#nacrearchives

The clock on the nightstand flips to 12:00. The silence of the room is jagged, the kind that makes you hear the phantom sound of footsteps in the hallway.

Then, the vibration.

Your phone hums against the duvet, a dull, insistent rattle. You don't expect a call. Sae basically communicates in telegrams,text messages that read like bullet points, devoid of emojis, ending in periods that feel like slamming doors.

"I arrived."

"The flight was delayed."

"Eat something."

Seeing his name on the caller ID, shimmering in the dark of the bedroom, feels like a breach in the hull of a ship. You answer on the second ring.

"Sae?"

Silence. Not the empty kind, but the heavy, pressurized sort,the sound of someone breathing on the other end of a line six thousand miles away. You can hear the distant, muffled announcement of an airport terminal, the ghost of a Spanish PA system echoing in the background.

"Tell me about your day," he says.

His voice is flat, sandpaper-dry. It’s the voice he uses in post-match interviews when he’s bored of the questions, but there’s a micro-fracture in the cadence. He’s tired. More than that, he’s untethered.

"It’s midnight, Sae," you murmur, pulling the hoodie onto your lap. "You’re in Madrid. You should be heading to the facility."

"I am in a car," he replies. A pause. Short, clipped. "Stay on the line. Just... talk."

He doesn’t say "I missed you." He doesn’t say "The silence in the terminal was too loud." He doesn't say "I realized halfway across the Atlantic that I hate being without you." He just asks for the noise of your life to fill the vacuum of his.

You lie back, the phone pressed to your ear, and you start. You don’t talk about anything important. You tell him about the coffee shop running out of the beans you like. You tell him about the stray cat that sat on the windowsill for an hour, staring at the empty space where he usually eats his breakfast. You tell him about the book you started, the one with the protagonist he’d probably call 'mediocre' within the first three chapters.

As you talk, you hear the subtle shifts in his environment. The soft *thrum-thrum* of tires over a bridge. The rustle of his coat. He doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t offer commentary. But every few minutes, there’s a low hum of acknowledgement, a "Mm," or a sharp exhale that lets you know he’s still there, processing every word like it’s a tactical briefing.

"You left your hoodie," you say, your voice dropping an octave. "The black one. On the chair."

For a long time, he says nothing. You can almost see him,jaw tight, teal eyes fixed on the Madrid skyline blurring past the window, his hand probably gripping his phone a little too hard. He hates the fact that you caught him. He hates even more that you knew it was intentional.

"The heating in the penthouse is inconsistent," he says finally. It’s a weak excuse. The heating is fine. "I didn't want you to be cold."

"Liar," you say, but there’s no bite in it.

"Don't be tedious," he retorts, though the edge is gone. It’s a scripted response, a defensive reflex he’s used since he was a teenager to keep the world at arm's length. With you, it’s just a formality. A way of saying *don’t make me say it out loud.*

"I'm wearing it," you tell him.

The silence on the other end changes. It softens. You can hear him shift in his seat, the tension leaking out of him through the speaker. He doesn't have to be the best midfielder in the world right now. He doesn't have to be the "New Generation World 11" prodigy with the frozen heart. He’s just a twenty-year-old man in the back of a black car, listening to the person who knows exactly how fragile his armor really is.

"It's too big for you," he says. His voice is quieter now, almost a whisper. It’s the closest he’ll get to an admission of affection tonight.

"I like it that way."

You tell him about the rain that started an hour ago, how it’s streaking the glass of the bedroom window. You describe the way the streetlights look through the droplets, like blurred gold coins. You’re painting a picture of home for him, weaving a safety net out of mundane details.

You talk until your voice grows thick with sleep, until your sentences start to loop and fray at the edges. You expect him to hang up, to tell you to go to bed, to regain his composure and return to the frost.

He doesn’t.

"Keep talking," he says when you lapse into a long silence.

"I’m running out of things to say, Sae. I told you about the groceries already."

"It doesn't matter," he says.

There is a vulnerability in that sentence that he would never allow anyone else to hear. It’s the sound of a man who spends his life being watched, analyzed, and critiqued, finally finding a place where he can just 'be.' He needs the sound of your voice to drown out the expectations of a country, the pressure of a multi-million-euro contract, and the cold, sterile luxury of his life in Spain.

You realize then that he isn’t just listening to your day. He’s using your voice to anchor himself back to the earth. To you.

"I’m still here," you whisper.

"I know."

He stays on the line through the check-in at the hotel. You hear the crisp exchange in Spanish with the concierge,his voice returning to that polished, distant mask,and the chime of the elevator. You hear the heavy thud of his suitcase hitting the floor of his suite.

Even then, he doesn’t hang up.

You hear the sound of him walking toward the window, the faint click of the latch as he opens it to let in the Madrid air.

"The moon is the same here," he says. It’s a startlingly poetic observation for a man who lives in statistics and angles.

"Of course it is."

"It looks different, though. Everything does."

"It'll be the same when you get back," you promise.

A soft exhale. A surrender. "Go to sleep."

"You first. You have practice in six hours."

"I'll stay until you're out," he says.

It’s not a request; it’s a command, phrased with the typical Itoshi arrogance, but the subtext is a plea. He wants to be the last thing you hear, even if he can’t be the one beside you.

You close your eyes, pulling the scent of his hoodie closer, burying your face in the collar. The phone is warm against your ear. Across the ocean, Sae is standing on a balcony, looking at the same moon, holding the line like a lifeline.

"Sae?" you murmur, right at the edge of consciousness.

"Mm."

"Don't play too hard. Don't get hurt."

There’s a long pause, a beat where the world seems to hold its breath.

"I won't," he says, his voice finally losing the last of its chill. "Sleep."

You drift off to the sound of his breathing, steady and rhythmic, a constant pulse in the dark. He doesn’t hang up for another hour, not until he’s certain the silence on your end is the deep, unbroken quiet of rest. Only then does the line click shut, leaving the apartment silent again,but this time, it doesn't feel empty.

In the theater of his mind, the play always ended the same way: You stood in the doorway, a suitcase at your feet, your eyes holding no warmth.

"I'm tired, Michael."

Your voice was soft. Gentle. The voice of someone who had already made peace with their decision.

"There's nothing behind the crown. Just a boy who never learned how to let anyone in."

"I can't love someone who doesn't exist."

He rolled onto his side, his predatory blue eyes tracing the silhouette of your shoulder in the dark. He wanted to reach out,to feel the warmth of your skin, to prove you were still real. But his hand wouldn't move. It hung in the air between you, frozen, like he was already reaching for a ghost.

He was terrified that if he touched you, you'd dissolve into smoke.

So he pulled his hand back. He slipped out of bed. He stood in the bathroom mirror, tracing the permanent red lines tattooed beneath his eyes, the blue rose on his neck, the crown on his hand.

He looked like an emperor.

But he felt like a boy who had just watched his mother walk out the door.

---

For three weeks, the distance between you grew like a chasm neither of you knew how to cross.

He stopped reaching for your hand across the dinner table. He stopped kissing you goodbye in the mornings. He stopped telling you about his day, stopped talking altogether. You gave him space at first, thinking he needed time to decompress, but when three weeks passed and he still flinched at your touch, you knew something was wrong. The way he'd pull away when you reached for him, the way he'd lie awake at night with his back to you, the way he'd look at you sometimes like you were already gone,it was killing you slowly, this silence between you.

You tried to reach him. You made his favorite meals. You left him notes. You sat beside him on the couch and waited for him to speak. But he just sat there, staring at nothing, his jaw tight, his eyes hollow. The man you loved was disappearing behind a wall of his own making, and you didn't know how to tear it down.

The breaking point came on a Thursday evening.

He was standing in the kitchen when you walked in, staring out the window at the Berlin skyline. He didn't turn around when you entered, didn't acknowledge you at all. He just stood there, his reflection a ghost in the glass, his shoulders rigid with tension.

"Michael."

Nothing.

"We need to talk."

He didn't answer.

"Please." Your voice cracked on the word. "I can't do this anymore."

He turned then, and the look on his face made your heart drop. He looked exhausted. Hollow. Like he hadn't slept in weeks,which you knew he hadn't. His eyes were shadowed, the permanent red lines beneath them stark against his pale skin. His blue-streaked hair was disheveled, like he'd been running his hands through it all day. He looked nothing like the Emperor. He looked like a man who was slowly falling apart.

"What do you want me to say?" His voice was flat. Defeated. "That I've been having nightmares? That I wake up every night thinking you've left me? That I'm so terrified of losing you that I can barely breathe around you?"

You stared at him, your heart aching. "Michael-"

"Every night." His voice rose, cracking at the edges. "Every single night, I close my eyes and I watch you walk out the door. And I wake up and you're right there, and I can't even touch you because what if I do and you disappear too? What if I finally let myself believe you'll stay and then-"

He broke off, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes like he could push the grief back inside. His whole body was trembling, his shoulders shaking with the effort of holding himself together.

"I can't," he whispered, his voice breaking apart. "I can't keep doing this. I can't keep waiting for the end."

---

You crossed the kitchen in three quick steps and pulled him into your arms.

He stiffened at first, like he didn't know what to do with the comfort. But then he crumbled. His arms wrapped around you like you were the only solid thing in a world that kept trying to drown him. He buried his face in the curve of your neck, and you felt the hot sting of his tears against your skin.

"Shh," you murmured, one hand cradling the back of his head. "I've got you."

"I'm so tired," he choked out. "I'm so tired of being afraid."

"I know." You held him tighter. "But you don't have to be afraid anymore."

"You don't understand." He pulled back just enough to look at you, his face a ruin of tears and grief. "Every time I close my eyes, I see it. I see you leaving. I see the door closing. And I can't,I can't make it stop."

"Then let me help you." You cupped his face in your hands, your thumbs wiping away his tears. "I'm not going anywhere, Michael. I'm right here."

He stared at you, his breath hitching, his eyes searching yours for the lie. And when he didn't find one, he broke down completely.

The tears came in earnest,ugly, heaving sobs that tore out of his chest and shook his whole body. He pulled away from you, curling in on himself, his hands pressed to his face like he was trying to hide. You reached for him, pulling his hands away from his face and wrapping your arms around his trembling frame. He collapsed against you, his forehead dropping to your shoulder, his fingers digging into the fabric of your shirt like you were the only thing keeping him upright.

"Shh," you whispered, rocking him gently. "Let it out. I'm right here."

So he did.

He cried until his eyes were swollen and his voice was hoarse. He cried for all the things he'd never been able to say, all the fears he'd never been able to voice, all the years he'd spent waiting for the other shoe to drop. He cried for the boy he'd been and the man he'd become. And when the tears finally stopped, he lay trembling in your arms, his head on your chest, your fingers in his hair.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"For what?"

