“All fine,” he huffed out, taking the glasses off for a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose. The headache should have been more than enough for him to realise that persevering with his girlfriend's glasses wasn’t going to be such a good idea after all. 

“New glasses?” Nat quizzed him as she moved to sit at a desk nearby. 

“Not intentionally” he squinted a little, still trying to adjust as he slid the frames back onto his face. “They aren’t mine.” 

“Then why are you wearing them?” Rooster asked with a bemused smile, he too taking his seat as Coyote, Payback and Fanboy joined them. 

“Because I haven’t had time to go back and find mine, and my spare pair broke last week during dogfight football.” 

“So, whose are they?” 

The answer to that would have been a lot easier had the others known that he was seeing someone, let alone seeing you, their resident CNA analyst – and a civilian contractor. I.E. not someone pilots should be sleeping next to on a nightly basis. 

He opened his mouth to try and bullshit an answer, lips parting and closing a few times as he tried to come up with an excuse that sounded both realistic while avoiding making him look like too much of an idiot to give Jake any more fuel for lighthearted mockery.

To say he was thankful for the arrival of Admiral Simpson and Maverick was an understatement, forcing them all to stand to attention and shut up. 

“Good morning, you can sit. Change of plans, Y/n has an important briefing today, so we are switching to basic manoeuvres practise. Wheels up in 30. Maverick will take you through the rest.”

Bob cleared his throat awkwardly, “I’m not fit to fly, sir’ 

“What do you mean you’re not fit to fly?” 

Bob swallowed, “I’m wearing the wrong glasses. I can’t see very well.” 

“Shouldn’t you have thought of that before putting them on?” He could hear Jake trying to hold back a snigger in the seat behind him, only making his cheeks redder. 

“It wasn’t intentional. There was a mix up.” 

“Well, fix it. You have 20 minutes.” 

Bob nodded curtly before Cyclone left again. He waited a few seconds before almost bolting for the door. 

“Does anyone think those glasses look familiar?” Jake perked up as soon as he left the room. 

Payback leaned back in his chair, “Oh for sure.”

“I’m following him.”

“You can’t do that!” Nat protested.

“I can, and I will.” Jake stood and started for the door,

“We do have some training to do, you know,” Mav’s voice called after him. 

“10 minutes, max. It is important to the integrity of the team” Jake compromised like a schoolboy, a smirk breaking out on his face when Pete nodded reluctantly. “Are you coming?” he turned to the others, to which Nat, Bradley, and Reuben stood. 

***

How he managed to find his way to your office without knocking three things over and face planting he wasn't too sure, but he found himself standing outside nonetheless, wrapping his knuckles against the wood and praying your meeting hadn’t started yet.

“Oh thank god,” you sighed as you opened the door to him. “We swit-”

“Switched glasses. I noticed,” Bob chuckled as he squinted down to you. “I would say you look cute in my glasses but I can’t see a damn thing,” he said with a laugh, reaching to pluck them off of your face and switch them, handing yours back to you. Blinking a few times he finally adjusted, realising just how close you were standing to one another as he leaned against your doorframe. “Hey,” he murmured, smiling as you both finally adjusted to being able to see again. 

“Hey to you too,” you said quietly with a smirk, stilling for a moment to simply admire him in the empty corridor – or seemingly empty corridor. 

**

“Holy shit, how did Baby on Board end up with Y/n’s glasses?” Jake asked way too loud, prompting a firm elbow to the ribs from Rooster as he shushed him, 

“Nevermind that, how did Bob end up WITH y/n?” Rooster asked as the three of them peeked around the corner, like terrible spies in a comedy movie.

“With?” Reuben perked up,

“You’re telling me that’s a simple friendly conversation?” Bradley raised an eyebrow.

“Well maybe if they both can’t see they gotta stand that close to make sure it’s the right person?”

Payback’s reasoning might have made sense had you not leaned up onto your tiptoes and placed a quick kiss to Bob’s lips, only for him to grab your waist and pull you back into him, keeping your lips against yours as you went to pull away. Your quiet giggle sounded down the otherwise abandoned corridor until you pushed him away gently with a hand on his chest. 

“What did I just say!” their collective jaws dropped. 

Jake scoffed, “I’ve been trying for weeks, what the hell does Bob have I don’t?”

