ray

The monster’s clutching you too tight, you're gasping for air. Your dominant arm is free, grenade in hand, even if your other arm is squashed in against your side. The fucker’s whipping you around like a litigiously unregulated county fair ride; black edges your vision and your head pounds horribly. You manage to arm the grenade with your teeth and grip it, breathless, waiting.

You need the hydra to screech again. You need the great stinking mouth open, throwing saliva and mucus past rows of needle teeth, the perfect basket in which to throw your one and only egg.

Leon’s already caught on.

A single splattering gunshot splits the air and the monster jerks, limbs flying skyward as it screams in fury; you’re helplessly along for the ride, heaved almost directly above it – and here’s your window.

You drop the grenade. It goes right down the gullet.

The explosion ruptures the monster’s body cavity in a great geyser of green and black gore. Its limbs thrash and flail, whipping high, slamming into the ground. You brace as the arm gripping you speeds for the ground, but then it swings you around and back up, your stomach lurching violently, and –

It throws you.

Your heart and lungs hitch, suspended; time runs slow as you arc high, tumbling, too high, way too high – and start falling. You see where you’re going to land and curl yourself into a ball, protecting your head and neck.

Your body blows a hole right through the lake ice, plunging into the freezing water below.

Leon’s already running.

The hydra is nothing but a tangled, limp, caved-in pile of slop, disregarded the second Leon saw you go airborne. He’s running, stripping off his jacket, ripping open the buckles on his chest rig, tearing off his tac belt, leaving a trail of weapons and ammunition and nylon webbing strewn in his wake. He reaches the bank in his street clothes, shoes skidding to a stop just before the water, breath loud in his ears and visible in the air.

The jagged crater you left in the ice is still sloshing dark, slushy water.

You haven’t come up for air.

“Fuck.”

He looks down at the scuffed grey ice pack, gauges the distance to you, and sprints.

The ice groans and cracks under his feet; he keeps moving. He closes the gap, every pounding footfall turbulence that fractures the lake ice in great echoing snaps, the whole thick sheet weakened by the violence of your intrusion. Finally, with a leap that calves the ice beneath him, Leon dives into the freezing water after you.

The shock of the cold pulls on Leon’s lungs, he has to fight against the primal instinct to gasp. His limbs are immediately leaden, but he doesn't stop moving. The flat grey daylight barely filters through the murky ice above and the water is dark with disturbed silt. He kicks towards the lakebed in search of you, his pounding heartbeat a timer counting down.

Something that looks like a branch solidifies into your arm, limp hand floating in a slack reach skyward. Leon grabs your wrist, hauling your dead weight towards himself, hooking his arms underneath your shoulders and swimming up for the gap in the ice.

He heaves in air when your heads breach the surface.

You do not.

“Don’t you dare,” he growls through gritted teeth, and manages to slide you up onto the ice pack, pushing you clear as he kicks his legs up behind himself and drags flat onto the ice beside you. He moves you onto a thick, uncracked stretch of ice and pushes you onto your back, plugging your nose and forcing air into your mouth.

You choke, spurting dirty lake water, rolling onto your side and spitting up more, coughing and heaving. You try to prop yourself up on your elbow, your throat raw and tight, nose stinging and burning. Your eyes are blurry when you open them, your ears are waterlogged. You squeeze your eyes shut and blink them clear enough to see what keeps pulling at you.

It’s Leon, wet and pale, saying something to you, his eyes intense. You squint at his mouth, trying to read his lips because your ears might as well have been left underwater for all the good they’re doing you.

Get up

We need to move

Can you “hear me? We have to go, now!”

As if to punctuate his statement, the ice below you jerks, a crack scything underneath your body like a bolt of lightning. You recoil onto your hip and Leon pulls at your arm, pulls you up, the ice creaking and popping under your shoes.

“Run!”

It’s a bit much to ask.

You do your best, stumbling after Leon, short on breath and coughing. You’d impacted the ice with your left shoulder, the force ramming your curled arm into your ribs, hard. That side is tight and painful, and you know you’re too frozen to feel the full extent of it yet. It’s really not gonna be pretty.

Your foot catches on a rising gap in the ice and trips you; you slide and weakly scramble back to your feet. Ahead of you, Leon’s almost to the shore.

You’re almost there.

You hit the bank on your hands and knees, gasping. Your fingers, clawing into the crumbling dirt, are pale, the nail beds blue. You can barely feel the dry grit of the cold earth under your hands.

Leon grabs the collar of your jacket and yanks you to standing.

“Keep moving. Keep moving, come on.” He grabs your hand, already running, pulling you after him.

You half-register the scattered bullet clips, weaponry, and leather jacket on the bank as you run in Leon’s wake. You pass the fuckass hydra; it’s nothing but a gelatinous stinking puddle that you quickly leave behind.

The thin, brittle air razors through your lungs, freezing and metallic. The bitter wind axes at you. You can’t feel your extremities; you keep stumbling and it’s slowing you down. Leon looks back just in time to watch you actually fall, tripping in a rut, knees slamming into the ground. He runs back to you and helps you up. You’re both breathing shallow, wracked with tremors, teeth chattering and skin close to blue.

“Almost there. Come on.”

Leon’s car is half-hidden behind a broken fence and an overgrown shrub, parked haphazard on the dry, patchy grass. He hits the driver’s side door with more momentum than he meant to, pressing his thumb to the door handle; it unlocks and he yanks it open. You hear the whole car unlock, the lights flashing, and he slaps the driver’s door shut in favor of the backseat.

“Get in. Get in!”

You slip in the back passenger’s door just as he slides in on the other side, the both of you slamming the doors on the freezing wind. Leon immediately grabs the hem of his soaked shirt, peeling it over his head and dumping it over the headrests into the trunk. It lands with a wet plap.

“Wet stuff in the back,” he says, twisting over the seats to grab something out of the trunk. It’s a duffel; he grunts in frustration when his numb fingers fail at first to catch the handle but then he drags it into the backseat while you’re struggling out of your soaked jacket and shoving it over the backrests. It lands with an even wetter plorp.

You’re still wearing your chest rig; your numb, stiff fingers can’t get the fucking plastic buckles to open.

“Fuck!”

There’s a sharp snk noise; Leon shoves your hands clear and slips a folding knife under the nylon webbing of your rig. The straps pull taut and dig into your injured side, but then he’s cut clean through the belts and he’s helping untangle it from your arms. The buckles clatter against the back windshield as you throw it in the trunk. Leon uses the knife to make quick work of his shoelaces, kicking his soaked and muddy shoes into the footwell, then he leans across and holds your ankles steady, cutting your bootlaces while you peel your shirt up over your head. Your side screams at the stretch and you rasp out a cry of pain.

Your left side is already violently bruised, livid and dark against the pale blanch of your goosepimpled skin. You’re caught for a moment by the horrible picture it makes, trying to remember to breathe.

“Jesus,” Leon says in agreement. In your periphery, he’s struggling with his waterlogged skinny jeans and there’s suddenly a lot more skin above the line of his waistband; the denim sucked his boxer briefs halfway down his hips before he managed to shove the jeans to his knees and off. He throws the jeans in the back, pulls the waistband of his underwear up, and again he’s in your space undoing your useless fucking tac belt that your frozen fingers can’t open. His hands are just as cold and numb as your own, why the fuck do they work better than yours?

Wind gusts against the outside of the car, scratching the scraggly branches of the nearby shrub against the doors. You feel a draft even through the sealed door. Your teeth are clacking uncontrollably.

“Can we get the fucking heat running?” You shove your pants and boots into the trunk, smearing mud on the leather seat. Leon’s rooting through the duffel again.

“No.”

“No?”

“The keys are in my coat.”

“The fuck kind of agent are you? Hotwire the car.”

“Smart, when I can’t feel my hands,” he says, and shoves the duffel into the footwell, tearing open a passport-sized plastic package with his teeth and turning towards you on the seat. “Come here.”

He shakes out the mylar safety blanket and you realize exactly what’s going to have to happen, here. It’s a thought you’ve had triaged as a last-resort solution while stripping semi-nude in the backseat of his car; now it turns out it’s your only solution. He’s scooting to lay down across the backseat and you’re going to have to get on top of him. He’s scooting to lay down across the backseat in nothing but wet cotton boxer briefs and you’re going to have to get on top of him in nothing but a wet bra and panties, and then he’s going to close you both in under the mylar blanket to trap heat like you’re a fucking turkey in a roasting pan.

Fuck.

You clench your jaw against your chattering teeth and don’t let yourself hesitate. There’s no can or can’t here – you’re both freezing, this is life or death. So you climb up over him in the limited space available, helping to pull the mylar blanket around you and tuck it in under your shins, under his head and shoulders, sealing you together into a lumpy, creased foil bubble.

It’s not pitch black like you'd hoped. The mylar filters the grey daylight into a dim, intimate dusk. You can still see Leon’s face clearly, on your hands and knees above him; you could count his eyelashes if you could bear to look him in the eyes. You keep your head down and focus on the uncontrollable chatter of your teeth, the way your whole body is shivering unpleasantly, and not the way his knees are framing your hips. He’s too tall for the backseat.

Your disloyal stomach flutters when you feel his hand brush your darkened side.

