Teenagewitch

☆ DHURANDHAR

UZAIR BALOCH

Laces, Lilies, and Lyari’s Biggest Simp (One-Shot)

SUSHANT BANSAL

You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love (One-shot)

Tu Mera Basera | You are my shelter (Series) (Completed)

Hisaab-E-Mohabbat | The Strategy of Love (One-Shot)

☆ KILL

AMRIT RATHOD

Pairing: Sushant Bansal x Female Reader

Tropes: Intelligence Handler / Sharp Fashion Editor, Love at First Sight, Mild Stalking/Calculated Courtship, Older Man, Protective Hero

Synopsis: When Senior Fashion Editor Reader goes full Miranda Priestly on an incompetent intern in the freezing Delhi winter, wearing only cropped top and skirt, she doesn't realize she has an audience. Watching from the shadows is Sushant Bansal, Deputy Director of the Intelligence Bureau, whose cold, tactical brain completely short-circuits at the sight of her. What follows is a highly calculated, meticulously planned series of "accidental" run-ins engineered by India's top intelligence mastermind.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This fanfiction is based on the character of Sushant Bansal from Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar duology, portrayed by Manav Gohil. It is a work of transformative fiction intended purely for entertainment purposes and is not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by the filmmakers, actors, or production companies.

The Delhi winter didn’t care about haute couture. It rolled in with a biting, smog-laden chill that cut straight through heavy wool and turned the city's air into a thick, gray fog. Yet, standing outside the high-rise glass building in Connaught Place, holding a lukewarm coffee dumped with three packets of sugar (you honestly don't know how you still don't have diabetes yet), you were completely distracted by a layout proof on your tablet—and the absolute disaster unfolding through your wired headphones.

As the senior fashion editor for one of the country’s leading glossies, your internal calendar was permanently set three months ahead. Which explained why, despite the freezing 18°C morning, you were practically dressed for a pre-spring editorial: a crisp, full-sleeved white cropped top that left a sliver of your waist exposed, paired with a high-waisted, chocolate-brown skirt that barely reaches your ankles. But you were shivering so hard your screen was blurring, your breath pluming into tiny white clouds. Where the fuck was your brain at when you were choosing your outfit for the day?

But the chill outside was nothing compared to the icy, razor-sharp calm you were presently projecting down the phone line.

"I asked for a fresh pre-spring concept," you said, your voice dropping to a dangerously quiet, deliberate register that immediately cut off the frantic stammering of the junior intern on the other end. You zoomed in on a hideous, oversaturated neon palette on the digital proof. "Something elegant, with soft pastel colors and clean, flowing shapes. Instead, you sent me a mood board that looks like an explosion at a highlighter factory. Tell me, did you actually read the brief, or did you simply close your eyes and pray to the gods of poor taste?"

"I-I thought the neon would add a youthful pop to the pages—"

"Quiet down, the pitch of your panic is giving me a headache," you interrupted softly, going full Miranda Priestly as you paced the concrete pavement. "Tumhara yeh 'youthful pop' na belongs in a bubblegum commercial, not on our March cover. The text is crowded, the layout has absolutely no breathing room, and the styling looks aggressively cheap. Delete the entire draft. Start over from scratch. And if the next version lacks the sophistication this publication stands for, I will personally ensure your next internship is in the archival basement, sorting old tax receipts. You have until 2:00 PM. Samjhi ya samjhaoon?"

Without waiting for a reply, you tapped the screen to end the call, letting out a sharp, frustrated exhale that turned to mist in the freezing air. “Ugh, dimag kharab kar diya,” you muttered, taking a tense sip of your drink, completely unaware that a pair of dark, dangerous eyes had been tracking your every movement.

Across the avenue, sitting in the dimmed rear seat of an unmarked black Tata Safari, Sushant Bansal was listening to a secure briefing on cellular interception networks in Karachi. His eyes, seasoned by years of counter-intelligence and trained to scan crowds for threats, casually drifted out the tinted window.

And then, they locked onto you.

Sushant stopped breathing for a fraction of a second. The analyst’s voice on his earpiece faded into background static. He didn't see a security threat, he saw a vision. In a sea of drab gray trench coats and heavy mufflers, you stood out like a sharp, breathtaking strike of lightning. He took in the goosebumps on your bare ankles, the stubborn tilt of your chin as you fought the wind, and the fierce, commanding fire in your eyes as you ruthlessly commanded someone on the phone.

He was a man who lived by logic and cold facts. But in that single, quiet moment, a profound, undeniable shift occurred inside his chest. It wasn’t a slow burn. It was instantaneous, absolute gravity.

"Sir? Should we proceed with the logistics?" the earpiece crackled.

Sushant’s thumb slowly traced his lower lip, his gaze never leaving your form as you finally tucked your tablet under your arm and hurried inside the glass doors.

"Ek minute, rukko," he murmured, his deep voice carrying a strange, newly discovered weight. "Hold that request. Connaught Place ke Sector 4 building mein jo abhi ladki enter hui hai, I want a civilian profile on her. Use the building's digital log register. I want it on my desk by noon. Har ek detail honi chahiye."

For the next three weeks, Sushant Bansal- the man who mapped out covert deep-cover extractions for India's elite operatives- used the resources of his vast surveillance networks for something entirely domestic.

It started mildly, almost textbook. He didn't abuse federal databases, but a man of his standing knew exactly how to look. Within twenty-four hours, a neat, concise file landed on his desk. He learned your name, your daily routine, your preference for a specific coffee shop on Barakhamba Road, and your grueling late-night editorial deadlines.

He found himself adjusting his entire operational calendar. He began taking the long route back to IB headquarters just to pass your office building. By week two, he would deliberately instruct his driver to park down the lane from your office at 8:30 PM. He would sit in the dark, watching from behind the tinted windows as you walked to your hailed cab.

"Sharma, gaadi thoda aage lo," he would quietly tell his driver, keeping his eyes glued to your retreating figure. "Dekho toh, sahi se cab mein baithi ya nahi." He made sure you made it safely past the late-night city traffic every single day. Meanwhile, Sharma ji is having the time of his life watching his boss lose his mind over a girl.

Sushant even did something his colleagues would find absolutely baffling: he bought copies of your fashion magazine. Sitting in his stark, minimalist office at IB headquarters, surrounded by classified files and tactical maps, he would turn the glossy pages with his large, calloused fingers. “Fashion... elegant shapes,” he murmured to himself, remembering your angry words at the phone that day. He would stare at the fashion spreads you curated, analyzing the color palettes, trying to understand the brilliant, creative mind of the woman who had effortlessly hijacked his thoughts. He knew it was a mild obsession, a quiet stalking born out of a sudden, fierce need to protect and possess. But every time he saw you laugh at something on your phone through his binoculars from a block away, his resolve only hardened. He didn't just want to watch. He needed to be the one making you laugh.

The "accident" was meticulously planned on a Tuesday afternoon. Sushant’s intelligence gathered that you visited a boutique print house near Khan Market every Tuesday at 3:00 PM to approve the physical color proofs for the upcoming issue.

You were walking out of the printer's office, balancing a heavy cardboard portfolio, a digital tablet, and a fresh cup of steaming coffee, when a tall, incredibly well-built man in a tailored beige suit "accidentally" stepped directly into your path from around the corner.

Collision was inevitable. Your coffee tilted wildly, but before a single drop could ruin your clothes or your precious proofs, a large, warm hand clamped firmly around your forearm, stabilizing you with absolute authority. His other hand effortlessly caught the slipping cardboard portfolio before it could hit the pavement. But your very precious coffee went tumbling to the ground anyway-never mind that it took you 2hrs to catch a break from your work and actually get the coffee from your favourite shop.

"Careful," a deep, resonant baritone vibrated right above you.

You looked up, and the words died in your throat. He was an older man—definitely in his late thirties—with salt-and-pepper hair cut in a sharp, military style, piercing dark eyes, and a jawline that looked like it had been chiseled out of granite. He carried an aura of immense, quiet power, yet his eyes were entirely focused on you, soft and intensely focused.

"I—I am so sorry, mera dhyan bilkul nahi tha, I wasn't looking at all," you stammered, your cheeks instantly flushing a deep, fiery crimson. Your heart hammered violently against your ribs. He was impossibly handsome, commanding, and he was still holding your arm, his grip sending a strange, electric jolt up your arm.

Sushant slowly released your arm, though his fingers lingered for a fraction of a second, absorbing the softness of your skin. A rare, genuinely warm smile broke across his otherwise stern face. "Koi baat nahi. No harm done. Though I think the fault lies with the sharp corner, not you. I'm Sushant."

You murmured your name back, suddenly feeling incredibly self-conscious about your slightly messy bun and the ink stain on your index finger.

"A pleasure," he said, his eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that made your breath catch. "Aap thoda pareshan lag rahi hain, and I believe I almost ruined your afternoon. Let me replace that coffee. There's a quiet café just around the lane. My treat. Chalein?"

You should have said no. You had a pile of layouts waiting on your desk. But looking into those steady, incredibly protective eyes, your mouth moved on its own. "Yeah, sure... chalo. I'd really like that."

Over the next month, your life became a beautiful series of "coincidences."

You would find Sushant sitting at the corner table of your favorite breakfast diner on a Thursday morning, reading the paper. He would look up, feign a perfectly acted look of pleasant surprise, and invite you to join him. "Arrey! Kya baat hai, what a pleasant surprise. Sit, please," he’d say, ordering your exact favorite pastry before you could even ask. You’d run into him at a niche bookstore in South Extension on a rainy weekend, where he would expertly guide you to a rare art biography. "Yeh book dekho, I think you're going to need this, right?" he’d say with a knowing wink.

With every engineered meeting, you fell deeper. You found him utterly fascinating. He was a man of few words about his own job—claiming he did "high-level administrative consultancy for the ministry"—but he was a master listener. He would sit back, hands folded, completely captivated as you vented about demanding models, delayed fabric shipments, or the exact shade of cerulean blue needed for the summer cover.

For Sushant, the mild stalking had evolved into a profound, deeply intentional courtship. He used his knowledge of your tastes to seamlessly integrate into your world, treating every date like a mission where your happiness was the ultimate objective. If he knew you had a stressful week via your private social media complaints, he would ensure the restaurant he "happened" to suggest served your exact comfort food.

He protected you fiercely. Once, when a drunk patron got too close to your chair at a busy lounge, Sushant didn't yell. He merely stood up, adjusted his cuffs, and cast a cold, lethal glance at the man. "Tameez se raho, toh behtar hoga," he murmured in a voice so icy it made the offender pale and back out of the room in seconds. You loved that intoxicating contrast—the dangerous, formidable aura he carried to the rest of the world, and the gentle, utterly attentive man he became the second he looked down at you.

By the third month, the unspoken tension had reached a boiling point. You were deeply, irrevocably in love with him, but the mysterious, larger-than-life nature of his presence kept you holding your breath. You wondered when this brilliant, powerful man would finally ask you to be his.

One Friday evening, Sushant drove you out of the city, away from the chaos of Delhi, to his private estate nestled in the quiet hills of Sohna. The house was just like him: elegant, heavily secured, and grand. A private chef had prepared a candlelight dinner on the expansive terrace overlooking the glowing, distant valley below.

The air was crisp, mirroring the exact freezing day you two had first crossed paths. You were wrapped in a soft cashmere shawl he had gently draped over your shoulders the moment you arrived, sipping a deep red wine, when Sushant stood up from the table and walked over to the railing.

"Come here, sweetheart," he murmured, extending a broad, calloused hand.

You walked over, placing your small hand in his. His grip was warm, solid, and comforting.

"I have a confession to make," Sushant began, his dark eyes reflecting the flickering candlelight, his gaze heavier and more serious than usual. "And it’s something a man in my position rarely does. Main coincidences mein believe nahi karta. My entire life, my career, is built on precision, strategy, and knowing exactly what comes next."

You blinked, a little confused. "What do you mean, Sushant? Main samjhi nahi."

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small, neatly folded piece of paper. He unfolded it to reveal a high-resolution, printed image. It was a picture of you, shivering in your white cropped top and brown skirt outside your office building from three months ago.

"I saw you that morning. And for the first time in thirty-nine years, mera dimaag mere dil ke aage haar gaya," he said, his voice dropping an octave, raw and fiercely honest. "Every time we 'ran into' each other after that... I planned it. Maine tumhara routine mangwaya tha. I mapped out your favorite spots. I made sure I was exactly where you needed me to be, because the thought of not having you in my universe became entirely unacceptable to me."

Your breath hitched, your heart leaping into your throat. Any other person might have found the revelation terrifying, but looking at his face—seeing the deep vulnerability, the slight tension in his jaw, and the sheer, unadulterated devotion written across the features of a man who normally held the weight of tactical operations on his shoulders—your heart swelled to the bursting point. You always did liked the stalker romance books anyways.

"You... you tracked me down from that very first day? Tumne mujhe stalk kiya?" you whispered, your voice trembling.

"I did," Sushant stepped closer, closing the distance between you until your chest pressed against his suit jacket. His hands came up to gently cradle your face, his large thumbs wiping away a sudden, overwhelmed tear that slipped down your cheek. "Because I fell in love with you the exact second I saw you standing in the cold, acting tough while bossing your team around. Puri zindagi sirf desh aur strategies ko protect kiya hai, but all I want now is the right to protect you. To belong to you."

He lowered his forehead against yours, his breath warm and steady against your lips.

"Yeh achanak milne ka natak ab mujhse nahi hota. I don't want to be just a man who crosses your path. I want the real thing. Be my girlfriend. Let me take care of you, completely, officially, and for the rest of our days. Bologi haan?"

You let out a wet, breathless laugh, your hands flying up to wrap around his neck, burying your fingers in his short, salt-and-pepper hair to pull him down to you. "Haan, Sushant! God, kab se wait kar rahi thi tumhaare yeh kehne ka! I've been so in love with you."

When his lips finally met yours, it wasn't a calculated play. It was a deep, possessive, and lingering surrender.

Six months later, the chaotic pace of the fashion industry hadn’t slowed down, but your life outside the office had transformed completely. The frantic late-night taxi rides had been entirely replaced by a sleek, black secure sedan waiting right at the curb at 8:30 PM sharp, driven by Inspector Sharma, who always had a flask of hot ginger tea waiting in the cup holder. Safe to say that Sharma ji and you are now best friends-much to Sushant's annoyance.

It was another crisp Delhi evening, and you were sitting in Sushant's expansive, minimalist living room. On the dark mahogany coffee table sat the freshly minted September issue of the magazine—the highly anticipated Autumn/Winter launch. The cover layout was flawless. You were curled up on the plush charcoal sofa, wearing one of Sushant’s oversized black cashmere sweaters that swallowed you whole, your bare legs tucked beneath you. You were typing away furiously on your laptop, putting the final touches on a digital press release.

The heavy oak front door opened with a quiet, solid click.

Sushant walked in, discarding his heavy wool overcoat onto the entryway chair. He looked exhausted after a grueling twelve-hour strategic briefing at the IB headquarters. His tie was slightly loosened. But the moment his dark eyes scanned the room and landed on you, every ounce of tension visibly drained from his shoulders.

"Still working, sweetheart? Thakti nahi ho tum?" his deep baritone rumbled through the quiet room.

You looked up, a warm smile instantly breaking across your face. "Just wrapping up the digital rollout for the autumn launch. How was the ministry?"

"Bohat boring," he murmured, walking over to the couch. Instead of taking the empty space next to you, he gently lifted your laptop, set it carefully on the coffee table, and sat down, effortlessly pulling your frame onto his lap. His large, warm hands settled firmly around your waist. You buried your face into the crook of his neck, inhaling the intoxicating scent of sandalwood and expensive cologne.

"You look beautiful in my clothes," he whispered, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear. "Though, I must say, it's a massive upgrade from the white cropped top and brown skirt jo tum uss thand mein pehan kar ghum rahi thi."

You let out a soft laugh, resting your hands against his chiseled jawline. "I told you, Sushant, that was fashion. Tumhe nahi samajh aayega."

"I understand logic," he countered smoothly, a rare, incredibly soft smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He captured your hand, bringing it to his mouth to kiss your knuckles. "Aur mujhe yeh samajh aata hai that tracking you down was the single best intelligence operation of my entire career."

You looked over at the coffee table, noticing the silver-framed photo of the security camera feed sitting quietly beside your magazine.

"You're still entirely insane for doing that, you know," you teased softly, leaning in until your lips were just inches from his. "Ek top intelligence officer ek fashion editor ke peeche gaadi ghuma raha tha."

Sushant’s grip on your waist tightened, his dark eyes locking onto yours with absolute, unyielding devotion.

"Tumhaare liye toh puri duniya ghumaoon, sweetheart. If I have to map out every coordinate of this city just to ensure you end up in my arms every single night, main dobara karunga. You are my absolute priority now. There is no exit strategy for us. Tum ab phaas chuki ho."

You smiled against his skin, completely surrendering to the warmth of his embrace. "Mujhe bhi koi escape route nahi chahiye. Me to kaab se phaas na hi chahti thi."

When his lips finally met yours, it was slow, deep, and beautifully certain—a quiet, burning declaration that the Deputy Director of IB had found his permanent home.

Sooooo-what do you guys think of this?? I'm very new on tumblr to pehle se hu maafi mang rahi hu if something goes wrong or anyone gets offended. Plsss do vote and comment if you like it. Thank you for reading XOXO

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Pairing: Amrit Rathod x Reader (FMC)

Tropes: Hurt/Comfort & Emotional Healing, Grumpy x Sunshine (Soft Edition), Slow Burn Romance, Cozy Forced Proximity, Size Difference, Survivor’s Guilt / Moving On.

