#parallels fic

Perhaps, she thinks, she’ll never be more than the girl in the fighting pits, clawing and fighting for every last scrap.

“But I chose you.” Her voice is quiet, and small, barely audible over the rush of the train around them. “Isn’t that enough?”

“This isn’t about us. It’s not even about the Republic and the Empire — it’s bigger than that.” He’s pacing, now, and up until a few moments ago Rei would’ve assumed he’s gathering his thoughts, expending excess energy in the best way he knows how. There’s a hand on her shoulder — it’s Lana, eyes alight with power and rage and a tenacity that Rei has been trying to give up since she began her training with the Jedi. “This is about the endless cycle of war,” Theron continues, steps slowing as he turns towards the two Sith — ex Sith, or whatever it is that they are, now. “Needless, senseless fighting that I thought we would put an end to after we took down Valkorion. But all you’ve done is make it worse. And I’ve helped you.”

It’s not really sinking in, all the things he’s saying, but as Rei watches the way he stops and turns and reaches for his blaster, her mind races to try and comprehend such a thought that so much of the last several months have been leading up to… this. “I loved you.” It’s almost a question, the way she says it, head tilting to the side as she considers the words even as she speaks them; she thinks she’d said the same thing, all those years ago, to Zash before she’d struck her down. Then, it had been a plea — now, a quiet, curious thought spoken aloud.

Theron doesn’t respond, not aloud; his brow furrows and Rei thinks she can sense, for just a fraction of a second, something like regret that washes over him, but then his blaster’s out and Lana’s slamming her out of the way and the train seems to explode around them. When she gathers herself again — when things stop spinning around her and she’s dusting off the deep indigo Umbaran dirt from her robes — she feels a brief, firm hand at her back in what she assumes Lana means as comfort.

“Come on.” Her words are terse, clipped; there’s a low hum of the dark side that radiates from Lana, more vibrant and exposed than Rei is used to with her. “He went that way,” Lana continues, one hand at her brow to shield her eyes and the other pointing off towards their right. “We can still cut him off if we hurry.”

…

She hadn’t bothered with pleasantries when she’d returned to Odessen. Lana was left to handle the official business — which was fine with Rei; she didn’t know how to put into words everything that had happened — while Rei marched off to the Force Enclave, practically dragging a protesting Kira back to her quarters.

There’s traces of him all over. A shirt thrown haphazardly over the back of a chair. A chipped mug from some tourist-y garden world sent by Jonas one year as a gag gift. A datapad, idling on the bedside table. Rei ignores it.

“The Jedi call for peace,” she says, leading Kira over towards an empty chair and motioning for her to sit. “A lack of emotion,” she reasons, beginning to pace as Kira watches on with a quiet, concerned frown. “And this brings power?”

Kira’s brow furrows, and she takes a long, slow look at Rei before answering. “That’s… not really how it works, no. Look, Commander, what happened—“

“Then what is the point,” she snaps, “if the Code does not create stronger Jedi? Why else would anyone follow it? If the Code calls for no emotion,” she reasons, voice growing louder and more insistent as she raises up one hand to count on her fingers, “no passion, and no death — then it’s the very antithesis of what the Sith believe, and yet the Jedi seem to think themselves a match for the Sith.”

There’s a beat of silence as Kira leans back in her chair to watch her with a flat stare, arms crossed, as if waiting to see if Rei’s brief outburst is finished. “It’s the opposite of the Sith, yeah. And the point isn’t power, it’s… clarity.” She falters, almost imperceptibly, but her frown goes unnoticed by Rei — still furiously pacing across the room. “The dark side tends to cloud things.”

“Clarity.” Rei’s footsteps slow to a stop, and she sits in the middle of the couch opposite where Kira is, allowing herself a few moments to let the word roll around in her mind; something about Kira’s simple explanation makes more sense to her than any of the self-righteous preaching from any of the other Jedi who have attempted to train her, and Rei gives a slow nod. “I think I understand.”