“A charming personality? Manners? The list goes on, really” Nat rolled her eyes, prompting him to look at her disgruntled. 

“Fuck, he’s turning around - go, go!” Bradley whisper shouted as you pecked Bob on the cheek once more and gently pushed him back over the threshold of your office as he playfully tried to stay closer to you, jokingly pouting as you closed the door behind you. 

***

“She told me they couldn’t date students as contractors,” Jake continued to moan all the way back to the locker rooms, and then some more as they climbed into their flight gear. 

“It didn’t stop me,” Pete chimed in. Jake shot him an appreciative look, eyebrow raised at the lore.

“I think she meant she couldn’t bring herself to date you,” Bradley poked. 

“Who’s dating who?” Bob inquired as he entered the locker room. 

He turned around to look at them all when he got no response, brows furrowing a little when he found them all staring at him. 

“We could ask you the same question.”

Bob's cheeks tinged pink, “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he said with an awkward chuckle.

“Oh I often kiss Y/n on the way out of the classroom, it’s a formality,” Fanboy teased, turning back to changing with a grin. Bob’s cheeks darkened as he stammered 

Pete clapped him on the back, “don’t listen to him, Bob. It’s none of our business.”

“Baby is sleeping around with our instructors? I’d say that’s our business – I need to know his secret before my reputation is ruined,” Jake pushed.

“We are not sleeping around,” Bob insisted, his grip tightening on his locker door and his jaw clenching as he realised they had caught on. He stilled for a moment before deflating, exhaling a heavy breath and pushing his locker door open fully, allowing them to see the inside. Sure enough, taped to the door, was a picture of you wearing one of his Navy training shirts, wrapped up in his arms on the porch swing of his parents house. His mom had taken it around a year ago when you both had corresponding time off and he had taken it from base to base with him ever since. There was another polaroid just above it of you sat in his seat in an F-18 back at Lemoore where you had met, his helmet slightly too big for your head as you pretended to mess with the controls, the biggest grin on your face. He had written the date on with a marker at the bottom, along with a small heart. The edges were starting to peel from where he had repeatedly thumbed it on long missions, or had it jammed into the dash of his plane for good luck. 

“Happy?” 

The stunned silence was enough of an answer as he pulled the locker door to again to start getting dressed. 

“Well I’ll be damned,” Hangman whistled lowly. “How long have you two been a thing?” 

“Three years in October.” 

“Shit, sorry for hitting on your girl, man. I had literally no idea.” For once, Jake’s apology sounded genuine and Bob offered him a small appreciative nod. 

“It’s okay, I knew you didn’t have a chance.” Bob busied himself with his suit so as to hide his smirk as Hangman’s jaw dropped open, Rooster clapping him on the back as he cackled hysterically. 

Extra:

“So, how did you end up with her glasses this morning?” Jake asked as they headed back in from training, still unable to let the whole debacle go.

“Yeah thinking about it, I’m sure you had yours on at breakfast in the mess?” Nat added without thought.

Bob's cheeks flushed a deep red again as he avoided both of their gazes, choosing to plead the fifth instead. 

“Holy shit, Bob fucks!” Jake called out as the realisation dawned on him. “And on the compound too. You sly dog.” 

He didn’t even bother fighting the accusations. A small, sly smirk settling on his lips instead. 

ok so. the process is:

first, you gotta make an account. if you've already done so, skip this step. if you haven't, read on.

you gotta go to the top right and hit "sign in". a window'll pop up—look at the bottom for "get an invitation" and hit that. you'll be redirected to an invitation page. read through it and make sure you understand what you're signing up for (I recommend you read the TOS, it's actually pretty interesting and they explain what everything means), and once you've decided, put in your email address, do whatever it tells you I don't really remember, and submit.

and then you wait.

for like a week and a half.

gonna be totally honest, I have no goddamn clue why this is how they do it. seems kinda hellish. but regardless, ya gotta do it to post, and you get a bunch of other perks from signing up too. i won't be explaining those, though; there are other guides, surely.

eventually you'll get an email telling you to follow a link to activate your account. do that. you might have to sign in again, idk. but once you're properly in your account, you're ready for the next step.

in the top right, there's a button for "post". hit post, then new work.

and then there's a whole lotta shit you gotta fill out about your fic.