Synopsis: Haunted by the blood-soaked memories of the train tragedy that took his first love, ex-NSG commando Amrit Rathod escapes to the misty, silent hills of Landour to live like a ghost. He wants nothing to do with the world—until he steps into a cozy, warm bookstore. There, he meets you: a soft, cheerful, and grounding bookstore owner who counters his sharp, scarred edges with infinite patience and hot mugs of ginger-chai. What starts as quiet afternoons in a faded corduroy chair slowly blossoms into a gentle, slow-burn romance. But as Amrit’s heart begins to beat for you, he is crushed by an agonizing wave of survivor's guilt.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This fiction is based on Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's version of Amrit Rathod, portrayed by the actor Lakshya. This is not intended to accurately represent or glorify real-world counter-terrorism operations, military personnel, or mental health conditions. All plotlines are strictly intended for creative and entertainment purposes. Based on a request by @bittermiseryy Hope I did justice to this one love.✨

The relentless clatter of train tracks and the suffocating scent of iron and smoke had taken a long time to leave Amrit’s head. When he finally resigned from the NSG, he didn't want a grand send-off—no medals, no polite handshakes from superiors who praised his lethality. He grabbed a single, worn duffel bag, said goodbye to the others, left New Delhi behind, and headed north into the mist-shrouded hills of Landour. He needed a place where the air was cold enough to shock his lungs, where the nights were completely silent, and where nobody knew his name or what he had done in the narrow, blood-soaked corridors of that train.

He lived like a ghost in a small, stone cottage on the edge of the ridge. His days were deliberately exhausting—chopping wood until his hands blistered, walking miles uphill until his muscles screamed. But the nights were the hardest. The silence of the hills only amplified the chaos in his head: the phantom screams and the devastating memory of Tulika's voice ringing in his ears the exact moment she was stabbed. He was running out of ways to outrun his mind.

Until he walked into your bookstore.

It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon, the kind where the fog rolled so low it pressed against the glass windows of your shop. The bell above the door chimed, a sharp sound that usually preceded a local looking for a magazine. But when you looked up from a stack of secondhand paperbacks, the breath caught in your throat.

A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped inside. He wore a heavy, black jacket with the patch of NSG on it, his massive frame practically swallowing the small entryway. Even under the layers, you could see the rigid, tense posture of someone who spent his life on high alert. His dark hair was slightly damp from the mist, and a faint, jagged scar traced his jawline. But it was his eyes that held you—strikingly intense, completely dark, and carrying an exhausting weight.

"Welcome," you said, adjusting your cardigan, your voice soft and grounding in the quiet room. "Feel free to look around. Agar kuch specific dhoondh rahe ho, toh batana."

Amrit paused, his dark eyes sweeping over the warm wooden shelves, the overflowing baskets of books, and finally settling on you. You were leaning comfortably against the counter, your soft, curvy frame a stark contrast to his sharp, hard edges.

He gave a curt, almost mechanical nod. "Nahi, bas dekh raha hoon. Thank you."

His voice was a deep, gravelly baritone that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. He retreated into the furthest aisle, his large hands carefully avoiding touching anything, as if he were afraid his touch might break the fragile peace of the shop. He didn't buy anything that day. He just stood in the corner, read a few pages of a classic poetry book, and left right before closing.

But then, Tuesday became Thursday. And Thursday became every single day at exactly three in the afternoon.

You quickly learned his routine. He would select a book, sit in the old, faded corduroy armchair by the bay window, and open it. But half the time, he wasn't reading. He would just stare out the window and look at people outside going on about their days, his jaw clenched, lost in a memory so heavy that it visibly pulled his shoulders down. You never pressed him. Instead, you gave him exactly what he seemed to need: space, and absolute quiet.

Here is how we can seamlessly integrate those sweet, caring gestures into that scene, expanding on how your bond deepens over blankets, trinkets, and shared snacks:

Slowly, you began to introduce small comforts. Landour winters were unforgiving, and he always brought a layer of frost in with him. One chilly afternoon, before he even walked through the door, you prepared a thick ceramic mug of ginger-cardamom chai, letting the steam carry the sharp, comforting scent through the room. When he finally walked in and sat down, you quietly walked over and placed the mug on the small side table next to his chair.

Amrit froze, looking from the steaming mug up to your face.

You smiled warmly, your fingers lightly tugging at the edge of your soft oversized sweater. "Aapke aane ka waqt ho gaya tha. Aur thand kaafi hai baahar. So, on the house."

Amrit stared at the chai, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard. For a second, you thought he might refuse it. Then, his large, calloused fingers wrapped around the warm ceramic. A tiny, barely visible tug appeared at the corner of his lips.

"Iski zaroorat nahi thi—par shukriya," he murmured, taking a slow sip. His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. "Bohot achhi chai hai."

Seeing him relax, even just a fraction, made something soften in your chest. The next Tuesday, when the wind outside grew so harsh it rattled the glass panes, you didn't just bring him chai. You walked over carrying a thick, heavy woolen blanket you kept behind the counter. Without making a big deal out of it, you draped it over the arm of his corduroy chair.

"Yahan khidki ke paas bohot thand aati hai," you said softly, offering a reassuring smile. "Tum ise use kar sakte ho."

Amrit looked at the blanket, then up at you, completely unaccustomed to being looked after with such simple, unconditional care. Slowly, he pulled the heavy wool over his lap. From that afternoon onward, the blanket became his blanket, folded neatly on the chair arm, waiting just for him.

You started leaving other little things for him, too. Sometimes it was a small brass paperweight shaped like an owl to hold his pages down against the mountain breeze, or a tiny, intricately carved wooden bookmark you had found at a local market. He never said much when he discovered these tiny trinkets on his side table, but you noticed how his massive, scarred hands would pick them up with immense reverence, tracing the edges as if they were precious artifacts.

Food became your favorite way to chip away at his walls. You started bringing small metal tiffin boxes from your kitchen upstairs—warm, homemade brownies, soft pieces of sandesh, or fresh pastries from the bakery down the lane. You would quietly set the plate down next to his book. "Maine apne liye banaya tha, thoda bach gaya. Kha kar batana kaisa hai."

Eventually, you stopped walking back to the safety of your counter right away. One afternoon, after placing a plate of warm biscuits between you, you hesitated by his chair.

"Agar tum akele padhna chahte ho toh main chali jaungi," you said, gesturing to the small wooden stool a few feet away. "Par agar tum bor ho rahe ho... kya main yahan baith sakti hoon?"

Amrit looked at the stool, then at you, his chest rising with a deep breath. He closed his book slightly, keeping his finger between the pages to mark his place. "Baitho na," he said, his gravelly voice dropping to a softer tone. "Mujhe... mujhe achha lagega."

You sat down, pulling your oversized sweater tight around your knees. At first, the conversations were short—you talked about the eccentric book preferences of the local schoolteachers, and he listened with quiet intensity, his dark eyes fixed entirely on you. But slowly, as the mist rolled past the window and the warmth of the tea enveloped the corner, he began to speak more. He would tell you about the high-altitude winters he experienced during his training, or how the silence of Landour was the first real quiet he had known in years.

Sitting there together, sharing snacks and stories in the cozy warmth of the shop, the invisible space between you began to close, turning the lonely bookstore into a true sanctuary for his battered soul.

As the weeks rolled into a second month, the routine cracked just a little bit more. It happened on a day when the mountain weather decided to be entirely unpredictable. A sudden, blinding downpour hit Landour just as a delivery truck arrived outside your shop with three massive, heavy cardboard boxes of secondhand novels.

The delivery driver dropped them off just inside the doorway, apologizing profusely before rushing back to his truck. The boxes were huge, water-logged at the bottom, and completely blocking the narrow entrance. You sighed, rolling up the sleeves of your soft knit sweater, and bent down to attempt to drag the first box toward the back counter. You strained, your boots slipping slightly on the smooth wooden floor, your breath catching.

Suddenly, a large, dark shadow loomed over you. Before you could even register his presence, Amrit was there.

"Ruko, tum ye kya kar rahi ho?" he said, his voice laced with a sudden, firm authority that made you snap upright.

"M-Mukesh bhai left them here," you stammered, rubbing your palms together. "Mujhe inhe counter ke peeche shift karna hai taaki raasta clear ho jaye."

Amrit didn't say another word. He simply stepped past you, his massive frame bending down with a fluid, terrifyingly efficient ease. His large, scarred hands gripped the sides of the heaviest box. With a single, effortless pull, he lifted it against his chest. The thick muscles of his forearms flexed, the veins straining under his skin as he moved the box to the back of the shop in three long strides.

He came back for the second and third, handling them as if they weighed absolutely nothing. When he finished, he stood near the counter, his breathing entirely normal, though a single stray lock of dark hair had fallen across his forehead.

"Wow," you breathed out, a soft laugh escaping your lips as you looked at him in genuine awe. "Tum toh bade asaani se utha liye. Thank you, Amrit. Seriously, meri toh peeth toot jaati."

Amrit looked down at you, his dark eyes taking in your flushed face, your bright smile, and the soft, breathless way you were looking at him. For the first time, a genuine, undeniable warmth entered his expression. He reached up, awkwardly clearing his throat.

"Koi baat nahi. Itna bhaari samaan tumhe akele nahi uthana chahiye," he said softly, his voice dropping an octave. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before pointing to the open box. "Inhe shelf par lagana hai? Main madad kar sakta hoon."

That afternoon, the bookstore felt smaller, warmer, and infinitely more intimate. The two of you sat on small wooden stools in the aisle, unpacking the novels. You would hand him a book, your fingers brushing against his rough, calloused palm, sending a subtle, electric jolt straight down your spine. Every time your fingers touched, Amrit would pause, his dark eyes locking onto yours for a lingering beat before he carefully placed the book on the shelf.

You noticed how meticulously he handled them, his giant hands treating the fragile pages with an immense, protective gentleness. It was a side of him you hadn't seen before—a man built for destruction, choosing to be entirely gentle in your world.

But the shadows of his past were never truly gone; they were merely waiting in the dark.

A few weeks later, a furious thunderstorm struck the hills. The mountain skies opened up into a terrifying downpour, the wind howling through the valley and rattling the tin roof of the bookstore. You were standing by the front window, checking the latches, while Amrit sat in his usual corduroy chair, a half-read history book in his lap.

Without warning, a sudden, violent clap of thunder shattered the quiet, followed by a bright flash of lightning that struck a nearby transformer. The lights in the shop instantly flickered and died, plunging the room into pitch-black darkness, save for the blue flashes from the windows.

In the dark, a horrific sound tore through the room—a sharp, ragged gasp, followed by the heavy thud of the history book hitting the floor.

You turned around quickly, your eyes straining in the dim light. "Amrit?"

He was standing up, his chair pushed back so violently it had overturned against the bookshelf. Through the shadows, you could see his eyes—they were wide, completely unfocused, and filled with a raw, primal terror. His hands were clenched into tight fists, his broad chest heaving as his breathing came in frantic, shallow bursts. He wasn't in Landour anymore. The sound of the thunder had become the echoing blast of a gunshot; the darkness was the suffocating, narrow corridor of the overnight train. He was surrounded by blood, his hands covered in it, helplessly watching Tulika slip away.

"Amrit!" you cried out softly, stepping through the dim light. You didn't think twice. You walked straight up to him, stepping right into his personal space, and instinctively placed your warm hands firmly on his broad forearms, trying to anchor him to reality. "Amrit, look at me. Tum safe ho. Mere shop mei ho. Koi train nahi hai yahan."

The moment your soft palms made contact with his rigid, trembling muscles, he gasped as if he had been burned. A terrifying, wild strength surged through him. He violently wrenched his arms out of your grip, stumbling backward into a shelf, a few books tumbling to the ground.

"Nahi, nahi... door raho!" he choked out, his voice thick with a sudden, terrifying panic, his eyes looking right through you. "Mujhe... mujhe jaana hoga."

Before you could say another word or reach for him again, he turned on his heel, slammed the bookstore door open, and disappeared into the blinding, torrential rain, leaving the door swinging on its hinges.

He didn't show up the next day. Or the day after. By the sixth day of his absolute absence, a heavy, suffocating anxiety settled deep in your chest. You couldn't take it anymore. You locked up the shop early on a Sunday afternoon, threw on a heavy raincoat, and hiked up the winding, muddy path toward his isolated stone cottage at the edge of the ridge.

When you reached the top, the rain had stopped, leaving behind a thick, freezing mist. You found him sitting on the wooden steps of his porch, completely drenched from the fog, staring blankly out at the empty valley. He looked entirely wrecked—his eyes were bloodshot, his jaw covered in a thick, dark beard, looking like a man who hadn't slept or eaten in a week.

"Amrit," you called out softly, stepping into the small mud yard.

He didn't look up at you. He kept his eyes locked on the dirt below, his large hands tightly clasped between his knees. "Tumhe yahan nahi aana chahiye tha," he whispered, his voice dangerously cracked and hoarse. "Go back. Main tumhare liye thik nahi hoon. Main kisi ke liye thik nahi hoon."

"Main nahi jaungi," you said firmly, your voice unwavering as you walked closer, stopping right in front of the steps. "Tum bina kuch kahe us raat bhaag gaye, Amrit. Mujhe batao kya baat hai. Please."

Finally, he looked up, and the sheer brokenness in his eyes made your heart ache.

"Ek ladki thi... Tulika," he confessed, the name tearing out of his throat like a jagged piece of rusted metal. "My fiancé. Wo us train par thi. Kuch bure log aaye... dacoits. Unhone sab lootna shuru kiya. Logoko marna shuru kar diya. Aur mai... mai ek commando ho kar bhi use bacha nahi paya. Meri aankhon ke saamne sab khatam ho gaya. Maine use khone ke baad... maine apna aapa kho diya. Maine un sabko jaan se maar diya, ek ek karke. I became a monster, but it didn't bring her back."

Tears finally spilled over his dark eyes, tracking down his rough, stubbled cheeks. He looked at you with a deep, agonizing shame that seemed to crush his massive frame.

"Wo chali gayi," he wept quietly. "Aur ab, jab bhi mai tumhare shop mei baithta hoon, jab bhi tumhari smile dekh kar mujhe achha lagta hai... mujhe lagta hai mai use betray kar raha hoon. Mera dil tumhare liye dhadakne laga hai, aur mujhe is baat se nafrat hai. How can I dare to be happy with you? Jab wo ab is duniya mei nahi hai? Main jab bhi sota hoon, mujhe lagta hai mai use dhoka de raha hoon. Mujhse ye guilt jhela nahi jata."

Your eyes filled with tears, not from fear of his violent past, but from the immense, suffocating pain he had been carrying entirely alone in this cold cottage. You didn't argue, and you didn't preach. You slowly stepped forward, climbed the two wooden steps, and sat down right next to him on the damp wood, your soft side pressing firmly against his hard, trembling shoulder.

"Amrit," you said, your voice a steady, calm anchor in the mountain breeze. You reached out, gently but firmly taking one of his clenched fists and forcing his fingers to unwind so you could interlace your hand with his. "Kisi aur se pyaar karne ka matlab ye nahi hai ki tum Tulika ko bhool gaye ho. Ya tumhara usse pyaar jhootha tha. She was a beautiful part of your life, aur wo hamesha tumhare dil ke ek kone mei rahegi. Par tum ek nightmare se guzre ho, Amrit. Us train par tumhara ek hissa mar gaya tha, par pura nahi. You survived."

You squeezed his hand, leaning in closer so he could feel your warmth. "Aur survived hone ka matlab ye nahi hai ki tum bachi hui zindagi sirf us andhere mei guzaar do, apne aap ko saza dete hue. You are allowed to live in the daylight now, Amrit. Tumne bohot dard jhela hai. Mujhse pyaar karna... ya mere sath khush hona koi gunah nahi hai. Please, apne aap ko maaf kar do."

Amrit let out a ragged, broken sob—a sound of pure, unadulterated release that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul. The armor cracked completely. He buried his face in his large, free hand, his massive shoulders shaking violently as days and months of repressed trauma and grief finally broke through.

You didn't hesitate. You shifted closer, wrapping your arms tightly around his broad chest, pulling his heavy, shaking frame securely against your soft body. You held him with everything you had, offering him a judgment-free sanctuary.

Amrit reached out blindly, his massive arms locking around your waist, pulling you so close there was no space left between you. He clung to you like a drowning man clutching onto a life raft, burying his face into the crook of your neck. His hot tears soaked right through your cardigan and onto your skin, but you didn't care. You just held him, kissing the top of his damp hair, holding the ex-soldier until the storms inside him finally ran dry.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry," he wept quietly into your skin, over and over, until his breathing finally slowed, anchored entirely by your soft, steady pulse.

The healing wasn't an overnight miracle, but breaking the dam of his grief changed the entire trajectory of his life in Landour. Amrit stopped running from the bookstore. He began to accept that he was allowed to feel peace, and more importantly, he allowed himself to fall completely, deeply in love with you.

The transition into a formal relationship was quiet, beautiful, and deeply domestic. He began staying at the shop until closing every single day, no longer as a distant customer sitting in the corner, but as your partner.

One rainy evening, after the last customer had left and the streets of Landour were quiet, you were standing behind the counter, carefully writing down the daily earnings in your ledger. The shop was warm, lit by the amber glow of a few lamps, the scent of old paper and vanilla hanging thick in the air.

Suddenly, you felt a familiar, comforting presence behind you. Amrit walked into the narrow space behind the counter. He didn't say a word. He just stepped right up to your back, his large, warm hands gently settling on your waist. He pulled you backward until your spine was pressed flush against his solid, broad chest.

You let out a soft breath, instantly relaxing, placing your smaller hands over his massive ones. He leaned down, burying his face in your hair, taking a deep inhale.

"Maine kabhi nahi socha tha ki mai ye kisi se dobara keh paunga," he murmured against your skin, his voice incredibly low, fierce with protection but dripping with tenderness. He squeezed your waist gently, loving the soft, comfortable curve of your body in his arms. "Par mai tumse bohot pyaar karta hoon. Bohot zyaada. Tumne mujhe dobara jeena sikhaya hai, meri jaan."

