bibigo lover ,, 🎣🥟

updated 06/21/26.

ryland grace:

love hypotheticals series:

(i) love hypotheticals. after stratt hires you on as a documentation specialist for project hail mary, you find yourself being more and more drawn to one dr. ryland grace.

(ii) odd reunions. you wake up late on the hail mary, and grace doesn't seem to remember anything about you—or, your relationship. you don't know how to break the news to him.

(iii) marriage talk. life on erid is good, aside from the occasionally nagging desire to get married.

miniature space opera series (ongoing):

miniature space opera (i) as ilyukhina's standby for project hail mary, your social life on the vat faces a lot of scrutiny. your interactions with grace seem to be her primary source of entertainment.

mutualism series (ongoing):

mutualism (ch. 1) out of sheer need for a place to stay, you decide to move in with a friend of a friend. considering you're sort of attracted to ryland makes your living arrangements a little complicated.

exhibit g. after re-acclimating to earth life for a whole year, grace comes to your museum on a random monday in the middle of april to view the "project hail mary" exhibit.

mayday. grace can't seem to get the hang of flying the hail mary—and you're definitely the problem

eridian logic! your heart-to-heart with rocky leads to a lot of unnecessary teasing targeted towards grace. you can't help it—he just makes it so easy

close quarters. physical contact on the hail mary is at a premium. you hold yourself a little too highly to ask grace for help.

holland march:

pine and scotch. you spend the night over at the march house after tasking yourself with babysitting. your feelings, holly's gossip, and holland's drinking are a worrying combination.

an evening show. holland is making a big fuss out of holly inviting you to her upcoming school play. he’s pleasantly surprised by the way you show up for the both of them.

stealing hearts. you spend nights stealing luxury goods in the heart of 1970's los angeles. inserting yourself into your own active investigation proves to be less productive than expected, especially when you start dating the private investigator.

colt seavers:

quiet on set. on your fourth big blockbuster working together, you find yourself scolding hollywood’s favorite, tom ryder. to much success, it manages to capture colt’s attention.

jack abbot:

picking favorites. after taking the same shoddy bus from your apartment to the ptmc, you’re shocked to find your attending on the same line. you start commuting together.

benedict bridgerton:

good company. benedict bridgerton has a twofold plan: to resolve his brother's rake-like reputation and to delay your entry into the marriage mart. very quickly, you realize that the scheme is much less simple than it's made out to be.

johnny storm:

silk and storm. you're strung between two lives—freelance journalist and friendly neighborhood vigilante. one night saving johnny storm unintentionally leads to him pining over both versions of you.

steve harrington:

sucker for a good cliché. you and steve have to fake-date after an awkward dinner at the wheeler-byers household—all while you're sure that he still wants nancy.

growing pains, 1989. you take a drive down to philly to spend some long overdue quality time with your hometown friends; your unresolved issues with steve are just as interruptive as anticipated. gasoline. overnight in philly means that you and steve don't have much time alone (you both make do). (nsfw)

jud duplenticy:

only over you. you come to chimney rock for the winter season, not expecting to become acquainted with the new priest of our lady of perpetual grace (nsfw)

bosco leroy:

mostly chimes. in which reader has to work through some unresolved feelings towards bosco after landing in antwerp

summary: you want to fall in love with steve, but you're finding that he's still very attached to an old compass from before your time.

pairing: steve rogers x gn!reader

word count: 5.4k

tags: coworkers-to-lovers, timeskip-heavy, hurt/comfort, mutual pining, not actually unrequited love, love triangle (?), jealousy, occasional cameos, vigilante-turned-avenger!reader, reader has powers, gn!reader

a/n: and if i said i dug this up from last year's fourth of july... please read this avengers nostalgia fic that would've been my first post had i finished it in time last year.

cross-posted to ao3

The aftermath of the smash-and-grab consists of three major components: the broken glass of the storefront window sprayed across the cement, the pillowcase stuffed with pawn shop electronics spilled and strewn over the curb, and the robber—who you have neatly pinned down against the hood of the nearest car. He’s thrashing about as you bind his wrists with zip ties. You have to dance out of the way as he tries to kick at your feet; it’s a fruitless endeavor, because his coordination is poor and he’s striking the air behind him blindly.

He’s cursing at the dark spots in his vision. You assume, by now, that everything in his retinas are blurred together and clouded by iridescent afterimages. It’s likely the traffic lights are scratching fissures in red and green across his field of vision, the lampposts cracking intermittent amber. Ironically, over the cacophony of security alarms, he’s crying wolf—jabbering about vigilantes and hundred-dollar tactical flashlights.

There is no flashlight—only you and the fading glow buried under the flesh of your palms.

Under any other circumstances you wouldn’t have done it. It doesn’t yield the best outcome for any person with working eyes. On a bad day, where the streets are congested with evening traffic and bar-crawling pedestrians, the little flashbang trick you pulled is enough to cause a five-car pileup. Trigger-Happy forced your hand—untucking the pistol out of the waistband of his boxer briefs; it was his eyes or your leg. You chose the less painful of the two.

It’s pure luck that there isn’t so much of a rush tonight. You’re working double time to drag your perp up and a couple yards down to the street corner so you can attach him to the pole of a stop sign. He isn’t so much dead weight as he is aggressively resistant. He’s flailing to snatch the goggles you have adhered across your face and you have to wrestle to keep him moving. It isn’t till you’ve opted to knock him out cold that you realize you have an audience of one on the corner diagonal to you.

They’re obscured by the distance, the nightfall, and the steam piping out of the sewage grate near you—but you can tell that they’re broad and still. “Takes eight minutes for first responders to show,” you pipe up, “Get going before they hold you up to do a witness report. No one wants to spend their night at the station.” There isn’t a response. At this point, you’re hoping they’re devastatingly clueless or flat-out disinterested.

“Just start walking now,” you insist, “I’m doing you a favor.”

“I’ve been tasked with taking you in.” The tone is commandeering, but clearly teeming with uncertainty—fresh to protocol. You knew tabs were being kept on you, but the timing is glaringly inconvenient. You were just about ready to head home and hit the hay after this altercation, and now you’re being stuck up by some fresh-off-the-press SHIELD operative.

“You his newest lackey?” you spit. “Forget it. Tell Nick I’m busy and send my regards.”

“Your compliance would be greatly appreciated.” It’s a thinly-veiled threat that’s bringing you closer to being flat-out pissed.

“Now, that’s just immature.” You know how this is probably going to go, which is why you’re already straightening out your belt and raising your left palm out to make a beacon spanning light a couple feet ahead of you.

“So is beating up petty thieves and calling it justice.” This, followed by strides forward, makes you perk up and stand your ground. The energy welling out of your hand is itching to turn into a warning shot.

The first thing you illuminate is the five-pointed star, shrouded in blue—then, the alternating red and silver rings. He’s got it hugged to his side. You drag your gaze up the sleeve of his brown leather jacket, to the collar of the plaid button-up, and rest it finally on his eyes. They’re kind, but stern—and all the more resolute.

“You.” You stand down, pulling your goggles up and snapping them on top of your head. “They’ve got you doing house calls?”

