Reese

The basement always smelled the same, bleach, solder, gun oil, the copper tang of blood that never left the grout. It was 2:37 a.m. by the cheap clock bolted crooked above the workbench, and you’d been hunched over the monitor for—what, four hours? five? Time in this place folded in on itself.

You rubbed at your eyes, screen burn bleeding into the dark. You wondered, quietly, guiltily, what the point even was. Take one supe down, three more sprouted in its place, shiny as propaganda. The world didn’t shift; it shrugged.

(You hated thinking like that. It made you sound like Butcher.)

The cursor blinked at you like it knew. Mocking. The sound of the old computer was loud enough to fill the silence, old fans whining under the weight of too many surveillance feeds and encrypted Vought server breaches that didn’t lead anywhere useful. You’d cracked half of one, something about a new “PR rehabilitation campaign” for A-Train, and then lost the thread somewhere between the caffeine crash and the ache in your neck.

There were empty coffee cups scattered like casualties across the table. A protein bar wrapper curled against the leg of the chair, crinkling each time you shifted your foot. The lamp buzzed, flickering every few minutes like it was giving up too.

Hughie had told you to go home hours ago. “Seriously, your eyes are doing that thing again,” he’d said, hovering awkwardly at the top of the stairs, backpack slung like it might pull him out of here if he leaned far enough. “You’re starting to sound like Butcher. That’s—uh—not a compliment.” He’d laughed, then grimaced when you didn’t. You’d waved him off, promised you’d shut down in “ten minutes.” That was at least four hours ago.

Butcher’s version of concern was sharper. “You’re an overworked cunt, that’s what you are,” he’d barked earlier that day, shoving a stack of files toward you with his usual charm. “Take a fuckin’ nap before yer brain leaks out yer ears.” Then he’d muttered something about “soft-hearted idiots,” and left you there like a parent storming out mid-argument.

There was comfort in the work, you guessed. It was something you could measure. Something that stayed still when everything else didn’t. The rest of it, the moral lines, the politics, the blood that always came later, it all blurred.

Reaching for the cup beside you, you found it empty, and stared at it like the universe had wronged you. The betrayal felt personal, which was stupid, but that’s where you were at mentally, arguing with a mug because the caffeine had finally run dry. You slumped back in the chair, eyes gritty, stomach hollow.

You told yourself you were done after this next data dump. You’d said that six dumps ago. Every file was the same, corruption hidden behind corporate optimism, blood wrapped in branding. “Heroes,” your ass. You thought about that press conference last week, the one where The Deep had cried about “accountability.” Hughie had shown you the clip on his phone, laughing, saying it was pathetic. But you hadn’t laughed. You’d just watched the screen and thought about the things people were willing to forgive if the apology was shiny enough.

You rubbed your thumb over the chipped edge of the mug. It was one Frenchie had painted himself, a peace sign on one side, a tiny mushroom cloud on the other. Said it was for balance. That was him, always finding poetry in contradiction.

The creak overhead grew louder, footsteps, quick and uneven, followed by the metallic clatter of the trapdoor latch. Then a voice, half a whisper, half a yawn.

“Mon ange, why are you still awake?”

Frenchie descended the stairs two at a time, the soles of his sneakers scuffing against the concrete. He looked like chaos incarnate, oversized jacket hanging off his shoulders like it used to belong to someone bigger. Layers, always too many layers, dark jeans, jacket, a shirt with a fading graphic that might’ve been a band logo once. He moved like the world had never told him to slow down, hands talking faster than his mouth, eyes darting to everything at once. A gold chain caught the light when he shifted, flashing warm against the olive of his throat.

You blinked up from the monitor, brain half in the code and half in the quiet, and managed something like a shrug. “Working,” you said, the word scraping its way out. “What are you doing here?”

He grinned, but it was the tired kind, the kind that meant he knew he shouldn’t be smiling at all. “Eh, I told M.M. I would finish the modification for the launcher tonight.“ He gestured vaguely toward the workbench in the corner, where pieces of dismantled tech lay in chaos. “But then I… how do you say…” He snapped his fingers, searching for the word. “procrastinated.”

