Yosefina

Seeing that gaze in real life (is this even real life? You still think you're dreaming) as opposed to in-game is… flustering, to say the least.

Hell, you're sure it was never even that intense in the game.

You clear your throat. "Um, are you sure you don't want me at least looking for a job or something?"

It takes him a beat to answer, voice not entirely in the room, drifting off somewhere with his stare, "Yeah."

You briefly glance to the side, meeting a blue-ish pink that's damn near swirling, before quickly looking way again.

"Um, yeah you do? Or… yeah you don't?" You glance at him again, but he just continues staring, so you return to looking at the wall and continue, "'Cause you've already done so much, so I can uh… go ask one of the other guys—"

"No."

You flinch.

His tone.

His tone changed, hardened.

Where before, it was drifting somewhere between pink clouds—just now, it felt anchored, short like the temper of a cat.

He's never spoken to you like that before.

From the corner of your eye, you watch his sharp gaze go blunt again, softening around the edges a little as his shoulders fall and you let your gaze fully encompass him once more.

"I'm sorry, cutie"—he sighs—albeit, a tad louder than your average joe—then kneels in front of you and takes your fiddling hands in his own, gaze just as swirling and devoted as before—"it's just that… well, the other guys…"—his eyes trail to the side—"they wouldn't understand."

You blink. "Huh?"

Then they flit back to you. "They don't know you. Not like I do."

It takes you a moment to process his words, to realise exactly what it is he means, but once you do, it's evident in the way your lips turn down. "…Because I'm not the MC?"

"Exactly."

For a moment, you swear Rafayel's lips twitch up the slightest amount, but they're back to a frowning downturn before long, and you're left wondering whether or not you were just seeing things.

"And because you're not the MC," he continues, his knitted brows just a little too exaggerated as he tilts his head to the side and rises a little to get closer, "they won't even give you a second glance."

You can't help the way your heart cracks at his words, the way you can almost hear it shatter in your ears.

Was it so wrong of you to hope that maybe, just possibly, the men you spent so much time fantasising and fangirling about could feel just a fraction of what you feel for them, for you?

It hurt. Like a dagger to the chest. Knowing they're so close yet so far. That they belong to another despite being (bullshittingly enough) literally made, or coded, for you.

Typical that the second they become 'real', you can't have them.

"Hey now," Rafayel's voice draws you out, ushering your gaze back to his own, gentle one, "I know that look. You're not upset about that, are you?"

You purse your lips and don't respond.

Rafayel frowns. "Well, we can't have that, now can we, cutie?"

With a sudden yank of your arm, you're up, and Rafayel is in front of you, leaving you only a few blinks to register his hand still in yours, guiding you forward right with him.

"Wha—?! Rafayel! What are you doing?!"

"Taking you somewhere, duh."

He says it with that sly smirk, the one he tosses over his shoulder at you as he pulls you along to the private beach he owns, because you now know someone who own a whole ass beach and that's no longer just a fictional thing.

Yeah, still settling in that this might not be a dream.

"C'mon, cutie, I dragged you out here so you'd leave the clouds, not keep drifting in them."

Another yank pulls you out your thoughts, and you blink, and he's suddenly so close.

Nose-to-nose. Breath-to-breath. You can almost feel his lips on yours. His pretty, soft-looking, pink lips.

Your gaze lingers on them for a beat before you realise just how obvious you're being—dammit, [Name], this isn't a fictional character anymore, stop ogling him!—and quickly pull back.

You don't get far though. He doesn't let you.

His grip on your wrists tightens a bit, and he pulls you back in, gaze lost in your own.

"Don't think about them," he whispers, breath mixing into his words. "You have me."

And then, he kisses you.

You remember the day you first woke up in this world.

You remember the days leading up to it too.

You had been logging in to the Love And Deepspace app daily, and something… strange had been happening, to say the least.

You had your home screen set to all the boys, just for fun, having any one of them surprise you at any given time was nice. Or at least, that would be the case.

But lately, you had only been getting Rafayel.

You didn't think much of it the first two days. Then the third day came, and you clicked off the app several times, being told you'd been away for too long each one and having to log back in all over again.

And each time? It was Rafayel that had greeted you.

After that, you had tried logging out and in again a couple more times, before relenting and choosing to completely remove Rafayel from the option of LIs who'd greet you when you logged in. Just out of curiosity.

It didn't work.

In fact, the opposite happened.

No other LI could be picked.

You tried tapping their icons repeatedly, but it was like the screen was frozen, like the game wasn't letting you pick.

Something even more peculiar:

"Something the matter, cutie?"

Your jaw dropped, finger paused in mid-air, hovering right over Xavier's icon to try and fail for the fifth time to pick him.

Rafayel had never done that before, had he?

They don't speak during that screen… so then why..?

Dismissing it with an almost suspicious look, you had returned to the interaction screen.

Rafayel looked the same as ever.

You tried goading something out of him, poking and prodding at places you would never touch had he been a real person stood in front of you, but all you ever got was the normal dialogue you were used to and had heard a hundred times over (still didn't stop you from giggling at them each time though).

You dismissed it as a weird bug.

But the bugs kept on coming.

Weird camera angles. Zooming in close at Destiny Café. Random chuckles when you're ranting about something with the app open and nearby.

It had started to freak you out a little, so you looked it up online.

All you could find was self-aware fanfic.

They couldn't be… could they..?

Of course not, this was real life, and that kind of thing only happened in fanfiction.

But then, one day, while the app was open and you were readying up for a date with a nervous smile and a gorgeous set of earrings newly placed in, your phone screen lit up, loudly white and obnoxiously bright.

And then you blinked, and you were in the most gorgeous open space you had ever seen in your life, with a man you thought only fictional stood right in front of you.

Arms held out as if to steady you—all the while shaking themselves—lips parted like he was breathing out awe, blue-ish pink stare reflecting you in its gaze and you alone.

Rafayel took a step forward.

And still staring, he whispered, "It's you."

[How did the two of you meet?]

The question hung in the air for a moment before you answered. You breathed out slowly, and then smiled. Small, reluctant, tinted with the kind of warmth that only comes from touching something that’s been sitting in the back of your mind for years. A smile with dust on it, softened at the edges.

"It was accidental." You said. "I wasn't even supposed to be at that volunteer event. I was covering for a friend who got sick last minute." Your fingers traced an absent pattern on your knee as you continued.

"I was rushing, I remember that. They handed me an apron, pointed me toward the tables, and I was trying not to drop a stack of cups. I turned too fast and just… Bumped into him. Full-on collision." A quiet laugh slipped out of you. "I apologized without really looking at his face at first. And then, when I did, I remember thinking he looked familiar… But I couldn't place him. It didn't feel like meeting an idol. Just… A person who happened to be in my way."

The host let the silence rest there for a beat, then. It cuts to Zayne's interview.

He didn't smile when they asked him the same question. Not right away. His gaze dropped to his hands, lashes lowered, like the memory was something fragile he had to hold carefully or it might shake loose everything around it.

"I noticed her first." He admitted after a moment. "Before we even spoke." His voice was calm, but there was a thread of something softer running underneath. "She was wiping tables near the back." He went on. "Hair tied up badly, like she'd done it on the way there. Apron crooked, sleeves rolled unevenly. Everyone else there seemed very… Prepared. Like they knew there were cameras, managers, staff watching."

His eyes lifted slightly, not to the lens, but somewhere past it. "But she didn't look like that. She looked… Real. Like she'd just stepped out of her day and into this one without changing for it. Like the world didn't have claws yet." A faint exhale. "I think that was the first moment in years that I remembered I was human. Not a product. Not a headline. Just a person standing there, watching someone exist without performing."

For a brief second, the screen split down the middle. On the left. You, smiling softly at the memory, eyes distant but gentle. On the right. Zayne, gaze lowered, the corner of his mouth barely tilted, like the memory hurt and comforted him at the same time. Your soft wistfulness. His quiet ache.

The same story, remembered from two different hearts.

[How long did the relationship last?]

The question made you pause for a moment. Your thumb moved slowly over the fabric of the chair's armrest, like you were smoothing out creases in time itself. Your gaze didn't harden or break. It softened, settled somewhere a little behind the cameras, where the years you were being asked about still lived.

"Four years." You said finally, a small, sure nod accompanying the words. "Four really full, really good years." You didn't rush to explain. The way you said it, full, good, held enough weight. The kind of years that changed a person, even after they were over.

Cut to Zayne. He didn't need to think. The answer was already there, sitting on the tip of his tongue like a number he'd repeated to himself more than once. Zayne exhaled, slow and measured, as if he was steadying something inside his chest.

"Four years, three months, sixteen days." He said. No hesitation. No calculation. Just quiet certainty. There was a brief silence after that. One he didn't try to fill. His eyes dipped for a moment, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. "It wasn't long enough."

No elaboration. No dramatic sigh. Just that simple truth, landing with the weight of everything he didn't say.

[Was it smooth sailing?]

You let out a soft laugh, almost affectionate, the kind that carried both warmth and a touch of sadness. "It was, at first. Really smooth. We found our rhythm. But… Then the peak of his career hit. And everything changed. Suddenly, things got loud, too loud for the quiet we'd built."

Zayne sat there for a moment, his gaze drifted somewhere far beyond the room, distant and pained.

"It was smooth." He murmured. "Until the cameras became heavier than our hands could hold… Heavier than us."

The air between you thickened, heavy with the memory of days when love felt simple, and the weight of the world hadn't yet pressed in.

[When you first started dating, what kind of future did you picture?]

You looked down, cheeks warming, a shy smile tugging at your lips. "It sounds… kind of silly." You said, voice soft, almost uncertain. "But I really did imagine a future with him. Nothing huge. Just… Something small. A home we could call ours, lazy weekends, maybe a couple of pets. A life where we could just exist together, without the noise of the world pressing in."

Zayne's response landed heavier, slower, as if each word carried the weight of years. "A quiet life." He murmured, voice low, almost breaking. "Away from everything. And… A family. I used to picture her laughing with our kids, the kind of laughter that fills a room. I don't think I've ever told anyone that before."

Behind the camera, the crew went still, as if even a breath might shatter the fragile memory he was holding so tightly. The silence stretched, full of unspoken longing, and the ache of what might have been.

[Before things got complicated, what was a normal day like for you two?]

You brightened, not in pain, but in the quiet warmth of remembrance. "Oh… We'd sneak into little cafes." You said, eyes softening at the memory. "Trying sweets he insisted I would love, even though he secretly had the biggest sweet tooth. They were always too sweet for him, but he'd still let me take the first bite, just to see me smile."

You smiled faintly, remembering the laughter. "And we loved being outdoors. Skiing in the mountains until our legs ached, hiking trails that ended in ridiculous views, biking until the sun dipped low. Holidays indoors, pillow fights, midnight grocery runs… Small things, but they made the world feel tiny and safe."

Zayne's expression softened too. This time not grief, but a kind of yearning that hurt because it had once been warm.

"Those… Those were the only times I felt like I belonged to myself." He said, voice low, almost trembling. "Being with her… It made me feel like I had a home. I didn't even know I missed that… Not until I lost it."

The camera lingered for a moment, capturing the fragile ache in both of you, the memory of ordinary days that had once felt extraordinary.

You remembered sweetness. The careless laughter on snow dusted slopes, the stolen bites of desserts he insisted you try first, the quiet evenings spent tangled in blankets, pretending the world outside didn't exist. He remembered loss. The empty silence after the cameras left, the nights where even the quiet felt too loud, the weight of hands that no longer held his.

You held those years like soft photographs, edges frayed, colors faded, but still warm beneath your fingers. He held them like heirlooms he had broken with his own hands, fragile pieces sharp enough to draw blood if he lingered too long.

The crew behind the camera moved carefully, as if even breathing wrong might fracture the fragile honesty between you. Both were true. Both were honest. Both were memories displayed on the same screen, two versions of the same love, intertwined yet separate, a story told together but felt alone.

-

The camera settled on you slowly, the room feel weightless like you were seated inside a memory rather than a filming set. You inhaled deeply, drawing in the quiet like a fragile melody, steadying yourself, gathering the scattered pieces of a past that still lingered in your chest.

The off-screen interviewer's voice was gentle, careful, as if not to disturb the fragile space.

[During the relationship… What was it like for you?]

You didn't answer immediately. Your lips curved in a ghost of a smile, your fingers fidgeting just slightly, caught somewhere between a sigh and a laugh.

"It was… Peaceful." You said after a pause, your voice carrying the softness of someone reopening an old, cherished book. "Even when the world around him was loud, chaotic… When cameras were everywhere, and people expected him to be someone else, he had this way of making the world quieter for me. Maybe that was the best part, how ordinary moments could feel… Enough. Like the world shrunk down just so we could breathe in it together."

Your eyes traced the outline of your hands, rubbing your thumb over your palm unconsciously, as though touching memory could make it linger. "I don't think I realized it then." You added, voice low and fond. "But I was… Really happy. Just… Being with him was enough."

The next question came gently. [Was it hard… Loving him?]

Your eyes softened instantly, as if the answer had been waiting there all along, tender and inevitable. "No." You said quietly. "It wasn't hard. Loving him felt… Natural. Even with the life he led, the spotlight following him everywhere… It never made it harder to love him. It was just… Loving him."

A soft, wistful laugh slipped from your lips. "He looked cold sometimes. Aloof. People assumed he was distant. But he wasn't. Not with me. He was… One of the sweetest people I've ever known, in the quietest ways. Loving him didn't require anything of me but… To be me."

Your smile widened slightly, gentle, protective of the memory. "And he tried." You murmured. "Even when he thought he wasn't enough… I always saw him."

[What did you dislike about him?]

Your smile faltered, not from resentment, but from the gentle ache of seeing someone you love shoulder burdens alone.

"There wasn't much." You whispered. "Maybe… That he carried everything himself. Even when he didn't have to. I wish he'd trusted me more, let me share it, lighten the load. But he didn't. He bore it alone." You paused, exhaling slowly, the sound like wind brushing old windows. "It wasn't a flaw. Just… One of those things that quietly hurt, watching him try to hold the world on his own."

The interviewer's voice softened further. [Do you think you were truly yourself with him?]

"Yes." You said immediately, before the question could even finish. "I think… He was one of the few people who made me feel like I could be myself when I'm with him. He gave me space to be myself, and I tried to do the same for him. Maybe that's why it all felt so real. We weren't trying to be anyone but… Us."

Your gaze drifted to some distant corner of the studio, as if searching for a part of him that lingered there, invisible but familiar.

[Looking back… What do you appreciate about him now?]

"Everything." You whispered, soft, warm, nostalgic. "Even with the fame, the misunderstandings, the silences… I still think of him kindly." You drew in a slow, steady breath, letting it settle. "Some people stay soft in your memories." You said, voice barely above a whisper. "He's one of them."

The interviewer hesitated, sensing the weight of what came next. [What's a small, ordinary memory with him that still feels vivid to you?]

You smiled fully this time, quiet, unguarded, luminous with tender sadness.

"Waking up next to him." You said simply, eyes glimmering. "He'd fall asleep so peacefully. I'd wake first sometimes, watch him lying there… Hair messy, blanket half off, so unlike the public image everyone knew. Just him. Just soft, breathing quietly. And for a moment, the world disappeared. No cameras, no schedules. Just him… And me… In a morning that could have lasted forever."

You swallowed, but the smile remained, steady and soft, the kind that warms even when it carries ache. "It's funny." You murmured, almost to yourself. "Of all the things to remember… It's that."

The camera lingered, capturing the gentle light in your expression. The quiet serenity of someone who had loved, who still loved, and who carried that love like a soft secret, tucked carefully in her chest.

-

The camera shifted smoothly to Zayne, settling on him with a gentle focus. A quiet tension lingered, measured breaths, a stillness that spoke of memories held close, carefully, almost reverently. The off-screen interviewer's voice was deliberate, careful, as if not to disturb the fragile space he inhabited:

[During your relationship… What was it like for you?]

Zayne didn't answer immediately. His gaze dipped to his hands, resting lightly in his lap, tracing shadows that existed only in memory. "It was…" He began slowly, voice steady, almost fragile. "…Simple. In a way my life never is." He exhaled softly, barely audible. "When I was with her… Everything felt quieter. The world, the cameras, the noise… None of it mattered. I didn't have to be anyone but myself. She didn't ask for more. She didn't expect more. And I think I only realized how much I valued that… When it was gone."

The next question came gently. [Was it hard balancing a public career with a relationship with someone who wasn't in the industry?]

"No." He said immediately, firm but quiet. His fingers flexed slightly against his knee. "It wasn't hard. I never tried to hide it, though people assumed I did. I wasn't loud about it… But that's not the same. I wasn't ashamed of her. I just… Wanted to keep her safe. From the cameras, the gossip, everything that comes with me." His jaw tightened, a faint tension in his posture. "If anything… The world made it hard. Not us."

The interviewer's voice softened further, almost tenderly. [Was it hard loving her?]

Zayne's answer came instinctively, a quiet certainty. "No."

Then, slower, like the words came from somewhere deeper, hidden until now. "She was… The easiest person in the world to love." His eyes lifted slowly, and for a brief moment, the grief he'd carried for years flickered openly, raw and unguarded. "She loved me… Just as I was. Not the idol, not the persona. Just me. Even when I didn't deserve it. Even when I didn't give enough back." He paused, letting the quiet linger. "I didn't have to pretend with her. That kind of love… It's rare."

The next question came softly, almost cautious. [What kind of partner were you in that relationship?]

Zayne let out a slow, steady breath, gaze lowering again, the weight of quiet shame settling into his posture. "I think… I received more than I gave." He admitted, shoulders lifting in a faint, reflexive shrug. "I was busy. Too busy. I didn't show up the way she did for me. She carried us in ways I couldn't. Even when I didn't speak about my struggles, she understood. She held the relationship steady… And I… Held onto that steadiness she created."

He blinked slowly, and then the next question came, softer, intimate. [What made the relationship feel safe for you in the beginning?]

This time, Zayne met the camera directly, voice low, reverent. "I could come home to her." He swallowed, chest rising and falling in careful rhythm. "And only her." Another quiet breath. "She was the one place where everything stopped. The noise, the expectations, the pressure… All of it ended at that door. I'd walk in, and she'd be there, sometimes smiling, sometimes reading, sometimes half-asleep on the couch but always there. And that was enough. More than enough."

His voice thinned at the edges, fragile, ghostlike, but full of memory. "She made home… Feel like an actual place. A real place. And I didn't realize how much I depended on that… Until it wasn't mine anymore." He blinked slowly, letting the quiet settle around him, and whispered softly, almost to himself. "Some people stay alive in your memory. She's one of them."

The camera lingered, capturing the careful reverence in his expression. The raw, controlled grief of someone who had loved fully, lost fully, and still carried that love like a treasured secret, held quietly against the chest.

-

The lights dimmed a little more, the background music softened, and the show eased into the segment every viewer had been waiting for. The part no one wanted to watch too closely, yet everyone couldn't look away from.

[Why did the two of you break up?]

You were shown first. Sitting across from the interviewer, hands resting loosely in your lap, your smile was soft, not sad, more reflective, tempered by time, the kind of expression worn only after survival.

"It was a long process, actually." You said, voice steady, calm, the edges tinged with quiet understanding. "People assume it happened overnight, that we just… Stopped. But it didn't. There were cracks before the scandal even hit. His schedule, the pressure, the constant attention. It wore on both of us. Bit by bit, the weight became heavier than we could carry."

You inhaled slowly, letting the pause stretch for a heartbeat. "And then… The scandal came up." Your fingers tightened briefly in your lap. "Everything we had, everything we built… It felt like it fell apart in a single night." The camera moved slightly closer, catching the faint flicker in your eyes, more resignation than pain, the acceptance of something inevitable. "I'm sure you all know which night I mean."

And everyone did. That night had burned across headlines like wildfire.

The feed cut to Zayne. He didn't look at the camera at first. His jaw shifted, once, twice, the subtle movements betraying the restraint behind the composed posture.

"It was my fault."

Four words. Quiet. Certain. Final. The kind of admission that didn't need explanation.

And the viewers understood. They understood all too well what 'fault' meant when a life under constant scrutiny collided with love, expectation, and public perception. He drew in a slow, controlled breath, letting it settle. "I couldn't protect her from the world. I couldn't protect us from what came next. And that… Is on me."

A pause lingered, heavy and fragile, before the next cut returned to your face, calm, almost serene. "Sometimes." You whispered. "Love isn't enough, not when the world keeps knocking at your door, uninvited, relentless. And sometimes… We have to let it go to survive."

The editing made the voices flow together, overlapping for a brief, haunting moment, two truths, two perspectives, neither wrong, neither fully healed, but both enduring, fragile and honest, like glass caught in sunlight.

They showed Zayne first this time. The off-screen interviewer's voice was gentle, careful. [Looking back… What do you think really broke the two of you, in the end?]

He didn't hesitate. The truth he carried had been rehearsed in quiet moments, tucked away in the folds of years spent replaying what went wrong. "Silence." A pause. A long, almost unbearable pause. "I left her in silence."

Nothing dramatic. Nothing defensive. Just a clean, devastating truth, stark against the soft lighting of the studio. And the way he said it… It was as if he still lived inside that echo of quiet, trapped in a moment he could never undo.

The camera shifted back to you. You settled in front of the lens, shoulders squared, forcing a calm smile that barely reached your eyes, as if bracing yourself to tidy the moment into something manageable.

"Looking back… What really broke us." You began, your voice steady at first. "Was me being scared of holding him back. He was at the peak of his career, and I…" You paused, swallowing hard, the words catching in your throat. "I left, like I was moving in darkness… Like I was just another face in the crowd of our own lives."

Your hands twisted in your lap, fingers curling and uncurling with the weight of memory. "I knew he loved me." You continued, voice trembling slightly. "I just… Doubted myself so much. Watching him from afar, seeing him shine, seeing him live… It made me question if I even deserved a place in his world." You lifted your hands slightly, as if searching for something to steady yourself, your voice dropping to a fragile whisper. "Can… Can we take a moment? I just… I need a moment."

You turned your face away, letting the tears fall freely now. The walls you had built to appear composed crumbled entirely, leaving nothing but the raw, aching truth that had lived in your chest for years.

The camera lingered, catching the quiet tremor of emotion, the vulnerability of someone finally allowing the weight of her own heart to be seen. And in that moment, the viewers didn't just watch, you felt the silence, the absence, and the love that had once held everything together.

[What's the hardest thing to unlearn after loving them for so long?]

This was the one question where the two of you seemed to speak in a shared rhythm. Your words linked by the past, but the emotions beneath them couldn't have been more different.

The edit placed your voices back-to-back, a subtle conversation across years and memories. You answered first, a soft laugh escaping your lips like sunlight through a window, nostalgic but gentle, free of the sharp ache that once accompanied it.

"Taking care of someone else before taking care of myself." You said, voice low, reflective. "We were always looking out for each other, almost without thinking. And it took a while to remember what it felt like to just… Look after me. To let myself breathe without feeling guilty. To let the world be smaller for a moment, just for me."

Then Zayne's voice came, slower, heavier, carrying the weight of absence like a physical thing pressing against the chest. "Taking care of myself." He said quietly, the words deliberate, measured. A faint, hollow smile brushed his lips, fleeting and almost invisible. "She… She always reminded me to eat. To rest. To slow down. To breathe. When she left… I didn't know how to do any of that anymore. I didn't even know where to start."

He didn't need to say that she had been his anchor. The grief in his voice said it all, resonating in the quiet spaces between syllables, a reminder that sometimes love teaches you how to live and sometimes, it teaches you how to survive without it.

-

The music softened again for his segment, a quiet, almost reverent hush that seemed to acknowledge the weight of what he was about to share. It wasn't background noise for easy viewing. This was the kind of truth that demanded stillness, that asked the audience to lean in and listen without distraction.

Zayne sat with his hands loosely clasped in his lap, fingers shifting nervously, as if each tiny movement could tether the emotions he kept just beneath the surface. His posture was calm, composed but the subtle tremor in his hands betrayed the storm of thought and memory he carried quietly inside him.

The interviewer didn't ease him into the questions. There were no warm-ups, no gentle preamble. They never do. Because some truths aren't meant to be cushioned, they're meant to land, stark and undeniable, and for Zayne, they were about to land hard.

[Your relationship was confirmed by the public before it was ever acknowledged by your company. During that time, did you think about what it was like for her to face all that alone?]

His shoulders lifted slightly, then sank, as if the movement alone could release a fraction of the tension he carried. A slow, quiet breath escaped him, uneven, unsteady, like a tide brushing against jagged rocks. "Yes." He said, firm but soft. No hesitation, no deflection. "Every single day." He leaned back a little, eyes lowering, not in shame, but in the weight of remembering, the ache of replaying moments he could never take back.

"I knew what she was facing. Even if I couldn't be there to see it… I knew the internet could be merciless. I knew the industry would always protect its investment first, and a person second." A muscle in his jaw twitched, subtle, almost imperceptible but enough to betray the strain beneath his composed exterior. "And I knew… She was alone in all of it, because I wasn't allowed to stand beside her. Because I couldn't. And that…" His voice caught slightly, a pause that held years of regret. "…That's the part I can't forgive myself for."

He spoke steadily, almost too composed, but the fracture beneath the surface was unmistakable. A quiet, lingering crack in a voice that had carried so much silently for too long.

[Do you think the relationship would've survived if you weren't an idol?]

Zayne didn't answer immediately.

He looked down at the floor, eyes tracing some invisible pattern across the studio carpet, lost in the kind of memory that TV cameras aren't meant to capture. The silence stretched, long enough to feel like a heartbeat suspended in time, too long for a broadcast, but the editors left it in.

"I think…" He began, voice low, tentative, as if testing whether the truth could be spoken aloud. He swallowed, a small, deliberate motion. "I think… We would've been okay. Maybe even happier. Freer." Another pause, heavier this time, filled only by the faint hum of the studio lights. "If I wasn’t an idol…" His voice softened, almost breaking under the weight of regret. "If I wasn't under all that… Scrutiny… I could've chosen her. I could've chosen her over silence. Over distance. Over everything that kept us apart." He lifted his eyes briefly to the camera, just enough to let the world glimpse the quiet ache behind his restraint, before letting them drop again.

That line. Simple, understated, devastating. Would later trend for forty-eight hours, reverberating across fan forums and news headlines, carrying the weight of everything left unsaid between them.

[Did your schedule and the pressure from the industry play a big role in that difficult phase?]

"Yes." He said plainly, almost too plainly, as if stating the obvious could somehow make it easier to bear. "But that isn't an excuse." He exhaled softly, a quiet breath that seemed to release years of tension, though it didn't erase the weight in his shoulders. "I was exhausted. Overworked. Pulled in every direction, every day. Deadlines, appearances, expectations… They never stopped."

His gaze flicked downward, hands resting loosely in his lap, fingers tightening just slightly, betraying a tension he otherwise tried to mask. "And yet… She always made time for me. She always carved out space in her life for us. And I… I couldn't do the same. I couldn't match her effort, her presence. I failed in the small, important ways that matter most."

He swallowed, voice quiet, almost to himself. "I kept telling myself I'd fix everything once things slowed down. Once I had the time. Once the chaos passed. But time… time doesn't wait. It doesn't pause because you’re scared to lose someone. And by the time I realized that… It was already too late."

[If you look back at that period… Do you think the breakup was avoidable, or was it already too late?]

He blinked slowly, letting the question settle, as if weighing every memory against it. "It wasn't too late." He admitted finally, voice quiet, almost fragile. "Not at the start. There was a chance… If I'd been braver. If I'd spoken, if I'd acted." His brows drew together, shadows of regret deepening the lines on his face. "But I made it too late. I let fear… Silence… My own stubbornness get in the way. By the time I realized it, the space between us had grown too wide. And I… I couldn't bridge it anymore."

There was no drama in his words, no plea for sympathy. Just the soft, aching acceptance of someone who had replayed the same mistakes too many times, over and over, wishing he could turn back the clock, but knowing he never could.

[Was there a point where you knew she was crying over you at home, and you still went to work like it was just another day?]

Something in him stilled. Not in a showy, dramatic way. Not for the cameras. Just enough that the air seemed heavier, almost holding its breath with him.

"Yes." He said, voice barely above a whisper. "I knew." The interviewer remained silent, giving him space, but Zayne continued on his own, as if the dam inside had shifted, cracking just a little. "She tried so hard to be strong." He murmured, eyes dropping. "But I could see it. Even when she laughed, even when she smiled at me… I knew when she was hurting. She didn't have to say a word."

A long breath, almost a sigh, and he shook his head slightly. His fingers fidgeted briefly, curling and uncurling, betraying the weight he carried. "That's what I regret the most." He admitted, the words soft, broken, carrying the ache of someone who had watched the person he loved hurt and had done nothing but stand by, powerless or unwilling to act.

[Do you think she stopped feeling like a girlfriend at some point and started feeling like… Collateral damage?]

Zayne's gaze lifted slowly, tracing the ceiling as if searching for an answer hidden in the lights above. His eyes glimmered wetly, but he blinked it back so quickly it was almost imperceptible just enough to catch anyone looking closely. "Yes." He said, voice quiet, almost fragile. A pause hung in the air, thick and unspoken, the kind of silence that carries everything it doesn't need to explain. "And I hate that I let her feel that way." He added, lower this time, as if speaking it aloud might somehow make it real.

There was no defensiveness. No attempt to justify himself. No self-pity. Only the weight of truth, stripped bare, heavy enough to press into the room around him.

[Is that the moment you consider your biggest failure, not as an idol, but as a person?]

Zayne didn't answer right away. The pause stretched, measured, as if he were letting the memory settle before speaking it aloud.

Then he nodded once, slow, deliberate. "My biggest failure." He said softly, voice low, almost swallowed by the quiet around him. "Was that she needed me and I wasn't there." He didn't falter, didn’t break. His voice remained steady, but the grief beneath it was unmistakable, like a shadow pressed into every word. "I broke something I didn't know how to fix. And by the time I realized I was losing her… She was already gone. Too far for me to reach."

The camera lingered on him as he looked away, eyes blinking hard against some invisible weight. No tears fell. No dramatic gesture. Just the quiet, heavy presence of someone who had carried the grief of a love lost for years, still feeling it beneath his ribs every time he breathed.

