Archive of Our Own ^beta

You should be paying attention. You should be working. There's a stack of mission reports on the table, piled up, almost four inches thick, unfiled, unsigned, waiting for you to finally put pen to paper and work through them, but you haven't even started yet. You should get to it while most of the details are still fresh inside your head, vivid enough for quick recall before they expire and become murky enough to cause you trouble. You can't get yourself to move though.

Your fingers tighten around the ballpoint pen in your hand, fitting in a tight squeeze around the plastic like the friction against your skin might save you. Like it might break you out of the trance you seem to be in. You aren't completely a lost cause. You aren't just blatantly staring like some kind of creep, you're only occasionally . . . staring. You do know how to compose yourself — if just barely.

The others would eat you alive if they could see you now. Chew you up and spit you out while laughing like a pack of demented hyenas. You could practically hear them cackling, voices overlapping and echoing in a brutal delight. Not that you would entirely blame them. You'd probably do the same if you were looking at yourself from the other perspective.

You've had a lot of low points in your life, but this might just be a new one. You've officially hit rock bottom . . . or blown right through it and plummeted into the molten core of hell. This is undoubtedly pathetic. You have a crush on a guy named Robert Robertson for fuck's sake — though even referring to it as a crush is somehow arguably worse than his actual name. It's all so lame. It feels so immature, miles away from anything that should exist within your life. Too fluffy, too naïve; feelings that bubble and fizzle it inside your stomach. All pink-hued and blushed. The sort of emotions that go along with bouquets and innocent pecks on the cheek, not for someone who's broken bones. Felt ribs and jaws shatter beneath the strike of their fists, split jugulars between the cut of their teeth to taste the blood. Killed and mauled, robbed life after life just to dull the ache in their belly.

You don't do flowery and sweet. It's a shoe that doesn't fit. There are certain lines that not even you will cross, and this has to be one of them. He's you're boss — technically. Not that the power imbalance and the possible HR violation it comes strapped with bothers you. You have a criminal record. The idea of a fling with your superior doesn't exactly induce fear in you, but the warmth, the heat that settles over you, a blanket that swaddles and holds whenever you see him, kind of does.

It's off. Different, somehow. Unusual in a way that you can't quite place. A scattered jigsaw, meant to create an image that's familiar, but the pieces are interspersed and broken up into an unrecognizable mess. Chaotic and jumbled.

God, you hate it.

And now you're tucked away in the break room, holding onto the fraying threads of your sanity with pure desperation, because of course he's here too. And you're only in here because SDN is about as cheap as they come and they couldn't be bothered to supply the entire Z-Team with your own cubicles or designated workspaces. There's only a handful of members who actually have their own desks, and you aren't one of the lucky ones.

But the execs are just waiting on all of you to give them a reason to pull the plug on the whole Phoenix Program, some kind of slip up grave enough to give them a reason to throw you all back on to the street (or at worst, prison) and wash their hands clean of you. It makes sense that they wouldn't be willing to supply your team with any proper funding. You're the basement kids of the entire organization, let out reluctantly and donated hand-me-downs from dead heroes.

You should have just taken the files back home with you and finished them up there. Or blown them off all together. You've done it before, probably more times than you can count. So much so that you've developed a reputation for not being dependable for it, always turning in your paperwork weeks after the deadline, or not at all. But you — holy shit, it's humiliating to admit — but you actually want to get it done because Robert's been pressing the team about finishing up their reports on time, and you want to — what? Make him happy? Proud?

But now you can hardly even focus on the pages in front of you, because he's sitting at the table directly across from yours and you're crudely hyperaware of that fact. It's awkward. Stifling in the sense that you feel as though you're being choked, the kind of pressure that prickles up your back when you're being observed at by someone unseen. A hyperaware weight. Nerves prickling and humming. You're too conscious of the way your shoulders draw in, hunching up like you're trying to shield yourself from an oncoming blow.

You can't stop yourself from muttering, cursing low in a strained "Shit" under your breath. He's completely in his own world, chewing on a bite of those shitty mini chocolate cakes from the vending machine (they taste like the plastic they're packaged in), staring down at his phone. Scrolling disinterestedly, eyes flat and tired. He looks like he'd rather be anywhere else, probably at home, in bed if the dark bags under his eyes are anything to judge by.

(The things you'd give to see that. You wonder if he sleeps shirtless. Just in his boxers. Or in nothing at all.)

— Focus, focus, focus.

You can smell him, and you can't focus. His scent permeates the air, brushing against the four walls, probably undetectable to anyone else with duller (normal) senses, but to you it's intense. As though someone had soaked a cloth with it and pressed it directly against your nose. It's a myriad of fragrances, textured, lived in. You can smell the shampoo he uses, unremarkable, clean smelling but ordinary. The detergent on his clothes, artificial in its perfume. Subtly floral, possibly meant to be lavender or jasmine, but the chemicals are too strong to properly produce the notes.

But underneath all of the that, warmed by the heat of his skin, is salt and sweat. Grease, and the traces metal, all fabricating together to make something that is just distinctly him. Natural. Human. It makes your mouth water, your gums ache with the urge to bite, saliva pooling within the gentle cradle of your tongue. You want to taste him.

—You need to pick up more gum on the way home.

You're thankful for how he seems to be oblivious. Though you probably have to thank that for your sunglasses, still seated on your nose, shaded lenses keeping your line of sight a mystery to anyone else who might be looking at you. You'd worn them only to stave of a migraine that the light could possibly produce, but they prove useful in other ways. If Robert were to glance up right now and make direct eye contact, he'd be none the wiser. All he'd see are two blank black pools, reflecting the sunlight streaming through the window blinds in pale golden rivulets, reflective, blocking out the shape of your eyes. With the way your neck is bent downward, he probably thinks you're occupied staring at the files. The same files you really should be filling out.

You should have just taken them home with you, that though looms over you again, sour with regret. But in your defense, you didn't think that he'd show up here. It's pushing 4:30 by now; you thought he'd be caught up doing whatever duties he has being dispatch. You don't know much about the job, but he has to have some kind of end-of-the-day tasks that need attending to . . . preferably far, far away from here.

Now you're second guessing everything. You practically have a heap of files to work through, at least twenty different folders, about eighty-five percent of which are older than four months. The due dates technically long expired.

You've put off a lot of work.

"You know, it helps if you actually use the pen to put the words down on the paper. You move your hand around a bit, and the pen makes ink, the ink makes words. That's generally how that works." It's delivered in that usual monotone as always, tone deep, just a little husky. Lightly graveled in a way that never fails to send a warm tremble soaking down the shape of your spine. Skipping over each individual notch, a thrumming glide. If this is what his regular tone does to you, you're pretty sure his morning voice would turn you into braindead puddle.

But regardless of how hot he is, you can't keep yourself from bristling at the comment. "No shit," you snap, tilting your chin down even further to openly glare at him from over the edge of your sunglasses. Realistically, you can't get too pissed at him for using sarcasm or being exasperated. Z-Team isn't the easiest to work with, and you definitely aren't exempt from that. You aren't ignorant to how uncooperative you all are, if not downright combative. You all make things difficult in your own way, stubbornly digging your heals into the earth just for the sake of making things complicated, kicking and screaming the whole way just to stir up trouble.

He's obviously tired. Dealing with you lot all alone has to be heavy weight. Juggling nine ex-villains is far from simple, and you're sure that Blazer doesn't always make things painless with how uptight and corporate she can get. She's practically the poster child for good behavior, eager to please the higher up and earn a gold star for her efforts. To be praised and lifted up on a pedestal.

Well, maybe you're just the pot calling the kettle black given the circumstances. You're literally doing paperwork just to please a guy who hardly gives you a second glance. You're just another pain in the ass for him. Another villain to rehabilitate. An evil to change and alter. Something that needs fixing.

"That sounds about right," he huffs. He hasn't even looked up from his phone, thumb hovering over the screen in between periodically swiping upwards. He doesn't sound defeated, like he's giving up, just ragged. Drained. There's no fight because he's come to expect the resistance. He's learned to pick his battles with the team, and it seems that he's deemed this one a fruitless venture. Undeserving of any true push back.

The exhaustion underneath his eyes is dark. Vaguely lilac, like aging bruises. You can visibly see the weariness in his posture, slumped over, elbows propped on the table like he needs it to keep himself from keeling over. You don't know why, but it does something to you to see him like this. It hits you in your center, a place that's hidden and too soft. It cracks the scowl on your face apart, a mask shattering and slipping from its perch, leaving only the concerned expression beneath exposed.

Again, you have to send out a thankful prayer to the universe that you were still wearing your sunglasses when he had walked in. It gives you a barrier between you and him, enough to hide what might be something close to remorse showing through your gaze.

"No, you're right," you relent with a sigh. "I need to get this done. I've been blowing this off for long enough, and all I did was make more work for myself. I should have known that it would come back to bite me on the ass."

You hate how a part of you preens under the genuine surprise that shows on his face, the thick shape of his brows lifting up like he can't believe what he's hearing. Like he could be happy. Proud even. The ghost of the smile that lifts at his mouth is worst of all. There's a little laugh that comes with it, small, barely there, but your ears pick it up. A fleeting scrap of joyful relief or shock, because you're actually apologizing, but it has your chest aching no matter how brief, butterflies tracing along the shape of your ribcage, because you're responsible for that. You lifted a burden, no matter how small or insignificant.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure Flambae's got an entire filing cabinet worth of paperwork that he needs to get done — not that he ever will. So consider yourself one of the lucky ones."

"It does just a little bit." You smile in return, though it's probably something closer to a smirk, at Bae's expense. It's small, whatever passes between you two. Delicate, new, soft-edged. If you could hold it, it would probably fall apart in your palms, fine dust and paper-thin shards. And it's sweet. Too sweet for you. Cozy, as though you and Robert could be considered something like friends, and not only co-workers, simple and uncomplicated, tied together by only an impersonal schedule, but more. You could imagine.

But now he's getting up, the metal legs of his chair scraping across the tiles as he shoves it back with his weight to straighten to his full height. He grabs his phone, slipping it into his back pocket. He takes the empty packaging from his snack up too, crumpling it up into a plastic ball within his palm.

You pretend that you aren't paying attention to him anymore, returning the angle of your head back downward to stare at the files, but you aren't reading a single word. Letting your vision skip back over the ink over and over again while you listen to him walk over to the trashcan to discard the wrapper, the soles of his shoes whispering across the floor with each step.

"Hey," he calls, and like an excited dog, your head shifts on its own accord, tugged on an invisible rope to look to him. He's standing in the doorway now. A hand clasped around the knob, but he's watching you from over his shoulder, and the warm shade of his eye seems to glimmer from the light trickling into the room. "Thanks, for at least trying to get that done. I know it's pretty low effort stuff, but you've shown more initiative than most of the team, so . . . I appreciate it."

And then he's gone in blink, the door closing behind him with a gentle click, and your heart feels as though it's going to explode inside of your chest. You aren't sure if it's possible to overdose on your own adrenaline, or oxytocin, or what other chemicals go into making your nerves feel as though they're electrified, brain fuzzy and dopey, but you think that you might be the first person in history to do it.

He'd hardly even complemented you. He explicitly said what you're doing bare minimum, and yet you couldn't stop the warmth that engulfs your body, dancing beneath your skin. That modicum of praise was water flowing down your throat. A crumb of food given to a beggar, small, petty, and yet your mouth still waters for it.

You're truly pathetic. You're also completely fucked.

At first, in the beginning, you didn't think much of Robert. Z-Team has had countless other dispatchers in the past. The majority of which, lasted less than a full shift. The record for the quickest leave had to have been when one had left only two hours in. You never met the guy — kid? He sounded young — personally, but you had known as soon as you heard his voice, rigid and textbook, that he wouldn't last. Sometimes he would wobble between hesitating before he spoke, or bulldozing directly over everyone else, determined to prove himself, and the group had grabbed onto that little show of inconsistency and ran with it.

He'd been talked over relentlessly, too scared or frustrated to try and rope you all back into order. You think that it had all become too much for him when Invisigal had called him a "dumb bitch" more than once, and Prism had taken to making fun of the man's voice, pitching her own up into a thin warble to mock. But the catalyst, the final straw was probably when Flambae threatened to find out his address and set his house on fire.