"For staying."

---

The nightmares came again that night. You felt him tense, heard him whimper, watched his face crumple into something young and frightened.

But when you whispered, "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere," he relaxed. His breathing evened out. His arms tightened around you.

And Michael Kaiser slept through the night for the first time in weeks.

---

In the morning, you made him bread crusts.

Fresh ones, from the bakery down the street. You toasted them yourself, dusted them with sugar and garlic salt, and carried them to the bedroom.

Michael was sitting up in bed when you walked in, his hair a disaster, the permanent red lines beneath his eyes stark against his pale skin. He looked younger without the armor of his usual confidence. Softer. More human.

He stared at the plate like it was something sacred.

"I remembered," you said softly, sitting down beside him. "You told me once. About the bread."

He looked at you, his eyes searching yours. "You remembered?"

"Of course I did."

He picked up a crust and took a small bite. His eyes fluttered closed. His jaw worked slowly. When he opened them again, they were wet.

"They taste like hope," he whispered.

You smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth. "That's because they are."

He ate the entire plate. Every single crust. And when he was done, he set the plate aside and pulled you into his arms.

"I love you," he murmured into your hair. "I love you so much it terrifies me."

You pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. "That's how it should be."

He laughed,a soft, broken, beautiful sound,and held you tighter.

---

That night, Michael Kaiser dreamed of nothing at all.

Just warmth. Just you. Just the quiet, miraculous truth that for the first time in his life, he didn't have to steal love to keep it.

The Emperor slept, not on a throne, but in the soft sanctuary of being known.

And in the morning, when he opened his eyes and found you still there,your hair a mess, your face soft with sleep, your hand resting over his heart,he smiled.

Not the sharp, predatory smirk of the Emperor of Bastard München.

Just Michael.

Just him.

And for the first time, that was more than enough.

❥︎pearly-whirl| Do not copy, steal or translate my work. you'll be blocked.

The door creaked open. He didn't look up; he knew the footfalls. They were heavier than Hange’s erratic pacing and more deliberate than a harried messenger’s.

"You’re late," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.

"The mud happened, Levi," you replied, closing the door behind you. You leaned your back against the wood, exhaling a long, weary breath. You were soaked to the bone, your Scout Regiment cloak clinging to your frame, dripping puddles onto his pristine floor. "I’ve spent the last hour helping the recruits dig the wagons out of the muck."

Levi finally looked up. His eyes, that dull, piercing blue-grey, tracked upward,past your boots, past the line of your damp trousers, settling on your face. Even sitting, the height difference between you was a constant, unspoken variable in the room. When you stood close to him, you had nearly half a foot on him, a fact that usually resulted in him looking up at you with a simmering, dangerous sort of intensity.

"You're getting water everywhere," he grumbled, though the usual bite in his tone was softened by something else. Exhaustion, perhaps. Or the way your hair was plastered to your forehead.

"I’ll scrub it later," you promised, stepping away from the door. You began unbuckling your ODM gear, the leather straps groaning. "Right now, I’m freezing, I’m tired, and I’m about five seconds away from falling asleep on your rug."

Levi set the blade down on a clean rag. He stood, his short stature doing nothing to diminish the sheer gravity of his presence. He walked over to target the mess you were making, but instead of grabbing a mop, he stopped in front of you.

You looked down at him. From this vantage point, you could see the faint silver of the scars on his forehead, the way his dark undercut was slightly mussed. He looked small compared to you, but he felt like an anchor.

"Take off the gear," he commanded quietly.

You obeyed, your fingers numb from the cold rain. You fumbled with the clasp at your chest. Levi watched for a moment, an impatient click of his tongue echoing in the small room, before his own hands moved to intervene. His fingers were warm against your chilled skin, calloused and steady. He worked the buckles with a speed you never quite mastered, his head tilted back slightly to maintain eye contact as he worked.

"You work too hard," he muttered, his knuckles brushing against your ribs as he loosened the side straps.

"Pot, meet kettle," you countered, a small smile tugging at your lips.

He pulled the gear away, setting it aside with a heavy thud. Then came the cloak, and finally, your damp jacket. When you were down to your thin cotton shirt, the chill of the room hit you, and you shivered.

Levi’s gaze darkened. He didn't pull away. Instead, he stepped closer, his chest nearly brushing yours. Because of the height gap, his face was level with the curve of your throat. He could hear the quickening of your pulse, the way your breath hitching in the quiet air.

"You’re towering over me again," he whispered, his voice vibrating against your skin. It was an old observation, a point of friction and fascination between you. He liked the challenge of it,liked the way he had to reach for you, the way you had to bend to him.

"Does it bother you, Captain?" you teased, though your voice was breathless.

Levi’s hand shot out, his fingers curling around the back of your neck. It wasn't a gentle touch; it was the grip of a man who took what he wanted, a soldier who knew exactly how much pressure it took to snap a neck or cause a shiver. He pulled you down, forcing you to incline your head until your lips were inches from his.

"It makes me want to see you on your back," he rasped. "Where the height doesn't matter."

He closed the distance. The kiss was a collision,harsh, desperate, and tasting of salt and rain. Levi didn’t do anything halfway. He kissed the way he fought: with a focused, singular intensity that demanded your total surrender. His tongue swiped against yours, a claim, while his other hand found the small of your back, crushing your body against his.

You groaned into his mouth, your hands finding his shoulders, feeling the hard, lean muscle beneath his shirt. You loved the weight of him, the compact power of his body. You slid your hands up to cradle his face, your thumbs tracing the sharp line of his jaw.

Levi broke the kiss, breathless, his forehead resting against your collarbone. He looked up at you, his eyes clouded with a rare, raw hunger. "Let's go to our bed," he commanded. "Now."

He didn't wait for an answer. He led you to the narrow cot in the corner of the room. It was meticulously made, the corners tucked with military precision. You sat on the edge, the frame creaking under your weight. As Levi stood between your parted knees, the height dynamic shifted. Now, he was the one looking down, his hands resting on your thighs, his thumbs digging into the muscle there.

"Look at me," he murmured.

You looked up, your heart drumming against your ribs. Levi reached out, his fingers trembling ever so slightly as he began to unbutton your damp shirt. He was slow, agonizingly so, his eyes fixed on the skin he was uncovering. He peeled the fabric back, exposing the curve of your shoulders, the swell of your breasts.

"Beautiful," he whispered, a word so rare in his vocabulary it felt like a holy vow.

He leaned in, his lips grazing the sensitive skin of your neck. He found a spot just below your ear and bit down, not enough to break the skin, but enough to leave a mark,a brand. You gasped, your head falling back, your fingers tangling in his dark hair.

"Levi..."

"I've got you," he muttered against your skin.

He moved his hands down, discarding the rest of your clothes with a frantic efficiency that betrayed his stoic mask. When you were finally bare before him, the candlelight gilding your skin, he took a moment to just look. He traced the lines of your body with his eyes, from the length of your legs to the softness of your waist.

He stripped quickly, his own body a map of his history,scars from blades, from titan steam, from a childhood spent in the dark. He was all corded muscle and scars, a weapon honed to a lethal edge.

When he climbed onto the bed with you, the space felt impossibly small. He moved over you, his knees settling on either side of your hips. Even here, as you lay back, you were long, your limbs stretching toward the ends of the cot. Levi placed his hands flat on the mattress on either side of your head, looming over you.

"Tell me what you want," he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous frequency.

"I want you," you breathed, reaching up to pull him down. "All of you. Now."

He didn't need to be told twice. He kissed you again, deeper this time, his hands wandering, mapping every inch of you. He found the heat between your thighs, his fingers working with a devastating rhythm that had you arching off the bed, your breath coming in jagged sobs. He watched your face, his expression intense, devouring the way you looked as you lost control.

"You're so loud," he teased, a ghost of a smirk pulling at his lips, though his own breathing was heavy.

"Shut up," you gasped, grabbing his hips and pulling him forward.

He shifted, positioning himself at your entrance. He paused there for a second, his eyes locking onto yours, seeking a final, silent confirmation. You nodded, your legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him in.

He entered you in one steady, forceful thrust. The sensation was overwhelming,a fullness that made your toes curl and your vision blur. Levi let out a low, guttural growl, his eyes closing as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. He stayed still for a moment, letting both of your bodies adjust to the intrusion, the heat of the connection radiating between you.

Then, he began to move.

It wasn't a gentle rhythm. It was a rhythmic, driving pace that mirrored the storm outside. Levi pushed into you with a desperate kind of honesty, his strength on full display. Every time he lunged forward, his chest pressed against yours, the friction of your skin creating a heat that felt like it could burn the room down.

You clung to him, your nails digging into the skin of his back. Because of your height, your legs wrapped easily around him, locking at the small of his back, anchoring him to you. You felt every inch of him, every muscle corded and tight.

"Levi, please," you whimpered, the pleasure building into a sharp, unbearable tension.

He didn't pull back. He leaned down, his mouth finding yours again, swallowing your moans. He picked up the pace, his breaths coming in harsh, rhythmic stabs. He was focused entirely on you, on the way your body tightened around him, on the way your eyes blew wide as the peak approached.

"Stay with me," he hissed against your lips. "Look at me, [Y/N]."

You forced your eyes open, meeting that grey gaze. In that moment, the Captain was gone. There was no humanity’s strongest soldier, no stoic leader, no weight of the world. There was only Levi,the man who had survived the Underground, who had lost everything and still chose to love something.

The climax hit you like a physical blow, a sudden, violent release that had you crying out his name. Your internal muscles clamped down on him, sending him over the edge a second later. He let out a choked sound, his body shuddering as he surrendered to the sensation, spent and raw.

He collapsed against you, his weight a welcome pressure. The only sound in the room was the rain and the synchronized, frantic thudding of two hearts.

For a long time, neither of you moved. The candle flickered, the wax pooling at the base. Levi finally shifted, propping himself up on his elbows. He looked down at you, his hair damp with sweat, his expression softer than you ever saw it in the light of day.

He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of your lower lip. "You're a mess," he whispered.

"Your fault," you croaked, a tired smile spreading across your face.

He let out a short, huffed breath,his version of a laugh. He rolled off you, lying on his side in the narrow space, pulling the rough wool blanket over both of your tangled limbs. He pulled you close, your head resting on his chest, your long legs entwined with his.

He didn't say 'I love you.' He didn't have to. The way he held you,with a quiet, fierce protectiveness, his hand resting steady on your hip,was enough.

"Sleep," he murmured into your hair. "The mud will still be there in the morning."

You closed your eyes, lulled by the steady beat of his heart under your ear. Outside, the storm continued to rage, but inside the small, clean room, for the first time in a long time, everything was still.

❥︎pearly-whirl| Do not copy, steal or translate my work. you'll be blocked.

