#rick flag reader insert

You hadn't thought he’d be a problem in the beginning. You hadn’t thought the bubble of emotion that formed in your stomach at his sight was anything more than lust and the thrill of the impending conquest. You had felt the same thrill jolt down your spine when you saw the multitudes of other guards, rangers and soldiers had been funneled through the machine in the hopes of taming you. To you, all they were was flesh, blood, and opportunity. Nothing more than a means to an end. A way out.

“Heard you’ve fucked up more guards than anyone in this damned place,” he had said to you in his southern lilt.

He shadowed a dower looking Amanda Waller, her bulldog expression locked on you as you meticulously polished your toenails.

The viper’s smile that spread across your oiled lips worked as your answer.

Both the lip balm and nail varnish were contraband that you had procured through batted eyelashes and pulled heart strings of the weakest men and women who surrounded you on the daily. It wasn’t unusual that you would be in possession of prohibited items. In your first week behind bars at Belle Reve, you had weaseled your way into many of the guards lives and consciousnesses, and had begun a promising stockpile of vending machine snacks and gossip magazines.

“You the new watchman?” you asked, eyes still on your paint job as you ran the edge of your fingernail across your skin to catch the pink polish on your cuticle.

“This is Colonel Rick Flag. And he sure as hell isn’t a new plaything for you to maim, (Y/L/N),” Waller chided, “he’s here to operate as your captain once you take me up on my proposal.”

It was only when she spoke his name that you looked up from your primping to take him in.

The glance you had acquired upon their entry had not done him justice, and the shock of his handsome features caused Waller’s cryptic proposition to fall on deaf ears. He was beautiful; with hazel eyes rimmed with dark lashes, high cheekbones, and an angular jaw covered in sparse facial hair. He was thick, well toned and tall, something you could tell even from his distance. As you followed the thick cords of muscle of his exposed forearms to his hands, you watched as thick fingers flexed at his sides and you couldn’t help the fleeting notion that they would feel delicious against your bare skin.

You would have never imagined that in just one short year, Rick would be pulling you away from life saving missions to pin you himself with his mouth and those very same fingers.

You often wondered if Waller knew at that moment how taken you were with Rick. If she had chalked your salivating up to deadly glee over a new victim to ensnare, or if she knew that he piqued you in a different way. You wondered if she thought Rick’s ruddy skin and ticking jaw were due to his disgust for criminals, or if she knew it was due to his flustering and overwhelming attraction to you.

It was something you would never know, and most days, didn’t want the answer to.

Amanda Waller saw all, but your connection with the colonel was something so strange that even she could not have predicted it. She already had her contingency plan with Flag and June, surely adding you to the mix would have been overkill. At least, that’s what you told yourself as your skin burned with his scarce touches and your heart hammered when he met your eyes with a simple smile.

Earlier on that day, when you and Harley secluded yourselves from the hordes of men around you to suit up, you had assured her that Flag would be your next victim.

A means to an end.

A pawn to play to get us out.

When you were both free to roam Gotham City, you and Harley had crossed paths on occasion and had both seen the other’s crimes up close. She knew your strategies, your games and abilities. She knew of your easy seductions and the effortless control you took over the weak willed (and some not so weak) that fell into your trap.

But as the day progressed, your ruse began to fall flat, your emotions becoming much more genuine than fabricated. The dry banter and sarcastic jokes traded between you and your commander caused genuine joy to seize in your chest and sting your cheeks. His concerned expressions and soft inquiries of your well being after each altercation feeding a need for honest affection that you had done your best to bury years ago.

And as the final crescendo of battle ended and Rick embraced a newly freed June Moone, your relieved demeanor turned lovelorn and sour at the sight of their reunion. Though, as quick as you could comprehend the falter in your expression, you had disguised it by grabbing your wounded side.

When the helicopter had arrived to usher your squad back to Belle Reve, you heard Waller bark for June and Rick to join her in her own private plane. When Harley had moved to link her paper white pinky through your own in comfort, you knew that anyone who had been looking your way could see through your farce, including Waller.

You refused to look back at him to see if he spared you a glance of his own. If you had, you would have met the gaze of a very emotionally muddled man.

Months later it had become clear to most that your relationship with Rick was not just that of colleagues, most glaringly so to Amanda. She had been monitoring your juvenile flirting through the coms you both wore in your ears, saw the warm looks you exchanged and your affectionate body language. She even spotted with her eagle eye vision the lingering hand Rick would leave on the hollow of your back before handing you over to Belle Reve staff. The small, panicked gasps you would take when Rick was being ambushed and his insistence to locate you before doing anything else on the battlefield was also observed by Waller with devious glee.

You without a doubt that she had seen you slip up in Midway City and was alert to your interactions with Rick, when she supposedly accidently told you that Rick would be commanding every subsequent Task Force X mission. He would be immediately relocated from D.C. to Louisiana, and would be transferred from any remaining ARGUS work.

“He’s proved a suitable leader,” she’d said, “he has the chops to keep you people in line.”

Amanda Waller chose her words precisely and articulated them like a weapon. She wasn’t the type of woman to have a slip of the tongue.

While this registered to you, and set off a flare of worry in your brain about what the notoriously calculating woman could do to you, the way your heart began to race at the idea of Rick becoming a permanent fixture in your life drowned out any reasonable doubt or anxiety.

After the first Task Force assignment, you both had begun to build up a foundation of trust and camaraderie with each other.

Your relationship should have felt strange, you were two people as opposite as they come.

He had been raised in a loving military home in Louisiana with a white picket fence and home cooked dinners. You had been kidnapped and coerced into a life of crime by a couple of mad men who conditioned you with pain and terror.

While you were plunging a knife into their respective throats when you finally saw your chance to escape; Flag was graduating the top of his class at West Point.

When you were stealing gems, talking your way into dying billionaires' wills and wracking up assault charges; Rick was working with the Navy Seals, getting his first serious girlfriend and discovering his love for golf and triathlons.

But somehow, you both worked. You were both tough, committed and ruthless. You both loved rainy Sundays, bagel’s from Lucy’s in downtown Gotham, black and white television and the smell of cedarwood. You both hated when people said “pacifically” when they meant “specifically”, the waxy taste of apple skins and the feeling of warming up your extremities after being in the cold. You both grinned knowingly at the other when an old joke would surface; roll your eyes at the other’s incessant teasing; and grow warm and flustered when the other was too close in proximity.

“Oh god, you would like Tom Clancy books,” you snorted a laugh.

Rick put on an affronted expression, “what? And you don’t? He is a damn good author.”

“I’m not saying he’s some dime-a-dozen guy, I’m just saying that he writes books for masculinity glutens with a hard on for guns.”

“I think you just described someone like me, darlin’.”

He sounded amused and it made you smile, “you’re much more than a masculinity gluten with a boner for bullets, Flag.”

“Ya? Am I?” he stopped in his tracks so he could look down at you with a cocked brow.

“Of course,” you replied, “you’re also a pretty face.”

He snorted and shook his head.

(A week after you returned from that operation, a paper package was smuggled to you by your newest mark in the prison. It’s contents? Without Remorse by Tom Clancy, with the scrawled signature of R. Flag on the inside cover.) (You felt so fat with happiness that you thought you might split at your seams).

You seemed to talk about anything and everything with him, no topic too serious or sill to borscht. You loved learning everything about him, soaking up the knowledge and using it to sustain you on lonely nights in your cell.

Although, something that your extensive conversations with your captain did not entail, were mentions of Dr. Moone. After you had seen first hand the lengths he had gone to save her, you had just assumed that she was the all important love in his life. You assumed there would come a day when you’d board the helicarrier to spot a ring laying purchase on his forefinger, and you’d have to cough up a well-wished sentiment for him and his bride.

You had tried to bring her up, but Rick always seemed to work around her mention whenever possible. Odd, as he seemed anything but chaste and hesitant when he had pulled her from the Enchantress’ corpse and held onto her for dear life.

He kept mention of her so closeted that if you had not been in Midway City, you might not even know that he was a man spoken for, especially with the coquettish demeanor he held around you.

Ruminating on the reasons why or why not he wouldn’t talk about June with you was anything but healthy. Were you his secret? His emotional mistress? Was he embarrassed of his life? Of her? Of you? Did he not trust you as much as he let on? You couldn’t find an apt conclusion that made perfect sense.