“Excuse me?” His brows furrow and he’s shooting you a semi-offended glare. The tension in his stance becomes more lax as soon as he discerns that you’re more likely to make a jab at his ego than you are to charge a laser beam into the center of his ribcage.

“I thought they’d send someone a little bit lower on the food chain to take me out of retirement,” you expound, “Not America’s saving grace.” Steve huffs, swinging the shield up and over his shoulder to attach to the latch on his back. He looks more boyish, now, as a strand of his dirty blonde hair strays defiantly down his forehead.

“You’re retired…” He doesn’t outright say it, but the implication is clear. You’re young—far too young to have earned retirement. It would be far too crude for him to say a general estimate of your age, but the astonishment in his expression tells you he's got one pinned down. “Flattering. Thank you,” you mutter under your breath.

“Your file said you were inactive,” Steve emphasizes. “But, you’re clearly field-ready.” He takes a moment to take in the stealth suit adorning your body; it’s military-grade tactical gear, fashioned with platinum plating running along your collarbones, over your shoulders, and down your sides. “Fury knows about this?” He’s totally in over his head.

“This?” you guffaw nervously, brushing off your chestplate. The way his eyes rake over your gear is innocent enough, but the inspection is making you antsy—hot, even. “This is a one-off. I was in the area.”

“You’re well-prepared for someone who’s just passing by,” he points doubtfully.

“Fine,” you surrender. “I live the street over. I was getting ready for bed, I heard the glass break, and I thought I’d stop by.” It isn’t entirely a fib. You suit up when the occasion calls for it, and only when it conveniently comes your way; living downtown, however, means the occasion calls for it more than once a week.

“With your record—” Steve starts. You’ve heard this a billion times, different variations on the same sentiment. You could be in high places, become a national hero, receive the Medal of Honor, or something of the like. But, it’s conditional on the terms that you sell your soul for war games. It’s not your style.

“I like things quiet,” you interject. “I’m not looking for world peace. Or intergalactic peace, for that matter.” The aftermath of the Chitauri was bad enough. Every news outlet for a month after was plastered with photographic coverage—buildings crushed to bits and streets choked up with dust and debris. The casualties were worse.

“It’s a couple missions abroad—tactical espionage, infiltration, extraction…”

You can’t help but scoff. “Don’t you have buddies for that?”

“We’re a bit dysfunctional as of late. It’s difficult getting everyone in the same place at the same time,” Steve admits wearily. “Fury needs the assist.”

“Did he say that verbatim?”

“No,” he concedes, “But it’s the honest to God truth. He wouldn’t take anyone else on record. Just you.”

It crosses your mind for only a second that Steve might be in over his head with these things, too. No one wants to place themselves into the middle of a battlefield. The way his fists clench at his sides tells you he doesn’t want to place you into the middle of a battlefield, either. You haven’t given him an answer yet, and he already looks sorry.

“This is panning out like a missionary visit, Captain.”

“Please,” he implores, “Call me Steve.” He shoots his hand out to shake yours, and it’s only polite for you to follow suit. It’s difficult to ignore the wrap of his calloused fingers around your palm—the way his hand practically engulfs yours. He’s cold and you’re trying not to flinch from his touch; you wonder if it’s the night breeze or his cryogenics are still wearing off.

You already know his name; every living person above the age of ten knows his name. He doesn’t need to tell it to you. But, there’s something about the humility in his introduction that makes you stop. He’s too genuine for his own good. Fury’s smart, sending Steve to retrieve you; he’s impossible to say no to.

—

After a couple months straight of telling yourself you’ll “quit soon,” you still can’t pull away. It is good work—dismantling HYDRA bases and making sure that nobody plunges a nuke-sized hole into the Earth. You despise Steve for convincing you that you’re necessary for it—and you despise yourself for not wanting more ardently to jump ship. 

By now, Steve grants himself the privilege to be noticeably pissed at you. He has a med table rolled out and bolted into the center of the Quinjet’s hull; the rattling movement beneath you is taking a toll on the large gashes scaling your legs. You’re gripping onto the platinum sidebars and gritting your teeth—trying to make it look like it hurts less than it actually does. You only need to last the span of twenty minutes until Nat can pilot the three of you to the nearest possible safe house.

“You don’t have to play medic. I’m good,” you hiss.

“You aren’t good. You’re hurt.” Steve kneels down on one knee in front of you, rushing to slip off your boots and fold up your pant legs for damage check. The way his jaw is clenched shut tells you that you probably shouldn’t look down.

Steve discards his shield on the floor like it’s a cheap toy; it’s weighing him down—making him impatient. He unlatches it off his back, he drops it, and it makes a heavy, wobbling spin onto the floor like a dropped dime. You don’t appreciate the haphazard toss. You had given an arm and a leg to retrieve it for him, and the least he could do is treat it more carefully. He stops in his tracks when you let out a petulant “hey.”

“You should have left it,” he mutters. He motions his hand out to the storage tray beside you, palm open expectantly. You hand him a bottle of antiseptic and clean cloth, and he takes them  hastily—uncapping the lid and sloshing a generous amount out onto the cloth and the floor below.

“It’s vibranium,” you shoot back. “There isn’t a lot of that out on the market, and we’re supposed to keep it that way.” You suck in air through your teeth as he dabs the antiseptic across your left leg. The sting seeps deep into the meat of your calf and he keeps a firm grip on your ankle to keep you from kicking out. You’re strung too tight to process how he drags the pad of his thumb across your skin. “The shield is one-of-a-kind.”

He looks up, steel blue eyes dripping with disappointment. “It’s an object.”

“That’s like saying the Mona Lisa is an object,” you interrupt, shifting your attention to the safety belts swinging back and forth on the wall across from you. “The Mona Lisa isn’t an object, Steve; she’s a national treasure.”

“The shield isn’t worth your life,” he cracks, reaching with outstretched fingers for the bandages in the tray beside you; he doesn’t care to ask you for them, but you scoot it closer for him to grab. All the way in the pilot’s seat, Nat lets out a pitchy, approving whistle.

“I had it under control.”

“Had,” Nat calls out, pulling one side of her headset to the side, “Until that HYDRA slugger mummified you with barbed wire. Not a good look.”

“She’s right. You would’ve been compromised if you were tapped.” Steve isn’t wrong; if you hadn’t  conserved the lingering amount of light coursing through your central nervous system for that particular kind of emergency, you could’ve been sliced to bits. But, you had made sure of a contingency plan; you had pooled your remainder into a blast to plunge that HYDRA agent into a nearby wall. You were fine.

For a moment, you refrain—watching as he revolves the bandage roll around each of your legs like a wheel on its axle. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve seen Steve take bullets like paper cuts; it makes you wince every time—seeing the pain twisted into his features as the serum ceaselessly sends him into overdrive. You persist, “You get flesh wounds all the time and I don’t cry about it.” Now, you’re starting to care less about sounding childish and more about riling Steve up. He slumps, “I’m not crying about it.”

“You look pretty distraught to me,” you continue.