William James Moriarty

The Realization:

William had always viewed marriage as a strategy. A contract between families. A way to secure bloodlines and alliances. Love, if it existed at all, was an inconvenient variable that complicated otherwise elegant equations.

He had never imagined it for himself.

His life was a countdown. A slow, deliberate walk toward an execution he had already accepted. He would dismantle the corrupt class system of Britain, and then he would die,by Sherlock Holmes's hand, by the state's noose, by his own if necessary. There was no room in that timeline for a spouse. No room for forever.

But then you came.

It was not love at first sight. William did not believe in such things. It was a slow accumulation of small moments,a hand on his shoulder when he had been working too long, a cup of tea placed just within reach, a quiet presence in the corner of his study that made the silence feel less like loneliness and more like peace.

The moment he knew came on a night he had tried very hard to forget.

A mission had gone wrong. A nobleman they had been targeting had been more guarded than anticipated. William had taken a knife to the ribs,not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to hurt. He had made it back to the manor, left a trail of blood across the marble floors, and collapsed in his study.

He had not called for help. He never did.

But you found him anyway.

He did not remember much of that night. He remembered pain, white-hot and consuming. He remembered Louis's voice, sharp with fear. He remembered Albert's hands pressing bandages to his side.

But most of all, he remembered you.

You were there. You stayed. When Louis had been sent away to calm down, when Albert had been called to handle the aftermath, you remained. You sat beside his bed, holding his hand, dabbing the sweat from his forehead, reading aloud from a book you knew he loved.

He drifted in and out of consciousness. Each time he woke, you were there. Your voice. Your touch. Your stubborn, unwavering presence.

On the third day, when the fever broke and the pain faded to a dull ache, he opened his eyes and found you asleep in the chair beside him. Your hand was still wrapped around his. Your face was pale with exhaustion. There were dark circles under your eyes.

He watched you breathe.

And he thought: I want to wake up to this face every morning for the rest of my life.

The thought was so sharp, so unexpected, that it stole his breath.

He did not want to die anymore. Not completely. He wanted to live. He wanted to come home to you. He wanted to watch you grow old. He wanted to argue with you about dinner, and laugh with you in the garden, and hold your hand when the nightmares came.

He wanted to marry you.

It was, he realized, the first thing he had ever wanted purely for himself.

The Preparation:

The realization did not immediately translate into action. William was not a man who rushed into anything. He spent weeks,months, even,turning the idea over in his mind, examining it from every angle, searching for the flaw he must have missed.

He found none.

The first thing he did was talk to Louis.

Not for permission. William did not need permission. But Louis was his brother, his other half, the person who knew him better than anyone in the world. If Louis objected, William would listen.

He found Louis in the kitchen, as always, kneading bread with those steady, capable hands.

"I am going to marry Y/N," William said.

Louis's hands stopped moving. For a long moment, he was perfectly still.

Then he looked up, and his scarred face broke into something William had not seen in years: a genuine, unguarded smile.

"It's about time," Louis said.

The second thing William did was choose the ring.

He designed it himself, working late into the night, sketching and erasing and sketching again. He was not an artist,his talents lay in mathematics and strategy,but he knew what he wanted.

The band would be silver, not gold. Gold was too flashy, too noble, too much like the world he was trying to destroy. Silver was humble. Silver was honest. Silver was you.

The stone would be a sapphire. Blue, like the sky just before dawn. Blue, like the moments of peace he found in your presence. Blue, like the hope he had thought himself incapable of feeling.

He commissioned Von Herder to make it. The blind genius grumbled about the interruption, but when William explained what he wanted,the weight, the texture, the way it should catch the light,Von Herder grew quiet.

"For her," Von Herder said. It was not a question.

"For her," William confirmed.

Von Herder nodded. "I will make it perfect."

He did. Three weeks later, he placed the finished ring in William's palm. William could not speak. He simply held it, feeling the cool weight of it, imagining it on your finger.

The third thing William did was choose the location.

It had to be somewhere meaningful. Somewhere that represented them,not the Lord of Crime and his accomplice, but William and you. Two people who had found something rare in the darkness.

He chose the garden.

Not the formal garden at the front of the manor, with its manicured hedges and pristine flowerbeds. The hidden garden at the back, overgrown and wild, where you had spent countless afternoons reading while he graded papers. The garden where you had first held his hand without him having to ask. The garden where he had first let himself cry in front of another person.

He spent a week tending it himself. He pruned the roses, pulled the weeds, hung paper lanterns in the trees. He did not let anyone help. This was his gift to you,not the proposal itself, but the preparation. The proof that he was willing to work for you.

The fourth thing William did was write his speech.

He wrote seventeen drafts. He memorized none of them.

The words would not come. Every time he tried to articulate what you meant to him, the language felt inadequate. How could he explain that you had saved him? That you had made him want to live? That you were the first good thing in his life that he had not had to destroy?

He gave up on the drafts. He decided to speak from his heart.

It was the most terrifying decision he had ever made.

The Proposal:

He chose a spring evening, when the wisteria was blooming and the air smelled like honeysuckle and rain. The sun had just set, leaving the sky that perfect shade of blue-purple that exists only for a few minutes between day and night.

He had asked you to meet him in the garden after dinner. "I have something to show you," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. You had looked at him curiously but had not pressed for details.

You trusted him. Of course you did. You had always trusted him.

He arrived early. He lit the lanterns, checked the bench, smoothed his waistcoat for the hundredth time. His hands were shaking. William James Moriarty, the greatest criminal mind of his generation, the man who had orchestrated the deaths of dozens without a flicker of hesitation,his hands were shaking.

He heard your footsteps on the gravel path. He turned.

You came around the corner, and you stopped.

Your eyes widened as you took in the lanterns, the flowers, the care he had taken. "William," you breathed. "What is all this?"

He could not speak. His voice had fled entirely.

You walked toward him slowly, your gaze moving from the lanterns to his face. "You did all this?"

He nodded.

"For me?"

He nodded again.

You reached him. You stood close enough that he could feel the warmth of you, smell the faint scent of the soap you used. Your eyes searched his face, looking for an explanation.

He took your hands.

His palms were sweaty. He hoped you did not notice. You probably did. You noticed everything.

"Before I met you," he began, "I had accepted something about myself. Something I thought was unchangeable."

Your brow furrowed. You did not interrupt.

"I believed I was a tool," he continued. "A weapon designed to dismantle a broken system. I believed that when my work was done, I would be discarded,by the world, by history, by my own hand. That was the plan. That was the only plan."

He lifted one hand to cup your cheek. You leaned into his touch instinctively.

"Then you came. And you did not try to save me. You did not try to change me. You did not lecture me about my sins or beg me to repent. You simply... stayed."

Your eyes were shining now. He pressed on.

"You stayed when I was cold. You stayed when I was cruel. You stayed when I could not even look at myself in the mirror. You brought me tea at midnight. You held my hand when the nightmares came. You sat in silence beside me for hours, asking nothing, expecting nothing, just... being there."

He swallowed hard. His throat was tight.

"I have killed people, Y/N. I have ruined families. I have burned down the world and called it justice. And I will never be sorry for those things—because they needed to happen. But I am sorry that you fell in love with a man like me. I am sorry that I cannot give you a simple life. I am sorry that every day you spend at my side is a day you risk becoming a target."

Your hand came up to cover his, still pressed to your cheek.

"I am not sorry you are here," you said quietly. "I have never been sorry."

He closed his eyes. For a moment, he simply breathed.

Then he opened them again.

"You are the only good thing in my life that I did not have to destroy to obtain. You came to me freely. You stay freely. And I... I do not deserve you. I know that. But I want to spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you anyway."

He released your hands. He stepped back.

He got down on one knee.

The gravel bit into his knee. He did not care. The lantern light caught the sapphire as he drew the ring from his pocket, holding it up to you.

"Not the Lord of Crime," he said. "Not the Professor. Not the monster the newspapers write about. Just... Liam. Your Liam. If you will have me."

His voice broke on the last word.

"I love you. I have loved you since the first time you fell asleep in my study, curled up in that chair, waiting for me to finish work. I loved you when you stitched my wounds without flinching. I loved you when you argued with me about dinner. I loved you when you laughed,really laughed, not the polite kind, the kind that makes your whole face light up.

"I love you. And I want to marry you. I want to wake up next to you every morning. I want to fall asleep with you every night. I want to argue about stupid things and make up and grow old and grey and ridiculous together.

"I know I cannot promise you safety. I know I cannot promise you peace. The work I do will always be dangerous, and the people who hate me will always be looking for ways to hurt me, and being with me means being in the line of fire.

"But I can promise you this: I will never stop choosing you. Not when it is hard. Not when it is dangerous. Not when the world tries to tear us apart. I will choose you, every day, for the rest of my life.

"So I am asking you. Not as a strategist, not as a revolutionary, but as a man who loves you more than he thought himself capable of loving anything.

"Will you marry me?"

He held the ring up to you, the sapphire glowing like a captured piece of the evening sky.

His heart was pounding. His hands were shaking. His eyes were bright with tears he refused to shed.

...

Albert James Moriarty

The Realization:

Albert had spent his entire life in service to others.

First to his birth family,a family he had grown to despise, whose cruelty and corruption had turned his stomach long before he was old enough to understand why. Then to William, the orphan boy with the eyes of a prophet, whose vision for a better world had given Albert something to believe in. Then to the cause itself, the slow, bloody dismantling of the British class system.

He had never expected to keep anything for himself.

Love, marriage, a family of his own,these were luxuries for people who had not burned their childhood home to the ground with their parents still inside. These were dreams for people whose hands were not stained with the blood of their own blood.

He had made peace with that. Or so he told himself.

Then you came.

You were not part of the plan. You had not been recruited, cultivated, or manipulated. You had simply appeared,a friend of a friend, a guest at a dinner party, a face in the crowd that he had not been able to look away from.

He had tried to push you away. He had been cold, distant, deliberately boring. He had told himself it was for your own good. You deserved someone who was not broken. Someone who could love you without guilt.

You had not listened.

The moment he knew came on an ordinary Tuesday.

He had been in his study, drowning in paperwork, when you had appeared with a tray of tea. Nothing unusual. You did this often.

But this time, you did not leave.

You sat down on the floor by his desk,not on the chair, not on the sofa, but on the floor, like a child,and you began to sort through a basket of tangled embroidery thread you had found somewhere.

He had watched you, bemused. "What are you doing?"

"Sorting," you said, not looking up. "You seemed stressed. I thought you might need company."

"I am fine."

"You are lying."

He had opened his mouth to argue, but you had simply held up a spool of blue thread and said, "Is this navy or indigo? I can never tell."

He had told you it was indigo. You had thanked him. And then you had continued sorting, humming softly under your breath, while he returned to his paperwork.