A beautiful warmth bloomed in your chest. You turned around within the tight circle of his arms, looping your hands around his neck, looking up into his dark eyes. The haunted smoke that used to cloud them was gone, replaced by a clear, burning devotion.

"Mai bhi tumse bohot pyaar karti hoon, Amrit," you whispered, leaning into him. "Aur mai hamesha yahan hoon. Kahin nahi jaa rahi."

He looked down at your face, his gaze softening completely, before leaning down to cup your face in his hands. His thumb gently traced your cheekbone before his lips met yours. The kiss was slow, deep, and heavy with a quiet reverence—a beautiful promise of a future they were building together.

Even in paradise, recovery is a winding path. The nightmares didn't disappear completely, they simply became manageable because he wasn't fighting them alone.

A month into your relationship, Amrit spent his first night staying over at your small apartment above the bookstore. The room was cozy, filled with thick blankets and the faint sound of the mountain wind rustling the pine trees outside. You had fallen asleep curled against his side, his massive arm wrapped securely around your waist, holding you close.

In the dead of the night, you were startled awake by a sudden, violent twitch.

The bedsheets were tangled, and the air in the room felt tight. You looked up to see Amrit thrashing slightly, a low, tortured groan escaping his lips. His face was covered in a thick layer of cold sweat, his jaw clenching so hard you could hear his teeth grind. He was muttering incoherently, his fingers clawing at the mattress.

"Amrit," you whispered, immediately sitting up. You didn't shake him; you knew better than to startle a trained soldier out of a night terror. Instead, you crawled closer, sliding your knees on either side of his hips, and gently placed your hands on his cheeks, your palms soft and cooling against his hot skin.

"Amrit, hey... listen to my voice. Main yahan hoon."

His eyes snapped open, wild and completely bloodshot, staring blindly at the ceiling. His chest was heaving, his heart hammering against his ribs so loudly you could practically hear it. For a terrifying second, his hands flew up, grabbing your wrists with a grip of absolute steel. It hurt, but you didn't pull away. You didn't flinch.

"Look at me, Amrit," you said, your voice dripping with an absolute, unwavering calm. "Tum mere ghar mei ho. Mere sath ho. Look at the window, see the trees? No one is hurting you."

Slowly, his eyes focused on your face. He took in the soft curve of your features, the absolute love and safety radiating from your eyes, and the gentle, solid weight of your body anchoring him down. The terrifying tension in his hands instantly vanished. He released your wrists, his arms trembling as he instead sat and reached up to bury his face against your chest, wrapping his arms around your waist.

He held onto your soft torso as if you were the only solid thing left in the universe.

"I'm sorry," he rasped, his voice thick with shame, his forehead pressing into your soft skin. "I... I saw the train again. They were coming for you this time. I couldn't move my legs."

"Shh... it was just a dream," you whispered softly, your fingers gently running through his thick, damp hair, scratching his scalp in slow, soothing motions. You leaned down, pressing a tender kiss to the top of his head. "Main bilkul safe hoon, Amrit. Main tumhare paas hoon. Sab thik hai."

You stayed like that for a long time in the quiet room. You slowly shifted, pulling him down so that you're on your back and his heavy head was resting comfortably against your chest, your arms wrapped entirely around his broad shoulders. You kept up the slow, rhythmic stroking on his back, whispering soft, comforting nonsense into the dark night until his frantic, racing heartbeat finally steadied against your own, matching your calm rhythm, and he could finally drift back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

By the time summer fully arrived, the cold winter grief had completely dissolved into something beautiful. On a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon, the local shopkeepers and traveling tourists grew accustomed to a very familiar, heartwarming sight just outside the bookstore.

The weather was perfect, the sky a brilliant, clear blue over the green valley. You had placed a small, rustic wooden bench right outside the shop entrance, shaded by a colorful canvas awning.

Amrit was sitting on the bench, his massive frame looking incredibly relaxed. He wore a simple black t-shirt that showed off the heavy, muscular contours of his shoulders and the thick scars on his arms—but those scars didn't look like wounds anymore; they looked like history. He was comfortably holding an old, thick fiction novel, reading quietly.

Right next to him sat you. You had a small steel plate balanced on your lap, filled with warm, crispy, syrup-dripping jalebis that you had just bought from the sweet shop down the lane.

"Amrit, muh kholo," you said with a bright giggle, picking up a sticky, golden piece.

Amrit broke his gaze from the book, looking at you. A soft, incredibly beautiful smile—one that he reserved entirely for you—spread across his face. He leaned over and took the sweet from your fingers, his lips brushing against your fingertips. He chewed, a soft hum of satisfaction escaping his throat.

"Bohot meetha hai," he murmured, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Ji nahi, bilkul perfect hai," you countered, popping a piece into your own mouth, your cheeks puffing up slightly as you chewed happily.

Amrit didn't return to his book right away. He just sat there, his dark eyes locked onto your face. He watched the way the bright afternoon sunlight caught the highlights in your hair, the comfortable, unbothered way you sat in your own skin, and the pure, radiant happiness that followed you wherever you went. His heart swelled with a love so fierce, so protective, that it nearly took his breath away.

He reached over with his large hand, intertwining them perfectly with yours. His large, calloused thumb gently rubbed the back of your soft hand, feeling the steady, rhythmic pulse of your life.

Amrit Rathod had loved Tulika in a past lifetime, and a piece of his broken heart would always belong to the tragic boy who had fought like a demon in the narrow corridors of that train. He would never forget her, and he didn't have to.

But as he looked at you—laughing at a passing street dog wagging his tail, completely safe, and entirely his—Amrit squeezed your hand and leaned over to press a soft, lingering kiss to your temple. He had survived the long, horrific dark, and here in the hills of Landour, wrapped in your softness and warmth, he had finally found his home.

HIIII GANG- this is my first time writing on Amrit Rathod-pls don't kill me if you don't like it or something. I love Tulika-I do-but I love Amrit more AND I NEEDED MY BABY TO BE HAPPY OK? 🫠🫠 LOVE YOU PEPSSSS DO LEAVE A LIKE AND COMMENT🤍🤍

@mad-who-ra @bittermiseryy @avaaaaxoxo @sassytroopersurvivor @itstiaofficial @maladaptive-anxiety @dhoodhsoda @imrankaunbsdk @writrsblu @so-arttt-deco @awesomeblossomsblog @bumblebeeloverrr @gravelyperpetualpuppet @athaanorris @athaa @arabellapost @valiantsculptureveil @vicky-270415 @moon-inked @gulaabjamun08 @vexillia @ab-yaha-koi-nhi-aayega @khoonaurkhanjar @bitchy-bi-trash @diyak11 @avakthtvdmarvel11 @royaldreamermonsoon @precioussophia @idonthavechatpateusernamed @maxpaglu @fellivra @wtafananya @benjamintwills @nazmnotes @hamzakamehroomkurta @ishq-e-rehman @between-smoke-and-roses @work-of-procrastination @tere-naal-nachna @willowsgoldenhour @rutvii 

Pairing: Sushant Bansal x Siya Roy (OC)

Tropes: Age-Gap (39/40 vs 28/29), Spy x Civilian, Hopeless Romantic FMC x Brooding Mastermind MMC, Established Relationship to Heartbreak, Heavy Angst, Left at the Altar, Secret Identity, Reconciliation in the Rain, Happy Ending.

Synopsis: For a hopeless romantic like twenty-eight year old romance novelist Siya Roy, falling in love with thirty-nine year old "government administrator" Sushant Bansal feels like a storybook dream come true. But loving a man of quiet gravity and deep secrets eventually turns her dream into an isolating heartache. When his sudden disappearance, unreturned texts, and a wall of silence on the day of their wedding culminate in a brutal breaking point, Siya's absolute belief in happily-ever-afters is completely shattered. Left to piece her heart back together through the worst writer's block of her life, she thinks it's the final chapter—until a rainy evening in Delhi brings a completely undone Sushant back into her path, forcing them both to face the heavy truth behind the ghosts that tore them apart.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This fiction is based on Aditya Dhar’s version of Sushant Bansal, portrayed by the actor Manav Gohil. This is not intended to accurately represent or glorify real-world intelligence operations, administrative bodies, or personnel. All plotlines are strictly intended for creative and entertainment purposes. THANKYOU TO @ishq-e-rehman FOR HELPING ME OUT WITH THE SONG CHOICE AND MOODBOARD LOVEYOU3000 🤍🤍

The rain in New Delhi never just falls; it crashes. It forces people to run for cover under leaky awnings and inside crowded cafes, bringing strangers into spaces they never intended to share.

That was how Siya found herself sitting at a corner table of a dimly lit coffee shop, her eyes glued to her laptop screen. She was twenty eight, an absolute, unapologetic hopeless romantic who spent her days writing heavy, emotional love stories. She believed in fate, in signs, in soulmates and in the kind of love that ruins you for anyone else. To her, the world was a canvas of feelings waiting to be painted.

A few feet away sat Sushant. He was thirty-nine, wearing a sharp grey suit that looked entirely too expensive for the café. He didn't look like a guy who believed in fate. He looked like the kind of man who carried a quiet, dangerous weight on his shoulders—the kind of brooding character Siya usually created in her books. He was staring at a man across the street, his phone buzzing silently against his palm.

When Siya stood up to grab her laptop charger from her bag, her elbow caught the edge of his small wooden table. His coffee mug tipped and sent the dark liquid splashing right across his white shirt and a stack of printed papers.

"Oh god, sorry! Main sach mein dekh nahi payi, main abhi tissue lati hoon," she stammered, her face burning a bright, mortified pink.

Sushant didn’t even flinch. He didn't jump up or curse. He just looked down at the mess, then slowly raised his eyes to meet hers. His gaze was incredibly intense, a deep, piercing dark brown, but a tiny, amused smirk touched his lips.

"Relax. It's fine. Yeh papers waise bhi bohot boring the," he said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that sent a strange shiver down her spine. "Achha hua aapne thoda drama create kar diya. I needed an excuse to stop reading them."

He grabbed a few napkins, completely unbothered by the stain on his expensive cuff. Instead of moving away, he gestured to the empty chair across from him. "Aap baithiye. Cold coffee order karein? Since the hot one is on my shirt now."

That was the beginning. They ended up talking until the café staff started stacking chairs on the tables around them. He told her his name was Sushant and that he did administrative work for the government, dealing with logistics and management. She told her he wrote romance novels, practically blushing as she explained how she spent her days figuring out how to write rom-coms and signing her previous books with her book agent.

For a girl who built fictional heroes for a living, Sushant felt entirely too real. Over the next few months, they fell into a beautiful, quiet rhythm. The eleven year age gap should have been a wall, but it didn't feel like one. Sushant had this calm, unshakable presence that acted like an anchor for her hyper-imaginative, chaotic mind. He would take her to old, forgotten spots in Delhi—hidden monuments in Lodhi Garden or quiet rooftops in Old Delhi where the chaos of the city faded into a hum. He didn't speak much about himself, but he listened to her. He listened to her rant about plot holes, her favorite music (Taylor Swift duh), and her dreams.

The proposal wasn't what Siya had spent her entire life writing about. There were no thousands of red roses, no string quartet playing softly in the background, no bended knee under a starry sky or on the blood of their enemies.

It happened on a random Tuesday night, eighteen months into their relationship. They were sitting in his stark, minimalist apartment eating takeout out of plastic containers. Sushant had been staring at his phone for twenty minutes, his brow furrowed in that intense way that always made her chest tighten with anxiety. Suddenly, he locked his screen, set it face-down on the table, and reached into his suit pocket.

He pulled out a small, plain velvet box and slid it across the table, right next to her container of noodles.

"Shaadi kar lete hain, Siya," he said, his voice completely level, as if he were suggesting they try a new restaurant next weekend. "Mera schedule bohot unpredictable rehta hai, aur main chahta hoon ki tum officially meri life ka hissa bano. Court marriage sahi rahegi next month. Simple, clean, no fuss."

Siya froze, the chopsticks slipping slightly in her hand. She stared at the box, then up at his handsome, tired face. Her hopeless romantic heart, the one that mapped out grand, sweeping gestures for a living, felt a sudden, sharp pinch of disappointment. He hadn't even said I love you before asking. It felt like an administrative decision. A decision about how to organize the files in his computer rather than proposing to his girlfriend of more than one year.

It hurt a little. It hurt because she had spent her whole life imagining this moment as a beautiful crescendo, and instead, it felt like a quiet transaction. But she looked into his dark eyes, saw the genuine, heavy exhaustion and love behind them, and reminded herself that Sushant wasn't a fictional hero. He was a real man who loved her in his own quiet, guarded way.

"Haan," she whispered, forcing a small smile, keeping the sting of disappointment safely hidden behind her teeth. "Yes, Sushant. Me tumse shaadi karungi. Simple hi theek hai."

He reached across, took her hand, and slipped the simple diamond band onto her finger. He kissed the back of her knuckles, his eyes intensely warm. "Thank you, Siya. I'll handle the paperwork for the registrar's office."

The morning of their wedding, Delhi was painted in a soft, golden mist. Siya had barely slept, her heart fluttering with a mix of intense excitement and lingering nerves. She had chosen her outfit with painstaking care, wanting to look like a bride even if it was just a quick signing at a sterile government office.

She wore a beautiful, delicate pastel pink organza saree with intricate silver embroidery along the borders. She pinned fresh jasmine flowers into her hair, the sweet fragrance swirling around her as she walked. She wore the silver glass bangles Sushant gave to her once while roaming the local market- which clinked together musically with every slight movement of her wrists. She looked radiant, a perfect picture of a girl deeply, irrevocably in love.

Her best friend, Arunima, along with two other close friends, met her at the registrar's office at 10:00 AM sharp. They carried a small box of sweets and a Polaroid camera, determined to make the day feel special despite the gloomy, gray government building.

"Tu bohot khoobsurat lag rahi hai, Siya," Arunima said, adjusting the pleats of Siya's saree. "Jija ji toh bas dekhte hi reh jayenge."

Siya blushed, holding her phone tightly. 10:15 AM.

An hour passed. The plastic chairs in the waiting area were cold and uncomfortable, their rough edges catching against the delicate fabric of her saree. The hum of printing machines and the chatter of the loud government employees and other people filled the air.

12:00 PM. Siya sent a text: Sushant, aap kahan hain? Registrar hume bula raha hai. No reply. The message didn't even show a second tick. It was stuck on a single, hollow gray line.

2:00 PM. The excitement in the room had long soured into a heavy, suffocating tension. Siya’s friends had stopped taking photos. The sweets sat untouched on a plastic chair. Siya remained perfectly still, her hands gripping her phone so hard her knuckles turned white. She refused to sit down, terrified she would ruin the pleats of her wedding saree. The fresh jasmine flowers in her hair were starting to wilt, losing their bright scent, drooping in the stale, stuffy air of the government building.

4:00 PM. The office clerks began shutting down their computers, gathering their empty lunch boxes, and locking the cabinets. The registrar walked out of his cabin, giving Siya a long, pitying look. "Madam, office band hone ka time ho gaya hai. Ab aap kal hi aaiye."

Siya didn't move. She couldn't. A cold, paralyzing numbness had taken over her body.

Arunima walked over, gently placing a hand on Siya's trembling shoulder. She looked down at her best friend—this girl who wrote about grand, unbreakable love, sitting in a deserted, dark government hallway in her wedding clothes, completely abandoned.

"You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Siya," Arunima said quietly, her voice thick with a mixture of intense anger toward Sushant and profound heartbreak for her friend. "Aisa lagta hai jaise tu kisi bhoot ke saath relationship mein hai. He’s never actually here when it matters, Siya. You deserve a guy who shows up."

A single, hot tear finally spilled over Siya's thick lashes, leaving a dark track through her makeup. The glass bangles on her wrist felt suddenly heavy, like handcuffs.

The golden morning had long died, bleeding into a pitch-black Delhi night. The registrar’s office had locked its iron gates hours ago. Siya sat on the cold stone steps outside, completely frozen. Her stunning pastel pink organza saree was trailed in the dust, and the white jasmine flowers in her hair had completely wilted, drooping sadly against her neck.

Her best friend, Arunima, stood right beside her, holding a jacket over her arm, her face a mask of pure fury.

Suddenly, a black SUV tore around the street corner, its tires screeching to a violent halt against the curb. The door flung open, and Sushant scrambled out of the driver's seat. He wasn't in his wedding suit. His shirt was rumpled and covered in smudges of dirt, his hair completely wild. He looked entirely undone, running toward them with absolute panic in his eyes.

"Siya!" he panted, his voice raw and cracking as he reached the gates. "Siya, oh god... I'm so sorry. Main bohot buri tarah fas gaya tha office mein. Ek achanak se aisi problem aayi ki main phone tak touch nahi kar paya. I just couldn't leave."

Siya didn't cry. She slowly stood up from the stone steps, her movements rigid. As she walked towards him, the dead jasmine flowers slipped from her hair, falling into her hand. She looked at his messy clothes, his frantic face, and her hopeless romantic heart felt nothing but a cold, shattering rage.

"Problem?" she whispered, her voice dangerously calm. "Shaadi ke din aisi kaunsi desk job ki problem hoti hai, Sushant? Daas ghante. Main yahan daas ghante se khadi hoon. Aaj hamari shaadi thi."

"Siya, please, mere haath mein kuch nahi tha," Sushant pleaded, his hands reaching towards Siya, desperately trying not to touch her and overwhelm her any more. "Ministry se sudden audit baith gayi thi. Hamein ek room mein lock kar diya gaya tha aur phone bahar rakhwa diye the. Main sach mein chhah kar bhi bahar nahi aa paya. Please listen to me."