No one seemed to survive the team for long. It was something you all kept in mind, just how much you could provoke and nudge before they'd ultimately break and go running for the hills. But Robert hadn't. For whatever reason, he had stayed. He was stubborn. Latching onto you all like a dog, teeth burrowed in and jaw clenched tight. It's like he has something to prove. To someone specific, or just to himself, you aren't quite sure yet. But whatever the reason, you're glad that he did.

When you first heard his voice over comms, you didn't think much of him. You were actually too busy laughing over the absurdity of his name to pay much attention to him. Chuckling and ridiculing alongside everyone else. But once the jokes had worn off, you did your best to listen to his orders when he dispatched you out to take care of emergencies. Mostly low level stuff, like tracking down a family's lost dog and apprehending a creepy van full of kidnappers — though you didn't listen to his orders too well on that one. In your defense though, he only said that you weren't allowed to kill them, nothing was stated about breaking a couple of bones. They were all still alive by the time the ambulance showed and the police arrived to the scene.

Besides, the college girl they had snatched had been thankful, and that's all that really mattered, right?

But somewhere along the way, you had actually started to anticipate hearing him. It really was that damn voice. It was difficult not to grow attached when you hear it constantly, nearly every day, giving orders, extending advice when needed. Pressed close inside of your ear, kept there by the plastic weight of the comm's device, purring in a smooth baritone. You got hooked on it before you had even realized it.

It snuck up on you, circled around your feet and sunk beneath your skin. Deep. Down in your blood and into your marrow. You didn't realize how much you hung off of every word he spoke before it was too late, and now you're left to scramble with the discovery. To try and deal with the aftermath of it. You aren't doing very well so far.

You try not to be obvious. Any time there's a meeting, you try to sit as far away from him as possible. You look anywhere else but him, passing glances in his direction only when its necessary. Instead, you're usually staring at a wall, or whatever documents might have been passed around amongst the team. You study productivity reports, mission evaluations, rereading the paragraphs so obsessively that you probably have them all memorized by now, printed across your frontal lobe. You pretend to be bored, uninterested with the corporate droning that comes out of Robert's mouth whenever he berates the team for slip-ups or a costly mishap.

You try not to get close to him, but its next to impossible when your paths are set to cross daily. You try to remind yourself to remain clinical, detached. And yet you struggle to distance yourself from your emotions. They churn and toss and throw themselves against the flimsy barriers you've constructed against them, wild and illogical. Burrowed deep into you like feeding parasites.

Nothing has been able to snuff out what you feel. Not even the way she looks at him. You think that she tries to be professional (emphasis on 'try'), but it's there, naked and clear for anyone who isn't a complete moron to notice. Ever since she broke things off with Phenomaman, it's been blatant. Clear as day. She looks at Robert with a light in her eyes, alive and electric. It's kind of hard to blame her when the chemistry between her and Phenomaman had been . . . lacking, to say the least.

You've seen more sexual attraction between cousins. Watching them try to banter and flirt was a little pitiful. There was always this tension between the surface, and not the good kind. Awkward, stiff, like two lifeless dolls smacking up against each other, plastic clacking together. You're pretty sure that their relationship was company orchestrated. Manufactured to boost popularity. It's not a farfetched theory considering that Blazer had not so subtly insinuated that a fake relationship between you and another villain — ex-villain — might help humanize you to the public. You were quick to shut the proposition down with a very firm "fuck no." Thankfully, she hasn't brought it up again.

You can't bother to get angry that she might have feelings for Robert, or that maybe, he might like her back too. They make sense, you suppose. The both of them being heroes and all. Representatives of societies best attributes, pinnacles of humanity.

You are far from that. You've done things that couldn't be forgotten, committed sins that wouldn't be washed from your hands no matter how furiously you scrubbed. Despite all of that, Robert still looks at you as though you're worth saving. Like you aren't just a statistic, a possible success story to be written about on blogs and magazines. The higher ups of SDN don't care about you — any of you. Not really.

Your team is on life support as is, and they're just waiting to pull the plug on the entire operation. But Robert showed up, walked into all of your lives one day, and he's been here ever since. Persistent, stubborn. Hoping, even though he probably shouldn't, that you'll all change for the better. When he stares at you, you think that he might actually see something that's not completely irreparable. Something worth saving.

Despite your best attempts to keep away from Robert, going through great lengths to maintain a professional dynamic, you nosedived in that venture with a startling speed. It started in the break room, the single place where the universe seemed determined to draw you two together. You were taking advantage of your free thirty minutes, eating your way through the half of the left-over burrito you had in your fridge from last night. You splurged on takeout, ordered a dish of double burritos, but you hadn't even been able to make it through one before your low appetite had finally reared its head and kept you from finishing it off. The rest of it had been swapped inside Tupperware for a tighter seal and stored in your fridge for later.

You were working through the remaining half from last night, taking bite after bite in sluggish chews when a soft sigh caught your attention. You focus flickered over to the left side of the room where Robert was standing, looking indecisive and disappointed with the selection of junk food offered. From what you could tell, his eating habits left a lot to be desired. Every time you've managed to see him having lunch or a snack, it was always something that was total garbage. A bag of fun-sized chips, or Twinkies, or those awful chocolate cupcakes, maybe a sandwich or old pizza slices if he was feeling especially famished. You aren't sure how his body hasn't collapsed from lack of nutrients alone.

You were completely unsurprised to watch him press in a code onto the keypad of the vending machine, the coil inside shifting to release a pack of those familiar golden Hostess cakes. You rolled your eyes, tracking him as he walked over to the vacant table to take a seat before glancing back down at your own food. You still had one burrito left, untouched in the corner of the plastic container, and you really didn't think your stomach could handle any more food. You were at your limit. Another bite would have your gut busting, nausea bubbling at the back of your throat, and it would go from indulging in a simple pleasure to a complete discomfort.

You stole another cursory glance at him, roving over the shape of his back, the slouch of his head, the motion of his hands gently tearing the plastic packing open. A terrible meal. Fucking Twinkie's for lunch.

Your body had made a decision for you. Before you realized it, you were lifting yourself out from the seat, picking up the Tupperware as you went. You didn't think as you approached him. He was oblivious, back facing you. He didn't look up until you sat it down in front of him, settling it down right beside the remaining cake that he'd yet to eat. It was only then that he saw you, eyes darting up, brows lifted in a silent question while he tried to chew the food in his mouth, wiping at the bit of vanilla filling around his lips.

"Your diet is terrible." You said it as though that was explanation enough. To you it was.

"Uh, thanks. I know," he answered, still confused.

"It's a burrito. Some of my leftovers. You can have it, if you want; I don't really eat all that much at a single time. Not regular food, anyway."

"I didn't know you could eat regular food," he replied, drawing the container closer, nudging the Twinkie out of the way with its breadth. He scanned it inquisitively, like maybe he was worried you had poisoned it, but he couldn't hide the visible hunger that had crossed his face. It made you smile, amused, and a little proud, maybe.

"Yeah, I can. In small doses." You clarified. "Too much can make me feel a little sick. Anyway, I just thought I'd offer. You don't have to eat it if you don't want to, it's not gonna hurt my feelings. Promise I won't cry if you throw it away."

He blinked, but his lips curled, a suggestion of mirth. "I'd at least wait until you left the room before I tossed it. But no, thanks, I appreciate it."

"Sure." You shrugged like it didn't matter, but warmth seeped within your chest, light, shifting, as though the sun had expanded behind your lungs. And then you left without sparing another word. But that day had marked a shift in your relationship. A small one. You'd almost forgotten the entire experience, and then a week later he gave you a wrapped sub during your lunch break. Unprompted and unexpectedly. It was your favorite one, from the little mom and pop deli just down the street; the same shop that you typically frequent from the convenience of its proximity to the SDN building. Baked Italian herb, plenty of dressings to keep it from being too dry, plump with seasoned chicken and vegetables. It's your usual order. The one you get almost obsessively, but there's no way he would be able to know that.

You had scoffed, out of disbelief rather than scorn or upset. "How did you...? "

"I asked Mal." He admitted it like it was nothing, and maybe it wasn't supposed to be. It was probably just his way of getting even, to keep himself from feeling like he owed you for the burrito. But rather or not it was intentioned to, the exchange had begun a sort of ritual. Whenever your schedules allowed, you would both spend your breaks together. It went undiscussed, but you would both rotate between who would bring lunch. Sometimes it was just meals brought from your respective homes — typically leftovers. Though more often than not, you had found yourself beginning to leave the SDN building for lunch, frequenting the restaurants and cafes nearby. So much so that you had started being recognized by the staff of said establishments.

But some of your favorite lunch-time rendezvous were the ones that happened up on the rooftop of SDN. They were calm, private, and you didn't have to worry about any co-workers walking in and making assumptions. You'd spend more time talking rather than eating, and more often than not, you'd end up with a full meal left over, enough for you to save for dinner if you still felt the desire to eat a regular meal.

You would talk about whatever came to mind. You'd sit with your backs to the cluster of satellite dishes, hidden from the sun underneath the cover of their colossal shadows. Mostly for your sake rather than his. Thirty minutes spent in the sun wouldn't kill you, and it wasn't a long enough period to sap your energy, especially not with your suit on, protecting most of your skin. But you liked to keep your mask off, and having to squint against the sun would get annoying. More embarrassingly, you also didn't like having to looking at him through the polarized lenses built into the eyeholes.

The tint on the see-through plastic washed him of his true shades. It made the chestnut color of his hair murky, a little washed out. It dulled the brown hue of his eyes, turned them cool and vaguely gray-toned. It was such a small insignificant thing, and you couldn't stand it. You refused to wear your mask or your sunglasses during your lunch breaks with him, even with the glare of the sun beating down on the concrete and asphalt of the parking lot below and the roof, reflecting back into your vision, annoyingly bright.

But the blaze of it, the dull sting would pale into an afterthought whenever you talked to him. For a few minutes, the world would fall away entirely. It wasn't so serious anymore. You both would prattle on about anything. Petty gossip, old rivals, music, which would make you bicker and joke about the other's tastes in bands. You learned that he had a hard time watching movies with mechs, and a brief mention of Chrome Defenders had him going on a tangent about why the piloted robots were so unrealistic. Why they would never work, how the combat depicted was all wrong, the physics off.

You weren't even a fan of the film despite it being so popular. You just wanted to get a reaction out of him, and it definitely had.

"You do know it was all fake right? A bunch of CGI and practical effects," you teased, nudging him with the point of your elbow.

"I know, but if you're going to try and trick me into believing what's on screen, you could at least do a little homework first. You can't piss on me and tell me it's rain. I mean — what the hell was that mech called?" He'd snapped his fingers together, once, twice, three times in a row like it might help him catch the name. "Reaper!" He'd shouted in success. "Where they put the thrusters on its design, there's no way it would be able to get airborne. It'd get, like, maybe five meters off the ground before hurtling back down again."

But not all of your conversations were always so lighthearted.

"Why did you do it?" he asked one day, delivered in between a bite of lo mien. "All the crimes. The theft, the murders."

You didn't answer right away. You let the question hang there between you, long enough for it to sink in, saturating the moment with all its weight and layers. It wasn't exactly unwelcome, just unexpected.

"You don't have to answer that." He'd tensed a little, as though he'd only just realized what he said, fingers flexing around the white paper to-go container in his hold like if he squeezed it hard enough, he could turn back time. Start over again.

"I know," you replied.

"Really. I shouldn't have asked—"

"No, it's okay," you reassured. You supposed it was a fair exchange, considering you knew his secret. Though that hadn't been intentional. Your hearing isn't nearly as sensitive as Galen's, but it's still keen enough that you had unintentionally eavesdropped on a private conversation between Blazer and Robert when you had been passing by her office, picking up fragmented bits of their exchange, about a suit, about Mecha Man. You put the pieces together pretty quickly, and once you had the knowledge, you weren't able to keep it from him, giddy like a kid who saw something they shouldn't.

You let him know randomly one day, dropped it like a nuke in the middle of an empty conference room. You were the first to arrive to the meeting, slipping into the chair closest to where he was standing at the head of the table when you told him. "A little word of advice Mecha Man, there are a lot of people in this place with good hearing, so if you're trying to keep your identity a secret, you should learn to be conscious of when and where you're talking about it."

He had looked like he could have shit himself. Once the temporary shock had worn off, he practically interrogated you, demanding to know how you heard. You caught the muttered, "Jesus Christ, does everyone here know who I am?" to himself as he paced. But you had promised him then that you wouldn't blab to anybody. And you wouldn't.

