Welcome To My Masterlist 💌

The Shape of Youniverse

Here, have a fancy new series masterlist, with a header courtesy of angel divine @my-secret-shame​.

Also, the fics are now in chronological order of when they take place in the AU, rather than when I wrote them!

Summary: It all started with the idea that Steven loves your boobs. A now full blown AU of forging a life and family with a post-Khonshu Moon Boys that’s as heartfelt as it is filth.

Pairing: Steven x afab!Reader, Marc x afab!Reader and Jake x afab!Reader. Reader is married to the system and all three alters are no longer working for Khonshu

FIRST (Rated M, primarily Marc x Reader)

GET A LITTLE ACTION IN (Rated E, primarily Marc x Reader)

UN PEQUEÑO ENAMORAMIENTO (A LITTLE CRUSH) (Rated M, primarily Jake x Reader) 

GROUP EFFORT (Rated E, primarily Marc x Reader) 

SWEET AS HONEY(MOON) (Rated E, it’s a free for all with everyone) 

THE MORE THE MERRIER - PART ONE (Rated M, it’s a free for all with everyone)

THE MORE THE MERRIER - PART TWO (Rated E, it’s a free for all with everyone) 

THE SHAPE OF YOU (Rated E, primarily Steven x Reader)

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE MATERNAL KIND (Rated E, primarily Steven x Reader)

THE MAGIC TOUCH (Rated E, primarily Jake x Reader)

DROPPING IN (Rated E, primarily Steven x Reader)

COMPETITIVE STREAK (Rated E, primarily Jake x Reader)

FAMILY AFFAIR (Rated E, primarily Jake x Reader)

CUFF(ED) IT (Rated E, primarily Steven x Reader)

PLAYGROUND APPROPRIATE  (Rated E, primarily Marc x Reader) 

TRYING FOR TWO (Rated E, primarily Steven x Reader)

SEEING DOUBLE (Rated G, primarily Steven x Reader)

SIDELINE WARRIOR (aka Jake as a Soccer Dad) (Rated G/T, primarily Jake x Reader)

CREME FRAICHE (Rated E, primarily Steven x Reader)

MIXING IT UP (Rated E, primarily Steven x Reader)

Moon Boys with a Beard Drabble (Rated M, bit of everyone)

---

it feels like my heart got ripped out of my chest and then put back 😭😭😭

𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐡𝐞𝐦

𝙍𝙤𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙩 “𝘽𝙤𝙗” 𝙍𝙚𝙮𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙨 𝙭 𝘾𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙣!𝙁𝙚𝙢!𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮 – 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨. 𝙈𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙚 𝙞𝙩’𝙨 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢, 𝙞𝙩’𝙨 𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙝𝙨—𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩’𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙜𝙚𝙩. 𝙎𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙙𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙜 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙡𝙤𝙬, 𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙗𝙮𝙚. 𝙃𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙙𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙙, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙖 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜.

𝙒.𝘾. – 7.5𝙆

𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚 – 𝙎𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙣 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚, 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙘 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚, 𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙩/𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩, 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮, 𝙥𝙨𝙮𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙖, 𝙙𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙘𝙮, 𝙨𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚.

𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 – 𝙏𝙚𝙧𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 (𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙥𝙡𝙚-𝙣𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙧), angst, 𝙨𝙢𝙪𝙩 (𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙪𝙖𝙡, 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙡𝙚, 𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙙), fluff, 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙨 (𝙨𝙮𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙨, 𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙪𝙨𝙖𝙡, 𝙚𝙣𝙙-𝙤𝙛-𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚), 𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙑𝙤𝙞𝙙, 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛 𝙖𝙣𝙙 possible 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙧, 𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙪𝙢𝙖, 𝙖𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮, 𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙫𝙪𝙡𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙋𝙏𝙎𝘿 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙝 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙡𝙚𝙨 (𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘽𝙤𝙗’𝙨), 𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚, 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙛𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛, 𝙠𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙣𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙖𝙣𝙨, 𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙤𝙣𝙚.

𝘼/𝙉 - 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙬𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜—𝙄 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙡𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜. 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙤’𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛, 𝙤𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙮.

This one is for you, babes @asxgard 🫵🏻👀❤️‍🩹

The folding chairs in the community room at St. Margaret’s Recovery Center were mismatched and creaky, and the fluorescent lights hummed overhead in a way that made Bob Reynolds’ skin itch. But he sat anyway, long limbs tucked in uncomfortably, a cup of instant coffee cooling in his hands.

He was here for them. The others.

A man named Luis was shakily recounting the time he stole a car stereo to buy fentanyl, his voice cracking when he mentioned how he hadn’t seen his daughter in five years. The room stayed quiet and kind. No one judged. That’s why Bob came. It wasn’t always about what he said—it was about the fact that he showed up at all.

The door opened mid-share, a breeze of cold air cutting in.

“Sorry, sorry,” a woman whispered as she ducked in, clutching a canvas tote and a pet carrier, with a dark furball sleeping in it. She looked like she hadn’t slept well, wrapped in a threadbare gray hoodie and baggy jeans. She didn’t smell like perfume—more like laundry detergent and the faintest trace of cat.

Bob looked up briefly, then down again. Something about her felt like gravity.

She sat at the back, exchanging a quiet nod with one of the staff. Her friend, Bob assumed.

After the circle broke and people began to gather in twos and threes—plastic cups refilled, someone passed around store-bought cookies—Bob drifted toward the coffee table. So did she.

They reached for the same sugar packet at the same time. Their fingers brushed.

What a fucking cliché.

“Oh—sorry,” she said, a small smile flickering across her lips. “I’m not actually in the group. I just came with Jules—she works here,” she blurted, as she played with a sugar pocket. “She invited me to come—well, more like she forced me. To leave the house.”

Bob looked at her, really looked this time.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I’m just here to listen.”

She tilted her head. “You volunteer?”

“I guess. You could say that.” He paused. “It helps me stay grounded.”

She nodded as if that made perfect sense. “For-former nursing student,” she offered after a beat. “Used to volunteer, then work nights in a nursing home. Gave good sponge baths, terrible coffee. Dreams of truly becoming a nurse.” She glanced away. “Had to… shelve that.”

Bob’s brow furrowed just slightly. “Why?”

She shrugged, a gesture so simple it hurt. “Life,” she said. “And a body that didn’t keep up.”

A pause stretched between them.

Bob opened his mouth to say something—anything—but her friend Jules called her over. “Hey! We’ve got to be out in five!”

“Duty calls,” she said with a breath of humor. She turned to go, then glanced over her shoulder. “Take care, Bob-the-volunteer.”

He blinked. “Wait—I didn’t catch your name.”

“I guess you didn’t,” she said with a grin.

Then she was gone.

────୨ৎ────

A few weeks later, Bob was standing in line at a small neighborhood pet store near the New Avengers’ Watchtower, holding a giant bag of salmon-flavored kibble that Alpine—Bucky’s very opinionated cat—had decided was the only food she’d touch while Bucky was away on mission. He had offered to take care of her, since of almost all the members of the group, she felt most attached to him after Buck.

As he reached the front, he heard a familiar voice ahead of him at the counter.

“No, not the chicken pâté, the one with the little pumpkin blend. Mayhem gets picky when she’s stressed.”

Bob looked up. And there she was.

She turned, startled, as if she could sense him.

“Oh my god,” she said, grinning. “Salmon man,” she pointed out to the bag of kibble.

He raised an eyebrow. “You again.”

She laughed softly, then noticed what he was carrying. “So you’re cat-sitting?”

“Alpine,” he said. “My friend’s cat. She has opinions.”

“Mayhem’s the same. She’s one of my latest fosters.” She gestured to the small carrier at her feet. A pair of tiny black ears and vivid green eyes peered out from the shadows.

“Foster?” Bob asked.

“I don’t work anymore. So I take care of kittens for the shelter. Temporary residents at my place.” She looked down, brushing imaginary lint off her sleeve. “Figured if I can’t save people, maybe I can save hairballs, with no thoughts behind those striking eyes.”

The way she said it—like it wasn’t meant to sound sad, but it kind of was—knocked something loose in Bob’s chest.

“I never got your name,” he said.

She tilted her head. “Nope. Still haven’t.”

He laughed. “I’m Bob.”

“I know, Bob-the-volunteer.” She smiled at him before telling him her name.

There was a pause. Bob swallowed.

“Would you want to grab dinner sometime?” he asked. “I mean, if you’re not busy saving kittens.”

Her smile softened. “That’s kind of you. But, I… don’t date. Not anymore.”

His face fell slightly, but he nodded. “Okay. Just thought I’d ask.”

They paid, made small talk. She loaded the kitten into a cloth sling at her chest like a sleepy baby. Big green eyes looking around.

As she turned to leave, she hesitated.

“If we ever run into each other here again,” she said, voice low, “maybe we could get that dinner. One dinner. Just so it’s not awkward. T-the hypothetical next time we bump into each other?”

Bob smiled. “Deal.”

He couldn’t stop thinking about her, not until, they did, in fact, bump into each other again four days later.

Their ‘one dinner’ was at a quiet Lebanese place tucked between a laundromat and a bodega. Low lighting, cracked leather booths, and music so soft it barely registered. She picked it because it was close to her apartment and she knew the servers—they gave her free tea when she brought the kittens in to visit.

Bob showed up with his hands in his jacket pockets and an awkward, quiet sort of hope in his eyes.

She wore a simple black cardigan, a bit of color on her lips, and a hesitation that hovered between every breath.

“No flowers?” she joked gently, eyeing his empty hands.

“I figured you wouldn’t want the cliché,” he said, lips twitching. “Besides, I read somewhere lilies are for funerals.”

Her brow lifted. “Morbid.”

“You started it.”

And just like that, the tension cracked.

They ordered too much food. She stole falafel off his plate; he didn’t even pretend to protest. They talked about cats. About movies they loved. About stupid jobs they’d had as teenagers. She told him about the time she had to chase down a dementia patient, while volunteering at the home, who escaped in a hospital gown and fuzzy slippers. He told her about working at Alfredo's Bail Bonds, wearing a chicken suit as the restaurant's mascot.

But near the end, as the check came and the plates sat nearly empty, her smile faltered.