Eventually, you did get your answer, when you had offhandedly commented on a new watch he wore and had asked if it had been a gift from June.

“June, she, uh, she didn’t buy it. She, well, she didn’t buy it and won’t be buying things...” his jumbled words came out in awkward intervals and you could tell there was a tender pain behind them.

It was her first and last mention from him, and you couldn’t help but feel the jealousy in your stomach simmer and cease knowing that you were now the only woman in Rick’s life. And the only woman he wanted at all.

A month after Rick had confessed his split from June, your relationship boiled over to the place of no return. Spilling your emotions and sullying any professional integrity Rick still masqueraded and any notion that you were just a femme fatale out to pick him apart.

You were somewhere in South Africa fighting a Superman-wannabe. You had already lost a handful of Rick’s men, along with a second rate thief that you never bothered to learn the name of. For most of the fight, your fire power felt like offence, just deflecting his power but doing nothing to damage him. As you watched the carnage the space man brought down around you all, you couldn’t help but think that the only way you were making it out alive was if you found a place to hide and wait out the worst of it. If it weren’t for the bomb in your neck and Rick and Harley fighting tirelessly on the frontlines, you would have.

After what felt like an eon of fighting ray vision, teleportation, and super strength; the tremor the alien had been emanating into the earth stopped and the crumbled ground under your feet finally ceased it’s vigorous rumble. The air soon rang silent and his presence had completely vanished from the sky.

Without any confirmation that the threat had been defeated, other than the terrified locals slowly emerging from their hiding spots, you let out a pant of relief. You could finally hear your labored wheeze and the blood pulsing in your ears. Without the distraction of battle and the race of adrenaline, you now felt the full weight of your injuries. You likely had a dislocated shoulder, a broken ankle, and a litany of scrapes and cuts that would need medical attention, but you couldn’t care. It had by far been your most grueling Task Force mission to date, and all you could do was collapse onto the graveled remains of the city and hope for a long respite from the action.

Until you heard your name.

At first his call didn’t register. You were exhausted and focused on slowing your respiration rate. You had your uninjured arm over your head as you took deep steady breaths to calm and center yourself away from the searing aches in your body. Shamefully, you hadn’t even thought of your teammates’ fate yet, too focused on not vomiting from Co2 intake and pain. But, when he had come closer, your voice being screamed with terror and determination, you snapped back to the reality of your situation.

Rick.

Rick was calling your name.

Rick was alive and he was calling your name.

Your heart picked up once more, all actions to self soothe forgotten, as you pitifully tried to scramble to your feet in search of him. The wordless thrum of your pulsing blood now sounded so much like his name.

Rick. Rick. Rick. It beat in a study rhythm to drive you up onto your feet and to him.

As you hobbled on shaky legs and used the rebar next to you as a crutch, Rick came into your field of vision.

Worse for wear but still a sight for sore eyes, there he stood. Honeyed hair black with soot and arms bloodied from the attack. His shirt was torn at the collar and he had long lost his tactile jacket and vest. He looked like a man stripped. A man who had seen hell and lived to tell the tale, and he was staring at you with eyes bulging with fear and a grimace on his lips.

When he recognized that it was you who he’d found supported by a block of cement, the thankful relief that washed over him was tangible. His chest deflated, his shoulders sagged and his expression made the seamless transition to pure relief.

He whispered your name once more before he ran to you, borderline sprinted with the energy he had left.

“Rick, I-” you began but didn’t finish before he collected you in his arms and held you firm and steady to his chest.

“Where the hell were you? I couldn’t fuckin’ find you,” his words wavered with unshed tears and pent up anxiety.

“Hey,” you hushed him, as you dug your fingers into the tattered fabric of his shirt, “It’s alright. I’m ok. I’m ok and so are you.”

You felt his chest hiccup against your own and your stomach clenched.

“You can’t, baby, God, fuck… you just, nothing can happen to you. I need you right here, I need you here,” he spoke with such unflinching conviction and raw emotion you felt your own tears strain in your throat and sting your eyes.

“Ok. Ok, Rick. I’m here. I’m with you, I’m with you as long as you want.”

He held you with a hand pressed to the base of your neck and his other on your lower back to push you flush to him. One of your own hands was still tangled in the cotton of his shirt, while the other mimicked his own as it lay on the nape of his neck. His face was buried in the side of your head, just above your ear. Your own was snug under jaw, your nose firmly planted in his neck to inhale his intoxicating scent.

Sweat and gunpowder and iron and cedarwood.

A loud crash from afar jolted you both from the brief calm you had stolen to jolt you apart from one another just long enough to locate the noise’s origin. Once you both realized it was not a threat, and just King Shark moving a large piece of scaffolding, you relaxed again.

The moment of forgotten circumstances had passed, and it seemed Flag knew this as he sighed, his forehead coming down to rest on your own.

“What a fuckin’ mess this’ll was…”

“You’re telling me,” you chuckled humorlessly, shifting your weight away from your hurt ankle that had begun to throb again.

“And yet,” he was quick to reply, “and yet, durin’ all that space monster alien bullshit, all I could think about was you.”

Your eyes moved from where they were planted at your feet to his own, which were closed. You felt his hands migrate from the other continents on your body to cup your cheeks.

“All I ever think about is you, darlin’. Every mission, every operation, my mind is on the objective, sure. But in the back of my head just chirpin’ away is this voice that needs to know where you are. Needs to know if you’re safe, needs to come up with somethin’ to say to make you laugh or somethin’ to say to make you slap my chest the way you do just so I can be close to you…” he swallowed thickly and finally opened his eyes.

They were as kind and impassioned as you’d ever seen them, with something extra that you could only pin down as love.

“And, just, when I’m not with ya? You’re still… you’re still there. Do you get what I’m saying? What I’m trying to say? That you have been runnin’ around my head every second of every minute since the moment I saw you.”

Your lips parted and you could feel your jaw shake with the prospect of speaking. Your eyes glazed with tears and you swore your heart was pounding as hard as it was in your chest so it could break through your rib cage to reach him. You wouldn’t mind if it had. It was already his, what would be the problem if he had it in his possession?

“But, it’s not just me… is it? This isn’t a one way street, right?” the tenderness from his confession had left him soft and exposed, his voice breaking with fear, you realized, because you had yet to say a word.

“Of course it's not. Oh, Rick,” you choked out, forcing yourself to speak.

“It’s not just you. It never was. I was always here, I am here.”

You moved to cup your hand around one of his own that lay on your face. You wiggled your fingers between his palm and your skin so you could grip him and show him the gravity of what you had just said.

The fear was wiped from his face once more, and you were rewarded with a boyish smile. You watched as his skin turned pink and the tips of his ears burned the same. You never once in your life had seen a person so beautiful. Happiness just looked so good on him.

You couldn’t help but to smile back, a gurgled laugh thick with emotion came from your throat and he returned it with a lovesick giggle. You felt his hands fasten themselves tighter against your cheeks, and he let his nose descend upon your own, brushing the tip all along your face. He ran it down the bridge of your nose; over the apple of your cheek, around the curve of your ear; down your jaw and up your chin until his lips hovered over your own; and he paused.

You could smell his breath and the shadowy scent of his aftershave with his proximity. You tilted your chin just a hair closer to his face and swore you could already taste him in the damp erotic air between you.

With a shaky exhale and a cautious lick into his parted mouth, Rick responded in tandem with the gentle brush of his lips against yours. It was just a tease, just an introduction to what was to come, and after he heard your needy whimper, it seemed he couldn’t hold back any longer as pressed his mouth to yours once more. But this time with more passion, with far more hunger and with a notable eagerness.

Rick groaned deep and sweet with pleasure. He finally had you. He had captured you once and for all and you didn’t want to escape.

It became the worst kept secret in Louisiana and beyond that you and Colonel Rick Flag were something of an item. Something that outwardly, Waller disparaged and scoffed at, something that she waxed on about to her superiors that she was taking care of. Inwardly, it was thought of as a high achievement, and helped tack on an inch to her height and blow wind into her already inflated ego.

June and Rick had been her first orchestration, and she used their bond until it had run dry. Without Rick’s heart or the Enchantress’ possession, it was easy to banish Dr. Moone from her mental rolodex of pawns and move onto her next pet project. Eventually, when you lost your novelty to Rick; when your sob story no longer endeared him and he was bored of your crassness; she would rid herself of you, too. You were helpful, sure, but no criminal was worth the success of her vision.

