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The first time that she sees him, Emma blinks in surprise, confounded for a moment at the man who has appeared from nowhere. But he seems to take her shock as something else, lips curling into a devilish grin and bright blue eyes sparkling at her from behind a black mask.
“I know, darling,” he coos. “A bloody shame that someone as handsome as I would have the power of invisibility.” Then he disappears again and the comically large diamond in her grasp disappears as well. “The gods certainly have a sense of humor.”
And then he laughs, something deep that warms her stomach even though it should turn her stomach, and their confrontation is done.
Belle frowns deeply when Emma returns to headquarters empty handed - literally.
“It looks like that was the last piece he needed to construct the doomsday device.” Belle sighs and Emma echoes it, falling heavily into one of the plush couches she insisted be brought in. Nothing better for victories or defeats than squishy furniture.
“So what do we do?” David smiles, haltingly, as infuriatingly optimistic as ever.
Mary Margaret puts a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Well, Queenly’s new sidekick may have a taste for invisibility, but we can always count on her to be as public as possible. We’ll have to keep our eyes and ears open so we can stop her before she turns on the device. I’ll send out the signal and we’ll monitor as best as we can.” Mary Margaret squeezes David’s arm and walks out of the room to give her instructions to the woodland creatures she can speak to as fluently as she speaks to the rest of them.
Super powers are sort of strange, aren’t they?
Emma recognizes his voice immediately, even in the heat of battle, Elsa and Queenly facing off in the middle of the bustling downtown, fire and ice flowing from their fingertips. It is as slippery and smooth as she remembered, and her neck whips to the side so she can stare at the space that he should be.
“Show yourself,” Emma growls.
“Tut, tut, Black Swan,” he tsks. She can imagine that smirk on his face again. “Why would I give up my advantage?”
Emma bats her eyelashes. “Maybe I just want to see that handsome face of yours again.”
There is a pause and then she can hear the pleasure in his tone, coming from right behind her. “I usually oblige a woman such as yourself-”
But before he can give her another excuse, Emma cups her palm, letting the electricity spark across her skin, and throws a bolt behind her as she pivots. The invisible man grunts at the same time he appears before her. As before, he is dressed all in black, with a long leather jacket whipping in the wind.
“Bloody hell.” The man looks down at his body and then at her. “How did you-?”
“Belle guessed right,” Emma mutters, almost to herself. “A jolt like that would render your powers neutralized for a time.”
“I assure you I am more than just a pretty face.” He flicks his coat and reveals a sword strapped to his side. “Or rather, a lack of one.” The man winks and pulls the weapon from the scabbard.
Emma quickly lunges for a fallen pipe beside her and holds it up with more confidence than she feels. “I’m more than just a pretty face too, Invisible Man.”
He taps the pipe and chuckles. “I prefer Captain, lass.”
“Captain Invisible?” Emma swings and he blocks her blow effortlessly. “That’s a stupid name.”
The man bristles and she has to scramble to cover herself when he attacks back, mercilessly. “Better than Dark Swan I imagine.”
Emma opens her mouth for a retaliation, but she lets out a gasp of surprise instead when her feet are knocked out from under her and she lands flat on her back. She clutches the pipe in her hands and the man in black uses his free hand to grip it suggestively as he slides his way down so they are face-to-face.
“Normally,” he grins, blue eyes sparkling again, “I prefer to do other, more enjoyable activities with a woman on her back,” a twist of his wrist and the pipe is freed from her grasp. “You might expect me to stab you, love, but I assure you that when I stab you with my sword, you will feel it.” He drawls the innuendo and licks his lips and even while half-fearing for her life, the tops of Emma’s thighs grow warm.
His hand, clutching the pipe, rises into the air, silhouetted against the fading sunlight, and Emma braces herself for the blow to the head that never comes.
Instead, David knocks the guy out cold, and his eyes roll to the back of his head as he falls over to the side.
“Come on, let’s go!” David shouts, offering her a hand to get up.
After the machine is disengaged and they return to the place where she last saw Captain Invisible, the guy is nowhere to be found.
Of fucking course.
Belle is the only one who really fights for him.
The rest of their group - Elsa, Mary Margaret, David, and most especially, Emma, all ardently oppose his joining. After more than a year as Queenly’s right hand man, how can they ever trust him?
It helps when Emma’s son Henry gets kidnapped by this little brat who can make people see things that aren’t really there - Captain Invisible finds and rescues Henry when no one else can and brings him back to headquarters.
“Thank you,” Emma breathes, tears falling and soaking the mask so it clings to her cheeks. Henry sighs against her chest and she holds him even closer, palm shaking a bit against his spine. “How can I ever repay you for what you’ve done?”
The man twists uncomfortably, squirming under her damp gaze and then, darting his eyes to the corners of the warehouse, where the other four members of the group are welling up in relief too, he reaches up and pulls off his mask.
“It was the right thing to do,” he says, finally, stuffing the mask in his pocket and looking for all the world as though he has no idea what to do with empty hands. “Pan killed my brother long ago. I hated to see another family torn apart by his villany.”
Emma releases Henry and sends him to embrace his godparents. She takes a step closer to the unmasked man. “What’s your name?”