Kira leans forward, some of her distaste turned to concern and curiosity. “What happened out there?” The room is quiet, and when Rei offers no response, Kira adds, “Theron was my friend, too, so if something’s happened to him—“

“He’s fine.” Rage begins to bubble up within Rei, a familiar warmth that she’d so long sought out in comfort; with a stubborn sort of intention, she forces herself to push it back down, to swallow back the heat and stifle it before it can grow. If this is what it means to be a Jedi, she thinks, to push aside everything that has brought her strength and power for so long — since before she even knew what the Sith code was — then this is what she’ll do in her search for clarity. Perhaps her mind has been too long clouded by rage and grief — from scars held from her childhood, the betrayal by Zash, Thanaton striking her down as she began her ascent through Sith hierarchy, Arcann taking everything from her before she had the chance to return the favor.

Mocking laughter takes his attention away from you. Kraven is perched in a tree just above. 

“There you are,” he says pridefully, “There is the beast worthy of my prowess. Let the true hunt begin!”

Miguel roars, leaping after the crazed hunter. His movements are more powerful than you’ve ever seen. You feel every reverberation of his powerful claws as he scales the trees. You swear you hear the massive redwood crack through its center as he does so. His every move was lethal— deadly. A killing machine. 

And it’s exactly what Kraven wanted. 

The hunter bounds from branch to branch again, giving Miguel chase with a chorus of maniacal laughter. He was enjoying this way too much. And here you were, dangling by your own webs— helpless.

Miguel brought you here to help him, to be a team. So you’re going to help him.

You manage to swing yourself to the tree trunk the snare trap was attached to. You stand horizontally, your feet easily sticking to the bark. With yourself anchored down it was much easier to get the proper leverage to break your webs. With one final flex, you shrug them off and immediately follow Miguel and Kraven. 

You couldn’t see them anymore but they were making enough noise to alert the entire forest. Several small critters run through the branches in the opposite direction. Follow the sound of breaking twigs and masculine roars and you’d be on their tail in no time. Who needs a spider-sense. 

Even in the panic you still find yourself on high alert with your surroundings. Kraven had laid traps that stopped both of you already. Who knows how much of the forest he boobytrapped. Who knows if Miguel could even sense them anymore in his state. 

This wasn’t just about catching an anomaly anymore. This was about protecting Miguel. Protecting him from himself. You have no idea how you’re going to do it but you have to get them separated, get Kraven in a cage, and get Miguel calm and somewhere safe. 

You’re fucking Spider-Woman. This should be easy… That’s what you tell yourself anyway. 

They’re fast but you still manage to catch up. You keep a loose pursuit a few dozen yards back. The two men too distracted with fighting each other to bother with you. If you keep stealthy you can work this situation exactly like the Electro mission. Miguel distracts while you capture. You don’t have any of the cyber traps but you could still web him up. At least long enough to kick him into a portal.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Miguel grabs Kraven’s ankles and they both plummet to the forest floor. Perfect. You shoot to the upper branches. With the higher vantage point, you’d have a clear shot with your webs. Luck seems to be on your side for once in this whole fucking ordeal. 

They grapple and wrestle wildly around the ground. You just needed a split second of an opening and you’d have him. It’s all you needed— Just a second.

Miguel pins the hunter to the tree you’ve perched yourself in. The force of the impact ripples all the way up the trunk. The wood groans and cracks in protest. They haven’t spotted you, your form still concealed by the branches.

This is it. It’s your chance to end this. He’s right there. Miguel raises a mighty claw to the hunter and you ready your spinnerets.

It happens all within a fraction of a second. 

You shoot a web. Kraven twists out of Miguel’s grasp just as his claw comes down. Kraven slips away with practiced ease and Miguel slices through the tree. With your web's original target now gone, it explodes on the ground at Miguel’s feet. His gaze shoots up directly to you— A gaze completely devoid of the man you know.

Well fuck.

He begins to crawl to you, Kraven completely forgotten behind him. A thunderous snap rings out of the wood from Miguel’s claw marks at the base. The tree gives one final groan before cracking under its own weight. The tree begins to tip backward, yet Miguel seems unbothered by it. He had a new target. 

Double fuck.

“Forget her!” Kraven yells as he pulls Miguel back, “I will deal with her next.”

You leap from the falling tree, swinging yourself to safety on a nearby branch. The two men below you continue their constant power struggle, seemingly unbothered by the falling giant next to them. Seems like Miguel took Kraven’s advice. He’d forgotten about you. 