“I need to be honest,” she said, tracing the rim of her glass.

He looked up immediately, attentive.

“I wasn’t joking, that day. About my body not keeping up.”

His posture shifted, ever so slightly. “Okay.”

“I have metastatic breast cancer,” she said plainly. “Triple-negative. Aggressive. It’s already spread. They gave me a timeline.”

Silence settled around the table like dust.

“I’m not in treatment,” she went on. “I tried once. Chemo nearly killed me faster than the cancer. It came back anyway. I decided not to do it again. So—what I’m saying is—I’m dying. And I don’t want pity, or a savior. I don’t want to be someone’s heartbreak project. I want to focus on Mayhem, find her a good family.”

Bob’s face didn’t change in the way she expected. No flinch. No sharp intake of breath. Just quiet understanding. Deep. Anchored.

“You thought that would scare me off,” he said gently.

She met his gaze. “Wouldn’t it scare you? Come on, I've just practically dropped a bomb on you.”

He didn’t answer right away. Then: “I’ve lived through a lot of endings. But I don’t think I’ve ever really lived through love.”

“To drop the word 'love' to a person you've seen only a handful of times, that's intense stuff, Bob."

“Friendship, then. Maybe?”

A pause.

“You don’t have to give me forever,” he said. “Just give me now.”

She looked at him, long and hard. “You say that now. But when I’m in pain, when I’m not able to walk far, or eat, or breathe without help… You’ll wish you hadn’t.”

“Maybe,” he said honestly. “But I’ll still want to be there.”

She didn’t answer. But when they stepped outside into the cold night air, she didn’t pull away when his hand brushed hers.

────୨ৎ────

They began to see each other once or twice a week. Always her place—small, second floor, plants in the windowsill, and a kitten in various states of chaos. Mayhem, claimed Bob’s lap immediately.

They built rituals.

Tea with honey every evening she had energy. Rooibos for her. Chamomile for him.

Late-night walks, slow ones. She got winded easily, so he adjusted his pace without her ever asking.

Rooftop stargazing on the crumbling building above her apartment. She brought a threadbare blanket. He brought the good thermos. Sometimes they didn’t speak at all.

He never pushed.

He stayed even when she warned him again, softly, that she was already slipping. “The decline starts slow,” she said one night. “You’ll notice the tiredness before anything else. Then the brain fog, the forgetting, when this thing gets to my already mushy brain. I’ll start losing my grip on the good days.”

Bob listened. Always. Quietly.

One night, they sat on her couch, her head on his shoulder. Mayhem curled up between them.

“Why don’t you run?” she asked suddenly.

“Because running never got me anywhere good,” he replied. “And because I don’t want to.”

“I’m not your redemption story, you know?”

“I don’t need you to be.”

She looked at him, eyes burning.

“You’re going to love me, and I’m going to die. How is that fair to you?”

Bob’s voice was quiet. “How is it fair to anyone, ever, to love someone and lose them? But we still do it. Because the loving part matters. The caring for someone does.”

And then—frustrated, scared, aching—she said, “You should go. You should find someone whole. Someone—“

He didn’t move.

“Dammit, Bob. Don’t you get it!?” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t want you to matter.”

He looked at her—soft, steady.

“You didn’t want to matter either,” he said. “But you do, woman.”

And in the silence that followed, she kissed him. Fierce, trembling, like trying to stop the tide with her hands.

He kissed her back like she was something sacred.

When she pulled away, she muttered, “You’re so idiotic—so damn stupid for doing this.”

“Maybe,” he whispered. “But I’m here.”

────୨ৎ────

She didn’t say “I love you.”

She thought it sometimes. Quietly. When he curled around her at night like he could guard her from what was coming. When he hummed to Mayhem in the kitchen while scooping kibble into a bowl. When he kissed her wrist instead of her mouth on the days her breath was short and her mouth tasted like metal. She thought it when he stayed past midnight cleaning up after a nosebleed, never flinching. Never backing away.

But she didn’t say it.

Saying it felt like handing him the knife and asking him to hold it to his own chest.

It wasn’t fair. It would never be.

So instead, she said things like “I like you being here,” and “I sleep better when you’re around.”

Bob understood. He didn’t push.

He just stayed.

────୨ৎ────

The first time she collapsed, it was a Tuesday.

She was walking from the kitchen to the bedroom with a mug of tea in hand, and then she wasn’t. She was on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling, breath shallow and mug shattered beside her.

Bob had been in the bathroom trimming his beard. He ran to her like the floor had opened beneath him.

“No—hey, hey, I’ve got you, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

She was shaking. Disoriented. Embarrassed.

“Blood pressure,” she whispered. “Too low, again. It’s happened before, nothing new.”

He carried her to the couch, got her a cool cloth, and knelt beside her like a soldier kneeling before his commander.

When she was lucid again, she found his hands trembling. His eyes red-rimmed.

“You shouldn’t have to see this,” she said, voice hoarse.

“I want to see it,” he said. “I want to be here for all of it. The good and the shit. You don’t get to push me out just because it’s scary.”

She reached up and touched his cheek, thumb swiping the faint trace of moisture.

“I’m not scared for me,” she said. “I’m scared for you. This is not fair, Robby.”

Robby.

He leaned forward until their foreheads touched.

“I’ve survived worse,” he whispered. “But I won’t survive walking away.”

After that, he started staying over more often.

At first, she called it “a couple nights a week.”

Then it became most nights.

He never made a big deal of it. He brought his favorite hoodie and a spare toothbrush, quietly folded his missions around her appointments, slipped into her world like he’d always belonged.

It became their home.

On good days, they walked to the little corner market together. On really good days, they danced in the kitchen to Nina Simone and Otis Redding while Mayhem batted at their feet—she was so chaotic and mischievous, such a little demon, that requests to adopt her were almost conspicuous by their absence.

On bad days, he read to her—his voice low and calm—even when she couldn’t keep her eyes open. On worse days, he held her hair back while she vomited into the sink and said, “You’re okay. I’ve got you,” over and over like a prayer.

And sometimes—just sometimes—when his hands started to tremble, or his vision narrowed, or a news headline triggered something in him he couldn’t name, she would pull him down into her lap and run her fingers through his hair, slow and steady, until the shaking stopped.

They carried each other like sacred things.

────୨ৎ────

The first time they made love was on a soft night in early spring.

The window was cracked open just enough to let in the cool breeze, and the smell of rain that had passed through earlier still clung faintly to the world outside. The sky was that deep blue right before dusk settles into true night, and in the kitchen, warm light pooled around her as she plated dinner—just pasta and roasted vegetables, simple and comforting, the only kind of cooking she felt up for lately. She wore a soft sweater that slipped off one shoulder and a pair of threadbare leggings. The scent of basil and garlic clung to her skin.

Bob arrived just as she was lighting a candle for the table—unnecessary, but it made the room feel gentler, like time had slowed. He carried a bundle of fresh lavender tied up with kitchen string, and a tiny paper bag from the bakery she loved, the one with the lemon cookies dusted in sugar.

“You’re spoiling me,” she said, smiling.

“I like watching you smile,” he said simply. “Figured I’d give myself a gift.”

He looked tired. There were shadows under his eyes, the kind that didn’t just come from sleep deprivation. A faint bruise bloomed near his collarbone, just above the neckline of his shirt—he’d been on a mission the day before, one that had gone sideways, he said, but it was fine now, nothing to worry about. Still, his eyes lingered on her like she was the only soft place left in a world made of sharp edges. She caught him staring at her once, halfway through dinner, and he didn’t look away.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Now I am,” he murmured, and reached for her hand across the table.

Later, in bed, the hush between them was reverent, like the air before a storm or a cathedral at dusk.

They kissed for a long time first, half-under the covers, half-tangled in each other’s limbs. The kind of kissing that made the world drop away—slow and searching, a conversation of mouths and sighs. His hand cupped her jaw, thumb brushing lightly across her cheekbone, grounding her. She curled her fingers into his shirt, then under it, dragging her nails across his back in a silent ask.

He groaned, quiet and breathy, like he didn’t mean to let it out.

When they undressed each other, it wasn’t rushed—there was no tearing or frantic fumbling. Just gentle discovery. Reverence. Her sweater caught at her elbow and he helped her out of it, kissing the bare skin of her shoulder as it was revealed. She pushed his shirt up slowly and pressed her lips to the bruise just below his collarbone, lingering there like she could kiss the pain away.

“You sure?” she asked again, barely above a whisper, searching his face.

“I want everything,” he said, voice low and steady. “I want you. You have no idea how fucking much.” He almost whimpered, shaking in need now.

“Did you just whimpered—? Fuck, that was hot.” She pulled him down to her again.

Their bodies met in slow, tender rhythm, the kind that built not from urgency but from knowing. He started above her, hands braced on either side of her head, his forehead resting against hers as they moved together, breath synced. Her legs curled around his waist and she arched up into him, gasping when he filled her—stretching and grounding her in equal measure. Her nails dug lightly into the backs of his shoulders, not from pain, but from the sheer feeling of it.

He kissed her through every shiver and sigh. Her mouth, her jaw, the spot just beneath her ear that made her whimper. She bit his shoulder once, playful and unthinking, and he huffed a soft laugh before groaning, grinding deeper into her like it undid him.

“Damn, you’re gonna kill me,” he murmured against her throat.

“Good—well, maybe not.” she breathed, smiling, and kissed him hard.

At some point, she rolled him onto his back, straddling his hips, bracing herself on his chest. Her hair spilled over her shoulder and tickled his face. He looked up at her like she was a miracle. Like he couldn’t believe she was real and here and choosing him.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, running his hands over her thighs, up her waist. His thumbs traced the curve of her hipbones like they were holy.

“Right back at you, cowboy.”

She rode him slow, their movements fluid and unhurried, more about closeness than climax. He sat up halfway to meet her, one hand splayed across her lower back, holding her to him as he kissed her again—deep and aching.

Then, they increased their pace, making it a bit messy and rough, but not too much.

When she gasped, he caught it with his mouth. When she moaned, he kissed it into something sacred. His fingers found the back of her neck, the curve of her lower spine, the soft place where her pulse fluttered.

