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When you meet for the first time, you don’t think much of it.
You see him first, across the training grounds, shoulders squared and shirt off as he spars with another trainee. It’s hard to tear your gaze away from him as he fights, his movements confident and loud in a way that you can appreciate, for a variety of reasons; even from where you and Lup are sitting, you can see the sweat glistening on his bare skin under the mid-day suns, evidence of his hard work. You watch as he wraps his arm around the other person’s midsection, throwing him over his shoulder and to the ground with what seems like minimal effort, his muscles tensing just enough that you can pick out their outlines across his back and arms.
“Someone’s caught your eye,” Lup says, nudging you hard enough that you turn to look at her, catching the smirk on her face. She’s right, but you won’t tell her that; she knows, even if you won’t say it.
“Dunno what you’re talking about. Just sizing up the competition.”
“’Sizing up’, eh?” You shoot her a look, ear twitching before you can stop it. She grins widely and with all teeth, until her gaze flicks over your shoulder and the sound of approaching footsteps registers.
“Hail and well met!” It’s the fighter, still shirtless and grinning as he jogs over to you two. You do your best not to stare, focusing on his face as he stops in front of you, hand extended in greeting. “Name’s Magnus! I’ve seen you two around before, but I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“I’m Lup, and my brother is Taako,” she says, shit-eating grin still on her face as she shakes Magnus’ hand. He turns slightly toward you, hand still out, and you reach for it before you can do something else that’s stupid. His grip is careful, surprisingly soft for someone who just threw another person like it’s part of his daily routine.
Maybe it is. Maybe you’d like to find out. Maybe that’s not the only way he can throw someone.
Oh.
When the mission changes, you’re all unprepared.
You all watch as your home is devoured by this thing, looming and unknown, and you’re all forced to escape. You’ve all been training, prepared to take on just about anything; but you know, as you reach for your sister’s hand and she reaches back, and you aren’t sure if you’re the one trembling or if she is, that none of you were prepared for this.
So when Magnus turns to you without a word, jaw set and eyes determined, you can’t help but be impressed, and maybe a little bit of something else too.
Several cycles pass before the two of you really spend time together.
It’s been a quiet year, with the Light falling so close that it may as well have been on the deck of the Starblaster itself. The nearby city is a welcoming one, with a bustling market that rotates its stall every day of the week; always something new to see, always something new to do.
One night you go out, taking some time away from your research with the Light, and you have a couple of drinks – not enough to be properly drunk, of course, but just enough to feel that warmth settle in your chest and spread throughout the rest of your body. And it lets you think, just a bit more than usual, about how much you’ve grown to appreciate your companions. You hadn’t expected to be with them for this long, when you and Lup signed up for the mission, but you’ve come to trust them – at the very least, enough to have your back, when it comes down to it. Davenport is an excellent captain, and despite Merle’s strange obsession with plants, he’s a caring guy; Barry may still be a nerd, but he’s incredibly smart and easy to talk to; Lucretia is quiet, but she’s good company, when you’re not looking to do a lot of talking yourself. And Magnus –
Well.
You make your way back to the Starblaster later than evening, just the barest hint of that warm glow lingering, and you see Magnus out on the deck, leaning against the railing with a relaxed posture. You can’t help the way that your stomach does a flip when he perks up at the sight of you, waving you up to join him; and you do so, because how can you not?
The two of you talk for a while, about many things – what things were like before you both signed up for the IPRE, how horrible the food was two cycles ago, how Barry and Lup need to just get on with it already – eventually making your way back to the common space. When he sits down at one edge of the long couch, you drape yourself across his lap, keeping a relaxed demeanor even as your heart pounds in your chest. You see him blush, just a bit, though he barely stammers as you continue to speak in hushed tones, falling more and more into each other’s space – a casual hand running through your hair, careful not to catch any knots as he brushes out your braid; lazy runes scrawled across his arm, his chest, varying in meaning and intention. And at some point, there’s no way else to be except together.
You’ll deny later that you’re the one to lean in first, even as you use a fistful of hair to pull him down to you as much as pull yourself up to meet his lips with yours, your other hand gripping his arm. You push yourself more upright, throwing both arms around his shoulders as you kiss, his hands finding your waist, your hair, anything he can hold onto. And when you both pull back, both of you are grinning, lips red and maybe just a little swollen.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he breathes with a laugh, one finger tracing the edge of your ear with a touch lighter than should be possible for someone as boisterous as he can be. You let out a gasp, batting his hand away as a shiver rolls down your back from the touch.
“Expecting or not, I hope this wasn’t a one-time thing, big guy.” He blushes again, this time very clearly.
“Not unless you want it to be.” You’re grinning before you can stop yourself, a laugh bubbling up and out of you as you pull him back in.
“Not a chance, my dude.”