You don’t know much about how Miguel works when he’s in this state. He didn’t have a strategy or the same carefully planned movements you were used to. It was only rage. Unbridled rage. 

There were only the things in front of him. Whatever caught his attention. That’s what he could focus on. That’s what he was capable of. You couldn’t take a passive role here and just wait for an opening like you planned. If you had any chance of getting to Miguel, you still had to separate them. 

What better way to do that than to forcefully insert yourself.

“Please be able to sense me coming, big guy,” You shoot a web across the clearing where the two were fighting. You grasp it tightly and take a deep breath that comes out more as an irritated sigh, “Tallyho.”

You swing. 

Your prayers are answered and Miguel seems to sense you, ducking out of the way of your dramatic entrance. Your feet make contact with Kraven’s face, your full momentum sending him flying several feet. You roll to a stop, poised perfectly between the two men.

You’re back to Miguel. You can feel his rage. His anger. His confusion. You slowly turn to face him, peeling off your mask as you do so. There was no need for it here. You feel the shared buzzing in your head amplify as recognition flashes across Miguel's face, just for a moment. He feels it too. Primal instincts ruled him now. The spider-sense tells him what your words never could. 

We’re on the same team. 

“Stupid girl!” Kraven shouts behind you, “You interfere with destiny!”

“You’re interfering with reality, so I think you have me beat.” You spit back. 

“Do not come between a hunter and his prey.”

“A little late for that, buddy.” You scoff. 

Miguel roars, bounding over you and directly for Kraven. The hunter leaps for him too. 

Within a fraction of a second, you make a decision. Maybe you couldn’t separate them like this, not when instinct ruled the fight. Not when they were so much stronger than you. If you couldn’t get them apart then you had to move them together, just like when you brought Miguel back home from his dystopian mission all those weeks ago. 

You don’t have to play by The Hunter's rules. Take Kraven out of his element and force him into yours. Get him in chains then help Miguel. And the plan was still the same as the old one… forcefully insert yourself.

Time seems to speed up again and the two predators are bounding for each other right above your head. In mid-air, they’re the most vulnerable. You leap between them, a portal springing from your wrist as you do so. All three of you tumble through together and blip across reality.

The trip back to the tower was long considering the position of this universe in the multiverse. You could jump to most realities in a matter of seconds, here you would be traveling through wormholes for just over a minute—a minute with these two raging men. An eternity by multiverse travel standards. You could do it. You could keep them under control. It’s only a minute. 

You’re quite literally trapped in the chaos. Both of them seemingly unbothered by the sudden change of environment continue fighting while you struggle to get free from the tussle. Not the most ideal situation but at least you’re out of the booby-trapped forest. Once you’re in the tower everything will be okay.

It’s only a minute.

Sandwiched between the two raging men, you kick both your feet as hard as you can, effectively using your body as a crowbar. You spiral through the wormhole with Kraven, Miguel trailing further behind. They’re both in front of you now, Kraven crawling to get closer to you and Miguel clawing to get closer to Kraven. 

You take advantage of the newly established distance and ready your webs at Kraven. If you could subdue him just a little, this whole thing would be so much easier. You shoot but he’s still too quick. He grabs the web and pulls you into him. It’s moments like this you wish you had claws.

He pulls you into a bear hug, squeezing every ounce of air from your lungs. You swear you hear bones crack.

“You couldn’t say out of it could you, dorogoy!” He growls in your ear, “You want this to be your fight so bad? Fine.”

Just past his shoulder, you can see Miguel is nearly on both of you now, claws ragging and fangs bared. With a loud grunt of effort, Kraven quickly flips you both around. Before you even have time to guess his plan, you feel it— a stabbing pressure in your neck and warm blood trickling down. Movements too fast Miguel couldn’t stop himself until it was too late.

He’d bitten you, venom now injecting into your veins. Paralizing venom meant for Kraven.

Miguel removes his mouth from your shoulder and the instant he does your spider-sense explodes in your head. Fear, confusion, anger, rage— you cycle through every emotion in an instant as venom starts to pulse through your body. In the slew of feelings, one stands prominent. Panic. Sheer panic.