She leaned forward, and he caught her lower lip between his fingers, caressing it with a gentleness that nearly undid her. His thumb brushed across it, then he leaned up and kissed her again—tender at first, then deeper, nibbling gently until she gasped against his tongue.

They moved again—sideways this time, shifting instinctively into something even softer. She lay on her side, back to his chest, and he curled around her like a shelter, one arm under her head, the other cupping her hip, guiding her with slow, rolling thrusts that made her tremble and whisper his name like it was a secret.

Tears slipped from her eyes—she didn’t even know why. Maybe because it felt too good. Too real. Too much like something she’d never get to keep.

Bob kissed them away, murmuring against her skin, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

When they finally fell apart together, it wasn’t fireworks—it was warmth and stillness, a kind of peaceful unraveling. She pressed her forehead to his and breathed with him until everything settled.

Afterward, they lay tangled in the sheets, her head on his chest, their legs still knotted. His fingers traced circles on her bare shoulder, and she played lazily with the ends of his hair. Her skin felt tender, loved. So did her heart.

“I wish we had more time,” she whispered into the silence.

Bob didn’t lie. He never did. He just kissed her temple and whispered, “Then let’s live the hell out of the time we do have.”

She nodded against his chest, a soft hum of agreement.

And in that quiet, candlelit room, under the hush of spring, it felt—for a moment—like time had finally decided to wait for them.

────୨ৎ────

It was in the way her hands trembled while trying to stir the honey into her tea.

How she missed words sometimes, reaching mid-sentence into silence with furrowed brows and a quiet, “What was I saying?”

It was in the bruises that bloomed easier, darker, as if her skin was giving up secrets before her lips did.

Her body betrayed her first.

And she tried to keep it quiet at first—playing it down, calling the fatigue a “bad day,” brushing off the coughing fits and the bruises, the slurred words, the fall she swore “was nothing.”

But Bob saw it. He saw it all.

One night she collapsed in the hallway between the bathroom and the bedroom. He heard the soft thump—barely audible, like a pillow hitting the floor—but his instincts kicked in like a lightning bolt.

He was on his knees beside her in seconds.

“I’m fine,” she gasped, flushed, breath short, one wrist already swelling. “I just got dizzy. I—”

“You’re not fine,” he said, voice breaking. “And it’s okay.”

He held her close. She cried into his shoulder.

He carried her to bed, and stayed up watching her chest rise and fall all night long, counting every breath like a sacred vow.

The hospital stays began after that.

Short ones at first. A few nights for dehydration, an infection that wouldn’t clear, a chemo-related complication even though she wasn’t on chemo anymore. Then there was a seizure scare—brain metastases, they said gently, words wrapped in sterile white light and soft voices.

Bob hated hospitals. He hated the smell, the sounds, the memories. The taste of too many days lost in places just like this.

But he sat by her side every time. Brought Mayhem’s favorite blanket. Taped a drawing she made on the IV pole—a stick figure of a black kitten with heart that said, “still here.”

He read to her when she was too tired to talk. He played music on his phone, soft old jazz, classic rock, movies soundtracks, warm indie folk. He made bad jokes about hospital food and wonky bed remotes. He brought chamomile tea from home because she swore hospital tea tasted like regret and piss.

When she was lucid, they talked.

Really talked.

About death. About what came after. About what didn’t.

“I’m not scared of dying,” she said one night, voice fragile in the hospital dark. “I’m scared of leaving too little behind. About leaving you behind, Robby.”

Bob took her hand, thumb grazing her wrist.

“You’ve already left more than most people ever do,” he whispered. “You made me want to live, darling.”

At home, she wrote letters.

One for Bob. One for Mayhem: “To be read by your next forever mom or dad, you rascal”, it said. One for her friend Jules, who dragged her to that recovery center meeting where she met him. A few for other patients she’d met during her own cancer journey—notes of hope, humor, brutal honesty.

The one for Bob took the longest.

She kept it in a small envelope, hidden inside a book she knew he would read after—the one they read aloud together some nights, alternating pages, voices low and tender.

She never told him she was writing them.

He found out later. Much later.

────୨ৎ────

The night she said “I love you,” it came out of a dream.

She woke up gasping, hand clenched in the sheets, tears wet on her cheeks.

Bob sat up instantly, heart hammering, reaching for her.

“I’m here. I’m here.”

She blinked at him, disoriented. Scared.

“I was… I was gone. And you were still looking for me.”

He held her face gently, thumbs brushing her temples.

“I’ll never stop looking for you,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against hers.

And then she said it. “I love you.”

It wasn’t a whisper. It was fragile and clear and raw, like cracked porcelain cradled between them.

Bob leaned in and kissed her forehead, “I love you,” he replied, voice thick. “Since the pet store. Since the first night you gave me your favorite mug and told me to not drop it.”

She laughed a little, hiccupping, and pulled him down until they lay curled around each other like the world might break but this moment wouldn’t.

────୨ৎ────

He didn’t propose marriage. He proposed presence.

It was one evening, while they sat on the rooftop wrapped in layers of blankets, stars blurry through light pollution but still there.

She was thinner now. Color draining from her skin, as the days went by. Her voice came and went, rough and hoarse. But her fingers were warm when he held them.

“I know you’re still trying to protect me,” he said, quiet, without accusation. “But it’s not about sparing me. It’s about what I want, too.”

She looked at him, tired but still sharp.

“And what do you want?”

“You,” he said. “To the end.”

He didn’t need a ceremony or rings. Just permission.

After a long pause, she nodded. “You already have me,” she said. “But okay. You can stay. Even when it gets really bad.”

He kissed her knuckles.

“It’s already really bad,” he said softly. “But it’s also the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

They lived the hell out of the time they had left.

He held her when she cried. She steadied him when his mind frayed. They watched stars when she could, and on the nights she couldn’t leave the bed, he pointed out constellations from memory on the ceiling with his fingers, drawing them in the air. Sometimes he would make them up.

She told him once that she didn’t think she could ever feel lucky again.

Then she looked at him: “But then you walked in.”

“And I stayed, which has been the greatest honor of my life.”

────୨ৎ────

The day before she died was a good day.

The kind of day that had become rare—precious. She woke up without nausea. Her hands trembled, but not so badly she couldn’t hold a spoon. Bob made tea and toast while Mayhem patrolled the windowsills like a sleepy little gremlin, her mews grumpy and loud.

“Ekekek-“ she would chirp as she watched with frustration a bird in the other side of the window.

They watched an old movie—one she loved and half-quoted even though her voice was slower now, her sentences softer, occasionally trailing into silence when fatigue crept in. Bob didn’t mind. He filled in the lines when she forgot them.

They danced again. Barely more than swaying, her arms around his waist, face tucked against his chest.

“I don’t want it to end yet,” she murmured, her voice nearly inaudible beneath the low hum of the record spinning in the corner. The soft crackle of vinyl filled the space between words like breath between heartbeats. “I know I don’t have much time left.”

Bob held her tighter, arms wrapped fully around her as they swayed gently in the living room. Her cheek was pressed to his chest, right over his heart.

“Then don’t go,” he said, his voice attempting levity—but it cracked slightly at the edges.

She laughed against his shirt, a quiet exhale that sounded like surrender and affection and inevitability all braided into one.

That night, she reached for his hand as he cleared the mugs from their late tea. Her fingers curled around his, tugging him toward the bedroom. “Come to bed early,” she said softly.

He tilted his head, a gentle smile tugging at his mouth. “Tired?”

She shook her head. “Not because I’m tired,” she murmured, and something flickered in her eyes—mischief, desire, memory. “Because I want you. Like that. How can I not? I mean—have you seen yourself lately? That stubble of yours is driving me crazy, my love.”

Bob chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “You like that, huh?”

She leaned up on her toes, brushing her lips against the scratch of his jaw. “I love it,” she whispered. “And I need to feel… me. Just for a little while. Not sick. Not dying. Just a woman who wants her man.”

And he understood. God, he understood. She wanted to reclaim her body, her desires. To feel like herself again—not the version disappearing by inches, but the one who still craved closeness, who still chose him. Not as her nurse, or guardian, or someone just waiting for the end—but as her partner. Her love.

Their lovemaking that night was quiet. Reverent. Like a prayer whispered beneath blankets, made of skin and breath and memory.

He touched her slowly, taking his time with every inch of her. Not out of caution—but out of reverence. His fingertips traced the curve of her shoulder, down her arm, across her ribs—delicate, yes, but still her. Still strong. Still alive. When his hand moved over her stomach and down between her legs, he watched her face the entire time, gauging every flutter of her breath.

“You okay?” he murmured, voice deep and low, hoarse with emotion. “We can stop.”

She shook her head immediately, voice trembling but sure. “Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Please—don’t you dare.”

Bob nodded, kissing the corner of her mouth. “Okay. I won’t.”

He undressed her gently, peeling away fabric like it was woven from moonlight. Her body had changed—softer in some places, thinner in others—but she was still breathtaking. Her eyes locked onto his as she undid his shirt, her hands slow and certain, brushing over his chest, down the trail of hair toward his waistband. He caught her lower lip between his fingers, tracing it once with his thumb, then leaned in and kissed her—first sweet, then deeper, until she sighed into him, her hands rising to cradle his face.

Their bodies moved together slowly, wrapped in soft linens, her legs around his hips, her hands tangled in his hair. She arched under him with a quiet gasp when he entered her, her mouth falling open. He kissed her then, deeper, his fingers laced with hers as he moved in rhythm with her breath, with the ache between them. She bit his neck once, playfully, and he groaned softly, grinning into the kiss. He bit her lip once again, in the same way.

“I missed this,” she whispered. “I missed you like this, Robby.”

“I’m right here,” he said, voice thick. “I never left.”

She kissed him again, deeper now—urgent, not desperate. Her fingers traced his jaw, moved across his chest, down his back like she was trying to memorize every inch of him all over again. Her body trembled beneath his, but it was strength, not weakness. Willpower. Want.

When he whispered, “I love you,” into her mouth, she didn’t answer in words. Her eyes brimmed with tears instead, her lips pressing harder against his like she could pour the truth back into him without speaking.