firstly, your rating! rule of thumb is hit teen if there are swears, mildly heavy themes, or significant violence; mature if it's almost sex or someone's fucking dying or sm; and explicit if there's sex. hit general if it's free from all that. if you're writing a chaptered fic, use whatever applies to what you're posting NOW, not what'll come later. this will become a theme.

then you have archive warnings. basically just hit whichever warnings are in your fic (or the chapter youre uploading), or if you're unsure, you can choose not to.

you have fandoms. that's easy. you can figure that one out. if there's none, go with "original work" or "no fandom", no I don't know the difference; if there are more then one, tag them all.

categories—if there are heavily featured ships in your fic/chapter, you just mark what kind they are. again, this is about the chapter you are posting, not any future plans. you can figure out what they M and F ones mean, gen is for no major ships, multi is for poly ships im pretty sure, and other is typically for people or things without gender.

then there are relationships. these are platonic, romantic, familial, sexual, etc. basically if the chapter investigates a relationship, tag that relationship. & for non-ships, / for ships. if there's people interacting with each other as a group, you can do the relationship tag for all three, if one exists.

characters is easy. just put the characters. for fics that'll be longer, you probably shouldn't tag mentioned or minor characters, but that's up to you.

and then there's additional tags. this is the beast, the big one, the everest you must climb. these can cover basically everything that doesn't fall into the previous categories, from themes to warnings to fic type. some fandoms will have fandom-specific tags for inside jokes or common tropes. maybe Hunter | The Golden Guard Gets A Hug (The Owl House). maybe Jax [is] Being an Asshole (The Amazing Digital Circus). the bigger the fandom, the more of these you'll see. they might pop up while you're looking for other tags—don't be afraid to click!

sometimes you'll hit the wrong tag. worry not! just click on the tag and you can edit it! this will move your tag down to the bottom of the list, though. you can't reorder the tags while keeping your sanity, don't even try, this is a warning

you can write things that Aren't pre-written tags in there too! people will kinda treat it like talking in the tags on tumblr, but they generally keep the amount of rambling to a minimum if they can help themself. look at me writing this whole thing, though; clearly i can't help myself.

you'll want to tag:

general themes

specific headcanons featured within the fic (like, say, Trans Noelle Holiday)

tropes used in the story (slow burn, enemies to lovers, possession, etc)

type of story (angst, fluff, hurt/comfort; ficlet, longfic, drabble, oneshot; songfic's there too. you don't need any of these if they dont apply.)

any potential content warnings someone would want to search against (asphyxiation, child abuse, underage drinking)

any potential topics someone would want to search specifically for (asphyxiation, child abuse, underage drinking)

if it's a chapter fic, you'll wanna add "Other Additional Tags To Be Added" or "Tags May Change". maybe "Rating May Change" or "Warnings May Change" if you predict that will happen, too.

if it's an au, tag what kind of au it is (canon divergent, no powers, coffee shop, hunger games, etc. there are many many many of these.)

if it centers a certain character, there might be a tag for that (ex: Susie-centric). people will sort by this!

if it's smut, tag the kinks. it's not uncommon for specific kinks that aren't "official" tags to still be widely used in smut circles; don't be afraid to add them. also you might wanna tag "shameless smut" or "porn with plot"/"plot what plot/porn without plot" if they apply.

on a completely unrelated note, one tag pair we fic writers like to use (sometimes concurrently!) is "The Author Regrets Everything" and "The Author Regrets Nothing". use these if they apply and you desire

also there's "I wrote this instead of sleeping", that's a fun one. there's lots of ones talking specifically about the author.

if someone has beta-ed your work, tag "betaed". if someone has not, it's tradition to write your own tag in the format "no beta we die like [x character or idea that has died (or "died") in your fandom]". it'll link back to the tag Not Beta Read. (for example: No Beta We Die Like Chara)

if your fic contains like suuuuper graphic content, tag "dead dove". you can google it to figure out what it means, but make sure you type "dead dove ao3" and not just "dead dove". im sure you can deduce why

if your fic is in a particular style, tag that (poetry, chatfic (or chatfic elements), experimental style, character study)

if there's a character who's commonly misgendered in your fandom, there's likely a tag for "[xyz character] Uses [xyz] Pronouns". some people will only sort by fics tagged with the correct pronouns so you'll want that.

if your fic is gay, tag "queer characters" or "queer themes".