You can’t see his face behind you, but you can feel him— the same as you. Panicking, even amid his animalistic rage he’s still a man. Still your Miguel. You swear you can hear his thoughts screaming in your head.

What did I do? What did I do?!

A mocking chuckle starts in Kraven’s throat again. You don’t want him to have it, a moment of victory. He hasn’t stopped either of you. Not yet. You still have precious seconds before you’re paralyzed and useless. Seconds you won’t waste.

You swing your head forward, colliding with Kraven’s. You feel his nose crunching under your forehead. It’s enough for his grip to loosen just enough. You leap from between the two of them, webbing Kraven’s hands together in the process. You pull him forward away from Miguel, now left trailing behind again. 

The exit portal sneaks up on you— your one minute is up. You burst into the 2099 reality dragging the Kraven anomaly on a leash. You pull him from the portal and swing him into the closest wall. You’d teleported to Miguel’s lab. You can feel your brain fogging. Limbs weakening. Contain him— now. That’s all you had to do. 

You quickly look around for anything you can use. By some stroke of luck, a pile of cyber traps sat on a nearby desk. You throw one without hesitation. Before Kraven can get back on his feet he’s trapped in a glowing cage of energy. 

It’s done. The bots can take care of the rest. It’s over.

Finally, Miguel bursts from the portal behind you. Oh yeah, you think briefly.

It’s not like last time though. He’s not all ragging claws and gnashing teeth. He sits there, crouched down and completely still. The portal blips from existence and an eerie silence fills the room. It’s then that you notice something. You feel— fine.

The effects of Miguel’s venom are nearly instantaneous, you’d seen it before, yet here you stand completely okay. You lightly touch the wound on the apex of your shoulder and neck and pull your hand away. You don’t know what you expect to see, maybe neon green mixed with crimson red, something alien and inexplicable, but it’s just blood. It’s just blood and you’re just fine. 

But what about Miguel?

He still sits there, unmoving. You dare to take a step closer. “Miguel?”

“Don’t” he growls, his shoulders tensing. “Finish it.”

You glance down and see his claws digging into the floor, pulling up the metal paneling. He’s trying to get himself under control. You quickly turn to grab a dose of his suppressants when that fucking voice stops you.

“Oh, this I did not expect,” Kraven laughs from his small prison in the corner. “A viper can not poison one of its own. And here I thought I’d get you out of the way. You two are of the same making, no? Well, what does this mean?”

“Shut. Up.” You sneer at him. You hear Miguel’s claws digging deeper into the floor— holding himself back. 

Don’t let him provoke you.

“Perhaps this is still your fight, dorogoy,” the hunter tuts, “A shame I’m not part of it, though.”

Miguel turns to him, his face completely cast in shadow. Only the reds of his eyes seen from the dark void, “She said… shut up.”

Kraven’s expression shifts. His eyebrows raise in amusement, a sickening smile curving in the corners of his mouth. “Oh. Oh, I see. Not a fight but… perhaps something else. You both reek of it. Desire.”

“Shut up. Shut up.” Miguel heaves. You feel like you can’t move.

“You’re part of her now, flowing through her veins. You’ve claimed her,” His disgusting words send shivers down your spine, “Or have you claimed her already, beast?”

The tension snaps. Miguel hurdles toward the cage. Claws and blades clash against the force field with an ugly static crack. He moves so fast his arms are almost a blur, struggling to break past the barrier. A raging frenzy to get closer to his target. Kraven doesn’t move, standing still with that gut-wrenching smile never once faltering. He didn’t win the fight, sure, but he’s enjoying taunting Miguel. 

You’ve decided you’ve had enough of this madness— from both of them.

“Miguel!” you scream so loud it echoes through the entire lab. Miguel freezes, glancing over his shoulder at you. You should be afraid of him, and maybe some part of you is, but you know who he is. The man underneath all of this, “He’s not worth it.”

He remains frozen. You’re not sure if he’s debating if you’re right or not— or if he’s just trying to fight the animal inside. Eventually, he steps away with a loud grunt, crawling back into the shadows. 

A faint sigh of relief passes through your lips, “Lyla, get him out of here.” you call to the room. Several bots crawl into view and begin taking the cage out. 