After, they lay tangled in the quiet, their skin warm from shared breath, her head nestled against his chest. Bob’s fingers moved slowly down the curve of her spine, over the small of her back. Every few moments, he leaned down to kiss her hair, just to prove to himself she was still there.

“I’m not scared tonight,” she whispered eventually, voice feather-soft.

He swallowed. His throat was tight. “I am,” he admitted into her hair.

She tilted her face up, eyes dark and tender, and pressed a kiss to his chin. “Then stay close,” she said.

And he did.

He held her as she drifted into sleep, her breathing slow and steady against his ribs. His arms wrapped around her completely, like if he held tight enough, the dawn might forget to come. And in that quiet, dark room, the only thing that existed was the warmth of her against him, and the fragile, sacred gift of still being here.

He didn’t sleep right away. Just watched her. Counted each slow rise of her chest. As if unconsciously he knew the end was near.

Didn’t expect that near.

It was Mayhem who told him something was wrong.

Bob woke to her frantic meows, paws nudging at his side, climbing over the blanket. At first, he thought she was being her usual chaos demon, demanding breakfast. She was relentless—pacing, pouncing, crying louder now.

He reached a hand across the bed. Her side was cool.

The light was strange. Early. Pale. Still.

Her body—still. Too still.

He turned.

She was facing him. Eyes closed. One hand curled loosely over his chest where it had been when she fell asleep.

Her lips parted. No breath.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Hey—baby, wake up. Darling?”

He touched her cheek. It was cold.

Her hand slipped from his chest like a leaf falling from a branch.

He didn’t cry. Not at first, but the will to do so was there.

He sat there, silent. A slow-motion fracture through the middle of his ribs.

He smoothed her hair back, kissed her temple, her forehead, the corner of her mouth. He rested his forehead against hers, as her head was resting on his pillow.

“I love you,” he whispered. Again. And again. And again. “Thank you. I love you. I love you. I-I love you, darling. Oh, baby.”

Mayhem settled beside her, tiny purring rumbling low and constant, a feline vigil.

Bob didn’t move her. He just stayed and clung to her as much as possible, to her naked, now cold form.

The sun rose. He didn’t notice. He didn’t care.

She was gone, and his gravitational axis, thrown completely off balance. Because of that small detail.

She was gone, truly gone.

────୨ৎ────

The funeral was small. Quiet. Her friend, Jules, gave the eulogy. Bob stood beside the casket, but he didn’t speak. Didn’t trust himself to. His teammates joined him, to support and care for him.

He moved part-time back into the Watchtower after. The apartment felt like walking barefoot across broken glass. Her slippers still tucked by the bed. Her favorite mug on the windowsill. The book she never finished halfway open on the coffee table.

Mayhem was his shadow. Always following him around.

One week later, the now adolescent cat, knocked down a stack of books from the nightstand, batting them one by one onto the floor with feral delight.

Bob sighed, kneeling to pick them up.

"You won't give a day's truce, eh, you little devil?"

A small, battered book they have half read together, slipped out and landed face down. Inside, tucked between the pages, was a folded letter.

His name in her handwriting.

He sat there for a long time, hands shaking, just staring at the curve of each letter.

He opened it.

“Hi, Bob. Robby, my love, lover boy, sweetheart, my darling.

If you’re reading this, then I guess Mayhem finally completed her villain origin story and brought down a bookshelf. Good for her. I hope she didn’t eat the corners of this letter. She tried once. I saw her. I told her no. She blinked at me and did it anyway. Absolute chaos. She’s your cat now. Sorry.

Also—yeah, I left this where I knew she’d eventually find it. Figured if anyone could make you laugh on a day like this, it’d be her.

So… hi. Deep breath. You, not me. I’m—you know. Past breathing now.

I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve said goodbye better. I hope I held on long enough that you weren’t alone. I hope you weren’t scared. I hope it was peaceful. I hope you know I didn’t want to go—not from you. Not from this.

I’ve been thinking about this letter for a long time, and still… no words feel big enough. Not for what we had. Not for what you gave me. But I need to try, so here it goes.

I love you.

God, I love you.

I loved you in a way that terrified me. In a way that healed me. In a way that made me feel more alive than any scan or countdown ever could. You didn’t look at me like I was dying. You looked at me like I was still here. Like I was worth staying for.

You gave me more than comfort, Bob.

You gave me days.

Real days. Golden, messy, stubbled, kitten-clawed days. Days with tea and laughter and record players and forehead kisses. You gave me mornings I wanted to wake up for. Nights I didn’t want to end. You gave me time that felt like living, not waiting. Not surviving. Just being. And loving. And being loved.

You never ran. Not when it got hard. Not when I got scared or small or angry or hollowed out by the chemo. You stayed. You chose me, over and over, even when I couldn’t have blamed you for needing to look away.

Especially then.

If you’re hurting now—and I know you are—it’s only because it was real. Because we were. And I hate that I’m the reason your chest aches right now, but… if it means we got to have this? I wouldn’t change a thing. Not for more time. Not even forever could make me trade what I had with you.

But I need to ask you something. One last thing.

Stay.

Stay here. Stay soft. Stay kind. Stay messy and honest and you.

Don’t shut yourself down just because this ended. Don’t pull away from love just because it hurts. Let it in. Let it hurt. Let it heal.

You carry light and ache in equal measure, Bob, and the world needs people like you. The world needs you.

Broken and trying. Soft and brave. Still showing up.

Cry when you need to. Laugh when it surprises you. Keep stargazing from rooftops. Put honey in your tea. Dance in the kitchen. Let someone hold your hand someday. Let them see you.

And take care of Mayhem, please.

She’s a menace, but she loves you.

She’ll sleep on your chest again. You’ll wake up to claws in your ribs and fur in your mouth and know she’s watching over you in her gremlin little way. Feed her the expensive treats. Not too often. She’ll get ideas.

And when it gets too quiet—play the records I liked. Even the sappy ones.

Especially the sappy ones.

You were the last good thing I got to love.

The best part of my last chapter.

And if there’s more after this—for me, for you—I hope we find each other again.

I’ll be looking.

Thank you for loving me.

Thank you for letting me love you.

Thank you for making it all count.

I love you, my darling.

Always,

Yours.

Me

P.S. I love you. I love you.”

He laughed. It broke into a sob halfway out. He folded the letter against his heart and sobbed.

Something inside him cracked. And softened.

“Fucking hell…”

────୨ৎ────

Grieving was a funny thing. Unpredictable. Cruel. Soft. Sometimes it came in like a scream and other times like silence that wrapped around your throat.

But still—

He started showing up again.

It didn’t happen all at once. He didn’t wake up one morning and feel whole. But the ache didn’t stop him from moving, either. He just started.

First, it was the recovery center. Quiet mornings, soft hellos. He told stories now—not about gods or galaxies or things that shattered, but about people. About love that arrived like lightning and stayed like breath. About grief that cracked you open without warning. About the way someone’s laugh could still echo in your bones long after they were gone.

He never spoke her name to the group, but somehow everyone knew she existed.

He began visiting the oncology ward, too. Not for answers—he wasn’t that naïve anymore—but just to be. He brought warm things: fleece socks, old paperbacks, little packets of herbal tea she’d once loved. He didn’t try to fix anyone. He didn’t promise miracles. He sat by hospital beds, held hands when asked, and listened when silence was all there was to offer. Sometimes he’d hum under his breath. Sometimes he’d let them talk about the fear. Other times, they’d just breathe in tandem for a while.

Presence. That was enough.

He kept fostering kittens. More than he meant to. Sometimes naming them after her favorite old movies—one little tuxedo cat was dubbed “Ripley” and refused to sleep anywhere but on his back. Sometimes he let Mayhem decide. She was choosy, with opinions like firecrackers. If a kitten made it past her glare, it was a keeper.

He stayed in the apartment less. Too many ghosts in the shadows. Too many memories clinging to the mug she’d chipped, the blanket she’d wrapped around both of them, the spot on the floor where she’d once slow-danced him through tears.

Mayhem and Alpine struck an uneasy truce at the Watchtower. Alpine, regal and disdainful, ruled from the bookshelf with the air of a monarch. Mayhem, all teeth and chaos, played the part of court jester with far too much enthusiasm. They would never admit they liked each other. But more than once, Bob walked in to find them curled up together in a patch of sun, like the war between them had been forgotten for a few sacred hours.

And when it got too heavy—when the weight of her absence pressed in until he could barely breathe—he’d take out her letter. The paper was soft at the creases now, well-worn, well-loved. He knew every line by heart. Still, he’d read it again. Her voice rose in his mind like a tether, grounding him, keeping him from vanishing into the hollow places.

Stay, she had said.

So he did.

Some time passed. Weeks? Months? Grief made time slippery.

It was dusk when it happened—one of those golden, velvet evenings that stretched slow and soft. The light outside melted across the walls like spilled honey.

Bob sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor, sorting through a shoebox labeled with her name in his blocky handwriting. Mayhem snoozed on the back of the couch, curled into a comma of contentment, tail twitching in her sleep. Alpine lounged on the armrest like a sphinx, judging everything in the room with half-lidded eyes.

He pulled out a photo—creased in the corner, a little blurry. She was laughing, mid-sentence, Mayhem tucked under one arm like a wriggling gremlin. Her hair was a little messy, sunlight caught in the strands, her smile so full it hurt to look at.

He smiled back at her.

“You’d yell at me for keeping your cracked mug,” he murmured, brushing his thumb over the edge of the photo. “But I can’t toss it. Feels like tossing you.”

A soft chirp interrupted him. Mayhem stretched, yawned with drama, then launched herself like a missile under the table.

“Mayhem—don’t—don’t even think about chewing that cord—”

A crash. A thud. The wobble of something precious trying not to fall.

Bob groaned. “Mayhem, you diabolical little thing, the lights are on but no one’s home, huh?” He ducked under the table just in time to see her batting at a cable like it had personally insulted her. She blinked up at him, wide-eyed, unrepentant. “Hey—don’t bite me—”

He laughed. It broke out of him unguarded, warm and aching. “You’re a menace,” he said, scooping her up. She flailed briefly in protest before settling, purring like a tiny engine against his chest.