“Killian. Killian Jones.”
She pulls off her own mask as well and sticks out her right hand for him to shake. “My name is Emma Swan,” she says. “Welcome to the team.”
In real life, Mary Margaret and David are married. That means they work incredibly well together, and are often paired together for missions. Elsa and Emma are happy to be the other duo and with Belle as their eyes and ears out in the field, they make a powerhouse foursome.
When Killian officially joins their team, it throws things off a bit.
David pairs off with him for the first few weeks, warily telling the women that he wants to keep a closer eye on the man. But only a few days into their partnership, the two are laughing when they should be silent and sharing inside jokes that make the rest of them scrunch up their foreheads in confusion. Basically, they’re bros, and its really weird.
Mary Margaret quickly insists that they should keep their pal-ing around to the pre-dawn diner meals and away from official business. So she and her husband reunite.
Killian tries to go on missions with Emma and Elsa, but three is too many people, especially with their huge personalities. Elsa starts insisting she’ll stay behind or she’ll explore something on her own. More and more, Emma and Killian find themselves falling into a rhythm with their sneaking and fighting.
“I don’t mean to upset you, Emma,” Killian whispers after they dispatch of a crew of henchmen, “but I think we make quite the team.”
Emma’s stomach does that flipping thing again and she just grunts that they aren’t done yet.
“Care to practice, love?”
Emma jerks her fingertips back from the gentle graze across the line of weapons on the wall. She turns to catch Killian’s signature eyebrow-and-smirk combination. “It appears to be a quiet night and I could use the practice.”
She shakes her head. “You sure you can handle it?”
Killian reaches across her to grasp a cutlass. “I believe you are the one who cannot handle it.” His smirk deepens. “You certainly couldn’t last time.”
Without another word, Emma clutches the hilt of another cutlass and spins on the spot to attack. Killian’s eyes light up at her reflexes and he presses back against her weapon, forcing her to disengage.
“No powers?”
“No powers,” she agrees.
The weeks of practice she put in with David after their last swordfight all seem worth it as they spar, every clank of the weapons invigorating and every easy spin of her body making her lightheaded - in a good way.
His form is excellent, the elegant lines of his body like a dancer’s. He was right, all those months ago. It really is a shame that someone as beautiful as he is would end up with the power of invisibility. He should be on a billboard or a movie screen, not pushing paper at a downtown office. Without the glasses that slip down his nose when they meet for a midday meal, his eyes are keen and focused and he hardly seems to blink as their dueling becomes more and more rapid.
“We never placed a bet upon this match, love,” he says as easily as though they were taking a stroll in the park.
“What sort of bet?” Emma grunts. The wall is to her back and she doesn’t really like that. She ducks one of his swipes and tries to spin past him, but he blocks her.
“If, by some small chance, you win, what would you desire of me?”
Emma licks her lips and wishes she could wipe the sweat from her brow. “Well, Captain Fancypants, when I win you have to help Henry with his English report. I’d like him to actually pass the class. And if you happen to win?”
“That’s simple.” Killian knocks the sword clean out of her hand and with his weapon against her throat, backs her up against the wall she was so concerned about. “When you admit defeat, you have to go on a date with me.”
He smiles broadly, as cocky as ever, and his body is so close to hers now, crowding her up against the wall, that she could count every fleck of silver in his eyes. But at this distance, she can also sense how his hand is shaking just a bit and how that smile is trembling, wavering and unsure of himself. There’s fear in Killian right now, the bravado a mask as easy as the black one he dons in public.
“A date?” Emma slips on her own mask, one of sarcasm. “Not a real romantic way to ask a woman out, Jones.”
His face falls, just for a moment, and she seizes the opportunity to grasp the hand gripping the sword’s hilt and twist both of their bodies, so now he is the one up against the wall and she is the one crowding him to it, hips aligned in a way that suggests another sort of duel.
Killian blinks in surprise, both fear and bravado falling off of his face and replaced with genuine amusement. “Kudos, Swan,” he chuckles when he has regained his voice. “You have won your son a passing grade in his coursework.”
“Yeah,” Emma sighs. She’s suddenly having a hard time breathing. “Or..”
She doesn’t give him a warning before she presses her lips against his, the movement as harsh and reckless as the duel they just engaged in. Nearly as dangerous too, as both of their hands loosen around the cutlass and it clatters to the ground. Emma pays it no attention, however, just stepping even closer to Killian and moaning a bit when his right hand slides up the warm skin of her back, made slippery by the sweat of their battle, and his teeth nibble on her bottom lip. She elicits a moan of her own as her fingers dig into the soft hair at his neck and the sound shoots straight between her legs. Her hips buck forward involuntarily, and the friction makes them both moan this time.
After what might have been days, but was most likely minutes, Emma pulls back from the kiss and slowly opens her eyes.
All trace of cockiness is gone. His eyes are wide, confused, horny as hell. And his hair is sticking up in tufts - she must have done that one.
Oops.
“That was-” he breathes, shakily.
“-me proving something,” she finishes. Her voice is low and husky and she wonders if she looks as wrecked as he does. Killian quirks an eyebrow in confusion. Emma smiles.
“You were right. We really do make quite a team.”