"I may have killed people before Robert, but I'm not a complete asshole," you had told when he'd looked you over skeptically. And you weren't lying. You liked engaging in gossip as much as the next person, but you weren't the type to snitch over anything serious. And Robert, unlike any of the dispatchers before him, had earned your respect. And your respect wasn't worthless.

But being privy to his old identity still hadn't made talking about yourself any easier. You were nudging at an eggroll with the point of your finger, watching it wobble on the styrofoam, detached and temporarily mute as you tussled with your past. It's always quiet up on the roof, save for the wind, and the occasional rumble of traffic carried in on its currents. The type of silence that makes everything feel clandestine, secret. For the first time, you didn't know what to do with that kind of hush. The pressure of it that had transformed from peaceful to uncertain. Shaken.

"Believe me, I ask myself the same question a lot." The confession came out taut, the exhaustion evident in the inflections of your voice. He turned his head to properly face you, but you couldn't meet his gaze. You scattered your own attention everywhere else, scanning the textures of the city, the sunlight caught in shimmers reflected from the windshields of cars and windows of apartment buildings and skyscrapers; the distant mountains in the far horizon, a flat jagged stretch of lavender. "The first guy I killed wasn't on purpose. I was young. Twelve. I wasn't supposed to be outside of the house, for that specific reason. He was just walking. Some regular guy, probably heading home from work, or the corners store or some shit. Wrong place at the wrong time."

But it hadn't been the wrong place or the wrong time. Not for him. You weren't supposed to be there. You shouldn't have been outside at all. But your dad had been late with your food. The nurse that he had been buying donated blood from had severed ties with him suddenly, cut him out with little notice or explanation. Maybe he had gotten caught, been discovered by another co-worker that he had been illegally selling blood off, stealing from the hospital he worked at for cash. But it didn't matter why he had ghosted your father and seemingly dropped off the face of the planet without warning, your dad was left to deal with the aftermath.

He had you to feed. He'd been panicking, stretched thin by the demands of your biology, and he'd been out all day trying to find an alternative. You'd been living off of animal blood for a week, provided by some butcher shop. But the blood of pigs and cows and chickens would only suppress your hunger for so long, and he knew that. It nullified the ache in your gut, cavernous, gnawing, for only a brief time. A very narrow period. And he had been out God knows where trying to find you what you really needed. Human. Rich. Nutritious. Impossible to obtain. It led him down into dark places, rusted warehouses, seedy underbellies; rooms where blood smeared the cold walls, where harvested organs were sold to the highest bidder; red on concrete.

You had tried to quell the hunger pangs by eating the regular food he gave you before he left, but it was as good as junk. PB and J's, crackers, left-over steak from the other night. It was useless. As satisfying as chewing a pack of gum for breakfast, all flavor and no substance. But you gorged yourself on it all, forcing yourself to swallow down the mouthfuls past the rise of nausea. Panting through the sickness that churned in your stomach, oil-slick and bitter at the back of your throat.

You can't clearly remember when you lost yourself to it. Succumbing to the agony wracking your body. But you know that you had broken free, ripped the chain that he had clasped around your ankle from the basement wall, bolts tugging loose from the drywall without a fight. You remember shuffling down the street. It was dark out. Nightfall. The shrill screech of iron dragged across the asphalt behind you, scratching inside your ears, chain rattling.

You aren't sure how long it had been before you found him. Seconds, minutes, hours. But you were staring at him while he shuffled down the sidewalk, smoking a cigarette as he went, and then in a blink your teeth had been in his throat. Tearing, vicious. An animal.

When you came to, you were being carried, swaddled in a protective embrace and a familiar scent. The light of streetlamps blossomed across the street, a nasty yellow splash of color in the dark, trembling from the pace of the unsteady, frantic gait of the person carrying you. Iron was wet and warm on your tongue, smeared on your mouth. A dog with a cruor-soaked maw, gore from the rabbit.

A man's voice trembled in your ear. Soothing. Terrified. Your father.

"It's okay, sweetheart, it's okay. You didn't mean it. You didn't mean it."

Your body had rejoiced, finally satiated. The hollow pit in your stomach finally buried. You cried into his neck.

You never blamed your dad for the way that he handled your appetite. It's hereditary, your condition, but it hadn't manifested inside of your family tree since your great grandmother. He grew up normal. Regular. So did his brother and sister, and their own kids. They got to go to football practices, ballet recitals, have neighborhood potlucks without worry, without struggling to hide some abnormal secret.

You played with dolls, too, just like any other kid. You held tea parties for your stuffed animals, made them drink invisible tea from plastic cups, but you always knew, deep down, that you weren't quite right.

You sighed, shifted your weight, trying to shake off the self-consciousness that attempted to cling to you, to the moment. Robert hadn't made anymore attempts to touch his food. He was engrossed your words, in you, watching like he didn't want to miss a thing. It could have made you feel unbearably awkward, but there was a sincerity in his expression that kept the atmosphere from turning sour. It wasn't performative, or insincere. It was warm, a sunlight that didn't hurt.

"When I first started killing, it was abusive ex-lovers, a few Herbert the perverts, human traffickers, crooked cops. I figured if I was going to live with myself, with . . . the constant fucking hunger, I might as well as make it useful." A plane flew somewhere overhead, its engine droning over the quiet in a noisy crawl. "And then somewhere along the line, people found out about me, through rumors, speculations on the street. They'd offer cash. For hits. Assassinations — whatever you want to call it. For politicians, cheating husbands, mafia bosses. I took the money."

You sighed, tension leaving you with the exhale, shoulders relaxing like wax softening under heat. "I had a really nice condo. A deck with a full skyline view, a walk-in closet. A pool. It was pretty nice." Your mouth pressed, making a scowl. But then you had stopped taking hits, accepting money, held back by the guilt. You weren't completely stupid; you did save a large sum of it, hid it away far beyond the governments sight. It's enough to keep you comfortable for a very long time, if you play your cards right, stashed away for emergencies. Just in case shit ever hits the fan and you have to book it.

It was with the income that you started to receive from SDN that you moved into your new apartment. It's humble, but in a decent neighborhood, and the condition it was in when you were first given a tour by the landlord was good considering the state of most places in Torrance. You couldn't be picky.

"Yeah, that's pretty rough," he agreed. You could see him wince outside the vignette of your vision like he wanted to kick himself for the lack of complexity in his response. His guilt apparent in the tick of his jaw. "But you had all of that. Success, wealth. What made you give it all up?"

Because you couldn't stand to look at yourself in the mirror. Because when you went to sleep at night, all you would dream of was screaming; wide, panicked eyes. The men, the women, and children, people close to the victims you had slaughtered. Most innocent despite their associations with your targets but harmed by the damage you had done.

But you couldn't say all of that. So you settled. "After a while, you just get tired of all the killing."

"For what it's worth — I mean, I know I'm pretty much just some random asshole— " you smiled at that, the first time in the past ten minutes "— but you did the right thing. It doesn't absolve you of the harm you've done. The pain you might have caused. But you're trying to make a change, and I think that's worth something."

He said it with conviction, as though it were an undisputable fact. An absolute. When you looked to him again, he was already observing you. His stare unyielding, the rich shades of his eyes, a wealth of amber and umber and rust, blazing in the coruscating flare of the sun.

Yeah, you knew then that you wouldn't be able to stay away from him.

You should have known that the team would find out eventually. You suppose you weren't exactly subtle. It didn't matter that your interactions were innocent. Just two people finding some kind of solace, companionship in each other. But no one talks more shit than Z-Team, and it was only a matter of time before gossip was swirling around the workplace like a flesh-eating disease.

You knew something was up when you walked into the building one morning. The ride up in the elevator had been strange, the two heroes standing beside you kept passing each other glances that they thought you couldn't see. You had chalked it up to the regular bullshit, heroes talking and jeering because you were an ex-villain. None of them particularly had faith in Z-Team. It wasn't a secret, and you didn't care.

And then the tall one who looked suspiciously similar to Ernie from Sesame Street lifted up his thick hands, shaping his fingers together to make the crude imitation of a dick thrusting into a hole.

You weren't usually the type to entertain gossip, but something about the smug expression on both of their faces had really dug under your skin.

You had crowded into their space, abrupt enough that they both had jerked back like they'd been struck, crowding against the wall of the elevator from the shock. Your fangs bared instinctively, irritation causing them to flash when your mouth twisted up into a snarl. "If either of you have something to say about me then at least you could do is have the balls to mention it to my face."

The rest of the ride up was uneventful. You had to chew gum hard to ignore the urge to bite, adding strip after strip to give yourself something plush to sink your teeth into. You hoped the sound of it smacking in your mouth was annoying to them, childishness be damned. If it was, they didn't speak up. They kept to themselves, no longer chattering like a pair of obnoxious old ladies. But they weren't the only ones. You noticed the cursory looks, the way that some people would try and covertly peek over the tops of their cubicles as you passed. There was a myriad of different emotions displayed: amusement, surprise. Most were salacious. Alight with perversion, like a bunch of creeps trying to spy inside someone's window, drooling at the prospect of seeing something they shouldn't.

You connected the dots pretty easily. Someone had blabbed, spread a rumor, and you were willing to put money on it being Visi or Flambae. Maybe Prism. Possibly Malevola. Honestly, it could have been just about anyone on the entire team, and you had no real way of knowing.

But your suspicions were just that. Suspicions.

You smelt her long before you saw her, ozone and wind and expensive presume, fresh and flowery. You walked for as long as you could, as though you might just be able to evade her, but Blazer seemed to materialize within your trajectory, cutting you off from your path with her body. Her hands were raised, as though she were trying to appease a dangerous animal, eyes soft. "Hey, Nosferata. I hate to jump you like this so early, I know you just got in, but I've been hearing some rumors swirling around the workplace lately, and I—"

"I'm not fucking Robert." You said bluntly, stepping around her to carry on. She followed, as persistent as ever, trailing behind your heels like a shadow.

"Oh, that's great — well, not great necessarily. It's just that these sorts of things require a lot of paperwork. HR has to get involved—"

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, sucking down a spike of jealousy, unwanted and searing, making the pulse of it burn. You hated the way she almost sounded relieved to hear that nothing was happening between you two. Like she was happy with the news. It made some petty part of you tempted to lie about the whole thing, maybe backtrack and say that, yes, you and Robert actually were hooking up. You'd love to see the way her face would probably crumble, how she'd struggle to put on that plastic, unruffled veneer. But you wouldn't do that. Not to Robert. Instead, you just listened, hearing the repeated, thump, thump, thump of her footsteps pattering after you, as grating as nails on a chalk board.

"Yeah, don't worry. We aren't 'fraternizing,' or anything so you can spare me the corporate interrogation, alright." You almost regretted being rude, but that little interaction in the elevator had already put you on edge, and her hounding you wasn't helping matters. You don't hate Blazer. You really don't. But jealousy is like a sickness, and unfortunately, it's already in your blood stream, brutal and illogical.

Her voice had drifted after you, a low, "Sure, I just needed to check," like she'd stopped following, and was just watching you leave. You didn't turn to check, but the gradual loss of her scent let you know that she was gone.

You were thankful for her absence. It meant you were able to locate Robert's cubicle without her being there to make things weird. Or weirder. You were relieved despite the circumstances to see him, seated at his desk. He had probably just got in. His headset wasn't on yet, untouched on the corner of the countertop, right next to a cup of steaming coffee.

He didn't have time to register you were there before you blurted out the sentence that you'd been carrying like a hot coal in your mouth. "Just a heads up, people think we're fucking."

His head jerked up, mouth agape as he took you in. Clearly astounded . . . or horrified. "What— why, where did that come from? Why would anyone think that?"

Your eyebrows perked as you hitched an arm up to prop it on the corner of the cubicle's panel, features morphing into a caricature of mock offense, but the smirk toying with your mouth must have made your true delight more than obvious. You always loved to tease him. He looks adorable when you actually manage to fluster him, when the impassive way he carries himself fractures around the edges and reveals flushed cheeks and stuttered breaths. You're probably a little sick for it, but it makes satisfaction smolder in your belly, molten, a little zealous.

Sometimes (all the time), you wished you could bite him. Not out of sadism, some desire for him to be in pain, but just to feel him. To have the weight of him pressed against the edges of your teeth, cradled safely within your mouth, all warmth and a heartbeat.

"Wow, is the idea of having sex with me really that horrible?" you pouted in your faux outrage.