-

The camera lingers on you for a moment before the first question. Not because you look fragile, you don't. You appear composed, measured, every line of your posture deliberate, every breath steady. It's the kind of calm that only comes after years of picking yourself up from the pieces you didn't know how to gather at first. The kind of calm forged from facing something that should never have happened, and surviving anyway.

But when you speak, even softly, it carries the weight of those nights you cried alone, the nights you questioned if you could keep moving forward, the quiet terror of realizing that love and safety can fracture in ways you never expected. Your voice isn't trembling, but it's raw. Honest. The kind of honesty that hints at scars beneath the surface, scars that remind everyone watching that some experiences leave marks no one can fully see.

It's clear you lived through something that shouldn't have happened to anyone, and yet, here you are. Whole, yet changed. Strong, yet carrying the echo of loss in every careful word.

[When the dating scandal first broke, where were you and how did you find out the public suddenly knew about your relationship?]

You inhale slowly, deliberately, as if drawing in air will steady the memory before it slips too sharply into the present. "I was at our apartment. Not doing anything dramatic, honestly, I wasn't even on social media that day. I wasn't expecting anything. And then a friend called me… And asked if I was sitting down. That's how I found out. She sent me the link, and suddenly… Everything I thought was private, everything we had… It was just out there. All at once."

Your eyes shift slightly, not away, but inward, tracing the edges of the moment that still stings. "And the first thing I did was call him. And call him. And call him again. My hands were shaking, my heart… I just needed him to answer. I needed him to hear me, or me him, or… Something."

A soft, humourless laugh escapes you, brittle and quiet. "He didn't pick up. I assumed… I assumed he was ignoring me. I had no idea his phone had been confiscated, that he couldn't even reach me if he wanted to. That was something I only found out months later. Months. By then, everything had changed."

[The company denied everything and called it 'just rumors.' How did it feel hearing something real to you being turned into a lie?]

Your jaw shifts once, almost unconsciously, the kind of movement that comes when someone revisits a memory that still tastes bitter. "It felt… Like being erased. Like everything we had, everything I knew to be real, was suddenly nothing. Or worse, it was rewritten, recast as a story where I was the villain in someone else's carefully crafted crisis PR plan."

Your eyes lift, steady and unflinching, but there's a shadow in them, a quiet ache you can't hide. "I watched the person I loved… The person who meant everything to me… Be publicly detached from me, as if I were a stain on his image. And because he didn't say anything, didn't defend me, I thought he agreed with it. I thought he… Didn't care."

A pause, long and heavy. "He did care. I know that now. But back then… I didn't. I didn't know anything but the emptiness of being silenced while the world assumed the worst."

[Did you ever reach a point where you were afraid to even look at your phone?]

"Every day." The answer comes out before you can soften it, sharp and honest. You let out a slow breath, eyes lowering for a moment as if you can still see the screen glowing in the dark.

"I was getting messages from strangers telling me to die." You continue quietly. "People I didn't know somehow had my number. Some figured out where I lived. There were threats, stalking, videos filmed outside my street. Photos of my building. My door. Comments about what I was wearing when I took the trash out." You shake your head once, the memory visibly uncomfortable.

"And it didn't stop, not for days, not for weeks. Every time my phone lit up, I felt sick. I didn't know if it was a friend checking on me… Or another stranger telling me how they'd hurt me if they ever saw me outside." Your voice tightens, but it doesn't crack. It holds. "It only stopped after Zayne filed the lawsuit months later. Until then… I lived scared. Really, genuinely scared. The kind of fear that makes you double-check the locks three times and still not feel safe." You swallow slowly, throat working as you force the words out steady.

"I stopped sleeping properly. I stopped going out unless someone came with me. I avoided windows. I jumped at the sound of any notification, even if it was just a weather alert. And even after the threats stopped, the fear didn't. Not right away." Your hands fold loosely in your lap, fingers brushing over each other like you're grounding yourself.

"I'm better now." You add softly. "Therapy helped. A lot. Time helped too. But back then?" You look straight into the camera, not accusing, just honest. "It felt like the whole world had decided I deserved to suffer… Just because I loved someone."

[Be honest, during that period, was there a part of you that thought losing them would be easier than constantly feeling guilty?]

Your expression softens, folding into something fragile and achingly honest, like the corners of an old photograph curling under years of sunlight. "…Yes." You admit, voice low but steady. You don't flinch from the truth, don't try to soften it.

"I thought… Maybe if I stepped away, it would all stop. The hate, the fear, the guilt. The constant feeling that I was ruining his life, that my presence was somehow making things worse. I thought he was already letting me go, he wasn't saying a word." Your eyes drop, tracing the edge of your hands in your lap as if seeking comfort in the simple shape of them.

"So I assumed the silence was a choice." You whisper, each word weighed down with the memory of months spent in uncertainty. Another beat passes, the pause stretching just enough to let the emptiness breathe. "But it wasn't. It wasn't a choice at all. I just didn't know that back then." Your gaze lifts again, soft but steady, carrying the quiet ache of a lesson learned the hardest way possible.

[What was more painful: the strangers attacking you, or the person you loved staying quiet?]

The studio feels heavier somehow, as if the air itself is holding its breath.

"The silence." You say softly, voice low, almost a murmur that still manages to fill the space. "But not because he owed me a statement." You continue, shaking your head just slightly. "It was because… I truly believed I'd been left to drown alone."Your voice isn't angry, never anger, but there's a deep, quiet wound threaded through it, a lingering ache that hasn't fully healed.

"I didn't know his phone had been taken. I didn't know he wasn't allowed to reach me. I didn't know he had no idea what I was facing, that people were stalking me, sending threats, showing up outside my building." A small exhale escapes you, soft but loaded. "I thought he abandoned me when I needed him most. And that belief… That belief shaped everything that came after. It made me afraid, it made me doubt myself, and it made every day feel like surviving alone was the only option." You pause, letting the weight of it linger, not for pity, but so that the truth, your truth, can be held in the quiet of the room.

[While everything was unraveling, did you keep any of their messages, photos, or voicemails?]

Your lips curve into a faint, almost embarrassed smile, not romantic, not tragic, just quietly honest. "…Yes." A small nod follows, as if admitting it surprises even you. "I kept everything." You don't rush, letting the words settle in the space between your breaths. "I didn't delete the photos. Or the messages. Or the voicemails." Your voice is steady, measured, carrying the calm of someone who has faced the chaos and survived it.

"It wasn't because I was waiting for him, or holding onto the past, or hoping we'd get back together. It wasn't anything dramatic like that. I just… Couldn't bring myself to erase a part of my life that was real. That was ours." You tilt your head slightly, reflective, almost apologetic for the small vulnerability you're revealing.

"When the breakup happened, everything else in my life felt like it was being ripped away, my privacy, my safety, my sense of peace. Keeping those memories was the only thing I could control, the only way I could hold onto myself when the world felt like it was spinning without permission."

A slow breath fills the quiet. "And later… After therapy, after time, after learning how to breathe without constant fear… I still didn't delete them. Not because it hurt to look at them, but because it didn't anymore." Your gaze softens, almost wistful. "They became part of my story. Something that happened to me, yes, but not something that haunted me." A small, almost tender laugh slips past your lips. "Besides… There are some silly photos of him half-asleep that still make me smile. I'm not deleting those. Not ever."

-

The screen fades in from black, soft notes spilling quietly into the silence, carrying a weight that feels both intimate and tentative. The music settles, and the scene gently splits into two frames. Like two halves of a story that was always meant to be remembered in tandem.

[When you look back at that time… What's the one moment you wish you could go back to and do differently?]

You take a slow breath before answering, the kind that doesn't look dramatic on camera but feels heavy in your chest. "…I would've had the courage to answer the phone. Just once." Your eyes soften, your gaze unfocusing as you drift back to a night you’ve replayed too many times to count. "I kept silencing his calls because the threats… The stalking… Everything online… It felt like the world was closing in on me. Every notification made my heart jump. I was so terrified that even hearing his name or his ringtone made my chest tighten. I couldn't listen to his voice without feeling like I might fall apart."

You swallow once, your throat working around words that have taken years to come out this calmly. "I also wish I’d stayed in our apartment a bit longer. Just… A few minutes more." Your fingers twist lightly in your lap, almost apologetic. "My friend came to pick me up because I was too scared to be alone, people were already posting videos near my building, leaving things by the door. I packed whatever I could reach, and I left so fast. I didn't even check the time. I just wanted to disappear."

You let out a small breath, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh that never fully forms. "If I hadn't… I would've seen him come home. He actually came home." The words are simple, but they land like something that still echoes. Your voice cracks, just slightly, not like fresh heartbreak, but like an old wound that still remembers how it hurt. "I didn't know that until much later. When I found out, it felt like discovering there was this one tiny window where everything could've changed… And we missed it by hours."

You blink slowly, steadying yourself, the grief softened now into something quieter, something you've already learned to live with. The weight of your words hangs in the air, and for a moment, the camera lingers on the silence that follows.

Then it shifts to Zayne. He stills, the question pressing into him like it's always been there, and finally exhales, a long, quiet release of a truth he's carried alone, never spoken until now.

"I should've gone to her. Even if she didn't want to see me. Even if it made things harder. I should've been there." His jaw tightens, a brief flicker of tension that says more than any dramatic expression could. "I didn't know she left because she was scared. I didn't know she thought she was alone in all of it. I didn't know she was… In actual danger, not just overwhelmed."

He pauses, the memory clearly replaying behind his eyes. "My phone was confiscated. I wasn't allowed to contact her. I didn't see what was happening online. I didn't know people were finding our address, that she was being stalked, threatened, filmed." A breath. He looks down, fingers lacing together, knuckles faintly tense. "I didn't know she thought I'd abandoned her. That's what hurts the most when I think about that time. That the story she saw was me choosing to stay quiet while she was drowning."

His gaze stays lowered, like the floor is holding the version of himself he hates the most. "If I could go back… I would've run home sooner. I wouldn't have waited for permission or a right time. I would've broken every rule they put in front of me." He lets out a short, unsteady breath. "I would've gone to her friend's place, or anywhere she was hiding. I would've knocked until my hands hurt. Or broken the door down if I had to. Anything, just to tell her she wasn't alone. That I never chose the silence she heard."

The camera lingers on him for a beat, catching the quiet devastation of someone who has finally learned the exact shape of his regret, only after the moment to change it is long gone.

[After the breakup, did you two remain in contact?]

You shake your head slowly, the weight of the past pressing quietly in your chest. "No. We didn't talk. Not for a long time." Your hands tighten slightly in your lap, a subtle sign of the tension you carried even years later. "After the scandal, after the threats… Even seeing a notification on my phone made me jump. I couldn't talk to him, even if I wanted to, I just wasn't capable of it yet."

A faint, sad smile touches your lips. "And honestly… I was afraid. Afraid that if I called, I'd hear him say it was really over." You lift your gaze, eyes soft, tracing the invisible distance that stretched between you during those months. "It wasn't until after he won the lawsuit that I finally sent a message. Just a text. But it was enough to start closure."

The camera lingers a moment, capturing the quiet relief in your expression, a relief shadowed by everything that had come before.

In a different studio, under a cooler light, Zayne rubs the back of his neck, a rare sign of discomfort that betrays his usual composure.

"I wanted to reach out. I thought about it every day. But…" His voice lowers, almost ashamed. "Her friends wouldn't talk to me. Her family wouldn't answer my calls. I thought… She hated me. That she told them to block me out." He looks away for a moment, then back, eyes steady but burdened with the memory. "So I stayed quiet. I convinced myself reaching out would only hurt her more, that I'd make everything worse."

A pause. The silence holds the weight of years unspoken, a quiet mirror to the fear and hesitation that had kept you apart. "It wasn't until after the lawsuit, when everything was finally out in the open, that I realized… Staying silent was the biggest mistake." He exhales slowly, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. "When her message finally came… I can't explain it. I felt like I could breathe again."

[Would you say you parted on good terms, or was it complicated?]

A quiet, soft laugh escapes you, not amused, just the kind of laugh that comes from finally naming something painful.

"It was complicated. Very complicated." You look down, tracing the outline of your hands in your lap, letting a slow breath carry the weight of the memory. "Back then, everything felt… Overwhelming. The scandal, the threats, the fear, the confusion, it was like we were both trapped in a storm we didn't understand. Every day felt heavy, and the distance between us kept growing." You pause, eyes lifting slowly, a hint of relief touching your expression.

"But once the lawsuit ended, once the chaos had quieted even a little, we finally talked. Honestly. Openly." A subtle nod, small but firm. "That's when things became… Gentle again. When I realized we could part without anger, without carrying resentment. We parted on good terms, finally."

In his own studio, under the cooler lighting, Zayne nods once, unconsciously unaware that he was mirroring your movement on the other side.

"Complicated. That’s the word I'd use." He leans back slightly, the weight of his regret softening into reflection. "But after we talked, after we explained ourselves, after we finally listened to each other, there wasn't bitterness left. Not really. Just… Understanding. A quiet acknowledgment that we had both been through something hard, and that we'd survived it."

His gaze drifts slightly, as if revisiting the past gently, not painfully. "It wasn't easy, and it didn't happen overnight. But in the end… It was enough. We found our peace, even in the middle of everything that once felt impossible."

[Are there things you still talk about with them, even casually?]

You let out a soft breath, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips. "Yeah. We're casual friends now. I still go to gatherings when his mom invites me. She's always been kind to me, even when everything else was messy. We see each other with mutual friends… We were both at MC's son's birthday recently." Your gaze drifts for a moment, remembering, quietly amused. "And back then… Before I fully healed, Zayne even accompanied me to some of my trauma consultations. He waited outside. Never asked questions. Never pushed. Just… Waited. It was comforting in a way I didn't expect." A soft, reflective smile lingers.

Zayne leans back slightly, eyes distant but soft, as though recalling a memory he keeps close. "She still shows up when my mom invites her. We see each other in group gatherings, sometimes just passing a few words, life updates, stupid jokes, nothing heavy, nothing that reminds us of the past too sharply." His voice quietens, careful, gentle. "It feels… Peaceful. Like there's a calm now that didn't exist before. We don't have to carry everything from before into today. We just… Exist alongside each other, quietly, and that's enough."

[Do you ever think about what life might've looked like if things had worked out?]

You pause for a moment, letting the question settle, eyes soft and distant. "Sometimes. I think anyone who's loved deeply does. There are moments when I imagine the 'what ifs.' What if things had been different? What if the world hadn’t been so cruel, so loud?" A small, gentle exhale. "But I believe everything happens for a reason. Painful as it was… It shaped us. It taught us what matters, what doesn't." You let a wistful smile flicker across your face, warm but unresentful.

"We loved each other. Even when it hurt. Even when we couldn't be together. Nothing changes that."

Zayne leans forward slightly, fingers loosely intertwined, voice quiet but steady. "I think about it from time to time, yeah. I wonder what life might have been like if things had been easier, if circumstances hadn't gotten in the way. But…" A small pause, reflective. "We're both okay now. We survived it. We grew. And that's what matters. The past… It's part of us, but it doesn't define everything that comes after." He looks up briefly, a faint, bittersweet smile tugging at his lips.

"It reminds me that even when love doesn't last the way you hoped, it still leaves something true behind."

-

The screen flickers with soft, warm light. Clips from the interviews fade in and out, your hands folding in your lap, Zayne rubbing the back of his neck, both of you staring just past the camera as if somewhere else entirely. The music is quiet, a gentle piano threading through the pauses between words.

Your voice breaks the silence first. "We hurt each other, yes… But the love was real."

The camera shifts. Zayne in his cooler-toned space, eyes tired but steady. "And even when everything fell apart, it never became hate."

The montage moves through fleeting glimpses. Street corner where you once walked together, sunlight spilling over an empty apartment, laughter echoing in memory, a hand brushing against nothing. Your voice overlays the images again.

"Maybe we weren't meant to stay forever." Zayne's voice follows, layered over the scene of him looking down, remembering. "But we were meant to be something important." Snippets of both of you appear, smiles half-hidden, eyes soft, quiet moments that speak louder than any words. "And I'm glad he came back." You say, a faint, gentle smile tracing your lips. "And I'm glad she reached out." Zayne responds, his tone carrying relief, the weight of years of silence easing just slightly.

The images slow. Light streams through a window, a street empty but peaceful, your hands and his, moments separated by time, but connected in memory. The voices overlap, soft, harmonious. "Maybe this is what love really is… Not possession, not forever… but understanding, care, and the courage to come back."

The screen lingers on warmth and quiet, then fades to black.

-

FINAL QUESTION [If you could send them one message today, without expectation, what would it say?]

The studio lights are soft, bathing the room in a warm glow. The cameras roll quietly, but for a moment, it feels like time itself has slowed. You inhale slowly, the memory of that long-ago night pressing against your chest like a weight you've carried for years.

"If I could send him a message… I'd tell him that I understand now. That we were both… Victims of timing, of fear, of circumstance. He was at the peak of his career, and I… I felt myself slipping out of his life. And I let it happen." Your fingers rest lightly in your lap, tracing invisible patterns as if trying to touch something just beyond your reach. "I'd tell him I'm sorry. Sorry for being too scared to answer the phone that night. For letting my own fear pull me away. For letting silence grow between us when we didn't need it to. I wish I'd stayed just a little longer in that apartment… Long enough to see him come home, long enough to see that he was trying in his own way, even when everything around us was falling apart."

A soft, almost wistful smile tugs at your lips. "And I'd tell him… Thank you. For holding on when I couldn't. For trying in ways I couldn't recognize back then. No expectation. Just… Honesty from me, finally. That's all." A pause. The quiet hum of the studio feels like it's listening, holding space for the unspoken years.

In his own studio, the air feels unexpectedly warm, carrying a stillness that mirrors your own. Zayne leans forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped loosely. He lets himself remember the small things. The way you would roll your eyes when he came home with candy, the little routines that were once ordinary but now seem monumental.

"If I could send her a message… I'd tell her that, in my own way, I've never stopped loving her. I don't think I ever will." His voice is quiet, almost reverent, like a secret spoken only to the night. "I'd tell her… If there were a chance… I'd meet her again in that same little cafe where we had our first date. I'd bring a slice of her favorite cake, even if she pretends she doesn't like it and we'd sit there, quietly. No cameras. No words about the past. Just the way it used to be. Just us."

He exhales slowly, as if releasing a weight that's been lodged in his chest for years. "And I'd tell her that it's still her. Always her. And even if she never replied… Even if nothing changes… I want her to know that she's remembered. That she mattered. That she still does. More than anything else."

The camera lingers on him a moment longer, capturing the soft light in his eyes, the quiet ache of someone who has carried love and regret for far too long, and the fragile, enduring hope that truth can finally reach across the distance between them.

The camera pans slowly across each of your faces, separately, in your own spaces, lingering on the quiet ache in your eyes, the faint, almost shy smiles, the pauses that hold more than words ever could. Every glance, every slight tilt of the head, carries the weight of memory. Moments remembered, moments missed, moments that shaped you both. The soft swell of music rises and falls beneath the narration, underscoring the bittersweet gravity of it all, love, grief, longing, and gratitude coiled together like a fragile ribbon.

It's not a reunion. It's not a confession meant to pull either of you back. It's something gentler, subtler. The final acknowledgment that you were once each other's entire world, and that even as time stretches on, the echoes of what you shared still linger, quietly woven into the fabric of your lives.

For the viewers watching, it's more than just a story of heartbreak. It's a reminder that love, even when it ends, leaves a mark. It can be painful, yes, it can bruise and break but it also leaves something enduring, soft, and almost tender behind. Two hearts that once collided so fiercely, now learning to let go, while carrying the sweetness, the warmth, and the unspoken beauty of what once was. A memory that refuses to fade, teaching that some love never truly disappears. It simply changes shape, settling into the quiet corners of your life, always remembered.

[BONUS CLIP]

The studio lights have dimmed, the official interview long wrapped, but the cameras don't stop rolling entirely. They linger in the corners, capturing moments too small, too human, for the main segment. You turn a corner and almost collide with Zayne, stepping out from another part of the set.

His brow lifts in surprise, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "You… Didn't you say you were going somewhere?" He asks, voice low, laced with worry and disbelief. You laugh softly, the sound light, familiar, carrying a hint of relief. "They reached out to me for an interview." You say, letting the words hang in the quiet space between you. "For that show about exes."

Recognition hits him immediately. His expression shifts, from mild shock to something more attentive, protective. "And… It's okay? They weren't forcing you?" His tone is careful, almost pleading, his eyes scanning your face as though trying to gauge whether you're truly safe. The cameras catch none of it, but you see it all, the instinctive care, the unspoken concern.

You can't help but laugh again, soft and warm, and slide your arm through his. "I'm fine." You say, tugging lightly. "Come on. I'm hungry." His worry melts slowly, replaced by that familiar ease, though his hand lingers near yours. "Alright… Where do you want to eat?" His voice is lighter now, tentative, as if testing the waters of comfort you both used to inhabit so effortlessly. You shrug, grinning. "I don't know. But… I've been missing that little cafe we used to go to."

For a heartbeat, his face stills, as if the words have carried him somewhere else entirely, to a memory you both shared. Then, a slow, soft smile spreads across his features. He steps a little closer, letting you lean into him, wrapping an arm around you in that quiet, protective way you remember, the kind that says everything without words. "Okay." He says, simply, but there's a weight behind it, the sum of everything you never needed to say.

The camera, rolling still, catches the small gestures. The linked arms, the shared smile, the quiet rhythm between two people who once lost and now find each other again. Then, almost reverently, it fades to black.

Outside, you and Zayne walk side by side. The city stretches ahead, lights shimmering in reflection, streets familiar yet renewed. No interviews. No cameras. No shadows of old scars. Just the easy rhythm of companionship restored, memories lingering like the faint sweetness of chocolate on your tongue, soft, bittersweet, and undeniably yours.

-

CHOCO_lover: you're telling me these two are "just friends" now when they talk about each other like that??? be serious.

shiptaxcollected: The way they BOTH said the other was "easy to love" and "made home feel like a place" … i'm sorry but why are you not dating RIGHT NOW??

delulusafely: no cuz "love didn't fail us, circumstances did" is NOT something normal exes say. that's soulmates-who-got-attacked-by-life energy.

zaynesleftshoe: petition for the universe to un-scandal them so they can try again 😭

user938271: They healed, they matured, they're in each other's lives, his mom still invites her, they go to the same gatherings, he accompanied her to trauma sessions… this is literally divorced-but-still-in-love vibes except they never even married.

cinnamonrollcore: I fully respect their boundaries and healing but also: your honor, I am in favor of a reunion.

softietrash: her: "I'd tell him I'm sorry I was too scared to answer the phone that night." him: "I'd tell her I never stopped loving her and I'd meet her again in that same cafe." ME: okay so who's gonna lock them inside that cafe until they talk???

fanbutnotdelulu: Lowkey obsessed with how they refuse to villainize each other, went through hell, healed, and are still in each other's orbit… that's either the healthiest closure I've ever seen OR the prequel to a second-chance romance.

tearductsempty: "Love didn't fail us. Circumstances did." "So loving her was still the most real thing I ever did." sorry but if they don't at least REVISIT that relationship when they’re ready i'm filing a complaint with destiny.

giveusthecafe: not to be dramatic but if we don't eventually get: one cafe selca, one "the cake was too sweet" post, one blurry photo of them in the same corner again. i will riot respectfully.

heartkneesweak: The worst part is… they really look PEACEFUL now. Like if they ever did try again, it would actually work this time. 🥲

agencysuesurvivor: him: "if I wasn't an idol, I could've chosen her instead of silence." also him now: free, stronger, on his own terms …hello?? chance?? second chance?? anyone??

foreverthirdwheeling: You can't convince me they don't still talk late at night sometimes. the emotional intimacy is TOO strong for them to just be like "yea we’re just casual friends 😊" okay sure.

thisismyromanacekdrama: This episode felt less like "we broke up and moved on" and more like "we time-skipped, did side quests called therapy, and now we’re ready for Season 2 if the writers allow it."

letmemanifest: manifesting: ✨ a soft announcement one day ✨ like "we took the long way, but we found our way back." until then i'll just replay this interview and scream quietly.

cryingoverstrangers:  It's actually insane how they managed to make me root for: her healing, him growing, them staying friends AND ALSO them maybe getting back together someday. This is emotional multitasking.

cakeandclosure: He literally said he'd still meet her in the same cafe, with the same cake, no expectations, just them. She literally said she's thankful and understands now. Universe, I'm not saying rush them, but… do something.

justonehugplz: Imagine them watching this episode separately and going. "Yeah… if the timing was different." Now imagine them watching it together one day. I'm fine. Totally fine. 😭

okaybutlisten: I respect them not forcing anything and just existing in each other's lives again, but also… if they ever decide to try again, I'm already seated.

-

You were lying in bed, the soft glow of the TV painting shifting shadows across the room. The clip was playing quietly “Exes, Unedited” and even though it had been recorded two years ago, it was only airing now. You found yourself watching, heart twisting with nostalgia and warmth as you saw yourselves young, tentative, discovering each other all over again. The awkward smiles, the small hesitations, the way your eyes met before words ever came, everything felt alive, a ghost of a time that was still yours.

"Mm… What are you doing?" Zayne's voice was thick with sleep, low and heavy, pulling you from the memory. Before you could answer, he nudged closer, warm and solid, burying his face into your bare neck. The gentle press of him, the quiet weight of familiarity, made your chest lift with a slow, steady rhythm. "I'm… Watching the interview." You murmured, your fingers brushing through his hair almost absentmindedly, feeling the soft strands slip between them.

He hummed softly, shifting closer until your legs tangled together, and a lazy warmth spread between you. A quiet thought crossed your mind. What could possibly happen if people knew this interview was two years old… And that we're married now, expecting our little one? The thought made your chest swell in a way words never could.

He sighed, the soft exhale pressing into your skin, and you could feel him smiling even without looking. "You're warm." He murmured, nuzzling a little more. You laughed quietly, tilting your head to meet him halfway. "You're warm too." You said, hands tracing lazy, absent circles on his shoulders as he curled closer. You let yourself savor the small, mundane perfection of the moment, the quiet intimacy, the gentle rhythms of togetherness, the peace of being allowed simply to exist with him.

Outside, the world could speculate, argue, or obsess over the past. The scandals, the viral comments, the whispers, all of it might as well have belonged to someone else. Here, in the soft glow of the TV, under the gentle hum of the apartment, it didn't matter. You were here. He was here. And you were waiting together for the little kicks of the life growing between you, your fingers threading through his hair, your palms catching the curve of his smile against your skin.

"Two years ago, huh?" You whispered, leaning against him, letting the memory settle into the present. "Two years ago." He echoed, voice muffled against your neck. "And now…" He tightened his hold, exhaling softly, deliberately. "Now we're exactly where we're supposed to be."

And in that moment, all the interviews, the scandals, the fleeting judgments, they might as well have never existed. Because this, this closeness, this warmth, this shared breath and heartbeat, this life you had built together, was everything.

[ⓒdark-night-hero] 2025°

frat!sukuna can’t stop touching you when you’re in his room. your waist, your hair, your jaw. always grounding himself with a hand somewhere on you. sometimes he just holds your face, thumb brushing your pretty lips before kissing you slow, like he’s savoring every second. afterward, when you pull away to breathe, he whispers, “yeah, we're definitely chemically bonded.”

frat!sukuna loves when you get all serious and nerdy about chemistry, talking with your hands and forgetting he’s there. he’ll nod along, pretending to follow, eyes fixed on your mouth. “kuna, you’re not even listening!” you say, narrowing your eyes. “nah, i am,” he grins. “just distracted by how hot my genius girlfriend looks explainin’ equilibrium or whatever the fuck.” you shove his muscular arm, he’s still smiling.

frat!sukuna gets real quiet when other guys talk to you. he doesn’t blow up, doesn’t make a scene, just slides an arm around your waist, lips brushing your temple like a warning as he pulls you close to him. “you good, baby?” he says loud enough for everyone to hear. the guy always backs off. later, in the comfort of your apartment he’ll grumpily mutter, “i don’t like sharin’ your attention,” against your neck.

frat!sukuna always wakes up before you, no matter how late he stayed up. he’ll just lie there for a while, propped on his elbow, watching you breathe against his big chest. he traces the outline of your shoulder with one finger, slow and careful, like he’s taking note of every inch of your soft skin. sometimes he’ll press a kiss to the crown of your head, whisper something like, “so fuckin' adorable, its unfair,” he’ll get up quietly, make coffee that’s way too strong, then come back just to sit on the edge of the bed and watch you stretch. you always catch him staring, and he never denies it.

frat!sukuna always keeps your things in his hoodie pocket. says it’s because you’re “always losin’ your shit,” but you know it's just because he likes to keep pieces of you close to himself. he'll randomly pull out one of your favourite glosses and take your jaw into his hand, unscrewing the lid with his teeth and free hand before carefully swiping it across your lips for you.

"there you go, baby. your lips were chapped." "when did you even take that?" "don't worry bout' it."

frat!sukuna grumbles every time you steal his clothes, but his smirk always gives him away. he’ll say something like, “that’s my favorite hoodie, you little shit,” while tugging the hem just to see how it fits on you. the sleeves swallow your hands, and he can’t look away. it’s half possessive, half soft. he’ll act like he’s irritated but if you try to give it back, he just shakes his head. “no, keep it. looks better on you anyway.”

frat!sukuna always finds an excuse to touch you when you’re studying together, knee against yours under the table, fingers brushing the back of your hand when he steals your pen. you roll your eyes when he asks questions he already knows the answer to, pretending to explain the chemistry problem just so you’ll lean in closer. when you catch him staring, he doesn’t look away. “focus, ryo,” you tease, and he grins. “oh, i am,” he says, voice low. later, when you finally finish the assignment, he’ll close your laptop and pull you into his lap, murmuring, “you know i only study ‘cause you make it look hot.”

frat!sukuna starts calling you “my girl” more often than your actual name. it slips out casually at first, in front of friends, during late-night calls, when he texts you goodnight. but the way he says it carries weight, like a promise. “my girl’s got a big test tomorrow,” he’ll brag to toji, pride softening his voice. when you call him out, teasing, “what, you get bored of my name?” he just smirks, leaning close until his breath ghosts over your ear. “i can't help it. been mine since that first day in chem, sweetheart. you just didn’t know it yet.” and when you blush, he grins like he’s just won the lottery.

frat!sukuna loves cooking with you even though he can’t cook for shit. you try to teach him, but he keeps sneaking behind you, arms wrapping around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder. he’ll whisper something stupid like, “why cook when i can just eat you instead?” before you elbow him and tell him to stop teasing. still, he watches every move you make. by the time the food’s done, it’s cold because he’s too busy hoisting you up into the counter and kissing you deeply. “worth the wait,” he murmurs between gasps, lips tasting like spice and warmth.

frat!sukuna gets weirdly gentle after a fight. you’ll be pacing, still mad, and he just stands there, hands in his pockets, eyes following you. when you finally snap, “aren’t you gonna say something?” he sighs and pulls you close before you can protest. “i hate when we fight, baby,” he says, voice soft in a way that breaks you down instantly. he won’t apologize with words, he’ll do it with his hands, with the way he presses his forehead against yours and whispers, “you drive me fuckin’ crazy, but i can’t sleep without you next to me.” it’s messy, but it’s sweet.

frat!sukuna texts you random shit all day, even when he’s with the guys.