"Pyaar mein log rasta nikalte hain, Sushant!" she suddenly screamed, the dam breaking. Tears finally crashed down her face, ruining her bridal makeup. "Mujhe lagta tha aap bas ek protective, private aadmi ho. Par aapne mujhe ek majak bana diya! Sabke saamne... main is saree mein din bhar khadi rahi, yeh soch kar ki aapka accident ho gaya, shayad aap mar gaye! Aur aap keh rahe ho aap ek meeting mein fase the?!"

"Toh main kya karta, Siya? Main sab chhod kar bhaag aata?" Sushant yelled back, his own voice cracking under the suffocating guilt. He hated himself, and the pressure made him snap. "Meri life koi romance novel nahi hai jahan main apne boss par chilla kar chala aaoon! Real world mein responsibilities hoti hain! Aur tum yahan ek din ke delay par poori relationship question kar rahi ho? You're being so immature right now!"

"Immature?"

Siya let out a bitter, broken laugh that cut right through him. With a sudden wave of agonizing fury, she tore the heavy, wilted jasmine flowers from her hair and hurled them straight towards him, smashing them right against his face.

"Go back to your precious office, Sushant," she choked out, violently ripping the diamond ring off her finger and throwing it at his chest. "Main aapki is priority list mein ab aur peeche nahi reh sakti. Mujhe nahi chahiye aisa relationship, nahi karni yeh shaadi."

Sushant’s face fell, the gravity of what he had done finally crushing him. "Siya, wait—", his fingers inches away from catching the sleeve of her saree. "Please, ek baar meri baat suno—"

Before his hand could even touch her fabric, Arunima stepped squarely in front of Siya, cutting him off completely.

"NO!" Arunima yelled at his face, her eyes flashing fire as she pushed his reaching hand back. "Don't you dare touch her! Bohot ho gaya aapka drama. Clear out!"

Arunima didn't give him another second. She immediately turned around, wrapping her arms tightly around Siya’s shaking shoulders, shielding her completely from his sight. She pulled the crying girl into her chest, anchoring her, and began walking her toward the waiting auto-rickshaw down the street.

Sushant was left standing entirely alone against the iron gates, his fingers gripping the cold metal, watching the pastel pink of her saree disappear into the dark Delhi night.

Inside the cramped, rattling auto-rickshaw, the hum of the Delhi traffic became a dull background noise to the roaring silence in Siya’s mind. Arunima held her tight, her arm a steady, protective weight around Siya’s shivering shoulders, but Siya’s eyes were blank, staring out at the blurred streetlights outside.

Now that the illusion had shattered, her mind began to forcefully rewind through the last eighteen months, rewriting every single memory she had stored away as "romantic" or "mature."

She remembered her twenty-ninth birthday party. She had booked a small table at a vibrant rooftop café, excited to finally introduce Sushant to her inner circle. Her friends had been teasing her for months about her mysterious, handsome older man. But twenty minutes before the cake cutting, her phone had chimed with a brief text: “Fas gaya hoon, Siya. Important audit meeting extended. Carry on without me.”

She remembered the time she invited him to Arunima's housewarming dinner. She had spent an hour convincing him, telling him how much it meant to her. He had promised he would make it. Yet, as usual, a last-minute phone call had pulled him away, leaving her to walk into her best friend's home alone, offering practiced, hollow excuses for his absence.

Back then, her hopeless romantic heart had easily built a defense mechanism for him. She had looked at their age gap and rationalized it all. “He’s a senior government administrator,” she would tell herself, smiling through the sting of disappointment. “He carries real responsibilities. He’s a mature, busy man who just doesn't have the time or energy to indulge my young friends and their loud parties.” She had admired his dedication, thinking his unavailability was just a byproduct of his grounded, high-achieving nature.

But sitting in the dark rickshaw, with the scent of wilted jasmine clinging to her damp saree, the truth felt incredibly ugly.

They weren't instances of a busy man trying his best. They were just excuses. Every single cancellation, every unreturned text, every empty promise—it was all just a pattern of him putting her at the very bottom of his priority list. He hadn't just left her at the altar tonight; he had been leaving her behind, little by little, every single day of their relationship.

Six months passed.

Siya suffered from a brutal, agonizing writer's block. Her laptop sat closed on her desk, gathering dust. Every time she tried to write about characters falling in love, her hands would shake and a profound sense of nausea would hit her. How could she tell people to believe in love when her own love story had left her abandoned on a cold plastic chair in a government building?

She felt completely hollowed out. She stopped listening to music, stopped looking at the rain with poetic eyes. Sushant's silver bangles were locked away in a drawer, too painful to look at. Every time she saw a man in a grey suit walking down the street, her breath would catch, her heart would race with a sudden, wild hope, only for the crushing weight of reality to drop her right back into her misery.

Sushant, meanwhile, lived in his own personal hell. The IB war room was louder and more demanding than ever, but his apartment was a graveyard. There were no colorful notebooks left on the tables, no soft music playing from her phone, no scent of vanilla. He had pushed his limits to ensure the security operations were completely locked down, but every time he came home, he would look at the floor, remembering the sound of her screaming in the dark courtyard. He had kept her safe from his enemies, but he had utterly destroyed her spirit in the process. He would sit on his couch in the pitch black, holding the simple diamond ring he had picked up from the dirt, feeling an ache that no amount of work could ever numb.

One rainy Tuesday evening, Siya was leaving a bookstore in Connaught Place after a late meeting with her agent. As she stepped out onto the pavement, a sudden, violent gust of wind caught her umbrella, snapping the metal spokes and turning it completely inside out. The freezing rain instantly drenched her clothes and hair.

She stood there under the torrential downpour, holding the useless plastic handle, completely exhausted. The weight of the last six months—the pain, the humiliation, the absolute lack of words—all crashed down on her at once. She closed her eyes and let out a choked sob, tears mixing with the rainwater on her face.

"Strictly speaking, aapki novel toh bohot achhi hain, par umbrella sambhalna aapko bilkul nahi aata."

Siya’s eyes snapped open. Her breath hitched.

Standing right in front of her, holding a massive black umbrella over both of them, was Sushant. He wasn't wearing his suit; he was in a simple black shirt and jeans. He looked thinner, deep lines of exhaustion carved into his face, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked completely stripped of the formidable, untouchable mask.

"Aap yahan kya kar rahe hain, Sushant?" she whispered, her voice trembling violently from the cold and the shock. "Please chale jaiye. Main badi mushkil se thik huyi hu. Mujhe nahi baat karna aapse."

Sushant stepped closer, closing the distance between them, bringing the umbrella lower to shield her from the freezing wind. "Main hamesha tumpar nazar rakhta tha, Siya. Tumhe kya laga, main tumhe aise hi chhod dunga? Door se hi sahi, par main har roz dekhna chahta tha ki tum theek ho. Maine ek pal bhi chain se nahi kaata hai."

"Toh phir us raat mujhe woh sab kyun bola?" she cried out, the anger tearing through her defenses. "Why did you leave me at the altar? Why did you call me immature?"

Sushant didn't move. He let her vent her pain, his eyes filling with a rare, heavy moisture. "Kyunki main Intelligence Bureau mein hoon, Siya," he finally confessed, his voice cracking. "Main Deputy Director hoon. Mera kaam administrative nahi hai. Main roz maut ke beech rehta hoon. I handle deep-cover operations. That day, a highly sensitive line was breached. If I hadn't stayed to lock down the parameters, people would have died. And I was so terrified, Siya. You look at the world with so much innocence. If my enemies ever found out about you, they would use you to destroy me. I was so angry at myself for putting you in danger that I took it out on you."

Siya froze, her hand resting against his chest, feeling the wild, rapid thumping of his heart through his damp shirt. All the secrecy, the sudden disappearances, the coldness—it wasn't because he didn't care. It was because he loved her so fiercely that he had been willing to let her hate him just to keep her safe.

"Toh aapne mera dil tod diya?" she whispered, a fresh tear slipping down her cheek. "You thought a happy ending wasn't possible for us?"

"Mujhe samajh nahi aaya main kya karoon," Sushant said, dropping his guard completely. His cool, calculated logic completely failed him. He let go of the umbrella handle, letting it drop to the wet pavement as he took both her hands in his, his voice begging. "Mera poora dimaag hamesha rules aur security se chalta hai, par tumhare bina main bilkul khatam ho gaya hoon. Main challish saal ka hoon, boring hoon, dangerous hoon... par main tumse bohot pyaar karta hoon, Siya. Please... mujhe apni kahani mein ek aur chance do. Mujhe koi hero nahi banna, mujhe bas tumhare saath rehna hai."

Looking at this powerful, stubborn man completely broken down, crying in the rain on a public street just for her, Siya felt the last bit of ice around her heart completely melt. Her hopeless romantic soul, though bruised and scarred, recognized exactly what this was. This was the grand gesture. This was real love.

"Aapka character bohot difficult hai, Sushant," she whispered, a small, tearful smile breaking through her tears.

"I know," Sushant smiled back, his eyes shining with absolute, unfiltered devotion. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the simple diamond ring, sliding it back onto her finger before pulling her into his chest, lifting her slightly off the ground, holding her so tightly that the storm around them completely disappeared. "Toh phir se likh do mujhe. I'm yours."

A year later, the living room of Sushant's apartment was unrecognizable from its old, sterile days.

The cold, empty feeling was entirely gone, replaced by warmth and chaotic comfort. Soft romance vinyl records played from a turntable in the corner, filling the space with sweet melodies. Near the large glass window sat a beautiful wooden desk covered in Siya's colorful sticky notes, fairy lights, and copies of her latest bestselling novel—which featured a brand new dedication page.

Sushant walked into the room carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. He still held his high-stakes government job as Deputy Director, and he still carried the heavy burden of the nation's secrets on his shoulders, but the exact second he crossed the threshold of his home and looked at her, every ounce of tension left his body.

He walked over to her desk, gently set the coffee mugs down, and wrapped his strong arms around her waist from behind. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, resting his chin on her shoulder as he watched her fingers fly across the keyboard, completing the final pages of her new manuscript.

On her wrist, the silver glass bangles clinked softly against each other.

"Pata hai, aaj office mein Sanyal sir ne mujhe bohot ajeeb se dekha," Sushant murmured, his lips brushing against her skin, causing her to giggle. "He said I’ve been smiling too much during critical briefings. Meri terrifying reputation poori kharab ho rahi hai."

Siya laughed, leaning her head back against his chest, feeling the steady, warm, absolutely safe beat of his heart. She reached up, placing her hand over his.

"Toh bol dijiye unhe... ki Intelligence Bureau ka Deputy Director ab permanent deep-cover mein hai."

Sushant smiled, tightening his hold on her, pulling her closer into his warmth. "With whom?"

"With his permanent happy ending," she whispered.

"Approved," Sushant said softly, kissing her temple.

The age gap was still there, and his job would always carry a shadow of danger, but the sadness was completely gone. They had finally written their perfect final chapter, and this time, it was written in stone.

HIIIIII GUYSSSS- I WANT TO BE SIYA VERY BAD BTW-I ACTUALLY DREAMT THIS A FEW NIGHTS AGO AND I WAS LIKE "YEPP HAVE TO WRITE IT DOWN" SO HERE WE GO PEPS-DO LEAVE A LIKE AND COMMENT IF YOU LIKE IT🤍🤍

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Pairing: Uzair Baloch x Amaya Hasni (OC)

Tropes: He’s a terrifying gangster / She’s a fierce boutique worker, Meet-Ugly, Height Difference (6'2" vs 5'6"), Yearner/Simp Uzair, Sarcastic Best Friend Hamza, Lyari Gang AU.

Synopsis: When Uzair Baloch and his gang barge into a quiet Lyari boutique early in the morning to demand tax, they expect tears and trembling. Instead, they get Amaya—who is mostly just furious about the muddy boot prints they left on her freshly swept floor. After getting scolded like a bunch of misbehaving schoolchildren, Uzair's brain completely short-circuits. He's hopelessly in love. What follows is a clumsy, chaotic attempt at wooing her with the help of a very reluctant, deeply sarcastic Hamza. Uzair is ready to trade his intimidation tactics for lilies, jhumkas, and Urdu poetry, but learning tameez might just be the hardest mission he's ever faced.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This fiction is based on Aditya Dhar's version of Uzair Baloch, potryed by the actor Danish Pandor. This is not intended to glorify any real people or events linked with them. Also, Hamza in this story is not a spy, he's a gangster working for Rehman like everyone else and Uzair's best friend.

The sun hadn’t even fully risen over Lyari, but the interior of Rehmat Matching Center & Boutique already looked like a war zone.

Uzair Baloch, standing at a towering 6’2”, adjusted his Rolex watch and kicked a plastic mannequin out of his way with his muddy boot. Behind him, Donga and Siyahi were chuckling, intentionally knocking hangers off the racks, while Hamza leaned against the doorway, chewing on a bubblegum, looking deeply bored.

"Dekhiye, Rehmat Chachu," Uzair boomed, leaning his heavy hands on the wooden counter, making the old glass jars of buttons rattle. "Pichle teen mahine ka hafta baaki hai. Rehman Bhai doesn’t like waiting. Agli baar hum sirf baat karne nahi aayenge."

Poor Chachu Rehmat was trembling, clutching a silk dupatta like a shield. "Beta, woh... market mandha chal raha hai..."

"Mandha tumhara dimaag chal raha hai!" Uzair shouted, slamming a fist on the table.

Before Uzair could deliver his ultimate terrifying threat, the glass door of the boutique banged open. The tiny bell chimed aggressively.

"Hadd ho gayi hai! Subah-subah tameez bech kar khaa gaye ho kya?!"

The entire gang froze. Hamza actually choked on his toothpick.

Amaya stepped into the shop, holding a thermos of chai and a bag of hot jalebis. Her eyes swept over the floor. The pristine, freshly swept floor was covered in wet, muddy boot prints. A hand-embroidered bridal lehenga hanger was lying on the floor. And Chachu Rehmat looked close to tears.

Amaya’s blood boiled. She didn’t know who these giant, loud men in silk kurtas and heavy gold chains were, and frankly, she didn’t care.

She marched straight up to Uzair—who was so tall she practically had to tilt her head back at a 90-degree angle—and pointed a fierce, henna-stained finger right at his chest.

"You! Yes, you, the oversized bulldozer! Subha subha aise chilla rahe ho jaise tumhare baap ka dukan ha, gandu!" Amaya yelled, her voice echoing in the small shop. "Look at your boots! Aqal naam ki cheez hai? I spent two hours cleaning this shop yesterday! And look what you did to that display!"

Uzair’s jaw literally dropped. Nobody spoke to him like this. Ever. People usually wet themselves when he entered a room. He opened his mouth to say 'Do you know who I am?' but Amaya wasn’t done.

"And speaking of tameez, how dare you scream at Chachu? He is old enough to be your grandfather! Bade ho gaye ho, daadhi mooch aa gayi hai, par baat karne ka dhang abhi tak nahi seekha? Shut up and get out immediately!"

Behind Uzair, Siyahi and Donga reached for their waistbands, reaching for their guns, absolutely outraged. But Hamza quickly grabbed their shoulders, whispering, "Ruko, ruko. Tamasha dekho." Hamza’s eyes were wide with pure, unadulterated amusement.

Uzair didn't reach for his gun. He just stared down at Amaya. Up close, her eyes were flashing fire, her nose was slightly pink from anger, and she smelled faintly of jasmine oil and fresh jalebis.

Ya Allah, Uzair thought, his heart doing a sudden, violent backflip. Yeh larki hai ya bijli ka jhatka?

He felt a strange, goofy smile creeping onto his face.

"Are you laughing?!" Amaya gasped, utterly offended. "Chachu, yeh paagal hai kya? Look at him smiling like a village idiot after ruining the shop!" She turned back to Uzair, shooing him with her hands like he was a stray goat. "Chalo, nikal yahan se! Come back when you learn how to say 'Assalamu Alaikum' properly!"

"A-Alaikum Assalam," Uzair blurted out automatically, his voice cracking slightly.

Hamza put a hand over his mouth to muffle a loud bark of laughter. The Uzair Baloch, terror of Lyari, was stuttering.

Amaya crossed her arms. "Out! All of you! Out!"

Uzair, completely hypnotized, began taking steps backward. "Okay... okay, jaa rahe hain. Sorry... Chachu." He actually nodded at Rehmat Chachu before Hamza grabbed Uzair’s collar and dragged him out of the shop before he could embarrass himself further.

As soon as they hit the street, Hamza burst out laughing so hard he had to lean against a paan tapri.

"Oye, khokhe! 'Ji Chachu, sorry Chachu'?" Hamza mocked, wiping a tear from his eye. "What happened to the terror of Karachi? Ek choti si larki shouted at you like you stole her eraser in third grade, and you became a wet cat!"

Uzair didn't even look angry. He was staring back at the boutique door, a dreamy, love-struck look on his face.

"Hamza..." Uzair whispered softly.

"Kya?"

"Bhabhi hai teri."

Hamza’s laughter stopped instantly. He stared at his best friend. "Bhai-she just called you gandu and an oversized bulldozer. She hates your guts."

Uzair smirked, adjusting his collar confidently. "She doesn't hate me. She’s just spirited. Aur pyaar aur nafrat me unnis-bich kaii to fark he bhai. We need to find out everything about her. Right now."

Hamza rolled his eyes into the back of his skull. "Ya Allah, utha le. Mujhe nahi, is aashiq ko utha le."

Meanwhile, inside the shop, Amaya was frantically cleaning the mud.

"Amaya beti... tumne yeh kya kiya," Chachu Rehmat whimpered, finally finding his voice. "Do you know who that was? That was Uzair Baloch! Rehman Dacait’s right hand!"

Amaya froze, a broom in her hand. "Wait... woh Uzair Baloch tha? The gangster Yalina always complains about?"

"Haan!"

Amaya’s heart did a mini-drop, not out of love, but out of sheer 'oh my god I’m going to end up in a ditch' panic.