He stood there for a moment, arms around her, the photo still in his other hand. The light outside was soft, stained gold and blue. A plane passed overhead. Someone two floors down was playing a familiar song through their open window—one of hers. A quiet ache curled around his ribs, but it didn’t hollow him out this time. It held him.

He looked toward the window.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Not to the cat.

To her.

Always to her.

Then he tucked the photo back into the box, flicked on the lights, and carried Mayhem into the kitchen.

It was time for dinner.

And he was still here. Still staying. Still loving.

Just like she asked.

He didn’t know the storm that was coming.

Didn’t know the name Victor Von Doom.

Didn’t know the sky would split again, and this time, it might take him too. Maybe, then, she would welcome him.

But for now—

There was light. There was a cat.There was dinner.

And there was still time.

Just enough. Almost.

So about that ending—I’m sorry? 😃

@sarcazzzum @cupid4prez @qardasngan @kmc1989 @trelaney

Anyone have a happy fix-it fic with Kylo Ren but Han and Luke and Leia didn't die and the family gets back together and bonus points if Hux is there too

my fave fic writers have kept me sane through the worst parts of my life. you lot rock 🤙🏾

I fucking love fan-fic writers, you are the most precious people on this fucking planet and please, please, don't stop writing.

my girl 🩷🩷

Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams/Ironheart

dir. Sam Bailey and Angela Barnes | Ironheart (2025)

Ok Idk who needs to hear this but Steve Rogers was just *the first* Captain America. He was legitimately never meant to be the only one. Phillips WANTED an army of them. Steve Rogers was not the icon of Cap that the government wanted him to be. They DISOWNED him because of this.

Sam Wilson served as a soldier far longer than Steve Rogers ever did, and not simply because you can't count the time that Steve spent CAST as a dancing monkey (based on his own interpretation).

Steve Rogers is the only Steve Rogers. We called him Nomad, too, since there was a time he WAS NOT Captain America.

The role was recast, by the government, several times.

I don't give a shit about Captain America as a concept. I love Steve Rogers and I love Sam Wilson because of who they are despite what 'America' or Phillips or John Walker or any other forces want.

If you think their title was the important part, you missed the point completely.

will i go back to watching chicago pd just for him?... i might

SHAWN HATOSY as DEPUTY CHIEF CHARLIE REID Chicago P.D. | Open Casket (12.21)

can’t pretend

pairing: Jack Abbot x resident!reader summary: He is puzzled with you first, then vexed, and he can’t understand his feelings. In an attempt to get to know you better (or maybe to get you out of his head), Abbot accidentally crosses the line. (or, alternatively: what if Jack met someone similar to him in many ways. traumatic past included)

warnings: <rivals> to friends to lovers, slow burn, mentions of blood and injuries / I’m hinting at the age gap but you can ignore it / some complicated feelings and a LOT of Jack’s thoughts (his poor therapist will need a raise); assault. ANGST. / words: 7K author’s note: this is my first fic for “The Pitt”. I binge-watched the show in 2 days and didn’t plan on writing anything but my inspiration decided otherwise. I’ve never had a beta reader in my life, please be kind. ♡

Early at dawn, the sky is just the right color — the darkness slowly dissipates, deep purple at the edges, black fading into blue. If he squints and looks above the roofs, he can pretend he’s looking at the ocean. He’s been toying with the idea for some time but it’s more of a dream, a comforting mirage: him getting a small house by the beach, waves crashing softly in the distance, clean blue water blending into the bright blue sky. He’d wake up to the sunrise, take lugs full of cooling salty air, walk in the sand that glistens under the foaming swash. He’d probably adopt a dog — someone to pass his days with, just so the silence doesn’t get too heavy, doesn’t weigh on him when he can’t sleep at night.

A passing car honks down the street, loud and sudden, and Jack flinches, opening his eyes. That’s when the perfect image always falls apart. He is afraid he will get lonely with just a dog and with nothing to do, he will be going up the walls, bored out of his mind. But he doesn’t know how not to be alone. And some days he wishes that he did.

The air in Pittsburgh doesn’t carry any scents at this morning hour, and Jack’s gaze wanders down to the tree leaves writhing in the wind. He absentmindedly rubs his wrists when he hears the door creaking behind him.

“You know, security is getting worried about you,” Robby chuckles, his steps slow. “I heard the guys making bets on how many times a week you’ll come here.”

“Says the man who likes to brood in my spot,” Jack huffs without looking at him.

“Me, brooding? No idea what you are talking about.”

Robby gets to the roof edge but stays behind the railing, leans on it and slowly stretches his arms. His tone lets empathy in when he speaks up:

“Tough night?”

The sky is overcast, a mush of white and grey clouds the blue barely peeks through, and Jack sighs as he turns away. “Remember you told me about the kid who OD’d on Xanax laced with fentanyl? The parents sat by his bed hoping he’d wake up by some miracle,” Robby only nods when Jack throws him a glance. “I’m dealing with one of those.”

They both lost patients before, and both know that it doesn’t get easier with time. You have to tuck your grief away to walk into the room with their loved ones, offer apologies that carry little meaning, take even more grief in because this isn’t about you and this loss is not for you to carry. But they do carry it — Robby memorizes lifeless faces, Jack never forgets the names of everyone he couldn’t save.

“Brain dead?”

“Yep,” Jack drawls, hands gripping the metal rails. “He’s got three sisters, and all three were begging me. And I stood there feeling absolutely useless.”

Robby watches as his friend’s knuckles turn white. “If you couldn’t do anything then there was nothing that could’ve been done. And I’m really sorry.”

If only words could bring people back from the dead, Jack thinks bitterly but doesn’t say it out loud. He doesn’t want to sour Robby’s mood. And he can’t help but notice — it used to bother him way more, it sometimes would eat him alive; now Jack is mostly numb.

“I’ll sleep it off,” he mumbles.

“Not staying for the welcoming party?”

It takes a few seconds for the reminder to pop up in Jack’s head: a new senior resident, today is her first day. After Collins took maternity leave, Robby spent hours on the phone, glasses pressed to the bridge of his nose as he flipped through the applications, always unsure, never satisfied. And then he got a call and drove across the city to another hospital to meet her in person — he came back beaming. Jack must’ve zoned out so he didn’t catch the details.

“Don’t think I have a very welcoming face.”

“Should’ve seen the guys she worked with. I thought her chief of surgery would literally fist-fight me after I offered her the job,” Robby cackles.

It stirs Jack’s curiosity a bit. “She’s that good?”

“I believe she is. Skilled, confident, haven’t heard a single bad thing about her,” and even though his voice is certain, Robby dithers, bringing a hand to the back of his neck.

“But... ? I sense a but coming.”

“No-no, she’s great, really, and I made up my mind. It’s just that… She comes off as quite stubborn, and I feel like she is used to flying solo,” his eyes dart to Jack. “Reminds me of someone I know,” a smile grazes his lips, an unvoiced comparison he can’t help but draw.

Jack doesn’t see it, his gaze set somewhere on the horizon. “We all have to be team players here, that’s how it works,” he says dismissively. “I’m sure she’ll learn.”

The streets are getting busy, filling with people talking, rushing, making endless calls — and with more honking and more sounds that all merge into one unpleasant noise. And Jack is getting really tired.

“I should go back. Don’t want anyone to scare her off,” Robby puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder, a friendly but firm grip. “I’d also rather not waste my time on scraping your frail body off the pavement. Let me walk you out.”

“Frail body? You are three years older, you bag of bones,” Jack quips, and they share a laugh, and it warms up his heart a little.

But the warmth fades as they get inside, into the weave of corridors, into the crowd of nurses and other doctors pacing, the lighting bright and harsh, the smell of antiseptics clinging to the walls like mold. And it is not as overwhelming as it’s tiresome; once he is out on the street, Jack takes a few deep breaths. It’s hardly a relief.

As he passes by the park, exhaustion already on his heels, he suddenly picks up a sound, something between a whine and a small woof. Jack looks around to find the source peeping out from behind the bushes — brown eyes, wet nose, grey fluffy ears, one marked with a white spot. When Jack takes a step closer, the stray puppy immediately runs off.

On his way home he gets some dog treats and throws them in his bag. He tries thinking of pet names but nothing comes to mind. And when he falls into his cold bed, thick curtains not letting any light reach him, he dreams of standing on a long road framed with grass, a murmuring of waves heard through the mist. But he can’t see the ocean.

It keeps raining, and they have to close the roof — “Merely a precaution, sir, we don’t want anyone to slip. I heard the weather is supposed to clear up in a few days,” one of the guards assures Jack. His mood these days is just as gloomy as the sky. But he’s a man of habit, so every time Jack wants to get out to the roof, he instead gets more cases, drinks more coffee, barely a few words squeezed in between that aren’t work-related.

At first, he only catches glimpses of you.

On the days when your shifts overlap, he sees you tearing along the hallways, your hair up and your face focused, removing gowns to quickly put on fresh ones, your hands either in gloves or carrying the charts. You don’t speak much, and very few times Jack gets to walk past you, he is slightly puzzled by this combination of quiet and fast-paced.

Your first week is nearing its end when Dana prompts Jack to make a proper introduction. She calls him uncooperative and calls for you herself when she sees you leaving trauma#1. You swiftly come by the nurses' station and glance up at the board — and then you finally face Jack, your gaze so piercing, it catches him off guard. He clears his throat and manages a greeting, a bit coolly.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Abbot,” you tell him calmly, offering a hand. And you don’t look away, and your handshake is firmer than he would expect. The next thing you are holding is another chart, eyes following the lines of words and numbers as you step away, Whitaker barely keeping up.

“She is so fast, she’s almost flying. Beautiful,” Princess notes approvingly, and Perlah hums in agreement.

Their voices snap him back into reality, and Jack inhales sharply, only now realizing his gaze is still on you. He looks down, pretending he needs to fix his watch. “What is this, a fan club?”

“Aw, no need to be so jealous. You will always be our favorite old white doctor,” Princess teases.