phew. that's about it for tags. just use common sense; you don't need ALL of them, some fics only have like two tags anyway. these are all merely suggestions. i don't wanna overwhelm you lol, you don't NEED anything, it'll just make it easier for people who are looking for your type of fic to find it.

thus concludes the tagging tutorial. next up, ...everything else!

the rest is much more straightforward. you've passed the hard part already! good for you!

you can guess what work title is. you don't really have to put effort into those. mine are always either jokes or like two words in lowercase; song lyrics, quotes from the fandom, and brief descriptions of the fic are also common.

add co-creators is if someone else is writing with you; otherwise don't bother. betas don't count; if you wanna thank them, put that in the notes. unless they like. betaed super duper hard.

summary. this can be a lot of things, but you generally want a hook. but not the "read ahead and find out!" kind, more... detailing the premise, letting the reader know if this is what they're looking for. it can be a description of the premise, or a passage from the fic that illustrates it well. some people will just put a song lyric, or a definition of a word that's a major theme. really, it's just whatever you feel like shows the Idea of your fic best.

if you want to add author's notes, put em here. generally the beginning notes are personal and the ending notes reflect on the story or begging for comments. no shame in it, lol, comments fuel our kind.

keep in mind: if this is a chapter fic, the end notes are the end notes for the ENTIRE fic, not just the chapter. same for the beginning notes too. if you would like to add notes or a summary to the chapter specifically, you have to post the fic and then go in and edit the chapter. it's weird, I dunno.

collections are just big lists of fics with a theme. you don't need to bother with those if you're new. for now, pass that.

if youre gifting it to someone, put it in gifts. p simple.

tick the following boxes if they apply; you can probably figure out what they do, and if you can't, hit the question mark next to them

set your language. presumably english, if you're reading this. yes, Old English, Hieroglyphs, and Cuneiform are on there. there are a good chunk of conlangs too, if you feel like challenging yourself.

workskins are a bit complicated and you don't need to bother with them for your first fic; skip this.

the privacy settings are all up to you. I personally would allow unregistered users to read cuz that's a LOT of people. i don't really see the point of comment moderation unless you're getting like. swaths of hate comments. sometimes there are botted hate comments under guest accounts on fics in popular fandoms, but I've never gotten one so I allow all comments. the more the better.

and then you can paste your fic/chapter. presumably you didn't use any special formatting other than basic stuff like italics n bold. WHAT YOURE GOING TO DO is go to the top of the box, hit "rich text", and scroll back down to the new box. you're going to copy the entirety of your fic/chapter and paste it there, with formatting. there's a bug here sometimes, so swap back to html afterwards. then you scroll to the bottom and hit "preview". skim through the fic and make sure everything looks normal, and assuming it does, you post.

congratulations! you've posted your first fic! that was so much more time intensive then you ever thought or hoped it'd be, but fortunately, all that time went into making sure the people who would want to read your fic can find it, and the people who want to avoid your fic won't. you've made a great contribution to your fandom and will get twenty kudos and no comments because everybody hates you and you deserve the death penalty.

(this is a joke. this happens to everyone. just wait it out and don't let the numbers dictate anything about your enjoyment of writing.)

okay, but what if that was just your first chapter? how do you post the next one?

well, first you find the fic (it'll be in your profile). open it. at the top, hit "add chapter". fill in everything involved, it's basically the same, preview, post.

then go and update your tags by scrolling to the top and hitting "edit tags". you'll want to add any new warnings, themes, character, relationships, yada yada. if the rating mightve changed, update it. basically change the thing to make sure the tags reflect the entirety of the posted fic and not just the first chapter.

and that's it! you've continued your fic! now you're an ao3 amateur and are ready to go on to making your own custom site and workskins and special formatting and hey wait where are you going

you don't need to do any of that. just go out there and write. and read. and leave kudos. and comment, please please comment. i promise authors won't judge you, i get so excited when i see my inbox has something. the longer, the better, of course (don't clip that), but if your brain isn't feeling up to that, you can leave keysmashes. screaming. heart emojis. i regularly comment "I hate you" on really sad angst fics and not a single author has taken it as an insult. we'll even take "beeschurger" at this point, comment culture is dying. please help revive it.

now. out into the archive fields with ye! write it! if it's bad, too bad, post it anyway! it's an archive, after all; archives is for everything, not just the best of the best. you'll appreciate it later. i wish i didn't delete my first fic.