Steve frowns, “I’m raising a genuine concern for your well-being. You were too cocky—no, reckless.” The correction makes you fume.

“You don’t fuss like this when Romanoff eats it.” Up in the front seat, Nat is silent. Giving you your time.

“That’s because I know she can handle herself,” Steve retorts, snipping and taping the bandage on your left, and then on your right. It’s a low blow, but you can’t deny the truth of it. Natasha is trained flawlessly, immune to mistakes; you’re more… spontaneous than anything else. Still, it isn’t difficult not to get offended by the notion that Steve feels burdened by his supervision of you.

“I existed before you, Steve,” you say obstinately.

He lets out a soft sigh. “And it’s my job to make sure you exist after me.”

—

You’re following a dim stream of light pouring down the hall straight into the kitchen, where the leftovers of a makeshift war room lie waiting on the counters. Manila folders and mylar maps, each altered with their own annotations, decorate every surface. Front and center, the floor plans of some defunct warehouse turned bio-weapon manufacturing site are rolled out on the kitchen island. This isn’t the first time you’ve seen Steve do this before: checking and rechecking entrances and exits, identifying and re-identifying escape routes, assigning and re-assigning roles. It’s all a part of this meticulous, ritualized process he insists on going through for every mission. 

Sometimes, Steve just despises screens. You can tell by the way he insists on having everything on paper. It’s not a matter of user error; he’s perfectly capable and not nearly prideful enough to not ask for help learning twenty-first century technology. It’s more a cultural difference than anything else. You assume it’s therapeutic, the way he marks and organizes physical documents like these; they’re tangible and tactile—and not made of pixels, like most things are.

He has you booked for the usual drill: interior reconnaissance prior to his entry, with a loop back to meet him in the middle. As you drag your index finger against the floorplans, you identify the linework of your trajectory running through the warehouse, marked in red ink. His is parallel in blue—separated by five minutes' time. They lead you to the head of the warehouse—where, placed just atop the northern exit—you find her encased in metal framing. Peggy Carter. You scan across her features long enough to etch her likeness into your memory: pale beauty, primped curls, rouge lip, eyes brimming with wit—printed sepia-toned and grainy.

You’re sure, all those sixty-seven years ago, that he placed her there as a good luck charm. Or, a motivator to fight. Or, a reminder to come home in one piece. And why he keeps the picture in the compass at all is a whole other beast—maybe guilt or duty, but knowing Steve, it’s something more… It's the soldier’s version of the lovers’ heart locket.

You’re quick to jump at the sound of footsteps, which halt imminently at the threshold of the doorway. When you whip around, hands drawn back and practically melded to your sides, he’s there, clad in a fitted white t-shirt and sweatpants. His blonde hair is ruffled all over, like he’s been running his fingers through it mercilessly.  It’s always strange seeing America’s Star-Spangled Man in this way—so casually. He doesn’t look any less than he does when he was in the suit, just more… homely. His gaze passes from you to Peggy, and you feel all the more conscious of your position; it appears, at the center of his ad hoc workspace, that you’re committing the scorn-worthy offense of invading privacy.

“Steve.” It’s the only thing you can muster up: a hesitant half-greeting. You are close to apologizing, but you concede considering you haven’t actually done anything irrevocably wrong—besides eyeing his personal belongings a little too closely. Steve, in the merciful way that Steve is, doesn’t say a thing. He simply gives you a curt nod, taking a few steps towards you.

He raises his arm and nears so dangerously close to your left side that your breath involuntarily hitches in your chest. You’re acutely aware of the warmth radiating off of him—likely, in a short-circuit mixup with your own—and try not to eye the cotton of his shirt pulling taut against his chest as he reaches behind you.

You come more clearly to your senses when you hear a pinging swish and click right; Steve shifts the compass on the counter, clasps it shut, and pulls back before you can soak in the proximity. Right.

You want water. You dash easily, rounding the island to stretch up and paw at the tall cabinets—keeping your back to him as long as possible. You try to list all the cold things around to try and counter the flushing heat of your cheeks—your socks on the laminate tile, the tips of your fingers as you reach for a glass, the glass as you fill it with ice-cold water under the dispenser.

“You should be asleep,” Steve warns gingerly, “It’s nearly three in the morning.” He’s either clueless, or brilliant at acting like he is.

“Thanks, Pops,” you respond sarcastically, “Shouldn’t you be asleep, too? Big mission tomorrow.” You turn and knock back a generous sip, before eyeing him carefully.

Steve shakes his head, before taking a step forward to lean on the kitchen island. “I don’t really sleep the same as I did… Only need a couple of hours and I’m good as new.” He sounds almost rehearsed, as if he’s advertising himself like a freshly-minted toy to a child. You wonder, then, if they had made him rehearse it after pumping him full of serum and painting him red, white, and blue.

“No such thing as ‘sleeping in’ in the forties?” you raise, hugging your glass to your chest. He takes up his pen again and uncaps it to return to his notations.

“Most days, I wake up early to train.”

“Right.” You nod, admittedly bested; he works twice as hard as anyone else does—and everyone knows it.  “You’re a fine-tuned machine, Steve.”

“I try to keep up good habits,” he says under his breath, tracing one long line around the outside of the warehouse to delineate an exterior flight path: Sam’s, likely.

You interject, “It’s alright to not be Cap all the time, you know. You’re allowed to loaf around like the rest of us.”

“I’ll take that into consideration.” He halts his linework at the nearest corner, raising the fountain tip just above the surface of the paper to peer up at you. It’s a charming sight. He’s leaning so indifferently over the counter, glancing up to meet your eyes with the small quirk of a grin tugging up at the corner of his mouth. It’s almost shy, the way he looks back down before it can last too long—pressing the pen back down to make another stroke.

You’re racking your brain with all of the classic human resources statements you’re supposed to uphold in a functioning coworker relationship, because you’re sure the way you’re eyeing him is getting progressively closer to misconduct. Then again, professionalism isn’t so fulfillable in cases like yours; being in the Tower means living under the same roof, eating dinners at the same table… it’s all very untraditional.

Your hand drifts just below the counter space and brushes against the seat of the barstool nearest to you. It wouldn’t hurt to sit with him a little while longer—maybe even chat about things other than crime-busting—but, you’re crudely interrupted by the careful scoop that Steve makes of the compass into his left hand. He clicks it open and uses it diligently to identify his bearings and jot them on the corner of the nearest manila folder.

You can’t see her from where you’re standing, but you know she’s there—the little reminder that Steve has a dance saved for him in a time-locked past. He’s holding out for a pipe dream. You try to push down the disappointment that’s boring an ache into the middle of your chest. It isn’t difficult to realize that, at any given time, you can only have half of Steve. The first half is as-is. He’s a good man—the best man, even. The second half is trapped dwelling on his losses.

Before you can excuse yourself, Steve clicks the compass shut and beckons to you over with a pat on the stool beside him. “Sit,” he offers. “If you want to, I mean. I don’t mind.”

“You sure? I don’t want to overstay my welcome.” He looks at you with an incredulous expression—like you’ve said something absolutely absurd.