You gave him a look over your shoulder. “So you came back in the middle of the night to do it?”

He raised his eyebrows in mock offense. “Non, I came back because I am a professional. And because… well.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe I smoked a little. Time slipped away from me.”

Yeah. That tracked. He smelled like weed and cold night air, like the alley behind the pawn shop you were under and the chemical bite of whatever project he’d abandoned halfway through. His eyes were glossy, the edges of his grin softened by something looser than sleep. He looked like freedom, the reckless kind, the kind that never waited for permission.

You leaned back in your chair, half-smiling despite yourself. “You’re high.”

He pressed a hand to his chest. “Me? I am insulted.” Then, after a beat, with a grin: “Only a little.”

You shook your head, eyes dragging over the glow of your monitor again. “You could’ve finished that thing tomorrow. You don’t have to keep showing up like the lab elf at 3 a.m.”

“But then I would not get to see you looking like death, eh?” His voice was teasing, but gentle underneath. He drifted closer, scanning the mess of blueprints and empty mugs around you. “You work too much.”

“Wow,” you muttered, pretending to type. “Thanks.”

He laughed under his breath. “You have been down here too long. The world upstairs still exists, you know.”

You arched an eyebrow at him, half a smirk tugging through your exhaustion. “I’m not the one who just smoked and immediately thought to come work.” It came out dry, but not unkind. Just tired. You let the words hang there, waiting for him to grin, and sure enough, Frenchie’s mouth curved, slow and wolfish.

“Ah, but that is different,” he said, wagging a finger, the accent curling around his words. “For me, it is inspiration. It helps with the creativity. Opens the mind, lets the ideas crawl out from where they hide. You see?” He sets a wrench he had picked up down, stepped back from the bench, and gestured with both hands like a magician revealing his latest trick. “Come. You will see what I mean.”

You exhaled through your nose, already half-smiling despite the weight behind your eyes. “Frenchie—”

“Come, come,” he interrupted, waving you over with a grin that felt stitched from mischief and sincerity both. “You can take a break from staring into the computer abyss. Two minutes, that is all I ask.”

You hesitated, then pushed yourself up from the chair, the motion slow, reluctant, like your body wasn’t entirely convinced you could still move for something other than work. He met you halfway, still buzzing with whatever cocktail of adrenaline and THC and other miscellaneous substances kept him upright at this hour.

The launcher sat on the worktable, a Frankenstein’s monster of Vought tech and Frenchie’s imagination: compact, ugly, beautiful in its purpose. You recognized parts of a supe-grade tranquilizer gun spliced with a destabilized sonic shell, something he’d probably scavenged from one of Butcher’s “souvenir” raids.

“You’ve been working on this since last week,” you observed, tracing the mess of soldered wires, the faint scorch marks around the barrel.

“Oui.” He leaned beside you, shoulder brushing yours. “But now, it sings.”

“That thing ‘sings’? It’s a weapon, not a guitar.”

“Ah, mais non,” he countered, smiling, eyes half-lidded but alive. “Everything sings, if you build it with enough love. Even something meant to destroy.”

You looked at him then, really looked, the old scars climbing up his skin like faded ghosts, the restless fire that never seemed to leave him alone. You’d seen that look before, after a mission went bad, after he’d nearly blown himself up making something to keep you all alive. The line between creation and self-destruction was razor-thin with him; sometimes you weren’t sure which side he stood on.

(And wasn’t that the story for all of you? Butcher with his vendetta, Hughie with his guilt — all of you pretending that vengeance could pass for purpose.)

He twisted a small valve on the side of the launcher, the device letting out a soft hiss. The smell of ozone filled the air, electric and faintly sweet. “See? Better. She breathes now.”

You leaned closer out of habit, peering at the mechanism. “That’s… actually kind of impressive.”

“Kind of?” His hand found the small of your back, guiding you closer to the table. “No, no. It is completely impressive. The difference between life and death, she is in the details. I know this.”