He had not been able to concentrate. He had kept looking up, watching your hands move through the tangled threads, watching your face in the lamplight, watching the way you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

And he had thought: I want to watch you do this forever.

Not the sorting. Not the thread. You. Existing in his space. In his life. Making the ordinary moments feel extraordinary simply by being there.

He had realized, with a start, that he was smiling. Actually smiling. Not his diplomatic smile, not his charming nobleman smile, but a real one,soft and unguarded and entirely for you.

You had looked up and caught him. "What?"

"Nothing," he had said. "I just... I am glad you are here."

You had smiled,that warm, open smile that made his chest ache,and gone back to your sorting.

He had watched you for a long time after that.

And he had known, with absolute certainty, that he wanted to marry you.

The Preparation:

Albert did not rush into action. He was a planner, a strategist, a man who weighed every decision against a thousand possible outcomes. Marriage was not a decision to be made lightly,especially not marriage to someone like him.

He spent weeks thinking about it. Turning it over in his mind. Searching for the flaw he must have missed.

He found none.

The first thing he did was talk to William.

Not for permission,Albert had never needed permission. But for guidance. William was the closest thing Albert had to a confessor, the only person who truly understood the weight of what they had done.

"I am going to ask Y/N to marry me," Albert said.

William looked up from his papers. For a moment, his crimson eyes were unreadable.

Then he smiled. It was a small smile, barely there, but it reached his eyes.

"She is good for you," William said. "She makes you softer. Less like a sword and more like a shield."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It is the highest compliment I can give."

Albert nodded. He had expected nothing less.

The second thing Albert did was acquire the ring.

He visited seventeen jewelers before he found what he was looking for. He did not want something flashy,that was not you. He did not want something expensive for the sake of expense,that was not him.

He wanted something that meant something.

He found it in a small shop off Bond Street, run by an elderly woman who reminded him of no one. The ring was antique, Victorian, rose gold. The diamond was small, modest, surrounded by tiny forget-me-nots carved into the band.

"Forget-me-nots," the woman said, watching him stare at it. "For remembrance. For love that outlasts memory."

Albert thought of his birth parents, whose faces he was already beginning to forget. He thought of the fire, the smoke, the way his mother had screamed. He thought of the guilt he carried, the guilt he would always carry.

And he thought of you. The way you looked at him like he was not a monster. The way you held his hand when the nightmares came. The way you remembered the small things,his favorite tea, the book he had mentioned wanting to read, the date of his mother's death even though he had never asked you to remember.

He bought the ring. He did not haggle. He paid three times the asking price and left before the woman could thank him.

The third thing Albert did was choose the location.

This was difficult. Albert's life was lived in shadows,MI6 offices, secret meeting rooms, the cold halls of power. There were few places that held meaning for him that were not stained with blood or politics.

He chose the rooftop.

It was where he went when he could not sleep, when the weight of his choices pressed down on his chest until he could not breathe. The rooftop was his place,his alone. No one else knew he went there.

Until you.

You had found him there one night, two years into your relationship. It had been raining. He had been standing at the edge, looking down at the street below, wondering what it would feel like to fall.

You had not asked what he was doing. You had not lectured him or begged him to step back. You had simply sat down on the wet rooftop, opened your umbrella, and said, "It is cold up here. Come sit with me."

He had sat. He had taken the umbrella from you, holding it over both your heads. And he had talked,really talked, for the first time in years. About the fire. About his parents. About the guilt that gnawed at him every single day.

You had listened. You had not judged. You had simply held his hand and stayed.

The rooftop became your place after that. Your sanctuary. The one place where Albert did not have to be the Count, or M, or any of the other masks he wore. He could just be Albert,broken, remorseful, and entirely himself.

He would propose to you there.

The fourth thing Albert did was prepare his speech.

He was a master of words. He could lie to Parliament, charm foreign dignitaries, manipulate the press with a single sentence. But the truth,the simple, terrifying truth of how much he loved you,stuck in his throat.

He practiced in the mirror, alone, at three in the morning.

He practiced while shaving, while dressing, while riding to work.

He never got it right.

In the end, he decided to stop practicing. He would say what was in his heart. If his voice broke, so be it. If he cried, so be it. You had seen him cry before. You had never held it against him.

The Proposal:

He chose a clear night, when the stars were visible through London's usual haze and the air was crisp with the promise of autumn. He had asked you to join him on the rooftop,"just for a moment," he said, "I want to show you something."

You had climbed up after him, wrapping your arms around yourself against the cold. He had draped his coat over your shoulders without a word.

"Albert," you said, looking around. "There is nothing up here."

"I know," he said.

He took a breath. Then another.

"I have spent my entire life serving others," he began. "My family, before I burned them. William, after. The cause. The mission. I have never... chosen anything for myself. Not really."

You turned to face him, your expression shifting from confusion to something softer, something that made his heart clench.

"I thought that was my role," he continued. "To serve. To sacrifice. To exist in the background of other people's stories. I made peace with that. I told myself I did not deserve more."

He reached for your hands. They were cold. He held them between his own, rubbing his thumbs over your knuckles, trying to warm them.

"Then you came. And you did not ask me to be anything other than what I am. You did not demand that I change, or repent, or explain myself. You just... saw me. The real me. The one I hide from everyone else."

Your eyes were shining. He pressed on.

"You saw the guilt. The shame. The nights I cannot sleep because I can still hear the fire. You saw all of it, and you did not run. You stayed. You held my hand. You brought me tea and sat with me in the dark and never once made me feel like I was too much."

He swallowed hard.

"I do not know how to be happy, Y/N. I am not sure I ever learned. The part of me that could have been happy died in that fire, I think. Or maybe it was never there to begin with."

You opened your mouth to protest. He squeezed your hands gently.

"But I think... I think I could learn. With you. If you will teach me."

He released your hands. He stepped back.

He got down on one knee.

The rooftop gravel bit into his trousers. He did not care. The stars above were bright, indifferent, beautiful. He hoped you would remember them.

"I have nothing to offer you but myself," he said. "And I know that is not much. I am broken, Y/N. I am stained. I have done things that would make your blood run cold. I will never be the husband you deserve,the kind who sleeps peacefully, who laughs easily, who does not wake up screaming from nightmares about fire."

He reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around the ring.

"But I am yours. Every broken piece. Every stain. Every dark corner of my soul. Yours. Completely. Irrevocably. For as long as you will have me."

He held out the ring. The forget-me-nots glinted in the starlight, tiny and perfect.

"I love you. I loved you when you sat on the wet rooftop with me, not asking questions, just being there. I loved you when you organized my bookshelves because you knew I could not find anything. I loved you when you fell asleep on my shoulder during a carriage ride, and I sat perfectly still for an extra hour because I did not want to wake you.

"I love you. And I want to marry you. I want to wake up next to you and make you coffee and argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes. I want to hold your hand when we are old and grey and ridiculous. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to deserve the way you look at me.

"I know I cannot promise you an easy life. I know there will be danger, and fear, and nights when you wonder if I will come home. I cannot promise you safety. I cannot promise you peace.

"But I can promise you this: I will never lie to you. I will never hide from you. I will never make you feel like you are anything less than the most important person in my world. Because you are. You are.

"So I am asking you. Not as the Count. Not as M. Not as any of the masks I wear. But as Albert,the man who loves you more than he thought himself capable of loving anything.

"Will you marry me?"

He held the ring up to you, the rose gold warm in the starlight.

His heart was pounding. His hands were steady,they were always steady,but his heart was not.

...

Louis James Moriarty

The Realization:

Louis had never imagined marriage.

His entire existence revolved around William,protecting him, serving him, ensuring his survival. Love was a luxury he could not afford. Romance was a distraction that could get his brother killed.

He had told himself this for years. He had believed it.

Then you came.

You were not supposed to matter. You were a variable Louis had not accounted for, a crack in the careful architecture of his life. He had tried to ignore you, to push you away, to make you understand that there was no room for you in his world.

You had refused to leave.

The moment he knew came on a morning like any other.

He had been in the kitchen,his kitchen, the place he guarded jealously, the one domain where he was unequivocally in charge. You had come in while he was preparing breakfast, and instead of sitting at the table like a normal person, you had picked up a knife and started chopping vegetables.

He had frozen. "What are you doing?"

"Helping," you said, not looking up.

"I do not need help."

"I know. But I want to help anyway."

He had stood there, watching you, waiting for you to make a mistake. You did not. Your knife work was precise, efficient, almost as good as his own. You had been paying attention. You had learned.

When you finished, you looked up and caught him staring. "What?"

"Nothing," he had said, turning away. "The onions are uneven."

You had looked down at the neat pile of chopped onions. "They are perfect and you know it."

He had not replied. But he had not been able to stop thinking about it. About the way you had moved in his space without trying to take it over. The way you had helped without making him feel inadequate. The way you had looked at him,not with pity, not with fear, but with something warm and steady and entirely disarming.

He had realized, standing there in his kitchen surrounded by the smell of onions and coffee, that he wanted you there every morning.

Not because you were useful. Not because you made his life easier. But because you made his life lighter. You made the silence feel less like loneliness and more like companionship. You made him feel like he was allowed to want things for himself.

He wanted to marry you.

The thought terrified him. Marriage meant vulnerability. It meant someone to lose. And Louis had already lost so much,his parents, his childhood, the sense of safety that normal people took for granted.

But for you... for you, he would risk it.

The Preparation:

Louis did not tell anyone about his plan. Not at first.

He was not ashamed,he was afraid. If he told someone, it would become real. And if it became real, he could fail.

And Louis could not bear to fail at this.

The first thing he did was talk to William.

He waited until they were alone, until the manor was quiet and the rest of the household was asleep. He found William in his study, as always, surrounded by papers and candlelight.

"I am going to ask Y/N to marry me," Louis said.

William looked up. For a long moment, he simply stared at his brother.

Then he smiled,that rare, genuine smile that he reserved only for Louis.

"I was wondering when you would say that," William said.

"You knew?"

"I have known for months. You look at her the way you used to look at the stars when we were children. Like she is something beautiful and far away that you are afraid to reach for."

Louis looked away. His scarred cheek burned beneath his bangs.

"Do not be afraid," William said softly. "She loves you. Anyone with eyes can see it."

Louis nodded. He could not speak.

The second thing Louis did was choose the ring.

He did not want anything extravagant. Extravagance was not who he was, and it was not who you were. He wanted something simple. Honest. Something that would not catch on your clothing or snag in your hair.

He spent weeks looking. He visited jewelers and pawn shops and antique markets, searching for something that felt right.

He found it in a small shop in a part of London where no one asked questions. The ring was silver,thin, delicate, adorned with a a small dark purple stone.No engravings. Just a simple band, smooth and warm.