“miss you,” “you’d look cute in this shirt,” “come over, the house’s too quiet.”

you tease him about being clingy, but he never denies it. if you don’t reply fast enough, he sends an over the top reaction pic captioned: guess i’ll just shoot myself in the throat, then. but when you finally show up at the frat, he’s leaning against the door like he wasn’t waiting patiently. “jeez, took you long enough,” he says, smirk slipping the second he pulls you in by the waist. his texts are playful, but the way he kisses you isn’t.

frat!sukuna always keeps something of yours in his room. maybe your scrunchie, a necklace, your perfume bottle half-empty on his shelf. he says it’s accidental, but you catch him holding your hair tie once, twirling it around his fingers like a nervous habit. “smells like you,” he mumbles, eyes distant. when you tease him, he shrugs. “reminds me why i put up with you.” but when you’re gone for a few days, that’s the first thing he grabs, the small trace of you that keeps his chest from feeling too empty. he’d never say it, but those little pieces are his comfort.

frat!sukuna is addicted to your laugh. he’ll make the dumbest jokes just to hear it, smirking every time you try to hold it in. “don’t hide your laugh,” he says, voice low. “it’s adorable.” sometimes he tickles you until you’re crying with laughter, his grin wide and boyish. “never seen you this happy,” he murmurs, thumb brushing your cheek. then, quieter, “wanna be the reason for it every day.” it’s moments like that when his walls drop, when you see the softness under all the tattoos and sharp grins. he looks at you like you’re the first good thing he’s ever known.

frat!sukuna likes when you wear his shirts to bed, thin fabric slipping off your shoulder, nothing underneath but skin. he’ll pull you closer, fingers tracing lazy patterns on your thigh. “fuck, i want you, so badly,” he whispers against your ear before kissing that spot on your neck that makes you melt. "you look so fuckable in my clothes, you're so adorable." his shirt ends up forgotten somewhere on the floor after a few minutes.

frat!sukuna pretends he’s focused on the movie, but his hand keeps wandering. first your knee, then higher, higher, until he's got one of his fingers pressing down on your clothes clit, you gasp his name. he smirks without looking away from the screen. “you're so tempting,” he says, voice low, “be a good girl and let me take care of you.” the credits roll before you realize you haven’t seen a single frame.

frat!sukuna gets off on seeing you flustered. loves leaning in close when he talks, just to watch your breath hitch. “what’s wrong, sweetheart?” he murmurs, eyes dark. “can’t handle me this close?” when you push him away, he only grins wider, whispering, “you're so easy to tease. y' sure you don't want me closer?” knowing damn well you do.

frat!sukuna always ends up behind you when you’re brushing your teeth at his sink. bare chest against your back, arms sliding around your waist. he’ll kiss your shoulder between words, muffled by toothpaste. “you look so pretty in the mornings, love.” he murmurs, “so adorable, even with bed head.” you roll your eyes, but his reflection in the mirror is smiling.

frat!sukuna has a thing for hearing you say his name. not “sukuna,” but the quiet, breathy way you say it when you’re half-asleep or half-undone under his relentless hands. he’ll push your hair back and whisper, “say it again,” like it’s the only word he wants to remember. you notice the way his eyes blow out with that feral look each time you let the word slip, his pace always shuddering with desperation as the syllables fall out of your mouth.

frat!sukuna makes you sit in his lap during parties. says it’s “so no one else gets ideas,” but his fingers trace circles on your thigh the whole time, his breath hot against your ear. you try to focus on what the people around you are trying to talk to you about, but all you can feel is him murmuring, “good girl, stay right here.” and you always do, feeling him grow harder and harder underneath you as you squirm in embarrassment.

frat!sukuna likes when you steal his rings. he’ll catch your hand midair, smirk tugging at his mouth. “you tryin’ to claim me or somethin’?” he teases, sliding one onto your finger himself. “fine. but now everyone’s gonna know who you belong to.” you pretend to protest, but the way his eyes linger says you love it too.

frat!sukuna has a habit of whispering filthy things between soft ones. “you’re beautiful,” he says, lips brushing your neck. “you drive me fucking insane.” then lower, rougher—“can't wait til' we're alone... m' gonna ruin your pretty little body, make you forget everything but me.” his tone shifts so easily it leaves your head spinning. and afterward, when you’re tangled in sheets, he’s still whispering, “all mine,” like it's gospel.

frat!sukuna takes his time with you. he never rushes sex. he’ll kiss you like he’s got nowhere else to be, fingers pushing into you slowly with careful attention, his voice a low rasp: “fuck, you're so tight for me, baby. taking me sooo well.” when you finish and you're a mess of breathless gasps, he grins. “told you i could make you forget everything, didn’t i?”

frat!sukuna is constantly staring at you. in the library, in class, even across crowded rooms. he doesn’t look away when you notice — just smiles big and dopey, like he got caught stealing something he already owns. “whattt?” you ask. “nothin’,” he says, eyes lingering on your lips. “just can’t believe you’re real sometimes.” you never stop blushing after that.

frat!sukuna only really trusts you around a handful of people — nanami, choso, maybe gojo on a really good day. everyone else? he keeps a hand on your back, eyes scanning the room like he’s ready to start something. “don’t need the guys talkin’ to you too much, fillin' your head with their bullshit ideas,” he mutters. “can't have them corrupting your pretty little mind.” you just smile, because sukuna's possessive side was the cutest thing you'd ever witnessed.

frat!sukuna loves buying you little things for no reason — hair clips, pens shaped like beakers, plushies he pretends are for “decoration.” when you ask why, he shrugs. “saw it, thought of you.” but the truth is, he likes knowing that everywhere you look, there’s something that reminds you of him. every trinket a quiet, wordless kind of love note.

frat!sukuna lays across your stomach while you study, head turned toward the pages like he’s pretending to read. really, he’s just listening to your heartbeat. you complain that he’s heavy, but he hums, tracing circles on your side. “helps me focus,” he lies. you know he’s just trying to anchor himself in your calm, his chaos finally quiet.

frat!sukuna gets obsessed with the way you concentrate. the way your brows furrow, your lips move when you read under your breath. he’ll be across the room, supposed to be doing something else, and he’ll just stand there, watching. “what?” you ask without looking up. he grins. “just admirin’ my favorite nerd.” you roll your eyes, he smiles like an idiot.

frat!sukuna gets territorial in tiny, stupid ways. wipes your lipstick from his cheek but leaves it on his throat. lets people see the marks you leave but glares if anyone stares too long. when you scold him, he just smirks. “you started it, sweetheart.” the next day, his jaw’s bruised from your teeth, and he’s never looked prouder.

frat!sukuna keeps showing up at your dorm with snacks, claiming it’s for “study fuel.” half the time he just watches you eat, chin in his hand, smiling like he’s got everything he’s ever wanted right there. “you’re so cute when you chew,” he teases, dodging your pen when you throw it at him. he laughs. “my favorite nerd.”

frat!sukuna was being mysterious. you got a text from your man at some random hour of the afternoon, it simply read, "i'm coming over, baby." you hearted the message and sent a cute sticker in return, just assuming he was coming over to chill.

you open the door to see his big, brooding stature, dressed in a casual black beater and loose sweatpants.

"hey, sweetheart. missed you." he gave you a peck on the cheek before walking past you into your apartment like second nature. you smiled and let him drag you to the couch, falling down onto his lap as he wrapped his arms around your waist and peppered your face in feather light kisses.

"i'm gonna show you something, but you promise you can't freak, hmm?"

you looked at him skeptically, but smiled anyway, nodding your head as he grabbed the hem of his shirt. without warning, he lifted it up and off, revealing his tatted upper body, one you'd seen countless times. only, there seemed to be a new addition...

resting softly against his left pec, was a tattoo of your name in a pretty, classy font. your eyes go wide as you cover your mouth with your hand.

"are you... are you deadass?"

"i'm so deadass." he replied, smiling down at you as your fingers trailed over the slightly red mark. he laughed at your expression, one of pure shock and enthralment.

"okay... we have to get married now."

But you had been gone for three weeks on a work trip, too tired most nights to talk on the phone. Johnny hated feeling so clingy, but it had been hard without you. He missed the sound of your voice, of your laugh, the lilting tone you teased him in. From what little you were able to tell him, it sounded like your trip was hell. Your boss demanded that you be on call for every little asinine demand your clients made in order to clinch the deal. It made Johnny boil with rage, but he didn’t express that to you. He knew it would only stress you out more, thinking he disapproved of your professional life— which wasn’t the case at all. He just wanted you to be treated with the respect you deserved.

On the evenings where you couldn’t call, Johnny took to flying through Manhattan instead. Feeling the New York air feed his flames as he wove through the streets was almost as refreshing as the sound of your voice. It sufficed for a bit, until it started raining incessantly— not just a twenty-minute drizzle here and there, either, no. Full blown thunderstorms bled from one day to the next. The world grew gloomy and the sky grumbled constantly.

The weather’s mood started to rub off on Johnny after the fifth day of rain. He couldn’t even help his family fight in this weather. He grew restless, which soon turned into sleepless nights. He tossed and turned for days, worrying about his family, worrying about you. Not even his records could lull him to sleep.

Now, he could see your apartment from his room if he strained his tired eyes in the dark. Your flight home had landed at midnight; it was nearing two a.m. now. The light in your room flicked on an hour ago and he had since been resisting every muscle that screamed at him to call you and ask to come over. But he already knew what you would say:

“Stay home, Johnny. It’s two in the morning. I’ll see you in the afternoon, anyways.”

But he didn’t want to see you in the afternoon. That was twelve hours away and you were home. Alone, jetlagged, probably hungry. Realistically, eating one of those shitty TV dinners you kept in the icebox for occasions like this.

Johnny pushed away from the window and made up his mind. Heading to the kitchen, he began to pack some things in a backpack. H.E.R.B.I.E. woke up from sleep mode at his loading dock and rolled over to see if the blonde man needed help. He beeped sweetly when he recognized the ingredients Johnny was assembling.

“Blast from the past, right, Herbert?”

“Bwee bwa bwu bwaeb.”

Johnny’s mouth quirked up into a half smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah.”

You sat nursing a lukewarm cup of tea, waiting for the oven to heat up, when your buzzer went off. It startled you so badly that you spilled your drink. Good thing it wasn’t hot. Your mind was a bit dazed from the exhausting work trip and even worse flight back home, so it took a moment for you to think of who would have the audacity to buzz you in the dead of night.

He buzzed again when you made no sign of answering the door, which made you sigh. You answered the receiver finally.

“Who is it?” You asked as if you didn’t already know.

“Just the love of your life,” he answered sweetly. Even through the crappy intercom, you could hear a strained tremor in his voice. Without responding, you let him in and in a few seconds, he had run up the handful of flights to your apartment. He knocked in the insistent way he always did: taptaptap-taptaptap. When you unlocked the door, he was leaning on your doorframe in an attempt at nonchalance. It fooled the masses, but never you.

“Hi, sugar,” he breathed excitedly, a light glimmering in his eyes. 

“Don’t you have anything better to do, Mister Storm?”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s raining,” he dipped his head to kiss you on the cheek.

You hummed happily at the contact. “Is it now?”

“Mhmm,” he responded, too busy finding your mouth to use his words. When his lips met yours, the need for words fell away. You could taste the longing. You could feel how he had missed you. Johnny pulled you close to him and his hands pulsed with warmth that began to melt the knots in your muscles. When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours.

“You shouldn’t have come all this way,” you whispered to him. What you really meant was, thank you, I missed you too.

“No one else was awake for me to annoy,” he said, but you knew he meant, I’d do anything for you.

When you pulled away, he came further into your apartment and you shut the door softly behind him. He sniffed the air thoughtfully.

“You’re preheating the oven, aren’t you?”

“...Yes.”

He walked into your kitchen with an air of authority and pointedly shut off the oven. “Have you eaten anything in the past three weeks that was not frozen at some point?”

You looked at the ceiling trying to think, which made him frown. “It’s a toss up.”

He tsk’d. “Lucky for you, I had a feeling you’d be heating up one of these atrocities and came prepared. I’m going to make you a Storm specialty.” He began to empty out the backpack he’d brought onto your counter. 

“A Storm specialty?” You tiptoed over to look, but he shielded the ingredients from your view.

“It’s quick–” he winked at you jokingly, but it made you blush all the same “–easy, and filling, ok? All good stuff I promise.”

“Only if you promise.” You leaned closer to his face. Now that he was here and had given you a taste of him again, all the neediness you had stored away during your trip came crashing into you.

“I swear on the life of my love,” he whispered gravely.

“Hmm, I hope you don’t swear on that often.”

“Only when I have to prove I mean what I say.”

You reached a hand up to run through his hair. Johnny’s eyes fluttered shut at the feeling and you stole a kiss from him. He made a sound somewhere in between a whimper and a groan before pulling away.

“Hey, now, don’t— don’t distract me. I came here with a mission.”

“And what was that mission exactly?”

“To take care of you. And before you argue–”

“I don’t need to be taken care of!”

“–I know, I know. Just… let me, alright? I want to.”

You sighed. “Fine, fine.”

“Now go cozy up on the couch,” Johnny commanded. You refused this, though, with a soft “mm-mm” you buried into his shoulderblade and hugged his waist.

“Alright, I’ll allow it,” he whispered. You settled your hands on his slender waist. Maybe it is good to have him here after all. You didn’t realize until he stood in your doorway how lonely coming home to an empty apartment after weeks of being away could be. 

Finally seeing the ingredients on the counter made you want to question what exactly this meal was, but you figured Johnny would have a grand story to tell you while you ate. For now, you were content to watch over his shoulders and shift away wordlessly when he searched for a new pot or pan. 

Although the two of you were typically quite chatty, exhaustion had clearly settled over the both of you. He did, at least, hum and sing under his breath. Some Beatles song that had come out while you were away.

“...you know I can’t sleep, I can’t stop my brain…”

After fifteen minutes of concentrated cooking– cut in half by not having to wait for water to boil or pans to get to temperature— Johnny wriggled out of your grasp and shooed you to the living room. But he followed you two minutes later, a bowl in each hand.

“I present to you, my beloved, a Storm sibling classic.”

With a flourish and a bow, he placed the bowls on your coffee table. One held boxed mac ’n’ cheese, the other, seared hot dog slices. The corner of your mouth quirked up in a smile. You could just see little Johnny eating this. Blonde hair a mess, wrinkled uniform trousers, a bandaid on his elbow, fork laden with things you would never conceive to put together yourself.

“I put them in separate bowls because I know you don’t always like mixing things, but I personally always tossed the hot dogs in with the mac,” he said.

You laughed through your nose and pulled him down to sit on the couch with you. You kissed his favorite spot that wasn’t his lips, right below his temple and beside his ear. 

“Tell me the story,” you said and began to eat.

It was his turn to smile. You knew him so damn well. “When Sue and I were little, our dad, y’know, wasn’t the same after mom died. Wasn’t present, even when he physically was. Before we had to move in with our aunt, Sue would cook on the nights he didn’t come home. She hated cooking but wouldn’t let me help because I was seven and could barely see over the stove. By the time she gave up on waiting for him on those nights, it’d be pretty late. So she’d make something fast, but semi-balanced– knowing two growing kids needed protein and stuff like that. Hence the hot dogs.”

“It’s pretty damn good,” you conceded around a mouthful.

“Nothing but the best for my baby.”

This meal was, to Johnny, the definition of being taken care of. Whatever had been going on in his brain while you were away seemed to have convinced him to open up a bit. He wasn’t what one would call closed off or aloof the rest of the time, of course not, but he also wasn’t one to dwell much on his past. He just wasn’t that kind of guy. Perhaps he could admit that, without you and without his powers in this weather, he’d been feeling like an unmoored ship, tossing around in the torrential storms. Helpless. And he hadn’t felt so helpless since those nights with Sue, watching his big sister try her best to feed them.

Sometimes there isn’t much you can do to help the people you love. Johnny knew this. He couldn’t help Sue back then, too small and childish to be trusted with fire (ironic, right?) or sharp objects. He couldn’t help you at work now, either; he knew that was a battle you had to fight on your own. But he could help by making the rest of your life a little easier. 

So he washed the dishes when you finished up and carried you to bed when you inevitably fell asleep watching TV with him. You opened your sleep-heavy eyes to see him backing away towards the door.

‘Don’t go,” you whined groggily, reaching for him.

He chuckled quietly. “Just turning off the light, sugar.”

Johnny was all too glad to slide into bed to spoon you from behind, warming you to your core. This didn’t satisfy you, though, since you couldn’t see his beautiful face. So you flipped over to sling your left leg over his waist, half hugging him, head on his chest. With less than half of your mind working, you noticed the rain had stopped. The only music was the slow synchronizing of your breathing with Johnny’s and the steady thumping of his heart. 

For the first time in several days, Johnny was able to succumb to sleep. The sweetest dream already lay in his arms.

thank you for reading! if you saw me post and accidentally delete the entire thing, no you didn't! LOL. let me know what ya think :3

He’s called you his on more than one occasion. Whether he was knuckle deep inside your fluttering heat and lapping at you, or when he’s dismissed the servants meant to bathe you after the fact and took matters into his own hands. Held your back against his chest in the hot spring, lounging like this was commonplace when you’d rarely ever seen his sharpened edges softened as such.

But thanks to a gift from another kingdom after protecting their territory, they’d offered up one of their daughters to be his and his alone.

Sukuna didn’t grumble, didn’t turn her away—instead, he barely offered a reaction and waved her towards the palace grounds.

Today marks his first night with her. Perhaps she’s desirable over you, something he realizes as he finishes inside.

A tear runs errant down your cheek as your mind betrays your heart, generating and conceiving notions that make your gut wrench.

And then you hear a knock at the door. Quickly followed by another.

Before you have the chance to respond, the door is being pushed wide open.

Candlelight from the sconces adorning the corridor walls flood inside, illuminating your fidgeting lady-in-waiting, her fingers curled around the doorknob like it’s meant to keep her steady.

“The King is throwing a fit and demands to see you, My lady.”

Your eyes flicker wide.

This is it, you think. Another has taken his heart and replaced you. Now, he must toss you aside.

You swallow thickly before making your way out of your room, quivering fingers curling in your nightgown.

It is not a far walk, yet it manages to stretch into an eternity. One where you contemplate your final moments in the only walls you’d ever known, where you wonder what kind of legacy you will leave behind. Will his future concubines use your story as an example? That they are nothing but disposable and temporary to a King that chases pleasure, breeds chaos and contempt.

It’s when you stand before his chambers that it truly settles in. The room where you’d spent most of your nights—tangled in limbs and silk with a man feared across the lands—will now be where you’ll be formally exiled. Or rather murdered, if he’s feeling rather merciless this fateful evening.

“Where is she?” 

Your heart stutters. The low, wrathful voice of his rolls around in the cavity of your chest like a rumbling thunder, muffled through thick layers of oak.

You push the doors open, step inside and shut the doors behind you. You keep your head downcast, fingers clasped before you, the image of reverence—lest you upset the man any further, lest you become the target for his vitriol. “You have summoned me, My lord.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you take a chancy peek towards the bed, not sparing your heart in the slightest for what you may see. But, where you’d expected to spot his new lover draped across the indent you’d left, you are met with nothing. 

Your breath catches in your throat.

“Are you avoiding me?” He grunts, striding towards you slowly with a prominent crease between his eyebrows. Two of his hands are clasped behind his back while the other two remain planted firmly at his waist. He’s in nothing but a kimono split down the middle, his preference for evenings left to lounge in the privacy of his chambers, not leaving much to the imagination. “I will not tolerate such disobedience.”

Your brows knit as you meet his gaze, shrouded in ambivalence. “...No, My lord. I was told that another was accompanying you for the evening.”

Disgust brews in his fiery irises, like a fire lapping at your skin and leaving scalding wounds in its wake. “Another?”

“In the council hall earlier this evening,” you clarify. “You had taken in a woman as a kept mistress, so I excused myself to my own quarters.”

There’s a silence as he reads your expression, fingers twitching at his waist. “I see.”

You drop your gaze again, and you can feel the enlightenment of something settle on him, cogs ricketing and chugging in his brain.

And then he’s closing the distance and gripping your forearm.

You don’t fight it, but Sukuna is not one dabble where he is unwanted, so something uneasy churns in his gut. He’s isn’t particularly rough if something upsets him when he can just deal with it simply—banishment, murder, the whole nine yards.

He pushes you onto the bed and points towards the headboard.

You follow his gaze, bewildered, and return his look with even more puzzlement.

“That pillow has your dusting powder from two nights ago,” he huffs, lips snarling as if you’d somehow just done him a disservice and flashing a canine like he might tear into you.

“My deepest apologies. I will fetch a servant to replace these at once, My lord—.”

When you attempt to stand to your feet and hurry past him, he places two hands on your biceps and pulls you before him. Not roughly, but firm. Keeping you in place.

He stares down at you from the bridge of his nose, expression suddenly pinched up.

He’s uneased at how vacant you peer back at him.

“I said,” he grumbles, leaning down and frowning. “That pillow has your dusting powder. Not another woman’s—yours.”

You feel your stomach tumble over in your chest like a drunkard.

If anything, Ryomen Sukuna is not one for words. Yes, for vituperation and diatribes, but to reserve space for such warmth is past him.

Or so you thought.

His grip lessens and you glance back towards the pillow, heat emanating from your nape up to the crowns of your ears, before you’re meeting his gaze again.

The fire has softened, nearly snuffed out. Replaced with reassurances you never could’ve expected.

You know he won’t say anything else. But you are aware of what he’s aiming to express; in all time, there has never been another concubine for the King of Curses—and there never will be.

There is just you.

You don’t know what that means for you in the future, but you find yourself leaning into his touch for the first time without any doubt, without a tinge of unease or green gnawing at you.

A hand lifts to cradle the back of your head, and your worries dissipate like they’d never ever even nestled in your gut like a rock, fluttering away in the night. His lips brush against yours like he’s sealing a promise onto them, claiming stake and affirming what you’d longed for. His hands caress you with something akin to possessiveness—almost a quiet desperation that maybe he’ll never bare his soul to another like he does with you.

And soon, you learn that he simply gave quarters to that young lady. Made sure she was bathed, fed, given tasks to keep her long days busy away from home.

Johnny bit into his bottom lip, trying desperately to try and conceal the laughter that was threatening to fall from his lips. In dramatic fashion, you threw your head back into the headrest of his blue Corvette. The sigh that tumbled from your lips was probably loud enough to be heard from Lower Manhattan at this point.

Gaze turning on him, stern and annoyed, Johnny could still see the notes of playfulness under it all.

“Stick shift is stupid, Johnny,”

“It’s not stupid-”

“Where I’m from, we can hit a single button to start our cars these days,” you accented your comment by pressing your finger into the space next to the steering wheel. “Hell, we can start some of them with our phones. They even drive themselves!”

The laughter Johnny tried so hard to keep at bay came tumbling out anyways, further cementing the annoyed look that crossed your face. He reached into the car, taking your hand in his, cradling it and littering soft kiss after kiss along each of your knuckles.

For just a split second, he saw that look in your eyes soften, that familiar affection he’d grown so used to creeping in along the edges. It always happened when he did this, and Johnny would take advantage of it every single time.

“This is the 60s, sweetheart, we aren’t that advanced. Unless I go tell Reed to make it happen,” you tried to drag your hand away but Johnny held tight, still kneeling on the ground in the open driver’s side door in front of you. “Also: be nice to the car. She’s my prized possession.”

“Prized possession?” you questioned, eyebrow lifting up immediately at the remark.

“Well, she’s been demoted to second place now,” Johnny’s lips turned into their usual smirk. Rising to his feet, he tugged your hand without giving you a second to think. Stumbling from the car and straight into his arms, Johnny’s wound around your waist to lock you in tightly to his body, nose just barely brushing the tip of yours. “My real prized possession has to be the little witch I managed to wrangle into loving me.”

You laughed, and Johnny could see it then like he saw so many times before: love. Written so clearly across your face, hidden in the lines of your smile and in the creases around your eyes as you laughed. A love her truly didn’t understand how he’d been blessed with, but was prepared to do whatever it took to keep it.

“I’m still trying to figure out how you managed it, too,”

Johnny just hummed, his lips finding yours with a practiced ease. A simple action that lit his skin on fire in a different way than he was very literally used to. Kissing you the moment you woke up in the morning, in front of his family until Ben complained, or in every little moment he could find, Johnny would never get tired of it. He’d simply never get tired of you.

He’d said it before, and he’d keep saying it until the end of time: you were it for him, ruined him in the best way, and he never wanted to go back to a life without you.

“It’s not good to mope, you know?”

As fast as that memory had overtaken him, invaded every single one of his thoughts, it was gone. The weight of your hand in his, the scent of your perfume, the feel of your lips pressed to his was resigned, once again, to what it was: a memory.

And suddenly, Johnny was back right where he didn’t want to be…in a life without you.

Standing by the window of his bedroom, gazing out at the Excelsior was where Johnny found himself as his sister’s voice invaded his thoughts. His room hadn’t changed much. Your favorite record had never left the player across the room, and in every single corner, on every single piece of furniture in the room, there was a memory of you burned into the very fabric of it.

“I’m not moping,” Johnny immediately shot Sue a look where she stood in his doorway, before looking back to the ship standing tall outside the window. Gesturing wildly with his hands, even he wasn’t sure what he was doing. “I’m simply…admiring the craftsmanship.”

“The craftsmanship-”

“Reed made some upgrades, it looks good,” Johnny shrugged, not having to look to feel Sue walking further into the room to stand beside him. “Darker blue around the windows, larger engines in the back, freshly painted logo–hey, has your husband ever thought about a career in interior design?”

“Given that everything you just said is on the outside of the ship, I don’t think it counts as interior,” Sue’s knowing gaze was already trained on him when Johnny finally met her eyes. “And you are trying to deflect.”

Johnny simply rolled his eyes at his sister’s words. Clapping her quickly on the shoulder, he stalked across the room to his bed, his freshly dried laundry sitting on top of the bed where he had neglected to actually put it all away. Busying his hands, he didn’t look back up at her as he talked.

“It’s not deflecting, you act like I refuse to talk about her. I talk about her all the time,” halfway through folding one of his shirts, Johnny simply gave up and tossed it across his bed, deciding it could just get hung up instead of folded. “We all talk about her all the time. I’m allowed to miss her, you know?”

“I didn’t even mention her, Johnny-”

“Not the point. I did love her, you know? I’m allowed to miss her,”

“Did, as in past tense?”

Sue was standing on the other side of the bed now when Johnny finally looked up. He sent her an unimpressed look as she folded her arms across her chest.

“You know what I mean,”

“Yes, because I know you. Which means I also know that you typically hide your moping and pining better than staring longingly out of a window. There was only one other time you looked this pathetically sad, and that was last year,” Johnny returned to the pile of clothes before him, refusing to meet his sister’s eyes as she slowly settled herself down onto the bed in front of him. “It’s almost the anniversary, isn’t it?”

Of course it was. Johnny knew it, Sue knew it, Reed knew it, Ben knew it–hell, even Franklin and Herbie probably knew it. 

Hanging on the wall of his bedroom, right by his dresser, sat that stupid little calendar. And five days from now there was one simple, tiny little blue heart drawn on the date. The day you had to leave him, turning his world upside down more than you had when you first arrived, and left him feeling as if a part of him was missing.

“Two years, Sue,” Johnny took a single glance up at her, shrugging his shoulders. “I think I’m allowed to be a little depressed around this time, okay? Give a guy a break, I smile in all our interviews and in every Ted Gilbert appearance.”

“A half-assed smile,”

Tossing one of his shirts at Sue, she caught it easily. But that look remained in her eyes, that knowing look. The one that, for his entire life, was able to see right through Johnny as if he was made of glass.

“Put yourself in my shoes, think about it as if it was you and Reed, and he got ripped away from you,” he tried to explain, getting frustrated with folding yet another shirt and tossing it off to the side. “It’s stupid, because I know she had to leave. I knew the entire time that, one day, she’d have to leave because she didn’t belong here. But it just…felt like she did, you know? Like she belonged with me. She didn’t see the Human Torch, she just saw me…the same way you see me.”

Quiet enveloped the room again. Johnny let the shirts in his hands fall to the bed, giving up on focusing on something else, as he met Sue’s eyes again. There wasn’t a second of judgement in them, not a single ounce of pity, just understanding. An understanding that for Johnny’s entire life he was sure only his sister could have for him, until you came along.

With his usual dramatic flair, Johnny threw himself down onto the bed. Clothing be damned, strewn out across the comforter, Sue’s light laughter filled the room as his head landed beside her leg. Her hand found its way to his shoulder, rubbing little circles into it in the most comforting way she could.

“I get it Johnny, we all do. We all miss her, too,” she quietly reminded him. He could feel her watching him, even as his eyes stayed trained on the ceiling above them. “Franklin asked about her today…asked where his auntie was.”

“He always asks where she is,” Johnny mumbled, still not looking away from the ceiling as Sue hummed.

“True, but he doesn’t usually cry. Doesn’t usually tell me how much he misses her, how he can’t feel her magic and it makes him sad,”

Johnny really thought, two years in, it would get easier. That maybe, after a few months, he’d stop missing you as much as he did those first few weeks. 