An hour later, she was on the phone with her college best friend, Yalina. Now, now, Amaya is not a burger baccha like Yalina. She is from a very middle-class average family of hardworking people. The first time Amaya and Yalina became friends was when Yalina was about to get busted out for cheating in an important exam and Amaya-who was sitting behind her- snatched her cheats from her and hid them in her salwaar. The test went spectacularly well for both of them and hence, blossomed the start of a close friendship between them.

"Yalina! I am going to die!" Amaya hissed into the receiver, hiding behind the dress racks. "I screamed at Uzair Baloch today! I called him a gandu!"

On the other end, Yalina went completely silent for three seconds before screaming, "WHAT?! Amaya, are you insane? He’s dangerous! Wait... let me ask Hamza if he’s going to kill you."

"No, don't ask Hamza! Just tell me how to write a will!"

But Uzair had no intentions of killing her. In fact, he was currently sitting in his office, forcing a very miserable Hamza to brainstorm ways to "coincidentally" run into her.

"We can set the boutique on fire and I will rescue her," Uzair suggested seriously.

Hamza stared at him. "Are you stupid? You want to burn down the shop where she works? How is that romantic?"

"Okay, fine. What if I go there to buy a lehenga?"

"For who?! Yourself?!" Hamza groaned, throwing his hands up. "Listen, mujhe abhi Yalina ka call aya tha aur wo Amaya ki college ki dost ha. Meine usse bohot mana kar ugal waya ki Amaya walks by the Lyari juice corner every afternoon at 4:30 PM after her shift, the one owned by that Alam bhai. Sometimes she even stops for a milkshake or juice. Just go there, buy a juice, and act normal. Normal! Kaar paye gya ya phir abhi se pyaar ne andha chutiya kar diya tujhe?"

Uzair grinned, clapping Hamza on the back so hard the poor guy stumbled. "Hence proved, you are my best friend. Chal aab lodu, hum juice kharidne wale ha."

At 4:35 PM, Amaya was walking down the street, holding her handbag tightly, still paranoid that a black car was going to kidnap her.

Instead, she saw something weirder.

Uzair Baloch was sitting on a tiny plastic stool outside the juice shop. He was wearing a ridiculously designer white kurta (he thought it made him look approachable), and he was aggressively sucking on a mango juice box, staring straight at her path. Next to him, Hamza was covering his face with a newspaper, pretending he didn’t know this man.

As Amaya approached, Uzair stood up so fast he knocked his own stool over.

"Assalamu Alaikum, Amaya ji!" Uzair roared, trying to sound polite but ending up sounding like a drill sergeant.

Amaya stopped, looking at him, then at the fallen stool, then at his white kurta. The sheer absurdity of the situation washed over her, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

"Wa-Alaikum Assalam," she said cautiously. "Are you following me, Baloch Sahab?"

"Me? Following? No!" Uzair lied smoothly, while Hamza snorted loudly from behind the newspaper. "I just... love mango juice. Very much. Aap ko chahiye? I can buy the whole dukaan for you. Aur aap mujhe Sahab kyu bula rahi ha, please Uzair bulaiye."

Amaya crossed her arms, a amused smirk playing on her lips. "Mujhe dukaan nahi chahiye, Uzair. And aren't you supposed to be collecting hafta vasuli and being scary?"

Uzair took a step closer, giving her his best, most dazzling smile. "I took a half-day today. Waise... today I wiped my boots before sitting here. See? Bilkul saaf." He pointed to his shoes like a proud toddler showing off a drawing.

Amaya couldn't hold it in anymore. She let out a genuine, beautiful laugh. "Good for you. At least you are house-trained now."

Uzair’s soul practically left his body at the sound of her laugh. He was a goner. Absolute goner.

From behind the newspaper, Hamza muttered, "Wah. Shuruat toh acchi hai. Now ask her for her number before you say something dumb again."

Uzair was riding high on the sound of Amaya’s laugh. He felt like he had just conquered the entire Karachi underworld with a single smile. He puffed out his chest, completely ignoring Hamza’s frantic whispering from behind the newspaper.

He needed to say something smooth. Something that showed he was a big man, a provider, someone who could take care of her.

"House-trained? Hum toh hamesha se tameezdaar hain, Amaya ji," Uzair said, leaning against the juice stall counter with what he thought was suave confidence. "In fact, I was just thinking... yeh subah-subah kapde bechna, mitti saaf karna... yeh bhi koi kaam hai? You are wasting your time in that tiny, dusty shop with Rehmat Chachu. Chhoro yeh darzi ka kaam. It’s beneath you."

The silence that followed was absolute.

The blender at the juice stall stopped. The street noise seemed to fade.

From behind the newspaper, Hamza’s eyes went wide. He slowly lowered the paper, staring at Uzair with an expression that said, 'You have just signed your own death warrant.'

Amaya’s smile vanished so fast it gave Uzair whiplash. Her eyes, which had been bright and amused a second ago, turned into two chips of freezing, dangerous ice.

"Excuse me?" Amaya said, her voice dropping to a dangerously quiet pitch.

Uzair, totally oblivious to the sudden drop in atmospheric pressure, plowed right ahead. "I’m just saying! Kahan aap us dukaan mein silai-kadhai kar rahi hain. If you want money, you just have to say the word. Hum hain na! Waise bhi aap toh medical college me parte he na? Doctor baane wali ha-why do a cheap job like—"

"Cheap job?" Amaya took a sharp step forward, and Uzair automatically took a step back, his instincts warning him of imminent danger. "Let me tell you something, Uzair Sahab. That 'cheap job' pays for my family’s house. That 'dusty shop' belongs to a man who treats me like his own daughter. We earn an honest living. We don't go around extorting poor shopkeepers and calling it a career!"

"N-No, I didn't mean—" Uzair stammered, the confidence draining from his face like water down a sink.

"You think because you wear heavy silver jewellery and drive big cars by scaring people, you are better than us?" Amaya hissed, her finger snapping right back to his chest, poking him aggressively. "You are just a loud, arrogant bully who doesn't respect hard work. Keep your mango juice, you dumb fuck. And keep your mouth shut!"

She turned on her heel and stormed down the street, her dupatta fluttering angrily behind her.

Uzair stood frozen, his arm still extended as if he could physically catch her words and put them back in his mouth. His heart rate shot up to approximately three hundred beats per minute. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead.

"Ya Allah," Uzair gasped, clutching his chest. "Hamza... Hamza, saas nahi aa rahi. Mera dum ghut raha hai."

Hamza slowly stood up from his plastic stool, shaking his head in pure, unadulterated pity. "Behenchod-tera dum ghutna hi chahiye. Lodu tujhe ek kaam diya tha. Ki normal baat kaar. Paar nahi-shehezaade ko to ulta sidha baat bolni hi ha. Aur aab ye natak baand kar sale- I have seen you get shot in the arm and not even blink. Now you look like you’re about to faint because a five-foot girl gave you a lecture on ethics."

"Tu mazaak mat kar!" Uzair turned on him, his eyes wild with genuine panic. He grabbed Hamza by the shoulders, shaking him. "Maine kya bol diya, Hamza? I was trying to sound like a king! Like a big man! Why did she get so angry? Wapas jaa kar dukan tod doon kya? No, wait, that will make it worse. Main kya karoon?!"

"First of all, stop shaking me, bijli ki khambha kahika," Hamza grunted, swatting Uzair's hands away. "Second of all, you basically told a self-made, hardworking girl that her life's work is trash and offered her charity. Tu dimaag se paagal hai? Even Donga has better game than you, and that guy woos girls by showing them his bald head and knife collection."

Uzair slid down the side of the pillar against the juice shop, burying his face in his large hands. He actually looked like he wanted to cry. "Mera toh dil saaf tha na... I just wanted her to not work so hard. Hamza, save me. If she doesn't forgive me, meh Lyari ke naadi me dub ke maar jaungi."

"Don't do that, the river is disgusting and you'll just get typhoid," Hamza sighed, pulling out his phone. "Stand up. Put your dignity back on. We need to plan an apology. A proper one. No money, no boasting, no 'big man' attitude."

Uzair looked up, his eyes wide and desperate. "What do I do?"

Hamza smirked, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Well... you insulted her work. So, you are going to have to appreciate her work. Get in the car, gaadhe. We are going to buy a lot of fabric."

Amaya slammed her handbag onto Yalina’s bed, pacing the room like a caged tigress.

"He is the most arrogant, brainless, oversized piece of garbage in the whole of Karachi!" Amaya yelled.

Yalina, who was sitting cross-legged eating grapes, blinked in surprise. "Wait, who? Uzair Baloch? I thought you were terrified he was going to kill you."

"I wish he would try! It would give me an excuse to hit him with a heavy iron!" Amaya fumed, her cheeks burning. "He insulted Chachu’s shop! He told me to quit my 'cheap job' and offered me money like I'm some charity case or worse, some prostitute! Just because he's a big gangster, he thinks he owns the dignity of everyone in Lyari!"

Yalina winced. "Yeah... Uzair isn't exactly known for his conversational tact. Hamza kehta ha ki his vocabulary consists of 50% shouting, 40% swearing, and 10% ordering biryani."

"Well, he can take his 10% biryani and shove it!" Amaya snapped, sitting down with a huff. "I never want to see his stupid, kurta-wearing face again!"

Amaya arrived at Rehmat Matching Center & Boutique, still grumpy, determined to focus entirely on her work. But as she approached the door, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Standing outside the shop was Uzair Baloch.

He wasn't wearing his usual flashy kurta or silver rings. He was wearing a very plain, simple grey shalwar kameez. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes, holding a giant, awkwardly wrapped cardboard box in his arms. Beside him, Hamza was leaning against a lamppost, holding two large thermoses of tea and looking like an exhausted babysitter.

Amaya narrowed her eyes, halting a few feet away. "What are you doing here? If you've come to insult Chachu again—"

"No!" Uzair interrupted, his voice surprisingly soft. He took a cautious step forward, looking down at his feet. "Look... boots saaf hain. I didn't step in mud."

Amaya kept her arms crossed, unimpressed. "So?"

Uzair swallowed hard. He looked at Hamza, who gave him a sharp nod that said, 'Speak now or I leave you here.'

Uzair cleared his throat, holding out the heavy box toward her. His hands were actually trembling slightly.

"I am sorry," Uzair said, looking directly into her eyes, his tough-guy persona completely gone. "Main badtameez hoon, mujhe baat karne ka dhang nahi hai. I didn't mean to insult your work. Your work is beautiful. Chachu’s shop is... is a respectable place. I was just... my brain stopped working because I wanted to say something nice and it came out wrong. Galti ho gayi. Maaf kar do."

Amaya’s defenses cracked just a tiny bit. The sheer vulnerability on this massive man’s face was startling. He looked like a puppy waiting to be scolded.

"Box me kya hai?" she asked, her voice softening just a fraction.

Uzair’s face lit up with a nervous, eager smile. "Kholke dekh lijiye."

Amaya cautiously took the box, setting it on a nearby bench, and opened the lid. Inside were twenty rolls of the most exquisite, expensive, raw silk and banarasi fabric she had ever seen, in every vibrant color imaginable. On top of the fabric lay a brand-new, top-of-the-line heavy-duty tailoring iron and a packet of premium sewing needles.

"Hamza told me you guys were short on premium stock because of the market," Uzair whispered scratchily. "I didn't use extortion money for this. I swear on my brother, I used my own personal savings. Dukaan ke liye hai."

Amaya looked from the beautiful fabric to Uzair, who was holding his breath, literally waiting for her judgment like a man on death row.

Behind him, Hamza held up a thermos. "And I brought fresh Elaichi chai for you and Chachu. Please forgive him, Amaya ji. He didn't sleep all night. He kept pacing my room asking if he was a bad person."

Amaya bit her lower lip, trying desperately to suppress the smile that was fighting to break free. She looked at Uzair’s anxious face.

"Alright," Amaya said slowly, closing the box. "I accept the apology. But under one condition."

Uzair’s eyes widened with hope. "Anything! Name it!"

"You are going to carry this box inside," Amaya pointed a commanding finger, "and you are going to apologize to Chachu Rehmat. Properly. With a 'Salaam' and a 'Ji'."

"Ji! Absolutely! Abhi karta hoon!" Uzair beamed, practically snatching the heavy box back into his arms as if it weighed nothing at all. He marched toward the shop door like a soldier on a glorious mission.

As he passed her, he paused, giving her a shy, sideways glance. "Waise... aap gusse mein aur bhi haseen lagti hain."

Before Amaya could process the compliment or yell at him again, Uzair darted into the shop, shouting, "Assalamu Alaikum, Rehmat Chachu! Kaise hain aap?"

Amaya stood outside, a hand covering her mouth as she finally let out a loud laugh.

Hamza walked up beside her, handing her a cup of chai from the thermos. "See? I told you. House-trained. It just takes a lot of manual labor."

Over the next two weeks, the Lyari underworld witnessed a shift in the space-time continuum. Uzair Baloch, who used to spend his afternoons planning turf strategies and being involved in gang wars, was now spotted outside the boutique every single day.

He didn’t come with his usual terrifying entourage anymore. It was always just him and Hamza, acting as the world’s most exhausted but loyal sidekick.

"If I have to stand outside this bookstall for one more minute, Uzair, I will shoot myself in the leg just to go to the hospital," Hamza groaned, leaning against a rickshaw.

Uzair ignored him, his eyes scanning the dusty shelves of an old, roadside bookstore. "Shut up, Hamza. Yalina said Amaya loves old Urdu poetry books. Yeh wali acchi hai? Look at the cover, it has nice flowers."

"That is a textbook on accounting, you illiterate gorilla," Hamza sighed, snatching it from his hands and replacing it with a beautifully bound copy of Parveen Shakir's poetry. "Take this. Aur yaad rakhna, galti se bhi usse par kar maat shunane jana. Your voice sounds like a broken exhaust pipe."

Equipped with the book, a bunch of fresh, fragrant white lilies (because he found out she hated roses for being "too cliché"), and a pair of delicate silver jhumkas he spent three hours picking out at the bazaar, Uzair marched toward the boutique.

Amaya was inside, folding a stack of linen when the bell chimed. She didn't even have to look up to know who it was; the distinct sound of heavy, polished boots always gave him away.

"Assalamu Alaikum, Amaya," Uzair said, stepping inside. He looked incredibly neat, his beard trimmed perfectly, holding the lilies behind his back like a nervous teenager.

"Wa Alaikum Assalam, Uzair," Amaya replied, a soft smile tugging at her lips. She had stopped calling him a bulldozer a week ago. "What brings you here today? I hope you aren't here to scare my customers."

"Never," Uzair said earnestly, placing the lilies on the counter. "For you. And... I found this." He awkwardly handed over the poetry book. "And this." He placed a tiny velvet pouch next to it.

Amaya opened the pouch, and her eyes lit up. The silver jhumkas caught the shop's light. They were exactly her style—simple, elegant, not flashy.

"Uzair..." she murmured, with a small giggle. The sound of it made his heart do a frantic tap-dance. "These are beautiful. But you don't have to keep buying me things."

"I want to," Uzair said, his voice dropping to a surprisingly gentle pitch, his usual booming tone completely absent. "Every time I see something beautiful in Karachi, I just... think of you. Dil nahi maanta bina tumhein diye."

Amaya looked up from the jhumkas, her cheeks flushing a warm, deep pink. Looking into his big, honest eyes, she realized the terrifying gangster everyone feared was completely, utterly powerless in front of her. And somewhere between his clumsy apologies, his neat boots, and his genuine respect for her world, she had fallen hopelessly in love with him too.

"Thik ha," she whispered, stepping a little closer to him. "But only if you let me stitch your next kurta. No more of those horrific dark kurtas that you always wear. Wholesale me kharidha tha kya itne saare kaalke kurta?"

Uzair’s face split into a dazzling, euphoric grin. "Even if you stitch me a sack, I’ll wear it to the next gang meeting."

Fast forward a month later. The neighborhood was buzzing because Rehman Dacait’s household was throwing a massive Sunday feast to celebrate a successful business merger—and more importantly, to officially welcome Amaya into their circle.

The courtyard of the grand Baloch mansion was decorated with fairy lights. The air was thick with the rich, heavenly aroma of mutton biryani, platters of kebabs, and hot sheermal.

Everyone was there. Rehman Dacait himself sat on the main sofa, looking intimidating but relaxed, smoking a cigar while his wife and sons chatted animatedly around the table.

Yalina and Hamza were in the corner, arguing intensely over who got the last piece of seekh kebab.

"I found it first, Yalina! Respect the hustle!" Hamza hissed, defending the plate with his fork.

"I am your future wife, Hamza! Give me the kebab or the wedding is off!" Yalina threatened, crossing her arms.

"Ya Allah, look at this extortion," Hamza muttered, immediately handing the plate over with a dramatic sigh.

Near the entrance, Amaya walked in, looking stunning in a simple, elegant white shalwar kameez. Beside her was Chachu Rehmat, looking incredibly proud and no longer terrified, wearing a brand-new, perfectly ironed maroon kurta.

The moment Amaya stepped into the courtyard, Uzair—who was standing with Donga and Siyahi—completely stopped talking. He stood frozen, his eyes glued to her. He was wearing a matching white kurta, beautifully embroidered around the collar by Amaya’s own hands.

"Look at him," Donga chuckled, nudging Siyahi. "Our boss looks like he’s just seen an angel. Bhai ka dimaag phir se freeze ho gaya hai."

Uzair ignored his men and walked straight up to Amaya and Chachu Rehmat. He bowed his head respectfully to the old man. "Assalamu Alaikum, Chachu. Aaiye, aap ke liye special table lagayi hai."

"Wa Alaikum Assalam, Uzair beta. Jeete raho," Chachu Rehmat beamed, patting Uzair’s massive shoulder.