For the time being, she worked with the angle she could to achieve the best mission outcomes, by having you and Flag work together and work twice as hard as to protect the other. It was why she turned a blind eye to your stolen kisses and rushed love making in the bathrooms of government planes. It was why she knew that you would be the perfect operative to send to rural Montana and corner the notoriously private and standoffish Dr. Denis Krane, a mad scientist on the run with vital United States intel and ARGUS secrets.

“Huntsville is a forgotten town, just shy of off the grid. The weather this time of year calls for intense snowfall and below freezing temperatures. Because of this, you will be spending the night in a secure motel to regroup and rest before the three of you are extracted back to Louisiana in the morning,” she did her best to repress the sneer that came across her face as both you and Rick suddenly became much more interested in the operation. Robert DuBois, who would also be accompanying you both on the mission, only rolled his eyes at your intrigue.

“I do not think I need to remind either of you about the contingency for your brief stint with freedom, do I?” Amanda glanced between you and DuBois, who didn’t have a problem holding back his own sneer. Rick’s excitement turned tart at the mention.

Your mission was to make contact with Dr. Krane, seduce him and retrieve the information he kept on his person at all times: a small flash drive full of shady dealings and blackmail material.

When Waller had described it to you earlier in the day, you almost laughed. You had been pulling schemes like this on old, lonely men since you were sixteen. The work you were expected to do would take far less than the time she allotted, and then you were granted a full night alone in a motel room with your boyfriend? You started to wonder what exactly the catch was. But you chose not to dwell, you were never given ample time with Rick to simply relax and enjoy each other’s company without the looming threat of the end of the world crashing around you. You were going to savor this opportunity.

Now, as you sat sidled up against him in a garishly designed bar, you couldn’t help but wonder if you’d ever felt this content before in your life. Rick’s arm was slung around your shoulders, gently stroking your shoulder, with your nose buried in the column of his neck. You drew diagonal lines on his jugular and mandibular muscle as your hand followed a similar pattern on his abdomen.

Rick looked just about as pleased as you felt, leaning down regularly to press soft kisses to your hairline and to chuck under your chin up so he could press his mouth to your own in a sensual embrace that never failed to leave Robert gagging.

“You do really have to do that while I’m right across from ya?” he asked after the fourth or fifth time Rick indulged in you.

“You jealous, DuBois?” Rick smarmed, never taking his eyes from your own as you both shamelessly ogled the other.

“Yeah,” you followed in a saccharine voice, “jealous?”

“Please, don’t make me retch,” he scoffed into his glass of bourbon.

You snorted, “don’t act like you don’t look at my ass every time I turn around. I may not have eyes on the back of my head, but Harley sure does love to gossip.”

Robert’s mouth opened to reply but came up mum.

“You’re doin’ what now?” Rick’s temper flared around the edges of his voice and a warm well in your stomach began to boil.

“What I’m doin’ is going to get another drink and wait for this bloke,” he retorted blandly before he made his escape from the booth in favor of a puckered vinyl stool at the bar.

“With a name like Bloodsport, you wouldn’t expect him to run away scared.”

“You sayin’ I ain’t scary, sweetheart?” he smirked down at you, his blush pink lips quirked.

“Not even close,” you said, “you’re very scary, baby. My big, scary attack dog who seizes to kill any man who looks at my ass.”

“Damn fuckin’ right,” he replied as he zeroed in on your lips again.

Kissing Rick was unlike anything you had ever experienced. His lips were petal soft and marzipan sweet, his kiss was firm and held fiery passion each time. His hands touched you with a confidence and certainty that never failed to make your blood thrum with pleasure. His arms held you tightly and with the most delicious hint of possessiveness. Everything he did to you set your nerve endings on fire and tingled your fingers with their blissful buzz. You were of the devout belief that anything Rick did to you, he’d do it damn good.

Rick ran two fingers over the skin of your shoulder, having snuck his hand past the collar of your shirt as you continued your idle chit chat. You’d taken to manipulating and massaging the muscles of his left biceps. He strained the arm a week before in a mission and had been complaining about its painful tenderness since. At first you thought his unease was due to his injury, until you noticed just how considerably he was leaning into your touch and knew something else was wrong.

“Hey? Earth to Flag. What’s up?” you asked with lingering worry, pressing a chaste kiss to his collarbone to call him from his mind.

He turned his head from where he had been staring down to you. When he met your concerned gaze, he sighed.

“Just DuBois, that’s all.”

You grinned, “Still getting over the fact that your friend thinks I have a nice ass?”

But you didn’t elicit a laugh like you’d hoped, instead he grumbled deep in his chest.

“S’not just that. He keeps fuckin’ lookin’ over to us. Just don’t like it,” as he spoke he pulled you closer to him.

“It’s his mission, too. He’s just doing what he’s told,” you replied, not bothered in the slightest by the older man’s presence, especially now that he was across the room and giving you and Rick some much needed privacy.

“Just wish it wasn’t,” he muttered, “makes this all feel like a fuckin’ job and not a night out like we deserve.”

Rick was the idealistic one of the pair of you. He believed firmly that if you worked enough for the Suicide Squad and strived to become a model prisoner, you would be released on bail from Belle Reve in no time. He had a picture of a little house in NoLa, a garden out back, a dog for him and a cat for you. He pictured himself retiring to a desk job or taking up his old job at ARGUS while you pursued anything your heart desired. He’d told you on more than one occasion that he had no problem supporting you fully until you found what you were passionate about.

“All I need is you, darlin’. Everything else, we’ll figure out.”

But you, hardened by life and cynical of the universe's ability to do right, weren’t as positive. You recognized that Rick’s dream was only granted to those who had a great deal of luck, something you stopped believing in a long time ago. Whatever omnipotent being watched over the universe had dealt you a dead hand of misgivings, tragedy and the instruction card that comes in the back. The life Rick envisioned only happened if Amanda Waller saw fit to it, if the negligent and corrupt heads of Belle Reve allowed it. And those were all powers that you believed were far more mighty than any karma or good deed points you’d racked up.

But, you rarely had the heart to tell your beloved of these factors. That Waller would rather see you dead than free, and that Belle Reve had granted parole to less than five percent of it’s inmates over the last two decades. You just indulged him in his fantasy and tried to forget about all extenuating factors.

And that’s what you did now.

“Is this what you’d do? If we were on date night? Take me to some nasty wilderness bar and feel me up in the booths?” you poked a finger below his ribs where you knew he was ticklish, and Rick squirmed.

“And what if I did? I think that sounds like a pretty good evenin’,” he said, tone slowly warming back to normal, forgetting his gripe.

“Ok, but I think I would want you to take me to a nice restaurant every once and a while. Or, oh! Mini golf! The kind with all the fancy water features.”

Rick chuckled and nudged your ear with his nose, “we could do that. Whatever you want, baby, we’ll do.”

You grinned up at him, showing your teeth off to your molars. You loved the idea of your large boyfriend holding a small candy colored putter, hunched over in concentration to make his ball through some ridiculous obstacle.

“I think I’d still take you to dive bars, though. Always have loved ‘em. Hell, it could even be our thing after this,” he propositioned.

Butterflies erupted in your stomach, “I like the idea of having a thing with you.”

“You already do, darlin’.”

You hummed and brought your hand to his cheek, “Good.”

Pulling him down to meet your lips, Rick had already begun to close his eyes when you were interrupted.

“Hate to break up the love fest, but Krane is a block away,” came Robert’s voice through the coms.

Rick stopped short of your mouth and cursed under his breath.

“Fuckin’ ruining everything,” he muttered, not caring if DuBois heard him.

“Hey,” you gripped his jaw with purpose, “the faster this is over, the faster we can head back to the motel and continue our night.”

Rick heaved out a breath and leaned back into the booth, “I know, you’re right.”

“When am I not?” you said with a wink.

Rick rolled his eyes.

“Just have a drink with Robert, watch my six, and we’ll be back by eleven.”

Rick nodded tightly, the vein in his forehead beginning to pulse with tension.

“(Y/L/N), gotta do this now, he’s about to enter,” DuBois reminded, as he used his placement at the bar to peer out the window.

“On it,” you said, pressing your ear to the com and gathering your winter coat that lay across the wood back of the booth.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” you slipped your arms through the sleeves and gave Rick’s cheek a quick kiss before you were headed for the back door.