"It belonged to a woman who was married for fifty years," the shopkeeper said. "Her husband gave it to her when they were young and poor. She never took it off."

Louis held the ring in his palm. It was light. Almost weightless.

He bought it. He did not haggle. He paid what the shopkeeper asked and left quickly, before anyone could see the expression on his face.

The third thing Louis did was choose the location.

This was the hardest part.

Louis's life had no happy places. His childhood was hunger and cold. His adolescence was fire and blood. His adulthood was service and violence. There was no garden, no rooftop, no meaningful bench where fond memories lived.

So he decided to make a place.

He chose the kitchen.

Not romantic, perhaps. Not picturesque. But the kitchen was where Louis felt most like himself. Where he was not a killer, not a guardian, not a shadow. Where he was simply... Louis. The cook. The caretaker. The man who expressed love through flour and sugar and careful, patient hands.

It was also where you had first broken through his walls.

He remembered that day clearly. You had come into the kitchen while he was baking,a rare moment of vulnerability, a hobby he did not usually share with others. You had not commented. You had not made it weird. You had simply pulled up a stool and watched.

When he had finished, you had asked, "Can I try?"

He had handed you a piece of bread. You had eaten it, closed your eyes, and said, "This is the best thing I have ever tasted."

He had known, in that moment, that you were not lying. You never lied to him.

He would propose in the kitchen. Surrounded by the warmth of the stove and the smell of fresh bread. Surrounded by the memory of every meal he had ever made for you, every quiet morning you had spent together, every moment of peace you had given him.

The fourth thing Louis did was prepare his speech.

This was the most difficult thing he had ever done.

Louis was not good with words. He never had been. His love was shown, not spoken,in the meals he prepared, the clothes he mended, the way he stood between you and danger without being asked.

But he wanted to tell you. He wanted you to hear it, just once, in words.

He practiced while he cooked. He muttered to himself over pots and pans, forgetting and remembering, starting over and over.

In the end, he decided to keep it simple. He would say what was in his heart. If his voice broke, so be it. If he cried, so be it. You had seen him cry before. You had never held it against him.

He never got it right.

The Proposal:

He chose a quiet evening, when the rest of the household was otherwise occupied and the kitchen was empty. He had cooked your favorite meal,everything from scratch, everything perfect, everything made with hands that had killed more times than he could count.

You came when he called. You always came.

You sat at the small table in the corner of the kitchen,not the formal dining room, not the garden. The kitchen. Just the two of you, surrounded by the warmth of the stove and the smell of rosemary.

You ate. You talked. You laughed at something he said,something stupid, probably, he could not remember what. He was too nervous to remember anything except the shape of your smile.

When the meal was finished, when the plates were cleared and the candles were burning low, Louis stood up.

He walked to where you sat. He pulled out your chair. He got down on one knee.

The kitchen floor was cold. He did not care.

"I am not good with words," he began. His voice was rough, barely above a whisper. "You know that. I have never been... easy. To love. I know I am cold. I know I am distant. I know I push people away before they can leave me."

Your eyes were wide. Your hand had gone to your mouth.

"I have spent my entire life being afraid," he continued. "Afraid of losing William. Afraid of failing the mission. Afraid of being useless, being forgotten, being left behind. I have built walls around myself so high and so thick that I thought no one would ever climb them."

He reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around the ring.

"Then you came. And you did not climb the walls. You sat down at the bottom of them and waited. You brought me tea and sat with me in the silence and never once demanded that I let you in."

His voice cracked. He did not try to hide it.

"You waited. For months. For years. You waited while I pushed you away again and again. You waited while I told myself I did not deserve you. You waited while I learned,slowly, painfully, against every instinct I had,that maybe I was allowed to want something for myself."

He held out the ring. The silver band caught the candlelight, warm and simple.

"I want you, Y/N. I want you in my kitchen every morning. I want you in my bed every night. I want you in my life,all of it, the dark parts and the light parts, the parts I am proud of and the parts I will never forgive myself for."

He looked up at you. His eyes were bright.

"I cannot promise you an easy life. I cannot promise you safety, or peace, or any of the things normal husbands promise their wives. My life is dangerous. My hands are stained. There will be nights when I do not come home, and you will be afraid, and I will not be there to hold you."

He swallowed hard.

"But I can promise you this: I will never leave you. Not if you are sick. Not if you are angry. Not if the world burns down around us. I will never leave you. I will protect you with every breath in my body. I will provide for you with every skill I possess. I will love you,quietly, imperfectly, stubbornly,for the rest of my life."

He held the ring up to you.

"I love you. I loved you when you chopped vegetables in my kitchen and pretended not to notice me watching. I loved you when you sat with me in the dark and did not ask questions. I loved you when you touched my scar for the first time and did not flinch.

"I love you. And I want to marry you. I want to wake up next to you and make you breakfast and argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes. I want to hold your hand when we are old and grey and ridiculous. I want to spend the rest of my life being yours.

"So I am asking you. Not as William's brother. Not as a guardian or a killer. But as Louis—the man who loves you more than he ever thought himself capable of loving anyone.

"Will you marry me?"

He held the ring up to you, the silver warm in the candlelight.

His heart was pounding. His hands were steady,they were always steady,but his heart was not.

...

Sebastian Moran

The Realization:

Sebastian Moran had never considered himself marriage material.

He drank too much. Gambled too much. He had more blood on his hands than most soldiers saw in a lifetime. He was rough, crass, and emotionally constipated. Who would want to marry that?

But you did. Somehow, impossibly, you did.

The moment he knew came after a fight.

Not a big fight,a stupid one. He had come home drunk (again), and you had confronted him (again), and he had said something cruel (again). He could not even remember what it was now,something about you not understanding him, probably, something designed to hurt.

You had left the room in tears. He had sat in his armchair, staring at the wall, hating himself.

An hour later, you came back.

You sat down beside him, took his hand, and said, "I am not leaving."

"Why not?" he had asked, his voice hollow.

"Because you are sick," you said. "Not evil. Sick. And sick people do not get better alone."

He had broken down. Right there, in his armchair, surrounded by empty bottles and the smell of gunpowder. He had cried like a child, and you had held him, and you had not let go.

In the morning, he had woken up with you still beside him.

Your hand was still in his. Your head was on his shoulder. You had stayed. You had slept in that uncomfortable armchair just to be near him.

And he had thought: I want to wake up like this every day for the rest of my life.

That was when he knew.

The Preparation:

Moran did not prepare with elegance. He did not prepare with grace. He prepared with characteristic chaos and a complete lack of subtlety.

The first thing he did was buy the ring.

He had no idea what he was doing. He walked into the first jewelry store he saw, pointed at a ring, and said, "That one."

The clerk asked about size, metal preference, stone quality. Moran stared at him blankly.

"Just... the pretty one," he said.

The ring was ridiculous,ostentatious, huge diamond, the kind of ring that screamed "new money and bad taste." Moran looked at it, grimaced, and bought it anyway.

Then he showed it to Moneypenny.

She laughed for five minutes straight.

"Moran," she said, wiping her eyes, "she will hate this."

"She will?"

"She is not a magpie, you idiot. She does not want to blind people. She wants something meaningful."

Moran returned the ring. He spent the next two weeks quietly asking people,Moneypenny, Louis, even Fred,what kind of ring you might like. He wrote nothing down. He forgot everything.

In the end, he chose a simple gold band with a small (your favorite gem). Your favorite color. He had remembered that, at least.

The second thing Moran did was choose the location.

His first instinct was a pub. He dismissed that almost immediately (even he knew that was a bad idea). His second instinct was a racetrack. He dismissed that too.

He thought about places that mattered to you. Places where you had been happy.

He chose the park where you had had your first picnic.

It was not fancy,just a small green space in a working-class neighborhood, surrounded by plane trees and the sound of children playing. You had brought a basket of food (most of which Moran had eaten), and you had talked for hours about nothing and everything.

You had told him about your childhood. About your dreams. About the things that scared you.

He had told you about Afghanistan.

He had not meant to. The words had just... spilled out. The ambush. The heat. The way his men had died, one by one, while he watched. The way he had crawled through the desert for three days, half-dead, thinking of nothing but revenge.

You had listened. You had not judged. You had taken his hand and held it.

He would propose there.

The third thing Moran did was prepare his speech.

This was the hardest part. Moran was not a speaker. He was a shooter. Words were not his weapon.

He practiced in the mirror. He practiced in the shower. He practiced while cleaning his guns.

He forgot his speech countless times.

In the end, he decided to stop practicing. He would say what was in his heart. If his voice broke, so be it. If he cried, so be it. You had seen him cry before. You had never held it against him.

The Proposal:

He chose a Saturday afternoon, when the park was quiet and the light was golden and the plane trees were dropping their leaves like confetti. He told you he wanted to go for a walk,nothing special, just... a walk.

You walked together, your hand in his, talking about nothing. Moran barely heard you. His heart was hammering so loud he could feel it in his throat.

He led you to the tree. The same tree. The one with the twisted trunk and the low-hanging branches.

You stopped, looking around. "Moran? This is where we-"

"Yeah," he said. "I know."

He let go of your hand. He turned to face you.

His hands were shaking. Sebastian Moran, deadliest sniper in England, veteran of Afghanistan, killer of dozens,his hands were shaking like a schoolboy's.

"I am not good at this," he said. His voice was rough, almost angry. "I am not good at... feelings. Or words. Or any of the soft shit that normal people do."

You did not interrupt. You just watched him, your eyes soft.

"You know what I am. You know what I have done. You have seen me at my worst,drunk, violent, pathetic. You have seen me cry. You have seen me break. And you are still here."

He laughed, a broken sound.

"I do not know why. I do not understand what you see in me. But I stopped questioning it a long time ago. I just... accepted it. Accepted you."

He reached into his pocket. His fingers close around the ring.

"You are the first good thing in my life that I did not have to earn through blood. You did not come to me because I saved you, or because I paid you, or because you owed me a debt. You came to me because you wanted to. You stay because you want to. Every single day, you choose me. And I... I do not know how to be worthy of that. But I want to try."

He got down on one knee. The grass was damp. He did not care.

"I have spent my whole life running. From my family, from my past, from the memories of that desert. I have drowned myself in whiskey and cards and women because I did not know how else to survive. I thought that was all I deserved. That was all I was good for."

He held out the ring. The emerald caught the sunlight, glowing like a small green star.

"Then you came. And you did not try to fix me. You did not try to save me. You just... sat with me. In the dark. In the silence. You held my hand while I cried and did not make me feel small for it.

"You made me want to be better. Not for you,for me. Because for the first time in my life, I looked in the mirror and saw someone worth improving.