Uzair then turned to Amaya, his eyes softening completely. She was wearing the silver jhumkas he had bought her, dangling elegantly against her neck.

"Bohat khoobsurat laag rahi ho, meri jaan." Uzair whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

"You don't look too bad yourself, Uzair miyan," Amaya smiled, her eyes crinkling. "The embroidery suits you. Mere haatho ka jadu jo hai."

Rehman Dacait noticed them from across the courtyard and boomed out a loud, hearty laugh. "Uzair! Yahan aao! Bring Amaya and Rehmat Chachu here!"

The entire family welcomed them with open arms. Ulfat Bhabhi immediately pulled Amaya into a warm hug, complimenting her boutique work, all the while muttering under her breath about Uzair finally finding a girl for himself. Meanwhile, Rehman himself shook Chachu Rehmat’s hand, assuring him that the boutique would always be under the personal protection of the Baloch family—no hafta required, ever.

As the night went on, everyone sat together, laughing, eating, and pulling Uzair’s leg about how a 5-foot girl had completely captured the heart of Rehman Dacait's brother and Lyari's fiercest man.

Amaya and Uzair sat next to each other on the low traditional seating, their hands secretly brushing against each other under the cover of the table. They weren't rushing into marriage, not yet—Amaya had the boutique to expand and her medical degree to complete and Uzair had to build his empire and had a lot more poetry books to decipher—but looking around at the laughter, the lights, and the giant man looking at her as if she hung the moon, Amaya knew they had found their own perfect happy ending.

From across the table, Hamza raised his glass of cold drink toward Uzair, mouthing, 'You did good, bulldozer.'

Uzair just smiled, holding Amaya’s hand tightly under the table, completely at peace.

Sooooo-my first time writing a Uzair Baloch fanfic (lovelovelovelove my pookie gangstar) 😭😭 Please do like, comment and reblog if you like it my loves🤍🤍

Yessss-I would love tooo✨  But first I have to finish the Uzair Baloch and Sushant Bansal fics glaring at me from the drafts Then I'll pakka come to this 🤍🤍

Author's Note: This fanfiction is based on this particular request (even though the request is mine only)-but since I wanted to try writing it, here we go peps.

Synopsis: To the Intelligence Bureau, she was the perfect ghost—a death-row inmate erased from the state registry and re-engineered from the remnants of a highway horror story. To him, she was the only line that never went dark in a world built on intercepted frequencies and compromised coordinates. But when the cold calculation of war forces her into a lethal, deep-cover deployment in Karachi, their hidden sanctuary fractures. As the lines blow open and the ghosts of their pasts collide, a rogue handler must cross every forbidden border to pull his asset out of the abyss—proving that even in a jungle of crossfire, her love is the only basera he has left.

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is written solely for entertainment purposes and contains a healthy amount of angst. I wrote this without sleeping the whole night and surviving on 3 cups of coffee (pls forgive me beforehand only)

<Previous Chapter

Chapter 4: The Blood on the Concrete and the Beginning of the End

The storm broke over the Lyari delta with a violent, heavy rain. Water poured down in sheets, blurring the rusted metal lines of the shipyards.

Oindrila ran through the mud toward the old hangar. Two hours ago, Major Iqbal’s soldiers had caught Rizwan’s municipal van. Their secret communication line was blown, and time had completely run out.

She slipped inside the giant, leaking iron building through a broken side panel. High up on the overhead cranes, bright halogen lights buzzed, casting long, shaking shadows across the wet concrete floor.

In the center of that blinding light sat Rizwan. He was tied tightly to a heavy iron chair. His face was a swollen, bloody mess from the beating he had taken, and his breathing was shallow and rattling. Major Iqbal stood just a few feet away, surrounded by six elite commandos. His face was completely stone-cold.

But the man standing directly in front of Rizwan, holding a heavy iron crowbar, wasn't a Pakistani soldier. It was Hamza, her Jassi, their Jassi.

"Bata de. Kyun apni jaan de raha hai? Bata dega to phir zaldi marega." Hamza said. His voice had a dark, dangerous edge to it as he tapped the metal bar against the floor. He was playing his part perfectly for Iqbal’s men. But the moment his eyes caught a movement in the dark and saw Oindrila step into the light, his entire posture changed.

"He won't tell you anything, Major," Oindrila’s voice rang through the empty hangar like a gunshot.

Six red laser sights instantly jumped onto her chest. Iqbal gasped, his jaw dropping in pure shock. "Zainab? Tum yahan kya kar rahi ho? Go back to the house!"

Hamza turned slowly, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her reverse-grip knife. Then, the truth slammed into his brain. The simple caretaker from Faisalabad was Oindrila. The girl from the Haryana training camp. His teammate. His friend.

"Well, well, Major Sahab," Hamza said, his voice dropping into a low, deadly purr. He instantly shifted his steps, subtly placing his body between Iqbal’s guards and Oindrila, covering three red laser lights with his body only. "Your quiet nanny just walked right into a military interrogation. That means she’s the spy you've been looking for."

"Zainab, tell me it’s a mistake!" Iqbal roared, his voice cracking with deep betrayal. He pulled his pistol, his hand shaking as he pointed it at her. "I trusted you with my daughter! Tumne mere bachhe ka istemaal kiya!"

"I protected her, Iqbal!" Oindrila shouted back, keeping her blade steady. "I kept her safe from your bloody world!"

Before Iqbal could pull the trigger, a silhouette burst through the hangar’s main entrance. It was Sushant. His clothes were soaked with rain and engine grease, and he held his standard-issue Glock straight ahead. "Oindrila, hatto piche!"

"Who the hell are you?!" Iqbal yelled, his eyes darting from Sushant to the weapon in his hand, completely blindsided by this unknown intruder breaching his secure zone.

The guards turned their guns toward Sushant, but Hamza didn't wait for an order. His loyalty wasn't to the underworld or the Pakistani military; it belonged to the blood promise they had all made back in the secret Indian training camp. His loyalty was to his sister, not these men.

With a fast, brutal swing, Hamza spun around and drove the heavy iron crowbar straight into the chest of the nearest commando.

"Rizwan, Oin, nikal yahan se!" Hamza roared, pulling a hidden gun from his leather jacket and opening fire on Iqbal’s inner circle.

The hangar erupted into a deafening chaos of flashes and flying metal. Hamza and Sushant fired from two different sides, systematically dropping the elite guards before they could aim properly.

Oindrila lunged through the smoke, her knife slicing quickly through the thick ropes holding Rizwan to the iron chair. Rizwan fell forward into her arms, coughing up dark blood. "Oin... tum yahan... tum teeno paagal ho..."

"Shut up, Riz. Chupchaap khade ho," Oindrila hissed. She hoisted his heavy, weak body over her shoulder just as a commando’s stray bullet shattered the concrete right near her feet.

Across the floor, Major Iqbal was scrambling back toward his armored vehicle, firing blindly through the smoke. He was wounded, bleeding from a shoulder hit where Sushant's bullet had caught him, but his eyes were still locked on Oindrila with pure, vengeful anger.

"You won't leave this city alive, Oindrila!" Iqbal screamed, coughing from the smoke. "I will hunt you to the ends of the earth!"

He never got the chance.

Hamza stepped out from behind a giant shipping crate, his face lit up by a cold flash of gunfire. He didn't hesitate. He raised his gun and fired two heavy shots directly into Major Iqbal’s chest.

The head of ISI staggered backward, his eyes wide with shock, before crashing heavily onto the wet concrete. The system was officially broken.

Hamza ran over to them, his leather jacket covered in dirt and blood, breathing heavily. He clapped a hand on Sushant’s uninjured shoulder, then looked at Oindrila and the weakened Rizwan.

"Tum log abhi ke abhi nikal rahe ho," Hamza barked, his voice urgent but deeply protective. "The cleanup squad sent from Delhi will be here in forty minutes to erase the evidence, and the local military garrison is going to swarm this whole delta in fifteen minutes. The port is crawling with patrols now. You can't use the escape boat anymore."

"Then how do we cross the border, Hamza?" Sushant demanded, pressing a hand against his bleeding arm.

Hamza reached into his pocket and slammed a heavy set of keys into Oindrila’s hand, along with a laminated military road pass.

"Take Iqbal’s private armored SUV from the back lot," Hamza ordered. "The windshield has his official command sticker. Drive straight back to his house. Get Laiba."

Oindrila frozen. "Laiba? Main usko kyun lekar jaungi? Why would I take her? And Jassi... why did you tell Iqbal there was a female spy in his house in the first place? Tumne mere baare mein kyun bataya?"

Hamza let out a sharp, quick breath, looking at her with absolute intensity. "Listen to me, Oin. Sushant contacted me through the emergency frequency two nights ago. He told me he was going to extract an Indian asset from Iqbal's house before dawn, no matter what. I didn't know it was you. I had to throw Iqbal off your track. I deliberately dropped a hint about a 'spy' in his house to cause absolute chaos, panic him, and distract his attention away from the coastal routes and other ongoing operations so you guys could slip away safely. I had no idea your escape got botched and you were still in the house!"

He gripped her shoulder tighter, his voice cutting through the noise of the rain.

"And now, Iqbal is dead, Oin! The moment the military processes this shootout, they will take that little girl away. They'll dump her in a state asylum or use her to hunt down our remaining people. She only trusts you. Take her, use Iqbal’s official family pass, and drive straight through the desert border checkpoint. The guards won't dare search the Major’s personal family car if his daughter is sitting inside."

Oindrila looked at the keys in her hand, then looked back at Hamza. "And you, Jassi? Tumhara kya?"

Hamza wiped a streak of blood from his forehead and gave her that same wild, confident smile from their old training days. "This is Lyari, Oin. This is my territory now. I will mess up the clues, blame the entire shootout on the local gang wars, and clean up the records from this side. Now go! Nikal yahan se!"

The armored SUV tore through the flooded streets of Karachi, its bright headlights cutting through the blinding monsoon rain. Sushant sat in the passenger seat, tearing a long strip of cloth from his cotton shirt to tightly bind his bleeding shoulder wound. Behind them, Rizwan lay semi-conscious across the wide leather back seat, breathing heavily but alive.

Oindrila slammed on the brakes, bringing the heavy vehicle to a hard, skidding stop right in front of the main porch of the darkened Iqbal estate.

"Stay with Rizwan," Oindrila told Sushant, her voice tight. "Keep the engine running."

She sprinted up the grand marble staircase, her wet boots leaving heavy, muddy tracks on the clean white floors. She burst into the second-floor nursery.

Laiba was wide awake. She was sitting in the corner of her bed, clutching her faceless rag doll tightly to her chest. Her small body was shaking violently from the loud cracks of thunder outside. When she saw the door fly open, she pulled back to scream—but then her eyes adjusted to the dim green nightlight, recognizing Oindrila's shape.

"Zainab baji," Laiba whispered, her voice a tiny, frightened thread.

Oindrila dropped to her knees by the bed, wrapping arms tightly around the little girl and pulling her close. She didn't smell like lavender water anymore; she smelled of rain, gunpowder, and blood.

The cold weight of the survival situation, the freezing rain outside, and the sudden fear of losing everything suddenly triggered a memory from the training compound—the precise moment their silent understanding turned into spoken words.

Flashback~

A torrential monsoon downpour had turned the Haryana compound into a dark, muddy lake. Oindrila had spent four straight hours on the outdoor combat mat, failing to execute a high-stakes disarmament move against Jassi. Her wrists were raw, her skin scraped, and her clothes were soaked through with freezing water.

Sushant had stood under the tin roof of the veranda, his jaw set, calling out corrections until his voice was rough. Finally, he slammed his clipboard onto a plastic chair and marched right out into the pouring rain, grabbing her upper arms to pull her away from the drill.

"That’s enough for today, Oindrila," he barked, his eyes blazing behind rain-spattered lenses. "You are completely unfocused. You are leaving your left flank entirely open. If you fight like this in the field, you won't last ten seconds."

"Then let me fail!" she had screamed back, the hot tears mixing instantly with the freezing rainwater running down her face. She shoved his chest, her breathing jagged. "Why do you care so much? You saved me from the gallows just to scream at me in the mud? Jassi can take the hit! Rizwan can take the hit! Why are you always breaking me down?"

"Because I can't replace you!" Sushant roared back, his voice suddenly cracking, completely shattering his administrative composure. He grabbed her wrists, holding them tight against his chest, the rain plastering his hair to his forehead. "I don't care about the registry, Oindrila. I don't care about Sanyal’s timelines. If Jassi falls, it’s a collateral damage to me. If you fall, I lose my entire world. God damn it, look at me! Main tumse pyaar karta hoon!"

The admission hung between them, heavy and raw, louder than the thunder crashing over the fields. Oindrila’s anger vanished instantly, her breath hitching as she stared at the fierce, agonizing love in his eyes.

"Sushant..." she whispered.

He didn't let her finish. Pulling her forward by her waist, he slammed his mouth onto hers. The kiss was desperate, tasting of salt, rainwater, and the violent fear of loss. His hands tangled into her wet hair, holding her close as if he could shield her from the entire Bureau by sheer force of will.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down into the downpour, matching his desperation. It was the first time they had said it, and the first time they had completely crossed the line.

"Laiba, meri jaan, listen to me," Oindrila said, snapping back to the reality of the dark nursery as she tightened her embrace around the little girl. Her voice dropped into that calm, slow rhythm she had used for months to soothe the child’s worst panic attacks. "We are going on a journey right now. To the mountains. The ones where the snow never melts, where it’s so quiet you can hear the birds breathe. Hum wahan ja rahe hain. But you have to be very quiet for me. Can you do that?"

Laiba looked into Oindrila's eyes, seeing the absolute, protective wall behind them. The little girl nodded once, her small fingers wrapping tightly around the fabric of Oindrila’s jacket.

Oindrila scooped the child up into her arms, grabbed her small bag of medicine from the side table, and ran back down to the idling SUV. She placed Laiba securely in the back seat right next to Rizwan, handing her the doll.

"Stay low under the blanket, Laiba," Oindrila murmured, covering her completely.

She threw the vehicle into gear, smashed right through the pouring rain and turned the hood directly toward the long highway leading east toward the desert border.

The drive toward the desert checkpoint at Khokrapar was a tense, silent nightmare. The heavy monsoon rain followed them for the first two hours, hammering against the SUV's reinforced roof like loose gravel.

In the back seat, Laiba remained perfectly still under her heavy wool blanket, her small hand tightly holding onto the edge of Rizwan’s sleeve. Rizwan was drifting in and out of sleep, his face pale, but the bleeding from his deeper cuts had stopped.

"How is the arm?" Oindrila asked quietly, her eyes glued to the dark, empty highway.

Sushant rested his head against the headrest, his face pale under the dashboard lights. "The bullet went straight through the muscle. It hurts like hell, but it's fine. Just keep driving, Oin. Don't slow down."

By the time the sky turned a pale, dusty gray, the wet roads of Sindh turned into the dry, flat expanses of the desert border. Up ahead, the floodlights of the massive military checkpoint cut through the morning mist. Heavy iron barricades blocked the road, surrounded by sandbags and armed border guards.

Oindrila felt her chest tighten. She slowed the vehicle down, her fingers gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white.

"Sushant," she whispered. "Checkpoint aa gaya."

"Keep your head up," Sushant said, his voice dropping into his calm, authoritative director tone. He pushed his bloody arm deeper into his jacket to hide it. "You are Zainab Malik. You are driving the Major’s daughter to their family estate near the border because of the security emergency in Karachi. Let them see the command sticker on the glass."

A guard stepped forward, waving a red flag for them to stop. Two other soldiers stood by the side, their automatic rifles held ready.

Oindrila rolled down the window just an inch, letting the cool desert air rush into the warm car. She handed the laminated military transit pass Hamza had given her through the crack, along with Major Iqbal’s official family ID cards.

The guard looked at the pass, then looked at the heavy command sticker on the windshield. His expression instantly changed from suspicious to respectful.

"Zainab sahiba?" the guard asked, looking into the vehicle. "This is Major Iqbal’s personal transport. Where is the Major?"

"The Major is managing the security lockdown at the Karachi garrison," Oindrila said. Her Urdu was perfectly smooth, carrying the exact soft tone of a civilian worker employed by a high-ranking officer. "He ordered us to move his daughter out of the defense sector immediately. The city is not safe right now."

The guard shined his flashlight into the back seat. The light passed over Rizwan, who pretended to be a sick, sleeping uncle, and landed on Laiba. The little girl blinked in the bright light, shrinking back against the seat, clutching her doll tightly.

"The child needs her rest," Oindrila added, her voice sharpening just a fraction with protective authority. "We have been driving all night."

The guard quickly lowered his flashlight. He recognized the Major’s daughter from the official family documents. No one at a desert outpost wanted to anger the most powerful cISI officer in Karachi by delaying his family during a crisis.

"Apologies, sahiba," the guard said. He stamped the transit pass and handed it back. He turned to the guard tower and shouted, "Barricade hatao!"

The heavy iron gates creaked open. Oindrila rolled up the window, hit the gas, and drove the SUV smoothly across the zero-line, leaving Pakistan behind in the morning dust.

Three days later, the morning sun rose over the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, India. The air here didn't taste like Karachi’s salt or the dusty heat of the desert checkposts; it was crisp, freezing, and completely clean.

A small, single-story wooden cottage sat tucked behind a thick grove of pine and deodar trees, completely hidden from the winding mountain roads below. There were no telephone wires running to the roof. No computer systems in the basement. No intelligence files on the tables.

On the wooden veranda, Rizwan sat wrapped in a heavy wool shawl in a wide wicker chair, a hot, steaming cup of tea held in his hands. The swelling on his face had gone down significantly, and his breathing was deep and clear as the pure mountain air filled his lungs.