Rick knew the plan inside and out, something he was sure to do whenever you played a major part in whatever operation he was heading. But he never got used to letting you go into a fight alone. Call him pig-headed or old fashioned, but all he wanted to do was keep you safe, and letting you launch yourself head first into trouble never failed to leave him pissed off and restless.

Rick grabbed his own coat in a strangled grip and he walked over to where Robert sat.

“Trouble in paradise?” the other man mused, a smirk on his face.

“Fuck off, will ya?” Rick replied, motioning the bartender over for a drink.

Dr. Krane entered moments later. He took a seat close to the window at a high-top table, and pulled out a worn paperback from his coat pocket. It would be mere minutes before you reentered as your alias and bypassed Rick in favor of the mark, doing everything in your power to woo him and get the drive. Rick tried not to look at the door and remain nonchalant like every other bar patron. Although, when you did enter, he visibly stiffened.

Rick had seen you in action a handful of other times, but he had always had a task of his own to distract him. He had never fully seen you pull apart someone with your manipulations and take whatever you wanted. But, as you took a seat a few tables away from Krane, Rick was shocked at how you had transformed from the woman he had just had in his arms.

You had pulled your hair back to reveal your intensely beautiful face. He could tell you had rubbed your skin with snow to run your makeup and make your cheeks glossy and wet. Your eyes were bloodshot, your shoulders high and your hands buried in your coat pockets. You looked small, absent and overly timid.

He watched from the corner of his eye as you loomed your head low and gave a whispered sigh. You shuffled yourself close to the wall and didn't look up from the tabletop, where you pushed around salt particles and struggled to hold back tears.

You weren’t vying for Krane’s attention by making a scene, by sauntering over to buy him a drink or flirt with him, you were being strategic and cunning. You knew your mark and what made him tick and you were executing your character perfectly. After less than ten minutes of Krane’s repeated glances your way, he finally called out and asked if you were alright. Rick turned his back to the exchange and hoped Robert would take the lead to watch for anything fishy.

“Folie à deux,” Robert spoke, calling Rick’s attention.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s French,” he continued, “Roughly, it means the presence of the same delusional idea in two people close to the other.”

Rick didn’t need to pry to know what he meant.

The ride to the motel was full of tense silence.

You had been right, it had taken you less than two hours to exploit Krane and get the drive. After you had pocketed it seamlessly, you excused yourself to the bathroom and slipped out the window. You felt a warm nostalgia as you hiked yourself onto the toilet and pushed the glass up. You hadn’t shimmied out of a window after stealing from some short-sighted man in years.

When you dropped into the icy ally below, your feet skated beneath you. You put your arms out for balance but you were studied at the waist by familiar hands. You looked up to see Rick, with a hood covering his brunette hair and a stern look on his face.

“Thank you, colonel,” you smiled, but he didn’t return your cheeky pleasantry.

Once he was sure you weren’t going to slip, Rick let you go and began to walk toward the getaway car, where you assumed Robert already was. All residual excitement and adrenaline from your heist was lost as you watched his figure sulk into the night, the street lights and falling snow flickering his vision.

You knew that Rick wasn’t a big fan of letting you work alone, but he had never acted so cold to you after you had completed your mission before. Quite the opposite, he would scoop you into his arms, look you over ad nauseam with whispered coos and concerned questions until you silenced him with a kiss of survival, reminding him that everything was ok now.

When you finally caught up to him, he and Robert were already in the beat down Mazda, the ancient heater rattling and spitting out pitiful excuses for warmth.

“Got it?” DuBois said around the filter of his cigarette, looking at you in the rear view mirror as you climbed in the backseat.

“‘Course,” you replied.

You fished the drive from the inside pocket of your down jacket and placed it in his outstretched palm.

Robert took the drive and secured it in the locked military briefcase that had been by Rick’s feet in the front.

“Nice work. Now let’s get the hell outta this podunk nightmare.”

Rick had refused to acknowledge you the entire drive, and he continued to ignore your existence when you arrived at the motel. He didn’t open your door when the car had parked. He didn’t lace his fingers with your own when you walked to the property office. He carried your small duffle bag, but he seemed to only do it out of spite. You half expected him to ask for a third room with how he was snubbing you. Thankfully, he didn’t.

With two rooms now in your purchase, you walked to your respective rooms. When you arrived at rooms four and five, Rick handed Robert a key, who gave him a mock salute.

“Don’t have too much fun now, kids.”

Rick was already opening the door and walking inside, so when you told Robert to fuck off, he likely didn’t hear you.

When you entered the room, you toed off your snow-caked boots and discarded your damp jacket. After you locked, you made your way inside to where Rick was sat on the bed.

You had never felt the type of anxiety that spurred in your veins like you felt it now. The sole perk of the unconventional relationship you had with Rick was that you didn’t have to fight like normal couples did. Your fights came out of unadulterated danger and the fear that came along with that. They were always resolved with loving words and him between your legs, showing you in every way he could that he was glad you were safe. But this? This simmering anger? You just weren't used to it.

“You all good?” you asked with hesitation as you pulled at your sleeves with worry. You tried not to think about how just hours earlier Rick had been feeling you up through the fabric.

He drew in a sharp breath through his nose and looked at you, “no, no I’m actually not.”

“Oh, okay…” you trailed off uncomfortably and took a step forward, “do you wanna talk about it?”

“Am I fucking joke to you? Are we a joke to you?” he bypassed any preamble with an accusatory bite.

“What?”

“I just had to sit for two hours watchin’ you with him, y’know. I watched you, and I started to feel like it all felt pretty familiar,” he stood suddenly, his face darkening with anger.

Your heart raced in your chest and your shoulders pulsed with spidering tension.

“Are you kidding me? Baby, that was all an act. You know that,” you reached for his arm to diffuse him, but he retracted it quickly.

“Everyone thinks I’m this big idiot, y’know that? Everyone at the interior and at ARGUS. Fuckin’ Flag, here he goes again, fallin’ for another woman with all this baggage,” Rick said, “but I always brush ‘em off. Because who cares! I don’t! I care about you, and what we have, but-” his jaw clenched and his lips curled in, “that. That show back there? It’s makin’ me feel crazy.”

“Rick, what are you saying?” your fingers flexed into the hems of your sleeves, itching to touch him and make this all better.

“What I’m sayin’ is… I’m sayin’ I’m freaking out,” he shook his head, “was anything of this real?”

He motioned hastily between you both.

“Or was I just another one of them?” he gestured behind him, in some vague way to point back to the bar.

Your throat felt like it was coated with thorns as your breathing became ragged with fear. Your stomach bubbled with nausea. Your skin felt hot and your eyes burned with shame.

The only man you had ever loved, the only person who had ever shown you any compassion or care in your entire life, stood across from you close to despondent as he questioned everything that you had built together.

And you fucking deserved it.

Trauma or not, you had lived your life as a bad person. You stole and you cheated and you lied to anyone and everyone to get what you wanted. You had only cared about your needs dismissed any fallout in favor of them. You’d hurt people, ruined lives and families, and for what? Money? Jewels? Notoriety? None of that meant anything now as Rick watched you with a bleeding heart.

This was your true moment of punishment for all the chaos you had caused.

“Please,” you choked through rising tears, “please Rick, please know that that’s not true. Please, please know that every second of us has been real.”

Rick sniffed and placed his hands on his hips, averting his eyes from your own.

“You know everything about me,” you stepped closer, “you know what I thought in the beginning and what I told Harley. You know that I started to fall for you that day in Midway and that whatever ruse I had created went straight out the window. You know that one of my biggest heartbreaks was watching you kiss June. Watching you kiss her and it not being… just please, Rick.”

You had begun to sob, his pain and doubt too much to bear.

“I have faked a lot of things in my life, but I could never fake what we have. I could never fake how I feel about you. Everything that I do and say out there, it’s not me. You know me. You are the only person who ever really has,” you voice squeaks.

Without giving it much thought or weighing the consequences, you closed the distance between you two and grasped his hand to placed it on your chest.

“Do you feel that?” you settled his palm over your heart, “it’s freaking out, isn’t it? And it does that any time I’m near you. Any time you look at me, any time you brush your hand across my back, any time you kiss me or tell me how important I am to you.”

Twin tears fell down his cheeks as Rick closed his eyes.

“My heart has never beat so fast for anything or anyone else in my life. Sometimes I swear it beats so hard just so it can be closer to you,” you huffed a pitiful laugh and to your surprise, he returned it.