He’d eventually forced himself to put away the few pieces of your clothing that had still been littered around his bedroom from that fateful day. Your perfume had begun to fade from his pillowcases. He thought it would get easier then, that he’d just be able to look at the photos of you and him that still sat on his bedside table or hung on his wall and smile at the memories. That he could move on, look back on them for what they had to be: memories. Thank you for showing him what it felt like to be loved and how to give it so that he could give it to someone else. Because as much as you had promised him that it wasn’t a goodbye that day, and as much as he told himself he’d see you again, he knew the likelihood was slim. Two different worlds, two different universes, two different people who were just never meant to be. Who never should’ve met to begin with.

It was month three without you when Johnny decided that maybe, just maybe, he could try again. But the second Ben came home from a night out and cautiously told him that there was a nice young woman Rachel wanted to introduce him to, Johnny broke down into tears for the first time since that sparkling gold portal had opened in Reed Richards’ lab.

You had ruined Johnny Storm completely, and he knew right then and there he wasn’t going to be able to ever love someone again. Not like he loved you.

“I’m pathetic,” Johnny muttered in mock disdain, eyes still trained on the ceiling. “Little witch turned me into a pathetic, hopeless romantic. Maybe she really did put a spell on me.”

“No, Johnny, you just fell in love. That’s the beautiful tragedy of it,” Sue laughed, her fingers reaching out and bumping with Johnny’s cheek gently to grab his attention. He let his head lull to the side, catching her gaze and the soft smile on her face, the one that spoke a thousand words without having to say a single thing.

“Two different worlds, Sue. How real can that love really be?”

“Tell me: if she was standing here right now, and I handed you mom’s ring, would you ask her to marry you?”

“Yes,” it was the easiest thing Johnny had ever said. As easy as the first time he’d told you he loved you. Like he knew it in his heart.

“Then who cares if it makes sense? It was real, it still is,” Sue gave a little shrug, an easy smile on her face. “Love doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes it’s complicated, but at the same time…when you know, you know. That’s the only girl I’ve ever seen you like that with, Johnny, and I’ll forever be thankful to her for the man she helped you become.”

“I sent you up here to stop his pity fest, did you turn it into a heart-to-heart?”

Ben’s voice cut into the conversation, his large form looming in the doorway as he raised his rocky eyebrow in the direction of the siblings. Johnny simply rolled his eyes at his friend, practically vaulting himself off the bed and back to his feet, laundry wrinkled across the bed now and a problem for a later time as he tried to shake himself awake from the conversation that loomed heavily in the back of his mind.

Sue shook her head, rising to her feet as well as she walked over to join Ben in the doorway.

“His pity fest was worse than usual. He was staring longing out the window. I almost saw some tears,”

“Damn, haven’t seen tears in a hot minute from matchstick,” Ben whistled, clicking his tongue. “The window is pretty bad. Worst I saw was his birthday–don’t think he took that sweater she got him off the entire day-”

“When did today become ‘Make Fun of Johnny Day’ huh?” Johnny cut in, eyebrow raised and arms thrown out as he cast a glance between both Sue and Ben on the far side of his room. “What, did you make it a city-wide holiday? Call up the mayor?”

“Not a bad idea-”

“Come on,” Sue cut in, landing a light slap to Ben’s chest, even as he laughed at his own comment. The pair were already turning to walk down the hallway together as Sue threw in another comment over her shoulder. “Reed wants you in the lab, it’s not an option!”

There was no point in arguing with the pair, especially if Reed was requesting his presence. He let his eyes drift to his bedside table, to that familiar polaroid photo that sat leaning against his lamp, of you wrapped in his arms on the living room balcony. He’d lost that magically preserved Plumeria flower weeks ago, spent days upending his room trying to find it, but your hand writing was still scrawled across the edge of the photo in your magic.

Unequivocally yours.

With a sigh, tearing himself away, Johnny followed the pair through the hallway and down the stairs and into the living room of the Baxter Building. His mind was far from in the moment, though, too lost in his own memories.

The memory of walking down those exact stairs into the living room to see you, dolled up for your first official date together. The many mornings he’d walked down those stairs to see you cooking breakfast with Ben in the kitchen, or sitting with Sue and Reed in the living room, laughing with Franklin on your lap.

Even the elevator brought memories as he stepped into it beside Sue and Ben.

“You know,” Johnny’s voice was low, twinged with a heat that he hadn’t felt before. His eyes took just a moment to glance down at your lips, flickering back to your eyes before you could catch him. “This would be the moment during the date where I’d probably try and kiss you.”

He waited with bated breath, a flurry of butterflies hammering against his chest the second your brilliant smile lit up your face. But then your eyes glowed blue for just a moment, a small burst of magic leaving the hand resting on his chest, pushing him backward and out of the elevator doors.

Johnny’s wide eyes watched you as he caught himself, steadying himself on the ground as he stared at you with a dumbfounded smile. You only returned the look, pressing the button for the guest floor without ever breaking eye contact as he felt every ounce of breath rush out of him in a single moment.

“Guess you’ll have to try your luck tomorrow night,”

Ben’s rocky hand collided with Johnny’s shoulder gently, knocking him out of his own head.

“Come on, buddy, quit daydreaming,” Ben teased, but his words were gentle. Almost pitying as the elevator descended down to the lab. “I know I said love looks good on you…but I hate seeing you like this.”

“Yeah, well, blame the wizard dude,” Johnny huffed out, waving his hand off-handedly as he tried to change the subject, trying not to let his mind wander once against and get lost in his own head for the hundredth time in the last hour. “Next time I see him, I might punch him.”

“That I might pay to see,” Sue chimed in, sharing a laugh with Ben as the elevator dinged, the doors sliding open to the familiar lab.

Reed Richards was down near his chalk board, handing a set of papers off to Herbie as he wrote what Johnny could only assume was another long-winded equation across the board. Herbie took the papers from him, rolling across the room to feed them into the computer down at the far end of the lab and wait for the results to print out.

Sue and Ben continued to converse with one another as they moved to join Reed at the chalkboard. Johnny, though, was in no rush. He lagged behind, arms crossed over his chest as he took tentative steps into the room, simply watching the three converse quietly in their little huddle by the chalkboard.

That is, until a little ball of blonde hair collided with his leg, latching onto him like a little leech.

“Uncle Johnny! You left your room!”

If anything, or anyone, was going to bring a smile to Johnny’s face right now, it was always going to be Franklin. With a single swoop of his arm, Johnny positioned his nephew onto his hip. The smiling four year old giggled, wrapping his little arounds tightly around his uncle’s shoulders to hold on as Johnny reached up to ruffle his hair playfully, tugging just barely on his ear to make the boy squirm in his hold as he shot him a bright smile.

“Hey buddy. I was told your crazy dad wanted to see me, I didn’t think this was a family meeting,”

“We made you a present!” Franklin excitedly announced, hands curling into Johnny’s shirt as he practically bounced in his arms. Johnny held on tighter, trying not to let the boy slip from his hold. “I even helped.”

“Did you now?”

Taking a few more steps into the room, Johnny shot his inquisitive look toward Ben, his sister, and his brother-in-law. The former two both shoved Reed forward, who simply shot them both looks for their actions, before he tossed the little device in his hands in Johnny’s direction. He caught it easily in one hand, turning it over in his palm.

“I’ve been working on it for a few months. Franklin just got to pick the color,”

Johnny…had no clue what he was looking at. The rectangular device was slightly larger than the palm of his hand, an opening in the back revealing a set of exposed wires that he was sure were meant to be connected to something else. 

The lit screen showcased a series of complicated numbers and equations. Multiple strings of numbers looked almost like coordinates, some looked like jump points that they used to calculate jumps through wormholes in space, but they all led to one number on the screen, highlighted in bold: 616.

“My gift is a little box with numbers…thanks?” Johnny raised an eyebrow in Reed’s direction.

Sue sighed, tugging on her husband’s arm and gesturing toward the chalkboard beside them. He nodded, waving Johnny over in their direction. He complied, albeit warily, standing in front of the couch with Franklin still positioned over his hip as Ben and Sue stood at Reed’s side while he ran him through the series of equations littering the board.

“We’ve been mulling over the idea for months now. Close to a year. More so the ethical implications of it,” Reed underlined one of the longest equations on the board, accenting the end of it with his chalk. “You’ve been in a funk, it’s been clear. I knew that I could accomplish this, but it came down to whether or not it was ethical for me to do this, to build this. But in looking back on my own notes, from my own data collected from her time here, nothing seemed thrown out of balance. From quick studies, I see no sign of any incursions. Which–theoretically–would suggest that the same could work in reverse. The construction of the device was simple, really. A device that could allow our ship to break through a jump point and use quantum physics in order to cross through a multidimensional stream was simple to construct-”

Multidimensional stream.

Johnny couldn’t breathe. Reed kept talking, his mouth kept moving, his hand kept sweeping across the chalkboard, but Johnny couldn’t comprehend a single word that came out of his mouth.

It wasn’t until he placed Franklin down on the couch behind him that he realized he was shaking. With both hands, Johnny clutched that device in his hands, staring down at that three digit number staring back at him. When he finally looked back up at his family, they were already staring back at him.

“You…you’re saying that t-this thing?” he held the device up, shaking it in the air in Reed’s direction with wide eyes. “Can help our ship travel the multiverse?”

Reed stalked across the room to his workstation without another word, digging around for something. Johnny caught Ben and Sue’s eyes. Their smiles were prevalent, those encouraging ones, the ones that screamed ‘you deserve this,’ that said ‘we did this for you’.

“Did you know, in the infinite multiverse, I was able to find approximately 17,835,239 other versions of your witch with energy signatures that are almost identical to hers? All slightly different, but very similar, almost impossible to tell apart,” Reed spoke up as he stepped back toward Johnny, pulling his hand out from behind his back and holding it out in Johnny’s direction. “Luckily, I knew just how to find yours.”

The Plumeria flower. Still shimmering, encased in your blue magic, forever keeping it alive.

Johnny glanced down at the device again, eyes catching that number once more: 616. A lump formed in his throat, every emotion he’d felt for the last two years swelling in him all at once as he let his finger drift over the screen, right over the number.

“So…616-”

His sister’s hand found his upper arm, curling around it, squeezing it in comfort. Johnny leaned into it without a second thought, too overwhelmed to think twice.

“It stands for Earth-616,” Sue told him softly. He could hear the smile in her voice. “It’s her earth, Johnny. Reed found it. He found her.”

 ❤︎

Dear Johnny,

It’s been awhile since I’ve written you one of these, probably since I stopped seeing my “Wong Appointed” therapist. He’s still upset about that, but therapists don’t exactly understand how to help me deal with falling in love with a man from an entirely different universe, so I felt like it was just a waste of both of our times. The letters were her idea, and they sometimes helped, so I guess she was good for something.

Today is the two year mark. I don’t like thinking about it. I’ve been trying not to think about it all day, actually. Joaquín and I left for a mission at almost three in the morning today, that’s how badly I didn’t want to think about what today was. The mission was easy, barely took half of the day. I threw two dudes out of a window, then I laughed to myself because I could almost hear you in my head saying “wow, that was so hot.”

I miss you. That’s the whole point of me writing this, because I’m really trying not to cry right now. We’re on the quinjet back, and at some point in the middle of this data retrieval it just hit me that it’s been two years since I’ve seen you. Since I’ve held you. Since I’ve kissed you. I thought maybe writing down how much I miss you, how much I love you, would make me feel better. Honestly, I think it might just be making it worse-

“OW! Joaquín, I swear to god-”

“It’s not exactly easy to stitch your arm when you’re writing. Put the pen down for two seconds and let me finish the damn stitches first, please and thank you,”

He had a point, even if you didn’t want to admit it. The quinjet was cruising on autopilot, the overhead indicator calling out that you’d just passed over Baltimore and the ETA to the compound was now ten minutes.

The pen in your hand dropped as a sigh escaped your lips. Joaquín shot you a mockingly thankful look, focusing back in on the exposed area of your forearm where the bullet had grazed, cutting through your suit and leaving a deep enough cut to warrant stitches. Thankfully, your teammate and friend knew you well enough to know you weren’t stopping by the hospital, and had volunteered his services before Sam forced you to be seen by a doctor the second you stepped foot off the jet.

“Did you finish off the report for Sam?” you managed out through gritted teeth, hand flexing as Joaquín finished off the final stitch, tying it closed and wiping down the area with a final anti-septic pad that had you inhaling another hiss of pain. You took the bandage he passed your way with a nod of thanks as he packed away the med kit laid out in front of him.

“Did it the second we got in the air, it’s on the table,” he nodded his head toward the main table of the room, stashing the medkit in its rightful place across the room before heading back toward the cockpit, double checking on all the indicators to ensure that everything was in place and holding steady. “So, are we going to talk about it?”

You hummed, rubbing at the now bandaged part of your arm over the torn portion of your suit. Rising from your chair, letter abandoned, you did a quick flip through of the report to ensure everything was in order: SERPENT base, files recovered concerning resurfaced HYDRA activity, no casualties, single gunshot graze.

“Talk about what?”

“Uh, the fact that the all powerful witch got so distracted she basically got shot?” you glanced in Joaquín’s direction as he spoke. He stood with his arms crossed, still donning his suit, raising an eyebrow in your direction as he gave a little shrug. “Come on, I’m the one who always needs a second pair of eyes watching his back in the field. You’re, like, a model of perfection on missions. You never slip up. What happened back there?”

“It was stupid,” you tried to deflect, but Joaquín held your gaze. With a sigh, you cast your eyes down to the table, drumming your fingers along the edge. “The two agents were just making callouts to each other. One of them…his name was Johnny. I just froze for a second when I heard it, that’s all.”

It really was stupid. Such a trivial thing. A name, just a name was all it took for you to freeze in a moment where you shouldn’t have frozen. Any other day and it wouldn’t have affected you, wouldn’t have stopped you in your tracks the way it had.

But not today. Not on the anniversary of the day you’d been forced to leave behind the little family you’d found for yourself, leaving a piece of yourself forever behind with the Human Torch himself.

Joaquín’s laughter cut through the silence of the jet, and the glare you sent his way immediately at the sound was piercing. He was hunched over, arm wrapped around his middle and one hand on the back of the pilot’s chair to try and steady himself. Each time his eyes met yours, he only doubled over more in laughter, waving his hand in your direction.

“I-I’m sorry, all it took was his name?” you crossed your arms over your chest, leaning against the table as you fixed your friend with an unimpressed look. He howled with laughter again, wiping at his under eyes with his hand. You couldn’t tell if it was an exaggeration, or if he really was crying from here. “Jesus, sweetheart, you really are pathetic when it comes to him.”

Stalking past him, a wave of magic rolled off you with a single thought, shoving him out of the way to allow you to climb into the pilot’s chair. Ignoring the tail end of his laughter as Joaquín clung to the back of your chair, you disengaged the autopilot feature of the jet, locking in the controls to prepare for landing at the compound 

“Thanks, Joaquín, I can always count on you to make me feel better,” your words grumbled out under your breath, hands tight on the controls. Joaquín climbed into the seat next to you, wings shoved off onto the floor behind him to allow him to settle into the seat comfortably next to you. Even without looking, you could see the stupid smirk on his face.

“Sorry, sorry, you know I’m just teasing. Everyone knows you’re always pathetic when it comes to your flame boy,” the only response you gave was a hum as he scoffed, reaching over and lightly hitting you on the shoulder with his hand. “Come on, lighten up! You’re my friend, you think I don’t know today is the anniversary? I’m trying to cheer you up, make you laugh, you know?”

“Might want to try a comedy class at this rate,” you shot back, head rolling over as you shot him a smirk of your own. “Maybe we should visit Isaiah. Watching him kick your ass in the gym might bring a smile to my face.”

That comment brought a laugh out of Joaquín, one that was enough to momentarily distract your mind enough to let a soft smile make its way to your lips.

“Damn, you’re one cold witch sometimes, you know?” the comment earned him a slap on his shoulder from you. His laughter died down, a soft smile mirroring yours finding its way to Joaquín’s face. “You’re allowed to talk about him with me, you know? I’ll listen.”

Your smile fell, just slightly. It got tighter by just a pinch, jaw tightening just a little, as your eyes turned back to the skies as you nodded.

“I know that,”

“You sure? Because you really don’t talk about him much. Not out loud,”

“It’s not easy to. If Johnny wants to talk about me, he has an entire building full of people that got to know me for a year to talk to. I don’t have that,” a bitter laugh found its way out of you before you could stop it. You didn’t want to be bitter about the situation, but it was impossible not to. There was no one you were made at except the situation itself, except the universe as a whole. “I love you and Sam dearly, but you two don’t know him. Chances are you never will. I can talk about how much I miss him, how much I miss all of them, but will you ever really understand why when you don’t know them like I do?”

Casting your eyes back over to him for just a moment, Joaquín still held that soft smile toward you. He gave a little shrug.

“Maybe not, but I’m still your friend. I’d still listen,”

Quiet enveloped the two of you for a few moments, the weight of the conversation settling between you both. You tried to shake it from you, to will away the memories that threatened to creep into your mind anytime you were left to stew alone in your head for too long. Suddenly, Joaquín shot up in his seat. Leaning closer to the windows of the jet, eyes wide and full of excitement, he cast a quick glance back at you and he pointed out of the glass. “God, I love when we fly back into the compound this way and can see the monument from the sky. One hell of a skyline, isn’t it?”

“One hell of a skyline, isn’t it?”

The nighttime breeze of New York City drifted over you, the cool feeling dancing over your skin. That cool feeling didn’t stay long, not when that familiar deep burgundy jacket slid over your shoulders, it’s warmth enveloping you. That same warmth suddenly found your waist, seeping straight from Johnny Storm’s hands and through your shirt, straight into your skin as he squeezed, the tip of his nose brushing along the edge of your ear as he slotted himself into the space behind you on the Baxter Building balcony.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” you hummed back, leaning back into the warmth reflexively, hands gripping the railing of the balcony. The lights of the city glittered in the distance, car horns beeping and distant sounds of sirens could be heard from miles away. “Grew up here, remember?”

“Come on, our skylines can’t be the exact same,”

“Pretty damn close, baby,” you shot back, turning your head just barely to catch his eyes. Even in the night, those baby blue eyes were still so brilliantly bright. The smile that stretched across your lips was easy. “Sorry, guess your city isn’t that special.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. You moved then, stepping out of his arms and trying to step away from him, turning away to walk inside, but of course, he wouldn’t let you. His hand caught your waist again, spinning you back into him, hands landing on his chest as his grip held firm against your lower back.

Laughter bubbled out of you before you could stop it, smile bright, as your hands slid up to cup the back of his neck. Before a single word could slip past your lips he surged forward, slotting his against your own, a sigh of pure contentment falling from your lips instead as you let your fingers curl into his hair instead. Relishing the feel of his hands along the small of your back.

“You’re such a dork,” the words were muttered against his lips through a smile. “But I love you.”

His smile matched yours, lips never leaving yours either as he spoke.

“Your dork, who loves you, too,”

A flash of light interrupted the kiss, tearing the two of you away from one another, but only by an inch. Sue stood sheepishly in the doorway of the balcony, balancing a giggling Franklin on one hip and a Polaroid camera in her other hand, muttering apology after apology, quickly trying to sneak away with the newly printed photo.

You could only laugh, leaning into Johnny as his lips pressed into the crown of your head over and over again, a rush of something shooting through you in the moment that you hadn’t felt in so long: safety. That comforting feeling, where in that moment, everything just felt right.

You hated memories. You hated how easy it was for something so simple–something so trivial–to invoke them.

“Yeah…it’s great,” was the only response you could muster back to Joaquín at that moment. Your smile was gone again, that youthful glow and that playful tone replaced once more with the wistfulness that had engulfed you since you’d stepped foot back in your own universe two years ago.

Not another word was said as you landed the quinjet further up the Potomac River on the landing pad outside of the compound, the one specially designed for the new team formed under Sam Wilson’s own Avengers team. Being left a sizable fund in your name by an old teammate and mentor left plenty to fund a compound for your new team.

If Joaquín noticed your quick change in demeanor, which he certainly did, he chose not to mention it as you strode side by side into the compound together. You were grateful for it. Talking about your feelings was, quite frankly, the last thing you wanted to do.

Wallowing in self pity in bed, all by yourself, sounded like the better option for the rest of the night.

The crumpled, unfinished note was tucked into the back pocket of your suit as you trailed through the empty compound behind Joaquín. He was flicking through the mission report, ensuring that everything was in place and he hadn’t screwed anything up, knowing that Sam preferred everything on these reports accurate when he wasn’t on the mission with either of you.

Both you and Joaquín came to a halt the second you saw the sight before you in the compound’s main kitchen.

“Uh…Sam?”

The man turned on his heel, sending a bright smile in the direction of you both, before he put the pot of noodles in his hand on the burner behind him, flicking it on just like the others were on their own pans. The entire island counter looked as if the local grocery store had thrown up on it: empty boxes of noodles, some flour littering the counter, homemade garlic bread sitting on a baking sheet waiting for the oven to most likely preheat. Enough food to, probably, feed the entire US military if Sam Wilson really wanted to.

“Who is this guy and what happened to our Sam?” Joaquín muttered toward you, thought not discreetly at all as you could see the roll of Sam’s eyes from the other side of the island. “He never cooks. At least, not for us.”

“Tonight is different,” Sam cut in, checking on everything on the stove quickly before turning back to look at the both of you. His hands gripped the edge of the counter as his eyes roamed over both of you, eyes landing on the bandage wrapped around the torn forearm of your suit. “What happened? I thought it was mission success?”

“It was,” you waved him off, taking the file from Joaquín’s hands and tossing it across the counter to Sam, letting him flick through the report. “I got grazed by a bullet, it was nothing. Don’t try and change the subject, Wilson, why is tonight different? We never do ‘team meals’ together, that’s not our thing.”

Sam was silent, didn’t answer your question for a moment, as he flicked through the rest of the report. Letting it fall back to the counter in front of him, the bright smile was back on his face in seconds as he glanced back up, specifically right at you.

“We have guests tonight,”

Joaquín stood a little straighter next to you, his own smile growing as he excitedly clapped his hand down on your shoulder.

“Guests? You finally make up with Bucky and invite those guys down here? Or is this a, like, military-strategy type of dinner meeting and we should go get out of our suits?”

You just watched Sam, whose eyes never left you. He just smiled, that cheeky smile that said he had something to hide. Before you could question it, he tilted his head over to the side toward the dining room, forcing your gaze to follow.

Wong stood, rigid, hands tucked behind his back. His robes billowed out down by his feet as he just silently watched you, face unreadable.

It was enough to make you tense, as well as Joaquín, who patted your shoulder this time in comfort.

“He kind of looks like he wants to kill you,” Joaquín whispered in your direction. You only nodded in response, taking a slight step toward the man as you gave him a hesitant smile. A tiny, miniscule nervous laugh fell from your lips.

“Wong…nice to see you?” he hummed in response as you quickly jerked your thumb backwards toward Joaquín. “I promise, whatever it is you think I did, Joaquín is probably the one that did it. I’ve been a perfect angel, no performing spells that I don’t already know.”

“Hey…” Joaquín muttered out behind you, fake-hurt laced in his voice.

Wong stayed silent for a moment before he let out a deep sigh, running a hand down his face. His eyes stayed watching you the entire time.

“You didn’t do anything, though at first, I thought you had. If that was true, we’d be having a much different conversation right now,” the Sorcerer Supreme crossed his arms over his chest, taking in another deep breath. “It’s been a long day, I’ve been dealing with your guests since they entered Earth’s atmosphere. So…I expect a thank you for the fact that I even brought them here and did not send them home immediately.”

Wong was making no sense. Not a single thing he said was registering with you. Earth’s atmosphere? They’d entered it? The only thing you could think of was Carol, but you were pretty sure she was back on Earth permanently at the moment. Plus, why would Wong send Carol of all people away?

Your eyes drifted to Joaquín, who looked just as lost. They drifted then to Sam, who still held that knowing smile, like he was biting back a thousand secrets he was dying to tell you.

Before you could utter a single question, something collided with your leg, wrapping itself around it and latching onto you like it never wanted to let go.

“Auntie!”

The word froze you in place. The feeling on your leg was clear in that moment–two tiny little hands gripping onto the fabric of your suit like their life depended on it. Morgan was the only one who ever called you that. There was only one other person that could–or would–call you that.

And when that thought hit you, your breath caught, and your eyes drifted down to the little body wrapped around your leg.

Your head told you it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be him. But your heart? Your heart knew when you looked at his little body. Taller than the last time you’d seen him, held him. More hair, but still just as blonde. As bright as his mother’s. And those eyes…as blue as the ones he’d inherited, the ones you’d accidentally fallen in love with.

He let go the second you dropped to your knees, eyes level with him now. Your chest felt like it was constricting, like it couldn’t decide if you couldn’t breathe at all or if you were about to start hyperventilating. It was him, you knew it was him. Hands reaching out, cupping his cheeks, a breathless little laugh left your lips in a whisper as he smiled at you through his little gapped toothed smile.

“F-Franklin?” his name just barely made it past your lips. You could feel a sob burning in you, your throat tightening, as he nodded his little head.

“I missed you, auntie,”

Tears finally found their way down your cheeks the second you wrapped him in your arms, tugging his little body into you and holding him as tightly as you possibly could. That sob threatened to escape, hiccuping out of you as Franklin wrapped his arms around your neck, hugging you back. You gripped to the back of his shirt, trying to comprehend it: little Franklin Richards, the little boy you hadn’t held since he was a baby, was here. He was here, on your earth, in your arms.

“I told him to wait and not jump on you, but he really missed his aunt,”

If Franklin almost pulled a sob out of you, this was the end of you. You let go of him, looking over, just to see her standing there: Sue Storm. In those blue and white suits you hadn’t seen in so long. Her hair was longer than it was before, just a tad bit straighter, but it was her. Smiling across the room at you, with that same warm, motherly grin that you hadn’t seen in so long you were beginning to forget the sight of it.

“Sue-!”

Her name had barely left your lips before a sob tore through you. On shaky legs, you practically bolted across the room, throwing yourself into her arms as you simply just let yourself cry without a care in the world. She laughed, her arms coming around your body and holding you back just as tightly, hand running down over the back of your head to smooth your hair as you held onto her.

“I missed you, too,” she said quietly, sweetly, pulling back to wipe the tears that were streaming down your cheeks. She reached down, grabbing your forearm and quickly giving you a pointed look at the bandage wrapped around your arm. “We told you to take care of yourself, remember? This doesn’t look like that.”

You laughed, pulling back to furiously rub at the tears on your face. You could faintly hear Joaquín behind you conversing with Sam, most likely having finally caught on to what was happening.

“If I remember the story correctly, you died at one point, so you don’t get to make comments about a tiny injury,”

“I prefer if we don’t talk about that day,” Reed Richards himself cut in, stepping up beside his wife. Still the same man you remembered, maybe an extra line or two around his face, but a warm smile on his lips none the less as he nodded his head to you. “Good to know it worked and I found the right version of you. You wouldn’t believe how many of you exist in the multiverse.”

You laughed. The brightest, happiest laugh you had let out in what had surely been two years. It was like a weight you hadn’t even realized had been sitting on your chest had finally lifted, like the grey clouds that had invaded every corner of your life had finally cleared away. You reached out, squeezing Reed’s hand as you gave him a watery smile.

“I thought I told you not to invent multidimensional travel?”

“Well, I do like being the first person to do things, so-”

“Alright, alright, quit hogging her! Let me see the girl!”

Ben’s voice commanded the room. Sue and Reed both laughed, parting, letting you practically run through them and straight into Ben’s awaiting arms. His laugh bellowed in your ears as his rocky form enveloped you in a hug, his head resting down on top of yours as he gave you a light squeeze.

“God, Ben, I can’t tell you how much I missed you,”

“I missed you too, little witch,” Ben pulled back, reaching behind him and grabbing something from the table behind him, presenting it in front of you with a large grin. “Don’t worry, I made sure to bring you the good stuff.”

You laughed the second you saw the logo on the paper bag: Maisie’s.

With one of Ben’s hands still resting against your shoulders, you turned back to Sue and Reed. Franklin was back in his father’s arms, messing with the edges of his suit, and something about just looking at them all in front of you, to seeing Sam and Joaquín smiling and watching the entire thing in the background, just filled you with a feeling that you hadn’t known for quite some time.

Not since you’d lost them, the people you had called your first family. Having all of them in this room, though, it finally brought back that feeling–that feeling of being well and truly home.

“This can’t be permanent,”

Wong’s voice cut through the moment, bringing your attention back to him, along with everyone else in the room. You straightened up, wiping at the tears on your cheeks, nodding your head toward him.

“I know-”

“A week, that’s the best I can give,” Wong cut you off, a sense of urgency in his tone as he spoke. He was making it clear that this could not, in any way, be permanent. No matter how much it would hurt in the end. “I’m still studying your magic and if your extended time in their universe had any lasting effects on the strands of time. In the interest of knowledge, you can have a week, so I can see what effects their presence here has. A week, though. Nothing more.”

You nodded, and Wong continued on. Something about how, if he found that their presence here was affecting the timelines, they’d have to leave immediately. How the fate of the universe, how ensuring that the strands of time themselves stayed intact was more important than anything else. You were barely listening at that point.

It was impossible not to just look at them. To admire in awe at the fact that they were really here. Sue, Reed, Franklin, Ben-

They were missing someone.

Sue’s eyes found yours the second that realization seemed to hit you. And like always, it was as if she knew. A soft smile crossed her face as she simply nodded her head toward the rest of the compound.

“He got curious, went snooping for your room,”

That was all you needed to hear before you took off running, anything else from Wong’s mouth ignored in your haste to get to your room.

The twists and turns of the compound passed by in a blur, your feet pounding down them. You knew them like the back of your hand, it didn’t matter if you couldn’t see anything through the blur of tears covering your eyes with every single step you took.

Your bedroom door was open down the hallway, something it never was when you weren’t here. It was always shut, a habit you had always had for privacy reasons. The soft lighting from the lamp inside spilling out of it and into the hallway, the beams of light crawling across the floor and up the opposite wall. You had to hang onto the edge of the doorframe to fully stop yourself.

There he was. 