"I love you. I loved you when you scrubbed the mud off my boots without being asked. I loved you when you held me after my nightmares and did not flinch at the things I said in my sleep. I loved you when you argued with me about my drinking,not because you were trying to control me, but because you were scared for me.

"I love you. And I want to marry you. I want to wake up next to you and make you coffee and listen to you complain about the weather. I want to hold your hand when we are old and grey and ridiculous. I want to spend the rest of my life proving to you that choosing me was not a mistake.

"I know I am not easy to love. I know I am broken in ways that might never fully heal. I know there will be bad days,days when I drink too much, days when I push you away, days when the memories are too loud and I cannot find my way back to you.

"But I can promise you this: I will never stop trying. I will never stop choosing you. I will never stop being grateful that you looked at a man like me and saw someone worth staying for.

"So I am asking you. Not as the Colonel. Not as the sniper. Not as any of the other masks I wear. But as Sebastian,the man who loves you more than he thought himself capable of loving anyone.

"Will you marry me?"

He held the ring up to you, the gem bright in the afternoon light.

His heart was pounding. His hands were shaking. His eyes were bright with tears he refused to shed.

...

Von Herder

The Realization:

Von Herder had never considered marriage.

His workshop was his love. His inventions were his children. Human relationships were... complicated. Messy. Unpredictable.

But you were different.

The moment he knew came on a night when he was stuck.

A mechanism had failed,some tiny, crucial piece that he could not see, could not feel, could not fix. He had been working for hours. His fingers were bleeding. His patience was gone.

Then you appeared.

You did not offer advice,you knew nothing about engineering. You did not offer pity,Von Herder hated pity. You just... sat down beside him. You picked up the instruction manual and began reading it aloud, slowly, carefully, describing every diagram in precise detail.

He listened to your voice. He followed your words. And suddenly, the mechanism made sense.

He fixed it in ten minutes.

He turned to thank you, and you were smiling,that soft, warm smile that made his chest ache.

"How did you know what to read?" he asked.

"I did not," you said. "I just started at the beginning and hoped for the best."

He had laughed. Actually laughed,a real one, not the polite approximation he usually offered.

And he had thought: I want to hear that voice every day for the rest of my life.

That was when he knew.

The Preparation:

Von Herder prepared with manic energy.

The first thing he did was build the ring.

He did not buy one,that would be cowardly. He built it himself, in his workshop, using materials he had been saving for years.

The band was titanium,lightweight, unbreakable, the same metal he used for his most instruments. The stone was a black opal, flashing with hidden fire, the kind of stone that looked different from every angle.

Just like you, he thought. You are never the same twice. I could study you forever and never understand you completely.

He spent three weeks on the ring. He worked through the night, fueled by coffee and obsession. He rejected six prototypes before he was satisfied.

When it was finally finished, he held it up to the light,not that he could see it, but he could feel it. The weight. The balance. The perfection.

He smiled.

The second thing Von Herder did was choose the location.

His workshop was his sanctuary. It was also a cluttered, dangerous disaster zone. Not exactly romantic.

But he wanted to propose somewhere that mattered. Somewhere that represented him.

He chose the rooftop.

Not the same rooftop as Albert,the manor had many. This one was above his workshop, accessible by a narrow staircase that no one else used. The roof was flat and empty, perfect for stargazing.

Von Herder could not see the stars. But he knew you liked them. He had heard you talk about constellations, about meteor showers, about the vast, beautiful darkness above London's smoky sky.

He would give you the stars.

The third thing Von Herder did was prepare his speech.

He was not a poet. He was an engineer. He thought in schematics, not sonnets.

But he wanted you to understand. He wanted you to know that this,this,was the most important thing he had ever built.

He practiced while he worked, muttering to himself, forgetting and remembering, starting over and over.

In the end, he decided to speak from the heart. Schematics be damned.

The Proposal:

He chose a clear night, when the stars were visible and the air was crisp. He led you up the narrow staircase,"careful," he said, "the third step is loose",and onto the rooftop.

The sky stretched above you, endless and glittering.

"Von," you said, looking around. "What are we doing up here?"

He did not answer immediately. He was nervous,more nervous than he had ever been. His hands, usually so steady, were trembling.

"I cannot see them," he said finally. "The stars. I have not seen them in years. Not since the accident."

You turned to look at him. Your expression was soft, patient.

"But I know they are there," he continued. "I can feel them. The light. The heat. The vast, impossible mathematics of their existence."

He stepped closer to you.

"You are like the stars to me," he said. "I cannot always see you clearly. I cannot always understand you. But I know you are there. I feel you. Every moment. Even when you are not in the room. Especially when you are not in the room."

He reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around the ring.

"I have built many things," he said. "Weapons. Tools. Instruments of death and destruction. I have never built anything for myself. Never built anything simply because it made me happy."

He got down on one knee. The rooftop gravel bit into his knee. He did not care.

"Until now."

He held out the ring. The black opal flashed in the starlight, burning with hidden colors.

"I built this for you. For us. For the future I want to build with you,one gear at a time, one day at a time, one impossible, beautiful moment at a time."

His blind eyes found yours. Somehow. They always did.

"I love you. I loved you when you read instruction manuals to me without being asked. I loved you when you organized my workshop and never moved anything without telling me. I loved you when you touched my face,really touched it, like you were trying to see me,and did not flinch at the scars."

He held the ring up to you, the opal flashing in the starlight.

"I love you. And I want to marry you. I want to wake up next to you and hear your voice first thing in the morning. I want to hold your hand when we are old and grey and ridiculous. I want to spend the rest of my life building things with you,not weapons, not tools, but a life. A home. A future.

"I know I am not easy to love. I know I live in my own world, and I do not always know how to leave it. I know there will be days when I forget to eat, forget to sleep, forget that there is a world outside my workshop. I know I am broken in ways that might never fully heal.

"But I can promise you this: I will never stop building for you. I will never stop creating for you. I will never stop being grateful that you looked at a blind, broken engineer and saw someone worth loving.

"So I am asking you. Not as an inventor. Not as a weaponsmith. Not as any of the other labels people put on me. But as Von herder,the man who loves you more than he thought himself capable of loving anyone.

"Will you marry me?"

He held the ring up to you, the opal bright in the starlight.

His heart was pounding. His hands were shaking. His blind eyes were bright with tears he could not see.

...

Moneypenny

The Realization:

Moneypenny had never expected romance.

She was practical. Efficient. She ran MI6's day-to-day operations, managed budgets, kept secrets, and wrangled a team of chaotic, dangerous men. Romance was for novels. Not for her.

But then you came.

The moment she knew came on a day when everything went wrong.

A mission had failed. Papers were missing. Moran had lost his temper and punched a wall. Albert was in a meeting with the Prime Minister. William was unreachable. Everything was falling apart.

And you simply... took over.

You did not panic. You did not ask questions. You just started doing,filing, organizing, making letters, calming tempers. You handled Moran with gentle firmness, Fred with quiet reassurance, Louis with steady competence.

By the end of the day, everything was fixed.

Moneypenny sat at her desk, exhausted, watching you gather your things to leave.

"Thank you," she said.

You looked up and smiled. "That is what I am here for."

And Moneypenny thought: I want her here forever.

That was when she knew.

The Preparation:

Moneypenny prepared with characteristic precision.

The first thing she did was choose the ring.

She did not want anything flashy. She wanted something understated, practical, beautiful in its simplicity.

She found it in an antique shop near the office,a small diamond set in platinum, clean lines, no embellishments. It looked like something you would wear. It looked like you.

She bought it on her lunch break. She did not tell anyone.

The second thing Moneypenny did was choose the location.

Her life was her office. She spent more time there than anywhere else. It was not romantic,it was full of filing cabinets and requisition forms and the lingering smell of old coffee.

But it was hers.

She would propose in her office. After hours, when everyone else had gone home. Just the two of you, surrounded by the machinery of her life.

Because that was the point, was it not? She was offering you all of it. The boring parts. The stressful parts. The parts that were not pretty or romantic but were real.

The third thing Moneypenny did was prepare her speech.

She was good with words,she had to be, in her line of work. But this was different. This was not a report or a briefing. This was her heart.

She wrote and rewrote her speech. She practiced it in the mirror, in the carriage, in the shower.

She never got it perfect. But she decided that was okay. You would not expect perfect. You never did.

The Proposal:

She chose a Friday evening, when the office was empty and the city was quiet. She asked you to stay late,"I need help with the quarterly reports," she said, which was a lie and you both knew it.

You stayed anyway.

When the last report was filed and the last lamp was lit, Moneypenny stood up from her desk. She walked around to where you sat, pulled out your chair, and got down on one knee.

"No," you said immediately. "Moneypenny, get up. Your knees-"

"Hush," she said. "I am fine."

She took your hands. Her palms were sweaty. Moneypenny was never sweaty.

"I have spent my entire life taking care of other people," she began. "Managing them. Organizing them. Keeping them alive despite their best efforts to die. I am good at it. I do not mind it. It is who I am."

She squeezed your hands.

"But no one has ever taken care of me. Not really. Not until you."

Her voice wavered. She steadied it.

"You see me, Y/N. Not the secretary. Not the iron maiden. Not the woman who keeps this whole circus running. You see me. The tired one. The lonely one. The one who forgets to eat and works too late and falls asleep at her desk more often than she would ever admit."

She reached into her pocket. Her fingers found the ring.

"I love you. I loved you when you took the pen out of my hand and ordered me to take a bath. I loved you when you handled the filing for the 4th District without being asked. I loved you when you sat with me at midnight, drinking cold tea, not saying anything, just being there."

She held out the ring. The small diamond caught the lamplight, glowing softly.

"I love you. And I want to marry you. I want to wake up next to you and argue about whose turn it is to make the coffee. I want to hold your hand when we are old and grey and ridiculous. I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of you the way you have taken care of me.

"I know I am not easy to love. I am rigid. I am controlling. I have a hard time letting go of things that are not my responsibility. I know there will be days when I work too late and forget to come home, days when I am short with you because I am stressed, days when I push you away because I do not know how to let someone in.

"But I can promise you this: I will never stop choosing you. I will never stop being grateful for you. I will never stop being amazed that you looked at a woman like me and saw someone worth staying for.

"So I am asking you. Not as the secretary. Not as MI6's backbone. Not as any of the other titles people give me. But as Moneypenny,the woman who loves you more than she thought herself capable of loving anyone.

"Will you marry me?"

She held the ring up to you, the diamond bright in the lamplight.

William James Moriarty

The Scene

William often forgot that he had a body. To him, he was a vessel for a mathematical crusade, a mind that existed in equations of blood and social reform. He would sit at his desk in the dead of night, the candle flickering low, his eyes stinging from the strain of tiny bridge-handwriting.