Nearly ten cycles later, Lup dies for the first time without you, and you feel hollow.
You’ve never been without your sister for so long, and it’s an indescribable ache. It feels like everything should have stopped the moment she stopped breathing, except it didn’t, and you don’t know what to do. You’re sure the others are mourning as well, but you don’t know how to see it past your own pain.
Your shared room is lonely at night, the other half of the bed too empty and haunting for you to sleep there – so instead you roam the halls, tired but unable to rest. Magnus has tried to comfort you, has been there from the moment you and Barry came back with your sister’s body, dry-eyed and distant. So for some reason you’re not surprised when you find yourself outside his room one night, exhausted and cold and on the verge of tears. And he’s there, answering the door almost as soon as you knock, pulling you into his arms as your tears fall and your body shakes.
He guides you to his bed, sitting you down and carefully running a hand through your hair, untamed without Lup to help you manage it. You lean against him heavily, unable to say anything; but he understands anyways, pulling you down against his chest as he falls back on his bed, dragging the cover over both of you.
He holds you close and you curl up against him, warm and solid and comforting in a way that eases the ache you feel, just a bit; and as you feel yourself drifting, you murmur your thanks into his chest, and a few more words that are new to your tongue.
You’re not sure, but you think you hear four words in response.
With him, you feel in ways that are hard to explain.
Before the mission started, you never thought you’d come to truly care about anyone that wasn’t your sister, much less come to love anyone. And at some point you realize it’s true, that you love everyone aboard the Starblaster, in one way or another. They’re all important to you, more than the faces that change every cycle, more than just dust passing on a breeze.
But Magnus goes beyond even that – being with him is like coming home, in a way that’s hard to come by when you’ve always been on the move. He’s warm and soft and sturdy, strong but so incredibly gentle, all teasing looks and touches throughout the day and into the night. His feelings are often communicated with action, as much about Magnus is: an arm around your waist as you cook, a quick kiss on the cheek when (he thinks) no one is looking, breath tickling the back of your neck as he buries his face there. But just as often you feel the way that he cares in the quiet moments you share, lying pressed against each other after a long day, or curled up on one of the chairs in the common space for a while, not talking but still lending each other support.
You’re worried that you don’t do enough of the same for him. You care about him too, deeply; you know that without any hesitation. But you don’t know if he knows that, from the way you act – you’ve never been good with words, at least not truthful ones, and you lived a long enough life on the road keeping people that aren’t your sister at arm’s length. You don’t know if he understands that your lack of words doesn’t mean that you don’t feel the same way.
But when he says “I love you” one evening, as the two of you lie out under the stars of a particularly peaceful plane, you say “I love you too” without even pausing to think about it. And you know it’s true, that you mean it with all of your heart and soul.
Then, you’re sure that he knows.
When Lup disappears, you feel like everything has been upended.
Things change as everyone deals with it in their own way, when she isn’t back soon like her note promised – Lucretia locks herself in her room more often than not, rarely speaking even when she does leave; Davenport dips into the wine you’ve all collected over the years more often than he used to, and Merle prays more frequently and with a more pleading tone than you’ve ever heard; you and Barry work tirelessly to try and find her, leaving the ship to collect information and marking places to look into on the many maps you’ve managed to acquire, slowly losing sleep and sanity and hope as time goes on.
Through it all, Magnus is the one thing that hasn’t changed, at least not as much as everything else has. He mourns too, in his own way; he and Lup had grown close over the years, always ready to do something, for whatever reason, and it’s much quieter without her around to rile him up with a crazy scheme of some sort. But he’s there for you, always steady, always knowing what you need –sometimes, it’s something to do, to distract yourself, and that comes in many forms; other times, it’s the ability to cry, wrapped in his arms as he runs his hands through your hair, slowly and carefully. And you are always, always grateful, taking the time to be sure that he knows how much it means to you, when you can.
So when you find yourself drifting one day, as you and Barry discuss your latest leads, you try to shake it off, put it out of your head, so you can look for – so you can find – Barry is talking, and he’s asking –
“Taako, what if she’s just gone?”
“Who?”
You can feel the memories falling away from you, blurring out in your mind, and you can’t – you can’t see, can’t place – it’s all like static, in a place that static has no right to be, and this person, someone in front of you, you know his name, it’s – Barry – he’s talking to you, begging you to kill him, but you don’t want to, something is wrong –
And before you can stop yourself, you’re lifting a hand, incantation for a powerful spell leaving your lips before you know what you’re doing, and he’s thrown back, this man you’re sure you’ve seen – what’s his name? have you seen him? – you’re not sure you have – this stranger, toppling over the railing and down, out of sight, and you’re not sure but you think you just killed someone? And it’s too much, so you try to think, try to reach for that solid anchor in your life, for – for someone, someone you love, who you trust – someone – who –
Instead, you find nothing, and you fall to your knees and into what feels like oblivion.