A sight that made your heart skip a beat, that had your chest clenching at the thought that you were finally–finally–seeing him again. Two years, 730 some days since you had last seen Johnny Storm, and there he was. Standing in your bedroom like he belonged there, like he wasn’t universes away from his own.

His back was turned to you, but you knew him. You knew that blue and white ribbed suit, you knew that blonde hair, and you knew those hands. Those hands that were discarded of their gloves, that were rifling through a stack of papers he’d surely taken off your bedside table.

You knew those papers. Your letters, every single one you’d ever written. The first line of them was memorized, from the first letter, to the last one you’d written.

I still think this exercise is stupid, but I’m going to do it anyway. Joaquín said I moped today, told me I looked like a sad, wet kitten that had been abandoned in an alleyway. I didn’t have it in me to tell him it’s your birthday today.

To be completely honest, I kind of hate you right now. I hate that I’m crying in bed, in the middle of the night, trying to write a stupid letter to you that you’ll never see because I woke up from a dream where you were holding me and I realized how cold reality was without you. It’s not fair. I really hate you for this.

Sam was showing me stupid tweets on his phone today and I saw one that said “I didn’t fall for you, you fucking tripped me.” It made me think of you…you kind of did, in a way.

Today’s my birthday. Sam and Joaquín got me a cake, and then Pepper brought Morgan by so I could have dinner with her. I visited the makeshift grave I made for Wanda. Went to Nat’s and Tony’s, too. And through all of that…I just wanted you. I just miss you. I miss the drive-in, I miss kicking your ass at bowling, I miss dancing at The Regent. I miss you…and I don’t know how to stop. I’m not sure I ever will.

Sam asked me today if I regret falling in love with you, if it’s worth the pain I’ve carried since I had to leave. Without a second thought I told him no, no I don’t regret it. Getting to love you, and be loved by you, is worth any amount of pain I have to endure. Doesn’t mean it sucks any less, though.

As if he could feel you, feel your gaze watching him, Johnny finally turned.

There was no way to describe it. No way to accurately explain the flutter of your heart in your chest, the trail of goosebumps that seemed to travel your skin in seconds, or the utter pull that you felt in your gut to just run into his arms. There wasn’t a book, a song, a movie scene, a single thing in the world that could accurately describe the way in which simply looking into those blue eyes–no longer just a staple of your dreams–had you wanting to break down sobbing while simultaneously dancing across the room.

Johnny Storm wasn’t always the easiest person to read, not when you had first met him. But over time, as you’d let yourself fall in love with the man standing before you, you’d come to understand him better than you feared you understood yourself at times. You could see it all in his face, in his body language: the instant sag in his shoulders, like the weight that had been sitting on your chest had been sitting heavily on him all this time, too. The slight twitch of his lips, the way they curled up into that smirk that you had missed so desperately.

He raised his hands, waving the letters slightly in the air, eyes never leaving you for a second.

“I’m not usually one for telling strong, pretty women what to do,” even just his voice, just hearing it again, had a single tear rolling back down your cheek. Even as his voice was laced with his usual teasing tone, a contrast to the softness he carried in his eyes reserved just for you. Saying that same line, the first thing he’d ever said to you all those years ago. “But it’s not safe to just leave private letters like these sitting around. You never know who might find them.”

“W-Well, I don’t usually have curious blonde men from the ‘60s combing through my personal belongings,” you managed out, wiping at the tears that were silently falling from your cheeks. “Joaquín snooped in here once and found out the hard way why my room is off limits.”

“What, you give him a stern talking to?”

“Hexed his suit for a week so that his wings always did the exact opposite of what he wanted them to,”

His laughter filled the room. Warm, inviting, a sound that felt like a hug. A sound you had missed so dearly. Carefully, he laid the letters back on your bedside table, eyes never leaving you for a moment as he stepped out into the middle of the room.

“That’s my girl,”

Every step you took was shaky, still at war with yourself in your head on how this could be real, as you gingerly stepped into your own bedroom. How they invented multiversal travel, how they were here. How after two whole years of feeling like you left a part of yourself in another dimension, it was finally standing in front of you again.

“This really is real, right?” you asked softly, just a few feet in front of him now.

Johnny hummed, tilting his head slightly, before holding out his hand in front of you. Within a millisecond those familiar flames burst to life, burning bright within his hand. The heat that accompanied them enveloped you, warming your skin. A new set of tears managed to fall at the feeling.

“I hope it’s real,” Johnny shot back, but that teasing tone left his voice quickly. It was replaced with a soft smile, almost a hesitant one, like he was just as scared as you were that somehow this wasn’t real. Somehow, he’d wake up back home to this all having been a dream, and you’d wake up in your room alone again. “I’ve been kind of miserable without you. Really pathetic, if I do say so myself. It’s pretty depressing, I don’t know how they’ve put up with it for two years.”

“It’s not like I’ve been much better. I’ve missed you…so much,” you shot back at him.

“Baby, Reed invented multiversal travel because that’s how sick he was of seeing me mope around. I think we know who missed the other more,”

The flames in his hand died, but it stayed stretched out toward you. An invitation, calling you in. 

You ignored it, launching yourself into his arms instead.

Johnny wrapped himself around you, molding and conforming to your body just as you did to him. Like two puzzle pieces that snapped together perfectly. His hands found your waist, curling up your back, splayed out between your shoulder blades and across your lower back. Heat bloomed everywhere his hands touched you as his fingers curled into the fabric of your suit, pressing into your body, pulling you as close as he could physically hold you, but never close enough. You could feel the exhale that left him, that one that felt like relief now that he was holding you again. You understood it all too well.

One of your hands curled into his hair on instinct, feeling the soft strands of blonde between your fingers again, while the other simply clung around his neck as you buried your head as far into his neck as you possibly could force yourself. You took in a deep breath, letting the familiar scent of him wash over you, as another round of cries racked through your body.

Being in his arms again: a feeling that both was overwhelming and made you feel lighter than you had in years.

Johnny’s hand moved itself, leaving a trail of warmth from your upper back, over your arm, and up the side of your neck until he fully cupped your face within his hand. Pulling you back just slightly so he could see you, tears stained cheeks and all, you leaned into that hand, into that warmth, chasing after the feeling. Your eyes met his for just a moment before you surged forward, stealing from him the kiss you’d dreamt about for the last two years.

Shaky breaths mingled together, intertwining in the lack of space between your bodies and Johnny’s lips devoured you in a way that had your knees threatening to buckle beneath you. The heat within his touch seemed to climb, burning the feeling of his skin into every piece of you he touched, but you didn’t care. You craved the feeling of it, the fire it lit within you, as your fingers dug into his hair and tugged him as close as possible.

“I love you,” Johnny’s words were mumbled against your lips, never straying far from you. His teeth grazed your bottom lip, biting down just slightly until a moan tumbled from your lips, swallowed by him. The moan that fell from his own matched yours–low and full of longing–as his hips pressed forward, feet shuffling along the ground.

“I love you, too,” you barely managed to mutter out before your back was pressed up against the front of your dresser, caged in by his body. His hands cradled your face, pads of his fingers digging into the nape of your neck as his lips found the hollow of your throat, languishing heated kiss after kiss as your head fell back. Hands gripping at his forearms, the sides of his body, anywhere you could for leverage.

“Kind of the bane of my existence, though,” 

It was the first time he’d pulled away enough since your lips found one another for you to see his face. That charming smirk, full of mirth, eyes slightly squinted as he looked down at you. But even through all the bravado that was Johnny Storm, you could see it clear as day in his features, in the way his fingers still flexed and pressed into your skin. He was relishing every second of this, of having you back, just as you were him.

“Bane of your existence?”

“Very much so,” the kiss he stole from you then was lighter, softer, but still just as deep. Still just as full of love. His hands trailed their way down your sides, sending a shiver straight up your spine as they ghosted over your hips, fingertips grazing right over the sides of your thighs as his words were spoken against your lips. “A hot witch from another universe comes and steals my heart and then leaves me pathetically pining for two years. Insane. Absolutely unfair, you should be jailed for these crimes.”

The laughter that fell from you was different, different from what it sounded like these last two years, and you knew it. Lighter, freer, happier than it had been in so long. Genuine.

“You only have yourself to blame, you pursued me!” a shriek tumbled from your lips the second that the words left your mouth, as Johnny’s hands swept under your thighs and hoisted you up on top of your dresser without a care in the world. His hand swept out behind you, sweeping everything sitting on top of the furniture out of the way as you laughed, quickly trying to stop him and grab the frames he was knocking over before they could break. “Johnny! You can’t just mess up my room!”

“I’m just trying to kiss my girl,” the shit-eating grin on his face could be felt against your skin as he pressed yet another kiss to your cheek, moving down to lavish them along the line of your jaw.

“You can kiss me without destroying priceless photographs,”

He hummed, the sound vibrating against your skin, before he plucked the frame from your hands that you were still clutching onto. You watched as he pulled back, inspecting the photo in the frame, eyebrow raising quizzically as he turned it toward you.

“You’re holding up a middle finger and the man next to you looks like he’s screaming in terror–this is a priceless photo?”

“When it’s one of the first photos I ever took with Tony, yes,” you plucked it from his hands, gently tossing it across the room onto your bed so it was as far from Johnny as it could be. The look you shot at him was unimpressed, but nothing could keep the smile from your lips. “I’ve had you back for all of five minutes and you’ve already managed to get on my nerves.”

“I haven’t been able to annoy you daily for 17,520 hours,” Johnny shot back before he pressed in closer. Your legs parted just slightly on instinct, making space for him between them as he invaded every inch of your personal space. “Making up for lost time.”

The playfulness of the moment dissipated in that moment as his hand came back up, curling around your cheek to cradle you in his palm. You leaned into the feeling, eyes never leaving his, as his thumb drew circles back and forth across your skin. His eyes visibly softened, that smirk falling into a smile as he watched you.

“That’s a lot of hours,” you shot back softly, turning your head just barely to place a light kiss to the palm of his hand. “You've been keeping track?”

“Every day since you walked through the gold, sparkly portal,” you hummed in response, finger curling into one of the belt loops of his suit as you tugged him in closer. His eyes trailed down, taking in your own suit, a low whistle leaving his lips. “All this time later and–yeah–it’s still true, this suit is still doing it for me. God damn.”

Your laughter filled the air again as you tugged him in, chasing after another kiss that neither of you were able to stop smiling into, even as you nipped lightly at the reddened skin of his bottom lip.

“Maybe you’re right, maybe you are pathetically in love,”

“Unequivocally,” his answer was easy, rolling off his tongue without a second thought. “And maybe a little irrevocably.”

“That’s a big word for you, Johnny, don’t hurt yourself,” you shot back, his fingers pinching into your sides as a cascade of laughter fell from your lips.

Love. It was a feeling you didn’t need to describe, and honestly, you weren’t sure you could if you tried. You could explain the way you loved Joaquín like a brother, or the way you loved Wanda like a sister, or even Sam, Tony, or Steve like they were family. But the way you loved Johnny Storm? You couldn’t explain that, not in a thousand years, but you didn’t need to. You didn’t want to. 

When he looked at you like he did now, with that light smile playing at his lips, face still twinged with the same nerves he had that day on the rooftop, you just knew. Loving him made sense in a way that nothing else ever had.

Like a well oiled machine, like you understood one another without having to speak, you crashed into one another again. Your hands were back in his hair, combing through those blonde stands, while his hands settled on your waist, digging into your sides as they held you close. That heat fluttered through you, that familiar one of his, as your lips moved against his in a tango, leg curling up around his hip higher to keep him as close as physically possible.

“Sam said that he’ll have the food done–JESUS CHRIST, DUDE!”

The sound of Joaquín’s voice at your door didn’t even deter you. You didn’t jump back, you barely even pulled away from Johnny at all. If anything, you gave him a single inch of space before turning your head to shoot Joaquín a murderous glare.

“Yes, Joaquín?”

“What–dude, I get you missed your boyfriend, but if you’re going to fuck him, can you shut the door?”

Johnny’s forehead fell to your shoulder, his entire body shaking with laughter as you kept your glare centered on Joaquín, who was peeking through his fingers as if terrified he’d see something he didn’t want to see.

“We weren’t there yet, don’t worry,” Johnny shot back, pressing a kiss to your shoulder before pulling back, a mischievous grin in your sights. “We learned our lesson about locking doors for that.”

“You mean that one time when Ben walked in because he wanted me to try a new cookie from Maisie’s, but you were about to press me up against the window-”

“Oh my god, you two are actually disgusting,” the fake gagging Joaquín did outside the door sent both you and Johnny into your own fit of laughter, still wrapped up in one another. But beyond the theatrics, you could see it on Joaquín’s face. The happiness for you, just seeing you happy, seeing that light back in your eyes. “Look, catch up on two years of physical activities later, Sam made dinner and it looks good as fuck but he won’t let me touch it until you both come downstairs.”

Johnny let out a low whistle, and before you could react, he’d stepped out of your hold completely. Your mouth dropped open in betrayal, lips fighting against curving up into a smile as Johnny shot you an apologetic look, backing out of the doorframe and clapping a hand down on Joaquín’s shoulder.

“Sorry baby, but multiversal travel did make me pretty hungry,” he shot you a wink, hand still grasping Joaquín’s shoulder as he tugged him down the hall, before speaking very dramatically and loudly from down the hall so that you could hear. “Now that we’re nowhere near her, I need you to give me every embarrassing story you’ve got.”

All you could do was laugh at the absurdity that was Johnny Storm, at the man you loved more than you could express. The man who managed to steal your heart while helping heal the wounds you hadn’t been able to close for years, who went on to be one of your hearts biggest wounds, only to close it right back up just by standing in front of you again.

And walking back down the stairs of the compound, and glancing out over that dining room table–Johnny laughing at something that Joaquín said as Sam regaled Ben, Sue, and Franklin with a story, while Wong spoke quietly off to the side with Reed–everything in the world finally felt right.

 ❤︎

“So, let me make sure I have this right: he was from the ‘40s, he was a stuck up billionaire, he’s a literal god, she was an assassin, and he brought a bow and arrow of all things to fight aliens half the time?”

“Put some respect on Clint’s name, baby. The one time he wasn’t there we did, in fact, lose,” with a short laugh, you reached over and swiped the photo from his hand, sliding it back into its protective sleeve in the binder laid out in front of him at the island counter. “These aren’t the originals, these are magical recreations, so please keep them in the sleeves. Also, you act like I didn’t talk about them all the time?”

“Seeing them is completely different,” respecting your wishes, Johnny didn’t remove the photo, this time instead holding the entire binder up near his head as he pointed toward the super soldier standing beside the young version of you in the photo. “This dude’s bicep is the literal size of my head, and he’s not even made out of rocks like Ben!”

It didn’t surprise you that the first thing that Johnny had dug around your room to find were photos. Most of the original photos, which had decorated the walls of your room in the Upstate New York compound had been destroyed years ago, prior to the final fight with Thanos. Magically recreated and preserved in a photo album you ensured to hex to be fire proof, bomb proof, and truly anything proof, it had become Johnny’s favorite thing over the last 16 hours they’d been in your universe.

From the Battle of New York, to photos you’d taken late at night in New York with Wanda or ones you had snuck of Steve when he wasn’t looking, it was like looking straight into your past. A past that Johnny hadn’t gotten to know, that he clearly adored.

“Well, he was a super soldier,” you chuckled lightly under your breath, turning back to the paperwork laid out in the manila folder in front of you. 

Johnny was quiet for a moment, and you snuck a glance over at him. He was still looking at that same photo, taken all those years ago in the aftermath of New York, of Loki’s invasion. There was a softer look in his eyes, though, as he let a single finger trail over the protective layer lying over the photo, right over where you stood.

“You were so young,”

“I was. I was just a kid,” you nodded your head, glancing at the little version of you for a second longer, before focusing back on the papers in front of you. “Dedicated my life to saving the world. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

Johnny didn’t say anything for a moment, and neither did you. Signing your name along the lines that Sam had indicated he needed your signature on, Johnny eventually continued to flip through the photos beside you at the island counter.

“Oh…oh, baby, tell me this is the dress?”

You didn’t have to look over to know what photo Johnny had stumbled upon. Instead, a light laugh left your lips as you looked over at him: red had crawled into his cheeks, his eyes wide as he looked down at the photo. He met your gaze for a single moment, and you could see his eyes dilate in real time.

“We had just found Loki’s scepter, which had the Mind Stone in it, and brought it back to the tower. Tony threw a party in celebration,” you explained, still laughing, as you reached over and tapped on the photo with a smirk across your lips. You were younger, but still you. Standing beside Natasha by the Avengers tower bar in that gorgeous black dress she’d bought for you, the slit on your thigh much too high for your age. “Nat had bought me that dress. To answer your question: yes, that is the one I mentioned.”

A low whistle left Johnny’s lips as he shoved the photo album to the side. His hands found the island chair you were seated on, spinning it before you could stop him and pressing your back into the edge of the counter, paperwork long forgotten. You didn’t mind, though, not when those heated hands found your sides as he stepped up into your space, dilated eyes roaming up and down your figure.

“These 21st century clothes really are going to be the death of me,”

“How do you think I feel?” you shot back, hands traveling up the bare skin of his arms until they caught the edges of the t-shirt sleeves handing around his biceps. Adorned in a t-shirt you’d stolen from Joaquín’s closet, as well as jeans and shoes you’d quickly ran to the local mall early in the morning to procure (along with clothing for the rest of the team), it was unfair how good Johnny Storm looked in clothing decades removed from his own. “21st century men’s fashion suits you. You should bring some back with you.”

“Nah, this stuff isn’t fireproof like my own clothes,” he shot back, lips pulled up on the edges into a soft smirk. Johnny leaned in, breath fanning out over your lips as, but never quite touching. “Besides, the only 21st century thing I care about is my 21st century girl.”

Another laugh left you, hands trailing up his arm until it cupped the heated skin of his cheek. You pinched at the skin lightly, giggling once more at the exaggerated wince he gave.

“Cheesy, Storm. Where’s that effortless charm? Have you gone soft these last few years?”

“Oh, darling,” fingers flexed against your hips, lips practically pressed to yours as he spoke. “I went soft the second you kissed me on the rooftop.”

A sigh of pure contentment fell from your lips the second Johnny fully surged forward, bringing you into a kiss. Soft, sweet, as if he was pouring every ounce of love he couldn’t show you for the last two years into it. It differed from every kiss you’d shared since that dinner the night before, the ones full of desperation and longing, the ones that seemed to consume you whole and fill your mind with nothing but thoughts of Johnny Storm.

You clung to him, lightly wet lips moving against his: slow, sensual, soft. His hands curled around to your back, pressing against your spine to bring you in as close as he could, though you weren’t sure there would ever be anything quite close enough. You let your hand thread back into his hair, tugging lightly to elicit a groan from his lips, head tilting to the side for a new angle as Johnny pressed forward more.

“Oh my god, were rounds one through five not enough for the two of you last night?”

Ben’s groans sounded through the living room, forcing you and Johnny apart. He didn’t let you stray far, arms staying locked around your waist and body still pressed into your personal space as you both tilted your heads in the direction of the others, just now walking into the room.

“You brought him to my universe because he was moping, and now that we’re together you all keep complaining,” you shot back at Ben with a teasing lit to your voice, able to see his eyeroll from across the room. “That’s so hypocritical of you.”

“In all fairness,” Sam’s voice shot in as he walked into the room, flanked by Sue and Reed as they donned their own 21st century clothing. “It was a bit overkill after round 2. I thought my ears were going to start bleeding.”

“Told you you should’ve put a spell on the room so they couldn’t hear us,” 

Johnny’s comment, and subsequent nip at your earlobe, earned him another laugh and a shove against his chest. A small burst of blue magic from your hand sent him stumbling backwards, giving you enough space to hop off the chair and collect the paperwork on the counter behind you, stalking over to Sam to hand it to him in the living room.

Sam hummed, flipping through the paperwork to ensure everything was signed as needed. Johnny launched himself over the back of the living room couch, landing beside his nephew and ruffling his hair, as the others all settled into spots on the couch themselves.

“Looks in order,” Sam shot you a grateful nod, before passing over the data pad in his hands. The screen instantly lit up, flipping through multiple surveillance photos as you projected it onto the living room screen. “Had an informant send these over about an hour ago, wanted you to take a look and tell me what it looks like to you.”

“Looks to me like Sidewinder got out of jail early,” you shot back easily, flipping through the surveillance images across the screen. “Escaped, more like it. It probably didn’t take him long to find out we recovered those files yesterday. Seems like a simple enough job for you and Joaquín to handle.”

With the data pad placed back in Sam’s hands, you turned to face Johnny. His eyes trailed from the screen full of images back to you, raising an eyebrow in your direction.

“Please, don’t stop your day job just because we’re here,” he shot at you, along with a wink, holding his hands up beside him. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you go full superhero mode. I’m sure that suit looks real good in action-”

A wave of transparent energy flew across the room, the slight hues of the rainbow visible as the invisible field of energy slammed into Johnny’s shoulder, jolting him to the side. You covered your mouth to conceal your laughter, as did Sam, as Ben and Reed laughed at the look on Johnny’s face as he shot his sister an unimpressed look.

“Do you ever stop objectifying her?”

“It’s not objectifying her, it’s admiring her many assets,”

You shook your head, stalking out of the room with a grin to unplug your phone from its place on the kitchen counter. The sound of the others groaning floated through the room, along with Sam’s laughter.

“She’s relieved from superhero duty for the week while you guys are here, unless another purple alien decides to try and destroy the world,” the look you shot Sam over your shoulder was anything but impressed. He ignored it, though, shooting Johnny a smirk. “Joaquín and I can handle Sidewinder without her. Besides…it’s date night for you.”

By the time Johnny had fully turned in your direction, you were standing beside the island counter with a sly smile on your face. He didn’t get a single word out before that usual glow of blue enveloped your hand, and you gave a single flick of your wrist in the air beside you.

The room was practically bathed in energy and in the hues of blue that encompassed your magic as it essentially tore into the area, a long streak of pulsing magic hanging in the air beside you. With another flick of your wrist, it tore itself open, widening as a pulsing magic portal hung in the air.

Multiple pairs of eyes and smiles watched as Johnny crossed the room, staring at the shimmering blue magic in awe. His feet came to a stop just in front of you, his hand reaching out as he let his fingers drift right through the magic. Those blue eyes found yours, head tilting to the side slightly as a grin crossed his lips.

“Magic portals…that’s a new development,”

“It’s amazing what you learn to do when you actually read and learn from a book, instead of blindly performing a spell,” Johnny laughed lightly as you reached forward, poking him just slightly in the side, as you stepped closer to the portal itself. “Come on, like Sam said: it’s date night.”

That grin grew cheeky, Johnny’s eyebrows furrowing slightly as he hummed, nodding his head.

“Right, date night. Thought that was my job to plan the dates?”

“This isn’t the 60s, baby,” you shot back immediately. Reaching forward, you let your hand wind itself into the fabric of his t-shirt, before you stepped back through the portal and tugged him along with you before he could say another word.

Wind immediately whipped around your face, a familiar sensation, as the quiet of the D.C. compound was replaced with the hustle and bustle of the city. Johnny stumbled forward, feet stumbling as you laughed, holding onto his arms to keep him upright as he practically fell through the portal and to your side. His own hands gripped right back on your forearms, steadying himself as the portal snapped shut right behind you both with a flick of your fingers.

Johnny’s blue eyes were wide as he looked at you, before looking at the now closed portal behind him, and back to you once again. It was impossible not to laugh at the adorably shocked look on his face.

“I’m afraid you have to take us back,” was the first thing he said, hands leaving your arms to slide down onto your hips instead, tugging you against him. “I’ve warned you how incredibly hot using your powers is to me. That-That was unfair.”

“It was a portal, Johnny,”

“Still hot, my overpowered little witch,” his fingers pinched at your sides, eliciting another laugh out of you as you whacked lightly at his chest. The wind continued to whip around you both as Johnny squinted at the feeling of the air hitting his face. “Where the hell did you even take us?”

“Well,” you took a single step back, letting your hands find his own and lace your fingers through his. “I spent a year getting to know your New York. Thought you might want to see mine.”

It was then that Johnny turned his head, and you could see it in his eyes immediately: the awe at the sight laid out before you both.

New York was beautiful, in your world and his, but nothing quite compared to New York City as the sun was setting. Situated on the rooftop of a building down 8th Avenue, the entirety of the city skyline was laid out before you both. The oranges and pinks of the setting sun glinted off of every building, reflecting right back along Johnny’s face as he took a step toward the edge of the building, eyes still wide as he took in the sight.

You couldn’t tear your eyes from him. At the cascading colors that fell over his face. Every moment you looked at him, it was impossible not to think about how you had gotten to this moment. Crash landing in a universe so different, yet similar, to your own and his face being the first thing you saw. His face being the first thing you saw through every high and low moment for an entire year. The face of the man you didn’t mean to fall in love with, but stole your heart somewhere between late night breakfast and a drive-in movie.

“You know, I think you’re supposed to be looking at the skyline. Even if my face could be considered the eighth wonder of the world,”

Johnny’s voice snapped you out of your reminiscing, of your mind wandering over every second of the last three years of your life. His eyes were back on you, one hand still laced with yours, that soft yet cocky smirk on his lips. You rolled your eyes.

“That might be a bit of a stretch,” his hand left yours as you slotted yourself into his side without hesitation, curling around him. His hand came up to rest around your waist, and you could almost feel the way that he pushed some of his heat through his skin and into you as the cool, night air began to slowly set in. “I used to look at this skyline every day from this exact spot.”

You pointed off in the distance, and Johnny followed your finger toward the building you knew so well. It had lost the color it used to have, lost the giant glowing “A” that hung from the helicopter pad, but you recognized it all the same. All this time later and it was still the same structure, the same place you used to call home. Johnny gave a low whistle at the sight.

“Your old home might rival the Baxter Building,” his words were mumbled into the side of your head as he placed a kiss there gently, a feeling that all this time later could still send a cascade of butterflies crazy deep within your chest. “Is that what date night is? A sightseeing tour of the city I already live in?”

His comment earned him a pinch to the side, which earned you one in retaliation.

“Not entirely. I didn’t really have a plan, to be honest,” tilting your head back to look up at him, you gave him a tiny shrug in response. “I just…wanted to be with you.”

“Missed me that much?” he teased, even as his hand came up to cup your cheek, thumb gliding over the skin.

“More than I think I could ever explain,”

Your two New York Cities weren’t all that different, not once you were walking the streets down below and not up on the rooftops. Unlike Johnny’s, your own lacked the futuristic advancements and stylized buildings, but almost everything else laid out the same. The roads, where the buildings lay, even the colors of many of them.

The people were different. From the clothing, to the attitudes, those who walked the streets in your New York were vastly different from the ones who walked Johnny’s. Johnny Storm and the Fantastic Four could walk from Upper to Lower Manhattan and only be stopped a handful of times. The people of their world treated them like people, like normal citizens who could come and go as they pleased. You, on the other hand, were a spectacle. You were something to gawk at for those that recognized you, someone that they treated like a celebrity. It was something you tried to ignore, even if it felt impossible at times.

Hand resting in the crook of Johnny’s arm, you laughed as he took a sip of the boba tea you’d forced into his hands, begging him to try it. You watched him every second he held it, with every sip, as he too tried to decipher how he felt about the drink as groups walked past you on the sidewalks of the city as the sun fully set and the night set in.

“It’s not terrible,” Johnny finally came to a conclusion, passing the drink over to you so that you could take a sip from it as well. He wiggled his hand back and forth in a ‘so-so’ motion as he explained his thoughts. “It’s pretty sweet. Not sure how I feel about the little, floating balls at the bottom.”

“Tapioca pearls, Johnny,” you giggled back, taking a final sip of the drink before tossing it into one of the trash cans lining the sidewalk. “Pretty sure it was invented in the 80s, which is why you’ve never heard of it before.”

“I take you go-karting and to a dance hall, and you get me a chewy drink. I think I might have to give you a failing grade so far on this date,” your elbow dug into his side as he laughed, elbowing you right back. It grew quiet between you both for a moment, before he spoke up once more. “I went back there once, last year. To The Regent.”

You watched him as he spoke. That soft smile on his face, the fond one, as he reminisced. Looked back on the years without you, let you in on the memories.

“What was it like?”

“Felt empty,” he said simply, looking down at you with a shrug of his own. “It was the anniversary of our first date, I had refused to go the year before. Sue thought it could be good for me to go back, to think about the happy memories. But standing in there, without my pretty little witch on my arm, it felt like that whole place had lost its magic.”

It wasn’t hard to understand where he was coming from. You felt it too, in everything you’d done the last two years. The absence of him was loud.

“I woke up from a nightmare one time and couldn't fall back asleep. Joaquín found me at three in the morning attempting to make a milkshake in the compound kitchen,” Johnny’s eyes stayed locked with yours as you spoke. Even as a group of young adults, obviously in a rush to get somewhere for the night, shoved past you both. Even then, as their bodies collided with his shoulder, he never looked away from you. Hung off every word you spoke. “He thought I was insane, especially because I’d fucked up with the blender so badly there was ice cream everywhere. Told him about that one night at Griddles and Waffles, told him it was the only thing that seemed to help after nightmares.”

Johnny nodded, giving a low whistle. That soft smile on his face turned up into a smirk, his eyebrows wiggling as he leaned his head in closer to yours.

“If we’re going to make this a competition about which one of us was more pathetic the last two years, you might win-”

“As if!” you shot back with a laugh immediately, letting go of his arm to shove him to the side. Johnny laughed, his body bouncing back to your side immediately as you pointed a finger at him. “Ben told me this morning that you spent your birthday in that sweater that I bought for you!”

“It’s the softest thing! A pure cashmere sweater, bought for me by the love of my life. Sue me for enjoying the feel of it,”

You laughed again. Warm, genuine, one of the realest laughs you’d let out in years. It didn’t feel forced, you didn’t feel like you were trying to put on a show and pretend to me fine. You felt fine. You felt happy for the first time in so long.

Johnny’s hand was laced back in yours within seconds, and it never left it as you wandered the streets aimlessly. There was no objective in mind, there was just him. Just endless hours, endless possibilities, with just him at your side.