You tried not to smile. “You also once glued a suppressor on backward.”

“Eh, that was artistic license.”

You shook your head, rubbing at your temple, feeling the beginnings of a headache soften under the sound of his laughter. Maybe he was right, maybe you had been down here too long, hunched over keys and numbers, trying to solve a war through code. Maybe this was the real work, standing beside someone who refused to let the darkness swallow everything whole.

Frenchie nudged the launcher toward you as if it were a living thing that needed approval. “Place your hands there.” he instructed, voice sticky-sweet with the cloak of his high, eyes bright and too direct. “Help me finish.”

You told yourself you were tired; you told yourself you had numbers to parse and a dozen damned files to close. But your fingers moved anyway, reaching for the band of cables Frenchie held out, the same way they always moved when the team needed an extra pair of hands. He handed you a spool of solder like he was giving you a blunt instrument and a confessional. “You know how to do this, yes?” he asked, half-teasing, half-insecure, as if he needed permission to let you touch the thing he’d poured himself into.

“I used to hate electronics,” you said, fingers already warm from the iron, “until Hughie made me solder him back together after he electrocuted himself trying to—” you didn’t finish because the memory of Hughie swearing and blinking like a bug was too soft to be cruel. It belonged to a different kind of moment, one with less guilt and fewer governments.

Frenchie hummed, pleased with the memory. “Petit Hughie is a fragile hero. Like porcelain man.” He squared the component, held it steady with a practiced hand so your solder could pool and form a seam. “Careful.” His breath warmed the corner of your cheek; his thumb brushed your wrist in passing. The iron kissed the metal; the solder bloomed like a tiny, obedient river. You watched the bead form, how it took the heat and turned dull and firm, how something unstable became whole in a blink if you kept the flame steady. You thought of how that might translate to people, how many seams in ordinary lives could be mended if someone bothered to hold the thing steady while the heat did its work.

Frenchie talked while you worked, half monologue, half poem: stories of nights at the Clarkson Avenue lot when the Haitian Kings had laughed too loud, when they’d taught him to weld, when he’d eaten fried plantain out of a paper bag and sworn they’d taste like home. The launcher began to look less like jury-rig and more like a tool with a temperament: dial set to pulse, not long-wave; damping plate cross-braced with braided cable; a crude but elegant trigger that would, if the plan held, do more than make noise. You adjusted a screw Frenchie had over-tightened; he made a face and admitted, sheepish, “Too excited.” That made you laugh properly for the first time in five hours.

You tightened the final clamp. Frenchie handed you a rag; you wiped your hands on it, leaving little black streaks on your palms like trophies. He tapped the barrel lightly. “She will sing, mon ange. She will sing.”

Then, predictably, he sparked up a joint like it was a metronome, two hours without it was apparently a crime against Frenchie’s nervous system, and the room filled with a fragrant smear of smoke. He rolled the ember between his fingers, inhaled deep and slow, then exhaled.

“C’est la muse,” he pronounced, jazzing the word with a flourish. “Inspiration requires lubrication.” He offered you the joint in a showman’s bow that was half flirtation, half apology for the smell. You declined with a tired little shake of the head, you’d had enough chemical company for one night, but you didn’t mind the cloud.

Frenchie dug through his pocket for the safety goggles, they were old, lenses scratched with the history of every near-miss he’d ever had. He pushed them toward you with a grin that split his face. “For safety,” he said. “We cannot be sexy and blinded at same time.”

You laughed and accepted the goggles. He put on his own, oversized and slightly askew, then did a dramatic thumbs-up as if the entire world depended on that single gesture. “Okay,” Frenchie said, voice turning businesslike (which for him was a curious mix—part craftsman, part poet, part small-time arsonist with a conscience). He flicked a tiny dial; the launcher hummed with the stir of a beast waking. He counted under his breath in that soft, mumbling French of his, “Un. Deux. Trois.” He glanced at you, eyebrows raised, the “do you trust me?” question folded under the cadence. You gave the most tired, honest nod you had in hours.

