#83 anon

Valkyrie is late. Again. There’s nothing you can do but sit there, tapping the end of your pen against the table and watching as the minute hand on the clock inches obstinately onward. You’d be less agitated if you didn’t know exactly where she is and what it is that she’s doing.

As it is, you're trying hard to keep your thoughts very far away from what you know she's doing and why she's late. You are unsuccessful, and your pen picks up speed against the table. Then, to add insult to injury, the doors to the conference room swing open hard and the King of Asgard comes sauntering in with her t-shirt inside out. Just to confirm what you already knew.

"You're late," you say curtly, as you stand for her entrance: she's still your King, after all, even if she manages to get on every single nerve you have. She just snorts at you.

"Sit down."

You sink back into your seat and pick up your pen again.

"I was busy," she says, stretching her arms above her head.

"Right," you say. "Busy." She flashes you a white-toothed grin that nowhere near meets her eyes.

"Come on, then," she says, sighing demonstratively. "What is it today? Ribbon-cutting? Clown dancing?"

"You'd excel at both," you say dryly. "We've received a request for you to meet the new Queen of Wakanda."

She tries not to show it, but it interests her. The twitch in her smile. The narrow of her eyes.

"And no, you can't decline," you add.

"God, you really don't think much of me, do you?" she says, still grinning, still looking you right in the eye.

"Maybe you should hire someone who licks your shoes when you walk in, then," you snap.

"But I like it when my women talk back," she says, the light playing in her eyes. Your pen snaps in your hands and ink goes everywhere, all over your paper pad. You curse and jerk back; you hadn't even realised you'd been gripping it that hard. Valkyrie laughs. Doesn't stop laughing.

She wipes her eyes and slaps the table. "But really, you should mind your manners," she says, through huffs of laughter. "I'm your King. And-" she leans forward, not laughing anymore- "If I wanted you to lick my shoes, rest assured sweetheart, I'd find a way to make you do it."

And the smile is back. You wipe ink aggressively off your hands.

"Fuck you," you say, and you stand to leave, shaking in the shoulders.

"Oh yeah?" Valkyrie calls after you. "How hard?" You slam the door closed.

You practically run off down the corridor, into an empty room with a desk and nothing else. She'll come looking for you. You grab the pack of tissues on the desk and scrub furiously at your fingers.

It's been like this ever since- well, ever since she first set eyes on you, probably. But the real genesis of the problem was when she followed you to the bathroom at the damn Met Gala of all places, and told you, stalking around behind you with her eyes on yours in the mirror, that she'd been thinking about fucking you for a while. Your hands had shaken under the stream of water.

As advisor to the King, you shouldn't have. Not in any universe. But you had, because you'd not yet understood that she was like this with anyone and everyone who caught her eye. And she'd dropped you just like that. No regard for a professional relationship, or, gods forbid, your feelings. And sure, maybe you were a little snarky with her, but when she turned up to royal meetings having obviously come straight from the bedroom, it stung. That was all there was to it. Like she was parading it in front of you.

You're not going to cry. Not out of anger. The emotions are rushing out of you, though, and you kick the leg of the desk in anger.

And then the door opens and Valkyrie comes in. Closes it behind her and leans on it. Well, shit; she's found you. She always does.

"I'm not really in the mood for royal affairs," she says. "But you really shouldn't run off like that."

"Go away," you say, your voice marvellously clear.

"No." She tilts her head at you. "They all think they're special, gorgeous. You're not alone in that."

"Great," you say, discarding your inky tissues onto the desk. "Maybe we should start a therapy group. What is your problem, by the way?"

Valkyrie just looks at you. Dead-eyed now, like a shark. "I don't have a problem."

You laugh, and you don't mean for it to emerge derisive, but it does. "Oh, you really do. Gods."

She pushes off the door and walks towards you.

"Absolutely not," you say, but she just reaches past you for the tissues and tucks them into her pocket. She's looking at you now, ninety degrees in your peripheral and you stare resolutely at the wall.

"You shouldn't litter," she says, painfully close your face.

"I'm not doing this again," you say. "And neither are you, right?" Now you look at her. "Because you never have anyone twice."

Nothing for a moment, just her gaze on your face. You can practically feel it tracing the features of your nose, your lips. "Some people surprise me," she says.

And then, dickhead, she pulls back, opens the door and walks away. Leaves you, inky and trembling and wondering, alone in the room.

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notes: good prompt anon I enjoyed that 🥴 now I have to do one where she's nice 💔