The streets gave way to the lush greenery of the park nestled between the high rise buildings. The trees rustled in the nighttime breeze. Leaves that had fallen to the ground crunched under your feet, breaking into a thousand little pieces as they broke apart. The sounds of the city could still be heard, bouncing between the buildings, but it was quiet. An elderly couple was walking the other end of the park together, a young family was just leaving the park, but other than them it was quiet.

Not much about the park was different, not since the last time you stood in it. The path was still paved in light grey concrete. The statue in the middle was the same, the edges of it decorated with different bushes and flowers than before. Benches still lined the area, illuminated by the soft light of the lamps surrounding the path. It felt like it had that night, three years ago.

You let Johnny’s hand slip from your own as you came to a stop, right in that same place in front of the statue you had been years ago. Johnny didn’t stop you, taking a few steps further along the path, simply looking around and admiring the sights of the falling leaves, of the buildings all around, before he finally turned back to look at you. Standing just feet away, in the same spot he was all those years ago. A smile seemed to cross his lips as he realized exactly where you both were, throwing his arms out to the side exaggeratedly.

“I’d prefer not to hurt you, doll,” it was impossible not to laugh at the performance that he was putting on, at the tone of his voice as he spoke. The most dramatic rendition of your first meeting, which had already been dramatic enough. Careful not to burn his non-fireproof clothing, Johnny lit just his hand on fire. “So why don’t we do this peacefully and you just come with me?”

In the same way you had all those years ago, you flicked your fingers, encasing his hand in that wall of blue magic. And years ago when you’d done it, he’d freaked out, tried everything to get it to go away.

This time? His eyes never left yours, full of nothing but love and adoration.

“No use trying, pretty boy,” you shot back, softer than the first time you’d ever said it. With another flick of your fingers, that magic dissipated with ease.

Johnny shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, taking a step closer to you. You took a set along the concrete wall surrounding the park’s statue behind you, crossing your legs out in front of you as you simply watched him. The way he bounced on the balls of his feet, the smile that never seemed to leave his face since the moment he’d seen you again.

“Pretty sure after that I made a comment about being turned on,”

“Oh, you did,” you laughed, shaking your head at the memory. Johnny sat down along the wall beside you as you turned your body to face him, poking a finger into his chest. “And for some reason, it worked on me.”

Before you could pull your hand away, he caught it in his own. Those blue eyes you adored never left yours as Johnny gingerly brought your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the pad of your finger, before pressing another one gently along your knuckles.

“Why…why does everything feel right the second I have you back?”

The question was heavy, holding the weight of a thousand things with it. In the quiet of the night, you let your fingers stretch out in his hold, ghosting over his cheek and jawline. He let his hand slip down to your wrist, keeping a hold on you, as you let yourself caress the skin beneath your fingertips.

“I don’t know,” it was the only answer you could give. “All I know is I meant what I said all those years ago. You’re my home, just as much as this earth is.”

Johnny smiled, turning his head for a moment to press a kiss to the inside of your wrist, sending a flurry of soft heat through your skin and your veins themselves.

“What if we just tell the multiverse to fuck off?” The laugh you let out was soft, and Johnny’s own matched it. “No, seriously. Why does the universe get to tell us if we can be together? What if I’ve already decided that you’re it for me.”

“Because it put us in two different universes, Johnny. There’s no correcting that, as much as we want to. Not when us jumping between earths could alter the fabric of reality itself,”

“You spent a year with me, you’ve been back here for two, and the multiverse hasn’t fallen apart…as far as I know,” you shook your head, even as his hands took yours between them, letting them fall into your lap. “You came into my life and you fucked it up, baby. There is no amount of time, there is no multiversal distance, that will ever change the fact that I love you. I don’t care what the multiverse wants–I don’t care about the multiverse at all–or what fate and destiny want, I want you.”

Your lips quirked up on the side just slightly, into the tiniest of smiles. Fingers clutched between his hands, you let the pads of your fingers draw little circles into the soft skin of his palm.

“That’s selfish,”

“Don’t we deserve to be selfish?” he shot back. “The battle in New York, against the greasy haired god you always told me about–how old were you?”

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. Young. Too young, truly-”

“Exactly,” Johnny shifted, his face becoming serious. But you could see it in his features, those same nerves you’d seen on him before. The bobbing of his Adam’s apple, the way his hands fidgeted against your own. “You have dedicated your entire life to the people of your world, just like we did when we came back with cosmically altered DNA. That doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice everything, the things and the people we want, for them too.”

A sigh left your lips, your eyes trailing down to his hands. Watching the way his fingers fidgeted, the way the veins of his hands strained as he clenched up with every passing moment.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t thought about it. Defying Wong, performing the spell you now knew how to perform so you could see him again. Taking off to their world, but this time, never coming back. But you loved what you did, you loved being a hero. For all this world had taken from you, it was still your home, still held people that you loved and cherished and needed. But you needed Johnny Storm as much as you needed them too.

“I’ve thought about it,” you spoke after a moment of silence. “I told you that the next time I saw you, I wouldn’t let you go. That we wouldn’t have to leave each other again. But you have a duty to your world, and I have a duty to mine. The stars have told us no, as much as I wish they’d tell us yes.”

Johnny grew quiet, those blue eyes never leaving yours, as you simply sat together. Holding hands, staring at one another, and letting the weight of the words settle between you both.

“Close your eyes,”

You didn’t argue. Your eyelids fluttered shut without another word, plunging you into darkness. Johnny’s hands left yours. You could hear the shuffling of fabric, the sound of a tiny chain rattling, before those warm hands hovered around your neck, the feel of a cool chain hitting your skin as his hands found their way back to his lap.

When you opened your eyes again, they landed on the silver chain now lying around your neck. It was the end of that chain that caught your eye, allowing what hung from the end to lie in your hand as you brought it closer, rolling it around in your fingers.

A simple silver band. A sparkling diamond, shaped into a square, resting in the middle. Smaller diamonds encrusted the band on either side of the main little gem, glinting in the soft moonlight of the park at night.

A wedding ring.

“It was our mother’s,” your eyes drifted back up to him, mouth hung open slightly in awe as tears pricked at the corners of your eyes. His own were locked on the ring between your fingers, a soft grin stretched across his lips. “Before I found out that Reed invented time travel, Sue asked me if I’d ask you if she gave me her ring. I told her yes.”

“Johnny-”

“We have duties to our worlds as superheroes, I know. I’m not asking…as much as I want to,” his hands came up to cup around yours, the one still holding the ring, as his eyes found yours again. It felt as if the wind had been knocked from your chest, your lungs unable to draw in the air needed to breathe. “I just need you to have it, because there’s no one else that I’d ever give it to. Universe be damned, you are it for me, sweetheart. And if we can’t be together, I just need you to know that I am still 100%, unequivocally and irrevocably, yours.”

The tears that threatened to fall did in that moment, cascading down your cheeks and leaving a wet trail behind them. Johnny’s fingers caught them before they could fall too far, wiping them away.

“I-I don’t know,” were the first words you spoke after a moment of silence, of letting your tears fall. A watery smile grew on your lips, hints of a teasing tone finding their way into your voice. “What if the Silver Surfer comes back some day and professes her undying love for you?”

Johnny made a small hissing sound, squinting his eyes as he thought about it for a moment. He nodded them, giving you an apologetic smile that was threatening to let laughter break through as he let his fingers take hold of the chain around your neck again.

“Actually, that’s a great point. Maybe I should take this back-”

You launched yourself into him, lips colliding with his in a flurry of laughter from you both. Kiss after kiss you laid onto his lips was reciprocated in kind, the hands around your waist holding you firmly against him as you let your hands travel every piece of skin of his you could possibly touch. The smiles on your faces never faded, not through every move of lips against lips, or every kiss seared into skin.

Neither of you moved until the late hours of the morning, time spent right there in Johnny Storm’s arms as you recounted to one another every possible thing you could think of: dinners with Morgan, appearances on Ted Gilbert’s show, conferences with nations, one of Reed’s new designs knocking out the city’s power for an entire week.

That ring laid against your chest, feeling as if it was burning a hole through your sternum with every passing minute though, Johnny’s words never quite leaving your head.

Don’t we deserve to be selfish?

❤︎

A week wasn’t enough. You knew it the moment Wong said it. Seven whole days with Reed Richards, Franklin Richards, Ben Grimm, Sue Storm, and Johnny Storm would never be enough.

You made the most out of every single day, though. Of all 168 hours that you were gifted with the people who had become family to you.

Morgan Stark adored them, just as you knew she would. She had often asked you over the last two years to recount stories for her, to tell her about the man who could set himself on fire and the man who could stretch his body to his will. The second you’d strolled up to the door of the familiar cabin and she’d burst through the door, excitedly calling out the names of the people she’d only heard stories about, before dragging Franklin off to show him something in her room full of toys, you knew just how much she adored them. Getting to watch her drag Johnny outside and force him to play ‘heroes and villains’ with her was also the most adorable sight you’d ever seen.

Ben had found a comparable bakery to Maisie’s nestled in Hell’s Kitchen. It would never beat Maisie’s, you knew that, but you also could see the look of disbelief on Ben’s rocky face the second he’d bit into one of their world famous chocolate chip cookies.

Reed loved all the technology, fascinated by the advancements that your world had compared to theirs, even if some of their own technology surely rivaled the power of your own. He asked so many questions you were sure Sam’s head was going to explode at one point, taking both his wings and Joaquín’s wings to mess with them, trying to understand their mechanics and how they were built. The conversation surrounding vibranium had a look on Reed’s face that said he was determined to discover if their own universe hosted any deposits of the metal.

Sue just wanted to know the history. She wanted to know all your world had been through, all you had been through. Luckily for her, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the debut exhibition that chronicled the entire story of The Avengers, had opened just months prior in the heart of New York. You’d walked them through it, through the photos and mementos on display and the memories: the battle against Loki, Sokovia and Ultron, the downfall of the Avengers, all the way to the arrival and defeat of Thanos. Sam took every opportunity to throw in an embarrassing story pertaining to you.

Johnny? He didn’t care for any of it. Not the cities, not the history, not a single thing besides you. There wasn’t a moment of any day where he willingly left your side. A warm hand resting on the small of your back, or curled around your hip rubbing circles into your skin, or fingers laced between your own. He was glued to your side, even if he had his moments where he was more like a thorn in it, unwillingly to let you out of his sight. Those crystal blue eyes were the first thing you saw every morning, and the last thing you saw every night, and there was nothing else that mattered to you than that.

You had filled those seven days with as much love for the Fantastic Four as they’d spent a year showing you. But through every moment, that lingering thought that when your time was up they’d have to leave again never left your mind. It had buried itself there, unwilling to move, constantly reminding you that your time with them was finite. That no matter how much you loved them, no matter how much you loved Johnny, he simply couldn’t be yours.

That ring still felt as if it was burning a hole into your sternum every time you thought about it.

“All systems are go for launch,”

Those were the words you had been dreading to hear. Standing in a field in Upstate New York, not entirely far from the ground that had held your former home, the compound, the Excelsior was uncloaked from the spell that Wong had put over it. It stood tall, the light of the sun glinting off of it, and all it did was fill you with dread.

Sam’s hand rested comfortingly against your back, rubbing soft circles into your muscles that were tensed tight, threatening to snap. The breath you took shuddered, your entire body shaking, as you saw them: Ben, Sue with Franklin on her hip, and Johnny stepped out of the ship and back onto the grass, wearing those white and blue spacesuits of theirs you’d never had the privilege of seeing in person. Reed stood not far from you, conversing with Wong in hushed tones, as the others made their way toward the area in which you stood.

“Don’t go crying on me now, witchy,” Joaquín shot at you, his tone teasing but still light, as he bumped his hip into your otherside. You spared him a single glance, the nail of your thumb resting between your teeth as the nerves radiated off of you. “You’ve been so vibrant–so fun–this last week, I don’t want to have the depressed version of you back.”

“Wow, you really do have a way with words,” Sam muttered just loud enough for the three of you to hear, shaking his head at Joaquín’s words. His hands traveled to your shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “At least you got to see them again.”

Johnny’s eyes locked with yours as they fell into step beside Reed, all walking in your direction now.

“All so I could lose them again…as if I haven’t lost enough,” was all you could manage to say.

Reed shook hands with both Joaquín and Sam, thanking them for their hospitality over the last week. The pair thanked him back, wishing him safe travels, before moving on to Ben standing behind him. 

Your eyes locked with Reed’s as he stepped up in front of you.

“It’s been nice seeing you again,” his voice was quiet, firm, as he gave you a small smile. “It was nice to see Johnny so…not mopey.”

His words gained a short laugh from you, along with a shake of your head.

“Just don’t go inventing any other forms of dimensional travel,” you shot at him lightly with a grin of your own. “I don’t want to hear that you went dimension hopping.”

Laughter was shared between both of you for a moment. Reed’s arms opened, and you stepped into them without hesitation. That burn in your eyes appeared almost instantly the second he wrapped his arms around you.

You let yourself sit in his hold for a moment, taking it in, as he muttered his next words right by the curve of your ear.

“I’ll see you soon,”

Reed pulled away without another word. Just a simple nod of his head before he backed away to stand off to the side. Your eyes followed him, a question hanging from your lips as your head cocked to the side at his words, but Ben was quick to saddle up to you and pull you into a crushing hug before you could.

“I fear bringing flame brain here was a terrible idea…I feel like he’s just going to mope more when we get home,”

You laughed, pulling back to look at the man before you with a wide grin, one that matched his own. With a pat to his shoulder, your smile fell just slightly as your mind drifted, eyes darting back to his.

“You told me once that the people I love will be waiting for me back home, no matter how long it took me to get there,” Ben nodded as you spoke those words he’d told you so long ago in the kitchen of the Baxter Building. “Will you guys be waiting for me, even if…if I can never get there?”

Ben’s smile softened, his rocky hand coming up to cup the side of your head. Stroking over your hair lightly, he gave you a tiny nod.

“You’ll find your way back to us, kid, I know it. I’m not sure there’s anything in this universe that could stop you from getting back to him,”

Those words hung with you for a moment as Ben stepped away, joining Reed in the distance. There was no reprieve from the goodbyes, not when Sue stepped up in front of you, adjusting Franklin on her hip.

A shuddering sigh fell from your lips, those tears burning once again in your eyes. Lip quivering, you laughed, unable to find the words to say as you fumbled to find the right thing to say.

“I-I don’t even know what to say,”

Sue only smiled, reaching forward and tugging you into a hug. You reciprocated without a second thought, wrapping your arms around both her and Franklin, the little boy’s arm slotting itself around your neck in a tight hug. The first tear finally fell at that moment.

“Thank you for loving him,” her voice spoke softly, just loud enough for you to hear. You pulled away, wiping at the tears on your cheeks as you gave her a watery smile.

“It’s a privilege, even if he’s a pain in my ass,” you shared a laugh, before you turned your gaze over to Franklin. The little frown on his face, the tears that were pooling in his own red rimmed eyes. He leaned into the hand you brought up to cup his cheek, pinching at the skin. “Hey buddy.”

“Hi auntie,” his voice broke a little bit as he spoke, and god you were terrified that was going to be what broke the dam holding back most of your tears. Pulling your hand back, you let a little ball of magic roam over your fingers again, watching the way the blue light lit up his face, illuminating that little smile it was able to bring to his lips for a split second. “I love you.”

You leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead, a single tear slipping down your cheek as you did so.

“I love you too, buddy,”

You weren’t ready to stand in front of Johnny Storm again. You weren’t ready to say goodbye. But the moment was here, and there was no running from it.

There were no tears this time. Not like the day you left, not like when you both cried into each other's arms, promising that it wasn’t a goodbye.

“Earth-616 is alright,” Johnny quipped. You could see the difference in him, though. It wasn’t the overconfident cockiness and teasing tone you were used to. It was more subdued, more quiet. “It’s got nothing on our earth, though.”

You laughed, those tears burning in your eyes, but this time refusing to fall.

“Sorry to disappoint. Did it have any redeeming qualities?”

“Just the one. It’s this pretty little witch that I still think put a love spell on me. I wish I could take her with me…”

No, this time was different. This time felt like a goodbye.

You stepped into Johnny’s arms without another word, curling around him. He did the same, glove covered hands cradling the back of your head as he pressed kiss after kiss to your forehead: soft, gentle, loving. You shut your eyes, basking in the feeling, wishing to stay in that moment for the rest of time.

“I really do want to be selfish,” you muttered out, eyes still shut as your hands curled into the fabric of his space suit. Johnny’s laugh was light, reverberating against your skin as he kissed your forehead again.

“You won’t be. There’s not a selfish bone in your body, unlike me,” one of his hands slid down to the back of your neck, tilting your head back just enough that when your eyes popped open, you were looking up at his smiling face. “Guess we’re just destined to be star-crossed lovers.”

You made a face of disgust, a giggle falling from your lips as you shook your head.

“Absolutely not. That’s, like, Romeo and Juliet type shit,”

“Weren’t they madly in love like us?”

“Yeah, but star-crossed lovers always end in tragedy. You know…like those two dying?”

“Hm, that’s a good point,” Johnny’s grin grew, his gloved hand rubbing back and forth against the skin of your neck. “Soulmates, then.”

Soulmates. A trivial word, a cliche one, a word you had never really thought of until Johnny Storm had just uttered it between you both.

Your love for him hadn’t appeared at first sight. It sunk into you with every passing moment, with every chance you got to see behind the curtain at the man behind the Human Torch. A love that had rooted itself so deeply inside of you that you knew you’d never love someone else the same way. A love that came so suddenly and unexpectedly, in the height of everything you’d ever lost. Your family, your best friend, your home was all torn away from you in a matter of years to the point where you felt lost. You’d lost little pieces of yourself along the way. Until you’d crash landed in that park, and Johnny Storm waltz into your life with an arm on fire, and helped you rebuild new pieces for the ones you had lost.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, but right on time.

You took one of his hands in yours, grasping that gloved hand in your bare palms. Your eyes never left him as you laid that hand right over the center of your chest, so he could feel the beat of your heart right underneath the diamond ring, still dangling on that chain tucked under your clothes. His hands curled in on itself slightly, grasping at that ring, as a bright smile lit up your face.

“Soulmates,”

You crashed into one another without another word, lips finding lips, falling into the feel of one another again. His hand curled around your waist to tug you as close as humanly possible, the other never moving from the outline of that ring. Yours curled into his hair, lips moving desperately against his as you tried to memorize every single bit of him: the soft skin of his lips, the warmth that bloomed under his skin, the feel of every strand of blonde hair between your fingers.

It was only when air was fighting to enter both of your lungs that you finally parted. Foreheads pressed together, noses just barely brushing, breathing heavily into the shared space between you both.

“I love you,” Johnny whispered one final time.

“I love you too. Always,” you whispered back.

The second he pulled away, almost having to drag himself out of your arms, you could feel it. That ache in your chest was back, those pieces of you threatening to break away again.

Sam and Joaquín were back at your side in seconds, each with a hand resting on your back as Wong stood off to the side.

The Fantastic Four walked up the ramp of that ship, casting one last look back at you, before the doors shut them in.

With a shaky hand, you tugged that chain out from under your clothes, grasping that diamond ring in your hand. You let the feel of it try to ground you, running your finger back and forth across every ridge and bump of each and every diamond.

You didn’t stop as the engines of the Excelsior roared to life. You only gripped the ring harder, never letting go. Even when the ship disappeared into the atmosphere, nothing more than a blip in the sky

The wind settled, the trees and grass stopped rustling in the wind created by the ship, as the entire field was plunged back into quiet. It was then that you turned to Sam, eyes red rimmed as the tears began to fall, breaths uneven and short as you tried to take in a deep breath.

“I-It’s not fair,” you barely managed the words out as Sam nodded his head, turning your body fully toward him.

“I know-”

“H-Haven’t I given enough?” you hiccuped through the words, almost sobbing by the end of it. That ring was still grasped tight in your palm, digging its shape into your skin. “Haven’t I-I lost enough?”

“You have-”

“Nat, Tony, Steve, Wanda, a-and now I can’t even have him-” a sob finally tore through your throat as Sam tugged you into him, burying your head into the crook of his neck as you sobbed. One hand gripped his t-shirt, while the other refused to let go of the ring. “I-I’ve given this world everything a-and I can’t even have this! It just keeps taking, and taking, and taking from me.”

Sam simply shushed you, hand cupping the back of your head as he let you cry. For the people you’d lost, the life you’d given up in service of the world, and for the man you loved that you let walk away.

It was a pain you couldn’t describe. A pain that only a hero would know: the sacrifice of a hero.

“Do you remember when Steve Rogers chose Peggy?”

Wong’s voice cut through the air, the only words spoke in the silence of the field amidst your cries. Sam’s hand on your head paused, the hand Joaquín had placed against your shoulder blades froze.

You pulled away, a mess of tears still littering your face as you wiped them away. Your chest still heaved, struggling for air, as you watched Wong. He stood in front of all three of you, hands clasped behind his back, that same stoic look on his face not giving away a single thing.

“W-What does that have to do with-”

“Rogers’ choice should have broken the sacred timeline. It should have created an alternate reality, started an incursion that destroyed the timeline as we know it. It didn’t,” Wong took a single step forward. Sam’s hand glided down, resting against your back, as you all turned toward the Sorcerer Supreme. “His choice did not break the timeline, it did not create a new reality, it simply worked. It defied the rules of time travel. It worked because that is the way it was written, that is how his story was always meant to end.”

You cocked your head, wiping away the trails of tears under your eyes once more as you shook your head.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because neither of you broke anything either,”

Wong’s hands flourished through the air in front of you all, shimmering in that familiar yellow and gold of magic. Hanging in the air in front of you all were two lines of pulsing, deep orange energy, stretching parallel to one another from one end of the field to the other, disappearing between the trees. Little stars almost seemed to twinkle in the spaces around the streams of energy.

“These are flows of time. This one represents us here, on Earth-616. This one represents Earth-828…their world,” you gingerly took a step forward, hand hovering over the flows of time pulsating in the air, Sam and Joaquín still glued to your sides as Wong pointed along the streams. “When something interrupts that flow of time, interrupts what is meant to happen, that branch splits. This creates alternate timelines, this creates incursions that can destroy the multiverse. I studied your time on Earth-828 for the last two years, trying to make sense of the year you spent there. Both of these branches should’ve been splintered, breaking apart at the seams: ours because it didn’t have you, and theirs because it had someone it wasn’t supposed to. These branches never split. Not once.”

The gears were turning in your head, but not fast enough. Wong continued on, waving his hand as the flows of time shifted, moving down until he stopped those streams of energy in the air at a new point.

“This section represents now, and the last seven days. I have studied these, night and day, since they arrived on this earth. I have waited for a single piece to break, for a single part to crack, but it never did. You didn’t break their timeline, and they didn’t break ours, for the same reason that Steve Rogers didn’t break it either…because it was always meant to happen,”

It was still hard to catch your breath, and it was harder then in that moment as Wong spoke those words: always meant to happen.

Your eyes widened a fraction, lips parting as your jaw went slack as the weight of his words settled in on you. Sam let out a breathless laugh from beside you, and Joaquín muttered an ‘oh shit’ just barely under his breath. Your legs felt numb, your hands were beginning to shake as you gripped onto the chain in your hand, looking up at Wong.

“I…I was always meant to meet Johnny?”

Wong waved his hand, the flows of time dissipating in front of him, as his hands settled behind his back once more.

“I have kept you apart, forbade you from performing that spell again, in the interest of protecting the timelines. In the interest of protecting the multiverse. All I have done, though, is stand in the way of something that was always meant to be,” for a fraction of a second, Wong’s lips quirked up into a miniscule smile. “There is no fundamental proof that soulmates exist in the vast multiverse, but if there was, you two would be the best example there is.”

Sam launched into a thousand questions, the logistics of it all. Could you freely travel between worlds? Could travel, eventually, break the flow of time? Every question that you knew needed to be answered, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

Not when you opened the palm of your hand, and that diamond ring was glinting back up at you in the light, and Johnny’s voice could be heard in your head.

Don’t we deserve to be selfish?

❤︎

Johnny Storm wasn’t the same man he was three years ago. He knew that.

He had searched for love in all the wrong places all his life, finding it with the wrong people. He’d taken on the public persona of a playboy, the kind of man who would never settle down, when that’s all he wanted. He wanted the life, the love, the family that Sue and Reed had built together. It was all he’d ever wanted, but something he never thought he’d find.

Then, you appeared.

The witch from another universe, holding a power that could quite literally kill him if he didn’t watch his mouth. You matched his wit, you ignored his charms, and you fell in love with the version of him he was sometimes afraid to show the world. The version of him that he wanted someone to love. You’d done it so easily, too, captured his heart somewhere between that day in the park, that night with the milkshakes, and that late night on that New York rooftop.

You had changed him in a way he could never understand, fundamentally at his core. His entire life was changed irrevocably the second you had turned around in that park and looked at him.

“We’ve been home for two hours and you’re sulking already,”

Johnny rolled his eyes at Ben’s comment, picking at the pieces of meat in his to-go Chinese container before flicking them across the table at Ben. Franklin laughed from his seat at the moment as Johnny shot Ben a smirk, laughing along with his nephew as the man threw the stray pieces of meat back onto the table.

“I’m not sulking-”

“You haven’t said a single word since dinner arrived,” Ben shot back. Johnny opened his mouth, a retort on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t come up with one. “Yeah, exactly. That’s what I thought.”

“Give him a break, Ben,” Sue told him gently, reaching over to pat his arm as she took another bite of one of the pieces of chicken in her own container. “Not every day you have to say goodbye to the woman you love.”

“I still vote we should’ve left him there with her,”

Johnny barely looked up from his food, just shooting a little ball of fire in the direction of Ben, burning the meat currently on his chopsticks to a crisp in seconds. Franklin laughed even louder at the sight from the other end of the table, as Sue shot her brother a look that screamed for him to behave.

He was trying not to sulk, but it wasn’t easy. Not when he could already feel himself forgetting the feel of your skin, the scent of your perfume, or the exact shade of your eyes.

At that moment, Johnny let his eyes drift to Reed. Sitting across from him at the table, just as quiet as he had been the entire dinner. Reed glanced up, looking back down, before double-taking to meet Johnny’s eyes.

“What?”

“I’ll admit, I’ve been quiet, but you’ve been way quieter. It’s weird,” Johnny threw his container down, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back in the dining room chair. “Thought you’d be talking about the success of the trip, or about how much cooler some of their technology is and how you want to recreate it and totally not wipe out all the power on the Eastern half of the country in the process.”

Sue gave a small hum of agreement to Johnny's comment, but Reed only shrugged, averting his eyes down to his plate. The shifty behavior set Johnny off immediately, his eyes narrowing as he leaned forward.

“What’s going on in that supersized brain of yours?”

Reed made a move to comment, when the watch on his wrist beeped. It was that same alert, that familiar sound that Johnny had heard so many times before. That day in Gramercy Park, that day in the lab…Reed only smiled, silencing the alert and taking another bite of his food.

“Uh, stretch?” Ben jabbed his thumb in the direction of Reed’s watch. “Is everything good there?”

“Nothing I wasn’t already expecting,” Reed glanced back up at Johnny, nodding toward the stairs behind him. “Why don’t you freshen up for the night since you’re obviously not eating anything else. We’ll handle the dishes.”

The three adults around the table exchanged curious glances, confusion prevalent among everyone at that moment. Johnny was tired, though, and he wasn’t going to fight him on it.

The dining room chair squeaked against the floors as Johnny left the rest of his family at the table, pressing a quick kiss to the top of Franklin’s head, before leaving the room. Ascending the stairs, trying not to let his mind wander to the thousand moments that were littered in every square inch of this building of you.

Maybe he needed to move out of the Baxter Building. He was only going to be depressed for the rest of his life if he lived in a building crawling with memories of you hidden in every crevice.

The door of his bedroom was already slightly ajar. Johnny barely paid it any mind, swinging it open without a second thought as he entered the darkened room.

He’d yet to set foot in his room, not since the day they’d left a week ago to traverse the multiverse. The polaroid of you both was still lying on his bed, right where he’d left it, your handwriting still magically scribbled across the bottom half.

Unequivocally yours.

Johnny held it in his hands, letting his thumb brush over the words for a moment. Smiling, letting the memory of you satiate his broken heart for just a moment.

“Hi,”

The photo fell from his hands the second he heard it, that voice. All it took was one word, and he knew it. He knew that voice, but he couldn’t trust his own head. There was no way what he was hearing was real.

But there you were. Standing by that record player, the soft light of the moon through the windows streaming in, illuminating you from the back. You looked the same as you had hours ago in that field. The same clothes, the same hair, the same little smile on your face. The same woman he loved.

Johnny’s breath was caught in his throat. His mouth opened and closed, trying to find the words, stumbling over himself. Your smile only grew, hands tucked behind your back.

“...did you fuck up a spell again?”

You laughed, rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet, teeth digging into the plush pink of your bottom lip for a split second.

“More like performed it right,”

The shock on Johnny’s face, somehow, grew more prevalent. He wasn’t sure if his brain had fully caught up with the sight before him, if he had fully processed that it was you standing in front of him yet. He’d left you, he’d said his goodbye, but here you were.

“You purposefully came here?” you nodded your head. “Isn’t that, like, against everything the monk dude has been drilling into you for the last two years?”

“That’s the thing,” you shook your head, taking another step forward until you were on the single step that led off that elevated platform in the center of his room. “Apparently Wong was wrong.”

“He was wrong? Sounds like something he wouldn’t like,”

“Not at all,” the giggle you let out shot straight into his veins, Johnny’s body almost feeling weightless at the simple sound. “It’s…it’s complicated. I’ll explain everything to you, I promise, because it’s complicated.”

Johnny took a single step forward, still hesitant, still unable to believe the sight in front of him.

“How complicated?”

“Let’s just say that, when I call my world my home but you my home too, I’m not wrong,” you gave a tiny shrug, accented with a grin. “But for now, let me just answer the question I never did the other night…yes, we do deserve to be selfish.”

Johnny didn’t need to question your words, not when you took your hands out from behind your back and held your left hand up into the light in front of him: that diamond ring, the same one that always sat on his mother’s hand, glinting in the light and reflecting off the walls, now sitting on your finger.

Every question died on Johnny’s lips at that moment. He didn’t need to ask any questions, not when that simple action spoke a thousand words. He knew, in that moment, at least a semblance of what it was you were trying to say.

