton says, and Luke grins again. Ashton thinks it’s pretty unfair of the universe to present him with such a beautiful, out-of-his-league man when he’s tired and grumpy, so not up to his best conversation. If this were any other situation, Ashton would be wooing Luke so hard he’d put Romeo to shame.

“I’m going to try and sleep,” Ashton says. I want to try and be in a better mood tomorrow morning so I can flirt with you and possibly suck your dick, he adds mentally, just in case Luke can read minds. Luke just nods solemnly.

“Good luck,” he says.

“I’m going to need it,” Ashton tells him, flashing him a quick smile before closing his eyes. He hears Luke sigh, shuffle a little under his thin blanket, and peeks out of one eye to see him stretching. His phone, clutched in his left hand, clatters to the floor.

“Oops,” Luke says, blushing slightly as he twists around to pick it up and inspect it for damage. His shirt rides up a little, just enough for Ashton to see a sliver of smooth, pale skin on his hip. Ashton squeezes his eyes shut again.

God. He is so fucked.

-------

Ashton actually manages to drift off into an uneasy sleep, much to his surprise. When he’s pulled back into consciousness, far too soon for his liking, it’s to the low sound of people talking quietly.

“…number,” someone’s saying.

“I’m not doing that, Michael!” someone else says, voice almost squeaky with indignance.

“Why not?” the first person (Michael, Ashton’s sleepy brain supplies), says.

“Because!” the second person (Luke, Ashton thinks) says.

“What are you, four?” Michael scoffs. “That’s not a valid reason. I’ll give it to him.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Luke says.

“C’mon, Luke, what’ve you got to lose?” Michael says. “You’re never going to see him again.”

“My dignity,” Luke says pointedly. “Not that you’d know what that is.”

“You’re right,” Michael says agreeably, “so I’ll give it to him.”

“No!” Luke squawks, and it’s loud enough that Ashton opens his eyes. Both Michael and Luke, sat upright on their rows of seats, turn to look at him, Luke with a guilty look on his face, Michael unreadable.

“Morning,” Michael says.

“Time’s it?” Ashton mumbles. It’s still dark outside.

“Four,” Michael says, and Ashton groans, letting his eyes fall shut again.

“Fuck,” he says.

“Hey, at least you slept,” Michael says.

“Did you not?” Ashton asks.

“Luke did,” Michael says, nodding at Luke, who smiles bashfully back at him. “And now he’s hungry.”

“I can speak for myself, y’know,” Luke informs Michael, before turning to Ashton. “I am hungry, though.”

“Want to spend your entire life savings on a disappointing sandwich?” Ashton offers. “I’ll join.”

“Sure,” Luke says. “Mikey…?” Michael throws him a meaningful look, and shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says. “I’ll stay here, guard your precious little pillow.”

“Hey,” Luke says, pointing at Michael. “My little pillow helped me sleep.”

“Ashton slept without one,” Michael says.

“I don’t think my neck appreciated it, though,” Ashton says, sitting up and cracking his neck from side to side, making Luke wince.

“D’you want anything?” Luke asks Michael.

“A chocolate brownie, if you find anywhere that sells them,” Michael says. “And for you to-”

“Alright,” Luke says loudly, sounding slightly panicked.

“-fuck off,” Michael finishes, throwing Luke another indecipherable look.

“Chocolate brownie,” Luke repeats. “Got it.” Ashton swings his legs out from under his coat, feeling the sudden loss of heat, and shrugs his coat back over his shoulders.

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s see where we can waste our money at three in the morning.”

-------

They scour the entire terminal, but the only place that seems to be open and worth going to is Caffè Nero.

“Yet another overpriced panini,” Ashton mutters, staring at their selection in distaste.

“Not necessarily,” Luke points out. “You could go for an overpriced toastie.”

“Or treat myself to an overpriced salad,” Ashton agrees.

“I’m getting paid soon, so I’m going for a toastie,” Luke says, grabbing a ham and cheese toastie from the fridge.

“I just fucking love tuna,” Ashton says, grabbing another tuna melt. “Is it too early for a coffee? I’ll be wired for the whole flight and crash as soon as I land.”

“Too early for a coffee,” Luke tells him. “Get some chocolate instead.”

“What about a coffee and chocolate?” Ashton probes. Luke shakes his head.

“Chocolate,” he says firmly. Ashton mock-scowls, sighs dramatically, and goes up to order. He gets a hot chocolate, which is hot like coffee but chocolate like Luke told him, and a bag of crisps to wash down his tuna melt.

“Eat in or take away?” the guy taking his order asks. Ashton throws a glance at Luke.

“Take away,” Luke says. “Cheaper.”

“Good point,” Ashton says, turning back to the guy at the till. “Take away.”

“We can find somewhere to sit without Michael,” Luke says. “He hates the smell of tuna.” Ashton tries to ignore the way his stomach flips at the easy we, and the fact that Luke’s willing to sit with Ashton, a total stranger, rather than going back to his friend of a decade.

(He fails miserably.)

Luke gets two chocolate brownies, the fancy hot chocolate that Ashton wanted but his bank account didn’t, a can of coke and a bag of crisps on top of his ham and cheese toastie. They make idle chat while waiting for their food, and then find a little corner of the deserted terminal to sit down and start eating.

“God, I forgot how good a simple toastie can be,” Luke says, eyes fluttering shut in bliss as he takes his first bite. Ashton’s dick’s interest is piqued.

“Who’d’ve known that heating up ham, cheese and bread can make such a difference?” Ashton muses, taking a bite out of his own tuna melt. Not as good as Costa, he thinks, but better than Pret.

“We’ve got a toastie maker at home, but we never use it,” Luke says, and Ashton’s heart sinks. We. Of course Luke’s taken; how the fuck could he not be? He’s possibly a demi-god, that’s how attractive he is – there’s no way someone like that stays single.

“Oh?” Ashton says, trying not to let the disappointment leak into his voice. “Your girlfriend want more adult food than toasties?” Luke looks at him, startled.

“Girlfriend?” he says. Yeah, Ashton’s not exactly subtle when he’s tired.

“Well, I-” Luke cuts him off with a small, shy smile.

“I don’t, uh, really swing that way?” Luke says, as though it’s a question, and Ashton’s stomach uncurls a little.

“Oh,” he says. “Good. I mean. Me either.”

“Oh,” Luke says, smile getting bigger. “And, just for the record, I don’t, um, have a boyfriend, either. Not that I’m- I’m not trying to- like, I live with Michael and Calum, so.” He shrugs, looking away, and Ashton sees a fierce blush creeping up his cheeks. He desperately wants to kiss Luke.

“Wow,” Ashton says, when he remembers to respond. “That can’t be fun.”

“Fucking isn’t,” Luke mumbles around his toastie. He swallows, clears his throat, and then adds: “Well, mostly it’s great. Until they start fucking.” Ashton chokes on his bite of tuna melt, and through his splutters he sees a coquettish look on Luke’s face.

“You don’t have to listen, you know,” Ashton says, when he recovers.

“I don’t,” Luke assures him, finishing off his toastie and starting on his crisps. “I cycle very loudly through a playlist called Worst Songs To Have Sex To.”

“What’s on it?” Ashton asks, curious.

“Oh, you know,” Luke says, grinning. “Cotton Eye Joe, What Does The Fox Say, nursery rhymes, that sort of thing.” Ashton snorts.

“Fucking hell,” he says. “I don’t think I’d be able to have sex through that.”

“Well, either Cal and Mike are into some weird shit, or the walls are thicker on their end than mine,” Luke says. Ashton doesn’t have the heart to point out that that doesn’t make sense.

“You should play the same songs every time,” Ashton suggests. “Pavlov them into getting hard whenever they hear Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Luke bursts out laughing.

“Fuck,” he says, through giggles. “I’m absolutely going to do that.” Ashton grins, a warmth growing in the pit of his stomach at the fact that he’s made Luke laugh like that.

“Or just have really loud sex back,” he says, and Luke’s giggles still.

“Well,” he says awkwardly. “I, like. Don’t really get to do a lot of that.” He’s blushing again, and Ashton cocks his head.

“Really?” he says.

“Really,” Luke says.

“You must have people throwing themselves at you,” Ashton says, and Luke bites his lip, shakes his head. “You’re fucking lying, Luke. Come on, look at you. Not getting laid, I get, no shame, that’s your choice, but not having the opportunity? I’m not buying that.” Luke shakes his head again, almost shy.

“Not really a lot of people’s type,” he says, and it sounds kind of sad. Ashton wants to kiss Luke, hold him in his arms, and also fucking kill whoever’s made Luke think that way.

“You’re kidding,” Ashton says flatly. “Luke, you’re the most-” he cuts himself off, because most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen in my entire twenty-five years of life is probably coming on a bit too strong. “You’re fucking stunning, Luke. You’re stunning, and you’re funny, and you’re cute. What’s not to like?”

“I don’t know,” Luke mumbles into his hot chocolate. “Maybe it’s because I’m shy. Guys like confident men.”

“Not all guys. I don’t,” Ashton says, without thinking. Luke looks up at him, blue eyes unreadable under his inky eyelashes.

“Yeah?” Luke says, quiet, and definitely shy.

“Yeah,” Ashton says boldly, thinking fuck it, why the fuck not? If this goes badly, he’s never going to see Luke again, is he? You miss a hundred percent of the shots you miss, or whatever that saying is. “Luke, you’re, like. The cutest guy I’ve ever seen. I’d date you in a heartbeat.”

“You would?” Luke asks.

“I would,” Ashton says. A small smile creeps onto Luke’s face.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah,” Ashton says, feeling a little awkward now. “So, like. Yeah.” Luke smiles at him, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Well, we’re both going to be in LA, aren’t we?” he says, sounding nervous. Ashton opens his mouth to respond – yes, that tends to be what happens when two people both get on a flight to LA – before his brain catches up with him, realises what Luke may potentially be hinting at.

But surely not, right? Not with Ashton.

“Are you asking me out?” Ashton asks. Luke looks away.

“Not really,” he says. “I’m- I might be, uh, asking you to ask me out, though.”

God. Ashton’s never met anyone so endearing in his fucking life.

“Let me take you to dinner,” Ashton says, finally, when it’s sunk in enough that Luke, Luke, the six-foot-three deity of pure, unadulterated sex and charm wants Ashton to ask him out. “Well, maybe not dinner, unless it’s in, like, two weeks, when I get paid. Maybe, like, a coffee. Or I could cook you dinner at my flat. I’m a good cook, and I promise I’m not a murderer.” Luke laughs again.

“Dinner at yours sounds good,” he says, grinning.

“Well,” Ashton says, finishing off the last of his hot chocolate. “I never thought I’d say this, but thank fucking God my flight got delayed.”

Luke’s answering smile makes Ashton feel slightly giddy.

-------

When they get back to Michael about an hour later, the sky is starting to brighten, and Michael’s fast asleep, having stolen Luke’s pillow.

“The bastard,” Luke says in a low voice, pointing it out to Ashton as he sets the brownie down carefully next to Michael. “What if I wanted to sleep?”

“Given that our flight’s leaving in, like, two hours, I think you’re a bit fucked on that front,” Ashton says.

“Don’t underestimate me,” Luke says. “I can fall asleep anywhere.”

“Perks of living such an extravagant, jetsetting lifestyle,” Ashton says solemnly, and Luke snorts.

“There have to be some perks in commuting from London to LA,” he says. “I’ll have to sleep on the flight.”

“Ooh, no,” Ashton says, wincing. “You can’t sleep on the flight. You’ll wake up after an hour and a half of unsatisfying sleep with a bad taste in your mouth and a stiff neck.”

“True,” Luke says, “but we’re supposed to have band practice today.”

“You practice out there?” Ashton asks.

“Yeah,” Luke says. “Cal’s already out there – he’s been recording bass for some ska band – so Michael and I are meeting up with him this afternoon for practice.”

“How do you practice without a drummer?” Ashton wants to know.

“GarageBand,” Luke says, and Ashton winces.

“Oh, no,” he says, emphatically. “I can’t be having my beloved instrument reduced to GarageBand.”

“Hey,” Luke says, mock-affronted. “GarageBand comes a lot cheaper than drummers.”

“Cheaper than a can of coke?” Ashton asks, grinning. Luke grins back, and then looks like he’s suddenly been struck by inspiration.

“Hey, wait-” he fumbles around in his bag for a few seconds, and then tosses the can of coke he’d bought earlier at Ashton.

“You’re in the band now,” he says. “I hope you’re good.” Ashton laughs.

“I might only be worth a diet coke,” he tells Luke, pocketing the coke.

“Hey,” another voice says sleepily – Michael. “Where’m I?”

“Airport, Mike,” Luke says patiently.

“Oh,” Michael says, rubbing his eyes. “Where’s Cal?”

“In LA,” Luke says.

“Oh,” Michael says, sounding a little sad.