Frenchie grinned, half triumphant, half child, and pointed the barrel into the center of the room, away from the workbench, away from the monitors you loved and feared in equal measure. “We will do it small,” he said. “Like a whisper.”

He flicked the switch.

The sound that came out was not a roar. It was a thing that moved through the room like wind through reeds, a frequency that left the air standing on edge. Papers danced; stray screws jumped off the bench like nervous insects; a pen rolled across the table and leapt to the floor. The cheap clock above the workbench juddered and then slowed, its hand trembling like a heartbeat slowed by narcotic, until finally it stuttered and stopped in the middle of its tick like it was confused by the echo.

A paint can on a shelf rattled open and a smear of blue, bright, accidental, beautiful, spattered across the cement like someone had thrown a sky at the floor. The monitor speakers hiccuped and spat a thin line of static that looked for all the world like a cartoon ghost trying to whistle. A stack of files collapsed in a paper avalanche. For a second the basement looked as if a small hurricane had moved through.

Frenchie whooped. It was a high, feral sound that made you grin despite the mild terror. He clapped his hands once, glee splattering across his face like paint. “She sings!” He danced a little jig between the overturned coffee cups and the fallen files, and the joint shook in his hand, embers glowing.

You, by contrast, sat very still, mouth a small O, goggles fogging slightly with your breath. The clock on the wall ticked one slow, indignant tick and then, perhaps in solidarity with you, died utterly.

He leaned in close, eyes bright and wet with triumph. “Perfect. Perfect.” he said. “We will blame Hughie.”

You laughed, a real, ragged laugh that loosened something in your chest, because of course he would blame Hughie, because of course Butcher would rant, and because Frenchie, even stoned and ridiculous, had a way of making ruin feel like rehearsal for something beautiful.

Frenchie’s excitement was the kind that filled every inch of the air; wild, buoyant, infectious. He was still talking to the launcher like it was a beloved pet, gesturing at it with the joint clutched between two fingers. “You see? She listens to me. She listens because I treat her with respect,” he declared, tapping the metal like it had a heartbeat.

You shook your head. “I should get back to work,” you acknowledged, glancing toward your monitor. Frenchie caught the glance, the instinctive retreat into exhaustion. “Non, non, non,” he interrupted, wagging a finger. “The world can wait. You cannot code revolutions on an empty stomach.” He was already moving, the kind of person who never really stopped once he started. “I am starving. Are you starving? You must be starving.”

“I’m fine,” you tried, but it came out soft and unconvincing.

“Nonsense,” he said, waving the protest away as if it were cigarette smoke. “We will eat. Something with grease, maybe cheese. Oui, cheese solves many problems.”

Frenchie had insisted, of course he had, that the night was young, that genius required fuel, and that you’d been indoors so long your skin was starting to look “like one of those little mushrooms that grow in the dark.”

So now you were here.

A half-dead diner on Clarkson, fluorescent and flickering, pretending to be open twenty-four hours because no one told the lights they were lying. The vinyl booths stuck to your skin, smelling of syrup and bleach. A ceiling fan turned with the slow rhythm of someone counting down their last shift. Outside, the city breathed its usual poison, neon haze, cigarette steam, and a siren wailing so far away it already sounded tired.

You sat opposite Frenchie in a booth too small for his restless energy. He’d slung his jacket onto the seat beside him, chain glinting against the collar of his shirt. He was a little damp from the drizzle outside, his eyes still glossy, a shade too red for this hour. He looked like he belonged anywhere but here. Or maybe everywhere at once.

The waitress poured coffee without asking, the kind that tasted like exhaustion, and you took it anyway because it was hot.

You both ordered without much thought, something fried and over-salted, the kind of meal that coated your arteries and made you question life choices halfway through. Frenchie, with his elbows on the table and eyes still glassy from the smoke, looked entirely too pleased with himself.

“You’re going to regret that,” you commented on his order, stirring your coffee with the tiny metal spoon, watching the ripple fade into the dark surface.

