Chapter Text
Nicole’s throat worked a silent swallow as she held Varka’s gaze.
She had only ever seen him look like this in truly grave moments—the kind that, thankfully, were rare in their line of work. As Favonius Corp.’s Chief Operating Officer, Varka commanded boardrooms and steered the company’s course. As its Head of Internal Communications, Nicole knew everyone in the building, and their paths had crossed more times than she could count. But to call them friends would be a stretch.
So when he summoned her to his office on an ordinary Tuesday and, without preamble, asked—
“I need you to marry me, Miss Nicole.”
She simply froze, her eyes locked onto the earnest sky blue orbs of his.
He knew how it sounded. She could see it in the set of his jaw, the way he held himself like a man bracing for impact. But beneath that stoic frame, she recognized something else: desperation. Quiet, burning, utterly sincere desperation. And for reasons she couldn't yet fathom, he had chosen her.
As the silence stretched—understandably—he pressed on.
“There are two kids I need to help.” His voice dropped, the formal COO melting away to reveal something raw underneath. “Orphans actually. Their orphanage is closing in a month. They’re going to send the children to foster homes.” He shook his head slowly, deliberately. “Those two are like siblings. I can’t let them be torn apart.” His voice softened to something almost tender. “They’re like my own, too, so I…” He trailed off with a heavy sigh, then lifted his gaze back to hers, all business once more. “State law disqualifies a single man like myself from adopting. Hence, my proposal.”
Nicole blinked. Once. Twice. Letting the absurdity—and the quiet heroism—of his words settle into her bones.
She was stunned. Not by the proposal itself, but by the why. That he would go to such lengths for two children with no blood tie to him whatsoever.
It fascinated her.
He fascinated her.
A slow smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She nodded.
“I think I understand you, Mr. Varka.” Her voice was soft, certain. “Sure. I’ll marry you.”
Varka’s eyes went wide. “Y-You will?”
She nodded again, the smile blooming. “Sure.”
It wasn’t that she liked him. Not like that.
She was curious. That was all.
At least, that’s what she told herself.
Before she could dwell on it further, he seized her hands, pumping them with barely contained relief.
“Oh, thank you, Miss Nicole!”
Rosaria and Razor had been scavengers once—two feral children running wild through back alleys until Sister Grace had scooped them up and deposited them, kicking and screaming, within the stark walls of the Mondstadt Orphanage. Against their will. Against everything in them that knew how to survive alone.
Rosaria, older by three years and sharper by a lifetime, had tried to escape more times than she could count. Each attempt ended the same way: Sister Grace's formidable figure blocking the door, her stern gaze pinning Rosaria in place like a butterfly to corkboard. The woman missed nothing. And Rosaria came to understand, slowly, that Sister Grace's iron grip wasn't cruelty—it was the only way she knew to keep them safe.
But safety came with a price—the threat of separation.
Rosaria learned early that couples wanted one child, not two. A tidy package. A neat addition to their neat lives. They would look at her and Razor—her with her knives-for-eyes and Razor with his wolf-silence—and move on to the smaller, softer children. Rosaria did everything in her power to ensure they remained unadoptable, inseparable. She glared. She growled. She made herself as unappealing as possible. Because being unwanted together was infinitely better than being wanted apart.
For years, she resigned herself to it. They would age out of this place. They would leave together, and the world could swallow them whole, but at least they would be swallowed together.
Then Favonius Corporation came knocking.
They had a charity event. Smiling employees in pressed shirts, handing out toys with the same distant benevolence one might offer a stray cat. Rosaria had perfected the art of glaring through such performances.
But then she met him.
Mr. Varka.
He was different. Not because of the things he brought—though the ice cream was good, she'd admit that much. But because of the way he looked at them. Not with pity. Not with that sickly-sweet sympathy that adults reserved for orphans. He looked at them like they were just... kids. Like Razor's silence wasn't something to fix, but something to sit beside in comfortable quiet. Like Rosaria's walls weren't a challenge to breach, but a door he was willing to wait patiently outside.
He started coming by. Not for the charity events, but just... for them. With Sister Grace's permission—always with her permission, which was somehow the most baffling part—he would take them out. Ice cream. Movies. And then, the strangest of all: laser tag.
“What kind of grown-up plays laser tag with kids?” Rosaria asked herself.
Rosaria had been certain it was a trap. She spent the first hour waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the mask to slip, for the inevitable moment when his kindness revealed its sharp edges.
It never came.
What came instead was Razor's laughter. Genuine, bright, alive laughter—the first she'd heard from him in years. And in that moment, watching her brother dart between neon-lit obstacles with a plastic gun and a smile so wide it looked like it hurt, Rosaria let something in her chest loosen.
She let her guard down.
She let Mr. Varka in.
Not as a father—she wouldn't go that far, couldn't let herself want that much. But as something. A figure on the horizon. A promise of stability in a world that had only ever given her concrete and cold.
Now she was almost sixteen. Razor, almost thirteen.
And the orphanage was dying.
Lack of funds and the inevitable shutdown by the government. Sister Grace moved through the halls with a tight jaw, transferring children to other cities, other homes. Some went to foster families. The lucky ones—the truly lucky ones—found adoptive parents.
Rosaria watched them leave, one by one, and waited.
She hadn't told Razor she was scared. She hadn't told him that her dreams had started featuring chain-link fences and the words separated stamped across her file in red ink. She just held his hand in the dark and whispered, “Mr. Varka promised he’d save us.”
It felt foolish, even as she said it—a promise from a corporate man. Was it worth it?
But she held onto it anyway like a prayer.
Then the news came.
Sister Grace called them into her office—her voice strange, almost soft—and told them they were being adopted.
Together.
Rosaria's heart stopped. She gripped Razor's hand so hard he winced, but she couldn't loosen her hold, couldn't breathe, couldn't believe—
“A couple,” Sister Grace was saying. “They've completed all the paperwork. They'll be here next week to take you home.”
“Who?” The word scraped out of Rosaria's throat like broken glass.
Sister Grace's mouth curved into something that might have been a smile. Rare. Precious.
“Mr. Varka,” she said; “And his wife.”