Below in the small, stone-walled garden, eight-year-old Laiba was sitting near a patch of fresh snow. For the first time in her life, she wasn't hiding under a dark desk or shaking from the sound of sirens. She held a small basket of pinecones and smooth mountain stones, carefully arranging them into a perfect circle on the soft white ground. A soft, genuine smile touched her face as the gentle morning wind rustled the pine needles above. She had finally reached the place where the snow never melted—the place where it was so quiet you could hear the birds breathe.

Oindrila stood by the wooden railing of the porch, wearing a thick, handwoven wool shawl over a simple cotton saree. Her eyes were fixed on the peaceful mountain skyline.

A pair of strong, familiar arms wrapped gently around her waist from behind. Sushant pressed his chin against her shoulder, his breathing steady and calm. His bandaged arm rested comfortably against her side under the heavy layers of their winter clothes.

"Sanyal processed the final paperwork this morning," Sushant murmured softly into her ear, his voice rough but peaceful. "The Bureau has closed the files on Zainab Malik and Rizwan Shah, listing the asset as a casualty of the Karachi sector shootout. And as for me..." He let out a quiet, tired breath. "...Sanyal handled my exit personally. On paper, Deputy Director Sushant Bansal has been medically retired from active duty due to permanent injuries sustained during a cross-border raid. I am officially an outsider to the agency now, Oin. Hum azad hain."

Oindrila turned around in his embrace, placing her hands flat against his chest, looking up into his clear eyes. The bloodshot fatigue and the cold stress were entirely gone, replaced by a deep quiet she hadn't seen since the day they first met in the cells of Tihar Jail.

"Is it safe here, Sushant?" she whispered, the very last echo of her heavy past fading away into the clear mountain air.

Sushant leaned down, his lips pressing gently against hers—a long, slow promise that washed away the thirty days in the highway basement, the mud of the training camps, and the blood of the Lyari shipyards.

"It's completely quiet, Oin," he whispered back, looking out at the snowy garden where Laiba was laughing at a small mountain sparrow hopping near her stones. "The noise is over."

Later that evening, the fierce chill of the afternoon softened into a warm, amber twilight. The jagged mountain peaks were painted in deep shades of gold and violet, and a gentle snow began to drift down from the quiet sky. Rizwan had taken Laiba inside the cottage to stoke the fireplace and show her how to sketch the cedar trees they could see out the back window, leaving the clearing completely empty.

Sushant gently took Oindrila’s hand and led her down the wooden porch steps, walking out into the quiet clearing where the soft, fresh snow crunched gently under their boots.

Sushant stopped walking and turned to face her. The golden light of the setting sun caught the sharp angles of his face, making him look younger, completely stripped of the heavy burdens of the Intelligence Bureau. He reached into his pocket with his uninjured hand, his fingers slipping past the fabric to pull out a small, dark velvet box.

Oindrila’s breath caught in her throat.

"I went to the small market town down the valley while you were resting this afternoon," Sushant said, his voice dropping into that deep, gentle baritone that always acted as her anchor. His fingers trembled slightly as he opened the box, revealing a beautiful, elegant gold band inset with a small, brilliant diamond. "I told you once that I wanted that future with the woman who wanted a house in Chandigarh, but it died when I handed you that manila folder. I know the scars we carry are deep, Oin. I know we can never fully go back to who we were before the safehouses and the shootouts."

He stepped closer, closing the final inch of distance between them, his eyes locked onto hers with a fierce, unwavering devotion.

"But the man standing in front of you isn't a Deputy Director anymore. I have no more files, no more operations, and no more secrets. I am just a man who has loved you since the night I pulled a heavy iron water bucket from your hands in the freezing rain," he whispered, a soft, genuine smile touching his lips. "I don't want to give you a placeholder ring or a temporary identity anymore. I want to give you a real home. I want to give you my name, my life, and every quiet morning we have left."

He took the ring out of the box, holding it up between them, his hand completely steady now.

"Oindrila Banerjee, will you marry me? Kya tum hamesha ke liye meri banogi?"

Tears of pure, unadulterated happiness finally spilled over Oindrila’s lashes, tracking down her cheeks in the warm twilight. The heavy, protective walls she had built around her heart vanished completely, leaving behind nothing but a profound sense of peace. She looked past his shoulder at the small wooden cottage, then looked back at his beautiful, clear eyes.

"Yes," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion as she stepped into his space, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "Yes, Sushant. Main hamesha ke liye tumhari hoon."

Sushant let out a long, ragged breath of pure relief and slid the gold band securely onto her left ring finger. It fit perfectly, warm and bright against the cold white backdrop of the mountains. He pulled her flush against his chest, his uninjured arm wrapping tightly around her waist as he held her close, shielding her from the falling snow.

As his lips met hers in a deep, slow, and passionate kiss, the distant sound of Laiba’s soft laughter drifted out from the open windows of the cottage.

The storm had passed, the files were burned, and in the quiet sanctuary of the mountains, they had finally found their home.

AND THAT'S A WRAP GUYSSS Sooooo-what do you guys think of this?? This is legit my first time writing a series on tumblr to pehle se hu maafi mang rahi hu if something goes wrong or anyone gets offended. Plsss do vote and comment if you like it. Thank you for reading XOXO

TAGS:

@luvvkk @whyishekinda @mainyahaankyunhoon @rehmandakaitswife @365daywritingchallenge @opheliasreblog @wtafananya @moonysscar @gehra-hua @velvetdakait @twinblueflamee @rabbdaradio @tojisloft @golgappalicious @goodasaysboo @lessbutliving @torumii @desigal-26 @desi-brownie @depressedgiftedburnout @misteriadare @maraudersbitchesassemble @royaldreamermonsoon @precioussophia @carbonaramarinara @fellivra @tere-naal-nachna @yearnerray @mysticalnightingale @hamzakamehroomkurta @ishq-e-rehman @s4nzt @fluffycheesecakey @indigo-pdf @nazmnotes @maxpaglu @kamalkafool @peonies7002 @rosesandpeoniesthings  @granddynamonovajbvgjjj @maiajeebhoon @gulaabjamun08 @idonthavechatpateusernamed  @shesmykindofwoman @willowsgoldenhour @diyak11 @luckilyweepingsamurai @jassikilassi @sweetestsummer @buchanana00 @allthingsmythology @ishqdigallivichnoentry @mujhekoimarsbhejdo @khoonaurkhanjar

Author's Note: This fanfiction is based on this particular request (even though the request is mine only)-but since I wanted to try writing it, here we go peps.

Synopsis: To the Intelligence Bureau, she was the perfect ghost—a death-row inmate erased from the state registry and re-engineered from the remnants of a highway horror story. To him, she was the only line that never went dark in a world built on intercepted frequencies and compromised coordinates. But when the cold calculation of war forces her into a lethal, deep-cover deployment in Karachi, their hidden sanctuary fractures. As the lines blow open and the ghosts of their pasts collide, a rogue handler must cross every forbidden border to pull his asset out of the abyss—proving that even in a jungle of crossfire, her love is the only basera he has left.

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is written solely for entertainment purposes and contains a healthy amount of angst (pls forgive me beforehand only)

<Previous Chapter Next Chapter>

Chapter 3: The Anatomy of a Cover

"Your name is Zainab Malik," Sushant said, his voice flat as he laid out the fake credentials on the desk back in the present day. "A pediatric therapist from Faisalabad. Your medical degrees have already been back-dated and integrated into the Lahore health registry. The background check is airtight."

Oindrila picked up the silver fountain pen he had placed beside the passport. It felt unusually heavy in her palm.

"The ink cartridge inside is a localized transmitter," Sushant explained, his eyes fixed on her hands. "It has a range of fifty meters. You cannot transmit back to Delhi from Iqbal’s house. But every Tuesday night at midnight, a Cantonment Board municipal van will park outside the main perimeter gate. You drop the data cartridge into the mailbox by the fence, and the van's receiver will sync it automatically. The driver is Rizwan."

The mention of Rizwan hit her like a physical blow. "Rizwan wahan hai?"

"He is managing the mobile transit lines," Sushant nodded. "He knows an asset named Zainab is being placed, but he doesn't know it's you. The fewer people who know your real face, the safer you are. Hamza doesn't know either. He is deeply embedded within the Baloch gangs right now; a distraction could get him killed."

Oindrila tucked the pen into the pocket of her kurta, her expression hardening into something cold and distant. "I will play the part, Sushant. I will win Major Iqbal’s trust, and I will get all the information you need-I'll do it for you."

Sushant stood up, finally breaking the professional distance between them. He stepped around the desk, his hand reaching up, his thumb gently brushing against her cheek to catch a stray tear she hadn't realized had fallen.

"Oin, please," he whispered, his voice thick with raw torment. "Look at me. Mujhe pata hai tum kya soch rahi ho. You think I'm betraying you. But Sanyal is half losing his mind after the 26/11 attacks. If I don't manage this operation from my desk, Sanyal will handle your deployment himself to bring the Lyari underworld now. Taab use koi farak nabhi parega kaun collateral damage hoga aur kaun successfull. And if he sends you, you go in with no safety net. No one to control the extraction variables. I am doing this to keep you alive."

Oindrila leaned into his touch for one fleeting, desperate second, closing her eyes to breathe in his familiar scent—sandalwood soap and old paper. It was the smell of the life she was being forced to leave behind.

Then, she stepped back, out of his reach.

"Do not make me promises about a normal life anymore, Sushant," she said, her voice dropping into a calm, chillingly precise cadence. "Because the woman who wanted that house is staying right here in this basement. The woman going to Karachi is Zainab Malik. Aur woh tumko nahi jaanti."

The air in Karachi tasted exactly like Rizwan had warned her once: thick, damp, and heavily laden with salt from the Arabian Sea.

For three months, Oindrila had lived inside the whitewashed concrete fortress of the estate. She wore her dupattas pinned high and modest, her Urdu laced with the soft, rolling cadence of Faisalabad she had practiced for hours in front of a mirror. Her hands, once calloused from weapon slides, were now smooth and smelled of lavender water.

"Zainab baji, look," eight-year-old Laiba whispered, sitting on the plush Persian rug of the nursery.

The little girl was clutching her faceless rag doll, her eyes fixed on a set of colored flashcards Oindrila had spread out. It had taken weeks of quiet patience, of sitting in silence while the child screamed and threw toys, just to get Laiba to tolerate her presence. Now, the child’s knee was resting gently against Oindrila’s—a silent, monumental declaration of absolute trust.

The heavy teak door of the nursery clicked open.

Major Iqbal stood in the doorway. He was still in his crisp olive military uniform, his beret tucked under his shoulder strap. He carried the heavy aura of a man who decided who lived and died before breakfast. But as his eyes fell on his daughter, the terrifying, rigid lines around his mouth softened completely.

"Is she eating, Zainab sahiba?" Iqbal asked, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone.

"She had half a bowl of khichdi, Major Sahab," Oindrila replied keeping her tone soft and respectful. "And she let me brush her hair without crying today. Progress is slow, but she is settling."

Iqbal stepped into the room, his polished boots clicking softly on the carpet. He reached down, his large, scarred hand gently stroking Laiba’s hair. The child didn't flinch.

"The doctors in Rawalpindi told me she would never tolerate a stranger in this house," Iqbal murmured, flattening his sharp, light brown eyes onto Oindrila’s face. He looked at her with the deep, searching intensity of a seasoned interrogator. "You have a remarkable patience, Zainab. This country lacks it."

"It isn't a gift, Sir," Oindrila said softly, keeping her eyes cast downward. "It's just... knowing what it feels like to be locked inside your own head. Wanting to speak, but knowing that no one outside understands the language you're using."

Iqbal paused, his hand staying still on his daughter’s head. For a fraction of a second, the fearsome ISI Major looked profoundly, agonizingly lonely.

"Yes," Iqbal said quietly, his voice carrying a sudden, crushing weight. "That is a very lonely place to be. Yahan koi nahi samajhta."

He turned back toward the door, his posture stiffening back into military precision. "My orderly will bring up the weekly household logs tonight. Review them. If Laiba needs anything from the medical stores, write it down. You have my permission."

"Thank you, Major Sahab."

As the door clicked shut, Oindrila let out a slow, silent breath. Her hand went to her linen pocket, her fingers brushing against the cold clip of the silver fountain pen. She had bypassed his initial defenses. The target was human, and that made him vulnerable.

By late October, the dry, dusty chill from the Balochistan hills had swept into Karachi, turning the nights bitter. Inside the estate, the air had grown razor-sharp. The internal security audit from Rawalpindi was closing in; Iqbal spent consecutive nights at the Cantonment headquarters, searching for the source of the data leak.

Oindrila had successfully used the silver pen to extract the mirror terminal’s source codes, dropping the cartridges to Rizwan every Tuesday night. The first time Oindrila saw Rizwan-both of them stared at each other longer than necessary. Thousands of memories and emotions flashing in their eyes. But they only gave each other a nod-in fear of being heard, or worse, being caught.

But tonight, the equilibrium shattered.

It was midnight. Iqbal was hosting a private dinner for high-ranking intelligence officers on the ground floor. Oindrila walked down the grand marble staircase to ensure the perimeter doors were locked before the guard shift changed.

The heavy doors of Iqbal’s private study were slightly ajar. A single desk lamp threw long, distorted shadows across the room. Oindrila stepped forward to close it, but a rough, heavily accented voice from inside made her entire body freeze.

"Apne to kaha tha ki Sher-e-Baloch banne ke baad aap mujhe politics chor kar baki kaam me aur bhi zyada involve karenge, Major."

Oindrila slid into the deep shadow of the corridor, her spine pressing hard against the cold concrete. She tilted her head, her eyes catching the reflection in the polished glass of a nearby display cabinet.

Sitting on the edge of Iqbal’s mahogany desk, casually tossing an unlit cigarette in the air, was Hamza Ali Mazari.

Jassi.

He looked completely unrecognizable from the boy who had pulled her out of the dirt in Haryana. He wore a heavy leather jacket, his beard long and wild, his eyes gleaming with a manic, unpredictable energy. He wasn't playing a part anymore; the underworld had consumed him entirely.

"Uzair Baloch is out of the picture," Hamza continued, a cruel smirk on his lips as he looked at Iqbal. "Lyari is entirely under my grid now. If your counter-intelligence wing wants the Indian border logs intercepted, my boys can handle the transit. But I need the clearance codes for the coastal checkpoints."

Iqbal didn't look up from his maps. "Your loyalty is expensive, Hamza. Rehman Dakait trusted you, and now he is in a graveyard."

"Rehman was old, Major Sahab. He thought like a gangster," Hamza laughed, a sharp, barking sound that made Oindrila’s stomach twist. "I think like a businessman. On top of that, SP Aslam was a loose canon regarding Rehman. You and I both know that very well. I nearly lost my life while escaping from his wrath. You give me the coastal codes, and I guarantee no Indian spy breathes the sea breeze of Karachi by the end of the month."

Iqbal paused, his fountain pen hovering over the paper. "There is an audit happening right now. Rawalpindi believes the leak is coming directly from my domestic router. I cannot release the coastal codes until my own house is cleared."

Hamza leaned in, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Then clear it fast, Major. Because the word on the street is that Indian intelligence has a ghost planted right under your nose. Trained in Delhi."

Oindrila’s breath hitched. Her hand instinctively reached into the folds of her dress, her fingers wrapping around the cold handle of a silver fruit knife she had slipped from the kitchen counter earlier.

Jassi doesn't know it's me, she realized, her heart thumping violently against her ribs. Sushant never gave him my face or my cover. To Hamza, I am just an unnamed threat to his operation.

"I am aware of the rumors," Iqbal said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he stood up. "But my perimeter is airtight. The only woman in this house who stays all day and night is my daughter's caretaker, a simple girl from Faisalabad. She doesn't know the difference between a satellite router and a television remote. Other than that-it's just the cooks and some staff who only stay for a few hours-my security at home tracks every movements. You don't have to worry about them."

Hamza picked up his lighter, flicking the flame on and off, illuminating his scarred face. "Just be careful, Major. Kabhi kabhi seedhe dikhne wale log hi sabse pehle gala kaat te hain."

An hour later, the estate was completely dark. Hamza had left through the front gate under the escort of Iqbal’s private security detail.

Oindrila slipped out of the side door, her heart a frantic, roaring engine. The night air was freezing, and a thick mist had rolled in from the harbor. She needed to reach the perimeter fence. She needed to tell Rizwan that Hamza was tracking the ghost network.

She reached the iron gate, her hands trembling as she peered through the bars into the empty, misty road.

The white municipal van wasn't there.

Instead, a lone figure stood under the broken streetlamp across the road, a cigarette burning down between his fingers. He wore a dark wool shawl pulled over his shoulders to shield against the coastal chill.

As the figure stepped into the weak, flickering light, Oindrila’s breath left her completely.

It was Sushant.

He looked broken. His hair was heavily streaked with gray, his face gaunt, his trademark tailored suit replaced by a coarse, local cotton kurta. He looked like a man who had crossed an international border on foot through a minefield.

"Oin," he whispered, his voice cracking across the narrow, empty road. He didn't dare step closer to the gate; the security cameras were active, though he seemed to have mapped their blind spots perfectly.

"Sushant," she choked out, her hands gripping the cold iron bars until her knuckles turned white. "Tum yahan kya kar rahe ho? You're supposed to be at the Delhi desk."

"I left the desk, Oin," Sushant said, his eyes scanning the perimeter walls with frantic urgency. "The Rawalpindi audit cracked our mirror frequency. Sanyal is already preparing the cleanup protocols to protect the larger grid. He thinks you're going to get caught, and if Iqbal breaks you, the whole network goes down. I couldn't sit in that basement and watch your terminal go dark."

He stepped half an inch closer, the raw, bleeding angst in his eyes shattering her defenses.

"I have a vehicle three blocks away," he whispered, his hands reaching out toward her through the dark air. "A fishing trawler is waiting at the Korangi creek. We can clear Pakistani waters by dawn. I don't care about Sanyal, or the Bureau, or the mirror terminal anymore. Main tumko lene aaya hoon. Let’s go to Chandigarh, Oin. Let's just leave."