“That’s where we’re heading,” Luke reassures him.

“Oh,” Michael says, a little happier, dragging himself into a seated position. He rubs his eyes, again, and then blinks at them blearily. “You’re Ashton,” he says to Ashton.

“I am,” Ashton says.

“You’re a drummer,” Michael says.

“I am,” Ashton says.

“You should join our band,” Michael says.

“I have,” Ashton says.

“What?” Michael says. Ashton holds up the can of coke.

“My payment,” he explains. “Meet the new drummer of-”

“5 Seconds of Summer,” Luke supplies.

“-5 Seconds of Summer,” Ashton finishes.

“I don’t even know your last name,” Michael says.

“I don’t know yours either,” Ashton says.

“Clifford,” Michael says.

“Irwin,” Ashton says.

“Like Steve Irwin?” Ashton groans.

“Yes, like Steve Irwin, no, I’m not his son, not at all related, don’t even like animals that much,” he says.

“Are you good?” Michael asks, disregarding Ashton entirely.

“I mean, I’m a session drummer,” Ashton says. “Draw your own conclusions.”

“Great,” Michael says happily. “We have practice this afternoon.”

“I already told him,” Luke says, and turns to Ashton. “Three p.m. I’ll pick you up.” Ashton grins at him, butterflies in his stomach.

“You’re going to have to give him your number, then, Ashton,” Michael says, watching the interaction between the two of them.

“I probably should,” Ashton agrees, holding his hand out for Luke’s phone. Luke passes it to him, and Ashton types in his number, saving himself as Better Drummer Than Garageband.

“Thank fuck,” Michael says, “because he’s been wanting to give it to you all evening. He thinks you’re cute.”

“You’re behind the times, Mikey,” Luke says. “We’re going on a date.”

“I’m cooking him dinner,” Ashton tells Michael.

“What the fuck?” Michael demands. “When was this decided?”

“When you were sleeping,” Luke says. “On my pillow, by the way.”

“It’s so fucking small,” Michael says, chucking it at Luke, before rounding on Ashton. “I can’t believe I missed you asking Luke on a date. I’m never sleeping again.” Ashton’s saved from answering by an announcement cutting through loudly on the speakers.

“May I have your attention for flight BA8227,” a lady says. “This flight is now ready for boarding for rows twenty through thirty-one.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Ashton says, shoving his things haphazardly into his backpack. “Where are you guys sat?”

“Uh, row twenty-one,” Luke says, stopping his packing to check his ticket. “You?”

“Thirty-nine,” Ashton says. “But I’m running to the queue as soon as they let me.”

“I’m going to the toilet, Luke,” Michael says. “Save me a space in the queue.”

“Take your fucking bag!” Luke shouts after him, and Michael flips him off as he speedwalks off to the toilets. Luke rolls his eyes, and turns back to Ashton.

“Want a hand carrying Michael’s things?” Ashton offers.

“Would you?” Luke says. “Thanks, Ashton.” Ashton permits himself a private smile at the way his name sounds in Luke’s voice.

They shove everything in their bags as quickly as possible and jog over to the queue, which is already at least fifteen people deep, but is moving, which is something.

“Hey,” Michael says, strolling over to them. “Thanks for bringing my stuff.”

“Bastard,” Luke tells him, and Michael grins.

“You love me,” he says. “You’re not boarding with us, are you, Ashton?” Ashton shakes his head.

“Just providing a bag-carrying service,” he says.

“Luke’ll give you your tip,” Michael says, kicking his bag forward as the queue moves. Luke doesn’t move, though, and neither does Ashton.

“See you in LA, then,” Ashton says to Luke, and Luke grins.

“See you,” he echoes, and Ashton, who’s had approximately three-and-a-half hours sleep, can’t help himself – he leans in, tiptoes slightly, and presses a soft kiss to the corner of Luke’s lips.

“See you at practice,” Ashton says, leaning back, and relishing the flush on Luke’s cheeks. He desperately wants to lean in again, kiss Luke for real, but he stops himself. He only met the guy, like, eight hours ago, and he’s already joined his band and invited him over for a dinner date. “Text me.” Luke holds his phone up.

“I will,” he says. “I’ll text you as soon as we land.”

“Good,” Ashton says. “Now go, get on the plane.” Luke nods, throws Ashton one last smile, and steps forward to join Michael, who’s clearly been listening to their conversation.

“See you later, Michael,” Ashton calls, as he walks away.

“Don’t be late for practice!” Michael shouts back, and Ashton grins, and shakes his head.

-------

Half an hour later, Ashton’s finally on the plane. His backpack’s underneath the seat in front of him, his headphones are in, and he’s going to be home in just under twelve hours. And, perhaps even better than all of that, he’s going on a date with the hottest man alive.

As if on cue, his phone interrupts his music with a ding, and Ashton fishes it out of his pocket.

+447568392881 I know I said I’d text as soon as we landed, but I saw this really hot guy boarding the plane and I just had to tell you about him

Ashton grins.

Me Oh?

Luke Yeah, he’s got this curly hair, gorgeous hazel eyes, about six foot, in incredible shape? You can’t miss him.

Me You could see his eyes from the plane? What are you, Hawkeye?

Luke Way to ruin the moment

Me Well, I’m just thinking – curly hair, gorgeous eyes, six foot (definitely a bit of a lowball estimate), in incredible shape – I saw a guy just like that earlier, only he had blue eyes.

Luke You’ll have to point him out to me when we land.

Me I will – I’ll be thinking about him for the whole flight.

It takes a while for the next message to come through, and the plane’s already gearing up to take off when his phone finally dings again.

Luke He’ll be thinking about you too.

#lashton #5sos fic #also a bit of #malum #but background

72 notes · View notes

ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

Like Love: Dex

CW: Incredibly mentally messed up but still perfectly consensual and sweet spice! PG-13/Mild R spice levels, non-graphic. Referenced past abuse. Pet whump and some dehumanization (not during the spice).

Tagging the #FreeDex2020 Crew: @whumpiary, @iaminamoodymoodtoday, @whump-it, @neuro-whump, @spiffythespook, @redwingedwhump, @burtlederp, @brightside-blue, @pepperonyscience,

See end of piece for a special note.

The only person who allows Dex his voice is a man he hates so deeply, and fully, that somewhere in the past twenty years it has begun to feel like love.

Each visit, every moment alone was another break in the iron wall Dex had built between himself and the hell on earth he was living.

Each time the man’s fingers skimmed his skin with expert care not to hurt him - and every time they even more expertly did hurt him, in exactly all the wrong and right ways - every direct command or murmured suggestion…

Every soft you’re fine, Dex and gentle darling or good boy has built, in him, a solid foundation of feeling that started as loathing and, at some point, became something else. The man broke down the wall but had rebuilt something else in its place.

He goes to the man by her design - with her allowance - at her command.

Dex cannot lie to her; his ability to deceive her disappeared long ago, under the downward swing of her discipline and the endless days of blaring, featureless white that live in his memories from training.

Dex drifts through his life in a dream he cannot wake from, but he jolted to awareness when she told him the man was in a hotel room nearby. So close, after five years apart.

“He asked about you. Do you want to see him, Dex?” Madam had asked, looking up at him from her seat at her desk in the home office, looking over some papers with her half-lens reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.

Madam has gray starting to grow into the roots of her hair that she dyes away. Dex has gray, too - a scattering of pale hairs beginning to speckle through the dark. His is left as it is, to filter in a little more each year.

He was nineteen when she took him for her own. He was twenty-two the first time the man was alone with him and crooked his fingers, murmured, Come here, Dex, and he went.

By twenty-four, he was lost.

When she asked, Dex had stood there staring at her, too aware of his idle fingers, the way his shirt felt shifting over his skin. He told himself absolutely not - the man deserved prison, or worse, had done terrible things. Dex had stood by and watched him do terrible things.

On occasion, Dex was the person he had done those terrible things to.

Still there was a part of him, the small tiny warm bit that he had wrapped deep inside of himself, held for his very own and away from her cold, all-seeing eyes, that had whispered he asked about me.

He had merely signed to her, in response to her question, that he would allow her to decide as always. He did not dare let the bit of him that did not belong to her show.

She wouldn’t like it, to know that there was a part of him that might belong to anyone else - the part that still felt anger, and loathing, and defiance, and the hate like love. He hid these things under a placid surface that no stone could disturb. The perfect pet, the picture of serenity. He could be fully trusted. He was so perfect for her that he was avoided even by Madam’s other Boys, because he would tell her anything she asked… anything, of course, but this one small thing.

I want to see him.

She had simply looked at him for a moment, in the silence, with a smile he could not read but did not like. He did not like any of her smiles, not even the ones that meant relief for him, or that the worst was over. It was only a matter of time before the worst came around again, after all.

“Obedient as always, Dex. You have always been a particular favorite of his. I’ll make the arrangements.” She had paused, tapping her pen on the papers in front of her.

Dex had tilted his head to see, unobtrusively. It was some kind of sketched-out jewelry design, perhaps - little metal circles with stones set into them, what looked like silvered thread or wire stringing them together.

She had tapped louder until his eyes jerked back to hers.

“That is not your business,” Karen Renford said coldly to the man she had kept kneeling at her feet for twenty years. There were days she spoke to him more like a friend than what he was - but in this moment she was as cold as ever. “He is your business now. I don’t care how you feel about him. You’ll go.”

He nodded, slowly, and it was only when he was back in his bedroom that he had allowed himself a smile - because she would have cared so much if she had known what Dex’s feeling actually was.

He was not going for her. Not this time.

“Good evening!” The clerk working behind the desk greets him as he enters the hotel, automatic doors sliding open on either side of him. If he were anything else, Dex thinks with no small hint of bitterness, they might have added sir.

He looks the part of a sir, after all - tailored black pants and a custom-made deep green sweater that the man had bought for Dex himself during a visit maybe ten years ago.

Dex had kept it immaculately cared-for, and it had been wrapped and packed away while the man was in prison.

Five years. It has been five years since he has seen him except for over Karen Renford’s shoulder, with thick panes of bulletproof glass between them, in the prison the man was meant to stay in for life. The hate twists in him, only it’s not really hate any longer.

Or if it is, then maybe Dex has lost track of which feeling is which.

He looks the part of a sir… but the small, brightly colored blue booklet he holds in one hand - and the band of green leather around his neck, dyed to perfectly match the color of the sweater - ensures he can’t pretend to be anything other than what he is. Not that Dex would even know where to begin feigning freedom he doesn’t have.

He walks up to the desk with a small, placid smile on his face, sets the duffel bag he carries in one hand down and the blue booklet on the counter of the desk, open to the page with a photo of his face. When he turns forty, he’ll need a new one - and Box Boys his age are so rare that he watches the clerk’s face move from a blank lack of recognition to bafflement to a slowly dawning understanding.

“Oh… oh… oh! You’re one of, of, those-… um… oh, okay. So you have your passport, um, do you… what name is the room under?”

Dex holds up one finger, and presses it against his own lips, then mouths, mute.

The clerk only stares at him.

Dex sighs and holds out his hand for the pen and pad of paper he can see on the other side of the desk, pointing at it politely. The clerk stares down at his own hands, blinking, then back up at Dex.

“I swear to God,” a second, female voice says from the office door hidden just to the side behind the desk. A woman with bright red hair leans slowly out, only her head visible. “He’s telling you he needs to write it, Brent. Oh my god. If you get us another customer complaint, I will murder you. And it will be slow and it will be messy, you cretin.”

“I’m pretty sure you get fired for murdering your coworkers,” The clerk - Brent, apparently - snaps, his face flaring red with embarrassment. “I’m, I’m sorry, sir- uh, I mean I’m sorry, pet… I haven’t dealt with-… just a second-… don’t tell your owner, okay?”

Dex’s smile doesn’t change - but it stiffens somewhat. He nods.

If it weren’t for the blue book and the collar around his neck, they would call him sir. Before he was ever old enough to be a sir, that possibility had been taken from him, and he knows no other way of living.

The clerk hands him the pen and paper, and Dex neatly writes the room number he was given over the phone, in the pointy, angular handwriting that he sometimes wonders about… did he write like this before they took his identity away?

Was he a child, once, with pointy handwriting, struggling with the swirling, rounded shapes of cursive? It’s hard to think he ever was a child. That he hasn’t always been this.

He hands the pad back over the desk, to the clerk who looks at it, then up at him, and then turns to the computer. He doesn’t thank Dex, the common overly-sincere, totally false customer-service friendliness that Madam often bemoans as so uniquely pervasive in America. No, Dex is a pet and so the moment the name is given, he is dismissed until they have to speak to him again.

His hands do not tighten into fists. They stay neatly, calmly at his side. He has lived like this, after all, for his entire adult life, the only life he knows.