“Mon ange, I regret everything I eat in America. That is not the point.”

You laughed under your breath, the sound foreign in your own throat. When the food came, he tore into it with childlike delight, half the fries gone before the plate even touched the table. He started talking again, mouth half full, hands alive with motion. Something about his last job before he met Butcher, some mad story involving a Latvian arms dealer, a briefcase of diamonds, and an ostrich. You barely followed it, but it didn’t matter. Because he was alive. You were alive.

“You’re telling me the arms dealer had a pet ostrich just hanging out in the room?”

Frenchie held up a fry like it was evidence. “Not just any ostrich. This one wore a gold chain. Much better dresser than the dealer, if I may say so.”

You smiled in disbelief. “Right, because fashion sense is what really matters when you’re trafficking weapons.”

“Exactly! It’s the little details that show taste. If I ever become a criminal again—”

“If?”

He ignored you, waving his fry. “—I will have a pet flamingo. He will smoke clove cigarettes and judge everyone.”

You nearly spat out your coffee. “A judgmental flamingo. That’s exactly what this team needs.”

“Don’t mock him. He has feelings.”

You tried to hold a straight face and failed. “You’re insane.”

“Oui,” he said, with that infuriating little shrug that was half pride, half confession.

You glanced at him again, his hands still restless even when he wasn’t talking, like something in him was always building, breaking, rebuilding. “You ever miss it?” you asked. “The part before all this? Before the hiding and the running and… Vought?”

He looked at you for a long time, the grin fading but not gone. “Miss it? No. I miss who I was before I knew better. That’s not the same thing.”

You nodded, though something in your chest tightened. “Yeah. I get that.”

For a moment, Frenchie had nothing to say. He looked out the window like he was debating his next move. “They ruin everything, these supes. Not just cities, not just lives—” he tapped his temple lightly “—they ruin the idea that anyone else can matter. They make gods out of accidents.”

You swallowed. “And we clean up the mess.”

“Oui.” He looked at you again, softer now. “But maybe that is what makes us… human. We are the ones still trying to fix what they break.”

You didn’t know what to say. You just sat there in that cheap booth, half-empty plates between you, the neon sign outside flickering red and blue across his face. He smiled again, smaller this time. “Also, I fix rockets. That helps.”

“Yeah,” you said, pushing his fries toward him. “You fix a lot of things.”

He raised an eyebrow, a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t say anything right away. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“What, fixing stuff?”

“Mm. No. Caring about broken things.” He shook his head. “Most people don’t. They throw it away, find a new one. Cleaner. Easier. You and I—we stay until it’s working again.”

You let out a huff of humorous air, staring down at the scratched tabletop. “Yeah, well. Maybe I just don’t know when to quit.”

“Or maybe you know that quitting is boring,” he countered, leaning forward now, elbows on the table. His eyes were sharp, but warm, too warm. “There is honor in being stubborn, mon ange. Especially when the world tells you to stop.”

The word mon ange hit different this time. Maybe it was the way he said it, quieter, less playful, like he didn’t even realize it had come out. Your pulse skipped, but you tried to hide it behind a sip of coffee that had long gone cold.

He noticed, of course. He always noticed. “What?”

“Nothing,” you said too quickly. “You’re just—” You gestured vaguely. “You’re very French.”

He grinned. “Ah, yes. My greatest crime.”

“Second greatest,” you said before you could stop yourself. “First is your fashion sense.”

He gasped, clutching his chest like you’d stabbed him. “My fashion sense is revolutionary!”

“It’s chaotic.”

“It is artistic chaos,” he corrected, flicking his hand dramatically. “You Americans—”

“Oh, here we go.”

“—you have no appreciation for expression! You wear your souls in beige.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “You wore two jackets to dinner.”

“It was cold,” he said, unconvincingly. “And also, they both had excellent pockets.”

He was ridiculous. Infuriating. And god, you didn’t want to stop talking.