“How are your ribs?” He presses his thumb carefully against the darkest patch, low on your ribcage, where your elbow impacted. You hiss and jerk away.

“Tenderized, Leon. Ow."

“How bad?”

“I don’t… think anything’s broken.”

“Deep breath in.”

You oblige, slow and careful, your ribs expanding over your lungs. It stings horribly, your skin feels too tight, but nothing stabs you. His hand rides the motion of your ribs, feeling for telltale hitches or jerks. It’s nothing but clinical.

“Alright,” he says, quiet. He eases his touch but doesn’t drop it away. You’re staring at your hand in the crumpled landscape of the mylar blanket over Leon’s shoulder, because everything else is his naked skin.

His hand moves from your side to your arm, fingers close to the bend in your elbow like he means to fold it.

“You gotta get down on me."

You want to laugh but your side only lets you make a pained huff through your chattering teeth.

"Nice one, icebrain. Lemme loop HR in real quick."

“The air pocket only works if one of us is warm,” he says, steamrolling the comment. And he’s right.

Fuck.

"I don't know where you think my knees are going."

You have to play some strange and painful backseat Twister, the foil blanket complicating shit by clinging to your damp skin and hair, but then you’ve puzzled yourselves together so you can drop onto him with a put-upon huff.

He hisses and pushes you back up by the shoulders.

“Fuck, how much water is in that thing?”

You both look down at your high-impact bra. Squeezed between the two of you, it's now weeping drops of frigid water down your stomach. It's also left an imprint across Leon's chest, wet enough to bead up and roll towards his armpits.

“You can’t be wearing that.”

“Leon–“

"No, this isn't an argument. That's over your heart."

Yes, but. It's also over your breasts. Preventing them from being all over Leon. All over Leon's naked skin.

"Do you trust me?"

You don't even hesitate, because that's the easy question.

"Yes."

It's a zip-front bra. His fingers touch the zipper.

"Okay?" His gaze is holding yours, strong, a promise to keep his eyes up.

It’s taking all your energy to appear calm and unaffected right now.

“Yeah. Fine."

It’s a relief, actually, the compression easing as he pulls the zipper down, releasing entirely when the sides come apart. It’s easier to breathe. He pushes the straps from your shoulders, brushes them down your arms until you can drop the soaked bra into the footwell, tucking the foil blanket back in place. His chest, still cold, feels warm against your freezing breasts.

He rubs the damp, freezing skin of your back, paying special attention to the deep impressions left by the bra seams like he can smooth them out, putty under his fingers.

“Do you know you're doing that.”

He stops. You shift, shoulderblades rolling under his hands.

“I didn't tell you to stop,” you say.

“Yes ma'am.”

Your head is turned away from his, because otherwise your nose would be right against his cheek. You have to maintain at least one boundary in the smoking ruin of all the others. He keeps stroking your back; the gentle flats of his palms, the firm pads of his fingers. You’re starting to feel like putty.

Your eyelids are heavy.

“Is it bad to fall asleep?”

He pinches you hard and you jolt away from it, knocking against the seatback. Your injured side flares with pain.

“Fuck! You ass,” you gasp, poking him hard between the ribs. He jerks under you, cursing, and you brace for retaliation, but he’s gone still.

And you register why.

His face is right under yours, noses almost touching. You’re sharing breath.

And something else is different.

“…Where are your hands?”

You know where they are. He moves them from your hips up to your back again.

“Good boy.”

You don’t know what fucking possessed you. It sounded like a joke in your head, but released into the narrow space between your faces it’s far more charged than that, because of course it is. You’re hearing it now, where it’s too late to take it back. You still have a brain like a frozen chicken cutlet, fucking cold and smooth, he has to understand–

He’s breathing out hot against your mouth, pushing his hands down to the small of your back, pressing your body tighter against his, and it ignites something sharp and fervid in your belly.

“Shit,” you whisper, and kiss him.

He meets it. He kisses you back like he’s just been waiting, gathering the damp hair at your nape with one hand, blunt nails scraping the skin of your neck. His other hand goes lower, the heel of his palm digging in, fingers gripping your ass. You gasp and roll your hips, body lighting up.

“Fuck,” he says into your mouth. “Careful with your side.”

“You be careful with my side.”

“Damn.”

“Shut up.” You fist his hair and pull his head back, kissing the taut line of his neck under his ear, scraping your teeth against the skin. He’s got both hands on your ass now, sliding his fingers under the sides of your panties to gather the fabric into a thong, palming the cool skin of your bared cheeks. You hum, rolling your hips again.

“You’ve got a fixation.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, unashamed. He smooths his hands down your thighs where they’re framing his sides, his fingertips digging in. You’re sitting on his pelvis, grinding on nothing but the flat of his low abdomen, his thighs closed behind your ass, his knees pressed to the car door. You kiss his mouth, open and loose, and speak against it.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you that cold?”

“Don’t be rude.”

You stop moving, pushing up to stare down at him. “Are you serious?”

“No.” He opens his legs, shifting his hips, and you gasp when you feel him against your ass. You shift back, rubbing yourself against the hardening length of his dick, the lake-wet fabric of your underwear dragging together, no longer cold and clammy where you’re touching. His breath tumbles hot from his open mouth, hips rolling to meet you.

“Fuck, Leon.” If this is him with shrinkage, how the hell has he been packing all that into skinny jeans all these years?

He’s watching you, his eyes half-lidded, hands on your naked waist. You sit up more, tipping your head back, running your hands along his forearms as you drag your wet pussy along the firm heat of his cock.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he tells you, molten. You groan, arching.

“Jesus. Keep talking like that.”

“Yeah?” He tugs you by the arms to bring you lower, kissing your neck with an open mouth, his scruff lightly scratching your skin and making you shiver. His hands find your breasts, thumbs circling your nipples, and your breath hitches. “Fuck, I’ve wanted to touch you like this.”

You laugh, just a teasing exhale against his lips. “What, cold and injured?”

He’s pulling the fabric of your panties to one side, holding it there, out of the way. You moan when he rubs his fingers through your drenched folds, slow.

“Naked and wet,” he growls, teeth grazing your shoulder. You whimper and thread your fingers into his hair, gripping, gasping when he circles your clit. Your hips jerk erratically; he’s mouthing kisses up the side of your neck, nipping lightly, then speaking against your skin, his voice subterranean.

“What do you want?”

Holy shit. You don’t remember what it feels like to be cold, anymore. Your body’s on fire. You’ve maybe never been this turned on in your life, and all this after a fucking ice bath.

“Take yourself out," you tell him. "I wanna feel you.”

The first drag of your wet cunt along the satin heat of his naked cock has him groaning, his hips rocking helplessly. You glide on him like that, wetting his dick, feeling it jump and throb between your pussy lips. You prop yourself up on his shoulders, pressing him down into the seat, grinding your clit firm against the head of his cock with little gyrations of your hips. He’s gripping your waist, mouth open, just watching you.

“I’ve never seen you so speechless,” you tell him.

“I’ve – shit – never seen you riding me.”

“Mm. Lucky day.”

“I know.”

“Any last words?”

“What?”

You cant your hips back, reaching down to guide the glistening head of Leon’s cock to your entrance. His fingers tighten on your sides, breathing in sharp.

“Be careful,” he says.

“You’re sweet,” you tell him, bearing down with little adjustments, caging his dick in place with your fingers. The tip of him presses into your tight wet heat and Leon gasps, head thumping back against the seat. You stare at the display of his body below you; the taut stretch of his neck, the flush of his chest, the tight muscles of his stomach as he works to keep his hips still, letting you control this. You take him into you in increments, the burning stretch of him blurring into white-hot pleasure, the length of him making your thighs shake before you’re finally fully seated, the throbbing heat of him bottomed out inside of you, filling you deep. You drop forward, hands on his shoulders, panting.

“Are you okay?”

You manage a nod. “God, Leon.”

He moves his hips, just a small adjustment, experimental. You gasp, lifting to half-mast him, sliding back down. He’s so thick.

Your thighs are shaking too much and you don’t exactly have the room to adjust. You lean down, desperate.

“Fuck me.”

He doesn’t need telling twice. He grips your ass, pushing you down into every thrust of his hips, long and slow at first so you can feel every inch, grinding tight against you when he bottoms out. He uses your breath by his ear as a barometer, picking up the pace, the wet glide turning into a wet slap, and turns his head to catch your moans in his mouth.

“Think you can come like this?”

“Limited menu of options, garçon,” you pant. There’s no fucking space back here.

“Tip your hips down,” he says.

You do; he slams in deep, grinding, putting delicious pressure on your clit. You cry out.

“Fuck, like that Leon!”

He pulls your earlobe into his mouth, sucking lightly, resuming the faster slap of his hips.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, filthy, and jesus christ, he is going to get an orgasm out of you. Almost just did.

“Shit,” you gasp. “Are you close?”

“Do you want me to be?”

You clench around him and he groans, hips stuttering.

“Fuck. I am if you do that,” he gasps. You do it again and he buries deep to grind on you, like he’s warring you, fighting to set you off first.

“Fuck, I’m close, I’m close,” you whimper, bouncing on him, stalling for time. He’s got you right on the edge and you don’t wanna go over yet. “With me. Come with me.”