He is not quite human… except with the man he hates. Unless the last five years have changed them both too much. But Dex is fairly certain he has never been allowed to change at all, except for those ways the man himself is responsible for.

“Oh! Looks like your owner’s already checked you in. Cool, cool. Okay. All right. Okay, Earnshaw, you head right up, Mr. Heathcliff is waiting for you.” Dex blinks - once, twice - at the names.

It’s only after a full second has passed that he realizes two things simultaneously… the clerk has no idea that those names are references to one of the most recognizable love stories ever written… and that if he used such blatant names, the man must have thought the clerk was the stupidest creature he’d ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on.

A smile twitches, just slightly, on Dex’s serene, nearly-expressionless face.

That, at least, he and the man he hates agree on.

He takes the keycard he is given and his passport back, ignoring the stamp that marks him as PET and prints his Box Boy number and barcode along the bottom edge… as if they weren’t already tattooed into his left wrist, like all the others. He’ll be forty soon and it won’t matter at all, he’ll still be marked PET on his passport until the day he dies.

His stomach starts to twist in knots as he walks across the lobby to the bank of elevators. The man is on the top floor, because of course he is - nothing less for him, even on the run, even having just escaped from a prison that had given him multiple life sentences.

He deserved those life sentences.

He deserves worse.

But still Dex’s stomach is in nervous, excited knots as he presses the number 14, notes absently the missing thirteenth floor between 12 and 14. Superstitious hotel owner, maybe. His heart is beating hard inside his chest, and he tells himself it’s fear… but it isn’t.

In five years, he has not seen the man he hates, and five years is long enough to admit to himself that he misses him. The man he hates - hated - gives him his voice back, will wait to hear it, bring it out patiently, and afterwards whisper into his ear I want to hear you again, darling.

Each time the elevator moves past a floor, the light changing number by number, Dex’s eyes jerk to it, as though he can make it happen faster simply by staring. Faster or slower, he doesn’t know which he wants it to be, because he can’t stay long.

Madam will want him back.

She’ll want him to report to her if there’s anything he sees that Madam doesn’t know about. Karen and the man have been friends since just before Dex came to live with her (before she broke you, he thinks, and then he locks that thought down as tightly as he can) and still Karen has plans, and thoughts, and a purpose she doesn’t always share.

She wants Dex to share that purpose with her.

He is here for his own purpose - and the man’s - not hers.

Fourteenth floor.

The elevator beeps once and he balances through the final drop as the elevator stabilizes.

He takes a deep breath as the doors open, trying to steady himself as he steps forward and out into the hall. Hotel carpet - swirling abstract geometrics in vibrant nonsense patterns of reds and yellows and blues, textured walls in a simple cream color. Mirrors hang across from the elevators, and Dex looks right at himself when he comes to a brief stop to check the sign to know which way to turn.

He checks one more time to ensure that his hair is combed just to the side, that his sweater hangs just right on him still - the way it did when the man first gave it to him - that he… looks good.

If they were any other people, he might be a man going to meet a lover.

But they are who they are, and he is a human pet sent to give his body as a welcome home present to a convicted murderer. They are a broken man who isn’t even legally considered a full citizen… and a man who tortured people for decades until he was finally caught.

And still he wants to look good for him, to live up to what he expects.

I was broken before you, Dex thinks. But I am broken for you, now.

He turns left into the hallway following the numbers on the doorways, feeling with each step a little dizzier, breathing more shallowly. The sound of his own pulse is deafening inside his mind, in his ears, at his wrists and neck.

Dex floats down the hallway as the human wreckage he became a long time ago, intent on his purpose - not Madam’s purpose, his. He’s a man made of drifting boards from a shipwreck, floating boxes and crates. He is the twisted coil of rope that washes up along the coast of Madagascar months after a volcano erupts in Polynesia.

But the man is the coastline that wants the wreckage, just as it is.

He stops in front of the door - room 1432, and Dex wonders absently if there was ever a Box Boy given that number, before they had to keep adding digits.

Finally, he takes a deep breath and knocks - two long knocks, three short raps. Just as Madam said to.

When he hears steps, he takes in a breath and forgets to exhale.

The doorknob turns and Dex stands there like any other man - except for the leather around his neck, except for the very foundations of him that were shattered and remade.

Except that he is not any other man, and neither is Wright Farling.

For the time Dex’s breath is held - the door swung open - he and Wright simply stare at each other.

Wright had always looked young for his age, but time, it seems, has caught up with him. The shift from forty - the last time Dex had seen him without the orange prison jumpsuit - and forty-five has taken its toll, etching new lines into a handsome face.

They’re smile lines, mostly - the same ones that had been forming before he was locked up. Wright was always smiling, always joking except for when he wasn’t, always ready to listen to another’s joke… even ready to laugh at Dex’s humor, when he signed his own wry commentary to the movies they watched or the music they might listen to.

There are other lines now - on his brow, around his mouth - that indicate not humor but an increase in ferocity.

“Dex, darling,” Wright says, and there’s an edge to his voice, something that brings a twist of some terrible, wonderful anticipation in Dex’s core. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

His whitish-blond hair is whiter, the change in his easy former lifestyle to prison life and his exposure to the other inmates has left a harder set to his features… but the confidence is still there, the hint of winsome pleasantness that suffused his expression.

Dex drops the duffel bag at his own feet without thinking and holds up his hands to sign, I have been waiting, too.

The smile he receives in return is brighter than any he’s ever given him before. There was something genuine, there. Wright leans down to pick up Dex’s bag and tosses it behind him carelessly, and Wright Farling is never careless.

He looks like a man who has gone five years without something precious, and has suddenly remembered how important it really is, how much he had appreciated having it.

Dex knows his own face must look exactly the same.

I hate you so much, he had mouthed once in Wright’s arms. He has said it a thousand times, a thousand different ways, and now he can’t find it in him to say it at all.

Wright tilts his head, his eyes dropping from Dex’s to his mouth, taking in the first hints of lines at the corners. Dex smiles so rarely that laugh lines struggle to etch themselves into him.

He smiles now, for Wright. What do you want me to do? He signs, and Wright grins.

An old song and dance, and they both know all the steps.

“Come,” Wright says in a low, soft voice, and crooks two fingers to beckon him forwards.

Dex moves to him and the door has barely closed behind them before Wright grabs him and slams his back into the wall, Dex huffing silent laughter and Wright not even bothering to keep his own laughter quiet as he kisses him with all the desperate intensity that five years of loneliness has built.

Dex’s arms are around his waist, and his hands are up on either side of Dex’s face and the kiss is nearly painful but neither pulls back or away.

Wright is a drowning man and Dex is air - or the other way around, he is drowning and Wright is the air, or he is drowning in Wright… he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care.

The press of lips, tongues sliding against each other, the pressure of Wright’s hips pushing hard against his - and Dex shifting so he can press back, making a low soft sound in his throat at the dim pleasure already beginning to coil into real heat, the way he comes to life immediately at his touch - it’s everything he’s been missing.

He missed the convicted murderer in his arms, a man who has cracked him apart a thousand different ways, but the man who wants to see the cracks.

“Dex, you wore the sweater,” Wright murmurs when they break apart, rocking his hips forwards until Dex’s own knees buckle just slightly. Wright’s fingertips slide down Dex’s face and to the sides of his neck, almost as though he would choke him. He lingers over the green leather there, the sign of Karen’s total control of him. “Did you do that for me?”

Dex nods, leaning forward just slightly to brush his nose against Wright’s. For you, he mouths, and after twenty years Wright reads his lips as well as he reads every other part of his body and mind.

“Did you miss me so much…?” Wright asks, and for a second there is something like a real vulnerability on his face. By the time Dex blinks, it’s gone, and back instead is the winsome smile. “Of course you did. Let me get this off you, darling.”

His fingers slide along to the back of the leather collar, and Dex tilts his chin up to make it easier for him, arches his back. One of Wright’s hands stays on the buckle and the other slides up into Dex’s short dark hair, twists around the strands.

“Haven’t felt your hair in five years, either,” Wright says, more to himself than Dex.

Dex lets Wright pull his head back and back by the grip in his hair, breathing harder, jolts of pleasure straight down his body from the fingers that run along his scalp.

“Good boy,” Wright says in his ear, and Dex nearly moans. “Still such a good boy for me.”

Wright’s fingers deftly undo the buckle, making quick work of Karen’s symbol of ownership, and he drops it to the carpet with a soft thump, as if it’s nothing. As if Karen doesn’t control him at all.

Wright taking off his collar isn’t meant to mark him as free - it’s a reminder that he belongs to Wright in deeper ways, ways that cannot be marked with a strip of leather and a metal buckle.

His marrow belongs to Wright Farling - his bones, his nerves, his heartbeat, his mind.

Karen Renford only owns his skin. He gave everything else to Wright so long ago, and she has never noticed.

“That’s better.” Wright’s smile is nearly a smirk, and his hands slide down over Dex’s chest, down his sides to hook into the belt loops of his pants and pull their hips back together. “Much better. Will you speak for me, Dex?”

Once, there had been humiliation in Wright forcing him to speak, pushing him to an edge where his desperation, despair, or anger pushed him past the conditioning and pulled it out against his will.

That has changed, too.

Now, Dex only smiles at him - I am helpless for you, I will do anything you say, anything, forever - and nods. Wright tells him to speak and, despite twenty years of what they have made of him, he tries.

In a life surrounded by evil, Dex will choose the evil that wants to hear his voice.

“Wr-… Wright,” Dex says, hoarse and guttural. He has not spoken in more than five years, since the last time he saw Wright before he was caught at his evil, before they locked him away for it. It’s not a beautiful voice - it’s an ugly sound, and Dex knows it, but Wright never seems bothered at all. He still isn’t.

“There it is,” Wright breathes out, and Dex doesn’t know if he’s happy to hear the name or happy to know that none of his control is gone. Maybe both. “Come, darling. It’s been so long… I’m not letting you off the bed until you can’t leave it.“

What happens when Wright takes him by the arm is less like allowing Wright to lead him and far more like falling into his inevitable gravity, once more, down and down into the darkest parts of himself.

“God, I missed having you, Dex,” Wright says, and he pushes Dex hard in his chest until he falls onto his back on the soft, warm white comforter, hands already at the hem of the pretty green sweater to pull it up and over Dex’s head, mussing up the hair he’d combed so carefully. Dex wriggles to try and help him, Wright sitting on him straddling his hips and holding him down.

Not that he’d run. Not now, not ever again, not from Wright.

“Missed you, Wright,” Dex croaks out, forces from beyond the conditioning that has kept him mute with everyone else. “Missed me?”

Wright pauses, looking down at him with his head tilted, lips parted. There is some analysis behind the smile on his face, the way that his eyes always bare the deepest parts of Dex, pull them out to the light. “Do you need me to miss you, Dex? Do you need me, now?”

“Yes.”

Wright doesn’t answer the question Dex had asked him. Instead, he only watches him for a moment longer and then says, softly, “Beg for me.”

“Please.” In his hoarse, grinding voice, rough from disuse, he begs without hesitating. There is time to hesitate, to think too much, for Wright to tear him apart, later. For now, he runs his hands up over Wright’s thighs to his hips through the fabric of his soft pants, lets them settle there, feeling the heat coming from his skin, and bucks his own hips up to show Wright how ready he is. “Please. I need you, Wright.”

“Good, Dex. That’s very good,” Wright says, and his smile widens. He drops down to hold his weight on his hands, leaning down to kiss him again. “I love hearing you say my name. I’m gonna make you scream it.”

It is when Wright calls his name later, while buried deeply in Dex - when they are both so tangled in each other that Dex barely recognizes he is anything more than an extension of Wright at all - that Dex realizes that it isn’t that twenty years has made the hate feel like love.

It is that, after twenty years of this man’s voice whispering through his blood, his bones, his mind… what he feels for Wright is love.

ENDNOTE: Wright Farling belongs to @spiffythespook. He is used with permission, and Spiffy collaborated with me on Wright’s actions and dialogue!

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imagine-that-one-thing · 4 years

Text

Chapter One.

❅ ❅ ❅

The Rise Of Glory. || Let’s Not Go Back.

FlashBack. || August 26th.

I relax on the bed with the pillows behind my back and the soft blanket draped over my legs, my eyes desiring to close and rest but I force myself to keep them open. Sleeping lately has been a challenge for both Harry and me, he tosses and turns most of the night and crawls out from under the sheets by three A.M, leaving me with a cold and empty bed. You’d think by now that I’d be used to it, but the cold emptiness never fails to crawl in on me and make me feel that bitter sense of loneliness.

“And you’re going to be okay here by yourself?” Harry challenges as he stands at the edge of the bed with his travel bag on the bed.

The bag has only managed to stay packed away for a whole fifteen days; I knew this was going to be an issue, the second we finally settled here in New York, something would happen and we would have to fly back to London. I knew we would be flying back and forth quite a bit, but I didn’t think it would be this soon.

