IRON MAN.

the soft air of the fan touches your skin. it's too hot for it to blow anywhere else even with its close proximity. your fingers rest at the nape of his neck. your pointed nails gingerly grazing his skin, combing through his blonde curls as his head rests on your shoulder. it's too hot for the two of you to be so close. your nearly "too long" braids were pulled back into a relaxed pony at first, though eventually to keep the hair off of your neck you reached for a sturdy claw clip.

a few weeks ago you couldn't seem to shake him. at first it was just on the court. you'd see him occasionally before matches. stretching. warming up. practicing. the muscles in his arms flexing with every movement as if trying to impress you. on campus. in the cafeteria. in the library. laughing a little louder than necessary, smiling a little wider. stopping to hold the door open for you. and suddenly he began appearing off campus too. maybe it's because you were looking for him. maybe that's why he as everywhere you were. maybe you had a lot in common.

all you knew now was that you didn't want to shake him.

he hums into the fan thinking back to your match. the one that caught his attention. where you caught his attention.

you'd won a flawless victory. with the back of your hand you wiped sweat off of your forehead. beaming as you accepted your trophy and posed for a quick picture. dark curls seemed to pour out from underneath your visor as you tilted your chin up slightly so the sun could catch your face. you were so proud that you could hardly believe you almost never picked up a racket. after a moment of light contemplation, he said "I think you handled that very well." but he sounded unsure. like maybe he shouldn't be coaching you on know how to compose yourself like any adult should. you kind of smiled. your brows knitting together at the comment. you yourself unsure on whether or not this was another quiet attack. it wasn't.

you confirmed that after his glance fell and he licked his lips.

the girl refused to shake your hand after the match. she was irritated. a sore loser, but you didn't mind because at the end of the day whatever she thought didn't matter.

"oh. thanks. thank you."

he's lost for a moment. his blonde hair caught in the gentle breeze before his gaze flits between yours and the trophy before he settles on the fact that maintaining eye contact is the polite thing to do. "congratulations by the way." he praises thoughtfully, gesturing to the prize in your hands. you offer a polite smile and a small nod. "thank you." you pause for a second. when he doesn't step off you continue. "Atticus, right?" tilting your head and squinting your eyes trying to recall the boys name- swearing you've heard it around campus before. and you have and you know it, but you don't mind double checking. he cringes. the light catching his blonde hair nicely as he makes a face, his freckles shifting as he scrunches his nose and chuckles softly. "Art. Art's fine."

he caught you one night, late, in a quiet corner of one of the common areas. your braids tied back with a scarf and your laptop on your thighs with a notebook, a text book and several papers scattered about as you tried focusing. and most would've left you to it. but he didn't. instead he offered you some food and kept you company for a while.

he sat on the floor, just a bit away from you. you later would learn his distance was due to hearing you complain about the smell of cigarettes once while with your friends. and the smell clung to him. it clung to the breath and the fabric of his hoodie in the chilled dorm buildings. it clung to him and right now you didn't mind. right now it wasn't as important as the way his eyes kept drifting over to you.

"i fucking hate this class," you grumbled, rubbing the exhaustion from your eyes. and he nodded. a simple "me too." leaving his lips even though he didn't have it.

art was completely sober when he asked you. because he was driving. the timing was awful, but he knew he'd be hurt if he saw you kiss someone else- especially with how his friend kept staring at you. and when you woke up the next morning you couldn't quite remember what happened. there was coffee, a breakfast sandwich and pain meds on your desk with a note. you figured your roommate ran some early errands but instead of her name the note read 'Art' and for the first time in ages the uneasy ache in your chest faded into soft butterflies in your stomach fluttering for your attention.

"I don't remember ordering housekeeping," you joked

and still he arranges those same things whenever he finds you hungover.

though, it was strange seeing him so serious.

"i don't want to mess up whatever we have. but i really like you"

"okay."

he choked, blinking back his surprise, his blue eyes almost cold as he stared at you. "okay?"

"mhm. okay." you smile. shrugging almsot dismissively. he's a big boy. he can use his words.

it takes him another week and a half to actually say the words "will you be my girlfriend." and you wait very patiently, humoring him whenever he tried to hold your hand.

@doll2kiss ; fawny is so nice and sweet. love her work for professor!sam. so yummy.

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@voidsuites ; i wish i had maya's mind when it comes to creativity! she's so amazing in everything she does. her spy!tashi fic was so good.

★ … NO, DECIDING TO leave was something you’d thought about for weeks, months, years… but if you were honest with yourself, you’d admit that you’ve thought of leaving your agency from the moment you’d been sentient enough to know that what they had you do wasn’t normal. little girls grew up playing with dolls, not weapons. little girls learned the lyrics to their favorite songs, not the same words in different languages in case they were stranded in enemy territory.

little girls didn’t have enemies; however, the people that raised them did, and you were expected to do whatever necessary to ensure those enemies did not get in the way.

so when you sabotage your most recent mission— infiltrating an underground tennis betting ring to eliminate your agency’s target— your spy agency deploys the only person they know who can retrieve you and still be in one piece afterwards. sure, you’d expected the inevitable fallout and subsequent chase, but not that the girl you love would leading the hunt for your head.

“YOU GOT A HEAD START. MAKE THE MOST OF IT.”

so much for tashi letting you go. years of training together for this assignment alone, gone— not to mention the girl you thought would have your back after everything. maybe you were stupid to assume that every moment you two spent working to compete at the professional level for tennis was more than a job… but what did you know? if those american romance films you and tashi watched taught you anything, it was that love endured even through hardships and problems larger than the two of you combined.

but how much hardship was too much for even love to overcome? you didn’t know, and you weren’t going to stick around long enough to find out.