You sniffled and felt snot drip down the back of your throat as Rick came to grasp your wrist. For a moment, you thought he was going to remove your hand from his and your heart shutters. He must have felt it because his brows pulled together and his grip held strong.

“Sometimes I think mine does, too.”

He opens his eyes and they are thoughtful, but they are still haunted with sadness.

“You’re right. I do know you… sometimes I think I know you better than I know myself, which I know doesn’t make any damn sense,” he chuckled softly, “but I don’t care. Because if I lost all of me tomorrow, I would just be happy to remember you.”

You choke out your own laugh, laced with tears and coated in mucus as he continued.

“And I think that just gets to me… the way I feel about you gets to me sometimes. ‘Cause this ain’t my first rodeo, I’ve been hurt and tricked and scoured and I -” he paused, “and sometimes I think it’s impossible to have fallen for two women who are a part of this strange world I’ve entered, and I start to doubt.

S’not right, I know, but sometimes it still happens. Tonight, with fuckin’ DuBois and Krane, ‘guess it all just crept in. All those thoughts that I do my best to keep away.”

“It’s ok,” you reassured, “I get it, this whole thing seems so crazy from the outside and it-”

Rick stopped you.

“S’not ok, baby. It’s not. I shouldn’t doubt you, and I sure as hell shouldn’t’a just accused you like that. Especially on the one night that we get to pretend we’re normal.”

“But I get it, ok? Just know that. Know that I’ll understand if you have doubts or worries, and I’ll never have any problem proving them wrong with everything I have. Because I am madly in love with you Rick Flag. And I would do anything to soothe your heart.”

Rick’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes widened. You had never said it before. There was a healthy amount of fear in exchanging those words, something neither of you had had the guts to broach and tackle until now. For you, a love virgin, it was the fear of not knowing if what you felt was love. For Rick, it was the basis of the fight you had just had, Robert’s words in the bar articulating his fears perfectly.

But under yellow lights in Northern Montana, his hand to your heart and tears in his eyes, he knew that all his worries had been for nothing. This was real. You were real and so was this moment, and hell if he didn’t love you back.

“Fuck,” he let out and his shoulders fell, “I love you, too. Man oh man, do I love you.”

He wasted no time crashing his lips to your own. Sweaters and thermal wear stripped from your bodies and tossed around the room as he finally had the chance to take you in a proper bed and for a significant amount of time.

His skin was warm under your cold fingertips and his hips ground into yours at an eye crossing pace. His hands were everywhere, groping and stroking and loving every part of you he could reach. His lips sprung marks across your neck and played delicious tunes to your mouth as he thrust inside you. His words an endless loop of I love you’s, moans, grunts and everything that you needed to hear.

“I love you.”

“I know you. I know you. I know everything about you.”

When Rick had had his fill of your body and you were faint from orgasms, you both ceased to simply revel in the lazy time that stretched in front of you. There was no lack of affection or a drought in traded love declarations. You catalogued his freckles and he drummed his hands in a coy rhythm against your ass that had you peeling with giggles. You tried to braid his growing hair and he counted off all the shades he swore he saw in your eyes.

As the cards of the prehistoric alarm clock flipped it’s numbers to early dawn, Rick brushed your hair from your eyes. The impending doom of your time together running out had begun to break through and you could tell it was making him antsy.

“What if we ran away from here? Jus’ got in the car and drove?” he whispered with reverence into the air.

You simply raised a skeptical eyebrow and he shook his head.

“If we left now, I’m sure we could get in contact with someone who could figure out how to get that shit outta your neck. Hell, maybe with a gun to his head Dr. Krane would even figure it out,” he laughed but there was little humor to it, only frantic desperation.

“Baby, let’s not even talk like this, ok? It’s too depressing,” you offered him a small smile and moved to kiss his palm.

“I know it sounds crazy, but just… don’t you deserve happiness? Don’t I? Don’t we? We have this chance now, we could run off like thieves in the night and just, fuck, just be together,” his other hand came to grasp the other cheek he didn’t occupy, “we could be so happy.”

For the second time tonight, your throat grew thick with tears and a dull hopelessness ached in your chest.

“I know. I do, and we could,” you said, “but there is no way we could go where Waller couldn’t find. She’d tear the world apart to find us. Toss us in solitary and throw away the key. We’d never see each other again, and I can’t risk that.

“This is one problem that can’t be solved with loopholes or cutting corners. I have to fight her fights and serve out my sentence for what I’ve done. And that’s just that.”

You could tell your objection frustrated him, but most of all you could tell he was just sad. Sad, that this was the way it had to be. Chance nights in shitty motels and stolen moments that would never be long enough.

“S’not fuckin’ fair.”

Your lip quivered and you sighed, “you’re right. It’s not… sometimes I think maybe this is my true penance for all the wrong I've done. Getting to have you in my arms, but never truly being able to hold you.”

“Then what about me? Shouldn’t all the good shit I’ve done weigh this in our favor?”

“Maybe you were a bad man in a past life and have yet to even the scale,” you mildly joked, and to your effort, you earned a small smile from Rick, which is all you really wanted.

You both ran out the clock in each other's arms, making love and smiling and laughing and telling little stories of whatever you could think of. Around four, Rick dozed off with you tightly wrapped in his arms. You did your best to commit his sleeping form to memory, not knowing if you’d ever get the pleasure to witness a truly relaxed Rick Flag ever again. When you were sure you’d never forget the pout of his lips or how his eyelids twitched with dreams, you allowed yourself to get some shut eye of your own before you were set to head back to prison. You pressed yourself deep into his chest and tucked your head under his chin.

As you snuggled against his bare skin and listened to his even breathing, you wished you could stay forever in his arms, wrapped only in him (his body, his warmth, his scent) and the thick blankets of the motel. You wished you could sleep forever to sustain this moment, so you would only know the solace of slumber, and the safety and love he provided.

and fin! i really hope you enjoyed, if you did, i would love to hear it (: i am still on the fence on how this is structured, but i just really wanted to add into the great rick x reader fics out there (there will never be enough lol)

In an obnoxious yellow shirt that he had certainly not left in, he looked downtrodden and broken. Blood and soot matted in his hair, his skin pasty white with blushes purple and green, and he seemed to be covered in scrapes and cuts of varying thickness and severity. He walked with a noticeable limp and his clothing was tattered and filthy. Rick had come home in different stages of damage over the years, but you had never seen him like this.

“Baby? What happened?” you asked, still stunned at his disrepair.

Rick looked at you, his eyes deep set and shadowed. His bottom lip twitched and his jaw clenched so heavy you could see his muscles pop and shift in his neck. His expression journeyed from surprise at your wakeness, to shame, and then back to the twisted pain he had come in with. You watched as he took a deep breath, his chest noticeably shuttering on the exhale and your worry began to mount. You refused to wait idly in bed any longer, you threw off the blankets with the purpose to rush to him and mend him the best you could (before scolding him for coming home before getting sufficient medical attention). But Rick beat you to it. In two long strides he met you on the corner of the mattress and stopped you from standing with a hand to your shoulder. His palm was uncharacteristically cold, and you could feel the caked dust and dried blood depositing to your skin.

He towered above you like a collapsing building, swaying and buckling under his own weight until he tumbled to his knees. You tried to catch him as he fell, but gravity was stronger. The room quaked under the clatter of his knees and you cringed at the thought of his already fractured body going through anymore injury. With his free hand, Rick came to grip your waist in a tight hold before his head fell to your lap. He had toppled so quickly, it seemed like his body had finally lost it’s fight, and with that came gut wrenching tears.

You held him to you like a woman crazed, clawing and grasping at his body with your hands and feet to enrapture him in the cocoon of your touch. Your crazed embrace reminded you of a painting you had once seen, of a sullied soldier come home to collapse at the feet of his wife in search of forgiveness for all that he had seen and done.

Panic festered in your gut and spread through your blood like a virus as you held him. Your mind pulsed with questions, concerns, and fear of the worst; all of which were just begging to fall from your lips. But you kept quiet aside from the murmured coos and gentle attempts to calm him. He seemed next to inconsolable as his body shook against your own and he howled with a ferocity you had never heard from him. You had nursed him through many tearful reunions and terrified recollections of his missions, but never like this. All you could do is twine him with your limbs and hope that your love for him was palpable enough to heal him. Or at least enough to get his sobs to stop.