“I’d appreciate a second-hand opinion,” Steve insists. As you slide onto the seat beside him, your shoulder brushes against the middle of his bicep. Neither of you apologize. There isn’t much else you can do, besides pick up a pen offer to take down coordinates.

—

Steve is in the middle of a not-so-short breather that’s approaching near thirty minutes. His directive is simple: survive another seasonal Stark fundraiser. It's a daunting task—especially when every politician, military official, and A-list celebrity in the state of New York wants to shake his hand. At this point in the night, he’s glued to the corner of the bar, watching Tony and Rhodey knock back thirty-year-old whiskey more expensive than the average rent for a New York condo. Not far from them, Natasha looks busy trying to shrug off baby-faced SHIELD recruits. And you… are trying your best to keep Bruce company.

It’s a very difficult task. He’s been giving you a hard time—explaining mathematical theorems and laws of matter because he knows you aren’t paying attention. As he rattles on with his ostentatious science jargon, he traces your line of sight straight to the super soldier. You’ve got your eye fixed on Steve, watching as he tosses the weight of his compass from hand to hand. He can’t help but suppress a smirk as he takes a generous sip of his Shirley Temple. He raises his pointer to you, and then to Steve. “It’s rude to stare.”

“I’m not—Bruce, I’m not staring,” you correct. The involuntary scrunch of your nose says otherwise. You swirl the wine glass in your hand by the stem, watching the liquid magenta swirl in the bowl.

“I’m only teasing you,” he nods, “Get over there. I’m getting tired watching you dawdle.”

You whip your head up. “Dawdle? Says the one who’s all…Natasha this, Natasha that.” Your impression of him is subpar at best; you’ve got the bumbling tacked down, but not so much the gruffness.

“You’re being very defensive,” Bruce notes. When he realizes you’re no longer going to entertain him—from the sunken appearance of your cheek being bitten from the inside—he holds back. “Really, you don’t have anything to worry about. Steve adores you.”

“Like Nat adores you?” Another way to say: Like a stray dog found on the side of the road. Bruce understands this, and snorts—attending once again to his Shirley Temple. The cherry bobs. The two of you stand, two wallflowers flanking the most unpopulated column at the venue. Tactically, it’s the best seat in the house. And, Steve stands out to you like a sore thumb.

“He respects you,” Bruce nodded, “That goes a long way.”

“He’s Captain America. He’ll respect anything with good morals and a pulse.”

“Suit yourself. Just saying he’s looking pretty lonely over there.” Bruce leaves your side, sidling off to go take a couple shots at Tony—who’s now making it a point to initiate a toast over by the A-shaped ice statue. So, you’re left to your own devices. In a getup that looks like you should be presenting some kind of heavy, gold entertainment award. It’s raucous among every politician, military official, and A-list celebrity in the state of New York. And Steve’s there—at the bar. A silent solace. You find yourself digging your fingernails into your palm as you make your way through the crowd and over to his side.

The polished compass is shut in his right palm—and you already know who’s inside.

Maybe, it’s the alcohol biting away at your self-restraint—but, you figure there isn’t a reason not to say it now: “It’s a nice photo.”

Steve turns to you without an ounce of shock; on the contrary, he’s got a sapped look in his eyes—the remnants of a grin overcome by fatigue. He expected you’d float together sometime throughout the night. He tells you, “I cut it out of the back page of a tabloid in London—local, nothing too fancy.”

You come to sit on the barstool behind him. The satiny fabric of your nice getup feels all the more slippery; you’re all nerves, you think. And you’re trying to figure out what point in the past couple of years that you started getting nervous. Around Steve. It hadn’t always been like that. But, you need to push it down. In his right palm, the compass…

“Woulda been a hard sell, right?” you ponder. “First woman in the U.S. to serve in a non-secretarial government position. I mean, in the history books, she’s on par with Amelia Earhart.” That makes him let out a breathy laugh. He knows the reference, and you know he does. The satisfaction you get out of seeing the amusement twinkle in Steve’s eyes makes your heart skip. “I’m serious,” you affirm. You do mean it; by historical standards, Peggy Carter is a messiah.

He chortles. “Glad to know she’s of such monumental effect.” There isn’t much else to say. Champagne glasses clink together, the room dances and chatters in revolving circles, and Steve is here, in front of you.

“Sorry you’re trapped here.”

“Why are you apologizing?” A tinge of Brooklyn sparks in his tone—makes you squeamish, but you carry on.

“Feels like you’re the most obligated to be here out of all of us.” It’s true: you could go home and no one would bat an eye. But, to be as public of a figure as Captain America… he’s stuck for at least another hour. Or, until Tony makes a big enough scene for him to slip out unnoticed.

“S’not that bad. There’s good booze.” Sarcasm: it doesn’t even register with metabolism. “And good company.”

“Like usual,” you agree. He bumps his elbow against you, and you nudge him right back. It’s a nice routine you two have. A perfectly usual back-and-forth.

—

By the end of the night, you’re in the backseat with Steve. It’s a private car, a high-tint, black SUV—the result of Tony’s insistence on getting the two of you home to the Compound sweet and sound. Tony, you recall, had pulled you aside at some point of the night, when the direction of your gaze was clearly inhibited by your alcohol intake; your eyes hung on Steve’s every movement, and Tony couldn’t help but point it out—proudly: “Don’t be embarrassed about it, sweet cheeks. Everyone’s got work crushes.”

You’ve had enough glasses of fizzy, sharp-tasting champagne to start to feel too reflective for your own good. It’s easy to feel accomplished with a job like yours. You save people, and get praised for it; it’s simple, clean-cut. But there’s still something missing. You know what it is—of course, you know.

You’d regret not telling Steve that you want one date. Just to try it out. And in some earnest way—no doubt influenced by his own never-ending sympathy—you don’t expect anything out of it. Just one date. You think about it all the time, the course of the day planned out in your head. Steve in a t-shirt—just a regular, old white t-shirt and dark-wash jeans. Drinking espresso out of small white cups outside a just-as-small corner cafe, on metal-grate chairs. Quiet. With him.

It’s quiet now, in the backseat. You wish Steve would just say something to make this less strange. But he’s just sitting there, all stoic and contemplative, like you haven’t spent the entire night wallflowering at the bar. All you’re hearing is the sound of the SUV tires wheeling along the freeway, a little bit of wind resistance and—

“I don’t want you to think I’m stuck somewhere I’m not.” Steve’s low voice rings out in the backseat. His hands are locked together in his lap, and he’s fixing his gaze down at you. In the window behind him, there’s only dark mounds of shadows cast by passing trees.

You’re shrugging at him, meekly, “I get it. The social stuff isn’t great, but we’ve got to do it—”

Steve tries again: “It was hard at first to make the adjustments, to be modern, but I’m solid where I am now. And I have been for a while.”

He’s reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, and offering the old compass over to you. Steve practically dangles it over your lap, and out of pure instinct, you’re holding your palms up to save it from falling. He drops it, and you’re staring at it with eyes like saucers. There’s no coherent reason for him to do this. “You don’t need to—”

Steve shakes his head. “I want you to take it. Borrow it for as long as you want, give it back whenever you feel like it. As long as you don’t throw it away, I’ll be happy.”