I nod my head as reassurance, “Yes, I’ll be fine, surprisingly I can take care of a business, I do run Meyer Enterprise and you didn’t give me CAO just for my good looks.” I assure Harry that the NYC business will be perfectly fine under my care for the few days that he has to be in London. After all, I did run Styles & Co for quite some time after his accident.

Oh, how they were some rough times.

Harry rolls his eyes playfully and throws a shirt into his bag, “I gave you the position just because you’re my wife, absolutely had nothing to do with your skills.” Harry offers me his twisted smile that is laced with nothing but sarcasm.

“Mhm, I wouldn’t be surprised,” I chuckle, “Don’t forget your passport in the safe.” I gesture towards the wardrobe where the safe is, reminding Harry of the one item that I know he’d forget. There have been a few times he has gotten to the airport in a rush, only to have left his passport behind. The man would lose his mind if it wasn’t inside his head, sometimes I think he wishes he could lose his mind for a few days.

“I won’t,” Harry responds. “No, but are you going to be okay here? Anastasia agreed to be the fill-in assistant here since I don’t need her in London while I’m there. She will be here by morning.”

“I’ll be perfectly fine. You just worry about your meetings in London,” I assure Harry.

Harry lets out a heavy breath and nods, “can’t help but worry, you know that,” Harry murmurs with a slight smile as he glances over at me.

It has always been in his nature to worry about those he cares about, I’ve watched him worry about his mother and sister from when we first started to date, many years ago, and now his worry has essentially turned towards me and Alexander. I don’t think this man knows what it’s like to live a day without worrying about something or someone.

“I know, but the more you worry the more stress lines you’ll have,” I chuckle softly, looking him up and down as he forces an article of clothing into his bag.

Harry rolls his eyes, “These frown lines and stress lines have been here since I was eighteen,” Harry responds, “or it’s old age setting in, probably the old age.”

“You’re not that old, hush,” I shake my head.

“I’m thirty, definitely not twenty-one anymore, that’s for sure. When did we get old?” Harry questions in a teasing manner.

“We~ did not get old,” I shake my head, “Speak for yourself,” I chuckle playfully, but my petite grin slowly turns to a slight grimace.

Harry’s eyes narrow down on me, “You okay?” Harry challenges, his lips pursed into a fine line as he awaits my response— a response he already knows the answer to.

“Yeah,” I nod, not drawing any attention to myself, lower back pain is normal, although, I wish it wasn’t. “Just fine, no need to worry,” I assure Harry with a small smile.

Harry sighs and places another shirt into his duffel bag, “I can stay if you—“

I shake my head instantly, already aware of what’s going to come out of his mouth, “Harry,” I swiftly cut him off. “I am fine, it’s normal. The longer you put off going to London and fixing the mess, the longer you’ll end up gone and away from here.”

“You sure?”

“It’s not the first time you’ve left me alone for business, darling.”

“I know,” Harry nods, “I just— I don’t know, I don’t want to be in London while you’re here in New York. It’s different for us.”

“Well, this is how it has to be, Harry. This is what you signed up for when you wanted to merge the company to New York.”

Harry grows quiet for a minute and breaks eye contact with me. I can’t say that I’m fully on board with living in New York, I don’t think I’ll ever feel as though this is home, but this is what has been decided for us, as a family. Whether Harry likes it or not, this is the decision HE made, he wanted to move to New York and, unfortunately, he can’t have things both ways. He can’t have me in London and New York just to satisfy his needs.

“Harry, this is what you wanted, you wanted us to live here, I can’t just fly back to London,” I comment, adjusting my tone of voice and doing my best to avoid sounding bitter.

“Yes, you can. Come to London with me, you can make sure Meyer enterprise is running ideally, while I fix my,” Harry stops, “Our,” He corrects himself, “Our company.”

I shake my head, not liking the idea of flying back to London. “No, I don’t have the energy to be running through airports, someone needs to be here to make sure everything runs smoothly, we have documents to keep sorting through and I have to keep on top of my half of the staff. It’ll be easier on me if you go,” I hold my ground, refusing to give in.

To be honest, if I have to go back to London, the chances of me coming back to New York right now is… slim to none. I have no intention of putting myself through more of a confused spiral just because he feels guilty for leaving me in New York for a few days.

Business is business, this was all his decision.

He will have to reap what he has sown.

Harry lets out a breath, “It won’t be like this forever, you know that, right?” … “Elle, living here isn’t permanent, once everything is up and running we can go back to London, we’ve discussed this.”

I glance at Harry, attempting to figure out whom he’s trying to convince more, me or him. “Harry, it’s going to take time for everything to be running the way it needs to be, can we please drop this conversation before it turns into an argument? Go to London, I’ll stay here, it’ll all be fine.”

Harry purses his lips into a fine line, and I can tell by the way his brows are furrowing that he doesn’t want to drop the conversation, he never really does, he always likes to have the last say, and he only drops conversations when he’s done speaking. To my surprise, Harry nods his head in agreement, and he doesn’t proceed to go further with the conversation, instead, he goes back to packing his bag, leaving the two of us in silence.

Silence can be a deadly game sometimes, it’s a fine line between not having anything else to say or just outright ignoring the other person in retaliation to having too much to say.

Harry hates silence, he always has, and so do I when it comes to the deadly silence within our relationship, but right now, I’m unsure whether the silence is out of respect for not wanting to continue the conversation or out of retaliation.

I continue to watch Harry and his silhouette moving gracefully around the bedroom, even during silence, there’s something somewhat calming about watching him move around the bedroom. Unlike some, he’s relatively light on his feet and doesn’t make much noise as he’s trying to gather his clothes and what he needs. Then again, he’s had so much practice of years of getting dressed quietly and in the dark, it’s second nature for him to be quiet and unobtrusive.

I heavily sigh and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, forcing myself to my feet. I walk over towards him and press my hand to his arm as he places another shirt into his bag. He glances at my hand on his arm before he turns to me, "I love you." My words are simple but meaningful, sometimes all it takes is the reassurance of the love between us to keep us going and to eliminate the deadly silence.

His lips curve up into a small smile and his eyes soften, "I love you, too." He responds before he wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for one of his tender hugs. I rest my cheek on his chest and take a deep breath feeling secure and relaxed.

"It'll all be okay, Elise."

"I know," I respond.

I know it will all be okay in the end, it is just getting to the point of things being okay that is difficult. I want things to settle down and for things to be okay now.

I pull away from his embrace, "Do you want me to come to the airport?" I offer, unsure of whether he wants the company or not.

Harry shakes his head, "It is late, you get some sleep, I'm going to start on writing up the reports when I get to the airport."

"Oh," I sound, somewhat disappointed that he doesn't want me to go with him.

"If you really want to, you can, love. I thought you would prefer to relax," Harry swiftly changes his response, noticing my slight disappointment.

The Next Day. - August 27th, 2024.

I walk down hallways, peering into various conference rooms’ making sure that everything is running smoothly, and to my surprise, everything is on track… for now. I’m aware at any given times this is subject to change, whether the company here in New York takes a turn for the worst or Meyer Enterprises decides to throw me for a loop and cause me chaos.

I glance over towards Anastasia as she remains at the desk closest to Harry’s office, and I can’t help but smile to myself. It feels nice to have something/someone who seems familiar and reminds me of home. I can’t deny the fact that I wish Anastasia could work with us in New York, but I can’t selfishly spring that on her and Niall, even if it would make me feel better and give me peace of mind.

I walk closer to Anastasia and I place a file from my meeting on her desk, she gazes up at me with her typical vivacious eyes and dainty smile— I swear this woman is always smiling— but something seems different. “Will you please fax these to Harry so he can sign them?” I politely challenge and she nods her head, taking the file between the tips of her fingers. I cock my head to the side and narrow my eyes on her, curious as to what’s running through that mind of hers. “Do I want to ask what’s wrong?”

She shakes her head, “Nothing, why?”

“You have this look… I’ve worked with you for too long to not know something is up… spill.”

She stares down at her desk for a moment and lets out a sigh before looking back up at me, “It’s really silly.”

“I have a three-year-old who does silly things all the time, it won’t phase me.”

“Well… Niall is playing golf.”

I nod, unsure of what the problem is, he always plays golf when he has spare time. “Mhm,” she hums, “On the business’ dime.”

“Yes, he does deals sometimes on the golf course,” I nod, “Harry would do more deals on a golf course if he did ruin his back. Used to always do deals on the course.”

“Elise… it’s a woman he’s doing a deal with.”

I grow quiet for a moment, and I raise a brow towards Anastasia, “Oh… I see what the problem is,” I chuckle, “You think she’s prancing around in a short golfing skirt, pretending like she can’t play golf while the men gawk?”

“That doesn’t make me feel better…” she trails off and I playfully roll my eyes. “I don’t know how you never feel insecure when Harry has women all around him at events.”

“Most of them are wives of other businessmen,” I shrug, “We all get insecure sometimes, but you have a ring on your finger, he loves you. Plus,” I trail off, “The woman he’s meeting is trying to do a business deal without her husband knowing, that’s why they’re at a golf course, it’s off her husband's radar. Revised contracts and portfolios make for a surprise present for husbands these days.”

“So… I have nothing to worry about?”

“Not unless the woman is wanting to give Niall the portfolio as a gift, no,” I shake my head, “Just a few more days and you get to go back home to Niall, hang in there,” I smile at her, “don’t forget to fax those,” I gesture towards the file as my phone begins to vibrate and sound.

Anastasia nods silently and I answer my phone, making my way to Harry’s office.

“Hey, I’m sorry we’ve been playing phone tag all morning, how’s the company?” Harry asks on the other end of the phone while I sit in his office, drawing the pen between my fingers to tap it against the desk.

“They’re good, things are going smoother than I expected. How are things over there?”

“It’s a shit show, Elle. Good thing I came back when I did. Mum called, I am going to head up there when I get done with this shit here and pick up Alex and bring him home with me.”

“Oh, so we finally get to be a family again,” I mutter, somewhat feeling bitter towards Harry for his decision to move and get everything settled before bringing Alex over; I would have preferred if we were all here together earlier. Two weeks without Alex around has been a hard two weeks.

Harry grows quiet on the other end of the line, and for a split second, I feel guilty for my comment, mainly because I thought I was over the resentment of moving here. I am not.

Harry clears his throat in an attempt to buy him some time to find the right words to say to my bitter comment. In my defence, I wasn’t trying to be harsh or to bring up old problems, the words just slipped out of my mouth, but I will not apologise for them. “Hm, well with the meeting you have in an hour, I sent you a brief outline of some things,” Harry begins and I heavily sigh as I prop my right elbow on the desk with my phone still to my ear, and I drop my left hand to rest on my stomach comfortably. “I know you’re tired of my briefings, but just listen for a moment, love, I promise this one is different,” Harry continues his speech on the meeting that I am filling in for.

I do my best to listen to his words, but I can’t help but allow my mind to wander, the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach distracting me with each moment that passes by. “Elle, are you listening?” Harry takes my attention and I hum my response, “You seem… Distracted.”

“Promise, I was listening,” I wrongfully assure him; I was only half-listening, but that still counts, right?

Harry hums that unconvinced hum of his, “how are you? And I’m not asking about the CAO, I’m asking about my wife, how’s my wife?” Harry asks with his sweet-sounding voice, deciding to take a break from being a CEO who insists on going over the documents for the meetings.

“I’m okay, how are you?”

“I’m not too convinced, what’s the matter?” Harry questions and I pause for a moment, hearing someone else on the other end in Harry’s office, “No, give me ten minutes, I am busy,” Harry murmurs to whom I can only assume is one of the staff members, “Sorry, Elle, now, what’s the matter?” Harry again asks, once again giving me his full attention as the line goes quiet on his end.

For a moment, I hope that someone else wanders in and interrupts the phone call, mainly because I don’t feel like having this conversation with him. I know how he is, he can be relentless when it comes to certain things, and when he isn’t convinced with something I have said, usually because he knows better, he is like a dog with a bone.

“I’m starting to feel… unwell.” I inform him.

“Morning sickness?” Harry questions, jumping straight to what would be the typical answer.

I’m not sure what it is; what I do know is that I want to be home and in London where I’m comfortable. I want to be able to walk through the front door of our home and feel at peace and at ease, instead, I have to walk through the front door of our penthouse and pretend to feel at home.

“I’m not sure, perhaps,” I shrug my shoulders, despite the fact he can’t see me. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, how are you?” I ask.

“Well, go home.” Harry disregards me asking how he is. He does this often, I can only assume he’s too stressed to think about how he is and doesn’t want to tell me that he’s exhausted and at his limits with his stress levels.

“I can’t, I can’t just hop on a flight. At least not until the meetings are over.”

I overhear Harry groan on the other end of the phone before he speaks, “Elle… we’ve been through this, please don’t make me feel guilty… I mean to go home as in go to our home in New York.”