After what felt like an eon of salt water and snot on the fabric of your sleepwear, Rick’s cries began to cease and his body stopped its frightening tremble. You stroked his rumpled head until he was well enough to raise from your lap and fall back to his heels to look at you. His face was brightly flushed from his crying fit, damp with tears, sweat and snot. His eyes were glossed red and his face was in a quivering frown. Never had you seen your man so broken.

“Rick, please,” you choked through your own set of burgeoning tears, “what in the living hell happened?”

He let out a hiccupped sigh as his brows creased, “shit got real, real bad out there. It was like nothin’ I’d ever seen.”

You didn’t realize it, but you had begun to hold your breath.

“It was messy, and bloody and we lost more people than ever. Barely made it out myself. I ain’t sayin’ that to scare you, but… I barely made it out alive. There was… baby, it was so bad.”

You hand clenched tight in the remains of his t-shirt as he continued.

“And just… she was never about helpin’ anyone. Never about order or peace. None of ‘em are. It was always about whatever she wanted.”

“Who? Whose she? Amanda?” you asked in a frenzied whisper.

“Yeah, Amanda,” he said her name with a sneer, “she never cared ‘bout those kids or any civilians. It was always about her agenda.”

“Hasn’t it always been?”

Rick shook his head, “not like this. Never like this.”

“Oh, Rick,” you slipped your bottom lip into your mouth and watched as his gaze became a thousand miles long.

“I’ve done things I ain’t proud of, but I stopped at this. Waller’s fuckin’ crazy, darlin’ and… there’s gonna be fallout, but I don’t care. I’m tired. I’m out. I’m done,” he blinked back to reality and focused back to you.

“You’re done? You’re quitting the Task Force?”

“The Task Force, ARGUS, all of it. I can’t trust any of those fuckers. Not for shit, not for anything. They don’t value anything over their own hides.”

You moved to caress his cheek with a meek noise of sadness and Rick moved to cover it with his palm.

“S’not worth it. None of it is. I know what I want, and who I want to be. Who I want to be with. And none of those things have to do with Waller and all of ‘em got to do with you. With you, and the life I want for us.”

You whispered his name and he kissed your fingertips.

“I’m out baby, and all I want right now is to be with you.”

His confession was shocking, as he had never made it as sweeping as he just had.

Rick’s job was of frequent contention for him. Before he became involved with Amanda Waller and her shady dealings, he enjoyed his work. What he did for ARGUS fulfilled him, made him feel like he was making a positive difference even when his days were grueling or tough. He’d come home wrapped in bandages, with spiky black sutures sticking up like cactus needles from his skin; but he always came home to you with his values and morality intact.

That all changed when he was hand picked to head Task Force X.

Rick was a noble man, raised on the bible and law and order, had only ever seen right and wrong like black and white. Over the time he spent as the captain of his round up of criminals, he gained the ability to see grey. He learned the value of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. It was one of the many things you respected about him. He enjoyed growing as a person, opening his eyes to the world and molting his skin to a new way of thinking.

Though, as time went on and Waller’s missions for the squad encroached on the grey and bled into malevolent black, Rick hadn’t been the same. With each following operation, any residual gratification had drained from his eyes and his conscience came home in tatters each time.

So, of course, there had been talks of Rick finding a new job. Sometimes he would rage the idea to you as he paced in the kitchen. His face beet red and his hand pulling harsh draws through his hair as he fumed about Waller and her constituents. There were whispered promises over secure phone lines of a better life when he would call from wherever in the world he was. There were jokes he’d make when you’d pass a help wanted sign or when he’d thumb through the classifieds in the paper,

“I’d be much more appreciated as a dishwasher, I’ll tell ya that much,” he’d snark and flip the page.

But none of his past declarations had ever felt this sincere or emotionally earnest.

With a deep breath, you filled your lungs with air to help clarify what you were about to say to him. You were also a whirlwind of emotions at this point, feeling tugs of worry, shock and relief. A relief that maybe you would never have to say goodbye to him again. No more thinking discarded laundry piles were him late at night; no more draped sheets over picture frames in a desperate search to ward off your longing for him; no more lone crying sessions when he’d kiss you goodbye before dawn and promise to be back soon, when you both knew that simply wasn’t a guarantee he could make.

Before you could gather your thoughts to speak, Rick shook his head to preemptively stop you.

“Not now,” he murmured, “not yet.”

He pushed up to rest on his knee and towered to his full height. He removed his hand from yours and you let it fall loosely to your lap as Rick’s eyes roamed over you.

“I just need you, right now. I need to remember what good things are like.”

His board palms came to gently rest on your waist, fingers falling in ascending order as he began to push your shirt up your torso. His movements were deliberate and gained heat as he skated the material across your skin in sensual strokes. Rick moved the fabric over you in a maddening massage as he felt you in all the right ways through the frustrating barrier.

“I just need to feel you.”

Of course, you let him.

Rick fucked you like a man starved, like a man who had gone mute and could only express his love through his body. He confessed his passion with his mouth between your legs, and his devotion with swirling thrusts of his cock inside you. He kissed your mouth with tender reminders of affection, and messy hashings of possessive infatuation that reminded you that you were his. He plucked orgasms from your body like it was his purpose, his satisfaction only coming when he knew he could add a mental tally mark of your peaked pleasure.

Your thighs stung with flowering pain from his powerful drive, but you only wanted more of him. You gripped his ass to push him deeper inside you and hooked your heels around his body to keep him in place. You pulled at his hair and clothed him in his arms, hands wandering around his beautiful form, but never breaking your tight embrace. You wanted all of him, fully and completely, and you needed him to know.

You think he did, you hoped he did.

After his impressive stamina finally petered out and he stuttered his hips into yours for the last time, he fell to his elbows and your panting breathes mixed with the pungent smell of sex that hung now in your bedroom. Still heaving, Rick brought his slick lips upward, to plant a kiss to your forehead, then the tip of your nose, and a final one to your lips. His post mission calling card, the one that told you he was ok, that he was home, that he was finally safe.

With your cheek to his bare chest and your arm slung over his waist, you felt Rick’s fingers dip up and down the notches of your spine. He drew circles over your skin and tapped gentle tunes to your ribs and you swore he was taking inventory of your body, making sure that you were still as intact and soft as he left you. You were, save from the marks he had just left on your body from his intense love making.

When the feeling had returned to your limbs and your brain could form coherent thoughts, Rick’s unsettling return surfaced again. He was still dirty, the sheets (and yourself, for that matter) would need to be washed and some of his wounds still needed tending, too. While it seemed anything serious had been patched up, if haphazardly, he had a few cuts that had begun to pill with fresh blood. You needed to pull him back to himself enough to convince him to clean up, and hopefully enough to tell you exactly what had happened out there in Mexico.

“You know we’re gonna have to talk about it sooner or later,” you said, breaking the comfortable silence that had grown around you.

Rick sighed, “can it wait ‘til tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” you wiggled from his embrace to kneel beside him, much to his dismay, “but we have to deal with these, baby.”

You gestured idly to a few of his cuts.

“Some are still clearly open, and just waiting for infection.”

Rick said nothing, just stayed in his reclined position against the pillows and reached out to brush a splotch of rusty blood (his blood) from your skin.

“I know that these things take time for you to talk about, I’ve been with you long enough to know that,” you nudged him with a small smile and he puffed amusement through his nose, “but you scared the hell out of me tonight, Rick. Fuck, you sorta still are, if I’m being honest.”

He frowned, “I never want to scare you, darlin’. I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head quickly and bent to kiss his sternum.

“I just need to know your ok,” you said to his skin, “and I won’t be scared anymore.”

When you leaned back, Rick’s face crumbled back into the man who had entered your room hours before. He looked tired and conflicted and war torn. His jaw swiveled as his tongue slipped over his teeth, and he swallowed thickly.

“I’m not ok,” he said in a resolute tone.

“What happened out there…” he trailed off and shook his head.

He then looked up into your eyes and reached for you. Rick pulled you to shuffle closer to him and arranged his hand on your rib cage, his thumb traced the swell of your breast.

“But I’m far more ok now that I’m with you. And knowing that we have an entire future in front of us, together, that will be so much better.”

Your heart constricted in your chest and filled with thick emotion. It wasn’t what you needed to hear from him, what you needed to help him heal, but it was enough. It was more than enough for now.

“Alright,” you said in a near silent whisper as your throat stung, “I love you.”