He curses, fucking into you hard and fast, thrusts starting to go erratic. You keep a litany of babble going in his ear, obscene, feeling him catching up, drawing tight; and then he’s bottoming out hard against you, groaning brokenly as he pulses deep inside of you, your walls convulsing as the final slap of his hips sends you tumbling over the edge with him.

When you come back down to earth, the foil blanket is askew, his leg sticking out in the passenger’s side footwell, your forearm dangling in the driver’s side footwell. You’re lying bonelessly on top of Leon, riding the heaving of his chest as you both catch your breath. He pulls the mylar down to the middle of your back and the cold air raises new goosebumps on your flushed skin.

"I think that did the trick,” he says.

You hum, your eyes closed, face pressed to the side of Leon’s neck. He runs his thumb lightly along the dewy column of your spine.

“How’s your side?”

“Stings.”

He’s still inside you, starting to slip free as he softens. He gently pulls out and your forehead creases, a grumpy noise escaping you.

“Hey,” he says, soft. You don’t lift your head, it feels like too much effort. He shifts under you and you grumble your displeasure, but he’s just resettling you so you’re not leaning your bruised side so heavily against the seatback. He cards his fingers through your hair, pulling it back from your sweaty temple.

“I’m going to sleep,” you murmur. “Try to pinch me again and see what happens.”

He laughs, just a short rumble low in his chest.

“Worked out fine the first time.”

You smile, eyes closed, and tuck your arm in under his body.

“Beginner’s luck.”

There’s a lot of shit to do. There’s kit to grab from the beach, samples to take from the hydra, clothes to dry, reports to fill out, bruises to heal, complex developments to talk through with your partner.

But right now, there’s just Leon’s heartbeat and steady breathing beneath you, his fingers combing lazily through your hair, and you’re pretty sure it’s all gonna work out okay.

On AO3

Guys quick tip don’t take survival advice from a gratuitous x reader they probably died lmao

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leon, now retired, spends his time building cool shit for the baby. a fancy crib from scratch and the changing table, and a book shelf. yes, he’d bought the wooden planks, and he already had the supplies in the garage. he had also researched furiously about cribs, so much so that he could recite the entire history of cribs at this point. when you had walked in on him writing something over a large paper on the dining table, you were confused. turns out, he’d drawn a blueprint of the crib.

for him, creating something so meaningful after watching destruction everywhere he went time and again, it was healing, to say the least.

leon was learning one baby-related skill every single day—how to install car seats, how to baby-proof the lower cabinets, infant cpr, how to swaddle, how to burp the baby, how to check if the temperature of the milk is right, and on and on. you were happy to see that he’d crossed the line from scared future father to hopelessly excited dad.

as your pregnancy progressed, he would accompany you to the routine checkups and would make sure all your files were meticulously arranged in order. people sitting in the waiting area would sometimes stare at leon, because he did not look young exactly, but he didn’t care. well, it did bother him at first, because, he said and you quote, “i’ll be seventy when our kid’s twenty. that’s sooo old...” and you comfort him again, saying that it’s alright because the kid won’t remember his age, they would only remember the man who taught them to ride a bike or embarrassed them at school events (which he’d taken an offence at, because he’d never embarrass the kid, he would be the epitome of cool dad!!), that they would only remember their dad. not his age.

leon ends up creating an emergency binder with all the emergency numbers and pediatrician contacts, allergy information, vaccination schedules, and hospital routes (and backup hospital routes) and it was giant. the tabs were colour coded too, your husband wasn’t playing around. “jesus, is that laminated too?” you ask. and leon looks up at you. “yep. laminated.”

and because leon was scared of his joints fucking up as he grew older, once the baby was here, and not being able to give the child an active father who would join them in adventure, he began working out every morning religiously. you’d watch him work out in your backyard through the kitchen window while making breakfast, and he would look so handsome like that, all hot and sweaty. once, you accidentally burned the pancakes a little, but leon was content eating those because it was proof you still found him attractive.

leon refused to let you do any physically taxing work at all, and decorated the nursery all by himself. he painted the nursery and put in the crib, changing table, and the bookshelf he’d made all by himself. you had to admit, those looked better than the ones you would’ve gotten in the market. to show your appreciation, you kiss leon on the cheek, and somehow that turns into an hour-long makeout session and showing your appreciation in other ways as well.

the nursery still was incomplete, so leon takes you shopping for rugs and curtains, soft toys and children’s books you would need for the nursery. you return home well past into the evening with a lot more stuff than you had anticipated. you had to hire a mover with how much stuff there was, because in no world would everything fit in the car.

now that the nursery and baby-proofing the house was done, leon mostly read books about pregnancy and tried different tasty and healthy recipes to feed you. you were well into your second trimester and the bump was more evident now.

when you decided that you wanted to grow a garden, he was more than happy about it. he helped you do everything, and would also help you water it every day in the morning. it didn’t take long for the garden to finally take shape and blossom. the flower beds looked professionally done, and leon was very proud of you.

weirdly enough, leon had also learned how to make sourdough bread. you couldn’t do that even after multiple tries! and this guy somehow made the perfect one on first try! long story short, no more sourdough from the market, your husband always made the fresh ones for you.

sometimes, when you were asleep during the night, he’d talk to your belly. and it wasn’t anything specific, too. like he’d be gently caressing your baby bump and talk about cars, the engines, the braking system, and whatnot. once, you had caught him talking to the baby when you weren’t fully asleep yet, and he was talking about naval history. it had made you snort so hard you almost choked on your own spit.

leon’s frequency of telling you a dad joke had increased too. it was so stupid yet it made you laugh till you were crying. he told you he was practicing those for the baby. he was already excited about pissing off your kid by telling them dad jokes.

you both discuss names. “lily if it’s a girl, and benjamin if it’s a boy,” he suggests. and you nod because lily was a beautiful name. benjamin though... definitely not. “benjamin? that’s such a founding father ass name. maybe james...?” and he nods at that, “james is good for a boy.” lily if it was a girl, and james if it was a boy.

baby’s first kick was a huge turning point for both of you. you were well into your third trimester when it happened, having a movie date night with your husband, where you two were watching some cheesy rom-com. his hand was up your shirt, resting on your bump, caressing it absentmindedly. and when the baby kicked, both of you looked at it each other to see if the other noticed it. it was the most amazing thing in the world, leon decided. “hey there, little one,” he said, talking to the baby again, a big smile on his face.

you also had extremely specific cravings sometimes. because you wanted those potato wedges from that place. and he was left wondering what place was that place. you said the place had a red sign, because that is all you remembered from the last time you went there. so leon would drive around the whole city for forty-five minutes before it clicked into his brain and he remembered what place he’d taken you to.

when you got emotional and tried to apologise for your food cravings and making him run around for snacks, he’d immediately shush you. “you’re literally growing an entire human. i’m pretty sure i can survive a trip to the grocery store twice a day.”

when the day of delivery came, leon kept repeating the breathing exercises and urged you to do the same. he’d stood beside you the entire time you were in labour, which was nine hours. and he also did as you asked. held your hand, brought you ice chips, or fruit juice, whatever you wanted.

when the baby was born, leon checked up on you first, tuning out the wails of the newborn. the baby already had doctors and nurses cleaning them up and doing the necessary medical checkups. you were more important. you had just pushed out another human.

before leon takes the healthy newborn in his arms, he presses a kiss on your forehead, thanking you for being so strong. and the baby was so tiny and delicate he was afraid he might crush her if he held her too hard.

it took leon exactly one second of holding lily to fall in love with the precious bundle and know with certainty that he would do anything to protect her. you watched it unfolding in real time through teary and tired eyes, a big and beautiful smile on your face. he looked so at peace, it made something in your chest tighten.

"Well then how the fuck did they know all that, eh?? This article has shit that only you would know."

You were backed into the counter, his arms of either side of you, gripping the ledge of the granite, in a way that would normally excite you, and well still not intimidated or scared, you weren't exactly feeling good about it. Your arms crossed tightly across your chest.

On Saturday morning, an article had been published about 10 things the public didn't know about retired football legend, Roy Kent. Small things, like he liked being the little spoon, how he was hoping and praying for a little girl of his own soon, how he was absolute enchanted by you, willing to cater to your every whim. It made him look so soft, which he was, but the whole fucking world didn't need to know that.

You'd fought all Saturday, then slept as far apart as possible in complete silence, before fighting again all day today, but it was worse, it was like he was trying to force a confession out of you.

"Yeah that's my fucking prerogative, I waited until we dated for five full years before I went and blabbed to a bunch of fucking reporters telling them about how you like to be the little fucking spoon."

"Fuck!!" He shouted, pushing off the counter and turning around, hands rubbing harshly across his own cheeks.

"I'm going to bed," you said, "I think you should sleep in one of the other rooms tonight. The way you're accusing me, and talking to me... I just don't want to sleep next to you."

Roy looked over your face, noting the way your lip quivered. He was torn, his instinct said to grab you and pull you close and apologize and beg to come to bed, but his rage, his frustration, told him that you'd done the one thing he hated most, crossed the boundary most precious to him.

"I'll do you one fucking better," he said, picking his jacket up from the back of a chair, and leaving the house, slamming the door behind him loudly.

When you heard his stupid car start, your shoulders dropped from their defensive position, and the tears rolled quickly down your cheeks. You hadn't done anything. You'd been in all Friday while Roy went to the pub with the team, drinking and celebrating freely for the beginning of the off season.