Perlah gives her a side-eye. “I thought Dr. Robby was our favorite.”

“Well, yes. But I have a soft spot for men in existential crisis,” Princess winks at him.

Perlah rolls her eyes. “They are all in existential crisis.”

“And I wonder why,” Jack deadpans, then picks a case just so he’s got an excuse to leave. And maybe an excuse to pass by the room you’re in, your gloved hands already stained with crimson.

He starts watching you more often, an impulse he can’t necessarily explain.

He’s careful, he’s not staring, but his hazel eyes always pick you out from the crowd. He’s taking mental notes: you lean on doors with your right shoulder when you rush in, you scan the injured head to toe in every case, hands moving quickly in tandem with your gaze. You never raise your voice but you keep eye contact — with the interns when you give instructions and with the patients to make sure they understand what’s going on. You are efficient with your work-ups, you’re the first one to come in and you stay late to turn your patients over to the night shift. You are meticulous and disciplined in a way he finds relatable; in three weeks' time there’s a foundation laid for him to grow respectful. But sometimes Jack can’t stop the thought: he is yet to see your smile. He is also yet to see you slip up, and that is bound to happen because no doctor is without fault.

A month in, he thinks you finally come close to failure.

A patient is wheeled in on a gurney, gesticulating, red in the face from how displeased or pained he is (probably both); still, as you talk to him, he makes pauses to listen. There’s blood on his chest and his speech is slurring, and Jack’s gaze follows you. From where he’s standing, he can see you clearly, so he can’t help but glance up a few times from his computer screen. It’s all the same routine and it seems to be working smoothly — but when he takes another peek, he sees you frozen.

Jack instantly draws near, alert and observing through the glass: the man is intubated, his shirt cut and chest bared — and with a nail sticking right out of where his heart should be. The monitors go off as the blood pressure drops. When Whitaker makes eye contact with him, Jack takes that as an invitation to come in.

“What do we got here?”

Whitaker looks half worried, half relieved. “Um-m, 41 years old male, nail to the chest, intracardiac. Prepped for the thoracotomy. Cardio is tied up with another surgery, and it’s at least 15 more minutes until we can get an O.R.”

Jack knows the patient doesn’t have that long. His gaze flickers to you but you do not meet it, and he can’t tell what you are looking at. There is no time to guess — if you’ve never cracked into someone’s chest, he’ll gladly guide you. And his guidance is assertive, if a little cocky.

“It’s not every day that you get to do a thoracotomy. And it can be daunting — also, pretty risky if you ask me—”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not asking,” you retort abruptly without even sparing him a glance.

And then you pick the scalpel and make the first incision, your hands steady and never hesitating, the confidence of a tsunami sweeping rocks away.

Jack has to take a step back because it would be childish to argue when someone’s life is hanging by a thread. And all his doubts are crushed before his very eyes the way ribs are under the pressure of a steel retractor you are holding, the metal sinking into flesh and blood to give you access to the heart. After the nail is out — long but intact, you deal with excess fluid and with the bleeding — and you are more nimble than he is, than he’s ever seen the other doctors be.

“Well, call me impressed,” Jack says earnestly.

The silence is a little awkward — a couple of seconds before you give reply: “Thank you, Dr. Abbot.”

He wonders if maybe his compliment might’ve come as patronizing. What he knows for sure is that you do not need his help. But when he backs away, he sees a glint out of the corner of his eye — dog tags left in the pile of the man’s belongings on the floor. Jack has the same tags hanging on a chain around his neck. He almost doesn’t feel the weight of them but the memories they bring are heavy — sometimes an image flashing through his mind, sometimes a nightmare stirring him awake. And mostly it’s the latter.

But today, as his shift goes on, he isn’t thinking of torn limbs and collapsing buildings and bombings that looked like firecrackers in the night. Those weren’t the reasons he kept going back — he never once craved violence, never really cared about the money. For him, it was the roar of the adrenaline and the belief that even amidst the death and ruins, he could make a change. He hasn’t felt that for a while: the rush, the determination, the power held in your hands when you are cutting into someone’s body, fixing the organs and sewing the skin together, bringing the life back in. He lacks that spark, he misses it, he wants to get it back. To prove to himself that he still can do that — or maybe not only to himself.

So now he isn’t watching you but studying, with a diligence of a man who once had to learn how to walk again.

He starts work earlier just so he can get more patients — but also to listen in on your case reports and trail your steps, peek into trauma rooms you run in and out of. He often finds himself holding back the questions: damn, how did you do that? How come you easily catch things others take so long to figure out? You take on complicated cases: a feeble woman who can’t hold her food down, her arms marked with a red rash; a young jogger who keeps fainting, short of breath; a man whose neck hurts, the pain radiating to his chest. And you examine them and pick the clues to solve the tangle of the symptoms — it’s Celiac disease, it’s kidney failure, it’s spondylodiscitis and you know exactly how to treat it. But Jack knows all these answers too. And even if they don’t click in his mind as quickly as they do in yours, it’s still a victory: he’s not as rusty as he thought he was, he is enjoying this. He can’t believe he almost let himself forget.

When he decides to try a day shift for a change, he’s met with Dana’s worried face, her wondering out loud if he feels okay. She then proceeds to ask the same question two more times, just to make sure.

“You on day shifts may be the thing that saves Robby from a heart attack, you know,” her face softens.

“Are you saying you guys get way more action than us night owls?”

Dana grins. “What, you are already reconsidering your choices?”

“Like hell I am,” one corner of his mouth hints at a smirk.

The day is busy, and he can barely catch a break, but it isn’t a chore: he’s equally enthusiastic about a road accident that left a guy with a skull fracture, an appendectomy, a stoned teenage with a knife stuck in his thigh, a street worker with a leg broken in two places. An hour before his shift ends, they get a lacrosse team of middle schoolers, and the staff shares an exasperated sigh; but not Jack. He fixes broken noses and split eyebrows and some nasty shoulder dislocations, then goes to talk to their coach — a woman in her fifties, robust and perhaps too loud with her scolding. But her blaring voice cracks as soon as the kids are out of her sight. At some point, Jack finds himself holding her hand in reassurance, and she jokes that she’d gladly marry him if only she didn’t have a wife. She also promises that all the kids' parents will give the hospital the highest ranking. And they do.

Jack clocks out when the sky is colored orange, the shadows bleeding on the pavement, and his limbs hum but this weariness is pleasant. He is content, he’s almost joyous — the almost comes from you having a day off. He got to work with so many people, why would your presence make a difference? Jack persuades himself it’s not the reason he takes a few more mornings.

But when he comes back the next time, and you’re already there, there is this weird feeling in his ribcage — a spill of heat, a flutter of his heart. He blames it on the caffeine. You stand with your eyes glued to the chart while Princess lets out a big yawn.

“If another lacrosse team comes in today, I might actually quit,” she laments.

“Send them my way,” you say with ease, without missing a beat.

“That’s ten people,” she punctuates, incredulous. “We got lucky they were just kids. Grown-up men who slam into each other while voluntarily chasing a ball scare me.”

“I’m not easily scared,” you carefully tap on the screen, scrolling through some case report, someone’s illnesses broken into signs and terms; but you do pay attention to what she’s saying. You glance up at the nurse, your voice kind: “If you ever need help, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

And then you look over your shoulder as if you can feel him watching — and it’s the same as the first time: your gaze startles him, like would a fire eruption or a ball lightning. But Jack’s greeting stays rooted in his mouth because Mateo sprints in:

“Hey, there’s something wrong with my patient’s veins, can someone take a look?”

And you are by his side and following him out of the hall in what feels like barely a second.

“I’m so grateful for you!” Princess calls after you. Then she spots Jack too, her face expression turning smug. “Oh, hello there, boss,” and she grins like she knows a secret Jack wasn’t let in on.

Turns out, Robby showed his gratitude by taking a sick leave, the first in three years (Jack would’ve sent him home himself if he heard Robby’s muffled coughing one more time). And it left Jack with way more shifts to cover. He readily gulps coffee from his to-go mug as he skims through the list of patients. The others join him soon: Mel smiles at everyone, the ever-optimistic one, Whitaker looks like hasn’t slept in months, and Santos teases him about something Jack doesn’t care to listen to. McKay is running late. Langton walks briskly to the nurses' station, taps on the tabletop right next to Jack.

“Ready to get back in the game?”

“I’ve been in the game for more years than you can count on your fingers,” Jack gives him a cold stare.

Frank sighs, his fingers drumming on the wooden surface, although he sounds barely concerned. “Love the positive attitude. Dr Robby surely won’t be missed.”

“As if you are such a pleasure to work with,” Dana cuts in, hands on her hips. “You guys should redirect that buzzing testosterone into your work. No one is getting paid for whining.”

“Preach,” Jack huffs as he steps away.

He stops himself from immediately going to check up on you. And twenty minutes later, he is glad that he did — you walk back, unruffled as you always are, Matteo tagging after you. His patient is an old lady with thrombocytopenia she probably ignored until it got too bad: there are bruises sprinkled on her arms and legs, a splotch of dried blood under her nose from how often it’s been bleeding. You gave her a platelet transfusion but you suspect it’s cancer; you order more blood tests and bring her a blanket before she even asks for it. Her eyes well up, voice shaking with heartfelt gratitude. And Jack has to remind himself that he can’t pick any favorites, he isn’t in it for the long run; but if he was to pick, it would’ve been an easy choice. And no one lags behind today — he’s got a well-coordinated team, like gears interlocking in a clock, the harmony built out of weeks of practice. They make jokes, share work stories and snacks; but every time Jack’s eyes get back to you, he can’t catch even a ghost of a smile.

He finds that you are very hard to read. And it unnerves him, maybe just a little.

He tries for his attempts to look brief and nonchalant — a kind word here and there, a quick approving look, a dry joke — and you offer nothing in return. As thorough as you are with diagnosing, you take no part in other conversations, you rarely take breaks or stand around. By the time the noon rolls in, Jack is fighting the urge to grab you by the shoulders: hey, take a seat and have something to eat. And tell me how can I cadge a laugh out of you, just one will be enough.