No matter how many times Harry refers to our penthouse as ‘home’ it will never fully feel like home. Home is London, it always has been and it always will be. I’ll be glad when everything settles down fully with his new business and we can go back to London and run the new business from Styles & Co headquarters.

“I have meetings still, I’ll be fine.”

“If you’re unwell, go rest.”

“There is no need for me to leave, the business can’t run itself, this isn’t my first rodeo either, Harry. A lot needs to be done before I can even think of leaving and going home.” I murmur, quite annoyed he even thinks that I can get up and leave.

We might be the owners of the damn company but it doesn’t mean this business can run on its own while I get some sleep and while he fixes the problems in London.

“Take it easy, Elise. I need to get to my meetings, call me when you’re finished and heading home, okay?”

It’s easy for him to say, he’s not the one with piles of documents that need signing, budgets that need looking over and a pile of proposal drafts to read and look over before different sections of the company go ahead with them. I have to oversee the proposals our teams are coming up with to determine whether we need better staff. Merging companies and finding a happy medium is a damn bitch. “It won’t be until late, but okay,” I agree with a small sigh, wishing the papers on my desk would magically burst into flames or at the very least, disappear.

“I love you, Elise.”

“I love you, goodbye,” I swiftly respond before I hang up the phone and settle it down on my desk.

❅ ❅ ❅

I sit in the conference room alone with papers scattered across the table, all of which were signed in the last meeting, but I can’t muster up the energy to properly place them into files for Harry. I’ve said this multiple times over the years but I still have no idea how the hell he manages to do so much in just one day.

My energy levels don’t seem to last as long as they did, at least that’s how it has felt this week. Things have worn me out the last week. I haven’t made it home before ten, there’s so much that needs to be reviewed and done that I can barely keep up with everything. I didn’t expect things to be easy with Harry gone but I didn’t expect things to be this… tough. I feel exhausted.

Today, I’ve survived three meetings and I feel like I’ve run three marathons instead. For Harry, three meetings are nothing, there have been days I’ve seen him have at the very least five, back to back with no break, I have no clue how he manages or how he doesn’t lose his mind completely. Then again, he is stressed and tensed most of the time so it makes up for him keeping his sanity… somewhat.

I lean back in the chair and close my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath as I feel the same tug in the pit of my stomach, followed by swirling nausea that I am struggling to kick. The last thing I need while Harry’s gone is to be under the weather, I have a responsibility to maintain everything at the headquarters here in New York, and I can’t do that while at home.

Anastasia steps into the conference room with her usual gentle smile and radiant blue eyes, “Hey, your next meeting is in a few minutes.” She informs me tenderly.

“Anastasia,” I breathe out with a sigh, “Can you push it back a few more minutes?”

“How long do you need?” She questions, shifting a few strands of hair behind her ear and waiting for my response.

“Any chance you can push it to tomorrow morning?” I request, hoping I can take myself home and crawl into bed instead of going through with the next meeting, but I know that’s unlikely.

Anastasia thinks for a moment and lifts her shoulders into a shrug, “That’s Harry’s decision unless you can give me the authority to push it to tomorrow on your behalf…” Anastasia trails off, uncertain of what to do.

I glance at my watch and sigh, “He should be awake still, I’ll call Harry and he can deal with it,” I inform Anastasia, “you can go to the hotel when you’re ready, you’ve done enough for the evening,” I continue, taking note of how she has done enough work for the day, I know she’s presumably just as exhausted as I am. She isn’t just an assistant, she handles a lot of other elements, to be honest, she handles some of the shit neither Harry nor I want to have to manage.

Anastasia nods, “Harry asked me to stay until you leave.”

“Anastasia, that’s sweet, but it’ll be a while before I leave, I still have paperwork to sort through, I probably won’t make it home tonight,” I inform her, gesturing towards the files sitting in the conference room that demands my attention. “I’ll call Harry and handle the last meeting, go home and tell the rest of the staff here to go home, we don’t all need to overwork ourselves,” I instruct pleasantly, gesturing towards the door as I reach for my phone and call Harry.

It rings a couple of times, and for a moment, I assume he’s asleep and not going to answer, after all, it is around 1 am for him, “Hello?” Harry answers, his tone of voice sounding frustrated.

“Hey, do you want me to call back later?” I offer, well aware that he’s presumably reading over a clients portfolio and attempting to make last-minute adjustments.

“No, I just got into my office. How’d your meeting go? Shouldn’t you be in one?”

“That’s what I’m calling you about. Why are you at the office, it is one in the morning?”

“Did it go downhill? No rest for the wicked.”

“No, it went well…” I trail off, unsure of what to tell him. The previous meeting went splendidly, the client signed everything, everything went smoothly, I just need to sign more paperwork, fax them to Harry to sign off on, and everything is established. The only dilemma I have is my next meeting. “Harry, I can’t do the next meeting. I need to reschedule.”

“Sweetheart, the client is a potential multi-million dollar deal, they won’t just reschedule at the last minute. It doesn’t work like that with them.” Harry informs me as I hear shuffling on his end of the phone.

I pause for a moment and contemplate what to do, swiftly losing myself in my world before Harry’s voice brings me back, “Elle? Are you there?”

“Yes,” I promptly answer, “I’m here… can you call them and at least try and reschedule? I know you’re busy.”

I hear Harry sigh on the other end of the phone and I can only assume he’s running his fingers through his hair out of frustration and due to being inconvenienced. “I’ll see what I can do. I know you’re tired but we need this one, Elle.”

“Harry—“ I begin but I stop and clear my throat, buying myself a moment to breathe and not become frustrated.

“It’s okay,” Harry assures me, “I will reschedule the meeting, I shouldn’t put the pressure on you. If you can’t do the meeting then that’s all there is to it.”

“Are you sure? It’s a lot of money they’re dangling over us.” I can’t help but feel guilty for wanting to reschedule for tomorrow, this offer is one of the best things to have walked our way since starting up New York, we need a high-grade client file to add to the vault.

“Sweetheart, do you feel like you can handle the meeting right now?” Harry softly questions, genuinely inquiring as my husband and not as the CEO who knows how significant this meeting is to the company here.

I go withdrawn for a moment, debating whether to lie or tell the truth. Part of me wishes he didn’t leave me in charge of the high profile clients and these meetings. I wasn’t the one who wanted to branch the company, it was him, but I can’t just leave him in the lurch; I have to support Harry, even if it means fighting off feeling ill and god knows what else before the next meeting. “No, but I don’t—“

“Then it’s okay,” Harry cuts me off, “I’ll see what I can do, I’ll call you back.” And like that, the line goes dead and I am left unsure of what I am meant to do.

I take a moment to relax in the chair and to finally breathe without the thought of having another meeting or a stack of files to sort through.

Growing up, I always saw my mother handle the business world with such grace, her and my father always resembled like the power couple. She constantly had a smile on her face at business events and was perpetually more than delighted to host events at the house, fly across the country with Dad, and I never once saw them argue about the fact that he spent most of his time jet-setting around. I don’t know how she did it, I don’t know how she held everything together, a family, a love life, and my father’s business. I, for one, regret my decisions of getting into the business world, I wish I had of stayed out of it as I had intended, but my Father and my Uncle had other intentions and always thought the business world was for me.

They were wrong, the business world is not for me, I don’t want to be wrapped up in it anymore; I would much prefer to be wrapped up in a blanket, sipping on some warm tea without the stress and worries of everything.

I’d also prefer if I had my mother’s grace to handle everything, but I don’t. As much as I joke around with the thought of being a stay at home wife/mum, I know I wouldn’t be able to manage. I have gotten so used to the constant routine of working that I know no better; I have been corrupted by Harry.

My phone rings and I lean over and answer the phone, "Hey, darling, I have the meeting moved to the morning, get yourself some sleep," Harry instructs as I catch rustling in the background as if he is trying to hurriedly gather things. I can only assume he is trying to gather his papers. "I'll call you at a decent hour, goodnight, I love you."

"I love you, too," I respond and the line goes dead.

I step out of the office and close the door behind me, taking it upon myself to listen to Harry and to go home. In the last few years with working in the business field, I have come to realise that one can spend hours pouring their energy into paperwork and files, but at the end of the day, burning yourself out will only lead to more devastation. I have seen Harry burn himself out so many times and I know I can’t allow myself to do the same, I don’t need to destruct.

I walk down the quiet hallway and smile towards Mr Seattle. “You’re working late,” I comment as we stop in front of each other.

I don’t get to cross paths with this man too often, most of the time we cross paths while hurrying to different parts of the building, he is a little bit like Niall in a sense I don’t need to babysit him like I do some of the other crew, I can let him roam free and he does his job and he does it damn well.

“Yeah, I have a few things to get done.”

“Make sure to turn the lights off and nobody else is to be on this floor,” I instruct firmly.

Not many people are allowed to have access to the floor Harry's office is on after hours, we do our best to lock down the floor once we leave. Ever since the night Harry’s father caused havoc on the building and our lives, everything has been even tighter with security. Everything is monitored, not a single person gets in this building without going through a checkpoint down in the lobby, any red flag that is raised is immediately taken care of and alerted to us. It is both a blessing and a pain in the ass, even I have to go through the checkpoint in the lobby from the hours the building is operating with clients coming in and out.

“Yes, ma’am,” he nods, “Harry is aware I’ll be staying late and notified security.”

“Okay. Well, Mr Seattle, I will see you bright and early tomorrow.”

He laughs, “You still don’t remember my name, do you?” He questions and I can’t help but offer him a sweet smile.

I have a lot on my mind, remembering names’ is not at the top of my priority list, I am lucky that I remember my own name half the time. Unfortunately, my name is hard to forget when I hear it being called at least twenty times an hour. There is always someone who needs my attention or help.

“Look, I’ve had to learn over one hundred new names, all of which I still get wrong. Mr Seattle has a ring to it, has ever since I met you.”

He shakes his head with a small chuckle, amused by my comment, “After all this time you still can’t remember my name.”

“Mmm. David, right?”

“No.”

“Daren?”

“Not even close,” he chuckles.

“I sign your paycheck, it’s Mr Seattle.”

“It’s Daniel,” he chuckles, “but I’m just pulling your leg, I don’t care that you don’t remember my name, as long as my paycheck is signed and I do my job well, that’s all that matters.”

I nod my head in agreement, “Exactly. Be careful, be safe, you know how to call security and with that being said, I’ll let you get to work.” I politely end the small banter, eager to get home and to get in bed.

❅ ❅ ❅

The Next Day.

After I got off the phone with Harry last night, I was meant to go home, crawl in bed and have a good night's rest, that isn’t what happened. I didn’t even get halfway back to the penthouse before I got the call. A call that most business owners dread; mandatory board meeting. Ever since Harry’s business’ downfall of 2021 where the board forced him to take a leave of absence to audit the business and appoint an interim CEO, Harry made it his mission to get in the good graces of the board and make sure he, Niall, and I all obtained seats on the board. He won. We are all on the board and it serves as both good and bad. I hate board meetings, they can be long, tedious and boring. I leave everything up to Harry to decide, the only reason I am on the board is that I am the CAO and I own that one percent extra share than Harry which gives me the upper hand with decisions. He gave me that share not only to prove to me he wanted me as part of the business and to make it ours, but because if anything was to happen again, I would have overall power no matter who the interim CEO was.

Unfortunately, this meeting is out of the blue and deemed necessary for all to attend. Here’s the problem, the CEO isn’t in New York to attend a meeting about ‘Securing board approval for the overall administrative costs.’ The CEO is ultimately responsible for management and all reporting and review should be centralized through Harry— Harry needs to be the one to oversee the costs, but I will have to do it, which only meant one thing, I had to write up the figures. I had to stay up all night making sure everything was in check for the meeting. If the board ever suspect that we are not in tip-top shape, they will intervene and breathe down our necks. The last thing we need while juggling everything is to have the board of directors breathing down our backs and watching our every move.

I sit in my office, buried deep in paperwork trying to figure out how I am going to show the board everything that they need to see. I would prefer if we didn’t have a board to have to account to, I don’t see why we still have a damn board of directors, Harry and I are soul shareowners at this point, we don’t need anyone else apart of our decisions. I wish he would cut them out and take full control of his business.

I scribble down more figures and groan as I mentally wish Harry was sitting here doing this and not me, I should be in bed sleeping.

My attention is taken away from my work as I notice the hallway lights flick on, my hand reaches for the security button under my desk but I settle my sudden nerves when I see the familiar head of hair and broad shoulders at my door.

“What are you doing here?” I ask Harry as see him opening my door and closing it behind him.

“You don’t seem too thrilled to see me.”

I shake my head and give him a weary smile, “I just— I thought you were in London… it’s five in the morning, I— I just didn’t expect you,” I comment as I stand up and wander around my desk to welcome him with a hug. “Almost called security on you.”

