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You were no stranger to violence. At times you even found yourself waiting for your girlfriend to come home just to tell you all about her latest mission, in all of it’s gory glory. Sometimes, you even helped her pull stunts, you scouted places for her. It’s the least you could do after all, she helped you write your novels, it was only fair. Tonight was no different, of course, a tad bit more intense than what you were used to, but it was nothing you couldn’t handle. Or at least that’s what Angel had told you in the cab.
No...tonight, you and Angel were supposed to be playing “innocent guests” at an ultra-exclusive diplomatic soirée in Prague, which meant Angel in a floor-length burgundy gown that flowed over her thighs with such perfection, that you had to pinch yourself to stay focused on the mission and not your goddess of a girlfriend. Interestingly enough, Angel trusted you enough to grace you with a hidden transmitter sewn into your cuff, all just to steal a dead-drop flash drive in some rich prick’s wine cellar.
And so far? It was going fine. You schmoozed, and danced, and talked about places you had never set foot in, whose names you couldn’t even pronounce…until it wasn’t. Someone (you didn’t know who, but of course, it couldn’t have been you) triggered the silent alarm and you both had to duck into a chandelier-lit service corridor like overdressed burglars.
Which is where the incident happened.
You were crouched behind a pillar and Angel was clicking a silencer onto her gun like it was a lip gloss.
“Three guards.” She whispered. “I’ll take care of the one on the left.”
“Got it.”
You counted to three. After that? Chaos.
It was brief. Efficient. Loud in that quiet way bullets are when they're suppressed but not polite, and by the time it was over, Angel had taken down two men with the same precision she used to apply winged eyeliner. Then, as she reloaded, breathless and beautiful and furious, and god, you were so in love with her. You sighed, dreamily, before she muttered:
“God, I hope our kids never see this.”
You blinked.
“...What?”
Angel froze, her hands stalled over the magazine. You watched it happen in real-time: the exact moment her brain caught up with her mouth, the exact damn moment she went still, like prey.
“No.” She said flatly. “No, I didn’t say that.”
“You did.”
“I was – hypothetically – speculating about… someone else’s children.”
“You said our.”
Angel turned toward you, eyes wide.
She was panicked.
“Listen. It was just adrenaline. Like a stress dream. Or a hallucination. I was under duress. You can’t hold that against me in court.”
“You said kids, plural!”
She hissed like a cat. “You’re delulu!”
You were smiling. Angel? Not so much. She was flailing.
“You want kids...” You cooed softly.
“I want snacks.” She shot back. “And possibly an exit strategy.”
“You said ‘our kids’.”
“That could mean anything!”
“You want a family with me.”
She looked physically ill.
“That’s such an aggressive word.”
“Family?”
“Yes. It’s like… fuck! Emotional shrapnel or something.”
You took a step closer.
She took a step back.
“Angel– ”
“I am armed and emotionally compromised! Don’t start with me!”
“You’re adorable.” You whispered, looking at the woman before you like she put the stars in the sky, and she nearly shot a ceiling tile. She didn’t, of course, instead, she paced the corridor like a caged jaguar.
“This is bad.” She muttered. “This is very bad. I kill people. Bad people. I once seduced a baroness to get state secrets and felt nothing.”
“And yet?”
“And yet now I’m imagining putting a crib together with you like some sort of war criminal-turned-PTA mom. Just what in the hell is happening to me?!”
You smiled gently.
“You’re letting yourself want something.”
She stared at you.
You just stepped closer and took her gloved hand in yours, Angel looked down at your fingers. Yours were trembling. Hers were too.
“I’m not asking you to change who you are. I’m just saying… we don’t have to be alone forever. We could have something. Someone. If you wanted.”
She swallowed before speaking in a voice so small it shattered your heart into a million little pieces:
“What if I break it?”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Except I do. Because I’ve seen you kill a man with a brooch and still cry when you saw a lost dog poster.”
She laughed weakly, tearfully. You just wanted to hold her in your arms until the end of time.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“I see everything. And I still love you.”
A guard clattered into the corridor. Angel had just shot him without looking. Then, she turned back to you, slightly breathless.
“You can’t propose to me in a hallway.”
“I didn’t.”
“But if you did...” She said, voice wobbly, “I wouldn’t say no.”
You blinked at her, eyes wide and the stupidest of grins on your face.
“Really?”
She sniffed before glancing toward the escape stairwell.
“C’mon.” She muttered. “Let’s go steal a flash drive and plan our hypothetically non-doomed future.”
Your cheeks already started to hurt from smiling so hard.
“And maybe pick baby names?”
She groaned.
But you did note that she didn’t say no. You cheered silently.
That night, after the mission, after the getaway, after the flash drive and never-ending praises from your fellow Slaughterhouse friends...
Angel sat in bed beside you, her head on your shoulder, and whispered:
“I want it.”
You looked at her.
“An airfryer? Oh me fucking too-” You were interrupted by a loud groan and a small slap on the forearm.
“No, mi amor...the future.”
“The future?”
She nodded.
“With you.”
You kissed her hair.
“Oh...I know.”
And even though her hands were still scarred and her life was still dangerous, in that moment, Maria de la Rosa let herself believe in softness.
And maybe in something more permanent.
Maybe in love.