"That's not what I meant— no, it wouldn't be ho— " He sucked in a breath, stilling himself like he was preparing what he was going to say next carefully. Balancing his next words as deliberately as stones. "That's not what I meant. I just don't understand why anyone would think that."

You shrugged, then crouched down to pat the top of Beef's head who had waddled out from behind Chase's cubicle. He wagged his tail in greeting, tongue lolling dumbly out of his mouth. His fur was soft, well taken care off, glossy underneath the fluorescents. "We hang out a lot. People are bored. It passes the time. I just figured you'd like the heads up because I'm sure that the team is absolutely going to be talking loads of shit today."

He sighed, already defeated. "Great."

The team did indeed talk shit that shift. And the shift after that, and the shift after that. He'd addressed it only a handful of times but quickly threw in the towel. He was pretty well adept at recognizing what was a lost cause in terms of Z-Team, and this was one of them. Bae had taken to calling you uncreative nicknames like Mrs. Bob Bob. He also accused you of sleeping with Robert to work your way up the ranks. That comment had earned him a broken nose. He had the bruise for days.

Mal and Invisigal and Prism would prod and poke at you, trying to dig up dirt on your nonexistent sex life with him, like if he was vanilla or not. What kind of positions he enjoyed, if he could make you come. Visi asked if he whimpered, a question that you yourself have actually pondered. Many nights. In your bed. With your vibrator.

You probably need to be neutered. Or just put down. That would probably make more sense. You've imagined your boss in positions that no one should picture their boss in, but the fantasies always seem to creep in, late at night when you're alone and your thoughts are idle. They manage to slink in, fueled by the fire beneath your skin, the ache between your legs. It never takes long before your restraint crumbles and you've got your hand or a toy buried between your thighs, using it to work yourself up, teasing and building that pleasure until it throbs and crests. His name is always on your lips when it happens, breathless, a little drunk, as though if you say it loud enough, he might hear you and come crawling to your front door.

If only.

And now that the entire team has begun to tirelessly clown the both of you for your imaginary relationship, it only serves as a constant reminder of what you won't have. That the dynamic between you and Robert will always just remain surface level. A professional (as professional as it could be with Z-Team) relationship. Nothing more than the occasional lunchbreak. Conversation shared over fast-food burgers and Taco Bell. And yet the most pathetic part of it all, is that you think that would be enough for you. Probably not forever, but it is now.

You would take it, if it meant that you could keep close to him. If that means that you get to hear his laugh, his deadpan jokes. You'd eat them all like scraps.

But that never meant that it never got exhausting. The constant charade. The permanent loop you seemed to be stuck in, deflecting the comments made by your co-workers, pretending that they were all wrong when they taunted you for having feelings for him. They were right. But you could never tell them that.

As awful as it might sound, you were a bit grateful when your last assignment out on the field had resulted in you getting shot. It was nothing too severe. A pretty standard robbery. Thieves robbing a gas station, holding the cashier at gunpoint. You'd been sent with Coop, and you had no complaints there. You both worked well together, sharing an affinity for stealth, similar backgrounds making your techniques compatible. You had the same mentality: get in, get out, and make sure the job is done. It made every assignment efficient, off without a hitch. Except for this one. Technically.

You thought everyone had been accounted for. You and Coop had dealt with the robbers pretty quickly. It had been lightwork, with only one of the four only giving you a brief bit of resistance. A minotaur — or that's what he looked like, horns and hooves and all. Eight feet tall and built like a brick shit house. But with both you and Coop, you worked to take him down together. But one of the others, still managing to cling to consciousness despite the fact that you had punched him hard enough that you think his jaw might have dislocated, had used the distraction to shakily lift himself up and reach for the gun hidden and tucked inside his boot.

You think that Robert had yelled to warn you, guiding you from the security cameras. Most of the time you love having his voice in your ear, but it was such a distressed noise that it turned your blood to ice. You felt gutted by his terror projecting through the device in your ear rather than the bullet plunging through your stomach. Punching a hole through meat and sinew.

It wasn't a life-threatening blow. You will and have experienced much worse injuries in the line of duty, especially back in the day, when you were solo and operating on your own. When you had to patch yourself up in dingy alleyways, hunched in the grimy crevices of the city, organs hemorrhaged behind shattered bones, blood pouring through raw gashes, clinging to life. This wasn't one of those times. The shot did little more than temporarily stun you, and you recovered quick enough to move before he could properly orient himself. You were in front of him before he could pull the trigger a second time, and the swing up your knee cracking across his face, nose crunching underneath the strike, blood gushing, had been the final blow it had taken to knock him out for good.

The injury was pretty small, all things considered. You healed long before you got back to SDN, the bullet having been pushed out by healing tissue and flesh back when you were still in the gas station. It dropped somewhere on the floor. You're pretty sure the police confiscated it as part of evidence. But the emergency blood pouch stored in the back of the breakroom fridge had helped you feel a little bit better, dulled the faint hunger pinching at your gut into nothing.

Blazer had proposed giving you the rest of the day off, a suggestion that you typically would have refused, but honestly, you needed a bit of a break. From you co-workers, from work, from being shot at. You hadn't denied her, as much as you wanted to, and you think that the lack of defiance had shocked her. It was there on her face, glittering in the blue of her eyes. You could tell she wanted to grill you over it, to see if you were feeling okay. You were thankful that she didn't.

"Blazer," you called before she could step away, halting in her tracks, watching you expectantly.

"Yes?"

"Could you let Robert know that I'm okay?" You tried to repress the care in your own voice, but she'd heard it. It was a slip up, careless. You can't remember the last time you'd gone out of your way to check in on another person, to make sure they were alright, and she noticed. You could see that she had questions to ask, that perceptive glimmer in her stare seemed to bore into you. She wanted to poke at you until she finally figured out whatever was going on between you two. You could see the fervor of it. "I know it'll be a while before he's able to step away from the computer. I don't want him to worry too much. He's like a helicopter mom, you know, I'm sure he's already beating himself up over the whole thing."

You tried to ease the moment with a flimsy excuse, but it felt unconvincing to your own ears. And she hadn't taken the bait. You felt like a riddle she couldn't figure out, dissected and splayed open under her focus. A doll that she was toying with, tugging with its limbs and body. But you could see that curiosity soften, turning into something that seemed at lot like sympathy and understanding. As though it had all clicked into place for her. Like she figured something out that you couldn't.

"Yeah, absolutely," she agreed, relenting.

You parted with a genuine thank you. When you got home, it felt as though burden had been lifted, a stone pulled free from your back, and you could finally breathe again. You showered, changed your clothes, fed your fish. You baby-talked him as he swam around the tank, nipping at the pellets as they sunk, the kaleidoscopic fan of his tail swishing.

You contemplated doing laundry, but you technically don't have to do it until Wednesday, and so that plan was quickly abandoned in favor of lazing around you living room and browsing through apps and TV shows that you've already seen a hundred times.

You aren't expecting the knock at you front door, three separate taps, spaced apart and dull. As though the person on the other side is hesitant, unsure of themselves. Your thumb pauses mid press on the select button as you pivot your head in its direction. You aren't expecting anybody. No friends, no takeout deliveries, and you hadn't heard any notifications ding from your phone alerting to any incoming texts or phone calls.

You're almost tempted to not even answer. You could pretend that you aren't home, the curtain on the front window is drawn shut, and whoever is on the other side would have no real way of knowing. But then it creeps in, muted, diluted from the barrier of the door, sneaking in past the crevices between it and the threshold. Softly metallic, remnants of grease, salt and heat, sunlight incarnate. But there's something beneath it all that makes your spine snap straight. It's acrid, bitter, burnt around the edges. Anxiety. Concern.

You're moving before you fully register it, lifting off from the couch. Bare feet padding across the wooden floorboards to carry you to the other side of the room. You don't think much when you unlock the deadbolt and the twist knob, not bothering to check the peephole before jerking the door open with a little more urgency than intended, all but swinging it on its hinges.

It's Robert, a fist poised midair, frozen like he was preparing to tap another set of knocks across the frame. He's still in his work clothes. The shirt is messily untucked, powder blue material wrinkled, the first couple buttons undone, fully baring the pale stretch of his throat, the divot of his clavicle. You can hear his heartbeat. Steady, but you swear it spikes when his eyes settle on you, though that might be from how your pupils are probably glinting in the growing shadows, that filmy, inhuman silver. You always forget about that.

The sky behind him is turning dark, a gentle dusk. The last stubborn rays of sunlight bleeding along the horizon in thin smear of lilac and blush, the stars just beginning to wink against the darkest point. He doesn't have Beef with him, so he must have dropped him off at home after leaving work before immediately swinging back around to come here. The fading sun throws shadows over his face as it gradually sinks behind the city, the light fixtures above on the ceiling of the corridor grow brighter, highlighting streaks of gold within the strands of his hair.

For a fleeting moment, you both just stare at each other, but it swells and ebbs as suddenly as a tide. He drops his hand by his side, lips parting while his eyes rove over you. Like he's scrutinizing you, analyzing you for anything that may seem out of place.

"Nosferata." He greets, settling his posture straighter, shoulders leveling out. "Sorry if I'm bothering you, I know it's getting kinda late."

"No, not at all," you gesture a thumb back toward the inside of your apartment. You try not to focus on his heartbeat pattering across the quiet. "I was just watching TV. What's up? Is something wrong? You smell . . . worried. I asked Blazer to let you know that I'm alright; did she forget?"

"I — " he sighs heavily, seeming to still himself. "I always forget you can do that. And yes, she did tell me. I just wanted to check on you, personally. Cause of the mission. I wanted to make sure that you're okay," his gaze darts off, brows pinching close. He gestures vaguely in your direction. "The gunshot."

He almost looks embarrassed. Or maybe just hesitant. Like maybe he doesn't know what to do with himself, or you. His unease is endearing. It's not always that you get to see him this way. Unsteady, fumbling. He's usually unshakable. Moored. Armed with quick wit and a sharp tongue, sarcasm and dry humor. But now he's standing as though he's a little lost. Like he's crossing over a boundary that he hadn't properly prepared for and doesn't know how to navigate it.

It's sweet. How he came all this way just check on you, if not a little strange. He knows about your healing factor, it's something that he always keeps in mind when dispatching you for calls. It's the reason why you're frequently sent out to high-risk situations. If there are violent suspects, erratic emotions, armed and dangerous persons, you're probably going to be on the scene. It doesn't really make sense that he felt like he needed to see you when he could have just sent a text or waited until you both showed up at work in the morning.

"I'm fine," you respond. "Already all healed up, as good as new."

"That's good. I'm glad to hear that."

It sort of just hangs there then. You both just stand silently, staring as though you're both expecting something from each other. An explanation, a farewell, the promise to see each other at work tomorrow while you both goodbye wave and go on about your lives. None of that happens. And you don't want it to. You aren't completely stupid. There's no reason why he had to show up here himself to check on an injury that doesn't exist. That he knows doesn't exist. He's here with a purpose, whether or not he's second guessing that intended purpose is unknown to you, but one thing is for sure, you aren't letting him go that easily now that he's here.

"You want to come inside for a sec?" You lean on your feet a bit, shifting just enough so that he might be able to glance past your head and see inside your apartment. "Have a drink, if you want. I'm pretty sure that I have some of those canned cocktails that my friend brought over weeks ago — I've been meaning to get rid of them or finally drink them. Whichever comes first."

"Sure, I'd love to," he answers, hardly considering it. You didn't hide your smile as you move out of the way to let him pass, closing the door behind him with a click. He glances around the living room and adjoining kitchenette as he enters, surmising the space in perfunctory glimpse. "Nice place. It's no condo though."

"Shut up." You swat at his shoulder.

Roughly ten minutes later, you're both standing in your kitchen, each holding onto an open can. The filter inside the fish tank projects the calming trickle of water through the space, making the silence tranquil. The cocktail fizzles on your tongue as it goes down, fruit flavored, strawberry, you think. You didn't check before you popped it open.

It feels peaceful having him here. Like any other time you two have been alone with each other, casual, lacking expectations. Just people existing together. But that doesn't keep you from wondering. It won't keep your questions at bay. You hold them back in your mouth, heavy, uncomfortable. A bunch of stones that you long to spit out. The alcohol hasn't hit your system, you've only taken a few sips, a buzz having not even settled across your nerves yet, but you can't keep your inquiries trapped behind your teeth any longer.