When you meet for the first time, you both pause.
You’re sure you’ve never seen this man before in your life – you’d remember, with those broad shoulders and caring eyes, muscle for days but a soft build – but you swear something about him seems familiar, like coming home after a long day. For a brief moment you struggle to place the feeling, like grasping at a thread that you know is there but you can’t see, no matter how hard you try; and then it’s gone, faded like wisps of fog that burn away in the daylight.
“Magnus Burnsides,” he states with a rough voice, extending a hand to you – it’s so much larger than your own, you realize, when you reach out to return the gesture.
“Taako. Y’know, from TV?”
You’re not sure why, but you find it easy to relax around him.
It becomes clear the first time you drape yourself across Magnus’ lap, your body acting with a casual ease that implies this is routine; except it’s not, which does nothing to explain the way that Magnus shifts slightly to accommodate you, careful to angle his tools away from you as he continues to carve something from a small block of wood. It’s easy enough to say that you have at least some reason to trust him, after having each other’s backs in fights; but it’s the sense of calm and safety that gathers you in its folds that’s a bit harder to explain away.
“You’re a good pillow, big guy,” you say when he asks one day, and that’s not a total lie.
You just neglect to mention how content you feel as well.
In some ways, it feels inevitable that you end up together.
It’s small things, at first – the way that Magnus will often place an arm around your waist, almost absentmindedly, as you stand together; or how he’ll play with your hair, carefully so as not to snag anything, when you sit together on the couch in the common space; or how you seem to fit just right against his side, not needing to say a word to each other, just there. At some point, you realize that you always wait for him before heading to get breakfast from the Bureau’s cafeteria, even if you’re awake for hours before he even begins to stir; and the one time he gets sick enough to not leave his room, you know exactly what he usually gets, and you bring it to him before anyone even thinks to suggest it.
Eventually, it becomes more common to see you together than apart, and it feels right.
You’ve always had a hard time sleeping.
For a long time, you’ve had this recurring nightmare, more nights than not; before, it would cause you to lash out, to scream, and you’d wake up with tears that you couldn’t remember the reason for. Eventually you’re left with only the tears most nights, and the haunting half-image of a place, a voice, a face just beyond recall.
They get worse again, when you’re brought into the Bureau of Balance, at some point after your first few missions; you think that what happened in Goldcliff is part of it, with the Gaia Sash and Hurley and Sloane. At first it’s just the tossing and turning, which is only a problem when you fall out of your bed once or twice; but when you cry out for the first time, the terrible sound wrenching itself from your throat against your will, there’s a knock on your door not long after.
“Taako?”
Magnus’ voice is soft, the door creaking open slowly as he peers in. You’re sitting upright at this point, gasping as you try to calm your racing heart, furiously wiping away the tears, those damn tears. He steps into the room when you don’t answer, your eyes able to pick out the concern in his expression even as he squints at you in the low light spilling in from beyond the doorway.
“Don’t you know it’s common courtesy to knock first, Mags?” There’s no real bite to the words, and your voice trembles more than you want it to. You hope that he doesn’t notice, even though you know he will.
“Did something… are you alright?”
“Just peachy, my dude.” It’s less convincing, you think, if you let out a shuddering breath that you can’t hold back right after trying to make the assertion.
“Do you want – can I stay with you? My room’s too cold, figured yours might be warmer.” It’s a flimsy lie, and you’re sure he knows it – Magnus is like a furnace, and you know that well from personal experience. But you scoot over, grateful for the way that he offers without making you ask for the comfort yourself, and he settles onto the bed next to you, arms open.
You make a big deal out of shuffling into a comfortable position, forehead pressed to his chest as he wraps his arms arounds you, warm and comforting without being restricting. You close your eyes and feel the rise and fall of his chest, matching your breaths with his as he runs his fingers through your hair, slowly, carefully, until you both fall asleep.
It’s all so familiar, and you can’t figure out why.
When you remember, it all comes back in a rush.
A hundred years, gone and then suddenly not – the IPRE, the worlds you’d been to, your friends who became your family, Lup, and –
“Mags?” Your voice is small, smaller than you want it to be, but he hears you all the same. And this time, when you look at him, it all makes sense – you remember all the years you spent together, slowly falling into each other’s space, two unexpected pieces of a puzzle slotting into place. And it’s not the time, you know, but you don’t care, and you rush to him, into his waiting arms, and part of the world rights itself again amidst the chaos.
“Knew there was a reason you put up with me,” he says, the words halfway between a laugh and a sigh, and you kiss him before he can say anything else, trying out his way of expression for once in a long while.
“I missed you, Magnus.” The words seem trivial, almost unnecessary, having been with each other for the past year. But you know he’ll understand; he always has, and still does.
Some things never change, and the two of you are one such constant.