Usually this was a time of bliss for the two of you, Roy allowed himself two full weeks of time devoted to the relationship before carrying on with off season training. Normally at this point, the two of you would be shamelessly rolling around in bed, and when you were panting, sweaty and recovering, still wrapped up in his arms, you'd discuss where to spend a weeks vacation. Because you, being the ever supporting partner, took the same vacation time.

You phone beeped with a text from Roy.

Lock the fucking door before you go upstairs. Goodnight.

You sighed, wiping the tears off your cheeks before locking the door, and dragging yourself to your room. Stripping off your clothes from the day, you pulled on one of Roy's shirts, and sobbed into your pillow, chasing a nights sleep that would surely evade you.

"Let me sleep in your fucking house," Roy said, staring at a confused Jamie, who didn't say anything but let Roy in anyway. He could've gone to his sisters house, but she would've asked a million questions. And he didn't want Pheobe to see him at this level of mad. "Fuck," Roy mumbled, checking his phone again to see if you said goodnight back.

You didn't.

"Alright, Royo?"

"If I was fucking alright would I be in your fucking stupid house asking to sleep in your stupid fucking guest room and not- stop fucking looking at me with that stupid fucking face!"

"We can talk tomorrow," Jamie said, "you are not regular grandpa mad right now you are just beyond."

"Fuck off," Roy said, checking his phone again.

Did you see the text? Did you lock the door? Should he call and check?

"Unless you want to talk now? I can put on-" Jamie was cut off by a glare he'd never seen before, it made him want to cower away from it. In all their years training and hating each other and becoming friends, he'd never seen a glare quite like that before. "Okay, night."

As Jamie scurried off down the hall, door closing with a little more force than intended, Roy let his face drop.

Was he wrong? What the fuck was going on? He couldn't imagine a world where you called up the paps and told them how he can't sleep without hearing you say goodnight first. About how he can't truly get comfortable at hotels until he knows you're safe in bed from whatever you were doing that day. Not that you couldn't be out or like he had any say about that but just... he liked to know when you got home after. But no one else knows that shit, that's his personal shit, shit he only shared with you.

Roy wandered over to Jamie's couch, not caring enough to make it to the guest room, and kicked his trainers off, flopping onto the furniture without even taking his jacket off.

Still no text.

After debating calling you to make sure you had stayed in and gone to bed, and saw his text to lock the door, he decided not to. Not that it could, but he didn't want to risk things getting any worse. Was bad enough, really.

Instead, he scrolled back in your messages, looking for a video you'd sent him while he was at the last away game.

But he wasn't after any of the ... intimate ones. He needed a certain one. A specific one, and when he found it, he played it over and over until he could trick his brain into falling asleep.

A simple video, you holding your phone on your face, saying "Goodnight love, miss you. Can't wait to see you tomorrow, and I love you!!"

He played the video until his phone died.

In the morning, Roy woke up to Jamie tip toeing around his kitchen. Roy groaned, his knee fucking aching from the stiff position he'd slept in, for the few hours he even managed to sleep.

"Oh," Jamie froze, "sorry didn't meant to wake you but I'm starvin," he mumbled, "Hungry?"

"No," Roy grunted, stretching out his leg and trying to hold in his grunts of pain. Fuck this couch.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Why the fuck would I want to talk about it with you?"

"Jesus, relax geezer. I figured if ya girl couldn't make you feel better I could at least try. What happened? You guys fight?"

Roy grunted, nodding slightly. Roy weighed his options... go home and fight again, or see if Jamie could help.

"Was it about the article?"

Another grunt. Another nod.

"Awh, mate. Don't take it so hard, everyone makes mistakes. I know she's a private one, was she mad?"

Roy scrunched his eyebrows together. "Why would she be mad?"

Jamie looked confused, "Dunno, cos she hates attention like tha?"

"If that were true she wouldn't have fucking told everyone that shit," Roy mumbled. He realized choosing to talk to Jamie about this was stupid, what does Jamie know about privacy? What does Jamie know about fucking anything?

"Erh, Royo..."

"Fuck this," Roy grunted, standing up but grunting as his knee gave him trouble. He started jamming his feet into his trainers.

"Coach listen," Jamie started again, but Roy just grunted, ignoring him.

"She'll tell the truth today and say sorry, sure of it, hates sleepin' alone."

"Wait, listen to me, seriously." Jamie said, standing in Roy's way when he moved for the door. "Did you guys fight because you were mad at her?"

"No shit," Roy said. "She crossed a boundary that I'd made very fucking clear when we started."

"Erh, I dunno how to say this but..." Jamie took a breath, "wait let me uh," he took a few quick steps back, safely out of Roy's reach. He took another deep breath. "You told them reporters all tha'."

"Fuck off," Roy said, face covered in anger. "Like I would ever do that."

"No really," Jamie said, bouncing his weight between both feet as if warming up to flee Roy's rage at any given moment. "Me and Isaac tried to fuckin' corral ya'at the pub but you were drunk, talkin' about 'er all excited to anyone tha' would listen. An' when we tried tellin' ya that you were talkin' to a pap you told us to fuck off. An' we were drunk too so we did."

"No," Roy said, finally. "That's not what happened."

"Call Isaac if you're sure but like... that is what happened."

"No."

Jamie looked sad. "Were ya mean to 'er?"

Roy wasn't even sure if he believed Jamie. Yes, maybe he got drunk enough that Keeley and Colin had to drag him into the uber. And maybe it was the first time in a while that he'd woken up with that bad a hangover. And he wasn't sure how he even got from the car to the bed, but he was in pajamas and you'd made him a big breakfast. And his car had been back in the driveway even though he'd left it at the pub and... he could vaguely remember talking to random people that night. He remembers telling the boys it was ready to get the ring out, and that he was feeling particularly in love with you lately and...

Oh.

Oh no.

Roy sat back on the couch. Right on the very edge, and put his head in his hands.

"Please," he mumbled, with an air of vulnerability that made goosebumps shoot up Jamie's arm. "Tell me you're joking."

"Sorry," Jamie answered. "But 'm not."

"Oh fuck, I'm fucked." Roy didn't move an inch, sat like a stone statue and Jamie didn't know whether to leave him in it or move closer. Jamie stayed perfectly still, worried about making any move.

"I'm so fucking fucked, fuck!"

And suddenly Roy was on his feet. Checking his pockets for his keys, which obviously weren't there, and he cursed and swore and muttered frustrated nonsense as he searched the couch cushions for his keys. And where the fuck was his phone? Ah, forget the phone. Didn't need the phone, needed the fucking keys.

Where the fuck were his keys?????

"Coach?"

"What!?"

Jaime was pointing the leg of the couch, where the keys were poking out.

Roy grunted grabbing them and rushing towards the door. Jamie had to nearly jump out of his way. Before he left he glanced back at the living room, cushions and blankets severely out of place.

"Sorry."

"All good."

Roy moved to leave again but stopped. He looked over his shoulder at Jamie, shirtless and stupid, and Roy muttered, "thanks."

"Anytime, granddad."

When Roy got home, he parked like shit and raced into the house. He was frantic, calling out your name and looking for you. It was still pretty early, but if you had a shit night like he did you'd probably be up. He threw his coat on the floor and slammed the door behind him, harder than he meant to.

"Babe?" he called, taking the stairs two at a time and ignoring the pain in his knee.

But you weren't in the bedroom, or the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the back deck. You weren't here. Roy sat on the floor in the hallway, head buried in his elbow, and knees drawn up to his chest. The ache in his knee didn't even fucking compare to the one in his chest, the one fueled by guilt and regret and remorse, fuck he was such a fucking idiot.

Of course you didn't go blabbing to reporters. Why would you have done that? You've more than proven your loyalty to him, and your relationship. Not that you'd ever needed to prove anything to him. You'd always been there, supporting him when coaching made him nostalgic and sad. Always patient with him when he was being a dick because he was at a different stage in his life.

And you did it without ever making him feel like you were putting up with him. You made him feel like you were just feeling it with him, like you were loving him through it. And then at one sign of trouble he'd turned it at you, made it ugly, didn't let you explain anything, made it nasty.

He had been so, so awful.

And you hadn't deserved any of it.

He blamed you for him getting drunk and telling strangers how much he loved being the little spoon.

At the sound of the door unlocking, Roy's heart skipped a beat, and he was up on his feet quickly, rushing down the stairs to meet you. You were in casual athletic wear, sunglasses covering your face and hair in a ponytail that was sticking out the back of a baseball cap.

"Hi love," he mumbled, throat closing at the sight of you. You didn't smile when you saw him of course, but weren't frowning either. Your face gave away nothing. But when you took the hat and glasses off, he saw what he caused. He saw the red, puffy eyes from too much crying and too little sleep. Saw the cheeks rubbed raw from wiping those tears away.

And he felt sick. What kinda partner had he been?

A really shit one.

"Morning, Roy."

"You weren't here, fuck, got so scared you'd left."

And while yes, you had left the house, you knew what he meant. He meant thought you'd left him.

"After all this time you should know well enough I wouldn't just cut and run from you without trying first." You weren't trying to be mean, but you were just exhausted. You'd slept like shit. "I texted you that I was going for a walk in case you came home."