Kraven’s eyes were glued to you, that sickening, amused smile still there, “Do svidaniya, dorogoy.” You hold back the urge to spit in his direction until the door shuts behind him. 

He’s gone. Now just one more thing to deal with. 

You grab the injection gun from his desk. Miguel sits in a dark corner facing the wall. You approach him cautiously, dampener serum in hand. 

“Mig?” You coo softly, “Let’s take care of you.”

“Leave it.” He growls through gritted teeth, “I’ll… do it myself.” 

“You can’t,” You take another step closer. 

He whips around, a spine-chilling sound rumbling from his throat. “Just… go.” his words dripped with rage. With something inhuman. He’s fighting so hard to be present. 

You can’t just leave with him like this. How can he expect you to just walk away now? Even though you're annoyed by his insistence, you understand why. He’s still ashamed. He’s scared of what he’ll do and with good reason. 

I don’t want you to see me like this.

And yet, you can’t bring yourself to just leave him.

“No.” You stand your ground. “You don’t scare me, Mig.”

“I should,” He stands, lumbering toward you, massive arms hanging low at his sides. Each heavy step closer sends a shock wave up your body, “Look what happened.”

He grabs your injured shoulder forcefully. He stares down at the fresh bite mark, blood still weakly dripping from it. There was almost no pain with it anymore, but maybe… something else.

You feel the spider-sense stir between you. 

“But it’s okay,” you assure him softly, “I’m okay. Nothing happened.”

“But we didn’t know that,” He grits out, “We didn’t know you’d—” 

A pained moan escapes his lips and he steps away. You feel it rising— the heat in your belly. 

“Please,” he whimpers, “Just go. I don’t want to hurt you.”

You stand still for a moment, debating if you really should. If you even could. Is something calling you to stay with him or is it just your own selfish desires?  You decide you don’t care. You feel it now stronger than you ever have. The need for him. His smell. His taste— everything.

You step towards him again, into the shadows. You place your hand on his chest, letting the touch linger for a moment. You feel his heart beating at a record pace. 

“You could never hurt me.”

It all comes crashing down, both of your paper-thin resistance. He attacks your mouth hungrily, bringing you both to your knees. You drop the injector gun, leaving it long forgotten on the floor. He crawls on top of you, you cling to whatever part of him you can. 

It’s a frenzy. A feverish, lustfully brawl you want to surrender your entire body to. In a way you already have. The sense sings and moans with the two of you in a way it never had before. Something deep and primal and sick— you loved it. 

His mouth is on your neck, trailing across your throat to the bloody mark he’s made. He pauses when he gets to it, his lips hovering just above the bloody bite. Your skin pricks in anticipation, for what exactly, you don’t know. 

He licks a long, hot stripe across the mark before bringing his mouth completely down on it. You don’t expect it.  Electricity shoots through your entire being. You grab at his head, not to pull him away, but to push him closer— impossibly closer. He moans at your encouragement, drinking from your neck like it’s the holy grail itself. 

You fucking love it. Why do you love it? Why do you want him so badly this way? Questions that shoot through your head at warp speed but you decide you don’t really care to answer any of them. You don’t care about the why anymore. You just want him.

He comes off you with a gasp, blood smearing his mouth. His eyes are lidded and dazed as he looks down at you. The look sends a wave of arousal straight to your core— and it doesn’t go unnoticed. A predatory spark flashes across his face and he descends on you again.

His massive hands wrap around your midsection, squeezing roughly. You can feel him trembling. He drops his forehead to yours, “Do you feel it, Arañita?”

“Yes.” you breathe. 

He closes his eyes, breathing you in slowly, “Tell me to stop.”

Your hands come up to his chest again, his suit fading away in an instant. His breathing is heavy and ragged. You could stop this all now. You should stop this— but—-

“Never,” you pull him into another kiss, blood still fresh on his lips. He moans into you before taking control again. 

He turns you around onto your hands and knees, ripping a sloppy line down the back of your suit. The material falls away, exposing you to him entirely. He grabs your hips roughly, pulling you back and licking a long stripe up the length of your spine. The sensation nearly makes your knees give out. 