Rick closed his eyes as you spoke, like he wanted to soak in your words, ones that you had said a thousand times before, and commit to memory. Like he wanted to block out every other sense or distraction he could that could have him forgetting this moment.

“I love you, too,” he said and opened his eyes, “more than you could ever know.”

You eventually pulled him from the ruined sheets to the bathroom where you shared a shower, and he let you patch him up the best you could. His hands never left your body, stretching and contorting in whatever awkward way he had to when you went to retrieve towels or gather supplies. He kept you in his grasp and in his eyeline, his own reminder that he was ok, that he was home, and that he was finally safe.

i hope you enjoyed and if you did, please let me know commets, likes and reblogs!

He became your first good omen, the first thing in your life that you coveted close to your chest and thanked every known deity for his existence. He was a fresh start, a jolt to your old way of thinking. Rick rewrote the bleak code of your brain to remind you that you still had the capacity to value hope over doubt. He had rewired you to remember what it felt like to hold someone else’s life in higher regard than your own, to care more about someone’s happiness more than anything else you could comprehend.

Rick had taught you love, and how to accept it in return.

While he often reassured you that you reciprocated all the love and light he gave you, it was hard for you to believe. When you were out and bound to him by Amanda Waller’s will, you did all you could to show him how much he meant to you, or do things that you knew he appreciated.

You’d massage the back of his neck with your arm slung over his shoulder, knowing how tense his muscles became on long missions. You’d save him the crusts from your pizza and you’d hold up the assembly line of sandwiches being passed around to find him the sole turkey on rye. You’d pick up lucky pennies on war torn streets and slip them into his pockets with a kiss to the cheek and the whisper of so you have it when you need it. When you had the means, you’d send him newspaper clippings of articles you knew he’d enjoy with your thoughts in the margins.

It never felt like enough. Love wasn’t a scale that consisted of good deeds, presents and keeping score. There wasn’t a winner in a relationship, or a way to outweigh the other with your actions. But you still wished you could do more for him. Rick had changed your life when he gave you his heart, and all you could offer in return was a few measly sandwiches and dirty change.

Day after day as you sat in your cell, flipping through the worn paper backs he’d sent and the heartfelt letters that accompanied them, it felt evident to you that you truly would not be able to show him your true devotions until you were released. But, that only served to depress you, as it was no secret how unlikely it was to obtain parole from Belle Reve, and you were sure next to impossible now that you were under Amanda Waller’s thumb.

Until something happened. Something so absurd and preposterous, it took an abnormal amount of time for the news to sink into your consciousness and make sense.

Roger Peck, Gotham’s star prosecutor and the mayor’s good boy, had been exposed in a litany of scandals. Bribes, blackmail, jury tampering, stolen confidential information, and a pervasive drug addiction to name only a few. It had been released in the Gotham Gazette that Peck had been high for every case he had tried for the past six years, and because of this, all convictions he’d helped solidify would be overturned and the cases thrown out. There was much fear and debate about this, Peck having tried some of Gotham’s most notorious criminals, but you truly didn’t care.

That wasn’t what had rendered you stock still as your brain processed what was happening.

Peck had been the one to try your case four years ago. His particularly grueling closing statements had helped put you away from one hundred and twenty years. A one hundred twenty years you were slowly whittling away (although you had never received any paperwork from your public defender informing you that any of Amanda Waller’s promises had been filed with the courts), but still had decades to work off. But now, as you stared at the paper that had been slipped through the bars of your cell, you realized that your sentencing fell under the preview of this judicial overhaul.

The chalky black ink felt gritty under your fingertips; it transferred to your skin as you traced the headline with an obsessive concentration.

P - E - C - K, you traced with focus, D - I - S - B - A - R - E - D.

Over and over again until the ink grayed and smudged under your body heat, then you started to understand.

This was it. This was the moment you had been waiting for.

You were getting out of Belle Reve.

While you were technically free and clear of your sentence now, it didn’t mean that the gears of bureaucracy and the prison system moved with any efficiency. It took almost two months for you to receive an exit date, and two week after that for the day to finally come.

On the day of your release, you woke early. You lacked any means of telling time in Belle Reve, the digital watch that had been smuggled to you by a guard, who was now long gone, had run out of batteries ages ago and you had yet to obtain another one. There were no windows in the maximum security sector in which you were held, which prevented you from estimating the day's length by the fall and rise of the sun. When you had first started your journey with Task Force X, you had considered asking for a better cell with a window where you could gain vitamin D and some sense over the passage of time, but quickly thought otherwise. Living in a steel cage was much more appealing than any retribution that might have come from asking for a favor from Waller. Soon after, your relationship with Rick began to ferment and you knew asking for any human decency would be rewarded with long stints of his absence on missions. That was something you weren’t willing to risk. You’d live in the dark forever for just moments of basking in the light with him.

Captain Griggs was the one to retrieve you from your cell for the last time. He roughly brought your hands behind your back and pressed your cheek to coarse cinder block wall. He notched his handcuffs on your wrists to a bruising tightness out of spite, knowing this was one of the last time he would be able to torture you without retribution. His hot breath bloomed wet on your neck as he walked you through the facility, his pudgy hand held firm on your bicep, and jolted you backward toward his body when you were stopped at prison safeguards.

“I’m sure you’ll be right back here in no time at all, sweetheart,” he said to the shell of your ear, “right back under my nose. Right back to me.”

You knew the sound of his gap toothed smirk by now, and while it would usually elicit a snarl and a threatening rebuttal from you, now only made you chuckle. You could see the final gates of the prison in your eyeline. The exit screamed with neon lights behind two guards standing by a circular reception desk paned with bullet proof glass. In one of their hands you recognized a bag of your belongings.

“Maybe,” you replied with an almost wistful sigh, “but maybe not.”

You had reached the guards, the handoff to them handled with the same lack of tack, before your hands were unlocked, “in just a few short hours, you’ll clock off and go home. You’ll clock off, go home, and now never know where I am or where I could be. You won’t have the safety of steel bars or handcuffs. You’ll be out there, and guess what? So will I.”

His face paled and his lips pursed into a thin line. He didn’t want to show any fear in front of his colleagues, but you could tell your words had shaken him as he scrunched his nose in a sniffle and turned on his heel to leave without a rebuttal. You didn’t see his shoulders relax until he was buzzed through the gates back in the belly of the prison.

After signing a few documents and being handed a large evidence bag of what you had been detained in, you were pushed out the door.

Your possessions were as followed:

Leather party dress

Black matching clutch

Prada Mules

Bodega receipt

A stray cough drop

Eight dollars, cash

An expired ID

A tampon

A condom

Two laffy taffies (bananas)

While you were sure a club outfit like the one you had been seized in was not suitable for day time wear, it was much less assuming than the baggy canvas scrubs you wore. The former only made you look like an easy girl on her way home from a late night; the latter made you look every bit the criminal you were trying to leave behind.

You went to the prison's bathroom where you swapped your inmate garb for the old party dress. When you were changed, you looked at yourself in the mirror and felt stifling emotion flood into your throat.

This was the first time in years you had looked like yourself. It was the first time in years you had been allowed to wear your own clothing and not hand me downs from Harley, or K-Mart polyester disasters provided for you by the government. And yet, you recognized that the woman who wore this dress all those years ago was not the one who now stood in the polished plastic reflection.

You were different now, kinder, softer, in love. You had little desire to continue the deeds you had started the night you wore this dress and only thought of a quiet life with your beloved. You were sure the impulses to steal, murder and break petty traffic laws would surface and likely often. But you knew you would deal with them each day as they came, one at a time. You had back up now, a partner to help you mull through your urges and moods, to figure out the best outcomes with support and care.

You had someone now. And he had you.

You left the bathroom with a quick wash of your hands and made sure to shove the discarded clothing down deep into the garbage can before you left.

The soap smelled like bubblegum and made your skin feel tight and dry over your bones. The guards who had uncuffed now watched you with leering eyes and chortled unsavory comments as you headed for the door. Just like with Griggs’ own unseemly behavior, you couldn’t seem to care.

Never again would you have to wash yourself with the pink gooey liquid and never again would you be forced to turn a blind eye to the guards' misconduct. You were fucking free. You were free with eight dollars in a thirteen hundred dollar clutch and you were on your way to a better life.