You’re barely able to get a word out—your own, nerve-wrecked doing: “I don’t… Steve, it’s yours.”

“Yes, it’s got a picture of Peggy lining the top. I know it looks sad. Sentimental, maybe. But it’s also me. I was young and good when I carried this, and I want to stay like that for as long as I can. And if you take it—” He gives you an apprehensive, tight-lipped smile. Your throat dries out. Steve is giving himself over to you.

“Are you sure? Won’t you miss it?”

“Well, it’ll be with you, so it won’t go far,” he assures you. It's sweet, how sure he is to be having you around. “It’s all yours.”

The SUV pulls up to the Compound in a rolling stop, and you're still quite undone by this whole ordeal—the crowded night, and what's come out of it. Steve hops out, comes around the back of the car, and opens your door for you. He's holding his hand out to help you step off that high ledge, even if he knows you hardly need the assistance. You’re sliding the compass into your pocket, weighted gold pulling down the fabric just slightly—before taking hold of Steve. When you've got both feet planted on the ground, you're very surprised to find that he doesn't let go. His good hold on your palm is making your thoughts all muddled.

The two of you are trodding across the cement path leading toward the main building. It's dead quiet, staff all packed up on gone home for the weekend. Amd Steve’s taking his time on this walk, trying to soak in that nightly brisk air of upstate New York. By now, all the street lamps across campus have flickered to life, pouring electric light out onto the lawn. He gives your hand a quick squeeze. “Everyone’s going to be out Monday for the press conference, and I’d rather we leave them to it.” 

“You want to play hooky.” Your skepticism makes Steve bring a hand up to his chest in mock offense.

“I have a great reason, and I’m completely certain that nobody’s going to mind it,” he tells you. “In fact, I think it’ll settle a whole lot of bets.”

summary: after waking up on the hail mary, you're having a difficult time finding your bearings. between your half-memories and the bodies on board, you and grace have a lot to sort out. (part 2/???)

pairing: ryland grace x gn!reader

word count: 4.9k

tags: pre-tau ceti, canon character death, heavy angst, very minimal fluff, canon memory loss, flashbacks, tw for claustrophobia and emetophobia (reader almost throws up), planned slow burn, engineer standby!reader, gn!reader

cross-posted to ao3 / previous chapter here!

You’re in a bag. The plastic is clinging over to your face with some mix of condensation and what you think must be sweat. It’s difficult to make sense of this situation you’re in. You don’t think you’ve been camping recently—that doesn’t sound very familiar—but you’re clearly laying supine in a tight bag. It’s difficult to move your arms and your legs in this contained state. It takes another minute or so to recognize that you should be panicking, because the bag isn’t restricting your movement as much as your own body is. You’re static from head to toe, aside from the miniature twitches and spasms of your fingers trying to wriggle back to life.

It takes you about thirty minutes to jolt yourself back into full functioning. After shedding the bag, which takes far more effort than you’d like, you realize that you’re still stuck. Your surroundings are a pitch-black box that’s only a little larger than you. You don’t like being encapsulated in this tight container, whatever it is. You can’t quite remember—are you claustrophobic?—but it doesn’t matter much because you think most people wouldn’t enjoy being trapped like this.

You have to feel around for a switch or a lever with your half-working hands, and you’re dismayed at the fact that everything’s feeling very smooth. There’s a rectangular ridge protruding out of the surface above your head, traced by a rectangular band of plastic. At your feet, the metal container goes completely smooth. So, door up, floor down. You have to make a few battering knocks, then another few belligerent pushes. You must have the strength of a paper doll. Your efforts are virtually ineffective.

Another twenty minutes of knocking and striking, all while regaining control over your muscles, the door to your little container finally cracks. Unlatched and opening, the rack that you’re laying on appears to pull out on its own. An automated system. The light outside is glaring, and you have to give yourself a moment to adjust. You take a few deep breaths, nearly rolling off the body-sized tray and landing unsteadily on your bare feet. Around you, there’s a collection of storage crates and a ladder leading up to another room.

Up the ladder, out of the hatch, and in through a few affixed halls, it’s a little easier to make meaning of things. You’re on a ship, and you’re able to recognize the general layout with more ease than expected. It seems mission-ready over commercial, which accounts for the level of emptiness your surroundings are. It feels like you’ve run through this space before, and it feels like déjà vu passing from one corridor to the next. You know there must be a cockpit here somewhere, and once you find it, you might get a better grasp of what you’re doing. Something in your mind’s itching to get a view of your trajectory, the velocity of the ship, some kind of extraneous details to help you get your bearings…

Your head is pounding. You don’t think you're concussed, but by the lightheaded feeling overtaking your skull, you must be severely dehydrated. You’re in a bit of a hurry to shed off the rest of the squeaky plastic second-skin off your body, leaving you in only a standard-white set of underwear. This leaves you cold and stumbling around the ship in search of some kind of coverage. You have to scramble around the existing mess for clothing. Papers, beakers, and plastic wrappers are scattered around the floor from corridor to corridor.There should be jumpsuits around here somewhere, maybe a standard set of sweatpants and a t-shirt…

A dark t-shirt strewn across a stool in this room, what you think has to be the lab. Two misshapen yellow eyes pierce their way out of the dark fabric. It’s Cats—strange that you know that. You’d like to know where you are, and what you’re doing on this ship, and all you know is that this is a t-shirt for the musical Cats. You slip the shirt over your head, letting it fall over your legs. It doesn’t offer the best amount of coverage, but it’ll do.

You keep moving along, corridor to corridor. The windows all show the same star-speckled black sky. You’d like to spend a little bit of time admiring this landscape when you have a better grasp of your current situation. There’s an open chamber, one window to peer in across from another to peer outside of the ship. Air-lock. And just nearby, there’s a ladder leading up to an open hatch. Best-case: the cockpit. You approach the opening with narrowed eyes. There’s a bit of clattering, and someone’s talking up there—single voice, raspy and uneven. Not the best sign. With a soft breath, you begin pulling yourself up rung by rung.

—

Ilyukhina has convinced you that this is the roof—after scoping out a few solid roofs, each of a similar quality, for the two of you to sit atop of. You have to be thankful, considering how much effort it takes to scan in and make one’s way up the flights of stairs (and in this case, ladders) to finally reach the view. She insisted on doing all the work herself, for the sake of exploration. She’d told you, over sandwiches in the cafeteria one day: Nobody else in the world has this much access to the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It is basically Area 51. You’d accompanied her on about three of these up-and-down searches, before deciding that you would leave it to her altogether.