“Oh god,” you hear him murmur against your skin, “Look at you. Fucking look at you.”

“Miguel, please,” You whine. You need him. You fucking need him now. 

“Poor thing,” He growls, fingers ghosting over your waiting cunt. He pushes one in, slowly. You bite your lip, suppressing the moan he’s pulling out of you, “So wet for me. Always so goddamn wet for me. Such a good girl.”

He adds another finger and the air in your lungs dries up into a breathless gasp. He pumps into you, once— twice— Three times. Lude wet sounds fill the massive space. He rips his hand from you, and you almost scream at the sensation, the sudden emptiness. Then you hear it again, lustful, sickening wet sounds followed by muffled moans— He’s licking his fingers clean of you. 

His wet hands grab your hips roughly with a loud slap. He pulls you back towards him, dragging you along the floor. You preen under him, arching your hips higher. 

“So filthy,” he growls, squeezing your hips to the point of bruising.

He comes down on you again. You scream when you feel his tongue dragging through your slick folds, stopping just at the edge of your seam, the bridge of his nose nudging at your hole. He greedily laps at you, pulling the most sinful sounds from your throat. You fall on your forearms, displaying yourself even more for him. The position was so vulnerable yet so delicious. You were at his full mercy.

And again, he fucking pulls away. 

You whine, nearly screaming from the loss this time. But he doesn’t let you move, hands still firmly grasping your hips.

“Shhh, Arañita.” His wet lips hover along your back again, kisses placed along their trail up your spine. You finally feel his hard length resting on your ass. He pulls himself down and slicks himself through your folds. Already overstimulated, it feels like heaven. 

He jerks you back, and in one fluid motion completely buries himself inside you. Your face contorts into a silent scream, the stretched pain easily melting into pleasure. He holds you there, just for a moment. His breath is already heavy and ragged. You feel every inch of him. You feel him throbbing inside you.

“T-take me so well, baby,” You swear he spits it through clenched teeth. He drags you off him painfully slowly and slams you back at light speed. You choke out a delighted moan, “Tan jodidamente buena.”

He starts a punishing pace, using you as he sees fit.

You reach down to your aching clit in dire need of relief. His hand instantly swats yours away, his fingers quickly working over your swollen bud. He leans over you, his free arm practically caging you in while his hips keep up their brutal pace. He nuzzles his head in the crook of your neck, right next to the bite mark.

“Who makes you feel this good?” He growls in your ear, “Say it.”

By some divine miracle, you're able to form speech.

“Y-you do,” you moan back, “Only you.”

“That’s right. Only I can fuck you like this. Only me.” He says it like the most assured thing in the world, and you know he’s right. His fingers work quicker over your clit, sending you to a new high. You’re close. So fucking close.

His mouth comes back down on you, suckling again at the bloody mark he’d left. He’s consuming you in every sense of the word— at his full mercy.

You know you surely scream loud enough for the entire tower to hear, and you don’t fucking care.

You come like a crack of thunder, loud and ungodly powerful. It surges through you, ripping you apart and rebuilding you again from the atomic level. A numb, euphoric moment where you're drifting on the clouds of the world, experiencing all of creation at once before plummeting back down to earth in a flaming ball that threatens to burn you up entirely. You almost want the flames to consume you if it meant you could be like this with him forever.

Then you’re finally gasping for air again, Miguel still pounding into you like a fever dream.

“Oh god,” A pained groan drools out of his mouth. “S-so– so tight when you come.”

He pulls you both backward, holding you there on your knees while he continues to fuck up into you. He held you close to him while he chased his pleasure now. You arch back into him, your head resting in the crook of his neck. His fingers haven’t left your throbbing clit, nearly blinding you with how sensitive you were now. His other hand drags along your body, coming up to squeeze your breast. Every small movement on your skin was like fire.

You’re an absolute mess. A stammering, over-stimulated, cock drunk mess. You feel your vocal cords straining yet can’t seem to stop yourself from wailing out in pure ecstasy. 

His movements have become more desperate so close to release. He pounds harder and harder until he’s falling down around you with a choked gasp. His quivering muscles cage in around you as he pumps you full of everything he has. You feel him throbbing, his cock straining inside you until he’s completely spent.

