Work Text:
Wind whistled around The Sanctuary, as the moon beamed down, its illumination invading the small windows of the headquarters. The Paradigm gripped onto her water, admiring the stars in the sky, reminiscing upon past adventures she had taken on as the pilot of the team.
Her heart melted, despite the problems and sacrifices she had to make in her career that led to darker moments in her life, it never took her passion away, she loved her team, she loved reality as a whole, and it was her goal to protect them, until her last breath. It’s the reason why she did Zero Fusion afterall.
Shuddering, she reminded herself about Zero Fusion, emptiness, but skipping through timelines and realities and memories, ugh, it was a mess. She looked down at her right arm, tracing the scars of Zero Fusion with her free hand, before shaking her head. No, that was behind her now, she had to move on, move forward.
Before she found herself leaving, her ears focused on the sound of heavy breathing behind her. Her messy bun, covered in streaks of pink and green dye jolted as her head whipped around to scout out the noise.
Scientist’s door.
Her light eyebrow raised, her dark socks guiding her towards the door as her ear leaned towards the door, before knocking.
No answer.
Slowly, she creaked the door open, the room was dark. She reached over to the light switch, flicking it softly, as she scanned the room with her caramel tinted eyes.
Her eyes reached The Scientist’s bed, where he laid there grabbing his hair tightly, his chest rising up, and then falling down aggressively.
“Aydin? Are you okay?” Paradigm asked in a whisper, just loud enough for him to hear, as she closed his bedroom door behind her.
He didn’t respond, instead his breath rapidly increased, causing the blonde girl to place her glass of water down on a desk, as she walked over to her colleague. She slowly sat beside his body on the bed, her fingers intertwining with his, tightening her grip.
She waited, she didn’t know how long it took, but she waited. His breath suddenly slowed down, as his hand relaxed into hers.
“Want to talk about it?” She asked gently, her hand guiding him to sit up on the side of the bed, besides her.
His breath hitched as he whispered apologies, his lapis eyes staring down to the floor. She listened to his every word, and shook her head once he was done, “What’s all this apologising for?”
“If I didn’t make that stupid mistake in the calculations with freeing the Zero Point, everyone wouldn’t be traumatised senseless from The Last Reality, you wouldn’t have had to do Zero Fusion and ruin your life, and maybe Imagined would still be here…” He coughed, awkwardly staring up at the ceiling, clearly uncomfortable with his current state of vulnerability.
Paradigm’s face tensed up, “My life isn’t ruined… Did it hurt me? Yes, but I mean- We’re deemed Reality’s Greatest Heroes for a reason, I had plenty of problems already, don’t worry about it, I can handle it. So can everyone else, everyone will heal over time.”
She paused, staring at a framed photo of The Seven from a few years ago, before any of this shit happened, before the ice moon, before the IO wars, before the chrome, before it all, “And… This isn’t your fault.” She continued, biting her cheek to suppress her own emotions, “You are only human, we should’ve helped you, not relied on you fully, as a team. I’m sorry I didn’t help more… And… Imagined… Her loss was a shock, but it wasn’t on you. It was on the Imagined Order, especially her father, don’t forget that. We wouldn’t have had to do any of this anyways if it wasn’t for them and The Last Reality.”
She watched as his face loosened, a weak smile forming across his cheeks, “Thanks Eira.”
They both sat beside each other silently, it was awkward, but comfortable at the same time, only the sounds of soft breezes whirled in the room, from a window within the room, the glass was slightly open, with the curtains separated.
The Scientist's skin shuddered as a faint breeze hit him, he raised his hands to cover the lower parts of his arms that weren’t covered by his crimson t-shirt. Noticing this, Paradigm stood up, and closed the window, and then slid the curtains together, and laughed as she sat back next to him, “It’s not even cold.”
“Right… So says the girl who was stuck on the ice moon for years, I think you just are accommodated to the cold now.” He rolled his eyes, looking at her tank top and shorts, wondering how the hell she was comfortable right now, it was like the middle of autumn, it was cold.
She giggled, “Yeah… I guess.” Looking up at the ceiling, she thought about her coma, and how The Scientist never gave up on her, giving her comms and messages relentlessly, begging her to come home. A twinge of butterflies entered her stomach, her face formed a grin, as she nudged him slightly with her elbow, “Remember when you kept sending my dead ass messages?”
“I do!” He replied confidently, “Perhaps I just missed your presence.” He grinned back at her, placing his tanned, bruised hand on her thigh, causing a heat of redness to strike both of them in their faces.
Laughing awkwardly, the pale girl pushed her blonde hair, spotted in highlights away from her face, “I- Thanks for that. I just really appreciated the support coming back…” She looked away, realising how personal the conversation was getting.
Smirking mischievously, The Scientist carefully placed a hand on her cheek and slowly pushed her face back to face him, “No problems~” He chimed playfully, purposely trying to fluster the girl.
“Shut up.” Paradigm sarcastically replied back, rolling her eyes.
Pulling each other closer, they gazed into each other’s eyes, suddenly Paradigm whispered, pulling back a bit, “We shouldn’t do this, I mean- Have you heard what Origin has said about relationships within work?”
“That old man?” The Scientist laughed, “He’s just pissed off because he’s divorced and nobody else wants his miserable ass.”
“Ugh… I know, it’s just like- I don’t want to get on his bad side.” She continued.
“Like you haven’t before?”
Paradigm thought about it, amused by his teasing, as she quickly pushed herself onto him, making Scientist’s brunette messy hair fall against his pillow, she felt her body collide with his covers, as she slid her body to the side to lay next to him, however, she kept herself pushed up over him, allowing herself to tower over his face.
“I assume that's a yes?” He grinned softly, wrapping his muscular arms around her waist, his fingers riding up her tank top to trace her back.
Paradigm breathed against his face, her lips parting as she nodded in response, she let his arms guide her, as she laid closer into his body, her face moving closer to his. Scientist felt his eyes drift to her rose lips, and back to her sparkling acorn tinted eyes.
Softly, Paradigm’s thumbs stroked his cheeks, covering his freckled face, eventually grasping his chin. As she pushed her lips onto his, eventually pulling back, and going in for a deeper kiss.
The sounds of soft kisses echoed in the room, as they both held each other enchantingly. After 5 minutes of clinging to each other, Paradigm parted, “Feeling better?”
He nodded as he sat himself back up, and fixed his hair with his hands before returning to his default setting flirting, “Leaving already?~”
“I suppose… I have an early mission tomorrow. See you tomorrow…” She smiled, standing up and readjusting her tank top, fixing it.
“See you tomorrow then…”
“Love you!”
The Scientist coughed, he was a big flirter, most people called him too confident; The Origin regularly said his confidence is easily “misplaced”. However, he was one to be easily flustered when caught off guard, he quickly tried to return to his normal personality, “I- Love you too!”