A squeal left your lips as Johnny practically rushed at you. His arms wound around your waist, squeezing the life out of you while yours clung to his shoulders for even just a moment of balance. He spun you, your laughter floating through the air as he finally let your feet touch the ground again.

Johnny’s hands cupped your cheeks, cradling your face as he looked down at you. Astonished, adoring, completely and utterly in love. Your hands laid on top of his, and he couldn’t help the way his eyes were drawn straight to that ring once again.

“Better late than never on that third rule, right?” you laughed, smile wide, as the tip of Johnny’s nose bumped the tip of yours. “I think the last name Storm will suit you nicely.”

“I think so too,” you shot right back, squeezing affectionately at his hands as your face scrunched up just slightly, smile still impossibly wide as you looked up at him.

Because if Sue was already struggling to reason Johnny, what could she do when two adults with elementals powers were as reckless as you both were.

That’s how you found yourselves locked in respectively fireproof and ice-resistant cells in some villains HQ.

It was laughable really. You should’ve seen the trap coming miles away.

But the enemy was escaping and you both had jumped after him without a second thought.

He could already hear the teams scolding, they were so getting benched as soon as they were getting out.

At first it had been funny -a little humiliating but funny-, the team would get here in no time, the villains weren’t even that big of a threat, and you were together. What could go wrong ?

The cells were separated by a wall and by talking a little loud you could communicate fine, so that’s what you had been doing, bickering and blaming one another -you were definitely the one that followed him, of course he had it handled !

You hadn’t even had time to think about why they weren’t even interrogating y’all, but when they came, two trails of some -clearly not appealing- food, you had tried to ask them what it is that they wanted. All Johnny saw was him glancing at your cell with a dangerous look in his eyes.

When he left you looked at what you had gotten and one detail stuck, beside the rotten piece of bread and weird looking apple, the lack of water on your tray

At first you had cracked a joke : "Maybe they’re not as dumb as they look, they didn’t give me any water.", you had told him laughing.

He had laughed too.

But now, it had been almost 30 hours and all you had was the little of the bread you had managed to get down and no fluids whatsoever.

And the longer he sat, back to the wall, the quieter you got.

When he first felt the tiredness on your part he had tried cracking jokes or anything that might wake you up.

"How are you feeling ? Come on you can’t tell me you’re already tired", he laughed, but even to his own ears it sounded stained.

"I am actually.. it’s getting a bit cold isn’t it ?" the slurring in your voice was the worst part.

He was talking without stopping, anything to get you to speak. Anything that would let him know that you there, behind this wall, still awake, still fighting.

"You’re still with me Frostbite ?" he tried to keep a light voice, he really did, but every second the silence stretched, his voice did too.

"Come on don’t fall asleep on me." he chuckled "Please" he would add quietly.

But now all he could do was listen to your erratic breathing and the occasional cough that was rattling your throat.

He was saying your name, again and again and again, like a prayer, like a vow. Hoping that, somehow, you’d say something. Tease him, insult him, yell at him.

Answer him.

On your part, you couldn’t tell what was real or not.

No that’s a lie.

You could feel the dryness in your throat.

You could feel how chapped your lips were.

You could feel the throbbing in your head.

You could feel the dizziness confusing you despite how you were slumped against the wall and not moving.

And most importantly, you could feel Johnny’s presence. Right behind the wall. So close.

You’d do anything to get to hold him… one last time you thought. No. That couldn’t be.

You couldn’t end like that… right ?

Collapsed on some grim concrete, dry as the sand under the scorching sun, alone.

You would have laughed if breathing wasn’t already hurting your throat. All these missions, all these dangers you had endured.

All to die from something… so intrinsically human.

You could feel your consciousness fading and fading.

You could still hear Johnny’s voice far, far away. Sweet Johnny, trying to keep you awake.

Sorry Fireboy,… I’m so sor-

Johnny’s pov :

He was going crazy. Was this their goal all along ?

Slowly sip the life away from you as he was forced to listen, not able to do anything, not even able to see you.

Well it was working.

He knew the cell was fireproof. But fire was pouring out of him in wave. He couldn’t even contain it. And as his temper -no pun intended- got the better of him… everything went off ? And I don’t mean in his head. Everything went off, literally. The lights, the cameras monitoring them.

The doors.

The quiet buzz that had let them know the cells were closed was also off.

He didn’t think.

He lunged for the door and went to your cell without even having to think twice about it.

But at your door his breath got knocked out of his lungs.

You were crumbled on the floor, motionless, he wasn’t even sure your chest was rising and falling.

He ran to you, your name on his lips.

"Hey come on, you’re okay, you’re okay." He was rocking you back and forth in his arms, one hand pushing strands out of your face. "Please, say something.. anything dammit."

Only then you eyes fluttered open -barely, but that’s all he needed for now. "Johnny...? You’re being loud", you rasped.

Relief washed over him "Oh God.." He let out a choked breath—half laugh, half sob.

"You brilliant girl", he muttered forehead pressed to yours, "You stubborn, brave, brillant girl."

"I don’t wanna die like that.. please…" you said barely above a whisper, your hand struggling to tug at his shirt.

"You’re not dying, you’re not dying here, not now, not ever.", he effortlessly lifted you in his arms and stood up. "I’m getting us out of here. And after that I’m never letting you brush me off when I remind you to drink."

You laughed breathlessly before leaning your head on his chest, feeling his hand tightening around you.

At that he ran.

He didn’t know the way. But he would find it.

The base was chaos, blaring red lights, boots pounding on the floor. When he ran into guards he didn’t hesitate, the build up frustration burst out as he tore through them.

He attacked, one-handed, shielding you with his whole body.

He could feel you growing more limp in his arms.

"Come on, don’t do this to me. We’re almost there." he mumbled again and again like a prayer.

That’s when he heard it.

His salvation in form of a voice.

"GET DOWN"

Reed.

The second he lunged on the floor, a force field grazed his head, knocking effectively every guard in the corridor,

The second he lifted his head back up, he swore he could’ve cried at the sight of his family, your family.

"I need- I need help. She’s completely dehydrated. I’m- We’re-"

Ben cut him off by taking you into his arms.

"I got her." And just like that he ran off bringing you to safety he could only hope, a mix of a comforting glance and angered worry in his eyes.

Sue turned to him, already scanning for injury. "We gotta get out of here. Are you hurt ?"

He couldn’t even answer, he shaked his head and they all ran off out of the building.

And hopefully, home.

When you come to the lights are dimmed, the room is warm, and there’s a tube strapped to your hand. It’s not the only thing though.

Your hand is engulfed in a warm calloused hand and when you finally open your eyes you’re welcomed by the sight of Johnny thrown over a chair pushed impossibly close to your bed, his fingers intertwined with yours.

When you fingers twitch involuntarily he’s up in the second. The moment your eyes lock, he’s off the chair, his hand immediately settling on your thigh over the covers, your name on his lips without a sound coming out.

"H- how are you feeling ? Does anything hurt ?" his hand almost travel to your hairline but settles on your cheek.

"’m fine.." your voice is horse from the lingering effects of the dehydration and when you cough he already have the water ready and guides it slowly to your mouth, pushing hair away.

You let your eyes travel over his face silently "You look tired. How long did you stay here ?"

"Since they allowed visits." he says absently, thumb tracing patterns over your hand, eyes grazing over you, taking you in.

You didn’t told him that he should’ve taken care of himself first, because truthfully -and as selfish as it may sound- you were glad he stayed with you.

"Thank you, for staying, for everything."

"Thank you. For not giving up."

The next day :

"Is this the water bottle I filled and specifically instructed you to finish ?"

You jumped at the voice and guiltily turned around from the sink to see Sue, fist on her hips, sporting a menacing glare.

"There was only a tiny bit left.." you dared to argue in a small voice when suddenly-

"She’s lying I was with her and she only drank half. I knew it was weird that you said you were going to the bathroom and brought the bottle with you."

Johnny. This traitor.

"Come on it’s the third bottle since this morning ! And it’s not even 2 !"

When Sue left, not before pushing a forth bottle in your hands and fixing you with a glare, Johnny approached looking smug.

"I’m not talking to you you traitor.", you turned around pouting.

He settled his hands on your hips, "And what if I told you I brought your favorite dessert", he whispered conspicuously.

You turned around in his arms, watching him suspiciously, but a gleam in your eyes you couldn’t suppress "The one from the bakery in that small town 1 hour away ?"

"Well, it wasn’t 1 hour by the road I used but yes.", he chuckled nuzzling his nose in your neck, the vibration traveling through your body.

"If you give me visual proof, I may think about forgiving you then.." you continued, unable to contain your giggles.

"Will you drink that water if I do ?"

"I think that can be arranged."

requests are open ! and remember to drink water !

It was a small fight, you told yourself, hoping to get over the aching pressure building up in your chest. Not even a fight, just an argument. 

You'd both sleep it off (although you knew you wouldn’t get a minute of rest tonight), and in the morning, you’ll both have realized how ridiculous you two were being. You’ll wake up, say something to him in passing, and then everything will fall back into your usual steady rhythm. 

You were just taking a breather. Just a second to collect your thoughts and try not to feel so hurt.

Kaz didn’t yell at you. No, he wasn’t the type to raise his voice, especially not to you. Regardless of his volume, it was his tone that got to you. The way he said his words to you. 

For a slight second, barely a fragment of a moment, his tone was cool, calculated, almost cruel. A taunting voice as he said, “And I’m supposed to believe you have the mental capacity to know this?”

You shook your head, trying to get the thoughts out, as if you could physically throw them off.

The night air caressed your face exactly the way you needed it to. For a second, you could have sworn it was Kaz’s touch against your skin. 

For a moment, you could have sworn it was his footsteps approaching you now. You didn’t hear the door opening, but you were far too into your head to notice much.

The sound of metal hitting the floor rhythmically had you instinctively hiding a small grin on your face. 

He had come. Kaz had never come to you after a fight, but it mattered little to you. He was here now.

A hand gripped your shoulder, and for that split second, you couldn’t think of anything else but of how wrong it felt. How the touch brought you back to reality, as if ice was being poured over you. 

Too late, you realized. You had no time to react, not when all your guards had been down, not when you were expecting a touch far different than the violent one you were faced with now. 

Kaz Brekker didn’t come for you. It was not his footsteps approaching, not his cane hitting the floor, and not his calming touch.

Instead, cold hands grabbed you, covering your mouth, keeping your hands behind you. Panic seized throughout you before metal hitting your head was the only thing you felt.

Black spots began to cloud your vision, and it was only a matter of time before your own consciousness had started slipping.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

Kaz Brekker had been wondering for the past quarter hour whether or not he should confront you. He knew that if he did not, he would be forced to deal with the consequences of his own actions for the rest of the night.

He wouldn’t get an ounce of sleep tonight, that much was sure. It wasn’t all that different most of his nights. 

But this night would be different. He could feel it in his bones, digging into his skin, that something would change tonight. 

The feeling stuck to his skin the way honey would. He didn't know what it was, and he didn’t like it much.

Not sleeping was one thing he was used to. However, you would be occupying his thoughts all night, so it meant that work was something he wouldn’t be able to get done, either. 

He had never been able to do much work when it was you who would cloud his thoughts, which was almost always.

He had wondered—what were you doing now? He had seen you leave through the back door, but had you left to your bedroom already? Or perhaps you were still out in the cold, trying to forget what had happened.

And there it was again, the one thing that kept circling in his mind, over and over again—you. 

A sigh not unlike that of a growl escaped his lips. He would go after you, he decided. His mind could not bear another minute with your presence living in his head rather than in his arms.

He was already on his feet before his mind could prevent him from rethinking his decision, rushing through the empty halls.

He would deal with this tonight, and that was that. He would resolve this, and go back to his work.

But when he rested his hand on the knob of the door, doubt began to creep into his mind. Maybe you hadn’t even wanted to see him. Maybe you would send him away.

Behind that door is where you would stand. Without allowing himself to think, he opened it, expecting you. Instead, he was greeted with the darkness clouding his vision.

Kaz Brekker was too late. By the time he had gone to find you, you had already left. You were likely already in your room, trying to forget about him tonight.

With a sigh, he went back inside, trying to do the same.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

Morning came painfully slow. Kaz Brekker could not stop pondering over the words you would say to him, and the words he would respond back with. 

You were likely to say something witty, perhaps even a joke. He would respond back carefully, something to make you forget he ever said those cruel words last night. 

You did not deserve them—he was only frustrated. He needed some space, and the only way he knew how to get that was by pushing people away.

And it worked, perhaps too well. He own voice repeated in his head, finding new ways to torture himself for what he said to you.

Kaz’s thoughts were interrupted by you—always by you—walking into the kitchen with a stager. The sight of you being so unsteady deeply unnerved him. It was so unlike your usual graceful movements. 

One minute passed, and then two. His scowl only deepened as he counted the seconds passing by without conversation. 

You were still angry with him. This small fact only unnerved him more. He spared a glance at you, only to find you wearing a scowl similar to his.

The sight sent a chill down his spine. This wasn’t like you. Surely, it couldn’t have been him that had upset you so much. 

It truly was something he admired about you; you never let his foul mood ruin your own spirit. You were always full of joy and kindness.

“Is there something you need, Brekker?” You asked, your tone cold. He only blinked at you, shoving his nausea down his throat. Your words were sharp, almost calculating. Like you were playing an act for an audience.

Calling him by his last name seemed to put a distance between you that he didn’t know how to close.

He thought for a second that it was almost like you were trying to mirror him. 

Seconds passed by without an answer, and Kaz grew more uneasy by the second. You hadn’t looked at him, not once. You continued to stir your drink, seemingly content with the silence. 

“Nothing I cannot do for myself.” He responded, only to give him a few more seconds to stare at your face before forcing himself to walk away.

Your eyes were sunken, as if you didn’t get enough sleep last night. If you were tired, he could understand. If you needed space, he could allow that.

It took everything in him to keep himself from studying every microexpression on your face, every movement of your body. 

He had forced himself to walk away. 

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

Consciousness slipped through you for hours. You couldn’t make out much, other than some half coherent words every couple of hours. 

It was hard to tell how much time had passed. Hours, you were certain. How many, you weren’t sure. 

Time passed quickly when you were injected with a liquid that made you so sleepy you couldn’t even remember your own name. 

It left your brain hazy, your mind all foggy. 

You had meals and were able to go to the bathroom, and that was that. You slept and slept and slept until your head was pounding.

Sometimes you would lay with your eyes closed, just to be with your own mind for a few minutes. You heard the soft pulling of water somewhere near you. The harbour. You were close to it.

The sound of the waves lulled you to peace, something that you hadn’t felt since you left the Slat.

You pulled on the ropes digging into your skin again, but they didn’t move a single inch. Loud voices echoed from another room, making you halt and pause.

“Brekker doesn’t know a thing. She looks exactly like her… You couldn’t even tell… No, everything’s fine…” 

Kaz. The name jumped from your thoughts. You couldn’t think straight most of the time, but he was clearer than anything.

Kaz was going to get you out of this mess. You were too weak to do it yourself, and he would know if you weren’t yourself.

 Kaz would notice you were gone. 

You close your eyes, steadying your breathing, collecting your thoughts.

He had to.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

Days passed without a normal conversation from you. You stopped meeting his eyes, stopped walking into his office for nothing more than his presence, stopped acting like yourself.

Everyone felt it. Your spirit had dampened, tainted by something Kaz didn’t know how to clean.

Earlier this morning, he had seen you drinking coffee, holding your cup with your left hand.

He had simply brushed it off as training; you had been saying for months how you felt that any skilled person would need to learn how to use both hands equally.

The curious thing, however, was that you put no sugar into your coffee. No sweetener, no cream, nothing more than the bitter taste of caffeine. 

Jesper had laughed about something then, something so stupid in comparison to you. 

And you hadn’t even spared a glance in his direction. 

You never said anything when Jesper joked, nothing more than a small giggle and an eye roll, something you didn’t bother to do now.

But your eyes had always panned over to Kaz after. You would share a look, one that only you two would notice. A half hidden glance full of mischief and secrets.

Seconds passed, until Kaz realized you wouldn’t meet his stare. 

You simply stood, sipping your drink, and acting as if you couldn’t wait to leave. You leaned on one leg, then the other, your eyes darting around the room.

Until your eyes finally landed on Kaz. You two stared at each other for a full second before you looked away.

The boulder on Kaz’s heart only became heavier. Your eyes were not the same as they once were. That spark he could have sworn came from the stars was now dim, almost completely removed.

You didn’t stare at him as though you were angry, or sad. You stared at him as if you didn’t even know him.

The thought weighed on him, trapping him, until the room got too small, too warm, too loud. 

Panic rose enough for him to grab his cane and walk out of the room. 

He had no other choice than to walk away from the memories that would haunt him far into the day.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

The scent of saltwater was beginning to make your head ache more, if that was even possible.

The air felt sticky, clinging onto you. You couldn’t tell if it was humidity or blood on your skin.

Every time you woke up, a new injury found itself on your body. Pain was beginning to feel normal. You couldn’t remember the last time you woke up without feeling so much of it.

Your captors laughed easily, talked too loudly. They spilled their words the same way a fool would with their gold.

The Lime Dions. Paid tailor. A double. Their words slid into your ears, all beginning to make sense. They were all fragments to a plan you were starting to piece together. 

It was clear. They wanted you gone, wanted someone else to wear your skin. 

Kaz would figure this out, sooner or later.

Problem was, you didn’t know how much longer you were going to last.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

The shift in your actions sharpened over days. You stood farther from Kaz, keeping an odd distance he tried to close. 

But the closer he got, the more you pushed away. He could only faintly remember the scent of your lavender shampoo and the soap on your skin.

He would stand outside your bedroom door some nights, waiting for the courage to knock before deciding to walk away. 

He would stare at your hands in the morning as you drank coffee and would tremble at the thought of placing his hand over yours. 

He would wonder, over and over again, how he could fix it. How he could fix you.

But things were becoming stranger.

When he asked you a simple question—something he was aware that you knew the answer to—you stumbled with a quick, “I don’t know.”

Kaz’s pulse almost stopped. You knew, of course you knew. He wasn’t sure why you were pretending as if you didn’t.

He had asked only to hear your voice ramble for a few seconds, but your answer made it clear you weren’t interested in making small talk.

Your words were always clipped, your soft reassurances were replaced by odd silence. It loomed over you now, hanging like a dark secret. 

Things became strange. It was as if you lost memories or didn’t care to recall them.

“You noticed it too, right?” Jesper asked, whispering. “She’s not acting right. Like someone took her and won’t give her back. I don’t think she’s ever been upset for this long.” 

The words were truer than Jesper knew. Kaz couldn’t explain. 

There was something wrong with you, horribly wrong. He couldn’t explain that you never looked at him that way, never carried yourself with hatred, never called his name with anything but affection.

“Are you still fighting with her?” Jesper questioned half heartedly. “She’s looking at you like you’re trying to collect her debts.” He mused, a small grin on his face.

A withering look from Kaz was all he received before he decided to wander off.

His eyes tracked over your movement, every twitch of your arm, every breath you took, every glance around the room.

Inej talked mindlessly with you, a small grin on her lips, one you didn’t mirror.

“It’s been a long time since we danced, hasn’t it?” Inej asked, sitting directly across from you.

“Far too long.” You responded, smiling back at her.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The word repeated itself over and over in his head. That wasn’t your smile, wasn’t the way your eyes creased when you laughed, wasn’t the way your mouth curved.

Inej’s eyes darted to Kaz’s once the words left your mouth. 

There was one detail you wouldn’t have said.

You had never danced with Inej before. You always said you would, always promised, but would forget yourself in drinks or games instead.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

The room was becoming too hot, too humid. The smell was starting to drive you crazy. Your wrists were raw, and you were positive you would spill blood if they got any tighter.

So much water around you, and yet your throat was aching from the lack of it. 

As the days passed by, your captors had gotten lazier and far more violent. They stopped feeding you as much, stopped injecting you every couple of hours. 

You wish it had lasted longer than a day before they injected you again, just moments before.

You were hungry and thirsty, but you were still aware. You no longer lived half deluded, and could get hours in your own mind.

It would be a couple of hours before your mind forgot itself again.

The floor creaked with every step someone took, always making your heart stop dead in your chest. Muffled whispers were all around you.

“Just a few more days,” a faceless voice chuckled. “Brekker and his crew are getting too comfortable. They let their secrets pour out of themselves.”

It was hard to believe they got anything out of the Crows. They were all mindful of their words, always careful of their tone. 

If they believed they got more than a couple of useless secrets, then it was clear they didn’t know Kaz Brekker at all.

You tried not to think about your double. Tried not to picture her living your life, wearing your face, talking to Kaz the way you did. The thought alone made you nauseous. 

But you knew Kaz through and through. He would see through her act. He would pick her apart, skin by skin, until the truth bled through her.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

The door to Kaz’s office slammed open, breaking his thoughts. “Kaz,” Inej’s voice was shaky, almost desperate. “I was down by the harbor. There’s talk going around. They’re saying… Kaz, they’re saying that the Dime Lions bought a tailor to create doubles.”

“That’s quite an expensive hobby.” Kaz responded, not bothering to look up from the papers scattered on his desk.

“They’re not doing it for fun.” Inej grumbled, voice breathless. “They’re keeping someone near the harbour. A girl from a well known crew. Someone who looks like…” Inej met his stare now, unable to finish her sentence.

Unable to think of the horrible reality they might be faced with.

You. Kaz knew it, without her even having to say it. He didn’t need her voice to form the thoughts growing in his mind now.

But he could see now—see that it was gone because they took you from him.

The warmth you radiated around The Slat, the kindness you showed everyone was gone. Kaz believed it could be because he broke something in you. He thought that his darkness might have spread to you, like the disease it was, and he wanted to punish himself every day for it.

Kaz Brekker relied heavily on his instinct. He had to, if he wanted to survive in the barrel. 

And he was never wrong. He had known something was wrong; had known there was a lingering darkness that couldn’t have come from you.

You were gone. Truly gone—your presence had been absent from the Slat for far longer than he knew. 

The realization hit him all at once, making his chest feel restricted, like his heart would stop beating any second without his life source.

He would find you, he vowed. Nothing was going to stop him now, there were no boundaries now that the only line he had had been crossed. 

You were the last of his humanity, the last thing that kept him from ruining himself in the cruelty that called to him.

He would go after you the same way he had gone after anything he had ever wanted in his life; desperately, violently, and without any qualms of what he would ruin in the process. 

The only thing that truly mattered now was getting you back the same way you had left. 

And he would get you back. He would use every tool as his disposal to have you return safely.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

A soft knock echoed through Kaz’s office, jolting him back to reality.

Inej was off finding exactly which warehouse you were in, Jesper was preparing everything necessary to leave.

It was time for Kaz to deal with another problem he had wanted to confront the past couple of days.

“Come in.” He announced, anticipating the footsteps about to walk inside.

And sure enough, the woman who was wearing your face walked in.

His eyes never left her, not once as she walked inside. He couldn’t help but notice all the differences between you and her now.

She looked like an empty copy, something that could never measure up to you. How could he not see it before?

“I was told you needed to see me.” She said, her tone clipped, obviously rehearsed. 

“Remind me,” Kaz began, a cruel smirk on his face. “What were the words you said to me the first time you finished a job?”

She blinked, fidgeting with her fingers. “Which part?” She faltered, glancing nervously.

“You know which part I’m asking about.”

Her lips parted, eyes creased almost to slits. A small shrug before she said, “I can’t recall.”

Kaz’s jaw ticked, his stare hardening. You had whispered something to him, something so small to you, but it had left a mark on him.

“I will never forget the weight of kruge on my hand, nor on my heart.”

She stiffened at his words. “Of course. Yes, I remember now.” She murmured, her gaze never leaving the floor. 

“Do you? Because I could have sworn you aren’t who I believed you to be.”

Those simple words had her head snapping up.

And for the first time, emotion had finally shown through her eyes.

Fear. Right before she turned around and bolted out the door.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

Sleep came in portions, broken by fear. You awoke to the sounds of shouting, bulleting wheezing through the air, and—

The sound of a cane hitting the floor woke you out of your trance.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Your heart raced rapidly. A cane. Kaz’s cane. You nearly sobbed with relief, resting your head down. 

“Have your spirits finally broken?” A deep voice echoed in your ears. 

And it wasn’t Kaz. You were merely hallucinating, imagining what freedom might taste like. 

Instead, a man whose face you could never remember taunted you with a snarl before closing the door shut behind him.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

Your double walked into the Slat, wrists bound together, head held down. She wore your face, your clothes, but was so unlike you it made Kaz uneasy.

“Saints,” Jesper muttered, shaking the chill off his body. “She looks exactly like her. It’s freaking me out.”

Inej folded her arms, eyes sharper than they were a day ago. “Not an exact replica. Her face looks different.”

Kaz’s cane tapped on the floor, echoing. Silence followed as all eyes watched him.

“What will you do?” Her voice rang out, hollow. “Kill me? Torture me? I won’t tell you anything.”

Kaz’s throat tightened on itself. He stepped closer, the sound of his gloves tightening on his cane. Every urge screamed at him to punish her, make her pay for using you as a weapon, for wearing your face like a trophy.

But he couldn’t hurt her. He knew this, deep in his bones. Not while she was wearing your face. 

But he couldn’t allow her to walk around with something that belonged to you, either. 

“No, not kill you.” He mused, standing straight. “That would be too easy. I don’t waste my talents on cheap imitations.”

The words dug into her skin, he could tell. Her face hardened as anger settled in.

“Instead, I will give you a message. I will say this once, and only once. You are to leave Ketterdam, and you are to never come back. Your face will go back to normal. But your habits will stay the same. I know who you are. I know what you’re like. If I ever find you back here, I will come for you. I won’t hesitate to kill you slowly, and I’ll let the woman whose face you're wearing watch. You are never to step foot here again. Do you understand?”

Your double flinched back, shuddering in her skin. 

Kaz lifted a small dagger, cutting the ropes before meeting her gaze.

“If you are not gone by midnight, I’ll have you hunted.”

He barely finished his words before she bolted out, rushing until there was no trace of her left. 

Kaz was left with silence, Inej and Jesper watching him. They didn’t have to ask why he’d done it—they knew.

And they were ready to bring you back.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

The warehouse was dim, smelling of fish and salt. Men sat around on crates, talking openly, laughing.

The sight filled Kaz with a rage he couldn’t explain. You were here, somewhere, and they had the gall to allow themselves around you.

As if they deserved to live in the same world as you.

His cane scraped across the floors, getting louder by the second. They didn’t hear it until it was too late.

They didn’t see Inej until she was already there, working her way through them like a ghost.

They didn’t see Jesper until his bullets barked through the air, reaching every target he aimed for.

They didn’t see Kaz until he struck through them, only one thing on his mind.

There was a door to his left, one that was calling out for him. He wanted revenge, wanted so badly to watch every single one of their eyes as life left them.

But he wouldn’t give anyone a chance to take you again. Never again would he let you face such danger.

He rushed through the door, knowing Inej and Jesper could handle anything behind him.

All that he saw was you, sat with hollow cheeks, blood all over you. 

The anger he had left behind just seconds ago bubbled up into his chest again. He wanted to turn back and torture every man in that room, wanted to watch them beg for their lives as he denied them it.

He kneeled to you, his gloved fingers working at the ropes binding you with quick movement. He let out a soft curse as he realized his gloves were making the task difficult.

Quickly, he shed them off his hands, working the knots until they fell away. 

They hit the floor with a thud, causing you to finally look up at him. He could tell you were half delirious, not fully conscious.

But then you smiled at him. Your real smile, where your eyes creased, and your mouth curved on both sides. 

And your eyes, he would have done anything to see them again. 

He couldn’t imagine what you had been through. Your gaze met his, and your eyes sparkled like a fire. Like the stars he had wished to see so many nights. His breath caught in his chest, vibrating with emotions he wasn’t ready to name.

“Am I dreaming again?” You murmured, a grin still evident on your face. 

Something unspoken passed through his chest, carving itself into his heart. 

“Not this time.” He whispered back. He wanted to touch your skin, just a finger to caress your face. He wanted so badly to allow himself so many things.

“I knew you would come for me.” Your hands trembled as you tried to raise them.

He couldn’t touch you, couldn’t offer what his chest ached to give, but his eyes burned with the intensity all the same.

“It took you a while, but I knew you would.” You said, lips curving, even as your voice became shaky.

And for the first time in days, Kaz allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch upwards. It was barely a smile—but so full of emotion it made your heart jump.

“Only a fool would think anyone could be a copy of you.”

Relief cracked through your heart, until a soft sob left your lips.

Kaz shoved his gloves back onto his hands, before lifting both of his arms under you.

The last thing you felt before sleep called for you was your weight being lifted into the air. You felt so free, so peaceful. 

The soft breeze felt so good on your skin.

Home. You were going home. The thought made you so happy, a smile was left on your lips as you slowly slipped away.

Kaz Brekker couldn’t keep his eyes off of you the entire way back.

He wouldn’t allow anyone else to hold you, wouldn’t allow you out of his sight.

He spent every moment going over every line on your face, every crease. 

He allowed himself to run his gloved hand over your face. You leaned into it, even in your sleep.

The water didn’t come. But he wouldn’t push for now. 