He relaxes, his giant form pinning you down to the floor. The steady breathing of his chest pushing into you as you both gather yourself.

It’s seconds, it’s years, you don’t know how long it is until you both move. He rolls off of you slowly, a pained grunt he tries to hide when he slips out of you. It all leaks out of you, trailing down your thigh and instantly sending a cold shiver up your spine when it meets the air. You both lay there shoulder to shoulder, naked in a glistening mess— completely unsure of what to say now.

Whatever you’d both just done, what you’d experienced, was indescribable. 

You see him reach over and grab the injector gun, shooting the dose into his shoulder instantly— though you’re not entirely sure he needed it anymore.

“Told you I could do it myself,” Miguel sighs as he lays back down next to you.

“Such a big boy,” You taunt him, rolling over to cuddle up to his side.

He pulls you in without hesitation. He places a kiss on the top of your head before letting a final deep breath sigh from his mouth. You expect him to suddenly come back to reality. To remember all the blood and start profusely apologizing. To beg you to leave so you didn’t have to look at him anymore and get back to work, his whole usual shtick. 

Instead, he says something you never expected. 

“Let’s go home.”

__________

Miguel needs to stop making promises to himself he can’t keep. 

You’re in his bed again, curled up in one of his shirts fast asleep. You’re staying the night— again. It didn’t feel right to just send you home after what you’d both been through, but maybe he just didn’t want you to leave either.  

He can’t sleep, sitting up and watching you as if you’ll disappear if he doesn’t. Part of him hopes you would just vanish, then it would mean none of this was ever real. There’d be no consequences and he could go on living his life without the looming threat of you being gone one day. 

To his simultaneous disdain and relief, you’re still soundly sleeping in his bed.

He runs his finger over the bandages now adorning your neck. Various other scrapes and bruises from him were scattered around your body. It should be completely healed by morning but he’ll always know what he did to you. He’ll always know what you both did tonight. 

It’s not something he can explain, and if he’s being honest he doesn’t want to think about it either. Something took over him, of both of you— and he loved it. A part of himself he’d fought for years to keep caged was out and it felt amazing. It was amazing because you were there for it all. You did something to him. 

But what would happen if you weren’t there? This is the second time you’ve saved his ass. The second time he’d dragged you specifically into trouble he’d created. He’d never needed rescuing before. Had he gone soft? Or was he perhaps going at everything too hard? He doesn’t know for certain but he’s sure of one thing— it was better when you were there.

Yes… you’d definitely changed something in him, and he’s not entirely sure it’s for the better. 

He was a protector. He stood up for those who couldn’t do it themselves, for his community, for his colleagues, the whole universe at large. Yet here you were, saving him from himself again. It wasn’t right. It was unfair to put his burden on your shoulders too. You didn’t ask for any of this, but neither did he really.

You’d both known from the beginning that this wasn’t going to be anything. It was only an arrangement out of necessity until he could free you both. A freak coincidence. And now it’d become so much more, hadn’t it? He wants to kick himself for letting it get this far. He knows better. But when it came to you, he just couldn’t help himself.

It can’t continue. He had the means to end it and he will. The serum is ready and waiting. The cure. You’d likely hate him forever, and that’s fine. He’ll be fine with seeing you live your life from a distance, knowing you’d both be safer for it. That’s what you’d both agreed upon after all, wasn’t it? 

Yeah, he really needed to stop making promises he couldn’t keep. 

Tonight, he’ll just hold you close. Memorize every line on your face. Every valley of your body. The sound of your breathing. He’ll lock the memory of you deep down and hold it close so it never gets out again. Tonight, you’re still his. 

Tomorrow, he’ll finally put an end to this madness. 

____________

Translations:

Arañita- Little Spider dorogoy- Darling or dear Do svidaniya, dorogoy- Goodbye, dear Tan jodidamente buena- So Fucking good

And of course do Correct me if any of this is wrong <3 I'm gonna go touch some grass now bye

____________

Taglist:

@ineedgarlicbread @pinkiemme @thesilenthill @bontensbabygirl @fallenangelsongwolf @raerorigel @littlefreakymunson @viriexo

@w33ni3 @del-ightfulling