"Soo . . ." you pluck absentmindedly at the tab on your can, making it sing in a metallic hum. "Not that it isn't cool to see you, but I have to ask: What are you really doing here?"

"What? Is it hard to believe that I would just come to visit without an ulterior motive?" He huffs out a laugh and fully leans his back fully against the counter before raising his drink up to take a sip.

"I mean, you've never visited before. Which is fine!" You tack the last bit on hastily. "It's just . . . why, I guess? I've been injured out on the field, that's nothing new. Sure, I haven't been shot in a while, but what made this so different?"

He doesn't answer you right away, and that almost scares you. He looks downward, maybe dissociating, staring at the floor like he might find the answer he needs in the scratch marks left behind from previous tenants. Distress prickles in your stomach, like you've swallowed static and you regret mentioning your ponderings at all. You don't even know what you were implying when you asked him that. Just what specifically you were rooting around for.

But now you're just lying to yourself. You know exactly what you were trying to hear. The truth that you're seeking. That after all of this time, he might actually like you. As more than a co-worker or a friend. And what if he doesn't? That's the thought that always manages to sneak in, permanently lurking around the fringes of your mind to haunt. Honestly, you don't know how you would handle that. You like to tell yourself that you wouldn't care, that the world would keep spinning and you would move on easily, like you always have. But would you, really? Yes, you would. You promise yourself that religiously, chant it internally like a mantra. You're an adult, you'd manage. You'd suck down the sting and the hurt and move on. Pretend that Robert didn't matter until he no longer did.

"I know you've taken worse damage." He breaks you out of your head, drawing your attention to him as though it's been magnetized and he was iron. "But it's the first time I've seen you take a hit like that. It . . . It gets easy to believe that you're invincible. That everyone on the team is. But when I saw you get shot, it reminded me that despite the superpowers, you are still human. You can get killed. It, well —" he scoffs, or maybe it was supposed to be a laugh. "It scared me."

He admits it like he has to be careful about it. With hesitation, as though he was having the realization in real time. He said it so softly, the rumble in his voice turned smoky with the light volume of it. It was vulnerable, but it strikes you like a sledgehammer.

"Oh," you answer intelligently. The fluttering that glides through you, inside your stomach, summery and flickering could make you nauseous if that pathetic little part of you that clung to Robert like a dog wasn't so happy. It's been a long time since you've met someone who genuinely cared, and you hadn't fully realized how starved you've been for it.

"Sorry. I hope I didn't make things weird."

"You didn't. It's nice, really, to know that I have someone in my corner."

"Yeah." He shifts on his feet, his fingers tight around the can, making the aluminum crinkle beneath the pressure. "There's actually something I wanted to talk to you about."

You hate the way your stomach sinks, but he sounds so serious suddenly. Speaking like there's something that he's been stewing over; hanging over him for weeks or months and he's unable to endure it any longer. Your mouth goes dry and you can only watch as he rotates around, angling his body so he's directly facing you and it makes it impossible to look anywhere else but his eyes. His expression is troubled, the space between his brows creasing, mouth twisting like he's repressing the urge to grimace.

"What about?" Your confidence sounds hollow when you speak, and you pray that he doesn't notice it.

He exhales like he's bracing himself, psyching himself up to deliver terrible news. You fear for the worst. Maybe he's cutting you from the team, though it doesn't make sense that he'd choose to do it here. That would happen at SDN, where you'd be surrounded by heroes who could keep you contained in case things got out of hand. It would be clinical, emotionless. Unless he's trying to give you a fighting chance. The opportunity to run before the authorities come swarming to take you in.

He sits the cocktail down on the counter, using the freedom of his hand to nervously grip at the nape of his neck. "Jesus, this is more nerve wracking than when I tried to ask Olivia Holten to prom, and I almost puked on my shoes."

"Robert, you're kind of freaking me out."

"I like you, okay?" he blurts. "I like you a lot, and I wasn't sure exactly how to say it, so I just . . . am. I've been thinking about you for weeks, and I know I probably shouldn't, but I do. I do it so much that I think I might be going crazy. I think about you at home, when I'm at work. I saw you in a pot of orchids at a flower shop because I remember you telling me how much you love them. I think of you when I'm standing in line at a checkout and see a pack of gum, or when I see your favorite color, or I hear a song you like playing on the radio. It's like you're everywhere I look, and I can't stop."

It's a lot to process. A million feelings well up in the passing of a single second, and you don't know what to do with it, so you don't do anything at all. You're just motionless. A statue in the middle of your kitchen. Unable to speak, tongue thick and heavy like cement. There's a few things you're able to catch in the chaos. Glimpses of relief, exultation, bewilderment, joy. It steals the air from your lungs and leaves you to stare, speechless and dumb while your brain flatlines and your pulse quickens, heart pumping so furiously that you think it might give up and seize.

It all just bulldozes over you. All of the emotions that you've been struggling to suppress or coexist with are surging up, a deluge rolling beneath the surface. It makes your chest feel as though it could split, like your ribs will just give from the mayhem of it all, and your guts will go spilling on the floor.

"Okay, now you're freaking me out. Can you please say something?" His hands flex at his sides, and he seems so awkward. Shoulders hunching like he wants to bolt.

"Can I kiss you?"

You want to slap yourself as soon as you register what you've said, but it just came tumbling out of your mouth, like your body and mind had fully turned against you, abandoned basic morals and boundaries under the influence of elation. You still can hardly blame it on the alcohol. You've only just started to feel that relaxing numbness of a buzz, the pale effects of it just beginning to settle over you. Faint, definitely not enough to make you lose a grip on yourself.

"I am so sorry," you apologize, shaking your head while you take in the surprise in his expression. "You just gave this really sweet confession, and I'm such an asshole — "

He's on you in a blink, moving with a speed that's pretty impressive. And then his lips are on yours, the shape of them soft, parting to move against your own. It doesn't take you long to shake free from the stupor he put you in, meeting the pace he's set, passionate, greedy. Like he was a starving man, and you were the only thing he has to satiate his hunger. His hands are on your face, thumbs caressing the length of your jaw as his fingers stretch to cup behind your ears, nails lightly scratching over the back of your head.

He's crowding you against the counter, closing you in with his body, and you let him. Your skull thumps on the cabinets above the sink, but the dull sting that throbs there goes unnoticed. Insignificant. You're barely cognizant enough to try and sit the can in your hand down, but you must miss the mark, because you're pretty sure that it goes teetering over the edge of the counter, landing near your feet with a metallic thump. The drink is probably pouring everywhere, but it's a mess you'll have to clean later, because as of now, you can't be bothered to care.

He nips lightly at your bottom lip, just enough to tease, but it has sparks lighting up down your spine. It has you pressing into him, desperate to feel the warmth of his skin bleed onto yours through your clothes, but then he's leaning away. Just enough for his lips to leave yours, but they still brush against you when he speaks.

"You can kiss me whenever you want." You've never heard his voice sound like this before. Throaty and low. Inflections layered and rough like you've turned him ragged just from a little kissing. You're tempted to tease him for it, but truthfully, you aren't faring any better.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Robert." There isn't an ounce of fight in him when you grip his shoulders and rotate your positions, spinning him around to pin him against the fridge. You hear the contents inside rattle from the impact. He flattens against it with a grunt, but you can feel his smile sweeping over your own. He tilts his chin back when you trail your mouth down the ridge of his jawline, teeth scraping as you gently suck and bite.

He's freely offering his throat to you like you couldn't rip it out if you wanted. That half of you that always feels less than human, bordering on something other, preens in delight, satisfaction flaring within your brain as your taste buds light up with his flavor. Rich, unctuous, you can taste the blood rushing beneath his skin, honeyed and metallic. You want to burrow yourself in him, bask in his scent, drink him up like he's a wine, and he's clinging to you just as wantonly, hands roaming all over your body like he doesn't know where to grab. Like he wants to collect every last piece of you in his palms and keep them all for himself.

"Do you wanna keep this going?" Your tongue nearly slurs your words, but they're muffled regardless, stunted from how you haven't managed to part your mouth from him. Still peppering kisses across his given flesh like constellations. He arches into you when you sink the stamp of your teeth around him in a particularly harsh bite. You nearly apologize, jerk away for the slip up, but the heady groan that pierces the atmosphere snuffs out any worry you were beginning to feel. You make note of that little reaction, filing it away for later.

And then he's pulling your head away from his throat, hand as firm as steel around the nape of your neck to guide you to look at him. The shadows in the kitchen spill over his face, made heavy by the lack of a direct light source, dual glows casted only by the TV in the living room and the amber hue of the cooktop light pouring out from beneath the microwave. He looks pretty like this, painted in shades of black, and mellow gold, winks of silver reflecting in his eyes from the flat screen in the adjoining room. There's a tenderness in his stare as it darts over your face, pausing over your features like he's trying to memorize you.

His thumb is sweeping over your chin again, traveling up, scorching in its path as it glides over the shape of your bottom lip to press against the pronounced point of a single canine. Like he was contemplating poking himself with it, allowing it to dig past his skin and make blood well up. The prospect of it makes you shiver, has your head becoming a little floaty.

"Yeah? You want to keep going?" Now he's just teasing you. The question is genuine, you can tell that much, but its delivery is still entirely smug. There's a satisfaction in his gaze, the warm shade of them alive with it. Like he's got you exactly where he wants you.

"Oh, of course I do. I'm not letting you get away that easily." You don't give him any kind of warning when you lift your thigh up between his legs, grinding it directly on the hardness that's pressing against the khaki material of his work pants. You can feel the weight of him on your thigh, even through the cover of the fabric. He isn't insanely large, like something out of some tacky porno, but Visi, always the shit talker had definitely been lying when she said that he wasn't packing anything impressive. Either that, or she needs to get her eyes checked, because based off of what you can tell, he has plenty to work with.

His reaction was just as good as you hoped. He curls into you, head tilting to nudge against yours. His chest heaves, deep and heavy when a breath puffs out across your neck. "Fuck. That's —" his hips grind on your thigh, chasing after the sensations it creates, and you aren't sure if he's entirely aware he's doing it. "Something tells me you might really eat me alive."

"You say it like you don't want that." You're tugging him away from the fridge by the collar of his shirt before he can manage a response, and he follows easily, practically leaning into your grip as you guide him down the hallway. He's leaning into you again, dragging you into another kiss as you pull him through the dark, though now you're both flying a little blind now that you're caught back up in him. You have to rely on muscle memory to back yourself through the open threshold of your bedroom.

And then it spikes through the balmy air, familiar, intense. It bathes across your tongue, piquant and dark, sticking to the back of your throat like chocolate. Made strong by how he licks into your mouth. You taste him while your lungs draw in his scent, smothering you with him, but it's so good that you don't care about breathing.

It's something that you've picked up on him a thousand times before, hidden beneath the base of his regular scent. Titillating, but subtle. It used to drive you crazy trying to understand it, trying to deal with it. It isn't something that's always present on him. It would peek through his natural scent at random times, and you would ruminate over it longer than necessary, spending what seemed like hours at a time trying to understand it. If it was maybe a cologne, or something that would naturally attach to him while he went about his day-to-day errands, or if it was just an organic facet of his body's perfume.

But sometimes you wouldn't detect it at all. And then it would randomly spike. Always at the most inconvenient moments, during meetings and debriefings in crowded rooms, in crammed hallways when you were both arguing with each other, bickering over the aftermath of missions gone wrong. Voices raising and tensions climbing. Your disagreements never neared getting violent, you had a clear enough understanding of each other to keep that from happening. Your mutual respect would keep the arguments from escalating, confined within the fine circle of a simple dispute, but that didn't mean that you wouldn't occasionally get cross.

You would crowd close to each other (not without a snide comment from someone on the team, like, "If they start fucking right here on the table, I'm killing everyone in this room."), fueled by your verbal sparring, and you'd catch a glimpse of it, smoldering and enticing, like smoked honey. You thought maybe that you were imagining it, or perhaps your brain was playing tricks, making it smell so much more tempting than it actually was because of your attraction to him.

It would haunt you nearly every time you were around him. It would make your gums ache, heat throbbing between your thighs. And even more humiliating, you actually had to go commando in your suit once or twice because it had made you wet enough that you had to take your underwear off in the stall of the bathroom.