You never interrupted his thoughts with chatter. Instead, you would slip into the room like a shadow, moving with a grace that didn't jar his frantic mind. Your love language was the soft clink of a fresh porcelain cup being placed on a coaster,never directly on his maps. You would gently pry the dried-out pen from his cramped fingers and replace it with a warm cup of tea, your hand lingering on his shoulder for exactly three seconds.

He would look up, the crimson of his eyes softening from the cold fire of a mastermind to the weary warmth of a man. He wouldn't say 'thank you',the word felt too small for the way you tethered him to the earth. Instead, he would lean his head back against your stomach as you stood behind him, closing his eyes and letting out a long, shuddering breath. In that silence, he wasn't the Lord of Crime; he was just Liam, allowed to be tired because you were there to hold the light.

Headcanons: How He Reacts to Your Love

· He notices everything you do.

William's mind is wired to observe, calculate, and remember. He sees every small act,the way you warm his chair by the fire before he sits down, the way you leave his favorite pen exactly where his hand will find it, the way you turn down the lamps when you notice his eyes straining. He never mentions it aloud, but his gaze follows you around the room with an intensity that makes your skin warm.

· He tries to refuse you at first.

Not because he's ungrateful, but because guilt gnaws at him. "You shouldn't trouble yourself over me," he says the first few times, his voice soft but firm. You ignore him completely and keep doing what you're doing. Eventually, he stops protesting. He learns to simply... accept. To let himself be cared for, even when he doesn't feel worthy of it.

· He returns your acts of service in subtle ways.

William shows his love through quiet provision. Your favorite book appears on your nightstand when you've had a hard day. The fire in your room is always lit before you retire. The garden path you like to walk is mysteriously cleared of leaves every morning. He never takes credit,he simply folds these small kindnesses into the architecture of your life like variables in an equation, solving for your happiness without ever asking for recognition.

· He becomes protective of your time.

William is fiercely territorial about the moments you choose to spend on him. If someone interrupts when you're playing with his hair or massaging his temples, his eyes flash with something sharp and cold. "Not now," he says, and his voice leaves no room for argument. You've accidentally become the only person who can make the Lord of Crime drop everything just to exist in the same space as you.

· The first time he let you see him break.

It happened after a particularly brutal mission,one where a child died despite all their planning. William locked himself in his study and didn't come out for hours. When you finally entered with tea, you found him sitting in the dark, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking silently. You didn't speak. You simply set down the tray, sat on the floor beside his chair, and rested your head against his knee. He didn't look up, but his hand found your hair, and he held on like you were the only thing keeping him from drowning. In the morning, he was William again,composed, brilliant, terrifying. But something had shifted. He looked at you differently now. Like you'd seen something no one else was allowed to see, and you hadn't run.

Albert James Moriarty

The Scene

Albert lived his life behind a mask of perfect, aristocratic bronze. Every smile was a tactical maneuver; every polite nod was a lie. He carried the weight of the initial spark,the fire that started it all,and the guilt of what he had asked his brothers to become.

When he returned from the Ministry or a grueling day at MI6, his shoulders were set in a rigid line that looked like it might snap. You were the only one who didn't demand he be "The Count." Your act of service was the ritual of the homecoming. You'd meet him in the foyer, wordlessly taking his heavy wool coat and hanging it near the fire to warm.

One evening, you found him staring into the fireplace, his glass of wine untouched. You sat on the rug by his feet, leaning your back against his knees. You didn't speak. You just pulled a basket of tangled embroidery thread into your lap and began to sort the colors. The rhythmic, mundane task acted as an anchor. Albert's hand eventually found its way to your hair, his fingers stroking the strands with a trembling tenderness. To him, your presence was a sanctuary,a place where he didn't have to be a leader or a traitor. He could just be a man sitting by a fire with someone who knew his darkness and chose to stay anyway.

Headcanons: How He Reacts to Your Love

· He is confused by you at first.

Albert has spent his entire life around people who want something from him,status, money, protection, secrets. Your quiet acts of service baffle him because you ask for nothing in return. "Why do you do this?" he asks one night, watching you mend a tear in his sleeve. You look up, confused by the question. "Because your arm was cold," you say simply. He doesn't know how to respond to that. He stares at you for a long moment, then looks away. His ears are red.

· He becomes addicted to your presence.

Once Albert learns what it feels like to be cared for without conditions, he can't go back. He starts seeking you out,not for conversation or strategy, but just to be near you. He'll sit in the same room while you read, or follow you to the garden while you tend the roses. He doesn't always speak. He just needs to know you're there.

· He shows his love through fierce protection.

Albert is the head of MI6, and he uses every resource at his disposal to keep you safe. You have a permanent detail of shadows watching you at all times (you've never noticed). Your mail is screened. Your carriage routes are planned for maximum safety. He has a contingency plan for every possible threat to you, filed under a code name that only he knows. He will never tell you this. He doesn't want you to be afraid. He just wants you to be alive.

· He confides in you when he can't sleep.

Albert's nightmares are filled with fire and screaming and the faces of his birth family. On those nights, he comes to your room and stands in the doorway, looking younger than his years, looking lost. You never ask what's wrong. You simply shift over and lift the blanket, and he climbs in beside you, curling around you like you're the only warmth in a frozen world. He doesn't always sleep, but he rests. And in the morning, he's Albert again,polished, controlled, untouchable. But you know. You always know.

· The first time he thanked you properly.

It was late, and you'd spent the entire day organizing his disaster of an office,sorting classified documents, cleaning his neglected desk, leaving out a fresh uniform for the morning. He came home to find you asleep in his chair, a smudge of ink on your cheek, his coat draped over your shoulders like a blanket. He stood there for a long time, just looking at you. Then he knelt beside the chair, brushed the hair from your face, and whispered, "Thank you." His voice cracked on the second syllable. You don't know if you dreamed it. But when you woke up, there was a fresh flower on the table beside you, and his coat was still wrapped around your shoulders.

Louis James Moriarty

The Scene

Louis was the most difficult to serve, primarily because he viewed caretaking as his domain. He was the guardian, the chef, the one who ensured everyone else was fed and folded. For a long time, he viewed your attempts to help as a challenge to his utility.

But you learned that Louis didn't need someone to do his job; he needed someone to share the burden. You started showing up in the kitchen at 5:00 AM, before the sun had even thought about rising. You didn't try to take over; you simply began peeling the potatoes or sharpening the knives before he could get to them.

The first time you did it, he stood in the doorway, his hand hovering over his scarred cheek, looking genuinely baffled. You just tilted your head and pointed to the kettle. "Tea's already steeped, Louis. Can you check the biscuits? I think I might have left them in a minute too long."

The tension in his face melted into something soft and vulnerable. By letting him 'correct' your minor mistakes, you gave him the permission to relax. Now, the kitchen is a shared cathedral. He works faster when you're there, his movements more fluid. Sometimes, when the house is quiet, he'll press a small, perfect tart into your hand,the one with the extra jam you like,and his eyes will linger on yours, a silent admission that he isn't alone in the shadows anymore.

Headcanons: How He Reacts to Your Love

· He rejects your help at first.

Forcefully. "I don't need assistance," he says, his voice clipped, his scarred cheek turned away from you. He sees your offers as pity, or worse, as proof that he's failing in his duties. But you're patient. You don't push. You simply show up, day after day, and do small things without being asked. Eventually, his walls begin to crack.

· He expresses love through food.

Louis cannot say "I love you." The words stick in his throat like fish bones. But he can bake your favorite bread. He can remember exactly how you take your tea. He can leave a plate of warm scones on your nightstand when you've had a bad day. This is his language,the language of flour and sugar and careful, loving hands. Learn to read it, and he will never stop speaking.

· He becomes fiercely possessive.

Louis has lost everyone he's ever loved except William. The thought of losing you is unbearable. He doesn't show it obviously,no grand declarations or public displays. But he watches. He notices every person who looks at you too long, every stranger who stands too close. He memorizes their faces. Just in case. You've caught him sharpening his knives after someone was rude to you at the market. You didn't ask why. You just made him tea and sat with him until his hands stopped shaking.

· He lets you see his scar.

This is the greatest gift Louis can give. His scar is his deepest shame, the physical manifestation of the fire that birthed their revolution. He keeps it hidden behind his bangs, turning his face away from mirrors and photographs alike. The first time he lets you touch it,really touch it, your fingertips tracing the raised tissue,he trembles like a leaf in a storm. "Does it disgust you?" he whispers. You kiss the scar gently and say, "It shows me how brave you are." He cries. He never cries. But he cries then, and he doesn't pull away.

· The first time he said "stay."

You were leaving the kitchen after helping with dinner, and his hand shot out and caught your wrist. His grip was too tight,he loosened it immediately, embarrassed,but he didn't let go. "Stay," he said. Just one word. His eyes were fixed on the floor, his scarred cheek hidden by his hair. You sat back down. You didn't say anything. You just stayed. And when Louis finally looked up at you, his expression was so full of desperate, terrified hope that your heart cracked open. Now, "stay" is your word. He uses it often. He means it every time.

Sebastian Moran

The Scene

Moran was a man built of jagged edges and old shrapnel. He didn't know what to do with "soft." To him, affection was a distraction that could get a man killed in the tall grass.

Your love for him manifested in the maintenance of his humanity. After a mission, when he came back smelling of gunpowder and cheap gin, you didn't lecture him. You simply prepared a tub of hot water, some clean rags, and a bottle of high-quality oil for his firearms. You'd sit on the floor of his room, humming a low, tuneless melody while you scrubbed the grime from his heavy boots.

The first time you did it, he tried to scoff, telling you it was "bloody ridiculous" for a lady/gentleman to be cleaning a marksman's mud. But you just looked up at him, wiped a smudge of dirt off your nose, and said, "Everyone needs a clean slate, Sebastian."

He stopped protesting after that. He'd sit in his oversized armchair, nursing a drink, watching you work with an expression that bordered on awe. He wasn't used to being looked after without an ulterior motive. Sometimes, he'd "accidentally" leave his favorite waistcoat with a loose button just so you'd have a reason to sit near him for twenty minutes, providing the quiet, steady presence that kept his war-torn mind from spiraling into the dark.

Headcanons: How He Reacts to Your Love

· He doesn't trust it at first.

Moran has been betrayed by everyone who was supposed to protect him,his country, his comrades, his own blood. Kindness smells like a trap to him. The first few times you do something for him, he watches you with narrowed eyes, waiting for the catch. The catch never comes. This confuses him more than anything else.

· He shows love through rough physicality. Moran isn't gentle.

He doesn't know how to be. But he shows his affection by pulling you into crushing hugs, by ruffling your hair until it stands on end, by throwing an arm around your shoulders and hauling you against his side. He's careful, though,you notice. He's always careful. His strength is immense, but he handles you like glass, like something precious that he's terrified of breaking.