Roy didn't know what to say to that, he never did find his phone at Jamie's and just left without it. He was dying to pull you into a hug. Desperate to feel you in his arms, feel your heartbeat against his. But he had no right, not until he told you the truth.

"It was me," he said suddenly. "On Friday when I was drunk I was talking to some reporter. I didn't know I did that, and I was shit to you. I was so fucking shit to you and I'm so sorry. I'm so so fucking sorry, you didn't deserve me berating you for one fucking minute and I did it for a whole weekend. And I wasn't listening to you and I was a shit partner and I'm sorry, love, I'm so sorry. Couldn't fucking sleep proper after fighting and it just made my temper worse and Jamie kept looking at me with that stupid empathy face and..."

"Roy, you've gotta take a breath." you said, putting your hands on his arms, the first time he'd felt you touching his skin in days, made him shut up and frown, just looking down at you.

He took a few deep breaths. And instead of talking more he just grabbed your hips, pulling you into him. You let out an 'oof' as you were pushed into his chest. His lip trembled as he held you, trying not to let you see it, but you just knew he was close to crying, could feel his fingers trembling as his hands spread out over your back.

"We'll talk about it, love."

"No, don't please..." Roy sighed, "please don't be nice to me, be mad at me."

"I can be nice and mad at the same time."

Roy huffed, squeezing you tighter against him for a second before pulling away gently, just enough to look down at you again. The sight of you, light pout on your lips, eyes hurting from his actions, made his heart feel like it was imploding in on itself.

"I'm really sorry," he said, voice a soft and gentle whisper.

"We'll figure it out," you said, "We have two weeks together, I'm sure you'll pull together some grand gesture to make me feel better."

"The grandest. So grand you'll be embarrassed of it. They'll write a movie about it."

You laughed, softly and not your full, happy laugh. But enough to give Roy enough sense to know things will be okay.

"I'm going to shower," you said, "maybe when I get out we can have tea together and talk about it, okay? Maybe they're will be a chocolate croissant from that place I like..."

"Chocolate croissants, got it, yes, there will be." He grabbed you cheeks, kissing your forehead, then both temples, then both cheeks, then he splattered a barrage of kisses from the cheek to your ear, trying to convey all his love and apologies and affections with the sweets pecks.

You laughed again, a laugh closer to your real one, and pushed him off, slipping out of his arms and walking towards the stairs to shower.

Before you could get to far Roy called out to you again, and you looked at him. "We'll be okay, right? You and me?"

"Of course we will," you said, "If we broke up just because you were an idiot we wouldn't have made it one week."

Roy laughed.

“I saw a bird today.” You say from your vanity, finishing up your nightly routine. Roy grunts, reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose as he continues to read the book in his hand, the worn out copy of A Wrinkle In Time that Ted gave him years ago.

“Babe? Did you hear me?” You mumble, crossing the room, attempting to mask the way your heart dropped. Roy looks up, his brow furrowed. “Sorry. I got fucking lost in this book again. I don't know what the fuck about it draws me in. What did ya say?” Smiling, you pull the comforter back. “I saw a bird today.”

Roy nods, placing his bookmark Phoebe made him in his spot before placing it on the table, along with his glasses. He opens his arms, waiting for you to close the distance. You lean against his bare chest, smiling. “What kind of bird?” You hum, chest fluttering at the question. “I'm in not sure. Never can tell the difference between them.”

He grunts again, squeezing your hip. “Well what fucking color was it?” You tilt your head up, holding back your laugh. “Green. With a red head.”

Without hesitation, Roy answers. “That's a Green Woodpecker.” Your eyes widen in surprise as you sit up, his warmth disappearing.

You made that up on the spot. How did he?

“How do you know that?” Roy shrugs, kissing the top of your head. “Phoebe’s class had a bird fucking watching assignment and I had to take her to the damn park. Guess I fucking learned something.” A soft giggle falls from your lips as you reach up, pulling Roy down into a heated kiss.

Of course Roy fucking Kent would pass bird theory.

“Well, don’t get too excited yet. We’re gonna need fuel, and these cars look like they’ve been here a long time.” 

It’s true. There are a handful of cars in the parking lot, all of them worse for wear. One of them has a flat tire, another smashed windows.

“I love your optimism,” you grumble. You’re tempted to take your godforsaken boots off right here, right now, heels torn and bloody and the bite on your ankle smarting with every step. 

“Contagious, isn’t it?” She peers into the first car, the smashed one, covering her arm to reach into the glove compartment. “Already been raided.”

“What gave it away?” You crunch over the broken glass and head to the Jeep closest to the motel rooms. Maybe Abby’s optimism is contagious, because there are a few dust-covered jerrycans in the back. Nobody’s been here for a while. You pick up the first, just to check they’re not empty, and the liquid sloshing inside makes your heart sing with relief. 

“One problem solved,” you call, waving a can. 

She joins you, teeth flashing with an unbridled grin. It’s the first time you’ve seen it, and it travels right to the pit of you, laying down roots you want to tend to, watch bloom, if only she’d let you. She drops her pack into the back like she’s already made her choice, then bends to examine the wheels. No flats. 

“You think expecting there to be keys would be too much to ask?” you question. 

“Think I might be able to hot-wire it if not.” She rolls her shoulders in that way that makes you tingle, scouring the buildings around you. “We should stay here tonight.”

“Yes we should. You owe me a nap.”

A roll of her eyes. “I was thinking more along the lines of searching the place, see if we can grab any supplies.”

“I search, you sleep.”

She snorts, freckled nose wrinkling. “You can’t actually expect me to agree to that.”

“Worth a try.” You suppress a yawn, untying your sweater from around your waist to slip on as the air finally cools. You don’t know what it is — the blanket of darkness, the silver full moon above, Abby’s steady presence and light-hearted quips, the smell of the fresh-baked earth — but you feel… peaceful. Exhausted, and sore, and restless with that flip-flopping in your stomach Abby brings out of you, but the heaviness of the morning has been burnt away in the sun, and you think maybe the thing with Cal just another thing you’ll survive.

Easier with her here, tension broken. Mostly. There’s still a thickness between you you’re trying your hardest to ignore, for both of your sakes. The kiss can’t happen again, she’d said. You’ll respect her wishes, even if you wish, despite your better judgement, you could taste her, touch her, just once more. 

“There’s gotta be a decent bed somewhere in here,” she decides. “Need to make sure there’s nothing crawling around inside first, though.”

You’d like to think if there was, it would have shown its face by now, but some of the rooms are shuttered up, impossible to see into. 

You take out the gun she gave you, making sure it’s loaded and turning off the safety, just in case. 

Abby’s head snaps to you. “What are you doing?”

“I feel like the answer is obvious.”

“You’ll wait out here.”

“What am I, your fucking dog?” you question, voice laced with a hint of resentment. You’re tired of feeling weak, even if you also appreciate how safe she makes you feel. Even if, for once, it’s nice to have someone else bandage your wounds. “No, I won’t. We can get this over with quicker if I take half the rooms.”

Abby’s posture stiffens, and you see that soldier in her now, all subtle movements you might not have noticed before. The way her chin is always level, eyes straight ahead. The way she is always so poised around her gun, like it’s an extension of her palm. The way can stare you down with all the ice of a blizzard. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m gonna let you—”

“Let me?” You raise a brow. “Look, you might be my chaperone, but I still have a little autonomy left yet. I’m not incapable of taking care of myself, and honestly, it’s beginning to feel a little insulting when you act like I am.”

Her jaw tics, knuckles whitening over the grip of her gun. You wait for her to argue, maybe say you seemed pretty damn incapable when Cal kidnapped you and bled you dry, but after a long inhale, she tips her head. “All right.”

“Wait… really?”

Humour dances around the edges of her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m brave enough to keep arguing with you. Just do me a favour and don’t fucking get hurt this time.”

“If I stumble across any more cults, I’ll be sure to run the other way,” you mutter dryly. When she only stares flatly, you ask, “Too soon?”

“A little, yeah.”

“Noted.” You head over to the furthest door, which doesn’t actually have a door at all, and then give Abby a mock salute. 

“Give me a shout if you need me.”

“Have you ever considered that maybe you might need me?”

“Nope.” With that, she marches away to the other side of the motel, where the sign leans lopsided over half an upstairs window. If you weren’t exhausted, you might have made an effort to have the last word, but your skull is stuffed with cotton and you just want to lay down. 

So you grab your torch from your pack and begin your search. It’s clear after just a few rooms that the place has already been picked over, though some of the doors are sealed tight. You listen, just to make sure there aren’t any guests, living or otherwise, in them, before smashing the windows and climbing in. As hoped, these ones prove a little more fruitful, and you manage to pillage some expired instant coffee and granola bars. One room even provides you with a paperback: a thriller, but you can’t afford to be picky about genres. 

You’ve almost made it to the inner corner when you feel it. That prickle, faint enough you could chalk it up to your imagination, skittering up your inner arms like ants. You pause, listening, and then, when you’re met with only silence, scoff at yourself. 

That thing Abby said is still in your head, but you can’t sense the infected. You refuse to. Besides, the place is clear. 

Still, a hollowness expands in your stomach, and your feet force you out of the room, back into the night, just to make sure. 