Worse than that, was how you wound up with your hand pressed to your cunt, the heel of your palm grinding against your clit while you pumped your fingers inside of yourself, muffling your moans behind the stiff grip of your hand. Trying furiously, to get yourself off before you had to get back out on the field just so you could fucking focus. Praying that no one would stumble in and figure out what you were doing to yourself. You did not need that HR nightmare. Or the public indecency charge.

You used to hate yourself for it. You'd spend the rest of your shift stewing, loathing your own body, internally degrading yourself for acting like some kind of pervert. Behaving like a complete and utter creep. But no. It's here, clear as day, and you know exactly what it is, what's been clinging to Robert this entire time, driving you up a wall.

Arousal smells different on everyone else. It's personal. There's probably a lot of biological factors you don't really know about that play into how those personal notes are created: health, diet, medication. Some people smell sweet, candied, others are almost savory and smooth. You even met a guy, who strangely, smelt sort of like Pine-Sol, evergreen and chemicals.

But Robert is almost buttery, caramelized smoke, full-bodied flavor bursting behind his normal fragrance. The realization makes you feel stupid, vindicated, and frustrated all at once. That means this entire time he —

You're hardly gentle when you turn him and shove him down on the bed. The springs creak with his impact, his weight sinks a divot into the mattress. You don't waste any time climbing over him, swinging your legs around his hips. His hands are eager, raising to grip you by the waist, holding on tight like he's wants to keep you there permanently. Holding you firmly to keep you pressed on the bulge straining against his pants.

"Someone's eager—"

"This whole time you've just been horny." You almost sound angry. You really aren't. Mostly irritated, but you think that's at yourself. For being so blind, so stupid to what's been in front of you this entire time.

"Well, yeah. You're literally sitting on my hard dick right now; I thought that was obvious," he deadpans.

"That's not what I'm talking about." You glide a hand over him, slipping it over his chest, feeling the shape of lithe muscles underneath your palm while it navigates its way up, allowing you to trail your fingertips along the column of his throat. "I could smell it all the time. While we're at work. All of those meetings and lunchbreaks. I thought I was losing my God damn mind, smelling things that weren't there. I thought maybe, it was like, your cologne or something. That I was the one acting like someone who deserves to be on a watch list. But you've been rock hard in those ugly khakis this entire time."

The discovery invigorates you a little. You can't resist to be a little mean, circling your hips in a slow grind, working yourself over his bulge. You can feel him through your respective clothes; the loose fabric of your sleep shorts does little to dull the sensations. They even magnify them, the thin seam on the inside brushes right over your clit, sparking a bright, syrupy heat up your nerves when you move.

"And I thought you were a good boy, Robert. Guess I was wrong."

He breaths deeply, a low whine slipping from his behind the wall of his chest. You can feel the air slip through his trachea, the dim shudder of it humming beneath your palm when you tense it around his throat. He chases after the drag of your hips, lifting his own to meet the lazy rhythm you've set. Teasing you, teasing himself. It doesn't stunt his typical dry delivery though. "Okay, okay. You found me out, alright. I've been violently horny this entire time. Always seconds away from just busting in my pants."

You lean yourself over him, not ceasing your movements, without removing your hand. You drag your nose alongside his, angling your head, contemplating kissing him, but you pull back before he can fill the distance. His head drops back down on the mattress with a muffled thump, a frustrated sigh escaping past his lips, eyes flickering to your lips when you speak. "So what's got you all worked up, huh?"

His mouth drops open a bit, preparing to talk, and that's when you chose to grind yourself down more firmly. The head of his cock drags right along your clit when you do it, and you just barely manage to keep the loud moan in your chest from shaking free. Robert isn't so lucky though, hissing through his teeth, spine bowing to lift himself into the brunt of the feeling.

"Not. Fair," he bites out stiffly. He looks like such a slut like this. The bedroom is dark, save for the bit of light from the streetlamps outside that manages to barely slip in through the window. But with your vision, you can see him clearly, the blush on his freckled cheeks, the lust burning in his glazed over stare, hair tussled and messy on your comforter. He's impossibly pretty; you wish you could keep him here, just like this, forever. "Do you have any idea — shit, that feels good — what it's like watching you walk around in that fucking leather suit all day. It's practically molded to you."

"Yeah, I've got an idea or two," you shrug, nodding your head in playful tilt.

"As if you're any better. Do you really think I haven't noticed all the times I've caught you staring at my ass."

Damn, you actually didn't think he had noticed that. So much for subtlety.

"What ass?"

"Haha. Very funny," he scoffs beneath you, making you shake with the motion of it. And then he's moving, and in a blur, you're the one under him. You don't resist, body turning pliant under the weight of him wedging between your thighs, slotting in to place like he belongs there. Your legs splay open, seemingly on their own volition to give him more room, your ankles hooking around the back of his knees to keep him there, locked to you.

When he kisses you this time, it's so much sweeter than the one you had shared back in the kitchen. This exchange is more explorative. No less passionate, but more leisurely. Like you both want nothing but to take your time with each other. Eagerly tasting the other, indulging in the brush of your lips on his, and he, yours. The tip of his tongue skims over the swell of your mouth, asking for entrance, which you give without hesitation, jaw parting open to let him tease his tongue with your own.

It throws you headfirst into a clouded head space, brain turning hazy from the press of his body pinning yours, the bite and lick of his mouth. The concept of time trickles far from your grasp, seconds and minutes turning murky when he grinds his hips down on you, taunting you with the heavy press of his cock, thick and throbbing, rocking over your clothed pussy. You're dripping now, wet and soaking your shorts, clit aching, and you moan into his mouth.

He swallows the sound greedily, drinking it down like wine. You two are hardly doing much, dry humping like a pair of horny college kids, but your brain is already breaking down into mush. Made muddled, thoughts turned brittle and falling apart by the delicious pressure already building at the base of your spine, molten inside the pit of your belly. Searing, slipping inside your bloodstream, coiling like a drug.

And now he's the one pulling away from you. Abrupt and terrible. You hardly have time to process it at all.

"What the hell Robert!" you snap indignantly, tucking your chin down to glare at him as he lifts himself, untangling the hook of your legs from around he's knees so he can freely sit back on his haunches. He's unfazed by your complaint, too busy roving his attention over your body. You don't miss how his eyes seem to pause over your heaving chest, staring unabashedly at the way your nipples are hard and poking beneath your T-shirt. You see the way his eyebrows seem to perk appreciatively.

And then his gaze is traveling down further, his hand is on one of your knees, gently tugging your legs open wider so he can stare between your legs. It makes you uncomfortably aware of how wet you are, of the visible patch that's probably soaked through the gusset of your shorts. He doesn't comment on it, but he looks smug. Eyes glittering with a satisfaction that seems to burn.

"Take your shirt off," he orders. And then he's hooking his fingers under the waistband of your shorts and pulling, hard enough that you almost get tugged with it. You have to grip onto the blankets to hold yourself in place. You move to obey, hands fumbling to reach for the hem of your shirt to ruck it up over your torso and past your head. Both articles of clothing get carelessly tossed, landing somewhere on the floor.

You can't look away from him. Your attention is trapped, seized onto him like he's the only thing that matters. Transfixed like a moth hypnotized by an exposed flame as he leans down, settling his stomach flat on the mattress, shoulders tucked within the open splay of your thighs. Suddenly, you feel like you can't breathe. Like if you do, you'll wake up and realize that this is just a cruel dream, forced to drink the bitter medicine of reality. But this is real. This is happening. You can feel the warm brush of his breath gliding over the exposed spread of your cunt, teasing in its glide.

"No panties?"

Any other time, you'd say something smart back. Taunt him a little back, toy with him. But now that he's actually here, cheeks and hair brushing over the skin near your knees, your voice and wit have all but abandoned you.

"What are you doing?" Nope. That's not what you had wanted to say at all. Now you look stupid, lips parted, eyes probably glassy.

He smirks, the corner of his mouth ticking up in his amusement. "I was planning on eating you out. Why? Do you want me to stop?"

"No." The word all but rips out of your throat, loud and demanding in its tone as you jerk up as you prop yourself up on your elbows to openly glare. But you can't find it in yourself to be embarrassed about how desperate you are. Not right now. "I will literally kill you if you do that."

He seems pleased with your answer, gaze dark. "Good."

There's no fanfare before he's all but burrowing his face into you, tongue splitting you open to lick a stripe over your cunt from hole to clit. It's a shock to your system, every atom in your body flares under the stimulation, muscles pulling taut. You're like a marionette on tight strings, all parts of you seizing, back bowing from the surprise of it, legs involuntarily clamping around Robert's head. He doesn't fight it, doesn't make any moves to pry your thighs away from his ears. He carries on, unbothered within their squeeze.

His hands loop under you, coming around to grab your hips when they squirm. But he isn't stopping you. He isn't trying to hold you down. It's like he aiding them, guiding them when they start to rock against his face, helping you find a smoother rhythm that makes you gasp. "There you go, baby," he murmurs in a velvet baritone in between lapping at your clit in tight little circles. The oxygen in your lungs vanishes. Snuffed out. "Just like that."

He almost sounds proud, pleased with the reactions that he's getting out of you, and it has your body burning so much hotter. And then he's sealing his lips around clit, sucking gently. Your hands fly down to take ahold of his head, fingers threading through the silky stands of his hair. Reaching for something to ground you down. To keep you contained inside reality.

He groans when you pull his hair, sending vibrations scattering across your cunt. Most of his face is obscured, smothered against your pussy, but you see how his brows furrow, face twisting with how much he liked it. Even more damning though, is his hips. The subtle lift of them before they grind back down, fucking himself on the mattress, seeking out friction.

Your jaw drops open, from your moans and pleased disbelief. You smile as best as you can when you look down at him, trying to focus through the waves of bliss ceaselessly drifting within your body. "Are you, are you — God, Robert, are you humping my bed?"

His eyes, which have slipped shut at some point, open lazily to meet your gaze, but he doesn't bother with speaking. All you get in response is a shameless "mmhmm." Smothered, slurred, like he can't be bothered to part himself from you. Maybe you should have anticipated that he would be like this. Zealous, indulgent, giving. He's eating you out like it's his job. Like he's doing it for himself just as much for your pleasure. As though he needs it to survive, the purpose of it.

A laugh hisses from your throat, just as disbelieving as it is excited. "Wow, you really are desper—"

You didn't notice that one of his hands had disappeared from your hip, until one of his fingers is prodding at you and slipping inside. The full length of it stretching you open in a single push, the insertion aided by how soaked you've become, wet across the inside of your thighs, his spit and your own arousal makes you slick. All it takes is a single finger to punch the air out of you. The suddenness of it, the width filling you up has your body squirming.

"I'm sorry. What was that?" He taunts, and meanly curls his finger, pumps it deep inside of you, seeking out that spot that'll have you going brainless.

" —An asshole," you choke out. "You're such an asshole."

"Well, this 'asshole' is about to make you cum, so I feel like I should be hearing less shit talking."

You're tempted to berate him. Maybe tell him to shut up, but the ability to speak goes lost on you as he goes back to licking on your clit. Thrusting his finger inside of you at the same time, and when he finds it, the edge of his finger sweeping over your g-spot with startling accuracy, the high-pitched moan it drives out of you is humiliating. You just barely hear the cocky "There it is" he murmurs over the blood roaring in your ears.

Your eyes roll, lashes fluttering when you fully drop your head back on the mattress, lifting your hips to chase after the dual sensations of his tongue and the pump of his finger. You're just beginning to adjust to it, body growing used to the stretch when he's slipping another in alongside it. Relentlessly stroking them over that spot inside of you that makes your thoughts dwindle into nothing. And you let it happen, giving up any kind of resistance or snark that you might have been clinging on to, allowing yourself to fully bask in the rapture of it all, and the ecstasy is almost harsh.

"I think you can be good for me when you don't act like a brat. Wanna try? You want to be good for me?"

It lashes through you. Electrical, sharp, brilliant. You find yourself nodding without little thought.

"Oh, c'mon. You know how to talk. Don't tell me you've gone all dumb on me already from a little finger fucking."

It should be mortifying how simply he's got you under his influence. How clearly he's been able to read you. Picked you apart, piece by meticulous piece and figured out all of your tells, what makes you tick. But all you feel is elation. The euphoria that comes with being understood.

"Yeah, I'll be good. I can be good, I promise."

"There we go," he purrs, too arrogant. Utterly happy with the state he's put you in, and he's determined to make you so much worse. To tear you apart and leave you as a pile of twitching, heaving parts.