As you exited the double doors, the sun was the first thing you noticed. It was almost noon and it was threatening to breach it’s spot high in the sky at any moment as it shone it’s rays down onto you. It was summer in Louisiana, which meant that the heat cooked your body and boiled your blood for good measure, caring little about time of day. But a rare, sweet southern breeze followed it’s mother’s scorching heat and wound through your hair and entered your lungs with splendor. It cooled the surface of your skin as the sun fought to keep the earth warm and sweat you from your tight dress.

You caught yourself wondering if the damp heat would weigh on you. If you would get sick of sweat stains on your clothing and your hair frizzing in the humidity. You wondered if you and Rick would ever plan to move away, maybe back to D.C., Gotham, or a place where you were both equally anonymous. The fact that you could even ponder these ideas made your heart leap.

With the impeccable gate of a runway model, you walked down Belle Reve’s steep steps in your five inch heels and toward freedom. When the sound of the heavy steel doors shut behind you, you exhaled for what felt like the first time since you had been thrown inside. You hadn’t even realized that your breath had been strangled until now.

This was it, it was over. You were done.

With Rick’s address firmly memorized and scoured in your brain, all you had to do was wait for a bus to find you a mile down the road at it’s stop and you would be on your way home to him.

On your way home to him, if you didn’t already love how that sounded.

Rick was aware of your release and probably more giddy about the news than you were. You had called him under the guise of talking to your counsel to relay the good news to him as soon as you heard.

“Happen to pick up The Gotham Gazette by any chance, hot stuff?” you asked when he answered the phone, forgoing your own greeting.

“Baby? That you? How’re you callin’?” he sounded flustered by the sound of your voice, but not in a negative way. His words were tinged with shock and excitement.

“Well, I have to call my lawyer when there has been a break in my case,” you said in a playful tone, winking at the female guard who was monitoring your call.

“A break -? Wait, what? What happened?”

“Google that prick Roger Peck and find out.”

You could hear the tap of his fingers against his keyboard faintly through the receiver, and the quiet mumble of his voice as he skimmed the first article he found.

“... drug addiction, blah blah blah, corrupt, no shit… last six years…” then you heard him pause.

Rick repeated himself, then stammered a few times before he read the full sentence that had been printed.

“Unfortunately, there are no exceptions to be made in the countless cases Peck prosecuted over the last six years. All sentences will be overturned.”

“Well, fortunately for us,” you countered.

“Is this real? This isn’t some joke?” he asked, astonished.

“Nope. It’s real, real as you and me. That idiot couldn’t keep his sticky fingers to himself and now I’m getting out of prison.”

You hoped Rick was at home because the ear splitting holler of joy he released no doubt drew judgmental looks from his coworkers. When he spoke again, he sounded like he wasn’t sure if he should cry or keep up his boisterous cheers.

“I can’t fuckin’ believe it, I can’t believe this, baby! You’re gettin’ out? You’re gettin’ out! Oh my good Lord, I cannot believe this is finally happening.”

While he was unsure what to do with the news, you could only cry at his response. You choked back tears as you giggled at his antics and tried to hold it together in front of the woman across from you.

“We get to start our lives, baby. We get to finally do it,” he said with an earnestness and your cheeks hurt from the length of your grin.

“We do. We finally get to be happy.”

When your phone privilege was coming to an end and you exchanged fervored I love you’s with each other, you hung up the phone and immediately began to dial your lawyer.

“You already had your call, (Y/L/N),” came the guard's gruff voice as she pushed off the wall.

“Oh that? Wrong number, sorry.”

As you approached the reinforced gates and waited for the tower guard to buzz you through, you thought about sleeping in Rick’s bed. About waking up in his arms and making lazy love without any worry of who might be watching and how much time you had left of the intimacy. You thought about supermarket trips and swimming in above ground pools and watching the six o’clock news over meatloaf and green beans. Every mundane thing about existence was on the tip of your tongue, and it tasted so damn sweet.

When the pearly gates opened before you, you were so caught up in your domestic fantasies that you almost didn’t notice the car that idled across the street, you probably wouldn’t have given it a second look if it weren't for the man who rested against the driver's door.

Rick wore a plain white t-shirt and dark wash blue jeans. His hands were stuck causally in his front pockets and his legs were crossed at the ankles. Sunglasses obscured his eyes and he had grown his beard back in, something that made your stomach flutter with attraction and recognition. You told him the last time we were together with a yearning hand to his jaw that you missed the fuzz that grew there.

“I love how it feels on my skin.”

When he spotted you, you watched as his lips upturned at the corners and his cheeks pinched high to his eyes.

Days ago he had solemnly informed you over the phone that he would be sent out on a twenty-four hour mission the day of your release and would not be able to get you from the prison. While your heart ached with the knowledge that you had to wait even longer to finally hold him in your arms, you knew in the long run it wouldn’t matter.

“Maybe I’ll have dinner on the table for you when you get home? A martini and slippers in hand? Is that the type of woman you want me to be?” you’d quipped playfully.

“Oh darlin’,” he’d said, “I want you to be whoever you wanna be. I’ll love her just the same.”

You should have known he was fibbing.

“Walk of shame?” he called out, eyeing your attire.

“Something like that,” you replied with your hands on your hips, squinting against the sun.

“You need a ride, little lady?” he asked and pushed his sunglasses up to rest on his head as he continued the game, “‘cause I sure wouldn’t mind takin’ you wherever you’re goin’.”

You grinned, “what about your place?”

He whistled out low and crossed his arms, his muscles bulging, “that’s quite a line, darlin’. How’re you so sure I ain’t dangerous?”

You shrugged, “just got a feeling, I guess. I can tell you’re one of the good ones.”

You held each other’s gaze for a moment as you both did poor jobs to restrain elated grins to continue the silly rouse he’d started, but you couldn’t take it any longer. After a beat longer, you started to run toward him, bound on the tips of your toes so as to not trip in your inconvenient footwear, Rick was ready and waiting to catch you.

His broad palms gripped your waist and swung you in a circle as he picked you from the asphalt in a magical spin while you shrieked and giggled with glee. You leveraged yourself by his shoulders to wrap your legs around his hips, a contact that caught him off guard and made him stumble back against the body of the car as he peeled with his own laughter.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he said through broken chuckles and hiked your higher up his body.

You hummed with delight and shimmied closer, lithe fingers going to weave their way into his brunet locks.

“I missed you more than words can say.”

He snorted, “not a contest baby.”

“But if it were…” you trailed off with a coy glint and his hands squeezed the exposed skin of your thighs.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you say,” he voice grew quieter as he neared your lips, deep and graveled right before his mouth possessed your own.

His kiss was tender with familiarity and hot with reunion. His tongue licked past your lips and you could taste the sweat that had accumulated on his upper lip from the weather. His nose nuzzled yours as he delved deeper into you, his skillful mouth making you whimper and whine for more as you tugged at his hair and ground against his Adonis belt and belly button.

“Gonna get us thrown back in there if you keep this up baby,” he broke for a brief reprieve, “‘cause I won’t hesitate to fuck you on the hood of this car to show all those pricks in there that yer’mine.”

“I don’t mind adding public indecency to my rap sheet if you don’t?” you mumbled to the skin of his jaw, placing wet kissing across his beard and to his ear, “God, baby, can’t believe you grew your beard back just for me. You look so sexy...”

When you slipped his earlobe past your lips, Rick tapped your ass with sharp painless slaps in signal for you to step down. You made a sound of disappointed protest, but slipped down from his body and landed back on your heels.

“As much as I want you now, I don’t want these eagle eyed pervs to see,” he jutted his chin out to the tower guards, “I want you in my bed for my eyes only.”

“I like the sound of that.”

Rick ran his soothing touch down your arms and found purchase at your hips. The smile he offered you this time was without any playful mischief or coy eroticism. His expression had softened to one of simple bliss, of the feeling of everything finally falling into its rightful place. His eyes were thoughtful and affectionate and his smile reflected that. This was a smile you were sure you’d see after long days and in the early mornings. One of pure, unadulterated love and happiness. You already craved the sight of it.

“I am just really ready to take you home, baby.”

Tears pricked your eyes and love felt thick on your tongue as you came to rest your forehead to his collarbone.

Home.

“Take me home, Colonel. That’s an order.”

And he did.

thank you so much for reading and i hope you enjoyed! if you did, i would love to hear your thoughts <3

i love this reader and i love the idea of continuing to post extras and maybe another part or two (or drabbles about these two)