You have to admit that the view here is nice. It’s a lot different than the Vat, considering there’s just empty fields and hills; it’s grayer, foggier, and there’s a lot more power plants in sight. Not so many seagulls, either—though there are the occasional eagles that like to dip down in short sweeps over the area. You’ve been thinking about it more and more lately that the sky is theirs, too. When Ilyukhina, Yao, and DuBois make their way up to Tau Ceti, it won’t just be a human problem needing fixing. It’ll be everything. The birds, the fish, the land…

The rooftop provides a clear shot of the Hail Mary’s launch pad. The ship is covered from top to bottom in steel scaffolding and surrounded by all kinds of platforms and trucks. It could be beautiful, if it wasn’t so eerily large. You like to sit yourselves facing east, backs to the Hail Mary, so you and Ilyukhina don’t have to think so much about it. It’s easier to look at the hills. Even if the two of you might only use this roof a few more times before the launch, it’s still something. Ilyukhina tells you, wholeheartedly and almost weekly, that it’s crucial you carve time to spend together before it’s go-time.

As usual, she has a knack for exploring the fine details of your romantic life. Like now, when she’s thrilled, for the fifth time, to ask you to retell your evening with Grace on the Vat. Away from the rest of the crew and their boosted karaoke speakers, when you’d both admitted to reciprocation of the semi-romantic sort. The two of you have a deck of cards laid out on the smoothed-out concrete surface; go-fish, like usual, has devolved into the casual kind of gossip. “This is what I mean,” Ilyukhina proposes, pointing her stacked hand of cards towards your chest, “You and Grace will make great spouses.” A very drastic conclusion in comparison to what you’ve told her.

It’s as if Ilyukhina already has your future prospects all mapped out for you. You find yourself giving her a sour look. “We agreed to call each other on the phone. And maybe meet after a while. That’s all!” It’s still difficult to imagine what your life should look like after the launch. You’ve all been working so hard at getting trained up, making sure all the equipment is in order, assuring that you’ll be ready in time for the launch window. At the end of this, once the Hail Mary’s up in the air, you’ll just be expected to… dissipate. You’re not sure how you’re supposed to return to a normal life—as normal as life can be—after putting this much of yourself into the project operations.

She clicks her fingers. “This is good. We will launch, you will go back home, and when you’re bored after one month, you will call Grace. He will ask you to come to his tiny teacher-apartment, and you two can get, ah—frisky?” She has such a way with words.

“Please don’t. It’s already embarrassing enough as it is that everyone already thinks we hooked up.” It’s difficult for word not to spread fast, whether on the Vat or around the Cosmodrome. You and Grace both know how it looks, the two of you sneaking off while everyone else is well into the evening with their beers and karaoke. No better than DuBois and Shapiro. Really, you’d only talked for an hour or so before deciding to make it back to everyone. You did promise to write your number into his work notebook. Now, you barely even see each other outside of the usual meetings—both too busy prepping for the launch. 

“Okay. I am just identifying the most likely course,” Ilyukhina shrugs. “And I am very sure that Grace will ask you to stay with him. He’ll be so lonely, and you’ll be so lonely by then, too.”

“You’re saying that like it’s a good thing.” Lonely is a terrible thing to be. You can feel bitter cold air filtering into your nostrils as you breathe in deep and sigh. Ilyukhina grabs hold of your shoulder with a tight squeeze—as jovial as ever.

“It is a recipe for success,” she says to you. “You two are going to need each other. You already need each other. It is a natural fit.”

—

The second you pop your head into the hatch opening, you’re intrigued by the sight of this… supposed astronaut in the pilot’s seat. His brownish-blonde hair is ruffled wildly, glasses glinting against the bright red and white lights of the control panel. He’s looking at one of the larger monitors mounted in the cockpit wall, scratching his nails against his stubble. From the looks of it, he’s already beat you to the navigation. You’re thankful that he doesn’t look very crazy. In fact, he’s very well-put together, tight jumpsuit and all. Your priorities tell you that you need to stray away from those kinds of thoughts.

Tentatively, you pull yourself up into the cockpit with light feet, hunched over to adjust your height to the cramped space. You’re about to say something like “hello” or “excuse me,” but he’s already turning around to look at you with a gaunt expression and a shout. With a double take, he jumps into action. The sound of his squealing in terror is enough to send you stepping backwards, in narrow avoidance of the open hatch, hands gripping your temples. He looks like he’s seen a ghost—and you’re it. “What the—!”

You’re trying your best to ignore the boyish yells erupting out of him. “My head is killing me right now. Please don’t scream,” you rasp out. 

The second you take a step closer to him, he’s throwing his arms up in a crude attempt at martial arts. His straightened hands are in front of his face, like he’s ready to give you a chop to the side. “Stranger danger!”

You can’t help but yell right back at the expression: “What?” You’re absolutely exasperated by the sight of his attempted self-defense. It’s undoubtedly ineffective. If you were trying to harm him—which you clearly aren’t—he’d be very easy to assail. “Would you put your hands down?”

He shouts again, this time above the both of you, hands still raised and ready for offense: “Mary, I’m supposed to be dying alone here.” Mary?

A computerized voice rings softly over the ship’s comms: “Dr. Ryland Grace. End of manifest.”

“But that isn’t really the end, is it?” he shouts upwards, beyond the both of you. The computer doesn’t seem to register that question too urgently.

“Grace. You’re Grace. Okay—that’s something,” you say, trying to jog some kind of memory. Right about now, you’re only able to rely on what’s right in front of you. He’s… pretty, even if he’s panicking. Grace has the composure and clumsiness of a baby deer, scrambling over the cockpit seats, hands running over the walls to try and find a steady anchor. You do not like the look of the way his hands are bumping all of the different buttons and scanners; your gut tells you to scold him for it, but you’re too distracted by your absolute lack of information. You should know him. He’s just as familiar as the ship’s layout, but you can’t pinpoint any specific details. Could you have known each other? He clearly doesn’t recognize you.

“Are you real?” Grace asks. He thinks you’re a hallucination, and he’s pushing up his glasses to get a good look at your face. “There’s no potential for gas leaks. We’re running on astrophage. It could be the air—” He’s reaching his hand up with two fingers to prod at your shoulder. You slap his hand with a soft thwack before he can make contact. He retracts it back with a muttered “okay, real, m’sorry.”

You can only shake your head, “We’re operating in a low-pressure environment. Oxygen toxicity would be highly unlikely.” You must be pretty textbook smart. Grace seems to be soothed by the rationalization.

“…No, yeah, that’s a good point.” And he seems more trusting knowing that you have some baseline scientific knowledge. It means you’re here for a reason, too. “Sorry,” he says again, this time more consciously, “My people skills aren’t very practiced at the moment.” Which you think must mean that he hasn’t needed them prior.

“Are you really the only person here?” you ask. His lips twitch into a frown. You don’t want to feel scared, and he’s really not helping your case.

—

On Stratt’s demand, the Baikonur Cosmodrome shut down all major operations to the public—including their on-site museum. You think you’d like it more with visitors, seeing as it’s an educational science center. It deserves field trips, with kids to learn about the wonders of space travel. It’s unclear how long it’ll take for them to re-open after the Hail Mary launches, and for now, the museum’s only visitors are the off-shift crew.

It’s Grace’s idea to come in at midnight, after dark—the only opportunity either of you can chip out a solid chunk of free time. You’ve still gone through the motions, lately, of being distantly enamored with each other. What you’ve learned of Grace is that he likes slow. He likes the eye-tag. He likes giving you pep talks for flight simulations. He likes identifying where you sit in the crowded debriefs, making sure he can spot you wherever he’s stationed next to Stratt. Grace is all for taking his time—and really, so are you.