· He becomes your personal guard dog.

Not officially. Officially, Moran answers to William and no one else. But somehow, he's always wherever you are. Walking to market? Moran is suddenly interested in shopping. Reading in the garden? Moran is trimming roses (badly). Attending a social event? Moran has somehow wrangled an invitation and is glaring at anyone who looks at you wrong. "I'm not following you," he insists, his ears red. "It's just... coincidence." You don't argue. You just save him a seat.

· He stops drinking as much.

You never asked him to. You never lectured him or hid his bottles or made him feel ashamed. You just started being there,sitting with him in the evenings, talking about nothing, filling the silence with your presence. And slowly, without him really noticing, the bottle became less important. He still drinks. Old habits die hard. But he doesn't need it the way he used to. He has you now.

· The first time he said "I'm glad you're here."

It was the middle of the night, and he'd had a nightmare,the desert, the ambush, the faces of his men as they died. He woke up gasping, reaching for a weapon that wasn't there, and found you already beside him, your hand on his chest, your voice low and steady. "You're safe. You're home. I'm here." He grabbed you and held on like a drowning man, his face buried in your hair, his whole body shaking. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were wet. "I'm glad you're here," he said, rough and raw. "I'm glad it's you." He's never said it again. He doesn't need to. You heard him the first time.

Fred Porlock

The Scene

Fred was the wind. He could move through a ballroom or a back alley and leave no more impression than a draft. He was so used to being "no one" that he often forgot he deserved to be "someone."

You showed your appreciation for Fred by noticing him when he wasn't trying to be noticed. You would leave small tokens in the places only he frequented,the crook of a high window ledge, the corner of the garden where the foxgloves grew. A single orange, a new whetstone for his knives, or a sprig of lavender for his pillow.

Because he rarely spoke, you stayed silent with him. You would go out to the gardens while he was weeding and simply sit on the bench nearby with a book. You didn't ask for his attention; you just offered your company.

One afternoon, he approached you with a single, perfectly bloomed white rose. He placed it on your lap and stood there for a heartbeat, his young face unmasked and peaceful. "It matches the one in the corner," he whispered, referring to the sketch you'd been working on. For Fred, your presence was a confirmation of his existence. You saw him when he was invisible to the rest of the world, and that was the greatest service you could ever offer.

Headcanons: How He Reacts to Your Love

· He is confused by your attention.

Fred has spent his entire life blending in, being forgettable, being no one. He doesn't understand why you see him. He doesn't understand why you leave him gifts or sit with him in the garden or remember his birthday. The first time you wave at him from across the room, he actually looks behind himself to see who you're waving at. It doesn't occur to him that you could possibly be acknowledging him.

· He shows love through quiet offerings.

Fred cannot speak his feelings,the words feel too large for his small, quiet voice. So he leaves things for you instead. A smooth stone from the river. A pressed flower in your book. A cup of tea waiting on your nightstand, still warm, made exactly the way you like it. You never see him leave these things. They simply appear, like magic, like proof that someone is watching over you.

· He follows you. Not in a threatening way.

In a protective way. Fred is always somewhere nearby when you're out in the city,disguised as a vendor, a beggar, a passing gentleman. You never spot him. You're not supposed to. But if anything ever threatened you, he would be there in an instant, silent and deadly, eliminating the danger before you even knew it existed. He has saved your life at least four times. You have no idea.

· He lets you touch him.

Physical contact is difficult for Fred. He's not used to it,not used to being close to people, not used to being perceived. But he lets you braid his hair when it gets too long. He lets you hold his hand when you walk through the garden. He lets you pull him into gentle hugs that last maybe a second too long. He never initiates these touches. But he never pulls away. And sometimes, when you're not looking, he touches the places you've touched him, like he's trying to memorize the feeling.

· The first time he spoke to you on purpose.

He'd been avoiding you for days,not because he was angry, but because he didn't know how to handle the warmth spreading through his chest every time he saw you. Finally, you cornered him in the garden. "Fred," you said, "if I've done something wrong, please tell me." He shook his head violently. "No. No, you-" He stopped. Took a breath. His hands were shaking. "You make me feel seen," he whispered. "I don't know what to do with that." You took his hands and held them until they stopped shaking. "You don't have to do anything," you said. "Just let me see you." He nodded. And now, when you're alone, he lets you see him,all of him, the spy and the gardener, the killer and the lost boy. It's the most vulnerable he's ever been. He's never been happier.

Von Herder

The Scene

Von Herder's workshop was a chaotic symphony of clicking gears and the smell of sulfur. Most people found it overwhelming, but you learned the topography of his clutter so you could navigate it safely.

His eyes didn't work, so you became his eyes for the things he couldn't feel. Your act of service was the meticulous organization of his tool bench. You'd spend hours sorting screws by size and weight, placing them in braille-labeled bins you'd fashioned yourself. You made sure his favorites were always exactly three inches to the left of his anvil.

"Ah, my little clockwork," he would chirp when he heard your footsteps. He didn't just appreciate the organization; he appreciated that you never moved things without telling him. You respected the way he saw the world through his fingertips.

When he was frustrated with a delicate mechanism, you wouldn't offer pity. You would simply stand behind him and place your cool hands over his ears to block out the distracting noise of the manor, or you'd read out a German engineering manual in your slow, steady voice. He would cackle with joy, spinning around to catch your hand. To Von Herder, you weren't just a friend; you were the constant variable in his most beautiful equations.

Headcanons: How He Reacts to Your Love

· He is delighted by you.

Von Herder finds everything about you fascinating,your footsteps, your scent, the way you move through his workshop without bumping into things. "You have excellent spatial awareness," he tells you approvingly. "Most sighted people are useless in here. You are not useless." This is, from him, the highest compliment.

· He shows love through invention.

Von Herder cannot see your face, so he cannot draw your portrait or write you love letters. But he can build. He builds you things,beautiful, intricate, sometimes completely unnecessary things. A music box that plays your favorite song. A hairpin with a hidden blade (for protection). A tiny mechanical bird that sings when you wind it up. Each gift comes with a long, enthusiastic explanation of its mechanisms. You listen to every word, even when you don't understand them.

· He touches you constantly.

Since Von Herder can't see, he experiences the world through touch. And he wants to experience you. He touches your face to learn your expressions, your hands to learn your moods, your hair to learn its texture. "You smile with your whole face," he observes one day, his calloused fingers tracing your cheeks. "I like that." You let him touch. You understand that this is how he sees you, how he knows you, how he loves you.

· He becomes protective of your voice.

Von Herder loves the sound of your voice,the cadence, the warmth, the way you pronounce certain words. When other people talk over you or interrupt you, he gets genuinely angry. "Let them speak," he growls, his blind eyes somehow finding the offender with unnerving accuracy. "I was listening." You've learned to value your voice more because he values it. To him, your voice is music. To you, his attention is home.

· The first time he called you "important".

It was late, and you were reading to him while he worked on a delicate mechanism,some new gadget for Bond's next mission. He was humming along with your voice, his hands moving with perfect precision, when he suddenly stopped. "You know," he said, his accent thickening the way it did when he was emotional, "I did not expect to find someone as important as you here. In this country. In this basement." He turned toward you, his covered blind eyes somehow finding yours. "But you are important now. You understand? You are mine." You set down the book and took his hand. "I understand," you said. He nodded once, sharply, and went back to work. But he held your hand the whole time. He didn't let go until the mechanism was finished.

Moneypenny

The Scene

Moneypenny was the glue that kept the MI6 office from dissolving into anarchy. She was always the one taking care of others, managing the egos of coworkers and the brooding of noblemen.

You realized very early on that no one ever took care of her. Your love language for Moneypenny was the "takeover." On Friday afternoons, when the stack of reports on her desk reached precarious heights, you would walk in, take the pen out of her hand, and point to the door.

"The bath is drawn, there's lavender oil in the water, and I've already handled the filing for the 4th District," you'd say firmly.

She would try to protest,she always did,her spine going stiff as a ruler. "The government's expenses haven't been-"

"I did them this morning," you'd interrupt. "And I found the three-pound discrepancy in the carriage budget. Go. Now."

The way her shoulders would suddenly drop, her professional veneer cracking just enough to show the tired woman beneath, was your reward. She would squeeze your hand, a rare and fleeting gesture of intimacy, before retreating to take the rest she so desperately needed. You were the only person in the world she trusted enough to be vulnerable with, because you proved daily that the world wouldn't stop spinning if she closed her eyes for an hour.

Headcanons: How She Reacts to Your Love

· She resists at first.

Moneypenny is used to being indispensable. She's used to carrying the weight on her shoulders. Your offers of help feel like criticism at first,like you're suggesting she can't handle her own job. "I don't need a babysitter," she says sharply the first time you try to take something off her plate. You don't argue. You just keep showing up. Eventually, she stops pushing you away.

· She shows love through efficiency.

Moneypenny's love language is making your life easier. She streamlines your schedules, handles your paperwork, deals with the tedious bureaucratic nonsense that would otherwise eat up your days. "You looked tired," she'll say, sliding a completed form across the table. "I took care of it." She never asks for thanks. She just wants you to rest.

· She becomes fiercely loyal.

Moneypenny has worked for powerful men most of her life. She's learned to be useful, efficient, and utterly replaceable. But you've shown her that she's more than her productivity,that she deserves care just for existing. This changes something in her. She would burn down the world for you now. Not dramatically, not loudly. She would simply... file the right forms, make the right calls, and watch the flames consume your enemies from a safe distance. "I handled it," she'll say afterward, adjusting her spectacles. "Don't worry about the details."

· She lets you see her tired.

Moneypenny is a master of composure. Her hair is always pinned, her dress always pressed, her expression always professional. But when you're alone, she lets the mask slip. She lets you see the dark circles under her eyes, the tension in her jaw, the way her hands shake after a particularly brutal day. She lets you brush her hair and rub her shoulders and tell her that she's done enough. She never thought she needed that. She was wrong.

· The first time she cried in front of you.

It had been a terrible week,a mission gone wrong, three close calls, and an endless mountain of paperwork threatening to bury her alive. You found her at her desk at midnight, still working, tears streaming silently down her face. She didn't even notice you come in. You sat beside her, took the pen from her hand, and pulled her against your shoulder. She didn't speak. She just cried,ugly, exhausted, broken sobs that she'd been holding in for years. You held her until she stopped, then made her tea, then walked her to her room and tucked her into bed. "Stay," she whispered, catching your hand. "Just... stay." You stayed. You sat in the chair by her bed and held her hand until she fell asleep. In the morning, she was Moneypenny again,efficient, composed, unstoppable. But she looked at you differently now. Softer. "Thank you," she said quietly. "For seeing me." You nodded. You understood. You always would.