“Abby?” you call. 

The prickling turns into a burn, like someone’s holding a lighter to your scars, and you move forward with a steady thrum of dread ricocheting behind your ribs.

“Abby? Everything okay?”

A gunshot startles you back a few paces, and then you don’t think, just run, following the inhuman snarls and moans drifting somewhere ahead. You scan every room along the way, but she’s not there, not anywhere, and your chest is caving in, suddenly, at the idea you might be left here alone, that you might lose her before you ever really got her, that she is not here, not anywhere—

The squeals of infected grow nearer, and you feel it now, that tug, leading you to them like a lasso too tight around your stomach. It hurts, but fear overpowers it. You stumble to the first block, the main building, shoving past broken glass still stuck in frames and rushing up a set of stairs behind the reception desk. Dust shudders down at the loud thumps above, and then you hear Abby swearing, more gunshots, a strained yell. 

You shoot as soon as you see the first infected, then the again with the second, two clickers falling to the ground in front of a panting, blood-splattered Abby. 

“Are you bit?” you question frantically, rushing to her. You don’t think to look for more, don’t pay attention to the warning still humming in your veins, don’t scan the shadows, this fear and her wide eyes taking up all of your focus, because if she’s bit, if she’s—

“No. I’m fine. I’m—”

A shadow pounces on you seemingly from above, sending you both toppling. Your gun slips from your grip as you land half-beside, half-atop Abby on the floor, teeth snapping in your face.. 

It’s big, bloated, heavy. Heavy enough to keep you both pinned with its lower half alone. You kick out, but your boot only hits thick, hard growths that barely move, as though the fungi has solidified, somehow. The clicker – or maybe it's too big to be considered that — shrieks in your face, the stench of rot fanning over you, but then its attention seems to flick to Abby, who is pinned by both your body and the infected’s. 

It goes to bite her, grizzly mouth stretching wide, and there is nothing either of you can do — until your arm lodges free just in time. You cover Abby’s face before yellowed teeth meets her skin, and they instead sink into yours on the arm that isn’t yet scarred. Or wasn’t. The pain has you crying out, but the distraction gives Abby enough time to wrestle her knife free from the clicker’s clawing hands. She thrusts it into the clicker’s bulging eye, and you kick out again, forcing it back just far enough to catch your breath. 

Still, it isn’t enough, the clicker rising onto its knees as Abby yanks you to your feet. 

“No!” you say when she tries to push you behind her, because she isn’t immune, she isn’t safe— 

The clicker halts as though there is an invisible wall between you and it, head cocking like a dog waiting obediently for orders. 

You grapple to the floor for your gun, finding Abby’s instead, but right as you go to pull the trigger, she stops you.

“Wait. It’s… it’s listening to you.”

A guttural, hungry snarl falls from the clicker at Abby’s voice. Your chest rises and falls with violent heaves as you try to understand.

She’s right. The clicker is looking right at you. You step in front of Abby, gun pointed to its head. 

“It stopped,” she whispers. “You stopped it.”

No. God, no. You should be relieved, maybe, but those empty eyes crash through you like a wrecking ball. Because you can’t deny it now. You can’t pretend the itching under your veins isn’t real. 

You are one of them. Just enough like them that they don’t recognise you as something to be devoured. 

Maybe, with all those bites, all that infection, you’re half monster. 

Your hands shake, teeth chattering in the new silence. You step forward, and it…

It steps back. It’s such a human gesture, you want to retch. You feel it again, that emptiness, the loneliness, the vicious hunger that will never quite be satiated, not for all the flesh in the world. A miserable existence, tucked in a void only other infected can reach. 

And you. 

You pull the trigger, because the alternative is staring into a soul too much like yours. 

The clicker falls, and the burning under your skin lets out a content sigh before ebbing. 

“That was the last of them,” you whisper hoarsely. 

Abby seems stunned into silence, lips parted, face pale.

She looks at you, for the first time, the way everyone else does: like you’re something else, something other. 

It was inevitable, you think, but it still feels like you’re standing in the ruins of a place that, for a moment in time, was safe. Yours. 

Gone, now.

It’s too long before Abby can rip her gaze away from your fear-stricken face. Only then does the realisation hit: you’re bleeding, again. Bit, again. This time, for her. 

Her gun falls to the floor beside her. “What the fuck did you do?” she whispers shakily. 

She doesn’t understand any of it. Why you would lunge in front of her, why you would let it bite you instead of her, why it would listen to you.

“I… I don’t know.” Your eyes are wide, face leeched of colour, and she wants to kiss you. Unfortunately, she wants to yell at you more. She steps back, and you wince like it hurts. “I don’t know what that was. It’s never happened before. I… I didn’t do anything, I swear. I’m not… I’m not one of them.”

Tears draw lines over the dirt on your cheeks. They break her. They knit her cognisance back together again. They make her angrier. 

“I don’t… I don’t mean that!” She grabs you without thinking, thumbs digging tight into the flesh of your forearm, just below the bite. Your skin is hot, and a fleeting fear runs through her that you’re out of luck. Maybe you’re not immune to every bite. Maybe, one of these days, you’re going to succumb to the infection that keeps finding you, and it would be her fault. “I mean this!” 

“It was… It was going to bite you.” A frown knits your brows together. “It almost got you.”

“You should have let it.” She’s all wolf, snarling with bared teeth too close to your face, red slashing her vision in two. She doesn’t know why, not really. 

Not until you say, “Abby, this can’t hurt me, but you could have been infected!”

Like you’re not one big, walking open wound. Like there isn’t blood painting your arm slippery, hot crimson. Again. Like it means nothing, being covered in all this violence.

“I would rather be infected than see another fucking scar on your body!” 

You recoil. If she could see, breathe, think, she’d lower her voice, find a way to talk to you that isn’t all bite and venom, but god, there’s adrenaline crashing through her, and you could have gotten hurt so much worse, and she can’t keep watching you fucking bleed. 

You need to understand that. “You have enough already. I won’t be the reason you get another. These aren’t fucking tattoos, they’re wounds, and you’re covered in them! Do you… Do you even know how fucking…” She tugs at her hair, turns away. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I’m sorry if another bite in my collection disgusts you, Abby, but—”

“You think that’s what this is?” She whips around, bristling. Grabs your arm again like if she forces you to look at it, you might understand. “I can’t see you get hurt again! Do you understand that? You’ve been through enough, and I’m… I’m not worth it! You act like it doesn’t matter. It does! Every single one of these bites matters, and this one, this fucking one” — she’s tugging, your elbow jostling against your ribcage, and yet you’re limp in her arms — “could have been avoided. Just this one.”

You look at her like she’s a stranger. “You think it would be better if I let it bite you?”

“I had it handled—”

“No, you fucking didn’t. Neither of us did. We needed an opening, and I gave us one.”

She shakes her head, but she knows you’re right. Of course she does. She glares down at the bite, tears clogging her throat. Another fucking wound, another burning under your skin, another tendril of infection sinking into your veins, into your brain. Another piece of you taken. How many more should you have to lose? How many before there's nothing left?

She’ll never forgive herself for letting you get hurt under her care, twice. For being just another person who has used your body as a shield, a weapon, a salvation, even if she never would have asked you to. Nobody should have to shed this much blood, least of all you, with your stupid jokes and your devastating sincerity and…

“I don’t care what happens. Don’t ever do that again,” she says coldly.

“Fuck you!” you spit, and it hits her like a fist to the gut. “I’m done with this faux self-righteous bullshit. You don’t get to tell me if you’re worth protecting or not! I decide that!” 

“You’ve decided nothing since the moment you got that first bite!”

“But I decided this, tonight!” you yell. “To you, this was death. To me, it’s just another bite! What would I do if you were infected?” You step closer, shuddering with fury now. Something stirs deep in Abby’s core, bringing her back to her body. A body she is certain is now yours, or at least, it should be for the sacrifices you’ve made. “You think it would be better for me if I had to watch you turn, kill you, then try to get to Avalon alone? You think I’d be better off losing you than getting a few more marks to add to the collection? You’re out of your fucking mind.” 

She says your name, but you’re clearly not done.

“No! You have a family to go back to. You don’t even know how lucky you are. What about Lev? You think he'd be okay if you never got home?"

Abby's resolve shutters at his name. If she doesn't make it home...

"Like hell was I going to let it be you instead of me. And like hell” — your voice lowers, causing a shiver to run down Abby’s spine — “am I going to stand here and let you yell at me for it. You’re not the only one who can take care of people. It doesn’t make you smart or brave to think you’d be better off sacrificing yourself for me.”

The taste of acid on her tongue has her scowling. She meets your eye, all ice and fire and war and rage. “The way you’re sacrificing yourself for everyone else?” she utters slowly.

“That’s different and you know it.”

Maybe, but not to her. Not when she can already feel your loss like a blade between her ribs. 

“I’m going to tell Roe about what I saw tonight.” Her voice is serrated steel, leaving no room for argument. “I’m going to tell her that she can’t do the brain surgery until she figures out how this connection between you and the infected works.”

Your bottom lip begins to tremble. “Is that your way of punishing me?”

She scoffs, because god, you still don’t get it. “It’s my way of keeping you alive!” 