And, this is slow: Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum, empty as can be. Just the two of you here, wandering placard to placard. Neither of you can read a lick of Russian, but it’s still enjoyable enough to look at all of the old aerospace artifacts. There’s model rockets, extracted control panels, old spacesuits… The headshots of all the historical figures are only slightly unsettling, and Grace makes good fun out of faking fun facts off the top of his head for you to laugh at. His murmurings make the cleared space of the museum marginally less creepy.

The fact that the two of you are cozied shoulder-to-shoulder in your matching Hail Mary hoodies isn’t so bad, either. You’re secretly grateful that the Museum is so poorly insulated. It gives you a greater excuse to be closer to Grace, huddled like penguins trying to keep their warmth. You separate only at the opportunity to see a particularly darkened display room, tucked around the corner from the rocket launch models. Grace calls out the second you’re out of sight. “Uh… where’re you going?”

You’re far too excited to wait up for him. “Just come and sit!” Finally, Grace makes it over to you, a few yards away. His glasses descend just slightly on the bridge of his nose as he tilts his head down to look at you. He’s smiling—smirking, really—at the sight of you on the bench with your legs crossed. Grace lets out a whistle as he plants himself down right beside you, taking in the view ahead of you both. It’s beautiful, this mock-up Solar System, and the little dotted lights making up distant stars.

The two of you sit there a moment, soaking in the sight of it all. Grace rests his elbows on his knees, staring out at the fiber-optic stars. “You know, I have a model just like this in my classroom back in S.F. It's paper-mache. Not cool as this, but it’s something.”

“Huh,” you huff out. “Did you make it yourself?” You love it when Grace talks about his outside life. Maybe optimistically so, and altogether from Ilyukhina’s influences, it’s nice for him to tell you things to look forward to.

“No,” he chuckles. “No, I put it together with a couple of after-school students. They all got a planet, we made it to scale. It was a whole thing.” It isn’t difficult for you to picture this at all. Grace talks in lessons as-is. The image of him in your head, Mr. Grace in the middle of a decorated classroom, trying to encourage his students with textbook images of each of the planets (with a particularly snooty quip about Pluto), is crystal-clear.

This is the person that he is outside of the mission. It makes perfect sense. You shift your gaze from the hanging planets to Grace. His eyes are still raised up, looking somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn. His shoulders are dropped, the most relaxed you’ve seen him in the past month. You can see the multicolored reflection of all of the planets distorted across the lenses of his glasses. “That’s sweet,” you murmur. “You… care about them a lot.”

Finally, he takes a look at you, still just as soothed. He tugs at the logo on his hoodie. “This is all for them. And… other things now, I guess.” The sheepish look on his face is contagious, and you find yourself fixing your eyes back up at the model planets. Still shy. It’s hard not to be. You’re both on the verge of that future after launch. But for now, you’re still here—Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum, Solar System model—waiting on that ship to go up in the air. You’re small, and so is Grace, and Hail Mary will be the farthest manned human mission, a thousand light years away. Under the most dire of circumstances. You can only hope that it’ll pan out well when that ship ends up where it’s supposed to be.

—

And now, in the middle of some other planetary system, looking at a sun that isn’t yours, you’re still sitting with Grace. It’s strange, the echoes you have of a museum, fake planets, a pending launch. And you can corroborate that Grace is supposed to be a science teacher. Not many other details there. Still, he’s spent the last two hours trying to explain to you what he knows about himself and the Hail Mary. You’re very disheartened to find that he knows very little—basically, as much as you do. The most you can attempt is tracing your steps.

Now, you and Grace are standing in front of your precious home, tucked behind storage crates and just by the ladder. It’s still as you lifted, busted open with the body tray extended. Grace gawks, “You came out of that?” You’re both like two crappy detectives, Grace in his yellow jumpsuit and you in the Cats shirt and undies. A very ineffective combination.

“Yes,” you say, irked. You’ve run through this already. “I was stuck in it for half an hour before I was able to bust the door open.”

Grace squints his eyes, squatting down to look inside of the containment chamber. He’s pulling out a flashlight from his side-pocket. “What is it?” You’re staring down at his white Converse. You seem to remember those vaguely, too.

You chew the inside of your cheek. “A waste bin, I think. Somebody tried to do a last-minute MacGyver rig with me inside of it.” You kneel down beside him, watching as the beam of the flashlight casts into the box. “The IV’s were looped through here and here,” you point with your finger, “I ripped them on the way out.”

Grace sighs. “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t have to apologize. It’s very sweet, but completely unnecessary.

You find yourself giving him a nudge to the arm and a soft grin. “Well, you didn’t put me in it, did you?” He nearly tumbles from the force of your elbow bumping his arm. He has to tighten his grip on the flashlight to keep it from falling onto the floor.

“Well, no. It’s just a little Houdini gone wrong. That’s all,” Grace admits. “You handled it better than I would’ve. When I woke up…” 

—

Grace is worried about bringing you to the room he started out in. He assures you that the two bodies there aren’t so much bodies as they are mummies. You’re lucky in this way to be trapped in a controlled environment. They passed away cleanly. The racks are empty, but their nameplates still glow strong. Grace, Ryland. Active. Yao, Li Jie. Deceased. Ilyukhina, Olesya. Deceased. Ilyukhina and Yao have been placed neatly in a corner of the room, right by the robotic arm. You find yourself having a hard time looking at their bags too long.

“The… names are familiar. The woman, Ilyukhina. I…” You feel like you’re going to be sick. You know you are, and so you peel away from Grace’s side to find the nearest waste bin. There’s a closed can in the corner, away from the bodies. You pull the top off as fast as you can and hold it up. You’re getting on your knees to try and spew, but nothing comes up. “Sorry. Gross,” you groan.

“It’s okay. Just take your time,” he assures you, “Do you need water?” Grace makes it over to you with a few steps, leaning down to rub the center of your back. Just like your mind, your body doesn’t treat him like a stranger. You can feel your nausea subsiding the more his palm juts in between your shoulders.

“No, uh, no thank you,” you huff out. Grace hums. And Ilyukhina. You can remember her high ponytail, her near-constant teasing, the focus she’d place into those mechanics simulations. It’s starting to make a little bit more sense now. “I’m her standby,” you mumble to Grace, words slightly slurred. He’s quiet behind you. “Like an understudy?” you say. “In case of emergency, she gets sick or she, you know—I step up to the plate.”

“That’s great!” Grace exclaims. He seems considerably relieved by this revelation. It means at least one of you is qualified to be aboard. But you’re still largely unconvinced.

“Is it? You’re a schoolteacher and I’m a backup.” You drop the waste bin back on the floor and Grace helps you to your feet. “They’re supposed to be doing this,” you mumble, squeezing your eyes shut and laying a palm over them.

“Well, statistically speaking, we’re better off because there’s two of us,” Grace reasons, “You might’ve upped our chances by a significant percentage.”