Instead, he made a promise.

the next morning, the carcasses were gone. not eaten. not cooked. only dragged away, discarded deep into the woods. the scent told him it was you who had moved them. his heart, built of scales and fire, ached. he had wanted you to feel safe, fed, cared for. instead, you seemed afraid.

he stopped for a few days, brooding atop the cliffs. the forest wind tugged at his horns as he wondered where he had gone wrong. perhaps his gifts had frightened you. perhaps he was foolish to think a human would understand dragon courtship.

but he could not stay away.

your pov

it had started weeks ago, maybe longer. every few mornings, you found something dreadful by the door. a hare, a pheasant, once even a deer with its throat cleanly slit. at first you had thought it was the work of some wild beast, but the kills were too neat, too purposeful. someone — or something — was leaving them for you.

you had buried the first few, uneasy. you didn’t like the idea of something hunting so close to your home. the villagers told stories about the woods, about creatures that could take human form, about dragons nesting in the mountain caves to the north. you tried not to listen.

then one afternoon, you saw him.

he appeared near the edge of the clearing, tall and broad, white hair swept back from curved horns that caught the sun. his crimson eyes glowed faintly gold, the color of molten metal. he wasn’t human. you knew that instantly. yet he didn’t look dangerous — just… different. his tail moved behind him slowly, a deliberate, careful sway.

he spoke softly, voice low like gravel shifting underfoot. “you should not walk alone so far from the village.”

you wanted to ask what he was, why he was here, but his tone wasn’t threatening. it almost sounded… protective. still, you kept your distance.

after that day, the strange gifts continued. meat. jewels. one morning, a silver bracelet carved with a dragon’s eye. you placed it on your shelf, too fine to wear. you assumed he was just trying to be kind, or that he was testing some human custom he didn’t quite understand.

sylus pov

he thought perhaps jewels would fare better. dragons prized beautiful things, and he had seen how humans adored the same. he found gemstones buried in old hoards, polished them until they gleamed like captured stars, and left them where you would find them — on the window sill, beside the well, near the path you walked each day.

you took them, yes, but you never wore them. he noticed. his eyes always found you when you stepped outside, his senses following every glint of sunlight off your hair, every breath you took. but no trace of his gifts touched you.

he wondered if you thought them cursed. he wondered if you simply did not care.

dragons did not handle rejection well, but he tried to understand. maybe he had come too soon, before you trusted him. maybe his gestures were too grand.

so he tried smaller things.

he carved a charm from bone, something simple, meant to guard you. he left it on your doorstep, bound with leather. when you found it, you smiled faintly and hung it by the door. that small act eased something inside him, like a hand pressed gently over a wound.

he wanted to do more. he wanted to speak to you again.

your pov

sometimes, you caught glimpses of him. he always appeared near the treeline, never closer unless you called out first. his presence was strange but comforting now. you didn’t feel fear anymore — only curiosity.

you had noticed his eyes, the way they softened when he looked at you, and you wondered what he was thinking.

you began to notice small things too. he left polished stones that matched the river pebbles you collected, baskets woven from reeds, herbs bound neatly by clawed hands that somehow never tore the stems.

it was… sweet, in an odd way.

but you still didn’t understand. dragons, if that’s what he truly was, had their own ways, and you were just a human living too close to their world. it didn’t occur to you that all these gestures meant something deeper.

one evening, after a storm, you found your roof repaired. you hadn’t done it, and no villager would trek this far through the rain. the thatch was patched neatly, almost perfectly. you looked toward the forest and thought of him again.

he was taking care of you...?

sylus pov

the night he fixed your roof, he almost let himself believe it would be enough — that maybe you would understand what he was saying without words. dragons didn’t confess love with speeches; they proved it through acts of protection, devotion, consistency.

but the next morning, when you passed by him in the forest and only offered a polite nod, his heart fell again.

he had done everything he knew — hunted for you, built for you, brought wealth and safety. and still you smiled like he was a stranger.

he began to wonder if you simply didn’t want him. perhaps you were kind, but uninterested. dragons could not force affection. he had promised himself never to be like those in old tales who took rather than earned.

so he decided to stop.

for days he stayed away from your clearing. no gifts, no visits, nothing. the forest grew quiet around your home, and his absence left a hollow ache he tried to ignore.

but he couldn’t.

your pov

you noticed right away when he stopped coming.

no more gifts, no glint of scales between trees. the air felt heavier somehow, emptier. you told yourself it was better this way — you didn’t really know him, after all — but that small ache in your chest said otherwise.

you missed him.

and that’s when it began to click.

you thought back to the meat he had left, to the jewels, the careful protection, the fixed roof. the pattern of it all. he hadn’t been threatening you or showing off. he’d been… courting you. in his own way.

the realization left you stunned. your hands trembled a little as you held the silver bracelet again, running your thumb over the carved dragon’s eye. it wasn’t just a gift. it was a promise.

you felt foolish. all this time, you had turned away what was meant to be affection.

so you decided to find him... how do you even find a dragon. do they answer callings? prayers?

sylus pov

he was perched on the ridge above the valley when he smelled you. rain-washed air carried your scent, familiar and soft. then your voice — faint, calling his name.

he almost didn’t believe it at first.

when he landed, the ground trembled slightly. you stood there, soaked from the mist, holding something small in your hands — the silver bracelet he’d given you.

“you stopped coming,” you said quietly. “i thought maybe i’d done something wrong.”

his throat tightened. “it was i who did wrong. my ways are not yours. i thought you knew… what i meant.”

“i didn’t,” you admitted. “but i think i do now.”

you stepped closer, enough that he could see the drops of water clinging to your lashes. “the animals. the gifts. even the roof. you were trying to… court me, weren’t you?”

he exhaled slowly, the heat of his breath curling faintly in the air. “yes.”

for a heartbeat, neither of you moved. the forest around you whispered with the wind. then you lifted the bracelet and slid it onto your wrist.

“then let me accept properly this time,” you said. “i was only afraid before. i didn’t understand. but i do now.”

something inside him broke open — relief, joy, disbelief all at once. he reached out, claws retracting to gentle fingers, and touched your cheek as if you might vanish.

“you would have me, then?”

you nodded, smiling. “if you’ll still have me.”

his touch was warm, almost burning, but soft. you could feel the careful restraint in every movement, as if he feared hurting you.

“i have watched over you for so long,” he murmured. “i wanted you to feel safe before anything else.”

“you did,” you said. “even when i didn’t realize it.”

he let out a sound that might have been laughter, low and rough, and pressed his forehead gently against yours. his horns curved around your head like a shelter.

for the first time, you saw the true depth of feeling behind his eyes — not just admiration, but devotion carved deep, unshakable. dragons loved rarely, but when they did, it was eternal.

and so you reached up, resting your hand over his heart, feeling it thunder beneath your palm.

“then stay,” you whispered. “no more misunderstandings.”

his wings shifted slightly, curling around you both like a cloak.

“no more,” he promised.

later, when the stars rose and the forest quieted, he stayed beside your cabin, guarding while you slept. he didn’t need to announce himself anymore. he was part of your world now.

and when he looked through the window and saw you still wearing the bracelet, glinting faintly in the moonlight, his heart finally eased.

you had accepted.

all his instincts quieted — the dragon and the man in him both at peace. he would hunt for you again tomorrow, but this time he would bring the meat dressed and cleaned, as he had seen humans prefer. he would still bring jewels, but he would offer them with his words, not silence.

he had learned, and so had you.

two worlds, bridged by patience and the slow unraveling of fear.

he smiled to himself, tail sweeping gently across the grass.

“mine,” he whispered softly to the night — not in possession, but in awe.

and from inside, even in your dreams, you seemed to hear him. your lips curved faintly as you slept.

in the morning, you woke to sunlight and the faint scent of wildflowers on the table — his newest gift, simple and human this time. you laughed softly, touched the petals, and whispered into the quiet, “i understand now.”

from the woods came the low hum of dragon wings, steady and sure, and you smiled, heart full.

“See?” you say softly.

He does. But not the way you mean.

For a moment, the world narrows to the pulse in his wrist, the shape of your fingers pressed against his, the light in your eyes. Luke and Kieran are laughing somewhere behind you, Mephisto’s faint caw echoing from his perch, but Sylus barely registers any of it.

All he sees is you — your face framed by the string lights overhead, the faint shimmer of reflected stars caught in your gaze. You’re radiant. Alive. And when you laugh again, he feels something inside him stutter, his heartbeat falling perfectly in time with your joy.

He thinks you’ve never looked more beautiful.

And he wonders, fleetingly, if you have any idea how much of his heart you already hold between your hands.

“C’mon, bossman!” Luke’s voice cuts through the quiet laughter, rough and teasing. “Look at the camera! Smile!”

Sylus exhales, rolling his eyes heavenward. Of course. He should’ve known they wouldn’t let the moment pass unmocked. “You two—” he starts, half ready to give them a piece of his mind, but the words dissolve before he can finish.

Because you’re suddenly right there beside him, close enough that the air shifts between you. Your cheek brushes against his, soft and impossibly warm, and he can feel your smile in the way your skin curves against his. The touch steals whatever irritation he had left, grounding him in something quiet, tender, and far too human.

He relents, glancing toward Luke’s phone, and the faintest smile tugs at his lips — reluctant, but real.

“Are you two filming?” you ask, half amused, half incredulous.

Kieran’s laugh echoes from behind the lens. “We can’t pass up this opportunity! Nobody’ll believe our boss is a lovestruck fool without proof!”

You laugh — a sound that wraps around him like sunlight, leaving him utterly defenseless. When you pull back, even just an inch, the loss hits him like a cold wind. He hadn’t realized how much warmth he’d borrowed from that small contact until it’s gone. His chest tightens, something instinctive and sharp whispering come back.

But before he can reach for you, you’re grinning up at him, eyes bright. “We better make this good blackmail then,” you say lightly.

And then — you kiss him.

First on the cheek, a fleeting, playful thing that sends a pulse straight to his heart. He turns to you, startled, and that’s when your lips find his.

The world stops.

It’s like every nerve in his body goes still, overwhelmed by the single, perfect point of contact where your lips meet his. The background fades — Luke’s laughter, Kieran’s triumphant shout, even Mephisto’s distant caw — all of it disappears beneath the rush of blood in his ears and the taste of you lingering against him.

You pull away before he can think to chase it, eyes shining in the twinkling light, laughter still dancing on your lips. Sylus just stares for a moment, caught between disbelief and something far deeper — that dangerous, consuming warmth that coils in his chest and refuses to let go.

Because that’s what you do to him. You make him feel alive — in ways he’s long forgotten how to be.

And as he watches you laugh, still radiant beneath the lights, he realizes with a quiet, terrifying certainty that if this warmth ever left him… he’d never find his way back to himself again.

The laughter lingers between you — his, yours, Luke’s muffled cackling somewhere in the distance — but it all blurs into something softer, muted. The world feels suspended, as if even the night itself is holding its breath.

Sylus leans in before he can think better of it, the movement instinctive, drawn by gravity. His lips brush the curve of your neck, and his voice drops low, meant only for you.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

The words vibrate against your skin, raw and unguarded. He feels you go still — just a flicker, a heartbeat of surprise — and he can’t blame you. He doesn’t say it often. He’s never been good at softness, at voicing what lives in his chest. But now, with your warmth pressed against him and laughter still echoing faintly in his ears, he wishes he’d said it more. Said it when he had the chance.

You pull back just enough to look at him. The lights above catch in your eyes, tiny galaxies spinning in their depths, and for a moment he forgets how to breathe.

“I love you too, Sylus,” you whisper.

The words are barely there — fragile, soft as breath — but they land squarely in his heart. He closes his eyes, letting the sound imprint itself on his memory, the shape of it, the warmth. He tells himself he’ll never forget the way you said it. How you always said it, so easily, like it was the simplest truth in the world.

But now—

Now, when he opens his eyes, it isn’t you standing before him. It’s the low, sterile glow of a screen, its cold light painting hollow shadows across his study. 

Your laughter spills from the speakers — too bright, too alive — and it cuts through the silence like a ghost of sunlight. His hand trembles against the edge of the table. The video loops: your hands fixing his, your kiss captured forever in the glow.

He watches it in silence. He can almost believe you’re still here, sitting across from him, waiting for him to turn and smile. But when he looks up, there’s nothing. Just the still air. The quiet. The ache.

The air around him feels dead — like whatever warmth you carried with you left this place hollow in your absence. Every sound, every breath feels too loud against the emptiness. You used to fill this house with your moods: laughter and irritation and gentle teasing that never failed to make the corners of his mouth twitch. Now there’s only the void you left behind, a silence so heavy it suffocates.

It’s worse tonight.

Your anniversary.

You should’ve been here, celebrating another year together — celebrating the time he fought so hard for. The time he thought you two had. He’d believed in it, foolishly, with everything he had. Believed that after everything, you two had finally outwitted fate.

Sylus lets out a broken breath, shaking his head. He feels like a fool — to think he could reconstruct destiny with his own two hands. To think he could bury his heart in your arms and keep it safe this time. He truly believed it would be different. That you would grow old together. That the both of you would finally find peace, watching the days slip by in the quiet beauty of an untroubled life.

Instead, here he sits, surrounded by ghosts and silence, watching a memory that refuses to fade.

He stands, almost absently, and crosses the room. The old record waits in the corner — the one you’d given him on your first anniversary. He traces the edge of the vinyl, thumb brushing over the faded handwriting you’d scrawled on the sleeve. Then he sets it spinning.

The first notes bloom through the air, warm and crackling. The melody fills the silence, and for a moment, he lets himself drift. He closes his eyes and imagines you there — humming under your breath, laughter spilling softly against his chest as you danced that night, the record spinning slow and lazy in the background.

He can almost feel it: your warmth pressed to him, the ghost of your heartbeat bleeding into his ribs, the faint tickle of your breath against his throat. Then, softly — a kiss. A phantom brush across his forehead, light as air. He doesn’t know if it’s his sanity fraying or if it’s you — the other half of his soul — still lingering, still trying to comfort what's left of him.

The tears come freely now, unrestrained, slipping down his face and catching the light of the monitor. He doesn’t bother to wipe them away. They fall in rhythm with the song, with the sound of your laughter echoing faintly through his mind.

When the record reaches its final note, the silence returns — thick, all-encompassing. Sylus swallows hard, his throat tight, and whispers into the stillness:

“I love you.”

The words tremble in the air, small and desperate, carried on the hum of the fading record. He hopes — with everything that’s left of him — that somehow, they still reach you. Wherever you are now.

You made fast friends with everyone on the team, and Reed slowly trusted you to handle much more than just taking notes. You managed their flight logs, planned their space excursions to a t, created new suits, did your own research, and even supported them in their powers related training. You knew the ins and outs of the Fantastic 4, that also meant you knew the ins and outs of Johnny Storm, New York’s hottest bachelor, who seemed to have a little crush on you.

At first, you tried with all your strength to avoid his charm, but with all the hours you worked at his home base, it made it basically impossible. It started as something innocent, it really did. The small compliments and flirting, you thought it was a joke, to get a reaction out of you. But what was an at-work -only-friendship quickly turned into a meaningful one. You were sneaking into his room after work, finding excuses to be around him on the weekends, and eventually he kissed you.

It was the opposite of what you expected from Johnny Storm. No flash, no cockiness, just a kiss. You were at the pier one night with your legs hanging off the dock. You had just finished a bottle of wine and you were basically leaning on one another looking out at the water, shoulder to shoulder. He whispered your name, catching your attention, and before you knew it you were all but making out on the dock.

Ever since that moment you were his and he was yours. You became insatiable for one another, an addiction. Maybe it was the high from sneaking around, or maybe you belonged together. Nobody knew yet, you weren’t even sure if you had fully admitted it to yourself yet, but you were falling in love with him. There were no labels attached, no big conversation to discuss it, just moments that you shared. He brought you coffee, kissed your cheek when no one was looking. Taking you on quiet dates all the way in Brooklyn where no one was around trying to snap a picture of him.

He started dropping notes at your desk whenever he walked by saying things like;

"You must be made of copper and tellurium, because you're Cu‑Te."

"How about we mix our substances and see what kind of reaction we get?"

"You’re like a Bunsen burner, hot."

Never failing to make you roll your eyes, but also laugh, and maybe even blush. Sometimes the note was simply an invite to his room, which you always happily accepted.

You were never one for relationships, in the past you had jumped in too eagerly and been hurt, you always found it best to just avoid feelings all together. You typically found yourself sneaking out of one night stands, or finding excuses to leave dates early. But it was different with Johnny. He was knocking all the walls around your heart down without even trying. And you had given up on trying to hold them up, you wanted to let him in.

Nobody knew about whatever you had going on with one another, and you liked it that way, which Johnny respected. Although he would drop to his knees and marry you tomorrow (his words not yours) he respected that you wanted to take things slow emotionally.

This particular night you were making out in the lab when you pushed Johnny lightly in the chest, causing your lips to part. “I need to finish this tonight, and you’re distracting me Storm” you said, trying to sound like you meant it, but the smile and blush on your cheeks gave you away.

He smirked, but knowing you really did need to get back to work, he kissed your cheek. “Just try and go home tonight, at least come to my room for a good night's sleep, you’re working way too hard” Johnny said out of care. You smiled and looked at him, “ill try” you said softly, knowing damn well you were going to be in here all night, and part of him knew it too.

A few hours later, your watch read 11:30 PM and you were still leaning over the lab table in front of you, meticulously taking notes on the notepad beside you. You looked at your watch and sighed, at this point you’ll crash on the couch once you’re done. Then you heard it, a small “dink” like someone bumped into a table behind you, rattling the beakers on top. You turned around quickly, nothing. “You’re alone,” you whispered to yourself, “it’s in your head” you were trying to convince yourself.

You turned back slowly to the table in front of you, dropping another chemical on the fabric in front of you that you were testing for durability and protection. You sighed as it burned right through, “okay so that's a no…” The lab was dark besides the lamp on your table. Your mind drifted to Johnny as you stared at the experiment in front of you. His arms, his eyes, the way he knew every inch of you… You shook your head trying to shake the thoughts away, “focus” you whispered to yourself.

You began jotting in your notebook again when all of the sudden you felt the air shift, like someone was behind you. You froze, your breath caught in your throat, you swear your blood went still.. Before you could turn around or react, a strong arm wrapped around your upper body, and a cloth came over your mouth, and then everything went black.

Johnny was whistling as he swung the lab doors open with his hip, fully expecting for you to be asleep on the couch in there. He had two cups of coffee in his hand, but he stopped when he looked over and saw that you weren’t there. He was immediately offended that you actually went home instead of sneaking into his room last night. But then he turned to your work station. And his heart beat picked up.

The beaker was spilled all over the table.

Your notebook was still out, now covered in whatever chemical you had in the beaker.

The chair was turned to its side on the floor.

There is no way in hell you would leave a mess like this.

His breath hitched and he dropped both cups of coffee in his hands, immediately turning and running to find his family. When he got to the kitchen, he was frantic, yelling and waving his hands, trying to get his point across. Sue tried to calm him down, but he saw red.

Reed and Ben followed him into the lab and they immediately got to work. They were reviewing the security footage but whoever did this was good, too good.

“They knew what they were doing,” Reed said, rewinding the tape and watching the attacker sneak up on you again, and again. “No shit Reed!” Johnny yelled, throwing his hands up in the air as he paced beside them, “they had fucking chloroform, they obviously knew what they were doing. This was strategic, planned, they wanted something.”

Before Reed could even turn around to try and calm him down, a fireball went right in between their heads, smashing into the screen where they were watching the security footage on replay. Ben grabbed one of the many fire extinguishers that they kept around and put out the flames. When Reed and Ben faced Johnny, he was basically panting, chest moving rapidly, eyes going in and out of their red, fiery hue, both hands holding fire.

“Johnny you have to calm down, we're all on the same tea-” before Ben could finish Johnny interrupted him, shouting, “How could you tell me to calm down!? She’s out there, maybe alive?! Probably scared to death and god knows it probably has to do with us, so how the fuck am i supposed to calm down?”

Sue walked in, taking in the scene around her, Johnny literally lit up, the screen that was now in ashes and Ben and Reed staring at Johnny.

“Johnny, what’s gotten into you, we're going to find her.” Sue said, taking a hesitant step towards him.

“Whats gotten into me is that I’m in love with her, okay? Happy? I’ll admit it. I love her so much and I didn’t even get to tell her. For fucks sake, when I walked into the lab this morning i was annoyed she didn’t come to my room before she left last night, i was fucking annoyed,” he put the fire in his hands out and ran a hand down his face, “I was literally mad at her for a second, before I realized she would never leave her work space a mess, shes too clean for that, too particular about her research. And all I feel right now is rage. I want to kill them, any one who had a hand in this, I want them to burn. If something happens to her, I’ll never have gotten the chance to tell her she’s the love of my life.”

Ben and Reed looked at one another, not sure what to address first. Sue took another step towards her brother, who had tears falling now, “we’re going to find her, but we need you to calm down, and help us.” He nodded quickly and wiped his cheeks.

“Okay, okay. Where do we start” he sniffled and made his way to the other screen that he didn’t just set on fire. Ben, Reed and Sue all followed.

The day was spent searching for any signs of where you might be, they were able to identify the van, but no plates, nothing concrete to track. Nobody had dared to question the love confession that spilled from him just hours ago, that was a conversation for another time. Right now they all had one priority; finding you.

Everyone moved in and out of the room all day and into the night. Mostly quiet, watching security footage, the news, tracking satellites, trying to get any sort of information. Johnny had been watching hours of blurry footage from street cameras when Sue set a cup of coffee next to him.

“Johnny it’s the next day, you didn’t sleep at all” she softly placed a hand on his shoulder. He peeled his eyes away from the screen and looked at her. “Sue, i don’t know what to do” he said above a whisper. She hugged him then, pulling him into her chest, “i know” she whispered back.

She placed a kiss on his head and they sat there like that for a minute when a loud beep came over the speakers and a message came over the screen. They broke apart and turned to the screen. Ben and Reed ran in, “did you see this?” Reed said breathlessly, holding up his tablet, which had the same message as Johnny’s screen.

GIVE US PROJECT FLAME AND SHE LIVES. YOU HAVE TWENTY FOUR HOURS.

“Reed, can you track it?”

“On it” he replied, typing away on his tablet.

Then another message appeared, except this time it was just a picture of you. Your hands and ankles zip tied, laying on the ground, seemingly passed out. You had duct tape over your mouth and a black eye blooming. There was blood on your temple and you were still in the clothes Johnny had left you in the other night.

“What is ‘project flame’” Sue asked, trying to divert Johnny from staring at the picture of you on the screen. He sighed.

“Last year, she figured out a way to harness my flames and turn them into a renewable energy source. We were messing around in the lab and she wanted to see if I could basically transfer my energy to different things… It was something that was kind of just a stupid idea at first, but then it worked.” He rubbed his temples. “The issue was, it was too powerful, we couldn’t figure out how to control it the way I am able to control my own energy. It could power the entire city, but if it got into the wrong hands… it could be nuclear explosion level devastation, so we stopped researching it” he walked over to the filing cabinet at your desk and pulled out the taped folder, labeled CLASSIFIED, flipping it to Sue, “just better in theory, I guess. I don’t even know how they know about it.”

As Johnny finished his explanation, a new message appeared with an address.

“Let’s go,” he said, turning to the team.

“Johnny, she's not there, they just want us to drop the file, there is no way she’s going to be there.” Reed said. “It’s our only lead right now, Reed.”

“Johnny, just give me a few hours to track this message, okay? We’re going to get her back I promise.”

“Fine, but if you don’t come up with anything in an hour, I’m going myself.” Johnny said aggressively, sitting back in the chair next to the screen where he was before.

About thirty minutes later, Reed came up beside Johnny and Sue, making them both perk up in their chairs. “We traced the message’s micro-transmitter—we think this is where they’re holding her, this is our best shot.” He flipped the tablet showing a small location dot blinking at what seems to be an empty lot not the outskirts of the city.

Johnny’s chest hunts for air, each pulse flaming beneath his skin. His hands, shaking, curl into fists. "Tell me where," he rasps.

This isn’t just her—they’ve crossed a line.

They pile in their vehicle, and make their way to what seems to be a large, empty warehouse Reed was able to track down. Johnny swore it was the longest ride of his life.

They all stealthily make their way towards the building. Sue nods at Ben, and he slams the large door open. Sue raises a translucent shield, slicing through the stale air. Reed disables the alarm wirings with precise hands. Johnny bursts through the main door, immediately lit up, flames licking the edges of the doorway.The warehouse smells of rust, old oil, and faint charcoal; light cuts through darkness in fiery shafts.

A hulking guard charges with a steel pipe. Johnny barrels forward, the pipe thudding into his flame-shielded forearm—but Johnny hulks through, fire licking the guard’s boots, sending him crumpling backward. A second one yells and swings a machete; Johnny dodges with a lunge that scatters gravel, his boots skidding across the concrete. He retaliates with a fiery backhand—powerful, raw, personal.The captor snarls. "Give us the files, or she dies!" another man yells from across the warehouse. Johnny can hear your muffled sob echo in the background.

Reed’s plan cracks—surprise backup arrives: more guards pouring into the warehouse from back corridors. Sue groans as she blocks gunfire with her shield. Johnny ignites his full nova flame, filling the corridor with molten orange roar. "Back off!" His voice is molten.

Then, Johnny sees her: bound, battered, tired, and scared. He couldn't focus on anything else, he blew through the building, burning down anything and anyone that tried to stop him.

You pressed your eyes shut tightly as the room began to fill with smoke. You hoped and prayed the smoke was because they were winning. That's when you felt an arm wrap around you, before you could react you heard him.

“It’s me, you’re safe, I got you.”

Johnny.

You took a full breath for the first time since you arrived. He put his other hand under your knees and scooped you up. You finally opened your eyes and looked up at him. He looked beat, like he hadn’t slept in days, similar to how you assumed you looked.

Before you could comprehend anything, you were being carried out of the flames bridal style. Firefighters went running past you into the building. When you were far enough away from the flames, he gently set you down and pulled you into a bone crushing hug.

“You came for me” you choked out through silent sobs. You could feel the bruising around your body from where they had thrown you around from place to place, but you didn’t care, you never wanted to let go of him. He pulled back and cupped your cheeks, “Of course I came for you. I will always come for you and I will always save you. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left you that night, I should have stayed with you..” You reached up to caress his cheek, leaning your forehead against his, both of you with tears running down your cheeks, “Johnny, this is not on you… you’re here, you saved me, and I’m okay.” He nodded and tried to catch his breath, pulling you into his chest again.

Johnny closed his eyes. The world bends around his heartbeat.

He remembers how you smile at his jokes in the lab, how you reach for his hand when no one is looking. Each memory, each spark between them floods him now.Why is this so shattering? Because you matter, you’re everything. Because you’re the reason he’s still human, he loves you.

A few hours later, you’re finally back at the Baxter Building. You’re sitting on a table in the lab with an IV hooked up to your hand. Reed taking blood from one arm, and Johnny clinging to the other. The truth was you had never felt so physically exhausted in your life. Reed was running every test under the sun to make sure you were okay. After Reed took the blood sample, Sue stepped up and began to tend to the gash on your forehead. When she reached up, you winced.

Johnny squeezed your hand, just silently letting you know that he was there and you were safe. As you sat there, you slowly dozed off as Sue tended to your wounds, feeling safe for the first time in the last few days.

When you woke up, you were laying on the exam table, a blanket draped lazily over you, Sue was sitting in a chair next to you and smiled.

“You’ve only been out an hour or two,” she said, smiling softly, “we’re all so glad you’re okay.” Ben walked in with a tray of snacks for you, “hey hey kiddo, lookin’ tough” you smiled a little at that, assuming he was referring to the bruises all over you and the stitches on your forehead.

You sat up, and propped yourself up on your elbows. “How did they know about the project?” you asked worriedly. Sue shushed you, “you don’t need to worry about the logistics, they were taken care of and we will work on the rest. You just focus on getting better.” You were hesitant, but agreed.

You unplugged yourself from the IV and excused yourself from the lab. When you slowly made your way to Johnny’s room, he was sitting in his blue chair facing the window. You knocked lightly on the door, making him turn to face you. You could see the remnants of tears on his cheek shining in the dim light of the room.

“Hey, you’re up. I was going to come back down. I just didn’t want to crowd you or anything.” he said, seemingly nervous. You walked over to where he was sitting and sat on his lap. He gently wrapped his arms around you. You slid yours on his shoulders and around his neck.

“I would love a shower, can you come with me? I don’t want to be alone” you asked vulnerably. He didn’t bat an eye, he scooped you up and carried you to his ensuite before you had time to protest. He placed you down and helped you undress, moving carefully, like you would break at any sudden movement.

“Are you going to join me?” you whispered, he again didn’t hesitate undressing himself and turning on the shower. You both got under the warm water, and you moaned at the contact. You could feel him staring at you, but not really at you, your injuries. You had some bruising on your ribs from when they threw your limp body in and out of the van, then onto the warehouse floor. They had hit you a few times, trying to get you to tell them about Project Flame, giving you the option to come clean before they involved the team. But you didn’t give in.

“I’m okay,” you whispered, turning to face him. “I was so scared. I thought I was going to lose you” he whispered back. You didn't say anything, you moved your hands behind his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. The water trickled down on both of you as your lips moved in sync.

It was the most intimate kiss you had shared. It said everything words couldn’t. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m yours.

Neither of you said anything after that, Johnny slowly spun you around and started washing your hair for you, massaging your head, leaving kisses on your shoulders as he helped you. He helped you out of the shower, minding your bruised ribs and wrapped you each in a towel. He began brushing out your hair and then he looked at you in the mirror. You accepted his help, feeling exhausted just from the last twenty four hours you had.

“I’m here, whenever, if ever, you want to talk about it. I won’t leave your side until you’re literally begging me for space. I am never leaving” he whispered it like a prayer, sending chills down your spine. You smiled lightly at him, and he smiled back.

You both walked into the bedroom where he gave you his clothes to wear, your favorite. Then you both crawled into bed, laying on your sides facing one another. His hand rested on your hip, rubbing lazy circles, more for him than you, reminding himself that you were here, with him, safe.

You leaned in and kissed him then, softly but passionately, which he happily returned. You parted your mouth and he slipped his tongue in. You slid closer to him, pressing your chest against his bare one, feeling the heat radiate as you closed the gap between you.

He pulled away from the kiss and rubbed his thumb across your cheek, “I lost it while you were gone. I was ready to burn down the entire world to find you. And I would have done it, if Sue hadn’t talked me down” he confessed quietly.

You stared deeply into his eyes, your heart beating fast from the kiss.

“I’m in love with you. I think I have been for a while, but it took this to make me realize it. God, I even shouted it to the team when they were trying to calm me down after I realized what was happening. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if something happened to you and I didn’t at least get a chance to tell you I’m in love with you.”

You were shocked at his confession, “You were all I thought of while I was there, I was so scared, Johnny.” You looked down, trying to remain composed, “I knew you were coming for me though,” you whispered, he smiled at the fact that he was able to provide some hope while you were stuck with your captors.

And then you said, “I love you too.”

You both smiled, you nuzzled into Johnny’s chest and took a deep breath in, memorizing his scent. He wrapped his arms around you and rubbed his hands softly up and down your back, kissing the side of your head occasionally.