Dana waves a hand before his face, the phone up to her ear. “There’s been some gang fight at the North Side. Four victims coming in, two critical — one shot in the stomach, the other has his head smashed in. Don’t think they both will make it.”

Jack’s bet is on the first guy but it’s the head injury that’s fatal — the victim is pronounced dead, face so disfigured they’ll need a DNA test. Mel looks away in shock, and Santos frowns. Your stare is blank and unimpressed. You volunteer to take the third guy with a pelvic wound — he’s rambling incoherently, the tight bandage over his hip already soaked; you press your hand to it on the way to trauma. Jack leaves the worst case to himself.

“Who’s down for an ex-lap?”

“Can I run the bowel? I’ve never done it,” Santos asks, hopeful.

“Sure. Once we open the abdomen and remove the bullet, you can have your fun,” he offers, and she runs along with joy.

Although Jack can’t imagine a procedure less joyful. Yet, he is fueled by his new-found appreciation for his job so he walks her through the steps: identify the entry wound and cut in, look for the bleeding and what the bullet might’ve hit. It missed the liver by an inch; but to confirm the damage they need to evaluate the area by hand.

Perlah peeks into the room. “Is he stable?”

“Well, unless Dr. Santos gets too excited and makes a bow out of his intestines,” her hands stop, and Jack breathes out a chuckle. “I’m just joking, keep going. I’d say, his vitals do look promising.”

“Then you can keep him down here for a bit. We have a guy with a balloon in his aorta, he’s gotta go up first.”

Jack blinks at her once, twice, the meaning of her words settling in. “Did someone do a REBOA?”

“You bet she did. And it was awesome,” the nurse then scrunches her nose. “Apart from the amount of blood. And by the way, the fourth one only has a broken rib, so no miraculous procedures needed.”

He doesn’t find it funny and he can’t find the word for it: it’s something in between confusion and offence. As soon as Santos’s done with stitches, he strides out to find you.

His turmoil momentarily recedes when he sees one of the cubicle curtains stained, the deep red lurking through. Jack pulls at the material and barges in — and then he’s silenced at the sight. The area looks horrifying: bright streaks of blood left on the floor, the anesthesia trolley, the table with the instruments that you are now collecting, a few droplets smudged over your cheek. Before he’s even angry, there is another feeling — a thought, a pull: if only he could brush that splatter off your face, a few brief seconds for one briefest touch. Of course, he doesn’t.

Jack keeps his hands behind his back. “You didn’t think you should consult with anyone first before doing a damn REBOA?”

“Why would I?” your eyes are on the tools.

“Because it’s dangerous as hell and since I am the attending—”

“I do know protocol. But I also know how fast a human can bleed out. It was a truncal hemorrhage, and you were hands deep in someone’s abdomen. Was I supposed to wait?”

He wishes you were meaner, rougher, anything that would give him an excuse to snap. But you aren’t doing this to show off — your tone is measured and your reasoning is simple: a man was dying and you knew how to save him. Jack realizes it is the same logic he often uses. And he can’t tell what is it that bothers him so much. If Whitaker pulled off something like that, Jack would’ve chosen to commend him. The same goes for Santos, Javadi or King, for any other intern or resident that he can think of... Except, they would’ve asked for his opinion or his help. You didn’t even think to.

Well, Robby warned him you’d be stubborn.

“I want to be informed about any life-altering decisions. At least give me a heads-up so I am not blindsided when a nurse gushes over it in passing,” Jack insists, head tilted slightly so he can catch your gaze.

What he really wants is for you to look at him. You grant him that one wish.

“Will do,” you tell him simply.

But your eyes are still unreadable, a book written in a foreign language, a manuscript he doesn’t know how to decrypt.

And either out of incomprehension or rejection, his brain makes an assumption: maybe you believe that you are better, maybe you think the rules weren’t made for you. You never really gave him cause for rivalry — you are in your final year of residency, and Jack is put in charge. But you are so bluntly independent and reserved, his every try to understand you feels like leaping in the dark. Later that day he can’t help but glimpse into your file — there’s hardly anything of interest: you previously trained in a small clinic, in a nice neighborhood, your letters of recommendation all consist of praises.

What adds to his moroseness is that you fit really well with literally everybody else. Langdon tones down his sarcasm, listens to you like he only does to Robby. Santos discreetly brings you cases she needs advice on, McKay and Mel enjoy your company when you get a free minute. Whitaker seems to be your favorite although Jack isn’t sure why — he deems him soft and insecure; but Dennis does a better job under your guidance. On rare occasions when he’s got a day off, Javadi always takes his place.

Jack figures out everyone’s relationships by his fourth morning shift; he hasn’t gotten any closer to figuring you out. He’s fighting the grimace at how bitter his coffee is when Javadi pops out in the hall and you follow suit. He catches scraps of your conversation: something about a teen with a gashed forehead. Javadi rambles — until you ask her nonchalantly, unprompted. “You don’t like the sight of blood?”

“What? Oh no, it’s fine! I’m totally fine,” Victoria stumbles over the words, but her denial is too meek.

From how nervous she is, Jack guesses that she’s lying. He almost wants to laugh — before a thought comes to his mind: how come he never noticed her fear of blood?

“It’s just a little disturbing sometimes... But I only passed out, like, once or twice.”

“I used to be like that. Fainted many times during blood tests,” you tell her quietly while entering some data.

Jack is so caught in disbelief, he can’t help a glance in your direction. But your sincerity doesn’t seem feigned. Javadi gapes at you.

“And how did you... what did you do to overcome it?”

“I found myself in a situation where someone needed help and there was no one else around to help him,” you shrug. And Jack discerns the subtle reticence behind your tone.

It only spurs Javadi’s interest. “Was there a lot of blood? Like, a heavy bleeding, a deep wound?”

Your fingers freeze over the tablet screen, your facial profile not betraying your true feelings. But Jack swears he can see the tension crawling down your body. You don’t give the answer right away, you weigh the words carefully before you say them.

“A drug overdose, he still had a needle in his arm and I must’ve missed it. Took barely a minute of chest compressions for the needle to fly out across the room. It was a lot of blood to me.”

Javadi’s hopefulness grows dim. “Yeah, I don’t like needles too. I tried drawing blood a few times but the process kinda makes me nauseous, and I can’t force myself to —”

“It’s different when it’s someone you care about.”

Your comment slips out involuntarily — and immediately you look like you want to take it back. But you get it together and meet her eyes, your voice carrying just the right amount of firmness.

“Listen, I’m not suggesting you should torture your family members. But you may not always have attendings by your side or someone else to take your place in case you feel like fainting. If you fall, you can hurt your head, you can hurt a patient, you can disrupt a surgery when every minute counts. I think you have a good head on your shoulders, and I don’t want to downplay your efforts. But please, figure it out. Otherwise, you won’t make for a good surgeon.”

You reassure her you won’t tell anyone her secret. Javadi manages a small smile, a hushed “thank you”. It is a sweet moment, a heart-to-heart chat you bond over; it’s also three times more words than you’ve spoken to Jack in weeks.

But he accepts your silence — as a challenge.

Jack keeps an eye on you, now critical, resisting the gravitation that’s been attracting him to you. Although it’s hard to find the reasons to be hard on you. Whenever he has questions — or more so when he can come up with some, you give detailed replies, and he’s left with nothing to complain about. Your patient satisfaction score is high, you are never facile or reckless with your judgment; with how smart you are, you can give odds to many doctors, him included. And Jack knows he is older, with years of experience under his belt — but he can’t in good faith wish for anyone to go through the same things he did to gain the same knowledge.

On his second week of day shifts he is still clueless about what to make of you. And Jack tells himself that he is simply looking for a connection — except, all his attempts look like he is trying to pick a fight.

“This is a teaching hospital. You are supposed to teach them things,” he grumbles as he meets you outside the trauma room. You got a guy who came in spitting blood — post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage, and things went south pretty quickly. He started choking, crashed, his airways flooded with liquid; you had to intubate him blindly. Whitaker spent an hour by your side, his questions endless — to which you did give answers, barely ever breaking focus, but you only allowed him to use suction.

“He’ll learn plenty if he is attentive enough,” you say, throwing away the gown, trying to put some distance in between you.

Jack doesn’t like it, he keeps pace with you. “Whitaker needs more practice, as much as he can get. He’s not supposed to stand there like some deer who wandered into the yard.”

You whirl around, so fast that Jack comes to a stop when you are separated by merely an inch. And your gaze burns, like lava seeping through the mountain’s restrain.

“And I needed the patient not to die on the table,” you bite back, then breathe in — and then add more coolly. “Dennis will get his chance to shine.”

“And when exactly is that gonna happen?”

“That’s for me to decide,” you state, like you would do a fact that can’t be questioned. “Thank you for your input, Dr. Abbot, but I have to get back to work.”

You turn your back to him and leave him standing there, and Jack almost feels helpless. And that’s the feeling he can’t stand. It simmers in him, it must be the reason his cheeks suddenly feel hot.

Dana tsks as she comes near, her brows furrowed and face visibly concerned.

“You know how I’ve been calling Robby a sad boy? I’m gonna start calling you a pissy boy.”

“Not the worst thing I’ve been called,” he dismisses, a humorless escape attempt. But her fingers grab at his elbow, and he pauses with an annoyed exhale.

“I’ve been watching you hammering away at her for days,” Dana makes sure to lower her voice. “If she was a student, I’d maybe let it slide, but she is a resident, a senior one. And nothing I am seeing suggests she isn’t doing well.”

His eyes dart to her hand; then he glares stubbornly at her. She looks unfazed.

“Jack, you will take it too far one day — and you will regret it,” Dana tries to reason. “She is a good kid and she’s really good at her job. Just let her be.”

“Thank you for your input, Evans. I’d prefer to get back to work,” he frees his arm, and she allows it. But Jack can feel her worried gaze as he walks away.