You scoff. “What, an extra 0.01%?” Grace tries to give you a little more joking reassurance—“You should give yourself a little bit more credit. Bump it up to 0.02.”—but you’re already feeling that tension headache return again. “We are so screwed,” you groan. Then, Grace is quiet. You both know it, and you’re only outlining the obvious truth of the matter.

So, instead, he gives you an alternative. “I was planning on sending them out right before you woke up,” he says to you, “If you want to, we could do it together.” 

—

You’re wearing Ilyukhina’s red jumpsuit, not the best fit, but it’s better than what you had on before. You have the arms of the suit tied around your waist, and that same Cats shirt you found when you woke up. It’s all hers, including the mission. You can’t look at Ilyukhina for very long without looking away. You find greater comfort from observing all the other inanimate things on the ship. The clinically white lights mounted along the corridors, the storage crates pushed to corners of the room, the view of stardust and empty space outside the thick-glass windows. When you look down at Ilyukhina, you can feel your breath seizing up in your chest.

Grace has laid her and Yao in a gentle way, arms crossed over their chests, dressed in those yellow launch suits. He speaks for Yao, on his photographs, his silly faces, and the leadership he might’ve given you both. And then, it’s your turn. You have to kneel down to her side with a stack of prints in one hand. There’s a picture of both of you at the top, over the balcony of a marine ship you can hardly remember. In the photo, her arm is hooked around your neck in a sisterly way, and the two of you have your eyes squeezed shut from laughter.

In your other hand, there’s a full IV bag. It sloshes as you lower to the ground beside Ilyukhina. You fix your eyes on it and you speak. “I remember that we used to talk a lot near the water. That time was very dear to me, or else I wouldn’t have been able to recall it. I’m sending you out with this IV bag of… midazolam, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. That’s a pretty crappy mix. But it says on the label here that there’s diacetylmorphine here, too,” you read. You shake your head with a crackly laugh, “Heroin. It’s heroin and it’s got your name on it.”

Grace chokes back a laugh, just as shaky as you are. “And I hope you don’t mind me taking your shirt,” you say to Ilyukhina, “I told Grace I’m not sure if it’s because you liked the animal or just the show. Maybe both. I… uh, think I loved you. I do love you, even if I can’t remember it right about now. And I’ll be sad to see you go.”

Once the photos and the IV bag are tucked under Ilyukhina’s arms, you’re backing away in slow steps. Clumsily, you find yourself backing straight into Grace’s chest. He guides you by the wrist gently to turn and face him. He looks so worried, and suddenly, he’s pulling you into him with a strangled sigh. He's trying to stifle his tears, and it's not working out very well for him.

Grace lets you pull the small-lever on the air-lock. Yao first, Ilyukhina second. It’s an easy override for Mary. You don’t even realize you’re crying until you feel the welled up tears dropping down your cheeks all the way to your jaw. It takes you a moment to catch up to speed with your own crying, and when you’re finally more focused, you’re taking your fingertips up to smudge off the trails of tears. You remember hating crying in front of other people.

—

“I don’t want my last memory of you to be red and puffy,” Ilyukhina coos. “It isn’t flattering.”

“That is so mean,” you choke out. You’re trying to blot your eyes with your sleeves, cries getting muddled with stress-fueled laughter. You might be hysterical—you’re not sure.

“Okay. I take it back,” she says, “I’m just saying I want you happy in my head before I go under. So, when I dream, you will be happy.” She’s supposed to be launching a week from now. It’s the last time you’ll ever be on this rooftop with her, sunset in Kazakhstan, because she’ll be busy doing final checks. Stratt’s more strict than ever making sure that everyone’s prepared for the Hail Mary to go up. So, you and Ilyukhina might be seeing a lot less of each other. This might not be that last goodbye, but it’s close enough to it.

You sniffle a bit. “I don’t think that’s how it works.” The intermittent breezes on this droid are drying your tears quickly, and they feel searingly cold on your face. You’d beg Ilyukhina to go inside if you weren’t so hell-bent on taking in the scenery. You need to keep these memories close, and you can’t skimp out on the time.

She’s shaking her head at you with a click of her tongue. “You don’t get to grieve until you see the rocket break out of Earth’s atmosphere. Then, you can cry. I will be far enough away.” Per her request, you take in a shaky breath. Less tears.

“You’d better say hi to me in those video logs. When they touch back down, I’ll probably be sixty or something,” you think, “Maybe older, I don’t know.”

“You focus on growing old—with Mr: Middle-School or not—and I will make sure that you have a world to grow old into,” Ilyukhina shrugs. “That’s what I’m here for, no?”

wait don’t do this to me. because.

ryland in a crop top and short shorts is probably the shyest out of the three—considering he’s usually the one wearing the most layers. just so flustered trying to tug to shorts down, and then the shirt, and neither is getting any longer (you have to remind him). then, his glasses are falling off, and he’s just a complete mess. and he’s soo (not) mad when he sees how much you’re drinking this up. he’s all like “are you sure you’re into the crop? i guess it’s pretty ‘90s.” and you’re just frothing at the mouth because you’ve never seen his muscles so beautifully wrapped. ryland’s stomach is doing flips every time you run your palms up and down his arms. his soul probably raises out of his body when he realizes that your hands are going to be glued onto him until he changes out of this outfit. you beg him not to, because he just looks so delicious.

colt is really comfortable. too comfortable. again, being stuntman for ryder means he’s getting dressed up in the most absurd cowboy/pirate/cop/etc costumes, and he’s probably done the more revealing ones with little resistance. probably puts sunglasses on and does a little spin for you (the ego on this one), and you have to act like you’re totally not into it. he knows you are and you know you are—so there’s really no point. this best thing you can do is catch colt by surprise and squeeze on him the second he gets close to you (arms, thighs, ass, really everywhere). the sensation of your hands over the tight fabric of his crop top and shorts is making him choke back a groan—and you’ve got the widest grin that colt’s ever seen on you. colt is begging you to play nice with him so he doesn’t throw out his back, but in the end, he’s throwing those sunglasses off and letting you do whatever you want to him.

holland is probably the most resistant out of all three of them. literally only does it to please you and holly (who thinks that her dad’s embarrassment is premium entertainment). while she’s pointing and laughing at him, you just have this small, devilish smile on your face that’s making holland squirm. you have to assure him it’s just like that dan aykroyd skit with the hard hats! everybody loves that skit. but it’s even better than dan aykroyd because it’s your very handsome, no-longer-single-father boyfriend who’s fully on display for you to check out. you’re keeping it pg-13, laughing along, until holly has to leave to hang at jessica’s. the second she’s out of the house, you’re making a jump on holland, he’s falling onto the couch with you on him, and you’re groping him through the crop top—telling him all about how this is the sexiest you’ve ever seen him (really, porno-level). holland only gets cocky after you tell him you’re turned on by him all skimpy, and by then, he’s lowering his voice and asking if you want him in this get-up more often.

im just imagining like holding hollands face while he violently sobs over the stupidest reason and him looking up at you with watery eyes and a red nose and ohhh my goddd