The laughter lingered, sinking into something softer the longer the night went on. You caught yourself watching him, the easy way he existed, how everything about him was motion and warmth. He was all contradiction: sharp edges and open palms, danger and gentleness bound together in a way that shouldn’t work but did. He tilted his head. “You are thinking too loudly,” he called you out.

You blinked. “What?”

“I can hear it. You are in here—” he tapped his temple “—building something again. Always working, even when you sit still.”

You smiled. “Maybe I just like fixing things too.”

He nodded, almost to himself. “Then we are the same kind of broken.” The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. Just heavy enough to mean something. The world outside went on, but in that booth, it felt like everything had slowed down. “Next time, you pick the restaurant. Somewhere with better coffee.”

“Deal,” you said, but your voice was quieter now, steadier.

He stood first, tossing a few crumpled bills on the table, and when he looked back at you, the grin was back. “Come on. Before I decide to order dessert and regret everything I eat in America twice.”

You followed him out into the night, the door jingling shut behind you, and it hit you, somewhere between the smell of rain on concrete and the sound of his laughter, that maybe you already liked him more than you should.

The street had that strange, in-between stillness of too-late hours, when the city wasn’t asleep, just waiting for morning. The rain had eased into a mist, silvering the pavement, and the air smelled like wet roads and sugar from somewhere nearby. Frenchie shoved his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold, humming some old song under his breath. You didn’t recognize it, but it fit, the kind of melody that only exists at 4 a.m. He kicked at a stray bottle cap and sent it skittering down the sidewalk. “You know,” he started, glancing over, “you could smile more. The world will not end if you do.”

You rolled your eyes. Does anyone actually like being told that? “You’d find a way to make it my fault if it did.”

“Of course,” he said without missing a beat. “I would say, they smiled, and boom—apocalypse.”

You laughed, soft and tired. The sound carried, brushing against the empty street. Then you saw it, the flicker of pale blue light across the fog. A run-down arcade wedged between a pawn shop and a nail salon, half the bulbs in the sign burnt out so it just read AR ADE.

Frenchie followed your gaze and stopped. “Ah, mon dieu,” he said reverently. “A temple of wasted youth.”

“It’s probably closed.”

“It is never closed for destiny,” he said, already striding toward it, yanking the door handle like a man who refused to be told no. It gave with a rusty creak, the little bell above it jingling weakly. Inside, the air was thick with dust and old electricity. Frenchie’s eyes lit up immediately, glossy from smoke and nostalgia.

“Look at this,” he said, touching the claw machine like it was sacred. Inside, an army of plush toys stared out with soulless eyes. “It calls to me.”

“You’re high.”

“I am inspired.”

You shook your head, but your lips twitched anyway. After purchasing some tokens he fed a few coins into the slot, the joystick moving as he maneuvered the claw toward a stuffed bear with beady black eyes. The claw dropped, wobbled, and somehow—miraculously—caught. When it thunked down the chute, he gasped like he’d just defused a bomb. “Regarde! Victory!”

You covered your mouth, laughing harder than you had in days. “That’s horrifying,” you said as he held it up.

“She is beautiful,” he defended, smoothing its matted fur. “I will name her Butcher, because she terrifies me.”

You shook your head, wiping tears from your eyes, and turned away partly to hide the stupid warmth in your chest, because why did that feel like the funniest, softest thing you’d heard all week? Why did he make you laugh when nothing else had been able to pry you open lately? Why did you care? Why was he so goddamn funny?

You drifted toward another machine, the glow pulling you like gravity. It was an old prize crane with peeling stickers, its theme a mash-up of old cartoon characters and plushes. Tucked in the corner, half-buried under a stuffed dinosaur and a Pikachu, was a plush that looked exactly like something Frenchie would lose his mind over, some bizarre little gremlin thing with giant eyes, a stitched scowl, and a tiny plastic knife in its felt hand. A “Killer Critter,” the tag said.

Of course he’d love the one holding a weapon.