"Robert, I'm —" your breaths snag, gasp hiccupping. "You're gonna make me, fuck."

"Go on, pretty girl." He urges, voice a throaty rasp. "You can have it any time."

And that's all it takes. The raw permission, the sloppy drag of his tongue gliding around your clit, the firm thrust of his fingers fucking into you. It all takes ahold of you mercilessly, wraps you up tight, and shoves you directly down into the throes of your orgasm. Your nails rake down his scalp, messily gripping at his hair in an effort to try and keep yourself sane while your back bows off of the mattress. He works you through it, lapping carefully at your clit, softening the pressure as the pleasure begins to tapper off, ebbing away in blissful aftershocks.

The moan you let out is drawn out, wispy. Your hips are still moving, lazily rocking while the rest of you has gone boneless, endorphins and contentment turning your muscles into jelly. You can feel him peppering kisses across your thighs, the sensation of it helping to draw you out of the pleasant haze you've been caught in.

You will yourself to look down, almost drunkenly tilting you head while you focus on composing yourself, sucking steady breaths. If you didn't know better, you could believe that Robert had been the one who just got off. His cheeks are still flushed, hair a mess, lips swollen and smeared the aftermath of your orgasm. He's panting, catching his breath while he nuzzles into your thigh.

"I'd say I did a decent enough job," he joked. "What do you think? At least a five out of ten, right?"

"Hmm. I'm not so sure yet. I think we need to gather more information before I can give it a proper rating."

He smiles with you, some kind of silent exchange happening. And then you're moving. Lifting yourself up on wobbling knees. He raises himself to meet you, leaning himself over to take your mouth in a brief kiss, letting you taste yourself on him, dimly sweet, natural. You both reach for his clothes, and you busy yourself with his belt and then his zipper, tugging his pants and boxers down his waist, and he works on the buttons of his shirt. But he gets frustrated halfway, annoyed with how his fingers keep slipping from his impatience, and he settles for ripping it off. Buttons go flying, clacking across the floorboards in the spray, but neither of you pay it any mind.

You're tugging him higher up on the bed as soon as he's naked. He pulls himself up after kicking his pants away and off his ankles, swapping his place with yours. You shove him down on the flat of his back, climbing astride his bare hips and his hands are already on you, groping, shifting, feeling all of you. Traveling up to take handfuls of your breasts, softly squeezing them within the textured skin of his palms. The callouses on his fingers and the undersides of his knuckles are delightfully rough against your nipples, and you arch into them, seeking out more.

You can't help but to admire all of him now that you have him bare and beneath you. It only takes a split second to come to a conclusion: he's stunning. Far better than anything you imagined while alone in this exact bed. It's surreal to have him here, splayed out and panting. Pale skin bordered in amber from the glow of the streetlamp down below, casting just bright enough for you to catch the freckles and scars dispersed across his body. Lithe muscles taking shape from the shadows projected over him, thin but athletic. Lean strength, made from dedication, hard work. The round tear in his ear, the scars are all evidence of commitment made from bruises and blood.

"Why do I feel like a piece of meat, right now. Are you thinking about eating me?" he jokes, observing you playfully. His thumbs sweep over your breasts, caressing around your nipples, making you grind down onto him. He's hot, throbbing, the thick width of him bare between the crux of your legs; head catching against the entrance of your pussy.

"That sounds like a good idea. Maybe later." He doesn't seem to mind the glimpse of your fangs. You can't smell any fear; your ears don't pick up a frightened spike it his heartrate. He's unbothered. Still incredibly hard beneath the weight of your cunt. Watching you like this is the only place in the world that he wants to be.

Your head angles to the side when you observe him, admiring him with an expression that you know must be terribly affectionate. Too loving for what this is. "You're pretty Robert."

"Pretty?" He looks like he doesn't quite believe you, eyebrows raising. "I don't think I've ever been called that before."

That admission makes your heart ache. The flippantness of it. The casualness of its delivery. As though it doesn't matter. Like he doesn't expect for anyone to regard him such a way. That maybe, he isn't deserving of it, the appreciation or praise. "I'll have to say it more then."

He truly looks like he doesn't know what to do with himself. Now the blush on his face isn't only from the lust burning through his veins, but also what must be mortification, self-consciousness, incredulity. As though he's been told he's been subpar, inadequate for so long that now he believes it. You want to convince him otherwise. You want to grab him by his shoulders and shake him until he's finally convinced that he's so much more than the lies he's been fed. That he's more than the suit or his family's legacy, or what other crushing insecurities might be hanging down on him. You know he hears it constantly, from the entire team, from other heroes. He's nothing without the suit. Just a man. Powerless. It follows him around into every room he steps inside, unforgiving and crippling.

You want to tell him that he's so much more than all of that, but you suppose that it would probably be pretty ill-timed considering that you're both completely naked. You'll have to save the therapy session for later. When you aren't trying to fuck each other.

He's soaked when you reach down where your bodies press together and take him into your hand, smeared with the precum that dribbles from the head of his cock. He hisses between the clench of his jaw when you grab him, sensitive no doubt, from how worked up he'd gotten from eating you out, from how he'd humped himself on your mattress. The evidence of it trickles from him in a messy, sluggish flow. He's so hard that it must be painful, head flushed an angry red.

When you trace your thumb down a vein, throbbing as it scrawls down the length of him, he jerks, hips flexing into the movement. You feel starved and zealous when you watch how his eyelashes flutter, the subtle swell of his lips glittering with his spit and your cum. He looks drunk. Dazed while he stares up at the ceiling before glancing down back at you. He swears when he sees you hovering over him, like you're something to be in awe of. You don't do it to be mean exactly, but when the weight of his eyes settles back on you, glazed over, pupils blown wide, almost reverent, it has you clenching around nothing. You need to take the edge off somehow, need to get a little bit of relief just so you think a little clearer.

It has you gripping him tighter, slipping your hold lower, aided by the smear of his arousal as you grab him around the base to hold him still when you grind your clit against the tip.

His hands fly around your waist, firm enough that it would leave bruises on anyone else. He gasps, face pinching while he stares, transfixed as you softly rock on the head of his cock.

"Okay, now you're just fucking teasing," he wheezes out. Something like realization slips into his expression, sober and bare. "Shit, you don't have any condoms here, do you? I wasn't exactly planning on this."

You immediately halt in your movements, pressing a palm down on his chest to prop yourself up, breathing through the shocks of pleasure still boiling inside of your stomach. "No, I don't have any," you say, disappointment pressing down behind your lungs. You couldn't blame if he doesn't want to keep going now, for being responsible. "Uh, I mean, I'm on the pill and I'm clean. So if you are, then . . . "

You let it settle there, the offer looming. Letting him contemplate your proposal on his own terms.

"Yeah, I'm clean," he replies. "Didn't really have too much time to sleep around being Mecha Man. And the last time I was in a relationship was an embarrassingly long time ago." It stretches between your bodies, an answer in its in own, and the stares you exchange only confirms it. His hands don't move to lift you off; they don't lighten to give you the ability to tear yourself from his grasp, either. You're both motionless, the shared decision felt in both of your bodies.

"Oh really? I figured you would have had, like a whole mob of fans frothing at the mouth to get a piece of you. Guess that makes more for me then," you shrug. You shift the angle of your hips, guiding the head of his cock to your entrance and then you sink down on him. It's abrupt. He chokes, and all the collective air held in your lungs is shoved out in a single gasp. Your bodies freeze, muscles going temporarily still like they don't know how to handle what they're experiencing.

He's not astoundingly long, about average, but for a guy as lithe as he is, he's decently thick. Enough that it has you holding your breath while you lower yourself down on him. An ache throbs from the girth of his cock stretching you open, a subtle sting that feels good as much as it hurts. Probably the only thing that helps in aiding you in fitting him inside so quickly is how soaked you both are, from how relaxed he'd gotten you with his mouth. You sink all the way down to the hilt, stopping only once the physical barrier of his thighs keeps you in place.

"Hold on. Don't move," he pleads in a thin rumble. He draws in a large gulp of oxygen, brows furrowed like he's concentrating. "This is literally every guys worst nightmare, and I don't want to admit it, but if you move, I'll probably come. I swear I'm not usually like this."

"That's what they all say," you chide with faux annoyance. It's not very convincing, your amusement is clear, a smile already nudging at your mouth.

"Well in my defense, I did just wake up from a coma. I'm a little out of practice."

You don't poke any more fun at him, you let him adjust, adapt to the feel of you around him. For a minute or two, you just stay like that. Quiet, joined together, listening to the other breathe, the occasional rumble of a car passing down the street outside, feeling the soothing warmth of each other's bodies. It's intimate in a way. Too gentle for what might just be a fling, for whatever this might turn out to be. A quick one-night stand in between coworkers, a temporary experiment. You don't want to think about the fact, that once this is over, he might not want anything more with you. And that's fair, isn't it?

Sure, he said that he likes you. But that doesn't mean that this is going to develop into anything more than mutual attraction and lust that's finally spilt over. Once this is done, and the mutual high has worn off and you've both satiated that want and curiosity, you'll both go back to your lives. You'll attend work tomorrow and pretend that you don't know what he taste like, how he sounds when he groans, how he feels under you. You'll see him in meetings, listen to his voice over comms, continue on with your lunchbreaks and convince yourself that don't want him anymore. That this didn't matter. You'll lie to yourself. Make it easy, because that's what you do. That's what has to be done.

But if you couldn't have this, him, then you'd at least make this a night to remember. Something to think back on fondly.

"You good?" you ask him after a few passing minutes. He looks visibly less tense, and the white-knuckled grip he had on your hips has slackened; his thumbs now sweep over the sore skin in apologetic caresses.

He answers in a nod, but when you raise your eyebrows in a silent bid for a better response, he successfully spits out a verbal reply. Quietly panting out a confirming "yes" along with another agreeing tilt of his head. It's only then that you lift yourself up in a steady rise only to drop back down again, rocking yourself in a steady motion that has your clit grinding against the swell of his pelvis bone, the dark thatch of hair above his cock catching on your clit. Coarse, dragging over you in a way that has pleasure sparking along your nerves, light and electric.

It makes you moan, a pitched, breathy sound, rising up right along the wet squelch of his cock repeatedly driving into you. Robert's focus keeps darting, like he can't decide where to look: at your face, fervently admiring how your mouth has dropped open, cheeks and forehead glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, or down where he splits you open, cock flushed, thick girth plunging deep inside of your pussy.

You circle your hips when you rise and fall, rotating them in a heavy rhythm that nearly makes your eyes turn in the back of your skull. It has your hands scrambling again for something to purchase, slipping up the expanse of his abdomen, the shape of his pectorals. The damaged ridges of his scars brush along your palms, raised and smooth feeling despite the old violence of that created them. His flesh is hot, damp with perspiration, the usual pale hue shifted a little red.

But when he sighs out in bliss, almost whimpering, he says your alias. The name you bore as a villain, and now as a hero. It shouldn't bother you. It never used to. Not with the flings you had in the past, where anonymity was crucial. But hearing him say it, now and like this, burrows into your ribs like a knife. It's clinical, detached. It doesn't have a place here, in a moment as vulnerable as this. You hardly process that you're speaking, that the name you utter between your lips is your real name, spoken out in confidence.

You see his confusion clearly, glittering in his eyes, presented vividly from the glow of the outside streetlamps.

"It's my name. My actual name," you clarify. "You can say it."

He repeats it. It's like he's taste testing it, and it sounds saccharine on his tongue. After years of only being Nosferata, to hear yourself addressed properly, it's like coming home again. Being allowed to cross through a familiar threshold after being shunned from it for so long. It invigorates you, shooting through your system like a shot of adrenaline, and you can't help but to grind a little deeper, squeezing the walls of your cunt to grip him a little tighter when you lift yourself.

It earns you a gasp of your name, a little desperate, as though he's been relieved by the feel of you, the heat and suction. You can practically feel the stress ebb from him. The tension vacating his body as you ride him, churning and bucking your hips to carry you both towards the ecstasy that looms ahead. A far drop that you know will have you both scrambling and struggling to hold on.

His shoulders draw back, pressing back into the mattress when he fucks himself back up into you, thrusting rapaciously to meet your pace.