“Got on the first flight so I could take the meetings for you. Just wanted to surprise you.” Harry informs me as he wraps his arms around me, and for a split second, everything in the world feels all right again.

God, how I have missed his hugs.

Right now, in his arms, there is no place I would rather be. His arms feel like home, he is always welcoming and warm with his hugs and affection. No matter what the world throws at me, I know I can go to him with open arms and find him wrapping his arms around me, shielding me from the cold bitterness of reality.

“I have missed you, my darling,” Harry whispers, holding me a little tighter.

I smile to myself, “I missed you too, are you staying?”

“I’m not meant to, but for you, I will,” Harry responds, “London can manage without me for now.”

I inhale his scent and close my eyes for a moment as my cheek rests against his chest. “That is sweet, why did you come back?” I question, unsure of what prompted him to suddenly fly back. Things in London sounded like they were going to shit, so I don't see why he would fly here when things aren’t stable back there.

“I didn’t realise how overly scheduled you were. I’ll do the meeting, you can go home.”

I pull away from Harry and look up at him, “I can’t, there is that board meeting right before our client meeting.”

“We can sit through the board meeting together, then you can go home,” Harry leans down and kisses my forehead in a sweet way, once again reassuring me that he has things handled. “Do you want me to take over? You can at least sit and relax,” Harry gestures towards the empty seat as he takes it upon himself to take his position at the desk and start reading what I have started without allowing me to give him an answer.

I don’t fight him on it, instead, I sit myself down in the chair, thankful that he flew over here and has saved my ass from exhaustion.

“Wait,” I tiredly pipe up, “You haven’t slept either, you just got off a flight.”

Harry shakes his head, “Slept on the plane, love, just relax, let me stress over this, okay?” Harry responds, flashing me a small smile.

I relax in the chair and do nothing but watch him as he takes control of the documents, sorting them out, signing what needs to be signed and printing of new files. I cock my head to the side, admiring the way he manages to move gracefully and quickly at such an ungodly hour of the morning. He knows exactly what he is doing, he has it all under control and he hasn’t even been here, he never fails to amaze me how he falls into his element so damn quickly.

I smile to myself, beginning to notice how even after hopping off a flight from London, he still looks attractive, his hair is a casual jumble but mostly neat and flowing, his eyes, although weary are still a scintillating, loam-grey shade. His face is grafted with a masculine dark stubble that he hasn’t managed to shave in the last few days.

Harry draws my attention away from gawking over him as he begins to speak, “You’re staring… Is my shirt dirty or something?” he asks as he looks down at his button-up and inspects it.

I shake my head with a small chuckle, “No, bit creased though,” I point out.

“They don’t have irons at the airport, I didn’t exactly have time to pack clothes,” Harry mutters. “Why are you staring?”

“Because you’re good looking, I don’t know how I got lucky with you.”

Harry rolls his eyes, he has always been one to roll his eyes at compliments that come to his looks. I have never quite understood why he doesn’t take the compliments with a smile. Harry hums, “Yeah, you got really lucky with a workaholic asshole of a husband.”

I shrug my shoulders, “Eh, nobody’s perfect, you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t an asshole.”

“Thanks, darling, you’re very sweet.”

“You know you’re an asshole, you said it yourself.” I point out, using his own words against him, playfully.

Harry nods his head in agreement, “Indeed, I am.”

❅ ❅ ❅

Harry hands me a file and I open it, beginning to read what is inside, “why am I reading this?”

“So this is what a file looks like that is a complete scam, now if you look at this one, you can see a big difference,” Harry hands me another file and takes the first one, “there’s this new thing going around, scammers trying to take business money by faking the portfolios, I need you to be aware of this just in case.” Harry informs me and I nod, “now the one in your hand is one we are going over in the meeting, I highlighted the figures I wanted to question, I’m wondering if you have any questions or thoughts.”

“I trust your judgment,” I respond, my eyes reading the documents line by line.

The file falls from my hands and the papers scatter across the floor as I balance myself with my hand on the desk, and the other presses to my stomach. I let out a breath.

Within an instant, Harry jumps from his rested position in a chair and takes my side. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” I mutter, noticing the papers scattered on the floor and out of order. It will take at least thirty minutes to put them back in order, thirty minutes that we do not have to waste on things.

“Don’t worry about it, sit down,” Harry instructs, guiding me to sit down in one of the chairs, “What’s going on?” Harry questions as I take a minute to breathe.

Before I can answer, the conference room door opens and Anastasia walks in, “Anastasia,” Harry is direct as he looks over towards her, “I need you to postpone the meeting a few hours, tell them I’ll call them as soon as I can. I need you to get a car ready, I am leaving in a few minutes.” Harry instructs firmly and she’s swift to walk out and follow his orders.

“Why’d you do that? This is important.”

Harry shakes his head, “You’re more important, Anastasia told me this happened yesterday too.”

“Is this why you flew back?” I question.

“Do you think I flew back just because of a meeting?”

“Yes,” I nod, “I’m fine. Harry, this meeting is crucial to the business here.”

“I’m glad you have confidence in me. I flew back because I know my wife needs me, she’s just being stubborn,” Harry comments as he begins to pick up the papers I dropped and places them on the desk. “I’m going to take you home and I will come back and finish all of this and the meetings,” Harry informs me.

“What about the board meeting? They said it was mandatory.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that, I will handle it.”

I nod, not bothering to fight him on his decisions, I want to go home anyway, I deserve a rest, I have worked non-stop since he left, I can’t even fight him on this. Deep down, I know that my body needs to relax. I stand to my feet and begin to spread the papers out so I can put them back in chronological order while Harry collects the last of the papers off the floor before we leave...

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igottheissue · 5 years

Text

This Time Around 3

A strange woman Bucky is sure he knows but can’t fully recognize, picks him up after the fall of SHIELD. She claims to be friends with Steve and that she is here to help him. He can’t help but keep wondering where he knows her from; it’s definitely not through Steve Rogers. Can she help him be the man he wants to be or will the all too familiar struggles of being a super human overcome him?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X OC Rowan O’Connor Word Count:4,154 Rating: M Masterlist Chapter 2 Chapter 4

Taglist: @xmarveled @spidey-the-killer-queen

Rowan and Bucky had stayed one more night in the cozy Chicago apartment. Not much conversation filled the studio flat. Some awkward mumbles from Bucky asking Rowan how to work the shower was about it.

Rowan was dressed in green leggings and a pink tank top; a black oversized beanie covering up her auburn hair. She opted out of hiking boots, unlike Bucky, and sported a pair of comfortable running shoes instead. To any passersby, they looked like a young couple heading out to go camping for the weekend.

Rowan pressed a four digit code into a blue garage door and ushered Bucky inside. She grabbed a set of keys off a hook by the door. Bucky’s eyes scanned the low clearance ceiling, wondering which vehicle Rowan would choose. Bucky raised his eyebrows a bit at the car that Rowan led him to.

She had planned to find a clothing store on the outskirts of the city for Bucky. The raglan shirt and jeans she had given him were a bit too small. Luckily the boots were on the perfect side of snug for him.

Bucky wasn’t sure how, the information must have been hidden in a part of his mind from working for HYDRA, but he recognized the car. A blue Camaro. An older style with some rust. Had he driven one while on a mission?

“Where’d you get this?” His eyes wandered over the black leather interior as Rowan fished a cell phone out of a purple duffle bag and crushed it in her palm before letting the pieces fall to the ground.

“Souvenir from a mission.” Nothing more was said as Rowan and Bucky fastened their seatbelts and pulled out of the garage. Bucky stayed silent as Rowan shifted gears and slowly pulled out of the garage into the bumbling suburb streets. By the sun, he figured they were heading west.

-TTA-

A small neighborhood hugging the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. Steve’s eyes roamed the different camera angles when finally, they landed on two figures walking casually to a garage down a narrow alleyway off of West Webster Avenue.

The man was over six foot, wearing a baseball hat with brown hair sticking out the back. His stride was large and his stature was rigid. His head never moved much, but to trained eyes, one could tell he was skillfully scanning the area.

“Are you sure Nat? I’m not going to be running around on a wild goose chase every time we see a couple and the guy has long brown hair. The man bun thing is in now you know. We can’t even see their faces right now. And that woman’s hair could be any color. Hell we can’t even see it under the beanie she has on.” Nat blew a warm breathe of air out her nose in slight annoyance, or maybe it was scolding, Steve couldn’t really tell most of the time, but he knew an explanation of why she was right was on its way.

“It healed most of the way. If you know what to look for you can see that her right leg from the knee down swings out just a few degrees wider than her left leg as she puts her foot down, almost like she’s bow-legged.” Natasha rewound the footage of the couple walking from a brick apartment building to a garage a few meters down the gravel alley. Steve looked closely this time. His eyes widened for a moment before narrowing in frustration.

“She lied. God dammit why did she lie to us Natasha?”

“Language Capsicle. Princess Leia probably has a reason to keep your BFF to herself.” Tony strolled in casually, bag of blueberries in his hand. He popped one in and looked at a smaller computer screen sitting on the desk nearest to him. It had a small blinking red light on it, text zipping quickly across the screen.

“You know she hates when you call her that. And Tony is right Steve, like I told you earlier, there’s probably a legitimate reason for her not coming in with him.”

“No reason is good enough for him not to come back! Don’t you get that? He’s been gone for years and he needs someone he knows and trusts! I can help him through this; I know I can. I owe him that much.”

“You sure about that Cap? Because it seems like you wanting to find him has more to do with your inner demons than you think. You don’t owe him anything; what happened to him wasn’t your fault. He’s a soldier, he knew the risks when he signed up. ”

“He didn’t sign-“

“Not the point I’m trying to make here Steve.” Tony closed his eyes for a long moment before putting the blueberries on the computer desk and walking up to stand next to Steve and Natasha. His posture was no longer casual, but a bit pinched at the shoulders.

“After Afghanistan, hell even after New York, I had a lot of problems. You guys know how hard it was for me to be around everyone. Sometimes it takes being around a stranger, someone who’s been through what you have but doesn’t really know too much about you personally to really be able to get to the bottom of the issue and work it out. I know that’s what helped me, going to the Vet meetings at the church.” And talking with Rowan till all hours of the night at the top of Stark Tower. Though Tony left that part out. Rowan was adamant she “wanted to keep her badass black soul reputation fresh.”

Natasha kept reading the computer screens, typing fervently trying to get a better angle on the suspected Bucky and Rowan. She understood where Tony was coming from, and figured he might be able to get it through the super soldiers thick head about why Bucky might not come running home. Steve looked down at his boots guiltily. Tony grabbed his blueberries and started for the door.

“And you both know how much I hate going to church. Oh and better get a glimpse of them while you can. JARVIS shows that the scrambler Rowan has on her car is about to finish calibrating.” Tony turned, posture casual once again, and walked out the metal framed door. Natasha slammed her fist on the desk as all the camera angles turned to black screens. Steve fell into a chair and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.

-TTA-

“How do you know we’re out of sight? We’re still pretty close to the city. There’s camera’s everywhere.” Bucky tried to remain casual in the passenger seat as Rowan struggled to find a parking spot outside of a Kohl’s on the southwest side of Chicago. It was busy for a Monday morning but Bucky needed new clothes and she’d rather get everything before they start their road trip than have to stop halfway through.

“All of my vehicles are equipped with Stark scrambling technology. Tony is aware but he won’t let Nat and Steve know about it. We had a little chat last night.” Bucky pursed his lips and gave a short nod as Rowan parked and turned off the car.

As they walked into Kohl’s, Rowan clicked a button on her key fob to lock the Camaro. As Bucky heard the car beep to signal its lock, all the store lights went out for a few seconds before turning back on. Bucky looked around cautiously as the employees mumbled about the systems rebooting.

“There’s a scrambler in my key fob too. Stark really likes me.” Rowan had a cheeky grin on her face as she grabbed a cart and strolled to the men’s section, grabbing Bucky’s arm along the way.

About an hour later they had checked out and were on I-80 heading west. Old school rock drifted quietly out of the speakers. It wasn’t necessarily an uncomfortable silence, but Bucky hated it. He found himself wanting to speak. About something, anything. He didn’t really care.

“So, uh Rowan, where exactly are we headed?” He kept his gaze shifted out the window, watching the gargantuan white windmills as their propellers gently lulled through the air, creating energy for who knows how many homes out here.

“We’ll have to figure out the rest of the plan from there. It’s the third of April. I figure by the end of this month we should be touching down in Japan. That should be enough time for them to already do a big sweep overseas.” Bucky was impressed by how in depth Rowan had already planned their travel. He still had a few concerns though.

“Won’t they be searching everywhere until they find us? If Steve is still the same as I remember, he won’t stop.”