You fed coins into the slot. The claw shuddered to life with a sad whine. The first attempt missed completely, grabbing uselessly at air before scraping down the glass. You felt your cheeks heat, why were you even doing this? Why did it matter? Why did you want this stupid gremlin for him so badly?

(Because he looked at you tonight like the world hadn’t beaten you down yet. Because he makes ruin feel bearable. Because you want to give him something.)

Because . . . because.

You tried again.

The claw lowered, wobbling like it was drunk, closed around the gremlin’s oversized head—and held. You didn’t breathe as it lifted, swayed, and dropped the plush through the chute with a soft thunk. You froze for a second, staring at it, as if the tiny stitched knife might come alive and congratulate you. Then you picked it up and turned toward Frenchie, extending it out to him.

He was already watching.

He must’ve seen you win it, his hands stilled mid-gesture, grin softening into something that lived in the space between surprise and tenderness. His eyes flicked from the plush to your face, and all that chaotic, relentless energy of his paused. Just… paused. “For me?” he asked, voice small in a way you’d never heard from him.

You shrugged, trying to play it off, trying to keep your heartbeat from leaping out of your chest. “Yeah. I mean—yeah. I thought you’d like it. He’s armed. Seemed your type.”

Frenchie pressed a hand over his heart as if physically wounded. “Mon ange… he has a knife. He is perfection.”

You laughed, and he stepped forward, taking the plush from your hands like it was something precious. His fingers brushed yours, warm, paint-stained, smelling faintly of smoke, and for once he didn’t crack a joke or toss out a flirt or deflect with chaos. For once, he didn’t say anything. Not a word, not a quip, not a half-mumbled line in French. He just stood there, plush clutched between his hands, his expression softening in real time, as if he was feeling the warmth instead of outrunning it for once.

It was strange seeing him like that.

Quiet. Still.

His eyes flicked down to where your fingers had brushed, then back up to your face, and you could almost see the gears start to spin, not the ones that built bombs or launchers or improvised rocket systems, but the ones that processed feelings, and god, those were always harder to engineer.

He blinked once, twice. “You are… very close to me,” he said finally, a little dazed, like someone noticing the weather for the first time.

You raised an eyebrow. “You’re the one holding my hand, Frenchie.”

He looked down, as if he needed visual confirmation, and when he realized he was, in fact, still holding onto your fingers, he let go too quickly. He cleared his throat, straightened his jacket, tried to pretend that didn’t happen. “Ah. Yes. I was protecting you. From the plush. He looked violent.” He laughed once, but it didn’t sound like his usual laugh. This one stayed small, caught somewhere in his throat.

For a guy who could disarm a bomb in twelve seconds flat, he suddenly looked completely out of his depth.

You turned back toward the next row of machines, coins clinking in your hand. Neon light flickered against your skin, pink, blue, pink again, and he watched you like he’d never really looked before. He followed you to the basketball hoop game rolling his shoulders, loosening his wrists. “You are going to lose,” he said, tone cocky.

You shot first. Swish.

He blinked. “Okay. Beginner’s luck.”

“Sure,” you said, grinning.

He missed the next three in a row. Blamed the rim. Blamed the angle. Blamed America. (“The hoops are smaller here, I swear.”) When you laughed he looked at you like he’d just accidentally set off fireworks in his chest.

By the time you’d won — decisively — he was standing too close, shoulder brushing yours as you both watched the score blink red on the screen. His voice dropped a little. “You are dangerous when you are focused like this.”

You looked up at him. “Dangerous?”

He nodded, eyes steady. “Oui. You make me forget I am supposed to be winning.”

The air between you charged. He stepped back, shook it off, and grabbed another token. “Now,” he said quickly, like he had to move or the feeling might swallow him whole. “I will destroy you at air hockey.”

You followed him to the air hockey table, and Frenchie rolled up his sleeves like he was preparing for combat. The puck dropped, and he was relentless. Every shot you took, he countered with lightning precision, the disk ricocheting between your paddles in a blur of light and sound. You laughed through it, cursed him once under your breath when he scored again, and he just grinned wider.