Chandigarh. The word sounded like a fairy tale from a life she had lived a thousand years ago. She looked at his face—the man who had ruined his career, his honor, and his safety just to cross a blood-soaked border to pull her out of the abyss.

Then, she looked back at the dark, silent estate behind her.

She thought of Laiba, who was sleeping with a faceless doll, trusting her to be there when the morning noise started. She thought of Major Iqbal, who had looked at her with absolute sincerity because he thought she was the only clean thing left in his world. And she thought of Jassi and Rizwan, who were risking their lives because they believed the mission still mattered.

If she left tonight, Iqbal would realize who she was within hours. He would unleash the full force of the ISI. They would hunt her and Sushant down before their trawler even cleared the harbor.

"Sushant," she said, her voice turning incredibly soft, losing its panic, settling into a cold, tragic peace.

Slowly, she pulled her left hand out from the folds of her shawl. She raised it, letting the faint light of the moon catch her bare ring finger. The cheap silver band he had given her in Delhi—as a placeholder till he actually proposes, a proof of their love-was gone, she had buried it deep in the rose garden weeks ago.

"You're too late," she whispered, a single, silent tear cutting a path through the dust on her cheek. "The girl who wanted that house died the night you handed me that manila folder. I belong to this house now. I belong to this fight."

"Oin, please," he begged, his voice breaking completely, a low, agonized sound that tore through the quiet street. "Aisa mat karo. Don't do this to us. I can save you."

"You can't save anyone, Sushant," she said, her voice hardening into the lethal precision of a true Dhurandhar asset. "Go back. If you stay in Karachi, Hamza will find you. And he won't look at you as a Deputy Director. He will look at you as a target. Yahan se chale jao."

She took a slow step backward, retreating into the heavy shadows of the courtyard.

"Goodbye, Sushant."

"Oindrila!" he called out, a desperate, strangled whisper, but the darkness of the Iqbal estate had already swallowed her whole.

Sushant stood alone under the blinking streetlamp, his hands dropping to his sides, his shoulders shaking as the freezing coastal mist settled into his bones. He had saved his country, he had broken his laws, but he had lost the only thing that made him human.

Sooooo-what do you guys think of this?? This is legit my first time writing on tumblr to pehle se hu maafi mang rahi hu if something goes wrong or anyone gets offended. Plsss do vote and comment if you like it. The next part will be up soon. Thank you for reading XOXO TAGS:

@luvvkk @whyishekinda @mainyahaankyunhoon @rehmandakaitswife @365daywritingchallenge @opheliasreblog @wtafananya @moonysscar @gehra-hua @velvetdakait @twinblueflamee @rabbdaradio @tojisloft @golgappalicious @goodasaysboo @lessbutliving @torumii @desigal-26 @desi-brownie @depressedgiftedburnout @misteriadare @maraudersbitchesassemble @royaldreamermonsoon @precioussophia @carbonaramarinara @fellivra @tere-naal-nachna @yearnerray @mysticalnightingale @hamzakamehroomkurta @ishq-e-rehman @s4nzt @fluffycheesecakey @indigo-pdf @nazmnotes @maxpaglu @kamalkafool @peonies7002 @rosesandpeoniesthings  @granddynamonovajbvgjjj @maiajeebhoon @idonthavechatpateusernamed  @shesmykindofwoman @willowsgoldenhour @diyak11 @luckilyweepingsamurai @jassikilassi @sweetestsummer @buchanana00 @allthingsmythology @ishqdigallivichnoentry @mujhekoimarsbhejdo @khoonaurkhanjar @artaholiccccc

Author's Note: This fanfiction is based on this particular request (even though the request is mine only)-but since I wanted to try writing it, here we go peps.

Synopsis: To the Intelligence Bureau, she was the perfect ghost—a death-row inmate erased from the state registry and re-engineered from the remnants of a highway horror story. To him, she was the only line that never went dark in a world built on intercepted frequencies and compromised coordinates. But when the cold calculation of war forces her into a lethal, deep-cover deployment in Karachi, their hidden sanctuary fractures. As the lines blow open and the ghosts of their pasts collide, a rogue handler must cross every forbidden border to pull his asset out of the abyss—proving that even in a jungle of crossfire, her love is the only basera he has left.

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is written solely for entertainment purposes and contains a healthy amount of angst (pls forgive me beforehand only)

<Previous Chapter Next Chapter>

Chapter Two: The Highway and the Ghost

The mention of the training camp didn't just bring back memories; it pulled open wounds that had never truly healed. Oindrila sat in the passenger seat of Sushant’s unmarked vehicle as they drove toward the safehouse on the outskirts of Delhi, the city lights blurring through her tears.

To the world, she was an elite intelligence operative. But five years ago, she had just been a regular girl with a university degree, a library card, and a best friend named Aditi.

“Oin, chal na, late ho raha hai,” Aditi’s voice echoed from a memory so vivid it felt like a haunting.

It had been a rainy Tuesday night in Haryana. Their scooty had broken down on a dark patch of the state highway while returning from a concert. Then came the headlights—a black Scorpio pulling up, cutting off the wind. Four men. Then six. Then more.

Thirty days. For thirty days, the world had shrunk to a windowless concrete basement smelling of damp earth, country liquor, and pure terror. They were held hostage, brutalized, stripped of every shred of human dignity. Like clockwork-the men used to come one by one, sometimes more than one, put the gags on their mouths and raped them and all they could do was watch and scream. Eventually, the screaming also stopped-their voices raspy and quiet-as if their throat gave up on them. It got worse day by day with no way out.

The only thing that kept Oindrila breathing was the feeling of Aditi’s small, trembling fingers holding onto hers in the absolute dark of that cellar. “Hum ghar jayenge, Oin. Pakka jayenge,” Aditi had whispered every single night, when the men opened their restraints and allowed them little bit peace at night, only to continue the nightmare the next morning.

Until the thirty-first morning. (or was it thirty-second?-she didn't even remember-she lost counting after 12 days or so)

Oindrila had crawled across the cold floor to wake her, only to find Aditi’s skin completely ice-cold. Her best friend’s eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling. The light was gone.

Something inside Oindrila didn't just break; it died completely, and in its place, something monstrous was born. The anger wasn't hot—it was a freezing, calculated storm.

When another man came with his daily ritual of putting the restraints on them, she didn't scream. She took the rusted iron pipe propped against the water basin and drove it through his throat.

Seventeen men lived in that compound. By the time the local police arrived after a tip-off from a passing truck driver, Oindrila was sitting on the front porch in the pouring rain, her clothes soaked in dark grease and blood, staring at her raw hands. She had killed every single one of them.

The courts didn't care about the nearly thirty days of rape and the dead body of her best friend. They didn't care about the basement. They saw seventeen bodies ruthlessly killed and a girl who hadn't shed a single tear during the entire trial. The sentence was swift: Sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead.

Her parents came to the last trial once, and once they heard that their daughter was going to be hanged, they never showed their faces again—as if they could not bear to see her near death, or maybe they were ashamed of her. Oindrila never got the chance to ask them that. She wasn't even allowed to go to Aditi's last rites. Aditi's parents had cried in her arms one final time before she was sent off to Tihar Jail. Oindrila begged them to forgive her—to forgive her for not saving their daughter, to forgive her for surviving alone, to forgive her for being the one left alive while their daughter was dead. Maybe they forgave her eventually, but she never got the answer to that either.

Two weeks before her execution date in Tihar jail, the heavy iron door of her cell had groaned open at 3:00 AM. Director Ajay Sanyal and Deputy Director Sushant Bansal had walked in.

Sanyal had flipped through her case file, looking at her with a strange, clinical respect. "Seventeen men, Oindrila. No military background. No training. Just pure, lethal survival instinct. The state wants to hang you to make an example. We want to erase your name from the government registry and give you targets that actually deserve your fury."

Sushant had stepped forward then, setting down a duffel bag of clean clothes. He didn't look at her with the disgust of the guards or the pity of the lawyers. His gaze was intensely grounded.

"Agar yahan rahogi, toh ek din criminal ban kar marogi," Sushant had said, his voice calm, cutting through the damp chill of the cell. "If you come with us, you become a ghost. A ghost who ensures no other girl ends up in a basement like that. No other girl ends up like your friend Aditi. Pick up the bag, Oindrila. Choose."

She had picked up the bag.

The Haryana training compound was a dry, dusty hellhole where the sun baked the earth until it cracked like glass. It was here that the Bureau broke down the remnants of their broken pasts and reassembled them into weapons.

"Khade ho jao, Oin! Stand up!"

Jaskirat Singh Rangi—not yet the legendary Hamza Ali Mazari, just the raw, furious Jassi—shouted as he wiped sweat from his forehead. He extended a calloused hand and hauled Oindrila out of the dirt with a force that nearly dislocated her shoulder. She had been knocked flat on her back during their hand-to-hand combat drill.

"The ISI won't wait for you to catch your breath," Jassi grunted, pointing a blunt finger toward the firing range. "Look at Rizwan. His gun disassembling timing is already down to four seconds-and you are at 8 seconds. Tum piche reh jaogi."

A few yards away, Vikram-soon to be Rizwan Shah- sat silently on an upturned wooden crate, meticulously cleaning the firing pin of a disassembled pistol. His face was a mask of absolute, detached concentration. Like her, and like Jassi, Vikram was a death-row recruit. They were a trio of ghosts being forged in the same fire. The others were also there but they were the closest to each other.

Later that night, long after Jassi and Vikram had passed out from physical exhaustion in the barracks, Oindrila had sneaked out to the brick well in the courtyard to draw cold water for her bruised ribs. The night air was freezing, making her breath visible in short, sharp puffs.

"You’re anticipating the strike too much during the counter-turn," a voice remarked from the shadows.

She turned sharply, pulling her jacket tight. Sushant stood near the veranda, his formal tie loosened, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He walked over, gently taking the heavy iron bucket from her hands.

"Sir," she said, trying to straighten her posture despite the sharp, stabbing pain in her side.

"Don't do that," Sushant said softly, setting the bucket down. His fingers brushed against hers—a brief, accidental contact that felt incredibly warm against the freezing night air. "Sanyal wants to deploy all three of you to Pakistan by next winter. It’s a complete meat grinder, Oin. Vikram has a death wish; he thrives in that chaos. Jassi has nothing left to lose. But you..."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, his eyes mapping the sharp, defensive lines of her face.

"...you still have too much life left in you," he murmured, his voice losing every ounce of its professional authority. "I don't want to see you become a casualty report."

That was the night the shift happened. The handler began to see the asset as a woman, and the asset found a reason to want to survive the war.

Fourteen months later, when Jassi and Rizwan crossed the border under deep-cover identities to infiltrate the Lyari underworld, Oindrila’s name was quietly erased from the manifest. Sushant had pulled every administrative string he owned to keep her back in Delhi, reassigning her to domestic analysis. He had kept her safe. He had kept her close.

Until now.

Sooooo-what do you guys think of this?? This is legit my first time writing on tumblr to pehle se hu maafi mang rahi hu if something goes wrong or anyone gets offended. Plsss do vote and comment if you like it. The next part will be up soon. Thank you for reading XOXO

Did I stayed up the entire night with 2 cups of coffee to finish this because of my brain can't stop?-Yes

Have I written the next chapters?-Also yes (overall draft only I have to add details)

Do I regret it?-No (my headache says otherwise)

TAGS: @luvvkk @whyishekinda @mainyahaankyunhoon @rehmandakaitswife @365daywritingchallenge @opheliasreblog @wtafananya @moonysscar @gehra-hua @velvetdakait @twinblueflamee @rabbdaradio @tojisloft @golgappalicious @goodasaysboo @lessbutliving @torumii @desigal-26 @desi-brownie @depressedgiftedburnout @misteriadare @maraudersbitchesassemble @royaldreamermonsoon @precioussophia @carbonaramarinara @fellivra @tere-naal-nachna @yearnerray @mysticalnightingale @hamzakamehroomkurta @ishq-e-rehman @s4nzt @fluffycheesecakey @indigo-pdf @nazmnotes @maxpaglu @kamalkafool @peonies7002 @rosesandpeoniesthings  @granddynamonovajbvgjjj @maiajeebhoon @idonthavechatpateusernamed  @shesmykindofwoman @willowsgoldenhour @diyak11 @luckilyweepingsamurai @mujhekoimarsbhejdo @sweetestsummer @work-of-procrastination @mehfil-e-random

Author's Note: This fanfiction is based on this particular request (even though the request is mine only)-but since I wanted to try writing it, here we go peps.

Synopsis: To the Intelligence Bureau, she was the perfect ghost—a death-row inmate erased from the state registry and re-engineered from the remnants of a highway horror story. To him, she was the only line that never went dark in a world built on intercepted frequencies and compromised coordinates. But when the cold calculation of war forces her into a lethal, deep-cover deployment in Karachi, their hidden sanctuary fractures. As the lines blow open and the ghosts of their pasts collide, a rogue handler must cross every forbidden border to pull his asset out of the abyss—proving that even in a jungle of crossfire, her love is the only basera he has left.

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is written solely for entertainment purposes and contains a healthy amount of angst (pls forgive me beforehand only)

Next Chapter>

Chapter One: The Manhattan of Manila Folders

The subterranean briefing room of the Intelligence Bureau in New Delhi was suffocating. It always smelled of the same three things: ozone from the server racks, ancient, decaying paper, and stagnant central air conditioning. For three years, this small square of concrete had been Oindrila’s absolute sanctuary. It was the only place in India where she didn't have to look over her shoulder, where the rigid, hyper-vigilant posture of an elite asset could finally soften.

Because the man sitting across from her was her anchor.

Now, a single manila folder sat between them on the polished mahogany desk. It wasn’t thick, but it felt heavier than a death warrant.

"Open it," Sushant said.

His voice didn't carry a shred of the warmth she had grown to rely on. This was his bureaucrat voice—the flat, unyielding tone he used when delivering casualty assessments to Director Ajay Sanyal.

Oindrila didn't touch the paper. Instead, her eyes tracked the slight tremor in his fingers as he capped his fountain pen. He wasn't looking at her face; he was staring fixedly at the collar of her kurta.

"Sushant," she whispered, the casual intimacy of his name sounding like a violation in the cold office. "Yeh kya hai?"

"Your deployment orders," he said, his jaw clenching so tightly the muscle jumped. "Signed by Sanyal. Processed by my desk. Effective immediately."

Oindrila let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Mera deployment? We settled this six months ago, Sushant. You gave me your word. After the winter security audit, my name was supposed to be permanently scrubbed from the active registry. We were looking at houses in Chandigarh. Tumne promise kiya tha."

Sushant finally looked up, and the sheer exhaustion in his eyes made her breath catch. His eyes were completely bloodshot, the skin underneath them bruised with a fatigue that sleep couldn't fix.

"Situation hath se nikal gaya hai, Oin." he said, leaning forward, slamming his palms flat against the mahogany. "This isn't Sanyal playing politics or trying to be the villain. This is my calculation. The entire communication architecture of our Karachi grid is hitting a black wall. Every piece of intel Hamza sends from Lyari is being intercepted before it even hits our satellite dish in Punjab."

"So send a tactical team! Send another one of your new trainees! Hell, even send a clean-up crew if you need so!" Oindrila stood up, her chair scraping violently against the concrete floor. "Why me? Main kyun?"

Sushant flipped open the folder. A glossy photograph slid out across the wood. It was a young girl, maybe eight or nine years old, with massive, vacant eyes, staring out of a reinforced glass window in a sprawling estate.

"Laiba," Sushant said, his voice dropping into a rhythmic, chillingly professional recitation. "Major Iqbal’s only daughter. She is on the autism spectrum. Highly withdrawn, severely prone to violent behavioral episodes since her mother passed away. Iqbal has dismissed four caretakers this year alone because they couldn't handle her. Your background in child psychology before... before the highway incident... makes you the only asset in the entire country who can clear the ISI’s medical background check under a deep-cover alias."

Oindrila stared at the little girl’s face, but all she could feel was a rising, suffocating panic. "Major Iqbal is a monster, Sushant. He is the head of their counter-intelligence wing. You are asking me to walk into the lion's den, play mother to his child, and pretend to be a normal civilian? Tumhara dimaag kharab ho gaya hai? 2min me pakar lega mujhe-phir gaya humara sapna, gaya humara future! Lyari me zinda mujhe dafna dega wo harami!"

Sushant stood up, closing the distance between them. He reached out, his hands hovering just inches from her shoulders, not quite daring to touch her within the walls of the Bureau.

"If you don't go, Hamza dies, Oin," he whispered, his voice cracking on her name. "Major Iqbal has installed a high-grade mirror terminal right inside his home study. He is tracking Hamza’s operational frequencies. Hamza doesn't know he's compromised. He thinks his lines are clean. The moment Iqbal closes that trap, Hamza and Rizwan will be lined up against a wall in the Lyari delta and shot. You are the only person who can get close enough to that study to dismantle the mirror terminal from the inside."

Oindrila looked at his face—the man she loved, the man she had slept next to, the man who had promised her a quiet kitchen,a clean future and a normal surname. And here he was, handing her the poison himself.

"I need my best asset to save my most lethal one," Sushant choked out, the cold handler mask completely fracturing, leaving behind nothing but a terrified man. "Mujhe tumko bhejna hi hoga, Oin. For Hamza to live-you have to go."

Sooooo-what do you guys think of this?? This is legit my first time writing on tumblr to pehle se hu maafi mang rahi hu if something goes wrong or anyone gets offended. Plsss do vote and comment if you like it. The next part will be up soon. Thank you for reading XOXO

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Guyssss- I want to write a Sushant Banshal fic myself but idk how to write on tumblr I have written on wattpad before but tumblr is a new territory Someone plspls help me out