“You’re right Mr. Barnes, Steve isn’t gonna stop, and as much as Nat loves me I doubt she’ll actively try to stop him from finding us. Tony is pretty complacent for me to work with so if I need him to throw them off our trail I’ll call him. But it’ll be fun to see how long that’ll take.”

His brain was still itching every time he tried to think too hard about how familiar Rowan was. He was getting better at ignoring the alarm going off in his head when he saw her face, though he still wasn’t confident that was the best thing to do.

It was a pleasant sound Bucky decided; not like some of the other women’s voices he recalled from his time in HYDRA. The thicker accent and her playful banter lightened his mood. Rowan eyed him. From this view she could see the edges of his eyes crinkling up ever so slightly; a tell-tale sign that he was about to let out a smile.

“Letting you drive is enough trust testing I can handle for any twenty four hour period.” Bucky rubbed his chin with his flesh hand. The crinkles moved from his eyes to his forehead.

She kept reminding herself this wasn’t technically a mission or a job. She was helping someone. When her emerald eyes met the downcast face of Bucky she turned off the radio. He was glaring at his left hand, rubbing his fingers from his right hand over the silver palm.

“I can’t tell if I can really feel anything with it, or if it’s just my brain playing tricks on me since I know what my other hand is doing.” Rowan could hear the disparity in the man’s voice. She hopped over a couple lanes to catch the visitor’s stop just in time, narrowly missing getting clipped by a semi. Bucky sat rigid in his seat.

“Come on, out we go.” The tall woman held Bucky’s door open expectantly waiting for him to emerge. She grabbed his flesh hand and led him down the dirt path into a small cluster of trees, hitting her key fob as they went. She slowed as they passed the cluster of young birch trees and turned, grabbing Bucky’s left hand.

“Close your eyes. Go on, we haven’t got all day you spoon.” Bucky raised a thick eyebrow at the odd insult before closing his eyes slowly.

It was a little sticky with sweat. He grasped it and ran his thumb over her palm; softly at first, then a bit harder. He could almost feel the creases in her hands. He felt where the ridges from the plates caught on Rowan’s callouses running along her palm and fingers, hard from years of action, like his remaining flesh hand.

She took his arm and led him to a patch of day lilies. He outstretched his hand carefully. He could feel how delicate they were. He lightly brushed his hand through the patch of flowers and the edges of his eyes creased in an almost smile at the feather light sensation. They were cool to the touch. He was sure he could tell they were supposed to be velvety smooth. But again, he just wasn’t quite convinced.

Her eyes were bright in the mid-morning sun. Her auburn hair fell over the right side of her face, she brushed it back and outstretched her hand to Bucky’s own. He took it with his left, the urge to try to feel everything with it stronger now. Rowan pulled Bucky up swiftly from his kneeling position and let go as he brushed dirt off his knees.

She seemed like she had good intentions, and she claimed to be a friend of Steve’s. Something he wasn’t entirely sure of, Steve and Rowan didn’t seem compatible. Steve was a straight-laced guy. Rowan seemed a little… off the deep end on some matters. But people changed. Last time he remembers interacting with Steve he was a bit edgier.

How simple their lives must be compared to his. He wondered how that would feel; worrying about mundane things like how much it would be to fix the car, what to make for supper, how much the next doctor’s office trip would run him. He also heard a low male voice coming from their twelve o’clock. It seemed Rowan caught it a few moments after him.

Rowan looked towards Bucky, semi-alarm running along her features. There was no way any cameras pinged their location. No way would she or Bucky not have noticed someone following them.

And while she was sure every agent of SHIELD, HYDRA, FBI, CIA, or any other flavor of government agency had been alerted to Bucky’s status, she doubted they’d have people actively driving cross country looking for them. The only person besides herself and Bucky who knew about the Camaro was Tony Stark. He’d helped her rebuild the engine a few years ago on a slow weekend.

Bucky assumed the black Jeep Cherokee idling in park next to the Camaro was what they pulled in on. The two men, who looked to be in their late twenties, wore dark hoodies, with beanies pulled tight over their heads. One had a handgun tucked into the back waistband on his jeans and the other had one on the side of his right hip, tucked into a holster, hoodie doing a poor job of concealing it.

Rowan laid a firm hand on his forearm, effectively stopping him from charging the two men. She put a slender finger to her lips before she motioned for them to keep listening and watch them. Bucky took a deep breath and let it out quietly through his lips. He tried to stop the shaking throughout his hands.

“You sure it’s just been sitting here? No one has been here?”

“No dude, this chick and her boyfriend headed out to the woods like twenty minutes ago. Probably just fuckin’ around. Let’s get it and go before they come back.” The guy turned towards the woods, keeping an eye out for anyone walking back. Rowan and Bucky ducked behind the thick brush by the opening of the trail.

The day was young. Rowan pulled her fob out of the small pocket from the inside waistband of her leggings and hit a button. A loud, shrill alarm went off. Both men threw their hands over their ears and turned around quickly. Rowan stopped Bucky from coming out of the woods.

One Bucky hadn’t seen her press yet. A light blue surge of energy exploded from the undercarriage of the Camaro, knocking both men to their feet. Rowan turned slightly and motioned for Bucky to come forward. As he drew nearer he made the assumption that both men were unconscious.

Producing two sets of handcuffs from a hidden compartment in the truck, Rowan tossed a set to Bucky. He followed Rowan’s actions and pulled the man into the back seat of the Jeep. He cuffed one arm before looping the short metal chain through the ‘oh shit’ handle and securing the man’s other arm. Rowan produced a cell phone from somewhere Bucky didn’t want to focus too hard on and dialed a number she knew by heart.

“Hey Tobey. Yeah I got a couple of guys out your way who were trying to car jack me. No not the Impala. It’s still safely tucked away in New York. My Camaro. Yeah that one. No I’m not getting his autograph for you. I just need to make sure the cops get them but I don’t have time to wipe my prints and such. I’ll take care of everything else for you. Great! Thanks Tobes. Yeah I’ll get with you soon. Bye.” Rowan hung up and tucked the phone away.

Bucky stood with his back to the Jeep, facing the woods. He was still trying to subdue the shaking in his hands. He almost jumped when Rowan sidled up beside him. She kept her gaze forward.

“Ya know if I didn’t know any better I’d say we need to get your blood sugar up some. My hands get shaky when I don’t eat often enough. There’s a McDonald’s at the next exit. Sound good?” Bucky knew his blood pressure wasn’t low, and he knew Rowan knew that too. But he still appreciated the gesture.

He was ashamed of himself. He wasn’t on the battle field, this wasn’t a professionally trained operative coming to kill him. This was an every-day petty crime event. Childs play compared to some of the things he was used to being around.

He took a small step towards the Camaro before he staggered a bit, a dull throb encasing his head. A dim memory made its way to the forefront of his brain. A little brown-haired boy, with a smaller brown-haired girl next to him, sat in a well-lit living room. Bucky felt himself stretch and pop his neck as he kept his eyes on the children. They were playing checkers.

“Haide, soldat, nu avem toata noaptea. Acesta este jocul copiilor. Finalizati-le.” The harsh Romanian voice cut through the earpiece, like gravel sliding across glass it ended the silence that had been surrounding him. He lifted his sniper rifle, eye piece easing into place a few inches away from his alert blue eyes.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of that memory, and moved to open the car door as a white hot pain travelled from behind his eyes down his spine. Lighting up every nerve ending as if they were being electrocuted individually. He opened his eyes wide and frantically searched for Rowan over the top of the blue car.

“Rowan, I… something’s wr-“ He tried to finish his sentence but everything went black.

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2ptonpt · 6 years

Text

This Time Around Ch. 3

A strange woman Bucky is sure he knows but can't fully recognize, picks him up after the fall of SHIELD. She claims to be friends with Steve and that she is here to help him. He can't help but keep wondering where he knows her from; it's definitely not through Steve Rogers.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/ OC(Rowan O'Connor)

Word Count: 4,154

Rating: M

Masterlist

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

The next morning, they headed out the back door of the three story building. Bucky had his shoulder length brown hair mostly hidden under a Family Business Brewing Co. baseball cap, with the remainder of it sticking out the back in a small bun. He had shaved his face, giving him more of a five o’clock shadow rather than a bordering-on-homeless look. Rowan was dressed in green leggings and a pink tank top; a black oversized beanie covering up her auburn hair. She opted out of hiking boots, unlike Bucky, and sported a pair of comfortable running shoes instead. To any passersby, they looked like a young couple heading out to go camping for the weekend.

“Don’t judge me, I know its cliché. It’s not my normal choice but it’s the only one that has fuel in it right now. We don’t have time to stop for any until we get out of the city. I’m pretty sure by now Nat will have figured out which home I was talking about last night.” Rowan filled the back seat up with the few duffel bags she had carried downstairs, along with some empty ones. She had planned to find a clothing store on the outskirts of the city for Bucky. The raglan shirt and jeans she had given him were a bit too small. Luckily the boots were on the perfect side of snug for him.

-TTA-

“Got her.” Steve’s head snapped up, blue eyes following Natasha’s voice over to a group of large screens decorating the south wall of the room. They currently showed different angles of a back alleys and brick buildings. The location at the bottom right of the screen read “BUCKTOWN”. A small neighborhood hugging the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. Steve’s eyes roamed the different camera angles when finally, they landed on two figures walking casually to a garage down a narrow alleyway off of West Webster Avenue.

To anyone else, the couple appeared casually dressed, like they were running errands or going on a trip somewhere, if the duffel bags were any indication. The woman was tall, nearly six foot it looked like, even in running shoes. She had a black, oversized beanie covering her hair. The man was over six foot, wearing a baseball hat with brown hair sticking out the back. His stride was large and his stature was rigid. His head never moved much, but to trained eyes, one could tell he was skillfully scanning the area.

“When Rowan was in the Sector she was on a mission to eradicate a biochemical warfare research facility in Chechnya. The building exploded and her right leg was crushed at the knee. They almost had to replace it with an enhanced prosthetic. It healed most of the way. If you know what to look for you can see that her right leg from the knee down swings out just a few degrees wider than her left leg as she puts her foot down, almost like she’s bow-legged.” Natasha rewound the footage of the couple walking from a brick apartment building to a garage a few meters down the gravel alley. Steve looked closely this time. His eyes widened for a moment before narrowing in frustration.

“She lied. God dammit why did she lie to us Natasha?”

“You know she hates when you call her that. And Tony is right Steve, like I told you earlier, there’s probably a legitimate reason for her not coming in with him.”

“He didn’t sign-“

"And you both know how much I hate going to church. Oh and better get a glimpse of them while you can. JARVIS shows that the scrambler Rowan has on her car is about to finish calibrating.” Tony turned, posture casual once again, and walked out the metal framed door. Natasha slammed her fist on the desk as all the camera angles turned to black screens. Steve fell into a chair and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.

-TTA-

“Faith, South Dakota. After we load up on supplies we’ll head out to the Cheyenne River Reservation. I figure we camp out there for a couple weeks then head up to Vancouver. I’ve got a safe house up there no one knows about. We can grab my other passports and have some made for you. Then Juneau to a charter plane that will take us to St. Lawrence Island and last but not least I’ve got a friend who owes me a favor. He said he can get us as far west as Japan. We’ll have to figure out the rest of the plan from there. It’s the third of April. I figure by the end of this month we should be touching down in Japan. That should be enough time for them to already do a big sweep overseas.” Bucky was impressed by how in depth Rowan had already planned their travel. He still had a few concerns though.

“Won’t they be searching everywhere until they find us? If Steve is still the same as I remember, he won’t stop.”

“Why are we camping out in South Dakota for half the month? Why don’t we just get out now while we have them scrambled?” Bucky figured she was going to answer the same way his own thought process was heading, but he just wanted to see how aligned their thinking was. His brain was still itching every time he tried to think too hard about how familiar Rowan was. He was getting better at ignoring the alarm going off in his head when he saw her face, though he still wasn’t confident that was the best thing to do.

“Barnes, seriously? I know you know why I’m doing this. Is this some sort of trust test? Wouldn’t it be more entertaining to do some trust fall exercises instead? I promise I won’t drop you.” The teasing in her voice deepened her accent. It was a pleasant sound Bucky decided; not like some of the other women’s voices he recalled from his time in HYDRA. The thicker accent and her playful banter lightened his mood. Rowan eyed him. From this view she could see the edges of his eyes crinkling up ever so slightly; a tell-tale sign that he was about to let out a smile.

“Letting you drive is enough trust testing I can handle for any twenty four hour period.” Bucky rubbed his chin with his flesh hand. The crinkles moved from his eyes to his forehead.

“Hey! I’m an excellent driver.” Rowan took her eyes completely off the road when Bucky didn’t have a response. She had been trying to come off as less edgy than she was accused of being in the past. Sometimes she got too into the mission on hand. She kept reminding herself this wasn’t technically a mission or a job. She was helping someone. When her emerald eyes met the downcast face of Bucky she turned off the radio. He was glaring at his left hand, rubbing his fingers from his right hand over the silver palm.