By the time the game ended, the score wasn’t even close. He leaned on the edge of the table, breathing fast, triumphant. “See?” he said, voice rough from laughing. “You cannot win everything. Sometimes you must let me be impressive.”

“Let you?” you scoffed, grabbing your jacket. “You played like your life depended on it.”

He shrugged, tilting his head, eyes warm and a little too steady on you. “Maybe it did.”

You froze for half a second before he broke the moment with a wink, flicking the puck across the table toward you. The lights of the arcade had softened by then, the once-bright chaos settling into something quieter. A few kids ran past with tickets spilling from their pockets; the machines clicked through their idle loops, half asleep. Outside, the sky had shifted, deep violet bleeding into orange, the last thread of sunlight stretching over the lot.

You both lingered there longer than you meant to, standing side by side beneath the flicker of a “GAME OVER” sign. He looked out at the street like he was trying to memorize it, like this tiny, nothing-night had turned into something worth keeping.

When he finally spoke, it was softer than you’d ever heard him. “You should probably sleep,” he said. “Before you start seeing double and accuse me of cheating again.”

You smiled. “You did cheat.”

“Oui,” he admitted easily, his grin returning, “but beautifully.”

He walked you to your car, hands tucked into his jacket, shoulders relaxed but eyes still restless, still glancing your way like he didn’t quite trust this new, warm thing in his chest not to spill out.

“See?” he said. “The world did not end.”

Not yet, you thought. Not tonight.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. Just watched you, the kind of look that seemed to pull every thought you had straight out of your head. Slowly, he reached up, brushing his fingers against your cheek. His thumb hesitated there, the barest touch, and the world seemed to narrow to the space between you. It wasn’t even about what might happen next, it was the pause. The quiet, unspoken something that had been building since the diner, since the laughter and the tokens and the plush. It felt bigger than the night, and smaller too, like something you shouldn’t look at too directly, or it might vanish.

You could feel your own pulse in your throat, that dull ache of being too tired to think, too wired to rest. The kind of tired where everything honest slips out, the kind where you stop pretending you’re fine, or detached, or that this person standing in front of you doesn’t make the world feel less heavy for a minute.

Frenchie let out a small, shaky laugh. “You are very bad for my sleep schedule,” he joked, voice half gone, but still laced with that humor he used like armor.

You smiled. “You started it.”

He tilted his head at that, eyes bright and soft all at once. For a moment, he looked like he might say something — something stupid, or brave, or both — but instead, he just nodded a little, fingers tracing down before dropping away.

“Then,” he paused, “maybe I should finish it.” He took a slow step back, eyes catching the last smear of sunlight. “Bonne nuit, mon ange.”

When you drove off, he was still standing there under the glow of the arcade sign, half-smiling like someone who’d just realized he might be in trouble.

You sat in the car for a while after you got home, fingers still tingling where he’d touched you. The street was half-lit, washed in the kind of shade that made everything look like memory instead of moment. You stared through the windshield at the slow sweep of dawn climbing over the skyline, and it hit you like a punch, that instinct, that ache in your chest that wasn’t fear or lust or adrenaline, but something heavier. Something close to care. You didn’t know when it started. Maybe when he called you mon ange with a grin that didn’t mean it, or when he’d actually gone quiet, like maybe he did.

You hated that feeling, the need to protect. Because it was the same thing that got people killed. It was the same thing that made Butcher the way he was. And for the first time, you got it.

It wasn’t just hate that fueled him, it was grief. Love, in its ugliest form. The world was full of monsters in capes tearing holes in everything good, and it made people like you reach for whatever scraps were left, a moment of warmth, a joke, a person whose laugh made the noise fade out for five seconds. You wanted to guard that. Keep it safe. Keep him safe.

But the truth stung as you thought it. That kind of wanting, that kind of care, it always came with blood on its heels.

You didn’t want to be like Butcher.

But maybe you understood him more than you wanted to.

started 11.5.2025. finished 11.5.2025.

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©️ monicfever 2025