You falter, like you don’t believe her. Every pulse of her heart draws her back to you, and she can’t keep doing this. She can’t keep fighting with you when she aches for you, when she needs you. 

“Abby—”

She swallows whatever protest you were about to make with a kiss, and this time, she doesn’t pull away. 

You gasp into her mouth, and she can taste your tears, your fear, your anger. It feeds her, fuels her, makes her feel like a person again rather than a feral, broken thing that never should have been let out into the world. Your sweater bunches in her fist because she is still so angry, but mostly, she is desperate to know you’re here, real, alive. 

After moments of surprise, you kiss back, tongue finding hers in a battle that has already been lost. You’re dragging blood across her clothes as you hook your arms around her, and she doesn’t care. She needs you as close as she can get, and this, melding with you, is her only way to settle the terror and the dread and the rage inside her. She is a drought and you are rain, finally soothing the most cracked parts of her. 

She drives you over the fallen clickers until your back hits the wall, roving your jaw, throat, as her hands find your hips and squeeze. Your fingers curl at the nape of her neck, back arching so she can explore your collarbones with a hunger so fierce she almost growls. 

“You’re ruining me,” she mutters into your skin, hot and soft and hers. Her palm moulds to your thigh, and if she just moved higher—

“I’m scared,” you admit. “I’m scared I’ll infect you.”

She freezes. Softens. “That’s not how it works.”

“I don’t just mean this.” You nudge her back to look at her, and she catches your tears with the trembling pad of her thumb. It's hard to know where that need to fix things ends and her lust begins. it's one and the same: with you, she's nothing but want, in all its forms. “There’s something wrong about this, Abby. About me. I don’t know if you should even be touching my blood, or…”

“You can’t hurt me.” Her voice is gentle, whispered into your skin.

“No, I can. Like I hurt Cal and those other people. Either people walk away from me, or I make them wish they had.”

She moves your hair out of your face gently, swallowing down the pain your words brings. This is why she wants to protect you. This is why you shouldn’t have to protect her. 

“I’m not them.”

You bite your lip, more tears falling as you look at the mess around you both. The three bodies scattered across the hallway. You lower from your tiptoes, and her lips brush your forehead gently, a desperate plea to just let her stay wrapped in this, in you. 

“No, Abby,” you whisper. “You’re far more dangerous than them.”

And then you slip away, holstering your gun as you disappear back down the staircase.

Abby plants her palms into the wall where your warmth still resides, gritting her teeth. You’re right. She is dangerous, especially when it comes to you. And you are, too, because you could ruin her. Not with infection. With anything but infection. 

This is not the journey she’s supposed to take, but she’s afraid she’s too far in to go back now.

⊹₊

⤷ CHAPTER TWELVE

It was supposed to be a mere crush. Tony didn’t intend for it to turn into something more than just that.

Especially given that he was twenty years your senior.

Why would you even think of him like that? 

Why would you look at him like that?

He was an older man, with demons that weighed down on his shoulders and kept him up all night as he tinkered away in his lab to avoid the inevitable nightmares that came to him whenever he tried to sleep. To you, he was just a mentor. A helping hand. The leader of your team.

Yet, he couldn’t overlook the way you laughed at his jokes. How he remembered you loved drinking steaming hot coffee in the mornings—just milk and two sugars, usually accompanied with a pastry from the corner bakery you loved. How you bit your lip when you were concentrated on a task; how you easily remembered small details of conversations you’d had before and brought them up without the necessity of a reminder.

You were just kind, that was all it was—or at least, that’s what he was telling himself.

Endless were the nights where he saw you, his fellow Avenger, come stumbling into the common room after a night of drinks. It was always the same ritual: you went out for the night with your friends, he waited for you to come home, and then he would take you to your room.

“You’re such a gentleman, Tony. Pepper is so lucky to have you,” you had said one time around 3:00 AM when you came in, heels in hand and reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke.

He smiled politely, knowing that even if you were drunk, you would remember every word he would say; and boy, did he really want to speak his mind. But life has a funny way of bringing people together, often through the most jagged of edges.

A mission trying to take down Madame Masque and her A.I.M. minions went rogue in the worst way possible.

The high-pitched whine of repulsors and the rhythmic thud of heavy artillery echoed through the crumbling shipyard. Tony was mid-flight, barking orders at the team, when the world seemed to slow into a terrifying, singular focus. Masque had been cornered, but she wasn't alone; a prototype A.I.M. energy disruptor was hidden beneath the floorboards, humming with an unstable, violet glow.

You were the closest. 

You had moved in to secure the perimeter, your focus entirely on the tactical layout, unaware that the ground beneath you was a ticking bomb of experimental radiation.

"Get out of there! Now!" Tony’s voice cracked over the comms, a raw, desperate sound that didn't belong to the billionaire genius.

He pushed the thrusters to their absolute limit, the suit screaming in protest as he dove toward you. He reached out, his metal fingers just inches from the fabric of your tactical vest, but he was a second too late.

The floor didn't just break; it erupted. A wave of concussive energy slammed into you, throwing your body upward like a ragdoll before gravity took over. You hit the jagged edge of a shipping container with a sickening, heavy thud and crumpled to the ground, motionless.

"No, no, no," Tony whispered, landing so hard the concrete cracked under his boots.

He didn't care about the retreating minions or the victory that was now hollow. He was on his knees, his hands trembling as he flipped the faceplate of his helmet up. The sight of you—so still, with a trail of blood blooming across your forehead and your breathing shallow and ragged—tore through his chest in a way no shrapnel ever could.

In that moment, the twenty-year gap, the professional boundaries, and the presence of Pepper all evaporated. 

There was only the terrifying realization that he might lose the one person who remembered his coffee order and looked at him like he was more than just a suit of armor. He gathered you into his arms, his heart hammering against his ribs, terrified that the first time he finally held you, it was because you were slipping away.

“Tony, we have to take her to the medical bay ASAP,” Natasha’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears, sharp and authoritative, pulling him back from the brink of panic.

Tony didn't respond with words; he simply adjusted his grip, tucking your limp form against the cold, unyielding plates of his chest plate. He carried you toward the Quinjet with a terrifyingly focused pace, his boots clanging against the ramp. Inside, the sterile lights flickered to life as Bruce began a frantic dance of clinical precision, hooking you up to IVs and humming medical machinery that beeped in protest of your fading vitals.

Tony sat on a low bench nearby, the Iron Man gauntlets retracted to reveal his grease-stained, trembling hands. He reached out and took your hand in his—it felt impossibly small and cold against his own. He felt like it was his fault. The weight of every decision he’d made since they touched down on the mission site sat heavy in his gut, a familiar, acidic guilt.

He should’ve seen this coming. He was the futurist; he was the man who built shields around the world to prevent exactly this. But he had been too busy watching the way the sunlight caught the stray hairs of your ponytail to notice the trap Masque had laid.

“Stay with me,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the jet’s engines. “Don’t you dare leave me to drink that burnt coffee in the kitchen alone.”

He watched the steady, rhythmic pulse of the monitor, each beep a reminder of how fragile the thread was that held you here. He thought of the nights he’d walked you to your room, the scent of the city still clinging to your hair, and the way you’d praised his 'gentlemanly' nature. 

He realized then that he didn't want to be a gentleman anymore. 

He didn't want to be the mentor or the leader or the man who stood safely behind a glass wall while you took the brunt of the world’s cruelty.

He looked down at your hand, tracing the knuckles with his thumb, and made a silent, desperate vow. If you woke up—when you woke up—he wouldn't let the silence between you both remain. 

Tony was tired of tinkering in the dark; he wanted to be the one you came home to, not just the one who watched you leave.

Natasha laid a hand on his shoulder, her touch light but grounding. “You know she’s strong, Tony. She’s going to come out of this,” she said. There was a look in her eyes—a knowing, silent weight—that suggested she saw the things he thought were buried deep. She was the closest to you, after all; she had seen the way your gaze lingered on him when his back was turned, and she knew exactly why he was falling apart.

As soon as the Quinjet touched down, you were transferred to a room in the medical bay. The sterile white halls blurred as doctors ran to your aid, shouting orders and checking monitors. Tony stood in the doorway, a ghost in his own home, watching the flurry of activity through a glass partition.

“You should rest. She’s in good hands, Tones,” Rhodey said, appearing at his side like a steady anchor.

“I feel like it’s my fault. Like I should’ve said something, done something,” Tony admitted, his voice cracking. He wasn't talking about the mission anymore, and they both knew it. Rhodey only gave him a sad, knowing smile and a firm pat on the back. He knew Tony better than anyone else—he knew the self-destruction that came with Tony’s brand of love.

“Tell her family, they need to know,” Rhodey added gently. “But you should change and shower first. You’re covered in soot and... well, you look like hell.”

Tony nodded absently, his legs feeling like lead as he retreated to his chambers. He stood under the spray of the shower until the water turned cold, trying to scrub the smell of ozone and fear from his skin. He pulled on a worn-out tee and a pair of jeans, but the comfort of the clothes did nothing to ease the tightness in his chest.

He went straight back to your room, ignoring the exhaustion tugging at his eyes. The room was quiet now, save for the rhythmic, mechanical sigh of the ventilator. He sat in the chair next to your bed, finally alone with you, and took your hand again. 

This time, he didn't let go.