“Close your eyes. Go on, we haven’t got all day you spoon.” Bucky raised a thick eyebrow at the odd insult before closing his eyes slowly.

“Take a deep breath. There you go. Just relax.” She released his right hand from hers and it dropped softly to his side. She only held his left hand. It was a weird sensation. He could feel her hand, the warmth. It was a little sticky with sweat. He grasped it and ran his thumb over her palm; softly at first, then a bit harder. He could almost feel the creases in her hands. He felt where the ridges from the plates caught on Rowan’s callouses running along her palm and fingers, hard from years of action, like his remaining flesh hand.

“See, you can feel. It’s not your mind playing tricks on you. I reviewed all your files. They connected your nerves to different parts of the arm. It’s pretty much your own, just a different color... And material I suppose, but that’s all semantics. Personally I think you pull off silver over gold any day.” Bucky looked up at Rowan’s teasing voice. Her eyes were bright in the mid-morning sun. Her auburn hair fell over the right side of her face, she brushed it back and outstretched her hand to Bucky’s own. He took it with his left, the urge to try to feel everything with it stronger now. Rowan pulled Bucky up swiftly from his kneeling position and let go as he brushed dirt off his knees.

They walked silently back through the small wooded patch in a content silence. Rowan was staring ahead, in deep thought it seemed. Bucky wondered what she could be thinking about. Did she still not know if going all over the world with him until he regained his memories was the best idea? If she didn’t, he couldn’t argue with her. He didn’t even think it was a good idea. He was still on the fence about it himself. She seemed like she had good intentions, and she claimed to be a friend of Steve’s. Something he wasn’t entirely sure of, Steve and Rowan didn’t seem compatible. Steve was a straight-laced guy. Rowan seemed a little… off the deep end on some matters. But people changed. Last time he remembers interacting with Steve he was a bit edgier.

Bucky shook his head. He was starting to get a headache from all this thinking. He closed his eyes briefly as he walked, the warmth radiating off Rowan half guiding him through the small trees. He heard birds chirping, Rowan’s leggings making a soft swooshing sound as her thighs brushed against each other as she took otherwise silent steps next to him; a little further off he could hear the droning of the cars and trucks zooming down the interstate. How simple their lives must be compared to his. He wondered how that would feel; worrying about mundane things like how much it would be to fix the car, what to make for supper, how much the next doctor’s office trip would run him. He also heard a low male voice coming from their twelve o’clock. It seemed Rowan caught it a few moments after him.

Rowan looked towards Bucky, semi-alarm running along her features. There was no way any cameras pinged their location. No way would she or Bucky not have noticed someone following them. And while she was sure every agent of SHIELD, HYDRA, FBI, CIA, or any other flavor of government agency had been alerted to Bucky’s status, she doubted they’d have people actively driving cross country looking for them. The only person besides herself and Bucky who knew about the Camaro was Tony Stark. He’d helped her rebuild the engine a few years ago on a slow weekend.

Bucky rounded the corner first, putting himself in front of Rowan. Instinct he supposed, though he didn’t think it was from his Winter Soldier days. Rowan poked her head around Bucky’s shoulder, not having to reach much at all, already being almost his height already. They saw two men walking around the Camaro, trying to nonchalantly peek inside. Bucky assumed the black Jeep Cherokee idling in park next to the Camaro was what they pulled in on. The two men, who looked to be in their late twenties, wore dark hoodies, with beanies pulled tight over their heads. One had a handgun tucked into the back waistband on his jeans and the other had one on the side of his right hip, tucked into a holster, hoodie doing a poor job of concealing it.

Bucky rolled his shoulders and grabbed for the glock he had secured under the waistband of his pants. Gripping the gun with his right hand, the gears of his left arm whirred lowly as it calibrated, something he figured happened when he told his arm to flex when he was preparing for a fight. Rowan laid a firm hand on his forearm, effectively stopping him from charging the two men. She put a slender finger to her lips before she motioned for them to keep listening and watch them. Bucky took a deep breath and let it out quietly through his lips. He tried to stop the shaking throughout his hands.

“You sure it’s just been sitting here? No one has been here?”

“Shit, okay let’s hurry then.” Rowan and Bucky exchanged a relieved look. Weight seemed to be lifted from both their shoulders as they realized the two men were merely low life car-jackers. No special agents from either side of the law coming to get them, yet at least. The day was young. Rowan pulled her fob out of the small pocket from the inside waistband of her leggings and hit a button. A loud, shrill alarm went off. Both men threw their hands over their ears and turned around quickly. Rowan stopped Bucky from coming out of the woods.

“Your face is all over social media and the news. I can handle these guys. I won’t even need your gun.” She winked his way then stepped out, conveying the posture of a scared woman. The men grabbed their guns when they noticed Rowan all alone. She didn’t even give them a chance to put their fingers on the trigger before she pressed the fourth button on the key fob. One Bucky hadn’t seen her press yet. A light blue surge of energy exploded from the undercarriage of the Camaro, knocking both men to their feet. Rowan turned slightly and motioned for Bucky to come forward. As he drew nearer he made the assumption that both men were unconscious.

“Yeah, sounds good to me.” Truth was, he was itching for a fight. His body was shaking slightly, his head on fire. It was almost as if he could physically feel the painful urge to end those men’s lives. He was ashamed of himself. He wasn’t on the battle field, this wasn’t a professionally trained operative coming to kill him. This was an every-day petty crime event. Childs play compared to some of the things he was used to being around.

“Rowan, I… something’s wr-“ He tried to finish his sentence but everything went black.

#marvel #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes x oc #Bucky Barnes oc #The Winter Soldier #James Buchanan Barnes #2ptonpt #This Time Around #Bucky Barnes fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #avengers #Captain America #James Barnes #SHIELD #Rowan OConnor #Chapter 3 #Civil War

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kiss-my-freckle · 6 years

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There’s just too much to gif, so I’m gonna throw all these dialogues into one post. Two whole truths. One for Red, one for Tom. Each whole truth comes in two parts. For Red, it’s who Red is to Liz and who Liz is to Red. For Tom, he was a confluence of peril having two employers. It all goes back to Red’s little chat with Liz in Milton Bobbit’s episode.

But first, we have to look at the pre-pilot dialogue he gave to Kate because it’s the entire reason Red turned himself in. This is where he connected Tom to elements from Katarina’s past. Not Liz’s past, not Red’s past, but Katarina’s past. The fact that he spoke of Katarina’s past rather than her life means that Katarina has a present. She has a current life.

Red: As I feared would happen, elements from Katarina’s past are circling Elizabeth like a pack of wolves in the night. I put Tom Keen in her life to keep an eye on her, and he married her. Kate: This isn’t about Tom Keen. It’s about your need for control. Red: Indeed. I need to control the danger to Elizabeth. I’ve built a vast criminal network predicated on that very principal. It’s time to live up to my mission statement.

Liz asked for the “whole truth” back in Ivan’s episode. To which Red replied with regards to Tom’s “whole truth.”

Liz: You said there’s always something you’re not telling me. Just once, I’d like to hear the whole truth from you. Red: I wish I knew the whole truth.

Back in Milton Bobbit’s episode, Red basically told Liz that the whole truth first required they find out who Tom is and who he works for. The rest of this whole truth would come in their investigation.

Liz: How are we connected? Red: That is just a distraction. Liz: No, that is all that matters! This is my life! Tell me! Red: Right now, the only thing that matters, is the immediate threat - your husband. Finding out who he is and who he works for. The rest will come. I promise you.

But their investigation into Tom didn’t bring much, since they shoved Victor Fokin’s murder under the rug. Allowed Gina to take the fall for Tom. I believe the Fowler murder will bring the Fokin murder back into story, since I believe Red framed Tom for Fowler’s murder just as he framed Red for Fokin’s. In season two, they revealed the first half of Tom’s truth. His alignment with Berlin. At that point, I believe Tom had half of Liz’s truth given his work for Constantin.

Red: When I hired Tom Keen, it was at a time of profound transition in your life. You’d already left behind the relative safety and innocence of youth. Sam’s care as a father had served you well, but you’d outgrown him. And I knew that eventually my life would jeopardize yours. So, in an admittedly presumptuous and ultimately futile effort to keep you safe, I hired Tom simply to be there as a friend of a friend to look after you from an arm’s length. When I learned that your relationship had become intimate, I fired him. I should’ve removed him, but you were already in love with him. And Tom, he shifted his allegiance to Berlin. In part to protect himself from me, but also because it allowed for an inextricable intimacy and commitment to you. And so you were married. And I couldn’t stay away any longer. A confluence of peril had entered your life, and I wanted to be within reach, to have influence. I turned myself in to the FBI to point you toward a truth that inevitably you would have to discover for yourself. Liz: Is that all of it? Red: Some of it. Liz: Why couldn’t you just have said yes? It wouldn’t kill you to lie just once to make someone feel good.

They never went back to explain the rest of Red’s & Tom’s "whole truth.” Instead, they had Liz on the run, and Red warning her about Tom before the S3 wedding.

Bring us to current. Liz knows that Red isn’t the real Red, so she knows half of Red’s truth. She knows that everything about him is a lie. The only part of his truth she doesn’t know, is his true identity. Once she has that, she’ll know why Red did as he did. But to get that, she has to learn the other half of Tom’s truth. Because the other half of Tom’s truth is that very connection to Katarina’s past. Her husband, Constantin Rostov.

Garvey: Let’s start with the truth. Red: You have the bones. You already know the truth. Garvey: A truth. I want the whole truth. Red: The whole truth is that we are all clinging to a lovely blue ball floating in a sea of blackness. Everything else, including and most especially the truth you’re looking for, is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

I believe Red came to Tom’s full truth in The Thrushes, when Liz revealed the fabricated DNA report in the SVR file while on the phone with Kirk. That, along with the blood pool Red left in Arioch Cain when he faked Liz’s death. Alexander Kirk was the only person who responded to Red’s signature message, and that DNA report shouldn’t have been in the SVR file, so I believe Red’s repsonse to Liz’s statement furthers my theory.

Tom came to Red’s full truth because of his alignment with Constantin. He could, in looking at those DNA results, understand why Kirk would let Red go. But he couldn’t by any estimation understand why Red would let Kirk go. This was shown in Lipet’s episode.

Tom: Yeah. So, I know we’re moving out, but just a quick gut check here. Kirk is gone. But according to Reddington, he’s what, dead? Not dead? He’s definitely not in jail. Liz: I don’t know. With Reddington, I don’t assume anything.

Because the only way to prove the body in the duffel bag was Red’s, was to pull a genetic match to Jennifer. What Tom would’ve seen tells us everything we need to know. Just as much, all Garvey needed to know. Red would’ve been listed as the body in the bag, Lilly/Jennifer being the match, Carla/Naomi being her mother - both needing to be in the WITSEC program. What’s missing, was Garvey’s knowledge of Liz and her connection to our Red. Liz is his daughter. Then what you have, is what Tom already knew. Masha became Liz and was given up for adoption to Sam. Not by her father, since he’s lying dead in a duffel bag. Her mother was alive at that point, so the only person we know with certainty knew Sam, was Katarina herself.

Tom: Because I know the truth. I know everything. And now Liz is gonna know too.

Tom’s alignment with Constantin Rostov should bring in the following bits of storyline from past seasons, filling in those holes left behind.

Tom’s three passports from Red’s trusted forger in Warsaw. The Fokin & Fowler murders. The second Krilov memory wipe. Gina’s role and relationship to Tom. The mark in Tom’s passport box and Liz’s scar. - Insert Fagen here. Tom’s whisper: “Your father’s alive”

Liz won’t know about Katarina until she also learns about Tom’s work for Constantin. That’s what I’m expecting next season. Full of reveals that lead us to a S7 war. The Rostovas vs the blue players, with the task force fully backing Red & Liz. S7 is where I suspect the story of ballerina girl to unfold. The Takoma Park house story in Madeline Pratt’s episode.

So at this point, Liz needs to discover Tom’s work for Constantin Rostov, then learn that Red is actually Katarina. Only then will it truly be over. This, explaining what Red meant to Tom in the car before his death.

Red: I’ll say this for you - you’ve always believed that you were acting in her best interest. Selling me out to Berlin, faking her death - you always thought you were helping her.

Because Tom believed Red to be the bad man who kidnapped Masha from her real father, Constantin Rostov. Like Kirk, Tom trusted the validity of the DNA report fabricated by Katarina.... who’s now known as Raymond Reddington.

The audience has everything they need. Given the truth of Liz being our Red’s daughter during Kirk’s torture of Red. The writers confirmed this. Then Red being an imposter Red. The writers confirmed this. If he’s not her father, he’s her mother. Period.

#Rederina #The Blacklist #Anti-Tom Keen #Anti-Keen2

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