★ … THE MOMENT AFTER your text sends on your burner, it’s already in the bottom of flushing creek along with the tracker you dug out of your arm. the more distance between those and you, the better. with that settled, you run.

every bit of survival training that’s been taught, beaten, and engrained into you since you could walk comes out in full force; you take advantage of the night and its natural shadows to cover as much ground as possible all while traversing uneven concrete and asphalt in one-size-too-small sneakers. luckily, you’ve traveled under worse conditions— improper footwear paled in comparison to skimpy clothing in the snow— and you couldn’t risk the clothes you’d left in the budget hotel having trackers. anna mueller wouldn’t really miss her brand-deal trainers. adidas could send her another pair within the hour, and they would if anna’s team wanted her to have any chance against tashi in the final now that you were m.i.a. (she wouldn’t, but she could try).

you don’t stop aside for the mandatory bathroom and rest breaks, but even those are limited. every second you’re not moving is one more stretch of ground that tashi and the rest of your agency covers while try to recover you. luckily, the night passes by uneventfully, but that only leaves you with a more challenging day.

the sun, for one, poses the biggest issue, but day also means more eyes and people around you– especially in a place like new york– that could very well be sleeper agents waiting for the opportunity to yank you off the streets. if someone even stares at you for too long, you cross the street. taking the subway briefly crosses your mind, but the idea of being cornered on the train or in a station quickly changes your perspective. not worth the risk.

ideally, leaving new york is your best bet of throwing the agency off your trail. maybe you head down through pennsylvania and towards ohio to potentially find somewhere to go from there, or maybe you head up towards canada and leave the u.s. entirely. whatever option can get you away from the city faster and for cheaper is your best bet at fleeing tashi.

you just should’ve assumed that she’d already been scoping out the same outlets you were; you two always did think share the same way of thinking. but unlike you, tashi wasn’t naive enough to think she could escape. that’s why she was always the better of the two of you, always the favorite. she’d accepted the lifestyle from childhood while you still dreamt of freedom. that had always been your achilles’ heel: thinking you could get away and live to tell the tale. 

★ … “THEY’D STOP THROWING you in solitary if you just listened,” she chided one evening, the rest of the girls around you asleep on the pitiful cots you all had since childhood. it’d been right before you and tashi left for the u.s., though your supervisors were nearly set on sending another girl in your place since you’d mouthed off at dinner. while tashi had been able to convince them of keeping you for the mission, you’d still ended up spending three full days in the 6x9 solitary cell.

tashi had continued with her brief examination of you, making sure there were no noticeable injuries that would not heal before flying to the states. “you’re making it seem like you want them to do more than just hurt you,” she muttered, practicing the american accent they’d wanted you to perfect by the time you both touched down in new york in a week. “i had to vouch for you– say i’d keep you in line. you can’t keep acting like this.”

“like what?” you’d snapped back, “like a child? like i’m ungrateful– ungrateful for the mistreatment and awful things they have us do, in exchange for food and a bed?”

“like you want them to kill you,” she clarified, those sharp eyes of hers boring into yours. “you keep this up, they will. let go of whatever dream’s living in your head and wake up, глупая девчонка.”

you’d wilted under her use of “stupid girl,” but she’d kissed that pout of yours away shortly after. but nonetheless, she’d been right.

by the time the sun sets after being on the run for 24 hours, tashi’s already found you. you’re in line to board a greyhound bound for toronto with a cap slung low over your eyes, the exhaustion of being on the move all day sinking deep into your bones as you shift on your feet.

“i had to skip the afterparty for you, you know,” a voice hums from behind you, and immediately you feel your blood run cold. “adidas was throwing a whole party for the winners… we could’ve been having cake, or sneaking a beer right now before we went to find the target later tonight.”

tashi pushes closer, and you feel the distinguishable press of metal to your side. shit.

“at least if i beat you in the final, it would’ve been something worthwhile to see. anna kept up the best she could, but it wasn’t fun. not really.” 

you let tashi sidestep the both of you out of line, and your stomach sinks when the bus driver does his final boarding call. “how’d you find me–”

“don’t play dumb,” tashi sighs turning you to face her as her brow raises. “you were smart enough to toss the phone and the arm tracker, but you do know they implanted two in each of us right?”

you didn’t know, and it clearly shows on your face with the way tashi smile sharpens. “глупая девчонка,” she mutters before moving you back towards the greyhound station with a yank of your arm. “if it weren’t for the pretty face and skill when you do follow orders, you’d be in a ditch back home. now, you’ll be lucky to still be in one piece after all this.”

it finally sets in for you that this won’t be something you can walk away from– not if you’re betting on tashi and everyone else to play fair. so you won’t. 

an unmarked sedan pulls up to the curb beside you two, and tashi nudges you in and climbs in once the guard inside has a hold on you. for all you know, your agency will still have you and tashi finish out your intended mission before dealing its punishment, but there’s no time for guessing when the gps plug-in says the next destination 90 minutes away.

you’ve got an hour and a half to get out of this mess and get away; you’ve worked with worse odds. so when the backseat door of the sedan shuts behind tashi, you do the one thing you’ve never been good at doing: you listen, because someone is going to mention where that other tracker is at some point during the drive, and that’s when you’ll have your chance to get away.

and if they don’t? that’s just not an option— you have to hope they will.

do we like how i formatted this? is it cool? made the bottom two gifs myself are we gagged lol. anyways this has been in the drafts for a while… decided to shorten it a bit to put less pressure on myself lol buuuuuut if there is interest i can/will continue! there would def be more action in that. feeling mehhh about everything and the world rn but Whatever i love u guys 💗