“I’m a genius, or so they tell me,” he whispered into the silence, his forehead resting against the side of your mattress. “But I’ve been an idiot. I’ve been sitting here for months pretending I don’t see you, pretending I don’t wake up every morning wondering if today is the day I finally tell you that the coffee tastes better when you’re the one making it.”

He looked up at your pale face, the blue light of the monitors casting sharp shadows over your features. “I think I’m too old for you and I’ve got a chest full of ghosts, but if you wake up, I’m done being the gentleman. I’m done waiting for 3:00 AM. I’m just... I’m just yours, if you’ll have me.”

It took exactly a week of Tony coming into your room, day after day, talking to you in the low, gravelly hum of a man who had forgotten how to speak to anyone else. He had barely slept, his brilliant mind reduced to counting the rhythmic blips of your heart monitor, hoping you would finally wake up and break the suffocating silence.

He was sitting there again, his chair pulled so close to your bed that his knees brushed the edge of the frame. He was holding your hand, his thumb tracing circles over your knuckles, a habit that had become his only source of comfort.

"You know, I forged a lot of things in my life," he murmured, his voice thick with a vulnerability he usually kept under lock and key. "Suits of armor, clean energy, even a legacy I’m not sure I deserve. But I can't forge a way to be okay without you. It’s pathetic, really. A twenty-year head start on life, and I still didn't see you coming. I love you. I’ve loved you since you first laughed at one of my terrible jokes, and I’m terrified I waited too long to say it.”

A small, faint flutter stirred against his palm.

Tony froze, his breath hitching in his throat. He looked up, and for the first time in seven days, the vacant stillness of your face was gone. Your eyelashes flickered, shadowed by the dim light of the medical bay, before your eyes slowly opened, clouded with sleep but unmistakably focused on him.

"Does that mean... I get the good coffee tomorrow?" you whispered, your voice a raspy, barely-there thread of sound.

A jagged, breathless laugh escaped Tony’s chest, a sound halfway between a sob and a cheer. "You get whatever you want. I’ll buy the whole damn bakery.”

He didn't wait for a witty retort. He leaned in, his hand moving to cup your cheek with a tenderness that felt like a prayer, and pressed his lips to yours. It wasn't a grand, cinematic gesture; it was soft, desperate, and tasted of relief and second chances. When he pulled back, his forehead lingered against yours, his eyes bright with a rare, shimmering heat.

"I meant what I said," he whispered, his gaze searching yours. "All of it.”

You managed a weak, lopsided smile, the kind that always made his heart do a painful somersault. "Good. Because once I’m out of this bed, Stark, you’re taking me on a real date.

No missions, no robots, and definitely no heels in hand at 3:00 AM.”

Tony let out a long, shaky breath, the weight on his shoulders finally lifting. "It’s a date," he promised, kissing your hand. "I’ll even be on time."

the day of your date with Tony finally came. You followed your getting ready routine with a nervous energy that hadn't sparked in years, selecting an outfit that felt like the truest version of yourself. When you finally stepped into the common room, the elevator doors sliding open with a soft chime, he was already waiting for you.

He wasn't in the suit of armor, and he wasn't in his grease-stained lab clothes. He stood there in a crisp, dark blazer, looking every bit the man who could command a room, yet his eyes softened the moment they landed on you.

He took you to your favorite restaurant, a small bistro tucked away from the prying eyes of the city, with a private patio that allowed for a conversation you both were dying to have. The air was cool, scented with blooming jasmine and the rich aroma of red wine.

“I never thought I had a chance. I always saw you with Pepper. I thought you both were end game,” you said, your voice steady despite the flutter in your chest, as the rim of your wine glass rested against your lips.

Tony reached across the table, his fingers sure and warm as he sought out your hand, lacing his fingers with yours.

“Sweetheart, Pepper doesn’t make me feel the things you make me feel. You see me for *me*,” he said, his gaze intense and unwavering. “With her, it was always about the mission, the company, the image. It was a partnership of handlers. But with you... you make me want to actually be the man everyone thinks I am. You make the silence in the lab feel less like a prison and more like a home.”

He squeezed your hand, a small, crooked smile playing on his lips.

“I spent years thinking I had to be the hero or the genius, but you’re the only person who looks at me and just sees Tony. I’m not going to waste any more time pretending that’s not exactly what I need.”

You looked at him, really looked at him, seeing the vulnerability he usually hid behind a wall of snark. The age gap didn't feel like a chasm anymore; it felt like a bridge they had finally found the courage to cross.

"Then no more pretending," you promised, leaning forward into the warm glow of the candlelight. "Just us."

Tony raised his glass to yours, the crystal clinking softly in the quiet night. "Just us. And maybe a significantly better grade of coffee in the mornings."

After dinner, you decided to take Tony out dancing, desperate to pull him out of his rigid routine and remind him what it actually felt like to be alive. 

You both danced until the music felt like a pulse under your skin and drank until the edges of the world blurred into nothing but the heat between you. By the time you stumbled into the back of the sleek black car, you were never more grateful that Happy was the one behind the wheel.

The privacy partition slid up with a soft, mechanical hiss, sealing the two of you in a cocoon of leather and longing. Your lips found Tony’s with a hunger that had been simmering for months, and his hands, sure and demanding, pulled you firmly onto his lap. His fingers trailed a path of fire up your thighs, slipping beneath the fabric of your dress to find the slick, aching heat of your center.

“I want you, Tony,” you breathed against his lips, your voice a fractured plea as you felt his touch exactly where you needed him most.

“Gosh, sweetheart, you’re going to make me lose control,” he groaned, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that made your toes curl. His lips trailed a path of heat down the column of your neck, his teeth grazing your skin, while his fingers deftly pulled aside your lace panties. “You’re so wet for me already.”

“You understand how hot you are, Tony. How many times I’ve imagined you slamming me against the workbench of your lab, or the nearest surface, whenever I watch you take that armor off,” you confessed, your breath hitching as your hips buckled instinctively against his hand. Beneath you, his dick was coming alive as you felt a twitch against your thigh.

“You dirty girl,” he whispered, his eyes dark with a mix of shock and pure, unadulterated desire. He shifted, his grip on your waist tightening as he realized just how long you had been harboring those thoughts. “I don’t think I can make it to the Tower without fucking you in this backseat first.”

“Then fuck me, Tony,” you urged, your hands tangling in his hair to pull him back down to your lips.

Tony pulled away for just a second, needing to make sure you truly wanted this. But the sheer look of desire written all over your face gave him all the confirmation he needed.

He didn't need to be told twice.

He reached for his belt with a frantic edge that was a far cry from his usual calculated grace. At the same time, your hands slid from his neck down across his chest—feeling the hardened muscles hidden underneath his dress shirt—until you reached the fly of his pants to free him.

The sight of his thick, rigid length made your mouth water. Tony just sat back, admiring your every move; he watched, mesmerized, from the moment you slicked your palm with your own spit to the second your fingers wrapped tightly around him.

A low grunt escaped his lips. He could easily get addicted to your touch.

His hands gripped your hips with a sudden harshness, squeezing hard enough that you knew there would be bruises tomorrow—not that you cared. You guided him directly against your slick slit, coating the swollen, pink tip with your heat.

“You’re killing me here,” he managed to choke out.

A triumphant smile touched your lips as you finally sank all the way down onto him, forcing a staggered, breathless gasp from you both.

“Tony,” you moaned, his name a breathless sigh at the sheer sensation of being filled. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against yours as his eyes fluttered shut, completely undone by the way you were squeezing him whole.

He didn’t know how he got this lucky. He had been pining over you for so long that having you here, in his arms, stretched tight around his cock in the back of his car, felt almost like a dream.

Except it wasn't. And the moment you started rolling your hips in slow, circular motions, he was brought crashing back to reality.

“I’m going to fuck you so good, sweetheart,” he growled. His hands slid from your hips to hook underneath your thighs, taking control and helping you lift and drop back down onto his throbbing length. You could feel every single inch, every racing pulse and rigid vein, and the overwhelming fullness made you see stars.

“You feel so perfect, like you were made for me,” he breathed against your lips, guiding your hips into a steady, rhythmic pace. The intensity built with each passing second, the desperate sound of skin slapping against skin filling the enclosed space of the backseat.

“I’m so close, Tony, please,” you whimpered against his mouth.

In response, one of Tony’s hands slid down between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing in frantic, agonizingly perfect circles that turned your vision white at the edges. He wanted to give it to you, but hearing you beg for him brought him right to the brink of his own release.

“You sound so pretty when you beg,” he rasped, a dark edge to his voice. “I should’ve known months ago that I needed to have you begging for my cock.”

A low grunt tore from his throat as your walls clenched tightly around him at his words. Desperate, uninhibited moans fell from your lips as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. The tension snapped, and waves of a shattering climax rippled through your body. Feeling you come, Tony lost his own grip on his control, calling your name as he hammered deep inside you and followed you over the edge.

He held you tightly as the aftershocks rocked you both, keeping you pinned to his lap while he tried to recover his breath. Watching your chest heave with every heavy, ragged inhalation, he pressed a tender kiss to your sweaty skin.

“Never letting you go,” he promised, his voice thick with emotion.

“I don’t want you to,” you whispered, closing the small gap between you to pull him into another passionate kiss.