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Gideon Trevelyan was a force to be reckoned with, in whatever field she chose to compete. The Iron Bull saw this the first time he spoke with her. She took his confession with surprising grace, a wicked grin spreading across her face as she considered all the ways he could be useful to her, both as a bodyguard and a spy. And thus he was hired by the Inquisition.
On the training field in Haven, he watched her spin, twirling her staff one-handed, using the steel-capped rod of wood both to channel magic and as a weapon. The top of the staff was home to a metal figurine of a dragon, wings pointing up, and as he watched, she struck like a snake, driving the two prongs formed by the wings into the torso of the training dummy, driving through a layer of ice that had accumulated from her magical attacks. By the time she was finished, the dummy was completely destroyed and her hair was plastered down with sweat. Despite this, she gave him a brilliant smile and the Chargers’ horns-up salute when she passed.
That night, the templars came, and with them came Corypheus. For once, he saw Gideon afraid for her life, for the lives of the people that followed her. It was over in a flash: she was gone, and he was to follow this Chancellor’s directions, and Cullen’s orders. He saw the fear and worry in the eyes of the advisors, in the eyes of the inner circle. All eyes were on her; they needed her. He needed her.
It was a realization that hit him like a punch to the gut - that is to say, surprising, but not too bad, really. He pulled himself together. If they were going to get through this, he needed to follow her orders.
They waited for what felt like so, so long. After the sun went down, Cullen led a search party composed of the Iron Bull, Cassandra, and Blackwall to look for her. When they found her, she was collapsed, barely under the relative shelter of a pine tree, huddled in a ball and completely unconscious. He accepted the cloak that Cullen pressed into his hands and carefully bundled her up into his arms, carrying her back to the makeshift camp and laying her on a cot before the healers shooed him off.
So he waited, and eventually the healers decided they’d done all they could do, and he sat on the ground beside her cot, using his “job” as her bodyguard as an excuse to stay close to her, though generally his intimidating presence led to others avoiding him. Not for the first time, he considered how small she was. Barely five feet, four inches, she appeared extremely fragile, like all but the gentlest touch would break her. She had survived an avalanche and walked through a blizzard to return to them, and he thought of what he would do to return to her.
Soon, she’d woken up, recovering enough to tell the advisors what had happened. He moved out of earshot to give her some privacy, but not so far that he couldn’t see her. It didn’t feel real that she was okay, and he didn’t want to tempt fate again by leaving her side.
By the time they found Skyhold, she was fine, if tired-looking, and when her quarters were finally arranged and they were no longer sleeping on cots in the main hall, she pulled him aside, and, looking as vulnerable as he had ever seen her, admitted to being scared of sleeping by herself. With a trembling voice, she asked if he would mind staying with her, and looking into her eyes, he couldn’t say no, not that he wanted to. So that night, he carried a cot sturdy enough to hold him up the stairs and into her quarters, setting it up at the foot of her bed. She was there, sitting at a desk and writing something, probably a letter.
When the sun set, he settled down into the cot and she crawled into her bed, falling asleep quickly after the long days of travel and then making the castle habitable.
This was fine, for a while. There was no need to hide anything; while there were, naturally, rumors about their relationship, no one was willing to tell the Inquisitor or her hulking bodyguard that she didn’t need the additional protection, because she did.
The first time she needed him in the night was not to protect her from a would-be assassin, though. He knew she had been having a nightmare, having listened to the sounds she made in her sleep, but he didn’t expect her to wake up with a yell, wide-eyed and terrified. Tears ran down her face in small rivers, and he was already moving, climbing into the bed to wrap her in his arms, feeling her tiny form against his chest as she shuddered and cried. Later, they would talk about her nightmares, but at that moment, her sobs were growing quiet and he realized she’d cried herself to sleep in his arms.
Morning found them in the same position, and neither of them said anything about it, but after that, they came to an unspoken agreement that the Iron Bull would sleep in the bed with her. After all, it was big enough for both of them, and it was easier than him getting out of bed to comfort her and ending up in her bed anyway.
It didn’t take too long for him to realize, sitting in the tavern, watching Krem go starry-eyed over his bard woman, that he realized he was in love with her. The feeling had crept up on him, but he knew it was true, and feelings were dangerous in his line of work. So he ignored them, and went back to sleeping in the cot, and tried very hard not to look Gideon in the eyes, so that she wouldn’t ask why he had withdrawn.
Weeks went by. He would comfort her when she woke from nightmares, but morning always found them sleeping separately, something that hurt his heart, but he knew that the only way he could control himself was distance.
And then, when the Chargers were in danger, she ordered him to call the retreat, to betray the Qun, and he did it without question, relieved that she would make the choice for him. That night, after their wounds were tended to, they celebrated, and she told him it was okay to be Tal-Vashoth. And then she climbed into his lap, clumsy with alcohol, and kissed him ferociously, right there at the table, as the Chargers hooted and whistled.
Something inside of him broke and the flood of all of his emotions for her filled his body, and he kissed her like he was going to die if he didn’t. Before it could veer into much more inappropriate territory, she pulled back and rested her forehead against his, cupping his cheeks in her hands, and looked him in the eye for a moment, conveying a depth of emotions that he hadn’t known she felt.
So he took her back to her quarters, ignoring the increased volume of catcalls from the Chargers, and he fucked her like he loved her, because he did. In the warm afterglow, she admitted that she had loved him since the first time he comforted her after a nightmare, and because he no longer answered to the Qun, he kissed her again, and again, and again, and when the sun rose and a servant knocked on the door, he grumbled at them to go away, because he had a lot of lost time to make up for, no matter who thought they needed the Inquisitor.