"That's, that feels — " He doesn't get to finish his sentence, head lolling back, stretching out the pretty shape of his neck. You see how his Adam's apple bobs, throat working as he swallows another moan. If you focus just enough, sifting through the rise and fall of your shared breathing, the worn creak of the mattress' springs rasping each time you drop yourself back down on him, the wet smack of your skin meeting his, you can hear his pulse. Thundering under his skin. A recurrent thump, a brisk pattern that you swear you can almost taste in the air, weaving the already heady perfume of sex into something intoxicating.

"I really wish you could see yourself like this, Robert." You heave in another breath, your own spine arching when the head of his cock strikes a spot that makes your thoughts fizzle, turning as thick and sluggish as a batch of melted sugar. "You look so good baby, it's not fair."

You expect to hear his usual kind of sass thrown back at you. Maybe something sarcastic and self-depreciating, another deflection, but all you get is a rough groan, inarticulate and drawn out, like you've grazed something deep and wounded inside of him.

Oh, he liked that. You could feel it in how every part of him coils up tight, legs bending sharper to drive into you with deeper strokes. Some kind of compulsion. A physical impulse, like his body had decided to do it before his mind could completely recognize that it's chasing after the urge. Hungry for the praise, the desire to be wanted. Adored.

It's a complete 180 from how he'd been before. In control, directing you how he pleased, balancing between chiding and gentle. But this is the opposite. He's the one who's being influenced now; he's wordlessly handed you the reins and allowed you to take what you need from him, graciously accepting what you're willing to offer him. A chalice taking only what's been poured. And you're willing to give him anything, to fill him until he's overflowing.

You lean over him as best as you can without throwing off the pace you've built, supporting yourself with a hand on his chest while the other settles beside his head, fingers squeezing to clasp the blankets to keep you grounded. You lower your head, chin dipping to glide your nose along the shape of his cheekbone, and you have to smile at how he leans into you to graze his nose along yours. It's intimate. So intimate that you could suffocate on it like a poison, but you can't stop.

"You feel so good," you praise in a euphoric moan. "Robert, you're making me feel so full. God." That compliments that flow from you aren't fake. You aren't hamming it up like you have with past one-night stands, saying whatever you possibly can just so the guy will get off and make the experience end sooner, counting the seconds in the hope for it to be over.

But you typically aren't this vocal apart from the occasional moan, or a sporadic line of dirty talk scattered here and there. But right now, it all flows from you freely. Maybe it's only because you love to see the reactions it garners from him. You're subconscious craving more. More of those dainty, breathy whines and gasps that have begun to spill from him. Groans worked out from him each time you lift yourself up with your thighs, balancing your weight on the flat of your feet to drive yourself downward. It's hell on your muscles, a deep burn already zapping up the tendons, licking harshly across the meat of your thighs, but you'd be damned if you stopped now.

You aren't entirely sure that he's aware of the noises he's making now. You didn't think that he would lose his composure this fast, unbothered demeanor crumbling as delicately as a sandcastle giving beneath the barrage of an ocean's waves. He looks debauched, hair damp with sweat, eyes still dazed and fluttering, jaw dropped open. You wish you could keep him like this for eternity, spread out on your bed in a hedonistic display, chest heaving, atmosphere thick with the sounds of his pleasure and the prurient taste of his scent saturating your mouth and throat. Kept and cherished, drinking each other down until the sun goes supernova and consumes the world in a burst of fire and plasma.

He mutters something, a whisper of words, jammed and snagging in his mouth, tongue tripping uselessly against his teeth. Even with your sharp hearing, you aren't able to pick up what he said, syllables lost to the slurred mumble of his voice.

"Hmm? What was that?" You remove your hand up from where it was gripping the blankets, using it to cup the side of his face, directing him to focus his attention back on you from where it had drifted off.

For a split second, it seems like he's contemplating talking back. There's a flicker in his eyes, sharp and challenging, but it vanishes as swiftly as it had appeared, snuffed out as definitively as a coal being doused with a bucket of water, and all that remains is supple compliance. ". . . Don't stop. Please, don't stop."

You really wished you had the time to really indulge and take him apart piece by piece. To study him in the way that you truly want to. To prod and lick and touch, discovering what makes him weak. What gets under his skin and turns him boneless and desperate, but that sort of excess requires a long discussion, a conversation of boundaries. It would be pretty mistimed to try and bring that sort of thing up now, when you're both already in so deep, consumed and stupefied by lust. Too muddled and dazed to think clearly.

But having him like this is more than enough. You'll be thinking about this for weeks, months, hooked on him like a drug; candy stuck and caramelized between your teeth, sweet and tawny. Buttery gold on your enamel, sunlight caught inside of your mouth.

You would deny anyone else, taunt them, make them ask you again until you were satisfied, but you don't think you can resist him now. Not with you both so close, hurtling towards the fringes of a shared bliss. It's soaking up the foundation of your spine, rooting within the cradle of your hips, drenching your bone and viscera in melted fire. Honeyed rapture seeping between your vertebrae, sizzling there with zaps of lightning, coils of heat and smoke making your back bow taut as you chase after it.

"I won't stop," you assure. "You've been so good for me. Always so good, Robert."

And there it is again. He jolts, a full-bodied shiver twitching over him as though he's physically trying to seek out more praise. You swear you can feel him twitch inside of you, but it could just be a trick of your imagination. Though you're doubtful it is with how needily he drives his cock into you, causing the noisy echo of skin on skin to pitch around the room, the bed creaking repeatedly, the frantic movements of your bodies causing the headboard to thump against the wall.

You're probably going to get a noise complaint tomorrow, but it's definitely worth it.

"You close baby?" you ask, slipping your palm down from his face to feel his pulse battering throughout the junction of his jugular.

He nods frantically, a guttural groan vibrating behind his ribcage. You're both right there. Dangling at the edge, hurtling in the direction of a precipice that swells and expands in front of you, and you need it. You need it so bad that it hurts. A painful ache, like the gnawing of hunger. All it's going to take for either of you to reach it is a little push, and you're happy to deliver, to reach out and shove.

"I want to feel it. You're so close, Robert, I know you are." You're moaning now, and your thumb squeezes around the width of his throat, hooking just beneath the hinge of his jaw and he presses into it. (You're absolutely storing that away for later — if there is a later) "I want you to come inside. I need you to fill me up. C'mon, you deserve it."

That's all it takes. He goes off as though he's attached to a fuse that's been lit and eaten up by the sparks. He seizes up, reacting like a man being electrified, coiling up, wrought with tension that makes him spasm. "Oh fuck," he swears. A cork popping free from a bottle, a string of swears and curses rambling from him in a stimulated rush.

You keep bouncing on him, unrelenting in the cadence of your ride, determined to aid him through every possible pulse of pleasure, just as adamant to finish yourself off in the process. It's right there, dangling in front of you, licking up your back, lashing through your stomach. Before you can reach down to swirl a finger over your clit, he's doing it for you, settling the thick pad of his thumb over you in tight, debilitating figure eights that light you on fire. Between the brush of his thumb on you and the warm flow of his cum spurting inside of you, that's all it takes for you to tip over into your second orgasm of the night with a silent cry.

The urge to bite him lunges up. The animalistic instinct to claim him, to taste the blood that hares through his veins. A desire that's only invigorated by the scent of him, natural warmth, human, comforting in the traces of grease and metal that lurks beneath.

It takes every bit of self-restraint you have to lift your arm and to gag yourself with it, sinking the lethal points of your canines into your own flesh. It gives without protest, fangs sliding past the epidermis like it's butter. It doesn't inhibit the pleasure taking you over. It makes it all the more fatal. White-hot in its seize. The flavor of blood, metallic, bold, a nectar unlike anything else, only exacerbates the high of sex, and now you're the one convulsing from the brunt of your orgasm.

You keep going until you're both spent. Until the pleasure turns too sharp, overstimulating, and you're both twitching from the aftershocks. It's only then that you allow yourself to collapse. The sting in your hips and thighs makes you groan from the relief of finally stopping and you sag on top of him from the respite of it.

Your head drops on his chest, ear pressed where his heart thuds and pulses. You reluctantly pull your arms from your mouth, teeth parting with your skin, which immediately begins to heal from their absence. The smear of blood vanishing, cells pulling and returning to your body from the threshold of the wound, before the punctures can seal up. A pair of gnarled holes, and then they're gone entirely as though they had never been. But you can still taste the blood, the evidence of it across your palate.

You both pant, unmoving, Robert still buried inside of you, softening but heavy. You try to catch the oxygen you had lost and struggled to hold. You stay like that, basking in the afterglow. Lounging in the sounds of your breathing, the scent of sex, which has merged with his. It's pleasant. Peaceful. The kind of smell that you wish you could trap in a bottle and save for later. You hope the it sinks into the individual fibers of your blankets, joins into the walls so that the ghost of him will be housed here long after he's left. A haunting made especially for you.

You long to stay here, but you know that time won't slow down for you. Soon you'll both have to move. You'll have to get up from the bed and clean yourself up, take another shower, and Robert will have to go back home to Beef. This moment isn't infinite. The hands on the metaphorical clock are ticking down, and they can't wait for you to be ready for the inevitable. For the awkward conversation that awaits you. The shifty eyes and the promise to make sure that you'll both be professional, detached while at work.

"Ten out of ten," you blurt, trying to shake off the dread that's settled over you, as fitting as a second skin. "Ten out of ten, for sure."

He chuckles at the call back, and the fleeting trickle of levity is soothing. But it doesn't last. He falls silent, catching his breath while he absentmindedly traces shapes across your back and shoulders, sketching nonsensical patterns and marks. The sensation of it is more calming than your half-cocked attempt at humor. It helps you settle against him, going lax across the shape of his torso, your ribs trying to take shape to his own.

"You smell nice," you confess distractedly, placidly staring out the open window. Admiring the jumbled shapes of neighboring rooftops, the glow of the lights.

"I do try and bathe pretty regularly, so I'm glad it's paying off," he jokes. It lands better than your own, a sparse but delighted laugh bubbling from you.

"Not like that you dick." You turn your head just enough to playfully nip at his chest, earning a surprised 'ow' from him, but he quiets when you press a kiss to the sting. "Everyone has a scent — you know that much, obviously, but with my powers it's all magnified. So much more intense."

"What I smell like?" You hear his curiosity. It makes you wonder if he's staring up at the ceiling while he wonders, but you can't bother to lift your cheek up from where you settled it back down on his sternum. It's too warm. Too relaxing to pull away from.

"Warm. Alive. Vibrant."

"I'm not sure . . . If those are words that are usually to describe scents."

"They totally are. But I can try and dumb it down for you," you offer. You're sure he's rolling his eyes at you, and it makes you snicker. "It's difficult to describe sometimes. It's like I can smell your pulse. Your heartbeat. It's steady. Kind of comforting, like an old coat."

There's a tick of silence that passes by. "So I smell like an old coat. Got it."

"Ugh, no. You don't — nice! You smell nice, okay?"

"Sure, sure," he relents, impish dejection. There's no anger in it, no real hurt. It's all play, lighthearted. He's still holding you, arm wrapped around your waist, fingers playing over your back like he's plucking the invisible strings of a guitar. It all seems so real. It's the kind of gesture that doesn't belong between one-night stands. It's captivating, close, something shared between lovers. It has anxiety prickling at the back of your throat like you might be sick, turned ill from the uncertainty tossing in your stomach.

You should break the tension. Rip the band-aid off but you find your voice lost, caught within the chaotic webbing of your insecurities. Stuck on the fine threads and spun up like a stupid, struggling fly.

"I guess I should go ahead and ask: Was this a one-time thing? It's cool if it is, I understand. I just . . . want to make sure we're both on the same page. That there's no room for misunderstandings."

You question if you're hallucinating. If you had imagined him talking. But no. His voice is real, gruff and raw from how it had been used, but no less vulnerable. Uncertainty clinging to its edges. As though he's reluctant to ask. Afraid to hear what your answer is. While he's busy suffering in his trepidation, you're being freed of yours. The delight that breaks through you is shifting, coruscating with its hope.

"Do you want it to be a one-time thing?"

"No. No, I don't." His answer breaks over you like the dawn piercing through a long dark. Warmth cresting, a medley of hues splashing over the sky as though someone had spilt watercolors over a canvas. Life bursting through frozen earth.

"Then it isn't," you reply. Firm, doubtless.

His lips press against the crown of your head, a loving stamp of approval sealed on your skull. A mutual agreement signed in affection. A promise that hums between you with its own pulse, made living and determined. A future spanning out with promise.

It's definitely going to be worth all the paperwork HR is going to make you both sign tomorrow.