He doesn’t come home until the twilight hugs the sky, until he feels like he’ll pass out on the next step. Jack wastes hours on attempts to wear himself out: he walks the entire park three times, peeping about in case the puppy comes again. It doesn’t. He stops by the bar he hasn’t been to in a few weeks, orders a beer and sips on it, his musings soon drowned out by the blasting music. The alcohol tastes weird, and the bass guitar gives him a pounding headache. He takes a walk instead of taking a bus home, two miles on foot in hopes he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

But the thought of you cuts into his mind as easily as a nail does into a human body, and it stays there, vexing and robbing him of whatever little peace he’s had.

He barely gets any sleep.

And his nights are dreamless.

It’s just another Friday, and these bring in a lot of drunks — from parties and family gatherings, from business meetings that ran late and tense until someone reached for whiskey. Jack stays behind for paperwork, a tedious pastime that keeps him pinned to an uncomfortable chair. He briefly takes eyes off the screen, stretching his neck — and then a noise catches his attention. It’s someone talking in a raised voice, someone who sounds too wasted to be reasoned with. Which sounds like a problem.

Jack finds the source with ease — the nurses all glance in the direction of the trauma room, and in support of their agitation Mateo all but flies out, his face hardened at the edges. Jack gets up and gets closer, his ears open and eyes watchful.

“Should we call security?” Dana asks warily.

Mateo brushes the suggestion off. “No, it’s fine,” — but it sounds like it’s not. “I just need a short break.”

“What’s wrong?” Jack interrupts.

And it isn’t a question but a demand for explanation Mateo can’t reject. He lets out a tired sigh.

“The guy got drunk and couldn’t hold his liquor, some passersby saw him sprawled out in an alley and called the ambulance. Came in with a nasty arm fracture. He’ll live though,” Mateo looks back at the room with obvious disdain. “Unfortunately.”

Jack promptly moves forward. “I will deal with it.”

“Hold on, Rambo,” Dana interjects. And she keeps her eyes on him while she talks to Mateo. “Did he get physical?”

“Nah, he’s too inebriated. Keeps trying to get up from the gurney but mostly he’s all talk.”

More can be heard from where they are standing — it’s some drunken yelling, a disarticulated chain of curse words. And then they hear something break, a dull sound of an object hitting a wall.

In a few seconds comes another one.

“I can’t just let him trash all of our equipment,” Jack gives Dana a pointed look.

She clucks her tongue at his persistence. “It’s not the equipment that I fear for.”

“Rest assured, Evans, I won’t give him another arm fracture.”

“I didn’t think you would, but now that you suggested it so easily—”

“Finally someone decided to take action instead of all this talking,” Perlah remarks, her gaze isn’t on either one of them. And Jack turns to follow it just in time to catch you running right into the room.

His heart falls. Why the hell are you even still here?

And it’s barely three heartbeats before a realization strikes: you can’t go there alone. He can’t let you.

Jack bolts to you without waiting for anyone’s permission. He comes in just in time to see you dodge the trolley the patient pushed at you — it slams into the wall and rolls over, the instruments scattering loudly across the floor. You don’t seem scared, but you are all tensed up, gaze fixed on the guy who’s screaming his lungs out.

“You won’t trick me! I won’t let you experiment on me!”

And you don’t look away once but you must’ve noticed Jack; your voice comes out low. “I think he’s having an episode. He needs benzodiazepines but I can’t get close to administer them.”

“And you should not,” Jack retorts, eyeing the guy with discontent. “You absolutely shouldn’t deal with him on your own. Not when he’s flapping around and yelling like a fucking psycho.”

“Silently watching him wreck the room didn’t seem like a good tactic either.”

In an instant Jack’s gaze is drawn to you, pulse racing as he is struggling to bite down his emotions: why would you put yourself in danger, why can’t you ever back down, why can’t he stay away? And unexpectedly you look at him, and your gaze isn’t a puzzle or a dare but an explanation: you can’t be mad at me for the thing you would’ve done yourself. I know you would have.

The room goes quiet but only for a moment — before another cry comes, and the patient lunges straight at you. Jack’s eye catches the movement, and at the very last second, he moves to stand in the guy’s way.

The drunkard crashes into him, hands swatting at the air, too uncoordinated to land a proper punch. And then all of a sudden he headbutts Jack. The pain is sharp, shooting toward his nose, but Jack manages to stay upright. He can’t see you stopping cold or the security approaching in a hurry and in worry.

Because Jack is only seeing red.

He breathes in through the mouth and grabs the man with both hands, rough and unflinching. Jack pushes him back to the gurney, then throws him on it, face flat against the pillow; his angry cries tone down to weak whimpers.

“Shut the fuck up. Stop moving,” Jack hisses into his ear.

He can taste the blood that oozed down to his lips and he can hear the sound of footsteps in the room. But he doesn’t let go.

Jack feels a hand on his shoulder — he turns to see one of the guards, Ahmad. “Man, let us handle this. C’mon, step away.”

Begrudgingly, Jack does. Ahmad quickly takes his place, he and two other guards strapping the patient down; Mateo wriggles in the middle to sedate the guy. He dozes off, a dark purple bruise already blooming on his forehead, drool at the corner of his mouth.

You are still standing at the exact same spot, but then your eyes land on Jack’s blooded nose, and you immediately fall out of the stupor. You rummage through the nearest drawer and get a few clean cloths, then call for Dana to bring an ice pack. The guards leave but Mateo hangs back; he pulls up a chair for Jack to sit on.

“Are you okay? Any headache or dizziness or—”

“I’m fine, no need to coddle me,” Jack waves off his concerns crankily. Mateo looks at you for some support.

“He needs a head CT,” you say, gaze glued to Jack. “Ask the radiology if they can squeeze him in.”

Mateo nods and takes off with no other questions asked. The silence is now laced with tension, and while Jack’s pain gradually subsides, his anger doesn’t. He’s not the one for chit-chats, and it’s not a 'thank you' that he wants — but an admission: he was right, and you were careless, and maybe this is the one time you can agree with him.

You lean over wordlessly and wipe the dried-up blood, pushing his head back to examine his nose. Your touch is light, fleeting, but his skin heats up under your hands. You take a penlight to check for septal hematoma; then your thumbs move from his cheekbones to his nostrils. Jack doesn’t wince or look away, eyes dark and boring into you, unblinking. You put a finger to his nose and move it slowly from side to side, watching closely as his gaze follows it.

And then you pull away, and something cracks in him, a line formed on the ocean floor after it’s shaken by an earthquake, a force that pushes waves to crash onto the shore. And all his feelings surge up, unstoppable like a tsunami.

You look for more cloths, and only with your back to him, you finally decide to speak:

“Doesn’t look like a fracture but—”

“Are you out of your mind?!” Jack bursts out, the stridency of his voice barely contained.

Your hands flinch at the sound. Jack misses it or maybe chooses to ignore it, too adamant in his displeasure, too wrapped up in it.

“Do you realize how dangerous it was for you to go here alone? What could’ve happened to you if security came late? Or do you just assume it’s not a big deal if you get hurt? Can you for at least a second consider the consequences of your relentlessness, can you imagine how dire they might be? And what it’s like for someone else to throw themselves between danger and you?”

But then you turn to him, and his tirade breaks off, the anger ebbing instantly as he sees your face expression.

It would be easy to assume he must’ve hit a nerve. Except, it looks way worse than that.

Your gaze is swept with pain, eyes wide and bright with tears you are holding back. An inhale quivers at your lips, chest heaving like you are scarcely managing to curb your feelings. Like there’s been a wall you’ve built meticulously over the years, and he didn’t just put a crack in it — no, he tore it down completely, drove through it with a bulldozer, only a mess of rubble left behind. And he knows that’s not something an apology will fix.

Jack feels the guilt already swirling in his chest as he sits straighter, eyes not leaving yours.

“Listen, I didn’t—”

“I heard you loud and clear, Dr. Abbot,” your voice is lacerating, a blade you’ve armed yourself with, steel that cuts him deep. “If my company displeases you so much, I will make sure to limit our interactions. Apologies for any inconvenience.”

You turn away, and when he sees you wipe your cheeks with one quick motion, Jack knows he is the only one to blame. But you don’t let him see your tears nor do you wait for him to talk again. You rush out of the doors, and the words he catches aren’t meant for him:

“Dana, please help Dr. Abbot with the ice pack.”

He hears her coming in and he’s almost ashamed to look — Dana meets his gaze with arms crossed over her chest, shaking her head in disapproval. She doesn’t say a thing and puts ice on his nose with a face that looks like she would rather punch him. Jack doesn’t even try to come up with excuses — he knows that he has none.

He fails to find you after the shift ends: you must’ve sneaked out to avoid him, and he can’t say that he’s surprised. Jack walks home in the rain, not bothering to open the umbrella, the street lights drowning in the puddles underfoot, the wind biting his wet face. He can barely feel it. And in the privacy of his apartment — a cold, half-empty space, walls void of any color — a thought that has been lurking in his mind finally takes shape:

Jack loathes being alone.

And he messed up so badly.

🎵 the title is a quote from Tom Odell’s “Can’t pretend” (the song is just so Jack-coded to me! highly recommend you give it a listen. the small part from 1:29 to 1:49 gives me heart palpitations and is very fitting for this chapter lol).

by “rivals” I meant it’s all in Jack’s head, he’s silly like that 😩 you’ll learn about the reader’s past in the next chapter!

I didn’t specify how big the age gap is exactly. google search told me you get into residency when you are in your 30s, and Abbot is def over 40. but some like to imagine the reader younger, so I didn’t want to ruin that for you.

there are definitely some medical inaccuracies (pretty sure ex-lap isn’t performed in the ER) but I am begging you to ignore that.

dividers by me & plum98.

» I plan on writing 3 parts in total (a prayer circle for my inspiration to stay with me, PLEASE). of course, there will be smut... they just have to learn how to talk to each other first. » read on AO3 » English is not my first language, so feel free to message me if you spot any major mistakes. reblogs and comments are very appreciated! tell me if you want to be tagged ♡

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It's been so long since I've posted on here so, much has changed. Yet I'm still lost. 

I still have no idea what I'm going to do. I have the big things worked out, but I've always struggled filling in the details.

I know I could have it worse after all people are dying but,

it doesn't make life any easier to live, knowing others have it worse.